Ep 169 - "Raising The Bar With Liveswitch"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. James Hatfield from Live Switch. We've been stoked about this conversation, man. So thank you for being here and making time for Head, Heart & Boots. I'm so happy to be here. I'm just jealous I don't have the same hoodie on as you guys. So you're cooler today than I am.

0:41 This is the new swag. And I got to tell you, I got two inches taller. My arms got an inch bigger just by putting it on. Yes. So for those of you listening, there is new swag. There might be a way to buy some head-hardened boots gear here in the near future if you're interested. Yeah, so let me set the table here for us because this was probably five, six, seven, eight weeks ago. I don't know. Maybe it was closer to six months ago. Brandon forwarded me an email from you, James. And I don't know, maybe it was a cold outreach that you did, whatever. But Brandon sent me this email. Hey, look into this. See if... you know, there's something here. You and I jumped on the phone and within about 15 minutes of us talking and you starting to describe your product, I was like, oh my goodness.

1:28 There's some incredible use cases for this technology in certainly not just the restoration business, but as you and I were talking, it was like, wow, this is any home services company and really any B2B services, There is so much incredible application and customer experience benefit, efficiency. There's sales use case for this product. So I'm just like, I'm so stoked. And I've already introduced you to a couple of our clients and brands in our industry. And every time I've introduced the idea and the concept of folks, everybody's floored.

2:08 Like, oh my gosh, we have to try this. Some cool stuff with one, Tom. Right? Yeah. One Tom Plummer. I know that you've got some. We're already off to the races there. Yeah. Cool. Incredible. Cool. Okay. So with all that said, I still have said absolutely nothing about what Live Switch is. So open us up. Explain to us in the context of home services, because I know you guys sell your software to a bunch of different industry verticals, but just give us a lowdown. What is Live Switch? And start to walk us through the functionality of the software. Yeah. So what is it? Everybody has a smartphone in their pocket. I think they actually give you one when you're born. They're like, welcome to the world.

2:49 Here's a smartphone. They don't leave you. You just tape it to your head. Right. Well, there's this interesting thing on your phone and there's a lot of them. There's cameras everywhere. Literally. My phone I'm holding up has four different cameras and it's time we start using these in our business way more. So we happen to be one of very few companies in the world that do live video. It's just incredibly hard to do, right? You've actually seen our stuff and used our stuff. You didn't know it was us. Like if you go to an MLB ballpark and scan a QR code and they put you on the Jumbotron, we power that. We just did the Super Bowl this year. If you watch like the NBA All-Star game and you see all the fans, digital fans in the state, we did all that, okay?

3:31 So where we came from, is we were working to reinvent the 911 phone call with the chief of police. Because in an emergency situation, the citizen who's trying to explain something when they're compromised, I mean, that's a hard ask. And you can't stop and download an app when you're in the middle of something. That's not going to happen. So now they can just simply send a text and you tap it and we're tapped into your cameras. And they can see no app. And now I can see we've tuned it up for third party assistance. customer or future customer can just walk you around the complex, the house, wherever they are, and you can see what they see.

4:13 We record everything. You can take remote photos, and you can start connecting in a human way, which we know is needed, especially in a tough situation when you can connect with a person face-to-face, and that person can see the what they're going to work on, now you can expedite your bids. You can do all kinds of stuff. I'm just getting unpacking. I'm just, this is the tip of the iceberg, but this is just the beginning. And I mean, I have so much more to share about where we're going. Okay, so let's hammer in on this because this to me is just an absolutely fantastical use case in our business because call intake is, is like you described, when people are under duress, we've often said in our business in restoration, the chief difference between that and a home remodeler or a conventional construction business is You know, when somebody's doing a remodel on their kitchen, they're coming to the table excited in some shape or form.

5:07 They've saved money for this. It's a dream, da, da, da. However, when a restoration client is calling in, they're in some state of duress. They're emotionally compromised, like you talked about. They're confused. They often don't understand what their insurance coverage is and how's this going to work. They've never been through that process before. And or some aspect of their living space is damaged, compromised, unsafe, may have even had injuries to pets or other household members, if it was a fire as an example, right? So that call intake is so pivotal to the overall customer experience that our client's going to have. So what you just described is somebody calls into a restoration company that has live switch.

5:50 Right. That receptionist takes the call and starts doing their normal call and take. Hi, Mrs. Jones. My name's Sally. I'm with XYZ Restoration. How can I help? What's going on? I'm just collecting the information, address, phone number, blah, blah, blah. And at some point in that conversation, she can say to the customer, hey, are you on your smartphone? Yes. Customer says, yes, perfect. I'm going to send you a text. When you get it, open up that text message. And now all of a sudden that receptionist has opened up a window into the customer's space. And it automatically starts recording. And then the receptionist can instruct the customer, hey, do you mind walking over to the affected area and just pointing your camera at it?

