Uzair Ahmed joins us to discuss his disruptive approach to improving HVAC companies customer service using AI technology to handle customer interactions. His ideas was born from his work starting a mobile mechanic business and trying to scale the idea as the #Uber of automotive maintenance. He learned that these were smaller ticket interactions and scaling was going to be difficult if you wanted to be profitable. He applied what he had learned and developed a consulting approach for HVAC companies that improve service, process and performance. As he optimizes the processes, he applies an AI based technology built on
Gold Nuggets:
1 - Do one thing at a time to effect meaningful change
2 - Making your business simple is NOT Easy
3 - Technology can improve the process, but if the process is bad it isn't worth improving
Book Recommendation "Millionaire Fast Lane" by MJ Demarco
Uzair Ahmed joins us to discuss his disruptive approach to improving HVAC companies customer service using AI technology to handle customer interactions. His ideas was born from his work starting a mobile mechanic business and trying to scale the idea as the #Uber of automotive maintenance. He learned that these were smaller ticket interactions and scaling was going to be difficult if you wanted to be profitable. He applied what he had learned and developed a consulting approach for HVAC companies that improve service, process and performance. As he optimizes the processes, he applies an AI based technology built on
Gold Nuggets:
1 - Do one thing at a time to effect meaningful change
2 - Making your business simple is NOT Easy
3 - Technology can improve the process, but if the process is bad it isn't worth improving
Book Recommendation "Millionaire Fast Lane" by MJ Demarco
you know, why is it that you only approach one thing at a time, make one fix at a time? I mean, I think that's something that can translate to any business.
Uzair Ahmed:Well, the thing is, focus is so important, right, when you want to see meaningful change in the business, it's compounding small, different changes every day. When you see a company that's grown over 3,000% or 400% or whatever those crazy numbers are, that was like 1% better each day, kind of thing. Right, they changed one thing about their business but they didn't just change it and moved on. They changed it and they reflected back. Was this the best way of doing this change and seeing the results and continuously moving and working on that one metric of that business until that was like good enough to what they wanted to be right.
Chris Lalomia:Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Yee-haw everybody, we're back. We're in a rock and roll. Let's do this. You're asking why am I so high pitched voice? Because… yeah, you sound like Aretha Franklin, thank you. Well, here's what happened. I went out and had my big time weekend in Vegas with my boys and lost my voice, just flat, lost it.
Alan Wyatt:Barely could talk. I mean, that's like an actor losing their face.
Chris Lalomia:I was in panic mode Number one. I couldn't talk to anybody.
Alan Wyatt:Which you were just screaming that loud. You were completely out of control.
Chris Lalomia:I didn't think I was. I just lost my voice. But it was so loud in these sports books that we were watching the football games. In that I just lost my voice. I didn't even think I was going that nuts.
Alan Wyatt:I mean, all I saw was a picture of you with Mrs Guatemala.
Chris Lalomia:Well, there was that, by the way. Thank you very much. You were screaming at her.
Alan Wyatt:Meanwhile, I'm at home spending time with my family and feeding the poor, and you're in Vegas again, oh man, and you're going insane, to the point you lose your voice, how's your gout.
Chris Lalomia:So good news I got it under control. Pills are magic, aren't they? Pills are… I love my magic pills. Now I'm only fighting a bunion, so it's hell getting old.
Alan Wyatt:Oh my gosh.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, so, but now I had a big time. It was awesome. But, alan, I think we've got to get back to our guest. And who do we have today? Let's find out. So, man, today we've got a great guest. I'm literally looking forward to jumping into some of these topics that he is an expert on, but before we do that, we can introduce Uzair Ahmed, and we are all drinking a little bit. We're having a little bourbon and he's having a girly drink. You used it at Gin Fizz.
Alan Wyatt:Is that what you?
Uzair Ahmed:have A Gin Smash.
Alan Wyatt:Gin Smash Rod Ray.
Uzair Ahmed:London, so it's a conference. It's really good, so it's definitely a girly drink.
Alan Wyatt:I'll still hear that.
Chris Lalomia:And so I will address some comments that I've gotten. Why do you guys think you guys can drink and then give people business advice? And so let me give you that, because we're way better after we've had a couple of drinks. We're much more charming and way more charming, Way more astute and educational and erudite. Oh look all those fancy words. They're looking so funnier.
Chris Lalomia:So let's jump into the entrepreneurial journey that is yours. So you're working as a sales engineer I think I saw that on the LinkedIn profile but your first go at this was it a side hustle? What was it? How did you get this idea to start a business?
Uzair Ahmed:Well, here's what happened. Okay, so I was working as an engineer for a few years. After school, because I thought that was a normal route, I read this book. I read this book that changed my I don't know if it's good or bad, but the Millionaire Fast Lane by Andrew DiMarco and it was just talking about, like, the different ways of making money and to wealth. Right, number one was the sidewalk, which is no way of making money. You spend more than you make. Like. That was the reason why I read this book.
Uzair Ahmed:By the way, to go back is like when I graduated from school, the first thing that I wanted to do was learn everything about money I could, because I feel like everyone just like puts their head in the sand and doesn't think about money at all, because they make it seem like a complicated topic and then nobody wants to read it and learn about it. Right, but that is the most expensive decision that you can make outsourcing that. And then, after seeing how, like, financial advisors took complete advantage of my parents, I was like there's no way in hell I'm going to make the same mistake as they did. So that's why I was reading all these different books, and then I stumbled upon this book and it was talking about different ways of making money, and it was like.
Uzair Ahmed:The number one was like you can make a million bucks a year and you can still be poor because you don't save a penny. Look at Mike Tyson, right. And then the other one was the ones that everyone was recommended, which was like the slow lane, which was you get a high paying job or a job and then you save the money, you invest in the markets and you you're 50, 60 years old by the time. You're rich, and then whatever happens happens then, but you're relying a lot on hope, you're relying on other people, you're relying on the market, you're relying on good health, you're relying on the fact that you can even. You don't care about the money when you're older too, right.
Alan Wyatt:So there is betting on himself. I love that, that's exactly right.
