Revolutionizing Plumbing and Drain Companies: Insights from Allan Ferguson

Have you ever wondered how to skyrocket your plumbing and drain a company's revenues? You're in for a treat as we connect with Allan Ferguson, the master of transforming average tickets from $300 to an impressive $2,000 in record time. From highlighting the vital role of a solid sales process to the significance of top-quality drain cams and monitors, Allan lays out the roadmap to business success in the plumbing industry. 

Ready for a deep dive into the sales potential of your drain cleaning technicians? Allan unpacks the importance of training your team to sell inspections effectively and how showing customers the problem before fixing it can lead to better sales. And we don't stop there – we explore the game-changing role of AI in marketing automation, discuss the essential role of customer communication and retention strategies, and even touch on the need for financial incentives to fuel your team's motivation.

We ended our conversation with Allan by discussing maximizing drain calls and hiring the right employees. Sharing insights on Joe Cunningham's training program for technicians and the Superdrains Academy, we delve into the potential of these programs to mold a team that can maximize revenue and reach the pinnacle of success. As a cherry on top, we broach the subject of the Service Success Academy and the paramount role of online interaction in today's business landscape. Step into the future of plumbing and drain business success with Allan Ferguson – you won't want to miss it!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Cory Barrier, and I am here with Alton Ferguson. What's up, Alton?

Speaker 2: 0:44

Yeah, look, currently down under again spending a bit of time with family and yeah, really, I mean I've been really excited to get back on this podcast with you. I really enjoyed the last time we connected and we've had a few conversations since then and this is great. Thank you for the opportunity, cory.

Speaker 1: 1:04

For sure. So you have a new, I believe. Just to segue you a little personally, you have a new nephew or new no grandson Grandson. Sorry, I have a new nephew, my apologies, I got myself mixed up. So you have a new grandson, fairly like very new, right?

Speaker 2: 1:23

Yeah, he's one month old. He was born seven weeks premature, at a whopping three pounds, which is not much to be said, and yeah, but he's back home with mom and he's healthy, and that's all that matters, right.

Speaker 1: 1:37

It's all that matters, that's right. So, alan Rick, look I want to talk about. I want to talk about some of the things that you work with plumbing companies or and or just drain companies and I think the first place I want to go with this is how do you improve their revenue? How is it that you're able to take them from a, let's call it, a $200, $300 average ticket to a $12, $13, $14, $2,000? I mean, I don't know the numbers exactly, but tell me, you could actually run through some of those numbers. What's the biggest gap you've seen? You've taken somebody from what to what. What's the biggest jump you've seen?

Speaker 2: 2:19

So and look, this is, I've worked with a lot of companies here and I do work with companies that have got average tickets that are deplorable, like anything under 500 average ticket in drainage. You're really not doing it right. So I've worked with companies that let's call them 300. And I've the best companies that I've worked with I've personally helped go from, you know, three or 400 bucks to about $2,000 average tickets and in a short period of time. So you do the math on that like you don't have to be a rocket science scientist to understand that's a dramatic increase in revenues. So the companies that I founded we had plumbing and drain companies. We were probably between 2000 and 2500 in average tickets, depending on some of the bigger jobs that we would win. But a recent example really good company and look one of the things with If you want to increase your average ticket and let's say you're three or 400, if you're below $500, we need to look at how much you're charging. The way you're charging, I mean I recommend flat rate or margin pricing for everything you do, except for drain clearing and drain cleaning. I believe that should be done on an hourly rate in 30 minute increments. We got to get those rates right. So recently, an example great company drain company out of Omaha, rod, started working with me last year I think it was around October. Average ticket was about 400, 420. We got him to 1280 within three months and he didn't have to do a lot of work. But this guy is a serious implementer. Okay, he went in and did the fucking work and he got the results. So you know, a lot of the companies I work with are just not willing. They don't want to charge more. Well, okay, and they're not willing to put in the hard work to actually get your average ticket up. So and some of the things you need to, it's not just about charging more, but you need to have a sales process so that every drain call you run, you're looking for massive opportunity, you're presenting options to customers, showing them problems that they didn't know they had, and your average ticket will go up and the overall profitability of the company.

Speaker 1: 4:53

It does.

Speaker 2: 4:54

It's kind of hard to look for problems if you don't run a camera, though, right yeah camera is our eyes and it's sort of like taking a car to the mechanic and not letting him lift the bonnet. You know like the camera is so important and I just don't know how we got by all these years without the camera. But your camera is your best friend. And when it comes to drain cameras, don't Anyone that's listening in to this podcast, it's a Plumber, a drain cleaner. Don't cut yourself short here. Make sure you get good quality camera, good monitors. You can actually show the customer the problem. You need to educate your customer. You need to show them what it is. You're trying to sell them by identifying and just having real good visibility. But there is a process for that. I mean it's now you're having the camera. If you're just using it for your own viewing pleasure, you need to. The customer needs to come along on the journey. That's right.

