Frankie dives into the shifting landscape of the trades; from business transformation to talent management to new technology. He also share how promoting trades as an important employment opportunity can have a massive impact.
Let’s debunk the myth about higher education and success: it’s important to promote the trades as a viable and meaningful career. Frankie also explains how a heavy focus on talent made his business more successful than ever.
On today’s episode, we talk with Frankie Costa, CEO of Helios Service Partners. Helios Service Partners–the result of the nation’s top independent HVAC-R businesses coming together–is the industry leader in multi-site mechanical services. They service 42 states with their 100% self-performing technicians.
Guest Bio:
Frankie Costa is the CEO of Helios Service Partners, the premier national self-performing mechanical. Helios Service Partners provides HVAC, refrigeration, plumbing, and commercial kitchen services to regional and national multi-site clients. Prior to Helios, Frankie led an industrial mechanical contractor in Oklahoma and Texas. He is a licensed attorney and previously worked in software and finance. Frankie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Yale Law School, and a BA from Yale College.
Guest Quote:
“There's something deeply ministerial, deeply meaningful about trying to create good, dignified jobs across the country.”
Timestamps:
**(00:27) – About Helios Service Partners
**(01:14) – Frankie’s career journey
**(05:59) – Helios’ North Star
**(11:10) – Driving investment in the space
**(15:02) – The business of talent
**(25:37) – Dealing with the talent shortage
**(29:22) – Future predictions
**(44:11) – Sid’s final thoughts
Sponsor:
ServiceChannel brings you peace of mind through peak facilities performance.
Rest easy knowing your locations are:
ServiceChannel partners with more than 500 leading brands globally to provide visibility across operations, the flexibility to grow and adapt to consumer expectations, and accelerated performance from their asset fleet and service providers.
Links:
[00:00:00] Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar, a podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance. On today's episode, we talk with Frankie Costa, CEO of Helios Service Partners. Frankie will explain opportunities for modernization in the facilities business, and how to hire great talent to create great customer experiences.
[00:00:19] music break
[00:00:20] Sid: Hello everyone. Welcome to season three of Elevating Brick and Mortar. Thank you for joining us. I am here today with Frankie Costa, CEO of Helios Service Partners. Frankie, welcome. Thank you for being here.
[00:00:32] Frankie: Sid, thanks for having me on. It's good to see you again.
[00:00:35] Sid: Likewise, likewise. So Frankie, for folks in our audience who might not be familiar with the brand, can you share some insight into Helios Service Partners?
[00:00:45] Frankie: Yeah, for sure. Helios Service Partners is a national mechanical with a focus on multi site clients. So we formed in the past couple of years, Sid, as you know, bringing together some of the best independent players, starting in HVAC and refrigeration with a focus on these multi site, particularly national, accounts. And we now do plumbing, as well as commercial kitchen service. So, really the vision is that we want to build the premier mechanical of choice, uh, with this deep focus on serving multi site clients.
[00:01:18] Sid: Got it. I want to dig more into Helios. And if it's okay, I'll call it Helios because the full name is a mouthful. But, but, but let's talk about you first, right? And your journey. I'd love to understand that.
[00:01:30] Frankie: I've always had this interest in the service space, in the mechanical space, and the trades. My grandfather was a , president of his local union, when he immigrated to the country, a family had a little restaurant I used to work in growing up.
[00:01:44] But I was a bit of a nerd myself, right? I focused on school and, as we'll probably get into, like a lot of Americans, of my age and especially younger, there was not a significant push for the trades, which I believe needs to trade, change. I ended up going off to college and eventually law school and business school really with an interest in public policy.
[00:02:06] So I grew up in Pittsburgh, and if you know folks from Pittsburgh, uh, well, they'll tell you within the first few minutes of meeting them. We're a very proud bunch. And part of that is, it's a terrific city, it's a great community. Part of that is a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, right? Pittsburgh was declining. Everybody from Pittsburgh has their grandfather or grandmother in the steel industry. We saw those jobs move away in the 80s and beyond. I wanted to go back, honestly, and get involved in local government when I was growing up in Pittsburgh. I thought that was the way I could make an impact. Um, yeah, that was, that was an interest of mine.
[00:02:38] flashing forward, I, I found that what I'm doing now, what our team is doing, really scratches that itch a little bit, right? There's something deeply ministerial, deeply meaningful about trying to create good, dignified jobs across the country, particularly in parts that are often overlooked. We serve a lot of clients that, you know, they're the primary grocer for rural communities, for example, and creating opportunities for focus, for folks in those areas is really meaningful for me.
