Born For The Trades: A Home Service Podcast
00:17:14 · AJ Jain
[00:17:14] S2: Yeah, again, like this question is also very important for any client or any contractor that's hearing this. It's like the AI is an employee. And the AI is only because the AI needs to work on the systems, work on top of the systems, which are their FSMs like service titan, housecar, and there's a long tail of other software companies. Broccoli is an official technology partner with service Titan, we natively integrate with them. And we do basically everything that a human would do in service Titan. So it means clicking the green bubble so that the attribution is there and you disposition the call the right way. If it's a reoccurring service, Broccoli marks that as a reoccurring service in service titan. Information that we fetch data from service titan, but we also put the data back in service titan, we booked the job on the dispatch board, understand their scheduling logic, whether it's ACP or the new ATP rules. So we understand all of that. What we've seen is that there are some other software companies that we do integrate with which is like Housecall Pro. But what we've seen is we want to create the best experience for our customers. And if the systems underneath don't expose the most important data, which is the dispatch board, we don't do justice for what we charge, because we know our ROI is the most important thing. If we charge $1,000 per month, our ROI should be over, like right now it's over 1100%. So we want to cater to that segment of customers where we can just wow them and Broccoli is growing. And as we evolve, we want to cater to more companies and more clients. But for now, that is where we are in terms of our integrations.
00:19:08 · Mandeep Bhalla, AJ Jain
[00:19:08] S0: That's amazing. That's amazing. Proud of you all. Because without that integration, I think it's very, very like, you know, challenging to show if it's working or not because there has to be a connection with your product, with the ServiceTitan or any CRM or home service industry is using. And 1,100 person ROI. That's amazing. Yeah. What a great number. [00:19:34] S2: It's the core thesis. Whenever we release a new module or feature, we don't charge for it because we want to see the ROI first. If there's not enough ROI, that product is not worth using for anyone. So we're very confident on the value we'll provide. And like it's not just the inbound agents. Now our outbound agents have added more ROI because it's much easier to use your existing customer base rather than spending more money on just ads where you know, it's hard and competitive nowadays. So that is one of the good channels to utilize. And yeah, that's why the ROI has just increased because of that.
00:19:34 · AJ Jain, Mandeep Bhalla, Marcel
[00:19:34] S2: It's the core thesis. Whenever we release a new module or feature, we don't charge for it because we want to see the ROI first. If there's not enough ROI, that product is not worth using for anyone. So we're very confident on the value we'll provide. And like it's not just the inbound agents. Now our outbound agents have added more ROI because it's much easier to use your existing customer base rather than spending more money on just ads where you know, it's hard and competitive nowadays. So that is one of the good channels to utilize. And yeah, that's why the ROI has just increased because of that. [00:20:13] S0: Yeah. You made a you made a very good point here because we run digital marketing agency where Google Ads, Google Maps, and then local service ads, SEO. Now what we have seen that with AI shift, we have totally evolved and we are focusing on AEO. Zero click traffic is coming. Google Maps rankings, SEO rankings, we see a lot of less calls, right, because because of AI overview. So that shift is like, you know, it was very, very important. Now I wanna ask you this question is for both of you from operations and tech side. So Marcel and AJ, what were the... What were some of the biggest mistakes or lessons you learned in building for the trades, especially coming from tech and operations background? Maybe we'll start with Marcel. Marcel, you want to answer first? [00:21:10] S1: Well, I'm not quite sure I fully understand the question. Biggest mistakes of...
00:21:10 · Marcel, Mandeep Bhalla
[00:21:10] S1: Well, I'm not quite sure I fully understand the question. Biggest mistakes of... [00:21:14] S0: Yeah, some the biggest mistakes or lessons you learned in building for the trades, especially for the home service industry in building Broccoli AI, you both together coming from operations and tech background? [00:21:28] S1: Well, I know this is going to sound strange, but you know, we've been winning every day. And I can just say the reason for that is because of the philosophy that we've carried all the way through. And the reason AJ and Adi and I met is because AJ and Adi have worked so tirelessly to be on the Ground Floor with us, with me, shoulder to shoulder, right here at my desk asking me what my problems are and how can they fix them. And you know what Mandeep, that has not changed. It hasn't changed one bit. They are still and so if there was any mistake, would say maybe it's they're not in the office enough because they're out in the world with the contractors. They spend hours and hours and hours on the road next to their contractors to really hear what is the problem and how can we solve it for you. And that's not gonna change. That's how we built, that's how we've grown. And that's our mandate is to bring something healthy to every single contractor that we meet. And I just think, you know, talking about mistakes, I'm sure there are some maybe AJ can think of a few. You know, the only one I can think of is, gosh, I'd love to have them back at home base a little bit more. It's not going to change. We're going to keep doing that till the end.
00:21:28 · Marcel, Mandeep Bhalla, AJ Jain
[00:21:28] S1: Well, I know this is going to sound strange, but you know, we've been winning every day. And I can just say the reason for that is because of the philosophy that we've carried all the way through. And the reason AJ and Adi and I met is because AJ and Adi have worked so tirelessly to be on the Ground Floor with us, with me, shoulder to shoulder, right here at my desk asking me what my problems are and how can they fix them. And you know what Mandeep, that has not changed. It hasn't changed one bit. They are still and so if there was any mistake, would say maybe it's they're not in the office enough because they're out in the world with the contractors. They spend hours and hours and hours on the road next to their contractors to really hear what is the problem and how can we solve it for you. And that's not gonna change. That's how we built, that's how we've grown. And that's our mandate is to bring something healthy to every single contractor that we meet. And I just think, you know, talking about mistakes, I'm sure there are some maybe AJ can think of a few. You know, the only one I can think of is, gosh, I'd love to have them back at home base a little bit more. It's not going to change. We're going to keep doing that till the end. [00:22:51] S0: Love it. [00:22:53] S2: Yeah. So what we've converted or we've changed our biggest, like what we thought was a disadvantage to a huge advantage is that we don't come from the traits. [00:23:05] S0: Yeah,
00:23:05 · Mandeep Bhalla, AJ Jain
[00:23:05] S0: Yeah, [00:23:05] S2: we are just great engineers. So from day one, we knew that we don't know anything about this market and what our clients want. So what way to learn is to go and talk to them and let them tell us what's the problem. And then we take that problem and work backwards to build a solution. So the disadvantage of not having any insight about this market and the customer and go after It's just like we don't have any biases. We don't sit in a conference room in San Francisco and debate on what we should build next, because we are not the best people to decide that it's the contractor who's in the field who knows what their pain points are. So Marcel's point like we were in Boise and Salt Lake at the start of this week, we just came back last night. And next week, Oklahoma City to onboard another company. It's like, every company is unique. We don't impose broccoli on anyone. We don't take any company for granted. So there were a lot of learnings for sure. We've made so many mistakes. And we always go back and it's like, we can't do that. And it has worked really well, where you don't have any bias, you don't have any other assumptions, you take your customers board for what it is, and then just be a good engineer.