​​Ryan Sledge knows that while hard work matters, real growth in the trades comes from structure, standards, and strong teams. In this episode, he shares how hiring people who care, setting clear expectations, and building solid playbooks and scorecards transformed his business into one that runs smoothly and grows sustainably.

👉 Full show notes: beyondthetoolspodcast.com

Welcome to the Beyond the Tools podcast, Ryan. I'm super excited to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. So, Ryan, I know you have a pretty interesting background in history, in the trades and otherwise. I'm curious if you can tell us a little bit about how you got started in this industry and what your experience has been. That's kind of funny. I mean, I've come in from someone who has a law enforcement background.

that is actually retired from Tennessee Police Department in a big city. And then it's like, know, all police officers work extra jobs, know, standing over, directing traffic, whatever. Well, my extra job was remodeling. And ⁓ so I would do that and kind of got to where I liked it. But so I turned it into a business. And then from that standpoint, it's kind of like the police department was

somewhat my secondary employment, even though he was my main employer. So, but I got into it ⁓ doing framing and roofing and everything that you could think of. And I'm going to quickly notice was how many people that are in this thing. Just if you ask somebody and still it's true today, hey, do know anybody that can lay towel in my house? They're going to immediately be like, I can do that.

And then the funny part about that is, is they probably can, but is it going to look like a gravel road when you walk on it? So that that was funny to me because there are so few people that are that have the quality and the mindset that they actually care not to be a perfectionist because that's another side of a problem, but that they actually care about what their work looks like.

And but they're able to have the speed to still be able to get it done to make money and and go from there. So that's how I got into it for sure. And was it like a slow transition into the remodeling business or what did a day come that you're like, I'm going to do this 100 percent. So ⁓ it didn't take me long that I was working 100 hours a week doing both. And ⁓

And I would position myself on a shift where basically I would work, you know, 10, 30 at night to seven o'clock in the morning doing department stuff. And then, and then from there I would go and work till about two, three, and I'd crash and then go do it again. And of course, you know, my days off were not Saturday and Sunday on the police department. So they were like Monday and every other Tuesday. That's a joke.

But you got two together. I would go and those days, I mean, I would be 30 hours in those two days, just making sure I could hammer out most of it. Then I was able to give myself off somewhat Saturday and Sunday to try to recover. Wow. That's intense. Yeah. So when you made the switch, I guess, and you kind of hinted at that too with taking on.

whatever projects that you can. How did that go and did you eventually narrow down? Yeah, so the two trades that I actually liked the most were, you know, air conditioning and plumbing. And ⁓ that still remains true today. ⁓ And so from that point, ⁓ you got to fast forward several years and I had got injured.

and had a spinal fusion and then actually had been on the department long enough that I pinched out. And about nine months after that, a year after that, I started trying to get back into it and doing what I could do with it. And so then I created, it's kind of funny, went and I'm not a test taker, but I learned how to take tests.

So I went and passed the state plumbing exam and an HVAC exam and had a gas mechanical license. And so one day I ran an ad and a guy responded from South Dakota and it was kind of weird. And I responded back to him. He says like five weeks later or something. ⁓ And when we met, literally that's when

And we were very heavy on new construction, doing employment in AC. So Rick, had, you know, he was with me. He was pretty much running all the crews and everything that needed to be done, the jobs and stuff like that. Because he was actually the first person that I have ever met and still to this day, he's the only person I've ever met that is, he's a perfectionist and that's challenging sometimes.

But ⁓ he literally is the only master of every trade that I've ever seen. And he and I have done everything that you can do to a house including totally gut and remodel houses and stuff like that. But he ended up going back. I ended up doing an exit with that company and he ended up going back to South Dakota, which is where he was from.

