Latest / The Turn: Blue Collar to Billions / She Sold a $129M Company Without Running a Sale Process

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She Sold a $129M Company Without Running a Sale Process · The Turn: Blue Collar to Billions

• 0:01
  Kory Mitchell: Welcome back to The Turn.
• 0:02
  Kory Mitchell: I'm Kory Mitchell of Iconic Founders.
• 0:05
  Kory Mitchell: Last week we connected with Theresa Eaton.
• 0:07
  Kory Mitchell: She bought an electrical contracting business.
• 0:10
  Kory Mitchell: She put debt on it and had to put a personal guarantee on the business.
• 0:15
  Kory Mitchell: She went through a ton of struggles in the beginning.
• 0:18
  Kory Mitchell: But the story of how she grew it and ultimately sold it is amazing.
• 0:22
  Kory Mitchell: So let's get into it.
• 0:24
  Kory Mitchell: Going to some of these improvements that you brought to the table, what were, you know, you called it a dusty diamond.
• 0:31
  Kory Mitchell: I love that, because that's not a term that I've heard before.
• 0:34
  Kory Mitchell: Uh, and I'm definitely going to use it.
• 0:36
  Kory Mitchell: What were some of the things that you, you know, you brought to the table to the business that helped it to operate better?
• 0:44
  Kory Mitchell: And you talked about business development.
• 0:46
  Kory Mitchell: But were there other tools, whether it be technology or CRM or whatever it might be, that where you took this dusty diamond that had sort of an old way of doing things, very old school, and brought it into the future?
• 1:02
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 1:02
  Theresa Eaton: Um, yes, we implemented Net Suite.
• 1:06
  Theresa Eaton: So we were on QuickBooks and we did the whole Net Suite conversion.
• 1:09
  Theresa Eaton: And that, not gonna lie, it was painful, but very, very additive to the company long term.
• 1:16
  Theresa Eaton: And so everyone really bought in over the time that it took to kind of go live.
• 1:22
  Theresa Eaton: We really streamhouse, uh, streamlined, excuse me, our warehouse operations, kind of basic stuff, but that we hadn't been doing, even just like picking and receiving, having separation of shifts, more delineated, having different roles, having a safety person, you know, things like that that were real basic, but just again, hadn't been done at this mom and pop type organization.
• 1:44
  Theresa Eaton: And then also, this sounds silly, but having things not bureaucratic and not overly processed, but having a defined cadence for certain things.
• 1:56
  Theresa Eaton: So we did have a managers' meeting where every Monday, and that happened before me, so I don't want to, you know, take credit for that, but all The managers of procurement of um the warehouse, of finance, of sales, of IT, and then me, we all get together every Monday and we still do that.
• 2:16
  Theresa Eaton: But then we did that within the division.
• 2:19
  Theresa Eaton: So we, you know, kind of man, I mandated that, hey, if you're leading this whole sales team, you guys need to have, even if it's a bi-weekly meeting and have some accountability and have a certain program that you go through in those meetings.
• 2:31
  Theresa Eaton: And again, it's so basic, but when you're coming into a business that's just been operating in The same way for 40 years, even these little levers really do make an impact.
• 2:41
  Theresa Eaton: So we also, of course, did that with our customers, and they were shocked and surprised that suddenly Wecs wanted to have a every other week meeting with them to review our current projects and potential joint forecasted project projects.
• 2:54
  Theresa Eaton: But that was not something we did before that.
• 2:57
  Theresa Eaton: It was just very, like I said, answer the phone.
• 2:59
  Theresa Eaton: So all these kind of just basic things that, again, the dusty diamond just needed to be shined up.
• 3:07
  Kory Mitchell: Well, look, they might sound basic, but I see 80, 90% of businesses in the country that I work with that that that are similar, like they're $20, $30 million revenue businesses that also are missing those basics.
• 3:21
  Kory Mitchell: And um, you know, it takes an outside perspective often to, you know, give people those ideas.
• 3:27
  Kory Mitchell: And it also takes someone who's who's open to change.
• 3:32
  Kory Mitchell: And so many founders, you know, just don't really want to change because you know what, I'm making good money.
• 3:37
  Kory Mitchell: Um, you know, what it ain't broke, why would I why would I fix it?
