From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Family Ties- HVAC Marketing, Sales, and More with Tucker Yarbrough
Have you ever wondered how some family businesses not only survive but thrive across generations? In this captivating conversation, Tucker Yarbrough reveals the remarkable journey of Yarbrough & Sons, a home service company that's grown from a $4.5 million business to pacing at $13 million by staying true to their roots while embracing innovation.
Tucker opens up about being a "trade baby" – growing up in the business his parents founded in 1988, stepping away as his parents encouraged, and then finding his way back alongside his brothers. What makes this story particularly compelling is how three brothers with different strengths have created clearly defined roles that leverage their individual talents. Will's systems-orientation, Colby's sales expertise, and Tucker's financial and marketing acumen combine to create a leadership team that's greater than the sum of its parts.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Tucker challenges conventional wisdom about branding in the home service industry. Rather than chasing trendy designs or constantly rebranding, Yarbrough & Sons embraced their traditional red and blue "sun and snowflake" logo as part of their legacy identity. This consistency has paid dividends, with their brand becoming so established that competitors now appear derivative of them, not the other way around.
Perhaps most revolutionary is their approach to marketing and pricing transparency. Tucker shares why they've moved away from pay-per-click advertising after discovering their branded leads convert at 3.5 to 4 times higher value. He also details their groundbreaking GetQuote tool, which provides instant online estimates to potential customers – a direct challenge to the industry's standard "call for pricing" model that frustrates so many consumers.
Whether you're running a family business, working in the trades, or simply interested in authentic branding strategies, this episode offers invaluable insights on creating lasting success through transparency, consistent values, and strong leadership. Ready to rethink how you approach your business and brand? Listen now and discover why caring about your brand more than anyone else creates unstoppable growth.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
Oh, what's up? Lemonheads, Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am Crystal, again riding solo here in our lemonade stand. I cannot wait to talk to you guys today about trade babies that's what I call us, and you can see very few of us that are actually in that club, but we know what it's like growing up working with family, loving the industry for the passion that it brings, the culture that it allows us and, honestly, how, thanks to great customers in our local markets, we're able to feed and clothe and love on our families and have a great career in our little areas where a lot of times we grew up in. So I hope you grab your glass of lemonade, sit down so that we can talk all about family business branding and the sales process. Let's sip some lemonade. Hey, sounds great.
Speaker 2:I love the Lemonheads.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, what's up? Lemonheads, that's our jam here. So we have on our podcast today Tucker Yarbrough, which I have been fangirling. You guys so good marketing notices, good marketing all the time. So, and you and I really met several times at some events or service nation Alliance, which if anybody's a long time listener from the yellow chair, they know huge fan of service nation Alliance and there's some other best practice groups that really do some great things. But really got to see Tucker and I feel like I knew Tucker before. Tucker was cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're on the come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, meaning like I watched you guys like start figuring it out, like we were in the same boat, like Trey and I, so my brother and I and you and your brothers right Y'all were everybody was just trying to figure this thing out. And I think you have a lot more of my personality where you love to talk it, you love to love on people. I think we all come from Christian values and morals and so we really just kind of connected over that and just would kind of stay in touch a little bit here and there. But watching you guys build, uh, yalbro and Sons there in Oklahoma has been so fun for me to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're, you know, trying to follow in the footsteps of uh of giants. You know it's uh, we had a. We had a great foundation laid from from our parents and your dad. He's still in the business full time and so he's he's starting to take some days off, but, uh, you know, he's still running around up here having fun with us. But I mean, yeah, I think it was probably what five, six years ago that we really kind of met and connected. So I was an overgrown 23-year-old trying to figure it out and didn't think anything was a bad idea. And seeing you guys at McWilliams do what y'all did, that was a huge. I mean, it was a green light.
Speaker 2:You don't need permission to do things in marketing and branding, but it's nice when you see people of kindred spirit and kindred values doing similar stuff to you, you know, it kind of gives you that marker of hey, okay, I think I'm on the right path here.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, well, thank you so much. It's very kind. I just I recognize that you guys. Just there was just something special about you guys, so whether it was Jesus or just good content or the combination of both, I recognized it. So, tucker, I know that. I mean, I think a lot of people should know you if they don't. So tell us a little bit, just like about who you are and kind of the makeup of your business. I think that's important to our story today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. First and foremost, you've hit the nail on the head. I'm a Christ follower. Foremost, you've hit the nail on the head. I'm a Christ follower and you know. That is the core of who I am. The onus of, kind of everything that I do is through that lens. You know my family, you know all of us. We are believers and you know not that we're a Christian quote, unquote company. However, if you work here, work alongside us and work in proximity with us long enough, you're going to hear about Jesus in one way, shape or another, and so that's kind of where I want to start from. But beyond that, you know. So, growing up in the trades, like you said, we're in an elite group of people trade babies, and so growing up you know mom and dad.
Speaker 2:They started the business in 1988 and you know grew and rocked along and grew to a shop of oh gosh, I think probably 10, 12 people in 1999. And that's when, like the service experts, roll up was happening. And you know, dad, he was more on the commercial side of the HVAC world and he had a couple of contracts that went long on him. And so at that time mom and dad decided, ok, well, I think we should try it, we should sell, go work for service experts. And Yarbrough's continued to operate because I think dad was leasing out ice machines to a local grocery store, to local gas stations we still claim 88 as our founding, and after two years of working in the service experts world, dad decided you know what?
