From $3M to $10M: The Home Service Marketing Blueprint That Works

Summary

Podcast Summary: "From $3M to $10M: The Home Service Marketing Blueprint That Works"

Podcast Information:

• Title: To The Point - Home Services Podcast
• Host/Author: RYNO Strategic Solutions
• Description: A podcast dedicated to providing concise solutions to help home service companies like HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, and Roofing grow through effective marketing and operational strategies.
• Episode: From $3M to $10M: The Home Service Marketing Blueprint That Works
• Release Date: March 11, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of "To The Point - Home Services Podcast," hosts Chris and Chad Peterman delve into the strategic journey of scaling a home service business from $3 million to $10 million. They explore the operational and marketing frameworks essential for growth, drawing from personal experiences and industry best practices. The conversation is rich with actionable insights, practical advice, and motivational anecdotes aimed at empowering business owners in the home services sector.

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Key Topics Discussed

1. The Importance of Back-Office Operations

Chad emphasizes that as businesses grow, establishing robust back-office operations becomes crucial. He notes that initially, businesses operate in a "scrappy" manner, juggling multiple roles with limited resources. As revenue increases, the need for structured processes like call centers and dispatch systems becomes evident to handle the growing influx of leads and service calls.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [09:38]:
  “Early on, we focused on getting as much work done as possible—running more calls, spending more on marketing. But without the right processes in place, expanding becomes chaotic.”

2. Scaling Through Implementation of Proven Strategies

Both hosts discuss the significance of adopting strategies from successful industry peers. Chad shares an anecdote about learning from Tom Howard at a Service Titan conference, which led to the swift implementation of effective tactics within his own business.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [37:00]:
  “I saw what Tom was doing, I took his advice, and we launched it the very next day. It wasn’t complicated—just do what works and iterate.”

3. Leadership Development in Growing Companies

As companies transition from $10 million to higher revenues, Chad highlights the evolution of leadership responsibilities. Effective leadership becomes pivotal in fostering a unified vision and ensuring that all team members are aligned and rowing in the same direction.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [42:23]:
  “The jump from 10 to 20 million is all about you as a leader. It’s no longer just about managing tasks but guiding an organization towards a cohesive vision.”

4. Prioritizing Implementation Over Perfection

Chad advises against getting bogged down by the pursuit of perfection. Instead, he advocates for prioritizing actionable steps that drive the business forward, even if it means making mistakes along the way. This approach fosters continuous improvement and adaptability.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [07:00]:
  “Don’t make it too complicated. Go try it and figure it out along the way. You’re going to break things, and that’s part of the process.”

5. The Role of Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Both hosts stress the importance of being perpetual learners. Chad shares how attending conferences and seeking mentorship from business coaches like John Conway played a critical role in his company's growth, underlining the value of external insights in refining internal processes.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [06:39]:
  “Being a student and taking ideas from conferences, then implementing them into the business, has been key to our growth.”

6. Building a Culture of Accountability

Chad discusses the necessity of maintaining operational standards through practices like the three-day call board, which ensures that service calls are consistently managed and that the business remains prepared for fluctuating demand.

• Notable Quote:
  Chad Peterman [50:31]:
  “We’re focused on having three calls per tech every morning. It’s our operational cornerstone that keeps the day running successfully.”

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Insights and Conclusions

Throughout the episode, Chris and Chad Peterman provide a comprehensive blueprint for scaling home service businesses. The conversation underscores the blend of strategic planning, leadership, and operational excellence required to transition from a modest revenue base to a robust, multi-million-dollar enterprise.

Key Takeaways:

• Operational Foundations: Establishing efficient back-office systems is non-negotiable for handling increased business volume.
• Learning from Others: Leveraging insights and strategies from industry leaders can accelerate growth.
• Leadership Evolution: Effective leadership becomes increasingly important as the company scales, requiring a shift from task management to vision alignment and team cohesion.
• Action Over Perfection: Prioritizing the implementation of ideas, even imperfectly, fosters learning and continuous improvement.
• Continuous Learning: Engaging in ongoing education through conferences, mentorship, and networking is vital for sustained growth.
• Accountability Mechanisms: Implementing accountability measures like call boards ensures consistency and operational readiness.

Final Thoughts:
The journey from $3 million to $10 million is marked by strategic implementation, leadership growth, and operational efficiency. By focusing on scalable processes, embracing continual learning, and fostering a strong company culture, home service businesses can achieve significant growth and long-term success.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Chad Peterman [00:00]:
  “Just do what works and iterate.”

• Chad Peterman [09:38]:
  “Early on, we focused on getting as much work done as possible—running more calls, spending more on marketing. But without the right processes in place, expanding becomes chaotic.”

• Chad Peterman [37:00]:
  “I saw what Tom was doing, I took his advice, and we launched it the very next day. It wasn’t complicated—just do what works and iterate.”

• Chad Peterman [42:23]:
  “The jump from 10 to 20 million is all about you as a leader. It’s no longer just about managing tasks but guiding an organization towards a cohesive vision.”

• Chad Peterman [07:00]:
  “Don’t make it too complicated. Go try it and figure it out along the way. You’re going to break things, and that’s part of the process.”

• Chad Peterman [06:39]:
  “Being a student and taking ideas from conferences, then implementing them into the business, has been key to our growth.”

• Chad Peterman [50:31]:
  “We’re focused on having three calls per tech every morning. It’s our operational cornerstone that keeps the day running successfully.”

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Conclusion

"From $3M to $10M: The Home Service Marketing Blueprint That Works" offers invaluable insights for home service business owners aiming to scale their operations. By sharing real-world experiences, strategic implementations, and leadership philosophies, Chris and Chad Peterman provide a roadmap for sustainable growth and operational excellence in the competitive home services industry.

Transcript

[Chad Peterman]

So I'm sitting next to Tom Howard and they're talking about his, you know, Phil who sold $19 million last year and all of this stuff. Well, they start talking about Phil and they say something about how he sold it. Whatever. Well, Tom leans over to me and he goes, actually, that's incorrect. Phil sold most of those off at tune ups. And my ears perk up. Literally. I'm in a conference. I'm not here to talk to Tom. This is not what the conference is about. It's focused on Service Titan and their capabilities and all of this stuff. And I'm like, hold on, Tom, tell me more about that. So literally I took up Tom's time and I'm like, tell me more. How are you doing this? What's that look like? All of these things. And then I called him when I got home and I'm like, all right, explain this to me again. How do you do this? Whatever it is, we're going to hopefully launch whatever he's doing on Monday. Like that's how fast I want to turn these things. Like it's a good idea. I don't need to vet it all the way. Like Tom said, it works. I know Tom knows what he's doing, so. So just do what Tom did. Like this isn't super difficult. He just, he told me what he did. Just do it. Don't ask about the questions. 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. What's up to the point listeners, it's your boy Chris, along with my friend, part of the Red Bird brigade in his nest, snuggled in his nest, CEO of Pierrem Brothers, the cabana of Indiana, Mr. Chad Peterman. Chad, how you doing, buddy?

