The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Design A Great Customer Experience To Close High-Paying Jobs

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

Curt Kempton helps service companies in fine-tuning their quoting process with his service quoting software, Responsibid. As the founder and CEO of Symphosize LLC, Curt has provided invaluable assistance to businesses in closing higher-quality jobs at better rates. He has been working full-time on his passion—helping entrepreneurs achieve major goals by crafting systems best suited to their business' DNA—ever since he sold his window service company back in 2014. In this episode, we talked about customer service, small business, sales, systems...

That little tagline, that was such an important thing internally and externally for us. We were a customer service company that just happens to do windows. And it's a tagline. It's something you could say, but it doesn't mean anything. And when it means something, when it goes from being just a tagline to something that's repeated day in and day out by you internally, your employees internally, and even your customers externally, that was such a game changer for us because everybody is so used to home service providers being the worst at providing service. And it was fun talking to you because you guys really do have a lot of reviews and you've done

a great job of really focusing on that as a company. I feel like that's what happens is the bar is set so low that if you come in and you intentionally try to do a great job and you start off with things like, hey, quick question, will you let me know at any point if there is anything about our service that doesn't seem like the happiest, most amazing service provider you've ever had in your home? Just some sort of message like that, whether it's at the beginning or the end, to consciously get the customer to realize this person isn't just having a good day. They're just intentionally this good. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name is Tommy Mello. Today, I'm here with a very special guest that actually lives here in Phoenix, Arizona. He's a specialist when it comes to customer service, small business, sales, and systems. He started a company called Symphysize in 2008, and he still owns it. And he also owned Five Star Window Care from 2006 to 2014. Kurt is the founder and CEO of Synthesize LLC, where he's developed a service quoting software known as Responsibid and provides consulting to service businesses. He's helped service companies fine-tune their

quoting process from being a shot in the dark to helping them close better jobs at higher average prices with less effort. In 2014, he sold a window service company and has passionately been working full time on his passion ever since. Now he spends his days helping others achieve big goals by architecting the systems that best fill their business DNA. Curtis, pleasure to have you on. You've been in my facility. this is Curtis Kempton everybody thanks for coming on thanks happy to be here man yeah that's uh it's pretty crazy it seems like just so many people like it was bound to happen that we just kind of met up huh yeah I a couple weeks ago I don't know I for some reason hadn't been in any places with you

I didn't know much about you. And then like, I had one week where like six different close friends of mine were like, Tommy Mello this, Tommy Mello that, Tommy Mello's podcast. I was on his book. Have you read this book? One of my own employees came up to me. He's like, dude, just finished reading this book. You've got to read it. And what is going on? It was crazy. It's a small world, man. And so, yeah, I'm glad we got to meet. It's pretty cool what you're working on. You spent five years in the bicycle shop and eight years growing your window company. Lots changed since you started. Tell me a little bit about everything and kind of how your life

has evolved and changed with what you've learned and where you're at today and what you're working on. I'll tell you a little bit about everything. Well, I'll tell you this. I had no intention of being a software developer. I didn't even know that that was a job when I graduated from high school. I went on a mission for my church right out of high school, got back from my mission and got married. I met my wife like two weeks after I got home from my mission and started going to college. And I went to the ASU business school. And the whole time I was going to school, I worked at a bike shop.

I became store managers for bicycle stores. I was racing mountain bikes. I thought I was going to be a professional mountain biker. When I got married, that was actually when my wife's dad asked me what I intended to do for a living. When I asked for her hand in marriage, he said, what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to race mountain bikes. And I can't believe you let me marry her. But anyway, the rest is sort of history. I realized that that was a terrible business decision. And as I was going to business school, I realized I really was passionate about business.

And watching these bike stores as they were really, really passionate people about bikes, but not very passionate about business, it really helped me see some of the holes and flaws of logic of kind of the technician mentality running a business. And so I was reading a book called Millionaire Mind. I think we talked about this when I was at your facility. That's a book that sort of turned me to realize I need to be doing stuff that nobody else wants to do. That was a really big theme of that book. And so the whole we don't do windows thing kept sounding in my head. So I went and got trained as a window cleaner by going to a competitor that

lived in Anthem. As you know, Tommy, they're on the totally opposite side of town. I went and found a guy and asked him if I could work for him for free for a month and work for him, learned how to clean windows and started my business as a business owner, not as a technician. And it made all the difference in the world. We were rated the most professional window cleaning company in the world by the IWCA for five years straight, right until I sold it. And I'm really proud of what we built as a culture in that company, because that's what it was. We built a culture and the business sort of just developed around it. So I guess the jump to software came when I realized I was doing a lot of systems in my window cleaning,

pressure washing company. And people just kept asking me for some of the software I had on my website, for the software that I was having built internally. And ResponsiBit was sort of born out of people just begging me to have this thing that I'd coded directly for our business. And so we took a new approach to make it customizable and it was obviously nothing like what it is today. But I realized my passion was to help other business owners to kick butt, take names and enjoy their families again. And when I did that, the opportunity arose that my window cleaning, pressure washing business was sold. And this is all I've done since. Yeah, I love the story, man. It's killer that you're able to help out.