6:31 And now all of this is recording in the cloud and the receptionist is getting more vivid details that they can then augment their notes for this new job, right? Or work order that they're creating in their system. And then after the call is concluded and the person dispatches a team, so to speak, the responding team can look at that video. before they ever leave their shop or before they actually arrive at the customer site to get a sense for the customer space, maybe how much equipment they're going to need, the severity of the loss, maybe what category of loss that they have, etc. All before they ever set foot in the customer space. That's correct.

7:11 And you can share it with anybody. So if you need to share it with insurance, you can do that to get the claims started. If you need to share it with a subcontractor, maybe there's part of the remodel you don't do. You can send it to them as well. And everybody can make notes on it, upload additional pieces. And it's one big project that everybody can work on. And then the customer, as you start to do the work, can see the progress along the way. And then if you forget things like, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast. Now I can go back a year later like, yep, that's where we put in a new XYZ. That's where we did the work. So even a new technician can go and you've got a record of the work that you've done. You're basically adding an instant replay to every part of your business end to end.

7:54 And as far as this new user, where we're just kind of making some jokes about how sometimes, I mean, tech is, it still can be challenging for a lot of us, right? And so I'm thinking some of our, I'm going to make a bunch of assumptions and things, but some of our elderly client base or, right, or in general, somebody that's a little, could be frustrated with tech. Or like we talked about, somebody's kind of spinning out because of the circumstances. They're going to get a text. They're literally just going to tap something that's in that text and it will start the process. Correct. That's it. We wanted to make it as easy as answering a phone call because we knew the end user, your final customer is one we really have to make sure is comfortable with it.

8:35 Like I have a guy who hangs TVs and puts audio, high-end audio. He's like, James, I got a 90-year-old on it the other day. Why? Because all the 90-year-old had to do was tap the text. That is it. We want to be the jitterbug of, you know what I'm talking about? Yes. For those of you that maybe not know what that is, it's like a cell phone for old people. It's like, make the cell phone simple, the jitterbug. I'm glad you explained that because I had no idea what the heck you were talking about. Well, the things we use every day are very simple. A light switch. Now it's starting a car, answering the phone. If you don't think like that, then your stuff's way too hard.

9:17 It's way too hard. I used to run home service companies. I used to live my life on a ladder. I know what my team was like. I know what my customers like. I know what I'm like. So we design with a jitterbug in mind. Yeah. This is un... I didn't... Okay. You see what I'm excited about, right? I'm getting it. So it's incredible. So there's so many things in this, but number one, we get a documentation at the very front of the job of the home or the business's pre-loss condition. Right out of the hopper. We see exactly what's going on. We understand the space. If there's access restriction, there's so many things that that image of the customer walking to the affected area tells us on the front end that, whereas we would normally discover after the fact and be like, oh man, I should have got that piece of equipment or, oh, we have a small entry point there.

10:04 I needed this other thing, but they didn't know they didn't have full context of the job. So this gives a restorer full context of, of the loss that they're responding to. Not to mention, like you talked about, the ability to build emotional connection with a customer. Yeah, that was actually where I kind of wanted to go next. Give us some examples, right? Because you guys have, I'm assuming, lots of scenarios that you've already been able to experience. What do those look like? What kind of connection are we able to make with this platform versus not having it? Yeah. So it's funny because when I see so many industries, I can tell you about other industries you may not be aware of that are exactly like yours, but in a different context.

10:46 I'm going to talk to you about self-storage. You probably wouldn't think about self-storage when you think about, you know, happening an issue with a disaster that you need to fix, right? Well, in self-storage, the main reason people get self-storage is because they've gone through a death. a divorce or a move. Okay? These are times in our lives where we're really emotionally compromised. So they started adding video like this, what we're talking about to that customer experience and enhance the overall customer experience because not only are you trying to sell or you're trying to do your job, but there's a therapeutic experience component here, which is what's happening when someone is experiencing loss. They are needing a little bit of therapy, right?

11:26 And some understanding. And creating a human face-to-face connection is so much more important than voice, text, or chatting with an AI robot. And I understand why we do that from a business owner standpoint because of the money. Sure. If we understand the customer experience and the level of, hey, if I provide this human connection and this therapeutic response, the selling and everything there flows right along after it. Especially as we're getting ready to connect with this individual in a tough time in their life. They might have never experienced loss before and here we are. So that human connection is a game changer. One of the things James got me thinking about a little bit, a lot of times when we have larger loss opportunities, we're going to hang in the restoration pocket a little bit.

