Successful Life Podcast

Efficient HVAC Management: Joe Cunningham and Corey Berrier's Key Insights

• Corey Berrier/ Joe Cunningham

Share episode
Corey Berrier:

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier. And I'm here with my man, Joe Cunningham.

Joe Cunningham:

What's up, Joe? Not much. Corey. How are you today?

Corey Berrier:

I'm good. Thanks for asking. So, I'm pretty, pretty excited about having you on, Joe. We've had a bunch of conversations via text and so on and so forth.

Joe Cunningham:

First

Corey Berrier:

I really want you to talk about. The fact that you can bring a technician, or let's just call it a non technician, let's just call it somebody that you met at a bar that's got a great personality, that's interested in doing HVAC or interested in doing sales of some sort. You can take that guy and if he's got the right attitude and train him up to about 80% in about 10 days. Do I get the, do I have that right?

Joe Cunningham:

Yeah, we create probably the best entry level technicians out there today in extremely short period of time. You know, the process that worked this way started a long time ago when I was with Contractor Success Group and ran future University, and we've just kind of perfected that over the years. But if a contractor can find a guy with a good personality and mechanical aptitude, He doesn't have to know anything about air conditioning in 10 days. We can give him the skills and the competency needs to become pretty much an entry level technician that's more advanced than 90% of'em that you're gonna get out there. And the reason we're able to achieve this is because 65 to 70% of what we do in our classes, which is 10 days, is all hands on. You know, the trade programs that have been done in the community colleges and things like that, they focus on a lot of stuff that this technician's really not going to need to know in the field. I mean, why am I taking a month or so to teach this guy thermodynamics when he needs to find out why Ms. Johnson's condenser won't turn on or why this furnace won't fire, or why when it does fire, it goes out in a couple of seconds. So, So we give him the basic hands-on stuff. You know, 80 to 85% of the issues to call in. No cool, no heat into a heating and cooling company are the same problems. So we take this technician and we teach him the components of a heating and cooling system so he knows where all the parts are. Then we used a detailed checklist to teach him how to check every component. And we teach him how to use his gauges. We teach him how to use meters. We teach him how to charge a system using subcool and superheat. And then in taking his checklist, we teach him how to test each component, and then we make the technician check every component on every call. So if he knows how to check every component and tell you, yes, this is good, or no, it's not any good. He doesn't miss anything. Now it takes him a little bit longer. We drop our callbacks down if he follows the process. And because he sees everything, his average ticket is higher. So he pays for himself with the little extra time that he spends. But we just don't have any problems with it. No bad habits. No. No bad habits. You know, most people when they go to looking for techs and you know, as we take a look at the heating and air conditioning business, A lot of the problems that we have come from not having enough people in the field. Not that they can't run enough calls, but we don't have enough people to run the calls, so we force the ones, we do have to run more calls than they should, and Then we hire people. Everybody wants to hire an experienced person, and most of the guys you get in instead of having 10 years of experience, have one year, 10 times. And he is got a multitude of bad habits and it's harder to untrain somebody. I. Than it is to train'em in the first place. And they've all got their shortcuts that have been taught to them over and over because the training process usually consists of, okay Jim, I'm going to hire you. You ride with my guy Bob,'cause he's the best guy that I got. He's gonna show you how we do it. And then after that conversation, Jim and Bob get in the truck. And then Bob says, Jim, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you how we really do it now. I know Joe's gonna tell you something. I'm gonna show you how we really do it, and he's gonna teach him to be as good as him almost. And we have this ending downward spiral in our training program.'cause we're depending on other people that we don't know what the hell they're doing to train our new guy to do stuff that we don't know what they're doing. And then we wonder why we have low tickets and high callbacks and no sales and no lead generation and things like that. So in getting the new guys in, they don't have any bad ho habits. They have no misconceptions of how you're supposed to run this call. All they know is I got this list, it's got everything on it. I gotta do it all, and then the contact process, so they stay in touch with us. So it becomes much easier to grow these techs. It makes sense. I mean,

Corey Berrier:

look, everybody says there's a shortage of technicians,

Joe Cunningham:

but

Corey Berrier:

I would argue if they knew about your. Your school that there wouldn't be a shortage of technicians

