I'm so excited about this that I'm going to skip
the whole intro. We're going to get right down
to it. What do you think? Let's get into it,
man. All right. So tell me about what just happened.
Literally just happened. So I go in because we
had some mold that we're looking at. And we go
in and my pan under my HVAC unit. So we have
an internal like, you know, where it comes in
and you got the heating unit in there. And the
coils, I guess, were freezing up. And my entire
pan underneath was full of water to the brim.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm going in there
and, you know, I'm looking in one of my pipes,
like, you know, you have the little PVC and at
the very top, it's got like an outlet valve.
Well, that's where I was dripping down and into
the pan. Right. So guy comes over and so I'm
like, oh, I'm getting ready to be on HVAC podcast.
Can I try something? We just launched. We've
been working on this for a long time. Our AI.
right because we're a video company and now we've
added ai so i was like let's do something i'm
gonna send you a text we don't do apps and then
tap i was like you go in that room and you as
a technician just talk to me through it just
talk me through it what it was a one minute video
and he's like it's here here here and here and
i created in the meantime i created a prompt
within our stuff that says hvac diagnosis i'm
like what i want is try to diagnose it tell me
how to fix it if you can't fix it tell me i need
to call a technician output a report that i can
look at And I mean, this guy is a technician
and he's like, all right, let's try it. And so
we run it through and then I hit the AI comes
back with the report. It is spot on. The first
thing that HVAC guys go, can I buy some stock?
Really? It was spot on. He was, I almost had
him stay because he just had, he's like, I got
two more points. I was like, come on here. Come
on back. I'll get you on video. HVAC, this young
man, his mind was blown. He was like. on he's
like this would have saved me like a call like
he was blown because they had been here at my
house the other day because i had the same problem
but when the guy brushed out the um pvc a bunch
of the dust went down there and just right where
it elbows to go out of the house it was full
of just dust and nasty stuff and but yeah and
it nailed it and i can show you the report like
i can show you the video show you the report
it'll blow your mind And anyway, we're just getting
warmed up. I mean, that's just the warmup. I
mean, that's the appetizer. There you go. And
we're talking about live switch. So James Hatfield
from live switch. How's it going, my friend?
Well, pretty dang good. My mind just got blown.
I know. That's what we want to get out to the
world, right? We want to tell the industry about
what's happening and changing and give them the
tools and skills to be more efficient in their
work. Because really, I mean, that's what Life
Switch is all about, right? It's becoming more
efficient in the work that you do. And especially
for like the smaller and the midsize businesses,
especially like the small ones, like the mom
and pop shops that... that I came from, they're
trying to compete, you know, with some of these
very well invested private equity, large firm
corporations that are, you know, starting to
kind of dominate the market. And some of the
smaller companies, like, is there ways that we
can like be more. productive with our time? Like,
are there tools that can make us be more successful?
I'm like, yeah, there are. And when I seen that
you were introducing AI into what you're already
doing, I thought, man, okay, I bet he's going
to have something now. And so I'm like, you have
got some. It's game over. I was teaching, I teach
at the Breakthrough Academy and was teaching
a bunch of roofers today, walking, just blowing
minds, right? Like it's, you can't believe now
that with AI, what people are used to. With ChatGPT
and the rest, you type to it. We didn't type
anything. Now we have video, photos, and audio.
And we're running all that through. All that
content. Yeah, because we're one of only a few
companies in the world that do live video. Yeah,
I know. Live video from me to him. He could have
been back in his home office and had me talk.
I go over here. It looks like that's full. That's
full. And then run the AI on it and boom. Yeah,
because that's one of the really cool things
about AI. I'll use it for looking for additional
content on articles that I'm writing. I will
look for it for looking for prompts of things
that I'm studying. I'll look for content that's
already on the web that's in reference to a particular
scenario because we're using so much basically
Descript of video and photo. So I use air .inc
to manage all of our content here at Esco. We've
got like 55 ,000 different. items within our
management system. And over the last few months,
it's been utilizing the descripting tools to,
you know, descript all of our videos, photos,
and now it's starting to look for certain things.
