Speaker 3Okay, it was up for the Bluen Lister's Itchier Boy Chris. This is one of the most download episodes into the point podcast history, and it was back at the end of 2023 with an interview that we did with Jim Abrams, who is the goat of the goats, like the goat that trained the goats. So, enjoy this episode. It is Easter puts on an absolute clinic all these years later. It's when my favorite to listen to it's a two-part or so. Enjoy this podcast with the HBAC Goat, the man who started it all.
Speaker 0Jim Abrams.
Speaker 3To the point listeners, do we have a treat for you? This episode is going to be in saying, you're going to get a great history lesson in the world of HVAC, plumbing and electrical, because our guest today is the founder. Clockwork some services, which is your one hour's been Franklin's a Mr. Sparky's, which is back in 1998. Also, which was in a choir by direct energy. In 2010 for 183 million, is that right, Jim? 103 million. And then acquired again by authority brands back in 2019. Also the co-founder of Contractor's Success Group in 1990 with our friend and former podcast guest, Mr. Terry Nicholson, which was his episode was 88 and 92 in the spoke at Rhino X. And then he helped build the largest weight watchers franchise and you were even a customer. That's like the best case case study you got, right? It makes you a great salesman. But wait, there's more. This man is considered an HVAC industry icon. The official go, multiple entrepreneur of the year awards, even though he says he's an accidental entrepreneur. The greatest residential service contractor in the world, the father of HVAC, success, the franchise, Emperor, the prophet of prophets. The Pied Piper aplomers HVAC-Tix, and Electrush is the deal, Klornegy, of HVAC-Success and King of Replacements. This man is shared with them to help contractors rise out of struggles, failures, depression, overcome hurdles to become multi millionaires over his long four plus decades in the industry. He coined the phrase home services the most influential man in HVAC residential contracting history. Please welcome to the show, the HVAC OG himself, Mr. Jim Abrams. Well, thank you, that's quite an introduction. How did I do? That's right. Your face got a little red.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, I'm old now, so that's it.
Speaker 3Hey, you earned it. That was so much fun. I had so much fun writing that out. That was, it was like, it was everything that I hoped it would be. So hopefully, made you feel good. You deserve that. So I'm grateful that you're on your gem. Thank you. So now you, we just came off for the July weekend. I was just telling you I was up in Colorado. Did you guys have a good for July weekend, you and family? What do you guys do? Do you read down South Florida?
Speaker 2Yeah, we can legally shoot off fireworks here in my wife's a pyromaniac. So we had a number of our grandchildren and children out at a beach resort that we own and shot off fireworks there that night had a great, great lunch, but we can't even Yeah, shut it out off the beach over the water.
Speaker 3Yeah, those are so cool. Now your dad was serving World War II, right? He's a veteran.
Speaker 2Correct.
Speaker 3Very cool. Well, um. I want to just mention something to all our listeners because again, I really hope that you're paying attention. You have a pin in paper. You have whatever. You're going to want to take advantage of this podcast. I mean, there's no greater source. When I say the go, I'm talking like the first go in this industry. But this ironically is actually your first official podcast. So I'm grateful to be that for you.
Speaker 2Well, see, I was around before the internet. And back my fun tells when I tell them the story that at train company where I first started in the industry, that facts was way to go. They found that I don't really unbelievable that that that was new technology when I started.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, I got to read so many different articles asked on you on and like there I had so many different directions. I could you have so many stories like obviously. been in the game for so long there was so much stuff and I went down a rabbit hole and I was like okay I got to just stop at some points. I was up at like midnight last night editing and making it so poor math, pretty shout out to Matt for putting it together. It was waiting on me to get questions over to you but I think we got a good one here locked down so I don't want to waste a bunch of time. I just want to kind of jump right into it. Sorry, listeners, kind of getting ideas for those who have actually never heard of Jim Abrams. I don't know necessarily what rock you've been under, but he is, again, sharpen your pencil and start to take notes because there's a wealth and knowledge on the show today. But I want you Jim, if you would, just go ahead and tell us the Abrams impact story like how you got into the trade, you know, to become considered the greatest residential contract service contractor in the world. It's a heck of a title.
