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Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Rewiring Our Mission: (Electricpreneur Secrets)
Helping Electricians Achieve the $1M Service Van so they can experience ultimate control over their futures.
Join Clay Neumeyer & Joseph Lucanie for a new electrifying episode & High-amperage action item each week to spark up your service van sales to $50K, $70K, $100K, $150K months, and beyond!
Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Ep 18 - Power Moves: Mastering Generator Service Strategies with Travis Terrebonne
Unlock the secrets to a thriving generator service business with our latest episode, where we promise you'll learn how to sustain success by prioritizing maintenance contracts over sheer installation numbers. We journey through the unique landscape of the generator market, explaining why specialized service and rapid response are more lucrative than the traditional models seen in HVAC and plumbing. By keeping a manageable customer base and charging a premium for service contracts, your business can not only ensure quality but also cleverly capitalize during emergencies.
Join us as we delve into the inspiring brand story of Gen Gators Power Systems, a company born from the trials of Hurricane Ida. Experience the transition from oil and gas sales to championing the residential generator market, crafting a brand deeply rooted in Gulf Coast culture. Through personal tales of resilience, including navigating a 48-day power outage and the destruction of a business facility, we explore the importance of expertise and commitment to community service in times of crisis. You'll be inspired by stories of perseverance, responsibility, and the critical role of standby generators in community resilience.
Finally, we reveal effective strategies for business success, highlighting the transformative power of self-awareness and the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Featuring insights from industry leaders like Nick from NV Electrical, discover how embracing a 'Blue Ocean Strategy' and fostering relationships with regulatory bodies can propel your business forward. We also discuss the essentials of technician training and upselling, ensuring superior service and customer satisfaction. Don't miss our engaging discussions on disaster response strategies and the alpha, a-player mentality that drives excellence.
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Really, man, just let's go.
Speaker 2:Just nerd out. It would be a pretty good instrument to take my point of view on electricians that choose not to do it versus. You know, there are days when we market our business against whole home service companies HVAC, plumbing, electric and I'll tell you, the differentiating factor, I believe, when selling generators is the maintenance, the service and the rapid level of response, because you do not know what you're made of as a generator company until you hit a widespread, elongated outage. I'll turn my calendar right here. That whiteboard was from our session this morning with my leadership team Because if you pay attention to the HVAC industry, their membership model is fading really fast because it was a lead magnet. It was a lead magnet to get a sales technician into the home to upsell a coil, a thermostat, a cleaning.
Speaker 2:What I saw in the generator place is I'm not going to devalue my maintenance contract, I'm going to make this the center point of my business. Agreed, I'm going to do that by. There's this I'm going to say because we're on a podcast, this appendage measuring contest in the generator space of how many installs did you do this year and how many maintenance contracts do you have? Well, I'm looking at my board and check this out. So I know a lot of generator companies that have between 1,000 and 5,000 service contracts that they charge three to 350 bucks for. Well, that's 350K of ARR. I have one third of the amount of contracts, but I charge $1,000 a year.
Speaker 2:What I do is I provide a tremendous amount of value in my membership, which I'll be glad to share with anybody value in my membership which I'll be glad to share with anybody and when a widespread outage hits, I have a few hundred customers in an area to worry about, versus 6,000. And, honestly, what that allows me to do is pick up the failed service agreements from every one of my competitors when a widespread outage hits. So I have capacity to grow, whereas a lot of other people trying to grow in volume, they don't have capacity to succeed in providing emergent response and they don't have capacity to grow. I know service companies out there right now that have 5,000 service contracts. They have five technicians.
Speaker 2:There's no possible way Explain that Even at a 2% failure rate which is across the board for every electromechanical equipment or device in the world, 2% is going to fail. 2% of 5,000 generators is way too much for you to tackle with five service techs with no electricity and everybody's out of power. I want to be able to take my install teams, our processes, they're cross-trained and we immediately pause installs. We deploy those assets into our triage unit and we go start vulturing up maintenance contracts from everybody charging a cheap price.
Speaker 3:So can I just say I fucking love this guy Like right off the bat.
Speaker 1:First F-bomb of the podcast. Here we go. I'm sorry, my bad Travis.
Speaker 3:the thing is, is what you're saying almost feels like a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 3:Because, the reason why I feel like it's such a fresh breath there is. I actually started an HVAC as well and I started with those multi-trade companies where the only reason they did generators was to support the HVAC in the plumbing, where it was like, well, we have a slow season, let's do generators during those things, and hey, we can have our plumbers do the gas line and we'll even have the HVAC guys do the sizing. But then the concern comes down to. It's like if you're not a specialist, there's no justification. The customer has to choose and invest more with you than it is for a big box operation Like I agree you should charge a premium for your service because it needs multiple visits.
Speaker 3:There are so many specialty components to check, but even your ability of preventing their downtime any specialty components to check, but even your ability of preventing their downtime, like I know I could be a parts changer and it'll take me three days and $3,000 in material to fix this generator. Or I could be a specialist, know what I'm looking for be able to identify the exact critical component, have it stocked and be able to properly get this done and then be able to transmit to my next customer and sell a maintenance agreement. At the same time, tell me where you lose yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to hopefully share some things in here from that perspective that will change the game. I hope to give some secrets to somebody out there trying to build value in a maintenance plan without increasing man hours or operating costs. I'll give you an example, Part of one of the things we're rolling out and training right now. Two things I'm sure you guys heard of CompanyCam by now. If you're not using CompanyCam, get with the program because I'm going to give you some key features on how to add value. So we do maintenance trips okay, and we'll beat around the bush and get trickle-down effect on install maintenance. But this is my heart. I started this business. I'm a diesel mechanic by trade.
