Windshield Time Episodes

Your brain is lying to you. Not once in a while. On every call. You pull up to a house. You see the yard. The cars. The neighborhood. Before you knock on the door, you’ve already decided what this customer can afford. You don’t know you’re doing it. But you are. That’s a cognitive bias.  …

You troubleshoot systems every single day. A water heater isn’t making hot water. Lights are flickering in a bedroom. A compressor isn’t kicking on.  You don’t guess. You don’t panic.  You ask questions, eliminate what it isn’t, find the true condition, and fix it. Now a customer says, “That’s too expensive.” And suddenly you freeze. …

You built four options. You laid them all on the table. The customer’s eyes went straight to the cheapest one. This episode fixes that. Chris Elmore breaks down why presenting all four options at the same time is one of the most common mistakes techs make in the home — and teaches the top-down method …

A lot of technicians think customer resistance starts at the price. Chris Elmore says it starts much earlier. In this episode, Chris uses a vivid analogy to explain what happens when a technician gives a customer bad news without preparing them first. The result is confusion, defensiveness, and the urge to escape… just like someone …

“What is your job?” Most technicians answer the same way: fix the problem. But that answer reveals something important—many technicians see their role too narrowly. In this episode of Windshield Time, Chris explains why professional technicians carry a much larger responsibility when they enter a customer’s home. A technician isn’t just there to repair equipment. …

If you’re a technician who believes your job is to “just fix it,” this episode will challenge that mindset. In this episode of Windshield Time, Chris Elmore sits down with Joe Bates, owner of Northern Air Plumbing & Heating, to break down what separates average service technicians from true professionals. A technician’s job is to …

What does a service business owner actually expect from technicians? In this episode of Windshield Time, Joe Bates, owner of Northern Air Plumbing and Heating, shares the ownership perspective most technicians never hear. This is not theory. It’s what ownership sees every day. Payroll.Margins.Reputation.Risk. Joe explains what sets average technicians apart from trusted professionals — and how …

Most service calls don’t fail during diagnostics. They fail in the moment after. The inspection is complete. The findings are clear. And then the conversation stalls. In this episode of Windshield Time, we break down why service calls stall after diagnostics and what technicians can do to move the call forward without sounding salesy, awkward, or unsure. This …

When a service call goes bad, it’s rarely because the work was wrong. It’s because the conversation wasn’t documented. In this episode of Windshield Time, Chris Elmore and Matthew Barbosa explain how to document a service call properly and why documentation protects technicians long after the job is done. This episode reframes documentation away from paperwork …

Experience is your greatest asset—until it creates your biggest blind spot. In the Season 2 premiere of Windshield Time, Chris Elmore and Matthew Barbosa dismantle the myth that “seasoned pros don’t need checklists.” If you’re relying on your gut to diagnose, you’re leaving money, trust, and your reputation on the table. We dive into why …

Most people don’t quit on self-improvement. They quietly drift away from it. Not because they don’t want change. But because they never built a system to support it. In this episode of Windshield Time, Chris and Noel break down why New Year’s resolutions fail, why motivation is a terrible strategy, and what real, lasting improvement actually looks like, especially …

The holidays change everything. Customers are more patient. Mistakes get forgiven. Standards quietly soften. Then January hits…and all of that disappears. In this episode of Windshield Time, Chris Elmore and Noel Tarter break down what technicians experience every year but rarely talk about: the holiday hangover. Not the fun kind. The professional one.