Chris Lalomia:Bet on yourself, all right. So what's the fast lane?
Uzair Ahmed:And the fast lane was you have to build a system that's scalable. So you have to build a. It's like effectively. He was like, okay, you need to have some sort of distribution, some sort of a problem that you're solving and you've just solved it in a way that's scalable, right, and it would be compared into like building a pyramid using a crane, versus doing it lifting it break by break with each stone.
Uzair Ahmed:If you have a crane that your system is going to, it's going to give you leverage, right. So he was really leverage and he was saying things like you know, you work a job, you do your stuff, you go to your boss, you ask for a raise, like, you want to make more money, you're going to ask for a raise and you get, but you have to, like, ask someone for a raise and you only have 24 hours a day you can possibly work. There's no way you can do that, right, and you can't really make real wealth doing that. When you have a business, you can always adjust your prices. You don't ask anyone's permission to adjust your prices, and then you can also always add more people to work for you, so you're not limited by anything.
Chris Lalomia:I love it. So that all right. So you're working for the man. I came out as an engineer, which is a great degree. Love that, right. I got my. I got my degree in engineering too, so let's go with that. So you're out rocking. What did you? You got this idea. Was it a side hustle? Did you quit right off the bat? I mean, what'd you do?
Uzair Ahmed:No, I was just trying different ideas on the side. Like what? Because my job was five days on, nine days off. I worked in a world field and said a lot of time my hands right, so I would always try like different things on the side and this was just like one of the many ideas that I came up with and in hindsight it's a. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a very, very difficult time and I learned very early on. Later on, too late, it was like don't try to reinvent the wheel. If there's a business model that no one else has implemented, you don't want to be the first guy to do it. Or if someone else has tried that and failed, there's your answer. You don't need to be the smart guy and be like oh, I can make this work.
Alan Wyatt:I got a backup. You were working in an oil field and for our listeners he's calling us from Edmonton, alberta, which aren't the oil fields a little further north of that?
Uzair Ahmed:It's the Texas of the North. Yeah, it's up north. That's why I had five days on, nine days off right, because I had to travel to work. What were you doing there? I was a water treatment engineer, so I was responsible making sure the water was good enough for the. The steam quality was good enough, so Edmonton is actually moving south.
Alan Wyatt:It's balmy there. How about that?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah right, so he goes north for work and goes back to Edmonton for his summer. That's his nine days. He's a snow bird, you know what?
Uzair Ahmed:I'm not going to lie to you guys. It's last year. It was 30 degrees in April, 30 degrees the whole Celsius, 30 degrees Celsius the whole year, and then it only got cold for like a week in January. Global warming is a thing here.
Chris Lalomia:All right, he's calling it out Global warming is a thing in Edmonton. I'm writing that down. That's going to be whenever a gold nugget snow.
Uzair Ahmed:It's going to be a hidden gulf. It's going to be the best place to live in 20 years from now.
Chris Lalomia:I'm banking on Edmonton to be in each front property in Edmonton. And, as I was talking about, alan and I both been there and I used to fly in there back in the late 90s, and that airport is so far away from Edmonton, so maybe not anymore, not anymore being close.
Uzair Ahmed:I love it See, we're moving there All right, let's go back to this.
Chris Lalomia:I think this is one. You actually said something that you learned in that book with your model that you were working. That's five days on, nine days on. It's really hard to spend money in those five days because you're up there working probably.
Uzair Ahmed:No, I saved so much money.
Chris Lalomia:So you were saving money? Were you saving the money with the idea that I'm going to start a biz with it?
Uzair Ahmed:No, I was saving that money to continue investing.
Chris Lalomia:Honestly, it was a lot of money.
Uzair Ahmed:I think I was like 22 years old, 23 years old, with over six figures saved, wow.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that's very easy to save money. You know you're an anomaly, you know you're not even the top 1%. That's top.0001%.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah. And then I was like well, if life is so easy, so you want to go make it harder for myself, let's go. I had a boy. I love that idea.
Alan Wyatt:No, that's my mantra.
Chris Lalomia:This is too easy. I gotta be harder, I gotta make it harder.
Uzair Ahmed:Let's throw it all away and start from scratch and start from zero. And now I'm looking back I'm like that was not a good idea man.
Chris Lalomia:So the first deal was called Instatech.
Uzair Ahmed:InstaMec yeah.
Chris Lalomia:InstaMec what is it?
Uzair Ahmed:InstaMec is a mobile mechanic business, so we started off trying to be the Uber Mechanics. We would have like a platform where mechanics would sign up on it. Customers would find a mechanic that would go straight to their house and fix their car on site. And then, as the process evolved, I realized you know, this is a service business, so it's not a tech business, so the service has to be really good. So I started hiring guys and doing all that. So I pretty much built an HVAC business without installs. Yeah, that's right. So that's all. So I'm a service only HVAC business and there's very few HVAC businesses that exist doing service only, if any. So you can only imagine my margins and how small, how tight I had to run my ship to make money. Right, yeah, that's a tough business man.
Uzair Ahmed:It was a tough business, right. So it's hilarious though, because it's like it's a tough business, but it ended up not being that bad. Like I looked at our numbers for the last few years, they're pretty good for a business which makes $100, $200 at a time using highly skilled labor Wow.
Chris Lalomia:So all right so you're still in that biz. You have that one. You didn't sell. It still runs, yeah.
Uzair Ahmed:I've stepped back from it. Now I just collect my paycheck. That's it. I don't do anything for it.
Chris Lalomia:Ah, there you go. Now we're scaling, now we're getting back to that six years, someday.
Uzair Ahmed:Now I'm working on other stuff which is more exciting for me.
Chris Lalomia:I love that. So let's talk about the. Well, one thing I have to talk about that's because in the handyman business, that's why I said I'm going to make my millions $80 at a time and literally that's what he's doing. You're making your millions $100 at a time in that service only business and HVAC with stuff. I hate that idea. Yeah, I hate it so much.
