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Wisdom From a Great Tech and a Company Founder
Learn from the man behind the success of Tekhne by Good Guys Heating, Air Conditioning, and Plumbing, Johnnie Firari
In this interview, Johnnie talks about how he went from being an HVAC technician to owning his own business.
He also points out the importance of cultivating good customer relationships.
Discover how to make a happier life for technicians as rewarding as possible!
Listen now to episode #3 of HVAC Joy Lab, a podcast hosted by Dr. John Sherk
You may also visit Operations Laboratory’s website https://operationslaboratory.com/
or
Check Dr. John Sherk’s LinkedIn profile
www.linkedin.com/in/dr-john-sherk-hvacbusinessexpert
Dr. John Sherk, owner and president of Operations Laboratory reveals all of his HVAC technician career happiness strategies, income improvements and killer tech-happiness tips and tricks so you can get ahead of the curve with your HVAC technician career. Discover how you can create a quality negotiated agreement with your manager that works for you so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it’s coaching your kids’ teams, getting out there for hunting season, or just living comfortably at home with your family. Since 2010, he’s been consulting his many HVAC clients on how to develop and manage a culture that is friendly to tech-happiness, and here he openly shares his wins, his losses, and all the lessons in between with the community of energetic but humble HVAC techs, managers, and owners who follow him. Self-proclaimed “Technician Happiness Guru” you’ll learn about getting paid what you deserve, building genuine and loyal relationships at work and at home, recruiting winners (tip: they all already work for someone else), building a tech-happy culture, quality communication, skills mastery, optimizing performance, negotiating compensation, professionalism, , and productivity tips so that you create an amazing, tech-happy life without burning yourself out. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from John you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the HVAC JoyLab Podcast. I am your host, doctor John Shirk. This podcast focuses on creating more and more conversations about what optimizes life for an HVAC technician. My goal is to produce the most helpful content available for techs, full stop.
Dr. John Sherk:Today, you're gonna get to hear, Johnny Fiore. He's one of the original visionaries of Goodguys Heating and Air in Indianapolis, and their their, going national brand, Techne Techni Home Services. Johnny is one of the more insightful visionaries I've met in the air conditioning business. He has a very elastic mind. You're gonna get some great thoughts from him today.
Dr. John Sherk:And like many of our guests, he started out as tech just like you. Okay. Let's get started.
Johnny Fiore:We get into our trucks, another Kyle to watch. We always treat the customer right. We're with 1 guy in a truck guys. HVAC JoyLab.
Dr. John Sherk:Alright, everybody. Johnny Fiari is with me today, on HVAC JoyLab. He is one of the founders of Goodguys Heating and Air in Indianapolis and Techni Home Services, which is the same company, but outside of the state of Indiana. Story and has a very interesting perspective on what makes a great life for a technician. So, Johnny, let me jump in and ask you the question I ask everybody.
Johnny Fiore:Let us get
Dr. John Sherk:to know you by telling us what is your superpower and what is your origin story.
Johnny Fiore:Well, as I say, a superpower, it's using the right resources. Right? I mean, one of the key reasons why I think people fail or get misdirected is they we all know what are the right things we got to do, and for example, losing weight, we know you got to eat right, exercise, get your heart rate up, all that other stuff, but you know, when it comes to running the service call or running an HVAC business, part of that is knowing how what resources to utilize and how to utilize those resources. So the resource utilization is probably my superpower. Being able to see exactly, I guess, hey.
Johnny Fiore:How can I make this work here and and make things coexist together?
Dr. John Sherk:Interesting, yeah. So then tell us a story of you and air conditioning. How did how did you come to this point?
Johnny Fiore:When I was in 7th, 8th grade, maybe 9th grade, I just sat in high school, and I just knew I wanna work on the purse when I get all over. No. You know, honestly, I I never seen myself in the trades, you know. I wanted to play baseball when I was in high school. I think as a lot of people do, you have different dreams.
