Why Contractors Need to Put Their Pricing Online in 2026

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Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

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Unknown
Oh!

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Speaker 2
welcome, everybody, to the Blue Collar Startup, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas.

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Speaker 2
This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the frontlines of life in the business of the trades. I’m your host today, Derek Foster from Digital Cleaning Systems here in Albany, New York. And Mike is on vacation, so hopefully he’s enjoying that. I was laughing with Paul, our guest, because, Mike is up in the Adirondacks with minimal cell service, but want to make sure everything was all set up and ready to go.

00;00;43;28 – 00;00;56;06
Speaker 2
So we’re super grateful to have Paul. And I’ll let you introduce yourself, Paul. So that way I don’t, put your, your name or the, the business name. And, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself in, in the company?

00;00;56;08 – 00;01;19;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me on, Derek. So I’m Paul Redman. I’m the president of Contractor Commerce. We are a software company that is, that created an e-commerce platform for the trades and started in 2018. And men have a lot of things changed since we launched the company. But, long story short, we help home service businesses across the three different trade categories.

00;01;19;04 – 00;01;26;03
Speaker 1
Had their own online store. So, we’ve learned a ton and had a lot of success with our customers and, happy to jump into it today.

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Speaker 2
Awesome. Well, thanks again for being here. You guys have a really cool story. And I, you know, I did some preparation for it today. And can you talk about the the founding family of the company and kind of their journey through the trade from start up to, to where they are now?

00;01;47;20 – 00;02;16;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So at, the root of our company is a third generation family HVAC business. And so I think in 1954, is when the company originally started and passed down to son and then grandson. And, it was about 2006, after the grandson had taken over the business, that he was out in the the shop area looking at the shelves and saw all these extra parts and pieces and primarily air filters.

00;02;16;26 – 00;02;37;09
Speaker 1
So keep in mind this is a mechanical HVAC company. And he walks outside and he sees all these things. And this was right about the time when Amazon was becoming a thing and people were starting to have online stores. And he thought, well, what if I created an online store and sold all these extra parts and pieces and, just got rid of them, as opposed to throwing them away or taking them back to a distributor?

00;02;37;11 – 00;02;57;11
Speaker 1
So, the will, who is the third generation son who took over the business, built a couple websites. So, you know, humidifiers.com. In fact, a couple other websites listed these parts. And sure enough, back in 2006, 2007, people started buying from them. So he would run his mechanical contracting business during the day, taking care of his customers employees.

00;02;57;14 – 00;03;14;22
Speaker 1
And then at night, he would load his car with whatever was purchased. That day. He would go home at his kitchen table and package it up with his life, and then take it to the post office. I believe, as legend would have it, he didn’t even have a way to take payments at the time. I think some of the first orders that we shipped out were that he had shipped out where, we’re free of charge.

00;03;14;22 – 00;03;48;22
Speaker 1
So, that started the transition from, us becoming a traditional mechanical contractor to becoming one of the largest direct to consumer, filter companies, the United States. So as a couple years went by, will house the, third generation owner of the company, sold the family business and went all in on e-commerce. And so and he was the first contractor to transition from, residential and commercial HVAC to, you know, residential e-commerce for the trades.

00;03;48;24 – 00;04;11;22
Speaker 1
It was right about that time, too, that, the website hvac.com, which will hit owned had started to grow. So we had two businesses happening at the same time. We had this direct to consumer e-commerce business and we had hvac.com. And for years the businesses would grow and, and that’s how I became involved. I met Wil through the industry, and I was a big reader on hvac.com.

00;04;11;25 – 00;04;37;25
Speaker 1
And, there was an insight around 2018, that really caught everyone’s attention and that was that the majority of traffic that was coming to hvac.com. Now, you can imagine hvac.com became one of the, if not the leading websites in the US for consumers looking for information on HVAC. And two of the pages, or two of the things that consumers were looking for were pricing and a way to buy things.

00;04;37;27 – 00;05;06;27
Speaker 1
So in 2018, Will decided, hey, we’re going to launch and create an online store platform for contractors, because if if having an online store worked for him as a study of one, it should work for other contractors. So we launched in 2018 and we’ve learned so much since we’ve launched, but we’ve been committed to the same cause since the moment we launched, and that is that every contractor in the United States and Canada and eventually the world will have an online store and, many do.

00;05;06;27 – 00;05;15;06
Speaker 1
So that’s kind of how we got started. And, man, there’s a lot of twists and turns along the way and we’ll probably get into some of those.

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Speaker 2
So that’s incredible. Seeing a need obviously, and feeling that and then making that leap to go all in is this very impressive. And now I guess having or the mentality change, I guess for service contractors. Has that changed over the years with technology? And how do you how do you guys educate, you know, your customers, the, the HVAC companies and what benefits do you see from them moving to integrate technology into their company?

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Speaker 1
So when, when you talk about technology, it’s interesting because lumping in what we do with all other technology is sort of hard because what we created was such a, it was a stretch for a lot of the market, like a lot of people were thinking about, you know, ends, you know, field service management software and, different communication tools, but very few contractors.

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Speaker 1
When we launched company were thinking about an online store. So, in the first few two years of launching the company, we really served the the modern contractor, large private equity companies are really, really tech forward. People who were thinking like, how do I stay out ahead of my competition? How do I be different? So that was our first kind of batch of customers.

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Speaker 1
And it’s interesting. One of the things that’s changed so much is we used to have to really describe the why, really describe the why. We had to educate the market on why they should consider making it possible for a homeowner to go far through the process of buying something on their website without going out to the home or, you know, get or getting a quote or, or whatever that is.