Speaker 2:I'm not a licensed electrician I worked on 2,000 KW generators before I ever touched to 20 KW. So the idea is I had to learn to become a home service professional. I was already a generator professional, but I was not a home service. So as we built up our maintenance contract, maintenance program, membership ours is set up in three ways. We do it like the hurricanes. Our category one plan is our one time a year visit. You have an option to pay up front or pay by the month. I like the monthly payment because it amortizes your reoccurring revenue. I don't need to be rich in January and poor in December. I would rather have a consistent amount of turn my ARR into MRR because monthly reoccurring revenue allows my business to be more even keel than we operate off of two, three, 400K of cash coming in the door at the beginning of the year or maybe more, and then having to make a business.
Speaker 2:Absolutely what our generator business. Honestly, we should all be striving to a point where our recurring revenue covers our operating expenses throughout the year and all of your new sales and installations. So I like to look at it as an 80-20. 80% of my revenue is going to come from new sales, upsells, repairs and installations. 20% is going to come from maintenance and I use that 80-20 rule everywhere. I'm going to spend 80% of my effort selling new product and selling the maintenance contract. I'm going to spend 20% of my effort on selling the maintenance contract because it sells itself.
Speaker 2:So the one plan is 45 bucks a month, our entry level. We do not touch you for less than 500 bucks a year. I'm not even interested in it. I've done the time study. I won't roll a truck for less than 320 bucks. Our technicians in our L10 meetings they have a KPI to meet. They have an average ticket KPI. Our maintenance guys even though a customer would pay their maintenance membership in January, they choose to pay one price. Well, even if they're on a three-visit plan, then they have an average ticket of about $330 every time they roll that truck. And when we get their KPI numbers, their average ticket has to be above $350, because that means somewhere somehow you upsold something. So then we rolled a Category 2, $65 a month, sold something. Then we roll to category two 65 a month, $729 a year, two visits we go to category three.
Speaker 3:we go major, minor winterization slash, cosmetic Interesting. What do you include in your winterization system? Is that the cold weather protection system? Or you're also doing the oil? What exactly are you doing?
Speaker 2:to enhance it. Winter kills batteries right.
Speaker 2:So, we're going to test the charger. We're going to test the battery, even though it was functional on the last test. We're going to test these things and typically for us, you have to know when your outage season is. Our outage season runs from July to November 1. So when I go into a winterization it's actually a post-outage follow-up visit. So I will share the document with you guys.
Speaker 2:But here's where I was going in the beginning. This is the coolest thing. How do I add value to the service contract without adding man hours? My guy is already there.
Speaker 2:Well, we're now doing FLIR camera inspections. You can buy a $300 forward-facing infrared camera adapter. Go on Amazon. It's 300 bucks. Assign one to every technician. Then we will not give them to the technician until we've built a video SOP, a written transcribed SOP, and we conduct our foundational Friday training.
Speaker 2:Every Friday morning at 7 am we do training. It's either I'm doing the training, one of my leaders are doing the training, or we bring in an outside company to train on something. We had a 8-1-1 dig. Come out and do a class with our guys last Friday, but we did the flare camera. Do a class with our guys last Friday, but we did the FLIR camera. What my guys needed and what electricians need from their CEO and leader is I did a survey with my technicians Does everybody know what a FLIR camera is? Everybody answered unequivocally yes, I understand. Do you understand how it could add value to the homeowner? About 50%. Do you understand the language on how to sell a FLIR camera service as added value? 90% said no. The language is it is a predictive heat sensing tool to prevent downtime due to failures, not what it is, what it does, bingo.
Speaker 2:What it does and how to sell it. So you plug it into their tablet, the in-home consultants using it on the sales guide. How beneficial would it be to me to film their existing panel? If there is a loose lug on THHN it's going to show up hot. I can follow the entire gas line. I can follow the entire conduit. I can go to the generator in a stopped position. I can film. It is going to get all the connections for me and I'm going to have that logged into company cam. It's going to save into their profile and when I test run the generator I'm going to flare the generator, the lines and the transfer switch in a running methodology Physically open the control board.
Speaker 3:Check it out.
Speaker 2:Check your t3s absolutely impressive.
Speaker 1:All right, not only it's also going to catch a differentiation in v-twin cylinder temperature. How valuable is that? Okay, now we're in the diesel mechanic mode here guys, I have to. I have to call a time out because I need to properly introduce our guest here. He clearly is right here with us here to provide value. Travis, you're on the right podcast. That's all we do here. So, to our guests, our listeners, our viewers, please welcome Travis Terabond. Did I say that? Right, travis? I want to make sure.
Speaker 1:I got your name right. Thank you very much. Travis has been doing big things with generators specifically. If you're watching, you can see behind him Kohler generators. I have a feeling we're going to get into that, but is it just? You've been at it two years now, travis. Is that right with GenGators?
Speaker 2:I've been in the blue collar space 20 years. I'm a first diesel shop in 2004. But I was recently asked for a trailing 12 financials and I just graduated to the point where GenGators Power Systems LLC can provide 12 months trailing financials. So we at the end of this year will make our first full year where we exited completely the diesel engine industry and are 80 percent resi, 20 percent light commercial standby and prime power only.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, and there's some big reasons, as you guys could tell. I mean, travis doesn't speak like someone with just a year of experience in service, in generators or even in electrical, and you're going to see more of these insights for someone who's quickly grown to what? 5 million in sales Is that?
Speaker 2:right Almost the past 5 million. If December goes like I think it's going to, be Amazing, amazing stuff.
