Speaker 0What's the password?
Speaker 1Don't talk about it. Be about it.
Speaker 0Welcome in to the two-of-the-point home services VIP room. Where we invite you, the listeners in to hang alongside some of the biggest, baddest and most successful VIPs of the home services industries. You never know, it surprised guests will show up next. So let's get this party started.
Speaker 5Hey, what's up, home service VIPs. It's your boy Chris Sloan. My co-host, chatty P&AG, boys living good today. What's up guys? You guys feeling good today? I feel alright. I feel pretty good.
Speaker 3Yeah, they'll get it. Tuesday. It's good.
Speaker 4It's really good. Better good. Yesterday bouncing back from the little slower weather. And that always makes me feel good.
Speaker 5Yeah, it's like, you know, every, every sale makes you feel good.
Speaker 4Yeah, because I don't know, I've got that sales heart forever. I can't get rid of it. And the team talking to about sales, talking about numbers, I can't help myself.
Speaker 5Hey, Chad can't get himself out of the way out of the way. He loves to recruit. I know Chad is a sale. He's got, he loves to go and get talent. Dad, you still, you still dipping yourself in the, you can't, you can't take yourself out of the recruiting, even though you have that already.
Speaker 3Yeah, I met some guy on social media yesterday, evening lives literally right down the street and is selling water treatment like for another company. They water treatment, saying, some have lunch with them on Friday. See what's going on.
Speaker 5There we go. Four, four, four, four, two, all things going to be wearing that pyramid brothers blue and red and some water treatment.
Speaker 3Dry, I won't break in my hat.
Speaker 5Hey, speaking with you guys, I did get us some swag. So once it gets here, that's fine. I'm gonna send it out to you guys. And I actually got swag that you'll actually wear.
Speaker 3So it's good.
Speaker 5I took that into consideration. Okay, so I don't have an idiom today. I didn't think of anything as I was coming down here, so I just said I would just skip it. But what's nice is that I love it when we get a little surprise. And we have a surprise guest on your why because it wasn't expecting to talk to Lacy PD who's joining us today from week operator out in Columbia. Hey, Lacy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 5I'm excited to you're the whole time out that we're going to be talking to your husband, John, you guys, you guys step into this business at the same time, is it was in 2017, I get there somewhere else.
Speaker 2Yeah, okay, like, yeah, end of year, two, seven and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5So I'm the business is actually started in like, it was early two thousands, right?
Speaker 2And it was, no, it was 2017. Yeah, you had it right.
Speaker 5Okay. Well, then I guess I was misinformed by 2017. Okay. Got it. So, then let's do this. Just for our for our listener's sake. Maybe just go ahead and share what you typically like to do with for the listeners is just give them an idea of what size of business that you are. Um, and and keep in mind to a lot of our listener base is, you know, like I was saying earlier to is under five million. So, um, but you guys have had some, you know, I do know you guys have some good growth. He's almost doubled your average ticket or double in the business. So like you're doing some good things. I really want to lay at your size. We can figure out what you guys figured out like you must be starting to put some pizzas together and so maybe if you will just share a little bit of like the come up into the business and from in 17 share share the size of the business person and just talk about like you guys is you got started and and how it's progressed up to today
Speaker 2I'm so literally, again, thank you guys for having me. So in 2017, we got a really good lead from a family member about some local franchise type owners for one of the national brands. They were retiring through a name in the hat and ended up scoring that. That's why it was kind of like, into the year, we were the national brand, for about six years. And you know, really, really escalated really quickly, you know, you fly it, you fly their flag, but you're still responsible for a good bit of things internally as well. When we decided to go private, at a good preaching point that it made sense and it was, you know, feasible, we were getting ready to touch right around 7 million. We were a little bit larger of an operation than we are now. So we rebranded, went private. Now we can actually say we're a mom and pauper, however you want to raise that and we are, so that was at the kind of the end of 2023. So, to just kind of timeline for you guys, and then re-branded, that was, it was a lot of work. I still feel like we're going through some of the work, but anyhow, it's all paying off. It's all worth it. We love it. We're starting to really, really pick up some speed and or, I guess, steam. However, you want to phrase it with people looking for our actual brand, and not just, you know, plumber near me. you know, or just like the luck of, you know, going down the, the Google list or the phone book or wherever they find us. And so we are getting really close to touching that that sixish mark at the moment, um, which I feel like is really, really good progress seeing us how we kind of, you know, rebranding oftentimes very, very much so diminishes what you're actually going through in the actual activity, because you kind of have to like undo everything So oftentimes, I feel like it was almost more work than if we just started a whole entire new thing because with that company, you do have your own corporation, so that's the parent company and your DBA, the other one, the flagrunner. So it was kind of the same thing, but we had a lot of undoing to redo and then to try to catch up speeds. So you're not you're doing all the like at your kitchen table until you can actually add more admin staff back in and then also doing obvious marketing and we got connected with a really great marketing company as well. It's just local here. They help a lot with brain recognition and we tried to make it where we decided to kind of like make fun of ourselves, I guess, and so with our branding and our mascot and everything else, you know, it's like the little, the little, like little, duty people that are, it's kind of like like Mr. Potato Head, but with a poop emoji. So we're like, you know, if, if we're breaking away and doing something kind of crazy, whichever is like you're crazy, how you'll never be able to rebrand and do your own thing and stay in business because it's so much and everybody is really It's an acidy, the work ethic, motivation, and just get up and do it every day.
