Actionable Leadership Advice From $250M Parker & Sons President Daryl Bingham

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Actionable Leadership Advice From $250M Parker & Sons President Daryl Bingham"

Podcast Information:

• Title: To The Point - Home Services Podcast
• Host/Author: RYNO Strategic Solutions
• Description: The Home Services podcast that gets to the point, with solutions to help your service company grow. Our focus is to help HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Roofing, etc. companies learn how to grow their companies with marketing & operational solutions.
• Episode: Actionable Leadership Advice From $250M Parker & Sons President Daryl Bingham
• Release Date: June 24, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of To The Point - Home Services Podcast, host Chris engages in an insightful conversation with Daryl Bingham, the President of Parker & Sons, a leading home services company generating approximately $250 million in annual revenue. The discussion centers around leadership, operational excellence, growth strategies, and the importance of maintaining simplicity within large organizations.

Guest Background and Journey

Daryl Bingham joins the podcast with over 30 years in the home services industry, having previously worked with renowned companies like George Brazil before taking on the role of President at Parker & Sons in 2020. Under his leadership, Parker & Sons has expanded significantly, now boasting nearly 600 technicians and multiple service divisions, including plumbing, air conditioning, electrical, water treatment, insulation, and solar services.

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Key Topics Discussed

1. The Importance of Simplicity in Operations

Daryl emphasizes the critical role that simplicity plays in managing large teams. He recounts lessons learned from mentors like Paul, highlighting the challenges of training 600 individuals on complex processes.

Notable Quote:
[00:00] Chad: "You know, to really just try to keep things simple... the simpler the process can be, the faster I can replicate it across a larger network."
[30:19] Chad: "Trying to find ways to really keep things very simple is essential if you're trying to get some rapid growth and large scale growth."

Daryl explains that while sophisticated business operations are necessary, they should not translate into overly complicated processes. This approach facilitates quicker implementation and better compliance across the organization.

2. Managing Large Teams vs. Small Companies

The conversation delves into the dynamics between managing a vast workforce and the agility of smaller companies. Daryl points out that smaller teams can pivot and implement changes more rapidly due to fewer layers of approval and simpler processes.

Notable Quote:
[17:40] Chad: "Phoenix is a very large market. It's highly fragmented... but it's kind of tough to gauge market share... it's probably somewhere in that 8, 9 or 10%."

3. Growth Strategies and Market Expansion

Daryl shares insights into Parker & Sons' strategic expansion into new markets, particularly Tucson. He discusses the decision-making process behind organic growth versus acquisitions, ultimately opting for a greenfield approach to establish a strong foothold without the high costs associated with acquisitions.

Notable Quote:
[18:34] Chad: "So we went with what they call the greenfield process and start from scratch... it was very painful for me. And I pivoted very quickly away from that and said, hey, I just got to focus on one, you know, one at a time."

Parker & Sons successfully grew their Tucson branch to generate around $25 million in revenue within three years by focusing on key trades and gradually expanding their service offerings.

4. Cross-Selling and Maximizing Customer Relationships

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the importance of cross-selling services to existing customers. Parker & Sons employs aggressive strategies to leverage their customer base, turning single-service calls into multiple opportunities through scripted interactions and incentivizing technicians to set leads for other departments.

Notable Quote:
[41:59] Chad: "A lot of that comes from cross selling. We work with our customer relations when they call in on the call center... trying to get an opportunity for secondary service."

This approach has been pivotal in expanding their service divisions, such as insulation and water treatment, without heavily relying on external advertising.

5. Marketing Strategies: Email and SMS Campaigns

Daryl and Chad discuss the effectiveness of targeted email marketing and SMS campaigns in generating opportunity calls. They highlight the importance of high open rates and engaging content to maximize lead generation from their existing customer base.

Notable Quote:
[54:43] Chad: "We're constantly engineering our call volume... balancing what marketing is going to bring in with opportunity calls."

Chris introduces insights from other industry players, emphasizing the potential of advanced email marketing techniques to significantly boost open rates and, consequently, revenue.

6. Balancing Growth with Process Simplification

As Parker & Sons continues to scale, balancing growth with the simplification of processes emerges as a recurring theme. Daryl acknowledges that as companies expand, new processes are inevitable, but maintaining simplicity ensures that the organization remains agile and efficient.

Notable Quote:
[35:42] Chad: "Make sure you're circling back to simplify your processes. Take note of the things that you're recognizing that are broken the process... revisit them when you start to slow down."

Both Daryl and Chad agree that growth can lead to process bloating, making it essential to regularly review and streamline operations to sustain momentum.

7. Leadership and Continuous Learning

Daryl underscores the importance of continuous learning and collaboration with peers in the industry. Drawing inspiration from his mentor George Brazil, he advocates for ongoing education and adaptation to evolving business landscapes.

Notable Quote:
[63:33] Chad: "He talked about constantly learning... if you're not constantly sharpening your saw, then you're missing out."

He also highlights the value of peer groups and mentorship within the Wrench Group family, which includes other industry leaders sharing experiences and strategies.

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Insights and Conclusions

• Simplicity is Key: Regardless of the company's size, maintaining simple and streamlined processes facilitates easier training, quicker implementation, and greater scalability.

• Leverage Existing Customer Base: Effective cross-selling strategies can significantly enhance revenue streams without the need for exorbitant marketing expenditures.

• Targeted Marketing: Utilizing focused email and SMS campaigns can lead to high engagement rates and generate valuable opportunity calls, crucial for sustained growth.

• Adaptability Through Learning: Continuous learning and collaboration with industry peers enable companies to navigate challenges and stay ahead in a competitive market.

• Balancing Growth and Efficiency: As businesses expand, regularly reviewing and simplifying processes ensures that growth does not come at the expense of operational efficiency.

Daryl Bingham's leadership at Parker & Sons exemplifies how maintaining operational simplicity, leveraging customer relationships, and strategic market expansion can drive substantial growth in the home services industry. His insights provide actionable advice for both large and small service companies aiming to scale effectively while maintaining excellence in operations.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• "The simpler the process can be, the faster I can replicate it across a larger network."
  - Chad [00:00]

• "Phoenix is a very large market. It's highly fragmented... but it's probably somewhere in that 8, 9 or 10%."
  - Chad [17:40]

• "A lot of that comes from cross selling... trying to get an opportunity for secondary service."
  - Chad [41:59]

• "Make sure you're circling back to simplify your processes."
  - Chad [35:42]

• "He talked about constantly learning... if you're not constantly sharpening your saw, then you're missing out."
  - Chad [63:33]

---

This episode offers valuable lessons on leadership and operational strategies within the home services sector, emphasizing that growth and efficiency can coexist through deliberate and simplified business practices.

Transcript

[Chad]

One of the I learned from Paul was to really just try to keep things simple. And as we built that into our culture, it has allowed us to really leverage something simple. It is when you're trying to train 600 people on a process, it's a challenge. And so the simpler the process can be, the faster I can replicate it across a larger network. As you grow, you need new processes. And when you go to redevelop the process, and that just tends to start bloating processes inherently. And so it is one of our traits that we are constantly trying to simplify processes. When I need to roll something out, I need to roll it out to 600 people and get compliance on it. And we all know the, you know, the 80, 20 or 70, 30 rule. You know that 30% of my guys are going to get it real quick. 70% of them are going to take three or four attempts before they can, you know, master whatever it is that we're trying to roll out. You do that, you know, with, again, six or seven hundred people, your rollout time is very lengthy. You get a small shop that's got 25, 30 technicians, they can pivot and implement things a lot faster than we can.

[Chris]

Yeah, keep it simple. You don't gotta do everything, but you gotta do something. Isn't that right, Chad?

[Chad]

This is to the Point, a Rhino experience, voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts.

[Chris]

Cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point. Hey, what's up to the pointe listeners? It's your boy, Chris. It is post Memorial Day weekend when we're recording this podcast. And I had a lovely, refreshing time in the great state of Montana, Big sky country. And Chad, I know where you were that weekend, and you were down at good old Sweetwater Lake, sending me pictures from your boat, trying to make me jealous. Well, guess what? You're successful. Appreciate that.