[Chad Peterman]

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's starting to. We're getting into March here in the great Midwest. So it's 60 one day, 30 the next. It's all over the board. So we're, we're just navigating that and yeah. Excited about March and, and what it brings for sure.

[Chris]

Well, I don't know that my cabana of Indiana landed. I don't think you gave it enough context. So you're not to quite pool side. You have, you are in the cabana which is the elite seating. So I was trying to compare Piedman brothers to being the cabana. I think that was a fail.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, I see what you're trying to do there, but this is typically the point when. And I Got a lot of comments about the dad joke segment. Well, podcast at the event. So I'm not sure if this, this is kind of that point. So maybe your, your joke, I don't.

[Chris]

Know, actually, it wasn't part of the joke. But I will say this. I, I, I just watched a, a documentary about beavers. It was the best damn show I ever saw. Hey, that was a good segue. You helped me. Right. Let me right into it.

[Chad Peterman]

I think at the, I think at the end of the day, putting the dad jokes in there, while the jokes are not great at all, the fact that we got so many, so much feedback on them means that people are listening to the damn podcast. So that's what we're looking for.

[Chris]

And I heard some people repeat some back to me like, so, So I don't want to disappoint the listeners. So I feel like it's only appropriate to share a few more. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and just, and kick this thing. I was, you know, I told you, Chad, I was ready to, like, throw in the towel. I was like, I think I'm done with the dad jokes. And then at Rhino X, I said, I guess I'm not done with the dad jokes.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, I threw in the towel a long time ago. But as long as you're, you're still holding your towel, you keep going, you keep working.

[Chris]

Well, we'll go ahead and, and just share a few more because, you know, I want, you know, listen, I'm just trying to make people's home lives better. Right. Or just their lives better in general. And telling a good joke, you know, it's just, it's good for the soul. You know, laugh a little bit. So. Okay, let me go ahead and kick this one off. What do you call a fish with two knees? A toonie. A toonie fish. So bad. What do you. What, oh, hang on. What made the tomato blush? It saw the salad dressing. No, no, not yet. Yeah, use that one with your buddies at the bar next time.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm going out with, going out to dinner with a few buddies, so I'll definitely make sure to throw that one in there tonight.

[Chris]

Drop that one in there. That's going to be a ringer.

[Chad Peterman]

They may ask me to leave.

[Chris]

That's gonna be a ringer. Okay, last one. What noise does a 747 make when it bounces? Boeing. Boeing. Boeing. That's actually a probably a pretty poor time joke now that I think.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

You know what? I apologize to our listeners. That was that was very inconsiderate. And. And I. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. Okay, let's get into this thing, buddy. But first, I want to kick. Kick this whole thing off, actually. To all of our listeners who made it through the dad jokes, thank you. The focus of this particular episode is going to be from some suggestions that we have, we have had was to look at some of these businesses from 1 to 10 million. I know there's a lot of you listening right now that are significantly bigger than 10 million. But I promise you, you probably still pick a few things up in here that might just be a refresher or a reminder to do X, Y or Z. But the purpose of this one is just to talk about that 1 to 10 million journey because we, you know, we have a lot of listeners that are sitting right in that range and, and I want to take you back down your path and went from, you know, once you came into the business at Peterman Brothers, because, you know, you were, I think, around 3 million ish, and through your journey because you're not so far away from it and you're helping other businesses, too, who are in those positions right now. So I just thought, like, maybe let's go and walk through that journey so people can understand, like, some of the different. The different levels along the way and the things that you guys focused on along the way. But before we get into that, I just want to ask you because, you know, here we are a few. A few weeks out from Rhino X, and you've been to every single one. And I'm proud to say that my friend Chad Peterman won the Charge Award. And some might say it was rigged. It was not rigged. It's just that he was the epitome of what the Charge of Board is all about. Chad, I commend you on always being a student and taking things away from it, implementing it into the business, and then sharing with me, you know, the things that have, you know, helped you guys at Pierman Brothers that you took away from Rhino X. So you earned that award, buddy.

[Chad Peterman]

Thank you. Much to the chagrin of my staff that I work with, when I bring all these things back and say, hey, we need to look at this. But I mean, I think that, you know, for me, you know, just being around people and hearing ideas, it's maybe not something specifically, but I think if you go in with the right mindset, there's a lot of things where people say like, like something just offhanded and you're like, oh, shoot, yeah, we need to work on that, or, oh, shoot, we could put that in our business, or we're not thinking about that. And I think that's the biggest thing, especially as we, you know, kind of kick off this episode around talking about the. The journey from, you know, kind of those, you know, 1, 2, 3 million up to 10, which is kind of that hurdle that a lot of people I think look at is like, hey, I need to get to 10. And I think that there's a lot of things. And, you know, luckily there's a lot of resources like this podcast, like others conferences, you know, just the ability to reach out and talk to people via social media or whatever it may be. There's just a lot of resources. But I think you bring up a great point is it's. There's a lot of great ideas out there, 100%. But, you know, are you going to be able to implement those into the business? And I think that's one of those words that everybody hears about implementation. How are we going to implement this? But it's really kind of prioritizing. I always use the plane ride home. Like, the plane ride home is like my way to, like, okay, I have all these ideas that I wrote down. Now let's start to prioritize. What are. One, you know, what are. What are kind of like path to least resist, path of least resistance, like, what ones can we get done, like, right now? And two, what ones are going to have the biggest roi because there's only so many hours in the day. So what are you going to work on that's going to drive the business forward? So I think that's a key piece. And as we talk through today, I think that taking these ideas is one thing, but then how do you. How do you implement them? And I, I think the biggest piece of advice is don't make it too complicated. Like, go try it and figure it out kind of along the way, like, you're going to break things. It doesn't need to be perfect before you put it into play.

