IGNITE 2023: FieldRoutes + Aspire gather field service pros in Las Vegas

That's a wrap on IGNITE! We hope you had a great week meeting other field service pros and learning how to fire up your business with Aspire and FieldRoutes! Thank you to all of our attendees, sponsors, partners, and speakers for their time and support.

We're continuing to recap keynote presentations and highlights from select breakout sessions, and we'll be sharing a rundown of the Par 3 Field Trip—so check back here for more content!

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A Deeper Dive into PropertyIntel—The Next Generation of Property Measurement and Estimating 

After an evening of collaborating, networking, cocktails, and gambling (of course), product manager Joshua Martin continued to bring the Vegas energy with a deep dive into PropertyIntel—Aspire’s coolest measuring tool. 

“PropertyIntel was designed to revolutionize how property measurements are taken by making measuring properties of any size and shape easier, faster, and more accurate. It utilizes cutting-edge technology to ensure highly accurate measurements, eliminating the need for manual calculations or estimations,” Martin said. 

He went further into the significant benefits of PropertyIntel for customers:

“PropertyIntel helps landscape companies seamlessly collect, connect, and visualize essential data to drive new profitability and performance levels,” Martin said. 

Collect accurate data

Get the measurements you need with precision measuring tools, hi-res aerial imagery, and PDF uploads.

Connect related data

Bridge the property and customer data gap with automated data insights, reporting, and optimization suggestions.

Visualize essential data

Gain greater clarity into your business with visual, interactive sitemaps and reporting dashboards.

Martin elaborated on particular use cases with stunning product imagery.

Residential and Commercial Maintenance

PropertyIntel uses high-resolution aerial imagery and PDF uploads to create fast, professional takeoffs. You can collect all the site data you need, sync with your Aspire property, and keep all your contracts and renewals up to date and accurate. Use color coded maps and plans to stand out from your competitors and win more jobs.

Snow Maps

Use color, text, and arrows to delineate areas and equipment needs. Clearly show your team how to correctly service the property every time.

Enhancement Design

Proactively sell enhancements with easy, quick, and on-the-spot designs and instantly sync designs to Aspire Opportunities to price and propose. Next up? Hand off closed jobs to production with clear plans and designs. 

Example: Annual Color Plan

Use PropertyIntel to make seasonal color change a breeze. Create plans and 2D designs of how beds should look and gather all your plant counts and material quantities. Export and share with customers so they can visualize their project plan. 

However, according to Martin, collecting this data is merely the first step in standardizing your business processes. PropertyIntel extracts valuable data from property details, surveys, and environmental factors and syncs seamlessly with Aspire’s platform, where the real magic happens. Property and Opportunity Tags from Aspire sync to PropertyIntel, where Actual Values rather than Estimated Values are pushed to Aspire. 

Martin concluded, “With a shared data environment like this, the options are endless!” 

• Create takeoffs for maintenance work, design-build projects, enhancement, and opportunities.

• Use high-resolution aerial imagery and PDF uploads to create fast, professional takeoffs.

• Calculate time, material, and cost estimates automatically as you measure with data imported from your pricing database.

• Send visual proposals with pricing breakdowns, color-coded project sitemaps, and customizable cover letters in minutes. 

PropertyIntel allows landscape contractors to create takeoffs for maintenance and design-build, and users can simultaneously automate data insights, reports, and optimization suggestions through direct integration with the Aspire platform.

Users can also access and submit orders to PropertyIntel Complete—Aspire’s new automated measuring, estimating, and takeoff service. PropertyIntel Complete allows landscape contractors to provide property addresses and receive precision-measured takeoffs directly within their PropertyIntel account.  

Delivering on Promises: Meeting Customer Needs with Next-Generation Features

It’s no easy feat to follow hot on the heels of three-time Super Bowl champion Emmitt Smith. But Chief Technology Officer Dan Blake embraced the challenge, and boy, he delivered. 

Blake started the session on the future of Aspire’s product by sharing his gratitude for the customers who have made Aspire what it is today. 

“The first time I stood on a stage to reveal our product roadmap was four years ago in Scottsdale,” he said. “And only about 30 people were in a small ballroom then. Look at us now. We’ve come a long way and couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.”

Blake also shared the thought process behind Aspire’s latest enhancements. 

“We focus on five fundamental principles as we build new products to solve your biggest challenges:

• Be more efficient, get by with fewer people, and use fewer materials.

• Acquiring customers is incredibly hard and expensive, and we want to ensure we do everything possible to make your customers stay with you.

• Find more top-line revenue for you by selling additional services and projects.

