Jason Walker's Path to Success: Leadership Through Adversity

What if the secret to conquering life's biggest hurdles lies in the power of perseverance and a positive mindset? Join me, Corey  Berrier, as I sit down with the incredible Jason Walker for an episode that promises to inspire and motivate. We journey through Jason's impressive 15-year career in the HVAC industry, from his start as an installer and technician to becoming a top-tier comfort advisor with remarkable sales achievements. Learn from Jason's experience about the importance of continuous learning, dreaming big, and maintaining a positive outlook even in the face of daunting challenges.

Jason opens up about the profound personal adversity he has faced, including the heartbreak of losing his five-month-old daughter. Discover the strength it takes to move forward during such times, supported by unwavering love and commitment. This compelling story touches on the necessity of leadership through adversity, maintaining self-awareness, and the sheer resilience required to overcome life's hurdles. Jason's journey is a testament to the transformative power of determination, both personally and professionally.

We also delve into the future of the HVAC industry, where Jason emphasizes the importance of technicians as 'doctors of the industry,' advocating for a holistic approach to technical services. Gain insights into effective sales strategies, the impact of authenticity, and the essential lesson of not letting personal financial limitations influence professional decisions. Additionally, learned about the creation of the HVAC Masters of the Hustle podcast and the importance of training, vision, and a unique brand identity in transforming business culture. Don’t miss this insightful episode that promises to leave you with valuable takeaways for achieving your own goals.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, cory barrier, and I'm here with my man, jason walker. What's up, brother?

Speaker 2: 1:04

what's up, man, big cory in the house. What's up, dude man? I just gotta say absolute honor, pleasure to be a guest on the podcast. Thank you for reaching out and for everyone that's listening on the other side, man, I'm hoping that y'all get value content and this will get you to the next level. I know we're going to dive in deep on some good shit, so I'm excited.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Yeah, dude, I'm really excited too. You know you and I have been. You know I've been in your Facebook group, masters of Hustle, I don't know, probably a couple of years, and you know we just really never had a chance to sit down and talk, and so I'm really excited. Well, for those people that might not know who you are, give us just a quick overview.

Speaker 2: 1:50

You know I've been doing the trade thing of HVAC for 15 years now, being able to create a really good name for myself within the trades, where I've done anything and everything from an installer, technician to a comfort advisor. Where as a comfort advisor is really where I made a name for myself, where my last year I was a comfort advisor doing 4.5 million. Average ticket was 19,500. Technician turns over the call. You get me in the house, that thing's closed at 72 percent. Marketed call would be 67.

Speaker 2: 2:25

So what happens right is you start going to these training events because you're always a student, you're always learning, right cory, and so always a sponge. And so people would hear my numbers and they'd be like dude, dude, there's a baseball game tonight. You want to go, we'll go to a nice steak dinner. I'm like whoa, this guy wants to take me and do this and what. And I was like this is pretty cool. And then all of a sudden I go to another event same thing. People would hear my numbers, they'd regasinate, they'd want to know valued information from me.

Speaker 2: 2:56

And so five years ago, almost six years ago, I looked at the podcast space inside the trades of HVAC and I was like man, there's only like five, six, seven. There was less than 10. I'll tell you that. So I started HVAC Masters of the Hustle because I didn't want to just reach people just at these events that I was going to and again, I was a student. At these events I wasn't speaking on stage like I am now, but I wanted to start the podcast so I can make a bigger footprint or a bigger impact within the nation to really show people what's possible. Because what I found was a lot of people have a limitless belief about themselves, right Of what's obtainable, limitless belief about themselves, right Of what's obtainable. And, corey, one thing that I say is shit, dream big. And when you dream big, dream even bigger.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Yeah, if you fall short of that massive dream, you're still going to be happy with the, with a little bit less anyway.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Yeah, a hundred percent. So it's absolutely amazing. My journey within the trades of HVAC, you know being a national trainer, that came from the podcast I started almost six years ago, where I'm on the road y'all 157, 175 days out of the year. More than half the year I'm on the road teaching people what's possible, showing them what the four minute mile looks like.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Dang dude, I didn't realize you were. Yeah, I guess I have seen your board, I mean, and your wife travels with you a lot, right?

Speaker 2: 4:27

She does so.

Speaker 2: 4:27

When the boy, anytime the boys or, yeah, the boys are in, like, you know, holiday season, they're off for school, or, like, right now, summer break, right, I get the opportunity that they get to look at dad's. You know my onsite board, and they're like, so they're going to be coming with me in two weeks to Birmingham, alabama, which is one of my favorite places to do onsite, and they're picking one a month, right, maybe two a month. But one of the hardest things for me as a parent, though, is also sacrificing, right. I talk to people about man. Your why is is what you know, my why is my, my kids, my family, but people have to understand that I'm sacrificing, or you have to sacrifice today in order to live the life that you want to tomorrow, you know, and so being on the road isn't forever, but it's right now and we're building something really special, and we've been building something really special the last couple of years and, like I said, making a massive impact, showing people what's possible, showing them that dreaming big and always dream bigger.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Yeah, dude, mindset is one of the biggest things that you know I talk to people about, because I believe that if you think that you are going to suck at something, then you probably are going to suck at it, and if you think that you're going to be great at something, you're probably going to be great at it, and at least that's my experience. You said something else interesting there. You mentioned like being in the present experience. You said something else interesting there. You mentioned like being in the present. I don't know if you said being in the present, but you insinuated you know being in the present with your kids, with today, like that's such a been a powerful, that's been such a powerful thing in my life. Currently, cause man, I'll tell you, I'm 46 years old and probably 45 of those years I live.

