How They're Building a $9M HVAC Business

What does it really take to build a home service business from the ground up?

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Ryan and Aaron Osterkamp of Quality Comfort Home Services to unpack the journey from one technician working out of a house to a company targeting more than $9 million in annual revenue.

They discuss the early years of wearing every hat, the decision to bring on an in-house marketing leader years before most companies their size would, why investing in leadership accelerated growth, and the challenges that come with letting go as the business scales. They also share how they've built a strong company culture, approached hiring, and continue reinvesting in the business for the next stage of growth.

In This Episode:

• Building an HVAC business from one truck to a $9M goal
• Why they hired an in-house marketing director early
• The leadership hires that unlocked growth
• Creating a culture that retains great employees
• When to reinvest versus take money out of the business
• The hardest parts of delegating as an owner
• Deciding between growing HVAC or expanding plumbing

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🔗 CONNECT
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John Wilson → https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/

Ryan + Erin Osterkamp → https://myqualitycomfort.com/about-us/

Breaking $5 Workshop → https://www.ownedandoperated.com/upcoming-events/oao-workshop-breaking-5-million

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

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Transcript

Starting From Scratch

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What was the hardest part of starting from scratch?

SPEAKER_04 0:01

The hours that you have to put in at the beginning. Looking back now, it was was a lot. You know, I wanted to work for myself.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

I wanted to help people. It is very hard for people when they have their fingers in every single piece of the business to not have their fingers in every single piece as it grows.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

I think we just got to a point where if we were gonna continue down this path and grow it, I needed some help. What's the goal this year? Our goal this year is uh 9.1. Where do you think it can go?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Like what do you guys think? What's our aspiration?

SPEAKER_04 0:28

I honestly think we're just scratching the surface.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 200 business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson. Today I'm joined by Ryan and Aaron Osterkamp from Quality Comfort Home Services in Cincinnati. Thank you guys for joining the show. Glad to have you guys here. This is fun. Thank you. We're here for our shop tour, which I think we do one every six months. Uh, this one is better attended than the last one. I think last one we had 10, and today we're supposed to have like 20 or 25. So it should be a good time. That's awesome. Yeah. Anything you guys are hoping to get from this visit?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I'm an operations person, so I like to know how the ins and outs work of the call center and the warehouse and stuff like that. So I'm hoping to just see how it all the pieces fit together.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Well, I'd love to hear a little bit about uh the background of your family business. You started it 15 years ago, let it, I think from a technical background first, you joined the business nine years later. Just walk us through those first couple of years.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Sure. Yeah. So I started the business in 2011. Um, I worked for another local company. Um, I always say it was before we were, you know, married, had kids. I always wanted to work for myself, start a start a business.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

That is definitely the right time to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Right, exactly. Um, so you know, I felt like um technical-wise, you know, um installs, service. Um, I was doing everything. So first two years, it was just me, uh, worked out of the house. Um, we then had our uh first child. Um, and working seven days a week wasn't an option anymore. Yeah. So I hired my first employee. Not a good option, exactly. So um, yeah, hired my first employee. Um, got a little uh 500 square foot building, yeah, uh rented it for $300 a month, and uh started hiring hiring some guys. Yeah. How long did the first employee stay around? Uh so my first employee, um, which is funny enough, I hired him off of uh Craigslist. Um it was 2011, it was a different time. Exactly. Exactly. Um he was with me for eight years. That's cool. Yep, yeah, that's cool. Yep. So yeah. Um, yeah. And then from there, like I said, we just slow growth over the last uh over the last few years um or after after that. And then um once we got it's been about seven years ago, um, I actually got in touch with a um uh Elizabeth, who's our marketing director. Okay. Um she came on board, and that's when we started really focusing on growth for the company. All right.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

When was that again? What year?

SPEAKER_04 3:16

That was uh about seven years ago.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Yeah, nice. And like full time. Full time. Okay. She came on board full time. She was doing a little bit of uh freelance work for us.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Um, Facebook and you know, a little here and there, and we really saw it working. Yeah. Um, so then we had the conversation of bringing her on full time.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So that would have been uh what is that, 2017? Is that if you're right, 20 2019?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

It was the pretty much the same time I did. I came on board.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

So 2018, 2019. Okay, well, I want to unpack

Scaling With Ops And Marketing

SPEAKER_01 3:47

that a little bit more. But yeah, let's talk about you joining the business.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah. So I uh worked in healthcare. I was a uh nursing administrator at a children's hospital, and um he was working a lot, I was working a lot. We had kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Let's work a lot together.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

So we were like, let's work a lot together. Um and it has been amazing since. And it's been a good, you know, we're joined forces at home, joined forces at work, uh, built a team together. So it was, you know, at that same time when he was hiring our marketing director, he was looking for someone who had operations experience, and it was either we do it together or we hire someone with my skill set, and we chose to do it together.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

So 2019, how how much revenue were we doing in 2019? Yeah, maybe roughly and then how many how many uh technicians uh team members? Then yeah, six or eight.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Of one install crew and uh three technicians, four technicians, yeah, plus office.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

So yeah, you're probably looking total, maybe around uh, because we do duck cleaning as well. Yeah. Um, so we're yeah, roughly eight to ten.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Okay. Yep. So marketing director and ops is a lot. So, like what what was the discomfort or like what was the headwinds we were facing to bring on both of those at the same time? Customers today expect to see pricing before they ever reach out. And like it or not, transparency is the new baseline. And homeowners are wanting to understand their options before they even pick up the phone. Instead of fighting that shift, we just leaned into it. That's why we use Contractor Commerce at Wilson. It runs us about $1,600 a month, and we've rolled it across HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. We're using it for generator installs, water heaters, full HVAC replacements, and it is driving real revenue for us. We've had months with 20,000, 30, and even $40,000 in book jobs directly through the platform. In strong months, we're seeing double-digit jobs coming straight from our website. What it really does is it turns your website into like a guided sales experience, and customers can explore options, they can see some price ranges, and by the time they reach out, they're already educated and informed on what they want. If you're looking to modernize your sales process and capture demand that would otherwise bounce, it is worth checking out. Visit contractorcommerce.com and book a demo to see how contractor commerce turns your website into a 24-7 sales and qualification engine.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

