Why The Next Software Won’t Fix Your Business | Jenny Benbrook

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another episode of Can't Stop the Growth. I'm your host, Chad Peterman, and today we are going to talk about something I've been talking about on social media, uh, for quite some time. Um, and that is the whole concept of what is actually broke in the business and what lever do I need to pull to fix it? Uh, I feel like most owners think that, you know, growth is just buying more leads, uh, hiring more people, uh, or bringing on one of these new whiz bang softwares, uh, that are out there. I was just at Pantheon. There's a lot of them out there. Um, uh, in fact, every booth, uh, it seems to be some sort of software of some sort. Um, and what I have found, at least in our business, and my experience is that a lot of those things are the right lever to pull if your operation is very sound and, and you have process and procedure and people understand what they're supposed to be doing and how their actions affect the rest of the organization, downstream, upstream, wherever it may be. And so I'm excited about our guest today because she not only currently kind of helps on the software side of things, but has also had experience in the operations. And how do we bring those two together? Um, how do we help, uh, contractors, business owners, whatever it may be? I don't, I don't think. I think this concept is pretty universal to any business. Uh, it doesn't have to be home services. Obviously, a lot of the stuff we talk about today will be centered, uh, on that. But without further ado, would like to welcome the co founder and CEO of, uh, Powerhouse Consulting Group, Mrs. Ginny Benbrook. Welcome to the podcast, Jenny.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Chad. And I think you wrote the whole show in the opening there.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. My hope is let's dive in, right? Yeah,

