#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
Are you feeling stuck in life, wanting to grow, improve your income, or build a stronger community? Join performance coach Jordan Edwards as he interviews world-class achievers—including the Founder of Reebok and the Co-Founder of Priceline—who share their success stories and actionable strategies. Each episode provides practical tips on how to boost your personal and professional growth, helping you implement changes that can make a real difference in your life.
This podcast is designed for anyone looking to make progress—whether you're aiming to improve your mindset, relationships, health, or income. Jordan distills the wisdom of top performers into easy-to-follow steps you can take immediately. Whether you're stuck in your career or personal life, you’ll find new ways to get unstuck and start moving forward with confidence.
How to get unstuck? It’s a question many face, and in each episode, you’ll hear stories of how successful individuals broke through barriers, found purpose, and created systems to overcome obstacles. From building resilience to developing a success mindset, you'll gain insights into how high achievers continue to evolve and grow.
Looking to improve your income? This podcast also dives into financial strategies, offering advice from entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built wealth, created multiple revenue streams, and mastered the art of financial growth. Learn how to increase your income, find opportunities for advancement, and create value in both your personal and professional life.
Jordan also emphasizes the importance of building community. You'll learn how to expand your network, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive environments that contribute to personal and professional success. From philanthropists to community leaders, guests share their experiences in building impactful, values-driven communities.
At the core of the podcast are the 5 Pillars of Edwards Consulting—Mental Health, Physical Health, Community Service/Philanthropy, Relationships, and Spirituality. Each episode integrates these elements, ensuring a holistic approach to self-improvement. Whether it's enhancing your mental and physical well-being, giving back to your community, or strengthening your relationships, you'll receive actionable advice that’s grounded in real-world success.
This podcast is for everyone—whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to advance, or simply someone seeking personal growth. You’ll gain actionable steps from every conversation, whether it’s about increasing your productivity, improving your health, or finding more purpose in your life.
Jordan’s interviews are designed to be perspective-shifting, giving you the tools and inspiration to transform your life. From overcoming obstacles to building stronger habits, these episodes are packed with practical insights you can use today. Whether you're looking to grow in your career, improve your income, or enhance your personal life, you’ll find value in every conversation.
Join Jordan Edwards and a lineup of incredible guests for thought-provoking conversations that will inspire you to take action, improve your performance, and unlock your full potential. No matter where you are on your journey, this podcast will help you get unstuck, grow, and build a life filled with purpose and success.
#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
#209 - College Dropout to $100M CEO: Steven Montgomery's Journey of Growth and Success
Steven Montgomery, the inspiring entrepreneur and CEO of Resi Brands, joins us to reveal how he turned his journey from college dropout to leading a $100 million company. You'll hear firsthand how Steven's early days painting houses alone paved the way to creating the fastest-growing home service franchise in the nation. His story challenges the traditional career path, offering a fresh perspective on the financial potential and rewarding opportunities that blue-collar work holds.
Balancing the relentless hustle of entrepreneurship with personal fulfillment, Steven shares how incorporating activities like Muay Thai and coaching children's soccer has enriched his life. Forget downtime; think growth through diversity of experience. Stephen’s personal anecdotes reveal how applying a mindset focused on growth and adaptability in both sports and business can lead to unexpected insights and personal development. He emphasizes that cultivating a winning mindset is often more powerful than any skillset.
For those eager to unlock the secrets of business success, Steven discusses strategies for scaling, seizing opportunities, and the pivotal role of strong relationships. Inspired by "The E-Myth" and insights from his business coach, Stephen highlights the transformative power of franchising and delegation in expanding his painting business into a national brand. By articulating a clear vision and empowering quality teams through strategic delegation, Stephen demonstrates how focusing on project management and building a trusted network can drive substantial growth and brand evolution.
How to Reach Steven: https://edwards.consulting/blog
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Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a special guest here today. We have Stephen Montgomery. He's a college dropout to the founder and CEO of a $100 million company and it's the fastest-growing home service franchise in the nation. Resi Brands and he's leading a blue-collar revolution. On top of that, stephen's got four children and he's only 34 years old. Stephen, how are you doing today, today, and how did you even get started in business?
Speaker 2:Hey man, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I'm doing good, excited to chat with you. I got started in business, you know, officially I dropped out of college and started painting when I was 21 years old, and originally just me painting houses, uh, by myself. Um, simply because I didn't like working for other people and I figured I could paint houses and make money myself and kind of take my destiny, so to speak, into my own hands. Um, but I think I had, like I had like a entrepreneurial drive ever since I was pretty young. Like I did a paper route when I was 12 years old, um, stuff like that. That just I've always wanted to make money and I've always wanted to. There's something when you make the money yourself and you figure out a way to offer a service and you're in control of your own calendar while doing so. It's addicting and it's fun and people should try it.
Speaker 1:I completely agree. There's a validation when you go try it. I, I completely agree. There's a validation when you go, hey, we're not going there today, why that's not? We don't answer that question. We're just not going there today and you're able to do that and because you can deem your own schedule. So but before that 21 painting business, like did you ever paint before?
Speaker 2:or you were just like yeah my dad briefly had a painting company when I was in high school.
