Episode Information
Episode Number: 48
Date: August 19, 2024
Duration: 27:36
Host: Justin Deese
Website: JustinDeese.com
Contact: Justin@JustinDeese.com
Guest: Nicole DeLisle
Contact: Nicole.Delisle@ParadiseHomeServices.com
Website: www.paradisehomeservices.com
SUMMARY
In this episode, we dive deep into the secrets of achieving an over 90% call booking rate and the vital components of building a strong office culture within the home service industry. Our guest, Nicole DeLisle, shares her extraordinary journey from being a CSR in 2016 to becoming a key leader at Paradise Home Services. We discuss strategies for effective communication, leadership, and how fostering a positive workplace culture can result in high performance and significant team achievements.
TAKEAWAYS
1. Achieving a High Call Booking Rate: Learn how Nicole’s team achieves an impressive over 90% call booking rate through incentivizing, mutual motivation, and thorough call handling.
2. Building a Strong Culture: Understand the importance of fostering a supportive and respectful office culture that values communication and mutual respect.
3. Importance of One-to-One Meetings: Discover the benefits of regular one-to-one meetings for team growth, communication, and continuous improvement.
4. Navigating Acquisitions Smoothly: Gain insights into how to maintain team culture and effectiveness during company acquisitions and transitions.
5. Leadership and Growth: Nicole shares crucial leadership strategies and personal development tips that have propelled her career and team forward.
CHAPTERS
1. Introduction- [00:00:00]
2. Nicole’s Journey from CSR to Leader – [00:03:17]
3. Team Achievements and Strategies- [00:05:23]
4. Building a Strong Workplace Culture- [00:06:35]
5. The Role of One-to-One Meetings- [00:17:28]
6. Navigating Company Acquisitions- [00:12:08]
7. Leadership and Personal Development- [00:18:55]
8. Outro – [00:24:13]
KEYWORDS
Plumbing, HVAC, Air Conditioning, Electrical, Contractor, Freedom Blueprint Podcast, Justin Deese, Kristen Deese, When Your Business Partner is Your Spouse, call booking rate, office culture, customer service representative, CSR, leadership, home service industry, one-to-one meetings, team communication, acquisitions, Nicole DeLisle, Paradise Home Services, business growth, employee motivation, JustinDeese.com
Transcript
Justin Deese (00:01.956)
Welcome to freedom blueprint podcast. I’m pretty excited today. I am going to be hanging out with Nicole and Nicole is the paradise home services. I’m going to say rock. Can I say rock?
Nicole DeLisle (00:17.006)
You can.
Justin Deese (00:19.012)
All things to all people, like something like that. so anyway, so, so Nicole, welcome, welcome to the show. I’m glad you agreed to come hang out, with us for a little bit. And I asked her about, because Nicole is a superstar. You can ask anybody, that’s on our team. You can ask, you know, we’re part of a bigger part of a private equity group, lead service partners. You can ask anybody from there. She’s just a rock star. And I started thinking about.
There’s, there’s other Nicole, there’s not other Nicole’s out there, but there’s, there’s other people that have a lot of the same attributes that you have. And I was just thinking like, where, where did Nicole’s hang out? Is there like a C of Nicole’s anyways? So we’ll get into that here in a minute, but welcome.
Nicole DeLisle (01:08.974)
Well, thank you so much for having me and I appreciate that. I enjoy being the rocket, it drives me. So thank you for saying that. Some days, yes, absolutely.
Justin Deese (01:16.26)
It’s gotta be exhausting.
Justin Deese (01:21.284)
Well, not only do you have to keep Gist and I in check, but now you’ve got so many other people that now you have to, to keep in check. So, so I want to, so Nicole, all right. So if you know the paradise story, I’m going to give you a high level, a high 30 ,000 foot view of a little bit of the paradise story. And if I, if I mess anything up, Nicole, just let me know. But, so I used to own a plumbing company.
And we, we refer to it a lot as 1 .0 and, we, I, I sold the company and truthfully, when I sold it, I thought that it was a good move for the entire team. unfortunately it turned out that it was good for, not the whole team and, and the culture didn’t fit and there was just a lot of things, right? So, Nicole was, was on the team at 1 .0 along with.
I think five other team members. So when we, when guests and I decided, Hey, we’re going to do this paradise home services crazy thing. We really were kind of like, get the band back together. How does that work? And who all do we grab? And, anyway, so we, when we started 2 .0, we had some, some old team members from 1 .0. So it’s pretty exciting. And that means you, you knew what you signed up for.
Nicole DeLisle (02:48.334)
I did, I had full awareness going into it. And I was excited, I was excited to come back.
