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The Home Service Expert Podcast
He Built Five Companies Then Admitted He Should Have Built One Better (LIVE)
01:05:15
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- [00:00]
A
The one thing that every founder screws up is they get sidetracked. I'm opening up a bar. I'm going to start flipping real estate. I got this and this and this.
- [00:09]
B
I'd be halfway to Tommy Mello if I just focused on home fix. I swear to God, I'd be so much richer. It's always the people, it's never the market. You drop me anywhere and the same thing will happen. Jersey is the worst place on earth. Don't get me wrong. Don't open there. But the same thing happened.
- [00:24]
A
All right, guys. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today I got Adam Champagne with me. He's an expert at sky scaling, home improvement operations, multi business portfolio building, vertical integration, proprietary product development, customer first culture, consumer finance, and commercial construction. Today's episode is gonna be about most home service owners. Build one company. Adam Champagne built a portfolio. He went from a part time remodeling job to CEO of a $68 million company, then built his own supply company, his own finance company, and his own window brand. Today, he breaks down how vertical integration creates a competitive moat that most remodelers can't replicate. Adam, how you doing, brother?
- [01:07]
B
Good, man. Great.
- [01:10]
A
Let's just start. So you spent five years on Capitol Hill as a special assistant in the U.S. representatives. You were pursuing a career in politics and took a part time job at a remodeling company and never looked back. What happened? Tell us the story.
- [01:26]
B
So my whole life, all I ever wanted to do was run for office. Like I was a kid. Like when I was six years old, I knew what I wanted to do. I love politics. I was a total nerd. And it was my hobby. It was, it was, it was everything. So I really had a clear path. My whole way, all the way through college. I knew exactly what I was going to do when I got out of college. I wanted to work on the Hill. I wanted to write laws. I didn't want to be an intern. I wanted to get a real job on a committee. So I basically canvassed Capitol Hill for six months. I would go park at the visitor parking, going through the visitor entrance, put on my blue blazer and just walk around, like, walk around the Capitol building trying to meet people, just walking into meetings and walking into events. And I did that for six months. Got a bunch of, you know, meet people. They'd be like, yeah, come by my office tomorrow. You seem like a sharp kid. And I did that until there was a job opening on the House Science committee. Interviewed there, then used some connections through My uncle, to get my way to one of the members, went and met with him and this guy, Dana Rohrabacher, one of the coolest dudes on Capitol Hill. He's one of the original Libertarians, and he loved me, and he helped me get the job. So I started on the House Science Committee. Started as a staff assistant, which is, you know, like a step above intern, but it's. It's a real job. And the first day, I was putting mail on. On. On the desk for the chief of staff, and there was no one there. And I was like, who's, you know, who works here? And he said, oh, he just got promoted to press secretary. And so I was like, well, who's got that job? And they said, well, it's open. So I was like, can I apply for that? And so the first day, I applied for the special assistant chief of staff, got the job, and it was an amazing path from there. So, basically, for four years, I was. This guy's just. I was his Mr. Smithers. Like, I was just everywhere with him and got to be on his hip 24 hours a day. I would work people on the hill till 2, 3 in the morning when we're in session. I'd be there till 4 in the morning. Like, I just. I just worked my ass off for four years, got to meet amazing people, got to do amazing things. And then at the end, he, you know, promoted me to legislative staff to actually write laws because it's not what I wanted. And I was miserable. It was awful. You know, me behind a computer doing research and writing is not where I should be. So I figured I had to go to my next step. So I was like, you know, I go to law school. Not that I wanted to be a lawyer, but it seemed like a lot of congressmen were lawyers.
- [04:10]
A
Yep.
- [04:11]
B
So I got into law school, got into a few law schools. I ended up choosing University of Baltimore because they gave me a scholarship. Started there, had a little place in the city in Baltimore. And I was raised just by my dad growing up. And my dad is like, He's. He being in my household, raised by a single dad. He was like my only friend. My. Just my dad. And I did everything, and I didn't do anything without him telling me what to do. My dad raised me with a very strict upbringing, especially around money. So, like, I never, you know, I worked at McDonald's when I was 14 years old, and I would give my dad my paychecks when I was in college, I worked three jobs, and I would give My dad, my paychecks and he would dole out an allowance to me and he would save all that money. So when I went to law school, my dad's like, you're not working, you're gonna go to law school and I'll give you an allowance. And that lasts about a week. And my then girlfriend, now wife was a hairdresser and she's making like 70 grand a year. And I have no money. And I was like, I have to get a job because she's gonna leave me if I don't get money. And so I went to my dad, I'm like, please let me work. And it's like my identity, I've always been that way. When I worked at McDonald's in 14, I was the hardest working dude at McDonald's. I loved it. And so to not have a job, I had no identity. So he's like, all right, but you gotta work part time. So this is 2004. So I go, I don't even think I had my own computer then. So I go on the Internet and I type in part time job. And the first thing that pops up on Monster is part time work, full time pay. Remember, like it's yesterday. I was like, that sounds like a job for me. So it was in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Go and interview who with, who is now, you know, my partner, but was then the founder of the company Top Lala. Dude is a absolute savage. Like one of the most impressive people you ever meet. And you know, we hit it off right away. And when he saw me, like I know now, he was like this guy, you know, I could do something with this guy. But I was just looking for, for, you know, part time work. So he's, you know, he's pitching me on this job. I never heard, I didn't even know sales was a job. Like I've never, like, I never thought of being a salesman. And the way we land people when we're hiring salesmen for a job, like straight commission job, is we show them how much money they can make, right? So he had our old like pay system up on there and he's showing me these checks to this guy, Rocky Hawkins, who to this day actually works for me. And he was the top rep at the time. He was 19 years old and he was drawing $2,000 a week off his books. $2,000 a week from. I thought I was gonna buy a helicopter. Like, you know, I thought I had, you know, that was Tommy Mellow money. And I was just like, this isn't Even real. And. And he's like, we start you at a $500 a week draw. And I was like, five hours a week and this is all sold. Jumped out of my chair, like, I'm in. So I called my dad. I'm like, I found a job, told him about it. He's like, this sounds like a scam, like Amway or whatever. I'm like, no, no, it's real. He's like, is it 1099? Which it was. I'm like, no, of course not. You know, he's, you know, full W2 benefits. It's a $22,000 a year salary. And he's like, all right, you know, go ahead. So went into training with. With this guy that again, still with me, you know, 20 something years later, and trained me pretty quick. And, you know, it was like, so foreign to me. But as soon as I ran my first lead and I ran it with this kid Rocky, who I love to death, but he's a. He's a complete idiot. He. He is. I love him, the handsomest guy you'll ever meet, but he is. He's not in danger of being recruited by Mensa. So I ran leads with him, four leads. And I watched him do this and, and. And I watched him just regurgitate everything that I was just trained exactly word for word. Like, he. He even said the typos wrong. Like, he just said everything exactly the same. And the people said, I remember the first lady was this little townhouse. And the people said, no. And he goes, okay. And he ended up partialing it, selling these