Transforming Home Service Sales: How Contractor Commerce & AI Are Revolutionizing the Trades

Dennis Ayotte  0:00  

Yeah, so last time to clear our throats, Aaron, remind me what is this again? I think this is 00900,

Aaron Watters  0:08  

pretty confident. Okay,

Dennis Ayotte  0:10  

we always have a hard time remembering that. So alright, here we go. Welcome everybody to talk of the trades, where we talk to experts, friends and family and home service industry, just to spread knowledge of the best minds in the business joining us today, by way of Detroit, Michigan is number 53 a six foot eight true center from Wittenberg University, the winningest division three basketball program in the country. He got his start as a sports telemarketer in Ron's one bedroom apartment. He cut his teeth on the phones at ch Robinson then spent a decade at Lenox International. He's former president of sales at Rhino strategic solutions, the current VP of sales and customer success at contractor commerce, host of the change your filter podcast, ladies and gentlemen, it's tall. Paul Redman,

Paul Redman  1:02  

amazing job. Amazing job. Okay, so I'm tearing up right now. I kid you not. This is why one your research is incredible, and I've got a lot of questions. Fact that you referred to me as a true center. I don't know where I don't know what web scrape you did, or where I've mentioned that, but, like, that's a thing. Like, true centers don't exist anymore. They don't,

Dennis Ayotte  1:25  

they don't. And so that's just, you know, Aaron and I are both sports guys. This guy will get into it later, but he's a, you know, former middle and high school girls basketball coach, which I know you aspire to be once you get out of sales. So right, right. We'll dive into that more a little bit later. But we're sports guys, man, and so we know at cruise center when we see one. Yeah.

Paul Redman  1:49  

So that was impressive. However, we're going to go back to Ron's apartment. And I don't know how long this podcast, how much time you guys have, but we might camp here, the like, if you're going to talk about, if we're going to talk about sales, yeah, and like, earlier, when you were asking me about like insights on sales, like, I've kind of been my even though I'm a sales guy at heart and built my career there, like, I'm doing other things now. And so I don't always think like about sales, but if you want to talk about sales, we're going to talk about Ron's apartment. I don't know. I'm not going to I don't want to know. I don't know. I don't want to know where you learned that we have, I can, I can tell you this, and the fact that you knew I was number 53 that's, I mean, that's searchable. But

Dennis Ayotte  2:31  

on Wayne, from Wayne High School, Hoover heights, we know it all. We have your stat sheet here. I didn't want to call out all your stats. You know,

Paul Redman  2:40  

don't call out the stats, but Ron's apartment. Can I tell you a story about Ron's talk about Ron's apartment. All right, so I'm a so I'm from Detroit, Michigan. Originally. My family is like coal miner. People who moved up the corridor of I 75 into Michigan to work at the auto plants, right? So I lived in Detroit, Detroit, not like suburb and Detroit, like Detroit, not so great Detroit. And my dad wanted to move us to a place that was a little safer, so we moved to Ohio. So I grew up in Ohio, and a long way of saying I'm a first generation college student. So i No one in my family, to my knowledge, at that time, had ever been through college. So I was a first year. Went to four year college, whatever. And I went to Winberg University, small private school, the winningest Division Three program in the nation. Thank you very much. And I thought that all I had to do was get a college degree and the world would just open its arms for me. And that we all know and have come to learn, that's not exactly how it works. So my goal when I went into college was that if I got out and I got a job making $40,000 a year, I have made it, because that's what my mom made in her best years. I figured, like she's an adult, and she raised a family. If I can make $40,000 a year fresh out of college, and I'm on my way, and I always knew I wanted to be in sales or some sort of business, and also some sort of kind of industrial world, like I just that world just made sense to me, and I knew, if I had an opportunity in sales, I can make it in corporate America. That's my short bridged version. Well, I got out of college, and one of the companies that was like recruiting, or had a program or relationship with our basketball team, and some players, was a freight company, a trucking company, and my dad was a truck driver, and that was industrial, and it was based in Dayton, so it was the perfect opportunity to had a management program. And I get into the program, and there's like 12 of us in this program, including a couple of guys I played basketball with, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but there was a disconnect between my expectation on what I should be doing in this management program and their expectation of my performance. So I'm going through this program. It's week 11, and they call me into the office, and they're, they know I want to be in sales, but, like, I can barely load the trucks. And in my mind, I'm like, Why should I learn how to load the trucks? I'm going to be in sales. And so I think I just had, like, I lacked some professional maturity. And awareness, and I'll come back to that. But they brought me in and, like, there's two really good, successful, nice guys sitting there, and they sit me down, and they're like, Paul, we're this isn't a fit. You're terminated. We're gonna let you go. And I'm like, what I thought everybody loved me. And so this is September, the year after. So you graduate in May, you go through the summer. This is September, week 11 of this program, and I remember leaving there like, one, feeling like the biggest loser in the world. And two, I had just graduated, and because I had this job that was making exactly $40,000 which is, that's another side note, like, that's what I was seeking. That's what I got. I had a car payment, and I had rent and I had all these sort of things, and I had so much shame I had to move back in with my my mom, at the time, was just not in Huber Heights, Ohio, which is another conversation, but it took me a really, really long time to get on my feet. And my mom actually came to me and was like, Hey, I found this ad in the newspaper for sports marketing, and it's in Kettering right, not far from there, and so, and you can interview Monday morning. It's like, open interviews. So I put on the tuck or the suit that I just, you know, worn oversized suit that I had just worn for my graduation, and I tucked my tails between my legs, and at least the fact that I was driving somewhere to do something for sports marketing felt like respectable, yeah. And so I get out to this building, and it's like a, I can't tell if it's an apartment building or a medical building. It like commercial. Residential lines are still blurry. And I go inside, and it is very much residential and commercial, meaning like there's an accountant living next to a cat lady, and I go into this green carpet, I'll never forget it, and I walk into this room, and there's a bed and a table, that's it, and there's a dude named Ron and a dude named Tony, and they sit me down, and I am like, I'm so I'm confused because, like, Am I in a house? Am I in a business? What is this? But I'm also, like, incredibly desperate, yeah. And this sports marketing job, the way this worked was they went to the University, the local University of Dayton, and then Ohio State University, what they would do is they would take the worst performing the tickets that never sold at sporting events, like the top two rows of the women's basketball games or the men's basketball games or the women's soccer like guest bleachers at Ohio State they would go to these schools, and they would take them for free, on consignment, and then they would sell them, and they would sell them through the phones. I'll pause here for any clarifying questions before I tell you the real part of this story.

