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From Corporate Tech To Water Damage Restoration In Asheville with Rob Franks · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Good day, everyone.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am Cliff McCrae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm excited to be joined by Rob Franks with Secure Restoration.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Rob, how are you doing today?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for inviting me, Cliff.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing really good.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Good, good, good.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're really excited to have you on here, looking forward to a good story.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and jump right in.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of you who may not know it yet, who is Rob Franks and what is Secure Restoration?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Rob Franks uh moved to Asheville about three years ago when I bought this business.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when before that, I worked in technology, in corporate America, and did a lot of a lot of different things.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like what I really wanted to do uh was live in a place I wanted to live and do work that I could do for the rest of my life if I wanted to, and not have to worry about a corporation deciding to uh let me go.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I took some of the money I had, invested it, and bought the business.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And 10 months after I bought it, we had Hurricane Helene, which changed a lot of things.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Secure Restoration has been around for quite a while.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Started in Florida, moved into North Carolina about 12 years ago.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I bought it, it was primarily focused on water, fire, and mold remediation, helping people recover after damage happens to their homes or their businesses from unpredictable disasters like a waterline breaking, a hurricane, a fire.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we've expanded quite significantly into construction post-Helene.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we're doing a lot of construction work, rebuilding, and repair work uh for homes that were damaged in Helene.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So secure restoration, you know, it was a 24-7 response, water, fire, mold, and then we'll do the repairs.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you said you, you know, started off in Florida and all that.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So why Western North Carolina?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You said you recently moved out here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And where'd you move from?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was in Ohio for quite a while.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the military.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: When I got out of the military, I took a job at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, and I ended up spending a very long time living in Cincinnati, even though I didn't spend a lot of time working at Procter and Gamble.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was there about three years, and in the course of that time, I was involved and wrote them wrote the recommendations to launch Fabrize.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so so I had an interesting corporate career where I always ended up in these groups of people who were trying to be entrepreneurial.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually I got into startups and technology and was part of a lot of startups that we were trying to build technology-based solutions for different industries.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it was difficult and always had you know investors who you had to keep happy.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if the investors weren't happy and they didn't give you more money, you know, the businesses would shut down.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then one of the businesses I was involved with, we got bought by private equity.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up spending three years in private equity.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it just all that taught me that I just didn't want to live that life.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to you know do something different, and I've always loved the mountains.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I love I love the Rockies, I love the West Coast, I love Canadian Rockies, but that area is a little far.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I've been coming to Asheville for quite a while and really fell in love with it and decided this is where I wanted to kind of make my stand.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it was you know, finding a business that's worth buying.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't have a whole lot of businesses to choose from that are really good.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent about two years searching.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I had created this kind of matrix of places I want to live, businesses I would consider buying.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd gone through a lot of LOIs, uh letters of intent, you know, trying to buy businesses.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had lots of conversations, finally found a business, you know, with the right structure, the right price, and a place I really liked.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So here I am in Western North Carolina, and I and I love it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no, I I love it as well.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And same thing as you, you know, it's West Coast is great, but I've got a lot of family myself in Florida, and uh, you know, plane ride from from Florida to the Rockies is probably right, like three, maybe four hours, right?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh instead of Asheville, you know, yeah, the the mountains may not be as high, but it's only an hour, hour and a half plane ride uh to go see my family in Florida.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely relate to you on that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So take us back to the very beginning.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what made you say, you know, yep, I'm doing this, I'm starting this business?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know you said you bought it from someone else, but what made you what made you do that?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'd spent a lot of time in corporate America and then startup world and then private equity world.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was always working for somebody else.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I I saw what would happen.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was involved in conversations where you know there were just arbitrary things that would happen, somebody would change their mind about making an investment, you know, and then you were at the mercy of other people.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this desire for a very long time to run my own thing.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And thinking about what kinds of things you know to run, you know, I didn't have a lot of experience in in home services, but I found it very interesting because it's not a market that's going to be destroyed by advances in AI.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're not going to automate this job away.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have people fixing, you know, cleaning up mold, you know, removing damaged materials.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's a job that's going to be necessary for a long time.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought about what kinds of what kinds of industries are interesting to me.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And there's the ones that have some barrier to entry and that aren't really dependent on discretionary spending.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that narrows down quite a bit.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like a painting business or a flooring business, they're a lot easier to start than a plumbing business because you need plumbers with the right licenses, the right certifications.