00;06;58;00 – 00;07;20;05
Speaker 1
And now the changes, it’s it’s just obvious, you know, watching 2018, 2020 happened. Contractors couldn’t go in people’s home. That was another, uptick in our product. And now it’s just quite obvious that you want to be where your customers are and your customers are shopping on their phones, whether it’s through ChatGPT or Claude or, you know, the normal search engines.

00;07;20;07 – 00;07;33;06
Speaker 1
Contractors know that if they want to win and they want to make it, or they want to be competitive in their market, they’ve got to be the easiest to do business with. And having an online store is just quite obvious. So a lot to unpack there.

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Speaker 2
So your background, now that we heard a little bit of the history of the company, how did you get into the trades and serving the trades. What is your former experience?

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Speaker 1
Yeah. So shortly after getting out of undergraduate school, this is 2007, large man is that air conditioning manufacturer hired me, a company named Lennox. And, you’ve probably heard of Lennox. It’s one of the.

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Speaker 2
Big all company, right?

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Speaker 1
Small company. And so, you know, I was really, really hungry for a job when I got out of the college, and I didn’t have, I was a first generation college student and didn’t have a lot of connections or opportunities. And I really was like, going on Monster.com to find jobs and really just couldn’t land in a good in a good job.

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Speaker 1
And through, a connection on a win. Like, I’ll spare that story for another time. Someone had introduced me to Lennox and suggested that I apply working there. And so I was in Ohio and I applied for this job in Denver, Colorado, and they moved me out there. And literally the moment I, you know, opened my laptop on the first day, I just had been, super, like deep on home services and HVAC.

00;08;40;14 – 00;08;56;16
Speaker 1
And so I worked there for about ten years. And as I was working there, I had the opportunity to move to a lot of different places in the country and travel the whole country to get to know contractors and, worked on some e-commerce projects, which led me to meet a guy named wheelhouse who was the founder of, you know, at the time, I just knew of the fact that.

00;08;56;16 – 00;09;29;08
Speaker 1
Com and would will and I met, we both shared the same view of where the industry was going. And when I say we both shared like he he was the only person I had met who spoke the same language as I did about what was possible in the future. And so we just became natural friends. And it was around 2020 when, it was quite obvious that that at that time, you know, a startup contract or commerce could be a, very impactful, big industry category creating type of company.

00;09;29;10 – 00;09;48;19
Speaker 1
And so we teamed up, I joined, in 2021, and it’s been, and off to the races ever since. So I back to your question how to get into trades. I mean, whatever I do, I tend to just get really deep into it, whether that’s good or bad. So I’m about as deep into home services as, every day I find new things to get into.

00;09;48;19 – 00;09;53;05
Speaker 1
But, yeah, that’s how that’s how this happened to be.

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Speaker 2
So as a the president of the business, what is what is your day to day look like and what types of things are you looking at. And, you know, how many people are you managing and and do you guys I’d imagine you have a pretty strong culture, in the business. What does that look like?

00;10;09;27 – 00;10;26;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. So a lot, a lot to unpack there in my day to day, changes from I like to think about being on top of a cruise ship and looking out and trying to see where the industry is going and make sure we’re headed in the right direction. That’s probably number one. Number two is teamwork. And I didn’t anticipate this.

00;10;26;02 – 00;10;54;02
Speaker 1
But when you get to a certain size, it can be quite a lift just to make sure the right people are working with the right people, on the right thing at the right times, and by the right deadline. And I over, I, I underestimated that. And so, you know, now, as the company has grown and upward around 50 people now, it’s making sure that everybody’s rowing in the same direction and over communicating, over communicating a ton while also innovating.

00;10;54;02 – 00;11;14;28
Speaker 1
So, thinking about how the market consumes technology and how that’s changing and, monitoring threats in the market and opportunities and, getting close to the customer and, it’s, it’s a balance. But I would say, in a lot of my time now, it’s it’s interesting. I talk about, this is more so just general management stuff.

00;11;14;28 – 00;11;47;03
Speaker 1
But when you get to, when you have a really, really aggressive goals, like we have very aggressive goals and and we’ve hit those aggressive goals along the way of growing the company. So much of the growth happens in the margins. You know, it happens in that one conversation with an employee for 15 minutes after work when they’re having a rough day that unlocks something for them, or text messages and phone calls on the weekends with potential employees who are coming from other companies or, in my case, like having conversations off the record with competitors about strategy.

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Speaker 1
And, it’s just, a 24 over seven, it’s a 24 over seven thing. And, yeah, it keeps me very busy.

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Speaker 2
I can imagine. So you said talk about strategy with competitors. Did I hear that correctly?

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Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2
Normally everybody normally thinks that that’s a bad thing. You know, and, and, I’ve also heard, you know, several folks on, on some other podcasts talk about that. So in your industry, people are pretty open to strategy. Is it strategy discussions and collaborating on some of that?

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Speaker 1
You know, I should probably rephrase the strategy. I do think there is a, and this has just come up recently. I do think it is important to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And, so I think that is easier said than done, and you have to be really careful with it. But, you’ve got to be close to the action and know what’s going on in the space.

00;12;49;17 – 00;13;07;19
Speaker 1
And especially when you’re in like an acquisition mindset or consolidation mindset or just a defensive, you know, finding out what’s out there. So, yeah, I strategy might not be the right word, but, you know, understanding the market is probably the better way to, to place it.