Speaker 2Well, it was a long time ago. So back in the 1970s, and I was leaving Weight Watchers where my boss's son was going to be taking my job. So I researched out there and found three things that I thought the future would be something that would be energy-related, cheap food, or automobile aftermarket. by default, nobody wanted to hire me in the automobile after market or cheat food. So I ended up in the energy-related business and went to work for the train company out of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. I helped establish what they called their five saluting men. Wait, so the train company called for core and we had a franchise and company owned operation.
Speaker 3Hey Jim, was that was that 19? One did the train, do we with the train?
Speaker 2No, 1988, one was when I opened my own door.
Speaker 3Oh, that was home in the district. So when do you go to train, what was that? Oh, that was 76, 76, 76.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we got to start at the front end. We're going to tell a marketing room in those days, which was marketing. For us in those days, became a straight commission salesperson, 1800 people in the commission in the division. And I worked my way up to the number one physician at train consumer products division. left there when I was asked to acquire the GE Division of heating and air conditioning, which we successfully did in 1981. So I left and started my own business, which was home energy savers. Pick St. Louis, because it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. So great, great demographic analysis and move my family to St. Louis, started one band business, hired one technician, and those days yellow pages were key, they would put a book in October, but they closed the book in March, and I didn't open my business to June. So I would not be in the yellow pages for the first 18 months, and that's what I had to default to foot canvassing, actually walking up and down the streets of St. Louis,
Speaker 3And we're going to make it weird and we're going to hit it on that story a little bit later too, but I'm, you know, so, so that was 1981 when you started home energy services. Correct. So then, so then take me from there through that through the progress of that.
Speaker 2So Rand home energy savers, not profitably for the first two years, which I knew would be by plan, but I started very small by 1988. So I started in 1981 by 1988. I was the largest in the United States, not that big at that time, but I was doing $12 million in sales, all service and replacement by 1988. So it took me seven years to grow a business from scratch to one that became the dominant player in St. Louis, and then also had a business in service. more that into a company that became known as service experts took that public to the NASDAQ in 1996 and to the New York Stock Exchange in 1997.
Speaker 3So, was there a point when you, was that the plan with it all along or did you just, did you was there,
Speaker 2I had a long partner, John Young, and 1988. He and I, we'd known each other at training. John actually went to work for Ron Smith down in Fort Myers. Ron was in a lot of trouble at that time, mostly all commercial and industrial. John steered him over to residential and helped him recover dramatically. John decided to leave. We formed a partnership which became contractors success group. John was really a marketing guru in terms of direct mail and my, my forte was operations.
Speaker 3Right. Okay.
Speaker 2So I plan once we started the group. Yes. In 1990, when we started the group, it was our intent to teach contractors across the United States a similar way of doing business so that we could put them together and form the first publicly traded home services company.
Speaker 3First Consolidator.
Speaker 2Yes, in this industry.
Speaker 3Right. Man. And so where was it at when you took it? What was the? What was the IPO on that when you take it?
Speaker 2We had 60 million under sales. Our market value upon the completion of the IPO was about 200 million. We grew a quickly to a billion dollars by 1998 was the valuation of the company. And the company was approaching $800,900 million in sales within two years of coming public.
Speaker 3Man, how did that feel?
Speaker 2It felt good in bad. I'm fortunate to have gone to a divorce just before doing that. So I was president of the company and I headed up all operations. But we had selected a different CEO. And my vision was branding a residential home services. His was more about compilation of earnings and driving the stock value. And because he was CEO, I deferred to that. And I actually retired in 1997. My former partner, John Young and I, I stock was worth approximately $100 million in that time. So I thought that was enough money and I retired for a couple of years before starting Clockwork Home Services.
Speaker 3Yeah, but. That was the first time. That was the first retirement. That was like, you've got to have it of retiring again. And I love hearing that.
