Discover the inspiring journey of Ben Hedenberg, Vice President of Sales in North America at Simpro, as he shares his insights and experiences on empowering contractors in the latest episode of Trades, Tools, Talks. 

Uncover the transformative power of Simpro's comprehensive system and its impact on streamlining workflows, optimizing operations‌ and driving sustainable growth for businesses. Dive into the future of contractor management and unleash your business's true potential with Simpro today.

Read more here: https://www.simprogroup.com/resources/podcasts/episode-8

This is Trades, Tools.

Talks a podcast powered by Simpro.

I'm your host, Karlie Huckels today.

We are going to be getting to know one of our SimPeeps.

Let's get into it.

So who are you and what do you do at Simpro?

Yeah.

Hi Ben Hedenberg.

I'm the VP of sales for North America.

And what brought you to Simpro?

Excellent question.

I don't know if we'll get into my history here in a little bit, but I

can just jump right into it right now.

I spent 20 years with Trane air conditioning.

I started at.

As a temporary employee where I said I was gonna work there for a

month, like right outta college.

And I started in like commercial customer service, working with

contractors, placing orders for like commercial H V A C systems.

And then next thing you know I'm in international logistics I'm in damage

claims, and then I'm running the customer service team about seven, eight years in.

Then I decided to get into the sales side of things.

So working with contractors I saw.

What the territory managers were doing in the field.

I was like, this is great.

I think I could do that.

And then became a territory manager where I was able to achieve a number one status

for all of Trane in, well, 2000, 2009.

I was able to get number one status, then move up to a sales leader.

Sales leader to a district manager, and then I was a sales director running about

a 350 million territory in the south.

And in that time I gotta work with a ton of contractors and really

became passionate about helping them improve their business and got to see.

I think I've had the pleasure of being in more than a thousand shops and

working with a thousand contractors and understanding their business and seeing

those that are super successful and maybe some of those that are not quite

as successful in learning from that.

And then after 20 years, I had an opportunity to make a shift in my career.

Right?

Make a big pivot which are always interesting.

And so I went to work for another software company where I managed the

partnerships, but I really missed working with the contractors themselves

and missed the sales portion of it and helping people grow their business.

And so one day I got called up from a company and said, Hey,

there's this company called Simpro.

They're an Australian company.

They just got some additional funding and they're looking

to grow in the United States.

And I was like I've never heard of them.

I'd never heard of them like two and a half years ago.

And so started talking to 'em and saw the product, gotta meet the people and

the culture and really fell in love.

And I've been with us since March of 2021 and have really rebuilt the sales team and

focused on some major growth that we've done in the last two and a half years.

What are some.

Key details of Simpro that you really like?

I mean, you've been in more than a thousand places you said.

So what are the things that you see in Simpro that really make a

difference to someone's business?

So a Trane is an engineering company.

So we spend a lot of time with process mapping and looking at workflows and

understanding that repeatable processes deliver repeatable results within Simpro.

You're able to do that.

You're able to take whatever contractor's processes are, and then you can take

those and map them into our system.

We do spend a lot of time with implementation to understand what

customer's processes are, and then figuring out how we come together

to put those same processes within Simpro, so that flexibility to be able

to make adjustments and handle the business really makes a difference.

Those repeatable processes can be put in place within Simpro and then.

The job costing's fantastic.

I don't think anybody has project management like we do.

Being able to handle something from, you know, one hour to a year and being able

to really get an understanding of the process along the way, and really be able

to look at the work and process and seeing how many hours you're using, how you're

doing against labor, how you're doing against equipment, make sure that the

equipment pricing is right, really allow contractors to control their business.

Through what I like to consider their central business platform, then we're

a business operating system to be able to have one place they can go

to, whether they're in their office at home or on a beach in Jamaica.

They can see what's going on in their business as long as they have a laptop

to be able to view what's in there and they can dive down as deep or

keep it as high level as they want to.

You've been a lot of places, you've seen a lot of things.

Do you have any favorite trade stories?