12:16 But one of the opportunities, just educating the client on process and how many times that was a differentiator that got me a job. And I was at times able to do that even over the phone, sight unseen. I'm just thinking to myself, what a difference it would have been Had I had the power of having them actually walking me through their space and I could make some comments about, oh, gosh, I know this isn't the point, but I see your Seahawks, you know, framed whatever or right. And then just like, hey, wow, there is man, I can see that you have a lot of like those those look like very old items, antiques, family hairless. That's got to be making you nervous, right? OK, let's think about what we can get you to do to protect those or preserve those.

13:02 That's so great. Holy cow, what a force multiplier to create that connection with that prospect. Yeah, and I think this is what's going through my head. The big, big value of this is that... When people are emotionally compromised and or angry and or frustrated, discouraged, confused, all the things that people feel depending on the damage event that happened. What they want to feel when they get off that phone is they want to feel as though the other person saw their situation, truly saw it and understood what they're dealing with. And when you're only on the phone, like that's a really difficult thing to do. It takes a pretty sophisticated person with high EQ to leave the customer feeling that way after a simple call intake.

13:48 Most of us in service companies are not great at that initial call intake. But the effect, even if the person who's handling this call is not super awesome, like the most sophisticated customer experience person. Just the act of turning on somebody's camera and allowing the customer to show you what's going on and what has them worried or concerned. It's huge. Just that actual practice, I think, has a tremendous effect on the client that's calling in. Yeah, the difference between saying, I've heard this before and I've seen this before is I've seen this before is a higher level of expertise. I've heard a lot of things in my life, but I haven't seen everything.

14:30 And with restoration, you've seen a lot. Oh, I've seen this before. We can handle this. And now the additional piece as you're seeing all this is as a business owner, now I can see not just what the customer's seeing, I can also see how my team is responding, right? Oh, hey, next time you're in that situation, let's ask this question, or let's say that. There's a level of accountability. So when the operational team starts to see what the salesperson offered, Hey, we don't sell world peace. We can restore, but we can't actually restore peace to the Middle East here. All right. So we want to keep everybody accountable and prepared as we talked about for what they're walking into. I think the other thing that this creates just in terms of leveling up our businesses, when our intake person, our dispatcher, receptionist, whatever name we've given them, uses a system like this, imagine the empathy.

15:22 Mm-hmm. that over time develops within them as they take calls. Because most of our receptionists and dispatchers have never had experience in the field, most of them. So they have really no idea what we do in an experiential way. So imagine after a few months of using this tool with all their call intake and they've seen dozens and depending on the size of your business, if not hundreds of actual affected, damage affected areas with the customer talking through it and so forth. Just imagine how that increases your admin team's connection, empathy and connection to the work that's being done and their ability to help people.

16:03 sort of bring down the emotional volatility of the client to calm them, to settle them, to build trust, right? Okay, so we don't have two hours for this. This is kind of our first time dipping the toe in the water. Talk to us about this other use case, sales materials, leave behind. How can a restoration company or home services company leverage the live switch platform for sales, marketing, upselling, cross-selling, getting that second, third Yeah, let's talk about how it's done today. So how it's done today is if someone's experiencing loss and needs some help getting things restored, they go probably either, if they ask a friend, if they even bother to do that, so referrals, obviously.

16:46 So that's one way that lead can come in. Next, they're just going to Google, you know, restoration near me. And then they're going to look for the one with the highest number of stars, probably. and they're going to place a phone call or go on the website and get help now. And then that's where the experience we were just talking about happens. So that's still going to happen. What we're going to try to do is get ahead of that. We want to try to box Google out. I actually don't want somebody to ever Google restoration near me. I want to go claim property. So if I know here's the neighborhoods, here's a part of town that I want to work, I want to start putting QR codes on property. So the thing that the airline industry has done well for us is onboarded QR codes to where everybody's now, you can't even board the plane without having a QR code.

17:34 So let's put a QR code on property. And this allows not just to have your brand, your phone number, but now a QR code that somebody can scan and leave a video of the issue or scan and live video call. We call it wall to call. And this can be put on magnets, three by fives, stickers. So if you've gone and you've done work... Claim your property. Claim your territory just like a dog. Claim your property, right? And that way, even if a new family or tenant moves in, oh, I guess this is my restoration company or this is my plumber. See, my plumbers are putting it on water heaters. My HVAC guys are putting it on the air units.

18:16 My electricians are on the breaker box. And over and over, we're putting QR codes around property for convenience. I literally had my roofer placed two years ago. I can't remember the name of my roofer. So if my neighbor's like, great roof, who did that? I don't know. I don't know. So you want to start in thoughtful places. It can be on a garage door, it can be on a window, it can be a magnet on a fridge. And the technology now allows a customer to scan the QR code, take a video, it'll upload, your team can review it and call and say, yep, I've looked at what you're experiencing. Here's what we're going to do. Or hey, can I send you a text now? You missed a few things, can you show me?