I mean, again, with my background, I'm good with the background's technical. My background's HVAC. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Technical H V A C, not sales H V A C. Correct.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Yes. So um the office, you know, yeah. The office stuff just wasn't really working for me. And it was a lot, you know, going out. And and I was, you know, in the field, yeah, you know, waking up, going out, running calls, doing installs, doing a little, wearing a, you know, as many hats as there are. Um, and then coming home and doing payroll and doing paperwork and sending out quotes and this, that, and the other. So that we I think we just got to a point where if we were gonna continue down this path and grow it, it just I needed some help.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

And we were already organically growing. Yeah, yeah. So it it didn't make sense to stop growing.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah. So eight to ten full-time team members, was there anyone in the office at that point? One person. We had one like call center dispatch. Just CSS manager style role. Just doing it all. Yeah, yeah. And then did they stay on Aaron? For a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah, for a little bit, yeah. And as we grew, um gets more complicated.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, it gets more complicated. Yeah, those are those are more always the hard ones. Like we had uh when I started in the business, it was it was a little bit smaller, and we had team members that like that office manager. When they it is very hard for people when they have their fingers in every single piece of the business to not have their fingers in every single piece of the business as it grows. Yeah, and it's just every business we bought, it's been the same story. Like you want them to stick around because they know where all the skeletons are, but they hate not having total control. Sure, right. Sounds like a yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard, it's a hard thing. Yeah. All right, so administratively that makes sense. Walk me through Elizabeth coming in in 2019. Was this before or after Aaron joined? It was right before.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

So uh uh I've known Elizabeth. She worked with a uh distributor um that I worked with for a long time. Um, she left that distributor, was working with doing marketing for another. She went, she was out of the industry. Um, and then again reached out and said, Hey, I'm looking to do some freelance stuff. Um in marketing, would you um would you be interested, or do you know anybody interested? Yeah. Um, and since we had that relationship, she was looking for more like referrals because we worked together. Um, and then like I said, I was like, uh, you know, I'll I'm more than willing to try it out. We've never done anything like, you know, I've posted a picture of an install. Hey, this is what I before and after um type stuff before. But then actually like being consistent about it and having her do that. We were seeing results. Um, so then again, they have we just had the conversation, like, hey, you know, would this be something that you know you'd be interested in coming on full time and doing for us? So she was freelance for how long, you think? Oh, she uh we I would say probably not much, less than six months. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So she was freelance with you for six months and then yeah, full time. And then and then decided to it's a big leap coming on for it.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

It was initially it was like run my Facebook, and then she has so much knowledge, she was like, we could do campaigns and we could do like all of the SEO and like she has so much knowledge that it was like she couldn't just do Facebook, yeah. That she would not have been happy, and it worked out that he wanted to grow the business as well.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

So yeah, that's great seemed great. That's very convenient. We got a new website, we got I mean, it just snowballed into something that uh yeah, we never thought would have, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

With um, I don't think I often get to talk to companies of your size that have like their own marketing heads. So I just want to ask I I'm sure the audience like would want to know more. Um, so is there still an agency involved anywhere in the picture? There really hasn't. I mean, she runs us. Yeah. So like what exactly like how are we driving leads today? Like, what are the channels that we that we're using?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Um all of the channels. So um she does. I mean, SEO is really her what she loves to do, which I think is a little unique in someone with her skill set. She most people are like, oh, I hate to sit behind a computer and like do the things. Um, but she loves that and she loves results. So she's she's a numbers person. Um referrals, obviously, super huge. Um I'm trying to think of the spreadsheet that she says we have Well, we started getting like leads now.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

I mean, we started getting into um we're doing some commercials, we're doing some billboards. Um, we've gotten in with uh doing a little stuff with like the Cincinnati Reds, just keeping our brand out there, um, brand awareness type stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Um we rebranded it's probably been four years now since we rebranded. And she was like super instrumental in that. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

For like uh any paid lead sources, not really, unless we really get the flow season and we just turn it on for a little bit. We did paid leads a lot in the beginning, but we haven't needed to do that in a long time.

unknown 11:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

Do some um Yelp tech. A little bit, yeah, some of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yelp and thumb tech, but sometimes thumb tech. We really just flip it on if we need to.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, that makes sense. Um so what what you guys talked about uh like I as I would imagine a marketing leader to be thinking about numbers. I I do think like that is the right person. I think there is a misconception I had when I first hired someone in marketing that they were supposed to be creative, but like really like it's data in, data out. Like you you need a nerd. Yeah. Um and I think that's I think that's best. But like, what are they if they're not paying for leads, if you're not paying for leads, what are the numbers we're looking at? Like what she measures ROI bases.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I mean, like against what though? I guess what do you mean by paying for leads? We're not doing like pay-per-click or anything like that. Yeah. Um, but I mean, she does like a lot of Google work. Is that pay? I don't know if that's considered pay.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Could be basically I'm asking, like, you were like, hey, she's on the computer like driving into numbers all day. And like what numbers is basically what I'm asking. Do you guys know what she's look like, what her scoreboard is or anything? It's not really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yes, I could pick up the question. I mean, I it's not in my memory.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So I don't know. Yeah, I'm not trying to grill, I'm not trying to grill you guys up. No, I get it. Just like what is she looking at every day?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I think the interesting thing for her is that she's so self- self-motivated.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And like she shares her numbers with us that we're like, okay, everything, everything looks great. And like it's Is it green or red? Yeah, is it green or red? And and and she is does all of that herself, that we don't feel like we are as deeply involved in it. So when people ask us marketing questions, sometimes we're like, ask Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, she's like, Yeah, Elizabeth, let's get a little bit of a on the horny with the button. This is the uh phone friend. Yes, part of our show today. Um all right, so let's, yeah, we'll we'll keep rolling through here. So what was the hardest part of starting from scratch? I mean, this is 15 years ago. So you're hearken it back.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

