Episode 10 - 3 Tips To Recruiting Success With Jody Underhill From Rapid Hire Pro

Service MVP Sales Training Podcast with Joe Crisara

"If you think about it, everything we do is on social media you know we're running ads on Facebook and Instagram now unlike the job boards where people are already going looking for a job you have to do something to stop the scroll right so they're just scrolling through looking at cat videos or the latest brisket knife or whatever is in their news feed from whatever they were looking at and then here's an ad for your company..."- Jody Underhill

How are you as a home service provider, looking to add good team members to your talent pool? There are many traditional ways to seek out and recruit new employees; however, only one way to get the best new members of your team on board!

You don't want unemployed people applying for job openings! You want motivated individuals who are working hard and not necessarily looking for an employment change.

Jody Underhill from Rapid Hire Pro joins Uncle Joe Crisara on this episode of The Service MVP Podcast to discuss a clever way to attract the best new employees.

Contact Joe Crisara Service MVP.

Podcast Episode Transcription:

If you think about it I said everything we do is on social media you know we're running ads on Facebook and Instagram now unlike the job boards where people are already going looking for a job you have to do something to stop the scroll right so they're just scrolling through looking at cat videos of the latest brisket knife or whatever's their news feed from whatever they were looking at and then here's an ad for your company welcome to the service MVP podcast this is where you go to learn how to use pure motive service to create higher value to grow your results grow your results and now here is your host America's service sales coach Joe Crisara alright everybody welcome to the service MVP podcast and my name is Joe Crisara America's service sales coach and I'm here today talking to one of my very best friends Jody Underhill, Jody why don't you say hi to our clients here hello everybody glad to be here to share some great stuff for to help you with your home service business now Jody if you don't mind sharing the name of your company and tell us a little bit about yourself and the reason why you got started in this business so the name of the company is rapid hire pro and what we focus on is obviously recruiting in home service industry any other trades and the reason that we are focused on there is those I worked for the power company for almost 30 years before I started a marketing agency as most people look at it you probably get seven or eight calls a week from people wanting to help you with your marketing but there's not really anybody reaching out to help you get more people and right now what we hear more than anything is I've got plenty of work what I need as good people to so that I can so I can take on more work and we kind of got started in recruiting not in home services but in the trucking industry it's about a year and a half ago my wife reached out to Tommy Mello she's not even as long as I have and said hey if you need people you should check out what we're doing in the next week we flew out there and we showed him kind of how we do things because what we do is very different than what your typical recruiting company does because with the typical recruiting company they focus on job boards indeed simply hired zip recruiter there's nothing wrong with that it's just that everybody going there you know is looking for a job and not everybody is a great candidate So what we do this very different is we use social media and we put brand all of our ads also social media on Facebook and Instagram so because you want to get your information in front of people who are already working for someone else and so that you can get it they're not necessarily looking for another opportunity but when they see yours positioned in their news feed they're going to take the chance taking a look at it so that's what we do that's so very different is we're fishing in a pond we're not everybody's going so if you look at indeed and simply hired Ziprecruiter those are just like basically like you see the fishing pier with 20 people lined up for the same bait and the same fishing pole that's kind of what that looks like we want to go to a stocked pond with the right date and that's help what we do is very different well that's really great so it's and by the way I can personally attest that everybody I've sent to Jody Underhill and his team has said wow where were these guys that I could have used these guys years ago but thank God they found you now as all I keep saying Judy thank you for when I get a referral it's always important that it's a good service because if it's not then not only does the service gets fired that I recommend but you upper circuits fired too is that makes exactly and believe me we we take every referral we look at it and treat it like it's a precious little precious commodity right and that's why I've noticed I've noticed that they said I don't mind doing it Johnny but he I said I told him when I first found it said if I do recommend yes if Tommy Mello from A1 garage door says you're good then I believe that because he is never he's never should be wrong either so between Tammy and you they're good now let's talk about the three steps that are important that once you get that stocked pond and you've got some of the fish on the hook what are three steps that a business can do what tips can you give to to a business the three tips to make sure that you are successful is that once we have a response that we get them onto the team to convert people who are kind of shopping to come to the company how do we convert people from possible employees to actual employees where are step one Joe let's go ahead and just tell me that first thing is you just reducing friction in the application panel and it may seem funny that I call it an application panel but that's really what we're doing kind