Charting a Future with AI in Home Services and the Pursuit of Happiness

Discover how AI is set to redefine the home services industry as I, Corey Berrier, delve into the world of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical services, bringing to light the innovations that are poised to transform the way businesses operate. Listen as I unpack the groundbreaking developments from Group 1849, whose work on an AI HVAC technician assistant could very well be the secret to boosting your company's efficiency while scaling down your workforce. This isn't just speculation; it's the reality knocking at your door, and I'll guide you through these transformative times, showing just how vital it is to welcome AI with open arms for customer interactions and operational triumphs.

Then, strap in for a personal journey that hits close to home as I share the importance of choosing happiness and the pursuit of personal growth. Life's not a rehearsal; it's a live show, and every moment is a chance to shine. I get real about the hurdles and discomforts that have been pivotal in my own growth and how facing them head-on has been instrumental in not only personal success but also in fostering resilience in business. So, whether you're looking to revolutionize your service business with AI or you're on a quest for self-improvement, this episode is your beacon toward a future filled with success and satisfaction.

https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and today, folks, you just got me and we're going to dive into technology. We're going to dive into what is coming for our industry, for the home services industry, specifically HVAC, well, plumbing, electrical, and look, I know everybody's a little nervous about AI and I know everybody's a little bit nervous about change, and guess what? Nobody likes change. However, it's coming. It's here. Better yet, I mean, think about 50 years ago. 50 years ago, well, actually, for 50 years, we had zero changes in the HVAC industry. Now we've had four different changes over the last several years, and so if you would have thought 10 years ago somebody would have said these changes, these SEER changes, are coming. You would have thought they were crazy because you can't visualize how things are going to change until they change. But I'll tell you right now, the industry is changing. Ai is here.

Speaker 1: 2:18

People are utilizing AI to the nth degree and I'm going to tell you right now if you think that you're going to avoid using AI, you're wrong. Hell, you're probably already using AI in your business in some shape, form or fashion. Siri, for God's sakes, is AI right? So we've all been using. If you're an Apple customer. We've been using AI for a little bit. Now I'll tell you what's coming, or what's here is. We have designed a Group 1849. You can go to group1849.com if you want to check it out, and you're not going to see this on that site. But this is just a peek into what our group has been working on.

Speaker 1: 3:04

But for the HVAC industry specifically, conversational AI. Well, you might be wondering what is conversational AI? You train an AI model on answering the phone, on follow-up calls, on maintenance agreements, on answering services. A lot of companies are paying right now through the nose for answering services. Or, better yet, maybe you have a bunch of employees that answer the phone throughout the day. Imagine what it would be like if you could shrink your workforce down and develop an AI that would answer every single question exactly the right way for your company. Specifically, you can see behind me. You can see the Six and Fix logo.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I am here in the home office of Six and Fix in Raleigh, north Carolina, which is the company that I work for as a sales manager, and look, we're developing some really cool technology for the business. And look, you don't have to get on board. You really don't, but I can tell you right now, it's here and it is the new way of doing business. It's kind of like I mentioned earlier with the SEER changes. If you didn't get on board with the SEER changes, it really didn't matter, right? When the refrigerant we're getting ready to have a refrigerant change. If you don't get on board with that, it really doesn't matter, because you're going to be out of business, right? I mean, look, times always change, things always change. They don't always feel good, but it's better to be in the know than be left in the dark.

Speaker 1: 5:13

The industry from you know, smart technology, from AI to the ability to grow your social media at a rapid pace and what I'm saying by that is like, here's the thing you can use AI to teach yourself things. That is not that you would have to go to years and years and years of school to learn. I mean, I know for me, whenever I don't know about a question, for you know in you know, in this industry specifically, I have a trained AI that I can ask the question. In 99.9% of the time it's spot on. Now I will preface this by saying I have a great team in Group 1849 that has built. You know, it's called an HVAC technician assistant, I believe, is the name of it. I really should know that. It's the number one GPT on the GPT store. What is a GPT? Well, a GPT is where you take all the knowledge that is available in this country and you shrink it into a knowledge base and you start asking it questions.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Look, I don't know everything about HVAC, right? I'm a sales manager and my specialty is soft skills and my specialty is not on the technical side of this business, but I'm also not teaching the technical side of this business and, at the end of the day, if you don't, if you're not working on these soft skills, if you're not exploring different ways to win in your business, that's your fault and I challenge you. That's your fault and I challenge you. If you have a bias against AI, if you have a bias against using technology to better yourself in your company, to take your company further, I would challenge you to take a look at that, because I can tell you to take a look at that, because I can tell you it is a game-changing opportunity for you and your business.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And it's really hard to believe that you could call into a company and literally have a full-on conversation with an AI-trained bot. And when I say AI-trained bot I don't mean like. It's not rigid, it's not complicated, it's not cumbersome. It is so clear, so transparent and guess what? It's not going to call out of work, it's not going to get pregnant, it's not going to have a tire blow out on the way to work, it's not going to get sick, it's not going to do any of those things.

