Why This $45M Home Services Company Still Refuses to Sell | VIP Guest John Waldorf

Summary

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To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast

Date: June 2, 2026
Episode Theme: Scaling, Culture, and the Next Chapter for Independents in Home Services

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Episode Overview

In this dynamic roundtable episode, the To The Point crew hosts an in-depth discussion with John Waldorf, Vice President of the 77-year-old, Atlanta-based Estes Services. Drawing from both operator and vendor perspectives, the conversation focuses on what it takes to scale a home services business while maintaining a strong family-owned culture in an era increasingly dominated by private equity. The group is joined mid-episode by industry veterans, including Jamie T., to contrast approaches and share hard-won wisdom on everything from growth strategy and marketing to ethics and new technology. This episode is a must-listen for owners, leaders, and anyone interested in the modern home services landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Estes Services: History, Approach, and Evolution

• [07:57] Estes founded in 1949 by Napoleon Bonaparte Estes; has remained family-owned for three generations.
• Initial Focus: Legacy in HVAC, later expanded into plumbing (2008) and electrical, all built internally (not via acquisition).
• Current Stats: ~$45M in annual revenue, aiming for $50M as next "BHAG" (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) with sights on $100M+ next.
  “We purposely spent the last 5 years focusing on profit instead of revenue... we got profit where we wanted it. So we’re positioned to scale up now.” – John Waldorf [09:07]

Management Upgrades & Organic Growth

• Leadership Shift: In 2001, John came onboard to rebuild leadership, intentionally hiring managers from outside the trades for process and people management skills.
• Organic Growth Strategy: All growth to date has been through organic expansion, not buyouts.
• Cultural Continuity: “We own and operate this business like a big family... the most important thing in the world is the culture.” – John Waldorf [12:47]

2. Why Stay Independent in a Private Equity World?

• [12:18] The group discusses the value and challenges of remaining independent, especially as the Atlanta market heats up with PE-backed roll-ups.
• “Private equity can’t come in and duplicate what we have here in the way of culture.” – John Waldorf [12:47]
• Notable Quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” (attributed to Ray Isaac) [13:50]

3. Defending & Sustaining Company Culture

• [14:25; 15:01] Balancing growth with culture—how Estes maintains its vibe as it grows into the hundreds of employees.
• Signature Move: Annual all-company trip to Florida or Hilton Head, rewarding all employees post-“long, hot summer.”
• Little Touches: Celebrate wins quickly; handle negatives in private; care about staff’s personal lives.
• Keeping Up: “We have every team member's picture on the wall in the hall with their names, and there are times I have to run down there...” – John Waldorf [16:48]

4. Scaling: The Growth Mindset, Investment, and Talent Pipeline

• [18:31] Why Estes paused aggressive revenue growth to focus on profitability and build cash for expansion. “Growth eats cash, especially when we’re doing it organically.”
• Playing the Long Game: Held margins, built up resources, and launched internal technical school (“Tech Builder”)—just graduated 26th class, two more scheduled this year.

Management for Growth

• [22:56] Ensuring the management bench is ready for scale:

  • Run leadership retreats around obstacles and ways to overcome them.
  • Identifying and mentoring future leaders now.
  • “What got us to $45M isn’t going to get us to $100M.”

• Operational Silos: The challenge as companies grow (from Chad / Jamie: [25:52]):

  • “As you get bigger, everything becomes so siloed... people making decisions without knowing their broader impact. We started doing all-hands meetings, getting everyone looking at the same dashboard.” – Chad [27:53]

5. Brand Messaging & Leveraging Independence

• [34:51–38:20] Jamie T. and John discuss brand positioning in a consolidating market:
  • Being local/family-owned is now a unique selling point against anonymous PE-backed chains.
  • “Whatever is unique about your company, be unique and push it out in the brand.” – Jamie T. [32:54]
  • “Marketing’s changed: what worked two years ago doesn’t work now.” – Jamie T. [33:58]
• John: “We hammer the family owned and operated... we saw a LinkedIn post with a color wheel of PE players—the comments from customers were overwhelmingly negative about PE; so we’re going to hammer that message.” [36:27]

6. Marketing Strategies: Diversification & the Changing Landscape

• [36:27–38:20] Estes spends 5–7% of revenue on marketing, increasing to 10% for aggressive growth.
  • Dominates airwaves in “small ad arenas,” but also stays present on mass media (TV, billboards) and invests in email marketing and newsletters.
  • “We’re very diversified... and we definitely hammer the family owned and operated.” – John Waldorf [36:27]
• Private Equity Caveats: The danger is when PE cuts marketing spend to goose margins—“You stop feeding the beast, the beast is going to starve.” – Jamie T. [39:03]

7. Navigating Market Share and Opportunity

• [43:04] Even at $100M-plus, huge untapped market share remains in city-sized metros—room for indies to grow.
  • “100 million sounds really large... but the 2026 HVAC market in Atlanta is $3.4 billion. We’re one-and-a-half percent.” – John Waldorf [43:04]
  • “When I sold my company... I was at 26% market share. Highly unusual.” – Jamie T. [43:32]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Private equity can’t come in and duplicate what we have here in the way of our culture." – John Waldorf [12:47]
• "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." – John Waldorf, quoting Ray Isaac [13:50]
• “Growth eats cash... especially if we’re trying to do it organically.” – John Waldorf [18:31]
• “As you get bigger... everything becomes so siloed. People are making decisions not understanding their impact upstream or downstream... So now we do all-hands meetings, everyone sees the same dashboard.” – Chad [25:52]
• “Whatever is unique about your company, be unique and push it out in the brand... that's how you get more market share.” – Jamie T. [32:54]
• "You stop feeding the beast, the beast is going to starve." – Jamie T. on marketing spend [39:03]
• “The only difference [now] is they spend more on marketing—and sometimes stupidly—than the small guy...” – Jamie T. [46:20]

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Lightning Round: Operator Ethics & Difficult Decisions

• [47:59] Q: “What hill will you die on as an operator?”
  • John Waldorf: “We had to part ways with a $6M residential salesman... if you’re doing something immoral or unethical, there’s not a place for you at Estes. Everybody’s watching.” [47:59]
  • “You let that go, you set the tone for what’s okay and what’s not.” – Chris [49:01]
  • “You don't have to have one person replace $6M. You need 130 people do a little bit more.” – John Waldorf [49:30]

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Industry Challenge: What’s Wrong That No One Admits?

