Full transcript9 chapters · 10,854 words
00:00From painting ladders to running a live video company
James Hatfield: I went from climbing ladders with a paintbrush to leading a live video company, and the lessons from the trades are still what drive me.
Tyler Martin: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue-collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line with lessons and grit that pay off big.
Tyler Martin: Here’s your host, the Blue Collar CFO, Tyler Martin. Today’s guest began as a painter. He was climbing ladders and managing teams while scraping by on payroll. He became a business owner by accident, then switched to tech. Now he’s changing how home service businesses talk to customers.
Tyler Martin: It’s all from their desks. James Hatfield ran painting and power washing businesses. Today, he leads LiveSwitch, an AI-powered video tool. He succeeded by learning what most skip, making sense of messy finances, building trust fast through virtual face-to-face chats, and turning single jobs into repeat business.
Tyler Martin: In this episode, we cover his journey from blue-collar work to tech leader. Things like, why do trade owners struggle with numbers and how to simplify them? Or his race to the face trick for winning deals quicker than in-person visits? Or what about using QR codes to claim gear and keep customers loyal?
Tyler Martin: And plus, creating a personal board to boost your growth. This episode is packed with practical tips, mindset changes, and ways to grow your home services business smarter, not harder. Let’s jump in and talk with James now. Hey, James, welcome to the Profit and Grit Show.
Tyler Martin: How’s it going today?
James Hatfield: Oh, it’s great. I mean, it’s sunny outside, you know, another beautiful day.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Where are you located?
James Hatfield: I’m in Asheville, North Carolina in the mountains here.
Tyler Martin: Nice. I have a few clients in North Carolina. I always hear some really cool things. So it’s cool that you’re in that location. I’d love to learn a little bit about you. What do you do professionally to start with?
James Hatfield: Yeah, I’m president here at Live Switch, And my job is to meet and greet and connect with all of our customers to help build amazing products and build teams and scale the company quickly. But my most important thing is just taking time to spend with the everyday entrepreneurs like myself.
Tyler Martin: So you’re literally out in the trenches visiting people all the time.
James Hatfield: All the time is where I love to be.
Tyler Martin: Wow, that’s awesome. What about on a personal note? Anything, if you’re out in the mountains, I’m thinking maybe hiking?
02:44Singing in hospice and playing bluegrass with his family
James Hatfield: No, I am in music. So do a lot of music. My family plays a lot of bluegrass, but we also go and sing in the hospice every month to go give someone one last song before they go.
Tyler Martin: Oh, wow. That is a nice thing. Having in the last two years, just on a personal note, I’ve had both my mom and dad go through the hospice process. And man, what you’re doing makes a difference.
James Hatfield: Oh, yeah. And it’s amazing. I always get more than I give, but it’s always a special time every time we’re in the building. So I love it. And I love bringing my entire family with me, including my kids.
Tyler Martin: That’s very cool. Wow, that’s awesome. Hey, where I’d love to start in our discussion is just to kick things off your personal story, because it really connects the dots, I think, between trades and tech. Can you start out, how did you go from the trade profession, now you’re really a technology executive?
James Hatfield: Yeah, I think my original pathway was typical, but then it took an entire twist and a turn in ways I never expected. It was never on my roadmap. So I grew up blue collar family. My father built the house we lived in. I know how to work with my hands, work on engines, work on homes. And the big dream was, hey, I want to be a business owner. And my grandfather was like, you should be a painter. And so I’m like, let’s do that.
James Hatfield: So I opened a painting company to put food on the table and put food on the table of my teams. I had multiple crews, had a painting company, power washing company. I love doing it. But the reason I got into tech was not by design.
James Hatfield: I literally, as I imagine a lot of people listening, became an accidental business owner. I know I don’t work on the ladder and like, oh boy, now I got to hit payroll. Now I got to go see the bookkeeper. Then the bookkeeper would start speaking English to me.
James Hatfield: I’m like, I have no idea what this person is saying at all. and I was like that is not good I know that’s not good so that’s when I was like okay I need to go to business school I’m running the business so I can learn all these accounting terms and be on top
James Hatfield: of it because when I’m on top of my top line and bottom line the business just runs better and I make better decisions with data so put myself through business school and upon there graduating from that I met a guy who was owning a landscaping company and he was solving the problem I had which
James Hatfield: is taking income statement and balance sheet running it through a system and telling me in plain language. This was way before AI, how I was doing. I was like, I love that. He’s like, well, do you want to try to sell it? I’m like, let’s do it. So that was my moment of going from
Tyler Martin: the ladder to the technology world. Wow. Is there anything like other lessons from your time in the
James Hatfield: trades that frame and guide some of your decision-making today? Oh yeah, all the time. I mean, there’s so many transferable skills. I mean, I’m dating myself. I mean, I didn’t have computers and technology way back then. But I did know how to knock on doors on weekends when we were in between
James Hatfield: jobs. If I didn’t get enough calls and enough referrals, I’d hit the streets to make sure we could hit payroll. So you could find me on a weekend, not every weekend, but weekends knocking on doors, representing the company, doing what we need to do, doing the bidding, do the estimating,
James Hatfield: doing the final walk-arounds. I mean, everything that it would take to run the business, as well as hiring, firing, promoting, all the rest. And all that is transferable. None of that is piece unique. I mean, any business you’re running, you can take these skills and use them.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. When you are talking with contractors, is there anything from your lessons when you were painting, climbing on ladders and doing estimates? One, I assume that helps you connect with them. But is there any advice or guidance that you typically give them that commonly comes up?
James Hatfield: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to making yourself redundant. as you always hear like work on your business and not in your business. And I’m very guilty of having working in my business. And now what I have learned is I need to empower my team,
James Hatfield: hand things off, document my process. That way when new people start and then empowering my team
06:35The bookkeeper spoke a language he didn’t understand
James Hatfield: so I can have this beautiful thing called freedom. There’s a wonderful book called Making Money is Killing Your Business. I highly recommend everyone listening to read that book. It will unshackle you. And when you think, oh yeah, working on your business, that sounds so great.