Speaker 5Yeah, patients. So actually, first off, yeah, go into a rebroad bin through them a couple different times. And then as a marketing agency, previous owner, you don't know that about foundation, a big marketing agency called Ryan Oster, Teasing Solutions. But I went through so many rebrands with contractors, and especially during COVID, especially during COVID. Um, I'm talking like you get did so did you guys do a full read like a full rebrand like it's the full minute new because it if you were on a national brand and then you had to switch to a completely different name so that was a straight rebrand like yeah, yeah, that's like our parent company was just like our like our name.
Speaker 2Inc. And I was like, well, no one's going to call that for plumbing. They're not going to like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a good plumbing company. They really know what they're doing. And I mean, you know, there's not a lot in a name. Anyhow, it's what you do and what you stand for and, you know, your ethics as a business owner, but from a consumer standpoint, you know, people aren't going to call me call that for plumbing services or excavation or septic or whatever you want to, whatever service they're looking for, leak detection or whatnot. So it's like, You know, says what we're doing in the name and here in our area, everything is, it's really big like local local local, you know, people want a shop local, they want to spend local, they really want to support, you know, the local companies, which is really great. And we had kind of already started to like. We had a couple of side things that were unrelated that had the naming of our local area, which is where we got the weeko. It's the West Columbia and then Router. So I was like, we just really needed to really stand out for where we are and what we do. I feel like that's the most important part.
Speaker 5Yeah, it probably was good for your just even your internal team around to be a part of the rebrand to it's kind of like a reverse.
Speaker 2Yeah, there were a couple of, we have a couple of guys that stuck with us in a few admin pieces that that came over with us, you know, we knew it was going to have to scale back, you know, back up to go forward. So we didn't, you know, we really only kept on a couple of people because they were other office, or staff members that were offered positions with the company as it moved because it's not going to go out of the area. It's just going to move and have a different person. So we kept on a couple of people. They've been very, it's kind of like a difference since a pride that they've stuck in through the whole entire thing and that they were a part of the rebrand and the success of it. So it's always exciting to see them really take pride in that.
Speaker 5Guys, I thought somebody was going to say something.
Speaker 4I was going to ask a question like, what made you guys switch? It seems like if you're having success under a national brand was it just like why do that? There's a lot of people in it.
Speaker 2Why would you do that?
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, I'm going to say that there's anything wrong. I can understand just like, what was the decision making between that? Like, a lot of people have, oh, whatever. There's a lot of franchise brands out there. Some people do really well. Some don't. I get that was it just more that you guys felt like you wanted to own something yourselves. Like, why, why make that switch? It's like, what, what, what, what, what, what, what did that?
Speaker 2It was a combination of things, you know, we owned the parent company, but there really wasn't a lot except for, you know, the vans and vehicles that we owned and our location, we owned our building and whatnot, but you know, the part of the American dream is that it's your business. with the national brand that we were associated with, they had given us an amazing, great start when it as 30 something year olds at the time, you couldn't go to the bank and say, hey, I had this dream of being a plumber. Can I get a loan for like $5 million? You know, there'd be like, no. whole pass on that. So, you know, it was really, really great as a great relationship, but we had just gotten to the point where we had grown to the point where we felt like, okay, good. This is a good time. And we were responsible for pretty much everything minus the equipment that they provided. And a few of the other things like, you know, marketing and, you know, just other, items. But with what we were responsible at that point of the business, we're like, well, we can't pass it down to our kids if we want to. We're paying someone out fees that could be going into something else. You know, you're going to pay it or spend it. I get that. You're not keeping it. But at least you get the two's where it goes, right?
Speaker 4Yeah. I don't understand. Yeah.
Speaker 3How did you navigate?
Speaker 2So did you like sell the franchise and then, like, no, it was, um, it was, um, so you have a contract and, um, the one we're a part of, they provide like certain, certain parts of the equipment, like, you know we had some excavators you know stuff like that most of the vans we had already purchased an owned by that point you know a lot of times they'll get you up and go in like with one or two to start with you know because they understand obviously you have to get on the road to make money and a lot of times people don't have all that collateral or capital to be able to you know do that a lot of times you know it's like a younger owner that takes on. So it was time for contract renewal. We wanted to do it the right way. We didn't want to get any sort of legal issues with it. So just at contract renewal, we just, you know, and for them, hey, you know, we're going to go a different route. You know, we appreciate everything you've done for us in the past. We respect, you know, the brand and the business model. But, you know, at this point in time, you know, we want the option to be our own people.
Speaker 4because I think maybe there's some other people that may potentially be in the same seat as you thinking about this or recognizing that it sounds like it was actually very beneficial to you too because you learned a lot. There's a lot of support. So I don't know if there's a wrong way or right way to go here with these things.