Joe Cunningham:

or

Corey Berrier:

maybe it's just keeping people with, you know, keep maybe not enough people have an open mind about it. Do you find that

Joe Cunningham:

there's a lot of contractors don't have an open, not enough mind about it, but you know, here's the thing. We've got some guys, some company owners that have now sent us. 18 or 20 techs over the period of six or eight years, you know, so if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. And they keep sending'em to us over and over again, and we keep hearing these stories, you know, and will every tech work? No, a hundred percent, they'll work a hundred percent of anything. Doesn't happen. Anywhere anyway, but you've got a much greater chance of success. And then you find the contractors that, you know, they look for every reason to put things off. They say, well, you know, summer's coming, so I can't send this guy because I need him to run calls. Okay, so you're going to take a guy that doesn't know anything and you're gonna send him to run calls. He will cost you more. Screw ups, then you would've paid in tuition so he could come and do'em. And then you get pissed off and you fire him and you say you can't find anybody. You know, it makes no sense. If you want somebody to do what you do or want them to do, a couple things have to happen. Number one, you gotta tell'em what it is you want'em to do. Right. You know? And I do a lot of one-on-ones. I go into a lot of companies and I ask the tech, do you have a job description? They say, no. Well, how do you do your job if you don't have a job description? What do you say? Go forth and do good. I mean, you know, so you have to have a step by step job description, and then you have to explain to the guys how they achieve that. I. And that allows you to compensate them more, whether it's performance pay, or even hourly. When the guy comes in and say, Hey boss, I need a raise. And you take his job description and you see if he meets or exceeds his description, and that makes it happen. But another thing you have to do is you have to training to do it, you know, and there's. Because of the way we've trained people, just sending them out with other people, it doesn't really work that well. You know, and we get guys in here from a two year college and they can't hook gauges up. They don't know what an inducer motor is. I mean, I don't know what they're teaching'em. They're just taking their money and they're not getting them prepared to be in the truck. But the reality is, if you can take these guys, especially the younger guys that have been out working, In a tire shop, an auto parts store somewhere where they have some kind of a mechanical inkling and take this guy and send him to 10 days of school and within his first year, have him making over 50,000. And that's not hard to do. And the second year of making 70, 80, or a hundred thousand, you've done something for this person. And if you prove to'em that you can do that, they're not going anywhere. I agree. And it's a quick process If you put the right things in place to start with. Totally.

Corey Berrier:

Alright, so this must cost, I mean, my guess is something like this to fast track. I mean, what is a two year trade school cost? I'm just

Joe Cunningham:

curious. I don't know. You know, we get'em in from all over and the guys say they pay anywhere from eight to 24, 20 5,000. Just depends on where they go. And you know, most of these places are diploma mills, so they try and get'em in, you know, the guys that are coming outta the service. And how much was your tuition? Well, it was all I had on my GI bill. Well, you must have told'em what you had,'cause that set the rate, you know. So our rate is set up front and I've kept it reasonable. You know, it's 34 95 for 10 days. So they send them from wherever they send them. Houston's a major hub, which is where the school is. They send them here. We have a little deal worked out with a hotel. It's a residence in within walking distance of two or three food places. They Uber back and forth. Hotel, gives'em breakfast. We give'em lunch. This is a big city. I don't want'em wandering off and getting lost. So we give'em lunch, we give them their basic hand tools so when they go back, there's no learning curve there. You know, like, boss, I don't know how to use this type of whatever you're giving them. No, they know how to use it. All that, they've gotten that bag. Now we teach'em the basics. We don't give them, for instance, we don't give'em digital manifold or digital gauges. We give'em regular standard. Manifold gauges that they hook up and they have to learn to read the numbers. And I tell'em, when you go back, you'll probably get digital gauges and that's okay, but don't ever take these off the truck because one day the battery's gonna go dead. And then what do you do? These are your backup gauges then. But for right now, you're learning why stuff works this way. So we tell'em to take the long way around. You know, they get a set of basic hand tools. They get a set of gauges, they get Klein electric clamp meter, they get their gloves and glasses and all this stuff. So they're safe in school, but they've got the basic stuff to get in the truck and actually go start running calls. That's tremendous. The first week they come back, you know, you're probably gonna wanna work with them on your paperwork and your communication process, but other than that, they've got it.