Speaker 1: 8:33

And if you think about you know, I was interviewing David Lord not long ago and he told me an interesting fact. You should go back and listen to that episode. He was telling me that 50 of the missed calls coming into an hvac, plumbing, electrical company, roofing company well, I don't know if he said roofing, so maybe he didn't say roofing, I can't't remember. But anyway, 50% of those calls they're calling for service, they're calling to pay your company money and you're not answering the phone or you're not getting back with them. And so how much revenue are you losing by following the same old way that you used to do things or the same old way that things have been done? A lot, 50% of the phone calls coming in are asking to pay you money. How crazy is that?

Speaker 1: 9:31

So now go back and look whatever field service software that you're using, go back and look at how many missed opportunities that you've had. How many missed calls do you get throughout a day, throughout a week, throughout a month? It's stifling. If I had to guess, and based on my experience in this industry, I've only been here for approximately five years I've seen it all. I've seen, you know, the phone ringing, nobody answering. I've seen people say, oh yeah, I'm going to get back with you and never call them back. I've seen people pass the buck. I've seen people you know just act like they're spending all of these dollars on marketing but they're not capitalizing on the opportunities. Now, how much damn sense does that make? Not a lot. But if you don't know, then you don't know.

Speaker 1: 10:34

And look, I'm not trying to make you feel bad here, but at the end of the day, if you are the business owner, you have 750 things to do on a daily basis and if you're like me, I feel like I can do them all. If I feel like I can handle every single thing that comes my way, because I'm an eternal optimist, I believe I'm going to be successful. I believe in myself and I believe in my ability to handle a lot of things at once. That does not mean that I'm correct. I make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody drops the ball at some point or another. Nobody's perfect.

Speaker 1: 11:25

And look, just think about how much easier your business would run if maybe you were a little more organized, or maybe if you delegated a little bit more. And this is a pretty common problem in the majority of companies. It's really hard when it's your baby. It's really hard when it's something that you've built from the ground up to allow somebody else to run with the ball right Because you built it, it's your baby, it's your company. And but guess what? Nobody wins the Super Bowl by themselves. Nobody wins at life by themselves.

Speaker 1: 12:18

There's always somebody that, at least in my experience, I have to depend on other people and I have to allow them to fail. I have to allow them to make mistakes. Now, that doesn't mean I have to allow them to make 38 mistakes. That would be on me, right. It doesn't mean that you sweep these things under the rug, but you do have to have compassion for people. You have to have compassion for yourself, and lots of times we don't give ourselves enough credit. I mean, look, maybe you came into the industry and this is a lot of times the case that maybe it was your dad's company, or maybe it was even your dad's dad's company and you're just following the same formula that they followed Well, your grandpa's probably dead. Well, your grandpa's probably dead, your dad's probably old as dirt and their processes could be improved.

Speaker 1: 13:20

And you've got to be open-minded to improving the processes inside of your business. And if you don't have processes inside of your business, lord have mercy. You really need to listen to this show Because, listen, if you don't have a tried and true way of doing things and maybe you are a new business owner and maybe you don't have processes yet Listen, I mentioned the HVAC technician knowledge base that we have. You can find all kinds of GPTs that will help you build out processes that are going to be 10 times better than what you've got, especially if you don't have any processes. And look, people want to know if you're the leader, if you're the owner. People want to know that you have your stuff together, that you have your stuff together. When you hire new employees and they come into your business and things are acting crazy and things are turned upside down. Where does the bar get set for that new employee? Pretty low and that's probably why you have a lot of turnover. That's probably why you stay frustrated, because maybe you just can't figure out why you can't hire good people.

