Full Transcript
Drew Slocum: (00:09):
This is episode 15 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Dave Brown. Dave is the founder and president of Novo Solutions. Novo Solutions is a mobile field service management solution. Essentially, what that is, is a, he's a consultant, uh, for different types of businesses, mainly in field service, uh, fire protection, pest control, H V A C, uh, wide variety of, of different, uh, field service services out there. He provides the, the mobile consulting piece. You know, when you have a lot of technicians or inspectors in the field, you wanna be able, you wanna make sure you're managing them correctly, whether it's with the devices themselves, the data plans out there you have with different carriers, uh, gps, fleet management, um, and kind of fun stuff that goes, goes into the actual, uh, vehicles themselves. So, uh, Dave has provided a lot of value to us here and Inspect Point, and, uh, a bunch of other companies as well.
(01:11)
And wanted to give him a couple minutes just to share his knowledge, uh, on the mobile, on the mobile side of fire protection, but also just field management in general. So, uh, it's a longer podcast. So, uh, hope you enjoy. And just a quick update on what Inspect Point has coming down the road in, in early 2020. Uh, we have a lot of initiatives that we are working on. Uh, a couple of 'em I can announce right here. Um, one, one being, uh, the large service module release that we have coming in early, uh, quarter 1, 20 20 probably should be out in January sometime. You know, we have a great inspection platform. We have a great proposal platform, which kind of integrates all the different fire protection codes and everything. But the last piece of that is, uh, dispatching out service technicians within your company to, to make sure those deficiencies are resolved.
(02:14)
So, uh, kind of the full flow from inspection to quoting your customers over to getting those fixes, uh, completed in the field through the service module. So, lot more to come. Please stay tuned to the, any social media channel for Inspect point, uh, inspect point.com, uh, my LinkedIn, as well as some of our Facebook and Instagram. So, another large initiative for us in 2020 is some Internet of things, TE technology coming out, IOT technology coming out. Um, currently we've been in, in testing with some different devices that are gonna attach themselves to the sprinkler system to give back data and analytics for different types of systems. So, uh, can't talk too much about it yet because it hasn't been launched. So that should be coming in, uh, quarter one. So stay tuned. Now on to the podcast with Dave Brown from Novo Solutions. We're live here with Dave Brown from Novo Solutions, . Uh, we, uh, we had to restart this thing cuz of, uh, uh, nice, uh, nice glitches in my recording equipment. So it's, uh, it's always fun to, always fun to deal with in a podcast world. So, um,
Dave Brown: (03:31):
No worries. Well, we're glad to do this again. So, we'll, uh, we'll start from beginning. Hello everybody.
Drew Slocum: (03:36):
Hello, everybody. Yeah, I mean, uh, we, hello everybody. We were, we were chatting, chatting earlier about just podcasting in general of, you know, it seems like that's the way things seem to be moving. You know, you don't have, uh, Sirius XM still hanging around, but, you know, this is, this is how people are getting a lot of information now, at least. Uh,
Dave Brown: (03:57):
Yeah, I, I think that it's how I get it, I, I literally, uh, as I was saying earlier, uh, you know, one of the things, uh, you know, before we started this, one of the things was that, uh, yeah, I, I would say, you know, 50%, maybe more of my time is consumed now is, is listen to podcasts, right? So, and I think the crazy thing about it is it gives you, it gives you access on your schedule to the people that you want to listen to, right? Right. So, as you consume that data, uh, it's just like reading a book, right? So in a lot of ways it's like reading a book except you could do it while driving, right? Um, and it, it gives you, you know, it gives you access to people that you never, in some of the greatest minds in the world right now are, you know, throwing out, you know, maybe they're not doing podcasts themselves where they're getting interviewed for it. Yes. Uh, I've been able to listen to some of my favorite authors that way and, uh, you know, which is amazing, you know, to hear, hear from their, you know, words, so to speak, and, and what they're doing. And, um, you know, some of my, some of the guys that have been influential in, in not only starting my organization, but others, uh, you know, they have their own podcast and it's, it's just great to hear the little tidbits of information and, and some of the knowledge that you can take away from it.
Drew Slocum: (05:02):
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I was, I listened to a lot of, you know, some golf podcasts and, uh, I listen to Joe Rogan and, uh, a few of the other,
Dave Brown: (05:12):
Uh, Joe Rogan, the king of podcasts. Right now he's
Drew Slocum: (05:16):
The king of podcasts, but he had, you know, he's had like, uh, political figures on, and it's kind of crazy, you know, in the, in the media these days, they just want sound bites, but on podcasting, right, it's total opposite. It's like, it's long form, you know, hour to three hours sometimes. And, you know, you get a lot of information out of that. And, you know, a lot of people are, whatever they're doing, whether they're commuting, uh, uh, on the subway or driving especially, you know, you can get a lot of, uh, just extra knowledge out there with podcasts these days. So
Dave Brown: (05:51):
Anyway, yeah, you can, and you know, the, the, to that point too, the other, the other quick part of why we're still on it is, uh, it's, it's usually not censored, right? So, and I don't mean that by profanity reasons, but I mean, just in general, they're not having to, uh, worry about the content that they're sharing as far as whether it's going to offend or otherwise. And one of the, the advantages of that is that you do get raw, clean data, right? You know, at least as far as that person's mind is concerned, uh, whether you believe with it or not is up to your own. But, you know, a lot of these guys are hamstrung by, uh, their sponsors or Yep. Otherwise, if they're not careful, right? They can't say that in, in standard, you know, media, right? Sure. So the podcast is open up the world, and if, you know, they, they, a lot of these guys have had this, this, uh, things say, Hey, look, if you don't like what I'm saying, don't, don't sponsor us.
(06:35)
We don't really care. Yeah. Um, and it's great, right? So you're not, you're not, uh, you're not dealing with this kind of double-edged sword. Sometimes we worry about where you're consuming content. You're worried about, okay, where's the money coming from and who's paying you to do this? Sure. So, for the, for the disclaimer for your guest out here, I'm not getting paid for this . So, uh, you know, any, any knowledge that we drop, I'm not, you know, the cell phone carriers that we rep for the GPS companies that we rep for, they're not paying me a damn dollar. So, well,
Drew Slocum: (07:01):
I'm not getting, I'm not getting paid either. Knowledge's paid.
Dave Brown: (07:07):
We hope, we hope through at the end of this podcast, drew, we hope at the end of this podcast that people, uh, can maybe find ways to save money and maybe, uh, you know, do some stuff that can help them get paid. So, uh, but yeah, this is, uh, this is great and I really appreciate you having me all, and I was really excited cuz we, we work with a lot of fire safety, uh, and inspection companies, uh, that you service, uh, and others for that matter. So we, we know, we really, we really like, uh, the opportunity to speak directly to some of our potential clients out there as well and or even for just clients in general that are already on, on our services that, uh, you know, some of the, if, if, if they're out there, they've probably heard me say a lot of this stuff before. So, uh, I really appreciate the time.
Drew Slocum: (07:44):
Yeah, no, no. Yeah, Dave, uh, Dave Brown from Novo Solutions, he's president, co-founder, and, uh, you know, I met Dave at a, um, a conference a few years back and, you know, I kind of hit it off from there. I didn't, you know, with our platform in Spec point, obviously we're on iPads, we are, we are moving to the iPhone here in, uh, early 2020. So that, we're really excited about that. Um,
Dave Brown: (08:10):
That's fantastic. Yeah. That's
Drew Slocum: (08:11):
Great. Yeah, it's been good. But, you know, Dave's provided a big value to a lot of my customers that I didn't even know was there. You know, obviously you have the cost of a software, you have the cost of, of devices, but you have the cost of devices, but you also have cellular plans and data plans. And that's, and you know, I know you guys provide more than that, but I, I didn't even know. Yeah, you also,
Dave Brown: (08:32):
The cost business cost of management, right? Yeah. You got cost of management of these guys, right? So these guys have to go in and do management of the, uh, services. So somebody's time is also, uh, tied up for it. So that's another big in, in that whole TCO discussion about total cost ownership and mobility. Uh, but yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn't, didn't wanna interrupt you. That was one of the big ones too, is management of the all the devices too. Once, once you get it all, once you pay for it all, who's gonna run it, right? Um, and that, that kinda becomes something to discuss too.
Drew Slocum: (08:59):
So why, why'd you start the business? Why, and what have you seen, you know, effective from, from your method of, uh, you know, consulting and for the, the mobile side?
