#226 HVAC Owner Makes $4M/Month (Here’s How)

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John sits down with Brian from TR Miller to unpack how they’ve built an HVAC powerhouse generating over $4 million in monthly revenue—and the operational systems that keep it humming.

From tackling seasonality and streamlining dispatch, to building out plumbing, sewer, and electrical services—this isn’t just a story of growth. It’s a playbook. Brian shares the lessons learned from scaling, the hiring and retention strategies that keep their field team strong, and how they’ve shaped technician career paths that drive loyalty and performance.

Whether you're running a $1M shop or breaking into the eight-figure range, this episode is loaded with practical insights to level up your operations, sales strategy, and team management.

🔹 In This Episode, We Cover:

• How TR Miller scaled to $4M/month across HVAC, plumbing, and electrical
• Managing seasonality and staying profitable year-round
• The real power of membership plans and recurring revenue
• Optimizing technician dispatching and scheduling during high demand
• Sales models that boost conversion rates and customer satisfaction
• Retention strategies and career ladders for field professionals
• Strategic hiring to build a growth-ready service team

🎧 More Episodes + Resources

👤 Hosted by:
 John Wilson – https://x.com/wilsoncompanies

🎙️ Guest :
Brian Sloan, TR Miller - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsloan25/ 

Shout Out to FieldPulse 🚀

FieldPulse is an incredible Field Service Management platform that helps you save hours each week while keeping your operations running smoothly. If you're looking to streamline your processes, stay competitive, and focus on what truly matters, FieldPulse is a game-changer!

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview
• 1:56 Managing Seasonality and Technician Retention
• 18:03 Competitive Landscape and Pricing Strategies
• 22:11 Team Retention and Career Progression

Transcript

226 Transcript

John Wilson: [00:00:00] You're about to hit $4 million a month. I wanna understand the $4 million a month. I wanna understand the seasonality. I wanna understand the memberships and like how you're managing an HVAC business at scale. 

Brian Sloan: Retention rates of field pros. I think that's where the magic is. The thing that we've been super focused on the last two years is.

Career progression for our field pros is like, how can we take them from no experience to level one and how can we objectively make 'em into a level five?

John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Today I have my friend Brian from TR Miller on welcome to the show. Appreciate you having me, man. Yeah. Uh, appreciate the tour. Yeah, yeah. No, this is good. I mean, you were just on over Zoom, but you were just on. Two months ago. Three months ago. Six months ago. It might've been six months 

Brian Sloan: at this point.

Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. But you know what we get to do? You want, you invited me back though. 

John Wilson: I did, I did invite you back. You're about to hit $4 million month. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah, we are. That's 

John Wilson: pretty legendary. 

Brian Sloan: Appreciate that. Yeah. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Uh, and [00:01:00] that's, yeah, that's what we're gonna dive into today. I wanna understand selfishly, like you're running an HVAC business at scale.

Uh, I wanna under, I wanna understand the $4 million month. I wanna understand the seasonality. I wanna understand the memberships and like how you're managing. An HVAC business at scale? 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. Um, well we started off as hvac, um, so that's where we kind of cut our teeth. Yeah. So up until 2020, that's really all we knew before we had like plumbing, sewer, and electrical now.

So 

John Wilson: it was 2020 that you added? Yeah. Plumbing. 

Brian Sloan: Yep. 

John Wilson: Okay. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. 

John Wilson: How big is plumbing now? 

Brian Sloan: Uh, plumbing, well probably, I would say month over month is about a, I would say probably a million a month over month between our plumbing service install and like our sewer teams. Yeah, it does 

John Wilson: a million a month or It does, yeah.

Yeah, it does. About a million a month lot. So, yeah. So that's a $10 million business. 12 million business. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. We've been super lucky. I mean, part of hvac, the hardest part is like, how can you diversify your revenue? Yes. Like, especially, I mean, in hvac, you know, I mean, we're, we still face it to this [00:02:00] day, we'll kind of jump into the $4 million month, but like.

You know, our month over month, like if, you know, in January, february, March, you know, our budgets were $2 million a month. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: You know, because HVAC is so dominant. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, and 

John Wilson: half of that being plumbing. Yeah. So HVAC really just tanks off. 

Brian Sloan: It does. Um, especially, you know, we always struggle February, march, just the seasonality.

And so the biggest challenge for us is, is how can you. Really, how can you retain technicians the best of your ability during February and March? 

