Digital Marketing for the HVAC industry: Why Online Presence is the Key to Business Growth

This is this is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Straight Out at Crumpton. I am Greg Crumpton coming to you today from beautiful Greenville, South Carolina. Hope everybody's having a great day. Good morning. It has been a busy, busy morning. I've been on the fly for about six hours already. Got a lot of stuff done. Talked to some really cool people already and one not so cool person already. But, we're gonna check them off to the don't talk about that anymore today list. And, got a special guest today, folks, Chris Cellellini, the founder and owner of Reputation Igniter is joining us. Chris and I have been connected for a little while now and have been following each other and kind of learning about what each other do. Chris is a HVAC industry kinda guy. And, we're gonna meet him, and find out exactly what he does. But it's a really, really cool little vertical niche within the HVAC world. What Chris does is he connects people via technology, that are outside of the little circle that we all have. We all have our sphere of influence, personal contacts, relationships, what have you. Chris takes that to a whole new level and, I think he is a combination of knowing people and knowing algorithms and knowing what to do and when and we're gonna learn about that today. So without further ado, Chris, welcome to Straight Out of Crumpton, my man. Thank you, Greg. I appreciate the, the warm welcome and the kind words. Yeah. I'm excited to to do what we can to add some value to your listeners, And, hopefully, they can just walk away with some some action items and or at least a better sort of sense of, you know, what's going on in their world, to to better help them serve serve their communities. Well, you know, I was thinking about this, when we were talking just before we hit record. And, this really could apply to darn near any industry, because, you know, we focus on HVAC. But I have to think that the world suffers from the same things in different Yeah. Little little spheres itself, you know, electrical people or or HR people or whatever. I would assume that there's a common denominator. And as I said in the opening, you know, we all have our little bubble. We live in a bubble regardless of how big or how small it is. And you can touch so many people and so many company in so many, you know, different contacts. But eventually, your your your reach is only so far. Mine is seventy two inches because I've measured it. And over the years, I've used my wings span to measure job sites and to do all kinds of stuff because it's a measured seventy two inch wingspan. But that's only seventy two inches of a great big world. So, you know, there's a lot of room. But before we dive into that, why don't you, just give us a little bit of history, what you do, why you do it, how you got to be, known for doing it, and and how we came together today. Yeah. No. I appreciate that, Greg. So, I'll try to give you the Reader's Digest version. You know, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Was fortunate enough to go back east to, to school. And then, I thought college was the answer, was the way. My dad had one master's degree, so I thought he lived comfortably. If I wanna be rich, I should get two. So I went and I got two of them, only to realize shortly thereafter that that didn't really, necessarily mean that you were going to be wealthy. And so that's when, I read two books. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Tim Ferris' four hour work week, and that literally changed my life. And I realized I need to be an entrepreneur. The only problem is that I, had signed a seven year contract, two years earlier with the United States Navy to serve. And so, I was, you know, out and about stationed in Pearl Harbor, stationed down in, San Diego, stationed out in, Charleston, South Carolina for a little while, which is where we've kinda shared, you know, back and forth, some similarities in terms of what we've experienced there. And then my last duty station was up in Bremerton, Washington, had two deployments to the Far East. And, yeah, it was it was a great great experience, and that's where I think my love for HVAC really was born. All of my education was in engineering. So I jokingly say I'm a recovering engineer turned entrepreneur. But I was in charge of reactor mechanical division, onboard the USS Ronald Reagan CVN, seventy six. And everything mechanical was was under my purview, right, for the for the reactor departments. And so, that's where I just sort of really fell in love with the trade, came out, was a marine engineer for the Washington state ferries, built two of those. And so looking at every sort of system that they possibly had on the ships. And then, out of that, I started a marketing company. Digital marketing companies did everything under the sun full sort of service agency focused on home services. About two and a half years into that, I switched pivoted, focused mainly on building a subscription based business based around helping customers and clients get reviews. But what I found is that after doing that for about five years, Google wasn't ranking you because you had the most reviews and you had the best star rating. And so there had to be another solution. There had to be another way to make sure that my clients were getting visibility on Google. And so I kind of created, like I said, a seal team six, if you will, of operators to, institute a different type of strategy that has been helping HVAC, contractors here for about five, six years. Really just make sure that they're seen throughout their service industry when anybody's searching HVAC related keywords. And so, yeah, the search engines have changed a lot. The search engine results pages have changed a lot, and I think that, for me, it's all about making it simple and the intuitiveness of understanding why Google does what it does, is easy to address and position yourself properly to to help you grow your business. So I don't know if that was hopefully, that was short enough. I apologize. I sometimes I get long winded. Well, that that's a lot, given your relatively youthful look. Anyway, I don't know how old you are, but you look you look, let's see. You look thirty one. So I'll go with I'll take that. I I'll I'll take that decade, and I'll put that in my pocket. Baby number three is on the way in June. So, you know, a bit of an older dad, I guess, if you wanna call it that. But feeling very blessed with, all I've been able to, you know, experience in this short time on earth. So Well, first of all, thank you for committing to, serve the country. It's, I know you hear, hey, thank you for your service and all, but I'm one of the people, I really mean it. You know? I'm a patriot at heart. I really appreciate the dedication to the country and the serving because without that, we're squat. You know? We're we're we we've got a boatload of issues right now as a country, but without a strong military, we would have a lot more issues. So, I won't