Have you had an experience that just sticks out in your mind?

Like, this is why I love working with the Trades.

Yeah.

I think about there's a contractor I used to work with in Texas, a great guy.

Ran a good business.

They were a growing business.

But the problem they ran into is everything had to go through one person.

The owner of the business had to have control.

Like every po he had to approve every phone call.

He had to listen to every decision he had to make, which was fine when they're

a million dollar company, but they were getting up to a 10, 15 million company.

And the owner, unfortunately, a lot of people have different vices.

I've seen people.

Drink and smoke and do different things.

This customer's vice was eating and he would start in the

morning, he'd get a donuts for his guys and koches for his guys.

And then eat a couple of those and then he'd start working

and he'd drink some coffee.

Have a biscuit.

Next thing you know he is grabbing lunch, fast food, burger.

Start at 6:00 AM leave at 7:00 PM do paperwork at night, and unfortunately,

his weight really ballooned up to where he was 354 new pounds.

He didn't have.

Control of his life cuz he was trying to control his business so much.

And then I saw him implement processes in place.

He went to classes.

He had people he could lean on and talk to.

And then, you know, I hadn't seen him in six months and he had dropped 150 pounds

and not because of gastric bypass surgery, which I'm all for people taking control

of their lives, but it's more that he just realized he had to take care of himself.

And so instead of going to.

The place to do donuts.

He would look in the morning and see what was going on, what was on the schedule,

cuz he had one place to look for it.

And he'd go for a walk and he would then go into the office.

He enabled his people to run the business better.

He became healthier, the business became healthier.

It was so very similar, like his health and the business' health and

the mental health of everybody around them seem to go directly in line.

So getting to see people make that change in their life

and change in their business.

And it's just so rewarding to see what people can do and how he's supporting

his people that were working for him.

He allowed like his managers to actually manage and it really

helped him change his lives.

So it's, it is just, I don't know, it's, there's some pride in that

we're working with people that are really making people's lives better.

You know, they're dealing with.

Plumbing issues and they're dealing with the quality of air and really

quality of life for people that are out there, whether it be in residential or

commercial, you know, it's just exciting.

I, I grew up, my dad worked on the railroad his whole life and he would

deal with derailments and, you know, come home with dirty hands and a

tire back, but he was always pretty satisfied with what he was doing.

And being able to support people like him is just, you

know, a point of pride for me.

I have heard from family members of my own and read in places that no

matter what, every business is a family business cuz it, when you own it and

when you run it, you bring it home.

And so, you know, when you do improve your business, you can improve your life.

And I love the capabilities of our software to be able to automate

things and to take a step back and let people do what they do.

Mental health is so important.

Physical health is so important.

Running your business and having it function in a way

that's a beautiful story.

And I like that a lot.

I've seen so many contractors that are working so hard

because they're just trying to.

Wrap their arms and their hands around their business, but they

don't have the right tools to do it.

And it's like you're going out to a workplace to drive

in a nail with a banana.

You just don't have the tools to make it work and without proper systems in place.

You're just gonna struggle.

So like some people started with paper and then are able

to move into Excel spreadsheets and able to use a couple tools.

But with a product program like Simpro, you really have one

central location for them to be able to run their whole business.

So even if you weren't working for Simpro, would you

still recommend it to someone?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I wouldn't have come to work here if I didn't believe in the product.

I've recruited a number of people to work here just cuz I believe in the

product and I believe what we do and for the right contractor who needs a system

I fully believe in what Cipro does.

Where was that moment for you when you realized that

you wanted to switch careers?

That's an excellent question.

When I was in the middle of getting my mba, I was getting, company

was sponsoring me for an mba.

And there were some decisions that need to be made at the company.

Probably can't go into all the details, but there were nine steps that I

had to do to make that decision.

Big company, fortune 500 company.

And everything had to be a decision.

Took three to six months to make it a decision most of the times.

And then I realized I, I wanted to have more control of what was going on.

