EP: 198 Peter Capuciati & Logan Marshall w/ Bluon - The Future of HVAC: Service, Software, and Efficiency

Join us for an illuminating discussion at AHR 2024 with industry pioneers, Logan Marshall and Peter Capuciati, on revolutionizing the HVAC landscape. Their insights bridge the gap between traditional practices and cutting-edge innovations, driving change and fostering a service-driven culture.

𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀:

• Core Values and Culture: Discover the vital role of company core values, such as gratitude and service, and how these principles can inspire technicians and leaders alike to find deeper fulfillment in their work.
• Training and Retention: Learn how tailored training methods, transparency, and recognition contribute to enhancing employee retention and why investing in holistic development, including soft and life skills, is essential for the industry’s evolution.
• Technology in Practice: Delve into the ways Bluon leverages intuitive software to address common time drains, such as diagnostics, tech support, and parts replacement, thus propelling the HVAC industry toward greater efficiency and impact.

Don't miss out on the visionary leadership lessons, market adaptations, and the sheer joy of contributing to a burgeoning service-oriented ecosystem. Tune in to this episode for a trove of wisdom and practical guidance for budding and seasoned professionals!

Explore more from Peter and Logan at bluon.com - Special offers await when you mention "HVAC Revealed"!

Find Peter:

On The Web: https://bluon.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-capuciati-9625b4206/

Find Logan:

On The Web: https://bluon.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logan-marshall-a68a14173/

Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662


Sponsored By:
Chiirp: https://chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: https://elitecall.net
On Purpose Media: https://onpurposemedia.ca

Transcript

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:00

Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets with Thaddeus and Evan down here in lovely Chicago, Illinois for the AHR 2024 Expo. In today's episode, we had Peter Capuciati and Logan Marshall on from Bluon and great conversation. I enjoyed a lot of various parts within that. Evan, what was your favorite part of today's conversation?

Evan Hoffman: 0:19

Getting into some of the leadership talks and what it takes to truly step into that next level where you're evolving leaders within your organization. Teaching people how to think not what to think and the struggles that come along with that and the real talk that we got into around the difficulties of letting go of those aspects of your business, right?

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:38

And just the idea of emotional intelligence, right? And that's centered throughout and what that means into the business. But some of the other parts that I liked about is they talked about blue on in the product and how it works and how it's evolved, but also how they come across. Cross the idea and a lot of times this happens to people and they don't recognize or realize it. So be sure pay attention to that because that was an important part of the episode today.

Evan Hoffman: 0:58

Yeah. The ability to pivot, but we wouldn't have the show without our sponsors. So make sure you tune into that part and then leave a comment down below and what your favorite part of the episode was. Cheers.

Thaddeus Tondu: 1:09

Chiirp, Elite call and On Purpose Media. So Elite Call they are a us based call center champion for the home service industries for 20 years actually, they've been outbounding clients databases, filling dispatch boards with lucrative service and sales appointments and boosting memberships like no other they don't make calls to actually directly integrate into your CI CRM, giving you a seamless experience. Don't let your competition get ahead. Let elite call connect to the customers and fill your board. You can visit them today at elitecall.net right there.

Evan Hoffman: 1:36

And we've got Chiirp transform your home service business with chirp, the ultimate automation toolbox, capture more leads, connect instantly when skyrocket your sales chirp integrate seamlessly with platforms like Service Titan and how it's called pro offering automated texts, emails, and even ringless voicemails, boost your Google reviews and customer loyalty with a proven rehash programs, schedule your demo today and get an exclusive 25 percent off your first three months. Visit chiirp.com/hssr for HVAC Success Secrets Revealed and start boosting your revenue today.

INTRO: 2:12

Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets Revealed, a show where we interview industry leaders and disruptors, revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Now your hosts, HVAC. Thaddeus and Evan.

Thaddeus Tondu: 2:33

Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk and Evan has a little bit of beer left. Clink, clink, clink! And today we have on Peter, Capuciati nailed it and Logan Marshall No, guys i'm super excited I know Logan We've been in touch in conversations about having this happen for such a long time so we get you guys on the podcast talk about what you guys are doing with inside the space and leading with some value peter You're the ceo founder co founder of blue one and mark Logan doer of shit really is the essence aim the brand ambassador walk us through, let's go with Logan first your start into the trades.

Logan Marshall: 3:15

My start in the trades, I started as a 14 year old tool fetcher. So doing install service sales operations just really helping to grow it on that side but I've sat in a lot of seats, done a lot of things, mainly in the residential realm but I did verge over into the commercial side with one of the largest contractors in the country and kind of dive in there on that side as well. Came on over here to Bluon

Thaddeus Tondu: 3:39

Nice. Peter, how about yourself?

Peter Capuciati: 3:40

The short story or the medium story,

Thaddeus Tondu: 3:42

eh, in between.

Evan Hoffman: 3:43

You can make a short story longer if you want.