Johnny Fiore:Went off to some other things, did some small business management, economy crashed, and I said, no, I'm okay, I keep doing what I was doing. I was helping smaller companies run some marketing and business operations, and, it kind of kept getting tougher and tougher, and I was like, you know, I think he saw the stress that I was under at that point, and he asked me again, and I said, yeah, give it a shot, and, he gave me he brought me into the company, that I later left, but he, he didn't really when he said, hey, you're gonna get in this? You gotta be committed, you can't get halfway in, half you can't be 1 foot in, 1 foot out, and I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever, and, got into it, and I just fell in love with the industry, right, you know, when you go in a customer's home, like it's right? When we talk about what's a great life for a technician, I mean, this was an ideal job for me that I just had no clue. Right?
Johnny Fiore:Because, you know, for me, you know, when you think about living a great life, you wanna be happy, and you wanna, you know, positively impact the people you come come across every day, but one of the things that you do as a technician is 2, 3, 4, 5 times a day, how many other customers you see in a day, you get to go knock on the door, step back, bond and rapport, learn something new about somebody, take, you know, take them from, oh my god, how am I gonna fix this? To, hey, we got you up and running, you're gonna be good to go. You know, you'd get that endorphin rush for making that repair. I fell in love in the industry, like I said, I never sat in high school or anything and said, hey, I just want to do this when I get older. You know, when I got into it, I fell in love with it, and that went full on board.
Johnny Fiore:There is some things about the industry that makes it tough. Right? And, so that's sort of what we, with a technique by Goodguys Home Services, that's what we sort of focused on in the past is everything that I didn't like about the industry as a technician. How do I change that? Right?
Johnny Fiore:And, that's what we, we sort of made our motto as create a place we can go to work at and be happy people. So, yep. But being a technician in general, you know, it is an ideal job for a lot of people because, yeah, you get that joyful rush every time you take somebody from not not cooling to air conditioning or not heating, you know, the house is starting to warm up. Proud to be part of
Dr. John Sherk:it. Yeah. You know, for the audience's sake, Johnny and I have known each other for a little while, and we do some work together too. And our relationship was kicked off around a conversation of the central, thing that air conditioning companies should be paying attention to as technicians. A good tech is a lot harder to find than a customer, and they're the value of a of a happy technician is enormous.
Dr. John Sherk:And, so it's really what kicked off our first conversation because you kinda said that, and then I kinda said that. And I'm like, I thought I was the only one saying that. Then you kinda said, I thought I was the only one saying that. And then I can say clearly that, the company that Johnny founded truly was founded to create an atmosphere for technicians to thrive. I mean, point blank.
Dr. John Sherk:Full stop.
Johnny Fiore:And, yeah, I think it yeah. I also have to keep in mind, like, they always say, oh, you're not gonna make everybody happy. And, you know, I'd like to accept that challenge and say, yeah, yes, you can, but you just got to take different approaches, right? So like, you know, I'm a football fan. I'm a Bengals fan, but live in Indianapolis, so we'll use the Colts, for example.
Johnny Fiore:Right? If I got a set of Colts tickets, and I say, hey, you know, you love the Colts, here's 2 tickets, and I give that same gesture to somebody that doesn't even like football. Right? It's the same gesture, but I'm going to get 2 totally different responses. Yep.
Johnny Fiore:And I think that's important to think about from generational tech technicians, people getting in at different age groups. Like, you have to adapt your business and to really just, like, hey. How do you make this particular pocket of people happy, this particular pocket of people happy? You're gonna have your guys They're gonna say, man, I love overtime. I wanna work as much overtime as possible or whatever the case is.
Johnny Fiore:Right? And then you're gonna have guys, you know, hey. I wanna do my 38, 40 hours, I want to be home, I want to be able to coach baseball, coach football, whatever with the kids, you know, whatever their case is, like, you have to adapt your your your business, I think, in the future to what do people want. Right? What what's gonna make them happy?
Dr. John Sherk:Yeah. I I would say for if if this this podcast is really for technicians, but if owners and or employer service managers are listening on both sides, I would say that a thriving text tech begins that that process begins with finding a way for the technician to feel like they're making choices. They have options. They're choosing to do some things because the normal course of life in home service context, at least, is the the technician is in a constant state of responding. So they probably got into into the it's kind of fell into the industry to start with.