[Daryl]

Happy to do it. No, just finished off another Indy 500 and now tonight, the Pacers are going to finish off the Knicks and we're going back to the finals. So I am all jazzed up, excited to be talking to our guest and learning a little bit from him as well.

[Chris]

Yeah, man. You know what I love about this whole Pacers Knicks series is for anybody who's my age, okay? So a little older than Chad, a little less older than our guest, a little younger than, I guess is the old 90s Knicks Pacers playoffs with Reggie and Patrick viewing and. Oh, God, those are. Those are great. This is kind of reminiscent of that a little bit, which has been Fun. That's what's made it, you know, fun to watch is. Yeah. If you get, like, we're reliving.

[Daryl]

If you get a chance and you're a Pat McAfee fan, you don't have to be a Pacers fan. Please go on and watch the video of when they handed him the microphone. I was there Tuesday night, and they hand him the microphone, and I'll just leave it at that. You've got to go listen to what he said in front of the entire crowd.

[Chris]

I saw the cloud. Amazing. Amazing. Well, for all those that could give two shits about the Pacers or the Knicks, we'll go ahead and move forward. But, you know, it's great because our guests, you know, I'm glad to finally get him on here. A lot of people are gonna be excited to hear Daryl talk about. I mean, this guy worked with two of the industry titans between George Brazil and Paul Kelly. We love PK here to the point. Speaking of which, PK text me last night looking for Terry Nicholson's cell phone number. So I wonder what those boys are up to.

[Chad]

Who knows?

[Chris]

Who knows? We're gonna find out. I said, what's going on, buddy? What you need Terry's number for? Here you go. But excited to have Daryl on here. Just share his experiences. 30. 30 years, I guess, in the industry now, which is, you know, 80% of Chad's lifetime. So. But listen, before we get into this, Daryl, it's important that you know that one of the things that the listeners get the most benefit from on this podcast, like, of all the five years we've been into it, is my dad jokes, it's the most important thing to do. So I don't want to miss out on doing it before I jump into a little bit more of how we've connected and then a little bit of your history and what you'll be able to share with the listeners. So are you ready?

[Chad]

I am ready.

[Chris]

Listen, if you know the answers to these, you just speak up. There's no shame in knowing the answer. Okay, Chad. This is his favorite part of the podcast. So, number one dad joke. What concert costs just 45 cents? What concert cost just 45 cents? You know it's not Justin Timberlake concert, right? Chad? That was more than 45 cents.

[Daryl]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Any idea what concert costs just 45 cents? It's a pretty cheap concert.

[Chad]

That is pretty cheap.

[Daryl]

Nickelback.

[Chris]

50 cents. 50 cents. Featuring Nickelback.

[Daryl]

Oh, okay.

[Chris]

Get it.

[Chad]

I get it.

[Chris]

I said that was a brain teaser, buddy. That was a brain math.

[Chad]

There, But I got it.

[Chris]

Teaser. Okay. I mean, you should know. 50 something and you're 21. Savage fan. Yeah.

[Daryl]

50 Cent. That was a hot jamming in high school right there. Takes me back.

[Chris]

Absolutely. He was at the G. He was at the game. Yeah, he was at.

[Daryl]

There was tons.

[Chris]

He was at the game.

[Daryl]

Tons of celebrities there.

[Chris]

Yeah. Were you guys hanging down in the green room or whatever?

[Chad]

We were not.

[Daryl]

We were not. Didn't get that in by.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad]

All right. Side wrap going there or anything?

[Daryl]

No, no. Didn't ask me to do any of that. Little does he know I'll go over rapper. I am.

[Chris]

You know, fun fact, since we're talking about 50 Cent, I just thought about this. You know, in my last days of trying to attempt to race the Indianapolis 500, 50 Cent was my sponsor. He had a company called SK Energy Shots. SK standing for Street Kings. The shot did not make it in the market and nor did we get the funding to complete but for a minute. But I got to do the testing with $0.50 face on the side of my car. Pretty cool.

[Chad]

Wow.

[Chris]

Yeah, it was pretty sweet.

[Chad]

Tied that right to that dad joke, didn't you? Yes, sure.

[Chris]

It worked out great. I didn't even think about it until I did it. I was thinking on the fly. Holy shit, look at me. Ready to go today. Okay, we're getting into two more. We got two more dad jokes. All right. Feeling really good about these, Chad. Really good. How did Burger King get Dairy Queen pregnant? Well, I mean, you've had to thought about this before, right? This seems like a pretty logical thing to think about. How did Burger King get Dairy Queen pregnant? This is definitely a borderline Wally joke. He forgot to wrap his Whopper.

[Daryl]

Hey.

[Chris]

That'S pretty good. That was all right.

[Daryl]

I'll give you that one.

[Chris]

Okay, thank you. All right, last one, then we'll move on. I mean, I thought that one was going to be much better, but I kind of landed. What's. What's six inches long and has two nuts at the end?

[Chad]

Is this tie into the Whopper joke?

[Daryl]

Yeah.

[Chris]

What? Six inches long and has two nuts at the end. Nobody?

[Chad]

Nobody. All right, let's hear it.

[Chris]

And Almond Joy. You perverts. Jeez. Get your mind out of the gutter. And Almond Joy, by the way, I love those candy bars. Those things are good, but they don't put enough nuts on them for me.

[Chad]

Okay.

[Daryl]

Yeah.

[Chad]

Needs to be about two nuts is all you get.

[Chris]

Two nuts is all you get. It's kind of a let down. Okay. Got through those huh? What do you say, Chad? A little bit better? A little bit.

[Chad]

Iris, you're getting stronger.

[Daryl]

That's good.

[Chris]

Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep. I'll keep working on it. I'll take that as a compliment. Okay, let's get to the fun stuff. All right. We got my good buddy Daryl Bingham on President Parker and Son's that right? That's correct, President el presidente, former ops manager over at George Brazil, if you ever heard that small little company down here in the Southwest. We got to connect a little bit on the Cabo trip. We were down there on smart AC Cabo trip, and. Which was great. I don't think that he participated in the NAD+IV thing. Were you doing? Oh, you're on the couch.

[Chad]

I was in the spooky room.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad]

Dear God. Yeah.

[Chris]

So he far that little fun near.

[Chad]

Death experience in Mexico.

[Chris]

Don't recommend doing that. At least we did it as a group. So we could have wiped out a whole bunch of industry folks.

[Chad]

Absolutely. That was intimidating to say the least, but could have been interesting. Live through that one.

[Chris]

But tell you what, we were refreshed the next morning.

[Chad]

We were. We were. It was a quick recovery.

[Chris]

It was. We also got to meet. I think we got. We met at one of the clover mastermind things probably. I got maybe three.

[Chad]

Were you the.

[Chris]

Were you there. Were you the year that Rick Hutchison was there before he passed away?

[Chad]

No, it was the year after. Yeah.

[Chris]

Those are always fun with Josh and Laura's deals to be a part of and just kind of hang out with everybody, but it's always fun. I mean, we've had Peter Pete Case been on here a few different times. Love that guy. One of my favorite human beings is one. One of the guys who could definitely out dance Chad on the dance floor, which is hard to do because he's pretty. Pretty good dancer.

[Chad]

Got to check that one out.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad]

You got a video of that somewhere?

[Daryl]

I got no moves like Paul's got.

[Chad]

Oh, come on.

[Chris]

Come on. But it's, you know, it's always good to have someone who's actually, you know, in your seat right now running these big businesses, too. And then being able to reflect on. On, you know, when you weren't working for big business or you weren't in the position that you are working in big businesses. So I want some of our listeners, you know, who have heard of, you know, Parker and Sons, who is, you know, a behemoth, you know, in the Southwest, I mean, really across the United States of America. And so is George Brazil. It was like another company that paved the way, you know, in the, in, in the home services space. But let's just talk a little bit about your journey maybe with, for our listeners. Let's just maybe share a little bit of. Let's, let's start with the end, let them know for some people who don't know who Parker and Sons is, maybe what size of business Parker and Sons is today and then let's work your way back from your George Brazil days into like kind of what were your roles there? Maybe share the size of George Brazil because there's some people probably have no idea who that is, which would be weird. But let's just assume some people don't know. And then just like, hey, whenever I came into Parker, you know, we were X, you know, size ish. And then, you know, today it's wherever. So just so people can understand what you did in the journey and what the size of the businesses were on that journey. Is that cool?