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I was trying to find some moderately high barriers to entry, home services with potential for scale and not a lot of dependency on discretionary.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if people are going to build decks, probably when they have money to build decks.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: But if they need to, you know, replace the wet, moldy flooring after a flood, you know, that they're going to hire somebody to do that.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there's probably going to be an insurance payment that makes that realistic for them to do right away.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I like I like the restoration industry, among other industries that I looked at, where I see that you know potential barrier to entry.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you so once you build up your you know, your your marketing, your your image, your ref reputation to the point where people are referring you, where you know I've got good recognition in places like Google Ads and Google SEO, it's not hard to get business.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's actually a lot of need out there.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's so this made that business make sense to me.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So and this is all hypothetical, obviously, but if you had to start again from absolute scratch, you know, let's say you had no brand, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: If I had to start over, what would I do differently?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I thought buying a business has some advantages and disadvantages.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're buying you're buying someone else's baggage when you buy a business.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, what I would do differently, I I know a lot more about what to look for than I knew when I bought this business.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think I didn't spend enough time really understanding marketing market position and reputation.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I looked at it pure purely from a financial standpoint.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in private equity, I was involved in like 18 different acquisitions.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: They were mostly software companies.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt like I had this expertise that I could apply to buying a home services business.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, a lot of what we were buying when we were buying software companies was contracts.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: You have a recurring contract, you you know, people, people need your maintenance, whatever it is.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't just dump you.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of a different animal than home services.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if I was going to do it over again, I would either build from scratch, focusing on building a good reputation through Google Reviews and SEO to be a number that pops up on people's phones when they when they type in, I've got water leaking in the middle of the night.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: If I was going to buy a business, I think I would look at the business criteria differently.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would look at who dominates search, you know, who really has built the domain authority into their website and has a huge number of great Google reviews that we could, you know, basically build off of, who has a great referral network.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I looked more at the operational and financial side.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if I did it differently, I would focus a lot more on market position and reputation and find somebody who's undervalued those areas.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, so so what I've been doing the past three years is really working on improving those areas because they weren't where they needed to be in the business that I bought.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what would you say is a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's some something humbling happens just about every day.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that you you you don't realize you know, just a tiny speck of an issue can can snowball into reputational damage, potential lawsuits.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so so really the the the hardest lesson I've learned is the ability to hire the right people that you can delegate things to and know that they're gonna be done properly.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had I had you know the ability in corporate America and startup world to hire very capable people at very high salaries.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: In the home services businesses, you can't do that and stay alive.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's a market rate that you have to that you have to stick to.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: So finding people who are good, who you can trust, is a lot more difficult than you think it is.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when when people talk about buying a business, I don't know how much we think about you know the quality of the current staff, the retainab retention that we desire, how the market sits as far as available talent with the right experience.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're the new guy coming in, you know, the most experienced people aren't necessarily excited about potentially working with you.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So for the past you know, three years, I the hardest job and the most humbling part of the job has been hiring.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've made a lot of mistakes that have been costly and painful.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm starting to I think do a lot better, be a little bit more choosy, have a lot more of a probationary mod mindset.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: When somebody comes in with a great resume, I want to see how they do.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's beginning to pay off.
• 13:11
  unknown: Okay.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what would you say is a common myth people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now when you hear it?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, common myth.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that people believe we make a lot more money than we do.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's interesting when when I when I send out an estimate where I'm using this system that the insurance companies use, which is uh, you know, called it's called Zactimate, but it's got a price list.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's made by this company called Verisk.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm using average pricing for everything and I'm putting it into an estimate.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm measuring, you know, we're gonna we're gonna fix this wall, we're gonna clean out the mold in this basement, in this crawl space.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I send out an estimate, and people go, whoa, that's incredibly expensive.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I know how these projects work, I know what the economics look like, I know how many hours we're gonna have to spend, how much material we're going to buy, you know, I know how much my workers' compensation insurance is gonna be.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you do mold work on a regular basis, you pay a lot of workers' compensation insurance.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm paying for liability insurance, I'm paying for a building, I'm paying for a website.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: All these things mean that I'm not making a huge amount of money on that estimate.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a guy out there in a truck who you know doesn't have any overhead, doesn't pay for workers' compensation insurance, who comes in and bids something a lot lower and gets gives people the perception that, well, you know, you're you're outrageous.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're just you know making these um unbelievable profits off this work.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think, no, I'm not.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've got managers, I've got people answering the phones 24-7, I've got insurance, I've got you know, everything that vehicles, maintenance.