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From Our Garage to 65 Employees: Building a Multi-Trade Service Empire · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hey there and welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Bill Gilliland with Action Coach Business Growth Partners and I am super pumped to have Alicia and Pete Green from Go Green Plumbing Heating Air and Electrical and that is a mouthful, but it does tell us what they do and I think that's a good way to name your company.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: So I don't know who wants to go first, but tell us a little bit about your company.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: So the company was founded in 2015 by my wife and I and actually her father, which is now passed and we originally operated out of our garage slash basement.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: We were a one-man truck operation in 2015, and we slowly grew the business.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: You know, the business operates as a flat rate provider.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: We're in the residential service sector.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Flat rate provider.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: We're in the residential service sector, which accounts for over 99% of our revenue stream, and today we are roughly around 60 to 65 employees, depending on how many apprentices we take on.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: And that's about it in a nutshell.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So I know what a flat rate provider is, but I'm guessing that some people listening don't.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So tell us what a flat rate provider is.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: So flat rate is a set upon price up front prior to proceeding with any work.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Proceeding with any work, and we, basically we operate on a billable hour instead of a time and material type thing.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: So, essentially, I'm going to pull and reset a toilet.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Here's the price.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: It's a set price.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: As long as all I'm doing is pulling and resetting a toilet, you can be confident, mr Customer, that this price won't change.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the better the technician, the faster that'll happen.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, your efficiency.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah so essentially, instead of rewarding you know, rewarding a company based on time and material.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: You know, any business owner would love to send their slowest plumber out there so he can rack up as many hours, right, and there's really no reward for a plumber that, or an electrician or an HVAC technician that is quick and efficient and has a low callback ratio, things like that.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So we're more like rewarding productivity versus time.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, a hundred percent.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: At one I owned a shop and we flat rate technicians.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It worked the same way the better the technician, the more money they could make and the better.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: The customers were happier because everything happened faster and more productively and the quality was first rate.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: You also knew how much it was going to cost them.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't just like oh well, we'll be here for a while and get out your wallet, it's that kind of thing.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So I think that's awesome.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: We'll come around to apprentices a little bit later.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I've got a question about that, because I do think that's an interesting one.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So congratulations on your success so far.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you something If you had to start over from square one, what would you do differently?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we recently did another podcast and they asked us this question and I really I'm actually extremely grateful for the opportunity to answer again, because I don't think that I highlighted enough during that podcast the fact that there were a lot of mistakes made, but every single mistake was such a great lesson.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: You know, without those lessons we wouldn't have the right SOPs in place.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: But when we originally started, I mean, we had just a little drafted handbook and our goal was never to be a one-man operation.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: So, with our goals being what we've created and what we're continuing to grow, I would say the biggest lessons I would take away is just the planning, the pre-planning, having SOPs in place, policies and procedures in place, you know, having the right people in place, making sure that they understood business as well and setting real good, clear expectations.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I think that you know, I think that you can do a lot without having a lot of money to start up front.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: We didn't have a lot of up front money to start, but investing the money that you do have wisely.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So, branding immediately, making sure that your branding is on point.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Now I feel like we started with a great brand.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: We had a really nice, clean logo.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: We started with a big box truck.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: We were able to do same day service from the beginning.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Those things have always been in line for us, knowing what our flat rate was.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: We understood gross margins, so I'm grateful for those things.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: But as we added trades, even though we had the knowledge, so we started with plumbing only and when we added HVAC, I feel like some of those things we kind of forgot about At the time and I'm not sure why we did that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: You know, looking back at the time in 2019, we added HVAC and we probably should have rebranded fully then, like we have a new.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: You know we rebranded in 2024.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I think we really should have done that in 2019, not expanded our entire fleet and had added a whole bunch more 20 more vehicles to our fleet.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It made branding a lot more expensive to rewrap that many vehicles.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: You know just all of that vehicles.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: You know just all of that.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: It made it a lot of people just really knew us by plumbing and it made advertising HVAC a bit more challenging.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So I just feel like we should have done some of those things quicker.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like we weren't quick enough to implement.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: We heard we have a lot of great mentors, we have amazing business coaches, but we just weren't fast enough, you know, on implementation of the things that we probably needed to implement at that time.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I would say those are some of the biggest lessons.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like like we learned, you know, the wrong people, the wrong people in the seat for too long, allowing that to go on too long, not rebranding quick enough, not having SOPs in place.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I mean again, we started in 2015 with plumbing only and we learned along that path that we had to create all these SOPs, and then we started HVAC without SOPs in place.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: So I don't know why we did that again.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: You know, um, who's the SOP person?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: There's usually one, that's that's.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Who's good at that.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Uh, I think that she would probably do about 90% of them, about 90% of them.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Um, I've written a few on certain things like um, I take care of the um, incentive, pro, uh, programs, um, you know, I'm kind of more of a numbers guy.