[Chris]

Yeah, so the, you know, you, you mentioned checkpoints, right? So let's just talk about that for a second because, you know, sometimes I guess through my journey, whenever people are asking me about different, you know, checkpoints, meaning size of business and what does a business look like at that size, or what do they have to go through? What can they expect, or, like, what should be. What's. What is a realistic checkpoint. I want to get your opinion because, you know, you have, man, when you make your first million, sometimes the first man is the hardest to make, and then your next is like, okay, if I'm. Now I'm just going to get the two main. Or I'm going to go 1 to 3 or 3 to 5 or whatever. Like 5 to 10, 10 to 20. What is your opinion? Like, let's talk the 1 to 50 journey. What are the different checkpoints that you like, that you recognize along that journey?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I'll preface this answer by saying, you know, as I look back on kind of our journey, there's a ton of stuff I would have done differently. Like, you know, you don't know until you. You're in it and you're like, oh, crap. So, you know, for me, as I think about kind of the checkpoints, it's, you know, as we first started, it was, you know, just like all businesses, it's real scrappy. It was me and my brother just doing everything humanly possible, trying to figure out things, whatever it may be. I say, just me and my brother, we had a lot of people, you know, helping us along the way. But I think that you then begin to. Then you, you know, you reach that level probably, you know, 8 to 10, I'm guessing when you're starting to need some, you know, service management or, you know, at least a field supervisor and different things like that. Know, you're. You're working on your. Your one person that answered the phone becomes a, you know, kind of a call center, a small one, but, you know, a call center where you got multiple people answering the phones and outbounding and filling up the board. And then all of a sudden, kind of dispatch starts to take shape of like, oh, we need to split these two. You know, Susie can't answer the calls and then get the guys where they need and so on and so forth. And I think all along the way, you're trying to build that technician capacity, right? You're trying to, hey, if I'm going to do more, I got to run more jobs, I got to sell more, all of those things. So to me, those are kind of the initial things. I think those are kind of the building blocks. For me, it is. And I talk to a lot of people who are kind of in that, you know, 1 to 10 range. And a lot of them, you know, like, in this industry, a lot of the people that started these companies came from the field. And so our focus is, early on is like, just in the field. It's like, you know, you're not super Worried about answering the phones. You're not super worried about getting the right tech to the right call. I mean, you may only have two. So getting the right tech to the right call is pretty simple, pretty easy. You know, it's either Bill or Bob. Bill's better than Bob. So Bill gets the best calls, so starts really slow. And it seems counterproductive to focus on that call center element and that dispatch element. But, but I think the journey from like, call it like 5 to 20 gets a hell of a lot easier if you get your back office. And when I say back office, I mean from an operational perspective, if you can get call center and dispatch dialed in, and again, if you can dial it in with one or two people, it's a hell of a lot easier to scale it than looking around one day and you've got 20 people in the call center and you have no process procedure. You're not worried about booking rates, all of this stuff. And you're like, oh, crap. Like, to me, that's where people hit walls, is that their, their back office is allowing. It's like a leaky sieve. You just got leads and all kinds of stuff just flowing through it and you're not capturing all the stuff that you're spending money to market and to go, you know, get business with.

[Chris]

So, so let's do this. I'm going to take you down memory lane. Are you ready?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay, so, so you, you, you start at Peterman brothers in 2016. Shout out to Pete Pre. Pre. Chad and Tyler. Shout out to Pete Peterman. I'm sure Pete's listening to this episode. He does listen, so I know he's a listener.

[Chad Peterman]

He may listen less that I'm talking all the time, but, you know.

[Chris]

So you come into the business in 2016 and when I was, you know, we're talking about a 1 to 10 journey. Well, it, you know, when you came in, it was at three. It took you guys a couple of years to get to 10. Let's just, I want to go back to like when you first, when you first came in because you like, you, you were mentioning, you guys, you and your brother, and it kind of just had to come in and like learn the things, like learned the business. Learn what? I mean, there's so much to kind of digest. Did you guys come in and just kind of sit, listen, study, understand, or did you like, like, because you can't start making a bunch of, a bunch of decisions like, or make a bunch of moves, I'm assuming right out of the gate like you probably got to come in, earn some respect, you know, learn some of the, you know, the way the business is working to even know what changes to make. But like maybe bring me into that, that for. So the business is three, you know, is, you know, three million. Ish. What are you like, what are you coming in and learning in that, you know, in that first year?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. So to just to make sure that the. So I started in 2011, but we didn't shift to a residential model like of what we were trying to build until about 15, 16. So I think the biggest thing for us is, yes, we did all of those things, like just kind of learning it, talking to people like, what am I supposed to be doing? And I think it's okay to feel lost because if I think back on, you know, where we were in 2014, 2015 versus what I know now, shoot. Even what I knew four years ago, if you're like, how in God's name were you even doing anything? Like, there was no strategy, there was no, like, you know, we didn't even have a budget, we didn't have anything right. And so like, to me, I think the one thing is it can often, often feel overwhelming when you don't have all the answers. I think the good news is, is like, that's a good, that, that's a good place to be. Like, if it's starting to feel a little bit overwhelming, like that's part of the journey and it's okay, like, embrace that piece. I feel like so many people that I talk to are like, I just want to get to 10 million because it's going to get a hell of a lot easier. Well, it doesn't. It's always going to be hard. So if you signed up in the emergency service business where you have to be on every single minute of the day, then like, that's what you signed up for. And so in 15, we joined Nexstar. And that was a strategic move for us in that we didn't know how to run a residential business. So finding some organization, it doesn't have to be NextAR, but Nexstar was the one we found and there's plenty out there and plenty of people who can help you. But having somebody kind of guide us through how to build this thing, you know, like, I'll never forget the one thing that, that we still use in the business today is a three day call board.

[C]

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[Chris]

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[C]

Contact Chirp today and elevate your communication game.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, it looks a little bit different. It's a hell of a lot more complex now. But back then, like, that got us off, that got us going, right? It's like, okay, we got to have calls for these guys to run. Before that, we were just kind of sitting and hoping the phone would ring. It's like, oh, we ain't got anything to do today. And nextar really taught us that you can take an active role in the business where I feel like, especially if you're H Vac heavy, it's like, well, this is a slow time. It's like, well, do you have customers that you can call? Do you, you know, like, how do you generate calls? And there's a lot of, you know, ways that you can do that, you know, heck, we were talking today, it's 60 degrees outside. Well, there's not a whole lot of people calling with a furnace that's broke. So it's outbounding to customers. Hey, we'll give you a free tune up. Hey, well, you know, we haven't done your, your note, your maintenance, we haven't done whatever to get calls on the board because we got to have opportunities for these guys to run. So that was the biggest piece. 2015, 2016 was like figuring out like what we were actually doing. And so like, as part of nextar, I had a business coach who we've had on the podcast before, Mr. John Conway, and he was with me every month. And it was like, there's probably a lot. He's probably, if he's listening, he's probably laughing like, hey, you didn't do that you need to do this. And. And I was a big believer, and I think this is an important piece because I see so many people take advice, and rather than just implement it, they want to come up with the 10 things as to why it can't work. And I was like, maybe I was just naive. Maybe I was just dumb. I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing, so whatever John says, I'll just do it. And it was like, no questions asked. I mean, for the. For the longest time in our business, it was, well, John said to do it. Well, why do we do that? Well, John said to do it. Well, John said to do it, and that was just how we operated. It was like, well, he did it, so. And he's telling me what to do, so I'm just gonna go do it. And I think that's our. Kind of. Our knack for implementing came from is we just didn't ask questions. It was like, well, let's just do it. And. And those things have evolved over the years, and you got to ask questions and figure out different things, but, you know, you got to do something. And I think that's. That's just critical. As you're. As you're kind of growing, you may not have all the answers, but the answers are out there. And if not, try something and see if it. See if it works.

