In this episode of The Huge Transformations Podcast, Sid Graef sits down with entrepreneur and franchise builder Matthew Efford, founder of Lighting Pros and multi-location operator of Mosquito Joe. Matthew opens up about scaling from a small, grinding startup to a multi-location enterprise by building strong leadership, clarifying roles, and designing a business that supports, rather than consumes his life.

After the heartbreaking loss of his son in 2020, Matthew completely restructured how he works. He shifted from 100+ hour weeks to a life centered around faith, family, and intentional leadership. During this conversation, he shares the systems and mindset that helped him build businesses that run without him, allowing his family to travel over 150 days per year while his teams continue to thrive.

Resources:

Notebook LM

Mosquito Joe

Two Second Lean

Lighting Pros

The Huge Insider newsletter signup

The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide

The Huge Mastermind info page

Facebook Group – Huge Foundations

Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer From North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in the industry, folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses, and they want to help you succeed.

Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience, 0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the wild. Journey of entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.

Hey, my friends, it's Sid over here at the Huge Transformations podcast. Thanks for joining us this afternoon or today, whatever time it is when you're listening. We've got a great conversation today with Matthew Efford. Matthew Efford has, um, lighting Pros down in Georgia. They've got multiple locations, couple franchise locations.

He also runs a Mosquito Joe's operation. But more than that, he's a man of purpose and when you get to meet him and get to know him, you're gonna love how he has redirected his business and his life to support the things that he values in both, which for him, his faith, family, and business. A lot of us say that, but we usually put business first.

So get ready for a great conversation and a ton of learning and insight. From my friend and soon to be yours, Matthew Eer. Hey everybody, it's Sid Graff and this is The Huge Transformations podcast. And today our guest is Matthew Eer. Uh, Matthew has got Lighting Pros down in Georgia, is that right? That's correct, course.

'cause you're the mighty Bulldog fan. That's right. Go dogs. Yeah. As well as, uh, was it last year your company was a top in the top 100? I think you replaced number 10. Yeah. Top 10. Yeah. Top 10 of the fastest growing, uh, businesses founded or managed by new JL? Yeah. That's pretty cool. 'cause uh, university of Georgia is no slouch as far as alumni and alumni business owners.

Congrats. We, we've been very blessed. Um, it, it, it is foremost God's blessing on our business and then the amazing team that we have and also we've got some incredible customers that, that have supported us from early on, even when we didn't really know what we're doing. They're very gracious. We, we try to do a really good job s the way you wanna be treated.

It's one of our core values. So yeah, it, it is been a lot of fun. Yeah. That's wonderful. Um, so we, we'll, we'll start here, uh, without giving the like large introduction, background, 'cause we'll pick all that up, but Sure. When you and I, uh, talked before the huge convention and then not long after, you and your family had just been kind of, I call it the epic road trip you had had committed to spending more time with your family and making memories with your kids.

And how long were you guys on the road? Yeah, so, um, we were on the road, we were on the roof for a 45 day stint. Um, and then we, before that we basically, we were gone for two weeks, home for a week, gone for 45 days, home for two weeks, gone for three weeks, home for a week. Going for a week. We we're just kind of on and off the road a bunch.

And, um, we will have traveled 120 something days, something like that, 150 days this year by the end of the year. Okay. So, and I'm gonna loop this together. So you have lighting pros, you do holiday lighting, you do landscape lighting. You do permanent lighting. So my assumption was this, oh, Matthew's got, you've got your poop in a group and you're, you've, you know, you're able to manage your time, but it's, you know, as the holiday lighting business, like you've got some slow time.

And then, but like now when we're recording this is, is, uh, we're almost Halloween. So all holiday, like people are getting busy. I assume that would be true for you as well. Probably is. But you said you guys, you and your family go back on the road tomorrow, so you got more time gone. It, it, it is. We've got a great team.

And, and, and we've just, we've built the business as you and I shared, you know, when I spoke at, at Huge, which is amazing opportunity. Part of this story starts for me back when my son Noah passed away in 2020. And it was really, how did I design my business in such a way that I don't work a hundred hours a week?

'cause I was at that time, yeah. And it was a, a needed, I have to not work a hundred hours in their business. And so we go sense where we work a bunch obviously, and then we go sense where, um, our team is just running on all donors and, and it is fantastic and it's more of how can I support them. So my time now is spent more around how do I cultivate leadership within my organization as well as with our franchise locations.

How do I help them develop? And so a lot of that can be done remotely. So I know that's not normal for people, right? That's not a normal thing that they can do. They can pick up and leave for 45 days for, for even four days. Four days feels like a lot. Yeah. But the big thing for me that I kind of challenge with in my presentation that I've been challenging people is if you cannot step away from your business and it operate without you, you have a job, not a business.

And so that's what I've been teaching our franchise owners. That's what I've been teaching our, our team is, and, and myself is uh, we, we have to structure this in such a way that we can step away for a period of time, whether it's just a day that there was a time in our business where I felt like I cannot even take my wife on a date because I've gotta be available to the business because I have so much that I have to catch up on.

And what really taught me is I have to learn how to delegate better. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's a very common theme in our industry is just, you know, they, the guy, the owner operator, started everything, did everything, does everything. Doesn't know how to not do everything and how to structure it. So that's a big deal.

Can, will you do this? Will you paint a picture of where your business is now? I know you've got multiple locations. Are they franchises? Are they company owned? Yeah, it's, it's a great question. So we, I, I own three businesses, uh, mosquito Joe Outdoor Pest Control Company, lighting Pros. We do outdoor lighting and Lighting Pros franchise, where we support others in the outdoor lighting space.

And so my organization, we are, we have five locations for Lighting Pros currently. Um, that is our corporate office and then franchise locations. And then we are in the launch phase of a couple other locations. And so, um, that by. This time in, in three months? We'll, we'll, we'll push us up over six to seven locations.

Okay. Okay, cool. And, um, with that, with your, like with franchise locations like this strict franchise model, somebody buys into it, they run it according to the systems you have, but you give them support. That's correct, yeah. Okay. So, so we're, we're giving them the branding support, right? You're buying a business in a box.

When you, well, you should, when you're looking at a franchise system, you should be buying a defined ROI. And so the system that you should be looking at, you should be looking at a completely kind of aired out system. Doesn't mean it's not gonna adapt, it doesn't mean it's not gonna change. It should as it grows and matures and becomes better.

But they should have a system for hiring. They should have a system for invoicing. They should have a system for marketing. They should have a system for inventory. They should have vendors in place. It shou...