How This Operator Turned a Viral Laundromat Video into a $20M Roofing Company

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Owned and Operated

Episode: How This Operator Turned a Viral Laundromat Video into a $20M Roofing Company
Date: November 6, 2025
Host: John Wilson
Guest: Brandon Schlichter (Investment Joy)

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode follows Brandon Schlichter’s entrepreneurial journey from humble beginnings in rural Ohio to building a diversified business empire, including a $20M commercial roofing company. He shares how documenting his laundromat business on social media unexpectedly went viral, catalyzing his ability to raise capital and scale his ventures. The conversation also dives into tactical details about buying businesses, challenges in the trades, value of thinking bigger, and practical advice for fellow entrepreneurs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brandon’s Humble Beginnings and Early Career

• Brandon grew up in a financially struggling household in Circleville, Ohio. His family went through multiple evictions, with his father working as a truck driver and his mother selling door-to-door cosmetics.
  • “It’s not that we were farmers. Our family got evicted when I was 6 years old and we were just trying to find any house that we could live in.” (04:00)
• He supported his family with blue-collar jobs and eventually got his real estate license in 2006 right as the foreclosure crisis began.
  • “I got looking around to what opportunities are there in Circleville, Ohio and the only thing that I saw that I could do...was to get a real estate license.” (05:21)

2. Discovering Online Leverage and Early Content Marketing

• Created a foreclosure resource blog in 2009, leading to inbound leads and significant real estate sales.
  • “Distribution is the great equalizer.” – Host (07:04)
• By leveraging online content, he connected with investors and amassed enough capital to buy dozens of rental properties during the market’s downturn.
  • “Within like one year I had been able to get about $400,000 worth of capital together. And we went out and bought 18 rentals.” (08:14)
• He made his first viral social media play by openly sharing bank account details, rapidly attracting investor funding, sometimes from total strangers.
  • “I check like three days later, and someone wired $57,000 to me...I’ve never met him before.” (09:57 / 00:09)

3. Going Viral with the Laundromat Video

• Shifted from real estate into small businesses such as laundromats and car washes.
• In 2019, a simple YouTube video of him collecting coins at a laundromat went viral (almost 1M views in one day), attracting attention from everywhere, including private equity and major corporate execs.
  • “My video started going viral and it was just me collecting $147 worth of quarters and it hit a million. Almost a million views in one day. And I started getting calls from everybody under the sun.” (00:00, 11:22)
• Viral exposure expanded his influence, leading to larger capital and opportunities.

4. Stepping Up to Large-Scale Acquisitions

• With encouragement to “think bigger,” Brandon began eyeing businesses larger than car washes and laundromats, leading to the acquisition of a 26-year-old commercial roofing firm in Rockford, IL.
  • “I’ve always had people tell me, you need to think bigger, think bigger, think bigger.” (12:30)
• Selection criteria: at least a 10-year stable business, clean books, recession resistance, and long-term track record.
  • “I wanted clean books…long-term history...something somewhat recession resistant.” (13:12)

5. Operating & Scaling the Roofing Business

• Roofing company handles 90% commercial (labor union), deliberately avoiding most residential due to thin margins vs. higher union labor costs.
  • “There’s no money in residential. We’re a labor union firm, so we do a lot of prevailing wage jobs.” (20:51, 21:07)
• Large-scale projects (~$300k avg, some $4M+); goal to reach $20M revenue via bigger jobs rather than more small ones.
  • “We’re bidding on one job right now that’s in the 4 to 4.4 million dollar range.” (22:26)
• Importance of capital planning to weather long payment cycles (57-day average between work and collection).
  • “It’s a large float and it also kills a lot of the small guys. They can’t float 57 days on a million dollar project.” (23:13)
• Focus on margin per worker per day and rapidly improving estimation/bidding processes.
  • “Rapid, accurate estimations…for commercial contracting…very important.” (27:04)

6. Growth, Regional Expansion, and Culture

• Expanded service area from 150 miles to over 600 miles radius, including incentive structures to support traveling crews.
  • “We try to treat our guys right...because they’re giving up time away from their family.” (34:23)
• Considering new regional shops, especially in markets with high recurring demand (e.g., Florida, driven by regular storm damage).
  • “We’re in the process of setting up some regional shops through the Midwest. Florida is big.” (36:20)
• Discussed competitive, logistical, and compliance differences in regions like Florida and California.

7. Legacy, Succession, and Leadership Philosophy

• Honest reflection on second/third-generation business transitions and succession failures.
  • “You either grow or die. If you try to stabilize things, you’re really on a slow decline, whether you can perceive it or not.” (17:22)
• Emphasizes ESOPs or internal transitions to care for employees and preserve company culture.
  • "All my companies...most of them were inherited...or passed to a second generation and the second generation didn’t want them." (17:30)

8. Personal Growth, Family Balance & Social Impact

• Balances work with parenting five children, stresses importance of being present.
• Active on social media to encourage others, debunk self-limiting beliefs, and foster the “American dream.” Both he and his twin (with a similar background) found entrepreneurial success.
  • “Why do you believe that you can’t do this thing? Well, because everybody’s against me. Who’s actually against you?” (42:55)

9. Practical Advice for New Entrepreneurs

• Don’t do it alone: Build a team with complementary skill sets.
  • “If you...don’t have the skill set, go find somebody that does...Most have somebody...that has a different personality and they compensate for it.” (51:03)
• Assume success, expand your vision, embrace the possibility of failing but recognize the opportunity for a fresh start.
  • “The biggest needle mover...was just think bigger. Do something bigger. Don’t confine yourself to just small opportunities.” (45:32)
  • “A lot of people...spend too much time thinking of all the reasons for them to fail as opposed to the reasons that they could succeed.” (48:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Going Viral and Opportunity:
  • “Someone just wired money to me. I’ve never met him before.” – Brandon (00:10)
• On Mindset and Growth:
  • “You either are growing and you’re trying to achieve something bigger or you’re on the decline.” – Brandon (00:19 & 17:22)
• On Entrepreneurial Limits:
  • “Don’t confine yourself to just small opportunities...your limit is unlimited. Just however big you can think, you can do it.” (45:32)
• On Failure:
  • “What if I fail? So what if you do fail? You can declare bankruptcy, you can...start all over again...You can reset yourself at any point.” (48:20)
• Business Advice:
  • “Just go do it. And if there’s something critical that you just can’t do...go find somebody that does.” (51:03)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 Brandon recounts the viral laundromat video and unsolicited $57K wire.
• 04:00 Early years: poverty, farm life, family work history.
• 05:21 Entry into real estate (amid 2006 foreclosure crisis).
• 08:14 Raising $400,000 for rentals, the beginning of Investment Joy.
• 11:22 Laundromat acquisition, viral social content explosion.
• 13:12 Criteria for business acquisitions and scaling up ambitions.
• 21:05 Commercial vs. residential roofing—labor economics & strategy.
• 23:13 Cash flow stress and capital planning for large jobs.
• 27:04 Building estimation and bid processes.
• 34:23 Culture: Incentivizing labor and care for traveling crews.
• 36:20 Geographic expansion & storm-driven business.
• 42:55 Mindset: Overcoming limiting beliefs and family legacy.
• 45:32 Smartest move: Thinking bigger, striving beyond comfort zone.
• 48:00 Success mindset, handling failure, and business advice.
• 51:03 Final entrepreneurial advice: Build a balanced team, just start.

