Where Growth Breaks: How Alignment Between Office and Field Unlocks Real Scale

Most contractors believe growth is a numbers game. More leads, more trucks, more techs. But Danny Zatarain, Director of Learning and Development at Can’t Stop The Growth, has worked inside companies ranging from $10M to over $100M and he sees a different truth. Growth does not usually fail because of effort. It fails in the gaps between teams.

In this episode, Danny breaks down why the call center, dispatch, and field are not separate departments, but one connected customer experience. And when that connection is weak, revenue quietly slips through the cracks every single day.

Danny takes us back to his foundation in sales management and how that experience shaped the way he now approaches home services training and leadership development. Before building national training programs and leading learning and development at Peterman Brothers, he saw firsthand what most companies miss. It is not just about hiring better people. It is about building systems that make good people great.

The conversation quickly moves into one of the biggest challenges in the industry, alignment. Danny explains where most companies break down, not in one department, but in the handoffs between them. A missed detail in the call center, a scheduling gap in dispatch, or a lack of clarity for a technician can all stack into lost revenue and a poor customer experience. The issue is rarely isolated. It is systemic.

From there, Danny walks through what strong call handling actually looks like in practice. He breaks down how structured frameworks help CSRs move beyond just booking jobs and instead set up technicians for success in the field. Small adjustments in tone, structure, and control of the call can completely shift conversion rates and customer trust.

The discussion expands into smart scheduling and prioritization, where Danny challenges the idea of simply filling the board. Instead, he explains how high-performing teams think strategically about which jobs to take, when to take them, and how that impacts both revenue and efficiency.

One of the most impactful parts of the episode is the handoff between office and field. Danny makes it clear that this is where many companies win or lose without even realizing it. When technicians arrive without the right information or context, performance suffers. When the handoff is clean, everything improves, from customer satisfaction to close rates.

Danny also dives deep into training and development, sharing insights from building onboarding systems, career mapping, and structured growth paths inside a $100M+ organization. He explains why companies that do not invest in training are not just struggling operationally, they are limiting their own ceiling.

This episode closes with a practical playbook for contractors who want to tighten alignment and scale with intention. Danny outlines where to start, what to fix first, and how to build momentum that actually lasts.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Broccoli AI and Grow Reviews, for supporting Born For The Trades and helping contractors build smarter, more connected businesses.

If you are a contractor trying to break through your current level, this conversation will show you where growth is really being lost and how to take it back.

Transcript

00;00;11;15 - 00;00;38;16
Speaker 1
Welcome to born for the Tree, the Home Service podcast, and I'm your host, Mandy. Paula. Most contractors think their biggest opportunity is more lead or better technicians, but Danny has worked with companies doing 2 million, 50 million, even 100 million. And what he has seen in this growth doesn't break into one place. It breaks in the gaps between your teams.

00;00;38;16 - 00;01;04;01
Speaker 1
The call center, dispatch and field are not separate departments. They are one customer experience. And if they are not aligned, you are leaking revenue every single day. Today we are breaking down how to connect those pieces and turn your entire operation into one high performing system. Welcome, Danny to my show. How are you?

00;01;04;03 - 00;01;18;15
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. I'm doing great, man. Thank you for asking. And, thank you for having me. It's, really exciting, to catch up with you. I know we get a little bit of, catching up at epic, this year, and so that was really fun, too. So thank you for having me.

00;01;18;17 - 00;01;36;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. My pleasure, my pleasure. Man, I think it's been it's been a while. Like, I think it was overdue. And, finally, your hair and, meeting you, I think after such a long time at epic, it was great. Great seeing you there. And, Yeah. And we. And after that, we had, like, couple of sessions as well.

00;01;36;05 - 00;01;38;08
Speaker 1
So those were fun. Yeah.

00;01;38;11 - 00;01;38;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;01;38;29 - 00;02;03;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. Awesome, awesome. So for our home service industry audience like, you know, these are the owners, the Hvac, plumbing, electrical, garage, Jordan, you name it, these are the owners, those who are listening to our podcast, like, we want to give them some background about you. Right. So, Danny, before we get into frameworks and systems, I want to rewind a bit.

00;02;03;04 - 00;02;11;17
Speaker 1
You spent over a decade in sales management before entering HomeServices. What pulled you into this industry?

00;02;11;20 - 00;02;32;03
Speaker 2
Oh, man, that's a great question. One of my friends did actually, he had a company in North Carolina. At that time, I was, managing the operations for, I believe I was with AT&T at that time. Yeah. And, spent a lot of years in just sales management and, like, teaching people how to, sell things in a, in a retail world.

00;02;32;03 - 00;02;45;24
Speaker 2
Right? Back when I remember I started selling when the first Android came out, like it was the very first smartphone after Nokia. Yeah, yeah. It was like the I think at that time I was selling like that Motorola Droid. It's like that really square phone.

00;02;46;00 - 00;02;51;26
Speaker 1
Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember like you know those after Nokia and then what is that BlackBerry. Right.

00;02;51;27 - 00;03;12;21
Speaker 2
The BlackBerry. That was a big deal back then. Yeah. Heck yeah. That's what most business owners used. BlackBerry. And then there was, of course, the yes region. Yeah. Palm. All right. Phones. So it was so funny because back then the biggest objection I would get was, oh, I have a perfectly good computer at home, right? I don't I don't need that in my pocket.

00;03;12;21 - 00;03;15;27
Speaker 2
Right. And, well, if you think about it, fast forward now. We all have like.

00;03;15;29 - 00;03;16;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.

00;03;16;25 - 00;03;38;01
Speaker 2
Three different smart and smart smart devices in front of us. Right? So, yeah. So that was fun. I spent a lot of time doing that, and, I was I was pretty good at that during those sales. And I realized very quickly that people didn't care about all the specs about the phone. Right. They cared that. Yeah, they didn't care about the megapixels as much as like they cared about having clear pictures of their grandkids.