Bidding is pricing properly, getting a profit, getting the bids to where, you know, you gotta take into account a lot of stuff. You're looking at how much are you paying? And people always ask me, I don't know where to get started when it comes to bidding. And here's my answer. And I wanna hear what you have to say

with the same exact question. But I say, first of all, I love to figure out how long it takes. I love the mechanics that they pay 5.2 hours. They get done in four, they get extra money. They get done in seven, they lose some money. So figure out how much are you bidding? How long is this going to take for a lot of industries? That's one thing you got to look at. And then also see when you order a garage drawer, some of the times it comes in damage and it's out of your control. So you got to take into account some of that stuff as well from the manufacturers, but ultimately you should have a price to think about your labor and the cost of the product. And you got to make 15% after you pay everybody, all of your electrical bill, you got to pay. So you just add it all up. And Alan Rohr had a good chapter in it in my book, The Home Service Millionaire on how to price right. But what do

you see from your perspective, the biggest challenges are with that and what's your solution? Yeah. I mean, time and materials is really what it does come down to. And like you said, hopefully you get the time, right. Hopefully you get the materials, right. Because in the service industry that I serve, homeowners want a price before you get started. So you have to look in your crystal ball. You got to know how much time it's going to take. You got to know how much materials it's going to take, and you got to make sure you have your profit margin built in. And I think 15% profit margin is a fantastic goal. If you need to have a higher profit margin, you're a smaller company and a larger number of those dollars need to follow you home.

So be it. You just have to be able to now prove the value because that's really what it comes down to is that profit margin, cost of goods, all that stuff aside, once you have your hands around that, you need to know what your nut is and you got to make sure that you're making it every single time you do a job. And unfortunately, you don't have the luxury of knowing ahead of time what kind of craziness is going to happen. And so if you can come up with a way to put a healthy profit margin in that allows for the oddities that are going to happen, and you are able to show more value to the customer than the number of dollars that you're asking for, you're going to get the sale. And that's sort of how our systematization really started in my window cleaning pressure washing company was I used to go out and line item price it. Ma'am, it'll be this much to clean your windows, this much to clean your tracks, this

much to clean your screens, this much to do the ladder work. So items all lined up and you add it up to a grand total. The problem is, is that the customer doesn't care that you're charging for ladder work or for, you know, shop supplies or whatever. Like all they care about is how happy am I going to be and how much is it going to cost me? And when we realized that, the focus is on how happy you're going to be, I realized, oh my gosh, not only am I not getting haggled with so much, but I'm making a ton more money. And then we just started systematizing off of that principle. So somewhere I wrote that you called your window company a customer service company that happens to do windows. And I think that's kind of every small business owner in the home service space.

Talk to me a little bit about some people go wham, bam. Thank you, ma'am. They're the technicians. And I see this in every industry, man. They're just going, let me go in there. Let me just get the job done. And they don't understand that you've got to create a raving fan. You've got to understand their needs. You've got to offer them different options. You've got to become their friend. So let's talk understand that you got to create a raving fan. You got to understand their

needs. You got to offer them different options. You got to become their friend. So let's talk about that for a minute. Oh yeah. That little tagline, that was such an important thing internally and externally for us. We were a customer service company that just happens to do windows and it's a tagline. It's something you could say, but it doesn't mean anything. And when it means something, when it goes from being just a tagline to something that's repeated day in and day out by you internally, your employees internally, and even your customers externally, that was such a game changer for us because everybody is so used to home service providers being the worst at providing service and uh it was fun talking to you because you guys

you guys really do have a lot of reviews and you've done a great job of like really focusing on that as a company i feel like that's that's what happens is the bar is set so low that if you come in and you intentionally try to do a great job and you start off with things like, hey, quick question, will you let me know at any point if there is anything about our service that doesn't seem like the happiest, most amazing service provider you've ever had in your home. Just some sort of message like that, whether it's at the beginning or the end, to consciously get the customer to realize this person isn't just having a good day. They're just intentionally this good. There's a whole new ballpark out there for you if you can do that. And that was really an important thing for us. It made our employees happier. It made interviews way more fun.? Like is your career choice to be a window washer or a pressure washer? Or are you here to be the greatest customer service representative that ever could be? I mean, we are going full on Tony Hsieh Zappos level here. This is what we do here. And if you do not get invited to at least five Thanksgiving dinners over the course of the month

of November, you are not doing your job right. The whole interview process goes, heck yeah, I want to work there, you know? It's easy when you take care of your external clients and your internal customers, I think. I think we miss that in business, and I do think you need to have some assurances, though. You need to inspect what you expect. And I'll give you an example. We've implemented a strategy for messaging customers if they don't do with the price. It has to do with the customer service and how does it make you feel. And we're trying to understand how customers feel. And if you can't have a great conversation with one of our guys, you're probably not the right guy to be in the face-to-face position to be with that client. So I think you're 100% on that. I like to ask customers, our goal is to give you a five out of five experience and make

you an amazing fan of ours. So you tell your friends, neighbors, and family about us. If at any point we fall below those expectations, will you let me know or will you let one of the managers know here? And I like to set that even from the phone call and to keep repeating that. Guess why I say five out of five? Well, maybe for a review? Google, Facebook, Yelp, everywhere you'd think of. So that little tagline, that little piece right there, someone listening to this, you said it, you brought it up. But I mean, the five out of five, just one gold nugget. That's all I tell people to take. And we're going to leave a hundred in this podcast. So, you know, talk to me about some of the elements that you think is good customer service. What are you making sure you hit? And I like the Thanksgiving dinner. That's genius. Yeah. So I was really confused for a long time, just to be clear, I'm still trying to figure everything out every day.