But what you're doing is like, you're doing that
kind of in live time and it's looking for the
things that it's seeing and then looking for
solutions to those. Yep. Yep. It's looking at
all that audio photos and putting it all through
and video and putting it all through the AI to
help. I kind of got like, you know, Iron Man,
you know, it's like, you're the guy in the iron
suit. Now you got Jarvis. This is, this is Jarvis.
And this is like on top of what live switch was
already doing for the industry. I almost kind
of want to go backwards and because of this,
we can like spend the entire podcast just talking
about this. Yep. Let's take just a couple, let's
take a few minutes and let's tell people about
live switch. And then maybe we'll come back to
the AI because I really do think that what you're
doing is. It just revolutionizes the way we can
use software in a company. It changed everything.
So let me rewind the clock, right? Get your popcorn
ready. This is a little bit of a story. It's
a long story long. Not a long story short. It's
a long story long. Long story long. Okay. Yep.
So when I was coming up, I come from a blue -collar
family. Dad built his own house from the ground
up. I know how to work with my hands and I knew
how to power wash and paint homes head to toe.
My grandfather was like, why don't you just be
a painter after you graduate here? And, you know,
and so I did. And I opened a painting company,
power washing company. I had multiple crews.
And the problem I had at that time was I'd go
to the bookkeeper and they would be speaking
English to me. And I'm like, I don't understand
a word coming out of that person's mouth. Because
like most people, you know. I speak work. Yeah,
I became an accidental business owner, right?
I'm an actual, I know how to paint. Now I've
got staff. I got a salary to hit and I'm trying
to put food on my own table. And so I'm like,
oh goodness. So I decided to go get my business
degree. I'm like, I'm going to go get a business
degree so I can understand the language of the
finance and the business side of it because I'm
an accidental business owner. So I do that. And
as I'm coming out of business school, I meet
a guy coming out of business school, but he's
different. He has a landscaping company, but
he... He's really good with the accounting. So
he created a tool, an AI tool. This was 20 years
ago. An AI tool. You could take an income statement
and balance sheet, put it through, and it would
tell you in layman's terms how you're doing and
compare you to other people in your industry.
I'm like, you're solving the problem that I'm
having. He's like, I'm like, this is awesome.
He's like, do you think you could sell it? I'm
like, I don't know. I mean, I go knocking for
painting. Maybe. So I start doing that. And we
take that company from an incubator nobody. to
one of the fastest growing companies in the country
for three years were Inc. 500. And then we eventually
sell it to KKR and it's a multi -billion dollar
company. So that worked out pretty good. So that
was the first me coming from the ladder into
technology. So then we go into philanthropy.
We create inmates to entrepreneurs. We put tons
of entrepreneurs through our programs, teach
them how to be business owners. And it turned
into an ABC television show called Free Enterprise.
My business partner is like a star of a TV show.
I'm like, of course he'd be a TV star. Anyway,
from there, we're like, hey, we're too young
to put our boots up and call it a day. So let's,
instead of starting from scratch, let's buy a
company this time. So we found a company. We
looked all over the world. We found a company
and this company specialized is live video. There's
only a few companies in the world that do it.
Like we did the Superbowl the last three years.
If you go to an MLB ballpark and scan a QR code
and they put you on the Jumbotron, that's us.
If you remember like the COVID, they had the
NBA bubble for the all -star games and WWE wrestling.
We powered all that. That was us. Okay. That
makes sense. I've seen your name out there. I'm
like, what in the heck are they doing in sports?
Yeah. So now we get looped back around the HVAC.
Well, the chief of police in Washington, D .C.
comes knocking at the door to reinvent the nation's
911 phone call because we all have like four
cameras in our pockets and our smartphones. Right.
So I had to come up with an idea with our computer
scientist team. Like, how do we get in there
when the citizen is compromised? You got no time
to download an app and it needs to be so dang
simple because somebody is in a compromised situation.