Speaker 2: 6:19

You look great, corey.

Speaker 1: 6:21

I appreciate that. But like I lived in yesterday, I lived in tomorrow, but I didn't live in today and I missed so many moments.

Speaker 2: 6:31

I'm certain it's so important and that's the thing too is when you live in today, right, you can separate those moments of when you are on the road. So much right, and you are with your family. I mean, I was in new york yesterday, yeah, I got home late last night. I'm here. I recorded two podcasts today and then tonight. What are we doing as a family? We're going to night slides, we're going to sun splash it's like a theme park water park, right, has awesome water slides, and we're gonna go do the water park from, I think, like five to ten o'clock tonight.

Speaker 2: 7:03

But being present is important, especially with the family, because as business owners, right, it's really hard to uh, separate yourself from business, from work and being home, and so one thing that I started doing this year which I don't do it all the time, but I do it most of the time and I see a lot of value in it when I do do it is my wife and I. We put our phones away from five to eight o'clock most of every single night, and we have a lock box that's inside of our kitchen, on our counter, and we put it in there. If it rings or something like that, we'll go check it, but if it's like a text or, you know, social media. We're not worried about it because my attention has to be on my family, has to be there prior right. Because I need to focus, because I'm on the road so much and business owners are at their company so much.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Yeah, it's real easy to put things aside when business things at least for me, you know it's real easy to push things off and then that just becomes a habit loop of just pushing things off, and then what happens is you wind up getting a divorce or you know whatever like not good stuff. So let's um. So since we're talking about family, I'm going to ask you a bit of a hard question. Um, recently you've gone through a pretty I can only imagine I can't even put myself in your shoes, to be honest but you've been through a pretty tough time with a family member yeah so can you talk about.

Speaker 1: 8:47

You know what that was like balancing. You know balancing work with also being present in a situation, so you know I I don't even know the word to describe it.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Yeah, I mean so. For those of you that don't know, I lost my five month old daughter two months ago, and so what people have to understand is life doesn't stop. You know, that's very important. Life goes on. It doesn't matter what obstacles, hurdles, challenges, uh, are in front of you. Right, you got to continue and I had promises that I made, and so my, my daughter, was in picu for three months, almost four months about, yeah, three months, and so during that time, I'm still going to onsites weekly, going to the hospital, still got to be present. My wife is a rock star. During the three months, she only went home, maybe, I would probably say less than 10 times, and when I say and not all those 10 times her staying home, sleeping, right, it's just to pack bags real quick, go back. So I had to hold the fort down with the boys too, while traveling, while doing everything, and so what I really understood was man, life really doesn't stop, like it doesn't matter what's going on. You still got to move forward. You still got to be there, present, and you got to be an example. You got to be a leader, right, and that's one thing that I fall really prideful on is my leadership skills is you got to be someone that is willing to be an example out there, and that's why I also showed a lot of it on social media, you know, and I got a little bit of hate on social media because people were seeing me travel while seeing my daughter in the hospital, but still seeing me there. But it was just crazy because, also after the death of my daughter also, right, life doesn't stop. So I was still doing onsites, I was still moving forward, I'm still progressing and I was talking to you, corey, this earlier before we we started recording.

Speaker 2: 11:01

It's like there's two directions you could go and it's maybe not the death of a daughter or a sibling or or a parent, it could be drug addiction, it could be different seasons of whatever you are in. But what are you willing to do to get out of those challenges, to get out of that? Right? You know I'm probably going to butcher this, but I watched a video the other day and it was talking about buffaloes and, I think, cows or something like that, and I could be butchering these two animals, but the moral of the story was, when a storm comes, what a buffalo does is they run to the storm and they run through it. But what the cow does is, when a storm comes, is they start running away from it, but the storm follows them.

Speaker 2: 11:53

And that's what happens is people in these seasons of their life is they try to run away from what reality is. Well, y'all can't run away from it. You can't. There's not a drug that's you're going to wake up to the next day and it's going to be fixed, right.

Speaker 2: 12:09

So in that moment, what are you willing to do and move forward during those dark times? You know and that's what I have to do is, every day I gotta wake up and I have to tell myself you know, what are you willing to do today in order to get through those challenges? Because every day we all have different challenges within our life. If you're just sitting here listening to to this podcast, saying that you don't have challenges, you're lying to yourself. Maybe that is the challenge, is that you do lie to yourself. You know, be real, I mean, take the time and really look at yourself and dial yourself in. And I promise you, when I call it, defining moments within our life, corey, and these are those defining moments, like when I took the position to be a comfort advisor in that role in selling HVAC system. That was a defining moment for me to really establish and make a name for myself. Then, when I walked away, everyone thought I was crazy Walking away from a job making $400,000, right, you walk away from it and all of a sudden they're like you're doing what You're going to do, a podcast, like, dude, what are you thinking right now? Like, if you listen to those people that doubt you, or or you know, if you had those dreams and those missions and ambitions, and you're listening to the people that are the naysayers, the haters, or and and naysayers and haters could be your friends, they could be family, they could be the people in your inner circle. You know, but you got to filter out what they're saying or don't take it to heart, but understand truly what you're capable of doing. You know every. I mean growing up, everyone.

