¶ Intro & Ishmael's return
[SPEAKER_00]: this is to the point. [SPEAKER_00]: A Rinal Experience, fully one of the top home services marketing and operations podcast, cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point. [SPEAKER_02]: It's your boy Chris. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited because I got my buddy Ishmael Valdas sitting across from me. [SPEAKER_02]: So Chris he was looking at me. [SPEAKER_02]: You know he's looking at his phone. [SPEAKER_02]: Go figure. [SPEAKER_02]: It's always good to have any boys in here too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's good to have you come in. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Finally. [SPEAKER_02]: I know. [SPEAKER_02]: I know you wait on me. [SPEAKER_02]: Why not? [SPEAKER_02]: It's usually my fault, but it's also your fault. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's our fault. [SPEAKER_04]: You know what? [SPEAKER_02]: It's a good voice. [SPEAKER_04]: Both busy and that's the dope part about it. [SPEAKER_02]: So. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially right now, it's summertime. [SPEAKER_02]: You're getting a lot busier. [SPEAKER_02]: I keep seeing the text messages coming through for the staff orders getting, getting insane. [SPEAKER_04]: So that's pretty cool.
¶ The economy, interest rates, and the outlook for 2026
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, for all the listeners, both of you guys already know who the issue is to form a CEO of a next-gen founder and then now the janitor for new that janitor, which is, I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about them on this particular episode, but we have other things we want to talk about. [SPEAKER_02]: Like where we were just talking before the podcast that [SPEAKER_02]: I was with Tommy up in Idaho this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're just talking about like the future of trades and really what we'll next year look like. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, because you love the [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people who are growing or scaling are like real good operators are already thinking about twenty twenty six plans. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean right now it's June heard July. [SPEAKER_02]: What the hell month is it July?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So I shit of thinking about what am I doing next year and not waiting until it gets slow. [SPEAKER_02]: Like we're you're starting to plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're just talking about the same thing like what's next you're gonna look like with all the changes that the [SPEAKER_02]: Trump administration has made, you know, in Congress this year with better interest rates, you know, you better interest rates, the no taxing on the overtime and tips is a big fucking deal, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So a lot more cash flow, I think, for some of the people.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're thinking like, hey, man, next year's going to be a really great year for us. [SPEAKER_02]: You think that you're heading the same place. [SPEAKER_04]: I feel like it's going to be a really good year for everybody in the trades on it.
¶ The real impact of immigration policies on the trades
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, you know, I agree with most of the things that he's doing, but if he stops with his nonsense of deportation and all that, because whether we admit it or not, thirty eight percent of the labor comes from Hispanics in Latin and [SPEAKER_04]: and Mexicans in the trade. [SPEAKER_04]: So obviously the agriculture got pretty fucked up pretty bad of the restaurants, the hotel industry. [SPEAKER_04]: He had to stop doing that to them.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to get to the construction and he has to understand. [SPEAKER_04]: We are a pivotal part in the construction side and in the economy in general, so I hope we come up with a good agreement where we could keep the good hardworking people of Mexican Americans here and we could kick the scumbags out. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know what's interesting is not as I woke up this morning with a white landscaper in my backyard.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the first one. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the first one in Arizona. [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, who the fuck is in my backyard right now? [SPEAKER_02]: Then I saw him getting a plan. [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that there's some changes starting to happen, but it's still subjective. [SPEAKER_02]: But there has to be a definitive rule on the weekend and can't go after for deportation. [SPEAKER_02]: Like shit, that's what you're going to be talking about.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, go somewhere else, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, that's the one thing. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, those people are working. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, they're obviously paying taxes. [SPEAKER_04]: They're obviously, you know, working, like, get rid of the scumbags that are in the streets, like, at two AM, right, doing the nonsense. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what people you want to get rid of.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, whether we come up to an agreement or not, I know the traits are always going to pull through and we're going to find a way to make them better. [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm excited in general because I think the best years are coming in the next two to three years. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's things that I don't agree with him, but there's things that I do agree with him, like the tariffs and all the things that he's doing for the economy.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you could see him. [SPEAKER_04]: And you could see you go outside and it's fucking booming, bro.
[SPEAKER_04]: constructions going on people are you know massive companies down massive companies are are are flooding into United States saying hey I'm an investor I'm going to do this and I'm going to look a new way to like I'm paying tariffs for shipping them out of the Philippines and and Armenia right now so guess what I'm doing I'm literally right now straps to the boots I'm going to Texas right now and and looking for ways to manufacture my thermostat here in the United States and it's all because of the tariffs too
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what, I think I was really appreciate about, I just about you in general, is when I think about just even not just forget your next journey, because I've known you through, I'd say, seventy percent of your next journey is that the willing to let Dolan just just grind your ass off. [SPEAKER_02]: You've been all over the place before you even came in here today, and you're flying in the day and out today, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but you're here all day long and Phoenix, and you have meetings because you're back to growing, you know, back to growing.
¶ Why Ishmael is still grinding after a big exit
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, dude, it is. [SPEAKER_04]: It is insane. [SPEAKER_04]: And honestly, and I was just talking to Tom Howard about this. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, bro, I fucking hate you sometimes when I have to wake up knowing, knowing that I sold my company for a ton of money and I didn't have to wake up anymore. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't have to like check what's going on with Nouvelle.
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't have to like [SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes I mess around with them and I tell him, bro, I fucking hate you, honestly. [SPEAKER_04]: I could have been in the golf course, I could have been spending time with my girls, I could have been working. [SPEAKER_04]: I could have been like not checking on two hundred employees that I have now. [SPEAKER_04]: I could have been doing that, but on the flip side, dude, I've never been excited about a product and about a project this much saw.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm good right now. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because your plan is to, it's you want to get to this, you got the three-year plan to get to a billion dollar value. [SPEAKER_02]: Interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: Right? [SPEAKER_02]: But the cool thing about that is how you're getting there, because listening to you bust my balls all the time, all the time, all the time, not a secret. [SPEAKER_02]: But I had an opportunity to invest in New York, and I didn't, and I still hear about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I told you what I'd tell you on text, much less weeks. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wish I would, yeah, I should have fucking done it, because you're your dad. [SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't know you as well, then I either, like, we were just starting to have relationships, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: So like, [SPEAKER_02]: It was, I'm told you, I was proud of you because it's like, do this thing is on a rocket ship. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what makes it cool is because of you, you're taking the contractor feedback, you know, from first, you know, first gen and like, and then making adjustments to like you're listening to the people and making the adjustments and like, and these guys, they want them.
¶ Nuve's mission and learning from contractor feedback
[SPEAKER_02]: And listen, you, they're in here. [SPEAKER_02]: You seem on my walls. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so I think that's part of the deal is like, you know, you have to keep listening to the feedback, the good and the bad, a hundred percent, make the adjustments that make sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I'll get into more than new base stuff, you know, a little bit later, because I have some stuff like specifics, I want to ask around it and like what you're hearing from, you know, the market and, um,
[SPEAKER_04]: what you're thinking about for future state to that point though Chris honestly like me going into shops like I was just in Dallas yesterday you know at a shop helping them with their operations and obviously presenting the new product like but to that point me going into shops me doing like dude I've done probably thousands of one-on-ones now with contractors that are [SPEAKER_04]: struggling in their business or they're trying to integrate new way or whatever the case is.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've done a ton of one on a one and I've done group meetings every Thursday, every end of the month we do mantrines like bro, how I see it in my concept is like I'm listening to my contractors, those are my clients. [SPEAKER_04]: For you guys out there that are contractors, you guys should never fucking stop listening to those clients that are out there talking about your company. [SPEAKER_04]: And the best way to do it is through your reviews, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Reviews reviews reviews like yelp and Google don't fucking lie because we all have this in our in our operation, right? [SPEAKER_04]: We have that one manager that, you know, once our review comes in and they're complaining about a technician, a sales guy, an installer, whatever. [SPEAKER_04]: And they're like, oh, well, that client's, you know, crazy. [SPEAKER_04]: And that client, you know, we already went out there twice.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that, like, they're always coming up with something that to justify that review. [SPEAKER_04]: In hence, you, me as an operator, I would be like, look, if that client was treated properly and we went through our process from the time we knocked the door to the time we collected the payment, that review would have never happened.
¶ Yelp, Google, and the brutal truth about reviews
[SPEAKER_04]: So obviously there's something not wrong right there. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the attention that these contractors need to start paying and stop excusing, excusing that it's okay for them to go online and just because it's yellow, that's the one thing that [SPEAKER_04]: pisses me off, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: Like that frustrates me, that when I talk to contractors, they always go back to, well, you know, it's yelp, right? [SPEAKER_04]: They're always complaining.
