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Most owners blame the lead source when a call goes nowhere. Joe Crisara has trained more than seventy three thousand service professionals, and he says the lead is rarely the problem. The person running the call was never trained, and most owners do not know how to train in the first place. Worse, they try to bolt AI on top of a sales process that was broken to begin with.

Joe is known as America's Service Sales Coach. He spent roughly forty five years in the trades, was on the original team that built the AI coaching tool Rilla, and created his own AI pricing tool that helps technicians sell three to five times more on the same call. He is the author of the bestseller "What Should We Do?"

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why you train the person first and only then train the AI on what worked, instead of expecting software to fix a sales process nobody documented

• How to make someone actually want the training before you give it, using what Joe calls the law of dissonance

• Why AI is an exoskeleton for your sales coach, not a replacement, and what happens to accountability when a machine is the only thing giving feedback

• The reason AI gives your people too much credit, and why a human still has to deliver the improvement plan

• How Joe's option builder breaks one problem into five, prices it out of a two thousand line price book in seconds, and reveals the price last on purpose

• Why the same customer journey works no matter where the lead came from, so you can stop blaming Facebook, Angi, or Yelp

• The ninety minutes per call most technicians waste on notes and pricing, and what to do with that time instead

• The real KPI Joe says marketers ignore, which is whether you know the names of the people actually running your calls

This one is for any home service owner who keeps buying more leads when the real fix is upstream, in how their people are trained.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mauricio's Calendar

Mauricio's Calendar

Hey guys, this is Mauricio Cardano, the host today of the AI marketing show with For Home Services. I'm here with my guest, Joe Cruisera. Welcome to the show.

Hey, how you doing Mauricio? You're doing great. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it.

Doing good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. I'm excited to talk to you. you have a lot of experience. I think all the things that you shared about, especially in the last few years, has been really a lot of good topics that I wanted to get into that that I think people would really benefit from. so taping taping back from the beginning, Joe, how did it how'd you go from working in the trade to building something like service and VP? What was the moment that you realized training was the actual problem to solve?

actually that's it's my lack of training that it probably wasn't the actual doing the training. It was the fact that I when I wasn't doing training, the results were very b very poor. I number one, I lacked the subject or d didn't know what to really train on. I just was using my own like a lot of people do. They like, yeah, I know what to do, so I'm just gonna train people the way I know.

And of course, the way I I thought the way I knew it was good. So my my paradigm shifted when I had some of my clients who well, I was struggling financially early in my career. I was a technician, then I started my own company, but I was struggling financially because running a company is different than being a worker in that trade. And then a couple of my clients turned me on to some of their vast education and knowledge and connections on.

How the science of pricing and the science of connecting with people. And there's a nobody I didn't realize that there's a whole, you know, billion dollar industry on just communicating ideas to the public to create interest and desire. so people buy things automatically, right, without having to sell so hard. And I start applying those things and it realized that it's like I had a passion because it got me out of debt. I start sharing with other people.

And it's been come a become a mission of my life, which is to help other people who normally would struggle with the same information my mentor gave me. Of course, my mentors probably didn't realize that this would reverberate through the you know hundreds of thousands of people who now enjoy the training that I do. and I'm proud of that and proud of the legacy I left and leaving and still have yet to finish. I still have a lot more.

Irons in the fire and I'm ready to serve, you know. So but I I'm I'm humbled, yet I'm confident that I can create value for the service industry to help others succeed. So that's really what I'm here for. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. You trained over seventy three thousand people personally. What does it take to actually change how a tradesperson behaves in front of a customer? What's the hardest part of that?

I think it's really kind of just the it's it's like me, you know, if I wasn't struggling, I probably wouldn't have done any changes if it was to it took it took the challenge of financial challenge, like being in debt and feeling like every day like I was didn't wanna w I wanna stay in bed. I don't wanna get up and do anything 'cause I was so I was feeling so depressed about it. And

You know, the difference is that once I figured out what to do, then I'm like I had all kinds of energy. So you so I think I think really what it comes down to is like, you know, we have to be open minded to learning more stuff. If if your mind is closed and you're and that's the biggest challenge is the closed mind like the like I was. I think a lot of people I'm a I'm a good example or good template for people in the trades because we pride ourselves on our knowledge and our skill, and being a master, if you will, in our trade.

Yet we sometimes sometimes hard to acknowledge that we're not a master of all the trades. We're just a master of like a master of communication is different than a master of heating and air conditioning or plumbing or electrical or landscaping or garage door or whatever. You know, you could be a master of one of those trades, but you could be definitely lacking in that. So I think it takes somebody who can admit that just like any kind of a dysfunction, you have to admit that it's a problem. I think that's the getting people to see.

you know, I think what it is making it transparent that this is a problem by just putting it out there and saying it out loud. And then people like, yeah, I guess I could improve. And then that's kind of like the first step, like to to imagine that there's something better. Cause I think the first place that being better exists is in our imagination. Does that make sense? Like the our imagination, if it's closed and we feel like there's nothing we can do, then that's gonna be the the answer. If you feel like, yeah, I could.

I could try this and I think this is gonna work, then that's probably gonna be the answer. It makes sense. whether you believe or don't believe, you can improve that you're probably correct either way, because your mind is the thing that controls that. It's not not not the outside influences that we think. It's actually inside of us. The biggest problem is in our own brain, honestly, you know.

Yeah. years ago I read this book called The E Myth, probably probably read it by Michael Mike Mikey Gerber. and one of the things he claims

Yeah, I I was a I was I was an emyth mastery coach. once I got this, I'm like I could apply this to systemize the training I do. So that's really I I was an emyth mastery coach back in the late nineties and I got involved with that because I was I used I I I used to have the audio tapes from Michael Gerber and I and I wore out like like three sets of his tapes, you know, because back in the audio had cassette tapes, you know, back back in the day before they had CDs, we used to have the sick cassette tapes and I

And I I wore out all the sets and cassette tapes. So I wore out three of them and then I got the C D eventually. Thank God that didn't wear it out. But but I know, I understand it. And that's kinda like that's a book that has a lot of those those paradigm shifts, where it makes you like new ideas like, Yeah, it's it's a good idea. I should try to try to do that. And of course, then I became a co I helped I put that right into my coaching, you know, that everything is a system in a way. Does that make sense here? yeah,

Yeah, yeah. He he

The solution is in the system. The system is the solution, as they say, you know.

Exactly. He he he claimed in that book when I read it, which I I didn't really see on after years afterwards, was that most business owners are practitioners, right? They're not really business people, right? If you're a doctor, you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, if you're a tradesperson, if you're a roofer, you're an actual roofer, or you're a plumber, yeah, you actually have skill in the actual trade, but business comes secondary typically, right? And that's that's actually after after working with small businesses for nine years, I I can s I can actually validate that fact.

Most people and there's nobody that teaches you business. Like there's no school for that. I don't think college really is the best way to learn for that specific purpose. So you have to just learn from your own, from your own doing it, from experience, or just learn from people like yourself or other people which have done it before. That's really the the the aspect. Because the people that have reached the high levels, like that have scaled the businesses, they they had to learn that. It's not like hey, they were they were taught that from the beginning.

Yeah, I I think especially, you know, people like people like you and others who you know take a leap of faith to have a program like this and you put it out there for people, yeah, it's it's there's never been a time where there's more information to help everyone. However, if people don't listen to the information or don't apply the information, then that's on them. But you know, you do a great job. Thanks for making the effort, Mauricio, to make such a great effort to help.

all the all the people who who do their different expertise to get them to see you know how the marketing and sales aspect of things is it's really needed because if you're a doctor and you have no patients, well then or if you're a lawyer and you have no clients you can't you can't you can't sell the client on using your service, then really you're nothing. You're not doing any of the work. You know, the work you're trying to do can't be done unless somebody

Yeah.

agrees to pay for it in a way. Does that make sense there, Maurice? They see value in it. So it's gotta be there is a transaction, but you know, if we if we focus on the transaction, it's probably not gonna be work. But I think the transactional part of it is something that creates value. You know, I think that's the fact that you're here giving people these this information, I really give you a lot of kudos. So thank you for doing that, Mauricio.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah.

I appreciate it. Thank you. you were you were part of the original team of Arilla, which is now one of the biggest AI coaching tools in home services. How did that happen? And what did you learn from being on the inside of that build?

we learned a lot actually. It was I still have you know good friends with a lot of good friends with the people there, relationships with the with the Rilla team. and you know, they they approached me and they said, Hey, you know what, this is they wanted to emphasize that the AI solution is not a replacement for the coach. It's an enhancement to give the coach kind of an ectoskeleton, if you will, to fortify their behaviors, to give them a tool.

to to see something that previously was unseen, which is what's happening on the interaction with you know, with the service experience, and no matter what trade it is or what kind of a s business situation it is, to be able to see inside that situation and now be able to see it in real time as a coach. And I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, we were previously unable to watch the game that's being played between the client and our

coworkers. now we can actually watch the field of play. And they said, Joe, could you give us on that? And so actually I did a one of the best talks I ever gave. It's on Rilla has the talk on their YouTube channel on, you know, the the the coaching or management is dead. Long live the coach is called. And and it's really taken me a long way. And and I still use a lot of segments from that talk today even with

the things I do with all the other AI solutions I'm involved with too, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And so so now with if if a company uses I guess they're they're giving more access to the data. That's really the the the the end of the day. 'Cause it's if you have like for example, you have twenty texts, it's it's it's impossible for one person to actually track what happened during each meeting. Right? You can only see the you can you can only see the afterwards, right? What what happened before with C R with the notes. Right? But now you have access to the actual conversation. That's really the

And you can have AI analyze it. That's kind of the the valuable thing about that, right?

Well, there's two things. One is you mentioned the note the notes, which previously, no no humans humans very inconsistent on taking notes. Like we we could have a you and I could have a business meeting and then it's up to us to go back and try to remember or take notes in real time. which most people don't do. They just want to have a I just want to learn about Mauricio and then see if it's a good fit for me to be involved in a way, right? And you wanna do the same thing with me and

So we're just focused on each other and not focused on and it doesn't make sense that the best relationships are gonna be when we're focused on each other as people and not have to focus with I gotta take notes at the same time. So that's really the first you know, paradigm shift is that this technology does that for us. And so I can go back and look like after this call, I'll be able look at the summary of this thing. I'll have an AI assistant listening to this and it'll be like,

Yeah, I have right it's on it's on my desktop. I don't I don't even have to have my own you have and this thing. I just have my own and it's like, here's what you talked about and here's all the here's the bullet points and the action plan. It's like it's like, man, it would have taken me like three hours to do all that, right? So I think that's the first part. And the second part is that you're able to identify who needs the most help and who's the highest priority.

then you look at that and then you can see what's going on and then you can affect the change. And even some of the things you can preset it, because if you believe in a certain methodology or signal for the AI program to to pick up on, then it can pick up on that signal and alert y the coach that, hey, you might want to push this toward your technician. Cause here's the thing, Mauricio, if the AI just did that on its own without the person, the coach,

the people receiving the information probably probably wouldn't pay attention to it. It's like, that's just that stupid AI. That's that's that's giving me this information. But when it comes from me, then it shows that, hey, I got a human watching me. And that's different from an accountability standpoint than than just having some machine tell me I'm doing something right or wrong. You know, because AI usually says you do a lot more that it probably gives you too much credit, honestly. AI is very positive, it seems like it's wired to be very positive right now.

but it does take a coach to say, not negative, but it does take a coach to say, here here's what you could improve on and and here's the action plan to do it. And then somebody who can hold people accountable. That's the part that does the two worlds connect between the AI and the human, in that way. So that I'm really proud to be part of that, honestly. And I'm glad I live glad I'm living long enough to you know, be on be on the forefront with several different solutions. I have a I mean, I've got a list of AI

you know, solutions that I'm involved with, you know, but beyond Rilla, you know, with Service Titan and with you know, my own AI pricing solution over here, as well as as well as you know, where is this not home guardian is the big thing I'm involved with right now, with it's gonna have a whole house monitoring where you can tell if your roof is leaking or if you got a liak under your faucet and th this all kinds of

Option builder, yeah.

Cool solutions that are out there that are gonna be standard for our new way of life, I would say. Make sense?

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm excited to talk about that for sure in a second. you said something in our pre call that I haven't heard before. train the person first, then train the program on what you train that person. Walk me through exactly wh what that looks like in practice.

Yeah, I think you have to you have to make sure that you're I would say train the person, but you gotta prepare the person. If you don't if you don't prepare people for training, to get you know, you can't just train people from with a w who who you aren't aware, if they're if they're if they're open to it. It's like I always say, like if you're trying to train like if you've ever had anybody here has a pet or a dog or you tr trying to train your dog, let's say, right? But if the dog is barking.

Or not interested in training. He's hungry or he's barking. He's he's angry or he's hungry. you're probably not gonna be able to train the dog. So you gotta make sure you're creating an environment that the dog will be calm and submissive and he's he's not hungry and he's not angry. He's looking to you as as you're as somebody who can help him in a way. Let's go for a walk or what do I do now? Do I am I supposed to

sit when do I sit? When do I stand? When do I walk next to you? You know, so there's different things when you even train a dog like that. So when you're training a human, it's not too far much different. We're all kind of wired like that. We have to have be able to be in a calm, submissive state to be ready to receive information. I think that's the first thing that needs to be trained or coached, is to prepare people for the information so they can see the benefit. So that they're looking forward to it. Does that make sense? Like

You know, the the best way you train your pet is by giving them a treat when they go out. You wanna train them to go to the bathroom? it's not gonna be done by hitting them or violence. It's gonna be done by, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a treat when you come back in. Make sense there, and and then if you go to the bathroom outside, I'll give you a treat. Every time you go outside, I'm gonna give you a treat. And that's the same thing you gotta do with humans. Like if you if you listen to me, I'm gonna give you a treat of information that's gonna make you better. So there's gonna be that what's the benefit?

No.

Yeah.

to the training has got to be sold to the people receiving it first, or else you could train all you want, but nobody's listening to you. It doesn't make a difference. Make sense, Mauricio?

Yeah, a hundred percent. I I don't know if you ever watched the show The Dog Whisper with Caesar Milan.

All the time. Cesar Milan's one of my favorites. And I've actually talked to him a few times and told him how it's it's exactly like what I do, honestly, because you have to you have to prepare, you have to make f you have to make friends and have a relationship with that dog. First thing Caesar does is like sits down and pets the dog and gives the dog acknowledgement and he takes him for a walk and then he's like, Okay, now let's do some stuff and dog's like, Yeah, let's I like this guy.

Yeah, yeah. He talks about being being the dog, having a dog calm and submissive state before they say before they can exchange instruction.

Yeah, the dog the dog has to be the Yeah, the you know, the aunt the the one of our man's best friend has to feel like you are a friend. Because if you're a threat, he's not going he'll be angry at you. He won't be you he won't be in a calm submissive state. He'll be he'll he'll probably bite you. Like that's one of the things on that show. So the bottom line is that you know, the equivalent can happen in a training environment where the student can bite back at us if they're not

prepared properly or they're not n not in the right environment. and we haven't prepared them properly. That's really what I would say.

How do you how do you prepare them? Do you do you actually like show what other you show do you actually show the the the after? Like the after, hey this is what hack happens after, and here's the the actual result and here's what potentially can happen by following the system and how you know how much money you're making or the life the what's gonna happen what that's gonna happen to your life if you follow stuff like that. Do you actually that's how you prepare them to to receive that information?

actually, it's it's yeah, kind of like the opposite of that. Because if we start if we start by saying, here's the benefit to what I'm gonna teach you, more than likely people won't do anything. Like if I said Mauricio, if you start eating start stop drinking too much coffee, you're in col you're I heard you're in Colombia. So eat stop stop drinking coffee. It's not it's not good the c caffeine's not good for you. You know, you're gonna you're gonna be healthier if you stop drinking caffeine or whatever. If I said

You know, you gotta get out and exercise and go to the gym because then you'll then you'll live longer. Like i that that's not enough. we have to show there's a universal principle called the law of dissonance. And if you don't introduce dissonance, which is the problem, and have people clearly see and understand the problem by demonstrating the problem, then they won't ask you for a solution. So the idea would be how can you present the problem with care?

respect and support so that people don't look at it like you're, you know, making look stup making them look dumb or stupid or whatnot. You have to you have to present the problem in a way that doesn't attack them directly, but does illustrate the dysfunction in the current situation. So the current situation, if the status quo is going great, then there's no need for me to learn something new, right? So I have to be able to point out that there are problems with the current situation and

That's really where we have to start. We have to start with number one, my my intention, like what's my what's my motivation to be here to train someone? Number and it's gotta be good, benefiting the people in training. Then number two, let me start by pointing out some of the things that we could improve on and they go over some of the negative things and clearly illustrate that everybody's like, Yeah, it could when you test people in that training, when they yeah, I guess I need help on that part.

And then it's like, okay, well I'm good. I'm glad you said that because I actually have help. Are you ready for that? Yeah, yeah. Let's show what do you got? And so when people are asking you for the solution, but they're only gonna ask you for a solution if they do perceive the problem or understand the problem. Because a lot of us live live a world where there is problems, but we normalize the problem. Does that make sense? Like an emyth is a great example. He c he points out in the book all the dysfunctional things people are doing.

Yeah.

thinking that they're doing good. but he points out that hey, look at your checking, look at your bank account. Is how's that doing? yeah, it's not that good. Yeah, that could improve there, you know. So you point out something that is obvious. Joe, how come you didn't fix that truck? Cause I can't afford to, I got no money. Well, see, that's the problem I'm talking about. So even though you're a good technician, the business is not doing good. So it's possible that you're you're good as a person and good as a master technician.

But your business element is not good. And the point if you can point out something that people need help with, and they can admit it, then they're they're like, well, what do you what do you what are you saying I should do? And that's the moment you can start teaching. Does that make sense? When you're in that's a it's a when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as they say, right? So you you can't teach somebody who's not ready to learn, and that's really

Yeah, a hundred percent.

the the the world is full of corporations who have done training and they didn't prepare the students and it is waste a lot of time and money. And I would just point out that most people don't know how to train other people. They just think they do based on the dysfunctional teacher that they had. Does that make sense? Like, if you if if you remember high school and you hated some classes, there's some classes we hated. And why? 'Cause the teacher wasn't didn't know how to train. He he may new.

math or he knew English, but he didn't know how to engage with the students and get them ready to learn. There's other teachers, my sociology teacher, Mr. Minor, it was like it was like going to a like I was inside of a TV show. He was he made us all participants and made us ready for to learn things about the social nature of people. And that's really what I got some of my first lessons was back in high school. And I'm like, you know, he he was a good teacher because he

got me excited. I I can't wait to go to that class. You know what I'm saying? Or so I think I think that's really what what you can see the students are ready or excited about being there, then you got something. If you if they're not, if people aren't showing up for the class, it's telling you everything, you know, right there.

It's similar to like a strategy with a book I read called I'm sure you probably read this book's called Spin Selling by Neil Rackman. where he talks about, you know, situation, problem and the implication. Right? As a salesperson, a consultant, B to B, you have to identify you have to make sure they understand the implication by not moving forward. It's kind of the same thing, right? It's like a if you don't if they if they don't understand the implication of their not fixing their own current situation, they're not gonna take action.

yeah. Mm-hmm.

And that's that's kind of the

Yeah, it exactly. There's if there's no downside to staying the same, most likely I'm probably gonna stay choose choose to stay the same. So I gotta find what's the what's the obvious problem. And I may be, I may be living with the problem or accommodating for the problem. and that's really the human condition. We we willingly gaslight ourselves. gaslighting means that we the lights are slowly being turned off.

But we don't even recognize that it's now dark in the room. But somebody's turned the gaslight inch by inch down lower. And we don't realize that we're living in this condition. So we don't realize that I just thought it was always dark in the room. No, remember when we first started, you had the whole gas, the light was working full. yeah. yeah, I do remember. Remember the shadow? yeah, now there's no shadow because it's dark in here. So, you know, I think gaslighting ourselves, which means that.

were willing participants in accommodating for things that are dysfunctional, thinking they're gonna turn around. Like I say, the seduction of potential is the things that make people gaslight themselves. They think that someday it will time will turn it around. And nothing could be further than the truth. Time won't turn anything around. In new information will turn things around. Does that make sense? in and you taking action on the information. So

time never heals all wounds, those people say. but information does that's where that's where AI is such a gr exciting prospect, because it does provide new information and innovations that humans previously we would have been locked in to something different. And now I'm really, really hopeful that the AI solutions and marketing and stuff that you're doing, Mauricio, is going to

make people see that not all the marketing channels or sales channels they thought were were dead actually were alive. You just didn't realize how to how to approach it or you didn't realize how to how to do it. And you probably get people all the time like, hey Mauricio, you we gotta get better calls. These calls are not good. And it's not not the call, it's the person who's running the call who needs help. Does this does does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, th there there's yeah, there's there there's yeah, there's big I'm sure because you've you know, come across this problem many times, but there's a bis big disconnect with marketing and sales, with with what we do, right? So 'cause I've worked with a with a lot of contractors, and if you spoke with enough of them, a lot of them have complaints with either lead brokers or agencies or marketing. but I'm sure the students you have

If they're trained, they probably have less complaints, right? It's like they should they should train first the the actual like how to handle leads in the sales pack before like hiring the actual marketing people. That's that's my thing.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you know, it's it's like l like like just like I mentioned, the law of dissonance is the best way to train somebody. Because training is kind of like a sales call too. You're trying to say, What's the problem? And then, here's a solution they need, right? So same with same with any sales call. It's like, you know, instead of worrying about this lead was a Yelp lead or this lead was a LSA Google lead or this is a pay per click and and you say Facebook ads, like th those those Facebook ads are terrible.

instead of saying that, you could be like, you know, let me just see why this person would have clicked on that ad. What's the so what's the reason why you clicked on the ad and look are looking for help with your with your driveway or with your air conditioning or with your water heater? What's the reason that you clicked on the ad? What what what was it that caught your attention? Well, when it said something like, I'm spending too much money on utilities or

you got a room that's not comfortable, or is your garage door not work properly? Whatever it is, that that got me. Well, what's wrong with you? And then you find out what's wrong. Let's go over the current situation. Let's look at what you got going here. Let's see what you think is a problem. And then I'll as a professional, I'll show you more problems. And then it's like, well, what can we do about it? Well, I've got solutions. So you see, no matter where the lead comes from.

It's the same journey you're gonna take people on. But a lot of times people will get blinded by the source of the lead and they start blaming, no, I got this Facebook lead, or no, I got the I remember Groupon when it first came first came out. Like, no, not a Groupon lead. Those are terrible. So, you know, the service service providers started to s put a label on different sources of the lead. And then yet the company still fate paid full price for the lead, you know what I'm saying? Or so

It's up to us to not don't make no don't assume anything. I say assume nothing. Just go there and learn and see how you can be of service. Does that make sense?

Yeah, a hundred percent. and I think the best way to do this is is really there should be training for each source of leads, like how you handle Angie's leads versus how you handle a Google lead versus how you handle a Facebook lead. It's gonna be it should be different, honestly, if you're set up correctly. because

Yeah, I I I think you have to I think you have to acknowledge how w what entry way. It's like if you look at that, it's like each one of those like a door to your home. You know, people are coming into your home in a way and they're asking you, Hey, let me look can I can I talk to you about this issue I'm having? And then it could be Angie, it could be Yelp, it could be LSA, it could be, you know, pay-per-click. Just different things you could be doing. And then

You know, you to f could even be s somebody sees your truck on the street or a referral, right? So each one of those definitely although they are different and you would handle some of them different. The only reason it would be different is because you have to acknowledge the entry point and to make sure that you find out what inspired them to look at this. so it's more it's more about asking quite I always say this, Mauricio. the the

Th all the different entry points are different, but what is the same is that all the entry points need to be questioned as to what what inspired the person to come through that door, you know, and what were they hoping that we could help them with? like what what do you want to accomplish with my service? Like if if you had a magic wand, what would it look like if my services were

working with your s with your problem. How would how how do you how do you imagine that, right? So the if you can get the customer to share that with us, I think we're on the right track, honestly, you know?

Yeah, that's a great question, by the way. If you in any in any any situation, like if you can make it wave of a magic wand, what would look like you you know, once you start working together? Like what would the ideal solution? And then you kind of kind of say this is a way to do it and how do you how do you sell that? how do how how do you design what you call an emotionally intelligent in home experience? What does that actually mean in plain English?

Okay.

Well, I think it means that if you only if you're if you're a whether you're a surgeon or whether you're a landscaper or whether you're a heating and air conditioner or plumbing or electrical technician, you know, there's the technical part of the job and there's the people part of the job. But you have to acknowledge that the people are more important than the technical part. Even though you are a plumber or a surgeon, and you put all your life's work into like the plumber does five years of apprenticeship.

grinding it out for five years straight to go to work and school at the same time. and that's all he's immersed in plumbing. however, he's he never realizes that the people are the reason why we need plumbing. Without people, there's no need for plumbing. Does that make sense? And without without people, there's no need for surgery. Yet when's the last time you met a doctor who was really good with people or a plumber who was good with people? So there are

Cases where rare cases where plumbers are good with people, or you know, surgeons or doctors are very good with people. And of course, when you find somebody you're good with, I'll just put it this way, Mauricio. For every person who loses their job because they're not good at their at their job, there is eight people who lose their job because they're not good with people. Does that make sense? I think everybody we fired at a company, it wasn't because they we couldn't train them what to do.

It's because they had a bad attitude and they they showed up late or they weren't able to communicate with the team or the our coworkers or our clients. And when you can't communicate with our coworkers and our clients, now you become a liability to the team. And that's when you wind up getting fired, right? So I think people who are stay the team, there's people who stay with the team for decades. what what's the difference? Well, they they they're concerned about people, they care about people and they

They express that by their willingness to have conversations and and not just talk about the trade, but talk about, hey, tell us about the wedding with your daughter and how'd that go with your daughter's wedding. what did you guys do for the fourth of July? Or what you know, just the those are the people who stay around longer because they balance out the technical. They're good at the technical, but they're also good at the people. I think that's the key thing. If you're good with both things, I call it being in balance. you can't be over.

emotional or over technical. but there is a balance between the two things. And if you only are doing the technical part of the job, nobody is going to trust you to to get the work done. You're not you don't emerge you don't emerge as the right solution if you can't connect with me in a way. Does that make sense?

Yeah. mean you're a service based business at the end of the day. You have to provide service and and you have to be good with people to provide that service at the end of the day. No matter what business you're in, it's

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, but the but the service service is to service. There's a technical contribution about my knowledge of the problem, and there's an emotional contribution about learning about your family and showing how much this problem will affect negatively affect your family and how the solution will emotionally support your family. So you can like I'm gonna give you a service agreement because

I want, you know, you you do so much service for your family and you do so much service for the community and your job. Let me do service for you. That's what the service agreement represents, is my service to you. And you deserve that, John, because you work so hard with your family. See, that's so I could go over the agreement and what's included with it, but if I don't tell you why it's gonna benefit you to give you more time with your family and your job, those are intangible. So the thing you gotta realize, Mauricio.

Is the things that we can't see, touch, or feel, which are emotional contributions, are actually the most powerful thing. And everything that's the most powerful in our world are things we can't see. gravity, for instance, is something we can't see, but it's the most powerful force on earth. Yet I mean if we yet we we can learn how to we gravity could kill us. We could fall off a cliff or a building and we die. However, gravity, we can also play with it. We can also

Like imagine playing a game of basketball or now they have the World Cup soccer. What if you didn't if you didn't have gravity, the ball would go flying in the air and never come back down, you know. So so gra we learn how to play with something that could kill us. That's an intangible electricity, you can't see it, but it's very powerful, right? And there's th the things that are most powerful and the the lot the human connection, you can't see it, but it's very powerful. You know, and I think you can go down to even if you have a higher power.

Or higher power in your life, you believe in a higher power, you got to realize that's powerful. That you know, we do things that are there's a lower power that we do things that are gonna damage ourselves. we we even try not to, but we still do it anyway. we eat something we know is not good. That's kind of lower power. And then there's a higher power when we make an effort to serve people and do something, to connect with people, that takes a higher power to do that, right? So I think there is.

Even if you're not religious, you have to acknowledge that there's a power that's greater than ourselves that makes us do things negatively or positively without any intention. We didn't even think about it. We're kind of being drawn that direction by this higher power. So that's how I explain that kind of a thing. I know it goes very deep, right? But but I think I I want people to examine themselves in that regard to see if they can feel that power.

inside yourself, you know, what's where where where you're being drawn to. That's the power and the magnetic draw, right? That's that's an intangible that you can't see. But a lot of times we are not drawn to the people. We're drawn more to the technical part. So you have to be drawn you have to kind of intentionally be drawn to the service because service of other people and getting to know people is difficult because we start to put it like we start to filter it based on different cultures or different genders or different

the people are different than us. So we start to think, that person's gonna think I'm weird if I try to connect with them or whatever or whatever. Like we start we start reading into it and imagining negative things, which are not really even true. most of the time, no nobody thinks of anything bad or good. They're just like trying to just kind of observe what what's it what's this all about, right? And so I think that's part of it. But the service we provide is not always it because there's a technical service.

And there's a people service, the emotional service. And if you don't know how to to supply both of those elements, good luck. It's not gonna work. Make sense?

Yeah. A hundred percent. it the best businesses are customer centric, right? They're they're customer centric where they think of their customers first, and they're actually providing great service. those are the ones that last a long time. A lot of people sometimes they they don't think in that manner. I'm sure it's happened to myself, I mean, sometimes. but you know, made mistakes like that. But it happens like th they they're customer centric and they have to think about the customer first, right? It's the most important thing. Walk me through a you know

Well, you know, if you look at this, if you look if you look at this way, like if you look at like marketing KPIs or sales KPIs, you know, the KPI itself is a service to provide, hey, we place this many ads, we got this many clicks, we got this many calls on the board, you know, those are book calls or whatever and conversion rate. I could go further into my thing, average ticket. So those are all, you know, technical things you're providing. But marketing or sales at its best is

To celebrate with the human being, that hey, congratul man, great, great job on that. Who who did that? Who converted that? It's not just we got a KPI. Who's the person who created that conversion? Who are the people who created that KPI? And then celebrate those people to make them feel better. That's what a lot of marketing people they they fall short. They forget that, hey, we need to celebrate and we need to find the people who are doing this for us.

And not just the numbers. It wasn't just me as a marketing company or a sales trainer. It was the people who implemented our ideas that we need to celebrate those people. And that's where I think sometimes marketing companies or sales training companies fall short, is they don't they don't they they forget that there's an end user we need to celebrate and connect with. because a lot of guys who do training are just say, Yeah, my guys are doing good. Like which guy, you know, like like which is the person we're talking about. So when you do marketing stuff.

Don't forget that we need to go back and dig in and let's show up at a sale a service meeting and and think and give gratitude to the people who are on the ground to make them feel better. And if you do that, those people are gonna say, yeah, you know, ever since Mauricio was involved, all of our calls are better. And why is that? Because you have this emotional connection with the people doing the work, they're naturally gonna put into place your ideas. So the marketing people who do marketing who fail to connect.

with the people who are implementing their marketing, that's the disconnect right there. Because if you if like if if I say you're doing marketing for a company, I say name name an employee who's on the ground going into your calls. And if you're like, I have no idea, then you're f you're falling short. Let's put that way. That that's the real KPI. How many people how many people's names do you know on that team who are going to the calls you're making happen?

If you don't even know the name of those people or you know nothing about their life, then you have failed to make that emotional contribution. That's that's really the best way to put it that way. Make sense here? Like if you're if you're a technician, you say, you know, Joe, that that call was no good. That that lady was cheap. And I say, Really, John? what was the lady's name? And he goes, I don't even know her name. It's like, you see why she's cheap with you? Because

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

'Cause you don't even bother to know her name. You didn't even bother to learn about her. so so you don't even know the name? What's her dog's name? shoot, I don't even know what her dog's name is. Like you don't you do even do you even know what she does for fun? No, I have no idea. I didn't ask her. It's like, see, those are the things that are lacking and it's really easy to test your people. When somebody comes back and says, man, that guy was cheap or that was a bad call. What was the guy's name? I have no idea.

Well, that just tells you that you the g the person's emotionally vacant, not emotionally he's not contributing emotionally, he's only contributing technically and that's really the balance there. Make sense?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So walk me through option builder. What does it do and how does it connect to server side and how does it use AI?

think it leverages it, you know, we option builder won't even work unless you do put the name the very first thing it asks for is give us the name. Like I said, it's can you give us the names of the people in the family? So it requires that you enter in somebody's name. And then it also requires that you enter in something about the people that you've learned. what is what is it about the history of how many years I've been in the home?

You know, what do they do for fun? What do they do for work? how do how do they wind up? So you have to have some i i if you don't put in the emotional contribution and the technical contribution, it won't really give you a good output. It's gonna it's like it's gonna suck if you don't do it right. So a lot of times that people think, Well, AI doesn't really work, it's too watered down or whatever. Well, most of the time it's because the human thinks it's gonna do all the work for you. Like

You know, the biggest person, you know, people say there's a threat that AI would replace the human. Well, the human is a willing participant in that negative thought because they think AI is supposed to do everything for you. And it's not. You have to contribute to it to be able for it to process. All all AI does is process rapidly. You know, that's all it does. It takes takes our ideas, processes it rapidly and

It can do all kinds of good things like give you a a price sheet or you know, tell you problems and tell you so here's what it does. You put the customer's name in it, you put the main problem that people are they're they're telling you about, and then you have to put in something about the people who are living here and how the problem is in fact impacting those people. That's you have to say, This is impacting them because they can't breathe and our daughter has asthma.

They have fiberglass in the airflow from the attic leaking into the ductwork or there's water leaking and biological growth and my the son can't take a shower and he can't go to school. he's in school and he can't go you to put that in there. You know, it's not gonna just imagine that. And then you gotta say, what do you want us to do? you're the d human. Tell me what you want. What solutions do you want to solve this problem permanently? And what what solutions do you want that will do it temporarily?

It will make some suggestions, but you, the human, have to approve or confirm that this is the suggestion you want. So then it's going to make premium mid-range economy options. It will also create observations like here's the problem, here's how it emotionally impacts the people, here's the safety and health element. What's the impact of the safety and health of the people? And what's the emotional problem with that?

It will hunt down the right price and find exactly the right price and put it all in the right order with warranty and service. And it'll also give you the emotional benefit to each person or family that you cause you put in something, it'll provide that for you. So out of it, you get a list of five different elements of the problem with the emotional impact of the problem, premium mid-range economy choices with the emotional benefit of the solution.

And then reveals the price. At the end we have a thing where it reveals the price because price security is important. You can't explain problems or you can't explain solutions when the price is being shown. You have to have the price not being shown. So it does that automatically. What it leverages that element. So even the human can't make a mistake. You know, Michael Gerber said, Design the job so that the only way to do the job is the right way. So so you you can't even you can't even

It it r it removes the possibility of doing the job wrong. That's what the emyth is about. Design the work environment and design a tool that that makes it impossible to do the job wrong. Because if you do the job wrong, the tool won't work. It'll just say, We're not gonna you haven't done this yet. And so it does it it kind of coaches you to be better at doing your job and then it will give you the output you're looking for.

so people think that going into the option builder just gonna do everything for you. And and that's not true. You need to confirm all the things are true. AI is just gonna it it's it's it can't l it's not gonna be able to provide all that information about the people. And by the way, yeah, I don't think you'd want that. It's too invasive to have a third party like AI that we don't even know where that information goes, that data goes and feed that data in to AI. I think it's better when the human is

But is interpreting how this is best gonna suit the people we have here. Make sense? So out of so out of it comes people who sell three to five times more on the same call and clients who willingly buy more because they see, yeah, this is a problem for my daughter. yeah, look at the agent. Yeah, this thing's this thing is dead. I need to get a new one. How much would it cost for a new one? Like they're asking you for it when you show the problems, right?

Yeah, yeah. What what's one thing

And then you have solutions that match up with the problems. Because humans wouldn't do that. They would just say one problem and give you five solutions. The problem is if you have one problem and five solutions, you're saying, why did you give me all these solutions? You only had one problem. So if you're going to show me five solutions, like here's the main problem, here's the safety and health, here's the safety and health problem, here's the design and installation problem, and here's the wear and tear problem.

You have to have solutions for all five of those to match up. If they don't match up, then you're gonna people are gonna say you're trying to oversell me. You're you're selling me too much, or you didn't give me enough. One of the two things makes sense. So it's one of those things that A I option builder does specifically that AI cannot do on its own unless it is designed and you're training AI to do it that way. Make sense.

Yeah. You you talk to technicians about being feeling threatened, that things AI, how do you actually have the conversation with a field technician who's actually threatened and resistant to AI?

you know there's lot of people who just out of the people who just out of the box don't like to use AI at all. There's a I'm not sure if it's a irrational fear of it or I'm not sure what really I'm not sure the emotional trigger of it. But I think what I just say is this, I'd say, Well, let me show you how we can write your ideas, like taking a small sentence or two and expanding on it and say, Does that match up with what's in your head? and it goes, Yeah, it's pretty close actually. So

You know, so AI writes five, you know, how how would I say? the main problem, the age of neglect, the design and installation, and the and the wear and tear. So it's four different areas. It takes a small sentence and it makes it into four things. go ahead and confirm each one of these things are correct. And then the guy's like, Yeah, that does sound good. That's actually what I was thinking. Or, you know what, that's a little bit off. Let me change that, right? So it's easier to change something than it is to create something.