And I said, if I ever do it again someday, and he stopped me, he you mean if we ever do it again someday, because he goes, he says, it will be in Florida. Now I live in South Florida. Now he lives in South Florida. So and we're doing it again. And we've got, you know, a great company that is totally challenged and totally different than how it was then. But and we've had, which I thought would never be another learning curve. But

second learning curve, but I think it's made us a whole lot better. So you guys met, you built this successful company, you got out of it. What prompted you to say, okay, we actually are going to do this again? So as I was looking, had to call somebody one day to have them look at my AC unit because I didn't have any gauges. I didn't have anything to, you know, oh yeah.

meter to be able to read voltage. And ⁓ I knew it was a refrigerant issue. And not that it matters, but it up being a reversion valve. So I was like, okay, what's the issue here? And the issue was four companies later, they were like, one guy says, I think it's the reversion valve. And I was like, nice. So that was just four companies that showed up.

We just need to find good technicians that we can monitor and they can do the work and the rest of it we've got, we're good. Wrong. So yes, I was correct about finding great technicians and that is so much more challenging today, which is, it's really just.

what is in the marketplace. And when you realize that as an owner of a company, your competitors, you all have the exact same pool for all of your employees when it comes to technicians. So there's only so much real estate between you and in your area and you're all going after the same people. ⁓ And the one who finds the right ones that care about the work

they can go to a job. Number one, you show up for it and that we knew we could control. But ⁓ what we didn't know, and it's always the things that you don't know until you know, and then when you know, it's like, ⁓ but once we finally figured that component out.

on getting them there. We knew they would be good with customers because we worked with them, we trained them. But we still did not know their skill set level. there's so many people always say, the best day that you're going to do on your job for any company is the day you interview. And from there, most people start to fall off.

And it's simply because their height, your height, ⁓ everything is just words. So unless you've got some sort of working workshop that you can run them through, ⁓ which we do, a working interview, troubleshoot this system to see what it is. It's challenging, you know? And if they know the lingo, just because they've been a helper, it's even harder. But then...

It takes about 30 days usually to find out from callbacks, which will crush you in a business, that they go out, they're nice, they do whatever it is that they do, they don't die. And then they might be like, oh, here's the problem, one, know, it's bad capacitor, for instance, let's just change the capacitor. And they didn't check other things, you know.

We check everything every time because that is also another opportunity to get them a service plan, to upsell, to get what's needed. And I always say, they're only your customer until they're not. And it can, your one tech away, your one missed phone call away, your one missed diagnosis away from the position of them not being a customer. So,

You're not, you know, again, you don't know what you don't know by technicians and what they're going to do and not do until they're out there. Then it's like call after call after call. And then you realize, you know, it's little Johnny who you're like, ⁓ I thought he was going to be good. So now you've got to go play damage control and do that. And that is still to this day, the number one challenge. Defining the right people.

And do it. And I found to, you know, money doesn't motivate everybody. And so it doesn't matter what you pay them. But then it then there becomes this sense of you can't do it without me and a sense of entitlement. And it's kind of and if you've got, you know, 30 calls a day and you lose a tech to being sick, you lose a tech to another company for any reason. Now, listen, you're trying to play catch up.

and you're starting to fall behind because you can't get to your customers. that is hands down the number one challenge today. It's not fixing something. It's being able to continuously do what you say you're going to do because you're one day away from them saying, I'll go over here and try this company. So I'm curious, I guess, with that, what are some of the things

you've put into place to kind of minimize that risk as much as possible. ⁓ So the difference between then and now is before it was YellowPage advertising, today it's social media and you pretty much are working for Google. And then it was a different mindset.

of I'm going to stay over to finish this job and I'm to do it correctly versus now, you know, I've got to go meet my buddies to play poker at five and it's 415. ⁓ So not just this business, but other businesses that I have had or have now. It all comes down to playbooks. Everything comes down to a playbook. And the reason why what the

cool thing about the playbook is once you get it dialed in and you're always going to tweak it. Not revamp it, tweak it. Because if you follow it and someone comes to you and says, I've got this issue or that issue, and you stop right there and say, chapter two of this section is what you're looking for. Otherwise, you're going to go down a rabbit hole.

