Latest / Epic Entrepreneurs / Your 5 to 9 Builds Dreams, Your 9 to 5 Pays Bills | Building a seven-figure business in three years with Anthony Woo

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Your 5 to 9 Builds Dreams, Your 9 to 5 Pays Bills | Building a seven-figure business in three years with Anthony Woo · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm Bill Gilliland, the owner of Action Coach Business Growth Partners, and we're super pumped.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Today I've got Anthony Wu from Climatization ACG, so welcome to the podcast.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear your story.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your business and you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Well, first off, thank you for having me here, bill.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I'm Anthony from Climatization ACG out in Montreal, quebec, canada, and yeah, I'm a technician turned owner, not knowing how to run a business.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Not knowing the business, but just knowing the trade and the craft.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: A 10-man team now, almost four trucks, three and a half trucks on the road yeah, that's where we are now.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: We're wrapping up year four of our business and we're just doing what we got to do to put food on the table.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I got a couple of questions, as always, but we'll get to the business part, but I got a couple of just curiosity questions right here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: The first one is what's ACG?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting one.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I get that asked pretty frequently and ACG is actually AC guys, and the reason why we had to use ACG and climatization is because here in Quebec there's language laws that I couldn't use AC guys because it's just English.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Being in Quebec, we need to have a French name.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: So climatisation is actually air conditioning in French.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: So it's climatisation, acg.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Having the acronyms, nobody can tell.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It's just whatever ACG stands for.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It could be French, it could be English, it doesn't matter.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: But that's how we decided to go with climatization, acg, which is really we're the ac guys.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: That's what we were known as in our community before I started the business, so I'm like you know that'd be cool, but then we want to go register our company names like nope, it's too english uh, interesting, interesting.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That's a that's.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: That's great, that's an interesting.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I got another.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: How do you have three and a half trucks?
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're running full three full-time, three trucks.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: But one of my techs is actually a part-time, a more part-time, so he's.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: He's a musician, so I gave him the freedom to hey.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: He's a great tech, but he also loves his music.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like hey, you give me whatever time you want, so whatever time he's not on, I use his truck and then, whatever time he is on, I just hop into my personal vehicle, my SUV, throw in my diagnostic tools and my sales stuff and I go at it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So that is my half truck.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I'm in the process of trying to acquire a fourth, but the wait list was like something ridiculous.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: So we're working on a fourth.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right now, to get that.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you some questions about the business.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So you've been at it four years, you've gotten a 10 team.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, congratulations.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: If you had to start from square one, what would you do differently?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, that I would say.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Focusing on the processes in the back end, I almost got to a point where we were growing too fast and not having the right stability.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: But at 10 is where I really put an emphasis on slowing down.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: And we're not getting any more people, we're not getting more trucks.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Until I really solidify all my foundations, having new guys come in and realizing like oh, there's another new way of doing something is working on standardizing all our processes, making sure that we have a standard for everybody that walks into our company.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one at some point.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting one because as you grow you'll have systems and then the systems eventually will break because they won't keep up with the growth.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And then you have to read through the systems it doesn't, and that just keeps happening.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, yeah.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: So I get it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, with me and my partner.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Like we were two guys.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: We started together, we've worked together for over 20 years, we just know the way we work with each other.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: But then when we bring in a helper, it's like, oh wait, wait, this helper doesn't work, like when we work together.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: And then realizing like, oh, just because we are used to doing something our way, it's not the same way everybody else thinks and we have to translate our thoughts and our standards to everybody in within our team yeah, yeah.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: You gotta establish the, the, the culture in a way of what you, what you want, what you want to do.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So that seems like a big learning.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: What other big learnings have you had as an owner or an employer since you started up?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: as an owner is really the management aspect.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I was very good at doing my job, very good at troubleshooting, doing the repairs, but as the team grew I felt like that balance was really shifting, where I'm spending a lot more time working on the business and not in the business, and it was very difficult to let go at the beginning and putting that trust into somebody else.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But to grow you have to be uncomfortable.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: We have to be able to let go and trust others to help you build.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: So I just recently hired a service manager.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: My first trust barrier was having an admin, having my CSR and having her handle my messaging, because I was very particular in the way I answer my clients and helping them over the phone first and this, and that I built relationship with clients.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So I was very reluctant on letting that go.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: But if I spent 10, 15 minutes before every service call and after every service call, it adds up to a lot of time that I'm not generating income.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So that is where I've learned it's you know any repetitive task.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: We have to be ready to let go.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I find often in working with our clients, and hundreds of clients over the years that the trust thing is probably the hardest you know for, particularly for founders.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who've you know, they got it, they know how to do it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They want to do it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an, it's an interesting one.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It's sometimes easier if you don't know.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: You know how to, how to.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I hired you.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Look, I had a, I had a client this is an interesting story.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I had a client who had a restoration, mold remediation kind of company disaster restoration company and he had been a banker.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: He didn't know how to do the stuff.