Dave Brown: (09:13):
Am I allowed to say that I start the business? Cause my wife told me to? Does that work? ? No. Yeah,
Drew Slocum: (09:18):
So
Dave Brown: (09:21):
That's actually not too far from the truth. So, uh, I had done this for quite some time, uh, you know, for over well over 16 years. I had, uh, worked in the mobility space and, uh, doing everything from providing pagers to flip phones to the good old star tax back in the day, and the old Motorolas and the analog devices. So I, I've been doing this for a while. Um, and, uh, we, we started it because I, I had, I had become so ingrained inside of field service. In fact, my, I started, uh, working almost exclusively with pest control companies. I, I had, you know, the, uh, the dawn of the bedbugs coming back and the type of chemicals that they could use. All of a sudden they were having all this, these guys were treating people, you know, treating these, uh, beds everywhere and dealing with it.
(10:00)
So they, their, their field service cost, the cost to run these trucks and the cost to put the phones in the, the field were just enormous. And, uh, this was a while back. And, and so, uh, all that being said, what would happen is, is that these mom and pop shops, right, these guys that had 5, 10, 15 technicians total were ballooning into the 20 and 25 technicians just to kind of keep up with the demand. Um, now the trouble with that, of course, is that all of a sudden they've got a lot of moving parts, whether it's scanners or, you know, tablets or, you know, cell phones. And I just became, uh, it was rewarding. Uh, it was very rewarding for me to work inside of, uh, field service organizations where not only I got to work with maybe an owner operator, but also got to lower their expense and help them manage that process.
(10:45)
Um, and the trouble was, is in my former companies that I worked for, uh, is that I could not focus 100% of my effort on just field service, which is really where my passion was, um, with inside of the mobility space that is. And, um, so, uh, one afternoon, uh, after a few years of another organization I worked for, uh, we had a nice long talk and, um, we said, you know, let's, let's put it all on the line and let's go after where we're making the most impact or where I have found that I was making the most impact and where I was happiest, right? Cause I don't, I don't believe in getting up in the morning and being unhappy about what you do. Uh, and so we did, uh, it was one of the best decisions I've, I've made in my life, uh, besides, besides marrying her.
(11:28)
Uh, but one of the best decisions we've ever made in my life is to, to do something like this. And, um, and it's been amazing. We, we've, uh, as I I said earlier, kind of offline before we started, I feel sometimes like we have the Tiger Patel and we're, we're just trying to, you know, uh, do the best we can to, to keep up with the demand of some of the services that we offer. But that's, that's not why we're here today. I don't wanna, you know, brag about Novo and what we're doing as much as, uh, just offer some of the industry knowledge that we've had over, and that I've been able to gain, um, working with, uh, your customers, right? And, uh, so of course other customers as well that face the same challenges in, in the world of GPS and mobile device management and, uh, mobility in general, which isn't always the most exciting topic. But we have some pretty cool things to kind of go over, uh, today that, uh, that, that does make it exciting, right? So, we'll, we can kind of, you know, dip into that as we go. But, uh, that's why and how, uh, of where we are today in a very short, uh, synopsis of, of where we are.
Drew Slocum: (12:24):
Yeah, I mean, I know you mentioned that, you know, businesses are, you know, our big business expense is the, the mobility piece and business is now mobile. Absolutely. You know, um, you know, our, ours is kind of aligns right with that. It's, it's, it needs to be mobile and everything has to be connected now, you know, we don't, we don't always require a connection just cuz of the nature of our business. However, you need, you do need to upload information at some point. And having that instantly is, is huge. So having that data plan, you know, on your devices is, is key. And then obviously your cell phones, you want that constant connection. But, um, I know you were telling me before, you know, devices, you know, apple, Android, Google, that, you know, those devices keep, keep increasing what, what's happening with Sure. Data plans. I mean, there's only like two or three carriers, right? So three or four maybe. So,
Dave Brown: (13:18):
Well, there, they're actually, well, yeah, there's, there's actually a lot more than that when you start breaking it down via regional. But for the, for the keys and the people we're talking, and the people that we're talking to today, there's probably a 95% chance that they have either, uh, T-Mobile, sprint at t or Verizon. Um, so those, those are your top four before you get to some of your outliers, like the, the Telus and the US sailors of the world. Um, but all, all that, all that aside, uh, the, the biggest thing that we deal with, uh, uh, is, is like you said, the cost of ownership through the data plans and also the cost of, uh, the devices themselves, um, are are a big driving proponent, you know, or a big driving factor, so to speak of, of that. So, um, the data plans can be cost prohibitive for these guys.
(14:00)
Uh, it also, beyond that, it can, uh, really what we're finding is that the data plans we're, we're pretty good at getting you a low data plan. What we are still working with the carriers on and finding ways to do is acquiring the equipment at a less cost and, and, and how that's affecting the actual company itself. Um, because we, when we look at things like that, you, when you're bringing in tablets or you're bringing in cell phones, I guess for anything, you wanna kind of look at the total cost of ownership as I was, you know, kind of alluding to earlier, you've got your monthly plan that you pay the carrier to put service into the device. That's one part of it. You have the device itself and the cost of that device, whether you choose to do that, um, upfront or whether you choose to do that over a 24 month payment.
(14:39)
And then beyond that, the one thing that a lot of people don't look at is what is the management? How hard is it gonna be to manage these devices? How hard is it gonna be to, uh, go into these devices and, and deal with them on an ongoing basis? Cause once you put the devices into the field, right? So whether they're using your software or another piece of software, once they're out there, uh, how do you manage it? You, if you got 15, 20 technicians that are all over the state, uh, what if something goes wrong? And so some, a lot of people don't see that coming. And that's the other part that we've discussed a lot with our customers is how to mitigate, uh, spending all the time. And, and for the record, typically it's the youngest guy in the room doing all the work, right?
(15:15)
Right. So there's some poor guy Yeah. In a conference room somewhere that's, you know, uh, fresh outta college and be like, I, he can, you know, his, his eyesight's still good. He knows what he's doing, and he knows how to punch buttons, make him do it right. Um, and so we, you know, getting, getting geared up for success and to mini minimize that management piece is also a big thing that we have to discuss, uh, to, to make sure that, you know, that people are taking advantage of stuff and that the cost isn't ballooning on both ends, both on the labor side, uh, and of course the carrier side,
Drew Slocum: (15:43):
Right? Yeah. I, I, you know, we get the calls all the time of, uh, hey, my, uh, you know, my device is not working, or your, your software's not working. I'm like, no, it's not the software , it's probably your connection. Your the device. This is the device or the, or the, the actual, you know, connection to the data plan or whatever. So, you know, we have a, we have a troubleshooting video car called, are you connected to the Internet , right?
Dave Brown: (16:10):
Hey, look, we deal with it all the time. People are, you know, we, we had a, one of my favorite stories that deal with, with cell phones, uh, you know, we, we, we out, we rolled out all these devices, uh, iPhone, xrs to be exact. They had a huge special going on a while back with Verizon. The customer came in and acquired a bunch of them. And, uh, so we went ahead and staged and provisioned them and got 'em out into the field. Uh, but there was a group of the owners of the company did not want us to touch their devices cause they wanted hot pink cases or glittery cases or whatever it's that they wanted. Uh, but they said, you know, don't touch our devices, just send those to us directly. And so then we get this phone call from, uh, a, a customer and you can't hear him at all.
(16:46)
Like, it's just this all, it sounded like it was, you know, super muffled. Like somebody had put their hand over their mouth and was trying to talk, and I, I finally just said, Hey, can you just call from your office phone? Let's, let's figure out what's going on there. And so he of course was irate and shaking his hand and saying, Hey, look, I, I, I can't hear anybody. I can't hear anybody. They can't hear me. This thing's a complete piece of, you know what, and I, I can't deal with this. This is, this is crap. I'm sending the phone back. I, so that's odd. I was like, you know, you're, you're one of the only people out of all of these. I mean, not saying that things don't happen, um, but, you know, to your point of are you connected to the internet, I, I kind of went through some steps and come to find out he had left the protective film on that, uh, the phone was packaged in before he put his case on.
(17:24)
Yeah. So it just covered up all the microphones and the earpieces. And so we deal with that too, right? So we deal with the, uh, this doesn't work. Uh, it's like, well, let's start from the basics, uh, of where it's at. And I know something as simple as that, as it shouldn't be a problem, but it always kind of gives us a chuckle on, you know, just kind of the most simplistic of simplistic and one being, are you connected to the internet is a, is a big one, but it's, it's complicated. Drew, I, you know, if we, if we look at our target audience, right? We, you and I, if we, we look across the section of, of who we deal with on a day in and day out basis as customers. Um, some of them are tech savvy, right? So we have those, and I'm sure they make up a, a pretty good percentage, but a lot of these guys, uh, that I deal with on a day in and day out are unbelievable at what they do in their organization.