[50:15]

• Jamie T.: “Digital marketing, AI, leveraging data is a beautiful thing, but I worry about what it’s doing to real relationships between the company and the customer... That’s the thing nobody wants to talk about.” [50:42]
• John Waldorf: “We do not have AI handling any of our calls... first time we bring in a bot and have one less CSR, we lose that family business feeling. So we’re slow to that game on purpose.” [51:23]

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Technology & The Future

• “With all the LLMs, tech, bots—everyone’s business to the consumer looks the same... so being family-owned and local stands out even more now.” – Jamie T. [46:20]
• “Change is inevitable and it’s coming... The question is your attitude and plan for dealing with it.” – John Waldorf [45:17]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:31–07:07: Hosts banter; John's intro and Estes's legacy.
• 07:57–12:47: Company history and strategy.
• 12:18–16:48: Decision to stay independent; culture-building tactics.
• 18:31–22:02: Growth strategy, internal training, and “Tech Builder” pipeline.
• 25:52–28:41: Handling organizational silos as you grow.
• 32:54–39:03: Brand messaging; leveraging independence; aggressive vs. PE marketing tactics.
• 43:04–46:20: Market share and consolidation trends.
• 47:59–49:56: Ethics in leadership; letting top performers go.
• 50:15–51:23: The impact of AI/digital marketing on customer relationships.

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Tone & Language

The conversation is open, candid, friendly, with plenty of laughter, ribbing, and deep-dive operational wisdom. The hosts and guests maintain a respectful, energized, and pragmatic tone, blending hard-nosed business insights with the humility and humor of industry veterans.

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Takeaways

• Family-owned companies can—and should—lean into their unique legacy and culture as a branding edge.
• Scaling up demands real investment not just in marketing or trucks, but in leadership, training, and internal communications.
• Adopt new technology thoughtfully, especially where it intersects with team culture and customer relationships.
• Ethics and culture trump short-term gains: high performers aren’t worth it if they undermine trust.
• PE isn’t inherently bad or good; what matters is the people and culture, regardless of who owns the business.

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For home services leaders, this episode offers a strategic look at scaling with integrity, competing in a PE-run world, and why "culture eats strategy" is still the most important lesson of all.

Transcript

[Host]

What's the password?

[Aaron]

Don't talk about it, be about it.

[Host]

Welcome in to the. To the Point Home Services VIP room, where we invite you, the listeners, in to hang alongside some of the biggest, baddest, and most successful VIPs of the home Services industries. You never know which surprise guest will show up next, so let's get this party started.

[Chris]

Hey, what's up, some Point listeners, It's your boy Chris sitting in beautiful Seabrook Island, South Carolina, from a nice Memorial Day weekend. I got my boys on here, Mr. A.G. and Chatty P. What's up, boys? You guys have a good Memorial Day weekend?

[Chad]

It's great. Awesome race.

[John Waldorf]

Loved it.

[Chris]

The. The Indianapolis 500 this year was fantastic. Like, 70 passes, closest, you know, finish in history. What a.

[John Waldorf]

What a.

[Chris]

What a cool race.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chad]

The new helicopter thing at the beginning of the race, which they started two years ago, has got to be one of the coolest traditions on the face of the planet.

[Chris]

Yeah. That's so badass, watching those things Fire and Gronk was in there this year. Rob Gronkowski.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

One of the cop cars.

[Chad]

Well, a few of my buddies took, like, pictures from the stands. And those things are, like, literally, like, 200ft from you sitting in the stands.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That's pretty cool. I've never seen it in person, but I love the new tradition of adding that in there. It was pretty awesome. I ag. Did you do anything.

[Aaron]

No, I didn't do anything that exciting, but I did see a Peterman IndyCar picture showed to me. You got an IndyCar in your office now with a. Yeah.

[Chad]

So in the back.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Chad]

In the back there where all the. Where it's wide open and the glass doors. I had one. I had one. My buddy had one, and I had them. It's actually painted, and then the stickers on there are just, like, decals.

[John Waldorf]

But.

[Chad]

Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

[Aaron]

It is pretty sweet. So a picture of that. That's.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, there we is.

[Chad]

Yeah, we've had. It's been quite. What we're doing.

[Aaron]

Eco, but we don't have it. We don't have that.

[Chad]

Yeah, we put it in here.

[Aaron]

He's doing. I got to pick up my game.

[Chad]

Yeah, we put it in here Thursday, and I think almost everybody's kids have already been through the office. Like, it's. It's got little handprints all over it, so we gotta. We gotta clean it up.

[Chris]

That's pretty. Yeah, that was pretty cool. I am. I'm gonna go ahead and pull. Pull our guests in. John Waldorf. Vice President over of SDS Services down in Georgia. Atlanta. Hot Atlanta. Got 77 year old business, right? 76. 77, something like that.

[John Waldorf]

Yes, yes, welcome. Man, I wish it was hot Atlanta. It's gonna cool and rainy Atlanta.

[Chris]

Well, I don't want to brag, but up here in South Carolina, the only thing that's missing is me wearing a pastel shirt and khaki shorts. Because that ain't happening, I'll tell you that much.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, not yet. Incoming. It's coming.

[Chris]

It ain't for me. It ain't for me. I don't think that's it. But I will say, like, this is my second time being at this, at this house. It's one of our investment houses that we, we invest into with a few other families about think two, three years ago. I love the South. I love the low country. But interesting thing happened is my little ne. Or no, not my niece, we had some friends over and they. Her daughter went. The daughter went in the ocean. She's like, you know, 10 or 11, Fallon's age. She got hit by. Stung by a stingray. A little bitty stingray right in her foot, which I guess is like super common to happen. I'm pretty sure Fallon was never getting in the ocean again because she was there with her. It was like traumatic. But the funny thing is, is that we have, you know, all the. We have lots of girls in the family. It's my, my sister's brother and his wife. And so my nieces and nephews are all down and the lifeguard that came over was worth the stingray poke into the girl's ankle because for entertainment for the rest of the girls who were there. So apparently they thought little youngster was like Baywatch

[John Waldorf]

perverts.

[Chris]

Well, John, welcome to the show, man. We're excited to have you on.

[John Waldorf]

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Chris.

[Chris]

You know, John and I got to hang out together, guys. Probably been maybe two months ago now over in Beverly Hills too. A couple of the guys have been on. We had Jason Hansen on.

[Jamie T]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You know, and Hugh Joyce. We had Hugh on. Which was. Yeah, awesome. That clip, the clip of Hugh when we asked him the, the question around, what was it? The what part of the home service. I don't want to ruin it because we're gonna ask, you know, John the same question.