Dennis Ayotte  7:54  

No, no, this. This is all very, very fascinating. Was the

Paul Redman  7:58  

bed made? The bed was immaculate. Okay? And

Dennis Ayotte  8:02  

how many cats did Ron have? There

Paul Redman  8:05  

was one cat in this particular office. So I go through the interview, they offer me the job. I start the next morning, and the job paid $7 an hour or $10 an hour based on performance. So you had to perform to make 10. And I go up, I'm, I'm at this point, this is like, I just need cash. I'll figure it out. This is before smartphones. This is before Internet being wildly available everywhere, which will is another point. So I show up to work, and they hired someone else who lived in the building. So there was a young, single mom, not a single mom, but a mom who was in the building, and we were the two hires. So we go into this apartment, there's two folding tables, there's two phones and a folding chair, right, yeah, and a phone book on each table and a script, and that was it. And they gave you the script, and you just started calling businesses. You would start just, you know, hairdressers, doctors, whatever, and I had to use the restroom, but I couldn't use the restroom in Ron's apartment, because Ron lived in that apartment like on consignment, like he had been, he was from somewhere else, and he was there to do this project. So Ron, who's sitting on the bed or next to his table, which is, again, immaculately made. We couldn't use the restroom in that room. That would be, you know, an invasion of surprises, so we had to go to it. We had to get a key from him. So we had to ask to go to the restroom. Now I'm going to pause for a moment. I went to a private liberal, liberal arts school. I didn't know. I didn't know what La Crosse was until I got on campus. Like I'd never seen the world like this. I'm from Detroit and grew up in Huber Heights, so like, the kids that I went to school with, like they did internships in the city, and they got jobs with their parents company, and I was seeing them. Facebook had just come out too that's critical to this. So I'm now seeing what people are doing. And people are like, I got a internship at Merrill Lynch, or I'm studying. Abroad, or I'm doing a gap year, or I'm going to grad school, and I'm seeing this stuff happen in real time, and I'm having to go to some dude to ask to go to the bathroom. Yeah, brutal. And this is fall time, right? This is like, September. I went to the bathroom. Like, I spent about an hour calling. I went to the bathroom, and, dude, I just cried. Like I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm a loser. Like I just felt so bad for myself, and the restroom was tight, and it was like, I remember being stuck, stuck in this like, urinal or not, urinal in this stall, yeah, and I remember, I'm not being dramatic at all. I've never told I don't know if I've ever told anybody the story, like I must have, because, you know it, yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  10:43  

I've heard bits and bits and parts of it, but it's good to get the full story again from you. I'm almost done. What a, what a humbling experience. But also, like, kind of like, led to where you're at today, and you know, because I know you were, you were waiting desperately for for a call from somebody else, and then that's when ch Robinson called you, and then, boom, the rest is history kind of from there, right? That

Paul Redman  11:06  

was it. And so the real quick point before I move on from the story, is like I had to decide if I was going to walk out and, like, lick my wounds and go find something else, or if I was going to try to make 10 bucks an hour. Yeah, and I would come to learn that Ron and Tony who Tony barhorst and Ron I'll come back to his name. I was just Googling him a couple weeks ago. I learned that they were getting ready to fire me and walk me out because I was terrible on the phones they like on that bathroom break when I came back, they were going to just like, quickly cut bait, and they didn't. And so I ended up working there 40 hours a week. I did my best to perform. So I ended up making $10 an hour, so 400 bucks a week. So it was enough to like eat. But I remember, like, Man, I remember lunch breaks, like going to my I was just telling my kids a story, like going to my car, scrounging up change and getting, like, a root beer for lunch, because at a gas station or store, because back to the internet. The only time I had available to search for a job was at my lunch break, unpaid lunch at an at a library, and so I had to go to the library, go to monster.com There were kids, not kids, adults like watching anime porn on each side I mean, like it was weird, like it's a public library, like you can edit that out if you need to. And I would, I would hustle back, and I did that job from September all the way through February, and one day, just randomly, my phone rang, and it was a company that I took the took the took the next job, and I have some awesome stories about that company. But the other point is sales. So I had this phone book. I had some index cards. So if someone said, like, if someone was warm, you would write their name on an index card. So I'm like, Hey, I talked to this hairdresser. She said, No, not right now, but maybe check back, I'd write her name on an index card. And so basically, you're building the index card for follow up later. And I ended up doing just fine and selling these stupid tickets. They're five bucks a piece. Yeah, and but the thing that, the thing that I earned there, was one, the ability to pick up a phone call and just call someone and ask for something out of the blue. That's a skill I used today, like today, I had to call someone who doesn't know me to ask them to do something for me, like that's a skill. The other part is, I held my arm like this for so long, for from that period of time, because I like again, not to be dramatic, I was just hanging up dialing, hanging up dialing. My fingers went numb because my hand was like this, yeah, and so now zooming out into, you know, my world now, like, I have a really hard time feeling sorry for people who have to make a cold call or have to do this or have to do that, because it's just baked into this isn't about calling, but it's about like, did you do hard things for a sustained period of time? And that is where, like, when I look at the newest generation of you know, no offense anyone I'm hiring or whatever, but like younger workers, fresh out school, they haven't had to endure those sort of things, yeah, and until you take, like, that feeling I had when I got fired from that place and I had to go to Ron's cat infested apartment and do that, the feeling I like, I'm a moments away notice from that feeling again, and so, like, that's how I've been able to build my career, and it's worked out really well. But like, dude, Ron's apartment, I can't believe you made that connection.

Dennis Ayotte  14:34  

I hope Ron's doing well, because, you know, look, look what you've become, Paul. So yeah, he had a minor influence, but kudos to you in terms of, like that adversity. And like a lot of people we talk to on the podcast, it's amazing just to hear their story, because a lot of it, you know, there's it starts with adversity, and then, you know, now you're in this position of success and the impact you can make. So awesome story. Appreciate you sharing that man. Yeah, appreciate the research. The other it gets better. You ready for this question? Yes, I want to know if you've followed up with Terry McMenamin to let her know how your life has turned out in sales, and to let her know that she was right.

