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Your Competitors Don’t Want You to Know: The "High-Tech Redneck's" Shortcut to Faster Bids & Bigger Profits
75 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of The Better Contractor Podcast, host Brent Oberlink teams up with “The Professor” Travis and special guest James Hatfield from LiveSwitch—the “high-tech redneck” with a track record of scaling small ventures into big breakouts. Together, they discuss simple tactics to ditch job-site guesswork and drive-time headaches. Listen in on how to score faster, more accurate bids, boost your closing rate, and keep your crew—and clients—happier than ever. If you’re ready to turn today’s cutting-edge tech into your everyday moneymaker, this is the blueprint you’ve been waiting for.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Alright, welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I'm joined by Professor Travis. How are you, man? Good to see everyone. Hey, it's been a while since you've been on. It has. Yeah, welcome back.
00:00:27
Speaker
Thank you, I've been doing some studying. Actually, ah James, our guest, gave me a book that i was supposed I was planning on taking with me on Thanksgiving and it didn't
Professor Travis on Business Turnaround
00:00:41
Speaker
happen. As much as I like to read, my the library always grows. So this is the the newest edition and it's next up in the stack that James recommended. I've read some other stuff from Ken Blanchard before and it's been good in the past.
00:00:57
Speaker
<unk>d I'd never heard of that one before. Yeah. Yeah. When he takes a failing factory and returns it all around through data and putting data up and exposing it to the entire team. And it's fantastic. I did the same thing in one of the businesses that we grew from an incubator to a billion bucks. And those principles work no matter what business you're running.
00:01:14
Speaker
I feel like before we go much deeper, we should introduce the guests.
James Hatfield's Background and Journey
00:01:17
Speaker
So our guest today is James Hatfield with Live Switch. So James, I know you've owned, had a little bit of an entrepreneurial journey and a lot of our podcast listeners, that is exactly where they are. So tell us a little bit about your journey and a brief little options here and kind of your entrepreneurial journey, especially.
00:01:38
Speaker
yeah It's you know, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree is what they say So my grandfather did not get a chance to graduate High school because his father died young of heart problems All right, and he had to go work at a tire shop and my grandfather and my father and you know, he had his blue collar guy, you know, built his own home. And my grandfather's dream for me was James, I want you to paint the roads. When you when you're when you're when you're a man, you go and paint those roads. That was my father's dream, James, go be a plumber. Well, I took on I did not take on plumbing, but I took on power washing and painting.
Blending Tech with Traditional Values
00:02:14
Speaker
And that got me
00:02:15
Speaker
Doing pretty well and it allowed me to go to college and so I paid all the way put myself through that college running a business and got a business degree and then did a couple other businesses and some tech companies and nonprofits and Seen it all but my roots are you know down the the blue collar main street, you know, um knock on doors and go get the job done right and put people to work and feed families and, you know, but I happen to grow up in the age of the internet. So I got into technology and my friends affectionately call me the high tech redneck. My last name is Hatfield. I'm a Hatfield McCoy. And I just I love it. So we'll talk all about that. But thanks for having me today.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, you bet, man. Wait, a high tech redneck. That sounds like a very solid call sign. There you go. A branding call sign, the high tech redneck. can do like it the How is this not a caricature that we're seeing popping up in in cartoons, the kids book series, the high tech redneck?
00:03:17
Speaker
Because usually you we like to be on a boat somewhere fishing or in a tree stand when we're hunting. So as you don't see us with big fat glasses and you know iPads and computers. Yours will be smart glasses, augmented reality overlays. so Don't give
Innovations in Virtual Reality and Tech
00:03:33
Speaker
it up. Well, I was on a tech magazine cover with my team. We were in the metaverse. We were building products for people ah with the VR glasses on.
00:03:42
Speaker
So I interviewed somebody I interviewed someone from Facebook in in the metaverse and we ended up getting my team like anyway I can be very nerdy and i'll my lunch money later. I'll give you my lunch money later Travis ah Yeah, umm I'm a little bit geeky on on the the edge tech stuff. I bought some some VR stuff ah ah yeah literally We went to an Expo equip Expo back in what October and Travis is downstairs in the evenings in the hotel and doing VR and all kinds of stuff. It looks like a crazy guy down there. I had no idea. So it was kind of a swankyish lobby. It was a really cool lobby. Had Noah in a headset and he was talking to an AI powered avatar of Albert Einstein and talking to him in Princeton's lecture hall, having a conversation with Albert Einstein. And it was, it was pretty impressive.
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Well, let's get, ah let's get to the point and see how we can help our
Live Switch: Virtual Bidding for Contractors
00:04:47
Speaker
listeners. So James, tell me just a little bit about Live Switch. So if I'm a listener and I've never heard of it, what do you guys do? Yeah. Live Switch is here to help home services get and bid more jobs faster, doing it virtually from your home, from your office or from your truck. And you can bid on business. No more do you need to drive all over your town to get the cash and walk and knock on doors like I used to to, to book business. And I've done it. I've done it. And so this was four power washers, five power washers, four power washers, four landscapers, four, you know, we got roofers and plumbers and HVAC guys all using this to get in front of customers quickly. Thank you, Amazon. Now we never need like to wait in line anymore. We don't like to drive to get our stuff and the homeowners don't like it either.