James Hatfield: La la la. That’s Easter bunny land. But it’s not. It’s real and it takes work. And once you start doing it and you become a business owner who works on your business, it will forever change your life.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. I haven’t heard it. I don’t think, I don’t know, who knows? Maybe I’ve read it and forgot. But making money is killing your business. I don’t think I’ve heard that one.
James Hatfield: Yeah, I love it. I’m constantly reading. I just finished Main Street Millionaire. And now I’m, what am I reading? I just started it yesterday. It’ll come to me. It’s about hospitality. It’s got a fancy title.
Tyler Martin: The one where you over-deliver?
James Hatfield: Exactly. All about unreasonable hospitality.
Tyler Martin: That’s it, yeah. That’s a great book.
James Hatfield: But it’s all about restaurants, but you can absolutely apply it to any business. So, I mean, these are the types of things I’m putting myself in as I teach. I teach at the Breakthrough Academy. I mean, I’m constantly in front of business owners, on entrepreneurs.
James Hatfield: I love entrepreneurs and small business owners. And I get so much just staying in my library.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that’s good stuff. You mentioned about bookkeeping and just not really at first understanding what people were saying, your bookkeeper, and then going into your MBA program to get your hands around things. Could you talk about that a little bit in terms of, because this is something I see a lot in my profession is,
Tyler Martin: we get this data from bookkeepers or your accounting team or whatever, and we really don’t know what it means. We don’t even know if it’s correct, if it’s wrong. We assume it’s correct. What’s your thoughts around that? How do we bridge that gap?
James Hatfield: Yeah. I mean, one, any parts of my business that I can outsource, like a bookkeeper, legal, all those pieces, administrative, I want to first and foremost get that in the hands of those folks. But that doesn’t relinquish me from learning what they’re doing
James Hatfield: because you can get taken advantage of. or if you’re in the room nodding and not understanding, that is your cue, time to hit the books, right? You don’t have to go to business school, although it really helped me.
08:47Owning your numbers even when you outsource the books
James Hatfield: I would say that you can get a lot of this by finding different books. Audiobooks are wonderful, right? And start learning and taking the time. And now with AI, you can have AI, hey, what’s this mean? What’s that mean? And you don’t have to feel like an idiot, right?
James Hatfield: You’ve got your little helper in your pocket. But you need to get at least some acumen around your accounting. Like you’re crazy not to. And it will tell you so much about your business that you didn’t know. And that data-driven decision-making for your business,
James Hatfield: you might not even realize how much you’re spending on certain supplies, or that you’ve got three different crews buying three different supplies from three different companies. Like that’s not great. There’s other ways that the numbers can speak to you and help you make great business decisions.
James Hatfield: And it’ll free up that extra cash that you can do some really fun stuff with.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. I had a client recently or a new client recently come to me and you said something that’s right in line with this is just because you hire someone doesn’t relieve you of the obligations, kind of understand what they’re doing. And is it correct? So this client comes to me and this firm was telling them, Hey, one month they’re losing money and they’re on the verge of going out of business. And the next month they’re making money and everything’s fine. And the next month they’re losing money. And, and they’re, you know, concerned, obviously like stressed out, concerned.
Tyler Martin: Are we going out of business? Are we going to be able to make payroll or not? Obviously, cash is tight. And it was just someone that really didn’t necessarily know their industry and didn’t really understand it. And the client is just kind of taking them as the expert.
Tyler Martin: And so that is a key point that you said, is you really do have to own it. Just because you outsource it doesn’t mean you can just let it go. You can’t.
James Hatfield: And everything connects, right? Your finances connect to your process. Your process connects to your people. Your people connect to your customer. It all is interwound. And as someone who’s going to eventually start working on your business, not in your business, you’re able to start stepping back and either grow your business, sell your business, start the next business, buy the next one.
James Hatfield: These are the skills that will help you really compound your wealth. But you got to hit the books.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Do you have any shortcuts or anything when it does come to numbers or anything that you tend to look at as gauges that might be useful for the audience to know?
James Hatfield: Yeah. I mean, obviously, I want to know my top line. How’s my revenue doing? I want to know my bottom line. I want to know my expenses. I want to know my salaries. I want to know where I can either get rid of things and cut or reduce.
James Hatfield: Staffing nowadays is so much different than it was a couple of decades ago. I can pick up staff now for home service companies overseas. And a lot of people are like, how can you do that? Well, think about your sales process. Think about some of the things that we’re going to talk about here later.
James Hatfield: I can hire somebody overseas at $1,700 a month. And I’m all for keeping jobs here in the US. But I don’t know if you ever have trouble finding people, which is the big thing in home service right now. we’re banging our heads trying to find people.
James Hatfield: Well, expand your global search for those folks. And it will also help that bottom line. So I’m looking at salaries. I’m looking at staff augmentation. I’m looking at technology. I’m looking at ways where I can do automation. All those pieces across my business.
James Hatfield: Do I have the right tech stack? All those things come together. But the shortcut is get a good bookkeeper. We’ll speak plain language to you. Your bookkeeper and your lawyers are probably two people that you want to make sure you don’t just phone those in.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. To your point, Jack Carr was on my podcast. He owns an HVAC company, and he outsources a lot of his back office folks. And what he does, the reason he does it, which I think is just so cool, he does it so he
Tyler Martin: can pay his technicians more. And he feels like, you know, he definitely has some back office people that are in the U.S., but the rote kind of routine transactional stuff is all outsourced. And he feels like he has a system that’s pretty nailed that down and allows him to pay his tax more, which I think is a pretty cool strategy.
James Hatfield: It’s great. Yeah, we call it the 5% rule, right? I want to be able to run my business on 95% of what I need. And the other 5% is for cream. And you can put that anywhere you want, like giving people, paying them more for retention or, you know, throwing an amazing Christmas party every year or doing unreasonable things for your customers, right?
James Hatfield: Like buying them dinner, giving you room to do cool things that set you apart from anybody else, whether it’s with your staff giving that unreasonable hospitality or with your customers giving them unreasonable hospitality. But you need to build all that stuff in. And this is a beautiful idea.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Before I wrap up on this topic, as you’re visiting contractors around the United States, do they often share with you challenges that are related to cash flow or business?
