How Menu Pricing Unlocks Trust, Transparency & Sales
Too many contractors still rely on quote-driven sales processes that often cause confusion and slow sales momentum, sometimes to a screeching halt. This week on Cracking the Code, Drew Cameron and Russ Horrocks of Flow Odyssey explore a more customer-focused way to sell: menu pricing.
Together, they unpack how menu pricing simplifies decisions for homeowners and how shifting the conversation from “price” to “outcomes” drives more closed jobs and happier customers. From financing and affordability strategies to the psychology of choice, you’ll learn how to lead transparent, efficient sales conversations that increase conversions and set your company apart.
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00:00:00:00 – 00:00:21:11
Your job is not to quote work. Your job is to get work. Where do we go in our lives? Right, as human beings and consumers and buy anything with a proposal? You know, I’ve run 15, 20,000 sales calls now in 30 years. I can’t. Last time I gave a proposal to.
00:00:21:13 – 00:01:03:15
Welcome to Cracking the code where we make Hvac success clear, simple and stress free. I’m your host and contractor, university general manager David Holt. In today’s episode, we are honored to speak with Drew Cameron and Russ Horrocks of Flow Odyssey. These two guys are also founding faculty members of Contractor University. Hey, man. Together. Together, they’re going to be leading a great workshop entitled Shoot to Thrill Maximize Sales Performance with Menu Pricing at Epic 2026 on Thursday, February 12th, 2026, hosted at the Bellagio in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.
00:01:03:15 – 00:01:25:09
So let’s get cracking. Welcome to Cracking the Code, guys. We always, always look forward to your insightful training programs. What can epic attendees expect to learn during your breakout session? Hey David, good to see you and good to be with you. And, good to be with you always. Russ. So, good to see you. Yeah. So, you know, shoot the thrill.
00:01:25:10 – 00:01:42:09
I mean, I think at the end of the day, you know, the the the answer’s in the title, right? I mean, we want a thrill, you know, our our customers and potential customers. Right? When we go out and visit with them, you know, hopefully to a point to where they, they want to continue, you know, they want to do business with us or continue to do business with us.
00:01:42:09 – 00:02:03:10
Right. And and so, Russ and I got together and said, hey, what can we do with what we know and what we doing and our beliefs and our philosophy is to kind of stand out and separate ourselves from everybody else that’s out there. We we’re aware that there’s other players in the space, with what it is that we do, but we always like to separate ourselves, not differentiate ourselves.
00:02:03:10 – 00:02:26:13
Because if I’m differentiating differentiating myself, I’m comparing myself to something else. And I just want to separate myself and be this unique thing. And then the day and age of, you know, customer relationship management databases and, proposal, you know, building tools, that are out there. You know, Russell, I kind of I was basically, you know, stuck on the principles of old school, right?
00:02:26:13 – 00:02:59:06
Or just or just primal instincts of menu pricing, you know, to save time and have transparency, to build trust, to get the, you know, the customer experience and get them thrilled, you know, to buy from us. And so, yeah, what we’re talking about here today is, in essence, that right menu pricing versus proposal generating tools or CRM or SMS, you know, field service management software, customer relationship management software, you know, to get business, make your job easier, make your job enjoyable, make the customer experience, more enjoyable.
00:02:59:06 – 00:03:19:00
So, yeah, that’s we’re gonna talk about. Yeah. I think, you know, we we do this a very long time. And when I train throughout the country, throughout North America, I find that one of the number one things that contractors are interested in learning about is how to properly build a price book. They just don’t know.
00:03:19:02 – 00:03:39:02
Many of them, you know, think that proposals is selling. Unfortunately, for me, I was very, like, I think I have someone early in my career. Teach me. Your job is not to quote work. Your job is to get work. And so I’ve never been a person that thought that my job is to go out and write proposals and drop them.
00:03:39:02 – 00:04:08:06
You know, we call it spraying and praying and quoting and hoping. I never really believed that was my job. It was to get work. And so a proposal is, uptick from chaos and nothing you know, that’s it’s a definitely an improvement, but it’s a very limited way of going to market. And so for me, I never been interested in proposals, never been interested in writing them, never been interested in producing them, never been interested in trying to make them better.
00:04:08:08 – 00:04:38:08
I think a lot of the software’s out there is to try to make the proposal generating process easy for the contractor, but I think we’re making the wrong thing easy. It’s not what we want, right? You know, it’s we’re just perpetuating a limited approach. It’s kind of like in football, you get a bunch of kids go to the parking lot and they play seven on seven and it’s chaos and it’s kids running around making a muck of it, that you have a team that starts to talk about patterns and strategy and a plan, and you run this route, we’ll do this.