Peter Capuciati: 3:45

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I've been in, in the HVAC, trade for 10 years after starting blue on in 2012. My background, I was a physicist who became a commercial real estate. Consultant developer for 20 years, became really in contact with HVAC mechanical contractors in a significant way, building a lot of buildings. I built a lot of buildings in those period of time, but sort of had a midlife crisis when I was 40, wanted to get back into R and D and building some stuff as opposed to this, making money for the sake of making money, which is real estate and got the hell out of there, took a year off started blue on as originally was an idea to start a chemical company to create a new refrigerant, but that morphed into a software company, which we can get into in terms of how we got here. But yeah, it's been a it's been a journey from physics to real estate to contractor to software.

Thaddeus Tondu: 4:32

I like the pivot.

Peter Capuciati: 4:35

Major pivot.

Thaddeus Tondu: 4:36

Major pivot. Y'all a chemical company, y'all a software company, right? A little bit of a shift but this is also a good thing for entrepreneurs and business owners to understand is that, okay sometimes you need to pivot. So what were the writing, what was the writing on the wall? Why in, how did you make that large of a pivot?

Peter Capuciati: 4:55

Yeah, what happened was we had this, we developed this amazing refrigerant got their EPA and ASHRAE and all the fun stuff that takes, which by the way, is not fun. Incredibly challenging. So anyways, it got on the market in 2017 and we had a ton of interest, commercial landlords, communities that wanted to do retrofit projects with our new refrigerants, all shiny and we just ran into a brick wall, which were the HVAC technicians who wanted no part of a new refrigerant. We're like, yeah, no, thank you. We've broken too many things and seen too many shit. Fry too many compressors and too many Intellipaks are behind us and so we had to figure out a way to get these guys to be advocates and champions of the product overnight. So we've, the idea was we'll create a database of models that they could look up by model number and then we'd give them retrofit instructions, right? Tune this, modify this, don't do that don't retrofit this unit, standard, not standard, whatever it might be and so along that journey, we collected all of the. Technical documents of all those models, manuals, troubleshooting guides, service, bulletins, wiring diagrams and we put it into the database when we published this app for retrofit instructions, but the technicians just gobbled it up for the data, not for the retrofit instructions because it was brand agnostic, right? It wasn't like a carrier or land. It was everybody and it was super easy to find the technical information and all of a sudden we realized, Holy shit. technicians are thirsty for this information in an easy to find brand agnostic, super intuitive way and it was just obvious that it was a bigger opportunity and we just shifted the whole business in 2018 to software and haven't looked back since.

Logan Marshall: 6:30

And the refrigerants really was started that link, because if we hadn't have been a refrigerant company, we would have never created a brand agnostic library, because we had to be able to retrofit into all brands that carried our 22.

Thaddeus Tondu: 6:43

It's an accidental pivot in a sense.

Peter Capuciati: 6:45

Totally. Totally accidental. Cause you would never do it. You would never set out to do a brand agnostic library. It's A, too difficult. And B, you kind of get to get insane, but we did it by survival and then that turned into the business.

Evan Hoffman: 6:57

What was the pushback like from the team as you tried to pivot and create this vision and share this vision and everyone's looking around what the hell, this isn't what I signed up for.

Peter Capuciati: 7:05

I would say it wasn't as much as you think the group that we had assembled, although they're mainly engineers and, we had a lot of chemical engineers, mechanical engineers on the team, everybody was really into solving problems and so this was a new problem. It was bigger, it had more impact. We also had a lot of texts on the team at that point in time. So we were like becoming enamored with that community and so the ability to serve that community in a broader way was really appealing and it just lit a fire on everybody's enthusiasm. There really wasn't pushback. It was more of a, how do we do this as fast as possible and then monetize it. Cause we had tens of thousands of techs using the platform, but we weren't charging them. So we're like, shit, we gotta figure that part out too. Exactly.

Evan Hoffman: 7:46

We wanna get paid.

Peter Capuciati: 7:48

Exactly. Exactly.

Thaddeus Tondu: 7:49

Logan, one thing I wrote down is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it and I know Peter, you said that but Logan, being in the industry for 23 years and that mentality, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, how, I guess pivoting to, obviously pretty easy sell because people like it, but in terms of that whole philosophy of things, when you're looking at contractors and you're looking at techs, how do you get them around a mindset of, okay you might need to actually innovate. You might actually need to think, you might actually need to fix it versus the, if it ain't broke philosophy.

Logan Marshall: 8:18

Yeah. One thing I like to tell guys there is the data doesn't lie. So if you're tracking data, like most companies are nowadays, you can actually see those performance indicators to see where you're falling short. So you better start making attention to that, to be able to make whatever kind of pivots you have to make for efficiency.

Thaddeus Tondu: 8:35

Yep. Oh, and you showed them the data, right? And I think a lot of the technicians are that data driven individual that they see it and they say, okay the data points me this way. I should probably pivot that way and probably move that way.

Logan Marshall: 8:47

Yeah, and nowadays, the contractor has all of this knowledge right there and all this data. They just have to know when to pull the levers and it shows them when to do it. They just have to do it.