Speaker 2Yeah, I definitely probably wouldn't. ever suggest anybody break contract in the middle of a term because, you know, they have, you know, all of these brands have more money and more lawyers and you can promise, you know, amount of, you know, thinking that you're going to be able to get around that is going to work. But we recognize that without it being pointed out to us, obviously, but, you know, we just, we had created a certain level of business standard that was, you know, as good or in our opinion, you know, excelled as far as the customer satisfaction goes. And, you know, like I said, we had gotten up on our own seat with the equipment part of it, you know, been able to being business long enough to build business credit. So we felt like we were going to be okay to be able to stand on our own two feet. And, you know, if somebody's in that position of, they're thinking about, they want to do something, I would just weigh the pros and cons, like, you know, for us, the biggest thing was, you know, paying that fee to somewhere. And that came off the top. It not that that was an issue is just you want to, you know, if you want to grow. You have to kind of, you know, they're like a business partner with you and they're like the the silent partner, but the one that controls the money. So, you know, if you're wanting to grow or get additional equipment, you know, you had to prove that you needed it. And it was really, really frown upon if you went out and just bought it. So you were like, firstly, we want to grow, we want to do additional things. And then, you know, we want to choose where that fee goes to, you know, whether it's, we're going to pay for marketing or we're going to pay for equipment or we're going to pay for additional training or a business coach, whatever we want to invest in. We want to be able to make the choices to where we're investing it or for investing in ourselves. Maybe we're buying another building, whatever the case is. So we really really wanted that freedom to be able to, you know, make the choices and make the decisions. And then like I said, you know, if our children choose one day, that's totally up to them, that they want to, you know, follow in our footsteps. It's not, you don't get the choice with the, the type of relationship that we were. And you can guide it and hope for and try to, you know, politician your way into it. But it's not ever a guarantee. It's not as simple as just yes sure. You can buy my company or I'll hand it over to you.
Speaker 5Yeah, I think, I think, I think that I've actually, so I've experienced this before with some, you guys know, I mean, Chad and you guys, remember, I mean, a 30 brands was a client of ours for a while, so I was working with the three. And there would be owners at own to franchises, but also building on the side, they're independent businesses, but like, running them together. And they were so they're kind of building both of them. So I'm sure that's probably frowned upon, but it was completely, it's like,
Speaker 2Yeah, that was that was that was that was pretty well. I think on page like eight is like And by the same contract or something and they could come in and it would be that you had an understanding that you know If you broke contract, they might just show up at your door one day with no warning No conversation And just hey, we're here to pick up the server. You're like oh what
Speaker 3So I think the, I guess at least what I'm gathering out of this is like we said at the beginning, it was a rebrand. Like you basically just restarted from scratch. Basically rebranded. All right, you started a damn new company. So I guess Kudos to you. Like I've done a rebrand before, like we're kind of still run an errand set one. Chris has done a bunch of them for people. But I guess my, my question would be, so You start fresh, you know, that, hey, we're going back, but it's kind of like a second, second try. Like, okay, great. We learned a lot, all of these things. Like, what would you say are some of the top things that you took from, you know, learnings that you had in this company that you were like, oh, yeah, 100%. We're going to, we're going to do it that way, even though maybe we didn't think that that was the way to do it from the outset.
Speaker 2Honestly, some of the the biggest things that we started with was, you know, we're really big on like building relationships. Even if it doesn't go, even if there's not like a direct indication that it's going to go somewhere that is focused on, you know, monetary gain immediately. you know, potential client, you know, the public, just in general, gaining their trust is, like, huge for us, doing things the right way, whether that be licensing or making their right choices or, you know, there's a lot of different ways that apply, then plummings that I'm sure you're guys as a business as well. But, you know, there are companies out there, especially you brought up folks and whatnot, you know, we call them the Facebook plumbers. And there's, there's no, you know, looking down on that as a derogatory way, but, you know, is there's a lot of these said that, you know, you are backed by, you know, actual insurance that covers your work, actual licensing, and, you know, the agencies that, you know, fall behind that, it's, there is a reason for it all.
Speaker 5So you said that you're, you're running to, I guess, pushing maybe six million this year. Is that, I hear you say that right?
Speaker 2Yeah, we should, um, should come close to touching it,
Speaker 5Okay, so and you guys are starting to like gain some momentum here. It seems like which is which is great. We don't for you guys. What are you recognizing that's like that's leading to that. I mean, is it or is it a number of a number of things.
Speaker 2I would say there's a number of things. First and foremost, in our customer service. We do that. We train the guys with that. We have trainings probably two to three times a week, just depend on the subject matter. And it has nothing to do with technique, new product, equipment, what have you, it's just stalling on customer service to make sure that they get served in the highest way possible. And I would say, You know, outside of customer service is just adding in, you know, you can hire, hire, hire, hire, but if they're not quality technicians. was the point, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of plumber technicians and I'm sure in every industry that they can either do the job really well, but barely say hello, or there's technicians that are, you know, super swath, you know, Casanoas and everybody loves them, but, you know, as owners, you're like, do we have to, like, it's a super complicated insult. Do we have to send that person like it? And never fails at you. That's the only person you have available that day, Is there any way we can rearrange this like maybe the parsing come in or maybe the locates haven't finished or something has something legitimate that we can just like, no, we're not doing that today because you're like, oh gosh, you know, they're great. It's talking to have a wonderful mouthpiece. They're really, really knowledgeable. They're great, you know, the conversation and the relationship with the customer, but they're just not as strong a plumbers. So we kind of got away from that. And, you know, it was one of the things we have to go backwards to go forwards, and we really started recruiting strong plumbers, like really strong, and like, I don't care if you have 30 years experience, I don't care if you have two years experience. You're coming our shop, you're going to show me your plumbing. I love that you could tell me what you can and can't do, I'll be to decide what you can and can't do. Because I mean, everybody always thinks they're great at everything. Yeah, yeah, I don't have control issues. It's okay.
