HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed, a podcast dedicated to revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business.
HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
EP: 216 Ronda Chaney w/ BDR - Building Your Business: Effective Planning, Training, and Goal Setting
This week on HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed, we had the pleasure of hosting Rhonda Chaney, a seasoned expert in HVAC coaching and business development from BDR. With over a decade of industry experience, Rhonda shared invaluable insights on boosting HVAC business profits, improving team efficiency, and the pivotal role of coaching.
3 Key Takeaways:
- Hands-On Training’s Impact: Rhonda emphasizes the significance of practical, hands-on training in the HVAC industry to ensure technicians and installers understand and excel at their tasks, surpassing theoretical knowledge.
- Client Relationships and Referral Rewards: Implementing appreciation like gift cards and heartfelt thank you notes for client referrals can significantly enhance long-term business relationships and loyalty.
- Profitability and Business Planning: Rhonda highlighted advanced strategies for maintaining profitability, such as regular reviews of pricing and financials, which can drive substantial improvement in net income.
Whether you are an industry veteran or just getting started in HVAC, this episode is jam-packed with actionable lessons that will help lead your company toward rapid growth and sustainability. Listen to this educating episode as we explore the intersection of coaching and business expertise in the home service industry.
Find Ronda :
On The Web: https://www.bdrco.com/profit-launch/
Via Email: rondachaney@bdrco.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rondaechaney
Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662
Sponsored By:
Chirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: elitecall.net
On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
We can't simply tell our technicians or tell our installers how to do something. We've got to go show them.
Thaddeus Tondu:Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having with some drinks, depends on what they are. Up to you and if you want to have an alcoholic beverage with us, although we support it, good seeing you again. I know we were down in person at the Rocket X event and had a good time down there, recorded a couple of pods, but back in the usual setting, our habitat, and today we have on Ronda Chaney. Ronda Chaney is the, now the head coach and trainer for BDR. She has over nine years of coaching experience, but she's also been a manager and then a director at JK Mechanical for over 10 years. She comes with industry experience, which is super powerful. We'll have, I asked her superpower and there's a little bit of a debate on this one because I had written down profit and growth training, but that's her specialty, her superpower though, is asking questions to be able to digging deep under the surface. I know a couple of the topics that we wanted to get into, obviously profit and growth training. Some things in terms of what to look for in a coach and in a coaching organization. Also, some stark differences between a mentor and a coach because those are two separate things, and oftentimes I think people get those confused.
Evan Hoffman:No, 100% agree. I'm really excited for the conversation because BDR is a well recognized organization in terms of coaching and helping elevate the trades and elevate the knowledge because at the end of the day, you go to trade school, you learn how to be a tradesman, right you're on the tools learning how to run a business is a completely different skill set, completely different understanding and a completely new knowledge that you have to learn and a new training and it doesn't exist in terms of a formal requirement for you to run a business and organizations like BDR are instrumental in helping contractors get to that next level and understand what it is that they need to do to run a successful business.
Thaddeus Tondu:Oh, a hundred percent and that's the part of what I'm going to love about our conversation, but today's show would not be possible without our lovely sponsors, Chiirp, Elite Call and On Purpose Media have outbounding your databases to fill your dispatch boards with lucrative service and sales appointments and boosting memberships. Yep enter an Elite Call, a US based call center that does just that for over 20 years, their dedicated teams don't just make calls, they directly integrate appointments into your CRM and fill your dispatch reports don't let your competition get ahead. Give the folks over at Elite Call a call at elitecall.net and connect with your customers first.
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Thaddeus Tondu:Cool and last, but certainly not least, On Purpose Media, where you can enhance your online presence with those folks on your screen, onpurposemedia.ca. Your go to home service marketing expert for everything web design, SEO, and PPC. They got stunning user friendly websites and you get increased visibility in search engines and targeted traffic through effective pay per click advertising. So let's turn your online presence into a lead generating powerhouse. Visit onpurposemedia.ca today to start your digital transformation and watch your home service company thrive in a digital world. We shall see you soon on the other side with our guest. Hey, Hey, welcome Ronda to HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Happy to have you on.
Ronda Chaney:Hey, thanks for having me, you guys. I really appreciate it and hello to your listeners as well.
Thaddeus Tondu:Excellent. Let's start with the heaviest question of all, your history and getting us started into the trades.
Ronda Chaney:All right. Very good yeah, so I'll start with my career started post college in a small business development and acquisition and it sounds a little more impressive than maybe it was, but I worked, had the opportunity to work with a group of investors who were a diverse group. Some were small business owners and had grown significant small businesses. Some had larger corporate careers and was able to work with them on identifying small businesses to invest in anywhere from a million to 10 million really taking their expertise in leadership and management and business ownership and pouring it into other small businesses and in conjunction with that started a small coaching and consulting company with my father. It was a pleasure to be able to do that and sit under as an apprentice under him for quite some time. So that was the start of my career and one of our clients my father and I was an HVAC contractor and who was actually needing some support and help in managing the growth of the solar department. In the early 2000s, there was a massive growth opportunity. There was a lot of federal tax credits available and state tax credits available. A lot of contractors were getting into the solar industry. He was a well established business, a really great brand in the community and had a huge opportunity there, but didn't necessarily have the capacity himself to manage that that division. So help to step in and provide support, fell in love with the trades, love, love the trades love the people, the internal client, the external client, and stayed for a good long time and and I was actually when I was in the trades was a client of BDRs and so fell in love with that company as well and decided to come back to my roots, to the coaching side. So came full circle. this what I don't what is it listed on my resume or my bio page is I am approaching 33 years of marriage and I would like to say it is to the same man. I feel like when you strain three or four of those together, it's a little less impressive. So to the same man, I've got two amazing, we have two amazing sons, two beautiful daughter in laws and Three amazing grandchildren. So that's not listed anywhere, but certainly that's the core of my heart.