Speaker 2I'm very God boring.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, that's what I wanted because at some point in time, it's not there's like you have the wealth or even the generational wealth that it's just part of the game or the fun of doing it and the building. I think it actually I say, you know, I have this in my mind where I want to, you know, run as far as I can to 50 years old on 43. And then, um, Maybe I'll, maybe I'll send my retire because I don't know that I have it in me. I am an entrepreneur. I don't know that I have it in me to not do anything. But I also think it's good for your brain and just to kind of keep you young by having to kind of keep doing things and work on stuff. I got to want to sit my grandpa was a farmer and retired farmer. And he was active and like with golf and stuff like all the things that you should do in retirement was a snowboard out here in Phoenix where I am. And then when he stopped doing all the things is when I started to see him deteriorate a little bit. Um, but didn't you get it going? Very hard to stop. Yeah, it's a dick thing like you have it. It's its own, you know what? There needs to be an entrepreneur's anonymous. So there needs to be somebody's going to start that now. You watch. Maybe or one that exists already.
Speaker 2it may. Well, for me, I think I've shared this many times. I, back when I was with train, I watched a video tape, the Vince Lombardi did. And from there, he concluded there was only three things that mattered in life. You relationship with God, you relationship with your family and community, and you relationship with your career. I bought into that. So once you're retired, there's a lot you can do obviously to enhance your relationship with God by getting to churches, et cetera. And there's always something you can do for the community. But that measurement of one's career kind of just stops. And invariably, that had been the most time consuming prior to because you're going to work every day, et cetera. So I think it's hard. I retired it first time at 50. I came, you know, my dad was an out of worker and Detroit and I had what I thought all the money in the world at that time and I just I was so bored I created a talking thermostat at that time I created a new pricing system everything that would become part of success group international really during my retirement I I got four patents over a hundred different trade marks during that period of time so it was kind of it was the lack of even when I was retired.
Speaker 3You know what it's interesting about all this too is you're running national brands and with facts with the facts like it's just not like we have the technology today to be able to communicate like you so you probably legit had to get on planes and were you just gone like all the time and that probably took a toll on the on the relationship.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's probably why my marriage did not succeed. Yes, I have cards with American with 2 million real miles on them. And Delta with 2 million real miles on the plus. The other hundreds of thousands that I aggregated with no longer flying airlines, Eastern TWA.
Speaker 3you united or united still flying but I didn't it wasn't a hub city for me so I didn't get that many miles so spent a lot of time in the air yeah because I mean I'm pretty sure you mentioned those three things and I think those are obviously like really key to and and and and this kind of leads me into and it's not really not on the on the questions we've prepared for but like this whole topic of like work life balance and is it a real thing is not a real thing to me it's a real thing I'm grateful that You know, in 15 years of running right now, I ran really, really hard the first eight years, like really hard before I actually realized, I need to work smarter, not harder, and I have a family of poor kids. So that to me, really, my wife is a CEO of this business, but we've gotten a really good balance. And to me, it is important. I mean, you have to make sure, like, while you're building, yes, there's sacrifice that you have to make, but you don't make all the sacrifices. You got a balance that thing out.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was very fortunate. My three sons from my first marriage all moved here to Sarasota. So I'd mean to, over those years, because of the affluence that we gained, I'd say there was probably a month to six weeks off each year that I would diligently take. We would travel to different places. I would be there for their games and make sure that's good. So I have a great relationship with not only those three children, but when I remarried, I got two step-to-outers that were very young at the time and one of them was here, both of them lived here at one time in Sarasota. one's now very high up with Apple, so she's got to be out on the West Coast, and we have a home in LA. So we get to see our kids that are out in LA, and we have to have an LA in LA, and we have to have an LA in LA. Yep. Nice good. Well, in the right of the balance.
Speaker 3Well, and then you also in this like, in this in term two, I think it was in. Well, it published in 2008, but I'm sure it took a little bit to write it. But you also had your book that you had published. I think it was, already, this was a contractor's guide to greatness. It was a published in 2018. I'm sure, yeah, I think it was January. I got pretty sure I saw that. I could be wrong though.