Speaker B: yeah, let's unpack it and build a process around how to get a handle on technology. Um, as you so eloquently put, that is our primary focus here at Powerhouse. Um, uh, both my partner and I, who started the company, uh, built our careers in the trades, and we've always taken a tech first approach to operationalizing a contractor shop. Um, over the years that led us to some of these prominent software that we represent today, like Service Titan or Field Edge or any plethora of the AI tools that were on the Pantheon floor this year. But the same goal was already always in place, which is how can we help contractors grow and scale their business by thoughtfully leveraging technology?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think that that is um, especially in today's world is the one thing that like, I hope you know, we're not going to do it in the 45 minutes that we talk. But like my hope is we shed a little bit of light on the fact that like the next software is not going to solve your business problems. Um, it may help solve but we've got to uncover what the underlying issues are uh, with, within the business and what is actually broke. I feel like sometimes so, so many people that I talk to are reaching for this like, solution like oh my God, this is going to fix everything. And it's like, well you actually don't have a call booking problem, you have a, this problem, um, and so on and so forth. So um, I guess it would be good like you gave us a little background on Powerhouse. I'm aware of the organization, maybe give us a little bit of your personal background. I kind of alluded to it in the opening as far as like, hey, I've spent time as an operator, I've done this business thing. Now we're kind of shifting uh, with you and your co founder into how do I take that knowledge, put it over here and then help on the software side. So maybe give kind of listeners a little bit of like grounding on, you know, where you come from and why, uh, why, why they should listen. For sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, um, hopefully I can provide value through, through my experience, uh, that I've, I've cultivated over my years and in the trades. I started in the industry specifically on the H vac side, residential H vac about 20 years ago, uh, with a focus on marketing. And I always like to joke that when I started running marketing for contractors it was double uh, truck ads in the yellow Pages. There was no such thing as social media or the Google algorithm or this need for a, uh, unique and well built out website. It was simplistic in form. We ran direct mail campaigns or placed ads in the phone book, maybe some mass media. I had a foyer into the digital space through marketing when we saw the advent of Google and search engine optimization and we could no longer sell the exact same website, same content, same imagery, just switch out the logo across 200 dealers. It had to be very thoughtful. We had to be strategic in how we were building these marketing plans so that we could meet customers where they expected to be met in this space. And it took a great mental shift inside the contractor shop to understand this is technology that is not going anywhere. It's going to continue to deepen and change and become more Complex and perhaps not something that I can manage internally. And so this was this first major wave of a technology shift that I saw firsthand, um, in my experience and that over time continued to evolve. So my career took me on some really interesting journeys from traditional marketing to joining one of the first digital marketing companies to serve the trades and reorganizing and re operationalizing that business so that we could continue to optimize our product and provide contractors with legitimate services and maintain customer satisfaction. But as a result of that, data started to take a more prominent position. And in order for me to be confident in the work that we were providing from a digital marketing perspective, I had to understand the data that was resulting from these efforts, whether it was geographical data or consumer behavior data or lead generation, not just generating the lead, but what was happening to it. Were they quality leads? Were they being turned over internally? And so we started to take more of an operational focus on the how and the why behind the marketing. And that led us to some of these new cloud based FSM platforms that were entering the space Little one called Service Site. When that started to come about. Several of my clients were early adopters of this platform. And just like any one of your listeners who is on a complex software, I had to learn the software firsthand, understand the cause and effect or why. I couldn't trust a data point or how to build a custom report and understand the workflow behind it. And so it was really this organic awareness of the close relationship between technology as a foundation and scaling a contractor's business and how we delved into more technology options, more tools, the need for greater integration and awareness of how you're building and managing technology became relevant. Fast forward, I don't know, two decades, maybe not quite, uh, my partner Pam and I, who had worked together at various capacities throughout the years, we saw a great need for this subject matter. Expertise in Service Titan or Field Edge or any of these FSM softwares being so complex. There was a great need for a contractor to call on someone who not only knew the software, but understood their business and how to marry the two operationally so they could see real scalable growth. We quickly became partnered with Service Titan, uh, that was uh, the largest, this was about 2019. Partnered with ServiceTitan, became their first professional services partner and the rest is history. Chad we knew that there was, we knew we were onto something with this level of knowledge and support. Um, I like to say I wasn't quite sure how big it would be but uh, the need was great and the Relief that we've been able to provide with just an education and an awareness of how it all works together. Taking the pressure off of owner operators or managers or office managers, service managers, and trying to know all of the things and still run their own jobs. That brings us to today. Um, we proudly serve contractors with not just field services management, implementation and optimization, but total tech stack evaluation. Because as you put it, the game has changed significantly from the days of on premise software to Google SEO to then cloud based. Now our clients are contending with hundreds of technology solutions, all vying for their attention, saying that they're the next greatest thing and there's some really great tools out there, but they're not all going to 30 extra revenue like they promise without proper processes and intent behind them. And so we aim to take more of a holistic approach now on defining what is a business's operations, their goals, and then building a platform based on technology to help them scale.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes so much sense. I mean I remember we joined Service titan back in 2017. Um, so we've been on it for a while. But you know, back then it was like, you know, we, we were lucky and that they were small and so we got like a higher level of support I think. And you know, then they grew fast and I think much like we're talking about today, they grew fast and it's like, well, we can't, we don't have enough people to support all of our customers. Um, and so you know, just, just trying to understand that I think is, is critical and how software is going to play into your operation. Um, I guess the question I would ask you is like obviously you've seen both sides, you've seen it um, a number of times and all the clients that you've helped, um, why do you, why do you think growth exposes so many kind of, of these operational uh, blind spots? Like you know, we don't know we have them until we have them but obviously growth puts that stress on the organization and it breaks things. Like what? Why do you think that is?

