Welcome And Guest Introduction

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 Casey Timorason, who is the head of growth at service professionals. Casey, welcome to the show. How are you? Thank you.

Casey Timorason 0:21

Pleasure to have pleasure to be on board.

Julian Placino 0:23

Yeah, excited to get to know you and a bit more about service professionals as well. So let's jump in. So, Casey, tell us a bit about your role at service professionals and what you focus on day-to-day.

Casey’s Path Into Home Services

Casey Timorason 0:34

So, as of as head of growth, uh I oversee marketing, recruiting, and uh acquisitions. So it's uh an interesting seat, uh taking care of both supply side and demand side. Um, but yeah, all things growth, trying to figure out how to do it sustainably. Um, that's currently what's what's on my plate.

Julian Placino 0:52

Interesting. That's a big role across many different disciplines. Tell us a bit about your journey into that role and your background before this.

Casey Timorason 0:59

Sure. Um, so I started my career as a hedge fund auditor, uh, absolutely hated it, uh, and then got recruited by my recruiter to start recruiting. Um, figured out I was pretty good at recruiting, just that industry wasn't for me. Um, started doing some work with startups, uh, got connected with a bunch of talented folks from the early days at hired.com, Airbnb. Uh, we launched a recruiting platform, um, boutique search firm uh that really focused pretty heavily on the tech industry, um, did really well, uh, ended up unfortunately not making it through the pandemic. Um, and then I needed something. So I turned and found something right in my backyard. Uh, and it turns out it turns out I really like home services, completely different change of pace. Um, but now I I focus on how do we get really good technicians in the door and how do we keep them busy?

Julian Placino 1:57

Really interesting. I don't meet a whole lot of home services leaders that come from a straight-up talent or recruiting background. So, really interested to hear your insights as we speak about talent culture and hiring, which will be you know a big focus of what we talk about. So, how long have you been now with service professionals? Uh two years. Two years. Okay, great. So, in your opinion, what do you think service professionals does really well to stand out in the home services industry?

Benefits And Culture That Retain

Casey Timorason 2:22

My my bias is going to be showing, but hiring. Um, I I think we have a really good roster. Excuse me. Food, yeah. Um, really good roster of people, uh, the technicians that we have nowadays, um, like they they perform really well in the home. They have a really good camaraderie internally. Um, and I I think they're top-notch.

Julian Placino 2:47

So the people, right? So let's let's dig a little bit further into that in talent, culture, and hiring. So when you think about service professionals as a place to work, and what's really interesting is your background is of course in talent. So your whole lens comes from this, right? So, what do you think truly sets your team and culture apart?

Casey Timorason 3:04

So just on the culture signals that I think we we send off to candidates, um, you know, we're we're really proud. We we take care of 100% of their health and dental insurance, including deductibles. Um, we provide a 401k, um, very innovative through a company called Basic Capital. We're the first employer in the the country to launch it. So, like, there's a couple of things on the total reward side that I think we're doing that really sets us apart. Just, you know, that's that's the first thing, you know, when you come to an offer letter, like that, those are the the X's and O's that are really important to candidates. Um, once they get here uh and they're involved with the team, um we spend a ton of time investing in different trainings uh in in different ways to build the team camaraderie. Um so it's it's a combination, one, two punch, I think, of the things we do on the attraction side as well as the retention.

Building A Technician Training Academy

Julian Placino 4:01

Nice. Okay. So, like the whole package you mentioned, you know, the health benefits, 401k, kind of the total rewards package, right? Um, and you you mentioned training. So give us some examples. What are some of the things that you do from a training perspective that are a bit different than other home services leaders?

Casey Timorason 4:16

So we do a bunch of the, I would say, table stakes uh training in terms of sending folks to specialized training groups or bringing manufacturers in, things like that. Um, but actually on February 2nd, we're going to be launching our own academy. Uh, and that to us was really critical because in New Jersey, we have a lot of really old homes and old systems. And we saw a gap. Folks coming out of trade school, they are learning on brand new, pristine systems. So we found even in the early career folks, there's that gap in terms of being able to be field ready. Um, so we have our own multidiscipline, um, multimedium uh platform that we're gonna be rolling out to to new techs.

