Latest / Booked Out / Jacob Reese (Standard Plumbing Supply) on Who's Actually Winning in the Trades

Transcript

Jacob Reese (Standard Plumbing Supply) on Who's Actually Winning in the Trades · Booked Out

• speaker-0: What's up guys? We're excited to have you here. This is our inaugural booked out podcast episode. We've got Jacob Reese here with us today. Thanks for joining us, man. Awesome to have you here. We ⁓ we just had a good chat. Jacob Jacob met with the whole team and Jacob's got an impressive background ⁓ with standard plumbing. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you how'd you get into this business, about your background? speaker-1: Grateful to be here. Started back before I was born a long time, nineteen fifty-two, when my grandfather started standard plumbing supply. He actually slept in the store until he could afford rent. That was just thirty dollars a month. And I think back to those early days that, you know, and where standard is today. And I often think, you know, hey, what would my grandfather Dale think? You know, and there's there's been a lot that's happened between, you know, then and and now. My father Richard took over in ninety-two. And so You know, there's just been a lot of blessings, a lot of things from God, but it comes back to work, it comes back to doing the boring thing every day. I mean, I sell toilets, right? I tell my friends it's I sell fine China 'cause it sounds a little bit cooler. But at the end of the day it's it's the consistent work that needs to be done. Goes back to relationships, the principles that we all know. speaker-0: Yeah, I love it. No, thanks for the overview. You guys just had your USS Midway event last week in San Diego. We had yeah, the Refer Pro team was out there. Incredible event. Congrats on another great one. But yeah, tell us about that for the listeners who weren't there. speaker-1: Last year we started doing events. We found that in this industry everyone gets together and does events. But for for myself and for standard, you know, we really want to help our customers' businesses be better. I think everyone uses these events to sell more stuff. And yeah, that's great. But at the end of the day, what are you doing to invest back into your customers' business? And so, you know, this this event was was one that we put together. We we brought Dan Rooney, he's a public speaker, he's the the founder of the Folds of Honor. So just an incredible story. about giving back to the community, helping out. And, you know, we had six hundred contractors out there. Incredible event. We had the Tom Cruise look alike. And I s I swear he's like identical. speaker-0: Yeah, I saw those pictures. He's he does. He looks identical. speaker-1: Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. speaker-0: Awesome. I love it. We ⁓ you're big on the in person stuff. I know we've we've we've been ⁓ what three weeks ago now? We were last minute world cup trip with a bunch of ⁓ a bunch of the trades businesses, some of the private equity roll ups that that went well. ⁓ yeah, what's your philosophy there? I mean we've done a bunch of stuff in person, face to face with people. What's your you're big on that? What's your philosophy around that piece of it? speaker-1: And all the tech guys are gonna hate me for saying this, but everybody's looking for this new AI tool that's gonna change their life. And I look at it and say, yes, AI is helpful, it's a place forward, and yes, there will be some major disruptions. However, I think that there's something, and we found this during COVID: people need to be around people. And while everyone's running away from, hey, let's get on a Zoom call, or hey, let's you know try to avoid being in person, I look at it and say, hey, let's take the opposite approach. Let's be with people. I you you get to meet people, you get to know them. And I feel like that's when the best relationships are built and where you really ultimately find their needs and if your services can even help them, right? So yeah, just anytime we can get together with customers and try to. speaker-0: This booked out podcast, it's focused on the trades exclusively. It's called Booked Out, trying to help people fill their books, fill their schedules, keep their technicians busy. At ReferPro, this is a separate thing from ReferPro, but we talk to thousands of trades companies that we work with every day, helping them, you know, drive more leads, keep their technicians busy, fill up their books and calendars. And the trades is a special place. Yeah, I know you know this, you've been in it a long time. It's a special place, face-to-face contact, human connection. It's all huge. That's that's my favorite part about this industry. ⁓ yeah, I sold I sold the home service business and then and then in building ReferPro, just getting more and more entrenched in the trades and seeing what actually works for people and getting those perspectives from different business owners. You have a unique perspective. ⁓ at standard in the wholesale space, you talk to, you know, contractors across the whole country that are in different phases of their business. Some are small, just starting up, some are scaled