Speaker 1:I know. The first time Travis and I connected, it turned into a two-hour phone call. I thought we were going to become pen pals in the whole night. It was too much so we had to stop. We knew we had to do a podcast and that brings you guys up to speed with what it is we're doing here today, which is pulling the curtain back on some of the industry's leading principles, foundations for your generator service and stuff that you guys could take action on. And, of course, at the end of this you're going to be a far better electrician, a better generator and install and maintenance technician. But as well, I have a feeling Travis will also share some key insights and even contact info to be able to connect with him in the various ways. So thank you guys for letting me do my segue. Travis, welcome. And this is just getting fired up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. I don't know how you guys want to do it, but I'll kind of start with our brand story and how we got here, love it and so the name of the company our generator company is Gen Gators Power Systems. I come from oil and gas business to business sales where for 20 plus years if you noticed in the industry having a professional stigma around your company name, like infinity Power Products or Legacy Power Systems or Industrial Power Systems, that was what really substantiated your brand. We were professionals. But what I noticed when I started dabbling into Resi is people want a brand story that sticks and resonates, that is fun and energetic and exciting. And so I laid in bed one night, maybe 20 nights, trying to think of my branding, how I was going to go to market, and I saw a lot of people in their generator business title have like something standby power or backup power or it's technically called a home standby generator or alternative energy. No one's typing any of that stuff into Google. They're typing in generator. I don't care where you're at In 50 states, you know what provides power. When the utility does, you know it's a generator. It definitely had to be GEN involved and I love Alligator really speaks to not only Louisiana but the Gulf Coast, which was my footprint, speaks to not only Louisiana but the Gulf Coast, which was my footprint. I really want to grow the business to follow what I call the SEC states, sec football states Texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama because those states' power outages mirror the same reason why I'm out of power. I have a close friend that runs a generator company in Maine. He's about to enter his best season. We're about to enter our slower season. So Jen Gators was about tangible asset in branding, and so I jumped in. The brand built the core values of the brand. Our core values are grip, growth, responsibility, impact and professionalism. I challenge everybody who thinks core values are stupid. I think you're stupid if you think that the word stupid's in the Bible, so don't call me some kind of narcissist, but I believe you have to use core values that really embody your brand and who you are as a business.
Speaker 2:We got started on the heels or aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Hurricane Ida swept through the Gulf Coast in 2021. We had a 48-day power outage in that area. Well, let me tell you what a 48-day power outage does from adverse perspective that you wouldn't normally think. It brings people back to simple form of life.
Speaker 2:However, what I did notice is that people who had standby generators were able to get out and help the community rebuild immediately. Their food was cold, their frozen food was frozen. Their house had running water, had hot water, had electricity. Home base was good. Let's go out and help the community. When home base is off you can't help. You got to get your house done. You got to get your home, your family, taken care of. So my family, because I had a standby generator, was not servicing them at the time. We got out and helped the community rebuild. All of my kids, my wife, my extended family, I had 17 family members living in my house. I had my 48 KW old liquid cool Generac 3600 RPM screaming demon even broke the fan pulley and I ran it for two days with a sprinkler and a box fan on the radiator. So like it made it. However, I was awoken to an entirely new way of life. We got out 48 hours. We're helping our community rebuild. We're handing out food from the Salvation Army, literally cutting trees out of people's homes.
Speaker 2:You couldn't even get a car on the road. There was no cell service and about three days in we get cell service and my brother and I are on a Polaris Ranger trying to make it to our shop because the road was impassable by car. We made it to our facility and it was demolished. My inventory was out in the parking lot. I mean, I have a picture that I'll never get rid of. I was standing behind my brother and his hands are on his head and his words were my God, what are we going to do? And my brother's been my right hand man since day one. My younger brother, I don't know, but God's got a plan.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it is going to be yet, but we'll figure it out. We head back home. We get about 300 foot up in the air on top of this overpass and you know how, when you get off a plane, your phone starts going ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. All the notifications start coming in at one time. Well, we had just got cell service and my phone started going absolutely nuts. Well, because I was five mile famous in the diesel power business, my DMs on social media to help with broken generics and home generators, and the police station and the fire station. People were texting me, messaging me. We know you got mechanics. Can you please help? Yes, sure, so my technicians are evacuated. They called me boss man. I saw my house. It's demolished. Do I have a job to come back to? Yes, but we're going to be working on generators for a long time. Come on back.
Speaker 2:I remember the first day that I condemned a 20 KW Generac. It was trash. I bought the unit from the homeowner who was in a bind for money. I gave them 500 bucks cash. They had no money, no bank, 48 days, no power, no internet. I gave the elderly couple 500 bucks. I said I'm going to buy this generator from them. Use the 500 bucks wisely. I'm going to rig up your portable. You'll be fine.
Speaker 2:I took the broken Generac, brought it to my house, put it in my garage and that's how we trained our technicians on that one unit. So that generator is a $5 million broken Generac essentially, and I at that point immediately went to work. Now I need to become the best home service professional in the business. I went to the HVAC industry, I went to YouTube, I started watching Ken Goodrich, tommy Mello, all of the people in the business who have built Fortune 500 or 100 type companies in the home service space. I got it. I had phone calls with guys like you, with private equity groups, and I built a rob and duplicate business plan. I stole everything that works for everybody.
Speaker 2:And then I took my ability to strategize and looked at all of the low-hanging fruit in the industry where we could really add value, and I built a company based on the strengths and weaknesses of an industry. Guys, that is absolutely only 20 years old. In 2005, you couldn't fit a 20kW Generac in the bed of a half-ton pickup truck, nor could you afford it. Katrina hit in 2005. Generacs built in 2001,. Two, three, four and five dude. Those things lasted the battle boxes. They lasted like freaking 15 years, the rectangular units.
Speaker 3:You couldn't kill them. You could not kill those things. I had a tree fall on one of them once. It still ran.
Speaker 2:It was dumb as hell. It had a rocker switch on it with a couple of lights and you just turned it on and off, couldn't kill it. Everything built in the States, unbelievable. But I don't care what mechanical, electrical or trades industry you get in if it's tractors, if it's automotive, if it's tractors, if it's automotive, if it's HVAC or electrical can you go back and tell me the date on when the industry went from its infancy stages and catapulted to where it's are now With generators? I can tell you the exact time. So we're building a business all of us who are doing generators around an industry that is 20 years old. That is the largest opportunity for tradesmen.