Julian Placino 5:03

Nice. So, like your own academy. So, really, really investing in training. So, what would you say you do to help your technicians, your people overall, grow as leaders? So, not just like technical tradespeople, but like leaders in society, leaders of as professionals. What does that look like?

Casey Timorason 5:20

That's a good question. Um, so I think there's a couple of avenues where we are pushing the team to talk about their goals, to commit to um becoming better people and holding themselves accountable to the things that they're they're they want to do for their families. Um, so we're driving a lot of those conversations and we are starting up a lot of uh community initiatives that I think are important. So, like I think as a leadership team, um we're doing different things to inspire team members and try to demonstrate the route that we would like to see them take. Um, one example, so we're partnering with uh an organization called V's Faith Warriors. Um, we're trying to raise funds. Uh, we have a pink truck percentage of those funds go towards this, and we're going to be building a house for cancer survivors.

Julian Placino 6:16

Nice.

Casey Timorason 6:16

You know, so like I think of leadership, you know, on the one pillar, you have to demonstrate and you have to lead by example. Um, and then on the other, I think there's like you need to give people the opportunity and the chance to grow into that and to actually demonstrate that they want that. So we do a lot of uh work internally. Um, we try to promote internally, give folks different chances, um slight tangent, but you know, we've had one of our customer service reps say they want to grow into a different part of the business and they're now out in the field as a plumber. You know, we helped guide them through class, guide them through the warehouse and learn different parts, you know. And that's just another piece to me where it's like, all right, we're demonstrating we can help people grow in different ways.

Julian Placino 7:06

I love that. I think there's a couple of things. I heard, you know, community impact. It's great that you're working together to serve the community. So not just great home services, but like a force for good. And you use the word inspire. And part of inspiring is sort of casting a vision and leading by example. Also, I think it's really great that you're promoting from within and you have demonstrated evidence of career growth, career pathing. Um, so that's all really, really great. So, so what is your kind of like message? Let's say that uh potential employees are listening right now to this podcast. You know, what's your message for them? Why, why should they join service professionals?

Casey Timorason 7:42

Well, I think some of the things I mentioned in terms of just benefits, culture, team, like uh I recognize, you know, I don't want to take it for granted that I do think we stand out there, but I actually view that stuff as table stakes. Um, you know, I think where we're really trying to push the needle, you know, when we think about some of these community initiatives, like to me, that comes back to my marketing brain a little bit. So marketing plumbing, HVAC, like it it's boring. You know, like people, it is a grudge purchase. People aren't, you know, eagerly looking for their next plumber. You know, it's an unfortunate situation that pops up. They need somebody reliable, they need somebody that they can trust. Um, some of the other things that we're doing, like I I believe in the long term, partnering with your community and actually showing up for your neighbors as a neighbor is going to be a more reliable marketing strategy. Um, but it's also going to be more fun.

Julian Placino 8:45

I like that. So, like real genuine community presence, not like just like putting up banners or advertising or anything, but showing up in the community, being a valued member uh and building authentic relationships that way. I think that's really, really good. So um go ahead.

Casey Timorason 9:00

Oh, I mean, you know, and part of that stems from my own experience. You know, I my grandfather, he was in the trades. I I was always the nerd with the computer, um, but but he was the trades guy, and he would take me to block parties, you know, like I would go in his neighborhood and you know, I see all the other neighbors, and oh yeah, Pete, he fixed up my AC. Oh, he fixed up this. Like my grandfather was like a neighbor neighborhood handyman. So I've always had that cemented. Like you want to be the person that your neighbors trust.

Julian Placino 9:34

Interesting. So there was a bit of trades in the DNA outside of the recruiting background, and you're able to kind of draw that and bring that bring that experience back and and and kind of add that into the culture on your own. Uh, from a personal story perspective, I think that's great.

Casey Timorason 9:48

Yeah, you probably wouldn't want me turning a wrench in your home, though.