John Wilson: Yeah, we struggled a lot with that this year. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah, it's hard, right? It's like 

John Wilson: everyone gets real squirrely 'cause like calls aren't there. It's a lot of maintenances.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. Because they'll run like, yeah. And so some of the things we've, we've thought about over the years is, you know, like what's our minimum hours per technician minimum calls, and then where do we, where can we flex up to? Um, and so, because really the, the trick to HVAC is being able, the flexibility or the bandwidth is like, how can I create maximum bandwidth?

Yes. During peak, you know, we're in a peak week right now, you know, [00:03:00] it's, it's the end of June and how can you peak from. You know, let's say on average, running 40 50 calls per day with a service unit. Mm-hmm. Up to 120 calls per day. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: You know, and just having that flexibility and that bandwidth is important For the HVAC side 

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Field Pulse has earned over 580 glow [00:04:00] reviews with an average rating of 4.8 stars. That's Field, E-U-L-S-E. Head to their website to learn more. Field pulse.com. I, this was a lesson I got a good taste for. I, I visited, uh, Jimmy at Baker and I, uh, am good friends with RJ from Sierra in Vegas. And they really, and you guys might be doing this too, but they, they were, um, their install teams were so flexible they could go from one install a day to three full systems a day.

And I think it was the same thing, like how do you sort of manage that low time and be able to triple your output during peak? 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. So, um. I would say, like, you know, in February, March we were probably running on like five or six install trucks, and now we're at 10 install trucks.

Okay. You know, a few months later, some of it is, is hiring, like we do a lot of our hiring practices in like the February, March, April. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, if someone, you [00:05:00] know, unfortunately decides to leave the team in like December, we might wait until like, you know, let's, let's find a new team member, but let's start for like April 1st.

Yeah. So that's a little bit of the strategy. And some of it too is, uh, field supervisors. We still haven't solved this, but I think we're further today than we were a couple years ago. Is, is what is the role of a field supervisor? And so I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but how we've kind of thought about it is, you know, during the slow time, that's when it's the time to work on the business.

Mm-hmm. You know, that's the one-on-ones that's, you know, documenting processes. What's our, um, you know, our refrigeration process, what's our heat exchanger process? That's the time is when it's slow. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: But when it's peak, hey, it's time to go get back in the truck. And so a lot of our field supervisors have stepped up, especially in the heat wave and, you know, hey, let's go do an install for the day.

You know, that's another truck. Uh, on the road or let's go run more service calls. So we've, we've pushed, um, and our field supervisors have elected to go and 'cause, you know, so many customers, you know, don't have cooling right now. And so how can we increase our bandwidth there too has [00:06:00] been part of our strategy.

John Wilson: Yeah. Are your install crews running several systems today? 

Brian Sloan: The way we think about it? Um, yeah. The answer's, yeah. So, um, an HVAC install crew might do an hvac, uh, so furnace, air conditioner, uh, typically getting done between four and five. Uh, uh, 

John Wilson: like PM or hours, 

Brian Sloan: uh, I'm sorry. Uh, four or 5:00 PM Okay. Yep. And then they'll do like an air conditioner after.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so like system and a half? Yeah, like a system and a half. That's who we're 

John Wilson: at right now is system and a half. 

Brian Sloan: Yep. 

John Wilson: It seems like it's a big transition to two. 

Brian Sloan: It is. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Just like hard. Yeah. Like there's a lot more, like people start running like, uh, QAs or they start, um, what Sierra was doing was.

I think it was $500 or a thousand. It was something. But for every additional system you installed after the first, you get an extra, let's just say 500 bucks. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. 

John Wilson: Each like helper and lead. Totally. So then, you know, the, their [00:07:00] installers during peak season, putting three systems in a day are making like $4,000 a day, like.

Brian Sloan: That's crazy. 

John Wilson: That's crazy. Yeah. I was like, are you hiring? Yeah. 'cause I mean, 

Brian Sloan: the byproduct is, is where we're at today is like we have a week's worth of backlog. 

John Wilson: Yes. 

Brian Sloan: And, and the, the real issue at hand is, is that's awesome. Sales team's pumped, they're selling jobs, shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah. And then boom, customer calls and cancels.

Yes. They found someone that could do it sooner. And so that's like in the, these peak, these peak months is like, how can I prevent my cancellation rates from like spiking or how can we still do these installs we're selling? 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: You know, that that's the, that's the challenge right now. Yeah. It's a good challenge to have.

No, you know, with that being said, no, it totally 

John Wilson: is. I, I think it's just funny that, you know, you talk to, like Baker Brothers was interesting. There are $106 million or something and they only had like 12 install crews. It's just that their install crews do. Two to three times more than ours too. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. 