[00:03:07] I had spent time in technology before, But I just found that what I really wanted to do was, was build behind people, particularly folks that were in the service economy.
[00:03:17] Got connected with a very people first private equity fund. I was suspicious, even allergic a little bit to the idea of private equity. Which is maybe not, you know, poorly founded. And there's a lot of folks I've met in our space that feel similarly. But, but there's a lot of good folks that are, they're investing in, with good intentions in our space as well.
[00:03:36] I really like their vision, and their structure. Honestly, the, the vision was to build, in the services economy. And their structure allowed them to do it for a very long time. So it was much more patient capital. There was a deep focus on building talent, building the best team, and not rushing it for the purposes of financial engineering, which is, I think, the primary motivation that gives private equity, some of its, its bad rap, right?
[00:04:01] Let's try to buy a bunch of businesses, put debt on the businesses, and, and get out as quickly as we can. What attracted me to our parent company, Orion Services Group was that they were decidedly not interested in that. They were pushing us as operators to do the opposite, right?
[00:04:16] Helios is the business I lead that has this focus on multi site clients, which I love because I used to also be in sales, client development, and, being able to serve national accounts, uh, is a real challenge and, and very edifying.
[00:04:30] Sid: So what is your core offering at Helios and how big are you right now? How many years have you been in existence?
[00:04:37] Frankie: The way we built, Sid, as you know, but the audience might not, is we've partnered with, In other words, brought on, uh, fully independent businesses. So collectively, they have over a century of mechanical experience, right? And some go back to, you know, the 70s and 80s, or earlier. And then we as a, a unified business have been operating for, you know, four plus years, uh, with that collective wisdom and all those operators together. So our core offering is mechanical. We are still primarily HVAC and refrigeration. We have over 700 W2 fully employed service technicians across 42 states in HVAC and refrigeration, which has been a real boon for our clients and just remarkable to witness and bring in a lot of that talent and develop much of it in house.
[00:05:25] And we also have two different service lines now that are a bit smaller. We've got about 150 plus plumbers and cablers in Southern California and the Philadelphia and New Jersey area. And then we also do, lastly, commercial kitchen service, primarily in the Southeast. But the vision really is to be that single point of contact, that seamless self performer for multi sites across the country. So for your core services, we want to be able to be the one stop shop.
[00:05:53] Sid: What are you hoping that will achieve and what's your Northstar in terms of what you can deliver to your customer.
[00:05:59] Frankie: You know, a lot of folks that have tried to bring businesses together before have approached it different ways, particularly in our space. There's been, as you know, a deep appetite for investment. We want to build something different. Helios, I laugh when you ask the question, how long has Helios been around? Uh, Helios, as the name Helios, not very long, right? And that's by design. There, there's another approach where you have a platform business that is more well established and you're going to tuck in, you know, a number of other businesses but they'll be absorbed, both brand Culture, infrastructure, process into that pre existing business.
[00:06:43] There's advantages to that. We set out to do something a little different, right? And, and we made up the name Helios, right? We had representatives from all the businesses that we brought together. We said, let's just, let's just build something different, right? Let's take the jersey off and let's create something together. And it sounds simple, but it was sort of foundational, culturally, and I think honestly systems, processes, talent, everything lives down of culture, right? People say, and I think it's true, culture eats strategy for breakfast. That was foundational for us. Let's get the businesses together, let's take what's worked, let's share best practices, and then build something together.
[00:07:19] And the impulse really to create something together, was one our clients, multi site, primarily national accounts. So if you can give them different points of contact, different systems, different quality in many different states, that doesn't serve them, right? They want a singularly high experience. So that was number one. And number two, we found that, an approach where you're co authoring this chapter together attracts and retains the best talent, right? It's very different than a sort of a corporate approach where, your company's bought up by one other big company. You have to rip off your label and put on a new one. We wanted to build something together.
[00:07:58] Sid: I want to talk about talent, but before that, how do you measure success? Like what would have to be true in terms of an outcome, as you look at the impact you're making to your customer and then ultimately what it does to their customer, which, you know, in our case is the consumer.
[00:08:20] Frankie: A couple of things. Quantitative and qualitative, right? Quantitatively, we want to systematize as much as possible how we are performing, right? And so we do a couple of things there. We certainly start with, as table stakes, the compliance scores, you know, KPIs that our clients care about. They measure us on and Service Channel and another of other platforms have done a great job of making this more programmatic, making it more data driven. Which we've welcomed. We also work with them and help them solve their problems, right, in, in, in terms of what they really want to measure. so there have been times when we've worked with clients and they're measuring and, you know, an engagement score that might have actually an inverse correlation to the quality of the ticket.