00:05:40
Speaker
They want their job done. When they want the grass cut, they don't want to wait around for you. They want to know, when can you be here? How much is it? And I'm going to check you on Google to make sure you got five stars before I let you on my property. But I need it done now. And so we are helping folks do their bids quickly. I like that. I like that. So I'm a contractor. You're the homeowner. How does that work? So you've contacted me. Now I'm getting ready to to bid your job. Do I send you a link? Or how does that work?
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, we don't like apps. Nobody wants another app. I don't you don't all you have to do is send somebody a text. And I had a guy raving about yesterday, he's like James, I got a 90 year old on this thing the other day, because we believe in simple, all this fancy pants stuff that's out there now. And I like AI and VR all with the restaurant like we just talked about. But at the end of the day,
00:06:33
Speaker
I remember the next tell walkie talkie that thing was awesome because it was easy and it worked and everybody had to have one. And so we set out to recreate that but with video. It's all well and good that you can describe your lawn to me or your garden or what you need done. But as they say a picture is worth 1000 words but a video is worth 10,000.
00:06:51
Speaker
So if I can have you walk around your house and show me, I can see it, I can bid it. I mean, I've bid tons of painting jobs. I can do it in my sleep. i I would like to see the house real quick, just to double check, but I'm bidding on to give you an accurate bid. Okay. So what I can almost see, let's say I'm a lawn care contractor and I'm bidding your mowing or your landscape. So I'm going to send you a link and then you're going to basically video what I need to see around. And then maybe if I need to get square footage,
00:07:18
Speaker
I jump on Google Earth or whatever, and I grab your square footage based upon your property lines. That's it. That's how it's done. That's how our guys use it every day. Simple. From a business owner standpoint, I'm definitely saving a lot of time by not having to drive, especially for the simple jobs. You know, maybe if it's super complex, maybe, but if it's a simple job, I'm saving a ton of time by not having myself or someone else drive out there in a truck and take a look at that. Yeah, the most expensive thing you do is you put a guy behind a windshield just to go bid on something and not win it. It's called losing money. That's how you lose money. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're trying to mitigate that. And as much as I like filling up my trucks and putting wear and tear on the vehicle, I don't. And if I can do it sitting on my couch, sitting in my, sitting at, you know, on another job site while I'm making money, then that's what I want to do. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:08:06
Speaker
I gotta to admit before this call, I did not know this existed. So this is. Oh, I did. This is new. Like this is live video is hard. You guys want to pull all your hair out, start a live video company. Oh my goodness. You know, that's why I have more computer scientists on staff. I'm used to having my guys that can paint a house in a couple of days. Now these guys speak to me in English, but I think they're speaking English. but It is difficult stuff. So, you know, God bless the souls of anyone get this in the live video. It's hard. Okay, cool. As we've engaged with the industry, especially over the last couple years, and and in the technology realm, um I think you and I chat a little bit about this, and Tom James of
00:08:50
Speaker
There's so much happening. There's so many widgets. There's so many solutions. There's so much technology and things out there, and I think a lot of people in the industry, whether they've been in the industry for a long time or they're just getting started or anything in between, sees that there's potentially a lot of really cool tools out there, things that almost a lot of them are technologically based. So and there's electric and there's power and there's AI integrated, everything in videos and drones and robotics and software and everybody's got some sort of software integration to some degree.
Integrating Technology in Home Services
00:09:21
Speaker
um What's been your experience live switch and then also with your companies as far as ah in implementing ah solutions, technological solutions, special like software solutions, ah maybe feedback from your customers, whatever.
00:09:35
Speaker
any feedback or insights for people for how do they analyze what software is needed, integrate it into their operation smartly, and then monitor whether the ROI is being produced. Here's the thing. You give an engineer something, you know what they're going to do? They're going to over engineer it. They've never had to get out on the lawnmower or put a pack on and like blow the driveway unless they're doing their own home, right? ah Nevertheless, do like five in a row for the day.
00:10:04
Speaker
What we like as home service and got owners is easy. We want to hit the on button and it does the job. I want to pull the cord and I want the trimmer to start and then I just get to work. you know I don't want to know how the engine works on the trimmer. Don't ask me to build an engine. I don't want to ask my home services guys to build an engine.
00:10:22
Speaker
When I start my vehicle, i don't I just want my car to get somewhere. A, B, i don't I'm not worried about the engine unless she breaks. And the problem I think we've got with all the software is it's too hard.
00:10:35
Speaker
And I got to send my guys to college to do ah just a university of fill in the blank software, you know, ah just so I can book a job or get paid. Right. And so I think that's the problem. And I think that's the challenge is not for the home service guys, the challenge that puts a challenge on the vendors. And you as home service, you need to challenge your vendors. Why are you making this so hard?
