Episode Information
Episode Number: 51
Date: September 9, 2024
Duration: 41:50
Host: Justin Deese
Website: JustinDeese.com
Contact: Justin@JustinDeese.com
Guest: Derek Cormier
Company: Climate Experts
Website: https://www.climateexpertsac.com/
Summary
In this episode of the Freedom Blueprint Podcast, Justin Deese sits down with Derek Cormier from Climate Experts in Melbourne, Florida. They delve into the significant role of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in fast-tracking business success. Derek shares his journey of expanding his business from a single truck operation to an $8 million enterprise. The discussion highlights the importance of establishing specific job roles and clear KPIs, building a strong company culture, and effective social media strategies for branding and recruitment.
Takeaways
Importance of Specific KPIs: Establishing clear, measurable KPIs can drive growth and help businesses monitor their progress effectively.
Building a Strong Company Culture: A positive company culture significantly impacts employee retention and recruitment.
Leveraging Social Media: Effective use of social media can enhance branding, customer engagement, and recruitment.
Role of Best Practice Groups: Participating in best practice groups, like Nextar, is essential for business development and growth.
Clear Job Roles: Defining specific job roles and boundaries improves operational efficiency and helps avoid conflicts.
Chapters
00:02 – Introduction to Derek Cormier and his journey in the trades
02:03 – Challenges and dynamics of running a family business
03:48 – Establishing roles and boundaries
04:51 – Keys to success and the importance of KPIs
06:38 – Partnering with best practice groups like Nextar
10:30 – Effective social media strategies for business growth
14:16 – Budgeting for marketing and the role of social media
16:39 – Impact of a strong social media presence on recruiting
19:14 – Importance of company reviews and career progression
20:42 – Attracting the right talent through a positive company culture
23:07 – Paid workday trials to assess potential employees
27:47 – Tips for social media: Getting started and understanding your brand
33:34 – Hiring a social media videographer
36:21 – Closing thoughts and advice from Derek Cormier
Keywords
Plumbing, HVAC, Air Conditioning, Electrical, Contractor, Freedom Blueprint Podcast, Justin Deese, Kristen Deese, When Your Business Partner is Your Spouse, KPIs, Key Performance Indicators, Business Growth, Social Media Marketing, Company Culture, Recruitment Strategies, Best Practice Groups, Nextar, Business Strategies, Leadership, Climate Experts, Derek Cormier
Transcript
Justin Deese (00:02.214)
Welcome to Freedom Blueprint podcast. I’m your host Justin Deese and I have got a special guest today hanging out with me. Derek Cormier from Climate Experts in Melbourne, Florida is here hanging out and I wanted to get him on the show because I don’t know, if you don’t know who Derek is, Derek really knows a ton about, I’m going to say social media and maybe it’s marketing in whole, but we’re going to dig into a little bit of his story today and find out.
how he’s managed to grow and scale his business the way he has. And Derek, welcome to the show,
Derek Cormier (00:36.814)
Appreciate it. Thanks for having
Justin Deese (00:38.47)
Yeah. So, obviously we want to get into the Derek of today and the climate experts of today. But before we do that, tell us a little bit, how did you get started in the trades?
Derek Cormier (00:50.382)
So great question. I originally grew up in a household. My dad was a general contractor. So, you know, from 10 years old, I was helping him every summer building homes, remodeling residential properties, doing the framing, everything, basically everything other than specialty trades. I did with him on site, you know, but obviously we had some contractors.
Grew up doing that, became a police officer at 21 in South Florida, did that for five years to get out of construction because I wanted to live a different style of life and not just run the family business. Ended up coming back to the trades and I decided that HVAC was where I wanted to live after working for a couple of the companies and really liking the pairing of the technical and the sales and seeing the opportunity where we’re in Florida and everybody needs it. So I decided to start my own business.
in 2016 and I saw my dad was having a difficult time with the remodeling business. The trades is just easier. It’s more specific as a lot of you know. And we just started out the business in 2016 and worked together and brought my brother in to work with us, brought my cousin in to work with us. And that had some struggles that we dealt with.