00;13;07;21 – 00;13;31;22
Speaker 2
That’s amazing. Do you have any tips in communication? As you know, especially in our business, we have a lot of people and and folks that we manage. And, you know, our business is very people oriented and communication is one of our values. It’s one of the things that we strive to get better at constantly. Do you have for anybody starting out or maybe expanding their business, adding employees?

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Speaker 2
What are some of those tips on communication? Or if you have any tips or strategies to to force people to communicate and collaborate better?

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Speaker 1
Yeah, I’ll talk about communication and I’ll talk about something else I learned recently. You know, there is a there’s a fine line between being too transparent but being transparent enough. And that line can get really blurry if, if you don’t have integrity and you’re not honest, then it gets confusing. But our core values of honesty, integrity and execution and those sort of things and you know, if you stick to those, then you can be pretty transparent and cover a lot of ground.

00;14;16;10 – 00;14;44;19
Speaker 1
We recently had, I can’t share the details, but just in the last week we had really we had two really unexpected good things happen to us. Really, really good things. That’s awesome. And, I was talking with someone on my team because these two things, they had been really rocky over the years, like they had gotten really bad and negatively affected us, had gotten still a negative that negatively affected us, and we didn’t think things were going to get better.

00;14;44;21 – 00;15;03;04
Speaker 1
And, these two things happened to us this week and we were in a text communication, about about it. And the guy was saying, Phil, let me take a look here. I’ll read this message. She is exactly what what I sent him. He said, like, how does this happen? Right? How how did we get this lucky?

00;15;03;06 – 00;15;11;15
Speaker 1
And my, my message to Phil was that there is a we find it here. I’m going into my texts.

00;15;11;18 – 00;15;33;10
Speaker 1
It’s the it’s the compounding effect of doing the right thing for a long period of time, even when you didn’t want to. And so all those opportunities where we had to take the high road or all those opportunities where we had to kind of take it on the chin and all those opportunities where we just continued being a great company, committed to our customers, committed to our values when we could have done otherwise.

00;15;33;12 – 00;15;53;26
Speaker 1
It all comes back around and you hope it comes back around in your lifetime, and you hope it comes back around where you can. Like in these two cases, we’re commercially benefiting from this. Like these are good things. And yeah, that would be my answer to that is doing the right thing, you know, for a long period of time and watching it compound like, like interest in the bank.

00;15;53;28 – 00;15;59;05
Speaker 2
Amazing. The, the hockey stick analogy always comes to mind with that.

00;15;59;07 – 00;16;00;02
Speaker 1
But yeah, yeah.

00;16;00;03 – 00;16;21;23
Speaker 2
It does take a lot of patience, to get there. So I guess switching gears a little bit, Paul, the modern homeowner, let’s talk about the modern homeowner. And how has the buying process changed over the last, let’s say, ten years? And what are any owners looking for?

00;16;21;25 – 00;16;49;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing that it changed is in the research and consideration phase. So consumers used to research which companies they should have to their home and have them out and get an estimate and evaluate the three estimates, and maybe ask some friends and neighbors and make a decision and schedule work. Now they go straight to ChatGPT or straight, of course, Google, Google, AI, those sort of things where they’re having AI agents essentially do a lot of the, comparison.

00;16;49;23 – 00;17;14;14
Speaker 1
So consideration, comparison, brand selection, etc., and or and or using that after they receive an estimate, then they’re going to ChatGPT and taking a picture of it and sending it out. Am I getting ripped off here? What else should I consider? What am I missing? And, that has been the when I think back, you know, when we when I came over to join the company, I knew there would be surprises.

00;17;14;14 – 00;17;34;11
Speaker 1
And there had been there have been so many surprises. And there’s no way to anticipate what those surprises are. This is the biggest surprise I’ve had is just how human beings use AI in a conversational format, to make purchase decisions. And so as a result, it’s shaped our product strategy and what we go to market with and how we help our customers, you know, show up for homeowners.

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Speaker 1
And so, yeah, that’s, that’s a big thing.

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Speaker 2
Interesting. And Mike and I, you know, we we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, how that has changed and how businesses should optimize to be to be seen not necessarily by the search engine anymore, but appear in the top column from what the AI agent or the AI, you know, interpretation of of the ask is. So in in your opinion, what can businesses do to, you know, be the prominent selection?

00;18;15;03 – 00;18;24;29
Speaker 2
What are some of those? What are some of the things that Contractor Commerce does, you know, for your clients to be able to put them in that position to be the choice?

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Speaker 1
Yeah. I have a comment in the know response that my first comment is, you know, we’re on the front end, the front edge of this frontier, and it’s moving and changing so quickly. And the concept of and I’m using air quotes for those not watching is ask engine optimization or AI optimization is relatively new and unprecedented. And there are a lot of for lack of there were like grifters out there that are helping claiming to help.

00;18;48;03 – 00;19;12;01
Speaker 1
Everybody’s got I mean, I just did a webinar yesterday about being found on AI search or my team did. So everybody’s got an answer. And so I think people should be really cautious about that. And the, the next piece of it is, is always put themselves into homeowners shoes. Think about the information the homeowner is trying to get as quickly as possible, which is with as much clarity and confidence and control as possible.

00;19;12;04 – 00;19;35;24
Speaker 1
And it shouldn’t be hard for a contractor to do that or anybody to do that, because it’s one year homeowners. And so you already think like a homeowner, put yourself in their shoes. And then I would say, well, you know, organize your content strategy, the information that’s available everywhere around how to be like, really, really easy to understand and consume by a human being and let but I let I do its thing.

