#233 How They Make $7M+ a Year From Their Plumbing Company

Summary

Owned and Operated Podcast Episode #233: How They Make $7M+ a Year From Their Plumbing Company

Podcast Information:

• Title: Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
• Host: John Wilson
• Guests: Laura and Brian Beltz
• Release Date: August 14, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode #233 of Owned and Operated, host John Wilson welcomes Laura and Brian Beltz, the dynamic married couple behind a thriving plumbing, electrical, and HVAC business. Based in rural Ohio, the Beltzs share their journey from humble beginnings to achieving annual revenues exceeding $7 million. This episode delves into their strategies for business growth, team building, marketing, and navigating the challenges of scaling a multi-trade home service company.

Starting the Business

Brian Beltz recounts his entrepreneurial spark, ignited after a disheartening conversation with his banker who suggested he should "go work for somebody else" (00:00). Armed with experience from the Navy as an electrician, Brian launched his own service company in 2001. Initially offering electrical, plumbing, and HVAC services, the business faced typical startup struggles, including financial instability and the need for diversification to stay afloat (01:20).

Growth and Scaling

The first significant growth phase occurred when Laura Beltz joined the company in 2008. With her background in marketing, Laura transformed the business's approach to growth by implementing structured processes and harnessing effective marketing strategies. Brian emphasizes the importance of collaboration, stating, "Jump in with both feet" (76:45).

The Beltzs initially operated with a small team of three members, including Brian and Laura. Over the years, their team expanded to 49 employees, a testament to their effective scaling strategies in a predominantly rural market (05:07).

Implementing Processes and Systems

A pivotal moment in their growth was the adoption of Nexar's service system and the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in 2015. Laura highlights, "Nextar has the whole entire process, the whole entire business model. Just do it" (09:58). Implementing these systems provided a structured framework that streamlined operations and facilitated consistent growth.

The Beltzs faced challenges during the initial implementation, particularly balancing daily operations with the adoption of new systems. However, persistence paid off, leading to a more organized and efficient business model (07:40).

Leadership and Team Building

Brian and Laura stress the necessity of investing in people. Brian reflects on a crucial realization: "You can't do everything with yourself and you got to get" (10:15). As the business grew, they recognized the importance of delegating responsibilities and empowering their team members.

The introduction of key roles such as Operations Manager and Implementation Manager was instrumental in aligning internal processes and enhancing customer service. Laura notes, "The way we treat our customers and the way that we treat our employees... sets us apart" (11:34).

Marketing and Lead Generation

Operating in a rural area south of Toledo, the Beltzs employed a combination of traditional and community-focused marketing strategies. They utilized billboards extensively, becoming a familiar sight in their region, which significantly boosted brand recognition (41:11).

Additionally, community engagement through sponsorships of local sports teams and events helped build strong relationships with customers. Laura emphasizes the effectiveness of billboards, stating, "We probably have the most billboards in our area. They seem to be extremely effective" (41:09).

Acquisition and Expansion

In early 2025, the Beltzs made their first acquisition, purchasing a half-million-dollar plumbing business from a retiring owner. This strategic move expanded their customer base and geographic reach. Brian describes the acquisition process, highlighting the importance of due diligence and cultural alignment: "We learned a lot from it... It was a very valuable training experience" (28:00).

The acquisition taught them valuable lessons in operational efficiency and the importance of having robust processes in place before scaling further (32:12).

Navigating Challenges

The Beltzs faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, government subsidies and increased home system installations bolstered their revenues. However, as these subsidies ceased, they had to address underlying operational weaknesses that became glaringly apparent when the revenue influx stopped (13:07).

Implementing EOS provided the structure needed to tackle these challenges head-on. Laura states, "It doesn't allow us to lose focus of what we're trying to accomplish in a quarter or in the year" (16:16). Regular meetings and transparent financial practices fostered alignment and accountability within the team.

Future Plans and Scaling Up

Looking ahead, the Beltzs plan to continue growing through additional acquisitions, focusing on smaller towns where they can replicate their successful model. They are also exploring the development of a franchise model to facilitate expansion while maintaining their core values and operational standards.

Laura mentions, "We're trying to build a franchise model... Expand in a way that works for us" (73:31).

Lessons Learned and Key Takeaways

1. Invest in People: "Jump in with both feet" (76:45) and prioritize hiring the right team members who align with your company’s values.
2. Implement Structured Processes: Utilizing systems like Nexar and EOS can provide the necessary framework for sustained growth.
3. Community Engagement: Building strong local relationships through marketing and community involvement is crucial, especially in rural areas.
4. Be Adaptable: Flexibility in operations and marketing strategies allows businesses to navigate challenges effectively.
5. Continuous Improvement: Regularly assess and refine business processes to maintain efficiency and support scaling efforts.

Notable Quotes

• Brian Beltz: "You need to invest in the people. Slow to hire, quick to fire. It's not a bad thing." (00:27)
• Laura Beltz: "Nextar has the whole entire process, the whole entire business model. Just do it." (09:58)
• Laura Beltz: "I don't really worry about our competition that much because they don't seem to be as focused as we are." (44:21)
• Brian Beltz: "Follow the process." (76:50)
• Laura Beltz: "Just get rid of them. Slow to hire, quick to fire." (77:55)

Conclusion

Laura and Brian Beltz exemplify how strategic planning, effective team building, and robust marketing can drive significant growth in the home services industry. Their journey from a small, multi-trade operation to a $7M+ annual revenue business offers invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs in the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC sectors. By investing in their people, adhering to structured processes, and engaging deeply with their community, the Beltzs have created a resilient and scalable business model poised for continued success.

For more insights and actionable advice on growing your home service business, visit www.ownedandoperated.com.

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Timestamp Reference:

• [00:00] - Brian Beltz discusses initial challenges and motivations.
• [00:27] - Laura Beltz shares key business philosophies.
• [05:07] - Growth from a team of three to 49 employees.
• [09:58] - Implementation of Nexar systems.
• [11:34] - Importance of customer and employee treatment.
• [16:16] - Benefits of EOS in maintaining focus.
• [28:00] - Details on the first business acquisition.
• [32:12] - Lessons learned from scaling operations.
• [44:21] - Competitive advantage through focused efforts.
• [73:31] - Future expansion plans and franchise model.
• [76:45] - Key lesson on investing in people.
• [76:50] - Importance of following processes.
• [77:55] - Quick hiring and firing for maintaining culture.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essential discussions and insights shared by Laura and Brian Beltz, providing a valuable resource for listeners and those interested in scaling their home service businesses.

Transcript

[Brian Beltz]

I remember our banker was like, you know, you need to go work for somebody else. That just kind of lit a fire in me. I'll show you can't do everything yourself.

[John Wilson]

What do you mean? Are you the biggest in your market?

[Laura Beltz]

I would say yes. I don't really worry about our competition that much. They don't have the same ethics and they don't have the same values, and that's one of the main things that sets us apart.

[John Wilson]

What are the, like, passing lessons here for people starting off in the trades.

[Laura Beltz]

Who equals money, that's just the name of the game. You have to invest in the people. Slow to hire, quick to fire. It's not a bad thing. Oh, I have one more, too.

[John Wilson]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. I'm the CEO of Wilson Plumbing in Stow, Ohio. And today I'm joined on the show by Laura and Brian Beltz. Welcome to the show.

[Laura Beltz]

Thanks.

[Brian Beltz]

Glad to be here.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. Thanks for having us.

[John Wilson]

This is fun. Yeah, I. I don't get to talk to a lot of married couple partners, and I don't get to talk to a lot of people in Ohio. So, like, we're checking off some boxes today. This will be fun. I'd love to hear a little bit about the start of belts. Like, how did that look? A little bit of background on the company and then where we are today.

[Brian Beltz]

Absolutely. So I started the business in 2001, and I got out of. I went to the Navy out of high school and was an electrician in the Navy. So I got out of the Navy, moved back to Finley and started working for a service company doing electrical, picked up plumbing and heating and cooling as well. And my boss at the time said, you know, all these systems work together, so you have to do all of these things. And it was the same thing in the Navy. We worked on all of the systems. So I didn't know any better, which is young. And. And I didn't know any better. So we did. Started off doing all of the trades.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And I. I wanted to, you know, I was in that young phase where had a young daughter, new, newly married and house and broke and wanted to make more money.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And, you know, I wanted to. I went to the boss and asked him about that, and he said that he pays the best in town. And, you know, so I wanted to make more money. I had an entrepreneurial seizure and. And decided to open my business up. And I think it was 16 years later, you know, we started to make, you know, more. Start to make money. You know that, that cycle.