And it seems like just when I got something figured out, there's a little bit something more to learn. When I first started my business, I thought I was good at customer service because I'm nice. And I mean, this is an important shift. I hope everyone knows this. Being nice is not good customer service in and of itself. Rolling over every time the customer demands something, that's not even good customer service in and of itself. Rolling over every time the customer demands something, that's not even good customer service. Good customer service is when you give the customer more than what they expect

and are willing to hit your shortcomings head on. I love the story about you taking flowers to a customer that was disappointed in you, or not even in you, in your employees, going making right. They're late. They didn't show up. They wasted your day. I'm going to bring you flowers and I'm going to charge into the mistake that I made because we are human. Our businesses are full of humans. Humans are going to make mistakes. The more you accept that now, the easier it will be for you to charge into it. And just, I guess it's how to win friends and influence people. It talks about telling people I'm going to be harder on

myself than you can be because I hold myself to this high standard and I expect you to hold me that standard too. That's good customer service. And so when you design, another thing about good customer service, I should say, is it involves designing the customer experience. If the customer experience is going to be a great customer service experience every time, you have to know ahead of time what that even looks like. Everybody in your company should be breathing and sleeping it. And so we can't invent it again every time we show up at a job.

And I think that for an owner-operator, my business really does deal with owner-operator up to usually about 10 to 20 employees, probably is a big company for a responsive bid. And I think what a lot of times happens is you start out as owner-operator and everything's a good customer service experience because you're looking at your business very holistically.

I gotta get this job done, but I need to refer friends. I need to make sure that I don't have to come back because I got a lot of stuff going on. I got a lot of hats. I got to do it right the first time. You know, all these reasons that make you as an owner operator, and I'm using air quotes right now, better than any employee could ever be. But if your employees understood everything holistically and they understood exactly, and we're trained perfectly on what a good customer service experience looks like and what's expected, what we found is that the good elements of customer service really are rooted in the fact that we got a game plan. We got a play we're going to use when we get there. We're going to run that play. We'll know what it looks like when it's not working right. And for us, that was

very much respecting the customer's time and showing up letting them know hi my name is kurt and i am here to be your customer service representative today i'm going to clean your windows before i get started i need to know is there anything special or anything i can do to make this exactly what you're looking for and then walking them around at the end and letting them know like this is what i found or whatever it was that it works in your business. The most important thing is, is that if you don't have a plan to work, it just won't work. But if you do have a plan to work, any plan is better than no plan. And you can get better and better. And one of the big insights is what kinds of negative reviews are getting left out there? Like what kinds of things are your competitors doing in their negative reviews that you can make sure that you're fighting against with your plan to make sure that doesn't become you?

Does that make sense? It does. It does. And I think you could go one step further. A couple of things that I want to kind of take that. Number one, I like to set the tone before I even get there. Hey, Kurt, my name is Tommy. Just listen to the phone call with you, my CSR.

You probably got the bio about me. That's because I'm on my way out there. Listen, I'm going to get your garage door working and it's going to stay working. Very excited you chose us. Listen, I'm stopping by 7-Eleven. Is there anything I can grab you? Maybe something for someone else.

Yes. There's a lot of reciprocity that if you do take that up, now I'm starting this relationship. They're going, what in the hell? Who is this guy? This is amazing. And it's the optimism. It's, you know, I just read this and it's, it's, I've read it a bunch of times, but I read it yesterday. 55% of communication is body language. But when you're not there, tonality is five times bigger than the words we choose. Five times bigger. Can you believe that? I can because you can say something to someone, like we don't even realize it, but if I was to say to you,

great, or if I said to you, great, same word, totally opposite meanings. If you could see my eyes, if you could see my hands, obviously that'll help too. But that tonality, it's the same thing like, hey, I'm getting ready to stop by 7-Eleven. I'm gonna be grabbing something if you need anything. Like there's the words and the niceness that came with the words. There's the thoughtfulness behind it.

Of course, all that stuff is there. And I think that even without tonality, that would be one thing. But when you have that skip in your step in your voice, and when you have that like enthusiasm, like, my gosh, I can't wait to get your garage door working. I can't wait. Can I bring you something?

Like, that's what a friend does. And people don't leave bad reviews for their friends. Yeah, that's true. And you're trying to make them the friends. And I'll tell you, I want to know. I don't want to wait for the review. I think that's great. But you should have some type of quality assurance program.

And you know what? We're developing something similar. But ultimately, to wait for the fires, people do what you inspect, not what you expect. And because you've got some type of assurance to know that the customer is happy and they understand their warranty information, then you've discussed the, hopefully you have some type of service agreement. That's very, very important. Yeah. Yeah. You talk about the expectations, the service agreement, you know, a lot of times I've found it's going to become like,

kind of like fine print. So when they have someone who's willing to explain to them what that fine print says, and when there's a sort of like, this fine print really protects you just as much as it sets scope for, you know, what we're going to be doing when we get here. So we know what's going on. We just want to make sure that you're getting everything that you, that you've been looking for. If everything started with, I'm just here to make sure that I do five out of five service for you, that puts everything into the context of, you know, this is all about you. Everything here has always been about you. And that expectation set out front like that, all it does is it softens any hard edges, especially if you follow up with any issues coming right at them. But the other thing it does is it makes it so that when you do ask for that review at the end, that seed not only got planted,

that thing has already sprouted and started to take root. I think when you hear the customer say at the end, is there anything else you guys offer? Because this has been amazing. I can't tell you when I was in the running jobs myself, how many times I heard that. And that's just as a testament to say, and the technician needs to ask for the review and say, mention my name. I mean, if I'm at Applebee's and I get a great experience or a cheesecake factory or PF Chang's or wherever, ultimately I might not go out of my way to do it, but if they say, listen, we're having a contest, I really would appreciate it. I really tried to make sure all your glasses were filled. I made sure to get the food out, made sure it was warm. I really want to make sure you guys come back and

ask for me. But by the way, if there's any chance possible, you could just leave a review real quick. It means a lot to me, mentioned my name in it. There's a lot of people come and they even ask for me and those are my best customers. And how many layers are in there? I mean, it gave you an opportunity to tell them about all the good things they experienced that may have just mashed into one little thing. It gave me an opportunity to kind of hear about what kind of company, what kind of business they're doing business with. It gives an opportunity to really hook up this person, this person who's been toiling for them. And now they're like, man, next time I come here, I'm going to ask for that server again. There's even more than that. But how cool is that, that you could do something like that? As long as you planned it from the beginning, it won't work if you just at the end say that.