13:19Race to the face and why free estimates cost you $600
Tyler Martin: I mean, is there a common theme that you tend to hear?
James Hatfield: Oh, yeah. I mean, all kinds of stuff, right? I’ve got the owners that are overbooked with too much stuff, right? They haven’t cut whether it’s subscriptions or certain… They haven’t updated their team size. Like, oh, are you sure you really need that many folks?
James Hatfield: Because they don’t want to fire anybody, right? And so you’re like, well, hold on. So being over-allocated. Then you got the under-allocated folks who are working so much in their business. They’re trying to do three jobs themselves and they’re working themselves into the ground
James Hatfield: and they hate their company, right? And so we got that piece as well. And then you got the people that are just, you know, this is the way I’ve always done it. So this is how I’m always going to do it. And you’re like, wow, that is, that can work for some, but really that’s a tough way to
James Hatfield: be as well. You’re going to, it’s getting more and more tough out there.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. That’s good stuff. So I want to shift to sales, you know, speed to lead, speed to sales is always a big thing. You use a term called race to the face. Can we talk about that a little bit? What does that mean?
Tyler Martin: Why is it important?
James Hatfield: Yeah. Let’s start at the beginning, right? There’s a little company called Amazon that has ruined us all. It’s ruined us all. You know, everyone probably listens to Amazon Prime member. Why are you a Prime member? Let’s think about that. You don’t have to be.
James Hatfield: You don’t have to be a Prime member. And if you’re not a Prime member, you’ll get your boxes in two weeks, a month, whatever it’s going to take. You want your boxes. It was two days. Now some of us is hourly, same day.
James Hatfield: And we don’t want to wait anymore. So Amazon has preconditioned every single one of your customers to act this way. they have no patience. I don’t have patience. I don’t know about you, Tyler, but my patience is now out the window. How fast, when something’s going wrong at your house, do you want it fixed?
James Hatfield: You want to wait two weeks, get your heat and air unit fixed? You want to wait two weeks for that pipe to be fixed? No, you want it immediately. And now, the way things are going with inflation and the price of everything, these are four, five-figure jobs, sometimes six figures
James Hatfield: if you’re in certain home services, right? And we forget because we’re so transactional that we’re asking for a lot of money from our customers and we don’t give them white glove service, right? And we certainly don’t go as fast as we need to.
James Hatfield: So we know in the NFL, the number one paid wide receivers are the fastest. We know in the Olympics, people getting the gold medal, they’re the fastest. It’s the same for home services. Have you ever lost a deal when you pick up the phone
James Hatfield: said, hey, I’m coming out to do your estimate that maybe you booked two days ago. And the person said, don’t bother. I’ve already found somebody. You lost on speed only. You didn’t lose on your reputation. You didn’t lose on anything else. You only lost on speed.
James Hatfield: So speed to lead is the big thing everyone’s talking about. And I think that’s exactly right. We need to be in that frame of mind. The next thing we got to understand is how people buy. When’s the last time you closed something and they didn’t even meet anybody?
James Hatfield: It was just so fully automated that they went to your website, swiped their credit card, and you got the deal. Probably doesn’t happen too often, right?
Tyler Martin: No, no. No.
James Hatfield: So there’s a race to your face now or your salesperson’s face, right? And what we do is we hop in our vehicles, we pay hourly wage workers, we’re driving out all over town and we call these things free estimates. That’s the biggest lie on the planet.
James Hatfield: It’s not a free estimate. At least not to me, the business owner. It’s the most expensive thing I do because I’m not always guaranteed to win, right? Callbacks and free estimates are a drain on my business. And I need to get my face in front of that person’s face,
James Hatfield: whether it’s on property or whether it’s in the home. But now you can start doing this with technology where they can see you, you can see them, you can see the job, you can even bid the job and win the job. And this is not a fairy tale.
James Hatfield: This is happening every single day with the technology that’s available out there. Because once I can see my customer, they can see me. I build the credibility and the trust. People buy trust first, right? And then they buy your work second, right? So now you look at the job, you see the job,
James Hatfield: you bid the job, you win the job. And that can be done. Now, sometimes you need to go in person. But the beautiful thing about race to the face is when you see the work and you do your discovery, that person is now worthy of the drive out,
James Hatfield: worthy of your free estimate.
Tyler Martin: Right. And I do want to kind of dig into that free estimate because you made a great point. I was recently at Pantheon Service Titans Conference and they had a visual that showed on average of the surveys they got, it was something like $600
Tyler Martin: to actually go out to a client site. And so whether that may be $300 for some companies or 600, whatever that number is, I think we really do have to acknowledge that the minute you get in that truck and you’re driving out there, it’s costing you money.
Tyler Martin: And so to your point, it’s not free. The meter’s ticking.
James Hatfield: The meter is ticking. I have some of my customers that never do drive out estimates anymore. I have some electricians. I have one electrician business owner who’s three hours away from his territory where his electricians are. He physically can’t drive out. And he’s like, James, here’s the thing.
James Hatfield: I can quote stuff in between $100 north or $100 south, give or take. And I can do it right there virtually. And that’s how I do all my work. I can bid everything that way. He’s like, I’ve stopped. And he’s not the only one.
James Hatfield: Right. And for some of us, we can’t do that. There are some trades that’s just not physically possible, but you can reduce it by auras of magnitude and you would be shocked how much you can now do from the comfort of your office.
Tyler Martin: But I would also even the other huge part is just the trust factor because, you know, a phone call, one level of conversation and trust, video call, another level, in person, another level. So I think like by doing that video call, you’re investing time. It’s more
Tyler Martin: than just a phone call. It probably gives you the edge if they’re talking to multiple companies.
James Hatfield: That’s right. And we have the data. I’ve got customers that track every little thing to the nth degree, right? That’s just how they’re data-driven. And they say, hey, James, look, when we get on property, my team’s closing 60%. When we do virtual estimates,
James Hatfield: we’re closing at 63%. So it’s neck and neck, a little bit higher on the virtual side because you’re able to get there faster and beat out everybody else back to this race to the face. So it’s just a tick higher. But the beauty of it is the bottom
James Hatfield: line savings that they’re experiencing and the fact that they’re closing at an equal rate with either one. And so he’s literally changed. And this has happened. This is not just one person. This is so many companies are changing the titles of their staff from estimators to virtual
James Hatfield: estimators. And in some cases, I’ve got folks that have all their virtual estimations done overseas. I got a guy who runs an eight-figure business in Seattle, a moving company, 35 salespeople. he has all in South Africa and his sales manager’s in Poland. And he’s kicking tail.
