Implementing Innovative Technology & Systems to Stand out From Competition

Summary

In this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast, host Branden Sewell interviews Cory Byron, owner of Van City Electric. They discuss Cory's journey into the electrical trade, the importance of technology and automation in home services, and how to build an effective tech stack. Cory shares insights on customer engagement, the significance of reviews, and strategies for hiring and retaining great employees. They also explore the use of video estimates through Live Switch and the mindset shifts necessary for business growth. The conversation emphasizes the importance of implementation in achieving success and reducing stress in business operations.

Takeaways

Cory Byron started Van City Electric in 2008 and has embraced technology to streamline operations.
The importance of a tech stack, with Jobber as the central hub for managing business processes.
Automation reduces chaos and stress in business, allowing owners to focus on growth.
Customer reviews are crucial for building trust and credibility in the home service industry.
Implementing systems early on can prevent growing pains as the business scales.
Video estimates can be as effective as in-person visits, saving time and resources.
Hiring great employees requires a strong employer brand and a positive company culture.
Mindset shifts are necessary for business owners to attract and retain talent.
Onboarding processes should be structured to ensure new hires are set up for success.
Continuous implementation of new ideas and systems is key to business growth.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Van City Electric
01:19 Cory's Journey into the Electrical Trade
04:52 Embracing Technology in Home Services
08:41 Building a Tech Stack for Efficiency
12:52 The Importance of Consistency in Business Systems
16:12 Leveraging Reviews for Business Growth
20:00 The Role of Online Presence in Hiring
24:52 Streamlining the Hiring Process
27:11 The Hiring Journey: Persistence Pays Off
28:56 Taking Ownership: Leadership and Employee Retention
30:38 Finding Great Talent: The Search for Rock Stars
32:46 Building a Strong Team: The Importance of Employee Retention
33:44 Mindset Shift: Pricing and Hiring Strategies
35:49 Onboarding Excellence: Training New Employees
39:55 Creating a Positive Work Environment: Attracting Top Talent
46:15 Leveraging Technology: The Impact of Live Switch
49:57 Innovative Video Solutions for Service Industries
52:10 Overcoming Hesitations in Virtual

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.137)
Hi everybody, I'm Brandon Sewell. I'm the owner of Seal Pro Painting, located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast. And we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder. Today's guest is Corey Byron. And he is the owner and founder of Van City Electric. Welcome to the show, man.

Cory Byron (00:26.36)
Thanks for having me.

Branden Sewell (00:27.503)
Yeah, absolutely. So it was pretty cool. We got introduced. I had James Hatfield on my podcast to talk about Live Switch and he was like, dude, you have to talk to this guy, Corey. I have to introduce you. And so he spoke really highly of you and he really was kind of emphasizing just how innovative you are in your approach to like your systems and how you run your business.

and he suggested that I have you on here and kind of dive into that and talk about some of the things that maybe you're doing and leading in your industry. so anyway, if you could just give the audience a brief introduction to who you are, what your business is, your services and where you're located.

Cory Byron (01:19.086)
Yes, I am. Yeah, so I'm Corey from Van City Electric. We're located a little suburb just outside of Vancouver, Canada. So hence the company name, Van City Electric. And yeah, I think I started the company in 2008. So we've been going for a while now. Yeah. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:37.697)
nice. Yeah, that's a long stretch. So tell me a little bit about your experience getting started in home service. What was your background? I think, you know, before the show, you were saying that you had worked for somebody else. Have you always been an electrician? What was kind of your start there and then getting your own business going?

Cory Byron (01:59.308)
Nice. I came out of high school. Of course, everyone was saying go to college, go to college, go to college. I mean, this is over 20 years ago, basically, at this point. Right. I'm 42 now. So, you know, I came out of high school, like 18 years old, something like that.

Branden Sewell (02:10.192)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (02:18.695)
For those of you who are not watching this on YouTube, Cory does not look 42. I'll just tell you that. I never would have guessed. That's crazy, You probably look younger than me.

Cory Byron (02:27.789)
I got some bags there. It's starting to fall away. No, if you don't, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, yeah. Started a criminal justice diploma. thought, you know, it was like very high pressure back then. It was like, you gotta pick something. What are you gonna be? What are you gonna be? And I was like, I didn't know. Started doing a criminal justice diploma as you do.

Branden Sewell (02:33.425)
That's crazy, but that's awesome. So 20 years, that's phenomenal.

Branden Sewell (02:51.953)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (02:56.454)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (02:56.621)
and working full time and an electrician I knew was like, I was working four 10 hour shifts at like a factory and he was like, well, you got Friday free, like come work for me. And I was like, I don't know. Like I actually almost turned him down, which is crazy. But, I, I, cause I was like, oh, trades is kind of like the backup plan. That's for losers. That's what I thought. And went to work for him, like

Branden Sewell (03:06.385)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (03:15.015)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (03:21.329)
Yeah

Cory Byron (03:25.641)
Literally a couple Fridays and I was like, okay, like I really like this. This is like I can be making 30, 40 bucks an hour in a few years and really no one could stop me but me. Like, you know, as opposed to going to college, I wasn't really like guaranteed anything after that, you know, and at the time a criminal justice diploma really was a whole lot of nothing. It didn't mean, you know, I was going to get some sweet job after so.

Branden Sewell (03:39.494)
Right.

Branden Sewell (03:51.697)
Right.

Cory Byron (03:54.254)
I switched over right away, I just started full time and got through my apprenticeship super quick. Worked for him for a while then, started working for another guy and like I was telling you, I started driving him pretty crazy because once I learned my craft and I started to ride around with him every day, I started to notice little things like scheduling was really disorganized, when we would be on site.

You know, we had no CRM, there was no jobber back in the day. I don't think there was. I was curious if there actually was jobber in like 2005, you know, I'd have to look it up. But, but yeah, I started driving crazy, asking a million questions and starting to push my ideas. And I was saying to you that, yeah, after a while, after you got so many ideas in your own head, it's time for you to go do it yourself, which was 2008. So yeah.

Branden Sewell (04:27.622)
bright.

Branden Sewell (04:34.042)
Right, right.

Branden Sewell (04:52.261)
Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I think, you know, maybe you're a little bit older than I am, but I think there's a generation where when they were working in the trades, obviously technology wasn't around. Right. But then you have like, you know, smartphones come along and obviously the computer started to develop more. Google, I think, became like came out like when I was

Cory Byron (05:10.425)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (05:21.007)
I want to say I was maybe in like middle school or high school. So or like it really started to like become a thing. And and so like you have this boom of like technology and everything happening. And I even worked for a guy for a long time and he was resistant to technology, you know, wanting to like add in a CRM. And I'm like thinking in my head is like this young guy working for him.

Cory Byron (05:26.733)
Hmm

Cory Byron (05:44.251)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (05:50.695)
I'm like, this is so inefficient. I'm writing this customer's information down when I take the call. And then I'm putting it into a Google calendar for the salesperson. The salesperson is taking that information and putting it onto a written quote. So now that's three times. And then that information is coming back to me and I'm putting it into either a pending database in the spreadsheets.

or a landed spreadsheet. If it goes into pending and turns landed, I'm moving it from pending to landed. And then running reports in these spreadsheets and just.

Cory Byron (06:22.583)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (06:33.311)
Even that's even that is more high tech even than some people actually actually.

Branden Sewell (06:36.539)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, but even that was just like, for me, I was just I could not believe we were entering data that much. And it was wasting so much time. was like, you know, and with obviously with jobber, that that information comes in one time and it follows the lead through their customer journey, you know, from that first phone call or form submission.