And they probably stopped you when you were walking by or they called you while you were in the middle of doing something. And so now that process of whatever you're doing just got derailed. And then when that happens 10 times a day, all of sudden you become micro crazy mentally. And when you, when after doing that a couple of times, these people will be like,

I'd go ask, you know, Ryan, do you know what to do about this? But he's just going to tell me where to go in the playbook. Cause I need you to go look at the playbook because, because the play, if you do it by the playbook, I train and teach by the playbook and we do that consistently across all, all levels. They're going to go to the other colleagues to ask them if it's an issue that they're just not, you know, cause their skillset levels are different. Everybody's skill set levels are different. Yeah.

But that's hands down number one. And then number two is scorecards. When they realize that you're using a scorecard and that is how they get bonuses, how they get paid, know, who's kind of up for a new vehicle, take home vehicles, ⁓ other benefits that are just there that help them ⁓ or that they're like, okay, you know, I've got a company cell phone and

take on vehicle or gas card and I don't have to worry about that. And you put a monetary value on that and you're like, wow, that saves me $1,500 a month. Just in that kind of stuff. Now it starts to make sense for them. And they're like, I get incentivized for even getting something as a Google review. Converting a call into a job. ⁓ And then

taking that extra few minutes at the end and saying, who else do you know that can help, that we can help with any AC or plumbing problems? Because everybody knows somebody, but until you ask them, they're not going to be like, man, I'm so glad you came over here. I've got this biggest problem. So glad that you fixed it. By the way, let me give you somebody else's number over here. Nobody thinks about other people's problems when they're in their own problem. So you've got to be forward thinking.

do that. I love that and I really want to dig deeper into both of those topics because I think there's a lot that we can get into there that will be really helpful for everybody listening. So I guess to rewind a little bit there Ryan, was this something that you did in the previous business, the remodeling business, or was it that when you started Dr. Finn you're like okay we need this?

Or like most things, something terrible happened and you were like, never again, I got to put something in place. Yeah. So back in the beginning, I never knew what a playbook was other than football. What I didn't do is correlate the two at that time. I'm a Nick Saban nut. think he's business wise is just amazing.

People look at all the time, they're like, you know, why is Nick so, you know, so good at what he does? And really it's all playbook consistency. And he'll tell you, he's like, I pull my people in my players in. So I look at that as I pull the ninth boys technicians in and I asked him, what are your goals? What do you want to do? And then once you, once they tell you what their goals are, every time they do something,

You have to ask him, is this right here going to get you to whatever the goal is that they told you about. So you're able to be successful and winning whatever that event is. And he's, he's all the time talking about how people's like, look, we got to go out there and we got to win this game. Don't, don't look at winning the game. Win every single play. when you go onto a job, do your stuff consistently.

every single time, and you will cut down massively on mistakes. ⁓ You will have the consistency, and people will see that confidence within you. And they will be like, man, I've got the right technician here, I got the right company here. And I hear that all the time. ⁓ And then you end up winning, the results are going to be the results. when it comes to making that

playbook, where did you start? ⁓ So I did some pretty deep dives into a couple of people. One of them was Alison Maslon. ⁓ And she's got one. So I've got this thing, I've never been a book reader in whole life. And now I am. And if you if your book makes

to where I get the hard copy, it goes on my shelf. So these two here, and this is actually Allison's book, but it's called Scaller Fell. And ⁓ she doesn't pay me anything for doing this. But it's like, this is where I started and I really liked it. I liked her, I liked what a lot of things were about. There's a lot of things in there that I took and I learned.

But then I started looking at a couple others and the one that really resonated with me, and I don't think it's because we have the same first name, but Ryan Dice, he's got this thing called Get Scalable. And this guy is a marketing guru from way back. And he literally takes you to a very simple way of laying out how you do this.

