Contractor Success Secrets: BBB's Role in Home Services
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business.
As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place.
Let's go.
Jason Phillips: Hello, contractors. I'm excited today to have with me a very special guest. , his name is David Beasley and he's the, he is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the, for the BBB serving North Central Texas. He start, man, he's been with the BBB a long time. He started way back in, in [00:01:00] 2006.
So he's been there like 17 years and he's been in various leadership positions. Now he's the COO. He's been recognized with 17 different Better Business Bureau Outstanding Awards as well as, gosh, he was the Dallas Business Journal's in 40 Under 40. Just an incredible resume, but I've invited David to come on today because David understands, he understands trust, and you know that I'm, you hear me say this all the time, trust is the currency of business, and so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that.
We're gonna talk about, how relevant the BBB is, why you should be using a member and why you should be actively educating your potential clients on the value of the Better Business Bureau for them. And so we're going to have a really interesting conversation, David, I am glad to have you.
Welcome. Thank you for joining
David Beasley: us today.
Thanks for having me, Jason. I
always
enjoy having conversations with you and this one today.
Jason Phillips: One of the things, David, that you know [00:02:00] the BBB is a foundation of trust, right? And so could you maybe just tell us what does that
David Beasley: mean?
A lot of people that are, there's still this big question that I always get sometimes whenever I say I'm more at our business bureau, I'll get family members who say Oh, so you work federal government, right? The truth is that BBB has been around since as a philosophy since 1912 right here I'm sitting here in Dallas and the concept was born out of a big assembly that was had here by the advertising industry way back then it was far more of a, of an issue on truth and advertising and the advertising industry was trying to figure out how they were going to be able to survive past having the power as far as advertising still working if people couldn't trust it.
So at that time it was a snake oil salesman, some wildcat[00:03:00] oil investment schemes. Obviously Ponzi schemes started in that same century. So the. The advertising industry took it upon themselves to say, look, the only way we're going to survive as an industry is to self regulate ourselves and to demand more of ourselves.
And then over the next hundred years, it turned into just more than advertisers, but any industry that could potentially benefit from self regulating themselves. And. And the fact that recognizing that the best way to promote capitalism, to promote a great business is to make sure that consumers trust business to continue doing it.
Jason Phillips: Wow. Especially, right here in, in Texas, of course, not every, not everybody hearing us is going to be from Texas, but in our state for the business I'm in. For home improvements, there's for painting, roofing, gutters, things like that. Those are not [00:04:00] licensed trades.
And it's like nobody, if you do shoddy workmanship nobody's going to come and yank your license. Or if, gosh, I had a a buddy a number of years ago that moved in from California. And I asked him, I said, Hey, what brought you to Texas? And he said I was running out in, I think he was in LA.
I was running a, running my business. It was a home improvement business. And me and my partner, we were doing well and we decided to open a new location. So I moved an hour down the road, opened up the new location and he said my, my partner back home stopped taking care of the clients and the state of California yanked our license to do business.
So I came to Texas because it's easy to do business in Texas. And you think about that, all those people that are in Texas, not taking care of not running a, an ethical business, they are They're just, if they get a bad name, they'll just shut down, get a new P. O. box, a new LLC, and start up under a new name, right?
David Beasley: Yeah, you know the Fly By Nighters for Towards the beginning of [00:05:00] our early years with the Better Business Bureau we're a primary concern, obviously in deregulated areas, BBB tends to do quite well because In areas where there, there is no state license or county license or any kind of licensing standard for the quality of services or for competency purposes we really depend on industries to be able to, the good actors in an industry to be able to self report to the better business bureau serve.
The Better Business Bureau whether on boards or on committees to be able to advance their marketplace, advance their industries, obviously, that's always been true as far as the the mission of Better Business Bureau trying to advance trust in the marketplace.
But, I think that one of the benefits here to each industry that we serve, in this [00:06:00] instance, the painting contractor industry, is the fact that We're helping consumers distinguish the difference between those fly by nighters or somebody who hasn't taken care of their customers, aren't transparent in their business practices, just aren't responsive, potentially took upfront payments, large upfront payments for services, and then either, either didn't provide the service or have had extremely long delays in providing those services, and we're trying to sit in and use current technology to be able to provide information to consumers so they can make the distinguish and distinguish the difference between a business that has pled to. Take care of its customers no matter what, or no matter how hard it might be versus those who potentially went and bought a few cheap paint brushes and a roller and became a painter overnight.[00:07:00]
Jason Phillips: I find that extremely valuable, by the way. So if, if I'm a small business person, a contractor, a painting contractor, for instance, what's the value to me? of, of becoming an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau?
