0:56

Welcome to the successful life podcast . I'm your

0:58

host , Corey Barrier , and I'm here with my

1:01

man , Chad Peterman . What's

1:03

up , Chad ?

1:04

How's it going , Corey ? Thanks for having me on Excited

1:07

to chop it up here for a

1:09

little while .

1:11

Yeah , I'm excited to have you all

1:13

. You're an

1:17

icon a little bit in

1:19

this space . You've done

1:22

something that really nobody else

1:24

has done . You're arguably

1:26

one of the largest or the largest , I should

1:28

say plumbing , hvac

1:31

and electrical . Is that right Outfit in the

1:33

country ? Yep , all for all three .

1:36

Yeah , I think we've definitely seen

1:38

some scale and size . I don't know if

1:40

we're the biggest , but

1:42

we're definitely getting up there

1:45

. But I think the biggest thing we've focused on

1:47

is it's not so much about the

1:49

bigger . I always tell our people let's focus

1:51

on better , and the bigger will take care of itself .

1:54

Sure , yeah , 100% . Here's

1:57

what I find fascinating about that , and the

1:59

thing that you and I have in common that

2:01

we have not really talked about is

2:04

I came from . You didn't

2:06

really come from outside the industry , but , like

2:09

you're not a plumber , you're not

2:11

a technician , you never have been . I

2:13

think you've been a plumbing manager for a very temporary

2:16

period of time , from what

2:18

I understand , but

2:20

the same for me

2:22

, like I came from outside , I fell into

2:24

the industry , completely outside the industry , and

2:27

so it really is . It's

2:30

not that easy of an industry to get into if

2:32

you don't know anything about the actual trade .

2:37

For sure . Yeah , I fell

2:39

. I've been around it my whole life because my dad started

2:41

the company . But

2:43

yeah , I have no technical aptitude whatsoever

2:45

and that goes well beyond HVAC , plumbing and electrical

2:47

, as my wife will attest but

2:52

I just have learned to stay in my

2:54

lane and do

2:56

what I do . But I think to your point , I

2:58

think it's difficult to get in , but

3:00

I think the one thing that I learned very early on

3:02

and what gave me kind of the confidence to continue

3:04

on in the industry , is that it's very little about working

3:07

on furnaces and water heaters and electrical panels . It's

3:12

more about people , and it's connecting with

3:14

the people on your team , connecting with their field professionals

3:16

and then ultimately supporting them to

3:19

a point where they can connect with

3:21

the customer and build trust , build a relationship

3:23

that makes it easy to do business with . And

3:26

so for me , that's where

3:28

I've leaned into kind of the people

3:30

side of things . And how do we build a really

3:32

strong culture and a company

3:34

that really cares about their people and

3:37

wants to see them succeed as the

3:39

company succeeds as well 100%

3:42

.

3:43

Yeah , I think , not

3:46

being a technician , not being a plumber , I

3:49

have a little bit very similar to what you just said

3:51

. It is about people and it's about

3:53

being able to have

3:55

conversations with people . It's about being

3:57

able to have empathy for people , and

4:00

sometimes that's hard

4:02

to come by as

4:04

a tech . I'm not saying all technicians don't

4:07

have empathy , but they're kinesthetic

4:09

people , right , they work with their hands . They're not great

4:12

, they didn't come out of the box

4:14

with great communication skills

4:16

, because that's not what they focused on , naturally . And

4:19

so that's where , I see , I

4:22

think that's . I actually have

4:24

wondered if that's the reason , a

4:27

lot of the reason that you've been successful

4:29

as you have , because it's just

4:31

from a different , I

4:33

guess , mindset , if you will .

4:36

Yeah , I think that I always

4:39

say that . Yes , I would agree with you 100%

4:41

. I think that's where I've gained traction

4:43

, not because I don't know

4:46

anything , but I think it's because I didn't

4:48

have to jump over that hurdle . I was very

4:50

aware from the very beginning that I didn't know

4:52

anything , and so I needed to over

4:54

index and care for the people on our team that

4:56

did know stuff so that we could actually get

4:58

work done . But I think it's one of those

5:01

hurdles where so many people my

5:03

dad being one of them , where he was a technician

5:05

Well , technicians pride

5:08

themselves on having the answers , being

5:10

able to fix things , and leadership

5:12

is a whole different skill set . I

5:14

always tell our people that want to move

5:16

up in the company is you need to trade

5:18

in your plumbing tool belt for your leadership

5:21

tool belt , and unfortunately , the pipe

5:23

wrench isn't in your leadership tool belt , because

5:25

as a leader , you can no longer do

5:27

the work . You have to empower others to

5:30

do the work , and so I think it's just

5:32

a hurdle , but it can either

5:34

be a really big hurdle or a smaller

5:36

one , but it's an understanding

5:38

of it's there and I'm going to have

5:41

to work with that . Knowing that's

5:43

how I'm wired right . I like to fix things

5:45

, I like to have the answers , and leadership

5:48

is very little about having the answers . It's

5:51

about making sure that you ask the right questions

5:53

so that others can figure out problems .

