#169 - Scaling an HVAC Startup to $6M: How Andrew Morrell Went from ZERO to Millions

Summary

Owned and Operated - Episode #169: Scaling an HVAC Startup to $6M: How Andrew Morrell Went from ZERO to Millions

Release Date: February 13, 2025

In Episode #169 of Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast, hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr delve deep into the remarkable journey of Andrew Morrell, the founder of Mountain West HVAC. This episode offers invaluable insights into scaling a home service business from scratch to a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Below is a comprehensive summary capturing the key discussions, strategies, and lessons shared during the conversation.

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1. Andrew Morrell's Entrepreneurial Journey

Early Beginnings and Initial Challenges

Andrew Morrell's path to success was anything but linear. Starting with humble beginnings, Andrew was juggling multiple roles within his then-newly founded HVAC business.

• Handling Multiple Roles:
  Andrew Morrell (00:00):
  “I was answering phones, I was running service, I was running install. I'm trying to make a place I always wanted to work at.”

Andrew emphasizes the importance of delegating tasks, recognizing early on that managing everything single-handedly was unsustainable for growth.

Business Growth Timeline

Andrew outlines the financial trajectory of Mountain West HVAC, highlighting significant milestones over the years.

• Revenue Growth Overview:
  Andrew Morrell (05:40):
  “2018, I remember $185,000 in gross profit... 2019, I did have my first employee and stepped up to $685,000.”

From a modest $185,000 gross profit in 2018, the company scaled to $6 million by 2024, showcasing exponential growth fueled by strategic hires and operational improvements.

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2. Strategic Marketing and Lead Generation

Utilizing Service Scalers for Marketing Excellence

A pivotal aspect of Andrew’s growth strategy was the partnership with Service Scalers, which provided advanced SEO, PPC, and local marketing capabilities.

• Impact of Service Scalrers:
  John Wilson (00:23):
  “They've helped us drive best in class SEO, best in class PPC and dominate LSA and GMB marketing.”

This collaboration contributed to a 46% year-over-year growth and set the stage for targeting a 30% growth in the upcoming year.

Exploring Non-Traditional Marketing Avenues

Andrew shares his unconventional approach to marketing, relying heavily on word-of-mouth and guerrilla marketing rather than traditional PPC campaigns.

• Guerrilla Marketing Success:
  Andrew Morrell (19:35):
  “We have not necessarily spent money on that marketing in the traditional sense... making connections with customers through everyday interactions.”

This strategy not only kept marketing expenses low but also built a loyal customer base through trust and reliability.

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3. Lessons from the Workshop: Implementing the Three-Day Call Board

One of the most impactful insights Andrew gained from the workshop was the implementation of the Three-Day Call Board, a system to manage and plan service calls efficiently.

• Three-Day Call Board Implementation:
  Andrew Morrell (52:42):
  “Making sure that, you know, you have to be planning day out, two days out... implementing a four-hour time window has been phenomenal.”

This system allowed Mountain West HVAC to streamline operations, ensure timely service delivery, and meet customer expectations consistently.

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4. Team Building and Leadership Evolution

Strategic Hiring for Sustained Growth

As the business expanded, Andrew recognized the necessity of building a robust team. He strategically hired key roles to delegate responsibilities effectively.

• Hiring Milestones:
  Andrew Morrell (31:18):
  “December 23rd, hired our office manager... February 24, hired a general manager.”

By adding a project manager and other essential roles, Andrew was able to focus more on strategic planning rather than day-to-day operations.

Delegation and Cultivating Leadership

Transitioning from a hands-on role to a leadership position, Andrew shares how delegation has been crucial to his company’s growth.

• Embracing Leadership Roles:
  Andrew Morrell (34:06):
  “I'm learning how to allow them to make those changes and delegate those responsibilities myself.”

Adopting a leadership mindset enabled Andrew to nurture his team, foster a positive company culture, and drive the business forward more efficiently.

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5. Future Plans and Expansion Goals

Aiming for the $6 Million Mark

Looking ahead, Andrew outlines his ambitious goal to scale Mountain West HVAC to $6 million by refining existing strategies and embracing new opportunities.

• Growth Targets and Strategies:
  Andrew Morrell (11:48):
  “Our big goal is six. Five seems like a fall in. Seems like there's no way we're not going to hit five.”

Achieving this milestone involves optimizing marketing efforts, enhancing operational efficiency, and expanding service offerings.

Potential Expansion into Electrical and Plumbing

While currently focused on HVAC and electrical services, Andrew contemplates branching into plumbing as a strategic move to diversify and capture a larger market share.

• Considering Plumbing Services:
  Andrew Morrell (37:35):
  “Plumbing is the trade I know would be a very good bolt on... adding another trade right now just doesn't realistically seem feasible.”

Careful consideration of manpower and expertise required for plumbing services is underway, ensuring any expansion aligns with the company’s capacity and growth plans.

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6. Key Takeaways and Best Practices

Effective Use of Technology and Tools

Andrew highlights the importance of leveraging tools like Service Titan for tracking metrics and managing operations efficiently.

• Maximizing Service Titan:
  Andrew Morrell (13:15):
  “We use Service Titan to what we can. But the tracking, the dashboards are pretty cool.”

Proper utilization of such platforms can provide critical insights into business performance, allowing for data-driven decision-making.

Maintaining Customer-Centric Operations

A cornerstone of Mountain West HVAC’s success is its unwavering commitment to exceptional customer service.

• Customer Service Philosophy:
  Andrew Morrell (19:35):
  “...make that connection with the customer... treat people right... accountability, customer service.”

By prioritizing customer satisfaction and building trust, the company fosters loyalty and generates consistent referrals, fueling sustained growth.

Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Andrew’s journey underscores the importance of learning from experiences, whether successes or setbacks, and adapting strategies accordingly.

• Adaptation and Learning:
  Andrew Morrell (48:38):
  “We started with some Angie’s and we actually sold two installs off of Angie... we messed up with Google Ads.”

Acknowledging and learning from failures have been instrumental in refining marketing strategies and operational processes.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Andrew Morrell offers a captivating narrative of resilience, strategic planning, and adaptive leadership that transformed Mountain West HVAC from a modest startup into a thriving $6 million business. Through strategic marketing partnerships, effective team building, and a relentless focus on customer satisfaction, Andrew exemplifies the essence of entrepreneurial success in the home service industry.

Listeners walking away from this episode will find practical strategies for scaling their businesses, the importance of delegating and building a solid team, and the value of maintaining a customer-first approach. Andrew’s story serves as both inspiration and a practical guide for aspiring business owners aiming to achieve similar success.