John Wilson: It's crazy.

Yeah. So how are you doing this for service? Like, how are you going from [00:08:00] 40 to a hundred? 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Um, well I think something that we've been really intentional about lately is our, our memberships. Um, I think that's kinda like our, our, our foundation. It's our base work. It's, we're, we're really, um, our, our, our big hairy goal over the next 10 years is really focused around memberships and really that's important.

And now dived into the question is like. The biggest, the biggest challenge with heating cooling is seasonality. And actually it's, it's probably a big challenge in a lot of industries is like, all right, 

John Wilson: I have a friend that runs a $30 million power washing business. Yeah. And they have to hire. I think it's 500 people.

Mm. Between April 1st and May 1st. It's a real thing. So I'm like, all right, you guys have it worse. Like that sounds insane. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. That it's hard and interesting. My friend has a power wash business too. They do. They onto Christmas lights. 

John Wilson: Yeah, 

Brian Sloan: that's into now. Yeah. Um, and they're crushing it, like Yeah, they're crushing it.

Um, so we start with our memberships and it's really how can we create work year round for our team members? That's, that's the thing is we need to make sure we have [00:09:00] enough work. During the off months. Mm-hmm. Um, so that we can make sure we do a good job in the peak months. And so we try to make sure that, um, we schedule those maintenance calls February, March, April, um, try to at least get two to three per team member.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and at least keep them busy, you know, get 'em some type of security 30, 40 hours per week. Um, and then what we ask on, um, I'll try to explain it, um, to the best of my ability is we have four shifts. Um, so we don't do on call. Um, so we have, uh, a Monday through Friday, what we call an am shift. So that's eight to eight to five.

Mm-hmm. Um, we have a PM shift that's like 11 to eight. Um, and then we have a Sunday to Wednesday shift and a Wednesday to Saturday shift. 

Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. 

Brian Sloan: And so right now, um, our service leader Aaron has done a really great job of is, alright guys, um, if you're a a five day, five working day shift, how can we, you know, during the month of June, we need you to work an extra day.

We need you to work that sixth day, um, which increases bandwidth. Or, um, if [00:10:00] they're, you know, scheduled from eight to five, it's, Hey, we, you know, it's gonna be an eight to eight kind of, kind of week, you know, we need you in at 8:00 AM and then, you know, ending around 8:00 PM Um, or lastly, if they're a Wednesday to Saturday or Sunday to Wednesday's, hey, we need you to work an extra day or two.

Mm-hmm. Um, which has been really huge, increasing bandwidth. Um, 'cause we're still, you know, we still have a responsibility to run those calls accurately. Like, you know, we, we grew up at a time. Back in 2015 where it's like, Hey, I need each technician to run 12 calls. Like we have a ton of calls. I need each team member to run 12 calls.

And when I was a service leader, what I always found was, well, when you run that many calls and you're in and out and you're turning and burning, um, these calls within an hour, half an hour is, um, you know, I go to a customer's house, I say, Hey. Uh, I don't do a thorough inspection. I replace the capacitor.

And what happens is the next day the customer calls and says, Hey, the technician that was there yesterday didn't know what he was doing. Um, and my system's not working [00:11:00] again. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And so really we still wanna preach like even these, these tough times or not tough times with these busy, um, these busy times is like, we still need to do thorough inspections.

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, we still need you to spend an hour and a half, you know, two hours on each call and do a thorough inspection. 'cause we can't have callbacks either. Because that, that's bad for brand reputation as well and customer service. So that's the kind of how we've thought about increasing our bandwidths.

John Wilson: Okay. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. 

John Wilson: And then do, do they run more calls during peak? Like it goes from two to three to six or eight or 

Brian Sloan: you nailed it? Five. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we try to, like, I would say our goal every day is to try to run, uh, four calls per technician per day. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Four opportunity calls. Mm-hmm. Uh, and maybe a recall or a warranty if they come in.

Um, that's, that's like our target. However, during these peak times, there will be, you know, six to seven opportunities per day. Yeah. Um, you know, longer days long, you know, more days in the week. Uh, but we do try to pace like six to seven opportunities. 

John Wilson: [00:12:00] Yeah. Are you guys running a selling tech model or a ca model?

Or like how are you actually selling equipment? 

Brian Sloan: Yeah, this is something, um, I think this is something that changes for the whole industry over the next few years. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, I would say we're a hybrid, so we do have comfort advisors, um, they run marketing leads, um, and they also run what we call tech generated leads.