Uzair Ahmed:It doesn't make sense $80 at a time. I hate it so much. Yeah, it's so hard to make $80. It just kills me to even say that because I'm doing it. You can't spend any money on acquiring customers. Yeah, your margin is high, but your average job value is so low it has no. There's no like huge jobs that you can get Like with installation in HVAC. I can make so much money right off of the average Huge jobs that you can get Like with installation in HVAC. I can make so much money right off one or two jobs, Right, and it's a sales game and you're going to afford to invest in marketing. You're going to afford to invest in customers. It's like there's so much and then it's like a forever business, Right.
Alan Wyatt:But let me ask you this You're a smart guy. You started this business. What were you not seeing? Or what was? How did things unfold compared to the plan that you originally had?
Uzair Ahmed:Well, I realized a couple of things. Okay, so I thought it was very scalable, but then I realized mechanics that are willing to work outside and that are good as limited resource. It's a very limited resource. It's not like a mechanic at a shop, and even mechanics at shops are very limited resource. Right Now you add another factor to it. You're like you are. The other thing was extremely inefficient, so mechanics make money. On efficiency, you have 20 cars in the shop. You can go through 20 cars in a day. I can only do a couple of jobs a day because I got to drive between jobs, right. So the the small number you make per job doesn't make up for the inefficiency of the business. And you might get efficiency at scale, but that scale is hard to get because you know it's going to be limited by mechanics, right. And then, because you make such few dollars per job, you can't afford to spend that much in marketing and acquiring customers.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, low ticket business is hard, especially with the margins. While you say they're high, they're still tight. If you don't get them, you still yeah, because you got to keep them fully loaded on what they're doing and keep them rolling on a tight schedule. So you're right, running a mobile mechanic business or a handyman business, like I've got it, works at scale, which I've been able to do, but it is hard. I mean, it's a hard business and you don't, but I also have to remodeling kicker, so modeling is it.
Uzair Ahmed:You can scale, though Like you think about it. How many big mobile mechanics companies do you know of?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, I don't. Actually. When you said that, I think I know none.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, and how many.
Chris Lalomia:HVAC companies do you know of?
Uzair Ahmed:I can write every single name up like there's your answer right there, like that's the answer that you should be looking at. Like, yeah, sure that there's a huge group, but you can always get a little bit of that right. Like, why try to get water out of a? What's a?
Chris Lalomia:stone. No, I say I think it's a thing.
Uzair Ahmed:It's like the idea is this like why try to collect water from a little trickle stream, stream, stream that's trickling in versus is a huge lake or ocean over there and yeah, there's lots of people at that ocean, but there's still so much more water, right?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, no, that's. That's a great point. Yeah, so all right. So mobile mechanic business still rolling, but you're just collecting the check with that. So obviously you had an aha moment and said I'm going to go do something else. That's going to scale. Is this how you came up with the cottonwood automation?
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, so it was like a process to get there. But I knew a lot about HVAC because I have a lot of clients that are in HVAC from my mobile mechanic business. We service their vehicles and I developed a friendship with a lot of my clients and it's got to help with their business and understand and I was like, wait a minute, this is exactly what I'm doing, but your business is way better. Yeah, that's, true, and they're like yeah, I've seen you guys.
Alan Wyatt:Business envy.
Uzair Ahmed:I've seen you in front of my eye scale from 500 grand to 5 million in three years and I was like you're not that much smarter than me, so maybe I'm picking the wrong business.
Uzair Ahmed:And that's when I realized you know what I am picking the wrong business because as I started working more HVAC companies, I was like how do you guys make so much money? This is unfair. I'm seeing the process as everything's so broken and you guys are still printing and I was like, well, you know what I'm going to do. So I don't want to ever buy an HVAC business because I'm so burnt out of the hiring and firing technicians and maintenance staff and all that day to day operations. But I realized that I really enjoy the business side of things Building SOPs, building out systems, understanding how all different parts were together, building a lot of automations and strategy and all that fun stuff right. And I also found out that a lot of HVAC owners they find themselves on the day to day grind too much that they never have time to look long term or build work on the business and then, even if they do, they don't even know how to work on the business.
Chris Lalomia:Right, yeah, I mean you're in there fighting the fires every day, you know, hiring, firing, scheduling customers, you know. I mean, yeah, it's just yeah, you're like it's too busy to do it. So you had to iterate through this and started to figure out what the problem is. What was the first thing you solved with automation, or what was the first thing you were able to test out and give it a shot and see if it worked?
Uzair Ahmed:So it's not too. So I started off trying to do automations, but then I realized very early on that a lot of business processes were broken and inefficient, that I didn't actually do much for automation. I had to fix their business processes first and that's how I got more to consulting side of things and building out systems than the automation side of things. The automation is easy once you figure out like the system, the business machine itself, is proper.
Chris Lalomia:Got it.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, but if we're talking automations alone like some of the sexiest automations I think I built were automations with based on the weather, they run different ads on Google, so if it's really cold they run different ads, or if their schedule is completely full, they don't run ads. So you don't waste money on things you don't have to waste money on. The other thing, too, is I have an AI answering phone calls. We had 300 phone calls the other day and AI answered most of them, because only have two guys on the phones, right, and they couldn't handle all the calls, so AI was answering them, is doing a really good job as well, and I know people like, oh, ai answering phone calls. I don't like that, but a lot of my clients are now doing that for voicemail and after hours and it is very good.
Chris Lalomia:All right, let's start getting into that, because I don't know. Obviously everybody in the podcast is. They listen in. They know that Alan and I are a little seasoned, aka old. So for us old guys, man, they're throwing AI around like SEO was 10 years ago. You know, oh, ai, this, ai, that. But you just talked about one specific application, let's. I want to know more about that. So tell me how an AI answers the phone at night.
Uzair Ahmed:I just answered. Hey, this is thanks for calling. Blah blah blah. This is Tony speaking. How can I help you today? How can you do better today? Oh, I know my furnace isn't working. Oh, I'm sorry to hear about that. Can I just get started with some information before I go through that process? Ask you are you a member or not? Oh, no, you're not. No, I can help you out with that. Can I get your first name, the last name, what kind of issues are you having? Blah blah blah explain the issues in detail and like okay, I can send out a service. Out technician will cost you $150. You want to schedule it and this does a whole thing for you, and then it sends the information to you by Slack or whatever messenger tool you use. Or, if you use service timing, automatically book into service time and look at your schedule and do all that for you. And then boom when you get a recording of the call and it also does a pretty good job at like answering questions that just not programmed for either.