5:56

Yeah , and putting people in place that can

5:58

, that can answer those questions

6:01

because , obviously , if without

6:03

the background and deep understanding of

6:06

for me anyway deep understanding

6:08

of how to fix these things , I'm

6:11

going to like a lot like you , I

6:13

couldn't fix anything , so

6:17

, but it's important to have

6:19

people in your corner that you can depend on to

6:22

be able to pick up where we're not good at right . The same thing is the

6:25

right seat , right people in the right seats . Exactly

6:27

the same thing . Yep , absolutely .

6:33

Yeah , and I think that's a piece of

6:35

the puzzle , that , again , not knowing anything about the industry , I

6:38

think that I'm more and it's taken time right

6:40

. I was one that wanted to be involved in everything

6:43

and I know what to do once you get your

6:45

feet under you . But

6:47

it's really just understanding that in

6:53

order to grow , you have to empower people to do

6:55

things At scale . You can't solve

6:57

every problem and if you are currently

7:00

, then that is as big as you're going

7:02

to get . Your capacity is as

7:04

big as the company can get . It's

7:09

about expanding that capacity , expanding

7:12

that bandwidth with really great people that

7:14

you allow to make decisions and

7:16

make mistakes and fix things , and so on and so forth . So

7:19

that's a great point .

7:21

So let's pause right there for a second . Tell me

7:23

a time when that was really hard for you because you've

7:25

gone

7:28

, there's different levels of how you've

7:30

had to grow and

7:35

so I'm sure there's been times

7:37

where I

7:41

don't know , I guess lack of control

7:43

, you have to let go of control in your situation and

7:47

you've had to do that on multiple levels . So

7:50

maybe telling about a time when that was maybe hard

7:52

for you , yeah

7:57

.

7:57

So a great example of that

7:59

is about two , maybe three years ago now that

8:01

we're almost done with twenty three , when we're recording this , about

8:07

three years ago I made the decision . We were growing , we're getting bigger and

8:11

what I was learning

8:13

was that I was trying

8:15

to be the CEO and the CEO of the company , and there's a reason that there

8:17

aren't many people that have both titles

8:20

. It takes two people and

8:24

it's because a CEO is more operationally minded

8:26

. They get stuff done , they figure

8:28

it out . So prior to three years

8:30

ago , I tried I emphasis on tried to fill both roles

8:32

where I was trying to cast the vision

8:36

for the company and then to put the

8:38

vision for the company . And

8:42

so I'm not saying if you're a four million dollar company

8:45

, you can still play both , but

8:50

it's important , I think

8:52

, to understand in your trajectory

8:54

, your growth trajectory when am I going to need to make that shift

8:56

? I think that's a good example of that . You

8:59

can still play both , but it's

9:01

important , I think , to understand

9:04

in your trajectory

9:06

, your growth trajectory when

9:08

am I going to need to make that shift ? When am I going

9:10

to need to separate these two roles so

9:13

that we can accomplish

9:15

more ? And so back then

9:17

I handed over control

9:19

to my brother was we

9:21

were doing a lot of things together , but I said hey , when

9:24

we both agreed , hey , you take on this

9:26

. And then we put our director of operations

9:29

, christy , who's been with us for 20 some

9:31

odd years now , because they're

9:33

two of the best operators that I've

9:36

seen as far as getting stuff done process

9:38

, procedure here's how we're going to get work done . And

9:41

when I did that , the

9:43

largest growth years that we ever

9:46

had in the company were after I

9:48

did that and I think , looking

9:50

back , hindsight is 2020 and

9:52

I wouldn't say that I'm some sort of genius , because

9:55

I probably waited even too long to do it

9:57

. But when you can divvy

9:59

up that , there's a big difference

10:02

between being the dreamer , being

10:04

the vision caster , and

10:06

being the implementer . I'm not

10:08

a great implementer . Like I like to put

10:10

the idea out there and then

10:12

I like to hand it off because

10:14

people know the process and procedure and

10:17

are asking the right questions that I wouldn't think

10:19

about or my mind just

10:21

doesn't work Like I don't like to think

10:24

at that granular of a level

10:26

, and so to

10:29

me , that's a great example of kind

10:31

of in our growth story of really

10:33

separating those two roles of visionary

10:36

and integrator . I think traction

10:38

the book traction talks a lot about that . We don't

10:40

run the EOS system , but there's

10:43

elements of it for sure , and that's

10:45

one of the big ones that we took away .

10:48

Do you feel like you had to sacrifice

10:51

what you thought to

10:53

get to that next level ? In other words , you

10:56

were trying to do both roles and I'm sure

10:58

you were just running burning

11:00

the candle at both ends , and

11:02

so there had to be . It almost feels like there

11:04

could be a level of sacrifice of well

11:07

, I got to take my hands off of this in order

11:09

to grow . Does that make sense ?