(18:09)
They have grown these companies, uh, they have great culture, right? The guys would follow them to the end of the earth, uh, kind of that good old boy network or otherwise where they're just, you know, real hard workers. Um, but they've done it all on paper and they've gotten there by paper and yeah. Um, and, and you know, some lady back in the office is having her man for that matter is having to decipher handwriting and sits there all day and types things in, and she's just, just happy to do it. She drinks from her, you know, I'm a boss coffee cup and , uh, does her thing, and she, she keys in the orders, right? Right. So she keys 'em all in. And so it's not that, you know, I tell people all the time, uh, you know, especially when we have customers that get iPads for the first time, right?
(18:49)
So they come to me and say, you know, well, we're, uh, we're just really stupid. Well, stupid is a lot different than ignorant. Um, you know, I I would never call anybody stupid that's running a company, right? Uh, technology is daunting. It's, it's exhausting. And, uh, not to mention the fact that changes constantly. You know, we, we spend enormous amount of our resources, enormous amount of our resources, uh, trying to keep up with updates, right? So you've got iPads that are updating to new versions of software. You guys are updating new versions at the same time. So it, you know, maybe your mobile device management software is also updating, and maybe you don't even know what the hell mobile device management is and what that software could do. But the, the point is, is that we are in this century, we are dealing with this. We are going into 2020. Um, and the fact is, is that you've got two categories. You've got the guys that are gonna be bought, uh, by other companies that have embraced technology, and you've got the ones that, uh, you know, are doing the buying. Um, right. So, uh, it's, it's, it's a big deal. It really is. And it's, it's hard, it's hard to go from paper to technology, but we, we hopefully you and I both can soften that blow for some of these guys too.
Drew Slocum: (19:55):
Yeah, no, I, it seems to be trans is definitely transitioning much faster, uh, these days, you know, trying to get the message out there that, you know, things can be done more efficiently with less risk with, you know, getting higher revenue from, from their service techs. So, uh, right. Yeah, A lot of fun stuff coming out with inspect point, and you've been a big part of that, uh, helping, helping our customers, you know, the fire protection piece under understand the mobile side. Um, sure. Now, you mentioned, uh, mobile device management. I, I don't actually don't know what that is specific. I know you mentioned it all the time to me, but what is, uh, what is mobile device management? I guess
Dave Brown: (20:37):
That's, that's a great question. So, you know, uh, you, you have two options, um, when it comes to deploying an iPad or a tablet to the field. Uh, one is run it naked, um, which is what we talk about, uh, which is, you, you, you set up a, an iOS device and, uh, maybe you put in an iCloud or maybe you do the worst thing ever, and you allow your employee to put in their own iCloud. Um, don't do that. For those of you that are listening, don't ever do that. Don't ever let your employees run their own personal iClouds through, uh, the device. It's a huge security risk. But, um, beyond that, uh, what mobile device management really is, is that, is the ability for you back in the office to control your devices that are in the field. So if you, if you don't have a mobile device management on the, on the most simplistic terms, if you do not have MDM or what we call mdm, so you hear from, so I don't have to keep saying mobile device management, if you don't have mdm, uh, what you have to do is you actually have to control that device from your office, right?
(21:34)
Right. So, right. Uh, if there's a new update that comes out, or if a device gets stolen or lost, you have to control that from the, the, uh, your office with, they're physically putting your hand on the device. Um, whereas what MDM will do for you is that you do not have to put, uh, your hands on the device. We have companies that have, you know, hundreds of, sometimes not even thousands of devices out in the field. And you can imagine, uh, but it would take to reprogram 15 iPads when there's an update. Uh, imagine what would happen if it was a, you know, a hundred and how much, you know, that time compounds, so to speak. So what MDM does, is it actually, believe it or not, gives you freedom that it gives the, the customer an enormous amount of freedom to do their job, um, and to focus on other things, as opposed to sitting there with a bunch of iPads on their conference room table, uh, day in and day out.
(22:23)
And, um, you know, we've even noticed too that as that comes down the pipe, that it has even forced us to develop a service, um, I wouldn't say forced. It's given us an opportunity, uh, to develop a service internally, um, that allows us to actually work, uh, for you. Uh, so our team becomes your team, right? So we can actually go in and, and do some of that for you, which we, uh, would help you run your MDM client, so to speak, so we can control those devices, right? The last part of mdm, uh, that that's a big one, is, uh, nobody wants porn and YouTube out in the field. So, uh, maybe they want you to, for looking at, at, at clips, right? , but, uh, right, we can, what it does is it basically turns your iPads into inspect point devices, right? So it turns it into what it's supposed to be.
(23:10)
It's not, it doesn't give them Hulu, it doesn't give them Netflix, it doesn't give them, uh, stuff that they don't need, um, and that you don't want on those devices while they're out in the field, right? Um, in fact, it turns, it, it, it basically turns a hammer into a hammer or a screwdriver into a screwdriver. Um, and what's beautiful is if you need to change it or offer something new, so let's say, uh, let's say you yourself come out and say, Hey, look, you need to download. If you download this app, it'll pair with our app, and it'll do this other great and wonderful thing. Option one, everybody stops what they're doing. They come in that morning or late at night to give you the devices and you're punching button and doing it. Option two is we click a button on our end and it just goes out to all the devices and life goes on.
(23:50)
Um, and so it's, uh, it used to be very expensive to do mdm. Now actually, the cost of it is, is so low, uh, that it, it's kind of, uh, kind of, you know, silly not to do it. Especially if you're giving access to, um, you know, I'm not sure about inspect point, but you know, if you're giving access to customer files to your, you know, your, your technicians that are out in the field, you wanna be able to protect that device. You, you gotta protect it. I mean, you're, as we are in technology, um, you know, one thing about paper, uh, is that if you lose a sheet of paper, you're losing this sheet of paper on that client. If you lose your iPad, um, you're losing, you know, basically all of the clients that are inside of there, they can access to any of it. So it's very important to protect that data, um, and keep it, keep it simple. Like, we want to keep it simple. We, we don't want you to have to think much beyond what you would normally do with paper.
Drew Slocum: (24:40):
Well, I mean, I mean, if you lose the iPad, I mean, if, if you're a cloud-based solution, you're probably not. If you lose the iPad, you lose the iPad, you know, I think it's more the device, all, all the data depends on what you're, if you're using forms like that's, you know, obviously if you're using forms on an iPad or an iPhone, you're gonna lose whatever's saved to that phone. But if you have it connected to the cloud somehow, which is what, what we call Sure. Uh, you're never, you know, it anything local that's saved there, but most of the time the cloud-based softwares are automatically backing up to the cloud. So, but,
Dave Brown: (25:17):
Um, so they're backing up to the cloud. So, can can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Cause this is, this is knowledge for me, and I'm sure it's knowledge for you guys, right? So if, uh, let's say that I'm a technician and I've got inspect point, and it's sitting there and the, the iPad is sitting on the ground and I pick it up and go, oh, what's this? And I go into the iPad and I start looking around, can I, can I get the customer files?
Drew Slocum: (25:37):
Uh, no. It's all embedded in the app. So you'd have to have the app. I mean, you could, you could physically read it and, you know, copy it, write it down, but it's, it's only, yeah.
Dave Brown: (25:47):
So you, but you couldn't, you could access it beyond that.
Drew Slocum: (25:49):
No, you can't access it beyond that. And what it is, it's whoever, whatever that technician or inspector, it's only what's given to him. It's only what's scheduled to him for that day. So they're not gonna see anything else, only what's scheduled to them for that day, that week, that month. However, you wanna dispatch. So you're only gonna see that in information. If you dive into it, you might not even see every system in that building. So it's only what's assigned to that technician. So we really, we, we, we try to keep it open, but we also lock it down that, you know, we want the tech to be focused on what they, they do best.
Dave Brown: (26:27):
Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. And I think, you know, to, to that point, let, let's, you know, the other part of this is a lot of guys too. And, and I guess for me, I'm looking at it as protection wise. Uh, you know, one of the other things that we always get asked to install on the iPads prior to delivery is email. Um, you know, you can, you can una associate that email immediately from the backend, but, you know, certainly we wanna have some kinda level of protection that's on it, so, right. Um, you know, so your, your software in particular, uh, has some stop gaps put in place, which is, which is amazing, and I certainly commend you for it. Um, I think that one of the, the, the challenges that we see sometimes beyond the photos that are taken and stuff like that, and stuff that is in the cloud are, you know, inherently held on the device, is that if somebody does get access to it, you know, if I lost my phone and it wasn't protected, um, in some capacity, uh, it could be very, very dangerous tool.
(27:16)
Um, oh yeah. They can, they can get up there and get a lot of info very quickly. Well, we live that way now, right? So we, we, we live that way. Uh, especially mobility wise. It's, it's definitely where we are today is, is in a mobile environment. And I think we said earlier, offline, like you, uh, you're staring at your phone first thing in the morning, you're staring at late at night. So it's definitely become a personal extension filled with all kinds of data in it. So the mobile, the mobile device management software, what it does is it gives you a layer of protection to be able to kill that, um, from anywhere. And we could even put a, hey, if loss returned to, uh, I could give you all kinds of great stories about recovering these things inside of pawn shops and other places when they get gone. So , uh, without the MDM square, we never would've recovered it, right? Yeah. So, um, we've, uh, we've had some pretty cool, cool scenarios happen that way.
Drew Slocum: (28:04):
Uh, kinda changing tracks a little bit. I know, I know you, you guys help out with hardware and everything. Um, you know, any, anywhere from obviously the devices, but some of the external devices, Bluetooth scanners, uh, which we have, we have some of that and R F I D, which I haven't talked to you about. Rf, I d probably should at some point cuz we have some interesting ideas there. Sure. But, um, what do you see, I guess in the next couple years? I mean, apple and Android continue to come out with decent phones. I, iPads seem to be the tablet of choice, um, right. You know, there's services out there, but that's essentially a, that's a laptop and I, I just don't, it, it, it's good in certain scenarios, but I, I feel like, you know, for the tablet wise, iPad's gonna be there. What, where, what, what's gonna happen in the next two to three years is just gonna be, you know, just small little upgrades year over year, better cameras. I feel like the, the iPhones and everything have, you know, they've stalled in the last five years, I feel like. Is there, do you know of any, any ideas coming out that kind of transformed any
Dave Brown: (29:17):
Great, yeah, so, um, I, I think part, so you, you, you have to kind of get into kind of what the consumer is willing to ingest, right? So, uh, if you remember a while back, I'll, I'll use this as a kind of a, a brief example. There was a phone that came out, uh, years ago. Uh, but it took 3D photos, um, and it was amazing. The trouble with it was, is it only worked with other phones that took 3D photos. Oh. Um, so like if I took a 3D photo and I sent it to you, it would look like a regular photo, but if I sent it to you, you had that same exact photo, um, that would work, uh, you would be able to see it. Right? So I think part of the problem that we run into, um, with, with seeing what's coming out is that the consumer only wants to handle so much, right?
(30:02)
So, uh, there was a huge up uproar, uh, when people started removing the auxiliary jack, right? From the, the devices people, I dunno if you remember that or not, but they said, we're not doing the auxiliary jack anymore. Um, and reason being that they were moving, it was because every manufacturer that was out there was standardizing their phone builds and, but the first piece they worked with was the auxiliary jack. They had to build the phone around that. And what they were realizing was, is that we can't come out with these curved devices, or Samsung was having a hard time coming out with their, uh, they've got the one that flips open like a book, right? Yep. Um, so it's, they, they were having a hard time going beyond that cause of the fact that it started, it all started with the auxiliary jack, uh, to, to answer the question in full.
(30:44)
I think it's kind of a slow process. I think that as, as we watch, uh, over the next, you know, two years, I think that it's kind of like the, the water on a, on a, you know, crab boil, right? So it just slowly gets a little hotter mm-hmm. . But I think we're gonna see things throughout that, you know, enhanced cameras, uh, things that maybe could take photos at a further distance. Um, what what we have seen and what we keep noticing is that the damn phones keep getting bigger. Um, you know, so a few years ago, if you take an iPhone from two years ago compared to an iPhone today, even the base bottle, uh, which is now kind of the iPhone, but we, we call the xr, uh, that device is much larger, um, than the iPhone six was. And the iPhone six was still available a few years ago.
(31:26)
So it, it, I think what you're gonna see is that it's gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think we've kind of hit that spot where, um, a lot of people that have cell phones, uh, two-handed operation, um, is starting to almost become a necessity. I'm a, I'm a taller dude, you are as well. We've, we've got probably fairly large hands in comparison to most people. So maybe our thumb can reach from the excess max from one corner to the other, in my case, a a Samsung note. Ah, interesting. I can kinda do it. But what happens is, is everybody holds their phone. If you're listening to this podcast today and you're holding a phone, you've got your, whether your left-handed or right-handed is dependent, your pinky is currently sitting underneath the phone, right? So it's holding the phone weight. Your three fingers are holding the side and your thumb is used to scroll around.
(32:11)
That's just how everybody holds their phone. Um, the trouble is, is that you're gonna start noticing that your thumb can't reach from one to the other. So you start losing the ability to do one handed operation. Um, so I think we've kind of maybe started to hit the threshold of how big it's gonna get, but yet the consumers still want bigger, better, more. Awesome. So the screen, uh, the device itself, uh, you're probably, in my point of view, the next couple years you're gonna see stall at a size, but the screen is going to increase. And, and what I mean by that is, uh, you're starting to notice a lot of these devices have become devilish. So they don't have a, there's no, there's no line, uh, the new Samsung. I'm not a, you know, not trying to advocate for one or the other. Uh, but if you pick up the new, uh, Samsung note, uh, you'll notice that it goes right to the very edge of the device on all the way around.
(32:57)
Yeah. Um, somehow the, the device itself is virtually the same dimensions as its predecessor, uh, but yet they've been able to squeeze, you know, another quarter inch or so of landscape space on the device. And you wouldn't think that makes much of a difference, but it does. Yeah. Um, it's kinda like you, you guys at home with your, you know, flat screen TVs, 74 inches is one thing, 78 inches looks a little different. And that's kind of where we are with the cell phone land. But I think that we've, I honestly drew, I I think that we've kind of hit a spot where, um, not to be funny, but I, I don't, you know, what, what else can you keep improving on the phone? You know, they, they have some gimmick stuff that comes out here and there. Um, iOS is very slow. Uh, the iPhone guys, they're, they are very methodical about the way they go about doing the releases of their devices. Um, you know, that's why sometimes you'll hear that the Android is superior hardware. Uh, and, you know, iOS is superior software. It's cause they vet all of it so hard before they release anything.
Drew Slocum: (33:52):
Yeah.
Dave Brown: (33:53):
Um,
Drew Slocum: (33:54):
Yeah, I, I, you know, I, I was, I had a Samsung before, you know, being, being here at Spec Point, and I, I've had iPhones and Samsungs, I had, yeah, obviously a Blackberry, the the roller one back in the day as well. But, um, you know, from the software perspective and my, some of my competitors feel the same way, is, you know, if, if you're developing an app, if you're developing software, mobilely, iOS is just so much sure, so much easier to deal with. And it's not that the android, the development platforms that bad, that bad. It's just, there are so many different devices that they've, and Android, you know, they, they went that model from day one. They wanted to give it out to different manufacturers to make tho that hardware. And then from there obviously just spurred out. But now if you're developing an Android software, mobile mobile app, you have all those, you know, all those new devices that you have to troubleshoot. So sure it's, uh, you know, that that's the
Dave Brown: (34:59):
One. Well, I told people
Drew Slocum: (35:01):
Side,
Dave Brown: (35:02):
Well, I, and I could imagine from the developer side, I mean, and, and I, I'm gonna just tell you from my personal opinion, cause this is just me, uh, in, in the world. We, we really only deal with two major providers. And what I, what I tell people is, look, when you, when you want to, as your organization goes, you need to standardize, right? So the same thing that you just mentioned. So if you're going to look at mobility for your employees and they're gonna use software, use the same operating system across everyone. Now I'm not talking about the guys that have CS in front of their names, right? The ceo, cfo, coo, whatever. It's right. What those guys do. Whatever that, that's, that's their opinion and however they want to handle it. They're not your technicians, they're not the guys out in the field.
(35:45)
The guys in the field need to have a standardized product. That's why I don't find, uh, you know, certain software providers like yourself that sit there and say, Hey look, we are an iOS only provider. That's perfectly fine. Cause they should be that anyway. So it, it's irrelevant, you know, the way that the costs have been driven down today, the fact of the matter is an iPad is a very robust device. It's going to work for many years if you take care of it. Um, there's only so many things that can actually go wrong with it, which makes it very good for you. But more importantly, you have to have a standardization across all of your technicians because if something breaks, like you said earlier, you gotta troubleshoot each one. Imagine if you had three different cell phone provider or, uh, cell phone manufacturers out in the field.
(36:25)
Well, it's doing this on my iPad, but it's doing this on my Samsung tablet by ACEs, god forbid. And it's doing this on my Samsung, you know, my, my Samsung tablet, right? My, or excuse my Android by ais. Um, and so we, we, this is one of the very first things that we do to talk to people about lowering their cost is first things first, let's standardize. You know, you've got Motorola Razors, you've got Androids, you've, you know, this Android, you've got Samsung, you got iOS, uh, somehow this guy got an lg and then you got two Google pixels. Like, what are we doing? Right? Like, none of those things work together. Um, but's let's get to a, a standardized process across the board. So that, that's actually, that's not only is that true for you guys, it's software developers. It's true for the companies.
(37:09)
They should, they would never go out, you know, if I had to go buy a bunch of trucks, I assume I could be wrong. Um, please write me hate mill if I am, I guess. Uh, but if, if you go out and you went and purchased, uh, trucks, you wouldn't say, well, we're gonna go get three, uh, you know, we're gonna get three Mercedes over here and then we're gonna go get, uh, four or five Chevys and then we're gonna go to this Ford dealer and get a few of those. Like, that would be a nightmare to deal with. Uh, sure. different types of vehicles and trucks and the way that they're configured. It just, you need, if you can standardize, you should, it's just my, my 2 cents there how it should work
Drew Slocum: (37:41):
Personally. I think obviously you should too. Was there, I I don't know. What made me think of this? Was there, uh, uh, initiative a few years ago where you could have one device work for both personal and work? So you had kind of two, maybe I'm, maybe I'm off topic here, but you could have it. No, you,
Dave Brown: (38:00):
You're not
Drew Slocum: (38:01):
Your work phone and your personal phone. So you know, a lot of, a lot, a lot of people, you know, you have to have your personal and your work, so maybe you don't have it on you. So I don't know if you could combine that. I think they were working on that.
Dave Brown: (38:14):
So let me, let me ask you if I understand it correctly. Are you talking about where there's two different cell phone, you got two different cell phone numbers on one device?
Drew Slocum: (38:21):
Yeah, some yes, yes. Yeah.
Dave Brown: (38:24):
No, no, we could do that. So that's, that's, uh, any dual sim device can do that. A lot of the new ones are coming out are that way, especially in the iOS land. Um, so yeah, you can certainly do that. And then of course, back to the mobile device management piece, um, you can compartmentalize inside of the devices. So let's say you don't mind your employees using, um, your work phone for their personal use, which a lot of people don't. It's just a perk, right? We, we don't mind that. But that even makes it more important to put an MDM on there so that you can take off the stuff, right? So that you can, you can kind of manage what they have access to as far as the business goes. Uh, so it's just not all willy-nilly. Um, the, the one thing that I, I'll tell you as you talk about that, you know, one of the things we talk about constantly too is, um, and for the record, these are for the guys that are using other pieces of software that are out there, don't ever, we're, we're not fans typically of what we call CPE or what's called customer provider equipment, or in this case it would be the consumer provider equipment inside of a, a company.
(39:21)
Um, you know, we're not, don't, don't let your guys come in with their own personal iPads, um, and, and run the software, right? So you want to, again, back to the standardization, you want a sense of control over those devices. And we can get into all kinds of discussions about that. And this is probably not the podcast for it, but, you know, we, we do run to that quite often where companies will go in and say, you know, I just offer a stipend to my employees, um, to pay for the devices. Well, that, that may be good in short term, but it's rarely good in long term. Yeah. Um, and we've worked with a lot of companies that have done that in the past just to immediately revert a couple of years later. Um, because you can't get a, you know, these, these cell phones, again, back to what it means for your business, especially in field service.
(40:01)
These guys are out there, this is their lifeline. Yeah. Right? Like if I walked up to you, drew and smashed your cell phone on the ground, uh, and you were down for a day, that's, that's, that's painful. Well these guys, maybe they didn't pay their cell phone bill, they're down for a day or two or three, maybe it was their girlfriend's phone and she cut them off. Yeah. Um, you know, whatever says it becomes painful and your business cannot rely upon that. So, um, you know, don't, don't set the expectations on your employees to, to be able to take care of that in a Yeah.
Drew Slocum: (40:27):
And I, in a good
Dave Brown: (40:28):
Way,
Drew Slocum: (40:29):
People are kind of moving away from that. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're going out and buying themselves and what, you know, we have a lot of of customers that are, I'm wondering when, when is it, when is it valuable to work with a, a company like Nobo w with yourself? I mean, is it, what if you're a, a, a, you know, five person, you know, shop with five technicians in the field? Sure. You know, is it, is it worth it? I know obviously the, the larger ones, you have a larger bill, but where, where is it worth it? Right. You know,
Dave Brown: (41:06):
Great question. So, you know, we, we do try to cater our business to fit a certain, um, profile, if you will. So if somebody's got, let's say they're expensing out five phones throughout their organization doing it, it, it, we might, we, we probably a really good educational source for them and we can help them order some devices here and there. Um, as far as our full on management suite, we really start hitting above the 20 phones, right? You've got more than 20 devices out there and 20 technicians that you're running in trucks. That's really where you'll start seeing some serious bang for buck. Cause that's the part where you get handed over to the cell phone carriers and you're not going in and out of a store. Um, either one of those two things, by the way, can be very expensive for you. Um, so we always tell customers, if, if you could stay out of the store, that's the best thing to do.
(41:53)
And that's usually your smaller guys as well. So we could certainly always do an analysis, get your bill down, try to get yourself phone bills lowered. Um, cause I, I too am a very small business and I deal with that on a, on a basis where, you know, we, we, we want to be able to save money. Yeah. I think sometimes it makes a huge impact, uh, for the small business that have, you know, five, 10 technicians. We, we can go in and make a pretty big impact on them. Cause we're taking the philosophies. Um, not many of us wanna be small, not that I'm aware of. So, uh, you always wanna be growing. Um, so I think we can go in and show the five to 10 technician companies. Well this is what this 800 technician company does, right? This is, we never share the company information, but we put in the best practices so that you can grow and standardize.
(42:38)
Yeah. Um, and as it pertains to mobility from your GPS to everything else. So we never turn a customer away. The question becomes where is the fit? Well, I mean, simply, if I can come to you and say, I just saved you 80 grand a year on your cell phone bill, you don't have five phones. Um, but we can certainly find ways to work with every organization. We have departments that handle with both of those. Um, and so we, we've, we do have 'em, we've got companies that have five technicians. We have ones that have well over a thousand. Um, and each one of those in a lot of ways is kind of the same. Uh, they, they face the same challenges. Yep. I think the biggest difference is, is that, uh, you know, the mom and pop guys out there that, that I am one as well, is that there's some personal stuff that goes in there. And those are the ones we'll really have to discuss, uh, the culture of mobile device management and how it affects, you know, your cousin who also worked for you or the Sure. The GPS on the truck and how it's gonna affect that relationship at the dinner table later that night. Um, and we, we discussed that quite a bit, probably at length with the smaller companies more than we do even the bigger ones.
Drew Slocum: (43:40):
Now, I know you mentioned gps, but I, uh, I know, I know you handle that as well. Why, why is that? I always thought, why don't you, you just track the phone or the, the iPad or whatever. I know, right? What, what's the difference between that and truck track tracking? I guess I, you know, I, you may have explained it to, to me before, but what's, what's GPS all about? No, I
Dave Brown: (44:02):
Don't, I don't mind explain. It's a great, it's a great question. So, and I think a lot of people ask that question. So we just track the phones and that's great. I mean, if you wanted to kind of, what was that? What was that, uh, that movie with Ashton, uh, dude, where's my car? Right? So if you wanted to say, Hey dude, where's my car? Right? Well, there's a good chance it's with your technician. Uh, so if you just wanna look at your technician in the truck where he should be, um, then that's fine. That's, that's all well and good. Uh, but if you want to start implementing rewarding behavior practices, so, uh, let me, let me, let me back up two seconds. If you're gonna purchase GPS to go into your vehicles, to scold your employees on bad driving behaviors, you're buying it for the wrong reasons.
(44:45)
And we probably won't sell it to you. So if you pick up the phone after this podcast, or you find me and you say, Hey, I've got 20 trucks, I want to covertly put them in the trucks so that I can catch Tom Dick and whoever else doing something they're not supposed to do, and then I'm gonna fire them with that information, I, I'm not gonna sell it to you. Cause I, I'm a big believer in the fact that we should use the technology and the products and the services that are available to empower the company and also to empower the technicians. So to answer that question, drew, about why shouldn't you track the tablets? It's actually really simple because the rolling asset that's down, going down the road that has your logo on it, that you worked really hard, that you sat at a dinner table just like I did crying one night.
(45:26)
Cause you didn't know if you were gonna make payroll one day that you sit there, that is your rolling billboard, right? That that is your pride, your, your everything else. In addition to that, it's an asset. It's a very expensive one. Um, and so it, it has driving behaviors and then on top of it, it's consuming this little thing that we all do, which is fuel. And that fuel cost, just like your cell phone bills run, can run into the hundreds and, and, and create all kinds of problems for you. So we kind of attack this, uh, or put a plan in place, if you will, uh, that gives you the opportunity to not only look at your trucks and where they are, uh, but also corrected driving behaviors. And then beyond all of that, um, as we take a moment for everything else, is the minimizing your CO2 footprint.
(46:14)
Yep. Um, and I, you know, I don't wanna get into the hippy dippy side of things, but, uh, honestly, it, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And so one of my favorite things to do, uh, with the GPS stuff is, uh, we put the GPS in, tell you to run your fleet. Don't set any reports up. Uh, don't put any reports in. I don't want you to worry about heart braking, fast acceleration, idling. I don't want you to worry about any of that stuff just yet. We, we will, we will get to correcting that here in a little bit. Let's let it run for a couple of weeks with no prior knowledge. So let's, let's let it run. Just tell your, it's, it's in there. Let the guys do their thing. And let's get a baseline of where you are today. Let's see how much fuel you're consuming.
(46:54)
Let's see how hard they are on the braking. Let's see how they're driving. Behaviors are, let's just see where it is. And then let's put a reward based system in place to reward the drivers for their better behavior. So that very first time you come around, you say, Hey, drew was our best driver today, uh, or this past month. And Drew, here's a $300 gift card. The best buy, because you didn't idle as much as everybody else. You kept your speed down. You didn't drive the vehicle like you stole it, which in turn, of course, is saving us hundreds of dollars. So here's a $300 gift card. And then once that happens, that's when we start setting the reports for you. And then the following month, you reward maybe Drew again or some other driver Sure. In your fleet. And you go and you look at the most improved driver in your fleet.
(47:37)
So that's one thing I wanna, A lot of people just keep rewarding the best guy. That's kind of hard, you know, sometimes maybe that guy is just the way he does, but let's say you've got 10 technicians and I'm a horrible driver. Right? Dave just sucks at everything that he does as far as the car goes. But when I start watching Drew get all these gift cards, all of a sudden I decide, Hey, I'm gonna do a little better. Maybe I jumped six spots. I still didn't win anything as far as number one, but maybe I'm the most improved and I get a most improved one. Sure. And so I always tell people, when you GPS and the the truck, make sure that you are scolding in private. Right. You know, Hey, Dave, you suck at what you're doing. Please stop doing that. You're costing us hundreds of dollars in fuel.
(48:14)
You won't stop idling. It's creating all kinds of problems for us. We're, we're hemorrhaging money in your fuel tank. Um, and honestly, you're driving behavior is atrocious. Uh, you know, let's stop doing that. Or we're gonna have to get further cause you're gonna create some insurance problems for us. Um, and then, you know, for the other guys reward publicly, right? So you wanna reward those guys publicly. And then I'm gonna, you know, you'll watch your fuel cost and your operational cost drop. Um, cause it also helps with efficiency. It helps with the ability of seeing where your trucks are and, you know, geofencing those stuff. And, um, not to, and one last thing I mentioned, I can't believe I didn't put it in the first part of it, but, uh, your insurance, you know, if your insurance carrier isn't gonna give you a break for actively tracking, uh, your vehicles, you need a new insurance provider.
(48:58)
Um, because those guys will drop your bill. Yeah. Uh, if you're actively doing it. So in a lot of ways it pays for it. So there's, there's a lot of benefits. Um, sure. The iPad can tell you where the guy is as long as he's holding onto the iPad. Uh, but it can't tell you how much money and what impact on the environment you're doing and how much money you're losing in that vehicle, either due to the idling and the gas, like we had mentioned before, or, or know the damage that they might be creating, um, or heaven forbid, some kind of settlement or insurance settlement or some issue where some guys, like your guy was, you know, speeding, uh, down X YZ road and created all kind of problems. Sure. No, no. So it's, there's a lot there.
Drew Slocum: (49:35):
No, no, that explains it very well. Um, you know, I think, uh, again, it's just, you know, you're beyond, it's beyond just cellular, you know, it's, it's the people in the field too. So you gotta manage them appropriately. Okay. Um, all right. Let's, what was, see another question I had. Um, oh, so how, I mean, how do you do a lot of software within, you know, mobile? I mean, you know, I know you work with a few other companies, but, um, we kind of, what, what's the, what's the push for software lately? You know, what, what are they working on? What are, you know, I know what we were, we were working on, but what are other software platforms working on that, that kind of intrigue you from the mobile side?
Dave Brown: (50:26):
You know, I, I, it's, it's interesting because there's so many that span across different organizations, right? So I think one of the ones that, uh, one of the first ones, it's weird that it comes to mind. It's probably cause we, we use it a lot here, uh, is, you know, some of the, as crazy as it sounds, some of the software that's being developed inside of weather apps. Oh, yeah. Um, you know, pinpointing, pinpointing location and time of rain and storms and radar that's available today. Like, it's, it's actually kind of mind blowing where they are. Um, you know, we, we can get weather alerts as, you know, you're gonna be covered in rain in 22 minutes. Right. So that, that gets back to my pest control lawn care guys. And it's, it's just crazy. You know, I, I just look at these guys, at these guys walking around with phones and they get an alert buzz and then know how long they have before they, you know, can apply this XYZ fertilizer.
(51:14)
Right. And how much time they needs to set. Uh, we have a painter that, actually, the funny thing was, was a painter that brought it to our attention more than anybody else, um, for, for obvious reasons. But, uh, you know, the, the apps are so plentiful. I think the other thing that I've noticed in the larger organizations that have really blown my mind, and I think you had, uh, uh, John, uh, John Mackey on here recently with Hiller. And, uh, they, they've developed their own app, right? So they've developed their own customer facing app for that. So I, I am, I am blown away by some of the, the stuff that's out there. I, the other day I had a, I won't drop the name of the, the software provider, but, you know, uh, I had a, some work that had to be done at my house for, by electrician.
(51:56)
And I got a text message and, uh, it was a map. I, I clicked the link. I just came from the guy said, Hey, your technician's on the way. And just like Uber, I could see where my technician was as he was driving to my house. Um, you know, it's kinda like that Domino's pizza thing that came out a while back, right? You can see exactly where it is, what we are and where they are. And then I think at the day of information where we are today, I mean, you could track your packages on Amazon and you could do all these other great and wonderful things in life. Well, now we're tracking our technicians and we get to see where they are and how long before they arrive. That becomes a very sticky, sticky thing for your customer base, right? Oh yeah. So when you have, when you have that kind of transparency, um, and you feel like you're involved in that process, you're not just sitting around waiting.
(52:38)
I mean, I think we all right, we've all sat there and had somebody need to come and repair a washer, a dryer or something. We're like, where the hell is this guy? Um, or even worse, like god, god knows, I don't know who your cable provider is up there, but we're like, your technician will be there between the hours of 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM on a Thursday. I don't, I don't have time for that. Yeah. I don't, I don't have time to sit around from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM um, to receive a text where they're is amazing.
Drew Slocum: (53:05):
They don't, they don't have to worry about that cuz they have a monopoly. So, you know, they don't have to worry about customer service from the field. But, you know, your, your service contractor landscaper, um, uh, my H V A C person here, um, just went to ServiceTitan out there and yeah, it would, it transformed their business and it went, you know, now I'm getting alerts when they're coming to do H V A C for me. But my, the landscape
Dave Brown: (53:30):
. Well, so you, you, you mentioned them, I don't mind mentioning. Yeah, well you mentioned them. I don't mind mentioning 'em now. So yeah, the company I was talking about earlier was using ServiceTitan. Uh, they used our GPS system, so it was really awesome to watch that happen. But they used my GPS stuff in their trucks. So the service Titan goes directly into our gps. And our GPS can track where that vehicle is. That's why they, I knew where that truck was.
Drew Slocum: (53:51):
Interesting. Uh, now
Dave Brown: (53:52):
You could also use the iPad or the phone, unless the guy cuts the damn thing off, then you can't see where he is. Uh, but at least the truck shows you, you know, kind of estimated time of arrival. But, um, I, I think that's the thing that's just blowing me away. Everybody's got an app now, right? And it's, uh, and I, I, you know, honestly, if I had like our mobile device management team in here, they can give you all kinds of lists of crap that, that gets thrown on phones. That is mind boggling. Right? So I think the time that when big companies or even middle-sized companies start developing their own app for their customer interface, um, mean God, like how, how great is that? And a lot of these guys are that way. And, and you don't even have to do your own development.
