The Home Service Expert Podcast - Implementing Tech Solutions for Faster, Better Business Operations

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Josh Fulton is the Founder and Managing Partner of eSquared Communication Consulting, a provider of high end business telecommunications services for construction, service, and other industries. He grew his company’s revenue from $7.2 million in 2014 to $20.6 million in 2017, a 185% increase in a span of three years. In this episode, we talked about B2B, sales, marketing, leadership, business communications...

But if you want to scale your business, you want to create consistency with your business, you have to move a mobile-first workforce. And the only way you're going to be able to do that is have consistency inside a great application and have great hardware and great connectivity. And if you don't allow that, your technician is going to look at you in the competition and see that you're not staying up with what's out in the marketplace to make it easier for them to make money. If I'm a technician and I'm trying to sell transactions and you're using old technology and I'm using new, I'm choosing the new so I can sell more products so I can make more money as a technician goes. 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. You guys know me, Tommy Mello here. Got a really special guest today. I think you guys are going to dig this. You're going to get a lot of value. This is something that we struggled with and it's something that every

home service business needs to know about. Technology. We have tablets and we have phones and we have issues with a lot of this. I've got Josh Fulton here. He's an incredible guy. I've got to know him over the last year. I've got very lucky. I have this gal named Crystal who came to work for me from Cox Communications. It's a high-speed internet company, kind of like Time Warner, that's cable box, stuff like that. And she just had all these connections and she introduced me to them and it was just Godend. So Josh is an expert in B2B, sales, marketing, leadership, business communications. He's based in my area right here, right across the street here in Tempe. He owns a company. He's the principal owner of E-Squared Communication Consultants from 2001 to present. He's worked at

Nextel and MCI. Josh is the founder and managing partner of E-Squared Communication Consultants from 2001 to present. He's worked at Nextel and MCI. Josh is the founder of and managing partner of E-Squared Communication Consulting. It's a high-end business telecommunication service for construction service and other industries. He grew his company's revenue from $7.2 million in 2014 to $20.7 million in 2017, 185% increase, and it continues to flow. I know people are sitting here wondering, what is this all about? But Josh, let's just do this. Let's just first talk about where you came from, why you started eSquared, and what the company does and what your goals are.

Sure. I worked in the telecom, wireless telecom software industry for about 12 years prior to starting this business. I worked in Dallas. I worked here in Phoenix. Starting the business out about 20 years ago, the basic need was that we were selling all kinds of solutions for mobile workforce companies. Think Shamrock Foods in our local distribution area here. You mentioned Cox Communications. And all of them were struggling with the basics of after we'd sell it, it would work for six months.

We'd come back and there'd be a bunch of broken phones in our desk drawer somewhere. And the challenge was, how do you keep it working? How do you keep the mouse going around in the circle to keep it all flying? And what the challenge was that they didn't have enough bandwidth, either our expertise or combinations of things. And so we built out a team that was going to help them in that augmentation. We have a help desk team that handles a 24 by 7 support for them. Most of them were one-man bands trying to manage all these things by themselves. We built out a billing team to help manage the carrier's phone bills and software phone bills, which everybody knows are

headaches. And then we built out a warehouse distribution system. So it was faster, easier, better than the carriers were able to distribute the products to them faster for them. Then we brought in about five to eight years ago, a mobile device management software suite that allows us to micromanage the devices, whatever applications on it to make sure it's running and functioning and reporting at all times. So all that became a managed service solution to help companies like yourself keep the devices functioning and keep the devices functioning and keep the technicians out in the field operating at a full capacity with the technology that they

invested in. So the biggest element was initially that. What we found is the phone bill was a big savings of most people though. Initially, we were finding 15 to 25% people were overspending in various places, just didn't know what to look for. Our expertise working for the carriers, we have a pretty good idea where the hidden gems are at. And we're able to find little nuggets of savings that help cost justify us along with just the overall operational efficiencies they find with it as well. So that's why we built the business. That's why we've been successful for 20 years. And that's why we have over about 750,000 devices now under management across the United

States. Give you an idea. So the reason why this is important to who's listening right now is because you've got the guys that are downloading God knows what. They're running your data bills through the roof, and you're not keeping an eye on that. They're literally, there's software on there that shouldn't be on there whatever it might be games it could be anything could be their kids playing on it at night could be a work phone the data's going high here's what i love the most though is josh's companies e-squared is going to help us find the best coverage first and foremost

to make sure we have service tit Titan or whatever we might be using as a CRM when we're out in the field. There's Housecall Pro. There's a million of them. Some people are just running off of QuickBooks. But the point is, make sure you've got the data available to be able to download and see things. And so correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys were able to jump from different carriers to make sure we get good reception without signing on a five-year agreement. Yeah. An interesting mix in that way. We sell all the national carriers.

We're able to sell and support. We're authorized representatives for Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. We're also a wholesaler of all the national brands. So from a pricing perspective, we can find the best price for whatever you need. We also find the best coverage. So in your case, you have a mixed bag. You have some AT&T, you have some Verizon, because the scenario that you run into is coverage issues.

It's not all the same. Everybody thinks AT&T or Verizon are about the same. They're not. T-Mobile is a little different. You have to build a kind of mix and match based on your geography. So in Phoenix, where we work and play, you have a pretty good mix with Verizon being a dominant player here. There's still pockets where AT&T is

better. There's still pockets where T-Mobile works better. So you have to mix and match. So if you don't have somebody like us, you're working with three different carriers to try to figure that out. And you're trying to float a technician that won't care to ask, well, this was not working when I go to this neighborhood. And they can't take pictures. They can't see your data. They can't process your invoice. All those things matter for having good coverage. So we're able to move you around from carrier to carrier without having the pain of trying to deal with all that yourself. So we definitely make that process easier. So we're just barely starting on what you guys do. Because in my opinion, I got to tell you,

it's a pain in the ass to try to manage all these devices, manage what guy's doing this data. Like you guys literally are on every single device, making sure the memory's up to date, making sure you can do push notifications. Like just today, for example, we've got some new LiftMaster. LiftMaster is a brand of opener. We've got some new training.