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Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Morrell (00:23):
  “They've helped us drive best in class SEO, best in class PPC and dominate LSA and GMB marketing.”

• Andrew Morrell (08:11):
  “That's how I learned. Hey, tell me what I'm doing the worst at and then I know where to go fix it.”

• John Wilson (47:34):
  “I lead as my authentic self.”

• Andrew Morrell (52:42):
  “Implementing a four-hour time window has been phenomenal.”

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Connect with Andrew Morrell:

• Facebook: Andrew David
• LinkedIn: Andrew Morrell

For more information, visit www.ownedandoperated.com.

Transcript

[Andrew Morel]

I was answering phones, I was running service, I was running install. I'm trying to make a place I always wanted to work at. If I've learned anything over the past year, I can't be the guy out there doing it all. You take people's homes in your own hands and treat it like it was yours.

[John Wilson]

Wilson just wrapped up the year in the low 20s and we were pumped. I mean, most of the industry did not have that same level of success. And when I think about who was a huge partner for us, like top of the list was service scalers. We've been working with service scalers for a couple years now and they've helped us drive best in class SEO, best in class PPC and dominate LSA and GMB marketing. They've been a huge partner for us and we're really grateful for that partnership because it's helped us to take down 46% year over year growth. As we think about our budget next year, we're aiming for the low 30s and one of our most strategic partners is going to be service scalers. They're going to help get us there, they're going to help us stay ahead of AI. They're going to help us keep our SEO relatively relevant. They're gonna help keep us on the top, exactly where we want to be. So make sure you check out service scalers.com. sam and his team over there is just a bunch of killers. So thank you service killers for your partnership.

[Jack]

Welcome back to owned and operated. We got your host, John the Maniac Wilson. We, we really need to get you.

[John Wilson]

Like a, like a bullhorn.

[Jack]

Like I think I missed my calling. I should.

[John Wilson]

You.

[Andrew Morel]

You missed one of those drop down mics.

[Jack]

Yeah, there you go. From the ceiling.

[John Wilson]

Yes.

[Jack]

And the other person you're hearing today is Andrew Morel. Morel. Morel. How do you pronounce?

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. Yep. Andrew, how are you doing?

[Jack]

Andrew, thanks for being on pod.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to be a part of it. Thank you.

[Jack]

Well, I don't know about you, John. I'm super excited to have Andrew here today. Andrew was in our last workshop in September of last year and I think Andrew had one of the coolest stories, to be honest. And also, I mean you're from my, my wife's hometown, so we know a lot of the same people. I, I gave my, my father and mother in law. Yeah, father, mother in law. Your. Your information. So hopefully they're using you now. Really cool stuff.

[John Wilson]

Did you guys sell a membership? Are you actually like serving his in laws? Because that'd be awesome.

[Andrew Morel]

I do not believe we have yet. I feel like I would have heard about that. But we'll, we'll definitely make note and let you know shortcloth, when that call starts.

[John Wilson]

We're pumped to have you on. I'd love it if you just started rolling through your story a little bit behind Mountain west hvac.

[Andrew Morel]

Sure. Yeah. So I'll give you the, I guess the two minute version of it, I guess. I went to college in Vegas, which actually is not northern Nevada. It's seven hours south. Most people are like, oh, you're Nevada. You must be right next to Las Vegas. We're totally.

[John Wilson]

I definitely think that. Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that.

[Andrew Morel]

So, yeah, I went to unlv, graduated college, had big plans to become a law enforcement officer that ended up not working out. But in the meantime I had a friend down there that worked in heating and air conditioning. So started installing units in the hot addicts in Las Vegas. And after five or six years of that, I had enough of that and was like, I'm going to go to a little bit more mild climate and enjoy, enjoy myself a little more. So I moved to Northern Nevada, worked for a couple companies up here, worked for the state of Nevada, taught at the career college up here a bit and then just decided I wanted to do my own thing. So unfortunately I was working at the state at the time, so I was able to kind of have my side hustle H Vac business as I worked for the state. It was no competing with the state. It was, you know, typical state job. So. But I got my contractor's license 2018, started the business myself. I already owned a truck. I had a shed in my backyard. It's like an old lean to that used to be for a horse and I didn't have horses, so started parking a bunch of stuff under there and had equipped in there all dust to be blown in the duct work. I have to shake it off every time I get out. But yeah, started myself eventually got some employees and then now, now to the point where we are worked out. I was able to come across a commercial property up the road from my house. So my shop is literally 22 seconds from my house, which is nice and.

[John Wilson]

Like walk or drive?

[Andrew Morel]

I drive. I mean I could walk but you know, it's. It's cold in the morning sometimes, but that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Started myself definitely more of a trade guy. Definitely H Vac technician. First and foremost that learned how to do business is learning how to do business. Yeah. Got A got some good people in place. Got a great situation going. Great employees recently added backup generators or generac dealer here. So yeah, heating, air conditioning. We do have a full blown electrical contracting license but currently focusing on EV chargers, main panels and backup home generator. So yeah, kind of ground up. I own the business 100%. Don't have any investors or anything like that. It's all been income in. Put it back in the business. Put it back in the business. Put it back in the business and kind of cash flowed myself to. To here. And here we are trying to figure it out still. So. But yeah, yeah, it's great.

[John Wilson]

And what size is the business now? Like give us that. You started in 2018. Do you remember like annual revenues?

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, so actually I should be able to remember pretty specifically. But 2018, I remember $185,000 in gross profit. And then 2019, I believe I stepped up to 685,000. Now 2018, I was 100% by myself. 2019, I did have my first employee come on board and I did the occasional go down to the hardware store, hey, which one of you guys wants to make $100 to help me lift this oil burner into place or whatever it was. And might have had three, two or three total employees. 2019, 685, 000. And then the 2020, I think it's 1.2 million. 21 stepped up to. I think I was 1.9 to 2.2 ish range. And then 22 was 2.7 and then 23 was 2.7. 23 to 20. Sorry. 22 to 23 was a. Not a growth year in the gross profit standpoint, but that was a year where I was definitely struggling. I was at that point, I was answering phones, I was running service, I was running install, I was answering. It was typical. Anybody that started a. Seems like anybody that started, yeah, it's yeah. 75, 100. Yeah. And then in 2023 to 2024, you know, I made some good hires. Great, great people in the office, great employees in the field. Began the vision of me delegating my jobs to other people. And here we are and still working on that. Last year we were right at 4 million with half of the year with 6 employees, 7 employees, and then ended the year with 13 employees. And one of the reasons behind that was, you know, going to the workshop. You guys are like, what are you doing? And I'm like, that is a great question.