Paul Redman  15:16  

You know, that's a funny that that's another good one. So Terry MC minimon Is Daniel mcmans Mother. Daniel mcminnniman is the only friend I've kept up with since high school. And I had a lot of friends in high school went deep and wide, but Daniel is my he's my buddy, and his mom is the one who told me that I should go into sales. And I don't know if I've, I've definitely told Daniel that because Daniel used to make Daniel's an engineer, so like, we were oil and water when it came to this stuff, and he's aircraft engineer, and I'm, you know, a liberal arts guy, so it's worked out. But, yeah, she knows. She knows

Dennis Ayotte  15:53  

that's awesome. Love it, man. The next kind of, just kind of personal question is, you know, we also did our research, and we know after your career in sales, your your goal is to be become either a middle or high school basketball coach. And I just want you to know this guy right here, he's already done it. That's, that's where he cut his teeth, back in the day, girls basketball.

Paul Redman  16:17  

Oh, that's the only, that's the only sport worth coaching

Aaron Watters  16:22  

Absolutely. Yeah, I had the ultimate revenge. I'd still cringe about it, but my high school basketball coach, freshman through senior year, had just won state before I got there, and then he was dealt all freshmen after that, and so he worked us pretty bad. We were running a lot. Well, I got his daughter in middle school, and she's just on the bench. Coach, let me go in. Coach, let me go in. Coach, let me go in. And after years, because I would try to do the Jason Williams elbow pass successfully. I would, if it was an easy bounce pass, I'd try to find a way to throw it behind my head when I was in the paint just I was a heartache for him, so he always gave me hell. And I turned because she wouldn't stop. And one time I turned and looked at her, I said, No, I want to win the game. And then walked away. And then she, of course, my mom was her teacher after that and and I didn't realize the hurt that I might have, might have, you know, inflicted on her at that time. I still feel a little guilty, but it was coming from a place of revenge, from all the all the running that I did. It's fun. It's so definitely a test. So

Dennis Ayotte  17:33  

Paul, when you make that transition, what kind of lessons are you going to take from all your experience and sales and leadership. You know, what are you going to take to your coaching and then also, what kind of offense and defense are you going to implement? What's What's the game plan? It's

Paul Redman  17:50  

a good, good question. So I've coached girls basketball from time to time, but I'm in a season of life right now where it's impossible. I tried two years ago to be the assistant middle school girls basketball coach. The schools right around the corner, like I can walk there by design. That's where my office is, and I just don't have the attention span right now, like I'm I would, I would be on calls until 359 go to the game at four, and then back on a call at, you know, five o'clock and the outside locker rooms like, not fun, but I, you know, it's interesting the kids don't you got to teach a good man defense, man to man defense. But I think I saw your question earlier, like a solid two, three zone fundamentals. Everybody working together is pretty impressive, too. So I do like with girls basketball, though, my favorite go to is, I don't know if you call the box in one or like, where you where you face guard their best player, like most girls basketball, if you can press, if you can break a press, and if you can face guard their best player, you're fine.

Dennis Ayotte  18:50  

Nice. Love it. That's simple, dude. That's simple. So all you aspiring coaches out there write that down right now. So cool. One other fun thing we wanted to do, Paul, before we kind of jump into some more questions around, kind of the sales and the the E commerce side of it. So we want to play a game. This is, this is new to the show, and so the game is called, who's taller with tall Paul, okay, so what we're going to do here is, I'm going to run through a list of celebrities and athletes, and you let us know if you are taller than them or not, and answer to you. Okay, so first up, and just to clarify, Paul, you are six foot eight, correct.

Paul Redman  19:31  

I am six foot eight. On the note, I used to identify a six foot nine to get a scholarship,

Dennis Ayotte  19:38  

I'm totally six foot. So if anybody asks 511, six foot, um, okay. So first up, who's taller, you or Michael Jordan?

Paul Redman  19:49  

Ah, that goes to me. Michael Jordan is six. Six. He is

Dennis Ayotte  19:53  

okay. Next up, rip Mamba, Kobe, Bryant, who's taller? You?

Paul Redman  19:59  

Rest in peace. That one also goes to me. Kobe Bryant is six seven. Okay,

Dennis Ayotte  20:05  

I right, six, but I think some sources it said six seven, so we'll go six six sins on the shoes. Yeah, it's true. Okay, next up, Lebron James.

Paul Redman  20:16  

LeBron James is solid. Six nine. Okay, according to my

Dennis Ayotte  20:21  

sources, six eight. So it's a tie. It's a tie. Same height. I'll take it question. Okay, we got Liam Neeson.

Paul Redman  20:32  

I'd venture to, I'd venture to guess I'm, I'm taller than Liam Neeson. That's

Dennis Ayotte  20:37  

true. He's only six four, but on he looks like a giant, so does he? I probably threw it in there. Okay, little, little country flavor. Blake Shelton,

Paul Redman  20:47  

oh, you know, he looks pretty tall, but not six eight. Dang, yeah, you're right.

Dennis Ayotte  20:52  

Six Five. Okay, the rock,

Paul Redman  20:56  

Rock's a big dude. He's probably six three. They

Dennis Ayotte  20:59  

say six five, but I'm with you. I think he's like, 6263 Yeah, okay, and the last one, this is for all the kids out there, the rapper young gravy.

Paul Redman  21:10  

Oh, young great. You know, I'm going to go with just the law of distribution here and say that I'm taller than young gravy.

Dennis Ayotte  21:17  

It's a tie. Young gravy is six

Paul Redman  21:20  

eight. Good for him. And wow.

Dennis Ayotte  21:23  

In conclusion, Paul, you're pretty much taller than everybody,

Paul Redman  21:27  

everybody I saw. Do you remember Sean Bradley? Oh, yeah, yeah, Sean Bradley's seven, six, I think I saw him in the Charlotte airport a couple years ago. Yeah, and I walked by him and couldn't believe that that's the like, that's how people look at me, like, that's really weird for me to wrap my mind around, because he is my my fear, my absolute fear. One, I want to hold on to six eight as long as I can. I don't want to measure six seven. But I also have this random fear that I got this tall because of some disorder, and it's going to kick back in, and I'm going to be like, 730,

Dennis Ayotte  22:05  

wow. That would be then there. Then we're going to call you tall, tall. That would be terrible. Used to do. You still got good knees or what?

