Welcome And Guest Introductions

Julian Placino 0:00

Welcome to the Home Services Success Stories Podcast, powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business. I'm Julian Placino, your host, and we have another great show in store for you today. Because today we have Seth and Deb Chandler, who are the co-founders at Big Family Electric. Seth and Deb, welcome to the show. How are you?

Speaker 1 0:22

Doing great. Thanks.

Why Big Family Electric Exists

Julian Placino 0:23

Great to have you on and very excited to learn more about your business and your home services success story. So, Seth, we'll start with you. So if you would tell us a bit about your founding story and why did you decide to launch Big Family Electric?

Speaker 0:39

We had uh we've been in business since 2006, just doing a variety of electrical services. In 16, 17, we were just looking for some different avenues to proceed with uh a few different business veins. And in the course of that, uh came across uh certain path and some other components that helped kind of drive that narrative a little bit. So we decided to market Big Family separately outside of the original Chandler Services company name, just because it was a little more easy to remember and it had a little bit more uh name recognition because it's just an easier term to come across. So removing us by name personally in that, and uh we decided to uh dedicate that just to service and uh automation for residential spaces.

Julian Placino 1:33

Okay. And I know you, Seth, personally have been doing this type of work since you were eight years old. So you literally grew up in the business. So um, I guess what was the original vision for it, like versus starting a business versus working for someone else? Tell me a bit more of the personal why behind Big Family.

Naming The Brand And Going Public

Speaker 1:50

Well, Big Family is a bit of a spur out of the existing market space, uh, and it's really just an avenue to have a different viewpoint on how we go about seeing and getting to customers. Uh, the issue that we've run into most of the time was that we're we're often flowing through a contractor, and that's okay. But when it comes to connecting with a customer directly or trying to get a certain message to them, that gets lost a lot of times in the translation. So upon just kind of thinking those elements through, uh, we decided to roll out with the service company and and Deb pulled up with the name on uh on Big Family. Took me a while to get around to it because I wasn't super comfortable with it. But uh along the path, we decided to go ahead and launch with that.

Julian Placino 2:36

So, Deb, since you came up with the name, what was the vision behind the brand? And tell us kind of your side or view of kind of the genesis story behind Big Family.

Speaker 1 2:46

Um, so Seth and his personality, we've always said is uh go big or go home. There's nothing that he looks at um from a very limited perspective. He he likes the big overview, the full story, and he likes to, in all of the best ways, kind of push things to the limit, you know, to be their best, to um just be the most resilient. And we wanted a big family when we got married, and we ended up having a big family, eight kids, and just that mindset of um, you know, everything we do is with our family, everything is very family-centric. But in the same token, when we show up, we get things done because we show up with a big team behind us, uh, all of our kids, and they're very much part of the business. And, you know, the office is their second home. So big family kind of came from that because it's who we are. You know, we think big, we do big things, and we're family at the core.

Julian Placino 3:50

I love that. So, so Deb, when it was in the beginning, the formative stages of the business, um, was there any hesitation on your part? Like what did you see in Seth? What did you see in the original vision of the business to say, hey, this is something worth taking a risk and going to build?

Speaker 1 4:07

So the only thing I ever worried about truly was just people's perception of when they hear the name big family, you know, because it's a little odd, you're not exactly thinking electrical uh when you think of big family. But as far as just confidence in the business and the model, I I never like that because I know Seth's uh just his ability to get things done and do his very best. That's always part of who he is and what he does. So I never really had worries as far as the business being successful. It was much more of just people's perception of professionalism when it comes to the name Big Family, because you don't normally typically think of electrical companies having the name family in it.

Julian Placino 5:00

Yeah. And how long have you now been in business?

Speaker 1 5:03

So Big Family, uh, we started in 2020 officially. Um, I think the paperwork says 2019, really launched in 2020 in the middle of COVID. So it was pretty crazy.

Launching During COVID And Pivoting

Julian Placino 5:18

Well, how has the journey been? And I'll I'll toss it up to both of you.