Scaling Without Losing Your Values

Julian Placino 9:52

Gotcha. All right. Well, let's talk a bit more about uh growth and and and and culture. And again, that's in that's in your title. So there's there's so much that you are responsible for. So right. So as head of growth, how do you scale the business while protecting the professionalism and values service professionals is known for? So essentially, how do you grow not just big, but like with quality, you know?

Casey Timorason 10:13

So I I really like this question. Um, I hate when companies take their values and they put them on a poster or they put them on the outside of their wall and like they don't actually follow them, right? You know, when I think of values, they are more or less decision frameworks for when nobody's watching, you know. So like the question needs to be are those values something that people think about? Um and now thinking about scaling the business, like I don't think values are something you just push onto people or just tell them, hey, do this. Like it needs to be just that is how this person operates, that is how this person thinks, that is the the lens that they they look at things through. Um so for us, you know, one of our values is deliver a remarkable experience. And I try to look at that through the lens of not just for the homeowner, but also for the technicians. Um so we try to find different parts of the business that are not remarkable and make a couple of adjustments and slowly impact the team that way. Um, one of the ones uh most recently that comes to mind is like on the benefit side, right? Thinking about all right, how do we do something innovative on the 401k front? You know, on the marketing side, all right, we need to be ahead of uh changes in the ecosystem. How do we make sure that we are doing the things to keep the boards filled for our team members? You know, we're not always right. There are ebbs and flows in the business, but you know, we're hoping the uh the ebbs up are higher and the ebbs low are not as low.

Hiring Signals Plus No-Resume Recruiting

Julian Placino 12:04

Interesting. What what I heard there was um it's not enough just the poster values to something to look at, but you got to find a way to kind of live it out. And also kind of what I heard is that you you you look for people who kind of like sort of have that wired into them, right? So so also being in terms of of hiring then, I know we're kind of going back to that, but what do you do to hire to match the values that service professionals is known for?

Casey Timorason 12:29

So there's two values that I we have found um that hires that do well with us typically this is part of their DNA. Um, the first is you know, really having a thirst for knowledge. Like if there is somebody that, you know, they they went to school, they did the thing, and they kind of stopped learning, or they're like, yeah, I know all of it. Like it usually doesn't work out. Um, so folks that are still tinkering after work, they're still using their hands or doing something on the weekends. Um, you know, they've been doing this since they're 12 just because they they really like tools. Like, whatever the reason, you know, there's usually a signal that they've been thirsty for knowledge in some regard for a while. Interesting. That's one. And then, you know, remarkable experience. Like we there are little signals and you know, questions that we have planned looking for people that deliver a good experience. But you know, my advice to any candidates listening, it think about the experience of the recruiter. Are you responsive? Do you uh show up to the interview on time, or are you five minutes late? Like little things like that, you know, they they are signals that you know how to deliver a good experience.

Julian Placino 13:53

I like that. So two keys uh like attributes I heard is number one, humility. So someone who kind of knows it all is not open to learning, is probably not gonna match. The second one was kind of a natural curiosity and a hunger for thirsting, because it's always interesting to see what people do with their spare time. And if someone's still tinkering and turning a wrench and looking at the new way to do something, I think those are really, really great qualities. And of course, being experienced focused. And I like that you use the word signals because I think when it comes to hiring, people look for just like resumes or flat out direct experience, but rather looking for the clues about who the person actually is, right?

Casey Timorason 14:29

I actually stopped requiring resumes. Um, you know, like a lot of the folks that we were talking to had terrible resumes, and I I even went to one of our best technicians and I was like, Can you show me your resume? And it was awful spelling mistakes, everything. So I couldn't use resume as the bar for quality. Um, and a lot of the folks I was talking to, they were calling me between jobs from their truck, you know. Like, I understand when they are gonna have the chance to make a beautiful resume. If they're good, they're probably in a basement or an attic somewhere, dirty, not trying to talk to me. Um, so we dropped the resume requirement. Um, we are just trying to have conversations. I try to minimize AI on that touch point. Like I want to make the human connection, um, but it there's other places where I think automation and AI help cover that at scale.