Cory Byron (07:01.955)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (07:05.518)
all the way through to the invoice and you know follow ups and future services so.

Cory Byron (07:10.721)
All the, I mean, think about all the auto follow-ups, like from start to finish, many times you, jobber or whatever CRM would communicate with that client automatically. It's actually crazy to think about that back in the day, they wouldn't get any of that. Cause you just wouldn't do it. You wouldn't be able to do it.

Branden Sewell (07:28.07)
Right, right.

Yeah, right. Well, so if you could dive in for those who are listening, what does your tech stack look like? What kind of like systems do you have in place and what's really important for you in creating a great experience for your customers and your employees even? And why is it important? And I want you to like as you're addressing this and talking about it,

You know kind of a you know the whole mission is to help guys get off the ladder and i think. The challenges is when you're trying to get off the ladder or grow your business or get to this point where you own a business and not a job is that you have all of these things. That you have to get implemented or people like yourself and myself are saying like hey you should do this and obviously there's price tags on all these things and.

Cory Byron (08:22.733)
Mmm.

Branden Sewell (08:25.903)
It's an expense, if while you're talking about this, could you just address like why it's needed, why it's important and how it helps you to run your business and create a thriving experience for both your customers and your employees?

Cory Byron (08:41.165)
Definitely. the, I guess the main hub of my tech stack would be Jobber. That's kind of the central database for everything. That is where my employees live as well. So I've been really careful to keep them in Jobber. I don't ask them to go in any other apps. They don't, they don't use anything else really. We trialed company cam.

Branden Sewell (08:46.759)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (09:10.167)
But I was very like leery of that, right? I was like, okay, this is another app that they have to go to. So I'm really watchful of that. And then everything else in the tech stack sort of branches off of Jobber. So say I add someone to Jobber and I want them to receive a welcome email. know, hey, just so you know, we're adding you to Jobber and...

Branden Sewell (09:10.545)
Hmm.

Branden Sewell (09:25.564)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (09:37.376)
What I've done is I've created an onboarding guide for the client as well. So here's how we do things. We've done it before. This is the journey ahead. Here's a little bit about us. So jobber doesn't have that feature, right? It doesn't exist. and so that brings in other tech stack things like Zapier. And so, you know, when you have, the client, the trigger would be new client in jobber.

and then Zapier is going to go ahead and send an email out through Gmail. And so that's what I mean by that. Everything kind of branches off or same thing as nice job on the backend, you know, we're done a job. I'm not going to reach out and ask for a Google review. I'm not going to do a gift campaign. you know, none of that stuff. and no human is right. You'll never, you'll never beat a computer.

Branden Sewell (10:23.217)
Mm-hmm

Cory Byron (10:30.315)
And this is sort of the why part, right? If there is something, if you're going to ask for a Google review over and over and over again, let's just let the computers handle it. Right? You're not, you know, no human is going to beat a computer. your guys aren't, you know, I see a lot of people doing this. Hey, I've given my guys lanyards and QR codes for Google reviews and all my guys forgot their lanyard today. You know, this kind of thing.

Branden Sewell (10:40.668)
Yeah, yeah.

Branden Sewell (10:57.275)
Right.

Cory Byron (10:58.797)
so no, we, if we're going to do something over and over and over again, like a welcome email or an onboarding guide or a production handoff, you know, from sales to production, maybe when a job has been approved or we're going to ask for a review, we're going to, we're going to automate that for sure. Right. We're going to have a system for that and then we're going to automate that system. So I literally will forget about it.

You know, I build so many of these things. Sometimes I forget like, yeah, I built that that's been running for six months. I forgot about that. and, and you asked about the why the Y is like, so what I notice is number one, it like calms down the stress of your business. Like it takes the stress out the chaos. It gets all of that information. Now I don't have to remember to do that ever. It's just on autopilot.

And now I'm over here focusing on what I need to focus on. Oh man, I had another point there and I just, I lost it. Um, yeah.

Branden Sewell (12:05.063)
No worries. You mind if I just jump in and you know, I'll just add to like, I think really at the end of the day is there's so many great ideas and great systems and ways to run your business, right? And there's all these ideas. One of the challenges to being a business owner is being consistent and like your approach and your strategy to grow and scale your business. And so I think what it does is it enables you to put

Cory Byron (12:08.598)
Yeah, yeah.

Branden Sewell (12:35.195)
these things that would be very, they're small tasks, but it's busy work and it could be easily forgotten. But it's so, it's just important to do consistently for it to have a good effect, right? So go ahead.

Cory Byron (12:52.001)
Yes. And I, I remember what I was going to say. It's, and it's doing it consistent when you get busy. Right. So yeah, when all of this stuff is once you've systemized it and even better, if you've automated it, when we get busy, we don't really, nothing changes. We're just running more people through the process. Right. And what I, what I do see with a lot of other businesses, they'll be like,

Branden Sewell (13:00.408)
Exactly, yeah.

Branden Sewell (13:09.02)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (13:22.059)
Getting better, crushing, they're working on their network, they're getting a little bit more business. And then things start falling through the cracks because they don't have systems. And that's when you hear people say, they're having some growing pains, right? It's like, that's, that's what a growing pain is. It's like, you're too busy for the systems you've built in your company.

Branden Sewell (13:37.147)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (13:44.625)
Yeah, I love one of my favorite leaders his name is Craig Groschel and he said you'll rise or you'll fall at the level of your systems. Right. So if you if you don't have good systems in place as you grow that growth is going to crush you because you're not going to be able to handle it. But if you put those systems in place early on in your business you know as you grow it's going to be easier and it's going to take some of the pressure.

and the wait off once you get really busy and you're taking on more clients and you have a lot going on. And so it just takes some of that pressure off. And I also wanted to mention like, you you brought up reviews and so we use Nice Job and we have that implemented in our business. So as soon as a job is invoiced and it's completed, customers automatically receive a review. Now,

What's important about Nice Job is not just that the review gets sent because like you said, there's a lot of ways that you can ask for review. A QR code, you you could have a note saved in your phone and, you know, send that out to customers and ask them or, you know, train your text to ask for a review. But what's powerful about Nice Job is that they've done research that proves

that most people don't actually leave the review until they've been asked four times. So, Job has a follow-up sequence that they have implemented. So, in the background, after we invoice that client, in the background, Nice Job is following up with that customer for us up to the fourth time. And I can't tell you how many times we've finished a job

Cory Byron (15:17.111)
Yeah. Yep.

Branden Sewell (15:39.335)
And we don't actually get that five star review until two weeks later. And it was probably on that third or fourth time that we asked that they finally left that review.

Cory Byron (15:43.52)
yeah.

Cory Byron (15:50.906)
I get the highest percentage on my fourth. You know, nice job breaks it down. And I, I was just looking at it. And yeah, on the, on the fourth, the fourth ask is the highest percentage of Google reviews, which is crazy. You wouldn't think that you'd be like, my clients love me. Like, of course they'd give it to me right away, but that's not the case. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (15:55.163)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Branden Sewell (16:09.179)
Yeah.

No and you know and that's what that's what's so powerful about the data right. What convinced me to use nice job is a few years or I guess it was almost two years ago maybe three years ago. can't know it's two years ago. They were a like one of the breakout sessions for job or summit. And I think they had like a panel. And so I was like in there and I was.

Cory Byron (16:37.997)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (16:40.219)
you know, kind of like asking questions to the panel about the reviews and they were explaining this, what I'm saying about like how it's not just about asking, it's about the followup sequence and the research that they had done on showing when people actually left reviews. And I'm like, that is so over my head, right? These guys clearly know this, they're experts at it. I need to utilize.

their software and I share this a lot like before I was using nice job I was using a company called Bird Eye and we had started this new location and we were trying to like transition our business from a city that's about 30 miles away east and we were trying to get more of our business in this the city where we are now and we were struggling to get reviews so for like three years we had only gotten 10 reviews using this other software.