David Beasley: I think that there's there's two ways in, in, in two primary categories that we typically put the benefits in, right?
First, when we, when you're looking at the fact that last year the BBB. org had, almost 150 million visitors to its website with consumers who were either looking for looking for. the right business to to hire, or were maybe even coming to us after they were having a problem with the business or needed help trying to resolve a dispute.
When you have that many consumers coming to our organization certainly [00:08:00] there is some practical business benefits to when you have a great BBB business profile that defines either a great rating defines that you are taking care of your customers.
And then if you're talking about BBB accreditation the. The feeling of of confidence that you can give a consumer that if a problem were to to occur that they will be taken care of because a business has pledged to do so that's somewhat the business benefit to it.
But then there's also the civic benefit to a business. And that's just the fact that I think that those, Business owners that truly, they truly have a passion for the industry and not only just for their own individual business, but they want to move their industry forward. We, offer opportunities for businesses to be able to [00:09:00] serve their marketplaces, whether it's just financially.
By becoming a BBB accredited business or whether or not it's through serving on our boards or for serving on committees. This allows businesses to be able to. to try to take and put into action any kind of servant leadership that they might, would like to provide. But it's funny, my mom as I was growing up, my mom always had this poster that said everything I learned or everything I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten, right?
I don't remember every single part of it, but I do remember the general takeaway, which was that sometimes even the most basic concepts are the most fundamental things that we need to learn. And I think that one of those is certainly the company that you keep is immensely important to the kind of person or kind of business that you want to be.
And so whenever you are in the accredited business and you have [00:10:00] the ability to start interacting with other businesses that have the same values as you, I argue that is immensely important.
Jason Phillips: 100%. You thinking about. We're in the people business, even if, regardless of the widget we're selling or the service we're providing, we're in the people business.
And I tell my people this, is, we're not selling a paint job or a freshly painted house, if you will. What we're really selling is peace of mind. Because... A home is typically someone's most valuable investment. There's a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and emotions connected with homeownership, along with frustrations.
And it seems like every homeowner that I meet has some home improvement nightmare story about some contractor that has drugged them through the mud in some way, whether it was a mess or taking their money or bad workmanship, any of those things. And, If we can, as business owners, [00:11:00] understand, if more business owners would understand that I am selling peace of mind and I need to be a trustworthy business, and that's, again, I think that's, I think that's why a lot of people I've heard guys say this before, and maybe even have experienced it in the past, is if if someone found us on the Better Business Bureau site A lot of times those people there's the perception that they might be a little more picky.
I, my belief is that people often learn from the pain. They hired someone without hiring an accredited business, they got burned. And they're like, Hey, next time, honey, we're going to get someone from the Better Business Bureau, someone that we can trust. And so that maybe they have a little wounds from dealing with with some bad contractors.
And so I feel like people, once they've been burned, they're like really sold on it more than ever. But I, it's just, the peace of mind and running an ethical business. And I love what you said about hanging out with people that run [00:12:00] an ethical business. And
David Beasley: yeah, I think that one of the parts that you talked a little bit about there is the fact that when consumers are coming to the BBB it's often not somebody who's necessarily trying to come check out the rating of the convenience store that they're about to walk into.
Which is, yeah. Why it's not a surprise that of the 150 million visitors that came to our website last year, seven out of the top 10 industries that were that consumers were interested in, in, in knowing more information about are in the home services industries, right? The truth is that, whether it's be roofers.
Painters, electricians the home services, whenever you now have the most expensive thing that you own as far as worldly possessions, and you are either letting someone into [00:13:00] your safe space or you're you're asking them to to pay for it. it's, to put a roof on top of your biggest possession, right?
That's when consumers start thinking, I'm about to shell out thousands of dollars. I can't literally just open up the phone book anymore and just point at the first name. And then whoever has AAA ends up getting my business, right? The. The truth is that especially with the anonymity of the internet now the ability and the mediums in which people can take advantage of each other has exponentially grown since The 100 years ago when BBB was founded and so that makes BBB more important now than it ever has been because the before I'm going to let somebody come into my child's nursery and put paint on the wall, I want to know that they have a long history of taking care of their customers and that's the main reason why when we did a recent [00:14:00] survey of consumers who were Already familiar with BBB.
They found that the survey found that 78 percent of those consumers would rather do business with an accredited business.
Jason Phillips: Wow. 100%. It makes me think, David, that for when in business, when you're accepting credit cards. It's not necessarily always this way anymore, but it used to be that a lot of people wouldn't accept American Express because they would charge the merchant a higher fee than Visa MasterCard would.
