Marie Caruso
The host
Sweet, welcoming, and genuinely pleased you are here. She will offer you a coffee, ask about your family, and forty minutes later you still have not looked at the water heater.
Teaches: Staying warm without losing the call.
For the individual plumber
You know the trade. You can diagnose it, quote it, and fix it. What nobody ever sat you down and taught is the twenty minutes in between — the part that decides whether you're doing one repair or solving the whole problem.
Members sign in at university.stratellaconsulting.com
How It Works
Short modules built for a truck between calls, not a classroom. One idea each, taught the way we teach it in person.
Every step has an exercise. You write out what you'd actually say — because knowing the step and saying it out loud are different skills.
Finish the modules and pass at 75% or better. It is a mark you have to earn, which is the only reason it means anything — and once you have earned it, it is yours: it does not expire, and it does not disappear if you stop subscribing.
The Curriculum
Modules with titles listed come out of books we already wrote and already teach in person. Tracks still being written are marked that way below — nothing here is theory we invented for a website.
From The Stratella 6
The whole service call, in the order you run it. Six modules, start to finish.
Preparedness
What happens before you knock decides most of it.
Intro Call
The first sixty seconds, and what they buy you.
Arrival into Discovery
Getting from the doorstep to the real problem.
Evaluate & Educate
Teach them what you found before you price anything.
Options with Purpose
Three options, built to be chosen from.
The Close
Asking for the business without pushing for it.
From Objection Pocket Guide
Seven objections you hear every week. One module each, take them in any order.
Can You Do Anything on the Price?
Protect the recommendation. Solve the concern.
I Need to Think About It.
Never answer the words. Understand the concern.
I Need to Talk to My Spouse.
Respect the relationship. Never compete with it.
That’s More Than I Was Expecting.
Surprise isn’t resistance. It’s a request to understand.
Can You Just Fix What’s Broken?
Provide options. Not pressure.
I’d Like to Get Another Estimate.
It’s uncertainty. Not the estimate.
We’re Going to Wait.
Waiting is a decision. Make it an informed one.
What the water is doing to the house, how to show a homeowner, and how the conversation opens without turning into a pitch.
From The Stratella Personality Guide
The same options land differently with different homeowners. Four modules on reading who you are standing in front of before you lose them.
Module counts are confirmed. Individual module titles go up as each track is finished.
Certification
or you take it again.
Plenty of online training hands you a certificate for finishing the videos. This one has a pass mark. That is the entire point — a credential nobody can fail is a credential nobody should believe.
You earn it by finishing everything, not by clicking through one module.
Alissa Forte and Damien Bookal put their names on it, the same way they do in person.
It carries your name. It is yours to put in front of a customer, or in front of the next person who interviews you.
It issues the moment you pass, it never expires, and it stays yours if you ever stop subscribing. A credential that vanishes when you cancel is not worth putting on a résumé.
Pricing
Or $1,490 a year — ten months, twelve months of access.
Free to try
Reading about an objection is not the same as hearing one. This is a role-play partner your technicians can argue with — a homeowner who hesitates, asks the awkward question, and doesn't always say yes.
It runs on the same method as the books, so it never coaches something we wouldn't. It comes with every plan, individual and company alike.
Try it — no sign-upThe opening of scenario one, in Alissa's own words. Try the rest →
The cast
Every technician has met all three. The point of practising against them is that they each go wrong in a different place.
Marie Caruso
The host
Sweet, welcoming, and genuinely pleased you are here. She will offer you a coffee, ask about your family, and forty minutes later you still have not looked at the water heater.
Teaches: Staying warm without losing the call.
Jethro Haggins
The DIYer
He has done this before, or watched someone do it on YouTube, and he will tell you which part is bad before you have opened anything.
Teaches: Correcting a confident customer without making him wrong.
Preston Caldwell
The negotiator
Tells you he does very well for himself, then argues about the service fee. Treats the whole visit as an inconvenience he is doing you a favour by allowing.
Teaches: Holding a price while letting someone keep face.
The Library
If a subscription is more than you want right now, the books are the same method, and they're yours forever.
The whole service call in six steps — Preparedness, Intro Call, Arrival into Discovery, Evaluate & Educate, Options with Purpose, and the Close. This is the spine of everything else.
The same options presented the same way land differently with different homeowners. This is how to tell who you are standing in front of, and adjust before you lose them.
"It is too expensive." "I need to talk to my spouse." "Just fix the one thing I called about." The seven you hear every week, and what to say to each one.
Water Quality
The fourth book
The water-quality conversation — what you find, how you explain it, and how it becomes work instead of a comment on the way out the door.
Price and release date to come.
All three books. The full system, at less than the price of the parts. The Stratella 6 · The Stratella Personality Guide · Objection Pocket Guide
Printed and shipped from our office. Available titles are in hand and ready to go out.
Buying for a whole team? Talk to us about volume →