[00:09:07] And we've found that people are very receptive. Right, just try to think from first principles. That's one of our core, guiding principles here at Helios. Let's peel back from the sort of inherited wisdom, right, of how it's been done. Let's try to understand from first principles what is the objective and then, and then come up with the best ways to measure it.
[00:09:26] So we do that both with our clients and then internally we have more robust KPIs to measure our quality in the field, our quality in the office and client management, which is more critical, as you know, in the multi site space than and then even the heavier or local mechanical space where the technician and the buyer are often in the same room, in the boiler room, right? And there isn't that intermediary, which is something I had experience with prior to Helios. And then qualitatively, we try to make sure that we are very close to the client, right? So we have QBRs, all sorts of best practices like that. I personally still attend as many of those as I can, so I'm on the road.
[00:10:04] Right now, probably 80 percent of the time. I'm trying to manage it. It's my New Year's resolution as we scale, but to me, I think one of the risks that senior leadership has is getting too remote from the customer and you end up operating or optimizing on this little island and you might be the best at doing it, but the customer has changed. You've got to stay close to them. So, qualitatively, we get a ton of feedback and try to view ourselves as business partners with our clients.
[00:10:31] Sid: It's an interesting trend, right? We're seeing this happen across the board where there's PE money coming in and there's consolidation of, you know, of certain types of trades and companies. What's driving that? You know, as, as a trend, what's making it an attractive space for, for this to happen. And then how does, if done well, how does it provide an advantage to a business that that's been around for a while, right?
[00:10:59] Frankie: Yeah, those two questions in that and important ones, Sid, really what is animating the investment in the space and then what are the advantages and I think you phrased that really well, if done well, because there are some implied disadvantages as well, which I can allude to, I think first and foremost to your first question, this is a great space to be in.
[00:11:17] We're seeing a lot of dislocations in the economy from the rise of AI to the pandemic and You can track what's happened in some of the more glamorous spaces and some, you know, turned down in technology and elsewhere. I think there's a real appetite in the investment community for core service market fit, inelastic demand, and things that are less subject to automation or offshoring or some of the primary disruptions that have changed the landscape of the industry rapidly.
[00:11:57] And I say that because our space is one where you actually see a, a lot of these dislocations have not had the effect you might expect 5 or 10 years ago on the trades, right? So let me be a little bit more concrete. AI can write a better legal brief than me. I'm a lawyer by trade. And probably do it in about 5 seconds.
[00:12:20] But there is no immediate view that AI is going to have the dexterity, the diagnostic ability, to go up on a rooftop, right, robotized, and change a compressor, right, or in a mechanical room. And so a lot of it is that it is a great fundamental business where you have rapidly increasing demand. People still need these core trades, actually more than ever. And you have supply that is, you know, less subject to disruption. And for reasons that we're trying to solve, fewer and fewer people going into it. Right? So for every four people that lead the trades, right, I think only one enters.
[00:12:58] Sid: that's right.
[00:12:59] Frankie: It's basic supply and demand in terms of in terms of the economic viability. So I think those are some of the sort of fundamental economic reasons that people are attracted to the space. And then in terms of the advantages and disadvantages that you alluded to, for us, one of the advantages is really, as you can imagine, reality becomes less constraining if you've got a big capital commitment.
[00:13:22] The disadvantage is if you've got inpatient capital, if you've got capital that's trying to trade on. Macro conditions, right, which will go up and will go down, right, then you've got some pressure on management on folks like me that I think is perverse, right, let's buy a lot of businesses, let's try to, sell them at a peak valuation, and that, that gets management short sighted, right, because you're just trying to hit a number, over a very short period of time.
[00:13:47] The advantages for, for folks that are backed like us, you've got a lot of capital to invest in and you've got the freedom to build for decades. Which allows us to do things we'll talk about, I'm sure said, in terms of investing in talent. Developing talent, trying to solve the technician shortage, which has not needed to be the burden of the private sector in the past, but certainly needs to be now.
[00:14:13] I think those are some of the biggest advantages that I see with it. So, if done right, I love that you said it that way, if done well, properly. This is, this is actually really a boon for our industry and shouldn't be something that, that should be scary. But the onus is really on folks like me, our board, and others to make sure that we, we do the right thing.
[00:14:31] Sid: Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. So let's talk about talent, right? You have an interesting perspective on it. And I think in one of our conversations earlier, you had said that we're not in the business of investments, right? That you're in the business of talent. Can you explain that? What does that mean?