Mm-hmm. So called technicians in the home and they flip it over to the comfort advisor. Still, a lot of our, our sales model is in the home. Um, we do have one selling tech, uh, or two selling techs. I apologize. Um, and I don't know. I think you have to do what work works best for you. Um, I don't think you should be pigeonholed to like, we're, you know, this group says we should only run, you know, selling tax.

Yeah. Or this group says we should only do comfort advisors. I think at the end of the day is like, you know, be resourceful as a business owner and like what makes sense for your business. Mm-hmm. And what's going to, you know, how, how can you maximize the opportunities is what's important. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. [00:13:00] 

Brian Sloan: Um, not every tech's meant to be a selling tech and not every comfort advisor is meant to be a comfort advisor.

Speaker 7: Yeah. You 

Brian Sloan: know, um. I think, uh, it would be interesting where it goes with technology. You know, there's a lot of things like call by call out there. Yep. Um, there's a, I, I think right now the industry's trying to find its way. Um, we have some early leaders on it. Mm-hmm. Um, but what we currently do is comfort advisors in selling techs.

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Especially when it gets hot like this is, we might not be able to get a comfort advisor there for a day or two. Well that's, we have techs in the home. That's the pain point. Yeah. Like we have techs in the home, like, so we do green light, some technicians to sell in the home dur during peak seasons and some year round.

John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, we, we've, uh, pivoted our model just sort of following the lead of others. And that was a big part of it is if I was a buyer, why would I, like I barely have time to meet you in the first place. Let alone meet you a second time. Mm-hmm. So, you know what I've, yeah. How I think about it, [00:14:00] and maybe like, this is rude, but I took an hour out of my day to be here with you today.

So if you're, if you need to come back for a second appointment, you'll be meeting with my assistant, which, like, that's a closed sales window for whoever that is. Um, and I would imagine a lot of our customers are more like that. Like they're busy professionals that are, you know, living their life. So I think being able to one call close is, is important.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. And, and I'm sure that's what I think where we're at is, um, I think what's best for a company from a data standpoint is like we just know we have higher conversions if we're in the home with the comfort advisor and like a pain point we had with some of our techs that we're selling tech. Um, before we went to the Comfort Advisor model, it was like they would sometimes sell stuff that like it's outta their 

John Wilson: own pocket.

Brian Sloan: Yeah, yeah. It couldn't go like the, we literally can't install this high efficient furnace. Oh, sure. Because, um, you just can't do it 'cause it's all, you know, finished drywalled ceilings. Yeah. And so they were selling stuff that the customer either didn't need or we couldn't install. 

John Wilson: Yeah. [00:15:00] 

Brian Sloan: And so I think that's where the comfort advisor model makes sense is we just know we have higher conversions, at least for us.

With the comfort advisor and we're selling the right stuff. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, but I think we really have to take a step back in the future and look, 'cause like what also makes sense for the customer. Mm-hmm. Like the customer doesn't want a second person. They barely want a first per, like, to, back to your 0.2 once is 

John Wilson: tough.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Well, 

John Wilson: and from a, from a company like, well now I have to build rapport two times when like the technician already did it. Like, why am I rebuilding rapport? Like, we're good to go. What we found with comfort advisors is, um. The, the job was already sold before the tech, before the ca walked in the door.

Like the tech already built rapport, sort of started preloading options of that customer's mind the ca walked in and signed paperwork and then they got a big check for doing it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this, and the tech got less, which like, that doesn't make sense. He did most of the work. Um, so we just sort of like reset that.

So then the tech gets most of the economics because they're the one doing most of the work, uh, which I think has been a [00:16:00] win. And then. One less appointment. But what, you know what, what has been interesting and I'm just, you compete with them. So this will be interesting to see, but like, you know, four Seasons, I always bring up a few examples when talking about this.

I love it. But like the, some of the biggest pure HVAC companies, or like just HVAC in general in our industry, run a split sales model where we have selling techs do this, we have cas do this, and that's. Where we wanted to end up. Uh, but Four Seasons is a great example. I've, I've heard forever. I haven't seen it personally, but hey, the c the cas just run marketed leads.

They have a different price book even. Mm-hmm. Like it's a totally different structure than the tech flip, uh, leads. Is that how that works in practice? 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Um. One is I, I think four Seasons. Um, Dave over there is the owner and he, I think he's brilliant and he has a lot of brilliant people on his team.

Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, think [00:17:00] they're probably the largest up until most recently. I mean, they still are single location, single location in the us they're, yeah, they are like, honestly, so what they've been able to, I think 

John Wilson: Parker maybe, but like they're probably 

Brian Sloan: chasing Yeah. Um, before they're, there's course he was 

John Wilson: 250 in one.