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't know how to do any of the actual technological, you know the technology.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He didn't know how to do mold remediation, he just was a manager and in some ways ways that was easier.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: In some ways it caused him a lot of problems because he didn't know what was what with his team.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: But it's an interesting thing.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So what are some common misconceptions about running a business?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that we make a lot of money.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, that's uh something that was I had to be very clear with, uh, even as I was building the team, is what the metrics look like.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Just because you're paid this amount and you see what we invoice, you don't see the cost of running a business, even from a homeowner perspective.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's like, hey, why are you that much more expensive than the next guy?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Well, our team has a lot more specialized training.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I invest a lot of money into the team, so it's not like I'm getting the cheapest guys on the market to just do minimal work.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I invest into my team to send them out to training across the US with the elites.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: We deal with the National Comfort Institute.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: We do all their certification trainings.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I really want to empower my team.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: So those are costs that outsiders don't see.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Or it's like why do you charge this much for a part when Amazon sells this part for X amount?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I had to send someone to go pick it up.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I had to go store it in my truck so that I can have it ready for my next client.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: You can order from Amazon, but call me back when you get it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: That's another service call.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So what would you rather do so?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of misconception how cost works.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Everybody's okay with going to a restaurant and paying 80 bucks for a steak when you can get one for 20 at the store.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: It's almost the same thing in the trades, where you're paying for the service and the experience of whoever you select as a contractor.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: So I think that's where there's a lot of misconception.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Just because we charge a lot doesn't mean we're making a lot.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: If the metrics are not right, it doesn't mean we're profitable.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: The cash flow may not be there either.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I think that's where there's.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's a very big misconception.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to me that, say, a homeowner who knows that they have to pay their mortgage, they know they have to pay electric bill.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: They know they have to pay their water bill, they know they have to pay.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You know they got the regular insurance insurances, their car payments, whatever it is.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Somehow they can't make that translation to a business.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It's the same stuff, it's.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: So what do you attribute your growth to?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: For me it's the hunt for knowledge.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: For me it was never.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I never enjoyed being plateaued and I always knew there was more to learn.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And the more I learn is the more people I meet.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: The more people I meet, the more ideas I get.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: The more ideas I get, the better I can grow, and that was really the cycle of my training.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It started with the hunt for knowledge.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So just a little story to share.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: It was when I started my business.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I was trying to get into indoor air quality and of course I Googled, looked around, named John Ellis popped up.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: He's like Mr IEQ of North America.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Trying to get him here in Quebec was also red tape because he doesn't speak French.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: So our distributor, who's normally supposed to hire these speakers or trainers, because he's part of the Daikin group, so they were supposed to do it.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: But then my rep was like oh, he doesn't speak french there's, so he can't.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: We cannot hire him.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: All right, what do we go to ontario where it's english, so can you speak to your colleague and may set up a course there?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Nope, because they don't have enough people that are interested in in learning this stuff.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so, and ended up finding him.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: He's doing a panel at this high performance summit and I went there not knowing who he was, didn't know what the summit was about, but I just knew he was talking there, just to you know, at least go introduce myself.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: And from there it was just like everything just changed.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Being at that summit meeting other high performance contractor, meeting like minded people attending their trainings, and it was just nonstop from there.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's awesome.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it all does start with mentors and knowledge.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: You know the right mentors, the right knowledge.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance, like personal life and the demands of running the business?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: personal life and the demands of running the business.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: That is an interesting one.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: That's something I do preach, but it wasn't overnight.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: It was never something.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: That was oh.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I started my business and that was it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I started building my reputation years before I started my own business.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Through all my previous employers, I have always treated their company as if it was my own and represented myself as who I am.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And what ended up happening is, I mean, over the years, none of my employers ever provided me a cell phone.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So whenever I called my clients, I was using the same cell phone I had for 20 years and, of course, these customers remembered my name, remembered who I am, and they went back and used the number and not use the company's number.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I do identify that, hey, I no longer work for so-and-so, I work for so-and-so now.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Is that okay?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as you are the one coming.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So just put a note when you call our CSR, call our company, book an appointment and just request to have Anthony and over four employers.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: You know, 16 years after, 16 years later, it was like you know what?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Everybody's calling me and asking for me.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Why should I not do this for myself?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: And that's where it just kind of clicked that I decided to do it for myself.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: So I spent those years building the reputation.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: So it helped me when I was ready to do my own business.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't have to work as hard on the reputation side of it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: In terms of the rest of the balance, when it's family time, it is family time.