Chris Lalomia:All right. So I just heard about this.
Alan Wyatt:I mean is it kind of like it? You know, right now you have the fake person on the other end and press one to do this and press two to do that. Are you saying it's?
Uzair Ahmed:No, it's not like that.
Alan Wyatt:It's like you got to the point where it sounds like like some people may not know they're talking to a robot. That's actually the problem.
Uzair Ahmed:People don't know they're talking to robots, they talk over and they just like get confused. And I've had customers complete like that guy was an asshole and like why he's like. You told me that they can't help us because of this, this and this. And then I was like well, the ones with the robot like oh, I can't be mad.
Uzair Ahmed:You know, actually one customer was like you know, I'm a consultant and I know that a guy's going to take over people's jobs. So that guy better watch himself because he has to take his job. And I was like funny you say that because that wasn't a.
Alan Wyatt:We should do a podcast. I want to program you All right.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, so so all right, we got to get to this. You know that's. It's so funny that we talked about and you actually just brought up service Titan, because it was Tommy Mello who was just talking to my buddy saying you know, in two years nobody's going to be answering service calls, it's called going to be AI and he has a huge garage store business to and here in the area.
Uzair Ahmed:I was on his podcast earlier this year.
Chris Lalomia:Oh were you.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:I'll go back and listen to that one, so yeah. So when he said that, I said you know what? You're right, I can see that, because right now I want to shoot two of my call ladies who are answering the phone calls.
Alan Wyatt:And but I said but I just don't listen to this podcast, do they no, uh?
Chris Lalomia:oh, you don't know which two I'm going to shoot, so you better all keep. So now they're, now they're all an edge. What? What did he say? What is it All? Right, back to this AI. I love this stuff. So you were able to program this AI to listen, to do the prompts, answer the calls, all HVAC specific. Yeah, I did.
Uzair Ahmed:HVAC and my instant business.
Chris Lalomia:So, and then you're able to get this thing going and then it can feed it via Slack or, if you have service site, it feeds the text in there and you're saying, you're saying that it's, it's accurate, it doesn't mumble, mumble, mumble, doesn't miss anything. You get the phone numbers.
Uzair Ahmed:It's not perfect, but this is right now, miss. This is to replace voicemail and after hour calls Right. So you know it's not perfect.
Alan Wyatt:Sometimes it's way better than going to voicemail or way better than nobody answering the phone.
Uzair Ahmed:A million percent better Right.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah.
Uzair Ahmed:And it does a good enough job where it'll give you all the information you need. Like most people just call asking for information, it gives you all the information, pricing everything and based on the job, and it is everything for you. So it even like someone called to cancel a job last minute and it was like no, you're nine dollar cancellation fee. And then the guy was like bro, but it's not fair, I just booked it two seconds ago and blah, blah, and he's like you know what? I guess you're right, your logic makes sense. So I got away with the cancellation fee and I was like you just out logic, my robot.
Alan Wyatt:That's awesome, because I was just thinking when he was talking about it. It's like the nice thing about AI versus an employee is they're not going to forget to say certain things that you want them to say, and then they're also going to have the guts to throw the rate out or whatever that maybe some of your employees wouldn't.
Uzair Ahmed:Well, now I'm finding out that the robot buckled. Hey, don't forget the last part. I don't know if you guys deal with this, but you know, after your call center staff gets old relatively fast, dealing with shitty customers all the time getting worn down, like you, develop a certain sort of like edginess to you in a way that we're looking for. You're not happy. You know, you have become like. You become more of a Karen over time. Right, you just hate these people. You lose your patience.
Chris Lalomia:AI can handle that's. That's the topic right there. Ai can handle your Karen.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, it's, it's going to log in.
Alan Wyatt:Who needs Karen? I've got AI.
Uzair Ahmed:Exactly. It can out logic your Karen. She's like I will speak to the manager. Well, I am the manager and they'll never get upset.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, that's good, I love that.
Uzair Ahmed:That a rule. This is the rules of business. It is what it is Like. I don't care and you don't wear down your staff, your human staff, that has to deal with these people.
Chris Lalomia:Wow, all right. So this is, this is your, your proprietary automation.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, it's something that I'm building on. Something that I am building on it's not proprietary, because we're using we just all. Ai is just using different plugins that already exist.
Chris Lalomia:Okay, All right, so you're using different plugins, but to come up with this and so when you call I actually heard this on, believe it or not, CBS Sunday morning they were talking about doing ticket reservations with AI and they had the guy calling on a speakerphone and and the AI was actually going um, okay, hang on a second, Let me look at that. Can I get some more information?
Uzair Ahmed:And they're putting the um. I might add that the thumbs and awesome make it more realistic. Yeah, I mean, I don't like it?
Alan Wyatt:I don't like it at all. I fear change.
Chris Lalomia:Well, if you're listening to this podcast, what you don't know is that we've actually programmed this whole thing and Alan is AI. He doesn't know it yet, but he's actually not even here. He's in an alternate universe. Take me to your leader Right. This is where because again, they're talking about it. So I use chatGBT, the free one, just to come up with social media taglines or to give me ideas about stuff.
Uzair Ahmed:Don't use a free one, don't insult chat you pay for. The paid one. Chat GPT for is infinitely better. I can't even use a free one, it's so bad.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, all right, Done, all right. Look at that. He just, he just or or just make Sam a lot more money.
Uzair Ahmed:Which one? Or cloud dot a I, c L a U D E dot a I? It's free, but I find there's a better job at writing than chat. Gpt does it sounds less AI, ai.
Chris Lalomia:Right, yeah, no, I actually, I've tried a couple of them.