AI Visibility And Using Peakzi

Julian Placino 15:27

Wow, that's quite revealing and insightful, actually. And I think a great message to share with other home services leaders of how you are very intentional about not just looking at the resume, because after all, we're not hiring professional resume writers, we're hiring people who do things. And to suss that out, you got to look at the entire picture. And it seems like you do an outstanding job of that. Um, so so you mentioned AI, you know, the show, of course, is powered by Peakzi, and you are a Peakzi customer. So let's jump into a little bit of that if we can. So um, so from a growth and AI visibility standpoint, you know, how has Peaksy helped you in the business?

Casey Timorason 16:00

Yeah, I I think the first area is just really awareness. Um, you know, trying to understand, I mean, you have so many algorithm changes and things coming in the market. Like I feel like it is changing at a pace that we've never seen before. Um, so awareness and starting to have data-driven conversations around hey, this is what AI visibility is. Hey, this is actually how we're appearing. These are the potential levers that we need to think about on our digital presence that will impact um AI search. Like it is driving a lot of conversations. Um, so that's the the main piece that I think we're starting to take away from it. Um, and the second is more like what is important? Like, do you go thin and cover a lot, or do you go deep and make things contextually relevant? Like, what are the trade-offs there? These are the conversations that we are currently having, um, so and driven by Peakzi and I know other AI changes in the market that we're hearing about.

Julian Placino 17:13

Interesting, a lot of things. So I want to do a quick follow-up on that. So you said you said AI visibility, right? And um a lot of this stuff is kind of new to home services. So, as a home services leader, in your own words, what is AI visibility and why does it matter to home services?

Casey Timorason 17:28

If you ask Chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity, um, any of the main players or future players a question that you would expect to be referenced in or cited for, or you know a lot about it, like are you popping up? That's that's how I think about it. Um, and I think there's different ways that you can be inserted into those responses and answers, but like, is that an AI platform aware you exist?

Julian Placino 18:03

Gotcha. So, as head of growth, how important is AI visibility to you and home services and as a home services leader?

Casey Timorason 18:12

So I I think maybe for most of 2025, like eh, not that important, right? We still have a lot of uh traffic coming from Google and the the normal players. Um 2026, like I I don't know that that could change. And I my hunch is that when it does shift and AI visibility um is more important because Chat GPT is driving ad revenue or is driving suggestions at scale, like then it's very important all at once, very suddenly. Like I think that's how it's gonna go.

Julian Placino 18:47

Gotcha. Okay. And I I know that uh Peakzi offers a really great tool in the AI visibil visibility tracker. So what experience have you had with the AI visibility tracker?

Speaker 1 18:58

Uh just started really kind of paying attention to it. Um, you know, I check it every day, every other day, pop in. Um, and I want to use that as a a baseline or a benchmark as we start doing other things. We're revamping our website, we're gonna be adding some pages. Like, does that needle move? Um, you know, and I I use that as a conversation starter with other folks in our company. Hey, have you tried checking um about this prompt in Chat GPT to see if we show up? You know, just to go start getting people to think about it. Um what came as a result of that? We took a look at our FAQs on our website. We took a look at the actual words used on our service pages, and we realized we got a lot of work to do. So, you know, I I think that was um again a conversation starter that was really important.

Julian Placino 19:58

Nice. So, what would you say is the the value of the AI visibility tracker? What does it help you accomplish or see?

Casey Timorason 20:07

I don't know exactly where AI uh what levers are going to impact AI search the most. Like everybody has uh they think they know, I've I've heard different podcasts and all of this, but like at the end of the day, I'm trying to hedge my bets, and I think we need really good web design fundamentals, SEO fundamentals. Are you providing value to the customer through your website, through your digital touch points? Um, you know, I I think it the direction we're going is probably less thin content everywhere and more valuable, contextually relevant content where you are present. Um, and that you know, I've learned a lot just from talking to our plumbers about hey, like, is this really good or is this not so good? Oh, Amana is the best uh warranty provider on heat exchangers. We should talk about that and why we chose them. Like it it's just started a bunch of really interesting conversations that I don't think anybody would ever know if you just looked at our digital presence. But now we're aware, hey, this could be a um an influencing factor to somebody who is looking for this product through AI. Let's get it out there.