[John Waldorf]

I saw it. Yep.

[Chris]

Oh, that clip was awesome. He was so he's about to get

[John Waldorf]

solicited for Helen back on body cameras and smart glasses. But he said there's no technology out there. I was Like Hugh, man. Bless your heart. Time to get blown up.

[Chris]

Yeah, well, we were up in. I was up in New York at the Evoka office whenever I was interviewing Hugh and he was there randomly two weeks before I was there. So I was kind of crazy. But so shout out to one of our big sponsors of Bokeh. We also have a sponsor in basic capital that we rarely talk about that I have to get on here. I got to meet these guys and talk to them more. One of our newest sponsors came on board is Yelp. Gentlemen.

[Aaron]

Yelp.

[Chris]

That's going to be an interesting podcast. I know I was chatting with you a little bit about it, Aaron. But you know, chat will be kind of similar to what we did with Jeff Kip. So that should be a pretty interesting episode when we get that one booked. And then John, did you guys end up bringing on our other sponsors? Send it email. It'll send the email marketing. You were there at the rollout?

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've, we, we signed up. We sent our second email last Thursday. Um, so kind of focusing on plumbing right now.

[Chris]

Okay.

[John Waldorf]

Some plumbing leads. So the first one produced some revenue, produced some leads and the second one, I haven't checked results yet being a holiday weekend.

[Chris]

Well that's good because if it did, that's gonna be really awkward conversation.

[Aaron]

But I got real awkward.

[John Waldorf]

Well, you know Chris, when, when you, when you do the daily huddle and it opens with man, we need calls, we need, need calls. Like today you used to be able to go pull the lever on local services and, and generate some calls that day. But now not so much. So you know, to your point, you're, you, you, you throw out their email marketing. I was just like what? Chris, Chris. Rhino Strategies email marketing and but hey, you know, it got to the end user. We got some calls booked, generated some revenue.

[Chris]

Appreciate it, Shane. All this adds up anymore these days. So. Yeah, well listen, let's jump into this too. You know, I do got, you know, this is a well respected off. I've known about you guys for years. Always wanted to partner, partner up with you guys back in my Rhino days. Obviously you're in the market with one of my, you know, good buddies, Ken Haynes.

[John Waldorf]

You know, down cool.

[Chris]

So it's, it's you guys still independent man, still doing your scene 77 year old business the Bat. It's a cool, a cool history of the company. If you go onto the website and read the about us page. I love when there, whenever these are old. These old businesses have such cool backgrounds and stories and you guys are carrier dealer hall of Fame, AKA Contractor of the Year, like got some big accolades, but there's a lot of West Coasters, you know, that might not know who you are as well, you know, as, as I do or we do. So maybe if you would just, I know you came in at 2001 into the business, but maybe just go ahead and give a quick let, let the listeners know to just where the business is at today. If you're okay sharing the size of the company for some perspective, that would be great. But then just, you know, a little high level. Well, you know where all you're at, you know, in Georgia.

[John Waldorf]

Sure, sure. Thanks Chris. Yeah, we were founded in 1949 by Nap B. Estes and his given name is Napoleon Bonaparte Estes. So he, he started the company back in 1949 on the day that his son Tommy, who's now the CEO was born. And initially it was, we were strictly H Vac throughout his career. When Tommy came in, Tommy had a little more of a focus on residential side of H Vac and introduced, we give him credit for introducing one of the first maintenance agreements in the Atlanta, Georgia area and grew the business that way. Stayed at H Vac until 2008 when we diversified into plumbing. Started out just real small plumbing department, just marketing to our existing database and it has, it has taken off and today it's a significant part of our business. Got into the electrical department mainly to support H Vac, but now it's grown and generating its own revenue. Brian STS is the third generation family owner and operator and all of our growth has come through organic growth via

[Jamie T]

not acquired your own body.

[John Waldorf]

Still independent, family owned, operated today, Today we're. Well last year we're like right at 45 million in total revenue. Obviously the next, the next BHAG is 50 mil and then after mill jettison right to 100. We had purposely spent the last 5 years focusing on profit instead of revenue. Still had revenue growth, but we definitely, we definitely got profit where we needed it, wanted it. And so we're, we're just sitting in a perfect position to scale up now. And so, so that's why we're shooting for 50 mil this year.

[Sponsor Voice]

You.

[Chris]

So when you came in, in oh, 2001 was, was Tommy already present at that time?

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, Tommy was already president. So the department, the managers in the different departments were aging. And so I was brought in as operations manager initially to build a new team, management and leadership. And very interesting looking back on that is we did that 100% outside this industry, we brought in guys who could manage processes, procedures and people and didn't focus on their. Their field experience, specifically in H vac plumbing or electrical. And that was a complete flip on the head of how we had existed the other 50 something years. But tonight that whole team is still here, still with us and doing a fantastic job.

[Chris]

Did you come from outside the industry or were you?

[John Waldorf]

Yes and no. I was military. And then after. After military, I was selling ads. Called on a contractor down in Macon and he asked me had I ever thought about selling heat and air. And I was like, nope, but sounds interesting. So started there was. Did that for six years and then got recruited by Amana to be a tsm. Estes at the time was the largest Amana contractor in the country. And so they became my customer. And that's how I met Brian and Tommy. So right after Goodman bought a mana could kind of see the writing on the wall, you know, Right. We're not going to mess with it. We're going to let it run and operate like it is and immediately started messing with it. So. So they recruited me at the time to come in here to operations and start rebuilding that leadership team.

[Chris]

Hey, by the way, before we go, Aaron, I will get a question. I just want to acknowledge Napoleon Bonaparte. That was what Naps fit for. I had no clue.

[Aaron]

Me neither. Only person I know is Napoleon Hill from Think and Go Rich. I've never heard anything.

[Chris]

Or Napoleon Dynamite.

[Aaron]

Yeah, Napoleon Dynamite. There you go.

[John Waldorf]

That's why Brian refers to me as Little Nap. You've never met Brian. He's a very large man and so he says I have the Napoleon complex. So he called him.

[Chris]

That's not very nice.

[Aaron]

Yeah, that's it.

[John Waldorf]

Well, compared to him, I am so.