Building one building. That's 

Brian Sloan: crazy. Yeah, they got a car wash in. It's crazy. It's great, man. And, and so they're, I think they've done a really good job of like, I think that you need scalability too. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Is like, you know, if you only have four comfort advisors, it might not make sense to have like multiple price books.

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: But they probably have a comfort advisor team of like 20 to 30 or if not more, maybe 50. Who knows? Um, where it's like, all right, this group of 15, these, this is, um. These are gonna be our box store comfort advisors. Yeah. These are the ones that are gonna run Costco leads. Yep. Um, and we're gonna be hyper competitive with these, uh, these leads.

Yeah. And then they might have another 15 comfort advisors that are designed for just customers that are calling in, um, because they want, you know, they're getting a few estimates out there. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And then the last 15 might be. Um, the sell, you know, the technician was in the [00:18:00] home and now they're selling, they need the equipment.

Yeah, 

John Wilson: yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And so I I, and that's the 

John Wilson: highest price point and that's the highest point. It already converted. Bingo. It's already converted. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. And so, so they've done a really good job. Um, and, and they're tough man. They, they are, they are incredibly tough. They're competitive. Yeah. Um, it's interesting because I think a lot of PE models go to, um.

We're gonna charge more. 

John Wilson: Yeah. But 

Brian Sloan: these guys, man, they, they, they are a competitor. Yeah. I mean, they are, they are. Um, we 

John Wilson: we're up against Heartland that's like that. Oh yeah. Where? Uh, so on one hand I have Apex, just north of me. They have an Apex shop. 

Brian Sloan: Okay. 

John Wilson: And like, their average ticket is very literally.

Twice my average ticket. So like we, which is great, we love competing against them. It's awesome. Yeah. And, and you know what's embarrassing is sometimes they still beat us. 

Brian Sloan: Oh no. 

John Wilson: Like we had, uh, we interviewed one of their salespeople the other day and he walked in and he is like, Hey, I followed you guys on this sale yesterday and I sold it for 5,000 more than you quoted.

And we were like, oh my God. 

Brian Sloan: Do you want a job? We did offer, 

John Wilson: we did offer, we've been working with we supply trades.com for the [00:19:00] past 10 years, but most. Importantly, for the past six months as our primary vendor for HVAC supplies, and that's gonna be generic, as well as some OEM. They have been a huge partner for us in our HVAC, for restocking trucks, for getting packouts done on time and getting quick deliveries when we need it.

Their free pro membership is gonna give better pricing. It's free shipping for orders over $99, and you get access to a team of world class experts that know plumbing, hydronics, and HVAC like the back of their hands. Like these guys are incredible as a savings to our audience. They offered 20% off your first order if you use the code owned 20 O-W-N-E-D two zero.

So click the link below or go to we supply trades.com/owned and operated to find out a little bit more. But on the other, like we have Heartland and Har, you know Heartland does that thing. I know they do it in Chicago too, but they have like 10 brands in one city and they get competitive. Yeah. I mean, they will throw [00:20:00] down on pricing.

They're slugging in like. Systems for like six grand if they have nothing going on 

Brian Sloan: that's, and they have a good price. I think it comes down to your pricing model. Like, yeah. I mean, I've never really popped the hood and really like, you know, two, four seasons, but I'm sure they have, you know, this is just an assumption.

Yeah. But I think, you know, when they, when um, during slower months, they're a lot more competitive, even on their highest points. Um, on the peak months, they're really maximizing, but at the end of the year is what matters, right? Like, how do our margins look at the end of the year or it's trailing 12. 

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Brian Sloan: Um, and they, they've done just a really good job. Um, yeah. It's tough. They they're a competitor in the home. Yeah. They, they're good. Yeah. 

John Wilson: That's funny. Um, alright, so it sounds like the deconstructing this $4 million a month Yep. One, you have a, a stable revenue in plumbing, a million dollars a month. 

Brian Sloan: Yep. 

John Wilson: So, like, I think that helps a lot.

Brian Sloan: Big time. 

John Wilson: Yeah, big time. I, I have friends down in DFW and I see their like ServiceTitan charts wild, like h HVAC only, right? Yeah. And it's like, we'll do like $10,000 or, you know, that's exactly, maybe a hundred, we'll do a hundred thousand [00:21:00] dollars and then we'll do $2 million and like, it's that much of a swing.