Speaker 2:If you tell me name one name who is the Superman of HVAC in the entire country? Most of us could come up with a name. Who is the Superman of garage doors in the entire country? We could come up with a name Electrical, hvac and plumbing. Who's the best generator guy in the country? Who's the authority on power generation in a residential space in the country? I saw it as a blank on a piece of page and I'm going to put my name in that box. So I'm going to begin to build authority through all of the social channels and change the game.
Speaker 1:And here we are. Can we go deeper on something here? Because you said something really important. You went through all the best service material you could find from all the biggest names who are putting their stuff out there every day, much like we do today Not saying that we're one of the greats, I wouldn't do that to my own name but we're putting stuff out there every day. How did you consume it, travis? What worked for you? Because clearly you present as someone who's been in business for yourself doing Gengators for 10 years. Plus, you seem to have all the strategies figured out. You've got this confidence, this air about you. So what was it that was in your cornflakes or whatever you have them for breakfast while you're consuming this material? Or what was your strategy for even consuming and then mirroring what you liked about what you consumed?
Speaker 2:Three things. One thing is, when you do things the wrong way for a long enough time, you develop a really good strategy of what does not work. And as business owners, our number one asset that we bring to our team in the marketplace is a deep, profound sense of self-awareness. You have to know what you suck at, you have to know what you're great at and you have to be able to hire for your weaknesses, find ways to obtain content. So this is the methodology that I feel like works for me. A lot of people know we run our company on EOS.
Speaker 2:I took in EOS and when women read books like Gone with the Wind back in the day, they cry. When I read Rocket Fuel as a 16-year business owner, I literally cried on the pages of the book because I realized that I'm a high visionary, low integrator, which means I have the greatest ideas but I have no ability to execute on them. So I had to bring. But a high visionary cannot just partner with any high integrator. I had to find a unicorn. I had to find somebody who can speak my visionary language and then apply it. So I read Rocket Fuel and I realized that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So I found an integrator who tested high in visionary who, when I said we're going to do this, didn't think are you absolutely nuts? He said I see the vision, I'll build the system, keep doing what you're doing. Going to do this? Didn't think. Are you absolutely nuts? He said I see the vision, I'll build the system, keep doing what you're doing. I got this.
Speaker 1:It sounds like a familiar joke.
Speaker 3:I literally was going to say it's a running joke is that Clay and I together make one functional human being. Absolutely, we complement each other's strengths and we support each other's weaknesses 100%.
Speaker 2:So the next thing was I'm going to mention a couple of people who are influential on how I found the content. If you're in sales or you want to be good in sales, you don't have to go buy a $50,000 program. Watch everything that Alex Harmozy has ever put on the market and you will become a sales professional. Read the books, watch the YouTube videos Actually, don't watch Monday night football, watch Monday night sales. That's what you need to watch. And then you need to watch Thursday night sales and Friday night sales and Saturday sales. If you suck at sales, it's on the internet. And Hormozy's underlying tone is I will give you all of the secrets for free, because 99% of people are too fucking lazy to do the work. Well, I'm not that guy. So I realized give it away. So that means how do you translate that to maintenance and repair? Add value, add value, add value, add value, add value. Price for your cost, not for what the market says. You should price at Price based on your cogs and your desired margin.
Speaker 2:So I took in Hormozy, who led me to every other podcast under the sun. But this was the book. If anybody wants to write it down, I'm not going to give you 50 book recommendations of buy back your time and good to great and all of these things Do a fucking cold plunge at 2 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I'm not telling you all that. What I'm going to tell you is read Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy is a book that will explain to you that, especially if you're entering into a market that you have little knowledge of, everyone is typically in a red ocean. They are carving each other up, racing to the bottom, like a mother flipping freight train.
Speaker 2:I want to do totally different. So give an example who are the regulatory? Are compliance agencies that can handcuff an electrician or electrical shop Permitting the electrical company authority having jurisdiction gas company. Okay, so what I did was I just became best friends with every one of them right out of the gate. I host the gas company, all of the gas companies, in my office to give them a class on generators. Because take this quote with you and apply it to anywhere in your business life Never assume they know you. Always assume people do not know what you know and you will be very fruitful in relationships. So I became best friends with the authority having jurisdictions, said hey, everybody that gets a generator should have a mother freaking permit and should do it like a professional. And all the other generator guys are like what are you doing? Well, I'm trying to set a standard so that all of the chucks in a truck can get the hell out of the way, so that the people who are taking this seriously I'm not going to have regulatory tell me what to do. I'm going to help build the regulation so that we follow a unified standard in every county or parish.
Speaker 2:That's an example of a blue ocean strategy. Don't run from regulatory. Run to regulatory. Show them that you want to do it right. Show them, invite them into your business, explain a gold standard on how you do things.
Speaker 2:Train your people, speak the language and if you develop a blue ocean in your market, you can't fail. You literally can't fail. And then you know that kind of snowballed into taking in the content. And I got in a private jet with a private equity guy blessed opportunity who said I'm not interested in buying your company, but I'm really interested in you. But what I'm going to give you is I'm going to give you a playbook that if you build your company by this exact model, you're going to build generational wealth for the rest of your life and your family's life. You will command an extremely high multiple when you choose to exit. If you choose to exit and everyone in the market will be attracted to your business, you will be the industry authority and, however you choose to exit, it'll be tailor-made, and I have followed that plan to the T to get to where we are now.