I need to get those cameras. So we. figure out
a way to go through a text message. You tap it
and instantly we can get into your cameras and
we can stream that video and audio anywhere,
like right to the police car. So when it's called
next gen policing situational awareness. And
I was like, well, who else would use no app?
See what I see. And you'll be back to my painting
days. I'm like, oh, this is the next tell walkie
talkie. But with my eyes, I don't even know what
happened the next tell walkie talkie. I love
that dang thing. It was a good piece. That was
a good piece. Where did it go? You can drop them
off from a 20 foot ladder and you can still use
them. Yeah. And you're talking to everyone in
your company. Like I didn't have the Waffle House
with my truck and I'm like talking, I felt like
a man, you know? So I was like, that's what this
is. And so we get into home services and I meet
with this guy and he's in the moving industry,
like moving boxes of all things. And he's like,
James, you're sitting on a pot of gold. Like,
what do you mean? He's like, you should know
this. He's like, the most expensive thing I do
is I put one of my guys and one of my vehicles
burning up gas just to go and, you know, do a
bid. Well, my guy who was just here, he did it
at no cost because the technician was just out
here two days ago. Right. He's like, oh, I won't
charge you. Well, somebody paid for that. The
HVAC company who just sent him. Bless his heart.
He's awesome. Now they're going to send their
guy to sell me a whole replacement unit. So they'll
make their money. I ain't worried about that.
They're going to eat. Right. But he could have
done that visit with me over our stuff. Right.
So or a bid. The worst thing, like for the moving
companies like James. I'll send one of my guys
out behind the windshield. They'll get out there.
We'll quote them. And the person's like, it's
how much? He's like, no, I'm going to get two
pizza boxes and all my friends. He's like, I
want to eliminate those people, the tire kickers.
He's like, I got the other folks that have the
money ready to move. Maybe even the business
is paying for it. I can quote it right there.
And in fact, now you can run it through our AI
and it'll give you the entire, I can blow your
mind. It'll give you the. We'll talk about that
in a minute. I'll slow down. But he was so right.
I was like, oh my goodness. And this was three
years ago. Now we've grown like, we're one of
the fastest growing software companies in the
country. We're under the hood of ServiceTitan.
We're under the hood of Jobber. We're under the
hood of HubSpot, JobNimbus, all the rest because
they don't have live video and they definitely
don't have live video through AI, what we're
talking about. So it's been a ride. It's been
fun and we're just getting warmed up. I got plenty
more on the plate, but that's our long story
long. Love it, love it, love it, love it. That's
some great intel. I mean, you know, it shows
us that you've been just running crazy with the
technology now for a couple of decades. And now
it's really entering into the whole service sector,
you know, not just on HVAC, I imagine, because
this is a service tool, right? I mean, this is
for all service technicians, whatever you're
working on. That's right. We're in everywhere.
We've got electricians, painters, plumbers, power
washers, holiday lights guys. I mean, ServPros
use us a ton. The one -time plumbers, college
hunks, like we're everywhere. It's just right
now is, you know, teaching, right? Teaching,
like we didn't have to use our video cameras
back in the day, you know? And we just used the
phone and we used, you know, our trucks and we
got the job done and we went out and bid and
went and serviced that and that was that. But
now, like the chief of police, like after we
got it done, he's like, he looks over his glasses,
he's like, James! This seems so obvious. Why
didn't we think about this? And I was like, chief,
we didn't all have smartphones in our pocket.
They give you one now when you're born. So you've
got infrastructure. So let's use it and let's
put it to work for, in this case, our home service.
Why not? I mean, it's such an amazing tool. It's
there on the site. You know, I've been spending
a lot of time in this last couple of years in
the social media realm, trying to promote the
industry, just the trades in general. And what
I'm realizing that I'm starting to be. you know,
an influencer within our trade. And I was having
a conversation this last week about, you know,
what it would be like if I was a technician today.
