The Site Shed

How to Overcome Labor Shortages with Skilled Employee Investment | ft. Aaron Salow | Ep.412

• Matt Jones - Trade based business enthusiast • Episode 412

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In this episode of The Site Shed podcast, we dive into the challenges of overcoming skilled labor shortages with effective employee investment strategies. Discover how training and development can transform your trade business and how technology plays a crucial role in this evolution. Don't miss our insights on solving labour shortages and boosting your team's skills.

#SkilledLaborShortage #EmployeeInvestment #TrainingAndDevelopment

Watch the video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/8YrJ4D2fqrw

Discussion Points:

00:00 Episode Highlight
05:20 "The Real MBA" questions traditional business education.
07:17 Leaders need diverse experience, strong people skills.
10:43 Empowerment through resources and clear career paths.
14:57 Legacy businesses struggle to transition to modern tools.
19:25 Improving user experience through asset data understanding.
22:29 Challenges of using AI in technician training.
23:54 AI's potential for centralized data conversation discussed.
29:26 Advancement in tech for construction visualization is pricey.
33:08 Skilled labor shortage in technician industry persists.
34:19 AI can solve skilled trades problems effectively.
38:13 Improving workflows, data processing, and customer satisfaction.
42:55 Framework for job site tools and AI.
43:48 Focus on simple solutions for everyday tech.

Resources:

  • Visit XOi’s website at https://www.xoi.io
  • Get social with XOi on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/xoi-technologies
  • Stay connected with Aaron at asalow@xoi.io; esnow@xoi.io
  • Read our blog on this podcast here: 


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Aaron, welcome back to the Site Shed podcast. Thanks for having me back, Matt. We're just talking offline. You were on the show in June of 2020. Doesn't feel like that long ago. 4 years. It's gone by very quickly. That's crazy. Yeah. Very Almost almost to the to the week. Yeah. Wow. We're we're we're on the verge of another drama free presidential election guarantee. Oh, yeah. Sure. No doubt. Mate. So you're join you're joining in today, from Tennessee? Nashville, Tennessee. That's it. Fantastic. And, for you listeners and viewers out there, that aren't familiar or forgotten on the previous episodes I did with Aaron, we're talking about, the the series was titled creating the ultimate communication framework in your trade business, and we spoke about the impact of technology in modern business. We spoke about, technicians, three lines of defense, workflows, knowledge base, and live calls, and we also talked about live streaming company processes. So that was episodes let me 249, 250, 251, and if my sheet here is right, Aaron, when this one goes live, it's gonna be episode 411. So, yeah, hang on. 112. So, yeah, it's a it's a while ago. Yeah. For sure. I know what you've been doing the last 4 years. Been a little busy. Yeah. That's it. Just like you having babies and podcasting. I know. I know. Having babies and podcasting, I love it. I love it. So, man, we Yeah. I know. It's been it's been busy. It's been busy. We've been, continuing to focus on technicians, continue to focus on mechanical electrical plumbing, and, yeah, had a couple of children, you know, all the things that happen in in the normal 4 years of life. And it's been the advent of AI. Got the next 4. Yeah. No. I think we're done. Yeah. I'm too old. I'm already gonna be the oldest guy at high school graduation. So Right. You know? Yeah. I feel like this. Glad you bought your grandpa. Granddad. Yeah. Yeah. Your granddad's got some sweet tats. Yeah. Right. So what's, do you wanna give the the viewers a bit of insight as to XOI and just tell them about what you guys do? Yeah. Yeah. So probably did this before, but I'll do a quick version of it. I think, you know, XOI has been focused on the job site. So every we call it kind of a curb to curb space. We're not a field service management solution. We're not trying to be we integrate with a lot of them. But we care very much about when the technician leaves their van to the time they come back. And if you think about that space, it's kind of the heartbeat of the field service industry. It's where all the magic happens for the sale, the install, the service. And, we know very little overall about what the technician's capable of, what the asset is capable of. It's probably one of the biggest things that we've evolved on the last few years, and the connection between the 2. And so no matter what industry you may serve, there's a there's a box and there's a human, and there's a problem to solve. And x o I thinks about that problem every single day. So that's us in a nutshell. Cool. And today, we're gonna talk a little bit about, well, how to overcome labor shortages. Skilled employee investment with skilled employee investment. Yeah. And I tell you what, it's interesting. Just recently, there was an article that came out, I think, in The Post or something, your Post, talking about Gen z and how much more they're getting into the skilled trades and how how much college admissions have have come down. I think I saw something about that. It was like, like, some kid or some guy was saying, I'll tell you what the the next tray the cry, craze is gonna be. It's gonna be like blue collar work or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll shout out my friend, Josh Zolin, who wrote a book called Blue is the New White. And, you know, it's kind of, interesting. I think the book is probably 4 or 5 years old at this point, but really calling that out. And that transition's happening, and it's cool to see. People are realizing. It's funny even when I was going through, like, the system, you know, 1000 years ago, there was the trades was kind of seen as a bit of a well, you'll