In our latest episode of Close It Now, we delve into the transformative advantages of adopting a flat rate pricing model within the HVAC industry. The discussion, led by our host Sam Wakefield and guest Danielle Putnam, underscores that transitioning from traditional time and materials pricing to a structured flat rate approach not only enhances profitability but also streamlines the sales process. We explore the significance of understanding customer needs and the pivotal role of efficiency in sales practices, enabling HVAC professionals to work smarter, not harder. Furthermore, we illuminate the value of embracing innovative practices and the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in an evolving market landscape. Join us as we unpack the strategies that can elevate your business and establish you as a leading expert in your field.

In this episode of Close It Now, Sam interviews Danielle Putnam, the president of The New Flat Rate, which is the first and only home service menu-selling system designed to put profit directly into the hands of plumbing, electrical, and HVAC contractors.

Listen in as they talk about why using a flat rate pricing model is important and how it can help futureproof your business.

The discussion delves into the intricate dynamics of residential HVAC sales, emphasizing the necessity of establishing oneself as an expert influencer within the market. We articulate the pivotal role of understanding customer needs, which transcends mere transactional interactions. Instead, it fosters a relationship predicated on trust and reliability, ultimately enhancing efficiency in operational workflows. The discourse is enriched by insights from industry luminaries who expound upon their methodologies and strategies, revealing the intricacies of navigating the complexities of the HVAC landscape. We highlight a paradigm shift from traditional sales approaches to a more nuanced understanding of consumer psychology, which is increasingly vital in an era characterized by rapid technological advancements and shifting consumer expectations. Our overarching message is that success in HVAC sales is not merely about increasing sales figures; it is fundamentally about cultivating relationships and delivering value that resonates with customers' needs and aspirations.

Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more.

It's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Welcome to this week's Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here.

I am so excited with another special guest.

I hope you're enjoying the new format of a weekly interview.

We're bringing in industry experts who are here to drop some nuggets on you guys and ladies and to help everyone up level their game.

Our industry has been such a.

If you ever watch the Anchorman, it's like the old old wooden ship that is super slow to move and that has been our industry forever.

If you listen very much at all, you'll hear me say over and over that anything that's been done exactly the same way for over 50 years is ripe for revolution.

So it is time to uplevel our game.

Let's stop being weird and start selling as we always say on this podcast.

So I'd love to take a second and introduce someone who has been in the industry basically her whole life and it's.

You heard me say it's a her and but she's third generation a track also she is with a company now that is on the forefront of leading the way into change.

Helping us up level with just partnerships that they have with.

So much about.

The way that we do things and helping everyone become so much smoother in their process and their systems and yeah.

So welcome to the podcast today.

This is Danielle Putnam.

She is president of the new Flat Rate.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the new Flat Rate, but I'll tell you what, I've been in it from the get go.

When I got industry that was one of the very first things that the very first company I was with a service that we use right off the this at the start to go from time and materials like everybody kind of seems to start with into flat rate pricing and we never looked back from our very first month of using it we became dramatically more profitable.

The margins went up just an insane amount and we never turned back, we never went back to anything else except for from that moment on, we flat rated everything and the whole world changed for us.

And so she's here to talk a little bit about that.

And she's also one of the big things that you hear me on this podcast, you hear us talk about a lot, is the value of women in our industry.

She's on the advisory board of Women in H Vac.

So, yeah, I'd love to welcome you to the podcast today.

Danielle, thank you for being here.

Awesome.

Hey, thanks, Sam.

I appreciate the introduction.

It's great to be here.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, give us a quick highlight.

I know I kind of just hit some super high level bullet points.

Give us a little more in depth history of who you are, Danielle, and what makes you tick.

You know, what's gotten you where you are you president of New Flat Rate?

What, you know, kind of origins of that?

Why?

What got you started there?

Well, when I was young, I thought, someday in life I'm gonna be successful when I have a flip phone.

And you know, of course, long time ago, I didn't have a cell phone at all.

But in the future, I was gonna have a flip phone out of the.

Car into the flip phone.

Right.

I remember that there was a bag phone in my dad's car.

He was a contractor, you know, so he had this bag phone and anytime I got to borrow his car, I got to use it.

And I felt because, you know, everybody else was still using pagers, but someday I was gonna have a flip phone because I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I wanted to be a business person.

And that was a picture of success for me.

It wasn't in dollars.

It was when I can wear high heels and business suits and have a flip phone, I'm gonna be successful, you know.

But what I love about growing up in the trades, I feel I was born and bred.

My dad's a contractor.

His dad's a contractor.

My brothers are contractors.

And so I always grew up in the shop, in the warehouse, working the phones, going out, delivering parts.

It's just kind of.

It was a way of life.

But I love the lifestyle of business, family business, and we're always working and figuring things out and looking for better ways.

And so maybe part of being the entrepreneur was a little bit in my DNA because, you know, it was dad and grandpa and brothers.

It's like it just was like that for us then.

Today, you know, here I am and I'm living my dream of being in business.

And, you know, it's never perfect.

And we've had the new flat rate now for 10 years.

And they say that it takes 20 years to be an overnight success.

And it's true.

It's so true.

Because it's a lot of work.

Whether you have a contracting business or any kind, you know, businesses work.

It just is.

And so, you know, I love.

That's what makes me tick, is finding an area that, wait, we need to put a process in over here and to smooth things out.

And, hey, let's get this area that dialed in better so that we can scale or, hey, we missed some opportunity there.

And I know you talk about that a lot on your show.

You know, with sales, we're closing the sales, and there's all these opportunities left on the table every day.

So whether it's, you know, out in the field or in any kind of business, that's the kind of stuff that makes me tick, is how can we dial it in a little bit better?

Yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

I love it.