11:13

Yeah , absolutely . What's the biggest

11:15

fear of giving up control ? While no one's going

11:17

to do it like I do it , no one's

11:19

going to do it as well . And

11:21

the key with any scaling

11:24

piece is that no one is ever

11:26

going to do it like you do it no one . Not

11:29

that you will never find somebody who does it

11:31

exactly like you , because we're all different

11:33

, and so

11:35

I think it's really just getting comfortable

11:38

with the fact that they're going to

11:40

do it differently . And if you let

11:42

them do it , rather than stepping in and

11:44

say , oh no , I wouldn't do it that way , oh , you're

11:46

doing it wrong , it's just let them do it

11:48

. Let them do that

11:51

. And what happens is

11:53

when they see that trust from you

11:55

carry over into like , oh my God

11:57

, like this guy's , like , really like , just

11:59

let me go to town and I'm scared

12:02

that I'm making mistakes , but I've also got some

12:04

confidence because I made some good moves

12:06

I've made , I've got some things working

12:08

, and to me , that's when you really see

12:11

the momentum , that growth momentum of

12:13

you got people in the right seats , they've

12:15

been empowered

12:18

to do

12:21

their job and

12:23

with little to , with

12:26

little oversight , because there's trust

12:28

built there , and I think that's the one thing

12:30

that I see in smaller companies there's

12:32

a lack of trust . It's always

12:35

well , the technician does this

12:37

and that and this and the other , and it's

12:39

like one

12:41

. You talking like that about your people

12:43

is a recipe for disaster . But

12:46

two , it's no

12:49

one is ever going to get any better . No one is ever going to grow

12:52

. If you are trying to

12:54

grow for them , you can't do that

12:56

. They've got to grow on their own . It's

12:58

like a . It's like raising a kid . Right , my kids

13:00

are little now , but there'll be a day

13:02

when I got to take my hand off the wheel and

13:05

say all right , you need to make some of your own

13:07

mistakes , and we've

13:09

all heard the horror stories of the , the

13:11

helicopter parent or the person that

13:13

they end up doing some crazy stuff

13:16

afterwards because they're trying to get out of

13:18

that . So I think there's

13:20

a lot of correlation between that and

13:22

leadership is by the parent . You're a true

13:24

leader . You got two little ones looking up

13:26

at you and wanting to know where

13:28

we're heading next .

13:31

Yeah , and to think that there's

13:33

not going to be failure within that is

13:35

absurd .

13:37

Yeah , absolutely . That's a recipe

13:40

for constant frustration

13:44

, for sure .

13:45

Yeah , 100% . So

13:47

you've got

13:49

about 600 employees

13:52

at this stage .

13:55

Yeah , right around 600 , I believe when

13:58

do ?

13:58

you see in terms of employees

14:00

? Where do you see that going over the next , let's

14:02

say , 12 to 24 months ?

14:06

Yeah . So the interesting part about where

14:08

we are now and I think this is

14:10

an overview and I've talked a lot about

14:12

this here recently and

14:16

I think that 2023

14:18

was unlike the previous three years and

14:21

, unfortunately , where I

14:23

made a misstep and working to

14:26

correct that is , we were trying

14:28

to continue to build the company in 2023

14:31

, like we had built it the previous

14:33

three years , and I think the important

14:35

thing to understand is that there

14:38

were a lot of factors that won

14:40

, a lot of factors that we had never experienced

14:42

before , because we'd never gone through a global

14:44

pandemic . There were also

14:47

a lot of factors that were encouraging people

14:49

to essentially

14:51

like front load demand . So I

14:53

was going to replace my system in three years . Well

14:55

, shoot , I'll just do it now because I'm home

14:58

, I've got the time , all of these things that

15:00

factored in , and at the time , we were just

15:02

like celebrating , right . It was just like , oh crap

15:04

, this is great , more business , we're growing

15:06

, this is awesome . And then this year

15:08

comes and it's a little bit different . And

15:11

so , to answer your question , from a

15:13

people perspective , the really cool thing

15:15

and I've never been in this position , because in the trades

15:17

it's always like I don't have enough technicians

15:19

, we have enough

15:22

people to

15:24

, for the most part , double

15:27

in size , which

15:29

is really it's a really great

15:31

place to be because we've got all the talent . Now

15:34

it's really cracking

15:36

or not cracking down is the wrong word but just really buckling

15:39

down and getting better with what

15:41

we have , getting better with the four

15:43

calls that we run today getting

15:45

better at training , getting better

15:48

at everything , and

15:50

so it's a really interesting spot . I

15:52

think it really opens the doors

15:54

and I think what I would encourage

15:56

listeners to go and look at is

15:59

when you look at your budgets , if

16:01

you increase average ticket and conversion rate

16:03

, can you see the same amount of growth

16:05

with the exact same amount of people

16:07

that you have Just getting better ? And

16:09

to me , that's the blocking and tackling that we've

16:12

all got to focus on as we

16:14

move into 24 , which most

16:17

people are predicting is going to look a lot like

16:19

23 . And so , if it is

16:21

, what did we learn from 23 that

16:23

we don't want to repeat ? And then , what are

16:25

the things that we need to double

16:28

down on in order to grow

16:30

? And to me , the successful companies

16:32

that come out of 24

16:36

are going to be the ones

16:38

that focused on the blocking and tackling

16:40

of how you run a service business . What

16:43

are we focused on ? I was just meeting with our

16:45

operations team today and

16:47

I said , hey , here's the cool part

16:49

, we just have

17:15

to focus on different things and

17:17

we're going to get the result that we want . So

17:20

it's not , hey , we got to change everything we do

17:22

. No , we don't have to change anything , we

17:24

just have to focus on

17:26

different things . And in

17:29

the prior three years

17:31

, we didn't have to focus on anything , it

17:34

was just hire people , hire people

17:36

. The leads are coming in . This is fantastic . Well

17:38

, now we've got to get back down

17:40

to basics and we got to dig in and

17:43

we've got to get really good at operating our

17:45

business . And I personally

17:48

am extremely excited

17:50

about this because the cool part is , if we

17:52

buckle down and we really get good at the

17:54

operations side of the business , in

17:56

a year when it's going to be tough when

17:59

interest rates go back down , things

18:01

settle down on the political front , like

18:03

you're going to be really good at operating that business

18:05

and when the leads start coming in , well , you're already

18:07

going to be maximizing the heck out of all those . Yeah

18:10

.