Speaker 1:Super, super interesting and I love that you. You ended there too and took a pause because you deserve one. But that's also stuff like if there's any mystique that anyone's hearing right now, I'm going to go back to your first actual referral here and say that's also stuff that Hormozy gives away and sells the implementation on, as I think he's currently owns about 29 companies doing billions a year. It's incredible that you brought this stuff up, and I love the blue ocean strategy too. Is it something that we've also followed, having recognized that this industry really didn't have any help for electricians? It seems synonymous, and I'm not sure if you recognize this Travis, but there's this constant conversation happening, at least prior to us. That was like well, why are electricians the redheaded step children of service? Everyone wants to help an HVAC guy and a plumber, but no one seemed to want to speak to an electrician. And Joe, you know from doing big three coaching, consulting stuff before, when the electrician asked a question in a group class, all the other trades split.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was one of those frustrating situations where I came to understand. When I first started in the industry, I worked for the big three organization the HVAC, the plumbing, electric and I truly thought that there was something wrong with me. Because at the time, if I sell a panel change, it's a nice job. You know what I mean. Good job for me, congratulations. Like if I sell a panel change, it's a. It's a nice job. You know what I mean like. Good job for me, congratulations.
Speaker 3:But when you compare it to I just cut in a whole home reducting.
Speaker 3:Every week they were coming in with 25 000, 20 000 plus. And here I am with my lowly five thousand dollar ticket thinking I'm making it, and through the constant comparison we as electricians considered that we were less because we weren't keeping up with those numbers. But then when you actually look at the margins and the benefits that come from working with the electricians and the exclusivity that comes with it, we're actually one of the most profitable trades and yet the most neglected at the same time. So when we got into the industry to start coaching, it was my insistence to want to work with electricians, because I don't want a place where people go to and they feel like no one wants to work with us. I want to be like. I specifically want to work with you because I am you. I and I are both licensed electricians to try to help other electricians. So the fact that you're here showing and being so willing to share this information and knowledge, I think it's a phenomenal asset and I'm really grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I have a really unique perspective on that, I think, because I've talked about it and I haven't really heard a lot. But you know, think about. So this is agnostic of industry when I look at. I'm certified in the federal court as a metallurgy expert and a failure analysis expert. Through my diesel engine years I was able to get those certifications and I've testified on federal court on what causes a rotating equipment failure analysis. Little things that electricians could and should know like. The number one killer of an internal combustion engine across the board is an airborne abrasive, which means something in the air that's going to get past the air filter and go in the cylinder wall and score it up.
Speaker 3:Ash sand salt.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. When I think about that, I analyze why are HVAC repair guys average tickets so high and why are plumbers in that same ballpark? It's because the number one failure is rotating equipment and hydraulics. Plumbing is just hydraulics. Well, electricians typically don't get the high ticket repairs because there is no rotating equipment or hydraulics. When you connect a wire and you lug it down correctly and you conduit it correctly, it's not going to fail. So the repetitive calls happen on electricians doing follow-up work from other bad electricians.
Speaker 2:So by adding generators in, you just added rotating equipment and hydraulics which are going to increase your ability to have higher repair tickets. Yeah, you're not going to get a $20,000 duct job and things like that. I get it. However, that's why there's 10 to 1 HVAC shops versus electricians and even generator guys and plumbers Because I hate to say it but I mean a monkey could run an HVAC shop right now off of YouTube because there are 500 people giving the HVAC playbook coaches, all of this other stuff. But figuring out the why on electricians don't compete with HVAC guys on repair tickets and the what in what you could do to get there, I think there's going to be some great perspective here, but it's lack of rotating equipment and lack of present hydraulics. Those are things that cause problems. When a stream runs through a mountain and becomes a river, it's because it's hydraulics. Hydraulics cut, they move, they penetrate, they wear down. Rotating equipment is using lubricity and bearings which are designed to break down and fail In the electrical. There's not a whole lot of that.
Speaker 1:Really good insights. It seems like a great time to insert a win of the week Travis. We always like to do that and share, because it's one thing to share and spread the good word here and the message that we have, but ultimately, if there's no proof I mean there's already. Like you said, 99% won't do a damn thing about this podcast either. They'll just listen right, and I hope that you guys hear that and that inspires you. But here's some more inspiration. So a Nick V NV Electrical. Just last week big generator wins here. So they said big day for us at Envy Electrical sold a 19K generator and panel with a maintenance membership, a 13.7K generator package, two portable inlets, surge protectors for 4K, and my guy just called and said he had a $900 platinum sale with another membership. And it's not even lunchtime, 9.26 AM. Congratulations to you, nick, and you are certainly the envy at Envy Electrical today. Brother, well done Really good stuff.
Speaker 3:I love it. So proud of him and Fernando. They're amazing guys.
Speaker 1:One of the big things about this is I know you've used the word upsell, travis For us. We actually try to avoid that word quite often and it's actually for the tax. We can all agree what it is. We can all agree it has a place in our business. Cashflow is the blood, as you said, and responsibly distributing cashflow through MRR, arr and making decisions on that. You need upsells in order to increase the blood flow. That's basic logic, right? But what about this is? I just want to speak to the service side. What about this is, for you guys and in your opinion, just an elevation of service that customers are choosing over than the trucks and the tank top terries that you mentioned as well Travis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really good question. We actually. If I was to give a win of the week, it would be exactly what you just said about upsells. I use upsell because that's kind of like electrician bro code. I could say that around you. I wouldn't say it in my training class or I wouldn't say it, but I think upsells start One.
Speaker 2:We ask our technicians every single week and our admin staff of about 30 employees, everybody. Do you believe in your heart that we are the absolute best in our industry in terms of service sales, repair, installation and maintenance? Do you believe anyone is even close to us in terms of quality? When everybody believes it, then we are doing a disservice by not offering our full menu of services to our client. We are doing the client a disservice. That would be like me saying I'm going to give you the opportunity to go sit on the court to see LeBron James or Michael Jordan play their last game and you decide to sit in the nosebleed section. I'm offering you the best there is.