So let's take a quick departure from H Vac Talk real quick, because, in fact, I'm borrowing this.

I'm not just borrowing.

I'm stealing this from the guys over at Rhino.

They do this on their podcast, the to the Point podcast, which, if you haven't listened to it, make sure to go back and listen to the episode that I interviewed, Tall Paul from podcast.

That was episode number 50 for everybody that's counting in the.

In the world out there, but something they do on the podcast that I absolutely love.

Danielle, if you were in the center ring and it's your title fight, and if it's boxing or maybe you're an MMA fighter and you walk out, whatever your fight is, when you walk out, what would your theme song be?

I love to put people on the spot with this question.

Crazy Train.

It's what, you know, Crazy Train, right?

All aboard.

You know, smile.

So I think you know what I'm talking about.

So Crazy Train is your theme song.

That was perfect timing for that song introduction.

I mean, we couldn't get more appropriate there, I don't think.

Yeah, I feel you going off the rails.

Right, Right.

So, well, cool.

I love it.

Um, in all throughout the summer, I will guest do interviews inside.

I can hear you better now, too, actually.

Your mic's not cutting in and out.

Might be the wind from outside.

Yep, very, very possible.

So.

Okay, good.

All right.

So back to the task at hand.

Crazy Train is Danielle's theme song.

And why is that your theme song?

I know we probably Said it.

It cut out a little bit.

Let's recap that.

I don't think.

Well, I didn't hear you say why.

You just said, hey, if I was going into a boxing ring and I was gonna win the fight, what song I was blaring when I walk into that ring?

Because I'm north of Atlanta, Georgia, and if you live in America, especially near Atlanta, Georgia, you need to be a Braves fan, because the Braves are America's team.

And Chipper Jones used to walk up to bat and that whole song would light up the stadium and.

And he'd always have a great hit.

So, I mean, if I was going to win, I channel my inner Chipper Jones and I would knock it out of the park.

I remember growing up, it was always, always about the chop, chop.

Yeah, yeah.

Those were the years.

Good stuff.

Awesome.

Well, cool.

Very, very cool.

So let's dive into some content today.

I know there are a million things that we could talk about.

One of the, you know, coaching so many people across the country for the last several years.

A lot of the conversation that comes up with me is, how do I price things?

It's always, how do I price this, how do I price that?

And so, yes, there's a way to, you know, do all of the work and build it backwards.

And you have to know your overhead and your cost of labor and all those things, what set.

Decide what margins you want to set and all that kind of stuff.

But that is.

Seems to be one of the biggest, I guess, blocks, almost walls that people run into because they feel like they have to get all of that done before they can ever step foot in the field or in the house and sell anything because they're scared of losing money and all these things.

Then what happens is they'll get frustrated with it and then say, okay, well, let's just double the equipment cost and go out and start there.

And then they do actually lose money and they're going out of business.

So help us out here.

What can we do otherwise?

That would make a whole lot.

Make the life whole lot easier for everybody.

Yeah.

Well, you can create your own system, or you can start using one that already exists.

That kind of makes it a little bit easier.

Right.

For example, our company, the new flat rate.

I can't not mention that we do pricing and we help contractors all over the US And Canada to do that.

Three of us.

I mean, I appreciate that.

I'll catch that one.

You know, and that's what we do.

We love to help people set their price and make sure that it's right in their marketplace and it's done for you so that you don't have to spend all the cumbersome hours doing it.

But, you know, Sam, if we could be real honest here and candidate, it seems that there's two types of people.

There are the CPA style contractor, and then there's the entrepreneur style contractor.

The CPA knows their numbers, they understand it, and doesn't mean that they have a CPA degree, but they're a numbers guy.

Right.

More of an accounting background.

So when they're thinking, okay, I need to set my pricing, they're calculating all those things, and they're going to come up with a really great price, and it might take them time, but they're going to do a great job at that and have a great price.

Whereas the majority of us are kind of fly by the seat of our pants, hey, I sold a job.

Who cares what I'm going to price it at?

Or no, no, I have an opportunity.

I'm going to get out there and I'm going to sell it.

And so you go out there and you do the diagnosis, and the customer says, how much?

And you're like, oh, shoot, I don't know, you do a quick calculation, maybe make a fake phone call.

And then, you know, you say, hey, you know, it's going to be $325 today, for example, or whatever it is.

And then you're hoping that you price, right?

So with those two, you know, us entrepreneurs, we're testing it, we kind of find a price, we're losing money.

And then sometimes we call all around and kind of phone shop our competitors and see where the market is.

But it is a lot of work.

Fortunately, you know, you guys, you craftsmen, you already know what your equipment costs are.

You already know what your material, you know what it's going to cost you to do the job.

So you also have an idea of what you want to mark it up.

And it doesn't have to just be double whether you say, hey, I'm going to mark up my equipment 40%, 50%, 60%, and then figure in your taxes.

And of course, what you're talking about, too, is knowing your billable hour.

And so many people don't know how to do that.

Right.

You know, all those things do have to be factored in.

You know, Sam, I want to give you, like, the perfect one sentence answer to your question.

Let's rephrase.

Let's have a better question.

Okay?

If somebody says, you know what I'm interested in because I'm such a big fan of new flat rate.

I've used it in my companies before.

It's something I've, you know, it completely turned around the way our pricing work and our margins.

And if somebody was like, you know what?

I'm just tired of dealing with not knowing if I'm going to be priced high in the market, low in the market, right in the middle, if I'm going to make money or not.

And they've raised their hand and said, hey, Danielle, how can you help us?

What's that look like?

So you mentioned the thing that really caught my interest because I've talked to a lot of people who have mentioned that they've heard of new flat rate, but they also were apprehensive to check into it because they were scared that it was only priced for, oh, it's just in the big city market, so the prices are going to be too high or, oh, it's only in the small market, so the prices are going to be too low.