James Hatfield: I would hate to be a mover in Seattle going up against Grant. I mean, he’s killing it.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. So what are our solutions here? Because when I first look at this, I go, okay, well, couldn’t we just do this on Facecam or FaceTime, whatever it is, Apple product or whatever Android has? Couldn’t we do that? Like, what are some alternatives
Tyler Martin: and why would they make them better? Like, I know you guys do something. Why would that make it better than just doing it on your phone and your video camera?
James Hatfield: Well, it’s all tuned up for it. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to be the customer.
20:50Laser guiding a customer through their own basement
James Hatfield: Try to go be the customer doing a FaceTime. You’re used to being the estimator. Oh yeah, it works for you just fine. Try to be the customer. And go ahead and look at people like Tyler and I have these things called glasses and we can’t see for anything.
James Hatfield: And you want me to look through my size of a postage stamp around my house? Forget it. Like it’s, I have not found a serious company really who operates all their virtual estimates on FaceTime or Zoom or not a serious company. It’s usually like, oh, I used to do that in COVID
James Hatfield: or yeah, we do it when we have to. No, no, I’m talking about doing it every time, right? And now, so one, it’s tuned up for third-party assistance, not just for selling, but operations. It’s got laser guidance systems. It’s got note-taking. It has screen sharing.
James Hatfield: It’s recording everything. And oh, by the way, that recording goes through AI. So I just had a guy in my home, two different… I had an HVAC person in my home and I had a restoration company in my home. HVAC person. My wife noticed that our HVAC unit pan at the bottom
James Hatfield: was full of water. So she called the technician. Technician’s coming downstairs. I’m like, hey, I want to do something with you. So I’m like, pretend you’re an ignorant customer and I’m going to send you a text. All right. You hit tap the text and I want you to walk in
James Hatfield: in 30 seconds, explain what you see. And this… I mean, I’m in the mountains in the south here. So my man gets in there and in 30 seconds, well, there’s water in the water pan. There’s condensation on the line and it’s dripping. And he did this on his phone in cellular in my basement.
James Hatfield: And we submitted it through AI. I ran an HVAC diagnosis report. The report said, hey, with these type of traits with condensation water, you most likely have a plug in your drain line, which is usually algae. Go to the drain line, loosen it up, get the algae out, and it will fix the problem.
James Hatfield: He walks over, loosens it up, algae is flying everywhere. drains everything, his jaw’s on the floor, and he goes, can I buy stock in your company? Unbelievable. Oh, and by the way, it’s all under the hood of Service Titan. It’s all under the hood of Jobber.
James Hatfield: It’s all under the hood of JobNimit. Whatever you use, Housecall Pro. So this is not a face… It’s not even a fair fight. Like talking to FaceTime is like, comparing your Google spreadsheet to your Service Titan CRM. You can do it on a Google spreadsheet,
James Hatfield: but most serious companies don’t.
Tyler Martin: Right. Okay, hold on. There’s a lot to unpack here though. So first talk to me about like, what is laser? I don’t know what laser guided means.
James Hatfield: Is it literally just shooting out, highlighting an area or what’s that mean? So imagine your customer walking through your home, looking through your phone. Again, it’s third-party assistance so that professional can see it. Now the professional in real time can draw on the video
James Hatfield: and a laser comes up and it will guide you around. Go that way, Tyler. Hey, stop for a second. Let me get a picture of that serial number. You’re literally laser guiding them around the property where you need them to go. and you can do all kinds of stuff.
James Hatfield: Like my movers will laser guide them all around the house and they’ll even say, that’s going, that’s not going, this is going, that’s going. And then they run that entire hour long walkthrough through AI and the report gives you an entire report of everything going, leaving,
James Hatfield: all the packing materials you need and cubic dimensions and weight. And it gets down even like special trinkets. Like I’ve seen it like, those are longhorns on the wall or that is a little picture that says Macy loves Dylan. Make sure you wrap that.
James Hatfield: It’ll give them tips on how to, I mean, this is all here now. This is not, you know, science fiction. This is being used right now, today.
Tyler Martin: Wow. And then you also mentioned, so we are common with that little, we’re all used to that little box and we’re trying to like stare into that little box. So what have you guys done? You flipped the switch on that where you’re seeing the big picture instead of the little picture.
James Hatfield: That’s right. So for the customer, it’s a reverse of a FaceTime call. Got it. It’s self big. They hit the flip camera and they walk around. There’s even a light button that they can press if they’re going into the basement. The light comes on the phone.
James Hatfield: You as a contractor, you can be sitting in your truck. You can be at an office, wherever, whatever device you have. We don’t do apps. Nobody wants to download. I ain’t got time for that, right? This was actually invented because we were reinventing the 911 phone call
James Hatfield: with the chief of police in Washington, DC. And to get in your phone, when you’re a compromised citizen, you get a text, you tap it. No time to download, no time to train. And then we can stream that video right to the police car
James Hatfield: so they can see what they’re driving into. That’s where this was born. Okay. So we do all this kind of stuff. But yeah, this type of connection, they come up. And then on my end as a contractor, I can be on my big computer
James Hatfield: so I can see everything huge. Like I can take notes while I’m looking at it. I can share a screen. I can take a remote photo of your driver’s license to make sure we get it signed. I send you your DocuSign. I can do everything and bid and win
James Hatfield: from comfort of wherever I’m sitting.
Tyler Martin: Wow. Who do you think this is for? Is this for the $1 million a year shop whose primarily owner is doing everything? is this for the $15 million HVAC shop that’s delegating and has processes and things that are for everyone? Who do you think it fits best for?
