C (2:31)

I don't know where you want to start. I mean, you were a CPA, Parker & Sons, great company back in the day. Been around since the 70s, and then you took it over and you've had quite the run. I think you've got, what, four turns now?

A (2:45)

Yeah, yeah, we just had our fourth turn. Maybe it's been a year and a half, two years ago now. I guess it was. But no, sold the business in. What was it, 2016. So I sold it well before everyone started jumping into this business and the PE firms got all excited. So. But. But yeah, sold it. And then it flipped within a year. It flipped again within two years and flipped and flipped. And so it's been. It's been a crazy ride. Love it. I bought it when it was 7 million. It'll do. If I counted Tucson, which is a Parker and Sons, there will do 270 million.

C (3:35)

That's incredible.

A (3:36)

So it's. It's. It's a crazy story, but it's not my story. It's a whole bunch of people's, and I'm proud to be a part of it, that's for sure.

C (3:47)

What do you think your core is? Obviously you understand the numbers because of the CPA background. I think a lot of business owners don't have that background, and it makes it tough because they don't know the score. They don't know how to read a balance sheet, income statement, P and L cash flow. They don't understand accrual versus cash accounting. Where do you love if you got to pick? Just a walk in back and go back to 2005 or 2004. If this is the only thing you're going to do in the business, what would it be?

A (4:16)

You know, it's funny. My background is accounting, cpa, all that. But what I really love is the marketing and the driving sales aspect. That's my passion. And I think that's one of the reasons why we were able to grow, you know, 10, you know, eventually 10, 20, 31 year. We grew 40 million in a year in 2022, right on the heels of COVID And so, yeah, my passion is growing the top line, but it would be no fun growing the top line. And you've seen contractors grow at the top, but the bottom shrinks. So it's got to be top and bottom and getting a nice profit at the end. Not for any reason other than then you deserve it. Your people deserve it. You should share it. And if you have investors. They deserve it as well.

C (5:13)

You know, a lot of people have been talking to PE companies. I think it's been kind of the COVID effect. You decided to do it a lot earlier. What are the pros and cons? There's horror stories. We tend to hear more of the horror stories than the success stories. But when you came to terms with you were ready to do take an opportunity to sell, what went through your mind? What would you warn people about what kind of things they need to have in place?

A (5:38)

I did it for different reasons. Some people are going to retire, and they're older and they want to sell. But as you've seen, and we've all seen, the average age of somebody selling nowadays, where it used to be 65 or 70, is now 35 or 40.

C (5:53)

Right.

A (5:54)

And so for me, it was really. I didn't want to leave the business. I didn't want to quit. I just wanted to take some chips off the table. So it was like, if I was winning in blackjack and I was up a lot, I'm conservative enough where I don't want to bet at all on one hand or whatever, I want to run up to the room, put some money in the safe, go back down and keep playing blackjack. So it was just a way to reduce some of the risk. And there are some people out there that are considering selling that. That might be part of their equation is how do I reduce the risk of something that I built that has been successful? And then there's others that aren't quite as successful as they need to be, that need to up their game and get it to a point where they can sell it. Everyone has their own reasons. I think most people jumped on the bandwagon of selling not because they were ready, not because they wanted to take more chips off the table. It was strictly because the multiples got crazy high. And you start doing the math. When the multiples are high enough, as I always tell people, it's better to keep your company even if the multiples are higher. It's better to keep your company if only you can swallow the risk and the things that go along with owning your own company. Because one day you could wake up and something may have changed. That could be something in the industry changed it, something in the economy changed it. Maybe a competitor changed the landscape for you, or maybe you had a big accident or whatever. But as long as you can stomach that, I think it's always better to keep the company. But when you're ready to sell, I think You've got to pick the right people, the right people to partner with. You've done that. I've done that. Because in the end you don't want. In the end there's always. Whether you retire or you quit or someday you leave your company, there's people left behind and you want to make sure they're all taken care of. And I was very careful about who I partnered with and I'm glad that I partnered with the Wrench Group. It's been a great opportunity for a lot of people. They, along with me and a whole bunch of others have made a bunch of people very successful, rich and. And have changed their lives in a way that maybe wouldn't have happened had I just kept it.

C (8:27)

Yeah. You know, I ran out of money in a lot of ways for the. My growth appetite. So I had a delayed term loan in place and I needed a partner with deeper pockets and the multiples were high and. And I've rolled a significant amount, more than most to about half of the chips. And a lot of millionaires became. Over 24 millionaires came out of it. So we'll do it again. And yeah, I really think not selling a company could be selfish if you're taking all these draws all the time and everyone else is barely living depending on how you pay and how the bonus structures work. But once you could use P units or an equity incentive program, it starts to. You got to kind of have a finish line where everyone's racing towards. Yeah, but it's not easy. I mean, the job of a company is to push you as hard as you're willing to be pushed. Because they got LPs to answer to as well.

A (9:13)

Yeah.

C (9:13)

And they need an ROI on that money. And the thing that scares me is taking six or times, six or seven times leverage on the business. Because you know, Parker, if he took seven times leverage, still has to make those payments.

A (9:25)

Right.

C (9:25)

Which is cash flow. Otherwise you could use to grow.

A (9:28)

Right.