So plumbing gives you a nice stable, uh, is electric in there too? 

Brian Sloan: Electric's new, uh, so we just launched electrical this year. Okay. Uh, which I mean, that's starting, I think we have three or 14 members now over there, so that's, that's really starting to project in the right direction. Alright, cool. Yeah. But, um, so a million of stability Yep.

John Wilson: Managing capacity and like being thoughtful about extra days. Uh. And, and mainly retaining capacity it sounds like during slow season. Like how do we make sure we really do a good job there? 

Brian Sloan: I think that I wanted two things that I thought of as you were looping the information back is, um, one thing that I think has really helped us maximize capacity these last couple of years in these peak time is like dispatch software.

Yes. Like making sure that, um, we used to have dispatchers that would, you know. Right tech, right call. And they Yes, yes, yes. You know, but now we use just software. Yeah. Um, to automate that whole process of like, what should the next call be? Yep. I think has really helped our bandwidth. Yes. Um, because that's been a win for us too.

Yeah. That, [00:22:00] that's been huge. Um, that's when I, I would say it pays for itself. Yeah. Like six months of the year when it's slower. Mm-hmm. You could build an argument. The other six months is when it really pays for itself. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. Um, 

Brian Sloan: and the other thing that we've been super focused on that I wanna make sure maybe to highlight is, um.

Retention rates of field pros. Yes. Is, um, I think that's where the magic is, is not only how can I peak up, you know, like if you have all, like we, you know, right now our, our HVAC service team that for service calls is 25 service technicians, um, on hvac. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: But if I have to hire 25 new HVAC service techs every year, like our performance at a conversion rate, at a customer quality.

Um, options. Like all that's gonna be in the tank. Yeah. And so it's not only how can I, I flex up, but like really what we've been, how do you keep, yeah. How can we retain these 25 team members? How are you doing 

John Wilson: that? How are you thinking about that? Yeah. That's a gap for us. Like our turnover in HVAC service is a consistent challenge.

Brian Sloan: It is. 'cause the seasonality. It's the damn [00:23:00] seasonality. It's, 

John Wilson: and it's a lot of guys like leaving industry or like, oh, I wanna go to say it. You know, it's like different. Uh, and it's tough. 

Brian Sloan: That, and that's the, that is the hardest. And so some things we've done around it is, um, really creating career. Like, I, I would not say that we have it nailed, but the thing that we've been super focused on the last two years is, um, career progression for our field pros is like, as there someone joins us today is, you know, and they might come from a, a local trade school or a local community college is, how can we take them from no experience to level one?

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And how can we, not subjectively, but objectively make 'em into a level five? 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And, and we fell into a trap, uh, I wouldn't say a trap, but like one of the challenges two years ago was we, 'cause we're, you know, when people join us, like our, our purpose is to expect more. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And, and we're a growth organization and so we were always thinking like, hey, the next step is, is being a leader.

Like, that's important. We need leaders. Mm-hmm. And so that's also a, a focus, [00:24:00] but we've taken a step back and said not every technician. It needs to become a leader. Yeah. And not every technician needs to become a level five. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Is, it's your journey. And it's just our job to like shepherd that journey to wherever they wanna be.

Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. 

Brian Sloan: Um, and so that's something we've been focused on. Our leaders, they, they made like literally booklets that says like, once you install, you know, 10 humidifiers, you're competent, you get, you get a stamp. Um, but really take an objective approach into like, how can we develop our team members? Um, because, um, you know, if a team member wants to make a dollar more.

Is, um, I think it's our job as leaders to show 'em how to make a dollar more, but just not give them a dollar more. Like otherwise you, you know, everyone's going to, um, just think, Hey, you know what? I woke up today. I want a dollar more. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, but it's our job to say, Hey, if you want that, you, you wanna make more money, here's a path to make more money and kind of guide them.

John Wilson: Yeah. It's been a big focus for us too. What, what we're trying to, well, one, the retention side, so the, yeah, this was helpful. What, what we're trying to nail down is how many people do you have on the team? 

Brian Sloan: [00:25:00] Uh, for HVAC or just the, the total company? Whole company. Uh, I think we're around, uh, well, this might be a story for a different day.

So we're at about 1 45. Yeah. And, uh, we're in the middle of adding two new partner groups to our, our team. Yeah. Um, one we will add four team members. Yeah. Which is Tuesday. Uh, and then another is another 10 team members. Yeah. Uh, August 1st. So we'll probably be about one 60 here in, in the next month. 

John Wilson: Yeah.