Speaker 1: 5:52

You know, and I think by having a better piece of equipment. Well, tell me the difference. Tell me the difference in, you know, your average piece of equipment that maybe somebody's going to buy because it's, you know, is reasonably but you know, reasonably priced, opposed to one that you would recommend.

Speaker 2: 6:13

We always look all of that we had, like we had about back in Australia. We had about 30 drain trucks and each truck had a camera. We went for the good quality. It was rigid, which it's one of the most expensive, probably not the most expensive. But when it comes to cameras you've got to realize you're giving them to you, to plumbers basically, and they're you know they can be pretty rough on equipment. Now you can have processes in place and tell them how to, but at the end of the day they're going to use that camera like a plunger and they're just going to. They just want to get that camera down the drain and they don't look after it. If it was their own they probably would. But you want something that's tough, that will go the distance. You don't want some of the and I'm not bagging any equipment Okay, I'm sure there's some really good quality Chinese cameras on the market and I've tried a few of them. They look the same, they probably do the same thing. But if they're breaking down every couple of weeks, that's just. That's going to kill your efficiency. So we went for equipment that we knew was tough. It's a bit like buying a truck. You know you want something that's going to be able to go the distance and be able to handle the rough wear and tear. So that's my recommendations, but I'm sure there's good quality equipment out there that does go the distance. And yeah, I'm just not overly aware of it.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Well and look, you probably can get some good ones that are less expensive, but you take the risk of it you know it failing and then, like you said, that damages the efficiency, which means you can't really run a 30 minute call for $79 or whatever it is that they're running it for, because the idea behind that is that you don't and correct me if I'm wrong but the idea behind that is that you you spend a half an hour for that $79. If it falls under the specific specificity, I think, sort of trying to say of what it of the offer, right, and I think that's that, potentially, is where a lot of people fail is the offer is also super important that you're very clear about what you're doing and what you're not doing in that 30 minute timeframe.

Speaker 2: 8:28

Yeah, look, when it comes to the specials and look, I see a lot of companies in Australia as well as the US have copied, you know, the model that we I didn't create, the model I created, shit I'd take. I see what successful companies are doing and I follow it, you know, and I try to be as original as I can. I'm not into plagiarism or anything like that, but I look at you know, we brought what I saw, I learned around 2006, 2007,. Some really successful companies in the US and I was part of the best practice group and I took what I learned down to Australia and we and look even, and I know one of the things we've talked about is the power of implementation and you know we I didn't really have strong implementers in the business, but I was pretty like driven to implement or what I'd learned, and I learned that not everything that works in the US works in Australia. So I learned through trial and error and you know, no one was really doing what we were doing at the time. So what I learned through testing is and then I look at the successful companies here in the US and I believe that most companies that do a special are giving away too much, like we've tried giving away cameras, giving away water jetting, giving away stuff, and it was detrimental to the sales process. So what I mean by that, corey, is that you send a technician to a job where the camera is being given, the water jet never is being given. What the fuck does he sell Like he's? You've removed a couple of steps in the process. So I believe that it's more important to have the technician get used to being selling a camera inspection and he might sell that inspection off the back of a membership. Or you might have a special within your sales process, like, for example, you might do, and I highly recommend companies learn to build in 30 minute increments, and I'm only talking about drain clearing, drain cleaning, camera work, location work should be charged in 30 minute increments because it's what builds. You need to be in front of the customer every 30 minutes. You're working on a relationship. You're not going to sell shit unless you've got I can't believe I said that, but anyway I've drilled the word shit into a drain cleaning conversation Good one. So you're not going to sell anything unless you've got the relationship with the customer. So my observations are specials are great to get the phone ring. Limit them as much as you can. Don't give away the farm. Train your technicians, your entry level technicians, the guys that are going to the run, the special. Just train them in the basic stuff how to sell a camera inspection, the importance of showing the customer the problem. You're going to your special might include 20 minutes or 30 minutes. With hand rods or an electric eel you might limit it to a certain distance. So then you need to. The idea is to get the water to go down, to pop the drain. That just means you punch the hole in whatever's blocking it. That's when you need to take the customer on the first. You need to show them what that problem is. Don't go and fucking remove the problem completely, because what are you going to show them? A clean pipe. That will work out well for your sales process. So, anyway, that's probably going on a bit about this, but this is just everything's got to be thought out. If you want to be successful in drain cleaning, drain clearing and drain cleaning, you need to have a process and your technicians and look, I learned this, I learned, you know, I thought like giving away cameras and giving away water jetters and all that was the way to do this. And then what I learned was my technicians said to me Alan, what the like this has hurt us because you used to give us a commission on selling a Camry used to give us a commission like because we, I believe in what gets rewarded, gets done, and we would give our technicians a financial reward for following process and making sales, and then that would always lead to more sales because they knew that their earnings were from selling stuff. When you start removing that stuff from them, I believe that's a problem.