00:04:38:08 – 00:04:59:18
It gets better. And then when you get to the highest level of football, what do they do? The quarterback looks at conditions, he audibles. He pays attention to what’s happening you know on the defensive side of the ball. And so when you have a price book that doesn’t let you pay attention to the customer and what’s going on on that side of the wall, you’re going to be very limited and just like everybody else.
00:04:59:18 – 00:05:21:16
So in a world where, people have access to information very easily, they still don’t understand the information. And a proposal will not bring any clarity to the information, and it will not let you be unique and go into the market and trying to dominate and be a better, more compelling, resource and solution. And one point there for us as well.
00:05:21:16 – 00:05:44:21
The other thing that you kind of you touched on, right, is where do we go in our lives, right. As human beings and consumers and buy anything with a proposal off a proposal. Right. We go out to a retail space, we can go online and explore everything that’s available to us right. And then contractors, you know, home service is really and it could be landscaping, pools, whatever windows, roofing, siding, gutters, Hvac, plumbing, electrical, whatever.
00:05:44:23 – 00:06:07:07
But all these contractors, you know, come to houses and like Russ said, they put together proposals. Why? Well, because it extends from something way, way back where a contractor went to a house was probably typically referred to somebody, had a conversation with a homeowner and then wrote up what the customer said that they wanted after they agreed to a price.
00:06:07:07 – 00:06:27:10
It was more verbal confirmation of something, and it has evolved into a sales tool, and it never should have been right. However, many times a day or a week, as consumers will go out and we’ll see everything that’s available to us, and we can explore free to explore everything that’s available to us online or in the retail shop, or even on the car lot.
00:06:27:12 – 00:06:42:23
Okay. Or more instinctively in a restaurant, right? When the check shows up at the end of the meal, you’re not surprised by it because it’s a function of how hungry are you? What do you feel like eating? You pick the place to show up anyway already, right? You know, the server doesn’t say, well, what were you thinking about having this evening?
00:06:42:23 – 00:07:00:02
You say, I was thinking about having beef and she doesn’t go to say, I’ll go to the kitchen. I’ll. I’ll put together three options for you on three different meat options with, accouterments and salads and appetizers and desserts. And I’ll be right back. No, she gives you the entire menu, and you’re free to explore it. She or he is there to guide you.
00:07:00:02 – 00:07:20:15
Right. You know, and any questions you may have in regards to the menu and, and curate a great meal and great experience for you. Right. So it’s a very primal thing. And I think, you know, in recent I’ve experienced this, you know, going back to that in, in home services and sticking with a menu, menu pricing. And it’s not even the mechanics of building price.
00:07:20:15 – 00:07:37:22
That’s what we’re going to talk about at epic. That’s, that’s that’s something for another day and another class. Right. But we’re going to talk about how do you build a price book and how do you share a price book in order to share information about your people, processes and experiences? You know, it’s it’s interesting and a 100% agree with what you guys were saying.
00:07:37:22 – 00:08:04:01
And when you think about, you know, a proposal, a piece of paper and consumers are kind of, I don’t know, they’re kind of conditioned to shop, right? They’re used to that. And I know from talking to our local utility company here in Georgia, I asked them, what do you do when a person that provides a high bill complaint to you guys, they say, well, we give them this list of contractors and we say get three prices, right?
00:08:04:01 – 00:08:31:05
And so they’re encouraging comparisons, in essence, proposal comparisons instead of, you know, really collaborating with the homeowner and figuring out what’s going on. So I love the idea that having having this menu of options, that they can see all their options can actually, in essence, eliminate competition, right? Yeah. There’s nothing in psychology that supports a proposal driven experience.
00:08:31:06 – 00:08:51:16
It’s about building. So there’s a lot of psychology that comes with a proper price book. We have connection. We have alignment. We have understanding. We have trust. We have safety. You don’t get those things when you’re just dropping proposals. I do have to say this, that I’m really impressed with drew using the word accrued from accouterments. That’s, that’s a word I think I’ve ever used.
00:08:51:16 – 00:09:11:16
So I’ve been impressed by that. So. So yeah. So that’s, you know, I if you know me, if you’ve been to my classes, you know, I’ve done I’ve run 15, 20,000 sales calls now in 30 years. And I don’t I can’t think the last time I gave a proposal, and there’s nothing on a proposal that’s going to set you apart.
00:09:11:18 – 00:09:31:18
You know, it’s a list of stuff, and it’s not what the stuff is. It’s what the stuff does that makes the real product. And so you’re reinforcing and having the customer look the wrong direction. And this is a point, you know, drew and I were talking last night that I find even though people have such incredible access to information, they still don’t understand it.