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Figure out, you know, if this is going to be a win-win situation, uh, win for the employee, win for the, the business, and then of course, the customer has to win too.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: So it'd be a win-win-win type scenario and, to balance, that is a very fine line to ensure.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: And we've made mistakes along the way too.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Instead of programs that were killing the business and the employees are walking away, uh, celebrating um, and then vice versa, you know, ones that worked in the business's favor and didn't work really too much in the employee's favor.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: So you know, we've we've played around with incentive programs and SOPs on that front as well, um, and we've changed the type of programs we've done, I mean, quite a few times.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, there are some mistakes made along the way too with things like incentive programs.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty hard, I've found over the years it's pretty hard to develop an incentive program that somebody can't figure out how to game.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think like that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So I have to like test it and see what happens.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, or run it by a few people who do think like that.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So, uh, it's an interesting, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very interesting one.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Um, what was?
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: How did you decide?
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Was it always in the plan to add other services?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Or because you could have gone the other way and just blown up plumbing, you know?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and yeah and other areas or other geographies or whatever.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So yeah, was that always part of the plan?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, um, but you know, you know what.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: You know that you don't know, uh, or at least good leaders know what they don't know, um, and we had waited until 2019 to do that.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, and and we had asked, you know our business coach to kind of, um, do an analysis on our business, figure out if we were ready to do that or not.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Um, because you know the new shiny things.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Uh, adding a trade is is a big investment, and we, we knew enough to know that.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Um, and uh, you know our business coach said yeah, you, you guys are, you guys are showing a good net profit.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Uh, year over year.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Uh, you've shown good growth year over year.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Uh, your numbers are in line.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Uh, we think you're ready and so, uh.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: So then we, we added HVAC and and I'll tell you, um, you can't run any trade the same as the other.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: You can, they're closely, you know, they're closely similar.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Um, but the way each business runs, is is a separate type of entity and and the people work differently, the jobs are completed at different levels.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Um, the the gross profit margins are much different, the KPIs are different.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: So, you know, I think we went in thinking, hey, we're going to run this Like we've done plumbing and not realizing.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm a plumber by trade, for, you know, 25 years now and I look at certain aspects of HVAC and I go why are they doing that Like, why don't they just do it like we do?
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: And you know after what, almost six years of having HVAC in the business, I'm realizing you know that they are very much different beasts.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: They are.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: But when we sat down, you know we knew that we Pete really told me that he wanted to open his own company back in 2002.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So we've been dating since we were in high school.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: You know high school kids and now married I guess not dating.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: We started dating when we were in high school.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: You know high school kids and now married I guess not dating.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: We started dating when we were in high school.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: We've been married now 25 years.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: But he told me back in 2002 when he went into plumbing, like I want to open a plumbing company.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: So that was always in his plans and and I, I went to nursing school.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I, you know, um went, went that kind of path and went into different leadership roles and then learned business and um went to school for for business so that we could operate.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So we sat down with this plan, um, starting in 2014, really sat down.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: We sat on our back you know table on our back porch and we we wrote out a business plan.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: We were really intentional.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: We we didn't just start it overnight, we did create SOPs.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: You know what do we want the company to look like.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: We wrote out five-year goals and HVAC and electrical were in those.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: But we were starting with with plumbing because, you know, that was really the background that we understood.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And then we made sure to follow mentors along the way.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: We joined Nextar, became Nextar members, you know, we listened to our business coaches.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: We provided a lot of training and education for our entire team.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: We continue to do so and listen to a lot of that advice, but it was always in the grand plan.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Our grand plan, like I said, was never to be a one-man show, and that's great for those that want that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: You know, if that's your goal, that's fantastic.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Um, just make sure you're priced right, you know, so that you're able to retire one day.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: But, um, if you're, if your goal is to to be different, to be a larger company or to add multiple trades, I think that you have to plan differently.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Um, I think that you have to plan differently, I think that you have to structure differently.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I think, from the first day you really need to know that that's your goal and you need to operate in a completely different fashion.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had clients in all those trades and most of them don't do what you did.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: That's why I asked the question, because they are different.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And I mean you would think they would be the same and there are a lot of similarities but, like you said, different margins, different.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Model.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Different end models, different incentive structures, the whole thing.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's enough nuance to make it, yeah, interesting with that Even just the little things like relationships of vendors is very different you know from one to another.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So so, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy, um.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So let me, um, let me get a couple of learnings from each of you.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, what you've learned as a business owner?