Speaker 1: 13:05

I would totally agree. It's like taking somebody's commission away or reducing their commission structure. Essentially, yeah, no, I that makes complete sense. But I'm sure you get well, what if I, you know, if I went out there to clean, clean or clear the drain, and what if I'm not done in 30 minutes? Right, I'm sure you get that all the time. What am I supposed to tell the customer? Cause I didn't do the job?

Speaker 2: 13:30

Look, anyone that's in the plumbing and drain industry knows that not that many drains can be cleared in 30 minutes. Okay, but they can. And you know you've got and look, I share some great examples of customers that they would just call us out just for that 30 minute special, whether it's 79 or 99. There's no look, I don't tell anyone what to charge. I've got companies that can be very successful charging 49. And I've got other companies that I'm not doing it for less than 199. I don't really care what you charge, as long as you can get the phone. Call your staff. When the higher, the more you charge, the harder it is for your call center staff to convert it. The lower the fee, the easier it is for them to get a technician in front of the customer. And if you've got well-trained technicians, the goal is to get that technician to do the work. But the lower the fee, the harder it is for the technician to move that to your desired break-even. Because this is all about when you're running a special, a loss leader. It's all about getting to break-even in the shortest amount of time and my system that I train we're aiming for about an hour. In the first 30 minutes you'll lose some money Before you get is the fee that you've charged and that's where it stops. You've missed a step and you haven't followed the sales process. But if you're able to keep going and, let's say, the next 30 minutes should be moving into the correct charges that you need for your equipment you should be able to get to a break-even point in 60 minutes. Some companies it takes 90 minutes and this is something I say to the companies that I work with, and one of the key performance indicators I want is you're running a special great, you're giving away too much, and that's just my observations. But what's your conversion rate? Out of every 10 calls you run, how many of those calls are only the special, meaning you're 79 or you're 99. And how many of them move to the next level? And if that number, if you're converting better than 30%, so you don't want the special to be any less, any more than 30%. So, meaning, out of every 10 calls, three of those calls all you collected was your 79 or your 99. And then seven out of those have moved to at least break-even or profit, and that might be. You might have four jobs fit into that category and then you'll have a couple of jobs that go past where extend, where they either have an excavation, which is, I highly recommend, adding cleanouts, repairing the problem, could be a complete drain replacement. It could be a full, trenchless, no-dig solution. So you need to know the numbers and it's when I work with any company the very first thing I say is do you, what numbers do you know? Do you know what your conversion rate is? Now, if your conversion rate on the special, if you're, if that's above 30%, let's say 50% of your calls are at the special, you've got a problem and we need to fix that as quickly as possible. But there is a marketing opportunity there because you can actually take that in your marketing to your you know whether it's on social or whether it's in your website and tell the world look, you know there's a lot of hype around $79 drain clears. But here is an example of all the happy customers that have had their drains cleared for $79. Now that is going to build, that's going to build your brand and but you've got to have you've got to have happy customers, you know.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I think also, you know, I think what you're saying too is that you've got to also set expectations, and I think if you set expectations I don't think I know with any sales process if you set expectations of how the call is going to go and you let them know at the 30 minute mark, 25 minute, whatever it is I'm going to come back, I'm going to tell you where. You know where we're at. Here's what could happen, right? Is that how you do it? Or how do you set the expectation? Okay?