00;03;38;06 - 00;03;53;16
Speaker 2
Right. They didn't care so much about, you know, the speed on the on the internet. They cared about being able to catch the news before they went to work or something like that. And so I, I realized very quickly that, you know, people care about things that impacted them. And so I got really good at sales.

00;03;53;16 - 00;04;09;21
Speaker 2
And then they put me in management. I was I got to tell you, I was probably the worst boss in the history of Big Boss's boss. Yeah. I wasn't even a leader at that time. I thought that, Well, I did good. So everybody should do exactly what I do, right? Yeah. And just kind of telling them to do it that way.

00;04;09;21 - 00;04;21;09
Speaker 2
And I was like, well, why aren't you just doing it my way? Like, if you do it, it would work. So, so I wasn't the best until I got a better training through, the AT&T on like what leadership really was. Right. And it.

00;04;21;11 - 00;04;22;13
Speaker 1
Was a game changer for.

00;04;22;13 - 00;04;40;07
Speaker 2
You. It was it was it was it taught me how to lead at a high level and great managed multiple locations. And, one day I just got a call from one of my friends and he said he had a home service company in North Carolina. Right? But, hey, we're not doing very good. We need somebody to help us do sales.

00;04;40;10 - 00;05;04;05
Speaker 2
And so I was really excited, you know, translating, you know, the, like, sales or what I knew about sales to a new industry was really exciting to me. And so I went in there guns blazing. Yeah. And, I realized probably within the first 30 days that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was, retail sales and home service sales a completely different.

00;05;04;05 - 00;05;05;15
Speaker 1
The completely different. Yes.

00;05;05;18 - 00;05;25;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, 100%. So, I went to that company, and, since I realized I didn't know what I was doing, I did the only thing I knew to do, which was to train myself right, and learn great good about the industry. And so I did that. And for months I did a lot of training. Right. We were part of, Nexstar, and I did their training and did training with service and BP.

00;05;25;18 - 00;05;47;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, CEO Warrior and Rodney Webb University and all of these other things. Anything I could get my hands on, for training myself, I did. And so, that's that was that was my first, like, you know, first, first gig in the industry. Right? I came in as a sales manager, and, man, I tell you what, coming from outside of the industry, it took me a while to get buy in from my technicians.

00;05;47;17 - 00;06;04;18
Speaker 2
Right. It it took a while for them to just even be open to anything that I was saying. I had to spend a lot of time in the field riding along with them. Right. And really just immersing myself in that. And, yeah, we actually ended up taking that company from, I believe it was about 1.5 million a year.

00;06;04;23 - 00;06;07;02
Speaker 2
We went to 5 million in the first year.

00;06;07;05 - 00;06;08;25
Speaker 1
Oh, wow. In first year.

00;06;08;25 - 00;06;25;10
Speaker 2
Wow. In the first year. Yeah. And it was all about, it was all about the technicians running a process, meaning that it didn't exist in our company before. And so we kind of put that together from the different trainings. And really that helped us that to take off at that time. So that's.

00;06;25;10 - 00;06;39;20
Speaker 1
Awesome. What a great what a great what a great story. And, like, I think, once you decided that, okay, you'll be like, you know, in this, like, industry, you'll be training like, what were some early mistakes you saw contractors making over and over?

00;06;39;22 - 00;07;05;28
Speaker 2
Well, I'll be honest with you up there in that, in that very first experience I had with the industry, the biggest, hiccup or the thing that held us back the most was, there were new things, right? Very much like today. There's a lot of new things around. And so there is this, when the focus goes to something new, it usually leaves, the focus leaves the behaviors that actually kind of get us there.

00;07;06;01 - 00;07;25;06
Speaker 2
Right? And so, so what I saw a lot at first was there's a lot of shiny things going on. And so, our focus is divided instead of it being in our daily operations. So from a management or ownership perspective, oh, man, I would say that like slowed down our new initiatives, see one through and then go from there.

00;07;25;08 - 00;07;44;09
Speaker 1
Slow down. Like, you know, I think there are so many like shiny objects out there. You got to slow down and, you know, look, look into like, you know, detail. What what is your priority, at that moment. Great, great, great. I think, we will dive into, like, you know, our next segment, like, you know, I think this is going to be amazing.

00;07;44;09 - 00;08;08;25
Speaker 1
The alignment problem here. So will be like, you know, discussing about like, disconnect between call center dispatch and technicians. So, Danny, you you talk a lot about alignment that the real problem isn't just the sales or ops, it's how the call center, dispatch, and field all connect. Where do most companies break down?

00;08;08;27 - 00;08;29;11
Speaker 2
Oh man, I would say there is, if there's one thing I learned, just like working with with Chad Peterman right after, after work with that initial company, I went with that Joe with service and we'd be. And boy, I thought I had learned something in the first job. Yeah. And I learned so much more, about training and about operations with Joe.

00;08;29;18 - 00;08;34;00
Speaker 2
Joe really taught me a lot of, you know, the values that I still give you guys.

00;08;34;00 - 00;08;36;06
Speaker 1
We're talking about Uncle Joe. So I'm going.

00;08;36;10 - 00;08;50;04
Speaker 2
To call Joe. Uncle Joe will always be Uncle Joe. So, so, yeah, kudos to him. And he spent a lot of time, you know, mentoring me in, you know, in what, what he knew I was I was capable of. So I'll always be really grateful for that.

00;08;50;04 - 00;08;51;19
Speaker 1
I love it, love it.

00;08;51;21 - 00;09;17;03
Speaker 2
And, so after after I was with service MVP, we, you know, I came in, I joined Chad Peterman, and Chad said, hey, can you, move to Indiana and, like, help me build learning and development for for Peterman. Right. And training team. And I had trained a lot of his team before. And so, working with that with Peterman brothers I mean, has been one of my, my absolute greatest honors, right.

00;09;17;03 - 00;09;17;19
Speaker 2
And being able.

00;09;17;19 - 00;09;18;05
Speaker 1
To learn from.