Chris Lalomia:And yeah, and I have to say, yeah, you're like you get some ideas and you just come kicking around, you know, just like give me a snazzy or tagline for. But I was showing my handyman, right, we have training every other Wednesday and I was just telling him I'm like, hey, look, you know, this is, this is what AI is. And so one of them says, can you ask him how we can become millionaires? I said, all right, let's, let's look how do you become rich. And and you know what it says comes back and says spend more than you make. And I was like, guys, at the end of the day, see it's, it's actually blocking and tackling, it's saving money, it's showing up, it's being disciplined, it's doing great at your job today.
Uzair Ahmed:I don't like that. I want to get rich quick. I want to give us tomorrow. Okay Right.
Chris Lalomia:Tell me what crypto to buy Right.
Alan Wyatt:That's what I want yeah, Vegas with Chris right.
Chris Lalomia:But all the money on the line up until 1115 on Sunday night. Put all your money with Chris he was doing really good until 1115. And what time did you go to bed? 1145. In a storm, in fact. I was out with a bunch of guys from other cities too and I was at the table and I lost it all right there, right then, and I didn't even say I had seen these guys in a year and I just I picked, I said at this boom and I just stormed off and didn't say goodbye, wow, I could have AI that.
Chris Lalomia:See, there you go. I should have been nicer, like AI, all right. So this is fascinating about how AI, because when I was talking with my buddy and I listened to Tommy occasionally as well and I talked to him over the past but when I heard that I was like, yeah, the more I think about it. Man, I think you're right, I just think call centers are going to be the way at the back. You're going to have one or two people have to take maybe those escalation calls in the beginning, but I could see this really becoming a thing.
Uzair Ahmed:I've got clients that are using my AI instead of a call center, that canceling the call center contract using AI instead, it's already happening. So and this stuff moves so fast.
Chris Lalomia:So are you working with just HVAC companies? Are you working with? I mean, who else are you working with?
Uzair Ahmed:I just HVAC.
Chris Lalomia:I'm just doubling.
Uzair Ahmed:I track yeah.
Chris Lalomia:So if I came to you today, I have a handyman company Would you help me?
Uzair Ahmed:I would help you as a friend.
Chris Lalomia:Okay.
Uzair Ahmed:I'm not going to charge you for that. I'm not going to be that involved in it.
Alan Wyatt:Just for the listener Chris gave him puppy dog eyes. I did too, yeah.
Chris Lalomia:So if you're watching on YouTube, it was like, please, please, help me. No, I like that. We've heard that the niches bring the riches. Doubling down on HVAC makes total sense. Staying right in that lane, I mean, that's where the money is too, and especially here in the US. I mean, they're everywhere, especially come down Southman. Everybody we were talking about that. If your air conditioner is out and you're in Texas or you're in Florida, or if you're in Georgia, where we are, and it's 90 in the summer, that's an emergency call, bro.
Chris Lalomia:That's not how I can just wait. That's an emergency call. You know, when they say, oh, can you come fix some wood rod around my house, or maybe come fix my deck, that's not an emergency call. So that's why we're a lot different than HVAC, because our stuff is just like that juicy fruit when you're checking out of the aisle at the grocery store you know it's. Oh, it looks good, I'll grab it, but if you don't have your HVAC running, man, you're dead. So that's where, yeah, those guys do really well, I know that's awesome.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, I used to be more like helping any home service company, but now I'm like you know what. I'm only going to focus on HVAC and plumbing these guys make. You can make small changes and just like one or two installs per month increased, you can increase, install that one or two. You may let them 30, 40k more, Like something you made your money back 10 fold right Versus with, like other businesses, where you make a lot of money, you make small amounts of money at a time. You have to do a lot more to make the same amount of money as a couple of installs.
Alan Wyatt:I see your wheels turning. You're thinking about getting in the HVAC business, aren't you, Chris? I wouldn't believe you. Anyone else is thought of it.
Chris Lalomia:No lie, Three years ago 2019, right before COVID, I was in talks to buy a HVAC company. That didn't work out and then COVID hit and we just stopped it. Yeah, I know because I've got a pretty good brand here in Atlanta called the Trusted Toolbox. I mean, we're the biggest handyman company in the metro area, which is good, so I could build on that. And I thought and I HVAC and plumbing, so now maybe it's actually an HVAC company comes and buys me and we're the handyman component. I don't know, but we got to see who's going to gobble who here on this one. But if I can go AI, maybe I can AI gobble.
Uzair Ahmed:No, I love.
Chris Lalomia:HVAC businesses, but so does everybody else, and that's for the charges.
Uzair Ahmed:It's a premium though, right, so it. Actually. If you have a handyman business already, you have a wealth of clients, right? Oh yeah, you start your own HVAC company and use it and do that. I can give you the playbook.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, All right man.
Alan Wyatt:Look at the look on his face.
Chris Lalomia:I know.
Uzair Ahmed:You run with it. We'll build your HVAC division. We'll market to everyone that already uses you. It's going to be easier to acquire customers.
Chris Lalomia:You can be huge and I can do it all with an AI call center. I know.
Alan Wyatt:You don't have to add any more customers to Karen's.
Uzair Ahmed:I actually have someone that I'm helping out with this who's got a brand for an HVAC company and everything, and we're doing everything. Ai is a testing ground for him AI call center, ai chat, ai booking no humans involved. Holy crap.
Chris Lalomia:This is booking a job. Oh, that's scalable. Take me out of the handyman business. Take me out. Take me out now. That's awesome. That was cute. Who casted?
Uzair Ahmed:this. Let me in these guys sound like you're fun, we are fun, all right.
Chris Lalomia:So AI is you're working with. How many clients are you working with now and how big is your team?
Uzair Ahmed:I have a business partner on board that is a lot of the operation stuff, so his background is that. So apparently everyone in Harvard Business School is going to HVAC too. So, that's what I'm seeing as well. So he did all that. He had his own business, went to HBS and a lot of people at HBS are now trying to go into HVAC businesses.
Chris Lalomia:Oh my God, really.
Alan Wyatt:It's just like anything and they'll eventually kill the industry because there'll be too many people in it.