[00:14:48] Frankie: Our parent company, Orion Services Group, they've been a remarkable. And they weren't always remarkable. They were rather ordinary until they had this insight that they are not in the investment industry. They're not trying to play that game with everybody else. They are in the talent industry and focus on that first and foremost. It might, might not look good in the short term, but you're going to build the best businesses if you just focus on the people and it really transformed their investment model.
[00:15:13] For me as an operator, as the CEO of the business, that's been really eyeopening for me. There's an impulse, especially if you want to get in and solve problems to try to do as much of it yourself, right? And we've seen that with a lot of success at some of the small businesses we've brought on. It's of course not scalable. There's only so many hours in your day or your small team's day. The real solution, the real magic happens when you can step back and say, We're not in the mechanical business. We're not in the investment business. We're not in the plumbing business. We are in the talent business. And we're going to make that a mantra we live by. And, it's really transformed the way we think about the business. When I get off this call with you, I'll have four hours of interviews, which in some ways is atypical for the leader of the business, but we found that's really the unlock. And so, just that philosophy and reminding yourself, having a shared understanding with your team that, hey, I know we've got this meeting, I've got a key interview right now, or I've got a key talent development session, that must be priority. It's not going to pay off tomorrow, but it will pay off.
[00:16:13] Sid: I think a lot of folks have said this, but if you have really great talent, then all you got to do is take care of them because they'll take care of your customer and ultimately like, I think that is the key to success, right? Would you agree?
[00:16:26] Frankie: Oh, 100%. We've seen differences over time in the way that our businesses operate when we have focus elsewhere. If we just start with talent and sort of a uncompromising approach to the caliber of talent we expect, and then investing behind high potential folks, particularly folks that have come up through this industry and have just, through sheer will, and horsepower, made it, but have never had people truly invest in their development for its own sake. You're going to win, and we've seen results bear that out. And that's something that we're really proud of is, is especially in this industry where it's kind of a pull yourself up industry, right? And there's real advantages to that. I love the grit of it. And it gives us a real opportunity to focus on talent development, leadership training, things that we found most of the businesses we partnered with didn't really have the resources or think they had the time to focus on.
[00:17:19] Sid: Yeah, let's talk about the industry, right? Because, I think you'd agree that as an industry, we do a terrible job at articulating our value and, you know, we have a massive PR problem because in most cases you think of facilities, and the trades when something goes wrong. Like, Hey, there's the fixer upper team department, right? Someone called them, but, that's anything but the case, because if you look at any physical space, ultimately, if you think about the consumer, even us as consumers, like when we walk into a physical space, you know, I have two kids, like I walk in, it's, it's an effort for me to, you know, take my two young boys to a restaurant or to, you know, to a department store.
[00:18:05] And when I'm there. It better be worth it. Like, I want to know that the business cares about how I feel when I walk in, that it's clean, it's welcoming. And, you know, the associates reflect that, right? Like, they don't want to be in an environment that is, that is not reflective of their own personal values. So We need to do a better job about how we position our industry.
[00:18:27] what are your thoughts on how businesses are articulating the value they create to the brands that they serve?
[00:18:35] Frankie: Well, it's absolutely right, Sid. And I love implied on what you said is sort of a promotional problem, right? We're not marketing it well enough. And I say that because if you look at perhaps some of the most well marketed or attractive industries, technology or high technology, You don't think about Google or Amazon and the first thing you think about is, Oh, my, uh, Google Play didn't work or my Amazon account locked me out.
[00:19:05] My Apple phone froze. All of those can be very painful. You think about the innovation, the positives, and it just works. Similarly, our space, you just alluded to it, how often do we take for granted? We walk into You know, the thousands and thousands of commercial spaces, and you don't even think about the ambient environment. And that's because of people in our industry. That's because of the Helios technicians, or the folks that you all work with, and then constantly moving around. It doesn't just happen. There's thousands and thousands of people every single day that get up and that make it happen. So we have to do a better job of really saying that our Industry is facilitative of everything else, right? If we don't do our job, nobody can do their job. If we don't do our business, our clients can't do their business. Nobody does. and it's powerful. It's fundamental. I think this became perhaps starkest in the pandemic when a lot of people that I went to school with, both lawyers, technologists, people that are in industries everyone wants to go into. They can sit at home on their couch. And the world didn't collapse, candidly, right? But our industries couldn't. And there's something deeply powerful, deeply mission driven about it. It's attracted me, and I think other folks, certainly at Helios, that we brought in. But across the industry, I think you're seeing it start to change where people are opening their eyes.