00;09;18;05 - 00;09;45;19
Speaker 2
The team and how they work and what they do, it's been a privilege to be able to train them. And and so one thing that I learned, I think, is that, like in, in, in, in home services, right. Right. Growth, growth is not random. Yeah. It is growth is really driven by a handful of controllable levers within our business and the companies that when they build training around those levers.

00;09;45;22 - 00;10;16;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. And, and and not surprising, right, that, you say alignment and disconnect. And the reality is that the main there are four main operational levers that we focus on here at Peterman. Right. The operational levers are booking book cancellation. Conversion and average ticket. And if you think about it, right. Booking and cancellations, that's on the on the internal operations side, conversion and average ticket are on the external operation or the field operation and operations.

00;10;16;14 - 00;10;17;07
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah.

00;10;17;07 - 00;10;29;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. And to your point, I think it just, it it doesn't make sense when companies, function in silos. Right. When companies function or I guess they, like, stay in their lane.

00;10;29;29 - 00;10;31;00
Speaker 1
Right, right.

00;10;31;04 - 00;10;44;10
Speaker 2
You would say. So, you know, CSRs are booking the calls dispatch is dispatching, guys are running the calls, and it's almost like everyone is running a disconnected process rather than a relay race. Right? Yes. We hand it off.

00;10;44;11 - 00;10;46;13
Speaker 1
Handing off to someone else.

00;10;46;16 - 00;11;02;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so I think I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see, with, with companies is thinking of those departments as individual departments rather than a complete customer experience. Right? Where your where your customer is being handed off from one department to another. You know what I mean?

00;11;02;18 - 00;11;25;00
Speaker 1
Love it. Love it. That's that's amazing. I think that's where I think teamwork like, you know, plays a big role. And then you win the championship. Right? Then you give that like, you know, amazing customer experience. That was them. Definitely. I want to ask you like, you know, what is the impact on the customer experience when it's not like, fixed?

00;11;25;02 - 00;11;29;20
Speaker 1
It's like, you know, keep doing the same stuff was the impact looks like.

00;11;29;23 - 00;11;57;13
Speaker 2
I think, for the most part, sometimes we come across as as disconnected as we come across as, we don't have a great communication processes within organization. And, I think that makes it to where it's harder, once our technician actually gets there. Right. The goal is to convert the call. And I think if we don't do it the right way from the get go, we make the job so much harder for a techs in the field.

00;11;57;15 - 00;12;10;23
Speaker 2
Right? Actually, like, do do the work that the customer called us out for. So I think really from the from a customer's perspective, having a very disconnected process really impacts their trust level in us and what we're doing when we get out there.

00;12;10;25 - 00;12;35;03
Speaker 1
100 person yeah. Love that, love that. Thank you for sharing. I think that's the major one. The next segment. I love this one too. Like call handling that drive results. So you have introduced specific call handling frameworks that help companies book more and create better handoffs. Walk us through what a great call actually looks like.

00;12;35;05 - 00;12;55;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, 100%. I think that sometimes when, one of the things we focus on teaching, not just that Peter run, but you can't stop the growth is like, the the idea of, like, empathy. Right. In our calls, I listen to calls and it's like, oh, dude, my name is Danny. Thank you for calling Peterman Brothers. And you're like, oh, my AC is not working.

00;12;55;04 - 00;12;59;15
Speaker 2
Oh, man. Well, sorry to hear about that. What's your name? And let me see your address.

00;12;59;17 - 00;13;00;21
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah.

00;13;00;24 - 00;13;23;28
Speaker 2
It's like we kind of skip past that part, and, we make it really hard for the customer to feel a sense of trust and care. And I think the idea here is that, when if we are able to not just, like, exercise, a level of empathy, but also give the customer options, that doesn't, like, force them into a booking window.

00;13;24;01 - 00;13;39;23
Speaker 2
Right. I think it really, not only communicates like care in the willingness to, to be able to help this customer, but it also makes it to her. I guess the goal of any call is that when you hang up, when the customer hangs up, they don't feel the need to call anyone else.

00;13;39;25 - 00;13;41;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

00;13;41;21 - 00;13;54;07
Speaker 2
So if a customer hangs up and they are not sure and they feel the need to call someone else, or they don't get any options for booking and they're not sure when you're going to come out. The chances of them calling someone else are really high.

00;13;54;15 - 00;13;55;03
Speaker 1
Really high.

00;13;55;04 - 00;14;11;22
Speaker 2
Makes sense. Yeah. And so I think from, from a, from a booking perspective, I think the two most important things is, number one, how we exercise empathy. Right. Just being a little more. And I'm not saying we there's a way to exercise empathy where you don't get into a 30 minute call. Right. Because that's that's usually my CSR.

00;14;11;22 - 00;14;36;02
Speaker 2
It's like their pushback. It's like, well, I you know, I don't want to get into a 30 minute conversation. I got other calls in the queue and it's like, well, you don't have to do that as long as you exercise the right type of empathy, right? Called right. We call it compassionate empathy. That means that not only do we understand, from a, from a mindset perspective, but we also feel what the customer is feeling and ultimately take action based on that situation.

00;14;36;02 - 00;14;37;24
Speaker 1
That's something amazing.

00;14;37;27 - 00;14;41;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think there's a way to exercise all of that without getting into a 30 minute conversation.

00;14;41;16 - 00;15;00;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, I like Chad. Chad. Peterman. He was on my podcast last week. I asked him like, you know, one question, but I'm going to just like as different one to you. And I'm pretty sure, you can answer pretty well. Like, how do you balance empathy with control of the call?

00;15;00;28 - 00;15;24;20
Speaker 2
Oh, that's a really good question. The way to do that is by preparing, prepare it. That's all you have to do. Most of the time we just kind of wing it and we just take a call. But the reality, Mandeep, is that every single call that comes in, I rarely hear a new story. Okay? It's all the same story about an inconvenience or something that has really gotten in the way of our customer's day to day life.

00;15;24;22 - 00;15;50;07
Speaker 2
Yeah. So now they're calling us for help. So I think the most important part is practicing what empathy sounds like and practicing a way to always attach an action after communicating empathy. If we are able to attach that, then we move the interaction forward. So for example, if you call me and tell me that your system is not working, I would say, oh, Mandy, that sounds like it's really putting a damper on your day and the night that you're going through that, but you call the right place.