[SPEAKER_04]: No motherfucker, no. [SPEAKER_04]: No, they're not complaining. [SPEAKER_04]: They're complaining because they're something wrong and you guys need to start listening as contractors and adjusting your operation to make sure that doesn't happen. [SPEAKER_04]: Yelp, helping Google are the purest forms of listening to your client.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yelp and Google are the purest form to listening to your clients and these contractors have to do a better job of listening because look like Travis ringing, he ran one of the best operations in the industry. [SPEAKER_04]: Ten thousand Google reviews five star rating on Google and Yelp like [SPEAKER_04]: but get guess what he did.
[SPEAKER_04]: Every time there was a one-star review or every time there was an email or every time there was a customer calling in to complain, they took care of it right then and there. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the beauty behind our operation and behind what we do. [SPEAKER_04]: We get to listen to our clients and us as operators, we should do a way better job of adjusting, adjusting and modifying the operation to making sure that that doesn't happen again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I have a opinion on this too. [SPEAKER_02]: And before I do want to talk about your new day network, but this is on my mind. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I came to who I learned it from and maybe Ryan, if you remember who was from on the podcast, it was somebody had asked me or said, you should always take a look.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're at the top, if you're the CEO, the business of your general manager, if you're whatever in leadership, if it's you, just you're the technician. [SPEAKER_02]: is you have to look at any of these situations, which by the way, every contractor, fucks shit up. [SPEAKER_02]: Like everybody must just stuff up.
¶ Every contractor messes up-what matters is how you respond
[SPEAKER_02]: We must stuff up often. [SPEAKER_02]: And the worst thing we can do is not learn from them, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And ignore it. [SPEAKER_02]: You can't do that. [SPEAKER_02]: So, but you also have to think, like I always have, I have these conversations people and I'll say. [SPEAKER_02]: Even though they're like four layers below me and something went wrong, I'm saying, what was my part in this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and maybe it's like very far removed, but I'm still trying to think about what was or something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think in the was there's a system I could have put in place better or should I have checked out more like, and it challenges you think about what is my role. [SPEAKER_02]: Now you might not come up with anything. [SPEAKER_02]: But if you switch your thinking to that way, I think you find more solutions faster.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a really good way for those that are you're leading to, to look at you and say, oh, shit, they're always looking for, like, so in case we're taking this out, you know that Mrs. Jones, she's, you know, she's just a bitch. [SPEAKER_02]: You're still going to try and figure out what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we know that some people can call this one reasonable. [SPEAKER_04]: And you're always going to have that. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's part of being in business.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the one thing, like you said, you can ignore it. [SPEAKER_04]: And you've got to do something about it. [SPEAKER_04]: Because what's the number one complaint in you? [SPEAKER_04]: And then this is goes to you. [SPEAKER_04]: What is the number one complaint that every freaking contractor has for you? [SPEAKER_04]: Where's the leads? [SPEAKER_04]: Where's the leads? [SPEAKER_04]: How come I don't have any leads?
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like, bro, like, how do you expect to have leads when your yelp rating is three point eight with like a hundred reviews and your competitor has seven thousand with four point nine? [SPEAKER_04]: Like, how do you expect to have leads when your Google rating is four point four with two hundred reviews and you have next year in service champions in Pro skill and all these guys with ten, twenty, thirty thousand reviews, right? [SPEAKER_04]: How do you expect to have that?
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you expect to get leads in the shoulder season and customers gravitate to your company when you're not doing your part? [SPEAKER_04]: When you're not doing your part or making sure the operation set properly to make sure that every customer has the right customer experience to enable to be able to go in there and help and Google frictionless and start reviewing about your company.
[SPEAKER_04]: So operators out there that are always fucking complaining and this is one thing that I learned in my mentoring that I'm doing with my contract and the network that I'm growing with Nouvelle is I am learning that these guys have fucking excuses for everything and the dope part about like this I don't know what other networks do or whether mentoring platforms do they don't bullshit me bro.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the one thing you cannot bullshit me because I've been through that fucking grind. [SPEAKER_04]: I've grown a company two times already. [SPEAKER_04]: I know what it is when customers are complaining. [SPEAKER_04]: I know that when you're, you know, coming up, if I come up to you and I say, hey, why do you have four point two? [SPEAKER_04]: Start rating on Google and only two hundred. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it's because it's, I'm like, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're not paying attention. [SPEAKER_04]: That's the real one. [SPEAKER_01]: This is the real one. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_04]: And I call them straight up, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes I feel like I go too far for them. [SPEAKER_04]: And then I go like, man, they're not going to want to talk to me again.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bro, the next week, HTML, can we have another one on one, HTML, or can you show me like, bro, like, some of these contractors need to be called on on their bullshit. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what I've been learning in the last eight months that I've been doing these mentoring. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I actually, I want to talk about that real quick, because one of the things I was trying to think through is, you know, in the meantime, we do these episodes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always just trying to think. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, sometimes I overthink on what I want to want to get from it, but sometimes what people seem to hear is like the harsh truth, the other stuff, you know, the situations and the, you know, we talk about marketing companies, we talk about like you just said everybody wants leads.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't believe I honestly don't believe that any of the, any of the digital marketing companies that I know that are serving the trades, those that I have relationships with, there's a bunch now, but I know a handful. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think anybody is just saying, man, I can't wait to fucking take their money and suck. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't, I don't, I don't really have about a hundred percent believe it. [SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you get bigger, it is harder because you have more people that you're responsible for, they have to follow up process. [SPEAKER_02]: Way more pressure. [SPEAKER_02]: And you have way more contract. [SPEAKER_02]: I just think we have something like, twelve hundred clients or something crazy like that today. [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of account managers, hardest fucking job in this company, I think, is being in a account manager.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you're no one managing your feelings as the contractor, trying to manage the things you're actually executing. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: So, I don't believe it, but where you have the chance to make it right is when the customer complains, you find out, is it real? [SPEAKER_02]: Is it not real to them? [SPEAKER_00]: It's real. [SPEAKER_02]: So you got to sit through the truth. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the only way that we get better is by feeling the pressure of those shitty moments, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And that's just, I think Peter Mim will say, it's like a chapter in the book, is like, oh, it's just was the shitty chapter where I wanted a lot, and the next chapter was better. [SPEAKER_02]: So you are working with a lot of contractors as part of the new, new, they network. [SPEAKER_02]: and doing still doing one-on-one, and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm curious in like today's market, you know, because you're, well, how far are we moved now from next year to years? [SPEAKER_02]: So you, and so you've been doing, you've been busing around selling your value, you're working one-on-one with these contractors.
¶ Most "CEOs" still think like employees
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you, like, what are you hearing most from them now? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what's the biggest pain points now? [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll bet you some of these are the same pain points that we hear all through, you know, last year. [SPEAKER_02]: twenty years, but what are the most of the pain points that you're having to deal with now or help them see that they're doing wrong or fixing or whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: The main thing that most contractors are doing wrong that I'm like beginning to realize is that they because because you're a CEO because you're a general manager or you're in charge of an operation, what I'm seeing is that there is no there's nobody on top of them to hold them accountable.
[SPEAKER_04]: So lack of accountability is probably probably one of the biggest fucking things that I've taken away from my new van networks that one on ones and mentoring is that I've been doing with these guys that most of these operators are employee-based operators. [SPEAKER_04]: They haven't graduated their mindset into being a CEO, into being an entrepreneur, into being an operator. [SPEAKER_04]: Most of these got ninety a dude and I'm not talking about one out of ten.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking about nine out of ten contractors that I'm talking to right now that I'm trying to help them, you know, fix their operation or increase leads or [SPEAKER_04]: or, you know, grow the revenue or grow their profit, whatever, whatever, the pain point that we're dealing with, the vast majority of the fall falls in them, where since nobody's holding them accountable, there's really no metric for them to follow.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they have no direction, so they're just being employees again. [SPEAKER_04]: And I'll give you a perfect example. [SPEAKER_04]: There's this lady, Anidra, back east, I think she's in Tennessee, a five million dollar company, and she just, [SPEAKER_04]: And she's just having problems with recruiting and marketing on this, right? [SPEAKER_04]: And she shows me an email that she sent to her employees. [SPEAKER_04]: And the email is like fucking three paragraphs with an intro.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, in Egypt, you need to stop being an employee. [SPEAKER_04]: You will never ever catch any real CEO operator. [SPEAKER_04]: You will never catch Steve Jobs sending a three page email. [SPEAKER_04]: Our emails are simple. [SPEAKER_04]: Now we have no explanation to our employees. [SPEAKER_04]: We just got to give them direction. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what I've been learning about these CEOs that CS the fault is most of the fault is in them a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_04]: We can't be blaming the marketing company. [SPEAKER_04]: You can't be blaming the weather. [SPEAKER_04]: You can't be blaming the situation that they're in. [SPEAKER_04]: You can be blaming cash flow anymore. [SPEAKER_04]: They got stuck in a place where their own fall and they need somebody to get out there and give them direction.