James Hatfield: I haven’t found someone that doesn’t fit. I mean, I’m telling you, I got mom and pops, I got single owners, and I’ve got top businesses that you know. I got tons of name brand franchises, already customers and large, large companies that are, and I got NDAs with some of the largest,
James Hatfield: I mean, our largest customer is Adobe. We power a billion-dollar product called Adobe Connect. I mean, we did the Super Bowl the last three years. If you remember during MBA, the COVID, and they had the virtual… We’ve powered all that. So we’re a 16-year-old company.
James Hatfield: We’re just now bringing the power because we’re only one of a few companies in the world that do live video like this and AI. And we’re putting it in the hands of where I come from. So I’ve been at my most comfortable the last three years
James Hatfield: with our home service folks because that’s where I’m… I think the best products are the ones that would solve my problem. You know what I mean? I know this business. So I’m able to relate. And so we keep things simple. You don’t need, I can teach you our stuff in five minutes.
James Hatfield: Like you’re not going to a university to learn this stuff. We’re not like a CRM in any way. Yeah.
Tyler Martin: You know, I guess that’s why I asked the question is like, I have this vision for like the $1 million shop where the owner’s kind of doing everything. Might say, hey, this is too technical for us. What’s your thought process on that?
James Hatfield: I think we have a bad rap as blue collar folks. Like we’re like the knuckle draggers of technology. I’m like, no, we’re not. Yeah. No, we’re not. Here’s the problem we got. I got a bunch of folks who are coders, engineers, coding software
James Hatfield: for blue-collar folks in the field. I make fun of those guys. I say, you guys have soft hands. You know, you didn’t spend a day on a ladder. You don’t know me, right? When I used to run my companies, I had this little thing called the Nextel walkie-talkies.
James Hatfield: I don’t know whatever happened to those things. I loved it. But I could talk to anybody on any one of my job sites at any time. And that’s what this is. It’s a one… I like one-click solutions. I like my truck to start up with one press.
James Hatfield: I like my power washer to start up with one pull. I want my technology to start with one click. That’s it. One click. You know, most of our stuff is one click, you know, and that’s it. And that’s what we want. And so I just think engineers like to over-engineer stuff and they make it kind of hard on us, you know, home service folks.
James Hatfield: That’s what I think is the problem, frankly.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. And then you mentioned Jobber, Housecall Pro, Service Titan. And I’m not sure the technical way to answer this, but are these unique integrations that are specific to those packages? Or is it like an API where it’s just more like it could connect in anything?
James Hatfield: Both. Okay. But we’re under the hood of all those platforms that you labeled. Again, doing live video, what we’ve done is incredibly hard. Just like I’m not going to build a CRM. Yeah. You do you, we’ll do us. I stay in my lane.
James Hatfield: But we’re peanut butter and jelly. We’re right under the hood. So if you’re in Jopper and you want to talk to someone, you just hit click and it starts a live call. Or you want to request a call, request. You don’t have to be on the other line.
James Hatfield: Let’s say you forgot something. Let’s say it’s an after-hours bid. They can just walk around. I mean, it’s so convenient. They literally can just… You can have a QR code on site and they can scan it, tell you what they want done. We can run that through AI.
James Hatfield: It gives you an entire report. So when your salesperson calls, they know exactly what’s wrong and can start to bid it right there.
Tyler Martin: Wow. That’s pretty cool. And is that recorded calls? Does that link sit in Service Titan? Is that basically what you can just click on it and it probably goes out to your site or something like that?
James Hatfield: Yeah, or sometimes it’s already there. It just lives under the hood of the platform. Every platform is a little different what they give us access to. But yeah, sometimes it’s a link that you just tap and you’ll see the video. And sometimes you’ll have the video photos,
James Hatfield: everything right there in the record.
Tyler Martin: Wow, very cool. So I want to switch gears here. So now we’re talking about getting the job, securing the client
29:15QR stickers on breaker boxes to claim the property
Tyler Martin: and being able to service their home. Let’s talk about after the job is done. Retention can be as important as that first sale. Why is it important after this job’s done? Where does that fit in in terms of what you guys are doing?
James Hatfield: Yeah, a recurring revenue is a liquid gold of any home service business. And if you go on property, you do a great job, and you leave, and you don’t do anything else, you are leaving tons of money on the table. It’s a big miss.
James Hatfield: All right. There is another race going on to claim properties and equipment. So my electricians are putting QR codes on the breaker box. My HVAC folks are putting it on the heat and air. My plumbers are putting it on the water heaters and the toilets.
James Hatfield: My garage, you name it. So you’re going to make a sticker with the name of your company, with your phone number, and a QR code. Because us homeowners, like someone did my roof two years ago, and I can’t remember who it was. And I’ll have neighbors, oh, I love your roof.
James Hatfield: Who did it? I got no idea. I really don’t. I just can’t remember it. Or this is all marketing too. Once you do the work, slap a sticker on it. Because here’s what happens if a new tenant moves in or a new resident or a new business.
James Hatfield: Oh, I guess this is my plumber. Yes. Because you know what we don’t want? This is what people do. If there’s a wreck on the other side of the highway, we all stop and look at it. It drives me nuts. Just keep driving, people.
James Hatfield: But when something breaks in the home or wherever, everyone does it. They walk down, they’re going to fix the whatever. No, they’re not. but they’re going to go look because we got to see something broken. And then they’re going to try to call up
James Hatfield: and try to explain it to you. Well, it’s the brown thing with the red thing and then there’s a bunch of buttons. Yeah, that doesn’t help me at all. But what I’m trying to do is when they go down to look at the broken whatever,
James Hatfield: I want them to see my company and give me the first shot. Do not Google plumbers near me or HVAC near me. We own this. We know. And what it tells the homeowners, oh, I guess these guys know my stuff. been here before. Or if you want to get proactive, like a bunch of my restoration companies,
James Hatfield: because stuff happens, they’ll send out a three by five that says, Hey, if you ever experienced loss, scan this QR code, tell us what’s going on, and they get ahead of it. But everyone is racing to claim property as fast as they can.
James Hatfield: And if you already think you’re safe, Oh, I’ve been doing business with these people for 10 years. Well, if you’re a restoration company, I’ll keep picking on them. And that business has a problem. and the business goes down and you don’t come out fast enough
James Hatfield: and someone else has gone on there and said, hey, next time you experience loss, just scan this QR code and I’ll send the Calvary.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that QR code, is that any way integrated with your services? Or is it just if they click on it, it’s going to go straight to calling a number? What happens?