And then I switched to nice job and within a year or actually it wasn't even a year it was like eight months we had added like 60 to 80 reviews. And right now I think it's just over a year of using nice job. Actually I think it's a year. It's a year this month or next month. We are currently we went from 10 to now we're at like 113 or 14.

And for a painting company, that's actually a lot because we don't do a bunch of small services. You know, most of our jobs are bigger and take so we service less clients. We have bigger, you know, average tickets. But our jobs take longer. So obviously, like when you're doing smaller services and you're servicing more clients, you're going to have more. I think I looked at yours and you have like five hundred something.

Cory Byron (18:14.891)
Mm, yeah.

Cory Byron (18:23.565)
Yep.

Cory Byron (18:36.897)
Yeah, I think we're 450 and then including like Home Stars, which is kind of like Angie's List down in the States. And some other, I think we're up around 700, which is a lot. Sometimes, you know, like my friends in Bookkeeper, you know, they could maybe, maybe you have 40 reviews, you could dominate in your area. Just with 40, you know, trades are going to be, I don't have too much competition for

Branden Sewell (18:44.344)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (18:59.301)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (19:05.143)
Google reviews, but there's some guides on my heels around here.

Branden Sewell (19:08.743)
Okay yeah you're you're at 450 yeah so um the the there's a company that's been around here and I just think about this like I put it into perspective there's a company around here that's been in business for like 20 plus years and they have I think it's like a hundred let me let me look

Cory Byron (19:35.534)
And sometimes I'll see businesses that I know people love. Like people will be just raving about these businesses and they haven't taken the time to like get on the Google review thing. it seems crazy to me. I'm like, you know, Sarah, everyone loves you. You should have like a hundred Google reviews. What's going on here? They're like, oh yeah, I just haven't, you know, I just haven't paid attention to it or, you know, I'm really bad at asking. And I'm like, you don't have to.

Branden Sewell (19:50.63)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (19:56.06)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (20:00.262)
It's in...

Cory Byron (20:04.105)
You're just paying nice job. Nice job. You're to do all the work for you and you're going to give them hundred bucks a month. Like, yeah, it's crazy to me.

Branden Sewell (20:07.043)
Exactly. Yeah. So the company that's been around for like 20 plus years and they're like the only company in our area that has more reviews than us. But they have hundred and fifty six and they've been around for like 20 plus years. So I'm in my head. I'm like my goal is to hit 200 by the end of this year. And so we'll take over. And I mean like just today alone I think I got like four calls from Google, maybe more.

Like I kind of lose track, but you know. Yeah, we we use Google LSA, yeah, so. You know, just between Google LSA and our GMB, it's you know, that's where the majority of our business comes through is through Google. So I mean, it's I can't. Tell people enough like like you said, it's $100 a month.

Cory Byron (20:39.981)
And do they have Google local service ads where you guys are?

Yeah.

Branden Sewell (21:05.879)
And it truly does make a huge difference in your business and how you show up locally. I kind of like to think of like, when I think of like, okay, what's my strategy going to be for marketing for my business? I try to take it like a common sense approach of thinking to myself, like as a consumer, how do I engage in the marketplace? And like,

Cory Byron (21:12.013)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (21:35.719)
100 % of the time probably is through Google. Like if I'm looking for a place to eat, if I'm looking for a pet groomer, if I'm looking for a mechanic, if I'm looking, like it doesn't matter what it is, I'm going to Google and searching this service near me. And then, and then what am I doing? I'm looking for who has a lot of reviews. How consistent are those reviews? Like do they have a hundred reviews but they haven't gotten a review in three years?

Cory Byron (21:39.895)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (22:05.831)
a little iffy. Or maybe they have a five star rating, but they only have like three reviews. But then there's a company that has 4.9 stars and they've got 500 reviews. It's like, Okay, I'm going to go with that company, or they're going to be my first call.

Cory Byron (22:06.391)
Yep. Yep.

Cory Byron (22:22.283)
And yeah, and you saw they responded to one just last week or you know what I mean?

Branden Sewell (22:27.757)
Right, right, exactly. That consistency is important.

Cory Byron (22:30.657)
Yeah, it's like a business that looks alive. know, sometimes I have friends that have businesses. but according to the internet, you wouldn't know it. I mean, they look, they look dead. There might be a Google, my business profile with two Google reviews, but I'm like, man, you're, you're actually so much better than you're appearing right now.

Branden Sewell (22:50.757)
Yeah, and I think too, like, so for us, our, you know, ideal client avatar is like between a married woman between the ages of 35 and 50, right? So you're like right there in that millennial generation. And we grew up on technology and our lives are driven by technology.

And so even for me as a consumer, when I'm looking at a company and if like they don't have an updated website, if they are not on social media and active, if they don't have a Google business profile in my brain, I'm like, this is like you said, it's like a dead business. Like, oh, maybe they're not operating. Maybe they don't, maybe they're not in business anymore. And so I tend to just be pulled to

Cory Byron (23:33.645)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (23:45.371)
those companies that have that online presence, they have an updated website, they have social media, they have reviews on Google, they're active. So I think that

Cory Byron (23:54.892)
It's hiring and it's hiring as well. know, no, it's not just your clients looking at that stuff. It's like for me, it's other electricians are going like, you know, I think in the business coaching I'm in, they call it the comp, your employer brand. It's like, what is your employer brand kind of saying to other people that you may be trying to hire? And, and like, I think I've done a really good job of that. And I think that's why when I.

Branden Sewell (24:04.808)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (24:10.544)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (24:22.761)
whenever I hire, it's not really hard for me. But I do hear a lot of people complaining, you know, there's no one good, can't get a rock star, all this kind of thing. But usually when I set my mind to like, hey, it's time to hire a new journeyman electrician. You know, I don't seem to have such a tough time because I think they are looking at the business and the social media and the Google reviews are going, yeah, there's something I like this. I like what's going on here, you know, I'm going to give them a shot. So.

Branden Sewell (24:49.212)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (24:52.807)
I mean, I probably get a couple to a few calls a week, like of people wanting to work for me. And I mean, we're.

Cory Byron (24:56.663)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (25:00.493)
So I have a question for you. Do you have a system in place?

Branden Sewell (25:04.652)
for for like the hiring.

Cory Byron (25:07.563)
Yeah, cause I just, I, I, just added like a careers page on my website and I made a form, a fillable form where they upload all their information. And then that form I have stored in a database in air table. And so, right now I've amassed like 80 applicants and they've, they've all added themselves. I didn't have to do nothing. didn't enter any data and.

Branden Sewell (25:22.552)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (25:29.701)
Right.

Cory Byron (25:35.55)
You can bet when it's time for me to hire or we get really busy, I'm to be going through that database going, Hey, Tom, you know, and then what I've been thinking is I should set up some automations where maybe every six months, my database automatically emails them and just says, Hey, Tom, you know, you're, you're in our database. We're, not actually hiring right now, but I just want to say, hello, just keep in touch. And, know, I don't know, right? Keep those. I'm, I'm trying to treat them like leads.

Branden Sewell (25:42.321)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (26:00.464)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (26:05.013)
Right? Yeah.

Branden Sewell (26:05.061)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so we have something similar. I wouldn't say that we have it that systematized, like to have it put into a database, but I do the same thing. So like as those calls come in, you know, we have a careers page on our website as well and a place where people can fill out an application and put all their information and submit it. So then that just goes into our email with their form submission.