of like a sales funnel but instead of her customers you're running it for getting employees and you want to the thing that I see with just about 99% of the companies that I talked to and I go because I always do some investigation and I look at what they're currently doing for recruiting without fail if you go look at 99% of home service companies websites on their career page they have a place for someone to apply and without fail it says upload your resume how many people HVAC techs or plumbers or electricians have a resume laying around ready to upload so it's kind of putting a stumbling block there I used to think that it was because people didn't have a resume but the other part of it is what tool or what device do you think that most people who are scanning and I'm looking for something what are they using their phone their phone right they're using their phone I mean I'm pretty technically savvy and I have no clue how to attach a PDF to a fill a fill in the blank form on my phone so that's part of the friction that's being caused and a resume there's going to be as good as what they choose to tell you because most companies have an application why not just have them take them straight to an application to allow them to answer the questions that you want to know because most people on their resume they don't do anything about their driving record but I guarantee you that just about every person that's listening to this podcast they have people that are driving their company vehicles so asking them about their driving record is key right about they have unlawful speed over 15 miles an hour or DUI or hit and run those kind of reckless driving charge makes it so they're uninsurable that you want to know those things not putting that on resume so you can ask the questions you without having to have them take the time to go create a Word document or a PDF of a resume which causes them basically anxiety anyway because that's not really what this business is about I just didn't know how moment right there Jody it's like the resume is the employee telling the company with them what they wanted but they want to tell you and the application is something getting information that you want to know about the person so before we reveal information about the company or some marketing because the resume is basically the employee marketing themselves to your company and telling you telling you filtering it by what they want you to know you need to ask questions that you need to know because driving a truck for instance is a great thing so that's an aha moment there a lot of people think well it's easier it's easier when the guy sends a resume and then really we get about two sentences in there even reading the resume for the burden it takes on the team to read that thing I mean I can't tell you one time I had videographers in Los Angeles looking for that we had like 800 people up I as you can imagine and I'm like well I'm just going to see if somebody followed directions and by reading the first subject line something that something that was good because I couldn't go 300 things I had to figure out something quicker and that I wound up coming at some certain criteria but it was hard it was I realized how much of a burden that was on me I wish I had I wish I had known that advice back then now so the application process is streamlined it and making sure that you must get right to the chase and the device and the device itself can more or less make those questions easy to answer maybe even autofill on some of those things like that right and then you know never two but before they do that or even after they do that I think you mentioned one time you mentioned step #2 was providing a reason to work for the company makes sense so tell me when we're like that so if you think about it they said everything we do is on social media you know we're running ads on Facebook and Instagram now unlike the job boards where people already go and looking for a job you have to do something to stop the scroll right because they're just scrolling through looking at cat videos with the latest brisket knife or whatever's popping up in their newsfeed from where they were looking at and then here's an ad for your company and the way that most people most people or most companies run ads is kind of like the reverse of what it should be they're like we're looking for HVAC contractors with two years’ experience that have this and this and this you wouldn't run ads looking for customers good morning hey we're looking for customers with a 3 bedroom 2 bath house that pay their bills on time and have a 720 credit score so we can come replace your air conditioning right that's the but that's pretty much what we're doing and with most job ads So what we have to do is look at why do the employees are working for you why are they there what are those intangibles if you call somebody to see that and want to take a chance on looking at coming to work for your company now in today's market it's very competitive and most people have pretty decent pay and pretty decent benefits but what are some of the intangibles like for instance are they able to take the truck home do they have a gas card do they have an iPad are they able to dispatch from home is there possibly no on call and I'm not saying that you have to have those things but those are the things that start moving into work life balance because whenever the pay is similar and the benefits are similar and I mean a lot of benefits as being the you know the health and vision those kind of things what makes the difference one of the biggest things that's all in one of them and this is kind of funny because it was and I had a conversation with the owner and she said I want to put on there that we have a fully stocked break room because the employees can come in there's a fully stocked break room they can come get stuff anytime they want that thing in the ad that comment got more comments and engagement than anything else we did for that company so you're looking at what are those things