Justin Deese (02:54.692)
So at the, at one point now, what, all right. So I want to kind of take the progression of Nicole and our industry and cause you’ve played a lot of roles. so I’d like to kind of go through that a little bit. And so when you first came on the team, that would have been probably 2016, 15th.
Nicole DeLisle (03:17.326)
16 or 17.
Justin Deese (03:20.376)
What was the what role were you playing at that point?
Nicole DeLisle (03:26.99)
Yeah, so back then I had just moved to Florida and I was hired on as a CSR at at 1 .0.
Justin Deese (03:36.612)
1 .0. CSR, and I think at that point, there was probably a total of, you might have been one of two, there might have been three.
Nicole DeLisle (03:48.366)
Yet there was one who had been there for a while and she’s actually part of 2 .0. And there was one other person that was hired on at the exact same time as I was.
Justin Deese (03:54.18)
that’s right.
Justin Deese (03:59.876)
Okay, and she’s not on 2 .0. Technically we’re at 3 .0, I think is what we call it now.
Nicole DeLisle (04:02.222)
She is not on 2 .0.
Nicole DeLisle (04:06.798)
Yes, it is 3 .0.
Justin Deese (04:09.508)
We’re so fancy. okay. So, so going, going from that to where you are now, actually let me back up. I don’t want to go to now yet, but so 1 .0 CSRs. that was the first, that was kind of the first introduction of being in the home service space, right?
Nicole DeLisle (04:29.71)
Yeah, my first introduction to the home services, I loved it. I do have a background in customer service in various degrees and positions, but that was my first time in the home services industry. And I loved it because it’s fast paced, every day looks different and the people are interesting.
You
Justin Deese (04:53.38)
That is a really politically correct way.
They are interesting. So many personalities, so many different people throughout the day, but it’s okay. So, so you got in, you started, starting the CSR role. And then obviously, we, we sold that to a much bigger organization and, that did not go well. Correct.
Nicole DeLisle (05:23.438)
I think after 1 .0 sold, I stuck around with the other company for about three months, give or take. I was one of the longest ones there at three months. But it was a culture shock going from what we were used to at 1 .0 and the respect level and then moving to this other company.
Justin Deese (05:35.14)
You were one of the long -termers then, weren’t you?
Nicole DeLisle (05:54.286)
where I was just kind of put to the corner and just kind of sit over there. And I don’t do well with sitting in the corner. Do not.
Justin Deese (06:02.564)
Don’t put baby in a corner.
Justin Deese (06:07.716)
So that’s, that’s interesting though, because you know, there is a lot of acquisitions and obviously we’ve gone through an acquisition now with leap service partners. And, you know, when we first started talking with, with leap, that was one of our big concerns is, I didn’t want to recreate what happened before, because our team is just, they deserve better, but quite frankly, have you found that to be the experience with leap so far?
Nicole DeLisle (06:35.95)
Absolutely. It is night and day difference between the two. Yes, it’s been great and you can’t going into it. You can’t anticipate what’s coming next all the time, but it’s been really smooth and the support, but not trying to break apart the culture that we worked really hard for has been great.
Justin Deese (06:59.844)
Yeah, as, as Gist and I went through that, through that with them, that was, I mean, that was probably the drum we beat more than anything else is culture, culture, culture. Cause a lot of times when people think of private equity groups, they think of the, I always keep saying this, but the Gordon Gecko from Wall Street where they come in, trash everything, sell it for bits and pieces. And, and I know there is, there is groups out there that, that do that. that, that certainly has not been any of our experiences, with, with them.
Nicole DeLisle (07:26.894)
Yeah, not even not even closed, so it’s been great.
Justin Deese (07:29.636)
which is great. Okay, so 1 .0, you’re in CSR, 2 .0, your role was different, right? So you came in as the office manager at that point, didn’t you?
Nicole DeLisle (07:43.95)
Yes.
Justin Deese (07:46.596)
So what’s the hardest part about being an office manager in our space?
Nicole DeLisle (07:54.862)
I mean, there’s a lot of challenges. It really takes a strong person to, to know how to lead people, to know how to lead CSRs in particular, because it’s a really, really difficult job. I think the CSR position does not get as much love and admiration as it deserves because they arguably have one of the hardest jobs in the building. It is exhausting answering phones all day long.
dealing with all types of those interesting people. So I’d say being able to motivate CSRs and dispatchers to want to excel and want to do really well for not only themselves but the company as well.