I also, I don't know how this fits within the podcast, so we can have

that discussion, but now I didn't believe in some of the leadership

that were there at the time, and that made a difference for me.

And when I was interviewing with Simpro, I gotta meet the c o I gotta

meet the c o and understand who they were and what their focus were.

And it's very much in line culturally for what I was looking to do

in terms of supporting people.

Also an H V A C.

There's five major players and it's just like you're moving a point of market

share back and forth between one another.

It just didn't feel like you're making a ding in the world.

You're just kind of making a ding back and forth.

And it was nice that you were helping people out with, offering them good

equipment that's gonna work for 'em.

But was there equipment much different than any of the other

equipment that was out there?

It just felt, I don't know.

At times a little bit pointless, right?

Moving, having somebody install a Trane unit as compared to a carrier

unit as compared to a Lennox unit.

This didn't feel like I was really helping things out where I saw there

was a bigger need in the software space, particularly in the commercial

space, which we really focus on.

But it's amazing you see these companies that are doing.

5, 10, 15, 20 million, and they're using QuickBooks in an Excel

spreadsheet to run their business.

And they have, they throw more heads at it or they work more hours.

And they think that by working harder in the business, that

they're gonna change the business.

But really they're not working on the business.

They're just kind of.

More of the same.

And you would think that the commercial side of the would be

further along cuz they're dealing with bigger projects, longer projects.

It's not just a quick change out, but in many ways they've been able to get

by from having really smart owners and they don't have the processes in place.

So it's a space that is really in need of a product like Simpro to continue to.

Improve their business, know where profitability is.

They're dealing with these million dollar projects and they have a

lot of risk in it, and they're basing it on an Excel spreadsheet,

and it kind of just blows my mind.

That.

That's insane.

So what do you think makes Simpro different from our competitors?

Then?

What is that key factor that really stands out that isn't, so, it sounds

like everything that you were talking about before is kinda like cookie

cutter for people just installing the things that don't really make

sense, but they're just installing.

So how does Simpro how do we stand out?

So first of all, I think there's some really great products

out there that we compete against.

But I think what really differentiates us from everybody else is our

ability to handle projects and really handling 'em well.

We were built from the ground up dealing with projects, so dealing with things

for a month, being able to have multiple people on a job, being able to keep track

of all of the equipment that you using on the project, real time job costing to know

where you are in the middle of a project, and then the configurability being

able to match what their workflows are.

By having configurability within our system and then our implementation

process, we typically spend on average about six days with somebody,

and that's over a couple months.

So really spending hands on understanding their workflows, walking

them through it to match how to make.

The best of our system and their system to come up with a way that works best, and

it's really that hands-on differentiation.

Other companies out there, they'll have people look at spreadsheets and

they'll have group meetings where that one-on-one really differentiates

us from what everybody else does.

That's a really great way.

So do you have any other experiences that you would wanna share about Simpro users?

I can think of a lot of different examples.

Jennifer with Team Wired, I met her at an a i n show recently.

She's been on with us for a year and they had tried two or three different softwares

and all of 'em just didn't handle all the business that they needed to.

And she was just incredibly excited about how we are.

Their source of truth that they can really run their business through

the one system as compared to having to handle it in many different ways.

I think of we were in Brooklyn and we're working with a contractor there.

Company's been, I think 60 years old, third generation

in the fire security space.

And they had been they're like a well-known name within within.

New York City and Fire, and you can imagine that's a big

market with big players in it.

And they've been able to grow nicely over time, but a lot of their

systems were incredibly antiquated.

And then having, again, have it all in one place to be able to run their

business has really allowed them to see what gaps they have, where they can

grow, how they can use more of Simpro to help 'em improve their business.

It was just, it was neat to see a third generation push into a fourth generation.

Really making a difference in, in their business by using a software

that helps 'em and they've been able to streamline their businesses.

They're not using a hundred percent of Simpro yet, which we see a

lot of people not using a hundred percent right away, but they're kind

of, they were at the walk stage.