do a trade if you're not academic or if you can't get into university or whatever. And it was always a bit of a fall back. And I remember even going through that and I'm thinking these guys are like so many of our friends doing these like marketing degrees or whatever. I I ironically, I now run a marketing agency, and I've never once asked a single person that's come to work for me if I have a degree. Like I'm just not interested, like, you know what I mean? And I feel like they just it's pretty common in that era for people to be spending all this time investing into getting a degree on something that won't actually get them a job. I think it's the one of the positive things of many, of course, lots of negative too, but of the Internet and public sharing of information. Mhmm. I think enough people realize how much investment that is and what it leads to for a lot of folks in next to meaningless degrees in a lot of cases. And that's become well known. It's a great book that I read called the real MBA. And it's basically talking about a guy who instead of he went and did an MBA, and then he, figured out that he pretty much could have got, and for those of you guys that don't know, like a master of business, bachelor of business or whatever it's called, it's about a $100,000 program that you go through. And this guy reckons he could have, he got more out of reading like 7 or 8 books, specific books, and then having the actual experience of starting the business and running it and actually living in it. It's, it's a funny thing because I remember having these conversations with, like, friends and colleagues of mine that have that have done an MBA, and we're talking about different things in the business. And I'm like, alright, that's what you call that. Yeah. We've this is how business we do with that. Like, it's it's that experience of going through it, which really gives you the, I think, the the runs on the board, not so much the bit of IPO. Yeah. Agree. But that's it. There are some companies out there, like in the corporate saying, I suppose, that would hire based on the fact that someone does have an NBA tick next to their name, maybe. I don't know, but certainly not in the trades. And yeah. Anyway Very rarely do I see a leader in the trades, a CEO, a president, VP at that level. They didn't come from that bottom. And I think that's one of the most endearing things about our market and our industry. You very rarely see I've seen it in one situation, and I'm not sure how long this guy will last. The old, Ivy League NBA getting parachuted into the CEO role. Oh, wow. Maybe with a lot of this PE consolidation that's happening, perhaps they're speaking the language those guys wanna hear, and and it'll work for them. But I think operating truly a business, very rarely do you see someone get parachuted in in that corporate y type way. It came from the bottom then. Yeah. I mean, I've it's never worked in in my business either. Like, I think the the ideal progression to somebody in that leadership position is someone that's been through different departments. They understand the flow of the business. It's very hard to, like, drop someone into that. I mean, I know the big corporates do it. But then you look at those big corporate CEOs and all those guys, how do I bounce from one industry to the next and, you know, achieve success in that? And it's, I think essentially comes down to the fact that the I border, they have like a very good, concept of people skills, they might not understand the product as well as the, like, perhaps the majority of people that work in that company, but they certainly have a good way of building team and building culture and, you know, bringing people together that are that are smarter and more knowledgeable than them. Yeah. Agreed. I think those those kind of skills are transitive whereas, you know, depending on the size of your business and probably the the folks listening to this would go, who? Why? Right? Would I build this? Unless they're kind of part of a PE conglomerate that only cares about the numbers. Right? And I think those have their own cultural offshoots that aren't great. So we're talking about skilled employee investment. I mean, I suppose, naturally, we gravitate towards financial investment, but I'm guessing this conversation is gonna steer a lot more to time and energy investment as part of that Yeah. Paradigm. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I think there we have seen more than anything across our customer base folks investing, into building their own universities, interestingly, investing more into kinda EQ side. You hear this a lot, like, hiring for attitude, not aptitude. You you see that happening in more intentional ways where, you know, some guys listening to this, guys and gals coming from the same background I did because when I first heard it, I rolled my eyes too. Or it's like, oh, we're gonna do trust falls. We're gonna start doing, you know, psychoanalysis on technicians. Right? But getting a sense of what someone cares about, what kind of, you know, what drives them and how they're motivated, is really helpful in managing them and understanding what kind of contributor they're gonna be. So I'm seeing an interesting number of companies, kind of small, medium, and large, investing into understanding the the soft skills first and saying the technical piece we can figure out, you know, and so that's coming more and more for sure. Yeah. I guess there's, like, pros and cons to that. I mean, especially when you've I I go over here certainly in in Australia where you've got you can't go hire a plumber who hasn't doesn't have that certification, for example, like, you've gotta have that call qualification. It'd be like you wouldn't go hire someone who's a doctor just based on the fact they've got a good attitude. Right? They've got it. So there's there's there's a certain, level of criteria which needs to become relevant at some point in the