Corey Berrier:

That makes, look, that makes complete sense. Is there any reason why you do it 10

Joe Cunningham:

days straight? Yep. We used to do it at Future University in two five day weeks, but here's what happens. I. Guys from all over the country. Usually younger guys, they've been never been away from home unsupervised with the company credit card. So on Friday night and Saturday night, they will find every bar in town with no windows. So, It takes me when they come back on Monday, it takes me to Wednesday to get'em back where they were on Friday and they ran up all those expenses, you know? And some people say, well, that's mean make it, it's one weekend. One weekend, 10 days of your entire life. If you can't give 10 days of your life up to learn a career that's gonna support your family for the rest of your life better than most of the guys that you went to school with that went and got a college education, then you probably aren't the right person for virtually any job. But that's why we keep'em 10 days. That makes sense. Yeah.

Corey Berrier:

So, alright, so great explanation. I mean, I'm, I think it's just a no brainer in my opinion, but look, that's just my opinion. So you mentioned, I, I did want you to talk about rehash for a second. I know that's something that you

Joe Cunningham:

do really well, right? I've always been a proponent of rehashing calls, you know, and let me explain what that means. Number one, we're gonna send these techs out to a job. So they come to your house and it's a no cool call, no heat call, doesn't matter. And my tech goes through your entire system. Well, he finds everything wrong. So we're out there on a no cool call and your contactors are burn up. Your capacitor's weak because nobody's looked at your system for about three years. You think it'll run forever. Your fan motor's still turning, but it's over amping your coil's dirty because the lawn guy can't figure out, you can blow grass away from it. It just as well as on it. When I ask you where your filter is, you say what filter? I've never seen that. And your blower wheels caked up with dirt and your evaporator coils cleaned or dirty. And I come back in, I give you the list, all the stuff I find, and you say how? Well the only thing that you'll understand about it all anyway, you say, well, how much does it fix? All Agile? And I say, well, it's like$2,200 or whatever. It's. You say, oh my gosh, that's a lot of money. You gotta do all that just to, to make it run and blow cold air. I say, well, no, Corey, I don't have to do all of it. But I mean, we gotta put the contactors in'cause that it won't turn on without that. And it looks like you're low on refrigerant, so I gotta put some refrigerant in there and it's gonna run and blow cold air. I just don't know how long. Could be a day, could be a week, could be a year. I don't know. And then you're gonna ask me the next question, which is the only thing you'll understand. Well, how much to do that? I say, well, that's 500. So now you're sitting there weighing the only two things you understand about the whole damn call. Joe can fix it for 2200. Joe can fix it for 500. I need new tires on my pickup truck. What's the best deal for me? Well, you know what the best deal for you would be is a uneducated homeowner. Well, if it's gonna blow cold air, I'll do the$500 deal. I'll worry about the rest of that crap later. Right? Buy the$5 repair and Two weeks later, something breaks down. Well, I had all that information. See what happens on the call is most texts just tell you that stuff, but they don't record everything. Or you'll use some of these more sophisticated software programs, and if you don't understand how to do the workaround, you'll have everything listed in there. But when you present it to the homeowner, he picks up these two or three repairs that gets pushed into QuickBooks. And unless you backed it up somewhere, the rest just disappears so you don't even know what's done. But if you really keep records of all of that, you know everything that needs to be done within your customer base. Two weeks from now, three weeks from now, when it starts slowing down or the phone isn't ringing, we need to get on that phone and call you up and say, Hey, Corey, we were at your house and we did this and this. However, you elected not to have these three, three things done, and we're really afraid. I. When this hot weather really gets going, your air conditioner's not gonna start, and it's sure not gonna make it long through the long hot summer. And we get back in the house. And if you combine that process between sending them a letter and then calling, you'll get back into 28 to 30% of the calls that you ran. And here's the thing if your call is set up right and your technician is trained properly, 50% of those customers. Are gonna buy more items than they really thought they should have that were legitimate repairs. But the other 50% are gonna have repairs that should be made that they don't do right then. That doesn't mean they never wanna do'em, it just means they didn't wanna do'em that day, you know? And there's some guys out there say, well, when we get done, we've sold'em everything. Well, that's bullshit. Nobody sells them a hundred percent at everything. Every time you go, you always have a list of something done with 40 to 50% of your customers. If your tech only runs three calls a day, it's gonna run 750 calls a year. That's 375 calls with repairs that you already know what it is. So why aren't you going back when you're ready to go? Not when the customer's ready,'cause all your customers call you. At the same time, I wanna be doing what could be conceived as a no cool repair in March or April. Why don't wanna wait till it's a hundred damn degrees outside? I wanna get these people off my books. I don't want'em calling in. I wanna do it now. And that's what rehash is, and that's how it works and that's why it's so effective. But the thing about it is rehash is a part of every call. Every single call and most of the people in their air conditioning business, they take a look at it and like right now, you know it's gonna be a hundred degrees all week long this week. So most people say, I just wanna go him to go out there and fix the call. Just let him get it going and we'll go back and worry about the rest later. They ain't gonna let you back in the house. That's why you do it now. You list everything. Let him tell you no. If he doesn't want it done, let him tell you. No. And you're covering your butt because you told him everything. He has to decline everything he didn't want done at that moment. And I have my list of stuff I can go to later, so why wouldn't you wanna do that? And yet it takes a little bit more time. But look at the money you're going to get 50% of your customers, you're gonna be able to rehash. 28 to 30% are gonna let you back in the house. You do the math. You already paid