00:10:58
Speaker
and I think it's because they've never done the job. and I'm not trying to bang on everyone. I'm just saying this is hard. so If you're going to implement this stuff in your business, and we were talking about earlier, Travis, some guys were working off a whiteboard and a piece of paper and a pencil. That's what I did. A piece of paper and a pencil got the job done. you know Now, I want to do it smarter. I want to be faster. I want to be data-led. I want to be high-tech redneck.
00:11:19
Speaker
You know, but when you get overwhelmed, sometimes I just have to phone a friend, frankly, like I get to get the right coach in place, a guy that actually you admire a company that's doing it right. You know, so I would say, I would start there if you're feeling like can't make heads or tails of things, you know, because you you can buy a lot of stuff, and just keep adding more and more bottom line. But as much as I want to grow my business, I want to, I want to protect my bottom line and keep my margins solid so I can pay my team and frankly pay myself. So I think for a lot of folks, you got to, you know, pick and choose the right pieces. And if you don't know, phone a friend. I think a lot of landscape at email, I think last week or so the magazine, the the headline was labor is still the biggest problem in the industry. And I think yeah but a lot of the solutions are value add time back things, but but I think to you is
00:12:16
Speaker
I'm kind of thinking out loud on on this one. but It's almost a double edged sword in that ah for a lot of the software kind of what you're just saying of this technology can potentially offset the labor shortage or the man hours that that you don't have. But a lot of the times in order to implement that you need different skill sets than what you have on your team. So if it's a robotic mower or a drone that can handle or automation or something,
00:12:45
Speaker
that can handle the the job of two or three guys, you now need somebody who actually understands that software or that piece of hardware or this other and it's almost a completely different
Remote Work and Economic Benefits
00:12:55
Speaker
skill set. And some people who have been successful sourcing some of the younger tapping into the younger talent that this is kind of intuitive for them. And that that can be successful. So they don't have that. Yeah, it's super important and that's not necessarily the case.
00:13:13
Speaker
for most of these technologies and most of these solutions, it's not simple. I mean, robotics drones and all this and there's software that goes along with any of that stuff too. And the data and the management and it can be superpowers for the companies because it can allow you to do things you've never been able to do before and or replace the staff that you don't have that needs to be doing this as your company's growing. But yeah, it's a significant challenge of like,
00:13:40
Speaker
for vendors to still add that that capability within these technologies, but make it simple enough that they could actually adopt it, use it, and get the ROI out of it.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, what we see a lot of our home service guys doing is taking a different approach to how they staff. All right, making sure the right person is in the right seat on the bus. Right? So clap times, and I'm sure you guys have seen it, you ask your guy who's great at hardscaping or putting in sprinkler systems to also be great at customer service, upselling, follow up, all the things you're asking, that's a unicorn person.
00:14:16
Speaker
right and And when you find them, great, hold on to them, pay them the right thing and and hold on tight. But that ain't everybody. right So what you got to do is look across your team, look for gaps, but also look for strengths. Who's your best salesperson? Who always upsells? Who do the customers just love?
00:14:32
Speaker
Because now with the technology, I can put that guy doing all of my sales bids and upsells. So a guy can literally get on property, who's great at installing or cutting or what and hand off a phone or a tablet. And that person can connect to my master salesperson and get the money and upsell and make sure if I'm doing a membership program and premium, you know, I'm juicing that. And here's what's crazy. Some of these folks, you can hire them overseas.
00:15:02
Speaker
And we we're finding top talent and my customers are even having someone overseas bid work. It's almost mind blowing. Like if you told me 20 years ago that I could have somebody sitting overseas bidding on my painting jobs, I would have thought thought you were crazy. And that nobody would understand them, that my clientele would reject them, and that would just be a waste.
00:15:22
Speaker
things are changing, right? And it's actually helping me as a business owner, because of overseas staff, by the way, cost me a fraction of my onshore staff. And you think I'm a home service guy, what we're talking offshore, I'm like, Yeah, I'm talking offshore. And if you don't have it today, that's okay. Because you can take and centralize your folks sitting behind the desk who good at selling, they can be and you can hire talent from any, maybe lower cost areas of the country, if you want to keep them onshore, you can do that too. So it's going to give you more optionality to find staff especially when you're local town, you're like, I don't know if I can find another unicorn person. So now you're opening, you know, your aperture, you're opening your opportunity and talent pool. And these are the types of things that you can do. And it's not hard. It is curious where you how and where are you finding that talent?
00:16:09
Speaker
ah through great organizations. so There's a bunch of different companies out there that specialize in finding these, they call them VAs, virtual assistants. and What's neat about it is that these companies manage that person, but that person is dedicated to my company. They'll wear my polo or um have my backdrop. They can do bookkeeping, they can do selling, they can do scheduling. they can like It's amazing. and They'll work any hours you want. It's like that old-school hustle.
