#227 How Small HVAC Businesses Are Disrupting the Industry

Summary

Owned and Operated - Episode #227: How Small HVAC Businesses Are Disrupting the Industry

Release Date: July 24, 2025
Hosts: John Wilson and Jack Carr

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Introduction

In Episode #227 of Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast, hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr delve deep into the dynamics of small HVAC businesses and their disruptive impact on the industry. Addressing challenges ranging from innovation fatigue to labor shortages, the episode offers actionable insights for home service business owners aiming for sustainable growth.

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Innovation Challenges for Small Contractors

John kicks off the conversation by highlighting the competitive edge of small contractors: their ability to innovate swiftly.

John (00:00): "The small contractor that's doing $3 million with five people is someone that I should be afraid of. They're innovating better than I am."

However, he expresses frustration with the plethora of new tools flooding the market, leading to AI fatigue among business owners.

John (00:12): "We're drowning in all these different, like, bullshit tools because people keep coming up with new things... There is, like, just genuine AI fatigue."

Jack agrees, suggesting that innovation shouldn't mean acting as the "test dummy" for unproven technologies.

Jack (00:30): "That's where we're getting all good leads on. Innovation is not through going and trialing and testing it ourselves."

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Labor Shortages and Marketing Strategies

The conversation shifts to the perennial issue of labor shortages in the HVAC sector. Jack shares his company's recent struggles after losing two key technicians, leading to a temporary halt in marketing efforts.

Jack (01:24): "We have all the leads, we just don't have labor."

John counters by discussing his own challenges with high-ticket closures and questions the effectiveness of traditional referral programs.

John (02:45): "Are you still running your referral program with spreadsheets and Venmo?"

The hosts emphasize the importance of maintaining marketing momentum even during lean periods to avoid losing potential customers.

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Referrals and Lead Generation Tools

John introduces Vulca, an automated referral program integrated with ServiceTitan, designed to modernize and streamline referrals without the hassle of manual tracking.

John (02:45): "It's Vulca. It's a referral program on steroids. It's fully automated with ServiceTitan integration, SMS functionality, and built-in tracking and payments."

He shares his company's progress after revamping their sales system, highlighting significant revenue growth despite recent setbacks.

John (03:29): "We're making the right decisions at the time for where we are in the business. We have to focus on are we stable? Are we profitable?"

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Growth Metrics and Business Growth Strategies

Jack poses a critical question about managing growth rates, especially after experiencing both rapid expansion and the subsequent strain it causes.

Jack (27:46): "As a smaller company, like for myself, I struggle with this quite a bit... how do you think about growth metrics in terms of how fast you grow?"

John emphasizes the importance of understanding compounded growth rates and acknowledges that growth becomes more challenging as businesses scale.

John (28:21): "Well, 30 compounded. And I think that that's a really important distinction."

The discussion highlights the necessity of balancing aggressive growth with sustainable financial practices, citing their own experience of shifting focus from rapid expansion to financial health.

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Balancing Growth with Profitability

John reflects on a pivotal moment when he received feedback from industry expert Tommy Mello about the importance of EBITDA and financial health over mere top-line growth.

John (16:14): "How do you think about growth metrics in terms of how fast you grow? So we've been doing that 100% year over year... and the rest of the Internet was like, fuck you."

After internal assessments, John and his team decided to prioritize profitability and cash flow, leading to their first 15 months of continuous profitability.

John (32:10): "Our debt to EBITDA wasn't healthy. So over the last, like, you know, I've talked about a lot on the show, like, the goal was 12 months straight profitable. We're on month like 15 or 16 now."

Jack concurs, sharing his own journey towards achieving a healthy net margin and the emotional relief it brought.

Jack (32:23): "I almost freaking cried when I saw when they presented me the first good financial books I've had in three years."

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Building Senior Leadership and Process Optimization

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the critical role of senior leadership in scaling a business. John discusses the challenges of bringing in the right senior leaders at the appropriate time to drive sustainable growth.

John (46:36): "The senior leader problem because what you end up doing is you... they are doing it now, and that seems to be."

Jack echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the impact of senior leaders on financial performance and operational efficiency.

Jack (37:33): "If you run hard for three years growth, one year stabilization, or do you just continue pushing growth until you get really big?"

The hosts agree that building strong senior leadership and optimizing business processes are essential steps toward creating a resilient and valuable enterprise.

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Community Initiatives and Workshops

John and Jack highlight their commitment to fostering a strong community through peer groups and workshops. They discuss the success of their "Breaking Five" workshop, which caters to businesses aiming to scale to $5 million, and the upcoming "Breaking 10" workshop targeting larger milestones.

Jack (47:15): "Breaking five is amazing for anybody who's... they have a lot of value out of like... understanding their processes."

Additionally, they announce the launch of Owned and Operated Pro, a dedicated peer group for businesses generating between $10 to $20 million in revenue, aiming to provide high-trust, tactical discussions and financial reviews.

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Future Plans and Closing Remarks

Looking ahead, the hosts express excitement about participating in industry-specific conferences like Pantheon and Main Street, marking their first forays into such events. They also plan to expand their team to better support community building and event management.

Jack (51:44): "We're headed to Pantheon and we're recording a live podcast. So it should be really fun."

John shares his team's extensive efforts in conducting site visits across the US to learn and implement best practices, further emphasizing the podcast's role in driving industry innovation.

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Notable Quotes

• John (00:12): "We're drowning in all these different, like, bullshit tools because people keep coming up with new things... There is, like, just genuine AI fatigue."
• Jack (00:30): "Innovation is not through going and trialing and testing it ourselves."
• John (02:45): "It's Vulca. It's a referral program on steroids. It's fully automated with ServiceTitan integration, SMS functionality, and built-in tracking and payments."
• John (28:21): "Well, 30 compounded. And I think that that's a really important distinction."
• John (32:10): "We're on month like 15 or 16 now. Like, we're just a profitable company now, which, like, that's totally new to us."
• John (46:36): "The senior leader problem because what you end up doing is you... they are doing it now, and that seems to be."
• Jack (51:44): "We're headed to Pantheon and we're recording a live podcast. So it should be really fun."

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Conclusion

Episode #227 provides a candid exploration of the hurdles and triumphs faced by small HVAC businesses striving to disrupt a traditionally stable industry. Through honest discussions about innovation fatigue, labor shortages, growth strategies, and financial health, John Wilson and Jack Carr offer a roadmap for other home service business owners aiming to achieve sustainable and meaningful growth. The episode underscores the importance of adaptability, strong leadership, and community support in navigating the complexities of scaling a business in today's ever-evolving market.