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Conclusion

This episode is packed with actionable lessons on scaling, leveraging online platforms, business acquisitions, leading with purpose, and developing a resilient entrepreneurial mindset. Brandon’s story is proof that viral video fame can be translated into real business growth—if you’re willing to act boldly, think big, and adapt quickly. For anyone interested in trades, home services, or entrepreneurship, this episode delivers both inspiration and hard-won tactical insight.

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Find more from Brandon Schlichter:

• [Investment Joy on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter (X)]
• DMs always open for entrepreneurial advice

For more episodes and business growth content:

• ownedandoperated.com

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Transcript

[Brandon Schlichter]

My video started going viral and it was just me collecting $147 worth of quarters and it hit a million. Almost a million views in one day. And I started getting calls from everybody under the sun. I checked like three days later and someone wired $57,000 to me. I was like, this is ludicrous. Like, someone just wired money to me. I've never met him before.

[Podcast Host]

Like, that guy needs to be checked.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Part of my mind still on the farmer and the in the cornfield at the $400 a month rental that my parents could barely afford. You either are growing and you're trying to achieve something bigger or you're on the decline.

[Podcast Host]

Any advice for folks trying to start off on their entrepreneurial journey?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Why do you believe that you can't do this thing? Well, because everybody's against me. Why are there people there that have this perception on life and everything? There's so much opportunity out there.

[Podcast Host]

As you think about the next couple years, what do you think your focus looks like? Welcome back to owned and operated. Today on the show, I have Brandon Schlichter from Investment Joy. Welcome.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Great to be here.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, this is fun. Fellow Ohio boy y just under Columbus and absolutely massive following. You're in real estate. You have laundromats. You have a commercial roofing business. I'm sure there's more. There's a car wash. I forgot about the car wash. So I'm really excited to talk to you today. This should be fun.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I'm thrilled to be here.

[Podcast Host]

Cool. I would love to hear a little bit of the origin story and then we can talk about, like, what happened since then. But, like, your day job is running a massive social media platform that you've used to talk about laundromats and car washes and now roofing. So I'd love to hear how that started.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So I'm born, raised in Circleville, Ohio, which is about 20 miles south of Columbus. Grew up on a farm in the middle, literally in the middle of a cornfield. After about 1994, they made the choice of planting corn totally around our house. It's not that we were farmers. Our family got evicted when I was 6 years old and we were just trying to find any house that we could live in. And we ended up in a little tenant house outside Circleville. And it's just my dad was a truck driver. He was an owner operator, which was terrible for him in the 90s.

[Podcast Host]

That's good now.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It can be good now. But there's a problem in owner operated trucks in the sense that you're your own business owner and you're going to make all this money.

[Podcast Host]

That's the pitch.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And it's like I found out when I got into real real estate as an agent. It's like, yeah, you do your own, your own business and it comes with the benefits of it, but it also comes with all these pitfalls and you're doing it by yourself. So you know, my dad was in the owner operator Trucking business from 85, 86 ish up till 2000, 2001. Never made any money on it. He blew an engine in 1992 and 1998 and it was, you know, $60,000 between two engines they put on a credit card. My mom sold Door to Door cosmetics with Avon. I threw that name out there on a lot of videos and I guess all my Gen Z audience has no clue what Avon is. So my social media team has said stop saying Avon brand, say Door to door Cosmetics. Okay, well that sounds kind of hokey, but whatever. So grew up, just never made any money. The big upgrade in our life family situation was when my dad stopped driving a truck and he went to work at Walmart in Circleville because he had a consistent job that he wasn't losing money hand over fist, which is we weird but it was nice. He started working there when I was like 14, 15 years old. But then when I turned 18 he had a heart attack and he was just unable to work for the rest of his life. I went and got a job in Groveport, Ohio, which is kind of like a suburb of Columbus, working at a warehouse, doing just logistics fulfillment like your normal Amazon worker is today. My twin brother went to work for the city of Circleville picking up trash for the parks department. So you know, just the normal stuff. We did get evicted again when I was 18 and it was just a real weird time because my dad couldn't work. My brother and I were supporting our parents. I went out to the real world to get a job. We had kind of had some entrepreneurial forays my brother and I did prior to that point, but we just couldn't pursue anything like that. Trying to help keep our parents above water. So we did that for a few years. I got to the point I wanted to get married and have the normal life and had this aspiration for being a one income household because effectively that's how I grew up. My dad did the truck driving thing and mom's door to door cosmetic sales were only very part time. So she was at home with my brother and I pretty much the whole time, which is nice. You know, I talk about being poor growing up and people think it, you know, they, they, they lament about my hardships growing up. It's kind of an intentional thing because my parents didn't want to both be gone for my brother and I our whole life, which I appreciate at this.

[Podcast Host]

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[Brandon Schlichter]

So I got, I was working at the warehouse and was like, how can I get out of this? How can I do, you know, aspire to one income household? I got looking around to what opportunities are there in Circleville, Ohio and the only thing that I saw that I could do in an approachable manner was to get a real estate license. So I did that. 2006 right as we were headed. Yeah, right as we're headed towards the foreclosure crisis. I was like, this is a career for me to get in. And did pretty well overall.

[Podcast Host]

I got serving Circleville or did you go to Columbus? Because that's a five minute.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, I did some southern Columbus. But what I really got involved in, heavy duty in 2006, 7 and 8 in the foreclosure world.