[Aaron]

Well, so. So you're with a family business and obviously stayed with this fam. This family business like. And in a world and in a market, especially Atlanta, there's a lot of private equity. You know what, what's been the reason for you guys to stay private? What's been that journey? Why does that matter to you guys so much as an organization, culturally wise or structural wise? Maybe tell us a little bit about, you know, what, what that means in the, in the backbone of this organization and for the future.

[John Waldorf]

Well, you said it, you said culture. So way back when, went through a big consolidation process. Back then Tommy was running the company and he took a big stand and was very public about it. So to, to, to us, this is just, you know, round two, round three, whatever. And we sat back and Watched. And we've watched private equity, which. There's some great private equity companies out there. I'm not, not, not bashing them. But the culture, you watch the culture change over time. And, you know, we say we're family owned and operated, but we're also, yeah, my name, my last name's not Estes, but I'm still, we're still all the teammates here are an extension of that family. And we own and operate this, this business like a, like a big family. And the most important thing in the world is the culture. They can't, Private equity can't come into a business and duplicate what we have here in the way of our culture. And I give. It was kind of cliche the first time I heard it, and I give Ray Isaac credit for saying it, and I don't know if he did or not, but don't get the credit here. You know, congratulations to him getting inducted into the hall of Fame. But he used to always say, you know, culture, each strategy for breakfast. And it's as cliche as I thought that was. I bet I've repeated that a thousand times, so. Because it's, it's very true. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if your culture suffering inside and outside locker room, and you're, you're, you're, you have very limited success with that.

[Chad]

John, how have you.

[John Waldorf]

Go ahead.

[Chad]

I was going to just touch on the culture piece. I mean, obviously, I think all of us have been through this where, you know, as the company grows, it becomes harder and harder to make sure that culture stays what it was when maybe you were 20 or 30 people. And then you start getting into hundreds of people. How have you got. What do you guys, like, maybe give the listeners some examples of, like, things that you've done, especially as you've scaled that, really keep that culture ingrained in how you do it and what you do and so on and so forth.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, you're right. It's, it's, it's a challenge. And you hear that. I mean, we heard it through growth. You know, you, you're operating back in the good old days without policies, and, and then you start implementing them and you're going here, oh, you're changing, you're getting corporate. I tell you, one of the simplest things that we've done, did it for, started probably 35 years ago as a trip from Amana, and then they stopped doing it and Estes has continued. So we have a long, hot summer here in Georgia and these, you know, 140 degree attics. And so at the end of that summer, we want to reward not only the guys in the field who are doing the work, you know, the people in the office who are customer facing. And so for the last 35 years, when summer's over, we take all the, all, all the field personnel down to Florida or Hilton Head and they get a choice, they get to go golfing or fishing. But the first thing we're going to do when we get, when we get down there is we're going to have a big group dinner and make sure those guys and gals know that, you know, you are, you're valuable, you're important, and we thank you. I've had people leave Estes and then turn around and come back and, and I had a guy sitting in a technician center. He said, I will come back as long as I'm eligible to go on that trip. He said, he said, he said, I did not realize what we had until I left here. So. But yeah, I mean, it's the little things too, man. I mean, you know, celebrate success is quickly, handle negatives behind closed doors. You know, protecting that culture. Once you get up to a certain level of leadership, being interested in not only your teammates, but their family members, you know, know about their spouses, know about their children, know about what they're going through. So it's just, it's, it's important. But to your point, it does get hard when it has to be implemented and it gets, the more personnel you get, the more difficult it does. So I'm not gonna lie, we have every team member's picture on the wall in the hall with their names, and there's times I have to run down there like this gal was just talking too. But, but, you know, so, so on

[Aaron]

that culture thing, I agree with Chad because we both have grown businesses and, you know, we're both crossing that 100 million dollar mark this year. And it's, it gets challenging to keep this, this, you know, I don't call mythical statement because it's. Sometimes I think culture is just kind of said, but it's like you have to identify what it really is, right? What it is is different in different environments, different things. But culture does, I do believe that culture does. You know, each strategy for sure, if you have a good culture, you'll win. But I heard you say earlier at the beginning of the call, you said a couple things I want to jump in here. One is you said we stopped for a couple years on growth and focus on profit. Maybe you could explain why. What Was that about something happened there and then you said we're going to go to 40 to 50 and then we're going to go all the way to 100. So obviously you guys are now in the machine of we want to scale. So maybe tell us what happened there and now why are you guys going to more of an enterprise business versus and it can still be family operated because we know we're still owned operated at this. But that's an enterprise business. This is a completely different dynamic from a $40 million business, which is a great business by the way, super successful, but going to an enterprise business. So maybe tell us a little bit about that and then why have you guys now decided all the maybe these years later we want to be an enterprise business and go to 100 million?

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, growth eats cash, right? And especially when we're trying to do it organically. We're not acquiring anybody's business or database or customer base or to. Well, we're not yet. We'll keep that optional on the table. But yeah, it's just knowing how much growth eats cash and wanted to do it strategically and intelligently. So we want to be poised for that, for that phase and on and even purposefully being willing to accept a little bit less margin, get that volume and get that growth because you know, through the, all the price increases and the tariffs, you could, your revenue could grow and you really didn't grow in volume given you could look back and say our revenue went up and we installed less systems last year. So it's, it's looking at that, you know, that, that was looking at that apple that you're going to take the big bite out of strategically and not fooling yourself that because of all these price increases you actually did grow when you did. So. But yeah, we're, we're poised for it now and you know, every option's on the table. We've always been real loyal to our vendors. But you know, some things, some hard decisions may have to be made to get where we need to be.

[Aaron]

I agree, that's a good point. For a lot of people over the last couple years there has been some growth. Like you see average sale go up and like look, our average sale went up and it's like did it or just the pricing go up? Right. So did we actually get better or you know, did the pricing. Because there's been a lot of price increases over the last couple years that to grow. So, so but what are you stating that you wanted to balance that back Out. And then you guys were going for more of a cash play saying we're going to expand and grow in the next three years. So we're going to spend the next three years compiling some cash, getting ourselves in position to go attack the market. Was that, is that kind of where this, where your guys's. Is that today?

[John Waldorf]

Yeah. And having the ability to increase your, your marketing budget as percentage of sales, we've always been, you know, spend 5% to maintain 10% for aggressive growth. We were always somewhere in between around the six and a half to 7%. But having, having that available to. To attack through marketing, which is very expensive in Atlanta, but also having, you know, having the fleet where it needs to be, having the number of employees, if we, we increase call count or we be able to catch those, are we at capacity or below capacity? And we have spent.

[Aaron]

We.