that what are the intangibles that give them more of a work life balance working for you versus someone else so everybody could say we're small we're family owned we have a great corporate culture but what are those things is there continuous training in their company events it doesn't have to be something that's astronomically expensive could be a could be a difference maker so putting it you know so you got to stop the scroll and get their attention and one of the places and I'm going to say one of the places that I found the easiest place to get that is asking your existing employees why they like working for you that's really great I mean if you think about it I love I love it you said there again to kind of recap that about it's like we don't advertise for customers by saying we're looking for somebody who's got enough money to buy an air conditioning unit who lives in a 3 bedroom house who do you who has a garage door or two looking for a or who's got a cool air conditioning like think how ugly that that would look if we said we're profiling customers to look for that kind of a customer in a way profiling is illegal Even so it's something that we're trying to profile people we're putting their profile public by the way which is something that I don't think is a good idea I think let's find good people and then telling me have some good things like I think that thing in the break room I found the same thing Jody that what people do with their time off is the thing that is more valuable to today's younger people than what are you doing when you're actually working for us is that your daddy yeah I mean like I said you know you've heard Tommy say from stage and bunch of times people don't come to work for your dream they come to work for their dream so you know how is it how is that how does that go into the mix and that's you know so really it's just about the thing about that brace fully stocked break room it wasn't the gewirz difference Baker it was something that was different that interrupted the pattern because whenever people are just scrolling through they gotta something's gotta pop and get their attention and of course one of the things we do is it's always visual and we get people who go to logo trucks in their logo shirts and everything doing the work because that gets attention because I'm usually I'm sure you've seen it Joe you don't want to use stock images because somebody made a post on one of the groups like this guy works for every HVAC contractor yeah right my guy with the blue overalls with you testing or testing the voltage on the on the plastic cover of the of the DX unit so it's always making sure that you're greatly represented it's got that hard hat on too yeah which nobody ever wears first Sir and the service business that's funny giving people a reason to work for you and you know it's funny because I would say that's kind of like it's not the stake because the job is the steak and the money compensation would drink at that next but you know the stake is the actual work and the compensation but the sizzle is what that is that's like that's like the smell of the steak or the simple that's not going not eating that but I could it's actually we can all admit that when that stick size and we can smell that steak cooking that's almost as enjoyable you know eating the actual steak is almost like a it's almost left down not left but it's sort of like uh just another steak cooking it and things like that and that sizzle you get from the steak is within that matter that's kind of what you're talking about I know last thing so gonna have that sizzle on your company stake to make sure people are drawn to that right #3 #3 is this is an interesting one obviously the stake is actually the compensation why do people come to work for a place with meat and potatoes are how we get paid and things like that so talk about that part Jody what do you call that number 3 the third step to attracting and converting people to join your company it's the positioning of the compensation and what I mean by the positioning is you not to future pace right because most of the people that you're looking to attract if you're looking for people that have any experience at all they're already working for someone else and you put up there that you know you have made two years’ experience and we're paid $30 an hour with health and dental and vision $30 an hour times 2080 right that's 60 grand but what is it and I always ask it for that question then I said what is it that they would typically make said well you know if they we have a percentage or they have performance paid then what is it that you're a decent tech makes on an annual basis because that's really what you want to focus on you want a future pace what they're going to be able to make you don't want to make you don't want to blow it out you wanna make you not want to inflate it too much over what it actually is but what we found is like starting at $30.00 an hour with a clear starting at $30 an hour with a clear path to 115K per year because if you've got great training uncle Joe here and he can help you understand how to help the customer make the best buying decision and they're able to sell them more a larger unit or a more advanced solution then they're going to be able to make more money so therefore they do have a clear path especially if you have if you have some Joe in there doing the sales training that clear path gets bigger and bigger and even if you start people on a smaller scale so let's just say that you're hiring apprentices right which we mentioned on a few times where he hires apprentices all the time during training they make $18 an hour whatever you do don't post $18 an hour on your ads because you're going to get about of comments what I mean back and bad of comments is going to be things like I could go make that a McDonald's or that kind of thing right so one of the ways to position $18 an hour is what it is weekly right it's $720 a week some reason subconsciously just like we want to do the opposite of what you talk