Justin Deese (02:03.814)
Family business is never easy. It never comes without its struggles for sure.
Derek Cormier (02:08.91)
Yeah, and I’m sure a lot of listeners have worked with family members or best friends or spouses and it’s an interesting dynamic and I can tell you some of my experiences with it and the pros and cons with it and I know we’re talking about marketing but just to sum it up, we worked through the family part of it from 2016 to 2019 and we ended things cordially to where basically my dad went and started his own HVAC business.
My brother went over with him. My cousin also left the business. So I basically in 2019 restarted from scratch, just one employee again. And we did end up growing it to where it’s going to be budgeted to do about 8 million this year in residential HVAC. And we also do plumbing. We’re adding on electrical as well. So we scaled that very fast from 2019 to 2024. And you know, the main reason why it really wasn’t working out was
We weren’t really able to establish true roles to have boundaries so that we can stay on our own lanes. It was the owner complex of, you’re an owner, I’m an owner, let’s do it all together. And then as soon as a disagreement comes in, the business isn’t able to move forward. And that just kept happening. And when there’s personal attachments, especially with family, it becomes difficult because emotions are involved. And I came to a point where I didn’t want to affect the personal relationships in a negative way.
Justin Deese (03:27.27)
Mm -hmm.
Derek Cormier (03:36.312)
just for business, it wasn’t necessary. And after trying for those three years, it just made more sense to have a serious conversation and move a different direction.
Justin Deese (03:48.038)
Yeah, I think a lot of times when it, when it comes to, and it can be family, it can be any kind of partnership whatsoever roles and boundaries are one of the most difficult things to really line out. And then once you get them, you’ve got to be like, all right, that’s your, your captain in that lane. will study your lane and that’s your lane. So, you’re definitely not alone in that. There’s a lot of business, owners that, just struggle with that in general, even with employees, sometimes they struggle with that as far as, know,
not having enough non -negotiables and letting people do whatever sometimes it is that they want to do when you’re like, that should be a non -negotiable. So that’s great. So 2019, you got a little bit of a reboot. Jumping to 8 million from one truck. That is very impressive.
Derek Cormier (04:36.782)
Thank
Justin Deese (04:37.714)
So what do you think, what were some things that you implemented or what do you think was really some keys to success from going from 2019 one truck to growing it to 8 million as fast as you
Derek Cormier (04:51.256)
So right from the start, I decided to partner with a best practice group. And I’m sure you’ve all heard of Nextar, or a lot of you have heard of Nextar. And I made sure I got into that organization early on because I was an HVAC tech. I was an installer. I was not a business professional. I didn’t have my MBA. I didn’t know a profit and loss. I didn’t know EBITDA.
you know, that really could prevent you from growing if you don’t have those financials. And again, I didn’t take any business loans. I didn’t have any investors. I didn’t have a business that I purchased that had already had revenue. This was, you know, from the ground up, single truck, taking $29 service calls from Craigslist. So I had to be really smart with the financials. So I partnered with Nextar, amazing organization. That’s definitely a large part of our success. And I got the systems and processes in place.
so I can have a repeatable system that I could train other people to do. And I think part of the success was I realized early on that I needed to have other people do the work that I was currently doing so I can do higher level work. I think what happens with owners is you wear the everything hats because you want control, because it’s scary with all the liabilities and things that can happen in the business. And you want to protect people and you want
give them a job and make money and serve customers. But by holding on that control you prevent growth and you prevent growth from your people. And because if you’re always protecting them they’re never learning. And if you’re not setting up the right people in that role you’re setting up people that are just going to listen you and follow you around and just say yes sir. You’re not getting those real true professionals that are going to get you to the next level. The person that got you to three million is not the person that might get you to eight million, to fifteen million, to twenty million. The processes you did to get you, yeah the process you did to get to that point.
Justin Deese (06:38.416)
And it’s normally not.