00:16:38
Speaker
from back in the day when you're like, where can I find someone with some grit and hustle? You know, it's hard to find, you know, COVID kind of put a lot of people on the couch for a while. ah Time to get back to it, ladies and gentlemen, that is now in the rear view, thank God, right? So you can find hungry talent through companies that make sure they do the right job how you want it as well, for a fraction of the cost. And again, I want to keep all four keeping jobs onshore, so don't hear me wrong. But when you're pulling your out to hair out to find good talent, like Travis was talking about,
00:17:08
Speaker
Look, I just want someone who can hustle and will do a good job and take care of my customers so I can make more money, grow my business and repeat and not lose people to retention is stronger there too. Okay. Well, that's so important in business too is having those efficiencies, you know, which is what this is. So I would imagine just guessing.
00:17:28
Speaker
This is probably taking half the time away of building a project, if I had to guess, if not more. Definitely you can get a lot more done in a day. But two, I'm thinking of specific homeowners or customers and me being one of those, I don't really wanna be on the phone a lot.
Enhancing Customer Service with Tech
00:17:46
Speaker
So if I can send you a video and we can correspond via text or whatever, and we can get this done and then you can also get it back to me quickly,
00:17:54
Speaker
That's a huge customer service ah benefit for someone like myself. Um, we created a completely different business a few years back and it was back before online booking was really that popular and we were one of the first to do it back then. Huge advantage to me. That's the way it should have been being done anyway. Uh, but then after that, almost everybody was doing it, but having that ability to book you know, perform or or do the biz and do all that stuff without it being so intensive on the customer's part or your guys' part. To me, that's just a win-win. It's huge. And also think about follow-up. I got a bunch of guys that lay sod that use our stuff. And sometimes after you lay sod, it goes a little brown in spots. And customers call up and they're like, hey, it's going brown. It's it's not a problem. ah Sometimes it is a problem.
00:18:41
Speaker
So, you know, they'll go and they want to serve as a customer. They hop in the truck, go over there, Oh, ma'am, it's fine. You know, actually this part, don't worry. We'll take care of it. But now that person and the follow-up can either scan a QR code and from the QR code, take a video or tap a text or a link, take a video. You can watch it, put it on 2X speed, by the way.
00:19:03
Speaker
Call them back. Hey, I've looked at everything. That's normal. You're fine. Keep an eye on it. And again, you saved that hour out and back to service that person, even on the follow up, also on the front end selling and also between your staff. So maybe you have someone who's more senior and you just hired a new person and they'd like, I have a question. You know, they call up, you, your senior person might benefit from seeing what's going on. So your senior person can send a text and it's all remote assistance.
00:19:32
Speaker
right This ain't a FaceTime call. This is all remote. I'm taking remote photos, videos, the person walking around seeing himself big, and me as a senior person or the owner, I can look at it from anywhere. And it's just having eyes on stuff. we've We've had the phone. Imagine when the phone wouldn't happen. and you know but Remember when we didn't have cell phones?
00:19:53
Speaker
um Believe it or not. ah We were at Jim Vining truck and we couldn't communicate but now we're getting more tools on the job to make things faster and Man alive is it better for your customer service better for your team and all those recorded videos for training, too Yeah, yeah I'm just curious James. You call yourself the high-tech redneck Is there other industries or technologies that you've been involved with pre or lately like pre life switch? I'm just curious. Oh yeah. um We built a financial technology company ah from an incubator and now it's a multi-billion dollar business. All banks and CPAs across the country use it because back to our roots.
00:20:37
Speaker
When I went and saw my bookkeeper and CPA, they handed me my income stay and balance sheet. I didn't understand what that thing said. you know So we created a system that you could put your income stay and balance sheet in, and it would change it into plain language and compare me to other people in my industry. And that business took off. And that allowed us to get into other, I went into clinical technology, I built a bunch of clinical tech.
00:21:00
Speaker
And then, you know, we have this company that we ah purchased it four years ago. um and at a And we've been growing it and we've been now taking live video and recorded video. And, you know, it we just go back to our roots, whether it's financial statements, or whether it's been in projects, that's just our roots. In fact, because we're the high tech rednecks, we're able to, you know, make it there you go mu and work and that's all I just want the mower to start. I just want the mower to start.
00:21:28
Speaker
yeah i don't And I don't need to understand all the physics. What's the point or lessons you would give a business owner who maybe is a little bit slower to adopting technology as a sales point of, Hey, you know, I always say like there's some business owners that only look at like inputs like, Oh, well this input costs me this amount of money.
Advice for Tech Adoption in Business
00:21:47
Speaker
I don't have that amount of money, but to me it's much deeper than that. Okay. It costs this, but it saves this on the, in the end. Thus, I still do have a profit from investing in this.