18:11

Well , I'd say one thing that

18:13

I think you for sure

18:16

did right and I

18:19

think at this point is

18:21

you implemented your

18:24

guys , me , your sales guys , your CAs

18:26

or whatever you call them do

18:28

a lot of their sales over Zoom

18:30

and I think it's

18:33

bizarre to me how that

18:36

hasn't caught on . And I know

18:38

there are a lot of companies that do it , but there's

18:40

a far more that don't

18:42

do it than do it . And I

18:44

just think , from an efficiency standpoint

18:46

not just from the efficiency

18:49

standpoint from the customer right

18:51

, the customer when you leave

18:53

that house is 60 to 70% chance

18:55

you're not going to close that sale . And you've

18:57

eliminated that by using and

19:00

I'm not sure what you call it now , but your process with

19:03

getting on Zoom , how is

19:05

that ? How do you think that's played

19:07

into this scenario with you in terms of

19:09

your growth ?

19:11

Yeah , so

19:13

great point and it's been a

19:15

newer thing . It's been a labor of love

19:17

, I will call it . So we've screwed it up a

19:19

couple of times . We finally

19:22

landed on something that I think is going to be really

19:24

good , and I'll explain where we messed

19:26

it up . So at

19:29

first , we had basically

19:31

call it comfort advisors and

19:33

we said , hey , you're just going to sell virtually

19:35

and you're going to help out the technicians

19:37

, you're going to do all this stuff and like , on

19:39

paper , that sounds fantastic . What

19:42

we found is there's a conflict of interest

19:44

. Where I make my money selling systems

19:46

, I make far less money coaching

19:49

technicians and helping them out , and so there's this

19:51

balancing act

19:53

of how are we going to get these people to focus

19:55

. Well , what we did is we separated

19:58

the departments . So now we

20:00

have what we call direct field support . So

20:02

they're the people that are coaching new technicians

20:04

. They're coaching ones that are struggling

20:07

. They're there helping them build options

20:09

, work through financing , all the stuff that

20:11

we know that they need help with . And then

20:13

we have a group of what we call VCA's

20:16

, which are virtual comfort advisors , and

20:19

the big piece is we still give

20:21

the customer the option . So

20:23

if I'm a customer and I've got a 15

20:25

year old system and I say , yeah , Johnny , I'd love

20:27

to see some options on a new system . We go

20:29

, great , let me call in

20:32

and let's get

20:34

you an appointment set . And so they'll

20:36

call in internally

20:38

. We call it our turnover hotline I

20:41

can't remember what we call it externally , but we

20:43

don't call it that . But essentially , they

20:45

call in and one

20:48

of the ladies in the office will pick up the phone and

20:50

say hey , Mr , Mrs Smith , glad

20:52

you want to do this . We can do this one or two ways

20:54

. If speed and efficiency are top

20:57

priority , I can get someone

20:59

on a zoom call right away to

21:03

present you some options and do this . If it's

21:05

something where maybe this is a year

21:07

down the road purchase for you , whatever

21:09

it may be , or your

21:12

spouse isn't there and you really like them to be there

21:14

to hear it , then let's schedule you with

21:16

a comfort advisor and he can be out there at

21:18

5 30 this evening when

21:20

everybody's home and we can talk through

21:23

everything . So we give them the

21:25

option . The cool thing is

21:27

and I was just meeting with a group of technicians

21:29

this morning is we're really refining this process

21:31

and I'm like hey , can you tell when

21:34

a customer , when that

21:36

urgency is there , Like I want to

21:38

. Someone needs to replace this tomorrow . I'm

21:40

not going without heat or air conditioning

21:42

and they said , yeah , you can tell as

21:45

you're talking to the customer . So a lot of their

21:47

pieces , they set it up right , it's

21:49

? Hey , I've been with Mr Mrs Smith . They're

21:53

really excited about potentially

21:55

moving forward with something and getting that put in tomorrow

21:57

. I mentioned something

21:59

about our virtual capabilities and

22:02

I think that's the way they're leaning and

22:05

the lady in the office will say that's fantastic

22:07

, that's great . I just want to take

22:09

a few pieces of information and I'll

22:11

get you hooked up with one of our virtual

22:13

comfort advisors here shortly

22:15

and they can go through all your options . We get the job

22:17

sold . The technician is still there

22:20

, so they get all of the measurements and specs

22:22

and all of that stuff . We turn the job

22:24

in and in less than 24 hours we turned

22:26

around an entire system install in

22:29

solid .

22:32

Yeah , damn , yeah

22:34

. I didn't realize that .

22:36

Yeah , most of our stuff goes next day

22:38

.