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Um, so I was a general manager of another plumbing business before I started mine and, um, I had, uh, I had some decent business knowledge, had been to a lot of trade, trade specific uh seminars on business.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, we, we went out the gate, um, you know, with flat rate, and we were using a next door model.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Even before we were even next door members.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: My previous employer was a next door member, so I really got a lot out of that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: What I've learned is you know, you can know your numbers, you can know that the industry and the trades really well, but if you don't know how to lead people, then it's going to fall apart.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Especially, you know a business like ours, so many trucks, so many people working in and out of the business.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: You know, if you're a one-man truck, then essentially all you got to lead is really one person, right?
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: But what I've learned is that most people that are in leadership roles tend to not be leaders.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: They tend to be managers.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: You know, and what I explained to my managers is managers manage things like a warehouse, a product, a SKU.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Leaders lead people.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: So, and there's a big difference between the two and you know we have, we've gone through the exercise of.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: There's a book out there called the Motive.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: We've gone through that and it's yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And if you don't understand your motive of why you want to be a leader and and you're stepping into this role of a manager leader thinking that it's just the next step, then you're in the wrong position.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: So that's probably one of the biggest things I've learned.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I've found that you need both.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You need management and leadership.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: You got to have both.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: You need those numbers people yeah.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Well, you got to have people that can manage, you know that, know how to manage, and then some of them get to be leaders.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, yeah, they're in there, I don't know.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So do you have one, alicia?
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I would say that investing in your team, company culture, I think, is one of the biggest things that I feel like a lot of people do not focus enough on.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: A lot of people make the customer number one.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: You know, and a lot of the Facebook groups out there everybody's talking about, you know well what's the lifetime value of this customer and you know you got to do everything to save that customer and really not every customer is your customer.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: What's the lifetime value, pete, I always say, of your employee?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: They probably are going to bring a lot more in sales, revenue, retention and company culture than any one customer is going to right.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: So I think having an exceptional company culture is one of the biggest things that can help you be successful.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Now, at the same time, I think that you have to be and this is something that we learned hard lessons on right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You do have to challenge that, that sense of entitlement or things too.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: That becomes really challenging sometimes when you're a leader and you feel like you're constantly giving and giving and giving and your team is like they.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: You know you feel like your team doesn't, isn't, uh, receptive or wants more, more more grateful, um, ungrateful.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's been ebbs and flows where we're like, wow, these are these we're just doing and doing for people and, um, you know, nobody's grateful and um, you know you tend to get into these jaded moments and a lot of conversations that I have with other business owners and other business owners in the trade and outside of the trade just other entrepreneurs in general, finding a way to you know the right people to be able to vent to if you need to, but really trying to stay out of that mindset, because you know a few can make you feel that way quickly, but that really isn't the majority and it really shouldn't deter you from your purpose of serving others, you know.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So I think, just making sure that you stay in the right mindset, don't become jaded.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: It is a grind, it is hard, there are going to be ungrateful people, but you know, let's focus on the majority and not the outliers.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: It's nice when you I mean, what I just wrote down was, you know, hire grateful people, you know, cause I mean I, you know, I had a.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I just invested in a trip for a, you know, training and some things for one of our team members and I got a nice thank you note.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, that's, he gets it, so that's that's, you know, actually a written thank you note.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, that's, he gets it, so that's actually a written thank you note in the mail.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That was pretty cool.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, those are the kind of things.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: So what do you think a couple of misconceptions are about running a business?