Corey Berrier:

for'em. Right, too? Like you already paid to go out there one time, so why would you not

Joe Cunningham:

remarket to those people? This seems crazy to me. Yeah. And the lead costs you nothing. That's right. Yeah, that's right. But too many people, well, you know, I need leads, so I'll spend$5,000 on the internet and buy all this Facebook stuff and do all this stuff, but when you already got a boatload of leads, you could cut way back on your other stuff and rehash your existing customers. You need to keep selling your existing customers. They buy more from you than anybody else, and they already have, they know you. They trust you, so why wouldn't they keep doing it?

Corey Berrier:

I think it's the responsibility. I think it's any contractor's responsibility to make sure the customers know there are other options that you all can do. For example I think that, you know, I, yeah, I totally agree with you. So, alright, so let me ask you this. I know I'm firing a bunch of questions at you at once, but really I'm probably most excited about getting into this next conversation. So call by call. Now, I don't know if it was always called that, but call by call, from what I understand is a process that, and just correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a process that you eliminate. The biggest thing is you eliminate the gap of time between that service technician and that selling technician to get there. And I know that you, there's other parts of that are important, but. I think it's about 60% of the time when somebody leaves that house, there's a chance you're not gonna sell that customer about 60%. I think if I'm right I know I'm in the ballpark. So we hear all the time, technicians we're missing technicians. We talked about that at earlier, trying to hire people. Tell me about the call by call process from your standpoint and all the benefits of

Joe Cunningham:

that. Well, you know, the call by call process. Eliminates one big problem. Number one, there are selling techs out there that do an absolutely fantastic job. You know, I've got one selling tech that I trained and he, in fact, he's working for a competitor of mine because, you know, we just have a little company here that I do a lot of experimentation with. But Sean sold 636,000 last August. So would I try and change what he does? Probably not if he's already, that ain't broke, so I ain't gonna fix it. But does everybody sell 600,000? No. Does everybody sell a hundred thousand in a month? No. Does everybody even sell 50,000 in a month? And the answer to that is no. So the question becomes why not you? The thing about the company that he works for, people think that he just gets picked out for special calls. Not really. You know, he does get more older systems, I will say that. But with that being said, they're in the same neighborhood. They. They're in the same economic demographics. They're in the same economy, they're in the same weather. Everything's the same. The only difference is the difference between him and his ability and the guys that don't have that ability. So the question comes up is, and it's this, how do I get the guy with lesser abilities closer to that level? Well, we can train them, but I. A lot of the guys that are technicians are not geared or wired that way. You know, I've never had a technician come in during an interview and say, Joe, you know, you know what I'd really like to be? I wanna become a public speaker and a creative writer. That's, you know, so most of'em are just the opposite. They wanna work on those little cell phone buildings on a power line that they can ride a four wheeler, two, and there's nobody out there. So, I gotta turn him into a public speaker and a creative writer. So I have to take his innate abilities, which is he's really a good technician and he can find stuff if you train you the right way, and then fix that so I can now educate the customer. As to why they should make certain repairs with a person that is skilled at doing that. And that's what call by call management is. Now, this stuff kind of started, heck, 30 years ago, I guess, 25, 30 years ago, and we had a position in a couple companies that we worked with that I was consulting with, and that position was called Senior Service Advisor. So the way it started was we had these guys that couldn't sell, so they'd go out. And then they'd find a list of stuff wrong, and they would come to you and show you their list and say, Corey, this is wrong and this is wrong. And according to my numbers here, you should either replace your system or do this big expensive repair. And they were trained to just say this after they explained that. But before I ask you to do that, Would you mind if I get you a second opinion from a senior service advisor now that put the customer in a whole different frame of mind, because now it's like going to the heart doctor and getting a second opinion and everybody likes a second opinion, but he's gonna get two from you. That's where a second opinion comes. So then it comes, yeah, you can send him out. Okay, so now the senior service advisor would go out to that job. That worked real well and we got the tickets up when we started the communication thing, but the issues were, I was having problems getting the senior service advisor physically to enough calls to handle that. So it required that you have a lot more. Senior service advisors, and then we started doing it on the phone. And I guess that, and I don't know who coined the phrase call by call management, but that's really what it is. I don't know if we just sat around and talked about it. I don't even know where it came from, but that's where the process came from. So now, We take the guys that are rock stars, like Sean can sell five, 600,000 in a month. Okay? We're not gonna jack with him. We're gonna let him do what he does because I know what he can do. But the guys that aren't performing in that area, you know, the less than a million dollar guys, I'm gonna take that guy. I'm gonna assist him and he's gonna go and run the first part of our perfect service call. Gotta be prepared to have all his stuff, but before he even gets to the house, we're gonna call you and set it up for him so it's easier. And this is where it all starts. And a lot of people forget this. You know, they call and say, well, our tech bob will be at your house in 30 minutes. You know, they think, well, that's good enough. I'll send a picture of Bob. That should do it. That has some warm fuzzies over that. No, you gotta set this thing up so this customer feels real special. You call him up and you say Our tech bob. This is Joe from over at Joe's service Company in, and I just wanted to drop a line to, or make a call and tell you that our tech Bob will be at your house in about 20 to 30 minutes. Now, what we've sent you a picture and a biography and learn a little bit about him, but the main thing I want to do is tell you that I'm gonna be your personal point of contact for this call. So if you have any questions whatsoever or any concerns, I want you to know that you can ask Bob whatever you want, but you can also call me. I want to give you my direct line so you can reach me right away in case you want to talk about any of this. Here it is. Is that okay? They always say, yeah, and then that's the end of your setup. But what you did was you just took this customer and I mean, you put him up on a platform. Who the hell has ever had a call from a service company, plumbing or H V A C that says, I'm your personal point of contact? It's like, I got concierge service. I mean, they don't do that good at a restaurant that I pay too much for my food in. So now they feel special and they feel good about it. I also tell him what Bob's gonna do. So when he gets there and he does this whole house inspection, they're not surprised.'cause I'm telling them that he is. I'm tell him he's gonna do this and this, and to make sure we don't have any unexpected problems from your equipment before he leaves. He's gonna check everything out for you so you're completely safe. Is that okay? And who would say no? So, Now we've set that thing up and then Bob gets there and he does his first part. You know, his introductory part gets the customer to talk. I want him to be completely engaged with my customer at that point. So he asks the customer what's wrong, and he physically takes a pad of paper and he writes down their exact words and repeats it back to them. So they know the tech's really paying attention. Right? And then he goes, He inspects everything, but before he talks to the customer, he finds a reason to go to the truck, and he calls into the senior service advisor and he tells him what he found. Then the senior service advisor will call the customer and say, Hey Cory, this is Joe. I talked to you a little while ago, and if you remember, I told you I'm the senior service advisor for Joe's Air Conditioning Company, and Our tech, Bob is out at your house and he inspected everything and he find, found a few things that he was really concerned about. So he took pictures of them and he sent them to me. And quite frankly, after I looked at that, I was kind of concerned too. Would you mind if I share that with you? And the customer always say yes. And then you do, you make your presentation and because my senior service advisor is adept at making presentations, then you sell more. Or you set that appointment, or you just sell the replacement right over the phone and I can. A senior service advisor can handle four or five packs. So that's why call by call is so effective. It takes it to the next level. It makes the customer feel better. We're solving all the problems that we find in the field or more of them. We're having less callbacks because I tell the customer, you know that's fine that you don't wanna do it, but let me tell you what could happen, Corey, and what probably will happen if we don't address this while my technician's here. He'll give you a list. So what you don't want, I need you to initial it. So we don't do that. We're only gonna do it. You initial and now I have a notarized list or a, a signed off list of everything that needed to be done that he didn't wanna do. And I also have a list of everything we can use to rehash later, so it takes a little bit more time. It makes a ton more money and I found the sweet spot. You know, everybody said, well, how many calls can he run a day? That takes more time. Yeah, it does take more time. You know, number one, why the hell are you asking your tech to run six or seven calls a day anyway and work till 10 o'clock at night and on the weekends and wonder why he quits? Right? Give the guy three or four productive calls, then hire somebody else to do the other three that he didn't run. And if you really take a look at what that does for your company, let's say your guys, you're only making your guys run four calls a day, and I got three guys. Well, if I have three guys that I'm making run four calls a day, I cut them back to three each. Okay? That means I got three more calls. I don't have to do any more marketing. I can have one more tech with no marketing cost and I can make him a more effective, and I'll have four techs with a higher average ticket, lower callbacks, and lower my percentage on my marketing. So, Call by call management makes sense. And it works every time it is done. But you gotta do it all. You can't half do it, you know, it's just like getting half pregnant. You can't do that either. You know, you, you either do it, you don't do it right, but it. So do you, so