Speaker 5Hey, by the way, it's.
Speaker 4I have a question on that there. We talked about recruiting really high talented plumbers. So, you know, here you are as a restart basically. I don't know what your Delta fall off was. It doesn't sound like it was that big. It sounded like you went from seven down to six in one year.
Speaker 2Well, so like that started in, um, 23.
Speaker 5So 23, um, 23.
Speaker 2Yeah. So 23, um, there was only so much. It was like October. So, you know, really the numbers. I, I want to say, it was kind of crazy because I want to say our marketing company set us down like. May June, July, somewhere like mid mid year the next year and they're like so we're going to have to redo where we thought we're going to be because you already are past that in the first year. So we'd already like gone past I think it was like to wish my like middle of the next year.
Speaker 4I'm thinking like you you fell off basically got rid of as chat points like you got you basically got rid of a whole business how to start a new business. So it's not like to bring the customer, you couldn't bring those customers over on the thing. Well, you couldn't recruit them, but we knew who they were, but so you had that, right, to good us. But still, to think that in three years or two years, you're able to basically start a whole new business, re-bring the brand over in New State somewhere in this four five, six million dollars. Right. So I mean, that's still pretty impressive, I think, just starting over and starting local community and you're just you guys as people that spread quickly, but but also take like as a smaller and I don't know how big your per capita area is there, but you're saying, hey, we're only hiring the best rolling during the best, but how how did you like from recruiting that all sounds good, how did you decide to pay the best the best. So what do you guys do in your situation to say, well, how am I going to pay them the best when we're, you know, you're, you know, I do the great business and you're trying to survive and your family's, how are you paying, how do you make this happen to recruit the best from the best places and make sure they get paid the best.
Speaker 2So, and that's a really good question and it's hard because you know, like, like I was saying, as I can go, everybody thinks to the best everything right. Yeah, like I think I'm the best. I'm sure you guys to do and but you know the proof of this in the pudding and so what we were able to come into was, you know, everybody makes the same percentage down at the same percentage and there's no weird, you know, structure or super complicated, you know, way that it works where it's this and that and you add this to take that away. It literally is just the same percentage. However, The guys who are more qualified, you know, those level three level fours, they get the better jobs. The guys who don't lay out, who aren't late for work, you know, most likely the best jobs unless it comes in as a flu emergency in the middle of the day, the best jobs are going to be had by 8 a.m. So being on time, being truly the best, truly not getting callbacks, not getting warranty situations, really being able to actually complete the jobs, proving that you are a level three level four, where I'm not having to go bail you out. I don't mind billing you out, because I want us as a team to maintain the customer satisfaction and make sure they're happy. But at the same time, you couldn't do it yourself. So like, privately, we both know you're not a level three. You know, on a sidebar conversation. So those guys make a lot of money. I mean, you're talking big jobs.
Speaker 4Yeah. So are they selling and doing their own work for your team? Like back. The problem is that I got to tell them, because I know you have a root herd. You got to do excavation work. So I was just selling and doing.
Speaker 2We have one or two guys that are kind of like unicorns where we'll like review whatever they're doing. They oftentimes get put on the larger jobs. And a lot of times those are really, really, really large bids. So those go back into the office. And we'll really make sure that we're crossing all of our teas and dotting our ads. Because a lot of times there's, you know, find it details that you need to make sure that you're taking care. However, you know, whenever the job gets awarded, we don't take that away from them just because we help them with it. You know, it's there, you know, they got the sell on it, they got the commission, they got the praise, you know, the parade, all of the things. And then there are jobs. We have, you know, we use like the Chris fresh program. So, you know, we go in there and, you know, there's a calculator. That way it's all standardized. It makes it better for our customers, so everybody's getting. You know, you don't the last thing you want to do is somebody loved your work and they told their neighbor and it literally could be across the street or next door and then that person calls you him for literally probably the same thing and you're hoping that it's slightly different jobs. You can talk about it differently, but so many times it's the exact same job. You want to make sure they're priced the same. So making sure we have pricing consistency across the board, you know, we're doing, you know, that pricing and then if the technician feels relationship he's built on site with the customer, he can go ahead and deliver those options. If for some reason, he starts to feel like, hey, this is outside of my comfort zone. Like, could somebody help me with this? You know, we have service managers that jump in, and then we'll call the customer, work through the options, work through what it means, kind of educate the customer, and work on helping them secure that option three.
Speaker 4So, so you guys are 100% commission. Is that what I hear then? So, a raise commission is that a commission on revenue or a commission on labor.
Speaker 2Missed on revenue.
Speaker 4Revenue, okay. So you have one flat on total, total ticket, commission, okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, that way is not complicated. And then honestly, yeah, it honestly, it helps with recruitment. I mean, it's technically a lower percentage than some of the companies around here, advertised, but whenever you actually do the math and we've had guys come in and want to just run the number like, hey, if I did this job specifically, what would it look like? And you know, we're very upfront at honest anger, or unhappy, or, you know, it not be a lasting relationship, you know, it takes time money for me to train you. And, you know, I don't want you to come in and be angry, because then you're going to go back and where you've next home is, or if you go back to the other one, then you're just telling the supply house is the other guy has, you know, I want you to come in and it'd be a good fit. I don't want you to come in if it's not.