Speaker 5:25

So the journey is it's a different, it's a it's I mean it's not all smooth rides. Um, it definitely has some some difficult places to to be in. And we're we're kind of working through one of those as we get into this AI space. Um, because we're having to change a lot of what we think about, how we interact with customers, what we're doing. I think the element at the beginning still stands. You know, what we're trying to do is just we're trying to teach people how to think about things differently. Um, think about what a what a good not only electrical system, but an automation system, what that can do inside your house. How does that elevate your living? If you take the worry and the fuss about having issues or potential hazards that can burn or harm you in inside a home, if we remove those things, you know, what does that do for your mindset, allowing you to kind of live freely inside your space? Um and when we, you know, so initially going to COVID, there's a lot more attention in the in the home space. Google is still a big part of of of the sphere. And what we found over time is that those those approaches are kind of getting diminished. So we're having to really do a lot of pivoting to see what we can do to maintain customers and and still be visible in the um in the advertising space.

Engineering Thinking For Home Resiliency

Julian Placino 6:44

Okay, okay. And um, Seth, I know that you have, and I'm actually getting a lot of it, just having a conversation here with you. You have a bit of a superpower in the fact that your background is in is like a professional engineering, a like high-level complex system. So I'm curious, how does that type of thinking like affect or influence the way that you run the business and what you bring to home services?

Speaker 7:06

Well, what we bring to home services is a couple of things. First off, let's just say resiliency. Having a less than robust system in your house can cause a lot of issues for you, whether you want to do something certain with it, like put an EV in, um, or you want to be able to host or run equipment safely or have room to do different things as the system varies. One thing we know is that the electrical system in the house is rather dynamic. Um, you know, an engineering from a technical standpoint certainly is a benefit. Uh I have a, you know, we have a better understanding of lighting, power distribution, how different things are affecting different things in your home. But we also like to make sure that in that resiliency, that you've got ability to have maybe redundancy or or even some reserve in that system so that if you want to do something different with it, you have the options and the flexibility without having to go entirely invasive into the system if we set it up properly. So, so in that in that thought process, really what you get out of it is a is a is an understanding of the why behind what we do. So a lot of people when in typical electrical companies, they understand the what in a lot of cases to do. But then not understanding the why kind of limits what you can offer to people in in that space because they say, I want this, and you say, Okay, without understanding the picture of why and getting in front of the customer and trying to find out and dig into what they're actually asking for, because a lot of times people are asking out of the limitation of knowledge that they have. And what we offer is kind of opening that knowledge base up to the homeowner and giving them a little bit more to consider. Uh, it's not that they have to do it, but it it's a way to elevate um with maybe an option or two that that's something that they didn't know or didn't think about or just didn't have in their in their foresight.

The Big Misconception About Electrical Systems

Julian Placino 9:00

Okay. So so Deb question for you then. So much of what Seth is sharing is is sort of educating the homeowner, helping them sort of think differently about their home, right? So, in your opinion, what is it that you would like to bring clarity to to homeowners to really help them understand um their perspective as homeowners?

Speaker 1 9:18

I think one of the biggest things that are misconceptions that people have is that, well, if it's there, it's fine. It's working, it doesn't need any kind of attention really until it breaks. And I think that that needs to be addressed. Uh, think of the electrical system in your home kind of like your nervous system, it truly touches everything. There is truly no other main systems component in your home, such as HVAC or plumbing, that doesn't touch a portion of the electrical. So if your electrical is out, not only are you without power to your outlets and your lights and things like that, but also your other systems. So I think when we understand that everything touches your electrical system and it's so like dynamic, like Seth said, I think it's important for people to understand that it takes maintenance. It takes a little bit of attention. And if you do that kind of preventative maintenance, just like going to the doctor every year, just kind of gives you tabs on your overall health. I think that that is truly one of the things that will prevent major failures of not only your electrical system, but also your other systems that touch it.

Julian Placino 10:38

I think you just calling the electrical system a nervous system, I think is really, it helps people understand. It helps me understand a bit more deeply about why the importance is of that. So share with us a bit about how you help homeowners from the preventative side.

Speaker 1 10:53

So we have a program called Big Family Care. It's a membership program. Um, and that is so that you can kind of spread the cost of showing up at your home across the whole year. And we come out annually and just do a little bit of maintenance on your system. Check your panel, make sure all the lugs are tightened, make sure everything's looking good. Um, we use uh thermal imaging to make sure it's not overheating unnecessarily. And if there are any issues, then we can definitely give you options to address them. And we also look at GFCI systems, smoke alarms, things that need that annual touch just to make sure everything's working properly as it should.

Julian Placino 11:41

Gotcha. So so if if if we're using the analogy of the nervous system, this is the checkup. And also you're kind of like the concierge service, right?

Speaker 1 11:48

Absolutely.

Julian Placino 11:49

I think that's great. I'm sorry, you're about to say something, Deb.

