Episode 19: Change Vs. Chance: Digital Transformation With Mark Stewart

Change is hard, but sometimes it's necessary, especially when it relates to your business and digital platforms. Welcome to the Field Famous Podcast, brought to you by Field Routes, a show that shines a light on the field service industry and the dedicated professionals that grind every day on their journey to success. I am your host, Dr. Christopher Fano. Before we begin, just want to remind you the best place to find a new episode of this show is to subscribe right on your favorite pod player. That could be Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you find a podcast, you'll be able to find and subscribe to the Field Famous Podcast. The show is also available in video format in case you want to watch the video of me talking to our guest today. You can go to bfieldfamous.com and right there you'll find our YouTube link and you could subscribe. And last but not least, please consider giving us a five-star review if you're really enjoying the show. It'll help others find the show and we hope that they will learn from these episodes. Today our guest is Mark Stewart. Mark is a strategic account executive at Field Routes. Mark has over 20 years experience in the digital transformation space. He has helped Fortune 500 companies transition and learned a lot of lessons along the way, and he's here to share those with us today. Mark, my man, are you ready to be Field Famous?

Me too, Mark. So Mark and I are colleagues, we work together, and we've been talking about having Mark come on the show to share his unique expertise, and I'm glad we got him on at this time of the year. We're recording the show the first week of September, just coming out of Labor Day holiday, and by the time this comes out it'll still be very relevant. This time of year for all of our listeners, most people are in the field service space, pest control, maybe lawn, maybe the busy season is now starting to wane, it's starting to come down a little bit. And you've really gone through the ringer, you've been busting your butt all season, you're sort of seeing where your strengths are, you're also seeing where your weaknesses are. You're maybe looking at your business and saying, hey, I really need to do something, I really need to take another get to another level, or maybe it's time for me to consider upping the ante in terms of my digital, my CRM, my software, etc. And so Mark is going to be here today just to talk about his expertise in that regard. But Mark, before we really get into all of that cool detail, I would like you to just introduce yourself to everybody so they can get a sense for who you are, what you've done in your career, and how you sort of got to where you are today. I would love that.

So a couple things before we get into the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts of what we want to talk about today. On this show, we talk a lot about business growth, right? A lot of the things, there's different aspects of that, but we talk a lot about because in the end of the day, people in this industry, in this space, and most people with a business, they want to understand how they can better grow their business and how to scale. So in that regard, you've been at a company now, Field Routes, that has seen growth, and I'm wondering if you can just walk me through your experience there and how that sort of growth and new things that are going on will ultimately benefit the customer downstream.

That's what I would imagine. It's just rows and rows of servers, like that's the cloud. But it has a lot more security and a lot more capabilities, but at the end of the day, it's a server not in your break room, it's a server in a much better facility.

I imagine right, and not just stick to something that you changed five years ago.

Sorry, go ahead, man.

Are you serious? Was it expensive to buy? Do you know? Was it expensive?

There you go. No one else. It was a bargain. Awesome. But I thought that was pretty funny. But no, I really, what's nice about this industry is it's so close. Everyone knows each other, everyone's friends, everyone knows about who they like, who they don't like. And fortunately, once you get into this industry, you never want to leave. So if someone is listening to this podcast that's not in the pest industry, you need to get in as fast as possible because it's such a wonderful place to be. But the biggest thing, going back to my original story, is you need to understand that software can't solve every problem. You really need to focus in on what problems am I trying to solve in my business and what can fit in that. You don't want to put a square peg in a round hole. You want to make sure that it is solving the problem that you need.

And like that was one of the things I was going to ask you. If I'm sitting here and I'm saying, what does a software actually do for me? And how can a software, what are some of the things I should be looking for in my software even if I have one already? Is it really that big of a deal? Are they all the same kind of thing? I think I've seen that a lot, like a software as a software, it might feel a little better, it might look a little prettier, but what exactly in your experience and seeing it has it helped your customers to actually be better?