And then being able to put something in place with the playbooks. That's where I learned about the scorecards and, uh, and then being effective. Um, but the one thing that I did realize was, that looking at all this, I would go into the office or be on a job site somewhere and somebody would come up to me and they would ask me a question. And I was so used to.

fixing the problem for them. ⁓ That now it's so much easier for me to be like, you know, page five, chapter two. What does it say? Yeah. So that that was my biggest piece that's not in either one of these books, but ⁓ that was my biggest piece that I really found that. Made it potentially available to be scaled. Hmm. So was it?

the technician role specifically that you started with and you're like, okay, we're going to develop this playbook. This, I don't know, this is how you run like your initial diagnostic or how was it that you started? Yeah. Did you start with one role and some of those common questions that you were getting? ⁓ I did. ⁓ I started, actually started because again, I didn't know what I didn't know.

So actually started with marketing. Yeah. And ⁓ because to me, everything starts with marketing. And if you are great there, now the phone starts ringing. Now let's go to the CSRs. And ⁓ we've got one for them as well. And that's the big one because you probably spent a hundred hours to make that phone ring. And now you've got somebody who

Is in a different mindset every day all day because they just got through dealing with a customer who was not so nice. They've got the phone ringing. They're not able to get to it. The back office is not able to get to it. Whatever the noise is and everything is just noise. They are frustrated because they feel like they're losing. ⁓ And they end and then once they get back to what really is going on here and what's wrong.

then they're able to get back into whatever that initial moment was and they're totally lost. So got the marketing done. Now we got to take that hundred dollar call. Cause I told everybody one day I had a meeting with several technicians and CSRs and other people on and I took 500, $500. And I was like, every time that phone rings, this is what happens.

And when you don't answer that phone consistently the same way, have the same confidence about you, which you get confidence from consistency, then you, I say every time you do that, and I just feel like a hundred dollar bill and I went to the floor. I said, this is what's happening. And so I picked them back up and I said, you got to get them on the schedule. The next thing is, is it has to be today.

Because as, you know, as they say, you know, it's, it's our money today and it's Disney World's money tomorrow. Because something's going to happen. Right. Cause life. So then it's like, all right, what's next? Now you got a technician that's going to show up. That process, you go back to their playbook and because they've done the conversion to get them to the job. Now you got a technician to get there and he's got the same thing. You greet them the same way.

you ⁓ quickly try to give an idea as to, to for yourself as to what the problem could be. That way you can decide what you're going to do, which way you're going to go with it. ⁓ And, and get the, cause we do something about free estimates and we have to quickly be able to diagnosis or tell them, look, we're going to have to start pulling tools out of the van. And ⁓ once we do that, you know, clock starts. So, ⁓

them being able to go through that whole process because there's nothing worse than going to a job, them spending 30 minutes there and then it falls flat. then they're like, well, they just weren't interested today. Okay, well you spent a hundred bucks for the phone ring and you spent money on that person to answer the phone and get it on the schedule and then you spent money for the technician to get there. Now it's failing.

So that's where you got the playbooks come in place. We do this, this and this. And if it looks like it's not gonna be anything, we're on to the next one. And if it looks ⁓ like it's gonna be something, then we're gonna do the right thing, a diagnosis of this thing and figuring out what needs to be done. And then we're gonna go into that playbook of how to take care of that right now, not move that till tomorrow or whatever. ⁓

and then make money from it and, and then whatever's next in the playbook all the way to the end. And then there's another play. Then then there's another part that comes back to follow up. like marketing and CSRs. So, right. Yeah. So that makes sense. I like how you approached it basically following the customer journey of when somebody comes in and all the interactions that happen after that.

Obviously with a playbook, one of the goals there of course is to standardize things and make sure that everything's at the same standard, no matter who the person is doing it. I am curious though, is this something that you got your team involved in in developing or was this something that you kind of got into each of those roles and mapped it out and then treat them on it? Initially I got into the marketing one.