C (9:28)

And there's some companies still taking draws out of the business, which I think is a massive mistake because that should be growth capital. It shouldn't be other than to pay the debt.

A (9:37)

Yeah, well. And as we were growing along the way before I sold, we started off at about 17, 18% EBITDA and then it went to 16, then it went as we grew, then it went to 15, then it went to 13 and 12 when it got to 11. Now I was still making more money because the top line was growing so large, but the percentage was shrinking. Then I called time out one year. And I said, okay, we're getting back up to 17, 18%. And we did it in one year. And what we did was we set up a profit sharing plan for people. So you talk about sharing or I keep hitting this mic here. But in that one year, everybody started thinking about, hey, one, how do I benefit? How does the company benefit? How does the customer benefit? All three of those? And we started looking at what we were spending, what our margins were. I obviously have an accounting background. I knew I could always get it back up. But to do it in one year, it was a team effort. And sharing your success with your employees and partnering with a PE group is one way to do that, is in the end the most rewarding thing you can do. You have more money than you'll ever spend, I'm sure, and I do okay. But really, the people that you have, your key people, all the way down to the last warehouse person or whatever, they all deserve to do well when the company does well. And so I always felt that was an important key ingredient in anything I did. I'll get a bigger kick out of the team members or the employees making money than the company making money. It doesn't mean the company doesn't want to make more money. It just means when the employee is able to do stuff for themselves or their family that they weren't able to do working for somebody else. That's what satisfies me and that's what I get a kick out of.

C (11:49)

No, it's true. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I would say, and I haven't felt this from my industry at all, but some of these H vac plumbing guys, they're demanding that they make a million dollars a year, that they earn a lot of the P units. Sales are what make the world go round. Sales and marketing, we know that. But the more I hear some of these, and they're A plus players, don't get me wrong, they know how to sell and they still get five star reviews. But I mean, do you feel in any way like this is kind of a bubble when you got developers and people from real estate talking about the home service industry, now everybody and their brother's trying to get an H vac and like, it just reminds me of the dot com era. Like this is almost too good to be true. And usually if something sounds too good to be true, it is.

A (12:36)

Yeah.

C (12:37)

What are your thoughts over the next few years of where things go?

A (12:39)

Oh, I think there's definitely a bubble. And it's already. I wouldn't Say, bursting, but it's. It. It's already cracking. There are some.

C (12:48)

Renovo just went out of business. The Blackstone or blackrock company PE back.

A (12:54)

There's a few groups not doing well.

C (12:56)

I know. I know them.

A (12:57)

Yeah. And so is that going to continue? Yes. There's too many people that hopped in our business too quickly who maybe didn't know the business well enough. And it just. Everyone can't do well forever. At some point, the cream will rise to the top. And I know you're part of a group that'll do that, and we are, too. But in the end, not everyone is going to survive this at the level that they have the last few years. There's a price to pay, and there's a bubble that will burst. And I think it's coming soon. It's already started.

C (13:37)

Next year is going to be a big year for a lot of companies making deals. So I think that'll be good news. I mean, I think guys like Champion Group and Wrench are doing great. I talked to Ken actually, on Sunday. He was watching a football game. I was talking about Atlanta because he knows the Atlanta market. I'm really trying to figure out the marketing that'll work there. And he just mentioned just in purchasing, you guys are finding a massive amount of money in the next year that'll go to the bottom line. And that's something that I've heard Ken talk about. I've heard some of the best players in the industry is how you buy procurement. How much does that play into building a big business and just renegotiating contracts even with your vendors that you use for marketing?

A (14:20)

Yeah, no, I think there's a huge opportunity there. Now, I will tell you that that's never been part of the formula thus far. At the Wrench Group, each location made their own buys, whether it be media or whether it be equipment or parts or whatever. And there is some risk whenever you centralize or you move all your business to one vendor in order to get a good deal. One, there's risk that that vendor may not be able to provide the same kind of service that maybe the local people did before.

C (14:57)

Right.

A (14:58)

They could have a catastrophe of their own. We've seen that at Lennox and different things where, you know, you know, Mother Nature can take out, you know, a manufacturing plant or whatever and. And not always are the best deals done at a national level. Sometimes they're done at a local level. And so you just have to be careful. And you have to know you have to have the right people negotiating it and doing the right thing and thinking through it the right way. But there is a huge opportunity that said to do deals in a number of areas that can save the company a lot of money and potentially bring some things to the table that maybe weren't brought before. And so I know the ranch is exploring those now and I think that will pay off big dividends down the road.

C (15:56)

But it's always interesting. Leland had talked about the same things and you guys, I don't, I know, you know Ken Goodrich, Ken Haynes, Leland, and you know Cristiano.

A (16:06)

I know all the goats.

C (16:07)

Those goats, yeah.

A (16:08)

And then, and then I'm talking to the biggest goat in our industry right across from me here now.

C (16:12)

I learned a lot. Literally I spent a lot of time traveling, just going to different shops and learning how h I did it and plumbing and you know, we like to buy from two manufacturers, not lean all in on one.

A (16:24)

Yeah.