[John Wilson]

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[Brian Beltz]

That's, that's really where I got started. I joined in to Nexar. I was contractors 2000 at the time, back in 2003 and like things were, things were moving really fast. We were super busy and, and cheap. We didn't know what the heck we were doing.

[John Wilson]

Was it always service or was new construction?

[Brian Beltz]

We started doing new construction as, as well as service and playing that game.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Dabbled money all of the stuff to anything to pay the bills.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Just like any, any new business like that.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And anyhow, Lara joined me in 2008 and with her marketing background and we joined forces going forward to really grow the business.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And, and really implement all of the next are processes instead of dabbling.

[Laura Beltz]

What he forgets to tell people is when I came on the scene he. I'm like well what kind of marketing do you have? And oh well, I have a yellow page ad and I have the trucks wrapped and I'm like. And that was it. That was all he had. So I kind of couldn't help myself. I got sucked into it. I never. I had my own design company so I had, I had literally no desire, no interest in joining the company and jumping on board, but I couldn't even help myself. I mean I think the trades just kind of get in your blood and suck you in. And so helping him and create, you know, all the marketing and I just took over. I didn't really give him a choice. I just took over everything and went from there and it's been amazing to see kind of our journey.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Where we've come from and where we are now.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

When, when you joined in, how many people were on the team?

[Laura Beltz]

Three.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, there's three of us.

[John Wilson]

And that's like you someone in another.

[Brian Beltz]

Guy in a truck and somebody answering the phone.

[Don]

Yep.

[John Wilson]

And then team size now 49.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah.

[Don]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Wilson]

That's amazing.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, it's pretty, pretty big.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Well in, in like we didn't talk about much where you are, but like south of Toledo, so like fairly rural community. So like. Yeah, that's a lot of people for a very rural community.

[Laura Beltz]

Very rural area. You know, we, on average, there's a lot of different areas that we pick up. We can go 50 miles.

[John Wilson]

Wow.

[Laura Beltz]

I mean, it's, it's a lot of.

[John Wilson]

Well, it's 50 miles. Is that like, you're right on 80. So is that an hour or is that two hours? Like, how long is 50 miles?

[Brian Beltz]

That's about an hour.

[John Wilson]

Okay. Will you typically go beyond an hour?

[Brian Beltz]

Sometimes a little bit. But in the majority of our businesses in, you know, in one town and one county.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

So within a 20 minute, you know, travel area, I think the population is. It's under 100,000, 80,000 maybe. Population.

[John Wilson]

That's fascinating.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

When we picked up the secondary business a little bit further to the north, we picked up in a whole nother area. So that's been kind of interesting and, and figuring out how we're going to staff that and potentially, you know, grow that, that area and that business. That's. That's been a very interesting process.

[Don]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

So the first nine years, 10 years were, were working hard and grind. Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Yes.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. Laura comes in, we start implementing nexstar. Sounds like there was an acquisition in there. So that was the first nine years. What happened in the next 15? Like, what's happened since then?

[Laura Beltz]

Well, the acquisition was actually beginning of this year. Yeah.

[Don]

Oh, wow.

[John Wilson]

This is very fresh.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, very fresh.

[Don]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

The. I don't know, we were using some of nexstar, kind of dipping our toe doing the service system, but not really diving in fully. You know, going to super meetings, seeing these amazing companies and, oh, we're gonna go home and we're gonna implement this and we're gonna do this. And we didn't. And I think we were just so busy with the daily grind that we just, we just didn't take the time. I don't. Just trying to just pay the bills.

[Brian Beltz]

When, when you're in. Just in that grind for so long, you know, it's, it's very easy to. I remember our banker. I think we needed a. We're trying to get a loan or secure a line of credit. And I remember him looking at me and looking at our books and our numbers and was like, you know, you need to go work for somebody else. This, this doesn't work. You know, you're not, this isn't profitable and I don't know what you're doing. And, and I don't know, I think, I feel like that just kind of lit a fire in me. Like I'll, I'll show you. And so, you know, really, we went to a couple of other nexstar shops. I think a lot of it was in our head. You know, you hear a lot that this is, you know, you can't, can't do that in our area and we're in a smaller rural area. So I believe I bought into a lot of that. Yeah, you can't use the systems that works great in a bigger area, in a bigger town. So we went to a couple of other next door shops that were in smaller areas than us and just rocking it and they weren't doing anything special. They were just using all of the tools that we have access to and we just, we decided let's just, let's use all of the tools. And that's really when we started to grow.

[John Wilson]

What were the big ones that come to mind? I mean it sounds like service system, like a sales process basically.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, just using the process, just basically.

[Laura Beltz]

Drinking the Kool Aid. Like quit trying to reinvent the wheel. It's all right there. Nextar has the whole entire process, the whole entire business model. Just do it. You know, stop thinking that people smarter than you that have been in business longer than you don't know what they're talking about. They do, they know what they're talking about. Just do it. And I don't mean to literally be kind of a commercial for nextar, but I mean it's literally the reason that we found success and you know, for us to look at each other one day and be like, I, I don't know if we can do this anymore. And then as soon as we implement those processes then magically, I mean, it's not magic, it's just follow the process and the results will come. And being consistent, I mean that, that's the big key because you can't just follow it sometime and then, you know, slack off. You know, it's every day, every single day in every department. Everybody has to be polite, pulling, pulling their weight and doing what they're supposed to be doing.

[John Wilson]

Over the past like I guess 14 years, 15 years since really like pushing hard on Nextar, like biggest any like acquisition that's going to be a game changer. Like are you guys on service titan? What are the level up changes that we've seen inside the business leadership team and people?

[Brian Beltz]

I think has been the biggest change. Right. You can't do everything with yourself and you got to get.

[John Wilson]

What do you mean?

[Brian Beltz]

Around.

[Laura Beltz]

I think that was probably a realization though is like, you know, I felt like in the early years we, we. Well, he thought, I think that he could have just gotten in the truck and just worked and worked and worked and worked and eventually pulled it off. And I think you get to a certain size where you just can't do that anymore. You know, you're not physically able to go to that many calls. You, you have to start growing your people. So in turn they do what they're supposed to be doing and they, they can grow more people. I mean it's, it's, that's just the nature of the business and realizing that you can't be the only person that carries that drive that you have to, you have to make sure that your team is just as driven and understands the, the purpose behind what you're doing. Because you know, we'll, we'll sales fantastic. But the name of the game is helping people. Because if you're helping people, then eventually the sales will come. It just will, you know, because your name gets around. People respect what you do, they trust what you do and therefore it ends up you, you get more business.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Because there's so many fly by night companies out there. There's so many. One man in a truck, one woman in a truck. They don't have the same ethics and they don't have the same values. And I think that's one of the main things that sets us apart is the way we treat our customers and the way that we treat our employees. And you know, he's talking about bringing on our operations manager and our implementation manager. They were extremely key in getting our alignment to where it needs to be with our people internally. And then therefore that shows through to the customer. Just like a well oiled machine amongst all the key players.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

When did, what size did you bring on the operations manager or director of ops?

[Brian Beltz]

Director of operation.

[John Wilson]

I want to make sure I get it right.

[Brian Beltz]

So that was right about a little over 5 million.

[John Wilson]

Okay.

[Brian Beltz]

And I feel like I was able to just will the business to 5.

[John Wilson]

Million and, and 3 to 5 is a brutal, it is slog.

[Laura Beltz]

It's a grind.

[John Wilson]

It three to five. Yeah. We call it the hell zone or something on the show. It's awful.

[Brian Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

It's all, I mean it's a, you know, it's a well known fact.

[Brian Beltz]

I feel like the, the, the five to ten where we're starting to get fun.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Could start to get fun. But I feel like we Had a lot of hell that we.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Maybe ignored in the shoving through to the 3 to 5 range that reared its head, you know, trying to get to the next level.

[Laura Beltz]

I think Covid helped with that too.