and doing, you know, massive volumes. ⁓ in the plumbing and HVAC space. What are you seeing right now across the trades with with your customers or outside of it? What's what's changing right now? What are you guys seeing from your perspective at standard? speaker-1: Yeah, I th I think I I think there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear about the industry. You got new construction that's down, you know, Southern California, Arizona, Utah, and everyone's kind of saying this, like, ⁓ wow, that's scary. You'd have some tech companies that might be struggling a little bit with the onslaught of AI. And I I get this sentiment that there's there's some fear, but I look at the numbers, I look at the opportunities, and I'm like, look, AI could change something, but your toilet is still gonna back up. Right. Your your water heater is still gonna go out, your furnace is gonna go out. And if it's in the middle of the winter, you don't you're you're gonna pay what it is to keep your family warm. If if you don't have a hot shower, you're gonna find the money to go and do it. Like I think of like these drug addicts that that spend like a hundred to four hundred dollars a day on drugs, right? They find a way to pay for the drugs. It's like, man, sometimes these people are working harder than the other people that you know that that you see every day. But the home service industry. Right is is ripe. There's so many opportunities, and there's opportunities everywhere. I think what's separating those who are winning versus those who are losing, right? It's mindset, it's systems and processes. But living the American dream here in America, you know, the plumber protects the health of the nation. And there's opportunities all around us to go and and work, to go and build a business. Some of my biggest customers were in jail once upon a time. They were drug addicts once upon a time. They cleaned their life up, they found that trade. You know, they got into blue collar work and they found that there's opportunities. And so, you know, I think what holds contractors back is self-discipline. Unfortunately, a lot of them, right, they they do really well in the in the winter when they sell their furnaces and in the summer when they sell their ACs and they don't plan throughout the rest of the year. They don't budget correctly, right? They don't take care of their staff correctly. They're missing those processes. They might get into some vices in their life, some drugs. Alcohol, you know, unfortunately I see a lot of broken families. But coming full circle, I think there's more opportunity than ever. And I want to be somebody that helps contractors improve their businesses. And why, you know, and this you're not paying me for this plug, but why I love refer pro because being booked out, having somewhere to go for a contractor is the number one thing. If you don't have calls, you don't have a business. And so I'm always looking for ways to help my customers improve their business. And that's really, you know, by getting those calls. speaker-0: You touched base on the systems and processes. You work with contractors across the country. What are you seeing to double tap on that? What's working best for them? What separates, you know, from from being booked out, from keeping busy, their technicians keeping their growing bit growing their businesses year over year, buying more equipment from standard plumbing. what are the differentiators from those businesses that are excelling as things change with these times? And those that might be, you know, declining potentially in in in these new The new way that business is working. We got PE obviously that's changing the game. ⁓ but yeah, just outside of that mindset piece, when you talk about systems and processes, what specifically are you seeing with those contractors? speaker-1: Yeah, I think, you know, two things come to mind. First and foremost, like leadership in companies. If the if there's a problem in the business, they want to blame the problem. But the bottleneck of the business is always the leader. And those companies who are winning have leadership. They know how to work with people, right? We get we forget that this is a people business. Every single job you do is around a family or a home or a business that needs plumbing, HVAC, electrical, right? These are necessities in today's world. You know, like I think plumbing one of the greatest innovations of our time, but it goes back to people. And if you can't take care of your people, it doesn't matter how good your business is. So leadership, number one. And then the second one, which might sound crazy, but being priced right. Right? Everybody knows that contractor, the chuck in a truck, who can't pay his bills on time. He's paycheck to paycheck, broken family, he's maybe he's going from, you know, different apartment to different apartment because he can't afford where he lives. And he gives he lives his life giving discounts to the homeowner, but then his whole family suffers. And so, you know, being priced right is one of the most important things. It doesn't matter how good your business is running, if you're not generating profit, like why are you