Yeah. It's one of the benefits of hvac, but like, yeah. So we we're, we're one 60. But obviously like plumbing is like a big part of it, but what what we're finding is like one 60 is a lot of people. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

John Wilson: Uh, and people get kinda lost in there and um, or they feel lost in there. And what has been hard is like pointing out like where you can grow.

Mm. So like, where can you start? Where can you grow? Uh, and we've been really blessed because, uh, of, of nearly, uh, all of our leaders so far have been promoted from into leadership, and that's like from the director level to the frontline leader level. Like they have been promoted up to there, which is really cool.

Brian Sloan: Yep. [00:26:00] 

John Wilson: But we had, uh, we had someone almost, uh, quit two weeks ago. And this is something we've been working on for like a year of like career laddering and progressioning. Totally. How do we map it? How do we show it? How do we like, you know, help people on their journey? And it was a good wake up call to the team of like, Hey, this needs to be front burner, like really quickly, because, uh, we had someone almost leave and they're like, well, I just got this opportunity over at this other place.

It's like what I want. They wanted an inside sales position. And it's like we have, like, we have that I. Like we have that, we have four. We'd love a fifth. Like how, why don't we just talk about that? Like how did, how did we lose the fact that like, you can progress your career here just inside a slightly different team than what you're used to.

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

John Wilson: Uh, so that's something we're trying to nail down. It's like, where can you grow vertically? Where can you grow horizontally? And like, what are all the opportunities inside a team that's 160 people? 

Brian Sloan: How have you thought about. Bridging that gap of like lateral movements. 'cause sometimes people think like it's always up and up and up, but sometimes people wanna just move laterally from maybe a service tech to an [00:27:00] inside sales.

Yeah. Have you thought, I mean, it's been a week it sounds like, have you thought about like how to help bridge that gap? Well, a lot because that's a challenge for us too. Yeah. 

John Wilson: I, I think it's how we map it. So I wish I could put the picture up, but it, what we did is we created a map that shows it. So like, here's where you start.

So you can start as a coordinator and like, I think some of this is titling strategy. Yeah. So like what's a supervisor doing? Our supervisor, what's a coordinator, what's a manager? What's a director? What's a senior manager? So like, nail that down. But where can you start? So you can start as a coordinator, you can start as a, uh, an apprentice.

You start as an individual contributor. So those three things are where you can start. And then the next level. You are a technician, a CSR, a dispatcher inside sales, and those are basically the four options that, that you can be. Then the next layer is, well, you're gonna be a senior tech, you're gonna be sales, you're gonna be a supervisor, and then you're a frontline manager, and there's two.

Are you, are you a, a senior frontline manager or inside frontline manager? Outside frontline manager. And then finally director. So it, it's like it starts at three, it goes to four, it goes to three, it goes to two, it goes to one. Yep. And [00:28:00] it sort of shows where you can move. But it's designed in a way that like, you can imagine your horizontal movement too, because it's just right there.

It's like, okay, well if I'm a senior tech, then here's the other option. I can move to sales. Yep. And that's a, a horizontal movement for me, which is great. Uh, I could potentially move to inside super, which like we've never had anyone try that, but like that is in the same tranche of, uh, seniority. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's something we're fo gonna be focused on. I, I actually, I remember picking your brain on this. Yeah. I remember. I'll send 

John Wilson: you a picture once it's done. Like. We're we're, we had to map it out in our heads. Yep. So clearly that we could wrap a wall with it. Because what we wanna be able to do, we're really intentional about our interview process and like walking people through the building.

We wanna be able to stop at this wall and talk about it for a minute or two. Like, Hey, and it's called, here's where you can grow. So like, here's where you can grow with Wilson. This is the position you're applying for. Like, let's check out like, Ooh, yeah, check that out. And then ideally we put in. [00:29:00] Like potential earning.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. With each, uh, position, because that's the important part is they wanna see what they can make too. Right. Right. Um, 

John Wilson: but we want people to know that they can just like, Hey, this can be the end of your career. Like, this can be it. Yeah. There's a lot of different seats here. We have 25 titles. You can just land here.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, I think that's a gap we have is, um. Because like we're a growth organization. You're a growth organization. Mm-hmm. Like we're both me and you've had this conversation where we're like really in stride. Step for step is like, well, you're beating me, 

John Wilson: but yeah. 

Brian Sloan: No, no, no. Um, is how can we, uh, yeah.

We, how, I guess what I'm thinking about right now is how can, we're gonna retitle everything is, like, right now we have everyone just listed as manager and we don't have like a great strategy around tiling, but we haven't needed it until this point. But I think we're starting to kind of reach our capacity with that.