Speaker 2:So, like my freshman year of high school, my dad ran a painting company, okay, and so like some of the weekends and summer there, I painted with him. He didn't do it very long. I think by my sophomore year he had stopped running that painting company and kind of switched uh gears for his uh career. Um, so yeah, so I had painted a little bit when I was in high school and then when I was in college, my mom was a real estate agent and so during the college breaks like so summer break or winter break or whatever I would paint houses for people that she knew, or real estate agents that she knew that had clients that needed their house painted, and I would make a decent chunk of change, enough that I didn't have to work during the semester. Um, and I think that was in the back of my mind as I'm going through college, learning and stuff, and I'm like, do I really need a degree when I can just like paint a house and make a lot more money than than a degree is ever going to get me?
Speaker 1:And so that was always kind of in the back of my head, cause you know, you know I'd paint a house and make a couple grand, and how to give the audience some background, like how long would it take you to paint the house, like how much are the painting supplies, and I know you know this down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But like just to give people perspective, because most people are like it's so hard to do a job, it's so hard to make business, it's so hard to make money, and like a job, it's so hard to make business, it's so hard to make money and like I want you to be the one to go hey, it's actually, you can do this I mean, this was back in like 2010, before I even officially started my business.
Speaker 2:I was just doing side jobs and back then I was making 1500 to 2000 bucks a week just painting houses by myself, and I would do that during the breaks and just have a bunch of cash saved up and like I had my half to work and I had money all semester and yeah, and if you do the math, if anyone does the math there, 1500, 2000, that's like 75k to 100k for a college student without any set experience, without doing more debt, and it's like okay there are other avenues out there.
Speaker 1:It's painting houses for real estate agents by myself yeah, no, because I think it opens up a lot of eyes, because you sit there and go wait I, I didn't know all that like and then what's? What are you seeing? Because I know you're doing a lot of different brands, but before we get into that, what are you seeing with blue collar? Because, like, there's a lot of people moving that direction and a lot of people are going. I don't want to do that too, because they're like, I'd rather stand in front of a computer like yeah, I mean I, I okay.
Speaker 2:There's two ways to look at this. One is looking at the blue collar work is like the trade itself, like actually doing the painting, and the other part of it is like you can can get into sales and even marketing roles within the blue collar world and there's jobs there too. But I remember so, like that was like 2010,. You did the math accurately there about you know 75 grand, maybe a hundred grand a year, and that was in 2010. Like that's decent money now, but that was really good money in 2010.
Speaker 1:Most of of your probably your parents and your friends.
Speaker 2:Parents weren't made like they might have making that 2010 and so, and like, all my friends were like trying. I remember like a lot of my friends were trying to get jobs at coffee shops and at the bartender and stuff. And I'm like y'all making 12 bucks an hour, made plus tips, and like just learn a trade. Like, yeah, so much more money. And, um, I even recruited some of my friends that were working at coffee shops and stuff like that and I was like I'll teach you how to paint and I'll pay you. You know, I was paying them 20 bucks an hour. Eventually they're making 30 bucks an hour, with me making a lot more than they were at the coffee shop. Yeah, and it's like I guess working at a coffee shop is cool, but you work nights, you don't like yeah in reality old and boring like in reality.
Speaker 1:It's really the value exchange there which a lot of people don't understand is like hey, I have this big job, I'm gonna need other people to help me. I can do a painter. I can be a painter and make a hundred grand. Or I could bring my friends in and they can help me start painting, and then we can do triple the houses and make everyone can make and then that's that's how I was able to scale.
Speaker 2:So it was, you know, I was making 75, a hundred grand on my own. And then it was like I've hired a couple of friends and now we're doing you, you know, like nearly three times the amount of homes, and it's like, yeah, I had more expenses and overhead now and um, but I was making a lot more money and it just grew from there. I just kept adding more and more painters. Eventually I brought on crews, eventually I did subcontracting as well and um grew to being one of the bigger painting companies in in Austin and Texas area and um. All while having like a lot of balance in my life, like because I was self-employed, like there were days where I'm like yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go paint in the morning and then I'll leave my crew and I'm going to go do whatever I want in the afternoon, like go hang out with a wife, like go, you know, to a coffee shop and read, like whatever I wanted to do. I had all this flexibility, you know, and now it's like I mean, I work all the time just because we're scaling so quickly and it's it's very busy right now, but you know that's your choice as an entrepreneur Like you can continue to just keep investing more time and into the company, or you can, whenever you want, to put it on cruise control. You can kind of do that too.
Speaker 1:And I think that's one of the coolest things about entrepreneurship is that people don't realize is like, once you get the systems in place to get the new painters, to get the people to fulfill the painting, and this is any business across all the businesses. This is just. We're just focusing on steven because he's the guest today and like it's just really important to realize that there's a point when you can go okay, I'm gonna step back a little bit, continue on all the jobs and I'm not needed for these, because he kind of scaled himself out of there, which is an incredible feeling and it's like getting getting into the trades, like, look, so like I have painters with like crew leads that are making over 100 grand a year that working for me.
Speaker 2:So they're, they have two, three guys on their team. They're painting a few houses a week and they're making that. The crew lead is making over a hundred grand. And then I've got sales guys on my team as well. They're just all they do is sell paint. They just go to homes, do the estimate. So some of them, the top guys, and so like there's like, even if you don't start your own business, there's really good money in the trades. And the same is true for electricians.