Speaker 2: 18:04

Oh, you've got to like. You know, I teach contractors a process and a real simple process. I, if you know what I teach, can fit on one page. It's a checklist and you know, if any of your cast listeners want access to that checklist, I'm happy to share some information on that. But you've got to keep it simple and you need a step by step process. So the very first thing that I teach is the pre-call that technician. If currently your dispatchers or your CSRs do the first point of call to let them know the technicians on the way, I want you to allow the technician to also. The technician should be communicating with the customer because that's his first point of contact. That's where he can say hey, mr Jones, it's Alan. From on go bongo plumbing, whatever your company name is. I'm on my way. Listen, I'm dropping by a Starbucks to get myself a coffee. Can I get you one on the way? No, that's all right, alan, I'm good, but I look forward to seeing you in 30 minutes. So I'll be there and let the customer know you're going to be there and also confirm with that customer the problem that they've got. So I mean, we know that shit happens in service companies, especially when you're doing it. We were doing up to 2000 calls a month that we, our dispatchers, accidentally sent our drain guy to an electrical or a HBAC call. So make sure you confirm that this. You know, mrs Jones, it is a block drain that I'm attending. Yeah, yeah, alan, that's what you're coming out for. So that first point of contact confirm the address, confirm the problem, start to build the rapport with the customer, ask them if they want a coffee you don't need to do any more than that and then when you get there in front of the customer, it's like they already know you, right, and then that's then. Your second point of contact is about getting them to show you where the problem is. From there you need to say, right, for 30 minutes I'm going to work my tail off, I'm going to try to get this drain cleared for you. If I can, great, but if I can't, I'll come back and I'll knock on the door and we'll discuss the next steps and that's it. That's a process, right, but by that time you've had two interactions with the customer. You're not ready to present anything, any big numbers, but you're getting closer, you're moving the sale in the direction it needs to go.

Speaker 1: 20:28

Perfect. You explained that great. And just for context, alan, I think if I'm not mistaken, the last year you ran your company you did about $24 million. How much of that, I think? I guess that breaks down to about 2.5 million a month. How much of that was drained?

Speaker 2: 20:50

We were drains alone, we were probably approaching about 1.5 million in revenue every month, but about a million of that was from running specials. So we had, you know, I think we had a lot. We had a lot of existing customers let's call it 70,000 to 100,000, that we would generate. And I look and this is an area I don't know if you want to dive into, but I'd love to get into existing customers and how you get more from them, and that's probably the area where I put more energy into anything else and maybe we can we can morph into that later. But so about a million a month came from running specials and we would run a $79 drain clear or an an 99,. We split test and I recommend any company listening to this you need to be testing shit. Don't just rely on what you think is working. Always test it with something else. And I got that idea from Billy Stevens, the founder of Sira, talking about. He was testing using zero dispatch fees versus charging and it was all about the least amount of resistance and he found that zero service fees work better than charging the customer. Conversion rates were fine, but so, yeah, so about a million a month came from specials and then about half a million a month came from existing customers that just rung up and say I've got a block dragging. You, send someone out to fix it. Yep, we can do that. And look, there's much more that comes into this. You know, it's not just about getting that phone to ring, it's about everything that your team do to lock that call in. To me, a drain call was worth big money. Okay, so the average lifetime value of a customer let's say a drain customer to me, let's say it's a 10, that customer, probably over the next three years, is probably worth 10 grand to me. And I did this exercise with a company down under last week and they calculated that their average lifetime value of a customer was about 8,000,. But look, but you need to know what that customer's worth to you. Okay, and this is why marketing to your existing customers needs to be number one priority. I'd like you know you want to waste money on Google AdWords. Fine, that's just not my recommendation. Only because we used to do that and I realized that the gold and the revenue should come from your existing customers and no one I repeat, no one is fully exploiting that, but we're about to launch a product that is going to blow the minds of anyone that's listening when it comes to their existing customers and how to get more from them. So yeah, so about 1.5 million a month just from drains. We were really set up well for drains. We had about 30 drain trucks. All the trucks had jetters and cameras and locators and I focused on drains because the revenue potential for us and the profit potential was just massive. Hope that answers your question, corey.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Yeah, 100%. So look, here's how I see this. If you've already paid for the customer, why would you not we call it reactivation campaign here why would you not continually sell to that person? I don't mean send them a sales email every single week, but I mean I guess you could right. But you don't want to flood. I don't want people to get the wrong idea because they'll flood their customer base with a bunch of crazy emails. There doesn't have to be systematic. There has to be a way to go about doing it. That is ultimately a sales email, even if it's a value, right? Even if it's a value email. And for you, you reactivating those drain customers also led to electrical, plumbing, hvac, right. Because now you get to tell them all the other areas that your business works in, and again, you already paid for them. So why would you not utilize those same people that you've already sold to, opposed to, like you said, going on Google and paying a fortune to get new people? But people do it all the time 100%.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And look, I know we've discussed in. You know we did a. You were on a one of my podcasts just recently and that podcast is going to come out in a few days. I'm not too sure when this is coming out, so maybe your podcast that you're a pipeline of profitability will come out before this one is. So it's funny how this all works. But you know we talked about the power of AI and utilizing AI with marketing automation. I'm big on marketing automation. I think we did it better than most people in the industry, but it's very labor intensive. So, to answer your question, why don't contractors market to the customers they've already got? Because it's fucking hard work. It really is Anyone that says oh, it's easy, you just pick up the phone and call them. Well, yeah, you can do that, but it's you know if you can buy. And I learned this early in the piece when we fought, when I first started playing, you know we created a website. Was probably around 2001, 2002. Google AdWords I forget what year it was. We started to play with that, but let's call it 2005. I mean, I don't anyone that's listened and hold me to the dates, it's just I'm testing my memory here. It's pretty damn good, but it's not perfect. But we started playing with Google AdWords earlier than anyone that I knew, and I was watching all my fellow contractors in the US boasting about their full page yellow paid page ads and I'm going fuck like. What a waste of money. It's a bit like Google AdWords. Now, you know, I believe that it's overpriced by a multiple of at least 10. And this is why it's the responsibility of the marketing manager and the owner to find leads at the lowest possible denominator, and I believe that can be achieved from existing customers. So so, yeah, no, we talked about I marketing automation. Now, if you were to engage, if you have someone in your business that can get your customers out of your job management system whether that's CIRA or there's some other products out there not as good If you can get the data into a full CRM that can email, sms, voice broadcast, remind your outbound staff when to call, and there's lots of other stuff that it can do If you were to do that manually or engage someone, it's going to cost you a lot of money. If you've got a lot of time right, what if you could do the same thing by using artificial intelligence? And I know this is we're going to. We're going to venture into this conversation because we're about to launch a product which is exactly what I'm talking about, and this is not a sales pitch, much, it's just. I just want more contractors to realize what is possible, and I believe that, by utilizing the right CRM with artificial intelligence can reduce your the cost to market to your existing customer to about 25%. That's my view, and, look, I've been wrong on more things than I've been right, but I'm predicting that this is the future of AI.