And I'd be like, I'd have like five GoPros on
my helmet and my phone sitting on my chest. Well,
a little company named Meta. It's going to make
sure all you got to wear is glasses because that's
where we're going next. I'm looking forward to
that. People are like, man, that's, are you sure
that's like, when's that coming? I'm like, that's
like super, super duper soon. And we should be
using it because it makes life so much easier.
You know, when we look at technology, like I
know that you have a lot of, I would say communications
like history in your life, right? The evolution
of communications has been part of your family
history. communications has advanced because
of technology right that there was a time when
we took photographs you know with a slide of
light and we captured light on a film right and
that has progressed to a point where we're doing
you know very high resolution photographs on
our phones as well. And so it just really makes
sense that we start using the combination of
high quality inputs with good processors to give
us high quality outputs. I mean, that's what
LifeSwitch is doing. Good input, great processing,
great output. That's right. And it's a very simple
philosophy. And sometimes it gets muddied when
we start looking at it as technology and change.
And we misunderstand. The change doesn't have
to be something that is difficult. The change
can be easily if we embrace it. You can learn
to use our stuff in five minutes. This is built
by us, for us type of thing. I know what it is
to live on a ladder. I know what my guys like.
And everyone's like, oh, well, the home services
are kind of knuckle draggers of tech. I'm like,
no, they're not. No, here's the problem. We got
engineers who code. who have soft hands they've
never been on a ladder for their whole day you
know working and they're building platforms and
products from guy like i make my engineers go
and like hang out and like go move boxes with
our movers and they do right like you need to
understand who the physical you're serving right
right and you need to understand they're not
knuckle drivers we just like one button tools
my truck one button start my paint sprayer one
button pull and it does the job i want a one
button click And then I want it to do the job,
and I want it to take over. The thing that we're
doing now, bless everyone's heart, they're going
into CRMs, and they're writing out everything.
I'm going to give you everyone a clue. We hate
that. That is not how I want to spend my day.
But we've got to do it, because if you don't
put it in there, we don't know what's going on.
That's going away. It's going away. If your team
can talk, we can take their... And if they're
talking to a customer, we can transcribe it and
put that in the CRM along with the video of the
interaction and analyze it. You can analyze and
say, where could my customer success person or
salesperson sell better? What was our tone like?
Where did this customer got pissed off? Where
did that happen? AI can now come in right behind
just like the Iron Man suit and help your sales
team or help your dispatch team or help your
technicians. It rolls through the whole dough.
You're documenting. And that beautiful thing,
if you ever want to sell your company, now you're
documenting all your processes. So you're increasing
the value. But we want to do it through easy
ways for our team so we can focus on getting
the job done or making sure the customer is happy
and getting paid. Any successful software platform
that has ever been developed really lives on
that same principle. Give me the easy button
for the things that I already do. Right? Like
why was Amazon successful? It took something
we already did and just made an easy button.
That is it. Right? Why don't we take this, take
the information that we have, put it in quickly,
put it in much faster. I can tell you. I'm not
a fast writer. I've become faster over time after
I got out of the field when I was doing it very
regularly for training. When I was in the field,
it was not something that I could do very quickly.
And especially if I'm on a tablet that is three
quarter. It's taken me time to do this. It's
painful. It's painful. And so there's a lot of
information that probably should be in our service
reports that are just never going to get there.
Right. Right. What if it was as simple as. He
said, just recording that conversation. I repeated
back to my homeowner and put it into print. That's
all, that's all I need. And that's all the verification
anyone needs. Like if it's a call down the road,
uh, Clifton Beck was out here at this, this call.
And, uh, he didn't tell me about this problem.
And I go, I'm Mrs. Jones actually says it right
here at minute two, two and 37 seconds. He actually
told you that this condensate panels rotted out
and that it needed to be investigated. And you
denied the service. Oh, and oh, by the way, when
Clifton was out here, he put a bunch of marks
on my wall. I'm like, well, actually, we did
a live video, and those marks were even before
I got in. You're adding the NFL instant replay
to protect you from your customers. And if your
team's like, oh, I don't want to be on video.