in business? And and I know that sounds very like money centric and money focused, but look, if you're not making money on the job, then what are you in business for? You know, we we tell our people sometimes, hey, we had to take the steeple off our building today. We were for profit. Right? It's kind of a little bit of a joke, but at the end of the day, it's it's an easy way to to have that reminder of like, look, if you don't pay the piper, you know, that that piper has to be paid. And this industry is full of we have competitors doing some crazy things. And people my people come to say, How are they doing this? How are they charging that price? That's that might be low. How are they paying this wage that might be high? But at the end of the day, when you really pull things back and say, look, they have their overhead, they have their rent, they have their inventory, and our business inventory is a whole nother level. But it comes back to pricing. If you are not priced right, it doesn't matter how many sales you have, you can't outwork a bad pricing. speaker-0: structure. Yeah. So you don't think these ⁓ these grocery stores in New York are gonna work then? These new these new government backed grocery stores? Yeah. That's maybe a topic for another day, but speaker-1: There's I think you can look at a history book and see how see what those what those things bring. Come up to your own conclusion. speaker-0: Yeah, like talk about this might sound like a bold a bold take, but when you're talking about leadership and building the team, this has been a big focus here even at ReferPro and other businesses, but A players hire A players, B players hire C players and C players sink the ship. I think that was a quote from ⁓ Steve Jobs at one point. So I've seen that, right? You wanna you want to bring in the right people and then it's a perpetual flywheel of bringing in great people. What have you seen? What do you guys do at how many employees do you have now at Standard Plumbing? What's the team like there? Yeah, you got a big crew. So what have you guys seen at Standard Plumbing specifically and and maybe with some of the contractors you work with of how to, whether it's hiring, building out that top of funnel, retaining and training, keeping employees and and ⁓ you know, training them to to actually do better. What how do you see that fly? Well, what do you guys what's been your best, what's your best tip for a contractor right now on how to hire and retain the best talent? speaker-1: A little bit over a thousand. Yeah. You know, I s I think back to a mentor of my life, Wyatt Hepworth, founder of Any Hour. You know, one of the things he says is that a company's success is solely based upon their ability to find and keep and retain good people. And your whole business, going back to our first discussion, like everything revolves around people. And so finding the right people, giving the people the right vision, communicating that and holding them accountable to it is very important. I think Seeing the the companies that win. One of my friends has a really good mindset, ⁓ Ben Jordan with with action plumbing. He says it's a lot easier to teach a salesman plumbing than it is to teach a plumber how to do sales. Yeah. So his mindset is he builds all of his own people. You know, the the industry's full of people that are trying to take others. And there's opportunities when when people come up and and they can work for you, but It comes back to that whole saying, winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. Typically, those people who aren't winning are trying to take people from the winning team, right? When the winning team's just like, hey, we gotta get better at the fundamentals, we gotta work on this. And I'll I'll say some of the very best people at Standard have worked at Standard their career. They started as drivers. We train them through our process. They've been with us for twenty plus years. And because of that, there's a loyalty, there's a bond, they know our business. So To answer your question, I think why standards succeeds, why we do our very best, it goes back to people. We're not really out there on the streets, pavements trying to steal people from other companies. I just there's there's a weird vibe with that and it's just never sat well with me. Yes, there's people that have come over from competitors, but typically they're the ones that reach out to me, not the other way around. speaker-0: Yeah. How do you know yeah, I love that advice and I think that's applicable f in wholesale as well as in any contractor business that may be listening to this. As it is with a tech company like ReferPro, how do you how do you know if someone's gonna be great up front in your interview process? Do you are there any signs that stick out to you in your experience? speaker-1: I wish that I wish I had that the answer to that question. You know, I I think there there's a quote that says, What you do speaks so loud, I I can't hear what you say. Yeah. And the world is full of people that have all the right answers. But at the end of the day, when you see what they do, they might be different. And knowing with people, it's something that you