Peter Capuciati: 8:56

I would add to that though that, so many, there's so many software platforms, field service software platforms that help you measure how efficient you're doing or how well your team's doing but really, all they do is tell you. How bad you're doing, but there's no roadmap to improve, right? It's Hey, your efficiency is 37%. Okay, great. What do I do about it? So we come in and we want to take that, third, which by the way, blows me away that the average tech is only 35 percent efficient, not efficient, two thirds of their day is not billable, like working on other stuff. That's where we come in is to get rid of that wasted time, but they're aware of it, but they don't have the tools or platforms to do anything about it and so what's interesting about what we can do. is we work on top of all those platforms to give that time back in a way that's actually measurable and meaningful. They can measure it, but we're actually able to effectuate it, right?

Thaddeus Tondu: 9:43

One of your valid propertizations was five hours on the clock per week per tech. Yep. Amen. I'm curious of and I understand how the software works for the most part, but How? What are some things that people are doing inefficiently and not necessarily blue on specific either? What are some things that people are doing inefficiently that a business owner could be blind to and that it's just these simple things like that. Hey, now it opens your eyes.

Logan Marshall: 10:07

Yeah. So when they get to the equipment, they're searching for the knowledge and data to be able to get to diagnosing that equipment, whether that be product manuals, wiring diagrams, all the information, the parts and build a materials list to be able to find that right part number to be able to sell to Mrs. Jones and to be able to get that job done. That's where the Bluon App really takes the piece for the technician and speeds up that time at scale. So being able to help them in that way, that's the first step so that's the very first time sucked.

Peter Capuciati: 10:35

Yeah, we have three time sucks to talk about. Number one is diagnostic, so information when you need it to diagnose the unit. That's like 10 15 minutes a job that we just get rid of. The big one is help. I got a problem. I got to ask somebody a problem, service manager or tech support. I got an issue I got to deal with. And the problem with that is typically it takes two guys off the clock, right? You're talking to your service manager, your owner, or a peer tech, and both those guys are now not working and they're discussing an issue and you got to get up to speed, so it's a ramp up and then it's a solution maybe, or you call a tech support and God only knows how long you wait on hold for that. So with us you're immediately either speaking to a human who already knows the unit you're working on. Because the system knows that and puts you in touch with somebody who can answer that question, knows that equipment type or you're speaking to our AI, who also knows the unit and all the situation you're working on. It can answer that information in real time. So no ramp up, no other person wasting time. And you get right to the answer you need in a very quick time. There's more to that story, but it's really tech support on steroids that lets you cut the line. Get the information you need and not take two of your team off the clock. Then number three, which is that when you get and you got to replace that blower motor or that defrost board, our data lets you realize what other replacement parts are compatible with that part. So you don't have to waste your time trying to find the specific part, but there's 12 other ones that can do the job. Might be in the truck, might be across the street. That saves a ton of time and confusion. You're not outsourcing your research to a distributor. It's in your control.

Logan Marshall: 12:01

And money for the contractors. If we're talking about inventory burdens, trucks rolling down the road with endless amount of inventory, then now the technicians actually know the home for each one of those parts and where they can go and how they can get it moved.

Evan Hoffman: 12:14

And as we look into 2024, where the reality is there's a contraction that's happening. There's not going to be as many replacements as they were the last couple of years. So being able to serve some efficient way in a profitable way is going to be extremely important to the bottom line of companies today. So having these resources available to them, to their team, to their techs, it's incredibly important to be more efficient so that we can be more profitable.

Peter Capuciati: 12:37

Amen. and totally dependent on selling boxes, right? You can make, one of my Friends and kind of mentors in the industry is, Billy Stevens over at Sera and he talks about this all the time. Yep. So I'm taking his thunder, but I'll take it.

Evan Hoffman: 12:48

Steal from the best, steal from the best with pride. Exactly.

Thaddeus Tondu: 12:51

I'd take his thunder even if we was standing right here.

Peter Capuciati: 12:54

He's awesome. Yeah. But yeah, no, he talks about, he makes more money on a retrofit than he does on a new install. Yes and you can just print that over and over again, home the homeowner's getting it for, 20% of the cost. He's making the same margin, everybody wins and having your techs be able to do that with efficiency and effectiveness requires a little bit more, experience and skin in the game, which our system can help. Immediately add ten years of experience to that tech, which allows that to happen, that retrofit.

Logan Marshall: 13:20

Yeah, because, that's the main focus, for contractors over many years, has been the percentage of installs compared to the percentage of service with the market and the way things are going now, we're going to start seeing a shift and a lot of different ways to going back probably to more service and a little less install. So we're going to get back to more margin, more profit.

Thaddeus Tondu: 13:39

We just had Matt Michel on up in the room and he talked about, he actually looked at the ARHI data in 2020. Guess what happened 15 years ago. So a lot of spike up in a spike in install over a two, three, four year period and COVID now accelerated some of those other ones too and so it was this hyper install focused market and so now we're pivoting to this repair and now if you're saving these time, there's the app. It just makes a lot of sense.

Evan Hoffman: 14:04

Well, That's just it. Like we were already into a 40, and this is exactly what Matt said. We were already due for a 40 percent retraction based on boxes shipped. But you add in the consumer behavior, the fear of the market and everything else, it's going to contract. Yeah. So how can you prepare as a contractor?