¶ The rise of fake mentors & predatory coaches in the industry
[SPEAKER_04]: Now on the flip side, where I get frustrated is there's a ton of fucking mentors out there that don't know what the fuck they're doing and that they shouldn't be mentoring people and that they shouldn't be, you know, [SPEAKER_04]: charging people for anything because number one, they haven't built anything. [SPEAKER_04]: Number two, they were an employee and they had a successful exit or they were an employee and they helped another company, whatever, and now they're mentoring.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that to me is the huge red flag. [SPEAKER_04]: Like when you're gonna choose a mentor, number one, make sure that there's results in there, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Because how many people do we know our gurus in the industry now? [SPEAKER_04]: And what have they done? [SPEAKER_04]: Right? [SPEAKER_04]: What have they done? [SPEAKER_04]: So what to answer your question is look, we have a huge problem of CEOs right now with employee mindsets.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we need to put, and we need to, we need to start graduating their mindset into a CEO. [SPEAKER_04]: And we have a bigger problem of fucking cons coming into our industry and trying to infiltrate and lead these people just to take their money. [SPEAKER_04]: Those are two problems that we got to face as in the industry right now. [SPEAKER_02]: Me, you, but something like our group, you know, we have influence, but we still only probably influence this much of a massive industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is hard to see it because I've just seen it multiple times a ton of times. [SPEAKER_02]: And it is painful and you feel bad for those contractors who are just busing our ass man to turn like get things done and they're just listening because they're asking for help and then they get bad help.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you know, it's it's [SPEAKER_02]: It's always like, I think about now when you put, if you made it five years in the business, that was, or you get to five million. [SPEAKER_02]: If you made it to five million, you were through some shit. [SPEAKER_02]: And you went through some shit and you've got, you've got something here. [SPEAKER_02]: But I brought on a private equity partner because I didn't know how to grow the business any bigger.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I should say, I didn't think I did. [SPEAKER_02]: I know now, I could have done it. [SPEAKER_02]: But you don't know now. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course. [SPEAKER_02]: So I picked the partner. [SPEAKER_02]: And that was my me waving the white flags. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm okay with asking them for help. [SPEAKER_02]: I just think that, you know, the contractor so has to do some diligence, kind of figure out like, who am I actually listening to?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, let's Google that shit. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's check GPT and find out who am I being led by. [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe if you're a small guy, sub million bucks, and you find somebody that's built a ten-man dollar business, will you? [SPEAKER_02]: That might be okay, but if you're just looking to be a ten million dollar company, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's okay, by the way, I would encourage our contractors instead of looking for these fucking gurus or these, you know, the silver bullets out there, I would encourage them to help each other instead.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're a one million dollar contractor there's plenty of five million dollar guys around you that you should be spending time with and you're a five million to ten million dollar contractor there's plenty of twenty five million dollar guys out there that you guys should be mentioned that you guys should be you know building a little kind of like we didn't kind of like what we did it's a bunch of hundred million dollar guys trying to make it to the next level right the next levels of billion dollars and we're all trying to get there right what which is fucking insane to say right now
[SPEAKER_04]: But like I did it at one, I did it at five million at ten million at twenty five. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I've always looked for help in our peer group to other successful contractors. [SPEAKER_04]: I never had like, you know, besides Tom Howard coming into my life in twenty nineteen, I've never paid a mentor to grow to a hundred mil. [SPEAKER_04]: I've always looked at people that were already at forty fifty a hundred eighty ninety mil.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I looked at their operation and I went and I mimicked and I took something from the [SPEAKER_04]: And I brought it and the most important thing I did as I fucking implemented right away and I took actions. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what contractors need to do instead of always thinking that somebody's going to come and save them. [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody's going to come and save you guys. [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody's going to because I'm going to give you the harsh reality.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody fucking cares.
¶ Nobody is coming to save you-do the work
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody cares, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody cares. [SPEAKER_04]: That truth that that statement has been true in my throughout my whole freaking life. [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody gives a flying fuck. [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody, nobody cares. [SPEAKER_04]: So instead of waiting for somebody to throw a live saver at you, instead of waiting for somebody to say, hey, I'm here to help you instead of waiting for that. [SPEAKER_04]: Look around, Google it, help it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Go on, go on social media and look at who's doing, who's running a profitable business, who's running a bigger business and go spend a day in their operation. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I would encourage people to do. [SPEAKER_04]: Instead of always trying to look for somebody that they think that it's going to help them in exchange. [SPEAKER_04]: They're taking fucking equity from them. [SPEAKER_04]: Right?
[SPEAKER_04]: We know plenty of those people, and they're all they're taking money from them, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And you know what else I think is interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: I know that people are looking for shortcuts. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's only one real way to go. [SPEAKER_02]: And that is just to, you know, you got to fucking do the work. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's no way around it. [SPEAKER_02]: You have to do it around it. [SPEAKER_02]: And there is no, there is no shortcut.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no shortcut. [SPEAKER_02]: There was that. [SPEAKER_04]: And there's no substitute for software. [SPEAKER_02]: There is zero substitute for hardware. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and listen, here's another thing. [SPEAKER_02]: All these new automation and AI tools, knowledge of the South there, and there's a bunch out there. [SPEAKER_02]: And we talk about this frequently on here too. [SPEAKER_02]: That's also not like a, that's not an easy button.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, no, you can't just implement the shit thinking things are going to get better. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, that still takes somebody to focus on the integration of whatever the tool is. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's so fucking many that you can be distracted by it. [SPEAKER_04]: And all those tools across are making it easier, but it's not going to do the work itself. [SPEAKER_04]: Right, meaning before service sign. [SPEAKER_04]: We still had a fucking do everything manually.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now that service sign came in, yes, it alleviated a pain point, but guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: We still have to go inside the house. [SPEAKER_04]: We still have to go in there and diagnose the system. [SPEAKER_04]: We still have to go in there and present the options. [SPEAKER_04]: We still have to go in there and close the deals. [SPEAKER_04]: We still have to do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So all of these things, tools that people are giving us, whether it's trip, whether service time, whether it's new, whether it's whatever it is. [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it's going to help you. [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it's going to give you a little bit of less friction inside the operation at the end of the day you still have to do. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have any, do you have any, so I was sort of on this path, like I've told you.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a badass in the fucking office. [SPEAKER_02]: I totally went off, off track because because we went out on tangent and that's the shit I love about doing on these podcasts when we kind of go on a tangent because usually there's some really good shit in there. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course. [SPEAKER_02]: Since we're talking about AI and automation, [SPEAKER_02]: Um, is there any that that in particular stand out to you? [SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be a two-part question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start there because the next part's going to talk about AI versus human beings in the future. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course. [SPEAKER_02]: So, but what stands out to you and regards to AI automation, like, you know, in my way, this isn't like, I'm not, I didn't, I didn't ask Ishmael this ahead of time, like asking when the fly. [SPEAKER_02]: But what are the ones that you right now think?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, these are the ones that I think are [SPEAKER_04]: People need to focus on making sure that there's keeping up with the customer service side of it, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Meaning the customer service rep is gonna get replaced no matter how we see it. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, right now it's a little bit iffy, it's not developed yet where it has empathy, where it has common sense, where it has a little bit of back and knowledge on the trades.
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't have the human touch of it, but it's gonna get there and it's gonna get here fast.
¶ AI and the future of CSR & dispatch
[SPEAKER_04]: So what I would tell people, [SPEAKER_04]: What I would tell people, contract winners in general, and this is for roofing, air conditioning, plumbing, every single sector in our industry is that the first impactful AI tool is going to be replacing the CSRs, right? [SPEAKER_04]: After we replaced the CSRs, we're going to replace the dispatchers, right? [SPEAKER_04]: And I know service science has been working on dispatching pro for a million years and they still freaking suck at it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I told this to Aura every single time I see him, I'm like, bro, all your pro products suck. [SPEAKER_04]: And you need to do a way better job of developing him faster and more user friendly. [SPEAKER_04]: But the customer service department is canned. [SPEAKER_04]: Now I'm going to be one of the first departments that we need to work on in the trades. [SPEAKER_04]: Because guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: What's that one company that sells ticket to?
[SPEAKER_04]: Take a master's doing it already? [SPEAKER_04]: I've talked to one of the ticket master's AI's and holy fuck. [SPEAKER_04]: The whole time I was, I do that was about to have a full-on conversation about life with these people with these AI agents, right? [SPEAKER_04]: So AI customer service reps, you guys should be focused on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep your posts on it, maybe try one, one agent, keep developing it, keep feeding the data, or obviously the AI agent's only as good as the data provided to them, right? [SPEAKER_04]: So that dispatching is gonna be next. [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously accounting is gonna be probably one of the last features that is gonna be done in there. [SPEAKER_04]: But eventually accounting, you know, your PNLs, your balance, your Castro statements, everything that that's going to be done instantly.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I can't fucking wait for? [SPEAKER_04]: the live piano. [SPEAKER_04]: And I know nobody's ever talked about this. [SPEAKER_04]: A live fucking piano, where inventory, where fucking purchasing, where profit, where your real time period, where you, you can see your gross profit go up and down day by day. [SPEAKER_04]: You can see what triggers the gross profit to go up or down. [SPEAKER_04]: You can trigger, you can see your labor coming in.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like how much it's been in labor today to the point to the penny. [SPEAKER_04]: like automated, automated. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: Once you have that, imagine it's like having a driver's car now, right?