[Jack]

It's actually what we just do at the workshop. Lots of braiding. People that are there.

[John Wilson]

Well, it's like that one guy. What's that one guy? Who. With the car dealerships where he, like, he brings you up on stage and he just like, mocks you.

[Jack]

Oh, yeah, I forget his name. He's also bald.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, he's also bald. He's basically Jack. Yeah, he's basically. Yeah, but no, this is a model. But no, we do not intentionally berate. Andrew was a good sport. We did berate him.

[Andrew Morel]

You know, that's how I. That's how I learned. Hey, tell me, tell me. Look, tell me what I'm doing the worst at and then I know where to go fix it. And, you know, there's a lot of that and. But yeah, after the workshop, I hired four people.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Andrew Morel]

So, like, what positions? Three apprentices. Two are more in the install side of things now. They're actually. They can lead their own jobs.

[John Wilson]

Oh, nice.

[Andrew Morel]

And then another service tech. And then another multifaceted service tech. Install generator technician. Yeah, we're working on officializing the CSR position here. We still have the combo office manager phones combo. We are actively going to be hiring here shortly to fill that position moving into the summer. We know we got to have somebody on the phones full time. I know you guys talk about your call centers and your, you know, your workflow. It's a huge, huge piece. So working on that amongst all the other, you know, odds and ends. So.

[John Wilson]

So you guys, you talked a little bit about launching. I don't even know that you said electrical. It was really panels, EVs and generators. I mean, to me that obviously sounds electrical, but in your mind, that seems to be a little bit different. Like you're not going to do like switch replacements or. That's probably what you're saying.

[Andrew Morel]

Correct. So currently we are. My electrician, who's a great friend of mine, he is the qualifying employee of the electrical contracting side of things. Comes from a very industrial background and it's actually more so electrical testing. He was involved with testing main switch gear, you know, like huge voltage and the big. Yeah. If you know anything about Northern Nevada, there's a lot of industry coming in. Google, Tesla, Switch, all the big companies. And he was involved with making sure all that was good. So he's. He's involved with huge switch gear and breaker testing and stuff. So little residential stuff to him is, you know, a piece of cake. But at the same time, he's not really wanting to go crawl in your attic and string a wire across to a light bulb necessarily. So that's Coming down the road once we find that, you know, proper fit for electrical services. But currently stuff that tags along, I mean generators from a maintenance standpoint tie in fantastically with our heating and air conditioning maintenance program that we offer. So yeah, it's good for the customer, it's good for us. Our region, as Jack knows, we're out of a little bit more rural. There's definitely some rural areas up here that have, you know, 100 year old power lines and transform a transformer blue last night in our neighborhood, powering out last night, I'm like, all right, let's sell some generators today. So yeah, but you know, but yeah, so not full blown electrical, but definitely full blown heating and air conditioning service. Install maintenance, residential, light, commercial. The commercial is always a little bit of a struggle because while very similar, there are those differences. That's challenge and that's communicating not with the owner directly. There's some intricacies with three phase power versus single phase power and all that kind of stuff. So it's ever evolving as you know.

[Jack]

So yeah, and so where do you think that you, you said that you did four last year. Where, where are you kind of trending for? What's your goal this year? So 2025.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, so our, our big goal is six. You know, I'll be super happy with five and a half to six. Five seems like a fall in. Seems like there's no way we're not going to hit five. But it's just a matter of how do we tweak and how do we maximize and make things efficient to hit that extra half, half a million to a million. Part of that involves some more hires. Part of that involves some of dotting our eyes and crossing our T's and organization that as a small company just takes time to be able to fill that with manpower.

[John Wilson]

So when I think about, I just had this conversation with a friend of mine like two days ago and I, we were talking about annual planning and this isn't meant to put you on the spot. I'm just like curious how you're thinking about it. But we were talking about annual planning and he said roughly the same size. He said like, oh, I'm, I did five last year and I'll do six this year. And I was like, that one, that's amazing, that's awesome. And then two, like how are you, how are you backing into that? How are you getting there? And his approach to planning was like add a percentage, which is what we used to do too, all the way up until like a Year or two ago. But are you using like, are you tracking like number of leads or are you doing anything like analytical or how are you, I guess how are you backing into like yes, we can achieve a 1 to 2 million dollar jump.

[Andrew Morel]

Basically for us, what that comes down to is knowing what we need to do on a monthly basis, weekly basis and a daily average of where we need to be. Now we use Service Titan. I don't use it to its potential. I tend to have issues where small fish, they don't tend to give me great support with it. But we use it to what we can. But the tracking, the dashboard's pretty cool. That allows us to kind of compare year over year. Now last year was our first year with those metrics and we know kind of we took from those metrics, we actually have our own version of a spreadsheet where it shows, hey, last January our daily average was X. Our weekly average was X for each month. And then we basically have calculated a percentage of that and did it in reverse. How do we hit 6 million as the end goal and it gives us our daily right and how do we do that right? And part of that comes from like another thing that I learned in the workshop was, you know, three day call board. I mean sounds basic, you know, from a business standpoint. Yeah, you got to pay attention to what's on the board and make sure you got work. But it wasn't, it was really driven in, you know, how important that is. And it's also allowed us to plan not only from a pricing standpoint but from a, hey, do we need to give out some deals to fill the schedule or do we need to do a break even install or can we make some more money? Right, so we take all the data and numbers that we have to figure out what we need from a daily basis and we give ourselves a goal. And how do we hit that? Like I said, I think before we went live here January, we were up 36% over 20, 24 January. So we're on track, but mostly just what do we need to do to get there? And let's figure out how to do it. There's not a huge grand strategy other than just rolling with it.

[John Wilson]

It was funny. We were members of nexstar and I think nextstar is just awesome, honestly. So if you're big enough, you should be a part. It's great. But we did this workshop with them last December and before then, like, you know, we've, we've run a quarterly and annual planning process for years and like, one of my, like, big wins is that it always gets better. Like, we always get a little bit better at it. And I think it's. It's embarrassing how far we've gotten without knowing how to do, like, what's kind of fundamental. Like, I'll talk to some people, and they're like. They're like, dude, we've been doing that since we were like, 5 million. And I'm like, I don't know, bro. Like, we don't know how to budget. I don't know what to tell you.

[Andrew Morel]

I won't tell you what we do wrong because it's. It's so embarrassing. But it's like, like, I mean, I literally, like, literally this past week, I'm like, all right, guys, we need to collect everybody's receipts and track them. Like, that's how, like, like little things like that where it's just like. I'm like, it's a lot you don't do. You don't do that. And I'm like, so I feel.