[Chad]

Yeah, yeah. If questions along the way just prompt me and I'll fill in some detail of it. But you know, I moved into the present seat here at Parker and sons back in 2020, which wasn't a very significant year at all to take over the reins.

[Chris]

Lucky.

[Chad]

Very, very timely move to a regional CEO position within. He's really good about, you know, filling the vibes of what's coming and saying, hey, you know what, I don't know what's coming, but something's coming and why don't you take over? So that was quite the experience to be in the seat of a very large company as the pandemic rolled in. I can remember a lot of the uncertainty, you know, in March of 2020 when, you know, it's all history now, but at the moment it was unwritten of, you know, what that future would look like and making some leadership decisions and rallying the team around what the potential prospects were going to be. And we, you know, played some cards very well at that time and had a lot of success over the last five years since then. Currently today, Parker and Sons, you know, we do multi trades, plumbing, air conditioning, electrical. We also have a pretty high, very large water treatment division. We do blowing in insulation and last year I started up a solar division collectively between here and Tucson. We are roughly around 250 million in gross revenue and we've steadily been able to grow that. You know, I've been with them now about 13 years after leaving George Brazil. So that translates to about just under 600 some odd technician trucks Rolling around every single day. We've got some fun stats with it. You know we drive, we put a lot of miles on the valley here on, on a daily basis as you can imagine. Point we've exceeded it now. But kind of a fun fact, you know, we'll drive more than 25,000 miles a day here in Phoenix which is roughly the circumference of the, of the earth. So we have the claim of being able to drive around the world every day without ever leaving Phoenix. Just to kind of put something in perspective.

[Chris]

I just think about the dollar sign attached to that.

[Chad]

What's that cost? It's a large fuel bill. I can tell you that we get a little bit of reprieve now but a couple of years ago, you know, writing half a million dollars for a fuel bill in a month was, is a different level of, you know, trying to manage that process. We have a great management team that continues to, you know, pivot through some of the current challenges that we're seeing this year and last year specifically around air conditioning is the whole market shift to the A2L. And so much of you know, this is really, we're seeing a major change in the H vac industry right now and trying to navigate through that while still again trying to grow a business, be successful, maintain margins, the whole nine yards. So yeah, that's kind of been my role for the last five years in managing and operating a very large size business and figuring out how to try to continue to get it to grow and the architecture of what that looks like. We're just in one location here in Phoenix. We opened up a branch in Tucson three years ago. We had some rapid growth there which is what we like to do. They'll do about 25 million in revenue last year and just a three year startup. We had felt like we had some pretty good success from that.

[Chris]

Are they still Are they is Tucson have all the same trades as Phoenix.

[Chad]

They issue the three trades down there. Plumbing, air conditioning, electric.

[Chris]

As big as you guys are here in Phoenix, how much market share you think you guys actually have?

[Daryl]

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[Chris]

Look, I've seen every new tech tool in the trades. When I first saw Contractor Commerce years ago, I thought, cool idea. But will homeowners really buy systems and do estimates online? Well, they are big time. Summit Heating did over $500,000 in installs with instant estimates. Peterman Brothers is crushing it with their filter subscriptions. It's not theory anymore. It's actually happening. So yeah, Paul, Paul's not crazy. This is the future. The future is now. Go to contractor commerce.com and see it for yourself.

[Chad]

I mean, we're just touching double digit right now. If we had 10%, maybe 9%. I mean, Phoenix is a very large market. It's highly fragmented. Obviously there's thousands of contractors here and so it's kind of tough to gauge market share. But you know, I think we're about 1.1, 1.2 million homes roughly in, you know, our market space in Phoenix. So you can kind of get an idea of how many homes you touch on an annual basis to gain what that market share looks like. But yeah, it's probably somewhere in that 8, 9 or 10%. Yeah.

[Chris]

Chad, you ever think about that with, with Pyramid Brothers? Like, because it, you know, to the outsider might seem like, oh my gosh, these guys have majority market share in this me. Like they're probably own 30 of this, 40% of this market. And you're like, no, no, actually they're pro. Probably way less than that because I don't know that anybody that I know of is. I mean, this is one of the largest businesses is touching double digits. Like there's so much open, open market, you know, and a lot of our listeners are living in that market. Right?

[Chad]

Yeah, I mean, that's just it. Again, it's highly. Again, there's just a lot of competition in the Phoenix market. It's what we're about the 10th largest, maybe 11th largest, you know, metropolitan in, in the United States. And of course Phoenix is a great place for air conditioning, as we'll find out here next month. Arizona is not one of those places that you don't go without air conditioning. It's a necessity here, which is nice for being in that business. But it also draws a lot of competition because of the high demand that exists here.

[Chris]

Yeah, we'll already kind of hit. I know because I'm already experiencing it in my house.

[Daryl]

Hey, Darrell, I want to kind of dive into the Tucson because I feel like the in vogue thing is to start a new location and so on and so forth. Obviously you guys were, as you said you were less than 10% of the market share, but still a very big company in Phoenix before you decided to move to Tucson. What were some of the things that you guys thought about as you tried to take over a new market? And I've made the drive from Phoenix to Tucson, not a whole lot in between there. It's pretty. I think I'm out in the desert. Hopefully I got plenty of gas. But like, when you guys were starting that new market, what were some of the things you were like, hey, this is our strategy going in. And then maybe on the flip side of that, like some things that you guys thought that maybe didn't work when you went in, if you look back at when you started.

[Chad]

Yeah. So, you know, when we look to expand into a new market, which is kind of the thing, and we first looked for acquisition opportunities to see if there were a way we could leverage growth in that marketplace. Three years ago, staying up with the times, the cost of acquisition was kind of at a peak. And so trying to find value in an acquisition really wasn't the option. So we went with what they call the greenfield process and start from scratch. We knew we had a strong brand under Parker and Sons, but Phoenix is in a different DMA and so there was a little bit of residual 90 minutes south of Phoenix, but it certainly didn't have resonance with the brand. So we knew we'd have some challenges in growing a new company under that brand. We had a good, some, you know, we had a lot of good marketing pieces in place that we knew would be relevant. There's some very solid companies that have been down there for a long time. So we knew we'd have some very entrenched competition that we would have to go up against. Right Way is the main player in, in the Tucson area. They run a great company down there and have grown it to, you know, very large size for that marketplace. So, you know, we knew who our lead competition was that we would be up against. But we really just focused on knowing that we have some great business practices, we know how to run business, we know how to take care of customers. And we just wanted to really just replicate that process in the, in the Tucson market. And it's, you know, it's worked well for us. We went down with a little bit of maybe over ambition in trying to start all three trades simultaneously. That was very painful for me. And I pivoted very quickly away from that and said, hey, I just got to kind of focus on one, you know, one at a time. So that caused a little bit of resistance for me to begin with. We delayed our plumbing start after a couple months, realizing that it's just too much resources too quickly when you're trying to grow rapidly from zero. And our goal was to run go from 0 to 25 million in annual sales in a three year period. So that was what we set out to do and we accomplished the goal we set out to do. Um, but when you're trying to grow that fast across three trades, it was just too many distractions. We retracted from that, focused on air conditioning, got it set up. Then we focused on electrical, which is a good complement to that, and felt like there was less competition in electrical in the marketplace than plumbing. And that proved to be the case. So we were able to gain some traction on that side of it. And then about a year in, we added the plumbing side of it. Once we had some established management practices and some started to get some customer base in place.

[Daryl]

How do you look at, like when you're starting? Because I hear all sorts of different numbers. Obviously there's the, you know, 8 to 10% of marketing is, you know, of revenue is what you want to spend on marketing. Did you, how did you guys think about that going into a new location? Did you guys up that percentage? And I'm guessing you're doing it off projected revenue. How did you guys think about the marketing play of that?