Speaker B: I think that the easiest and most relatable answer and the most common that I've seen not just in our clients businesses but in my own business. You know, you've heard the um, the tale of, of the cobbler son doesn't have shoes. I often joke about, um, growing my own businesses and learning firsthand. I understand how to coach and how to mentor and how to evaluate an external business. But when you're the owner, operator, running your own business, it's a very different reality because you're contending with a hundred different things every hour, every minute. You have not only the weight of keeping the company running, of the finances of the hr, but you have all the liability and the professional items. And so you get stuck in this culture of smallness where you have the people, including the owner operator, that were instrumental in building the business. And so they hold this sort of tribal knowledge. And they're the very reason why the business starts experiencing growth. But along with growth comes more. More leads, more employees, more customers, more vendors, more software. And when you still have a lot of that tribal knowledge, living with a few stakeholders that built the business or with the owner operator, it exposes a lot of cracks. It creates roadblocks in decision making. There's an unawareness of ownership, um, and it becomes very complex to scale a business with a focus on people and technology when you do not have well defined processes in place. The processes lead to control in the company, and that control leads to greater scalability.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're spot on. I think one of the things that we found, or at least I found over kind of managing my own business, right, you talk about all this tribal knowledge, it's like, well, I've been doing this for 15 years, but, you know, there's people on my team that I'm expecting to make decisions that have been here for, like, you know, barely a year. Um, and, you know, we just, we never, I don't think ever. These, I mean, contracting businesses, they're very simple, take care of customer, um, are, you know, they're not easy, uh, because there's a lot of moving parts in these things. And I think one of the things that we've seen, some kind of breakthroughs that I would share is understanding how everybody's role is impacting someone else in the business and understanding the business as a whole. So it's like, yeah, I know you're in charge of the call center, but I also need you to understand how difficult it is to find technicians and why conversion rate and average ticket are so very important out here. Um, because what type of call we're booking, and if they're actually doing something like this, like, I want you managing the call. I want you to be able to yell at the field and go, hey, we're booking all these calls. Why aren't you doing anything with them? Like, we're trying to make this business go, um, where I think oftentimes we get so siloed, and it's like there's a few Departments that we always can blame marketing need more leads. Always. Yeah, yeah, always marketing's fault. Um, and that was actually weirdly, that was kind of the antithesis because I was like talking with marketing and they're like, hey, you want me to go get, I got operations yelling at me to go get more leads. Have you looked at their booking rate or their conversion and average ticket? Are you sure you want me to go get more leads? And it's like, oh my gosh, like they, we need to connect all the dots, um, for this. So, um, so very important.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it is. And, and I love, I love where you're going with that. This is, this is a big one for, for any owner operator. And over, you know, over the years, your listeners know we've had ups and downs in the market. Uh, just last year, last year was a strange year with the economy and equipment prices and materials and supply. Right. And that really adjusted. There was also fear in consumer behavior. And so we saw a decline in total industry sales. That really exposes gaps and cracks in a contractor's foundation. Every business is fantastic as long as the leads are flowing in. But the second the leads stop, if there's a hiccup in the sales process, in the marketing process, or if it's external and beyond your control and it's market related, that will expose cracks in the business. It will show where the business is not operating efficiently, where you do not have proper follow ups and systems in place to nurture every piece of business that's coming in, to cross sell, to upsell, to follow up and to do all of those things. And so to your point, more leads doesn't equate to more growth. It might lead to an artificial inflation in revenue, but chances are there's not a correlation and increased profit behind it because you're leaking that money from somewhere without the proper systems in place.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're 100% right. And I think I'll just throw this like, uh, story in there. Like this is a big piece for us. You know, we've got 12 locations, Indianapolis is our biggest. But like, you know, we, we had a tendency in the past to treat every location the same. It was like, hey, same recipe. And it's like I was thinking one day and I'm like, why are we struggling in this market? And I was like, oh, it's because we're operating a 3 to 4 million dollar branch, like a 50 million dollar branch and they don't operate the same. And so we've got to go back to the Building blocks of what did we do at that level? Well, we were outbound calling for leads. We weren't just spending more money on Google. Like, yeah, we can do that in a bigger operation because like the calls are coming in. It's like, you know, you don't need to outbound. There's no time to outbound. Um, and just different things like that of like, well, what are our, are we promoting our referral program, uh, cross trade? Are we doing all of the little things that build small companies into big ones? And so that was a huge breakthrough for us. Of like, hey, do we have all these processes in place? Because if we don't, um, then we're going to be here sitting here spinning our wheels and like you said, leaking out this money because we're running the wrong game plan for this play.

Speaker B: Yeah. And to tie it back to technology, which I know was the common thread of our conversation, technology should be at the center of those plans and processes. How will you leverage tech as a growth lever? And so, um, I have a thought in how I explain technology in relation to a contractor's growth or to their goals. But if we're thinking about, regardless of the business type or size or level of complexity, each business needs their own tech stack. They need operational software. That's your service titan, field, edge, jobber, ah, house, coffer, whatever you use, that's your operational software. Then you have your financial software. That's your foundation in a business. So every business, regardless of size, should know exactly what their foundation is and how stable that foundation is before they start looking into third party tools. That would be the next, uh, level level that I explain. So level one foundation. Make sure that you understand what does your operational software offer? How well are you using it? How are your teams using it? Is there clarity around the workflow, around ownership? Do they understand the why? That was something really important that you mentioned earlier. If we're so siloed in our departments and the CSR doesn't understand the importance of their call booking rate and a technician running another job that day, or a technician doesn't understand the importance of closing a job in the field to accounting, so it all ties together. And when you can explain the why behind these workflows, instead of taking that dictatorship role and saying, we're buying this tech and you're going to use it whether you like it or not, people bulk at that. And so explaining the why, that's how we start to build a very stable foundation. And that culture of accountability, almost like a sense of pride in using these tools that the company has invested very heavily in, because there's understanding and there's clarity around what the tools do. That starts with a level of awareness. A big problem that we see here at Powerhouse, and I'm sure you can relate to having been on ServiceTitan as long as you have, is so many people don't know what they don't know about these foundational tools. You know, they don't know, well, what all can Service Titan do. Am I using it correctly? Am I not using it correctly? And so instead, what we see is plugging holes in the foundation by bringing in more tools or more people to try to cover up, uh, gaps in the efficiencies that should be net by using tech. So when you're evaluating your processes, think of it like a business plan. I need to understand where I'm going as a business, where I'm at today, and then what my tools can currently do for me, how they will get me to grow it to that next level.