00;15;50;12 - 00;15;54;21
Speaker 2
So let me get some information so that we can get you taken care of today.

00;15;54;23 - 00;15;55;15
Speaker 1
Love that.

00;15;55;19 - 00;15;59;18
Speaker 2
You know different. That sounds and I'm sure you're going through that. What's your address.

00;15;59;21 - 00;16;03;19
Speaker 1
Yeah it is it is totally. Yeah. It is totally different.

00;16;03;25 - 00;16;09;29
Speaker 2
I would say attach an action to your empathy. That way we can continue to move the interaction forward.

00;16;10;06 - 00;16;31;13
Speaker 1
Love it. Love it. Like you know at grow nearby like, you know, here, one of our core values is empathy. And then like, you know, positivity. And this is what, like, you know, I have been deploying. I think it's in me. It's in my DNA. Empathy plays a big role. Like, you know, personal, professional. It it works, right?

00;16;31;13 - 00;16;49;11
Speaker 1
Sometimes. Like, you know, people have it in their DNA. But can you learn, like, if you cannot, like, you know, apply. Yes. Like you said. Right. You can practice, right? Yes, you can practice and you can get better so that you can deploy empathy. That plays a big role. Love it.

00;16;49;13 - 00;16;50;14
Speaker 2
100%.

00;16;50;17 - 00;17;18;11
Speaker 1
Good stuff. Good stuff. Now next segment. Nowadays, like, you know, we have started doing segments on YouTube if anyone wants to maybe skip to the next segment, they can easily do that. I just learned it like, you know, two weeks ago, our next segment is like, you know, smart scheduling and, prioritization. So you talk you also talk about scheduling as a strategic function, not just like plugging holes in the calendar.

00;17;18;11 - 00;17;19;25
Speaker 1
What does that mean?

00;17;19;27 - 00;17;42;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, let me I'm going to tell you a quick story. Just again, I'm sure you this. Yeah. When I, when I was talking about working at that first company in North Carolina. Right, right. I was I had actually hired Joker Sara to train us at that time. Oh, really? So a lot of. Yeah. So half of all this stuff is there's something that, you know, that he taught us to do because one time I had a, a phone call from, from our customer.

00;17;42;28 - 00;17;55;07
Speaker 2
Right. And we had an electrical division, but we only had two electricians, and I don't know if anyone else, anyone else out there in the trades can relate, but it's really hard to hire electricians. They, I mean, it's hard to hire technicians, period.

00;17;55;08 - 00;17;58;28
Speaker 1
But I have heard that electricians are hard to hire. Right.

00;17;59;04 - 00;18;16;11
Speaker 2
And that hasn't changed. I mean, you're talking that was like seven years ago or something. And so, and actually, the way I came to this company is, that friend that called me, my sister was a CSR at this company. And so when I came in as a sales manager, Liliana is your name. She did an awesome job.

00;18;16;13 - 00;18;35;18
Speaker 2
She was great. And she was so proud of her booking rate. Like, that was her thing. She just. She was constantly at 95% plus, booking rate. So she did everything possible to make sure everyone booked. One time. One time I heard her say, Mr. Customer, I know that we can't get out to you right away.

00;18;35;20 - 00;18;50;26
Speaker 2
But if we're this busy, chances are everyone else is too. So let me just hold this spot on the schedule for you. And if you call around and find someone else, you can calls and cancel. But if not, then we at least have that on the schedule for you. So I was like, oh, that was great. So she was awesome at that.

00;18;50;29 - 00;19;07;11
Speaker 2
But one time she got a phone call from a customer that wanted, a fan installed in a guest bedroom. Okay, so think about that, right? Yeah. If you think about that, that would probably for most of our companies, that would be a low priority call.

00;19;07;13 - 00;19;08;13
Speaker 1
Low priority.

00;19;08;16 - 00;19;27;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So like they, you know, nobody doesn't have power. It's also a guest bedroom. It's not that serious. So sure enough, my sister, she was like, hey, Miss Customer, we appreciate that. Listen, we can get out to you next week, right? We were booked out for like seven days or something with our electricians, and, that's actually probably true right now.

00;19;27;01 - 00;19;43;00
Speaker 2
I'd Peterman too, so. But, she called and she said, I need I need somebody to come out and give me a call today. Today sister was like, well, we can't get out there today. And so, eventually that escalated and she wanted to speak to a manager. So my sister, of course, came and got me.

00;19;43;02 - 00;19;43;26
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;19;43;29 - 00;19;54;22
Speaker 2
And, and as I was going over there, it was so funny because I remember her saying to me, hey, if we can't book them and we can't book them because of the time, yeah, it's not going to count against my booking rate, right?

00;19;54;24 - 00;19;57;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, that was your big concern.

00;19;57;28 - 00;20;14;08
Speaker 2
So anyways, I get on the phone with this customer Mandeep, and she said, listen, I need I need somebody to come out and installed this ceiling fan. Today or tomorrow at the latest. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I wish we could do that. But, you know, we're booked out until next week. And she said, listen, I don't care what happens.

00;20;14;08 - 00;20;15;16
Speaker 2
I'll pay anything.

00;20;15;18 - 00;20;16;23
Speaker 1
Okay? And then.

00;20;16;23 - 00;20;39;29
Speaker 2
She proceeded to tell me a story. She said that her mom was in the hospital and she had had, a procedure and that she was going to stay at her home during the recovery process. And she was not going to be comfortable in that room without a fan. No. And she was being discharged the next day. And so as I'm thinking about it and she said, I'll, you know, I'll pay anything, I just in my mind I was like, okay.

00;20;39;29 - 00;20;57;01
Speaker 2
And I know I had heard it from Joe at one point. I was like, well, let's just sell her a membership, right? Yeah. And I said to her, I was like, Mr. Customer, I tell you what I'm going to do, why don't you become a member today and I'll just charge you for the membership over the phone, and then I'll call one of our current members that just has a an inspection right now.