And American Express says our statistics show that an American Express cardholder is going to spend 40 percent more money at your business than a Visa MasterCard holder. And I'm like, whoa, okay. And I do believe that's true, even though the fee was a little higher. I know me as a consumer if.
If I'm going to, I'm willing to pay more, and I believe my customers are willing to pay more, to hire a company they can trust. Again, it's not like you're going to the convenience store like you said. You're inviting them into your safe space, where you do life, [00:15:00] where you raise your family. And, an educated consumer is willing to pay more for peace of mind to hire a company that they can trust.
I 100 percent believe that.
David Beasley: Yeah, and certainly I think the science bears that out. I think that certainly When people are looking for the cheapest option, right? I'm okay with maybe trying to find the cheapest pair of sunglasses that I at a convenience store whenever I'm just in a desperate need.
Because I think that At most I'm out 20 if it breaks or if it's a terrible product, right? You turn that into a new HVAC system and I bought something cheap, right? It's, this isn't going to be a 15 minute inconvenience that I have. This is going to be potentially a life altering, especially.
here in Texas, or actually, I guess the heat wave this summer is all is all across, [00:16:00] it can be life changing as far as quality of life when you hire the wrong company.
Jason Phillips: Yeah, 100%. And one of the things that, that we say is look, I might be 500 more or a thousand dollars more, but.
Not hiring me might end up costing you more than hiring me. And it's true, especially in our industry. Anybody can just go be a roofer or a painter. It's that easy. David, what are the, let's just say that a company applies for accreditation with the Better Business Bureau.
Hey, is it, what do you do? Just fill out your name and address and give Better Business Bureau your credit card number and you're an accredited member? What does that look like?
David Beasley: Yeah I'm sure that there are there are some people in my office who would love for that to to, for it to be that easy.
But actually I take a lot of pride in the fact that BBB accreditation, I think is is not something that's easily obtained. While we certainly have we certainly have services in place to try to make the process as, as quickly [00:17:00] and as painless as possible. I think that we recognize that as an organization to be able to survive we have to be able to to ensure the quality of our accredited businesses remains that consumers remain interested in our businesses.
So because of that, we have a, 15 step process of vetting every single application that comes in. And it's in that process whether it be checking criminal backgrounds whether it is to check and check out the advertising practices. We'll be looking at a company's website, their social media pages.
We'll be looking at any complaints we've received over the last three years to see if there's any potential problematic patterns of complaints. We look to see whether or not you are where you say you are. If you're claiming to have an address right [00:18:00] down the street from us we, we might, if we can't figure it out by other means, we might go check to see that you're actually located there.
It's a process. And I know that. I know that you have more, certainly more insight to this with your service to our BBB on committees that make decisions on approvals, suspensions, and revocations. But certainly I think it's not an easy process, but but as Tom Hanks put it in A League of Their Own, it's it's the heart that makes it great.
Jason Phillips: Oh wow, that's true. Not everybody knows but I'm, I am on the business standards committee. And when I first joined, my eyes were like, wow. This is the type of stuff I get to see why, why companies get put on suspension, lose their accreditation ones that don't get their application approved.
And David, could you, could you give us some anecdotal examples of some of the crazy stuff that, that really the, is protecting [00:19:00] in the accreditation? Process to help maintain that trust for consumers. Certainly,
David Beasley: We look forward to, certainly when we're vetting a business to determine whether or not they are eligible for accreditation, we only have a history.
to be able to lean on, that's not always necessarily a guarantee that a business doesn't come down on hard times and potentially struggles to take care of their consumers. So it's not necessarily a guarantee of future service, but it is a peace of mind, as you put it regarding the history of a company.
And because of that, sometimes we do have accredited businesses who end up having problems, but we hold those businesses accountable. The the BBB's code of business practices or what's also known as the BBB's accreditation standards are a set of standards in which we hold all of our accredited businesses accountable to.
And that's whether or not companies need to be responsive to any dispute, we know and I'll put this out there right [00:20:00] now I often hear, from consumers the BBB is a is a business organization and businesses will say, that's the BBB is a consumer advocacy organization.
The truth is that based on our mission, we're a marketplace organization. We're looking to try to make the marketplace better. We, we know that there's often bad actors within industries, but we also don't. Abide by the concept that the customer is never wrong. We certainly know that there's unreasonable customers and we're aware of that.
And so because of that, the existence, the pure existence of a complaint is not the disqualifier of BBB accreditation. Because we think that even good businesses will, if you do enough business, you will eventually have a complaint. But what we believe is more, far more important is how you respond to that complaint.
And and what you do to try to make a good faith effort to [00:21:00] resolve that. Does that mean that every single consumer is always going to be satisfied? Not necessarily,...
