Dear Reader,
If you sent two of your techs to the same house, same system, same problem, would the customer get the same experience?
Would the average ticket land anywhere close to the same?
For most companies, the honest answer is no.
And that one word is costing you more than anything else in your business.
Picture a shop with six plumbers. Half of them produce at a $580 average ticket. The other half sit around $320.
That’s a $260 gap on every call.
Run it across a year and that’s $600,000 walking out the door.
Here’s the part that matters. You don’t have bad techs. You have good people doing their best. But their best looks different depending on who shows up. That’s not a people problem. It’s a process problem.
That’s what PRESS PLAY fixes.
I came out of the Clockwork world, where training meant memorizing scripts word for word. I knew those scripts cold. What shocked me was how often the words just didn’t work.
I only started winning again when I gave myself permission to be flexible. Not to skip the process. To breathe inside it.
So we didn’t build a script. We built a framework. Principles first. The words come out of the principle, never the other way around.
Hand a plumber a script and he’ll resent every word. Give him a principle he believes in and he’ll make it his own.
PRESS PLAY is the whole call, start to finish.
PRESS is the first half. Prepare. Build a Relationship. Evaluate. Settle their anxieties. Run a thorough System diagnostic.
PLAY is the second half. Prescriptions, given as four options. Labor done like Bob Vila is filming you. Add value, the extra doughnut in the box. And secure the future, because the end of one call should be the start of the next.
Why four options? One feels like a trap. Two makes them choose between your cheapest and most expensive. Three pushes everybody to the middle. Four lets them rule one out and still leaves two easy choices.
Here’s the one that surprises every tech I’ve trained. Your customer can’t judge your technical work. What they judge is whether you left their home cleaner than you found it.
So do the work like Bob Vila is filming you. Then clean up like he is too.
Process is the great equalizer. It doesn’t replace talent. It multiplies it.
If you’ve got a consistency gap right now, and almost everybody does, it’s fixable. Not someday. Monday morning.
And if you’re ready to give every tech the same framework your best people already run in their heads, that’s exactly where we come in.
How it works
You can start anywhere:
- Try a tool or training with no commitment – Resources
- Join a live session and see how it feels
- Book a call to talk with a coach and get matched with a Growth Partner
No big pitch. No pressure. A clear next step based on your current needs.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
- The hidden $600,000 gap between your best techs and the rest
- Why scripts always fail in the field, and what to use instead
- The exact framework that makes every call consistent, from the first knock to the next one
- Why four options beats one, two, three, or five every time
- How to answer the four questions every customer is silently asking
- Why homeowners judge your work by how clean you leave it, not how well it runs
- The three Monday moves that close your consistency gap this week
Episode Chapters & Summary
1. The Consistency Gap
Todd opens with the problem hiding in plain sight. In a six-plumber shop, your producers run a $580 average ticket while the rest sit around $320, and that $260 gap on every call adds up to $600,000 a year. The cause isn't bad techs. It's good people with no shared approach to follow.
Key Takeaways:
- Your best and worst techs can be $260 apart on every call
- That gap can total $600,000 a year in a six-tech shop
- The problem is a missing process, not bad people
- It's the most expensive issue most owners never measure
2. A Framework, Not a Script
Todd came up in the Clockwork world, where training meant memorizing scripts word for word. He knew them cold and was stunned how often they failed in the field, until he gave himself permission to be flexible inside a process. That's why PRESS PLAY is built on principles, with the words flowing out of the principle instead of the other way around.
Key Takeaways:
- Memorized scripts fail because the words have no principle behind them
- Flexibility inside a framework outperforms rigid memorization
- Techs resist scripts but adopt principles they believe in
- Get the principle right and the words take care of themselves
3. PRESS: The First Half of the Call
Alan walks through the front half of every call: Prepare, build a Relationship, Evaluate, Settle the customer's anxieties, and run a thorough System diagnostic. Todd frames it like the first half of a football match, with the diagnostic as the halftime show the homeowner is invited to watch. He calls that diagnostic the fulcrum of the whole framework.
Key Takeaways:
- PRESS: Prepare, Relationship, Evaluate, Settle anxieties, System diagnostic
- The diagnostic is the heart of the entire framework
- Invite the homeowner along for the diagnostic, but let them opt out
- A complete diagnostic gives you everything you need to prescribe
4. PLAY: The Second Half of the Call
Once the diagnostic is done, PLAY takes over: Prescriptions presented as options, Labor done to a high standard, Add value, and secure Your future. Todd tells techs to do the work like Bob Vila is filming it, then add a small free extra, the 13th doughnut or the pickle, that makes the customer feel they got more than they paid for.
Key Takeaways:
- PLAY: Prescriptions, Labor, Add value, Your future
- Do labor you'd be proud to have filmed
- Add a low-cost, high-value extra and mark it zero
- End every call by setting up the next one
5. The Color-Coded Diagnostic
The diagnostic runs on a simple red, yellow, green checklist: green is good, yellow is a warning, red needs immediate attention. It's visual, customers grasp it instantly, and red naturally signals danger. Alan shares how his private equity partner color-coded every line of the monthly P&L, which only reinforced how powerful the system is.
Key Takeaways:
- Green good, yellow warning, red immediate attention
- The checklist is visual and customers understand it on sight
- Red signals danger and drives action
- The same logic works on a P&L as on a service call
6. The Power of Four Options
Todd and Alan make the case for presenting exactly four options. One feels like a trap, two forces a choice between cheapest and priciest, three pushes everyone to the middle, and four lets the customer rule one out while still choosing between two. You build them from the base up: reds only, then reds plus critical yellows, then all reds and yellows, then your full recommendation.
Key Takeaways:
- Four is the sweet spot; past five, confusion kills the sale
- One option is no option, four gives real choice
- Build from reds only at the base to your recommendation at the top
- The top option answers “what would you do if it were your home?”
7. Settling Anxieties With CAP
Every customer walks in with four questions: who are you, is your company trustworthy, what should I expect, and how much will this cost? Todd's CAP acronym answers them: Credibility, the company story, the Agenda, and permission-based Price expectations. The line that ties it together is “I won't do anything without your OK.”
Key Takeaways:
- Customers carry four anxieties into every call
- CAP: Credibility, Company story, Agenda, Price expectations
- Always get permission before starting work
- Settle anxieties before the diagnostic and again at options
8. Why Process Wins, and Your Monday Moves
Alan compares PRESS PLAY to McDonald's and Chick-fil-A: the same experience every time, no matter who's working. It standardizes the customer experience, gives managers a common language to coach, lifts every KPI, and scales from two techs to five hundred. Todd closes with three Monday morning moves: pull average ticket by tech to find your gap, ride along on one full call, and run a 15-minute role play on presenting four options.
Key Takeaways:
- A standard experience builds trust the way the big brands do
- One framework makes coaching possible and lifts every KPI
- It scales across CSRs, techs, and sales at any size
- Monday moves: find the gap, ride along, run one role play