¶ Robotics in trades: the change is coming faster than you think
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it's all there. [SPEAKER_04]: So I can't wait for the back end support. [SPEAKER_04]: But look, essentially what we're going to see in the next three to five years is there's going to be maybe four or five people inside the office managing all these AI agents, which customers are just dispatching it, counting all that. [SPEAKER_04]: And everything, ninety percent of our work is going to be done in the field.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ninety percent until obviously robotics get here and for people that don't for people that think I'm crazy when I'm telling them this and for people that think that it's not coming there is no fucking chance there is no it is a hundred percent certain instance I will bet every penny that I own in my life that robotics is going to replace plumbing electrical roofing [SPEAKER_04]: barbers, nannies, cleaning ladies. [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to replace everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: These fucking robots are going to be doing brain surgery here pretty soon. [SPEAKER_04]: You don't think they could look at a toilet and non-clog it for you. [SPEAKER_04]: You don't think they could have the radar visions where the water's coming from and going there in well day. [SPEAKER_04]: You don't think that, you know, they could go to a condenser and know that the capacitor is not functioning properly. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, it is coming, no matter, it broke.
[SPEAKER_04]: The good part is that robotics is going to change the whole labor in our industry and change the whole labor in the world. [SPEAKER_04]: The bad part is, as human beings, what the fuck are we going to do? [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm saying. [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's going to have to be government regulations, because they're going to need human beings to otherwise it's going to be a much larger problem. [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be, I mean, it's crazy to think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to do presentation like, [SPEAKER_02]: She has probably been as before COVID and I would talk about, do you think there'll be a time whenever you're taking a shower and you run out of shampoo and you say, what are we some more shampoo? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's, and so it's here. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And but you could kind of see the writing on the wall coming, but that one was probably a little bit more believable.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't think you're going to be able to say, hey, I want to trim my beard today. [SPEAKER_04]: And you sit down in the chin and just scare the shit up. [SPEAKER_02]: You give a barber, a robot barber, a little thing to shave my neck. [SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what I'm saying? [SPEAKER_02]: No, no. [SPEAKER_04]: It's coming though.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's coming in and us as contractors have to be have to be more realistic and stop being so fucking delusional of thinking that robots aren't going to do it. [SPEAKER_04]: Robots are going to be re-roofing. [SPEAKER_04]: There are really doing it, but they're going to do it at a more efficient way. [SPEAKER_04]: Dude, I just saw an episode on, I think I saw a video on Instagram. [SPEAKER_04]: They just built a city in Texas with the machines that no labor was required.
[SPEAKER_04]: They built two hundred homes in Texas. [SPEAKER_04]: They're selling them for three hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand dollars depending on the size of a no human was ever in that little city that they were building. [SPEAKER_04]: And it was all with a with a robotics machine of just. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if we just cared to share everybody on this conversation. [SPEAKER_04]: And don't take my word for it. [SPEAKER_04]: There's a city in Texas right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's two hundred homes up for sale. [SPEAKER_04]: And there's people moving into them right now. [SPEAKER_04]: And they you can see they're already moving in and the other side of the street. [SPEAKER_04]: You can see the machines building the houses. [SPEAKER_02]: Man, I think three to five years is aggressive. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't, I bet you it's a little further out than that. [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's, let's say it's ten years.
[SPEAKER_02]: All you're trying to do is create some awareness for any. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I got you. [SPEAKER_04]: And urgency too, man. [SPEAKER_04]: These fucking contractors have no urgency for nothing. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I don't want them to hear. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want contractors to hear that and then be discouraged or be like, no, they should be excited. [SPEAKER_02]: You should just keep grinding.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what happens is, like, we were just talking about my marketing company as it evolves. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I have to keep getting better at it. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's getting not getting easier. [SPEAKER_02]: It's getting harder. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, but I'm also trying to think ahead. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it has like what's, what do I get to be thinking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Anna's trying to figure out, well, how do I, how do we, you know, become better operators of this business? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: They have to be thinking about, you know, focus on it. [SPEAKER_02]: You just, you're not saying go out there and get fired. [SPEAKER_02]: Your people, because the robots are coming. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not saying that, but what you do have to do is make sure that you have a, make sure you have your eye on that, too, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't, the last thing you want is, you know, an enterprise level private equity company, you know, just older, ten thousand robotics and you're still, and you have no idea it's happening and all these air conditions are getting installed by robots and you're over there in Lala land, getting your ass kicked. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what you don't want.
[SPEAKER_04]: So what I'm telling you is don't focus on it and don't think that it's coming today or tomorrow and three years maybe not even five years. [SPEAKER_04]: But guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: It's coming. [SPEAKER_04]: So start educating yourself on it. [SPEAKER_04]: How am I going to deal with it, right? [SPEAKER_04]: When it does come just like you, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Marketing's getting harder by the minute for you guys, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: AI is essentially going to do things that you guys never thought about that we've never thought about in the marketing side of it, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Now, our marketing company is going to go out of business. [SPEAKER_04]: Probably the shitty ones. [SPEAKER_04]: And I hope they do, because there's a ton of fucking shitty marketing companies out there, a ton of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I wish, and I hope AI wipes them clean, but there will always be a room for marketing companies, and especially really, really good marketing companies like Rhino. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Ben. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that, I'm actually going to go back to one simple thing now.
¶ Brand is everything: company + personal brand strategy
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that you're passionate about, and so am I. And that is the simple thing called brand. [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just switch gears for a second and talk about, [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I've said this the last five years, but every year it seems like it feels more real and that is a brand is the one thing that will never not be important, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like it is so incredibly important now. [SPEAKER_02]: You know that I was able to acquire majority saving from prolific.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: And they prolifics done a couple brands for you. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't know a couple brands for me. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't show you. [SPEAKER_02]: They did a few that you see. [SPEAKER_02]: Like you see. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: Like you see. [SPEAKER_02]: Which is a dope as though. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Ryan Ryan. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Ryan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Billboard looks bad assip on the seventeenth year. [SPEAKER_02]: Have a bite every night. [SPEAKER_02]: Fuck yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I see more and more of the trucks coming into my neighborhood because I live so far north that might have my cab is in press kit. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like an hour of a team and it's close. [SPEAKER_02]: But I keep seeing you guys more and more, which is cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, they did our Red Bird roofing branding, you know, which is completely different. [SPEAKER_02]: It came out good. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: It's because the picture of me on there. [SPEAKER_02]: And Chad was a big burly beard that he doesn't really have. [SPEAKER_02]: He wanted to look like a mountain man. [SPEAKER_01]: He probably had a best off. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, take the best off. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: He loves that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chad the the eighties called. [SPEAKER_02]: They want their best back. [SPEAKER_02]: He's going to get you a vest for Christmas. [SPEAKER_02]: A branding. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's just talk about for a second. [SPEAKER_02]: You did such a great job with the next year in brand because it was fucking everywhere. [SPEAKER_02]: You drove inside of California, who's all over the place. [SPEAKER_02]: But even that, people will think about how hard it is to rebrand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're not thinking about actually the flip side of what the rebrand can be. [SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't mean you need to change the name. [SPEAKER_02]: necessarily. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's just a refresh of the brand. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you look at it from a couple different ways, it is one, it can also be really good for the culture of your business for the airbite to be a part of like the relaunch, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you're trying to reset, maybe a toxic culture, whatever we've had a shitty year, whatever, and you need to use need to revamp everybody excited again. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a great way to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: Does it have some macostos here to it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, especially if you have a lot of rigs, you got to re-rap or whatever, but the upside is you have this really, you've got now this brand that you can be proud of that hopefully what I would have loved most about prolific and obviously I'm friends with the Antonelli Kick Charge on these guys. [SPEAKER_02]: What I loved about it is when I went through their process, it was a longer process, but it was definitely more of like, how do they make the brand more of you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, the biggest differentiator in anybody's business as the owner is you, the individual. [SPEAKER_02]: You are the difference. [SPEAKER_02]: And I like that process, because to me, that feels really genuine to me, right? [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just some fancy word or like a, which a lot of people do. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and people love it. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think some of them are cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to me, what matters most to me is I wanted to be, you know, meaningful to me and what, how Redbird Riving worked out was. [SPEAKER_02]: I live in Arizona. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from Indiana. [SPEAKER_02]: I live in Arizona. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a big Arizona cardinal sand. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a red bird. [SPEAKER_02]: They're state Indiana. [SPEAKER_02]: The Indian state bird is not Larry Bird. [SPEAKER_02]: I always say it's actually a cardinal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we didn't want to use cardinal. [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to use red bird, but the actual logo is a cardinal. [SPEAKER_02]: So it connected me and Chad, you know, even though if you say it, it was just kind of creative. [SPEAKER_02]: And the meaning of a cardinal is like, um, it's good luck. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you know, so there's, there's a lot of cool meaning to it, but he took me down that path and I was like, cool, this felt really, really good when we create this brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I could feel really good about time that story to the employees. [SPEAKER_02]: You're like, oh, this makes, this makes sense. [SPEAKER_02]: So a rebrand might be something that you, that you think about for twenty, twenty six. [SPEAKER_02]: And if it is, I hope you lose, you just prolific, probably to give us a shot. [SPEAKER_02]: But the other part about it is people's personal brands. [SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to kind of pivot to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm starting to see more contractors on social media trying to create a social media or their own personal brand. [SPEAKER_02]: What's your thoughts on? [SPEAKER_02]: Even if you're your owner, or even let's just say you're even a sales rep, you're a whatever, a comfort consultant, whatever, fuck it. [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think about people creating their personal brands under other companies that are different than the company name?