[John Wilson]

I was going to ask about the COVID years.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, well, we had some pretty rich years, basically, but I would say when the money stopped coming.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

You know, when the government subsidies stopped and you had people spending less money and all that gravy train kind of came to a halt, then all the problems that you could kind of ignore because money is coming in suddenly become these giant red flags and you're. You can't ignore them anymore. You have to actually do something about them.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

There was multiple factors, I think.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

I was listening to Chad Peterman show, and I don't remember which episode it was. I'll have to try to find it. But it talked about that because they. They started Covid at like 20 million and they ended Covid at like 85 or 90. Like, it was absolutely. It was absolutely insane for like a 36 month period.

[Laura Beltz]

We had all these people who were at home.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Using all of these.

[Brian Beltz]

All.

[Laura Beltz]

All of the systems in their house. So much more than they were before. So it was like magic.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, totally, totally.

[Brian Beltz]

I feel like.

[John Wilson]

Is revenue higher now than it was in Covid for you guys or.

[Brian Beltz]

Absolutely.

[John Wilson]

Okay.

[Brian Beltz]

I feel like the, the process and some of the fundamentals were. Were lost or overlooked. You know, when you have. When you have a lot of business coming in and you have money rolling in, you kind of ignore some of those. But I. I really feel like that was some of the areas that we really started to focus on.

[John Wilson]

Like, sounds like in the last year or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think most people are in like a. Like a recalibration.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

You know, growth's no longer 100 year over year. Growth is 10 to 30 or whatever.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

You have to get better.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

When. When did we drive EOS into the business?

[Brian Beltz]

It's been 2015.

[John Wilson]

Okay.

[Laura Beltz]

Right. Yeah.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Well established.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. It's. It's kind of ingrained.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

Like, what was the. How do you think it's helping you today versus 10 years ago?

[Brian Beltz]

We've had a lot of practice at it, so I feel like we're a lot better at it now.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And it's a normal cadence that we have. It's what we do on a daily, weekly, and monthly, quarterly basis.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

I think it makes you more willing to. Instead of just come with a problem and have no solution. Like, people are already ready to solve instead of just complain. So I think it gives more clarity than we probably would have had. Gives a process to actually solve things. And I think, too, along the way, especially with the leadership team, it's given some. An area where. Where they could improve their own leadership skills in their departments and giving them some tools to do that as well.

[Brian Beltz]

Also, it doesn't allow us to lose focus of what we're trying to accomplish in a quarter or in the year. The daily fires and the daily things that go on within the business. We get to refocus at least every week.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

And there's five leaders in EOs. Like in your.

[Brian Beltz]

No, our leadership team, we have six, seven all together.

[John Wilson]

Okay. In our leadership team, how many L10s are we. I'm just. I don't. I don't think I've. Okay.

[Brian Beltz]

Yep. We do one a week.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

That was one of the error. That was one of the gaps that we had with EOS. We're four years into it, end of 2021, and one of the challenges was we couldn't, like, keep up with the amount of L10s that had to happen, which I. You know, they don't really explain that to you during onboarding or in the book, but at one point, it was 14 L10s a week.

[Laura Beltz]

That's a lot.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, well, because it's supposed to be. You fully roll it through the whole organization, you cascade messages, and you do this whole thing. And, I mean, people just didn't have time to do their jobs. So right now, I think. I think we now run four, and that. That has felt pretty healthy for us. It's, you know, senior leadership team, and that's like directors and then the frontline leaders have, like, some under that, and then we might have five, because a few of the support teams, like, marketing has one, HR has one. But yeah, at one point, 14, because it was. Call center, had one dispatch. You know, everybody had one. It was just so much. We are.

[Brian Beltz]

We're working on. On our second L. L10 with the managers and the department.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, Leaders.

[Laura Beltz]

I think we had to get the right people in the management positions to even, you know, disseminate that down. It was like. Like I said, we feel like we've got the team. So, yeah, there were. There was a lot of time over those years where we did not have the right people in the seat. And you can't push that down if you can't get the right person in that seat.

[John Wilson]

It's a game changer. Once you Feel like you're there.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah. We're doing a lot with communication in our huddle and then our check ins middays.

[John Wilson]

Like daily huddle.

[Brian Beltz]

Daily. Yeah. And, and that's resolving a lot of the issues that come up just because we're, we're dealing with them right away.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

We don't talk as we probably should. We don't talk like as tactical as daily huddle on here very often. So I'd love to hear about your daily huddle. Like what's that look like?

[Brian Beltz]

It's, it's very specific. We do 10 minutes, it's 9:03 and that's when we start.

[John Wilson]

And we do it like on purpose.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, Just, just, just to make it a little bit different. But we have, I mean it's grown over the years and we stole a spreadsheet from, from another member and we modified that to go through all of our different departments and we have it tied in with our budget. We have the, we have the field managers that will, they will call in and participate as well. So from out in the trucker or if they're in the office. And it's just, we run it really efficient and we've gotten a lot better at doing a quick job of reporting the numbers of what happened yesterday, so celebrating wins and. But it's more focused on what are we doing today to cover the gap and what commitments do we have to win the day. To win the day. But it just takes it. I mean, I think back to, I don't know, five years ago when we were doing the huddle and it was terrible. Just called a muddle.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Because we just muddled through it.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

I'm not even sure. I think we spent most of the time just reporting what we did yesterday and trying to figure out those numbers and we would just let the day happen. Now we're attacking the day at 9 o'. Clock.

[Laura Beltz]

I think a lot of those, whether you're talking about EOS or that it's practice, you know, it's like anything else. The more you do it, the more.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

More people get on board with it, the easier it becomes and then it's second nature and you don't necessarily have to think about what you should be talking about. You already know.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

It is kind of funny. I remember like we first got on EOS and they told us it'd be a two or three year implementation and you're like, how like four years in we're like, we still don't do that. Yeah, that's true. Have you guys looked at scaling up yet?

[Brian Beltz]

What do you mean? No.

[John Wilson]

So they're EO scaling up is like a slightly different version of eos.

[Brian Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

No, it's a rabbit hole. It's kind of interesting. If you have Spotify Premium, the audiobook is free.

[Brian Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

So there you go. But EOS was really helpful for us for like how we, how are we meeting, how are we solving all the stuff you just said, meeting, solving problems, what's our pulse, what the challenges are that we have felt. And I don't know when people start feeling this, but I've heard, you know, a variety of sizes, I think it's headcount, like 150eos becomes a little bit more challenging. And part of it is like you don't cover all the problems. So EOS is like, let's solve problems. And what that usually means is let's solve operational problems. Like we're not going to solve. I mean, we might, but it's not set up to solve cash flow problems with a leadership team. It's not set up to solve like people problems because the people in that room might be the people problem. So they're not really set up to do that, but scaling up does. Is set up to do that. So it's a very similar mechanic, like how you meet, how you pulse, how you do daily huddles. But it's worth a read. Even if you don't fully implement, it does sort of hit some of the other stuff. So we're getting ready to move from EOS to scaling up. And the four pillars are leaders. Like, how do you continually develop and bring on new leaders? What's your pipeline? What's your infrastructure? Are you built to scale? Like, do you have the software stack, the automation, whatever, what's your strategy or execution? Like, do you have one? And then is it good? You know, so step one, step two there. And then the final one is cash, which that has been interesting for us. Like, and you guys will feel this too if you, if you don't now. But we never used to talk about cash or like net with leaders. Are you guys doing that?

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, we are.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, we, we didn't. And then we started going like full open book financial down to cash, which was like a transformative experience for us like a year ago. But it really like it drove alignment with the whole. It was wild. It was wild.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, we have pretty good alignment.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

With, with the leadership team. And it was a big deal bringing the supervisors up.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And getting them immersed into the numbers.

[Laura Beltz]

It's like an eye opening that they have, you know.

[Don]

Oh yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

They, they, they finally understand.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

You know. Oh, oh that's, that's why we're doing this. And. Yes. You know.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

When you finally open those books and, and just become more transparent.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

And they get to see more of the back end of.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

How this whole entire engine works.

[John Wilson]

I think that for us anyways. Sounds like it might be for you. Was the key to unlocking better leaders was they just actually know the score. And then they started making decisions that I would have made but in my stead. I mean like cost savings decisions or like they understand the game that we're now playing which was helpful. So everyone, we're on a year of open books. So like at the end of the month we. Here's the P and L. Here's what happened. Here's Cat. Did cash go up or down and that.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

It's been amazing.

[Laura Beltz]

I could see that.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah. I feel like there's a lot more ownership from the, from everybody in the leadership team, especially the, the department supervisors where they're, they're, they're empowered now to make some decisions to play the game versus just seeing some of the results and not understanding.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Some of their moves that they're, that they're making and how they affect the numbers.