Speaker 2:I don't think I'm such a bad manager after all. And so my oldest brother for perspective, Will Will, was born in 1990. Colby, middle brother, was born in 92. And then I was born in 96.
Speaker 1:And so we grew up in the business and for anybody listening to that like I'm sorry that these people were born in the 90s.
Speaker 2:As much weight as it puts on the folks who are older than that. You know it's the same feeling. You walk into a room who are older than that, you know it's the same feeling. You walk into a room, you know I remember walking into the we're kind of going off track here but walking into a one of the first Service Nation events that I went to, and you know, a lot of times I was riding solo because Will and Colby were in the sales seat and trying to, you know, get that off the ground and help grow the business. So a lot of times I was, I was riding to these Service Nation events solo and so walking into a room full of seasoned contractors that are, all you know, 45 plus as a 23 year old, and you're telling them you got all these bright ideas you know it's an intimidating room to walk into.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, I know, trey lived that life too, like we've never done it that way or we've all tried that and it didn't work. So for sure, for sure. Sorry to take us off track, no worries.
Speaker 2:So and then in 01, they decided you know what, we're not such a bad manager after all. And dad told the I think, told my mom the consummate lie that I think all trades professionals tell, which is don't worry, honey, this time we'll stay small, we'll only take care of the people that I can take care of, and we'll rock from there. And you know, and you know this as well as all of the listeners know this If you take care of people really well meaning your team and your customers, work finds you, word gets out and money will follow that kind of culture. And so they grew from starting over pretty much zero in 01 to about 2015, 2016,. Stuck at the five to four and a half million dollar mark. And all the while, mom and dad told me, will and Colby I think it was the great reverse psychology trick of the century which was hey, go do something else, there's got to be an easier way to make a living.
Speaker 2:The HVAC and plumbing world, the trade space, is hard work. There's got to be an easier way to make a living. And, ultimately, we want you to do what God calls you to do. So the standard, the goal, you know, wasn't hey, come back and work for the Heat and Air Shop. It was hey, go, do what God wants to do and be a productive member of society. That was kind of the floor, and so by 2018, me, will and Colby had all found our way back to the old Heat and Air Shop. We joined the Service Nation Alliance in 2018 and then really started to grow from there, and over the last six, seven years, we've gone from a four and a half million dollar company to this year we're closing on. We're probably pacing for about 13 million and so trying to grow and, like I said, following the footsteps of some giants.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Well, listen, I love this story because you know what it reminds me of is being steeped in history, like when you understand where you came from and what you've been through, and just a little nod to our other contractors that may be listening that you know, honestly, everybody goes through like trials and tribulations. We all try things that don't work. We have to pivot. We get like imposter syndrome, like I can't be a manager of this, like who? Why was I thinking that? To just like your dad had that come back around moment, to wait a minute, I'm not such a bad leader after all. And so just reminding everybody that most journeys are not full of straight and narrow. They're definitely full of turns and bumps and things.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things I tell dad is he's just, he's just a, he's just a 40 year overnight success. I mean, that's all it is. 40 year overnight success, that's all it took.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, like you know, I am so guilty of this. You know, social media becomes people's highlight reels and so they're on their like best month ever and I'm like, okay, and I look at maybe a client or somebody who's really doing great things and they're growing very intentionally, but it's not these skyrocketed numbers and they get discouraged and I'm like, man, you don't know, you don't know you think overnight they built these companies and a lot of people do build them quickly, but it's not without risk or without money or investors, or there's always a story there, Right? So kudos to those that are just steadfast and strong, like running the race very intentionally, honestly, very virtuously, and just doing good things. So I love to hear that story.
Speaker 1:So I know that, speaking, you know this whole family, you know bond that you guys have. So it was my dad, my grandpa, then my dad, then my brother, and then my brother and I and now my sister owns a pest control company. So we all live in this home service industry life. So I know your brothers kind of hold some different roles. So like, who sits at what seat at the table?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that is, we are now at the size of company where an org chart is becoming very necessitated, not because we've got overlapping or competing egos or anything like that. Me, will and Colby some perspective. And I hate giving this answer to folks at the trade shows and stuff, because a lot of times so I've spoken at breakout sessions, I've done stuff at Service Nation, things like that. I do some coaching as well, and one of the questions that I get, because we're a family business, is you kind of get pigeonholed. I'm sure you get similar, similar feeling which is like you kind of get that pigeonhole of like, okay, how do you make a family business work? And you know and my answer a lot of times isn't super helpful it's, you know, it's parent.
Speaker 2:Well, it's, you know, this dynamic that me, will and Colby have didn't start when we all joined the business. This dynamic started when we were, you know, six years old and 12 years old. And you know and I tell this story all the time but one of my favorite stories is it's just burning my memories we were driving home from the office one day and I was probably six, which would have made, you know, colby probably around nine, and then Will would have been 12-ish and me and Colby. Me and Colby are similar personalities, except we're on opposite ends of the spectrum. So we always have a similar ends but it's always different means. And so Colby and I would argue, we'd bicker a lot as kids. And there was one time mom was, I guess she'd had her fill for the day, and she was driving us all home and she slammed on the brakes. We were bickering and all of us threw forward and she snapped her head around and she said hey, I don't care if you like each other, but you will love each other. Um, and that's kind of like the baseline of like me, will and Colby. Like that's a core memory for all of us. And so the seats that we hold at Yarbrough and Sons are indicative of of that respect for one another. That's Hey's. Hey, we might not like each other right now, in this moment, we might have differing of opinions. However, at the end of the day, like I love you, I respect you and I want the best for us, um, and so that is a like getting to this point.