18:56 Now the QR code is linked to that customer's data. So the customer doesn't have to input, this is Sally Jones, here's my number. It already is pre-populated with that customer account. So the video just creates a video instance. It prompts them, I imagine, with a message on the screen, hey, you know, video, an example of what you're dealing with. They hit submit, and then it pops into an inbox within the platform. And then the team can look at them like, oh, okay, we have a perforated supply line. This gal has, we got a water damage in a kitchen. And then they assign it to technicians. Technicians respond. They can look at the video themselves, just like the previous example we talked about.

19:38 Yeah. And now with the technicians on site, they can even use the QR code to document progress, to do a before and after, to document and do a customer testimonial. So now that you're thinking in the terms of your cameras on your phone, you're going to find that you're going to weave live and recorded video from end to end in everything you do, even in follow-up. Imagine you're done, customer calls back, hey, what did you do here? Now you send them the text and show, yeah, this is how you adjust your thermostat. This is what we did there. Save that additional trip in the truck because at your time and effort, especially on simple follow-up. So you'll see it everywhere. But yeah, anyway, to your point, these QR codes can be used operationally as well.

20:20 That's a huge point though, the saving the trip back out to do something silly potentially when we ignore those things, right? The story in the head builds with our client, dissatisfaction begins. But the reason we're kind of dragging our feet a little bit is because I'm going to send somebody at my cost two hours across town to do XYZ. and this has the huge potential of just equipping the owner. Yeah, simply just switch that breaker back. Like, oh, yep, this is what happened. Or this is cool. Okay, what about training? Are people already beginning to leverage this as some more live feedback, let's say, to the team? We already have thousands and thousands of users and hundreds and hundreds of people all over the world using this.

21:02 We train people in five minutes. If you know how to send a text, you know how to use our stuff. Like literally, this is not a big change management. We're not implementing a new CRM here. You literally just can put in, and we're linked to different CRMs already. Like we're under the hood of Service Titan, Simpro, Jobber. So you might already be under the hood there already. And so you already have your data. But even if we don't have your data, we have places that you can just click a button and go. It's, again, back to wanting to be the jitterbug. I don't just want to be the jitterbug for your end user. I want to be the easiest software that your team ever uses. And that's typically what we hear from our customers. This is the simplest software I've ever used. I've had people literally purchase this in the morning, train in the afternoon, and use it that same afternoon.

21:48 And AnswerForce. We tend not to give the attention to our call intake that I think we really ought to have as restorers. And of course, one of the biggest challenges we have with our call intake, whether it's an in-house receptionist or a service like AnswerForce, is what do you do when your receptionist goes out to lunch? Well, AnswerForce makes that very easy to solve for, right? They're 24-7. You have a receptionist or a call intake person that's out for maternity leave, out on vacation, etc., etc. AnswerForce has a solution to all of those things. And I think, too, it also solves for us having a very consistent, repeatable call intake process. We all know how important that is. 100%. And the cool thing is actually we just hung out with these guys and they let us know, let us in on some big feature updates that have recently been pushed through the system.

22:33 So first, verified contacts, right? So verified contacts, basically it allows the system to understand that this is a repeat caller. And then it allows them to auto capture and fill those details as part of the intake process. So smoother, more professional intake, much easier to kind of give that client that impression that, hey, this isn't the first time you've called. Right? Yeah. And we'll listen to the rest of these sets because I think they're super applicable to our commercial opportunities. So specialized scripting. Okay. This is great because this is everything from holiday shifts after hour shifts. I mean, you name it. There's different reasons, right? Or different layers of the cake, if you will, just based on what's going on in terms of call volume, what's going on time of day. And so with specialized scripting, the script then will match that.

23:16 And so it's shifting live, if you will, along with that kind of richer context of what's actually happening. I'm going to go back to that repeat client or that key client or customer. We now can associate a specific phone number to them. And so what happens is they get received. very uniquely, right? So I can imagine creating a custom script for that client. We now can recognize a repeat caller and autofill and speed up their intake. And then on top of that, there's a specialized number that's dedicated to them. So you really get to marry up that professional service offering, right? That we're promising, if you will, during the prospect And right from the jump, if you've got a commercial client with specific needs or specific expectations, build that into the script at call intake.

24:05 Yeah, it's super powerful, super powerful. Another one is just access to information wherever you are. So I don't know how many of you are already currently using AnswerForce. You should take it seriously in terms of getting a demo and checking them out. But if and when you shift over to them as a partner, the cool thing is now is that you've got access to all this data, all this information on the go from anywhere on your mobile device. And so... You can literally check inbound, outbound calls. You can listen to recordings. Actively coach the team kind of like midstream, right? And so again, just a ton of efficiency, a ton of automation and just higher levels of customization coming out of AnswerForce. And it is so stinking affordable.