[Podcast Host]

Oh sure, I know a bunch of people that like made it happen.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I ran into a guy and all he did was broker price opinions and he was making 50 bucks an hour doing that. And he got me on with a couple of the different firms and I did broker price opinions for about three years, made good money on it, got married when I was 21, did that for quite some time. And then the weird foray and change to social media and media in general was I started this blog back in 2009 and it was the phone number and contact contact information for every foreclosure department in the United States. And it was if you see a, you know, an orange sticker on your neighbor's door, this is the person to call to help get information on that from the bank. So I had, I think it was the number one foreclosure blog online for a reasonable time period.

[Podcast Host]

That's crazy.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So I was still doing real estate, working for a broker in Columbus, doing the blog thing on the site, closing leads from that and then came to the realization it's like okay, I'm selling a couple houses on the side, but I'm also her realties number one out bound sales guy. I did more volume in one month in terms of blog from the blog than people did in a year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And I mean distribution is the great. Oh, it's the great equalizer.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It blew my mind. So I was like, okay, I've got to figure out how to do my real estate stuff with social media or online, whatever. So then 2013 rolled around. I've been doing a little bit of everything, ran a bunch of blogs, ran a bunch of websites. I said, well, I can use my, my social media appeal to go and find some investors for real estate. So, you know, 2013, by 2013 I'd been in the business for what, seven years. Had unending properties in Circleville and you know, Circleville, southern Columbus area that were, you know, 25, $30,000 and we were at the bottom of the market. And I'm like, these properties all make money. I can rent a house out for a thousand dollars a month and I can buy it for 25. Like I gotta find capital now. Career as a sales agent. I never run into a poor landlord. They all had tons of money. Well, that's. I need to get an investment property. So I started getting online forms, blogs, websites, like that and just started asking people for capital. And I had sold some websites off, so I had some money burning a hole in my pocket. So I can go buy a couple rentals or I can take some money and I can go find some investors to see if I can get more capital. And within like one year I had, I had been able to get about $400,000 worth of capital together. And we went out and bought 18 rentals, took that portfolio and kept getting attention for the portfolio. I started my investment joy website and brand back real early in that period in 2013, got covered by Biggerpockets, was on a couple of their newsletters. And that was just like being hit by. Yeah, it was like getting hit by freight train.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I started having people call me all from all over saying, hey, I see you're buying these 25, 000 houses in the Columbus area. We like the central Ohio area as opposed to like Cleveland, northern Ohio areas which have always had you doing this on YouTube.

[Podcast Host]

Were you creating content around this?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, I. So I was using, I was doing it on a blog.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So like if someone would go to investmentjoy.com and go on the way back machine to 2013.

[Podcast Host]

So we started as a blog.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Blog. Yeah. I started as a blog because I was like, after I got into real, into investments, I'm like, I've made it. I don't need to do anything else more in my life than just buy single family detached homes and fix them up. Because it's like, I can take 25 grand, buy a house, put 25 in it, and I can have a nice house that rents for $750,000. And just the math makes sense. So I did that, but got covered by bigger pockets. And I got all these calls and I just opened up a bank account and I said, if anybody wants to send me money and you want to buy some properties with me, here's the routing number, here's the account number. Just go send me some money. I check like three days later, and someone wired $57,000 to me. And I'm like. And he sends me a DM or an email and said, hey, I just wired you some money. Let's go buy some houses. I was like, this is ludicrous. Like, someone just wired money to me. I've never met him before.

[Podcast Host]

That's definitely ludicrous.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, it is ludicrous.

[Podcast Host]

Like, that guy needs to be checked.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. So. So, So I ended up just working with different investors and we would always partner. I didn't want to manage somebody else's property. I don't want to manage anybody' that I don't own or at least partner with. So I got in, up till 2019, did all these partnerships, investing in properties, bought a trailer park. Then 2019 rolls around. I've been looking at different kinds of investments, one of which was a laundromat. Ran into the Laundromat that I'm pretty well known for on social media. I tried to buy that in 2016, but couldn't. And it blew my mind that the lady that had the property, she was trying to get 60,000 out of it. She was doing 8,500amonth in revenue.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And I just was like, this is a six.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I mean, today in 2025, that's like probably a million dollar asset.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, it's probably not a million dollars, but it's. I, I would say it's probably worth it, knowing the real estate environment, Southern Ohio, maybe 450.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And.

[Podcast Host]

But like, very underpriced.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Well, it would be okay. Yeah. Well, at 60, 60, 000. Oh yeah. 60, 000.

[Podcast Host]

Ludicrous.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, 60, 000 is ludicrous.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So I tried to buy it and. And the deal fell through, but I bought it off the owner that bought it. And it was, he ran it down quite a bit. But it just blew my mind that there were, there was some business or something I could get into that would perform better than, you know, 10 or 15 houses. And by that, by 2019, I had 140 doors and was just like, this is going to be my life. You know, this is what I set out for in 2013. Bought the laundromat. And the Laundromat was making great money. Day one took did some YouTube videos on it because I was like, this is valuable content. I want to produce content seriously on it. And after I started filming at The Laundromat In April 2019, October 7, my video started going viral and it was just me collecting $147 worth of quarters and it hit a million, almost a million views in one day. And I started getting calls from everybody under the sun anywhere from stalkers, psychos, creeps and stuff to like people that ran private equity. I got the call from the vice president of one of the largest telecommunication companies in the United States just saying, hey, I watch your content. I think what you're doing is great. And it's kind of catapulted me in this world where now it's like, okay, so I had this goal of buying, you know, just houses and then evolved into buying small businesses. And then 21, I bought some car washes.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And I've always had people tell me, you need to think bigger, think bigger, think bigger. And it's like, well, you know, part of my mind still on the farmer and the court in the cornfield at the $400 a month rental that my bear, my parents could barely afford. So I'm trying to be cautious and careful with the things I invest in. But I also do want to think bigger because I want to be able to buy some time back. I want to be able to build some things where I don't have to be super hands on and I can do what I want to do. So did the car washes. And then last April I bought this commercial roofing firm out of Rockford, Illinois. Yeah, we did a national search. I looked at a dozen ish different companies roofing or just any company? Any company. So.

