Episode #4: Calling the Shots: How a 26-Year-Old Entrepreneur Is Solving One of the Biggest Problems in the Home Service Industry with Tevin Jackson
Change Your Filter with Tall Paul
Key Insights
- 80% of your home service bookings should come from outbound calls.
- Outbound marketing will help you increase call capacity.
- LinkedIn is the best recruitment tool to find high-quality candidates.
Everyone has a purpose in life. For Tevin Jackson, he believes his purpose is to provide as much value as possible to the home services industry. He wants to change peoples’ lives in this industry, because of how the industry has positively impacted his life.
Tevin is the founder of Stellar Service Group and we had the chance to sit down with him on this episode of the Change Your Filter podcast.
Uncle Knows Best
Born & raised in Lansing, Michigan, Tevin grew up alongside his mother and sister. When Tevin hit the 8th grade, his mother was about to have triplets, so his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan to live with Tevin’s Uncle.
This turned out to be very beneficial and critical to Tevin’s success. His uncle had started a lead generation platform for demolition & dumpster rental contractors, which ended up being very successful. Since he was 8, Tevin had been doing basic SEO tasks for his Uncle’s company. As he got older and gained more responsibilities for his Uncle’s company, Tevin started to understand all of the nuances of SEO and the power of digital marketing.
Life After High School
Having this initial seed of knowledge planted by his Uncle at a young age helped Tevin tremendously as he got older, but the biggest change in Tevin’s life happened about a week after his high school graduation.
One morning, Tevin came downstairs and was shocked to find his mother dead in bed. Devin’s mother was his rock, and he knew when she passed, it was either make it, or break it. Surely enough, Tevin made it.
Tevin stopped all the partying and focused on his career. He had planned on not going to college for a while. Instead, lead generation and digital marketing was calling his name. He had great experience, a strong work ethic, and the motivation to go above and beyond in everything he did.
With this knowledge and newfound motivation, he knew he was unstoppable. Tevin’s mother’s passing turned into his “why” and continues to motivate him to help others & do great things.
Finding His Niche
About 6 months after his mother’s passing, Tevin found an anonymous job ad on Craigslist looking for an SEO optimizer. The company ended up being Frank Gay Services, and Tevin received the job offer.
About a week after Tevin started, he went to sign Frank up for Google Local Services (formally known as Google Guaranteed). When doing this, he needed Frank’s social security card to complete the application. When he received the card, he noticed the last 4 digits of Frank’s social were identical to his. Tevin took this as a message from his mother, and from then on, knew he was on the right path.
Tevin worked at Frank Gay for 4 years before the company was sold to private equity. Tevin left the company a few months before the deal was completed to start working at a larger ($100 million dollar) home services company. While at this new company, Tevin wore more hats than ever. He states that: “The bigger you are, the more problems there are that need to be fixed.”
Tevin was hired as an SEO manager within this new organization but found himself barely doing any SEO because there were bigger fish to fry. He was finding all sorts of problems that were not yet understood and needed to be fixed.
Through this work, Tevin realized what the biggest problem was for home service companies: call capacity. Tevin was helping home service owners all around the country, and found he was one of the best at solving these problems. From there, Stellar Solutions Group was born.
Outbound Calling = Increased Call Capacity
SEO is very important when it comes to organic traffic, but not when it comes to call capacity. You want to be at the top of Google for the biggest metro in your target market, but that should not be the #1 thing on your priority list. SEO is going to move the needle a little bit, but it won’t pack the board for 9 locations every single day so you can be at 100% call capacity.
Tevin notes that the only way that you can fix call capacity is with volume outbound calling to an existing base. This will help to reactivate customers that you haven’t seen in over a year. You’re sitting on gold if you have customers in your database that you haven’t called. You always want to stay top of mind with your customers – you never know when they’ll need you.
Outbound is not difficult, it’s just that most people don’t do it correctly. Most companies fail in-house because they have a dispatcher or a CSR that does 5 or 6 different things. And the fact of the matter is, outbound is a full-time job. For outbound employees, that’s what they have to be doing all day. Not fielding tech calls, not invoicing, not dispatching guys – just straight outbound. At the end of the day, outbound is a numbers game.
Innovation in the Recruitment Industry
Outbound and customer retention are the core services at Stellar. On the other hand, Tevin has been working on innovating the recruiting industry. Recruiting has always been something that he has helped with within his previous roles, and realized there was no innovation within this industry.
Tevin errs on the side of staying away from the sites like Monster, Indeed, or running Facebook recruitment campaigns because of the intent that those candidates carry. Not only that, but through years of experience, Tevin has noticed low-quality conversion rates for home services companies on these sites. Instead, Tevin focuses on LinkedIn and even built his own program that works within the Sales Navigator platform.
The reason for using LinkedIn is due to the twofold intent on the platform. On one side, LinkedIn is a networking tool, so no one is going to be upset when you reach out to them. On the other side, it’s a self-branding tool, so you know that the individuals on LinkedIn care about their image & career. LinkedIn allows you to find high-quality white-glove-level candidates that will help grow your business.
What Tevin Hopes to Achieve
Tevin has big dreams – taking his company public, Forbes 30 under 30, and building generational wealth for his family – just to name a few for this ambitious 26-year-old.
Above all, Tevin wants to be the true patriarch of his family, just as his Uncle was when he was a kid. Tevin doesn’t do any of this for the fame He just wants to help people, and ensure his team is getting the recognition they deserve.
Intrigued? Listen to the full conversation here.