You have to be ready and work the whole plan until you get there, but that's what makes it so powerful. I think being a differentiating yourself from the rest is what, to have a story about the company, to have these differentiations. You know, real quick, I want to talk, this is something I've been learning a lot about and I think it's pretty cool

and I want to hear your thought on this because I love wordsmithing stuff. So I'm going to go through some stuff and maybe you've got a couple you could share, but let's talk about like 10 or 12 real quick. I'm going to go through them quick. Okay. So instead of saying contract,

we say agreement or paperwork. Instead of saying sign here, we say, okay, the paperwork. Instead of saying cancellation, you've got the right of rescission. Instead of saying salesperson, you've got a business consultant. Instead of saying commission, you've got the fees for service. Instead of cost, we use the word investment. I talk a lot about that. Instead of credit card, you say form of payment.

Instead of objection, you say areas of concern. Instead of expensive, you say top of the line. Instead of cheaper, you say more economical. Service charge, you say processing fee. Problem, you say challenge. Appointment, you say time to visit. Isn't that incredible? It is cool.

I have to admit, I'm not a great wordsmith. I wish I was, but when I hear that sort of stuff, it sounds like a unicorn flying through the air, just pitter pattering past. Because it does. It's amazing how almost everything that you did there put on its head and into context what those things were. I mean, for me, it was like customer to client. Like customer is someone you deal with and you just take care of them. A client is someone that you're going to have a relationship with and it's going to go on and on with them. That's one that I think is important at Responsibility to call them Responsibitters. That just, to me, that gives a whole new tone to what someone might just call as a customer.

Yeah, that's a good example. And it's a few things. So first of all, when I interview somebody, and really, this is so important. Did they smile? Did they tell you a story? Would you go to a barbecue or have a beer with them? I want to see your smile. I want to see your pearly whites. I want you to engage with me. I want you to have some passion. I want to see your tonality. I want to see your eye contact whites. I want you to engage with me. I want you to have some passion. I want to see your tonality. I want to see your eye contact, especially in your body language. And if I could see those, I don't need to know that you could sell. But if you've got those, I don't care if you're 14 years old.

I don't care if you're 29. I don't care if you're 80. You could almost see like an eight-year-old, the way they smile, the way they look at you, their body posture, the confidence. And it's like, whoa, sales is not a bad word, but I'd rather teach a process to somebody that is able to bond and influence people, you know, how to win friends and influence people. And isn't that so important? Yeah, I think, I wish I could say it the same way Dale Carnegie says it. I wish I had it memorized. I did at one point. That was actually a book all of our technicians had to have, but lavish in their praise and what in their

approbation. What is that? You know, I got the book. I got like 20 of them sitting on my shelf. I think you saw that, but yeah. But when Dale Carnegie says that, I feel like I was born that way to me. Like I only want to do what I want to do. I'm completely unhirable. No one could hire me because I want to do what I'm passionate about. And if someone said, hey, Kurt, today I need you to sit down in this corner and count these widgets and put them into a box. If I'm not passionate about it, I just won't do it. But what I found is that as you get around other people who are passionate, and as you are doing things in your life that you feel matter, that you're excited about, and you jump out of bed, that is my only key to success is that I'm thirsting for this stuff. And so when you're interviewing someone, you want to see that

excitement in their voice and stuff. I think there really are, there's just different applicants. Some of them are going to come in and they want to just ride the wave. Like, just get me to the end of the day so I can punch out and be done with this. Collect my paycheck, go home. But I think what's super exciting, and especially as we're talking about customer service, What's exciting for a customer is, I was just thinking, it's like my accountant. When I hand them all the paperwork to do bookkeeping work or to do anything that's like tax related, I have this like guilt. Like I can feel it. Like I hand it to them. I'm like, Kurt, you're such a terrible person. I can't believe you're doing this. This is so mean of you. And the accountant, on the other hand, they'll look at me and their eyes light up and

they're like Thank you so much. I love numbers and I love crunching them and doing tax strategy and all and you're like Gosh, i'm glad there's people like you around and I feel like homeowners in the home service industry It's the same thing man. You got to work out in that heat. You got to do all that stuff I don't want to do that's why i'm hiring it out And you're not making me feel guilty for it. It's like that reciprocity you're talking about. It's kind of exciting actually. And they start to feel like, man, I'm not a terrible person by making someone suffer to do the thing that I couldn't imagine myself doing.

Yep. It's fun when you have fun, isn't it? And I think that's the key. And I think a lot of people miss that. And work sometimes does become work. And I don't care. Tiger Woods has to go hit 1,000 balls a day. He loves golf and he's passionate about it. But everything, it's nice. I remember being a little kid and I remember these stories. I said time was so much slower because before I started my day,

there was 20 million things that happened. My grandma or my mom or my dad would wake me up. We'd have breakfast. We'd watch a show with my sister. Then I go to my friend, Elliot. He's getting ready still. I'm talking to his parents. And like, that's before the bus came. And now it seems like we get caught up in this trap called life. And it becomes just every day you do the same thing. I try to change it up. I try to travel. I try to meet new people. I think that's the key to slow life down is to enjoy yourself and make things different.