Corey Berrier:

are you just picking up the phone with this process or do you also, you have people utilize

Joe Cunningham:

Zoom, like, we're on here. We can, you can use Zoom. It depends on what it is. It depends on the comfort level of your senior service advisors. Some will use Zoom, some just call'em, you know, some customers don't zoom. Some are are on a phone somewhere and they can't do it. So you better be pretty adaptable at making your presentation. Now, naturally, the more. The more physical connection we have, the better it works, you know? Because if you're sitting there in your office at the house and we're doing a Zoom, and I'm talking to you about your capacitor, which we don't call it capacitor, we call'em other names, but I could have my tech Bob bring it in and show you, right? And say, you know what, let me make sure Bob shows you what we're talking about. You mean you want me to go look at it? You can if you want. I'll tell you what I'll just send him a text and have him bring it in. That way you don't have to get up, you know, so he can bring all this stuff in. So the more we get you physically involved in this stuff, the better it is now. I would rather if I can get you to walk up at and look at the condensing, if I unit, if I can get you in the attic I know I got it done then. But worst comes to worst. We can do it right at your chair.

Corey Berrier:

I'm a sales guy so I understand you know, audio, visual, kinesthetic, which is really why technicians, or technicians, they're not this, they are salespeople, but they do better with their hands'cause they're kinesthetic, most of them. So would you say that people that do the presentation on Zoom, because you've got more of a visual aid there, well I guess you've got a visual aid if the technician brings the stuff in, but do you find that one does

Joe Cunningham:

better than the other? No you know, the best would be if my senior service advisor could go to that customer's house every time. Sure. But, you know, that we're stretched too thin for that. So as you take a look at the different kind of learners, and it's important that you understand that, you know, like you said, that these technician or kinesthetic learners, and they find it hard to even make a presentation without having something in their hand. But there's some kind of special neurological con connection, I'm convinced between a kinesthetic learner's hand and his brain. Because if you take a technician, the average one out there and say, explain to Mr. Johnson how his capacitor works, okay? When he gets done, You're gonna be confused as to how it works because the guy can't ad-lib that part, but given the part in his hand plus his meter so he can show it, he can make a great presentation because a couple things happen. Number one, he's using his hand, he's using his tools, and he's not looking at you to make the presentation because he's got whatever part it is, you know, and he's pointing at that part and saying, well, this is how this works. So the scary part for a kinesthetic learner is looking in your face and tell you something. So it takes that, he's now making his presentation to his part, not to you. So couple that with what you do, because most of your customers are gonna be visual learners. Very few of'em are auditory learners. But that's why the combination presentation works best. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean,

Corey Berrier:

you already got the guy

Joe Cunningham:

there. It seems

Corey Berrier:

cra Yeah, because of the gap of time, the amount of technicians under the serer, whatever you wanna call'em, selling technician service, senior advisor y, you can for sure do more calls. But look, the se the selling technician's gonna make more money if he can run eight calls, so to speak, or take eight calls or seven calls or six calls. It's far more than his. Two or three that he's gonna be maximized. He's gonna be completely maxed out.