[John Waldorf]

Well, we just graduated. We have an internal technical school we call Tech Builder and we just graduated our 26th class. So we've gone outside the market now for not just management and leadership, but field personnel. So we bring them in, we train them the way we want things done and send them out into the market. And so we're poised to start catching some market share. So we're focusing on new customers. And there's a couple different things we're doing to, to, to make sure that we, we trap those and keep them. And so all of that, all of that requires investment. Training is not free, training is not cheap. But yeah, we've now got an army ready to go to market and we've got two more Tech Builder classes scheduled for this, this year. So, yeah, we're ready.

[Aaron]

I want to follow up on another question that I think Chad and I can relate to. As we scale from 40 to 50 and beyond was a shortfall in management capability. And I heard you say you brought people in from outside the industry and other areas to grow. And I think what kind of investment do you have in that management infrastructure? Because I could say, Chad, maybe you can jump in on this one too. I think we both felt some of this pain as we started freshly holding into these numbers. Right. That the management keeping up with these enterprises called for lack of a better term. I don't know if I love that language, but we'll call it that an enterprise business. So when you think about that, what are you guys doing to make sure that all of your management is prepared and ready to scale and grow with the business as you venture over that 50 to 100 million mark? What are some things that you're putting in place. What are things you're working on? What are some things that you're doing now to prepare that team for that growth?

[John Waldorf]

Was that the chat or Blake?

[Aaron]

No to you? I said, yeah, I already know what Chad screwed up.

[John Waldorf]

I already know, I know that. I want to hear it. So I don't.

[Aaron]

He already knows what I screwed up. We're trying to ask you so you can be proactive for people that are on the same journey thinking, hey, we went to 40, we're going over the 50. How are we doing this? Right? So, you know, it's, you're in it, right? So how are you thinking about it?

[John Waldorf]

Well, first of all, it was to get the leadership team together. And we just, actually just did this last week. And what we did is we went over, here's, here's our goal. Here's. Let's discuss what are our obstacles to our goal first, and let's lay them all out there. And we went through each and every one, whether it was software related, personnel related labor, time, size of our building, all of the, all of these different obstacles. And then we roundtable discussed, you know, how can we overcome these? And let's, you know, what, what got us to 45 million and is not going to get us to 100 million. So let's discuss that. We may have to investigate doing some things outside of the box. For example, we've, we've never participated in big box store programs, but let's not take that off the table. You know, you got to be, you got to be careful and protect yourself. Or did you start getting that drug and then we start focusing more on that drug and less of your organic growth? But we've never discussed it. Let's put it on the table. Let's look at it. Let's see what it looks like. Let's, let's, let's look at expanding our footprint in the Atlanta market. I mean, physically expanding our footprint. Let's put another storefront on the northeast corridor where we're, let's face it, we're a little weak. And so you get the conversation going. And people by nature, especially when you're in your 45 million is great. We are successful and we are profitable. You can get comfortable. And it's, you know, it's our job as leaders to make sure there is a certain level of uncomfortable in the leadership team, but make sure everybody knows what the goal is, mission is, how we're going to get there, and then simultaneously, because let's face it, we used to be Known as the youngest management team in our mixed group. And we're not young anymore. So what's that next level of leadership that we have up and coming look like? And so we identified a few of those guys, put them in place where they can have unpacked and start just mentoring them to get ready to one day be the general manager, be the operations manager, open the new storefront, just whatever that looks like.

[Chad]

Yeah. I think the one thing that I would say that I feel like, I feel like I didn't learn along the way, but I've now realized it is, you know, as you get bigger, and John, I'm sure you've seen this, is that everything becomes so siloed because it's so big. So like, you know where it used to be when it's, you know, 40 people running around, like, everybody knows, everybody's talking to everybody, all of this stuff. But then you get this massive thing and you have all these siloed like entities within the business. And what we noticed was like, people are making a decision, not understanding how that decision affects either upstream, downstream, wherever it is. And they don't understand all of the things that we never taught them. And so you've got the service manager not understanding how the marketing function works. And actually we can't spend more dollars to get more leads if our conversion and average ticket aren't where they're supposed to be. The same could be said for if our call center isn't. Booking and cancellations are high and we're kind of all over the place like how all of this works together. And so what we've really tried to do is we have an all hands kind of operations meeting now where it used to be like, hey, we're going to have the call center meeting and then the dispatch, it's like, get everybody in the same room, let's look at the same dashboard and let's understand like where it really is the problem. Because we have a tendency just to blame everybody else except for our own thing as to what the problem. We don't have enough leads, the leads aren't good enough. All of these things, when it's like, no, it all works together. Even as it gets bigger, it just becomes more difficult to work together. But I think that's, that's been one of the biggest things, I think for our managers to educate them on how the whole business operates. Not just like the plumbing service department and how it operates, like, yeah, we got that down, but like there's a bunch of different moving parts that allow you to accomplish the goal of the day and of the month and of the year.

[John Waldorf]

Chad, have you been in my office

[Chris]

the last two weeks?

[Chad]

It was a tough lesson. Like, I just like, pound my head against my desk. I'm like, what? What don't these people get about this? And then finally, once you bring them all together, you're like, oh, then it, yeah, didn't tell them about that. Didn't tell them about this. Didn't tell them about that over there. And I expect them to make decisions. And it's like, you dummy, you. You can't expect someone to know what to do if you don't show them and explain to them how it all works.

[John Waldorf]

You hit the nail on the head with marketing and operations and their relationship. That's why I said, have you been spying on me or something? Because one part of it's like, I need more calls. But it's the marketing department and the two operations in marketing, man, they have got to be hand in hand.

[Chris]

Hey, we have a guest joining us now. Jamie T. The cool today man in the house. Jamie, you just came. I'm sure you got to hear plenty of that conversation. Link up to it. We got John Baldor from sts.

[Jamie T]

Hey, John. Hey, guys. Good to see everybody.

[Chad]

Good to see you. Sorry I kept talking there. I gotta get. Get used to all these new chimes and all this stuff about what's going on. I was just like, what is that sound?

[John Waldorf]

What is going on?

[Jamie T]

Well, don't worry. Someday it's going to be real ear ringing when you get my age.

[Chris]

Hey, Jamie, got the pastel notice.

[Aaron]

Yeah, pastel, baby. Jamie. Hi, man. Just listen. Speaking of growth and one of the legends doing it, this guy right here is definitely one. And I got to give him all the props in the world. I learned how to sell sewers from an H VAC guy down in Stamp. I don't know if you remember that, Jamie.