[00:20:25] I talk to people every day that have been in Silicon Valley. Or in Silicon Alley in New York City, or they're on Wall Street, and they're thinking about going and, uh, working in a mechanical business. That, that wouldn't have happened five or ten years ago, so something's working. Hopefully we can be bridges to other folks to go ahead and attract that talent. But you're right, it's something we need to do a much better job as an industry, explaining just how edifying and critical our work is.
[00:20:51] Sid: That's spot on. You know, I'd love your thoughts on, how do great facilities teams position themselves and measure success, and your conversations with them as a service provider, versus the ones that maybe still haven't figured this out, because there's a huge difference in terms of how great facilities teams look at what they do.
[00:21:14] And how they look at investments versus the ones that still haven't figured out their position in terms of the impact they make to the brands that they work for. Right.
[00:21:24] Frankie: The folks and the clients that I've seen that do it best sort of approach it as a holistic partnership. And what I mean by that is they have in mind the goal at all times which is to keep the ambient environment comfortable, to keep the facilities up. And they think about that in a broadest, in the broadest sense.
[00:21:46] And they view us and other mechanicals as partners, right? We might be outside their payroll, but we are still partners in solving that problem. I think that serves them the best, right? So the ones, to be more concrete, that have done this best are not focused just on beating up the mechanical, but hey, how can you and I work together to solve this problem for our clients, to keep everything moving along so we can facilitate our business. And they're very receptive to feedback. Which has been really impressive. And by the way, I see a lot of it, right? So whether that's a focus on the entire environment, on energy management, on preventive maintenance services, there's a receptivity to the best facilities managers.
[00:22:31] And guess what? In the end, they also end up having the best results, both financially and qualitatively. And then I think there are, you know, you'll still come across some that, they're maybe thinking A little bit more short term, or a little bit more reactively, and that I've seen less and less of that, even in the past three, four, five years. I think part of it is that people are sort of wising up to a broader game that they're playing, and I think that, honestly, those, those folks will serve their businesses better and they're also going to work with the best mechanicals.
[00:23:05] Sid: Yep. Agreed. Let's, let's pivot a little bit and just talk about maybe some macro trends. What are you seeing out there? I mean, there's, We talked about the talent shortage. I'd love your perspective on what's going on. But what other trends are you seeing that worry you and what are you seeing that excites you?
[00:23:22] Frankie: Talent is, is primary, We said that we're in the talent business. We believe it. We're investing millions of dollars in talent acquisition, but even more so in talent development that we wouldn't do if we were not building for decades. So, you know this, Sid. We've got a couple of programs that we started.
[00:23:44] One is called the NOVA program, where we will take Mechanically inclined, but greenhorn, folks into a bootcamp. We'll put them through two plus months paid, fully subsidized, of just full time training, right? And we've partnered with a few outside folks, to do that. We'll take them on site. We'll, take them from zero to a PM tech.
[00:24:07] We'll take folks from residential, get them, enough bona fides to be a decent commercial technician. And then we'll have them do ride alongs. And the idea is that in a six month plus period, they're going to be sort of a well formed technician, right, that can be with us for many, many years. It's a huge investment, and the math doesn't make sense if you're not trying to do this long term and if you don't believe you're creating a culture. That they'll stick around. And I hear that all the time, Sid, right? It's like, oh, I can't afford to invest in this person and then it, he leaves. Right, well, can you afford to not invest in them and they stay?
[00:24:40] Sid: that's right.
[00:24:41] Frankie: Or that you don't hire them at all because there are not enough folks. So, that's, that's a big thing.
[00:24:46] It, I wouldn't say it worries me, but it's gotta be top of mind. I'd say what worries me is, more broadly, we have less support, awareness, and partnership from other parts of civil society to solve this problem. Everyone wants to go to college. Even our government has for many, many years promoted and subsidized that effort, I think somewhat counterproductively. We socialize it as well. And I don't mean that in an economic sense. Like socially we talk about it like you're not good enough or you're not a worthy person if you don't go and get these degrees. And that's just not true. As someone who has three graduate degrees, right, and, and I spent a lot of time in school and it certainly wasn't necessary for what I'm doing now.
[00:25:30] I learned a lot from it, enjoyed it, met a lot of great folks, but that's not the answer, right? Certainly not for everybody. And, and so that's, that's number one that's on the horizon. Two, we are trying to think about what technological shifts will happen in our space. So I mentioned that I think private equity is interested because There are a lot of sort of foundational reasons why we think technology will be less disruptive in the skill trades than it will in, in knowledge work, right?