00;19;35;24 – 00;19;57;09
Speaker 1
So where, where that intersects with my world is, you know, we were first in the market to tell contractors not just in HVAC, but plumbing, electrical, roofing, locksmiths like, put your pricing online, put it online, quit being scared, put your pricing online, and, make it so that a customer can check out on your website. Shouldn’t they want to?

00;19;57;11 – 00;20;20;01
Speaker 1
And so that’s where we’ve dedicated the last really 5 or 6 years of the company’s product development is making it so that a homeowner can purchase a big ticket item, dryer vent cleaning to a generator, to a pool directly on a contractor’s website. And, it’s a big lift, but it’s happening. And so, yeah, that’s my advice to just think like a homeowner.

00;20;20;01 – 00;20;22;06
Speaker 1
And the rest of the thought in the place.

00;20;22;09 – 00;20;39;20
Speaker 2
That’s interesting. So put the pricing out there. Do you get any pushback on that or I guess another way to say it is, do you help some of those contractors with that to make sure that their their covered?

00;20;39;22 – 00;20;59;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. So do I get pushback on it. Early. Yes. I mean, it was so controversial. I mean, I lost personal relationships over this idea because the idea of giving someone a price before you got to the home to be able to build value and tell your company story and show them your flip book and measure and put your booties on and, build value as a customer.

00;20;59;17 – 00;21;17;22
Speaker 1
That giving them a price was a terrible idea. You should never do that first. And so, I mean, we would we were scheduled to exhibit at trade shows and got calls, you know, weeks before saying, we can’t bring you in. I mean, this happened not long ago, like within the last few months. One of the best.

00;21;17;24 – 00;21;36;26
Speaker 1
This one of the largest, best practice groups who had led us into their program and asked us to come speak just said, hey, we’re having a conversation with our board and they’re not comfortable with your messaging. And the messaging that we have is you should be really transparent with your consumers for a lot of reasons, let alone I, but like be transparent, make it easy to buy from you.

00;21;36;26 – 00;21;58;18
Speaker 1
So, so yes, pushback. I will say the pushback is, it has been replaced, what with what I’ll call pull through. Contractors reach out to us because they want to they get it. They know that this is how consumers buy things and people have went ahead of them. And these are we have so many case studies of great companies that didn’t go out of business.

00;21;58;18 – 00;22;13;22
Speaker 1
When they put their pricing online, they grew. So it’s been much, gosh, I mean, I spent most of my time trying to convince people early along, and I spend very little, almost no time on that, which is wonderful.

00;22;13;25 – 00;22;18;18
Speaker 2
That’s amazing. And and good advice.

00;22;18;20 – 00;22;30;07
Speaker 2
If there’s a listener that’s struggling with how to go about that, what would you what would you tell them? What’s the first step to take, if they’re unsure, hesitant about doing so?

00;22;30;09 – 00;22;47;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to give the obvious answer, which is just go to contractor commerce.com, talk to someone, click talk to sales. Someone on my team will walk you through case studies. We’ll share with you other people in your market who are doing this. You can go on and seeder pricing and you’ll realize like, hey, everybody’s got pricing online.

00;22;47;03 – 00;23;09;02
Speaker 1
Some of the give me more. So I would start with just like it’s no longer taboo. But yeah, go to contractor commerce.com and talk to someone who we are the, the, you know, the leading experts in this area. We’ve done this more than any other people anywhere that I can find. And, do it all day long so that we’d be happy to have a conversation with somebody.

00;23;09;05 – 00;23;41;09
Speaker 2
So with that being said, is there a difference from a customer standpoint? And and this is probably driven just by technology in and of itself. But, you know, younger homeowners, do they have or are they expecting something different than, you know, what some of the older business models deliver? Yeah, that you actually. And how does that differ from, you know, the previous generation?

00;23;41;11 – 00;24;03;27
Speaker 1
They have much lower patience for time. So if you, a young millennial homeowner is not going to call somewhere. Well, first of all, there can call they’re going to text. Right. So know that, they’re going to want to have long conversations via text. They’re going to want to do things virtually. This is the zoom generation. They see no reason why you why having a zoom consultation is out of the question.

00;24;03;29 – 00;24;26;00
Speaker 1
They’re going to get pricing online. They’re going to want to have multiple ways to finance. They’re going to want to do short term financing on, repairs. So things like, you know, for payments of 150 or whatever, they’re going to want to, have multiple payment options. So yeah, it’s the younger generation we know we can see quite obviously the breakdown where it’s headed.

00;24;26;00 – 00;24;31;23
Speaker 1
And so we’re trying to help our customers accommodate that generation.

00;24;31;25 – 00;25;02;25
Speaker 2
Interesting. So, you know, with the, the landscape of the trades, obviously, you know, our mission is to to educate, empower. And this is all great, information. And in order to be able to create, obviously, more trade jobs and, and opportunities for young folks that to join into the trades, businesses need to grow. And we we need more small businesses that are able to service, their local economies.

00;25;02;27 – 00;25;32;14
Speaker 2
So I, I, I think it’s wonderful what what you guys are doing and helping to open, you know, some some smaller businesses as well as larger businesses, eyes to some of the different thought processes that are out there. So why do you what are some other pieces of technology, that you think are valuable for small trade contractors to look at?

00;25;32;16 – 00;25;39;23
Speaker 2
You know, what can be an important driver, for them from some of the businesses that you work with.

00;25;39;26 – 00;26;12;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. And this is more this is a newer trend that I think is going to become increasingly important. And that is, having a way to get all your data in one place. And I’m not necessarily talking about a field service management system like a service Titan or house call pro or job or whatever, but a, a place that is, but that your data is understood and organized and categorized so that as you grow as a company, you can leverage and utilize that data without relying on third parties.

