EP: 210 Michael Johnson w/ AC Man Heating and Air Conditioning - Is The Price Right?

Catch the latest HVAC Revealed episode where we kick back with Michael Johnson, an ex-US Air Force ace turned HVAC mogul. With two decades at the helm of AC Man Heating and Air Conditioning and as a success coach for the Conquer Program at HouseCall Pro, Michael’s got some killer insights to share.

Here are 3 hot takes you won't want to miss:

• Brand Brilliance: Learn how rocking a strong, consistent brand can build trust and let you price like a boss.
• Pricing with Purpose: Find out why setting your prices based on value—not just the competition—can turbocharge your business growth.
• Genuine Connection: Get tips on checking in with your team and customers to create a vibe everyone loves.

From military precision to mastering the HVAC market, we dive into leadership, marketing smarts, and more. Whether you're leading a crew or just want to cut through the market noise, this episode's packed with goodies.

Tune in for a blast of wisdom from Michael—this is one you definitely don't want to miss!

Find Michael :

On The Web: fayettevillehvac.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/michael.johnson2
TikTok: @acmanheatingandair
Digital E-Book - My Sales Elite: mysaleselite.com

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

Michael Johnson: 0:01

If you notice that people are only shopping on price, that's because you're attracting a certain type of customer. that's just the truth. I had to own it.

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:14

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 it's worth having drunk or sober, whichever, but I'm drinking, so hey, let's have at it.

Evan Hoffman: 0:26

I'm in Utah, so it's incredibly difficult to even find alcohol here.

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:30

They started serving beer, but I think it has to be under 4%.

Evan Hoffman: 0:32

You can't buy doubles. there's specific times that it can serve at. Even when you're at a restaurant, there's specific areas where you can get served. When you go to Buffalo Wild Wings, you get a wristband. It's something else.

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:42

Wow. I've only ever been through the airport there, and I'm pretty sure they served alcohol, but I don't really recall.

Evan Hoffman: 0:49

There was one establishment that I saw when I came in that was serving.

Thaddeus Tondu: 0:52

There you go and it, let's be real, you don't need alcohol to have a good time you can live a fulfilled life without it, I just prefer to drink because it makes other people more interesting as a story. But anyways, I digress. Let's dive in. Today we have on Michael Johnson from both the AC Man Heating and Air Conditioning down in Fayetteville, as well as the Conqueror Coaching Program at Housecall Pro, 20 years in the business, running the AC Man, Heating and Cooling. Also a former vet from the United States Air Force too. I remember when I had the first conversation about him coming onto the show and the question I asked him was like, okay Michael, what's your superpower in business? And he came back with pricing and marketing and so you guessed it. Guess what we're going to talk about today? The superpower pricing and marketing, but today's show would not be pot and I'm sure a whole bunch of other goodies as well that is in there, but that's going to be the overarching premise of the show, but today's podcast would not be possible, of course, without our lovely sponsors. We have Chiirp, Elite Call and On Purpose Media and let's go with Chiirp first. So transform your home service. By the way, no particular order. So transform your home service business with Chiirp, the ultimate automation toolbox capture more leads, connect instantly, and skyrocket your sales. Chiirp integrates seamlessly with platforms like ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro, offering automated texts, emails, and email and ring lists. Your Google reviews customer loyalty with a proven rehash program. Schedule your demo today, getting exclusive 25 percent off your first three months by going over to their link chiirp.com/hssr

Evan Hoffman: 2:19

I'm actually in Chiirp stomping grounds right now in Utah. It's it's pretty cool. But we also have Elite Call have you ever thought about outbounding your databases to fill your dispatch boards with lucrative sales opportunities and appointments? Boosting your memberships? Yeah, they got that covered too enter Elite Call, a U. S. based call center. With over 20 years of debt, their dedicated teams don't just make calls, they directly integrate appointments into your CRM, CRM and dispatch boards. Don't let your competition get ahead let Elite Call connect with your customers first. Visit elelitecall.neto learn more.

Thaddeus Tondu: 2:55

All right. And last, but certainly not least is On Purpose Media. So enhance your online presence with these guys down on your screen. onpurposemedia.ca your go to home service marketing expert for everything web design, SEO, and PPC. They make stunning user friendly websites. They get you increased visibility in search engines and even targeted traffic through effective pay per click advertising. So let's turn your online presence into a lead generating powerhouse. Visit onpurposemedia.ca to start your digital transformation and watch your home service business thrive in the digital world without further ado. We'll be back on the other side with Michael. There we are, just like that. Welcome to the show. HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Michael, thanks for joining us.

Michael Johnson: 3:37

Thank you. Thank you. Awesome to be here.

Thaddeus Tondu: 3:40

Yeah, it's gonna be a good conversation undoubtedly, so I'm gonna start with an easy question here for you maybe it's a tough one depending on who you ask 20 years ago. You were in the Air Force done the Air Force You're like, ah, you know what screw it. Let's get into the HVAC. Let's start a business walk us through your journey into the trades

Michael Johnson: 3:56

Man, that's a long emotional walk there, right? So when I was in the military, you know we, so I was in six years Air Force and I worked on 300 different types of equipment. So I had to learn and memorize 300 different schematics and when you get out of the military and you go to civilian life, there's no missile machines and bomb lifts and now you're not going to have a career on that unless you're just going to be in the government. So it narrowed down to two things. Two of the 300 machines I worked on, one was generators and the other was HVAC, right? So it was really a coin flip at that point deciding which one to do and while I was deciding, my wife, we, we were just married, we'd been married about a year, my wife was pregnant with our first son, I had to pay some bills and it was summertime. So I went out and started doing service calls on my own, just to pay the bills until I figured out which one I was gonna do and then, that was an automatic business one service call went to two, went to six months, went to eight months, to a year, and all of a sudden it's hey, boom, decision's over. Let's do this.