So I mean, one one, I was, you know, hungry, you know, motivated, you know, enjoyed the hustle. Um, so like the work aspect of it wasn't um wasn't hard for me, you know, 15 years ago. Yeah. Um, that's just what I I like working. Um, so like the work part of it was wasn't um the physical work wasn't the hard part. Um, it was, I mean, you know, once you start getting into, again, having kids and the weekends and, you know, oh, I want to do this, but then now you have an emergency call or whatnot. Um, I just feel like the hours that you have to put in. Um, and again, I would, I would do it again, but um, the hours that you have to put in at the beginning, I mean, looking back now, it was was a lot. Yeah. It was a lot. And thinking back, like, man, could I do that all over again? But I didn't know any better. And it was just the grind that you just got up and did it until your day was over and then you went home.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Do you feel like that's resolved now? Like, do you feel like how much how much time are you working now? Oh, we're still, I mean, I'm still very involved.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

Um, I still go in every day. I'm still, you know, my I'm not in the field every day. Um, I still do, you know, we still have those circumstances where, you know, somebody calls off or we need to get this done, or we can't figure out a problem here where I'll hop in a truck and go go figure it out or get it done. But yes, my day-to-day now um is very different from from 15 years ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I work sure. He works 40 hours a week, I would say on average, and I'm part-time.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah now. Yeah. That makes sense. What do you think? Like uh the motivation at the time was what, like to start the business? Yeah. Just got married, want to build a family.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

Yeah, motivation for me was just working for myself. You know, I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to help people. Um, I wanted to um really see if I could do it. Yeah. Um you did it. You know, I just feel like, you know, it was, yeah, and and it feels good now. And, you know, obviously we're I feel like we're not done yet. But um, you know, one of those things where, you know, I was getting phone calls, I was, you know, staying busy, not really doing any type of marketing, but enough to just stay busy for myself. And then um, you know, having having customers refer me going out and and really just like I said, proving to myself that I could do it and also just helping, helping people get, you know, get things done.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah. A lot of intrinsic reward for you as far as like, oh, I I installed that and that looks really good. Yeah. Intrinsic reward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I how's the motivation changed? I mean, you're 15 years in, it's I feel like motivation. You've done it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

So like what now? Motivation now, I feel like's more um one, seeing what we can grow this into.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

And two, um, I mean, now we have 30 employees that we have to, you know, make sure they get a paycheck and they, you know, they're they're on the road every day. Um, it's just a it's a different challenge now. Um, and then seeing those um those employees that are able to, you know, buy their first car, buy their first house. Um, they're having they're having kids, um, which is which is awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

What where do you think it can go? Like, what do you guys think? What's our aspiration? I mean, in my opinion, you don't want to say out loud.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

In in my opinion, I honestly think we're just scratching the surface. Yeah. Um, I think we have a good leadership team now um that um is all in it for the same reasons. And we're at a point now where we just have to make some tweaks as we go to really boost up, you know, boost up productivity. So I don't have an answer as far as like, I mean, again, it could go, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million, you know, we don't really have an end goal goal as far as like where we want it to stop at, but I do feel like we have a lot of we have a lot of room for growth. Yeah. A lot of room for growth. Who who's on the leadership team? Um, so we have uh myself, uh, Aaron, um, Elizabeth, and then we have um Kevin, who is our uh field supervisor, and then we have Michelle who does uh operations as well. Um she kind of took when Aaron stepped back, she kind of filled Aaron's role.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

What does operations mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, so overseeing call center, overseeing um we have a project uh manager for installation um that um she kind of works in tangent with them, makes sure that you know they have this the skills, but she makes sure they have all the things that major things that they're gonna need for the job. Like literally equipment. Yes, make sure that the equipment's there. Um when we she we have a three-person plumbing division, and she kind of makes she manages them, makes sure their uh meeting numbers and revenue is where it should be, and then uh making sure they have everything that they need to do what they do best.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah.

Growth Goals And Next Hires

SPEAKER_01 18:57

As you like over the last 15 years, I think a lot of um we you built a business, you reinvested probably everything, you're at the point where like it's spitting off real money. As you think about grow like this isn't a trick question, I'm just like curious how other people think about it. Like, how do you think about the reinvestment now? Because if you're you're saying like, hey, I think we could go to 10, 20, 50, okay. I agree, but like that takes reinvestment. Sure. So like how do you guys think about that 15 years in?

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Yeah, how's that change? We're still it really hasn't changed a whole lot. I mean, I still think we're we're reinvesting into the business every every year. I mean, we sit down um and we have a uh a budgeting, you know, meeting before uh before the beginning of the year and just look to see where we can allocate our funds for growth. Obviously, we set goals. Um and then what's that?

SPEAKER_01 19:59

What's the goal this year?

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Um, our goal this year is uh 9.1.

unknown 20:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

It's a big step over five. It is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

That's him. We were like, how about seven?

SPEAKER_04 20:08

I'm very ambitious.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

And he's like, how about nine?