Speaker 1 11:51

Yeah. So in addition to that, we also have included, you know, specials, of course, for our members. Um, you know, if there are emergencies and we need to show up, you have priority service. Um, it just takes a little bit of that anxiety around, you know, the emergency situation and when are they gonna be able to show up. And in our area, we also have storms and just hurricanes, things like that. And so this plan just gives our customers that priority service so they don't have to worry as much of how long is it going to take someone to show up at my home in an emergency.

Why Speed And Communication Matter

Julian Placino 12:25

Gotcha. So that's a really great benefit to those members. Uh, but also kind of overall, uh, Big Family Electric, it puts a strong emphasis on fast and often same-day service. So, why is responsiveness so important to both of you when it comes to protecting families, protecting your customers?

Speaker 12:43

Well, the first thing we want to do is make sure that customers know that we have them in mind. So I get that a lot of times because of ignorance and I mean not ignorance, but neglect, a lot of times when we find that these systems, it's just it's just how it is. Like it's gonna happen like the day before a party, that you know, before a holiday weekend, like it's gonna be something super inconvenient. It's just it's just how these things go down. And what we try to do is just make ourselves as available as we can to help the customers, even if they have lapsed, um, because maybe they just don't know about us. And and so once they have a chance to get with us, then we can kind of get them on that schedule. But until that time, um we try to to be as responsive and communicative to the to the folks that uh that reach out to us as we can. That way they know at least who can come out. They know when somebody can come out, and they they have some assurance that somebody is going to come help them.

Training Techs To See The Why

Julian Placino 13:40

Gotcha, gotcha. Tell us a bit about your team. So much of delivering great home services, of course, are your technicians, the people in their boots on the ground. So tell us a bit about your team and what makes them great.

Speaker 13:52

Well, part of what makes the team great is they get a little bit of technical assistance from me uh along the training path. And and each technician goes through several weeks of training. Some of it's formal, in-class training, some of it we have to travel to. Uh, and then we also have weekly training here that we do at the office, and and then a little bit of as needed is where problems arise, we we go through it. And one of the pieces as the engineering, the technical end of it, it allows me to speak with the technicians, um, individually and at large, that I can give them that insight to the why of what's going on. Like it kind of connect the dots, if you will. So, what that does is it kind of zooms out their thinking a little bit along the way so that they're not just tunneled in on a specific thing, but that they can address a bigger concern when it comes down to a specific issue or problem that they that they've run into. And so, again, what we're doing is we're not trying to just laser in on a single element, but we're trying to zoom that picture out a little bit. And so the customer and the technician together can have that discovery of what what caused this, how do we stop it? What can we do to make it not happen again? And that that wide approach, um, part of it's with a safety check in the house or the other of the facility that we're in, uh, that wide scope allows us to kind of capture that that full essence of what the customer is is having to work through. And then we can hopefully kind of take them on that journey of seeing at least a pathway to to resolving it. Um, and and we get that maybe not everything can be resolved that day or even that week, but it at least they have a step-by-step process of things that can be addressed to build that resiliency or redundancy or whatever it is that they're needing in that in that home space.

Safety First And White Glove Service

Julian Placino 15:39

So it sounds like a lot of it is uh is training and sort of scaling your thinking across to not just your technicians, but your customers as well. So I think that's a really key element. So so let me ask you this. There are so many, there's so much competition in home services, right? So, what do you think Big Family Electric has done uniquely different to become leaders in the space? Like, why choose you?

Speaker 16:02

Well, I think part of what you want to look at is we are still local, first off. You know, we're a we're a family, um, just like many others who have here. And so we have an element of of how we live. Like we understand how we live inside of a house, and we want to extend that to you uh in a couple of different ways. I mean we we look at first off as a safety protocol. We want to make sure that anything that we touch or anything that you're working with in your house has an element of safety so that your kids, your animals, um, and your structure of your home have a certain protection element. And many houses still lack that today, whether they be insufficient uh protection or it could just be old wiring or it could be uh a number of overloaded components, because one of the things that you see when you walk into a house, and again, this is that wide view that we were talking about. If I come in and look at a singular element inside of a home, what I'm lacking is causation. And one thing that we can certainly ascribe to that Deb alluded to earlier was that inside of a house, we're constantly adding things in the electrical space. You know, we don't, it's we're not throwing out electronics, we're adding stuff into the house. So all of the additions not only require additional air conditioning loads, um, you know, multiple people maybe require more hot water. Uh, but in all of that, you know, we're adding and adding and adding loads. So that's the dynamic portion that people don't see, and that we try to help them understand when we get to uh get to meet with them. And I think that approach allows the wider view of what's going on. So that way, you know, we can safeguard pieces. A lot of times we walk into houses, there's generators involved. Uh, they may want uh backup power systems of some capacity, whether it be battery or some other mechanism. And what can happen very quickly is that all that added load over time, you know, maybe that generator was put in five years ago, maybe it was put in last year. I don't know. But what happens with those systems is that as you overload them, you can actually damage your standby systems, you can damage other things because you're just not paying attention to the big picture of what's going on. So, really, when we look at big family, we're showing you the big picture of what's happening. And we're we're trying to make sure that you, the customer, have the opportunity to look at that viewpoint with us. And that's really the biggest thing with Big Family is that we're widening that scope, we're widening the information that you have so that you have more information to work with and uh help them make better decisions with.