Speaker 1: 28:54

So I agree Because look, think about this there's no human error with AI Once it's set up. If it's set up properly, you're not going to have, you don't have that. You take that, and I don't mean like you're taking out the human element in all in your business. I mean you're taking the human element out of sending those manual emails or making those follow up not follow up calls, but like to existing color. It would take a lot of manpower. It would take in again. It would also take their human error. That's involved with that, with what you're talking about there. If it's set up correctly and it will be and it is it will be as long as it Thanksgiving day meal. You don't have room for error. Now don't get me wrong. Is it perfect? No, but it's pretty damn close.

Speaker 2: 29:42

I look, I'm really excited about where this is all going and with utilizing AI, with marketing, crm, follow up and look, something that I was taught and I probably I should mention my business partner, joe Cunningham, who taught me many years ago the power of rehash. Rehash is just following up leads that your technicians that have left with your customers and not followed up for whatever reason. Look, I get it. I mean trying to get when you've left proposals and multiple proposals. If you run your calls the way that I teach, using the perfect service call for drains and you've left multiple options with the customer and, for whatever reason, your technician didn't close, you've got an opportunity to get those sales, bring those sales back in. I did I think I may have mentioned it on your podcast and we've discussed this before is that a company can generate up to 30 percent of their sales can be generated for just by following up proposals and leads that have already been left behind. What if you could automate all that stuff? Now you can automate the reminder to call a customer, because I believe that before you get on the phone and ring someone and follow up, you should at least have some steps in place. Whether that's an email is quite unreliable. I mean you might have a 15 percent success rate where the customer actually opens the email doesn't mean they're going to action the email. You might then say well, sms works better. You might have a 30 percent success rate with SMS, but followed up with a voice broadcast or a ringless voice mark might deliver a 50 percent. These are just numbers I'm pulling out of my ass, they're not actual numbers. But then with a follow-up call that you might take that to 70 percent. I learned this from Dan Kennedy, magnetic Marketing, years ago. You've got to have a process and you've got to be consistent. But I can be used for all the steps, except for the actual phone call. And AI is not replacing staff, it's not replacing people. You still need someone, still needs to get on the phone and make the call, but the AI might just send you a reminder hey, this customer needs to be called today. Fucking call them.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Anyway, that's just Well, what if there was a way that you send that sequence, the three sequence, the ringless voice mail, the email, the SMS. But what if the SMS had the ability to have an interactive chatbot inside of it? What that chatbot would do would give you the ability, the customer to say I want to go ahead and book, or I don't want to book, don't call me, do call me, or what do you have available. How do you see that working? Because that is AI and that's being implemented now.