conversation. However, one of the big things, and this kind of plays in, I think, to part of the conversation when we're is is the development of, existing team members through our system and, you know, whether that's them serving apprenticeships or whatever it might be. You know, that's a really powerful way that you can take someone on in the beginning with a good attitude and then train them with through the process to earn the skills or the qualifications they need in order to do the thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the combination of being able to give them resources to do that and showing them the path, I think that's the other thing we're seeing quite a bit as well is defining and documenting the path out of the gate. Yeah. So they understand how are they how are they structured technician 1, 2, 3, or whatever the case may be, journeyman level. It gives them a clear path to drive through that. And then empowering them with, you know, tools that kind of symbolically, at least, or at least closely resemble the kind of tools they use from a technology perspective as a 21 year old, 20 year old. You know? And so I think that's the common that's the common clash between technology businesses and users is trying to understand that line of, oh, I built it because it's cool, but I didn't think about the user and what they they really need or they need to see in the field and trying to find that balance of effective against, you know, we just built it because we can. Yeah. And, so I think it runs all the way through. Adoption's always the biggest thing with tech. Like, we've you know, we we we have a, like, a lead management system that we deploy for all of our clients and, you know, that adoption into that tool and those processes is really important because if I'd otherwise, it just sits there and then I use it, you know, and then that has a ripple effect right down to every level of the business in in essence. Yeah. And, yeah, you're right. You're gonna make it at at the risk of not putting these team members into technology paralysis. You you do need to find technology that does simplify and does make the job easier, not harder. You know, we obviously, we there was so many, like, clients all the time who were just using, 15 different tools to try and achieve the like the one thing, you know, and it's all this double entry and it's it's just insane, really. The average tech on a job site, we just did a study on this. Fascinating. Probably won't surprise you at all. The average technician on a job site uses 9 apps Mhmm. To do their job. 9. Wow. And they call on average when they have a problem 4 to 5 other technicians before they call a supervisor, technical support line, etcetera. So the time spent on that, most people, especially executives or even operations people don't understand. They're like, well, yeah, no, we use, to your point, a lot of guys are, well, yeah, we just use this and this, these two things. And then you talk to a technician, go through a day, and you go, oh, you're in 9 different applications. You're doing this here and this here and this thing has special thing, and the customer needs this, so you're doing that. So I think to your point, it's kinda like what's happening in streaming services. Right? Did you feel good? I don't know if you did this, but I did. I got rid of cable, and I was like, that's a big expense. And then I'm looking at my bill, and I've got 8.99 for Disney. I got kids. So it's like all the things are 9.99 a piece and go, wait. This all adds up to, like, $400 a month. What happened? Right? And and it's kinda the same same process. So you kind of go through this thing where you go, wait. There has to be a rebundling, right, in some cases of these experiences in a way that's meaningful because it's become ridiculous. Yeah. I'm literally going through that now. I said to my ops manager, I said, I'm gonna cancel this credit card and just because like like, I don't even know what's on it anymore. Like, every month is like $100 here, $100 there, and all of a sudden it's what the heck is going on? What are these tools? Have we been using them? You know? Right. Right. Yep. I was always. Yeah. The, I suppose that, that whole conversation around, technology and, finding the right tools, the right products, the right suite of tools often. This is the other thing, like, there's very rarely one tool that will do it all. And I think the biggest the biggest thing that we see falling over is people that, adopt technologies that don't integrate. Mhmm. That don't have API. And you and you you can't and it just leads to this super frustrating conversation inevitably where you're like, we you're gonna have to double into this or will you change tools. Yeah. I think there are so many businesses out there that have served these industries for decades and it's an alarming amount of time. You're like, they they built a software to do this in 87. Really? They did in a lot of cases and people are still on them in 2,020 24 because it's so hard for contractors once they're ingrained to move off any type of platform. These older companies with kinda antiquated tools have gotten locked in for much longer than they would in traditionally in different environment. Mhmm. And I'm sure people listening to this have experienced that or are experiencing that, where they're looking at their platform they use, maybe their system of record going, there is, like, 42 things I could change about this tomorrow, but if I make a chance, see all the shiny objects out there. Yeah. I got it. It's a 3 year project, and I got all my data in here, and, just stick with it. Yeah. It's a struggle. It's kind of the journey. My OB went on down. Like, that was always desktop software because cloud didn't exist. And then, you know, they've that they had to make the desktop software cloud based, you know, and that it was, it was a nightmare for a long time. Yeah. Pretty well pretty well. And it was it had these 2 