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: 231 Amanda Wilhelm w/ ProfitFill - Revolutionizing HVAC Marketing
🎧 Exciting insights from the latest HVAC Revealed podcast episode featuring Amanda Wilhelm! 🔥
In this episode, hosts Evan and Thaddeus dive deep into the importance of understanding your market and allocating your marketing budget effectively. Amanda shares her expertise on building trust with agencies and adapting strategies based on industry-specific factors.
Key takeaways:
• Know your market inside out. Understanding the age of appliances and homes in your area can significantly improve your marketing targeting and overall success.
• Invest in your brand and SEO for long-term sustainability. While paid ads can be effective, a strong brand presence and organic search visibility are crucial for weathering market fluctuations.
• Adapt your marketing spend based on situational factors. Continuously test and adjust your budget allocation based on environmental factors, such as market crashes or election years, to maximize effectiveness and community impact.
Tune in to the full episode for more valuable insights on effective marketing strategies for HVAC businesses. Don't forget to join the Facebook group and share this informative show with others in the industry!
#HVACRevealed #MarketingStrategies #IndustryInsights #Podcast #HVAC
Find Amanda
Via Email: amanda@profitfill.com
Facebook: facebook.com/profitfill
Instagram: instagram.com/profitfill.software
LinkedIn: inkedin.com/company/profitfill
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:
Chiirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: https://elitecall.net
Service World Expo: https://www.serviceworldexpo.com/
On Purpose Media: https://onpurposemedia.ca
Definitely. You've chosen your agency for a reason, right? You've trusted them. You like what they've done. Give them that trust.
Evan Hoffman:Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Show where we have great conversations with great people and any good conversation worth having is worth having completely sober, drinking water, having a great time. I'm super stoked for today's episode. We have a dear friend of ours, Amanda Wilhelm, coming on the show. She is with ProfitFill someone who we've known for years. Amanda and I first started having chats a couple of years ago, just reached out on Facebook. I was, we were getting into the marketing space and I noticed that she was local. She was in Calgary and so I wanted to reach out and just connect with her, find out what she was doing. She was super secretive about everything and wouldn't tell us anything. We became friends and now she shared all her secrets with us. And we're going to get into some fun PPC conversations today. As it's something that's incredibly expensive for home service businesses right now. And you need to be very strategic with how you're going about it and how you can maximize it. So I'm super stoked for the conversation.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah. And it like, I think 2014, maybe 2015 is back when I first met Amanda in the magazine thing. I actually remember trying to pitch her she was working with a company called Action Furnace at the time one of the, one of the larger HVAC companies in Calgary. It is fun and then now with a special announcement coming near the end of the show between ProfitFill and On Purpose Media. So that's going to be a fun one. So excited to dive in but of course today's show would not be possible without our sponsors. We have Chiirp Elite Call Service World Expo On Purpose Media. Have you ever thought about opening your databases to fill your dispatch boards with lucrative service and sales appointments? Now you can. 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 boards. Don't let your competition get ahead. Visit elitecall.net to learn more.
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Amanda Wilhelm:Hi.
Evan Hoffman:I know that office.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah, it's the same office that Evan was recording in a couple of weeks ago, but the background looks way better. I think somebody's wearing it a lot better than Evan did.
Evan Hoffman:Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a long time coming since we, we first started having conversations around, getting you on and talking about ProfitFill and being able to talk about your journey into the trades and working with them so closely with action and then at home pod, all the different agencies you've been a part of But now building an incredible software that we're going to get into at the end of the show, because we want to make sure we add value up front. So walk us through your journey into the trades. Why it was so enticing to you when you were a part of an agency where it did have multiple different businesses that it was servicing and multiple different verticals. Why was the home service industry so attractive to you?