[Jamie T]

I do remember that. With John Gennaro's company.

[Aaron]

Yes. I was sitting there. You remember me? I had less gray back then and I look a little younger. But you were up there coaching. And I wrote. I mean, I wrote notes and notes and notes and 93 or free drain flip, how to flip a lead, how to do all stuff like. So I give you all the credit for that. I appreciate that. Just learned a lot from you over the years. So thank you. Thank you.

[Jamie T]

You were, you were expanding in the world. You were going from Columbus to Miami.

[Aaron]

If I remember correctly, it was Fort Myers area. And I screwed that up. So I'm back, no end of that. So lessons learned. Let's not talk about my failures.

[Jamie T]

Don't worry, you'll end up in, you'll end up in Florida someday.

[Aaron]

I will. I know I will. I love, I love the weather and the taxes. So

[Chris]

hey, we are maybe just. Aaron, did you have. You want to go somewhere down the growth path, right?

[Aaron]

No, I was just, we were talking about that and I just said here's a guy right here that has seen, seen it all. Right. Growing in the marketplace, done the stuff and talking about the growth. So I don't have anything else to add on.

[Chris]

You talked about, John, you guys being the first service agreement, I think in Atlanta or something like that. I mean, Jamie D. Came up to the podcast. I don't even know how long ago it was about how he built that.

[Jamie T]

It was right after Covid. It was like April of 2020 or something like that.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah.

[Chris]

When we talk all about how you're scaling cool today with the, the, you know, with the service agreement, like what you did with it and how you leverage the service agreements and all that stuff, which is pretty interesting. But John, John and I were at a peer group about a couple months ago and we over in Beverly Hills with a handful of guys and all independent, I think all, almost all independent because Tim Crops, I think service experts now or he's service experts. Prop Metcalf, another great, great company, great guy.

[Aaron]

Oh yeah.

[Chris]

So we were over there and I was just thought, man, let's bring on a string of guys that are still, you know, independently owned businesses running, that are players, you know, that are bigger players and just see what they're up to and talking through it. So Jamie, that's what we're kind of doing. And part of this new whole vibe is just bringing in different, you know, all my friends and people who are, they're still in business, out of business, who cares where they're at, but have done some things. And so it would be good to have you jump on here with us flat.

[Jamie T]

I mean, it's, it was great to hear, actually. It was great to hear Chad's discussion because nothing's changed in the seven years I've been out of day to day operations. Nothing's changed. You guys hit the nail on the head with that last discussion.

[Aaron]

So Jamie, as we talk about this, for John too, as we do talk about that, as you say, Chad, I agree. Chad hit it on the head. But you've seen scalability by market, by location, all the challenges early on before any of us got in the game. And then eventually, you know, I don't know if I call bow out, I guess we still had operational stuff. When you think about a company that they're doing right now in Atlanta, market growing, doing stuff like what are some of the things that you think at this 45 to go into 70 are going to 50 and plus are going to be the biggest challenges for organizations that are independent against, you know, the equity partners, the good or bad that are out there because there's a lot of guys doing it. So what's some thoughts that you'd have for John And I secretly want to hear myself, by the way.

[Jamie T]

Well, you know, I never thought I'd say this, but the uniqueness itself of being independent is a marketing tool. And you know, inside the business you say, well, it's good, it's bad, whatever. You know, to most consumers, being independent is always good. Being local is always good. You've become unique in the fact that the markets change so much. And I've always been a believer in branding. You have to brand your uniqueness because it's difficult for other people to copy. So whatever you are, you know, that is unique about your company, be unique and push it out in the brand, in the market and that's how you get more market share. I know there's a lot of change in the last eight years in marketing and Chris has been up close on front row seat on that. But the difficulty is things that worked two years ago don't work now. And it's very frustrating to marketing people, it's very frustrating to operations. Thus you get that collision. It used to be pretty easy to turn on Google and get a few leads for your service department and they're happy. Not that way. Not that way anymore.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right before you came on, actually John had brought that up and had mentioned something about that too. He's like, he used to be able to walk down, go flip on the switch, run the Google Ads and go right. It's just, it's not the world we live in now. I do think that though, Brandon, your uniqueness is important. What you stand for and what you stand against in the community and to your customer base is important. So. But it's harder to get that out today probably than ever. Maybe not with the platform, platform digital. Do you still think that as a company is thinking about growing and scaling? Do you, do you still believe in mass media, radio, tv, like all those areas to get those messages out? Do you think that'd be a great path for people too?

[Jamie T]

Yes, I believe you know, I believe in the old adage, you know, you hedgehog your way into it. You know, if you're a smaller company. And of course, Estes is not a smaller company, they just have a gigantic market. I mean, they're just what, 6.5 million people in the Atlanta metro? I can't remember. But that's just monstrous. But whatever you do, hyper focus on that channel, hyper focus in that box and then repeat the message. I mean, I think I've heard consumers need to hear a very similar message three to five times a week. And it still takes a very long time for them to recognize it in their, in their conscious, from the subconscious. So if you're. There's just too many choices in marketing today. I can't believe it. It's just, it just, it blows my mind from five years. What's changed with that?

[Aaron]

I agree. Something on my phone up. John, what do you guys do? Are you guys doing similar stuff?

[John Waldorf]

Do you do.

[Aaron]

Right. I know you said you want to expand. You spend about 5 to 7% on marketing. What are some of the things you guys are doing and how are you using your leverage of being independent, a family owned. Are you actually using that to leverage anything? And by the way, I just want to be clear on this. Like, I have nothing against either way. I'm independent. I believe in private equity. I think all of them have done good, both sides of the industry. I don't think there's one batter, one or the other. I think you need both. I think they do a lot of great things, but I do think there's a little bit of competitive edge for somebody like yourself in a large market like that that you should lean into. So what are you guys doing for the guys that are independent?