00;26;12;28 – 00;26;36;07
Speaker 1
So, you know, for big enterprise companies are tools like snowflake. There’s others out there. But when you have your data uniformed and cleaned and organized in one place, then you can start to use tools that are off the shelf like a clod or, you know, Codex from ChatGPT or OpenAI, rather, where you can go in and really start building tools for your business.

00;26;36;10 – 00;27;00;17
Speaker 1
But I would say just as a, as a start, like you should be thinking about data. And I understand, as I say, thinking about data like that’s a really broad comment to make. But yeah, having your data organized in, in a place and is kind of something that not a lot of people are thinking about. And, there are unintentional, dependencies built around phones and those sort of things you got to be really careful for.

00;27;00;19 – 00;27;10;08
Speaker 1
So, yeah, I’d be thinking about data warehouse is what I would Google if you’re, if you’re a contractor listening to this and find somebody, build one of those for you.

00;27;10;10 – 00;27;28;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree, we’re actually going through that process in our business now and, reworking some of the technology. And there’s just so much out there, you know, we looked at a number of different things and nothing was a perfect fit. So we kind of went outside the box, and we worked on developing our own and just about ready to launch.

00;27;28;22 – 00;27;44;06
Speaker 2
So we’re we’re super excited about that. But it’s scary. And it’s it’s a lot again, especially for our business, we, you know, have over 150 employees here. And it’s like it’s a huge lift to get everybody moving in that same direction. Are rowing in the same direction as.

00;27;44;08 – 00;27;44;25
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;27;44;27 – 00;27;59;15
Speaker 2
You know, you mentioned, what are some of the common pitfalls or mistakes that contractors should look for and look to avoid before investing in any new software? Or what are some of the mistakes that you’ve seen?

00;27;59;18 – 00;28;22;02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, some of these I’ve experienced myself where I mean, there’s there’s two ways. So oftentimes contractors will sign up for things and not have the bandwidth or the personnel to actually execute upon them. I see it all the time. You see something, you go to a trade show, you see an ad, it sounds awesome. You sign the executive of the company, whoever owns that has the credit card with the limit on it.

00;28;22;02 – 00;28;46;05
Speaker 1
They sign up, they sign the contract, and then there’s a team that’s left to figure out, well, what does this mean? And so I’ve seen this with my own customers where, a great customer of ours will sign up. His immediate management team will get it. But downstream of that, the the customer service rep has no idea what that, when they get a contract or conversely, that that person has seen three systems and has been pre-approved for financing for $208 a month.

00;28;46;05 – 00;29;09;11
Speaker 1
Right. So, that is, you’ve got to have someone in your company that can follow it from the executive decision all the way down to how does it affect the customer at the at the lowest level in your company, that entry level, the company. That’s one that’s the first pitfall. The other thing, and this is something that’s unprecedented and you’re probably experiencing and you’re the your business I’m experiencing it in mine.

00;29;09;14 – 00;29;33;18
Speaker 1
You know, you can go from 0 to 60 pretty quickly on new technology, building it in-house. You can build all sorts of tools with clean and, building it is now the easy part. It is then tuning it to be effective in commercial grade is the next hardest part. And then the actual hardest part is implementing it across your organization.

00;29;33;20 – 00;29;52;21
Speaker 1
So, you gotta be careful. I mean, there’s just, oh. And then also, you know, you’ll have employees using Claude or ChatGPT or connecting all these data sources and having it do a lot of work as a personal assistant, which is good, but it’s also just it opens up new security risks and new process and workflow risks.

00;29;52;21 – 00;30;11;10
Speaker 1
And, this is just we’re in it right now. We’re not we as a company, we as a in the in the working world. You want your employees to use AI to excuse me, to use AI to be more efficient and, compute faster. And, you know, sometimes it comes at the expense of entropy. So, yeah, a lot to lot to consider there.

00;30;11;10 – 00;30;15;19
Speaker 1
And we’re in the early, early about early innings.

00;30;15;22 – 00;30;38;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s it’s amazing. What is out there. We had Andrea Palacio out there on the podcast last week and and that’s what she does. She helps small businesses, sort through some of that. And, she builds eye bots and, and whatnot for folks to be able to offload some of the repetitive tasks. And it’s just amazing the capabilities that are out there.

00;30;38;11 – 00;31;05;08
Speaker 2
So yeah, I, I can see that. What, I guess for a new contractor that’s starting out, and Mike and I have talked about this a number of times on the show, it’s always that chicken or the egg. Do I invest in sales and technology? Do I invest in my operational software and equipment? And it might be different depending upon what industry it is, what the priorities.

00;31;05;09 – 00;31;14;21
Speaker 2
But then from your experience and your standpoint, what do you think comes first and what would be your advice for somebody that’s starting out.

00;31;14;23 – 00;31;37;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s actually a tough question. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind are building a durable brand so that you don’t have to go back and pay brand debt. The second is this kind of ties to marketing, but is more of a sales operation is like speed to lead, right. Do you have a process to handle a customer when they’re interested, and is that process dialed in so you can convert that customers?

00;31;37;11 – 00;32;01;29
Speaker 1
That’s next thing is conversion. You know, how do you what tools or technology or processes. When do you have a customer who’s interested. You can convert that. And then the next thesis cash right. How quickly can you get paid and get that cash into the business. So you can do the whole cycle again. So it’s pretty I mean, I say it’s simple, but I would start there before I got into a bunch of other fancy stuff, including I it’s how do you how do you get customers.

