Latest / Exit Algorithms / How to Scale a Service Business to Eight Figures with Ben Buckley (#85)
Transcript
- Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Welcome to Exit Algorithms, the podcast where we decode what it really takes to unlock growth, streamline operations, and prepare your business for a high-value exit. I'm your host, Pete Vera, and today I'm joined by Ben Buckley. He's the owner of Digital Dreams, Northern California-based commercial audio-visual integration and advanced security system company. He bootstrapped to eight figures. And built to serve global brands including Apple, Salesforce, and Samsung. Ben, excited to have you here. Welcome to the podcast. Ben Buckley: Yeah, right on, dude. Thanks, Pete. Thanks for that. Yeah. Excited too. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah, ⁓ absolutely. ⁓ I did a little bit of research on my own, but I'd love if if you don't mind sharing for listeners a little bit about your background and, you know, what what led you to digital dreams. Ben Buckley: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I was how did it start? So it started I had my first kid at nineteen. I'm forty seven now. And ⁓ that was like a huge like wake up call and I was like, man, I got something I gotta take care of, I gotta feed. And so I was like doing random jobs trying to figure out like what to do at nineteen. And ⁓ around like twenty twenty one I got a job I call it like my first big boy job. I was working at ⁓ Dish Network. And I was a technician there. I was a manager. I mean, I was a tech for two years and a manager for two. And then I ⁓ learned there how to like physically, I was always like technically inclined and would put stuff together. And like I used to have a TV on top of my TV in the Bay Area, right? And I would record a VHS to another VHS, and I was always like messing with electronics. And then when I got to Dish, I learned how to like physically run cable, aim satellite dishes, ⁓ hang TVs and do all this other stuff there. And then I learned how to manage technicians and route. And like my brain was like curated there at that job. I moved up really quick. And then I got a DY in two thousand ⁓ five, four or five. And then ⁓ they kicked me out. I lost the job right there. I was like on my way, like one day I'll be general manager, you know, and then booted me out and that was the that was the birth of digital dreams right there. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: And wow. Yeah. Ben Buckley: And so when it kicked me out, ⁓ I learned how to start doing subcontracting. I had a day job and subcontracting, and then I had so many side jobs I couldn't keep the day job. And that's how kind of how it birthed. I had to just like constantly work 'cause I kept having kids and so many kids, you know. Keep working, working, be these kids, you know. ⁓ and so that's kinda how it started, like ⁓ pushed out of the ⁓ corporate like life young and then learn how to like do stuff on my own. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Ha ha. Ben Buckley: ⁓ and so that's that's how it started and then I was like, you know, working out of my house to finally getting a a small shop to another shop to now we bought a building downtown Sacramento. But that's kinda like that's kinda like the origin story there. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. ⁓ awesome. ⁓ thank thank you for sharing. ⁓ I imagine that was a terrible, terrible experience at the time. Ben Buckley: Yeah, it was. It was scary. Yeah, at the time. You know, I had I already had four kids by that time that I lost the job, you know, and I was like panicking, right? So Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: But ended up it sounds like, you know, blessing in disguise eventually. how was that in those those early days? ⁓ w when did you kind of make the leap officially to, you know, go go all in on business? Ben Buckley: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and so I still tell everybody I'm like a super like late bloomer. I was like I didn't realize like I'm actually running a business. I actually have people like doing work for me. I wasn't even like paying attention. I was just like a doing what I like to do, hanging TVs, doing all the stuff on the side, you know, running cable and stuff and and getting these jobs and I was just making ends meet and making money, you know, until I started getting bigger and bigger and then it's like, ⁓ I need to get a million dollars insurance. That's crazy. Why do I have to get that so much insurance? You know it's like Then other customers were, you I started off doing residential and then I went fully commercial. So I was I was originally doing a bunch of residential stuff. I was doing like this will like date myself, but I was doing like TVs for Sears. If you went into Sears and you bought a TV, we would go hang that TV for you. That's like what we were doing. Like Sears is contracting us, and then we started doing it for Best Buy and Target and Walmart and Amazon. Anyone who sold a TV in our market, we would go. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Sears. Ben Buckley: hang like we'd be the third party like you know the three pl stuff you guys are in we were the third party logistics for TV hangs in our market right so we would we would go hang a bunch of TVs and cameras and stuff like that for companies ⁓ and then ⁓ from there we would like let's say I got paid like I literally got paid 50 bucks to go to Sears pick up a TV wait there for 45 minutes in my own truck my own gas drive to a customer's house take the TV out the box Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: ⁓ okay. Ben Buckley: Put it on the stand, take their old Sony Trinitrons, like 320 pounds, take that monster out with another guy, put that in my truck and go e-waste it. And we would get eight bucks to throw that other TV out. So it'd be 58 bucks to do all that. It could be like three, four hours, right? And ⁓ the only way we would make money is to get that customer to buy something else from us. Maybe they need like an HDMI cable. Maybe they want the TV hung. Maybe they want something else. So it's like a lost leader to get customers. They're like, ⁓ my. Cousin needs something too. And then you would meet people, you know. ⁓ and so that's that's like our loss leader in the beginning of like how we met stuff. You know, some jobs did pay more, like they'd have like stuff that might pay 300 bucks for the day or something, you know. ⁓ but that was like our initial until I started getting into commercial and then eventually I cut off all the residential and gave it to someone that was ⁓ working with me the whole time and gave him all ten thousand customers and I said, I don't want to talk to these people ever again Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Got it. Yeah. Ben Buckley: In a nice way, in a nice way. But ⁓ you know, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze anymore once I flipped over to commercial. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Gotcha. Yeah, did you did you s sell that book of business or Ben Buckley: No, I just gave it away. I gave it away to this guy, ⁓ Baird, ⁓ who was with me in the beginning. He still runs all that to this day. I don't I don't take a penny from it. He runs all the customers, everything. I just handed it off to him. 'Cause he was with me from like the beginning and stuff, so he just got to keep all that. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Next. Gotcha. Yeah, how how was it initially, you know, how how quickly did you hire employees? Did it was there a certain kind of revenue mark you you hit before you you decided to scale that way with ⁓ hiring new people? Ben Buckley: So So I would find so for the longest time, everybody who did work for me was just piecework. Up until like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen or something, right? They would just drive their own truck, they would do the job, I'd pay for their guests, I'd pay them like some jobs are just flat rates. Most of them are all just flat rates, right? And they would just I would just keep whatever was left off and we would manage it, schedule it, project manage the job, they would go do the work and then that'd be it, right? Until I had so much going on that the guys were technically like my full time employees and I had to convert them before I get in trouble for California for like paying guys without doing their taxes and stuff like that. And so eventually I crossed over the point to where I could convert everybody and start buying vans and put them in my vans, pay them hourly, and all that stuff. So I didn't get to convert everybody to full time employees until about twenty seventeen. And so up until then, like two thousand five till then, it was just everybody in their own truck getting paid piecework. And that's how I was able to build it till I had enough revenue to be able to convert ⁓ over and give ⁓ benefits and give ⁓ all the stuff that's they should get, you know. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah, got it. Yeah, it kind of developed naturally. Did was there do you remember what that revenue mark was? Was it you know, was there like a threshold? Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, ⁓ that's awesome. I I'm curious how was it, you know, getting that first ⁓ enterprise kind of big, big name Fortune five hundred client or customer? Ben Buckley: It was about three million. It was about three million. Yep. Mm. Dude, it yeah, it came like it came so late. And I keep telling everybody I say it again, like I'm such a late bloomer, you know, and once I started taking it more serious and getting this stuff and knew like the stakes were higher and knew that like our skill level had to be at a certain point to like match this thing, you know. ⁓ and and you can get called out really quick and you could you could think that you're ready for some big customer and then you're like, Hey, everything looks good, the job's done, but they critique you on the smaller things like, Yeah, but your one guy was fifteen minutes late and your one guy look like this and your one guy didn't and your one guy said this and they're like, we don't think you're up to part and I've lost customers over like technical things like that where every little step didn't match the level that they're used to hiring. They're like, you know, actually you are too small of a company. And I've lost like some bigger customers along the way because there's like nowhere to hide at a certain point when you get to being with someone who's maybe 10, 20 levels above you when you're doing work for them, you know. And it just teaches you how to be better. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. Ben Buckley: You know what I mean? So yeah, earlier early ⁓ enterprise customers we've lost stuff like that too. So you really have to like watch how you act like down to the smallest detail on some of those customers. But yeah, it's it's like you're pumped. You're like, ⁓ dude, this guy's email about to about to frickin' go do this giant frickin' job, dude. You know, like getting all pumped about it. Yeah, it's it's a it's a good feeling. And then and then anxiety will set into like what if what if this happens? What if like this the what if the Parts of it. What if we break a T V on site or something, you know? ⁓ so yeah, it's it's exciting and scary like on some of those, you know. But we've we've got enough under our belt now to to be fluid enough to handle it. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Sure. Yeah. All those little things start to matter, this being professional down to every single employee, matching t shirts, clean, and all that stuff, right? What was the first ⁓ the first customer you had that was kinda like a little bit outside your comfort zone, maybe? Ben Buckley: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yep. Mm. I'm trying to think of like one that stands out right now. I don't have one one that stands out immediately, but I I did have one where we didn't even make it to the job. And so ⁓ it was a big property management company that manages property for like all the major tech stars. It was on Sand Hill Road. And property manager for the for them and ⁓ We signed it, got the approval, and we're gonna go do all this work. We're pretty busy. And we we get we saw a couple emails come in and we didn't respond to them like right away, like within a day or so or something, and our and our and our email response from being a day or so late, even though we thought that the question wasn't like imperative to like give an answer right away. It's like the job's not for sixty days, insurance already done, and we just kind of like weren't sure who the person was, and they got so upset. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Mm. Ben Buckley: That they said that I could tell by the way you respond and the timeliness of your response that you will not be someone that will come fix my stuff and say what you're gonna do, what you're gonna say. And on the very last day for them to cancel to return like two hundred grand worth of parts they did. And they said and they told me on the phone, I'm teaching you a lesson. That's what they told me on the phone. I was like, You don't need to teach me anything. I apologize for not. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: No. ⁓ god. Ben Buckley: Responding in time and she's like, I've been doing this for long enough. And I could tell, I was I guarantee you, like you could talk to like a hundred people we want, and they were just so upset that they just killed this contract and ripped it up the very last day they could cancel it, you know. And so that was someone who's like dealing with like, you know, big billion dollar companies, and if they aren't getting the attention they want, you know what I mean? And so timeliness is like a huge factor for us to respond to people now, especially for that. Not that I wasn't, ⁓ Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Is it? Ben Buckley: But you don't know, like you know, I explained I was like, I didn't think that question was really valid or worried about stuff or whatever, you know, but they they didn't they did not care. They let me have it on the phone and just tore it up. And so that was like a big a big like slap in the face. I was like that wasn't like one of my early on ones, but that was around twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, you know. Yeah, and so s small things like that responding, you never know who was dealing with what and what Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Okay. Mm. Ben Buckley: What level they expect you to be at with them, you know? Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. And what they're what they'll care about. ⁓ Ben Buckley: Right. I I was ⁓ I'll give you another like a little side note. I I had s I I messed my backup or something. It wasn't too I like I did something. I went to go this like massage therapist person, like physical therapy person, like adjust the back end. I was sitting like this 'cause it hurt, you know. And I saw on the sign, they had the sign sick around the room that says, I'm silently judging your posture and then I was cracking up so I keep like picturing that I keep sitting up, you know. And and then now I think about it as like people are silently judging how I respond to them in emails. You know what mean? I'm like conscious of it now to be like even if I don't have like the full answer, Hey, how's it going? I'm running around right now, but I'm gonna get back to you or something, you know. So I'm trying to do some of those I can't do it all the time. I might have a hundred something emails, you know, but I'm like I I'm like worried about it more than not than not sometimes now. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. ⁓ that that makes sense. Are there any other ⁓ like what are the things you do to to keep those clients? Or or are there a is there a lot of repeat business, ⁓ maintenance kind of involved? Mm-hmm. Ben Buckley: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, there's a love repeat business. We so now I've never before I was always sales, accounting, project man everything, you know, and I finally have two dedicated sales employees that like help with the managing, you know. And so they're constantly, you know, checking in on the customers and like saying, Hey, how's it going? Or I haven't talked to you in a year. Did you know that we do this now or whatever? You know what I mean? And so they're constantly doing the the dribble in there, you know what I mean? Besides like emails here and there. Right. And so they they really help with that and repeat business and stuff, you know. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah, kinda staying in touch with them slow slow long term drip kind of campaign. Ben Buckley: Yep. Yep, exactly. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Was was there are there any other little nitpicky things that you had to kinda tighten up as you as you grew in scale and started dealing with these, you know, Apple Salesforce type customers? Ben Buckley: Yeah, yeah. So when you show up to these jobs, you ⁓ sometimes it's not even that end customer that's the one that's gonna judge you have to deal with. Sometimes it's the construction team. And so there's like a construction team and they're held to the standards of that end user. And then I'm in their house, right? And so when you come there you better have hard hat, boots, safety vest. Check all their guidelines before you come in. Go find the safety manager. Go check in with him. If I need to put down floor covering, you better come with it. If you if they're like, ⁓ you didn't bring something and you have to leave, you're not gonna hear the end of it. Right. And so there's like a lot of a lot of stuff to bring to site that we are like extra blankets, tables, like stuff like packing blankets to like put your tools down so you don't put it down on an Apple store's floor and like Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Mm. Ben Buckley: You know, God forbid you put a little scratch next to a scratch that was already there and you can tell it was your scratch or their scratch, but you better have something something down, you know? And so those things and those are like practical things, like you're supposed to do that anyways, but you will be judged instantly if you walk in on that and don't know that. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, even the other vendors of those relationships matter too. Yeah. Ben Buckley: Yep, exactly. And like if sometimes I've had this before too, where the G C had a preferred guy, but we won. And now he's upset that we're there and not his guy who might give him a kickback or something, you know. And so then we might get a hard time from that guy. So you better start playing nice in the beginning. Not that we're yeah, not that we're ever meaning to anybody, but you know, it's how you act around there. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. Gotcha. Definitely. Yeah. How are how are ⁓ people hearing about you? Do you have any sort of what's the secret sauce there with marketing and when as you grow and scale? Ben Buckley: Yeah, so I've never ever had marketing work for me as far as as far as traditional marketing, like I s in my head of like Facebook ads, Google ads, or anything like that. I I've tried it once or twice. I never try it long enough to be like four months straight, five months straight. You know, I'm like, it feels like gambling to me. I don't know why. ⁓ but I I I'm slowly working my way over to doing more of that right now. Like currently ⁓ we just closed the job ⁓ that randomly came from a website that my buddy put up for us to get leads from and it ended up turning to be like a two hundred thousand dollar job ⁓ from online. But traditionally is we we go to a lot of ⁓ big billion dollar A V integrators or a manufacturer who does something that we put in. We go to them, we work with them. They need third party guys to put stuff in and then we get work that way. And and then my sales team will also get leads from other connections they have from there or We'll do a job for someone and be like, hey, who else do you know who might need this? And they're like, ⁓ so and so down the street. And that's literally how we get all of our leads is like that, but without any actual marketing. ⁓ yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Got it. Yeah, and then then and then just doing a really good job and and getting some also I'm sure some ⁓ word of mouth clients too, right? Ben Buckley: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. ⁓ that's awesome. Where do you see digital dreams going in you know in the next five, ten years? Do you have a strategy or or exit in mind? Ben Buckley: No exit. And so I I've thought about that before. And so I have five kids. They're all adults now. My youngest is eighteen. Two of my kids work for me. And I've I've come to accept that I mean I could sell this business if I tried. I've come to accept accept it's more of a lifestyle slash family business that I would like to pass down to the kids. And two of ⁓ work here, right? And so that's where we're gonna say don't ⁓ I've been asked a couple of times to have my company, like buy the company from a few Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Hm, yeah. Ben Buckley: major big companies here and there. Like it didn't get too deep, but we like entertain the talk a little bit, you know. ⁓ but I love what I do so much and I don't know what I would do if I started over right now. ⁓ and so we're just gonna continue to grow this and like we cover five states right now with like subcontractors and stuff like that. And ⁓ get my son into like the next level generation stuff and him talking to the next level. And you know, we I cause we're in tech, I try to keep up with all the latest like product, the latest LED, the latest A V, the latest get certified, because it's constantly changing. Like I could literally install something in January and there's a new version right now. You know, like it's like so quick the electronics are changing. Not as fast as AI, but they're changing quick. You know, like they gotta adapt to a new AI versions of what we just put in, right? And so it we adapt pretty quick. We're moving pretty quick. So ⁓ no exit strategy, but you know, constant we're constantly trying to keep up with the times. ⁓ Which is hard, ⁓ with the electronics and everything changing, you know what I mean? But still still growing the way we are. maybe a couple more like physical locations maybe in the Bay Area next of having like more employees and installers out of those is like probably like the next goal. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. ⁓ that's awesome. Yeah, we we talk a lot about exits on the show, obviously exit algorithms. But I think, you know, knowing knowing what your dream outcome is, ⁓ is the biggest, you know, thing to do. First step, right? And and you you'd love to stay in the business and maybe pass it your family. That's an e you know, that's an exit eventually. Ben Buckley: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. You're right. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: ⁓ that's awesome. Well great Ben it's it's been a great conversation. I always at the end I always ask, you know, this la this last question here. So what is one practical tip if you could pick one thing for business owners wanting to scale past where they're stuck right now, what would it be? Ben Buckley: ⁓ man, I hate getting asked these questions like this because I could never answer them genuinely, because I don't think you have too fun. Let me try here, you know, because I I'm not like the best philosopher. But one one year, one year, one of my biggest customers asked me, this is like 2018, like, Ben, you're doing so good here. And this is ⁓ so like can you help me in this state? Can you help me in that state, right? And and I I tried, ⁓ this could be a long-winded answer here, so I'll try to get through it quick. But before I would Okay, so before. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: So take your time. Yeah. Yeah. Ben Buckley: People would ask me, like, Ben, can you do this? Can you do that? And it'd be something I didn't do. I think I like I think I could do that, right? They're Hey, Ben, can you install this electrical thing? And I'm like, ⁓ I think I could. And I would do things that would get out of my realm because maybe I need cash in the beginning, you know, and I would get myself in trouble. I would get in the hole. So after a while I stopped saying yes to things I couldn't do. Until finally I got asked yes to something I could do, but maybe in another market where I wasn't b there before. And so I did that and I started Flying around doing a bunch of stuff. I was flying to other states, meeting other guys like me to sub it out to vetting them and taking that, taking those guys on and building that relationship with them. And that takes time. So this customer asked me to do that. I ended up going into 31 states and I was like contracting out there. And it was it was a good run. And it was it was something that helped me learn twice, three quadruple times as quick of how to scale by just jumping in there and like being ready to like figure out any losses. And I think if you get that opportunity. ⁓ what's the saying where it's like ⁓ luck is just opportunity meets your skill at the right time, right? Or whatever that is, right? And so if if you get that chance, it's hard to like recognize that. But if you know you're good, you've been doing something for a long time and you think you could spot someone who's getting there, you should take that leap and you should probably go expanding. You might make some, you know, some mixture money there and learn other people and ⁓ you know, double your network, triple your network and and get other products, you know, ⁓ projects done out of your network. And I took that chance, I I won in the end, but I did like fail along the way and got in trouble in some of the other states of like meeting other third party companies that said they could do something and they didn't, right? And then you're stuck holding the bag. But as long as the risk isn't too bad of like the type of project you're doing where like if they mess up it's like, hey, maybe a couple of grand or something, you know, and you can fix it and save the day for the customer. Right. I I would say go do it. I would say like, you know, it's always like stepping out of your comfort zone. I stepped out of the comfort zone for a while there and it really helped me. actually opened my mind to see like what it what is possible for me, what is possible out there to do and how do other people do it. And people've been doing this for years. It's just you maybe your first time trying to do it. And that really helped me scale. So this opportunity came while I had like the skill at the time. I I I jumped on it and, you know, that was like one of my biggest years at the time of scaling. And so and I did all this without any like funding, you know what I mean? And just like I've used a couple of the ways to get cash to fund some certain things, you know what I mean? ⁓ I don't know that really answers your question, but I would say step out of your comfort zone. If you if you if you get an opportunity and you think you can fulfill it and it's not gonna like ruin your name or put you out of business, freaking jump at it. And and most entrepreneurs are probably gonna do that anyways. You know. Yeah. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Kinda jump before you're ready and and figure it out at as you go. Ben Buckley: Yeah. Yep. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Love it. Awesome, Ben. This has been this has been great conversation. Where's ⁓ if you know listeners enjoyed it as much as I have, where can listeners find you? Ben Buckley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I have a YouTube channel and a TikTok channel. It's at Digital Dreams Installs. All one, all ⁓ no space, just at digital dreams installs. You could see like our latest videos and stuff on there. So check it out. Pete Vera, Exit Algorithms: Awesome. Yeah, I'll leave that in the show notes. Thanks for coming on today, Ben. Great great talking to you. Ben Buckley: Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You too, man. Thank you.