Speaker 1:And well, we had um, yeah, yeah, I had an ac guy yeah, I had an ac guy who out of vegas and he runs one of the biggest ac companies um, I forget the actual company name but he was saying he's like, dude, I would go in there and just sell and I'd make 1500 and then we go install the unit and he's like that's pretty cool, like why would I want to go back to class?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And the other thing, too, is like I remember when I was bringing on friends who worked at like restaurants or coffee shops and they started painting with me, the thing they all said was my day goes by so much faster. I'm never bored. Like I'm never like watching the clock, I'm never like asking to go home early, like I was at a coffee shop, cause it's just you're standing there half the day and your feet hurt and all that, and then, whereas you like get to a physical labor job, your day is done Like you don't even realize it happened, like that's just, you're focused, you're working on a task and like hours go by really quickly.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And that's one of the biggest things is like that ability to be present doing something. Yes, it gives you a lot of peace of mind and you listen to all these people talking about um. I was listening to joe rogan and elon musk last night and they're like, yeah, I really like video games because I have to be present. I really like archery because I have to be present. You're not going to paint the house and be like texting on the side, like you're painting the house. You focus on the activity.
Speaker 2:And that's that's one of the things I miss about painting. To be honest, like, as you get in, you get into business growth, like I feel busy. I love my job, but a lot of my job now is like a lot of meetings and that can like I can get old after a while. But, um, now it's like I was like you know, this was a. This was like a year ago. My wife was really on my case. She's like you don't have a lot of balance in your life and I'm like I like I don't, like I don't want to take more time off. I don't want a hobby right now, like I just want to. I want to work now with the kids. And so she was like you're gonna, you're gonna sign up for being a soccer coach for, and we're gonna put our kid in soccer. And so she really pushed me to be the coach on the team and it's now like it's exactly what you said is, like there's things like that. If you are going to get a hobby, get something like that that like really allows you to be present and allows you to focus on something for a few hours, right. So I love coaching soccer. It's so much fun and it's like the whole world doesn't exist. When I'm coaching soccer, right, it's just that just this exists and it's good to have some things like that.
Speaker 2:And I think that it especially for busy entrepreneurs. And if you're an entrepreneur, your mind is racing all the time Like I got to fix this problem, I got to make that customer happy, I need a recruited person to help me with this, I need to sell this much this year. I need to. Your mind is racing, right, and then you're thinking of new ideas while trying to fix old problems and it's just like. That's how it is for most entrepreneurs, and I think a lot of times people think so. They're like how am I supposed to find balance? I'm so busy all the time.
Speaker 2:And I actually think that the way to get balance as an entrepreneur isn't necessarily to take anything away or find more downtime where you do nothing, because I don't like doing nothing, I don't like sitting there. If I go to the beach, I sit for an hour and then I go find something to do. I can't, I can't, I'm restless, right, same thing, but for me, finding balance was adding more things, but a different type of thing, right? Yes, yeah, and it's that intentional action. Yeah, an intentional thing like I like adding coaching, soccer or golfing once a week or something. That's like if you add another thing and it needs to be something that does balance you out, it doesn't have, because I always thought, like people like, oh, you need to find a balance. I'm like you want me to sit around. I hate sitting around, like I don't want to do nothing.
Speaker 1:It's not this or nothing. Yeah like, what I found recently is I started doing um muay thai so it's like self-defense.
Speaker 1:And the time the class is it's 6 am to 7 am, tuesday and Thursday it's like, what else am I doing at that time? It's like I'm sleeping or I'm going to the class. And it's like I'm someone who's committed and I'm like, if I'm paying for it, I'm going to go to every class if I'm in town. You know what I mean. And that was something that really opened my eyes, because you start to realize you're like wait, I'm a beginner, I don't know what's going on, and you start to learn and you're learning these different muscles. So, like you coaching your kids, it's not just coaching your one child, it's like, hey, I'm coaching all these kids and now we're giving them confidence. And like now they're scoring goals and we're excited and we're winning. And it's like it's like that one soccer movie I don't know if it got that dramatic, but no, so I've coached.
Speaker 2:So I've coached both of my boys. I coached my older son in the spring and then this fall I coached my third born, my second son and I. Both of them we won, uh, like out of all the you know, we were like the championship or whatever, like they're little, not a big deal, but it's like it's a big time Only ever lost one game out of two seasons. So you know, I think I'm a decent coach.
Speaker 1:Like you know, if this I mean I'll just get into coaching, it sounds like a solid opportunity because I mean, but I bet you it probably implement a lot of the lessons from business into the coaching.
Speaker 2:It's like that dude, like it's, like these are like we're talking about pretty young kids, like you know, one of my kids is five and the other one's like nine, right and so but it's, it's, it's, and at that age, like it's not about their, their skillset yet it starts with a nine year olds but like it's more about their mindset as a, because you have, at that age it's literally they're going to stare at butterflies, they're going to like forget what they're doing, they're going to forget which way to go, as far as, like the soccer goal, you know. And it's literally about getting them to like love the game and want to win and literally, like the other coaches and stuff don't like it I know some of the parents don't like it but like, whenever the ball is like there's a loose ball or the other team has a ball, like I always yell get your ball, get your ball. They have your ball like, and I want them to understand that's your ball. You have to think of it that way. Yeah, your ball. Why do they have my ball?
Speaker 2:I love that and it's like a mindset thing of like that you need to own it, like that's your ball. You go get the ball like I love that. No, I mean society as a whole is probably like ah, no, yeah, they're like like hey, this is i9, you're a little too intense and I'm like, well, we're gonna win, so that won both times, so that's so that's awesome.
Speaker 1:No, that's awesome. The funny thing is I've actually had Frank Fiumi. He actually founded I9 Sports and he's been on the podcast before and shared the story of how it all grew. But it's fascinating just how everything intertwines and everything relates, because that, going after your ball, you start to see that with your business, like you know what I mean, like I'm, I'm gonna paint this house. Why does the neighbor have a different painter? I have to go get that job. Yeah, that's, that's mine, that's critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what you just said. There's like something I tell people all the time. I'm like if you see another painter painting a home, you should be upset like why did they hire them? Why am I not painting a house? Like, and it's you. You need to have that mentality of like that business should have been mine, like I should have done something to win it. I should have, I should have put myself out there, I should have knocked on that door, I should have ran that advertisement, whatever it was.