If you hate change, you're going to wake up one day and it's going to be 50 years later, isn't it? Yeah. And this pandemic, like, I mean, I don't know if people listen to this or in the middle of COVID or not. I mean, I think it's going to be with us for a while, but like I feel like COVID has really sort of created in a lot of households and a lot of people's lives is sort of like disconnect to just rinse and repeat every day, make time pass, get it to go by.

One of the things I've been telling people is that if you want to push forward through a pandemic, you've got to figure out how to make a connection in a way that people will connect. People are thirsting and hungering for that sort of thing. And what you just talked about, as far as like the daily grind, rinse and repeat, make it happen over and over again.

And now here I am old and withered away and what happened to everything. It really is all about connection. And the cool thing about being an entrepreneur is that your business can become an extension of who you are. So, Tom, you've certainly done it. I know it's something I focus on in my business is that my employees are trying to push out an initiative that we've crafted together. And I'll be honest, a lot of it's me. I mean, I want it to reflect who I am. And so these connections that you're making can be with

people that have only seen you in a video on your website or have only seen the emails that maybe an automation sent out from you. I mean, maybe we can't talk to every single person, but when you do interact with that person, they feel like they know you. What a blessing we have as entrepreneurs to be able to say, look at this, I have created something way bigger than myself. And I've been able to permeate my personality, my view on life, the happiness I'm trying to push into the world. And it's happening at a scale that most humans can only dream or maybe don't even have the guts to dream to do, you know? Absolutely. I mean, I look at a guy like Ken Goodrich with Gettle and everybody knows his

story. He had the flashlight up for his dad watching the first Gettle air conditioning unit go in. And it's a cool story. It's a funny story. It's 1939, the business, and he got the opportunity to buy that business. And it's getting the message out there. And I hope everybody learns to get a story. I was visiting Ishmael Valdez in Next Gen Air. I try to visit a lot of companies and just take one gold nugget from every company. I've taken a million things from Ken. Ishmael is a high energy, great guy, lots of stuff from him. All of these guys, they share their story and their brand, their trucks, their marketing,

their uniforms, everything evolves around the story and the brand. And I think that that's something that's sacred and it's hard for most companies to do. And they miss it. Their mailers look different than their commercials, look different than their trucks. How important is it to get a wrap truck for you? I mean, I think it's probably the number one thing, but. I think that it's super important, but the disconnect that you're talking about, the problem is that your wrap truck could be far,

far away from the pulpit you're trying to pound. So let me just unpack that for just a second. Yeah. So as a company, you have a unique selling proposition, hopefully. If you ever hope to not be commoditized, you've got to have something that you can offer and they can only get from you that makes you unshoppable. There's got to be something special because otherwise a bag of sugar is a bag of sugar is a bag of sugar until organic sugar comes along. And then there's raw sugar and unprocessed sugar and all this other stuff, right? And so commodities and sugar is

commodities it gets. They've even figured out how to step out from it. What you as a company have to know is that on that wrapped truck, what message are you going to share that you're going to broadcast to the whole world that is the pulpit you want to pound? Every time someone talks to you about your company, what are you going to tell them that's so great on time or you don't pay a dime, right? Like that, we've all heard companies that do that. That person, they're calling a company. They don't know it's Benjamin Franklin Plumbing so much as they just know that I'm calling a company that if they get here on time and my problem's fixed, I won. If they don't get here on time and my problem isn't fixed, I actually kind of still won because they

have a podium to pound and that's the company they're calling. Just happens to be Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, but it could be an air conditioning company. It could be a garage door company. So you're saying if you are a delay, it's you they pay. Yeah. Something like that, right? Yeah. And that's one example of becoming unshoppable. Now, I realize that particular one is getting more and more popular. But if you were to say we are the friendliest X, Y, or Z in the industry, if you were to say we we're the most punctual plumbers is the, is the Benjamin Franklin. But if you were to put something out there that is the est of something, or we are

more of this than anyone else, or we are the only company that can do this. If that's what's on the wrap of your truck, then it's going to be also in the ads that you run. It's going to be on the phone calls or booking jobs. It's the thing we talk about. It's the pulpit we're pounding because every time I tell you that, that that's important and you go to try to call another company that can't give it to you or they're not as good at giving it to you or whatever, it's not their thing. Well, how in the world are they going to do business with any company other than you? I mean, it goes without saying, whatever that thing is that you're offering has to be good, has to be a value. You can't go around saying, you know, we're the only company that's going to

use your bathroom while we're there working at your house. I mean, that's not going to bring a lot of traffic, but you know what I mean? Like you have to have something that makes you unshoppable. And if you do now, that rap takes on a whole nother meaning because yes, I know what you do. And yes, I know why I can't live without it. You know, one of the things that I've, I learned at a conference was 24 seven drug tests. All the stuff everybody says is it's not your USP. You know, what you want to talk about is out of the last 2,498 jobs, 99.8% ended up on time. We've had an exact count of 0.08 callback ratio. And when you can be precise about really what's going on with your

company with factual evidence from a CRM, it really changes the game. I know what you're saying. And I know companies say we're the best. And I know the BBB gets on our case about, you can't say that, but you can tell them facts. And I think what you need to do is really start to differentiate yourself and say, why are your parts better? Why is the warranty better? Why is your process better? Why is it that there's a survey that you're going to fill out after we get done to make sure everything. And here's what the survey, the technician pick up after themselves. Were you happy with the curb appeal?