24:45 This isn't just for big, multi-million dollar companies. This is for you that's still working out of your home shop, your garage. And it's also for you that are running a $25 million operation with four locations. It's just, it's pretty extraordinary. They work with some of the biggest companies in our industry and many of the smallest ones as well. Okay. Actionable. So guys, we have talked about our friendship and relationship to these guys for a long time. Many of you know, in the recent probably year and over the last several months, just this hyper focus on the efficiency and quality of our team. Thank you.

25:46 that you've really taken into full account all the individual elements and line items associated with this element of the scope that you're trying to accomplish. And I'm not going to highlight any specific teams, but we have heard robust numbers from teams using this. We're hearing anything from 5%, 6%, even 8% top line growth, specifically from the quality of their estimates increasing. I remember when they rolled this out to you that one of the use cases or part of the value that they were trying to hit on is the ability for us to bring up a new estimator quickly up to the standard and competency and the results ultimately of the more experienced estimators on the team, right?

26:26 So this is an incredible onboarding and training tool to get somebody up to where they're very, very competent and producing quality estimates just that much faster. Way faster. And just one last thing I kind of want to hyperindex on is they have just an absolute boatload of white papers and F9 supporting notes. And so this is something that you could participate in being a member with Actionable Insights. But guys, we all know that getting our estimates approved in that negotiation phase is hard right now. It just feels like every carrier is significantly understaffed. They're fighting for error. We're fighting for error. And anything we can do to reduce that friction is better. And so the better we are at providing really good support for what we're calling out and our scope and why we're calling for it, the better.

27:11 And so these white papers, these F9 support notes are super powerful. Man, it's been a little while, but we've been kind of refueling the relationship with CNR quite a bit lately. And that's been good, man. I think both teams got so dang busy. We had a tough time kind of locking in and getting some face time together. But the team over at CNR has been great for our industry, you guys. You know, we've often referred to Michelle as a friend of the industry. She really is keyed in on giving us what we need in terms of tools, communication, intel on the industry. And so we just continue to encourage you guys, participate, make sure that you're receiving your quarterly copies and that you're getting all the online content that just comes in boatloads from their team.

27:53 So CNR Magazine, guys, pay attention, make sure that you're participating and getting your intel from their team as well. Liftify, bro. Yeah. Liftify, you know, it's interesting. Yesterday, I was just seeing one of our clients was getting awarded their 750 Google Review trophy. And they were already talking about hitting 1,000. 1,000. That's right. Which somebody has done. Yes. One of our clients has done. It's remarkable. And I think the most remarkable thing that people are discovering, and we're seeing this every single day with our clients, is that when you start upping the volume of Google reviews you're getting consistently week after week, the recency, when you're getting the recency dialed in and just meaning every week you're adding Google reviews to your profile, dramatic jumps in organic reviews.

28:41 phone calls and lead gen. And of course, who doesn't want that? Every single one of us, including Floodlight, we want that. And that's why we've indexed on, we use Liftify to build up our Google reviews. So it's a simple turnkey service. They've really created a process for capturing the most quality Google reviews from the jobs that you're already getting. So if you want to get more work... grow your revenue just off of the existing work you're already getting. Liftify is a big part of how to do that. And it's simple. It's very, very cost effective. From our experience with Liftify and what we've seen with our clients, significantly better value and better results than many of the other platforms that some of you might already be trying.

29:21 So if you're not happy with the number of Google reviews you're getting, you need to reach out to Liftify. And I think as a point of reference, it's worth us saying. Liftify expects 20% to 25% conversion. So think about that within your own numbers. If you're doing 1,000 jobs a year, you should be adding 200 to 250 Google reviews to your profile every single year. If you're performing under that, you owe it to yourself to reach out to liftify.com forward slash floodlight. You know, one last thing to add to that as part of their kind of more recent integration of AI or advancing that integration of AI, one of the big focuses for their team is gathering more information live project data and analytics for you guys. And so really what this is focused on is equipping all of us to create better customer experiences.

30:06 So not only are they keyed in and driving Google reviews for us, but now they've actually turned the corner and began developing toolkits for us that use Liftify to actually be getting information that can help us modify our service delivery to create better client experiences. Super powerful. Midstream. We're talking mid-job, yeah. Wow. Super powerful. All right, liftify.com. All right, guys. Thanks for hanging out with us. Let's get back to the show. One of the biggest challenges with our companies is we hire new talent. And really, it's this race, right? It's the dance between how long do you keep them out of the field to equip them properly? And then we're all kind of biting our lip because we're spending money and it's not producing any revenue, right?