I'm like, you do when Ms. Jones just blames you
for something you didn't do. Exactly. And look,
it's already happening. I've had a bunch of people
listening. I remember going to the Jiffy Lube.
I like to change my own oil. we've gone, you
know, gone as you can. You sit in that little
thing, you get a cup of coffee and you don't
see what they're doing. It's like the wizard
of Oz behind the magic curtain. Then suddenly
the technician appears and tells you all the
things you need to do. And you're kind of like,
what did they do? Like, because of the lack of
transparency, they might be doing the best job
ever on your vehicle, but because you didn't
see it, you're kind of like, I'm not sure. And
now they want to upcharge me something. Well,
now when you're going in and maybe you've had
it happen. I mean, I'm getting a video from the
technician. We put air in the tire. Here's I'm
getting a video of everything they did. And as
a customer, I like that. It builds trust. I actually
don't want to go have my vehicle worked on anywhere
else that doesn't have that. And this is the
kind of thing that's happening right now between
Amazon and things like this that are affecting
you as a home service technician, owner, salesperson,
and you'll be left in the dust. And it's all
about speed, right? Here's what happens. I mean,
I think we all know this. My HVAC went, I got
water in the pan. What did we do? We called up.
they picked up the phone and they sent the guy
out well now you pick up the phone you send the
video and you can you know lock in the work if
you need it done but it it's what i'm trying
to do is box people out of going to other you
know hvac repair you get to the next call Yeah,
exactly. And the other thing, and it blew his
mind, the technician who was on property, I was
showing him some of the things that our customers
are doing with QR codes. They're getting these
weatherproof stickers, putting their brand, their
phone number, and a live switch QR code under
it. And anybody can scan that QR code and take
a video, and it uploads right to the cloud. Right
into the same file. I could have scanned my HVAC
unit. I could have hit record, taken a video,
explained it. He could have shoved that thing
through our AI. And I could have got a text response
of whether the technician needs to come out or
here's what's going on. Yeah. And you can triage,
right? If it's something that a fairly new technician
should be able to complete, now you know who
you got to send. If it's a very complicated scenario.
Don't send that first early technician out. You
know which technician to send for this. Well,
the other thing that companies are doing is they're
sending the junior techs and the senior tech
is actually staying behind the computer and they
send the techs and they walk them through it.
And we have laser guidance. They can laser guide
the new guys around. Go here, do this. Oh, I
forgot about that. Yeah, you got laser guidance
already on screen for that. So you can pinpoint
very exactly what they're looking at. It's not,
hey, yeah, that thing in the background. It's
this. Yep, exactly. We're seeing more of the
remote diagnostics because of the labor shortage.
We actually just now sent out a newsletter on
one of our LinkedIn groups about our labor shortage.
We all know that we're in a labor shortage, but
the thing that we have to really think about
is that approximately 40 % of all of the technicians
in the industry today will be retired in 10 years.
And the average family, the average young couple
is having children at a rate of 1 .6 per couple.
right that's a pretty significant drop in population
over the next decade which you know in many aspects
is is a great thing we're starting to understand
our footprint on the world we're having smaller
families we're going to hopefully you know manage
our existence on this planet a little bit better
but in that we also have to understand that Everyone
has things that need to be fixed and we are going
to continue growing in the HVAC refrigeration
sector. I mean, look at air conditioning. Air
conditioning is now growing in third world countries
and other countries that have not traditionally
developed air conditioning in new construction
at an astronomical rate, right? So the demand
for technicians is going to continue to grow
while the supply of technicians is going to continue
to decline, which means we have to use. remote
diagnostic tools and use some of that experienced
technician information, as well as artificial
intelligence information derived from that, you
know, that contract, that experienced technician,
that tribal knowledge to help come up with some
of these faster resolutions for technicians.