Speaker 2:So what's the objection? Is the objection affordability and price? Amazing, we've got great payment plans, but the correct upsell is to be done, in my opinion, once our approaches, once our in-home consultant sells the client on the new generator system. Our tech becomes the sales guy after that. Homeowners do not want to hear from a sales guy. No one wants to talk to sales people. But when they ask a technician, the guy who's got calluses on his hands, who works on these things every day, who has seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and you train that technician with a great set of soft skills, an immense deep product knowledge and a belief in your brand that it's the best in the business. Upselling happens by accident, because you just stumble into it by saying. So our guys, when they finish a service and I'm talking situation as homeowner present because we do a lot of homeowner- not present service.
Speaker 2:There's the laminated maintenance membership flyer all three categories of maintenance. This is not the right one, but on the backside here's what we have. We have four quadrants. I wish I had one, but I'm in the back of the warehouse. Here's our upsells.
Speaker 2:Micro Air makes an amazing soft start. It actually reduces operating and starting amperage of your HVAC by 77%. It's $379. Hour and a half of labor to install it. It's got a picture. It's got the sales language and benefits and a price installed. We have our monitoring OmniMetrics. We use brand agnostic monitoring. It has a picture, the three bullet point, sales language, a price of that install. Hour and a half labor.
Speaker 2:Up here we have surge protectors lifetime warranty for the electronics in your home if your house gets struck by lightning. $300 to install one on the ATS. $300 to install one on the generator for your $1,500 controller. That will not be covered under warranty. Plus, we have extended warranty. If I'm doing my job as a technician, I take these four products, I package them up, notice I put 1.5 hours of labor in each box. If they buy all of these and a maintenance plan together, scan the QR code, I can finance it zero for 60 and knock off the 30 minutes off of each one. So I'm going to knock off two hours of labor for getting our Cat5 plan, which is all of our upsell opportunity. That is built in client retention and you are protecting and preserving the life of that generator. So by year three your $1,000 maintenance plan is going to cost you about $330 a year. So you're at 75% GP on your maintenance plans after year two. That's how you upsell in our industry.
Speaker 3:I'm just beaming over here because the things that you're mentioning, I'm like, all right, I'm listening to it. So you have the micro, the hard start. I'm like okay over here, because the things that you're mentioning, I'm like, all right, I'm listening to it. So you have the micro, the hard start. I'm like, okay, equivalent to the KVAR systems. And then you got the electronics protection systems Now additionally. Now I know where you are. You're in the Southern area, so the cold starts are not ideally in your area. Additionally, on top of that, what are your thoughts on the mobile monitoring with monitoring, because I'm sure, if I can pick and dig here a little bit, you were a former Generac guy at one point, right, so I was similar as well. Remember the whole situation with the mobile links and what was going on there. Ideally, switching over to the info hubs has been a better opportunity. Do you have a particular monitoring service that you prefer?
Speaker 2:So that depends on your dealership. Most Generac shops, if you pay attention, are that they're Generac shops. We're a generator service company, bingo. I will service and put any business on a membership. Our Cat 3 plan. You never pay, call out ever. No labor charges ever. But that's exclusive to our Kohler customers. You still get priority service. But I cannot provide free things to people who chose to buy a Generac with another dealer. I'll adopt you on a maintenance plan and I'll give you all of the perks, but I can't give you anything for free, so we reserve that of the perks, but I can't give you anything for free, so we reserve that.
Speaker 2:But to speak directly to your point, in terms of monitoring, this is how we sell monitoring. I will know something's wrong with your generator before you do and I will dispatch myself. I will let you know that we're coming out. When you walk in our front lobby we have four 70-inch digital screens. One of them our map dots, are green everywhere. If anybody sees one turn red, we jump on it like a fly on crap. We use OmniMetrics because it's brand agnostic. Based out of Atlanta, georgia, very easy installation. I'm a Kohler guy. Kohler's about to launch their new energy management pro OmniMetrics has been the only LTE cell service. Generac eventually got it. But if you are a company who services Generac Cummins, briggs, kohler how are you going to keep up with all of those screens?
Speaker 2:One so-called so we've been. I told Kohler straight up I love you guys, I think you have the best product on the market, but I can't subscribe to where you are with monitoring because it's Wi-Fi only and I don't have Wi-Fi technicians. I'm not sending generator guys into people's home to install range extenders and get in their IP address and walk with work boots on their carpet to set up their internet. I'm not doing that. I need a centralized, agnostic system that will tell me air filter dirty due to air restriction, battery low did not exercise all of the above.
Speaker 2:I can remote start the unit. I can play offense with my service techs every day rather than coming in and playing defense. If you don't have monitoring as a service company, you will play defense for the rest of your career and you will upset more people because you cannot forecast and strategize picking up broken units because they're going to happen. And so with monitoring, in my opinion it is built in client retention. It's me communicating, we explain to our customers, we're going to have a relationship with you and we're going to have a relationship with your generator and that is irreplaceable. It's priceless If my technicians know that piece of equipment more than they know the homeowner.
Speaker 1:And monitoring provides that and for anyone that's new to this, can I just make sure that it's clear? You've dedicated panels for TVs, I think you said, to just monitoring these greens. What does it mean when it comes off green? What's happening?
Speaker 2:So it's the same thing like a Generac. Essentially, you have a red light means no operation, no start. Yellow light is a maintenance light. So it's the same thing. One of our screens is monitoring. The other screen is our sales goals. The other screen is pictures of our completed installs that flash because we have a legitimate showroom. The one screen that has monitoring they're green dots. If they're yellow, our service coordinator has the same screen at her computer. She pulls it up, figures out. It might say air filter clog. We don't actually know that the air filter is dirty, but it's got high air inlet restriction when it exercised. So it's dispatching based on could run. But it's in.
Speaker 3:It's in yellow slash orange so it's like running the same thing on two cylinders. You drop a cylinder. It could still run, but it's not gonna be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, I get it not gonna be efficient if it's red and they're a cat three member, someone immediately dispatches. Even if it's in the middle of a hurricane season. My CSRs can reset a controller, they can change a battery. My freaking janitor here is going to dispatch. If it's a Category 3 member that's on red, we're going that day. I don't care if it's got to be me, I'm going that day. I don't care if it's got to be me, I'm going that day. If it's orange, our service coordinator gets it, looks at the call board, puts the material and ticket in the technician's bin and schedules the job accordingly.