Derek Cormier (06:42.734)
you know, might change. So I realized that early on that I needed to find the right people. I needed to establish a very specific job role so they had specific expectations and then I had to have specific KPIs that I was evaluating their success on. So it wasn’t just personal thinking like, this person just works really hard and works 24 seven and is doing what I’m doing. I had a top three priority and I still do for every single role that has specific measurable KPIs that I can tell if they’re winning in that role and they can tell.
So I think that was definitely a large part of our growth strategy while staying very profitable. And we’ve doubled in revenue every year since we’ve started and we’re going to continue to do that. And as you get to the 8 million mark, you might say, well, that might be harder to double at that point. You’re right. But we’ve added plumbing, we’re adding electrical, we’ve gotten into three home depots, we partnered with them. So there’s a lot of creative ways where you can still keep that trajectory going. It’s just the house. And I search for companies that have already done that and I replicate
Justin Deese (07:43.152)
Yeah. So something you brought up about, next star in general is, finding your tribe. I think that’s one of the most important things. because, and you can relate to this, right? Being a business owner can be pretty lonely, right? Lonely at the top and you’re running into these issues and without a group of people to communicate with, there’s times you’re sitting there going, am I the only one having these issues? And when you have your tribe and you’re able to reach out and go, Hey, is anybody else having
problem of whatever it is. And then you hear 10 people go, yeah, man, I’m having the same problem. It certainly makes you go, okay, I don’t feel as defeated. Now I can go find 10 other people that have solved that problem. And now I go work towards the goal to fix that problem. So definitely for anybody listening, if you’re not, there’s some really good best practice groups out there. Definitely find your tribe and make sure that you’re, leaning in to
to take advantage of the group’s knowledge. Because most people that are in best practice groups, guess what? They’re willing to share. That’s why they’re there. And most of them, just like Derek, they grew from asking questions and getting answers and help from other people. So that’s great.
Justin Deese (09:03.28)
So with the, so with the growth of the business, what, so having KPIs, which is a little interesting that now that you think about all the things that you were able to implement with your KPIs, and then you think about how you ran your business before, when you did that, it’s almost like playing a football game with no scoreboard and so many business owners do it. Like, cause now it’s not subjective. You’re not like, man, I really feel
Bobby’s doing a really good job. Now you got a number to tag to it you’re like, Bobby, here’s your number. Here’s your scoreboard. How are you doing? And Bobby’s like, yeah, I probably need to step it up a little bit. So let me ask you this. So one of the things I wanted to really kind of lean in with you a little bit is you and your team do an amazing job on social media. And I think a lot of business owners miss the mark on the social media aspect. They, you know,
they’re paying the Google monster or they’re, you know, doing other things in order to drive business. But social media is one of those things that really, I think quickly gets that no like and trust built for you, for your customer. So for anybody who’s not checking out climate experts, you gotta go check out their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, go check all of it out. There are some really, really funny stuff, but how did you guys get started even doing
Derek Cormier (10:30.146)
So I told myself probably a couple years ago that I needed to get on Instagram, I needed to get on Facebook, and I needed to get on TikTok. And we had really good social media management as far as not just posting those stock images, which are of your company and that no one really wants to see. We always took really good photos of the team and our social media was probably better than most, but really changed the game was when we got into the videos. And that’s YouTube, TikTok.
Facebook, Instagram, and that’s what everyone’s watching. Like people are just scrolling on their phones on social media, just watching the videos, because they’re entertaining, right? People have low attention spans nowadays. So photos don’t really get the same amount of views compared to video. So I said to myself, okay, we need to get on video. And I needed to find companies out there that had really good social media presence. And one of them’s Radiant Plumbing in Texas. If you want to see an amazing
company with social media that is insane with videos, it’s Radiant Plumbing. They’re also a next -star organization. And they were actually featured on national TV for their social media being so funny and so good. And I said to myself, we’re going to be making social media videos to that caliber one day. And I’m going to be honest, it took some time because you’ve got to be the kind of person that’s comfortable being on video.
and not everybody, know, HVAC people especially, are actors and want to be on video. So, in the beginning it probably took me a solid year to gain the courage to be like, okay, I’m just gonna have to do it, I’m gonna be on video because if you don’t lead that mission by example and you make your people do it, something that you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself, at some point they feel like you’re that boss that doesn’t care about them and is just making them do a job. So, I had to believe in it as much as the employees and I had to lead the charge and I had to say, okay, this is what we’re doing, it’s gonna be fun.