[John Wilson]

A fun thing. I'm curious if you guys have already done this because sounds like you did this way earlier than me. Fun thing we're doing is we've, we're taking a P and L and like we're. Instead of the number next to it, we're putting a name. Have you guys done that?

[Brian Beltz]

No.

[Laura Beltz]

No.

[John Wilson]

So that was, that was something that we thought was kind of interesting. Is it because we're open book financial? How do we, how can we like drive like GL code alignment like like hey, you are responsible for this line on the P and L. And then we're going to print it out on a four foot tall sticker and like smack it around the office.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

So per department as well. Right.

[John Wilson]

So it's going to be the rolled up P and L and then we'll go a little bit lower than that for frontline leaders. But like who's accountable for materials and who's accountable for revenue? It was eye opening. You would imagine we have stuff more put together than we do but we're learning every day. And there's definitely some lines where like revenue doesn't sound complicated. Ended up being a little complicated. Like it. Because the way we've divided our Company, it's lead. So like marketing, call center, dispatch, like the lead side of the business, the sale and the fulfillment. So like that's how the org structure set up. That's how everything is set up is like we tried to make it as simple as humanly possible, but revenue gets complicated. Because is it sales or is it fulfillment? Because like they're both sort of doing it and the actual revenue is achieved by the install team. Like sales doesn't do the revenue, install team does the revenue. So they're really trying to nail down who's accountable for what. Who's accountable for the lines below. That got kind of interesting because there was mixed accountabilities between two senior leaders. So hey, two directors are potentially in charge of revenue. Well, who owns it?

[Brian Beltz]

I could see this as a, as an issue coming up as we scale.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, it was an issue. We ended up landing on sales, I think, but for which is that maybe sounds obvious, like it even sounds obvious to me as I'm saying it. But for the last year that's been fulfillment. Like revenue is fulfillment. Like they're the ones that complete the job, so that revenue is their deal. So that was like, sort of like, okay, wow, this is interesting.

[Laura Beltz]

It sounds a lot like the rabbit hole of where did the lead come from?

[Don]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

Attribution's a whole nother.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

All right. So day to day, you are running operations. You're sitting in the EOS visionary role.

[Brian Beltz]

Yes.

[John Wilson]

And you're running the marketing and PR and like community. Sounds like.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, yeah. We, we come together when we make larger company decisions together.

[John Wilson]

What are some examples? Like acquisition.

[Laura Beltz]

Acquisition. Sometimes it has to do with employees.

[Brian Beltz]

Growth, Growth areas where we want to expand to just stuff. We're looking at bigger picture.

[John Wilson]

Bigger picture.

[Brian Beltz]

Year down the road. Three, five years down the road.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

I'd love to hear a little bit about the acquisition earlier this year.

[Brian Beltz]

That was interesting.

[Laura Beltz]

Very interesting.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. All right. I'm, I'm even more interested now.

[Brian Beltz]

Well, this was our first one and, and we wanted to mess up on.

[John Wilson]

Is there going to be more?

[Brian Beltz]

Oh, yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Oh yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

All right.

[John Wilson]

Sweet. Solid.

[Brian Beltz]

But so our first one came through. A friend of ours that was doing a sign for this guy. Yeah. He wanted to, he was looking to retire. Wanted somebody that was multi trade to be able to take care of his customers.

[Laura Beltz]

He wanted somebody like him. That's what he wanted.

[John Wilson]

Did he find it?

[Laura Beltz]

Oh, yeah. He loves Brian.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, we, we were, you know, we were cut from the same cloth.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

He wanted to make sure his customers were taken care of in the same manner they were used to being taken care of. Yeah, I think we've exceeded.

[John Wilson]

All right.

[Laura Beltz]

You know, we get plenty of reviews back where we've blown their mind.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

But you know, it's a bigger operation and yeah, sometimes that comes with more services, more amenity, you know, just different opportunities that a shop the size of his don't. Just doesn't have the ability to do. So there's some benefits.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah, there is.

[John Wilson]

How many people did it have?

[Brian Beltz]

He had. He was down to two technicians and himself and somebody in the office a week.

[John Wilson]

Like a half million bucks. Million bucks?

[Brian Beltz]

Yes. It was like half a million dollar business. He had up to 14 people, you know, a few years prior. And then he was just whittling it down. 70, 70, I think, and was just done. So it. The last couple of years had really just dropped. But this was, you know, so one of the things that we learned was looking at somebody's books a little better, being able to get access to their customer list. We still have yet to. We've done pretty well in that area of acquiring customers, but we still don't even have a proper mailing list.

[Laura Beltz]

No.

[Brian Beltz]

When they came to the table and we were doing negotiations, they brought two large.

[John Wilson]

Yes.

[Laura Beltz]

Rolodexes.

[Don]

Yep. Yep.

[Laura Beltz]

Literally.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

I've seen handwritten.

[John Wilson]

I've seen this.

[Laura Beltz]

Yes.

[John Wilson]

It's like we've had to not take them on. Like, we're like, I literally, I can't, like, I will not get enough out of this deal to devote the resource that it's going to take to deal with this.

[Laura Beltz]

We, we're. I feel like we're at the point where we're literally going to have to hire somebody to just do data entry because, I mean, there's a ton of customers in there.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

But on the other side, flip side of that, you know, word has gotten out and we've had enough trucks in that area.

[John Wilson]

We.

[Laura Beltz]

We're getting calls. We took over their number. So it.

[John Wilson]

In Toledo, like, is it in. Okay. Is it also. It's also very.

[Laura Beltz]

It's in the middle of nowhere.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

But, you know, they're very appreciative customers and yeah. In those communities, you have to remember I, I try and remind him of the big picture, you know, Word. Like, word for. About a new company that's doing really well. Spreads like wildfire. Like, you know, they might have neighbors 10 miles away, but they're going to call them. So getting our name out in that area has not really been a difficult thing because the customers have been so happy with us.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

And I think it went a long way. Brian actually went over to the shop and he kind of did a, you.

[Brian Beltz]

Know, a little PR tour.

[Laura Beltz]

Little PR tour. Kissing babies. I'm exaggerating, but it kind of was. Cause how many, how many coffee shops?

[Brian Beltz]

And just, we just went around and he introduced me and, you know, to the whole town.

[John Wilson]

How far is it from your current. Or like close to an hour. Okay.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Are you guys thinking about merging it or are you thinking about, like, what's the. What do you think?

[Brian Beltz]

Separate location. So, yeah, we'll set up a little warehouse and a hub out of there. But we've been training everybody at our.

[Laura Beltz]

Current location just getting to figuring out how that makes sense to, to add another, you know, manager, tech.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Call. You know, is. It's call center there. We still run it at our current location. Those kind of things.

[Brian Beltz]

As, as we have been thinking about scaling out, scaling up. Right. And, and going to different locations, it uncovered a lot of inefficiencies in our, in our own warehouse, in our own operation.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Like, if we got to duplicate this, you know, even at a smaller scale, we got to get our stuff together in house first.

[John Wilson]

It's.

[Brian Beltz]

So that's what we've really been working on.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

So I, I feel like the, the small acquisition and, and the, the small business that we, that we took over was really good because we, we learned a lot of stuff.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And you wouldn't want to buy a large company and, and go through all of those learning curves. That could be really expensive.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

So it's, it's been a very valuable training experience.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

And I think we took a lot away from it, so. Yeah, I think it was a good move and, you know, gave us extra. An extra coverage area, more customers. And.

[John Wilson]

Did you feel like you were capped at your current.

[Laura Beltz]

No.

[Brian Beltz]

No.

[John Wilson]

Just like an opportunity that came along.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, it was just an opportunity. And you know, I, I think it always goes back to the, the original goal. Like, we're here to help customers and, and being able to. To grab a whole nother section of customers that we can help. Help. You know, that's the goal at the end of the day, is just to help more people.

[John Wilson]

This is a model I'm seeing more and more. So like conventional wisdom would be we ran multi location for almost exactly what you're doing for like two years, three years.

[Brian Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

Because we bought a bunch of businesses in 20, 21 3. We bought nine total but three in 2021. And then we ran all three of those separately like different locations. And they were all just year round. Like Cleveland. Ish. Like you know, within the farthest one was an hour.