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, in the world we're headed right now, which is the AI world, and you're gonna hear our artificial intelligence for the next a hundred million years, as the most impactful [SPEAKER_04]: part of life that we're going to experience, right? [SPEAKER_04]: And the world we're headed right now, the AI agents are essentially going to make and look everybody look the same.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody, everybody's gonna have the car, the car actions and the, and the, and the, and the same slow, like everybody's gonna start looking and sounding the same, because these AI agents don't know any better, right?
¶ Why you MUST get on camera (or find someone who will)
[SPEAKER_04]: The only thing that contractors could do, and this is just for contractor, this is for business in general. [SPEAKER_04]: The best thing people could do right now is start telling your story online, start putting your face behind your, behind your logo, start putting a face behind your company, because that is the way [SPEAKER_04]: that you're gonna be able to set yourself apart from all of these artificial things that are about to happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Artificial, it's in the fucking world. [SPEAKER_04]: Artificial, everything's gonna become artificial, everything's gonna have everything's gonna be vanilla, right? [SPEAKER_04]: And the only way to go away from vanilla is that personal brand that you're gonna be able to, look, I'll give you a perfect example. [SPEAKER_04]: Go on Twitter, go on Instagram, go on Facebook and look at Tesla. [SPEAKER_04]: They have one or two million followers.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have one or two million interaction. [SPEAKER_04]: Go on fucking Elon Musk. [SPEAKER_04]: There's fucking hundreds of million people following it. [SPEAKER_04]: Why? [SPEAKER_04]: He is Tesla and the reason why people love and enjoy and are obsessed with Tesla and buy stocks and all that is because of him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I promise you, if nobody ever would have met Elon [SPEAKER_04]: If Elon would have never came out of the woodworks, and it was just Tesla Tesla Tesla, guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: He would have been another Ford. [SPEAKER_04]: He would have been another GMC. [SPEAKER_04]: He would have been another Honda. [SPEAKER_04]: He like, who the hell's the CEO of Honda? [SPEAKER_04]: who the hell's the CEO of Ford and GMC and who's getting their ass kicked right now?
[SPEAKER_04]: Those guys are getting their ass kicked. [SPEAKER_04]: Why? [SPEAKER_04]: Because they came from the nineteen forty mentality of like, you know, we built the best car. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we get it. [SPEAKER_04]: You built the best car. [SPEAKER_04]: But Elon's kind of cool, man. [SPEAKER_04]: And I love the technology behind it. [SPEAKER_04]: And I love, look, that guy, and this is just one example. [SPEAKER_04]: Right? [SPEAKER_04]: One example.
[SPEAKER_04]: In a world of artificial intelligence, in a world of bunch of fucking vanilla, you guys need to start putting some flavor behind it, and the flavor is you. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the only way you guys are going to be able to separate yourself from your competition. [SPEAKER_04]: So start putting yourself out there and look, some of us are camera shy. [SPEAKER_04]: Which is fine and some of some of us don't want to be on camera. [SPEAKER_04]: Guess what?
[SPEAKER_04]: There's somebody in your team that is that is a a a die hard rhino and I'll give you a perfect example. [SPEAKER_04]: You're the guy that was walking right here with [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, Mike, he bleeds rhino. [SPEAKER_04]: He's out there exposing himself. [SPEAKER_04]: He's out there doing a podcast. [SPEAKER_04]: He's out there doing road like that guy's on camera all day long. [SPEAKER_04]: Guess what you guys contractors in general, you guys have that same person.
[SPEAKER_04]: You guys have that Mike inside your company. [SPEAKER_04]: If you don't want to be in front of our camera, [SPEAKER_04]: All right, I get it. [SPEAKER_04]: You don't have no personality, you don't, you don't have swag, you don't have, you don't have that, that crispy image that people are gonna identify and people are gonna be like, man, I really wanna use Nuva because Ishmael's out there talking shit and I love the way he is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Start looking for that one person and that person is gonna be your brand ambassador. [SPEAKER_04]: That person is gonna be the face of the company. [SPEAKER_04]: And look, as CEOs, we need to be humble enough to say, hey, that's not that online bullshit Ishmael and that social media is not for me. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's okay. [SPEAKER_04]: Just because it's not for you, doesn't mean you're gonna let your business tank.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just because it's not for you, you're not gonna do it. [SPEAKER_04]: And guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: Now you're wondering why there's no leads again, right? [SPEAKER_04]: I guarantee you, if you get your name out there, and people start loving you and following you and sharing your story and people start connecting with you, when they go look for your service, guess who they're gonna call? [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So, so you just had something in the team to do. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you real me again? [SPEAKER_02]: But you're going to want to have this conversation with me because you and I are on the same page about it. [SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm a big believer in the same thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been in influence or for a decade, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Because I've been in this industry so fucking long that I spoke on some of these stages and all this shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Mike does bleed a core values of this business. [SPEAKER_02]: And so he's a genuine dude. [SPEAKER_02]: who is his own personality, but he's living out what we believe this business says. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we do for contractors. [SPEAKER_02]: He's a guy who legit gives a shit. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's who you want. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course. [SPEAKER_02]: And he's really smart. [SPEAKER_02]: Like he knows their business.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, but I wanted to give him that opportunity. [SPEAKER_02]: And he wanted to take that opportunity around with it. [SPEAKER_02]: So I just keep pushing. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I made a place to speak out last year. [SPEAKER_02]: Two, two, like I barely spoke anywhere on purpose. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not even speaking my own event, besides being the MC. [SPEAKER_02]: But I'd like to put him out front because he gets to go and represent this business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it though it's good for him when he wants to make a pivot and do his own thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure he will at some point. [SPEAKER_02]: He'll still have a representative rhino so well that people will associate him with the business. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, to me, that was like, when he started doing so good at it, I was like, sweet, I don't know how to go as much. [SPEAKER_02]: Now I still do my own, this is why we have social media teams, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we have video production, things that can still put our content out there. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, keep us out front. [SPEAKER_02]: But that's where I wanted to pivot to is. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you and I have talked about this around social media like social media marketing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's call that and it's pivoted quite a bit and it's like five year this little five year you know, stand we had and I think that I think that we've we've struggled with and I've told you this is I tried to build a social media like marketing team three separate times. [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard about for you guys. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, because what we don't it is, it's actually very hard for it to make money and I'll tell you why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because because in order to do it the way that I think it should be done, it costs a lot of money. [SPEAKER_02]: It costs a lot of money of energy and a ton of time. [SPEAKER_02]: Time and it could be travel. [SPEAKER_02]: It could be because if you have these contractors who don't want to get in front of a camera and you got to be the one, well, there's added expense to that. [SPEAKER_02]: You had a fly amount and you got to do the content. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not scalable.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at least. [SPEAKER_02]: to me, it's not scalable. [SPEAKER_02]: So I couldn't quite think everybody, not just to you, to everybody. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I have, how many times have you heard me say, all marketing companies suck at social media? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't disagree. [SPEAKER_02]: I sucked at it, right?
¶ Why most contractors suck at social media-and how to fix it
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm talking about us contracting for the contractor. [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, our team doesn't really great job here at that right now. [SPEAKER_02]: But if I could duplicate this because this is all authentic shit. [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's all us. [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I feel good about it. [SPEAKER_02]: that's what the contractor needs to have as to is all authentic them. [SPEAKER_02]: If it's a technician going to do a fuck on clock of toilet, well guess what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just do a quick fucking how to on what you're already doing if they're comfortable and that's good like that's an easy one. [SPEAKER_04]: A hundred percent but the what they don't want to do and before you get to it because I think I know where you're going look at guys. [SPEAKER_04]: This is what frustrates me the fuck out of our contractors. [SPEAKER_04]: When they're filming their technicians working on an AC unit.