It's connecting to the, the LiftMaster is actually connecting to your Amazon key so that they could come deliver into your garage. So we've got training. We need you guys to push it out on every single device. And you guys do that with the click of a button and you guys manage it all. You're able to push everything. You're able to make sure we're not getting over usages. Listen to this. You're able to make sure we're getting the best prices on the hardware. You're making sure we get the best coverage. You're making sure those devices stay clean and working functional. That's right. Yeah. And here's the best part is when you add in all the stuff and the discounts you give us and the not having to pay a 10-year agreement with Verizon. And trust

me, I've been under their three-year terms and their automatic updates and every other thing we don't sign contracts and you charge a small monthly fee per device depending on if it's 10 devices but i think you make up for it in spades i think actually you're probably saving three times what the monthly fee is at least when you add up the hardware and just... But there's also the opportunity cost, right? What happens when your guy doesn't have to do that and then he's got to go get the accountant involved and figure out accounts receivable because the credit card machine didn't work

because you didn't have the right AT&T or whatever it might be, Verizon out there. Yeah, we found that like when Service Titan or Household Pro or someone has a new update that it's having a problem, it's immediately impacting your technicians. And you have a problem that you know that's been fixed by a new software update, and you can't push that update to the devices. Just having that functionality solves a lot of operational functionality issues that you have in your group. So having MDM on your devices is a nicety to some people, but it's the preventative

measure of being able to know when you can cap your data usage. You can also make sure that the current best applications on the device. So you're not trying to figure out, well, why is Johnny having a problem with service time today? And Susie's not. You can actually make sure that you're running all the latest version currently. You also can lock it down so they can't do streaming, any kind of YouTube streaming that you want on the device. You can have it locked down so they can't abuse the data or turn on a hotspot at home and use it as their internet connection. You can control those things.

And sometimes those are intimidating because you feel like I have to learn one more thing. As you know, as an operator, you got to have a cap of what you want to learn out of the day. You can turn to us as an expert. We can make sure all those things happen to you. Well, the deal is, is I can learn all that stuff, but I'm still not going to be able to bypass the three-year commitment. I'm not going to be able to get things wholesale price. I could have a dedicated person doing all this stuff, but I still don't have the connections to be able to have... One's doing AT&T, the other other ones on T-Mobile, the other ones on Verizon. No single owner in the home service business that I know, that's not what we do as a living. That's not our business. We might be able to get a better HVAC unit or a better deal from Sherwin-Williams on paint, but we don't work in

this atmosphere. So not to mention a lot of people have work phones. It's not just the tablet. It's not just the iPad and the big droid tablets. It's also a lot of guys give their people cell phones and there's all kinds of crap that comes from that and data uses and everything else. And a lot of times what you were able to tell us is we're not on the best plan. The plan is not good for what we're doing. And I'm telling you, I'm not going to say too much because you'll be like, man, I should have charged this guy a lot more money, but you saved us a lot of money. But more importantly, I think you saved us a lot of headaches and you made our employees a lot happier. Yeah, it is nice.

And we have watched the customer satisfaction from your technicians that come through. It is nice to see when they get the bill to get a hold of someone at 5 p.m. They know they're trying to close out a ticket and they're in front of a driveway and they know they can't figure out what's going on with the device. They were able to remote into the device and fix the problem. It is a nice feeling to know that you are able to close out that ticket and move on down the road. So that is something that we know that there's a value added in that element. You're right. You could have a whole staff of people doing that, but they may do that part time at best sometimes. You know what I mean? What we're doing at full-time, there's a value added having a service expert in your back pocket. Well, the fact is, I think Cox Communications, they're not a mom-and-pop shop. They're a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

And the fact is, they were using you guys. So just think the technology company was using you to manage their devices. That alone, the relationships you guys have built, I just know what's going to happen. If you're listening to this right now, and you're not using eSquared or something similar, and I don't know anything else out there, but you're crazy. And quite frankly, you're stupid because you save money on a yearly basis. You get the support. And you don't sign these long-ass contracts. I just, I really wonder what's a good reason why everybody that's listening, and hopefully,

we're up to about 40,000 downloads a month. Hopefully, you get inundated. But the only reason, I don't bring on people on the podcast to beef up. I bring it on because this is what A1 uses. And it's because I believe in a product. I wouldn't bring on a CRM that I hate. And we don't have any commercials. So I endorse things that I believe in and I use here at A1. Let's dig into some other stuff because not only do you have an amazing business, but you grew it fast. 185% you were able to grow in just a few years. What is it that allows the scalability

to do that? Because everybody, it's a different industry, but the same philosophies apply. You know, the same old reasoning applies that when you do business with someone you like and you trust, we've been able to apply that at scale. We have long term, we've been in the business for 20 years. Our software partners, our customers have trusted us in doing these services for a long period of time. So for a long time, for half of our existence, most of our business was referral-based. Only in the last 10 years that we actually started listening to something like yourself, trying to figure out how to digitally market. And so we've been marketing on a lower scale for the last probably 5 to 10 years. But most we've been marketing on a lower scale for the last probably

five to 10 years. But most of our business is referral-based. And the only reason why you get more business from that perspective is someone really likes what you're doing.