30:51 And so there's this push to get people out into the field. Are you hearing people using, leveraging this tech to create faster training or on the job training and shrinking that timeframe between when somebody is now producing or carrying their weight? You know what I mean? Yep. So now everything's being recorded. Every interaction, all the documentation, pre-post, everything. You're going to have an entire library. We have unlimited storage. You can't dime us out. We power some of the largest governments and other things that our company does. So you can use it and abuse it in all the right ways. But you can even go and tag certain videos. There's a little meta tag, training. This is training, training.

31:31 Oh, this would be good training. I want everyone to see this, future people. So then when those new people are onboarded, They've got tons of videos to watch and it's real world from your company experience, not some thing you paid that is a mockumentary of the work. This is real work that our team really did. And this is how we like to do it. This is gold standard of how we follow up or gold standard, how we document or gold standard of how we do customer testimonials. So you've got it all and it's saved indefinitely for you. So yeah, that's how it's being used. You might not be able to actually give us any details on this, but are you guys talking to any of the software solutions that are more native to the restoration side of the...

32:14 Of the fence? Yes, but we're not waiting. Okay, so we're already under the hood of a number of large names and small. We have very small boutique names and homemade. So what we've recently created to say, hey, look, it doesn't even matter now. We're going to make it so easy. We don't even have to be in it. Now we've got the Zapier integrations, all the other integrations. But the latest thing we added is in your Google Chrome browser, We have an extension that you can just log into and it will read whatever it's looking at. And so since all CRMs are in the browser now, it'll just read it and it'll put a little live switch L next to a phone number and you tap it. So my point is we're going to find all the different ways, including full integration as well.

32:59 We're always trying to find more and more ways to, wherever you're working from, that's our whole point. Like we have QR codes, we have it so you can tap on a tablet, we have a text to connect, we have one where you can put it on your website and the customer can tap it and instantly your support rep pops up right there on your web browser without even having to leave to go to a different platform. So we're always thinking about just meet the person where they're at. You know, a couple of things. We, our industry as a whole is really making a pretty strong pivot into commercial selling, B2B sales, selling to chief engineers and facility managers, plant managers, all this kind of stuff. And one of the key things I guess, sales tools is an emergency response plan or emergency readiness plan.

33:44 This is where we go in and we tour the buildings. We document all the shutoffs, the utility shutoffs, access points, et cetera, et cetera, as a value-added service for that property manager or building owner, et cetera. Well, imagine... For those people in our industry that do this stuff, imagine as part of your ERP process that you create a small vinyl placard that lives in the key areas of that building or on that property campus or in every chief engineer's office at each location to where when they have an issue, all they have to do is scan the QR code on that placard.

34:24 It's already tied to their customer information. It must be the easiest thing Client reporting mechanism that any service vendor offers to their clients. I mean, it's just so easy because it Packages the context of the need with it It's asynchronous so that chief engineer at 2 a.m. in the morning or 5 a.m. When they first get into the office, they see a note on their desk. No problem. They scan the code They create a work order ticket with their, you know, restoration company and Restoration company already has all the contextual information they need. It just shortens that customer response. It's perfect for commercial accounts and ERPs and incredible value add and differentiator.

35:07 That's right. And as they come in, you just mark it as their, we call it a project, but as that potential customer. So then every time it's come in, you've got an entire file from end to end of any time they've put an order in. And now you've got exactly what time it came in, when and what it is. Okay, question for you. You can tell Chris and I are excited when we're fighting for mic time. One of the things that we're doing or that we help our clients with is sales support, sales leadership. You know, kind of the biggest frustration that a lot of clients have is they just struggle to teach their salespeople. They struggle to give them enough time and attention. They struggle to, you know, people have a tough time transitioning from where you're selling a widget or a contract to do X.

35:51 And then they come into our space and that sales process is a little more gray. Are you guys seeing case scenarios where we can use something like this to record the cold call, as an example, and, you know, And then now our leader, instead of actually being in the car and creating some of the nervousness that comes with them being on performance for me because I'm standing next to them. Like, are people using this to review what the team did in the field and iterate on competency through it? Yeah, this is your instant replay, right? This is your accountability. So everything's being recorded. So not only can you help that salesperson, hey, here's a couple of questions we like to ask, or hey, why don't you watch a gold standard?

36:33 Here's a gold standard one here, and they can A-B test them, right? In addition, all the operational team is watching these videos because they want to watch them even at 2x speed what they've been asked to do. They serve as another accountability point. Hey, you're doing great with this, that, and the other, but just remember, we don't do this, that. This is how I'd recommend you position this. And then you're also starting to put the right people on the right seats on the bus. You also have folks that are great at actually doing the restoration, but not good at customer success, customer service. So what our teams are doing is arming those folks with simple little tablets, like little Google or Apple tablets, that they can walk into and say, hey, I'm going to go get started on the restoration.