Uzair Ahmed:Well before, it was like going to Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, right, right, yeah, that was a play. I go to your I bank going to HVAC.
Chris Lalomia:We've actually had somebody on the podcast who did the big MBA, was in I banking and eventually now does nothing but marketing for painters. So maybe we're into something. Maybe home services is the hot space to be, and especially with AI. So you only got you and a business partner and then a bunch of AI bots running around for.
Uzair Ahmed:Effectively, yeah, effectively. So we work on. We work with five clients at a time. So right now we're almost at capacity. We have one more client, we have one more spot left, but that's the majority. We can only do five at a time. Right. Then we have a waiting list. But I'm looking to expand the team now because we're at that point where it's like you know what? We have the playbook. So it's because I only focus on HVAC businesses. It's the same playbook for every business.
Alan Wyatt:How long does it take them to make that transition once they employ you?
Uzair Ahmed:It will take to see any meaningful change about six to eight months.
Chris Lalomia:That's a great question now, and so yeah, I know we keep scoring who asked the best question, but that was a good one, because that was. That's a big part. So somebody says you know, look, I'm in the HVAC business already, I've got a good HVAC system. But if they work with you, it's going to take six to eight months to convert over into the AI and you talk to them. It's not just AI.
Uzair Ahmed:So AI is a very small part of what I do, right. Okay, let's talk. What do you do? So normally when I come to a business, I figure out okay, what data do we have here? Most people don't have any data available, right, where are the missed opportunities here?
Uzair Ahmed:Like, I look to consider a business as a bucket and then your water is the leaves you put on top of the bucket, right, and then I see where all the holes are, so where the leakages are coming out, and then I try to plug. I try to find that out, and that was different for every business. Like some businesses, I'll go in and there's no retention work whatsoever. No one emails or previous customers ever. That's the first thing I want to do. Right, get all the quick wins like that. So it's.
Uzair Ahmed:It's a very holistic approach where we look at marketing, operations, sales, finance. Some guys don't even know how much money they have in the bank, how much money they're going to have in the next six months, right, so it depends on their business, but we have different playbooks for each part of it. So when I say six to eight months, that's not a scene ROI. The ROI can be seen after the first month, but it's to see real, meaningful, lasting change. Because we like to work on one thing at a time. That's the one thing about business. So when I work with my clients, we only work on one thing at a time, we don't change everything at once.
Chris Lalomia:I like it. So, really, when you talk about cottonwood automation, it's more like HVAC process re-engineering, HVAC igniter or HVAC chat GBG.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, that sucker for me More of a digital operations agency than anything else.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, so for everybody who's listening to the podcast and all the continents around the world and they're not in HVAC, but they're listening to you and they're engaged in this like this is really interesting Talk to them about. You know. Why is it that you only approach one thing at a time, make one fix at a time? I mean, I think that's something that can translate to any business.
Uzair Ahmed:Well, the thing is, focus is so important right.
Uzair Ahmed:When you want to see meaningful change in the business, it's compounding small, different changes every day. When you see a company that's grown over 3,000% or 400% or whatever those crazy numbers are, that was like 1% better each day, kind of thing. Right, they changed one thing about their business, but they didn't just change it and moved on. They changed it and they reflected back was this the best way of doing this change and seeing the results? And continuously moving and working on that one metric of that business until that was like good enough to what they wanted to be right. And then they move on to the next one.
Uzair Ahmed:Because, if you think about it, most of us we set goals by saying I want to double my business next year Meaningless goal, what does that look like? You brought your bottoms up approach. You're like, hey, if I want to double my business next year, how many leads do I need? What's my conversion rate going to be? And then, how much was my average job value going to be? How much I'm going to charge for this? What's my repeat customer rate going to be?
Uzair Ahmed:So you're going to find like three or four key metrics and then you're going to figure out all the projects which are going to improve those metrics and then you build out okay, based on these metrics, I need to improve. Here's all the projects that I can do Now. I got to prioritize which ones are going to have the most impact and the least cost and ones that most confident about, and then I got to execute on those projects to the best of my ability and make sure they're done properly so they actually make a difference to my KPI that I'm trying to track. That takes time.
Chris Lalomia:That does. Yeah, that's the right way to approach it. I mean, that's what I try to do in my business as well, and it sounds simple and just like everything. Right, you want to be a millionaire? It's simple, right. Spend less than you make. Go out and make more money. And this is simple too. Prioritize where you want to go. If you double your business as your goal, you're like, oh, he said, don't double your business. Now, that's not what he said. He said if that's your goal, get underneath it, because it's the process that's going to get you there, not just hoping and wishing that advertising is going to hit and your current processes are going to help you double, because it's just not going to happen. You've got to work through it. So which one is the first thing you start working on? And that's the hard one for me. I'm actually getting ready to go do that with my team, and so our one this year is going to be changing out our software to help us grow.
Uzair Ahmed:Honestly, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy, Right? People that give you different things right.
Chris Lalomia:Really different, right? Simple isn't easy. Yeah, actually, simple is never easy, because if you have a simple business, that's hard to do.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:And I've made a really complicated business and that's really easy to do.
Alan Wyatt:That's easy to do, very easy to do. Very complicated business, and you've even made it more complicated. I try to do it every day.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, make my team even harder.
Uzair Ahmed:Does it require much thought? Just go in this big oh it works, but it's a very complicated machine. So let me talk to you about that. You want to change your software. What do you got using right now?
Chris Lalomia:So we're using a software system called Bonnego, which came out of the 1-800 Got Junk, so it's a web-based software.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, the first ones yeah.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, so I went with them seven years ago and they haven't grown with us. So we're evaluating and you brought up Service Titan. I tried to get on a call with Service Titan and they told me I was too small and I was like I didn't realize 35 employees was too small. But okay, so I'm going to try again.
Uzair Ahmed:They didn't say that to you. 35 employees.
Chris Lalomia:No, I put something wrong in on the website when.