[Chris]

Hey, so real quick, I just want to acknowledge that I shit the bed on timeframes.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, no worries, man. I mean, we've only known each other.

[C]

For a long time, so.

[Chris]

Hang on, let me. Then take a step back. What were. So what were you doing? I'm sure you're doing various things from that. You said 2011 up to 16 when you guys switched to the residential side. What, like, what were you doing in there in that time frame?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, so when I started in the company, I knew nothing. I had graduated from college. I had had a job outside of the industry. I came back, and I wasn't one of these guys. Like, I feel like a lot of, like, family business, like, oh, yeah, you grew up in it. Like, you fix things and you were, you know, working. I. I worked for my dad one summer. That was it. And that was pretty much just like, running parts and picking up trash and doing odd jobs, whatever it may be. So I did that, and then, like, I came back and, like, literally knew nothing. And so I was just. For the first couple of years, we did a lot of new construction on the apartment side, and so that was kind of dad's thing we did restoration, where we did a little bit of everything. Right. And so I would just kind of follow him around and figure out things. I sold some residential equipment early on. Terrible disaster. That was not good. I think about, like, all the things I know about sales today, and, like, I think I could be good, but I had no idea. I was just, like, out there. I'm like, well, this was, like, what you could buy, so. Okay. It was really bad. So, yeah, I just, like, did all of that stuff. And then, like, as we kind of grew, my brother joined. In 2013, we were still doing a lot of new construction. Like, that was kind of our focus, because that's what dad did, and that's what he knew, and we just kind of learned it. And then, like, as we started to grow it, it was like, okay, now I got my feet under me. I think we want to do something. What is it that we want to do? And I was very intrigued by this residential model. I actually had the opportunity in 20. It was early 2015. One of our suppliers asked. It was like, hey, I know you're interested in this once you come over to Cincinnati, and. And luckily, I was fortunate enough to Jamie Gertson over at Apollo Home at the time. Yeah, like, literally spent the whole day with me, and, like, he was talking about so many KPIs and processes, and I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm gonna keep nodding my head so you don't think I'm a complete idiot. But, like, I saw that for the. I saw that that day. It was in April of 2015, and I just remember driving back from Cincinnati, and I was like, that's what we're going to build. I have no idea how to do it, but I want a company that looks and feels like that because all their people spoke the same language. They had a call center. They were, you know, they were moving and grooving, and that's what we wanted to do. And so once I could see it, then it was like, okay, now we just need to go to work and figure out how to execute this thing.

[Chris]

Yeah. I think that just, again, like, proves the case of going and doing site visits on bigger locations. Right. So that way you can physically see what some of these operations look like. That's why I always love it whenever somebody gets to come and check out Peterman Brothers. Like, because you guys have such a massive operation there, and it just looks good. Like, if. If I was somebody who was sitting in that, you know, 20 million range and looking at a big shop or 15 million, I would go and look at people. It's. It's great. Plus, you know what? I know you never do this on this podcast. I'm going to give you a little shout out, buddy. I mean, you have your own little group, too, right? That you have that there's some coaching opportunity and that you have some coaching opportunity into that that you do. And I'm not sure, you know, how much you share. Don't share about it, but Chad has one of these little groups, too, that you can be a. That you can be a part of, too. Do you. You want me to elaborate or would you like to elaborate on what that is?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, no, it just. It kind of spawned out of, you know, people ask me, like, why I do it. Like, don't you have enough going on? And I do. Hopefully. My wife isn't listening. She commonly reminds me of.

[Chris]

She is not listening. She is not listening to that.

[Chad Peterman]

No, no, no, no, no. But, you know, it. It. A lot of people, you know, as we, you know, did podcasts and did different stuff, obviously people reach out and have questions and stuff like that. And I'm a. I kind of, you know, a lot of people helped me get where we are. And so it was only natural to, like, hey, I need to. I need to kind of take on that role of those people that I looked up to. You know, I think of, like, Jonathan Bancroft. I just text him on Friday. I was like, hey, how do you do that? And so, like, he's someone that I've always looked up to. And so my hope is that I can be, you know, that person for somebody else and help them. And so as people started to ask, it was like, well, how do we take this to the next level? And then it was kind of create kind of these coaching groups. And then we have a. A platform that we created that we call the arena, where people can sign up and join, and there's like, all of our resources. So if we. If we produce an sop, if produce a, you know, document or a form or whatever, we just put it on there and people can chat and different stuff like that. It's kind of like a Facebook group on steroids. But. But yeah, I mean, that's just kind of where I. I've come from. You know, we. People ask me, like, you do these tours. We do tours every other month. We got one coming up in April, and I spend the whole day, and it's like, you know, it's just fun. I, like, I Just like helping and sharing our story and hopefully that, you know, inspires others to, you know, dream big and go chase their goals.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well, I just going to ask for a referral incentive for those that now reach out to you to be a part of it.

[Chad Peterman]

All right, well, we'll get you set up.

[Chris]