Paul Redman  22:13  

It's amazing. Thank you for asking that. Yeah, unbelievable. Nice. I don't know anyone might not have a bad back. I don't know anyone who is my size who has good knees, and I have like I've never knock on wood had any issues, so which is why I don't have basketball anymore.

Dennis Ayotte  22:31  

I almost put that in your intro, but I just wanted to confirm

Paul Redman  22:35  

great needs. You've heard that.

Dennis Ayotte  22:37  

We'll make sure to throw that if you

Paul Redman  22:40  

knew, I'm telling you right now, if you knew about Ron's apartment, you knew about my unbelievable knees,

Dennis Ayotte  22:48  

I did. I did. That's why I brought it up. So awesome, man. Well, thanks for playing that game. That's that's fun, cool. So kind of jumping into just kind of some of the other stuff. So from a sales perspective, right? You have so much experience there, and part of what we try to do on the podcast is make sure that we, you know, spread some knowledge and value and stuff. So, you know, at a high level, just want to, you know, get your take on, you know, what is kind of like the art of sales. And what do you think, you know, separates like a good salesperson from like, a really great one. And what are some, like, tips that you can give to, you know, whether you're an HVAC, you know, guy trying to sell a, you know, something I know your experience at Rhino, like we have sales guys here. So what kind of knowledge can you just share kind of on that? Yeah,

Paul Redman  23:36  

you know, there's, there's so many different perspective, perspectives on process and model and those sort of things. I think what it comes down to is, and I think what's worked for me, and I have to work on this still, is like, you have to control the journey, right? You have to control the like, control show. I learned this from someone I really respect, guy named Mike Hart, and he used to say to me, like, you have to show them how to buy from you. You have to show them what it looks like, and then, and then check in with them along the way. So, like, I think setting really good expectations communication follow through, not like, follow up, like, Hey, did you get that quote or whatever? It's just like, hey, here's where we're going. I'd like to go together. And if things work out along the way, this is where we're going to land. I think, just like, controlling the process to some degree, but then also, like, and not to over, use this term, like being really human with people, and just being really, not say, like, over personable and those sort of things, but really just connecting with people in an authentic way. And you can't really fake that, like you can try a little bit, but yeah, so I'd say controlling, controlling the journey, controlling the interaction. And you're teaching them how to how to do business with you, basically. And

Dennis Ayotte  24:47  

so the way you control that journey is like setting expectations, kind of building out the roadmap of what like, what like success looks like, or kind of what like walk us through, what is that that look. Like, specifically, I,

Paul Redman  25:00  

I you just nailed it. It's like, Hey, here's here's what to expect, here's what it could look like, here's what good looks like. And we're going to go through this process together. And the good opportunities are like, you're so involved throughout that journey that you don't feel like there's ever a huge decision to make. It's just like, hey, we're doing this. We're going to this is the idea. We both like the idea. And next thing you know this, you've got a live baby somewhere, right? I don't know if that's a good analogy, but like, those are the good ones. When you're like, oh my gosh, we did this thing, right? We checked off all these milestones, and we're we're live, we're doing this. What have you found?

Dennis Ayotte  25:36  

Like, because expectation setting, I think, in itself, is like an art form, right? I think some people, you know, out of fear of, like, losing a sale, or, you know, impacting the relationship. You know, what are some ways that, like you found like to set expectations, and you know, how do you go about that? Typically, good question.

Paul Redman  25:57  

I I don't know. I think being like, really upfront and honest about what the potential outcomes are and what a win looks like. Go ahead, we

Dennis Ayotte  26:07  

oh, there it goes. I think just buffering for a minute back Paul, yeah,

Paul Redman  26:14  

and I'm, you know, it's interesting, like I, as I get to as I've hired sales people, and as I've hired sales directors and other sales leaders. Like, I'm not the best at sales. I'm good at, like, really, really high leverage ideas that we can bring to life through people who are all in, right? But like, transactional sales, I've never been particularly great at although, I mean, I had a pretty good track record as like, now I'm just thinking out loud, pretty good. I was pretty good. Yeah. I mean,

Dennis Ayotte  26:49  

yeah, I'll

Aaron Watters  26:50  

experience here real quick. I mean, Paul, we've, you know, we've tried sending you guys accounts, and we have sent a few of them, nowhere near as much as I would have liked to, but we always have thought very highly of you individually as like a relationship builder. And one of the things that would kill that was if you were in my inbox or texting regularly about, hey, what's going on with X, Y or Z? So I feel like you've got a good read on authenticity and just expectations of just that communication rhythm, because anytime contractor, commerce, or you come up here internally, when we're talking leadership, it's always positive. And so you leave people feeling, you know, comfortable, and leave them feeling good. And I think that's something that definitely some of us can take lessons from,

Paul Redman  27:36  

yeah, oh, well,

Dennis Ayotte  27:38  

thank you to echo what Aaron said. I think, yeah, like, you know, we've had very limited interactions, you know, Paul, but you know, I think what I've heard about, like, your reputation, and through doing my research for this podcast, one thing is, like, you're an outstanding listener, and you ask like, really great questions. And I think, you know, a lot of people say that that like equals this level of like charisma, you know, that you bring in comfort to folks. And I think that's like half the battle, right? It's like, for lack of better terms, people don't want feel like someone's bullshitting them, or, you know, trying to, you know, be a snake oil salesman or whatever. And you're the antithesis of that, right? You're like, totally opposite, and you just have a genuine nature to you that is, like, undeniable. And so I think that's, you know, for sure, something that separates you from most sales people we've ever talked to, you know,

Paul Redman  28:35  

well, thank you. And as you say that, and I think back of blushing, by the way, when I think back of like, when my job was just sales, I think it's sort of accidental, because, you know, when I entered the I started in the heating and air conditioning industry, and I knew so little, but I was so hungry and so humble, like, not like humble, in other words, like I had, I needed to earn money. I needed to pay off cars, and how, like, I needed to buy my first house. Like, all those things you do in your 20s, right? Were, like, very, very real to me. And so when I got in the industry, like, I went to my customers to learn the business, I like, selfishly, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I guess there was an element of selling because of, like, I'm in there just getting to know them, and they're getting to know me, and I'm learning from them, and the relationship was building, and I became a great salesperson through that process, just because getting close to my customers. But I kid you not, like first couple years in this industry, fortunately, I worked for a great employer that had a lot of patients I didn't know anything like I was asking the most fundamental questions, because of survival, I needed to make sure I did good job at that job so I could feed my family. So, like, I think humility and like, wanting to learn, yeah?