Dr. John Sherk:And now every day, they get sent here and there. If it's in the hot season, they don't know when the end of the day is gonna be. They may not even know when the last service call is gonna be. And then they find their way into a relationship that you know? And then they find they have a couple kids, and pretty soon they look around and they say, I'm locked in.
Dr. John Sherk:I'm stuck. I, you know, once you've in a traditional model, once you've been a a service tech for 7, 8, 9 years, unless you become a service manager, you've kinda gone as high as you're gonna go in that company. And Yeah. It's it's it's very challenging for a technician to kind of embrace choice and embrace an on purpose driving life. And then Yeah.
Dr. John Sherk:So it's kind of the it's the the employer's role to find a way to offer that, but it's then the technician's role to activate it. Because in this in my work with technicians, the number one challenge that I see is that when technicians aren't used to having it. So if they get it, they don't know what to do with it. They're like, what? They they're just so happy to not be pushed around anymore.
Dr. John Sherk:They kinda just kinda get stuck in that space, and they don't realize, go build a life for yourself. You know? Go build some.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. That's a right? So I guess, you know, it was kind of swing back and forth, right? Right. You know, I know for me, I'll speak from my experience, right?
Johnny Fiore:You're going through life, and then you're just, you got, you feel like you're making motion, right, and if there's unhappiness somewhere along that line, you know, you need to really evaluate that one life you get to live if you just keep going this way, right? Because sometimes you gotta just say, I need a new pencil. Right? So I can't just keep focused on this. And this you know, we had a, you know, years ago.
Johnny Fiore:Excuse me. That's right. There was a one of probably one of the best technicians in the state of Indiana now. You know, I trained him when he first came into the company, came into business. He rode with me, we went over how to sell maintenance plans, and everything else that we're supposed to do.
Johnny Fiore:He's, like, 6 months in, younger guy, came to me, says, you know, I think I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna go work at the Carrier Factory. I said, what? Like, you're 10 times smarter than me, what the hell are you going to go work at the Carrier Factory for and do the same redundant job every day? And he is, like, man, they they always they're harping on me for my KPIs, my maintenance agreements, and, like, I just I want to fix things, like, that's, you know, and I'm, like, yeah, and I took him in at the time, took him to the service manager and said, hey, let this guy know not to worry about anything, because, you know, me and the Service Manager at the time had a good relationship. One of the things that we, do, would always talk about is focus on being the best technician you can be.
Johnny Fiore:The money's gonna follow. Right? And, you know, we both had that conversation and had to block out some of the stuff, and I think our industry itself, because we do have so many different sales training things coming on, a lot of guys that truly want to go fix things and take care of customers, right, They get pushed out of the industry because, you know, you're at a company, and they're like, hey. You still don't appreciate what you're doing because, hey. You didn't sell an air purifier that week and or you're not the highest sales average ticket or whatever, but it doesn't make you a bad technician.
Johnny Fiore:Right? Right. And once you realize, okay. I focus on being the best technician, money comes. Right?
Johnny Fiore:Because there's a shortage of technicians. Our value in the industry, this is gonna continue to rise, like, there's
Dr. John Sherk:That's right.
Johnny Fiore:You know, there's not a lot of people who's gonna get to attics, crawl spaces, go into people's homes, you know, and talk to strangers every day. There's not a ton of people that's gonna go do this because everybody wants to send with a keyboard warriors. Right? They all wanna work go work at Amazon and, you know, and computer software or something.
Dr. John Sherk:Right.
Johnny Fiore:And so I think it's important, like, as a technician, you know, and I say that because, you know, sometimes we always wonder, like, what comes first, happiness or success? Mhmm. And, yeah, you get a lot of people that will blame a company. Right? If if I'm a technician, it's like, oh, miserable here.
Johnny Fiore:I got too much on call, I got overtime, whatever the case is, right? Sometimes your unhappiness, you're wanting to blame the employer. Right? You're wanting to blame the owner. Right?
Johnny Fiore:For whatever reason, and the way I see, you know, what comes first happiness and success is happiness. Right? Happiness is gonna make you more productive. It's gonna make you more efficient. It's gonna make you low in front of people.