I'm sure it's going to be real nice too. It's going to be a real nice referral incentive. But yeah, I just thought of you. It's just another. Because I know you mentioned nextar quite a bit, but nexstar is not an option for everybody. Right. So, like, it's just nice to have an alternative option if they're listening to this podcast. Well, and that makes sense.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So, okay, let me get us dialed back in. So now you're. I. First off, I didn't know you guys were in multi family stuff at all. I had no clue about that. So maybe I'm not as good of a friend as I thought. So I apologize. But let's go back into this thing back in the, you know, like the, you know, once you hit, you know, I don't, I know we're talking about one to 10, man. So I'm trying to keep it, you know, in that, in that range. So, you know, we, we. You talk about, you and me talk about this. Actually, I'm going to use Redbird Roofing as an example. You know, we, you know, we did, you know, just about a million bucks our first year. Well, I guess not first year. What, seven months, Ish. Or whatever, however long the business was running. But we talk about a couple things. We have the, you know, the machine. We have the people to run the machine. You got to have the finances, you know, to pay for the people and the machine. And there's, there's also the, the process. Like when, when you, I mean, how does your brain, like, so you're into this thing in 2016, you started to like you. You know, you, you guys are going down this residential route. You're soaking up all the stuff. You go to, you know, down to Apollo. You've learned some things that Apollo kind of set you down the path of what, you know, having a vision at least. What are you focusing on first? Are you focusing on the machine? Are you focusing on the people? Are you focusing on, you know, the process, how the people run the machine or the efficiency of the machine? Like what. Where does your brain go to first? And, and so I asked this question because, you know, it's really a. Is this an. Is this a People thing that you're focusing on, Is it a processing that you're focusing on? But, but it's something that you and I have been talking about, like, recently. So I thought, man, we always reference this machine and the people running the machine. And the machine, even if the machine is run really good, if you don't have the right people to run it, it's not like the machine becomes useless. But, like, what are you focusing on? Like, and maybe you can go down the path of whether that is, you know, something in operations. If it's a. If it's leadership. I know you, I know you're a big, you know, focuser on the people, but, like, where's your head go to immediately in that process? Are you immediately going to the people or immediately going to the machine? Or is it a mixture?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. So I would tell you that in our journey, what we probably, like, we did not focus on the machine at all. Now let me bake out this whole thought. So we didn't focus on the machine. It was just all about, like, how like getting as much work done as we humanly possibly could. It was run more calls, you know, spend more on marketing, like, do all of these things to, like, drive stuff. And then it was, you know, recruit technicians. We need more people. We need more people. We need more people. We weren't focused on getting the right people. We weren't focused on all of the things that we should have been focused on. We really weren't. So, like, when, as I think back at, like, how we actually pulled this off, I think we got lucky in a lot of instances, but we just supplemented that luck with just a lot of hard work. Like, we were focused on 100 things at the same time, trying to pull them off and probably creating a lot of headache if I were to go back again. And obviously this is what we're trying to do in roofing, starting from the ground and building it up is I think that if I were to go back, what I would focus on is building that machine. Like, what does the infrastructure need to look like? And then how do I put people in places to be successful? I mean, we were hiring and that's.

[Chris]

What the end in mind, right? Like, you're building that machine with whatever your end in mind is or your next or your goal, right?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. And I think honestly if I, if I look at like 15, 16, it probably wasn't until like 18 when like we got going and then it's like, then start to build with the end in mind. Like, it's really hard to build with the end in mind. When you're, you know, scrapping it together and figuring all out, it's like, okay, yeah, cool. Want to be 10 million? I don't even know what the hell that looks like. I'm still running service calls by myself, so I think it's one of those things where you just got to be scrappy as hell in the beginning. I mean, it is like, all hands on deck. I mean, shoot, there were days when I was out in a crawl space in the morning helping out a plumber because we didn't have enough, and then back working on a marketing project in the afternoon and then maybe running a part to a guy and then getting the schedule set for tomorrow. And, like, you're just. You're doing a little bit of everything. But I think where that comes from is you got to have a little bit of that. Like, when I say end in mind, like, we knew we wanted to build something special. We didn't know what that looked like. We didn't know what that meant. We didn't even know how to get there, but we knew we wanted to build something special. And our dad always taught us, you just work hard. That'll take care of a lot of your problems. And so we just kind of went after it. Well, then, like I said in. In kind of 17, 18, we start rolling, we start getting things, and then it's like, okay, now we want to be a $50 million company. Okay, now we can start working backwards. But I think it's the same for. Let's just say you're. You're a $3 million company. You've got your eyes set on 10. I think it's really, really important. The one thing I've learned about this business is it's just one math problem. That's it. Just a math problem. So it's take 10 million. Okay, I'm going to do that in a year. Okay, what are you going to do per month then? What are you going to do per day then? Okay, well, how many calls do I need to run? How many do I convert? What's my average sale? Average ticket? However you want to convert it, whatever it is. Well, then you can start to see. Okay, I'm gonna need this many technicians at this point. I'm going to need this many at this point. I'm gonna need this many at this point. Well, then you can start working back. Well, I'm going to need to take a hundred calls. Well, in order to answer 100 calls, I'm probably going to need like two or three people in the, in the call center because they can only answer so many calls per hour and different things like that. So I think it's important that once you get through that scrappy phase and then you see where you want to go, well, then work it all the way backwards because then you should know. I hear people all the time, they're like, well, we're going to double next year. I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Like, what, where are you? Like, yeah, it sounds great to say it, but where is it that you're going to go? And then how are you going to get there? Like, when do you need to hire people? You know, when do you need to train them? If you hire them today, when's he going to be ready? Is that going to be a month from now? Well, you just lost a month of production, so you got to kind of adjust your numbers there. So. Yeah, I just think, I think it's, it's scrappy. And then once you get established to where you've got it, then it's really focusing on that back office machine. You get the back office set and then at the same time or you know, in subsequent order, you've got to start focusing on how are my techs performing? Because, hey, I booked 10 calls, but we only converted four. Well, now how do I improve that performance to book six, book, you know, to convert eight, what, whatever that may be is kind of how I, my mind works at least.

[Chris]

So when do you, when do you start to focus on the sales and marketing arm of it? Like really focus on, on that part of it? So you got, you mean. Because I know that what you, what you and I have been talking about with Redbird is let's get the machine. Like, let's get. This probably again comes from your experience too, is. And really even, even mine as well. Let's get the machine right and get the people right and then let's pour the fuel on the fire. Like, let's get this thing pumping out, you know. You know, with great customer service, everybody's, you know, smart. We're moving. The machine works, you know, flawlessly or as close to flawless possible or whatever. Like we get the machine set and we get the right people in. Now we start to pour. But when you're small, you may not have that opportunity. Like you kind of got to do all the things because you're trying to bring in leads when you're sitting there in the three day call board is looking pretty, pretty bare, you know?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, I said work on the machine, then focus on this. Like, you're going to be doing a lot of these things at the same time. What, what I'm trying to, you know, I guess explain is that, like, you've still got to have that focus on the back. Like. Yeah, during the day you may not be able to focus on building the perfect, you know, call center and this, that and the other. Like, all day long. Like, to me, that was stuff that I worked on at like between 4 and 6am, like, okay, here's what we're gonna do. And then once, once 6, 7am kicked on. Well, now I gotta go perform during the day because I gotta bring dollars in to continue to feed my ability to focus on this thing. So it's, it's. You gotta be able to do a bunch of. That's where the scrappiness comes in. Like, you gotta be doing all kinds of things throughout the day. But then you've got to be able to carve out time to where you can start to work on these elements of the business that once you get set up, well, then. Yes, then we can start to move to the next one. And then to your point, sales and marketing. Okay. I got the call center, I've got dispatch. I've been working with my techs. Okay. Now I can actually spend a little bit of that money to try to drive more leads because I'm driving them into a machine that works as opposed to. I'm going to go spend double on marketing. And yet I can't book a call to save my life. So why am I even. Why am I even spending these dollars?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

Or you're not sure you don't deal with. I'm sure you guys don't deal with any businesses that complain about lead volume, but yet don't have the machine figured out.