about with yourself you never say it's $1000 right you never say it's $1500 yeah you use it use the smaller turn and you or you go through what the payments are here we want to make it bigger so instead of $18.00 an hour it's $720 a week during training with a clear path to 85K a year now we'll see that OK 700 other reasons psychologically $720 a week sounds like more than $18.00 an hour because it has to say that because we don't get combative comments on 7/28 we but we do own 18 an hour I think that clear path as well so like they're starting to 7:20 a week with a clear path to $85,000 that's a great aha moment there Joe because it's like that's what people want they don't just want to see a job to go in and work for today the job represents the future in a way that makes sense that you need to need to describe the experience all the way through and through and like I said fully stocked break room it's like it's like what I get some peanut butter cracker sandwiches for oh I can't popcorn and some coffee I mean it's about time somebody cares about sometimes it's like you know you're gonna get comments I would say like it's about time somebody cares about their employees or whatever kind of a thing right fully stocked you know I never put that on higher I'm already taking notes right here feverously Jody I learned just as much as anybody else on this podcast that's really great so positioning and the compensation to make sure you realize that how you pack you verbally package that to make sure that it it sounds like it's more and it's the same thing is that you're just using different words to kind of describe the path that people are going to get to the end result there makes sense and then The thing is that and it's like says the future pacing if you think about it you don't want someone to come work for you for 12 months you want to come stay for 5/6/10 years so by showing them what the future is because I guarantee you where they're working now typically they're not sharing what that would what that could be I'm not saying that everybody nobody does but I'm saying that's what you're looking to get that in front of the people who currently don't see what the future is where they are and see a better brighter coming to work for you let me just say this Jody it's every time I it's hard it's impossible to say Jody without smiling number one with you that number two if you wanted to research more about Jody Jody how do people get ahold of rapid hire pro what's the process like when they get involved with your when your absolutely so the easiest thing is rapid fire pro.com when you go there up in the upper right hand corner of the little green button to skip to schedule a call you go in there and you're scheduling it on my calendar and here's how I do it I do all the calls I don't farm that out to anyone else I don't know I do all the calls what I want to do is I want to understand more about what they're looking to do here looking to hire what you're looking for what your pay scale is and I'm gonna share with you exactly what we would do so that you can take that you can if you choose we're not right but I'm going to share a lot of information that you can take and utilize yourself with the choose to and I'm going to record that call Joe because I'm going to send them a link to that recording because I'm not sure exactly what the ads look like exactly what the message is so one of the things I didn't really go into is we have a very robust follow-up system because that's what it takes today's market in order to get in front of people is we put people into about a seven day marker sequence getting them to fill out the application and once they fill out the application the next step is we have them do an automated video interview asking them questions that way you can able to see what they look like see how they communicate causing today's market technician has to not only be able to diagnose and repair they have to be able to share the best solution with the with the homeowner in such a way that they feel good about the decision they're making so with that automated to interview you're able to see them when we go through share what all those things look like put that together so then you'll link to the recording and send you over proposal it's all on one page so that you can take a look at that other side of assumption that's going to work for you and your business based on what your needs are and I'll be the first one to to let you know exactly where I think that the best it is and it sometimes it's not but I do this it doesn't even matter if you need one person I tell everybody sign up for a call because I'm going to share some stuff with you but you're going to be able to take and utilize no matter what I've had people that need one person to come back six months later they know they need three and it's a fit and also they're able to take the things and utilize what I'm going to share only tell people if there's somebody if they're willing to say what they're going to do they should be able to they should be willing to record it and send you a recording of them saying it that is so great Jody again let me just repeat everybody here I I can't endorse him and his services Jody is a person and the service as a service O2 things are perfect together there's everybody's flawed but that the process that Jody has outlined is actually flawless and everybody every client that I have ever recommended to Jody has came back to me with raving reviews Joni again let me tell you what a pleasure and honor it is to have you on the line here and by the way if you want to just look up Jody Underhill rapid higher pro rapid higher pro.com you're gonna see a treasure trove of information on podcasts and videos and things that come up so I encourage you to educate yourself before you meet Jody and he'll be speaking the same thing to you but suffer will be more personalized and customized to you and your team so do you thank you so much for being here I really appreciate that thank you Jody. my pleasure take care.