Is Your Back Office Leaking Revenue?

Who is McKay Rasmussen, and what are contractors asking about AI first?

Kyle Gargaro: I was just at an HVAC event, and a lot of contractors were talking about how to integrate AI into their business, so I wanted to talk about it on the Newsmakers podcast. We're bringing in McKay Rasmussen, who is a sales manager at Podium. Welcome to the podcast, McKay.

McKay Rasmussen: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Kyle: Absolutely. So it says right there that you're a sales manager at Podium, but let's pretend I don't know what that means — what do you actually do over there at Podium? What's your role?

McKay: Yeah, so we have a couple of different sales teams directly working at Podium on the home services division. I help run one of those, which is both expansion sales — working with current customers and introducing them to the different tools that we've developed through the years — and then a few reps that do net-new sales. So a little bit of both worlds, but directly on our home services division.

Kyle: Perfect. I'm sure that means you've sat down with hundreds, if not thousands, of contractors. What's the question every owner asks you most frequently in that first ten minutes when you're communicating with them? And what does that tell you about what they're really worried about?

McKay: Yeah, the two questions are always: how is this going to make my life easier? And then followed up with, how is it going to help my business grow? How's it going to make me more money? What's the value here? And so for me — especially as we're coming out of busy season — that's the thing: owners, service managers, dispatchers, general managers, every single person is spread thin. Even technicians — they're all spread thin, and they really want to just cut to the chase and get right to the point. So what does that tell me about them? It's not really any secret — they're busy. They've got a lot going on, and they have to capitalize on the busy season and make some decisions on the business and try to grow. So it really comes down to efficiency for contractors right now. How can you be efficient? How can you make as much money as you can? But also, how can I get more hours back in the day to do the things that I need to help the business roll?

What's the bigger AI opportunity beyond just answering the phone?

Kyle: Makes sense. Now, obviously AI is all over the place, and when we start drilling down for HVAC contractors, I feel like most people think about AI as answering the phone or doing a chat bot. But I'm guessing what I'm starting to learn is there's maybe a bigger opportunity beyond that — maybe more behind the phone. Can you speak to that a little bit?

McKay: Yeah. So, really any AI agent out there that's solving for one specific thing — it's disjointed. For contractors, the biggest one right now that AI is helping with is the phone, because it can get crazy busy during hours, after hours, all of that. But it's really only solving a surface-level problem — it's only addressing a symptom. And what we want to do with AI is really get to the root and actually provide a solution that helps across the board with what we talked about earlier: being efficient, getting more time back in the day, all of that. So, typically, what I find is that the root of the issues, the root of the problems, the root of the busyness is really tied to time, to their budget, and to personnel. All three of those things are interdependent. Like, I can't find a good technician because I can only keep them busy during the summer months, and then I can't afford to keep them on through the shoulder season. So I have to be out in the field trying to take care of the work. Therefore, I need a voice AI to help in the office because I'm not there. So what we want to do is go back to the beginning — what if you could find a way to keep technicians around during the shoulder season? What if you could take a lot of the roller coaster out of your year by adding AI? That's really what we're trying to do: provide a full AI operating system that doesn't just solve for those symptom-like problems, but really fixes the core issues that contractors are facing.

Kyle: Well, it's interesting — so if I'm a contractor coming to you, is it almost like I'm purchasing this, or is it more like you're giving them a menu, and it's, "Yeah, I want X, Y, and Z for my company, but I don't need A, B, and C"? How does that work for a contractor?

McKay: Yeah, the thing is, we're not trying to build a solution where you look at the menu and say, "Well, I only want one or two of those — number three, four, and five aren't things that we really even care about as a business." If an HVAC contractor doesn't care about it, generally speaking, we're not building it. So the quick answer is no — it's all-or-nothing, but it's not to force the hand of a contractor. Nobody's hopping on these calls and saying, "Well, I only want one, two, and three, and I don't want four, five, and six." It's, "I need this all — I can see how it all really works together."

What does an AI business manager actually do all day?

Kyle: Gotcha. Well, that makes sense. So I hear the term "AI business manager" a few times — I was curious what that is, and what that AI business manager is doing on a Tuesday afternoon.

McKay: Yeah. To put it in the realest sense, and to give you a few examples: it's booking calls, or booking overflow calls, on the calendar for the right technician at the most optimized time. It's texting the manufacturer email leads that you got three weeks ago that your staff doesn't have time to chase, and it's about to book one on the calendar for an open slot tomorrow for your best sales rep. It's reaching out to renew service contracts so you have full calendars heading into October and November — to that point we were talking about earlier, what do you do during shoulder season? It's reaching out on unpaid invoices and getting them completed. It's nudging unaccepted estimates. It's running custom reports specifically for your business — not general ones you can pull some information from, but very specific ones that you care about. And it's doing it all at the same time, all connected to each other, so that the things going on the calendar directly relate to the reporting the AI is doing. So it's a lot of things all at once to free up that time for the contractor.