Dennis Ayotte  29:48  

The other thing, sorry, yeah. The other thing I was going to say is, you know, it's clear, like, your work ethic, right? Like when I was doing my research and you talked about how I. At ch Robinson, they, you know, talked about getting you a fancy headset, and you're like, I just need a phone to dial. And how many shirts that you blew holes through because of how you, you know, had the phone, the blowout dude, yeah, the blowouts. How many shirts did you go through? That's

Paul Redman  30:17  

so funny that you mentioned that. So, you know, Ron's apartment, I told you that my fingers went numb. So when I went to the next company, you know, and they didn't have a headset for me or anything like that, like, I just picked up the phone, and I was just outperforming but I would, I would seriously blow a hole in a dress shirt like this. We called it a blowout, but I forgot who I shared that with good, good memory. Yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  30:39  

I can't remember the exact podcast I watched, but I'll let you know. So my point on that is, like, do you think, like, how much can just hard work overcome, you know, potentially, somebody's like, lack of knowledge or skills? Because, like, you were saying, like, when you first started, you didn't know a whole lot, and you were asking the fundamental questions, but what you are doing is just hustling, grinding, calling, right? So at what point do you think hard work can overcome, you know, some of those. And then how do you eventually establish like, a balance of like knowledge and working smarter, not harder?

Paul Redman  31:18  

Oh, man, I don't know. I mean, the hard work element is the is the major input, like, yes, you have to have the skills and you have to have the intangibles, but, like, it is a numbers game. Success is a numbers game for a lot of people. And that stuff gets recognized, and when it gets recognized, you get opportunities, and when you get opportunities and you keep doing, that's the formula, right? So, yeah, the inputs matter, for sure. I can't remember the second part of the question,

Dennis Ayotte  31:46  

just like, you know, at what point you know, can just hard work, you know, outpace, you know, skills. And then, yeah, when you try to work smarter, not harder, once you start developing those skills. You know,

Paul Redman  32:02  

yeah, there's a there's a crossroad, for sure, like so, for instance, we think about here as we think about growing and scaling our company. You know, scaling means we want to go from we do 10 of these things to we do 1000 of these things. And it's a word that I've used in my career that I completely underappreciated, yeah, and you don't scale by working harder. And you get to a point where you look around and you're like, okay, if I'm the only lever that I'm using, I can only get us this far. And as I've worked with people to understand how to grow a software company and how to scale a software company like there's an element of brute force that's required in the early days, but at some point brute force doesn't work anymore. There has to be like, very, very strategic levers you pull. So at some point it shifts to like, can you develop other people to be able to do these things and and can they be better than you? And can you be humble enough within your organization to let them be better than you? And I'm getting to experience some of that now. And, man, it's in what a time to be alive. Like you think, not to over talk with not to over emphasize AI and all these things, but, like, think about all the things you can do now with with AI, just to make your job easier with a little bit of technology to, like, expand your influence. So yeah, at some point, brute force only gets you so far.

Dennis Ayotte  33:22  

Yeah, and I think we can relate. I think in our company, we're in a very similar spot right now. In that term, scaling is something we've been talking about a lot lately, right where got over 100 clients, and, you know, we're teams facing capacity issues, and then AI and all that. So like, what? What piece of advice would you have for us and or any contractor out there? Maybe that's just scaling a business in general. Like, as you've been going through this, is there any like piece of info that you're like, Hey, keep an eye on this. Yeah, I and this is,

Paul Redman  33:55  

this is real. This will be uninspiring advice, and something I've had to learn the hard way. But, like, you have to hire really great people, and those great people are going to cost you more than you're comfortable spending right now. And if you look back at any time you've made those bets, it usually, for the most part, works out. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. But like, you don't do any of it without really, really good people who know how to take initiative and, like, be a force multiplier. Like, not just be a replacement for what you're doing, but they have to do what you're tasking them to do 10 times better than then you can do it. And that's really, really hard. So, like, I talk about, I was talking with my team this week about if someone was at, like, why are we hiring all these people? When X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z, I'm like, Look, when you invest and want to grow a company. You can invest in all sorts of different technology. Yes, you want to do that. You can invest in trucks and all these sort of things. But like one of the best investments now, it's a coin toss, but when you get it right, you hire the right person, like that is a unbelievable force, force multiplier, the the downside. That is, it's a coin toss. There's a 50% chance it's not going to work. Like, that's just, that's the nature of it. But yeah, are

Dennis Ayotte  35:09  

there any things you do to try to make it like less of a coin toss? Because that's something we're always talking about, and it's like, we don't want to over evaluate and but we do like culture index and, you know, obviously we have multiple interviews and skills tests, but is there anything that you've done to try to help, you know, make it more of a 7030, than a 5050,

Paul Redman  35:28  

that's a good so the fact that you're doing those, that sort of filtering and those sort of tests, like, I haven't been that disciplined. I've been going a lot with like, first and second degree connections and relationships and gut feel. And I've been right in some ways, and I've been wrong in some ways. And of you know, at different stages of the company, what's right at one point isn't going to be right. So I don't know, as a matter of fact, I would say I've been, you know, I come from a corporate world where I'm very, like, classically trained on how to do all these things, but I, like, abandoned a lot of those, like, basic principles that you do, like, personality testing out of maybe speed and laziness that I, that I, I regret for sure, like, probably not doing a great job there.

Dennis Ayotte  36:14  

Well, seems like you guys are doing okay, so you're doing something right? We

Paul Redman  36:19  

are, yeah, we're in a good season right now. It's we've got little sidebar. I'm in a position where I get to manage everything right now. And I never realized how much just teaching people how to work together better, like, like, I wasn't always doing that. I was putting people in there. Like, here's your functional area. Go get it. We'll talk about the end of the week. And then I do my things, right? I get my hammer out, and I do the things that I know can drive the organization forward. Over the last like, 60 days, I've spent most of my effort on just like, observing and seeing, like, how can I get these two people to work together, like, this person's thinking about this, this person's thinking about this, and that has been like, the biggest like change in our business over the last couple of weeks, a month or so, is just watching people work better together, because that has such a compounding effect. And I'll give you an example, like, I had a new idea today, and I need guardrails on new ideas a visionary. And I just, I have them, they come to me, and I put it out there, and I scheduled, not scheduled. I did an impromptu meeting with two of my directors, and was just like, hey, you guys got five this will take a minute. Boom, we're all on a video. I pitched the idea, and they were already working on it. They had already met with the departments to do it. And I was like, This is what happens when you just like, you orchestrate these opportunities for people to get to know each other and trust each other, and then you give them authority to make decisions, and then you let them do it. And I'm like, okay, carry on. And I was like, so happy about it.