(54:28)
There's so many out there that, that can brand and white label it for you. Yeah. So it looks clean to your customer. I mean, it's just, it's good stuff, man. So, um, I don't know if there's anything that's crazy that's happening. You drew I've done this for a really long time and, and I've, I, I still remember, like it was yesterday picking up my old I 95 cl next telephone and was just blown away that I had a colored screen and that I was playing Tiger Woods' golf on this, you know, flip phone. Yeah. Um, and you know, I, it just, one thing is for sure is that the only constant in our industry is change. Uh, there are no other constants. Cause it just, it keeps coming. And I, I am, I'm never not blown away and just completely fascinated by what's there. And it's not even us that finds it, it's our customers, right? So it's our customers that bring stuff to our attention saying, I've got this x, y, Z product. Um, and we're pretty knowledgeable of what we do, but man, we, you know, when you got as many people out there as we have using phones, they bring all kinds of crazy stuff to us we didn't even know existed. Yeah. Um, cause it's just, it's hard to keep up with it, man. We're it's, it's all over the place.
Drew Slocum: (55:30):
Yeah. I think that, uh, the, uh, the next, the next wave is those, you know, the service field technologies out there, you know, mobile technology get, you know, getting paired with the iot. So the smart buildings, the smart systems where if they can interact even better, uh, it's just more powerful, you know, for your, for your field team. So, well,
Dave Brown: (55:51):
We, we dealt with this this past week. So we, I was at a trade show this past week and we had a discussion with somebody. They were using the, um, a VR headset, right? So using these, these VR headset with lenses on it that saw the panel inside of the elevator mm-hmm. , right? So they're going to elevator shaft this thing, and they had to do a wiring thing or whatever the case was. But in this particular state, you had to have a certified technician on site. Yep. And this company found a loophole that said, basically, as long as this guy can, you know, in essence what he was doing was FaceTime some headset technologies so that it was sitting, it wasn't a vr, excuse me, it was like a camera system that was on his glasses that paired to the Yep. Uh, the phone.
(56:32)
And the guy was telling him what to do. The guy was sitting, you know, five states away telling him exactly how to do that. Like, he was over his shoulder and that's, that was that guy's job. So, and the inspector was completely fine with that. Yep. He was like, you, nope, you have a technician that's telling this other guy what to do. It, it's no different than training him. We will let that fly. And, uh, that, I think that's where we are. I think that's, you know, here you've got this, this senior technician that's sitting out there somewhere, God knows, I think he was in Arizona and the other guy's in California, and he's, he's able to look over the shoulder of however many technicians that day with that one skillset. Yeah. And, um, I think that's where we're heading. I think that's, you know, that kind of, that whole virtual environment of being able to correct, uh, stuff. And, and that requires, you know, a great connection. It requires great connection and great management of the mobility that's out there in order to accomplish that. Um, otherwise it just, it would run amuck.
Drew Slocum: (57:26):
Um, well, it's gotta get passed in the code first, which nfpa, uh, the fire protection code is, is it came out with a new standard on that, uh, for remote inspection. So that'll be very interesting to see where that goes. Um, on the fire protection.
Dave Brown: (57:39):
Yeah. It's, I think it's hard for the, the good old people of the government and stuff that have to, you know, write all these laws and regulations. I think it's gonna be interesting to see how fast can they keep up with what's happening. Yeah. Um, so I, I mean, Lord numbers, I don't, I don't, I don't envy them at all. Um, cause people can find workarounds pretty quickly.
Drew Slocum: (57:57):
Yeah, definitely.
Dave Brown: (57:58):
Which, which is great, right? You don't, that, that keeps your cost of, uh, cost of employees down, cost of management down. Um, being able to sit there and manage and handle that from an office remotely is just, uh, just amazing. I, I don't, I don't ever see the end of the mobility stuff. And I mean, I guess that's kind of why I got into the industry besides the, the fascination of it. Um, and being able to work with certain, you know, that the field service in general, I, it just keeps on coming. It's just so weird. Man. People, you know, from, from pagers to today, that wasn't that long ago, drew. Yeah. I don't know how old you are, but man, that just wasn't that long ago. Um, I saw PayPal the other day. I was like, what the hell is that? Like, I hadn't seen nothing forever. It even had a spot foot quarters. It was amazing. , um, you know, no credit card. It didn't have a credit of them. You'll see in airports they got like credit card slots, right? No, this was just old school quarters, you know. Amazing. Didn't have the phone book on the bottom, but that would've been kind of wrapped. Yeah.
Drew Slocum: (58:55):
Right. Well, uh, I know we're, uh, we'll wrap this up here. We'll definitely have you on again at some point. We're we'll chat here soon. But, uh, so at the end of every episode, I do a little quick response round on just a couple questions. Uh, uh, you don't know they're coming so , um,
Dave Brown: (59:14):
Beautiful. Love it.
Drew Slocum: (59:15):
Yeah. Yeah. And then I'll, I'll let you give your info here at the end. So, you know, other Novo solutions, um, uh, you are, are head of the a production company. Um,
Dave Brown: (59:28):
Sure I am.
Drew Slocum: (59:29):
Absolutely. What, what do you like doing better? Do you like the Nevo side or do you like your, your little, uh, production company?
Dave Brown: (59:36):
Oh, wow, good stuff. Um, one is my heart, one is my brain. Uh, so the new solutions side for me is, is very, very rewarding. Um, I have a great team of people. Um, the culture that, uh, we have here at New Solutions, uh, is just, uh, is just an amazing thing to witness and be a part of. Um, there's a, an old adage that basically says, you know, find, find one thing that you love to do that pays you right, that's your job, so to speak, or your career. And find a hobby that also does the same. And so the production company started as a hobby. And honestly, it started as a necessity, as a way to, uh, kind of protect our home. Cause we were, we, we, our company and even myself at the time, were very, very involved in our community. And, uh, one of the ways that happened was we all of a sudden had this , uh, all of a sudden this, this music festival popped up and we were, we were put in, you know, we just kind of, I've always loved music, um, as most people do.
(01:00:36)
And, um, I had the, a distinct pleasure a while back of, uh, uh, working with some really cool bands and throwing shows. And we were doing this corn hole tournament one afternoon, and the guy turned to me and said, Hey man, don't you work with bands? I'm like, sometimes, uh, he's like, cool, next year, get a stage, uh, and a band or two, and let's make this thing a big deal. And he was a sponsor, said, what am I supposed to say? I was like, hell yeah, we'll do that. That's awesome. Um, that was nine years ago, and yeah, nine years ago. And, and, uh, I, we've now produced over 15 festivals. Uh, the last one just wrapped up this past weekend. Um, nice. It is, it is a heartwarming experience. It's, it really is. And plus all that money goes to charities, so we don't take a lot of money from it at all, actually, just enough to cover the bills for our, uh, insurance and any employee that works that day. Oh, that's good. But yeah, that, that's a great question, . Great
Drew Slocum: (01:01:23):
Question. So I, yeah, it, it's, it's a production company. I I get it. I, I I would be the same . Um,
Dave Brown: (01:01:31):
It's just there. It's there. It's, it's there to, it's there to kind of give me an outlet, man. I enjoy it. I also do some public speaking on underneath that. So, uh, you know, I got the opportunity to mc and travel all over the country and introduce bands that I'm just like huge fans of, and I kind of get to geek out, you know, saying their name on stage and getting to know 'em. It's just, it's a, it's a beautiful, beautiful life.
Drew Slocum: (01:01:51):
Yeah. That's great. Um, I know you're a, a smaller company, but you've had to hire, you know, salespeople in the salespeople in the past and, you know, I'm, I'm in that same similar role. Um, yeah. What is the toughest part about finding a good salesperson?
Dave Brown: (01:02:11):
Trying drive, drive, finding drive. I, I, yeah. Finding drive, man. I, I, I think that we're, we're in this really weird spot, drew. Um, if we're gonna talk sales, we're in this weird spot. We're somewhere between just the oversaturation of technology and things that are blasting at us, right? Thinking that I can get the job done. Um, I actually sat down to dinner, uh, last night. Um, I was on the way back from a conference and, uh, we, we stopped in this old town called Florence, South Carolina, um, off in 95 coming up. And, uh, went to a restaurant that was inside of a, a, a, uh, hotel, rather nice restaurant. We wanted a good food. If you've ever been to conferences doing sales, uh, sometimes the food as great as it was, uh, sometimes you just want a really nice cooked milk, right? You just, you just look, I, I, I appreciate everything that you guys are being heated by Sterno.