C (16:24)

And they continue to fight for our business all the time. They get a lot of our business. I mean we're spending 60, $70 million a year in just parts. But I do think you get economies of scale when you switch to one call center, one purchasing department, one type of insurance provider, not everything like you said, local could be still good. But if it truly is a platform and you want it to be one roll up, meaning that it's reporting the same, you read the KPIs the same, you talk the same jargon, similar mission, core values, stuff like that, I, I just don't see how you could do it just buying good companies in a bunch of markets and saying run them on your own. Like you need intact and service titan and you need the right HR company. And with all those things not reporting the same, like you can never lend your employees to other companies if you're under the same ownership structure. Yeah, that's the way I look at it. And if I was going to build any type of roll up, it would be. This is the fundamentals. We're agreeing that we're going to do all this throughout. Otherwise you might have Morris Jenkins doing different than this and this and this, the next gen, you know, and it's hard to get a system of the output to be the same.

A (17:36)

Yeah. I think as you, as you try and set up a group to flip or to go public or whatever, you've got to have some commonality among the locations. But I will say that said that there's always risk whenever you centralize things because the more that you take away from a location, the more risk there Is that that thing you took away one, it has to be handled as good or better than. Than who you took it away from. And also, the more you take away from a location, the more identity and the less control there is by that location. And you just have to be careful. I totally agree that doing it makes sense. It will always make sense on paper. It's whether it does in practice. And it's usually going to depend on the person running that thing, not on the idea itself. You can centralize the call center and all the calls are answered across the whole nation in one call center. If only that call center is as good or better than the call centers that were already out there. And the person running it is the best. I see a lot of companies and everybody struggles with. When you centralize something, sometimes it doesn't always go the way you want it to at the beginning. And if it goes on long enough, then you can lose the locations drive to, hey, they took this over and now my revenue went down a little bit because of it. That wasn't a good move. Well, it probably still was a good move. It just has the wrong person running it. And I see that at a lot of locations. So you just have to be careful.

C (19:44)

Yeah. I look at this business that you're in, and I'm in rents group. I'm not quite in the same. We don't have as many companies that you guys have in the revenue. But I look at it like a franchise model and I think the more the franchise or could control some of the things I've seen franchise or that don't know anything about marketing, they don't understand call centers. They probably shouldn't be picking those things. But I look at an average CSR that could take 45 calls a day. If you're in a smaller market, your csr, because in the morning and afternoon calls come in at different times, they might only be able to take 10 calls a day. So all of a sudden you're getting these economies of scale. If you do it correctly and you're right, you need great people. That's one of my next questions. A lot of leaders talk about scaling, but very few have done it in such a. A controlled, single market way. Why is it important to master one market instead of expanding into others? And I do have some leadership questions as well.

A (20:41)

I mean, one, there's. There's so much business in a Phoenix, Arizona or a Dallas, Texas or, you know, any number of cities. There's so much business to get that to try. For me, that's the best place to start to try and dominate. I would rather be a $250 million company in Phoenix, Arizona, than be a, you know, 25, you know, $10 million businesses all over. It's easier to control, and now there's more risk because if, if summer doesn't get hot.

C (21:20)

We don't have to worry about that here.

A (21:22)

Yeah, we don't have to worry about that here. But so I think for me, it always made sense to expand the services that we offer, because we only offered H vac and plumbing in the beginning, and then we added water, and then we added insulation, we added electrical. We recently added solar. Once somebody trusts you, you can definitely get them to use you for other services. And I'd rather grow that way first. Now, some of those businesses are a little bit different, but they're all home services.

C (21:58)

Yeah.

A (21:58)

And home improvements. Yeah. And so they have a commonality. And, and so that's the way I always grew. It can go either way. We expanded down into Tucson and we'll do. We'll do 30 million in Tucson in year four. So it, you know, you can open up and do very well in another location as well. So I, I think you can do either. I think for most people maybe that are listeners to this podcast, grow. Grow your own business first. If you're not good at that yet, if you're not dominating or.

C (22:37)

Yeah.

A (22:37)

You know, in your own market, figure that out first.

C (22:40)

Because don't expand. I always tell people, why are you expanding when you're not even making 15 and you don't have market share in your current market?

A (22:48)

Right, right.

C (22:49)

And so many people are so excited to expand and they don't understand they're going to be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

A (22:53)

Yeah.

C (22:54)

And it's tough now. Your top guys are going to that other market. You're losing them out of your current market. You're going to drop your current market. It's a weird situation to be in. You said before that business isn't a magic trick. It's about keeping things simple and doing the right things. Well, what does keeping it simple actually look like in practice when you're leading hundreds of people and millions in revenue?

A (23:17)

You know, everything I did, people think like, well, you probably had this master plan if you went from 7 million to 250 plus million. And I would tell people, no, I didn't have some master plan. I was basically just trying to make payroll at the beginning and trying to figure things out. But we got momentum and we kept rolling. Simplicity was always part of my formula. I'm not a complicated person. I can't implement complicated. When things are complicated, they're hard to implement and they're not scalable. And so simplicity in everything, whether it's a pay program. An example, our pay program for our H vac service department. 20% of the ticket, you can figure that out. You can do 10% by moving the decimal point and double it. And you are used to leaving 20% tips. And they know they can do the math in their head real quick when they do a job. They know how much money they made. They put in a thousand dollar motor, they just made 200 bucks. So simplicity in everything we do, whether it's a selling process, I don't like 10 step processes. I don't like long things that you have to memorize and learn. This is how you say it in this order. And if you do this and then you do that and then you do these other six things, then you're going to make the sale most of the time, like just tell me one thing, one thing to do that would make the biggest difference. And if I have a magic in me, I can take most things and simplify them to a degree that no one else can. And I can get that simple thing to work really well. And it doesn't mean I won't make it a little more complicated later on. But simplicity is the key to everything that Parker and Sons does. As large as we are, things are harder to implement, not easier. And simplicity is a part of that.