Thaddeus Tondu:What's the biggest secret to having a happy, successful marriage of 33 years?
Ronda Chaney:Gosh, you, this wasn't on the questionnaire that is okay.
Thaddeus Tondu:We don't have a questionnaire.
Ronda Chaney:You're right about that. Okay the biggest secret I would say that it's not being self focused. It's being the unit focused and if we say that we, you have to put in 50 percent and you have to put in 50%, we both have to put it all in, lean in, lean hard, be willing to forgive, lots of grace and mercy and a lot of self analysis and we can get there.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it's, I use the dishwasher as a good example to, to highlight this 50 50 is somebody says I emptied the dishwasher last time. It's your turn to empty the dishwasher. No, who gives a shit? Just empty the damn dishwasher, right? It doesn't matter whose turn it is. When you keep score, you run into issues.
Ronda Chaney:Yep, for sure.
Thaddeus Tondu:So it translates back into the, to the business side of things having the experience from mergers and acquisitions and dealing with that and seeing some of those things on the other side. I now see why profit and growth strategies are things that you focus on, right? Because you've seen a lot of the ideas in coming from an M& A world and now he's saying, okay if you make sure that your profitability is good, now you get a better multiple when you exit, right? In coming from that world and having the M& A, having the coaching experience, and then likely starting to see some of that now right now, like on the back end, what were, where would you say the biggest one, two or three things that you think most contractors fail to recognize or do in order to maximize their return on when they sell their business?
Ronda Chaney:So I would say and this is on topic a little bit with what this session we were going to speak on, which is a business plan. I think that a lot of contractors don't have a business plan and it is daunting to think about, do I, have a five year business plan? Do I have a one year business plan? But I think that it's critical to say, Hey, let's start with the end in mind. Where do we want to get to and really build into that? So I think we need a business plan. I think we need to really leverage our partnerships with other partners, whether it's our distribution partners or existing team members or outside, influences, coaching and consulting and those other resources available. So I think those things are really important for us to be able to do yeah again, we have to have a road map. The business plan is critical we have to have a road map.
Evan Hoffman:No, absolutely and it's something that, again, like I alluded to at the very beginning before you came on, not having the knowledge of what you need to do, how to do it, who do I need to contact to help me do it, all of that information is just go fuck around and find out pretty much, right and guys are left to drown and then really struggle their way through it. So when when looking at building out a business plan, then where do you recommend most people start when they're starting to plan out their business? Is it before they start running calls even and get into business for themselves or let's say they're already in business a year, two years, they've never actually sat down to do a business plan. How did they start and find the time to do it and make it a priority?
Ronda Chaney:There's certainly there's a lot of good resources and with the information available on just giving it a Google there's tons of resources available. I'm going to shamelessly plug our business planning workshop because when I was in the industry it was my favorite product training product and we call it profit launch, but it's a three day intense business planning process. It's daunting. It is daunting and really getting having the support of something like a profit launch workshop or, other maybe industry team members that have done it or business owners that have done it before. it's certainly helpful to get some feedback from there. But if you had asked the question, when do we do it? I think we need the vision before we, take action because we have to know where we're headed one of my, favorite authors said where there's no vision, the people perish and so we absolutely have to have a vision. It's our roadmap or business plans or roadmap.
Thaddeus Tondu:And looking at the vision and the business plan and I have luckily done a few in my university days. Now they're a little bit different when you actually put it into practicality. Some people think, okay I need to have this very robust business plan Everything in there. And then I think back to when Evan and I started On Purpose Media, our business plan was a bunch of bullet points and now we've transitioned into entrepreneur's operating system. We're putting in the vision and okay, what are some of the things that are needed in there from a higher level aspect of things? Then we go and we build those things individually. Which one is I guess when you look at the business plan, how in depth does somebody need to go and, probably two different answers. One is you haven't started the business yet and one is I'm already in business and I think I'm going to talk to more of the one that is already in business could be a business doing 1 million, 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, it doesn't matter. How in depth is bullet points fine? Or is it the vision with overarching things to be able to hit that and then you work on those things underneath it. What's the right way to be able to go about it?
Ronda Chaney:Yeah. First let me say that the business planning process is an evolution. Year one, it simply may be a couple of bullet points. if you're doing it unsupported independently, it simply may be a couple of bullet points. It's say, hey, this is the revenue I want to do. These are the departments I want to have. This is my, what I want the organizational structure. This is what I have available to me and so it may start very rudimentary, very basic and then year over year, we refine that process. We get a little bit more in depth do 100 percent support existing companies using an already structured business planning process. It takes so much of the the directional work away from you, which is, hey, do this. This is how you get there and you fill in the data and then then we have a business plan. So I would highly recommend that.