[Brian Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

And yeah. Learned a lot. Learned a lot. And we now operate in one. So we did that a couple years ago.

[Brian Beltz]

Do you still occupy locations?

[John Wilson]

Okay.

[Brian Beltz]

No physical freaking order.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. I think where we were different than what you guys are doing is we start we did a smaller, like half or less than the size you guys were at when you did yours. So we were like 3 million bucks.

[Laura Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

So we didn't have structure. Like we didn't have anything. I don't know why we thought we could do it.

[Laura Beltz]

You didn't know any better.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, I didn't. So we did it. Yeah. And we lived. But yeah, it was ridiculous. But yeah, I'm seeing this smaller locations going multi location sooner than, than it used to be. Right. So like what it used to look like and I think industry norm is like a plant then expand. So 20 to 30 million. You, your headquarters is 2030. And then you start popping an hour away, an hour away, an hour away. And I'm meeting more and more people running like more of a shared like hey, 5 million here, 5 million here, 5 million Here. Like I don't know if you guys see called AD, but Matt down there is running. I think they're 35 or 40 this year with eight locations. Friend of ours, Mike Wilson, he's a one Tom Plumber, no relation, great last name though. He's a one time plumber and he has I think three or four locations each doing two to three million dollars. It's just interesting and mostly driven rural. And I think that's like a response to PE because we're just seeing more and more people running these like rural. We're like, hey, it's more community focused. I can't go and I'm not pe, but like that's a harder market for PE to work in because the, the market's not big enough.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Like how can you meaningfully compete in a market with 40,000 people or 30,000 people? You need a million. So yeah, it's an interesting model that's like starting to emerge and kind of like big, you know, there's some big players. Matt is probably the biggest one I know. But it's interesting.

[Brian Beltz]

The clients, the customers are super receptive. And I think that was another filter that we had to remove as well. That they're small towns and they're very loyal to the Local plumber, the local electrician. And most of them don't know what they're doing. Business wise, the local person does. It's still the old model. And how are these customers going to react to, you know, the prices we have to charge?

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And it hasn't been an issue at all. They. They just love the process. They love all the options. Things that they never knew that they could get that they were never offered. But obviously you don't have the volume. You don't have that. That huge, you know, area to. To work in. And it's a lot of extra windshield time. Have to get involved in those little communities as well. So we're trying to find technicians that live in those areas, plant trucks and. And. And be visible in those areas.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Does. Does the place you're at have like a college or a Main street or university or.

[Laura Beltz]

No.

[Brian Beltz]

In. In our current location or.

[John Wilson]

Either, I guess either current.

[Laura Beltz]

Yes.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

University and everything.

[John Wilson]

That was Chad's. We had Chad on the show about a year and a half ago, I think, and that was his measurement because he did this too. So he did. He went multi location at 15, which again, conventional wisdom, like, that's early, but like, obviously it worked. He's $100 million and he chose small communities where they were not very competitive. Like you could go in and win somewhat easily, you know, versus like at Cleveland or Indianapolis or something. And his measurement for. Is it big enough? Is do they have a college? Which I thought was interesting. Do they have a college? Do they have a downtown? And you start seeing that a lot at like 40,000, 50,000 people.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. No, the acquisition is super small.

[Brian Beltz]

Have a couple of stoplights.

[John Wilson]

Mm. You guys are driving our measurement.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

So how are you thinking about growing that?

[Brian Beltz]

Just really having a. Our plan was to have more of a visible brick and mortar location and be able to operate out of there.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

The challenges I feel that we are going to have with that is having somebody that is. That's there, that's self supervising.

[John Wilson]

Sure.

[Brian Beltz]

We have a couple of warehouses right now that are separate from our existing office. And that was a huge challenge that we ran into was having that separate location even a couple miles away and having the people be self supervising.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

You really have to have the right person to going to take on that role.

[Brian Beltz]

If not, there's a lot of shenanigans that goes on and inefficiencies.

[Laura Beltz]

And I feel like if you're going to have that few of people to make an impact, you really. They need to be Involved in the community. It's so rural and they're so tight knit. You really have to be to make an impact.

[John Wilson]

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[Laura Beltz]

I think that making sure that you have the right combination of marketing avenues, but also, and I don't know if I'm answering your question, how you really intended it, but I'll tell you if you don't, just making sure that you are, have the right mix and that you take in the basics of marketing, making sure that you know your audience and, and you know, be where they're going to actually see you. Um, we've got a lot of industry in our area. A lot of em are just going to work, going to their kids games, going home. You know, that's kind of where some of the, the community aspect of it comes from. Because if you're trying to reach some of these folks, it can be difficult. They're not necessarily, you know, I'm, I'm trying to plant seeds before they ever even need to call us. And you know, are they going to ball games every single week? Yeah, a lot of them are. So we do a lot in the community with purchasing banners that hang on a lot of these schools, fences for a lot of the different games, basketball, baseball, all that sort of thing.

[Brian Beltz]

We do a lot of billboards, we.

[Laura Beltz]

Do a ton of billboards. Probably the most, most billboards in our area. They seem to be extremely effective. We have a ton of people who specifically talk about the trucks and, or the billboards and I see you everywhere, I see you on the billboards. So just going back to the right mix of the traditional, you knowing exactly the matrix of what works for you to make the phone ring and handing that, doing good handoffs between departments, you know, from the calls that come in to the call center to dispatch to the technician, just make sure. Making sure that there's no holes in that whole process.

[John Wilson]

Would you say it is competitive for leads? I think rural's just. Rural's fascinating to me. So I'm sorry, I'm probably going to go down a rabbit hole here, but I just think it's so interesting.

[Laura Beltz]

I would say it can be.

[John Wilson]

Are you the biggest in your market?

[Laura Beltz]

I would say yes.

[John Wilson]

I would have to imagine the size of market.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Because you're big.

[Laura Beltz]

There's a lot of. There's a couple smaller shops. There's a couple. One man. One man truck and. And I always hate that term because there's so many women in the field now that you really need to include them as well.

[Brian Beltz]

But we have a number of other larger companies that are in our area and even in the rural. Rural areas, but they do a lot of new construction, commercial, industrial and, you know, and they have a couple service guys.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

I just don't think their focus is as laser focused as ours. You know, they, they're going to go wherever the money takes them. And I don't know that they really have a plan. And I feel like, you know, with next stars, you know, business planning and ways to make sure that you're very dialed in on what your goal is and how you're going to accomplish that just makes us a bit stronger of a company than somebody who's just flying by the seat of their pants, which is, I think, what most of them are doing. So, you know, when we think about marketing, it's more making sure that people make the connection between the brand, no matter which avenue we're going down for marketing and, and making sure that that stays the same, you know, across the different platforms. And I think it makes a. Makes a huge impact because, you know, when people call in and they can't even tell you exactly, well, I saw you here, but I also saw you here and you know, that sometimes is a challenge for the call center to know where the acquisition, where the accountability lies for that. That lead. But I just, I think we've gotten things dialed in enough that I don't, I don't. I hate to say this even out loud, but I don't really worry about our competition that much because they don't seem to be as focused as we are. And I think that makes a huge difference.

[John Wilson]

It sounds like most of the spend is like branded spend is like LSA as much of a. Yeah, we have.

[Laura Beltz]

A pretty beefy LSA paid. Yeah, we contract out. We, we use camp. They're a nextar. Preferred vendor. We also use Johnson Media for. They do a lot of negotiation for us for broadcast and cable. We do pretty much everything. Just making sure the mix is where it needs to be, you know, adjusting that when it needs to be adjusted, and checking, you know, what's working and what's not working. But I try and make sure that we hit everybody multiple times in some way, shape or fashion.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think you guys are going to win. I think, like, when I hear one of the advantages of, like, small town, there's like, it's. It's both an advantage and a disadvantage, and it depends on who you're talking to. But the advantage is it's winnable. Like, it's winnable like by hat. Like by having a marketing strategy and just spending money. Like, you'll probably win. You'll win the market. But. But the downside is, like, there's a cap, so how big can it ever get? You know? But I don't know if it depends on the person that might not be a downside at all.

[Laura Beltz]

But I. I don't look at it as there being a cap. I just. I think our town is a little bit. And you can correct me if you don't agree, but we have so many different industries that are changing out so often. We have the corporate for Marathon. The corporate offices are in our town. Yeah, we've got the corporate offices for what used to be Cooper.