So our scale and us for us to grow is that we kept customers happy and they referred business to us at time in, time out. And then most of the time, what you find in this industry, if they've dealt

with a carrier directly, if they try to work with AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile, their route over 20 years would have turned over probably 20 times. Oh, yeah. That's happened to me. Yeah. And so all I have to do is wait. They're eventually going to get one of those 20. They're going to be absolutely terrible, can't get something done. And they pull their hair out and they think it's AT&T is terrible. It's just a bad experience that they have someone managing their account poorly. We've been consistently catching customers just from that experience alone. Plus when someone's actually an advocate for you, trying to help you

save money versus the carrier sometimes does not feel like that at all. Oh, they're freaking commission sales people, man. They're trying to freaking get you in. I walk into Verizon, man. I walked out. I got a new case.

I got a cover. I got this. I got that. By the way, we had to charge you a $70 in store fee to get you set up. Dude. I love the fact that they're on commission and they're paid for performance, but I like the fact that you guys,

you're not right. Right. You're not freaking. They're trying to stab us with a big monthly bill. You're waiting for the long game. You say, I want this to be a customer for life. I'll take a little bit for our fee, but I'll see if these guys have a ton of money on retirement. That's exactly right. So we're looking for the long haul. We're looking for a long-term relationship. That's what I told you when I first met you. I said, I want to do for my

customer forever. So I want that long-term relationship. We want to build add value into what you're doing. And so in the business, the field service business, we know that it's a challenge to run your mobile technology. We know that we can help you save money off of your operating expenses, and we can do it better than you can do it in-house. It's just a matter of time. Getting exposure is the biggest thing. Getting people to know that there's someone they can trust in the industry, they can turn to them. And that they don't have to buy everything brand new. We can even

find refurbished devices. I've got some refurbished stuff. And you know what? The software, the hardware runs fine if the software on it's running right. It needs a reboot every now and then, but as long as you're not having 20 different programs run on it and using it as a hospital, like you said and stuff,

you don't need the newest thousand dollar i know guys that replace their hardware every year and quite frankly there's no purpose to it it just gets beat up and recycled again i think it doesn't make sense i think there's an only reason that you sometimes run into like service titan or house call pro is you need to make sure your operating system is the latest version that they're functioning on most efficiently. And sometimes you get caught with older devices. But if you go one year, two year old device, there's no reason why they won't work as long as it's a good quality condition. And you can save yourself a ton of money. Well, you look at it, you look at Apple won't let you function. They'll slow it down so bad. They won't let you upgrade to the

most recent operating system because they need you to replace it to stay profitable. I was on Verizon Network Fleet. And I got to tell you, it's a good program. But I ended up having to wait two years after I wanted to use them. And I was running three different stuff. And I'll tell you what, the worst scenario I've ever been in was in cell phone contracts that I can't three different stuff. And I'll tell you what the worst scenario I've ever been in was in cell phone contracts that I can't get out of. And I liked the fact, look, it might sound like I talk a lot about some of my role models that helped me out. Like Al Levy. I talk a lot

about service time. People think I work for service time. The fact is that I can stand behind a product that I've used and I can't point this out enough. I'm just going to go through a quick scenarios. And I want to get back to the main, a lot of questions for the podcast, but you pick the network. That's going to get you the best signal. You pick the hardware. That's going to be the most affordable.

You pick the monthly fee. That's going to be the best without a commitment. And you manage everything to make sure that it's functioning for the techs and handle all the support for under 10 bucks per device. And I don't know. It's all going to be custom, but it's functioning for the text and handle all the support for under 10 bucks per device and i i don't know it's all gonna be custom but it's just it's literally like a new device if i pay 500 for a new device and you're able to get it half price for a refurbished and it was let's say 10 bucks you double what i'm saving and handle everything else i mean look the savings are probably four times.

I'm sure you have case studies that show sometimes they're up to six, seven, eight times. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I just left a call from a customer here in town that has roughly about 3,000 mobile devices. And they're running at... We looked at it in a quick analysis on their phone bill before we even got into that. They have four people trying to manage this at the same time.

We're roughly going to save them about 28% off their phone bill. And their hardware, they're buying all hardware brand new. So they're spending $200 to $300 a pop. And we were able to cut their hardware acquisition costs in half. And so they are going to allow them some flexibility that they wouldn't have had. And in doing that, they can reallocate those investments in some other place. But yeah, it's very common. It's extremely easy to just say 2% increases monthly on a phone bill and you don't notice

it. But over time, it becomes a huge number. And so that's the name of the game for the phone business is allow you to not watch it, not be looking at it. You know, it's one of those things where they're like me, you go, we need it anyway, what are we going to do? But when you get someone like you that says, this is my job, I manage the device, I manage this relationship, I manage the monthly bill, and I make sure to keep your employees in line with what your goals are. And it's seamless and it's stress-free because you tell me what

we're going to get you on a data plan that's going to be much cheaper because you're not paying for the million gigabytes that that guy's using shoot and pull with his buddies eight hours a night on some type of arcade game on their you know playing words with friends or whatever it might be it's crazy it's crazy i've seen people literally i used to have bills that were outrageous and i go why don't you guys just connect your wi-fi they had wi-fi they just didn't do it right and it's like you guys know you guys get alerts you know exactly what's going on you'll know exactly what users you'll be able to point out to the guy's name right look like i said is i must seem like i'm on an infomercial for you, but I'm not.

What are some unique challenges in the service industry that your team helps to address, especially in the home service niche that you find? We've already gone through a lot of it. You know, the biggest thing is the word I mentioned earlier was MDM. When you have, say, 10, 20 technicians in the field, you're running Service Titan or you're running Housecall Pro. You're running some kind of QuickBooks application for credit card transactions.