Thaddeus Tondu: 5:06

Went all in and you just started, so you basically went straight into being a business owner and a lot of guys go techs first, and then they go, or girls go techs first, and then they get into starting and running their own business. You just went from right from the get go. In that learning experience coming from the US. Air Force and then going in and just running service calls chuck in a truck is the word that comes to mind there and just going out and doing it. What were, if you were to go back in time to that very first service call, and if you were to do it differently based on what you know now, what would you do differently?

Michael Johnson: 5:42

That's easy, right? I made it very difficult on myself by, Not understanding how an HVAC company is to be ran because I was doing it just on necessity. Just doing a service call, making money, hoping another customer calls me. I didn't know how to get customers. I didn't know how to operate. I see you have Chiirp and these other sponsors. A lot of these companies I use, I didn't know any of that. I just jumped off the diving board and without knowing how to swim. So if I could go back, the first thing I would do was. Build the systems that I need to keep myself from working 60 hours and 70 hours and getting my first employee, not knowing how to hire an employee, not knowing how to price things, not knowing how to get customers. So instead of being a tech first, I would step back and figure out how to be an owner first, right? But if I went back 20 years now, if this was a back to the future movie and I saw my young self, he wouldn't even understand that, what that meant, I did it. I had to do it. But it's not the best way to do things, in my opinion.

Thaddeus Tondu: 6:49

And you reiterate yourself, right? Like you go back and it's a new season. I was chatting with somebody the other day and their season in life is cutting the clutter and having a the people that they talk to, right? Just focusing in on Impactful conversations and we always have new seasons, right? And again, 20 years ago, if I were to start our business 20 years ago, I know we probably wouldn't have 97 percent of the employees that we have right now. Cause I would have pissed them off because I was that type of a manager, right? It was just.

Michael Johnson: 7:18

Yeah.

Thaddeus Tondu: 7:18

My way or no way, right? And understanding there's nuances behind that. But I think the three key things that you looked at knowing how to hire, knowing how to price, knowing how to market in looking at running a business, in pricing also goes into the financial sides of things and knowing your numbers and making sure that you're not an accident and a non profit. When you go back to, in that order hiring hiring, pricing, marketing. What would you say in order is the most important?

Michael Johnson: 7:44

Okay. I always say, first of all, pricing is one of the things that can forgive. A lot of sins in business, right? Because if you're profitable, you can fix a lot of things. You can have all the best systems in place, the best brand, the best everything and underprice and lose money. That's bad, right? So I would say there would be a tie between marketing first, and marketing is not necessarily paying for ads. Marketing is what is your brand? What is your brand's story? Who are you as a company and how can you communicate that to your community? So for example, I'm a veteran. I'm at Fort Bragg. It's the biggest military base in the country. That's a pretty strong brand story. So I would say between marketing, telling the community who you are and communicating that well, and charging the right prices, are the two biggest things and those two things can forgive a lot of other mistakes.

Thaddeus Tondu: 8:48

It's a one A and a one B, right? And I actually want to unpack the marketing part of things first and again, they can reverse because if you don't have the right pricing you can't reinvest back into marketing and if you don't have marketing, you might not get clients to be able to do the right pricing and so again, it's a yin and a yang on that, but looking at the marketing and you mentioned brand story and it's not just paid ads. I want people to rewind and listen to that. It's not just paid ads. It's a brand story and okay. Yeah. We're a marketing company. We do websites, we do SEO and we do PPC. Okay that's the paid ad side of things, right? There's so much more that goes into marketing. There's online, there's offline. There's also marketing in terms of your customer experience. What does your vehicle look like when you show up? What is your, what are your uniforms of your guys look like when they go there? Put door mats down, have their booties on? Are they nice? Are they engaging? Do they smell good? Do they look clean? Do they, they have clean clothes? They have an extra change of seven or eight different, clothes in the car because they might get dirty, right? That's marketing. Yeah. I think a lot of people miss that. And so if you were to go back to your beginning days, knowing what you know now about marketing, what would you do first and second and third?

Michael Johnson: 9:50

So the first thing I would do now, remember, so I was 24 years old, I'm 44. Okay. So I was 24. I had no money and when I say I had no money, I had no money. Okay. So people say that and sometimes I don't think they, everyone knows what that means. So I was, my wife and I. We were going in the couch cushions. I see the couch behind Evan we were going in the couch cushions, trying to find change to get groceries. So this was, there was a non conversation of paying for Google ads doing all that. I had to get my butt out of the seat and knock on doors. I had to go to Walmart and this is why I tell my clients, in Conquer a lot of times, is hey, the leads aren't there. You got to go make the leads. Get a bunch of cards, go to Walmart or go to Whole Foods, whoever your best customer is, right? Go to the, where you think they shop, put the cards on the cars, knock on doors. I had to knock on doors and introduce myself, right? So to me, that's where marketing starts or. You think about it, Thaddeus, so you run a marketing company, okay? When we have a marriage between the company owner and the marketing company, and I'm representing my brand really well in town, people are seeing my trucks because I'm at the local Special Olympics event, because I'm at the Parks and Rec thing, they're seeing my vans everywhere. Now it's just beefing up the ads that you see. When they type air conditioner company near me Fayville and three ads pop up and they say, hey, I've seen that company before. This is a marriage between what I'm doing and what you're doing and when I just pass you the baton and the marketer and then blame you for it not working, it's not proper and that's what, for me, this important thing on my side of marketing is You can't see how my company is being represented in my community. So you could be slamming your head against a wall wondering why your ads aren't working or the website's not working. That's where it starts. It's you gotta really own, I have to own how I'm showing up in the community. Am I even showing up?