I had to put a lot of thought into it. got to plan them. you know, everyone’s a test. You never know what’s going to work if you go into it with, you know, too many expectations. Like the video you thought that was going to get, you know, a hundred thousand views gets five hundred and the video you thought no one would watch gets a hundred fifty thousand. So we have tactics to be able to do all different types of videos just to see which one works. And then we put money into it. So
Derek Cormier (12:55.822)
not only post them organically, but we also use A -B testing with ads. And I find a lot of contractors either underspend on their marketing budget or they just go crazy and overspend. And talking about KPIs, what you mentioned earlier, Justin, it’s really important to know what your budget is. We budget the whole year the previous year. So in 2023, we budgeted 2024. We knew how much marketing we were gonna spend and then we allocated that
Specific marketing channels, print mail, social media, video, Google. The Google monster, if you put all your money towards that, you have no other outside avenues for marketing. And if Google changes the algorithm, you lose all your customers. I would never put all my eggs in that basket, even if it works. You need to have several strategies in case one falls out. So we knew our marketing budget was 6%. We’ve doubled in growth with a 6 % marketing budget. When someone tells you they’ve grown their business and they doubled,
If their marketing budget is 15%, I’m not impressed. But if you’ve grown with a reasonable marketing budget so that you’re staying profitable, I think that’s important. So with a 6 % marketing budget, it was enough money to be able to explore social channels, direct mail, like channels that you might have not normally gone with, like the obvious, like Google and things like
Justin Deese (14:16.336)
Well, and for most businesses, when you think about Google, that’s typically the most expensive form of advertising there is. you know, Google’s in it to make money and clicks, but it’s amazing and crazy how much it’s gone up in cost over the years. I mean, I can remember nine bucks a click, you six bucks a click. I remember those days and it doesn’t feel like that long ago. But really, then when you think about social media,
aspect of it, what part of your budget, you know, how to be specific, but around what part of your budget is dedicated and allocated towards social
Derek Cormier (14:57.71)
So originally we under budgeted social media because we didn’t realize the potential that it had because in the past we’ve done really the wrong types of ads. We’ve done like the typical ads where you show like get a new AC unit for $59 a month and you’re trying to get these estimate leads and very direct to lead type advertising on social media and that just doesn’t work. So we under allocated a budget for social media and we probably had it
5 % of marketing budget and now we’re at 20 % of our marketing budget is towards social media because we’re not just using it for direct to lead advertising, we’re actually using it for branding so people know who we are so that when they do go on Google they remember that video and recruiting as well so like we get tons of people that just apply to the jobs because they like our vibe, they see how fun we
They see that we’re willing to do things that are differently. Like they see the branding and the trucks and it just all lines up. And that’s the long -term marketing strategy of not just get the immediate leads and ROI and on that investment. The branding is a long -term where eventually you can get a better customer for less spend because you invested in the branding because people already know who you are. So when they see it, they don’t have to see you so many times before they actually call you.
We’ve increased it to 20 % because we’ve seen and heard just from employees recruiting here, from our customers, we love your videos, even from vendors. We have vendors like manufacturer supply houses that are like, we love your videos. And the more people are talking about you, the more likely they’re probably going to call you when they need
Justin Deese (16:39.031)
Well, because you’ve broken down that barrier of no like and trust, right? So now they’ve seen the video and all of a sudden they’re like, okay, these guys are great because a lot of people, they think of trades, especially people that aren’t in our industry, people that are just John Q homeowner, when they think of trades people, they might have the butt crack plumber kind of image in the back of their head. And then they’re scrolling through snap Snapchat or Instagram or whatever.