find out over time. I I hear this another story, another mentor of mine, ⁓ Yassi from Monkey Wrench Plumbing out of LA. Yeah. He tells this story of how he had this this brand new manager. And if you know Yesse, he's big into training, very big into systems of processes. His whole company is built out around how he how he runs it. And I I love his mentorship and how he how he handles that with his people. But he tells this story of this manager that he hired. And in the first day they did this training, and say this is the TV, right? He took his chair. And he moved it to the side and he put a toothpick in his mouth. This is the new manager over all of his team, as one of his team members was doing the training. And after yes, he pulls him aside and says, Hey, I noticed you had a toothpick in your mouth. I noticed you weren't really paying attention. And this contractor had said to him, this new manager, newly appointed manager said, I already know that. And immediately, yes, he said to him, Well, I don't think it's gonna work out here. Today's your first and last day. And the guy stood up and they went on their way. But it goes back to holding standards. They say that a standard noticed, missed, and unmentioned is no longer a standard. Yeah. And seeing people, seeing leaderships, seeing leadership that can notice those things and, you know, promote those who are actually following the standards, those are the ones who are winning versus. Going from people to people to people and and suffering their business. Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ it's interesting. I think all the businesses that we talk to, ⁓ you know, speaking of booked out and and the funnel, getting customers in the door, keeping technicians busy. The flip side of that is if you don't have enough people to take on those jobs, so customers either have no one of two problems in in the trades is that they either don't have the right people and they can't take those jobs, especially in the summer or busy months. ⁓ most of them have the problem that they want more jobs and and they'll pay for more jobs and and they want more efficient marketing and top of funnel conversion, you know, efficiency in that channel. But ⁓ this might sound crazy, but some some like Apex, for example, wanted to use ReferPro on top of what it does to drive leads to also recruit and refer new technicians and employees because the best place to find a new employee is within the group of same thing with the referral. Your your customers can become your sales team. ⁓ just the same with your technicians, right? Your technicians are out, their friends are the most likely applicants for your next role. So ⁓ I've seen that as two sided. One, you've got to have the foundation to support that work, ⁓ the right people, the right systems, the right processes, have the right team in place, and then put fuel on that fire and get more jobs. And those two always always balance each other. So it's interesting to hear from contractors who are seeing both sides of that. Some are in different places and they might bounce back and forth, but that really is the foundational piece to that. What have you seen on you know, we've talked about the hiring strategy and retaining great people. I think that'll those are some Some golden nuggets for people to hear from from your perspective. What have you seen on the go to market side? That this could be applicable for you at standard plumbing or with the contractors you work with, but you know, the the podcast is booked out. What advice do you have? What are you seeing that works really well for from a marketing perspective for your contractors? What do those channels look like? How has that shifted over the past, you know, couple of years with AI? What what are you seeing work well for your contractors that you work with? speaker-1: Yeah, marketing is one of those interesting pieces because if you don't have calls, you don't have a business. I I spoke to one of my customers just a few weeks ago and he said if I could just get my phone to ring, I'll close every single deal. Right. And so I think, you know, in this business, you see these contractors that aren't answering the phone, that aren't taking care of the leads that they have, they're not in their phone centers. You know, Ken Goodrich, one of the the greatest, I think you know, figures in this industry says that every owner of every home service business needs to be in their call center. They need to be listening to those phone calls. They need to be finding out what's happening because it doesn't matter how much money you put into marketing, if those leads are not making it through the funnel to have a service call, if your team's not closing those deals, if their closing rate's not high, you're just burning cash. I I was telling you of some failed marketing things that ⁓ some service providers in our industry had done. And I I look at that cash and standard phone is like we can't afford to pay that kind of cash for marketing. Right? We have high inventory costs, we have, you know, accounts receivable costs, accounts payable costs, and you know, running our business, brick and mortar locations and a lot of things. And so we've had to always, you know, be very tight, be very frugal with our money because it's such a cash heavy business. But on a service side, right, if you can get those calls, if you can align with the right marketing company, it could make or break your business. And why in so many cases I refer my customers to use ReferPro because it's such an inexpensive lead. Right. You s you served a mission. I I served a mission for two years at the LES Church in New Zealand. And I would feel like some of the best referrals for those who we could help and teach, or or the best individuals we could help and teach, came from referrals from those people who had already been going to church and experience the blessings in their life. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. Referrals, yeah, every part of life, I think referrals are the golden standard. They convert at a higher rate. They're built on trust, right? And that that's in the trades, that's a big thing. Us, our customers, our partners, contractors are in the homes of these homeowners building that trust. They do a great job. You may have heard this before, but the crazy stat is that 83% of homeowners are willing to refer their contractor and only 29% actually do. So there's this massive gap. Those referrals are built on trust. I think every business that we work with agrees that referrals are the standard lead or the gold standard of leads, the more efficient. When they look at a marketing leaders, we talk about marketing and being booked out and filling that funnel, they want to find the highest row as channels. And everyone's doing things from, you know, meta ads, Google ads, billboards, yard signs, pay per click, you name it, and referrals are without a doubt. I think everyone agrees the best, the best channel. That 29% is, you know, some of the some of the mutual partners that we work with, ⁓ as they've seen the success, they realize that's the highest row as. But if you leave it to just happenstance, if you don't put a process and system behind that, it you get that 29% of organic referrals. Putting that system in place is what helps convert those into get get the referrals from businesses or from customers that otherwise wouldn't be referring you, right? Stay in front of mind, making it frictionless. automating the incentive piece of it. ⁓ so from that perspective, yeah, I totally agree. It's it's a no brainer to automate that program and make sure you're getting those that low hanging fruit. how do you feel like your your contractors you work with think about referrals? Do you feel like it's it's one one sentiment I've heard before, you know, we talked to them is that the referrals just happen. There's nothing you can do to get more referrals. It's just something that kind of sits there. You can't scale referrals basically, right? What has been your experience with that working with with contractors? speaker-1: I think it's one of the most untapped areas. I th I think of myself and we my wife and I, we decided that we you know we have young family and we said, you know, we want to do something in our yard, a pool, just so that we can have that time spent together. It was either like looking at doing a boat or a pool. When you said a pool, it's a little bit less than a boat, right? Yeah. And I got it's always in your backyard. And you know, so I went, I I called five pool companies. And I had a different experience with all five. You know, three of them came out, one of them never even saw the property, they just went on Google Maps and like drew up something. And I w I was actually at church talking to friend. I'm like, hey, I'm looking at doing a pool. Do you know anybody? He goes, Ditch every bid you ever got, call this guy. And I'm like, are you sure? He's like 100%. He's like, my dad's used him, I've used him. He goes down the list of all these people and I call him right off the bat. Best price, got everything done. Better than what I had ever expected. And I'm just grateful to have that conversation. But I think to these people who are in the home service industry, like you're you're not like, hey, let me get a plumber. When you buy your house, you're like, let me get a plumber, write it on the wall. So whenever I have a problem, I'm gonna call him. It's like, no, it's like nine o'clock at night, the worst time ever. Your kid flushes lightning bequeen down the toilet, and now you got crab coming up, and you're like, what do I do here? And your wife's like, just fix the toilet, and you're like. All right, here, you know, so I had to pull I pulled the twid at my house, you 'cause I know what I've I've done it a couple of times, right? Pull lightning between out. speaker-0: Yeah, I was gonna say you sounded like you were speaking from experience with the lightning McClino, and that's that's something that would happen at our house. speaker-1: Forky was another one that went down the toilet, you know. But you it just happens. Like it's it's you're going to have a plumbing problem. Your furnace is gonna go out, your AC is gonna go out, and it's always at the worst time. Why? Because your system breaks when it's under pressure. Yeah, you have that heat wave come through, you