versions running and no one knew what was going on. And, you know, whereas you look at, you know, Xero and, like, QuickBooks and those kind of things where they sort of hit started with cloud was especially Xero anyway. Like, it started on cloud's account bookkeeping software. It just it was there it's never been anything. A lot faster. Yeah. But but I'm sorry. The downside of that is that tool quite literally has not changed since I signed up 12, 13 years ago. What? Right. Right. They're not very on the cutting edge of innovation over there, I don't think, which is I think believe and I was actually talking to my, Craig, who's my profit first consultant slash sort of fractional c a CFO. And he was saying there's this new tools that are coming out, which are gonna absolutely smoke it. Like, they've they've got all the AI integrations, like, in, integrated, automated, reconciliation tools and all this kind of stuff, which you think, why wouldn't, like, after 12 years? Come on. Like There are some industries that AI will completely change overnight. You know? And I think that legal is another one. I don't know how much you like paying somebody a ridiculous amount of hour for anything legal you've ever done, but Yeah. A lot of that stuff is boilerplate, man. And, you know, they're gonna say, hey. Give me 6 inputs. Mhmm. I got your state's information or your country's inform boom. Yeah. You're done. Exactly. That stuff is gonna be, yeah, streamlined dramatically. Yeah. I think as far as technicians go, you know, one thing that we're driving our our partners towards is an app a solution to run the business, a solution to run the field. They deserve their own focus, You know? And so when we when XOI as a company, we look at that 9 apps. Yeah. That should be 1 app, one experience. That doesn't equal that we build everything for everyone, but building a platform that allows anything to be connected in seamlessly and truly create a a seamless experience. That's where some of that rebundling of solutions, those episodic point solutions that you mentioned, duping and, you know, restating information should not be happening. Yeah. And it's kinda the world that we need to work towards, whether it's us or anyone else. I I think on the there are a lot of tools out there now that are, like back, you know, even 5, 10 years ago, it was kind of the mindset of, well, just get the tool that does the specific thing, right? Because very, very rarely do you find one that's gonna do everything well, and that's still kind of the case. But I think now there are a lot more, tools that are integrating different different things within the within their offering and they're doing it quite well. Mhmm. Yep. And, and even, like, just simplifying, just being able to remove, you know, just a handful of things, take them off the plate, replace them within the one tool. So that's all integrated and it's all in the same place. It's, you know, that it is coming. It's not like it's never gonna be a perfect science, but it's it's it's it's there. You know, there's always gonna be something, especially in, like, field management, job management tools. Like, there's always some sort of workflow you wish you could have, and it's not gonna be in there. You know? Like, it's never gonna change. Yeah. Yeah. I think what will help what will help drive people towards a singular solution is when the data that they're collecting in the field Yep. Is consistently energizing and enhancing the experience of the of the user in a meaningful way. So it's not just recording it and keeping it there for you to look at, but when you when you have a platform that understands, we're doing a ton around asset data, for example, very misunderstood, very large. People, even OEMs, OEMs, distributors, contractors, all the way down to the technician and the homeowner or the building owner in commercial setting, they have very little knowledge of their asset, how it performs, how it should perform, what's happened to it over time. It's had multiple different companies with multiple different technicians using multiple different software. Mhmm. Right? Adding up a multitude of different changes over time and having consistency on how things operate. We've been doing a ton of work on that, and it's fascinating how little the industry knows, and it's the core. Without the box, it's an HVC, especially, right, and a lot of other industries where they depend on a piece of equipment, you don't have a lot. And without the box, there's no work to be done. Yeah. We know so little about it. We don't know. Hey. Based on this environmental condition, based on the age of it, based on how it's been worked on, this is how it should function. This is how it should perform. Or even better, Sally has 6 years of experience, certifications that you talked about. Her experience working with this box, with these attributes, and this performance criteria should be different than Matt who has 3 years, and Aaron, who's a brand new apprentice. Right? And so we're going to meld that experience based on that user and based on that asset and connect those 2 so they can have the best experience possible for the customer. Mhmm. That's a world in which pulling solutions together in no matter what, let's say it was a connection to a measuring app. You know? They use a big company that does Bluetooth measuring tools in this case or whatever. Whoever can pull that information together first to make that experience optimized, then it becomes this is the central solution, And everything else plugs in that helps support this central thesis that the connection between the human and the equipment is what we wanna make seamless. Do you see that being some sort of, artificial intelligence? I think that AI agents can accelerate that. I think people talk about AI, like, you buy it off the shelf at the supermarket. It's like, we we have AI. They don't even know what that means, You know? I think the application of it, is a much different