Johnny Fiore:Versus if you're the the person that's struggling with real life stuff, you know, and you're unhappy and disgruntled and stuff like that, like, you know, you become a energy sucker. Right? You're that vampire that's just sucking energy from people, and, you know, you're not gonna drive. Right? Yeah.
Johnny Fiore:But I think a lot of it, you know, even, you know, talk about raising kids, it starts at home, right? Mhmm. Does this pencil going the right way? Am I in the right career? Or am I on the right path?
Johnny Fiore:Right? And make sure you're focusing on what's gonna make you happy and readjust if you have to. That that means getting out of the industry, you get out of the industry. But, you know, make sure you're truly looking at it with open eyes and not blaming, oh, you know, it's you know, you choose HVAC. When it's hot, you're going to go to work, and when it's cold, you're going to go to work.
Johnny Fiore:That's just the reality of our business. We're going to go help people, You know? And if you're a person says, well, I don't wanna work in the heat. Well, you probably should be in it.
Dr. John Sherk:You know? Get a controls job.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. And, and there's plenty of other opportunities. Yeah. And when I say, you know, if you're in the field and you think, oh, I wanna do this, this, and this, like, take the time and go get better at it. Right?
Johnny Fiore:Like, you mentioned controls. Right? Yeah. If you don't wanna do the field, you wanna get to commercial and go on the controls and stuff. Okay.
Johnny Fiore:What are you doing in the off season? Right. To get better for that. Right? There's a I'm gonna save the analogy here, because it's not actually the best analogy to use, but sometimes when people make more money or they get a raise, they naturally think they get smarter, And the truth is is, you know, they're what have you done?
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. Yes. You've gotten a raise, and you're making more money, but you also have to say, if I wanna do something else, what am I doing to make sure I get there? Right? Am I listening to podcasts and learning?
Johnny Fiore:Am I watching videos? You know, what's my TikTok full full of? Right? Is my TikTok full of HVAC tips and tricks or, you know, the greatest and latest automobiles? Not that you can't have hobbies and stuff, but if you really wanna proceed with a career, like, it's a career, like, and sometimes people will look at it as a job or it's a career, you know, when I dove in full full fledged on it, it was like this is a career, you know, it's not a job, this isn't something I'm just gonna
Dr. John Sherk:Right.
Johnny Fiore:You know, walk away from in 2 weeks and go find something else and learn how to do that and then leave that in a year. Like, this is a career, and once you make that in your career, you know, anybody with a successful career is gonna tell you, you know, 40 hours a week ain't enough. Right? If you're gonna be at the top level, you're gonna be. Know, you need to put in that 5 to 10 hour extra hours and nobody else is doing it to become better.
Dr. John Sherk:That's right.
Johnny Fiore:We love we love watching sports, and we can talk about how great this quarterback is, a running back, a pitcher, you know, but, you know, Evan Smith was probably one of the greatest running backs I love watching. Right? And, know, he always had, you know, it's what you do in the offseason that helps you go further during the regular season. You know, we have to treat our career the same way, right, always be practicing getting better, you know, and that might be from customer service to technical, and I think once people grab on that side of things, don't always blame the outside sources because it really starts within you, right, and making sure, okay, what can I do, to live a better life?
Dr. John Sherk:Yeah. I'll I'll tell you, because I have had multiple clients over the years, one of the things that has been true, you know, residential, commercial, industrial, across the board, the technician's career path, is always driven by the quality of their customer service. The the technical stuff will come, but this is a common mistake that I see technicians make, which is they think if they have more technical knowledge, that's the pathway. And so, for example, in a commercial context, the guys who aren't working on chillers want a chance to work on a chiller. Or if the and they don't realize that the guy who gets all of the new opportunities is the guy where the customers call the company and they say, will you always send that guy back?
Dr. John Sherk:Yeah. We we love Jimmy. We we wanna we want Jimmy coming back every time. That's the guy who's gonna get to work on a chiller. And Yeah.