And they scroll through and they see one of your video. Like you had one that just came out about a group of people on a couch that were, you know, elderly people that were complaining about the AC that was gold. and so, funny. But the other thing is I want to ask, I want to ask about recruiting. So how has that impacted? know you said you had people that come in that, you know, obviously make a comment about your ad, but how much has that impacted
Recruiting process and recruiting system.
Derek Cormier (17:41.007)
It’s impacted it amazingly and really before we went into the social media side, we always had video. We had professional video and we had a recruiting video that we posted on all of our Indeed ads and on our careers website. And it’s about a two minute video and it’s just story of a climate experts employee and it was one of my technicians. And that video has gotten more views than any other video that we’ve posted just because it’s posted on all of our job ads. And every single person.
that watches, that applies watches that video and they talk about it and they’re like, I loved how it seemed like the environment was this. And then every employee looks at your Indeed reviews, like we over -focus on Google reviews and like, customers are looking for Google reviews. Every person that applies talks about they applied because we have great Indeed reviews and Glassdoor reviews. So you need to invest time. Any good employees that you have, get them to go on Indeed and leave a five -star review and write real things.
that they experience in the job. Or Glassdoor, I am telling you, there are people that are not applying to your job ad because you don’t have enough reviews, or they’re not good, or you don’t have any reviews. So you gotta invest also in just the organic page for Indeed or Your Careers page. If you don’t have a good careers page that tells experience from the life of an actual employee, you don’t have good pictures, you don’t have reviews.
I’m not surprised that you don’t have that many people applying. We get anywhere between 200 to 500 applications a week, and we’re not even that large of an organization. We have 40 employees about.
Justin Deese (19:14.438)
Wait, wait, say that one more time. How many, how many do you guys get a
Derek Cormier (19:18.99)
We get between 200 and 500 applications a week. And we have typically around eight positions open at a time because we’re growing so fast. It’s new positions as well as technicians, obviously field employees and things of that nature. We have a full apprenticeship program as well. So we train technicians from the ground up. We don’t rely on the experience in the field with bad habits.
Justin Deese (19:44.996)
And you think about this for someone, you know, in Florida, we’re, kind of a hot bed. People are moving from other areas because who doesn’t want to live in Florida. but you think about if, if I’m a superstar tech and I’m coming into your neck of the woods and I’ve got this one company that has two five -star reviews on Google has no social media, no presence. And then I’m looking at you
I think what’s really cool is now you’re gonna, you’re attracting the avatar of what you want to work there versus I’m going to say the Chuck in the truck kind of guy or the, you know, kind of guy or kind of girl, or the one who, who has worked for every single company in the entire area, you know, once or twice, you’re not going to attract that person. You’re going to attract someone who is progressive and wants to learn and is excited about the day.
versus, know, gosh, it’s Monday. And I think that’s something really cool you guys were doing.
Derek Cormier (20:42.062)
right? Yeah, it’s funny because I’m on social media and I see other owners and I hear their frustrations every day. Like I’m offering $40 an hour, $50 an hour and still people don’t want to work and I hear this like constantly like, just people just don’t want to work and there’s no one, it’s not true at all. You’re just not attracting the right people. You are just not attracting those. That’s like saying there’s no customers that need AC. Like they do. You’re just maybe not good at marketing and they don’t know about you. you need to, the number one reason why people are usually applying here
I hear the word constantly, it’s culture. It’s culture, culture, culture, culture. Because even if you made tons of money and the culture was toxic, they won’t stay there very long. So you need to show employees how fun your culture is. They need to know that they’re going to have growth within the business. They need to know that they’re going to make a fair salary. They need to know what the benefits are. And you need to have fun ways to get them to engage with you so they can learn that information. And I don’t see that happening typically.
in construction and HVAC because we think it was a hard role and we’re going after the same people that we don’t even want to work for us that are grumbly, probably are on drugs, that have attitudes, that are just doing it because they have done it for so long. And we know our ideal employee and that’s not it. And we get so many people applying here, it’s a privilege for them to work here. They feel like they’re competing to work here. They’re not like, you’d be lucky for me to work at Climate Experts.