[Chris]

Oh, no, I mean, that's. That would be weird if we did. I mean.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, it does.

[Chris]

We're so perfect. It's great. You know, weather's perfect and, you know, we can create weather that's even better. Yeah. So it's, you know, but it is, it is hard. Like you, I think you use the perfect word. Scrappy is kind of what you. You have to be. And you do wear a lot of hats. Like, like it or not, you do wear a lot of hats and during the day. But you know what? I think you and I actually have. I think about the volume of text messages that you and I share, like in the early a.m. before either one of us are even in our offices, you know. I guess.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Because I know you get up early. I get up early, and a lot of times, you know, I get up early just to let my brain do what my brain. Sometimes I feel like I'm the sharpest in the morning, and. And I'm working. I'm, like, thinking about all the things that I know I need to get done or, you know, they need to do that day or, like, just whatever the things that. Because once I get in the office, I know, like, now it's. Now it's go time, and I know I've got things I got to execute on, but I do think that, you know, when you're in that, you know, million to 3 million range, like, I think the scrappiness is just kind of what you got to keep doing and that. And one thing that you kind of said that we blew right past, I think is really important is you said, you know, we just. That's what John said to do. Well, what he's talking about is, like, sometimes I think this is a superpower, by the way. I just have, like, I have blinders. I just don't see all the shit that can go wrong. Right? So I'm just, like, barreling through, confident that I'm going to do X, Y, Z. Because that's what I believe. Right. I saw that this person was doing it. So they can do it. I can do it, and I'll just, you know, figure my shit out. I'm like, jump, throw the parachute. Right. Thankfully, the parachute opens at some point in the jump, and I've been able to, you know, not crash to the ground. But I think having blinders on is actually a superpower, Especially early on when you're scrappy. Just go do it. Like, go do the thing and learn the lessons along the way. It's just now, even versus, you know, Chad, when you. When you were building the business, there's so many more resources that are readily available now to get the answers to the questions or the challenges that you have, like this podcast or, like, you can't stop the growth. Same thing.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

I mean, when. Here's a great example of implementing. So now our organization is a lot bigger. So it's like sometimes, like, it feels like turning the Titanic as opposed to when you're small. It's like, you know, turning a jet ski. Like, I'm ready to go. So I'm sitting at the Service Titan symposium that they had in New York City last week, and, you know, I love going to these Things, whatever it is. So we are literally about three minutes in to the. To the conference. I'm sitting next to Tom Howard and they're talking about his, you know, Phil, who sold $19 million last year and all of this stuff. So most people in my experience would be like, ah, you can't do that. That's impossible. Whatever. And I'm like, I'm sitting next to Tom. I don't think he's lying about what he did. Well, they start talking about Phil and they say something about how he sold it. Whatever. Well, Tom leans over to me and he goes, actually, that's incorrect. Phil sold most of those off of tune ups. And my ears perk up. Like, literally, I'm in a conference. I'm not here to talk to Tom. I mean, eventually I did. He interviewed me on a panel. But like, I'm not here to talk to Tom. This is not what the conference is about. It on Service Titan and their capabilities and all of this stuff. And I'm like, hold on, Tom. Tell me more about that. So literally, I took up Tom's time and I'm like, tell me more. How are you doing this? What's that look like? All of these things. And then I called him when I got home and I'm like, all right, explain this to me again. How do you do this? Whatever it is. We're going to hopefully launch whatever he's doing on Monday. Like, that's how fast I want to turn these things. Like, it's a good idea. I don't need to vet it all the way. Like Tom said, it works. I know Tom knows what he's doing. So just do what Tom did. Like, this isn't super difficult. He just. He told me what he did. Just do it. Don't ask your questions.

[Chris]

I'm noticing a Peterman Brothers theme. I'm noticing a theme here that is do what John did. Now it's do what Tom did.

[C]

All right, if you just got like.

[Chris]

A basic ass name and you do a good job of running a bit. Hey, just do what Chris did.

[Chad Peterman]

Exactly.

[Chris]

Do what Chad did.

[Chad Peterman]

We just. We just rolled out another idea that I got from Jonathan and his membership and.

[C]

Sorry for the interruption to the point listeners, have you heard of Rilla? Are you using really yet? If not, are you for reala? Shoot, I did. There really is the leading speech analytics software for the trades. It is on a mission. Mission to bring physical ride alongs to an end. You can coach your reps with virtual ride alongs now that are a hundred times Better, faster, and much more efficient than the physical ones. All you got to do is use the killa rilla.

[Chris]

That's R I L L a rilla.

[Chad Peterman]

He told me about it. I rolled it out. I told my team and they're like, I don't even know how we can do that. I go, well, no, no, Jonathan's doing it. He said it works. He said it's good. So if he did it, then we can do it too. We'll just do it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

And we rolled it out. Monday was great.

[Chris]

Yeah, that one's pretty. Yeah, probably pretty foolproof too. That's one of those deals where they probably vetted out a lot of those things along the way. So you can probably trust what you're doing.

[Chad Peterman]

Consultants and all of this stuff. I'm like, perfect. Didn't have to pay for one.

[Chris]

I just asked you and already proved it out.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, sounds good. All right. They're one of the. They're probably one of the, if not the best, one of the best operations in the country. So why don't we just do what they did?

[Chris]

Yeah, it makes total sense. Did you say Phil? Phil? Good old Phil. Phil sold 19 million and he said a majority of that was off tune.

[Chad Peterman]

Ups, the majority of it. So he's selling other stuff. And again, for your audience, I have to remind people about this all the time. Out in California, they have to sell more expensive equipment, the low Knox equipment. So their equipment's expense more expensive and they got to do a lot of duct work. Still. Let's not take away from what Phil accomplished. Okay, so if your average, his average ticket was $26,000. Okay, well if yours is half of that, which ours is. It's like 12. 12, 12, 5. Okay, well if he did half of that, do we have any 10 million dollar salespeople walking around this office? Oh, no, we don't. Okay, well, let's do what Tom did.

[Chris]

Hey, we need to get Phil on here.

[Chad Peterman]

I know I've never actually met Phil. Heard a lot about him, but yeah, it. He's doing some really great things and I think stuff that we all can learn from for sure.