So you mentioned that you can set it and you guys have already done the market research for the different areas.

Expand on that a little bit.

Yeah, you know, we're in big towns, small towns, and I hear that too.

So it's interesting to hear you say that, you know, oh, it's not going to work in my market because I'm in a small town.

Well, with the new flat rate, when we start working with you again, it's done for you.

We've already built all the database, we've already got all the pricing in there.

So then we just get a couple simple numbers from you.

You know, if you don't know what your billable hour is, we can help you calculate that.

We do have a billable hour calculator tool that's very easy to use, like a widget.

If you've ever used TurboTax to do your taxes, just step by step help you learn your billable hour.

So if anybody does want that, reach out to me after this show and I'll give you our billable hour calculator.

Oh, wow, thanks for that.

That's huge.

Yeah, absolutely.

But if you do know your billable hour, then we ask you what it is and what are the taxes in your area?

Do you offer a service agreement discount?

And what's your service and diagnostic rate or your trip charge?

Okay.

Once we have those four numbers, then we can put them into our systems and the algorithms are already built in the back end.

Then we take a look at where you're Located and surrounding areas.

You're right.

We have done all the research, and we know, based on, you know, what you tell us and what we know already of the US And Canada, what would work well in your area.

So then we would send you a preview and say, okay, this is what we've put together for prices, and we can do that in less than 24 hours.

Does that look good to you?

Because what we're looking for, Sam, is, is that what you would currently charge?

Cause we don't want to raise or lower your prices.

We want to be real comparable.

If you don't know, well, then we'll make a great recommendation.

If you say, hey, that looks good.

And if, for example, you went on board with the new flat rate and we built out our app for you and got you up and going, we provide five price points for everything diagnosed in the home.

And that's the beauty of the system, is we're not pricing too low, we're not pricing too high.

We're giving the homeowner five prices on everything so they can make an educated decision based on their budget, what they want.

So what we see, Sam, is 80% choose higher than the bottom, and the bottom is a standard flat rate.

So 80% are choosing higher than that.

And it is so easy for technicians to prejudge.

And it's not just text, it's humans, right?

You'd like to say, oh, they have a BMW, they have money, or, oh, they have a, you know, Dodge Caravan, you know, they have money, or, oh, they live, you know, in that side of town, across the tracks, they don't have money.

And that's not true, right?

So we go in and we discount all the time, don't we, based on what we think and we perceive.

So we call it leave your mother in the truck.

Like, you got to check those emotions at the door and offer somebody options because they know their budget and their need and what's important to them.

And then they're going to choose the level of service based on their budget.

So when it comes to selling service, selling equipment, show multiple options, and then shut up.

Nice.

I love it.

That's.

You know, I've always said it's like, don't make their.

Don't spend their money for them.

It's not your money to spend.

It's so true.

From, you know, my personal experience as well as coaching so many people, I've got into the biggest, nicest houses in the biggest neighborhoods, and they wouldn't even get approved for, not just the basic system for Financing they wouldn't even get approved for the second look.

No interest or no credit.

The high interest.

Yeah.

And then I'll go into a house in the other side of town that's not even square or level.

The house looks like it's leaning over.

And they're like, oh yeah, I'll take the.

Just whatever the best you have.

And is there anything else we can add to the project?

And then they're going to get a coffee can of cash out of the back room and they pay you and they're like, no problem.

And it's, it's wild, the difference.

So the prejudging has to stop.

It does, it does.

And it's humans, you know.

You know, and we do it based on our budget.

We know, hey, I'm about to send somebody to college in my family and I don't have any money, so surely they can't afford it either.

But we don't know, we don't know the scenario.

It's nothing to do with our own lives.

So let's.

I'm super interested in.

Because I know how.

I've always explained why flat rate versus time and materials.

I would love to hear from the expert your take and how you express to people why it's beneficial to convert to a flat rate menu pricing type of system versus the time and material, how it's good for the contractor and how it's good for the homeowner.

Every contractor I've ever talked to that switched from time and material to flat rate emphatically said, I started to make more money.

Every one of them said, hey, we started to be more profitable, we started to make more money.

But the switch to flat rate kind of was a long time ago, you know, when people were like, hey, was it in the 80s, the flat rate came about?

Yeah, yeah, it was a good while back.

Yeah, every, everybody when the initial kind of move into it.

Yeah.

So then everybody, you know, not everybody.

There's still a lot of contractors on time and material and but, but the switch over your prices, you start to make more money.

And then that works for a long time.

But then what we saw in the industry over time was, okay, we started to make more money, but now we want even more.

So we need to turn the technicians into selling technicians and force them to look for more opportunity.

But that wasn't necessarily a process.

That was a training a person, not a process.

And so that's why with the menus then flat rate evolved again into, you know, what we call menu pricing.

When you just use the process of showing 5 price points, then the customer chooses and you make even more money.

So you had time and material, flat rate and then menu pricing, the revenue opportunity and profit went up.

But why flat rate?

You know, the consumers, the consumer has changed.

Anywhere that we go, we see the price of what we're paying and the certainty of knowing the budget.

It's what the consumer wants.

The consumer has changed.

But then also that changed again because now you go to Amazon or you go to Walmart, you go to Home Depot, you go anywhere and you have multiple options for every product that you want.

Right.

You have all the different price points.

You get to choose based on your budget.

And so it's the changing of the times.

It's who we are as retail shoppers.

Right.

I totally agree.

You know, especially right now in our industry, it was starting to happen gradually, but especially as soon as Covid hit.

You know, personally I did a couple webinars for, you know, three or 400 people how to do virtual sales appointments.