Love that. That needs to be the premise. I think I told you this the other day, everyone I've talked to, almost everyone I talked to on this show, and undoubtedly it comes down to their team. I don't think I ever talked to somebody and them not mention their team or their staff or that being the most important part of their business. Yes, you have to have a good product, you have to have good service, you have to have good customer, yes, but you have to have a team. You have to have a team that believes, you have to have a team that feels like they can grow with you. And if you can do that, they'll stay and they'll refer other people to come work for you. People will want to work for that organization and that company because they've heard that it's a great place to be that takes care of their team. So as efficient as you can make it, their routes aren't all over the world, they're consolidated and they're in a nice place, they can schedule all of that stuff. That matters to people out doing the work. And so efficiency, you're right, name of the game, and it's absolutely where it can have the biggest impact. So what I want to do is I'm going to put on my neuroscience hat for a second, Mark. And I was hoping you, because you know why, this is something that's truly a psychological feat, and that is change. No human that has an evolved brain, which 99.999% of humans have an evolved brain, there's a small percentage that do not, the brain does not want to change. The brain has a lot to do. Think about what the brain's got to do. If you think your day is rough, think about the day of the brain. It's got to make sure that you're breathing, that you're actually alive and functioning, and handling all of the sensory inputs and things that it's seeing, processing it, making memory, making sure it knows what's good, what's not. It definitely doesn't have any room to hear about all the things you want all of a sudden change because then it's got to be like, okay man, how am I going to handle this now? I've already adapted. So we're set up to just do the same thing over and over again. We much prefer to do that. Now we're talking about in a business making a significant change. I want to upgrade my digital platform, I want to move to a digital platform, I already have all, it's a lot and it's very hesitant and all the anxieties kick in. So it becomes the number one thing you would need to sort of get over. Even if you know you want to change, even if you know you have to change, your brain doesn't rationalize that. So I'm just going to quickly cite this study here and then we're going to talk about actual real conversations you've had with customers who expressed that to you and sort of what you have said in those conversations and saw them finally get over the finish line to make the choice. So there was this done research at Penn State. I find this to be fascinating. All the participants had some sort of anxiety. Four times a day they were prompted by text to record any worry from the past two hours. Boy, I would love to be a part of that study to ensure that they can capture as many worries as possible. Then the study participants reviewed their list of worries every evening over the next 30 days to see if any of them came true. So what they actually worried about, that was what they were told to do. The researchers only focused on worries that could actually be tested in a 30-day period. For example, I'm going to fail my math exam tomorrow. That actually you can test because you know if you fail or don't. Not something like I will develop a terminal illness or something before I die, like that's something you can't test. So the average person reported three to four testable worries per day just to give you the scale of what people are worrying about. And here was the result: 91% of all worries never came true. 91%. And of the remaining 9% of the worries that actually sort of came true, the outcome was actually better than expected one third of the time. So even if it did come true, it wasn't as bad as they thought it was going to be. Point being, the majority of the time we create situations in our mind and our brain and our world that most of the time aren't going to happen. So we set up all these things and then finally we get on the other side and we're like, okay, yeah, sure, that was a little uncomfortable, but man, look at where I am now and look at where I can go. And so bringing that full circle, you've had real life conversations about growing business, scaling, digitally transforming, but man, Mark, I don't know if I can do it. So tell me, walk me through some of those conversations and what they look like and what you ultimately advise or say before someone's like, all right, let's do it.

So you have this team, and then I got to imagine you're also, selling them is a strong word because if you're leading this business, it's your call, but you want them to feel good about it, you want them to get pumped up, you want them to see the same benefit you're seeing. You want to get them excited about it. So I imagine that would be some sort of advice that you might say is like, listen, get your team and then get them fired up. Let them see all the benefit, because I got to imagine if I'm on board, I'm going to be much more willing to help through the transition.

So you sort of, you're in your mind, you know, hey, I'm going to do this, I really need to do this. You go through your little worries like you said, you make a plan, you talk to a team, you get them assembled. Now you got to go out and find the car that you want to drive. Now you got to go out and start looking around. And I think you were saying like it's about efficiency, etc. But any advice you might offer someone who's, I mean some people know the car, the software car they want to drive, the software they want to use, they already know that. Some people don't and they're going to have to look around and shop. Any advice for anybody like what to really look for? Obviously it's going to be specific to their need and growth stage, but any sort of standard advice you might offer that person?

For sure. So now let's say you do all those steps, you find it, you pull the trigger, you go, now you start the process. And I know you were telling me about the other day about the Boy Scouts model of the way to really get into something. So let's say you pull the trigger, you're moving over, you've got your team, you're starting to go. Talk to everybody a little about that. I think it's cool, I think it totally relates.