Chris Lalomia:I said show me the demo. So I get it. We're literally just starting. In fact, my meeting with my people are going to be all about all right. This is our process today, because we've got a pretty well-documented process. I've got an operations manual, I've got KPIs. We know what we're doing on this stuff. But if the sky was the limit? You know all these ideas. What would you do different in sales? What would you different call and answer in the phones? What would you do as different as a technician if we had a different piece of software that would enable all this cool stuff? And so that's what I'm going to start with, so I can come up with my wish list and then we'll start looking at software later this year. So what was? What would your recommendation be?
Uzair Ahmed:I have to investigate your business and find out what your pain points are. Right answer, baby.
Chris Lalomia:That's what I wanted to hear, because one size doesn't fit all. But you had brought up Service Titan and that's one that probably will go on the list. Like I said, I was just going to get a preliminary. Let's go look at it. I got a buddy here in Atlanta who has runs it, so I've been up to see it once. But yeah, we're going to. We're going to get the. I want to get my business requirements down from my people and have them break it down, so we're going to go off site for four hours and take in my key. Do you know what?
Uzair Ahmed:Do not turn down the idea of using something like retool or one of these no code, low code tools and do it yourself.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, boy, I don't even know what that meant. I think you just broke, chris Retool.
Uzair Ahmed:Well, don't type in, retool Just the idea of using a low code, no code tool and rebuilding everything yourself exactly for your business, because all these apps service, titan, fuel service all these tools are just a bunch of databases that connect together with the front end. Right, you can get yourself and just have it exactly how you want it and some integration, and then you have to pay upfront a lot more money, but the long run it might be cheaper.
Chris Lalomia:I love that idea. I mean, that's that's the hard part, because you got to weigh the how much is it? Upfront? And the reason I went with Vonigo originally was it was low cost to implement and at the time, seven years ago, it wasn't like I had, you know, hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands sitting around to do it.
Alan Wyatt:So but at this point if you left the blackjack table just 30 minutes before you to have Alan, you have no idea about it.
Uzair Ahmed:You know what we're going to talk about. What is? Because I got a lot of what is myself.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, so no, I love that that's. I think that's right, and the right answer is what software you're going to lead with? No, no, no, no, no. Back up. What are your business processes? And then and you brought up something that actually I've had brought up to me before is that if you have a good set of requirements, you probably will be able to get this relatively inexpensively today, which, you know, back when I first started, would have been a 50 to $100,000 engagement. It could be a lot less because of the lack of, or the the easy ease of building the tools against. They say I don't know, I didn't know.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah, the local, local stuff you can build it yourself. And it's not like back in the day because I built my own fuel service management tool right, so you'd have a developer and he's a lot of coding and stuff. This one you don't need that much encoding, it's like just a bunch of Excel spreadsheets. You know, with the front end you can build a full field service management will have some integration set up with Twilio or anything. You got SMS, you got email set up, you can get this whole thing set up. And then it's just that like this thing about okay, 35 people, how much do you think you're going to pay per person? $100 per person per month on average.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that's about. Yeah. Right now I'm paying a little less than that, but that's yeah. That's where I thought I was going to be at 3500 bucks a month Right Now.
Uzair Ahmed:Add that by five years, times that by five years.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that boy, yeah, it's a lot of money.
Uzair Ahmed:It's a full salary per year.
Chris Lalomia:Yep, you're right, right.
Uzair Ahmed:And then you're at then multiply that by forever effectively. And now you're also stuck with that software with a no code solution. I actually stuck with that. You can always transfer to the other guys later on because you have all the information readily available to you, because you're just using nothing but databases, right? Yeah, no, you're right.
Chris Lalomia:I mean it's a great point is that you could do it and then logically put it together and the data is.
Uzair Ahmed:it's pretty simple, especially in home services, right, and you're going to be paying for the no code solution between a box a month, unlimited users.
Chris Lalomia:Huh, I'm interested. I'm gonna go investigate this out, but not right now.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, cuz you're a, you're an engineer, chris.
Chris Lalomia:Did I.
Alan Wyatt:Mean this should be easy for you. Yeah, I mean, I'm just everything's easy, dumb sales guy. I wouldn't be you guys are making fire and I'm afraid. But yeah, engineer, like you, anybody's a commercial real estate.
Chris Lalomia:Alan, it takes. It takes a real, real, smart guy to be an engineer. Hey, man, before we let you go, we can ask our favorite four questions a minute, but if there any, is there anything we haven't touched on? You wanted to get across to everybody, oh.
Uzair Ahmed:No, you guys touch on everything.
Alan Wyatt:I love it. I love it. Well, let me ask one quick question. Your clients all over the world, anywhere, all over the world, yeah. Your process is work America okay.
Uzair Ahmed:But I got you know, I'm not. I'm not fluent in any other languages, so North American or English speaking country to be ideal.
Chris Lalomia:All right, how does everybody get a hold of you? We'll put it on the show notes.
Uzair Ahmed:Conwood automation comm and you're gonna just click let's connect, or you can just email me directly use that air was there at conwood Automation comm.
Chris Lalomia:Awesome. I like the way he thinks I do. Yeah, man, he definitely. I mean especially in the home services world. I don't know how much time who's are you have spent with other guys in the field or doing this stuff. Or you know guys with calluses. They just don't think like that. Right, I mean, it's my entire career, it's calluses, it's it's sticky notes If they're lucky shoot maybe a hand with a nail gun. Well, that's called a hand clamp.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:I said that before. That's, that's these marks right here. So they just don't think like that. They don't think about you know that. And then when they start thinking about it, they meet, they immediately shut down. It just becomes something you're like now.
Uzair Ahmed:No, let me get back to it. You can do something that's way harder, like I can't fix them car or fix my age back. You know, do all this if I find that to be more impressive at least me personally because a Robot can do all the stuff that I can do. The AI can do everything under the sun, but it is not gonna fix your age back. Unit.
Chris Lalomia:I have said that the minute I can get a robot handyman, my guys are gone. I actually said that journey.
Uzair Ahmed:I said guys, but that's gonna be so much harder, that's gonna be so much harder to do. Oh, it is well actually.