story, especially for guys and gals that didn't, you know, wanna take this job because they want they love to work with technology. It was because they wanted to work with their hands, do something meaningful they could be proud of, and and every day feeling proud of the work they did for for a customer. AI should be a silent or a quiet whisper in my mind. It should be on your shoulder available to you in the workflow, listening, learning, and offering suggestions and support. Not another thing, the 10th app on a job site that you go to to ask questions. And, especially if you want it being used to your point about adoption across the age spectrum. Although the age of the technician is coming down, I heard a CEO of a company, at a trade show recently, and someone had asked me from the audience, what about the older technicians, you know, leveraging this AI solution? How would what would you recommend to them? And his response was, I we have told our customers to tell their their older techs, you should use the AI to teach it so that we as a company can get better. I almost fell out of my seat because I thought about the 55 year old guys I've talked to my entire life, and me looking them in the face and say, use this thing you don't need so you can teach it for other people. And the the foray of 4 letter words that I would get back to me if I were to say something like that to them. So, like, you want me to use your technology to make it smarter? I I got a day job. Right? I'm not doing that because we live in a world where tribal, tacit knowledge is the skill set. Right? It's hands on, slocked in guys' heads, and it requires that type of training ultimately to get it to a place where it can have the nuance of what we do every day. So it's it's it's interesting, and I think those companies will learn the tough lesson that you have to spend a lot of deep time with your users and your technicians to really understand what they need. Mhmm. I think so. That's gonna work. I think the potentially the, like, that centralized data conversation, like, AI could play heavily into that in pulling different sources of data from different places eventually. Oh, and he's doing that right now, of course. But like you say, it is it's as good as the the information that you put into it. I think that's where most people fall over with it, you know, like, they're not they're not prompting quickly, and they're not, like, giving it the time that it deserves. I mean, look. And and it's also very early days, you know. Like, it's scary, actually, kinda how far it's coming. Have you seen the new the new addition to the chat gbt with the voice? To video or the voice? Oh, the stuff that was released today? The voice, like, last night? It's like a couple of days ago. Yeah. It's hilarious. Then there's all these YouTube videos of, like, Miley Cyrus singing in, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger voices and stuff. It's the best. It's so funny, but it's kinda creepy because it's like dead set sounds. The thing that was so shocking to me, and I I I encourage anyone who hasn't go check out SoRA, which is OpenAI's video platform. I'm sure you've seen these as well. To give it's part of a presentation I give on AI and have been around the country this this year, but I I showed the Will Smith eating spaghetti a year ago. You've seen that video? Yeah. And then they've got a Will Smith eating spaghetti right now, which is what world's different, but Sora is creating text to video right now that's insane. And so the joke I make to to technicians is that, hey. Listen. Doesn't matter who you're voting for this year. You could have Joe Biden show you how to replace a compressor or Donald Trump. It's completely up to you. And, of course, they start imagining different people that I wouldn't mention on your podcast that they would love to have them show how to replace a compressor. You can imagine Yeah. Where that was good that's gonna go. Like, I 9 in 95 Pamela Anderson. So yeah. Right. Exactly. All of a sudden, our technicians training content view edge view viewing has gone way up. What's up with that? Yeah. Man, these guys are they're just loving to learn. They're really enjoying these HVAC videos. I mean, dude, we're not far from that reality where you will be able to prompt a custom piece of training content with literally, we'll keep it clean, the movie star of your choice going No. You can do it right now. We've I've I've actually got the tech for it. We're we're doing it for clients actually for, like, some video client videos and things like that for marketing ads and, yeah, it's it's coming in. Yeah. It's crazy, actually. It's kinda crazy. Wonder what what kind of yeah. You wonder what kind of naming image likeness type rights, you know, people open OpenAI with the with the voice with the voice model. They basically because they didn't launch it, but they've essentially launched a warning. But they were like, this is what the tool is, and this is what it will be able to do. Hello, banks. Anyone that's like giving people access to bank accounts based on voice recognition, essentially, because it's just it's done. Yeah. And I mean and how long before facial recognition is gonna be done as well? Like like, that's done through cameras and stuff. Right? Digital. So digital. And now you got these now you got these avatars. Like, we I'm working along for myself right now, creating these avatars, like, AI avatars but essentially it's just you. And if, if you're someone that's got a lot of content out there. So like if you've got a podcast or if you've got a YouTube channel or whatever it might be, and it's got all these points to learn from, and then all of a sudden, it just can recreate you. So I can't even know it's real. Am I talking to AI right now? Be honest. Yeah. I'll put that on in a second. Yeah. Pretty soon. You you'll be able to do 4 12 to a 1,012, and you'll just I know. It'll just be your, you know, persona. I mean, it raises a