[Podcast Host]

So we're going with the thesis of we're buying a bigger business. Yes. Not necessarily.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I want a long term business. Something that's been in business for at least 10 years, has good tax returns because I'm in the lineman car wash industry. And oh yeah, people make jokes about it. It's legitimate.

[Podcast Host]

It's wild. We tried to buy a couple of these and it was crazy. Like they would hand us like maybe receipts or pictures and then here's the water bill and that's the expenses.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, I would say 50% of the owners that I've talked to and this may be, it's just the owners I talk at least 50% of them are underreporting their income by at least 25% if not more. And you think about that from an accounting perspective you're underreporting your top line revenue but you're trying to over report your expenses so when it comes time to get financing you can't prove anything. So I'm used to that world. So when we looked for a company I wanted to clean books. I wanted a long term history and I wanted it in a market segment that you know, everybody wants something recession proof that's not going to exist. But I want something somewhat recession resistant. So you know, in roofing at least you need to have a roof on at some point. And it's not the only company that I looked at that was recession resistant but looked at a dozen different businesses. My favorite was an industrial and commercial electrician in northern Florida. Loved it. Did about 9.5 million a year top line revenue. The SDE was in the 4 million range, so it would have been an acquisition in the what, 2.3 to 2.5 EBITDA range or at least multiple of SDE. Loved it. But I couldn't get the permitting for it in the state of Florida for commercial and industrial electrician you have to have a permit that shows that you've been a commercial electrician for no less than five years, which I can't do that. So that that deal failed. I looked at a trucking company in Indiana. I looked at a commercial roofing firm in Cleveland. I looked at a contract carrier for Greyhound buses. I looked at a paving company in Colorado, loved it. The books were miserable. I looked at an excavation company in Colorado, books were miserable on it. Looked at a bunch of different other businesses that weren't nearly as interesting but those were the top picks. And then we ended up with this commercial roofing firm out of Rockford, Illinois that's been around for 26 years. The owner was just at retirement. He had tried to get his family on board to take over the company. It's just, it's the double edged sword of being a parent and successful. You build up this great company and your kids don't have to do the same thing that you did the gentleman we bought the company off of, you know, he's worked every single day in his life and it's been hard work and he's, he built up this awesome thing, but it also provided his children the ability to not have to live the same kind of lifestyle. So when it comes for the next generation to inherit it, it's very difficult to do to pass the torch on to them.

[Podcast Host]

We see that a lot in our industry. Yeah, it's uncommon to see the kids take over. Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

But you're second generation. That's correct.

[Podcast Host]

I'm third.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Oh, third.

[Podcast Host]

So I bought it nine years ago. So it's obviously rare to see a third generation, but it's tough, you know, and I think a lot of people ask us what happens and I think we have the same concern that this guy might have had where, hey, but like my kids are 4 and 6 and by the time like businesses only do two things. They sell or they shut down who they sell to. Like, are they selling to employees in esop? Are they selling to your kids? Are they selling to an outside party? Maybe, but they saw that they shut down and like, by the time we get to my kids potentially being capable, like, what are they going to do with a $500 million business? Yeah, like nothing. Like you can't hand that to a 25 year old. So yeah, I really don't know what's going to happen.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. And that's the thing. I've a smaller scale. I have people always say the same thing with my kids and it's like, well, and it's always odd because of my YouTube following. So I've built up this following with over a billion video views where it's a little over 6 million followers. And I have that question all, well, what are your kids going to do? Or they'll get really nasty and say, oh, I wish I was your kid because you're going to hand them everything. And it's like for my kids, I've got five for reference. All I want them to do is whatever you do in life, be excellent at it and serve God and help other people. Is the third one. It's like those are the three things I'm trying to instill in my kids. But taking over the company is not in any of those things. If my kids don't have a passion for any of the companies that I run, they can't do it in a way that's going to help other people. Then I'll sell them or I'll do something else. Because all My companies that I've acquired, not so much the roofing company, but, you know, laundromats, car washes, and especially my rentals, most of them were inherited in some way, or they were passed to a second generation and the second generation didn't want them, or they weren't able to keep the sustaining growth. My dad always had this great saying growing up, as much as he struggled with his business and everything, he said, as far as he was concerned in life, there were two do two things. You either grow or die. And I've. And I constantly go back to him saying that because there's a lot of wisdom in you either are growing and you're trying to achieve something bigger or better, or do something better, you know, do something more significant, or you're on the decline, because if you try to stabilize things, you're really on a slow decline, whether you can perceive it or not. And I see that with every business that I run into, you're either you're trying to get a little better or you're not. You're going the other way. So with my companies, it's, you know, I'm more than happy to sell them out at some point, but I like the idea of doing an ESOP or something that will be able to continue itself for a long period of time, because I'm sure you feel the same way that I do about my employees. I've got a lot of employees that I just. I truly love them. I think they're great people. I'm glad that I get to play a role in their life and helping them to take care of their family and so on. And the last thing that I want to do is to be. Is to sell the company out, bring somebody else in, and then to change everything, because I can't. I cannot vet, with unlimited ability somebody else to have the same moral level that I have or the same compassion towards my employees. Yeah, we just saw a roll up here recently in the commercial roofing area, and they're, you know, a year, year and a half into it, and it's absolutely miserable for the employees. And, you know, if I needed another reminder, you know, there it is to. To be cautious on that front.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, we've talked pretty openly with our team members. Like, our hope is we're aiming at 100 million by 2030. Like, it's on the wall everywhere as you walk through the building. But eventually we hope to bring on investor money. And our goal, we've talked about this very openly with our leadership team, is like, we want to make millionaires in the process. Like we want to help that to be a thing. So we want people to be able to invest alongside as we continue to grow and drive towards the mission. So we've been pretty blatant about it.

[Brandon Schlichter]

That's awesome.

[Podcast Host]

But yeah, again, businesses only do two things and nobody wants us to shut down. So like we have to continue. We have to continue. Yeah. So you've owned the roofing company for a year.