Speaker 1:Like that's how you have to think about business to win yeah, and when you start to realize, like any business you're in, there's's a, there's 8 billion people on the planet, maybe 9 billion. At this point you got to be reaching out to people because people don't even know who you are half the time. Not saying you, but I'm saying like in general, like to the audience. Like people don't know your business exists. Like no matter how much you post it, no matter how much you tell people, they have no idea you exist. And there are people sitting there waiting for your problem to be solved.
Speaker 1:Like I have a, I live in a condo and one person writes in the group. They're like hey, like we're looking for a plumber and all the plumbers have been ripping me off and I'm like I have the best plumber. This guy never rips me off. He comes to the place, he gives me very fair pricing and he's the man. And it's just like people don't realize that when you find your guy, you don't care who it is. You are going to reach out to them again. Like the water heater had a thing today, so I texted the guy. I'm like, hey, let me know. Like I'm not even going to ask you the price. Like is this normal? Is this not Come fix it please, because you start to build a lot of trust with people and that's super important. So for you, stephen, when you're going to building that one painter, what made you think about even franchising and then scaling? And at what point were you like whoa, like we're getting really big here, like yeah.
Speaker 2:So, you know, we were growing in Austin rapidly and, um, I started working with a business coach. He helped me kind of think through a plan to open up in five more cities. Uh so we were gonna I was gonna hire a manager in like DFW, houston, san Antonio, oklahoma city and maybe one more. And uh so we kind of wrote up that business plan. I had started saving money to do it. Um, I had started saving money to do it, I had started even talking to people about hey, why don't you come work for me? I'll send you out to DFW, like kind of casting vision. I had started writing SOPs and manuals so that we could replicate what we were doing in Austin.
Speaker 2:And then I started reading about franchising. And so a friend of mine gave me the book the E-Myth, and that book convinced me that franchising was a better business model because you could empower people to build businesses for themselves while building your own brand is at the same time. And so, and then I researched and I was like, okay, there's a big competitor in my city. I didn't even know he was a franchise owner. I thought he owned the brand, like I didn't even know he was part of a national brand and he's like my biggest competitor and he was a franchise and once I then I started researching them and I'm like, oh Holy cow, they have locations everywhere and it just clicked for me. I'm like that's what I'm going to do and, um, my goal is to to build the biggest painting company in America and then kind of pave the way so that we can do that multiple times with other home service concepts as well.
Speaker 1:I love that and the biggest thing I got from what you're saying here is that you had someone help you step out of your daily job and your daily actions to think differently about the view of the business, because when you're just in it by yourself, it's not like, oh dude, today's the franchise day. It's like, no, you need outside opinions and outside perspectives to help you want to grow your things. So the fact that he planted that and then you start exploring, then you're like wait a second, what's going on here? And it gets you, gets the motors going a little bit so you can think differently about business as a whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, it's, it's. Uh, yeah, this is exactly what you said. You just get rolling with it.
Speaker 1:Well, once the idea is planted, it's like, hey, it's time to go, and then it's all the execution, and one of the biggest things for you, I know, is big visions. So did you always have a big vision, or has it been kind of a building process with that? Because vision is something that a lot of people are like dude, I wish I just made 10 grand a month. I just want to quit my job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've always had a little bit of like a dreamer in me, so I can dream fairly big, but they were just dreams. There was no plan and I didn't talk about them that much, and I think that was the the. The thing that I learned over the last several years is that um and this is something I say a lot, but like, a vision unspoken is just as bad as not having one and and the and. What I mean by that is like you cannot just think about things and and and and and. People are like well, you, you can't also all be all talk, right, I'm like yes, also, all actions are typically followed. They're they're typically sorry.
Speaker 2:You typically talk about something before you do it. Yes, that doesn't know, you can't think about it and then just talk about it. Right, so you can't just think about it. You need to talk about it and then you need to do it. But that is the steps, and like we need to respect the steps. You need to think about what you want to do, then you need to talk about what you want to do. And because when we talk about things, we get feedback. Sometimes we convince ourselves into it. More you think through more issues, make more problems that might pop up. And then you set a goal, you decide what you're doing, you declare it and then you go do it.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people are like, here's what's happening is that they're thinking about something and they're like, well, I'll just go do it and see if it works out before I talk about it. Or I don't want to say what my real goal is, but how do you get anybody to help you if they don't know what they're supposed to help you with? How are you going to get anybody to follow you if they don't know where you're going? So there's something in the middle there. And then there's people who talk about things and never do anything. That's really frustrating, but it's like it's as simple as this Think about it, talk about it, decide what you're doing, kind of speak it out and then build.