SPEAKER_04 20:11

So um we're just shy. Just shy. Just shy.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

This is business season, so I think we can we can make it up.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

Yeah, we had a couple, a couple slower months um at the beginning of the year that set us back a little bit. But yeah, we're on we're on pace to hit um June and maybe a little more to try to catch back up.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And then's like, what do you need, 800 out of June or nine?

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Uh we're uh we're looking at about a million in June.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're HVAC driven. So like March, April is probably like 200 or something. Yeah, it's much less. Yeah, that's so depressing.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I know. Believe me, I know. And actually, I mean, we we had better aspirations for May, but May wasn't that hot. We don't care. It was a tough month. So now we gotta make it up, but we can do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, yeah. Just to help what I've been telling people, just to help preload an excuse, is the benefit of the podcast is we talk to everyone and we know everyone. Yeah, so the entire country, yes, May was a shit show. It was. Our distributors said the same thing. It was I was reaching out. We got access to private equity, but like it was no one had a good yeah. That makes me feel a lot of things. Sorry, there's one company that I know that we don't talk about that yet.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

All right, not for one, that's a big jump. Reinvestment into growth, I want to say. I think we learned in the last few five years or something that you have to have the right people and you have to have the right leadership team. Yeah. And sometimes reinvesting means you hire another salary that's not actually revenue producing in a truck turning the wrench, right? But that means you guys are about to have to deal with that a lot in the next phase here. But that means you're investing in your people. And those people, as long as they have the same goals uh and aspirations, and we take care of them, yeah, they're gonna take care of the people that are in the truck, yeah. Running the jobs.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So a million in June down to like a hundred in February, March? Like what's slow season?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Oh no, I think we still had goals of like five or three to five.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

In what? Like what did you guys achieve in like oh what was each month?

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Do you remember the revenue numbers for each month?

SPEAKER_04 22:18

Um so it fluctuates probably between like 300,000 to 500,000. Okay. Um that makes sense. Is is prior months. Yeah. HMAC man. Yeah, I know, dude.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Uh but highs and lows. It is crazy. It's crazy. I think the only business that could be worse is like a seasonal ice cream stand. But like at least you could plan for that. Yeah. Like you don't have to go into the office, you just know it's closed. Right. Yeah. They just shut, they just shut down. Yeah. Yeah. This is unfair. Yeah. Okay. So marketing, field super operations, yourself and your uh president or founder. What's your title?

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Um, got it.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

And then um, did I miss anybody there? Two well two operations. So I listed operations twice. Yeah, okay. Okay, makes sense. Okay. Okay, so we were talking about how the leadership team's good. That's where we've been reinvesting. That's how we feel like we're poised to grow. Okay. So as you think about, I'm I'm remembering our like I probably reinvested too aggressively. Um and I always wonder how other people like feel about that. Uh I was basically willing to take nothing until um like I I paid myself, I think it was uh about 50 grand or 40 grand or something, until I think the business crossed like 20 million dollars. Okay. And that's when I started like actually paying myself. Um like a com like a a range that is reasonable for the market of my position. Yeah, it's not that that's no money, it's just like it was an unmarketable sorry. Um so like how are you 10 to 20? Yeah, like you guys have some big stuff coming up, like first accounting hire. Uh have you have you brought them on yet? We have not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It's me. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

We need like an HR platform, is what we really need. Like, I need right now. I'm doing everything on Google Spreadsheets still, and it's like, yeah, we have 30 people and different higher dates and different dates that come along throughout the years, benefits and stuff like that. And I'm I'm managing all of that with the specific brokers that we use for each sector of that. We really need a platform to pull all that together.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah. What are the other gaps?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

I'm just curious now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Like, how do you think what's gonna get in your way in the next 12 months?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

I think that 70% of our business is installed. We need another probably another install leader to help with the teams that we have, because I feel like to go from four to nine in a year is gonna be four to nine million or four to nine crores. Four to nine million, like you're gonna need. And right now, we there's two strategies. We can hire more plumbers and grow that side, and not that they're gonna I mean they still make revenue, but not the same that install does. Or we just keep building up our install side and that's what we know. So we could go hire another install manager and grow up the keep growing the HVAC install side, or we hire a plumbing manager and let's grow the plumbing side. Or we do best, I don't know. Well, just always looking. If we found the right person, we would know.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

Yeah, I think we're, you know, we're kind of at a stage where we have to make some decisions as far as you know what direction we need to go and where where our next hire is. Yeah. Um and we don't really have that, we don't really have that answer right now.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

How are you guys feeling like next is next like your fork in the roads? Sorry, my stomach. Your fork in the road, like more HVAC, more plumbing. Is that the fork in the road that you're thinking through? Like, yeah, I mean obviously.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

The the major the majority of our revenue is installation. So I feel like that's an easy one to kind of focus on. Um and we currently have and and yeah, and my background's in HVAC, so we are we are a company heavy on the HVAC side. Um again, with having three plumbers, um, you know, they stay busy, they get, you know, do bring in revenue. Um, but that is not something that we've put a whole lot of focus on up to this point. We have done a, you know, we've done a ton of focusing on the HVAC side and um and creating you know, creating processes and things like that on on that side.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

So how are you guys thinking through this? Like as you as you sort of weigh the different like different fork in the road options here, like what are the things you're thinking about as you as you go through that?