[Brandon Schlichter]

A year? We bought it April 29th.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So whenever this podcast starts, it's drops. It's going to be over a year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So yeah. Can you walk me through the, like, walk me through the business a little bit. Customer mix, what's the average ticket like?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

We have a lot of roofers. Listen.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, so it's a, it's a. When we took it over, they did probably 90 commercial, 10 residential. And just from my standpoint, there's no money in residential. We're a labor union firm, so we do a lot of prevailing wage jobs.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And a pretty reasonable amount of non prevailing wage. So when you're paying a foreman, you know, 55 bucks an hour plus benefits, it's very hard to make money on a commercial roof that in our area, the average residential tickets, maybe 25 grand, you really, to hit that 25 grand, you've really got to be in the insurance world, which they really did not have a process for the insurance paper, like residential, residential situation. But for commercial, it's much, it's a much different sales cycle. Yeah. You're building a relationship with a general contractor, a facilities manager, an owner, you're working with them, you're sitting down with their capital expense planning team and you're figuring out everybody's goals, which I love about the business. Because in residential, when I deal with residential customers and different things, it's always. There's typically a lot of emotions involved. And with commercial, it's just, it's numbers, it's facts and it's yes or no or yes. But we, we have to wait a year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Or whatever it is. So. So our current mix right now, the average tickets around 250, maybe $300,000 this year. And I say maybe because this year we're going for bigger tickets. We're bidding on one job right now that's in the 4 to 4.4 million dollar range. Just trying to go with bigger jobs rather than.

[Podcast Host]

So that's like customer mix. Right. Like you didn't necessarily raise price to go from 253. Just totally different customers.

[Brandon Schlichter]

We Just went with different customers. We. There was a lot of hesitation and lack of desire on the older owner's part to go after bigger jobs. Just because I think one end he didn't like the risk and then two, on his end was the capital planning. Because you're paying. Oh yeah, you could be spending a million dollars on labor on that four million dollar job up front before you ever get reimbursed on just the labor, let alone materials.

[Podcast Host]

So how does payment work? Like do you get a. Because it's a six month project.

[Brandon Schlichter]

If it's a six month project, it really comes down to the terms that you negotiate with the client. Usually they'll. A lot of them we see, they'll be bill and arrears. Like net 30.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Once the labor is completed. So you'll work for 30 days, you'll bill for it. If the GC is good, then he'll pay you promptly. If the GC is not good, then he won't pay promptly. And I think the average in commercial construction is about, I think it's a 57 day average between work performed and the time you're. You get a check. Yeah, yeah. So there's, there's a pretty heavy re. There's a pretty. Yeah, it's, it's a large float and it also kills a lot of the small, small guys. They can't float 57 days on a million dollar project, let alone a multi million dollar project. So we've, we've spent a lot of time working on our capital, planning our outlook. But we've been able to grow average ticket pretty reasonably. But it's also come with the additional benefit of a higher productivity per worker per day. That's kind of our goal of, you know, I have 16 laborers right now working for me on a job site. What is our average margin per person per day and what's our average revenue per person per day? And we're very concerned about aiming for margin per person per day, which was just. Was not a metric when we took the company over. The old owner like doing, you know, these small jobs and they're, you know, 50, $60,000 roofs. Payment was super prompt for a 50 to $60,000 roof, which is a huge benefit to get prompt payment. But it's also, we're coming into the job site and we have one full day of setup. We do the job for, you know, three days, let's say. And then on the fourth day, you know, day set up, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4. We do the labor and the work day five we tear down and go from the job site. So that's five days. And we have a day of setup and a day of tear down.

[Podcast Host]

Is ten grand a day good?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

But it's also. That's ten day. Ten grand a day on, on, on revenue. It's not margin.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And the margin on that might be $20,000. So now your margin for accrue is less.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So you started getting not great numbers. And then. Well, what happens if you have extra laborers and you don't want to lay them off? Which we don't want to lay anybody off. So now we're going to bring in extra workers on the job site. Well, now we get the job done quicker now. We don't need to be on the roof for three days. We could get it done in two days. So what do we do with that extra day? So you start to get to this point where you're dealing a lot of job site planning just to make sure that if you overshoot or undershoot, that your guys are taken care of. And with those larger jobs, we have found out generally speaking, they're not. Not as bad.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

You know, you, you. We do have a set, a day of setup. We do have a day of tear down, and then we have 30 days of labor in between the two.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So now if we overshoot or undershoot, what doesn't matter, we go to another job site. We've got, you know, a couple days afloat or maybe even a week of float. Float for the next job. So we're able to go on to those, those next jobs, which has been nice. The margins are pretty decent. You know, in our region.

[Podcast Host]

What is margin and commercial in the.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Greater Chicago area, it's about 20% gross margin. Yes.

[Podcast Host]

So like revenue minus field labor minus.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Materials, that number is going to be closer to probably 25 to 27%.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Than overhead. And then overhead is whatever it is, depending on how efficient you are.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. It doesn't sound like there's a lot.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It's not bad. I see a lot of teams that are overblown on their, on their overhead.

[Podcast Host]

Do you, do you count foreman in cost of goods sold or over? Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, that makes sense because they're on site all day. Right. It's a, it's a project. Live project manager.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yes. Yeah. So. Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

That makes for foreman. They're in cost of goods sold. Or we have an overall project manager that heads up over the foreman. He's in our overhead.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So. And Then, then everything else, you know, office staff and support staff. And we're growing our estimation team because rapid estimation is very important. Rapid, accurate estimations. Yeah, very important for commercial contracting because, you know, that's one thing that we have found out is we can have the lowest and the best bid on the face of this planet for a roofing assembly, but then if the general contractor doesn't get the job, you know, we're out of luck there.

[Podcast Host]

We had someone on the show, this was like four years ago. His name's Furcon Use and he runs a, a commercial flooring business. And he built. This was pre Ukraine stuff, but he built a estimating team for commercial flooring in Ukraine.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

So then they, they get the opportunity to bid and then Ukraine works, I guess 12 hours apart. So it's a 24, 7 like bid shop now. Oh yeah. Just kind of interesting. And they're churning out like their closing rate is like 2% or 3%. It's very, very small. But they're, they do a lot of at bats, which was kind of wild. And they like really accelerated that process.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yes, if I had a 2% close rate, that'd be awful. But there, there are a lot of firms out there that do that. I was recently just firing them off.

[Podcast Host]

It's like every single request we place a bid. So, yes, his goal, it was, it was kind of funny. He was aiming for like $5 million and he was bidding like a hundred million dollars and I was like, that's crazy. Yeah, that's wild.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I've. Yeah, I, we're definitely not wanting to, you know, to do was 100 million in bids a year or a month?

[Podcast Host]

A year.