00:21:58
Speaker
What is something you would tell those business owners that's maybe a little bit slow to adopt technology? Yeah, um, some folks just won't I mean, I'm not gonna They're just that's how they're gonna do it They're gonna do until the day they retire and that's just they're they're stuck in and that's okay I get that, you know, you can want to run run your business off a clipboard and a whiteboard That's what I used to do do it, you know have at it But I would say if you're open to it and open to some, you know teaching the old dog new tricks Take a look at stuff that you maybe implemented in the past that you were skeptical on
00:22:31
Speaker
and Remind yourself. Oh, yeah, that wasn't actually that hard, you know that worked and then again back to my point of phoning a friend How hard was it for you guys to do this, you know, how long did it take? How much did it cost? How much does it save? Because if then I find out the numbers behind it, okay I'm gonna spend this but I'm gonna save this or put this much more in and everybody says the same Oh save time make more money, of course But like just phone a friend talk to someone who's done it and you know And i'm a vendor now eventually you come to trust your vendors The good ones that is the people that don't sell you magic beans, right? But the guys actually sell you good stuff They actually become a circle. I call them your jedi council for any star wars nerds But other people might call them their board of directors or mastermind groups They get mastermind groups and you've got great folks in your mastermind group And that's usually where a lot of these ideas come from and the technology that they vetted so you don't have to be the guinea pig
00:23:24
Speaker
Right. Also, you start to come to trust these vendors that I mean, I'm in front of three to four up business owners every day. Right. So I'm not only learning about what we do. I'm learning about like the virtual assistant thing. I don't actually bought virtual assistants because of it. I don't get a dime from that. I just try to share. Here's what I'm hearing what's working. This is not as hard as you think. And look, why don't you talk to this person who'd be happy. I connect business owners all the time. I talked to Johnny Smith, man. He'll tell you how he did it.
00:23:53
Speaker
you know And they don't get a dime from me. I don't want them. I don't want that. I want to remain you know independent and agnostic so our business owners can get what's real and true and right, and that way they can you know act on something. So for the folks that are a little skeptical, you're rightfully so. you know ah Test it, see if it's true, and then make a move, make a jump. Yeah. That's a good point. as you know most things in the tech world, you don't have to commit. So you could try it. If it doesn't work, then you move on down the road. But either way, if it's one of those things that can give you a competitive advantage, then to me, you should definitely be doing it as a business.
00:24:31
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, we give 60 day money back guarantee. If you don't like my stuff after two months, you got all your money back. And I have to say, sorry for wasting your time too. You know, yeah it doesn't happen to us often, but yeah, you got to have de-risk things. You know, you can't do all the things. I mean, you will, but prioritize. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the the remote work component, ah there's definitely, there's two camps and well, there's three camps, but there's the camp that they they have to be they thrive being in the office around people in that environment there's a camp that completely thrive being remote not in that environment and then those kind of hybrid that can see the balance between back and forth and there's so many opportunities that have if people are willing and you get you get voices from both sides those like it's absolutely ridiculous nobody ever needs to be in the office ever again and those like
00:25:25
Speaker
no No company could survive if you're not in the office. And both of them are right and both of them are wrong. But taking a pragmatic approach to implementing different innovative ideas and mixing, it's maybe easier said than done in a lot of cases. But if people are open and willing to explore and see, hey, what's out there, what's maybe appropriate, the thing like the virtual assistants could be amazing. So I see the other side of it too. Maybe this is for the audience. or but now The other side of it too is yeah we've got a lot of unemployed people ah in that in this country that are in depressed economic areas. People in rural Texas, rural Kentucky, Tennessee that can't find work, they're fixed or locked into their geographic area for maybe a variety of reasons. They don't have enough money to move, they're close to their family, whatever. There's just not the industry to hire them.
00:26:19
Speaker
and by a lot of these tools and technologies and innovations, unlocking solutions that allow us to connect with them, could potentially revive, you can go then go find the right talent, bring in pieces of talent that you need, um as opposed to try and make somebody wear multiple hats, you can portion off the talent that you need. It it gives them an income that they didn't have an option for.
00:26:46
Speaker
gives them a sense of pride too, getting somebody working so they're not on some government welfare check or something, taking handouts, a sense of pride, build their self-esteem back, their their're pride back yeah with their family that they're contributing is, but ah can revive whole industries if we're willing to take advantage of it. So I loved hearing that. I want to look into it more, but I think there's definitely opportunities and with what you were just saying too, with lives.
00:27:13
Speaker
you're You're spot on, right? And so doing remote assistance work can be done right in the office. It can be done in a different state. It can be done in a different country. right You want to find the talent and the person, and like I said, the right people in the right seats on the bus. As an example, a couple of years ago, and we started introducing this technology to home industries.
Retaining Employees with Tech Flexibility
00:27:33
Speaker
We found ourselves in the moving industry. People that are moving boxes, you know residential movers, and they had a salesperson who was killing it. She was awesome. They're in Atlanta, and she's just killing it while she had a baby.