(01:03:01)
I really just want a good meal. So we went and had a, a glass of wine and, and, uh, some good milk, uh, right there in Florence. And the gentleman that walked over to me, uh, that actually happened to own the restaurant, and he asked what brought us to his town, right? So we, I guess we looked like outsiders, I dunno. But he asked me, what, what brought you to the town? It was a nicer restaurant. And I told him, and, uh, come to find out he had owned a, a, a payment company, uh, for years. And I actually asked him the same question that you asked. And he said, the trouble with Dave is that nobody was willing to make 125 calls a day, except me. And he's like, and that's why I'm a millionaire. And that's why they're not. And so I think that, you know, inside of sales, uh, that was a really kind of an eye-opening experience for me, is I don't necessarily know.
(01:03:45)
I think there's ways that you can get your SEO rankings up, right? You guys do a fantastic job of that. Um, you do a wonderful job of having, you know, people contact you, uh, and, and go through that. But at the end of the day, you know, in my point of view, sales is, is all about relationship building. It's all about creating a, a lasting, um, impression with your customer base and, and solving, uh, problems and issues that they deal with. But before you get those customers, you have to get them by calling and working. Sure. And it's not easy. Yep. Um, and I think a lot of people today want to, uh, be able to make a lot of money. Cause they see it on public, you know, they see it in Instagram and all this other stuff, right? They see all these great, these guys out there making millions or pretending that they are, or whatever the case is.
(01:04:30)
And the fact of the matter is, uh, in sales, there's a lot of failure. There's like, you, you gotta learn to love it. You have to learn to love failure. Mm-hmm. . Um, you really do. You gotta become very comfortable with it. So I think the drive of that and, and a willingness to fail and learning that if you fail, that you'll be okay. Um, and, and to dust yourself, um, get back up, is, it just seems to be very, very difficult to find nowadays. That's probably a longer answer than you expected. But No, I think that's it, man. I think I can
Drew Slocum: (01:04:57):
Drive do it. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, I've experienced the same, and, you know, I, it's probably why I've been a little more successful than, you know, yeah. I jumped on my own doing this stuff, but, uh, with spec point, but it is drive. You gotta, you gotta be driven to do, to do, uh, just in, in life in general. So, all right. Last question. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll get outta here. Sure. Um, are you shaving your beard for November?
Dave Brown: (01:05:27):
Why would I do that? ,
Drew Slocum: (01:05:28):
I know you got this, this, uh, this, uh, this, this huge beard. How, I guess, tell me the story about the beard. I don't, I don't, how long have you had the thing?
Dave Brown: (01:05:38):
So I've always had facial hair, uh, for as long as I could grow it. Uh, back when I was, uh, 18, 19 years old, it started coming in. And, and, uh, when I met my wife, uh, I actually had a really long beard. I kinda went through this, uh, imagine this, uh, producer for music festivals that drives Volkswagen buses, went through a hippie pace . And so I had this, uh, I had this really long beard when sh when we met. And, um, then, then, uh, you know, a year or two later while bartending, I had to kind of buzz it all the way down and, and get it kind of short and stubby or whatever. So it just kind of stayed at this nice, uh, let's just call it half inch. And, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. It did that for years. Then it went through a goatee phase.
(01:06:16)
That was in the early two thousands when that was cool. Um, and then, uh, you know, and the, the owner of the company at that time wouldn't allow facial hair, but he let me get by with that. And, uh, then one after he, he went away for vacation for like a week, and I could grow a pretty quick beard. So, uh, I let the beard rock kind of have like the little chinstrap thing going. Um, and that was my beard for the next few years. Um, and then No Shave November came out, if you remember, you know, no Shave November's been around for a while, right? Yeah. So no Shave November comes out and, uh, a few years later, I, uh, I took advantage of it and I just didn't trim. I was like, no, no, no, no. And they're like, you gotta a share.
(01:06:55)
I was like, no, no, no, no shade November. I'm allowed to do this . Um, and so a whole, a whole month went by, yeah. For charity. What are you, you telling me I can't, uh, support men's, men's stuff? So, uh, anyways, I, uh, I let it grow due November. And, uh, and then I, I had built up a lot of vacation time because in sales, uh, you don't stop selling until right around Christmas, right? Cause right around Christmas, pretty much all the decision makers are gone, right? They're just completely off, off the rails gone. You're not gonna get any buying decisions. Most people have closed their year. So I was able to sneak by for about two weeks out in the field without the bosses of seeing me. So my beard got a little bit longer. Uh, and then, uh, come, uh, mid-December, um, I went on vacation.
(01:07:37)
Cause I had earned enough. I didn't vacation at all. So I, I went from December 15th ish, give or take, all the way to January 3rd. So now I've gone almost two and a half, you know, two months basically. Plus a little bit on the front end there of beard growth. At the end of it, I went to go trim it off at around January. This was years ago, drew. But, uh, at the end of it, I went to go buzz it back down, and my wife said, no, absolutely not. She's like, that is, uh, that is the, the man I fell in love with. That is, that is who you are. And, uh, I was like, well, I, you know, they might fire me. And she goes, that's the most ridiculous reason to fire you. They're not gonna fire you. And sure enough, I went in with a big ass beard and they're, are you gonna turn that off?
(01:08:15)
I said, no, got back to work. And, uh, the rest is history as they say. So, and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, it became super fashionable. Most everybody's got big beards now, which is great. Cause I can, uh, finally get, you know, I can finally get beard products fairly easy. That used to be, you walk into a Walgreens, now it's all over the place. You walk in the back and be like, Hey, I need these wax and oil. It didn't exist, right? But, uh, yeah, man, that's, that's how, no, I'm not, I'm not touching it. I think, uh, I think if I shaved it off, my kids would have an existential crisis. Yeah. They'd never seen me without a beard.
Drew Slocum: (01:08:46):
.
Dave Brown: (01:08:47):
Yeah. They'd have no idea. No idea at all.
Drew Slocum: (01:08:49):
Oh, that's great. Well, uh, yeah, great, great talking today. Um, you know that, that's kind of the podcast. Do you wanna, uh, give your little, uh, little, I'll give you a couple minutes, just, uh, just who you are, how to reach you, and, uh, yeah, we'll get going after that.
Dave Brown: (01:09:08):
Awesome. Well, first and foremost, man, I appreciate, uh, the time, right? So, uh, I, I appreciate what you're doing. This takes time outta your day, uh, to educate your, your customer base and to do what you're doing, uh, for, for your industry. I think this is remarkable, and I think the, uh, I've, I've loved getting to know you and love watching. Your business group of us have kind of started our companies in and around kind of the same way and same timeframe. So it's been real fun and been an awesome ride to be on with you. Um, but if somebody, uh, out there wants to, uh, reach out to me, uh, outside of, of just getting ahold of you, uh, they can simply do that by calling my cell phone at (919) 438-8555. Um, or they could hit me at Dave at Novo. That's n as in Nancy, U as in unicorn, B as in Victor, O as in Ostrich Solutions.
(01:09:57)
Uh, there's no dotcom or net on that. It's just our company name. So Novo Solutions, or you can just type that into your web browser. But, uh, we're here to help a mobility, uh, we're here to help, uh, you guys understand somewhat about your culture as it pertains to gps and making sure things go well. We're help, uh, you know, try to get things off your plates so people get stage provision kit, do all the devices, get 'em out in the field without too much of an issue, um, you know, and, and try to beat your carriers down too. I think a lot of guys, when, the biggest thing when we find is that we get a hold of their cell phone bills and they're just spending way too much. So if you just want us to look at your cell phone bills and try to lower your existing expenses, we'll gladly do that. And you can send it to us. We'll look at it. We show you ways to save money, and you wanna take it back to your, uh, cell phone provider and be like, why the hell am I spending this? Go ahead and do it, but we'll be lovely. Glad, we'll, we'll gladly take it over for you entirely if you need us to.
Drew Slocum: (01:10:44):
Great. No, that, that's cool, man. That's been great, man. Thanks. Uh, thanks again. I'm Oh, you're welcome. And, uh, yeah, feel free to reach out to Dave and we'll, we'll see you here again soon.
Dave Brown: (01:10:56):
Absolutely. Drew, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it.
Drew Slocum: (01:11:00):
Thanks again for Dave Brown from VO Solutions for joining me on today's podcast. Uh, feel free to reach out to us@inspectpoint.com or Dave at Novo Solutions. See you here again soon.
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