please, please, please, I wanna work here, what do need to do to work here? And that is what your goal should be in recruiting. It shouldn’t be like, the second someone comes in that is breathing, that has some HVAC experience, they’re in because you’re gonna ruin your whole culture with that one bad employee and now you’re gonna have to replace them
Justin Deese (22:31.314)
Well, and and I think that’s probably makes a really good impact on your current team because now your current team knows there’s, there’s several hundred people that are applying every day to come work there. So it does. I agree with you. think that does a really good job of kind of keeping everybody on a check and balance. Not that you’re trying to, know, Hey buddy, I got 500 people lined up, but I definitely think in the back of people’s mind, if they know, Hey, you know, there’s you, you eliminate
Well, there’s nobody that wants to come work or I can work here because they can’t find anybody else. I think that’s I think that’s great.
Derek Cormier (23:07.47)
Yeah, it’s 100 % accurate. And we even do something called a paid workday trial where they come in for the day. It’s 1099. They sign a form. And we pay them for the day to just come in and sit with that department. So let’s say they’re a technician. They’ll ride with the tech during the day. They’ll get to see our culture. They’ll get to see if it’s real. We’ll get to feel out their vibe too. Like are they on their phone the whole day on Snapchat? Or they know it all and they’re not listening from day one? Or they pulling out the vape pen? We have a no smoking policy.
So we have standards. A lot of guys are like, you smoke cigarettes? That’s no problem. Come on in. Like we even have a no smoking policy at work and we have amazing employees and we still have two to 500 applications a week. So like we think that we have to lower our standards just to get someone to apply and then we get desperate. And whenever you’re desperate, it’s like going to the grocery store when you’re hungry is a bad idea. Don’t go to the recruiting grocery store while you’re hungry because you’re going to buy food that’s not good for you. So we’re,
are very intentional with the grocery lists before we go into the recruiting grocery store and you know we find the right ones and we don’t rush the process and they come to a workday trial and they prove it to us through that and then we hire them. Try it before you buy it. For them too, the employee gets to see is the culture real? Like is it everything they said it is? And we can both make an intelligent decision before you just pull the trigger and invest all this money into someone that’s not the right fit and then you waste all this
Justin Deese (24:34.162)
The, the way employees are now, and I think this happens a lot with the, with the business owners that we hear about, no good people or, know, whatever negative thing they would like to say about people is the workplace has shifted. And I think a lot of times people forget that and people don’t work somewhere for 20 years, just because anymore, there’s more opportunities than they’ve ever had before. Right. Somebody leaves your shop and decides they don’t want to work for you.
probably is only going to take them a day or two to find another trades job because there is such a demand. Probably not. mean, obviously not with a company as great as you guys, but they can go find a job somewhere else. And there’s also this, you know, gig economy too, where they can, you know, Uber and door dash and you know, there’s, there’s a lot of opportunity out there. And culture is number one thing that we hear from the next generation of team members is culture, man. want
They get that they are going to spend as much time there as anywhere else. And they want to like it. Who, who wants to work in a play? I I’m not in that generation. I don’t want to be around a bunch of people that I don’t like.
Derek Cormier (25:43.31)
Yeah, you’re right. I mean, it’s you’re 100 % correct. It’s culture is super important to this generation. And I’d say the second thing is they want growth. Everyone that I recruit, it’s a constant thing that I’m hearing. They want growth. They want a career progression plan. And then what happens is we hire someone for a role and we train them on that role and they start doing well at that role. And if they don’t have a growth plan, if they don’t have a career progression plan on what’s the next step, like whether it’s more money, whether it’s a higher position.
whether it’s a different schedule, they’re gonna look elsewhere. They’re gonna go on Indeed. They’re gonna look for the more money that they’re looking for. They’re gonna look for the higher position that you’re not offering them. And you might say to them, like after they’re leaving, I wish you would have talked to me about this and explained to me this was a concern, but people just don’t do that. They don’t wanna complain. You have to pick this stuff up beforehand. You have to have a process that protects you from that to happen. So if every employee in your company has a set career progression path and they know they’re moving in that direction,
They’re going to take responsibility for their actions and their results and they’re going to know they’re moving in that direction. And if you put in little one -to -one meetings where you guys follow up on those places on what they need to work on, you’re going to have an employee that’s going to stay with you more long term because they know they’re moving in that direction. They don’t want to take the chance to jump ship. They’re only doing that because they think there’s no opportunity.