[John Wilson]

I mean, there's just. There's just so many things. But. But the thing that we learned this past October, that we're like. I'm like, oh, my God. You know, like, once somebody tells you, you're like, yeah, duh. Was instead of just measuring the output, which is revenue, measuring the input to achieve that, which, like, okay, all that. All that that means is like, okay, how many leads did I run last January? How many leads did I run this January? Did we net grow? Did I increase the number of leads? Like, that's it. Because then once you. And like now we're like, hyper focused on this, right? Because we're like 90 days into learning this, you know, thing that I should have learned 20 million something ago. But. But. But that was hugely helpful. So I don't know, for February, maybe just like, hey, how many leads did our guys run? And then from there, like, breaking out, well, how many did. How many turned into revenue? And then what was that average revenue? So that's basically all I'm saying is number of leads, what's your conversion rate and what's your average ticket? And then that's how you can continually improve, which. We were focused on the average ticket and the conversion rate like crazy. We were not really paying attention to just, hey, raw leads. Did they grow? Like, are we running more leads or. Or is the reason we're growing because of price increases or efficiency? And those are two totally different, like, growths, right?

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

So that was my. That was my funny anecdote from 90 days ago.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. Heck yeah. No, I mean, that's, I mean, that's. Ultimately our goal is to be able to get to a point somewhere where we have some more data like that. You know, hey, you know, how did we get there is a, is a great question and a great thing to pay attention to. And you know, we're, I'm in a much smaller position than that. And we don't tend to track our leads. Like, we don't monetize our leads because it's not something we have really started doing yet. I, I was telling Jack before we started here, I played around with PPC, Google Ads, and man, if you want to light $5,000 on fire, just do it out in the backyard rather than try and do PPC yourself. You know, it's like, oh yeah, when.

[John Wilson]

When I first started trying to do PPC, I tried myself and this was 20. I think everybody tries it. It was 2016. Yeah. Like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I started with like, it was like six grand a month and just, just don't do.

[Jack]

It yourself is the key here, guys.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, it's.

[Jack]

All three of us are saying no.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. I'm like, yeah. I was like, cool, I need to start spending some marketing, you know, dollars and try and drum up some business. I was like, well, that is definitely not the way to do it.

[Jack]

That's one of the coolest parts about your story though, Andrew, that I find extremely interesting is you have gotten here pretty much on word of mouth and guerrilla marketing. You really haven't done the typical LSA PPC SEO path that we see most companies getting to this point. Can you talk a little bit about that and what, what has been your strategy to grow to be, I mean, essentially almost a six million dollar company this year without any of that?

[Andrew Morel]

Sure, yeah. It's, it's not that we haven't done any marketing. It's that we have not necessarily spent money on that marketing in the, in the traditional sense. I mean, our marketing from the basic standpoint, obviously we have business cards, everybody has matching uniforms, we've got wrapped trucks. You know, we've got a website which is being revamped, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit here. But from the paying for lead standpoint, I've played with some Angie's and Home Advisor stuff, but we just actually restarted doing that to see how it's going. That's going pretty well. It's, it's fair. But yeah, I mean, the way that we drummed up. Our business to this point is, hey, make that connection with the customer. You know, anytime, you know, you're out and about, talk to people, be like, you know, you get into that conversation of, oh, what do you do? And be like, oh, I do heating and air conditioning. Do you ever need anything? Here's a card. From that standpoint of, you know, I'm not much of a drinker anymore, but I used to go to the bar and everybody's your best friend at the bar, and you just hand cards out or you go to, you know, different events, you know, and just communicate and network. And, you know, Reno is. They call it the biggest little city in the world. And it is. It is the case. You treat people right. You take people's homes in your own hands and treat it like it was yours. You do what you say, they're going to refer you, they're going to call you back. And a lot of these people, you know, they have their own business. And then now, if you treat them right, they, you know, communicate with all their customers or, you know, realtors are great avenues. Anybody that is also in a networking position, you treat them, you know, fairly and stick to your word and do a good job, they're going to refer you. And it's just been a good success for us. We just, you know, if we say we're going to do something, we do it. If we do something. If. If we put a system in your house and you're like, man, I don't like this. I'm gonna come, pull it out and be like, hey, what do you want? I'm gonna put it in and you're not going to pay anything. You know, stuff like that. It's just accountability, customer service. Call them before you leave to go to a customer's house. Following up with them, you know, just being professional. It's. It's hard to find a service where somebody calls, you say, hey, I'm on the way. They're there when they say they're going to be there, and then they do a good job. You know, ultimately, at the end of the day, we try and fix reasonable issues. We don't feel that everybody needs a brand new system right then and there. We've got a large customer base of people that we fix their furnace and, you know, in five, 10 years, we'll probably change it out. And I've seen that from, you know, customers from 2018. They're like, hey, I remember when you came out and you fixed this thing. Everybody else said you had to replace It. And now we're out there giving them an estimate and we're changing their system out. So it's just a, it's a diversification of lead generating customers, kind of how I view it. So that being said, it's not perfect, Right. It's February. We're looking for work. I'd love to have that dial to turn and be like, cool, check this out, I got some, some more jobs coming in.

[Jack]

Well, I mean, it sounds like you have that dial to turn because, you know, most people's dials are already turned up as much as they can.

[John Wilson]

Oh yeah.

[Jack]

Versus all the way off.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. I mean, you basically have all the leverage in the world. Yeah, yeah, I was, I think Chris has tweeted about this a few times. But like when a business is spending 10 to 12 on marketing, like, where else can you go, right? Like, you're already eating into, you're already eating into your, your cash flow. But if you're spending like under four or under two.

[Andrew Morel]

We are.

[John Wilson]

Then you go anywhere.

[Andrew Morel]

One percent.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're under one percent, right? Oh my God. Interesting.

[Jack]

I love that.

[John Wilson]

You just have all the leverage, which is awesome. Like you get to, you get to, you know, experiment and make something work.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, I did forget. We do have two billboards that are paid through, through our co op program. So. But it's in and out of the shop. Our trucks drive right by it. Our trucks look like the billboards. They see the billboard, they see our trucks. They. It's like a brand recognition strategy. But yeah, I mean, other than that, like I said, it's, it's one. Last year was less than 1%. We are signed up with service scalers this coming year for some SEO website, kind of building the base of that pyramid to implement in the future. Possibly some ppc. Lsa. Honestly, I don't know what any of that looks like at the moment, but the guys over at service scalers are doing a great job. They're helping us build their website, maximize it. We're gonna go live with them next week. So we'll have a new website next week and start that SEO.