And you're hoping for the best because if you put them out in the field and you don't know for sure if they're running the latest version of software, if they're securing your customer data, if they are not using your data for the device, for their home internet connectivity, the MDM pretty much revolutionized the way of managing mobile devices.

There's some out there. There's a bunch of them, about 15 different versions out in the market. Some are extremely expensive and some look very intimidating. If you're not in an IT world, you would probably say, I don't know if I need it. I'll hope for the best. I'll put out the 10 phones for my technicians. And I think they're good people. They won't be abusing the system. And the problem is there's a very high

chance they are. And that you won't be running the latest software out there. And your technicians are experiencing inconsistencies with the applications. With somebody like us, you don't have to worry about that. We load and push the latest version for them. So they don't have to worry about even knowing what the word MDM means. And they can literally turn to us and say, I need to push the newest version of Service Titan out today. Can you do it? We do it seamlessly for them. Click of a button. One phone call. You know what's great is we use a little bit different finance companies. Everyone knows that there's not one finance company that just solves everything. There's good credit scores, there's poor credit credit scores and you guys were able to just the guy

said i don't even know where to get it from and we said it's already on your tablet the software's already loaded right all you got to do is reboot you hard reboot reboot and it's loaded and that's what's so cool is you got training you You got something you want to do. You got to have them sign something, whatever it might be. The latest CRM, the new finance software. You got something new from your vendor for garage doors or a simulator or whatever it might be. You guys handle all of that. Right. They don't have to load it.

So when you guys used to buy them, you'd have to get somebody to get a device. It'd be mailed to you. You get it at your office. You've been at the turn around, load the software, the MDM on there, and then you'd have to go through and push down the image to the device. You receive it now on return key. No loading the MDM. No worrying about it as the latest version.

No worrying about if it's on your set security profile. It's you power it on and you go. I mean, look, I've got 200 technicians, I think with installer somewhere approaching that number. I don't even know, to be honest with you, this is kind of embarrassing. I don't really look at, I look at the bills as a whole, as a percentage of revenue. We're always trying to get that number down. But I mean, typically I could imagine people are spending, wouldn't be surprised the company, my size, tens of thousands of dollars a month with every wouldn't be surprised the company, my size, $10,000 a month

with every single device, managing the device, buying new ones every year. Like it adds up. I remember, look, if I bought 200 new tablets at $500 a piece, that's a hundred grand, right? Right. Absolutely. I mean, so what do you say to a company that just has 10 people right now? You got 10 cell phones and maybe 10 devices. We'll take them. Their problems are greater than yours because they're a one-man band. They're an operator like yourself. They're out trying to hustle, trying to get customers, trying to market, and trying to be the IT guy at the same time.

That guy has nobody helping him and knows that the only way you grow really through efficiency is by using some solution on an iPad or Android device and has no way of understanding how to load an MDM, push the applications, make sure they're on the right carrier and keep costs low at the same time. So what they end up doing is going to a phone carrier, go to AT&T store, and they deal with a guy that's a retail store employee that started there 30 days ago and helps them out and sets them up on a device, and they never see that guy again. And so what happens in our world is we'll take that 10-unit deal, set them up in our warehouse, in our factory, and send them out already pre-programmed,

and they have one throat to choke for all things. You know, I should have found you guys sooner. I can tell you what, I literally have had so many issues and so much crap happened. I mean, what happens if a guy gets a broken screen? I mean, how quick is the turnaround? Because that happens in the home service space. The reason I'm asking is I don't know what we do.

Brian usually handles that. In general, you know, nowadays we typically hold extra inventory. Brian usually handles that. In general, nowadays, we typically hold extra inventory. We hold spares for you, for example. And so we will take your spares and just swap out that driver. So if a driver or technician says, I've got a broken device, we swap it out, send it to their home address or to your office, wherever they want to pick it up at. And then we take down, we ask them to return the broken device, depending on the condition of it, depending on how bad it is. If it is literally, it's just the display. We can swap out our display depending on where it comes from, from manufacturer or third party in a week to two weeks and put it back in seed stock and hold it for you. But we handle

that entire process for you if you want to do that. Well, that always happens. If it's seriously damaged, you just recycle it. We send it to a recycler for you and they recycle it from an ecological perspective. And then you can put it back, another device on the shelf that's your spare device. And I'm sure over time, the fact is it's all these things are saving money. What I love the most is we always talk about CRMs, man. They're the lifeblood of the company. They're the KPIs that literally for less than a percent of revenue, you run the business on them. The problem is you're not doing a great job if you're not running good hardware and you don't got a device that's

actually getting the signal and running clear. And when I found this out as a big of advocate, I am for like companies like Service Titan is you guys are the yin to their yang. You guys are making sure that they get a good signal. you guys are making sure that they get a good signal you guys are making sure that the software is up to date and the the computing system can handle running stuff to where the memory is not like skipping out on it and it's not crashing and stuff like that yeah you know there was a time and period where you know certain versions of service type was having challenges if you didn't have enough memory because of the photographs you take videos you run up all your memory in the device, then the application

would actually fail or crash. Now, if you don't monitor that from an MDM, it'll crash all the time. Your technicians think that from an owner perspective, they think that you're giving them a piece of junk and it's not working. And they think that it's probably a representation of your business. And the reality is, it's just one of those details you can't get to. If you have somebody like us, you could turn to us and we would fix that for you. I really wish I could go back. So you guys started a long time ago. When did you start getting into the management?