[John Wilson]

Like Cooper Tire.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

So, yeah, because auto has to be a thing. And Toledo's glass, right? A lot of glass.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's, there's a lot of industry that's changing out. Yeah, you know, they've got a lot of people coming in and leaving. So you've got different people with different needs coming in and out all the time. So I don't know, is there really a cap? We haven't found it yet and we're planning on expanding our area. So I don't know. I think that's just kind of our mantra, to roll with it and just figure out a way. That's what we've always done is just figured out a way to make it work.

[Brian Beltz]

I think one of the key areas for the rural is most of the people that live out in the rural area have lived there for a long time and, and continue to live there.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And they're. They're more willing to invest in their home and, and to see options to, to fix things or upgrade things. And.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, I think it opens up a lot of things that Might be less typical inside like generators or probably every single house. Like. Yeah, it, it is different.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, yeah, they just have, they have more invested.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

So they're willing to, to take care of it a little bit more than the transient person who's not going to be there forever. I mean some of those people have been there for 80 plus years.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

So yeah, that's a lot.

[Brian Beltz]

There's, there's great opportunities though, but you have to have technicians that are, that are flexible. Yeah, you got a well system versus city water system, you got softener systems. Great opportunities. But if you're, if you just focused in the city and you don't have those skills, then you gotta have the right technicians in that.

[Laura Beltz]

I think it builds their skills, you know, not just it builds their skills because they have to think on their feet. That's kind of one of the things that we look for in new people. You know, are, are you an out of the box thinker? Can you adjust on the fly? Because those are definitely skills that the technicians are going to need on a daily basis. And I think that's probably one of the reasons that people come to our particular area because there is a challenge daily. And especially the younger generation, they seem to thrive on that. They seem to thrive on daily change and, and being able to, you know, be creative with the solutions that they're, they're offering the customer.

[John Wilson]

How does labor work in a smaller market? And this is something by where my question is coming from or Cleveland. So Cleveland like three and a half million people. So like we can always find someone. It just usually takes more money, but we can always find someone. And a concern or like something we've thought about is like, okay, do we take. And you can hear us muse on this over like a two year period of like how do we think about market expansion? Do we want more Cleveland, like Cincinnati, like big cities? Or is there opportunity in 100 to 300,000 population? And our biggest concern is how does, how does labor work? Like how do you bring on the team members and what does that training ramp look like? Because if I went to a Cincinnati, there's like 40 Nextar companies. Like I can find people that are trained on nexstar. So that solves like a whole series of problems that I would have to figure out on my own if I launched in Youngstown for sure.

[Laura Beltz]

And I think you, you are correct. I think you have to change your mindset when you think about hiring technicians in a smaller area because it's the long game. It's always Going to be the long game. And I would much rather pick up somebody who's got soft skills and train them, take the time to train them on the service system and all the ways that we do different, you know, do business differently then try and take a seasoned person who has, you know, junk for skills talking with the customer that I can't. I mean I can try but we've learned over and over again it doesn't work. You have to, you have to have those skills. So I think for us we just kind of figured out along the way that invest, you have to invest in the people. And does that take a lot more time than, than you're talking about? Yeah, it takes a heck of a lot more time, but I think that we find they're more apt to stay longer because we've invested so much into them and built that relationship. So you know, we're not only building relationships with customers, but we're building relations, long standing relationships with, with our employees as well. And I think it's just a different mindset to how, how you're going to hire.

[Brian Beltz]

We're getting a lot of the people from factories or from trade schools coming in and applying from different industries and we're just very open to that. And, and just like she said, they thrive in that freedom to be kind of creative. And when we just train in house and you know, on the technical side and the customers, customers just love that.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

How many people are your, are you like training, how long does it take? Like two years, one year.

[Laura Beltz]

It can take two, two years to fully train, sometimes four. And it really depends on the individual. We've been using Next Tech to, through nexstar to train a lot of, of the green, super green people who come in. But you know, it really depends on the individual. Like I had an electrician who went through the entire NexTech program in two months which is mind blowing. That's a lot of content and a lot of videos and a lot of check off to make sure they know what they're doing. So it really just depends on the individual, on their capacity to learn at a faster pace. But somebody who already has the knowledge and you're really just working on refining their service system. How long would you say for that?

[Brian Beltz]

Six months? Yeah, it's, you know, it's really tough because you're trying to plug in a person into a, into a department and you want them to get, be productive and, and be able to bring revenue in in the shortest amount of time.

[John Wilson]

Right.

[Brian Beltz]

And, and that's, that's not, it's not always ideal. Yeah, it's not ideal. I mean you got to think, think out six months. So we've went to a little bit different model on our staffing and, and I don't know that we have anybody, maybe a couple of H vac technicians, but most everybody has a trainee that's in their truck right now. So we're just trying to get ahead of that curve on the staffing.

[Laura Beltz]

It's something that I think once you get it in your head that you have to constantly be hiring and constantly be training all the time. Like all the time. It's just something that you have to do to maintain that steady stream of individuals coming in for, to, to build them all up to be that, that revenue producing tech. It's just a constant have to.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

And especially now, I mean there's less and less coming in to the trades and I, you know, I, I have high hopes for, for the newer generations of, of realizing, you know, you can make a really good living not going to a four year college and you can just come right on into the trades and I'll welcome you with open arms. Like come on in.

[John Wilson]

You've got the data on this because if you work with it's explore the trades.

[Laura Beltz]

Yes.

[John Wilson]

But like my, I'll give a vibe. So this is, you know, zero, zero facts, all vibes over here.

[Laura Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

It, my vibe is that the are more and more young people joining the trades every day. I mean TikTok, I think this was just on either Wall Street Journal or New York times. But like TikTok is driving like a trades revolution for exactly what you just said.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Hey, you want to make a hundred grand at 25 and you can buy a house and you don't need college debt. Like that's a hell of a pitch.

[Laura Beltz]

It is. And I feel like it's finally getting heard because you know, there's not, there's not. Yeah, there's TikTok but it's, it's finally getting. I feel like it went backwards. It's like it's, it's gotten from industry and finally into the schools and the schools are finally getting the point that oh, oh, I don't have to tell them all they have to go to college, you know, because I mean I could, I could almost quote Mike Rowe, you know, for how many years have we been shoving it down everybody's throat that you have to go to a four year college and you don't, you.

[John Wilson]

Know, a funny anecdote a about my life.

[Laura Beltz]

Okay.

[John Wilson]

Is I was not a very good student. So I became a plumber. Right. But I was not a very good student. And in junior of high school, I had a teacher that told me, hey, if you don't get your grades up, you're gonna end up being a plumber. And she was right. And she was right. But like, you know, here we are today, 160. I know employees later.

[Laura Beltz]

Don't you want to just walk into their office and be like, no, really?

[John Wilson]

Like, no, I won. But I, I do think it's, I do think it's funny because it's sort of like, yeah, yeah, it's the exact. I'm really glad that happened.

[Laura Beltz]

I have a similar actual experience like that my guidance counselor told me not to bother going to college because I'd never make it. And it's exact opposite. I got my degree and, and here I sit. But they never would have. You know, I just think the point is stop trying to push them in areas they don't want to go.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

You know, if they don't like school, they don't like, you know, doing what they're doing. If they want to explore other options, give them other options. I mean, I'm not a, I'm not opposed to four year colleges. Obviously we need that for other trades. You know, if you want a doctor, you're hoping they're, they're going to be licensed. So it's, it has its place. But don't forget there's other areas, other conversations to be had about opportunities. You know, don't just shut the door. Don't even tell them the door exists. I mean, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can go down. Women in the trades. And how that was unheard of. My grandfather actually ran the same type of business that we have was never, ever brought up, ever even occurred to him. He had two daughters.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

And it never even occurred to him to ever pass down his information. It all died with him. That's wild and it's sad. You know, all that knowledge that just went to the wayside and, you know, quit assuming you know what's best for the kids that you have influence over and start asking more questions instead of, you know, this is what you need to do. Well, what do you want to do? What are you good at? You know, I think that's another conversation. What are you good at and where do you want to be? Because if you just tell them what they have to do, you know, they're going to go do that and then four years later, they're going to have 200, whatever, $500,000 in debt and they're still going to be lost.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, I think we'll have a boom here shortly. I think it's already started, but I don't know how much of your business so far has been impacted by AI, but I mean it's, it's a thing. So I think the more that we see AI like take over more of the jobs that were entry level or even like knowledge worker jobs, the next best earning is the trades. So I, I, I think it'll be interesting to see like Gen Z is already there with TikTok and like, hey, no college debt. Hey, a lot of money, there's a lot of good here. What happens when the 30 and 40 year olds start getting displaced from jobs that were historically like safe but between offshoring and AI, like they don't exist anymore. Like, do accounting jobs exist anymore? I think that, like, that's a real question that I think most of the industry is trying to figure out. So yeah, I, I think we're, the next five years are going to be fascinating because we have Gen Z really coming into their own and a large portion of the country being displaced and they got, they got to put food.