[John Wilson]

That's cool. So check that out.

[Andrew Morel]

Starting starting it out.

[John Wilson]

Do you think? Yeah, yeah. Do you think. What do you think the percentage of marketing is going to be this year? Like, it was 1% last year. So like, are you guys like, let's jump to 4 or 3 or based.

[Andrew Morel]

On the scale of the growth there, it's probably still going to be. I, I don't anticipate us Being more than a hundred thousand dollars spent towards marketing this year. So 5 million or 6 million, you know that that's still like 2%.

[John Wilson]

Half.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, yeah. It kills one and a half to 2%. So, you know, it works.

[Jack]

I am like, this is such a.

[John Wilson]

How much are you gonna spend?

[Jack]

I'm gonna spe 400,000. And we only, we're only at like 5 or 6%, like 4, 4, 5%. And I know that like, we pay about $55 a lead if you were to add, you know, or $50 a lead if you're to add $100,000 in just like lead generation spend. Oh, yeah, you could bring in 2,000 leads. And I mean, you could do the math if your average ticket is, you know, I don't know, a hundred bucks. Like, there's just easy money that I, I see that for you and I'm like, this is so awesome. It's such a cool spot.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, it's a good spot.

[Jack]

Very good spot to be.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, I'm definitely excited. Like I say I'm. I don't know anything about that side of things, so definitely relying on the service scalers and we're going to be working with them, see how the website and everything goes. But I'm excited for it. I love to be able to have another thing to pull from to generate the, the work for the guys. And you know, my goal is to keep everybody 40 or more every week, you know, and we work really hard to make that happen. And having those extra levers to pull definitely would help, you know, keep our guys, guys going. And we've done a, done a great job over the past year keeping everybody 40 or more. You know, here and there we got some little bit less, but nobody's complaining. And drive around town and look at some of the bigger guys, 8, 10, 20 trucks sitting there. I'm like, I don't, I don't want to deal with that.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. We're about eight months into using Avoca, and Evoca has been an awesome partner for us in our call center. So what Avoca does for us is they do two different things. One, they have their Coach product, and Coach has been helping us do what it says. Coach our csrs every single day. It listens to every call and uses AI technology to basically pick apart that call and tell us where we can improve. And for the last eight months, we've been consistently improving our scores, which has been awesome. The other product they have is just conventional booking, and it's an AI tool that books over the phone. A customer calls in and it either handles overflow, as in our phones are full, or it does nights and weekends for us. And a customer will call in and actually deal with an AI agent all the way through booking. And the savings inside call center has allowed us to ramp up our marketing to continue to grow even more. Thank you, Boca, and thank you, Tyson, for your partnership. Well, I think, I think the advantage here is you have all the low hanging fruit still left to pull. So yeah, like the, the. You'll hear, you'll hear Jack and I talk pretty. I'm gonna pick on Jack and I'll pick on me too. I'm gonna pick on Jack first. But like Jack doesn't, he doesn't have the low hanging fruit to pull anymore. Like, you've added more GMBs. You've, you're probably full spending on LSA. Like if you're getting leads, like you're getting them through thumbtack or like lead aggregators or TikTok still or like you're having to put in real energy. So I think the thing that's exciting, I'm just reiterating for the audience, I guess, like you still have every single one of the lowest hanging fruit, Primarily LSA and GMBs. Like PPC is good, but PPC, you only start using PPC once LSAs. Like once you're rolling on LSAs. Because LSA is like the gold standard for lead generation.

[Jack]

Yeah. Like, to put it in perspective, I would probably have to go to Facebook or somewhere where I'm not really used to. I'd have to go create a bunch of copy a bunch of videos and then try and pay somebody to get those in in front of the right people and do lookalike audiences and all this kind of crazy stuff to drive that many leads or go start putting billboards around and realize, hey, they're not really working. Pull them, go put them somewhere else. Like, there's so much I would have to do to, to get those same 2,000 leads. So it deserved to be picked on here because I'm, I'm, I'm really pumped for you. Like, this is. Yeah, I think in the next few years you're in a really, really good position.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, you're about to ride. You're about to go for a ride.

[Jack]

Like, it's like half excitement, half jealousy, but either way.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, mine's half anxiety, half excitement.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, Well, I think just like stick with the simple stuff first. Like LSAS is the easiest, easiest and it's, it's also the best. It's not just the easiest, but it is the best when it works, it'll drive like the highest quality lead we measure. I actually pulled this up just in case this came up. I, I had them send this to me like a couple minutes ago. This is our spend. This is, I don't know if this is last week or last month. It's last month. Okay. So this is our spend. So for LSA, we spent $37,000. We got 997 leads. Our booking rate was, looks like 40%, which is pretty common. Like once you start really spending on lsa, book rates kind of low. Could be vendors, could be random questions, you know, pick a thing. Cancellation rate was high. We sold 20 of them. And like still despite all that, like we felt okay, like 7.7 times return on investment. We like to see a minimum of eight. But like what you can just see from there is LSA, a thousand leads and 422 book jobs. Like it is the king of lead generation. There's other things that like Angie started really doing good work for us, but like LSA pumps leads, so it's just the lowest hanging fruit. So. Yeah, that's awesome that you saw that up in front of you. All right. That was John's January return on investment.

[Jack]

I was, I was, if you, if you're watching on YouTube, like Jack's face got really close to it.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Jack]

To see all the, the, the, the juice there.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. Well, we're, we'll, we'll block out all the names. Gotta keep some My secret sauce secret.

[Andrew Morel]

I know, right?

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah. All right. So you got there mainly with, mainly with no marketing, which is awesome. What do you think over the past or over the next year, like you're at a size now where like leadership starts to become a big challenge. You brought up office staff and bringing on some great people. Like what do you think the administrative side of your business? What's changed in the last year and what are you going to do this year?

[Andrew Morel]

December 23rd, hired our office manager. She's come in and done a great job. February 24, hired a general manager. And so it's myself in the office. Manager, general manager in the office. We meet every day, go over our three day call board, continue to keep our books at capacity. Recently also added a project manager. And he's in charge of exactly what that sounds like, all the projects, whether it's an install, he's learning on the backup home generator side of things, but basically managing the guys in the field. And we're in the Office managing the schedule. So yeah, I mean, it went from in basically most of 2023, only me in the office when I was in the office and not helping service calls or in the field, to adding those three management positions to help manage the additional hires. So moving forward, we definitely need to solidify that CSR position to help free up our office manager. She's wearing too many hats at the moment. She does a fantastic job with it, but we need to get somebody in there too. Just be that front face customer service intake specialist. And I think that's, that's going to be our big step for the office moving into, you know, we're in the new year, but moving towards summer, the big season and then potentially another hire for in the field. And then that should, with that amount of employees, with our, you know, our roughly 350,000 per employee kind of rate, get us where we need to go or at least close to where we need to go. So that's kind of our hiring strategy moving forward.