Dr. John Sherk:And they they miss the idea that, if I just and and this is much more in the the normal technician's grasp than they realize. If you are like a just a freaking all star on customer service, the world will open up to you.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. That's one of so what we talk about is we would call it telling our story. Mhmm. When you're in a customer's home or you're at a business location, at some point during that visit, you have to figure out a way to tell your story, and we can gauge if somebody's telling the story or not because in the reviews, it will say, Johnny did great, John Shirk is awesome, he's probably the best I've ever had, blah, blah, blah, Not because they said, hey, tech me or good guys, you did a great job for me. Right?
Johnny Fiore:When they're mentioning the technician's name, that technician told their story, and, I mean, it's it's easy, right, and every story is gonna adapt to your your homeowner, but one of the things I used to do, like when I was, you know, if I was, you know, I did only residential, I didn't do much commercial, I did some light commercial, But if I was on residential and out on maintenance, I'd try to go get the homeowner, bring them out, show them, hey, this is everything, I got to get this cleaned up, and I'd start spraying off the condenser, and I'd always ask, you know, I get the question all the time, and if I didn't get it, I would try to prompt some way, like, hey, you know, should I spray that off, you know, during you know, when I'm out here? Obviously, I let them know if you're comfortable and safety and everything, but I would jump right in and, you know, when I was a kid, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, you know, I'd be spraying, you know, watering plants, tomatoes, you know, green peppers, whatever the case is. My my mother would always have me watering the flowers and everything at night, and then every now and then, she'd tell me to spray off the air conditioner.
Johnny Fiore:And I looked at her, and then eventually, I asked her, I said, why am I watering the air conditioner? Like, it doesn't give us any it doesn't look pretty, it doesn't give us any food, like, I just didn't understand it, and I, you know, I you know, she looked at me, she says, I don't know, I think it makes it run better. Fuck, mom was right. I didn't know that. You know?
Johnny Fiore:It wasn't until we got, you know, down the road and, you know, into the HVAC industry, I was like, wow, mom was right. You know, and when I tell a homeowner, you know, especially if it's the lady of the house that particular story, right? You know, they identify, okay, this is his son, he loves his mother, right? He knows Mom's right, right? And she's a mother, she identifies with that instantly, or grandma, whatever, you know, and you adapt your story with whatever, you know, the person you're talking to, obviously.
Johnny Fiore:Mhmm. But at that point, when I left that house, she she remembers something personal about me versus every other technician that ever walked in that door and just did the did the tune up, did it, say, hey, here's sign here, thank you, or hey, it's time to renew your maintenance plan, whatever. Right? Now she had a piece of me, and we were on a total different level. And it wasn't because I was this super bubbly guy or whatever walking in, you know, you know, it's because we shared a human experience, and at the end of the day, when we're sharing a human experience, that's what real bonding looks like.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. And, you know, so I think when you're telling your story, making sure homeowners are, you know, recognizing, hey, I'm human, right? I got a daughter, she's trying to figure out life, she's going to go to college, whatever the case is, you know, whatever you can do to humanize yourself to that customer. You know, customer experience isn't just boot covers and face mask or whatever you're gonna wear, you know, customer service is, like, really truly making yourself human to that person. Mhmm.
Johnny Fiore:And if yeah. I'll challenge everybody, you know, tell your story, figure out a way to tell your story, you know, and if you got somebody super busy, sometimes in a commercial atmosphere, it's tough, you know, you get 38 seconds with them. How do you tell a story in 38 seconds, right? How do you let them know that you're human and, you know, let them know that you still got another busy day, you identify with their business schedule, whatever the case is that make you somewhat relatable to that person, and I guarantee you that they'll give you another 60 or 90 seconds to talk. Yep.
Johnny Fiore:That's right. And those are the people that, you know, when customers are requesting, hey, they want this person all in back and whatever. Making sure this is the technician on my job, you know, if it's commercial. You know, those are the technicians that really thrive.
Dr. John Sherk:That's right.
Johnny Fiore:It's not the ones that go in and just they can do all the mechanical stuff, but they they can't talk to the homeowner. You know, it's gonna be tough for them to, really create that bond and move forward.