Thaddeus Tondu: 11:54

Music to any marketing company's ears right now and not music to any business's ears, especially if they're like my leads aren't coming in marketing company with the fuck and so that's going like back to square one and you said, make the leads and I'm curious, obviously our sponsors, Chirp and EliteCall can definitely help out with this depending on your customer list, membership base, et cetera there's some nuances there. If you're looking now, Right now, 2024, you've got a business, I don't know, let's call it two to 5 million in that range, and they are struggling to get their leads in. So a little bit removed from the starting. They have, they might have more time than money. Hopefully if their finances are done the right way and they're in, they're making money to be able to do these sorts of things, if they need to make leads right now, what are you telling them to do?

Michael Johnson: 12:39

Easy. If you're a two to 5 million company annually, you have a pretty decent size customer list, period, right? You need to find wherever that customer list is. If you're organized, hopefully you have them in some kind of CRM. Maybe you have them in HouseCall Pro. You may be very disorganized in their contacts in your cell phone. I don't care. You got to find them and you got to start calling them because there's nothing better than a warm lead, right? So if I call you up and I say, hey Evan hey, this is Mike. I did your AC six months ago, blah, blah, blah. We're running a special. That's a lot better. Then saying, Oh, my leads are cold. Let me throw 4, 000 on Google. So you have, I run Google ads. I believe in Google ads, Facebook ads, all that. But to answer the question, if I need leads now, I'm going to go on that customer list and I'm going to tell you what businesses say, because I talk to businesses all the time. They'll say I'm not good at cold calling. I hate it. You know what? If you're not good at cold calling or you're not good at texting your customers, you have two decisions, right? One decision to not do it is not a decision. You either man up or woman up and do it, right? Like when I was poor, I wasn't a good doorknocker, but guess what? I was hungry and I had to feed my wife. So I did it. So either man up or woman up and cold call your customers or two, you find someone who's good at it and you pay them to do it. You have no option to just say well, I hate it or you hear all this head trash of, I wouldn't want someone to cold call me and it doesn't matter why take that trash that's in your head, put it in the trash can where it belongs and call your customers.

Evan Hoffman: 14:22

A hundred percent. No, you need to get over it at the end of the day, it's your responsibility as a business owner. You have enough leads that are coming in. It's our responsibility as a marketing company to do that for businesses, but we also have to do it for ourselves and doesn't fall on anyone else. We can't blame anyone else. It's our fault if our phone's not ringing. Put out more content, do more things. How can we get our name out there to more people? And I think the 2. 5 to 5 it's really easy to create that marketing habit right now cause you've, like you said, you've got a customer base that you can rely on. What if someone's under a million and they don't have a customer base to rely on, or they just started in business? What are some things that you would suggest to them to start hustling? We're gearing up for summer right now. A lot of markets are hitting 85, 90 this week in the South. I don't, I think Arizona is hitting a hundred this week now. It, summer's here. What do you, what would you advise to someone who's just starting out on how to start getting customers right now?

Michael Johnson: 15:18

Okay. So this is smaller company. So you're on the opposite end and this is where, we talked about right at the beginning where you have to learn how to tell your story, okay? I grew up in Los Angeles there was 12 million people in Los Angeles and I always say this it's funny because as a young single guy in L. A. when I was in high school, if you saw a girl in L. A. and there's 12 million people there, you're never gonna see her again. So you better learn how to represent yourself and do it now. But you tell your story based on your strengths. So if I'm a 2. 5 to 5 million company, my story that I'm going to put in my community is we have 20 trucks on the road or we have 10 trucks on the road. If one guy's out, another guy can serve you. You're never going to have to wait two to three days. That's my strength. I'm a sub 1 million company if you call me, some 19 year old punk from Fayetteville Tech is not coming to your house, the owner is coming to your house. You're going to get personalized owner service that's powerful that's your story. So you have to find whatever your strength is and that's where I was when I was digging for change for grocery money. When I knocked on the door, I said, hello, my name is Michael. I own an HVAC company. I used to be in the military, local family owned business, just me and my wife. That's power. That was my strength. So you figure out, your smallness can be the strength in your story. You just have to learn how to communicate it. Don't look at it as an insecurity, you get it? You just have to find how to craft it and put yourself out there and get that truck. You mentioned truck and chucking a truck, right? That is, you have to still eliminate the perception of the chuck in the truck, right? So you your one man show ness is your strength, but you don't want to look like your one man show You're gonna tell people that so you have to get some kind of vehicle wrap going you have to, you can't show up in the kidnapper van, the white van syndrome, Dan Antonelli shows you got to get something going.

Thaddeus Tondu: 17:24

Dan Antonelli you said white man, white van syndrome. You'd be like, yeah, that's got to fix that.

Michael Johnson: 17:30

Yeah. Yeah and Dan's doing my rebrand actually. Nice. Yeah. So that's finishing next week. So I'm, man, I'm so excited about that. Amazing guy. Nice. All right.

Thaddeus Tondu: 17:39

So are you changing your name or are you keeping it?

Michael Johnson: 17:42

We're keeping the name.

Thaddeus Tondu: 17:44

Keeping the name. Nice.

Michael Johnson: 17:45

It's actually my core fear. When I first signed up with Dan, because 20 years is a long time, right? So I came in on one condition. Don't change my name but, it didn't even, it wasn't a conversation because the name is AC Man, heating and air, and our core values are hero, we honor our customers, we do all things in excellence, we believe in reliability and we're outreach to our community, being at Fort Bragg, the biggest army base in the country, this is a city of heroes and AC Man plays into the superhero theme. So I didn't have to change the name, I just changed the colors yeah, it worked out beautifully.

Thaddeus Tondu: 18:24

Yeah I can't wait to see what he just does phenomenal shit so yeah, can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Michael Johnson: 18:29

Amazing. Yep.

Evan Hoffman: 18:30

I'm glad that that you went down the path of telling your story and being able to connect with that and then craft your message around that. It doesn't matter if you're door knocking, putting out door hangers any kind of thing like that or running Google ads, putting on a website, anything, when you have that core messaging behind it, everything else plays off of that and I think that one of the things that happens is that as we grow as business owners, nothing fails like success and the things that got us to where we are now, we stop doing as we continue to grow and get bigger and bigger and so to reconnect to what it is that is our core message and then do those things that we did in the beginning that allowed us to get customers like of the Cloverleaf strategy of, putting door hangers on three to the left, three to the right, the three across the street to make sure that we're getting our brand name out there and in as many ways as possible.