Speaker 4Yeah. So I'm going to follow up on the thing here and then let somebody else come in here. So I heard you talk about Chris Fresh. I know Chris. By the way. You know, Chris, he's great. He's funny. He's awesome. The training's awesome. The plumbing sales coach. And I noticed in the notes, I think, from your husband, the rackey mode, he mentioned Chris and the plumbing sales coach and the notes, or maybe you wrote those notes for him, I don't know. In the notes for that. For that.
Speaker 5Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 4I don't want to save it and then you mentioned that training said, hey, a lot of this training was it like so what did you guys bring that training in and why and what's been the massive benefit for your team around having, you know, a third party come in and do some training for me. What what do you guys learn from that and what what really changed for you because I saw your notes had mentioned your average ticket. I think went from 800 to 1300 is that roughly correctly. Yeah, I mean, something to change. You just don't jump from eight to, you know, 1,300 overnight, right? You know, sometimes we see average tickets and I can probably, you're working on stuff for a long time to see like a $30 bump, right? So, you know, sometimes it's a big jump, but that's a big swing. So what happened?
Speaker 2So, you know, they're a great team. Amazing. I would, I think that, We started kind of talking with them about August, roughly last year, and then joined the program, and then obviously you accelerate through the program, you know, their steps to it and whatnot. I mean, you can watch the videos. You can, you know, you can see the statistics and everything else for yourself. It's a great, it's a great program. It helps a lot with, obviously learning how to talk to customers, you know, we already focused very, very heavily on customer service. I think the big one of the biggest shifts for us was, you know, after stepping away from the national brand, Well, what are our processes? You know, we had a few that were more so around, you know, AR situations because we do have customers that we build. We have a pretty large commercial side that you know, we have a lot of relationships with people. So we had a few processes around that, but other than that, you know, it was kind of just like the wall wall west, I guess. You know, it was like, what are we doing today and how creative are we gonna get? And I'm like, okay, maybe we're just being too creative. Maybe we need to have, no, this is how you do it, and I would say that honestly for us, because we already had a really good handle on how to do parts of the process. And I think the other thing that JP always says that I really think he puts it the best is, you know, we already knew how to make grandma's cookie recipe, but I think we were doing it in the wrong order.
Speaker 4That's fair. I think we can all relate to that at times.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you know, if you're, if you're doing it out of order, you know, you're not going to have the same product every time. And, you know, the order is really, really important, you know, some of the steps that they, they do there, you know, we won't obviously, you know, and we won't bore everybody in the world about that. We just, hey, go check them out. They're really amazing. You know, outside of just the sales process itself, I think the processes were so incredibly important. And you know, that's something that it's really, it takes you years in business to like, okay, cool. We're going to sit down and create processes. It's a good idea. And you know, everybody says that they're going to do it differently if they're the business owner. But I mean, we're all business owners unless being honest, I mean, nothing ever goes like you said it was going to go before you started your business.
Speaker 3How do you guys being a husband and wife kind of model, I work with my brother, work with my dad for a time? How do you guys kind of divide and conquer? What are some of the kind of swim lanes that you guys have set up to be successful? Cause obviously you've experienced a lot of success. So, and obviously what works for you guys may not work for someone else, but I think that there's a lot of in the trades, there's a lot of family business that, trying to navigate all of these, you know, both personal and professional things and trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2So ours is a little traditional, you know, yes, we're, you know, a husband wife duo, we've got some other family in the mix as well. You will probably catch me out in the field more. I'm going to go check it on the customer, I'm going to go check it on the guy, I'm going to go take the water gatorade, you know, if there's somebody who's, you know, either experiencing a, you know, a complicated situation with a customer, or maybe they're just not understanding, you know, a large customer bid where we need to go on site and have a meeting, you know, you'll probably find me there nine times out of ten. There's a couple of things that J.P. go on site and do that just fall more into his expertise, but, you know, I hold a lot of licensing myself. you know master plumber mechanical contractor as well as licensed and um subject pumping and install so um you know i don't get in a lot of situations that i i'm like over my head out in the field um you know out there um helping the guys just you know sometimes when you're looking at it from like a 10,000 you know foot view versus you know oh i'm you know sitting here and i've been messing with this repite for you know six hours straight and I'm just going cross-eyed. You know, sometimes you can come in and like look at it from a different perspective, give on a different, okay, let's, you know, it's clearly not working like that. We had a situation yesterday that one of the other guys secured something and then another job he had bidded, you know, that he was specific for popped off. So then we had two things that, you know, divide and conquer. So we said one of the guys there and the way that it was scoped it is wouldn't work. But we didn't know that till we opened the lawn, I'm like, that's fine. Just upgrade it to like a small little mini repite. I was like you you're just beating your head against the wall you you're not going to be able to purpose that and you're not going to be a desire that it's not it's not going to do so let's just strap that idea and let's we need a new we need a new water line just back your ears and just do it.
Speaker 3Where do you guys see so, you know, in kind of preparing for this obviously you have water treatment in your name and I don't think that's always for the traditional plumber something that's always a big focus it's kind of like, well, yeah, we offer it were a plumber. How have you guys been able to leverage that? Obviously it's front and center so like how do you how do you guys think about water treatment as it pertains to kind of the plumbing scope of of work as a whole?