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm spending you know nine, ten thousand dollars a month on protective gear, on on you know, these the white suits that my guys wear and HEPA filters for their for their gas masks so they don't breathe mold spores in.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: All these things are expensive.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, you know, I I try to make a reasonable profit, but people think we're making ridiculous money when we're not.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Mold remediation and water mitigation done properly is expensive.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt about it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But we're that money's not coming to me.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you personally handle stepping away from the business, you know, like taking a vacation?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that even a thing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to do.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to really disconnect.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that it all comes down to the people that you hire and your ability to delegate, you know, processes, tools.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have some good people that have taken a long time to find.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the the first good people you're gonna find are probably going to be people that like to do things independently, that have a lot of knowledge, you know, and experience, but they kind of do things their way.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to scale, you have to go to a different level where it's not just knowledgeable guys gonna watch the business while I'm gone.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's knowledgeable guys gonna use the processes and systems that we've put in place to be able to manage a lot more of the business while I'm gone.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just be shooting from the hip, solid, you know, fighting, fighting fires.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you if all you want to do is is you know fight fires all day, don't build systems.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh don't use software that that helps you manage your jobs.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm able to relax most is when everybody's using the systems, when they're putting updates in to um the management software I use.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: We use a restoration management software tool.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: We use a can a photo photo tracking tool called Company Cam.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when I can open up my computer or look at my phone and I can see that the jobs are progressing and no big fires have popped up, and you know, I I can relax, I can disconnect.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: When I don't know what's going on and I'm somewhere else, it's very hard not to reach out and call people, what's going on with this?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where's this at?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think my ability to relax increases proportionally as we get more comfortable with systems.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And as the people that I've hired who are doing a great job can adapt and grow into a model where we use the systems because they help us, you know, scale, they help us maintain quality, they help minimize the fires.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So systems are really the key for me to you know just to be able to go.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I got a phone call from somebody who's complaining about something, and I can look at the notes and know that the notes have been kept up to date, know that the invoices have been done properly, know that the you know everything's been done right, I can relax.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: If not, it's kind of like you're you're you're walking on eggshells in a minefield waiting for the next, you know, when am I going to hear the little click that I've now got a big fire to fight?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you personally handle stepping away from the business like a you know, unplugging in the evening?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you have a certain cutoff time or are you working pretty much around the clock seven days a week?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I have I have an unplug, you know, mode that I go into probably around dinner time where I'll just you know watch watch some streaming series and and disconnect.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if I hear my phone vibrate, you know, like somebody's somebody needs me, I might take a look at it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: If we we we do 24-7, so there are times when I have the duty.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: We have managers, every every manager takes a week of answering calls at night.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we have an answering service that screens the calls, and if it's an emergency call, it'll get forwarded to us.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm on duty, I'm on 24-7.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm not on duty, I can shut down pretty well around dinner time.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'll get up early, spend a little bit of time drinking my coffee, walking my dog, and then dive in and start looking.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I do is look at notes in our restoration management system.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: What how'd it go yesterday on the jobs, what's coming up today?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if I can see that there's no big fires, then then I can relax and I can get into systems and and marketing and things like that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So looking back, what would you attribute most of your growth to in your business so far?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Helene.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Helene.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: We grew 80% last year from the prior year.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Helene did create a lot of work for restoration companies in in Asheville.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I've also been able to really get a handle on the marketing tools that are out there and understanding how people find businesses like mine and being better positioned to be visible and credible to people who are in that, you know, that moment of truth when they've walked into their vacation home and they see water gushing, you know, out the door, or somebody has a fire.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're they're gonna spend a couple minutes searching and they're gonna make a decision on who to call for emergency services.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been able to get a much better handle and grasp on how to be on that mobile phone screen as at least one, maybe all the options that they see, because that's where they're gonna go.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, understanding the behavior of the homeowners in those moments of truth.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Mold work and repair work and renovation work, that people make those decisions a little bit differently.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those jobs, there's a little bit more lead time.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the emergency work is is really where we've had the most growth.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because I've been able to get a much better understanding of how to move the needle on visibility, do a much better job of getting customer reviews, showing Google that this is a real credible business that's active, making our positioning on our website, you know, our descriptions better, building local branches of our business to be closer to where the customers are.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's really been that that understanding of go to market and improving that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're building a team, you know, let's say you're getting ready to hire someone, you know, come work for you.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: What matters more to you than what's on somebody's resume?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Any personality traits in particular?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, attitude is is really important.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I try to understand a little bit about the you know, the background of biography, like why are you here?