[Chad]

We did. I mean, there was a, there was an investment process in starting a startup. Your objective isn't necessarily to be profitable in the first three years. Your objective is to go establish a management team, establish a customer base, establish a technician base and practices so then you can then leverage that profitability off of it once you get that establishment. So we knew, I mean you, if you're doing it in a comparison aspect, if I was going to do an acquisition at the time, you know, you'd be spending, I don't know, 20/plus million dollars to go out and buy a $25 million business. So, you know, from my perspective, I look at that as if I can, if I can greenfield this for anything less than that, then that is advantage, you know, to the investment. And we were able to do it considerably less. But we did spend a lot from a percentage on marketing. I mean, we were probably the 15 +% knowing we were trying to get it down to roughly 8% once we got some better branding, brand awareness in the marketplace. But yeah, you're, you got to go in planning on spending some money up front to buy market awareness and be able to. Your brand isn't very relevant, so your cost per lead is very high. Once that brand relevant relevance starts to take a little bit of traction and that's been dropping down, we're seeing some better results.

[Daryl]

Yeah, I think that's similar advice that I give to people. It's like, yeah, you can do an acquisition and that's kind of the shiny ball of like, oh, we acquired a company. But I think you got to look at it from a greenfield perspective of, okay, comparison. If I greenfield this and I don't have to go through all of the hard integration and changing people and losing technicians and all of this, if I build it from scratch, you know, can I build it for less than what I would have to acquire? Yes, if I acquire, I get there kind of day one. But there's a whole lot of heavy lifting and integration. Whereas I'm guessing starting a new location, there's a lot less integration because, well, you're probably taking people from Phoenix and moving them to Tucson to start this thing up and you know, bringing on people and they fall right into your process. So I think that that squares up with, with how I kind of think about it as well.

[Chad]

You know, a lot of the success of it was that we leveraged our shared services from our Phoenix base. So we kept, you know, call center marketing, all of our operations, really all of our accounting, you know, centralized in the operation we already had. So we really just needed our field operations stood up in that in the Tucson area. So that gave us a much bigger advantage than trying to just greenfield everything, you know, from scratch. This was just really an extension of what we were doing here and that allowed us to really leverage that.

[Chris]

You know, a couple things that I was thinking about, I'm going to kind of go off script a little bit, but because Chad asked the question, one thing that's always blown. Well, I just made an announcement yesterday, an official announcement that I was able to. Excuse me. We, my wife and I and the Ono Group were able to invest in one of our new sponsors on the podcast, Prolific Brand Design, Design Company. And one of the things that I think about was when you go into Tucson was, was there ever any thought, like, if you've not seen the Parker and Sons brand, like, when you look at all These brands that, like, it's just, you know, these truck wraps and stuff have kind of gotten nutty and crazy. It's not like this is some, like, blow your mind. It's just so. Yet it works. It's still so basic and it works so well. And hopefully we can throw a picture of like one of the bands or something up on the video, edit that thing in there, but just so everybody can see it. But was there any consideration to like, updating that thing going into the new market? Like, was it. Because that has. That's a shitload of trucks to rewrap. That's a lot of expense too.

[Chad]

You know, we've. We've kind of had that same brand look for a long time now. 20 plus years. Years. And so there was some thoughts of, hey, do we use this kind of a catalyst to rebrand and refresh? But there is a simplistic nature of the brand that we have. If you can see it at some point where it is just a really, you know, it's just a real simple, clean look. It's worked well with us. So as we tried to reconsider some different rebranding, we fell back to just, you know, let's. Let's keep with what works. The Tucson market, for the most place, for the most part, this was a new brand. So it didn't feel like, you know, we needed to upgrade it to represent that in Tucson because the simplistic nature of our logo and just what we look. The truck look would be new to that marketplace and so far, so good.

[Chris]

Yeah, I understand. I mean, I've.

[Chad]

Obviously, we did consider it.

[Chris]

Okay, well, I just think about that. I was actually listening to the. The founder of Prolific speak at one of the events a few weeks ago, and he had mentioned how successful the brand has been without there ever being like a character or a hero or anything attached to it. Like, I remember what's the cowboy guy's name that was on there?

[Chad]

Vince.

[Chris]

Vince, yeah. And seen him on there and then see. Yeah. So, I mean, but it was very simple. But I. But it works. And so fun fact is down there, you know, I've. I've competed down there for quite a while. Rick Right Way was my client for, you know, five years. So from 19 all the way through 24, great partnership with those guys and they became part of legacy service partners. Good, good dudes. I've been able to be with them through that. That ride.

[Chad]

Yeah, they're really good.

[Chris]

I mean, ghetto. Another one I commuted with. You got some players on any Hour another one that had to, you know, so I've competed down that market successfully for, for quite a while. Only person that has like a like ghetto probably is the only brand with the, you know, that has the brand story, the flashlight piece, you know, to whole Ken story right way was always like pretty straightforward, basic like no meant nothing major down there. Just kept like chipping away and chipping away and chipping away at the market. So just I started thinking about well like who actually has like the big standout brands in that Tucson market. Just seems like it's just kind of wide open. There's a lot of, a lot of white space in front of us. So I just was curious about the branding question in general because I feel like that has to come up and hopefully we showed a picture of that, you know, in the video so people could see it.

[Chad]

Yes, it's, I mean it's simple. But a lot of the success we have had at Parker and Sons to in the, in the really, you know, mammoth growth that we've taken place is focusing on simple things. Simple things that we can get really good at that we can really leverage that process in the industry a long time and seen a lot of different complicated processes from commission plans to advertising. I will say that, you know, and one of the I learned from Paul was, you know, to really just try to keep things simple. And as we kind of built that into our culture, it has allowed us to really leverage something simple. It is when you're trying to train 600 people on a process, it's a challenge. And so the simpler the process can be, the faster I can replicate it across a larger network, the more complicated it is, the longer Runway you need to get anything implemented. And the success in our businesses comes from quick, consistent implementation and training of, of whatever the process is.

[Chris]

Question. This is a question for both of you guys. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I've definitely experienced it, you know, in our growth because we've become a pretty decent sized business. You guys feel like you ever over like maybe it's not you directly, but it's whoever you have in a leadership role starts to over complicate processes. Like we've now over complicated the simplest.

[Chad]

Things constantly, every day, you know, change is inevitable.

[Chris]

Like there's sometimes I look at some of our processes, I'm like, like I don't even know who to go to to get my own problem fixed. So I'm having to ask somebody who runs this problem like and how did it get here? Like how. Why is there's like five steps in this process when it used to be one step?

[Chad]

Yeah, I think that's just a byproduct of growth. As you grow, you need new processes. And then when you go to redevelop the process, you got somebody new that you've added to management and that growth and they've got to put their signature on it. And that just tends to start bloating processes inherently. And so it is one of our traits that we are constantly trying to simplify processes. And you can have a complicated SOP on a simple process so that you can train on it well, but at the core, yeah, trying to find ways to really keep things very simple is essential if you're trying to get some rapid growth and large scale growth. You can't do that with complicated processes.

[Daryl]

Yeah, I mean, for us it's always been like, I feel like a lot of our processes get complicated because you're trying to wrangle in so many people. And yeah, you've got the good guys, they can follow the process, they've been here a long time, they're good at it, whatever. But you start bringing in this influx of new people and trying to get to all do it. You basically create a process to where everybody is going to have to do 18 different things in order to see it through. And so what we've really tried to do in a lot of our processes, because I feel like where they get complicated is when the office staff creates them to make their life easier. When at the end of the day we should be trying to make the technician's life as easy as possible. And so I have a lot of things where I'm like the process I hate. So I mean, I understand the importance of SOPs, but I hate them. It's like, let's just, let's operate like we should be able to do this easily. It's bringing the field and the office together to kind of explain the why around why we have this process. I was in a meeting earlier today about our procurement process, which sucks. And it's like, crap. Like, well, we have to do these 10 things, like what's the easiest way to do them and what makes the technician's life harder and how do we make this simpler? And so I've found as we've grown, we've gotten back to like how we used to do it. It's like we used to do it this way and then we created this big process and it got really complicated. And now let's just go Back to the way that we used to do it. And everybody's like, well, why did we change? And it's like, well, there's a number of different reasons, but let's get back to super simple. But I think getting the field's perspective, I think has been kind of our. It's our goal, but it's also how we fix things. Because we need their perspective on what sucks out there and how can we make it better.