00;20;57;01 - 00;21;00;25
Speaker 2
I'll give them a $50 credit and see if they're okay. Moving to another day.

00;21;00;25 - 00;21;02;05
Speaker 1
Another day. Yeah.

00;21;02;07 - 00;21;20;04
Speaker 2
It was like, that's perfect. Let's do it. And I was like, well, but before you tell me, yes, our our membership, it's quite pricey. Right? Right. We had four divisions. We had Hvac, plumbing, electrical and roofing. Right. And so I mean everybody, you know, touch bases with the customer once a year. So you're talking our membership was upwards of like 300 bucks.

00;21;20;04 - 00;21;37;08
Speaker 2
Right. Right. And so the customer didn't even bat an eye. I mean she was like, no problem. Can I can I put it on my credit card? And I was like, sure. So she, you know, took that payment. I called another customer. The other customer was more than happy to move based on this emergency situation. And sure enough, we went out to her home.

00;21;37;10 - 00;21;54;17
Speaker 2
The coolest part was that when we went out to her home, not only did we install a fan and that turned into an actual sale, but she actually went ahead and like, like added another circuit for some of the equipment that was going in their room and added convenience outlets next to the bed. To do that.

00;21;54;17 - 00;22;18;09
Speaker 2
So once, once we did it one time, we realized that if we gave customers an option to skip the line, right, and to, to to to let customers determine their own priority rather than us determining the priority. Well, we figured that conversion was significantly higher. And so even now, when with all of the companies that we work with, through, can't stop the growth, right?

00;22;18;09 - 00;22;27;17
Speaker 2
Most of those people that buy a fast pass, right? Right. They actually convert at about 87%. So it's really, really cool.

00;22;27;19 - 00;22;52;01
Speaker 1
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00;22;52;01 - 00;23;15;07
Speaker 1
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00;23;15;07 - 00;23;37;07
Speaker 1
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00;23;37;07 - 00;23;57;27
Speaker 1
And of course grow reviews because you can be the best. But if nobody sees it, it doesn't matter. Grow reviews helps you collect real video testimonials from happy customers, the kind that instantly build trust and close deals before you even show up. They make it ridiculously easy to capture and showcase those real customer moments that sell for you.

00;23;57;27 - 00;24;06;03
Speaker 1
If you want more trust, more credibility, and more boom jobs, head to grow reviews.com. All right, now let's get back into it.

00;24;06;06 - 00;24;25;00
Speaker 2
And if you think about it from a technician perspective, right. If you're an Hvac guy or an electrician right. And you're having to run a 4:00 call. Yeah. And I say Mandy this is a fast pass customer. Like they really drive work done. You're probably going to be way more likely to be happy to take that call because now that's a higher priority.

00;24;25;07 - 00;24;43;27
Speaker 1
Higher higher priority. Yeah that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Like your story. And I think a lot of like, you know, home service industry owners, they can relate to that and learn from this. And I wanted to ask you what I think you pretty much like answered like, you know, what's one of the scheduling models you teach that changes performance?

00;24;43;27 - 00;24;48;03
Speaker 1
I think this one, right where you teach like you just how do.

00;24;48;10 - 00;24;49;18
Speaker 2
Give people options?

00;24;49;20 - 00;24;50;23
Speaker 1
People options, right.

00;24;50;26 - 00;25;13;07
Speaker 2
Yeah. Just give them options to, I think that one thing that we really focus on is technicians giving options. Right? Yeah. But then when it comes to the first contact for us, we just kind of tell them what it is instead of letting them prioritize themselves. Right. And, a lot of the pushback I get, Mandy, for, for anyone that's listening is, well, we're going to have to reschedule calls.

00;25;13;10 - 00;25;33;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's like, well, I don't know of a company that doesn't already do that. It's just we do it reactively, right? Rather than us being in control of who and what we reschedule. So, so yeah, that for anyone out there, think about how you could give your customer options for getting on the schedule rather than just forcing them into a time frame.

00;25;33;04 - 00;25;57;16
Speaker 1
Right? Right. I think that's the good opportunity out there. And, giving options. Love it, love it. My next segment is going to be the handoff where money is won or lost. Right. So it sounds like the handoff between teams is where a lot of companies either win big or like completely fall apart. What makes a strong handoff to any.

00;25;57;19 - 00;26;19;23
Speaker 2
Well, there are a lot of handoffs that happen, in the customer journey. Right. You have a handoff from CSR to dispatch. You're right. From dispatch to tech, from the technician over to, you know, that turnover or to, you know, a salesperson or a comforter. And then you have that handoff to install, right. Should we actually do the work and replace the system?

00;26;19;25 - 00;26;47;18
Speaker 2
So, the most important thing is, making sure that the person before that is doing the handoff, is providing a level of service that sets up that next person for success. Right. And I know it sounds kind of silly when I say it because it sounds so obvious, right? So logical. But a lot of the times when I go into, companies to train, kind of like the beginning of our conversation, the departments are separate and siloed, right?

00;26;47;18 - 00;27;05;20
Speaker 2
Right. And, one of the things that I talk about during my onsite trainings is, listen, I usually get companies in the same room and, in all of the different departments, and it's like, hey, I asked technicians, hey, raise your hand if you've ever lost a call because you didn't know that the customer had a home warranty, right?

00;27;05;21 - 00;27;27;06
Speaker 2
Raise your hand if you lost a call because you didn't have anyone to present to because nobody was home. Right. And, And so, of course, they all raise their hands because they've been through it before. And so my point is, everyone in the company works for our technicians. Yeah. And everyone, the goal here is that we look at service, right.

00;27;27;06 - 00;27;55;06
Speaker 2
And here at Peterman, we call it a. And I can't stop the growth. We call it service with significance. So that means that we are aware of how our job is impacting not just us but our team and then the customer as well. And so when you think about it, if CSRs were taking the call in a way that they were setting up dispatch and our teams are feeling for success, well, now they're asking better questions and they're recording information much better and much more accurately.