And then, you know, if I and then I'll also but here's my thing too is I kind of treat that like a almost like a test. So if somebody if somebody reaches out to me and I say, we're not hiring right now, but please submit your information through our website and send me your resume. And if they can't do those two things, I don't want to hire them anyway.

Cory Byron (26:46.509)
you

Branden Sewell (27:02.383)
Now if they do that and we have it, chances are that I'm going to be looking for you to follow up with me. And if you don't follow up with me, I'm probably not going to call you back. So I've had I had this one guy I hired back in October and I wasn't hiring at the time. And I told this guy that I was like, hey, I'm like, I'm not really ready, but send me your information. I'll do a

Cory Byron (27:02.413)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (27:11.297)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (27:29.305)
I did a virtual interview just to get to know the guy and you know ask him some questions and he asked me questions and you know I just told him I was like hey when I'm ready to hire I'll let you know. This guy called me text me is like hey I really want to work for you when are you hiring yet when are you hiring. And I finally I was like I'm hiring this guy and I wasn't even necessarily like.

Cory Byron (27:46.261)
Love it.

Cory Byron (27:52.397)
Yeah. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (27:57.733)
I wasn't necessarily in my plan ready or like, like I wasn't, it wasn't like, I wasn't to the point where I wanted to, but I was like, you know what? This guy is so persistent. I was like, I'm, he's left me with almost no choice, but to give him a shot. And so I kind of like, I kind of treat that as my process, but I want to go back to something else you said, you said, you know, people talk about like having problems hiring.

Cory Byron (28:08.503)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (28:20.15)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (28:26.823)
And I came to this point, I lost all of my employees in 2022. So I had 13 employees, lost all of them. Some of them left on their own. And then towards the end, I let go of the last couple that I had. I just, was, there's a whole story about that. But then that led me to hiring a coach. And I hired this coach. And one of the things that,

Cory Byron (28:43.81)
Really?

Branden Sewell (28:56.197)
I learned in that process and kind of knew this too, just from like reading leadership books and everything is like the problem was me, right? It wasn't like I say now, a lot of those guys should still be working for me, but it was because I wasn't doing the right things. I wasn't where I needed to be as a leader that, you know, I lost some great guys, but I had to take ownership of that. And so for like the listeners, I would say,

Cory Byron (29:11.18)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (29:26.211)
If you have this, if you've joined in on that train of saying like, there's no good help. I can't find good guys. Nobody wants to work. There's nobody great out there. I would say throw that out, challenge yourself and say, what am I doing to attract great people and to be the company that great people? Sure.

Cory Byron (29:48.942)
That's, it's really victim mentality, right? I'm great, but just, there's no one good out there, you know? It is victim mentality in a way.

Branden Sewell (29:56.336)
Right, right.

Branden Sewell (30:01.211)
I think it's kind of ego driven too to think like the way that I think about it is there's a balance like I think that there are plenty of people out there who could even probably do what I do better. You know like.

Maybe they aren't willing to or maybe they don't want to but the reality is is that they have the skill the ability and the talent to do. What i do better but maybe it's just a decision thing it's a choice it's a want to thing but. I just think that there's some ego there.

Cory Byron (30:38.377)
I there is, there of course is great people out there. Sometimes they're just working at a bad company somewhere. they're not, someone awesome isn't just sitting at home going like, man, I hope a company scoops me up. that's, you know, those, rock stars are working, you know, and my angle sometimes is like, where are the really great

Branden Sewell (30:51.27)
Right.

Branden Sewell (31:01.051)
Yeah, that's good.

Cory Byron (31:07.949)
I try to hire like great people first and then we worry about electrical skills second. But where are the great people that are kind of stuck at a company maybe with no systems, you know, or they're being underpaid or the owner's being rude or whatever reason, right? And they're just kind of stuck there and...

Branden Sewell (31:13.937)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (31:19.622)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (31:24.71)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (31:31.746)
You can find those people. You just got to put it out to the universe and talk to everyone, you know, again, I would say, treat it like a lead. What would you do to get a lead on a job? You do a lot. You do a lot of things. but of course no one's willing to, do that stuff to hire someone really amazing. And, and a lot of people aren't willing to put the budget into it either. They're so funny though. They'll spend 10 % of their revenue on marketing for a, an electrical lead. but.

Branden Sewell (31:38.492)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Cory Byron (32:01.617)
You would never spend anywhere near that to hire a great employee. You know, but like our crew is such great guys. We have almost a hundred percent retention and we pay them well. We, we always do. We have this sort of little saying that like, we always put our best foot forward for them. Just so when it is time that they need to leave or they have a problem, at least we can go, okay, we've.

Branden Sewell (32:07.333)
Right.

Branden Sewell (32:16.167)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (32:31.329)
I've done what I can, like I can live in peace basically. But yeah, we have, and when you have those great employees and they stick around a long time, like that's a lot of stress off of your plate. It allows you to go do something else.

Branden Sewell (32:35.004)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (32:46.789)
Yeah, you know, so kind of to bring this like full circle on the whole topic of getting off the ladder, you know, so ultimately, like all of these things are necessary to get off the ladder, right? You can't get off the ladder and, you know, make things stop revolving around you unless you hire, right? And you have to do the things like putting the systems in place to hire great people. You got to

change your mindset on how you think about hiring and how you think about paying somebody else to do a great job. You might have to adjust your pricing. You might have to raise your prices. I know that's a common objection. You know, you'll hear from guys who are stuck on the ladders like, I can't afford to hire anybody. So well, because you're charging next to nothing. You know, you're you need to like, in some cases, double your price, you know.

Cory Byron (33:39.777)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (33:44.066)
And they, you know, they don't know their numbers. They don't even, they actually don't even know that they're undercharging because they never made a budget. So they have actually no clue. And that's why you see a lot of guys asking the question, hey, what are you charging for this? What's your hourly, right? They're like, I would never ask someone that because like I know my hourly because I made a budget and I-

Branden Sewell (33:44.261)
Right, right.

Branden Sewell (33:52.39)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (34:08.677)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cory Byron (34:12.287)
I know what I need to charge to hit my goals that works with my overhead. But, but yeah, that's why that's a classic trade thing, right? Hey, what's, you're doing a hundred bucks an hour. Okay. Yeah. I'll do a hundred.

Branden Sewell (34:16.017)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (34:20.199)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (34:23.685)
Yeah, but then you could be at a, you know, at that price for your particular company. You know, you could be losing money or at a very thin profit margin and just barely able to survive. And no wonder you can't hire anybody or or scale or grow. And so I think that, you know, changing your mindset on some of this stuff like it is just pivotal for getting off of off the ladder.

So, you know, another question that I would have if you could, you know, just dig into it a little bit more for the listeners. What is, like, do you have systems in place for, let's say you find a great person, what does it look like for you to onboard them? And what, are there some like, I don't know what you want to call it.

I don't want to say roadblocks, like things that you're you're making them prove themselves to like, you know, get on board. And it's kind of like I was talking about, you know, you want to qualify the people that you're hiring, make sure they're a good fit. What are some of those? There's another term I'm trying to like, like gatekeeping. Like, is there any systems you have to like, kind of gatekeep and keep bad guys out and get good guys? And then what's the process for training and onboarding and

Cory Byron (35:41.133)
Mmm.

Branden Sewell (35:49.979)
What does that look like for you?

Cory Byron (35:50.381)
The main thing we have is we use traneal.

Branden Sewell (35:55.335)
you do.

Cory Byron (35:56.546)
Yep, I love Traneo.

Branden Sewell (35:58.341)
Nice.

Branden Sewell (36:01.979)
I've always wanted to ask about that. I'm interested in that.