• 3:41
  Kory Mitchell: Which is kind of like what you walked into.
• 3:43
  Kory Mitchell: A whole bunch of people say, we're doing it this way.
• 3:45
  Kory Mitchell: Like, why are you messing with a good thing?
• 3:47
  Theresa Eaton: Yes.
• 3:47
  Kory Mitchell: Um what about like how, you know, you mentioned like this sales reporting, but in terms of how you thought about transparency, whether it be like dashboarding or some kind of KPIs, how did you think about um communicating how the business was doing or projects were doing with each of the various teams?
• 4:10
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 4:10
  Theresa Eaton: So that was another thing that we implemented was I launched a quarterly business review internally.
• 4:17
  Theresa Eaton: So everybody had and has KPIs and KSIs, key strategic initiatives.
• 4:25
  Theresa Eaton: And then they actually, I put the onus on them.
• 4:29
  Theresa Eaton: So finance, for instance, or procurement or sales, but come up with your what you want to achieve for the next year and then put it into an X at the time Excel spreadsheet.
• 4:41
  Theresa Eaton: And just we're gonna track this every quarter and have a discussion about where we are in the continuum as it relates to progress.
• 4:47
  Theresa Eaton: And so, you know, I think having them come up with their own and and also the benchmarking, like where they expected to be and what the actual KPUI is, was very helpful because they had some sense of, well, I came up with this and accountability and ownership.
• 5:03
  Theresa Eaton: So I like that, and that's something we've continued to do.
• 5:07
  Theresa Eaton: Sometimes we get busy and we have to reschedule it, but definitely quarterly.
• 5:11
  Theresa Eaton: We also have monthly kind of deep dives where we go and each talk about our division for, you know, about 30 minutes each.
• 5:20
  Theresa Eaton: So it's kind of a two-hour session because I have five different divisions.
• 5:24
  Theresa Eaton: So that kind of again, taking a moment to get away from the day-to-day hectic fray and just do a quick, not that quick, but 30 minutes quick for each division dive into it and just in that way people get talking and may notice other things about the division that they've had to deal with and be able to have an open, safe space to be able to talk about it.
• 5:48
  Kory Mitchell: So just to be clear, you did that all together, right?
• 5:52
  Kory Mitchell: So these five divisions are all talking for a half hour.
• 5:55
  Kory Mitchell: It's another thing I see that's a big mistake is all these, you know, sort of one-on-one meetings that are siloed, right?
• 6:02
  Kory Mitchell: So you're actually you know, cross-communicating so that The individual team members are coming up with their own, you know, these rocks or whatever you call them, depending on what your systems are, in terms of long-term goals.
• 6:13
  Kory Mitchell: I love that.
• 6:14
  Kory Mitchell: I mean, that's really how value is created.
• 6:17
  Kory Mitchell: But then you're also cross-pollinating so everyone else knows what the others are doing.
• 6:22
  Kory Mitchell: It also allows theoretically for the team to collaborate and help one another out to win together.
• 6:28
  Theresa Eaton: I agree.
• 6:29
  Theresa Eaton: And it makes it kind of humanizes it when people hear about others' goals or fears or oh, this is a bottleneck I'm facing or really sucked at doing this.
• 6:38
  Theresa Eaton: And it makes people have more empathy for the other, especially if they're sometimes a little bit at odds, like maybe finance and sales, or you know, the warehouse ops and sales or whatever it may be.
• 6:49
  Theresa Eaton: And when they can hear the problems and and good things that are happening across the organization, I think it really builds trust.
• 6:57
  Kory Mitchell: So you you get this baby up to 120 million.
• 7:02
  Kory Mitchell: Um that's like 129.
• 7:05
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:06
  Theresa Eaton: I don't want to don't get me out of 9 million, please.
• 7:09
  Kory Mitchell: Well, yeah, nine is a lot of money.
• 7:10
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah, totally.
• 7:10
  Kory Mitchell: 129.
• 7:11
  Kory Mitchell: I mean, that's a real business, first of all.
• 7:14
  Kory Mitchell: That's a serious business.
• 7:15
  Kory Mitchell: What made you decide to think about selling the business?
• 7:18
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 7:19
  Theresa Eaton: I felt like I had added as much value to the low-hanging fruit that I personally could bring to the table and the team that I had.