Peter Capuciati: 14:21

It's that contraction is so much bigger too. There's like seven, six or seven things contributing to it. They're all like a, like a tsunami of it, right? It's obviously the economy, interest rates, the lack of approval for financing, a two L's C or two warranty, no longer, you can no longer change one part, but you gotta change both parts of the warranty only covers half the cost, all these things contribute Mrs. Jones, the homeowner. Not wanting to buy a piece of new equipment. This is either too expensive or too challenging. So if you don't have that retrofit in your back pocket to put that margin in, it's going to be challenging for you out there.

Thaddeus Tondu: 14:52

Or financing.

Peter Capuciati: 14:53

Yeah, big time. If financing, the rejection rate, what, when 5 percent to 35%, right? massive change in a very short period of time.

Evan Hoffman: 15:01

Absolutely. So when you're talking to any of your contractors, any of your clients, the technicians. what feedback, what advice you're giving them as they're moving into a market now where there is the contraction on top of that. They just went through CR2, now we're looking at R32 and people hated when you brought out a new refrigerant now and going through it all over again and now they're forced to do it, they have no other choice. What sorts of advice, what sorts of feedback are you giving to those people?

Peter Capuciati: 15:26

Train your techs. In a way that suits Gen Y thinking, right? So people have been training their techs like they're Gen X's and it doesn't work, right? Cause they don't want to memorize anything. They don't want to be put into a three day class to go immerse in this topic. They want indexing information on demand when they need it, how they need it. So given the resources to be in a just in time training environment, which they'll eat up, right? If you don't do that and put them in a historical paradigm of training. It's a difficult situation.

Evan Hoffman: 15:57

Here we're just going to say cater to their feelings, put rainbows on the wall.

Peter Capuciati: 16:02

Yeah. A lot of unicorns, we recommend that.

Thaddeus Tondu: 16:05

All the other things I want to say, but I do not want to get canceled. So Interplay learning, right? HR expo as well. And What they're doing in terms of the simulations and the VR and adding those extra elements in, that's going to be distinguishing factor for the up and coming individuals that are coming into the trades. But now you go to the old guard. How do you get the buy in?

Peter Capuciati: 16:26

Yeah, you gotta show them.

Logan Marshall: 16:27

So the old guys, the funny thing about it is, we learn a lot different than new, the younger guys. But we can still support the data and the information that we can see inside our platform because it's so intuitive. It's so easy for them to use that even a more veteran technician is going to be better by that having that data in real time because he can see it faster, he can get the job done faster, now we're scaling it. Yep.

Peter Capuciati: 16:52

Yeah, that's a really good point. When we built the app, we had to build it for the 60 year old guy and the 20 year old guy. Which Is not easy, right? Some things that, someone who's 35 just takes for granted on how certain software works. A guy doesn't know whether it's the pull down or, all these different icons and no one has a shit clue what they mean if you're over 50. So I'd have to build it. So it would be easy to deal with, what our biggest sort of, prideful thing, if that's a word is all of our members are self adopted, right? They chose to download the app, their service manager didn't tell them to do it. They just did it because it was helpful. And then they used it whether they were 60 or 20, and we were able to constantly, build that software to be, like, like Logan mentioned, highly intuitive, which I think is a missing element in a lot of the new software. It's built for like the, only the 25 year old, and leaves that, 50 plus year old behind, so there's a chasm in the use case, and that's not great, because then you're going to have this combat of who wants to use it.

Thaddeus Tondu: 17:43

All right. I was trying to think of the text on the Gen Y. I still want to come back to that and buy in from everybody. It's still a big thing, right? You're looking at this and obviously what you guys, the software is doing, but let's remove the software, for example. Let's just take it out of the equation. Let's, if you're gonna have to do training for this level and get people on board without something like this, where would you start?

Logan Marshall: 18:08

Ooh, that's a good question. Yeah, if we're taking away the software side, if you're implementing, the easy side there is, we've already had all this buy in from the tech level. So now with Blue Island for Business as the operators are coming in and giving it back to them It's like just closing that loop because they already love the product. They already love what we're doing to support them So now it's just an easy transition for them. So that's I mean inside the training though. That's a key thing So those veteran technicians They don't want to be sitting, even in that side too, in continuous training that they've already done for years and years. That's where the bridge of the gap's at, between the older guys and the younger guys. So now we can actually meet them with our support side. We actually are able to measure those metrics to where we know and report back to the actual owners what the key training highlights are that they need month to be able to help better those technicians and strengthen them at any level.

Thaddeus Tondu: 19:02

Alright, that's the data from the app. Ignoring the Bluon app, where would you go? Where would you start? What would you do? Let's just say Bluon doesn't exist, but knowing what you know about it, without Blueon, where would you start training your, would you do to start training your folks?

Peter Capuciati: 19:15

Yep. So I would use just, so I'll ignore what we do, but I would say we would do something similar. It's tough. It's very tough. Yeah. What I found with the younger techs is you need to drip them. Yeah. Information that's very short, 30 seconds max, and daily tidbits, right? Reminders, short videos, even a meme that has a point, and you just, you keep that coming to them in the moment they need it. So you give it to them during the day, at night, but it's like perfect for the folks that have, massive attention deficit disorder, where they're getting little tidbits of information to remind them where things are and how to find them. Not necessarily what it is. But where to find it and how to get it. Cause that's what gets these guys going. They love indexing and knowing where to find stuff. They hate memorizing, they hate being forced to remember that. But if someone says, you can find this, and this here, when you need it, that they like. I would say indexing and slow drip nurturing of where to find that information is how these guys will absorb training.