Were you happy with this? Were you, they'll get this crazy things like showing we're working on some crazy stuff. I don't even want to say because it's cutting edge and I don't want to give it away of the stuff we're working on. But, you know, you did go into the pandemic a little bit and talk to me a little bit about how you're helping home service companies with the sales funnel and everything during this whole, whole thing going on. Yeah. So one of the things that, that I think, and you already kind of mentioned it just now, is that a lot of people have people have gotten away with saying we're

the best. We're professional so-and-sos. We're professional window cleaners, pressure washers, carpet cleaners, whatever. The problem with that is that every customer already knows that you're just a propaganda machine at that point. Like, of course, you're going to say you're the best. Like, what else would you say? And of course, it's very vague. But what you're saying as far as using percentages and stuff really goes back to what I was talking to people in this pandemic is there's going to be people who are going to fail. Like, there's people who just financially were not ready.

And of course, no one was preparing for this, but it happened. And you're going to come out of this. If you survive this, you're going to survive it with a few less competitors. And if you're going to spend time at home trying to figure out what your marketing plan is, and I'm talking about people who are really in lockdown states, but if you're in a place where you could still work at a social distance and your state would allow you to continue to work as an essential business, so on and so forth. What better time would there be to take a few items of stock and go, this is the thing we're going to tell people that they can expect with us and get nowhere else.

That's really been my focus on this whole pandemic is understanding, number one, the rules are changing. You've got to figure out how to deal with this whole new social distancing thing and come through sharper than ever. As an example, people who have to sell face-to-face, are you going to go and like sell face-to-face with a mask on? Like, what is your plan? I think video, I think video is a way to make it so that not only can you sell face to face virtually, but you can get the perfect sales pitch every single time. You can take this opportunity to go out, get yourself recorded, tell the story of like why your business deserves to make it through this thing and how you're helping other people through this pandemic. But people can fall in love with you without even meeting you. And here's the cool part. You're more than six feet away. And you don't have to try to say it with a mask covering your face and hiding your facial expressions. Like this is an opportunity. It's a way for you to be able to A, craft the message

people want to hear and care about and B, get it out there in a fully scalable way, particularly through things like social media, things like your own website, your proposal process, whatever it is that you can do to get that stuff out there. But if content creation time was ever going to be, the spring of 2020 is the time. Yeah, you know, it's a whole new world out there. I completely agree with you.

I don't think people understand how to leverage technology. And it's kind of forced us to really not only leverage technology, but thank God I was on pay for performance because I just literally checked out every computer and said, go home. And you know what's crazy? I want to tell you something crazy. Guess how many calls we took yesterday? How many calls? 1398. 1398. There are businesses that will have 1398 calls in a whole year. It's crazy. We had 54 cancellations of priority one jobs, meaning those are the best ones. I turned PPC out for the first time. I can't even tell you there's winners and losers. And I'm not, look, we're very fortunate. We thank God every day. I've got an amazing team. We stayed super healthy. Everybody's kind of doing their part.

This is definitely not a blessing. I'm really sad that what's going on out there. But as far as what we could basically handle ourselves and our decision making, we just did all the right things. And I just feel like very, very fortunate. And I'm not meaning to rub that in. I'm just saying, man, there are going to be a lot of winners that come out of this. And people listening need to say, are they going to be a big winner? Are they going to be a big loser?

And the one thing I did say in my meeting this morning was, it's really sad that people choose to collect unemployment rather than go back to work. And I know there's some circumstances that might justify that, like kids and not going to school. There's all kinds of situational things. But I just think it's a dirty shame that if there's an opportunity to make around what you're making by staying at home, it really feels good to go to work and say, I'm earning it. I don't know. What's your take on that? Well, I'm huge. I love work. I told my wife, I said, let me explain to you how retirement's going to go.

I don't want her to go into any false notions. Here's what retirement's going to look like. I will work until my fingers fall off. I love working. It's how I rest. It's what retirement is going to look like. I will work until my fingers fall off. I love working. It's how I rest. It's how I play. I love working. So my take is obviously very much in line with yours. But I do think it's important that people understand as the rules are changing and you talk about big winners versus big losers, is that if you have the attitude that I am going to always figure this out, this is my priority, especially as you look at your role as a CEO. A lot of people I think listening are going to be a CEO of a big business or a small business, medium size, it doesn't

matter. Their role is sort of the same and that is to keep everybody motivated, keep everything moving. And here we are, you talk about things on the upswing. I'm looking at the aggregate data right now. There was a dip in bids. We actually, for the first time ever, the year 2019, during April, we gave more quotes in April, 2019 than came through ResponsiBid in 2020. That was a shock. That was like, holy mackerel. Actually, that was March. I'm sorry.

In March, there was less. April was kind of a wash, which was still a shock, by the way. But this May, we have almost doubled the amount of quotes that have been aggregatedly going through ResponsiBid. Now, I realize there's people who are still locked down. I realize that those people are listening to this going, ugh, you know, Kurt, great. I'm glad some parts of the country are gangbusters and, you know, don't rub it in my face. Here's what I'm trying to say though. The least densely populated areas have absolutely blown the doors off of our server with the kinds of business that they're doing.

What does that mean is going to happen when New York, New Jersey, Chicago, LA, Sacramento, San Francisco, all these places, when those densely populated areas have started having this kind of traction, having the spring within the summertime, having the amount of work that is already cropping up and going nuts. I think you should find some hope in that and knowing that this is going to be unprecedented. When the big urban areas open up, it's going to be absolutely crazy. So if you're already busy, cool. That's awesome. And use this time to really learn how to operate at scale. That's good. Those of you who are sitting at home wishing that the government was letting you do your work, you better be getting ready because I'm telling you right now, the flow is... I have a friend who owns a call center for service

companies. And they have had record setting days every single day, Monday through Thursday. Their Fridays are always a little bit lighter, but Monday through Thursday for the last three weeks, they have set a new record every day. I don't know what the last three days have been like. I haven't talked to them about that recently, but I mean, if that's any indication about what's happening and what's going to happen from just an aggregated data standpoint, if you're sitting on the sidelines going, well, when's this going to happen for me? I'm telling you right now, demand is pent up. The economy is there. It's going to work. And sitting on your hands is not the thing to be doing right now at all. Yeah. I think the first thing that happens is

people feel loyal to their employees. So that's the last person they cut. I'll tell you what the death spiral pill is, in my opinion, is cutting your marketing. The first thing you should amp up, you know, when everybody sells, you buy. And when everybody buys, you sell. When everybody cuts marketing, you double down. And people don't realize this. And that's why I'm so busy because I did that. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't hire fast enough.