Speaker 2had to be published back during my clock work days. So I sold a clock work in 2010. So probably 2008 I think would be more likely that book was published. We printed 10,000. They sold them all. I've seen these sales on eBay. I found eBay and Amazon. I saw that. Very flattering.
Speaker 3Like five grand or something like that.
Speaker 2That's the money paid 5,000 for one day.
Speaker 3In the heck, man. That's in case you should, they should have sent it to you to sign it or something.
Speaker 2I had, well, I signed a whole bunch of books. So it was probably signed already.
Speaker 3Okay. Well, Mike and his figure spent 5,000. I'll bet you that you would probably be willing to actually personalize a form if they sent it to you. Only correct.
Speaker 1I have no clue who bought it for that.
Speaker 3Well, and you have a, and you have a, well, first of them asked question. How long was that? How long did you take to actually write that?
Speaker 2So what happened was I actually did an audio call. So it was actually done initially over the phone. And each, month. It may have been each week. I can't recall right now, but I gave a one chapter lesson audibly. We recorded that and then later went back and rewrote it. So it took a cumulative total of 30 months to do the whole program. So it was one lesson a month. Got it. So there were 30 specific chapters in there. It took 30 months. It probably took about another year to edit and rewrite the book because of the way I speak a lot of ooze and eyes had to come out of there. That's it took a while to edit it and then we printed it and fortunately everybody wanted one so the print went really quick.
Speaker 3Well I mean listen now you're on to number two that's coming and I'll get into it towards in a little bit more but you got another book coming out how long has that one been in the making?
Speaker 2that one I actually wrote the original one my wife and I escaped the hurricane here a few years ago and flew up to Maine and just ran into cabin right on the ocean and ended up writing it relatively quickly. It's been rewritten now five times. Obviously, my first time through is learning that I'm not a great writer and has taken a while to go back and change that. Fortunately, one of my sons is a screenwriter, so he's able to prove free that for me and redo it and help me out.
Speaker 3Well, I'm excited that we've had actually a decent amount of guests on here that have written books lately and are have written books in general and I've been reading. If the book is small enough, Jim, I can read it because my attention span only takes me so far.
Speaker 2Let's be about an hour and a half and I try to spice it up which story is from my life, too.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, stories make everything more interesting, right? Because you can retain the story more. If you put the lesson and the story, it's always easier to retain, I think, at least from the guys like me. I agree. So I want to kind of get into just, you know, where what you've been doing lately, like, I mean, because it seems like if I, and, and please, we didn't talk about this at the time, but it told me if I'm wrong, but was your, was your last live speaking event back in 2017? It was in Orlando. Yes. So you just said, I'm done. I'm like, I'm, I'm just going to, are you legit like retired retired? Well, no, because you're the chairman for physical, right? That's good. Right.
Speaker 2So in 2012, I started a business that's called Bezoom with the intent to invest in other businesses and then apply the knowledge that I gained. I have a 10 step approach that I've applied to every business I've been in. So not only has it work in home services, But I owned a two restaurants here in Sarasota. One of those just got selected six years in a row is the best restaurant in Sarasota. Nice. So very proud of that and the other ones are very, it's, I think, listed number five on TripAdvisor. So also does extremely well and did that. Then I also started physical, which is a physical therapy business. I started that effectively. In 2014, by buying into one center here in Sarasota, today we are approaching 500 centers in the United States, and we are the third largest physical therapy business in the world. And I'm still chairman of the board. I did in 2018, so 51% of that company to a private equity group, new fiber capital out of Chicago. So I'm kind of a sit back chairman of the board. I'm not that active. We recruited a very effective CEO who runs the business and although we took a big chunk of cash off the table in 18, we're not looking at exiting the business. Sometimes this year next.
Speaker 3Hey, you know what, you really need to learn how to build a business.