Yeah, nobody ever thought in 8 anything trades, especially H Vac, you could do a completely 100% virtual sales appointment.

Well, now we have people all across the country doing, you know, a million dollars a year in virtual sales, which was unheard of.

You know, I personally have always done a few hundred thousand a year, just not even intentionally, just because we have remote buyers.

But when I realized I, you know, figured that process out, started, you know, leading people into that.

But what's also happened with that is our general population.

I don't know about you, but the amount of boxes that come from online ordering now to our house has multiplied.

Not just 10x probably more like 50x.

Yes.

We don't go to stores for most things anymore.

It's like, oh, I just need this.

Hang on, I'll just order it on my app.

So the hot topic that is really kind of becoming boiling to a head here is E Commerce for H Vac seeing prices up front because we know traditionally it's always been a value first sale sales model.

Value first and then show pricing at the end once you've built that stack of value bigger than their stack of dollars and there's a change happening and already having these prices worked out, man, that would just facilitate that a whole lot easier.

Wouldn't, would.

And I'm hearing that all over the place.

There's a lot of consultants in the industry pressure are promoting that model right now saying just put your, your prices right there on your website and, and so that there's definitely a shift moving in that direction.

Yeah, let, let people sign up and put their credit card in and pay for their, you know, whatever it is.

Knowing that I click the box that says, I understand that it could change what somebody gets here.

Yes.

Depending on what they find.

But let's prepay this.

How wild is that?

Yeah, there's website developers developing those exact same things.

Right now.

People are doing it and people are doing it and consumers are doing it.

So it's happening.

Yeah, I like to keep, keep talking about it because everybody listening with, you know, thousands and thousands of listeners, that, man, don't, don't fight it.

You know, when, when things start to change and move in the industry, it kind of reminds me with R22, you know, with the change to 410, everybody fought it.

Everybody fought it.

One brand pioneered it and started installing it a decade before.

Well, when the industry decided to adopt 410, it was up between four or five different refrigerants and they're like, oh, well, we already have millions of these systems installed.

Why don't we just adopt that one?

And so everyone else was forced into that specific refrigerant.

But it's kind of the same, you know, the same thing going on.

Don't fight the change that's inevitable.

Embrace it.

Either embrace it for yourself or at least learn about what's happening and understand the dynamics of how to sell against it if you're not going to make the change yourself.

True.

And you know, at first it's kind of a scary thought of, well, if I put my prices out there, my competitors are going to see it.

Or what if everybody else's prices are cheaper and then nobody goes with us because mine are more expensive.

There's a lot of scary ways to look at it, and you don't want your customers price shopping and all, you know, you guys know all the objections as well.

But think of, for example, American Home Shield.

I don't know if you're probably familiar.

Right.

With American Home Shield.

Absolutely right.

And so think of these home warranty companies that have been around for a long time.

And I say American Home Shield because we did what we call American Home Shield calls not with American Home Shield, but on our own every week for a couple years using it, teaching contractors how to use it as lead gen.

Right.

You know, contractors either hate it or they love it, but in the slow seasons, there's a slow season for them and they want to know how to get leads.

Well, American Home Shield was a great way to get leads.

You can be a great Contractor for them, they're going to guarantee you leads.

You're going to get those leads, but then, hey, you're only going to make $70 or whatever it's going to be.

It's a set price point.

Right.

So that price points already published in there, and everybody already knows this is the price point.

And so what we started doing, Sam, is teaching our guys, take the lead, get out there, and then show a menu.

Here's a menu from the page from, for example, the new flat rate price book.

And here's your five price points.

And that bottom one, you know, that's.

That's what's covered.

Your American home shield, it's covered right here.

Is that what you want?

Because, hey, it's fine.

It's a great repair.

It's just your basic band aid.

It's your get you up and going today, and it's your flat rate price.

Or we have these other options.

What should we do?

And so all of our contractors started reporting back, making all this extra money.

What was shocking about it is nobody thought that a homeowner would pay more when they were already promised, hey, it's going to be, you know, or it's covered.

It's covered, it's free because it's covered in your American home shield.

Right.

And your home warranty is covered, so you don't have to pay.

But we every week had contractors saying, yep, every time we showed options, they always paid more.

Mm, yeah, absolutely.

When it comes to pricing on your website, you don't have to be afraid of it.

Let's just be creative on what do we want to price.

Some of it is going to be baiting, you know.

Yeah, we can do a duct cleaning for this price, or, hey, we come out there and we do it for free.

And then you show options and the customer is going to choose more that they want because that's when you get to build your value when you're actually on site with the customer.

Right, yeah.

Because the caveat is, you know, these prices are, you know, they're just penciled in here.

They're, you know, tentative until we get someone on site to do the project measurements.

You know, everyone knows, and you even give the option.

So I know so much about this, too, because I have a team member, one of my coaching clients in Denver, who's doing this.

And I think right now he's like 16 for 16, you know, in a row.

Yeah.

And he's just killing it.

And so the question too is, you know, if you.

If people are price shopping, you and you're losing to the cheap guy anyway.

How much better would it be if those people already disqualify themselves before you have to go out?

Totally.

How much more efficient is that?

Because if we're.

Here's the thing.

If I'm only going to get 50% of the sales, my average close rate is going to be 50%.

Let's draw a line right through the center of the demographic, and I'll take the top half and let everybody else fight over the cheap guy.

I don't want the commodity buyer because that's where all the headaches come from anyway.

We know that.

So how much easier is it to disqualify that ahead of time?

And man, your model is just beautiful to be able to use that to the degree that anybody wants to.

And I have to give props.

I heard in your presentation a little bit of Uncle Joe and the what should we do?

Every time somebody says that, I was like, oh, somebody knows Joker.