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, no, the 57 was like 5 spend 5% just to maintain where you are. 7 to start growing 10% for aggressive growth. But yeah, we're very, we're, we're very diversified and to Jamie's point, and I think even Paul Kelly spoke to this, that, you know, you, you can, we can also go into a smaller ad arena and just dominate it. Right? Just buy every spot that day, every, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, buy every spot so that you're hearing it over and over and over again. And it's relatively inexpensive. But then we still have to be in the big players. You know, the WSB TV in Atlanta, the, the billboards, the, the. We're doing email marketing now in addition to the newsletters. But yeah, we're, we're very, very Diversified. And we, we definitely hammer the family owned and operated. So I don't know if you get, I don't know if you guys saw this post on LinkedIn probably six months ago, and it was like a, a wheel, a color wheel. It had all the private equities. And, and yes. And I don't know if y' all read the comments, but I was reading the comments and the comments were, and, and I agree with you, I don't have anything against them, but the comments were overwhelmingly negative. And so I took that and I took it to our marketing department and I said, look, this, this is right, wrong or indifferent. This is the general public's opinion of these local businesses being, being bought up by private equity. So we, we're on the right track. We just got to hammer the hell out of that message. We're family owned, operated, third generation. Yeah. Fourth generation. In, you know, in college or just graduating college. So we're going, we're going, we're going to hammer that message till somebody tells us to stop, sir. Yeah.

[Jamie T]

And I think, I think private equity, you know, I had this discussion on LinkedIn with Julian Scadden, who is the, the president of Nexstar, who is kind of beaten up private equity and. Yeah, you know, am I, is my position a little jaded?

[Chad]

Sure.

[Jamie T]

I mean, you know, I sold private equity, but I sold to a private equity group of H vac home service operators that still run it today. So they have that, they bring your type of logic to the arena with the investors as far as what should a company be? You serve, you provide value and then you get profit. You know, it doesn't, you don't profit and then hope for value. Not all private equity are going to be like that. Some of them are coming in, they're just, you know, Wharton School trained accountants and they're going to come in and they're going to look at your marketing and say 5%, we can go to 3% and we could pick up two points on the bottom line. And all of us know, you stop feeding the beast, the beast is going to starve. So private equity is like individual operators. You guys have been around the country, people as skilled as you guys, and are struggling in business. Right. And then you guys are highly successful in business. Why? Why? Right. Private equity is run by people. They're going to all be independently successful and independently not successful. It's the ones that are just going in and strip mining those great brands are the ones that are hurting the actual private equity name.

[Aaron]

I would agree with you on that. I don't think that there's any bad, bad on this situation. Depends on the infrastructure on it. And there's good, there's good private equity companies, there's good independent companies, there's bad independent companies, there's good and good and like you know, they're everywhere. Right. So but I would say that what's really the difference between a private equity company that's coming about it or an enterprise single owned business at your point that's $100 million or 40 to 50 or 50 million. Right. And beyond, it's, it's kind of becoming the same thing. You just own and operate it still. Right. It has a lot of infrastructure as a lot of the same resources, it has a lot of the same things. And what ends up happening, even though you're promoting, you're the independently, you're still the big dog in the neighborhood, right. Regardless of your privately held or not. Right. So now you're being the, the thing is you're not being any differently attacked from the smaller operators at times in a sense. Right. And all of this works in the model it does, right. This is this capitalism, right. I guess if you want to use that. I know people don't love that maybe these days as much, but it's the reality. So there is this up and down model in that. But I think there's points and parts that you should be able to leverage all the different pieces of them for your brand messaging or for your scalability or for your independent, you know, opportunity and wealth or your team's wealth. The people have worked with you. So there's many ways to navigate all this and I think we're just talking about can you leverage this, John, and your point as an independent? Because I think that's what you guys hang your hat really heavy on, right? Everything I read about your business, everything you guys did, and you should lean all the way in on that because that's your story and that's who you are. Right. So look forward to hearing more about that. So I think we've gone through that topic. I don't know if you got something else to add, Chris or somebody else.

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[John Waldorf]

No, it's just the, it's just the belief. When you say, you know, when you say 100 million, that sounds really large and it really is. But then you look at 2026 H vac market, Atlanta, Georgia, supposed to be 3.4 billion. You're, you're one and a half percent of that. There's so much room. There's so much room for growth. What was it, Paul? Kerry, absolutely spot on.250 million in Arizona and he's 9%. I mean there's so much room.

[Jamie T]

When I, when I sold My company in 2019, they did a study and Sarasota county, where 90% of my business was, had 620,000 people, I was at 26% market share.

[John Waldorf]

Wow.

[Jamie T]

Which was highly, highly unusual. And you know, just, just. And to follow up on, on Aaron's point, I was not liked always by my competitors until they met me and then they could kind of like me because I was still active in acca. I was still active in my local ACCA because my, I always had the feeling it's not me against you, it's really us against everybody else. The government, which, the utility at the time, no, we weren't concerned about private equity back then. So, you know, they're just a new boogeyman. Because I don't know if you guys have, I think Georgia Power used to be a good partner and sometimes they're not. And you know, you've dealt with that in the past. You've dealt with other threats to the industry and you guys have successfully overcome them and we will continue to do it. The question becomes, is as a whole, is the industry better? And even I saw that, that post you were talking about, John, and I did read it, but there were a lot of guys saying, no, they're really good because they're, they're raising prices and not providing value. And I'm getting all the fallout. There's some guys very happy about it.

[John Waldorf]

Well, to your point, I mean, even the regulatory changes, you got a choice of how to, how to feel about that and react to that. And so many of our competitors were, you know, refrigerant change number one or two, three, four, whatever we're on now, we're looking at it so negatively. And I was like, guys, this, this is, this is an opportunity. It all depends on how you look at it, how you react to it. What's your game plan, your strategy for implementing it. You know, do you go out there and you buy up a, you know, large inventory of the 410A before it's gone at, you know, at a discount? And then you are, how do you market that to, to your customer base? It's going to raise prices. So you're going to, again, your, your revenue or your, your sales are going to grow without necessarily having to sell more units. Obviously I want both. So, yeah, to your point, it's, it's, it's all in your attitude to the change because change is inevitable and it's always, you know, there's more coming. How are we going to react to it, make sure our team has a positive outlook on it?

[Jamie T]

Absolutely, absolutely. The most important thing, you know, I find interesting in this new technology and I guess I'm going to sound like a dinosaur here and that's okay because relative to you guys, I am. You know, the interesting thing is if I were to restart my business today, I could restart it probably much easier, quicker, faster, with all the tools of language, you know, large language models than I would have had been able to do 20 years ago. And to the consumer, it looks the same. Everybody's using service Titan, everybody is using some sort of AI call center bot, and everybody, it all starts to blend together and look the same. So a private equity company only. The only difference is they spend more on marketing. And sometimes stupidly, then the small guy and small guy is hitting, they're hitting the Facebook pages and they're targeting the next door pages and then they're getting a lot of referrals from locals because they know they're small, but yet they present themselves with professional websites and their people are well connected. So it's fascinating to me where size in a market used to be everything and now today it's become much more fragmented in that regard.