[Chris]

Yeah. How long did it take you to start to wrangle that back in?

[Daryl]

Too long.

[Chris]

Could you tell when it was starting to get out of control? Like, you could kind of tell, but it's like also hard to wrangle it back.

[Daryl]

Yeah. So we started this thing where our COO does a town hall with all the technicians just virtually every first Friday of the month, where he just gets in front of the technicians and it's kind of like explaining some changes that are coming up and this is what's happening. And then just leaves it as an open forum of like, hey, tell me what's not going right now? A lot of those things, if they give us 10 things that aren't going right, six of them are simply a misunderstanding of like, well, hold on a second. Why do you think it has to go that way? Well, no, and usually you'll get other techs that'll chime in, like, no, no, no, you don't do it like that. Do it like this. It's super simple. So they end up helping each other out. And then there's probably four things that are like, really good feedback of like, oh, crap, yeah, let's dive in and fix that. So again, soliciting that feedback. But yeah, I mean, we started those back November of last year and they've been super impactful. What we've seen is like the complaint section of the meeting has started to go down because we're fixing the things. Like these are the things that they want fixed. Okay, cool. We can dive right in and get that done. And it's usually a super simple fix. It's not like, oh, this is going to be a six month project.

[Chris]

Well, so what I'm hearing you say is this is going to be a constant problem as you scale. At least now I kind of know what to look for a little bit.

[Chad]

Like, you know, I do think it's a byproduct of growth. And, you know, growth ebbs and flows and when you're in a high growth period, you know, you, you have to react quickly to that. And so you do just you, you're putting different processes out there. They do tend to get over complicated. And then as you stabilize a little bit in the growth, then you review the process and go, hey, how can we trim this back? How can we make this simpler? You know, what technology potentially can we use to, to streamline the process? But yeah, it's essential, especially if you've, you know, when you're trying to manage large volume of anything. In our case, it's just, you know, large volume of work technicians call volume. Trying to keep things simple is essential. Good.

[Chris]

So anybody who's been experiencing some rapid growth and you're just trying to do your best and make the best decisions quickly, hang in there. Yes, it's all part of the process. That's what I'm hearing.

[Chad]

There'll be some little ebb. And as soon as there is, make sure you're circling back to simplify your processes.

[Chris]

Take note of the things that you're recognizing that are broken the process. Go back, revisit them. I just did like one of our little micro episodes on, on that, like what you learn, you know, in the busy season you work on, in the shoulder season, like some of the things that you learn, like, oh, shit, that was broken, or oh, this is, you know, maybe you can't fix it right in the moment, but make sure you make note of that so you can go back and revisit it when you do start to slow down a little bit.

[Chad]

I like to tell my people this is a sophisticated business, and so we have sophisticated processes. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to be complicated processes. We keep things simple. But again, if you're going to continue to advance and be a leader in your industry, you have to have a level of sophistication in really everything that you do. And so we try to focus on a really sophisticated process that we can implement very simply.

[Daryl]

Got it.

[Chris]

Okay. So I'm going to, just for the sake of time, pivot back to a little bit of what we're talking about because I think, you know, most of our listeners, as, you know, Darryl's telling you ahead of time, you know, there's a lot of just guys trying to figure it out who are smaller still, you know, majority are probably, or the majority are significantly smaller than you guys. And, you know, I was talking about this before the podcast, but since we're kind of talking about marketing, you kind of talk about going into Tucson as a, you know, as a, as a greenfield and not just, you know, a acquiring another business. How, like I'm Curious from your position in your seat at one of the largest. One of the largest. I mean, we're talking what, single market, you know, company, you know, H vac, plumbing, electrical companies. How do these little guys compete against you? Like you, like you can. You guys have so much leverage. You got brand power. You got. You have the money to build the capital to do it. You've got so much talent, leadership on that entire wrench team. Just not just Parker, but a wrench as a whole. How do these little guys compete against big guys like you? I mean, you know, I guess it.

[Chad]

Depends on what level of competition, right? There are some advantages. We were just talking about it, right? When I need to roll something out, I need to roll it out to 600 people and get compliance on it. And we all know the, you know, the 80, 20 or 70, 30 rule. You know, that 30% of my guys are going to get it real quick. 70% of them are going to take three or four attempts before they can master whatever it is that we're trying to roll out. You do that with, again, six or seven hundred people, your rollout time is very lengthy. You get a small shop that's got 25, 30 technicians. They can pivot and implement things a lot faster than we can. And so I think that's an advantage for them. We certainly feel that as a disadvantage when we want to do something simple, frustrating. It's all get out because, I mean, I got to go through a planning session. I got to go through, like, all kinds of things. Sometimes the idea come up with, to implement it. I'm already bored of my idea before I can even get it implemented because it can take so long. So those are, those are some of the challenges of the, the large company and being able to maintain that, that I think the smaller companies, you know, certainly have an advantage to, to, to. To make some quicker movements against us. There are certain segments of marketing. I think that if you're only trying to focus on, you know, a smaller lead, a lead flow that you can dominate, especially now, I think, on some social channels and social media, where the, the, you know, the needed volume for that smaller business can be derived from, you know, a concentrated effort in a certain social channel. For me, I don't have the, you know, we, I don't have the. We have such a large lead flow. You know, I mean, I need about 1400 calls a day. And so just try to wrap your mind around the constant marketing that happens. So we've got to go for channels that are very large, that Gives me volume. And when we miss out on being able to kind of do community targeted marketing or smaller companies, I think have an advantage over us if they really stay focused on, you know, the areas they can dominate in these little micro channels of marketing. And we've seen some smaller companies do very well. And I get jealous of it, honestly, and I go my marketing team and say, how is this small little company out marketing me in? You know, over here I see their ads, you know, three or four times more than mine. It's like, well, it's because we're spending all this over on, you know, these other, these other large broadband channels. So I do think there are some advantages that if they stay focused in these kind of little micro marketing areas, they can dominate in them where they really, you know, be challenged to compete against us at the broadband marketing level to, you know, have relevance because we're. We are able to dominate that at the volume that we're gets.

[Chris]

Good advice. And they maybe have not overcomplicated their processes yet.

[Chad]

Yes, exactly. Another advantage. But sometimes they miss out on some of the sophistication that is that you need to refine in order to push things out and operate at the level we're at too. So there's a little balance.

[Daryl]

One question, I think, and this kind of goes for, I think, where smaller guys can really, you know, kind of maximize their opportunity. I would assume that you adding other services, you said solar. Most recently you mentioned water treatment, which I know when I was out of your place a couple of years ago, you were like, look at this big barn of softeners. We got that. I'm like, oh my God, I'd love to move that many. What are some of the. Like, what are some of the simple. How are you. I mean, you got a massive customer base. Like, what are some of the things that even if you're, you know, even if you got four techs that you guys are doing that are kind of those blocking and tackling things still, that you found that work of like maximizing that customer base, cross selling across, you know, different trades, like, what do you guys do to make that like, come to fruition to be able to take advantage of the people that already know, like, and trust you?

[Chad]

Well, I mean, that has been a big part of our growth, success and growth strategy is being able to maximize our relationship with the customer. And so strategically, you know, when I started there, we were just a plumbing and air conditioning company. And since then we've added a variety of different trades to that in an Effort to maximize that relationship with it. And a lot of that comes from cross selling. And we work with our customer relations when they call in on the call center. We have a very aggressive process in being able to try to turn one call into two by some relatively simple scripts of asking if there are any other issues that they have in their home. And we do a very good job of internally marketing our customers while they're calling us in for one service and trying to get an opportunity for secondary service. We also do the same thing with our in home representatives that we've got a large cross selling process in place that incentivize and pays out, you know, spiffs to the technicians for advertising, if you would, or setting leads for other departments. It's a really critical function of what we do to be able to feed these other auxiliary departments. You know, insulation particularly, we do very little advertising for it. We've stood that whole division up really through internal marketing to our existing customers and through lead setting opportunities with our technicians in the field.