Speaker 2So as plumbers, I mean, you know, we go all the way back to, you know, you're protecting people's health. You know, we kind of go back all the way really to the very, very fundamentals of it. You know, protecting health, you know, we don't, we do not discuss it as like, you know, oh my gosh, you have to get this or you're gonna get cancer. You know, it's no. You're, I don't know, you might, I'm not a doctor, you know, it's not healthy for you, it's in bad condition. You know, we have a couple of areas that we service here, you know, zip codes and whatnot that have. It's not terrible, but it's very, very high levels of like chlorine, you know, had a lot of rural areas where there's wells involved, a lot of older homes with copper, and really the way that we go about is just the education portion. You know, I'm going to educate you once you need to have, once you should have, we have, you know, a lot of folks here that love their tankless, you know, water heaters. And I'm not telling you, you have to have the whole full-blown thing, but I am telling you to maintain your warranty. You've got to have something on it. You know, it's just providing education, but in a clear, concise, true fashion and not like, oh, you're going to die. Because you're going to get cancer if you don't have this. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I mean, you know, I don't know what you had going on before. jeans and your history, you know, that's I think that's just very unfair to sell something on, you know, scare tactics sort of situations. And I think that's one of those areas in plumbing that gets so highly misused, really in my opinion. I think that that really really gets misused. And, you know, we have a lot of areas where we have like really, really old piping, you know, like I said, whether it's copper, you know, Gavin, it's just, and it's disgusting. We have one yesterday that the water literally looked like you'd picked up mud puddle water. I'm not talking to as bad for you. I'm just telling you it's disgusting.
Speaker 4You're very involved with what's happening in the field. So you're like, what's it? It is to Chad's direction. I think historically, not to sound the only, it's like, usually husband's a plumber as the license that goes to the field. Sounds like you have a lot of licenses and you're in the field. So you're probably going to put it jobs, you're engaged, you're out in the workforce, you're, you know, going to jobs, give us a chance.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I'm giving the guys other ideas, you know, just sometimes, you know, when they always tell them, like, look, we are there to address whatever their plumbing concern is. However, if we're only addressing, you know, kind of to go back with the fresh program, if we're only addressing what they called us out there for, and I have, sometimes you have to do it with like tough love, you know, and a female's going to get away with the tough love because we're like moms. And, you know, it's how I'm okay. If we're only addressing, The problem that they call here, hallowed us out here for us. Say it's a broken faucet or whatever. They are the plumber. We are handymen. I'm not handyman. So I was like, we better put our plumber hats on and figure out what's causing the, you know, faucet plate, break, because I was like, you know, all the brands delta, mo and whatever, you know, have multi years, sometimes very, very long. Oftentimes, you know, limited life time, whatever, warranties. I'm like, those companies wouldn't put that on there. If they didn't feel confident in what they're putting on the label, that it's printed, it's nationally known. There has to be something else. If we're not diagnosing what caused it to break, we're not doing them any service. That's a broke fix. Okay, you fixed the one item that broke this time. What about next time?
Speaker 4Yeah. So I guess to move, to kind of move from all of this, it's like, what's next for you guys? Like, you think about your family's next million, which you market, you're one trade, which I like. Right, plumbing, drain the left, plumbing the drain. I guess, right, kind of one trade in the area. I guess we need to throw water treatment there. But still really one trade. Your name basically is going to keep the amount in that realm. That you're going to do another rebrand.
UNKNOWNNo.
Speaker 4No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Speaker 2Right. So just continue to grow continuing to scale, um, but scaling properly, you know, sometimes you can just explode, but then it cost you money to make money and then, you know, sometimes you end up going backwards, you know, and a really harsh way in a way that is. very detrimental to your business. So, you know, if you're scaling at that point, you know, yes, we want to continue to grow, you know, potentially tossing around a couple of different things, you know, whether it's, we want to, you know, expand into other areas as in geographic, you know, just continuing to grow and be better, constantly being better. You know, we have a lot of brands in our area. So being the, you know, quality mom and pop, you know, not just a mom and pop because it's like a little town or like a little business, but being, you know, a really good quality one. There's certain areas where like, oh, yeah, you've got to go there, you know, and it's not a national brand or a store name or anything of that nature. So just continue and just continue to serve our customers and our clients in the best way that we can to give them a good quality service and product.
Speaker 5And that gets you to 10. Simple as that.
Speaker 2And 10 to hopefully, and beyond at some point, you got to take these in steps. I don't think you can just like, oh, yeah, we're just going to go to 20. I don't make this a decision you make. Yeah. And I mean, you're asking about our dynamic. J.P. is really, really, really great at inspiring people. He also holds a few of the licenses as well, and has a really, really, really, wide array of plumbing knowledge, especially about larger larger systems, like commercial type systems. He was in like the Chicago area for a while, and he's working on a lot of things that some of the people have it seen around here, and until you get into the larger buildings, we have a couple of buildings here in the downtown area that are like the high-rise type, you know, so sometimes they're piped in that way, so, you know, you have somebody come in and they're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't even know I'm looking at or where this goes or why are there so many pipes and you know, are they all plumbing? You know, and so that's really helpful. He also really, really gets involved with the excavation side and the subject team. So you know, like if the guys go out and they secure something that requires an excavator, you know, we have a team that actually does that. I don't expect a plumber to be, you know, fluent in, you know, how to operate an excavator well.