[Aaron]

All right, yeah, I think we've talked a little bit about this, but what hill will you die on as an operator in sales, etc. So is there a hill that you're willing to just die on as an operator in general?

[John Waldorf]

I think I just. I think I died on it recently.

[Aaron]

All right, well, the awakening has happened then.

[John Waldorf]

I'm not going to. Obviously not going to name names, but we had to part ways with a $6 million residential salesman. And so the hill that I died on is, if you're doing something that's immoral, unethical, to. To achieve, to succeed financially, then I can't trust you. And I don't care how many millions you sell, you're. There's not a place for you at Estes

[Chad]

100%,

[John Waldorf]

because everybody's looking at you. You don't think. They didn't know what he was doing. They knew. Now back, waiting to see what are you going to do? And everybody's. That's not the first time we've had to do something similar. You get rid of a top performer, everybody else's performance increases. Yeah, you let.

[Chris]

You let that go. You set the tone for what's okay and what's not okay. You know, that's the downside to it.

[Aaron]

Well, I appreciate your transparency on that. It's not always an easy one to bring up as an owner, as an operator. Right. To. To even acknowledge that and have to say that you dealt with it. But that's the reality. I think every business has had some form of that, and you have to. You have to be able to get that out of the way quickly.

[John Waldorf]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

It's a. It's a. It's a hard to dial, but it's a respectful builder.

[John Waldorf]

Done. You break it down to the ridiculous. You don't have to. You know, how are you going to replace $6 million? You don't have to have one person replace 6 million. You got to have 130 people do just a little bit more.

[Chad]

Yeah, no, and they usually do because they finally got the guy that was probably getting the best leads and everything like that, and then acting immoral. And now you're given someone to step up and take a swing.

[Chris]

No, Chad, you want to take us down to the next one? You want me to take it?

[Chad]

Yeah, let me. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna switch up the order that we have on the text message here. But what's. What's wrong in the industry? But no one wants to admit it.

[John Waldorf]

Jamie's turn.

[Aaron]

Oh, you want to hear Jamie's answer?

[Jamie T]

I don't know if I want to even give an answer to that. No,

[Chris]

Jamie. Jamie's.

[Jamie T]

Jamie's. Okay.

[Chris]

He's got wide open air. He's like, I could just let it rip.

[John Waldorf]

Okay.

[Jamie T]

Can it can. No. I don't know if my opinion will jive with the industry, honestly.

[Chris]

It's your opinion.

[Aaron]

It's your opinion. We want to learn and open up conversation about things in the industry that we should all acknowledge.

[Jamie T]

Okay. My opinion is digital marketing and AI and everything else and leveraging data is a beautiful thing, but I worry about what it's doing to real relationships between the company and the customer. So that's the thing nobody wants to talk about.

[Chris]

Yeah. Do we just have the same, the same conversation around. Around that disconnect potential too? I think it's a real conversation to have. I just don't know what comes of it yet. At least anytime soon because it still feels pretty new. Like all this still feels really, really new.

[John Waldorf]

You're starting to see, starting to see a difference of opinion with the general public to AI in a, in a more negative tone. I can tell you. We, we as of right now do not have AI handling any of our calls. And it was more to protect the, in the image to the, to the team. The first time we hire or bring on an AI bot and have one less csr. Are we now that family business that protects its family members? So we're going to be a little slow to that game purposefully. Plus AI just keeps getting better and better. So yeah, that's one of our just internal decisions that we're protecting our internal image, not the external one.

[Chris]

Yeah, listen, I, I think, I mean, obviously Evoke is one of our sponsors on here and I'm a fan if it works for your business. Like, yeah, I think if, if. And there's a lot of people that are implementing it in their companies and having a lot of success with it. It's not a set it and forget it still. But I'm a believer, you know, in leveraging technology. But yeah, you have to manage what that, you know, means internally or externally or whatever their perception is. Right. But it's almost like you, you can ignore it to a certain point, I think. You know, I mean, I think it's there at some level. It's like the old school answering services that we all use after hours or, you know, it's the same, it's just a different, weirder version of it. Kind of like, kind of like Bryce, you know, wearing, you know, those stupid meta glasses in the midi. So I'm like, what did I just say?

[John Waldorf]

Bracelet. We'll, we'll use it. We'll, we'll, we'll bring it in slowly, but we'll bring it in as a result of growth and not have to replace an existing CSR person. And that'll be the,

[Chris]

I think it's, I mean, you know when to bring into the business. Right? It's just, at least just another opportunity that you can use however you want. So I want to make sure I'm mindful of, you know, price time. I know Chad's got to get booging, too, but, but John, I appreciate you coming on, man. And I was glad we got to hang out, you know, a few months ago and just catch, you know, catch up again and kind of hear the story. And Jamie B. Thanks for hoping on last minute, man. I appreciate you.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Good to see you again.

[Jamie T]

It's good to see you guys. It's been, been too long. Been too long.

[Chris]

Yeah, man. I, I think I'm still getting used to my sound effects, and I don't know if it's gonna be a good thing or a bad thing right now. Chat's singing. It's a terrible idea to give me control.

[Jamie T]

Well, you know, you're in a closet, so I don't know.

[Aaron]

I know.

[Chris]

Yeah, but coming out of the closet. Okay. Well, John, congrats on the businessman. You've been there a hot minute since 2001. You guys are still continuing to grip and grow and build. It's a, it's a successful business, right? It's a very successful. I learned something new today in Napoleon Bona parts part of the business. Had no clue that was interesting watching. But anyway, I appreciate both you guys coming on here. And listen, I, I, this new format for me is a lot of fun. You know, I don't, I'm not in the studio no way. And hopefully it sounds fine, but like just kind of sitting and chopping up with you guys, like, that's the vibe I hope to get from this thing is all. Just kind of having a normal conversation around stuff in the industry that I like to talk about. And some people have different opinions and that's why everyone here to share. And so restaurant. Good to catch up with everybody. Jeannie, John, appreciate you. To Chad and Aaron, thank you guys. Until next time, to all of our listeners, continue now. Thank you.

[John Waldorf]

Thanks, brother. Thank you.

[Chris]

All the listeners, man. We really appreciate you. So we'll see you back in the VIP room next week. Until then, we'll see you.

[Host]

What's the password?

[Aaron]

Don't talk about it, be about it.