have the cold spike, whatever that might be, and you're not prepared. And then immediately you're calling the first one that comes up, which is usually the most expensive ad online. You're not going you're going through, you know, all these things, but if you had somebody that you could Hey, this is the referral, this is who you need to use. How much easier would that be? Right. And if it's somebody that you trust, right? Think about that. You're letting somebody in your home when you might not be in there. Right. If you're on vacation, you have a flood. Not not good things, right? People unfortunately only call the supply house when they're in disaster or they're planning to build a house is typically how that works, right? Yeah. And so I think just getting ahead of that and and having a referral company that's there to help. ⁓ and and also attribution. Right. Most people are like, I need my phone to ring. I I had this marketing company come in and tell me that I need to spend a whole bunch of money on billboards. And I'm like, hey, that's great, but what's the ROI? And he goes, It's like the like the Chinese like torture where it just drips. And like over time, everyone's gonna see your brand and they're all gonna buy from you and it's gonna be great. And I'm like, that's great. But when I go and present this to my finance team and my accounting team, and they're gonna say, What like, okay, we spent this much on billboards. What did it bring you? Like, I I can't tell you that. And in my business, right, maybe that's not the best thing. But I think having that ability to track it all the way through the process, say this drove this many leads. And on top of that, here's the revenue. And then automating the process, that's why I've been such a big proponent of ReferPro, because if you can help the contractor install more water heaters or get more jobs for new furnaces, air conditioners, hopefully they're gonna come to my store and buy all those products from us. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah, speaking of attribution, there's there's obviously great tools nowadays with obviously Service Titan is a fantastic with their attribution tracking. Searchlight, one of our partners, does a great job helping with attribution on the referral side. Specifically, ReferPro helps with that immensely and and then paying those people out so you you don't lose that trust that you built with your customers. going back to something you said, ⁓ so many quite we could talk about this all day. It's awesome to have you in here. One thing that we talked about kind of industry wide, what are you seeing with you've got some friends, I think, recently that have sold their contracting businesses. What are you seeing as private equity changes the game? How has that affected some of the contractors you work with? For good and bad, I think it it it goes both ways. You've got some friends that have sold their companies. Yeah, what's what's your perspective on what that's what that's done for them personally and their businesses and the market in general? speaker-1: I mean it's it's amazing to see some one of my friends, he you know, he was a drug addict. I didn't I didn't know him until he cleaned up his life and started as a plumber. But I remember I remember the day he got fired from the plumbing company he worked for. And he was like so mad, he was swearing, and I'm like, hey man, you know how to be a plumber. Like they taught you, you know these things. And next week he started his own company, and now he has 30 employees. He's opened in two states. Like it's it's an amazing experience to watch what the trades can do to people and their families if they just follow this process. His other other friend, I met him, you know, back in 2011 and he was working for a large plumbing company in Utah. By the time I had, you know, I went on my mission, came back, he'd started his own company. I watched him grow it. He sold it right about COVID. And what's crazy is he bought a rental property every year for like I think it was like six or seven years. So he he'd gotten to the point where he had $50,000 a month of recurring revenue and rental income from the houses he bought. And I remember him, we went on a trip, and he was telling me on the plane of like, we're trying to put away a little bit of money every month to go buy these houses. And one of the other plumbers was sitting next to us and he was just listening. But he had pulled me aside later that night. He goes, Hey, all that stuff he's saying isn't true. I was like, wait, what? You know, so then I went back to the plumber, like, hey, does this really yeah, it is? And it just it it's crazy to me. You're in the in this business, I've seen thousands of contractors. The mindset is the biggest difference of those who are winning versus those who are losing. Like the one plumber said, That's not possible. The other one who said it was, and then he sold his business, retired, and you know, he's he's living a great life. And he's actually and and what I love about this business is once you get in, it's really hard. Some people want to be out forever, but he's gonna he's he's getting back into it. He loves it. And