Justin Deese (08:40.388)
Well, cause let’s be honest, we all spend a whole truckload of money to get the phone to ring. And then if the phone rings and it’s not handled correctly, now you spend a whole truckload of money, for nothing. So, so I want to, I want to, this whole thing is about bragging on you anyway. So, what was your call booking rate for your team last month?
Nicole DeLisle (08:45.486)
Mm -hmm.
Nicole DeLisle (09:05.718)
93 %?
Justin Deese (09:10.308)
Can you repeat that one more time? What? okay. So 93 % and for most people, for most companies out there, typically their goals, 80%. honestly, companies that I’m in and out of a lot of times I see it closer to 75%, which by the way, let me say this on the 93 % because I know that somebody is listening to this and they’re going, well, here’s the deal.
Nicole DeLisle (09:12.046)
93 %?
Justin Deese (09:40.26)
-huh. Because we go in and we check them. so there’s not, we don’t have a whole lot of grace for it’s you book it or you don’t. Like if they’re calling for a service and we don’t book them and they don’t, then it’s a no -go. So, what are some things that you’ve done with your team to, to get that level? Cause I mean, again, most companies don’t come anywhere close to that.
Nicole DeLisle (09:41.326)
Yeah.
Nicole DeLisle (10:05.774)
Yeah, I think it’s a few things. Obviously incentivizing is one way. But also you can, people generally want to do well and you can kind of encourage that. But when you get a team together that wants to do well for each other, that’s when the real, real difference happens is our team, Rouse, we have it right now. They don’t want to let the next person down. They don’t want to let their team down and they,
go through all the check marks to make sure that we book that call. We actually have gotten very so good at booking calls. Now we’re like working on the selective call when we’re coming to the summer, our HVAC team is slammed. All right, now we need to work on selective scheduling.
Justin Deese (10:52.804)
Well, and I think, I think that’s a good point because, you know, part of, part of one of the biggest challenges with dispatchers is, you know, to be a good dispatcher, you can’t be a a hundred percent of a people pleaser because there’s times when you have to push calls for, for no cool calls that you just have to push. And if you’re the type of person that is not okay with confrontation and you ball up.
then being a dispatcher is probably not the right role for you. Do you agree?
Nicole DeLisle (11:26.606)
Absolutely. Dispatching is a tough, tough job. I have to have a lot of balance there.
Justin Deese (11:33.252)
Well, and it’s, I mean, it’s the air traffic control of the entire office and the entire business. I mean, they are the air traffic control. They’ve got to make sure that people aren’t crossing and we’re running as efficient as possible. And, I mean, that’s just not easy to do as all these parts are moving.
Now they’re trying to shift them and move them.
Nicole DeLisle (11:53.838)
And dispatchers, you know, dispatchers make or break a day. They have the control to make a super efficient route, super profitable route. And it’s a tough position to be in to have to decide what is the best option each day.
Justin Deese (12:15.684)
Not to mention that from a dispatcher role, and I know we’ve kind of shifted a little bit, but I think this is a great topic. part of the, part of the other challenge with the dispatcher is not only do they have to be comfortable with conflict when it comes to customers and moving, but also technicians, right. And managing those many, many, many personalities.
Nicole DeLisle (12:34.382)
Yes.
Nicole DeLisle (12:40.59)
That is one of the other difficult parts is you spend a lot of time talking to technicians all day long and deciding, you know, you have to be firm with them, but there’s no, you don’t want a relationship with a technician that’s a little hostile or not great. So you have to navigate to, hey, I really need this ran and this job to be taken care of.
without giving them really the option, it’s gonna happen, but presenting that in a way where they feel like they’re helping out the team and they’re helping out the office and they’re making everybody’s life easier and they appreciate the recognition.
Justin Deese (13:22.564)
You’re like, I need you to run this call, please and thank you.
Nicole DeLisle (13:25.07)
Exactly.
Justin Deese (13:28.196)
So get that van moving.
Nicole DeLisle (13:30.114)
A little bit of like maybe we’ll look at Thursday or Friday of getting me off early if you can pick up a couple things from me today. So a little give and take there too.
Justin Deese (13:41.796)
Well, and I think, I think that’s such a, such an important part of the culture too. Right. So, you know, your CSRs and your dispatchers and your techs, they have to all mesh together and communicate very well together to where they’re open. Everybody’s open with communication back and forth. Cause if not, you know, it’s, it’s very easy to feel for the technicians to feel like the man on the island or person on the island. And then for the office, it’s easy to feel like, well, they don’t care.
When the truth is none of that’s none of that’s the case. everybody does actually have a lot of mutual respect and most offices, I think in ours, we, I think that I just think we kill it. I think we crush it. and, and that’s, and that’s from you, right? Like that’s your leadership. That’s your communication with your team. That’s that’s from you. So, so that’s all pretty powerful.