Speaker 2: 13:54

I had severe learning disabilities, corey. I talk about it on my podcast all the time. Learning disabilities, corey, I talk about it on my podcast all the time ADD, adhd, severe learning disabilities in special ed classes, growing up, right, and people would ask me every quarter I would have these parent-teacher conference meetings. They'd go hey, what do you want to achieve? What do you want to achieve? And I would tell them I want to make honor roll. I want to make honor roll. I want to put that bumper sticker on my parents' car.

Speaker 2: 14:19

I came from a family of six siblings, right? So I wanted to prove that I was something within the kids, right? And every single time I would say that. It's like my teachers would look at me and they go ah, you know, with all your challenges, let's just go for average, let's just be average. And that's probably what a lot of people are hearing right now in their life. Right, ask yourself if you plan on doing something, is majority of the people around you just going to say, hey, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Like, just be average, be normal. Well, shit, I'm going to tell you I wasn't born to be normal. Like. God didn't put me on this planet to be average, right. What I'm here to do is to create and show people what's possible, but then also something even more beautiful.

Speaker 2: 15:10

When I go to companies, I ask them what do you use your platform for? To make a bigger impact. So, not only am I making a bigger impact within the trades of the space, but we also adopted our oldest son, don, who is eight years old now. I was introduced to him, he was eight months old. Little JC he's three years old now. When I was introduced to him, he was 10 months old. Little Mackie, too, that was the one that unfortunately passed away. She was a preemie and she was five months old and we took her home from the hospital. So it's like the bigger impact is creating awareness and also giving back to adoptions and kids.

Speaker 2: 15:55

One thing that my wife's talking about, which I think is absolutely amazing, is we're starting a uh, a uh nonprofit and it's going to be called the Mac attack, and so what we're going to do is every single, because we were able to see uh and be in the hospital and in the PQ.

Speaker 2: 16:15

What we noticed was, uh, preemie babies don't really have the support of the the not food, but the clothes, the diapers, things that are essential for the babies, right, and it's really hard to find preemie clothes like almost impossible at the Davis hospital that we were at and so one thing that we want to do is we want to give back part of the Mac attack and give back to UC Davis hospital and give preemie babies their clothes and everything like that, as they're, as they're in the incubator or whatever it is, to stay warm. Because we brought our daughter home from the hospital but she was there three days, four days prior, before us even being introduced to her, and she had no clothes. She had a diaper on but she looked like she was cold. You know she had, you know, the lights on her that were keeping her warm, but she didn't look love, she didn't look comfortable and I want these kids to know that their love from the start, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:43

And then also, one thing that we're doing, part of the Mac attack is my wife wants and myself is we want to give and we want to, every single year, sponsor a family and we want to sponsor their whole adoption and pay for it. So that's the bigger picture, and I always tell business owners is what is the bigger picture of truly what you're doing? You're truly what you're doing. You know, as an HVAC contractor, as a plumber, like it's cool that you're there serving and fixing problems and giving solutions. But use that platform for a bigger picture, a bigger model of what you want to do.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yeah, and do it with the right intention.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Yes.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Because if you do it, just you know, just for the things that come afterwards, you're probably not going to get the same result. Yeah, so all three of your kids are adopted. Yes, sir, wow.

Speaker 2: 18:40

I didn't know that.

Speaker 1: 18:41

That's pretty impressive, like that's. You know, I, I, I just I think that's it says. It says a lot about you and your wife. I mean you know to take on, not I mean just Mackie alone, with her being in the ICU, right, or the. Yeah, the PICU pediatric when you adopted her PICU right or the yeah, the PICU, pediatric ICU when you adopted her.

Speaker 2: 19:08

So she was in the not right when we adopted her, so she was just in the I guess yeah, she was in PICU, I guess and then she went on the lower level. We picked her up on level 10, which was just just your normal area when we were introduced to her. We brought her home, everything was fine for roughly about two months and then my wife noticed that she had a seizure, and then that's when everything happened and we brought her back into the hospital and then they incubated her and put her on seizure meds and kind of just balanced and looked at everything and then they just continued just to be, unfortunately, just multiple issues after issues after issues and unfortunately, god had a different decision. You know, she was able to.

Speaker 2: 20:01

One thing that I thought was pretty cool that my cousin told me actually, after all of this is you know, your average person comes to life, uh, on earth and god gives us all a mission, right, regardless if you believe in them or not or what your beliefs are, uh, you're here for a mission and so typically, a person lives out their mission anywhere between 60 to 80 years, right? Well, my daughter, mackie, was able to live out her mission and get it done within five months, and so she was also. I I'm very, uh, at ease with it because I am a man of faith and I am a believer, and so I also know she wasn't introduced to any sin, so I know that she has an eternity life of walking in the gates of heaven, right, and so that also makes me want to continue to better myself, because why wouldn't I want the same opportunity?

Speaker 1: 21:01

I would argue that part of her mission was you continuing this. Found this nonprofit.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Because if this hadn't happened, then you would. You may not have ever thought about doing this.

Speaker 2: 21:16

A hundred percent Right. It might have not even been a vision. It might have been a vision five years years, but who knows? Right, but it was able to come into vision and I'm a person that works fast on this stuff, right? Y'all see my royalty heat in an air company. That's up. That was right after mackie passed away two months ago.

Speaker 2: 21:37

I'm on the road so much I had to really kind of. I was on my way to the airport. I broke down and I'm like man, I'm leaving my family again during the hardest the airport. I broke down and I'm like man, I'm leaving my family again during the hardest time, right, and I'm thinking and I'm like I got to do something and I'm I'm creating such a big impact everywhere else. Why can't we do it in the community or not? Why can't we?