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I like the saying rolling in the dough.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I get it, I'm with you.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I remember my first business.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: They all thought I was rich, yeah, yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: I mean and I don't want to put it like we're in the poorhouse or anything we have a good life.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: If anything, we are probably upper middle class to the middle class section or arena, but I think that there's a huge misconception.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: It's just not among employees, other business owners especially due to certain business owners as well and then the end consumer.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I had one customer left a review and he said you know, I'm having trouble getting ahold of the owner.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Um, he must be on the golf course, uh, uh, playing golf.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: And I'll just tell you I chuckled at that.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: I was actually at my father's funeral.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Um, so that that's why.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: But but this is the kind of the, the kind of things that you get from consumers, and I think that every industry deals with some type of misconception or jaded consumer idea about business owners.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: But you know, that probably would be my answer.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to you know, in the absence of communication.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: People make up stuff and so it's hard to communicate that stuff.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So I would even say I would say the same thing, except a different route, like I wouldn't even focus so much on the consumer, more so your team.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Because I see it every single day in these, in the online platforms, right, all over social media, like I'm going to go out there and I'm going to start my own thing.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Because I see it every single day in these, in the online platforms, right, all over social media, like I'm going to go out there and I'm going to start my own thing.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, today I put in a tankless water heater and we charged $8,000.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I should be the one walking away with $6,000.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And I'm like they really think you know, they have this mindset that we are really putting $6,000 in our pocket from that one job and it's just.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: It's just not the case, right?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: So I think that the biggest misconception, I think, is that and I think Michael Gerber said it best is that there's really great technicians out there who have entrepreneurial seizures and think that because they're really great technicians, they can run businesses.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And a really great tech doesn't equal a really great business owner.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: They're not exclusive to each other and, you know, they just don't understand their numbers.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: They don't understand numbers in general, they just don't understand their numbers.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: They don't understand numbers in general, and that's okay as long as they're open-minded, willing to learn from others.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But I think that is one of the biggest misconceptions is that everybody's just rolling around like Google with a 33% net profit.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I don't even think they get that Back on the beach.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I don't even think they get that far, I don't.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I think they forget that they have bills at home.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And so they like, oh well, you sold, you know, $10 million.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, then you made $10 million.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you know it doesn't work that way.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: No, it's not, that's not.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: That's not the way it works in their paycheck either.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And so you know, they get a paycheck and then they have, you know, they have their mortgage and their bills, and the same in a business.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I have an exercise that actually I do that sometimes with employees just to show them, like, how much is actually left of a dollar after you know when we get a dollar in.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yep, pete does that.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: It takes about five or six hours he spends with every single new hire, from call center to you know, our top sales guys sit in on our exercises on what it costs to operate a business and what the numbers really mean.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: They have to understand it because we don't want our guys out there posting that they should have been walking around with away with 6,000, right, they really understand it.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So I think being transparent with your team is important.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then what that means is you have to teach them how to read a financial statement.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Essentially, that's right yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty interesting thing.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance the personal life and the demands of the business?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: How have you all done with that?
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: I think that's an ebb and flow as well.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: You know, sometimes you know we're in the midst of possibly a crisis in the business and then the business becomes the subject of 24-7.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: And then you know, in certain cases we're we're doing very well in the business and, um, that tends to, uh, maybe fall off a little bit, um, and we're able to take some time away from the business.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: So I think it's an ebb and flow.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I think it depends on where you're at, where your growth strategy is, uh, and and how your profit loss and your balance sheet's looking.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it depends on who's helping you.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: So are you trying to do everything yourself?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I could tell you I wear a lot of hats but are we still trying to micromanage every aspect, or are we learning to ask for help and delegating tasks that should be delegated?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: We can't grow for micromanaging, so that's one thing for certain.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: So the right people in the right seats you know that are there too.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: This summer we went on a road trip.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: We drove from North Carolina all the way up through Canada into Alaska, came back down.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: We were gone five weeks, so that was the longest we've ever been away from the business.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: But during that time we have business coaches that I recommend.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Everybody has a business coach, everyone should have a business coach.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: But our business coaches came in for a week and they worked with our team, you know, while we were gone.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: But we have a really great team.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: We have a really great leadership team that we can trust and we stay in communication.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: But, like Pete said, there's definitely ebbs and flows.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: There's times where you know we're up at one in the morning like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Not so much recently over the last few years.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: But you know, especially early on um, that that's a hard time, that it really is a tough time um to to balance that there's.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: There's definitely no um reward without grit.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: So you know, take, take some of that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: No, that's good.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Any advice?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I tend to end up working with a lot of husband wife teams, but so, um, this is usually a question I ask is like what do you have any advice for the, for the husband wife teams?