Speaker 2:And so I think a lot of people are afraid to make big claims or set big goals because they think, well, what if I don't achieve it, I'll be embarrassed? Or if I set too big of a goal, people will think I'm too audacious or arrogant. It's like no, none of that matters. Shut up Like audacious or arrogant, it's like no, none of that matters. Shut up Like, just set a goal after after talking about it, set a goal and go do it. And you know what? If you don't hit the goal, so what? Yeah, so what? That's the freedom of life. You're allowed to change your mind, you're allowed to change perspective. You're allowed to decide yeah, I don't want to do it anymore, that's fine, yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things that's helped me and helped different clients that I've worked with is the idea of making a decision. Right, you make the decision, but, like I was telling you before, like I'm having a wedding and then a hurricane comes, new information came in, the venue's not all right, I need to change locations. So my point being here is Perfectly acceptable yeah, absolutely. So. The point being here is that it's not hey, I need to make a decision and then I can never change again. It's hey, as new information comes in, I'll make a new decision. And that's why you look at people and they go hey, they flip-flop a lot. And why you look at people and they go hey, they flip-flop a lot. And it's like, no, there's new information. When steven started his painting business, he just wanted to paint. And then when you're like, oh, then you start to franchise, like who do you think you are? I learned about franchising from the e-myth and the coach and now I wanted to do more franchising.
Speaker 2:And then it's like new information, new action, and it's like I think that what you just said is huge and people won't allow themselves to do it Like they. They will think that they like oh, I have to, I said it, so I just have to keep going down the path. I'm like, no, the data is showing you need to make a change, like yes, and it's like you're not allowed to now. Now, like and then it was like you are worried that people will say you're flip-flopping or wishy-washy. Just recently in the business, we were going to do this really big software switch Because when we decided that in the spring it was the right decision Because that's the information we had. Then, as we started the transition, the current software we're on fixed everything and came out with all the features we needed.
Speaker 1:So we're not switching now and it's, it's like just flip-flopping sure, or?
Speaker 2:am I just taking new data in and yes, making a new decision and it's like like the only, the only constant in business is change. Right, and so absolutely you have to go with that and allow it to be a part of the story. Now, if you're a wishy-washy or flip-flopping just simply out of anxiety and fear, then that's something that you need to fix. But if it's because you have new information and you're learning things and then so you pivot, that's a great thing and that actually will make you really successful 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:And for you I know that you did that one painter and you still are for over 10 years. And then in the last two years you've started expanding into different vertical, like different home service things. What new information came in that you were like wait a second, maybe we should do this and this. And then Rezzy Brands kind of appeared. How did that happen? Resi brands kind of appear.
Speaker 2:How did that happen?
Speaker 2:So we noticed that many of the things that we did that made us successful in that one painter would work from pretty much all home services, of course, and so we, I thought it'd be kind of crazy not to try it again.
Speaker 2:Now I will say this there are things that are also very different every time you go into a new trade, and there's going to be curveballs that you're not ready for, and so we are a. I believe firmly that healthy things grow, yes, and so it is not growth at all costs, but it is prioritize health, and you should grow, and that sometimes means growing into different verticals as well. So I, you know, for a long time I would say things like, oh, it can be 10 brands, 10, 1000 franchisees, and, um, I think that will happen, but that's not my primary goal anymore. My primary goal is to build the greatest home service companies. I don't know what timeline, I don't know exactly how many, I don't know how many franchisees there will be. I just know that if I pursue greatness and health, that the rest works itself out pretty nicely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that portion about health, Because you sit there in business and people will literally and this happens to a lot and I'm kind of bringing this up for the audience to realize is like you might pick a goal and you might feel horrible. It's like, hey, I want to be my best weight ever. I want to be at like 165 pounds. Whatever it is, people have their numbers. So maybe you have to drop 20 pounds. But maybe you start to realize that like, hey, I lost 10 pounds. And then you're like, wow, I didn't reach my goal in my time and now I feel like a loser and it's like wait, there's a healthy amount of time it takes to lose this kind of weight. And then there's a healthy amount of time it takes to grow a business, Because I've had many people on the podcast who did franchising so fast and they're like dude, I got kind of scared Like we had a lot of debt and it's like a lot of obligations.
Speaker 1:And you start to realize these things that it's like it's not always best to be the fastest, Like, I believe, one of the biggest owners of I forget what the restaurant brand, but they ended up having one location for like 10 years and now there's like 950 locations. Because you have to perfect what you're doing, slow and steady, until then you can make the leap. And yes, it's always scary at all times and it takes a lot of risk, but it's not john.
Speaker 2:John maxwell does like mentorship with our, our franchisees, and he said this on a call a little while ago and it stuck with me. I think it's huge. He goes people always debate if it's quality or quantity, like which one's more important, and he goes it's the wrong question. He goes focus on quality and quantity will be demanded of you. Yes, like if you what you just said really focus on making something good and then people will demand the quantity out of you. And that's when you know you can rapidly scale and again, you might even tamper it right, like that.
Speaker 2:You might even have to tamper it sometimes and say, look, we have right now I have more opportunities for new brands. That we're turning down, of course, and because we're like no, we need to focus on what we have. What we have right now is the right amount for this season and then in future seasons we'll do more acquisitions, more partnerships, whatever. But right now we're turning stuff down because we're going, we're just going to focus on the brands we have and so focus on quality. Quality will be demanded of you and you'll have more opportunity than you know what to do with I love that and it takes time.
Speaker 1:Like it takes time to build that quality out, like it's not just hey, I painted one house, now I'm ready to start franchising. It's like you don't even know how to paint houses. It takes a lot of time to develop that quality. So I really appreciate you sharing that, because I think that's something super important. Another huge thing about you is that you in our pre-call you talked about it is systems and never having to do an action again. Or, if it's a repetitive action, how do you limit that Now, coming in as, hey, I'm the painter, I'm this one guy and I'm trying to scale, scale.