Sarah, big props.

Big props to Uncle Joe.

He's been a mentor in the industry for.

For so many years.

I've taken courses from him along with most people.

So I love to.

When I hear it, I always like.

To say his name.

Yeah.

And we definitely think of Joe as a great friend and mentor, too.

And we've spent a lot of time with Joe and love Joe and all of his stuff.

Oh, yeah.

I hope to someday be a big boy podcaster enough to get him as a guest on here.

Awesome.

I know you will, so I'm sure I will.

We're working on it.

Just have to send him this episode when he hears his name that was mentioned on the show that we want him.

We'll get to.

The world wants him to have the timing worked out.

Yeah, that's what it is.

But I love it, you know, and statistically, that's the beautiful part of the way people buy.

You know, I've taken so many courses over the years and trainings and, you know, like anybody in the industry that's a top performer, you dedicate your life to become a lifelong learner.

And when you do that, there's no, you know, I heard one time that you should spend 10% of your income on personal growth.

Every single year is the way to be world class at anything you do.

And so for the last decade, I've dedicated myself to that and I've stuck to it, which has so many people say, well, God, there's no way I could afford that.

And my.

I'm like, there's no way you can't afford it.

When you look at your own, anyone who's done that, their own income has just skyrockets when you decide to become that better person.

And so that's, you know, and people here on the podcast all the time, I'll say work to become someone worth buying from.

And as you do that, you up level yourself.

The people that buy from you also up level.

And it's so true.

It's what happens.

It is otherwise we plateau.

And plateau is a scary place.

It's hard to get off that plateau to the next level, especially if you haven't been preparing for it.

Right.

Yeah.

When change comes, if we're not, if you don't dig the well before you need it, then you're scrambling to go back and okay, what's going on?

How can we get on this?

But then you're on the backside of the change and now it's like, well, everybody's already doing this.

I guess I might as well do it also.

But we all know that the pioneers are the ones that find the gold.

Right.

But they're also the ones that catch the arrows.

So it's not trade off.

But I give props to my first mentor, Brian Winkelman for that one.

But I started my career in Tinytown, Texas, in a town of 13,000 people up in Dumas, Texas.

And yeah, anybody who says you can't be successful in a small market, we were a million and a half year company in a town of 13,000 people.

So it's 100% possible you can dominate your market anywhere you're at.

Everything else was proportional from there.

But back to the topics.

We could go all over the place with this.

One thing that I'm super interested in especially, I know you mentioned that the timing wasn't intentional.

It just happened to be a, I guess a serendipitous coincidence, so to speak, is you guys have introduced a new module for indoor air quality a lot more in depth than it used to be.

Because I know used to, you had some options to just put in, you know, indoor air quality accessories.

Just kind of on a one off.

True.

But now there's a.

It's a lot more robust, I guess, so to speak.

And so talk about that a little bit, how that transition happened and what inspired it.

And then let's dive in, you know, kind of unpack it a little bit for us.

What's the benefit of the new module?

Yeah, cool, it's.

And we have actually changed it from just indoor air quality to building science.

So it's a building science Indoor air quality price book.

It's a menu price system.

It's within our app.

It's digital and we've been talking about it for years.

And, you know, if we could be super honest and candid, because I can't help but to be super honest sometimes I wish I wasn't so honest.

Oh, yeah, we don't do it any other way on this podcast.

I'm like, the real punches, everybody will know, right?

I'm just.

It is the tremendous amount of work is okay, hey, we need to do this indoor air quality building science module pricing system because people ask for it, people want it, people want to know how to price these things.

But that's a lot of work to go write a new price book and to do the research and to get it ready and get it beta tested.

And, you know, so we kind of were like, ah, are we going to do it?

Are we not?

You know, do people really want it?

And people really did want it.

So we kept being asked one, and then my, our founder, my business partner, our CEO is actually my dad, Rodney Cope, who was, you know, and is a contractor and really was specialty niche in indoor air quality and specifically even mold.

And so his highest, you know, service.

Oh, you said the N word.

Watch out.

I know, I know, I know.

We call it something else in the price book.

We totally call it something else.

Organic.

Microbial, right?

Yeah, like microbial.

We totally do.

Anyway, though, his, his average tickets were always above 35,000 because those are the kinds of jobs he was doing.

And we're in Georgia, so lots of crawl space and cash encapsulations and stuff.

So he had a lot of knowledge.

And then people still kept calling him from all over the country saying, hey, I ran into this.

Is there anything that I can do?

What should I do?

And we just began to find that there's not a lot of help when it comes to finding solutions for that stuff.

And contractors need help, and we feel mandated they need help because it's, it's the health and safety of the home and the homeowners and the children and the people that are in these environments that might be getting sick because their home is actually making them sick.

And then contractors don't know how to fix it.

So those conversations, are you home?

Are you home because you're sick or you're sick because you're home?

Oh, and we're hearing it more and more, right?

I love the way you say it.

So with all those conversations and the phone calls coming in, you know, we had the notes we'd already outlined it, we had the structure, and then we started to talk to business partners to look at their equipment.

What would we want to recommend?

What wouldn't we want to recommend?

Is.

And then I want to say another name too, and it's John Ellis.

And he also, if you know John Ellis, he is a business training coach.

He works with Dyke and Amanda Goodman doing indoor air quality classes for them.

He's actually one of our ride along coaches.

He goes out and does ride alongs with techs all over the US and he's got a wealth of knowledge.

But out when he had his H VAC company in California did a whole lot of indoor air quality.

So we started having conversations with John.

So between John, Rodney and I, these IAQ calls and these talks and talks and talks and then people calling in.

I know this is a long story, Sam.

I'm trying to get to the point, but it finally was just like, we.

Gotta do it for a while.