Thaddeus Tondu: 20:13

Well, here's the best part of what that answer is. Guess what? If you had blue on still do that, even the absence of it, right? Because that's going to be consumed. It's going to be digestible. It's going to help those individuals out.

Logan Marshall: 20:24

Really, if you get at the heart of it too, a big focus in the industry right now is call by call management. Yeah. So if we're talking call by call management, it's really the same thing. You're making those touch points on each and every call to be able to help nurture and remind that technician, Hey, we hit this point, we hit that point, and you're hitting all these key steps in between all of that. So it's really just linking the dots to make sure by the end of this call, we treated this call the same as we'd done the one before and the one we're going to do next. It's really building that process

Peter Capuciati: 20:52

And adding recognition, right? I think the younger techs are much more wired to be recognized more often, right? Not that we want to go down that path, but that's just the reality, and you're going to get more out of them. I don't even think it's just younger techs no. That is a good point.

Thaddeus Tondu: 21:05

It's everybody. Everybody. They like the pat on the back, they like the attaboys, they like the good jobs, and just general recognition in general goes a long way. Huge. for any person.

Evan Hoffman: 21:16

Now as an owner, as a manager, you're going to get more of a visual response out of someone who's a younger generation, of course, but they both appreciate it. Nobody likes here. Nobody doesn't like hearing. Oh, you did a great job, right?

Logan Marshall: 21:27

Just like a friend. Laura said this morning you're really, you're enhancing your culture by doing that because you're building in more touch points. With those guys, not just to ream in on them, but really just to see how things are going in between the calls and see what they can do better to be able to better their career or whatever steps they're taking.

Thaddeus Tondu: 21:45

Well, and we looked at, again, going back to one of the other ones, tech the three, three pillars of training, technical skills, soft skills, and life skills. When you can build in those three pillars of training and now granted a lot of the bigger majority of it is going to be on the technical skills'cause it's a technical trade. But if the individual doesn't have the soft skills, now you can teach them soft skills. If the individual doesn't have the life skills, they're earning 100, 150 thousand per year, in some cases if they're working a ton of overtime, maybe 200 thousand dollars per year, but they're broke, that's a life skill that you can teach them and that's where these intangible things come in that are outside of the whole technical side of things.

Peter Capuciati: 22:25

Yeah, for sure. Exactly. And don't operate your business expecting turnover. Expect the opposite. We were talking to a bunch of guys that had, have no turnover, right? Because maybe seasonal, but not actual and so I think that's a, there's like a misconception in the trade that, while we lose X percent of our techs every year we hire them, it's not a great philosophy, right? You want to keep those folks home and, take care of them and train them. The benefit to you is, multiple orders of magnitude.

Evan Hoffman: 22:50

If you were to look at, because you guys are in a unique position where you get to survey, talk to, learn from some of the best contractors in the industry and you talk to them on a regular basis. If you were to look at some of the ones who have the highest retention rate, what's one thing that you think they do better than anyone else that allows them to do that?

Peter Capuciati: 23:06

That's a great question. I think consistency and it's the having systems in place that recognize from a emotional standpoint and a financial standpoint, recognize those people with transparency. not only do they know, but their peers know that they're doing well. I think that goes, and there's a competitive element to that too that definitely benefits. But you have to, the data and you have to have the ability to do that and to put the time in to be able to recognize that in that, cadence of free of frequency.

Logan Marshall: 23:33

Yeah, they're not a hindrance to their improvement. They actually help them advance it.

Evan Hoffman: 23:38

Yeah, I love that that's something that we talk about a lot. Like the greatest bottleneck in your business is you, right? And your superpower becomes your kryptonite. The thing that got you to where you're at is going to keep you from going to where you want to be. So being able to get out of your way is the most important skill that you can get as a business owner over time. Let me tell you, it's difficult.

Peter Capuciati: 23:56

Yeah, it's crazy difficult. Particularly if you're a doer, right? If you're a doer, it is tough, right? If you're in general, just more of a good visionary guy and you're not a doer, easier. But if you're a doer, it is rough.

Thaddeus Tondu: 24:07

Yeah you look at visionary and integrator and take EOS terms and I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, you're talking about the visionary. Then when the integrator, if you're also trying to run the business, while you need to all, you need to step into the visionary seat and get somebody else to be the integrator and as you work with them, and as you train them, you have to let go and be okay. Letting go in. It was Jocko Wilinick's book. The last one that I read, which one was that? Oh, Leadership Strategies and Tactics and what he talked about is saying, okay somebody comes to you and this is part of the leadership thing and letting go and letting people, other people do stuff. If they come to you with a plan that is 80 percent as good as what you would have came up with, I'll let them run that plan because guess what? Their 80 percent of their plan is going to be a hundred percent better than your plan that you would have told them to do right now. If they come up with a 70 percent plan, okay, maybe ask them a question on what they could think on differently and let them come up with a solution. 60 percent you ask them more questions, 50 percent more questions, 40%, 30 percent okay, maybe just scrap the whole thing, come back to the drawing board. But when you have that buy in, now it's their plan to be able to move it forward.