James Hatfield: No, so they scan the QR code, they put in their name and they start taking a video telling you what’s going on. Ah, wow. So it’s committing them, right? And then what happens is we’re going to run that through AI, whatever prompt you want,
James Hatfield: your HVAC diagnosis, restoration diagnosis, plumbing diagnosis. It’ll create a report. So when your salesperson calls, like, hey, Mrs. Jones, I’ve looked at your video of the problem. In fact, this is what we think is going on. I can come out right now. And here’s how much it’s going to be.
James Hatfield: And in the future, here’s what we’re going to do next. So a little preview to the show. We’re creating little AI agents that maybe because of the fact of speed, The AI agent will review the report, call Ms. Jones and say, hey, this is so-and-so’s AI agent.
James Hatfield: If you ever need a person, just let me know. I’ll patch you through. But we’ve reviewed your video. Here’s what we think is going on. We have some available times. When would you like us to come out? I want to have a touchless experience
James Hatfield: for recurring business. Notice it’s a little different from the earlier conversation, Race to the Face. We’re talking about recurring revenue now. That means they already trust you. They know you. So we want to, again, faster. Amazon Prime got faster and faster, right? So that’s where we’re going next.
James Hatfield: And this is not stuff two years away. Half of this is already built. Most actually 75% is already done. You can already scan it, already run through AI. Now you’re just having one of your people call. But sometimes your people forget. Sometimes they miss something.
James Hatfield: Again, we want speed, convenience. Customers want convenience. Don’t wait. That’s what I want.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I mean, honestly, the reason I go look for that, Well, it’s not QR codes on my stuff yet. It’s phone numbers. But the reason I usually go to the stickers, it’s just straight up convenience. Like that means I don’t have to go to Google and I don’t have to call five different things
Tyler Martin: and wait for people to call me back or whatever, tell them my whole story. I can go to someone that I know that’s worked on my system before or whatever it happens to be. Usually, honestly, I can’t remember the person, but I figure if there’s stickers there and I worked with them,
Tyler Martin: I do remember the ones I hate. So usually if it means they’re not coming up with someone, I did a bad job, probably a pretty safe bet for my first call.
James Hatfield: And it’s great for families too, right? Like if your spouse is at home and they’re like, honey, who do we use? They don’t need to do that anymore. That’s right there. Just, I guess this is who we use. Boom. And then they don’t need that.
James Hatfield: Again, you do not have to be like a technician, right? This is what we don’t want them to be a technician, right? But this AI can now diagnose off just video alone. The audio is just extra credit. And some people have no idea what they’re saying anyways.
James Hatfield: So we had to come up with something, let the video and the photos connect with the AI. It’s great.
Tyler Martin: I know there’s people probably out in the audience that this might be the first time they’re hearing of this level of AI. When I went to Pantheon, they literally had a demonstration of what it would look like in the near future, where the tech literally would get in their van.
Tyler Martin: The audio would talk in the van like, hey, you’re about to go out to Mrs. Jones. This is what she says is the problem. Don’t forget to bring this up or blah, blah, blah. Then they’d go out into the job. They’d have like meta type glasses on
Tyler Martin: and the glasses would actually be looking at the situation, kind of like your video, but with glasses and giving the technician ideas in terms to look for. It would give them reminders. It would automate the invoice process. And it literally went from beginning to end
Tyler Martin: of almost everything being automated, which to your point, like I think a lot of that technology is almost there already. It’s just a matter of maybe bringing it all together.
James Hatfield: We’re already here. Yeah. Here’s the thing. We’re already here. I just went in through your phone because all your staff, I think they give you a phone now when you’re born. So we’ll wait on the… We’re going to get to the metaglasses, but that’s not mainstream.
James Hatfield: We’re already working on a lot of stuff, but I want to go with what you have today. Because everyone likes to talk about Tomorrowland. I’m like, well, I don’t even know if I’m going to be here tomorrow. So I’ll tell you what we can do today.
James Hatfield: Everything that we’ve been talking about can be done today. Everything we talked about. Now the technician can already go on site. They’ll see it. We have GPS location. And now when they’re doing their pre-walk around, they can just talk to the video. Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I’m preparing to do.
James Hatfield: And then it can be their assistant. Then afterwards, they can take a video of a customer testimonial. They can do a before and after. Also, if you’re especially in plumbing or electrical and you put drywall back up, it’ll help you record it. So you remember next time you come out,
James Hatfield: remember back to the sticker. Oh yeah, we’ve been out. Actually, I have a video because we retain all these recordings indefinitely. The next race, the AI race is over.
36:35The AI race is over, now it’s a race for your data
James Hatfield: It’s already over. Within 12 months or less, saying you have AI is like telling someone you have electricity. Who cares? It will be a who cares. The next thing that we are racing for and what you should be thinking about as a business owner
James Hatfield: is a race for your data. Okay, what do I mean by that? I mean, record everything you possibly can. And now you can ask, hey, can you document that and turn that into a process? Right? Now you start documenting all your process. You know what that does to the value of your business
James Hatfield: when you’re ready to exit? If you’re ready to sell your business and you’ve got all your process documented and you’ve got all these videos, this is how it’s done. Now start tagging all these videos as training. You hire a new person, here’s how we do it.
James Hatfield: Here’s gold standard. And then you can actually run AI on everything. You can run an AI report on a sales call and you can say, coach the salesperson on what they did well, what they didn’t do well, what they can improve on it.
James Hatfield: This happens today. This is here right this second. Whatever you can think, I want an HVAC diagnosis. I want a sales report. I want a process document. We already use the biggest AI in the world. All our stuff is connected. Okay. But now you’re able to feed video,
James Hatfield: audio right through it. Right now, it’s today. We are not in tomorrow land. So it’s cool. But I’m telling you guys, this is right now. We’re here.
Tyler Martin: I love it. Hey, this is really good stuff. I mean, a lot of interesting things that I think we could leverage. And I know even within my own client base, we’re not, that we could leverage technology even more. And if we don’t, if there’s someone that’s even resistant to it,
Tyler Martin: we’re just going to get run over. I mean, really, because it’s either you do or you don’t. If you don’t, you’re probably going to get run over. You just can’t compete.