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: When there's events graduations, birthday parties those are what I call non-negotiables.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Events, graduations, birthday parties those are what I call non-negotiables.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: There's not enough money in the world that will take me away from those times.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: If there's times that there's no scheduled plans or whatever, I work on the business After I put the kids to bed.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I got this time to myself.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I work on the business During the day.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: It's field work.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I'm in the business Outside of my nine to five.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I'm on the business, and then anything in between.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: If there's something that happens with the family or there's events, for sure, those are some non-negotiables for me and that's how I find my balance.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you always see yourself being on the tools, do you always?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: see yourself being on the tools, yes and no and that was where I was at, about year three, after we crossed the seven figure barrier, was like all right, I got to start stepping away from tools and continue filling the funnel.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: As we're bringing new guys, it becomes more of my responsibility to make sure the funnels are full or the pipeline is full, to ensure that all the guys have work.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: As much as I love the tools, I also realize that I have to kind of migrate myself on working more on the sales and the pipeline and making sure that the guys have work so that I can ensure that they can put food on their tables for their families.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: So that I can ensure that they can put food on their tables for their families.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So what qualities do you look for in employees and how do you foster a positive and productive work environment?
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: We've kind of talked about this a little bit already, but yeah, so that is another interesting one.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody from my team did not come from an HVAC background, so and everybody was grown into it, and that's I'm.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I am the only one on my team with formal training in HVAC.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: My partner started when he was 16.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I was his helper, but he just grew up with work through experience.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Musician that transitioned into HVAC, which he's still a musician, but he loves HVAC and he's a great tech and he learned a lot through just working with me and my partner.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: At our first employers.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: When he heard that we are doing our own thing, he asked to jump ship and come on board Our first helper.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: He was a landscaper who I also trained at one of my previous employers, and he liked the way we treated him and with respect, and the way we trained him to learn to trade, so he came on board as well.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: My admin was a nanny that needed some extra income and started doing part-time admin work for us.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: My social media manager was a tattoo artist.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: One of my other techs was a precious metal trader.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Another one was a professional gamer.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: So yeah, when I foster culture, it's one of the few things I did in my early conversation with each one of my guys and girls was I always aim for a slightly lower than market salary for our industry and see where they value what they value.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Do they value the dollar or do they value our company?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: For everybody that came I did not go hunting for my team members, they just came to me.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So when we had the conversation, they just came to me.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: So when we had the conversation, they already knew what our company represented.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: They knew they see what people are talking about in our community and that is they want to work for someone that supports the community and has that connection with the community type thing.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: So, like our company, values is integrity, community and empowerment.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: And that's where, when we have that initial talk is what do they value?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Everybody wants to be empowered.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So when we started, it was I show them my organizational tree of our business.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I show them where my name is next to each of the positions that are available within our company and I tell them anywhere you see my name, it's a spot that's available.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: You tell me where you want to be, Tell me how much you want to make.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what responsibilities you need and what you need to learn to get to that position, the only position that I don't want to give up is CEO.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That's the only one that I want to keep my name next to.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: But everything else, any management, any other specialty departments, whatever it is you tell me what you want, I'll send you to do the right training and get that for you, and that's how we we've been going and it's been working well so far.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: But we're a young company.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I'm only four years in so long term.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it's going to turn out to be, but so far it looks like the team does appreciate that we take them out to do training.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: When we do trainings, we pay for everything we flights, hotel accommodations, all our food, all our team activities.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: The only thing is souvenirs and alcohol.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: That's, that's on their dime.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to watch out on that alcohol.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: There's an alcohol that's that's on their dime.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to watch out on that alcohol.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, depending on who you got on your team or, yeah, we do it with, we take our, we take our clients on a pretty significant trip.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: We went to curacao this year and, yeah, I can't get the uh alcohol bill for the for some some of those, some of those guys, they can't do it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I got some quickfire questions.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The BEPIC is an acronym, so just a couple of sentences, thoughts on the letters in the acronym.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: So the B stands for bring the energy.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on bringing energy?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a very big believer in energy and if you provide the positive energy to your team, they'll see it and they'll recognize it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: You bring the negative energy.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Your team is going to have negative energy, and that's why empowerment is a big deal for me.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: That's a core value, whether I'm empowering our homeowners or I'm empowering my own team.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: That is part of the energy of progression and keeping positive.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Someone messes up.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody makes mistakes.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Every month, we have our team meeting.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: What did we learn?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's not what mistakes do you make, it's what did we learn this month?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Where can we improve?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Everyone share a story.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: What was your learnings this month?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That is how we turn a negative into a positive and that is for sure, energy that I want to foster.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really, the team really is a mirror, isn't?