[Chris]

Tall, bald guy, I think, I think I've seen pictures of Phil. I don't know. We're gonna chat. Let's chase Phil down. We're gonna get Phil on this podcast. We're gonna figure it out. I'm gonna figure it out and we're gonna. And we're gonna talk about that process.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Chris]

Then we can all meet Phil. But that'd be a good one. Okay, so I'm going to just shift gears slightly, and again, I want you to kind of. I'm going to keep. Keep you in the mindset of the smaller. Like, the smaller one we talked a little bit about, like, 1 to 10 the journey, and 1 to 10, your personal journey, and 1 to 10, the things that you paid paid attention to. Now we know that, you know, your mantra is do what John did and do what Tom did, but let's now talk through, like, futuristic, right? So they finally made the 10. And when you get to 10, from what you. From what you've heard or even your own experience, is the next site that you see 20, you go from 10 to 20. Is it. Is it that kind of an increment?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. So I would say when we started in 15, 16, like the biggest of the baddest companies out there. You know, I think when I think of nexstar members, I think of, like, cool today. And, you know, Horizon was obviously bigger, but, like, some of the. Some of the big players, right, they were like 20, 30 million, and they were like the, you know, they were like something you couldn't even imagine, right? Like, we have over 100 employees, and you're like, holy shit. Like, where do you even find all those people? So, yeah, I think when we got to 10, it was like, okay. Now in 20 was probably, if I'm completely honest, 20 was kind of the big goal when we started. And we were at like three and we had no idea what to do. It was like. I remember going into my dad's office and we were. And my brother and I were so dead set on it. We're like, we're going to be a $20 million company because you guys are absolutely crazy. That seems ridiculous. And we're like, I think we can figure it out. We have no dreaming idea of how to do it. And so, yeah, like, 20 was that number. And then we got to 20, and then I think you turn and companies were growing bigger. You know, you kind of had, you know, 17, 18, you started to. I think that's when. When that. When Horizon first transacted and, like, started this whole wave, maybe wrench about the same time. So you started seeing this and no one knew what private equity was or what was going on or anything like that. God, it sounds. I sound really, really old when I'm talking about, you know, 2017, 2018. No one knew what was going on. It was crazy.

[Chris]

But you're not. You're not talking Blue dot day so you're good.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. If I was. I was. I was still in grade school then, but. But, yeah, So I think 20. And then we, you know, once you get kind of rolling, then it's like, okay, now we got the ingredients. We can figure this out. Let's, you know, let's set our eyes on 50 and see what that looks like. But, yeah, 20 is. The 20 is. You're running like a. That's a. That's a. That's a bear. That's a beast. Like, and. And two. I think the biggest piece, too, is. And we talk about this and not to, you know, dive too far into the culture and leadership. I don't. If Ishmael's listening, we don't want to talk about that. But, you know, the. I think that's the third time I've called him out. But, you know, for me, it was. Once you get. You get through that scrappy piece, you start to build this company. To me, that. That jump from 10 to 20 is all about you as a leader, growing. Like, because you're starting to lead an organization. It's not just, hey, we got, you know, 10, 15 guys running around doing stuff. Like, you got to start to be able to operate a company like a. You know, so for me, that's when, like, my leadership journey, like, when I started, like, reading a ton and, like, trying to figure this out, like, what in the hell am I doing? Like, I gotta call the shots. Operationally, I feel pretty comfortable, but I've also got to get all these people to buy into a vision of where we're gonna go and get everybody rowing in the same direction. So I think early on, the leadership piece and, like, you know, how do we create? Well, like, it's really easy to create a culture if you got, like, 10 or 15 people. Like, you see them every day. Like, treat them well, make sure they know what to go. You know, what. What's going on. But once you start to get into that 20, 30, 40 people, like, to me, that's when the leadership kind of journey begins.

[Chris]

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. That's exactly what I hoped you would. You would say, just to give some of these folks some context of where to focus. At what size. Yeah, I think, you know, as you're talking, I'm just trying to think back of, like, where I was at on my journey. I think it took us, like, four years to get our first million. Like, that first million was so hard, but I was learning so much at that time. I was Way underpriced, you know, But I was also super early. Early to the market. The big mistake I made early on was assuming I could do the same thing in Arizona. What I did in Arizona when I went back to Indiana to start the business, assuming that the buying habits would be the same. I was way off. Yeah. Slower to adopt. The demographic was different, the money was different. So, like, I, you know, I couldn't do the same thing. What I thought I would work. What I thought in Arizona was, was I was really good at sales in Arizona, and people were really adopting it fast. They weren't in Indiana back in 2007. So I had to overcome that a little bit. But I said, think through the journey. It did take me a little bit longer to get to that first million. And then I remember my next goal being, okay, let's get this thing to 3 million. And then it was kind of the same thing where it was just, you know, I was still doing everything in the business, you know, for the most part, not. Not everything. I wasn't a developer, but sales, marketing. I was still listening to the phone calls. Dear God, that was the worst phase of my life, was listening to your guys phone calls. And then I think we didn't hit. We hit 10 million. I think it took us 10 years to hit 10 million. It took a long time to get there. But then I remember once we figured that out, it was. We had the right, you know, the right people on the bus. Right. The bus was. Was moving. You know, it had some 91 octane in it. You know, now it's a fast bus. And we had the right people on the bus. And I was able just to drive the bus because as many know, I was the perfect person to drive that bus, you know, with my race car driving experience.

[Chad Peterman]

That's right.

[Chris]