So I think about it, crawl, walk runs.

Let's figure out what your key functions are for the first couple

months, then let's get you walking where you start using more.

And they were kind of moving onto that next level, into that run

phase where they're implementing all of it and making sure.

That, you know, they took care of their core functionalities, but then they're

starting to use more and more of it to streamline their process and it's, it

was just neat to sit down and talk to people that have worked there for 20

years and how they've seen a difference in their company for the year and a half,

two years that they've been using Cipro and what the next steps are for 'em.

That's a really awesome thing to hear too.

So, which businesses, like what sectors of the trade industry

have you seen have really big success after implementing Simpro?

Sure.

So, a nice company in Cleveland, Ohios and commercial H V A C, they had looked

at a ton of different products and they.

They had actually a new manager who came from private equity and had

previously come from the military and he systemized the business

and you know, he was concerned.

He had talked to a number of different softwares and he couldn't

find anybody to really systemize the business the way that he wanted to.

And we had two conversations and he signed up with us and they've been able to grow.

By 25% in the last year and a half.

So they've been able to really grow their business by having it in Simpro.

So commercial, H V A C's great Security is a space that I didn't really know

much about before I came to Simpro.

Because they're that line of defense that's behind the scenes.

I was talking to one of our largest security companies, Orion, and he

said, we don't want people to know our name cuz we want it to be, we want to

be the people that, that are behind and that you don't know who they are.

Because they're taking care of business.

Seems like the only time you know what security companies

are is if something goes wrong.

So they deal with, you know, big casinos.

They deal with government agencies.

They're keeping schools safe, so they don't want people to know exactly

who they are, but that business is continuing to grow like they have.

Cameras and gun detection and all those terrible things that

we don't like to think about, but that are in the background,

trying to make everybody safer.

And it's amazing to see how that's growing.

Obviously electrical, being in the business for 22 years, we

have pieces that they can really manage the whole business through.

And I'm sure other people have talked about that on this.

Commercial plumbing is fantastic for us.

Low voltage.

We're part of Low Voltage Nation.

Blake IMOs is a really good partner of ours and he has connections with,

on Facebook with, you know, 5,000 plus followers, 10,000 plus followers, and.

Those little voltage contractors typically are smaller, but they

need to have a system be able to keep track of their inventory.

They're so in, in the Trades, it's so hard to keep track of

what you're using and make sure some of it doesn't just walk away.

It's kind of amazing how it just walks away periodically, but having

it in the system and making sure that they're billing and having good cash

flow has made a huge difference to some of those local voltage contractors.

In a lot of those cases, they'll send somebody out there for a service issue.

Hey, this is broken.

Whether it be H V A C or low voltage electrical, a number of different, we have

a cattle feed company that we signed up.

We have a a tent company in Antarctica.

They manage the tents for scientific purposes, but you send somebody out

there for a service thing and one thing's broken, and then person is

like, Hey, can you check out this too?

And then they.

At a capacitor or they do something to make sure it's taken care of,

but without really monitoring it, that stuff just looks like it just

walks away and you're not charging the customer for what they need.

They don't recognize all that you're doing for 'em.

And you just have a tendency to miss out on these things.

You can be delivering great customer service, but if you're not charging for

it, you won't be able to continue to deliver that great customer service.

Absolutely.

Well, I think we've talked about your background.

What are your favorite Simpro features?

Well, favorite Cipro features.

Yeah.

So, job costing.

I know I've talked about this a number of times, but truly

having everything in one system.

Being able to do job costing, not only at the end of the job, but

when you're in the middle of the job, I think is a huge factor.

We can do a lot with triggers too.

So if you say, every time that somebody's dispatched, I wanna

send an email out to that customer.

We have the capability of doing that.

Every time a digital signature is done, I can send out quotes online and whenever

somebody signs it, I can get notification.

I can turn that into a job automatically.

I like those workflows where, It's not automagic because you have to do the

steps to make sure that things are taken care of, but make it move along the

process and have notifications keep you in tune with the most important things.