Speaker 2Everybody fouls my rules. I still work with some business owners. Not all of them home services. So they find me and I'll sit down and spend a day with them and do like a tenure plan with them. And it's just it is a 10 point system that if you do it. And if you have the will to do what's necessary, you know, I've done a company called the Mutual Fund Store. That business last sold for $850 million, which was a financial advisement business. And we franchise that and help to make that very successful. So it's worked in restaurants, physical therapy, electrical plumbing, roofing, HVAC, you know, it's a broad based program, business program, the works for service businesses.
Speaker 3So I think it's safe to say it's it's it's it's proven. It's been proven. So you have your restaurant in Sarasota. I mean, is that fun? Is that just something that you're are you a foodie or you've just was up fun? I was just another challenge. What was that all about?
Speaker 2The first one I bought had gone bankrupt like four times and I loved their food, so I sought out the chef and said, look at man, I don't think you know how to run a business. I do, but I don't know how to cook. So let's go business together. The partnership didn't work out great, but the business did.
Speaker 3Got it.
Speaker 2And I'm no longer the owner of my son owns one of them and then Michelle Schlingman who worked with me for decades owns the other unfortunately in 2020, right at the beginning COVID, I was diagnosed with a rather aggressive cancer and had to have a kidney removed. So I suppose businesses during that period of time simply because I wouldn't be able to pay enough attention to them.
Speaker 3Oh, yeah, I didn't realize it had happened. Are you, uh, are you all? I mean, it's good for you. Good for you. Congratulations. That's fantastic. So main that that might change your perspective a little bit.
Speaker 2Definitely changed my perspective. I great deal. So it was an experience that. You know, I went through chemo and then had surgery. So it took a long time, but I'm cancer free for two years.
Speaker 3Good free of congratulations. That's awesome. I mean, and I'm going to talk about overcoming adversity. It's something I want to get into because everybody goes through it in any business and you've not been exempt from that either. But is that kind of part of the reason why you've laid low a bit too is, at least in the home service space, like from my, at least from my perspective, it seems like, around that, like, when you, around that time as when you started to kind of, like, maybe not being at, like going out and doing lives, you know, speaking engaged in any more and doing things like that. Was that intentional or was that just like kind of a what happened from that?
Speaker 2It was, oh, how do I say it? I thought I'd probably done. as much as I could do within HVAC and home services. I was still intrigued with applying will these business methodologies work to other businesses. So before I was done, I kind of wanted to prove that. The restaurants have certainly evidenced that they were both phenomenal amounts of money, they survive COVID, making money, which is, well, other people were folding up their businesses and running, these two restaurants actually accelerated their sales and group during that period of time. So that certainly evidence that, and then the fact that we continued to grow our physical franchises and company owned operations, phenomenally during that period of time also indicated that these, this business methodology holds up to recessions and
Speaker 3Well, I mean, to get through COVID in the restaurant business is quite the challenge. I mean, well, that industry, wow, was impacted so much. I mean, there's so many that didn't make it through. I mean, so many. So again, you probably went back to those 10 steps that you were allowed to just
Speaker 2That's it. I must say the PPP program definitely helped restaurants. Well, that yeah, it took advantage of it. Used it correctly. I think we're able to sustain themselves survive and then be ready for great growth because they had lesser competition coming out of COVID.