Dr. John Sherk:Yeah. I'll tell you all of the really all star customer service, that I've seen, technicians are making a relationship happen. Yeah. It's not it's not just transactional. And that's how like, if you're if you're listening to this podcast and you're a technician, you're working for x y z home service, just the way to get started sort of in in terms of the mental part of it, the paradigm part of it, just imagine that you're becoming their home service consultant.
Dr. John Sherk:Give them your phone number, know their name. If you can, keep in touch with them. Tell them if you have any issues around the house, you're like, you know, this is this is plumbing, not air conditioning. It's okay. You can call me.
Dr. John Sherk:And Yeah. Now they'll they'll rarely call you, but they'll know you. And as you do that, it it will help the company that you work for. If you decide to go out on your own, you have already got a small army of customers in the wings, whatever the whatever that needs to look like, but you're creating a crowd. You're creating a group of people who look to you like they would look to a doctor or a dentist for technical expertise.
Dr. John Sherk:And that that level of customer service is life changing.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. You're creating a fan. You know? And when you create that fan, it's just like you know, yeah, you grow up in a house and, yeah, he's a buddy of mine. He's a huge Bears fan.
Johnny Fiore:Right? Well, they all live in Chicago, but his son is a huge Bears fan also. Right? Mhmm. You know, because he was such a fan of the Bears, you know, his his son is now such a fan of the Bears, and that's when you create a fan of your service and what you do and what you offer, and a neighbor needs something, who are they gonna they're like, hey.
Johnny Fiore:Call Johnny. Right? And when if they don't use me, you know, that neighbor is gonna be pushing like, hey. You didn't call Johnny, why didn't you use him? You know, whatever the case or if they did if they if I give them a quote for a replacement and that that customer says, you know, comes over, hey.
Johnny Fiore:Did you get Johnny to do that HVAC system? They don't even mention the company's name. Did you get Johnny to do it? Right? And they're talking to you specifically about that, but then you don't even have to sell it.
Johnny Fiore:The neighbors sell it for you, and that's only because, you know, you planted the seeds early and eventually, it'll harvest. Right? And that's what you do with all the customers. You plant seeds, let them know, hey. You're there, and truly wanna help.
Johnny Fiore:Right? Even if it's, you know, most guys that are mechanical right? Guys and girls are mechanical, you know, we may not be a plumber, but we have a pretty good idea on, oh, yeah, definitely need a professional that's gonna take permits or, yeah, that's gonna be an expensive job, so they may call you and say, hey, I got this plumbing that you need. You know? If your company doesn't provide it, then, honestly, you know, you may not refer your plumbers.
Johnny Fiore:But if somebody comes out and they're telling the customer something that's not right, I mean, I can't say how many times we get phone calls all the time where customers say, you know, there's rust on the EVAP cool, they say I should replace it, like, you know, like, you know, once once that customer calls you with something out of the blue for plumbing or whatever the case is, you could literally say, yeah, that sounds pretty good. You can just be a consultant, and yes, it's a little bit of free consultant, but again, if they're a fan, you know, it's signing an autograph when you're walking down the street. Right? That's all it is, you know. Yes.
Johnny Fiore:You're giving a little bit of knowledge away, but you're helping your customer and stuff. I don't know. I I think the other side of things we get all the time is, like, okay, we we want money from our customers, right, we want money from customers that are gonna pay us, but that's just the transition for your service, right, and if you stop looking at this transactional, look at it more relationship based. Yep. You know, you're gonna build better bonds with your customers over time.
Johnny Fiore:Right? They're gonna be able to, you know, hey. How's Faith doing? Right? They're gonna ask about your kid, and you're like, crap.
Johnny Fiore:I can't remember their kid's name or whatever the case is. Right? You know, there's tips and tricks to try to remember all that stuff, but, you know, when you have that relationship with a customer, hands down, like, you know, anything you offer them, they're gonna buy because you dated them, right, and, you know, and eventually you got married. Maybe the first one was a first date and then you come back the second time and they really like you. From there on, you know, you're engaged, I guess, I don't want to call you married, but you have that relationship with a customer and you didn't walk in the door and try to sell them everything just to get that transaction so you get your average ticket up, you went in, you built a relationship, you plant your seeds, and then you harvest.