James Hatfield: And let’s talk about that for a second. If you’re feeling that way, like this is intimidating, this is over my head. I’m not going to… All I want to do is… When I got new tools on the job site, I remember when I got paint sprayers for the first time for my guys.
James Hatfield: What did we do with it? We played with it. And I’ll tell you what, the first five houses was a disaster. I mean, a disaster. We were shooting… Because it’s a trigger, you know, right? It’s like, whoa, paint’s going. You know, like we sprayed roofs.
James Hatfield: We sprayed the wrong paint. It was… We hit the… It was awful. We played with it. But then after that sixth house, seventh house, we were painting homes in half the time at better quality. and my profit margin was soaring. I was so happy.
James Hatfield: I wasn’t happy in the first five houses. We were pretty much a nonprofit. So what same thing applies here with AI. Just go to Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok. I don’t really care what your flavor is. And play with it. Just play with it. Play with a tool.
James Hatfield: Because then what’ll happen is like, oh, I could probably use it for this. Then you put it in your first workflow. That’s your first AI automation. And I don’t care how rinky-dink it is. You start doing that over and over and over again
James Hatfield: across your entire business. go ahead and check your bottom line a year from now. You just got to play with it. Don’t put it off. Every day you put this off, you’re running behind. Promise you. And some of this stuff ain’t expensive at all.
James Hatfield: So we want to make AI practical and tactical. I call it AI for the rest of us. This AI stuff that we have in our tool, it’s one click. You want to run a report? Click. And I even made it a little dog.
James Hatfield: It’s a little beautiful black lab. So we have fun with it too. It’s cute, right? Look who doesn’t like a puppy. But like who can’t, who could refuse a dog?
39:50Building a personal board with 20 LinkedIn connects a day
James Hatfield: Exactly. Especially. Yeah. But it’s that kind of stuff where we’re really like, it’s not overcomplicated. You just, you just got to start playing.
Tyler Martin: Got it. Okay. Want to go into our last topic that I’d love to talk about. You have talked about personal growth and you have this unique idea or unique way of phrasing it. I would say is a personal board for growth. Let’s talk about that.
Tyler Martin: What, what is a personal board? Why is it important? And I’d love to know how you’ve implemented it even in your own life.
James Hatfield: Yeah, a lot of different ways. But I believe that having a good group of people around you is what you need of all kinds of variety, right? Some of these people call it mastermind groups. Oh, and by the way, you can even have vendors in your mastermind group.
James Hatfield: Not all of us are hungry for just your credit card. I promise you that. I mean, we’ll take it. Just like you’ll take a credit card too, won’t you? I’m sure. We’re all that way. Come on. But put a good, solid group of people around you in your industry, into other adjacent industries, into different parts.
James Hatfield: And it’s unreal. For me, let’s just talk about what happened for me. I just started a self-storage company. I didn’t know anything about self-storage two years ago. I just happened to have been reinventing an I-O-N phone call. An acquaintance of mine who’s on my personal board was like,
James Hatfield: Why do you come and reinvent self-storage? I’m like, John, I don’t know anything about self-storage. He’s like, come with me to Vegas. You’re the nerd with the glasses. You’re going to figure it out. So I get out there and I’m just naive. I’m a nerd. And so I’m like, Oh, I think we could probably replace these expensive things with a QR code.
James Hatfield: And I start digging deeper. Well, I start meeting all the who’s who’s in self-storage. I’m now on all their podcasts. I’m getting to know them. And they’re becoming close friends. And now so close. And now fast forward the clock. I’m being interviewed. We’re talking about hybrid and remote management.
James Hatfield: were under the hood of some of the largest companies and smallest companies. And I’ve become close friends. And I was like, man, I should buy some self-storage facilities. I’d love to diversify my portfolio. And so I partnered with two of the most premier operational folks.
James Hatfield: And I have a board of directors. Wow. Sound familiar? Personal board. And now I’ve already got investors and I will have my first self-storage facility in a matter of months. And I knew nothing. And we will be one of the most tech forward.
James Hatfield: But it’s the personal board of people that I put around me, these are people I cold called. Like cold outreach. And now we’re business partners, board. But learning how to make friends and influence people. Remember that book? Yeah. If you haven’t read it, you should read it, right?
James Hatfield: And give. Don’t just take. Don’t be a taker. Give more than… And you’ll be shocked having that personal board. It’s going to change everything. It might even change your business.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. A small, let’s say, HVAC shop. How do they start their own personal board? I mean, most people aren’t going to go out and cold call people. So what are some steps in terms of forming your own personal board?
James Hatfield: I’ll tell you, you can do this every morning, 15 minutes sitting on the toilet. That’s probably too much information, right? Nobody uses their phone on the toilet, right, Tyler? So go to this little website. You might have heard of it. It’s called LinkedIn.
James Hatfield: And if it’s like, oh, I’m not a social, I’m not, okay, don’t do it. But I’m telling you how to make a personal board in 15 minutes every day. What you’re going to do is make a LinkedIn profile. Get a good looking photo.
James Hatfield: Don’t do a selfie, people. Go and get a professional photo done. Or if you’re not, there’s AI. You can submit photos of yourself and it will make… Hint, hint. Mine’s done that way. All right? And so then the next thing you can do
James Hatfield: is make a nice background, put a little about section, put your work history. Okay? Now here’s what you’re going to do. Whatever industry you’re in, you’re going to start connecting with 20 people every day or less. Don’t do more than 20. you’ll get blacklisted.
James Hatfield: I’ve been blacklisted twice. So take it from me. All right. You’re gonna do 20 a day. In the beginning, some brave soul who you don’t know, all you’re gonna do is hit the connect button. Don’t send a love note. Don’t send a message.
James Hatfield: Send nothing. Just hit connect 20 times a day. Some brave souls will start saying yes. Three months from now, after you do this every day, when you hit connect, you’ll notice, oh, we’ve got 100 mutuals. And when you hit the connect button, do you know what that person’s thinking
James Hatfield: when they see 100 mutual connections? Why don’t I know this person? Then what you’re going to do is every day in this 15 minutes, scroll through your feed, see who likes posts, and then connect to them, okay? Then what you’re going to do, you’re not going to be a taker.