Speaker 3Yeah, good point. Well, um, and I want to talk a little bit about like this industry, you know, and I'm going to call post COVID, and it's not really put, being on top of my most of all, I'll get to that towards the end, but I want to hit on that little bit more bit first. We were talking about like the sober coming at verse, and you didn't know about the cancer thing, too, and I'm grateful that you're on the other side of that. But I love, I love good overcoming adversity stories. And you might have one of the best I've heard too and you kind of mentioned it in the beginning about when you had when you had started home energy services you missed the phone book cut off and that was like the way to pulling business was that phone book and you didn't miss it like you just missed you had this long way to get back to it so where you a little bit concerned there like what happened I got you got to share with the listeners how you overcome that diversity is like I will that was story was fantastic.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was quite a challenging time for a couple of reasons. So this was, you know, I started my business in the early 80s. And everybody thinks economically things are bad now. But the US unemployment rate, 1980, one was 14%. So a lot of people had a job. Sir, San Luis County was number one in the US with over 20% unemployment. And this was the place I moved my family to open up a business of all places. And I'm not in the phone book, so it was like, oh my God, I'm going to lose everything that I've worked for my whole life, and I've made such a mistake going into business for myself. I thought I was there. There was nothing I could do except figure out an answer. So I literally walked up and down the streets of St. Louis, knocking on doors, asking if I could serve people and started to build a business. My grandfather ran a moving business during the Great Depression, and I asked him one time I said, hey, Grant, how the heck did you run a business when it was over 25% employment? And he said, I only focused on the 75% of the people that were working, Jim. We helped out our neighbors that needed help. But I kept my eye in the 75% of the people that were working. I used exactly that same foundation. But to get to them, it was either telemarketing or not come to knock doors. And I could not find people that really wanted to knock on doors until one day. I was at home, I tried to make it home for dinner every night before going out and running a lead in the evening, and I was sitting at dinner with my wife and three children and we're devout Christians, so we were praying at that time, and seeking answers and all of a sudden, Somebody's knocking on my door, but I look out, there's two guys in the shirt and tie it and their bikes are laying in my yard. And the first guy said, sir, we're here to talk to you about God. And I've just been praying for help. And I said, I think you are. Come on in. What he said, guys, we kind of find guys like you that'll knock on doors. And of course, they were Mormons. So they told me Salt Lake City. So within a week, I'm flying in the Salt Lake City and walking around Temple Square, looking for people One guy took Mercy on me and told me I had to go to Happy Valley and I'm going, where's that? And he said, that's what bringing me on university is located and you'll find what you're looking for there. So I drove to bringing me on a university which is in Provo, Utah. And Medicare said, oh man, my marketing professor is going to love you. So it took me in the class and the guy let me speak to his class and I recruited 22 young Mormons to come out and knock on the board. And it was like a record we sold 3,000 service agreements that summer from the Mormons knocking on doors and my business just took off the next year I made a million dollars. So it was just it was just unbelievable that I found the answer that way.
Speaker 3A million dollars to the bottom and that wasn't what you're 80. That was 1986. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2And that was five years in the business, starting a business, you know, from scratch in a very difficult period of time. So yeah, it was a great deal of money back in the 80s, particularly.
Speaker 3That's, I mean, that's thinking outside the box to you. And also, like, I'm also a Christian. And I believe those aren't coincidences. I believe those are, like, that was meant to be how that went down. But it is interesting for You know, to think outside the the sink outside the box and then actually do it, you know, not just like think about it. And you just getting up and flying straight to Salt Lake City. Maybe it was desperation, but maybe you were probably convicted at that point, do like that was the answer and and it paned out. I can't even picture what you walking around the temple square just talking to me.
Speaker 1That was the reason. It was a big story.
Speaker 2So I almost went into the temple, which you're not allowed to do.
Speaker 3You know, yeah.
UNKNOWNNope.
Speaker 3Well, so I got to know, do you remember at all what you'd set what like your opening line wasn't you not come the door?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I'd knock on a door back in St. Louis and I'd say hi, my name. I'd step back from the door. I had a little main tag on always Had my booties and my back pocket from the beginning. And I stepped back from the door and I said, hi, my name's Jim Ayrons. I'm a local heating and air conditioning guy here. And I think I could help save you a lot of money on your energy cost. If you want me to take a look at your furnace in your air conditioner, I'll give you a quick free evaluation. I'll put a sticker on the side of your furnace with eight different things here that you should do before you ever call for service. that could prevent a service call, and if this sticker is on the side of your furnace, when we come out to serve your system, you'll automatically get a 10% discount on any product or service we sell. Also, I'm going to give you my business card with my home phone number, because I'm not in the yellow pages. I'm almost impossible to find, but if you call this number day or night, seven days a week, I'll answer the phone and we'll make sure that we get you taken care of. Can I come in and take a look at your furnace?