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For more insights and to join the conversation, visit www.ownedandoperated.com.

Transcript

[John]

The small contractor that's doing $3 million with five people is someone that I should be afraid of. They're innovating better than I am.

[Jack]

I know innovation generally indicates that you're going to be early on in something, but why be the test dummy?

[John]

We're drowning in all these different, like, bullshit tools because people keep coming up with new things, and I want to stay at the forefront, but I don't know how to stay at the forefront because I keep buying these expensive tools that aren't actually moving us forward. There is, like, just genuine AI fatigue. People are starting to hate it very quickly.

[Jack]

That's where we're getting all good leads on. Innovation is not through going and trialing and testing it ourselves.

[John]

Yeah, it's Pierce.

[Jack]

It's Pierce.

[John]

Oh, that's nice. For those of you watching, Jack drew a nice little heart on his whiteboard. Make sure you watch it on YouTube. He like art.

[Jack]

You created pretty good at drawing hearts.

[John]

You created art, dude. What's up?

[Jack]

Oh, it's summer. Summer is up. And it is all the joys that you can expect in summer.

[John]

Yeah. So, like, how's your July going? We're mid July.

[Jack]

We are. I don't want to say far behind, but we are definitely behind. Decently behind budget.

[John]

Okay. Like, sales or like, we are, too. We're not. We're not like. Yeah.

[Jack]

So what happened is we lost our two best technicians.

[John]

Yep.

[Jack]

And so we just onboarded a new technician, but that always takes, like, six weeks to even start producing fruit. And we have another technician coming back. So, like, we'll be good. But we had to turn off all marketing, which helps to, like, hey, we're not overspending. But also it cuts off momentum. I think. Actually Jesse, you're. You know, Jesse from Wilson, did a huge post on it. Like, do you shut off marketing in summer? And he's like, no, because you kill momentum. You kill nude deal flow. You kill new customers coming in. And what you find is you get a lot of garbage that you have to deal with, but somebody has to deal with the garbage. You can't just say, hey, these 40 customers kick rocks. You're not.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

You know, low value. So we just. We just have taken. Taken the blow. We're tightening ship and expecting a. We're going to try to finish off the month strong and then start a solid August.

[John]

Nice.

[Jack]

But, yeah, it's weird. This year is weird because it's the opposite of every. The last three previous years. Like, this year is we have all the leads.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

We have all of the leads, we just don't have labor. So we, we're bringing on a full time recruiter. Like the whole, the whole thing.

[John]

Yep.

[Jack]

That we've talked about.

[John]

Yeah, we, we've been strong on leads. Where we've been struggling is like closing average tickets. Way up though. And I'm talking specifically about H Vac. Are you still running your referral program with spreadsheets and Venmo? Well, Vulca is going to bring your referrals into the 21st century. It's a referral program on steroids. It's fully automated with service titan integration, SMS functionality and built in tracking and payments. No more writing checks or guessing what's working. Just clean, consistent growth. Owned and operated listeners get 10% off of all contracts. Just book time with Don or the team through the custom link in the description. Volca Automated referral programs for home service companies. H Vac has been like a big project for us over the past 12 months where we've rebuilt the sales system. We changed a lot like we changed a lot like we rebuilt H Vac. We're hoping short term pain, long term, big gain. We're coming out of the short term pain. Like last month we did a million or like just under. So that felt pretty good. This month, like probably less than that but not much. Like 850ish is probably what'll happen maybe 9, but you know before that and that's like budgets 1.1, 1.2 for that department. But before that we were doing like 4 or 500 while we were still like working through like sales training but good. We brought on new sales manager and he's been doing great. He's two or three weeks in but we're starting to get a lot of traction there. And then we brought on like I think four like two selling texts, two comfort advisors. So we were expecting. And it sort of sucks. Same thing as what you just said. Like it's July. That would have been nice a month ago but like better late than never will be good for October I guess know because for us it's like July, October, those are the two peak months. But right now we're basically just chasing June's revenue and hoping we don't get behind it.

[Jack]

So I mean sounds like similar boats. Sounds like it's probably generally what you're going to deal with in H Vac every single year.

[John]

So yeah, I mean turnover in H, you know, we've always had turnover in H Vac. I think it's common, I think it's like, very common. Everyone I talk to has the same problem. They just like dress it up a little bit differently. But seasonality is hard. A lot of people leave industry because seasonality is so hard. And it's just a seemingly a tougher, you know.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's a feast or famine world. And so if you can't handle those swings, then you're working 12 hours a day in summer and then in, in the fall, you're working. Hoping for three calls. At most companies. Not my company. You have three calls no matter what. But most companies are hoping for three calls.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

So it's definitely a thing.

[John]

Besides that, I'm just absolutely reeling from the backlash. I'm just kidding. My least popular take on the Internet to date has been.

[Jack]

I'm so happy right now.

[John]

Oh my God. People, it would see it. What was kind of funny about it? So the take. The take was. I'm not going to say you were right. The take was, oh, I think that like, so we're $30 million this year. I still feel like a very, very small business. And I think that I'll feel like a bigger business at 40. So that was the take. And what was kind of funny was all of the people who are like my peers, like also like 25 plus. Yeah. Justifications. All the people that were like 25 plus texted me and they were like, dude, I totally agree. Like, I still like, you're in a group chat. And Isaac was like, yeah, dude, this like 26 million this year. And I feel like this is kindergarten. So like everyone that is like up here is like absolutely small business. Like we're super small. Like we'll feel big one day. And the rest of the Internet was like, fuck you.

[Jack]

Classic John.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah, it was.

[Jack]

Yeah, it was.

[John]

It was pretty funny.

[Jack]

It's like I said, man, that, that's wonderful. I'm actually happy that you get to see some of that because I actually got a lot of feedback too. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but like, now that we're talking about it, I will. Is. Is the, the real thing is there's so few companies that are that big and like that are 20 million plus that when you say that compared to like every company. Yeah, of course there's huge opportunity. That's why a lot of people got into this. They see that. But just like on the whole, in H Vac, the number of 20 million dollar 40 million dollar H VAC companies is so small. There's handfuls in every market. That's it. There's like two in every market again, that's it.

[John]

It was my least popular take.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

On the Internet.

[Jack]

Well just if you want more of these, please populate.

[John]

No, yeah, yeah, just please sub. So yeah, if you were a peer you agreed. If you weren't up here, you didn't agree. So I don't know when Everybody else hits 20 in the next couple years, tell me how you feel about how big of a business you are.