00:27:44
Speaker
And she's like, look, i I need to stay home with this little thing that we just had here. um But I still love my job. And I still can sell. So they put our stuff in her hands. And she was able to bid work remotely. And she still was crushing it, using it every day. I still use it to this day and love it. But it allows that flexibility because otherwise, in the past, they might have told that staff member, look, we you know, congrats on the baby, but like, we drive out every time. and I just can't do it. You know, so it it gives you opportunity, like you were talking about Travis for talent, gives you opportunity to retain top talent as well, and to think a little bit outside the box. So once you see the results, i I've got business owners that track every lead to a T, they are data hounds, and they give me that data.
00:28:29
Speaker
It's their battle tested real world day. Like James, like when people chat to a robot or chat on a thing, we close, you know, 20, 30%. When we're on the phone and we're talking to people, my sales team can close between 25 and 35%. When we go on site in person, you know, we're closing around 50 to 60%. And when we're using live switch, we're also closing 50 to 60% doing remote bidding.
00:28:58
Speaker
and sometimes a little more. And I'm not um not cooking the books, all right? I'm just telling you what happens. And the reason that might happen, of course we don't go in on site closes deals. The human face has a higher close rate than the phone. We all know that. you know We know that. So now seeing a human face, even virtually, no matter where they are, because it's speed to bid, right? Someone calls up, hey, i need I need some lawn work done. Great, we'll be out next week to quote you. Well, you know what that customer does in the age of Amazon?
00:29:27
Speaker
They might book you that next week, but they're going to call the next guy who can come out tomorrow with also five star ratings. So speed to lead is huge. And so sometimes when people are like, well, I don't know if I want to do a virtual bid like, well, I can come out next week, or I can give you a the quote right now. If I can, if you let me text you and then they do it, get the text, boom, that speed to lead also increases close rates and margins because that customer is perceiving you as fast.
00:29:56
Speaker
perceiving you as, you know, Hey, look at this tech. That's kind of cool. But they're getting the quote they want seeing the five star review. Now you can send your tech or your work out there to get the job done. So it's a better customer experience too. That's actually a really good point, James. I was actually going to make that one. If you didn't was from a business owner perspective. That is huge. Cause I can think of many a times even personally where I've, you know, wanted to find a long care contractor or whatever to where speed is important to me. I'm dealing with this right now.
00:30:26
Speaker
It's on my plate right now. I don't really want to be on my plate again in four days. If I can get it done and check it off that list and be done with it today, I'm probably going to do it. So you're right. If I call a contractor a and he's good, he's got the five stars. I don't hear from him for another week or he takes several days to get back to even live at my site. Most likely if that's on my list for today, like you said, I'm Jeff on the phone again. I'm calling somebody else until I find that five star contractor that is willing to come out today to do the job. So.
00:30:56
Speaker
I think that's a huge point. And again, another competitive advantage for the guys out there that may be able to say, Hey, this is actually something that would work in my industry. And you're right. The, the moving industry, that's perfect for it. It's really what they're looking for is big, heavy items. How big can we fit it through the doorway? Do I need four people or two people? I mean, it's perfect, especially for jobs like that.
00:31:18
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. The other thing I like to remind people about after hours bidding. So for some of those folks, now that we're back in the office, you know, and as much as your sales team likes to go out to seven o'clock appointments, they don't just as much as the person doesn't want they want to have dinner rather than to wait around.
00:31:35
Speaker
So now what you can do is you can tell your guys to go home and get a good night's sleep. And your customer can tap a text at seven o'clock at night, walk around the house, show the landscaping work that needs to get done. You guys can call them the next morning. Yep, I watched it. Here's what it's going to take. Here's we can do it done. That convenience is what your customers want. And your staff does not want to do late night bids.
00:31:59
Speaker
And you can change this into really cool stuff that we see our home ah service companies doing. Starting membership premium membership programs you know where they charge people annually. That recurring revenue is a beautiful thing for a business owner. right And all you have to do is provide them a couple little creature comforts that you would have done anyway.
00:32:19
Speaker
hint, hint, right, where you can hand them a magnet for their fridge with a QR code on it. Does that need any work done? Scan that, show us, and we'll bid it and be out to work in a jiffy. Thank you for being a Platinum member. That's genius. I like that. One question I do have if I'm listening Is from the offshore virtual i'm just curious what some of your guys are doing. So how are you teaching them to build a bit of projects so obviously you could give them a rate sheets a. We charge any dollars an hour for this person to be on site i'm assuming that's probably happening but then. how How are they being trained to say hey i think it'll take this long to paint these four rooms or or whatever.
00:33:02
Speaker
ye so These overseas folks are sharp. they' not Don't underestimate overseas for lack of wit and wisdom. They are sharp. and so In the beginning, just like you would train any new person, you're going to show them how to do it. you know You'll you know practice with them and then put them on and let them do it.