[Brandon Schlichter]

A year. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I think it was 10 million a month or something like that.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Our goal, I have to read. I'd have to. I want to reread the show notes now.

[Brandon Schlichter]

But yeah, our goal is definitely around 100 million in bids this year. But my goal is also to close 20 of them. So I want to do 20 million this year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

But I've run into these other comp. Another gentleman that bought a demolition company. He's a gc, but he also like, he run his specific crew, runs demo on jobs and he has said the same thing. The old owner was only bidden $100,000 a week in estimates. And well, it takes energy. It does. And it also takes, it also takes a good estimation crew and a good field crew to go out and make sure that the site survey.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And everything's done correctly so that when you get your bid and you give, you give them your scope. It's correct. And that was like his thing that he struggled through and we were on the end of this with increasing our estimation capabilities and our bid flow. And he was like, yeah, I never would have thought I'm bidding $3 million of demolition a week.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And he said, because of that, he said, you know, our close rate, significantly lower than the old owner, but way more the amount of work we'll do. And I think he was just more at bats. Yeah, I think he was on, he's on track to do like 10 to 15 million this year, which is.

[Podcast Host]

What are they even demoing like old factories or houses?

[Brandon Schlichter]

I feel like it was like he did a lot of like concrete demo. He was out west too.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there's a company that I, I have to have them on the show, but they became nationwide from this and their name is Independence Excavation. They're in Independence, Ohio.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Podcast Host]

And like I've, I flew to Vegas five or six years ago for some work thing and like they had a sign out there and they started as just a demo crew, I think, exactly like this. And they were just digging holes and then they started bidding absolutely everywhere and now they're all over.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's awesome. And I, the guys that I see that are doing pretty well, they're, they look at what works and what doesn't. It's, you know, it's, it's the terrible thing or the scare. To me, it's terrifying going and buying a company. And to an extent, yeah, you're buying a brand name, yeah, you're buying some assets, but you're really buying the data. Data. You're buying the owner's former, the former owner's history of what works and what doesn't from his perspective, which in our case was great. You know, our, our former owner was, knew a lot of good stuff. He's done great work for himself, you know, self educating him in that world. But then there's also a lot of blind spots that we've discovered that we've had to go through and understand of. You know, with us being new to the commercial roofing industry, how do we deal with these things?

[Podcast Host]

It is a small company too. I mean the, the infrastructure is small. Like there's not a, an army of, you know, estimators or project managers or you had to, you're having to build a lot of it.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. And that's what we're doing. And we're, you Know, our team in Rockford is doing good. It's the first company I've bought that I'm. It's mostly remote for me.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

I drive there one week a month.

[Podcast Host]

It's in Chicago, basically.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, it's in Chicago. Yeah. Yeah, it's in the Chicago. Greater Chicago area. We're part of the local 11, which is almost all of north central north Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So it's the whole Chicagoland area and it's about two hours outside Chicago.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

So it's. It's neat. We do a little bit of work in Cook county, but.

[Podcast Host]

And is Cook County Chicago proper?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, Chicago proper. It's one of the largest counties in the United States. There's 5 million people that live there.

[Podcast Host]

That's great.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It's super, super competitive, especially on the commercial front. It's very, very litigious.

[Podcast Host]

Into high rises.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

That's a it' game.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It. It is a whole different world. I've talked to a few guys in the Chicagoland area that do high rise work and the fact that they use helicopters as frequently as they do just blows my mind. I want to do. I want to do a job just for this. The social media video aspect.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Of, you know, the helicopter delivering roofing materials.

[Podcast Host]

The same as like water towers. Like that was a whole thing. There was a documentary on this a couple years ago, but it was plumbers replacing water towers on top of buildings in New York. And I'm like, that's insane. That is insane.

[Brandon Schlichter]

That. Yeah, this guy was. And he, he was. He did a partial cost breakdown on why he has helicopters.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And it was so interesting to me to see. Yeah. You know, it's 30 minutes of helicopter work for $15,000. But here's the amount of materials we can pull up and take off. And I was like, well, that makes a lot of sense.

[Podcast Host]

Like the cranes or.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, we've got a gigantic crane. And you can potentially do that. But it's also. Are you blocking the road? Your traffic flow, how long you're breaking it for? Are you blocking it for? And there's certain areas of Chicago where I want to say it's like $5,000 every hour blocking the road. So that.

[Podcast Host]

That's what it is here in akron. It's like 5 to 10 for right of ways. We have to deal with that when we're doing sewers.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. If we have to carve into the road, it's a, it's a situation. All right. So not really much in Chicagoland. We're Avoiding that.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. But then the rest of that, we expanded our regional grasp by, you know, the old owner was doing maybe 150 miles and we're closer to 5 to 600 miles.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Because it's one of those things where, okay, if we can get a job that reaches our margin, why is it disadvantageous for us to go and bid that? And it's, We've, we've really worked a lot. My team out there is absolutely wonderful on trying to, trying to build a good work culture. We try to treat our guys right, give them money, make sure that it's worth their time to do travel work for us. And when we took the company over, that's like hotels. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

That's long.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, it is. You know, hotels and Airbnb's once in a while and steak dinners and just try and take care of the guys because they're giving up time away from their family. You know, for a few guys, they love being away from their family. But from our average guy, he doesn't want to be gone from his family for too long. So we know that we're asking for something. It's a big ask.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And we want, we, we've, we're trying to, and I think we're doing a good job of respecting that for our guys and saying, you know, you're giving part of your life to work for the company. Here's what we're going to give you in return. And so far we only have a few, a very small handful of guys that don't want to do regular travel work. The rest of the guys, generally speaking, do, you know, we, we had some good conversations at sit down interviews with our employees when we, before we took the company over and after, and we continue to do that to make sure that we're hitting the numbers that we want to. So now if there's somebody that needs a roof in, you know, Memphis, Tennessee or Nashville or, you know, Columbus, Ohio, we can, we can do the travel work now as opposed to being confined so much just to one market. And as we find that our re. Our range gets bigger, the margin potentially has the ability to go up higher too, because we're able to bring our assets online for these travel jobs as opposed to a smaller firm in that market that might not have them.