Speaker A: That's such a great point. Um, one question I'll ask you is, like, what advice? Because we've ran into this multiple times where, like, I've got a process. It works. However, then we introduce a new technology tool, and then we try to manipulate the technology tool to fit our old process. Like, what. What advice would you give to people? Or like, how should they look at that? I have my own, like, 2 cents and kind of how we've navigated this. But, like, I would assume you've seen people and they're using Service Titan and they're like, manipulating the heck out of it to the point where it's like, why even using it, there's no need. You're not even using it correctly.

Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's a resistance to change. And it all goes to, what is your deployment plan for software? Um, I always share a story. It's one of my favorite. Um, uh, just a quick background on Powerhouse. As we've grown over the years, we've kept one hiring best practice in place, and that is every consultant that works with us is individually certified in different areas of technology, but they all come from the industry. Because I can teach Service Titan to anyone. You can't teach industry experience. That's something that's earned. So I say that to demonstrate, uh, a piece of feedback that we got from one of our consultants. She worked for an airserv for many, many years. And, uh, she noted that when the owner of her AirSurf franchise would go to Pantheon every year, that she as the office manager would sit in anticipation, almost in fear of all of the different tools that would be brought back, saying, I signed up for all of this here, implement it. And there's so much more to that. Uh, more than just saying, we identified this tool, I want you to use it because I want what the tool aspired to. This tool was sold to create efficiency or to increase my profit, or, um, to automatically handle customer follow ups. Whatever it is, each tool has a place and what they promise. But if there isn't an awareness of how the tool is going to connect in your current system, how and if it will change an employee's workflow and an employee's day to day process, and who will take ownership and management of that tool over the long run, you're going to get that sort of frankensteining in systems that you described, where I don't really understand what this is, but now I'm told I have to implement it. And so I'm going to try to figure it out the best I can. I'll set it up just to get that off of my plate, and then I can keep doing my day to day. And so now what we've done is we haven't thought about the big picture, the process or the workflow that makes the most sense in leveraging this technology and then explaining to the team, yes, it will change your workflow, but let me demonstrate the efficiencies that it will give you. So the reverse just leads to more steps and something that was supposed to create efficiency can now take 30 or 40 steps. And as you said, what's the point in even having the software?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, reluctantly, I have to tell you, I, uh, have a similar story. I was meeting with our director of internal ops, who's been here for, uh, 25, 26 years. Uh, so I've been here for 15. So she's known me for quite some time. Um, and she told the people on her team, yesterday we were in a meeting and she told the people on her team, chad's going to Pantheon, he's gonna come back. Just be ready, take it in stride, it'll be fine. And I think to your point, I said I brought back one thing. Come on, leave me alone. Uh, but to your point, I started out the conversation with like, hey, here's the problem that we have. Like, and we both agree that this is a problem. Yes, it is. Okay, cool. Here's what I found at Pantheon that I think can solve this problem problem. However, there are some, you know, it's not going to fit perfectly into our process. But I think it will solve this problem. You tell me what you think. Check it out. Um, and that worked a whole lot better than just like, hey, I signed us up for this new thing. It'll be awesome.

Speaker B: Because

Speaker A: I've done that before. Yeah,

Speaker B: yeah, but

Speaker A: it wasn't awesome.

Speaker B: A plus. A plus. And how you handled that. In fact, I'm

Speaker A: getting better.