[Jack]

Also feel free to go into the comments and flame John for doubling down on this take rather than just like saying, you know, I'm sorry I'm wrong guys, like I see the bigger picture here. Just like it's like so my what I doesn't agree with me. What's your answer?

[John]

What I see my job as is like let's get everybody to 20. 20 is SU. It's an approachable number you can get there. There's a lot of guys in your market doing it. Like in Cleveland alone there's like 15. Like it's not, you know, like most people I compete against are eight figure businesses. It's not like it was a decade ago where everybody was $2 million shop. Like everybody's a $10 to $20 million shop now that I'm directly competing against.

[Jack]

Yeah, I think what you're missing though is that like you said there's there's ten twenty million dollar shops in Cleveland alone. If you're a three million dollar contractor right now you're competing with ten twenty million dollar shops who have the sophistication, who have the marketing, who have kind of everything dialed in or at least kindergarten level dialed in.

[John]

I didn't use kindergarten. Somebody else said that one. But yes, I don't think we're a big business yet. But you know, I hopefully in the next couple years we'll feel big.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the market changes and fluctuates and once we hit, you know, the first 200, 300, 400, 500 million dollar business in your area, then it's like yeah. And that makes sense. But still to this, to this, we're still dealing with like the majority of, of contractors out there. Of the 300000 contractors, if there's 20 in all major 10 big cities. Right. There's like 220 million dollar plus contractors in the nation and then the other 260,280 000 are all sub.

[John]

It'd be interesting to see like the hard data on that.

[Jack]

Yeah, I agree. I, I don't know what the data is. Obviously I'm just this, these are super hypothetical numbers but I mean I would assume it's something around there. Like all someone cities have probably 10 or 20 giants. 10, 10 to 50 middle mid sized ones in that 20 million range. And then everybody else is like the next 100, 200, 300 are small.

[John]

Yeah. What is kind of interesting is like how the dynamics of small businesses have changed where like a three million dollar shop today is so different. We've talked to guys doing 3 million bucks with like 5 employees and that's just wild.

[Jack]

Yeah, there's some real sophistication now. I think there's some, there's some guy on Twitter, I forget the two guys, it's like bull bitcoin bull or something. And then his friend, they just started up one in Dallas or Atlanta and in two years they were able to drive like a crazy amount because one of them was running operations and the other one was, was an expert marketer. He's like this, this Legion marketing thing is so easy. And the other guy's like, oh well, I'm great at hiring and running ops, even though it's not H vac ops. Like the sophistication of these local SEO and lead gen guys coming into the business and absolutely dominating when that's all they're doing is has been a game changer for a lot of people.

[John]

So I, I think a couple things. One, I, I still don't feel big. And two, that's not like a looking down. That's like, I just don't feel like we're a big business. Like we're big compared to some but like really small compared to the people that I measure myself against. And two, I think, I don't think that's an issue for the small contractor. And I think that people that took it personally probably like miss the boat because the, the small contractor that's doing $3 million with five people is someone that I should be afraid of. Like it doesn't matter what their size is. Like they're innovating better than I am. Like that's amazing. And I remember with, I told you about my friend rj, he, he's in a peer group with me and he's like quadruple my size. Like we're not peers. Like he is a lot bigger than us, but he's in a peer group with me. He flew out to our shop to like see how we were doing things and he, I think he learned a lot from it. And that's not like a humble thing. I just, I Think he did. And I asked him directly, I asked him why, like, what literally, what do you get from this? Because you are four times my size. Like, what answer do I have for you that makes this worth your time to fly from, like, Vegas to, To see this? Like, how could I possibly help you? And he said, smaller companies have all the innovation because big companies don't need to innovate anymore. And I, I, that kind of resonates with me a little bit. I don't feel like we're that big yet, but I do think the guy, Like, I'm seeing a lot more innovation earlier, and I know that, like, when we were earlier in our journey, we were innovating probably more than we are now, because now we're in, like, wheels on the. But, like, keep the train on the tracks phase. And like, the guy doing 3 million bucks with 5. 5 total employees. That's crazy. Like, that's amazing. I'm not, I'm nowhere near those economics. Right. Like, that's crazy. I like, innovation starts at small companies because they have to innovate and larger companies don't have to innovate. And that's potentially me included. Or like the Goliaths that we all compete against, they're innovating much slower. If they have an idea, it might take them, like, literally a year or 18 months to fully implement and execute on that idea. If you're a smaller contractor, like, you could run faster and turn sharper.

[Jack]

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Like, the, the ability for you to turn on weekends was much more difficult than the ability for me to turn on weekends. That being said, it's more valuable to you. You had more calls coming in. If you mess it up, it really takes the train off the tracks, whereas we just kind of. It's like, we're going to run it, turn it on and go. And it allows us to innovate much faster and do those kind of changes. I mean, it's not really an innovation, but just any kind of operational changes to the business. Yeah, it's much harder to turn a ship that's a cruise ship versus a.

[John]

And I think it's, like, dangerous. I think it's like a danger. Like, I think it's, there's an existential risk there. Something that I always thought was really interesting when we were, when we were growing, like, when we were, like, really early and we, we passed people, we passed these companies that I've been chasing my whole career. We passed them a couple years ago, and I always felt like that was really weird. Like, how did they not know they were the big dog? And now they are not the big dog. Like, they're just not. And we don't even feel like they're a threat because they're not innovating at all. They're growing at like 5% and we're still growing at 25 to 30. Like when we were doing $1 million, they were doing 15. That was a decade ago, right? Like $15 million a decade ago was a big fricking number.

[Jack]

Huge. Yeah.

[John]

That's crazy. And, and I always felt like it was so weird. The way I thought about it at the time was, oh, how did they let this happen? Like, how did they let us win in a market that they literally owned? What happened? And then you get a little bit bigger and you're like, oh, they just couldn't innovate. They couldn't like hold on to the advantage that they had. And I think that that's a risk for any business. The guy doing 3 million with 5 employees still just blows my mind. And I want to figure out how he's doing it because, like, I'm still.

[Jack]

Trying to figure that out. We, we, when we were doing 3 million, we had a lot more than five employees.

[John]

Totally. I had like 20. Something. Yeah. So all that to say, I don't think that being small, like early on in the journey is necessarily a bad thing because, like, I was early on in the journey once too and we passed the big dog and someone's going to pass me one day and they're like innovating faster than I am. And like, that's just what's going to happen. So I think, like, how do you like, continue to incubate good ideas? How do you stay entrepreneurial? How do you like protect a moat once you've built it? But if you don't have a moat, like, you can still win.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a, there's a huge thing to unpack there, there's a lot to unpack on, you know, age demographic of the owners that were hitting 15 million.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Like for, for example, I mean, they.