[00:25:57] Everything from accounting to, to lawyering. But there's also a lot of investment and a lot of innovative minds coming into our space. There's everything from startups to big, large corporations focused on this particularly as there's, you know, animation around climate change and other large issues. So we're trying to stay ahead of that. We see some, some big trends. Most of them I think are positive, right? You've had guests speak about this, but it doesn't just happen, right? You don't just have AI or innovation come in, dislocate things, and then you reallocate, as you said before, folks from one job to another. You have to stay ahead of it, right? We are gatekeepers in this. It's not a natural shift, and there will be disruptions if we don't stay ahead of training and developing versatile people that can seamlessly shift from, you know, dispatch to client management. And that's something we're really working on.
[00:26:45] So one other program we have is the Leadership Development Program. We've put more than a hundred people through this. It's a six month program that focuses on leadership, general management, more versatile skill set. And it's totally agnostic of role. We have folks that are client management. Folks that are company presidents, general managers, service tech, you know, service management that, that have gone through this program and the idea is can we invest in our people to be versatile because we know those dislocations are coming and we want our people to be prepared.
[00:27:15] Sid: Yeah. You know, you're absolutely right. I think as a society, we've done a disservice, right. By making it look like there's only one path, like the only path that's successful or will assure you success is if, if you, if you go to college. And that might not be the answer for everyone. And, you know, you could really be great with your hands and have a really, uh, great aptitude towards the skilled trades.
[00:27:42] And that could be an amazing career choice, but, historically, we've not kind of done a good job in promoting that And, you know, that's, that's a shame, but I think that's changing now. That's part of the reason why we have this show as well, which is, you know, to change the perception of our industry as a whole, uh, but also the skilled trades. What are your predictions? Is it going to get better or worse or worse and then better?
[00:28:08] Frankie: Well, I'm a little bit loathe to prognosticate, right? Because this is being recorded and it'll come back and I was wrong. But I'd say this, I'm pretty optimistic. And I think the reason I'm optimistic is I see and feel a big shift. I think for a lot of reasons that we'd have to talk on, at another date or a whole other seminar, I think higher education is a, is in a tough place and they need to make some real shifts because people are wising up that actually you don't need to take on a whole bunch of debt to be not just, an economically viable professional, but a well formed person, right?
[00:28:42] The foundations of this industry are so important, right? So we just said that there's a deep, deep demand for it. I'd say one, one thing, Sid, that I felt coming out of the pandemic is that there's a deeper demand for what we do than we might have even expected,
[00:28:59] I think there are social shifts that will demand the work that we're doing, right? We talk a lot about technological shifts or innovations, but what about the social ones, right? We're living in a time when we are more connected, right, on paper and technologically than ever before, and yet, simultaneously, we've lonelier society.
[00:29:20] By pretty much every measurement, how is that possible? Well, a lot of these spaces, are in fact the points where social interaction take place. And so I don't think there's, I think you saw this in the pandemic, I don't think there's a desire to sit at home all day long and never see another human being. There's actually a deeper desire than ever before to get out, to have shared spaces, to have true physical connectivity with your community. And that will require folks like our technicians making that possible. So I actually think the shift is counter to maybe a lot of the truisms we've seen in the past few years, calling for the demise of brick and mortar, just like they call for the demise of trades, I don't think that's true.
[00:30:07] Sid: yeah, yeah. You know, you mentioned something interesting about the pandemic, right? I mean, if you look at where we've come from the pandemic, there are a few things that kind of went away, but there are some things that's continued. And I think I'd love your perspective on two things. One is consumer expectations. You talked to us now about. How consumers today want, even more so than ever, the ability to interact with other people, with the community. That social interaction has become even more so important because everyone, I think, realized what happened when we couldn't, right? And so we, everyone realized like, I need this. I'm going to go insane if I don't kind of go and meet someone, right? Consumer expectations have never been higher. Like if you, if you look at. Me, even, even myself as, as a consumer, I want to go to a facility that makes me want to be there, right? Cause the other choice is I'm on my couch and I door dash something in, right?
[00:31:11] So I have to physically feel the motivation to pack up my family and go out there and enjoy a great meal. And the emphasis there is it has to be enjoyable and it has to be great. Otherwise, you know, there are other alternatives. So I'd love your perspective on consumer expectations, especially being in the service business.
[00:31:29] And then to do that, like one of the challenges during COVID. There was a massive supply chain disruption. That's not fully gone away, right? It's, there's still remnants of that issue. I'd love your perspective on, are you still seeing that?