Justin Deese (27:02.674)
Yeah, one to ones has been probably in our business has been one of the biggest impacts that we’ve made just because it gives the opportunity exactly like you just said to sit down and actually get to know your team and what’s going on. And I think it’s like one of the number one things from a leadership standpoint, all leaders should make sure that it’s happening in their businesses is doing the one to ones. And that’s a whole different rabbit hole that I could go down, but we won’t. So marketing.
social media, give us one or two tips that you can think of for anybody who’s listening, who’s like, man, I mean, I got a Facebook page, but I kind of like half ass do it. What’s a, what’s some advice you’ve got for
Derek Cormier (27:47.822)
Sure. So I would say don’t be a perfectionist. Don’t over complicate it. You just need to get started. So action creates more action. So and you need to stop worrying about what other people think. You need to stop worrying about what other people think. Like because you’re going to always have haters. If you’re trying to cater this social media plan to everyone being happy with you, like some engagement, sometimes even bad engagement is good.
for social media because you’re just going to get more views. So obviously you need to make sure that there’s some appropriateness. You need to figure out, what, who is said company? Like I needed to figure out, okay, who is climate experts and how do I communicate that with the public so that they can understand who we are? So you need to first figure out who you are. If you don’t have core values, if you don’t have a mission statement, if you don’t have a vision statement, it’s going to be really hard to promote this stuff to the public because you don’t even know who you are. So before you even put any social media
You need to first understand who you are as a company and then promote those things to them in a simple and fun way and have some boundaries. You’re a business, so make sure you have some boundaries. Know who your customer base is. Like if I, in Florida, have mostly retirees, I might do a skit on the Golden Girls. That’s what they’re gonna resonate with. It’s a show they watched. I might not.
do something on like a new TikTok challenge if my ideal customer is someone that’s, you know, 60 or above that owns a home. But if it’s for recruiting purposes, maybe it will be on a TikTok trend that they’re gonna watch and they’re gonna apply. So know what your goal is for that recruiting strategy. So you need to have a goal for every video and there should be some sort of call to action aligned with it. And another tip or trick that I would say is that if you’re already
on social media or you have a friend or family member that’s on TikTok or Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is, YouTube, you already know what’s kind of trending. You can see it’s on your feed already. If you just take what’s already there and you spin an HVAC theme to it or plumbing or electrical, like just recreate what’s already trending. People are going to find it really funny because it’s fresh on their mind. So just take the stuff that’s already trending and then just recreate videos for it in the start. You don’t even have to get complicated and customize it like
Derek Cormier (30:09.826)
We just did a skit last week on Shark Tank. So we have a Shark Tank skit. I’m wearing like Kevin O ‘Leary’s wig. You’ll see the Shark Tank all over social media where people are constantly watching it. So we did a fun spin with Shark Tank and Climate Experts so that it’s something recognizable that people are already watching. So they’re like, a Shark Tank thing. I love Shark Tank. Let me check this out. And then they’ll watch it long enough to see if you have enough humor to see if they want
you know, watch the entire thing. So there needs to be something relatable. It should be about journey for the customer. This shouldn’t be… Don’t make HVAC videos for technicians, unless this is for recruiting. And again, like maybe you don’t want experienced technicians around there. So don’t make your videos for other technicians. If the only people that understand your humor or your video are other business owners in HVAC or technicians, that’s not your goal. This should be about the customer’s journey. They should feel like this is relatable to them.
This needs to be engaging to them. And then, hopefully you have a call to action that gets them to engage or remember your company.