Speaker B: Last Pantheon, my partner Pam and I had the opportunity to, uh, present to Pantheon attendees on the idea of tech stack evaluation. Because what we see is this overwhelm. It's both an excitement and an anxiety around all of the new tech that's in our industry. One of the things that we gave at the end of this presentation was a framework that a contractor can take back to evaluate their business and then thoughtfully evaluate tools that are available in the market to determine what it. What makes the most sense for their business, where they're at today, what fits within their budget. This is a huge one that I started bringing to market probably about two or three years ago. Most contractors that we work with don't have a dedicated tech budget. You have a dedicated marketing budget that's pretty straightforward. We've all been taught that for eternity. If I want to grow, I will allocate a certain percentage of my growth goal to my marketing budget. That's my growth vehicle. We're inviting contractors to think of technology as their growth vehicle. And with that level of intentionality where if I want to grow to $5 million this year, let's keep it simple. I am going to allocate 3% of that growth goal to my total tech spend. And that gives you some guardrails so that you're not underspending and, um, you know, manually running the business or missing opportunity to operationalize. But you're also not overspending, so that it's eating into your margins, and you're buying tools that you don't need. So that was a really interesting framework that we gave, but what it was designed to do was let's stop the noise when it comes to all of the tech solutions, because they're exciting and we know they are, but they have to be evaluated with intention and then designed with a plan on not just what you're going to purchase and implement, but how will it be implemented, how will it be managed, and what sort of oversight will be put on it. How will we monitor the reports? What action are we going to take from the data in the report? I often say that's the more difficult part. It's not just identifying the tech and implementing it. It's the, what happens next, the ownership, the implementation, how you're going to get the most from these tools.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I would imagine we could, uh, comb through a number of, uh, P and ls, probably mine as well, and find softwares that were like, do we use this? Like, is this a thing? Yeah, no, we're still paying though. Uh, it's great. Uh, or we use like 10% of it because it's kind of nice to have. Uh, well,

Speaker B: let's pull up your P and L after the call and we'll go.

Speaker A: Exactly,

Speaker B: we'll go there. But in all serious. So I put a lot of research into this. Um, I'm strangely passionate about it because it's wasted spend. And when you get to know contractors, you have a deep appreciation for how hard it is to run these businesses. And it requires a lot of perseverance and dedication, uh, from some really great people. And so by advocating for technology, what we want to say is let us get the most out of every tool that you're selecting and let's build processes that will help you scale and grow. So there's ownership around these tools. I've studied hundreds and hundreds of contractor data, um, to build case studies around this concept of tech waste. And Chad, what we found, found is the average contractor wastes about 25% of their tech budget just on nothing. Whether it's duplicative tools, um, a massive one that we see is unused licenses. So every software is a subscription model. Right? And this is, as a business grows, you're running through technicians. It's all built on a per technician subscription model. And is there a process in place for when a technician exits the company? We're going to deactivate all of their paid licenses. It's really egregious how many we've seen duplicative tools. But there's also some unseen, uh, unintended consequences here that lead to waste, like loss, uh, in productivity. This is such a, uh, pervasive issue that we see because when we have uh, a, uh, high tech environment, let's say service titan, and the average contractors plugging in five or six different tools into service titan and these tools cross over different departments, there's different responsibilities. There can be a loss in productivity if the tools are creating too many steps instead of creating efficiencies or relying on automation. And that's a lot of what we see. And that loss in productivity leads to frustration, culture deterioration. We've seen techs or office managers Quit because they don't want to adopt tools that were presented in the wrong way. And so there's this, all of this loss that you may not be able to see directly in the spend, but is an unintended consequence or a hidden profit killer, as we call it when it comes to tech.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, uh, that makes, makes so much sense. I mean, we've, we've been there. Uh, you know, it's like, oh, shoot, uh, Billy still got a license. Uh, he hadn't been here for four years. Uh, what's going on here? Luckily we have a process for that now, which is good. Um, but, yeah, it can be overwhelming. I mean, there's a license for this, a license for that. Well, they got to have access to this, and so on and so forth. Um, one of the questions I want to ask you, obviously, you know, helping people implement software, uh, I mentioned at the outset a lot of these softwares are tying in, you know, AI and different stuff like that. I think what I want to ask you is not like, I don't know, I think, I think you can get really granular on this. I think what I'm looking for is more just like a holistic, like, your view on it. Like, if I'm a contractor, you know, there's AI phones, there's listening to calls, there's this, there's that. Like, where do you think that if I'm a contractor and I'm interested in kind of harnessing some of the power of AI, um, like where, where, where would you direct them to focus first? Like, what's going to make the biggest impact in their business?