Did you say like 2015 management of devices? So we started managing devices at scale about 10 years ago. And before that, we were doing consulting gigs. So we started managing devices at scale about 10 years ago. And before that, we were doing consulting gigs. If you know the Ventile car dealership here in town, that was my first real large client. I had some good friends that were controller positions. They hired me to go through their businesses and try to figure out, find savings from a technology perspective early on. Sure. And then we found consistency inside telecom and wireless spend inside their entire P&L from a technology stack,

and then copiers and everything else. But that was the main thing that you could tell was out of control. It had so many moving parts to it that we were able to establish with them a fast way to reduce their overall operating expenses. So that manifested into this whole operating managed services. Customers then needed somebody to help them call, somebody to handle the billing, handle the warehouse. They needed the whole solution, but they didn't want to pay it a la carte. They just want to pay a subscription fee.

To create a service, mobile as a service, as a platform is what you're under. And this managed solution has helped customers drive out this headache out of their business. Well, the only way to run it, I believe, is a subscription. I don't want to buy the stuff and then it poops out on me in a month. And you guys are like, well, we're busy with our next client. It literally needs to be maintained all the time.

Constant support. This is something that it's an ongoing basis. I'm going to need to replace the hardware eventually. I'm going to need to get new devices. I'm going to need to get a different signal in a certain area that I expand to. I mean, there's no other way to run it. What are some of the things in technology that are happening right now? I mean, I know 5G is a big deal. What's happening in technology that we should know about in the home service niche? Yeah, I would say there's a couple of things. 5G is definitely a factor.

You're going to find that becoming more of a relevant element. It's still in early days. Don't listen to all the hype from all the phone carriers out there. It is early days in the whole system. You're going to see faster networks, which in the end are going to give you

more and more solutions to be able to help out with doing virtual AR augmentations for things that if you wanted to put an AR program and look at what the actual master lift is going to look at in their garage or what kind of components are in the device to be able to figure out what's broken with it, you're going to see more and more high-end elements

because it's going to require higher-end connections. You also have a segment with Samsung devices building a ruggedized tablet that is designed for field servers. Most people are using off-the-shelf devices when I find and talk to folks. They're using a very basic entry-level device. And the problem with it, like you described, the display breaks, it runs out of memory, or it's too hot sitting on the dash in their van. And some of this militarized element of ruggedizing these devices has made it more affordable. It used to be unapproachable.

Used to, you would hear that device would cost you $1,000. So now you've got devices that are in sub $500, $300 range that allow you to afford a ruggedized device that is going to last in that environment. You've also made the displays easier. If you're wearing gloves, you can actually touch the displays now. You used to, you couldn't do that in those environments. So that technology set has probably become more and more prevalent because your mobile van is a mobile environment of all your technology from a printer to a barcode scanner to your hotspot to your POS system. Now you've got to have something that can handle the durability of what you're putting them through. So that's probably the biggest two things. I would say 5G and durability of those tablets.

You know, I might have a proposition for you when it comes to service Titan. We've all been to the Verizon store, at least, you know, I can't lie. I was with Cricket for 12 years. But Verizon, they have these really nice cases on their iPad, and they were able to charge the card from it. And, you know, when you stick the card into the machine, whether it's a chip or on the magnetic strip, it's a much better build. And ServiceTitan, a lot of people use ServiceTitan because they don't have to do reconciliation.

So ServiceTitan built an API into WorldPay, but they never made the device. So there's these readers, these headphone jack readers that never work. It's literally been a problem for years. So I think that if you guys were able to work with service titan or any crm and get that ruggedness of the case and be able to build in the card reader it could be a really good opportunity it's just something i thought of i like the idea let me see if we can find something come back and maybe have a follow-up podcast we will we will you know we'll do a live too that people could ask questions so all right the right. The world is coming to this. And I know most people are going to think I'm crazy

because they hear me. I'm a multitasker. I delegate a lot, successful business. But Samsung or Apple, and I'm sitting here with my S21. I've got an extra backup, huge charger. Those of you that are watching, this gives me an extra 48 hours. And then I got a second one. It's crazy because I lived, I mean, this is my laptop, my computer. I'm on a desktop now, but I personally have used a lot of iPads in the field and I've used a lot of galaxies. Give me the pros and cons. Give me a SWOT analysis. From a smartphone perspective, you and I, I use an Apple device, full disclosure. So I'm an Apple user on my smartphone. From a field service application-driven perspective, Android is

eating Apple's lunch as a whole. So that means anybody making Android devices are eating Apple's lunch in a lot of different ways. Apple has a fantastic brand and has a fantastic user experience. But it comes at a cost. It comes at a premium. And if you want to pay the premium, we absolutely can service that. But as a whole, because it's a price-driven world, most of the time, you're seeing more and more of the field elements. People using a tablet or smartphone, you're seeing more and more of that world going to Android.

A couple of different reasons. One is that you have more control in the area of mobile management. So if I want to remote into an Android device, the ability to remote in and see what the technician's screen looks like, I can do that on Android a whole lot easier than I can on an Apple device. So there's just some functionalities of that. Second thing is the lifecycle management. How do you get it warrantied? How do you get it fixed? That whole process is a lot better, a lot easier on the Android world than it is when you get into the Apple world. Apple is, I would say, emerging in the business space. You're seeing it on the field space. They're definitely eager to come into the space. But you're seeing once you

buy 20 different Apple devices and you're trying to manage that on your own, it becomes a challenge. Android is a little bit easier, more business-friendly from that perspective. Cost is being the key, though. Lower cost. We had all iPads and we switched a lot to the droids and i don't think we skipped a beat as long as you know i'd say the software side of it some people for some reason develop on one platform but not the same on the other but i think that's kind of going away everybody knows you got to be on android you got to be on the i store i mean those the place for in the i store that you got to live on both and if not you're not a very sophisticated software, right?