[John]

Were in their 50s, so.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. In a tech heavy world, pretty easy.

[Jack]

Because that's what I was going to say is a lot of the innovators now that we're seeing that are actually generating these, these rapidly expanding home service companies are tech focused and not like the tech focus like we hear, hey, I'm going to come, I'm going to create a tech focused business and it's going to go off to the races. Like, who is that? There was a group that came out that raised like $2 million hyper. From next. Next door. Yeah. And they came on. They're like, yeah, we're tech first. And it's like, no shit. Everybody's tech first. Like, yeah.

[John]

The whole industry at this point is tech first. It's like, yeah.

[Jack]

And that was the thing is like, that's going to be. The Nexus is continuing to stay tech first, continuing to stay at the forefront of any kind of revolutions such as AI and things like that. And they're just pushing the boundaries to win.

[John]

Now, the downside of exactly that sentence, something that I am noticing in a lot of, like, the Facebook groups I'm in, is like, offer fatigue. There are so many tools and every single one of them pitches that they can grow your business by a hundred percent in the first 12 months. Yeah, you just, I think just be careful who you're buying from. Check the track record. But, like, this has come up in our group. This came up in a few other groups that I'm just like, a part of. It just keeps coming up. Just like we're drowning in all these different, like, tools because people keep coming up with new things and I want to stay at the forefront, but I don't know how to stay at the forefront because I keep buying these expensive tools that aren't actually moving us forward.

[Jack]

We are in the same industry. We get the same kind of crap every day. I mean, for the most part, I think really it's. You don't have to be first. Like, you don't have to be the first. I know innovation generally indicates that you're going to be early on in something, but why be the test dummy? Just wait till something works and then jump on it. So a great gate, great one that was. That is really interesting to me right now is like, contractor commerce. Like, I'm not the first one on contractor commerce, but there's someone in. We're going to. Yeah, because there's someone in our market where it's proven they've received like six or seven leads in the last two months that closed. I'm like, that's pretty dang good.

[John]

I'm gonna find out.

[Jack]

I know you're on contractor.

[John]

We get like, yeah, we get four or five leads a. A day. I got. My Last one was 1108 yesterday. I got six.

[Jack]

So, I mean, like, you guys are driving a lot more ppc though, and driving people to the website with high intent. I think from a smaller version in the market that PPC doesn't work. Like you could start again. You could potentially start to try to drive people back to the website.

[John]

I mean most people that I know we're, we're running a pretty unique strategy with contract commerce. I don't know anybody else that's doing it exactly the way that we're doing it. So hey, we're attempting to innovate so we're, we're doing something a little bit different. But most people that I know, they just literally put it on their website and like they don't do anything. They put the button on there, they put the widget and, and that's it. But there is, I saw on Twitter the Demetrio guy, he, he said there was 450 contractors that had that widget on their site. If that gives like perspective.

[Jack]

And so like out of, once again out of 300000 if we're going to keep, continue to use that number that I randomly saw on the Internet at one point in time when I looked up how many H Vac contractors are in the United States.

[John]

Nice. If we use there's more electrical contractors than H Vac. Have you seen that?

[Jack]

I have not seen that. Yeah, there's, there's surprising.

[John]

That's what I said too.

[Jack]

I bet it's one man shops though. There's like a lot more one man shops.

[John]

That feels like what it is because I was really surprised when I saw that More fragments. It was like multiples more it was like 150. 00 like 70,000 H vac.

[Jack]

Is it 70,000 nationwide? So I stopped using 300,000.

[John]

I, I, the numbers are confusing to me. Every time I look it's a different number. I used to use a million because the data I saw was like plumbing H Vac electric and then tri trade was like a million. But okay, I mean maybe I'm wrong. I have no idea.

[Jack]

300,000 each. So that's where I was I was looking at it said 300,000 or maybe it was 300,000 total. But that feels small between the tri.

[John]

Trade I feel like overall it has shrunk over the last decade. Yeah, I mean the trend that I continue to see is the middle class of the trades is going away. You're either big or you're tiny.

[Jack]

Like true and long story short though to it is like out of if there's a hundred thousand H Vac contractors just to make it an Even small number. 450 in the nation that utilize it is still extremely early but you can see it proven right. I Can see. Listen to this podcast. I can hear John Wilson talk about it. You can say, hey, I'm getting four leads a day. And you hear Jack say, hey, somebody in Jack's market's getting four leads a week. Like that's something that's working. That's. It's something. And so getting a hold of somebody say, hey, like how are you doing? This is a good. Is it bad? Tell me about it early, but not the innovator. It's not the guinea pig. I think that there's some optionality there as you go through the thousands of CRMs and yeah. The per. The person who dm's me weekly saying, I got this idea for a phone agent that can answer all your calls for you.

[John]

Yeah, that's. And I'm like, that's a tough. I mean that got crowded quick. Crazy. Crazy. Yeah, crazy. I feel like, you know, something that we started doing is we stopped. We're trying to stop referring to it as AI and we try to refer to it as automation because there is like just genuine AI fatigue. Like people are starting to hate it very quickly.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And it's becoming, it's becoming like almost like a negative word. Layoffs. And like the more tech layoffs, the more like AI enabled efficiencies, it's starting to become like. Yeah, people don't like it.

[Jack]

Yeah. I asked given this group is a little bit different, but I asked in that one man in a van chat group what they're doing for their phone systems. And there was a lot of very, very unhappy people talking about AI and these are just like one, one guy.

[John]

Shows that are like they were using AI and they, and they didn't like it or they were just mad about AI in general.

[Jack]

Just mad about AI in general.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Never used it, never tried it, never heard of it. They just. I'm never going to talk to somebody a robot ever. And what surprised me was not that that was there and prevalent. Like I expect some level of that, but the outspokenness and the people who are die hard. Never AI people.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Are never AI people. But I mean like. So back to it though. I think that the, the key, one of the big keys is to immerse yourself in industry which everybody listening to this is doing. So.

[John]

Yeah. I mean you're doing it by listening like reading participating Facebook groups.

[Jack]

Yeah. So I mean that's, that's where we're getting all of our like good leads on innovation is not through going and trialing and testing.

[John]

Yes. Peers.

[Jack]

It's peers. So it's like, oh, it's like the Owned and operated Pro is a great one. The Facebook group's a great one. Like, that's where I heard one.