00:33:21
Speaker
and It's just a little bit of training. But again, it's the same video They're seeing the same thing and they can watch everything. You'll have everything recorded as well. Here's how we do it Here's and you can watch the instant replay So if you're not closing or you're not closing like you want them to or you can watch it and coach them Hey watch the replay. Hey, let's say it like this. This is how we might bid it, you know, so train them turn them loose coach them Vince Ross rewash repeat it's it's It's not as hard as you might think. These guys are really smart. Yeah, I was just curious, onshore or offshore, either one, how the training process was working for that for those guys that are doing that. That's cool. Yeah. and Like you said, you could probably double check it too. So if you got, you know, onshore person, offshore person, and they're brand new, maybe you are watching that video and double checking their math for the first month or whatever.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And what happens is your team typically will watch the video at two X speed because I know what they're doing been known and they can also provide feedback like, Hey, you missed this spot or Hey, we need this next time. And it's a group effort. It's a teamwork. Cause you got someone sitting half a world away bidding, but you know, your, your team gives that feedback too. And you just flow, flow from, and otherwise they're just going to complain to you anyways. They're Hey boss, man, you know, this person has been it wrong. And then you'll know.
00:34:42
Speaker
I'm sure they're probably also maybe building a scope of work. So hey, we need a ladder, we need a lift, whatever. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And if the job is a big one, you know, sometimes there's going to be parameters where you flag it and say, look, let's also one, two punch it. Okay. Yeah, we did a virtual, but I also want to do an onsite for this one because the money's there to do it and it makes a lot of sense. So you're going to have times where you just want to punch. Yeah, I could definitely see where a large complex project you may do both.
00:35:08
Speaker
Sure. but Then you got the documentation for it as well. Right. Where you wouldn't have as far as the video and feedback.
Documenting with Video for Accountability
00:35:15
Speaker
That's the other beauty of that is we've been doing that for a while internally with and inside of Landercorp is doing before and after photos or whatever videos um for documentation purposes. So was this damage present on this property before we showed up? Yeah, it's it's in the before video and also the after. So stuff like that too. And I'm sure life switch could be used to document after stuff as well.
00:35:39
Speaker
ah Absolutely. It's a definitely cover your backside instant replay and then the customer it's live sometimes too. So you hear the customer's voice So ma'am, you know when you walked around you said you only needed irrigation on the front Now my guys got there and you're saying well, no, no, I they said the back to I'm like no No, let the record show, you know, we're happy to do the back as well, but it's gonna cost us much more So don't let customers take advantage of my team some Either it keeps it keeps everybody honest same with my own team if they messed up. Hey, you did say we we're gonna do both. Yeah, okay you know It just keeps everybody honest. I guess, do you have any more like entrepreneurial tips or any closing thoughts? Yeah. um I think for a lot of our you know business owners, you know and I know it's overwhelming with all the new things going on, ah I want everyone to just think about as these new tools come into play, crawl, walk, and run. You don't need to boil the ocean.
00:36:34
Speaker
Right. Let's crawl. Let's just start using this new tool or software in this one area or with this one or two team members. Maybe I'm going to have a T ah maybe I got my one team a that's my guinea pigs, you know, and I make sure that works before I spread it across the rest of it.
00:36:52
Speaker
Right. And then maybe even with the Guinea pigs, they're just taking a slice out of a new process that I want to put in place and then make sure that works. Get team confident because it's also you're building confidence in your team. You're growing your team. You're training your team. You're teaching them on new tools, new services, new customer success, new ways to do it. You're building them up. So remind the team, Hey guys, like we're trying to build you up here in our organization. So, you know, you can enhance our overall piece, but I also want to make your resume nice and dense. Not that I want to lose you.
00:37:22
Speaker
But you know we we want to make sure we build you up. So try to use language that is not scary language or language that helps people want to do it you know and and the why behind it. And then same with customers. If they haven't done certain things before or used certain things, try to remind them and maybe sometimes like, Hey, look, we had a one of my guys, had a 90 year old on it the other day. Like, I promise you, if my 90 year old can do it, you can do it too. Right. And so it's some of those things where you're, you're coaching everybody. Right. And, and you're going to have to push through a little bit because change is hard on anything. I don't care what it is, you know, when you're going from the push mower all the way up to the fancy new John Deere, you know, like you're learning new stuff and it's nervous and you know, just, just push through it. So that'd be my last party words as you
00:38:10
Speaker
do some what we corporately call change management. So we talked about it on a previous episode about integrating innovation, whatever whatever that might be, software technology. But that that was one that has been pulled out. I think it was a machine platform crowd is the first place that I experienced it was a book to MIT professors talking about the evolution of innovation, touching everybody. And but one of the sections in there is how do you actually integrate that into your organization? And I think they teed it up as find a small piece in your company or organization that has a small focus, start it there as kind of like an incubation, if you will, within your organization, where it's a small win could have a big impact. And you can and then look at it like the accelerator model as well. If you're going to fail, fail fast, you're judging it in one of three ways. It's either.
00:39:08
Speaker
right for you and you're going to scale or it's maybe a good tool and it's maybe not the right time or you're not ready or or for whatever reason, so you shelve it to revisit it or it's not the right thing or it's not the right tool and you scrap it, but you're wanting to do that fast, move through it fast. And those organizations that no matter what the the new idea, technology, innovation, software is, when they integrate it into an organization small, start one section, one team is your incubator or whatever for this.