Yeah. We don't see anybody really doing one or the other anymore. There was a period of time, like even with Service Titan, as you know, they were primarily an Apple shop early, early. They are now on both shops. They're agnostic. Most software partners that we work with today are agnostic across the board. So they allow the end user to decide what they want to put it on. What's your flavor? They really don't care. They operate identically

in the sense of most applications. There's probably very minor elements here and there. User experience is different. But as far as the apps and who builds them, they're building, everybody's building them for both nowadays. You don't see them on one or the other anymore. You know, there's a lot of guys that i go i'm becoming slowly but surely into the um a platform company that's going to be adding on a bunch of acquisitions and when i go out to these more rural areas smaller companies they're still using a pen and paper they just haven't taken the plunge and it's hard to believe we're in 2021 and I'm still talking about this, but they haven't jumped into technology. They say CRM, SME RM, I'm not into it.

We run fine without it. What do you say to those guys? You know, it's intimidating. I mean, the first time you have to go and feel like you take two steps back to take one step forward to build your business because you're trying to teach a technician how to use something that you know you can write down on a piece of paper. It feels inefficient. But if you want to scale your business, you want to create consistency with your business, you have to move a mobile-first workforce. And the only way you're going to be able to do that is have consistency inside a great application and have great hardware and great connectivity. And if you don't allow that, your technician

is going to look at you in the competition and see that you're not staying up with what's out in the marketplace and make it easier for them to make money. If I'm a technician and I'm trying to sell transactions and you're using old technology and I'm using new, I'm choosing the new so I can sell more products, so I can make more money as a technician goes. So it's kind of silly to see that that's still going on. And most of it's because they're intimidated by it. And if you had a partner like us, eSquared, you could easily turn to us. We could turn on those 10 devices. You don't have to know the ins and outs of it. You don't have to be intimidated by it. We can help you through that process. You know, I'll just add a few things to that is people that don't know key performance indicators,

like their call booking rate or their inventory on hand or usage reports. I don't understand how you can make a good decision. Everything you're doing is feelings. And that works great in the 80s. And a lot of the listeners, maybe they were in business in the 80s, but we're in the new millennium, and my data causes me to make certain actions. I compared last year's cost of goods, specifically the material cost. My costs are up. So what does that mean? I had to raise my prices because inflation is happening. but you'll never know this stuff unless you've got the right financial setup and the right KPIs within a CRM. Here's another question that I got into yesterday, and I know my answer. I never really was on

Outlook. I was always a Gmail guy. Before that, maybe AOL or Hotmail. But overall, the Microsoft 360 comes with a lot of stuff. It comes with Excel. People say it comes with Word. And then you got the G Suite. I know what I am. I know what my company is. It's opposite. But what is your take on it?

And you're a technology guy. I'm curious your stance on this. So we use both. We're agnostic across the board. So we have Google in our environment. We have Microsoft in our environment. We have Amazon from a cloud service provider. We have a server rack and an on-premise basis.

So we have some of that too. So if I'm an operating system, most of our people in our offices are using Microsoft. Out in the field, I'd say we're split between iOS and Android. But as far as the chat services, Teams and Microsoft, after this COVID pandemic, they destroyed the competition in so many different facets. It is impressive how fast that thing has grown. So I see Teams being in Microsoft in that biggest kind of uptick on anything out there. If you read what adoption has happened in the cloud space from a cloud services perspective, Teams has killed it this

year. So as a whole, I'd say we're a little split, but we lean a little more into an operating system. Our servers are Microsoft. Our chat is Microsoft. Our Outlook is obviously Microsoft. So we're still in that space. But definitely, G Suite is an emerging element. If you're a company that has 10 technicians, I would look at G Suite as a real serious solution. You can handle the whole thing. You don't have to be in that space.

It's interesting because one of my developers is developing some stuff in HubSpot for me. He doesn't love Microsoft. He doesn't love, like, for example, like a SQL Server. He says they make it very hard to pull the data correctly. And he's got tools to decipher it, but he likes open code a little bit more.

He likes it because it's affordable. It's kind of like, I remember, this is a bad example. I might get in trouble for this, but they came out. Well, let's just use Aspirin. I was going to say Viagra, but let's use Aspirin. Aspirin, when their trademarks and stuff came up, that's what Linux is. I mean, it's an open base.

Some of the best stuff comes from the open market and what they develop. So even Microsoft developers would go home and have fun on the free market developing free stuff. I just hate to be a slave to somebody that can fluctuate in pricing when they decide they're having a bad quarter like Yelp did. Yelp has 10 sponsored ads now before they see any real listing. It's like they were having a bad quarter. So they just said, let's go from three to 10. And I just don't think that's a good user experience because now they're just getting paid stuff instead of really organically good.

But I agree with you. It's really to each their own. I'm just a lot more comfortable with Gmail and Drive. But also, I know that Excel on the Google site doesn't work the exact same in the formulas it's similar but it's not the same so it's funny because i'm on google now but i'm not doing much with the samsung to apple transition and i you know one of these days i keep telling people they're like i just can't believe you haven't done it yet and i'm like i know but maybe one of these days samsung is going to make some huge, now they got the Google Samsung phone.

It's made Google. It's like the Chrome phone or whatever. Yeah. I think that, you know, it really is a each their own, but I do believe that they're both good solutions. If you're trying to keep operational expenses down, you can go either way. Both companies are very competitive price-wise. Both of them have similar technologies. Microsoft is behind Google for a period of time. I think they've come parallel today.

I would say that the only advantage that we still see is Teams. Teams is probably the most widely adopted. If you know any kids that were educated at home, most of them were educated on Teams this last year. So I think that you had a large adoption in that area. So they spent a ton of money making it very user-friendly. But as far as Google, Google, you can't go wrong with any one of them.