Speaker 1:Speaking of going on red, early on, when we first started talking and hit that great red record button, you mentioned how, in that busy season when the outages are expected, that's when you'll really see what your company is made of. How have you guys strategized to meet the demand when everyone's lights go out?
Speaker 2:using every single tool in our arsenal, exactly what we just said. I'll give you an example If you don't have a hurricane or a extended outage plan, you're going to fail. We are in hurricane. I've been in hurricane season alley my whole life. So hurricane preparedness and planning was here before generators were here, before service companies was here. So we just basically took that model. I put one of my managers in charge of emergency preparedness planning and then we built a system.
Speaker 2:The one thing that we're not going to do is new installs during the time of a storm. Now you have to let people know who are in line. We've had this happen. We call our next week's installs On Friday. Lead installer calls his list for the next week. Hey, I'm going to be here on Wednesday at 6 am. Here's what you can expect. Here's about when we're going to reconnect power da-da-da-da, and we had a storm hit. Here's about when we're going to reconnect power da-da-da-da, and we had a storm hit. Naturally, we install two to three units a day. Naturally, those 15 customers are pissed that their generator didn't get put in, but we prepare them for that up front.
Speaker 2:Hey, listen, we're in the middle of hurricane season. I can promise you, here's what's going to happen. Here's how we respond. Hurricane hits and we lose power. Every single one of our employees moves into our level one response, which is triage. We are going to respond from an ambulatory perspective to administer immediate life-saving measures to that generator, home and family. So when I say this is our triage unit, we're going to get you going. We might have to bypass an oil pressure switch with a paper clip, but we're going to get you power and we're going to come back and repair it right, but our triage staff turns it from our.
Speaker 2:We have six service techs, but we have staff turns it from our. We have six service techs, but we have 10 guys on the install crew. We'd immediately deploy 16 technicians. Everybody who doesn't have a truck uses their own truck and we pay the mileage and all this hazard and all this other stuff and we just start answering the call, because 90% of resi-gen failures can be repaired, typically on a do-not-start DNS by someone with little to no experience, if they've been trained correctly on how to respond.
Speaker 2:Once level two gets here, it means 50% of our area has been utility power restored. We deploy our lead install team when we get to level three, which means 70% of the location's power has been restored, install team number two goes back to the schedule and when we get to level four, which is almost back to normal, our third install team goes back to doing installs. So if you don't have a plan and you think I've got installers and I've got maintenance techs, no, you don't. If you have a book of business that's maintenance contract driven, you will find out what you're made of. If you don't immediately become repair guys and you try to continue doing installs, it's just not going to work for you.
Speaker 3:I love that plan that you put into place, because I can physically see it as it drops down and how you justify it to your customer as a value add, because the logic being is, let's say, this customer is mad that you're not going to be there. I can almost imagine being like well, let me explain it this way. Let's say that you were someone who previously purchased a generator from us and for some reason it didn't work. Wouldn't you prefer the company stop what they're doing, to take care of your family before trying to take someone else's money?
Speaker 2:These people already paid me. You just gave me a deposit or signed the contract I got to fix the guys who went all in Quite. Frankly, data says that most generator buyers shopped the market for a minimum of 90 days. Well, the people who said I want to buy a generator, I got on the internet. You guys came up first in Google. You showed up first.
Speaker 2:Your in-home consultation was absolutely amazing and I did not shop price and your $18,000 ticket, which is our average ticket on air cooled, is higher than everybody else. But because you have your shit together when it comes to service, I went with you and you wrote a check. The guy who's pissed off because his generator is not installed during hurricane season he's been dicking around for 90 days and probably has bids from everybody under the sun and didn't get called back from everybody under the sun, and then now he wants you to stop and put his in. No, no, this guy went with me first. He's already my member. I have to service him and, whether or not you choose to believe it now, mr Smith, you should want me to hold this standard for you as well.
Speaker 3:I love that. It's almost similar to our first class pass option, because I'm in New York, so the thing is is where you were mentioning how they have the opposite slow seasons. Our slow season was once the snow hits, where we're having after Thanksgiving, christmas, january. So what we did is we established what's known as a first class pass, where you would have an in-house club membership and if you had an outage, we only serviced our club members first and would only take care of you after you've done it. So I love that you and I are running a parallel play.
Speaker 1:I want to draw another parallel.
Speaker 2:We take care of category three members first bar none. We take care of category two, second, category one members, third and then new customers.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. You's another parallel here and it comes from the last interview we did with guillermo as well, with his lighting system for leads and having his entire office staff, that whole team, trained to when the different lights showed like a level one, two and three. What activities do we focus on now? And the parallel really here is I'm going to back it up and say that, joe, what you have and what we share in the first class pass and Travis, with your hurricane analogy and the level one, two, three and Guillermo, these are all people taking proactive measures to be prepared for the situation so that we don't be reactive and get punched in the face.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And then everybody in the business has a set of skills. I love Liam Neeson, the movie Taken. My particular set of skills in the business is education, edification, building value and edifying the technician and edifying the industry. So I'm a mass comm guy.