James Hatfield: You’re going to be a giver, okay? You’re going to take photos on your job sites, authentic. Now, these don’t need to be AI generated, just your own. These photos and videos, or maybe you listen to the Profit and Grip podcast with Tyler. Why don’t you share an episode?
James Hatfield: Any episode, doesn’t even have to be this one. Share. I challenge everyone today. Please share. You won’t do it, but do it, please. Go to your LinkedIn, share it. Then what’s going to happen for you? People are like, huh, this person is interesting.
James Hatfield: And then you’re going to start meeting people. You might even comment. You might even, oh, I love what you’re doing there. Or someone will reach out to you. Hey, I noticed you were doing this on the job site. Then you become friends. I know that can be hard sometimes.
James Hatfield: Get to a text-based texting relationship and make a friend. And then you’ll notice, wow, this person’s really got their crap together. I call them serious people. This is a serious person, right? And then stay connected with them. And all of a sudden, you’ll have a personal board
James Hatfield: and a brand and a network. And maybe Tyler might even ask you to come on the show. It’s crazy. That’s the formula. And it works every time. I’ve done it everywhere. Once upon a time, Tyler, I had half a million followers in fantasy football and I was doing radio shows
James Hatfield: with Tiki Barber. Same formula. Wow.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that consistency is one of the key words there.
James Hatfield: That’s exactly it.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Hey, I want to, before we wrap up, I always like to talk about whether you have a mantra or some type of guiding principle that you live by. Anything come to mind?
James Hatfield: Yeah. Within my team, I’m always trying to make more owners instead of employees. Yeah. Give you an example. When there’s trash on the floor in your business and someone who is an employee sees it, they will walk by and not pick it up.
James Hatfield: An owner will walk by. You know why? Employees are like, that’s not my job. An owner will be like, oh, I’m going to pick up this trash and put it away. They love their business. Tyler, when’s the last time you hand-washed your rental car?
Tyler Martin: Probably never.
James Hatfield: Nobody does that because they’re not an owner. Right. You’re a renter. Right. Renters don’t do that kind of stuff. So we want to help our team become owners. There’s all kinds of ways to help them become that. Not just in cash, although that will help.
James Hatfield: There’s a little thing called profit sharing. It can help a lot. Okay. But talking about this, talking about ownership, creating owners, empowering your team, giving them decision-making on their process that they’re empowered to do that. Teaching them how… The people that are closest to the data,
James Hatfield: making those decisions, then they’re empowered to do so and they feel good about it because eventually you’re going to have freedom. See the first point, right? But making owners is what I obsess over. That and obviously getting close to the customer, which is, I guess, a second one that’s of mine
James Hatfield: is I really love customers. And if I focus on the customer, they have the answer to the test, all that beautiful stuff. But owners, customers, these are things that I really try to do. And I mean, I can go on and on. I got tons of make myself redundant.
James Hatfield: Education. Yeah.
Tyler Martin: I mean, just in terms of wrapping up here, things that I’ve taken away, make yourself redundant would be a big one. The book, Making Money is Killing Your Business. This sounds like a must read if you’re a reader. The 5% rule, I thought was really interesting talking about that.
Tyler Martin: Race for your data. Never really thought about that, but that is kind of the evolution of this. There’s a race for your data. So I think we need to think about that. I loved automatic workflow. Just deal with one, do this daily, automate your workflow one by one by going through
Tyler Martin: ChatGPT. And if you do that consistently or over a period of time, your business is going to be in a different spot in a year. And then the personal board can’t pass that one. I probably could keep going on too. But there were just so many little nuggets here that I think are takeaways.
Tyler Martin: Can’t thank you enough, James. Your websites, you’ve got two that I want to share. One is, of course, your business website. That’s liveswitch.com. Interfaces pretty much with any CRM that you’re using, it sounds like. And then your LinkedIn is james-hatfield.com. James-hatfield.com. If people wanted to reach out to you, is LinkedIn the best spot?
James Hatfield: LinkedIn, that’s great. Like we were talking about earlier. And anyone who reaches out to me, whether you can go to LiveSwitch and demo, and I want to talk to James or LinkedIn and talk to me, I’ll make time for anyone who’s listening to the show.
James Hatfield: I will personally make time for you. Don’t believe me, try it.
Tyler Martin: Okay, and then also on that note, Mackenzie from your office had sent me some links related to if people are interested in your product. I think there was a discount code. Those will be in the show notes. So just go to profitandgreat.com and there’ll be a link in there to check that out
Tyler Martin: if you’re interested.
James Hatfield: Yeah. Awesome. Love it. Thank you for having me, Tyler. I had a great time.
Tyler Martin: Awesome, James. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and hope to talk with you in the future. Okay, that was a fun one. What I loved about this conversation with James is how grounded it stayed in the trenches of home services, blending real trades experience with cutting
Tyler Martin: edge tech to solve everyday pain points. From decoding hard to understand financials to racing ahead of competitors with virtual estimates, he showed how speed, trust, and smart tools can transform chaos into efficiency without overcomplicating things. The big takeaway in a world where we’re spoiled
Tyler Martin: with instant service, your edge comes from embracing speed and tech to build trust faster. Claim reoccurring revenue and free up your time as an owner. That’s the kind of clarity I bring to business owners, helping you know your numbers so growth doesn’t outpace control.
Tyler Martin: If you wanna learn more, how I can help you in your business, be sure to book an intro meeting at cfointrocall.com. That’s cfointrocall.com. As usual, I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you so much for listening.
Related Episodes
- The $1M Revenue Leak: How Chiirp Fixed Home Service Follow-Up – Ryan Fenn
- Most Contractors Price Themselves Broke Without Realizing It – Danielle Putnam
- The Revenue Levers Most Owners Ignore – Justin Judd
- 8 Steps To Book More, Charge More, Lose Less – Brigham Dickinson
Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: a fractional CFO for HVAC contractors. For where your business sits right now, read the $3M to $15M scaling breakdown.