[SPEAKER_04]: when they're filming their their plumbers working on a p-trap like or they're explaining oh my god I can't stand that when they're in front of a camera they're like well this is a water heater and a fifty gallon water heater and it's like [SPEAKER_04]: Do you guys understand that nobody gives a flying fuck about that? [SPEAKER_04]: Like social media is entertainment, social media. [SPEAKER_04]: I'll give you a look.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been on social media right now for the last eight months. [SPEAKER_04]: I've been studying it. [SPEAKER_04]: I've been on on it. [SPEAKER_04]: I've been putting content. [SPEAKER_04]: I've been looking at my metrics. [SPEAKER_04]: I've been looking at the one metric that everybody, if you're going to start getting into the social media game and you're going to start, you know, [SPEAKER_04]: I'm doing your on content in housing.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to start trying to put it your brand out there. [SPEAKER_04]: The one metric that everybody should watch is shares. [SPEAKER_04]: And this is what they don't tell you. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay. [SPEAKER_04]: This is what people don't. [SPEAKER_04]: I had to figure out myself, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: I am going to become a social media marketing fucking PhD masters at this. [SPEAKER_04]: Dude, I built a social media team now. [SPEAKER_04]: We have six people on our social media.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you use one of them? [SPEAKER_04]: He's following me filming every day, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Shares, shares, shares will give you the substance that you're putting out there. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, when I see these contractors talking about water heaters and talking about an air conditioner and what a capacitor does. [SPEAKER_04]: And there's no shares on it. [SPEAKER_04]: That means because nobody cares.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, look, I'll go on my social media and I'll talk about, you know, artificial intelligence or I'll talk about, you know, what contract that should be doing inside their operation to become more profitable. [SPEAKER_04]: And I see a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, [SPEAKER_04]: That means that people are connecting with my substance. [SPEAKER_04]: That means people are connecting with my content. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what people need to start doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're going to do your own in-house social media, which I hugely, and I'm sure you agree with this, I hugely tell you, like, you guys right now should buy a fucking camera right now or do it off your phone by a couple of miles and start filming everything. [SPEAKER_04]: And in the cool part about social media, you don't know what's going to hit. [SPEAKER_04]: That's the dope part.
[SPEAKER_04]: I put videos on my social media that I'm like, Calia, I'm gonna get a thousand shares or I'm gonna get, you know, five hundred thousand views on it and it does like, you know, five hundred. [SPEAKER_04]: And then I'll put shit that I'm just chilling or I'm in my car. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking shit and twenty four hours later, you know, six hundred thousand views and two thousand shares and five thousand likes and it's like, what the?
¶ The metric that matters most in social: SHARES
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what social, that's a fun part about social media. [SPEAKER_04]: So yes, [SPEAKER_04]: I'll let you finish the question, but please, please, guys, if you are going to do it with fucking right, don't have icing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I'm completely agree with you because I do, again, you and you and I have talked about this topic specifically and it's, you know, it's, I still believe you have to have your own, like the best thing you could do is have your own in-house social team. [SPEAKER_02]: Like today, I think you have to have that. [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can't afford to grab one of them, please. [SPEAKER_02]: You can grab an employee. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a good second.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a great question. [SPEAKER_02]: Grab a, uh, uh, anybody that's in the office that has some kind of personality. [SPEAKER_02]: But all you need is really one person who do coordinate that whole thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And if you get a social media, um, a social media manager or coordinator or whatever you want to call it, who's in house, well, then they can manage that for you. [SPEAKER_02]: Like they'll be the one who sets up the meeting with Jill, the CSR to go for XYZ.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can approve you as a leader. [SPEAKER_02]: Can approve what the topics are going to be. [SPEAKER_02]: If you want, have them bring them to you. [SPEAKER_02]: But that's, that's where it's like, man, how have I never been able to figure that thing out? [SPEAKER_02]: So I've tried to keep an eye on who are the people out through who I think are doing a good job, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And there's not many.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in our, in the home service space, I can, I can, I can be doing an okay job. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I've, I've talked to him about this. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, you're social media sucks bro, but it's better than ninety nine percent of people out there. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, Tom's getting into the game now. [SPEAKER_04]: And I've seen some of his videos. [SPEAKER_04]: They suck by the way, too, Tom. [SPEAKER_04]: But like, [SPEAKER_04]: like nobody is doing social media, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: The way it's supposed to be. [SPEAKER_02]: What's what I'm saying? [SPEAKER_02]: So here's what I'm getting with that. [SPEAKER_02]: The bar is low. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that I love the Ubus Tommy's ball. [SPEAKER_02]: I think Tommy's team does a great job. [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a big team too. [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm talking about, who's an actual social media marketing company who's out there trying to do it right now? [SPEAKER_02]: And I go and think of one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I won't say anything other than like, I think the bar still really low. [SPEAKER_02]: So there's such an opportunity there. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, do I give this thing another go? [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not going to do that with Rhino. [SPEAKER_02]: I would do that with prolific. [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's brilliant. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like, be more about it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like, it's all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, we rolled out the email, I was able to get [SPEAKER_02]: The president Zach over to run to be the president of prolific who brought his email marking lesson, which plays right into our brand messaging. [SPEAKER_04]: That's a good thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was sleeping on email marketing until he showed me what he was doing in his service type with the marking pro ship for all the contractors. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, OK, now he doesn't for right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a whole play there to build out prolific and personal branding and social.
¶ Final thoughts & actions to take now
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's going to have that you can really cope with the plan. [SPEAKER_02]: And then guess who will buy it? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it would make that would make a lot of sense to me for longevity of the business. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it doesn't play out that way, but that's the way I'm thinking about it. [SPEAKER_04]: And you got to try it though.
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to do it now because you're, you bro, this social media wave is just started by the way. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, I know people think that social media's been around forever and like, no, it's been around forever, but nobody's really capitalizing on it and nobody's really doing it properly. [SPEAKER_04]: It just started right now. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, for the last year, people are addicted to social media. [SPEAKER_04]: If you look at everybody's apps, I guarantee fucking to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: eighty percent of apps are being used on social media. [SPEAKER_04]: Our social media is eighty percent of their usage. [SPEAKER_04]: The other one is text messaging and calls and all the, you know, all the things that they need to. [SPEAKER_04]: But social media is eighty to ninety percent of people's usage. [SPEAKER_04]: And guess where everybody's at right now in their freaking phone. [SPEAKER_04]: You go to the airport. [SPEAKER_04]: Guess what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: You go to the gym, guess what they're doing. [SPEAKER_04]: You go to the grocery store, guess everybody's addicted to their phone. [SPEAKER_04]: And us contractors have to do a way better fucking job of getting inside that phone, which leads me to the custom apps, right? [SPEAKER_04]: One of the dope things that we came about new way was the custom apps. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, having a custom app inside the home, it doesn't say new way.
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't even look for new way on the app store. [SPEAKER_04]: They're looking for next year. [SPEAKER_04]: They're looking for service champions. [SPEAKER_04]: They're looking for whatever company you own. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to go on the app store. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to look your name. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to download that app with your logo and control their thermostat. [SPEAKER_04]: That is what contractors need to focus.
[SPEAKER_04]: Personal branding. [SPEAKER_04]: How do I get and stay on this fucking phone? [SPEAKER_04]: This is not going anywhere, by the way. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the fancy glasses are coming in and you know, you're gonna be like, this is still gonna be around. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So, so let's actually just transition into some new base stuff real quick, too, because I do love that. [SPEAKER_02]: On fourth of July, you could send your personal messaging.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I'll somehow, yeah, which is pretty cool. [SPEAKER_02]: So I love that you can personalize it to the individual contractor, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And they can personalize their own message and which is cool. [SPEAKER_02]: I do like the as a as a the new the new gen model rolled out already December December version two point three comes out. [SPEAKER_04]: It is the sexiest fucking thermostat in the market. [SPEAKER_04]: It's thinner.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's got a sleek aluminum bezel. [SPEAKER_04]: It is around screen. [SPEAKER_04]: It's got a CO-II sensor in there. [SPEAKER_04]: It's got a five G. It's got a ton of dope shit for you guys [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's less abrasive on the wall, because it's much more scenier, but you can modify the color brightness, all the fun things. [SPEAKER_02]: It's progressing, and I'm assuming you got some of this feedback from the contractors, and you're like, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: These ones make sense this one down, but you have it's more than just to me, there's you have to pay attention to it's this is more than just selling stats about to hit your billion dollar valuation like you have to have good customer service you got to have good technology updates production. [SPEAKER_02]: the ton of investment. [SPEAKER_02]: I thought the armini.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe this is maybe it's industry specific, but I thought our mini you didn't have to pay tariffs on. [SPEAKER_04]: So our mini is the software side of my business and then the Philippines is where I manufacture and produce. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, God. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what the terrorist coming got.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_04]: My eyes and I was fucking pissed and you know, obviously I had to pass on that savings or contractors, but [SPEAKER_04]: At the end of the day, and I told this to a ton of my contractors, they're like, how come you're, you know, the tariffs and the, and I'm like, look, guys, I fucking love what he's doing for our country. [SPEAKER_04]: And I love that he's doing it, but in order for me to keep selling my product here, I am okay paying the tariff.