00;32;02;01 – 00;32;19;24
Speaker 1
How do so how do you get, you know, the phone to ring and how do you get those customers converted into customers? How do you get that converted into revenue? How do you get that revenue back into the feed, the flywheel? And I wouldn’t the the advice I would give contractors is you can do it, all right.

00;32;19;24 – 00;32;37;23
Speaker 1
You can do all the things, but you can’t do it all at once. So focus on those things. I the reason I bring up brand first is just because I’ve seen so many. I mean, I’ve done this with different things where you think about the service or the business fuel. Really think about like, should you need to become a household name one day?

00;32;37;26 – 00;33;03;02
Speaker 1
And I’ve seen people have to go back and correct that. And that seems really expensive and really painful. I wouldn’t over I mean, you also have to think about the first startup company, how you’re using debt or loans or whatever to start this thing up. And there’s you’re going to have to draw the line somewhere. But, yeah, I would start with brands, how you get to customers that you convert those customers.

00;33;03;05 – 00;33;08;08
Speaker 1
That’s what I would start with.

00;33;08;10 – 00;33;32;25
Speaker 2
So as they’re starting what would what would you say is the the most overrated business metric that they see folks look at? Because it’s very easy when you’re starting to get so hyper focused on on one thing or the next, but it could be the wrong thing. So what do you think is the the one that’s talked about most in and may not be as important as it said?

00;33;32;25 – 00;33;54;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, probably number of trucks. Like I would figure out efficiency. First I would figure out customer acquisition cost. I would figure out all the financial, you know, what it takes to run a profitable truck versus number of trucks. I think you do hear about that less now. But that’s not a good proxy for do I have a good business?

00;33;54;21 – 00;33;59;27
Speaker 1
It just feels good to see a fleet of, you know, vans with your name on it.

00;33;59;29 – 00;34;03;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s, kind of an ego driver.

00;34;03;06 – 00;34;03;27
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;34;03;29 – 00;34;09;16
Speaker 2
Or fulfilling in the, Yeah.

00;34;09;18 – 00;34;28;13
Speaker 2
So if you could sit down with a blue collar entrepreneur starting from scratch, what’s one piece of advice that you would give them to build a business that creates freedom instead of just another job?

00;34;28;16 – 00;34;56;17
Speaker 1
Those first few hires are so critical, and I don’t have the answer for that. Whether it’s, a co-founder or a partner or a GM. Those are pretty critical. You do not want to be leveraged by your labor. That’s a tough one. To solve for that. I’ve seen it or I’ve seen it too often where companies get stuck because the tail wagging the dog, right.

00;34;56;17 – 00;35;24;10
Speaker 1
They have 1 or 2 installers or technicians or whatever that tend to run the show. That’s really tough. I don’t know how to avoid it other than like making sure you get those first few hires, right? You know, be a great place to work. And that doesn’t mean that you have to, overpay for the market. It does not have to mean that you have a foosball table and only work four days a week.

00;35;24;12 – 00;35;43;28
Speaker 1
Be a place that your employee is proud to tell their family they work for, and they’re proud to wear your uniform in town and those sort of things, and they feel good about working for you. And that’s more interpersonal communication, leadership stuff. I’ve seen that, I gosh, I think of, I’m thinking of a company in Colorado Springs called Home Heating.

00;35;43;28 – 00;36;02;18
Speaker 1
Kyle and Pam Gately and I worked with them in 2028 and nine directly. And, and, have known them for years. But when I go to their website every once in a while just to see what they’re up to, like some of the same people that hit, most of the people who are on their team page are people who were there when I was there in 2008, 2009.

00;36;02;20 – 00;36;31;25
Speaker 1
And, you know, I don’t hear them talking about employee turnover. I don’t hear them talking about it’s hard to find good people. They don’t even know that’s a thing. Like, they’re just awesome people and they’re not awesome because they take their employees to on crazy trips. They’re just good people. And you want to work for them. So, you know, it goes back to that like thing I said earlier about like the compounding effect of good decisions over a long period of time and being a good person over all of your time.

00;36;31;25 – 00;36;34;07
Speaker 1
And that’s come back around.

00;36;34;10 – 00;36;38;08
Speaker 2
What are the characteristics that you look for in a new hire? I’m sure you guys.

00;36;38;08 – 00;36;39;05
Speaker 1
Have a oh man.

00;36;39;05 – 00;36;49;05
Speaker 2
Interview process. What do you look for? And, you know, this would help some of the younger folks out there who are preparing to either go for an interview for their first job or, something. Yeah. Looking to hire.

00;36;49;07 – 00;37;09;02
Speaker 1
You know, I just talked about this with my leadership team today. I’m going to boil it down to one word, and there’s so many other things but hunger. Yeah. And I think back to, how I got started in my career. And the only reason I am where I am today is because I was so hungry for an opportunity, and I just wanted to provide for my family.

00;37;09;02 – 00;37;27;05
Speaker 1
And I just wanted to buy a home, and I just wanted to pay off my student loans that, all I needed was the opportunity. And, that hunger has never. I went away and it’s a zero. Yeah. Hunger. I’ll take a bunch of other stuff too. But hunger is a great, great first one.

00;37;27;08 – 00;37;41;18
Speaker 2
So from your own journey, because a lot of everybody has a different perception of what hunger or, you know, working hard is. What did that look like for you? What was the grind like?