SPEAKER_04 26:58

I think um again, on on my side of things, I think as we hit the fork in the road, um we'll lean more on the HVAC side than the plumbing side, is my is my thought on that. Um is that the right thing to do? Maybe, maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

It's like probably why are you weighing it that way? That's what I'm cute. Because I this question comes up a ton. Okay. Um, and it's one of the like at our breaking five workshop, we do that twice a year. This past one, I want to say a third. We start off the like thing with like, hey, what's one thing if you walk away knowing the answer to this question, you'd be like totally satisfied with spending two days with me. Right. Uh and I think a third of them were like, When do I when do we launch the second location? When do we launch the second trade? Like it was one of the most frequently that and like how do I get more leads? Right. Like that was it basically. Yeah. Um, so I think like how I just want to understand more how you're thinking about this because this is a really frequent question.

Scaling Services With Leadership

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Right. Like, hey, how do I think about breaking off from my core service? What are the pros? What are the cons? I just like want to try to get in your head a little bit here.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

In my in my thought process of it, um, the way that we're structured now, it would be easier to continue and grow the HVAC side and the installation side as to um the volume that they're doing, right? The the installations, um, furnace, AC installs, they're a bigger ticket versus the plumbing side, which I think at that point we would have to bring somebody in that has that experience. Like a manager. Like a manager. We'd had to bring somebody in that could one manage and help us grow that department. Yeah, that's we don't have that expertise. I don't think we have that expertise.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, your one team member in operations was managing it.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Yes. What was her name? Michelle. Michelle. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

And that was just kind of a short-term solution um to try to um kind of hone it in and see where where we're at as far as our numbers and and um how things were going.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

But as far as like getting the leads is not a problem. Elizabeth does a fantastic job. She will she will get us leads, whether it be in plumbing or HVAC to for us, that's not an issue. Um and Michelle manages it from an operations, high-level operations. I can give people their numbers, I can tell tell you how much revenue you brought in, what's your conversion rate, that kind of stuff. Inspiring people to do it is and uh having the knowledge um on the plumbing side to suggest other avenues for them to create more revenue. Yeah, we don't have that person. Yeah, that makes sense. So to me, it's almost a simultaneous, you can do it simultaneously. You can grow your plumbing side and you can grow your HVAC as long as you get people in the door, a manager who can has the skills to do that to move it forward. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, that makes sense. Outside of HR, the HR platform, like what's the other infrastructure needs you guys are thinking about right now? Like, how's your facility? Is it big enough? Do you think you'll have to move? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

I think we're I'm a minimalist. I think we can work. I didn't want to buy the building we had now, but here we are and it's been fantastic. I'll give you that. But um I mean one point. That's great. I got you, dude. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

It's even recorded and there you go. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Um I am a process person. I feel like if you have processes in place, the space, the square footage you need is like a nice to have. I mean, eventually. It does change. It does change how you your processes are run. I know. I know I know. I know. Um, but we and how much square footage do you have now? We have two buildings right across the street from each other, so it's what our office is.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

The office is about a thousand square foot, and then we have a 1,500 square foot uh warehouse space.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Okay. With offices, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Okay. Yeah. Uh all right, HR platform. What what software are we on? Service Titan. Service Titan.

unknown 31:13

Service Titan.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Okay. I'm

Marketing Offers And Lead Gen

SPEAKER_01 31:15

trying to think what else would like. What else people would want to know? Marketing thing's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I mean, I would think service tight and and marketing is things that we adopted early that a lot of people don't want to bite the bullet and pay for. And and every industry that I talk to people that are starting businesses, I'm like, hire a marketer. Hire someone that knows what they're doing in marketing. Don't try to learn it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Because it's complicated. They go to school for a while. It's complicated. And if your brain doesn't think like that, it's really hard to think like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Yeah. Just get you so far. Again, like I did it for you know, seven, eight years. Um and you're so consumed with other things going on in the business where it's like, then you're gonna try to do one post uh uh a month or a week or whatever it may be, to where I will say once we brought marketing on, and and there's agencies and things like that that you can, you know, hire as well. But um I feel like again, if if if the phones aren't ringing, you can have the great, greatest technicians and things like that. But if the phones aren't ringing, yeah, you know, nothing happens. So um that's one thing that but when people when we tell people that we have marketing in-house at our size, and and this was obviously several years ago when we were much smaller, they just kind of thought we were crazy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

But and him and Elizabeth work well together. Elizabeth is is creative, but also very numbers driven. Yeah, he's pretty creative so that they can like bounce things off each other. Hey, let's try this. Hey, what do you think about this? And she's like, Yeah, I can measure that. Like, this is how I'm gonna do it. Let's try it. And then they work pretty well together when I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

I'll try anything. Yeah, if it's a crazy idea, you know, my my whole thing with marketing too is I like to be unique, different, um, try different things. Um, you know, obviously you see a lot of HVAC companies, plumbing companies, um, with similar offers. And we have similar offers as well, but um just trying to think, just trying to think outside the box as well. That is what I try to do.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah. So yeah. Google keeps getting more expensive and affiliate leads are getting worse. And somehow you're paying more for fewer, lower quality leads. And that's pretty much the game right now. So here's something that most operators are missing: Yelp. I know what you're thinking, but Yelp is way more than just a restaurant rating app. Last year, over 125 million home service leads were generated on Yelp, and almost 50 million homeowners are searching there every single month. Here's the real kicker though. Their data powers answers across Chat GPT, Google AI, Apple Maps, and Alexa, basically everywhere people are searching before they even know your company name. So instead of fighting over the same expensive Google clicks, you're showing up where customers are actually discovering and deciding who to hire. One company fused service out in the Bay Area, HVAC Plumbing Electrical, does 20 million a year from Yelp alone. They're closing 75% of their Yelp leads, and about 70% of their entire customer base comes from the platform. So if you're serious about leveling up your lead gen, go to business.yelp.com slash owned and operated and book a call.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

What are you trying now? As far as uh on the marketing side. Yeah. Um so I mean, again, we have our we have our promotions going on, uh, rebates, things like that. Um, we have a very strong uh warranty offer that we do on our um on our installs. Um so that is something I feel is kind of unique to our yeah. Um what what is the offer? Do I give away our secrets?