But now whoever is in charge of that department, they are the owner of that playbook. whoever there's over the CSRs, over marketing, over sales, over ⁓ technicians, whoever is that, because there's gonna come times that things are gonna be like, we need to change this, we need to do that. And it's up to them to go to the office manager and say,

here's the change I need to make to this. It gets made that way, it gets updated in everyone's book. And once that's done, then you can get back to consistency, but you have pointed out what I like to do. And this is what actually they did at the police department. So everything was an SOP, standard operating procedure. Well, we had to sign for our general orders and procedural orders and stuff. And basically it is, whether we read it or not,

but we're signing saying that we read it and we asked whatever questions that we needed to move forward. That way when it came back, because usually what happens is, is what do you mean? I followed the playbook. You have step four changed two months ago and now, so did you forget or did you not read it? Either way, let's resolve this and let's move forward with it because this is why it failed this time.

And I know you showed a couple physical binders there. Is that typically where it lives, like a physical binder, or how is it that your team accesses the playbooks? We have both. So we have physical binders, but it's digital too. But there has to be a revision date on everything to make sure, because before you know it, they're going to get crossed. ⁓

And digital is better and we now and we're going to this year move everything over to where is the tablet store they can go into and a site that we've got that's quite honestly more nothing more than a planet page. And it's got everything in there for them. So yeah, that makes sense.

So I'd love to explore the scorecards a little bit deeper here. How did you go about, well, I guess first of all, what is a scorecard and how has that been impactful in your business? So it's five to seven ⁓ components that we measure and ⁓ technicians, for instance. ⁓ In your CRM, it usually says that they were

dispatched on this call and it took them this much to drive there and they're on the call. ⁓ And there's different KPIs that we look at. And one of those is, are they getting five star reviews? Are they, callbacks. mean, callbacks that they have. ⁓ What are their conversions from going to a job and then converting over to this? ⁓

And then there's some there's some minor things that are like, you know, are they showing up to work? ⁓ Are they taking care of their vans, their vehicles and making sure which is that's kind of a side note. That's not something that they do, but their manager does. But they know every week this is a scorecard. This is what happened, you know, and and.

You get them into them knowing that they're going to have a review of this every week. And that's how they get bonus out. And it's also how they get moved out. you know, I like to say there's two things you can do. You can you can coach them up or you can coach them out. But you got to if you but if you don't coach them, then you can't expect them to follow the blood. All right.

So with those scorecards, is it just a goal number or is it like, this is the minimum, this is good, this is fantastic. Like how does that work? ⁓ Yes, it's a rating system. You've got to where you went on, let's just say Johnny went on four calls a day, did 20 calls this week. ⁓

His drive times were good, his time on the jobs, based upon how long the job should have been, based on how much it was paid. ⁓ That looks good. So he might get fours on those, fives on those, whatever. And then it gets to, did he get reviews? So Johnny didn't get any reviews. Well, he's not asking then. So that goes to, let's say a one after 20 calls and he doesn't get any. And ⁓ is he staying in?

And is he staying on target to where he's able to get things done? Is he efficient with his time? Is he efficient with the material? ⁓ Did he go on a job and have any callbacks he had? So it's all a rating. It's all a rating scale. And that's. He knows, you know, and a lot of times

You know, it's not an issue because it's incentivized through money. And a lot of times, you know, there'll be something, somebody's like, yeah, I just, don't like asking for reviews. And, and you're like, nice. Um, so, you know, you deal with that accordingly, but, but it's, it's, it's, writes on it, scores on it. It's almost like you don't want to get an F when you were

in grade school or I guess before they went to the the number system is kind like I can't take this home. Take this to your mom. Take this to your sister and have her sign it for me please. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, so the scorecards have helped you to essentially outline what's expected of that person in that role and then rewarding them accordingly.