Speaker B: Uh, there's no, there's no one size fits all solution to that. You actually answered it earlier in something that you did for your own business when you went to Pantheon this year. It's. Understand the problem that you're trying to solve first and then evaluate the tools that are designed to solve that problem. Um, but you have to take in business context around it as well. So, for example, the AI call centers, they're all the rage, right? How many were at Pantheon?

Speaker A: There's a lot. Yeah. Everybody answer the phone. Yeah,

Speaker B: yeah. And it's so we. I joke that it's like this arms race to who can build the most things with AI. And so you have like, speed to lead companies that are now offering AI call centers and AI call centers that are now doing speed delete. And so it's very convoluted what each of these companies do. But if you identify the problem as, um, I'm losing too many opportunities after hours. And so does it make sense for me to explore one of these AI powered call centers you also have to take in your business context. We have uh, uh, one recent customer that we were working with on their tech stack planning and uh, we put them in one of the AI call center tools. However, they were in a very rural market and their customers bolt at the AI tool. They were getting like hate messages. Not really hate messages, but the customers were, they were so upset that they weren't talking to a human. And so there's still going to be some parts of the country that won't respond as well to interacting with the uh, technology. But if you're in a major metro, your customers probably don't want to talk to you. They probably would rather talk to the bot and have that speed and efficiency. So it's very important to take that business context and put it into place. The other thing about AI and technology as a whole that I will offer is none of it is set it and forget it. And that's a common misconception is technology can run on its own. Uh, so I've done all the hard work. I've identified where I need help in the business or an area of opportunity in the business. I've evaluated the market, I've chosen this tool, I've paid the setup fee and now the tool's implemented, a lot of contractors will move on to the next thing. I've done that hard work, I've got the tool, now it's going start to help solve this problem. I ask contractors to think of technology like a living, breathing human that's on their payroll. So if you think about it, where you interview or you're filling a, let's say a office manager position, you open the position, you review the resumes, you might call some references, you do your diligence to make sure that the person you hire is going to do the job that you need them to do. Same thing with the tools. We do our evaluation, we bring them on. Where it starts to differ is when you bring that employee on. You never sit them at their desk their first day and say, I really hope you're going to do what you told me you were going to do. I'll check back in in six months. Right? You'd never do that. You have an onboarding program, uh, you might have a mentorship program where they ride along or it's very closely monitored to make sure that they represent your business well. And then there's continuous training, right. A year from now maybe you provide them, you send them to a business coaching, training or whatever it is, so you're continuously investing them. So when I ask our clients to think of technology in the same way, it sort of shifts the mentality on these tools require human elements to monitor them and to make sure that they're producing what we needed it to produce. So back to the client in the rural area that we implemented the call center, we caught that within the first month of this new call center going live. Had we not been looking at the data and had we not been studying and making sure that this was working for their specific business, we could have had months of missed opportunities. And so it's really important that when you implement the tech that there's a layer of ownership, whether it's internally. You have individuals who have very clear roles in technology or outsourcing at a fractional level. Having that owner side or subject matter expertise manage externally to the company where it's not fracturing your team's attention, but you still have that same ownership. Ownership and accountability.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, uh, think you nailed it right there. I love identify the problem first, um, and then treat technology as a human. I will also give a piece of advice to business owners out there. Um, if you have a really good team and you are a good leader, congrats. However, what I will tell you, um, is oftentimes if you have the buy in of your team, that can be both a good and a lot of times with technology, it can be a bad thing. Um, we have had situations here where I came back from Pantheon or the other conference and I'm so excited about this thing and it's, I know it's going to be great. And we even maybe explain the why and what problem it's going to solve and all of these great things. And then we hand it off to the team who has to work with it every single day and you hear rumblings of frustration of it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. Uh, we're working with them, but we can't figure it out. And then you may go into a meeting and hey, how's this working? Yep, yep, we're figuring it out. Yep, it's all good. Yep, we got it, we got it, we got it. And it goes on and on and on until finally it hits a boiling point. And a boiling point is like, like, oh my God, I'm literally going to lose my mind. This thing stinks. I don't like it. It's terrible. And it's like, hold On a second. I thought this was good. It's like, well, we want it. You seemed excited about it. We wanted to make it work for you. And so like, I think really having those open lines of communication and I made that mistake once and now it's like, hey, we're gonna try this because I think it'll work. If it doesn't, please, for the love of God, just tell me and then we'll switch course.