Justin Deese (31:17.33)
So all really good advice. And I’m going to sum this up real quick, because I think there was a lot of good nuggets that were in there. So one of the things was just get started. Love that. Stop the perfection. I think that’s probably the number one deflector that most people have when it comes to social media, especially being on camera on social media. I think that’s the biggest thing that they get hung up on. Don’t worry about the haters. It’s just part of social. People are ugly on social media sometimes, but whatever.
know your mission, vision and values. mean, that’s one -on -one got to know that. And then repurpose some things that you got going on. Repurpose. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, repurpose what’s already going out there. That’s, that’s all solid, solid advice. Let me ask you this. How did you guys, when you’re creating a video, are you guys paying a professional videographer to come in or are you guys grabbing the iPhone?
Derek Cormier (32:13.678)
Great question. So originally when we made professional videos, we hired a videographer and they’re expensive. They’re expensive. And when you’re making a lot of content, it becomes so expensive. And that might be another reason why a lot of contractors don’t, you know, make the move in that direction. So what we did was we advertised a job for someone that just worked on social media videos and we made it kind of part -time, 1099. And we found someone that had their own little company.
where they just did advertising for social media. So they come to our shop, like every month we make six videos. We strategize, we have a strategy meeting where we pre -strategize exactly what the videos are gonna be. We figure out the scripting, we figure out the shots, we figure out what employees wanna be involved in it. And then he comes here and he shoots six videos in a row, same day, so we don’t overwhelm it. And then that time period is focused on videos. Then he goes back and edits
So he’s not like the professional videographer where you’re paying all this money for those videos. Like for six videos, I get a deal. Like it’s very reasonable. You just need to find that person that’s kind of the in -between of like that full -time videographer company and you know that college kid that is doing, you know, videography on their own. You got to find the in -between person and they’re out there. So you just got to search.
Justin Deese (33:34.364)
And I’m guessing that’s probably a pretty big win -win because this person, as they’re growing in their profession, they’re like, check out what I’m doing for climate experts. Like, if you love what they’re doing, let me help you. I think that’s a good plan. So.
Derek Cormier (33:47.88)
In -house is kind of unreasonable because everyone in your company has roles. And if you’re giving someone that’s not an expert in social media or someone that’s not an expert in videography or video editing, there’s so many things to it, like the way that you get a shot on camera, like how you come off screen. Even the movement of the camera, that’s super important in today’s social media. If it’s just stagnant sitting there, people get bored. So like, find someone that’s good at
Videography and social media is completely different than a video where it’s just stagnant and it’s the customer’s journey. It’s your professional video on your website. Social media is different. It’s
Justin Deese (34:30.012)
Derek, that’s all good information, man. I know you got a big business to run. You got some doubling of numbers to do coming up on this next year. Any last thoughts before we call it good for today?
Derek Cormier (34:45.518)
I’d say last thing I would say is that be careful with social media as well. While it has its pros, it also has its cons. I’ve seen a lot of people that have been looked at as experts or gurus on social media and don’t believe everything that you hear is all I’m gonna say. Have healthy skepticism.
just because somebody says they’ve done certain things or they’re at certain place, even me, like this information, trust would verify, like just because someone says they’re an expert or something, do a little bit more research, make sure it’s something that aligns with your core values and mission before you take someone’s advice. This is why it’s really important you need to know who you are and what you’re doing for your customers because if you take advice from someone that isn’t aligned with your core values, it will ruin your reputation.
it will take you down a wrong route. And you should never just be focusing on the money. Because at some point, it should be about service. It should be about fulfilling meaningfulness. Because at some point, when you’re not making the money, it’s going to feel really bad. And I always make sure if I am taking somebody’s advice, I know who I’m taking advice from. And their values also align with my values. And that is just something I want to leave on the table. Because there’s a lot of people out there that will give you advice.
And while I will take advice from almost anybody, I’m just careful about who to trust in some of those situations.
Justin Deese (36:21.586)
Trust but verify. Derek, man, great information. I know this was helpful to the listeners and man, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with
Derek Cormier (36:29.998)
Of course, I really appreciate it and I hope to get some value out of
Justin Deese (36:34.354)
Absolutely.