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and if they if they are You know, I just moved in from out of town.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's probably a good reason that they're looking for a job, you know.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: But when somebody is, well, I don't like where I'm at, or there's like mysterious, you know, blocks of of unemployment in their in their history, then I suspect you know, I have to really dig into who they are, what their attitude is, you know, what what drives them.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and and people, if you ask the question, what drives you, they'll all say money.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Money.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the really good ones are also driven by a desire to do good work.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: They want to have pride in what they do.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you can you can you you can tell that.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell who who cares about what they do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: They care, I want people who care about the work and take pride in doing it well.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, getting getting paid well is just an outcome from doing good work, you know, and and trying to discern whether a person is just kind of bouncing around from job to job and always looking for another$10, you know, on in uh of pay or whatever.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really want to hire that person.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hire a person who's got a good reason to be looking, who's got a good attitude, and and takes pride in the work that they do.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what would you say is one thing you do intentionally to keep your workplace positive, motivated, and productive, you know, especially during like a stressful time or stressful season?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I try to I try to have like a sense of humor.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: We use a group chat.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's on the group chat.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we've got different chats for managers only or for construction teams only.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: But what I what I try to do is kind of have a have a we'll we'll we'll post something funny on the on the group chat.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Try to keep it light a little bit, knowing that there's a lot of things happening.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: People are working hard, there's a lot of stress, people are driving, you know, the weather might not be great.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of do all this, do all these things and maintain some sense of humor about what we're doing.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: We try to have barbecues periodically or breakfasts where everybody can get together, share a little food.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a crew that's mixed of you know Colombians and Americans, and they sometimes we'll we'll have a Colombian breakfast.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just trying to have trying to have fun and and make it a little fun in the midst of you know very stressful and challenging work.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we're gonna head into what's called the quick fire round.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So how this works is I'm going to say one word, and then I just want you to give me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business, and then expand upon what you said a little bit more to kind of give the audience a little bit of context on that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right, perfect.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: First word is education.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Education is critical in the restoration industry.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: There are there are standards we follow.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: If if if we're doing work in someone's home and we're you know removing drywall and we're installing dehumidifiers and air removers, all these things are built off of a strong understanding of the science that justifies, you know, we're gonna we're gonna do these things to get it dry.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And to get it dry, you have to understand how much air, how humid the air is, how humid the material, how wet the materials are that you're you're dealing with.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to understand the safety rules.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, you know, what what type of safety equipment should be wearing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: All this comes from education.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so so that's critically important.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody has to get certified, everybody has to do continuing education in order for us to be competent and and capable of doing the jobs properly.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Planning.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we could plan better.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: How do you plan for a mid-March snowstorm, ice storm to pop up?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you plan for a freeze?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do you plan for a hurricane?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Planning has to be based on some level of flexibility around contingencies that might occur.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, planning, how much, how much are we going to budget?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: How many people are we gonna hire?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: How much material is we're gonna buy, what what new equipment should we buy?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: We make a lot of decisions based on experience and instinct from the past in order to be prepared for the future.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I've got a warehouse full of equipment, and I needed more equipment during Helene.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so how could how could you plan for the possibility of something like that?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my industry allows us to rent equipment.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had an 18-wheeler trailer dropped off full of equipment that we were able to use during Hallen.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: So planning is planning is about understanding the various contingencies and being responsible about how much you have, how many people you have, what certifications they have, and what you're ready for and ready to respond to immediately, and what things you're gonna be able to respond to with a little bit of additional adjustment.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Inspiration.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Inspiration is is pretty important.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what inspires people to want to come into a job where they're gonna crawl around a crawl space in a Tyvek suit and a respirator mask for hours in heavy heat, pulling out insulation that's covered in mold and you know, crawling on their backs.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think people have to be inspired by good good leadership and trying to hire people who are inspirational leaders who understand you know the actual work and respect the work is really important.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, understanding what drives people, what drives people, you know, taking care of their families, the satisfaction of a job well done, and and trying to build around that as much as we can.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a dirty, hard job.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the inspiration has to come from within.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Commitment.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Man.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's a commitment, there's all these different types of commitment that that pop into my mind.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have we have a commitment to our customers, you know, to do the job properly, professionally.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have a commitment to our partners that do work with us that you know, we we give them a fair chance to be be successful.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have a commitment to our employees.