00:09:32:00 – 00:09:52:23
We still have the same rate of failure that we’ve always had. We still have 70% of customers saying, I didn’t get what I pay for because they don’t know how to interpret the information, and the proposal based process doesn’t clarify anything now. And most of it out there is generated in the same software. There’s a couple big software players out there, right on CRMs and FSM.
00:09:53:01 – 00:10:14:11
Right. Which run, you know, run the software business side of their business and they’re generating them out of there. They’re taking 20 to 45 minutes to build that. Okay. So that that timing disconnect breeds lack of trust and transparency that you spent the first hour or so of your call, or hopefully if you’re doing the two step process, you know, the first visit, you’ve rendered all of the trust neutral.
00:10:14:11 – 00:10:30:19
Now you violated the trust because you’re not, you know, completely transparent, right? You’re you’re sitting here and your thing and yourself when you’re building and building packages and putting things together. And yes, then you turn around, you show the customer this, but they don’t know how you got to, you know, got to it in a menu. It’s very clear.
00:10:30:19 – 00:10:48:02
Right. It’s it’s sitting there. It’s it’s a printed booklet, if you will. Just like a restaurant. Right. How hungry are you? What do you feel like eating? You pick it and you can add things, change things, edit things. Now, what Russ and I teach in our in our, in our training is there are some things where the customer does have no choice, right?
00:10:48:02 – 00:11:04:22
I had two things I had to do for code safety permits, functionality. The machines, you know, things like that. And then there’s some things where they have some areas of choice, but I do have to limit some things, like for example, I can’t put a Hepa filter in a tight closet, right. You might want one, but if I can’t do it, I can’t do it right.
00:11:04:22 – 00:11:33:13
So you have some choice. But sometimes you have limited choices, right? But then there’s complete freedom of choice. And that’s the system, right? What system do you want? What level of experience do you want. Right. And and that’s what we focus on is our people, our processes, the problems resolve, the life impacts. And experiences. And most of the proposal stuff leads after the, you know, the company information and the customer information brand model, efficiency, capacity, pictures of equipment, logos of manufacturers.
00:11:33:13 – 00:11:51:21
Right. All the stuff that a customer is thinking I should comparison shop and I should get three prices on, you know, you know, train carrier Lennox Dike and Goodman Amana or carrier carrier carrier. Right. But that’s what I’m going to compare because that’s what I think I’m buying. I’m buying an air conditioning like Russ said a little bit earlier.
00:11:51:21 – 00:12:09:15
No you’re not. You’re buying an outcome. You’re buying an experience, you’re buying whether or not you’re going to be comfortable in your house, in all rooms. And I know rust did this in his own house, you know, recently, and, you know, he, he, he loves pulling out his phone and showing out, like, every, every room in his house, houses with one, one degree of each other.
00:12:09:15 – 00:12:28:18
And he has complete control of it anywhere he is in the world. Right. And, and he knows exactly, you know, that it’s taking care of his family when he’s not there and he’s traveling there healthy because he put in a high efficiency filter, you know, filtration and purification. You know that they’re comfortable anywhere they are in the house because he’s got four zones, right?
00:12:28:18 – 00:12:52:10
So it’s like, you know, he bought a result, he got the things he didn’t buy, the things. And he can tell you about how he picked the contractor. Yeah. And and the result forced my hand. I wanted to be careful in every home. So I had to get a dual fuel, fully modulating heat pump. That’s cold climate I had.
00:12:52:10 – 00:13:11:20
I had to get multiple zones, otherwise I couldn’t be comfortable happy. So and I think that’s another thing proposals do is they don’t answer people’s desired results. You know, they usually will say, well, I’ll quote you this and I’ll give you a slightly better option. What does that even mean? You mean little more expensive. Is it really better?
00:13:11:22 – 00:13:30:15
I mean, how do we know if it’s better? Have we looked at the airflow? The static pressure? We looked at all the other things that come in and come into play. So yeah, it’s really and I think going back to this from a contract perspective, I know this is one of the most frustrating things for contractors. They don’t know how to go to market.
00:13:30:18 – 00:13:50:12
A price book should never be a price list, and it should never be a brochure. If it’s one of those two, things are both. You’ve got a terrible system. You’re representing a very weak product. You’ve got to make sure that a price book supports a powerful conversation that is exploratory and lets a customer feel in control the entire time.