Speaker 1:How did you start to implement systems into your business to where you are today, where it's like, hey, I, I really just don't want to think like repeat these tasks because there's a lot of people who do this stuff. You can literally do this at your home by doing instacart, for every time you go food shopping, the same food comes. Every single time amazon does it with the same ordering. And once you realize that you, you're like, oh my God, I never have to food shop again and the food comes to my door. I saved an hour a week and now it's one less thing I have to think about and I can focus on the important stuff like coaching, soccer or building a business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's three things there. So, like, sop's process is developing, all that super critical. And then there's this other piece, which is an SOp is only as good as it's embraced by the team, meaning that you need, you need the leadership to take the sop and then get the sop to become an actual daily action. Yes, one of my top guys. He says, um, you have sops, but he's like they need to become behaviors, and once your process has become normal behaviors, that's when this stuff becomes really actionable and repeatable. Now, so you have, you have, you need to have the process defined. Then you need to continue to improve that process, make it more efficient. You need to have great leadership that can get people inspired to stay on, stay on task, to to keep moving things forward, to get as much as possible done every single day. To keep moving things forward, to get as much as possible done every single day.
Speaker 2:But then for the entrepreneur, you are always going to be limited unless you ask yourself the right questions. And so one of the questions you have to ask yourself over and over again you should ask it almost every single day is why am I still doing this task? And it's not an arrogant like it's beneath me. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, if it's taking up time, you need to be regularly asking yourself why am I doing it? How many more times am I going to do it? What do I need to do in order to not have to do it? Yeah, and so it's.
Speaker 2:It's asking yourself that question over and over again because, like, when people are like, oh, I'm really busy, I don't have time to do it, I'm like I don't.
Speaker 2:When people say they're really busy, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care to hear how busy you are, you're not. It's not impressive to say you're busy and you could be the busiest person on the planet and get nothing done because you're inefficient, right, you're inefficient, right, and so it's like that's not by itself impressive, like people find busy work for themselves to feel valuable and it's not actually valuable. So what is actually valuable is building something efficiently where other team members can do it, so that you can either have more time to do whatever you want hang out with your kids, go golf, golfing, you know coach, soccer, workout, do Muay Thai, like whatever it is, or start another business, expand it to another city, whatever you choose to do. But that's how you scale, and you can't scale unless you continually ask yourself the question how many more times am I going to do this? Yes, and I get this off my plate and then build a process and find a team member and a system for accountability so that somebody else can do it yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:And let me let me see if I'm understanding this correctly. So, like, the sop would be like every time we paint a house, we're going to knock on the four surrounding houses around it, just being like, hey, we have, we're painting your neighbor's house, if you want to be painted, cool. And then the incentive for the manager would be like guys, you should do this, because the more deals he gets, he's going to get commissioned on that or get some more compensation. And then the business is just going to rise through the accountability of steven coming in, going, hey, did we get more deals this week? Why did we get deals? And it's kind of I I just wanted to explain that for the audience so that you can go full circle with this where it's like hey, this makes a lot of sense. Like, and at one point Stephen was the door knocker, at one point Stephen was the painter and at one point Stephen was the checker Stephen might not even be the checker anymore.
Speaker 2:And so for me, like the brushes that I have behind me, yes, so, represent delegation, so like, because there's this like critical moment in my business years ago when I was still often painting with the crew. So I'd have three, four guys painting. They would be behind on a job or whatever, and I would pick up the brush and help them finish it out so we can get to the next job the next day. I remember being at a very specific home. I can remember the color, I can remember the height of the ceilings, I can remember the ladders, I can picture it perfectly. My guys are there. It's like four or five o'clock, I don't remember what time it is. They're wrapping up the living rooms, the last part of the house. They're going to paint.
Speaker 2:And we had another job starting, but it was a few more hours of work that needed to be done and it was already like four or five o picked up the brush and I was like, all right, guys, I'll help you out, I'll get this one done. And I, I literally had a moment in my mind. I'm like, if I do this, I will always do this. Yes, right. And so I set the brush down, literally put it down. I said, guys, I'm sorry, this job took you longer than you thought. I'm going to trust you guys to wrap it up and make sure it's beautiful. I'll see you at the other house in the morning.
Speaker 2:And I left and I put the brush down and I never painted again and I focused solely on project management and sales. Then I grew to two, three, four crews because I put the brush down and then I hired a project manager to manage my crews for me and I solely only focused on sales. We grew even more to like eight or nine crews. Then I hired salespeople and we just continued to grow. And then we franchised. And then now we're all over the country because I kept putting the brush down and saying I trust somebody else now to do this task, like I've taught. I know you're capable, I'm going to let you do it. And so that is really hard, because some of the brushes are really important jobs that you don't want to trust people with. But you won't, you will what? The minute you say I'm not putting the brush down is the minute you've decided that your business can't grow.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's massive because, if you didn't realize it, Stephen literally had to promote himself. He had to fire himself from one job, promote himself to a new job. Where he goes, I don't even know. Man, like, is there really enough work to do project management on one team? Like, that's not. Like, what are we doing? Like.
Speaker 1:But you start to realize you're like I cannot be the bottleneck of this business and there's too many of us that are the bottleneck of your own businesses because you can't give up control, because you're doing a $20 or $30 task when you should be doing looking for $150, $500 tasks, $1,000, $10,000 tasks that are like, oh, if we hire the right salesperson, that's a $10,000 task, probably more $100,000, a million. Because you're like whoa, if he could do it, then he can hire other salespeople and we could crush, and now our business is making a lot of money. So it's it all starts by that one moment. So I really appreciate you sharing that vulnerability of being like I just can't do this man.