That's right. And then it was just focusing on leadership and how to scale it, because the machine was running, man, it was good. And then we got a nice little help with COVID But, man, when that hit, we were not. We were in the best position ever to take advantage of that situation because we've been doing it for, you know, 12 years at that point. So, man, what a good run we'd have. But then I think about, you know, getting the business to 20 million and then, you know, the 20 million to 30 million mark. It was a challenge, right? Because now it's like, you got to really start to think about what else to add. The people, the continue growing people. Now it becomes a lot about. A lot about the People versus what you're actually like. I could focus on the products itself. No, that's what the experts in the business are. For now I'm just focused on the business. Like I'm only focused on the business. So it is, you know, cool to kind of think back through my journey and how it like if was it the same as yours? In a lot of ways it is the same as yours. It's, it's, you know, you're focused on the same things at the same phases of your business. And we were in two completely different businesses.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, yeah. I mean I think, you know, as I talked about at the beginning, I think that when people get stuck, it's because from an operational perspective they've got things that are broken. And it's really easy, I think as leaders too to be always thinking in the future, always thinking in the future. Where are we going next? What's next year going to look like? What are all these great ideas? What are all this stuff? And I think it's important to always, while yes, forward thinking is, you know, driving the vision of the company is important, you've also got to be able to pivot and look back internally and make sure that all of that stuff is square. Because to me it's a lot easier to maintain that stuff. Like, you know, the one thing that I've been living by this year is, you know, inspect what you expect. And to me, like you can think that you built the best process and then you're moving on, you're thinking about all these other things. Well then you know you're slipping over here maybe in booking rate or you're slipping in dispatch or you're wherever it may be. Like I think you've always got to be able to go back in. And even today, like today we're a hundred million dollar company and I'm focused on did we fill the three day call board in South Bend? Because there again like we just lost the focus of like hey, we need three calls per tech on them before the day starts. We're not going to hold. We're not going to probably get a lot of influx when it's 60 degrees outside. So we got to have that board set. So like to me those are the things that I'm still looking at today because it's inspect what you expect. Well, I expect that board to be full. So I'm going to go in and find out why it's not. Now it's not like other people aren't working on that stuff, but it's hey, if we're missing, we can't miss there. Like, that's the operational building block. I gotta have calls on the board. So do whatever we need to do to get the calls on the board. That's how we start a day successfully and, and see success throughout the day.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's great. That actually kind of takes it all the way full circle. Right. Because you think about when you implemented that three day call board and then how early on you focused on that.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, we've had it for 10 years, but we weren't executing yesterday, so we're going to execute. You know, I said in a message this morning, I'm like, hey, it's all right. We're going to learn and then we're going to get better and we're going to be good tomorrow. So, like, let's, let's, let's operate. Let's figure this stuff out. But it never gets easy. I think that's the one thing that people ask me, like, yeah, I do different stuff on a daily basis. But like, to me, I know when I'm coasting, when I am not diving into the operation and figuring out things that can get better, things that can, can get, be fixed. Like you should. There should be very few days that you're like, sitting in your office twiddling your thumbs. Yes, there is always something that can get better. And if you want to drive a company forward, it's going to take a lot of hard work. Regardless of what level that you're at, it just doesn't get easier, especially in this business, you know. Yes, your responsibilities will change. You'll be looking at different stuff. I mean, I've talked to, I mean, how. We're talking to Tommy. We talked to him all the time. He's dialed in. What was he talking about two weeks ago? He's talking about the, the backlink structure on this, that and the other. Well, he's running a. I don't even know how big they are, but they're big. Probably one of the biggest, like, around. And he is got that attention to detail of like, no, this can get better. This has to be perfect. Like, we've got to figure these pieces out. And he's still diving in and trying to figure out the, those things.

[Chris]

Yeah, well, and I think this is actually a great segue to close out this podcast. And I, and I heard this from all people, Matthew McConaughey. Okay. It was. The journey is the destination. Yeah, the journey. Yeah, the journey is the destination. So enjoy. Because it never, it never actually Ends like, you're always constantly working on something. And so. And I thought that actually is so true. Think about all the entrepreneurs that we know who've sold their businesses but still keep the Geigers, the good riches like these.

[C]

They.

[Chris]

There's not an end. Like, they don't have to keep going. There's not an end. But that is, that's, you know, enjoy it. Because if you just, you know, if you think about this process, like, it, it's. The journey is the fun, the excitement, the learning, the. All the things, and that there really is no destination. I mean, you could. You could say, yep, I'm retired. And maybe that's your destination. That's fine. That's fine. But while you're in business, you know, the journey just keeps on going like, there is no destination. I just keep working at it like that. You're constantly learning. And remember two things. When it's hard, you know, you're actually learning something. If you're trying to figure it out. When it's hard, you're actually learning a valuable lesson that's going to take you to the next step. So when it's hard, think about from that perspective. Like, there's definitely days where I'm in here and I'm like, this shit sucks. Like, this is hard. What am I doing? And then I had to, like, reset my brain to be like, okay, whatever I'm learning right now is going to help me for this next phase. And so there's a little bit of a mindset to it.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, right. But, you know, one of the things I'll share along those lines that here, recently I've kind of adopted, that's. That's kind of helped me out, and I think it's more so helping out with kind of when times are tough, you know. 24. Yeah, 24 was not our. Was not a great year for us. Like, it was tough. It was hard. Like, we were struggling, like, trying to figure things out. And the one thing that I've kind of wrapped my mind around, and there were times when I would get down and be like, God, do I know what I'm doing? Like, how am I going to figure this out? Like, oh, God, I just. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing anymore. The one thing that I kind of latched on to was very similar to what you're saying, is that our lives. If you choose to write a book about your life at the. At the end, when you retire, when it is, and you're going to write a Book about this. The challenging times are the most important part of the story, and they're the times when you get to write the narrative of how you handle that tough time. And so anytime we face adversity, I think to myself, this is going to be a good chapter in that book. It's going to be times when times were tough, times were hard. We were backs against the wall. We couldn't figure it out, and then write the rest of the chapter. This is how we figured it out. This is what we did. We bear down, we focused on this. We did this. We made this slight change here, and here's where we are. And so that's kind of been my, like, mental picture of, like, how to deal with tough times is like, hey, this is a great chapter in the book. You know, you can write a book about all the great things that happen, but no one gives a shit. What they care about is when you're struggling or when you had a tough time and you figured something out and you persevered and you made it through. And to me, that's kind of the. The mindset that I've kind of adopted.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's why everybody loves the comeback story. Yeah, everybody loves a good comeback story like that. That's great. That's a great way to close this out, buddy. Hey, one last question.

[Chad Peterman]

Yep.

[Chris]

Probably the most important question before we close this thing out is where is that charge award gonna go?

[Chad Peterman]

I don't know. We gotta find some room for it on the shelf. But we can gladly make some. We can gladly make some. I can probably take down the. I can probably take down the Ryan Walters, Purdue signed football helmet and make some. Make some way for that, because I don't know that. That kind of lost its. Its value over the last couple of months.

[Chris]

Yes, it did.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Well, listen, man, I thought this was a great episode, actually. It turned out really good. I appre. I thought it was good. Like, I mean, not. It was not just because, I mean, this is like real life that we were just talking through and, you know, and a lot of people listening are in the same boat right now, so. Good episode, dude. I. I appreciate. I appreciate everything that you shared in there, and I. Hopefully it was good taking you back down Emory Lane.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And. And like, always, if. If. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes, but if you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out more than happy to help and kind of navigate some of these, you know, operational things. How should we be thinking about this, so on and so forth. I know. You know, to me, the more companies that we can build into that 5, 10 million dollar range, that's when you get. That's when you can get really good and start to really impact some lives. For sure.

[Chris]

There we go. Well, listen, you and me have a phone call after this. So I got to cut this thing short. I mean, I got to cut us out. So you don't got to do everything, but you gots to do something. No. Zero days.