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Published. I'm just kidding. It's published. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_04 35:10

Um, so no, our offer is we do a uh 10 10-10. So it's a 10-year parts, 10-year labor, 10-year maintenance. Nice. Um, so we we build that into um, you know, our our package, um, which we've seen some companies that are coming up with uh with similar ones, but we've been doing this for several years now. Yeah, nice. And I will tell you that um the the warranty aspect of it um has been has been huge for us. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

What what's average ticket for your HVAC installed? Do you guys know? Uh average ticket's probably around 12. Yeah. And then do you guys know service?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Average ticket.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah. 350?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

I'd like it to be higher.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Just kidding. They do a great job. How um is memberships a big part of the business?

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So we have uh over 2,000, about 21, 2,100 uh are memberships. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, that's a lot. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

That's a big focus. That's interesting. Yeah. How's hiring gone?

SPEAKER_04 36:15

Um since the beginning. Hires hiring has gone much better. So um it's funny uh because I don't do any of the hiring anymore.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Who's fired and from hiring?

SPEAKER_04 36:28

I've been fired from hiring uh because I give everybody a chance, give everybody an opportunity to where we have now become more specific on who we hire, why we hire them, the, you know, the role that they are expecting to fulfill before they come into the company. Um so we've we've gone, we've shifted a little bit on who does the hiring, who does the interviews, but also we're finding that we are getting more applications from uh private equity companies that um, you know, they may have worked for for several years and and um aren't happy with the way things have changed or going or whatnot. So we've been able to bring them on board um with training. Yeah. You know, a lot of those, a lot of those technicians um have already been had some type of training. Yeah. Um, so I feel like what's your training source?

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Are you like Certain Path or Next Star or We are not?

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Um, so at one point I was part of a um coaching group, uh CEO warrior, um, out of New New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

I feel like I've heard of that. Uh I don't know much about it, but I feel like it it's like black and gold, and that's it was exactly that's all I remember.

SPEAKER_04 37:41

Yeah, so I was with them for several years. Uh what does CEO Warrior do? They're just they're a coaching group. It's it's for the trades. They are for the trades. They are for the trades. Um so I was with them for several years, and then they ended up the the original owners that started it, um, ended up selling. Um, and again, it just didn't seem like a good fit for us anymore. So we got out of it. Um, but as it's still CEO Warrior, it is. Yeah, it's still CEO Warrior, yep. Um, but that's something that, you know, um Kevin, our um um field supervisor, he comes from a company that has next star training um and different type of training, so he's kind of brought that with him.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Is CEO Warrior like uh like he gives you sales process? Okay, yeah. Technician. I never actually knew what it was. I just remember seeing the name. Yeah, you're like a lion, or am I making that up?

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Um it's more like just like uh like a shield type uh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yeah. Okay, I made it up. All right, so hiring has gone better since you don't do it anymore. Exactly. 100%. Yeah, it's it's it's funny how that works. That is that is that is funny. Yeah.

Culture Delegation And Legacy

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Um, and like what have you guys done on culture over the years? Like how have you helped to improve it and drive it forward?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

So you can touch on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I took a lot from healthcare culture.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

So like um I was to-do's or not to-dos?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Uh, a little bit of both. Um, but uh, I worked in oncology, and so obviously that's a hard unit. And in order to maintain your good nurses and staff, you have to have a strong culture. And I think that means um surveying people for what a good culture actually looks like. So when we started working on culture, you know, right after I came on, it's like surveying people. What do you want out of a job? What do you want out of a workplace? What's your what would make you want to come to work in the morning? Um, and so we just took results from that and we do a yearly culture survey to just um maybe do it every six months to check and see where we are. But we um I we believe that if you take care of your people, your people will take care of your customers. And so a lot of what I do. Michelle does a lot of this is we do monthly um just like pop-ins. So, like on since I'm big into baseball and on opening day, we'll do an opening day, popcorn and soda and come in and chit-chat in the office at some point throughout the day, kind of an open house thing. Um, so we do one of those monthly, just a themed day. And then we do um events quarterly um off-site. We shut down everything for half a day and we go bowling. We go, we just played kickball last month.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Who won?

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Um uh our team. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 40:33

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

It's the first year we won. Um, and is it like inside Ops for the Field or something? Uh no, we actually video work we pick names out of a hat, but um, Kevin, our field supervisor, we do it on like a video and shoot it out to everybody so that we know everyone knows it's fair. But it's like you're on team, here's your team captain, here's your team captain, you're on team Aaron, you're on team Ryan. Yeah. It's funny. Um, so it's fun. It's um, and so just quarterly events that people can uh those are actually required because we pay them for it. We shut down everything for the day and they have to come have fun. Um, and then the um other things they'll stop, the monthly things stop in through the day, but taking care of people, I think, and and also uh the operations director field managers do one-on-one, so off-site once a month with everybody, so individually. So I vote to Bob Evans for coffee before work or usually they start their day. And I think work life balance has been huge just with the history we have and how much we worked when our kids were very young. I want people to feel like I can come to work rested, rejuvenated. I want to be there because you've given me time with my family elsewhere. So um we don't run 24-7 on call. We if I can't we can't get them there by 8 p.m., then uh we the customer can wait to the next day. And I think you don't want to like customers always write, but also you want good technicians, so you have to balance that throughout every all the scheduling.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

An on call, they get a day off right before their on call. So they're not working 14 days in a row, and um we polled them for what they want, what what would make your on call better? Because we're in an industry that has an on-call. So how can we make it the best it can be?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah. So yeah. Sounds like you guys put a ton of thought into it.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

We have yeah, the one-on-ones have been huge. Um, just again, just having having time to sit down and and sometimes they're not even about work, they're about what's going on at at home or you know, my car just broke down, or this, that, or the other, whatever it may be. So just an avenue for somebody to vent a little bit and uh have a chance to get a little get some things off their chest and then um you know, hopefully make their day better and then and then go back to work.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

And they don't they don't bring numbers, it's not a numbers conversation. The numbers are during the meetings, this business unit meetings. So they literally come and have coffee and chill.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Chill.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Chill, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

What was the hardest thing for you guys to delegate?