So I'm all, I'm in like a hundred percent. I
love what you're doing. Well, the other thing
that all this enables when you have live video
is you can hire people anywhere across the country.
In fact, anywhere in the world. I have plenty
of home service folks that have now hired remote
staff, even overseas, like in the Philippines.
And these folks speak perfect English. Sometimes
you can better not believe it or not. We all
think about the old school call center and I
can't hear. And the guy says his name is Bob
and we know it's not Bob, but like, this is not,
it's not the same anymore. Like it's debunked.
Like now you can have someone half a world away,
do a remote sales diagnostic and send out a technician.
And you're paying them $1 ,500 a month to be
fully dedicated to you. And so it's better for
your bottom line. It's faster for your customer.
You can do 24 -7 coverage if you need to do that.
And now you can run with your onshore local technicians
closer. We just get comfortable. Here's the thing.
Your competition is already doing it. This isn't
a science fair project. It isn't like, oh, that
sounds good. I'm like, no, no. you're competing.
Like I have a guy, we just put a virtual conference
on. He runs an eight figure in this case, moving
company. All his salespeople are in South Africa
and his sales manager is in Poland and they do
eight figures and he's, and he's in Seattle and
they are kicking, but all his local folks are
all his technicians. Yeah, absolutely. That's
your boots on the ground. That's it. So just
warm up to it. So some people will listen. I'll
never do that. Well, Here's the thing. When the
iPhone came out, some people said they never
want that in everyone's pocket. So it's an adoption
curve. It's your comfort level. And I'm all for
onshore, you know, in America, boots on the ground.
Don't hear me wrong. But I also want you to understand
when you can't find good local help and you know
some of the people listening, banging their heads
on the wall. Have you tried? I'll tell you what,
I've got people saying, my best employees went
over there in the Philippines because that person,
a dollar stretches and they're taking care of
their entire family. They have made it their
career to be excellent at this. And they will,
it's a yes sir, yes ma 'am. When do you need
me? When do you work? You don't have to call
to see if they're coming into work that morning.
Yeah, I agree. As soon as we get done, I've got
a call with a web developer. overseas just because
of that. For me, it works out great because if
I come up with a project and I would like to
be able to get to it tomorrow, if I finished
up a project right now and I worked with an editor
here in the US, the editor would be working on
this project tomorrow. which means I would be
getting it a couple of days later versus someone
that is 12 hours away. That's getting ready to
start work. When I'm getting ready to finish
work, I can hand over a project. They are going
to be doing their project while I'm sleeping.
And then when I'm ready to get back to work in
the morning, my content is going to be ready
for me to do some serious work. So we have to
be thinking globally in, in using solutions and
software to make us more efficient. I agree.
And just, it's all about speed. I mean, if you've
ever lost a job where you're like, hey, we're
on our way out. And they're like, don't bother.
We already got someone else. You lost because
of speed. No other reason. That's it. 100%. Dang,
this is some good stuff. I'm glad we got back
together. Yeah, yeah. Where can we learn more
about LiveSwitch? Two places. One, you can check
me out on LinkedIn. Go to James Hatfield, LiveSwitch,
and I will reach out, reach out. We can talk.
I used to own and operate my own home service
company, so I would love to talk to you about
anything, really. Second, just go to LiveSwitch
.com, L -I -V -E -S -W -I -T -C -H .com. Click
on demo, and we'll put your hands on it. Try
it. Give it a shot, and we'd love to have you
use it and try it out. We have free trials. We
also have 60 day money back guarantees. They're
not locking into nothing. We don't do any of
that nonsense and no decoder ring needed for
pricing. None of that nonsense. We love easy.
We love one click solutions and we love simple.
That's just how we're, that's how we're wired
up. Awesome. I encourage everyone to go learn
a little bit more about live switch in ways that
you can be more efficient at what you're doing.
And we will see you all again next time on. Did
you know the ESCO HVAC podcast?