Speaker 2: 21:59

It's time to do it in our own community, cause know I could do it, right, I do it all over the nation, right? So it's like, okay, now it's time to do it, and what I'm doing is I'm documenting what a true startup looks like, not a partnership, right? You see everyone talk about, hey, I did a partnership over here, we're gonna sell it here, that's. But that's a partnership that already has usually thing that's already acquired. They got systems. What I'm doing is I'm showing. As I travel, I hear so many technicians when I say, hey, what's your three year, five year plan? I love what I'm doing right now. I want to learn as much as I can, but I would love to branch off and do my own thing.

Speaker 1: 22:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:43

Well, they don't understand what the sacrifice looks like. So I'm showing them what the sacrifice looks like. Uh, I do have money in the bank account but I'm not using that. I'm totally doing like a zero. I started off zero at chase with the business account. Uh, I sold my well. I have my side-by-side but I'm financed two trucks. But what I'm showing people is sometimes you got to leverage some things you have. I don't go out and go side-by-siding, so it just sits in the garage or the storage, so I'm going to sacrifice and sell that. That's going to pay for my two trucks. We're moving into a building in two weeks.

Speaker 2: 23:20

How I got the building, I took video and content of all that so they could see what it looks like. How do you look at different buildings? How do you set yourself up and envision like, hey, do I sign a two-year lease, a three-year lease, a five-year lease? Whoa, what's your growth plan look like? Did you write your growth plan and do you understand what it looks like? Or are you just saying a number and saying, all right, we're going to go hit it? There's so much traction that is in when it comes to a startup that really people don't understand the business side, right, because usually your startups are your technician that's a rock star. Your comfort advisor that's a rock star. Your installers that are rock stars. And then all of a sudden they do it and they're like damn, what I thought it was, you know so. So I think it's really cool that we're documenting this. Uh, we're gonna be showing it all on the youtube channel and I keep showing little glimpse and everything I mean.

Speaker 2: 24:16

The cool thing is is we'll start up, uh, two months ago again, we started, uh, or we started to the vision of it, talking about it, and then I met with Congify, mr Kiefer, and he does amazing work, and so I partnered with him and I said, dude, this is my vision. And he was able to take my vision of royalty heat in there, because for me, I want everyone to have white glove service Doesn't matter the situation, hoarder house, I want everyone to have white gloves service doesn't matter the situation, hoarder house, I want everyone to be treated like royalty. Right, our tagline is bringing comfort to your kingdom, because everyone's house is their own kingdom. So when you look at our trucks right, we got this.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Uh, king air is what we call them. He has a wrench as his nice little saver or whatever they call it up in the air and then he has a nice little like. It looks cool Cause it's like a video game kind of, with these castle houses, and it looks really welcoming. It definitely doesn't look like your normal HVAC contractor that does you know red, white and blue or or heating and air or whatever it is Right. So there's multiple things, but we definitely stand out. We're not.

Speaker 1: 25:26

We're not with everybody and, like I said, I'm here to stand out, I'm not here to be average yeah, dude, you got to be different if you want to be recognized like it's just or you just blend. You know dan antonelli's book blend whatever.

Speaker 2: 25:40

It is whatever you're branded or blended, right yeah?

Speaker 1: 25:43

I mean in this, I mean that's he% right. You got to be different. Sometimes being different is uncomfortable. Sometimes you got to step outside of the box and just, but you got to believe that. You got to believe in yourself in order to do that. You can't do these things if you don't.

Speaker 2: 25:59

Well, you talk about being uncomfortable, right, mean I put myself in uncomfortable situations all the time. I mean, just my last speaking event was a egia uh in disneyland, you know, you got uh deon sanders that's speaking on stage. You got me doing podcasting. You got welding long drew cam and you got all these big names right uh, me talking on on stage in Las Vegas with Joe Montana, steve Young, like these things are outside my comfort zone. I'm an introvert y'all. For me to be doing HVAC masters of the hustle for almost six years continuously, every week, right, is outside my comfort zone. But you know what? I know that I have a lot of people that are listening to the podcast that that understand that hey, uh, it's going to be there for me every single Monday, right. And so being consistent with something is also something that's very important as well, which my mentor, weldon Long, talks about it all the time. Consistency is key in anything you do in life.

Speaker 1: 27:04

You should always be consistent in it, you know that's right and I you know that consistency is not something that I. That comes natural to me, it just doesn't. I have to force myself to be consistent, but I've also proved that being consistent you're very disciplined, though.

Speaker 2: 27:24

I mean I I watch you on social media too. I mean you got your diet, you got your workouts, you got a business.

Speaker 1: 27:30

You know like you're very disciplined in what you do yeah, I think I just don't recognize those things because it just feels like I don't know. I'm consistent with my routine, that's for sure. Yeah, that's for sure. So, all right, um, I didn't realize, masters of hustle, I didn't realize you've been doing that for six years. Wow, that's pretty bad, that's pretty badass.

Speaker 1: 27:52

So, um, so, when you go out to companies and you're, you know, we, we chatted about a little bit about this before the show and you've got, let's just say you've got an owner that Jason come up or this is going to be great, you're going to train my guys. You get there, you're two days in and he's just not really cooperating Because he's running the show, it's his baby, and I get all that and I understand why it's his baby. But people pay you good money to come in and help them. So how do you break through that, that facade or that that, I guess, really his ego, it's a lot of its ego, a lot of its pride? How do you get through to that owner? Or do you just come and train the team and then kind of let it ride after that?