• Increase your bottom line.

• Provide visibility to all of your consolidated data.

Blake passes the baton to Brian Brinkworth, senior director of product management. Brinkworth delves into what a day in the life of a product manager looks like.

“We study the industry, our market, and related industries for enhancements. We meet directly with many of you like we do here at Ignite. We get input directly from your staff via our Idea and Voting portal. Our internal engineering teams consistently invest to ensure our systems scale as terabytes of data are added. These are all inputs we consider as we work on delivering the capabilities you need from Aspire.” 

Brinkworth claims this research and discovery is only possible by joining the ServiceTitan family. 

“When I came on board in 2019, seven team members were across my teams. At the time of the ServiceTItan acquisition, our team headcount had grown to 30. With ServiceTitan's investment, our teams across Product and R&D have scaled by 200%. Now, in 2023, we have nearly 100 team members!”

Brinkworth provides a lengthy list of UX enhancements but goes a step further and reveals the logic behind how these improvements are made. 

“We know it’s important for Aspire to not only deliver the capabilities you need but do it in a way that makes your job easier,” he said. “For example, our UX team studied usage patterns of the time entry screen and found that by moving totals to the top, there was a large reduction in page scrolling, which means less time spent on this heavily used part of the system.” 

That’s just one of the many UX enhancements made in 2023. 

Here are some of the newest features coming in future releases of Aspire’s software: 

Aspire + Azuga (available now)

With material prices and fuel costs climbing in today's economy, businesses feel the pinch. Implementing new strategies and technologies to cut unnecessary expenses is becoming more critical for contractors in service-based industries with slim margins.

Aspire Integrated Telematics, powered by Azuga, is designed to help you quickly identify and address poor driving habits, empower and reward your drivers, increase accountability and client satisfaction, and avoid unnecessary downtime.

That information empowers managers to reward their safest drivers and correct those who need it. For example, optional safety cameras allow managers to observe conditions inside and around the vehicle within Azuga’s interface. This valuable context protects employees and the equipment they operate. 

Users can even trigger Route Replay from within Aspire, logging directly into Azuga to see pertinent events for a given vehicle’s path that day.

Side Panels 

Side panels will provide an entirely new way of multitasking within Aspire. After watching users constantly toggle between “work tickets” and “properties,” the software engineers found an opportunity to improve user efficiency by eliminating the need to navigate back and forth. 

“Side Panels,” a popup of sorts, will help users quickly surface more of the information they need without losing the context of what they are doing,” Brinkworth said. 

Customer Portal 2.0

Jason Pyne, Product Management Manager, showcases the upcoming additions to the customer portal. 

The Customer Portal 2.0 will look and feel much better and offer accessibility on any device customers prefer as a responsive, web-based application. Users can also have a branded hub to view the properties they need to manage and can filter to a single property and group those properties as needed.

Drilling into a property, users will have the ability to hone in on details such as:

• Outstanding balance

• Recent activities

• Contact information

Users will also be able to manage “requests,” formerly known as “Issues,” as well as view and update outstanding requests and submit new requests. Detailed proposals can be sent, viewed, digitally signed, and paid electronically within the portal.

Subcontractor Portal 2.0

The vision for Subcontractor 2.0 is to re-platform key functionality and provide a far better experience for users and their subcontracted labor. The product team recently opened discovery with the Product Advisory Board on this topic and looks forward to building a tool that addresses the top pain points around working with subcontractors.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more product drops with Aspire Mobile and PropertyIntel. 

— Missy England, Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Aspire

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NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith and Jon Gohl, Director, Customer Experience, Aspire

NFL Legend Emmitt Smith on his greatest victories and challenges 

Emmitt Smith's path to football greatness didn't always follow a straight line to the end zone. And he most certainly didn't get there alone.

When he was finally allowed to speak to reporters after a game during his freshman season at Escambia High School in Pensacola, FL, he set himself up for one of his many learned lessons. Smith told journalists that night all about what he had achieved on the field.

When practice arrived on Monday, Smith's offensive mates reminded him of the value of everyone on the team during a drill. 

"By the time I got to the line of scrimmage, the whole offensive line laid on the ground, and the defense came to light me up," he said. "I got up and said, 'Coach, I got it, I got it, I got it! A lesson in humility."

The Pro Football Hall of Fame member and Dallas Cowboys legend, who remains the leading rusher in National Football League history, delivered a keynote address to kick off the second day of IGNITE.

The lessons learned that day, and so many others built upon challenges shaped his football and entrepreneurial futures.

"Every position on the football field and every position in every organization matters," Smith said. "The processes have to play themselves out. They have to work. All of these things have to be a part of it."