Thaddeus Tondu:You're stepping on the shoulders of others, and they've been there and they've done that and it's, you've, we've talked about finding the right resource and I know Alex Hormozi had a post the other day in referencing digital marketing agencies as once you're, Oh, you're earning 10, 000 per month now, great now you can be a certified coach and our industry in the digital marketing has gurus in the HVAC industry has gurus and the plumbing industry is gurus. Every industry has these gurus who might not have actually done it before in looking at finding the right resource to be able to say, okay I want to work on my business plan. I need to find somebody that has actually been there, done that. What are some of the questions that you might be asking as a contractor to make sure that it's the right fit for you?
Ronda Chaney:So there's a lot of great coaching, consulting, training organizations out there. I would say this, that it doesn't matter what industry we're in, hype sells, emotion sells, and substance and hard work don't sell and so we do want to be wary of that and so you are a organization and a business owner looking for a partner, interview them like you do anybody else, like you do any, other partner and spend some time, Is there substance there? Do they have structure there? Do they have a width and breadth in their organization that's going to be able to help support you in all of your business phases? Again, I'm going to shamelessly plug us, BDR, because I think that we're amazing. But we have head coaches and accounting coaches and we've got sales coaches and service coaches, and we've got processes and we've got financial reporting and and processes I believe are like no other. So there's going to be clients that gravitate towards that and then there are other organizations that, may have other strengths. But I think you have to interview them and you have to look for substance and experience and you've got, you can't swallow the quick pill. There's no quick pill. It's a lot of hard work.
Evan Hoffman:And that's, we just got back from an event last week, Rocket X, great event, tons of great people there. They've got a product. That's fantastic their blueprint is fantastic. There's so much information in there it's very detailed there's so many different courses and things that you can take and so many different videos and swipe and deploy type files where you can just implement it into your business. It's great but it's all on you, right and when there's that disconnect between accountability and what it is that you're enrolling yourself into that's where a lot of people tend to drop off. I know I've done it. I've been guilty of it many times where I purchased a course and it's just on me to go and watch the videos. I've got piles of books sitting here that I have never read and because there's no level of accountability there. So when it comes to the coaches that that BDR has, or any coaching organization, I think that is a really important point is what is the accountability look like even going back to the business plan, writing out a business plan, you could be as detailed as you want to be on it, but it means jack shit if you're not executing on it.
Ronda Chaney:It sure does. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely and that's to that, to your point that's what coaching is, certainly we have resources and structure and all those things and training that we can bring to bear but at the end of the day, it's really pairing our knowledge. It's helping you find your roadmap, create your roadmap and then holding you accountable to get there because I'm with you, Evan, all of us struggle with that and so having somebody that sidles up with you, the difference between us and consultants are consultants will come in and tell you everything that you need to do and they may create an amazing plan and a 60, 90, plus plan for you and then they walk away and leave and you're left alone to do it yourself and coaching doesn't do that coaching takes your hand and walks you through it.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah. That's almost more like a mentor, right? It's someone who, who's done it before. They can show you exactly what to do, but they're not going to do it for you and they're not going to sit there and say, did you do it? Did you get it done? That's where coaches come in and coaches may not be even the expert at that thing. They may not have all the knowledge on that thing, but they are an expert at holding you accountable and bringing out the knowledge that you already have and that's why I think coaches are absolutely incredibly important to have in your business, to have in your life, to have someone who may not be an expert at what it is that you want to accomplish, but they are an expert at bringing out the knowledge that you already have into yourself.
Ronda Chaney:And that's such a great point, Evan coming back to as for business owners who are looking for a good partner, a good coaching and training partner you have to look at, again, the breadth and the width of the organization. Is there more than one? Is there, a, big base of knowledge and experience within that organization, that coaching organization and training organization again, that can meet your needs at all phases of your business, whether you're training your sales department or, your service technicians or, whatever it is, it's a great point.
Evan Hoffman:So out of curiosity, then when it went getting back to the vetting component of it, a company might come to you and say, I'm really struggling with sales, we just don't have enough sales. We don't have enough leads right now. We need more phone calls into the business. We need help with this. And we just can't find the right partner to get the phone to ring marketing companies suck.
Ronda Chaney:You're allowed to say that, right?
Evan Hoffman:Yeah. Answer your phone, dammit,
Ronda Chaney:right? How do you work through that type of a call with a potential client or even with a client to then be able to bring about what it is that they actually need and not just what the symptom is that they're coming to you with? What is the actual causation of what their problem are is and what their need really is? How do you work through that with them? It's almost like you teed this up for me, for my superpower and I'm going to have to say that, Hey, it really is just digging deep and asking good questions is oftentimes when clients come on board, they'll in their pre onboard process, they will identify four or five goals that are really important to them. And that's really important for us as an organization to help them accomplish but sometimes, that's not the most important thing. So it really is a process of asking the right questions and digging a little bit deeper to say, what is the most important thing for us to focus on because you can't focus on everything and so really how do we determine what's most important for us to focus on and coming back to having a good business plan that helps to direct that because it's so easy to get tossed to and fro by every emotion and I mean, we the HVAC and electrical and plumbing to some degree as well. It is a emergency based business. We thrive on the highs, and the lows and so then to say to a business owner you need to be strategic and you need to be focused and, on the it, that's difficult. We need to be careful that we pick, only one or two things that we're focused on. What are the most important things and again, we dig in by an analysis and questions and d it below the surface and their financials obviously help with that that's a huge indicator for us. It's like stepping on a scale. Do we have a problem? Our financials and our metrics help us to be able to identify that as well.