Speaker 2: 28:50

uh, no, I want it to be. I'm always. I play off three w's, always it has to be a win-win-win, okay. So if it's not a win for me, a win for the business and a win for their people, then it's not a right fit, right, right. And I've been to onsites where I've. I've gone there, right, and I thought everything was going to go well and all of a sudden you're like, holy crap, is this a really a good situation for me and my company to be in? And there's sometimes there you got to excuse yourself from those situations, right, even as business owners, right, you don't always have to say yes to everybody, right, it's okay to tell a client no. And that's one thing that I always look at is when I do train these companies first off. It's not. I never pitched my $200,000 onsite until I do my first onsite.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Sure.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Because if the first one doesn't work out, I'm a very committed person, so if I make a promise, I'm going to make sure I oversee my promise. But if I just do my onsite and it's an investment, it's a $10,000 per day three day onsite, 30 grand. So I didn't feel like, hey, it was a win for me, a win for them and a win for the client and the team Then I probably won't do it again, especially if I feel like it's a waste of my time because I want to join companies that truly want to better themselves and truly want to grow. You know, when I go to companies and you know they're arguing and they're bickering and it's this and that, and I see that it's a a massive culture problem. Uh, there's a lot that I could do within culture within three days, but there's not much that I could do once I leave.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:38

So so it's like you know I could go in there. I I'm the hype man, so I bring a music. I got a boom box going, I'm hyping everyone up, making them clap on their desk and stuff, and that's what I am. But I could bring the energy while I'm there. I could change the culture while I'm there. I'm really good at that. But I can't change the culture once I leave. I can't change the culture once I leave.

Speaker 2: 31:04

And so, as business owners, you got to really also identify too. When you have trainers come out like, are they holding your people accountable? You know. So, to answer your question, a lot of times I don't go into situations because I also pre-screen and I have multiple meetings with the owner so they understand what the onsite's going to look like. And at the end of the day, I think a lot of people do understand, if they're investing that type of money to have a trainer come out, that a lot of times they do let go of the ranges Again, not all the time, but I would say a good majority of the business owners do. But what I do have problems or what I do run into more often is a lot of times it's not the business owner.

Speaker 2: 31:49

It might be the sales manager or the service because, because a lot of times they see me as competition or not competition. But why are they here? If I'm doing my job, he shouldn't be here Right here. If I'm doing my job, he shouldn't be here Right. And so I've gone to companies where the sales manager feels like I'm there to to override them or to lash out at them. But what I truly want businesses to understand and leaders on the team right when I go out there, my vision is to do anything I can do to help that company grow and help you grow.

Speaker 2: 32:27

As an individual Day one of onsite. I don't know any other trainer that goes out there that doesn't train the HVAC stuff but gets to know the people and wants to know what their visions are and what their goals are and helps them, as a leader, create the roadmap to buying a house, buying a car, taking a family vacation. Those are things, as a leader, that I want to make sure that your team obtains, because it's always this right you go to a company, it's hey, this is what we expect out of you, we want this out of you, this is our goals, this is our vision. Well, when's the last time y'all take a look at your team and wanted to understand what their goals and their visions were, and why don't you help them climb that roadmap right?

Speaker 2: 33:11

I hate the saying, Corey, it's lonely on top of the mountain, because as a leader, that means you failed to do your job right. Your job and your mission should be to bring everyone to the top with you. You know and unfortunately, uh, there's a lot of trainers out there that y'all should do your research on before you have them come out or before you go to events that that you know talk the talk but they don't walk the walk. You know, I'm a trainer, I go in there, I get in the trenches, I do the classroom training, but then I go in the truck with the guys and I run appointments, typically on a three-day on-site core. You know how much revenue I'm bringing a company probably 75, 75 to 120 000 in three days yeah

Speaker 2: 33:55

you know why? Because it's processes, it's procedures. It's showing them what's possible. A lot of companies don't understand what a $4 million guy looks like, what a $6 million guy looks like, what a Philip Clemens on our team also looks like he's the $7.5 million selling tech, a Brent Buckley who's doing $14 million last year. They don't understand what that caliber looks like at a $5 million company, at a $3 million company, even at a $10 million company, right. But when you could have these producers come in for a week and they're in the trenches with your guys and your guys and your teams are like Holy crap.

Speaker 2: 34:36

This guy came out here I'm bitching about new maintenance is call and he's selling $6,000 of IAQ on a one year system that we installed last year. And you know what? The homeowner is not pissed off that we didn't inform and educate them last year when we did the install. They understand and they actually respect that. We're talking about it now and we're talking about preserving the system and saving the system and making sure that you get long life out of the system, right? So there's so many different things processes, procedures. Being consistent with what you do is very important to keep it alive dude, I agree with all that.

Speaker 1: 35:16

I think it's also and I get, I get, I pick up from you this is part of this process with you is you gotta you know whoever you're riding with in that truck, you likely you're not in there talking about sales stuff, that a whole time you got to get to know that person, sort of really on a different level, on a different personal, something that's important to them. I mean it's just, it's this kind of sales 101, right, what's in it for me, what's in it for them?

Speaker 2: 35:46

It's crazy Like you get as a leader okay. So one thing when I started this journey as a national trainer, right, I thought it was going to be me just training, showing them what's possible. But no, people look at you as the leader and then they look at you as like their therapist kind of, and then they start telling you things because they trust you and they know that you're there to support them. Right, and I've had people tell me you know, military guys tell me some deep, dark secrets of theirs. One of the most surprising things is a transgender that no one knew in the company was born a woman, now a man. After I did the training felt comfortable to tell me that he was born a woman and now a man, full facial hair you would have never known and was able to tell me and said no one in the company knows. But that's the things that people like. It's crazy. Right, I wasn't anticipating that people were going to tell me these things, but it's just part of that role of being a leader and, you know, helping people.