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: It If you get in a funk.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: They're in a funk.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's unbelievable.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It is so clear All right, E stands for education.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I think we've probably covered this one, but just a couple of more sentences on education.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Education is priority for me.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It's training and empowerment.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That falls under empowerment.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Once again, it's nonsense.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I tell my guys, what you put into this trade is what you're going to get out of it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I can teach you what I can in your nine to five, but your five to nine is where you're going to build your dreams.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: If you want to take that extra step, you want to get to that next position.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Everybody has to put in extra time to get to where you want to be.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Your nine to five is not enough to build your dreams.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: It's there.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: It's enough to pay your bills, but if you want to grow, you have to go beyond that nine to five and maximizing your time.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: When I started was I call it university on wheels?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I was listening to podcasts between every job I was listening to training videos and stuff.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: You know, nine before I had kids, I was like always watching YouTube videos on on the guys that I learned from and that's how I was able to build up that knowledge and, do you know, to get to where I am.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: And that's what everybody has to do.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It's not just giving.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: It wasn't because I was smart in.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: It was not an academic, so it's really putting that grind to get to.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: What you want is really what education is going to help you with yeah, I call it car college.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: yeah, I heard zig ziglar call it automobile university, so but I think car college is what I, that's's what I, that's what I tend to call.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, having something on.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The truth is, I wish somebody had told me that when I was super young, I, for a long time in my career, I took the education that came my way and I did well, but I wasn't doing a lot of outside self personal development improvement things.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And when I got on that track, it's when things changed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And so I love what you're doing for your empowering your team and talking about the five to nine and that sort of thing, because I think people, a lot of people, don't know.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: All right, so P stands for planning.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Give me your quick thoughts on planning.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Planning.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: That's a route to organization, having a good plan.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Even before I hired, anybody was already have a plan on or where do I want them to start, and then from there we, we talk and we see once you get into the.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Like I said, none of my guys came from hvac background and hVAC is such a diverse industry in its own.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: There's so many different ways you can go.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So once we start, I'd like to see what these guys and girls are interested in so that I can help them plan their career, and I don't want them feeling like being just a number and just doing roll up pipes, roll up pipes, change filter, change filters.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Where do you want to be?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Let's plan, let's see.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: These are the skills you're going to need and help them.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Look at, all, right, hey, these are maybe some of the people you should start following, because I've gone from refrigeration to ventilation, air conditioning, to personal development, to business development.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I have seen a wide range of mentors and people to follow, so I could definitely give guidance if there's a specific direction they want to go.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: So I think that's where, for me, planning is very important to help everybody see a goal and a career path and have clarity on a goal.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: When you don't have clarity on a goal, you do not have a clear direction of where you're going to go.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: So for me, planning is very important to have.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I love it, so the I is inspiration.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Give us your thoughts on inspirations.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Inspiration.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: It's something that I have to.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I want it to be contagious to my team.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So everything I do, I want that to inspire my team.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: That's why I lead by example.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I don't just say, hey, you guys go do this training and tell me what you learned.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I go and do the training, I show them what I learned, I bring back the tools.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: This is why we go to the trade show, this is why we do the training.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I don't just sit in my ivory tower and crack a whip and say, hey, do this, get this, do that.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I am there to lead.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: So that is where I'm hoping that that's where the team sees me as being inspirational.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I deal with a lot with my community.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I want to inspire my local entrepreneurs and contractors to also do what we do and help the community build the community that we're in.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Like, I'm running a school bag drive right now to fill up school bags for underprivileged kids in our community.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: So it's our sixth year doing it and every year I'm doing it.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It's starting to get bigger because now other contractors are seeing it and like, oh, this guy's getting a lot of attention.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: You know, like everyone's sharing this post.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what I want to hopefully inspire.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily inspiring my own team, but inspire other contractors, community leaders, just to be a pillar and inspire others to do good for others.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: It's where I want to be with inspiration.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: All right, the C?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: C in epic is commitment commitment like anything else.