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Oh, me personally was the physical, the physical work. Yeah. Like I am. Well, yeah, you're still you were still getting out in the truck. I feel like I do. Are you chasing that? Like, are those good days for you? There are not bad days. I I enjoy working with my hands. I enjoy doing the work. I like she said earlier, you know, you go out on an install, you go out on a job, you sit back, you look, like, man, this really looks good, it works good. Um, that is by far the hardest thing for me to still delegate is letting somebody else do the work and my name being on it is is hard because I am very much a person of um I'll just go get it done. Like, you know, I'll just, you know, with this this problem or you know, is there, I'll go get it done.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

It won't be a problem anymore.

SPEAKER_04 43:59

It won't be a problem anymore. Anymore move on. So again, as we as we grow and you know, realizing that that's not feasible, um, stepping back and you know, having a role um and not trying to do everything or not just hopping in a truck as soon as there's a problem that arises and trying to go fix it um has definitely been my my hardest part for sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

Yep.

unknown 44:24

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

How do you think, like over the next couple of years, that just becomes more pronounced? Like how are you working on yourself to prep for that?

SPEAKER_04 44:33

I I think I mean, honestly, you're just gonna probably just have to strap me down in a chair and just not let me not let me go.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Alternatively, you could hire.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 44:42

You could hire.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah. Well, that's we it's not that we don't have the people.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Like no, no, no, hire a CEO. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like hire the job that you don't want to do. Yeah.

unknown 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Get back in there.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

I mean, I mean, that is a real that is that's true. And it's not that I don't, it's not that I don't want to do it. Yeah. Um, again, like I don't have a, you know, I'm learning the business side of it every single day. Um I think it's just more of a comfort. Yeah. I'm comfortable in the truck. I'm comfortable with fixing things and things like that. It's just, I would love to, I would love to transition more into um the other side of it. Um I just find myself And and we've done a lot. I was just gonna say, you have done a lot of I am not in the truck every day.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah, there are sort of even there's a uh there's a philosophy, I think it's called zone of genius. Um that that wasn't me being like a a dick on purpose. Oh no, technically accidentally, yeah. I think uh, but there's like a zone of genius where um like we all operate best inside our zone of genius. And as you think about hiring someone, like we do this for a lot of our senior leaders. Uh, like, hey, what what what do you want to do every day? Because when you walk in, like people are gonna tend to do the thing that they want to do. So, like you want to be in the truck, that's where you feel most comfortable. So, like you can attempt to drive that out of yourself, uh, which might be the right decision, or you could also just like hire someone that has no desire to do that at all. And maybe their zone of genius is improving the business every day. But I think uh it it yeah, interesting challenge. Yeah, like we grew the business, and I did not have that desire like my dad did. And my dad could never like, and I'm not saying that that's your future, but like he could never let go of the field. And uh it ended up holding the business back. So I was the solution to that. And then I mean, now we grew. Yeah, but uh but yeah, he sort of like he stayed within his zone and I stayed within mine. Gotcha. Were you ever um were you in the truck? Yeah, first eight years of my career was and then after that, um, but like it wasn't where I felt the most comfortable. Right. Gotcha. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

And I think as we've we've kind of touched on that by hiring field supervisor operations director, and that has I think given you it has grown us. Yeah, we just have to just you have to decide.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Right. Right now, exactly. On here. Yeah, I think um well, the the funny thing about uh the the title for this section is on my notes here is Growing Beyond Yourself, which is kind of funny because I think um like we're always the bottleneck as the owner, we're always the bottleneck for the business. Yeah, and like you're you're the you're gonna be the bottleneck. You probably have been the bottleneck, and just like I'm the bottleneck. And there's nothing really bad about that, it's just it is what it is. But like you'll have to like figure out how to unbottleneck that. And it's either gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna do the thing where like I want to go in every day and do this thing, or I have to hire someone to, you know. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. But it is an interesting, it is an interesting problem. Yeah, the bottleneck that we're solving right now inside my business is CFO, and it's the same thing. Like, I naturally walk in every day, and uh because I've just been so driven by the numbers for the last 10 years, like that is where I feel the most comfortable. Um, but I'm not as talented as an actual CFO. Sure. So I have to uh I have to remove myself from the area that I feel the most comfortable in every day. Yeah. Uh so like you know, that's my example of I'm the bottleneck there. Sure. And the right CFO will compound like hugely for us. Sure. We're excited, but I'm definitely in our own way. Yeah. All right, you're still independent, you haven't sold. Uh as you think about the business, what are your aspirations? You want to make it big? What else? Just moving forward, like what are our aspirations for the business? Yeah, like how do you think? So I'm running a business that my grandfather started in the 50s. And um he my grandfather tried to tell my dad not to get into it, my dad tried to tell me not to get into it.

SPEAKER_03 48:59

Okay, here we freaking off.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah, uh, it probably has something to do with the swings. Exactly. Um, the business is only like they only do two things. They either sell or they shut down. Sure. They either sell to an outside party, inside party, or your you know, kids are familiar. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or they close. Right. So, like, how do you guys think about that as founders of your what could be a family legacy business?