It's personal preference. Those are two big questions. I mean, we talked about getting people on new millennium. Let's get you guys on new software. It really is a pain in the butt though. I'd have every device by a device manager like you guys, where you're not getting pillaged by commissioned salespeople that are literally trying to sell you everything under the God's green earth. So I want to go into more of, I ask these questions every podcast and I don't know if you're prepared, but number one is what's the best way to get ahold of you, Josh, if they want to reach out and just discuss some things. Best way to get ahold of us is through LinkedIn. So you can find me at Josh Fulton, eSquared Communication Consulting, or you can find me on email at jfulton at e2cc.com.

Okay. What's the best way to reach out to eSquared? Find us on the web at www.e2cc.com. And you can hit the chat button and you can host something immediately there. Oh, speaking of chat, what do you recommend for chat? A lot of people are doing a lot of people on our online chat. Tell me a little bit about that. From a marketing perspective. So there's a different tool for everything, right?

So we use Intercom for our marketing web interface. So if you go to one of our web pages and you see a little pop-up chat, that's Intercom. That one we adopted about two years ago and use it on our marketing landing pages. It integrates with our email system. We do marketing from that perspective. It's a little pricey. They're very proud of it, but I would say it's a good tool. It functions very well. It's easy to use. People use it also not just from marketing. They use it for support. They use it for a variety of different things. We don't use it for our support. We have a solution from Intercom that is for marketing, but our interconnect is actually from our chat solution.

It's integrated with our inbound call center solution. And so that handles a whole different kind of level of integration because we integrate our support tools inside our CRM like you probably do, where you know when someone chats or calls us, we know our recent problems, what all the things have been going on. So we've integrated, we have a custom interface for that. and so we use a different tool for that type of chat so we probably have three or four different types of chat tools that are running around in our environment let me ask you a question if i was to borrow some stuff i'm just curious or personal here you know we're developing some really cool software some speak the service tit. Some I'm doing on this software called Bobberdue for lead generation when it comes to storm chasing. Some I'm building some custom pages

for automating the ServiceTitan process for financing. Have you worked with developers and APIs and webhooks and stuff like that? Yep. I might have to pay you a visit because I've got a lot of stuff in the works and I want to make sure we're headed in the right direction. We're getting ready to integrate HubSpot on top of ServiceTitan. And it's more of a marketing. It's for A-B testing on the website. It's for knowing where people have visited. It's just, I love ServiceTitan.

It's everything I need and more. But I'm a marketing machine and I feel like the AI that they're developing, HubSpot is just better for marketing for what I'm trying to do. Yeah, definitely. I can help you. Do you need some help? Yeah, maybe I'll... Where are your cross streets again? Where's your office?

If you want to come visit us at the office, bro, we're basically off of Mill and 60, south of 60. Oh, you're right there. Okay. Yeah. So we know how to get a hold of you. Now, I ask every single person on the podcast, their favorite three books, and it doesn't need to be a favorite book. It doesn't need to be the Bible or a rich dad, poor dad, or the E myth.

I tend to get Napoleon Hill or Dale Carnegie, all great books. But if you got three, maybe that we've not met, you know, I get the same. I get, I can tell you, I get a lot of, uh, who I get a lot of, um, the compound effects, all great books, but three other books that you might want to instill in us to,

to read. I'll tell you two from a business and I'll tell you one that's like personal. Okay. So the one from a business perspective that I think you would enjoy is called grit. I don't know if you've read it. Yeah. I think you would enjoy is called Grit. I don't know if you've read it. Yeah, I think I have that on my honorable.

Angela is the author. She's done a bunch of TED Talks that you probably can see online through YouTube. She breaks down grit from a science perspective and goes through... Angela Duckworth? Yes, yes, exactly. And she really goes deep inside the deep inside the the psychology of it trying to figure out how to how to produce it how to build it how to nurture it i have kids so i'm always trying to figure out how to to get them more gritty you know what i mean yeah so that's

one so i take grit is one of them the other one Goldfish. Have you ever read that one? I've never read Purple Cow, never Purple Goldfish. There's a bunch of goldfish versions. So there's a diamond, there's a gold, there's a purple. And purple is all about how to attract customers that are fanatics about your services. So how do you attract them? How do you keep them? How do you get them? How do you use them? How do you maintain them? So Purple Goldfish is one of those ones about kind of a marketing spin on some probably different lessons you probably have already learned, but just kind of a new version of that. It's only got one rating.

Oh, does it really? Yeah. It's literally 10 ways to attack raving fans. It's only got one rating on Audible. But I just bought it. 13 bucks. Boom. I should go rate it.

I like it. The last one is Caffeine. And that's an Audible original. on audible but i just bought it 13 bucks boom i should i should go read it i liked it the last one is caffeine and that's a audible original so you can go look at that if you like audible um that one is about the science around caffeine what it means and for people like yourself that have high energy what it does for you and what it means to your body i thought it was kind of interesting kind of listen it's only two hours two minutes yeah i thought it was kind of an interesting kind of listen. It's only two hours and two minutes. Yeah. I thought it was good. And then I'd give you one last one. I like the closer from Grant Cardone. I don't know if you like

Grant Cardone. Yeah, I like the 10 times rule and all that. Yeah. Yeah. I like him. Dude, that one's got 6,000 reviews. That's more like it, right? Yeah. I mean, dude, that's crazy. Grant Grant's blowing up, but you know what? This guy yesterday asked me, he's like, dude, are you always like this?