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, trying, I think commitment is really critical glue that holds things together.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I made a commitment that when I first bought the company, we didn't offer health insurance, we didn't have, we had very weird and inconsistent paid vacations, we didn't have a 401k.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have all those things now, you know, because those were important to me to say so if somebody comes to work for me, they can buy reasonable, reasonably priced health insurance for their family.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: They can have a retirement program.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: In in return for that, you know, I want them to have a commitment to do the job well, to show up on time, be prepared for work.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: So commitment is a is is critical.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Glue holds everything together, but it's also a two-way street.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Discipline.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Discipline is essential when you're working, when you've got people that are climbing on a roof to do estimates.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it there's always shortcuts you can take and make things go a little faster.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe we don't need to put that safety equipment on if when we walk into that moldy house.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you if you don't have discipline, you're going to have injuries, you're going to have work that's substandard, you're going to have legitimate complaints.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Discipline is something that's really important for anybody in this in this industry because not being disciplined about what you do can have some catastrophic effects.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed, agreed.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you getting through that fire uh quick fire round there.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So so and I want you to be as candid as you can and and you know as honest as you can on this next question to answer.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if let's say a small business owner is listening to the podcast episode today, your episode here today, and it's not having a great 2026.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's just say, you know, I know it's only three months into the year, but they're not having a good look, a good year so far.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're feeling stuck or overwhelmed.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's a piece of advice you would give them today?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Every day is going to be humbling in some way.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to keep plodding along and you have to keep learning.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you just keep your mind open to the possibility that something good is around the corner and you plan as if it's coming, but you also are realistic about what's not working, and you make you make efforts to make that that work better, or make changes where you need to make changes.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think the humbling struggles will ever go away, but you'll have more successes and you'll start to notice you're making progress.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say stick with it, keep fighting, keep learning, and make changes where you need to.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect, perfect.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what wise words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow their business?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe listening today.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Really understand how consumers and business people who you work with find your business.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a crowded market.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of hardworking people out there that start businesses.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my industry, I've got over 50 competitors in Asheville.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of those are small.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you make yourself the most relevant, visible, easy to find, trustworthy resource for that moment that they're going to be making a decision?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: When you peel back and understand that, then you can really drive growth by making changes.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had to I had to get a lot more disciplined about Google reviews.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Once we started to do that, we started to see more review velocity.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: My positioning on SEO improved.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Google was a lot kinder to me in their placement on ads.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Everything started to work better, and we started to get a lot more calls.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so it growth, growth comes from understanding how consumers understand what decision to make, is really what I would say.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's next for uh secure restoration?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: What should people be excited about coming up in the near future for your business?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're opening up a Hendersonville office.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: We opened up an Asheville office several months ago.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we have Arden, Asheville, and then we'll have Hendersonville.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: We really want to grow our business towards Greenville.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we're excited about that.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing a lot of work for Renew, the program that the state is running to rebuild and repair homes for Helene.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been beefing up our construction business.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, really would be great if anyone knows any good carpenters or carpenter helpers who would be looking for work.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to hire people full-time because we're going to be very busy with that work for at least the next five to six years.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll see us out there doing a lot of a lot of repair work, a lot of rebuild work, and continuing to expand our restoration business presence across the Western North Carolina into South Carolina.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or learn more about what you do?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: They can come to a BI meeting as one guest if they're interested.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a that's actually a great resource for referrals networking and the benefits go beyond just getting referrals.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: You also get a lot of knowledge sharing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: People will tell you who's you know who's a good company to go to to get t-shirts made, things like that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: So B and I would be a great place to come.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can do you can chat on my website if you if you're interested in learning more about the company and the services we offer.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: We've got 24-7 phone answering and chat availability.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're you know, if you're interested in talking to me about something, some opportunities, I'd you know definitely reach out to me through the website.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect, perfect.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, perfect.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Rob, this has been fantastic.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story, your perspective, and your real behind the scenes of building your business.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Really was an honor talking with you today.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoyed it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Lev.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: All righty.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, perfect.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, how'd you think that went?