lot of a lot of, I suppose, questions and red flags, but it also opens a lot of opportunity. And I think, I think those you can't turn away from it, essentially. Like, you kind of it's here in bright I mean, it's like trying to say, no. We're not gonna use the Internet. Agree. I agree. I think there's there's smart methodical ways to to leverage it and continue to leverage it in ways that build trust. At the end of the day, you're building trust. With the managers. Like it. Yeah. But, like Yeah. It is what it is. You know? If I mean, truthfully, if you could switch it off, a lot of people probably would. I think the the trajectory it's on, you know, is it so uncertain. And there's so many weird things out there. There's people using it for the wrong reasons. You know, there's some tech there's some tool out there which, like, enables, like, kids that have broken up with their girlfriends or whatever to create, like, an AI version of that girlfriend to carry on the relationship or boyfriend. Like, it's just insane. Like, why would you wanna do that? Like, how is that serving in any way any good, you know? My sense is that it might my hope, I should say, is that it actually increases the value of human interaction, I hope. Yeah. Where people start to realize seeing somebody face to face, shaking their hand, sharing a beer, coffee, whatever, has more value than ever because we can't trust anything else that's happening to your point. Mhmm. Right? Where I hope human interaction comes at a at a good premium, or we all end up in ready player 1, and that's what really happens. But, you know, either way. Sky, baby. I I I tend to think that where a lot of the evolution in the tech space would it would be quite useful would be tied into especially from, like, coming from a plumbing background originally, a lot of, you know, doing construction based work, it would have been very useful back then to be able to be able to see as an augmentation stack work or, you know, pipe pipe work or how that was supposed to look from the engineers perspective. And then, you know, being able to pull up plans or drawings or specific rooms, you know, right there and then, like, that kind of stuff would be, you know, very useful. And I think that technology is is evolving, but at the moment, it's just so insanely expensive to design it. Like, it's not really practical. You know? So, like, I'm gonna say something in a trade show a long time ago where it was like, here's an augmentation of, you know, like, air conditioning ducting. You put the goggles on and you see it, and I'm like, okay. That's cool. But then they're like, yeah. By the way, it only cost $1,000,000 to do, like, you know, 10 meters. And I'm like, yeah. Great. So, like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On a scale. I think Well, and you're gonna have vertical specific things that get developed, and then when does that get taken over by general kind of artificial intelligence where we all have an air piece in and we're just talking to our assistant, our our AI assistant that knows anything. They can teach you how to fix any kind of timing issue. They can schedule your life. They can set up a date for you and your wife later. Like, they're just and those merge into a single solution. Well, I'm missing and this is at the point where but perhaps, you know, Joe Rogan talks about this on the farm in his podcast. We're like, it's like, we're heading down that path to where we we become integrated. Mhmm. And it's like, okay. Well, instead of having these phones and these headphones and stuff in, why don't we put a chip in our head? And then all of a sudden, like, we're now with this, like, hybrid being. Right? And, I mean, we're kind of hybrid anyway. We except we just walk around with these things in our hand like zombies, you know, and, like, walking into the, you know, lamppost and stuff on the street. We're too focused on our phones. We're kind of there, except it's just a bit clunky at the moment. Yeah. It's just one of the few things that you would leave your house, drive for 20 minutes, and you'd forget it, and you drive back and go get it. Right. Yeah. Like, your wallet, your phone. I mean, think about what happened. Wallet these days. Right? Like, you don't do that anymore. Wallet too. Right? So you wouldn't kinda creepy. How many things would that be true for? How many things would you do be like, I'll get it when I get back? Yeah. I know. Not many. No. Exactly right. And I'm I'm excited this weekend. I'm I've got, like, a tech, a tech detox weekend that we go to this place totally off grid. So second time I've done it, actually, but it'll be good because there's no reception out there and we're right in the right in the bush and What do you notice? 1st couple of days are tough? Do you notice the anxiety of, like, wanting it? Oh, I I don't. Come by or you're gone? No. No? Not even really. No. I'm just like, just give me a book and cup of tea, and I'm stoked. Good, man. Yeah. I talked to some buddies that have done that in the past. So you said the first couple days, they're a little antsy because they're used to always email Oh, no doubt. No doubt. After that, it's like peace. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you have these, I I I wake up with, like, I don't know what you call it anxiety, but I'm like, oh, I wonder what's wonder what Slack messages I've got today. I wonder what emails are sitting there. You know? Like, it's all these all these anxieties which are created from tools that are meant to essentially streamline and reduce anxiety. Yeah. I mean, it's even social media, like, making people antisocial. It's a bit of a paradox. It's true. It's true. Yep. I agree. So the, I suppose getting getting back to topic a little bit of the, in the space of technicians today, Skilled skilled labor. I mean, I don't know if it's something that's ever gonna go away. Really? I I just I just can't see it ever going away. It hasn't but I I can't think of a time with her out my career in the trades where it hasn't been a conversation around finding and and, like, getting the right shortage of people. We can't find the right people like that kind of thing. I just I don't I don't know if it if it's ever gonna disappear, you know? So Yep. I think I think it's interesting. You know, it is we talked about AI and the promise of it. We're probably heading towards a trough disillusionment if anyone's familiar with the Gartner hype cycle. Right? Conflated expectations. We're all like, it's gonna do everything, and then there's this trough of disillusionment, and then you kinda go, okay. This is gonna normalize and some people can use. I think you've seen every technological advance go through that kind of hype cycle, and I think we're headed that way with AI. That being said, I mean, the ability for it to break open the skilled trades problem in a in a meaningful way, I think you're right. To some extent, people are gonna have a tough time. Also, people use it as an excuse a lot. It's an easy button. Not if I just have more people, I could do this. If I have more people, I could do that. If you think about the implications of, you know, in our country, you have a growing Latino population that doesn't speak English very well and then customers that want more and more there to be, you know, obviously, English communicated to them in terms of how their service was done, AI can solve a lot of these problems in a consistent way. I think there's I think there is, you know, the connection between human and machine. I think it takes a big down of it, and I think the cultural shift that we were talking about earlier. I mean, people realize that the college is expensive, doesn't lead to much, and they're watching their friends that are plumbers do really well. And so I think the stigma around it is changing as well. I think there'll always be some level of trades, but I do think this technological revolution, does leave an opportunity to say we can support somebody in ways we never have before, do the job that needs to get done. I mean, essentially, there's there's still gonna need to be people that are do installing the things or doing the thing. Right? We got all the technology and all the AI and all the tools around there that can support the general business or the, you know, the way that that thing is to be done. But essentially, someone still needs to swing that hammer. And I mean, I I think we're a long way off having droids that are out there doing building homes and stuff like that for us. You know? I mean, yeah, people go, oh, there's 3 d printed homes. I'm like, have you seen them? So But I but I think but you could take a lower skilled guy and make him more effective, faster, right, with this type of stuff. I think for safety, you know, there's a big reason, you know, using computer vision for safety and being able to say, hey, don't touch that, do this, do that. I think I think getting bringing in a lower or I guess, I should say lower skill, it's a high skilled job, but taking bringing that connection point of travel, test, and knowledge to any user, I think does accelerate that faster than it has in the past. So yeah. I mean, I think, like, in in the interest of how to overcome labor shortages with skilled employee employee investment, I think a lot of that investment in the in the individual should be focused on, things that are gonna streamline operations, support them, maybe like you were saying, language barriers. Like, how do we invest into into into the things that are really gonna move the needle Yeah. Across the board? Because it it's yeah. I don't know. I I feel I just feel like the, I think we like as humans, we tend to look for shortcuts. And as much as I also see AI sort of becoming one of those short facts, cut facts, shortcuts. Short packs. Cut shorts. I feel like we still need to have a realistic, approach to how we, deploy train and hold accountable, you know, to those the task at hand and how we develop the ecosystem around that to support the individual, the team members that are involved in the doing of the thing. And that really, I think, is the investment. And of course, it does have a financial burden tied to it, but in the interest of scale, I I see that really being areas of opportunity looking forward. I'll give you an example of the first thing, and my product team deserves a lot of credit, for really staying true to our our core values, which is, you know, we put ourselves in our technicians work boots as core value number 1. And the first thing you released in AI last year was AI generated summaries. I already realized AI generated summaries, work summaries. Yeah. So guys are doing guys are doing workflows, very little text input already, picture of a data play, we, you know, OCR everything off of it, give them information about the job, the asset. Guys are putting in 3 or 4 characters and we're able to write them a summary to their tone, right, to the business, how they wanna talk and communicate with the right bumpers on it. And the 10 or 15 minutes that guys are spending on-site or not, even worse, I came and fixed it. Here's a bill for $10. Not only was it creating less efficient technicians, but also a lot of time in the office, we were surprised. In fact, a couple of our customers were taking technician information from a work order. They were putting it in chat GPT, processing a summary, copy pasting it back into their field service management solution until they realize they're using the free version that doesn't have a lot of data privacy controls around it, and we're told not to. Companies that were doing a $100,000,000 in sales. Big businesses had women in the office doing this for them on a daily basis. Mhmm. And so we chose to do that because it was busy work that was taking away from what the technicians wanted to do anyway. There's not many techs, and there's a few, but not many that love to write a novel at the end of the service