Speaker 1:I trust you guys and this is important and I get it. But I think you guys can do this, which is huge. And then for the other big thing for you is I know that you started. You've done something that most people are like how'd you do that? You are attracting top talent, whether it's the people you work with, whether it's the Instagram celebrity nature of, like, cody Sanchez or any of these other people like how are you attracting these types of people into your business and then kind of into your life in general? Cause it's not the easiest thing to do is attracting top talent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I maybe have like a on popular view on this. I just think you don't really focus on it, like that shouldn't be your focus, like my focus has never been. I'm going to get john maxwell to like coach my franchisees, or I'm I'm going to get cody sanchez to promote our brand or like eventually become a partner. Didn't honestly spend any time on it? Um, I don't know. Do I know why you didn't spend any time on it?
Speaker 1:um, I don't know. You don't know why you didn't spend any time on it. Why?
Speaker 2:because you focus on the quality, exactly on quality like you talked about before you focus on that instead of the quantity and like I know franchisors and I know people in business who are so obsessed with getting good pr, so like they're like they're so focused on that and it's and I'm like just focus on your craft. Like folks like be the very best there is at a thing and everybody will start watching. Like, if somebody is real, like you think about it like a street performer, if they're just okay, everybody walks by. Yeah, if they, if somebody is good, everybody stops and they watch.
Speaker 1:Dude, I be good at what you do, because there are so many people I mean just even that street performer example there's so many people that you walk by on the street every single day. And I vividly remember this, and this was probably six, eight months ago there was a girl in mulan me and madison, my fiancee we were walking around and it's probably nine o'clock and she is just belting. There is like there at first we were like the only people sitting there. Yeah, then there's like a whole crowd and there's people just sitting there watching, just giving her money and just being like keep going. And you're sitting there and you're like I remember taking a video and I'm like this is incredible, because people don't realize how good they are at something, because they don't like you need to practice. And that's the big thing that people are like I don't want to do the hard work, I don't want to practice, I just want to grow. And it's like you're not good enough to grow.
Speaker 2:And the first time that girl probably sang in public. Nobody stopped a hundred percent and no one got better and better and people started to watch. And the thing is too like. People like oh, you just got to find talent, you got to be like if you're going to be a good ceo, you need to be a recruiter and it's like that's all. That's all fine and true, but like if you try to go recruit top talent day one when you're not even good at what you do, no one will want to work for you. Then the top talent will be like you don't know what you're doing, I don't want to work for you.
Speaker 2:You're not a strong player yet and so it's just like, go get better. Like just go get better and watch. Pretty soon you don't have to do the recruiting, because they all will DM you on LinkedIn asking for jobs Because, like hey, I've seen what you guys are doing. I really feel like my talent would be best used here.
Speaker 1:But that brings up another super important point that, as you're going through that journey, it's good to record it, it's good to share those wins.
Speaker 2:That's something that's like Share the wins, be in the public. I'm not saying hide, I'm not saying don't have any good PR. I'm saying don't make that the primary focus, the primary focus, the primary focus craft. Then show the craft to the world and if they care and if it's good, you'll get all the attention in the world. Right, like, yes, people have like think about a literal craftsman. There are literal craftsmen, the, the, whoever, the people. I would, whatever century it happened in, somebody built the pyramid and to this day everybody goes and wants to look at it and talks about it and theorizes it and has entire youtube channels about theories about it. Like somebody was like I'm gonna make a triangle. Like the whole world has not shut up about it since, yeah, like that's what good craftsmen can do. So just be a great craftsman.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, I mean you're dude, I mean you're hitting the nail on the head there, because when you start thinking about it, like pretty much there's the Coliseum, like Machu Picchu, great Wall of China, like their PR thing, their John Maxwell is, they got deemed one of the seven wonders of the world, it's all the same thing. But I don't think the people building the great wall, it's like a thousand miles, like that is a very big task, or the.
Speaker 2:These are beautiful things and it takes them a very long time to do and they're not thinking oh man, I gotta get my press no, they're just I'm gonna build something amazing, and sometimes it's like, well, some of those that's like, literally, it was several generations later that got to finish the building.
Speaker 1:A lot of the time the craft was so in depth that it didn't even get the recognition until generation after generation. So, steven, I know our time's running low, so my thing for you is that you are running a massive business and have four children and have a wife and you do all these things and people say I can't even find a partner because I can't afford a child, like, how do you manage all this? Because it doesn't. Like, how do you do it?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think you just take steps forward and take things on, and I think that responsibility is a gift, not a burden, and you'll like a burden sometimes, but it's actually a gift and it will weigh on you and it might be hard to carry at times, but it's a. It's a blessing man, and having children makes me a better business owner, and my wife is probably to credit with many of my great ideas. Like we're like probably somehow like seeded by her questions or thoughts, like she's just awesome. She's not in the business at all, but we talk about it. She gives me ideas and stuff and and like, at the end of the day, like you, you just take one step in front of the other. You get better every, every single day. You will attract team members who will will, uh, want to work for you and want to do a great job, and they'll help you go a lot farther. And so I think you know, um, having a family is amazing.
Speaker 2:Finding balance is a choice, and so it's like look like, this weekend we had some problems pop up and I needed to like do some research, I needed to figure out how to fix it right, and so I just I needed time to read. I needed time to talk, to chat, gbt and just work through some of my ideas, like you know, and it's like I'm just trying to solve this problem and I needed to. It had to happen over the weekend and so, but it's like also I want to spend time with kids. So literally I went and laid in the hammock with my two-year-old while I'm on my phone working, and we just like laid there for an hour, like sometimes it's not about like. This is, I have times where it's family time, no phones, right, and there's other times you just have to integrate your life and it just is what it is and I can't define that for somebody else.