Yeah.

You know, we had to do it.

And so we just put the, put the date on the calendar and said, okay, everybody fly to Dalton, Georgia and we're gonna write this system and figure it out.

And, you know, the big piece was the discovery phase.

It takes a lot of time to be in a home or building in an environment, sometimes to assess what's really wrong.

Right.

And so we needed to figure out how for contractors to get paid for that discovery time.

And that is something that we built into this pricing system.

So we didn't mean to do it during COVID It just happened to.

Now's the time that we completed it and we got it rolled out and we're in beta testing.

I've got 20 companies in the beta test and we're getting great reports.

So we do group calls every week.

And I'm learning so much, I could sit here and talk about IQ all day.

That's great.

So we've got a fork in the road in the conversation here.

One thing that I love, that just a quick notice, you know, forever.

We had to do such a thorough, you know, really healthy job of educating on the importance of indoor air quality.

And now our job is so much easier because the world has done it for us with COVID with the coronavirus.

Everybody knows the importance of indoor air quality.

So the lead into it is so much easier.

Now what I've trained on my podcast, in my training personally, is literally just two questions.

First is, with everything going on in the world, how important is indoor air quality to you?

And then the second one, after that is would you like to hear what we did in our own personal homes to make your home a sanctuary?

Excellent.

And from that everybody says yes to both of those questions.

Yeah.

And then it's an easy conversation because they just gave you permission.

But so for everybody out there, if you didn't hear the other podcast on that those are your two questions that will if you use the new flat rate or not, I recommend it because it's great.

But even if not, if you just want or curious how to open that conversation, those two questions will do it for you because everybody knows now that it's important and also they want to know what you're the expert.

What did you do to protect your.

Phone family and that was such a non salesy way to say it.

Sam, it was so good of are you concerned?

Do you want to know yes or no?

If not.

Okay, great.

I'll finish up the call.

Let's not drive down the road for 45 minutes to somebody that has zero interest.

People buy checks for what they want, not what they need.

Right?

They do.

But more importantly the other part of that conversation taking us into the rest though is how do once we get there, what are the pieces, how does it build, how do we educate and then price it right.

You're right.

It's like there's so many components especially when you start to incorporate not just IAQ but building science.

You know part of my history that most people don't know is I owned a Dr. Energy Saver franchise, you know contractor with them for about five years.

So we were that was the home performance network across the country for a long time.

They still are.

I just since I sold my company haven't been connected but so understand the dynamics of how in depth you have to go.

Yes.

So talk to us a little bit about you know if somebody if I'm just, you know I have a small company and I want to roll in some indoor air quality but I don't know if the full on building science is right for me.

And then let's talk about also you know, if I'm a bigger company really ready to make some investment.

How does that look?

And the education piece is really where I want to go with this because I don't know if you guys heard they do weekly calls to educate on how to the importance of indoor air quality and how to in building performance building science and how to incorporate that into your business.

So I love that you guys are doing so much education.

That's the missing piece in our industry because everybody's so just hit and miss across the board on it.

It really surprised us because we roll this out and we're like, hey, you guys are all contractors.

You know what to do.

And.

And then I said, let's have a check in call.

And they're like, we didn't know what to do, you know.

And my guys in my beta are really sharp, awesome, top notch contractors.

I got to give them a plug there.

But it was having the conversation, the segue into the conversation.

And then to your point, how do you get started?

What kinds of pieces?

And so to answer your first question, maybe if you're a smaller guy, and how do I get going into that and.

And pick up some of the opportunity?

Because the opportunity is there.

So how do you pick up some of that opportunity that you feel like might be going to everybody else?

An easy answer is duct cleaning.

And so many people look down on it and maybe don't want to do duct cleaning.

And technicians often think it's below them.

And you don't even have to be a technician to do duct cleaning.

You can have, you know, some apprentices do duct cleaning.

You can have some of your other guys that are maybe slow today do some duct cleaning.

But here's what we found when people are calling around saying, hey, do you do duct cleaning?

And all the H vac companies are like, no, call so and so.

And they're hanging up on that opportunity.

Why did the customer want duct cleaning?

That's the golden question.

So there's opportunity there.

Is there dust in their home?

Is that what they're not liking?

You know, is somebody sick?

Surely, if I had to guess, nobody in this home is suffering from bronchial, you know, upper respiratory or asthma or any kind of issues, right?

No, somebody is, you know, my child is.

So let's start with the duct cleaning.

Okay?

So my point is, duct cleaning is an easy way and you don't have to necessarily have the equipment to get going on at day one.

I've got a friend contractor right now who has seven jobs lined up and did not have a piece of equipment.

He sold seven duct cleaning jobs because here it is, the heat of the summer and people are willing to wait for duct cleaning because it's not, oh, I don't have air.

Right.

They'll wait until the slow season in the fall.

So he's already sold them and he's booked them for weeks out and then he just went and bought a roto brush.

And we've been working with rotobrush and they've Given us some great discounts to offer to our people.

So if anybody's interested in learning more about that.

Cool, awesome.

We'll circle back to that because I want to highlight that for you as well.

Let's go into.

So that was small guy, you know, want to get started?

So duct cleaning is a great way to start.

What about the bigger company?

With some capital, they're really ready to drop and expand another division of their company.

Where would you recommend that go?

Yeah, good question.

So there's so much equipment, material and things and you know, a device that we're loving right now is Air Advice, the air monitoring system that you can do a 30 minute snapshot, seven day snapshot, whatever to know the air quality in the home.

And that's a kind of easy way.

But these big guys, they've got files and files of customers and opportunities and opportunities and opportunities.

And so that's where they're going to start, right, Marketing to that existing base.

But you know, I want to back up for a second and say, well, no, I want it, I want it.