Speaker 2:You know, it's been a 29 year journey of figuring out how to foster the relationship between me and colby. But where are we setting the business right now is we're actually more defining some of those roles. So we're in the process of this will be the first time I've said it publicly. So how about that? Will is going to be moving from Will's kind of a pinch hitter between residential sales and commercial sales. Will is a very systems driven individual. Will likes to see things in a process. He wants an SOP, he wants to see a thread pull it and tie it off tight, and so we're in the process of moving Will over into our GM spot. So Will's going to take over as our GM. I'm still I'm operating as our CFO Right now. I've been our CFO slash GM and I've been doing a poor job of GMing.
Speaker 2:I fly at 60,000 feet and 100 miles an hour and I'm going to get a process implemented to a decent degree, and then I'm going to take off running again and I don't do a great job of tying off those leads tight. So Will's going to be moving to that GM seat. Colby is a residential sales full-time and Colbyby we're moving him over into our director of sales position. He's still gonna be selling, but also wearing the hat of director of sales and getting.
Speaker 2:We've got two commercial project managers as well as another residential sales guy that he'll be managing as well as himself as far as processes and all of that and really taking more attention with getting him in the truck with some of our technicians and teaching them hey, here's the sales process, here's the why. And teaching them hey, here's the sales process, here's the why behind what we're doing and here's how we can find success together in this. And so we're kind of going through a little bit of a org chart restructuring as we speak. But it's exciting times because we're trying to catapult our growth. We want to three and four X over the next five six years and we want to do it the right way.
Speaker 2:We want to do it in a way that's sustainable for our team. You know, because ultimately our goal and you know our goal I say it's our goal but it's a personal mission statement of mine that I wrote back in college. I was prompted by a professor to do this and he said you know, write a personal professional mission statement which is kind of the directing mantra for your professional life. And so for me, I see the purpose of my professional life is to create success for others. I would rather enjoy a lesser peak with more of my team than a higher one alone. And so it's about the team. It's about creating success for those people, whether that be wealth or whether that be time off, whatever that looks like but create success for the people who've spent their lives working alongside us at Yarbrough, uncensored, because we have a seven and a half to 10 year tenure at any given time. You know we're sticky People stick with us, and so they choose to make a career here and we don't take that lightly.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love this. And you know, y'all also have a dedicated marketing person, yep, right. So again, like when we were first doing this at McWilliams, people thought we were crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They were like what do you mean? Do you have a full time? Like this is what you do, full time. And I'm like absolutely my brother did. You know he was very, you know, efficiency driven, and so one of the things that he said to me was you know, you always can take, probably can take on more work. So I would many times I would think I don't know that I can keep like up with all this community marketing and video marketing and social media and all you know dealing with all of our co-op dollars and brand protection. I mean, you know it just gets so thick in there. But he kept saying you know it's prioritized and organized, and so that was really a key thing for us. And then you guys have Bryce right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep Bryce.
Speaker 1:And so it's a full-time employee, that his sole job is working on your marketing, and what all does he do?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I remember that was, you know, talk about like the shock in the industry of like you have a full-time marketing person at your size, you know we were right at nine million, maybe just under nine, whenever we brought him in. I remember making that pitch to my dad. You know it's, you know dad's a, he's a quick adopter to technology, you know. But even you know him, it's a he's. He's an old school contractor, it's a show up, do the work, and you know, but he sees the value of the, of the marketing. And so I remember pitching that to him. I'm like, okay, we've got to do, we've got to do more. I can't handle.
Speaker 2:You know, at that time it was, you know, cfo, bad GM and director of marketing were kind of the hats that I was wearing and it wasn't going well, you know, and I was doing all that I could, you know. But I knew that there was just this another level that I wanted to get to as far as brand ubiquity and putting out content that entertains people and that educates people and that makes us the company that people like, so that whenever they think of a home service that they need, we come to mind. And so Bryce had done a. He'd been a journalist and then a videographer and he had shot a couple commercials for us. I'd freelanced him and at the end of one of the commercials I asked him, as he was packing up all of his stuff.
Speaker 2:I said you know, bryce, this is a very forward question, very poignant question, and telling me to pound sand is an acceptable answer, but it's a two-parter. First, do you like your job where you're currently at? He kind of hemmed and hawed, and then I said secondly, how much do you make? And he told me how much he made, and so that kind of gave me a basis of where we needed to start, where we needed to be kind of entering in at, and then needed to start where we needed to be kind of entering in at, and uh, and then, so it wasn't long after that uh, that we, you know, made a job offer to him and he joined the company and he's been with us, uh, four years now.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and I listen. You know I'm passionate about this um, about how people discredit marketing. They think that like anyone in their office can do it, and then they're like super frustrated when things don't work. And listen, if you think about this, I want to ask this one question to you Y'all, rowan Sons only relied on paid ads and website. How successful do you think y'all would be? At the right place you are now.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And so I try to tell contractors this every single day of my life. Web and digital is super important piece of your strategy. Don't sleep on it. Be intentional about it, invest in it, but it cannot be where you die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you will die. It's a quick path. I'll take it a step further. Even Over the last, probably two years, I mean we've, we've pretty much seen ourselves out of, out of the PPC world. We're, we're, we're just, we are conscientious objectors, we are just choosing not to participate. One, because private equity is pouring so much money into it that you know the cost per lead, mathematically it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:And so, and then we did an audit on all of our, all of our leads and conversions and saw OK, if somebody comes in, you know, this wasn't clarity that we would have had, you know, five, six years ago. So you've got to start somewhere. So the contractor who doesn't have this, start pulling this thread tight because it's, I mean, it's worth its weight in gold, which is get clarity on where your leads are coming from. Which is, get clarity on where your leads are coming from. And I don't mean there's a fine line between laissez-faireness in your marketing and, like hyper-efficiency and trying to make sure that like, oh, I want to track every dollar. We need to be somewhere in that muddy middle where we know about where they came from, but there's still some vibes to how our branding works. There's some things that you're just not going to be able to track and you have to be okay with that.