[John Wilson]

Hiring, like first leaders is a lot. How have they taken the delegation of new duties?

[Andrew Morel]

Every time I ask them to take on another role that I used to know, it's, yep, let's do it. Let's figure out how to make it happen. And it's been very smooth every time. We're just kind of at that point now where they are at max capacity of what they can handle. So we're looking to add that at that position. But, you know, we got a, we got a really great group of guys and going and everybody is not afraid to wear a different hat and similar in any smaller business, you know, started the generators. Hey guys, we got to dig a trench today. Nobody wants to dig a trench. They're H vac techs, you know, but they're willing to and they do it, you know, without hesitation because they understand it's, hey, we're getting, getting somewhere and we got to do this to get where we want to go. So yeah, I mean, good group of people, not afraid to make changes. And I'm learning how to allow them to make those changes and delegate those responsibilities myself.

[Jack]

So that's what I was going to ask is how is, how is your role changed?

[Andrew Morel]

Right.

[Jack]

You started as like a tech doing everything, then you went into the office doing everything. And now you're moving into managing managers. How is that process been for you?

[Andrew Morel]

Good. I actually enjoy it. You know, typically when, when you're a guy that's a. I'm a service tech. I'm in the field, you know, I don't want to be an office guy. Right. I have actually been finding myself that I enjoy the mind game or puzzle of managing, you know, the squares on the board, I guess, on the dispatch board, making sure they're flowing and filled and figure out, you know, who's. Who's better suited for what position. And I get to tweak those processes and help the managers tweak the processes that help the guys in the field. So it's been a lot more fun for me, a lot less stressful. I'm not doing all of that. And then having to run six service calls or crawl under a house or go do estimates or anything like that. So I am finding myself in a good position where, you know, I'm starting to be able to pay attention to our books more, pay attention to those KPIs that we need to pay attention to to make those tweaks to allow us to get to that next level. And my managers have been fantastic. Our general manager has got great ideas for not only helping get our budget visuals where we need to go beating. He's in charge of creating that monthly percentage, daily percentage, daily goal. But he's also very keen on making sure, hey, how are we keeping our guys happy? You know, it's nice that there's somebody else also doing that. You know, we try and do a great job of that. Take them on fishing trips or go out on dirt bikes or whatever it is, or go to take them out to dinner or whatnot. But, you know, heating and air conditioning is. Is a tough job if you're not having fun, if you're not making money doing it, it's hard to do it. And finally in that position where that's what I get to work on is making sure these guys have a great place to work. I always tell people I'm trying to make a place I want to. I always wanted to work at. And I feel like we're getting there and it's. It's pretty cool.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, that is cool. That's. That's fun. I remember we used to be better about it, like, doing what you're saying. And it's not a good excuse, but it's what happened. We bought these companies and we got really busy and in, like, running these different locations and putting it all together, and then like, the crises that followed, that stuff dropped. And it sucks because we're now. We're just now, like, I'd say in the last four months, starting to get good again at driving regular, like, workplace enhancement. Just like having A great culture, but we've had a good, like, very performance driven culture. But it's also like, is it just a good culture? And sometimes we miss the boat. So it's fun to be able to be there again. But I remember the. I remember when we were good at it and it was fun. Yeah, that's cool. Now I think you're getting ready to launch plumbing or you're thinking about launching plumbing. How are you thinking about that? Obviously, you just dropped generators, so where's your head at?

[Andrew Morel]

Plumbing is the trade I know would be a very good bolt on. The challenge is finding a person to head that up. Because if I've learned anything over the past year, I can't be the guy out there doing it all. So plumbing, while in the future is definitely an avenue. We're going to be going down immediately this year, may or may not. Now a couple things we want to do it for a little bit quicker for the bolt ons is, you know, water heaters, tankless water heaters, maybe some water filtration. We've got a lot of people on wells, so there's a good market. Again, kind of picking and choosing like we did on the electrical side to at least get our feet wet and figure out some processes. But to be honest, I've had so many other things I'm working on that adding another trade right now just doesn't realistically seem feasible. But it's definitely a consideration moving forward.

[John Wilson]

We. I sort of inherited, like, when I bought the business in 2016, we had. We were already plumbing in H Vac, which, like, now I'm like, why? Because we were like one. You know, we're like, like a. I don't even remember. It was like a little over a million dollars. And to run two trades. I think the guys, you know, at the time, we were all like, I don't think we thought it was weird. I was still in the field and I think it was just like, oh, now I'm gonna run a plumbing call, and next I'm gonna go run a boiler call. Like, that's just. Is what it is. Like, I don't know. So I just don't think we really thought about it as like two totally different trades. But obviously now I'm like, that was crazy and complicated. But yeah, I. I think you're right. I will give a little bit of pushback on the. You can't do everything. Something that's been kind of fun and maybe it's just like where you like to play, but something that's Been kind of fun. As your role continues to change, you get to basically do what you like to do or like that's how it should be designed because like, what's going to give you energy because you need energy. Otherwise like, you know, we're just a drain on the businesses morale. And one of the things that I have found to be fun, like what I like to do is like push, like, hey, I want to start something brand new that doesn't really exist. And it's hard to find a place. Exactly what you just described with plumbing. And I think it's one of the phrases that helped me. This was Mark Brook from Permanent Equity, but we talked about it at Hoko Conf two years ago. But he's got this phrase that just like rent free in my head and it's managers don't grow businesses, owners do. Managers manage the businesses that the owners built. But like a manager's not going to intentionally break something, right? So they're not going to like run in and be like, hey, hey. This process that works really well, I'm gonna break it and I'm gonna make this totally brand new one and you know, put a flyer on my career. It might be in a year, like you're the one that drives the bus. Because I know for me, and maybe that's fun to you, maybe it's not, but I know for me that's, that's become a big part of my role is like, hey, what's the thing that we don't do yet that like, how do I spot the next roadblock and then how do I remove that roadblock? And if a roadblock that you'll encounter soon is like keeping your guys busy or stabilizing down season revenue or like how do you handle cash flow and balance sheet during February? Plumbing would help. So that becomes this like, okay, how do, how do we do this and how do I do it while insulating the rest of my team from John's ideas?

