John sits down with Zac Dearing (Mantel) to break down how top HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies are moving from “proposal tools” to true shopping experiences that help homeowners buy with confidence—and help teams close more, faster. They dig into hard data from Mantel’s platform and homeowner survey: why Tuesdays are the biggest sales day, how response time and proposal view time (“eyeball time”) predict closes, and why a 10-point jump in proposal strength correlates with ~$960 higher average ticket.
They also cover remote/virtual selling (and what a high-fidelity, open-cart experience can look like), pricing transparency (69% of homeowners try to find a price online…only 15% find something clear), extended-warranty strategies, and what changes between a $10M shop and a $100M shop (hint: ruthless simplicity). If you want a concrete playbook for modern sales—benchmarks, coaching levers, and systems that scale—this one’s for you.
💡 What You’ll Learn
- Shopping-Experience Selling: How Mantel helps contractors present interactive options, not lectures—and why FSM “order recorders” miss the moment of influence.
- KPIs That Move Deals: Response-time and proposal “eyeball time,” plus how to use them to coach sellers.
- Proposal Strength → Revenue: Why better option range, add-ons, and personalization lift ticket size (~$960 per +10 points).
- Benchmarks That Matter: Calibrating close rate, average ticket, attach rates—and avoiding dirty denominators.
- Remote/Virtual Sales: When to use it, how big firms are testing it, and the emerging “open cart” follow-up model.
- Simplicity at Scale: The shift from 2–3 sellers to 30–40+, standardization vs. autonomy, and raising the floor without capping the ceiling.
- What Homeowners Actually Want: Clear pricing, reputation, comfort, utility savings > brand logos—and how to price extended warranties for real adoption.
🎙️ Host
John Wilson
🎙️ Guest
Zac Dearing — Mantel
Homeowner Shopping Attitudes Survey 2025
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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC
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