[00:31:43] We are seeing it start to ease like the supply chain issue. There are definitely pockets where it's been a challenge and certainly coming out of a pandemic. I mean, you were talking 30 plus weekly times for some units.
[00:31:54] Frankie: It was absolutely wild. We're seeing some of that ease. Some of the things we're doing are, again, with the the lack of capital constraints we have going out and getting ahead of it, and really procuring and storing, uh, units and parts for our clients, right? One of the great advantages of focusing on multi site clients, one of the great advantages of even embracing some concentration, right, which can spook some folks, is that we get really good at serving those clients and we can feel, uh, in this partnership, it makes really good sense to say, We're going to go out, we're going to stock, the top SKUs that we know you are going to use, and we do that.
[00:32:32] We put 20 plus thousand dollars of stock on vans, so we've got folks running around with the mini supply house on wheels and it serves our, our clients.
[00:32:43] Sid: yeah,
[00:32:44] Frankie: The first, the first thing you asked Sid is, is so critical. It's also why you see the rise of Omnichannel, right? And you've got retail with restaurants or experiences within it, and trying to motivate you to get off your couch with your family and come out to our client sites is critical, right? You've heard it throughout this, but we try to use the word client. More than customer. And it's really a conscious effort to think of things as more communal than transactional.
[00:33:14] And you kind of alluded to it. I think that's how these spaces in our businesses, our clients businesses, are transforming is they have an emphasis more on the communal experience and less on the transaction. If it were just transactional, it doesn't make any good sense to go and spend 20 minutes in a car.
[00:33:30] To spend a little bit more money to get the same thing you can order in two clicks from your couch. But that's not really what our best clients are solving for anymore, right? That's something you do there, but that's not the only job to be done. There's something experiential and communal about it. We alluded to it. People, you said rightly, were going insane in their apartments, in their homes during the pandemic. It's a cliche and a strange thing to say, but there's a reason why, you know, in the 80s and 90s, you know, kids would even meet and go hang out at the mall, right? It sounds ridiculous and even consumerist, but they weren't just going there to shop, right?
[00:34:08] They were having conversations. That was the town square. And I think inasmuch as we can replicate Or recreate experiences like that, especially when a lot of other institutions that used to fill that void for people are fading. That's going to distinguish our clients, right, and us, and then ultimately serve a really important social purpose.
[00:34:29] Sid: Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, you talk about experiences, like different brands are trying different things and different industries or verticals are trying different things. I mean, look at banking, like banking, I think is going through some sort of a change right now, metamorphosis, right? They're trying to put cafes in banks, like with Capital One.
[00:34:47] Is it working? I guess the jury's still out. We don't know yet, right? What do people expect when they go into a bank? And why should someone walk into a bank? I don't know. I haven't been in a bank for years, you know. Everything's, you know, on my, on my phone. But every business is going to have to think about that.
[00:35:04] Like what, what can I do? To augment the, my core experience, you know, if I'm at a department store, can I do something else that will make the customer want to come back and want to stay longer? Because the more you stay, I mean, the more you're going to spend, I mean, you know, look at Costco, right? I mean, Costco, you go in with the expectation of buying batteries, you're going to come out with, you know 400 worth of stuff. They do a really good job with making sure the experience is pleasant. Like you cannot, don't mind walking through, you know, a lot of these brands that have figured it out. Right. Um, there's a lot of advancements in AI and robotics that's going on right now. So that's the other part of this kind of interesting experiential, kind of change that's taking place. You've got, brands that are trying. AI and robotics to simplify or automate their back of house so they can repurpose the talent that they have to be in front of the customer. In some cases it's customer facing, you know, with drive thrus having AI and robots, you know, busing your tables and serving your drinks.
[00:36:13] What are your thoughts on that trend that's taking place, one as a consumer, and then as a leader of a service company. Do you think the service industry is ready for that?
[00:36:26] Frankie: I rather like the innovations we see that free up folks for that communal experience, right? So, you're seeing different approaches and I think you'll see the market respond differently to this. You kind of alluded to it, Sid, but there are, without naming names, a lot of retailers, and other large chains that do pretty much the exact same thing, right? On paper, they are doing the exact same thing, and some are successful and others are not. Right, so it's very clear that there is something core that's, that's distinctive, and you can feel it when you walk into their locations and the difference. So, to me, I think if you see innovation that will make more seamless the transaction, it's helpful. But I don't think that's going to be what sets folks apart, right? They're not just looking for, uh, going into a store with a bunch of cameras, swiping their credit card, taking stuff and leaving, and there's, uh, no other interaction. That makes things, you know, it reduces the transaction costs, it makes it seamless, but it's not really an experience.