You can't just go and say, hey, we're going to add an IAQ branch and hey, utex, you're now IAQ guys.

You go out and do IAQ because of the safety of the home and the residents of the home.

Like you have to know what you're doing.

If you do it wrong and incorrectly, it's a safety issue but for everybody.

And so you've got to get trained.

And so I know John ellis has a four day, it's a 16 hour, four half days class he does a couple times a year.

And it's really important if you want to start getting into it to figure out how to get into that class.

Right.

And pick your technicians that you want to get into it because you can't just say, hey, we're going to do this and not be trained on it.

It's a safety issue.

Well, and with that too, don't.

For all you companies out there that you're really into, you know, open to getting into this, don't let that also.

Don't let that scare you.

Yeah, true.

You know, I want to invite you in.

Yeah, let's invite you in.

So while, yes, it is, you know, it's a big thing, especially when we start getting into, you know, the next level items like crawl space encapsulation, we get into next level items like spray foam insulation.

There are some serious health concerns that you have to be aware of.

However, I have friends all over the country who they're, they have one or more $100,000 spray foam rigs that are working every single day of the year because it is such a high demand item.

Yes.

So at the same time, don't be scared of it.

Invest in the and 100%.

I'm going to echo this.

Invest in the training first.

Because at the same time, and this is a fun warning, not really fun.

One of my peers in a, in a city years ago when I owned my Dr. Energy Saver company, they decided to get into spray foam.

And the person, they didn't get the right training, the person who was actually the applicator, he was not wearing his goggles and he got foam overspray on his eyeballs and had to go to the eye doctor and have it ground off with a, like a grinding wheel off of his eyeballs.

Don't be that guy.

Don't think that you're just manly enough.

You can go do this, get the right training.

So that's my little word of advice there.

However, it's highly profitable.

That's right.

So the big margin is in this stuff because it's such a high margin, low material, high labor cost, which also means high margin.

So stepping into the home performance and building performance and iaq, we start getting into, you know, for example, if you're, you can, I'm sure, talk about this better than I can because you price it all the time.

You know, equipment system pricing, you know, your margins end of the day for your company is anywhere from 25% to maybe 45%.

Your margins on your IAQ items and on home performance is going to be anywhere from, you know, at the low end, 45% all the way up to 80% margin on those items.

So it's wild the difference or even higher.

So it's.

And then you throw those together if you've already covered your bottom line with something else and then you put a super high margin item on there that goes straight to the bottom line.

It does.

And you know, something cool too is with these opportunities, so often they include equipment change outs and duct replacements and all of that too, you know, so you have your crawl spaces and your attic renovations and sealing the home and you know, pure air coming in and all the different things that you can do.

And then you also have your other things that you would have done anyway, the equipment and the depth.

But it is, it's such a profitable thing to get into.

So don't be afraid of the training.

There's a lot of easy ways to get in and in the training class that I recommended, John provides a list of all the equipment and the different things that you can start getting so that you have what you need.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

So he's a great resource.

You know, Contractor Nation is another good place to start.

That's the parent company for the Dr. Energy Saver organization I was involved with.

There's lots of good reasons, of course, you know, your BPI and your nci, they can also point you in the right direction.

But I want to circle back on something you mentioned a minute ago is being connected to the new flat rates.

You have developed a lot of partnerships with vendors, with different companies all across the board to get your clients additional discounts.

So it's an advantage of being connected to you.

They basically pay for the new flat rate with the discounts they get from everywhere else that they're already using anyway.

Is that right?

It does help, yes.

We have found, though, paying for the new flat rate, it pays for itself in a matter of weeks just on the service calls that you run, like, it pays for itself right away.

And we hear that every day just because they're picking up lost opportunity.

We immediately saw that in our company.

I appreciate that you mention it.

So then the partnerships we're working with, you know, for example, Air Advice and Rotobrush, these are just great companies that are well established and have great products and have said, yeah, we'd love to be a part of that and offer a significant discount to our group.

So I'm really excited to be able to pass that on to everybody.

And so.

And then on our weekly calls, everybody's all, hey, I just got my roto rush.

Hey, I got my air.

You know, it's exciting.

It's fun.

It's fun to watch everybody to expand their business and to learn new things.

And another thing that's been cool is if there's somebody, maybe you have a friend.

You know, everybody's not always in competition.

You know, you see your buddies at the supply house, they work at a different company, but if there's a company that does, you know, attic renovations or things and you want to get into it, then kind of apprentice with them a little bit.

There's, you know, in our group calls, we've got a couple companies that are in Georgia.

And so to get into IAQ, one's been doing it for 15 years, and the other one's only been doing it for about two years.

And so they're planning on working together so that the.

The newer company can really learn in a Safe environment.

And not necessarily just outsource, but invite the company, hey, I'll give you a piece.

Come here, do this job with me and help me.

So I'm excited to see the people working together to learn.

And it's a good way to get a little bit of extra revenue.

Absolutely.

Oh my gosh, that is so cool to hear because our, in our industry is notoriously, you know, competitive.

And I've always said the idea of good competition is their doors are closed because we took all the jobs.

But at the same, that's more of a tongue in cheek.

At the same time, it's awesome to see companies working together because we know that a rising tide raises all ships.

So we've got to get over our infighting and really work on educating the client because truly we have to become a unified front in this.

Otherwise what we've seen already, other industries will reach into the H Vac industry and take a huge portion of our business that we don't want to give up.

Example is Nest thermostat with Google.

Google Home.

They absolutely did that.

They bought the place on the wall so they could take over the rest of the house.

And that's a place that we should have owned and never given up that real estate, but nobody offered it.

So let's not let other industries do that with these other pieces of the house.

So that's my, that's my soapbox on that one.

