On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, host Sheila Smeltzer sits down with Brandon Smith, a retired Army First Sergeant turned first-time franchise owner of M1 Epoxy Floors in the Nashville area. Brandon shares what it really looks like to jump into entrepreneurship after 23 years in the military—trading structure and support systems for the chaos of wearing every hat in a small business. From sales and marketing to installation, bookkeeping, and hiring, Brandon gives a raw, honest look at his first 18 months in business and how his military mindset—especially adaptability and resilience—has helped him navigate the pressure.

Brandon and Sheila also break down the realities of running a high-ticket, non-recurring service business. They talk about the challenges of cash flow, managing large project costs, learning financial forecasting the hard way, and why closing sales is critical when every job is a one-time opportunity. Brandon shares key lessons on hiring for character over skill, building an install team, and leveraging systems like CRMs to stay organized. They also explore how joining the Huge Mastermind shifted his thinking—especially around understanding market size, opportunity, and simplifying growth. It’s a valuable episode for newer entrepreneurs and anyone trying to turn early momentum into a sustainable, scalable business.

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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.

Hello? Hello, listeners. It's Sheila Smeltzer, a plus Pro Services and huge transformations podcast contributor. I am very excited today I introduce an interview. Brandon Smith with M1 Epoxy Floors, who is an 18 month new franchise owner, franchisee owner, uh, who shares a lot of his new entrepreneurial experiences with us.

We talk about the good, the difficult, what we would do different. We talk about how his. Retired army, uh, experience has landed into his leadership skills and, uh, entrepreneur entrepreneurial skills, how he's wearing so many hats. We cover everything from tactical work and the details about epoxy floors, fixed revenue to recurring revenue.

We talk about wearing all the hats. Um, this is just an awesome, authentic interview that I know that all of our listeners will gain something from. Um, I really enjoyed getting to know Brandon today, and I thank all of you for listening. Let's dive in. Hello everyone, this is Sheila Smeltzer with the Huge Transformations Podcast and I have Brandon Smith with Mach one Epoxy Floris here joining us today.

Hey Brandon, good morning. Thank you for having me. I love this. This is gonna be super fun. Uh, Brandon is retired army sergeant and he is a first year franchise e owner of Mock One Epoxy Floors based outta West Nashville. And we're gonna have a lot of fun today and really insightful conversation about the correlation between your background and how, you know, your serving in the Army has helped you with, you know, starting as an entrepreneur.

Um, I love that you're pretty new in the entrepreneurial journey, so this is gonna be great. Um, and I, you know, I wanna first start and just get to know you, but Brandon, introduce yourself. Uh, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and a little bit about Mach One. Okay. Um, so yes, I am, uh, just under 18 months business owner.

Uh, I bought a franchise Wan Epoxy. Um, we do operate in the greater Nashville area, Nashville West based. Um, I've been, like I said, I've been doing that for about 18 months, but prior to that I spent 23 years in the Army. I retired as a senior enlisted advisor or a first and a, uh, first sergeant. Um, over a counter drug task force.

Um. In that is vastly different, but a lot of the same, going from that role, transitioning to a business owner, um, a little more chaos in the, in the small business world, trying to manage all of the hats instead of having the supporting framework. But, uh, we're figuring it out. Um, I'm a father. I have two children, 11 and eight, grace and Madeline, and, uh, they're my other side of chaos.

So there's no rest. And I understand, I understand you're handyman to your wife as well. Yes. If there is a project I am responsible for doing said project, um, probably not the best at getting them done any, any timely, but, uh. We, uh, we do a lot. We live out here, uh, just south of Clarksville and north of Dixon in almost no man's land.

A little county of Houston County that, uh, has about 8,000 people in total. So we got a couple of stoplights that we don't really need. Uhhuh, it's quiet out here, but there's lots of projects. That's great. Well, she's lucky to have you, Brandon. Thank you. Thank you. So, wearing all of these hats, um, how has your experience and, you know, just 23 years in the Army, how, how, what are these skill sets that have helped you navigate, um, your 18 months, starting out with the franchise?

Well. In the military, we said a lot of things like embrace the suck. Mm-hmm. So when things got chaotic and it just wasn't going well and there's lots of regulations, there's lots of guidance, um, but sometimes things just don't fit in that framework. And being able to think outside the box and being able to, um, mold to the situation you're in has helped me tremendously.

Um, coming over to the entrepreneurial side and opening Mock one Epoxy, um, was exciting and fun is still exciting and fun, but it does not come easy. There's still a lot of stress. There's still, I am the salesman. I am the owner, I am the installer. I am the maintenance guy. I, I do all of the things. I do the bookkeeping and the manage our accounting and the accounting.

So. That's a lot. It is a lot. Um, yep. Been there and trying to make sure that you do it right. And I can tell you that, uh, there's, there's nights that I wake up and I'm still stressed about the business and stressed that, uh, I'm making the right decisions for us. But, uh, overall turning in here in our second year now, um, things are really looking up and business is going really well.

My employees are doing great. They're installing floors like crazy. And, uh, we're booked up for a couple of months. And I, I, I gotta say that, uh, that's not without the score of the huge, it's not without the score of the community that, uh, I'm in at Mach one or Better Service brands, but, uh, we're doing really, really well.

I love to hear that. Um, such a success on, on the, you know, coming out of the gate, it sounds like, um, Brandon, tell, tell me about hiring. So how did you. You know, uh, I, I do not, I'm not part of a franchise. Um, but how does that work when you're starting out? You've got a brand new location, um, you're the franchisee.

How did you know who to hire first? How did you know, how did you start filling in the roles? Roles, and what does, what is the size of your organization after 18 months? So, when I opened, my intention was to go slow. Um, I wanted to understand the business I, from, from the base level all the way up. So I wanted to install floors on my own.

I wanted to manage all the risk within my two hands. Okay. Um, I did that for about three months. My goal was to do it for a year, and after about three months, I realized that it was impossible. There's no way that I could turn a true profit, um, manage the entire business and go out and do floors.

Tennessee is a great place and Nashville is fairly, fairly metropolitan, so there is a lot of work there. But I was traveling a couple of hours to job sites on a daily, so I'm losing those couple of hours that the business needed for me or that I needed to work on the business rather. Um, so about three months in, I decided that it was time to start looking for a laborer.

Um, we put out an a...