Dr. John Sherk:Yep. That's right.
Johnny Fiore:You know, stop trying to just fuss through the door like the Kool Aid man and say, hey. Yep. Yep. You need all new duct air purifier and this and everything, and I know it's our first date, but, you know, you should buy everything. You know, build that relationship, build value, and, you know, educated customer is gonna be able to make an educated decision.
Johnny Fiore:You know? If you got a, you know, If you got a customer that's not educated, that's where they end up with buyer's remorse, and then they're they're talking about you on Facebook. Oh my god. Overpaid for this or whatever. Yep.
Johnny Fiore:If you're not taking the time to share your knowledge with the customer and let them make help them make an educated decision, Like, you're just taking advantage of people and, you know, that's short lived. Nobody's gonna you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna feel good when you go to bed at night.
Dr. John Sherk:Yeah. And it it to some degree, what we're talking about I'll I'll put another frame around it. It's the difference between, an amateur and a professional. I mean, the the this is what a pro does. They build a network, and it's the same kind of thing that would be true at a at a supply house or other vendors.
Dr. John Sherk:You know, the whole for you as a technician, the whole circle of people around you, you know, it's easy, and this will be true for anybody in any career path, really, but we're talking about technicians. It's very easy to only care about what's right in front of you and not realize there's a flow of work happening. And somebody's touching it before you, and someone's touching it after you. And what a professional does is own the ultimate outcome. In this case, it's a happy customer.
Dr. John Sherk:And the the path to get there might be a $15,000 change out or it might be, you know, a $2 battery for a thermostat. But but the there's a movement there. There's a path there. And as a technician, you know, you should prioritize. And this is this is where what do I do with myself in the off season?
Dr. John Sherk:Go build relationships. Go go grow your network, and make sure that you have a degree of influence with anybody who touches your work so that you are influencing the whole package, not just what's right in front of you.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. Yeah. There's a yeah. And and I would say networking with other technicians. Yeah.
Johnny Fiore:And, yeah, you can be a great technician, but if you go in and you're not talking to other technicians know, resource utilization, you know. How do you you know, you're not the best at Geos, well, who's the best at Geos? Next time you're on a Geos call, I wanna be out there with you. Right? Yep.
Johnny Fiore:Saying, Boil or whatever. You know, make sure you're working your way in and saying, hey. I wanna spend some time with this person because I can learn from them. You know, it's it's exactly what you know? I mean, I'm a I love sports, so when you watch professional athletes, that's what they do.
Johnny Fiore:Right? In the off season, you know, if you were struggling with your batting average, you go see a batting coach. Right? Or you go see, you know, a mental you know, somebody to help you mentally prepare a mental coach to say, hey. How do I get out of my head and get my batting average back up?
Johnny Fiore:Yep. Work your network. Right? There's tons of people around us. They'll sometimes we just sell ourselves short and say, oh, they're probably too busy.
Johnny Fiore:They don't wanna talk to me. Right? Yeah. Most of the time, you know, my ex father-in-law, we have a great relationship and always will. You know, one of the things he he told me, like, you know, he worked in the industry for years from, like, 18 to 60, I guess, long time.
Johnny Fiore:And, you know, he said it was crazy because all this time, you've you've accumulated all this knowledge. Right? And you got you know, you're at the top of it, you know it, and then retirement comes, and what do you do with it? Right? It just sits there.
Johnny Fiore:Right? Then you start looking like, you know, these people that have it that have been around, my greatest thing, like, when you go in a customer's house and you have that, you know, that older person that hasn't seen anybody in a couple of days and they wanna talk and share stories, those are my favorite customers because I learned so much from the people because they live the life and they figure out what makes them happy, you know, and you can see if they're miserable, then you can figure out, hey, I don't wanna make that mistake. I don't wanna be this grumpy person. But they have a wealth of knowledge because you can only learn so much in time. Right?
Johnny Fiore:And that's Mhmm. We need that time to learn. They have all this knowledge, and they have nothing to do with it. Take their brains, ask them. Right?