Thaddeus Tondu:Cool. I want to get into financials and metrics here in a second, but first, the Random Question Generator, which is brought to you by On Purpose Media, where we build websites that load faster than your coffee in the morning. So yeah, it's actually a good one. I like that. I'm always amazed at what what Stacey comes up with when she has that and the round of questions, you're familiar with this part of the show. You've watched the episodes. We're going to you get to choose question one, two, or three of course, you don't get to know what the question is. You just get to choose one, two, or three. I read them off and away we go from there. So do you want question one, two, or three?
Ronda Chaney:I'm going to take three.
Thaddeus Tondu:If you had to fight a celebrity, who would it be and why would you win?
Ronda Chaney:Oh, I had to fight a celebrity, who would it be and why would I win? gosh, that's a hard one. I guess I'm going to say the rock yeah, that's strange, right? And only I would want to fight him because I would want to spend time really digging into his brain and asking him some questions and I think I would win because my superpower is asking questions and I feel like I could do that. Deflect away from the violence component of that to the real life issues. So that's what I'm going to say the Rock.
Thaddeus Tondu:He would probably tap his finger on me and knock me out. I like this Fred, Kevin Hart because it says, yeah the alter ego, I swear. That's a good question.
Evan Hoffman:I don't know if you happen to watch the roast of Tom Brady, but there was a great joke on there where he talks about how Kevin Hart is the Rock's fleshlight.
Ronda Chaney:Hilarious. Those two, the movies are hilarious yep.
Thaddeus Tondu:They have such a good dynamic working together. That's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Hart. That's funny. All right profits and metrics and looking at that, obviously there's a lot of different ways that I can go and making sure that obviously you said at the beginning the profit profitability can lead you in the way that you want to go, depending on what they're at and so when you're having these coaching discussions and having these COVID coaching conversations, what are you looking at from a profitability standpoint? And we had this conversation by the way, last week on an average Profitability for an organization in the HVAC industry and what they should be at. So I guess start there. What's average, what they should be at and how can they get there?
Ronda Chaney:Yeah. Our goal is to get our clients double digit net to be a double digit net and is the goal 15, 20%? Yeah, it is industry average, I think right now is maybe 3 or 4% pre COVID, I think it was a little bit lower than that, but with a massive increase in equipment pricing and so forth, that kind of drove net income up a little bit, but double digit and then even, like I said, 15
Thaddeus Tondu:Wow. 3 to 4%. So the number that was thrown around was like 8 to 10 percent and that 20 percent would be like where you, where a person should be at in summer, even at 24, 25% which is like the high end of it and so 3 to 4%, Jesus.
Evan Hoffman:How much of that plays into the goals of the organization and the life cycle that they're in?
Ronda Chaney:Certainly that has an impact because if you're in a growth, phase of your business cycle. What we would call a wall if you're in a growth cycle, then to get up over into that next wall, that revenue and transaction wall is that your net income is going to be down a little bit because your overheads are up. If you're, if you're working on that, so it does certainly that has an impact.
Thaddeus Tondu:You're reinvesting back into the business, right? And yeah, and that's a big thing although one could then argue if you sell your prices the right way and you factor in growth and this, you should be able to still hit a good net.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah but you remember, you're the one that said that most small organizations, if they start with a business plan with a couple of bullet points for that, we're talking about something much more complex now so yeah, but you're right absolutely.
Thaddeus Tondu:Looking at taking going from three to 4 percent average to getting to double digits. What are you guys seeing in terms of trends that people are missing the mark on from a profitability standpoint?
Ronda Chaney:I would say that it's really leveraging our opportunities and, we have over 600 coaching clients. We have over 10, 000 clients that attend our training and other events and we have 25 years of data and analytics and so we are missing the mark on leveraging our opportunities and so on the service side of the business, it's our service delivery process. It's on the sales, it's our sales. How do we deliver a high value experience to the client? It's really in, in leveraging the processes.
Thaddeus Tondu:What sort of processes are the ones that need the most leveraging? I
Ronda Chaney:would say that if I have a new client coming on board after we focus on their pricing, that's a significant focus for us is making sure that that we're priced correctly and that we know how to price our jobs, we know what, our service department needs to be priced out and focus on that. Then we really, again, look at the delivery process is the, on the service side is looking at our, do we have diagnostic and maintenance task list just starting with that and that sounds super rudimentary. Maybe sound it's a really rudimentary to our some of our listeners, but we have to have a process that provides an exceptional product and 1st, we focus on that, and then we look at it and say, hey, how do we leverage this service for other products and services and so in oftentimes we may have a great diagnostic checklist or a great maintenance checklist, but maybe we on those, we don't have an opportunity for the technician to identify recommendations or identify if it's a planned replacement opportunity. And so do we have the processes that support the outcome that we want? Because and coming back to when we think about our business plan and how do we stay on track and how do we achieve those revenue goals is we've gotta look at our internal processes and evaluate those again, if we're going to tell a service technician, hey your goal is to increase your average ticket from two 50 to$300, how does he do that we need to have a much smaller target that's far too broad. We've got to be very specific and have the internal processes and the training and all those things that come into play drives the result, the end result of going from 250 to 300 it's the process that drives it so we focus on that same thing on the sales process is most of the time we don't give enough credibility to the time spent with the client and the sales process and leveraging that time in the home, how we position it and then, what does that 60 to 90 minutes look like? How do we deliver a high value experience? How do we differentiate ourselves from our other competitors really focusing on that and our technicians historically are great at the technical. They're not great at the communication and delivery piece so really looking at our processes and training them on that communication and delivery piece.
Evan Hoffman:Oh, Ronda, you're absolutely bang on even going back to what you said there around COVID and how you noticed that there was a The net increased over COVID, correct? That's what you had said?
Ronda Chaney:Yes. Yes, that we saw net income we saw it take a bump increase a couple of points. Yeah. Post COVID.
Evan Hoffman:Got it. Oh, thank you. That's also, because you all know that there was so much demand and not as much supply and obviously, the busier we are, the more efficient we are and, the more profitable we are both of those factors, yeah had a role and the interesting thing that I that I had found with a lot of contractors that I had spoken to at that time is they had a hard time keeping up. With the price changes and the price increases and they found themselves losing money because they weren't updating their price quick book quick enough and they, again, going back to what you just talked about too, they didn't have a process around it and when there's no process around it, it's difficult to do because it's all manual and it's all laborious and it's boring and it's frustrating and it's irritating all of these things and there's just so many calls that you want to run because it's 95 degrees outside. We need to go and get on the, go get in the truck, go run the calls, but we're not profitable on those calls. It's a big issue so pricing, focusing on that how often should someone be revisiting their price book, evaluating it and making sure that everything's on point?
Ronda Chaney:So I would say seasonally. Four times a year minimum and then I would say if we know that there's significant changes in refrigerant or things like that, that we're looking at that more frequently and hey, I have some clients that we have a ongoing monthly appointment set that we're looking at it yep because that's where all your net is. You look at how, when we see our departments, our gross margin begin to whittle away that's where, you know, a lot of it, if we're not on top of the price increases, then, when that part goes up five bucks, that's it's, Nickel and diamond or dollar, us a dollar at a time that's our net.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yep. That's exactly it and that's why you need to constantly, as you said, review that and how often do you review the, like the other part is looking at the financials, having a conversation with another agency owner on Monday talking about the financials, like I line by line RGL every month. I'm like, really? Yeah cause I want to know if we're wasting money on something. I haven't done that. I do it like quarterly. I'm like, do quarterly, sure but I just don't want to do them monthly.
Evan Hoffman:Find your frequency the other thing that I loved, what you mentioned there was, focusing on the wrong numbers, the average ticket, right? You're focusing on an outcome. You're not focusing on the behavior. So what numbers are you focusing on in your business to make sure that you're influencing that outcome, right? Things like. Number of opportunities per call that are presented, right? Now you're focusing on a behavior and you're able to coach to a behavior, not coaching to an outcome. I love that point.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah and when we look at, we're going to use that example as increasing the average ticket from 250 to 300. So that's a metric that we're looking at. What's the average ticket and we look at our metrics. We look at them by department and by individual, and we're speaking specifically on the service side. So then we have to say, okay, if the average ticket is not increasing, what are the other metrics that we have to look at? I have to go and I have to be able to look at process completion or task list completion. So I work with my clients and say, hey, we go in and we look at every diagnostic form did they follow the process? First of all, did they complete it? Did they identify the recommendations? Yeah, they completed it, but we're still not getting the results okay so now we got to go deeper. did we really train them on again, the communication piece is the weak part and what we often find, and I think that this is true for a lot of us is when we've not done it before, or it's been a long time since we've done it we find it difficult to train anybody else to do it. We tell them, hey, you go do this you go tell the client this, you go tell the client that and I encourage my my clients go get in the truck go get in the truck with them. You don't have to be excellent at it. That's totally fine you may be horrible at it, and that's okay, too we are figuring it out together, but we can't simply tell our technicians or tell our installers how to do something. We've got to go show them. When we look at again, How do we stay on track with achieving those goals and those targets in our plan is oftentimes as leaders and even as managers, we don't provide enough accountability and visibility. We think that simply telling them is enough. It's not enough and so we've got to show them how to do it and and we've got to track it and report on it and what gets managed gets done. It's got to be visible and so if we're not seeing the results, that's on us as owners and leaders, and we got to dig deep do we provide enough clarity over and over again, support over and over again, and accountability that's on us.
Thaddeus Tondu:And the thing that I like just the over and over and over again, and it gets so frustrating as a leader, as a, as an owner, as a manager, anybody, when you have to say something to somebody on average, seven times before it even sticks in their head. And you can be at 10 times, 12 times and all of a sudden they're like, Oh yeah, you said this thing yesterday and I did it and it made so much more sense and you're like, I told you 10 times and so it, again, it's, that's the tough internal dialogue that, that you have to know that sometimes you have to repeat it over and over and over and over and over again for it to actually sink in so key point.
Ronda Chaney:When do we get to check the box? We think that we get to check the box when the form's been created and we've communicated it to the technician. Check the box. It's done. It's off Ronda's desk. It's, we're done. We don't get to check the box. is it, are we getting the results that we know that we want? And if we're not, then that's on us and we got to dig deeper.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah and that goes to the metrics, right? What's your leading indicators to be able to show this right in looking at those different ones? We talked about average ticket being one of those to say, okay what's our indicator there? What are some of the other metrics and the indicators that you guys are looking at on a day by day, week by week, month by month, quarterly by quarterly, year by year, whatever the cadence is to be able to help monitor these sorts of things.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah, sure let's take the switch to the install department. We won't, we'll give the service department a break for a second there is a belief or an experience and that we have a labor shortage and we do have a labor shortage, and there's enough evidence to show that what we have found in our, as I said, 25, 30 years of data and metrics that we have and I'll just give a shout out to our president of the company is a master at data sleuthing, and but what she has, and what we have determined is that we actually don't have as big of a labor shortage as we have an efficiency problem and so when we really dig into it and we do the calculations and we gather the data, we look and we say the average efficiency of an installer is probably about 50%, 50%. So then we say again, we talked about at the beginning of the podcast what is most important? It's leveraging. How do we leverage differently? The resources that we have, how do we leverage the, but how do we leverage our people differently than what we're currently doing? So efficiency or efficiency metric is a big one that we look at on the install side. So what does that drill down? What does that look like? It looks like a basic job tracking to say, hey, let me check. Let me track there's a lot of metrics in an install. What's my material estimated to actual? What's my equipment? What's my, commissions, credit card fees all subcontractors, all those things. If we start with one thing, let's start with labor and let's not even track it in dollars. Let's track it in hours. If I estimated this job at 16 hours, how long did it take my installers to perform that job and let's start there. So labor efficiency is key.
Thaddeus Tondu:And that's an easy metric too, to be able to look at, okay, you spent this much time but it could be wasting time and as an owner or as a manager, you've got to then have a conversation with somebody to say, hey, I think that you're wasting time. You're not as efficient as you possibly could be how would you even go about having that conversation? So you don't make the person all butthurt.
Ronda Chaney:Yes we start with the process and I think it was you, Thaddeus, that said that we manage to the process and not to the person and that same thing here is that before I have the butthurt conversation with an installer is I'm going to make sure that do we have. Processes in place that support our installers to actually perform what and do what we're asking them to do. So an example of that would be do I have, first of all, I'm gonna start with the sales folder to job folder. Have I provided them all of the information that they need to perform a perfect install in the time that I have allotted them to? That's on us. That's a sales and an install manager function. So we start with, that do they have the information and then have we communicated effectively the scope of work and given them a timeline to say, hey, by 10 o'clock, you need to be here by noon here by two here and by four o'clock, this is where you need to be and if I've done and do we have a proper quality control check and that they're following, all of these processes and if we've done that and we feel like our processes are really good and they're being followed and they're being executed and it's a not an everybody problem, but a this installer problem at that point, then we can, we have the conversation, but we look internally first, as an organization.
Evan Hoffman:Love it. One walkthrough before giving that off to the installer, is it just a written out document?
Ronda Chaney:I would say that I wouldn't necessarily make a blanket statement, although allow me to do so is it really is whatever level of automation you have in your organization. This is what I would say and in each company, the nuances are a little bit different and why I say that is because installer strengths are a little bit different. Install management might be different. So we know, again, we work from the end in mind. We want our installers we're tasking them with a perfect installation, no callbacks, five star review and referral. What is the process? To get that done what do we need to do and I think that there may be some subtle nuances company to company, like I said, depending on your resources and strengths and skills, but whatever it takes. And so it can be video it can be written. It can be all those things.
Evan Hoffman:I love it. Yeah I've always been a big fan of the video walkthrough because then you can't miss anything and it's, these are the things that you have to show. You have to show the inside unit, the outside unit how everything's vented, all of that you do the full video walkthrough these are the things that I believe we have to change. These are other conversations we've had with the customer, but then one that's often overlooked, and this was something I learned at AnyHour, was doing a post install video walkthrough. So that if you happen to get a call back from a customer saying, Hey, I don't, you guys did this wrong and now it's not working and dah, you've got the video file to compare to the actual inspection. When you get that call back and go back and see and say, ah, things, this doesn't look right. What happened here? Did you happen to tamper this at all, Mr. Homeowner? And now you can have some honest conversations, right? And it's protecting you as a company.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah. Cause homeowners never fuck with their own shit.
Ronda Chaney:Never happens. We were fans of the return trip sales, making a return trip and that's really where we find the that we get referrals is that what, when our salesperson can say, Hey, Mrs. Jones and review everything and go through this, comprehensive checklist again, showing the value, differentiating ourselves, ensuring that we are positioning for a perfect install. How were Joe and Bob, they were fabulous. They were perfect everything's great I love them they were respectful they told me how, everything worked when you're a homeowner says that to you, that you've provided a perfect install, that's it awesome opportunity for a five star review and referrals.
Thaddeus Tondu:And referrals, that's the other part that I think a lot of people miss they talk about reviews all the time. We've had a lot of good episodes on that and referrals, though, I think is a missed opportunity at that moment in time, when they've had this, they're asking for that. What's, what sort of approaches can somebody do and use to be able to get more referrals into their business?
Ronda Chaney:So certainly, I think having a referral program in place is really good. I would say this, I'm going to back up and I'm going to sound like a broken record on process. If we need to first focus on our callback metric, the perfect install, the perfect service call if our callbacks are on the service side are 10%, we're not going to get a lot of referrals they're 10%, on the in sale side, we're not going to get a lot of referrals. So it's really focusing on driving the exceptional, excellent, perfect customer experience is what drives referrals and then if we, you know, we have a good referral program in place and we leverage that through social media, and things like that, certainly that's helpful. But I would focus on a metric our callback metric is going to be an indicator for us, whether we're going to get referrals or not.
Thaddeus Tondu:Sure and what's a good callback metric for somebody to strive for?
Ronda Chaney:Yep. So I'm going to say on the service side, sub 2%. So all those technicians out there would wish that they shoot darts at me right now. I think anytime we can get, three or 4% we're getting pretty close, but, and then I would say on the install side sub 5% and driving as close to that 2 percent as possible.
Thaddeus Tondu:Sure and then in terms of an actual referral program, what have you guys seen in terms of data on some ideas that somebody could look to be able to implement to be able to make work that actually work?
Ronda Chaney:Yeah. So that is it's not been a metric that I have been intimately involved in. So I'd have to I'd have to defer to our marketing team on that certainly when I was in the industry the, what we looked at is what percentage of our leads or our new client acquisition are coming from referrals. That's a key metric that we're looking at but in terms of what specific program works I know what I did, but I can't necessarily, don't feel confident in talking too deeply about that, but
Thaddeus Tondu:I will ask though, what did you guys do that worked cause that could be in and of itself's a program for somebody.
Ronda Chaney:Yep. Certainly we acknowledged every lead. So if a client provided us a lead, if somebody called and said, Hey Mrs. Jones told us that you're great and whether we sold anything or close anything we sent a 5 gift card to that client and a handwritten. Thank you note that said, thank you so much for that. Because data that we had working from, or I was operating from that a client will refer you maybe three times, and if they hear nothing from you, then they're going to assume that it's not very important to you and so they're not going to do it again. So it really is a relationship management. it's a acknowledging when they're doing something nice for us and doing what we want them to do is to acknowledge that and yeah with whether it's a thank you card or a gift card or whatever, but really acknowledging that and then certainly did we have a structure in place that said, hey if we closed the job and it was a 10, 000 job or 15 or whatever, then was there additional gift cards? Yes, we did all that. Absolutely. Yeah.
Thaddeus Tondu:I think the key thing though is at some point and not when they first call you, by the way because that's a bad time to ask. How did you hear about us? But phrasing it in a way of at some point in the process to be, Hey, were you referred by anybody? Because now this also preframes the expectation that, Oh, if you ask that question or you're referred by anybody, now the customer and the consumer thinks, Oh referrals are something that they can do. Maybe I can get a gift card or something like that and they're going to give referrals as well.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah, for sure.
Evan Hoffman:And it, yeah, it starts to set the tone, like moving forward that was something that back when I sold HVAC when you were a comfort advisor.
Ronda Chaney:There you go.
Evan Hoffman:I bought my customers a year's worth of filters.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah.
Evan Hoffman:And I would just have them in the trunk of the car and I was like, hey, I got a year's worth of filters. If you can write down 10 names of people, homeowners, friends, family, et cetera, give it a bunch of thought joggers of anyone that you think might be interested in hearing about the rebate offers that we showed you today and that was it and then a lot of people will be hesitant and you'd have to handle that objection as you go through it and just, again, thought joggers like, Oh, did you feel pressured when I was here selling you with you today, Mrs. Jones? And it starts to remove that whole fear and of just writing down names and then it's even easier now the next time, because now when you call on, or you ask that next person who was a referral to write down names again. Guess what? They were already a name written down. Did you feel pressured? No. Did you feel like I tried to oversell you? No. Okay. That's what I'm going to do with your friends too. I'm not here to sell people. I get paid just to show this stuff. It's okay. So that's what worked for me.
Ronda Chaney:Yeah. I think that's great. It really is. When you think about thinking beyond beyond the sale, but thinking and beyond even the five star review, as you said, that is, but thinking to the referral, it is about relationship management and that's really what we're talking about. How do we build relationships? Long term, loyal, raving fans that we have a close relationship with and it's far beyond just simply the sale and so that's where, again, we're looking at our processes pre, during and post that is really focused on managing the relationship.
Evan Hoffman:Being intentional that's what I wrote down that's how you start that process. If you're not intentional about it and you're just taking calls, managing day to day, putting out fires that come up, but you're not being intentional about those relationships that you have with your clients it's going to be impossible to maintain that raving fan over the long term.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well, 50 minutes. We would be remiss if we didn't say, hey, if you've gotten value from Ron and what she shared today, you want to reach out and ask questions. How can she help coach you? You can reach her directly at rondachaney@bdr.co you also, if you want to check out their profit launch, bdr.com/profit- launch is the website for that and there's a bunch of different events and it's not just one, there's a whole bunch of different ones and looking at the website and if you want to reach out to her on linkedin.com/in/rondaechaney. Let's see, I'd be able to get to that. So thank you Ronda for taking the time to chat with us. But before we wrap up,
Ronda Chaney:thanks for the invite.
Thaddeus Tondu:Hey, no, it was a ton of fun. But for wrap up, we do have one final question here for you though. What is one question that you wish people would ask you more, but don't.
Ronda Chaney:I was prepared for this. So I Yes. Okay. Yeah, so as I was thinking about this, I think the one question that I think I wish people would ask, and I'll spin it just a little bit, that I wish we would ask not just that I, people would ask of me, but we would ask ourselves is we focus so much of our time on what do I want to do? What do I want to do? I want to build a business, a 10 million heating and cooling business. I want to be 10%, 15%, 20 percent net profit. So I can buy, another home, a vacation home. I want, whatever. I want to do this. I don't think that we spend I know personally enough time thinking about who do I want to be. Because who we want to be drives everything that we do, right? And I loved and I think it was Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book where he talked about what do we want our epitaph to say? Cause I'm pretty sure it's none of us really care that it says I, was a multimillionaire but and I have multiple homes and I have multiple sports cars and I beat the rock in a fight. None of us really care about that. I don't care about that. I want my epitaph to say that I loved God and I loved and cared for others that's what I really want it to say and so is my life structured around that? Is our life structured around who we want to be versus who we want to do? I think that's the question.
Thaddeus Tondu:I once undertook an exercise of writing my own memoir eulogy. There we go. Writing my own eulogy once and it was a very deeply moving thing to do, because it opened up my eyes to a completely different way of how to do things and in that line I would challenge anybody to write their own eulogy, not just their epitaph go deeper write your own eulogy, because that shit's fucking wild.
Evan Hoffman:I'm curious, did you write it from a perspective of If you died today, what it would say about your life currently, or did you write it from the perspective of, at the end of my life, this is what I want people to say about me? It was more at the end of my life but it was also veiled through the filter of where I was at that time and I wrote it down on a piece, I hand wrote it so I don't have a copy of it I lost it in a move which sucks because that would have been great to keep but yeah, it happens sometimes but it was what I wanted. What's great is you get to do it over and I should almost do it over, but it was written of how I wanted people to see me, but also veiled through where I was currently at in a changed kind of how my outlook on different things would be and what I actually wanted to achieve and what I actually wanted to do and so it's again deeply eye opening and moving because I think to your point, nobody ever says, and nobody ever says, Hey I like the multimillionaire thing, right? To go to one step deeper is why are you building your business? I hear some people say I work 60, hours a week. Great and they say, because I'm doing it for my family. What if your family doesn't want that? What if your family wants you?
Ronda Chaney:Yeah and that's the sweet thing about coaching. To bring it full circle but we get to live in the the details of people's lives because you can say, we're going to separate business from the person, from the fan, it doesn't get separated. We're all one, so exactly what you said that he says that when you have those realizations of what is my, why then as a business coach, how do we help support that, how do we build the business to their why? That may not be 20% net income end, but it might be a legacy business for my kids and my grandkids and so it's just the beauty of this industry and what we do.
Thaddeus Tondu:And other part is it, there, you don't have to also be is the multi million dollar per year business either you reverse it off of your why and what you want completely fine to be a 1 million per year business or you and your truck or 5 million and be happy and content being there. But the other part though, if you are 5 million per year business, is that, and I learned this somebody who's talking about this is that people will outgrow your offer. So your employees will outgrow your offer if that is the choice that you want to make to stay there. And by the way, that's that's something that deep down you have to be okay with. If somebody is going to outgrow your offer, that you're going to have to love great people. Away because they want something bigger for themselves because that's the decision that you made for you and your business and that is okay, by the way.
Ronda Chaney:Absolutely.
Thaddeus Tondu:No, that's okay. But understand that part of it.
Ronda Chaney:That a self analysis that business owners, we as business owners need to do. Yeah. Love that.
Thaddeus Tondu:Asked me five years ago, I wouldn't have it.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, but that's it's so hard to do when your nose is down and you're just focusing on getting this next thing done, right? If you don't take that time to pause, reflect, think through what it is that I actually want, reflect on your business plan, reanalyze it and ask yourself again is this really what I want?
Ronda Chaney:That's again, coming back to, we look at, we focus on we start with the end in mind. What's the end? and then we build from there, we build back because that's going to dictate the people the processes, everything.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah. Look at us getting all deep here. I love the last question. I love that last question because it's sparked so many different, like it goes, you can go anyway and I love this one because it was a good one. So homework for people listening is write your epitaph and if you want to go further, write your eulogy because it'll be deeply moving. On that note, Ronda for jumping on with us great episode, great insights, great information. Thoroughly enjoyed it and as we so often say at the end of every show, until next time.
Evan Hoffman:Cheers.
Ronda Chaney:All right. Cheers. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well, That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing. If you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all. One person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.