[Podcast Host]

We just had Paul Reed on the show maybe two months ago, and he run, he started as a storm chaser in, in, I pretty sure residential, but could have been residential and commercial roofing. And they set up like 11 different locations. And I think they do 45 million now.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Podcast Host]

And they turned into 100 residential, like, in place. It sounds a little bit like what you're describing, but like, as they expanded bigger and bigger, they started just popping up physical shops at all these different spots, which I think you were doing that or thinking about.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yes. Yeah. We're in the process of setting up some regional shops through the Midwest. Florida is big. One of those big ones. We've, we've had some ideations and some game planning sessions about building a shop either. I, I like Orlando because it's just centrally located and it's not as competitive as Miami, but it's also very litigious. I've, you know, growing up here in Ohio and doing a lot of work in Ohio, I've never seen bandit signs essentially for report bag contractors, but they're all over Florida with the 1,800number to, you know, is your contractor ripping you off report them? Which from the residential landlord side of me, I love seeing them because I've, I've been ripped off by residential contractors. I have elderly family members and friends that have been ripped off by them. So Florida's hard to get into legitimately, but once you're there, the margins are, are fantastic. It's. Florida and California are two of the hardest states to get into for commercial roofing and residential for the most part. But once you're in, you can do very, very well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

The.

[Podcast Host]

He was using. I don't know if this helps or not, but he was basically using massive storm events as a reason to pop up a shop because it gave them multiple years of work. So I was talking with Chris Hoffman yesterday, and Chris Hoffman's 180 million, most of that's plumbing, H Vac Electric, but 30 of its residential roofing.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Oh, wow.

[Podcast Host]

And he's in Salt Lake. Sorry, he's in. He is in Salt Lake, but he's in St. Louis.

[Brandon Schlichter]

St. Louis. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

And they just had a tornado, apparently.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy. Oh, yeah. So their roofing company went from projected 20 million, unless like they already had a big storm, I guess in November.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And they can't even do an estimate until June for residential roofing. So that's kind of crazy. That's a month. And now they're. They can't even do estimates for months.

[Brandon Schlichter]

And it's, you know, for, for residential roofs on the storm side. I've seen guys that have planning software and I know that a couple years back in the central, central northern part of Illinois, they had one storm and they modeled that it was a hundred million dollars worth of roof damage in just one 24 hour period. Which just blows my mind that one natural event can cause $100 million worth of damage and $100 million worth of opportunity.

[Podcast Host]

Well, the St. Louis one last week was a billion dollar storm.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

We had one in August here and it was 800 million, 800 million.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Oh wow.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy. But yeah, it was interesting because Paul was using these large storm events is like, okay, St. Louis is going to be up for the next two years. We're going to go drop a location there, we're going to serve it and in the meantime, build up, build up, work around it.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

That I thought was kind of like a good. Because the hardest part with the new location is Leeds. So you sort of solved it. Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

That's awesome. Yeah. Residential is something I would like to get into in the future, but it's just hard being a union firm and having our cost the way it is. In order for us to do it, we'll have to make some other play and do probably a spin off company or something. We're not close to doing that yet. We have a play. We're being courted by another union, which union politics and having conversations with them has been very interesting. But we've got a potential for one union in another state that we've talked to and, and we're going to be doing work in their local organization. But we've had that conversation about, well, you're not price competitive for residential anyway, shape or form. And they came back to us very, very positive because in the Chicago land region, commercial's fine. There's so many prevailing wage jobs. You just don't have to worry about residential for the most part. But going into these other markets, the unions have been really interested in working with us on the residential side. So I wouldn't say that it would be impossible someday to see a union labor stor firm going after just those kinds of things because there's a couple gameplays that we've seen that there might be some numbers that make sense, you know, making sure the laborers have really, really competitive wages. And we're able to make money as a company too.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So roofing is going well, business is growing. You're also in sort of a lot of other things.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, Laundromats, car washes. I'm still in residential real estate, some commercial, a little bit of self storage. And then I run this news company in southern Ohio called the Scioto Post.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

My goal, you know, my, my game plan at this Point was to be into multi family development, you know, building quad plexes and small apartment complexes. And for that side, government compliance and dealing with zoning has always been a concern of mine. So I bought into and built a news agency in southern Ohio to kind of help facilitate with that. So that's one of the fun little side business I have that I don't do too much content on but I'm hoping to get into in the near future. Yeah, Central Ohio is growing like crazy and dealing with government compliance and things like that. It's a very difficult topic. Yeah, it's, it's. I'm sure you see it on social media. Social media can really shape and change people's perspective on things. And for local communities it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I bought a piece of ground to develop in Circleville in 2017 and the neighbors just absolutely hated the fact I bought it. And it was very odd because they had very weird preconceived notions on what I was going to do with it. They expected me to build like a 100 unit subdivision. And I bought it just for pure land, pure speculation, no plants whatsoever. And yet for the neighborhood to come out against me was pretty wild at that time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. That is what while as you think about the next couple years, what do you think your focus looks like?

[Brandon Schlichter]

I want to be able to get more time to just do social media. I love sitting down and talking to you on a podcast like this. But right before we did this podcast we were doing a video. We gotta go see a landscaper.

[Podcast Host]

That's one of our visions for this show is we eventually like, we love the sit down, we love the studio, we want to do site visits and go visit these companies. And like I love a good shop tour.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. And I love sitting down talking to people in different industries just to hear their story.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Because it's, it's very much the American dream. If I can go from, you know, having a dad that drove truck to this and someone like Sean that we're filming with earlier today was able to go from his background to running a very well landscaping company and now he's manufacturing products in the state of Ohio.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that was cool.

[Brandon Schlichter]