Speaker 1: 37:00

Well, you gotta be. You know you got to show up with genuine intent for people to do that. You know they're not. You know that doesn't happen to everybody. I get what you're saying because I get it.

Speaker 2: 37:16

You got to show people you're real and that's what it is is. I open myself up right, like I talk when I'm on site first day. I tell everyone about all my struggles. I tell them that you know, when I was a technician in the field, I had my truck that was repoed twice. The second time it got repoed, imagine it being repoed in your work parking lot, cause that's what happened to me the front office lady calling me up and saying, hey, you got to get here, man, your truck's in the dry in the parking lot getting repoed right now, tow trucks grabbing it. Then all of your laundry and everything your work, everything you're trying to hide like, hey, they don't know this, they don't know this. Now your laundry is being unfolded and they're knowing your personal business and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 38:00

And I tell people I understand what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. I understand what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. I understand what it is like to live over your needs too, like it sucks. I understand what it feels like to fail your family and feel like a loser and a failure. I get it. But I also know the other side of it, that with hard work, dedication and consistency and no excuses. Right, sky's the limits of where you could go like. I mean, I could have never imagined if you would have asked me 15 years ago when I started in hvac that I'd be talking on stages with people that I talk with, that I'd be an you know a a person that's representing the trades in the space and people giving me $200,000 to come coach their teams. I'd say you'd be blowing smoke, yeah Right. But it's happening. It's reality. Because, why? Because people are seeing the results. Right, action speaks louder than words. It's consistent. People are seeing me in a different state every single week. It's not bullshit.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Yeah, no. So when do you think that? My when do you think that, you know? 15 years ago, when you wouldn't have had the ability to see what the reality is now? Do you remember when that shift happened for you?

Speaker 2: 39:24

uh, the shift was. It happened when I became a comfort advisor. That's when, really, my mindset shifted and it wasn't the first year when I sold two million in eight months. That was my first year. Uh, it was going into my year one to year two when I talked to another comfort advisor because, check this out, I sold two million but I only made 120,000 off of it. I made started off to add 10 commission, so I should have made 200,000. Okay, but after I talked to another comfort advisor, I wish I would have known his name or got his name. I can't remember to save my life, but I owe owe this guy a lot of a lot to my success because he sat down with me and what he taught me was as a technician, as a comfort advisor. A lot of times we sell the way we purchase or we think about the money that's in our bank account.

Speaker 1: 40:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:20

And we think that that's too expensive or who the fuck would ever do a 12.9% loan for 13, 14 years, like that's ludicrous. So because I had those limited beliefs right and I had that mindset, I wouldn't offer everyone five years, 0%, yeah, and so that was me being different than everyone else. But on the business side, we're also getting hit at a 15, 18% merchant fee. So my 10% goes to five to 4%. And so after I talked to this guy, that's when it turned that, dude, jason, you can do the same amount of work. You could work smarter, not harder, and you could make additional $80,000 by staying inside the batter's box by hey, when a homeowner asked for a discount, don't just discount the price to satisfy them. Build value behind the discount, or you know what. Hold your guns. Understand what you are worth, your company's worth, what your values are. You know if you're the high price company. One thing that I teach is you know, being an average ticket in 19,500, five years ago average ticket of 19,500 five years ago I had to battle 13,000, 14,000, $15,000 systems all the time, even $8,000 systems. So how do you create that gap? You have to go over your in-house guarantees, but you have to paint a picture on them and then you have to have the homeowner tell them what a dollar figure of that value is worth to them. So now you go through six, seven different warranties and they build six, seven, four, three, whatever thousands of dollars of value. So now you have that as ammunition. So when they go oh you know, you're the third company out you're $4,000 higher than them. Well, you know what, corey? One of our guarantees is our apples to apples. So if you go ahead and grab that estimate or that agreement, I could go ahead and look at it, send it to my supervisor. He'll go ahead and, okay, and we'll do the apples to apples, because you already told me you like me. You already told me you trusted that I could engineer the system. You already told me you trusted the company and there's a reason why we're out here is because our reviews online and then, obviously, we just got to solidify the price right and early in our conversation.

Speaker 2: 42:36

Which is important for everyone that's listening to this podcast is you got to ask your money questions up front and you got to ask them at the beginning of the appointment If you're there to give them a system replacement, because if you don't ask the money questions up front. What are you going to get at the end? You're going to get the objection at the end that I can't afford it, it costs too much. And then you got to backpedal. That's right. Why wouldn't you ask that at the front end? So you understand what your objection is going to be potentially. And I understand that.

Speaker 2: 43:03

Hey, it's uncomfortable to talk about money. It's human nature to be fearful to talk about money, especially a stranger. And you're in house and you're about to ask them before looking at something hey, what type of budget do you have in mind for this? Right, your eight to 10,000 is just doing half the system. Your 10 to 15,000 is just a basic system to maybe a mid range. Your 15 to 20 plus is mid range to high end, efficient, like where do you find yourself? But then not only that.