[Chris]

Did you see insulation?

[Chad]

I did, yes. Blown in insulation.

[Chris]

Peter did you know he did insulation? Son of a. We've been trying to roll out and implement that into our roofing business over in Indianapolis. I don't know how it's going, but that came from Chad. But you guys aren't doing that at Peterman Brothers, right?

[Daryl]

Well, that's, that's my, that's my next question. For someone who succeeded at it when you decide to. Because I failed at this a couple times. When you decided to start insulation, like it's one thing to just say to your H vac techs, you know, pop your head up in the attic, see if they've got insulation. You can use a ruler or, you know, they got all those fancy things, hey, you don't have enough insulation and you set that lead. What, how did you go about setting? Was that an investment? Like, hey, I need a leader of this department and you know, obviously the crews to put it in and all this stuff. But like someone who, hey, here's your budget, here's how many here you're going to be in charge of, you know, talking to the techs about the importance of insulation. Like, how did that, how did that, how did that division come to be? I guess.

[Chris]

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[Chad]

In.

[Chris]

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[Chad]

You get big by thinking big. So any division I've opened, you know, I have a large plan set out before we do it. I don't really get excited to start a division unless it's going to be a $10 million division. It's kind of, you know, I can't do that. Then it's, you're, you're not going to. In my experience in the past, I wasn't successful. So at some point I pivoted towards and say if we're going to do it, you know, let's set this up as a $10 million division. That way it's kind of just a round number where I know I can afford overhead structure around it, be able to pay for it. So yes, I can go out and find a, you know, a driver for that new division. I can hire a management structure around it it so that we're not trying to do it as a, you know, side gig out of, of our H Vac business. If you want to be successful at it, like I said, you kind of have to think big and you have to set it up, you know, with that in mind. And you know, we're, we've done that with electrical. We're probably one of the largest electrical divisions in the, in the, in the valley as well. And so we try to dominate with each trade we come in within two or three years we, we've got seven blown in off blown in low end insulation vehicles that we run around. We do 10 plus million in insulation alone right now. And again that kind of came because that was the whole begin with the end in mind concept. That was our goal and we drove towards that. So yeah, that's, that is an important part of it. If you want to dive into it, you got to be committed to dive all the way.

[Daryl]

Makes sense.

[Chris]

Chad, don't be trying to take this back to Peterman Brothers. Okay. This is a Redbird roofing deal.

[Daryl]

Water treatment is, water treatment is my number one. Like I, I've got to figure out plumbers. Like yeah, they'll offer a softener but like that's the one that I'm trying. It could be. I mean there's Culligans and all of the world. There's all these places that all they do is sell softeners. Like we've got to be able to do this.

[Chad]

So kind of the same thing until we broke it out of our plumbing division and, and was said we're going to set our sights on a 10 million water water sales division for us to be able to afford a driver of that department and have it function like you said, in competition with the Kinetico or the Culligan. And not just a, hey, let's just, you know, have a plumbing company that sells a lot of water treatment plant water treatment systems. Let's have a water treatment division that we can then hold them accountable for the numbers that we want to accomplish. And we do a lot of lead setting from our plumbing department to our water sales department. And that took a fair amount of time and energy to kind of set that handshake process up. And there's always the argument that, you know, that is plumbing and, and it is a kind of a subdivision of our plumbing. But when we, when we were able to get dedicated management for it and then dedicated numbers that says this is what you need to do and then hold them accountable for it. The investment pays off.

[Chris]

Yeah. And you probably have a lot of, I mean you're probably doing a lot of existing client nurturing, cross selling across existing customers too on some of these services, like you know, add on is water treatment, EO whatever or ro but you're doing some sort of marketing, ongoing marketing to the existing customer base. When you're rolling, you're bringing on a new service, right?

[Chad]

Yeah. In fact, you know, when we're bringing on a new service, we can use that kind of from the excitement of, hey, you know, let's talk to the 100,000 customers we have and say, you know, here's a new service and here's a new promo that are running with it and try to gain some, you know, rapid awareness with that. And then that period can last a good year or two being new. And then we can get in some consistency once we've kind of branded that to our client base. But just like you weren't aware we did insulation. There was, there probably still is a large portion of our customer base that doesn't know we do insulation because it is a large effort to brand a new trade to the Parker and Sons brand, not just to the general public, but to your own customer base as well. You know, we like to think that they read everything that we send to them and, but the reality is, is, you know, they really don't care that much about, you know, the home service provider that they have. Even if they, you know, even if they're partnered with us, if you would, on a maintenance plan, they really want to ignore us until they need us. And so it's difficult to proactively get any message in front of them that resonates that says they're going to remember, oh yeah, they do insulation. When I think I might need that, I'll call them. And insulation being one of those, that is, you know, there is no demand around it. You really have to spur that conversation with every customer.

[Chris]

I've gotten the insulation quote before from my house last year and I didn't like it because I wasn't expecting, I was like, holy, how much? Three Insulating.

[Daryl]

You got too much house, Chris.

[Chad]

What do I need that for a price?

[Daryl]

At your house.

[Chris]

House.

[Daryl]

You got too much house.

[Chris]

That's, that's fair. It's a lot of insulation. But point is, I was like, oh, that was like a thirty thousand dollar insulation job. I was like, say what the. I was like, I just replace this one, you know, Anyway, it was crazy. Well, you, you said something. The reason I was asking that question was cross marking to your existing customer base is you can do that at any size of business, you should be doing that. So obviously lowest quality, low cost per lead, so you should be doing those things. And you're right. You also mentioned one thing that I just took a note of is they're not, you know, not everybody's opening your emails and reading them anyhow. Right. So I had, I just Introduced Chad to this guy I met maybe a few months ago. I don't know, Chad, if you. If you guys have met with Zach or not yet, but I'm going to brag on this dude for a second. Didn't know he did it, but he. So he's running email marketing campaigns for contractors. Small little boutique guy just found a skill, built his own little AI tool, was launching emails, you know, across your customer base, and was really trying to drive open rate because that's usually the pain in the ass is like, they're not opening it. We're sitting in like 10, 15, maybe 20 open rates. Well, you. If there's no. Nobody's opening it, it's kind of pointless, right? So you're just sitting and now you're like. And not going into their spam. You know, is that a whole nother thing? So this kid, I say kid, it's so weird to say he's only like, he's like 30 years old. That makes me feel old. I'm sure.

[Chad]

You'Re a kid in.

[Chris]

Thank you. Appreciate that. This dude's getting like 30, 40, 50% open rates. And so I was like, seems fishy like that. That doesn't happen. So I had him open up his account and he was in here and I was pursuing him, you know, to. To potentially acquire his company and then rolled into this prolific brand design business that I bought. So he showed me this thing and no shit, like 30, 40, 50. Even in the 60% open rates. I'm like, how are you doing this? And then what's the actual lead quality attached to it? Like, I'm. And is it like, what are you saying? To get them to open it? That's one thing. But are they actually taking action? Well, he's like, yeah, well, they're tied to Service Titan, so let me just pull you into their Service Titan account. I'm like. So you can see the revenue attached to him. Like, this dude's figured some things out. You imagine if you just took your existing customer base, regardless of what size you are, and now you're going from a 10%, you know, email, 20% email open rate to 50, 40, 50%. That's a hell of a lift on revenue, especially if you're small and you. The revenue. So it's such a good tool that I never even think about. Cause Rhino doesn't even offer it. I wouldn't even offer it because it's just something we've thought about. Now I'm like, well, maybe we should start paying a little closer Attention to email marketing, again, because it's so inexpensive.