Nicole DeLisle (14:36.91)
Yeah, it took a lot of growth, not only on my part, but getting the right people in the right seat on the bus, a lot of pains and struggles to get where we are.
Justin Deese (14:53.7)
It’s never easy to let someone go. and you and I have talked about this quite a bit, but, but it is one of those things when, if you’re doing the things that you’re supposed, like for us, right. We’re doing the team member commitments. We’re doing one to ones. And so if ever someone is not a right fit for the team and you’re letting them know, you’ve been letting them know for however many months during the training. And that doesn’t mean you don’t get to the.
I’m going to have to let you go. And they’re like, I had no idea. Like, are you paying attention to the last seven one -to -ones we’ve been having where we’ve had the same anyways. but yeah. So, okay. So let’s talk about, let’s talk about one -to -ones a little bit. Cause we talk about them from a technician standpoint. what are some, what are some pros to doing one -to -ones with your team?
Nicole DeLisle (15:47.79)
there’s a lot of pros just the opportunity to sit down because obviously I’m in the office every every day but I’m a busy person I’m here I’m there I’m a little bit of everywhere so just to sit down with your your team members and say hey what is going on and we don’t make it a formal thing actually all all my team knows that it’s super informal anything that they want to talk about is open but it gives them the opportunity to just have some
one -on -one time exactly one -to -one just to say what’s going on and you really learn I learn the most in those place because it gives the opportunity for them to be open and say hey you weren’t here on Thursday this happened and I didn’t know what to do and then this happened and we just talked through it and of course we go over KPIs how’s everything looking but most importantly I get to I get to figure out where the struggles are.
and where opportunities for growth are.
Justin Deese (16:51.172)
Okay. So, so I think one -to -ones have been one of those things that we started doing even back in 1 .0 days that’s made one of the biggest impacts on our business. And it’s because I think most companies miss the two -way communication. Well, if they get the one -way communicate, like I get to tell you to do something, you go do it. And if you don’t like it, I don’t care. so I think one -to -ones really develops that two -way communication of I need something from you and.
Do you need anything from me? And I think that that’s, that’s what’s really powerful in doing those is that, that you do have that two way communication and I think that they feel good about it.
Nicole DeLisle (17:28.654)
The last question on the one -to -one is literally, what do you need from me? And I am very strict with them. I’m not that strict about a lot of things, but I expect them to at least have one thing that they need from me every time we do a one -to -one, because I need to know how I can help you. That’s really important to me. So that’s my one strict rule, is you have to have something that I can help you with.
Justin Deese (17:55.396)
I mean, that is just a leadership value bomb that Nicole just dropped over everybody listening. Boom. If I had a sound effect on this board, I would have hit that button. No, that’s, that’s great. And I mean, and listen, you’re following, like you’re doing the team member commitments and you’re watching their KPIs and you’re doing the one -to -ones and you’re consistent with your leadership and you’re consistent with all these things. And the result is you have an amazing team.
Nicole DeLisle (18:01.006)
Hahaha!
Nicole DeLisle (18:24.622)
I do have an amazing team, absolutely.
Justin Deese (18:26.852)
That’s pretty cool. So, so now, all right, we’re going to shift gears a little bit. So for, for, for anyone listening and they’re like, I need a Nicole. first of all, you can’t have our Nicole. So second of all, what are some things that you’ve, I don’t know, maybe speed bumps. Like what, what is something that you would have told yourself five years ago, getting into this industry?
Nicole DeLisle (18:42.286)
Yeah.
Justin Deese (18:55.332)
that you needed to pay attention and focus on.
Nicole DeLisle (18:59.534)
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think when I got into the industry, I’ll be honest, I was kind of, I was in my mid -twenties, hadn’t made some of the best choices in life. And I really had somebody that took a chance on me is really what it comes down to. They took a chance and they were like, well, let’s see how it goes. But I had one thing I was willing. I was willing to do.
whatever it took to get to the next level. And the people that took the chance on me, they knew it was important for me to not stay stagnant. I cannot sit in the same spot. I constantly need to be moving, growing, adapting, doing something different. I love to learn new things. Anything you throw at me, I love it. So.
Five years ago, I probably would have told myself,
Nicole DeLisle (20:01.518)
There’s so many things I would have told myself. Most importantly, I, you know, don’t take yourself too seriously and you’re more capable than you can even imagine. Anything you want to do, you can do it. I don’t think I’ve always believed that, but I 100 % do now.
Justin Deese (20:17.156)
that’s awesome.