00:13:50:14 – 00:14:09:22
We guide them, of course, but we we never want to push them. I’ve seen a lot of companies trying to take an approach lately where they’re saying, we’re going to live, we’re going to limit the contract or the customer to 1 or 2 options, because we want to simplify it for us. I’m like, you’re denying them the benefit of a solution because you simply don’t want to do it.
00:14:10:00 – 00:14:30:03
I think that is I can’t say criminal, but it feels criminal. Almost. What’s violating someone’s right to choose and sense of control, like you and I talk about all the time. Right. And so I, I as a salesperson in that particular scenario. Then I made the decisions and choices for you to not show you things. Right. Here’s the thing.
00:14:30:05 – 00:14:50:12
What a menu does, a full menu does even at a restaurant, right? It shows you everything that’s available for you to consider at that restaurant. Right? And in our price books, we say it’s everything that’s available for you to consider in the industry, right? I’m going to even show you things I know you probably will say no to, because I know that based on our conversation, because I don’t have a right to not show that to you.
00:14:50:14 – 00:15:07:10
And the cool thing is, I’ll show you something that you’ll say no to knowing you’ll probably say no to it. But if you can say no to something, what that really means is yes. Not that, but maybe something else, right? And now the thing that I said no to, it’s like gave me context and perspective on the things I would say yes to.
00:15:07:12 – 00:15:29:09
That’s the that’s the other thing. You’ve shot yourself in the foot, David, by not not showing somebody the best thing that they could do for, let’s say, $30,000, right. And make them feel good about spending 17 what most contractors will do the show, the $17,000 option and the $12,000 option. And the customer has no perspective. They’re thinking 17 thousands are highest price.
00:15:29:11 – 00:15:50:00
Right. So context and perspective is the other thing comes into play based on what Russell said, you know, and thinking about those thinking about those numbers you were throwing out, I mean, I just invested 34,000 in my house. So I know what you’re talking about. One of one of the things that’s interesting to me, and, and I know that this is another challenge a lot of contractors have in our industry.
00:15:50:00 – 00:16:13:01
And I know you guys are going to jump on this in a big way at epic is how do you how do you effectively lead the discussion when it comes down to it, with affordable monthly payments rather than the total job price? Yeah. You know, there’s there’s two things that drew and I always talk about that people can be, discouraged by or have opposition to.
00:16:13:01 – 00:16:37:04
And that is a sense of value or a sense of affordability. If you could make something valuable but not affordable, it’s not worth they can’t consider it. If you make it affordable but not valuable, they won’t consider it. So you have to make sure you hit both and for me, I’ve always, always assumed everyone’s going to take advantage of a flexible payment plan because I found that was the path with the least amount of risk.
00:16:37:06 – 00:16:53:00
If I ever assumed or believed someone’s going to pay cash for it because they told me and I got to the end and they realized that the pricing was out of reach for them because their buddy told them was $5,000 and they had $5,001 in the bank. Rather than be embarrassed, they would tell me, thank you for your time.
00:16:53:00 – 00:17:12:21
You’ve been great. Can you send me something? We’ll think about it. So I got fired a lot early in my career because I didn’t realize I was the problem. And so pretty quickly and we were going back in the 90s. Now, I realized that if I assume everyone’s taking advantage of a flexible payment plan, no one will ever be embarrassed to say, I’d like to use one of those programs.
00:17:12:23 – 00:17:30:18
I’ve been into homes where they’re clearly multi, multi millionaires. I mean, we’re talking eight digit type net worth. And I still say to them, hey, just so you know, this often comes as a surprise to people. We have some great programs to make it affordable for you. And I love to see the look on their face of shock.
00:17:30:20 – 00:17:50:15
Like what? But I realize it’s it’s creating habits of behavior I don’t want to guess or assume who wants to or who chooses to use those programs. So I never want to be an issue and limit my probability of success. So yeah, I always have always led with flexible payment plans. If they say we’re going to pay cash, no problem.
00:17:50:15 – 00:18:06:20
I don’t care how you pay for it. My job is to create an environment where you know that it can be affordable, should you want a certain solution or a pathway that you want to take. Yeah, you can certainly pay cash for it if you want. Nope. Most people don’t nowadays, right? We live in a subscription based society.
00:18:06:20 – 00:18:21:13
So we can talk about that. Right. And we can talk about, you know, hey, you don’t make all your money at once. Most people don’t want to spend it all at once, you know, on something like this, especially since it’s tied to your home. You finance the first one when you bought the house. Most people finance the second one, you know, or third one, whatever it is, right.
00:18:21:15 – 00:18:37:14
And let and let the, you know again. And if you’re, you’re into investing and such, you know, you spent spend the money on something that pays for itself, right? Like, hey, this thing is going to pay for itself over time, unlike a bathroom or a kitchen, you know, or a pool or a deck or something like that.