Speaker 1: 14:42

You got to look in the mirror. And I tell you this because I have to look in the mirror. I have to look in the mirror and say what could I have done better and what am I going to do differently today? And you know I'm going to segue this into how's your mindset? How do you think about your business? How do you think about your employees? How do you project how things are going to go? Because I'll tell you, if you're looking at things like everything is going to fall apart likely you're right If you know you're going to win. You're probably winning If you know, yes, there may be problems, but I'm going to overcome those problems and I'm going to do that through fortitude, through perseverance, through sheer grit.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Sometimes. Sometimes you have to white knuckle this thing until you get it. We all heard the phrase fake it till you make it right. And you know it may not be the best strategy, but sometimes that's what you've got to do. You know it may not be the best strategy, but sometimes that's what you've got to do. Look when I got sober. Do you think for five seconds that I really wanted to get sober and go through the pain of all the things that you have to go through in order to become clear-headed, to become the person that you know you can be? No, I don't want to do all that hard work Of course not, but I also didn't want to stay in the situation that I was in.

Speaker 1: 16:22

And if you're in a situation right now in your business or maybe you're a comfort advisor and you're struggling, what can you do different? What can you do to change the outcome of your next appointment? I can tell you the first thing that you can do and if you've got a pen, write this down Think about a time when you knocked it out of the park. And think about that time every single time before you go into a house, opposed to thinking about how that last deal didn't close or how that credit app didn't go through or how you dropped the ball on this or that. Because if you go into it thinking about the past experiences that weren't the best, how can you expect to come out a winner? You can't. To come out a winner, you can't. It's impossible to think about all the negative stuff in the past and move into the future and listen. I'm not perfect. I've done this, 100%. I've done this. But then I realized, well, this is just my mind telling me that things are going to go sideways. It's my mind telling me either they're going to go sideways or they're going to go good.

Speaker 1: 17:41

You take a choice, right. Look if you had a choice, think about the days that you get upset. Think about the days that you get down on yourself because of whatever reason. It's a choice. If you're unhappy, it's a choice. If you're unhappy, that's a choice. You have a choice to be happy or you have a choice to be unhappy, and nobody can make that choice for you. Nobody can make these changes for you. This is called personal accountability, and the quicker that you are accountable to yourself and do the next right thing, do what you say you're going to do, you're going to have a better life, you're going to have a successful life.

Speaker 1: 18:27

And so, look, this comes with a lot of scrapes. My goodness, I have been through some scrapes, just like you. We all have skeletons in our past. We all have things that we're not super proud of. But why would you stay in the mindset of the past. Does it do you any good to dwell on things that happened a month ago or a year ago or 10 years ago? It 100% is never going to change, right. The only time that is important is right now, because, if you think about it, there is no future, because the future is right now. The future is right now. The past is the past. You can't change that. You can't change the future.

Speaker 1: 19:25

So sit in and realize that today, right this moment, as you're listening to this show, moment, as you're listening to this show, soak it in. If you're thinking about what you've got to go, what you're going to do this weekend, or all the fun that you're going to have, or that it's going to be a rough weekend, then likely your mindset is going to go in that direction. It doesn't matter what I have to do tonight, it doesn't matter what I have to do tomorrow, because that day or time may not come. Guess what? Every single day, people pass right. Every single day there's an accident and that person is no longer with us. I don't mean to be going down a dark road here, but the truth of the matter is I want you to be present. I want you to be in the now. I want you to think about what it is you can do right, this second, to change the outcome of your life.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Every day, I get into an ice bath right, or cold plunge, whatever you want to call it. There are days that I pace. There are days that I figure out 13 other things to do before I get in, because I procrastinate, because I know it's going to be cold, I know it's going to be uncomfortable, but the times that I've made the most progress in my life is when I became comfortable with being uncomfortable. This whole last year was uncomfortable for me, but I had to realize this is growth and if you're uncomfortable right now, there's growth happening in your life. Think about your business, think about your sales, think about your salespeople, your technicians. If you're uncomfortable, then you're probably growing.