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. So I had actually originally started working at Yellow Pages where you could see, buy a full page ad and be busy for a year. But Yellow Pages in Canada was also one of the larger digital agencies. So they were reselling Google SEO websites. Clicks were 25 cents back then. They are not that cheap now. But it was just a different, conversation I was having with business owners. I was saying, Hey, have you heard of Google? Let me show you what Google is as opposed to how to be strategic. Just a long career of seeing the ebbs and flows of digital marketing and Google ads specifically. And then of course, moving away from Yellow Pages and into pod marketing, which was an agency, they had less The industry is then Yellow Pages. Yellow Pages is every industry pod really focused on. And that was the whole essence of the agency was have marketers in pods that really understood the industry so that they could build very specific marketing systems for eye care or for dentists. And I was brought on to run the home services department. I get asked that a lot, like why home services? Why are you so passionate about it? It's just the business owner in home services, like the people that, it's often, and remember when I started, right? So it's often a husband, wife, team, usually the wife doing a lot more than the husband, but we'll get into that in a different podcast. They're building generational wealth for their family. They're employing, local people that have, that work very hard to feed their families. And they're very down to earth type of people for the most part. I think that there's exceptions to that rule. But they really care about their business. So there's nothing worse as a marketer to spend all this time building a strategy and really caring about someone's business and they don't care about it themselves, where in home service, they all really care and they really want to win. So I, That competition, the competitiveness, I really aligned with. And I just felt like I meshed well with home service businesses. So yeah, that was just where my passion led. And then I, one of my first clients was like a 9 million business in Calgary. And it's Action Furnace. So they were residential, service based, HVAC business only. They didn't do new build, commercial, any plumbing, nothing. And the owner of Action really Opened up everything for me. He's, he let me sit in on CSR calls, ride alongs, showed me his P&L statements helped them with call scripting. I knew the business intimately because of company. They really did want me to learn everything about HVAC. And so they taught me and that was the most valuable school that I ever went to. I mean, I went to cooking school guys, just so you know, I was a chef before home services. So, I learned how to, cook a prime rib really well, but running an HVAC business, I had no context in. And thankfully, the owners of Action Furnace really did educate me on all of that. So we, we had lots of boardroom meetings. Whiteboard meetings where we're sketching things out and they're teaching me and we're doing different strategies. They also gave me a test budget, which if any of you want to give your agency a test budget, they will love you. for testing out new types of ads, right? I want to try if Spotify is going to work or I want to test, a community newspaper. I had a test budget and I still didn't use it on your newspaper.
Evan Hoffman:Were you, was this when you were at POD or was this while you were still at the Yellow Pages
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah, so at POD Marketing. We had a really small team that was working on the home services industry. Shout out Johnny Wenzel was my primary if anybody knows who that is, we worked together at POD and we worked together with Action Furnace and, really tried to build some of the most, Innovative strategies that a lot of agencies weren't even trying because they didn't have the budget that we were given, right? So it also matters if I have a small budget to work with. I'm not testing I'm going to what I know already works so that small budget goes as far as possible, right? But with a larger budget it gives us that freedom to try new things. So yeah, pod marketing really let me run that. We, after discussions with Action and with other clients, we came to this realization that, our strategy should be built into a software because what we're actually trying to accomplish requires real time, data analysis every 10 minutes making adjustments on ads. And I just couldn't employ that many people to be honest and be profitable. So we really set out to build code that would help accomplish what we were trying to accomplish. Basically put me in an AI, if we could.
Thaddeus Tondu:And so you've got, you've seen like a transition from like almost being the sole person to be able to do things to working with somebody that's in house in a marketing agency to almost more or less being an in house individual to the mark to, to action. When you're looking at an HVAC owner who is working with their marketing agency and they don't have the resources to be able to bring somebody in house what they had, what action had with, Johnny or somebody equivalent. Yeah. What would you tell that business owner in terms of being able to adequately work with their marketing agency more effectively to be able to get a better return on their investment?
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. Definitely you've chosen your agency for a reason, right? You've trusted them. You like what they've done. Give them that trust. Let them, help them be successful for you. The businesses that have grown the most with me are the ones that bring somebody in house or at least assign somebody to be that point of contact if the business owner is too busy, then the marketing agency will never be able to get things done. Get them photos when they ask you for them. Reply to, when they send you a blog post, approve it and let it go live so that it can go, on your website soon enough and it can start ranking. Be an active participant. Show up to your meetings. Hold them accountable sure. Make sure that they're obviously optimizing your ad account and understands your business fully, but that's on you, right? As a business owner, it's on you to make sure that they have the information that you really, that an agency really needs. Now, on top of it, if you're, if leads are 300 and you're not answering your phone, whose fault is that? That's not the agency, right? If your techs aren't taught how to upsell and you're paying 300 for a repair lead, that's on you. Because you didn't upsell that to an equipment, like the marketing team is going to do the best job we can to get you the best leads possible. We're obsessed with, I don't know about you guys, but we obsess about quality of lead because that's ultimately what we're being held accountable to. I also think business owners need to obsess about the quality of answering the phone and, how their technicians are taking those leads and what they're doing with them. Multiple parts to this, but marketing only works so well, as well as the business that we're working with.
Thaddeus Tondu:It's the reality is if you, if the marketing agency sends you a hundred qualified leads or good leads, and some people like a lead is somebody that has a pulse and can breathe, right? That's what some people say, right? 20 of those phone calls you've left. people that are out there that just go to somebody else. And so it's a key piece of the marketing equation.
Amanda Wilhelm:And I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure you can hire someone for 20 an hour to answer your phone. If that is the problem, solve it quickly. Don't even think about it. Don't outsource the most important part of your company, which is your customer service, in my opinion. There are answering services, but find one that has a higher close rate than someone you've trained in house. And I will recommend them, but I haven't seen that yet. that is the first interaction you have with your customer and you need to own it and own it really well.
Evan Hoffman:Outsourcing has its place because if you're too busy and you're the owner answering the phones you need to fix that immediately. And you shouldn't be putting dollars into advertising before you, you figure that part out.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. What I mean by that is don't, and also, answer your phone first and then hold your marketing accountable for the quality of lead, but listen to the calls as well. If you're not listening to how your CSRs are answering it, or even your call center, if you're not listening to it, you're not taking learnings either, right? If you're saying my call out fee is 95 and people aren't booking in, you as an owner need to Lower your follow fee potentially, right? You get a ton of learnings just by listening.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, the market will dictate and tell you the issues that they have with your company. They will not be shy about it.
Amanda Wilhelm:They will.
Evan Hoffman:What else can business owners do to be a better marketing partner? Cause like you got the firsthand knowledge of everything that was happening within action while you were working there, which made you a better marketer. So answering the phones better, better. What else can they do to help open that door, bridge the gap, help their marketers understand what else they can be doing to get a better result.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. So really the game changer, I'm not saying you have to do this with your marketing team every time, but I, if you can, great. So with action, we sat, we took a map of the city and we sat in a room, we blew it up massive. And we took a pen, me and the owner, And we literally drew circles around where the 15 year old furnaces were in the city. Okay, we built what we called, I'm going to coin this, HLGZs, Hyperlocal Geozones. Okay, I'm sure everybody's using that now, but 10 years ago they were not. And what did we do with that? Why do we care? A, they're out of warranty, so it's not free work even if we installed it. Obviously, you get a better opportunity to upsell, but even more than that, I'm willing to bid higher on 15 year old furnaces to fill the repair schedule. But a marketer doesn't know your market as well as you do, right? Give them that insight. Tell them, hey, this is new build. They just got built last year. They all have questions. Brand new furnaces, not good for targeting on furnace, but they are great for targeting on air conditioners. All of a sudden your marketing team has information to go and use. Okay, cool. Now I can put this postal code or zip code for us customers heavier bid and more, more targeting of the ads and for air conditioning on a new build versus a 50 year old furnace. Again, they took the time to educate me on the entire market. I've lived here my entire life. And I didn't know where all of the older furnaces were in the home, but that really helped our marketing because now as a mark, like I'm not just blanketing the city, we're putting bus benches, we're doing community newspapers, everything in that community, right? Paid ads, YouTube, Facebook, and we're able to be successful for that company because they told us very finite detail what their goals were and who their ICP was ideal customer profile, right? Their ideal customer is somebody who has a 15 year old furnace, anything less than that, they don't really want to target yet, right? Until it's at a warranty.
Thaddeus Tondu:And a key thing that you said there is new builds aren't good for furnaces, but they're good for air conditioning. In Canada, they don't specifically in Calgary, they don't build new homes with air conditioners, right? It's something that you add on after the fact. And so understanding the nuances of the market, I'm sure there's places in the U. S. that build the same way. There's places in the U. S. that don't even really think about putting a furnace in, right? Standard with an air conditioner and a furnace is an afterthought, like Florida, right? They call them heaters down there too, right? But so again, those different nuances that are super important that people aren't going to pick up on are key things to be able to tell your marketing agency. Also, the marketing agency should probably ask some of those questions too. What's a good area to looking at those, that sorts of things and having a detailed onboarding process, your zip codes and what's important to you as a business. But it starts with you also understanding that.
Amanda Wilhelm:Like a good example, just to add to that, if you're a plumbing company and you don't do sewers, The agency needs to know not to bid very high on drain cleaning, right? However, if you're getting a 20, 000 ticket on replacing a sewer, you should be willing to spend a lot more on drain cleaning. Very different company. You have to let your marketing agency know what type of jobs you really want. Because they need to then fill the top of the funnel with the ads and be willing to spend a little bit more if there's a 20, 000 ticket.
Thaddeus Tondu:The same thing with AC repair, right? What's your average ticket, what's your blended ticket, what's your turnover, what's your ability to be able to upsell that into a new system, right? If you're just getting an AC repair and you're continually batting out 250 repair jobs Google has probably isn't the right thing for you to bid on AC repair.
Evan Hoffman:Your business. Know your techs. Know how you answer calls. Are you able to book some more than others? Because you got a great tune up offer that makes sense.
Amanda Wilhelm:Know your zip codes. Like it's on the front page of ServiceTitan. Which zip codes you perform better in. Tell your agency so that they only focus there. give them the tools so that they can be better at their jobs.
Evan Hoffman:And one of those tools is budget. And you mentioned that in your initial rants as well. And talking about it was a rant. Come on. And talking about the experience with action. So when it comes to building out a budget, you talked about this at Profit Rocket too, when you were up on stage giving your talk there the difference between brand budget and then paid ads budget and then how to allocate that. So I guess just the overarching concept of budget, what should companies be budgeting for, and then breaking it down into the different allocations that they can own their backyard. What does it make sense there?
Amanda Wilhelm:It depends on the size of company you are, to be honest, I wouldn't give the same weighting towards the same, if it's a 10 million company versus a 3 million company, they need different things right now and they don't have as big of a budget to go as far. So let's say we're talking about an average HVAC company, 5 million First of all, don't expect your marketing budget to fill your entire schedule at that point, because it won't. And it's too expensive to do that at this point, right? We have to have SEO, we have to have social media, we have to have, billboards, radio, all of that. Now your job is to figure out what's the what's the biggest bang for your buck when you're buying all of this media, right? So I can get impressions. on Facebook, YouTube, display all of the different ad platforms. Where am I buying it the best and which one is activating the highest engagement rate? All of these things you have to consider. So hire an agency and they're going to deal with all of that, right? So that should be 50 percent of your budget. Is your digital activation, SEO, working with the online team. And now I think 50 percent of your budget should be offline because now you're trying to build your brand and you're trying to compete with the 20, 30, 50 million businesses in your market. You're big enough now. You need to grow, you need to now really invest in billboards, bus benches, radio, TV, all of those. And now it's about, you become a media buyer, which is the best what gives me the biggest bang for my buck. And I would say own an audience. You don't have as big of a budget as some of the private equity out there that can just sponsor every radio station and every TV station in your market. You have to own the drive home or own the drive to work or the weather segment on the TV on the news, right? So really hone and nurture that one smaller audience. And even more than that, nurture your best zip codes. Everything you got because you don't have a big enough budget for you to really blanket the entire city. Like we say, own your GMB, own one block around it, then own your neighborhood, then your quadrant, then your city. Don't try to go to city two until you're 100 percent market saturated in your first city.
Evan Hoffman:Yep. And that's one is more efficient from a business in terms of spend because you're targeting a smaller neighborhood too. It's more efficient as a business because now your techs aren't driving. All the way across town for a job that might only be 200 bucks, right? Let's keep them nice and close. Keep drive times down, keep windshield time down. So we can actually maximize our profitability on those calls. Do you have a percentage in mind for this business? Cause you said 50 percent goes to offline versus online. What percent of revenue. Not past revenue, but revenue goal for this year should be spent on marketing.
Amanda Wilhelm:It depends again. Okay. So we have
Evan Hoffman:a marketer's favorite answer, by the way.
Amanda Wilhelm:I know, but you have to tell again, be honest with your agency. Hey, I'm building a brand that I'm going to pass along to my children. That's a different conversation than I'm going to sell in two years. And so I think you need to consider all of those things when you're making your budget. Is it going to be a growth year? You have to spend more on your marketing to hit a growth, right? So I want to grow, I want to grow my revenue 30%. My recommendation is you need a 15 percent budget and I'm going to get a lot of people with their jaws dropped because I know everybody's recommending a 6 percent marketing cost. I just haven't seen the growth. When we do that genuinely see time and time again, at least 10 percent marketing costs to see a heavy growth year. Now, if you're selling next year and you're selling on EBITDA, maybe you don't want to spend so much this year because again, branding this year helps for next year, right? And so if you are willing to invest, This year, it'll pay off next year and it'll accumulate, right? So it really depends on where you're at in your business, but 10 percent is a good number in general, 10 percent is a good number. What are your thoughts on that? What do you think?
Evan Hoffman:My follow up is going to be, do you ever vary that spend based on what's happening in the environment as well? IE. 2008 market crash, people aren't going to be rushing out to be spending on a new system. So they're not searching as much on Google for those demand type searches. But branded ads during that time are fantastic because everyone's pulled their money off of their ads, got cheaper, reach went further, and it made a greater impact on the community and the market. Look at Ford. They took over the market share in 2008 because they doubled down on their advertising instead of pulling out. Election year, traditional media gets way more expensive. So during those times, do we look at other avenues to try and reach our audience?
Amanda Wilhelm:Yes, absolutely. And you have to test it. It's not just even, the what's going on, like it's an election year, but every market is different. And that as a marketer who specializes in HVAC, you either hire someone who specializes in HVAC and they know everything about your industry, or you special, you hire someone local, right? Who knows everything about your market. It's tough to have both. And, it does matter what is your demographic? Is it an aging community? Is it what's going on locally? What's going on in, all of those things go into account for sure. I would say If you're at a 3 percent marketing cost, you're not spending enough and you're probably not growing. So in any year, and I've seen a lot of companies that are wanting to boast about a 3 percent or a 1 percent marketing cost. And I say imagine what it would be if you gave me 10, right? Like now we have a real chance at growing substantially. And it's not just spending don't just spend a spend. Spend strategically and make sure that you have tested a smaller budget. Know that when you grow that budget it will work. However, I would say, I would argue, if it's a. Your budget should be determined. Half of your budget should be determined based on how many jobs you have unsold, regardless of what's going on, right? If you invested heavily last year and your SEO is killing it and you don't need Google ads to fill your schedule, I would also say you need to hire somebody so that you can use Google ads to grow, if you've invested in your brand and that's, what's keeping you busy, you shouldn't have to spend so much on Google, right? And so it really depends on how much you've invested in the past. And what your market looks like. And did a competitor just come into my market this year? So lots to consider. Can't train an AI to know exactly what is right for every business. You obviously need humans and marketers to understand the goals and what's going on. But one day.
Thaddeus Tondu:No like it's, there's such a varied degree because There's so many different variables that go into it. And do you, is your brand even strong? Do you have a strong brand? Are you ABC heating and cooling or in red and white, or do you actually have a standout pop name that has a great wrap and a great vehicle design and a great logo and all those things help out because now when you do your branding you can differentiate yourself a little bit more. And so also a variable, also a factor that goes into it.
Amanda Wilhelm:And also what is your star rating, right? Marketers can impact that. I don't have an impact on if you have a four star rating versus a 4. 8 star rating, we can help with automation and tools, but that's really just do a good job. So yeah, there's a lot of factors that go into it.
Evan Hoffman:What are you seeing in CBC costs as of late?
Amanda Wilhelm:This is a really interesting conversation because for the right keyword, they're almost. impossible, like it's not profitable at some, for the right keyword, right? So I really want to bid on AC Repair in Phoenix, Arizona, but it costs me 300 a click. So can I do that, right? And should I do that? And I have a hard time, when other people or other marketers are saying we get it for cheaper and I look into their ad account and I look at the search terms and actually they haven't made their branded term a negative keyword. So actually they're paying way too much and not enough for the right keyword, but the right keywords that bring the right customers cost us a lot of money. And it doesn't mean that it's not worth it. It means that your agency and you need to have an open, honest, continual conversation of whether it's worth it or not, right? Because at some, in some points of the year, you might have to, and there is no option. And if it becomes too unprofitable, you might just have to shut off ads altogether, but you risk losing technicians. That's not a decision a marketer should be making without. A business owner discussing what the implications are, right? So I could bid on less quality, like less expensive keywords that don't bring as much revenue. But am I really doing my job then, right? It's as a marketer, it's our job to inform our business owners. Hey, listen, cost per clicks are, in my market, AC repairs, 70. So it's manageable, but in some markets it's not. And so what do we do at that point? Because we've really relied so heavily on Google for so long to run, to fill HVAC schedules. And when you can't rely on it anymore, what do you do, right? You have to build your brand. And you're hoping that you built your brand up until this point, because now I shut off Google ads. You have to hope that your SEO and your brand. Fills your schedule. And often it doesn't, so you have to make that decision. Is it better to go 50 percent unsold or to spend more to fill it?
Thaddeus Tondu:Almost sounds like a person should go brand SEO and then ads.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yes.
Thaddeus Tondu:And just for those that were listening, CPC was cost per click, by the way.
Amanda Wilhelm:So it doesn't mean that you don't It can still be very profitable. I think we get into issues is when You give your entire marketing budget to Google and rely on it because you're renting space there, right? So you're not building equity in your brand very much by doing that. You always have to pay to get your schedule full, right? So I know it's tough when you're a 1 million business, it's tough to be able to afford all of these things like SEO and a really good logo and a really good vehicle wrap, but you opened a business. This is the cost of doing business. Yes, you need to invest in your brand. Otherwise, no one's going to choose you on a Google ad. So that's not going to perform as well. And when they go to your website, if you don't have a nice brand or a unique selling proposition, they're going to go back and click somebody else. But that just costs you up to 300 for that click, right? That website experience is so vital. I think people don't care as much as they should. Like I do genuinely think HVAC business owners don't care as much as they should about the landing page experience that they're sending ad traffic. Yeah. The brand first invest in SEO, whatever you can do, even if it's you typing out blogs and adding them, do that just so that you can start building your rankings and start building your. Your market awareness and then, yeah, use ads to help fill just the last 25 percent of your jobs in your schedule. Try not to fill the whole thing. I don't think you will be profitable by doing that.
Thaddeus Tondu:Transitioning a little bit into leveraging technologies and kind of what ProfitBuild is doing in leveraging for that, now you mentioned AC repair and trying to be a little bit more efficient. Oftentimes on Google, and maybe I'll tee this up very nicely for you, is that if you're bidding on, let's say AC repair, and you have a full three days worth of a schedule does it even make sense to continue to bid on AC repair when you know you can't get to those calls and they're going to go somewhere else versus having an empty schedule in wanting to book and fill it up with some of the most lucrative things. So what's ProfitFill doing to be able to help? Yeah.
Amanda Wilhelm:So you know where it is today is we are, we do have active clients that profit bill is running the, so basically our clients we're integrated with ServiceTitan right now. So what it does is it reads adjustable capacity planning in ServiceTitan, and it knows for each business unit, how many jobs. Business unit needs to be full, right? So if you have one technician, there's eight hours. If you have two jobs for two hours, there's four available hours and it converts it into jobs. We have two available jobs today. As soon as you're full for three days, or maybe it's hot, like maybe it's 110 degrees in Phoenix right now and no one's waiting three days. We lower that to one day capacity. So you have the controls to decide per business unit how long it lasts. And then as soon as your schedule is full for those X amount of days, three days, it starts throttling your ads down on Google so that we're not spending as much, right? When you are desperate for leads and we need 20 ACC Repair leads today. Sorry about your spending. You need to spend to get that. Your SEO didn't work enough to fill those 20 leads today. Your branding hasn't gotten you those 20 leads. We now need to go out and buy them. And so Profitville will find the most profitable leads or campaigns to activate first to then fill those jobs. And then when those are full, it'll throttle those ads down.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it's all done automatically.
Evan Hoffman:So you talked about adjustable capacity. So for those that don't know what that is or don't have it in ServiceTitan, why is this a better way to manage your schedule and manage your technician's availability?
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. So I've never been a CSR. I've never been a dispatcher. So please, I would love to hear feedback as to what you're doing if you're not using adjustable capacity. That would be my wish for anybody who's watching this. Send me a note and let me know how you do it. But essentially what it should do is it tells you right on Service Titan, literally how many open hours each technician has. So you would assign a technician his shift. So eight to five, Monday through Friday. And now we have 40 hours. That this technician can work and it's displayed in a day by day basis per business unit. So if your technician is a typically a repair guy, you would assign him to the repair business unit. And now we have eight hours unsold as soon as you book him for four jobs, he's now fully booked. And it shows you in real time how many Who has availability? So as a CSR or as a dispatcher, you're able to really quickly look at a glance when your next opening is for, and then you can go and book the job. So I don't know how you're doing it without having adjustable capacity, to be honest. And if you aren't using adjustable again, please let me know, because I'm curious how you as a CSR wouldn't even know. I think some people are using the tray and then they're Booking their schedule fully full, and then they're calling customers back and canceling, and then giving a better job instead, which is a different way of doing it, but adjustable capacity is really useful. And the clients that we work with that have it, they find it very useful too.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, no, I think. It's incredibly effective for managing the time and to be able to, to properly dispatch out right call, right tech and be able to do all of that.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah, it's not an add on. I don't think they would charge you extra for that, right? It's part of their core product. Do it.
Evan Hoffman:It's one of the rare things.
Thaddeus Tondu:I was very, yeah, anything. Yeah. Oh, you want this on ServiceTitan? It costs you more money.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. That was a little shade. I liked it.
Thaddeus Tondu:We got to throw a little jab in there. I have no ill will to service Titan. I have no ill will to any really field service management platform. It's just a little jab that I think they probably know it too.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. I have more jabs. But we don't need to, but if we're talking about CRMs, please make your API available. That's the only way we exist, is if you let us read your schedule.
Evan Hoffman:So when it comes to choosing a CRM, when it comes to choosing an FSM, What are some of the qualifications that a contractor should look at?
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah, so I'm not sure which ones aren't any yet, but when we were starting Profita, a lot of the CRMs or FSMs weren't cloud based. So step one, make sure you have a cloud based software. Two, make sure it has an open API or an API that will allow you to apply to use, right? It doesn't necessarily need to be open, but it needs to have the ability to connect it to your other softwares. Otherwise, you're really limited in just that one environment, and you're not able to use some of the other really cool softwares like ProfitFill. Those would be the two that I would look at. I would also just look at like, where are you at today? And do you need all the bells and whistles, right? So without giving any sort of any other recommendations there, if you don't need them, simplify your life and go for the software that really makes sense for your business. But if you think you're going to grow, also consider that, right? It's a massive disruption in your business to transfer from one to another. Really make sure that this is the decision, like that you've thought this through thoroughly and hire someone to help you with the transition further.
Thaddeus Tondu:And also know that no matter which one you choose, there's still going to be some limitations and roadblocks and frustrations with it because it's. They're all like that. They all have their own nuances.
Amanda Wilhelm:For sure. Yeah. I would also ask, so if you're doing a demo with one of them, ask them to talk to some of their customers and that usually another HVAC company will just like screen share and show you what they're seeing in their interface and just. Ask them how they like it, what limitations they're seeing, that kind of stuff. There's some better ones out there for sure.
Evan Hoffman:And at the end of the day, they're there to help you grow your business, right? And so understanding where it is that you want to go and what you want to get out of it and how you can maximize it is incredibly important.
Thaddeus Tondu:And that's what I like about ProfitFill is in terms of maximizing it is it's getting a contractor to spend less on Google and earn more in their business. Their checkbook, right? Their pocketbook, their revenues, because you're scaling up, scaling down based off of availability and you're not wasting ad spend. As a result, you're actually minimizing your ad spend to get more fun stuff.
Amanda Wilhelm:I'm going to just, I'm going to say one thing. So often they end up not spending less because really quickly they realize that they're not giving enough budget to fill their schedule. It might not be spend better.
Thaddeus Tondu:You spend more to fill your schedule, right? And but it's opening up and exposing that to say, okay, there's an actually a more efficient way to be able to do that in order to be able to fill your schedule. I guess what you need to spend more, but it's maximizing the dollars to make it worthwhile and count.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah, like I usually say this, okay, if everything else didn't work, use Google to fill your schedule, right? And so your budget needs to be as big as that gap is. If you have a marketing pro on and you're activating your rehash and that's filling your schedule, great. Then you shouldn't have to spend very much on Google ads. If your SEO is killing it, Great. If your trucks are have the best brand out there and that's what's filling your schedule, great. Then you don't have to spend on Google Ads. However, the second you hire your next technician, you need four more jobs a day times 22 days and you need to have some way of filling that, right? So what better than using Google Ads? That is exactly what it should be used for and not to fill the All of your entire 10 texts with their jobs. You need to work on everything else so that you don't give Google all of your money. That's our motto. Try to do whatever you can not to give Google your money.