[Chad]

To do it well, you know, particularly. And we talk a lot about demand service and opportunity service. And you know, demand service, obviously you think allows us to typically acquire new customers through demand service. It's something that is what we're in business for. But demand services, a very erratic aspect. You don't know any given day how many water heaters are going to fail or how many toilets are going to clog or how many air conditions are going to not work. And I've got a static workforce that I have to keep busy. And so we're constantly engineering our call volume on a daily basis in this blend between what we predict we're going to get in demand and this is for all trades and then augmenting the difference of that prediction with our opportunity calls. And so the need for opportunity calls is huge in managing these service businesses. If you're going to be able to have any level of growth, because if you're only ever hiring to demand, then there is no opportunity for growth because demand will come and then what you're going to hire, by the time you hire, the demand isn't there. And then you got people sitting around with nothing to do. And so that's why, you know, if you can really balance out and get really good at predicting what demand is going to be and then augmenting that with opportunity, I know I can hire 10 more people and keep them busy because I know I have the ability to gain these opportunity calls and what you're talking about through emailing your customer base. Those are typically opportunity calls you're looking for.

[Chris]

There's some predictability to it though, right? Just based on your past experience, like, okay, we expect it should bring in this range of business for us.

[Chad]

Yeah, we get, we get good. We get pretty accurate at predicting what, you know, our marketing is going to bring in. And we have a fairly complex metrics of, you know, for each trade is slightly different because, you know, the, the what causes demand is different for it. Obviously, air conditioning. We watch the temperatures, we see what 100 degree day did, you know, last week, we see what, you know, last Monday was and what the temperature was. And it's a little, you know, metrics that we use for being able to do that prediction. And we get pretty accurate at it. And every once in a while I get thrown off on it. But the point being is that once you understand that if you want to grow your business, then you just grow your opportunities because you can. They really fill in the Gaps. But this email marketing and, you know, being able to tap your customer base, those aren't. You're not really looking for demand calls. Because if you send me an email, you know, if my water here is not leaking, the email is not gonna be any good. But if you've got an opportunity for, you know, like adrenal flush service or some proactive aspect or a new product that you're trying to sell that you know, that they can add to what they're doing now instead of when it breaks, those are what I refer to as opportunity calls. And if you get good at that and if you can get 50% open rates, that makes it much easier to leverage those type of calls with your customers. Customers. And those are really, you know, high sales opportunities more than they are like a service opportunity, you know, unless you're just trying to leverage some maintenance, you get good at that. And I mean, that's where a lot of the growth can come from.

[Chris]

Yeah, and what I was getting to with that is it just. It was. I mean, like I said, Rhino doesn't even offer it as a service. Right. Like so. But. Because I don't even think about it, and I'm like, well, shame on me because I've been thinking about chasing this LSA PPC like it's a whole other.

[Chad]

Just all the demand.

[Chris]

You forget about the simplest thing as email marketing. And so. Hey, Ryan, when does this podcast air, by the way? Is this a couple weeks? Four weeks? Perfect. So then I can make an announcement right here. I'm gonna make an announcement live on to the Point Home Services podcast. So because this comes out after the announcement. So that guy offered him a position, you know, and asked to bring his company on board into Prolific Brand Design, which we had just, Just, you know, acquired on April 30, my birthday, to come in and lead it. So now we don't not only do the branding and the rap designs and all that stuff, but now we also had an email marketing. So I got him. I got him to join the team. So he's going to come in and congratulation. President, president of Prolific Brand Design. And, and. But once he showed me that, and I was like, dude, first off, I was like, he's not charging enough. So that's. I saw a major upside there.

[Chad]

And then once she was getting 50% open rates, anywhere close to it.

[Chris]

So then I said to him, I said, And I said, you should. Everything I looked at, nothing was below a 30%. Nothing. Most of it was in 40, 50%. And it I said you should add a guarantee to it. Like, just say, hey, guarantee it's 30 or higher on open rates or it's your money back. Do it. I bet you it wins 95% of the time, you know, but. But wait, because as it scales, something's going to miss, you know, if they don't have the brand equity. Like, so I was like, do it. So I'm trying to talk him into just offering 30% plus guaranteed. And like, he will stack some clients with them. Like, so we need to be thinking how to scale this thing. But if you can just do something as simple as that, where the cost per lead is so, so low, if he's charging 1500 bucks a month and bringing in a 40, 50%. And now it's kind of on you and your team to execute, right? As long as the lead quality is good. So it's just, it took me back to grassroots. Like, sometimes we need to, you know, get back to Chad's point. A little blocking and tackling some of the simple things where we're like, oh, yeah, that should still work. We should probably focus on these types of things.

[Chad]

Yeah. Along with that is the SMS messaging. 100% text messaging, you know, is another medium where we can talk to our customers on a platform that they want, that they want to respond onto.

[Chris]

We know. Real quick, I'll just throw this out there for our buddy, Chris Hoffmania. Chris Hoffman Brothers over. He just launched this new newsletter. I don't know, Chad, if you saw his first one that came out, but it's called Pathless Travel, the Path, the Past Less travel newsletter. We'll share it in the show notes too, so that way people can click on it. It's cool because he's sharing his, like, little 9 million to $200 million crazy journey that Hoffman Brothers has been on, you know, and he's like one of the sharpest dudes I know too. But sometimes like, like Chad and I, you know, laugh at each other because we sit and listen to him talk and like, I'm five minutes in and I have no clue what the hell he's talking about. He's like, like so far over my head and because I'm still thinking about this, I miss the rest of what he's saying. But it's cool that he's sharing like, his, his entire journey in this little newsletter. The good, the bad, all of it, you know, so, you know, whatever, whatever. We already had him on, but we'd have brought it up. But in the show notes, click on it. Sign first newsletter. It's free. He's kind of dump, you know, dumping all his knowledge into it. And he's still private. He didn't plan on going, but he doesn't plan on being anything other than private. Kind of impressive. So we're getting really close to, you know, to the end of this podcast. I want to make sure we hit on a couple more things. But before I hit on Chad, do you have anything you want to ask him? Because I've kind of took over.

[Daryl]

No, I, I don't. I think this is all great stuff and really appreciate you sharing. Darrell. I think this, I mean, a lot of people are probably on this podcast going, what in the hell can I learn from a guy running 250? But like, again, it's the same message over and over, regardless of the size of the company. It's all the little stuff that adds up and you get really good at the blocking and tackling and then all of a sudden you see this growth take place. It's, you know, Parker and Sons didn't find some magic bullet that just prop held them to these heights. It's. They did all the little stuff and continued to do all the little stuff. So, yeah, I think this is great.

[Chad]

That really is. I mean, all these businesses are the same. They're very transactional businesses. You don't do 250 because you're doing a whole bunch of, you know, big project work or anything like that. You know, we're. We're a strictly residential company. So, you know, we're, We're. We're doing just a lot of the same work that the little person, the little or smaller company is doing. We just do a much higher volume of it. And it does require a lot of getting really good at, as you say, the block and tackling aspect so that you can handle the volume and, you know, it doesn't overwhelm you.

[Chris]

So, so let me, let me finish with this. So I ran into you at the Linux dealer meeting. Right? Right.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Linux dealer.

[Chad]

Meaning literally ran into.

[Chris]

Yeah, literally ran into you suitcase and.

[Chad]

I knocked you over, which is great.

[Chris]

Kicked me out. But, you know, like I mentioned before, you know, we were in Cabo together, which we did some training stuff down there. Smart. AC did their thing, which I know, I think you guys have, or you guys are.

[Chad]

We are partner with them.

[Chris]

Yeah, partner somewhere. AC but then also the Clover mastermind. So do you still go to these things trying to. You constantly learn something new from somebody else, regardless of the size of the business?

[Chad]

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I learned that from George. He started his business in 1955. I started working for him. I think he was 70 and he had been in business for 50 years. And he talked about these business cycles, right? Like, you know, and those can be like 10 year business cycles that you start to go, you know, like, hey, I made that decision already once. Why am I doing this again? And so he talked about constantly learning. He was one of the founders of what then was contractors 2000 today Nextar. And I had a lot of exposure from him during that time period to where it was all about. I watched him at 80 years old going to a seminar to continue to learn even though he'd been in business for 50 years. Years. And so, yeah, I don't think you can ever stop learning in this. The industry continues to change, business practices continue to change. If you're not constantly, you know, sharpening your saw at whatever level you're at, then yeah, you're, you're missing out.