Cory Byron (36:02.349)
Train Yoles, yeah, Pick my brain anytime about it. It's great. I'll refer, I'll send you a referral. But we've had Train Yoles for years. We used to balk at the price and then one day my wife said, isn't that about the amount of one callback? And I said, yeah, it is. You're right. Like one callback a month really would pay for Train Yoles. we got wise and we stuck with it.

Branden Sewell (36:12.123)
Okay.

Cory Byron (36:31.693)
Trainual is kind of where you'd keep, you know, standard operating procedures. We keep like our insurance documents, our city business licenses in there. We have like the story of how Van City Electric came to be. We have like a company phone list in there. If you're ordering something from the wholesaler, this is who you would talk to. And then,

Branden Sewell (36:36.241)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (36:57.498)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (36:59.831)
Basically, Traineal is broken out into subjects. So when we have a new employee, this is where Traineal, I actually use Traineal more when we hire someone new because my guys have been around forever and they're like, they know it all. So they don't need to go in Traineal really. But when I have someone new, basically their first day is not so much on site. It is, I've assigned them Traineal subjects. Like here's 20 subjects.

Branden Sewell (37:14.577)
Sure.

Branden Sewell (37:22.842)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (37:29.569)
that I just want you to go through. And part of Traineal is you can have tests, you can see their progress, you can see how far they've gone through those subjects, right? And so I thought it was just great to, it was a great way to get a new employee up to speed quickly because I think with the lack of people out there and maybe the boomers retiring,

Branden Sewell (37:36.678)
Nice.

Cory Byron (37:54.806)
I thought maybe the businesses that we're going to do really well, we're going to be the people that could like hire and get their new employees up to speed quickly. You know, and that's where Traineal comes in. So yeah, basically once we, once we decided to go forward with someone, instead of just sending them out to do electrical, they would, they would spend a day at home, paid day, or they can come into the office and just go through the subjects together.

Branden Sewell (38:05.095)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cory Byron (38:24.141)
our last woman we just hired, she, we just, she did her train real subjects. And then she also just sat beside me in the office and I showed, we just went through jobber. Like this is how you book a day off and, this is where you put your hours in. then if it was a journeyman, I would probably definitely send them out with the crew. Right. So that's the ultimate test really. Hey, I'm sending you,

Branden Sewell (38:50.641)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (38:53.301)
our new employee today, you guys are gonna be roughing in this kitchen, let me know how it goes, you know, and you know, your crew is gonna give you feedback. They're gonna say, yeah, they're great. Yeah, they're doing good or I don't know about this person or da da da, but yeah, usually when I'm hiring, I'm thinking the whole time, is this person like a really good fit for our company? You know, are they gonna fit or aren't they? You know, that's really the question. The electrical work are.

Branden Sewell (38:59.559)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (39:15.697)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Cory Byron (39:20.397)
We do a lot of service, so our electrical is kind of easier, I would say.

Branden Sewell (39:26.763)
Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, what I noticed when I started to, I don't have a training, but I do have like a employee manual and I have like an onboarding process and a training that I do. So when somebody comes on board, there's a entire process that they go through before they ever step foot on a job.

Cory Byron (39:27.093)
You know, little service calls. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (39:55.919)
And it's amazing how even just having that on in place creates a different just expectation for my employees. Whereas if you're just like you bring somebody in there's no on boarding process there's no training there's no introduction to the company it's like you just throw them on the job and on the job training.

Cory Byron (40:06.817)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (40:21.428)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (40:24.545)
It's I think you're setting yourself and that employee up for failure. Whereas like with, you know, the process you have and like our process is similar but different, but it sets up. Yeah.

Cory Byron (40:37.675)
Also for hiring, right? So that person is interviewing with two different companies, but except for your company is saying, we actually have a whole training program built out. You know, when you're installing a Tesla EV charger, we actually give you an app. You can write in there, Tesla, boom, the install manual for the Tesla charger comes up. You know, you're out hooking up a hot tub, type in hot tub.

Branden Sewell (40:49.808)
Right.

Cory Byron (41:07.445)
and you'll get like the top 10 common hot tub fails. You know what I mean? Like when you're saying that stuff to an applicant and then on the other side, the other guy's like, no, yeah, we'll get you going, you know? And man, you'll figure it out. know, like they're choosing you. They just are. You know, I love the psychology of that stuff.

Branden Sewell (41:11.825)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (41:21.094)
Yeah, yeah.

Branden Sewell (41:26.149)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Branden Sewell (41:30.277)
Yeah, and I mean it really is and I mean the way that I've I think you have to also kind of self reflect and say, you know, do I like when I look at myself I say, hey, I I consider myself an A player. I consider myself a All-Star, right? And if I wasn't if I didn't have my own business and if I was looking for somewhere to work, what would I be looking for?

You know what would my expectations be you know if if i showed i would like ask myself this in the past i'd say if i showed up to work for this company how would it make me feel what would my perception be what i perceive it as wow that was a really great experience it was professional i felt confident i felt like i had opportunity and a future.

Cory Byron (41:58.605)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (42:19.874)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (42:25.573)
I feel like that would be a place where I could grow and learn, right? And when I sat back and I asked myself this years ago, it's like at the time I didn't have an office. And you you talk to like different business owners, you don't need an office, just like it's too much over, interview them at a Starbucks or meet them at a restaurant or meet them in a parking lot, meet them on the job site. I'm like, well, how would I perceive that?

Cory Byron (42:27.489)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (42:54.439)
if I was the one going to that interview and the reality is is like I wouldn't have a good perception of that experience. So I was like I need an office. I need a place where when someone comes in to interview they enter into an atmosphere where our core values are on the wall. Our mission is on the wall. Our branding is around. They feel that. And then

Cory Byron (43:01.601)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (43:15.085)
you

Branden Sewell (43:20.495)
I point them to it, you know, they're sitting right there and I say, Hey, look right there. There's our, there's our core values and I'll read through them. Here's our mission as a company. And this is what you'd be, you know, coming on and being a part of. And there's our org chart and this is where you fit in and here's your opportunities. And this is how you can work your way up. And that's all right there at the table when they walk in to do the interview. And so.

Cory Byron (43:29.399)
Love it.

Cory Byron (43:46.926)
So good. So good. Yeah, you're getting that applicant, right? And now all of sudden you have a team of these people, of rock stars, right? Like after a few years of that, you're, you know, and everyone else got the leftovers basically. So good.

Branden Sewell (44:04.315)
Right. And I like what you said about you, you know, great people aren't just, you know, sitting around doing nothing. They're out working. And so what I found is once I refined my process for hiring great people, actually a lot of my guys were recruited from my current employees. They were like, hey, jump ship, come over here.

You come work for this guy this is a way better experience come work over here and so actually a lot of my guys you know they're they're great and they came from other companies locally and and I that I love that you made that point and you know and that kind of we do incentives to like bonus incentives for like bringing somebody on board so like you can earn a bonus for.

Cory Byron (44:34.349)
Totally.

Cory Byron (44:42.13)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (45:00.059)
bringing somebody on and if they last 90 days, we'll give you a bonus.

Cory Byron (45:04.013)
You know, your onboarding process, sounds like something to be proud of and it is. And the opposite of that is I was talking to a guy a little while ago and he was complaining, of course, know, all millennial, I guess I'm a millennial, but this new generation, blah, blah, blah. And I said to him, I was like, you don't even sound excited about your company.

Like, you're not selling me right now, so I know you're not selling these other applicants. Like, you know, like, man, come on, let's pump it up a bit here. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (45:28.102)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (45:33.89)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I'm going to transition this a little bit because I know we're kind of running out of time and I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk about this. Obviously I said we got introduced to one another through Live Switch. So I just wanted if you could talk to the listeners like about your process of using Live Switch, what it is.