00;37;41;20 – 00;37;59;11
Speaker 1
When I first got out of school, I worked, so my first job was a management trainee for this trucking company. And, a couple of my buddies from my school I played basketball with. They had worked there, too, and it was a pretty good, pretty good gig. And you’d worked there for, like, six months in this training program.

00;37;59;13 – 00;38;20;07
Speaker 1
And, and then they would place you within the organization in a different area where there’s operations or finance or sales or corporate whatever. And, I went into that program knowing I wanted to be in sales. I’d always want to be in sales. But long story, I just always, always wanted to be in sales and on the business side.

00;38;20;09 – 00;38;38;29
Speaker 1
And, 11 weeks into that program, I had a 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. The the manager and the leader of the program asked me to stop by their office, and before my shift, I was like, yeah, the problem. So I stop in the office and I sit down and they’re like, hey, we’re going to let you go.

00;38;39;00 – 00;39;01;00
Speaker 1
And I was like, what? Like, what do you mean you’re letting me go? And I it was a blur and I kind of remember chunks of it. And it was like, you know, you’re you’re not doing a great job on the, on the dock. The people you’re working with think you’re not taking it seriously enough. You seemed to have your mind made up on sales in this particular market and like, it’s not whatever they said.

00;39;01;00 – 00;39;28;02
Speaker 1
We really like you, and we think you’re great and you’ll probably be successful. Whatever. But not here. And so I walked out of there and, that feeling of, being blindsided, being unaware of how I was being perceived, and then losing my job as a result of it. And granted, I was 22 years old. Losing my job as a result of it is a feeling I never wanted to have again.

00;39;28;02 – 00;39;46;18
Speaker 1
And so when and then it took me a couple months, like six months, maybe five months to really get a good opportunity again. And, I just never wanted to feel that again. And so I still, have a hat from that company that is on my toolbox in my garage, because I just want. I never want to forget.

00;39;46;18 – 00;40;06;25
Speaker 1
But I won’t ever forget. Like, I still just. I never want to feel that again. And, so something like. I don’t know if it was that moment, but something changed in me that day. And again, I was young. So, you know, a lot of things have changed since then, but, I just and I just committed to really giving it my all.

00;40;06;25 – 00;40;31;06
Speaker 1
And it cuts both ways. I take work incredibly seriously. My wife told me just this week that, I’ve been speaking in full sentences about work and not just like. But she says it full sentences about spreadsheets and I and people and problems. And so that is not, I think, a great characteristic I’m working on that.

00;40;31;06 – 00;40;35;23
Speaker 1
But yeah. So I hope that answers the question.

00;40;35;25 – 00;41;08;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think, you know, that’s a perfect example of, you know, overcoming adversity and being resilient. But a lot of a lot of new hires and interviews that we see come into our organization is exactly what you said. Sometimes that self-awareness is not necessarily there and how we’re coming across it to other people. And, you know, that’s that’s awesome that you you were able to take that and fuel, your own fire and get to where you are.

00;41;08;03 – 00;41;18;05
Speaker 2
So with Contractor Commerce, where is the company going next, and how do you see yourself evolving within the organization?

00;41;18;08 – 00;41;51;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. So looking out far, far in the horizon, you know, two, three, five, ten, 12, 15 years, we see the trend line for online shopping continue to increase. And that’s easy. That’s obvious. We see the younger generation like those characteristics I talk about. You see we see that trend line increasing. And so we see a world where because of the eye, because of technology, the a sales person may not have to go into the home to sell whatever you need to sell.

00;41;52;00 – 00;42;19;05
Speaker 1
And so we’re building around this idea that, contractors could have a full sales experience happen digitally, whether that’s through chats, right t or on their website or through text message or whatever. But this idea of someone not going out at home, we’re not, advocating that like, everything should be done without a person in the home, but we have to build for that so that that we stay out ahead of the market.

00;42;19;07 – 00;42;46;13
Speaker 1
Because, like, it’s just it’s not just obvious to us. It’s it’s obvious to other people too. How does my role involve evolve? You know, it’s interesting. I, at different stages of our growth, I will personally hit a wall in my leadership and where what I’m doing just isn’t as effective as it was, like $1 million ago or whatever that is six months ago and or people like 20, ten people ago or whatever.

00;42;46;16 – 00;43;08;02
Speaker 1
And so, I’m just continuing to ask myself today, I only have so many inputs. I only have like so many hours and day and so much bandwidth. And, I am just always looking for ways to be a better leader. At some point I’ll get and I’m not probably not far away from this. I have to hire even better leaders than me.

00;43;08;02 – 00;43;31;11
Speaker 1
And I’ve we started doing that. I’ve hired people who are further up ahead in their journey or have further more experience in a particular domain and walk in. I’ll have to continue to uplevel. The team, whether it’s in my existing team, we’re bringing in new team members, that have more experience than, than we do so that we can learn from them.

00;43;31;14 – 00;43;36;21
Speaker 1
And so, yeah, that’s, that’s what’s next for me.

00;43;36;24 – 00;43;55;22
Speaker 2
That’s awesome. So how do you how do you navigate that? You know, you hire somebody to learn from them. Traditional thinking is you hire somebody and they listen to you. How how do you navigate that? Because that’s, and it’s tricky.

00;43;55;27 – 00;44;13;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. It’s tricky of you. First of it, first of all, is admitting that, like, you don’t I don’t have all the answers that there are people who have taken companies beyond what I’ve been able to do. This is the largest company I’ve ever ran. Today and tomorrow when I wake up, it’s going to be the largest company I ever ran because we all grow to it.