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: If you don't commit fully, you cannot get to your goals.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: If you want to reach your goal, you got to commit.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: You got to have a plan, you got to commit to it and it's the discipline and consistency that is gonna bring it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I've seen guys come and go, guys that will start the first week.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I read this chapter this this this week two.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't hear anything else.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like I told my, I told my guys early on 20 minutes a day, it's all you need.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Watch one episode, listen to one podcast a day and that will get you ahead of 80% of the trade.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: It's something that's unbelievable.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Read one chapter?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Read for 20 minutes, Just do anything.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not asking you to take a whole course overnight.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: It's 20 minutes.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: All you need you go to the bathroom.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: You could read 20 minutes.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Listen to a podcast between a job is 20 minutes.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: You cannot tell me you don't have 20 minutes to spare in a day.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: So that will also help me see character.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: And usually when I you know weekly I check on my teammate what you guys learned this week, people tell them.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Guys tell me what they they've been looking into.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: If you know, if they want to go into ieq they were telling me about ieq stuff.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Someone more troubleshooting, they're learning diagrams.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: It's cool.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Anybody that needs extra additional help with for for me, I tell them I'm always open.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Just tell me when We'll meet at the shop We'll do a little extra training, whether it's customer facing, whether it's technical, whatever it is, I'm here to help you grow.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome and that's my commitment to my team.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So you had a number of years in the trades before you went into business for yourself.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But what do you wish that you had known or that somebody had told you before you went into business?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: that's a good one.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I am not a hundred percent sure what I wish I knew.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: It was almost too easy.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: When I started I don't think I struggled as much as a typical startup, because I spent years watching and learning through my previous employers watch what their mistakes were, how fast they grew, what came of it and what I needed before I.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I recognized these mistakes before I made them, so I've learned I've from a long time.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I always knew after like five, four or five years in the industry I already knew I wanted to do my own thing, but I just didn't know how or had the funds to do it or had that fear of how do I get myself out there, and over the years of just working in it it just naturally came.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: So I don't really know what I wish I knew, but I just wish I knew there was a lot more babysitting.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: You know a lot more management when it comes to I didn't realize how much management there is having teams around you.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: So that was where I should have planned a bit better and start moving my original tier up one to, or maybe look at management before getting more teams.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: So right now I got more teams on the road but no management.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: So I am the management.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: So that's why I just this year hired a service manager to manage the service side.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So now that's where I think my biggest thing is.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But besides that, I must say, like I said earlier, I've spent a lot of time representing myself and always carried myself and respected the company.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I always treated my employers as if it was my own company.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: It was never my company, but that's the way I treat it and I think having that mentality and to represent yourself is what really helped me get to where I am.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: When I started up, when I announced that, hey, I'm no longer working for anybody ACG is who we are now I never had a day of not having any work.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I never had a moment of fear that, oh my God, how am I going to pay my next bill?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: It just came Like right now, my trucks are not labeled.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I don't't have a website.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I don't have any marketing dollars.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: The only marketing I do is is my facebook reels.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: It's my social media, that's my marketing.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: But I don't do ads.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I don't do anything like that.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: But yet all my team my service, maintenance and install team we're booked out.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Three weeks out it's been.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: We've been booked out like this since april and we're still.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: We're looking at, you know, towards the end of September.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Now type thing Nice.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, um, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an, it's an interesting one that it it never is.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: What I would say you just said is it's never the same as you thought it was going to be.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: It was close, but and another lesson there, excuse me, is that you know who's it easier to learn from your own mistakes or somebody else's, and it seems like you really learned a lot from a lot of other people's mistakes before you got into it.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: So well done on that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: You know we expect the first five years to be a struggle.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: But you know, after year one, five years to be a struggle.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: But you know, after year one, we're like why didn't we do this sooner?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: After year three, we hit our five-year goal, uh, crossing that seven figure barrier or so.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: We're like we're just now.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I'm at a point we're like, wow, we're unstoppable, we just.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: But we have to focus and get back to the roots.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I I am seeing cracks already as we are growing.