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, in that, I mean, that is, that's a great mark of culture too. Um, and it's, it's, um, we see it in, in every aspect of the organization, not just technology, but there is almost, um, a desire to make it work. If it, if it's something that we as the owner invest in and that we believe in, the team will work so hard. You know, they want to prove it, they want to make it right, they want to believe in it too. And so to create that culture where you can say, I have a lot of hope for this, but you're the one using it. And so I expect you to report it back to me and give me your honest feedback about if it's working, that's incredibly important. Um, in a company. And understanding, um, going back to your question about data, the advice you just gave your listeners, and relying on the team to report back, or pardon me, the question about AI, I would say having a clear process for reporting and data will help you with that accountability. When we describe the levels of technology, that first level, that is make sure your foundation is set, your operational software, your financial software, those two must be set. Your second level is, is all of the third party tools that are integrating into those platforms, like your enhanced marketing tool or your AI call center, or your inventory tracking, whatever it is. The third layer, that's your reporting layer. So once your first two levels are set, the owner operator should have a reporting mechanism that aggregates data from all of those sources. Because that's another thing that we still see is even with all of this incredible technology that we have, we have disparate data, we have all of these different tools. And so I have, um, as an owner, I'm trying to make a decision on operational KPIs from Service Die and financial KPIs from QuickBooks and marketing KPIs from this tool. And so it's very difficult to build intelligence when everything is managed separately. And so we advocate for that overarching reporting. And there's so many great tools out there today that will aggregate all of your data and then start to help you build intelligence off of it. That way it's not all on your team to understand if the tool is working, but you have a level of expectations that you're monitoring on a continuous basis and it gets you away from spreadsheet management.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker B: I mean even with the best service titan setups, we still have clients that are primarily making business decisions off of spreadsheets. And so we advocate for that third layer to be reporting. So think of it like your building blocks. Once you have those first two in place, identify a fantastic data partner who's going to work with you to build those models specific to your business.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I had that as a note here, uh, as it related to like AI and when I asked you the question about, you know, what, what, what should people be looking at, where should they implement it? And um, you know, for us, uh, you know, and I think the data and reporting and the analytics has just been so powerful. The ability to analyze just mass amounts of data and it literally in about 30 seconds spits out exactly what it is. I mean we've even looked at like our entire marketing spend and customer data and all of this stuff and it basically gives us like I have every month like a seven page marketing report about how we did last month and like, well, this is the problem. And for me, like, if you're a contractor and it's like all these fancy solutions, like if, if it's my personal opinion, if you could hone in on one, it would be getting using the power of AI to analyze data, um, for both your team and yourself so that you can make the right decision. Um, if you're operating in a bunch of this stuff like you can't make the right decision. There's so many levers in these businesses to pull to get success and if you don't know what's actually going on amongst your data, you're in a bad place. It's crazy.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And that's the power of AI. That's the true power of it, is to help to illustrate opportunity within a business. The one addition that I would offer for that is what AI pulls from. It's, it's what AI produces, pardon me, is only as good as what it's pulling from. And so that's where we get back to the human behind the technology concept. If AI is pulling from broken processes, broken workflows, uh, disparate data, anything that you get from AI could lead you in the wrong direction. That's actually my fourth level, Chad. So I have your foundation, your third party tools, your reporting. Then you reach the top where you can confidently use AI because if you don't have those first three levels in place, AI is just going to be giving you bad information and broken processes.