Greg Cuoco, CEO of The Difference Landscapes in Lee, NH, and an Aspire partner, drew inspiration from Smith's message.

"A big thing he talked about was teams, and you can't get there alone," Cuoco said. "I plan on incorporating that with building teams and culture and creating that environment where everyone feels inclusive, but also everyone knows where we're going and how we're going to get there."

Matt Wilde, the president of Wilde Irrigation in Holden, MA, played hockey and coached. Wilde, a FieldRoutes customer, easily related to the message delivered by a three-time Super Bowl champion.

"Emmitt has traveled the path a lot of us have followed," Wilde said. "Maybe we were all previous athletes but knew we weren't going as far as Emmitt. But we had the drive to be champions or drive to run successful businesses. We're all driven the same way that he was." 

Smith spoke for more than 40 minutes before fielding questions submitted by IGNITE registrants. Then he made a hard cut to his left and exited the stage.

"You have in you what is required to be successful," he said. "You have overcome challenge after challenge after challenge after challenge to get to this place. Don't think you are exempt from more challenges to come."

— Eddie Wooten, Content Marketing Specialist, FieldRoutes ===

Seen & heard at the Product + Partner Hub

Networking with the big names in the landscape industry at the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) booth

Weathermatic shows IGNITE attendees the latest in water technology

FieldRoutes Client Services in action

Product demos and networking

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A promise from the top to make AI accessible to the trades

ServiceTitan co-founder Vahe Kuzoyan on Tuesday emphasized the importance of artificial intelligence capabilities to the trades, and how Aspire and FieldRoutes will incorporate the cutting-edge capabilities into their software to benefit the trades.

He encouraged the audience at Ignite! to think about what their business looked like in the days before PCs, before the internet, or before mobile devices, and imagine how difficult it would be to run those businesses today without those advancements. 

“The AI revolution going on right now will be much bigger than that, and it will happen much faster,” Kuzoyan said. “And that’s why you should care. Being an early adopter is going to be a competitive advantage, but it won’t be long before not adopting this technology will be a significant competitive disadvantage.”

Kuzoyan also pledged that Aspire and FieldRoutes, and every other trades business ServiceTitan serves or intends to serve, won’t be left behind. 

“The commitment that we’ll make to you is you will no longer be at the back of the line,” he said. “The investments we are making are designed specifically to make sure this technology is accessible to you and your business, and will be available to help you grow and become more efficient.” 

Kuzoyan highlighted three areas from among 14 introduced at Pantheon, ServiceTitan’s user conference in September, that are also on the roadmap for Aspire and Field Routes. They are:

• Marketing Pro, where AI can help with everything from helping respond to reviews on Google and other online sites to reviewing recordings of phone calls to identify leads that might otherwise have been missed and designing smarter, more build-it-and-let-it-run drip campaigns. 

• Fleet Pro, which integrates the camera technology from Azuga into ServiceTitan to monitor unsafe driving, vehicle maintenance, wear and tear and more. 

• And PropertyIntel, which combined two products, Go iLawn and Land One, into a single product to incorporate high-res imagery to improve measurement and design of properties. That will foster better internal efficiency, save time and eliminate mistakes in bidding, and integrate with all Aspire’s other functionality. 

“We are putting our money and our roadmap where our mouth is to improve Aspire and FieldRoutes,” Kuzoyan said, “to continue building the operating system of the trades.”

— Mike Persinger, Senior Content Editor, ServiceTitan

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Opening ceremony at IGNITE builds on a lot of dreams

IGNITE 2023 opened Tuesday at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, bringing together for the first time FieldRoutes and Aspire, the best software for the pest control industry and landscaping and commercial cleaning, respectively. 

But the event brought something else together as well, ServiceTitan Co-Founder Ara Mahdessian noted, that might be more important at this moment: 1,500 dreams. 

That’s how many contractors using FieldRoutes, and Aspire gathered in Las Vegas, at the intersection of vision and dreams, to learn from presentations and each other how to meet client needs in an era of rapid change. It’s a mission that started as Mahdessian and co-founder Vahe Kuzoyan watched their fathers, both plumbers, until far too recently, struggle to run their businesses efficiently.

“We got to witness first-hand how technology was revolutionizing every business in every industry except one,” Mahdessian said. “We saw that our parents’ businesses were effectively frozen in time. They were still plagued by all the same manual processes and problems as decades ago. Vahe and I felt a deep obligation to repay the sacrifices our parents made by trying to leverage our skills and our knowledge to make life just a little bit easier for them.”