Dennis Ayotte  37:57  

Nice. What's awesome, man, yeah. So tell us more about kind of what's going on at at contractor commerce, and kind of what it's been like from your start to where you're at now. Because I know when you first started, there was just challenges in general for, you know, this space, to accept e commerce, you know, in their business. And I know, you know, some of the larger kind of PE groups and the, you know, Ken Haynes of the world, and the brunch group and those guys, I think they probably have, you know, more vision there and luxury to potentially try something like this. So what is the kind of the evolution been since you started to where you're at now? Have Have you seen a shift at all? Or what are you seeing overall? Yeah,

Paul Redman  38:38  

yeah, big time. So I want to make sure we talk about the big companies. So I'm putting a pin in that, because I'll we'll get there. When we initially launched the company, we launched it under the idea that, like everyone, shops online for just about everything. No contractor has an online store. If they did, it would be a terrible experience, because how do you sell home service, business based services and products online? So we had to build the technology to create e commerce for contractors, but then really build a framework about, like, how do you do it? Why do you why do you do it? So we spent the first years, a couple years, just educating the market on the why, not even the features of our product, just like, why they should take it serious. And that was exhausting, like that was, we're still doing it to some degree, but we launched with an idea and hypothesis, if you will. And we were right. So four years later, as we since we initially started pouring gas on it, we now get to hear the stories of like, hey, we tried this, and it's been really, really good for our business. And so I'll share two examples of two calls I observed today. One was with a company called precision in Chicago. Chicago is one of the most challenging markets for PPC and all those sort of things, as you you guys very likely know that, and on the last eight lead. So they've had 12 people go through their website. This is, this is this month. So we're looking at, yeah, May. They've had 12 people go. Their website and configure an instant estimate on an HVAC system. They were able to book eight of those for in home visits. They sold all eight of those jobs. Nice. So they're like, we have a 100% close rate. And I'm trying to tell them, like, it probably won't always be like that. It's great. Now that's one example. Was just observing another call. This is a company up in Seattle, Washington, all red and big dike and dealer up there. And just last month, they did, I think, nine systems, 123,000 in sales of customers who went to the website and configured a price, got a monthly price and booked a home visit to have someone come out there. So this idea that a customer, a homeowner, wants to go further through the buying process at home on their own terms at 10 o'clock on a mobile device, and only do that for 30 seconds, is that has really, really been profound for our customers. And then the whole idea of selling products and services to your customers through your website. For some people, they've set like, I've got a customer in Texas. You guys probably know airtron. I think there are over 15,000 transactions of, you know, orders of three to four air filters or whatever. So 1000s and 1000s of SKUs. And then stories of companies who, you know, thought they could just put it on their website and do nothing with it, and it would be magic. And that's been true too. No, it's not magic. So it's been cool that the best part is, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, and and I seems cliche, but like, I just want to see people have success with it, and now that the market's more mature, it's, you know, it's no longer, will it work? It's, yeah, if you take it seriously, will absolutely benefit your business.

Dennis Ayotte  41:52  

Yeah. So on that note, what did you like your your elevator pitch to, you know, these guys out there who don't know what contractor commerce is and why, you know, this could be another business unit or revenue stream that they could that offer for their people?

Paul Redman  42:11  

Yeah, I would say, like, step it back. Take a step back. Look at your market. Look at the digital presence of everyone in your market. And really think about like, how are people differentiated, right? How are people it's all sort of the same, right? Then I would think about the fact that half of search, if not more, is related to pricing. How much things cost? Yeah, and if you can answer that question for your customer in the least friction way possible, the way that requires less friction, you'll outperform and you'll win. It's not a bad thing that you want to go into somebody's house to do the load calculation, the customer presentation, and meet with that customer and give them a price. I think you should do that too, but I think you should also just make it super easy for a curious customer to figure out how much something's going to cost them, that's a starting point. But then also to think about, Why shouldn't a customer have a portal on your website where they can see their service history and see their reorder their filters and schedule service or get their filters shipped before their membership, you know, before their service, you know, maintenance contract occurs, or whatever. So, yeah, it's, it's happening in the cool part is, sorry, I'm rambling, but the cool part is, so many contractors have went before. It's, you're no longer in that early majority. This is really the this is the middle of the pack. Now, there's tons of evidence out there on how to be successful at this. It's, it's no mystery anymore. Yeah,

Aaron Watters  43:44  

I would even say too. Like, we think about the big systems and, you know, building your own price and everything. I think of the pro skill guys back in Arizona that did theirs as well. But like, if what we talk about as a marketing agency is decluttering the call center as well. And you know, countless times when clients maybe their water treatment company and people are calling their main line for a water filter, but they're calling the main line by going through Google ads because they forgot the number didn't save it on the phone. And we're here saying this is, this is a huge opportunity to reduce, you know, wasted ad spend. But also, if they could just do it online and get the filter ordered, you don't have to answer the phone. You can, you know, deliver it on your own time. And it just really saves a lot of the headaches, and it provides clarity to the consumer, 100% that's

Dennis Ayotte  44:37  

you get it, yeah, the other thing, Paul, it's like, how have you been, like, overcoming, you know, the specific like objection of, like, Oh, we don't share pricing until we get to the home, right? Because, like, we know, a lot of times CSRS are coached to, like, never give pricing over the phone, right? We don't put pricing on our website. We don't advertise price, you know, anywhere and. You know, we've had some clients that have prescribed to the model they ask you answer, and have been very successful, right? Because it'll immediately eliminate somebody you don't want to be everything to everybody, in that sense. And so how do you kind of overcome something like that with a contractor who's got it cemented in their mind that it's like, no, we would never be that transparent with pricing. People