• 7:29
  Theresa Eaton: My personal guarantees had thankfully been relinquished at that point.
• 7:32
  Theresa Eaton: I had negotiated if we struck a certain level of profitability in EBITDA that they would never be reinstated and after that.
• 7:39
  Theresa Eaton: And so when we hit that mark about two years ago, that thankfully was removed.
• 7:44
  Theresa Eaton: But there's still an inordinate amount of pressure on you as a you know majority sole business owner.
• 7:51
  Theresa Eaton: And so I wanted to do this, but I wanted it to do it on an accelerated basis with a bigger team and be able to really target the market that I'm in while it's hot.
• 8:01
  Theresa Eaton: Because I do think if you do not act and you're not even, frankly, a first mover, you're already behind.
• 8:06
  Theresa Eaton: And so for me, us hitting the market on the data center side as fast as we possibly could with no errors was like the key to success.
• 8:16
  Theresa Eaton: And in order to do that in the best way possible, we needed a partner.
• 8:20
  Theresa Eaton: So that's why I took on the private equity partner that I did.
• 8:23
  Theresa Eaton: Now, the thing that was interesting to me and that I love about this partner is that the chairperson of now at WECS, who's uh one of the co-founders of the firm, he was CEO of one of my larger competitors for many years.
• 8:40
  Theresa Eaton: So he has deep electrical knowledge.
• 8:42
  Theresa Eaton: He also was the former boss's boss's boss.
• 8:46
  Theresa Eaton: He was the top boss of my chief commercial officer, my CEO.
• 8:51
  Theresa Eaton: And so there was that inherent trust and understanding both in the marketplace as well as his character and his ability to add value.
• 8:59
  Theresa Eaton: So that was also a big driver for me.
• 9:02
  Theresa Eaton: Um, and then they had a desire to buy another one of my competitors that's actually in a different market in the Power Gen space and merge them together.
• 9:14
  Theresa Eaton: That uh competitor had a lot more basically cable management services associated with it.
• 9:20
  Theresa Eaton: So cutting and paralleling and pulling heads and stocking of master reels and doing all the things.
• 9:26
  Theresa Eaton: We were really more of a straight distributor, didn't have all that we had the knowledge and could do takeoffs and all that stuff.
• 9:33
  Theresa Eaton: We didn't have the skills to do all of the kind of boots on the ground type work on the cable.
• 9:38
  Theresa Eaton: And so when the private equity firm said, hey, we also want you to get to know this company because we'd like to buy the two of you or invest in the two of you concurrently, that was a huge draw too.
• 9:48
  Theresa Eaton: Because at that point, the hyperscalers and all their GCs and electrical contractors were asking WECS to provide those services.
• 9:55
  Theresa Eaton: And we didn't, we were gonna fall behind.
• 9:58
  Kory Mitchell: So just so I understand, did did they come to you like unsolicited and asked to make an investment, or did you run some kind of a sell-side process?
• 10:09
  Theresa Eaton: I did not run any kind of sales-side process.
• 10:11
  Theresa Eaton: I put a few feelers out, including obviously, I think we've talked a lot about it today, but transparency with your key team, really across the organization.
• 10:22
  Theresa Eaton: I didn't talk about this across the organization, but I did with my key team.
• 10:26
  Theresa Eaton: So my chief commercial officer knew that we were looking to take on a partner.
• 10:31
  Theresa Eaton: I had given him some equity in the business.
• 10:33
  Theresa Eaton: So he was excited about it as well.
• 10:36
  Theresa Eaton: And then he just kind of thought through his Rolodex.
• 10:39
  Theresa Eaton: I thought through my Rolodex.
• 10:40
  Theresa Eaton: And then he said, I think this guy who used to be my CEO of my company when I was a peon, I'm pretty sure he's at this PE firm.
• 10:48
  Theresa Eaton: And I was like, oh, that's so interesting.
• 10:50
  Theresa Eaton: It's so great to find a PE guy who has really great ops experience and leadership capabilities.
• 10:55
  Theresa Eaton: And he wasn't going to run the company, but he was gonna, you know, get involved and become chairman.
• 10:59
  Theresa Eaton: And so I think what happened was my CCO put a fueler out through a mutual connection to this guy.