Does that make sense here? Like if I look at something and I don't like it, I can easily change it because I gaven I can edit it. Now, but asking me as a human to think of everything on all these calls I'm going on. Like if you're a doctor and you had a visit with 12 patients today, to try to remember all the different notes from all the different patients. It's just you gotta look at it like this is the ultimate assistant.

AI could listen to us. It put my d my notes into my program for me. And I I can't imagine that in especially in the medical field or in the service contracting field, that you wouldn't want something that would make these notes accurately so you don't have to make sense. I guess the first place it starts. Nobody likes to write things down, right? So that's the first thing we could emphasize that this is where it helps you. And it's like,

Yeah.

Yeah, that that is better. Yeah, I I see what you mean. Like that's always like the turning point, right? Let's go over another thing it can help with, your communication style. yeah, that is better. I see what you're saying. And look at the pricing. yeah, it would have taken me like so it what it does is it gives you time, right? Because it rapidly does this stuff and processes it. So to write down all those problems and the emotional impact probably would take you forty five minutes to an hour.

To write down the problems and the flat rate prices with the premium mid-range economy options, probably take another 45 minutes. So it's gonna save you 90 minutes per call, which is time you could be spending talking to the client, getting to know them, or petting their dog, and not doing all the technical stuff there. Make sense. So that's really I think the big part. I think most people who embrace it, they see people who are happier because like I was able to spend more time with my family or with my customer.

And less time trying to calculate numbers or trying to write sentences or things like that. Does that make sense? So I think if we emphasize here's here's how long it takes you to do something, here's how long here's how quick this does it. And then they're like, yeah, I can definitely see. I see what you mean. That's kind of like that aha moment, right? Mauricio, where it's like, Yeah, you know, you're right. That would like even marketing, right? Like, hey, I could create this ad, but look at this. my gosh, it created that Facebook ad and like

you know, thirty-five seconds. We just took two edits and in seven minutes, we had the best ad I ever wrote. It was amazing, you know. So I think we we I think we've all been there where we had that aha moment where yeah that would have taken me three days to do that and I did it in thirteen minutes or whatever. I think the time element is the big thing because time is one of the most is the val most valuable thing. AI doesn't care about how much time things things take. it just processes rapidly.

Humans though, we value time. And I think that's the first thing that you could emphasize is the benefit is stop if is the wasting time with numbers and writing and use AI to give you that time back because that's time you could spend on helping on working on yourself or working connecting with your family, working on connecting with your clients, and other people in the community, right? So I think if you're

having more time, you're gonna be a happier person. If you're spending more time with people, you're gonna be happier person. You spend more time with yourself crunching numbers, you're gonna be miserable. You know, I think that's I think that's what it comes down to. Like, you know, the worst time as a marketing person, the worst time is like going into all the numbers. It's like, shoot, I gotta I gotta dig through that, right? As opposed to the numbers just come up automatically. Man, that just gave me

Yeah.

I just gained about three hours of time on that. That would it and then you can have more clients, you can have more connection. And the more time you spend with people, Mauricio, even even in a marketing specialist who does digital marketing, the more time you spend with people, the happier you are. The more time you spend with digital stuff, the less happy you are. Does that make sense? I think that's what it comes down to.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So if you could if you're if you're if for someone is a home service business is listening to this, what is the one thing that they that they could take away from this episode that can fix the gap between marketing and sales? What do we tell them to do?

I think just take an inventory of the time you spend with machines or numbers or word processing and things like that. Just take inventory. How much time am I spending on that stuff? How much how much time am I making an outreach to other people to get to know them, to learn from them?

You know, the time I'm spending with you is valuable because I'm spending it with a hu with you, a human, not not AI, Mauricio, real real Mauricio. So I'm gonna put this down as I had a good time and I'm I'm I'm able to express myself. I feel better about myself. And I think you will too. I think the more time I think let's put it this way, the the dark there's is a there's a dark road that's not illuminated and is very dangerous. That's the t that's the road where we spend it by ourselves.

And we we're focusing on numbers, we're focusing on programming stuff, we're focusing on coding, and we're focusing on you know statistics and things like that. that is something that AI can give to you without it's the gift of AI is all that technical stuff can be given to you in a few seconds. Take the extra time. My advice is instead of spending time with all that stuff, the the path that's illuminated.

path of light is the path that we take a journey with other people together. Because when you're working with people, whether it's being in a training class or whether it's you know learning about your client or we're learning about your coworkers or learning about your family, that's that's the service is the path of light. But we're not able to do our service when we're bogged down with the other stuff. I think, you know, people are more important than things. So

Use AI to give yourself time with people. That's my takeaway from this. I hope that resonates with people and gives you a guideline. This this episode is more about that than anything I would say.

Yeah. Where do people find you?

you can find me at service mvp dot com or you just anywhere, just look up Joe Crissera and America's service coach. so you can call me anywhere. You can just go online and find me. I I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, I'm on I'm on ever if you try to change the channel, don't worry, I'm on I'm on the next one. So don't worry, I'll I'll be there. So Maurisho, thanks for bringing me. I appreciate you inviting me. I really d I really had a good time today. Thank you.

Awesome. Yeah.

I appreciate you ha coming on. Thank you man.