Transcript
A (0:00)
You ever look at your business and think, hey, we're doing fine, but deep down, you know something's off. That was Elaine and Todd. Fifteen years in business, solid margins, good reputation, and completely stuck. They hit a ceiling most owners will never break through. Then they got real about one thing. The business only grows as fast as the owner does. They stopped chasing vanity metrics like revenue and started chasing value. Instead of bragging about trucks on the road, they focused on profit per truck. They stopped pretending that busy meant success. They joined a network that forced them to level up and scaled from 3 million to almost $20 million a year, with margins most companies would kill for. In this episode, we're going to break down exactly how they killed. The ego, focus on the right metrics, and built a business private equity couldn't ignore. If you're tired of playing small, this is your wake up call that you've been meeting. Because the mindset shift they made might be the one you're going to. So you guys owned an H vac electrical plumbing company for 21 years. And based on kind of some of our discussions, 15 of those years were, were good, but they were just kind of stagnant growth. And that took place until what year?
B (1:16)
I think that was 2017.
A (1:20)
So you guys were just in the electrical space doing about 3 million a year.
B (1:24)
Actually it must have been 2015 because we've spent 15 years. So it's 2015. And then we got into to HV, we added H vac.
A (1:31)
Got it. So you're up until 2015. 3 million. You're good, running good margins. 15, 20% now. Good, good things. And then something happened. What changed that? You're like, hey, I'm, I'm sick of it. Ready to make some moves. Like where, where do you see the, the big changes that, that took place?
C (1:52)
I would say every year we'd get to the end of the year and assess, you know, how do we do what we do different? And finally the mirror had to be held up to like myself and Todd. At that time I decided to go get my MBA to expand my horizons. And a business can only grow as much as an owner's mental limitations. And that's where we started.
A (2:20)
So it sounds kind of like just like a hard hitting, like ah, maybe I don't know everything. Maybe, you know, it's, it's interesting. I, I went through similar things. So my, my first business failed. Then I started some other businesses and I just couldn't grow. Like, I was just like. And then it was like, finally I was like, you know, I'm the issue. I'm the problem. I got to go figure some stuff out. And so, like, what, What. So you went to go get an mba? What. What are some different things that you guys did to. To, like, make the big changes to go from 3 million to. Eventually, you guys, before you sold to private equity, you're doing like, 18, 20 million a year.