get too politically charged this morning. But since it's May seventh of twenty twenty four and for those listening a decade later, this has been something to behold. So without further ado, algorithms, man. Yep. I I don't get it, you know, because I don't study that. And and that's your job to understand all that. But what the heck does Google really do? Give give us a layman's definition of how it works because I think, you know, regardless of what industry you're in, if you're searching for, you know, freaking shoes for your kid or whatever, or you're searching for a HVAC company, there are certain things that the machine is doing behind the scenes Yeah. To render, you know, the results that you're querying for. Just can you snapshot that enough for a dumb guy like me to get? Yeah. Well, first off, I think I should apologize on behalf of all marketers everywhere. We seem to overcomplicate this. And part of the reason I think that we do that is to make ourselves feel or seem more important than is necessary. And, I think the most important thing is we just gotta we gotta we gotta kinda zoom back first and foremost. Right? Look at Google and say, okay. What what is Google's main purpose? Right? Why is Google, you know, why do they have the business that they do? Right? Well, they're in the business of providing the best search engine. And why is that? Well, they wanna capture the majority of search. Right? They've got, like, ninety two or ninety six percent of the search. Right? Why do they have that? Because they've got the best experience. Right? When you go on and you wanna do something, you wanna find something, you go to Google. Right? Now we're just gonna take the AI thing aside. Right? Because, there there is that interplay, but that's more for people searching information. Let's assume this Let's do Google twenty four months ago. Yeah. Let's do Google twenty four months ago, and then I can talk about, like, what AI has done and why. Awesome. I wouldn't I wouldn't be worried about AI if you're a service based business, because of what I'm about to share. So Google is trying to give the best experience. Well, Google has, like, whatever you wanna call it, infinite data. Right? So Google has been ingesting data for years and years and years. Right? And they constantly are testing things all throughout the world, right, in terms of what the best user experience is. Now I just want you know, maybe you wanna follow along. If you're listening if you're in a car, don't do this. Right? But if you are at home, right, just go over your laptop, right, and type in HVAC contractors near me. Right? And the reason I want you to do this, I want you to understand how the search engine results pages are, sort of designed. Right? And why Google has done what they've done. Right? So at the top of any search like that, of any I mean, you could again, you can do, you know, air conditioning repair near me or whatever you want. Right? Well, Google's gonna present at the top are its ads. Why does it wanna present ads first? Well, it wants to make money. Right? So the the top results are gonna usually be local service ads or Google guaranteed depending on who you're talking to and and and what you like to call it. But those are paper call. Right? So somebody is calling or they're messaging or they're booking an appointment. Right? Those contractors that are showing up there, they're paying for that specific action being taken. This is not HomeAdvisor or Angie's list where you split it with, you know, three of your best buddies. They're not your best buddies. Right? Where it's a race to get to that person who usually doesn't call you back. It's just poor quality leads. Right? There's been issues with that. I'm not gonna go into that one either. But I think you should be on that. Are you gonna get a plethora of calls? No. But it's a way to earn some real estate. And every once in a while, you get a call off there, and it's usually pretty good quality. Right? So that's the first thing. Then it's Google pay per click or Google AdWords right below that. Those people are playing per click. There's no guarantee that that's gonna turn into a lead. It's just a click to your website. You get so many. You hopefully convert one, out of so many to actually being a client. Now that's where ten percent of the clicks to any search result go is to the ads. Right? These are people that are usually in a hurry. They're rushed or whatever. They're just trying to get something done. Right? Right below that, you're gonna see either three, sometimes four businesses. The reason you see four is the top one's an ad, by the way. But you usually see three businesses on the left hand side with a map to the right. Right? This is what Google calls Google Maps, or we call it the snack pack. Right? These are local service businesses that are relevant to your search, whatever HVAC related keyword you did. Based on your ZIP code. Yep. Based on your ZIP. So all of that, there's three things that really go into this if we're gonna kinda stay at a high level is one is proximity. Like, so how close are you to the searcher? Right? You can't really move your business around. Right? So that that's kind of like just a given that you can't really manipulate that. But the other one is prominence and relevance. We'll go into that a little bit later. But you wanna show up there. That's where sixty percent of the clicks go. And I would say that's where a hundred percent of the quality buyers go because just below that is the local SEO results. So the local, you know, search engine results. Right? So, that's where thirty percent of the clicks go. Those are to websites. Right? So if you've got a, and I would imagine most people listening to this probably have a marketing company, some sort of a marketing agency. And a lot of these guys will go to these full service agencies. Right? And so they're doing the social media and they're doing their local SEO and they're doing their pay per click and they're doing all of this under one umbrella. Right? Nothing wrong with that per se. We'll kinda dissect that a little bit later too potentially. But you have to realize this is you're ranking your website at this point. Right? Now is that a bad No. Is it a good thing? Potentially. I mean, it's an it's it's a piece of the the greater puzzle, but you have to realize the people that are clicking on those the thirty percent that are clicking on those results, what we have found from our testing and our feedback from all of our clients is, like, that's typically the looky loos, the price shoppers, the tire kickers, the people that are gonna tie up your dispatcher's time. Right? Which, you know, you're like, I don't understand. How come he has, you know, you know, only this many calls? It's because they're searching for information. They're searching for answers. And they're gonna try and weasel their way to a technician to get some feedback. Right? Just so that they can get, you know, a second opinion on the fact that, yeah, it is indeed the thermostat. Then they're gonna go to Home Depot, buy the