22:40

Yes , I mean you streamlined this

22:42

process massively

22:45

because

22:47

the average what's the average

22:49

company out there ? How much time

22:51

does it take for this whole process ? Three days

22:53

.

22:54

Oh yeah , it may take a while , and

22:57

so we actually in our business , we guarantee

22:59

a next day install . So that's

23:02

one of our kind of selling

23:05

propositions . Is no , we guarantee

23:08

we'll get this in tomorrow . Now

23:10

a lot of people are probably like , well , how do you do

23:12

that with this , that and the other ? At the end

23:14

of the day , if we can't put it in next

23:17

day , we give them a little bit of money off

23:19

and say it's going to be the following day , but

23:21

it gets you in the home for those people who

23:23

want to make a decision and want to get something taken care of

23:25

today .

23:27

Yeah , and it's on the forefront of their mind . I

23:29

can have this .

23:30

Yep , you got it . Yep , yeah

23:33

, we'll be here in eight hours to start the

23:35

project .

23:36

That's crazy , that's

23:39

wild .

23:39

Yeah , I mean , speed is the name of the game .

23:45

That's too . That's bad , as bad as I

23:48

love that . So and

23:54

so , how many ? So I

23:56

like the fact that you split this process

23:58

up , because part

24:01

of me is to think well , the comfort advisor , it's

24:04

there . I

24:06

mean , my thought is , you would want

24:08

the technician , you would want to coach

24:10

the technician , so you get the outcome you're looking

24:12

for , which is probably how you were thinking of

24:14

it at first . But then I guess , things shifted

24:17

and it didn't really work out that way , which

24:19

seems like the comfort advisor would be shooting himself in

24:21

the foot if he didn't do it that way . But

24:23

now that you've separated the two , that's

24:26

amazing . Because the service technician , he doesn't want

24:28

to sell , right

24:30

, and so , and

24:34

it's all training , right , it's all training

24:37

those , each one of those pieces for

24:39

the guy coaching

24:42

, that's his job . Training for that

24:44

job , service tech , obviously , training for that job

24:46

, the virtual comfort they

24:48

all know where their spot is .

24:52

Yep , yeah , and I think the other thing is too that I'll

24:54

put in . There is a heavy out to this . So

24:57

I don't , if you're , if

25:00

you've got five to 10 technicians

25:02

to me , you could use

25:04

one person . The

25:07

biggest piece we ran into is we took an idea

25:09

. That was a really good one

25:11

. Joe Coursera teaches it

25:13

service MVP and

25:15

it works . However

25:19

, I think the one caveat to it

25:21

is understanding . Does it work at

25:23

scale ? I think

25:25

it can . I think with our kind of

25:27

culture and process and stuff like that , there

25:30

was something , and it doesn't mean it's a bad process , it's a

25:32

great process . It works . But

25:34

I think that there are considerations

25:37

to take in as you

25:39

scale and what that looks like . It

25:41

would have been different , too , if we would have started this

25:43

process when we had five technicians

25:46

and it was just ingrained

25:48

in the culture Well , I'm trying to flip

25:50

. I think we've got a hundred and some

25:52

odd HVAC technicians out there , like

25:55

trying to convert all of that and then get all

25:57

the training and do all of this . It was just like

25:59

this is too big of a mountain to climb

26:01

and we're going to create

26:03

far more frustration within

26:06

the organization than we are benefit

26:08

. So like , how can we do this in

26:11

the least invasive way

26:13

possible was how we looked at it . So

26:15

I think that there you could do it both . You could

26:17

do it , as both there's companies

26:20

out there that do and have great success with it

26:22

. It just so happened that it didn't . We've

26:24

taken elements of it , for sure , but it's

26:27

just modifying it

26:29

a touch to make it work for what

26:31

and how we do it .

26:33

Yeah , that makes sense . And now

26:35

, as you sit here and explain it , I'm like , yeah , I could

26:37

see how , if there were 10 technicians

26:40

, hypothetically for a smaller company

26:42

, I could see how that

26:44

virtual comfort advisor

26:46

would very much so

26:48

be picky on who's who he's

26:50

coaching and who he's not coaching , right

26:53

, and then that doesn't build

26:55

a good culture when you've got five guys that feel

26:57

like they're being left out and essentially

27:00

race maybe not a race to the bottom

27:02

, but they're certainly not racing to the top

27:04

because they don't get the attention that they need , that

27:06

they need .

27:07

Yeah , you got it . We call it here the cool

27:10

kids club and

27:12

we can't have cool kids clubs inside departments

27:14

.

27:16

Right . So you

27:18

, you got a book

27:20

coming out right .

27:21

Second book yeah

27:23

, second book is due out , q

27:26

one of next year , in 2024

27:29

, probably February timeframe

27:31

Really excited about it

27:33

. I wrote a book back in the

27:35

end of 2019 called

27:37

you can't stop the growth , and

27:40

then this is the second piece

27:43

of that . It's called the empowerment project

27:45

. So you'll notice that on this podcast I've

27:47

talked a lot about empowerment and

27:49

as it relates to leadership , and so essentially

27:52

, the empowerment project is basically detailing

27:55

how we've taken it from where we were

27:57

in 19 to where we are now

27:59

, all the learnings that we've had leadership

28:02

lessons , different things like

28:04

that . So really excited , the

28:06

book is finished , just buttoning

28:08

up all the all

28:10

the cross and all the T's

28:12

dot and all the eyes type of thing . But

28:14

, yeah , really excited about it . It definitely

28:17

speaks to the culture that we've built and

28:19

a lot of the amazing people that we have

28:21

around here doing a lot

28:24

of great things . For sure , that's

28:26

really cool .