Michael Johnson: 19:20

Yeah. Yeah. And Evan, and that exact thing happened to me as I grew from a Chuck in the truck or Mike on a bike or whatever you want to call it. So for me when I was really small, I had to connect with customers with who I am, my personality, right? But then as I got bigger, my opinion of what a big company was all professional, clinical, and we lost for a while that personable thing because I thought, this is what a big company is and then you can see the relationship changes from the customer base when you're marketing your videos and everything is just cold and clinical. So this got me here, this personable, veteran owned I'm an Iraqi war veteran, my dad is a Vietnam veteran, my grandpa is a World War II veteran. Got away from that to, Oh, this is just a big AC company. Now we were returning to that again and putting that in the branding with Dan and all that, you can see a big difference. So you're 100 percent right. You have to have some kind of. Operating procedures or something written down and this is why Evan I have in my background, Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

Evan Hoffman: 20:26

Great book. Beautiful book.

Michael Johnson: 20:28

I put this here in my background so that I can see it every day. Because this reminds me of what you're saying is what got you here is going to keep you here. Why did I start this business? Because of a necessity. How did I start it? I put myself out there and who I am and that has to, so my why is it's always in front of me. I can go on about that forever. Yeah.

Thaddeus Tondu: 20:54

I love his his gold the golden it was a triangle or circle or whatever, right? And then when he talks about in the YouTube video of just okay now you have it's the apple, right? Apples, Endgame is okay they sell phones, but their whole advertising is all about their why and it's just powerful when you have a why in your business and it's okay. What motivates you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What gets you to work? What gets you to do what you want to do? And spoiler alert, money isn't a why. So what is your why? That's good. If somebody asks, Hey, why did you start your business? Why are you doing your business today?

Michael Johnson: 21:26

Okay and this is, it's very interesting when you start talking about why, because it gets really emotional, right? And side note quickly, just to, before we leave that, if you go on my TikTok, you'll see a description on there most people's TikToks, it'll say HVAC services, Seattle. My description says making Fayetteville homes better that's a why are we doing this to make your home better? So you do have to play that why in all your marketing. I started my HVAC company because we had the 300 different types of equipment. I could have picked several things. I went to school. I had my bachelor's degree because I wanted to be an attorney after I got out of the military, I was going to be a lawyer. But then I stopped and thought, what serves my community the most, right? HVAC, home service. It affects more people in the community than attorney. So when my friend's HVAC is out, I can practically help them, right? So my why is honestly to serve my community. I've been an HVAC business owner for 20 years, but I'm a youth minister at my church, 20 years. So my why is to be present, with my family, not just to run a business so I can be gone all day from them, right? not at their graduations, not at this. My why is to serve my family. At 5pm, I clock out. Done. If that's Michael's why, you better believe my employees want the same thing, right? So I always have to remember, I wanted to be present with my family. I have to make sure my employees are present with their families and if I continue my personal why downward into the culture of the company, you create a healthy company, right? Hopefully that ties it in for you.

Thaddeus Tondu: 23:12

And it aligns and usually when you have your why and your purpose, when you do your core values and your mission statement as an organization, it generally runs off of the why and now those core values can be translated down to the team members that are inside of an organization and if they live those out now they help live the Y and it just, it's that full circle up and down the straight line. However you want to call it on it. Yeah, love it.

Michael Johnson: 23:36

A hundred percent and that's the H in our core values, where it's hero, honor. That's why we honor our customers. So why are we in business? You said it right. Money is not a why, right? I can make 10, 000 today, What does that change in our community? Nothing. But when you serve a customer, when you have a 90 year old lady who her AC didn't work and you fixed, you serve someone granted, there was a financial exchange, you don't do it just for the money and we honor those people, right? We respect their time. When I tell you I'm going to be there at two. I'm not honoring you by showing up at 6 p. m, right? So all of those things, that's why we have to build them into a company so that we always look up and see when the employees come and they see, Hey, this is why we're in business and if you continue your why, if you honor your customers, if you serve in excellence, if you're reliable, you do outreach to your community, guess what? The money's coming. You do those other things. Guess what? The money's not coming. Or it'll come for a while, and eventually it'll stop.

Thaddeus Tondu: 24:42

Yeah it's living the values, right? And it's Gary Vee talks about this, the Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook or whatever his saying is, and that lead with value. It's a slower, it's a slower burn. Yeah. But it comes back in spades when, once you're there.

Michael Johnson: 24:53

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

Evan Hoffman: 24:55

And Zig Ziglar said, too, help enough people get what they want, and you'll get what you want, right? It's just about giving back and caring about people and connecting with your why, and I think this question here that came in, and I'm not logged into Facebook on here, so I have no idea who it was, but question that came in on here was what kills us is people just shopping price. Because we definitely aren't the cheapest and I think this will tie in nicely with both the marketing side of things, but then also on the pricing side of things, because I don't think you coach anyone to be the cheapest in terms of pricing your products. How is it that you can craft or tie in a marketing message that's going to get people to take action, but not letting people just shop based on price alone?