00;27;55;08 - 00;28;11;22
Speaker 2
Right. They're assigning a priority to calls so that dispatch has an easier time dispatching the right technician to those calls. Yeah. And in that same way. Right. When it gets handed off to the technicians, we've done all of the work on the front end to make sure that they have the best chance at closing that call.

00;28;11;24 - 00;28;12;18
Speaker 1
Right?

00;28;12;21 - 00;28;25;08
Speaker 2
Same thing with our field staff. They take all of the pictures, walkthrough, videos, documentation on measurements and sizing and everything they could possibly have to set up our installers for success.

00;28;25;10 - 00;28;25;29
Speaker 1
Right. So I think.

00;28;25;29 - 00;28;32;29
Speaker 2
That's the important part. The handoff needs to be documented and needs to be intentional for the next person coming in behind.

00;28;32;29 - 00;28;51;06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Not the not for the sake of like you documenting. But yeah, you got to be intentional, right? This is good. Like, you know, with the proper communication documentation and the handoff. But let's talk about like, you know, how does like poor communication affect close rates in the field?

00;28;51;09 - 00;29;18;23
Speaker 2
Oh, man. Well, for starters. Right. There is a if we don't set the right expectation from the get go, like from the very first call, like what's going to happen, right? Right. Sometimes we think that on the CSR side, our job is just to book the call. Right? Right. Reality is our job is to book the call and also provide the customer with exactly, what is going to happen over the next period of time until your technician is there, right?

00;29;18;24 - 00;29;37;03
Speaker 2
So when we don't have that, when we don't set the right expectation, our technician pretty much goes in blind, right? And even though they try really hard to do the right thing, they try to follow the process. They're not able to because, well, there's nobody home, all right? Nobody's there that we can present options to or have a conversation with.

00;29;37;07 - 00;30;00;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Or, maybe we go out there and we, you know, didn't have the, the right, something that I see all the time is like, technicians go before for, like, a maintenance call, right? Yeah. They see a reliability concern, but they don't talk about it and they don't put it in an option. So now, a month later, our service technician is going out there because there's a breakdown.

00;30;00;20 - 00;30;15;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. And the customer's thinking, well, you were just out here like what's going on. And then our service technician has nothing to rely on. No notes, no pictures, no pictures to the customer comes across as, well, it just translates and manifests as a lack of trust.

00;30;15;23 - 00;30;17;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Lack of trust. Yeah.

00;30;17;16 - 00;30;27;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think when we when we miss our internal communication, it just manifests itself in a lack of trust from the customer to our competence.

00;30;27;17 - 00;30;58;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. It affects to the top. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. My segment, another segment is like training. Like you're passionate about this. I know training career fat and development, like, you know, building systems that develop like people at every level. Right. So you build learning and development systems inside 100 million plus company, especially with like, you know, Chad, Peterman here, onboarding, training, career mapping.

00;30;58;24 - 00;31;05;04
Speaker 1
What is that a such a like you know, why is that such a critical investment.

00;31;05;06 - 00;31;24;24
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's that's such a great question because I get a lot of the time. One thing I hear from leaders a lot is, Danny, how do I motivate my team like Danny? How do I like why don't they care as much as I care? Right? Why doesn't why aren't why don't they care about the same goals? And why don't they, like, get here on Monday morning, right.

00;31;24;24 - 00;31;44;17
Speaker 2
And just grind it out and it's like, well, yeah. The I think what I see a lot is that training is really the missing link, right? Most companies get stuck because they, they track numbers, but they don't build a system to improve the people behind the numbers, right? Yeah. Of course, I was so lucky to work with Chad because Chad gets it, right.

00;31;44;17 - 00;31;46;13
Speaker 2
He understands that, you know, when you develop.

00;31;46;21 - 00;31;47;09
Speaker 1
This amazing.

00;31;47;09 - 00;32;10;01
Speaker 2
Order to actually hit those numbers. But, so here's what we did here at Peterman. So first off, we started by, revamping learning and development and retraining current technicians on the basics. Right. Like what should option building look like? What does a clear presentation sound like? How do we close the code and how do we, like, just run a basic process?

00;32;10;04 - 00;32;35;12
Speaker 2
After that we did I mean, we I had an awesome team of coaches that we work with and we call them dedicated field support coaches, which it's the equivalent of call my call. Right. But, dedicated field support. It's less of a micromanagement format and more of an intentional development every single day. Right. Love it. Love coaches have a structure for what they're going over every day rather than I'm just checking your options now.

00;32;35;12 - 00;33;04;01
Speaker 2
I'm just holding you accountable to the person. Right. So we did that in so awesome results across the board on all of our departments, you know, Hvac, plumbing, electrical. And then after that, what we did is we reworked, our top tech academy. So before that was like a six month program. And so what we did is we made it a ten week program that takes somebody from not knowing anything about, you know, Hvac to knowing enough to run maintenance calls on systems that we installed, right?

00;33;04;01 - 00;33;11;26
Speaker 2
Systems, you know, for years and under. And that freed up all of our service technicians to actually run service calls.

00;33;11;28 - 00;33;16;21
Speaker 1
And that's just like, you know, for each work only or plumbing, like just each once.

00;33;16;24 - 00;33;27;10
Speaker 2
We did that for Hvac and we rework the curriculum for plumbing. Okay, we've done the Hvac curriculum. I think we're on the third or fourth class. I think the guys just graduated.

00;33;27;14 - 00;33;28;01
Speaker 1
This guy.

00;33;28;03 - 00;33;33;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, like last week or the week before that. And I think plumbing is going to happen in the fall, this year.

00;33;34;01 - 00;33;35;10
Speaker 1
Plumbing. Awesome.

00;33;35;13 - 00;33;48;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. So once we, once we rework that academy, we turned our focus into, like, to onboarding. Right. And here's what happens in a lot of companies. Most companies actually, you get you hire a technician that has some experience. Right?

00;33;48;03 - 00;33;48;16
Speaker 1
Right.