I mean, there's 40 million people unemployed. That's the opposite of what it was three months ago. And this is the time to build an awesome workforce and do some expansion. I'm excited, but don't do it unless your systems, your handbooks, your manuals, your standard and operative procedures, your KPIs, your software, CRM,

don't do it unless you're set up because I did that and I had to close down four markets and I'm ready to grow again. So be very careful. You know, walk, don't run, fall before you walk type thing. But growth is good and just figure out the lifestyle you want. You know, so you sold your window service company, established the new company, Sympathize. Your entire focus has been on developing new digital systems and solutions. Tell me a little bit about the systems that you've developed that really streamline an owner's business. Well, let me start by saying that I've listened to your book about Service Titan,

and I think it's important that if someone's on a product like ServiceTitan, you probably have a fairly good-sized business. You're in an industry that ServiceTitan already services. I think it's important to understand that people who graduate to ServiceTitan are really going to need to cling to those systems and push hard and push forward. ResponsiBit is really designed for the guy who wishes he could have ServiceTitan but just isn't in that ballpark yet. And we have people graduate from ResponsiBit, and that's cool. But we call ourselves a sales accelerator. The idea is that we don't want to be your CRM. We don't want to be your work order software. We don't want to be your calendar. We don't want to be your employee management system. Like there are a lot of really good softwares out there outside of Service Titan that do a darn good job of that.

The problem is, is that most of those softwares are really, really focused toward operations. And so the problem with that is that as a technical person, which most small businesses start with someone who knows the technical side of the business or technicians, they get in there and they go, wow, this has got everything I need. I can put my invoices and my estimates in here and I can just sort of run my business right out of here. And they'll have certain visibility even with reporting. If most technicians don't look at reporting as they should, but they can run their business. What we've said is we want to bolt on a sales system for you to help you to streamline the process of taking someone who thinks that they

might be wanting to research out and decide if they want to get a service done and get all the way to the point where they have enough information to confidently make a decision. Responsive is truly designed. There really is only one kind of big fat vein in responsive. That is, how can we move someone from researching to making a decision? So some people will install a part of our software can be installed on your website. And that will allow a customer to put in their name and all their information. We'll convert them to a lead. They'll put in the information about how big their house is or how many windows they have or how many linear feet of this or how many square feet of that or how many cars can fit on their driveway or whatever it is and just questions that they can answer. And then it will convert it to good,

better, best. So we take that lead in and then responsible will take whatever math you put in and it converts it into a proposal that you would put before them. So all three proposals are from you. So it's right out of the gates. If we can convert them into decision-making mode and they make a decision, we know they're going to choose you. Now, if your technician's out in the field using it or your person over the phone, office manager or CSR, is taking information over the phone, again, they're entering it in. And what ResponsiBit is doing is taking all that information and putting it, the person's information into your CRM. So operationally it's there ready to be used, but you don't have to put it there.

Responsibit does it for you. Then what will happen is you show the value. So value, if you want to be happy, like just kind of regular happy, it's going to cost you $250. If you want to be really happy, it's going to cost you $250. If you want to be really happy, it's going to cost you $400. And if you want to be so happy that you're smiling for months and people can't figure out what's wrong with you, then it's going to cost you $1,200, you know, and whatever it is, but the value proposition is spelled out. So it's very clear to say in our basic package, we do this and our deluxe package, we do that. So now the proposal's out and hopefully they make a decision, but if they don't, because not everyone will, then ResponsiBid has an automated follow-up process

that uses email, text messaging, it connects to SendGym, you can do postcards, voicemail drops, brownies, whatever. And it takes care of whatever part of the buying cycle that customer is in, ResponsiBid is busy trying to get them to make that decision. And once they do make the decision, we have this really cool technology that says, all right, Tommy Mello just got a quote for carpet cleaning and he wants to go with the premium package. So he selects the premium package and now it says, Tommy, when would you like to have us out? We can have you out on this day and here's our time slots openings, or you can go to another day and see the time slots there. What Tommy doesn't realize is he's clicking on a date and a time is that our software goes into the CRM. It reads the calendar. It figures out who can do that particular job and how fast they could do it. And it finds the best

drive times available. And it only offers the dates and times that are most optimal. So the customer has all this control to pick the date and time. But it's routing as if you're like a routing ninja in the office that's been doing it for years. So and ResponsiBid does all of that like lightning fast. So we're really proud of being able to quote quickly, schedule smartly, and follow up flawlessly. That's really the legs we stand on. But we try to get out

of the way. The moment turns into a job, it's back in the CRM. And we try to make it, we know that a lot of the people out in the service field using this to, whether it's a technician giving a quote out in the field or someone getting a quote on the website, we know that most people are not technological wizards. And what we're trying to pull off is sort of an infusion soft epicness, but we want the people who are using it to not have a doctrine in Infusionsoft sort of like complexity. So anyway, that's responsible. It helps you to close more jobs at higher prices with less effort. That's what we say. I'm very fortunate to have the advantage of going to InfusionCon three years,