And then even like the alerts when you log onto the front page as an owner,

there's so much going on in, in the business and you need to know that.

Top of the fold information that's going on.

Who are the customers, who are past to, what are the contracts that are expiring?

Which one of my guys has their certification that's going past

to and keeping on top of it so it doesn't sneak up and surprise you?

Cause so often if as they're running their business, Things just kind of

get 'em they're juggling a thousand balls and something's gonna drop.

So we give 'em one place where they can look to and really see, Hey, what

I, what are the most important things that are going on in my business?

What do I need to act on right now?

What do you love about your role at Simpro?

Sure.

I love the fact that I get to build the sales team.

I focus very much on the sales culture here to make sure that we are

only selling what needs to be sold.

And being really truthful and honest and in our sales process, really

doing a deep discovery of what issues are they having, what can

we do to help you fit those needs?

And if we're not a fit, just be able to walk away from it.

Right.

I'm very much focused on clarity and honesty on the sales team, and I'm really

proud of the nine people that we've been able to develop within the team.

We have.

One person that has been here before I got here.

We've built out the other eight people from either connections,

people we've built up from.

We have one gentleman, Brandon who started as a sales development rep,

one of his early jobs, you know, his.

24, 25 when he started, and then he is moved from an SDR to being doing

cold calling, which is one of the toughest jobs out there in the business.

Cold calling no matter what you're doing.

And he was very successful helping us stand that up for nine months.

And then he is recently moved over to an account executive, so to salesperson.

And he's doing incredible as a account executive, but seeing that, that

maturation and seeing when you align with that, Ethics and the culture,

how you can help people grow within their livelihood and their skills.

And that's incredibly fun for me.

That's awesome.

It's, yeah, you get to literally facilitate that growth and I like that.

That's a really cool way to look at your job.

What advice would you have for someone looking to get started in the Trades?

I know I just talked about culture, but I think culture

isn't the most important thing.

I've seen some incredible owners of, in the Trades business, whether

it be lawn mowing or plumbing, H V A C security, and then I've seen.

Some not so great people.

Some very narcissistic, egotistical people that think that employees

are just people who work for 'em.

So finding that person who really wants to help you develop as a person,

help you develop in your career that is, is willing to do the Traneing

to really know how whatever you're installing, servicing how it works.

And so when you repair it, that you're preparing.

Are repairing the the root cause and not just the symptom.

So really get an understanding of what's going on with the whole system overall.

And I'd also say, give you a chance to fail.

Like, I think there's some, the only way I learn is to touch that,

the hot stove, if it's really hot.

And I think that's the way a lot of people do too.

So make sure that people are safe and they have the tools

they need, but allow them to.

Fail at some level and give them the support if they do.

Cuz oftentimes you can really grow from that.

And then what advice would you have for someone looking to

utilize Simpro for their business?

The first thing I would tell 'em to do, well, a couple

things I would tell 'em to do.

One, make sure you have somebody who can be your Simpro champion.

Make sure you have somebody, it could be the owner of the business, or they

can have an admin who really is that business expert that serves matter.

Subject matter expert who understands how things go and who can understand.

Technology and can make some decisions and to implement it

within the system, given the right amount of time to implement this.

And it could make all the difference.

We've seen companies that, you know, we initially thought they

would take seven to eight days.

They can implement it within three three over a month long period.

Because they have, they understand the business, they really clean up their data.

So we walk into a lot of.

One of my early careers jobs in college was working as a movie

man, which God bless those people.

It's the, it was the worst job I've ever had.

And so often you'd walk in and somebody's house was in complete disarray.

Nothing's in boxes.

They don't, they have all the junk they've ever collected over

the last 25 years that's set out.

And those days were the worst because you had to organize and put things in

boxes that, you know, that should be thrown away and you'd end up moving it

from, One place to the other and you're like, I know this is just gonna stay

in boxes for the next 10, 15, 20 years.