• 11:07
  Theresa Eaton: And then that guy immediately called us and said, Hey, can we have a meeting, please?
• 11:10
  Theresa Eaton: And so that's how it all kind of snowballed.
• 11:13
  Kory Mitchell: If you've ever wondered what your business is worth, these are the conversations I have with owners of blue-collar industry businesses all the time.
• 11:21
  Kory Mitchell: We work just in the construction industry.
• 11:24
  Kory Mitchell: And because we're in the market, we look at what valuations are, we look at what buyers actually want to see.
• 11:31
  Kory Mitchell: And so that helps us work with our clients to prepare their business to maximize the value.
• 11:38
  Kory Mitchell: And so whether you're selling now or selling in 20 years, these are lessons that we have learned, and it will just make your business better and definitely more value.
• 11:48
  Kory Mitchell: Reach out to us at iconicfounders.com.
• 11:51
  Kory Mitchell: Send us a note at info at iconicfounders.com.
• 11:56
  Kory Mitchell: So, you know, one of the things I do for clients is I try to get, you know, higher value and create value and all these things to make sure that owners get the most money at transaction as well as get the right partner.
• 12:08
  Kory Mitchell: Sounds like you'd kind of targeted a partner to a certain degree, but how do you figure out how to price the asset?
• 12:15
  Kory Mitchell: How do you make sure you're getting the right deal when you have no real leverage with a community of other buyers that are, you know, yeah, trying to, you know, get your business at the same time, to make sure you you get some leverage when you're negotiating.
• 12:29
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah, I think that's key.
• 12:31
  Theresa Eaton: And I think if I hadn't, first of all, I don't have any regrets on it.
• 12:35
  Theresa Eaton: They're a great partner, but in a different market that's not moving quite as fast in The need for speed in order to stay apprised of like, you know, on the cutting edge, I think running a process is great because you do really maximize value.
• 12:51
  Theresa Eaton: I had enough of a sense from my PE days, as well as also looking at transactions in the market that were disclosed to kind of know where we were.
• 13:01
  Theresa Eaton: But if they hadn't come to the table at that valuation, then you know, I wouldn't have done the deal.
• 13:08
  Theresa Eaton: And so I think having more opportunities of potential buyers and getting to cherry pick is wonderful.
• 13:16
  Theresa Eaton: So I really respect what you do because if, you know, I think it really protects a lot of sellers from getting a bad deal.
• 13:24
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah.
• 13:24
  Kory Mitchell: Well, look, you have some unusual skills for an electrical owner, right?
• 13:28
  Kory Mitchell: You know, having worked in a private equity fund.
• 13:30
  Kory Mitchell: And yeah, um, it's definitely um very unusual, um, really cool to see.
• 13:36
  Kory Mitchell: Um, so so you do the deal, you're happy with the number.
• 13:40
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 13:41
  Kory Mitchell: Um, it sounds like you rolled over equity and you still have ownership.
• 13:44
  Kory Mitchell: So maybe maybe tell us about what's eve what's evolved since the deal and you know, how the partnership has gone and maybe what's changed since the transaction.
• 13:53
  Theresa Eaton: When they first came to me, The PE firm, they said, would you like to be CEO of if we buy this other business and run the whole thing?
• 14:00
  Theresa Eaton: And I have to be honest, my ego is like, yeah, I want to do that.
• 14:04
  Theresa Eaton: But the last half decade was a lot.
• 14:07
  Theresa Eaton: Like I mentioned, there were a lot of different pieces that went into it.
• 14:10
  Theresa Eaton: And I just started thinking, you know, take the ego out of it.
• 14:15
  Theresa Eaton: You want to build something and have fun doing it, but I also want to just relax a little bit, like take the foot off the accelerator from going 120 every day to maybe going 80.
• 14:26
  Theresa Eaton: And so then I got to know the CEO of the other business, and he's an amazing guy, really nice person, but also as a good operator.
• 14:33
  Theresa Eaton: And I immediately felt trust.
• 14:35
  Theresa Eaton: And then I did a lot of calls and found out that trust was warranted.
• 14:39
  Theresa Eaton: And so I said we had this funny dinner where I said, okay, so I think I'd like, you know, you can be CEO of The whole thing.
• 14:45
  Theresa Eaton: And he goes, No, no, you can be CEO.