being part of using Salesforce for several years, being on different CRMs like Bobber do, that probably don't make sense to a lot of people, being on carts online, a bunch of different carts for online shopping. I've been exposed to five CRMs. I'm on my fifth for home service. And just by looking at something, there's one thing you can take. It's like going into another industry and learning one thing. Like I'm very fortunate to have heavily taken a dive into real estate and HVAC,

but I recommend that everybody take a look at ResponsiveBid. Find out some of the stuff and you know what's really cool? Kurt could probably take some of the technology if you don't need all of it and help you get it and do a way to make it functional for you. So remember, Kurt is responsive. Kurt, what happens if someone wants to reach out to you? How do they get ahold of you? Yeah, you could basically just go to our website, responsibed.com. There's a chat bubble in there and hit me up, hit me up in the chat area. I try to, you know, our whole team honors it,

but I'm available if you want to talk directly to me. We actually do have a special price for the listeners of your podcast. If they just go to get.responsi.bid slash Tommy, we got some special pricing for you guys out there

because I knew it was coming on the podcast and I said, man, we're going to do something up real nice. Hopefully everybody checks it out. I think it's cool when the people just at least take a peek at it. There's so many cool features. I love the text messaging. I love the follow-up

sequence. I love the fact, you know, if somebody just learned to follow up, we teach build rapport, educate your customers and make sure you're following up. I'll tell you what, we've changed the game. I mean, I get $20,000 a day of just follow-up and it's amazing. It's changed the way we do things. Let me ask you, if somebody just had a question to shoot the crap with you, shoot the shit, what would be a good email for you? Yeah. So I have the worst email name ever, but here we go. It's Kurt, C-U-R-T. So everyone always wants to spell the K, C-U-R-T at synthesize, S-Y-M, as in Michael, P-H-O-S, as in Sam, I-Z-E.com. Hit me up on email. Absolutely. You're going to have to double check that to make sure it's spelled right. But

yeah, the idea is to harmonize your life and your business. And it sounded cute at the time. Well, the cool thing is they could get all these notes and everything we went over on the podcast notes. One thing I always ask Kurt is what are three books if you had to pick? They've heard of How to Win Friends and Influence people. I think there's been about 80 guests out of the hundreds I've had. Let's talk about just whatever book you want. It could be fiction. It could be about life. It could be the Bible. What are three books that you really, and you know, you made everybody that works for you read how to win friends and influence

people. So I know you recommend that. Let's hear three others. Yeah. So another one that all of my employees had to read was seven habits of highly effective people i mean that was game changer and then the eighth habit there's an eighth habit to that yeah yeah that's right and then i don't know if you want to go into that particular book but delivering happiness Hsieh. I feel like anybody providing service has to read that book. Just has to. It's totally changed everything. When you realize that serving people, whether obviously your customers, the one who are paying you, that's important. But having your

internal customers, as you call them, your employees, having them know that your job is to serve them and that you want them to carry that torch forward. And then even your vendors. I just love the whole approach of that whole book, how it took on the importance of service and delivering happiness to people. Great book. Great book. I love it, my friend. And finally, what I like to do is give you a few minutes to close with a final thought. And you know what? You just hit upon something really cool. I want you to have the last minute here, but we forget so often of the vendors we work with and the people we advertise with. And this law of reciprocity means helping people out. And I look at a guy like Joe Polish and all this guy does is put people together. And man, that guy is super

successful. It's amazing what he's done. And do stuff for your vendors, do stuff for the people you advertise with, be more part of the community and definitely take care of your internal customers. But I wanted to give you the final thought, Kurt. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, on that particular note, I just want to make sure people realize that if you're having a customer appreciation day, just remember the connotation that comes with that is, come here, let me appreciate you and sell you something. Just remember that when you are truly appreciative of someone, refreshingly giving back to them,

that is like the most genuine and heartfelt thing ever. And I think that's what the note I wanted to end on is, is that my whole system that I built through Responsive It and the whole reason that I'm passionate about what I do is because I'm trying to scale authenticity. I'm trying to make it so that you can be who you want to be and make sure that it happens every single time, good days or bad, and make sure that your customers understand where you're at. Know how to hit them on the level that they are, like if they're on social media versus the kind of person who wants to pick up a phone and be talked to. How can you scale yourself? Because at the end of the day, the legacy that you're going to leave,

whether it's through a sales process and getting someone something that they need, or whether it's through just a regular course of relationships, maybe through an employee process, or in my case, I'm married and I've got kids. All of those relationships, what it looks like at your funeral, will always come back to the fact that you are trying to put yourself out into the world and make the greatest impact you possibly can. If you are not dedicating yourself to that, then you'll probably get to that point of 50 years old and go, where did it all go?

Only from the standpoint of who did I become and what did I influence? Something's going to happen without even trying. But the more you actually are being intentional about that, the more you'll find out that the authenticity that you spent your whole life trying to put out there has really been polishing you the whole entire time. And that's, I think, the most important thing. That's why we're here. That was such inspirational, man. And this whole podcast has just been just a happy guy, man. And how's your house coming out there anyway?

Dude, they're framing it. I can't believe I actually walked last night. I walked into all the different rooms of the house. It's coming along. So if we wanted to come visit, you're in Queen Creek, right? Yeah, yeah. It's on the Santan Mountain. It's right there. It overlooks the whole valley. At night, it's just silent.

You see city lights and so, so cool. Well, I can't wait to check it out. Well, listen, I appreciate you coming on. We'll do it again soon. And it really means a lot to me, brother. Absolutely. Thanks for having me lot to me, brother. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right, Kurt.

Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor, leave a quick review. It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review, make it four or five sentences, tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership.

It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're telling everybody our secrets, basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.