Michael Johnson: 25:38

Okay, so When I see that question and I always want to be delicate because I don't want to sometimes people take this the wrong way Okay, but get this if you notice that people are only shopping on price That's because you're attracting a certain type of customer. Okay, that's just the truth. I had to own it. It's the same thing. So when people say I can't find any good employees why aren't the good employees putting in job applications at your company because the good employees are Want a good job. You probably have a good job, but you don't look like it this is where the truck wrap comes in the company image comes in, right? so you see I have this lighting up and all that takes all this extra time. What's the perception there? So to tie back into that question for the person that's live, if you notice that you're losing a lot of bids on price, what that means is you did not communicate that you're worth the higher price that you gave. Point blank, period. Because there's two, I'd say there's a tale of two customers. Okay, you've got expensive guy here who just wants it done. He's got a boatload of money. Then you got guy here who wants to fix it himself. When the rich guy calls and you communicate only on price, we can give you the best price we can give. This guy's waiting to hear are you going to be here today? Are you going to be on time? So you're not even speaking his language. Okay, you're speaking this guy's language. You'll notice when you start to sell on value, you get all those five star reviews, right? You get a thousand five star reviews, you got your trucks wrapped, you got uniforms clean, you got your photos up. Somebody calls, and they say, how much is your service call? 85. And they say, okay, I'll call around. You say, okay, yeah, no problem. Call around. We just want to let you know that we've been in business 20 years. Boom boom. Then you start noticing you have a different customer, but it's tough to own the fact that if you're losing on price, it's not them, it's you. It's not them, it's you and I'll, and I'll add one thing is I noticed the biggest difference on value propositioning is when we really started having our image in the community stronger, we started getting better employees, and we started showing up in different communities. You think that guy with the two million dollar house Wants a certain company coming. He's not there. His wife is there. Okay. So how do you guys feel when your wife is home alone right now? Evan you're in Utah, right? So I don't know if you're married, but if you are your wife is home alone now, who are you calling? Some random guy who doesn't look safe, how much are you willing to spend? Evan and Thad's? Okay, so company comes chucking a truck. He doesn't look that professional. He's gonna come out for a hundred. Then you got another company. They look safe, they say they do background checks. He's 500 will you pay 500 instead of a hundred to keep your wife and kids safe?

Thaddeus Tondu: 28:21

Spoiler alert, I just call one of my, one of our clients in the city. However, that being said, I would, you go for the one that has the better brand, right? That makes the person feel safe and that's exactly it and you want to make sure that there's, look, I've had it before and I've had somebody come and luckily I was home and they came to my house and I knew the business, I knew the brand, but just what they showed up in a, in an unmarked van. It was white it was like one of those little sprinter tiny things or whatever. So it wasn't quite the abduction van that we're, that Dan Antonelli talks about, but shows up there. It doesn't have any branded uniforms on jeans are dirty from the previous job didn't have he wasn't groomed and I have no issues with the beard. I got a beard, right? But just scraggly and just didn't look clean and comes in and does the work and I'm, like, yeah, I'm just paying you for my tuna bud get out of my house a thing. I've had that experience before as a consumer and it just if that was my wife there, no.

Michael Johnson: 29:13

So you don't call them back, but guess who calls that guy back? The guy who doesn't care about anything but you getting it done cheap. So you end up with a lot of those and you get in this bubble where you think this is everyone, right? But we all know this is funny. There's a funny paradox. So oftentimes we'll say everyone just wants the cheapest price. But then five minutes later, they'll say, man, that big company in my town is charging three times more than what. How are they charging three times more if everyone in your town only wants the cheapest price? That's a paradox.

Thaddeus Tondu: 29:45

And then look at the vehicles that they drive, and I guarantee that there's a whole plethora of high end vehicles to low end vehicles. It's the value that one places and in our job, or I guess the business owner's job and the company's job is to communicate that value when they're in with the customer. But you get right back to full circle starts with the brand.

Michael Johnson: 30:07

Yeah and that's, and it's difficult and I understand. I never want to target anybody'cause I've been there before. Selling the value and communicating the brand is a skill that you have to learn. We're not born. It's something that you hone in and it starts on every single level. I go twice per year. I go to the local community college and talk to the students there and I tell a story it's called the timeline of a service call, right? So before you learn about selling on value, you think the interaction starts when I ring the doorbell, but there's a timeline and you think about this. Okay. If you buy a ticket to a concert, and it sucks, right? Are you going to tell your friend to buy that ticket? No. Okay? We, people buy tickets to us all the time. But it starts, first thing, they see that truck on the road, right? That's value. Second thing, they go on your website. Does it look nice? Is it professional? That's where you guys come in, right? The website. They're going to click on those reviews. What are people saying about you? They're going to call your CSR. sound like she has a smile on her face? Does she answer the phone every time? Does she book you? Then when they book, do you get a text message that says you're on the way? Do you show up on time? Once you've done those 12 things before you even rang the doorbell, now we're not having a conversation about price anymore only if you haven't done those 12 things, now it's about price. So there's work to be done.

Evan Hoffman: 31:36

You got it here. Let me give everyone a little nugget here from any hour so again, for those that missed the start of the show I am in at any hour right now, a nine figure company operating out of Utah, they also run the any hour group, which is a group of companies as well, which is, I believe somewhere approaching almost half a billion dollars. Don't quote me on that. I can't remember the exact number, but that was that one rings true for me. They have these mirrors all around their offices because they have multiple different training rooms here now over 340 trucks that are on the road. Multiple mirrors set up around the office with little sayings above them. And I snapped a picture of one and it says, does this person look like someone you would trust to be in your home?

Thaddeus Tondu: 32:20

If it was you, no.

Evan Hoffman: 32:22

I

Thaddeus Tondu: 32:22

covered

Evan Hoffman: 32:23

my face with the phone and then it was okay.

Thaddeus Tondu: 32:26

And a picture of me on the back of your phone.

Michael Johnson: 32:29

It's important, you know what I mean? Right.