call. And so using AI for that type of purpose for us was a first step, and you talk about skilled trades. If I can get more meaningful work out of my technician base by taking crap off their plate they don't wanna do anyway Mhmm. That's a win for AI. So we're constantly looking for those things. They're like, what's the busy work, the crap work, the stuff they don't wanna do? How do we automate that, complete that for them, and and get them into the next thing? Yeah. And so that's an example of, I think, what you're alluding to, which is real kinda impactful takeaway the busy work type application versus maybe a chatbot that you ask questions to and hope it doesn't hallucinate. Yeah. Exact yeah. Exactly. I guess You know? You just have to be conscious of making the the real skill that we want that technician to deliver on. We don't wanna make that redundant. I mean Right. Well, I mean, maybe we do, but we wanna make sure that it's done to the same standard, you know, like it. That's that's the I think and and that's something I don't think I can really replace. Like, it's not gonna be able to replace that human aspect of us at a certain point, you know? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. What what's your what's your take on the whole, training ecosystem for businesses today in the trades in terms of cadence and structure and that kind of thing? Yeah. I think it's I think training, consistent training, continuing education is similar to safety. In that, companies talk about it, they put it on their website, they act like it's really important to them, but the reality of execution of it's pretty low. Mhmm. And it's something that's it's nice to put, on the marketing materials, but the reality of executing, it's timely and expensive. I think best in class companies make it a priority. They do it in a way that's competitive and gamified so that it's fun and that there's impact for for technicians, folks that we work with because our content's largely collecting content in the field. There's been numerous video submissions a video submission contest for training purposes, best fix, best crazy moment. We actually do this thing called the GOAT Awards, greatest of all technicians. We just had our winners come out. So folks from all over North America, Europe submit craziest content. And, you know, best fix, craziest customer situation, deadest animal. It's stuff you see in the field is insane. Right? So so I think gamifying it, making it fun like that. We see folks that do the same thing with training, whether it's continuing education, whatever they're learning on moment, are the most successful with it versus kind of drawing everyone in for a weekly, monthly, quarterly kinda everyone hates this and zones out for 2 hours. Mhmm. So those are real learning moments anyway. To your point earlier about getting apprentices in the field, real work, your point about MBAs, you know, it's like the value of sitting in a class for 2 years versus actually running a freaking business. Mhmm. It's 2 completely different things. And so trying to I think best in class companies are starting to angle towards what does in the field validation training opportunities to to take that information and train the broader group. What does that look like? Mhmm. Yep. Yep. Interesting. Well, Mike, this has been a good chat. Is there anything else you wanna cover off on? I think, generally speaking, if you're thinking about job site tools, there's a simple framework. This is for anything you're looking at, and, hopefully, this is helpful. But we think about and this helps with AI, same thing. Engagement, Like, how am I engaging guys in meaningful ways that's helping them? That creates data. As we know, like you said earlier, the underbelly of any AI or any technology or the skilled trades gap or any training is good data. That creates insights, if you know how to draw those insights out, and then how do you reengage that group with those insights. And if you look across the spectrum at all these new startups and AI companies and everyone promising the world, when you dig in, they say, well, I need your data and I need distribution. I need all your data to teach the thing, and I need a way to actually deliver it to you that you'll use. And so when you focus on those two ends, the middle can happen, and there's lots of solution to kinda analyze and process and chop up. Keep it simple. Focus on giving your guys and gals something that they can use every day and then figure use that same platform to reengage them with what those systems, align with. A lot of companies are out there promising a lot of things with a lot of point solutions and episodic solutions. If people keep that 4 step framework in mind, they'll do really well with tech. That would be my recommendation. Yeah. I love it. Alright. Cool. Well, Aaron, where can the, listeners get hold of you if they want more information? X0i.i0. X0i.i0. Awesome. And I've got your email and stuff here as well, so I'll stick it all the show notes. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, mate. It's a very interesting conversation. I I I think this is, and who knows in 4 years time for episode a 1000 when we have this conversation again, like, who who knows what has changed between now and then? Hopefully, no more kids. I don't think it can do any more kids, man. Yeah. We'll see what the good lord has in store for me, though. Yeah. I've taken care of that one anyway. Sounds like yours is more guaranteed than mine. There'll be there'll be questions if there's more. That's for sure. Fair enough. Alright, man. Well, look, it's been a great chat. Hopefully, that was, useful to you, missus and viewers out there. If you have any questions or feedback or comments, whatever, let us know where have you seen this come through. And, Aaron, thanks again for your time, buddy. Thanks for having me, Matt. Appreciate you. And that is a wrap.

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