37:16 I'm going to connect you back with your customer success agent. Say this, hit the go button and back to the customer success agent. And that way you can tell that team, and maybe even if that team English isn't a first language, you're saying no longer do you have to worry about upselling things. too much interface with the customer. You are hired to restore and you over here are hired to sell and make our customers incredibly happy. And the last piece of this is now that you've got all this virtual connection, you are expanding your opportunity to hire globally. Right. So maybe you're in the high rent district. Well, you can start hiring some of your dispatch in the low rent district, or maybe you're interested in more 24 seven. Well, there's wonderful staff you could be hiring in the Philippines or South Africa.

37:59 I literally just interviewed someone who runs an eight figure business and their head of sales is in Poland and their 37 salespeople are in South Africa. So if you've been banging your head against the wall, finding that right salespeople, maybe you need to just open your mind to hiring from anywhere in the world and finding that talent or even taking that talent from somebody that you're not even direct competition with. This is really interesting. I mean, I think for some of us, right, this would require the old think out of the box bones to follow through on this. But this is... This is really interesting. The options that it potentially arms us with to make some different choices where I think many of us feel a little cornered or stuck.

38:40 One of the things that you just brought up that I think is interesting is we do have a lot of operators that work potentially or serve these communities where people, there's no labor force available in them because it's only retirees. It's only high net worth folks that live in that community. So then finding a way to even potentially help them in some cases, this could be it. It's not the solution for everything, but it could be a way to mitigate that struggle or that friction point. This is super interesting. It's pretty cool. Okay, so let's recap here what we've talked about. Because I know there's some other use cases and examples and functionality of this software, but to me, those two functions are just far and away the most attractive.

39:25 So we talked about creating a much more rich platform and contextual call intake experience where it puts the customer at ease, helps them feel seen, understood. By the time they hang up, they're like, okay, this company knows exactly what my problem is. They're sending people to help me. It's a very rich experience. And then secondarily, there's a lead gen component of how do I like, I love how you said that, claim your territory, right? And whether that's a commercial space or a residential home of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, like putting that QR code and then being able to scan that and immediately create a video file of the need that they have.

40:06 Company receives that with all the customer data already. Super, super frictionless. second sale, third sale, fourth sale opportunity. What does this cost? What's the investment for a company to deploy this? Does every receptionist need a separate license? Does each company buy one subscription to this? And then what's the cost? Yeah, so we approach it a little different. You will not buy this for everyone in your company. You really will just buy this for some of your sales folks and maybe an operational. It's kind of like Netflix. You have licenses. But there's other things that we do that don't require a license. Like if you put a QR code up on property for your operational team to do before and after, all they're doing is scan a QR code.

40:48 They don't need to be a user. those videos can just come into the central spot. And we're talking per user per day is like five bucks a day. It's nominal. Like we are, because we have such a broad audience, I mean, we're in painting, power washing, electricians, property management. Like we can offer it at quite affordable rates because we're more about volume rather than like, hey, we're only doing restoration. So then we got to jack up the price because restoration is our only industry and we better milk it for all it's worth, not what we do. We want to put this in your hands at an affordable rate and you're not locked in. There's even 60-day money back guarantees. We give you all your money back if you try to implement it. We're not in it for short term and we're definitely not in it to milk it for every...

41:31 I know we're just a little bit weird. It's amazing. We try to keep it simple and affordable and easy to use. Shocking. Somebody wanted to deploy it just for these two use cases we described, right? They might have a small company, 15, 20 employees, a few million dollars in sales. They have a single receptionist that's full-time that does all the call intake. We're talking $160 a month? Yeah, at the most. Yeah, that's it. $160 a month, yeah. Okay, okay. Wow. No hardware to buy. No, no apps, no hardware. Yeah. No, we're just taking advantage of what's already in everybody's pocket. Okay, we got to ask the question. What is the number one pushback or fear that somebody has told you?

42:14 What's the top right objection before buying and adopting the idea? Yeah, your current staff didn't ask to be on camera, right? They don't want to adapt. They don't want to brush your hair in the morning or put on the uniform, right? And hey, that's the only difference. Yeah. Well, none of our listeners would have that mindset. That's right. That's right. These are all top tier operators only. We all show up as pros. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense to me. I mean, because it's kind of like that place you got to go. Because I think for most people who are listening right now, there's at least some of us that are going, okay, first, I'm probably or likely that there's an opportunity for some pushback from my team. The whole like, oh, now big brother, right?