00;44;13;01 – 00;44;33;00
Speaker 1
Between today and tomorrow, we’ll have new customer sign up and expansion. So every day I wake up, I’m like, I’ve never done this before. In order to do that, though, you have to run a profitable business. Like if you’re going to hire great leadership and be able to invest in pay and all those sort of things, you have to run in a capital, a capital efficient business now.

00;44;33;00 – 00;44;56;29
Speaker 1
And in the software world, the world that I live in, it’s really easy. You go borrow a bunch of money from, venture capital. You bring on a private equity partner, and you have millions of dollars to go around and just hire. So whenever you see a company like, an Uber or I, there’s so many different examples where they, they do a round of funding, the first thing they do is hire on a really, really smart people.

00;44;57;02 – 00;45;14;02
Speaker 1
Well, we’re not going down that path. We work really hard and we produce profit and take that profit and that’s it back into the business. And so we have to be a little more efficient. But, it is it is tough. And I will say this it is I’ve done it already where I brought people in as a surprise.

00;45;14;02 – 00;45;31;16
Speaker 1
Someone didn’t know that we’re bringing a VP into the company, and it’s incredibly disruptive and painful and hard. And, most things are those things that when you really want to be an extraordinary company, it just gets hard and painful.

00;45;31;18 – 00;45;38;25
Speaker 2
Do you have conversations with other leadership within the business that may be reporting to that new hire ahead of time?

00;45;38;28 – 00;45;55;20
Speaker 1
You know, it’s funny you mentioned that in the past I had not and that is painful. And, I’m going through this process now of thinking about how to scale in other areas where it goes back to, what I said earlier, where it’s there’s a fine line between how transparent you can be and as long as you’re being open and honest.

00;45;55;22 – 00;46;18;03
Speaker 1
So, yeah, I mean, I was I just had the, call with my team today where I said, guys, we’re going to the hiring and we’re going to be investing, and you guys are going to think I’m crazy, but you have to trust me. I’m looking out 12 months. I can see where things are going. And so, yeah, you just have to be as transparent as you can and, not surprise people, but, yeah, it’s,

00;46;18;05 – 00;46;20;28
Speaker 1
I don’t have an easy answer to that. It’s a it’s a tough one.

00;46;21;00 – 00;46;42;14
Speaker 2
I don’t think there is an easy answer yet. We’ve got to do that as well. And, and, it’s a it’s a tricky, tricky thing to navigate. Yeah. So any last thoughts, Paul? As far as anything else that, I may have missed or anything else that you wanted to share?

00;46;42;17 – 00;46;56;00
Speaker 1
No, I think we covered a lot. And, I would love to hear from your perspective in your world as you think about online sales and online store and that sort of thing. Like, where does that sit with you?

00;46;56;02 – 00;47;22;18
Speaker 2
I see it moving in that direction as well. And I see customers expecting exactly what you said. Very fast responses, not having to be, I guess inconvenienced. So I think you hit the nail on the head. Everything is about how quickly you can turn it around and also deliver the quality service that is expected.

00;47;22;20 – 00;47;24;02
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;47;24;04 – 00;47;52;26
Speaker 2
We’ve taken some measures on our, again, with some of the new technology and software that we’re rolling out within our business to be more interactive with the customers. It’s going to be a heavy lift. And we’re just starting to to touch that now. In terms of transparency, you know, again, I, I went through this with our team and introduced them to the platform, actually two weeks ago, and now it’s about rolling it out to the rest of the team.

00;47;52;26 – 00;48;19;06
Speaker 2
So it’s going to really take a coordinated effort. So, looking forward to it. And same thing. We’re we’re forecasting out, you know, way down the road and trying to get ahead of, you know, the rest of the market and B be able to deliver what people are expecting. But we see the same things. And Mike and I talk about that from a marketing perspective.

00;48;19;09 – 00;48;46;12
Speaker 2
I half the time, you know, a call comes in and it’s a lead right from I, you know, and you can tell those leads when they come in and it’s definitely moving in that direction. So very fast paced. And if you’re organized, it can be a huge benefit. If you don’t have your data and things organized, it can it can be overwhelming.

00;48;46;14 – 00;49;02;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I think you’ve covered a lot of great points. I know we’re running tight on time. If people want to find, you and Contractor Commerce and have a conversation, working part party.

00;49;02;16 – 00;49;20;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the first place is contractor commerce. Dot com talk to sales or book a demo, and you’ll meet someone on my team if you want to connect with me personally. LinkedIn is probably the best way to get Ahold of me. So Paul Redman on LinkedIn, same thing with Facebook, Paul Redmond on Facebook. Chances are, we’re connected to some people through the trades.

00;49;21;00 – 00;49;27;11
Speaker 1
I’m not hard to find. So yeah, contractor commerce.com or just look up Paul Redmond on LinkedIn or Facebook.

00;49;27;13 – 00;49;49;29
Speaker 2
Awesome. Paul, thank you very much. Appreciate. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you to our sponsors who help support make the show possible. We’ve been able to to donate, I think over $10,000 in tools and for tools and tuition now to, local, local colleges and Boces programs. So, we appreciate you all.

00;49;50;02 – 00;50;04;12
Speaker 2
And, feel free to drop us, an email, BCSo hardhat at gmail.com. Is the email. Feel free to reach out with any questions. And we’re happy to to ask our guests as we bring them on. Till next time.

00;50;04;14 – 00;50;32;12
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;50;32;12 – 00;50;45;11
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;50;45;14 – 00;50;54;17
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

00;50;54;19 – 00;50;55;25
Unknown
Oh!