thermostat, install it themselves, and you're never gonna see a dime. Right. But you spend all this time with them. Right? So that's where a lot of people get At least, you know, clients come to me and they're like, yeah. My marketing company gives me crap leads or whatever. Right? Usually, it's because they're ranking the website, but they're not ranking your Google business profile. And they're they're two radically different entities. Right? So the way that I like to sum up and make this really simple for people is that the ten percent that are clicking on the ads, those are the one night stands for your business. These are the people that just want something fixed. They want it fixed once, and they're never gonna call you again. They won't respond to any text message, They want it fixed once, and they're never gonna call you again. They won't respond to any text message reminders like, hey. You've got a tune up coming up. This, that, and the other thing. Right? They have just one and done. The people at the bottom front zone. You know, the ones who are like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I know next time. If you guys give me the answer, next time I'll call you. Right? You're not gonna get any money from them. You're not gonna get any action from them. What you really want is you wanna focus on that area being those three top businesses that are shown for those HVAC related keywords. Right? And those are the people that are looking for business marriage because you gotta step back and you gotta think how many times do you wanna search for a landscaper? How many times do you wanna search for a window cleaner? Right? Like you just, again, you just gotta put yourself you're a consumer. Right? You consume things. Right? Like, do you really wanna keep finding an HVAC cust contractor? You don't. You wanna do it once. And so the question is, are you visible? And then obviously, the conversion piece on that is, like, how many reviews do you have? Right? Do you have a good star rating? Do you have a certain number of views? That's kind of the piece. So understanding just how Google is presenting that is because that's what they found works, and that's what people like. Right? So does that make sense, Greg? Yeah. It does. You know, and and to your point, I mean, I I love Google and I hate Google. You know? Like, Yep. It's great for everything you need it for. But I don't ever like to re have to redo something. I I'm a one touch kinda dude. Like, if I find and I'm I'm I did what you said and suggested. I pulled up these first three companies. And the you know, again, bifurcating the industry between residential and industrial or residential and commercial, You know, these three are residential. And it makes total sense the way you described it. One one quick question. Those three under the business reviews, your one night stands, one night stands typically don't mind paying either because they just want the problem to go away. Right? Yep. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, you know, ads aren't aren't aren't something evil or bad. Right? I just think that you have to understand. It's usually an easy way for you to maybe extend past your service area, and and a and a quick way to do that if you're not ranking from a Google business profile standpoint. Right? So it's an easy way to kinda bring in some more business. It makes sense, especially if you're going through, like, growth spurts and stuff like that. But, like, do you need it as a long term strategy? I I don't I don't know. Like, for me, the way that I'm trying to, you know, teach and educate and and support my clients is, like, my hope is that, you know, beyond a good website, which we don't do. Right? We we've got people that we recommend to do that. Right? And and some sort of, like, late SEO, the real focus should be on ranking your Google business profile, which is a totally different entity than your website. You can kinda look at your Google business profile as like its own website if you want, if that's easy for you. But the idea is is that, like, just like your website needs backlinks and needs authority and all this stuff, so does your Google business profile. And so it's it's not enough just to get a lot of reviews or to be physically located to, you know, near somebody, to get into the the coveted Google snack pack, those three businesses next to the map. Like, there's there's a a lot that goes into that. And we can kinda go into that a little bit if if you want to. I don't I don't wanna burn your your life up because you get paid to do this stuff. I I want people to understand, first of all, you know your business. And if they have a need, I want them to be able to contact you. But, I mean, that really that tutorial was to help me better understand our conversation because, again, you know, I grew up in the commercial world where and this is kinda weird for me to think about. But having thought about it now, listening to you, commercial contractors tend to be less vicious, I think is the word versus what I see from the residential community. It's certainly more, I mean, we have more peers where in the commercial world where I feel like the residential world has more competitors. You know what I mean? I think it's a mindset. I don't know if it's good or bad. I I just think it is. I haven't been engrossed into the residential world, you know, at near the rate I have on the, on the, commercial world. But, you know, commercial world, I think we're more collaborative and hand off work. It may be better suited for Bob or Billy or Susie's company if it's not my forte. And there's a reciprocation that goes with that. And may maybe that's due to the complexity of the systems that we run into or or the vertical niches that we, you know, tackle, versus residential tends to be, you know, fairly able to be put into more of a package, like a residential house or a condo or an apartment. They all tend to have their things, and there's not so many darn variables. And I know my residential buddies are gonna say, you're an idiot. Of course, there is. And I'm good with that because, again, qualifier, I'm not in that world. I'm just looking at it from the outside. But even when I look at the web here, you know, it was like I mean, I scroll down. I could scroll for an hour on just what I typed in, which was HVAC contractors near me. Yep. So does that work in the commercial world or industrial world, or is that more SEO driven? Yeah. I mean, I think for the commercial world, right, if we're if we're talking specifically about that, I think it's still important, to have your Google business profile to have it updated because if I mean, I would imagine, like, you know, typing that in HVAC contract or commercial. Right? I would imagine that realm a lot of people have referrals. Right? Like, if if somebody just got a commercial lease from somebody or they just bought a property. Right? I would imagine that a commercial broker, if they're a good broker, right, knows a good HVAC contractor. Right? And Well, let let's be clear. They know a contractor. Yeah. They