Speaker 1: 21:34

On the other side of discomfort is success, but you've got to walk through that if you want to be successful. You're not going to get to the finish line right. You're not going to get to the space that you want in life by doing the bare minimum that you want in life by doing the bare minimum. Look, if you want to be average, by all means you should be average. But if you're average, you're probably not listening to this show, because this show is about growth.

Speaker 1: 22:06

This show is about inspiring you to be a better human being, to be a better business owner. To be a better business owner, to be a better comfort advisor, to be a better field supervisor, to be a better technician, to be a better marketer, to be a better whatever it is you do, you need to be all in. I'm all in with everything that I do and sometimes that's not the best thing. I was all in when I was, you know, before I got into recovery not the best time to be all in. But look, there is a mindset attached to winners. Look at Ken Goodrich. Do you think his life has been completely comfortable? Look at my boss, nick Do you think he built this company because he was comfortable for the last upteen years? Absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 23:14

I'm sure there have been plenty of times of comfort, but there's been a lot of uncomfortable times, and if you've ever been through anything in your life, you've been uncomfortable. And if you think back for a moment of like I said before, when you've been uncomfortable and you had to make decisions that you just weren't sure about, you had to roll the dice. You had to walk through the pain to get to the other side, and the other side was pretty sweet. Now, I'm not suggesting that it was rainbows and skittles, but guess what, what? You're not going to be a winner if you don't walk through some uncomfortable stuff.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Do you think athletes that play professionally, do you think it's comfortable for them to train every single day to be the best? No, but if you want to be the best in business, you want to be the best field rep. You want to be the best field supervisor, you want to be the best comfort advisor, the best technician you've got to buckle down and you got to do uncomfortable things. You've got to be willing to fail. If you're not willing to fail, you're probably not going to win. And I don't look forward to failures, god. No, I don't look forward to them. But I know on the other side of those failures, just like you, there's going to be success. And maybe you're at a point right now where you haven't seen the success yet. Maybe you're in the middle of the grind, maybe you just started your business. It is not easy, so give yourself a little bit of a break, but you got to keep rolling, because this is not an easy thing to do.

Speaker 1: 25:00

Running a business is hard, and if anybody tells you that it's not, they've never run a business. I've mentioned this on here before. I've made every mistake in the world running my own business, and boy they were painful lessons. And so I'm not going to make those mistakes again. Right, I'm not going to make the mistakes that I made years ago or even in the most recent years. I'm just not going to make those mistakes again because I don't want that outcome. But unless you're willing to fail and learn and get better, you're probably not going to be successful.

Speaker 1: 25:46

And look, everybody's not cut out to run a business. It takes a hardcore mindset to be able to run a business. You got to deal with people, you got to deal with customers, employees, but you also get to be of service to other people. And why do we start a business or why do we do anything that we do? I hope it's to improve somebody else's life. When we're talking about HVAC or plumbing, we are improving people's lives. When we sell them a new unit, we're not selling them a new unit. We're providing a product and a service that's going to make their life easier. It's going to make them more comfortable. It's going to make them more comfortable. That's going to keep them safe.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Like you know, when you hear the word sales, I know a lot of people think it's an icky word. Right, oh, he's a salesman. Well, you really shouldn't be selling anything. If you're doing this the right way, you're providing accurate information for that customer to make an informed decision about the comfort in their home, the safety in their home. And not everybody's going to move forward with you. It's just a fact of life. You're not going to close 100% of your sales. You're not going to hire 100% of your employees and they're all going to be great. You're going to make mistakes, but you got to learn from those mistakes and try not to do it again. I mean, if you keep doing it, then obviously you didn't learn anything.

Speaker 1: 28:03

So, and look, times have changed. We went through the craziest time we've ever gone through in our lives in my life, in your life four years ago. We're still seeing so many changes from this daggone pandemic that we went through or whatever you want to call it especially this industry, because if you got into the industry during the pandemic or right before the pandemic, the way that your business grew and the way that you had to do things was very different than now. And I don't mean going into homes with masks, that was a pain, but look, I'm talking about things were a little easier from a sales standpoint during that time because there were people home, things were breaking, people paid more attention to their units, they paid more attention to their homes, they did upgrades, and so sales was a little easier during that time to a degree. And now times have changed.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Inflation is way up and I don't care whatever you're listening to. If you think inflation's not up, you're crazy. It's up 18%, 19%, and our industry is up significantly more than that and there's price hikes coming. Right, this is the new normal, if you will. You got to get used to these things, because if you don't pay attention, if you're not paying attention to the changes in the industry I mentioned AI earlier. I mentioned you know we've got refrigerant changes coming, we've got price hikes coming. You got to be prepared. If you're not prepared right, a man without a plan is planning to fail. And so you just got to keep up to date on these things, because I don't want you to fail, I don't want you to get behind. I don't want you to suffer because you weren't paying attention. And again, man, life is amazing, your life is amazing, my life is amazing, it's what you make of it.