so, you know, what's changing the game? PE is raising that level of saying, hey, KPIs, what's the lead cost? Where's the attribution? And it's making these contractors forcing them to be better. But a better industry is better for everybody. Yeah. So that that's what I love. It's it's going in the right direction. I think one of the downsides is when you start to treat people like a number. And has a reverse effect, you have some fallout, maybe some companies that get shut down. I've seen a few of those. Fortunately they're they're more of the exception rather than the rule, but at the end of the day it's still something to to be mindful for. speaker-0: It's interesting. last week alone I met with two of the private equity actual the sponsors, not the platforms, but the sponsors behind them who have, you know, t hundreds of porcodes sometimes. And it's interesting to see those two worlds blend. One, they want to obviously implement systems processes, a tech stack at the start when they start these platforms before they start acquiring businesses. And that's for systems of scale. That that's the benefit of this, right? Is you get a platform effect where every business can run. In some cases with a consolidated back office, which brings down efficiencies and at scale with those systems and processes. But yeah, balancing that piece that they bring, and as we're talking about about these sponsors, ⁓ those systems and processes that they bring to the table that benefit all these business owners and you know create generational wealth for all of them and their employees and their customers. And then balancing that with what I think is really unique in the trades, which is the people aspect of it. Everyone, I've thought this is really interesting over the past few years. Is in the trades, we know ⁓ I mean in tech, people aren't as willing to help their competitors, right? It's pretty cutthroat. In the trades, you go to shop tours where you're teaching your competitors your playbook. You're basically showing them your playbook, how how you run your business, advice, and you're welcoming them in. So I've loved that about the trades. The people are so good and it's a it's a mentality, it's an abundance mindset in most cases that I've seen that a rising tide lifts all ships, these these business owners. In the trades are willing to show people and learn together. It's cool to see the combining of those two worlds from from the trades perspective and the private equity perspective. And and when those two things go well, it's a powerful, powerful duo. You mentioned you've served ⁓ mission for two years in New Zealand, right? Tell us, tell me about that. How has that affected your your day to day at standard plumbing, your mentality on on your business life? speaker-1: You know, if I think it's one of the greatest things anybody can do in their life is spend two years that's not focused on you, right? We spent every day of the two years helping others come into Christ. And what's cool about that is is you learn something that you can't ever out give God. Right? Everything you give him, you're gonna get back tenfold. And I know that I know that's true because of the person that you become and the happiness and the joy that you truly feel. You know, going around on a mission is it's difficult, right? I think we look back in our lives at the greatest lessons that we've learned and every single one of them has come from a trial. Every time you're in a trial, people love to look and blame God. But at the end of the day, those trials are usually what make us who we are. And if we allow them to change us and mold us in the way that God intends them to be, they could be some of our greatest blessings. Like There there's a quote from Steve Jobs that says you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking back. And he goes on to talk about how you have to trust God, because believing that ki the dots will connect down the road gives you the confidence to follow your heart ⁓ even when it might not feel right or leads you off the well-worn path. But spending that time getting re rejection every day and and getting used to rejection, getting used to people saying no, like I think that's something in society, like The the devil of society I think is is comfort. People don't want to feel uncomfortable and and going to going to another country, to New Zealand, I lucked out. There's some of the greatest people in the world there. But getting used to rejection and being okay with that and saying, hey, pick yourself up, keep moving forward, I think that's one of the greatest, greatest blessings that's come to my life from that. speaker-0: Yeah, it's awesome. I saw ⁓ Trent Lowenstein was talking with Bill Russell and Dustin Van Orman the other day. I saw and they were talking about the system tying it back to the systems and processes in the trades and in business and the model that ⁓ the missionary training center, right? When you you spent time training for that. ⁓ just the system that that is, it's almost flawless, right? Just the the structure and the cadence there to produce a result. So ⁓ it was cool. I saw those I saw those three talking about that. They're they're