Logan Marshall: 25:14

Yep, and they're gonna move fast on that, because they feel so attached to it, to be able to move the ball forward.

Peter Capuciati: 25:21

Sounds so easy when you say it like that. Right?

Thaddeus Tondu: 25:24

It's great. But in practice, it's difficult, super difficult, right? You have to constantly wage that inner battle between the ears to be able to let go of that.

Peter Capuciati: 25:32

Yeah. No you're spot on. Totally spot on.

Evan Hoffman: 25:34

You let go. Meanwhile, your butthole goes like that.

Thaddeus Tondu: 25:37

Please don't screw this up. Random question.

Evan Hoffman: 25:41

Alright, this is one of my favorite parts of the show, I don't know if you guys have tuned in, but Let's do it.

Thaddeus Tondu: 25:44

Did you just think of three off the top of your head?

Evan Hoffman: 25:47

We got three random questions, you have no idea what they are, you get to choose, Logan you can go first, one, two, or three.

Logan Marshall: 25:52

Three.

Evan Hoffman: 25:53

What are your pet peeves?

Logan Marshall: 25:55

Man, that's a tough one there. I would say just people lacking communication. That would probably be one of my biggest pet peeves like communication can come so easy if you focus on it. It's just really taking those steps to follow through. It doesn't take much time now because there's so much things to aid us and help us. But definitely lack of communication.

Evan Hoffman: 26:18

That's an interesting one. Especially from the doer of shit.

Logan Marshall: 26:21

Yeah. Yep. That's probably what feeds into that.

Evan Hoffman: 26:24

Yeah, a little bit.

Logan Marshall: 26:27

I love to over communicate maybe. That might be true.

Peter Capuciati: 26:30

Yeah. Yeah. I get the 600 page text often.

Thaddeus Tondu: 26:35

A. K. A. logo and learn how to shorten it down.

Logan Marshall: 26:41

We need to implement AI to make sure they're read.

Evan Hoffman: 26:43

Yeah, you gotta wrap it up, B. We need the wrap it up box. Peter, question one or two? What is something that you wished you'd figured out sooner in life?

Peter Capuciati: 26:52

Man only because I'm, now preoccupied with what you're saying is exactly that. It's the art of letting go and not being attached. As you were thinking, my whole brain was like, doing somersaults, but yeah, absolutely and that's the biggest lesson, right? The biggest lesson. It's for how you go from, managing a, like a SWAT team of doers to managing a giant organization of doers, but you can't be the doer. And making, realizing that and becoming comfortable with that in a way that you're not just saying you're comfortable, you're actually comfortable is something that I wish I figured out about, 20 years ago.

Evan Hoffman: 27:24

So walk us through that a little bit and the anxieties that you felt in those moments, because I think for any contractor that's listening to this, they're going through it on a daily basis, especially the ones that are in that one to three Kind of time frame trying to get to five. There's that hump there where you really get stuck. The five to seven, you have a hump there before you get to 10 and you really get stuck in. So walk us through the anxieties, the feelings, all of that you had to overcome to get to where you're at now.

Peter Capuciati: 27:47

Yeah, I think it comes down to being, slowing yourself down enough and I'm like preaching to the choir to myself cause I don't do this as often as I should, but slowing yourself down so that you can You can not react, but you can absorb and then be intentional about what you're going to do next because human nature is you want to react and say, no, do this, right? Particularly if you're wired that way, right? Your whole being is, wants to, say no, do it this way. But you have to be able to absorb that, sit back, relax, and then realize that you're in a training moment, you're not in a doing moment and then take that in. But I think it's that split second where your brain wants to fire off do this versus have you thought about X and then lead them to that, that to me is a challenging moment. There's the little moment in time where you've got to get over the hump and be. Be slow and slow yourself down enough to, be repeatable in that moment.

Thaddeus Tondu: 28:40

Almost sounds like emotional intelligence.

Logan Marshall: 28:42

I'm enjoying this. I'm going to reference this.

Evan Hoffman: 28:45

You just got yourself a new accountability coach.

Peter Capuciati: 28:48

I'll take it.

Thaddeus Tondu: 28:49

Good example. Okay. So now you're on the other side of the desk, right? And we're hearing this conversation and we're talking to, the visionary and okay, you slow yourself down. You as a, an employee. Now you're hearing this, you're like, okay how does this make sense for me? How can I implement this? How can I take this away? How can I put this into my day to day? How can I help my leader be better at doing it?

Logan Marshall: 29:10

Yeah, so It's a piece boy he is a really great leader at building a team of doers to be able to do those kind of things But inside of that, it's the same concept even at our level Understanding your role and what you're doing to be able to gain the most impact in that role and then whatever's not in that role, being able to make sure it gets to the right person in the team to be able to take care of that.

Thaddeus Tondu: 29:32

How do you gain clarity on gaining the right impact?

Logan Marshall: 29:35

Knowing the product, knowing the solution understanding the contractors on our end and just delivering. Yeah.