[John]

I heard one the other day and it was in a peer group and it solved the problem I was looking for in accounting. I'm not going to name it, but like, it it. Because I haven't tested it to know if it's worked. So I don't want people to like, think I don't know if I'm recommending it. Other people recommended it to me and it was like, oh, shit. Like, I saw that a year ago, but I didn't really trust it. But like, I now three people recommended it to me on a call last week and I was like, all right, like, let's go. Like, it's basically an AI. You're. Here I go again. Yeah, it's. It's an automation. So it's a, it's like a bookkeeping automation and it helps reduce workload in accounting. And like our accounting department, like, bigger we've gotten like, there's a lot. It's just like thousands and thousands of transactions. It is so much just busy work. So, like, they would welcome automation. Like, it would make everyone's life easier.

[Jack]

That's, that's the best way, in my opinion, to, to get those innovations is, is like, that's where you're finding them, that's where you're testing them out. I mean, if you wanted to test. Now we've done some stuff where we've, we've built tools and, and we're more than happy to share them with people's. People in those groups, things like that, just because it's, it's.

[John]

Oh, yeah, we should share like, our apps. Like, we built a fleet management app and we built like a bunch of these apps now that are the dashboard.

[Jack]

When I was at your office, it was pretty badass.

[John]

Yeah, it's awesome. Like, I also have like, just fatigue. Like, every single day I get DM'd or emailed or something on some platform with, hey, I just have this new startup for this new thing. Some of them are good. Like, we've done it, but like, it is five to 10 a day. Like, it's, it's a bit much and so I don't read them anymore. But I'm just really tired of paying for sass. Like, I'm bored of it. I'm tired of it. I, like, I already pay Service Titan, like 30 grand a month. Like, I am tired and like, I'm really tired of seeing like service titan pricing for random fucking tools. Like, hey, I've got this like job calculator. It's $400 per user per month. And I'm like, like, shut the up. Like, what are you doing? So annoying.

[Jack]

The downside to being in a hot industry, a hot, ugly, dirty industry, is the fun. The fun comes when people from every other industry try to make money in the gold rush.

[John]

Yeah, man. What were we talking about? Like, fatigue.

[Jack]

Networking groups, how to write your. Most of this was just around how you had a terrible take and you won't admit it. Like just that part.

[John]

I will admit that I might not have delivered it well.

[Jack]

I'm still making shirts. I'm just trying to figure out. I'm getting AI to give you my least popular take.

[John]

Four and a half years of doing a podcast, I was gonna say.

[Jack]

And that's, that's saying something because you have a lot of hot takes.

[John]

It is saying something. Yeah, I was, I thought that was kind of funny. But ultimately I do think, like, small businesses can grow big. You and I are both like really good examples of that. If you don't, like the current size of your business, get bigger and like you are capable of innovating really fast if you're small and you are a threat to the larger companies in your market. And you and I have both shown that. So, like, I don't think, I think if people took it personally, like, I think you're missing the bigger plot here and you should listen to other episodes. We've been working with WeSupplyTrades.com for the past 10 years, but most importantly for the past six months as our primary vendor for H vac supplies. And that's going to be generic as well as some oem. They have been a huge partner for us in our H Vac for restocking trucks, for getting packouts done on time and getting quick deliveries when we need it. Their free Pro membership is going to give better pricing. It's free shipping for orders over $99. And you get access to a team of world class experts that know plumbing, hydronics and H Vac like the back of their hands. Like, these guys are incredible. As a savings to our audience, they offered 20% off your first order if you use the code owned20o w ned20. So click the link below or go to wesupplytrades.com owned and operated to find out a little bit more.

[Jack]

I do have a quick question for you on the back of that. It's like so As a smaller company, like for myself, I struggle with this quite a bit and I'm going to be vulnerable to the, to the masses here. Like, how do you think about growth metrics in terms of how fast you grow? So we've been doing that 100% year over year. Oh sure, yeah, of course we're trying to keep that, but like, that is super. Is super difficult and there's a lot of strain on the business and on me personally at a hundred percent. And so, you know, you know, Chris hoffman's has been 30%. Like how do you.

[John]

Well, 30 compounded. And I think that that's a really important distinction.

[Jack]

Yeah. Also, I mean the important distinction. Right. Is a two million dollar business grows much easier to four million dollars. A hundred percent.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Versus, I think we have a few.

[John]

Things to unpack there.

[Jack]

To 120 million. Like you just grew $20 million. Like that's more than. Yeah, the Small Business Times 10.

[John]

Yeah. So I think there's a lot to unpack. So one, growth rate slows. Two, this is 2025 and this is not 2020, is not 2019. And the rules that worked in 2019 and 2020 do not work today. It is a different playbook. There was a group on Twitter like a couple of weeks ago, vtan and a couple other guys. And, and they were sort of like calling this out of like, hey, I'm really tired of like getting feedback from people with a billion dollars of enterprise value. It was like a joke. I don't think it was actually targeted anyone specific, but like, yeah, like the biggest companies in the industry grew like from 2020 to 2023. Like they got huge in that time period. And that was before Pete, like early on PE days, like really early. Like PE was like kind of a thing in like the late teens, but nowhere near to what it became in 2021, 22, 23. Leads were totally different. I could. When we first got on LSA in like 2019, 2020, electrical leads were literally $11 a lead. 11. And they're like 95 now.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And LSA worked like, it just worked better. There was way more demand. There was money sloshing around all over the place. It was just different. So I, I think, like, it's really. A lot of these guys built great businesses and they're bigger businesses than me. So I have like, no, I have no rocks to throw here. I just think if, if you are looking at someone and saying, how did they grow? How, how did they do that? Like, how did they build a 80 million dollar business and three years or four years or five years, like they were playing a different game than you're playing today is a totally different game. And like, they have good advice, they have really good perspective. They built a bigger business than me. I can't throw any rocks here, but like, you just can't follow the same playbook. So just be cautious of like who you're comparing yourself to because I do think it's an unfair comparison. So that's like my overarching, like, good starting point.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. I feel like we've grown 30 year over year for years now. But like it's been lumpy. Like some years that's 100%, some years that's 10. And I think the bigger we've gotten, like growth is just different. Like this year is probably like a high teens, low 20s growth year. And that's a little bit discouraging for us. Same as whatever you were thinking that like I'm going to go from 100 to something that's a little bit discouraging for us. But like, if I look at the context of the year, I'm like, I'm at peace. I'm discouraged, but I'm trying to get at peace with it because we're making the right decisions at the time for where we are in the business. We have to focus on are we stable? Are we profitable? Like, really, really profitable? Like, are we driving 17+EBITDA? Are we driving positive cash flow? Is our balance sheet healthy? Which, like, it was not healthy after years of growing 30%, like, it was not healthy. We did not have a great cash position. We had debt from these. We still have debt, but like, we had debt from these acquisitions. So like, our debt to EBITDA wasn't healthy. So over the last, like, you know, I've talked about a lot on the show, like, the goal was 12 months straight profitable. We're on month like 15 or 16 now. Like, we are. We're just a profitable company now, which, like, that's totally new to us. Like, that just happened.