Speaker 1: 30:28

And so I guess today I'm going to wrap this up because I want you to feel like this is a positive conversation. I want you to take away from today that there may be some things that you don't know about and there may be some things that you're unsure about as it pertains to technology. But really go back and listen to some of these, some of the older shows that I've got here in the last I don't know six months, and it'll really open your eyes to what's available out there. It'll open your eyes to what's coming. It'll open your eyes to what's already here that maybe you could have missed. I mean, look, I just want you to have an easier. Maybe easier is not the right word. I want you to have a better opportunity to win.

Speaker 1: 31:21

I love to see people win. I don't like to see people lose. I want you to crush every single day, and the way you do that is you've got to pay attention, you've got to be open-minded to what's coming. And look, I know it probably makes you a little nervous it should, but you're going to be so happy that if you go back and listen to some of the prior shows, I mean I've talked to some guys, especially Bluon, in particular Dude those guys are on the cutting edge of technology and they're utilizing AI like crazy. I mean there's like over 100,000 technicians on that Bluon app and it's wild to me how fast everything is moving.

Speaker 1: 32:24

You know, I've been working with AI for I don't know since November, before last, and it's changed so much. So if this sounds new to you, it's not, and if you're not looking into these things, you're likely already behind, and that breaks my heart, because I don't want anybody to be behind. I don't want to see people fail. I don't want to see you fail. So today, what you can do is try to stay in the moment. Do some research on how AI can improve your business. Reach out to me and I'll tell you how AI can change your business, because we're using it and I've got a pretty tight group of really smart people. I'm not the brains of this thing, right, I've got really smart people on my team and if you don't have really smart people on your team, I would suggest that would be a great thing to explore, because I don't know everything. You don't know everything. I know. There's been times in my life I did think I knew everything, but I was corrected for sure. So I want you to win. I want you to take away from today Change your mindset.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Don't look at negative things. Don't look at the past in a negative light. Don't look at your failures as a negative thing. Try not to get in your head. Explore how technology can change your business. Explore how you can utilize these amazing tools that are out to make your business run better, because, at the end of the day, if your business is running better, you're going to be happier. If your life is a little easier because you figured out this piece of technology that could change how much work that you have to do every day, or maybe free up your time to do more work on the things that you really enjoy, how great, I mean, how cool would that be.

Speaker 1: 34:42

I'm grateful that you listened to the show today. I would love for you. If you are seeing or if you clicked on this on social media, share it with a friend, help me out and or not even help me out. Help other people out, because at the end of the day, that's what this is about. It's about service, it's about helping other people, it's about not being so selfish and you know for a lot of us that's hard to do. So, guys, listen. I want to thank you again.

Speaker 1: 35:18

If you do have questions, if you're listening to this show and you're wondering about some of the things I'm talking about, reach out to me. You can reach me at Corey, at Corey Barrier dot com, or just find me on Facebook. In fact, I'll put my Facebook link in the show notes to go check that out. And my audio book is coming out very soon Nine Simple Steps to Sell More Shit.

Speaker 1: 35:43

I wrote the book several years ago, never put it on Audible and the final cut, if you will, is I believe it's pretty much done and I would encourage you to go listen to that because it's pretty good. I think it's pretty much done and I would encourage you to go listen to that because it's pretty good. I think it's pretty good. Now probably a little biased on that one, but anyway, guys appreciate you. If you want to leave us a review, make sure it's five stars, because that's what we love, and look if there's something you want me to come on here, or if there's somebody you want me to come on and talk to, let me know. I'll bring them on, like I'm here to help you and I get some benefits out of it as well, because I get to talk to really cool people. But, most importantly, I want to bring you the information that you want. I want to bring you information that's going to help you. So we'll see you guys on the other side.