00:18:37:16 – 00:18:55:20
Yeah, it may increase the value of your house, but that’s not why you do a pool. A deck or kitchen remodel. Right? You know, you’re not looking to sell the house, right? So, you know, pay pay cash for those things. Right? But this thing’s going to pay for itself in, you know, reduced or eliminated energy, you know, and repair costs.
00:18:55:22 – 00:19:36:00
You know, my personal experience, again, just this summer, I replaced my two, split heat pump systems and ripped everything out except the boots in the ceiling. So I’ve got an attic installed in my house here in Georgia. Ripped everything out, redesigned it with a three zone system, put in an inverter type system, variable speed heat pump, popped in three zones, and my utility bills I’ve got now, I’ve basically got this summer, power bills compared to last years, and I’ve reduced power consumption by over 50% each month in June, in June, June, July and August in Georgia.
00:19:36:02 – 00:19:56:09
And it’s been hot. We’ve had over 100 degree days here and, it’s been fantastic. The house is more comfortable. Oh, and I went from five tons to three tons, by the way, because we actually did a load calculation. What a concept. It’s just, it’s just amazing what kind of real benefits we can offer when we open the entire playbook, right?
00:19:56:10 – 00:20:11:22
I mean, that’s really what this is all about. Well, and that’s I think that’s the beautiful thing about the payment plans, right? It’s, you know, I don’t like to use the term financing. I, you know, there’s payment plans, payment options. What are we going to call? Right. Subscription if you want to do it that way. Right. It’s the same price cash or credit.
00:20:11:23 – 00:20:42:06
Right. We don’t we don’t penalize people who want to take advantage or need to take advantage of a payment plan. Right. Everything’s about a cash discount. Why? Again, another bad behavior that’s been perpetrated for for time for no reason. So same price, cash or credit. We don’t do well. We don’t penalize people. And so, and if a customer says, you know, calls me out on the fees that they know that I, they think that we pay as a company, I say, oh, we partner with our manufacturer, and we’re part of a network of contractors where basically absorb that as a cost of doing business.
00:20:42:07 – 00:21:08:20
Right. And so we don’t pass that along to you, just like I don’t pass along to you my higher electric bill in the month of July of my business. Right. Because I’m running my air conditioner. So God, just because I do misses. Well, and I think a lot of people don’t realize that the solutions that they want, the outcome they’re looking for, it’s quite often probably 95% of the time, if not more, more expensive than they thought.
00:21:08:22 – 00:21:31:04
People just have no point of reference. I didn’t do this. I the first time I replaced my system in my home was at the age of 49. I mean, I mean, and I’m in the industry now, I’ve done and another home since, since I made up for it in the last five years, I’ve done it twice. But, you know, people have no experience.
00:21:31:04 – 00:21:53:17
So they draw from two things past experience, which is all appliance based, completely different animal. Or they try to use common sense, which completely sends them down the wrong path. And then what you have is weak contractors preying on that. And that’s why they use words like seer rating. You can’t offer someone to see your rating. It’s a series designation.
00:21:53:18 – 00:22:14:13
And so they prey on the customer. And that’s why the price books highlight the equipment because they have nothing else to offer. And then that’s why so many customers are upset with their choices in the in the actual outcomes. So if you want to truly be unique, you want to truly be dominant in your market. You’ve got to get your pricing game at the highest level.
00:22:14:14 – 00:22:34:03
We have to be the Tom Brady. Excuse me, if you have fans out there that hate him, you can’t deny what he accomplished. You have to you have to be able to be at the highest level and have the tools to support that. And proposal based pricing just won’t support that level of performance. Man, I’m just sitting here my head spinning.
00:22:34:03 – 00:22:53:10
I, you know, I did a lot of contracting myself and have gone through a lot of the same experiences and everything you guys said is dead on. And I know this breakout session is sure to help all epic attendees come away with some really, really cool ideas for how to use just traditional menu pricing to close more sales.
00:22:53:10 – 00:23:24:05
So Drew and Russ man, thanks for your support as we continue to work together to help contracting be better tomorrow than it is today. And that’s what our goal is, is to move the needle with these guys. For more information about this breakout session, visit the epic 2020 6.com website and check out the agenda for Thursday at 1 p.m. and if you haven’t already registered for the conference, make sure you do so right now, because it’ll surely sell out as it has in past years.
00:23:24:10 – 00:23:51:10
Click Register Now at Epic 2020 6.com so you don’t get left out. So thanks for watching. Crack in the code where we make Hvac success clear, simple, and stress free. See you next time.