28:27

It encompasses a lot of what we talked about today

28:30

, really , when we started this conversation

28:32

about how the issue not issues

28:35

, but the challenges that you did have and

28:37

how you overcame those through empowering other people

28:39

and trusting them yeah , that's

28:44

incredible . So

28:47

I was going to ask you . So 2015

28:49

is when you took over the business , right ?

28:53

Yeah , so I started in 2011

28:55

at the time and my brother started

28:58

in 13 . He's three years younger than I am

29:00

, so after he graduated from college , he

29:02

started right away . Dad was

29:04

still involved in the business we were heavy

29:06

new construction at the time and

29:09

so , in 15 , dad was phasing

29:12

out a little bit , just working a little bit less , taking more

29:14

vacations , doing what he deserved to do

29:16

after 20 , some odd years . And

29:19

so we

29:23

made the decision and he was on board with

29:25

it hey , we want to take this in a more residential play

29:29

to a more residential company . And

29:32

that's when we took over that piece . He was still

29:34

doing some big projects and different things

29:36

like that just to stay busy , right

29:39

, and it was a slow evolution . So

29:42

you hear the story a lot about . I think it's

29:44

pretty common hey , we're in new construction

29:46

, we want to be residential , we know it's the best thing to do

29:48

, but how do we do it ? Well , what I will tell

29:50

you is it took us probably seven years

29:52

to get fully rid of it , and

29:55

I would almost encourage that rather than , like

29:57

I know guys who have just , like , said nope

29:59

, we're not doing it anymore . And to me that

30:01

seems a little bit scary for my

30:03

risk tolerance level and so essentially , what

30:06

we did is just phased it out . Hey , we did this

30:08

much revenue this year , we want to

30:10

only do this much next

30:12

year , and then so on and so forth until it's completely

30:14

phased out . 2023 were

30:16

a hundred percent residential service repair

30:19

and replacement , but

30:22

it took time . But , yeah , that 15

30:24

was that demarcation in the line of when we

30:26

started moving that direction

30:28

. Today , dad's been retired for

30:31

a couple of years . He still be bops

30:33

in here to the office every once in a while when he's in

30:35

town , but yeah , he's just

30:37

watching from afar , which

30:41

is and hanging out the grandkids and

30:43

doing his thing .

30:45

So how hard do you think that part was

30:47

for him to be able to ? Just because

30:50

it's it , he built it up into

30:52

the time you guys came in . How

30:55

hard do you think it was for him

30:57

to let go

30:59

what we were talking about earlier and empower

31:01

you all to do your thing ? Not to

31:04

mention the fact that you want to change the business model

31:06

from new construction to residential

31:08

. How hard do you think that was for him ?