Evan Hoffman: 32:31

Yep. Yeah. They hand out 13 uniforms when you start. So that you've got six for the week, six for next week, which are at the dry cleaners, and one which stays in the truck in case one gets dirty, you can change your shirt and change it out. They also went even further and said sometimes when we have an apprentice that's out on a call, they're wearing the same uniform. They get asked some of the questions that they don't have answers to yet. So instead of putting the apprentice in the uniform, they put an apprentice in a matching t shirt. So now there's a clear distinction as to who the technician is versus who the apprentice is. Little attention to details like that matter and they've got I've got another picture of this too. Mannequin in their dressing room, in their locker room, where they're decked out exactly how it is that you're supposed to be decked out in your uniform, shirts tucked in, you've got the black belt on, which has their logo on it, branding's important. Shoes that are polishable, right? Attention to detail is incredibly important because how many times have you been running a call? When, as you're walking up to the home, I know I had this happen when I was a comfort advisor. You're walking up to the home, and you can see them peeking through the blinds. They're wondering who's at their house so that first impression matters that it's so important.

Michael Johnson: 33:42

You're doing so many different things companies on that level are doing that you don't even realize and you're trying to compete in your one man show or two man show and you're like, ah, I just can't do it. It's just, people are cheap and you don't see the things, all those tiny things. I have a son who is graduating high school in May, fantastic basketball player and. All the little tiny things that he would do in practice here, we built a little basketball court here and nobody sees those. They go in the games and it's oh, why are you such a good shooter? And they're trying to mimic, but you don't see all the tiny things that are happening before and you have to learn those and practice those and then you start seeing the change, then you start becoming a believer like me. I shifted my mind from people are cheap and this and that and once I started doing those tiny things and realizing man, our customer had 12 touches before our technician rang the doorbell. Yep. Good luck competing against that and then, you're talking about 12 touches after the job is done, right? We send these little custom Oreos with our brand and everything and they're getting that. So now, once you got those customer gifts, and you get a text message from Chiirp six months later, that's time for your, it's easy. Because you're not doing it for money, but you're doing it because you care about the people that are supporting your company.

Evan Hoffman: 35:02

You get praised in public for what you practice in private.

Michael Johnson: 35:05

Amazing.

Thaddeus Tondu: 35:06

Random question generator I think that's a perfect segue into that and we can finish up with a little bit of pricing talk random question generator has nothing to do with the show where we're going to list off. You get to choose if you want question one, two, or three, you don't get to know what the questions are, but the random question generator is brought to you by On Purpose Media, where we optimize websites faster than a teenager cleans their room when company is coming. I like that one. That was, that one's good. All right, Michael, do you want question one, two, or three?

Michael Johnson: 35:33

Let's go with question number one.

Thaddeus Tondu: 35:36

Oh that one's a tough one.

Michael Johnson: 35:38

Oh my gosh, okay, I can handle Chuck.

Thaddeus Tondu: 35:40

If you could only speak in song lyrics, what artist's song would you choose? That is the most randomest question. I don't come up with these, by the way. You can thank Stacey for coming up with those so.

Michael Johnson: 35:57

I think I would probably have to do some kind of old school artist. Because they would speak English properly and I would be so I would have to go as far back as I can go. Anything two thousands and later would probably be a no go. Say Otis Redding or something.

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:15

Anything two thousands or later would be a no go oh, our generation our generations.

Evan Hoffman: 36:22

No Michael Bublé?

Michael Johnson: 36:24

Man, I don't even know who that is.

Evan Hoffman: 36:26

He speaks good English.

Michael Johnson: 36:27

Should I? Should I,

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:28

Naturally. He speaks good English.

Michael Johnson: 36:29

Oh, he is Canadian. Okay. Explains why.

Thaddeus Tondu: 36:31

No he's like world famous. He has like a bunch of Christmas. He's like a Christmas guy, isn't he not? I know him. A bunch of stuff. Yeah. He was on the Super Bowl with the bubbly waters. Yeah and he was sitting there and he, we write the, he would change it to, to boo blaze all the time. I actually, that's, we don't even call'em Bubbies. We call'em Boo Blaze in our house as a result of that Super Bowl commercial. That's hilarious. Clearly. It works. Great marketing. Great marketing. Great marketing. So we've a lot, we've talked about a lot of different things and making sure that there are adequate resources to be able to do all these sorts of things, to be able to attract the right talent into our business and hire correctly, to be able to do the branding and getting out in the community and spending some time and sponsoring the little league teams and being active there and doing those sorts of things to be able to now running into rebrand and. You should have done your brand the first time the right way. But obviously not everybody has Dan Antonelli type resources at their disposal to be able to now doing, pay traffic and making sure that you take care of your people. I think a lot of the common problems when somebody starts out and they might not have any experience in pricing accordingly to be able to make sure that they can do all these things. And look, there's a lot that goes running into it, that goes into running a business. Like a lot of people see, Oh, 1, 000 have you thought about the vehicle, the insurance, the overhead, the training, the staff paying them a livable wage so that they can take care of their families to be able to make sure that the building is on. Everything that goes involved in that if somebody's coming in and they're like, I don't even know where to really begin, I just throw a number on a dart board and send it, and hopefully I get the bid, and hopefully I make money to be able to do those things later on down the road how would you guide them through, and I guess what have your experiences been in making sure that you're priced accordingly?