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Episode #4: Calling the Shots: How a 26-Year-Old Entrepreneur Is Solving One of the Biggest Problems in the Home Service Industry with Tevin Jackson
Change Your Filter with Tall Paul
Key Insights
- 80% of your home service bookings should come from outbound calls.
- Outbound marketing will help you increase call capacity.
- LinkedIn is the best recruitment tool to find high-quality candidates.
Everyone has a purpose in life. For Tevin Jackson, he believes his purpose is to provide as much value as possible to the home services industry. He wants to change peoples’ lives in this industry, because of how the industry has positively impacted his life.
Tevin is the founder of Stellar Service Group and we had the chance to sit down with him on this episode of the Change Your Filter podcast.
Uncle Knows Best
Born & raised in Lansing, Michigan, Tevin grew up alongside his mother and sister. When Tevin hit the 8th grade, his mother was about to have triplets, so his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan to live with Tevin’s Uncle.
This turned out to be very beneficial and critical to Tevin’s success. His uncle had started a lead generation platform for demolition & dumpster rental contractors, which ended up being very successful. Since he was 8, Tevin had been doing basic SEO tasks for his Uncle’s company. As he got older and gained more responsibilities for his Uncle’s company, Tevin started to understand all of the nuances of SEO and the power of digital marketing.
Life After High School
Having this initial seed of knowledge planted by his Uncle at a young age helped Tevin tremendously as he got older, but the biggest change in Tevin’s life happened about a week after his high school graduation.
One morning, Tevin came downstairs and was shocked to find his mother dead in bed. Devin’s mother was his rock, and he knew when she passed, it was either make it, or break it. Surely enough, Tevin made it.
Tevin stopped all the partying and focused on his career. He had planned on not going to college for a while. Instead, lead generation and digital marketing was calling his name. He had great experience, a strong work ethic, and the motivation to go above and beyond in everything he did.
With this knowledge and newfound motivation, he knew he was unstoppable. Tevin’s mother’s passing turned into his “why” and continues to motivate him to help others & do great things.
Finding His Niche
About 6 months after his mother’s passing, Tevin found an anonymous job ad on Craigslist looking for an SEO optimizer. The company ended up being Frank Gay Services, and Tevin received the job offer.
About a week after Tevin started, he went to sign Frank up for Google Local Services (formally known as Google Guaranteed). When doing this, he needed Frank’s social security card to complete the application. When he received the card, he noticed the last 4 digits of Frank’s social were identical to his. Tevin took this as a message from his mother, and from then on, knew he was on the right path.
Tevin worked at Frank Gay for 4 years before the company was sold to private equity. Tevin left the company a few months before the deal was completed to start working at a larger ($100 million dollar) home services company. While at this new company, Tevin wore more hats than ever. He states that: “The bigger you are, the more problems there are that need to be fixed.”
Tevin was hired as an SEO manager within this new organization but found himself barely doing any SEO because there were bigger fish to fry. He was finding all sorts of problems that were not yet understood and needed to be fixed.
Through this work, Tevin realized what the biggest problem was for home service companies: call capacity. Tevin was helping home service owners all around the country, and found he was one of the best at solving these problems. From there, Stellar Solutions Group was born.
Outbound Calling = Increased Call Capacity
SEO is very important when it comes to organic traffic, but not when it comes to call capacity. You want to be at the top of Google for the biggest metro in your target market, but that should not be the #1 thing on your priority list. SEO is going to move the needle a little bit, but it won’t pack the board for 9 locations every single day so you can be at 100% call capacity.
Tevin notes that the only way that you can fix call capacity is with volume outbound calling to an existing base. This will help to reactivate customers that you haven’t seen in over a year. You’re sitting on gold if you have customers in your database that you haven’t called. You always want to stay top of mind with your customers – you never know when they’ll need you.
Outbound is not difficult, it’s just that most people don’t do it correctly. Most companies fail in-house because they have a dispatcher or a CSR that does 5 or 6 different things. And the fact of the matter is, outbound is a full-time job. For outbound employees, that’s what they have to be doing all day. Not fielding tech calls, not invoicing, not dispatching guys – just straight outbound. At the end of the day, outbound is a numbers game.
Innovation in the Recruitment Industry
Outbound and customer retention are the core services at Stellar. On the other hand, Tevin has been working on innovating the recruiting industry. Recruiting has always been something that he has helped with within his previous roles, and realized there was no innovation within this industry.
Tevin errs on the side of staying away from the sites like Monster, Indeed, or running Facebook recruitment campaigns because of the intent that those candidates carry. Not only that, but through years of experience, Tevin has noticed low-quality conversion rates for home services companies on these sites. Instead, Tevin focuses on LinkedIn and even built his own program that works within the Sales Navigator platform.
The reason for using LinkedIn is due to the twofold intent on the platform. On one side, LinkedIn is a networking tool, so no one is going to be upset when you reach out to them. On the other side, it’s a self-branding tool, so you know that the individuals on LinkedIn care about their image & career. LinkedIn allows you to find high-quality white-glove-level candidates that will help grow your business.
What Tevin Hopes to Achieve
Tevin has big dreams – taking his company public, Forbes 30 under 30, and building generational wealth for his family – just to name a few for this ambitious 26-year-old.
Above all, Tevin wants to be the true patriarch of his family, just as his Uncle was when he was a kid. Tevin doesn’t do any of this for the fame He just wants to help people, and ensure his team is getting the recognition they deserve.
Intrigued? Listen to the full conversation here.
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