Speaker A: Yep, you're 100% right and I'm so glad you said that. Uh, that is something that I uh, remember when we first got into it and it would be like um, you know, our tech team would give us like this reporting and we'd be looking at it and we'd be like, yeah, that's not, that can't be right. That isn't right. And they're like, yeah, yeah, I know it's not right. It's, that's version one. That's like we pulled all the data, now we have to massage the data because you know, Claude can only read what I give it and sometimes it doesn't have all the context that we have. So yes, that is incorrect. We were just showing you what it would look like. I've got to go back and spend about three to four hours massaging this data so that we can get it. So 100%, whatever your AI service you use, um, don't trust the first version. Like you need to validate. So you need to validate this stuff for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. Never. Let's put that in our personal use of AI too.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: Don't use AI as your therapist.

Speaker A: Correct. Yeah, yeah. Please don't. Um, Jenny, I, I can't thank you enough. I know, I know we're running up against time and I know you're busy. Um, I know that there are. I, I'm sure that anybody listening to this is in the same spot. I mean I, like I said, I have a development team and we're still in the same spot struggling with all of this stuff and people running here and what softwares do we use and all of this stuff and it, it, um, you know, it, it's clear to me that, that you and, and, and your company can help with this. Um, the last question I'll leave you with because I think this is kind of a good, kind of self check for people who are like, I can't figure this out, I'm just gonna go find somebody who can help me. But to me that relationship is always two sided. And I'm sure you can probably think about examples of when you, someone signed up with you and you're like, yes, you do have some problems, here's how we're gonna fix them. But you had an owner or A leadership group that wasn't open to working the process. So I guess I'd ask you if you're someone who clearly identified, I got problems, I'm not sure how to use all this technology. I need to find someone to help me. What would you say are kind of the qualities of a company, a leadership team and owner, uh, that are going to work really well with someone like yourself in trying to solve this whole technology thing?

Speaker B: What a great question. Um, that truly it is. And you hit the nail on the head a lot of what we do, just such as what I've described. With technology. It's not a, um, magic bullet that we're going to give you or to give a contractor. It is thoughtful, consultative work and discovery which requires participation with our clients. So a true partnership, and whether it is a contractor who says, I don't have the internal resources to manage this myself, or I think it's risky to have all of that internally, I'd like to diversify and diversify that subject matter expertise. The first acknowledgment is this will be a time investment. And so I'm going to commit to an hour a week, or I'm going to commit to bringing my stakeholders together for a couple meetings a week. And we're going to collaborate and work together on where our business currently is, where the opportunities lie, and then developing a roadmap to start tackling some of these technology challenges and roll out an adoption. So the ideal partner is one that is excited and invested in getting their arms around technology and wants to be a part of building it uniquely for their business, which will lead to that scalable success.

Speaker A: No, I love it. Um, Jenny, I guess before we go, uh, like I said, as we just said, I'm sure there's people that are like, hey, how do I get a hold of these people? Uh, how do I. I need some help. Hand raised. It's me. Um, what's the best way for people to get either in touch with you or in touch with Powerhouse to kind, uh, of start evaluating their technology and seeing how you guys may be able to help them?

Speaker B: That'd be great. Go to our website. It's my powerhouse. Um, from there you can either click a button to request a discovery call. Um, all of our first engagements start with discovery, where we listen and learn what is going on with a business and align support and resources that make sense. Um, or we also have a free tech stack assessment that a contractor can go through that is pretty enlightening. It walks through departmentally areas of their business and depending, uh, on their answers will indicate how well they're using technology or where there's opportunity. Um, so going to our website again, it's mypowerhouse.group.

Speaker A: awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ginny. Listeners, as we said and talked about over this last kind of 40 to 50 minutes, um, your business may not need more leads. Um, you may not need more technicians. Um, what you may need is to reevaluate your processes and procedures. And in today's day and age, we can use technology to supplement that. Um, we can use technology to speed up, um, the, um, the time in which it takes to make decisions. However, we have to evaluate that in a step by step process. As Jenny pointed out, there's building blocks. You got to have this before you have this. If you have them out of whack, um, all of a sudden, uh, you've created more problems than you've solved. And so, so as you look at your technology, um, as you look at most importantly your process and procedure and operational aptitude, um, what are those things that you need to shore up before you go buy more leads, um, before you hire more people? Um, all of these things are extremely important in a business that has multiple levers for growth. And so, Jenny, again, thank you so much for being on and uh, listeners, uh, hopefully reach out to Jenny if you, if you have any, if you, uh, need, uh, for help in technology. I'm guessing you do. Um, but, uh, all in all, uh, thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate it, Chad.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you.