Speaker 2:When we hit storm, widespread outage, dude, I go to every TV station. You can go back to my Facebook page. If you go back to my personal page and you go back to the beginning of October when Hurricane Francine hit us this year, we were on a seven-day outage. Then I went live every morning and every night and hosted Facebook lives, which are webinars, and answered questions, explained what your oil service should be like, explained what you should be doing on an extended outage. I took the phone with me on every service call that I went to. I gave the knowledge and gave the game away from Pete For me, so much so that we're not even the biggest generator company in our town. They came to me and said you kicked our ass for the storm. And in that conversation, when we just started shooting the breeze I love to have conversations with my adversary, keep your enemies closer, right. So I'm having a conversation with them and he said man, how many service contracts did you pick up during the storm? I said about 200. He said where did you think they all came from? I said from you. How do you not know that? I took all of those customers from my number one competitor because they turned the phone off and went and hide in a bunker. And we said, oh no, no, no. We sell these generators all year to perform. Right now, super Bowl season. We got to mirror that product. We got to show up right now. So that's even in a hiring process.
Speaker 2:If you're a person that wants to evacuate for every tropical storm and category one hurricane, you are not going to work here Because we show up when the storm comes, we don't leave like that's just. I'm not going to put you and your family in a bind. Okay, if we're going to take a direct hit from a category five, I mean I'd love for you to stay and help out, but take care of your family, but get your ass back to work immediately after the storm passes, because this is our Super Bowl, bro. We can't just be dicking around saying we'll return your call on Monday. And all of the 5,000 service contract guys, I'm going to pick them apart, one hurricane at a time and I'm going to get a couple contracts, a couple contracts and a couple contracts, and I'm never going to lose them, because all of my tools are client retention tools. So I think you have to be able to perform during an outage, or you are not a generator company. You just happen to be a service company who installs generators.
Speaker 1:You've shared some massive insights and, yeah, I gave you a round of applause there, too silently, to avoid flagging the podcast with it, but I want to respect your time, travis. We're five minutes over the hour. You are just the third person we've had on this podcast that is not themselves an electrician, but that does not mean there is any lack of value here today. If there were anything else open mic, travis, that you feel electricians should hear, know or otherwise, follow in your footsteps. Is there one more message that you'd want to give them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you a couple of things. So people, CEOs out there, people who are sales leaders, people who maybe don't necessarily have an electrical license, you can build and run and operate a successful electrical company or a successful generator company, because typically your competitor or your adversary or the other guys in the industry are typically those blue collar Joes who are a master licensed electrician, and what's easy for me is super hard for those guys. So it's very hard for a 35 year licensed master electrician to hire a visionary to add new ideas and bring in somebody from a mass comm or a brand ambassador or a community engagement specialist to get out there and keep the momentum going. If you're a CEO type of person or you're a sales guy, give up a piece of the pie, Go get in bed with a 40-year master electrician and absolutely annihilate the market together.
Speaker 2:Secondly, I would say, if you want to be in the generator space, we have another coaching company much like Service Loop. I hope to do some work with you guys about how to differentiate yourself as a generator company. I market against home service companies most of the day. However, you can do both. You can do multiple lines and you can be a generator guru within the confines of that organization. And lastly, I want to say this you guys have a lot of electricians that actually watch the show, not owners just electricians, most or both, honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a good blue color crowd here too, and so, yeah, man, speak to electricians.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk to the technicians who may be. I'm a top dog technician at a company and I want to start my own business one day or, whatever the case may be, maybe I want to buy this one. I'm a diesel mechanic, I've been an auto mechanic, I've been a heavy equipment mechanic, I've done some electrical work. I've done air conditioning work, power generation, contracting, carpentry, literally instrumentation, everything, electronics, everything. Generator technician to me is the upper echelon of blue collar tradesmen in the world, and I'll tell you why. You've got to be a good mechanic, a good electrician. You got to be a plumber, an electrician, a concrete guy, a landscaper, a gutter guy. You've got to be able to do all of these things plus have soft skills, because here's the thing no one wants to buy what you're selling.
Speaker 2:If the country would get their shit together and have a better power grid, no one would have to have a generator. If you can build, edify, train, compensate and build out the best true generator technicians in the industry, or become that, there's no trade that offers as much opportunity as a generator technician. In my opinion, because of how well-rounded you have to be, we should have our own freaking license. Okay, I'm mad at the electricians and plumbers because they get their licensing, but as a generator guy electricians and plumbers because they get their licensing. But as a generator guy, if you're a legitimate generator guy, like we say here, 2kw to 2000, there's no tradesman that can hold a candle to you because of everything that you're capable of doing. So if you want to become the highest paid blue collar tradesman in the industry, focus on generators for a little while. Figure out what it's going to take to get at the top of the food chain and generators, and I think you will build differentiation like no other.
Speaker 1:Great insights and some shots fired at electricians. Just a little bit. What could you expect from having the gen guy on our chat here on this podcast? Thank you so much, travis. All the best to you. You don't need much motivation from us to keep going and keep doing what you're doing. I know that your vision is set high and we just expect big things from you now, brother. So, just like you said, we look forward to collaborating in other ways. I think we'll have to have another podcast in the future. If you want to check out, travis, I believe you guys have a podcast as well. Would you tell us a bit about how others could find you and listen to your content?
Speaker 2:First and foremost, gengatorscom. G-e-n-g-a-t-o-r-z. If you misspell it, I bought all the domains around it, so it'll take you to my page Gen Gators University on YouTube. On YouTube, we have an entire YouTube channel. Genxmmgcom is our coaching generator affiliate. Don't take coaching on generators from someone who's never installed a generator caveat. And then Travis Terabone you can find me on any social media and my stuff is pretty well laid out. Prime Mover Podcast the engine inside of a generator is considered the prime, the prime mover, and I believe if you lead on or operate an organization, you are also the prime mover. So we only have people who are alpha a player prime movers on the show to talk a little bit about life, business, fitness, finance and faith, and it's a pretty cool podcast.
Speaker 3:Love it, thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'd love that. We'd love to go deep and explain why electricians are the best trade.
Speaker 3:I'm down.
Speaker 2:I'm going to preface our part two now. I want to do an hour with you guys on generator lead. Jen, I could do a whole segment on how to generate generator leads. Pun intended, I love that Well.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much, Travis, and thanks guys, I appreciate it.