[Brian Beltz]

I think that's a great opportunity. You're talking about the 30 and 40 year olds because the, you know, the young generation, the 20, you know, the, the 20 year olds that are coming in, they have their own challenges of, of maturity and, and life skills that they don't have yet. Yeah, we, that we all have to deal with. So if I think about somebody that's in their 30s and 40s and have a lot of life skills, that would be a great transition into the trades.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, it would.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

No, I think so too. Yeah, I think so too.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, I don't, and I don't really have stats to back this up, but it sure feels like plumbing is going.

[John Wilson]

To be really big, the business. Yeah, plumbing is, plumbing is, plumbing's great.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah, plumbing's awesome.

[John Wilson]

Plumbing's great. It just feels like, well, it's less aiable. I mean that's a part of this too. Like there is already with the Google glasses, like AI can diagnose furnace problems. So that is a part of the, Is there a displacement there or likely less of a displacement and more, hey, we can onboard an H vac tech in 30 days because AI does all of the work instead of, you know, years of experience now, whereas plumbing, I, yeah, it feels harder. Like AI is probably not going to drill A drain.

[Laura Beltz]

No, they're not. And I feel like plumbing always has this, this like, unspoken, like you gotta want to be dealing with some of the worst parts of a house. You know, I mean, that's, that's the reason that it's expensive, because you got to want to do that. Not everybody wants to do that. I don't know. We kind of have a saying that it just equals money, like poo equals money. That's just the name of the game. But that's not something that AI is going to go do, so. So I would agree. That just backs up the whole theory that. No, I think plumbing is going to do really well because you're still going to have to have people to physically do that.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

There's a list, Microsoft dropped this list of like, what's going to be displaced, what's most likely to be displaced, what's least likely to be displaced, and then the number of jobs associated with each displacement. Really interesting read. Plumbing was not on the least likely or the most likely really. But when I looked at it, I was like, plumbing should be on here. Like, it should be. Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them were like concrete work, which honestly I has been already displaced. I don't know if you've seen those remote control, like. Yeah, like, they can already do that.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Which is great.

[Laura Beltz]

It's wild.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, it's wild sometimes too.

[Laura Beltz]

I have to wonder, like, you know, big city. I think that's another factor for rural. You know, big city has big city, bigger companies and bigger ability to kind of take on some of that new technology. Yeah, I can.

[John Wilson]

What's a race to innovation?

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. And I can pretty much guarantee there's a lot of companies in our area.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

They don't have that ability. So that's not going to affect them now, maybe down the road. But, you know, it's a. Maybe it's just a fact of a.

[John Wilson]

Slower pace of, of you have less of a. Yeah. There's less people pushing you towards it, probably. Whereas, I mean, it depends. I mean, in a big city you could also just not be pushed, which is fine. The. The way that we, we like, you know, we like to push. So, yeah, for us, we're losing a little bit of our hunger to be the first out of the gate with everything just because, like, disruption now costs a lot of, like, real dollars. But we want to innovate, we want to keep taking share. So, yeah, we feel pushed into it.

[Brian Beltz]

We've been using a lot of AI internally for operational things.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Like what are some examples?

[Brian Beltz]

We use a lot of it throughout teams and with different forms. Communication.

[Laura Beltz]

Tracking.

[Brian Beltz]

Tracking.

[Laura Beltz]

Lots of tracking. That's. You know, when you talked about your dashboard out there, instead of trying to hire or find somebody that can make that, we're doing that in house.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Just bringing a lot of technology, a lot of tracking, a lot of display. Just anything that we can automate, we're doing it.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

I think that's probably one of the craziest parts is, like, the ability to develop apps. Half the dashboards you guys saw as you walked through the office. Like, we internally developed.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Like with lovable.dev is the name of it, but, like, 20 bucks a month and you can start just whipping up web apps. Yeah. It's crazy. I think we're 10 or 12 deep at this point.

[Laura Beltz]

We've been just really blessed to the fact that our director of ops, he already had a lot of those schools, a lot of those.

[John Wilson]

He was a nerd.

[Laura Beltz]

He.

[John Wilson]

You need him.

[Laura Beltz]

You need him.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

He came. He came to us from kind of the corporate world, so there's a lot of. A lot of skills that he brought with him that we just didn't have, just because that's not kind of the business model that we run.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

But his ability to adapt all of those great things that come out of some of that has been really invaluable in driving us forward to be more efficient and more modern and. And, you know.

[Brian Beltz]

More streamlined.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. More streamlined. Yeah.

[John Wilson]

That's awesome.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

So what is next for belts? We've added a new location. Figuring out growth. We're building a new building. I don't think we said that on air, but we're building a new building. So what. What's next? What does the next couple years look like for you guys?

[Brian Beltz]

Some. Some more acquisitions and. And more growth.

[John Wilson]

Where do you. Where do you see acquisitions? Like, our way. Our way. Like that type of model? Or like, you guys want to buy me the smaller town two hours away?

[Brian Beltz]

Smaller towns. Yeah.

[John Wilson]

No giggles. I like that. I was like, come on, let's do this.

[Brian Beltz]

It's reaching.

[Laura Beltz]

It was reaching.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. We were just talking about this on the way over. You know, just the goals for the business in general and just trying to bring our services to as many people as possible. You know, however that makes sense for us. And I. I think that our particular area is just so rich with opportunity. You know, you've got a lot of. I'm sure, like you had mentioned the PEs. They look at these different areas and they, they just don't think it's worth the time or it's not worth.

[John Wilson]

I couldn't. Yeah, that's. I think that's part of what makes this just fascinating to me is like we're looking at our next markets and both for greenfield, which like were launching or acquisitions and it's tough. Like we've looked at deals and they have 40,000 people and I'm like, I don't know what I would do there. Like, I just don't know what I would do there and when. Well, you would definitely, like we would definitely win.

[Don]

Which.

[John Wilson]

That part sounds really fun. It's like, oh, you could, like, if you take the level of competitive that we have to be here there like so much, you would just win in like a day. But it caps and that's, I think where I struggle with it is like, can you get to 20 million? Can you get to 30 million? And you probably. Can you just add more? No, I mean each market. Each. Yeah, each market.

[Brian Beltz]

20 million in each of those markets.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

It gets. So this is something that we're thinking about. I don't know if this helps you or not, but this is how we're currently thinking about it. It is really, especially three trade. It is hard and you guys are in it, but it's hard to run a three trade company under like 15 million. It's hard under 10, it's hard under 5. Three trades is hard. Like it's.

[Laura Beltz]

I think three trades is hard, period.

[John Wilson]

Three trades is. Yeah, three trades is hard, period. Totally.

[Laura Beltz]

And.

[John Wilson]

And the smaller you are, the harder it is. Like you just don't have the infrastructure, you don't have the, you don't have the experts in all three because you can't. Because it's just not big enough to have it like as far as management or trainers or you know, whatever. So a lot when like PE or larger operators, which I'm not considering myself a part of that cohort, are looking at new markets to launch into and they're three trade. The goal is like 10 million by end of year two. Because it's really hard to, to hire the team you need under eight figures and then by end of year three, it's 15 to 20. So that's where most of them want.

[Laura Beltz]

To end up because they're only looking at the number.

[John Wilson]

Well, how do I potentially. But how do I provide the resources somewhere else that I'm not? So how can I hire a best in class general manager? Well, that's going to cost a lot. Of money. How do I hire the people that can run each trade? Well, that's also going to cost a lot of money. So this is now $2 million of salaries. What can afford that? 20 million bucks. So that's how most of them see it is. It's hard to run an under 10 or 15 million dollar location which like that was most of my career.

[Brian Beltz]

So I, I don't know if we're on the same page onto that.

[John Wilson]

So be fascinating.