What was the impact of doing that for your business? mean, it might seem obvious to anybody listening that this can be helpful, but I'm curious what specifically that helped you guys do. It helped us manage better. It helped us find out sooner who was doing what they're supposed to and who wasn't, know, who was there.

telling you that they were the best technician in the country and they installed a toilet backwards. You know, that kind of stuff. I mean, that's obviously extreme, but it literally makes it to where you are not getting these shoulder taps every day all day. It's taking you away from what you need to do. And it's showing to consistency and consistency is like everything. If you can do something consistent,

Consistently, I mean, you're going to look like you know what you're doing. The confidence is going to be within you. The results are going to come. You know, I mean, that doesn't mean I mean, if you consistently do something wrong, you're still going to be successful. You're just going to be wrong, successful. So that's that's the big biggest thing is it just. There's another guy that I've got a hard back book of, and you'll probably recognize this guy, but. ⁓

And I still following, but then Martel's buyback your time. The big thing about Dan is that I liked about him is he's he's being consistent and saying, and what do you know? Go to page two. Here it is. That buys back so much of your time and keeps your mentally strong because you're not going down these rabbit holes. So that that's.

before the number one thing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I remember a couple of years ago, I was struggling with something in my company and particularly being like pulled in a lot of different directions. And a coach I had at the time that I met was like, well, if you're the magical vending machine and every time somebody needs something, they just press the button on the machine, they're going to keep pressing the button.

So having something that, yeah, probably annoys them in the instant that you're like, oh yeah, go check this section in the playbook. But you're absolutely right. It trains people not to be reliant on you, which gives you your time back and allows you to grow up the team more and more. 100%. 100%. So for anybody listening that is

has never done a playbook or scorecard. They're hearing you talk about this. I guess what's one piece of advice that you would give on how they can start to implement this in their business? mean, you know, it's kind of what works best for you. I personally like Ryan Dice system.

He's got all kinds of different stuff, that program and stuff like this that you can get into with him. But his system, I think is one of the best ones out there right now. And I've looked at several and I pretty much narrowed it down to those two. And I like both of them. like Allison's too, I just think Ron's is easier to follow. ⁓ And I liked his team too. They were very responsive.

What do you think is one mistake that a lot of business owners make when it comes to empowering their team and developing these playbooks and training? I would say not setting a clear standard as to this is what we're, you know, this, we're all trying to achieve the same thing here and this is how we're going to do it. This is our standard. And if you're not up to the standard,

then you can't be on the team. And when you assign a role to someone, make them own that role. Let them know that they're important, that ⁓ this is their baby to nurture, to grow, and they should be proud of it because this is going to be something that should stay in the company.

for a long time with just being tweaked. And as time goes on and you progress and you move up, they'll be like, yeah, John made that playbook 10 years ago and it's being used every day. And that's something to be proud of. ⁓ But then setting the tone, you've got to be able to set the tone as to how we're gonna do it, when we're gonna do it.

And that if we don't do it, you've got to be in a position that you've got your own playbook. And I'm not talking about up here, it's my own paper that you're going to do to follow every single day to make sure that you're being successful and trying to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. And it's making sure they are doing a BNC. Absolutely.

So Ryan, I'm sure our listeners are going to want to connect with you further and learn more about you. What's the best way that they can reach out? So it's, you know, I have Dr. Finn AC employment and ⁓ it's kind of crazy because I used to have an email that was ⁓ difficult because of all of the spam and all the other stuff. So I went back to just Ryan at Dr. Finn AC dot com.

And ⁓ for that reason, and ⁓ there's several things I love to collaborate with people, especially other farmers, other AC companies, ⁓ because I really want to do more of business help with people who want to do business because doing business today is totally different than how it used to be. And I always tell people I've got the most expensive education of anybody I know.

And, then I still find myself doing it. I'm like, well, that was stupid tax. And, ⁓ it's like, keep paying it. So, but yeah, I mean, anybody that's got questions or wants to collaborate or just thinks that, ⁓ you know, they need to know one little piece that might help them get over that hump. Cause a lot of times, whatever it is, it's one thing and it's, ⁓ now that one thing probably is going to spark.

10 other things, but staying stagnant is terrible. Thank you so much, Ryan. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me and it was fun. Definitely.