Speaker 2: 43:35

Then people you got to understand are payment buyers. No one has 20, $30,000 sitting in their damn bank account right now to buy HVAC system. And if they do, it's not in there to buy HVAC system. They don't want to give it to you. I'll tell you that. So you got to be creative and you got to make your financing sound sexy and attractive, even if it is a 12.9% for 12 years or 15 years, right? These are killer promotions that a lot of our clients are taking advantage of right now, and I don't personally talk about APR and length of the term.

Speaker 2: 44:10

When I present my four options, what I'll do is I'll just circle what the monthly payment is, let them know. It's no prepayment penalty, because people are payment buyers. Why am I going to create my own obstacle or hurdle if maybe they don't care? So I'm going to let them ask the question. If they ask the question, I'll give them it as I go through the financing and I'll go through the terms and everything. But by that point they're already approved, they don't care, they have the install date ready to go and it's a done deal. So it's like people create their own obstacles and they and they talk too much. Sometimes y'all just got to shut up and listen. Yeah, sometimes y'all just got to shut up and listen.

Speaker 1: 44:47

Yeah, because, jason, they're going to tell you if they want to pay cash. They'll happily tell you after you give them the payment options if they want to pay cash. Such an easier route to take presenting payments. It's mind-boggling to me when I hear companies that are going out and they're pitching the whole price. I'm like jesus christ, no wonder you're losing, like it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 45:11

And when they say the whole price, they're saying 27 395, right? Instead of 27 395. Yeah, right, 27 395 and 63 cents it's like you're dragging the pain.

Speaker 2: 45:29

Yeah who wants to buy that? Hey, this is the lamborghini system. It's a low monthly payment of two hundred and seven dollars a month, no prepayment penalty, and earlier on my comfort survey you told me that two hundred dollars to 150 was affordable without taking food off the table. Not only that, I do a utility oversight uh, over payment with them. So when I do show them the financing, I draw a line and I write overpaying by 60 a month and I'll break down the math. Yeah, so I'll circle what they're true out of the pocket. Now it's 140. That's right, lamborghini system, right.

Speaker 1: 46:06

It blows my mind. I can't decide if it's like the roadmaps there, like you just explained it. It is ridiculous to me when I find out that somebody just skipped the whole energy saving step or it literally makes absolutely no sense.

Speaker 2: 46:28

Yeah, I agree with you you is it laziness, because it might, it must be, it is. It's laziness, it's people wanting to get home. You know they got a stack board. Their business, their company is overloading their boards. People should only technicians, comfort advisors, three calls, that's it, or too many, I get, it's summertime If you're having your team run four or five, six calls.

Speaker 2: 46:50

Get more help, hire more people, get more trucks, like I promise you all, what you're going to see is you're right now walking over dollars to pick up pennies, but when you allow your team, the support, to take their time to look not just at the scope of the work, of why they're there, but the whole envelope, right, you've got to look at yourself as doctors. And this is funny. I was just talking about this in New York this week and I said you know what you have to do is you have to look at yourself as being a doctor of the industry and say I go in for a broken arm, okay, and the doctor says, hey, we're going to run some tests before we cast it and everything. And then all of a sudden, one of the tests is an x-ray and they find a lump. And all of a sudden, they test the lump and they find out it's cancer. And the doctor goes well, you know what? They didn't come here for the cancer, they came for the broken arm. So let's not tell them about the cancer. Let's go ahead and fix the arm and let's go ahead. And, you know, call it good. Would you really want that doctor to serve you? Absolutely not, absolutely not, right?

Speaker 2: 47:57

So why do we find technicians being those people all the time, when we call ourselves the doctors of the industry, when we call ourselves the professionals, right, we go in there and we get so tunnel vision on. Hey, we're going out there for a diag, it's a no cool. And we go, oh, it's the motor, right. Oh, let's go ahead and repair the motor out there. But then all of a sudden you look up in the attic and they have zero value of our insulation, or very minimal. Right, their duct work is strapped up high. Where the attic is 160, 180 degrees, which is a pressure cooker sitting on top of that house, right, maybe there's uncomfortable hot or cold spots in the home or uneven airflow or indoor air quality issues. It's like y'all get so tunnel vision. But when you look at the full envelope, people would rather do business with someone that could take care of everything rather than just one thing.

Speaker 1: 48:51

Yeah, because whatever that one thing you're taking care of, you best believe it got messed up from something else. So you're just going to have to go back out there and explain why you didn't fix the other thing that you already knew about, and you're going to lose that customer. It makes no sense.

Speaker 2: 49:09

It makes zero sense Zero.

Speaker 1: 49:13

But they're thinking. This is exactly what they're thinking. Well, you know, if I tell them about X, y and Z, if I tell them about the duck system, they're probably not going to do it because it's too expensive and it goes right back to them selling from their own bank account.

Speaker 2: 49:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But again back to the business owners. If you allow your team to take the time to look at the full envelope, not just what the scope of work is, I promise you higher average tickets, better reviews from your customers, higher reviews, right? You won't be getting the 4.3s, the 4.1s, the 4.4s, right, you'll get the 5 be getting the 4.3 is the 4.1 is the 4.4 is right, you'll get the fives, the 4.9.

Speaker 1: 49:51

You'll be getting those good reviews yeah, dude, 100 like just do the right thing, do the right thing, that's it, that's all you gotta do. So many people want to cut corners. It's just ridiculous. I can't see the. I can't see. You know, I get it, you know.