Speaker 2:But we did an audit on where did our leads come from and how did they convert and we saw, okay, if they were coming through a paid source like PPC really and truly it was PPC and direct mail or if they were coming through a branded source and our branded ads converted at like a three and a half to four times higher value for us than that of a PPC slash direct mail ad.
Speaker 2:So and of course it does it's easy to say that now, but saying that to somebody who that's their whole lifeblood, it's a hard thing. It's not going to be a flip that you just switch overnight. It's been a transition of getting off of paid ads and more into putting money into branding for us. So it wasn't just this binary decision, it was okay. We have to slowly start transitioning to this so that we can drive more and more branded conversions because, look, the math shows that it's worth three and a half to four times higher value for us than that of a generic ad. And they have loyalty because they found us through Yarbrough and Sons or you know, trying to find, or one of the infinite various misspellings of Yarbrough and Sons.
Speaker 1:Well, and I can imagine I mean you're right. So it's really a game Like. We get confronted all the time it's like my marketing doesn't work. And 99% of the time when they start talking to Lemon Seed and just to be clear, lemon Seed and Yarbrough Suns do not work together. I just recognize good marketing when I see it and so you know. But we talk to clients all the time who are like my marketing doesn't work and when I get down to it it's a PPC problem. They have invested 10, 15, $20,000 a month in PPC as a $2, $3 million contractor and they're like it's not working. And I'm like because that's not a smart way to do business, that's not a smart way for us to do marketing. You know Lemon Seed has this three bucket approach to marketing, kind of like a budget. Everything has a place and everything has a clear set of expectations of how it's going to perform. So it's super important to me that clients really understand the importance of a holistic marketing strategy. So I know that we go on and on.
Speaker 2:I want to touch on just one thing on it. I think we had a Facebook exchange you and I did about this similarly just a couple days ago, which is one of the things that I have coached contractors and talked to contractors about this, about their marketing, their financials and leadership, things like that. But one of the things that, like the hill that I will die on and you will as well, I'm certain of it, with Lemon Seed even is to the contractor out there, like Lemon Seed is fantastic. They are great at what they do. They cannot, just, by function of their position, cannot care more about your marketing than you do as the contractor. Marketing than you do as the contractor.
Speaker 2:You have to care more about your brand. You have to care more about what you come off as than anyone else that you're going to hire, because everyone else that you bring in is an additive to, not a supplement for. So when you bring lemon seed in, when you bring in a marketing company or a coach or whatever, the most that they will ever be able to do is an added value to what you're already doing. They're not going to supplement and just overtake it. You know it's like a I put it in the example of it's steroids it's. You know, you need to be fit in order for steroids to function. You know, if me and you started taking steroids, we're not going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger just by happenstance. Arnold was Arnold because he was working really hard and then we had to add, you know, add performance enhancing drugs, and so as a contractor, no matter who you bring in, you've got to care about your brand to a degree that then invigorates lemon seed to go.
Speaker 2:Hey, we can double down on this. Hey, I see what you're doing here. I love it, let's do it. And no, yeah, go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 1:No, no, I mean, I was just going to say you know, I say that it's a terrible sales pitch to say you can't just click the Lemon Seed button and walk away. And the reason that I say that is even with my own brother, one office away from me, he couldn't turn marketing on and walk away from me. We still had to meet, we had to collaborate, we had to work through operations and marketing together and we worked for the same company in the same office. So when Lemon Seed is working with our clients, I'm telling you I made a post the other day that said, one of the biggest things I see in leaders of companies is being indecisive and how indecisive they can be. And so what happens is, again I get a contractor who doesn't want to deal with marketing. They don't want to deal with their brand and their marketing. But then they look up and they're like well, but I want all of these magical things to happen, I want video content.
Speaker 1:Sir, I live in Texas, you live in Virginia, so you got to do it, you know. So you're exactly right, you know. There's just a lot of power in understanding that, understanding the part that you play in your marketing for sure. So I wrote it down. It's an additive to, not a supplement for. So love that comment. So I think the other thing that I love to touch on with you guys is y'all built such a good brand and listen, I'll be honest, y'all don't have one of these overly produced, one of these overly produced big fancy brands. Even Y'all have a very traditional red, blue, hot and y'all have still grown and built what truly is a brand, which is how you make people feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the the we we had a conversation about, you know, okay, do we rebrand? Or what's the, what's the goal, what's the push? And ultimately, what it came down for, like, came down to for us, was our vision for Yarbrough and Sons is that of a legacy company. You know, something that stands the test of time, something that you know either is passed on to the next generation of Yarbroughs or, you know, sold to the employees one of these days. You know, and it's a brand that ultimately, when people and again, and I always want to walk, you know it's a fine line of walking, of bragging on your own brand but not wanting to put down anybody else, of course I don't one of the things that we considered whenever we were looking at how do we go to market? Do we rebrand before we invest all this money in building?