Julian Placino 21:33

Got it, got it, got it. Okay, so makes makes a lot of sense. All right. Um, being a talent guy, have you experimented with any of the uh the talent features with Peakzi uh yeah, a little bit.

Casey Timorason 21:43

Um, so I I've taken a look, I've compared to see like, all right, how do our technicians uh line up with what uh with Peakzi sharing? And it was pretty good. Uh pretty interesting to see how much uh data we can pull just from like, you know. Looking at review trends um and seeing how it matches up in real life.

Julian Placino 22:04

Nice. Well, uh, Casey, anything else you want to mention about Peakzi before we start to close out here?

Lightning Round And Future Outlook

Casey Timorason 22:09

Uh no, no. I'll you you take the reins here.

Julian Placino 22:12

Awesome. Well, let's kind of get to know a bit more about your personality and uh sort of close out with a quick lightning round here, Casey. So let's start with this. What is the uh the funniest or most interesting service call that you've ever gotten or heard of?

Casey Timorason 22:25

I haven't taken any service calls, so this is hearsay. Um, but we had a pretty funny one. Uh we had one of our technicians couldn't get to the home and he whipped out a shovel and helped the homeowner start shoveling the the driveway just to get up there. So I thought that was pretty funny.

Julian Placino 22:43

Nice going above and beyond to get the job done. Love it. So, what's something about you that most people don't know about, Casey?

Casey Timorason 22:52

Um, just had a newborn. Um thank you. Uh, and I I hope he is very soon able to hold a pool stick because I enjoy uh I enjoy playing pool in my free time.

Julian Placino 23:07

I love it, awesome. Well, congratulations uh again. That's that's wonderful. Um, what would you say is the future of the home services industry in a single word or phrase? Neighborly. Neighborly. I like that. And it's very much in alignment with kind of your values and also being an impact in the community. So I think that's that's great, neighborly. All right.

Casey Timorason 23:36

And and I'm not saying I I think that is the direction it will go. It's more that is the future I hope it does go. How's that?

Julian Placino 23:44

Fair enough, fair enough. All right, and last question here for you. What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind in one word, Casey? Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, this one stumped me a bit.

Casey Timorason 23:55

Um trustworthy.

Julian Placino 24:03

Nice, like that. Trustworthy, especially when you're dealing with people's homes. That's that is the most relevant word I can think of right now that that comes to mind.

Casey Timorason 24:12

So I appreciate uh people's homes or people's careers, right? Yeah, exactly. Both ways.

Julian Placino 24:18

Exactly. You have like two customers, right? So your actual customers, like client acquisition, and of course your people customers as well. So I think those are great points. Um, well, Casey, anything else that you want to mention about service professionals before we kind of wrap?

Casey Timorason 24:31

Um, no, I look, I'm I'm proud of the team that we're we're building here. You know, I think we we do really good work. Um I I recognize that this is a tough industry, both, you know, dealing with homeowners, like you're dealing with the situation that's really tough. And, you know, on the technician side, like you you got a really hard career. Um, so I I would just say I'm proud of what the team is trying to do to deliver a good experience on both ends.

Julian Placino 25:00

Well, I think those are great words, and uh I'm I'm I'm anxious for them to hear that coming from you. So uh Casey, close us out by sharing your website, your social. How do folks connect with you?

Casey Timorason 25:11

Sure. Uh me personally, um CTIMS, C-T-I-M-Z, uh, on Instagram and others, uh, and then service-professionals.com uh for our website.

Julian Placino 25:23

Sounds good. We'll make sure to have all that contact information in the show notes. So, Casey, this was uh really great getting to know you, wishing you all the continued success and really appreciate your time today.

Casey Timorason 25:32

Thanks so much, Julian. Had a blast.

Julian Placino 25:35

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