Speaker 1 18:37

Yeah. And another thing that Big Family brings to the table is uh what we like to call white glove service. So we know how frustrating it is, and we've experienced it many times ourselves when you have an emergency or you know, anything, something's broken, and you call and it just seems hard and difficult, and you have to try really hard to do business with people. And that is definitely not the customer experience that we like to provide. Uh, we want it to be easy to do business with us. So when you call, a live person answers the phone. Uh, we try to inform you when our technicians are on the way because waiting for the technician is the worst experience in the world. When you're just wondering when they are going to show up. Uh so we try to eliminate all of that stress and worry and uncertainty that typically surrounds uh trade services and just provide the best possible experience. We like to provide five-star experience, and our reputation shows.

Julian Placino 19:41

I love that. And I have to say, you this is probably not the first time that you've heard this, but you two balance each other out really well. You all are like so opposites. It's like Seth is super technical, super engineering, and you are the White Glove Service, the customer experience. And that, of course, makes for a great uh partnership. And I think that's really great.

Speaker 19:58

Um we call that we call that an effective team.

Using Peakzi For AI Search Visibility

Julian Placino 20:02

Absolutely, all right. So I think that's that's great. And I think certainly part of your your secret sauce. So uh so as you know, the show is powered by Peakzi. You are customers of Peakzi. So if you would share with us, how would you explain what Peakzi is to other home services leaders?

Speaker 20:18

So, what we found so far with Peakzi is that it is an insight to information. Peakzi uses an aggregating uh software that just kind of takes information that's available. It kind of sifts through all of what is the internet out there and gives us insight to not only uh what the market's doing, maybe what uh customers are looking for along trends of time and lines, but it's also building information that allows a lot of these chat engines to search and find specifically at the times the customers are searching. So a lot of things are seasonal. Um, every one of our trade services, things just happen at different times during the course of the year. And what we find in that electrical space is that, like in our instances, right before hurricanes are about to hurricane season's coming up, those those inquiries for generators and generator maintenance go up. Um, before holiday times, they're like, hey, can I do lighting? Can I, you know, is lighting safe? You know, over the course of the summer when kids are outside in the pool, we're looking at ground fault protection. There's just various strategies that that people are searching for over the course of time. So what Peakzi does is it gives us a little bit of insight to that ahead of the game to know what people are looking for before they're looking for it. So it allows us to kind of get ahead of that market share space and mind share space so that customers can uh have a little bit of information before they're ready to actually shop for um a service provider.

Speaker 1 21:50

Like strategic marketing plans, um big part of what we've benefited from with Peakzi. Uh, we've had people find us. On chat GPT. So that's exciting. Just a lot of tools to help us as owners not only give our customers what they want, but also from the business side, strategically plan.

Results From Data Driven Marketing

Julian Placino 22:17

Yeah. What I heard is that it gives you a tremendous amount of market insight and specifically when it comes to demand. So it becomes no longer just relying on intuition or what you see, but it's data-driven. Also, it seems like Peakzi can help you sort of anticipate what the market is going to want. So where the puck is going, so to speak, right? And also you said visibility. So people are finding you on Chat GPT. So like the whole thing is AI search. How are people consuming information nowadays and searching for things? And it seems like Peakzi has given you a bump on that. So what would you say are some of the most significant outcomes you have already experienced as a result of being a Peakzi customer?

Speaker 1 22:54

Well, at the end of the day in trade service and business, um, that customer lead, you know, that turns into business opportunities and revenue. That's definitely the biggest benefit and the visibility on the AI side.