Speaker 2:You know the sun and snowflake that we've got and really what it came down to was like no, this is, this is, this is who we are. It's when people see us, I want them to think you know it's a, it's Coca-Cola. You know it's not fast fashion. You know it's something that stood the test of time over decades, not something that just popped up overnight and as a sizzle in the pan, and so in the Oklahoma city market right now, I'm sure there's a couple that are similar to us, you know. But I think we've gotten so far ahead in the sun and snowflake, the red and blue game that for the most part it's now almost derivative of us, and not the other way around.
Speaker 1:Which I love this for y'all. This is like one of the stories that I preach, like we have a graphic design team that is phenomenal Emily, my partner phenomenal. She has a vision, like Yarbrough and Sons, because it is important to understand. It is so much deeper the. The logo is the flower on top Right. It's all the. It's all down in the soil where you build good brand Right. So I love that for you guys and, honestly, like I just own it is.
Speaker 2:And there's a there's a cool story to it too. So one of our installers who worked with us for 20 plus years. He was a good artist. He would draw tattoos in his spare time and all sorts of stuff. He drew the logo for us. He's no longer with us. He had a bad work accident he's recovered from, but he had to get out of the industry. He's doing other stuff now, but you know he drew the logo for us, and so there's a piece of that lineage, that heritage of you know we are. You know, yarbrough and Sons and this is true for any company. We are the accumulation and summation of all the people who poured into the brand. You know it's not Darren Yarbrough and Lisa Yarbrough accumulation and summation of all the people who poured into the brand. You know it's not Darren Yarbrough and Lisa Yarbrough, it's everyone who helped build this thing. And so there's a story and a leverage point for us to tell hey, this is a company built by us and us is the royal us.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. Well, I'm going to lean into something from building off of that. So you know, when you have a strong brand in your market, people know who you are. They know they can trust you. You run a good business. It tends to overall help sales, right, because I know you guys can't be the cheapest one in your market, right? So how do you think having a brand, a solid brand presence in your market has really helped you guys grow your company? Like, do you do you? Well, I know the answer to this, but I know you know how important it is to have such a solid brand for asking for more money, basically, yeah, I think so with with with your brand, you know it's.
Speaker 2:I think brand is a lot like character, and character is you know what you do when nobody's looking who you are, when the door is shut and the lights are off, and I think your brand reflects a lot of that as well. And so it's how we show up, it's how we knock on the door. I think the buzzword right now in the industry of branding is it's the logo, or it's a truck wrap or it's whatever it is. But I think a brand is so much more than anything visual. It's a, you know, it's a spiritual connection with the company of how they make you feel, how they showed up, how they treated you. You know, would you send them to your mom or grandma? And so building that brand is, you know, ultimately, that it goes back to one of the core values that your dad has, you know, stood on for years, to one of the core values that your dad has stood on for years, which is, if you take care of people really well, you know, business and money will follow. And one of the ways that we leverage having the brand that we have is we get to take control of the narrative we produce the most content. I would go like I'm going to go band for band with any HVAC or I would even say trades based company in the country. I don't know that anybody is putting out the volume of hours of content that we're putting out any given week. You know we're posting six and eight times a day at any given you know, at any given time across any platform. And I look this way because I'm in Bryce's office and so you know we're posting, we're posting a ton of content out there. And it's all because we want to take control of the narrative, because if we don't, someone else is going to tell our story, someone else is going to, is going to say the thing that you know in in something negative. I think it's anecdotal, but I think the status is like a negative comment is seven times more likely to get shared than a positive one. If no one's going to be out there to be our positive mouthpiece, then you know, then we better make dang sure that we are. And so we want to take control of the narrative because ultimately we got tired of you know, and I'm sure everybody across the country has done this If you Google, you know how much does it cost to replace an HVAC system?
Speaker 2:How much does it cost to replace a two ton HVAC system? You're going to get, I guarantee it, pretty much across the country. Your first two results are going to be HomeAdvisor and Angie's List, and then probably it's going to be some variation of Porch Thumbtack or a New York Times article. So those are going to be your top four or five results, and you and I know as well as anybody the cost that they're saying is absurdly low. If we sold systems for that, we'd be out of business. Not only would we be out of business, but the small guys would be out of business at those rates. And that's why a lot of one truck shops that don't take their numbers seriously do go out of business because they Google that number and say, okay, well, I guess that's where I need to be.
Speaker 2:And so if we don't start putting out transparent pricing, then you know and transparent, not even just pricing, but transparent business practices why in the world would we expect anybody to do business with us? Because, chris, I'll ask you a question Would you, if you're looking for a car and you're looking at a car, I don't care what kind of car it is and you're scrolling through auto trader or whatever you know, whatever source you're going to to look for. If the only thing it said on that car, as far as price was concerned, was call for pricing, are you going to go call that dealership? No, absolutely not. I wouldn't even consider it. I'm out 100 percent. So why are we asking our customers? You know why. Why are we asking our customers?