good friends. ⁓ I wanna ask a few more questions. ⁓ we could go all day at this, but I wanna ask a few kind of rapid fire questions here. Yeah. one, I've heard you talk about some cool books, but curious, what's your what's your number one book and why? speaker-1: Outwit in the devil because it tells you that if you don't have a definitive purpose, you're nothing. Yeah. And the devil's number one tool is to get you distracted. speaker-0: What do you do to yeah, I actually read that one after one of your standard plumbing events when you recommended that on stage. It's a great book. ⁓ yeah, I love that. What do you do to stay sharp? speaker-1: You know, every day you wake up and you start with a f clean slate in your mind. That first fifteen minutes of every day is gonna make or break you. If you allow the world to come and take over that day for you, you're gonna be beholden to the world. And I think taking that first fifteen minutes, locking that in, learning something, keeping your mind fresh, not dwelling on negativity, like you know, I kind of envision it like you wake up in the morning and you have this harbor. And all these ships just showed up. You didn't you have no no control over those ships, right? Everybody has it. Your brain comes up with some wild stuff. You have the fears, worry, you know, fear, uncertainty, doubt, all those things. You look at the news, you look at the new trend, AI, laying off, you know, these big companies laying off all these people. And if you allow that to rule your world, you you're starting off with chaos. You know, and ⁓ think neat, work neat. Something that my father and grandfather always say, but I think you have the control over your mind. ⁓ if you allow yourself to be first programmed how you choose to program in the morning. Letting go of things that don't give you energy, that take your energy away. It's one of the most freeing things you you could ever do. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. What ⁓ how do you balance as you're building a business, busy entrepreneur, scaling a company, how do you balance the other important things in your life, your your family, your health, your wellness, all these other factors? How do you how have you find found balance in that since building standard plumbing? speaker-1: You know, I think everyone's looking for like a golden thing like at six a.m. I do this, at seven a.m. I do this. I think balance comes in seasons of your life. But I think keeping true to what your your priorities are, right? God, wife, kids, work. And I think in the world today, especially everybody, they have this hustle culture that it goes, work, I'll do all these things, and then I'll take care of everybody else. As soon as I get this, then I'll give. And I just I think you need to upset. There's that analogy of like the sand and the big rocks and the little rocks. Those big rocks will not fit into your life if you allow the sand to take take over. And so you have to be very intentional about the things that you put in your life. And also be very intentional, I think even more so about the things that you're not gonna put into your life. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. I love the rock piece. At ReferPro, we use that on a weekly cadence. We all we all pick our rocks for the week, the things that we're gonna get done no matter what. And then yeah, the sand and the water can find their space and they'll get done, but gotta prioritize those rocks. It's awesome. Wrap us up, Jacob. It's been awesome to have you on today. We talked about some good stuff on the booked out podcasts. Wrap us up with your best advice to a business owner, you know, specifically in the trades that ⁓ That wants to grow their business and build a lasting business for success. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ that's that's good. Well, I I think, you know, to the listeners, you pick your level of success in life. You pick when you decide to stop growing. This is a right business. There's more opportunity in the home service business than I think anywhere else in the world right now. As everyone's running towards like technology, let's go back to the needs, right? When COVID, everything shut down, people weren't asking for AI. They were asking for an essential job. They're asking for something to do. And I think something to do is one of the greatest blessings that you can have. So focus on your business, get your mindset right. And you brought it up. Learn from those who have been successful. Yes, the game is changing, but at the end of the day, it goes back to those same principles. You gotta price yourself right. You gotta focus on leadership. You gotta focus on those things that are gonna take you from A to B. But coming full circle, this is a winning business. Follow those people who are who have been successful, who have paved that way, and you will find that too. speaker-0: This has been awesome, Jacob. Thanks for joining us. We'll have to do this again. A lot of good stuff. I've got we could ask a hundred more questions, but for sake of time, we'll wrap it up. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks for joining us on the Booked Out Podcast.