[Jack]

I'm going to derail the conversation for a second to shout out to our sponsors, Apple Tree, who we use personally in our business. I'm not going to lie, John. I almost freaking cried when I saw when they presented me the first good financial books I've had in three years.

[John]

Yes. Like, it is, it changes the game.

[Jack]

I got emotional.

[John]

It does.

[Jack]

Like, I'm a big man. That was like, yeah, yeah, this is gorgeous.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Because it was a game changer. It's Like, I was able to see. And he's like, hey, also, I. I took it. I took all the Service Titan dollars and I put it in its own bucket so that you could see actually how much you're spending on Service Titan, because I know some other owners like to see that. Yeah, we can change it back if you want. It's like, no, no, no, no. That's exactly what I want.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

I didn't even have to ask him, but point being is, like, you know, I don't generally, like, go into sponsor the sponsor that. But like, they are amazing and.

[John]

Yeah, well, Patrick runs a good ship. We've been friends for years. He runs a great. He runs a great company.

[Jack]

He runs a really good ship and his team is solid. Very, very happy. First time I've had good financials and I. I think I said on the show that our whole Q1 was positive. I was wrong.

[John]

Oh, man.

[Jack]

We saw Q1 on the whole was positive.

[John]

Okay.

[Jack]

But not every month. We missed in March by I think, like, $10,000. Oh, that's all the rest of the month. Every other month has been positive.

[John]

And I was like, that's awesome.

[Jack]

Have a good net. I know my net is.

[John]

That's awesome.

[Jack]

Like, actual what it actually looks like.

[John]

Yeah, that's good.

[Jack]

That's been much happier too. Like, we're running. We're running like a 12.9% net on the year. And I'm like, yes, yes. I knew we were between 10 and 15, but like, the other. The other really cool part too is we were ballpark and everything, like, really manually, like, going. Taking our weekly payroll and against our weekly invoices and figure and revenue and figuring it out all ourselves. We were within 3% on almost everything, so that felt good, too. So that we could continue doing the processes that we have in place to move quickly and then get our monthly gross margins in check and then like, double check our work, essentially. But sorry to derail. No, you're good.

[John]

You're good.

[Jack]

Really, really excited about that.

[John]

That is exciting.

[Jack]

But yes, with growth, do you think that your. Your perspective has changed on growth as from. From a smaller company and just like, heavy, heavy growth. Moving into, like a bigger company, Still a small company, still a baby company, but like, But a bigger baby company.

[John]

It was literally on this show, like, we got a good dressing down from Tommy Mello on, like, ebitda, and I took that to heart and I started, like, trying to understand, like, I was starting to focus on it. But, like, we brought on Tommy, we brought on Luke and we, we dove into EBITDA and like Luke's running like 25 to 30% net margin on a 20 plus million dollar H vac business. Like he's a machine. And then I talk to other people and like fast top line growth is really cool. It's great. But it is, there is, it's not valuable. Like it's, it's, it's not actually valuable. And, and that's like hard to stomach. That reality is that hey, am I, what am I doing all this for? Like, why am I working this hard? Why am I like away from my family? Why am I stressed? And if I'm not building something that's actually like a valuable asset, then what am I doing? So yeah, I got a dressing down and then I started really like taking a hard look at like how we're approaching EBITDA and how we're approaching growth. And we could have kept going and we could have have kept growing at the pace we were, but we basically decided to take the year and like, hey, are our processes tight? Are we running 17% EBITDA? Are we running positive cash flow? Can we create a strong balance sheet? And like I, my take now after we're like six months into this year and I'm looking, the progress we've made is like incredible. Like I frankly wish I would have done this years ago. And I think that this is like a fast is smooth and smooth is fast because I think that we're going to take this year. We're still growing 20% but we're going to go into 2026 with the best balance sheet that I've ever had in my career with the lowest debt, millions of cash on hand, great gross margins and great net margins. Like I would not want to be in my way in six months because we're going to be stronger than we've ever been. And, and that was Tommy's story too. At the same size that I'm at now. It like, the story was like palpable. It was, oh yeah, 20 to 30. I had to slow down. It drove me freaking nuts. I hated it. We had to write down every process. We had to. And it's like that's the year that we're in right now. We're writing down every process. We're making sure that.

[Jack]

I wonder though, would you have seen yourself doing that earlier? Because no, and I'm going to preface it. Yeah. And so that's where my wonder is.

[John]

But that's like just me personally, like other people have done it earlier. Like, Luke has a smaller company and has more ebitda. Like his company is literally more valuable than mine with half of the staff and a third less revenue.

[Jack]

Yeah, but that's like comparing. And hear me out, that's like comparing a chuck in a truck doing a million who has 40 EBITDA because he has no overhead and no processes and blah, blah, blah, to somebody doing 3 million with half of his EBITDA because they're trying to grow the business. And so that, that's like where the question comes into play is for me is like, do you run hard for three years growth, one year stabilization, three years hard growth, one year stabilization, or do you just continue pushing growth until you get really big? And it actually matters because you, even though you have great ebitda, EBITDA doesn't.

[John]

EBITDA is not cash flow.

[Jack]

I, I know, but even though you have good ebitda, you still are going to eventually be somewhat capped on how high. Like, like Luke can't run a 50 EBIT a company. He's going to be capped at where he's at.

[John]

No, there's definitely like too much. But I think 17 to 20 is sustainably.

[Jack]

Yeah, but what I'm thinking is like my thought process is, you know. Yes, okay, so he continues to run very efficiently, very lean at say 20 million top line to an EBITDA 10%. I'm just, I know that's not it. Or 4 million, whatever. EBITDA, 20 million top line. So he's running 20% margins or EBITDA. He's doing great. He's running 20% EBITDA. But if you put half of that, three quarters of that back into like heavy growth and it's, you know, capex and debt, you're missing and you're losing and you're kind of, you know, doing stuff because you're drawing huge growth initiatives. But you get to 40 at 10, like, yeah, you're at the 40 at 10%, he's at 20 at. And so you're worth the same amount from an enterprise value. But if you leaned out at 40, kept everything the same.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

From a top line, like now you jump up to double his company. But he would have a hard time growing at 20% to jump up at your. You know what I mean?