It's funny, I just listened to something that Kobe Bryant said. Kobe Bryant obviously was an all-world, all-time basketball player. I still can't believe that he passed. Anyway, his work ethic was almost unmatched. There's very few people that you might compare to how he worked and his drive. And he said something along these lines of teaching it and repetition. He said something that I found to be so fascinating, I never really thought about it that way. He said something to the effect of, if you have a craft, if you have something that you're doing that you want to do, could be anything, business, an instrument, sport, and you practice that thing or you're working that thing for 2 to 3 hours a day, call it 2 hours a day, every single day, there is absolutely no possible way you won't become one of the best at that thing. And I thought about that and I'm like, is that hyperbole, just a big statement to say? And then I'm thinking about it, how often does the average person practice? I think about like my kid going to baseball practice, maybe they have practice once a week, maybe at home maybe I throw the ball with him a couple days for 20 minutes a pop. He's talking about two hours a day. So that is a meaningful difference. And I think his point is the more you do something, actually do it right over and over again, the better you become at it, the more easy it becomes. You teach people, you show them, and you bring them along. It's just like that, Mark. It's like anything else. So you have to be willing to put in the time and the effort, but the reward is almost certainly there if you do it. Because just how can it not be if you really go into something? So I thought of that when you're talking about doing it and then you'll be able to teach it.

What are some of the things, Mark, that you, I know you've been, we've been talking about a particular pest control, but even in the space, some of the things that you're seeing or hearing that you're excited for? Do you see anything coming down the line? Like you talked about employees and things changing, anything else that like technology or things that you're seeing around that look to be cool? I know there's a lot of cool integrated stuff. What is some of the stuff you're hearing about?

Yeah, exactly. That's just written logic. It's a whole different ball game. But I would say the biggest change is hiring people, what technology can bring to the table. And that's probably the two biggest things that if you don't take that worry and start doing something about it, it's going to catch up to you. Also, for someone that marketed for pest control companies, lawn companies, HVAC companies in the past, you got to be able to speak to them at the right time and the right place too. You have to be able to leverage. So you have this system, digital, which means you have data in it, and you should be capturing data about your customer: what they bought, when they bought it, what they don't have yet, things like that. And then you want to be able to turn around and say something to them at the time where they're going to be thinking about it. Where they're outside getting bit by a mosquito, you want them to come inside, sit down, and get an email about, hey, I got this mosquito service because the mosquitoes suck right now. Right at the time where the brain is starting to deal with a problem, it finds an answer and it's forcing you to think about it. Why? Because it doesn't want to have to think about it. It's got plenty to do. It's got to keep you alive. It doesn't want mosquitoes biting. So integration with things like that that are going to automate in a different sort of AI, but an automation behavioral way. I love how where this is moving, especially for businesses like this recurring revenue that are always looking for upsells and cross-sells and things like this. It's really cool. And you got to find a digital system that's going to allow for inputs and hook-ins and integrations seamlessly so you'll be able to do that. So something just a little bit that I'm seeing that I'm excited for, and I know at Field Routes we got a lot of stuff cooking with things like that. I told you this would go quick, Mark. I'm looking at the time, so we are getting close to the time. I'm going to do the rapid fire questions with Mark now, and after that we're going to close with having Mark give some information about how he can be contacted if anyone is sort of facing those anxieties or having those thoughts in their head but wanting to talk it out with someone who's been there, like a software psychologist, Mark.

All right, so here we go. Mark Stewart, rapid fire. You know the drill. You're just going to give me the first thing that comes to your mind, no thinking. And we go. All right, Mark. Text or talk?

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Cats or dogs?

Summer or winter?

Morning or evening?

Beach or pool?

Salty or sweet?

Favorite day of the week?

Would you rather be able to speak every language in the world or be able to talk to animals?

How long does it take you to get ready in your day?

Scale of 1 to 10, according to you, how good of a driver are you?

Invisibility or super strength?

Rats or mice?

I've never heard that one yet. Bees or wasps?

If you were really hungry, would you eat a bug?

So you would do it. I would do it. And is the Field Famous Podcast the best podcast you've ever been on?

All right, he is Mark Stewart. I want everybody out there, whoever is listening to this, even if you're not considering any changes or software, but you just have questions, Mark's a great guy to just talk to about it. And as you can hear in these 30, 35 minutes, he's got a lot of knowledge and he's had those conversations with people who have ultimately went on to go ahead and digitally transform and switch softwares, etc., or not. And Mark had both those conversations. So Mark, what's the best way someone can reach out to you and initiate a conversation?

And for anybody that misses that, you can always go to fieldfamous.com. There's a contact us button there and we can all find Mark and rattle all the information just in case. I want to thank Mark for joining us today, and I want to remind everybody out there you can go to bfieldfamous.com and find all the information, all the previous shows in addition to this one. You tell your friends, subscribe on Apple Podcast, and remember your success is fame worthy. So come tell your story. Mark, I appreciate you coming to tell your story, man. Thank you so much. This is so much fun.