John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: Um, one thing we've been focused on is, uh, cascading messaging. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Brian Sloan: And so like, how can we, and me and you had this conversation as we were walking in with EOS and scaling up. Yes. Yeah. Is, is, um, you know, we [00:30:00] self-implemented EOS mm-hmm. Uh, which I would encourage everyone to hire facilitator.

They, they range in all different costs, at least for your first year. Like, yeah. Don't self implement. We did it, um, learn from my, my, my challenges. Mm-hmm. Um, but now after five, six years, we've gone to scaling up. 

Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. 

Brian Sloan: Um, 'cause one of the challenges we we're trying to overcome is like, alright, what's the, what's the company mission?

What are the different locations? Mission. Mission to help support the company mission. Yeah. And then how's that cascade all the way down to the frontline team member on how they can feel they're contributing towards the company mission. Yeah. Um, so that's been a huge focus, focus of ours. And then, um, really we've redone all of our bank partners and a lot of our professional services has, has been a, you know, kind of a focus and maybe for a different day as well.

Conversation for a different day. Yeah. 

John Wilson: We're, we're like beginning that journey and, uh. It's annoying. 

Brian Sloan: It is, it is. Yeah. I, the bank one, I, I looked at, like, I started conversations a year ago and Yeah. And we're just now kind of coming to, you know, the Yeah, 

John Wilson: it feels like, yeah. Yeah. We [00:31:00] have, uh, we, we've started opening the conversation and like they're trying to like rush it along and I'm like, mm-hmm.

Uh, I don't, I don't think we can. Yeah, we're talking about like $5 million of like debt. We're talking about like treasury, like we can't. Yeah, you can't because they're trying to lock 

Brian Sloan: you in as fast as possible. Yeah. They don't want you to shop it. Yeah. Yeah. Good salespeople. Yeah. I saw my daughter this.

Good urgency. Good urgency. I saw my daughter this when we were driving here is, um, is uh, with the, especially on the bank side, you know, everyone has like a VP of like a vp title of some sort. And I'm like, Mac at the end of the day is I said, um, you know, their customer relations people at the end of the day.

Oh yeah. Like don't get hung up on the title side. Yeah. 

John Wilson: That's funny. This was awesome, man. So we, so I'm gonna repeat the, the big wins on 4 million a a month 'cause that's crazy. That's amazing. So appreciate that. Uh, a million like stable revenue somewhere there. Stable revenue. So in this case it's plumbing.

Yep. Uh, strong membership base. Really making sure we're retaining our team. Uh, and that's like tactically what's their schedule look like and strategically what do their careers look like. Yeah. Um, and then [00:32:00] just being really thoughtful about. Uh, like adding additional days and increasing capacity when the, uh, when, you know, grass is growing.

Brian Sloan: Yeah. And I think, uh, that's, that's a hundred percent it. The last thing that comes to mind is, um, we used to do this, I just wanna throw this out there, is like, you know, it's hot right now. We know it's hot. We've seen it's gonna be hot forever. And back in 2015 when I was a service manager, I'd say like, Hey, it's Friday.

Any chance you can work tomorrow? Is not being like sowed by the hip. You know, make sure that you're having that conversation. Yeah. On the front end of the week or even before the month begins, like Yeah, June's always hot and busy. Yeah. It's like, just have your team prepared. Yeah. Don't just ask 'em on Friday to work tomorrow.

John Wilson: Yeah. That's a good call. We, we got in the habit of doing it like every Tuesday we send out messages. But you're right. Like we should have done it in May for June. Yeah. So we're behind the ball. All good. This was awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, man. Thanks for having 

Brian Sloan: me. 

John Wilson: If people wanna get a hold of you and like bother you and ask you questions and stuff, how can they do that?

Brian Sloan: Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. Twitter man. Yeah. So I'm, I've been trying to be more active on, on X. [00:33:00] Welcome to the 

John Wilson: club. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. It's an awesome community. It's a good community. I love it. Community. 

John Wilson: Yeah, it's good. It's robust. 

Brian Sloan: Yeah. And, and I feel like you're getting raw information there, like it's not filtered through.

Yes, 

John Wilson: definitely. 

Brian Sloan: So yeah, you can find me on x. Um, I don't know my handler name at the moment. That's right. We'll 

John Wilson: link. We'll link it. 

Brian Sloan: Appreciate that man. Cool. 

John Wilson: If you like what you heard, uh, make sure you like and sub and check out owned and operated.com for more. Thanks.