Where is hidden revenue hiding in a contractor's data?

Kyle: I want to do a little deeper dive into this data you're talking about, because it's so important for HVAC contractors. When you're talking to folks, what are the most common places you find money, based on that data, that the contractor didn't know was there?

McKay: Yeah, I think this is one of the largest opportunities, because running an HVAC business is like being a firefighter — you're running around, everything's on fire, you've got to fix it. And it doesn't really give you the time to stop and be strategic and know what to do. And the devil's in the data, the devil's in the details, and that's where those big business decisions can be made with just simple things. So let me give you a couple of examples. We have our AI, because it's connected to every portion of the business, pull all the data points — it's all interrelated. We can find out what technicians drive the highest revenue based on the job type, and when the AI goes and books a job, it automatically books it for that technician. And what technicians, or what kind of jobs, are costing us the most money? What service areas are we going to where it's actually not profitable for us to be there anymore, and which areas do we need to double down on? What marketing are we doing that we could actually be doing better at, as far as responding to leads — to actually know, is this marketing worth doing? We see a lot of contractors who say, "Hey, I paid for leads for six months and we didn't really get anything out of it." Was it the leads, or was it the way we handled them? Those are the kinds of data points the AI can gather and work with the business on. It can do things like, hey, let's optimize tech schedules — is there a way we can look at the schedule for the next week, and if I have fifteen technicians, can we save ten hours of travel time by readjusting the schedule or scheduling it for the right person? Can we optimize our price book — are we actually competitive in our pricing versus our competitors out there, what are they charging, how are we doing? All of these things can feel so overwhelming, but when you have AI that's plugged into it, and it can send you a report and say, "Hey, this is what you guys can do — would you like me to execute on it?" — it makes the strategy so much easier for a contractor to go out and execute on.

Why do contractors keep putting off big decisions?

Kyle: Sure, and I like the comparison with the firefighter, because I think that's appropriate. So what I'm assuming is more than a few contractors have that thing they've been meaning to do for maybe months, maybe a year, maybe a couple of years. What are those, and why haven't they done them? What are you finding out when you're talking to contractors?

McKay: Yeah, I'd say a couple of the big ones I hear consistently are things like maintenance and service contracts — building that part of the business up. I think even making connections with trade schools and high schools and other avenues to make sure you always have a solid pipeline of technicians coming in and being trained. A lot of contractors talk about this — it's the third year in a row we've talked about getting off our clunky field service management system or this or that, and we just haven't been able to do it yet. And then lastly, just the general idea of really understanding AI — looking into it, understanding what it can do for my business — and I just don't really have the time to do that. I'd say what keeps contractors from doing that is the work — there's always something coming up, there's always something that has to be taken care of. I just met with a contractor the other day who had rescheduled our meeting twice — and this is one of our best customers — because the first time, somebody had stolen a technician's vehicle, and they'd just found it and had to go get it, there's no equipment on it. There's just so much of these day-to-day things you can't plan for. And even the things you do plan for, the amount of work coming in keeps people from being able to say, "Hey, I know that if I want to sell this business in five or ten years, I have to have a maintenance plan or service contracts in place that's robust and drives predictable revenue." I know I had to do it — I've been telling myself that for the last five years, just haven't had the time to do it. So those are a few things I hear that are pretty typical.

What does it cost to just catch your breath during shoulder season?

Kyle: Gotcha. Then, you referenced it a little bit — let's go to the shoulder season. It's getting a little cooler in places, but not cold enough to turn the furnace on yet — that'll be in a couple months. There are two ways of looking at it, I guess — a lot of contractors spend through the summer just trying to catch their breath a little bit, but there's also an opportunity to say, "Hey, let me look at my software, let me make some decisions here." What's the cost of just catching your breath for a little bit and not tackling it? Why should they be looking at this right now?