Speaker 2: 33:02

My thoughts. Okay, look, I'll be honest with you. It's moving really fast and I'm not a slow learner, but when I learn something, I'm effing good at it. I believe that's just my view, but it's a bit like asking me I've got no idea how electricity works, but I love what it does. It's much the same. Corrie. There's so much happening with AI. All I know is what we're utilising it in An example. A great example of AI and software would be CIRA software. I mean what Billy Stevens is doing with his product and AI is just. It's about to change the industry for the better. I would hate to be a competing software to CIRA right now, because they're about to get their ass handed to them whoever's competing against it because he's using AI and the shit that's going on with that software product. It's just mind-boggling to me and I love that and I feel that with a product like we're talking about, that we're going to be launching, that uses AI to help automate the marketing to your existing customers and it does other shit as well, it does way more than that. It's about to revolutionise the industry and that's just my view and I'm entitled to it, right.

Speaker 1: 34:32

That's right. My point in saying that is that you want to make it as easy on the customer as possible. So if you hit them with all of those things and you give them the ability to maybe go to your site, use a bot, send an SMS back, communicate any way that they want to communicate, that's really where you got to think about the customer. It's not what's necessarily easiest on me or you. You got to think what's easiest on the customer. And the fact is customers are getting younger and younger, right? I mean, younger people don't want to pick up the phone and call back. Younger people would much rather spend time on their phone trying to book an appointment, and imagine if that appointment goes straight to your calendar, which it will. You've avoided forgetting to call them back. You avoided even having to call them back because, look, nobody loves calling people back, necessarily in playing phone tag. If you could eliminate that with this product, and I just think it's going to make it easier for everybody.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Absolutely Look. This is one thing. And look, sometimes I go back to the basics and I keep to anyone that's finding you know they're not getting the results out of their business that they should be. Sometimes you need to go back to the real basic shit and because you tend to move away from that and you tend to look at all the some of the advanced stuff that's going on. So one thing that I learned is, I mean, you know my companies. I was proud to say that we did a frigging good job most of the time. And look, whenever you've got humans that can make error, there's going to be things that just don't go exactly as they should. But one of the things I learned was that we're, you know, like the average service company. Let's say, most of the companies I work are premium companies. They do a phenomenal job. They might be a little bit on the higher priced guys, but they're providing a really quality service and they think that their customer will remember them who they are. I just want to challenge everyone that's listening to this. Do not think that for a minute. And I've learned the hard way with I share my pest control guy story that you know we always had a lot of termites in our homes and we got this company who was recommended to us. He was phenomenal. He did a great job, he presented us options, he found termites, he fixed it and then, you know, it didn't cost an arm and a leg. We didn't have to take out a second mortgage on my home to fix the problem. And then I said to him OK, so how often do you need to check for termites? He said every six months. I said will you remind me? He said absolutely, I'll reach out. We'll come back in six months and we'll just make sure there's none of those little rascals have snuck into any other part of the home and anyone that knows has had termites in their home. It can be quite devastating. Homes get demolished when termites have done too much damage. So six months later I said to my wife at the time have you heard from the termite guy? No, have you. Can you call him? I said yeah, what's his phone number? Well, I'd left that with you, haven't you got his? I mean, this guy was good, we loved him, but neither of us could remember the name of the company who he was, because we're both leading busy lives and that's just. I just wanted to share that story because if all you do with your marketing automation is let your customers know who you are and that you're still around and you've got to stay in contact I mean, look, some people don't mind being emailed daily I probably wouldn't recommend it maybe weekly, but don't just be throwing sales pitches at them. You've got to. You know, I did a fantastic podcast with a guy by the name of Kevin Kniebel Kniebel Hope I said that right and he talked about with communicating to your customers. You need, there needs to be some human element in there, you know, and just sometimes just got to connect with them. How are you? I hope everything is well and look, when it comes to what to say and what to do, that's not my thing, but sometimes if you're trying to sell them every week and you might piss them off, so you need to think about that. But so that, just that one thing just regularly communicating to your existing customers so that they know who you are and they'll remember you. You should be putting stickers and magnets and valve tags throughout the home for everything you do, you know. So you need to find a way to continually communicate and this is one thing that I challenge my staff a lot on this and I would throw I'd throw a question at them and I knew that they couldn't answer, but I would do it anyway, because that's just the way I'm wired. One of the things I used to say to my CSR manager I'd say so, out of all the customers on our database and let's call it 70,000, I think we had a lot more how many of them know that we now have the premium air conditioning company in Sydney? And no one could answer that question. But the question itself is what it was like. Ok, let's get to work. I want every single one of those customers to know that we are now a premium air conditioning company, so that that creates a challenge in itself, right, because we know that email might only deliver 15%. And so let's get to work. Let's make sure that every single one of those customers knows that we have the best air conditioning company in Sydney. And that's just the way I roll, corey.