[00:37:31] I think that where, where we expect to see it in a way that's best is it's solving a lot of that sort of social problem, like creating an entirely So, you know, you can actually talk to an expert, right, who can help you understand, the use for the for the tool or try on, clothing or something, right? And it becomes much more of an experience. So I think those are, those are interesting. In terms of how we're seeing it, we are, uh, working to incorporate it, right, into our own environment, into our service space. And I think, again, it's, it's going to be facilitative of us doing more work and solving our clients problems. And implied in that is to help. Our technicians, our field staff, and our office folks do their job better, right? So you had the founder of Interplay on, for example. That's a tool we use, right? As part of that bootcamp that I alluded to, the Helios Nova program. And we found it's actually remarkably effective, and, and a lot of our technicians who were skeptical at first, right, they like working with their hands, and hopping on a computer seemed, atypical or unnatural, were very impressed with it, right?
[00:38:46] So there's a lot of areas like that. We try to channel it toward the service of our technicians, toward the development of our technicians, but also, to your point, to help folks, uh, do their job better and actually free up a ton of time. To do other things. You'd be amazed at how much was not programized at some of these great businesses that we've brought on, right? A lot of Data, swivel chairing, a lot of manual entry, things that are not the most productive for the client or for the person and not the most stimulating for them either. So even trying to reduce, uh, reduce some of that using simple tools or some more advanced ones, right? We've experimented with AI for optimizing dispatching, uh, in very small pockets, but I think all of that, as long as it's in service of your people developing so that they can serve the client, because again, it ties back to people want that personal experience and interaction.
[00:39:39] Our clients do just like their customers do as well. I think it's going to be a good thing.
[00:39:44] Sid: So let's end on a note about the future, right? When you look at the future, Frankie. Two things, what keeps you up at night, you know, as the leader of a service provider? and what excites you in terms of opportunities that maybe we as a space haven't scratched the surface of?
[00:40:05] Frankie: It might be two sides of the same coin. I think we still live in the service environment in a a naturally reactive space, right? As much as we try to be proactive, but right now, I'm talking this way, catch me in the, in the heat of the summer. and you know, I'll, my papers will be flying everywhere, right? And I'll be losing some hair. But the reality is, when you are. Very reactive, right? When you're in an environment where you've got to put out fires and solve these problems, it's hard to pull up, right, and say I'm going to focus on the future and the long term. We're trying to get better and better at that, but we've got to solve the here and now for our folks.
[00:40:44] So I say that because I think what keeps me up at night is that we're not doing enough of that. We're not importing enough innovation. We're not innovating ourselves out of service, right, and someone else will eventually. It's something we want to keep really top of mind because, again Peel it back to first principles. Our clients just want their environment functional, right? And if there's a quicker way or a better way or a more cost effective way of solving that fundamental problem than dispatching a technician, right, or hundreds of them across many, many locations, They're going to choose that, right? So how do we stay ahead of that innovation? Um, it's something we talk about a lot. I was just talking about it with our board chairman last week. Um, and we've got some ideas around that. But I think it ultimately starts with embracing innovation, focusing on the core problem, and not being afraid to change. It's kind of like who moved my cheese, right? We all got to think about that all the way up to the leadership team. This is the way we're doing it. It's not going to be that way forever. So how do we make sure we're the ones that are making that change and embracing it and not caught flat footed?
[00:41:50] Sid: Love it. Well, with that, I just want to say a huge thank you, Frankie, um, I really appreciate you being on the show and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. For those in our audience who might want to reach out to you, where can they find you?
[00:42:04] Frankie: You can go ahead and reach out on our helioservicepartners. com website. We'd love to hear from you. If you've got an interest in working with us, email service at helioservicepartners. com. And I'd love to hear from you. If you direct it to me, Frankie, I promise you'll get it to me and, we'd love to be in touch.
[00:42:25] Sid: Sounds great. Well, again, thank you so much, Frankie. And to all in our audience, thank you for joining us and I'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar.
[00:42:35] music break
[00:42:35] Well, that was Frankie Costa, CEO of Helios Service Partners. It was really interesting to hear Frankie's perspective on why there's so much opportunity in our industry to modernize how we do business, how we position our value prop, and how we can make an impact for the brands and consumers we all serve.
[00:42:56] This is the very reason why we're seeing PE firms and a lot of money entering the industry. The good ones, of course, are in it for the long haul, focusing on hiring great talent and serving the customer in the best possible way. With that, I'm Sid Shetty, and I'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar.