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- [00:02]
Dave
Before we get started on today's podcast, I just want to make a quick apology. Something went wrong with the microphone that I was using, so my voice is sketchy. I've tried to correct it, but you're gonna have to put up with a less than ideal sound quality whenever I'm speaking. So I apologize. Hopefully that won't happen again in the future, but I just wanted to give you a heads up. Most of us small business owners dream of building a seven figure company. And even better than selling that company for seven figures. But what about building one that runs better without you and then selling that? My guest today is Eric Sprague and his team literally told him to stay home. Not out of disrespect, but because he built a company that ran that well without him. Now that's the ultimate flex. As a business owner. Eric's the co founder of Supertech University and a veteran of the home services industry. From pool boy to white collar dropout to heart attack survivor to culture building wizard, he's not just talked, but he has walked the entire entrepreneurial path and as he is here today to share that journey with us. So today we're pulling back the curtain on how he scaled, systematized and sold a seven figured business and then built a second one around employee growth and leadership. Let's get to it. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Locally Owned Today, my guest is Eric Sprague. And Eric is. He had a company that did water restoration and he grew that company and sold it and he does coaching and consulting and now he's the author of a book called the Road to Seven Figures. He's had several other businesses and I'm really excited to talk to him. Eric, I read your book and it is probably one of the best books for a local service company to read. The information in there is just so. I love your practical and tactical way of just saying this is what you gotta do.
- [02:34]
Eric Sprague
So thanks, Dave, I appreciate that. Look, I wrote that book for people just like me. So it's definitely not War and Peace or anything like that. Right. And it's not meant to be. It's meant to be practical and actionable. I mean, that's what I want people to go, I can do that. Oh, okay, cool. Next step. I can do that. Because that's really what small business ownership is. It's implementing to implement well, and that's,
- [03:03]
Dave
you know, our audience is, is always hungry for, you know, they're looking at business owners that are where they want to be and they're always hungry for. How did this guy, you know, get there? What did he do? What are the steps he took? So I always like starting the journey from the beginning, you know? You know, so, you know, your. Your very first business you had was a. You. Did you start in the water damage business, or did you start as a carpet cleaner or.
- [03:36]
Eric Sprague
Well, I'll go back a little further than that. So I've been in the home services space since I was 15 years old. Essentially, every job I've ever had has been some version of a home service business. I was an electrician's assistant, a mason's assist. I work construction. I was a pool service guy, carpet cleaner. I mean, I've been ringing doorbells and going into people's houses and working since I was. Since I was a kid. And a lot of the things I learned. I had this amazing boss at a pool service company. I grew up in Maine, and he was an accountant by trade, and he had a client that couldn't pay him. So he took the pool service business as trade for paying the bill. Small company. And then he grew it to the lar. One of the largest pool service companies in New England. They actually just sold to private equity this year. Right. So, wow. I mean, if anybody knows anything about pool service, it's usually kind of Chuck in a truck, like one or two vans, you know, and, yeah, I don't know exactly how many crews they have, but I. I think they have 30 or 40 vans. Probably 70, 75 employees. My guess. But what he taught us was really what set me on the road in home service was that, yes, cleaning a swimming pool is important, but the show we put on and how we interact with the client is actually what allows us to charge more and have a better reputation. I mean, we were cleaning George Bush Senior's swimming pool in the summer in Kennebunkport. Like, my pool route in Kennebunkport was like a who's who of, like, Forbes magazine.
- [05:21]
Dave
This right here is gold. Eric's talking about what's commonly referred to as perceived value. Now, your service can be amazing, but if your customer experience doesn't match, you're never going to work for the kind of clients you deserve to work for. And the way I like to think of it is like this. Think of the service you do as the product. Positioning is the packaging and pricing of that product and how well that product works and how easy it is to use and how reliable it is is the experience your clients have. So if you build a service business, you might Be the best in town at what you do. But when you create an experience around what you do, people fall in love with your service. It's kind of like this. And we've all seen this. KFC is a fast food chicken place, right? They've got three cars in their drive through. Across the street, Chick fil A has 45 cars in their drive through. Nail the experience and your people will never go anywhere else, you know? Yeah.
- [06:37]
Eric Sprague
So at a very young age, I was being trained to be really good at home service, the service part. And I tried to, you know, I. Everybody in my family had kind of work service type, you know, like blue collar jobs my whole life. And I was always like, I'm going to get a white collar job and I'm going to go to college. And I did go to college and it was great. But I had a white collar job for about 11 months. I worked at Aetna in downtown Hartford in a building with like, I don't know, five or ten thousand people in it. Everybody's wearing a suit. And I used to sit at my desk, Dave, and just be like, I gotta get out of here. I want to drive from job to job. Like, I don't want to wear a tie. Like, this is misery for me. And I went right back into home service. Like, I, I remember when I quit that job and this would have been like, I don't know, 1990. My parents were like, you've thrown your whole life away, you and I. Wow. Yeah, there was none. And, well, they just, you know, my parents had always worked at, you know, bigger companies, and they just felt that you work somewhere for 30 or 40 years and get a pension when you're done and all that. And there's nothing wrong with that. And back when they were, you know, coming up, that was a thing, but that is no longer a thing. And I think even in 1990, that was not becoming a thing, you know, of just letting the company take care of you. And I didn't know it at the time, Dave, but I just had so much entrepreneurial spirit. I just couldn't work for other people. I just. I was not a good employee. I would still not be a good employee because I like to figure things out on my own and figure out a way to do it. And if I don't get to do that, I'm not happy.
- [08:27]
Dave
Yeah.
- [08:28]
Eric Sprague
I'm assuming you're similar.
- [08:30]
Dave
Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of entrepreneurs are, you know, and, and we're. But. But even beyond that, we're raised to Think to do what you're told, you know, and from the time you're in grade school, you know that that is the definition of good behavior is doing what you're told, you know, and so, yeah, you know, but if you're difficult when what you're being told in your mind, you're thinking, I, I got a better way to do this, or that doesn't make any sense. You know, this is, we're wasting time here. You know, you got, you just. Yeah, it's very difficult to live with those constrictions.
- [09:07]
Eric Sprague
So I was that kid. I was the kid who in class would be like, why are we, why are we having to memorize this? This doesn't seem like it really gets us anywhere. Can we talk about the bigger picture? And I think there's a picture of me on every coach's dartboard in their basem. Because I would question, I would want to know the why for like, you know, why are we running extra sprints today? Why are we doing this? And you know, they'd be like, shut up and just run. You know, and that I think that entrepreneurial part of me just, I couldn't abide that. I just, I pushed back. I was the one of my friends who would always push back with adults.
- [09:47]
Dave
I've seen this so many times that I want to point this out right here and speak to any parents that are listening. Eric just mentioned how he didn't quite fit in at school. He wasn't a straight A student, and he didn't follow along very well and came across as pesky. And for a lot of parents, that's kind of scary when that's happening with their kid. But here's the truth. Some of the most impactful people, Steve Jobs for one, didn't exactly thrive in the classroom either. Jobs dropped out of college, wandered into to a calligraphy class, and somehow through that, he became the genius behind Apple. And not only that, he completely reinvented how he listened to music and purchase it. So if your kid isn't crushing it academically, it doesn't mean that they're falling behind. It might mean that they're wired for something different, something bigger. Eric sold and built a seven figure business and he's not done. So try not to worry about your child's struggles to fit in. Maybe even take comfort that you might be raising the next super entrepreneur.
- [10:57]
Eric Sprague
And I didn't recognize it, Dave, until I was. I didn't start my first business till I was 38. I worked for other people.
- [11:05]
Dave
Wow. Wow.
- [11:07]
Eric Sprague
Yeah. And, I mean, I had always. I would get. It happened, like, I would get a job, and then I would work up from the bottom, and then within a few years, I usually be some sort of manager, service manager, general manager or whatever. And then I would move on. And I didn't understand why I was so restless all the time. Like, I didn't. I think I just. It took me into my 30s to recognize, no, you're supposed to work for yourself, dummy. You're trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. And then I remember the first day of owning my own business. I started as an air duct cleaner. I started an air duct cleaning business first, and then morphed into carpet and then restoration. I just remember, like, it was the greatest feeling in the world, just going out and marketing it and charting my own course. I mean, obviously not easy for any of us, but I was happier, for sure.
- [12:04]
Dave
Yeah. It's amazing you say that, and I do remember when I started my company, you know, a part of me came alive that I didn't even know was there. You know, And. And just I remember two weeks after owning my own company thinking, I don't think I could ever work for anybody ever again. Not. Not that any company does. You know, there's a lot of companies that do great things and. And have, you know, are great to work for. But I just remember that part of me that came alive. It's like, you're gonna have to kill this for me to work for somebody again. And I just don't see that happening. So.
- [12:37]
Eric Sprague
No, no, I think a lot of people are that way. But the issue, and it's in the book, the issue is that most of the people who do that never actually reach their goals, right? Only 5% of all businesses in the US ever reach a million dollars a year in revenue or more. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have a great life and a great business. I mean, I know tons of carpet cleaners who make a very good living. They don't need to make seven figures because they're owner operators and they run out of their house. I just always viewed that as a very risky proposition. You are one heart attack, one broken leg, One what? Car accident away from being out of business. And I just. You know, I remember when I left my last job before I started a business, and I remember thinking, like, if I have a job, I could have, like, literally one person above me who doesn't like me, and I could lose my job. Right? Like, so that, like, to me, there's a direct corollary, like one person doesn't appreciate me, I'm out. Well, you know, owner, operator, I kind of feel that way too. It's like if I don't at least have a helper who, if I broke my leg, could at least push the wand and all that. While I'm standing there, my crutches saying do this, do that. I just immediately, it was kind of the same mentality like, you know, I need to have lots of customers, lots of diverse customers. So if I do lose a customer, it's not going to put me out of business, right? I'm just going to find another customer. But I also want to have enough people working for me so if anything happens, I can continue to make money without my actual work. And, and I think a lot of home service businesses especially get stuck in that owner operator. I don't have anybody but me. And now I kind of have golden handcuffs, right? I'm making awesome money cleaning. Let's use carpet cleaning, for example. You know, I can go make 150, $200,000 a year for myself. Once I've gone through that portion of building up a book of business. I'm not answering to anybody. Nobody's telling me where to be. Like that's a nice life, right? Until something happens. Like I was just always hedging like, no, I need to learn the skills to have people so that also I could go take a vacation and still keep making money, right? You know, so, so I don't like stand up and yell from the mountaintops that everybody has to be a multi truck operation. I just, I feel that having more people than less if you, if you're the right personality type for it can lead to a better life.
- [15:26]
Dave
One thing that I, Eric, is so smart for recognizing is that managing risk is always going to be a part of owning a business. There's no getting away from it. Whether it's a new service you're offering or a new marketing campaign that you're rolling out, or you're trying to grow your business through hiring and training employees, there's always that chance that things might not work out. But he also realized that risk reaches into not doing anything. Growing is risky, but so is not growing. It has its own risks. So Eric determined the rewards that he wanted and took the risks associated with gaining those rewards. And that is so smart. So, you know, I know for my story of say, being an owner operator to being someone who had technicians that did the work and I wasn't the guy doing the work anymore, it had, you know, several times it happened, and then I was one technician away from going back out on a truck again.
- [16:35]
Eric Sprague
You know, you're not alone, man.
- [16:38]
Dave
Yeah. So how did you make that transition to, you know, to getting that nailed down where it just wasn't gonna. You weren't gonna go back? Like, what was.
- [16:51]
Eric Sprague
Well, we had to get to a certain size to get there. Right. You know, to be honest. So, I mean, how we really did it was Larry, my business partner, who was my college roommate. He and I started the business, and we started with carpet cleaning before all the restoration started really kicking in. And, you know, he and I were on the truck together, and then we weren't cleaning. We would market, and then we're like, okay, somebody really needs to mark it all if we want to keep growing. Somebody needs to market all the time. Well, Larry's much better suited for that than me. So we made the decision, okay, Larry comes off the truck. We hire me a helper with the idea that I'm going to grow that helper over the course of, say, a year into hopefully being a lead technician. And, you know, just like anybody else, I probably went through three or four or five people before I found the person who actually was going to be the person. And. And then as soon as we would take that person and put them on a truck and now they are on their own, I would get the next helper, and then I would train that helper. So I just kind of did that system a few times until now. I have three or four technicians who can go do the work, and if I lose one, maybe I have to be on the truck, but I'll probably just hire a helper now and put it with one of the guys that I've already trained.
- [18:15]
Dave
Right, right.
- [18:16]
Eric Sprague
So, I mean, there's no easy answer, Dave. You know, this. It's. It took years, right, for me to build that team. And then, you know, I need to be a good leader and a good manager. I need to keep them there. Right. If I've invested all that time, you know, I need to make sure that I'm there for them and they're there for us. And I see this all the time. I mean, in my coaching practice and just do. I mean, I was at 26 trade shows last year in home services, and I can't tell you how many times I hear owners going like, I hate my employees, or there's nobody wants to work anymore or whatever. And I'm thinking, I know a lot of companies that are very well run and have very strong leaders and they don't say things like that.
- [19:01]
Dave
Right.
- [19:01]
Eric Sprague
I mean, it doesn't mean it's easy to get people into the front door. But at what point is it our responsibility to grow those people?
- [19:11]
Dave
Right?
- [19:12]
Eric Sprague
I talk, I talk about that a lot in the book. I mean, look, Supertech University is, is a company that's literally based on our morning meeting. We had a morning meeting as a team every single day to increase engagement and have everybody feel cared for. And you know, I know a lot of people think that sounds like thoughts and feelings or hippie dippy, but guess what? That works. It works. You know, if you invest in your people, they don't leave you.
- [19:41]
Dave
Yeah, no, we did that in my company. And that was, you know, once, once you, once you're in the habit of doing it and you see the value of it, you know, then you're never going to not do it because you know, everything from, it's a great way just to get information to everybody. It's a great way for, for people who, you know, for new people to see the culture exactly right there. And, and then oftentimes there might have been somebody that was really quiet and, and you can pick up on that and, and know, okay, there's something bothering this guy and you know, let me, let me pull him aside later and see what's going on. And you know, you find out that something happened and he needs to take care of it and you let him off work early or whatever, you know, and it's just, it just gives you so much more insight into, you know, where your employees are at and how to. And that's when you know that it's a lot easier to navigate things? I think so.
- [20:47]
Eric Sprague
Yeah. I agree.
- [20:49]
Dave
So was there any, a defining moment when you had this thought that, you know what, I can turn this into a seven figure business?
- [20:59]
Eric Sprague
I don't know if there, I mean, I think that was the goal for me from day one. I worked at bigger businesses in the home service space prior. So I kind of knew what a multi truck company looked like and I knew what that would do for the owner because I would watch my owners and that was the life that I wanted to lead. I didn't exactly know how to get there. That was a learning curve curve for me and Larry. But no, I think right from day one, the idea was multi truck, multi millions. Have people do the work, create jobs in the local economy and lead them and train them. You know, that was my goal. Like, I mean, you're gonna laugh at this I don't think it's in the book, but the whole reason I started a service business is because I wanted to have free time to ski and bike. That's, like, all I cared about, right? I was. I'd always be sitting, working my ass off on a Wednesday afternoon. Be like, I really could be on a bike ride. That would be really nice right now, you know, and it took me, like. It took me like, five or six years to even probably take my first bike ride after we started. But.
- [22:12]
Dave
Right.
- [22:13]
Eric Sprague
But the goal was always there to be off the truck, you know, And. And I was off the truck. Off the trucks. Relative to. Right. Like, look, we have a big job. We have a busy day. I mean, even right before we sold, I'd grab a truck, I'll go work for a day. But it wasn't my normal. Right. You know, I. The last two or three years before we sold, I was probably working five to ten hours a week. I'd go into the morning meeting. I'd go in the morning meeting, say hi to everybody. I had spent the five years prior building a management team that could do it for me. And at that point, because they were well trained, and to be honest, I think they were all smarter than me to be totally transparent, which that's what I wanted. My goal was to be the dumbest person in the building. Ideally, you know, they would say, like, hey, you know, Eric, come in, say hi, give high fives, connect with everybody, and go find something to do, because you're going to be in our way. And that's when. To me, that's when I knew I was successful. That was. Larry and I went to a Howard Partridge conference. And, you know, we used to go every 90 days or whatever. And I remember every time we would go, that was like a stress test for how much we needed to improve our systems or who didn't know what to do. Like, so. So we would always leave, and in the early days, we'd come back to chaos, or we'd get 5,000 phone calls during the week. And then. But, you know, it's interesting, Dave. Every time we learned, okay, well, they don't know how to do this, great. I need to build a system for that. I need to figure out how we get. You know, and then I need to assign that to somebody the next time we go away. And then we just kept doing that. Every 90 days, we'd leave for the conference. Every 90 days was a little stress test to see what we didn't do. And I. I remember we came Back, and our managers were almost like, at the door waiting for us away. And. And we. I remember Larry and I looked at each other like, that looks ominous, you know, and they kind of ushered us into my office and they said, everything's good. All of the information the two of you need are laid out neatly on that desk for you to review. Please stay out of the way and don't mess ever anything up.
- [24:41]
Dave
Wow. Wow. Okay.
- [24:43]
Eric Sprague
Yep. Perfect. Right now I know that for 10 years, after 10 years, I've done my job. I actually. That was when I knew that we were being successful. It wasn't until then.
- [24:56]
Dave
Yeah. The name of the book that Eric just published is called Building a Seven Figure Business. It's not called Owning a Seven Figure Business or running or having. But he uses the word building because I think that defines what he just said here. You know, it's easy as a business owner to get frustrated about things going wrong when we're not there to run things. And you can get frustrated to the point where you just quit going out of town, quit taking vacations, because the problems that ensue aren't worth it. But I love that Eric used that phrase, frustrating aspect of being a business owner as a tool to see what he and Larry needed to do better. He took ownership. They thought, what do we have to do? What do we have to build better so that this business runs without us? And that is so smart. So here's an interesting thing. It obviously doesn't start that way. And you talk about this in your book, and I'd like you to talk about it, because I think it's a really important concept for people to grasp. And that is, you know, to some extent, what you just explained is the part that most people see, oh, I want to be a business owner who owns a business and goes out of town and then comes back and everything's fine. And part of Hollywood, maybe, or what we see in the news, you know, is they paint this picture that that's what an entrepreneur is. The life of an entrepreneur is like, or, you know, of a small business owner. So. But, you know, you talk about, you know, having to, you know, that your work life and your private life are not separable. Like, you have to make some decisions about who you're going to be if you want, because who you're going to be is going to be. Is the company that you own is going to follow. It's. If you want to be successful, you've got to make some changes. And. And I love the way you laid that Out. So, you know, if somebody is. Is in that place where they're struggling to get to where you got, you know, you lay it out great. In the book on, hey, this is the mindset you have to develop. These are, you know, you know, what you're going to have to think about. But I'd love for you to share some of that, how you sort of developed that thinking and what you saw that was true.
- [27:28]
Eric Sprague
Well, I think in the book, and I'll go back, I think maybe a little further than you're talking about, but the first portion of the book is, it's called you, right? Meaning if you're a business owner, the business, you're the product in many ways until you're not anymore, right? Until you've built a team around you. But at the beginning, it's you. And we entrepreneurs historically take very poor care of ourselves because we just work ourselves to the bone, right? We just grind and grind and grind. I had a 40 at 49. I had a heart attack just from stress and overwork. I'm, you know, I'm working 80, 90 hours a week for years on end. I'm stressed all the time. It's restoration. So I'm always chasing money. There's always restoration. An industry where there's nothing but problems, right? So, yeah, it's just compounding in me. Compounding, compounding. I'm not exercising, I'm eating McDonald's every night to soothe my soul or whatever, right? And next thing you know, I end up in the emergency room, you know, thinking, well, this might be it tonight. And that was the watershed moment to, to change a lot of the other stuff, right? Like a lot of the, the other. Look, the reason I wrote about that, because I'm pretty private, I don't usually talk about my personal life much, but that I wrote that because I don't want other people to have to get to where I was to go ahead and make the changes necessary to become a real business owner, right? So first thing is you have to get good with you. And I think you have to really know what you want out of life, right? So many guys just say, I just want more revenue. Why? Why do you want more revenue? I mean, you know, well, I want a fancy car. Why? Why do you want a fancy car? Right? Like what's wrong with the truck you have right now or whatever, right? And I'm not anti fancy car. My point is, is that you have to get really clear about what you want and then you have to recognize that you are going to have to change to probably get that right. That's where the wheels fall off the wagon for most owners, because they're like most of us in the home service trades. We started as technicians, and we think that nobody can mow a lawn like us or clean a carpet like us or, you know, cut drywall like us or whatever, right? And what happens is we become control freaks, or we're already control freaks before we start. So we keep bottlenecking all the growth. We're not good at training people, right? We're doers, not trainers by nature. And we don't have any real leadership skills because nobody teaches it in high school or, like, it's just not something that unless you go seek those skills. Most of us are not born with natural leadership abilities, and we have to learn to think more like a CEO, right? CEOs of companies, of course, they're very into their jobs, but they're. They. They view the business with some detachment. It is not their identity. It's something that they run. And, and I think that is a key point to get to the next level for an entrepreneur. You have to. You have to stop making this business about you. It's not about you if you want to grow it. It's about us. It's about the company as a whole. You know, Larry and I had a very different way of looking at the business. Larry's personality type was, was that the businesses was a direct reflection on him. So anything goes wrong. That employee screwed Larry over, right? Because, you know, it's him. You know, where I'd be like, oh, we need more training. That sucks. Let's call the client and try to fix it and make them happy again. But all I, like, I have no emotion to this. It's just, okay, I have more work to do, right? We had a problem. There's more work to do. I need to build a better system. I need to train better. So I think one of the key elements is getting to the point mentally as an owner, where you can start detaching the business at least a little bit from your own identity. Because if you make everything about you, there's no room in the business for anybody else to have their identity, too. So who's going to want to work for you?
- [32:07]
Dave
Nobody.
- [32:09]
Eric Sprague
Right? I mean, it all starts with that. And then obviously there's skills you need to learn, Dave. You need to learn your numbers, you need to learn how to market. You need to learn how to lead people and manage them. You need to learn how to build systems. And all of this Stuff takes time and all of it takes practice. And the first time you do it, it probably won't be any good and you fix it.
- [32:34]
Dave
I think that what Eric just said is absolutely the key to getting your business to seven figures. We've all heard the phrase, phrase working on the business, not in the business. And there comes a point where the work we're going to do on the business is actually working on ourselves. Our mindset, our leadership skills, those are the things that are holding the company back. And Eric is so smart for realizing that his company wasn't going to grow until he grew. Hey everyone. I just want to take a minute to share something personal. When I was building my business, there were times when I felt completely out of my depth. I was struggling with employee issues, sales issues. I had ideas, but I couldn't seem to get them implemented. I felt like my company vision was always just out of my reach and I didn't know what to do. But I was fortunate. There were other business owners, people a little further down the road than I was that stepped in and help me. They saw potential in me that I couldn't see in myself yet. And out of compassion and probably a little bit of remembering their own early days, they offered their time, their wisdom, their experience, and their perspective. And those conversations had such a huge impact on me. And now I want to pay that forward. If you own a business and you're feeling the same things I was, I want to help you. And heck, if you don't own a business, but you just feel like you can't seem to get your life to go in the direction you want it to, I absolutely want to help you too. And I think I can, but maybe I can't. But either way, here's what I want to do. Look in the show notes and there's a private link to my calendar. Click on it. It's called the Listening Coach. And when you get there, you're going to see it's listed as $297 fee. But I want you to ignore that. Just book it and write locally owned fan in the notes and I'll waive the fee. Why am I going to do that? Because I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm just trying to help. I'm just trying to pay back and pay forward what was given to me. If you're stuck spinning your wheels, overwhelmed, trying to figure out what to do, I'd really love to listen and draw on my 28 years of business experience and see if I can help that's all. All right, let's get back to the show.
- [35:04]
Eric Sprague
If you have employees and you don't have any systems, you get them to help you build them. You know, I mean, I had systematized all of Shamrock, our restoration company, and now at Supertech, we're a growing team, and we're at the point now we're like, all right, we need better systems. And I just had this yesterday morning with our team team here. I literally had the conversation of, I need you guys to help me build out these systems so that it makes it easier for all of us. Because when you involve them, they are going to buy in more than if you try to jam it down their throat. And to be honest, like, if I'm running a restoration company and I haven't been in the field for five years, am I really the person who should be building the system on how we're going to do this, that, or the other when I haven't done it for five years?
- [35:54]
Dave
Right.
- [35:55]
Eric Sprague
Doubt it. I mean, I could give. I can give input, but I'd rather get input from the people that are doing it every single day.
- [36:03]
Dave
Right.
- [36:03]
Eric Sprague
So, you know.
- [36:05]
Dave
Yeah, no, that. That's so key is get. You know, that was one of the mistakes that I made in creating systems in my company, is that I didn't involve my people. And that just made it so much harder. Eventually learned to involve them. But your. Your microphone went out.
- [36:25]
Eric Sprague
Oops, sorry. I sneezed and I had. I put the.
- [36:28]
Dave
Put on mute.
- [36:29]
Eric Sprague
And, you know, you. You. You obviously also, when you involve them, you get ideas that of people that do things in the field that you didn't even know they do. I remember we had a guy on. On our mitigation team, and he. He was like a demo guy. He was just doing. We had him running, doing. He was like the best demo guy, the fastest demo guy. And we were building our system out for that. And, you know, a couple guys had written some stuff on the board, and he was just like, hey, you know, when I do it, I do this one thing. And everybody just kind of stopped. And, like, because he usually worked alone, nobody knew he did this. And I was just like, that is freaking genius. So right on the whiteboard, I started. I started writing out like it was gonna save us, like, $60,000 a year.
- [37:17]
Dave
Wow.
- [37:18]
Eric Sprague
Based on how many jobs we did. So, you know, everybody applauded him. I later gave him a bonus for, you know, and I was just like, look, guys, this is what. This is why we do this together. We would have Never known that he does this if we didn't have this conversation.
- [37:34]
Dave
Right.
- [37:34]
Eric Sprague
And then everybody's doing it and everybody's happier because it's moving faster.
- [37:39]
Dave
Yeah.
- [37:40]
Eric Sprague
So you have to. And that's the thing that back to the owner who wants to be involved or in charge of everything. The power of the team is greater than the power of the owner. Almost always as great as we love to think we are.
- [37:58]
Dave
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:00]
Eric Sprague
So I'm a believer in that.
- [38:03]
Dave
Well, you know, so you soldier successfully sold your business in 2018, right?
- [38:09]
Eric Sprague
Yep.
- [38:10]
Dave
And. And you've transitioned into another business.
- [38:17]
Eric Sprague
So, you know, I reached. I retired for three days. Three days. Sold on a Friday, took the weekend off, took Monday off. And by Monday night, night I was like, I, this isn't going to work for me. I gotta figure out something to do.
- [38:32]
Dave
Yeah, yeah. Well, that, you know, I, I think when you have a business and you understand how fun it is to grow things and to build things, and if that's just the way to put together is, is to be a builder rather than someone who goes out and tries to find someone who's already built something.
- [38:53]
Eric Sprague
Can I piggyback on that real quick before you move on? Sorry. Because you just hit on something big about what we were talking about just before. Most entrepreneurs are like founder types, right? They're builders. I'm going to take some idea from scratch and I'm going to get it to whatever. But the reality is most of us start getting bored when the building part is, is starting to end. Right. And now we're in the mundane part of like making things better and having incremental growth and we get super bored. And that's when all the problems start. So it's like to me, the founder should run the company for the first couple years and then start training or finding managers who are more detail oriented. Don't get bored and let them build the company for from that point forward.
- [39:46]
Dave
Yeah, that's a great point. I'm not sure I've ever thought about that or heard anybody say that.
- [39:52]
Eric Sprague
But yeah, yeah, we are not, I mean, not everyone. Right. I'm generalizing, but you know, most of the entrepreneurs I know, we're kind of add. We're all over the map. We're creative types, we're willing to do tons of work, we're quirky. And those are exactly the skills you need to get a company from zero to something. But that is not what is going to keep you growing year after year after year. Now you need professional managers who do boring stuff that we're not willing or able to do. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to take you off course. But that goes right in line with what we were talking about just before, about building the skills to actually scale a business.
- [40:36]
Dave
No, that's a great point. Point. I mean, you know, the work that I'm involved in now is working with small business owners to help them achieve their goals. It's a very specific program that I developed to help people achieve their goals. And I tell them, you know, achieving your goals is going to take putting up with boredom. You know, you're going to have to get. Be okay with doing, you know, being super consistent about some things that are just not that exciting. There's no way around it. It's a great point to make, but, you know, to that point, you know, you sold it and you, you created something, built it, sold it, and now you're reinventing yourself or you've reinvented yourself twice, once as consultant and again as an author. So tell me what that was like going from a guy who, who is. Who really knows this stuff. He's got this company, knows how to manage people. You've grown it, you know, the ins and outs of the business that you run to getting into consulting. Just because you're a successful business owner, you know, that, that doesn't mean that you're just going to jump. People are going to be banging down your door, you know, trying to hire you as a consultant.
- [41:55]
Eric Sprague
So.
- [41:56]
Dave
So, you know, what was that?
- [41:57]
Eric Sprague
Nobody even knew. Nobody even knew who I was. Yeah, I mean, I worked in total anonymity. I was just that guy that was getting up and going to my office and grinding it out all day for X amount of years. And, yeah, nobody knew who we were or I was. And Larry was still at the other company for a couple more years, and I called him. I had taken like a consulting gig for somebody I knew a couple days a week in restoration. And I was going there. And, you know, they didn't do a lot of the things that we did as far as team building and all that. And I wouldn't say their culture was positive or great, and they were very technically sound, but there was a lot of turnover, like, way too much turnover. And look, a lot of this was owner personality stuff, but they also, they never met as a group, you know. So I said to the gentleman, I said, hey, do you mind if the couple days a week that I'm here, I just hold a morning meeting and teach them some stuff, right? And I started doing a lot of the things that, you know, we did every single day in our company. And all of a sudden, you see people with a little pep in their step and they're smiling in the meeting for the first time, and they're. They're absorbing information, because all of a sudden, what. What. What's happening? Somebody's paying attention to them. Most home service technicians don't really get a lot of love in the world, right? A lot of them come from rough family, rough background, rough neighborhood, and didn't love school. Look, I came from a lot of that, too, right? And all of a sudden, somebody's paying attention to you, saying, look, you're awesome, and look at all the things that I can teach you and learn. And I remember I was out on a job with them, and I heard them all in the driveway talking about putting. We have to get the property protection just right because we need to do the theater of business. And they're talking about the homeowner in terms of her disc personality profile and all this, and all the stuff that we heard that was normal at our company. And I remember the light bulb just went on. Dave. My little entrepreneurial spirit kicked in, and I walked to the top of the trail driveway, and I called Larry, and he was, you know, out marketing for the new company. And I said, I have our next business, man. I know exactly what it needs to be. I don't know how to do it yet, but I know there. There's a need, like, if, you know. So what I did was, I'm like, how can I scale that? Like, how can I get this morning meeting thing that works so well for us? And it's working now at this place that didn't have a great culture. How can I get it out in a larger way? So I remember I went back to my house and I bought, like, a $50 whiteboard and threw it in my garage, and I just did a couple lessons, basically in front of an iPhone with a tripod. And I might have done like four or five. And I sent them out to some plumbers and some H vac guys I knew and some contractors, you know, home service stuff. And I was like, hey, could you, like, watch these with your team and give me a little feedback? And then, to be honest, Dave, I kind of forgot that I'd even sent them out, right? I just moved on. And I didn't, you know, typical, like, chasing butterflies, like, well, what's next? You know? And then, you know, two or three weeks later, I'm starting to get texts and phone calls, like, where's the rest of them? And I'm like, the rest of what? They're like the videos. Like, where's the rest of them? Like, we're ready to buy. And I was like, ah, okay, I got a business. Right. Wow.
- [45:32]
Dave
One of the things that I love about what Eric does here is he didn't create his next business based off of what he thought he wanted to do. What he did was he saw a need and figured out a way to meet it. And then to test and see if his idea was viable. He kept it really simple and he could do that because this business was already in his wheelhouse. So he just used his phone, sent a few videos to a few local businesses to get some feedback. And, you know, great ideas happen all the time, but they don't always come to life because they take a lot of work to bring to life. Sometimes great ideas never get off the ground because we over complicate them and try to make them perfect. From the beginning, Eric didn't worry about that. He just created the minimal viable product to see if his hunch was right. And there was true a need out there. And there was. And off he went. I love it.
- [46:21]
Eric Sprague
So we started Super Tech. It was not called Super Tech University at first. It was called Morning Tech Meeting because we just referred to it as our morning tech meeting. That's when we all got together, right?
- [46:31]
Dave
Yeah.
- [46:32]
Eric Sprague
And so we started as Morning tech meeting in October 2019 and then had lined up about a half a dozen trade shows for spring of 2020. And we all know what happened on March 12, 2020, right?
- [46:51]
Dave
World.
- [46:52]
Eric Sprague
World. We had started a podcast, not because we thought anybody would ever listen to it, but we were like, we could podcast and then take the footage and send it an email blast to people. And it makes us seem like an expert, right? Like, because we gotta. We have to establish somebody to realize that Larry and I actually have some skill, right. That we've done something. And so we started doing that and then, you know, and this is the whole learning curve. Like this is for every business, right. You start from zero. It doesn't matter that I owned a business before. I'm trying to figure this business out and it's different.
- [47:30]
Dave
Yeah.
- [47:31]
Eric Sprague
And then the world shut down. All the trade shows got canceled. Luckily, Larry and I had sold. So we're not like reliant on the income at that point. But you look, if you start something, you want to be successful, I don't care who you are.
- [47:45]
Dave
Right. So what we decided to do was believe in you. Know if it's a.
- [47:49]
Eric Sprague
Absolutely.
- [47:50]
Dave
Yeah.
- [47:51]
Eric Sprague
So. So we, we started podcasting every single day because the whole world shut down. Nobody's doing anything. We're like, well, let's. Let's do a podcast every day. And I started reaching out to like, big names in the home service because they didn't have anything going on either. Right. Everybody's like, yeah. So I got all the ellen roars, the Al Le's, the Tommy Mellows, the Mike McCallowitz from Profit for like, I was getting guests on the show that, like, I don't think at any point I could have ever gotten. They just were like, yeah, I gotta get my message out too. Yeah, yeah. So we had like a six month period that first year where like. And we had just started the pod. We were terrible at podcasting, by the way. Like, we didn't know what we were doing. We had five dollar microphones and. But you know, it goes back to that entrepreneurial spirit. Like, I'm not gonna wait to be perfect. I'm not gonna wait to learn how to be a podcaster. That's not why I'm doing this. I want to get the message out. Like, okay, we'll figure out the other stuff later. And so we started building our brand originally off the podcast because. Just because everybody was kind of locked down, you know. Right.
- [49:01]
Dave
Yeah.
- [49:02]
Eric Sprague
And. And I think it was a good idea. And we got a little lucky, to be honest.
- [49:07]
Dave
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:09]
Eric Sprague
And. And then trade shows started the next year in the spring. And then Larry and I ever since. Until this year. I mean, we did 26 trade shows last year in all home service.
- [49:20]
Dave
Wow.
- [49:21]
Eric Sprague
So we. I was on the road 26 out of 1552 weeks last year. And we made a conscious effort. We're going to do that for about three years and try to get everybody that we can to know us. And then start fading, which we're in the process now of now, moving that into digital because we've met enough people. You never meet enough people, but we just can't travel that much anymore. So. Yeah, you know, we had to learn how to like, we had figured out how to become a local company. Right. That's what we figured out with our. Right. I know how to market locally, I know how to work a chamber, I know how to work a bni, I know how to work an email list. And now all of a sudden we start this new business that not only is it not just in our industry, but it's like five or six verticals in home service. Nobody knows Us in those.
- [50:09]
Dave
Right.
- [50:09]
Eric Sprague
And we're still fighting that battle today. And not only that, but it's in essence world, at least for us, all English speaking countries that we're going after. So we're going after Europe and South Africa and Australia. And so you know, Dave, it's been just as much of a grind to get this going as it was our service business. It's no different, it's all the same.
- [50:37]
Dave
Yeah.
- [50:38]
Eric Sprague
And I love getting up every day and doing it. I don't like. And we're right at the point now, so it'll be. Yeah, we're five years. It'll be five years in October. Is that. No, it'll be six years in October, I guess. You know, we hired a couple people last year. The first few years was just Larry and I just grinding. Once he got done with the other company, he came on full time and now we have a team of I think six or seven full time employees. Yeah, yeah. It's been a journey and you know, it's, it's, this one in some ways is more rewarding because you really get to see people improve their lives. The owners and the team get to improve their lives. You know, we do, we do video training for technicians because I always felt that, look, most service businesses, the majority of your problems happen in the field and to be honest, most people don't pay much attention to their techs other than, than giving them a hard time. And I was like, we have to end that. I, I, I'm very pro technician. I want the technicians to feel, you know, some love and some training and you know, because if I can do that, there's going to be way fewer problems in the field which means I'm going to make more money and I have happier clients and happier people. And then, you know, we, we branched out into business development training, estimator training which is just sitting sales training, CSR training. My wife was our lead CSR and then after we sold she wanted to keep working. So she was a coach for power selling pros for a couple years which is like a big CSR training nationwide for home services. She, she stopped doing that. But she does shoot videos for us for CSR training or receptionist, whatever you want to call it. And then we have a service manager leadership training. Because I don't know if you've ever done this Dave, but I certainly have. You take your best tech and go, hey, you're in charge of all the guys now, right? No, no, no train. No, no thought whether that person actually is good with People or anything like that. You just go. So we try to stop that now. So we do that. And then we also do retreats, like business owner retreats, where they fly into either Utah or something like California and we spend two days with them every quarter.
- [52:53]
Dave
Oh, fantastic. Fantastic.
- [52:55]
Eric Sprague
Yep. I do that with Katie Harris, who is my co author on the book. She owns a digital marketing company. Yep.
- [53:02]
Dave
Yeah, that's so.
- [53:03]
Eric Sprague
Yeah, that's, that's what we're doing. And you know, I, I don't know, I think we have 718 companies using the videos daily. And you know, we have quite a few people at the retreats. And I'm, to be honest, Dave, we're just trying to help people.
- [53:18]
Dave
Yeah.
- [53:19]
Eric Sprague
Because we've had the business that you didn't want to own. Right. We've all had that business. And like, if I could even get one person have the business that they love to own, I feel like I was successful then.
- [53:33]
Dave
Yeah, yeah. No, helping people achieve their goals, when that's your job or your vocation or your goal is. Yeah. I can't imagine there's anything more rewarding than that. Which, you know.
- [53:48]
Eric Sprague
No, I don't think so. So love what I do now.
- [53:52]
Dave
Well, if people want to get in touch with you, tell them a little bit of how to get in touch with you. The best way, the best way to buy your book.
- [54:01]
Eric Sprague
Best way to buy the book is just go to Amazon and type in the road to seven figures. It will be there. There's a digital version and a paper version. If they want to check out any of our stuff, go to supertechu.com. that's super tech. All, you know, one word with the letter u.com and you know, you can find me with just my name, Eric Sprague on LinkedIn or Facebook. They can find me there.
- [54:28]
Dave
Okay, fantastic.
- [54:29]
Eric Sprague
That's, that's pretty much how to find me. Yeah, we're around. You'll see us everywhere. Market hit this fairly hard. So yeah, if anybody want, we give away a free trial. So anybody that you know is listening and they're kind of interested in the videos, we give a free week away. We, we do have the membership closed down. You'll see that on the webinar right now or the website right now. But if anybody calls and just mentions this podcast, we'll, we'll definitely open it to them.
- [54:57]
Dave
Oh, fantastic. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I will include all that info in there, the show notes as well, make it easy for people. Okay, Eric, this, this has been great, man. I, I, yeah, really enjoyed getting to know you better. And you know, for anybody listening, the book is phenomenal. If you own a service company, it is just a, a great, you know, step by step path on, you know, on how to get to growing your company, not, not just to a certain number, but growing it in maturity, in the way you mature, the way you help your technicians think in a mature way. It's just one of the best books I've read on helping service companies.
- [55:42]
Eric Sprague
Thanks, man. So real quick, Dave, before we go about that, we were blessed and we reached Amazon bestseller status, which was super cool for me. Katie, my co author, called me. And Katie was a journalist by trade before she started a marketing company. Right. And I had called her and said, hey, she had done our digital marketing for us. And I said, can you write the chapters on digital? And she, you know, very graciously said yes. So, you know, we, we reached Amazon bestseller. And she called me, she's like, I just saw it like we just hit bestseller. And I was like, that's amazing. I didn't tell you this before I asked you to write, but I got like straight Ds in high school English. I was like, I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn't, you know, want to be part of the project. So if my English teacher who told my mom that I was slow was still alive, I want her to go
- [56:39]
Dave
read the book in your face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you got chat tpt that helps out a lot and voice to text and everything else. You know that.
- [56:50]
Eric Sprague
Well, I, I wrote that actually prior to chat being really a thing yet. Yeah, I think I could have cut my time in half if I had known how to use it yet, but I wasn't there. So anyway, yeah, it's just me. It's just me writing.
- [57:06]
Dave
Yeah.
- [57:07]
Eric Sprague
Hopefully it doesn't bore people too much.
- [57:09]
Dave
No, I, I think anybody that owns a service company that starts reading that book, they're gonna, they're not gonna be able to put it down so. Well.
- [57:16]
Eric Sprague
Good. Well, Dave, thank you so much for having me on. It was great to see you again and, and I really appreciate the time. Thank you.
- [57:23]
Dave
Yeah, yeah. Well, I loved having you on. It's great to get caught up and get to know you better. And hopefully you'll have to let me know how things are going.
- [57:32]
Eric Sprague
All right, thank you.
- [57:33]
Dave
All right, Eric, take care.
- [57:37]
Eric Sprague
Thank you.
- [57:39]
Dave
Eric Sprague isn't just building businesses. He's building people. From a service van to selling a seven figure company and now coaching the next generation of technicians. His story is proof that when you build your company on systems trust and leadership, it changes lives. So here's the question. Are you building something that could run without you? Are you investing in your team or just managing their behavior? Are you taking risks that yield the rewards you want? And maybe most importantly, what small system or habit could you start this week that your future self that your team will thank you for? Remember, you don't have to overhaul everything today. You just got to get started. Let me know in the comments what resonated with you, you and what didn't. Until next time. Your goals are my goals. Thanks for listening to another episode of Locally Owned. I hope you found this helpful, interesting and inspirational. And please be sure to hit that follow button so you won't miss an episode. And I'd love it if you let me know what you think of the show by leaving a review. And hey, before you go, I do want to say this again because I mean it. If you're a small business owner and you're really struggling to grow, to work less hours to achieve your goals, whatever it is, I would love to put my 28 years of business experience to work helping you. And heck if you're not a small business owner but you feel like you really need help just getting traction in your life, well, this is absolutely for you too. Look in the show notes and click on the link that says Listening Coach. I offer a one on one coaching session that I'm offering to you right now. Now you're going to see it listed at 297, but I want you to ignore that as a fan of the show, Locally owned. Just book the time, put in the notes that you're a fan of the show and the fee is waved. You're thinking, well, why are you doing that? Well, because I'm not trying to sell anything. When I was in business and I was struggling somehow and I think God did it, the right people were sent to me to say the right thing at the right time and it was so helpful. And so the kind of conversation that they had with me I'd like to have with you. So. So if something is saying to you right now, well, what have I got to lose? Well then consider yourself nudged by the universe. Because who knows, you know, I might not be able to help you at all. But then again, I might just be able to help you see the potential that you have that you just can't see right now. And that would be a huge win for both of us. Thanks for listening to the show. I look forward to hearing from you, Sa.