[SPEAKER_04]: But guess what, then you guys have to pay for it, too. [SPEAKER_04]: So it's manufacturing and the Philippines right now. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm actively going to move it into Texas, right? [SPEAKER_04]: I love Texas. [SPEAKER_04]: I was just there. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to actively move our manufacturing plant. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to keep the Philippines going because, you know, I got invested a ton of money over.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the Texas is coming and then I'm going to go into Mexico too. [SPEAKER_04]: We just launched like three contractors in Mexico, which I'm super excited about. [SPEAKER_04]: And we're going to put a manufacturing down there too. [SPEAKER_02]: That's cool, man. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know about that. [SPEAKER_02]: Congrats. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That is open. [SPEAKER_04]: Canada is open. [SPEAKER_04]: We got about nine contractors in Canada.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mexico is open. [SPEAKER_04]: United States obviously is open. [SPEAKER_04]: Next, we're going to tackle Australia. [SPEAKER_04]: We got a ton of contractors that are reaching out to the same. [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, we want the product. [SPEAKER_04]: So this is a worldwide product, bro. [SPEAKER_04]: This is the dopest fucking. [SPEAKER_04]: This is one of the dopest things I've ever done in my life, honestly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after you're done with new way, you're moving on to the education, or all, and then you're going to go, and, yeah, I'll say I'm like if I remember, uh, my conversation, it was, you, your plan is, you know, your third year plan, your third year plan, your third year plan is like the focus, but then you want to make an impact on education overall, and then also, I know, I know you're sort of passionate about wanting to get in Mexico and start.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to do what you can do. [SPEAKER_04]: We need to, we need to fix that fucking educational system. [SPEAKER_04]: There's, and, and, and look, it's simple. [SPEAKER_04]: There's recruiters for college in, in every fucking campus in high school. [SPEAKER_04]: There's recruiters for the Marines, the Army, the Air Force, everything in there. [SPEAKER_04]: There's not recruitment for the trades.
[SPEAKER_02]: They used to be used to be called, you know, you take trade classes when you're in high school. [SPEAKER_02]: They're, they took them out. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I had, I had him, but I'm all over. [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody had word class and machine metal class and all that we had in our high school, too. [SPEAKER_04]: They took all that out, Chris. [SPEAKER_04]: They took all that out. [SPEAKER_04]: No, there's no more in none of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the way we fix what we have, which is the biggest problem when we talked about it in our group.
[SPEAKER_04]: the biggest problem we have in the contracting world is nobody wants to be a fucking roofer nobody wants to be a plumber nobody wants to be an AC tech nobody wants to be an electrician we are looked down upon why because they don't know how much money we could make I guarantee you I guarantee you and look I'm not trying to show off I guarantee you right now you start magnifying the the message of like hey there's a
[SPEAKER_04]: Young Mexican kid in Cal Southern California, just sold this company for over a hundred million dollars. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a plumbing and air conditioning company. [SPEAKER_04]: And you give that message to every kid in America. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to jump off their fucking seat and be like, hey, how do I sign up? [SPEAKER_04]: Where do I sign up? [SPEAKER_04]: How can I get employed by it, right? [SPEAKER_04]: But the problem is nobody knows about us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we and we've been we all, you know, thankfully, I think our group, our group, our peer group has a ton of, a ton of influence, industry influence, across all across. [SPEAKER_02]: And we're all yelling this. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But how are we not? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like, I feel like we still aren't making, like there's no impact happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is crazy to think about how like why did they make the decision to take to take this, the technical stuff out of schools in the first place? [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't even console me. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they probably didn't look to me for a consultant. [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: How should I say? [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't even think about it. [SPEAKER_04]: Let's take it out. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, why?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because they some fucking smart guy looking at a P&L, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Look that and say, oh, without you expensive, we should put it somewhere else. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what they fucking did. [SPEAKER_04]: And damn smart guys. [SPEAKER_04]: And damn smart treats. [SPEAKER_02]: I can see it falls. [SPEAKER_02]: I love you guys. [SPEAKER_02]: by way of super important role.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to make sure that I want to make sure that we're about an hour into this thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I just want to make sure that anybody who's listening, who's maybe either been on the fence with with new they, you know, maybe what's what's of one, when we're talking about the new they, new they network some of the, I think Ellen Roars are actually coming up the other month. [SPEAKER_02]: doing some Hispanic Tommy was for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've been reading some of the people to help with trainings. [SPEAKER_02]: Do they have to be a heart? [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_04]: So that's how you get the extra training is because you are a. We started off as a thermostat company and a software company and now we're developing into the fastest growing mentoring company.
[SPEAKER_04]: First, I didn't want to do it to a huge mass of group, but then I started doing one-on-one, and I started doing group meetings and mentoring every month, and the problem is there. [SPEAKER_04]: There is a huge problem in the industry, and there is no direction for the CEOs. [SPEAKER_04]: There's no direction for these employees that haven't graduated into a CEO. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's why I'm sticking to it. [SPEAKER_04]: That's why I'm growing that platform.
[SPEAKER_04]: In order for you guys to get the mentoring, in order for you guys to get, look, we're building the first digital library on our platform called Nuven Intelligence, where they have, if you guys join Nuven Networks, they have access to all the videos that I've done, to all the videos that the mentoring classes that we've done. [SPEAKER_04]: There's a they get a login to our website. [SPEAKER_04]: They go in there and they want to know about financing.
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to get a refresher close click on times video. [SPEAKER_04]: Tom goes through a PNL and tells you exactly what percentages, what chart of accounts, what, what you should be tracking, what you should be doing. [SPEAKER_04]: You want to know about marketing. [SPEAKER_04]: You want to know about growth with Tommy. [SPEAKER_04]: You want to know about whatever you want to know. [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be in that mentoring library.
[SPEAKER_04]: So yes, they have to be part of the new veneers. [SPEAKER_04]: That's one of the one of the of the decisions we made as a team. [SPEAKER_04]: They got to be part of new veneers. [SPEAKER_04]: They got to be installing our thermostat and this is how I [SPEAKER_04]: look at it. [SPEAKER_04]: Look, if I'm going to take the time of my day and time of my life to be able to mentor you and guide you the right direction, the least thing you could do is help me with my thermostat.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree. [SPEAKER_02]: I agree. [SPEAKER_02]: So then how does it look? [SPEAKER_02]: Say somebody. [SPEAKER_04]: when somebody wants to come on board as a new contractor, what's the, what's so they go on, newvahom.com or they could hit us up on social media on any of the platforms and just shoot us at DM. [SPEAKER_04]: They get a thirty minute demo on the product, basically showing you how to use the software side of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: The installation site is the exact same thing as installing an echo, be a nest on Honeywell. [SPEAKER_04]: We don't need to train your technicians. [SPEAKER_04]: That's one of the things that I, that when I was designing the product, I made sure I don't want to start hiring a bunch of trainers to teach you guys how to, [SPEAKER_04]: And I didn't want to do that. [SPEAKER_04]: So installation process and troubleshooting and everything is the exact same way as a thermostat.
[SPEAKER_04]: The thirty-minute onboarding that we do is to show you what the features do, the messaging, the remote start of the systems, the alerts, all that. [SPEAKER_04]: We show you in a thirty-minute. [SPEAKER_04]: And the next day, they're already getting the thermostat in installing them. [SPEAKER_04]: Like today was a perfect example. [SPEAKER_04]: Lar security and air conditioning here at Arizona reached out to us on Friday. [SPEAKER_04]: They got their onboarding on Monday, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: They signed up on Tuesday. [SPEAKER_04]: I came over here just to say hi and congratulate them. [SPEAKER_04]: And they're already, dude, we pumped up their team. [SPEAKER_04]: They're probably going to install fifty to sixty thermostats today. [SPEAKER_04]: So the onboarding super simple guys, you reach out to us on newvethome.com. [SPEAKER_04]: We'll get you a product demo. [SPEAKER_04]: Right? [SPEAKER_04]: There is a mentorship.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a subscription fee behind it. [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously software super expensive and people that cost them out, us developing the custom app for every contractor, cost money. [SPEAKER_04]: All the features that we have cost money. [SPEAKER_04]: So there is a subscription tied to the thermostat. [SPEAKER_04]: It's not a lot, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Every contractor in America could afford my subscription.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the subscription covers you the mentorship covers you the software and covers you the thermostat. [SPEAKER_04]: So it look at the end of the day, there's nothing better out there. [SPEAKER_04]: The echo bees not doing that. [SPEAKER_04]: Honey was not doing it. [SPEAKER_04]: And Nest is surely not calling you and saying, hey, how can I help you with your business? [SPEAKER_04]: Or, hey, do you need a financial help?