[John]

He would. And like, that's obviously the decision that we made internally. What the phrase that I used to say, and I still, I think it makes sense, is bloat, then optimize, like, hey, let's get really big, let's run really Fast and let's optimize the shit out of it. And that's what we did.

[Jack]

So from a bloat and optimized perspective, and this is kind of where the origin of the question was, is, like, what was your expectation early on on growth from bloat, before optimization. And then when did you start thinking about optimization?

[John]

It's most people that I talk to. So this is myself. But like, I'm saying this is, like, this is a sentiment that I notice. For once people cross into the 20s, optimization, like, managing EBITDA is. Is a bigger conversation. Well, like, in the teens, it's all growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. It's still growth for us too. But, like, you do have to run a healthy business. And if payroll's 400 grand every two weeks, you do have to run a healthy business.

[Jack]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[John]

But it seems to be that everyone, including us, starts really honing in on it in the 20s. Yeah, because I mean, for us, we outgrew our overhead. I think that's a really important. Like, we started focusing on it, overhead started shrinking, margin started increasing. We. Yeah, we built a lot of value, which was awesome. Like, the value of the, you know, we're not doing anything with it, but the value of the business went up. EBITDA went up.

[Jack]

I think what's cool with that too, is, like, you have to build processes to do that. Like, that's a. Yeah, we're running a.

[John]

Much tighter ship than we were, so.

[Jack]

Yeah, exactly.

[John]

Yes.

[Jack]

So, like, dude, we're looking at numbers, better processes, easier business to run. Like, also on top of it, you just happen to get better ebitda, like, oh, yeah, whatever.

[John]

Well, some of the numbers are funny, and I'm like, am I going to slow down for Net, right? Like, that's the big question. I think people, like, nobody wants to slow down growth. I've talked to a lot of people that wish they would have slowed down earlier and, like, really focused on it because they're trying to do it at like 70, 80, 100 plus. And it's harder, but, you know, ghetto ran at 17% margins and grew 30% year over year for like, 10 straight years. And that was before all the 2020 stuff. So, like, we know it's possible, but I think it's a hard. I think it can be a hard decision. But ultimately we realized we weren't building something of value and we wanted to be sustainable, and we weren't as sustainable as we would have liked.

[Jack]

No, that makes sense. That's actually really helpful because yeah, we're, we're, I mean, obviously we are much smaller than you, but there's some days.

[John]

Where my quick take is not really like, you know, I, I don't think so.

[Jack]

What's that?

[John]

Like, both of us as a category are single location plumbing, H vac, electric businesses. Like, we're not. I feel like it. And that was sort of, my point is like, I think we're the same. We just have a few more people.

[Jack]

John, is this you trying to be relatable now?

[John]

I don't know what I'm trying to do.

[Jack]

Well, John, you mean a lot to me too, if that's what you were.

[John]

Trying to tell me.

[Jack]

Thank you.

[John]

Thank you.

[Jack]

No, it just, there's some days where it just feels like, are we sacrificing for growth? Like am I burning the candle at both ends so that we could grow as fast as we can, as hard as we can? But I think the answer is probably you have to do that until you get to a certain size where then you can slow down.

[John]

Yeah, I think you're gonna get stopped by something. So like, are you gonna get stopped because of balance sheet? Are you gonna get stopped because of cash? Like something is probably going to stop you from continuing to grow aggressively. And some people don't hit that for a while. Like I know people in their, in the 40s that are still growing like more aggressively and happier to take single digit nets. Like that's great. And maybe their funding source is different. Maybe they're better innovators than I am. Like, could be any number of reasons. They could just be better and like I'm okay with that. But I think something's probably going to stop you and at some point you're going to want to start imagining like, you know, how do we, how do we like make this sustainable? I see a lot of people get stopped in the teens. Like a lot. That seems to be the big.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And I, I, you know, I used.

[Jack]

To think it's like 7 to 12 is where we notice we have a few in our market that just, yeah.

[John]

Cannot get past 15 here in Cleveland. Like people just, they can't 10 to 15, they just can't get past 15. So what, what I've, what I'm noticing now, like we're on the other side of that. And at first I thought it was like only a teens thing. So that's how I described it was like 15 to 20. So if you listen to the show for a while, like that's the problem. I'm talking about is the 15 to 20. Like, how do we build up, like a frontline leaders? Is how I was thinking about it. Think about a little bit differently now because that was like, half of our size ago. And I still think it was still ongoing. And I just didn't really realize that it was still ongoing. What I see the problem as now and how I would approach it differently if I, like, had to start from scratch is the senior leader problem. Like, who are the senior leaders and when do you bring them into the organization? And I brought some senior leaders in at the perfect time, and I brought some in too early, which is probably good, and some in too late, which is obviously bad. But it's the senior leader problem because what, what you end up doing is you. Like, we feel healthier than ever because we have, like, six amazing senior leaders that are like, really driving initiatives forward. And I'm helping coach and I'm helping mentor and I'm helping do all that stuff. But, like, they are doing it now, and that seems to be. That's really hard first off, like, because if you get the wrong one, it is a very real impact to your business. And we've done that a few times now. Like, very real, tangible, you know, financial impact. So that's important. And then two, there is a financial investment not just in those people for their salaries, but also the teams that you build under them. So that's why now that I'm on, like, just, just past. Because it's really. It's like it's 15 to 25. If I had known that, I would have done it all up front earlier. If I had understood the problem, which was, hey, John, you have to build this incredible team of senior leaders in these six disciplines. Like, do it right now and then save yourself two years of pain. I would have just done it, but I didn't understand that that was the problem that I was solving. Do now. So. So it got a lot easier. But the financial impact of building teams underneath them is pretty real too.

[Jack]

We destroyed that topic on the last episode. So if you haven't listened to that senior leader episode, I think that was the last one that maybe dropped that one.

[John]

It covers it. Yeah, it. It covers it. Yeah, we talk, but I. I think people get stuck there because they don't. They don't know how to, like, invest into that.

[Jack]

Speaking of, I saw something interesting. Not, not the breaking 5 million, but the breaking 10 million.

[John]

We want to do a net. We want to do another workshop. We want to do another workshop. We want to do another workshop. Frankly, the workshops are fun. So I'll give. I'll give everyone. What's the. Is this called Breaking the fourth wall?