Speaker 1: 40:32

Well, if you don't let them know who is, nobody right. I mean, you look, and you shouldn't feel bad about that. You shouldn't feel bad about wanting to share how you can help the people that have contributed to your business. That's how I see it.

Speaker 2: 40:51

So yeah, so that's like that's just one thing. There's so many. There's so many more things you can do. You know, like we, one of the things I want, the other, one of the other things I teach my, the companies that me and Joe work with and there's a lot within Australia and the US is, when it comes to drains and warranty, you need to be booking. You know, if you're going to give a lifetime warranty, which I recommend, or 15 year, whatever, same 15 year, lifetime, same thing. Right, in my view, you need the ability to book the warranty inspection and, using AI, to reach out to those customers at the desired time. You know if it's a 12 monthly inspection, maybe 10 or 11 months, before an email, they don't respond, and the AI will know that if they've opened the email and not, right, and then if they haven't, well then that you escalate that to a text message. Then you should know whether they've, and if they haven't responded to that, then you're on the upbound, but also sending direct mail, and so the CRM will actually communicate to a mailhouse, or maybe you might have an internal ability. So, and they're all some of the things you can be doing that you can be using artificial intelligence to help with right 100%, absolutely, and all right.

Speaker 1: 42:13

so one more thing I want you to. You know I should probably ask you this earlier, but I kind of dropped the ball on it. But you know the way I see. When we were talking about your sales process and how you maximize drain calls, I would argue that you know everybody's looking for employees, everybody's looking for technicians, right? But I think, if I'm understanding you correctly, if you run these calls the right way, you run them efficiently, maybe you wouldn't have to look necessarily for more technicians.

Speaker 2: 42:46

So, look, you've touched on a look. I might have to spend a little bit longer on this one than normal, because you've touched on a key point for me, and it's what I'm really about with my I suppose passion for the industry's been good for me and I want to be able to give back as much as possible. So, when it comes to growing and having technicians, I want to ask everyone that's, I want everyone that's listening to this podcast, and I'm sure it's a lot of people right what's what makes the better employee? Someone who has got the skill that you need and, yes, everyone needs the skill, and I'll come back to my thoughts on that or do you want someone with the skill, or do you want someone with the right attitude? Okay now, attitude is important. You want team players. You want people that are willing to, you know, to be involved in a team environment. You want people that are going to go the extra mile. So I feel my view is that it's more important to get the right person, the right personality, understanding whether that person is a visionary or an integrator and it's okay to have visionaries in the business but you want people that are going to get shit done. Excuse me Good, grab a drink of water.

Speaker 1: 44:11

I'm surprised you hadn't had a drink of water before now.

Speaker 2: 44:15

No, I'm not losing my voice later on today, but that's okay. So, visionary, integrator and personality type. You know I've done a lot of training just recently on the different types of personality and there's four personality types. You've got your sanguine, you're outgoing person, you got your cholerax, or you're driven money hungry buddy, want to succeed at all costs. You've got your. You've got your melancholys, your analytical types, you've got your phlegmatics. Each position in your company you need a certain personality type. So I mean, if you're hiring an accounts person and they don't have any analytical personality, you're hiring the wrong person. So there is the you know, the visionary integrator test sheet, which is something that I recommend, and then the personality type. But I would much rather and I've had way better success we're bringing in someone with a lower skill level and then give them that skill. So I want the right attitude. I want someone that's on board with my vision of where I want to go. And then there's ways to add skills. So in plumbing and drains, for instance, joe Cunningham has amazing trade schools for air conditioning and for plumbing in Houston and in 10 days you can get someone with zero skills to a given skill level. And Joe says it's about. And you should get Joe on the podcast because he'll be able to explain this way better than me and he's had way more years in the industry than me and most of what I've learned is from Joe, so he can get someone with zero skill level to, let's say, 75% of where they need to be in 10 days straight and it's a really low investment and I think it's a good investment. So you, let's say, you recruit someone, maybe a mature age apprentice and I used to have great success with mature age apprentices. You know, using anywhere from 25 years on ex-military is perfect. I love military personnel because they're structured and they know how to follow a system. So, ex-military, they've got the right attitude, their team players, they're on board with the vision. Then you give them the skill. So they go to Houston for 10 days whether it's air conditioning or plumbing and it's gonna be plumbing, because that's the conversation today and then they go back to their company. They get some experience out in the field. They get to understand, you know, from doing the job. Because, let's face it, you go to a 10 day training course. You don't really learn shit. You've got the basics and you know what to do. You learn when you actually get out there and do the work, and actually I've got to retract that statement. You do actually get to do some of the hands-on stuff in the school but let's face it, most people learn when they're actually in the real live situation. Okay, I mean, I can teach you how to sell for day, I can spend days with you teaching you how to sell plumbing, but until you actually get out there in front of a customer and do it, you haven't really learned shit. So, yeah, you do your 10 days with Joe and he's got some great trainers. You go back into the company, maybe spend a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months really implementing what you've learned, and then you send them to the Superdrains Academy that's also in Houston, which we are gonna relocate that to South Carolina, the American Pipelining Suppliers headquarters. That might not be until the new year. So you've got the right attitude. You've made sure that the personality type is right. They're not too much of a visionary, they're people that will get you done. You've trained them in Joe's school. They come back into the company. You've sent them back to the Superdrains Academy. They're ready to rock and roll. They in let's call it three months to six months, you've got an A-grader or at least a high-level B-grader that's gonna sell drain repairs. And look, I've trained technicians that have worked for me and other companies to sell up to $300,000 a month in drain and transless drain repairs. So there's that. Look, there's so much more. I could go on about this subject, but, like I said, corey, it's one that I am very passionate about and yeah, I just think, if you wanna scale your company and you wanna grow it and you wanna grow it with the right people, yeah, that's. I now remember what I was gonna say. It's something that I've covered a few times now how many companies actually know what it costs to employ someone?