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: There's definitely, um, you know there's going to be talks with the team.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: There's going to be mistakes are being made, how we handle it, how we're going to grow from.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: What we learned from is that's.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Those are the kind of things that I'm learning to deal with now.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: That's the key.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: The key is not that there's going to be adversity, because there is.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: The key is how do you deal with it?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: So well done.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So what advice would you give to other?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: business owners who are looking to grow, work with integrity.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Integrity and honesty is no joke, the only way to survive the test of time.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I've always done work with integrity and honesty, and that is what built my reputation.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: If there's something that I wasn't sure, I was not afraid to tell the client, hey, you know what, this is out of my reach, so and so will probably be better suited off for this situation.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: In terms of business, it may not be sustainable, but we have walked away from jobs just because, hey, it's out of our expertise.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And don't be afraid, you cannot be greedy and oh, it's a job I'm going to take it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Recognize your limits.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, you could push your limits, but put a buffer in there.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: There's going to be circumstances where don't let greed dictate where you're going to go, because that immediate gratification could be your biggest downfall.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Look at the bigger picture.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: It's always looking ahead.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: You got to look at the long term.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: You got to look at the long term, the short term.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: It's easy to do it.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But one of my friends and mentors.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Paul Dunn said that success is what you say no to.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's deep, yeah.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Or the other way he says it success is who you say no to, because sometimes it's a who, not a what, but the way he described it to me, put the letters up on a board and it doesn't spell anything, right and just success is who you say no to.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And he's like just remember this, and I'm like I got it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I got it.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So, hey, this has been unbelievable.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of nuggets in here.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: What is the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Our biggest place is Facebook.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: That's where I grew my business and that's where it's Facebook.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: You look up Climatisation ACG.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: We also have an Instagram Website is in development, so that will be there shortly, but we're not quite ready with that.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, facebook and Instagram is the ways to see you know, follow along, see what we're doing for our community and how we are, the values we believe in.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: If anybody have any questions about what I've done, I'm here to share.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: We we went from nothing.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: I went from honestly working on my garage and my suv to having three and a half trucks on the road and crossing that seven figure barrier in year three um, with no marketing yeah, other than facebook, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good it was all about targeting community and helping the community.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: all my stuff is for homeowner facing.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It's not for the technician.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not here to train a technician, I'm here to empower homeowners and that is where a lot of people saw value hey, this guy's giving so much to the community.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I want to support that guy.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: That is the guy you want to be.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: You want to be the guy that your community's backing and that is why, any opportunity I have, I want to support the community because they recognize that if they invest in me or they choose me as a contractor, I am supporting the community.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not that contractor that's just packing my wallet and coming showing up in a Lamborghini.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: You know, that's not the contract, that's not the contractor I want to be.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: So you got to be humble.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: You got to, you know, be loyal to your community, respect your community.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: And also, growing a business on Facebook.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: The double-edged sword is as good of work you do yes, that will spread like fire as worse of a work.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: On Facebook.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: The double-edged sword is as good of work you do yes, that will spread like fire as worse of a work you do.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: That will also spread like fire.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: And that is what always kept me in check.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I always told clients before going on Facebook and bashing call me, give me the opportunity to do right.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: But everybody makes mistakes, but how you handle your mistakes is what's going to define who you are and that's the only reason why we've been able to maintain a five-star review across our Google page for four straight years.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Our Facebook page a hundred percent Google re a hundred percent reviews your five-star.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: You know that is because it's not always five stars, but clients have given me the opportunity to do right and they easily felt oh wow, you know, this guy really took the time and kept his word and this and that, whatever it is, and that is what you know, that is what integrity is and that is going to go a long way if you're building a business for the long term.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been awesome.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Long-term yeah, a hundred percent.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been awesome.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being part of your community and being part of this community and being part of uh and for all you're doing for uh, your clients, your, your team, your community all around.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of good lessons in here.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Um, we certainly wish you continued success.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir, thank you very much.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, and until next time.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: All the best.