And why you ultimately use it, why does it make a difference in your company? Is it efficient? Does it work? Does it make sense? And you know, why?

Cory Byron (46:15.373)
First of all, mean, I don't know how well you know them, but there's not too many times I talk to someone like James from that company. Like he was my first experience with Live Switch, but then everyone else I've talked to there, I've been like, wow, I love this person. Wow, this person's great. Like they're all lovely, which you don't, you you don't always come across. So they have that going for them. But honestly, we were doing virtual, like video call estimates.

Branden Sewell (46:30.625)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Branden Sewell (46:44.615)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (46:46.013)
Traffic's horrible around here. I was driving around trying to do all the estimates, coming home rattled, so rattled at the end of the day, trying to do the quote the next day if I didn't have anything planned. You know, I was just getting put through the grinder. Then COVID hit, of course. Things got shut down. And then I was like, this is silly. Like we were switching to video estimates. Like I know all my prices regardless.

Branden Sewell (47:14.471)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (47:14.847)
And so really when, when we do a video call estimate with someone, I'm actually just looking for little specifics of that situation. Like a service upgrade is a service upgrade that it's going to be generally the same price, but maybe sometimes I just need like the brand of panel or I need a picture of your panel so I can do a load calc or you know what I mean? Or, you want an EV charger? Well, they're generally this much, but how far is your EV charger?

Branden Sewell (47:37.415)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (47:42.274)
you know, is it on the other side of the garage or is it right below the panel? Like that's all I'm really doing. So there's no need to be driving around to look at these, these jobs. It's crazy. So we started doing video estimates. I tried WhatsApp, zoom and FaceTime, all three kind of have limitations, different, different limitations. someone randomly,

referred me to Live Switch and I'm just a sucker for anything tech. So I was like, yep, I'll do the onboarding or whatever, you know, the zoom call. so met with James. I think it was James might've done it. I'm not sure. Yeah, it was James. he showed me it and it was literally, it's like video calling specifically made for like what we're doing. So, and there's little things, right? So the client doesn't need.

Branden Sewell (48:11.847)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (48:18.523)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (48:38.893)
to download any software. It doesn't matter if they have an Android or an Apple phone. You punch in their name and number, it sends them the link, they click on the link in the text message, boom, it opens up the video call. It auto records the call, so you don't have to remember to do it each time. The video call starts out with the camera on the back, because that's what they're showing you.

Branden Sewell (48:41.415)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (48:59.687)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (49:06.975)
All these little things, right? It's, it's, and now

Branden Sewell (49:09.403)
Yeah. And you being smaller. Like it's like it's like the reverse of FaceTime where like usually when you FaceTime your big on the screen and the person you're FaceTiming is little. But on Live Switch it's the reverse the person you're talking to is the full screen and you're small.

Cory Byron (49:12.649)
Yeah, yeah.

Cory Byron (49:20.791)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Cory Byron (49:30.549)
Okay, yeah, and I'm always doing it on my Mac, so I'm actually not sure what it's like on the phone. It goes even deeper than that. Like those are the features I'm using, but man, now there's like a whole database, you know, of all your video calls. You can take notes and pictures while you're on the call. They just integrated with Jobber, so you can start a call.

Branden Sewell (49:33.528)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (49:47.74)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (49:55.004)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (49:57.768)
straight from the client's profile in Jobber. So we have assessments booked, like back to back, literally video calls booked for 10 hours a day. And so you click on the assessment, you go to the client profile and you click start video and it starts going. There's other little features I love. If you wanna send them a link for them to do a recording without you, you can do that, you know? It's unbelievable. it's...

Branden Sewell (50:21.945)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cory Byron (50:27.093)
It has all those elements of zoom, WhatsApp and FaceTime, but it's really built for the service industry. think a lot of moving companies started using it.

Branden Sewell (50:36.485)
Yeah, that's what I heard from James and you know, another thing I was talking to, I know a mover and I'm trying, I was like trying to get him connected to James and he asked me like, he said today, he's like, well, what makes it so much different than FaceTime or zoom or whatever? And I said, well, one of the differences is that it, it doesn't record or store the file locally on your phone. It stores it to the cloud.

Cory Byron (50:52.855)
Mm.

Cory Byron (51:04.066)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (51:05.359)
And I said, and it records the conversation. So you're like, you know, that's a little bit different than FaceTime.

Cory Byron (51:12.297)
think they're building in some AI stuff too. I've seen them, I feel like they update that program like every week. Like they are on the updates. Even the job integration, Zapier integration, like they are firing it out quick. And so I'm gonna assume that soon when we do a video quote, we're probably gonna get an AI report of that.

Branden Sewell (51:23.537)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (51:28.379)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cory Byron (51:39.723)
that video session, which will be, that'll be pretty wild.

Branden Sewell (51:39.931)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think I even saw when James was showing me like some of the new features that are coming out. I don't want to say for sure, but I think I saw one of the features was that during the call it was going to use AI to send you measurements. So like so like if you needed a measurement of something through doing the video, it would be able to tell you the measurement. So.

Cory Byron (52:01.82)
man, yeah, that's So good.

Branden Sewell (52:10.151)
That's a game changer. you know, here's something I want to address because I know there's going to be people who are hesitant to use this. They're going to have objections. And you know, like my sales guy right now, I'm telling him about this and we're going to implement it. He's like, yeah, but it's just not going to be the same as like being face to face. And I'm like, no, no, look, it's it's not going to be any different. I was like, do you know how many he doesn't know this?

Cory Byron (52:27.927)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Branden Sewell (52:38.331)
because I don't send these to him, I do them myself, but I was like, do you know how many jobs I sell without ever, actually without ever seeing the customer? just make a phone call, like, hey, send me a recording or some pictures of your job, send me your contact information, I'll put it in Jobber, I'll send you over a quote, and minutes later I've got a job approved. So anyway, I think it's.

Cory Byron (52:52.908)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (53:02.187)
I probably have countless people on camera saying, why isn't everyone doing this? This is the first time I've ever done this. This seems crazy that everyone's not doing this. Yep, yep. And I was telling James this too. When you do FaceTime, usually you do FaceTime with family.

Branden Sewell (53:13.223)
You're saying customers, right? Okay.

Cory Byron (53:24.343)
So you're really used to doing a video call with your grandma or whatever, your parents, and you're very face-to-face like we are right now. I actually find sometimes it's actually more personable because you are face-to-face. There's no getting away. You know what I mean? So no, and I haven't seen a change in my quote numbers. They have stayed rock solid like my...

Branden Sewell (53:41.819)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (53:51.47)
my quote win percentage in jobber has always been just under 50 % like 48 % or whatever never changed once you know from video and if you still need to go to site that's okay sometimes i go ah you know what this looks like a site visit i think uh this video call it's just you know it's not going to work for this and uh what are doing tuesday i'll pop by like that's okay yeah yeah

Branden Sewell (53:59.129)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (54:15.429)
Yeah. Yeah. If you don't mind like so I usually don't do this on the podcast but I'm going to do this. I'm going to share my screen and let's see. So I just implemented this into ours where when you click on here and you go to our job or form it gives that it gives the customer the option to choose which one they would want so they can choose would you prefer virtual or in person.

Cory Byron (54:23.351)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (54:36.672)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (54:43.232)
Mmm.