Joe Cunningham:

Yeah. You know, and three calls as far as making money, three seems to be like the sweet spot for most people. If you take a look at it, and you don't have to be in a big metropolitan area to prove it to yourself. But, you know, we want to keep, try and keep this guy in his eight hour window. So he leaves here at eight and he goes to see a customer. Then he is gonna drive another half hour and he is gonna go see a customer. Then he is gonna drive another half hour. Then he is gonna go see a customer. So we got just take it and make his drive time. 20 minutes. Well, I got 1, 2, 3, 4 drive times at 20 minutes. Well, that's an hour and 20 minutes out of the eight hours. So I've got six and a half hours to inspect four or five systems, which is what you're asking me to do. If I just dropped in a three, I got six and a half hours to inspect three, what, where are you gonna get the best results?'cause the guy's gonna find everything and now he's gonna bring you in so you can sell it and you can install those parts while you're there. You know, I was always a big proponent on four. That's because I was working so hard getting the guys to stop running six or eight. You know, and I work with a lot of plumbers as well, and one of the most successful as far as driving revenue as a percentage of profit is David Rat Ratliff with Midway Plumbing in Abilene, Texas. He has never had his plumbers run more than three calls a day, but David's little company's got five plumbers, and I've been going to his company every year since 2008, with the exception of maybe 21. And so 2008 to 23, that's 15 years. He's got five plumbers. Four of them till this year were the same ones as when I started there. That's how long they stay. Wow. He hired a new one. One guy's getting older. He retired this year, so he had to hire the plumber. But David's doing three and a half million dollars at over 30% net with five plumbers running three calls a day, and he's in Abilene. So. Abilene is a rural community, so he drives a long damn way for to go from call to call because he, you don't know about Texas, I guess, but you know, he's going to Sweetwater. He's going way past Baird and Clyde. I mean, he's going everywhere, but that's what they're doing because the guys understand the process and we've been doing it so long that, that's all they know to do.

Corey Berrier:

It's a no brainer to me. Like I think that is, you know, and it's a dream job for a sales guy in my opinion. If you could sit behind a computer or off telephone and continue to make more sales than you would, it seems like to me

Joe Cunningham:

the perfect sales job. Well, yeah. You know, you take a look at the guys that have lots and lots of calls, like, Ken Goodrich. Phoenix. He's got a guy that will sell seven or$8 million a year, maybe even more Now I haven't checked on his number because he does a senior service advisor, I think, and he's good. Where in the world would you go sit in a chair and sell seven, eight,$10 million worth of equipment in a year? That's phenomenal.

Corey Berrier:

Yeah, that makes complete sense. Well, yeah I really hope you know, the folks that are listening, I hope they really paid attention to everything you said.'cause I believe this is, this should be implemented in any of these companies because it just makes sense to me. And I'm a little shocked that most people don't do it. It makes sense. So many different ways. Joe, this has been such a fantastic conversation. You've got some training coming up, right? Yep. August 15th or

Joe Cunningham:

so? Well, we've got a 10 day fast track program coming up on August 15th, I think it is. Let me look in the book and make sure that's right. I then start running together. Yeah, August 15th through the 20 24th. And again, it's 10 days straight. And the tuition's only 34 95. And it's a great deal. You will be happy with whoever you send back if the guy applies himself. And you know, the, we keep'em plenty busy when they get back. They'll be tired, they'll be tired. And they study at night. You know, we make sure that we tell them to do that. Now, some of'em slip out at night and they don't do as well as the other, you know, that we, before they leave, they take a e p a 6 0 8 test. So they have that done and out of the way, and we have about a 92 to 94% pass rate on universal. Because we teach them to do that as well. So if they don't have an E p A, they're gonna come back and they'll be ready to put in a truck. Then you're not gonna send them out to troubleshoot communicating systems. But as far as tuneups and the basic repairs, because we give them a troubleshooting guide when they leave, they have a book that gives them a checklist. To send them to the right place. You know, do these things work? Yes or no? Okay. Then you take that sheet, and then we have what we call our truck book. And then the truck book, it says, steps to take when, steps to take. When condenser runs, furnace does it furnace runs, condenser, does it? None of this crap runs. Heat pump won't. Heat and heating heat pump won't cool and cool, whatever it is. And then it gives'em the 12 or 15 most common problems and how to troubleshoot'em and everything. If they take their book and they use it, set their self up with their sheet. Follow a checklist to check every single component in there. They know how to use their gauges. They know how to use their meters. They understand sequence of operation. Sequence of operation is a tr is the basics for most troubleshooting. And then you do the call by call management. So now the guy has called in and the thing about using the checklist that's so good, Corey, is service managers used to be put in a bad situation because there really weren't any. Written down processes to do this with. So I would be out on a job and I'd say, Corey, I can't get it running. I did this and this. Then you say, well, did you do that? No. Well go do that and call me back later. Well, we'll do that four times, right? Four times. Or the guy will just not wanna do that, and then they put in$400 worth of parts and then they call you and tell you that he can't get it going and say, well, did you check the breaker, Bob? He said, oh shit, you. So it eliminates that and it takes that four or five call situation and puts it down. Now the guy's got all the information, he's followed all the troubleshooting steps, he's done all those things. So now when he calls you in, he gives you the exact information because you have more experience. You can pinpoint that thing. You can use a app if you want to FaceTime it and watch him do it. So it's simple. Seems like it's too

Corey Berrier:

so simple that it, you know, I guess people could mess it up, but it seems pretty

Joe Cunningham:

straightforward to me. You know, you can mess up and the one thing I will say about the training is this. When you train these guys, they learn how to do it real well upfront, and then they start getting good. And that's when you have a problem because, They will tend to skip using the books and they're looking and say, oh, I had this problem last week. I know what to do. And then they just start at step number six or seven instead of one. And then they go back and they can't do it or they forget little things, you know? And in our perfect service call, we have'em do everything. And one of the main things and a lot of people overlook this, is cycle the system three times before you leave. So I don't want him 20 miles down the road before it cuts on the second cycle and it won't start, you know, I make him do those things there. So all of that stuff that you make, controllable gets done. What gets done and gets inspected works for you. And that's just my philosophy on it. Well, Joe,

Corey Berrier:

this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this stuff today. I think, you know, if people, you know, they should really go back and listen to this again because this is really powerful stuff and a pretty simple way to get employees that are not currently in the trades. Bring people into the trades that you know that ultimately, maybe not, whatever, would never consider this. So I

Joe Cunningham:

appreciate you, my friend. I appreciate you having me on here. You know, if anybody needs to get a hold of me, we do the fast Track program here. I tend to do most of the call by call stuff in-house. I'm going up to Joe Strip Matters at Fry Myers in Dallas tomorrow, and, Tomorrow, the next day. We've already implemented that there, but now we're going back with a perfect service call with his plumbers. I was there last month. We did the HVAC guys, and I've known Joe forever. He is done a fantastic job, but I mean his guys are getting better and better and he's done some amazing stuff at Strip Matters. But I can come to your place and help you with the call by call management. We will probably be having some call by call management classes with Service Roundtable and Service Nation. To kind of pay the industry back? I do. I do the rehash program free online. Couple times a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. So if you just kind of, if you'll send me an email, I'll put you on the list and tell you when I'm doing it. There's absolutely no charge for that whatsoever. And I'll tell you exactly what to do. I give you the scripts for the phone. I give you the scripts for your letters that you send out. I tell you the. What to tell the techs to make it work when you're out in the field. So it's really easy and that's my way of giving more back to the industry. But thanks. I'd like to thank everybody for joining us and if you need to get ahold of me, I'm gonna give you my cell number, which is the easiest way because I travel a lot. My cell number is 3 1 8 2 8 6 7 7 4 2. So you can reach me there or you can send me an email at Joe. five2@verizon.net. So thanks for letting me join you today, Corey. My pleasure, Joe. Thank you very much my friend. Okay, thanks.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Corey Berrier

Host