Speaker 1:You know why? Because it matters. You know what I immediately think. So again, people that they, their families, own companies, you know it's. They're waiting to hear what my last name is, to tell me what the price is, or whatever they're waiting to say you know my husband is African-American, so are they waiting to see what color I am, to see if they're going to. And it's crazy, right, it can be crazy, people can get in their own heads. But you're right, like with that lack of transparency, comes more confusion and lack of trust. For sure, transparency. I remember when we started sharing with our team our actual numbers people are like y'all are crazy.
Speaker 1:I would never. And I'm like you know what's important is number one. If you're not doing stuff that's out of line, then you won't worry about it. But you know, and most people know, the owner makes more money, so settle down with that. But what is a challenge to me about it is I share our numbers with our limited team. Our limited team knows what our goals are and what we're doing. Now. Do they maybe not understand? Like I'll tell you what I love to show people? Show them how much it costs for you to provide them with insurance every month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, show them how much it costs for these big retreats and things that you do or travel and things like that. So it's good in those ways. But me it's about being transparent to my team and to our clients. Like Limiting has transparent pricing. Like we don't like hide anything inside of packages because we're like we're an open book, because I want you to be an open book with me. Like that street goes two ways but for sure, transparency. Pricing is so important and and two.
Speaker 2:Like y'all actually, I think around the same time, whenever y'all started, uh, sharing numbers with your team, that was, I think maybe y'all were like a couple months in, and that was whenever I like, I think, I met you guys and you said that you're doing it.
Speaker 2:I was like, yep, that's what we're doing, and so we've been doing it ever since as well, and it's in the same, you know, that same kind of vein of transparency and wanting to drive high character.
Speaker 2:You know, and the reality is is if we don't take control, not even just the narrative externally you know, we were talking about the pricing side externally but if we don't take control, branding and marketing also as an internal operation, and so if we don't take control of the narrative, of how the business is doing, where we're going and what the direction is, well then everybody's going to be left to tell their own story. So if we're not the drum beater for our own business within the business, then shame on us. Because if things are, you know, say, we play break-even ball or even just lose just a little bit of money for a season of time, well, those things start to show up in the business. There's a vibe and you know, or if you make a little bit of money and there's some profit, you know nothing absurd. Let's say you're hitting just above average. You're hitting like 6% and 7%, because I think our industry average is about 3% or 4%.
Speaker 2:Let's say, you're doubling it, you're hitting 6% or 7%, well, there's going to be signs in the business.
Speaker 2:And then if you're not beating the drum as to what the expectation is and where that money's going, well then the team on both ends of it job, or on the high side, if we're making a little bit of money, well then they might be thinking well, darren's sitting on the beach drinking Mai Tais every weekend, so what the heck am I doing here? So we have to take control of the narrative and share where we're going, what we're doing and what the vision ultimately is If we want people to buy in and make a career with us at all, because why would we have the expectation to make an investment in us if they don't know where we're headed? You know, and ultimately I want to be you know, I can't say the Kansas City Chiefs because I'm a Broncos fan, so I can't say I want to be the Kansas City Chiefs, but I want to. You know, I'll be the New England Patriots. The New England Patriots not a great time for anybody involved.
Speaker 1:I love sports analogies. My team is full of a lot of girls and one day I said, okay, I'm going to call an audible, and they just all looked at me. I was like friends, go watch the football game, go watch any sport. Well, and then one day I said, and I'm terrible about them.
Speaker 1:Well, and I even said one day I said, listen, I need y'all to get in the paint with me down here, like let's score some bats. And they were like they never can follow. So I loved I just am a sports kind of person. So I love these analogies because, honestly, like, I just want contractors to make the connection of the importance of things, like you mentioned it earlier, getting in the game Y'all. When you run companies, when you're a general manager and owner operator, whatever leadership position you sit in, you have to have your head in the game.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I find quite ironic I will work with different contractors and they will be literally crying like this is out of control for me. And then I'm about to be in Turks and Caicos for two weeks with lack of phone reception and I'm like OK, like so, remind me. Like so you feel like things are burning down, but you're on a cruise ship. Now, listen, you deserve it. So I'm not saying that, but I'm like man, sometimes we don't have the luxury of hitting the vacation road when our team might be falling apart. If anything, it almost dang near, feels like abandonment, you know.
Speaker 1:And so I'm like man, you know, when you talk to people that don't run companies. They're like, oh, you're the owner, like don't want a vacation, and I'm like the very last thing I would do when my team is in the middle of summer or my team is in the middle of you know, whatever's going on, and I storm for me to be like you know I'm going to stay here, but y'all go ahead and hit the streets or y'all got to dig yourself up. Now, listen, I'm about to board this airplane, but y'all figure out why we can't make gold Right. So sometimes I'm like, hey, maybe you should spend a little bit more time like in the business, and you know what we've done. Tucker, though You've heard many of this, you got to work on the business, not in the business. Well, that's great when your business is operating at good efficiency and capacity.
Speaker 2:And can I share something with you? I hate, with all of my being, work on your business, not in your business, thank you. It's an oxymoron to me. I hate it. So I think I think that is the most misguided bit of information for it. Because who runs businesses? Let's founders and entrepreneurs. Well, who are founders and entrepreneurs? They're ADHD folks, and if we tell them to go work on something and not in something, well, guess what's going to happen? We're going to go chase a thousand different rabbits instead of doing the thing Working in our and I get the spirit that it said in Correct.