Speaker 3This is fantastic. You did this in the whole thing. I was just looking for the intro.
Speaker 1Hey, man, I did it forever. So I could give you my telemarking business. Give me my door pitch and that, you know, I did this for years of my life.
Speaker 3Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Thanks for doing that. That was kind of on the fly and you're ready for it. He's a professional. Well, you know what, like also, even though you're convicted with this, you know, fight the Salt Lake city and trying to find you know, these guys are these, you know, guys to come and knock on doors. I mean, the decision couldn't with the other the other way, like it might not have a pan down. And I don't know what a position I would have put you in, but I remember reading an article, and I came for which one of us because I've heard so many of them on that you had that you said, make a decision even if it's wrong. And this is something that I when I read through it more and understood the purpose of you saying it I really love you to share that because I think a lot of our listeners need to hear this from you because sometimes you just got to make a decision and you're analogy on that well I thought was spot on so can you elaborate on what you meant when you said make a decision even if it's wrong.
Speaker 2Well, I'm not sure what I said before, but today what that means to me is that you know so so many times we get caught into this do I what do I do what do I do you know that in my success formula knowledge is a critical part and you can only gain knowledge two ways you gain knowledge through experience where you gain knowledge through education. So we're hopefully passing on some education here today but experience simply cannot be replaced. So when you're faced with a challenge that you don't have the knowledge of how do I overcome this, do something. You're going to learn. If it's the wrong thing, you'll learn, don't do that again, and you'll learn how to do it better. My new book is actually the subtitle as the baby is on the island. So I ran this thing with management forever that I would tell them, hey, you went on a little spit of land on a river and just for a few minutes, you left your three-year-old out here because nothing bad was going to happen. But suddenly the river rises and this little spit of land becomes an island. your three-year-olds out on the island and the water is raging. If you jump in, there's a good possibility you're going to be carried down river and your child will not be saved. So you need to stop for a minute, take a look at how you're going to go after this, but you must do something. Or else that child is going to be stranded on that island or you're going to drown. You have to do something. So you have to make a decision. You take all the facts into play and then you make your decision
Speaker 3Yeah, so this and then there was like they that's actually I didn't that makes so much sense because I had known about the the naming of the book being the baby is on the island I was trying to understand and I couldn't come up with anything like that made sense me that makes sense. I get it. I see the analogy. Well, you had also mentioned to something long lines. I know I'm going to butcher this, but you'll pick it up that, you know, it's not if you are for sure going to make the wrong decisions, but the percentages as long as you get the percentages on the upside. You know, that's the one I want you to hit on a little bit if you remember that.
Speaker 2Thank you. Yeah, Angela grew on my very first sales mentor way back when so prior to weight watchers, I was a teacher and then I taught at the college level, right, I ended up as the Vice Administrator, but the guy that was in charge of Angie really helped me in life and he said, He said, if you're right, 51% of the time out of your lifetime, you're going to end up in a very good place. Even though you've been wrong, 49% of the time, make a decision. So he was teaching me as a young man how critical it was to act rather than just in act, you know, you can't be an active in business. Bad things will happen to you. The world will take you down. So you have to be able to act in many times you're going to be wrong. As long as you're right, more than you're wrong, you'll be okay.
Speaker 3Yeah, when more you live, don't kick the can down the road.
Speaker 2Yeah. Exactly. So it's been like our federal government. Look at what we're at now with our debt. Everybody's just been kicking the can down the road. Now for decades. Right. And now unfortunately our country sees challenges that it's never seen before.
Speaker 3Yep. For sure. Man, I had a lot of those conversations this past week. Well, you had mentioned you knowledge being part of your success formula. And I'm always curious. And even though this sounds like a cliche question, I'm always genuinely interested in everyone's answers and the differences in answers or the similarities and answers, but defines success by your own standards. Like what is success to gym Abrams?