Speaker 1:Right, a weekend where I have to work, but when I have to work, I still lay in the hammock with my kiddo, like yeah, cause here's the thing no one really can't like just do your thing and do your what you're responsible for and handle that, and like, whenever that gets done, that gets done. And I think it's really important that big part. You said responsibility is a gift, not a burden, because a lot of people sit there and go. I don't know, I don't know. And I love the one step in front of the other because, like I told you before, I'm really like I had to change the venue, do all this stuff three weeks before the wedding planners. Like Jordan, I don't know how you did that and I'm like one step at a time.
Speaker 1:Cause, if you overthink it, you're going to get overwhelmed and like the thing is like you have a ton of stuff in front of you. Take one step at a time and you'll get a little bit closer. And if it gets to the point, and it's not there.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that important, like it just wasn't. And it's like, look, you don't know what you're going to want or what you're capable of until you start trying stuff like so, like people like, oh, I don't know if I how many kids I want, like have one, have one kid, and then see how that goes and see if you want to have a kid, like I'm like my wife and I took it one at a time and she wanted a big family. I didn't know how many kids I wanted. Like, honestly, I was like I don't know. I like, let's have a kid, like we had a kid and then it's like I wanted another kid.
Speaker 1:We get more information. We'll figure out more decisions. Exactly I didn't allow yourself that freedom because, no, nope, you shouldn't.
Speaker 2:You need a vision and you need a plan. But you like, that will always change, and so, yes, for us. We wanted, we ended up wanting four kids and, um, people like, well, I want to own a holdco with all these different companies, like you might want that, but let's start one business. See how it goes. Do you like it? Do you enjoy it it? Do you want to build a team for another one? Cool, do that, then build?
Speaker 1:it. I completely agree. You hear some of these things where people are like I'm going to build a business in 10 years and I'm like, what business? And they're like, oh, this bit, they go super into detail about the whole business and I'm like, why don't you start today and see if you can get $1 in? They're like $1? Why would I care about $1?
Speaker 1:I'm like because that concept that Stephen talked about in the beginning of having pride, of like, hey, I did something myself. I'm like that is the reason that that $1 is super important, because then you have actual pride in what you're doing and you're not getting handed this paycheck where you're like, hey, suddenly we made money and I'm not sure how. But when you're earning it you're like, hey, I know exactly where that came from. I understand the exact value that was needed to extract that. So, stephen, for you you're doing so much. What does the future look like for you and where's kind of Resi Brands going? What are you kind of seeing for the future in regards to blue collar and should people be continuing this way?
Speaker 2:in regards to blue collar and like should people be continuing this way? So I believe that more and more um attention and money is going to go into blue collar services. I think it's a perfect time to invest. Um, we've seen this happen in other industries. So you had it used to be that every restaurant was a mom and pop shop. Uh, you know frank's diner, whatever that's an interesting concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, it's true, and then it changed more, more attention, more money, um, better skill sets, more efficiency came in, and a lot of that came through franchising. Not all of it, but a lot of it came through franchising mcdonald's and all these brands. And then eventually it wasn't just fast food, it was like chil, chilies and other types of restaurants are now franchises Cheesecake Factory, like, like, and, and then now to where it's like there's probably more restaurants that are chains than there are that aren't. And. And then that happened with gyms, like you know, anytime Fitness and Orange Theory, and, and, and all these are, uh, planet fitness, they're all franchises, and because efficiency and branding and all that matters a lot. And then it was like more experiential things, like you had the like massage envy and like different.
Speaker 2:I fly nail shops and I fly and uh, main event and these top golf is a franchise like, yeah, they all grew and I believe that we've we've now in the last decade, seen a big growth of that happening in home services. And and that's it's just the start, because I think it's only like four percent or so of the home service market is is. It might be a little more than that now. Is is franchises, but if it falls the same trend as restaurants and some of those other things, it may grow up to be around 50% over the coming decades and it means that PE will not just be interested in buying the franchise or PE will be looking for the top franchisee in a brand and offering them a deal to buy out their operation. That's already happening, I think. So money is going to come, attention is going to come. More and more efficiencies will come, better and better tech will come. I think that's the future. So I think there's amazing money to be made in home services and blue collar work.
Speaker 2:And so for Resi brands, you know, uh, right now it's five brands for 25. Uh, so we have our five brands to newer brands that are uh action, which is roofing, uh and siding, and then we have Monty's, which is handyman services. Um, those ones will fully roll out next year. And then we have our three, uh, uh, additional brands, um, right now. So it'd be five for five. Five for 25 is what I've been saying. That'll be the focus for the whole year. We'll see what happens in 26 um, but we're, we're excited. We just want to build, uh, healthy brands with happy franchisees, um, and things that we're ultimately proud of. And there's gonna it's gonna be a roller coaster. There's gonna be ups, there's gonna be downs, there's gonna be problems, and that's the journey of business. But at the end of the day, we want to look at and say, hey, we're really proud of what we built, yeah, and and, and, because this, for me, this is a craft yeah, absolutely that's.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. And where can people learn more about you, learn more about resi brands?
Speaker 2:yeah, just go to resi brandscom. You will have links to all the socials, and my socials and stuff are there too. Uh, so resubrandscom yep, fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. This has been really interesting thinking about the different perspectives of where brands are going to go, and I hope everyone got a ton of value.