Speaker 2:The spirit is great. You know it's mean and fine tune the things in your business. It's all those things. However, in order to work on your business, you also need to have a connection with the people in the business. You need to be in the trenches with them. You need to be showing up every day Because, again, it goes back to the same thing I said about vendors People on your team are not going to care as much about the brand as you do, and if you don't show a high degree of ownership and care about the brand, then why in the world would anyone on your team?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you know I love that sentiment because I will say that sometimes to my contractors. I will say now listen, you're working so much in the business that you can't work on the business. So I have a contractor right now. Sweet guy, does great work, fantastic technician and installer. The problem is I need him to look up, right. I need him to look up from inside of the condenser and let's look up at your P&L.
Speaker 1:Like you know and I think, he has the opposite of that of like. I just want there to be this happy medium of you're working diligently, getting processes and SOPs and expectations in place, where, slowly but surely, you still have your eyeballs in the business and you're still jumping in where needed, but you are able to take a higher view. So I get it, I'm like you, I get the sentiment, but I also don't want people to feel like, just because you need to go dunk in a truck today, you're not a failure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I also don't want people to feel like, just because you need to go in a truck today, you're not a failure. Yeah, you know, and I think there's there's so many leadership lessons that you can draw from. But yeah, it's fresh on my mind. I've been working through, uh for the fourth or fifth time, uh, jocko's leadership, uh, jocko Willink, he's a former Navy SEAL, uh written several books. But leadership strategy and tactics add that to your reading list. It's incredible.
Speaker 2:But as leaders, a lot of times we get told it's like hey, you got to detach, you got to, you know, step back, and that way you can look at things. But I think there's this Jocko. He gives a great example of it. Doesn't take much to detach, you know. So he gives an example.
Speaker 2:They were clearing this oil rig and they were, you know, sitting there trying to clear this whole rig and you know, the platoon commander, they were all sitting there and everybody's just looking down the barrels of their guns waiting for something to happen. And you know, jocko was a he was a junior guy at this point. He wasn't the man in charge, you know, but they had stood there for long enough that he kind of got uncomfortable and so he said well, I just raised my gun to the port ready position, which is up, he said, saw the scenario that we were sitting in and gave an order and people went, and that's sometimes all it takes to detach. Is that six inch removal from the problem. A lot of times we think, oh, we got to detach, I'm going to Turks and Caicos, and that's not at all the remedy.
Speaker 1:I'm going to detach with like a drink and a beach. It's very true and you know I love this the whole concept behind like man Trey. I'll say this for my brother and I'm sure you have this same thing from your dad or brothers, one of them or yourself. You know he never fully removed himself from, he was in service meetings, he was showing up at jobs, he was actively engaged in understanding and treating people for people right. It wasn't just another install crew, it was Brandon and Caleb, not install crew number 10.
Speaker 1:Now we had lots of processes built around install crew number 10, but at the end of the day we knew the faces behind those numbers, the faces behind those invoices coming through, and I've always admired that. About my brother is like he's not really a softy, like in the sense of he's not overly emotional at all. Sometimes I'm like, are you emotional at all? I'll have to poke him. But I, on the other hand, have learned a lot because I tend to be an empath, so I will take on. And so I've had to learn like I can't save everybody in my business but I dang sure can care about them a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that, like when, let me see, even when we kind of restructured ourselves we call it 2.0. And when we did that, like Emily and I, like literally, I felt like we held hands and jumped off a diving board together.
Speaker 2:Like we can do it together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So just just keeping keeping a watch on your team. Well, tucker, I know we're about to wrap up here, so tell me what you guys. I know you have some new cool stuff out. I love the new Facebook group. You can keep them all up in there. I love talking, so tell me what's new for you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we. So I've been doing coaching for the with the Service Nation Alliance for the last probably three years or so, and then just speaking at different breakouts and things like that, and ultimately Trades Consulting. You know, I think, like everything that we start, we started a thing called Trades Consulting. I founded this like a year ago and it's kind of sat on the shelf, didn't really have time, really wanted to work out kind of what we wanted from it, what the vision was for it, and so after months of kind of going back and forth of what we were going to do because ultimately, like you said, we talked about a bad sales pitch earlier and my bad sales pitch whenever somebody would bring me in for coaching with Service Nation and I'm still doing coaching with Trades Consulting my goal is for you to fire me. I want to be with you for four to six weeks. I want to see it. You know, find a thread, pull it tight, make sure that we have the system and process implemented and rock on from there, you know. But then I realized, okay, that can't be all that it is, and so I started. I've put in the hours, me and ChatGPT. We've worked really hard together and we built.
Speaker 2:I built a tool called GetQuote through Trace Consulting and GetQuote is. We talked about transparent pricing and GetQuote is our online instant estimate tool. It was built by me, a contractor, for contractors. You know I'm not trying to disrupt the industry, not trying to just completely throw. You know it's not an AI tool. It is a simple function that allows us to collect customer information. They can fill out a form in less than a minute and get clear pricing on what a five ton system would cost or what a system.
Speaker 2:I don't do tonnages because most homeowners don't know what tonnages are, so I do square footage. So what's a rough ballpark for this size? So whenever a homeowner goes through our tool, they're able to get pretty dang near exactly what we're going to sell a system for, unless we have to do some ductwork, repair, things like that. There's some extenuating stuff. So we built that as a conversion tool for ourselves, because we're like, okay, if we're going to coach people through tradesconsulting, we need to give them a tool to help convert leads, because it's a, I think, an epidemic in all industries, but most of the time clients don't have a contractors don't really have I hesitate to say this there are some that have a call volume problem right, but I think as big of a call volume problem as we may have I think we some that have a call volume problem right, but I think as big of a call volume problem as we may have, I think we also might have a call booking problem and conversion problem.