Branden Sewell (54:45.347)
virtual explains what we would do in person what we would do or they can choose both. So anyway, there's there's ways to like deal with it too like that. And then obviously like on our home screen we have where they can just get the virtual estimate which you know, you know what this looks like. But for those who might be watching on YouTube for this podcast, that's what it looks like. So, you know, I just I think it's a you know, a pretty

Cory Byron (54:49.847)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cory Byron (55:10.112)
Love it.

Branden Sewell (55:15.239)
pretty powerful thing to have implemented.

Cory Byron (55:18.605)
I feel so efficient. mean, when I see my estimators, we have two days blocked off a week for these estimates and both days, one's a Tuesday and one's a Thursday, it will, and they, we work four tens. So that 10 hour day will be literally one hour blocks of video calls and I love it because I know 10 estimates are going out that day and they're getting done on the spot. I did one this morning.

Branden Sewell (55:25.905)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (55:43.068)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (55:46.734)
where it was like a $600 electrical estimate. I literally built it as she was talking. I said, well, I'm all done. I'll send it to your email, but it's 600 bucks. I'll just tell you right now and let me know if you have any questions. Send, done.

Branden Sewell (56:02.939)
Yeah, mean, look, I mean, I get people having like some hesitation or questioning it. But the reality is, is I think the people who are going to win long term are people who don't resist change. They don't resist innovation. They don't resist like implementing these new ways of doing things. And so I think like even during

Cory Byron (56:28.215)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (56:32.135)
COVID, you know, like that was when I started doing a lot of virtual estimates during COVID. And, you know, I knew a lot of people who were telling me they're like, we can't do any bids right now because we can't go measure. And I was like, whatever. I was like, I'm going to tell people to schedule a FaceTime call with me. And I'm going to go ahead and just bid their job. I just need eyes on it. And I think that it's just, you know, you got to change your mindset on how you think about those kind of things.

Cory Byron (57:01.655)
Do you think this, cause I get pushback sometimes I have some friends in the States and I, I've always felt it's a very like a more American thing. I could be wrong about that, but the whole, you know, I need to all the decision makers at the table. and then we're going to overcome your objections. You know what I mean? That kind of style. I've never liked it. don't, I don't think people in Canada like sort of the high pressure.

Branden Sewell (57:31.239)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (57:31.628)
You know, what, what if we could fix that for you, you know, and like you overcome that objection, then the next objection, like if you did any sales training, that's kind of what they push you towards. and this is more of like, Hey, I just want to give you the quote for what you need. Like I'm not even doing best, better and premium because deep down in electrical, I don't know if I believe that is a thing.

Branden Sewell (57:37.927)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (57:41.391)
Yeah, for sure.

Branden Sewell (57:52.122)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (57:57.74)
So I want to sell it to someone if I don't think it's a thing. But yeah, that's kind of where I get pushback sometimes of, you're not going to site. Like, you don't really want that job then. It's like, no, I really do. I just don't need to go to site.

Branden Sewell (57:57.799)
Sure, sure.

Branden Sewell (58:11.673)
No, I think that people have I feel like it's a limiting mindset. And in my personal opinion, I think it's like, like, I feel like I can I can land the job talking to somebody on the phone. I can and never seeing them. I can land the job face or doing, you know, the live switch recording and I can land the job, you know, going and meeting with them in person. It really doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is making

Cory Byron (58:34.007)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (58:40.633)
a personal connection with that customer, making them feel comfortable and them trusting us and earning their business. And I think that looks different for all types of people. I want to ultimately I want to give the customer what they want. So I do have some customers who are like, no, I'd rather you like I could say like, hey, when are you available today? And they might say, no, I'd rather you come when my husband's here so that we're both there. Right.

Cory Byron (58:56.781)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (59:10.407)
Now if I call and they say, well, I'm it is it okay if it's just me? Yeah, absolutely. Like, yeah, I don't feel like your wife or your husband has to be there for me to come tell you what it's going to cost for us to do this job. And, you know, if they want to just do it virtually, like, awesome, you know, let's let's do it virtually. So I don't know, I, I trust I worked for a roofing company. And that was

Cory Byron (59:21.495)
Totally.

Yeah.

Cory Byron (59:32.631)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (59:38.639)
their policy is that they wouldn't come and do an estimate unless both decision makers were going to be at the table because they did. They wanted to eliminate that as an objection. So, you know, they didn't want to come and meet with the wife and the wife say like, well, I can't make a decision right now because my husband's not here. You know, they want both of them there so they can try and pressure both of them together to make a decision. So.

Cory Byron (59:46.082)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (59:50.807)
Yep. Yep.

Cory Byron (01:00:06.541)
Totally. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:00:08.891)
So yeah, but I don't agree with it, but.

Cory Byron (01:00:11.277)
Yeah, we try to be easygoing. You know, try to sway it to the way we would like, but you know, easygoing for sure if they're really, you know, sometimes I'll get an older guy that's just like, Hey man, now I'm going to give you the job. Like I would like you to, I'd like to do a walk around with you. I'm like, okay, fine. Yeah, we're coming. You know, but sometimes, yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:00:14.438)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Branden Sewell (01:00:32.327)
Yeah, I mean, I. It's here's another I'm willing to innovate and implement things. If it means that I can meet the customer where they're at and what their expectation is. So what I mean by that is if a customer expects or is desiring like a Amazon Prime type service with us.

I think about this all the time. like, how could I have on my website where somebody could go in and like submit their pictures, you know, what their job wants done or what they want done and have almost like an a la carte like option of like, I want this paint. I want, you know, these areas to get painted and these not to, and then it spit out a price and they like,

Cory Byron (01:01:30.273)
yeah. I've seen it. I've seen it. yeah. Yeah, I've...

Branden Sewell (01:01:31.495)
They pay and they schedule. Like, and I with painting, it's a little like, how do you do that? And I think there's other services like so I know I have a friend, her name is Christine, and she's a her and her husband own Clearview. I think it's called Clearview washing in New Jersey. And they use response a bit. And so people can go on and

You know, they can go ahead and book their service and.

Cory Byron (01:02:02.701)
Oh, those response fitters, they get crazy with their pricing on there. I know lots of response fit people. I went to the response icon because I used it actually for a while. I switched. Yeah, I switched over to jobbers online booking now. So I offer that and I. Yeah, yeah, so if you go on our website and you can book online, put in your postal code and you'll see all kinds of pricing for all kinds of things.

Branden Sewell (01:02:08.558)
yeah. really?

Branden Sewell (01:02:14.969)
you did, okay.

Branden Sewell (01:02:21.063)
forgot to ask you about that.

Branden Sewell (01:02:32.305)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (01:02:32.541)
and that's just, that's an option just for somebody that's like, I just want to get this done. I need an electrician for two hours on Thursday. Like I'll get out of the way. You just book it. I love when I see those booked. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:02:45.573)
Yeah, I'm I'm constantly like willing. was just talking to my wife the other day. I'm willing to try the things that, you know, people say like, that like, how would you do that? That doesn't make any sense. Like I have a service contract for a painting company and I don't really know anybody else who does. But I've heard so many people say like, how could you have a service contract for painting? Like, how could you do that? Like, how can you?

Cory Byron (01:02:57.645)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (01:03:09.965)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (01:03:11.843)
make it work and but I have and so like we finished two service contract visits today and you know and I make an annual you know it's like annual revenue guaranteed revenue from those you know so I love them but anyway I was talking to my wife and this last thing I'll share and then I'll let you close and share some maybe last thoughts or respond to what I'm gonna say but I I was like

You know, babe, we get people who sometimes tell us like, hey, you know, it really just isn't in our budget. We're going to do the job ourselves. And you know what's a really popular thing for people who buy or like buy a house or are selling a house or they're about to move into an apartment is they'll throw a they'll like buy pizza, buy some beer and have some friends over and paint their house.