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Um, know your lane and stay in it, okay, so yeah, I mean it's pretty.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: It's pretty simple, because you know, um, if your two uh job descriptions and duties uh mingle or or or kind of um bleed into one another, then it's gonna cause possible stripes and and and issues.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: So you know.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: The other thing is, you know, just learn when to direct any subordinates to the proper person, and that goes for managers too.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, the same thing can happen with management.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, the buck stops with the owners, right, or the owner.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And when you have co-owners like us, you know 50-50 split in the business.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: We have to have an operating agreement, we have to understand our roles in the business and we have to stick to those roles.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: So you know, when somebody comes to me about you know payroll, I'm not even about to talk to them about payroll.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You know that's why are you coming?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Why are you coming to me Right?
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: That's not my department.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I'm not going to have an opinion on it and I'm not going to offer any advice on it or what they should do, shouldn't do, or what's going to happen.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: No, you need to.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: You need's going to happen.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Nope, you need to speak to Alicia about that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, having clear, defined roles.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I think that every single husband and wife should go into business without a clear operating agreement, because you do need to have those things outlined and designated.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And, um, you know, I think that a lot don't a lot are like, well, we'll just figure it out or we'll just work together, and then you're like yelling at each other and then you're telling each other you're not going to, I don't report to you, and we've had our moments, right, um.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: But but as soon as you learn that, like this, these are my job duties and and then you meet once a week, you have an L10 or leadership meeting, whatever you want to call it, within your organization, we have L10s, we, you know, we sit down and we all, just we discuss those things that everybody can, can voice in or get your reports on, um.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's where, where a lot of people struggle, is they haven't clearly defined their roles, um, and so there's just a lot of overlapping, um, you know, people feel like they're taking on more than the other, or something like that, and it's just, I think, clearly defining your roles.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Otherwise you could have the same issue, even if you're not husband and wife, you just have a co-partner, or you could have the same issue with your GM or ops manager or service manager or even a technician.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I mean clearly defined roles is so important.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: So I mean, y'all went into this thing better than most because you came out of the industry, you were prepared, you did a plan, but what do?
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: you wish you had known, or that somebody had told you before you went into business.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's what I wish I would have known before I went into business.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: I think, for me, it would be what I wish I would have believed before I went into business, you know.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: So, human beings, we make decisions based on pain, and it's almost like we have to experience that pain to believe it exists.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Um, and I'll just you know an example or an analogy is you know, as a kid.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: You know the stove's hot.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Everybody's told you the stove's hot.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: You got to test the theory and make sure that nobody's lying to you.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: So you touch the stove and it's hot and you get burned.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: You know what kid hasn't been burned in their life?
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Right, and now, from that day forward, now we're going to believe everybody that tells us.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: And the same thing is about business.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: You know these business owners tell you it's difficult out there and what people see generally with business owners is the success that they had in whatever it is.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: They have properties, uh assets, uh material things, um, things like that.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: So I think that everybody comes into this business thing is well, they've done it and I can do it too, and that's absolutely correct.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, if they've done it, you can do it too.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Um, but just know there is quite a bit of pain involved and unfortunately, regardless of how much advice someone gives to you, you almost need to make the mistakes on your own own.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I would say for me not caring so much what people think I was.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: You know, at first such a people pleaser and like a bad review, oh my gosh, if you got, if we got, a negative review, just tear me up, like I felt like just such a personal attack, you know, and you do your best to combat those and some of them happen and and you do the right thing by the customer and fix the situation and some of them you can't fix at all and those were the hardest.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Like you know, this person's just absolutely crazy.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: We went out of our way for them and those things are going to happen too.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Um, but letting them fester, or, um, sitting, you know, I let them occupy my brain way too long.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Um, they took up way too much space in my mind, um, you know.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Or for the years that we were very underpaid, um, you know, everybody was cheering us on.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And then the second, we maybe bought a new truck, like, oh, we're going to finally buy ourselves a new truck.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: You know we've been struggling all these years starting a business, and then all of a sudden, people you know people's opinions come out like, oh, they must be making millions.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: They bought a new truck, but why do I care?