31:13

It is . I think about it often because

31:16

there's a part . My kids are young

31:18

, they're five and two , so I got a little

31:20

bit of time , but

31:22

I've thought about what would that be

31:24

like to . We talked about giving up control

31:26

earlier . The one

31:28

thing I have not figured out is how I would

31:31

ever give up control and

31:33

let go Now . The

31:35

big difference is that when we focused on the

31:37

residential side , that wasn't something that dad was

31:39

super focused on , so , like when we started

31:42

going down that path , I think it was a little bit easier

31:44

for him to part . But to your question , it

31:47

had to have been tough . What I will tell

31:49

you and what I think is extremely important

31:51

for family owned businesses that are multi

31:53

generational and different stuff like that , the

31:56

thing that my dad did and I

31:58

don't know how he did it or how

32:00

he grappled with hey , this is

32:03

the right course of action . But

32:05

the one thing he did was he never told

32:08

me no and I

32:10

was the ringleader , being the older

32:12

brother , and hey

32:14

, we're going to go do this and we're going to be . I remember

32:16

back in 15 , we sat down like dad , we're going

32:18

to be a $20 million company

32:20

. You just watch , this is going to be awesome

32:22

and he's probably like you're such an idiot

32:25

. But

32:27

he let us make mistakes and

32:30

I think that is one of the most

32:33

difficult things to do is to allow

32:35

your children to make mistakes . But

32:38

ultimately , I think it has been

32:40

the biggest catalyst for our growth , is

32:42

he let us do that

32:44

? And if he would have been standing over our

32:46

shoulder and trying to make decisions and given

32:49

his input and stuff like that , I don't

32:51

, I do not think it would have went as it's

32:53

gone . And so

32:56

as I talked to me , I've talked

32:58

to many a family business like how'd you do that

33:00

? That's crazy . Like it's been a total

33:02

struggle . It is really

33:04

getting that generation

33:06

that's passing it along to understand

33:09

that at some point you're going to

33:11

have to rip off the band aid and you're going to have to

33:13

get out of the way and you're going to have to let

33:15

them make mistakes and

33:18

it's really hard . I can't . Even

33:20

my dad started our company on the back of our garage

33:22

it was him and nobody else in

33:25

a van and to see

33:27

it where it was and

33:29

you know where we are today , but where

33:31

he grew it to before we took over

33:33

. Yeah , there's a lot of pride

33:36

and a lot of just blood , sweat and

33:38

tears that you want to see

33:40

it continue on . And so I'm

33:43

eternally grateful to my dad

33:45

for allowing us to do

33:47

that and really having the confidence when

33:49

he here's another crazy thing when

33:51

he did that in 15 , my

33:54

brother and I were in our mid to late twenties

33:56

, so you're

33:59

talking about . We

34:01

weren't like , oh , you're in your 40s

34:03

, like , okay , you've been around the block , like

34:06

I'd been in the business for four years . My brother had

34:08

been in the business for two and

34:11

he had the courage and the wherewithal

34:13

to turn it over and let

34:16

us do it . So I don't know where

34:18

he got that courage , but I hope

34:20

that one day I have it , because

34:23

that's how the business will carry on

34:25

.

34:26

I'm curious if he was like that prior

34:29

to this endeavor , throughout your life

34:32

as a kid or a teenager , did

34:35

he allow you to fail and allow you

34:37

to make mistakes ? And not

34:39

because , look , dude , I got a 14 and a half year

34:41

old and up until recently

34:44

I would try

34:46

to control everything she did , period . Like

34:49

because I think I'm smarter than her , I know better

34:51

, I see what's gonna happen . It doesn't

34:54

matter . None of that shit matters , because

34:56

what she's gonna do is she's gonna

34:58

do Like , in a quicker I understood

35:01

, have found that out or the quicker I learned

35:03

that dude , my life has been

35:05

significantly less stressful

35:07

.

35:08

Yeah , I can imagine I got a five

35:10

year old daughter . I'm just I'm

35:12

counting down the days till the teenage years . But

35:18

I think back in growing up he

35:21

was always there to support us . He

35:25

would work long hours . I remember

35:27

many times he'd come watch our baseball game and

35:29

then go back to work , or evenings when

35:32

we'd be finished dinner and he'd pull out out

35:34

of set the prints or working on an

35:36

estimate or whatever it was . And

35:39

at the time when you're young , like you know , none of

35:41

that registers , like oh yeah , dad , just work in , like

35:43

I'm gonna go play video games or

35:46

go outside or do whatever . And so

35:48

now that I have a little bit of more

35:50

or a little bit more perspective , I

35:53

think , looking back , yeah , he did

35:55

allow us to make our

35:57

own mistakes and allow

35:59

us to do things like that . I

36:03

think it was also a relief because

36:05

at the time in 15

36:08

, we were probably call

36:10

it 40 employees and

36:12

so we're still at that level where running

36:14

the company you can still control

36:16

. Everything May not be perfect , but you can have your

36:18

hand in a lot of stuff . And I

36:21

think it was a relief for him

36:23

, because when you're small , it's

36:25

surrounding yourself

36:27

with people that you trust can get a

36:29

little bit wonky , like , oh

36:32

my God , I can't trust this person . And I

36:34

think when Tyler and I came into the business , it

36:37

was okay , I can trust these

36:39

people and we can grow . And there wasn't that he didn't

36:41

have people that he could trust . It was just

36:43

maybe there's a larger level of trust because

36:46

, well , we're his sons and he can tell

36:48

us what to do if things go wrong . But

36:52

but yeah , I

36:54

think that's been kind of a characteristic

36:56

of his kind of throughout our

36:58

childhood and even now he's

37:01

there to support us . He's

37:03

there to provide

37:06

, as I always say it unsolicited feedback

37:08

. That's one thing

37:10

that's on his resume , but guess

37:12

what ? He earned it so he can make suggestions

37:15

and do different things like that whenever

37:17

he wants , and we'll

37:19

take it under advisement .

37:22

So do you think anybody

37:24

that's been in business for as long as you have , you've

37:28

had bad apples , like you've had people I

37:30

may even know a couple of them . Right , there's

37:33

been experiences that you've gone

37:35

through that probably didn't

37:38

anticipate it turning out to be

37:40

a bad experience . Do you

37:42

think because of how your dad

37:44

trusted you , do you think you got through

37:46

those things or you handled those

37:48

things with more

37:50

emotional intelligence than

37:53

the average person ? Because I know some

37:55

of the things that you've gone through , we don't have to bring all this . We

37:57

don't have to bring anything specifically

37:59

up . Yeah , but I

38:01

know you had to felt burnt at times

38:04

. There had to be , there

38:06

has to be times where you just want to

38:08

squeeze somebody by the neck . Do

38:10

you think because you're how your dad handled

38:13

you emotionally , or

38:15

having that emotional intelligence did

38:18

that kind of kick in these situations

38:20

? You think 100%

38:22

.