[Brian Beltz]

We have, so we have a cup. We have three different people that have come from corporate jobs.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

And the culture that we have built and our ability to, to, to adapt.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Make changes in a small business atmosphere and to be able to really take care of customers and the employees. That's. That's not something that you can do in a corporate world. I've never lived in that corporate world. But the feedback that we get from the people that have come from that world is like, you know, yes, we made fantastic money in the corporate world, but we don't have this flexibility or the work life balance. Happiness or happiness. And so I think there's plenty of opportunities for somebody with those skill sets.

[John Wilson]

Well, there's way more opportunities is the real answer. I mean there's more rural than there is big city. So I think that's a part of the like. Yeah, it's an almost unlimited by.

[Laura Beltz]

If I get what you're saying though, you're saying, you know, it's, it's a, it's a.

[John Wilson]

Has an equation, it adds more complication. And the way like a PE would approach it would be what percentage of the market do they have? Can I grow this? If I'm paying a premium for this business, how much can I grow it so that premium becomes fair? And if someone already has 80% of the market, there's only 20% more versus like we have six and six is big in Cleveland. Like that's a lot of frigging market. But we could go up to 15. So there's room.

[Laura Beltz]

You know, I think you're asking the wrong question.

[John Wilson]

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[Laura Beltz]

Fieldpulse.com I think it really is a completely different mindset because although yes, at the end of the day we have to look at revenue and we have to look at sustaining our business and growing our business at the bottom, bottom line, it's about the people. And I think we have that luxury with the way, with the size that we are. And I'm not saying that somewhere down the road that that's going to be unsustainable. Probably sounds like where you're at. It's unsustainable because you have to look at the bottom, more of the money, bottom line. But I think where we're particularly at and how we run our business and how we hire people, it's more about the relationship than it is. I'm trying to think how to word this. We know investing in them now is going to get us to the goal eventually. It's just not an overnight thing. It's a slow burn. It's just a slow burn that you have to invest in. And I don't know that I'm going to be able to answer your original question because the mindset, the mindset is completely different on this side of the table. In a more rural market, you really have to think about your customers and what's best for them and be able to provide what they need. And you win every day because they know you do, therefore they call you. I mean, it's not rocket science in that. I feel like there's a whole lot more math that comes in when you're a much larger company and you're in a much larger.

[John Wilson]

And not founder led. I think that's where it gets hard too. Like if I was going to go launch something, me personally, like, yeah, the math is different.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

But like if you're hiring people.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Number has to be bigger.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah. Right. And I think he does have a good point though. You can get really good people who are willing to make that jump and who see the end Vision and can see where that they will be down the road and that they will accomplish more and get more rewards, more than just money. And money will come. You just have to. I don't know, I hate to say sacrifice, but you just have to learn. Learn to dig in a little bit at the beginning so you can get the rewards at the end. Because it's so much of a different environment, you know, the kind of culture that. That a smaller entity has than. Than this corporate. And I think that's, you know, they've had both of the two people he's speaking of. They've had their friends want to come.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

As well.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Because they're hearing how their lives are going and. Oh, man, I want to. I want to get in on that. And it's like, you're not going to make as much, but you're going to be a heck of a lot happier. And I'm not saying that in the end, you can't make. You can. It's just slow burn. It's a slow burn.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Be willing to work for it.

[John Wilson]

So the next couple years, we're building our building. We're acquiring you. You might have said how far, like an hour away is typical. Or do you. Are you thinking Indiana?

[Brian Beltz]

Down in Kentucky? We're looking.

[John Wilson]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

Down there as well.

[John Wilson]

Okay.

[Brian Beltz]

But we're looking at. We're trying to build right now like a franchise model. So we've got a number of people within the company that have raised their hands and said, you know, I want. I want to run. Yeah, I want to run a branch. You know, I want to run a. An area.

[Laura Beltz]

And I don't think it's really. I don't think it's really. You're thinking more like expanding from a central location. And I think more. Our thinking is more like, where can we go? That. This, this, that we have this model. This thought works best. Maybe that's, you know, northwest Ohio and maybe it's down, you know, rural eastern Kentucky. Maybe it's, you know, it's not necessarily. Let's just keep going and going and going where we are. It's where. Where does it work for us?

[John Wilson]

I think that makes sense.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

I think both work. I can think of examples of both. The standard playbook is an hour aways, but I don't think we're going to follow that playbook. Some of it's going to be opportunistic. Like, we have people in different states that we're talking to and we'll partner with them, and that's going to work if a few of them are more rural. So we're just like, I don't know how willing are you to move? So I think that's part of it. But an hour away, an hour away is like the, I would say normal playbook. But I, I don't know that it's as relevant as it was 10 years ago.

[Laura Beltz]

I would agree with that.

[John Wilson]

I mean the amount of tech that's out there now, like, I think the most important thing is like, does the platform work? Can do you share buying? Can you get the actual efficiencies of scale? And that's where I see people mess up if they're going into like multi state is, hey, yeah, I'm in two states. But what did it actually do for you? Like is your buying better? Are you getting parts cheaper? Did you somehow get a benefit from being multi state other than just saying you're multi state?

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

So I, I think that's where people seem to trip that I've seen. But we're hoping when as we're looking at it, how can we combine equipment purchasing to get better? How can we combine software purchasing to get better? What can we centralize here? Can we centralize sales, call center dispatch, install coordination, permits, accounting, hr, marketing. Like, what can we centralize so that the actual benefit of each is like tangible and we don't just get to have it.

[Brian Beltz]

Right. And without having all of those different businesses right, if you will, in those different locations.

[John Wilson]

Right. Because it makes size, a lot of it makes size less relevant. Because if 5 million or 10 million becomes like really good, no matter how many trades, if they have no opex expense because suddenly, oh well, that's just $3 million of gross margin. Like, yeah, toss it my way. Let's go for sure. So yeah, I think that's how, that's how we're trying to approach it. See if it works.

[Laura Beltz]

We'll let you try it first.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Thanks guys. Thanks. Well, this was awesome. I appreciate you guys coming on. If. What are the, what are the like passing lessons here for people starting off in the trades. Do it, do it.

[Laura Beltz]

Jump in with both feet.

[Brian Beltz]

All in. Follow the process.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. Next star sounds like a big win. Oh, they're a big win for us too.

[Laura Beltz]

Huge win. I think the other is people. Because I don't, you know, one of the big milestones was just, just all in with Nexar, but the other one was getting the right people. And you know, when you have them, like it's plainly obvious when you have them and it's plainly obvious when you don't.

[John Wilson]

How well do you sleep? How bad do you sleep?

[Laura Beltz]

How. How much do you stress?

[Don]

How.

[John Wilson]

Like, how late can you show up to work? That's usually my measurement.

[Laura Beltz]

Oh, no, he's there at the crack of dawn.

[Brian Beltz]

Yeah. That's always tough when you're growing. Is. Is putting up with some of the people issues.

[Don]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

You know.

[Don]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

I mean, that's the. That's the whole issue.

[Brian Beltz]

A certain point.

[Laura Beltz]

Yeah.

[John Wilson]

Yeah. That's almost the only problem that exists.

[Brian Beltz]

You don't want to deal with any of the. Or you don't deal with any of those.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Brian Beltz]

You know, and you draw the line and let people go.

[Don]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

I think that that probably is another lesson. Just if, you know it's not a good fit, you know it's not working, even though it's going to be painful. Get rid of them.

[Don]

Yep.

[Laura Beltz]

Because they're. They're poisoning your culture more than you will ever know.

[John Wilson]

Yeah.

[Laura Beltz]

Just get rid of them.

[John Wilson]

Yeah, agreed.

[Laura Beltz]

Slow to hire, quick to fire. It's not a bad thing. Oh, I have one more, too. When you have an applicant who comes in, whatever you see in that interview is the best you're ever going to get. Great words. I can't even remember who told me that it was in the next our event, though.

[John Wilson]

It's so real.

[Laura Beltz]

It is so real.

[John Wilson]

So real. It's so true. There's like a beige flag in that interview. It's like, yeah, we're. We are actually good.

[Brian Beltz]

That stuck with me as well. This is the best you're ever gonna see.

[Don]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Wilson]

That's funny for sure.

[Laura Beltz]

You got any more pearls of wisdom?

[Brian Beltz]

I don't.

[John Wilson]

These were great. Good pearls. Thank you for coming on.

[Laura Beltz]

Thank you for having us.

[John Wilson]

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