• 14:47
  Theresa Eaton: And we both pointed at each other and I said, I said it first.
• 14:50
  Theresa Eaton: So that was, you know, a bit of an emotional thing.
• 14:53
  Theresa Eaton: I can definitely set tell, like when someone like Bruce, who's not just The CEO, but the founder, and this is his baby 40 year, you know, for 40 years, how emotional that probably is.
• 15:04
  Theresa Eaton: This was just five years for me, and I it's still emotional, um, changing roles.
• 15:08
  Theresa Eaton: So I'm the Chief Strategy Officer now.
• 15:10
  Theresa Eaton: It's kind of interesting.
• 15:10
  Theresa Eaton: I'm the largest individual shareholder still.
• 15:14
  Theresa Eaton: So the PE firm being the majority, and then me.
• 15:16
  Theresa Eaton: Sure.
• 15:17
  Theresa Eaton: But it's really nice because A, I really trust the team.
• 15:21
  Theresa Eaton: And B, I'm again, not just it's not just my Chief Commercial Officer and me driving the growth.
• 15:28
  Theresa Eaton: Um, and granted, we have a lot of other great people on our team.
• 15:31
  Theresa Eaton: So I don't mean to just make it the two of us, but a lot of days when we have very stressful events or we might be losing a customer or had the sales team to deal with that walks out the door, it was him and me.
• 15:40
  Theresa Eaton: Um, and so now that we have this great team that's broader, it's like the same level of caliber, but just a bigger team and not as much, you know, personal balance sheet risk.
• 15:50
  Theresa Eaton: It's so much more fun.
• 15:51
  Kory Mitchell: When Theresa Eaton sold the company, she sold it to a private equity fund.
• 15:56
  Kory Mitchell: And interestingly, she did not hire an advisor.
• 16:00
  Kory Mitchell: She sold it to someone who was in the space who was a real expert.
• 16:04
  Kory Mitchell: They were on the board of advisors of this fund, and she was able to get comfortable that she would be surrounded by people who really knew what they were doing and who could really unlock value.
• 16:14
  Kory Mitchell: She decided to roll equity into that platform.
• 16:17
  Kory Mitchell: But what was interesting is she didn't take the CEO role.
• 16:21
  Kory Mitchell: She was able to actually accept the fact that there was another leader that she was excited about to run the company, to partner in one of the other businesses that she merged with.
• 16:31
  Kory Mitchell: Sometimes these private equity stories they end up really different.
• 16:35
  Kory Mitchell: In this case, she negotiated directly with the buyer.
• 16:38
  Kory Mitchell: She didn't run any kind of a process, and she's thrilled with the partnership so far.
• 16:42
  Kory Mitchell: I'm looking forward to seeing where it ends up on the other side when they grow this thing even more.
• 16:48
  Kory Mitchell: Okay, so you you close.
• 16:50
  Kory Mitchell: Now you're not the CEO, which is, you know, kind of strange, and you've got to set your ego aside.
• 16:55
  Kory Mitchell: But did did the PE make any immediate moves or changes that um, you know, that have shifted how the business operates?
• 17:03
  Theresa Eaton: No, you know, it's funny.
• 17:04
  Theresa Eaton: There are a few things that I will confess I delayed on doing once I decided I was going to take on a partner, sell the business, however you want to say it.
• 17:13
  Theresa Eaton: I waited because I thought they might be disruptive.
• 17:18
  Theresa Eaton: I disclosed things that I wanted to do, but I waited.
• 17:21
  Theresa Eaton: And The funny thing is, we haven't done them still.
• 17:26
  Theresa Eaton: And I think that is a difference when you take on a PE partner, is I do think they're very averse to making big sweeping changes in certain regards because they bought what they bought.
• 17:38
  Theresa Eaton: And so there's a little bit of that push and pull, but I also feel supported.
• 17:44
  Theresa Eaton: And as an example, like that Texas warehouse, it's it's over a million bucks a year that we pay for that thing.
• 17:50
  Theresa Eaton: And the PE firm didn't even blink an eye when we advocated for it and didn't have all the contracts lined up to, you know, make sure that we had that full and ready to go in terms of the customer demand.
• 18:03
  Theresa Eaton: We we already have it now, which is great.