C (25:24)

I want to talk a little bit about marketing because that's my favorite thing in business too. I like marketing for clients and marketing for great people to come on the bus. How much should someone. And there's numbers all over the place, somewhere from 5 to 20% depending on what you're growing or not. But how much of revenue as a, as a comm. Percentage of revenue should we be spending in marketing do you like to be at?

A (25:44)

Well, I can tell you what Parker's at and it's a ridiculously low number and I wish it were higher. But, but you know, there's, there's some that believe you can grow your business at even a lower number. But Parker spends about 4.5%. But I think the right number really for a large company is in that six to seven range. For the smaller medium sized companies you're going to have to spend 8 to 10 to 12. I mean, I think 8 to 10% is not unusual at all for any company to spend on marketing. And so the not spending enough and not charging enough so you can spend enough on marketing, you can do anything you want in your business if only you charge appropriately. And so the number one mistake that a lot of contractors make or even some PE groups make is they don't spend enough on marketing. And so I think if you want to grow your business and look, it's really no fun unless it is growing. So if you want the best people, you want to attract them, you want to retain them, you better be a growing company, right? And so you got to spend enough, you got to be smart, you got to have the expertise on the marketing side. And so I think that is what a lot of the companies within the Wrench Group excel at. They're very good marketers. And so I think those are the keys that answer your question.

C (27:28)

Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, you've done a lot of stuff. You used to put babies on the billboards.

A (27:33)

That was just t my daughter. That was her idea. She did a great job.

C (27:37)

It's one in Robert Cialdini's books, he talks about that people love babies and they love pets. And then you've got. I've heard you guys all over the, seen you on tv, radio over the years. I've seen you guys at a lot of the stadiums in the men's bathroom. I don't know about the women's never been in there. But what are some of the things that have worked the best over the years that still apply to today that you'd say, man, that was amazing with the results. We didn't know it was going to be that way. But it's not just your common, common things that most people know about.

A (28:08)

Well, I would say that, you know, whatever you do, dominate it. So that was one of the keys. And that's just the principle, not an actual action, but dominate what you are in. And if you're smaller, if you're a smaller contractor, that might be a neighborhood or a church or something on a smaller scale, it might be a zip code or two. As you get larger, you can dominate a station or programming on TV or different things, but whatever you do, dominate it. Be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a huge pond. Small fish get eaten, big fish do the eating. So be a big fish. And so I think that's one of the principles that we've always used as far as what's worked for us. One, I always tell people, start off with a business you already have and make more out of it. That's where to Start. That's the best energy you could ever spend. Take that $250 average ticket or whatever yours is and make it 350, 450, 550. Take the leads that you get and get more of them. The system leads most of the businesses in the home service industry and your listeners. The large ticket items are where they make most of their money. And so make sure you're feeding that animal well. Spend more time, money and energy on figuring out how to feed that animal. That animal. But really I'm not sure. I could point to one thing that if I said in advertising, it works, it all works. Consistency, longevity, diversity, the same message over a long period of time over a number of mediums works. The problem is all those are expensive to do. And so you have to do it on a smaller scale and you have to dominate an audience. You want them to get tired of hearing your message. And because the average consumer doesn't use our services but once every two, three, in some instances, five, six years or 10 years, 15 years in buying a system. Right. And so you have to always be talking to that audience so that when they have the need and there's ways to create needs, but, but when they have a need, you're more top of mind.

C (30:46)

I love it.

B (30:47)

Hey there. Hope you're enjoying today's episode. I get this question all the time. So let me tell you how I met Jim Leslie. He's my right hand man who helped me scale a 1 to $250 million. A few years ago, Jim came to Phoenix for a small event I was hosting. What sold me on hiring him as a 1 CMO wasn't his business success. It wasn't even how smart he was. It was what he told me behind closed doors. Jim started his own home service business at 22, built it to a couple million and then he burned out hard. One afternoon sitting in his truck outside a customer's house. His hands shook so bad he couldn't even turn the key. He could have quit, but instead he kept going. He doubled down on learning. He built systems that let him scale to $10 million without burning out and eventually took his shot to 20 million. I loved his story so much that I hired him on the spot. He helped me implement a bunch of systems at A1 and the rest is history. Now Jim's doing a one day boot camp in Dallas, Texas on December 12th where he's teaching those same systems to a small group of contractors. Check it out@homeservicexpert.com Bootcamp. B O o T C a M P. That's homeservicexpert.com Bootcamp enter Dallas at checkout for 50% off. Only 90 spots. All right, back to the episode in.

C (32:02)

The book you write about finding your ta da moment, that spark that makes your business and life stand out. What does that mean to you personally? And how can leaders find that magic in what they do?

A (32:15)

You know, I got into magic years ago and now that I'm kind of semi retired and working a lot less, not involved in the day to day at Parker and just kind of consulting with a wrench, I've been able to get back into some magic stuff and I'm starting to practice again. But to me, that ta da moment are the things. It could be little things that you can just say to yourself, ta da or you could celebrate. Obviously, getting married can be a ta da. Having kids is a huge ta da. I'm going to tell you right now, having grandkids is maybe even a bigger ta da. And so love those grandkids. And certainly buying a business, having a business, a great month, a great day, making a sale that you didn't think you would make. All those are ta da moments that you should celebrate. And you can celebrate in a number of ways. To me, my last ta da in this industry might be something that you're a part of, even though it's a small part of. And the fact that if I'm a goat.

C (33:28)

Raising goats.

A (33:28)

Yeah. And you're a goat and we know a lot of goats. How did we become a goat? Like there's not really. I mean, maybe you feel you are to some degree or whatever, but I don't feel like I'm that special to think that if only I can do something. I think if I did it, I would never say anyone because I've met a lot of people that would never ever be able to do this. But a lot of people, a lot of people could do exactly what we did if only they knew the secrets. And I've identified. I study you, I study a lot of people, and I've figured out four things that people are really good at. They're a part of this class that we're going to teach. You're a part of that class. And those four things you want to go through.

C (34:26)

Yeah, let's go through them. Yeah. Raising goats.

A (34:29)

It's how to be a better thinker. All the great goats, all the great people in our industry that have an amazing story, they're really good thinkers. They can think through problems. Not just the benefits of solving a problem, but the consequences of making decisions and problems. And I feel like in this class and some ongoing training as well, I can get somebody, we can get somebody to be a way better thinker. So thinking is key. If you think differently, you'll act differently. If you act differently, you'll get different results, better results. The second thing, which is an Achilles heel of most contractors that are probably listening, and even an Achilles heel for a Parker and sons or an A1 garage or whatever, it's always a struggle, is implementation. Most contractors aren't good at implementation. So they can go to the Freedom event, they can go to a seminar, they can go to a conference, or they can hire a company and they can get a mentor and they can talk to whoever they want and they can read Tricks of the trade to success. Boy, can they implement. And I've found some tricks to implementing. We talked about one of them, but I'll really show it in the class. It's about simplicity and how to break something down so simple that it just makes it easy for people to implement. So implementation. And then to be a better operator, we're going to hit the highlights of what to know in each of the categories in your business, from marketing to financial to sales to operations to dispatching to the call center. We're not going to talk about everything. We're going to talk about the simple things, the things that matter the most, that there's one or two things in each thing you just have to get super good at. And so being a better operator. And then the last thing which, which you have in spades as well, is being a better leader. And you know, and how, how do you get people to follow you? I. I tell people at Parker and Sons or Wrench or as I talk to people all the time, the litmus test of whether you're a good supervisor or manager or leader is can you get the people that report to you to do what you want them to do? And if you can, you're probably a great leader, at least to some extent. If you can't, you're definitely not. Being a great leader doesn't mean you can't become one. And so you've got to get people to do what you want them to do in the end. And so we go through in the class, and then afterwards we go through what that means, what it looks like, what it feels like, and how to improve it. You'll walk away in that class. The first class is in March. You'll walk away from that class being better in all four of those pillars I call them and it'll 5x10x your company both top and bottom line in a very short period of time. So that to me is going to be my biggest tada. Because I believe everyone talks about shortage of technicians and there is shortage of technicians and we all solve that in some way. But the biggest shortage is shortage of leaders. With the right leaders you get the technicians. And so it is about how do I and if I can do it and you can do it and other people can do it, how would we all pull together and get somebody from A to Z in a very short period of time to be just a goat in the making in a sense. And that's probably what is exciting me more than anything I've ever done, including growing Parker and Sons, because it's a way of giving back. Yeah, yeah.

C (38:52)

It's interesting. You know, I like mentoring people but I still love the game too much. And you know, if I was to restart today, I always ask this question, if I restarted today, what would I do? Well, the hard part is I didn't have any money when I started so I had to work three other jobs. So that was a few years of working nights and weekends and making because I needed money to invest in growth and I couldn't hire great people because I didn't have the money. I was the janitor, the call center, the dispatch center, the trainer, the recruiter, the accounts payable, I did the payroll. I was on the phone with the different lawyers to make sure this was okay. The terms and conditions on the website. I was making sure the reviews were coming in good and that's no way I'd want to do it. And now I have money. So if I were to start out with, with money, I would hire top down instead of bottom up. I'd get the right leaders to help build the team.

A (39:40)

Yeah.

C (39:41)

And smart. Yeah, it's. It's never easy. And this is a weird time because Google's becoming less, you know, AI LLMs. What's going on with chat, GBT, what's going on with just machine learning? I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm embracing it. I'm really looking at this like a whole new opportunity for us. But I think the bigger companies that invest in these things are gonna get bigger and there's gonna be a lot of losers. It's almost like when the yellow book died, I came in right when the yellow book died, I was in the third page of the yellow book and then all of A sudden Google became a thing and I studied it and I just became infatuated. But tv, radio, billboards help Google get more. You know, people search our name more and there's a lot of things that come, but, you know, it's pretty complex. People are like, what's the first thing to do? I'm like, you gotta become a reader. You got to invest in yourself and you got to treat people like you want to be treated. And do they want to work with you? There's certain people I know that say, if you paid them nothing, would they still work for you? I'm like, I don't know anybody would come to work if they didn't make any money. But I hope I lead from up front. I think I'm always my worst critic. I always think I could do better. But I try to show more appreciation than I do lecturing somebody in a one on one of like how they could become better. I'm very, I'm kind of the good cop and I don't like to play that position of power and I'm going to fire you and you're going to get written up. I like to come as like, look, you told me what you wanted out of life. You told me your goals. I'm helping you try to get them. Do you want me to help you or do you just want to just be okay being okay?

A (41:12)

Yeah.

C (41:12)

And that's my job, is to pull the best out of people. And if they don't want to be pulled, there are certain times where people have life events, which I'm okay with. But if you're just going to go through life half ass, this probably isn't the right company for you. This is for people that want to excel.

A (41:24)

Yeah.

C (41:24)

And change their family's family lineage, you know, their family tree.

A (41:28)

Yeah. Well, I think that's what has driven your success and a lot of others is one you're never happy with the status quo.

C (41:38)

That's a blessing and a curse.

A (41:39)

Yeah. You're always trying to improve and you have high expectations, first of yourself and then of others. And I think when people know what's expected, they'll try and deliver. When they don't know what's expected is when anything will work. And I think that's part of your magic as a leader. So. Yeah.

C (42:02)

What's the legacy of raising goats? I mean, where do you see this manifesting into, from your perspective?

A (42:10)

Well, I spent a lot of time on the side, after hours, whatever, trying to figure out how to get people, people better at the Four pillars, and I wanted to do it in record time. Most people have to have a mentor, and it takes years and years, and I set out to do it in one week. And so I'm going to kind of floor some people with what we do in the class, and there's some ongoing training and reinforcement afterwards as well. And I went through egia, and you become part of egia, too, and you get a ticket to their conference and all of their materials as well. But I really wanted to partner with the likes of you and several other goats. We've got you, we've got Cristiano, we got my son Josh, who's an up and coming goat, Drew Cameron, Mark Madison, Chad Peterman, and there'll be others. And I want it to be something that I lead, but I really. I've learned so much from you and so much from so many others, and I want to condense it down into something. And so my legacy is going to be, how can I. This may be something we just do once, or it may be something that I do for a while or maybe others do. And one of the things that people said to me is like, aren't you afraid that once people go through the class or this gets out there, the way you do it and how you do it, whatever, Aren't you afraid that someone's going to copy it? And I was like, I'm not afraid that they're going to copy it. I want them to copy it. I want it to become a movement, not a. A Paul Kelly thing. I want there to be a whole bunch of goats. That would be my legacy, is I started something and everyone else finished it. And so I don't care about that. I never cared about that. I never cared about beating a competitor. I just cared about getting better myself. I never cared about how someone else was doing. I only cared about how me and all the people that worked for me did. And so keep your head down and your blinders on, and you'll be a lot happier in life, not chasing somebody else's dream, but just chasing your own. So that's, you know, this will be my legacy. I appreciate you being a part of it. I hope you'll spread it to all of your listeners.

C (44:57)

Yeah.

A (44:57)

Obviously, through this podcast. But I'm. I'm excited about it. I'm. I'm excited to share what. What we've come up with. So, yeah, it's very cool, and I.

C (45:10)

Know it comes from your heart of giving back and you want to see people do their best. So I know it's coming from a great place. You know, you've done a lot of great things in the industry and people come out here, they visit. One of the things, you've done a great job. And I'm going to come back to raising goats at the end of how people get more information. You've been a hell of a recruiter. I think I put more emphasis now on my recruiting talents. I'm not the best interviewer, but I've been working on that. Part of leadership is getting great one on ones, getting your direct reports to follow you, building leaders out of them. And I put just as much emphasis on the marketing for great people to come on board than I do for great clients. Because a great person coming on board, they help recruit clients, they help recruit other people. They come to meetings with a smile. They're very amicable with everybody. And you recruited Daryl Bingham and he's running the business, right?

A (46:05)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Daryl's running it now.

C (46:09)

How did that look? How do you look for leaders and how do you identify them? What kind of skill sets do you, what kind of questions do you ask to make sure you're getting the right people?

A (46:16)

Well, a lot of times the people will find you once they hear your story. And I was always someone that kept a quiet profile. I was never a. I was never a podcaster. And back in the day there weren't even podcasts. Right. I never made a big splash. I was never part of a mixed group. I was never. I kind of just laid low and quietly became this 200 plus million dollar company. And that's the way I wanted it. But I think when you have a story and when you're genuine and when you care more about the people that work for you than you care about, care about the company or about the customers, it's the people first that work for you, it's the customer second and it's the company third, in that order. I think you start to attract people. Our success was really at a high level. Darrell was frustrated. I won't get into the particulars with what was happening at George Brazile, but. But I was lucky to land Darrell. And Darrell and I were a great one, two punch. I was the driver of the top line. I made sure we made money at the bottom. And he was the operator overseeing the operations. But it wasn't just Darrell, it was my dog. Well, in the early days it was Josh. But Justine took over in2017 and did the marketing. And I loved working with both of them. Justine became one of the Best marketers in our industry with my tutelage. And everything she's learned from other locations within Wrench even, or from Wrench themselves. And it was Bob Cannon more recently. And we've just had so many great people that we've attracted. And I won't say that it's not like I sought these people out. They kind of sought us out. And I think when you have that, you've got something special. I always say that at Parker and Sons, you can go to any company you want, and you ask the people whether they care about the company they work for, and invariably they'll say yes. But do they care enough? It's that word, enough. And enough to take care of each other first, the customer second, and the company third. And giving enough and caring enough are what I look for. I don't look for something technical. I look for what's in here. What's in here. But mostly, are they teachable? Are they hungry? Are they humble? There's a lot of people that aren't humble. And I don't like working with people that aren't humble. And I like to laugh. I like to have fun. That's why I like hanging around you and having fun at work. And laughing are an ingredient that I actually interview for. I'll tell a joke or two, and then I'll want them to tell me something funny. I want to see if I'm going to have fun. It doesn't mean if I wouldn't hire them if they weren't funny. Josh will say that sometimes, but that doesn't mean that at all. But it does. If all things are equal. All things are equal. I'll pick the funny one or the one that I'm going to have fun with.

C (49:47)

Yeah, that's important. I think having that camaraderie, I call it just. Would this be a guy I'd want to go have a beer with or a gal? You know what I mean? Somebody that. I just love hearing their stories.

A (49:59)

Yeah.

C (50:00)

They have this way of just recreating a story. Storytelling is such. Storytelling is joke telling. And if you could do it right and you're entertaining, it's like, man, I want to get to know this person. He's interesting or she's interesting.

A (50:11)

And.

C (50:11)

And so I really think that's important because you might have the best all star, but it might not fit your culture.

A (50:18)

Yeah.

C (50:19)

And it's got to be a culture fit, and I think that that's important. Um, so what do you like to do? I mean, so you're. You're doing this raising goats. You're still advising companies, especially, you know, Wrench, Right. What other things? Obviously spending time with the grandchildren. What are some of your passions that you really, really enjoy?

A (50:38)

You know, I've played a little more golf lately, so I got a, actually a golf simulator in my garage now so I can go out and hit golf balls there. And. But really between. I used to play tennis, don't play that anymore. But I am getting in the magic again. So between grandkids, consulting, raising goats, I told Josh I was going to learn Spanish, but I haven't got around to doing that yet. But that's on the list. But yeah, those are all things that I like doing that I want to do. I've got some time to do it. My wife is going through some struggles now with breast cancer. So that's.

C (51:25)

Yeah, that's horrible.

A (51:26)

That's eaten up my time. But she's going to get through that. But yeah, yeah, I'm enjoying kind of this. I won't call it the last phase of my life. I'll call it the third out of five phase of my life.

C (51:43)

Yeah, no, that's the right way to look at things. I mean, I think people just need a reason to keep going. I don't like the word retirement because retirement means I don't think there'll be a day. I'm trying to build my life right now of what 45 looks like when kids come and really being intentional with time because time's one thing we just can't buy, right? 168 hours in a week. We're not going to change that. It's the equalizer to everybody. So on my, I put, I'd like to work five to six hours a day, four days a week with super intentional time. But I also want to go out and hang out with technicians and I want to go visit markets and take them to dinner and go bowling. So it just, I guess it's. What do you consider work is some of the. Because I don't feel like, I don't even feel like I'm at work right now. This isn't. I do so much stuff that it doesn't feel like I'm ever going to work. I did three hour orientation this morning. That wasn't work. I enjoyed spending time with the brand new techs and installers we have.

A (52:41)

Well, you can enjoy work too, where it doesn't seem like work, but. But yeah, no, I think, I think you, you do. You spend three things in life. Time, money and effort and time Is, is finite. And so how you use it is very, very important. And you know, do, do something you love, that you enjoy for sure. Yeah, yeah. No, and the older you get, the more you realize how, how precious time really is.

C (53:16)

Yeah. You start to appreciate it a lot more. I mean, you give up everything you've ever done in your life to get, you know, 30 years back.

A (53:22)

Yeah.

C (53:22)

And I see people as they start, you know, look at Steve Jobs. He said on his deathbed, you'll be taking your food as medicine. He'll be taking medicine as food.

A (53:30)

Yeah. Yeah.

C (53:32)

What's one piece of advice you'd give young Paul if you were to talk to 25 year old Paul?

A (53:40)

Stay out of the bar, Paul. No. Yeah. 25 year old Paul was a lot different than 66 year old Paul. You know, I've learned a lot. I have had a lot of mentors. I think I did this on another podcast, but I mean, a lot of my mentors I had never even met, I just watch them, I study them, I read their books and I figure out what their strengths are and I try and emulate it and try and make it simple. But I think when I was younger, I didn't really have aspirations to be any more than average or I was working kind of how most 25 year olds do to kind of get by and get through the day and make pretty good money, but not be that motivated and didn't want to take the risks that it might take to do some of the, to make bigger money or to have bigger aspirations. So I think confidence and, and having the right mentors and just keeping life simple and having a drive within you. I didn't have the drive back then, at least business wise. I competed in sports and I competed in other things. But now for the longest time, I competed in business. And that was, I wasn't competing against anyone. I was competing against myself for the most part. And so have a drive, be competitive, know what you want and go after it. You can. It's kind of cliche, but you can accomplish way more than you set yourself. You know, you give yourself credit for being able to do. And don't be afraid to ask for help.

C (55:50)

Yeah, ask my favorite three letters in that order.

A (55:54)

Yeah.

C (55:55)

Any books that have changed your life? Obviously you wrote a book. Everybody should pick up Paul's book.

A (56:01)

Yeah. The funny thing about my book is I'm not a reader. I mean, I'm a listener now on Audible Books, but I'm not a big reader, I'm a slow reader. So it Takes me a long time, but unless it's really good, I fall asleep first. So when I was going to write a book, I went to my wife and I said, hey, I'm going to need some alone time for about five or six weeks. I've got to do things quickly. And so I wanted to write it in five or six weeks. And she goes, you need some alone time? Why, what's wrong? I go, there's nothing wrong. I'm going to write a book. She goes, write a book. She goes, you don't even like reading. I go, I didn't say I was going to read it. I said I was going to write a book. And, and so anyway, I mean, you name a book and I've probably read it or I've listened to it. I'm not sure I have a favorite. And I am a guy that can remember principles but can't remember the name of the book or can't remember the movie. In the old days, I would go to Blockbuster and bring a movie back. We'd watch it. About three weeks later, I'm in Blockbuster, I pick the same movie, I bring it back. And Trisha goes, we just watched that like three weeks ago. And I go, it sounded familiar. But I, you know, that's great anyway. But no, read everybody's book. I've read yours. Yours is a great book. You can see Tommy Mello all over in that book. And thank you. And it was. But most of the real successful people in our industry have written books and there's people outside of our industry. Read as much as you can or listen to as much as you can. It'll rub off.

C (57:52)

I agree, I agree. If somebody wants to reach out to you, Paul, what's the best way to do that?

A (57:58)

Well, I hope they sign up for and get signed up because space is limited to 30 of tricks of the trade to success. They can do that. You can get my book if you go to tricksofthetrade.com you can reach me there. If any of your listeners need to ask me specific questions or whatever, I'm always willing to, you know, field calls or do whatever. But, you know, I would say those are the two ways. But go to, you know, if I could put a plug in, and since you're a part of it too, go to raisinggoats.com raisinggoats.com and look at the class. And I hope you sign up. And if you do, I promise you, you're going to really be floored. I didn't want to put something together as my Last ta da that has been out there. I tried to think of what's missing in all of the training that I've ever been to and how could I put on something. We all put on something that would be different than you would learn from the normal person that is maybe having a class on something. And so that's what this is. It's a fairly immersive training and you will get better at those four pillars and it's going to completely change not just you and your company and your financials and your success, but it'll change you as a person as well. I think you'll be a better husband, a better mother, a better father, a better brother, sister, or just friend to someone. And so I think it's some life changing training, but it specifically will change your company. I guarantee you you won't walk away from this class and not be substantially better at what you need to be better at in order to grow your company at a rate that you never thought possible.

C (60:16)

I love it. Well, you said it. Go to raisinggoats.com and order Paul's book. He's a wealth of knowledge and if you're ever in town, come. Obviously we do A1 tours all the time. But you know, maybe you could give. Maybe we arranged it. You could do a Parker and Sons.

A (60:34)

That's actually part of the raising goats training is a guided tour by myself of Parker where you'll see the actual things we teach in the class. You'll see it live and you'll be able to listen. You'll be able to see it going on in a live environment, so to speak. Cool. Yeah, I love it.

C (60:55)

Well, Paul, I really appreciate you coming by. It's always an honor to have you. You're just a wealth of knowledge. I've always leaned on you every few months. I got a question. Or you give me some guidance or tell me who I need to get connected with. So I appreciate it.

A (61:08)

It. Well, I can't think of anybody better that I would. And why it took us so long to do this, I'm not sure. But I consider you the goat in our. In our industry. Our industry meaning the home services industry, which encompasses a lot of different trades. And you're one of the best connected, most respected, most successful contractor slash leaders in our industry. And I couldn't. You. You asked me to do anything. And I'll always be there for you.

C (61:43)

Thank you. Yeah, I agree. I feel the same about you. And I met Josh in Hawaii in 2016 through Gannett. That was so I cannot believe that. But Josh, such, such a. I love the whole family and I appreciate everything, you guys.

A (61:58)

They've been wildly successful themselves, so it couldn't be more proud. Proud of him and Laura.

C (62:03)

Yeah.

A (62:03)

Yeah.

C (62:04)

Well, thank you for doing this. Oh, I appreciate it.

A (62:06)

You're more than welcome.

C (62:07)

All right. And we are out of here. Thanks, guys, for listening. This is a good one. Hey there.

B (62:12)

Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is.

C (62:17)

Out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I.

B (62:19)

Attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 garage door service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch.

C (62:48)

Up with you next time on the podcast.