Speaker 23:11

What I like in it is as we, you know, as we kind of migrate from Google space into a lot of this AI generated traffic space, one of the things that we're really working towards is getting out in front of customers so that they're because what they're looking for is somebody who they can trust. And Big Family wants to be that that provider. I love it when our customers call and say the line, they're not like, you know, an electrician's going to come to the house. They say my electricians come into the house. And so we like that that perspective because we want customers to take a little ownership in in Big Family because, you know, again, we're we're trying to ensure that they know who who they can call and who they can rely on.

Julian Placino 23:54

Love that. Any other words you'd like to share about Peakzi before we move on and sort of close out the conversation?

Speaker 24:00

Some of the new stuff that they're that they're working through is giving us a little insight on the business end of it outside of the customer base, um, showing us some market uh not volatility, but market, I guess, mind share space, you know, how much aggregate searches are happening for different things. Uh, and they're also letting us know how big family works in the rankings, how the technicians are doing in the field. And it gives us a general sense at broad of just what the internet thinks of what Big Family is. So it gives us a little bit of non-biased opinion of our performance so that we can maybe make some adaptations to make ourselves a little more visible for the uh the various AI engines that are out there.

Julian Placino 24:47

Yeah. So ultimately it comes down to visibility. And you mentioned like the best technicians out there. A lot of folks use it as a recruiting tool uh because it's incredibly transparent about who are the top technicians are in your area. So thank you for mentioning that. Uh, Deb, anything else that you'd like to add?

Legacy Values And Community Impact

Speaker 1 25:06

I don't know. I don't uh I don't think so. I'm very, very happy that we have the opportunity to share our story. Um we bring a lot to the table, and uh it's just a joy to serve our community and our customers. And today I had a customer say, um, you know, I call you first every time. And that just uh instills a lot of joy and just pride and even a weight on us, you know, to maintain that level of service. And uh we just really appreciate the opportunity to tell our story.

Julian Placino 25:42

Yeah, well, well, close us out with what that is. Give us a, you know, looking back when your kids in your community look back years from now, what what do you want the legacy to be behind for the business? Like what what what kind of impact do you hope to create?

Speaker 25:56

Well, uh let me I want to kind of run this through a little bit. Part of our core values um is really in that essence of the question. So, you know, big family, we look at ourselves as a tribe. And, you know, we're we're an aggregate of people, different walks, different lives. But what I want that to show in us is that you know, we're very reliant on each other, uh, from service providers to customers, um, from team members. And what I in that tribe, you know, that mentality, that thought process looks like no one element of that is grossly more important than the other. Everything is is kind of co-reliant on it on each other to flow well. And so, in that, you know, what we promise to our customers is we promise to be true to them. We promise to be reliable. Um, we're gonna be intentional about what we do. Um, we're gonna take bold steps and make bold recommendations based upon the things that we see. We don't shy away from the issues or difficult conversations that we may have to have. And and and to the last point of that, our our goal is to be effective. We we want to be effective in the marketplace. We want to be effective to changing the way people think about these systems. We want to be effective in how we can inspire people to uh not only think bigger about how they live or elevate their living experience, but also be effective in how we look at sharing what we have with others. Uh, we share knowledge, we share resources, we share a bit of benevolence, you know, across the community. You know, we want to look at ways and places to encourage people to look beyond who they are, who, you know, just internally themselves and look at the world around. You know, lots of people need help, lots of people need assistance. And so part of that encouragement and effectiveness is to see beyond just the self-reflecting, which is a little bit too common, and and and look for the opportunity where you can help somebody out there.

Julian Placino 27:58

I think that's great. Love that you shared your values, a very inspiring vision for sure. So, uh, Deb, anything else you'd like to add to that before we close out?

Speaker 1 28:07

Go big for your home.

Where To Find Big Family Electric

Julian Placino 28:10

Love it. Well, this has been an absolute joy to get to know you, share your story. If you would share with our viewers how to connect with you, your website, your social handles, tell us all that.

Speaker 1 28:20

So our website's called bigfamily.com. Um, we're Big Family Electric on Facebook, Big Family Electric on Instagram, and Big Family Electric on TikTok.

Julian Placino 28:33

And we'll make sure to have all that contact information in the show notes as well. So thank you, Deb, and thank you, Seth, for your time today.

Speaker 1 28:40

Thank you, Julian. Thank you, Julian.

Julian Placino 28:42

And that is it for today's episode. And we'll see you next time on the Home Services Success Stories podcast powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business.