Thaddeus Tondu:Love that. Amanda, thank you for coming on to share. All of your information, of course, before we another one last question, but if you want to reach out to them, profitfill.com is how you reach out to their website facebook.com/profitfill on the Instagrams. profitfill.software is their IG handle. But there's also something else that we wanted to share, ProfitFill plus on purpose media and what happens there. Who wants to share that one? Yeah, why don't you share that?
Amanda Wilhelm:Okay. We're really excited to partner with you guys. I know that I've been. We've been friends for a while, but now we're actually going at it together. So if you do, if ProfitFill sounded amazing to you, which I hope it did, reach out to Evan with On Purpose Media. You can subscribe there. There are reseller of ProfitFill. Maybe Evan, you take that and redo it. Redo it, because I still have it.
Evan Hoffman:So essentially this partnership, what it's going to allow Amanda to do is her and her team focused heavily on the software development side of things and make sure that they're staying on top of it. Because just as we were talking before, Google constantly comes out with new updates, new changes, sometimes undoing changes, and now they have to completely redo their processes. And so by allowing the partnership to exist between On Purpose Media and ProfitFill, we'll be working directly with clients. Walk you through it, make sure we help you get it set up. So onpurposemedia.ca/book-a-call to get set up with that demo. And we can show you everything on there and see if profit feels a good fit for you. And then we're able to work directly with clients, build out the budgets, understand what it is that they need to do in order to maximize their schedule and fill in those gaps. So that you can solve that revenue gap with a marketing solution.
Thaddeus Tondu:You take their world class product and our world class communication, and it's a mash made in heaven.
Amanda Wilhelm:I like it. Cause you get to get that real insight from. Working with HVAC companies and hold us accountable, right? Hey, listen, this algorithm isn't working. Fix it.
Thaddeus Tondu:And we don't have to hire the developers to be able to do it.
Amanda Wilhelm:Oh, we'll talk about that journey on another podcast.
Thaddeus Tondu:That'll be the after hours. before we go, we have one final question here for you, Amanda. What is one question that you wish to people would ask you more, but don't?
Amanda Wilhelm:I knew you were going to ask this question and I didn't prepare for it.
Thaddeus Tondu:As every guest ever, I think in the history of our show, we've had maybe two people cometh prepared with that answer.
Amanda Wilhelm:So it's not, if I'm going to be honest, it's just, What do you think about politics? And then say nothing else. And let me talk for two hours straight, but nobody said that because they know what I do. I just get into my political rants. And so nobody wants to ask me that question, but I want it every day.
Thaddeus Tondu:I'm not going to ask that on the show because I think we would probably be here for a long time, unless we're on the same political spectrum.
Evan Hoffman:I was going to say in 30 seconds or less.
Thaddeus Tondu:So give us a 30 second spiel on your political situation in Canada and a 30 second spiel on the political situation in the U. S. based on your opinion.
Amanda Wilhelm:Oh, really?
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah, go. We're all fucked and handbasket. There you go.
Amanda Wilhelm:I'm going to be cancelled, and our Canadian algorithms aren't going to show us at the top of Google anymore after this comment. However, we tend to live in a bit of a Socialist country up here. And as a free market capitalist, I don't align with a lot of the policies that are happening up here. And in the States, I'm not sure it's much better. I did watch the debate and was really scared for the state of, even Canada, cause we rely so heavily on. You guys having somebody who knows what they're doing. And I felt like it was very difficult to find a winner. I I think that's all I'm going to say. Cause I will get a little bit further down that road that I don't want to go.
Thaddeus Tondu:That'll be for a one on one conversation at the next event, ask Amanda her beliefs in the political state of both Canada and the U S and be prepared to hold on.
Amanda Wilhelm:I will tell you as a woman in tech, though. I'm a conservative until I want money from my government, and they give us a lot of money as a woman.
Evan Hoffman:Both sides of the coin. I like it. But isn't that a free market capitalist though? They take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to them.
Amanda Wilhelm:Yeah. Fair. There we go. That's my justification.
Thaddeus Tondu:There you go. Perfect. Works for me. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Amanda Wilhelm:Thanks for having me.
Thaddeus Tondu:Thank you so much. No worries. And until next time.
Evan Hoffman:Cheers.
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.