Speaker 1: 49:01

what it really costs.

Speaker 2: 49:03

And I my thoughts are, it's usually between three months to six months of salary. So if you're bringing on someone for 100K and a lot of plumbers are earning way more than that, now I know plumbers that are getting paid north of 200K a year. That's just the way it is in Sydney, australia. But do you know what it costs to actually employ someone, with the recruitment and the training? It's between three to six months of salary.

Speaker 1: 49:34

So is that answer?

Speaker 2: 49:35

your question. It totally does.

Speaker 1: 49:39

And I think we'll just kind of finish up with this. I think what you don't have bad habits when you're training people that come potentially from outside the industry, they don't have any bad habits that you have to break. And it is hard to break bad habits. It's hard to break training that people have had good, bad or indifferent to do it the way you wanna do it in your company, and I think that's a lot of the, I think that's a lot of the benefit of bringing someone from outside. Would you agree?

Speaker 2: 50:08

Yeah, absolutely. But look, anyone that's been in business for long enough knows everything that I'm saying probably hits a nerve. You know and I was having this conversation the other day, I've had this conversation quite a few times is that I believe in my ability of being a coach and helping other contractors in not what went well for me, it's what didn't work for me, all the things that caused me pain and frustration and heartbreak. Is where I've learnt my lessons and I do my absolute best to give back to any contractor that's willing to work with me and help them to avoid some of the pain that I've been through. But look, if most contractors are like me, you wanna learn the hard way, you wanna learn yourself right, so, but all I can do is advise you on what I believe is the next best step and helping a company to raise its average drain tickets. You know, from a couple of hundred bucks to. There's one client that I've worked with that's got tickets above $4,000. And there's quite a few companies out there that do big average tickets in drains when they incorporate technology like Translis, no Dig solutions. So make sense.

Speaker 1: 51:29

Well, alan, brick in, everybody find you. By the way, this has been a great conversation. Brick in, everybody find you.

Speaker 2: 51:36

Look, probably I'll give you some contacts to put in the show notes. So my email, direct email, is alan at service success network dot com. Don't ask me what my phone number is, cause I never remember it. It's written down somewhere. But, look, I probably not give that out. I'll give you some contact best contact details service success academy dot com is a good way to get to our coaching, but I'll give you some additional contact information to put into your show notes. So if anyone that wants to get to me, they can. I'm currently down under but I'll be back in. I'm based in Houston, texas, cause when I'm there I actually do work for Joe Cunningham and his great training organization, and so I'll be back in Texas at the end of July. And, yeah, if anyone wants me, I'll look forward to seeing if I can help.

Speaker 1: 52:32

Yeah, and you got a great Facebook group too, which is service. Remind me the name of the service success.

Speaker 2: 52:39

We've got quite a few. So we've got service success academy. But yeah, I'll get all the links For sure.

Speaker 1: 52:48

Thank you, my friend, I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 52:52

Appreciate that and, yeah, you have a fantastic day, corey, and I appreciate you having me on the podcast again.

Speaker 1: 52:59

I appreciate you. My friend Talk soon. Thank you.