42:56 Like big brother, oh man, are we corporate now? So I think we need to just think through that and kind of, I'd love to hear... some of the feedback that you have for that or some of the conversations you've had with users around that. And then I think the other thing, James, that comes to my mind is what's happening on the client side? So obviously in a scenario, somebody's accepting, yes, I'm willing to allow this thing to be recorded. Otherwise, I won't click the text. But do people fully understand what's about to happen in terms of how much of that space, that environment is being recorded? Those two scenarios, talk me through those a little bit. Yep. So when they click on a text, there is a safety feature that says allow the camera, which they can deny.

43:39 Right. So the first thing is I'm allowing you access. Yes. And then your team is in control of recording. We auto start the recording. But if for some reason the person's like, you can't record me, you can instantly turn it off. Like we have some military situations like that. And in addition, every session can be deleted if needed. And in addition, everything is SOC 2 certified. SOC 2 certification is extremely hard to get. And it's because we deal with like Department of Defense. So everything is fully encrypted. The nature of WebRTC, which is a nerdy thing under the hood that... us and only a few other companies in the world do is extremely safe for that. So we go to the nth degree to make that happen. Now that said, if someone's just not going to be willing to do it, they're not doing, well, then you can just go back to the way you've been doing it for 20 years.

44:26 The thing is, what we always hear is like, James, we went from never doing something like this and always driving out to always doing something like this and then driving out whenever we had to. So you see that change. And then, of course, the Big Brother effect is... Okay, I get that. Like as a salesperson, as an operator, as an employee, you get a little worried until the shoe goes on the other foot. When the customer blames you for damage you didn't do that was pre-existing or work that they thought they heard you said you were going to do, but you never quoted for. Well, now you can check the instant replay and protect your staff. So you have to remind your team, this is to keep you safe.

45:08 Yeah. This is to keep us safe. This is to keep our customers safe. This is also to keep everybody, you know, accountable. This is, this is for the safety of everybody. Yeah. And so once you start reframing that and when it becomes more normative, there's an addiction to it. And can you imagine watching the NFL with no instant replay? I, Yeah, right. It's going to be the same thing with your business. You won't imagine, how did I run this without seeing all this? And it'll level everybody up because when you can't see something, you're blind. But once you've shined light on the issue, now we can enhance every part of our business. One of the things that we refer a lot of people to is conducting an after-action review, right? Just pick a handful of jobs on a monthly basis and just do a deep dive on how things went and how they were aligned or not aligned with your standard or your process.

45:54 It's quite an event. And it seems like something like this could even take something like a practice like that, take it to the next level and make it much more easy to adopt and have a full picture of what happened versus the he said, she said situation. we can actually just see very much in real time what actually took place, what was the experience on both sides, and what could we do moving forward to make it better or get back into alignment with the standard that we've set as a team. Powerful, powerful, powerful. And it's the little things that layer in that create incredible buy-in. Like when one of your staff doesn't have to drive out at 7 p.m. and leave the dinner table, when they could just do it virtually and make the customer happy.

46:36 Or when your project manager was able to put eyes on a project, you know, two hour drive away and show the junior tech, hey, this is what we need to be doing. When that person makes a virtual sale, then it's like, you know, it's that that really locks it in when it makes it real for somebody. freaking cool man this is cool i can tell now why there was so much excitement at what tom when you guys shared what was going on i mean i saw multiple social media it was either social media maybe some of the input back from you guys but it sounded like it certainly created a bit of a fire so now i'm starting to put the pieces together it's pretty cool it's pretty cool super powerful Well, James, I imagine this won't be the last time you're on the show.

47:18 I think as you guys continue to develop a presence in the restoration space, and obviously you're already making waves in the other home service verticals, we'll want to have you back on to talk about the tech and stories and stuff that are coming out of the field. Has he met Zach yet? I don't think so. We're going to need to intro you to Zach, the founder of Liftify. Based on some of the stuff that they currently have and works under the hood. Yeah, it's interesting. There might be some points of intersection. Two guys doing some really killer stuff for us. So I think that'd be a good intro. And then people want to find out more information, right? Can we send them to, this show won't come out for probably two, three weeks, but liveswitch.com forward slash floodlight, right?

48:01 They want more information? Absolutely, absolutely. And then they can always reach out to me direct through LinkedIn, or even if you go right to Live Switch and just say, hey, I want to talk to James. I heard about you from floodlight. And that way anyone listening will come and get me. You'll come and get me. I won't even send anyone else. I'll make sure all the listeners right here at floodlight can talk directly to me. That's sweet, man. Right on. I love it. Right on. Are you going to close us with a song? I see a guitar. No, I'm just kidding. We won't. Did you see how fast he was about to take us up? Yeah. It's a true performer right there. I know, right? Hey, dude. Thanks, man. This is something serious for us all to take into consideration. This is a game changer for sure. I'm pretty blown away, actually.

48:43 Yeah. Psyched. Okay. Okay. Till next time, everybody. Yeah. Thanks for hanging with us. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.