00:39:38
Speaker
um And then you have your your testing period and maybe they run with it for a few months or six months or extend it. That's much better than you trying to scramble to find a solution cold because then you're starting for, if you wait till you absolutely need it, ah you're going to spend a lot of time and money and effort trying to catch up by integrating it cold in the org because and almost nothing just integrates naturally.
Innovating in Business with New Technology
00:40:03
Speaker
You've got processes, you've got people, you've got systems it needs to integrate with, you've got data and so by taking something and integrating it small, you're warming it up into the organization and then you can naturally kind of transition that into the rest ah as a warm handover or say something catastrophic happens and now you absolutely need, it's much easier to integrate it more fully and it's a known entity and a product and you're just basically scaling it up. So it's always super important to at least go test and play and look for and it doesn't mean that you have to just cold hot swap everything
00:40:38
Speaker
take a team, take a small section and integrate it there with the intent of determining whether it's right long-term or not. And you're going to give it 60, 90 days as a test pro. And then you're scrapping it or scaling it essentially. Yeah. So I love kind of that aspect or that mentality. If it can be daunting or ah overwhelming to think like, man, here's all these new tools or technologies or something. I have to bring it in. I don't have no idea. Start small, pick some one team member or a small group and integrate and let them test and play with whatever it is. Yeah, it reminds me of when I was running my painting company, ah when we wanted to integrate paint sprayers. So before we had paint sprayers, we were hand rolling, siding and brushing the trim. Right. And these paint sprayers came along and I knew that that was going to help us because I could I could do the math. Right. Like how many hours I was going to save and how my margins were going to go up because I could because I pay people by the hour. Right. So that's hours more money.
00:41:36
Speaker
Well, I had to account too for failure. right and learning the new the new tool. My goodness, I mean, one of my guys paint sprayed and he didn't have the shield, right? And he sprayed the the roof. That was not a good day for me. um And we we had to fix that, but I knew, okay, yeah, we sprayed the roof. That that was not good, right? I even had one time where we, we're now we're getting it so good and we're paint spraying so fast, we stopped checking the paint. So I went out to do a final walk around with a customer and I'm like, man, this house is shiny.
00:42:08
Speaker
Like it is shining. I think they sprayed on a cloudy day, but the paint that we had got had ah gloss shot in when it should have been a flat. And so we had to repaint that house, the entire house again, because I wasn't going to leave with the job done. was I was a nonprofit that day. But you got to account that stuff like that is going to happen. But don't forget. ah Oh, yeah, I remember the hand rolling days.
00:42:31
Speaker
No, that paint sprayer ain't going nowhere. so That margin is too dang good. So that's the kind of thing you got to remind yourself of like, all right, here's why we took it on. Here's the growing pains of doing it. And then in game. All right, that was a good choice. I think it was a lot of technology. And I think back to again, Landicorp, which is one of our main businesses.
00:42:52
Speaker
But I'll usually ask myself two questions. Number one, I'll put myself in the customer's shoes. So what is their experience? Did I enjoy working with Company A? What would have made it better? What would have made it easier? what How would I have made a decision quicker? So I look at that first, the customer's shoes. And then two, I try to think, how can we be an innovator in our industry?
00:43:13
Speaker
So how can LanderCorp, how can company A, how can we become the company that everyone else says, if this is what they're doing, this is what they adopted at 24, we got to get on this and adopted as well. So I kind of use those two things to kind of decide personally for LanderCorp, what should I be doing as far as tech? What can we do better? Um, and then we adopt those things and we'll run numbers, obviously, cause it was a business we have to, but I'm not willing to say 90% of the time, these little things like this with little game changers, but the customer says, you know what? It's just easy to do business with them. Or hey, they're providing a value. The cost isn't that much different to use them, but they're providing these things outside of what is normal. And I like that. And that's worth X amount to me. So I'll pay a premium. So you're also able to charge a little bit of a premium usually. Plus, hopefully with stuff like this, you're shaving off and making things more efficient. One of my final questions,
00:44:13
Speaker
your family now, James. Do they know any of the McCoy's? yeah when he talk That's the perfect question. tra why would i talk to mccoyin Yeah, my great great uncle is devil ants Hatfield. So if you watch the history channel and watch Kevin Costner, he's playing my great great uncle there. But yeah, we try not to you know, talk to them. That's funny. Well, James, it has been a pleasure. I appreciate you jumping on the podcast today. It's again, one of those that I didn't know a ton about before we jumped on and I like it.
Podcast Conclusion and Contact Information
00:44:46
Speaker
Thank you for having me, and if anyone's interested in learning more, just go to our website, liveswitch, L-I-V-E-S-W-I-T-C-H dot.com, and you'll get one of my fabulous team members. But Brent, Travis, and everyone listening, thanks for having me today and talking about you know kind of what's next for the disruption of home services. There you go. Well, thank you, James. Travis, always a pleasure, my man. Sure. Guys, if you like this podcast, please do share it. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time.