people the back of a townhouse. And, like, it was just. I was like. I was in the Matrix just watching this happen. I'm like, I am going to be. You know, this is going to be so easy. So the first lead I ran, I was in. I, like, blacked out. I was nervous. I was in there for like 14 minutes and. And I was laying off. Price went out. You know, call my manager. Like, I don't think I sold after 14 minutes. He's like, get the hell out of there. You blew it. So the next day was my second lead. Saturday morning, 9am lead in Edgewater, Maryland. I drive by the house all the time is for siding. And these guys were. This guy was like a big biker. My dad rides motorcycles. I rode motorcycles. So I can, you know, talk to talk. I ended up being in this house for eight hours, and at the end, it was just, you know, write a contract. And that was pretty much the end of it. Over the first 30 days I was at Home Fix back in 2004, I ran 29 leads. Month one. Sorry, 30 leads month one. I sold 29. So I did not sell the first lead. I sold every single lead I ran after that. And it wasn't. I'm still not the greatest sales rep or like, you know, the greatest system guy or, you know, I'd probably fail the test if I went through, you know, your training. But I was really good at making a friend with anyone. I ran, I would run anything. And you gave me a storm door lead two hours away at 8 o' clock at night and I was at the bar half lit. I would run that lead like there is nothing I would turn down anywhere, any place and I'd have an amazing attitude doing it and just go in there and make a friend and it was just easy. I enjoyed it. So I was in school for the full semester and I'd run leads at night and for six months the same thing, I net closed 80% of the leads I ran running all canvas leads at the end of that. Our Jersey operation at the time, so we were like 8 to 10 million dollar company and the model back then and numbers are just different years ago. But so being a $10 million company was a decent size. We had seven or eight little offices and they do like a million dollars each. And our Jersey offices we had two were always like 5, 600,000. And Tope came to me, he said, look, I want you to go to jersey for 30 days and I'll put you in a hotel. My managers, we've been through five managers in Jersey and they keep saying the prices are too expensive there to sell, it's too saturated. You can't canvass all the different excuses why Jersey. We just can't operate. And he said, it's either the people or it's the market. And if you go there and you can't sell, it's the market. I'm shutting it down. So for me, like now, I can't live 30 minutes without my wife. But back then I couldn't wait to get away from her. So 30 days at a hotel outside New York City sounded like amazing to me. So they put me up in a hotel and, and I ran leads and we all know you know the story anyway. It's always the people, it's never the market. Never drop me anywhere and the same thing will happen. I just had. And Jersey is the worst place on earth, don't get me wrong, don't open there. But the same thing happened right Next month. Yeah, it's tough. So. So that was, you know, that was the next phase. And at the end of those 30 days, he took me to lunch with his old partner and he said, we want you to take over New Jersey. And I was like, you guys, like, dude, I'm going to be the governor of Maryland. This is not my future. You know, this is a part time gig for me. And they laid out an offer for me and it was 5% of the office. So think about paying a manager 5 points on it. Off it, just off the number now. I mean, that's unheard of now, right? Plus the salary. And I went to my debt.
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A
50 grand. Plus your salary?
- [12:47]
B
Yeah, it's crazy. It's a lot of money. So I go to my dad. Remember, my dad controls everything. And my dad's a really strict guy. You know, he's a, you know, both my parents are immigrant families. My mom's a Greek immigrant. My dad was Jewish immigrants. Everyone becomes a doctor or a lawyer. There's nothing else, you know. And I showed this to my dad. He's like, you should do this. And I'm like, well, I don't have to drop out of law school and move to Jersey. He's like, you should do it. So I deferred. I finished semester deferred law school, went and got a one room apartment with my dog in Newark, New Jersey, and moved up there. And I'm now running New Jersey. There's no training program, there's nothing, just, here's your office, you're running it. And we, the Office had done $400,000 a year before. We did 400 grand my first month there. How do we do it? Because I just kind of treated the people like my customers is all I knew. So I, I went with the, the campus guys and I recruited every day on campus. I went canvassing at night. If I wasn't on a lead with my reps, I sat in the call center and called leads to make sure they go out. I saved all the cancels and I'd give away all, you know, I'd run leads, I'd sell them, I'd give them to my reps. And I just built an army of loyal, you know, followers in Jersey that would do anything for me. So I was there for a year. We did 4 million bucks. So we were, you know, the largest office by far. And at the end I wanted to get back and I didn't want my girlfriend to leave me, so I, I got to take over Virginia, Northern Virginia, which is A money market. And my, my first year there is 2006. I did 10 million bucks. So things are good, you know, doing my thing. They to the owner just treated me like he didn't. I mean he'd check in with me like every couple months, but he just let me do my thing. I got my own subs, I did my own, you know, I hired my own people. If I wanted to hire, run ads on Craigslist, I'd call him myself. I was like my own little company and they're paying me well. So you could do the math on 10 million, I was making more money than any 26 year old should make and I was spending it as fast as I got it. So I need to keep working. And so I was happy at the end of that, at the end of the first year, you know, look, you start, you know, all these other people that have left and started their own company, you know, you know how easy it is to do. I'm, you know, probably a little bit smarter than most of my competition. So, you know, I was a loyal guy and I didn't think the grass was greener and I made a ton of money so I wasn't going anywhere. But we knew something needed to happen. So eventually we came to the agreement and Tope says it's his idea, I say it's mine, that I would take over home fix, let me run the whole thing and I'm going to take us to the promised land. And at the time we were really tight with the power guys and I saw what power was doing. They were actually smaller than us at the time. Amazing to say we were big grosso guys. So like we'd meet with Grasso at his place in Lake George and meet with the power guys. And it's kind of cool because, you know, University of Maryland, I don't know if you know, is like ground zero for our industry. And we actually have an awesome black and white picture back in the day of Tope, my partner and his other partner, George. And they're in their like suits with their beepers and beeper chains. And in that picture is Adam Callender who founded Power, Nathan Wise from Capital, Gary Lance from. All the big company, you name it. There's like nine guys. Ameritech is Gary Lance that worked at this one company in College park as sales reps or canvassers. So it's amazing the billions of dollars that have spun out of College park and you know, so, so these guys. So Tope was tight with Adam at the time and I saw what these other companies were doing and I wanted to do it, but I want to do it on a big scale. Tope really didn't want to. He wanted to just make money. He's like, I don't care about being a big company, you know, I just want to make money and. But I'm going to let you run. So at the same time he wanted to get in the solar business. So I was like, this is perfect. You go do solar, grow that, do your thing. It was 2008, Obama's coming in, the tax credit started. He had an idea to get into it and I wanted to grow this company. So he bought out his partner and basically made me his partner at that point. And that little solar company started end up becoming Solar Energy World, which grew to well over 100 million when he sold it to Comcast. We're still the landlord, they're downstairs in our building. Comcast owns it now and they're doing hundreds of millions. But that spawned from this idea. And I took Home Fix and I was able to grow it through grit and hard work to 60, 70 million at its largest. But like you said on your little sheet, I was a serial entrepreneur, so I wasn't really satisfied with that. And I started and spun off a bunch of other companies kind of at the sacrifice to Home Fix. So homefix kind of got stuck at that size. It hasn't really grown much bigger. But I have, you know, founded and started quite a few other companies that are very successful and kind of are in the ecosystem of home improvement. So one of them is Installation services, which is an awesome business. We actually install. We're a turnkey installation and supply company. Love that business. We started it by. I purchased a company so Mid South Building Supply was the building supply company in my area. All these companies started using MidSouth to do their install and to get their materials. And there's a guy, Norman Rails, I don't know if you ever heard of him, he's a billionaire. Another guy, Harry Katz, they're like godfathers in this industry. And they were smart and they saw these guys, these sales reps that were at these companies in College park and they'd be like, yeah, if you go start your company, we'll be your install and we'll be your credit line. And all these little companies spun out. So Mid south at the time was installing for 30, 40 different companies. Power being their biggest SRS ends up buying Mid South Power, buys some other install thing and turns it into their own. So they leave Mid South, Mid south moves in the building next door and becomes exteriors, et cetera. And they are just a window turnkey, window and siding supply company and install. SRS takes over all the roofing. So that's the company I bought in an asset purchase. And all those people are still here today in my building running installation services. And when we first took it, Tope was like, look, I don't want to install for my competitors. The reason we wanted it was the people, all the installers, all the assets, the trucks, the knowledge, you know, the measure techs, the systems to scale our install. And they had a really nice commercial division. I love, you know, I love the idea getting into commercial. I want to get into scale. And so I was like, yeah, yeah, no problem. I'm not going to install from my competitors. So that lasted like a day. I sent, you know, I sent letters to, you know, whoever capital and long, whoever they're installing for saying, all right, we're going to install your pipeline. But at the end we're not taking anymore. And you know, I have too many friends in the industry. And back then there was a lot of labor shortage and you know, I'm friends, you know, with Harley and Aaron that started Nation and other guys and they're like, hey, why aren't you installing for us? Why aren't you installing for us? And Harley, I was like, first of all, because you're an asshole and I don't want you yelling at me all the time. Which, you know, but second of all, you're too big. So I end up, you know, of course, because I'm me starting to grow that business and it grew really fast. So we installed for Window Nation. We installed for a lot of companies. But at our biggest, we grew that business independently to 50 million of install. But 50 million of install is a big number because there's no sales, there's no marketing, there's no. The cost is like nothing, right? So you're making a nice margin and you're just executing. And I got really good at it and I really enjoyed it. And that business is still there to this day. I'm proud of it. We've helped a lot of companies. I'm more. I've shifted away from the window nation of the world because they almost put me out of business. You know, the demand and the volume and I'm more just small companies like, hey, you don't want to hire measure techs or get trucks and you got to buy windows, you know, for 2, $300 a window from ABC I could sell you a window for 200 bucks and install it for 150 and you don't need. It will be your back office. And, you know, the other beautiful thing is people would, you know, I'm like, I'm not one of those guys. I don't sue people. I don't. You know, people want to start their own company. I just take it as a feather in my cap. So there's probably 20 people that I've trained and hired to start their own company. I'm like, sure, go, and I'll install for you. Just become, you know, become my customer. So I created a really nice, healthy network of like 10, 12 million dollar companies that we install windows for. And then, you know, while I was doing it, I was like, hey, you know, I want to get in the finance business. You know, that seems cool because I loved that I didn't have to sell or market and I got all this volume. I'm like, what is. This is even easier. The finance business. I don't do anything. And they can go do all the work. So I kept going to Tope. I'm like, let's get in the finance business. Let's do it. And he's like, you know, you know, just. Can you focus on Home Fix for one day? Oh, yeah, yeah, that'll be fine. So back then, Home Fix was with Service Finance, and David, who owned Green sky, was trying to get our business. So I'm sure, you know, David or no, Jesse or I'm sure you.
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A
Yeah, yeah, all those guys.
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B
Yeah. So Jesse was like, hey, you know, we want Home Fix this business. This was the year David was on the COVID of Forbes. So David wants to have you down to his house. He wants to, you know, as a guest. And he wants to. Sorry. He wants to, you know, you know, just get to know you and see if he can earn some business from Home Fix. And I was like, yeah, sure, fly me down there. So I go down. So like I told you, you know, I'm good at making quick relationships with people. People always joke with me because I'm half Greek, half Jew. Like, I'm a Greek when I need to be. I'm a Jew when I need to be. When David Goldstein was the chief of the science committee, I was Jewing it up with them, you know, and David from, you know, David of Green sky is there. You know, I think his parents are actually Israeli. They're Jewish immigrants, professors, brilliant people. So I made a quick connection with him. I was like, look, David, I'm Going to be honest with you, I'm whatever about using Home Fixer Greensight. I want to start a finance company. I want you to help me. And very graciously he did, and very generously. So I went back, I convinced Tope to do it and we started Pure Finance. And Pure Finance at the beginning was really just an app where you'd get an approval and it would just go to Green Sky. That's all it was. Okay. And I hired one employee, which was a underwriter from another local finance company, Atlantic, just to kind of like take the files and you know, do the fundings and stuff like that. And I had, you know, my, you know, 10 or 15 customers in mid south that I could just sign right up and a couple friends sign right up. So I'm getting some loan volume and now I've got a little company going and you know, it started to, you know, get, you know, get 10 clients, get 20 started to get some action. I'm like, all right, I want to do something with this. So I had a buddy that worked at Wells Fargo. To me, just a bank was a bank. So I figured if he worked at Wells Fargo and he was really high up, he would know how to run a finance company. I took him to lunch and convinced him to leave his half a million dollar a year job at Wells Fargo to come be the CEO of Pure Finance. He shows up day one and realizes that Pure Finance is a cubicle in the corner of my office at home fix. But he's the CEO and my part of Pure Finance kind of ended there. My story and I passed the torch to him and he has now taken Pure Finance and grown it to be one of the largest finance companies in the country. I mean, we're taking apps from, I think we probably took apps from close to 600 contractors yesterday. So we are a player in the business. And we also took that from being just a correspondent lender to a full stack full service licensed lender. We're not a, you know, Greensky actually isn't even a licensed lender. Green sky is a licensed finance company. So they can't hold any paper. We are a full licensed lender in that we can, you know, portfolio loans, we can, you know, get a bond rating. We can, we can lend our own money. And because of that, our cost of funds are really affordable. The really can't be beat by almost anyone. We can create any program we want. We got great tech. I built it for contractors and I knew, you know, they say that fees are important to them. But. And we are, you know, good fees. But it's not what's important to contractors that it's really easy to use in the home. The reps can get, you know, quick. That they're. Create the fastest way to get.
- [27:25]
A
Get a contract and then the acceptance too. Right.
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B
Like get approval second, you're my word. Get divorce approvals. And then, you know, cost is the third. And you know, luckily in that period, Mark Burch, who owns Service Finance, kind of caught wind of what I was doing. And Mark. Have you met Mark?
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A
I know Mark really well.
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B
He's an animal. So.
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A
Mark an animal. He's a workaholic.
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B
Mark rolls out the. I mean, he rolls out the whole. He rolls out the Global 500 and everything. And. And I meet with this guy and man, it was like, dude, it was like sparks happened. So Mark and I hit it off really well and he taught me a lot about financing. So first he was, you know, we were maturing beyond just this is in between becoming an own lender. Maturing beyond Green Sky. We were more of a broker, more of a correspondent lender. And we could sell deals to different. And Service set up a real, you know, a real program for us that we could offer real finance and then sell the paper to Service. And. And Mark always said to me, it's funny, you know, he gets. With his whiteboards and his numbers and everything goes nuts. And he's like showing me how to do it and he said, I'll. I'll teach you how to do everything because you'll never figure out how to get your own money. And I took that as a challenge. And I joke with him when I see him now because I figured that out and I wouldn't have been able to if it wasn't for him because I had to. I had to fake it that I was a real finance company first so I could actually go and get the money. But a lot. If it wasn't for Mark, I wouldn't have been able to do it. But Pure is an amazing company. We run it like a tech company. My other partner there was a home fixed employee, was like home fixed employee number two. So he knows in home sales, he knows what contractors want. You know, still to this day, you know, being in the B2B selling a contractor business, like, I take everyone personal. Like, I'll. It's just like I'll. I'll die before I have a contractor be unhappy. Like, there's just nothing like. And we kind of run the business that way. And we're very Thoughtful about who we bring on. We got, you know, all of our contractors are just awesome partners. We don't put ourselves in a place where we can't service them really, really well. And that's pure.
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A
I love this story.
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B
Yeah, I got it.
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A
I got a million questions about that. Why don't. Do you guys API in any CRMs?
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B
So, yeah, so that's a. So I'm really, you know. Do you know Pat from leap?
- [30:14]
A
I don't know. No.
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B
So Pat founded, you know, leap. Right. Sales Pro.
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A
Yeah. Commercial on Fox News. It's like every other commercial.
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B
So he was a home fixed sales rep, and then he basically started the. He was the first digital contract. I mean, we were all on paper before then, and I wish I was still on paper because I love the paper days, but. And he grew that to a huge company. But he also founded this company called New look, which was a home fixed competitor, and it grew it to 40 million, its biggest. And then he founded Leap and sold it. He ended up having to sell New look because the private equity company wanted to. I bought that company. That's another story. But the API version. So LEAP is, I think, one of the largest finance. Like, there's more financing that goes through LEAP than most finance than, like, you know, billions of dollars. Leap. Leap. Leap. Pat Fingals. So Sales Pro. Leap.
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A
Okay, I'm thinking about something else.
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B
Okay. All right.
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A
I'm sorry. Okay. I thought you meant leap.
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B
Yeah. No, no, no. So LEAP is, you know, one of those CRMs that you want to be integrated with. Right.
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A
Okay.
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B
So they're. They're the biggest partner we have at Pure in that we're integrated into the LEAP system. So if you're writing your contract there, you can get the approval. And we do play around with the, you know, the. The aggregators of the world or the, you know, I don't even know what to call them, like the wanted funds of the world. We're not in wanted fund, but we. I know those guys. I mean, I was hanging out with those guys at your Phoenix Open. I love those guys. And in fact, the owner was our lawyer at. At Solar World. So we got a lot of, you know, cross worlds. And they're. They're great guys. But so, yeah, we play around that world. Now, here's the thing with. It is you're going to pay a fee or scrape to be in those. So is the volume worth the scrape?
- [32:21]
A
Yep.
- [32:21]
B
Right. And the way we're set up now, you don't want to be in too many. So we're in Leap. We don't know if we want to be in that many more because we're bringing on enough contractors monthly that I'd rather just give them the. You know, it's a really good. It's a race to the bottom, right? So you can only go solo. You can only lose so much money on the loans. Good thing that we're an actual finance company. So we service our loans, you know, so there's multiple layers of revenue to be made on each one, because we service everything. And we also are a full payment platform, so you can run all your payments, everything, right through our platform, and then everything's paid. And then we'll integrate with your CRM, we'll API into anything you have. So for me as a customer, Pure, everything that happens with Pure is instant in my CRM. They get approved, they pick the plan, it's in my CRM. They sign it, it's in my CRM. You know, they get the steps, it's in my CRM. So we can integrate with almost anyone. Like I said, we run it like a tech company. We have. We have quants and geniuses, you know, galore over there running that place.
- [33:38]
A
You. You said Northern Virginia is a money market. What? I'm not in Northern Virginia yet. I'm just curious, what are some of the better markets in the Northeast?
- [33:49]
B
So Northern Virginia is still probably ground zero for home improvement. I mean, it's crazy. I'm on that SRS trip, which is top contractors for SRS everywhere, and they're all D.C. metro area contractors, because the Washington, D.C. is just an endless faucet of money that just spills out into the suburbs around it, which is why it's such a good market. And there's just so many homes I'm in. So I am in. I'm from Jersey right now. I'm from South Jersey to North Carolina. So I'm in kind of that South Jersey Philly market, the Maryland market, Northern Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia, Raleigh, Charlotte. And then I was in Tampa when we sold Solar World, who was also in Charlotte. Tampa, we made the decision. I made the decision to actually close those offices for Home Fix because it just. Home Fix was not doing good at the time. And we can talk more about that. And I was like, I just need to consolidate my efforts. And Tampa is just too far for me to touch, even though I love the market. So we. So right now, North Carolina, Virginia, we're spread over six, seven offices in that mid Atlantic. I love Raleigh. That's an awesome market. I love Norfolk, but they're canvas markets, so they're really tough. I mean, especially Raleigh or Charlotte if you don't canvas. I don't know anyone. I mean, Window Nation shut down Charlotte. I think the only location they've ever shut down. Charlotte's tough and I know.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah.
- [35:21]
B
And I think power, even it struggled in Charlotte. I think it's their worst office. Like, well. But they canvas anyway. If you canvas, you could kill it in North Carolina. If you don't, it's tough. The credit is tough. The approvals are really tough. The aggregators are going to give you a lot of shit. And the digital just doesn't really work there. Maybe for a services industry like you, which I love, you know, I'm a total, you know, we're not. I'm trying to run my business like a services business now, but I'm not. But. But for. For retail roofing and retail windows, it's tough if you don't canvas. So we still kill it in Raleigh. And I love. I love that Marty, when you knock on a door there. I sell canvas all the time. I've knocked on thousand doors. I don't canvas in my home market because I went out with them one time and knocked on these. This husband and wife I went to college with, and it was the most embarrassing thing. So as much as I have no pride, I don't want to knock on door people. I know. But when I go to Raleigh, I knock almost every time I go to visit them, and I'll get more leads. And I always tell them, I'm gonna get more leads than your best guy out here. Now, I would never want to be the salesman that runs my leads, but I'm gonna get them because if they open the door, they're signing up. But the people are so nice. I mean, they open the door like, hey, look, there's somebody out here that's got a roof estimate. Honey, come on over. Like, it's completely different than, you know, canvassing in Jersey or Northern Virginia. So I do dig the southern markets a lot. And I'm still, you know, I've been a canvasser since day one. We're a canvas company. We've grown through canvassing. We tried to change our DNA the last few years, and it was a total flop. Because I really think companies have a DNA and, like, a soul.
- [37:03]
A
They do.
- [37:03]
B
And you can shake. You can change all your people and it doesn't go away. And we are a canvas company. And your sales reps have to be the type.
- [37:13]
A
The problem I Have with canvassing because I'm not good at. It is. And I'm jealous is you build demand where it doesn't exist. And I'm so used to.
- [37:23]
B
Yeah, Exactly.
- [37:24]
A
I get 34,000 leads a month and I. That's right.
- [37:31]
B
But, but. But your. Your garage doors. Right. So, yeah, one thing is. So if I was a services company, right. H Vac or. Or. Or, you know, more what the garage doors. I. I love.
- [37:48]
A
I was in electrical garage doors. Yep.
- [37:50]
B
Yeah. I was in the garage door business with installation services for a while. We were a clopay dealer and an RMR dealer and we self performed the install and I self performed the install and I killed it. And the beautiful thing about it is you're not competing as much for the leads. And leads for services or for repairs and service are easy to combine. You can convert them into replacement. So that's one. I'm also, like I said, I'm not generating leads any other way. I tried in 2020 when everyone. When leads were just raining from the sky from, you know, during COVID and everybody I knew. I remember I was on the phone with Ed Augustine, who I love from Paramount, buddy of mine, and he's like, we. We did their canvas company. Like, we just did a TV ad. We did, you know, $2 million in a week or something. I was like, man, I'm missing the boat. So I tried. I actually hired Window Nations TV guy, like, to make commercials. And then I found out that I don't even know how to answer the phone. I literally had never taken an inbound lead. We had no way of taking a lead and setting it because we're so used to canvassing. And it was a total, like, flop where I am like, the. You know, everything that I love about canvasing is I don't care what the economy is. I don't care what the turndown rate is. I don't care is like I can literally just write my. My volume that I want on a piece of paper and just reverse engineer it right back into recruiting. It's. It's just a simple, you know, algebraic equation to how many people walk into my door for a canvas interview that go out and knock on the knock on a door is how many leads I'll generate. And it's, It's. It never fails. It just doesn't.
- [39:38]
A
No, I agree. I mean, how big is your installation company?
- [39:45]
B
So at our biggest, we were covering almost the whole east coast. I mean, I was installing on the border of Canada and then down to Florida. Now it's modest. I'm just basically installing within 90 to 100 mile radius of where Home Fix is. And where the nice benefit of that is, is I have a really healthy inside sales program. You know, over the phone sales. And you know, it's not a secret, but it's easier to generate leads in areas where there's not a lot of people and not a lot of demand because not a lot of people are fighting over the leads. So we get from the aggregators all these leads that no one wants in these remote areas, but I can install there. So we're selling a lot over the phone that way, so it helps us add a footprint.
- [40:39]
A
Are you spraying in the foam or just adding the. The stuff up top or what type of installation?
- [40:45]
B
No, no installation. Not installation. Oh, you don't do it?
- [40:48]
A
Oh, it's all insta install work.
- [40:50]
B
Yeah. So I'm installing for my competitors basically.
- [40:54]
A
Man, I'm mishearing. I'm sorry.
- [40:56]
B
So, yeah, it's all good.
- [40:57]
A
What happened in the garage? So you were doing installs because they needed garage doors as well?
- [41:02]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I liked that. Yeah. So basically I stopped doing that because everything that I slowed down to doing is because homefix was just not doing well and I had to. It was going to die without me. So I had to really. Pure Finance had a great CEO and their own team. In fact, they locked me out of the building. Pure Finance doesn't even want me there. They just, they have a head of risk there and I'm like. They consider me like public enemy number one because I'm a, you know, a fucking home improvement savage. So you cannot run a finance company the way you run a home improvement company. It's the complete opposite, actually. So that company's fine. Solar World built the most amazing team on the planet. They're there. So homefix needed me bad. And so that's why I had to rein in a lot of the other things I did and jump back in this business with every fiber of my being because at the end of the day, I'm the CEO and, you know, responsible for it. So as I sit here in 2026, I try and stay out of as much as I can that's not home fix. Oh. And I also. So I end up starting a commercial construction business as well, called Top Key Construction, which is another, you know, kind of independent business which. Which does commercial construction and also has a great CEO.
- [42:24]
A
Do you think if you took your best canvassers. I'm just curious. This is just more of A hypothetical,
- [42:31]
B
but I, I, okay.
- [42:33]
A
Do you think garage doors would work for door to door?
- [42:37]
B
I'll sell anything door to door. We had a bath business for a while. Again, I slowed it down. I, I, I wound it up because I just wanted to focus on home fix. But we were canvas, Everybody said he can't canvas for bath. We were killing, we were canvassing for walking tubs. You can chaos for anything.
- [42:52]
A
I mean, and in fact, I would
- [42:53]
B
love the canvas for garage doors because it opens up a whole bunch of homes that is go, you can go to new construction, you can go anywhere.
- [43:02]
A
You know, the reason I ask is because the problem I have is the garage door average ticket is just so much lower than a bathroom model or windows or roofing or switching your cable out because that's a SaaS product. So. Right.
- [43:16]
B
So does the math work?
- [43:17]
A
Pest control. So my idea. So right Now I got 100 canvassers that just go put a sticker in the garage. They say, we're just here to lubricate your door. The neighbors broke down the street. We put our sticker in there. Free service call when you need us. But they're like, out of like all the canvassers, they're the ones that were the rejects. They're the guys that just aren't comfortable with confrontation and sales. But my question I guess I'm working towards here in the future is if I get an A plus canvasser, could they turn over those leads?
- [43:47]
B
Yeah, see, I don't know the economics on the average job size and the cost. And what if I just gave them
- [43:55]
A
20 bucks for every time they give me an opener with a brain in it that Amazon could deliver? See, my theory is they're not going to make a killing, but they'll get a yes every three homes they're in. And so they're not going to turn over as quickly. It's like really easy because it's a small ticket just to sell an opener for five, six hundred dollars and say, hey, you get Amazon or Walmart to deliver. I could, I could pay them more on the upsells of there. But I think the good news about it is, man, if you're getting one out of 60 yeses, that sucks. But if you're getting that motivation of confidence level, like, man, I'm getting a lot of yeses. I don't know.
- [44:30]
B
Yeah, but I mean that, that math is right too. Like when I, like I tell you knock on 100 doors, but if you do it, it's just math. I tell people, you know, you knock on 100 doors, whatever your mate. I always tell my canvassers to just do the math. You know, here's how much you make per, you know, here's how many. How many leads you generate. Here's how many go out. Here's what you make. And because my best canvasser ever was this guy. He was a. He was a not. He used to do security, and I brought him over. He would knock with a golf ball loud as hell. And he was like the first guy that put like the construction outfit on when he's canvassing. And no one did that yet. And he would. Back then, I was paying him a hundred dollars a called in lead. So just call in the lead. I'll give you 100 bucks. But the math work because it's. You get me ten leads, it's a thousand dollars. I run three of them. So I'm running three leads for a thousand bucks. That's $333 a pitch. I sell one. Average sale, 15 grand. I'm paying a thousand bucks for $50,000 sale. It works if you got the right canvasser.
- [45:29]
A
Seven and a half percent.
- [45:30]
B
He would go until he. Sometimes he'd make, you know, get. He would get 10 leads a day. God was making 300 grand a year canvassing. So he figured out he made $9 a door. And he would just hammer and he. He'd spit out his pitch. They'd say no. He'd spit out a quick ejection. They'd say no, boom, thanks for the nine bucks. Move to the next one and just roll through it. But the point is, you know, I've never have canvas for garage doors, but I believe you could canvas for anything. And canvassing will never stop working as long as, you know, I canvas during COVID I canvas. The one thing that does shift a little in canvassing is labor. Wages just become more expensive. So to get people trained and up and running is more expensive because the hourly wage has gone up so much.
- [46:27]
A
Now that makes sense. Do you know a guy named Matt Essler?
- [46:32]
B
That's my dog. I love him. I. I love him like he's my brother.
- [46:37]
A
You know, I. I got to meet him at the remodeler event.
- [46:42]
B
Is it amazing how much he's like. I mean, I guess you're the same, but I mean, because you guys are so big, much bigger than I am. But how involved he is and how, like, on the level thing to me
- [46:56]
A
is I feel like I could still, like, I'm still a student for life, and I feel like I could learn a lot from him because I haven't figured out events I haven't figured out. But by the way, I'm not just gonna dabble. When I go into something, I go all in. Like, I don't, I'm not in Home Depot or Lowe's or Costco or Menards or Ace Hardware. I just think they're kind of this omni. The, the thing that really, I think is affecting him is that you got to sell within the dealer network. So the multiple, it's like, why would I ever sell? Because I can never get, you know, one's worth 15, 20x. I think he, he taps out about 5x, you know, but one point what, 2 billion, $1.3 billion.
- [47:36]
B
He's amazing. And he's a learner too. If you talk to him, he's listening like he wants to learn more. Like he, he's listening like it's his first day. It's amazing. But you mentioned. So I'll tell you, we're, we're successful in retail. I don't do the BJ stuff because I don't want to pay the fees, but we're in Walmart's very successfully. We're in, you know, other, any retail spot. But it's just canvassing. Like it's all. I just train you how to canvas. If you're at a home show, you're not a booth, you're canvassing. You are just kidding. There's just happened to be a place where people are aggregated and you are going to grab them and drag them into the demand cycle. But you know, I don't. Why does all these companies fail at canvassing? Even though there's all the, you know, the Yoho method or Tony Hodi or all these people to train you out of canvas or these consultants. Why do they all fail? I'm telling you, it's because of the DNA. Because if I walk into an office and interview and someone's like, hey, I'm interviewing this rep, he's leaving. You know, he's leaving Windonation or he's leaving Anderson. I'm like, if you're coming here for leads, our leads suck. You're at the wrong place and you probably shouldn't come here because you're not succeed.
- [48:48]
A
You know, like the mind. True.
- [48:51]
B
Yeah. The mindset of a sales rep here. When we train them, we train them as canvassers. Like you are just showing up to a door that you're gonna have to re canvas when you get there. I'm just pretty sure. Someone's gonna open it. Like, that's what we're training them. And it's just a totally different mindset here.
- [49:10]
A
Here's the, the crux of it. If I train a lion how to kill a demand call, I mean, they're spoiled. They go out, it's a busted door. I need this fixed. I'm trapped. I missed my son's baseball game. And then you go to a non demand call, and it's a complete different approach. We're spoiled, so we go and we're like, we're trying to treat it the same way, but the client's like, it works fine.
- [49:36]
B
So. Yeah. And you could say, I'll give you an analogy. All right. I tried to hire different. So I run sales and I've tried over the years to get somebody to run sales and, you know, I get the bricks to do my recruiting and I think bricks is great. And they'll bring me people from these big companies that don't canvas but have run these massive sales teams. And they don't work here. And it's because it's so like, just even like they're trying to talk about offers, like financing, you cannot walk into a canvas lead, start talking about two years, same as cash loss, because they don't want you there in the first place. So they're not thinking about how they're going to pay for it. Where they don't want you here.
- [50:17]
A
Yeah.
- [50:17]
B
In canvassing, when I, when I offer you one year, no interest, no payment, it's like I literally made it rain in front of you like I parted the seas like Moses at the end, when, you know, I've, I've told you how amazing our product is and how, you know, what you're, you know, one day when you replace this, and I've made you think, wow, I actually may want to do this one day and I will never be able to afford it. And then I make magic happen. Right. If you walk in there and say, oh, here's our five years interest free, or here's our buy two, get one free, they just don't care. Right. So it's just such a different mentality of trying to sell on price or offer than creating, you know, then creating the demand while you're there.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah.
- [51:10]
B
And the other thing is, we don't, we don't compete on price. Most of the people we run have never had a quote before. Never an estimate.
- [51:16]
A
No.
- [51:16]
B
Like I never see, ever see, you know, Anderson or, or, you know, any of these competitors at any of our leads Ever.
- [51:25]
A
Well, that's what's interesting is look, my uncle got an Anderson's quote in Gilbert and it's amazing how much more expensive they are. I mean literally like triple the price and they get all day. But they've mastered the system that quite
- [51:41]
B
frankly we only $4,500 a window. It's unbelievable, it's insane.
- [51:46]
A
But here's the deal. How much do they spend on branding? I mean they're on every commercial, they're on radio, they're at Every, they're running 350 events in Phoenix. I mean you, you catch them at a high school football game. I mean, and the deal is their brand actually allows them to charge more. And, and I will say they've got some of the best financing I've ever seen. I mean they're so good at it.
- [52:07]
B
They're amazing. They're I, I admire. Well, I like you say you're jealous of Camstein. Like I'm jealous of a brand, you know, I'm jealous of that, that somebody might have heard of me if I open the door or if someone, you know, actually wants me there. We compete against Thompson Creek here. Their brand is, everyone knows them. If I want to say what I do for a living is somebody, I said, well, have you heard of Thompson Creek? I do that because everyone's heard of them, right? It's, it's totally different. And I constantly like, you know, listen, we spend 5, $600,000 a month on canvassing. I could take that and spend it on SEO or you know, pay per click or TV ads, whatever I want. But I've just found that it's, it's like, it's one of the other. Harley Magden always tells me that. He's like, you don't limp into branding and digital marketing. You don't just, it's not like an a la carte menu, like I'll run some SEO or SEM. No Window Nation.
- [53:03]
A
A lot of time. It's a long term investment. It's not just you. You can't just spray and pray and dabble. You got to have, yeah, the booking rate dialed in, the conversion rate and the average ticket. And then you got to monitor the cost per lead and it's, it's, you know, but what's great about it is the LLMs are starting to really understand that when I win all these awards and the brand and I'm getting the searches and I think Google's gonna win the long term because they got more data. And I was talking to a buddy of mine. And he goes, tommy, you're gonna win because you got the highest domain authority, you've got the most links. That's the trust signals. And the alums were dabbling with Reddit and BBB and trustpilot and all these other things, but they're starting to go back to what Google figured out. Is this a legitimate company. Their hours are open, they answer the call.
- [53:49]
B
Right, right. They answer the phone, we call.
- [53:51]
A
Well, that's big. Yeah, I mean, literally, like it's huge. Google figures out who's going to give my clients the best, so they come back to Google to use us. And that's why they get so such, you know, that's, they treat their users for free, but I'm paying for it on the backend with PPC and PMAX and LSA ads.
- [54:11]
B
And that's why I can't risk it, because if someone calls off a local service ad and they can't get through because my 30 people, the call center on with the 60 canvassers confirming their lead. So they can't get the lead and we missed that call. Then Google pings us for it and they're not going to send us any more leads.
- [54:29]
A
I wrote down here, I'm going to need to start a new business as a division of A1 with separate technicians to run those. That's, that's a massive takeaway because I don't want the guys running the same leads. It's almost like you need like demand lead channel and then canvas lead channel or like the, or events or Walmart.
- [54:50]
B
Totally different. Yeah. And yours, the guys can sell, I mean, the roofers that get it right. My buddy, American home contractor, I love their model. They're just selling roof services and the technicians are converting them and they're doing, I mean, they have a 0% marketing cost. They get paid to come out there and they're, they're converting 15, $20 million a year in, in roofs from their services.
- [55:16]
A
Yeah, I mean we, we turn over Approximately just under 10% of our service calls to new doors. And it's not where I want it to be. I've got technicians at 40%. It's just really hard because sometimes these technicians think they're MacGyver and because they wouldn't buy it because they live in an apartment. And I'm like, dude, you ever watch remodel magazine? 7 years in a row. The number, the reason it's the number one ROI is because it's the shittiest industry. I hate to say it. It's because every guy that's on Facebook talking about charging too much is living at his mom's basement. And they act like they have a business and the business doesn't.
- [55:51]
B
There's a good garage door guy I met at a Provia trip in Ohio. There's a really good business. I don't know if you know him.
- [55:57]
A
What's his name?
- [55:59]
B
I can't remember right now. I love the garage door business. Yeah. I don't know. Somewhere in Ohio they got a big business.
- [56:07]
A
I think I. I think I know you're talking about. The problem is, is he does mostly commercial and that's a whole different model than me.
- [56:14]
B
Right. I love commercial, though.
- [56:17]
A
There's a ton of commercial. Problem is with commercial, you got to do docks, levelers, storefront, be a locksmith, you got to do closers. You know what I mean? There's you. You got to do high speed lifts, but there's a fortune in it.
- [56:30]
B
Another thing you can't dabble in.
- [56:32]
A
Well, the thing is you got to have a jack of all trades and you got to have torches on the truck, you got to have welders on the truck. Like for me, we've got a much smaller average ticket. No contracts, none of that stuff. But I could make. I got 70 technicians this month that we're training.
- [56:46]
B
Do you self perform all the install?
- [56:48]
A
Yeah. Everything for us is W2, 100%?
- [56:51]
B
Yeah, I don't think so. The reason Comcast loves SolarWorld is I don't know what the exact number at the time of the transaction was, but it was something like 500 employees. And it was mostly installers. It was 100% self performed. And we were one of one. There was no other solar company that was from lead to install. Everyone was either just a little sales and marketing company.
- [57:17]
A
Yep.
- [57:18]
B
Or. Or an install company that no one did at all. And certain businesses you just have to self perform. And so that's the other reason. Like, I used to self perform gutters. I used to self perform garage doors. But it's like, you know, it's an endeavor.
- [57:35]
A
Here's why I win. I spend $70 million with my vendors. I also spend a fortune with service titan, with enterprise. But as far as my vendors go, if someone spends a million dollars with me buying garage doors, they pay less if they spend 10 million. I don't have anybody spending a million or 10 million. But my point is, once you spend enough money, you're going to get buying power. And that's why people are like, how do you win this game? I'M like, well, vertically integrate. But I've got more buying power. And you know, I think that, I think home services over time with AI and what's happening in the world with robotics, I think it's going to start to get more commoditized. It's not going to get commoditized overnight, but it's starting to. And people want to know what the price is going to be and they want to know before you get there. They want to know the quality, the warranty. I think we got some time, but I think, you know, a robot's going to be able to do stuff pretty soon. But the deal is a robot's not going to build the garage door. You're going to have to have them machinery to still do it.
- [58:32]
B
Yeah, that's why I hired, I've got some geniuses that I've hired and their, their goal is like they said, what is your fear? What do you want to beat? I'm like, I want to be set. I want to build my inside sales to the point where I could, that could roll into anything. I want like you could, to where, where I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I go first. I'm selling over the phone that I'm just selling, you know, I want to be set up that if that's where the world's going, that I could sell with the click of a button. You know, we've, we've, we. And you know, I'm not, I don't know if that's where it's going to go. And I'm going to start testing it with rehash and you know, leads that did go out like blasting them with a click to buy. You know, just because, you know, we can, we can, it's so easy. Like I can, I can send 10,000 people a link to price their own gutters out and click to buy right there. Will they buy them? We'll see. But they click to price it. I can at least convert it to a phone call and sell it over the phone.
- [59:32]
A
I was on the phone with BJ's team on, they've got that, that app to kind of see you kind of like forget what it's called. But I love that because I'm not in the next two years. I don't want to do this, but it would be awesome if I owned the garage where I could set up your storage, insulate the ceiling and the walls, do the garage floor. I could do the mini split in the garage, set you up completely. But if I Had all the dimensions. And I said I could do all this for 147 bucks a month. And then I partner with all the workout equipment that no one has room for a gym. But the garage is perfect. I partner with them and I could even let them finance it and pay me. I don't really care. Like, whatever works. I mean, these bigger companies, you think about like, I talked to P90X, they're out of North Dakota, and he's like, guys, you can fulfill everything. We'll pay you a percentage of the ticket. But that's perfect for me because it's an uninsulated door. They're going to need their floors done. We install the equipment and then what else comes on top of that? Or even, or, or Brunswick pool tables or ping pong tables. Like, people are like, why would you partner with them? Cuz nobody has room for them in their house. So they put them in the garage.
- [60:42]
B
Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I love. I spent so much time in my garage, it's like my happiest place. I got the mini split. My garage is heated and cooled. I got the storage, I got the floors. I'm in heaven. And then I got a sick gym. And like, people, I, I tell people all the time, like, you put a great gym in your garage, your house, you change your life because you add two hours to your day, maybe more, because you're not driving there, you're not bullshitting with somebody, you're not getting back in the car and driving back. And you can wake up and have a good hour workout, but you got to make it as desirable to be there as Lifetime Fitness.
- [61:18]
A
You know, it's, it's true.
- [61:19]
B
And you can do that in your garage?
- [61:21]
A
Yeah, no, it's, it's. I got a little man cave in mind as well. I still like going to the gym just because I like having a trainer. But I like to spot me when I'm lifting heavy. But I, I only go to the trainer two to three times a week. Adam, I gotta get running here. Is there any books that changed your life?
- [61:38]
B
Yes. So I'll say Atlas Shrugged is the easiest one.
- [61:45]
A
Do you know this book? Yes. Don't take away all the brilliant people because they leave and they stop trying.
- [61:50]
B
So that's it. I mean, I read that book. There's a picture of me in the crib with that book. Believe it or not, my dad was a Hugh Dallas drug guy. So that, I mean, that's the easy one. And then, you know, I'm a Winston Churchill fanatic, so I've read everything I can that is about or, you know, remotely tangentially connected to Winston Churchill. I think he's just. I could do an entire podcast on, you know, his effect on me, but between Ayn Rand and Winston Churchill. Yeah, but I have like 15 copies of Atlas Shrugged over there. If somebody hasn't read it, I send it to him. No, you know, it's a great book. I don't read a ton of like the, the, the, the, the books that, you know, everyone reads. Like the self help, whatever.
- [62:44]
A
Yeah, that's all I read.
- [62:45]
B
I, yeah, I, I, I, I, I listen what I do, if I get one I like, I listen to a podcast with the author on it. Yeah, but I love the book. The one thing. Like that book. Yeah, yeah, like that book, man. If I just center myself on that. It's written right here.
- [63:05]
A
Doorknob. I'm busy working on the one. Like, I love that you started all these things and succeeded. I did a shop tour yesterday with 30 people and I said the one thing that every founder screws up is they get sidetracked. I'm opening up a bar. I'm going to start flipping real estate. I got this and this and this and very few people. I know you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.
- [63:25]
B
And that's why I'd be halfway to Tommy Mello if I just focused on home fix. I swear to God, I'd be so much richer.
- [63:32]
A
Well, look, I think it's good advice and simple things. Like I used to think, man, if I get two full time mechanics, how much money could I save buying old trucks? I didn't realize, realize I could get the tax advantages and the, the optics for the technicians to drive in a brand new truck. I mean, I started focusing on.
- [63:48]
B
I did the same thing. RPK Joe's like, I'm just gonna buy trucks. It's gonna be amazing. And, and now I'm just with Enterprise and it's like, that's a secret.
- [63:58]
A
Literally. Another thing. I started wrapping my own vehicles and outfitting them and I'm like, dude. And then all of a sudden that's a whole other business and you got to run a P and L and the people don't like, dude, it's all a distraction. Yeah, it's all close us out, brother. What's, what's the final thought?
- [64:16]
B
Just savage mentality right now, man. So anything, anywhere, it's the answer is always yes. Whatever I got to do. My sales reps call me my manager. Like, just do it. Whatever it is, I don't care. Just do it. Does it get leads in the house to get revenue? Do it. Make mistakes, break. I don't care. The answer is yes. And that's in this market, in this environment, that's how you gotta operate. It's not, it's. It's. It's people first. Hire savage people and just let them run free.
- [64:47]
A
That's what so Steve Jobs says. Listen, I really enjoyed your story today and I'm definitely going to reach out because I've got so many more questions, but we'll do it offline. But this was been cool, an amazing podcast, my friend. I really appreciate the time and thanks for doing this.
- [65:04]
B
Thanks, brother.