Speaker 5Chad, you know, run an excavator. Nope. It's a brother does.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5Well, I imagine that you all, I think if I remember correct, like Columbia, Columbia, South Carolina is like 150,000 or something where somewhere around that number. I think if I was given being generous as the population, is it somewhere in that space, if I could be off actually, but I think it's around there somewhere. You also have to scale into other markets. Like that's, I think that has to happen as well.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, it's a really large area, so it's not just the Columbia zip codes. I mean, it's it's Columbia is like kind of like the pin on the map, but if you go, you know, approximately say like 45 minutes in a circle.
Speaker 5Sure. Yeah, so you're in your kind of encompassing like a lot of smaller downs. There's a lot of rural rural area here.
Speaker 2Lots of Lots of windshield times sometimes, but it's worth it. And we do our intake team is really, really great about understanding where something is and what the customer's asking. So we're not sending the wrong technician. We really, really focus on getting the right guy out there. And the guys also know, like, look, we're going to do everything we can to keep you in pockets because, You know, we're just eating through so much time and a day we have to get to as many customers as possible, you know, both for their check, but also, you know, the bottom line, you know, if we're sending them from, you know, one area to somewhere really far, they understand, they just were the best tech for the call.
Speaker 5Yeah, make sense. Well, I, I think, uh, I mean, I guess really real quick for ask that question is, as far as you're pricing there, as you mentioned there being a lot of big brands, you know, that you're competing against is you're pricing that comparable to theirs, higher lower, where you kind of fall in that range.
Speaker 2I think it is. Valley more logical. I mean, sometimes I'm not gonna lie. I mean, sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's higher, but it depends on the work that we're doing, because it's probably not Apple's to Apple's. And that's the one thing that we try to have the conversation with when customers are calling us, and they're like, I got this quote, and I'm like, well, if you want to send the quote over, To our, you know, our general inbox, we're happy to look at it. We would love to look at it. We'd actually love to look at it and have the conversation with you and just educate you on what they're quoting versus what we're quoting because very, very often times if it's at the quote to far apart, we're not quoting the same work.
Speaker 5Totally. I understand. I just, as I'm thinking through just your growth, I'm thinking through like the basic things that you can scale with, like, never-serious pricing, you know.
Speaker 2I think the, you know, the plumbing sales coach program really helped a lot with the pricing. It helped, um, we were all over the place. So I'm not gonna say that it got every single average ticket up because we had some guys that were, you know, great at hitting a home run. But, um, we also were trying to, We were trying to, you know, bring that in because we wanted it to be ethical. Like if it's worth that, okay, great, charge that, you know, but make it, make it be worth its while. Like someone has to, like, understand what they're paying for, you know, go to the best by analogy. No one went into best by about the, the larger TV and the whole home, you know, sonos or whatever fancy, It sounds system. You went in there, but then when you're coming back out, you're fully prepared to talk to your significant other about why you spent what you spent because you were educated on it. And it was worth it to you that they explained why it was worth it. And I was like, you know, if the homeowner accepts it and it makes sense and it's not unethical, you know, but trying to just make it all more cohesive, I guess.
Speaker 5Okay. Did you have something you're going to say, buddy? Where you go?
Speaker 4I was going to say, I think that the idea here is like started business, obviously, got to change around brought into some specialized training. I think that's always unique. I think people need to never forget that the network, the training, the opportunities, right? So, you know, now it's your independent. You know, from your thing, you obviously said your franchise business that you work with. I probably gave you tools and resources that you've learned from the news step down. You said, oh, some of the areas we may not be strong at is maybe sale, right, or whatever. I'm just using that example because you guys brought Chris and who has a great program. And I've had Chris on our site here and he's a great guy in a great program. So I think it's important to understand, like finding those niche areas and finding the one thing that really focuses towards your trade, your partner in plumbing trade only and you found Coach of everything, right? So I think that's important too to do, but from this step now like how what you and so you have a plumbing coach You work with them for I think they have some coaching stuff too, but are you joining in a network or are you part of a network? Do you just plan on joining like a next door or network to keep your engagement to learn to network with like how are you guys now Building your network of information and how do you individually as leaders now get better without that source as we come to the end of the podcast here
Speaker 2So we've always been very, very involved in the whole networking of the entire area, you know, we've been in those groups before. It's really tough because, you know, There's a lot of ins and outs of those that just are tough in the plumbing world, whether it be timing or whatnot, passing or furl stuff like that. So we've always been very, very involved in the network here. We were always really, really great prior to this, you know, at networking and being social and being community focused, you know, we've continued to do that along. that's not something that change or will change, you know, we're very, very involved in, you know, different organizations, the community, there's, you know, one of the organizations that we're looking at currently is one of the ones for, you know, women in construction because, you know, we, we are, you know, women on business, even though we're family operated. And, you know, I grew up in construction, so you know, I see the excitement, you know, and it's always great to pour back into, you know, the youth, you know, you're pouring into the woman of the house, you know, she's calling you, you know, then you're educating her, so she can go talk about it knowledgely to her husband, then her husband's like, well, yeah, of course, you know, like if you can tell me that's much about it, then maybe it is amazing, you know, and it's really just full circle and, you know, it all starts with literally just education.
Speaker 5Okay, this, I think this is actually going to be a great closing question for you, I see.
Speaker 2You say the hardest one for last.