[Jack]

Sure.

[Andrew Morel]

And the reason why I say that about plumbing is because I'm currently doing that with the backup generators. So.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, so you're driving that bus now.

[Andrew Morel]

So, yeah, now I'm working with our electrician. He's in the panels, setting the panels up. But I'm, you know, I'm running H Vac guys that we know how to get stuff anywhere across the house. Right. So we're, we're in charge of getting, you know, gas pipe range, we're leveling the pad, we're setting this, I'm helping the electricians See the vision of how to run things. He's the brains in the panel on the, I guess the logistics side of the communicating with the customers, scheduling, gas piping. He's designing the. He's. He's making it happen. I'm helping figure out how to make it happen and I'm heading that up and that, that is a bit time consuming right now. So that is why currently I don't have that time. But.

[John Wilson]

Well, yeah, that makes, that makes total sense. Yeah, it was more like. It wasn't even feedback. It was more like as the business grows, like the role changes a lot. And I, I'm right now like my role which is kind of. I think I'm just starting to get okay at it. We'd have to actually ask my team, but it's hard, but it's like I'm, I'm now have to be like coach and that I, we made that my name on slack and like that's like the thing. It's like the coach and like, yeah, it just changes so much. And, and like what I want to be often is like, well, hey, let's go run through that brick wall. Like, let's go like figure out this thing. And, and I, I have to be. And I should be this like coach in addition to that, which I find challenging to switch between the guy that wants to run through the wall and like, hey, let me be supportive. Like that's, it's really hard.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. But do you get out with the guys in the trucks ever or do you go out, strap your tool bags on and get, get dirty still or. Yeah. Cool. That's awesome. Yeah, you got to change it.

[John Wilson]

I mean it's been a, it, it had been a while, but I started doing ride alongs and I think the cadence is going to be once a week, forever, basically. I think it was kind of fun and I think, you know, and the bigger the business gets, you build all these, like you build all these processes and you build all these workflows and, and testing is an important part of the scientific process. Right. Like, hey, we built this thing. Now what. What did it do? What's it feel like? What's the vibe of this materialist check process? Does it take 30 minutes? When we thought, you know, on our spreadsheet it was going to take five. So that's a big part that I'm doing it now. And really almost our whole senior leadership team is doing these ride alongs pretty regularly now of like, hey, we made this change. What was the downstream? Was it good? Bad. Did it help culture? Did it hurt culture? Did it kill our productivity or did increase it? Did it do what we wanted? Because the, you know, now the changes impact 80 people at a time. So. And it's really hard to get like a good feedback loop except for someone walking in and being like, hey, I hate this. And it's like great. What do you hate about it? Yeah, yeah, but, but that's how, that's why I've been getting it. And also just to hang out with guys. Like it's fun.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I know when one of your recent podcasts, you guys are talking about your training structure and implementing it a little bit differently. It was like a question answer podcast and somebody was asking about it and it's cool to, to hear that you are still involved in the hands on side of things. I think that's important as well because I, I like to do the same thing when I can. Yesterday, you know, guys are having an issue on making an access for an attic and I was like, you know, I'm going to go out there, I'll go figure it out. We'll, we'll learn something together. And it's cool to be able to show face on a job and definitely get some respect from the guys in that, that manner.

[John Wilson]

So yeah, yeah, I think every like conventional book is like oh, the owner or president or CEO or whatever, they have to be this like visionary thing. And like I think that's a part of the job but like the other part of the job is going out and learning something together and like understanding the real pain point that's happening inside that business. And I think it, it all, it takes more and more deliberate work like it already will for you because now you have a layer of leadership in between you and the rest of the organization. So now it's going to be much more deliberate and the like, you'll cross 10 million in a couple years and then you'll have even more managers and then it's even more like, oh, we gotta, I need to like set aside time for this and I need to like, you know, push these vendors off or whatever and, and go do it. But the, it's Almost like from 5 to 15 million I was so focused on like what type of leader the books told me I was supposed to be and I ignored the type of leader that I really just like felt like I should be, which is a hands on, understanding the details, being a part of what our pain points are and trying to coach when I can and attempting to just lead through example versus, like, you know, you read all the books and I, I just don't think that I did a good job of what those books told me I was supposed to be.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Morel]

That's cool.

[John Wilson]

You always lead authentically, even if it's counter to what EOS says.

[Andrew Morel]

Right, right. Take the, take the idea and modify it to what fits you and your business, even if it's not what the other people are saying.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. I mean, the only way that we can like lead impactfully is like by leading as whoever we are. And I'm a impatient guy that thinks it's fun to go out in the field. And I like to say a lot. And there's a lot of high fives around the office and like, that's just who I am at my course. I don't know.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah, that, that actually was a big surprise for me. The first time I was at John's office, I was like, whoa, you said that in front of your team. You just drop enough bombs in front of your team. He's like, yeah, fuck it, I don't care. All right?

[John Wilson]

I lead. I lead as my authentic self.

[Jack]

It's true.

[John Wilson]

Perfect, good and bad.

[Andrew Morel]

There you go. That's awesome.

[John Wilson]

All right, so you guys have had a heck of a journey here. So you launched it. It, you've taken it now to completed 4 million, aiming for 6. You've got low hanging fruit. You did the workshop. That was awesome. I'm glad you got a lot of value out of that. You've. You've got some awesome low hanging fruit in front of you, primarily around driving leads. Just because you haven't done it before, man, it feels like you've got a springboard.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, I just got to figure out how to jump off that springboard and figure out the first step. So like I said, I took the first step. We're getting some SEO in place and I know that's a long term game and that's not necessarily directly driven to create a lead right then and there, but like I told Jack before, it's kind of like building the base of our pyramid of marketing. You know, get the, get your SEO set up and then start incorporating different things. Like I said, we've, we've started with some Angie and we've actually sold two installs off of Angie.

[John Wilson]

Nice.