• 18:05
  Theresa Eaton: But when we were making the decision two months ago, it wasn't all clear.
• 18:09
  Theresa Eaton: So, you know, the PE firm has been really supportive about our growth and taking big steps and making new hires, additional hires to support the team and grow.
• 18:17
  Theresa Eaton: But there are other things that I still would like to do that we just haven't, you know, addressed yet.
• 18:23
  Kory Mitchell: So at this point, I mean, you're still you're still in the business, you're still operating, you're a large shareholder.
• 18:29
  Kory Mitchell: Um do you think you're gonna stick around?
• 18:33
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Theresa Eaton: I'm gonna stick around until whatever the next iteration is.
• 18:36
  Theresa Eaton: And then after that, someone it can be someone else's full baby.
• 18:39
  Theresa Eaton: Um, for now, it's still just a lot of fun.
• 18:42
  Theresa Eaton: Like I said, it feels more fun.
• 18:44
  Theresa Eaton: I really respect the team.
• 18:45
  Theresa Eaton: We're getting so much traction with The customers.
• 18:47
  Theresa Eaton: Our market is super hot, rising tide lifts all boats.
• 18:50
  Theresa Eaton: So as long as we execute and then keep out, you know, our on our business development mission, which we're doing, and getting repeat business and having the, you know, the whole snowball effect, it's great.
• 19:02
  Theresa Eaton: Like there's no reason to to leave.
• 19:04
  Theresa Eaton: It is also nice to have a better chunk of change in my pocket, not gonna lie.
• 19:08
  Theresa Eaton: So that's that's a nice thing where I wake up in the morning and I'm just energized, energized about it rather than stressed.
• 19:17
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah.
• 19:17
  Kory Mitchell: So you you get liquidity.
• 19:20
  Kory Mitchell: Um, so what was that like?
• 19:22
  Kory Mitchell: And yeah, what yeah, like what do you like did anything change for you?
• 19:26
  Kory Mitchell: I mean, in terms of like given the size of the business, I can only interpret that you got a meaningful chunk of change.
• 19:32
  Kory Mitchell: And so, like, what changed for you emotionally or or whatever?
• 19:37
  Kory Mitchell: I guess what just what tell tell us what changed for you when that happened?
• 19:41
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah, you know, I think when you're when you own a business and especially, you know, we're a distributor, it's a sales organization at its heart.
• 19:50
  Theresa Eaton: We, of course, we have a lot of inventory and other things, but you're very people dependent.
• 19:55
  Theresa Eaton: So again, when the people walk out the door, as you've had experience with, it's terrifying and things can change on a dime.
• 20:02
  Theresa Eaton: Any day there's some new problem that can arise that can totally derail the business hypothetically.
• 20:08
  Theresa Eaton: So every day you wake up feeling, okay, well, this is a good day.
• 20:13
  Theresa Eaton: Phew.
• 20:13
  Theresa Eaton: Um, and you know, it when you go to bed at night, you have the same reaction, assuming it's been a good day.
• 20:19
  Theresa Eaton: Yet you still always feel, or I did, unsettled that knowing like something major could go wrong.
• 20:26
  Theresa Eaton: An employee could get hurt.
• 20:27
  Theresa Eaton: You don't want that to happen.
• 20:28
  Theresa Eaton: Also, they could sue you.
• 20:29
  Theresa Eaton: So even though you have DNO insurance, it's still, is it enough?
• 20:32
  Theresa Eaton: You know, all these things.
• 20:34
  Theresa Eaton: And so I do think when you sell the business, it just feels like you can take a big sigh of relief.
• 20:40
  Theresa Eaton: Um, I didn't do anything crazy other than after a month I bought myself a ridiculous car.
• 20:46
  Theresa Eaton: But other than that, I haven't done anything wild.
• 20:49
  Kory Mitchell: Well, I'm gonna ask you the literally the trillion dollar question.
• 20:54
  Theresa Eaton: Uh-oh.
• 20:55
  Kory Mitchell: So everybody in the world is predicting or guessing when The AI bubble is going to burst.
• 21:04
  Kory Mitchell: And you are really as close to it as anybody is in the country.
• 21:09
  Kory Mitchell: What's your feeling on how long this thing goes on?
• 21:15
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 21:16
  Theresa Eaton: You know, it is a really hard question to answer, I have to say.