[Jack]

This is the one we're doing in. In August is breaking five.

[John]

No, no, I'm going to break the fourth wall. Well, I want to give everyone. I want to. I want to give everyone some, like, some. Here's the. Here's the State of the. Owned and operated that way people.

[Jack]

State of the Union.

[John]

State of the union. Yeah. So, like, we've had some fun. We've had some fun things that we have going. J Acquisitions has been a ton of fun. And if you're not like, checking out that show, we officially spun it off some brand. So make sure you sub to that pod channel, YouTube, and then it has its own newsletter. So, like, we're super pumped about that. The OAO team has grown a lot, which has been, like, really exciting. Like, something that is like this, you know, this podcast. Like, I've. I've loved doing it. I think you like doing it. Love doing it. So somewhere between, like, and love.

[Jack]

Do I or you.

[John]

That was you.

[Jack]

I love it, man.

[John]

This is a lot of fun. Yeah, it. It is. It's. It's been like a fun part of my life for almost five years, but it's in the background. It. We've been able to, like, really bring on a great team to support it. So the team is, I think, like eight people now, which is really awesome. And we're getting ready to, like, between community and our workshops, and, like, we've had whole co comp for a few years, so, like, we like events. And so we're getting ready to, like, bring on an event person to really help, like, drive community and events a lot better. So I. I think it's just gonna be fun. So you joked about, like, a Breaking 10 workshop, and, like, we're talking about more workshops because people are literally asking for it. Like, people have asked for call by call workshops. They've asked for. What's kind of interesting is nobody cares about breaking 10. Everyone's like, okay, I want a breaking 5 or a breaking 20. It's just sort of like skip 10, which I think is kind of funny.

[Jack]

I think those are, like, those are the really hard numbers. Right? Those are the biggest step changes. Just 20. That 15 to 25. 20 is right in the middle.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Big step change. That five is like, hey, I'm no longer running in the truck myself. I'm running a business.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

So I think. I mean, I think you hit the Nail on the head. The Breaking5 is amazing for anybody who's.

[John]

Yeah. If you're early on in the journey. Yep.

[Jack]

To even up, like, we had people there who are 6, 7, 8 million who still got a lot of value out of like. Yeah, hey, I don't have a full understanding of my processes and what I should be doing and why I'm doing them. And then this was just a huge unlock for them. That was a lot of fun.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

And honestly, our team got a ton out of it too because it was a really good dynamic with everybody in the room who got to. To see how businesses are run and. Yeah. So, so on and so forth. So if you haven't signed up, definitely do. So I think we have a couple like 10 seats left, seven seats left. I don't even know, like, people sign up.

[John]

This is like filled up. Really.

[Jack]

This one filled up fast. It keeps going faster because people keep sending their.

[John]

Yes.

[Jack]

Word of mouth is doing really, really well.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that was pretty cool. But yeah, we're talking about doing more workshops. So potentially a call by call or potentially a break in 20, which is kind of fun. I. One other thing. I'm just going to like, flag if you are out there. We have, we've talked about Owned and Operated Pro on the show. We've started launching like dedicated peer groups, Inside Pro and that has been really cool. Like every Friday we have a peer call and it's good, like, it's good content. We're talking about like tactical stuff and it's high trust. Like once a month we open up our books. So we're up to like, it's volunteers but like six or seven people now submit their P. Ls and we open them once a month. That's this Friday. So we'll be doing financial reviews for last month, talking about the good, the bad and like people give feedback, which I think is just high value. Like, where else do you get that? But we're opening up dedicated size peer groups. So I tweeted yesterday it was kind of fun. Or like two days ago. And. And we have two spots open for like a 10 to 20 million peer group. And we got like seven submissions. I had two spots, we got seven submissions. So that was really fun. So we're about to launch a 20 and up peer group, Inside Owned and Operated Pro. If you're in that bucket, like, this is a peer group for me too. Like, we're going to be participating in it as peers, not as like leading it. We would love to have you in? Like, it sounds like a lot of fun. I think we have four people in that group right now, so we're trying to get to eight. So we have four open spots for 20 and up peer group.

[Jack]

Give me a few years.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, you'll get there.

[Jack]

But. And then the other big one is we're headed to Pantheon.

[John]

Are you going?

[Jack]

Wasn't planning on it, but. But then Kristen are. The person behind the scenes told me that I probably am going.

[John]

Yeah, no, yeah.

[Jack]

Like a volun told situation going on.

[John]

Yeah, she is the real boss. But no. Yeah, yeah, we're going to Pantheon and we're recording a live podcast. So it should be really fun. Yeah, yeah, that, that, that's like, let's go.

[Jack]

Let's do it. Yeah, that'll be fun. Cool. Yeah. I've never actually been to Pantheon.

[John]

I have neither. No, this will be my first. I have actually never been to an industry specific conference in my career. I've. I've gone to a bunch of like the SMB Twitter conferences. I have. I've never been to any industry specifics.

[Jack]

Yeah, like, I plan on doing Main street this year too, because that Main Street's always a good one. I haven't. I did S and Bash for the first time, which was.

[John]

I have a ton of friends at both of them. It's just I, I told myself a few years ago I have to focus on industry, which was the right move. Like when I told myself that we were 10 million, now we're 30 something. So it was the right move. But I haven't actually. I've only been doing like workshops. Like, I go to a lot of workshops. Our team goes to a ton of workshops or like site visits. It is a very literal. Once a month my team is at someone else's shop somewhere in the US.

[Jack]

I saw on LinkedIn your team was down.

[John]

We're at Caldad. Yeah, we're at Matt's place. Yeah, yeah. He runs an awesome shop. So yeah, once a month. I, I think we did three site visits last month in Denver, one in Minnesota. Like, it's crazy. We're flying people all over the place. We're. We're like, how do we get SOPs? How do we like, prep for our next stage? And they're learning a ton, which you.

[Jack]

Get to do at Breaking Five at John's Shop.

[John]

Full walkthrough. Boom. And you're really keeping us like on task today.

[Jack]

Look at that. I'm good, man. Just circling back. Just.

[John]

Yeah, you're good now. This is good. Awesome.

[Jack]

All right, guys, well, make sure you.

[John]

Sub for the newsletter.

[Jack]

Give us a like comment to how how correct John is below about how 40 million just Baby, look, I'm not there either. Little tiny.

[John]

I'm literally not there either.

[Jack]

Not even a business, baby business.

[John]

I am also not there either. So I feel personally attacked.

[Jack]

I hope so.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack]

Thanks, guys.

[John]

I appreciate it.