Cory Byron (01:04:08.919)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (01:04:09.063)
And so I was like, babe, what if we had a service called like pizza and paint? And it was where like we had our customer, we're like, hey, we understand, you know, it's not in your budget to hire us for the whole job, but for $500, you can hire us to send one of our painters for one, just the first day to help you get set up, train some of your friends and family that are coming to help you.

Cory Byron (01:04:30.327)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (01:04:35.975)
will show you the best tools to use, will show you some prep, maybe help you paint one room and show you how a pro does it. And then the rest of the job, you have all these little tips and tricks of how to paint the rest of your house. And I was like, if I could charge 500 bucks and send one guy for a day, he has fun, interacts with the customer, shows them how to do it, gets a show off his expertise.

Cory Byron (01:04:39.085)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (01:04:55.255)
Painter for a day.

Cory Byron (01:05:01.335)
Love it.

Branden Sewell (01:05:05.749)
And it's just like an extra, you know what I'm saying?

Cory Byron (01:05:07.201)
Yeah. Yeah, I've heard of it. Actually, I've heard of like painter for a day. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I don't. The guy, someone shares an office with me here and he's a painter. I wonder if I heard it from him. Painter for a day. I feel like it was could have been like husband for a day or something for handyman. But yeah, but yeah, I love that idea. Maybe you got to add in the pizza. It comes with one large pizza for lunch.

Branden Sewell (01:05:12.228)
you have? Okay.

Branden Sewell (01:05:20.058)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (01:05:26.61)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (01:05:33.356)
Yeah, yeah, we'll bring pizza. You bring your friends and family.

Cory Byron (01:05:38.03)
Imagine though, like we painted this office and of course the guy who shares the office with us has a painting company. So like he rolled in with like all the good tools and like things that I didn't even know existed. and, he literally just got us going and like, we took it from there. I'm sure we did a horrible job compared to him, but like we had all his rollers here, you know, like he brought the pain, like he just like,

Branden Sewell (01:05:48.679)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (01:06:03.079)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (01:06:04.545)
totally got us going and then boom we were done in like two days, you know? And if I had to go do that on my own, you know, you just struggle getting going. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:06:08.571)
Yeah, that's good, sir.

Branden Sewell (01:06:15.163)
Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, I think it's really a good thing, a good practice to have as a business owner to just be willing to try things that maybe initially you would be resistant to or maybe other people think are a silly idea, but to just do it anyway. And like the live switch thing, obviously you guys are crushing it with that.

Cory Byron (01:06:37.419)
Yeah, absolutely.

Cory Byron (01:06:43.147)
Yeah, I'm loving that software for sure. And just dealing with James and the crew over there, they're really nice people as well. That's a bonus.

Branden Sewell (01:06:47.121)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:06:53.467)
Yeah, good stuff. Well, hey, I know we're a little over on time, so I want to bring this to a close, but I want to kind of just usually I close out by giving you the floor. If there's anything like that, maybe we didn't talk about that you wish we could have, or if there's anything like a point that you kind of just want to drive home for the listeners, the floor is yours and just, you know, share away whatever you'd like to close it out.

Cory Byron (01:07:04.098)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (01:07:20.205)
I got one for you. So I've been doing this business coaching. I've been a student basically for, I don't know, close to seven years, I think now. And I see all these different members in there and I see people that really forge ahead and I see other ones that kind of hang around, complain about their business and they don't really, nothing changes, you know, and they're just paying.

to hang out with the crew, it seems like. And so I noticed the people that move ahead and change are the implementers, right? So they get a nugget from one meeting. They realize, hey, I have no Google reviews. Literally within a week, they sign up for nice job. They set it up and they forget about it. It's implemented and they move on to the next implementation item.

Branden Sewell (01:07:57.553)
Yeah, that's good.

Cory Byron (01:08:17.397)
Like the branding, you saw my branding, were like, you know, it seems like you got it going on. That was that all that was to me was an implementation item. was like something that I hadn't done yet. I knew I needed to take serious and get done. And so now it's now it's done and I'm I'll forget about it and I'll go on to the next implementation item. So those are my closing remarks. It would be, you know,

Branden Sewell (01:08:17.521)
So good.

Branden Sewell (01:08:34.375)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (01:08:42.765)
there's not that many implementation items. You're gonna have this business, well, I've had mine from 2008 to now. So I'm getting to like the very fine little, I'm trying to squeeze every little bit of juice out of the lemon I can at this point. But if you're just getting started or you're halfway through, like, man, there's probably some real easy implementation items that you could get done by the week and move on to the next one.

Branden Sewell (01:08:54.545)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:09:11.419)
Yeah, that's so good.

Cory Byron (01:09:12.821)
Anytime you implement a system or something like that, every little system you add on, just takes like a little nugget of stress and chaos away. Right. you, you know, me, me and my business partner, we, we brag sometimes that we have the most stress free business. We might not have the biggest numbers, you know, we're not the richest guys, but like, but we golf every week during the week.

Branden Sewell (01:09:33.777)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Byron (01:09:38.133)
We, you know, we're not putting out fires left and right. Things seem to run relatively smoothly and we're really proud of that. So anyways, that's my closing thought.

Branden Sewell (01:09:38.747)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:09:45.82)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's so good. It takes me back to like where I got started in, you know, my home service business and I really listened to Tommy Mello a lot. And one of the things that Tommy Mello talked about as he would say all the time on the podcast, he would say, you know, people ask me why I give all of my tips, my secrets, all of this information away for free. And he said the reality is, is I couldn't pay some of you guys to actually implement.

He's like, can give you all the advice. I could give you the magic answer. I can tell you exactly what to do to fix the problem that you're having today and you won't go do it because you won't implement. And I remember when I started my coaching program, my coach called me the implementation king. Like I jump on like our mastermind call and he'd be like, Brandon, he's like, he's the implementation king. He's doing it. because I, that's, I literally was like,

Cory Byron (01:10:19.021)
Yeah.

Cory Byron (01:10:28.717)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (01:10:48.163)
You're going to tell me what to do and I'm going to go do it. That's my responsibility. That's all I need. All I need is for you to tell me what to do and I'm going to go do it. And so I just to close this out like if you're listening to this if you've listened to this podcast and there's been something that we've talked about today the difference between you getting off the ladder and staying stuck right where you're at is implementing what we're talking about.

Cory Byron (01:10:51.031)
Yep, me too. I'm the exact same way.

Branden Sewell (01:11:17.979)
taking these things and just going and doing them. And it's going to be hard. It's going to challenge you. It's going to stretch you. But the reality is, like if you just take that step of implementing, you know, you'll look back and you'll be like, wow, I'm so glad that I did that. And then your business is going to just start to grow and thrive and, you know, go to places that it wouldn't otherwise. So yeah, implementation is key. So thank you so much, Corey, for being a part of the podcast and

being so generous with your time. And I know that you brought a lot of value and I'm sure the listeners will get a lot out of this episode. So thank you again for coming on. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So if you're listening, obviously this is going to go on YouTube. So if you're watching this on YouTube, please like this comment, share your feedback, subscribe to the channel and share this with somebody so that they can learn from it.

Cory Byron (01:11:57.261)
Thanks for having me. This is a blast.

Branden Sewell (01:12:14.341)
And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please rate and review the show and share it with somebody. Those rate and reviews will really help us to grow and reach more people. And lastly, if you're needing some systems and resources, check the show notes. There'll be some affiliate links and things that you can use. And I do get credit if you use them. So I do greatly appreciate it.

If you do use my links, that helps to support me, support the show so that we can keep doing this. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast and we'll see you next time on the next episode.