Stay on that one.

Man, I love that you said that.

Yeah, for sure.

So.

Well, awesome.

Well, this has been a fantastic time together.

I'm so glad you were able to join us.

And so before we go and all of your, you know, I'll get all the, all of your links to be in the liner notes for this episode, but just tell all of the listeners how they can find you, what the best way to contact you is and how can they just learn more about the new Flat rate and some of the programs you're offering.

I've got a horrific spam filtering system so I want to say email me if I don't respond.

It landed in spam, so reach out in other ways too.

But my email is Danielle.

Daniellenu pricing.com or Danielle@thenew flat rate.com our website.

Can you spell Danielle for everybody?

D A N I E l l e. @menupricing.com our website.

Thenewflatrate.com I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Definitely connect and I would love to give you something just for reaching out.

You know, we talked about a couple things if you want to know more about the IQ things we're doing?

Reach out.

Something else that I just came across my desk that I'm loving right now.

It's a 10 page process of the service call cycle and it's just scripting because as you're scaling and expanding or maybe right now in summertime it's busy season and you guys are just going from call to call and you add a technician and he might, you know, we might not be doing the training that we need to be doing of the expectations of the business.

Show up on site, park like this, greet the customer like this.

I've got a 10 pager on it that could really help you in the busy season right now.

I'd love to give to you for free.

So just reach out and I'd love to share that.

It's just my service call process.

You could call it or for any.

And you also mentioned.

I love it.

You also mentioned your calculator for people learning their own hard costs on things, right?

Yes, yes.

So our billable hour calculator.

If you reach out for that too, just because you listen to the episode, I'll get you a promo code for that so you can log in for free and find your billable hour.

She's bringing the value, everybody.

I hope you're paying attention.

Connect, connect, connect.

Good, good stuff.

And that again also that's part of being a listener of Close it now.

I'm always working on partnerships as well with, you know, different organizations and just to support all of you guys and ladies in the field.

So really quick again, want to plug that?

She is on the board of directors for Women in H Vacr.

So if you're a woman listening and you didn't know this group exists, it does take a super short.

It doesn't have to be super short.

Give us a quick little blurb about women in H Vacr having a hard time with words are hard today.

How old is the organization and why was it founded and how can women get involved and to get supported?

We've been around for almost 20 years now.

It's a incredible network.

So thanks for the opportunity to even talk about it.

We've got a very active Facebook group, Women in H Vac.

You can look for our.

It's a private group so just request to be in it and we'll accept you in where we talk about all sorts of stuff.

We've got in our membership, technicians, installers, owners, managers, manufacturers, distributors, marketers, you know, salespeople.

We have all different facets of the industry in there.

And we have an annual conference where we actually come together per personally and we have several hundred women that come together in one room.

And sometimes, you know, I'll ask them, hey, why, why are you here?

Why are you at our annual conference?

And they say to be in this group of women, you know, the people that you're sitting next to, it'll be high level at some really big companies and then front lines over here and small companies over here.

But the connection and the camaraderie of being in this industry together, you know, there's a small group of us women that are in the industry and sticking together.

I've built some of my best alliances and my best friends from the industry have come from that group.

So.

So it's a just a really great tight knit group.

Tight knit group.

And we're always looking for more members to come in and also for sponsors, you know, if you're a manufacturer or a promoter of any kind.

And we're always looking for sponsors and we do scholarships.

I love our scholarship program because we're helping to bring more people into the industry.

We give out over seven scholarships a year.

And that's really cool too, to help get ladies into tech school.

And I love that program.

But it's women@hvacr.org okay, great.

Yeah.

My last podcast interview actually, which will air right before this one, is a woman in Illinois, Lisa Gintz, who is a sales manager up there.

She's been a million dollar a year salesperson for over a decade and she runs a big crew up there.

And so I'm always looking for ways to highlight women in the industry.

There's not enough of them, not enough of you.

We need more.

Yeah, absolutely need more.

So in fact, we'll connect.

Outside of the podcast, I have a program for sponsorships.

So I would love to talk to you about how we can possibly work together for some fundraising.

But man, this has been fantastic.

Thank you for being on the episode today, everybody.

You heard it here first.

Flat rate is where it's at.

If you're still doing time and material or you haven't realized the advantage of time of flat rate pricing, man, it will instantly change your bottom line, change your margin and it just takes all the guesswork out of it.

It makes it so easy to get projects done.

So this is the place to connect to get that, get your ball, get the ball rolling for you.

So thanks everybody for listening.

One couple quick announcements super fast before we wrap this episode up.

I hope you again, hope you're enjoying the new format with the two episodes a week, lots of stuff happening with Close It Now.

The high performance coaching, which is private one on one coaching with me is really gearing up right now as well as we're working on a really cool hybrid group coaching model which is going to be so just super quick highlights.

It's going to be a monthly training for me.

It's also going to be a monthly Q and A from me within its own private Facebook group and then a laundry list of rock stars that are going to be in in there doing Facebook lives.

This live interaction with you guys plus guys and ladies plus just the peer support is going to be awesome.

So it's going to be a cool hybrid group.

The book is in its first edit, so the Close it now book is coming out and all of the sales system that I talk about in the podcast is actually in production.

I've almost recorded all of the videos for that and so we're in production of having all of it packaged into a nice online course for you as well.

So I've been busy over here in Austin, Texas and lots of, there's lots, lots coming up and I'm going to be now that things are opening up, look for me at some of the events that are going to be happening.

I plan on attending a lot of the conventions and different things for our beautiful industry.

And yeah.

So that's it for now.

Thank you again, Danielle with new flat rate for being on the podcast today.

And we're going to end this the way we always do.

Everybody I know it is.

You're in the heat of it.

Go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

We'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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