know a contractor. Right? And so what that person's gonna do if they do get that referral from their commercial broker, right, is they're gonna go online and they're gonna Google you. Right? So, you know, if you Google any business, theoretically, provided you don't have a really, like, you know, brand diluted name, like, you know, comfort pros or comfort experts. Right? Like, those those can be pretty, like, generic rights, you know, as long as you've got something that's, you know, they can when they Google, they're gonna find you. The search result should be your website number one on the left hand side, but it's gonna have your Google business profile to the right. And doesn't matter if you're residential or commercial. Right? It's important to have that Google business profile filled out. Like, have your hours there, have your website there, have your phone number there. Right? You know, if you got an appointment link, probably not relevant for commercial, but, you know, make make your business look look presentable over there. Right? Like, that's most often I this is what I tell people is, like, your first impression is no longer your website. It was back in two thousand. Right? But now with the Google business provider, that's your first impression. They are literally gonna look at that. And if they see especially the commercial. Right? Because you're you're usually not asking for reviews. I think I think it would be intelligent and you definitely be, you definitely stand out more compared to your competitors if you did have some reviews. But I don't think the expectation is that you're gonna have thousands or two thousand reviews like you do on the residential side. But if you had twenty five good solid reviews on there, people understand in the commercial world, the b to b world that, like, it's really hard to get reviews, and nobody, like, writes reviews. Right? So my feelings like, man, that's that's easy pickings. Right? If you've got a couple of, like, project managers that you're working with or something like that, just just, you know, say, hey. Could you read us a review? That'd be great. Because what people are gonna do is they're gonna look, right, in it in in the absence of anything, they're gonna kinda go, I don't know if I trust these. But if they just got some social indicators, again, like I said, maybe twenty, twenty five Checking out the Yeah. Just checking the box. Right? They're good. You're gonna get the call. Right? And so you just wanna make sure your first impression looks good before they click onto your website. Because I would say, right, you know, let's let's let's feed into that whole commercial perspective. Right? Those systems are very complex. Somebody who's looking at having a commercial system installed is not gonna scroll your website and try to learn about commercial HVAC. Like, it's just beyond their scope of understanding or care. Right? They wanna know that they can trust you, that you've got a stand up website. You don't look like a chuck in the truck. Right? And then you got a solid operation, and then they're just gonna call you. Right? So you just wanna make sure that you've got the minimal amount of, you know, elements of social proof to be there so that they call you. But the same thing goes for the residential guys too. Right? Just realizing your standard is way higher than a commercial guy. Right? Like, you and this is what I tell my clients. Like, dude, we gotta get you above a hundred as soon as possible, and we gotta get you multiple hundreds as soon as possible after that. Right? Reviews. Yeah. Reviews. And really, you're not you're not safe until you're in the thousands. Because once you're in the thousands, it's just it's a no brainer. Nobody's gonna go like, because you have to realize your competitors out there. A lot of these bigger guys that are out there that have, you know, been using these softwares forever, they've got a thousand, two thousand, five thousand reviews of my clients. Right? And it's like, you know, chucking a truck with twenty four reviews. Like, do do I wanna risk my money especially in an economy like that right now, right, where people are holding on to their money. Do I wanna risk it with a twenty five review guy, or do I wanna go with the five thousand dollar review guy? So anyways, it's just kinda thinking through that process. And you can always default to, like, what would my wife say? You know? Because usually they're the ones making those calls, you know, at least on the resi side. But you as a man. Right? Like, if if you're the one that's, you know, or I shouldn't say man, but if if you're the one that's in charge of the project and you're googling it, what do you default? You know, go to Amazon. Right? What what do you read? You read the negative reviews. You don't read all the positive reviews. You know, that's gonna be good stuff. Right? So so everything we've talked about thus far has been tactical. It's been binary, it's been digital, it's been reading text, which is ones and zeros flowing through a computer. Yeah. How how does the human element continue to play a role in our decision? And and I think, in my opinion, it has to start when I call the number. So you use all this digital savviness to get to this company right here, which is blank, blank, blank, HVAC Inc in Greenville, South Carolina. Yep. So I'm gonna go on and I'm gonna hit their website and bam, nice looking website, well done. I see a phone number. I'm a sixty eight year old guy or almost sixty. I'm gonna call because that's my natural inclination. As as a sixty year old dude, that human piece is still so important to me. And then I think, okay, what about my younger peers? Young people still call when they're mobile, and they're using a website. Is that accurate to say from what I find? Yes. But I'm gonna I'm gonna because you bring up a great point there, Greg, because, you know, yes, the the older generation will pick up the phone and call. Right? What I would say, though, and is important is, like, I think the stat, I've recently heard is that eighty percent of customers would rather send a text message than leave a voice mail. So you have to understand that if you don't answer the phone, that number better be text friendly. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a given nowadays. Yeah. Absolutely. Right? So if you don't, if you just got a landline in your business, it's important for you to somehow find a software that will allow you to text. I mean, again, service type, Housecall Pro, you know, Sarah Smith. Google it. Haven't. Google it. You'll find one. Just yeah. Just Google it. You'll find one. Right? Or or or but or yeah. What I would say is probably what you're using right now has that functionality. Right? And most of these guys, when you go to the website, they'll have a little pop up on the right hand side that says, hey. You can chat with us. Usually, that's I mean, the smart businesses aren't leaving it on a web chat. Instead, it's converting to a phone number, and a text message because that's an easy way to get a contact's information. Most people expect it these these days. Right? So to your point, Greg, it's important to be, accessible. But I think the smart business owners, right, especially in the in the, in the residential side is that if and I don't know if you can see this now, but on your search result, there's usually there's an option. Usually, you'll see most businesses have the little circle blue button next to the you know, those three businesses that I talked about. They'll have the circle blue button right next to the maps that says website and then directions. Those two buttons. Two two out of the three have both. Okay. One has directions only. Ah, okay. So that's that Oddly enough, the one that is directions only is a commercial contractor. Oh, interesting. Well, there you go. So what I'm trying to point out here though, Greg, is that and maybe you don't have it on your search results. I do when I'm searching HVAC contractors in Dallas where contractors in Dallas where I'm at. Right? Is there's a third button, and it's called schedule. So somebody can literally click on that button. They don't even need to go to your website. They can click on the button. They can usually go to a scheduling link, which, you know, service titan has a scheduler. Sarah's systems has a scheduler. Housecall Pro has a schedule. And what I what I I mean, I don't have the data right now to back it up. But when I talk to most customers and consumers, they want a schedule link because they don't wanna talk to somebody. They just wanna schedule something on their time. They don't wanna be, you know, feel like they're gonna be sold or pressured in anything. And so having that scheduling link is going to scoop up the next generation of your customers, which is the millennials who don't wanna talk to anybody because, Greg, I'm I'm kinda old school even though I'm forty one. Right? Like, I like a phone call. I wanna talk to you. I wanna get a sense of, like, do you care? Do you really want my business? Right? And that that feedback is important to me. Right? But, like, having that scheduling link is so important. And I wrote an article for, ACHR news just about this whole concept called speed to lead. Right? And it's the important like you said, okay. You know, we got your visibility. We've got your credibility. Now they're now they're gonna interact with your business. What's that first, like, actual human interaction and impression? Right? Are you responsive? Right? Do they do they have to wait two to three weeks, you know, from a response? I mean, I I've been trying to get these landscapers to do something for my back patio. Right? And, like, some of them are on it and other ones is like, hey, dude. Like, did did you did you put the drawing together? Oh, yeah. No. I had this family emergency, this and the other thing. But that that text message comes two, three days later. Right? So to your point, Greg, like, when they call, when they schedule something, when they text you, when they, you know, message you, like, you gotta be responsive and you gotta give multiple channels because you've got the older generation that wants to call. You got the younger generation that wants to book online. So make yourself available on all those channels. Is that was that helpful? Yeah. Totally. And and I'm curious. So I have not seen the third button. How how do you get that if you don't have it? Great question. So, in your Google business profile, right, when you go to edit your business profile, you will see now that they have it's it's I can't remember if it's a booking link or scheduling, but you can put that in there. And what's actually really cool about that is when you put that in, when somebody does Google your business like a referral. Right? On your on the right hand side, your Google business profile is gonna have this big blue button that literally is the entire width of your Google business profile and it's blue, like, it's solid blue, it will say book online. And so, it's just a big dummy button that people can just go boom. Perfect. That's awesome. With these guys. Right? But the other thing is that it differentiates you from your competition. Yeah. In the Google search results, when you're showing up as one of those three businesses with that extra blue thing, and people are really cluing into that. And they're gonna schedule online if you're the one because I've got one guy that's got that. Right? Ironically enough, he's got a hundred and twelve reviews. The second guy who doesn't have it's got two point nine thousand. I bet the guy with the schedule links probably scooping up some of that business that would probably guy with the two thousand reviews had he actually put that that link in his Google business profile. But most people don't know these things. Right? That's why they, you know, they they Why they should call you. Yeah. I'd love to entertain or or educate as as best I can anybody that, you know, wants some insight on this. Well, I just I just backed up and entered residential HVAC contractors near me. Perfect. And, I got four in the packet, and none of them have, the schedule button. And that's what I'm telling you. That's an easy point of differentiation right now. We're all looking for for little little legs up and and edges there. So just Alright. So, Chris, you you brought up something that that we talk about here on the on the podcast fairly often in other conversations I have within the industry is the generational change regarding b to b or or b to c, either one, business to business or business to consumer. What what do you foresee as a forty one year old? And I, again, I'll be sixty in July. And I know that there's crossovers. Some people might want to text only, some people your age want to talk on the phone only. I'm a hybrid. You know, it's situational for me whether I'm driving, sitting, whatever. Yep. I love, you know, voice, text to voice or voice to text. But what what do we look like in in ten more years? Are we going to be even this is kind of probably a stupid thing to even say because I think I know. But as we continue to travel down the technology highway Yep. How how do you see the human interaction? Because I love I don't necessarily like to hang out with a lot of people, although I like a lot of people. I don't like crowds, I guess, is what it is. But, how do we how will we continue to interact as we go down the the technology highway of, I just wanna talk to somebody, you know Right. To to maybe there's a water leak, and I'm out of town, and my wife's at home. And I just wanna make sure that somebody gives a crap that gets it versus solely relying on technology to give me a warm and fuzzy, which it can't. Yep. Yeah. How does that happen? What does that look like? Do you know? Do you have That's a you don't know. I don't have a crystal ball, But, what's your opinion? But yeah. And and I guess this kinda goes into the AI piece. Right? So, I think there's there's there's two pieces to this. Right? One is that I think people have to understand one of my mentors says this. He goes, money doesn't like hoops. It