ServiceTitan Hacks

ServiceTitan Hacks is the podcast where innovation meets the home service industry. Join host Bill Brown, a former Inc. 5000 HVAC company owner with 25 years of industry experience and a background in computer programming, as we explore the cutting-edge tools, technologies, and strategies transforming how contractors do business. Each episode features candid conversations with forward-thinking contractors and software founders who are revolutionizing the industry. Drawing from his unique perspective as both a successful contractor and tech enthusiast, Bill uncovers how AI, automation, and smart solutions are helping service professionals save time, reduce costs, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Whether you’re looking to streamline operations, boost profitability, or stay ahead of industry trends, ServiceTitan Hacks delivers actionable insights you can implement today. From ServiceTitan optimization to emerging tech integrations, we unpack the innovations that give modern contractors their competitive edge. Subscribe now to join thousands of service professionals in the ServiceTitan Hacks community who are working smarter, not harder.

ServiceTitan Hacks is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 25 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts ServiceTitan Hacks, a business show with 25 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #25

  Approval Rate vs Take Rate: What Contractors Get Wrong About Financing, with Eric Howarth of GoodLeap

  Sep 1, 202655 min

  Financing is one of the top topics inside the ServiceTitan Hacks community, and it is also one of the least understood. In this episode, Bill Brown sits down with Eric Howarth, SVP of Business Development at GoodLeap and the former head of the financing side of Contractor University at EGIA, where his actual job was grading finance companies on behalf of contractors. As Bill puts it, Eric is not a rep who got handed a rate sheet. He is the guy who used to audit the rate sheets. The core of the conversation is one idea most contractors miss: approval rate and take rate are not the same thing. Approval rate sounds impressive, but the number that actually pays your bills is take rate, meaning did the customer accept the offer, and did they accept it for the full amount you needed to close the job. A quote that gets countered from a 19,000 dollar system down to a 7,000 dollar approval does not show up as a lost sale. It shows up as a repair, and the missing margin never gets counted. Bill and Eric also cover why the counteroffer is a deal killer, why zero interest equal pay plans carry high dealer fees and tend to approve only the highest credit bands, the case for leading with the lowest possible monthly payment plus a no payment option for cash buyers, how debt to income and modeled income really drive approvals, and why the car industry's methodical, payment first approach works. Eric closes with how contractors can pull their own numbers from ServiceTitan and their current lenders to see what they are actually leaving on the table. Whether you use GoodLeap or anyone else, the takeaway is the same: learn both sides of the equation before you choose a finance partner. Learn more about GoodLeap and get connected with Eric's team: https://go.st-hacks.com/13200156 Not in the ServiceTitan Hacks group yet? Join about 11,000 HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors: https://go.st-hacks.com/13203376

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  Episode #24

  Human, AI, or Answering Service? Who Should Be Picking Up Your Phones, with Nicole Rivera of Jill's Office

  Aug 28, 202649 min

  Contractors have four options when the phones are ringing off the hook: hire and train internally, use a generic answering service, turn on AI, or bring in a trained live team. Bill sits down with Nicole Rivera of Jill's Office to walk through all four, with no sales pitch. Nicole has been at Jill's for over 10 years, since it was a six person company back in 2015. She came in while closing down her own first business, one she ran for six years without understanding her numbers or how to delegate. In this episode: Why Bill's first CSR hire failed, and why he says that was on him, not her Why an outside answering service can never function like your internal CSR, and what to decide before you sign up How Jill's schedules directly in ServiceTitan, what their onboarding looks like, and why they keep a ServiceTitan consultant on staff to fix client setups Why booking rates vary so widely between companies, and how your brand reputation pre-qualifies the caller before a Jill ever picks up How they handle pricing questions, service call fees, and minimums on the phone Outbound: unsold estimate lists, lead follow-up, and the three attempt cadence spread across days that gets their best results The AI conversation: why some callers now assume they've reached a bot, why Jill's is still building an AI overflow option, and Nicole's point that "we can't trick people" And the answer to the question everyone asks at trade shows: who is Jill? Learn more or book a discovery call at jillsoffice.com. Turnaround to start forwarding calls is about 48 hours. Home Service Hacks is hosted by Bill Brown, licensed HVAC contractor and founder of the ServiceTitan Hacks community. More at st-hacks.com .

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  Episode #23

  She Put AI on Her Own Phones. Here’s What Happened to Her CSRs.

  Aug 14, 202651 min

  Every contractor who has looked at AI for their phones has had the same private thought and hasn’t said it out loud. What happens to the person answering them right now? Marcelle Flowers has an answer, because she made that call on her own payroll. She owns and runs Armstrong Plumbing in Sacramento. She is also the COO of Broccoli AI, the company that makes the voice agent she put on her own lines. Customer and vendor at the same time. That is on the table in the first two minutes of this episode rather than buried in a disclaimer at the end, so you can weigh everything she says accordingly. She did not want AI anywhere near her business. Two guys knocked on her door and she assumed they were selling chocolate bars for a soccer team. What we get into: • The five answering services she burned through before any of this, and the $5,000 a month one that turned out to be a bigger mess than the last • What she paid her own CSRs to cover weekends, and why that broke too • The CSR who told her straight out “this is scary,” and who still works there today • Whether anybody got fired, and what actually happened to her headcount • The one I could not stop chewing on: if AI takes the easy calls, your CSR is left with nothing but hard ones all day, with no easy wins in between to catch her breath. What does that do to a person? • Why the owners who want to fire everyone and run on AI are usually the ones nobody wants to work for • What she sees from the vendor side that she could not see when she was only the customer No booking rate stats, no ROI math, no pitch. Just the operator version, including the parts that did not go well. Links in the show notes: • The AI Voice Vendor Scorecard: score up to three AI phone vendors side by side on 27 questions before you sign, including whether they actually book into ServiceTitan, which a lot of them don’t → https://go.st-hacks.com/scorecard • Broccoli → https://go.st-hacks.com/broccoli-pod • The ServiceTitan Hacks community on Facebook → https://go.st-hacks.com/fb-group Broccoli AI is a ServiceTitan Hacks partner. Marcelle Flowers is COO of Broccoli AI and the owner of Armstrong Plumbing, a Broccoli customer

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  Episode #22

  Stop Paying for Time: How Performance Pay Transforms Your Techs' Results

  Aug 11, 202623 min

  In this episode Bill from Service Titan Hacks interviews Ryan Shank of Sharewillow about performance pay for contractors—what it is, how it differs from commission, and why aligning pay with outcomes drives better technician behavior and company metrics. They cover key metrics to include (average ticket, callbacks, tech-generated leads, Google reviews, job time), Sharewillow’s ServiceTitan-powered audit and plan-building process, the Sharewillow app that shows effective hourly rate and leaderboards, and practical tips for rollout and avoiding common pitfalls. Listeners leave with simple best practices for designing performance pay plans, examples of what works for sales techs versus installers, and next steps to request a free audit or demo. Get the free audit here: https://go.st-hacks.com/sharewillow-free-audit

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  Episode #21

  The $200 Referral Play: How AquaClear uses ReferPRO to turn Customers into Revenue

  Apr 9, 202637 minS0

  <p>Host Bill Brown sits down with JB from AquaClear and the ReferPro team to explain why happy customers and good reviews often don’t produce referrals — and what actually does: automation, easy submission, accurate attribution, and meaningful incentives.</p> <p>The episode covers practical fixes (same-day and drip texts, group handoffs, technician incentives, and store-credit payouts), real results from a $200-per-referral program, and how to set up and measure a program that scales referral revenue.</p>

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