Paul Redman  45:23  

who call to ask for price are not sitting there with a checkbook ready to like, hey, how much is it? So I can write exactly how much on this check? Right? They're calling for two reasons. They want to reduce uncertainty and reduce doubt anxiety, right? They just want to, like, start filtering in their mind, like what they're facing. And so if you pull that guard down and you say something like, look, it's really hard to give you an exact price over the phone, what we do is we prefer to do a home visit, which we can schedule. However, I can walk you through on our website right now. We can answer, get a little bit of information and give you an idea of what you might be looking at, and that's going to build so much trust. It's also going to like there, when you have some my friend is going through this right now. A friend of mine text me about pricing for a boiler for his house, and I connected him with someone, and they're going out there, but the period of time from that person scheduling that appointment to them going out to quote it, that anxiety is still hanging in the air. They're still googling. How much should this cost? What should I expect? They're still getting educated, so you want to give them all that education up front so that they don't have to go Google and figure it out. It's about building you build that trust, and then you've got that relationship, and then then you go to the home and do what you normally do anyway. Yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  46:37  

yeah. And I think to your earlier point about the customer portal. So, you know, I'm relatively new to, like the trades, right? I've been, you know, at Leadhub for three years, but I've been in marketing for a very long time. And one thing that is, you know, sticks out to me about the home services space is how little loyalty there is towards any sort of brand, right? Like, if I ask you today, like, Hey, if you need a new pair of basketball shoes, what brand are you going to go buy? You probably, Nike, yeah, New Balance. There you go, which I think is a Sean Bradley sponsor so that. So, you know, so, so you have brand recall that, right, yeah. But I asked somebody on the street, hey, if you needed a new AC system, you know, who would you call? And they probably wouldn't have, like, a top three. Maybe they know the one guy that's all over TV or whatever billboards, but they're not going to know. So that's the first challenge. But the second challenge is, like the client retention part, right? And you know, the thing that you know, ish is doing with new Bay and how he's trying to, you know, he makes a really good point about, like, how alarm security systems get you locked into their, you know, ecosystem, and you're like, stuck in there, right? And, you know, this idea that customer portal is super interesting to me, because I'm like, Man, all of our clients should have customer portals now, so they have a login and they have a spot to go back and exactly like you said, see your service history book again. And so we can create that, that retention like pattern, so they don't have to google somebody new every single time. You know what I mean. So I don't know where I was going with that. Just a point that like came to mind as you were explaining some of this,

Paul Redman  48:24  

and what you're saying is backed by data. There's a study done once every two years called the American Home Comfort study by a firm called decision analyst. They're in Houston, Texas. This is all Google able, and they interview homeowners who've made a major HVAC or a major home service purchase over a two year period of time. So $2,000 or more, so something legit, and 70 or 80% cannot recall the name of the company that did the service. And I just went through this I was sharing with someone like I lived in Dallas, and had to get foundation repair, and I had to get foundation peers put in my house, because you have to water your your foundation in the great state of Texas, they don't market that, okay. But anyways, it was, like the worst home service project I've ever had to do, and the company was unbelievable. But ask me their name like I already forgot it. That sucks. Yeah. So like,

Dennis Ayotte  49:16  

hopefully it was GL hunt, one of our clients, it

Paul Redman  49:20  

was GL hunt. They were amazing. And it's funny. I we're going to clip that Paul. Go ahead. Sorry, no, it's, it's funny. So I told that story recently, and then I was going through my phone. I was like, wait a minute, what if I saved this person's number? And so I went through my phone, and it is, I thought her name was summer. Her name was candy in the next like, you know, and I found it. So this is dal rock foundation candy. I found it in my phone. So for anyone who needs foundation repair in the Dallas Fort Worth, Mary, and you're not using close name, Jill hunt,

Dennis Ayotte  49:59  

they're a good. Backup option,

Paul Redman  50:00  

yep, yep. Dow, rock candy, give her a call. Nice.

Dennis Ayotte  50:04  

That's, that's very cool. But yeah, it's, it's so crazy that, you know, no one's really figured out. Like, a good solve, you know, for that, like, how do you make sure that they are brand loyal, you know, to you? So I think we're going to put that on our vision board and add it to our VTO? Well, there's, I

Aaron Watters  50:24  

mean, we've had a lot of these, these conversations over the years, you know, and you get a lot of these companies that focus on, like, replacement efficiency metrics, and they'll coach clients on, don't worry about the client after you replace their system, because they're just going to be mad at you for the next seven years if they have to call you. They have to call you again. So don't worry about it. But now you see a lot of people you know becoming full home service companies, of course. And so constant customer communication is more important for cross selling than ever before, yep. And so I think that's where when you use a service Titan or an FSM that connects in with a contractor commerce, so you get sales data and have that portal for them. It's easier for you to cross sell, yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  51:07  

for sure. So what else is going on at contractor commerce, Paul, that you want to kind of let the people know, we'll see the evolution that's happening. And then also, yeah, back to the point you were going to make about like the bigger companies and and what they're doing kind of in this space,

Paul Redman  51:23  

yeah, the point on the bigger companies is, you are right. So companies like the wrench group or whatever, all well resourced, they're thinking about this. I mean, quite honestly, we built contractor commerce because people were talking about this idea. This isn't, we didn't invent the idea. We just, we just made it awesome and available through software. But those companies are many of them. Many of the big ones are working with us. Some are not. But I would say the message that needs to be heard is like, you don't have to be a giant, you know, company with a ton of resources. Actually, the middle market companies are the ones that are performing the best with this, because you're not, you're not restricted by the IT requirements and the project management requirements and the all the integration stuff that happens at these giant companies, you can just go so, like, I've got a company here in Charlotte I think there, I think Travis Crawford, I think this is, I guess, ten million shop, maybe 10 or $15 million shop. And, my goodness, every day. I mean, he gets 100 solid leads every single month. He's selling hundreds of 1000s of dollars in this market. So it's the it's the middle market that does really well with this. Not to exclude the smaller companies, the ones under a million dollars in revenue. The challenge we have in that segment of the market, we're not done building for that. I'll talk about that here in a moment. Is like people in that end of the market need someone to do everything for them with all due respect, because they're busy, they're wearing a lot of hats. So like they don't have time to create a mailer and run a paper, sit a PPC campaign, or train the office staff like they're surviving and trying to grow. So when we initially launched this product, like our thought was like, Look, this is for everyone. And then what we found is like, No, this is for people who are, like, serious growth companies, who know how to build and lead within their companies. If someone's using Eos, like you just mentioned earlier, Vision traction, if someone's using Eos, this is up and running in moments. I mean, as long as it's a as long as it's a big rock for that quarter, right? Yeah, if someone doesn't have an operating system or leadership structure or those sort of things, it can be a little more difficult. That. Said, our vision is that every contractor would have an online store. So our engineering, our product team, our leadership team, we're looking at, how can we help everyone and with different segments of the market, with different elements of products? So to tell you, like, what's coming this is really cool. So you know, buying journeys has become one of our hottest products. The ability to get an instant estimate on a water heater, a generator or a panel chain, or whatever it might EV, Ev, charger port, or, you know, water filtration system, those sort of things. Yeah, well, you know, when we do that for someone, we obviously use our platform. We get their pricing, we configure their pricing, we write all the rules. And takes a couple, you know, maybe an hour or so of work, but we're asking ourselves, like, how can we make it easier? How can we make it faster. And so we just launched AI buying journeys. We're testing it in Atlanta, where the customer really gives us nothing. The customer tells us what they want the outcome to be, not like, Hey, I sell train carried, I can do tell us what they want the outcome to be, and we let ai do the work. So I was just testing it with day co heating in Atlanta today, it looks awesome. Just always thinking about how we can make things, you know, faster and better and drive more value for our customers. That's where, that's what we're dialed in on.