Justin Deese (20:21.54)
Awesome. Yeah. Well, and I think that’s, yes, that is incredible. And that’s, and that’s good advice. So if somebody was looking to create an office manager that was a rock star, what are some things that you feel like the company could do to help with their growth?
Nicole DeLisle (20:47.79)
I would say invest in training opportunities. Find somebody who is really a go -getter. And we’ve talked about this before. We’ve sometimes struggled with hiring because we feel like they need to fit in this box and they need to check off X, Y, and Z. And if they don’t do that, it’s not a good fit. But really, I don’t pay attention to much of that when I’m looking at resumes anymore. Because I know what my resume said on it whenever I walked in here.
And you just need somebody who’s willing to do what it takes, somebody who’s willing to learn and wants to grow. If you don’t have somebody that that just kind of wants is comfortable where they are, they’re probably not going to be the best office manager you’ll find.
Justin Deese (21:39.716)
Yeah. Might, might be a good CSR, might be good in the accounting department. but yeah, I agree with you. I think that, the, the office manager role is such a dynamic position that there’s constant growth and learning and, and really for your position too, not only do you have to stay on top of all the office things and all the technology that’s changing and shifting and, but you also have to keep up with what’s going on in the field. And I think sometimes people forget that.
Nicole DeLisle (21:42.062)
Mm -hmm.
Nicole DeLisle (22:05.39)
Mm -hmm.
Justin Deese (22:08.58)
An office manager does have to know. I mean, I’d be willing to bet you could go put a water heater in.
Justin Deese (22:18.212)
Yeah, all right, we’re gonna try that.
Justin Deese (22:23.204)
so, so making a little bit of a shift. So we, obviously we made this acquisition with, joined elite leaped in with leap. and one of the things that, that was part of that was they have the rising leader program. So can you walk us through a little bit about what that is?
Nicole DeLisle (22:46.542)
Yeah, so there’s a few.
upper level management, mid level management that get together. We have a meeting once a month and then we have had, since we’ve joined with Leap, we’ve now had two in -person sessions with the rising leaders. And really it’s just a group of us that want to learn from each other, want to figure out a way, hey, I’ve been having this problem, who else has? And we bounce ideas off of each other. There’s emails going back and forth all the time of,
hey, look at what we set up, whether it’s cool and just something that we want to show off or whether it’s I need help with an issue. And I will say that’s been a game changer for me because it opened. Sometimes you can start to feel like you’re in a little bit of a bubble in your community and it opened up a whole world of, there’s other people that deal with the exact same issues that we do every day. And there’s solutions that we never even thought of.
Justin Deese (23:52.324)
Yeah, I think it’s the power of networking is, is incredible. And not only can you learn from others, but you’re teaching. I mean, you were just at one of the other branches last week at the time of the recording last week, helping them with, you know, service, Titan implementation and all that kind of good stuff. so Nicole, I appreciate you coming in and hanging out. I know you’ve got a lot to do.
Nicole DeLisle (24:13.582)
Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Justin Deese (24:17.796)
Yeah, thank you.
Justin Deese (24:22.5)
All right. So good job. See low key. I, I, I edit them and put, you know, things in the front end, things in the back end. so, yeah, I thought it was great. Yeah. I think it was good. I think it’s cool because now what’ll happen is, people in your leadership group will, will listen to it. And they’re like, Nicole, that’s.
Nicole DeLisle (24:24.686)
Thanks.
Nicole DeLisle (24:36.302)
Did I go okay?
Justin Deese (24:55.044)
There’s always good nuggets for stuff like that whenever.
Justin Deese (25:01.796)
my brain shot, man.
Nicole DeLisle (25:05.966)
I was like
Justin Deese (25:06.66)
I’ve been on interviews since I’ve been down well, meeting since seven. They’ve been back to back to back to back. That’s why I was like, Ooh, you want to do this a little faster.
Nicole DeLisle (25:10.638)
jeez.
Nicole DeLisle (25:15.598)
Yeah, let’s get these, it’s Friday, let’s get these meetings over with.
Justin Deese (25:19.012)
I mean, I still got a ton of stuff to do, but I’m about to crank the radio and.
do the whole chill thing. Actually, I think me and you and guest are about to meet though. Here in a minute. I think so. All right, cool. We’ll find out. I guess if we’re all gonna meet, I’ll see you. I’ll see you again in a minute.
Nicole DeLisle (25:27.982)
Yeah.
Nicole DeLisle (25:31.598)
Are we? Okay.
Nicole DeLisle (25:39.886)
Thanks so much, I appreciate it. That was awesome.
Justin Deese (25:41.412)
Thank you.