Speaker 1: 50:10

If you're not, if you never run a business, I understand how it's hard to see these things, but that's the business owner's job is to paint that vision for the employees. If you're not painting that vision and explaining things, why it costs $300 hundred, five hundred dollars to run a truck out, now we've got to run out three or four or five times how much money that costs and they're getting their own tickets. Yeah, if you don't explain that to your employees, like they're not going to know, they're not going to know, they just think you're you know, they probably don't, they probably have no idea what it costs to run a truck no earthly idea. So that's the owner's fault for not explaining it and that's just all there is to it. I agree it's crazy, man. Well, jason, dude, let's you know. I knew we were going to have a great conversation. You got anything for me. Yeah, dude, it did go by quick. So what do you got coming up? You have, uh, do you have any?

Speaker 2: 51:10

events coming up. Tell us, yeah, so, uh, there's a couple speaking events that I have coming up, but the most exciting one that I'm excited about is, um, egia is having an event in, I believe, february or march of 2025, so this is a next year event, but they made the announcement. They're going to be having it at disney world and, uh, your boy is going to be speaking on stage, uh, in a breakout room. I'm super excited because egia is to me. You know, I look at training platforms and what we're building, but by seeing the the leaders of my mentors, being on the stage and the platform, them allowing me to be a part of it, I'm super excited. I mean, there's going to be probably 2,000 plus different contractors there, so being able to be a part of that and one thing that I'm going to be talking about that I'm excited about is selling to the younger generation.

Speaker 2: 52:06

It's different than selling to your average 40, 50 year old, and what we're seeing is there are younger people that are owning homes now right, you got 23, 25 year old. There's a lot of people renting homes right now, but there's also a lot of young business owners that are making a lot of money, or not young business owners, but just young people entrepreneurs that are making a good amount of money. Or not young business owners, but just young people entrepreneurs that are making a good amount of money, that have houses. So I'm going to be talking about how do you sell and how do you communicate and what does the overall process and the experience look like with the younger generation. You know a lot of people are turning to the AI technology now, so we having some good conversations.

Speaker 1: 52:49

Yeah, 100%, dude, I'll tell you. You know, we, so the AI group that I'm a part of, we, I don't know, it was probably eight or nine months ago, I guess we built a technician bot. Actually, it came out before Master Mechanic came out, and it's exactly the same thing. Are you familiar with master mechanic?

Speaker 2: 53:09

A little bit.

Speaker 1: 53:10

So I mean it literally. Jason took to your exact point. You could take somebody who has never been in the HVAC field and this is going to piss a lot of people off but you could take somebody that knows no, huh, I said disruptor.

Speaker 1: 53:27

Yep, it is dude. Like you could take somebody that knows nothing about HVAC and this bot that we've created will answer anything that you could possibly ask it, about, any brand, about any process. It's wild and guess what dude. That is going to be the way people are going to be trained the personal stuff, like what you do in person, is always going to have to be there, because you can't learn how to be personable through a bot, but you damn sure can learn the ins and outs of how to even talk about HVAC. You can't put the personality in it, but the the knowledge, like the technical knowledge. Dude, it's right there.

Speaker 2: 54:15

Absolutely you. Just one thing is is people don't like change and you got to also adapt to technology. You know, as the future's going, hvac isn't going to be living back in the nineties, right, we're adapting, we're adapting, we're evolving. You got, uh, ishmael valdez's new thermostat that's coming out and that thing is sick. I got two of them. I'm going to be doing videos, but you know I'm going to be someone that's going to be representing those thermostats as well. So I got two of them at my house.

Speaker 2: 54:44

But as a contractor they're made for the contractor, so they're super cool because you got the the company logo, so royalties logo is on the thermostat, so it's private labeled pretty much. There's also cool components that if another say you do the install, three years down the road they sell the house. The new homeowner doesn't know who's servicing the system and they call another contractor to come out. What happens is that contractor goes to the thermostat, they try to go to the settings and there's a code and if they don't know the code, it sends a phone call straight to the office of the company that installs it. That, hey, some technicians trying to buy past your thermostat call the homeowner and let them know about the warranties that it might avoid. Um, there's also some other cool features which I don't know if I could talk about yet, so I'm not going to go into them, but I'm talking about, I mean, this thermostat. There's no other thermostat on the market dude, that's sick you gotta adapt to technology.

Speaker 2: 55:46

I'm telling you yeah dude 100%.

Speaker 1: 55:50

So one of the things that I've just recently it's not even really public knowledge yet I guess it's about to be public knowledge, so I just took on a business development role with WhoHire. Have you ever heard of WhoHire?

Speaker 1: 56:04

yeah, I heard of them they interviewed 4,000 technicians, csrs, dispatchers, and they took that data all within the inside of the Nextar group and they took all that data and aggregated it to where now they can tell you exactly who you're getting, before you ever interview that person. Uh, they can tell you how long they're going to stay, how long they're going to. You know it, the amount of information that it tells you about the person. It's unreal, dude, because you know as well as I do it's not easy hiring in this industry, and so and it's all done through data points from real human, real human beings. It's, it's unreal. It's unreal, like it just melted my brain. So, yeah, I'm on board with you, dude. Technology is, you know, it's here, it's not going anywhere. The sooner people get on board, the better off they're going to be.

Speaker 2: 57:06

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 57:06

Yeah Well, Jason, where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 57:10

Y'all can find me on social media. So I don't know my Facebook stuff, but just HVAC Masters of the Hustle. I mean, I'm on every platform that you guys could imagine. You can find YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm there Research it.

Speaker 1: 57:29

They call me J-D dub money maker, because I'm making people money. I love it. Thanks, brother, I appreciate it, my man take care y'all.

Speaker 2: 57:33

God bless got it.