00;33;48;16 - 00;34;14;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. We're not sure what exactly that experience is other than what they tell us. And then they go on endless ride alongs for four, six, eight weeks. I don't know, you know, you, it's just kind of it's very subjective. Right? We just there's no real structure. So, so what we did is we really worked onboarding in a way that we gave our employees a ten day map, and we knew that on day ten, they were on their first solo call solo.

00;34;14;07 - 00;34;29;08
Speaker 2
So yeah. So every single manager knew that. Now there was a process now in place where they would have a technician that was ready, that was running the Peterman way, and that was going to be in a truck and generating revenue on day ten. So that was really cool too.

00;34;29;08 - 00;34;30;18
Speaker 1
That's amazing man.

00;34;30;20 - 00;34;51;18
Speaker 2
We, we even had like a running contest on who could do, the most revenue on their first solo day. And I think we were at the the record is about $17,000 right now. 17,000, 17,000 for one of our technicians, which is really, really cool if you think about it, because most of the time you just don't even know when somebody.

00;34;51;18 - 00;34;59;09
Speaker 1
Don't even know. And you just learned it like, you know, after day ten and closing this kind of stuff. Oh my God, that's amazing.

00;34;59;11 - 00;35;18;25
Speaker 2
It was really, really cool. And after we did onboarding, we turned to career maps. Right. So and I think that's one of the things that really changed the game and, and actually what so I do a lot of training. Right. And I did a lot of training for Peterman training classes, you know turnover workshops and whatever was important at that time.

00;35;18;27 - 00;35;34;03
Speaker 2
Right. And one of the things I always ask my technicians when they come to training is, what do you want to take away from training? Right? And so, you know, they gave me answers here and there. And it was really, really cool because once we actually deployed career mapping. Right, right. And I'll give you a short overview of that.

00;35;34;03 - 00;35;53;26
Speaker 2
So career mapping means that we went to every trade, right to Hvac, plumbing and electrical. And we divided up the, the career into, six different levels, right? Three levels for maintenance, three levels for service. And then on the install side, you have three levels for apprentice and then three levels for a lead installer.

00;35;53;26 - 00;36;05;11
Speaker 1
Oh, I got it. So, so let's say like sorry, let's say if I am at like, you know, level two, right? I'm a technician. I know, like how much I'll be making at level four and five. Is that something?

00;36;05;14 - 00;36;21;09
Speaker 2
Yes, sir. Right. That's exactly right. And the cool part is not just that you know how much you're going to be making, you know exactly what technical skills you need. You know exactly what communication skills you need at that level. You know exactly what KPIs are expected of.

00;36;21;09 - 00;36;23;00
Speaker 1
You expected,

00;36;23;02 - 00;36;45;12
Speaker 2
And then you can move to the next level and love it. So it is super cool because this is what changed once we deployed that. I remember the next training class, I asked one of our maintenance technicians and I said, hey, what do you want to take away from this class? And he pulls out a notepad where he had scribbled and he said, Danny, I need to handle these two objections, right?

00;36;45;12 - 00;36;52;20
Speaker 2
I need I need 10% more conversion to hit my level three. So that's exactly what I need to learn in this class.

00;36;52;20 - 00;36;57;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, you need to learn. You need to hit the KPIs. Then you will level up.

00;36;57;08 - 00;37;17;10
Speaker 2
Yes, but it was them. Yeah. Asking for that training. So now it's like instead of me trying to teach them how to handle an objection or how to present. Yeah, they're coming to us asking, I need help with this because I'm, you know, 10% short for my next level. Yeah. Okay. So that was the biggest, you know, differentiator there.

00;37;17;12 - 00;37;23;01
Speaker 2
When we actually deployed those, those career maps and now everybody knows exactly where they are.

00;37;23;07 - 00;37;43;01
Speaker 1
Love it, love it, love it. Good stuff. This is good stuff. And, we'll definitely dive into it. Like, because there are so many contractors, business owners, they need this kind of platform. They need like, you know, training and, the way that it is structured to go to the next level by hitting the KPIs and learnings, that's massive.

00;37;43;03 - 00;38;08;04
Speaker 1
I would definitely ask you at the end, we are getting into our last segment here, the playbook here. So all right, like contractor listening right now, our contractors doing 2 to 5 million wants to tighten operations and grow. So Danny, what are three things they should do this week to better connect their call center dispatch and field.

00;38;08;07 - 00;38;30;27
Speaker 2
That's really good. Number one I would say is ask your field staff, like, what are some of the reasons that they are not able to move forward with customers? Are they missing information? Like what are the things that are that would be helpful for them to know that you can now communicate to CSR so that CSR can ask those things.

00;38;30;27 - 00;38;49;08
Speaker 2
So that's a first awesome step in just connecting those two departments together, so that technicians know that CSR has my back and they're setting me up for success. And so think CSR knows that you work for techs. I tell them all the time, even myself in my role. Right. I'm overhead.

00;38;49;10 - 00;38;51;01
Speaker 1
Me right overhead.

00;38;51;02 - 00;39;11;29
Speaker 2
And in most other positions. So all of us work for our field staff, right? So I would say ask your technicians what would be helpful to know on your call so that you're better prepared and then give that information to your CSR. I would say that's number one. I think, number two, for us to be able to and you said specifically to connect these departments, is that right?

00;39;12;03 - 00;39;16;19
Speaker 1
Right. Yes, yes. Like, you know, better connect with like, you know, these department. Yeah.

00;39;16;23 - 00;39;46;23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Again, I would say ask that like give those questions and implement those into your script or your call process in your booking process. I would say the second thing is, figure out a way to prioritize calls. That is not based on the assumption that is not based on the problem alone. Yeah. That will help connect, not just like CSR setting up the the field technician for success, but also dispatch knowing exactly who needs to go here.

00;39;46;26 - 00;39;49;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Love that. That's a good one.