Michael Johnson: 38:13

Okay, so I would say number one, first thing we're gonna set in our mind and agree on is what we're not gonna do. We're not going to price Based on what other people are charging in town. Okay, that's like the 99. 99 percent of people start there. This is about how much they know. If you knew how many companies with even really big revenue are pricing themselves out of business with very tiny margins. You would realize how important it is not to compare, right? So after we decide, we're not going to care about what other people are charging. Then we're going to price based off of our numbers. And what that means is you're going to add up all of your expenses yearly. My insurance, my owner's salary, my technician's salary, my gas, whatever, I don't care, you name it, you're going to add all of it. Yeah, you're going to add all that up, it's going to become a number. Let's say that's 200, 000 a year, right? And all the small guys are saying, I don't spend that much, add it up, you'll be shocked. Alright, so let's say it gets to be 200, 000, that's how much you're spending. Period. If you don't make a dollar. So you need to make that back, right? So what you're going to do is you're going to figure out how many hours are available for you to even work in a year and it's not 2, 000. There's 2, 000 hours if you work 40 hours a week. 40 hours times four times 12. But you're not working all of those because you have Christmas, you have your birthday, you get sick, you want a vacation. That's going to go down to a smaller number and we typically say you're really only available for about a thousand hours. So you would divide that number by a thousand. That's how much you need to make every hour every hour but there's a problem with that formula, because you're only going to make the money back that you spend. You're going to have to divide that number by a profit margin and once you divide that, and we won't get all super deep and nerdy because people are going to fall asleep, right? But it starts on your numbers, and you would be shocked one man company hourly is going to be at least 200 an hour at least. At least a company with four or five trucks, you're talking about 350 an hour and this is the first thing people say when you say that. If I charge 200 an hour, no one will pay it then, just go outside and see all the big companies. There's companies that are charging it. It's not about whether people will pay it or if you go out of business. It's about, okay, now I know my numbers told me this is what I have to charge so now what I have to do is learn how to sell the value of what I'm doing. You look, there's a flea mall about a mile here. They sell watches for 15 and then the shopping mall is a mile the other way and they have watches in there for 15, 20, 000. Why are people paying that? Because someone sees the value in that watch. So you got to find the people and you have to learn how to communicate the value and you don't have a choice because you will be working 70, 80, 90 hours a week and I know people that are listening have done it. I've done it. You're working tons of service calls and your bank is empty. It's empty so number one, stop asking what other people charge, number two, figure out how to price on your numbers, number three, once you arrive at that number, charge that number and learn how to communicate on value.

Thaddeus Tondu: 41:27

And that's, and in looking at hourly, that makes sense. What about time and material? And so now you're, or set rate price, flat rate pricing and or menu pricing or however you want to phrase it, you shut a new flat rate in what they do and how they're transitioning to menu pricing versus flat rate pricing, right? How would somebody go about looking at that part of things, right? Because I think a lot of people miss the mark on that too. Using the formula that you just had, how would you augment it to be able to add in extra elements of that?

Michael Johnson: 41:54

So flat rate pricing, we're actually a flat rate pricing company. So whether you do time and materials or flat rate is really the same exact thing if you think about it. Okay, so In time and materials, all you're doing is calculating your hourly rate, which we just talked about, and then you're taking your materials and you're adding a profit margin to that, right? In flat rate, all you're doing is taking each individual task and figuring out, so let's name something. Changing a motor the motor cost me 75 if I had a profit margin to that, I'm going to charge 150 for the motor my labor rate is 300. Changing a motor now becomes 450. That goes in your price book so you're going to do that for every task that you do in your business and that's flat rate pricing. It's the same thing. It's not scary. People get scared of it. How do I do flat rate? How do I move from time and materials? It's literally. The same thing. It just takes more work to set up.

Evan Hoffman: 42:51

I was going to say, that's the fear is the amount of work that it takes and then what if I miss something, what if I miss a job, right? What, I don't have the layout of every single job that I do because I haven't documented my processes and it when am I going to find the time to sit down and do it?

Michael Johnson: 43:06

Yeah and so I have an online course that we sell. I own a company called Sales Elite and we have a digital course on pricing. It's 10 videos and we have a digital course on selling value. It's another 20 videos and it walks you through how to do it yourself. So it's called, the website is My Sales Elite if you want to learn more and just say, Mike, Oh my gosh, I can't learn this all in an hour just contact me. I'll tell you about the course, but as far as the fear aspect, sometimes you do things scared and sometimes you mess up and you know what? You gotta do it. I wouldn't be married to my beautiful wife of 20 years if I didn't walk up to her scared as heck. Sometimes you just got to be, what if I, she rejects me? What? Okay. What if I miss something? What if I don't do the, you know what? Just do it. You'll figure it out.

Evan Hoffman: 43:54

Yeah. There's going to be what ifs on both sides. Wouldn't you rather put that control back in your hands and at least take that shot?

Michael Johnson: 44:00

And be healthy it's all about having a healthy business. So when you charge for that motor or you charge for that, you're going to be there next year when that unit is under warranty. You're going to honor your customer and you're going to do things in excellence because you can afford to. That's what it's about. It all really ties back to serving your customer.

Evan Hoffman: 44:18

100%. Tommy Mello has the quote in his first book. What is it? Home Service Millionaire charging what it costs to do a great job is in the customer's best interest.

Michael Johnson: 44:26

Great quote.

Thaddeus Tondu: 44:27

And here's the other part too. And it's cause it's in the customer's best interest. But the other part is when you charge what you're worth and be able to customer's best interest, now you can take care of your team that goes to the hiring part and when you take care of your team and they're bought in and they're, they enjoy the culture they're taking care of guess what they naturally do when they're with the customers. They have a better experience because they enjoy working there. So it's all just funnels into the exact same end goal as we get close to the top of the hour, Michael, I do want to drop a couple of links for people to find you. It was mysaleselite. com was that the address?

Michael Johnson: 45:00

Yeah. Sales funnel is not on there yet. It's available next month, May 15th.

Thaddeus Tondu: 45:05

May 15th so this link, don't go to it yet. There is a funnel on there, but the other one will be there later. Contact me. Just contact me. Sorry, my bad. facebook.com/michael.johnson2. You can reach there tiktok.com@acmanheatingair pretty solid following there if you want to check their business out fayettevillehvac.com are the ways to get in touch with him for that and thank you for taking the time. But as we do wrap up, we have one final question here for you what is one question that you wished people would ask you more but don't?

Michael Johnson: 45:38

Ooh, probably. How are you? But not one of those, how are you's? Hey, how are you? I'm bad. Okay.

Evan Hoffman: 45:44

Not

Michael Johnson: 45:44

the fluffy BS. Yeah, like a really, check in, because we're all, business owners and a father of three sometimes, we need to slow down and really say Evan, how you doing?

Thaddeus Tondu: 45:54

And I think really how you doing.