Speaker 5No, it's going to be the hardest for you. like you're going to hit it at on. And that's actually why I didn't know I was going to ask it or not, but just because of your personality, you know, I think that this is, I think you're going to give a really, really great candid, not sugar-coated response. So I'm sorry for it. But I have just one last question for you, okay? Now Um, you guys think I can ask the Hill question or she asks the broken question.
Speaker 4I don't think she might go on though. Let's go on the broken question. Okay. I'm just going to give a hand there.
Speaker 5Okay. All right, Lacey. Ready? Our closing question is, what is broken? What is broken in the home services industry? Okay, so think about all your peers, all these standards, all right, what's broken in the home services industry, but nobody wants to admit it?
Speaker 2Oh, so much. Oh my gosh. Wow. How much time do we have left?
Speaker 3Thank you very much.
Speaker 2So I mean, I would like to start with firstly customer service, you know, everybody wants to phone to ring, but after it rings, what are you doing with it? Are you calling them back to keep them updated? Are you making sure they understand that you understand what they even need? Are you making sure that they understand what the technician is, you know, given them as the diagnosis and how that pertains to the quote or quotes, you know, the licensing, oh my gosh, and insurance, those go hand in hand in my mind. Like I said, COVID really broke that whole thing for everybody. You know, all of us, you know, hardworking business owners that have worked so long and hard to get everything is like, I can do this, I can be a business and like, oh my god, please don't. You know, customer service licensing, you know, furthering education, yes, there is a tried and true way of doing it. But you know, you have all these companies out there that do these services that I won't name. I don't want anybody to feel like they're being called out, but there's a very, very, very expensive services that are, you know, like more of that, they're marketed as minimally invasive. And I'm like, okay, that's great. They're very expensive. They're, they're out of the ball part for most people. By the time they pay for that, they could probably do the invasive way. And if you were very creative, you could probably somehow get discovered by their homeowners insurance, or at least part of it. And it's just, you know, constantly staying on top of, new technology because it's released every day. I mean, let's be honest. And there's so many other ways to do things that are so much more, you know, sometimes effective or cost effective for our clients. And then, you know, you're educating them on, no, there's a better way to do this, or no, I would not do that. You know, I had a customer calling and she was like, I just want you to tell me what this means. And I was like, okay, no problem. Let's go through it. Simply that And she was like, yes, I was like, no. I was like, by the time you paid that, you could have, you know, jackhammered your concrete, replaced what they were trying to replace, put down the new concrete and probably somehow in the middle of everything, work with your homeowners policy and your, you know, adjuster and gotten half of it covered under possibly your insurance, or just done a refresh in your house. You know, I was like, you probably were thinking about doing it anyway. And, you know, now you don't have a reason to not, you know, it's like, well, you just took that reason out of it, but now you paid three times or more for what the, you know, scope of work was. So, you know, I think there's so many things, gosh, that was a loaded question.
Speaker 5Let's see that and you clearly had an opinion on it so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2I don't know most everything.
Speaker 5Yeah, I can see that. Listen, I trust me. I understand. I'm married a type as well.
Speaker 2Yeah, we did call it like I'm very passionate.
Speaker 5We'll call it passion. I'm sorry, passion. I think that the conversation with you when you guys are at 29 and I have no doubt that you'll get there just based on your job alone, I'll be interested to hear your perspective on some of these same questions at that time to see what has changed. Um, just having, you know, like these guys know have, you know, have been through that phase and, you know, and been where you are and like all the things it's just interesting to see what you learn with the growth that you're like, oh, okay, maybe that won't this part wasn't as big of a deal as this side over here and like, oh, I really do gotta focus on this thing to scale the business and like, I don't think the grassroots stuff ever really goes away. I think that always a big fan of it. And, you know, and when you're in a community like you're in, like, I think you have to do that to build, you know, to build the community, to build relationships and you guys have done a great job at that. So, well listen, I'll say what, this is a pleasant surprise. Not because you are not, like, I wasn't, I just wasn't expecting you in the first place, right? So this was a really great, really great episode. And, and I'm glad it was, I'm glad you're on your Lacy. So I appreciate you give this time and you're moving about to your business.
Speaker 2I appreciate being here and it was really great talking to you guys and like you said I look forward to looking back on this and be like, Pasha, I was so naive.
Speaker 4Well, a lot of the right things, Lacey, and if a pleasure to have you on here down, love your enthusiasm for what you do. And I think maybe, as I reflect back around the time, my business was a size to 10 million. It's a really fun, enjoyable, treasurable time in your business to build those relationships and build rapport and have a lot of fun. It's still a tight net group of people, really exciting times for you right now. So very happy for you guys. So congratulations on your success.
Speaker 2Thank you.
Speaker 5All right. Well, I think that's a that's a wrap for this scene. We're at the top of the hour of 53. I think we're almost 54 or five minutes into this thing, which I didn't know it would go along. So we went over a little bit, but that's okay because it was a good conversation, but Lacy could luck to you and John. And maybe the next time we'll meet John and you and you both. We'll see. But keep on doing what you do. The doubt you guys will hit your 10 million dollar number probably sooner than you even think. Um, and by the way, for your first podcast, you did pretty damn good your first podcast. So nice job. Of course you crushed it now as I wouldn't as I would expect from you by now. So to our listeners, you know, let's sometimes you don't have all the answers, but you got to do something. So whatever you do, don't talk about it, be about it. So until next time, we'll see you.
Speaker 0What's the password?
Speaker 1Don't talk about it, be about it.