Evan Hoffman: 29:42

Do you know what I hear in that? He was taught how to think, not what to think and that's, it's a Gary Keller, right? It's a leader's job to teach people how to think, not what to think. Because then you teach someone, it's the same adage from the Bible, right? Teach a man to fish, or give a man to fish, right? And it's that same adage. Overcoming that hurdle. When did you start to ask more questions versus making statements?

Peter Capuciati: 30:04

I made my like, second career. So I got to it in my prior career after about five or six years of not doing that and so to be honest with you it's in process, right? So in this current career, it's, reeducating yourself on what you did prior, but it really only, you can only get there when you have significant again. confidence in everyone around you, right? Within the aspects that you're trying to do. Cause I can't ask you questions that I genuinely don't think you'll get there. Once I think you can get there, then of course that, that path opens up. I think I could do a better job of getting there faster for sure. But it is a challenge.

Evan Hoffman: 30:39

Logan's agree.

Logan Marshall: 30:43

Not in general sense.

Peter Capuciati: 30:44

One of the things we always talk about is, the ball is never in someone else's court. ever, right? I don't care what you're, if you're waiting, you're losing, right? So if there's something that has to be done and you're waiting for someone to do X, then that's on you. And if you hand it off, if I know that Logan's gonna do it, I still own it. He's doing it, but I still own the outcome. So I have to stay connected to that, even though I'm no longer, the person in charge of that action, I still have a, a connection to it to make sure it gets done. I think that's a, that accountability and that making sure stuff gets done is a kind of a lost art in the current world. People like hand shit off and I'm out. That guy's got it. Or, whatever it may be, or waiting for a phone call back. No, you call the guy 18 time work, whatever it takes. But back to your original question, it's a work in progress. Yeah. I think you know it when you're doing it, it feels so right when you're in that mode when you are in that questioning mode and you're not barking orders it's just how do you become more consistent in that behavior with the feedback and the people around you, right? But I don't think I have the magic answer, which I did

Evan Hoffman: 31:43

The other thing I'm hearing in this is that you're giving yourself a lot of grace when you make mistakes. And I think a lot of owners that like that is difficult to get over too. But we're so hard on ourselves. Yeah, we are our greatest critic and you know the problem with my money in the Dave Ramsey quote problem with my money is the idiot that I shave With every morning, right? But taking that self responsibility and giving yourself some grace to say hey, it's okay. I made a mistake. How can I be better tomorrow, right? And taking that pause to, to think and think through what it is that we really want to achieve and what is the greater outcome in this and how can we get there?

Peter Capuciati: 32:13

Yeah. I'm lucky cause my partner in, this world is a 27 year old amazing woman, Danica. She's way better at this than I am, like remarkably better than I am at this. So I get to watch her. I'm like, God damn, I should have done it like that. So it's, it, which is humbling, but also, education is literally half my age. But she's just wired that way, right? To perform that way. So yeah, you need people around you also that make you better, right? That you can, see what you're missing and emulate that and bring it into your daily action.

Evan Hoffman: 32:41

How did you go about attracting such remarkable talent? Cause your team is incredibly talented. I've heard it. I've met some of your great team members, but I've also heard it from everyone in the industry that the blue on team is just remarkable. How did you start attracting these people?

Peter Capuciati: 32:55

That's a great question. I don't necessarily can answer that in terms of the how. I think if you're open to people coming around and you're in a state of allowance and you also are inherently like culturally the same meaning. So everybody that blew on is wired. We all share one thing. We are service to others people. We get way more energy of helping our. Partner or colleague or associate that we do helping ourselves. That's how we're wired and I think that type of person is attracted to that type of person and you bring in people that are. Just inherently wired that way. You have to have like a signpost dope that lets you will know that, and that's how Logan and I met. I met him. I don't even, I don't even do social media at all. I looked on one day on LinkedIn and I was like that guy, that seems exactly what we're looking for and very similar service to others, a mentality. Which brought him in. But you probably better answer that question than I am.

Logan Marshall: 33:47

I agree with everything you just said. That's it. It's really just, building a like minded culture to be able to just feed off each other. The energy is infectious. It completely is.

Evan Hoffman: 33:58

What are the core values of Bluon?

Thaddeus Tondu: 33:59

Let's ask Logan that question. I already know that Peter would be able to spell them off. He's Oh, I got this. But so I'm going to buy you a little bit of time here. So the idea here is that when you ask the employees what the core values are, they shouldn't know them. Obviously the leader, the owner, they know the core values, they created the core values in conjunction with some others that are in there. But if they, if the team doesn't know them then it goes back to the leader that they failed in communicating those core values. Now that I bought you some time,

Logan Marshall: 34:26

it would be a shame if I didn't know this.

Evan Hoffman: 34:30

The job value soul, the sole purpose for us is upgrading the HVAC industry. So in whatever form or fashion we can do that in, that's what we're going to do. Whether it be the tech level all the way to the owners, to distributors, whatever it may be, we're upgrading the industry.

Thaddeus Tondu: 34:49

Yeah. So that's the purpose. What about the core value?

Logan Marshall: 34:50

Yeah. So service to others. That's it. And we answered that before, but it's service to others.

Thaddeus Tondu: 34:56

One core value.