[SPEAKER_04]: So you need me to teach you how to operate and grow your business. [SPEAKER_04]: They're not doing it. [SPEAKER_04]: They don't care about it, right? [SPEAKER_04]: So it's the best product out there. [SPEAKER_04]: We're priced around the same price as an echo bean NNS. [SPEAKER_04]: And I encourage every single contractor out there to get on our platform. [SPEAKER_04]: Get on our platform. [SPEAKER_04]: Because guess what? [SPEAKER_04]: You guys need to do a better job.
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to do a better job as contractors as retaining the client. [SPEAKER_04]: Otherwise, we're always going to be investing, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen percent of our marketing spent into marketing because we're always chasing new clients instead of retaining them, right? [SPEAKER_04]: The alarm company got it right, man. [SPEAKER_04]: The alarm company got it fucking right.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are, you go to your panel and they have, you know, that ADT logo or that Bell logo, guess who you're calling? [SPEAKER_04]: them. [SPEAKER_04]: Why? [SPEAKER_04]: Because they're low because of the of the of the monitoring that they have in there, right? [SPEAKER_04]: So they got to arrive. [SPEAKER_04]: And so look, reach out to us. [SPEAKER_04]: We'll do a product demo. [SPEAKER_04]: I'll make sure that you guys, you know, our customer service is fucking flawless.
[SPEAKER_04]: I promise you guys that. [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm here to help you guys out first. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that team was growing. [SPEAKER_02]: I think continues to keep growing. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Is there is there a minimum unit order that that no?
[SPEAKER_04]: Most contractors are ordering two boxes to start and after they after they install their first ones and they get their customer feedback they fucking order they started and by the palace you've seen the text messages I get like three to four thousand units per week now or every other week coming in and they're sold out before they even get I got customers that are pissed off Semper five I get to you right now. [SPEAKER_04]: These Semper vice pissed off.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean Kanejo is pissed off like [SPEAKER_04]: All our top, a one hundred dealers that are ordering by the pallet now are pissed off because we can't keep up with it. [SPEAKER_04]: But I promise you guys were, you know, maybe a week away from getting five to ten thousand a week now every single week. [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm, I know it's insane. [SPEAKER_04]: I know. [SPEAKER_04]: I told you, I told you, but you know what, I should have been more transparent with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've telling you like, bro, I am about twenty million dollars deep into this project. [SPEAKER_04]: So I am not like here to like hopefully it works. [SPEAKER_04]: I am going to make sure this fucking project works and I am going to make sure we take a worldwide. [SPEAKER_02]: I will say like over the last few years and I've gotten to be a lot closer with you. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm I'm super happy for you. [SPEAKER_02]: It's great. [SPEAKER_02]: Listen, it's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: We put them in here. [SPEAKER_02]: We have we have the we have the [SPEAKER_02]: I think we have the most current model that's in here, you know, around the Rhino office, and they're glowing orange and blue. [SPEAKER_02]: It depends on the day, I feel. [SPEAKER_02]: But it is cool to see, you know, to see you pushing this thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I legit think it's fucking awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I think it's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the contractors are starting to, to obviously see that as well because shit, you get four thousand unit orders, you know, this way I saw the one you came through. [SPEAKER_02]: That's incredible. [SPEAKER_04]: Our goal is to do fifty thousand units this year and then our goal for next year's two hundred and fifty thousand units. [SPEAKER_04]: If we couldn't stop two hundred and fifty thousand units next year, holy fuck. [SPEAKER_04]: We are gonna kick Google's ass.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna kick Echo B's ass. [SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna kick those guys ass. [SPEAKER_04]: We are we are against those fucking tech companies. [SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna kick their ass all day long. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, listen, dude, I appreciate you coming in Phoenix just to see me in the only, and then you made time for the others because you're coming in to see me. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's how that really goes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is always good to have you in your way always, and tell me you do a podcast, so I feel like it always is always good. [SPEAKER_02]: It's always good to help. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that tall you, you know, tall the listeners. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've seen the results of the even than just the new way, just the new bay network stuff that's happening and the volume of people actually are fucking attending it and staying.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it says a lot about, you know, the quality of them. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just some other, you know, another random call. [SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate it. [SPEAKER_04]: So it's cool to, you know, it's cool to watch you. [SPEAKER_04]: Real scale. [SPEAKER_04]: That's on prolific though. [SPEAKER_04]: Honestly prolific is going to it's going to do some amazing things.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've said it before the the one thing that the one thing that that can happen to another company is competition right competition is what makes fucking companies. [SPEAKER_04]: light a fire under their ass and actually become a better company up, perfect example, service time. [SPEAKER_04]: Service time has been service time for the last three, four years and they don't seem to fucking get their ass out of get their head out of their ass because they don't have competition.
[SPEAKER_04]: I guarantee you right now, if there was a competitive to service time, those guys would keep developing their app and keep developing their software and give us everything that we need as operators. [SPEAKER_04]: Instead, what's their competition, fucking house opera? [SPEAKER_04]: Say, you know what I'm saying? [SPEAKER_04]: There's no, the same thing with Google.
[SPEAKER_04]: Google has been Google for the last fifteen years, and until somebody comes in, which Chad, Chad, GPT, Grunk, all those guys are coming to, which I'm not saying they're going to replace him, but now they're now, what's his name, Sergei? [SPEAKER_04]: He came out of retirement. [SPEAKER_04]: He came out of retirement because he knows he's about to get his ass kicked. [SPEAKER_04]: That is the one thing that I love about what you're doing with prolific.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a couple companies out there that had led the way, and that have gotten comfortable in, you know, almost of the market share. [SPEAKER_04]: And I can't wait to you kick their fucking ass. [SPEAKER_04]: And I know Tommy owns [SPEAKER_04]: some of it, but it's all friendly competition. [SPEAKER_04]: It's only going to make his company better and it's going to make you better. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, listen, well, they bought a marketing company rolling in.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like we, but we're buddies. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, okay, but mine's much bigger. [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_04]: And we're here to do. [SPEAKER_04]: I guarantee you one thing, Tommy or myself, or anybody that that's close to you will not do something to make sure that you felt we will do anything to make sure that you succeed. [SPEAKER_04]: So you bring in on prolific and however we can help you as as contractors or whatever we can do obviously we're here to help you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that well listen I anytime you want to come in here and do this. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm always there because you have to say some good shit like we live when I when I talk to the issue before I am like literally we didn't prep we just said hey let's come in like let's just shoot the shit and [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what's turned out. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what news are the most fun. [SPEAKER_02]: So I would encourage all listeners to give it a shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what do you get to the worst case scenario? [SPEAKER_02]: You've got a great mentoring group that you're going to get some education from and you got a cool look in terms of that. [SPEAKER_02]: That you can send specific messages to your clients. [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to read that message on their thermostat and have to clear it. [SPEAKER_02]: So you know, they got to clear it. [SPEAKER_02]: So they're going to read the messaging. [SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can send whatever you want. [SPEAKER_04]: We're about to end it off while we're in our journey. [SPEAKER_04]: We just landed a full integration with service. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to treat us as one of a marketing sources now, just like an email, just like a text message. [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to be able to schedule a technician from the thermostat and their app, meaning if you have a technician close by and they need you.
[SPEAKER_04]: One PM today, click confirm, technician gets dispatch all the way to the board on service sign. [SPEAKER_04]: The cog gets logged in into whatever technician is closed by and it gets it's automatically signed to the technician. [SPEAKER_04]: So we just landed that. [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to announce our huge partnership at Pantheon and we're rolling our version to a Pantheon. [SPEAKER_04]: So I'll see you guys there. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, I'll be there too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's look at quick recap. [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's new VIII thermostats, if it's, you know, you're focusing on AI, we talked about social media, whatever it is, like, you know, figure out which one of those, you know, you want to run with and just, and don't have facet, like find one and actually go in and actually do something with it. [SPEAKER_02]: And if you fuck it up, [SPEAKER_02]: You know, change up how you're doing it and try it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, keep listening to podcasts, you know, keep you trying to reach out to people who can, you know, help you if, if you want to reach out to Ishmael, you know, it's just, you know, you make some stuff available to prevent everybody. [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, do something as the end of the day. [SPEAKER_02]: So, but you'll got to do everything, but you got to do something. [SPEAKER_02]: No zero pays.