I'm like, yeah. I'm like, believe it or not. You know, he said, Tommy, what do you want people to say to you? You know, when they're at your funeral? And I said, you know, that's a tough question. The seven, Seven highly successful habits of successful people, whatever. He asked that question. I've been thinking about that for years. I think the main thing is that I was true to my word. I like to be the dumbest guy in the room, so always a student, but I want to be the life of the room. I want to be the passion, the ooze, the excitement. I view myself as not only energy, but also as a ball of just fire. And just look, we're going to get excited. We're going to move forward. We're

going to be passionate people. And I'm just curious. I've never asked anybody that question, but I don't know if I will start doing that. But for you, what would you say if everybody's sitting here and in 50 years, we had to go to your funeral. You know, you'd like to say that the guy was fun and that he was honest and that he was a caring guy. And your wife says he was the best ever. I have probably a lower philosophical view. I just want my kids to be the product of who I am. I want my kids to represent a brighter future, a better version of what I was. So I'm hoping that when I'm past, that my kids are living on and showing that I'm a better human being than I left the world. I'm leaving them to my kids. So that's the best thing. How many kids do you have two uh two boys two boys yeah yeah well

that's cool i'd like to meet him one day and the last thing we'll do josh this is the final question is we've talked about a lot of things there might be a gold nugget or something to go do today or or just a piece of advice that we might have not had a chance to hit on this podcast. So some closing words, it could be anything you want. It could be about life, business, personal, financial, religious, whatever you want. I'll give you a few minutes to close this out. You know, I actually will say things that you've said. I listened to some of your podcasts and I think that you and your marketing focus, if anybody's listening to these podcasts and trying to get inspiration from a small business owner perspective, you run a business,

I run a business, I will tell them that I think as much as you think that it's important to know your craft and be an expert in your craft, you need to pick up one more sword and be a marketer. You need to learn to market because you think just being good at your craft is good enough. And unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. And I think that you need to be a good at your craft, but you need to also be a good marketer. And I think that your, your inspiration for what you're doing for this podcast is giving people probably a insight to a, almost like a masterclass to marketing. You're getting to it for free. And I think if you listen to anything that you're doing and that what you're taking on and what you're showing

and giving them for free is that the marketing is going to be the way they're going to feed their family going forward. And they need to pick up on even one or two of these tips you're giving out of how to keep it going in the modern day. You can't do it the way of the past of putting a yellow page ad out and hoping for the best. You got to do more. And I think you're doing a great job of leading your industry as far as forward and how to be a great marketer. Not only in your industry, you're giving me insight and getting me motivated to go do more marketing of my own. So I think it's great. That's what I'd say. I was going to end it there, but I'll tell you,

if you get a chance, read a couple of books here. One of them is called They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. The other one They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. The other one's called The Visual Sale by Marcus Sheridan. And the deal is, is I'm going all in on content. And I'm going to take video. I'm going to take fast video, short video, long video, cut, splice, interesting video, lots of interviews, lots of interviews for my business, though, like the ASID, interior designers, find out what's the ASID, interior designers, find out

what's the latest trends for the exterior and find out what garage doors are coming. And then I'm going to slice it all up and get it on TikTok. I'm going to get it on Pinterest. I'm going to get it on YouTube. I'm going to have it everywhere. And I'm building a team of 10. And then I have a bunch of virtual assistants. People don't have a video guy that comes once a year.

I have two full-time video people. The difference is, is I want to take over the world in the garage industry. Now I'm a little bit different, but content is King. And if you guys get a chance, read those books, the insights you'll find, but more importantly, do something about it. You can read these books. I've read a lot of books, but maybe not do as much as me. Like I get into these books and I'm like, all right, let's have a meeting. So be a little bit careful on the flavor of the week type person, but also live and breathe it yourself for a couple

of weeks and see if it's the right thing to run with. But these content is key and you're right. Marketing now, they ask you answers, giving the answers that people need. It's literally being an authority. I didn't know I was doing it with the podcast, but I am doing it. And it's a great thing. And I say this every once in a while, but I do the podcast for me. I'm learning from you. I got to ask you whatever I want. And now I'm going to come meet with you and bounce some ideas off of you. And we'll talk about the service time thing. But the fact is that I get just as much out of this thing than any other person listening. So I appreciate you coming on today, Josh. I appreciate it too. Last question for you.

If you're a person watching this and they don't do marketing, what would you say to them? Just say, start small, do something small and just get going on it. Well, you know, the thing is you got to get out of your comfort zone. I realized when I started to expand into big cities,

the reason why we weren't growing as fast is because we were losing a large mentality of pay-per-click Google. This is this. You got to take the feelings and bring them back into the game. Go to church and talk about it. Go to a B and I group. Every time you're around,

hand out a business card and tell your barber what you do. Every time when you're walking by a car in the parking lot at freaking target, put a business card on your, it's this gorilla marketing mentality of just posting an ad on Craigslist every time after a job is what I used to do. And networking and mentioning it and recruiting. It's really talk to your kids and tell them at the next parent teacher conference

that your dad does drive stories. It's that networking. It's the little things to make your employees internal networkers. Give them a reason. Give them what's in it for them. Are they making any money when they bring on a self-generated lead? Make sure they do.

And you got a good tracking system. So I think one of the things that I've tried to do is systematize it, but I can't bring the relationships. The relationships are hiring the right people and giving them the motivation. So I've done a really good job of making the phone ring off the hook.

But I'll tell you what, my goal is to get marketing to under 5% of revenue. And that's going to happen through every single person that works here. 360 people will be getting a few leads a week. And that's over a thousand leads a week, right? That lowers my marketing. It still pays them more. So now I can advertise to every single person that wants to work here is my employees make an extra 20 grand a year because they turn into little mini marketers. So that's what I would say is get back out there, have a little grit. You said it and go fight the fight. But Josh, this is excellent, man. I appreciate you. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it, man. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast from the bottom of my heart 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 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 just, we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, 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.