So if a customer can take the time and really clean up their data,

clean up which customers they're doing business with, make sure they

understand what product they're selling and if they can map out their

workflows, just know, like, I do this.

Somebody calls in, I schedule it.

I dispatch that person.

I have them do this, and I sign this and have all their documents in order.

That makes all the difference.

Like so often our implementation consultants are working almost as a

psychologist to get people to open up about what's going on in their

business find out how they're really working, when people don't necessarily

even understand their own workflows.

So if people could take the time, clean up their data, have the right person,

and then have some workflows where you understand how your business runs,

that helps out tremendously and we can.

Make the most out of that.

How would you encourage someone to apply for jobs at Simpro?

Well, first of all you can always reach out to me on LinkedIn.

I'm gonna steer you in the right direction.

I'm very active in LinkedIn to try to provide good quality information.

The other is just go to our website.

There's postings, there, also postings on LinkedIn.

And then I'd also recommend get to know some of the people that are working.

If you're interested in sales, get to know some of the SDRs, BDRs.

Try to connect with them and make sure that it's the right fit for you.

I mean, I would like to say we're the right fit for everybody,

but we're not necessarily right.

So get to know a couple people that are working here, and when I made

the comment earlier about you should get to know who the managers are

and who the owners of companies are.

Same with whoever you're working for.

Whenever you're doing an interview, you should be interviewing.

The company to make sure they're a right fit for you as much as

you're a right fit for them.

So 75% of our salespeople actually came from the Trades and have gotten

their hands dirty if not even higher.

So it's something that, that I believe in.

I've tried hiring people that just are purely tech SaaS people because they have

some history and they don't relate as well to our customers as I would like.

And I grew up turning wrenches and working in factories and I think

really understanding customers, who they are, the struggles they

go through, the the business side of things is a huge advantage.

If somebody can really get an understanding of that

really makes a difference.

And I think that separates us from what a lot of other people who go to market with

different salespeople, like are people.

Most of 'em have good experience working with the Trades.

It's like, you know, the six degrees from Kevin Bacon, it's like

a how many degrees from the Trades?

Like either they were in it or they had a family member or Cuz like for me, I grew

up my stuff as a truck driver now, but he was a handyman when I was growing up he

built decks, my uncles were electricians.

Like you, when you're in the culture, you know?

And when you're not.

Yeah.

My, my father-in-law was a chimney sweep.

I, a lot of people that have worked in the Trades and it just makes a difference.

It just, I think it drives a lot of the passion for what our salespeople do.

And you know, when we talk about making sure we sell the right product

to the right people, that's one of the things, like, these people

are, this is their livelihoods.

Like we wanna make sure that we are.

Enhancing their livelihood and not detracting from their livelihood.

So we've, we will not sell to the people where it's not the right fit.

That's gonna be a great promo clip.

Thanks Ben.

Oh yeah, thanks.

I was trying to think of a good promo clip.

There you go.

Well, I don't think I have any other questions for you, but is there

anything else that you would want to add about yourself or about Simpro that

you think our audience should know?

No, great question.

I'm based in St.

Louis.

I can get just about anywhere within three to four hours.

We try to do face-to-face for good opportunities where we

want to have a conversation.

I have four kids.

One's coming back from Brussels which I'm excited about when that happens.

No, I don't think there's anything else.

I was trying to think.

No, I got nothing else.

That's me.

That's you.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate your time.

I'm trying to think about what the best signoffs, you

know, what does Guy Raz say?

You know, like,

yeah, right.

I just do wanna say thank you for your time you are a busy man and

you have so many things that you take care of, that I really do

appreciate you talking to me today.

No, I appreciate the opportunity.

I'm so passionate about the software and the Trades and

just being able to talk about my history and where Simpro is going.

This excites me.

I enjoy the time and I really appreciate it.

Thanks Ben.

Appreciate it, Karlie.

Bye.

Bye.

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So you can hear more employee highlights in the future.

And some other good nuggets of information and, you know, you can always find

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Thanks for listening.