[Chris]

Well, so, so then here's my follow up to that. You know, you're part of the Wrench Group family, right? And there is so there's a lot of incredible leadership talent in that family. You got what Jamie D. Domenico, Jonathan Bancroft, Kevin Comerford, Alan o' Neill, Paul Keller. There's so much talent in there. Now when you have, when you run into issues like if you, or things you're just trying to learn or questions you want to get answered, do you have, is there any. Who's your go to in that group or do they different go to's for different situations? Like who are your go to guys?

[Chad]

You know, it's kind of transitioning, right? You just named a lot of the powerhouses that, you know, started businesses and then merged them into the Wrench Group. They are a great resource for us. But like Paul Kelly and Kevin and others who are kind of moving into different roles after merging their business into it. They're great mentors and I talk to them on a regular basis. But these businesses are always changing. And so, you know, being able to collaborate with, you know, Tony, who is the, the Allen o' Neill's position there at Abacus in Houston, who's, you know, grinding out every day trying to figure out, you know, the new way to stay successful in, in business, which we all are. And so being able to collaborate with some people that have just been in roles for, you know, a year. You know, Dam Yitzchak took over for Kevin in Service Champs up there in Sacramento and you know, he and I collaborate on a regular basis because again, it's very relevant of what's happening today. And so that's really what, where I gain a lot of it is like, hey, I'm dealing with this. What are you doing? Yeah, we're dealing with the same issue. Right. Whether it's something changed in the industry, whether it's procurement issues, whether it's its resistance to the, you know, the inflationary pricing that we've got on some, you know, equipment that we're trying to deal with. Having being able to collaborate with somebody who's dealing with those same problems today is probably the highest value to me. I get all the great. You know, I got a lot of greats in my, in my pocket for mentoring when it comes for leadership or, or just inspiration that I need. But if I got an operational problem, I'll reach out to, you know, one or two or three different, different current leaders that are running these, you know, 100 million dollar businesses. And sometimes I learn a lot from the guys running a 30 million dollar business because it's like, you know, this is how we do it. Yeah, why don't I think of that? That's what I should be doing. I was trying to complicate it, you know, for my size and, and actually if I just did it that way, it'd be a lot simpler. So it's helpful to actually have a blend of it.

[Chris]

Yeah, I mean, good to have good operators and that are actually operating these businesses today is, is a cool, like a little, little peer group to have access to.

[Chad]

And we're all kind of going through the same transition too where, you know, we're, we've, you know, they're well established businesses that were run by, you know, very talented leaders. And so those businesses are now in their second chapter, if you would, with it and being able to kind of take an existing culture and you know, make it your own with a new leadership team and a new leader and then take that culture and extend a new version of it without necessarily changing it. You are changing it, but without losing what it started with, but changing into something new to move it forward under different leadership. We're all kind of going through that same challenge. And so it's good to have resources.

[Chris]

We got to get some of them on this podcast.

[Daryl]

Chad, we've had quite a few. We've had Kevin, we've had Jonathan.

[Chad]

No, no, no, I'm talking like the guys sitting in their seats.

[Daryl]

Okay, sorry, sorry I missed you there, there. Yeah, I would agree.

[Chris]

Yeah, we gotta get to, actually we just rolled out JB's. I love Jonathan Bancroft. He's awesome. And Kevin did a. At Rhino X, which you've not been to yet. Gotta get you to Rhino X. They did a little session where they just, you know, they questioned each other, which those two guys are great together.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I think they have their podcast that's out too. I think it's. Oh, I forget the name of it. I can't remember what the name of the podcast is.

[Chad]

Words of Wisdom.

[Chris]

Thank you. There it is. Words of Wisdom.

[Daryl]

Wow.

[Chris]

So that's great. Thank you for chiming in and helping me out there. But we, we rolled their session out as a, as a podcast, which is cool. Those guys were great. But I think we. It'd be good to bring some of those guys on here especially. I mean, I know all the old guys, you know, not how all the old guys who built these businesses and. But it would be good to bring in some of the current day operators in these things.

[Chad]

Like I said, the industry is always changing. You got new challenges today that we didn't have, you know, even just a year ago. And, you know, with whether it's talent, which is getting far more sophisticated in where they want to work and how we navigate people that know their value and how they negotiate to hire these days, there's just a lot of new things that are happening in our industry and be able to kind of talk about that. It's a safe zone too, to some degree because most of them are sister companies in different marketplaces, so. So, you know, we get a pretty high level collaboration through it, but I get you some referrals to some guys that you can bring on the show.

[Chris]

Let's do it. Chad, what do you think about this first off? Let's do that for sure. So before you leave. Yeah. Thankfully we have, we have Daryl in studio here in Phoenix, Arizona. We should bring in Charlie Kirk and have him have a debate and bring in these current day operators and have them debate topics at the next Rhino. What do you think? Yeah, would that be fun one? That'd be great. Including Daryl. Daryl, you're in.

[Chad]

All right.

[Chris]

Okay, let's do it.

[Chad]

I don't have the trouble very far.

[Chris]

That's an easy, easy one for you because I'm never changing location. It's gonna be something for me. It's already a pain in the ass to have it in the first place. Yeah. Well, listen, man, really excited to, you know, to finally get you on here too and for. To have you come in, in person. It's always good to sit, you know, face to face with somebody. But this is, it's like I, I can't remember who it is. It always tells me you need to get some current day operators on here. It's probably Ishmael, I think it's probably, probably who tells me that get some current day operators in there.

[Chad]

He's a big fan of, of, of that concept. Yeah, he loves the old guys, as he calls them, so it must have.

[Chris]

Been him that was busting my chops about. But it does make a lot of sense, you know, to, you know, because it's what we're dealing with currently today and. But I appreciate you just, you know, giving the time because I understand what the value of your time, your time is, especially as we're creeping up into summertime here.

[Chad]

Here. Yes, June is just around the corner here. We started this weekend and I'm hoping.

[Chris]

For a really gnarly summer for both of you guys.

[Chad]

Thank you.

[Chris]

I hope it gets really hot and nasty for a really long time.

[Chad]

So keep doing the heat dance for us.

[Chris]

It would certainly help me too by the way. So the hotter it can get in every single market, the longer the better for all of us. So. But I appreciate you taking the time to hang with us for a bit and share with the listeners and just sharing some of the things that you, you've been through through your 30 year journey. Me and I just being willing to, you know, pour into some of these people. Have you done any, any other podcasts before?

[Chad]

I've not actually. This is my first podcast. You guys broke me in.

[Chris]

Yes. I feel honored. I'm grateful to be your first.

[Chad]

I've been a lot of firsts as a, you know, as a full time operator, very large business. This has never really been one of my priorities but running into you in the invite. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed my time here. Chad, great to talk with you again and, and see you. So yeah, thanks for the invite. It was fun.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well you pretty damn good at it. Like I think you're pretty natural guarant 100%. Chad's going to try and get you on can stop the growth. I'm sure you're probably going to be had get invites to some of these other podcasts too. And then I'd be love to be the one who sends you on your merry way to do those.

[Chad]

Well, thank you. Happy to share the, you know, my success story that I've had with you know, Parker and Sons in George Brazil, both to titan companies that I've been privileged to, you know, to operate and grow and learn from some nearly key people within our industry.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well, congrats on the success, man.

[Chad]

Thanks.

[Chris]

Kicking ass, and he's a good dude, good human being. So appreciate you sharing all that stuff with our listeners. And listen, we went a little over an hour on this episode, which we don't normally do unless it's really good shit. Okay? So this was good. This was good stuff.

[Chad]

Good to hear.

[Chris]

We actually covered quite a bit of different topics on this particular episode, so if you made it to the end, Congratulations, because you probably got me. Took some good notes on this. If nothing else, you just said, okay, cool. They go through the same issues as we go through, just a different scale, so. And get back to some grassroots shit. Okay? Make it easy.

[Chad]

That's it. Keep things simple.

[Chris]

Keep it simple.

[Chad]

Keep it simple.

[Chris]

Yeah. Keep it simple. You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. Isn't that right, Chad?

[Daryl]

That is correct. No. Zero days.