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Why do I let that occupy any time in my mind?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, things like that.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I just, you know, allowing things to take up space in my mind, that I I never, you know, I shouldn't spend more than a second on Um, and I I feel like, uh, I'm getting better at letting those things go and and not dwelling on them too long, but I think those are are constant, constant since the beginning.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: You know constant lessons, that things that I've learned.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: You just got to let it go and let others think or believe whatever they think or believe.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the older I get, the less I care.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I don't know if he ever cared.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, yeah, I mean it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: It takes a while and he was in the industry for a while.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: You came out of nursing.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a service industry.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I mean you want to make people well and feel better and you know that's a hard thing to let go of.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I mean that's just how you're bent.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: So, um, yeah, I mean that's just how you're bent.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean it's.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I mean what helped me early days, because I do want to help everybody.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: But you know, what helped me early days was somebody told me you know, if you're pleasing everybody, you're probably not doing enough.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And it was pretty good advice.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: You know you got to go out out and I mean sometimes you just get the wrong customer.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes sometimes you get the right customer but you just can't make them happy.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: It just, you know it's some, it's for whatever reason that it just happens that way.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, but I will tell you that some of our best customers are people.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: In some of my businesses, some of the best customers are people who, you know, were mad in the beginning and we were able to turn them around and then they become lifelong.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: It became that lifetime value you guys talked about.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: So one last I love you guys the last time.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: The last question is what's the best way for people to find you?
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Go Green Plum, and that's Go Green just like the color Plum.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: B-p-l-u M as in Mary B, as in Boyd dot com.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yep GoGreenPlumcom.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: We're on social media.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: We're on.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Facebook, Instagram.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all over.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: You're everywhere.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I've looked, yeah.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: TikTok really.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's cool yeah.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, we love to make some videos.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: That's cool.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, we love to make some videos.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: We are all about making some.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Uh, we got, we got, dancing, we got dancing plumbers.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: We got dancing plumbers.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh really that's cool.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: You can also find us any any of the Facebook forums um you know, on business and and trade trade specific uh of the more prominent ones.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I'm usually the guy in there schooling very opinionated.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: You know the guy that nobody likes.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Well, but you're, you know, you're a truth teller.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So, and if they choose to listen, they'll probably shortcut some things, and if they don't, then they'll probably feel the pain that you were talking about earlier.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I think that the misconception there is a misconception among business owners too, and for me and maybe not every business owner is this way, but we want everybody to succeed and when someone achieves success, I think the misconception among other people is they just want to be alone at the top, and no business owner that I've met that's super successful is that way.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: No, 100%.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I've never met anybody that's that way.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: That was super successful.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Everyone I've talked to was happy to give people advice, or share, or you know if you asked right they would mentor.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a you know you got to be cognizant of their time sometimes, yeah, and by no means am I saying we are super successful.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: We've been successful, we have a great team, but we're not at the top of the pyramid by any means.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are some really really good operators out there that are tenfold to us, and all I typically try and do in these forums or when someone calls me, is just share my expertise in the subjects that I am confident in and where we've seen success.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: So what I would recommend to any of your viewers if they're, if they're, business owners in the trades, I'd recommend that they they reach out, find a mentor, someone that's doing it better than they are um get a business coach, find a, find a mentor uh, you know weekly calls with that mentor, weekly calls with that business coach and just implement.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: just if they're successful doing it, just don't question it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: The stove is hot.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Go ahead and do what they tell you to do.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Just put it in action, do it.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: You know, no decision is worse than a bad decision.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: You can always fix it.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So, hey look, this has been really good and I appreciate you guys being here and it's been a great discussion.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, grateful for having us on.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: I bet you tell all the girls that.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: All the girls, all the girls.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: None of the guys.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: All the girls, yeah, yeah, anyway, that's fun, hey, and until next time, all the best.