That led to the creation of ServiceTitan, the ensuing additions and support of FieldRoutes and Aspire, and eventually, events like the one in Las Vegas this week.

The schedule at IGNITE includes almost 100 sessions highlighting issues and solutions in the trades, product roadmaps for FieldRoutes and Aspire, and keynotes from NFL Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith and renowned trades business coach Keith Mercurio. 

But it includes more, Mahdessian said. It includes those 1,500 dreams—represented by 1,500 contractors who want, Mahdessian said, success, freedom, respect, and growth. 

FieldRoutes and Aspire are positioned to provide all that, with extensive investment in the software better, and make every contracting business they serve more efficient and more profitable.

“We believe that every hard-working contractor deserves software that can make their businesses more profitable, that can help them grow faster, that can help them deliver a better customer experience,” Mahdessian said. “Today, between ServiceTitan, Aspire, and FieldRoutes, more than 10,000 of the most successful contracting businesses use these platforms.

“Our vision at ServiceTitan is to build the operating system that powers the trades. Not just some trades, but every hard-working contractor, in every trade.” 

And that’s a lot of dreams.

— Mike Persinger, Senior Content Editor, ServiceTitan

Meet Your Super Powers—I mean, Power Users

Calvin Hofman, Sr. Specialist Customer Escalations, and Amanda Goad, Customer Success Manager, call Aspire power users the “lifeblood” of Aspire. 

Power users know the ins and outs of Aspire, undergoing extensive training to become dedicated in-house Aspire gurus. They champion Aspire adoption and reduce resistance to change by training their peers and ensuring they have the support they need. 

A roundtable discussion session Tuesday showed, though, that they face the same problems as everyone else. One moment illustrated succinctly:

A gentleman stands and candidly addresses the room and says, “No matter how big you are, you are always trying to figure stuff out. There are people at my table with over 60 million in revenue, and my company, just a small 2.5 million. But we’re all just trying to figure it out … and good luck!” 

The crowd erupts with laughter and claps in empathy as they are all too familiar with the pains of software adoption. 

Regardless of size, change management is challenging. There’s always someone new to the system. There’s always a new process. And there’s always work to do. 

Then, a woman stands up to the microphone and pleads her guilt, “Don't fight the Aspire Way. We fought it for a long time, thinking our way was the right way. But, five years later, we are trying to fix it, back to the Aspire Way. There’s a reason they built it the way they did, with best practices in mind. Follow the system.”

Goad requested feedback for the Aspire Care team so they may better service their power users. 

A gentleman provides some honest feedback for Aspire to take in.

“I would love to request a better Aspire Care ticket queue that responds to support tickets based on the type of support needed,” he said. “Move quick fixes to the top of the line so teams aren’t waiting too long for a simple fix. More complex requests, understandably, take more time.” 

Hofman and Goad take the feedback in stride, requesting that all tables write down their feedback so they may take it back to the Aspire Care team and implement the feedback to build a better Aspire Way. 

Because we’re all, no matter our size, trying to figure stuff out.

— Missy England, Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Aspire

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FieldRoutes hears from its Pathfinder Network 

Before IGNITE! officially got under way with its main session, members of the FieldRoutes Pathfinder Network huddled Tuesday morning at Caesars FORUM in Las Vegas to offer their suggestions and recommendations.

These FieldRoutes partners gathered in breakout groups to answer questions from FieldRoutes team members and provide feedback on bundles in advance of an upcoming release.

Pathfinder is a community of FieldRoutes^® software customers who meet to share their successes, highlight their companies as industry leaders, influence the platform’s future in discussions with the FieldRoutes team, and network with fellow customers.

"The biggest benefit we've gotten from being a part of Pathfinder probably would be the networking," says Bryson McCutcheon, the chief operating officer of ACTION Termite & Pest Control in Phoenix, AZ.  "But also just the ability to shape and mold the product and get in front of different features and share advice on what's working for us, what's not working for us."

— Eddie Wooten, Content Marketing Specialist, FieldRoutes

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Here's a first look at our welcome lobby inside Caesars Forum: 

Day 1 begins this afternoon at 1 p.m. with an opening session on the Main Stage featuring the CEO of Aspire Software Mark Tipton and the CEO of ServiceTitan Ara Mahdessian.

» Access the agenda here

But before that, the Partner and Product Hub is open at 10 a.m. — along with registration. We’re looking forward to an amazing three days with more than 1,100 field service pros like you!

Our coverage will include:

• A look at Aspire's product roadmap 

• Business insights from top Aspire companies

• Aspire education

• Leadership and innovation stories