Peter Capuciati: 34:57

That's the big one. That's a big one. I think gratitude, service to others. Always be in a position to be in the, in that we talk about gratitude all the time. Gratitude is the equalizer, right? Cause you can't be pissed at somebody if you're grateful for them and so that's always lean back into that mode. So if you're with people that you're inherently grateful for in terms of their, benefit to you, is a like drama reduction pill, right? It just removes all that stuff. So I think we focus a lot on service to others, a lot on gratitude and a lot of just trying to do our part to benefit the folks we work with, in a work with meaning the community we have built. In a meaningful way, not just in, helping them with their, their data and HVAC, but actually helping them be better people and, have better better experiences with their significant others and their family.

Thaddeus Tondu: 35:41

Well, that goes back to the technical, the soft and the life skills.

Evan Hoffman: 35:45

We are going to, pushing our time here Where can people get in contact with you? Best place to reach out to you? How can they sign up if they haven't already?

Peter Capuciati: 35:53

Yeah. Best thing is go to bluon.com. Click the contractor button on the top and then there's a, explains what we're doing with blue on for business, how it works, a little video of me barking, you can see it. seven minutes long, a little long, but it will explain what's happening right there. You click on, you can either sign up for a presentation or you can sign up right there. Right now we're running like the show today and tomorrow you get two months free to check it out. No risk. Typically it's one month, but right now it's two months of the show, which is the best way to figure it out, right? You can, we can pitch you to your blue in the face, but. Sign up, check it out, beat it up, drive it around the block. If it works. If it doesn't. It's going to work for, 90 percent of folks.

Evan Hoffman: 36:27

Love it

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:27

Cool. So if you're listening to this after the show, just mention that you heard this and use the reference of AHR and they'll give you two months free. That is true. Speaking for them. As we do wrap up

Evan Hoffman: 36:38

and mention the podcast.

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:39

Oh, and mention the podcast. Obviously. That's required.

Peter Capuciati: 36:42

That's rec, was it?

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:43

So as we wrap up, we have one final question for each of you. Peter, we'll go first on this one. What is one question that you wished people would ask you more but don't?

Peter Capuciati: 36:51

Jesus? That's a tough question. I don't know. Gimme a second on that one. That's a tough one. I guess maybe why did you leave an incredibly lucrative career to do this?

Thaddeus Tondu: 37:02

Okay why did you leave an incredibly lucrative career to do this?

Peter Capuciati: 37:06

Because making money is easy. Making money, doing something meaningful is difficult, right? And I was effectively printing money in my past life, but it was so empty of soul and there was, you were just making money to make money. No one was benefiting. In fact, probably the opposite. You're dealing with these, corporate, Fortune 100 company, CFOs and CEOs who are like, Satan himself and so it's a, it's just a completely unsatisfying existence. And so the ability to step back and sacrifice that, not really sacrifice it, but realize that you want a different world where you can actually have a meaningful team that has a, has the same view you do. Cause I was like the odd man out in that prior world. So powerful, right? Cause once you have purpose and then purpose and passion equals, only success, but just great positive existence in this world. When you have money without purpose or money without passion, like it's not where you want to be.

Thaddeus Tondu: 37:59

I like that answer. You're hired. Why? And that goes really back into it and in D are you feeling fulfilled? Exactly. If you have fulfillment in, if your team can feel fulfilled, Now you start to win.

Peter Capuciati: 38:09

That's right.

Evan Hoffman: 38:10

On the flip side, achievement without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

Peter Capuciati: 38:13

Big time. I can attest to that. Yeah.

Thaddeus Tondu: 38:17

Yeah. But it's a second life, right? Yeah. It's a second opportunity to be able to leave a legacy. Yeah. Yep. All right, Logan your turn. What is one question that you wish people would ask you more but don't?

Logan Marshall: 38:25

For help.

Thaddeus Tondu: 38:26

In what way?

Logan Marshall: 38:27

In any way that they need. that's really it for the industry talking about the industry overall. But, if that's one thing I wish for this industry, I wish that more guys would get out of their own way and start asking their peers for help. So whether it be taking that next step, going from A to B, where you want to be at in the business, reach out to the people who have done it. They will share that information and be able to help you.

Thaddeus Tondu: 38:52

And most people that are in that position to be able to help will, because guess what? They had other people helping them and it's okay to say, I need help and it doesn't necessarily have to be in business. It can be with anything. I need help reach out and ask people.

Peter Capuciati: 39:05

The greatest joy in life is that right is helping someone like that's it. That's it. That's the number one thing, right? That's what gets you up. That's what gets you going. So giving someone the opportunity to that, you're actually giving them. A huge opportunity by asking that question, which people think it's a burden, but it's a gift.

Thaddeus Tondu: 39:21

Well gentlemen, thank you for taking the time at the end of day two at ahr I know we're probably all four of us are pretty tired now, but hey, guess what we have after parties We'll get a red bull on the way and away we go so thank you guys and until next time.

Peter Capuciati: 39:34

Cheers guys.

Logan Marshall: 39:35

Cheers.

Evan Hoffman: 39:35

Cheers guys.

Thaddeus Tondu: 39:39

Well, that's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small. All we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business until next time. Cheers.