Aaron Watters  54:51  

Are there any other industries that you're looking at adding in? I mean, you know, I mentioned you were working with a lot of window companies. I. Yeah, is there anything else in the pipeline there as well?

Paul Redman  55:01  

Yeah, I just lit up because we just launched a new product this week that I want to mention. But yes, other industries, so we're deep, deep into Locksmiths. So if you're on the side of the road and you or wherever, and you lock your key in your trunk, or you lost it, or you need a new key fob, or you're locked out of your house, there's a good chance that if you're if you Google that and land on one of the top locksmith franchises in the country, it's a good chance you're going to be doing a buying journey for a key like, I have an Acura. It's blue, it's a 96 so we built out, we took what we learned in H back, we applied it to the locksmith business. It's been awesome. Instead of E commerce, we call it key commerce, but, yeah, other industries. I mean, obviously we've got into plumbing, electrical. We are at the point now where we're entertaining other, you know, your roofing and pest control and landscape and those sort of things. We're dabbling in all of those. But we haven't, like, put a shovel in the ground to say, like, this is it, we're going after roofing, or we're going after pest control. But that day's coming for sure. Nice

Dennis Ayotte  56:09  

if there's, like, a plumber out there, HVAC company that wants to, you know, get started or learn more. How do they, like, get in touch with you guys. What does that look like?

Paul Redman  56:18  

Yeah, go to contractor, commerce com, hit, learn more. Or by the time this episode airs, I'll create a link that Leadhub can use and embed it somewhere, and we'll, we'll know they came from you. And so it'll be contractor commerce.com forward slash, Leadhub will get you to get you to us. So we'll drop

Dennis Ayotte  56:37  

that in the show notes for sure. Man, so cool. What else, Paul, anything else on your mind you want to share with us or drop it knowledge on us? All, all episodes.

Paul Redman  56:49  

I mean, I I could talk hours more about Ron's apartment.

Dennis Ayotte  56:56  

That's going to be part two. That's going to be the after hours podcast. So we'll so

Paul Redman  57:03  

good, you know, we did a test project this week. So we've always said we don't want to become a marketing company. We're a software company. And so when our customers come to us and they're like, most of our customers come to us and they're already working with a marketing agency, like most of them, but sometimes they'll come to us and they're like, hey, we want to get trapped. We want to get trapped. We want to use this platform so bad, but we have no, no visitors to our website. Can you help us get visitors to our website? And we're like, Well, you know, those pages could index on. Like, we're really clear with people that like, look, yes, you're these page, some of these pages are going to rank, and you're going to get some traffic, and it's going to be because of us. But like, we don't know if that can be true for everybody, so we don't promise anything, right? I've always said, like, if we said, oh, having E commerce will will boost your SEO, like, we would have a lot of people signing up. But that's not the right thing to do, even though we know it to be relatively true. But we launched instant HVAC quote.com this week, and we put a serious, serious, serious budget behind it. So if you're listening to this, go to instant HVAC quote com, put in whatever zip code you're in, and it will take you directly to the buying journey of a participating contractor, commerce customer. So you get right off of our site, and you go directly within the walls of one of our customer sites, and we're putting significant ad spend behind it. And we converted a lead yesterday. We launched it, I think Monday or Tuesday, we converted our first lead. And I'm just waiting to find out if we actually drove dollars for our customer, because if that works, well, I'll go all in on it, like all in That's

Dennis Ayotte  58:46  

awesome. Yeah, what a great way to help exposure for your clients, and especially the ones that might not, you know, have all the website visitors. So very cool. We'll have to check that out. We'll drop that in the show notes as well, so people can go check that out too. So awesome. Thanks, man, sweet. Well, Paul, this has been an awesome episode, dude. Thank you so much for all your insights. And you know, giving us the the download on Ron's, Ron's apartment, I'll have to do some more research next time to find out you know what we talk about,

Paul Redman  59:21  

I gotta find Ron. Ron, I think was like Ron Swain. I knew it. I knew the Ron Swain. I knew the name. A couple weeks ago I was trying to find him on the internet, yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  59:30  

what would you what are you going to say to him when you find him?

Paul Redman  59:35  

Oh, man, I don't know. I don't know. That's a that's a

Aaron Watters  59:39  

practice. Hey, Paul, it's been years my cats died since I last saw you. How

Paul Redman  59:44  

are you doing? You did a pretty good job. That is a, that's actually a pretty good run. Man, he had a, yeah, it was. Man, that was a wild time. That was just so formative, though. Like, I'm glad you brought that up. That was fun. Yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  59:57  

awesome. Man. Well, thank. You everybody for watching Talk of the trades and being here as we chatted with Paul, we'll put in the show notes, everything, all the links you need for contractor commerce. Thanks for tuning in again. Everybody like, subscribe, share with your friends, and we'll see you on the next episode. Bye, mom, Paul, if you'll hang back, yeah, you bet we'll let it like Buffer through. That

Paul Redman  1:00:26  

was fun, man. Thank you. Yeah, for sure.