[Andrew Morel]

80 bucks. 80 bucks led to 20 plus thousand, which is great.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, I think Angie's. It's easy to get an ROI when it's H vac, like 10,000, you know, versus like faucet repair. I agree. Like, yeah, you'll probably kill it with Angie.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, yeah. So we started that. Like I said, I miserably failed with Google Ads. So I'm going to hold off on doing any more of that until somebody that knows what they're doing can help me out with that. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, our goal is, you know, even looking into some, you know, direct mailers. I mean, we've got, you know, we've got our zip codes dialed in of. Hey, we know where we do the most revenue by zip code, and we know where we want to work. So, hey, we're there. We send some mailers, you know, learning about that process. I know it doesn't happen after the first one or second one. It typically takes, I think, the three. Three views of the direct mailers to drive something. So start implementing that, you know, and just, you know, explore the different avenues. I mean, you had mentioned on a previous podcast about there's so many of these lead aggregators that are available.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Andrew Morel]

You may be the only one on them. I'm looking crazy. So, you know, that's. Yeah, that's. That's my elementary marketing strategy moving forward is to help, you know, springboard us into that. Yeah, you know, it's. It's. I learned by doing and failing, and we're going to see where it takes us. So.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, well, I. I mean, I think all that makes sense. I think SEO. I tried to pull up the report because it still, like, boggles my mind to this day, but we had worked with Scorpion for a couple years, and it was just awful. And our website now trying to find it so I can pull up another report, but it produces, like, 2 to $300,000 of revenue a month. And that's from, like, our organic SEO. Like, it is insane.

[Andrew Morel]

That's awesome.

[John Wilson]

And we did that in, like, a year. That's not like, 10 years of SEO building. Like, that was a year.

[Andrew Morel]

Wow.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. Just absolutely crazy. So that was a. That's been a huge win for us. And then the other one, and this is just like me giving a quick hit here. I would do lsa so far before mailers. It's not even. It's not even funny. I mean, LSA is like, you can double or triple with lsa, and that's all you have to do.

[Jack]

One, you just, like, turn on the.

[John Wilson]

Switch on and it goes. Yeah, it's so easy. And it's. It's a. Yeah, it's a money printer.

[Andrew Morel]

Go.

[John Wilson]

Brr. Yeah.

[Andrew Morel]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

And, yeah, I Think between SEO and LSA, like, you'll be good to like 10 to 15 million bucks.

[Andrew Morel]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

It's. It's almost like comical how easy it, how easy it works between, between us.

[Andrew Morel]

I guess. I guess my first step is even figuring out how to turn LSA on. So I guess I'll, I'll look at.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it takes activate. You know, there's stuff you got to do. You can do it yourself. You. I'm sure, I'm sure they can do it too. But, like, it. Yeah, it takes active. You know, it takes active work. But I think, I think my main message there was like, marketing does not have to be complicated. And especially with your setup, like, you've got the simplest marketing ever, whereas, like, you don't have any. So just like adding one or two things like SEO and lca, it'll just blow you guys up. It's kind of like you have an unfair advantage right now because you're not spending anything. So you're in a sweet spot.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, I'm excited to see how that works.

[John Wilson]

Well, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate you sharing your story. This was, this was fun and it was fun to get to follow up six months later and like, yeah, see what happened. We're gonna have. I'm gonna have to have Kristen plug another one in, like, at the end of the year. Did we hit six? I want to know.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, no, I, I had a great time on the, the workshop and I love listening to the podcast and it's been cool to be a part of it and look forward to, you know, continuing on. So.

[Jack]

So, Andrew, I have one last question for you. We are doing another workshop in April, and what I'm. We're always curious, what was the most impactful thing for your business out of that entire workshop? What kind of category helped you the most, you think?

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. The most impactful part of the workshop for me, simply enough, was the three day call board and capacity booking. Making sure that, you know, you have to be planning day out, two days out, which it's, it's easy to lose sight of that as you get caught up in the day that you're working on, making time in the morning to get with your team, which is another thing I learned at the workshop was you guys had your morning meetings at the Wilson companies where plumbing came through, H Vac came through, and electrical came through, and underground came through. And we're like, hey, this is where we're falling short. This is what we need. And John was Sitting there, just chilling, drinking his coffee, looking at his team like, look at these guys create work. This is awesome. And so, you know, I really make.

[John Wilson]

Me sound like a mob boss there.

[Andrew Morel]

It was awesome, you know, so trying to take that, you know, three day call board, capacity booking, thoroughly blown away that you just tell people you're going to be there tomorrow and you're just like, yeah, we'll be there tomorrow and we'll call you, you know, within an eight hour window. Like that's, that's so different than your average service company. But we have implemented a four hour time window which has been phenomenal for us, allowing us to stay within time frames and meet expectations. So three day call booking has been fantastic. You know, and capacity planning and just generally getting together to go over the information would be the most impactful. In fact, I got two guys coming to your workshop in April, so we're going to see.

[John Wilson]

Oh, damn, that's cool.

[Andrew Morel]

Their takeaways were so.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, like from your team.

[Andrew Morel]

Yep, Yep. My office manager and project manager will be there. Yep.

[John Wilson]

That's fun. Yeah. One of the fun things is because we're doing them every six months right now and like a little bit changes every time. So we got other feedback that like, yeah, explaining call board and explaining sales process was super helpful. So they'll probably get a little bit more of a flavor for that stuff because it was. People requested that we do more of that. So we're gonna add some more of that in.

[Andrew Morel]

So yeah, it was awesome.

[John Wilson]

Don't bring back new ideas 100%.

[Andrew Morel]

I'm really excited to see different views and you know, I grasped, you know, five things and came back and I sat down and everybody was just like, oh, you learned a lot, huh? So I came back and I was guns a blazing. But you know, we got it sorted out.

[Jack]

So that's awesome.

[Andrew Morel]

Fantastic time. So appreciate you guys being open with all the information and everything, so.

[John Wilson]

Well, thanks. Thanks for coming on again. This was cool. If people want to connect with you, how can they get ahold of you?

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah, I'm not the best millennial in the world. I have at Facebook and I am on LinkedIn, but I'm not much of a social media guy. You could either Message me on LinkedIn or find me on Facebook. It's just Andrew David on Facebook and I'm on the owned and operated Facebook page. You can find me on there. But if I can help with anybody for anything, I'm trying to be an open book. The more I can learn and more help I can give other people the better. So we're all trying to help each other, I think.

[John Wilson]

Amen. Yeah. It's one of the best parts about the industry is, like, it is wildly collaborative. And what's. I think what's been fascinating is that PE has not changed that very much, because I think it's just the culture of the industry is like, oh, if you like what somebody's doing, you can just ask them. Which is, like, kind of crazy when you think about it.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah.

[Jack]

What are your great secrets?

[John Wilson]

Oh, right. I mean, basically, like, we had. We had radiant up here from Austin like, two, three weeks ago, and they wanted to understand our service install and how we do warehouse, because it's just different. And Woody, their gm, he was just, hey, can we come out? Yeah. Like, that's awesome. Yeah.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

But it is fine. It's a collaborative industry. We love it.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

All right, thanks for coming on.

[Andrew Morel]

Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. Have a good.

[John Wilson]

If you like what you heard, check out owned and operated dot com.