doesn't like friction. Right? So the thing you gotta think about is you're kind of building your business out. Right? And you're looking towards technology. Right? I think a lot of people are gonna go too heavy in the AI and it's gonna hurt their business and I'll explain in that in a second. But I think first and foremost, you need to anticipate your customer's needs. So for example, one of the things I was doing this morning, new client and this is this is kind of a not a test pilot project per se because I've done this before, but we're we're gonna build out some pretty robust automations into his business. But one of the things that he wanted is he said, hey. Can you can we just get it so that every ninety days, I send my, my organization a text that says, hey. Time to change your filter. Here's a link to our filter store. Right? Like, when I think about what is a company that's easy to do business with? A company that's easy to do business with is reminding me when I need to do stuff. So I don't even have to think about it. But then they're also making it easy to do. Right? Where it's like, cool. Not only did they remind me and go, oh, shoot. I need to do that. But they gave me a link to their website to order the filter, have it sent to my house. So I don't even gotta go nowhere. I don't even gotta go to Amazon. Right? Like, even better, have that linked up to their profile such that they know exactly the filters that they need, and they can just order it and hit repeat or they can just put that on automatic delivery. Right? So a lot of these guys have filter stores now, which is smart, easy, residual recurring revenue. Right? But that business is gonna be easy to do business with because I'm always remembering that I'm going back to trust one services because that's who I'm getting my air filters from. Right? Then on top of that, it's like, okay. Do you remind your membership base when they need an AC tune up with you or a furnace tune up with you? Does that come at an ideal time for you to have plenty of room in your schedule so that they can get that booked? And when you say, hey. Time for your AC tune up. Click the link to schedule. Are you making it easy? Right? And I think that the smart companies will be ones that will embrace things like this, and then the technology is just gonna get better. Right? A technology we're messing with is, you know, how you kinda have those, like, you'll have a card like, your your, credit card on your phone. Right? Or you'll have, like, a punch card on your phone now with, like, an iPhone. Right? Is creating a technology where if you're a member, you get this card on your phone, and then the card actually reminds you when you've gotta change your filters out, when you get to your AC, your furnace. Right? The idea is this doesn't even cost a text message. It isn't a text message that gets lost. It's a notification that comes across your phone, and and you're just alerted to this. Right? I imagine that we're gonna get to a place where people are gonna be able to trigger Siri and say, Siri, order me air filters from Trust One services or whatever. Right? This is just a client that I'm I'm referring to at the moment. Right? But it that's the idea that I think we're gonna get there. Right? Now my one of my mentors also said the fact that you have to people are trying to use AI to remove the human element to accelerate things. But I think that if you do it from that approach, you're gonna actually kill your business and your customer experience like you're saying. Right? Like, people wanna connect with human. Arguably, people wanna connect with humans more now than they did before because there's so much technology. Now I think there's automation. Automate the admin side of your business as much as possible, like automated stuff. But always be available and willing for that human interaction so that when somebody does wanna call you, like you're saying in that situation, that you guys answer and you've got a record of all the different services that you've done for these guys, and you can talk to them as if you've been as if you've been a customer of theirs for five years. Right? Because that's what you want, Greg. Right? Let's let's imagine you've you've worked with these guys for five years, then you have this issue. You wanna call them and you don't wanna have to be explained. Absolutely. Well, you guys came out and you did this, and then you guys did this, and you did this, and then this is the issue that we're having. Right? Like, you want them to kinda anyone who answers. Right? Even if it's the newest gal who just got in there two weeks ago, you want her to be able to pull up your file and be like, oh, okay. I see we did this. We did this. We did this. And I want the technician to see that when he pulls in my driveway on his device. Exactly. And I think what you're gonna find is that the technicians like yeah. Yeah. Er's device. Right. The technician is probably gonna become more and more critical, from a customer experience standpoint because that's actually gonna be where the majority of that experience actually comes from is the technician. How are they kinda catering to your needs and and addressing that kind of stuff? Which which is a great point. I'm sorry to cut you off, but you just No. You're good. Struck a nerve with me is the soft skills training for our technical, experts. Yep. I don't care that Susie knows everything about my Trane ninety plus thousand degree condensing furnace, knows all the fault codes by by heart. And Right. She went to school at La Crosse for a week and trained on this particular circuit board. I don't care. She should do that. That's part that's the price of admission now. But what I want her to do is when she walks in is to be a human and look at me or look at my wife and communicate clearly and tell me what they're doing and why they're doing it and not look at their damn shoelaces while they're mumbling to me. It's so annoying whether I'm at the grocery store or whether I'm at the car wash or wherever, we have got to refocus and get more and more soft skills training in conjunction with our technical training. It's so important to me. And I think to many, not just me. But Yeah. No. A hundred percent agree with you. I, was actually having a conversation on my podcast with, Jim Bergman over at, Measure Quick. Right? Talking about this fact that, like, he had this I think he actually attributed this to one of one of his his customers. But the idea that I think the new era, like, how we're gonna fill this, this gap, if you will, for, all the, like, technicians that we don't have is is by finding a way to take people who have these soft skills that have been, you know, customer service reps for, you know, Comcast or Frontier, whatever. Right? And then retooling them through these, you know, accelerated programs. One I think is really cool down here called forge now by Steven Brightman. He's he's taken veterans, which obviously is near and dear to my heart, but also, you know, like, formerly incarcerated people, but also kinda what they