• 21:20
  Theresa Eaton: One of the things I learned about being in the oil field is things can change on a dime.
• 21:26
  Theresa Eaton: So you don't know with big macro things, especially, and uh by the way, I learned this in solar too, when policy changes happen, there's regulation.
• 21:36
  Theresa Eaton: So I don't know is the short answer.
• 21:39
  Theresa Eaton: And I just don't want to guess because there could be any number of factors that could inhibit it, but the demand is outrageous in a positive way for anyone in the electrical world.
• 21:52
  Theresa Eaton: So that's why I wanted to roll forward so much equity going forward.
• 21:56
  Theresa Eaton: I wanted a safeguard, but I was like, oh, I cannot just run away at this point, right?
• 22:02
  Theresa Eaton: When things are really the trajectory is amazing.
• 22:04
  Theresa Eaton: And so I don't know.
• 22:05
  Theresa Eaton: But but to your point, there's a lot of backlash in the news.
• 22:08
  Theresa Eaton: You know, I met with one of the hyperscalers' chief lobbyists, and she said every day she is just fighting a massive fire.
• 22:16
  Theresa Eaton: So it's there.
• 22:17
  Theresa Eaton: But anytime there's a successful industry, whether it's oil and gas, data centers, whatever it may be, there's just going to be so much heightened scrutiny from the public markets, particularly with something like this that is changing the way we live our lives on a daily basis.
• 22:30
  Kory Mitchell: Completely.
• 22:31
  Kory Mitchell: Well, um I've I've loved hearing your story.
• 22:36
  Kory Mitchell: But you ran this amazing playbook, you know, you unlocked tremendous value.
• 22:41
  Kory Mitchell: Um, you focused on culture, um, which is really hard.
• 22:45
  Kory Mitchell: And it's hard to change culture, and it's hard to change these embedded habits.
• 22:50
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Kory Mitchell: Um, you, you know, you added new service lines, you had to pivot when things got hard because the bank came calling and wanted its interest.
• 22:58
  Kory Mitchell: So many things that I think our audience, one, can learn from, but two, um, really appreciates because these are the hard things that owners of businesses in this space go through.
• 23:12
  Kory Mitchell: So I appreciate you.
• 23:13
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah, they're very, very real and they're very like visceral, and you have to experience them.
• 23:19
  Kory Mitchell: And and it's those moments of opportunity come from these really hard lessons learned, like you dealing with a bank debt where your life is on the line because you've literally personally guaranteed a big number, you know.
• 23:33
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 23:34
  Kory Mitchell: So thank you for being willing to share with us.
• 23:37
  Theresa Eaton: Thank you.
• 23:38
  Theresa Eaton: I love your story too, Kory.
• 23:39
  Theresa Eaton: It's super inspirational.
• 23:41
  Theresa Eaton: And so I was very honored when you asked me to come on here.
• 23:43
  Theresa Eaton: So thank you.
• 23:44
  Kory Mitchell: You know, look, we've had so much really positive response to this show from people in the industry and and others that just like love hearing success stories.
• 23:53
  Kory Mitchell: Yeah.
• 23:54
  Kory Mitchell: Um, you know, because that I think it's the what makes the country truly a great country is the American dream.
• 24:01
  Theresa Eaton: Yeah.
• 24:02
  Kory Mitchell: That truly is.
• 24:02
  Kory Mitchell: I mean, it's truly the American dream.
• 24:04
  Kory Mitchell: And it can happen in five years.
• 24:08
  Theresa Eaton: Well, I think that's what you know.
• 24:09
  Theresa Eaton: Part of what motivated me is just for 14 years, I watched 3,000 different entrepreneurs realize the American dream.
• 24:18
  Theresa Eaton: And that was so exciting.
• 24:18
  Theresa Eaton: And I'm like, what am I doing sitting here crunching numbers and watching other people do it?
• 24:24
  Theresa Eaton: So it's really fun when you get to go out and do it on your own.
• 24:28
  Kory Mitchell: Absolutely.
• 24:29
  Kory Mitchell: Thanks for joining us on The Turn.
• 24:31
  Kory Mitchell: I hope next week you'll join us again when we come back for another awesome story from founders in the built environment.
• 24:38
  Kory Mitchell: Let's win.