McKay: Yeah, I think the problems never go away. You get a break, to your point — you get a little bit of a breather, and I don't blame somebody for not wanting to start the research process the second they get a break. But then those problems are right back in your face again, and you're kicking yourself, saying, "Why didn't I do this before? I swear the next time I get a break, I'm going to jump into this." And then you get that break, and you're not doing it again. So I'd say, number one, the problems never go away. And what's happening in the market — how much it's changed — what's happening generally in the trades from ten years ago till today is so different, and it's rapidly changing still, with private equity, with all these kinds of things. So what happens for a business in six months — if you were a business fifteen or twenty years ago, you'd probably see that change in a decade. But now you can see massive amounts of change in six months to a year, maybe eighteen months, where you can't afford to take time off and say, "I'm just going to take a break here." You have to jump in and be proactive with how much the market is changing and adjusting. So I'd also say the problems are fresher for you to make some decisions on — you're coming off the summer, and you're like, "These are the three things that, man, if we could nail this next summer, I could get ten hours back in my week every single week, or I could reduce overhead by this or whatever it is." They're fresh, we can take care of them right there. And then, lastly, and probably most importantly — if you're trying to think ahead as a business owner — software is evolving, hardware is evolving, and it's changing very, very quickly. And I'm not even talking about the AI agents — yes, AI voice agents are getting so much better, text AI agents are getting so much better — but AI is building the software now. I think for Podium — I'm trying to remember, our CEO talked about this, he's also the head of our product, which gives us an awesome edge — but I think in the first quarter of this year, using AI, we wrote as many lines of code as we had in the first three years of being a business. And so even if your software isn't AI-first, or isn't an AI agent software — it's just normal software — it was built by AI. So those things are rapidly changing everything you're interacting with, whether it's a phone system, payment processing, your field service management, dispatch — whatever it is, if it's software-related or product-related in any way, there's AI powering it and pushing it faster than it ever has before. So you have to be ahead of that curve. It can feel daunting, but it's a lot simpler once you step in and find out what's worthwhile and what's not, and really make those decisions for your business.

What should contractors watch for when evaluating a vendor?

Kyle: Sure. And I know you've certainly looked closely at how the rest of the market sells to contractors — so, without naming anyone, because I don't want to get you in trouble, and more importantly, me in trouble — what should an owner watch for in a sales process that tells them how they'll be treated as a customer?

McKay: I think, number one: can that sales rep give you the answers? Can they tell you no, they don't have something, or did you just hear yeses on everything? The best thing about building software right now is that it can be built quickly, but you have to focus on what contractors really, really care about. So if you had an interaction with a sales rep — Podium or not — who said yes to everything, it's probably too good to be true. There are things that aren't important, or haven't been built, or aren't up to snuff, so watching out for that is important. But I'd say, not to undermine the question, I'd go and try to get other people involved in the organization. Podium loves to involve customer support reps, onboarding managers, engineers — involving other people in the organization to understand, hey, what does onboarding look like when a commission's not on the line? What does onboarding look like, tell me what to expect here. Hey, engineering team, tell me — what does the product roadmap really look like? What can I expect, what are you guys thinking about, what are you excited about? So I'd say involving other people in the process is extremely important.

How is Podium getting contractors ready for heating season?

Kyle: That was the heating — the season's going to start in a few weeks here. For any HVAC owners listening today, how is Podium helping their contractors as we get into heating season?

McKay: Yeah, I think what we're doing is trying to keep their technicians busy right now. So our AI agents have gone out the entire summer and nudged customers on signing up for those maintenance plans and getting those all taken care of. We're also, those AI agents are out there collecting all of that revenue for past-due invoices and making sure all of those things are taken care of — that you're not dragging the summer into the winter with you. That's a huge thing — let's leave that there, let's get it all taken care of, let's make sure the books look clean and our technicians are ready to go. The other thing we're doing now is, the AI has all the information on all of those customers previously, so let's go schedule those maintenance or service contracts right now, and let's get ahead of the busy season. And let's figure out, hey, is there an opportunity for a full replacement of their system, of their furnace? What opportunities are out there? Let's be really strategic and maybe jump into November, December, the winter a little bit early — get those customers on the calendar, get them booked, get them sold, get them taken care of, and then when the emergency stuff comes, we're good to go there as well.

Kyle: All right, well, I appreciate the time, McKay. I'm going to get you out of here on this question: say someone wants to learn more about Podium — what do the first 30 days actually look like realistically, and what's the first step? How do they get connected?

McKay: Yeah, they can go to podium.com and just look online. You can schedule a demo right then and there. If you're a current customer, reach out to your customer success manager — that's right in the platform, it'll show a picture of them, you can call them, text them, schedule something there. Really, as far as our sales process goes, if somebody were interested in getting signed up, we typically do one to three calls, about an hour apiece, to make sure that everybody who needs to see the product can, and they get an opportunity to interact with it and see how it'll be applied specifically to their business. One thing that really separates Podium is the onboarding process — teaser: we charge a $1,000 setup fee to get started, to get rolling, but we refund that once the customer is onboarded. Over the last eight months, our stat is that it's refunded in 19 days. We are not somebody who takes six months to onboard a customer — legitimately, within 30 days, you could have interacted with Podium, done a few demos, and gotten all of your data imported from your previous or current FSM into Podium, ready to go, within 30 days. You might be pushing it, but it's not a long process to be able to do that.

Kyle: All right, perfect. Thanks for the time and the information today, okay?

McKay: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.