00;39;49;11 - 00;40;14;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then the last thing I would do, and probably one of the most important ones that I, that I talk about a lot, is implementing a debrief process where you hear your technicians have to connect with the office in order to get their next call, next call that will get the team working together knowing that, hey, like my calls depend on CSR, dispatch depends on CSR to book the call and priority, right?

00;40;14;07 - 00;40;31;15
Speaker 2
But also our technicians have to get back to our dispatch team, to make sure that we finish that call and we have all the info we need. And then the technician can get that next call. So I think making sure that we do those things in that they understand that they're working for each other, right. To get them in the right direction.

00;40;31;23 - 00;40;52;07
Speaker 1
Love it, love it. And like, you know, that's the exact like, you know, I think, step by step process, like, you know, to dial this and love it. And I would love, to like, you know, here, like contractors. Those are listening right now. Want to be part of like, you know, this journey training development program. What's the program name called?

00;40;52;07 - 00;41;04;03
Speaker 1
How can they get in touch with you or someone who is leading, like, please, like, you know, just give us like, you know, easy steps and we will link everything in the description for our audience.

00;41;04;06 - 00;41;41;02
Speaker 2
Heck yeah. So, can't stop the growth. One of my absolute favorite things to do is just help contractors, really like, tap into learning and development processes in a learning and development department. That, well, that's worked at $100 million, right? Without having to pay millions of dollars of overhead. Right? Right. So, we we pretty much like, we built, processes that work that are proven, that are, you know, modern, right, that do not focus on sales alone, but focus on the customer experience.

00;41;41;04 - 00;42;04;15
Speaker 2
And, I think our, our favorite thing is to be able to share it. So can't stop the growth actually came from, Peterman brothers. Chad Peterman, you know how he is. He loves to help everyone. And so he regularly opens up Peterman Brothers for tours. Right? Right. And so as I was working and learning and development for Peterman, the Chad would kind of point people to, to us in learning and development that said, oh, can we get access to this?

00;42;04;15 - 00;42;17;08
Speaker 2
Can we send our guys to train with your guys? And can we do all of this? And so I would help a lot. Right? But I had my plate full with Peter and Brothers. And so, Chad, you know, eventually reached out and said, hey, so are you ready to, you know, grow the can't stop the growth side?

00;42;17;08 - 00;42;18;23
Speaker 2
And I was like, yeah.

00;42;18;25 - 00;42;19;05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;42;19;06 - 00;42;35;16
Speaker 2
And so, so, so what we did is we just kind of like copied and paste it, right? We took all of the processes and things that we're doing at Peterman, and now we have those available through can't stop the growth for company. So they don't have to hire an internal trainer. So they don't have to hire a huge, you know, learning and development department.

00;42;35;16 - 00;42;55;17
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so yeah. So we work with contractors. We, we do regular, you know, regular training cadence for their teams. We help them with the basics. We help them with their office staff. We, help them, you know, build out career maps for their companies. We help develop their onboarding processes. And we do that for a monthly subscription.

00;42;55;20 - 00;43;01;24
Speaker 2
So it's really, really cool because we get to work with a ton of contractors, and just watch them grow and grow with them.

00;43;01;26 - 00;43;23;02
Speaker 1
Exactly. And contractors like, you know, the those who are listening, you get access to, like, you know, word Chad Peterman did like, you know, by building like, you know, 100 plus million dollar company or link all those systems right there is like, you know, like Danny mentioned, like, you know, copied and pasted there. So it's like you're getting like, you know, that right hand experience there.

00;43;23;04 - 00;43;40;09
Speaker 1
And especially Danny is amazing. If you guys not like, you know, heard or hired or like, you know, he training, he is so passionate about training and he is leading. This can stop the growth. I am part of the community as well. I was there for a session and I think I'll be there tomorrow as well.

00;43;40;09 - 00;44;00;27
Speaker 1
I'm invited. It's just like, you know, Danny and Chad, we met there to actually support, service industry and only with one purpose to level up the trade. That's right. And I was talking to Chad and he mentioned, I think he was talking to his dad, like, you know, a long time ago, that's where this phrase came can stop the growth.

00;44;00;29 - 00;44;21;14
Speaker 1
And he was talking to his dad. I was like, oh, that's that's so cool. Now it has become such a brand podcast. So yeah, yeah. Do do the entire like audience. Those who are listening, feel free to reach out to Danny. I'm gonna put your email and phone number if it's blowing off, like, don't be mad at me, but I think you're always there to help.

00;44;21;14 - 00;44;30;24
Speaker 1
Like, you know, contractors out there. So we will link everything in the chat, and you are there on Facebook as well, right? If anyone wants to reach out, what's the best place?

00;44;30;26 - 00;44;47;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, head over to can't stop the growth.com. You will see two links. Want to, you know, talk to one of us. The other one will take you to the arena, which is our private Facebook group, where you can get free resources and things like that. Nice. So, yeah, that would be the best place to start.

00;44;47;05 - 00;44;52;20
Speaker 2
Would be at the website, for can't stop the growth.com. And, you'll be able to get all our info from there.

00;44;52;22 - 00;45;13;27
Speaker 1
Awesome, awesome. Thank you, Danny, so much. And I want to thank like, you know, our sponsors as well. Broccoli broccoli I grow reviews. That means a lot like, you know, for supporting, like, you know, our podcast and do all the audience like, for the love and support for almost like, you know, I think more than three years.

00;45;14;00 - 00;45;32;13
Speaker 1
So this that's that's the fuel that like, you know, inspires me to keep continuing and bringing like, you know, leaders, coaches, trainers like Danny, Chad Biederman and others. And again, thank you so much, Danny, for coming to my show. And we'll be releasing this, I think, next week.

00;45;32;15 - 00;45;46;23
Speaker 2
That's awesome. Mandy, thank you so much. I'm constantly inspired by the change that you make in our industry to. And I've, I've had a, first row seat to how you've impacted some of the businesses we work with. And so, thank you so much for everything you do and for having me today.

00;45;46;26 - 00;45;49;02
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. Yeah. Have a wonderful day.

00;45;49;04 - 00;45;49;19
Speaker 2
All righty.