call, like, college false starts. And within seven weeks, they've got these guys with, like, a two year apprenticeship worth of, like, understanding. So, like, you're saying they got the technical skills, but they also could have had the soft skills. And so you've got that marriage, that best of both worlds. Right? Yep. And not only that, but when you think about, like, what Bluhan's doing with, like, the AI that these texts can have on-site. Right? And then, you know, the whole call by call, sort of culture that's going on too. Right? Like, these guys now have the the brain in the sky or the access to this information that they're not even being responsible for knowing all the fault codes because these systems are so complex these days. Right? But instead, like you said, if we could focus on building up their human skills, even better. Right? So Chris, that you know, when when talking about all of what we're talking about, the people, the soft skills, the technical side. I want to back up just to shave because you mentioned the word mentor twice. You you have them. I have had them and and currently am seeking a new one. You're forty one. Yeah. When you're sixty one, you'll be mentoring somebody in I think, that seems to be in your DNA, it seems to be your personality, it seems to, you know, the importance of it. How do we perpetuate the the human mentoring role and make sure that doesn't get lost in the shuffle with our electronics and our technology? Oh, that's, that's a deep question. Let me put a cap on the AI thing real quick, though, before I jump into that because that's Well, I have to I I jump around like a fool because that's how my brain works. No. I get you, man. I get you. So real quick with the AI piece. And this is just more of, like, a friendly warning. Right? Is I think that, like, with the advent of AirAI, which is one that a lot of people I think have seen is that I think there's this propensity to want to, shed employees or or in this situation where you feel that you can't find good employees is to be like, well, AI can solve the issue. And I would I would I, I would warn against that. And here's the thinking. Right? Speaking of mentors. Right? Mentor told me he's like, yeah. I wouldn't be so quick to go to that, and here's why. Why. Because at the advent of the, the IVR, the the whole virtual phone system. Right? When that came out, everybody was like, dude, this is gonna remove receptionists. We're gonna get so so efficient, so lean. That the businesses that jumped on that and have stayed on that, I think have hurt themselves more over the years than had the one the one It removed stock. It removed the revenue. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right? And I I can't tell you how much I hate it when I get to an IVR phone. So it's like, just let me talk to somebody. Right? Like, just just somebody because you You hit zero twenty nine times hoping it'll default back to a human. Well, and the other thing I have to ask myself is, like, who in the world doesn't know your hours? Right? Like, it's on your website. It's on your Google business profile. Like, why are you wasting my time telling me that or your address or any of that kind of stuff. Right? Like, maybe a quick message that says, hey. Just your just in case you're curious, we are open today from nine to five. Here's a reception. Right? Like, just something simple like that where it's like, oh, I just wanna call to make sure they were open. Right? So, so I think it's an important piece that if you are excited about AI and you wanna put AI in your business, here's what I would say. First of all, most likely, you don't want AI. What you're looking for is automation, and there's tons of tools to do that. You can automate that. I mean, just simple things like when an invoice gets sent out, that a reminder gets set to follow-up with that person and that gets assigned to a certain individual, and then they set you know, that gets sent out or, you know, whatever. Like like I've talked about this furnace, you know, the tune up thing. Right? That that goes out, you know, every six months between a a certain window or whatever. Right? That's automation. That's not AI. Right? And to and to me, that helps with the word efficacy, not efficiency. Yes. We're we're doing things that have more value rather than just doing more things. That's how I look at that. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. So to go to your mentorship, piece, I think the thing next generation is I think that we stay in this sophomoric, place a lot longer than is necessary because we've almost created this, like, you know, incubation chamber or this bubble that we sit in with YouTube YouTube thinking like, well, the information's out there. Right? And I would say that, yes, theoretically, the information's out there. Why do you need to go to college? Well, I think you need to go to college because you need to learn how to learn, and you're never gonna really learn how to learn cause you need to learn how to learn and you're never gonna really learn how to learn on YouTube. Right? Like, that's that's For me, that's what going to school was all about is you're actually learning how to learn, how to do research, how to, you know, prove something, all that kind of stuff. Right? And so I do have a big fear for the next generation, Leaning into the wisdom of a previous generation because there's an easy way and I'm just gonna use you as an example, Greg. And I don't mean to I'm not making any digs on you. Right? But I think it would be easy for me to go, well, why would I go listen to Greg? Greg? Greg? I know more about technology than Greg. Right? I could go build a website. I could do this. I could do that. Why would I even listen to Greg? But people have to understand is that the wisdom actually comes from the principles that are tried, true, universal, and unshakable. Right? And it'd be the things that I would get from you is you're gonna take your sixty years of information insight, trends, trajectories, comments. Other times a long, you know, dissertation on this, that, and the other thing. And that's where I think people are gonna they're gonna be so focused. Because a lot of people are focused so much on tactics. Right? Like tactically, what do I do? And it's like, well, no, you have to understand the larger arc of the strategy, right, of of the overall storyline that you're trying to play out in your life. And that's where I think the value comes. I'm a little nervous as to when people will find I think that there will always be that certain swath of of of people that are gonna get it and understand the value of a mentor. Right? Like, I can't tell you, you know, this one mentor I've had for the last six months, man. I mean, he is literally about to double my business for me in about six months. Just from the stuff, like and it's not like he he didn't give me anything like, hey, you know, just use this swipe file, like copy and paste what I'm doing. But no, his insight at certain, you know, points along the journey where I've asked him questions has saved me hundreds of hours at this point. Right? And when I got kid number three coming in June, like, dude, I need all the time back I can get, you know, for sleep, diet, all all that kind of stuff. Right? So I think that's where my concern is. But I I think too though, Greg, is I, you know, we always, you know, I think whatever you're in, you're always joking. Like, you know, we were the last real generation. Right? I think there's always gonna be that certain swath of, you know, just the way that humans break down. It's like a third, a third, a third. Right? There's a third that would never ask for a mentor because they know everything. Right? I think there's a third that had the idea that a mentor is a good thing. They're probably gonna try to find mentors, but they're gonna think they're smarter than their mentors. And so they're just gonna kinda come in and out and in and out and in and out. I think there's gonna be the other third that's people like us who's like, dude, I always need a mentor. And if I don't have a mentor, I gotta find a mentor because there's things that I'm missing out on. There's blind spots that I have. I can't be self aware about myself. Right? So I think that it's just it's work. People are gonna keep doing what people have always done for years and years and years, and there's always gonna be that third, a third, a third. But I don't know. That's my feeling is I don't think much is gonna change. I just think that those who are open to it are gonna be in better position as as time goes on. Well, I I am glad to hear that. And I'm a huge advocate. I wanna be clear of technology. I'm an advocate of AI. I'm an advocate of automation. I wasn't insinuating any of that. I know. I know. I'm saying this as affirmation. And I'm a huge, I'm I'm a I'm a huge cheerleader for Gen z. Yeah I'm sorry y no z Yeah. Z is the youngest. I think so. Yeah. Uh-huh. Alright. That's not right. Well, because you got gen x, which I guess I'm Yeah. ZZ is what you call that. And then it's and then it's the millennials and gen y, I guess. But yeah. And now z is where we're at. Yep. There are so many good young folks out there. Oh, yeah. I have been fortunate to find because I'll look for them. I don't walk around eviction about how screwed up things are. As screwed up as things are, they are what they are. I I can't all I can do is vote, and I will be voting, and I can't wait to vote. But there I I mean, there's a young man who is graduating from high school this Friday. Yeah. I've introduced him to a couple of Nice. You gotta go help us. We we have to help ourselves. We have to look for young folks. We have to look for veterans. We have to look for restaging, reshuffling career people. And if and I know people probably get sick of hearing me say this, but take these folks under your wing and help them over the goal line. We've gotta get them there Yeah. Because we are shorthanded, yes, we're gonna use technology differently. Yes. We're gonna use AI differently. But it's still a human sport of crawling up under somebody's house, crawling in a basement of a building, getting on the roof of a building. All that no robot or h AI is going to solve, hey. Go put these fan belts on this cooling tower. That's a person. So Yeah. We gotta keep working on that. But I know we're getting up on our hour, top of the hour here. I just wanted to take a minute, Chris, and tell you, how much I appreciate what you're doing for the trades, what you're doing, to help people become successful and can continue to be successful in their businesses. It is important. It's part of the American dream, baby. Start a business, run a business, be part of a business. So thank you for that. And more so, or equally, thank you for taking time with us today and and being on the Straight Out of Crumpton podcast. Hey. My my pleasure. Greg, I I would say that one of the reasons of the passions that I, you know, why I have such a passion for helping other entrepreneurs. Right? I just happen to serve the HVAC niche because it serves my my my youth and my education, all that kind of stuff, and I just love interacting. But, for me, the entrepreneur is the greatest celebration of the things that I fought for, being in the navy is that freedom to actually have a business. Right? And not have to pay somebody to pay somebody to pay somebody so that you can keep those doors open. Right? And, I think for me, it's it's one of the highest forms of celebration and I really love just signed up another, a vet a client who's a a veteran. And I love working with vets because there's just a a certain sort of synergy and camaraderie about, like, alright. You know, now you're a fellow brother in the foxhole. How do we get your business to where you wanna get? So it's it's just it's it's fun. It's it's a bit like you said, I think it's it's a combat sport out there. And so, anything we can do to to run that race together is is better off. So, thank you for the honor of being on your podcast, by the way, too. It's been great to share with your audience, and I hope that they've, derived some value, maybe some action items for themselves. Well, I hope so. And and tell everybody the best way to get in touch with you, Chris. If if they do have some questions and and they need some help, how do they get in touch with you? Yeah. So my email is just chris, c h r I s, at reputation igniter dot com. If you kinda wanna learn a little bit more about, like, what I've shared, I've got a a little cool website out there because you're probably more interested in the Google business profile stuff. So it's just called g b p recipe dot com, and you can kinda find out bunch of insights and some tools. I've got a sort of a whole laundry list of things that you can do to help your Google business profile rank and stuff like that. So, again, that's just golf bravo papa recipe dot com that they can, log into. And, I mean, you could text me too. I my number is nine seven two six four zero, two four six four. So I'm I'm readily available to help anybody who's, looking for a leg up in our industry. It's, it's it's challenging, but my feeling is is that if we're interacting, you're probably a good quality person, and I wanna see you succeed, whatever that looks like. Whether we're partnering together, I'm just giving you some one off advice. I appreciate the, opportunity to serve. Well, I can't think of a better person to, share some business with, and, I hope I hope that somebody will reach out to you. Well, guys, here we are. We're top of the hour again. Another fun session. Chris Valini, reputation igniter, incredible stuff. I learned so much today again. I have to put fresh red on this pen in this pencil every freaking podcast because I write so much. But, straight out of Crumpton, you can find us at anywhere really that that carries, podcasts. Apple, Spotify, or you can go to gregcrumpton dot com. Find us there. But love to have you join us, even if it's if it's for one episode or or just subscribe and enjoy the series. But for now, for Chris, I hope everybody has a great day, and we will see you soon on the radio.