38:23

I think that you

38:26

have to have people

38:28

are gonna do . We're wired

38:30

to seek out our best interests and so

38:32

thinking that your

38:34

employees or your people

38:36

on your team aren't gonna do that is naive

38:39

. So at

38:41

the end of the day , it's really on you

38:43

. If I had a bad apple to me , I

38:45

looked at okay , what could I have done to

38:47

course correct this ? And so what we try

38:49

to do is really over indexing our culture

38:51

so that if you're gonna be a bad

38:54

apple , you're not gonna fit here long

38:56

because people are gonna find you out

38:58

. But I think that

39:00

the one thing that I try to do today

39:03

, and why it's so important to me

39:05

, why I'm writing this book called the

39:07

Empowerment Project , is because my

39:09

dad empowered me and I didn't

39:11

know a damn thing , and

39:14

to me it's that pay it forward

39:16

type of thing where he trusted

39:18

me . So I've gotta trust some people to

39:20

do some really great things too , and

39:23

to me it's in what he

39:25

started is

39:27

our obligation , both my brother and I , to

39:29

trust people to go do a great job , because

39:31

, at the end of the day , most

39:34

of the people that we trust have a hell of a lot more knowledge

39:37

than a 29 and 26

39:39

year old had and

39:41

he handed over the keys to the damn business . So

39:43

if we can surely

39:45

trust someone to run the plumbing department or run

39:47

the install department or whatever it is

39:49

. So , yeah , it's something that I think

39:52

about a lot . But I think it did give us

39:54

kind of a basis for like hey , someone

39:56

trusted me . Like I've gotta be able to trust other people

39:58

.

39:59

Yeah , yeah , 100% , I

40:02

would have to agree . That was probably yeah

40:05

, that makes total sense and I think that's probably

40:07

the reason that this has been

40:09

. There's a lot of reasons this has been

40:11

successful , I think for

40:14

you , among a million other reasons , but that I

40:16

think it's just a trait that a lot of people I

40:19

don't know about a lot , but I just don't know if but

40:22

you got to do a lot of personal development to get there

40:25

. You've got to be able to look outside

40:27

yourself , you got to be aware , you

40:29

got to be , you got to know who you are . Yep

40:32

, and I question a lot of times if

40:35

people know that unless you've done a

40:37

deep dive into your soul and

40:39

been through some hardship , but some

40:42

people don't have the opportunity . That I don't know

40:44

if they don't have the opportunity , they just don't know

40:46

that they need

40:48

that piece . Does that make sense ?

40:51

Yeah , I would agree . Yeah , it's

40:54

one of those things that you've got to constantly

40:58

be learning . Um

41:01

, we've never , while we've built something

41:03

really special and I'm excited about

41:05

where we're heading in the future . We've got a lot of great

41:07

team members . It's there is no

41:09

mountaintop . Being

41:11

a leader , I believe , as

41:14

Simon Sinek says , is it's

41:16

a journey that never ends . It's like parenting

41:18

parenting never ends , and

41:22

understanding that piece

41:24

of it , I think , allows you to wrap

41:26

your brain around the fact that you can always

41:29

be getting better . There's always

41:31

something that you can be

41:33

working on to make just a little bit better

41:35

.

41:36

Yeah , 100% . Well

41:38

, Chad man , this has been great . I

41:41

would encourage everybody to go listen , you know , to your

41:43

podcast . Don't

41:45

can't stop the growth . Almost

41:47

said don't can't stop the growth . And

41:50

then the book will be out in February , which

41:52

is incredible . If

41:54

somebody wants to reach out to you I know you do monthly

41:57

, I think it's monthly shop tours If somebody wants

41:59

to get a hold of you , what's the best way to do that ?

42:02

Yeah , so best way to get a hold of me is

42:05

either LinkedIn fairly

42:07

active on there . I've started into

42:09

the Facebook journey . I'm still navigating

42:11

quite a bit there , so don't

42:14

feel bad if I don't get back to you LinkedIn

42:16

. Honestly , the best way is

42:18

email . So , chad at petermanhvaccom

42:21

, if you got a question

42:23

, if you're struggling with something , whatever

42:26

it may be , don't hesitate to reach out . You're

42:28

not bothering me . It's really my mission

42:30

to make as big of an impact in the industry

42:33

as possible and you do

42:35

that by helping people . And then you

42:37

mentioned tours . So we've got a tour

42:39

coming up here in a few weeks , on January 11th

42:42

, and then we'll have another one in March

42:44

, and so we do

42:46

these tours every other month . It's a full

42:49

on day of we do tour the

42:51

facility . Then I have people from marketing

42:53

, recruiting , call center , whatever it may

42:55

be , come in and talk about how we do

42:57

things . So it's been . We did them

42:59

all last year , we do them again this year . I've

43:01

got January . I think there's about 50

43:03

people coming in , so it'll

43:06

be interesting on wrangling everybody in

43:08

. But but yeah , and we push

43:10

out kind of the signups you

43:12

can sign up on our website and different things

43:15

like that but yeah , I think the biggest

43:17

thing is don't hesitate to reach out . The

43:20

reason that we were able to achieve what we've achieved

43:23

is there are a lot of people along the way that

43:25

help me . How do you do this ? What's the best

43:27

pay plan ? How do I turn this ? Oh

43:30

, all of these things is we're all just trying to help each other

43:32

out , which I think is so cool about the industry .

43:34

I have 100% agree . Chad

43:37

really appreciate the conversation . I

43:39

really appreciate the time today . This

43:42

has been a great conversation . My friend

43:44

Yep , absolutely .

43:46

Thanks for having me excited to hopefully

43:49

help some people out there , which would be great .

43:52

Thank you , brother .