It's, it's awesome to me to see how people can do that. But I also want to understand the story, story of how did you get here? Because I talked to so many people that feel so disenfranchised as, you know, 20 somethings or even 30 somethings here in the US and they say, well, I can never succeed And I've done a lot of coaching and consulting over my past five years of why do you believe that you can't do this thing? Well, because everybody's against me. Who's actually against you. And I sit down and I have this conversation with people. What are your perceptions? How do we fix the perceptions? And how do we get you on a track to not believing these lies and doing something with your life? Because I have family members that they're doing nothing, absolutely nothing at this point in life. And 20 years ago, when I first got to real estate, they were telling me, you're going to be a failure, you're never going to succeed, you're not going to do anything. And here I am with all these things. I'm very, very blessed to be at this point. But I also look back at them and I think, you didn't do anything in the past 20 years. And, you know, why are there people there that have this perception on life and everything? There's so much opportunity out there. And I don't. A lot of people don't realize that. I've got a twin brother and he does YouTube, he creates products and he's equally as successful as I am, if not more so. And he has the same not grown up, great lifestyle that I have. He's, you know, it's the brother that went, went to pick up trash for the city of Circleville. And yet he's in product creation, reasonable social media following, doing lots of great things, and he has succeeded too. And he's got a wife and three kids and spends a lot of time with them, and he's living the dream, too. And if we've come out of some reasonably impoverished lifestyle, what were the building blocks to get there? Because it was never a background of, well, you could never do anything. We had people in our family that was, you'll never succeed. Just go out and get a factory job, just, just do whatever you can to just scrape the bottom of the barrel. And our dad was always like, well, I have failed at trucking, so I don't have the answers on business and money and finance. You guys have to go figure that out for yourselves. But if you put some effort behind it, you'll probably figure it out. So for my brother and I, that's what we've done and, you know, done reasonably well at it too. And I want to be able to go and create social media to talk to people and kind of help them think through those things and be a voice that they haven't heard before for.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, what do you think? I have a couple sort of quick hit questions. What do you think over the course of your tenure has been the smartest move so far? Like what, what when you think of like the biggest needle mover?

[Brandon Schlichter]

I, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of the person that told me to do it, but, and it's been several people was just think bigger. Get, do something bigger. Don't confine yourself to just small opportunities. Because when I got into real estate buying my first investment prizes, I had this mindset, I'm just going to buy 500 single family detached rentals. And you know, years ago I had people say, don't think that small. Like 500 houses is not small thinking. And they said, no, you should be buying high rise apartment complexes. You should be thinking bigger and better things and more profitable things because your, your limit is, is unlimited. Just however big you can think, you can do it. You have to build the steps in between now and then. But think bigger. And you know, I bought the laundromat in 2019. I thought, okay, $8,500 a month. That's the biggest I can do for a revenue generator per month on a single location. Then I bought the car washes and our top tier for that was $400,000 between two locations. And then I started looking into the roofing firm and now we're shooting for 20, 25 million with it a year. And I had the opportunity to talk to other people that are doing nine figures a year and they're all thinking of what's the next step to get me to a billion dollars. And it's not that I want to try and put myself on a track to do a billion dollars. I think there's a lot of advantages to that style of thinking. How do I get to the point that I have something generating this level of wealth or this level of revenue? But it's one of those things where I really confine myself to too small a thinking. And I think that's, you know, I think in one end that's kind of the people that I grew up with of continue to think small because I was very much the outlier amongst all the people I knew that did business. You know, everybody's talking about having a taco truck or, you know, doing some sort of baking. You know, you can start your own business by baking pies in your kitchen. And it's not there's anything wrong with that, but it's also so you could go buy a chain of car washes. Later today, I'm meeting with a guy that bought a chain of businesses and turned them around in a year. And it's just the bigger level of thinking that I just was not doing. Up until a few years ago.

[Podcast Host]

I was always dumb enough to just believe I could.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, I think that I run into a lot of people that. That spend too much time thinking of all the reasons for them to fail as opposed to the reasons that they could succeed and having at least a little bit of faith in themselves and.

[Podcast Host]

You know, assumed success. Assumed success, That's a friend of mine calls it that. Just anything you do, you just assume you're going to succeed.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah. And I think that's good. And then I also think that, you know, one of the other things that holds people back is, you know, what if I fail? So what if you do fail? You can declare bankruptcy, you can get a clean slate, you can start all over again. That's very much an option. This country, as opposed to other countries where you can't do that. It's kind of. Kind of nice. You could. You can reset yourself at any point, should you find the need to. So if you realize that you can just hit the reset button, it might be worth a shot to take on some level of risk. So.

[Podcast Host]

Yep. What's the toughest moment been over the past seven years, eight years?

[Brandon Schlichter]

I don't know. It would be kind of a balance between, you know, is it. Is it a personal struggle or is it a business struggle? Struggle? The business struggle has probably been with the roofing company because everything's big. I have not had to deal with a million dollars in accounts receivable ever. And last October, November, I had a million dollars accounts receivable. And I've never had to tighten that up. And we got past it. But it was also a situation of. I've never had to experience this before. This is new to me. And now I've got more a bigger staff there than I do anything else. But for the amount of money that we're generating, it's also the easiest that I've got too. On a personal front, it's always just the balance between work and my kids. I value my five children highly. And it's the challenge or the struggle or the work on making sure that I'm in their life and we're doing fun things with them and they're not feeling that I'm spending too much time away from them. Them. Because I've run into a lot of kids that felt that their parents were working too much and they weren't getting any attention. And when they become parents themselves, they want to only spend time with their kids and they only want to spend time with their family. And I'm not saying that time with your family is bad because you need it, it's a huge value. But it's also unrealistic for most of the human race. And I think it's important for people to find that balance of family life and work and stuff and they not only can they coexist, I think they also have to coexist because otherwise you're going to be super unhappy and you're going to spend all that time working for nothing essentially.

[Podcast Host]

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[Brandon Schlichter]

Just go do it and just go do it. And if you there's something critical that you just can't do, like you feel that you don't have the skill set, go find somebody that does because there's probably someone out there close to you that has that skill set that you need, but they also don't have the skill set that you the skill sets that you have. I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and the vast majority of them have somebody on their team that has a different personality and they compensate for it. And for me and my different companies, it's been going out and finding operators and partners that I can bring on board that are a different personality than me that can help fix the things that I struggle with in the companies.

[Podcast Host]

You? Yeah, yeah. We think of that in stages. So like I'm a 0 to 1 or 2 Brandon. My presence, you know, 2 to 6 and then frontline leaders are 7 to 10.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Awesome.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Well this was awesome. I appreciate you sharing your journey. This was a lot of fun. If people want to find you, you're pretty easy to find.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Everything I do is at Investment Joy. So that's YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram. I'm also on X Twitter.

[Podcast Host]

Fresh to Twitter.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't been on Twitter. I've had been on Twitter forever but I've never really paid much attention to it. But for networking, Twitter has been incredible.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Done decent bit of business off Twitter just in the past six months, maybe a year. Yeah. So I'm easy to find and DMs are always open if somebody needs to get a hold of me. I try to respond to everything.

[Podcast Host]

Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you, Brandon, for coming on.

[Brandon Schlichter]

Well, thank you.

[Podcast Host]

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