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Or I mean again, I feel like, you know, with with three kids, um, you know, they're still young. Um, I don't know what what direction they're gonna go as far as uh getting into the business um or whatnot. I don't think I'd ever steer them out of the business. Um I've enjoyed, you know, obviously being in the business, the experiences that I've had with the business. We've been able to create a company, uh, make a living out of running a company. So um that's something that I would never steer my kids away from if they were interested in in one day um, you know, taking it over.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

And either that means any of them want to get in a truck or any of them want to get behind the business side, the options over there. I think the aspiration for us right now is we like what we do and we're making money. And people we serve customers and we serve our staff and everyone as far as they're telling us, likes what they do and they make money. And I think all options are on the table because we don't I don't feel like I don't think you feel like we're in a place that we hate to go to work every day, or we don't feel like we need out, or we don't feel like right now it's good, it's great, we're making money and it making a legacy for our kids and our you know hopefully, hopefully uh, you know, making a difference in in the community.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

Yeah. Um, but yeah, like to to kind of touch on that point, like if there became a day that I woke up and was just like, ugh, gotta go back into work, gotta, you know, felt like you know, it was just miserable every day, then we would sit down and have a serious conversation on what that what that looked like.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

But right now, if you're like you just keep your PL in line and be available to sell to your kids, sell to your, you know, some not private equity, sell to private equity. We still got a lot of working years left in us. So we'll see where the road takes us.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I think I had this uh when I first started off, I had this aspiration, which obviously I did not do. But I'm 10 years in. Uh my tenth, my tenth anniversary is in like 90 days or so. Oh, congrats. Yeah. And um, and I I wanted to be able to have the ability to sell the business at five years. And uh, but obviously we didn't, yeah, but it did help like give uh real clarity about like what I should be doing every day, because if that was the goal, then every day had to sort of drive towards that. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

And I think the goal is to be profitable every year at a level that you can pivot whenever you want.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Which what level is that to you?

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Like profitability. I would say around 10 to 15 percent every year.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

As we start wrapping up, uh I've got a couple closing questions for us. Sure. One lesson every home service business owner should learn sooner.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

Um, one lesson they should learn sooner. I feel like um one is hire the right people. Um, I feel like trying to do everything, kind of like we spoke earlier, is just bottlenecking your company. So being willing to um, you know, kind of kind of get the right people on board with you that have the same vision that you have um will take a lot off your plate and allow you to focus on other aspects of the company. Um, the other thing I would say is um taking risk, not not just a risk in like starting the company, but risk in why you're running the company, doing different things that not every other company in your area is doing. Uh Cincinnati's a very competitive, very competitive market. I mean, we were talking earlier, and there's a you know, you drive and there's a new truck you see every day. Cincinnati's tough.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Cincinnati's like in like a couple states, Cincinnati is like the hardest, I think.

SPEAKER_04 53:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and we see it, you know. Um, so just again, taking risks, being different, um, you know, thinking outside the box, um, doing, you know, having uh different interactions with your customers. So one, they refer, you know, refer their friends and family. And then um me starting out, uh reviews were reviews, reviews are still huge, but starting out, um, yeah, those were those were our bread and butter. I mean, I I took, I still take reviews very personal. Yeah. But like when we had, you know, 50 to 100 reviews, it was like, you know, everyone had to be a five-star.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

I think, yeah, uh, I think when you speak on risk, also being having the flexibility to like pivot if something's not going right. And I think, or if it's going well, grow it, right? And being intentional about how quickly you either jump ship or grow from the the things you're trying is and that's a beauty of being our own owners and our operating owner, uh owner operated, so that you can really pivot whenever you want. It's your decision.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

You're making you're making making the call with the education that you the team that you have around you and making educated pivots, but that's the beauty of it. You can continue to do what you're doing or you can try something new tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

It's great. Yeah. So I agree. What are you guys most proud of building? What's the piece? Most proud of building. Yeah. Um we're proud of along the journey.

SPEAKER_04 55:17

Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, starting out 15 years ago, um just wanting to really work for myself and just seeing where the company is now and seeing, you know, again, kind of going back to like the employees that we have. The um, you know, we're building a company that I feel like, you know, uh people enjoy coming to work for. Yeah. And they are able, you know, circling back to able to do things that they have not been able to do before, as far as maybe take that vacation that they've always been wanting to, um, and and you know, things like that. Just seeing other people um be successful, you know, be successful. Exactly. I mean, that's that's really what I'm I'm I'm proud about. Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

And I think I saw a meme recently said, like, unfortunately, my parents didn't pass down generational wealth. They passed around down good work ethic. And I was and that's so true. Like, that's I think we have uh people that work for us that model our work ethic, and um that that shows in all of our customer interactions, and then passing that work ethic down to our kids, you gotta work for what you for what you want.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

So I'm proud of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Uh and final one, if you could give your 2011 self some advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 56:48

Oh, oh do it.

SPEAKER_04 56:49

Um do it. Everyone, no. Um I think really just just stick with it. Um, you know, uh going through what, you know, what I know now, um it's hard. It's it's hard. It's not easy, it's a lot of work. And, you know, obviously, obviously um we've gotten to this point because I've stuck with it and you know, through the hard times and everything else. But yeah, my 2011 self, like it, it gets better. I mean, I never thought that I would be in the position I am, I am now 15 years later. So yeah, just sticking with it. And how old were you? Uh when I started, I was around 28.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Keep reinvesting, I think. Reinvesting in yourself as far as like learning, but reinvesting money too.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

You can do it slowly without gaining a ton of debt if you if you want to. So keep reinvesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah. Those are good. Thanks guys for coming on today. This was a ton of fun. Thank you. Appreciate it.