Chris Lalomia:And so one of the guys came back and showed me goes, look at this, it was a robot doing drywall at a commercial building. You just do and finish drywall, oh my god. I know I'm like oh, oh, we are a joke. No, ai is not coming for you yet, it's coming after your call center people. Alright, I just don't know what's to.
Uzair Ahmed:I think the safest job is dentist. Have you seen the robot dentist?
Alan Wyatt:Oh no, I wouldn't go to a robot, no way, no well, they have like these drills that come up to you, like this it's the scariest thing ever, so I feel like dentists are gonna be very safe.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, I think that one's safe there's.
Uzair Ahmed:Robot colonize. Gonna be the first person to cook.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, don't like that. Oh, man, this has been awesome. If you didn't learn something today, man, that's on you, because this stuff is coming. You better get in front of it, if you. This is the first time you've heard of this stuff AI and automation and process you know what? Get in front of it, understand your processes, but but it was there hit right on it. You got to understand your processes first before you're gonna start automating. Just don't go out there and run around on it. So let's go.
Uzair Ahmed:I want to consider how much cheaper and how much more money they're gonna make if they have AI handling all their back-end processes. Because one thing that I was thinking about was I spent so much money on call center staff, but now I have one guy or two guys who are in Columbia, by the way, so I'm only paying them two grand a month to handle 300 calls a day Because of AI. Now, that is a number you spend like a hundred, three hundred, like you be spending like twenty thousand a month to handle that much. Right, yeah, but the cost is 110 and what is all that money go? They just go straight to me. So that's a lot of think about this way. If you're me, if you're spending like four or five grand a month on All center staff, you don't have to. That's a Lamborghini payment.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah let's go, and I tell you it is so good that he doesn't do home services that you do, because he could charge you whatever I know and you would buy it, I know you would buy it, I would.
Chris Lalomia:He's good, he is good, I like him. Oh, all right, come here. All right, you brought up actually your favorite.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, you're always that one.
Chris Lalomia:So we love your favorite book, millionaire fast lane. We're gonna make sure we pump that out to everybody so they can get a read on that. So let's talk about the next one. What's the favorite feature of your home?
Uzair Ahmed:My loft right now right.
Chris Lalomia:Okay, I like it. Why is that?
Uzair Ahmed:It just feels very cozy. I love my house. I just bought my house, my first house.
Chris Lalomia:I really can grads All right, especially in Canada. Dude man, those prices. Every time I watch that, love it or listen. It's not a Canada or a gtb. You're like you throw out those prices like what Do where are?
Uzair Ahmed:these. I think the price is very expensive in Atlanta. Yeah, but it's right by the river. I'm like right on the river and it's just. I love this house. I love it so much.
Chris Lalomia:Awesome man, I love that loft and you got his first house. We're eating that up, all right. One of the things we like to talk about is that we are customer service freaks and we love customer service. What is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer?
Uzair Ahmed:When they act like you're doing, they're doing you a favor when you pick, when you call them, like I hate that so much when they just had that attitude on their phone, like they're doing me a favor by answering the phone.
Alan Wyatt:And you can. Can you actually make your AI sound like that kind of snotty that we're even funny, right?
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, right, if it now, once the AI picks up the tone and goes oh, you are, so, karen, I'm gonna Karen you right back.
Uzair Ahmed:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, is that what you want, are you sure? Um, let me check. Oh, I'm sorry he's out today.
Uzair Ahmed:I. Also hate when people don't follow up.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that's a big one.
Uzair Ahmed:This is me off. I'm like listen. I'm like I like I got a bunch of quotes for H heat pumps and these guys don't follow up. I'm like if you guys I just follow, I probably would have bought it.
Chris Lalomia:Yep, yeah, make it easy, man. People want the easy transaction. You may be more expensive, but there a lot of people just want to push that easy button. I got other stuff to work on. You get in front of me and I'll buy from you. But if you don't want to get in front of me, I'll go find somebody else and I'll buy from them.
Uzair Ahmed:I'm like don't make me work, man, but if you just follow it up, you would get what you want from me. But I'm just like these guys are just think there's so much opportunity, h back. That's why I don't want to do anything else, because I'm like listen, I Try to get a new heat pump installed and I got a bunch of quotes. These guys spent time with you but they didn't actually follow up.
Chris Lalomia:That's killer man. Oh, I know that's no owner. Just can you hear it over and over again? Oh, over and over again. Yeah, I just got an email today, and I was because we just had our sales meeting this morning and I popped in. I'm like, alright, guys, this is our slow season. Man, hit the hit the phones, hit the emails. Get them, go, go, go, go, get back on them. I know on the follow-up calls. And then I get an email I haven't heard from him. I'm like, oh, was a boy.
Alan Wyatt:So yeah, he got a shot by the way, I just took him out of the kneecap though I didn't take him.
Uzair Ahmed:He's not dead he's just this is where it is where automation helps a lot, right? You don't rely on human beings, just it. All my kids care of itself.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, let's go robots.
Chris Lalomia:All right, go robots. All right. So you're brand new in your house. So we would ask what is a DIY nightmare story? But do you have one fresh off the have you? Have you hung a mirror? Have you popped a pipe? Have?
Uzair Ahmed:you know, I don't want to have that for you. Okay, like that's a question I don't want to have an answer for, I do not want to answer for it. Okay, I'm very happy right now. Where's my bubble, guys?
Chris Lalomia:No, all right, You're gonna say, you know what, I can hang that mirror myself. And then most you're like, look, everything's working. And then you go downstairs You're like, how come every time she flushes the toilet there's a water spot here by dining room? How about that mirror you just hung, buddy, oh.
Uzair Ahmed:I have those like clip on things. Oh, there you go. Command scripts, command.
Chris Lalomia:That's the way to go. Yeah, I've been a blast. I have enjoyed this. Hopefully you have as well. Guys, keep going up that mountaintop, go out there, give us a follow, tell your friends about us. We love getting out there telling everybody about this. We're starting to pick up some steam and getting a lot more emails. I'm actually getting a lot more follows on the podcast. And there we go big deal. Now we're kind of a big deal, let's do this, we're out here we're gonna go big money, appreciate it.