Speaker 2:And I think it's a lot easier to solve your call booking and conversion because we can control those variables. Whereas call volume, well, there's some weather dependency to it, there's economy factors to it, there's things outside of our control, and so I want to take some extreme ownership and say, okay, how can we convert these things? And so that's why we built GetQuote. We built it for ourselves. Ultimately, if we don't sell, an instance of GetQuote.
Speaker 2:it's worth it. In three weeks it's generated $46,000 for us. We've sold pretty much online. We just send a technician out there to verify what they've quoted and then we've sold it. And so we're in the early days of building out TradeStock Consulting. We're super excited about kind of what we got going on. You know the full vision of it really hadn't been fully cast yet because it's a moving target, but we do know that we have a really powerful tool. We've got it down to as cheap of a price as we possibly can. We've got it down to where it's $4,500 a year. If you pay it annually or if you want to pay monthly, you can cancel at any time with either of those. But ultimately for us it's driven in at this point $46,000 and about 20 to 30 qualified leads, and they have a lower conversion rate.
Speaker 1:But you're driving business to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Social media or emails or what are you using?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Everything, everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So really and truly, it's social and email is the biggest two. So, and we we started with social and the social we've kind of all I'll send, post this. I'll send you the link to a couple of the ads that we're running to point people to it because I think it'd be valuable for anybody. Anybody rob and duplicate our stuff, because we rob and duplicate everyone else's. Nothing is sacred. The best idea wins. We can't just go to market asking people like hey, here's a instant estimate tool and you should use it. You know it's not a very compelling or entertaining message.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, we had a silly ad where we've got a putting green in the front of our office just like a little strip of grass that ends in like a hole. And so Bryce had an idea of hey, I want you to, you know, hold this golf ball up and say, like you know, every time I hit this ball it makes the weirdest noise. And so I set the ball down and I stroked the ball in and, lo and behold, I made it. But the whole time Bryce was shooting a slow-mo video of the ball rolling down the green and it's me whispering. We added audio over it and it's me whispering saying get an instant estimate from YarbroughandSunscom. It's just things like that. Or like we had one where we were. You know, similar deal, same format. We had a nerf football.
Speaker 2:And so the ad needs to be inherently watchable. It needs to be entertaining because we scroll, for I don't know if you get your, you know if you get attacked by your iPhone, uh, every week, like I do on the screen time report, um and and it's oppressive. It's like, hey, you spent 12 and a half hours on your phone today and we're scrolling. You know we're scrolling mindlessly, and so, to punch through the noise, the ad that we make has to be entertaining, and so everything that we're doing, we're doing that and we our email list is really just hitting up old customers and letting them know hey, we've got aging equipment.
Speaker 2:If you're curious about what it costs, here it is. And, yes, our online estimate tool has a lower conversion rate because people are getting prices. They want to see what's the car cost. Eventually, you and I both know they're going to need a car. Eventually they're going to need to replace their HVAC, and I have no data to back this up whatsoever, but I just have a core belief that in the next two, three, five years, the businesses who operate with the highest degree of transparency are going to be the ones that win, because AI is going to cut through everything like a hot knife, and the only thing that we're going to be left with is the brand that we've built, the prices that we have and what are we going to go to market with.
Speaker 2:That's what we're going to be left with. Everything else will be considered fluff, because AI is going to come through and slash it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm telling you I love the authenticity side. I think that's definitely going to be a cool thing. And then, tucker, if anybody wanted to just get in touch with you, we're going to put all this in the show notes and when we share it on social media. But what's the best way for them to get in touch with you about anything you've said today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can get in touch with me through my email. Either one of them so it's tucker at yarbroughandsonscom it's a long one, but it's all spelled out or tucker at tradesconsulting. Either one of those and I'll see them'll see him, uh, and we're excited, you know. And again, if anybody has questions about what we're doing even if it's just marketing operations, anything like that like I've given away more hours of coaching than uh, than I ever could bill for, um, I, I enjoy talking with like-minded people. I enjoy talking with contractors who are trying to build something. Um, because ultimately, I think this industry is full of the greatest people in the nation, because they operate America's life support system, which is our HVAC and our plumbing, absolutely, and they deserve to be compensated like such. So building cool businesses and talking to contractors who are after building cool businesses is one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it, tucker. You're doing great things. You and your brothers, bryce y'all are all just amazing and wonderful to listen to. So congratulations on all your current success and the success that I know that's coming soon that you guys keep seeing.
Speaker 1:So here's what I do want to say to all of our listeners. I really encourage you to take Tucker's advice. Coming from the industry with no. Neither one of us have anything to gain from this advice. We literally have lived the life of watching people be dedicated to growing their business, dedicated to changing. Tucker mentioned it earlier. His dad is, you know, is not afraid of technology. My dad wasn't either. So even at 64 years old which is how old my dad is like he's always like hey, I'm learning this new AI because we want to stay active and we want to stay cutting edge as much as we can, but also keeping the heart of our companies. And so, trevor, thank you so much. I wish you guys the best and all that you continue to do. And, guys, thank you for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. If you loved what you heard, please like us on all of our socials and leave us a review, and we will.