Michael Johnson: 45:56

Yeah and when you ask, stop and listen, I think the world needs more of checking in with one another, like really honestly, it's something I've been trying to get better at is like really stopping and saying like, how are you doing? So if you see me, ask me,

Thaddeus Tondu: 46:09

Cool. I appreciate you too. We could just say, hi, how are you doing, Michael? How are you really doing?

Michael Johnson: 46:14

And I'll say, I'm doing great. How are you? But if I say I'm struggling a little bit, you say, okay, oh man, how can I support you? I'll say that's what brought, that's what this is.

Evan Hoffman: 46:21

It does depend on the personality type and this is something that they were just talking about here is like the color code system. But whether it's that or DISC or Myers Briggs or any of the personality types there are certain personalities where they don't reveal that information openly to most people. So where this, where I want to bring this back to is with our teams, with your team. So if you've got someone that has that personality type, that's a little bit more resistant to sharing how they're actually feeling, what is one thing that you do to help connect with them more so that they feel comfortable opening up a little bit so that you know how it is that they're actually doing?

Michael Johnson: 46:57

You definitely would want to make sure that you're really asking them when it's a one-on-one situation, right? Because if there's anyone around, even if they're on the other side of the room, there's gonna be that fear there, right? So you're gonna do a one-on-one, and then, and I get it, everybody is, doesn't know how to talk to someone or if someone starts crying, they freeze up they don't know what to do so that, but it's just a matter, even if they don't share. It's checking in Hey, Evan, how you doing? I'm good. Okay. Are you good? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. If you ever need anything, I'm here. Sometimes that's all it is. They may never share, but you're letting them know that you care. Sometimes it's all people need.

Thaddeus Tondu: 47:33

Right? And also understand everybody has their own shit, right? Everybody has something going on outside of where they're currently talking to you with myself, Evan. You Stacey, anybody anybody listening, everybody has their own stuff and so also understanding that to be able to go, to walk that back. If they say, it's I, are you really, are you sure? It's okay. You can have the conversation. But if they do say that louder or they pause or you can read their body language a little bit, sometimes they just need to let it out.

Michael Johnson: 47:59

And you have to honor them. Yes. That's the biggest mistake that I see is you have to validate people, even if you don't think it makes sense. So if I go to Stacey or something and I say, Hey Stacey, how you doing? I'm really bad because my husband made a snarky comment, Oh, you're feeling bad because of that. No, that's don't dishonor, right? That's the quickest way to get people to shut down on you. So you validate their feelings. You don't have to be a softy all the time, but you say, Oh man, I hope you feel better. I hope that works. Just don't un validate.

Thaddeus Tondu: 48:30

Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I look forward

Evan Hoffman: 48:33

to Thad validating my feelings more often.

Michael Johnson: 48:36

Yeah, validate this guy.

Thaddeus Tondu: 48:38

Yeah, no, we don't validate any of Evan's feelings.

Michael Johnson: 48:41

That's hilarious. Yeah.

Thaddeus Tondu: 48:43

We say that in jest and in joking, but we definitely understand those things and it's and some people, by the way, are naturally gifted at at being able to disarm and not in, and understand and empathize and have conversations and others really got to work at it and those that really need to work at it, sometimes you're just not even very good at it either and so if you're on the receiving end and there's somebody that like I said that I'm not due to onset. Oh, that sucks and they carry on they're not the type of person that can empathize with that, right? Not everybody has that emotional intelligence to be able to have that conversation.

Michael Johnson: 49:14

Yeah. Don't try to be someone you're not. If that's a, if you don't know how to do it and you're not empathetic, don't try to be a counselor just listen, then tell me about it and just listen. Don't say anything and you can even admit, Hey, I really, you because it's really not, no one knows what to say. You just say, Hey, you know what, I really don't know what to say, but I can listen and then if someone says something crazy, because this is where we live in Hey, I think I'm gonna harm myself. Then you have to know how to, especially as employers, you have to know how to handle that. If you don't know how to handle it. There needs to be something in place where people know who to tell that to. Yeah. Man, it just got real serious.

Evan Hoffman: 49:48

I know for Thad and I, we went and visited Triple Play Home Services with Stacy and Mike Fore. They've got an in house therapist, counselor I don't know her exact title, but someone who comes into the office and now her technicians, her reception staff, her people can go in and talk to them and, get whatever it is off their chest because she believes so firmly in having that support system.

Michael Johnson: 50:09

Yeah, it's important. Yeah, it's important.

Thaddeus Tondu: 50:11

And there's other and if you're not at the business that's able to be able to support that, there's other resources that you could look at doing. Don't just leave that person by themselves. There's support lines. There's people that are there that are trained in it. If you're not trained in it, don't pretend to be trained in it and you'll be able to have that conversation, right? And just knowing that, knowing your strengths and knowing where that lies, but also it's good if you're a business owner, says never thought about that. You probably should, and you should probably put something into your HR aspect of things on how to adequately deal with that and it's probably going to be nuanced and I don't know if we want to go open up that conversation right now. I thought about it, but again, it's, again, we're not, I'm not. Professional on that. So I don't know if I'd be able to, or feel comfortable in saying, Hey what I do in those situations? Cause I honestly don't know what I would do.

Michael Johnson: 50:56

Yeah. We all learn. That's what business is. We all learn something new ooh, now I have something else I need to go and maybe consider, even if it's just a number that I can put up when someone say, Hey, call this number.

Evan Hoffman: 51:06

Yeah. Amazing. Oh, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Hang out with a couple of crazy Canadians and and share some of your knowledge. So I truly appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Michael Johnson: 51:15

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, it was a blast.

Thaddeus Tondu: 51:18

I enjoyed it as well. And until next time.

Evan Hoffman: 51:20

Cheers.

Michael Johnson: 51:21

Cheers. All right. See you later.

Thaddeus Tondu: 51:25

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.