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. Yeah. One of our one of the biggest, you know, wealthiest people I've ever met in a customer's home, Extremely wealthy, right? I mean, ungodly, you know, you think about, you know, some of the boards or some of the Fortune 500 companies, and, you know, you're in you're in that person's home, and you're able to get that person talking, and you can get 30 minutes of conversation or 15 minutes, oh, you you know, cut this batch out, cut everybody out because this guy has got a wealth of knowledge, I love business, you know that's where you get him talking. And you're there with no mode and sell him anything or anything else, they will teach you so much in that 30, 45 minutes.
Dr. John Sherk:You have
Johnny Fiore:to take advantage of the people around you and just say, hey. Who's got the knowledge? Where can I go get it? You know, you know, when you're you know, when I tell my kid, you know, she's 19, but when she's 15, 16, 17, even now, I say you're as smart as you'll ever be because you have it all figured out. Right?
Johnny Fiore:That's right. Right? You got it all figured out. You know, it is until they reach that level of maturity that says, oh, I don't have it figured out. I need to learn more.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. And that that's what we sort of hope to see in our kids where they're gonna come and ask for help. But as technicians in the field, we have to say, hey. We don't have it all figured out. Mhmm.
Johnny Fiore:What else can I learn? Right. And keep questioning. I think so when it comes back to being, hey. What's what's a great life for a technician?
Johnny Fiore:You know, somebody that takes it as a career is wanting to learn and be the best that they can be. Right? No matter what you do, you're the best at what you can be. And, You know, and that I think that's what's gonna make a great life for technicians, for them to just, hey, this is what I do for a living. I'm proud to do it.
Johnny Fiore:You know? If anywhere out, be excited to tell people what I do for a living. And you know what? I'm gonna be the very best that I can be. Right?
Johnny Fiore:And there's levels of that. Right? You may be some people only get here at customer service, but they'll exceed here. Right? Yeah.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. We we talk about it as a as a company. It's we all sit down, like, nights of a round table. Mhmm. You know, a lot of lot of people always wanna sit at the head of the table and have everybody on the side.
Johnny Fiore:Nights of a round table sat at a round table to show respect for each other. Right? You may be a better jobster, I may be better with the sword, whatever the case is, but we sit at the same round table because we're equals, right, and we want to learn from each other. And so, you know, just having that idea of everybody is an equal to you, you know, just get them to get them to help and share share that information so you can get smarter and grow in the field.
Dr. John Sherk:Alright. Very good. Well, we're just about out of time. I just just one last word, Johnny. I just wanna be on the record telling you how much I respect what you have accomplished with Goodguys and with Techne.
Dr. John Sherk:It's it's only still kind of the beginning, but it is a rare thing for someone to choose to push against the status quo because they know there's something better. And you took a risk. You made it and and part of the reason I say, you started a company that's super friendly to technicians, but you were solving your own problem first. I mean, you you created a company to solve your own problem, which I think is the best version of that because you know what you do works because it worked for you. Yeah.
Dr. John Sherk:And that I I just I just wanna say that I have tremendous respect for what you've you've accomplished up there.
Johnny Fiore:Yeah. We appreciate it. You know? The goal is to change 3,000 lives. So, yeah, and it's it's everybody, right?
Johnny Fiore:And it's it's not me, it's everybody on our team. You know, it's they show up, and we we do and say we say we're gonna do. It's it's a team effort. Like, there's, yeah, you know, you could say, like, you know, at the end of the day, it comes down to the team of people you you're building yourself around with. And for us, we like AV players, so and, you know, those 80 players just allow us to grow and scale and and do what we're gonna do.
Johnny Fiore:And so but I appreciate it. I mean, we we work really hard, but at the same time, we're still trying to have fun. And Mhmm. You know, I tell myself, it was never not fun, and we may find something else different to do. But, you know, that's, we try to keep it enjoyable.
Johnny Fiore:So keep it light.
Dr. John Sherk:Very good. Well, we're gonna wrap it up for now, but I just wanna say thank you, Johnny. Thanks for taking the time to for for me, but also for our audience.
Johnny Fiore:Alright. No problem. Any questions, reach out.
Dr. John Sherk:All right.