Speaker 2Well, I go back to those three things, right? So every day, I measure my relationship with God, frankly, throughout the day. So by knowing what I want that relationship to be, it helps guide my decisions each day. And then for my family, community and friends, you know, that's very important to me too. I just made a note here because I think it's so important to our industry. You know, three of my friends passed away this last year that really contributed. to our society, filled the way who created success where and totally changed. The way business was done there. Larry Thornton, who passed away from COVID, just a phenomenal guy. No, no, since he was a technician at an early stage and then, Rick Hutchison, right? During so many people here, all three of those guys influenced my world and were positive during the period of time that they did that. Friends family and community, maintaining those relationships, giving of yourself to those people, giving your money when you can for churches or community, whatever it happened to be. And then lastly, my career, I measured, I think my success, particularly in HVAC, most people only measured against guys in their own town. since I came out of train it was already a national look. So I wanted to measure myself on a much broader basis. I wanted to measure myself on a national basis and really become one of the preeminent players in that role.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know what that actually makes me think of. As you've heard the the term or the analogy that you are the median of the circle that you run in or something on those lines. Like you, you, so you what you did is you found yourself a bigger circle. Yeah. And then measured yourself against that, you know, and just so it seems like to me that was kind of what you did, which was unique at that time.
Speaker 2It was it was, you know, I tell people all the time they said, how did you end up taking the first company public? I think I'm the only guy to plan to, you know, and planning as part of my success formula. So sitting down and taking a longer range look. So again, when I worked with individuals at own businesses. I always start with, where do you want to be 10 years from now? And forget about how much money you want, or how many centers you want. Where do you want to live? What's your lifestyle you want to be like? Because again, being a person of faith, I know that Jesus gave me a choice to have free choice, even choosing him. So by having free choice, I can be whoever I want to be. I can do whatever I want to do. It has to be real to me. And when I sit down and put it down in 10 years and say, is this what I want to be 10 years from now? Is that a worthy goal? If it is, you'd be surprised how far you're surpassing. You said you had, I think Jimmy Hiller on the show. Jimmy, I remember very clearly. From 2015, he attended a two-week class that I did on the St. Petersburg, $85,000 here were 20 people in the class, 19 of them went on to build huge businesses. Jimmy being one of them, Jimmy at that time was not in real good shape service-wise. He was doing about 300,400,000 a year and doing most of the rest of the new construction, right? He actually left that class with a plan to be at $50 million in sales 10 years out. He put the plan back behind his desk so he could see it every single day. And when I caught up with him, I did catch up with him. I actually was 2005 when the lessons were, there was 2015 when I caught back up with them. He was at $83 million in sales.
Speaker 3Nice.
Speaker 2And one says, how's that possible?
Speaker 3He planned it. Well, I actually got to do a podcast with Jimmy. Another one of these things too, where it's like, I heard Jimmy for so long. And he came to, I came here because I went to like 23 different speaking engagements. The first half of this year, I came to which when I was at, but he did a live podcast with me in the Expo Hall. And I got to hear his story. And it was I learned so much about him during the the podcast and the expo hall that I made him do it again because there was things I didn't know about him that I wanted to dig deeper into the thought would make for a better podcast so I made him do it a second time and it turned out to now greatest stories awesome, but yeah, he he mentioned that specifically about his plan and like in an executing on us on his plan. You mentioned Rick, what a good dude. I got to spend some time with him at the beginning of the year He was out here with a guy Dave Geiger and a few us like a small little group of us. I got to a Paul Kelly and and what a good guy like what a good dude. These guys were letting me have it like I know because they bust my chops too, and I'll bust their chops, but I'm kind of giving them asking them, saying, hey, it's been 15 years of doing digital for HPC, plumbing electrical guys, like, here's everything I got, here's everything I've done, what can I do better? Boy was that the wrong way to approach that. And so they it was like a firing squad and honestly it's all good. I love that stuff because it helps make me better. I'm willing to take the heat to say okay. I see the fix and move on, but Rick literally puts pours a glass of whiskey for me and goes brought over to me goes, here you go. Nice. Such a good dude.
Speaker 2He started working with me when he was 18 years old was a technician.
