New Leadership That Helped Scale Abacus from $30M to $100M

Summary

Podcast Summary: To The Point - Home Services Podcast

Episode: New Leadership That Helped Scale Abacus from $30M to $100M

Host: Chris (RYNO Strategic Solutions), Chad Peterman
Guest: Tony Patino, President of Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical
Date: December 2, 2025

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Episode Theme:

Exploring how new leadership from outside the industry ignited massive growth at Abacus, scaling the company from $30 million to over $100 million.
The discussion focuses on leadership transition, scaling strategies, industry misconceptions, technology adoption, recruiting, and expanding service lines.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Tony Patino’s Non-Traditional Path to Abacus

• Background:
  • Started in retail out of high school; held various management roles since age 24. (05:47)
  • Transitioned from retail to Aramark (uniform services, GM for Houston market), then led a moving company, learning both operations and sales. (06:54)
• Recruitment to Abacus:
  • First recruited in 2016 for a GM role—didn't get the job, but stayed engaged. (09:34)
  • 18 months later, recruited for a divisional leadership role and joined in 2017. (09:34)
  • Entered with no prior home services experience: “I said, Alan, I’m not a plumber, man. I don’t know anything about plumbing. He said, ‘I don’t need you to be a plumber...I need you to come in and help me build this business and help me scale it.’” (11:21)

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2. Leadership Transition & Earning Trust

• Challenge:
  • Faced skepticism as an outsider, especially from plumbers loyal to founder Alan O’Neill.
• Approach:
  • “You got to park your ego and title...you gotta be genuine and have humility...I’m here to help you, not boss you around.” (16:22)
  • Focused on building individual relationships, listening to field teams, and understanding their goals and pain points.
• Early Wins:
  • Personally led the rollout of ServiceTitan, translating tech to trade-friendly workflows.
  • Became the go-to resource for tech questions, establishing credibility quickly. (18:57)

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3. Simultaneous Scaling Initiatives

• Within First Year:
  • Oversaw company move to a new facility.
  • Rolled out ServiceTitan across the teams.
  • Assumed leadership of a new electrical division, in addition to plumbing.
  • Quote: "Within the first year...all this stuff is happening simultaneously." (21:12)
• Leveraging Technology:
  • Used ServiceTitan rollout to solve pain points and drive efficiency, demonstrating value to teams otherwise skeptical of new tech. (22:29)

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4. Overcoming Growing Pains & Internal Pushback

• Managerial Structure:
  • Relied on strong managers to shield him from technical pushback—focused on operations, strategy, and people. (23:29)
  • Promoted from within, also brought in some of his own experienced managers.
• The “Dumb Questions” Advantage:
  • “I had the benefit of being the guy from the outside so I could ask the dumb questions...” (24:53)

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5. Launching and Scaling New Service Lines

• Electrical Division:
  • Built up from $1M to nearly $20M. (24:53)
• Water Treatment:
  • Initially struggled; split off into a dedicated division with its own sales/install team.
  • Hired an industry expert (from Culligan) to lead—separate from plumbing at first, then integrated as plumbers saw success. "We had to separate it because we just weren't getting traction by just trying to keep it inside our plumbing group." (28:30)
• Generators:
  • Initially deprioritized until core electrical was "humming."
  • Launched as its own specialty vertical after market demand and storm events in 2023.
  • “Overnight it became a... separate vertical for us in both Houston and Austin.” (29:53)

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6. Recruiting and Sales Leadership Evolution

• Need for Sales Leadership:
  • Identified in 2021/2022 when growth plateaued and sales process lacked consistency across trades.
  • First outside sales leader hire was a cultural mismatch and didn’t last. “If they don’t fit, they don’t fit. You gotta move quickly. And we pivoted pretty quickly.” (33:27)
  • Second hire, an industry insider, was a home run—brought strong people, built culture, and standardized sales processes.
• Communication is Key:
  • Transparent with teams about changes and “the why” behind decisions to avoid rumors and speculation. (36:21)
  • “When you don’t come in front of everybody and tell them...then they start speculating.” (36:21)

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7. Cross-Selling, Membership Growth, and Unified Brand

• Membership Model Overhaul:
  • Merged separate memberships for plumbing/HVAC/electrical into an all-inclusive “VIP” monthly membership.
  • “Our membership base...was in silos. We had three different core memberships… only a thousand homes had us for all three trades... So we rolled out ‘VIP’... a single price, all your maintenance throughout your house.” (42:14)
  • Huge driver for cross-selling and higher revenue per customer.
• Incentivizing Cross-Trade Leads:
  • Created spiff/referral programs and app-based referral tool for techs to generate cross-trade leads.
  • “Every lead on Google continues to cost more and more. My cost per lead is just basically the spiff that I pay the technician.” (41:06)

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8. Scaling Mindset & Knowing When to Expand

• Measured Approach:
  • “Let’s get really good at what we do best... let’s not try to outreach...because then you get distracted.” (48:28)
  • Focuses on making sure each vertical is running efficiently and profitably (“blocking and tackling”) before layering in new lines. (48:28)
• Champion for Each New Division:
  • Found success by hiring/appointing “the right person” to champion and lead each specialty—someone skilled but flexible who could adapt to Abacus culture. (50:46; 52:01)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being an industry outsider:
  • "I’m a student of the game. That’s...one of the secrets to success in any industry you get into—be a continual learner." (05:10)
• Earning trust:
  • "You have to park your ego...I’m here to help you. I truly am vested in your best interest as a leader. My job is to lead people, not boss people around." (16:22)
• Scaling with tech:
  • “Learning ServiceTitan was the easy part...learning how to bring some of this stuff to the trade, that was probably where I found myself early on.” (21:26)
• Sales process breakthrough:
  • “We didn't have a real defined sales process. As big as we were...every trade was doing their own thing. We didn't have an Abacus system, if you will.” (40:10)
• Cross-selling:
  • “Now the plumber's...looking at an electrical panel...now we have an opportunity for our rehash team...now we, we cross-train our sales team to be...VIP salesmen.” (42:14)
• On hiring leaders:
  • “We try to do our best to find out: Is this person, do they have the humility? Are they hungry? Are they humble, hungry, and smart?...They have to be smart—I mean, people smart.” (54:02)
• Company name origin:
  • “He wanted something that was yellow page friendly...aba for abacus...‘You can count on us.’ That’s our tagline.” (57:00)

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Timestamps for Major Topics

• Tony’s Background & Recruitment to Abacus – 05:10–11:21
• First Days/Earning Team’s Trust – 12:51–16:22
• Tech Rollout & Early Scaling Moves – 18:57–21:26
• Managing Pushback & Building Management Team – 23:19–24:53
• Expansion into New Trades & Water Treatment – 24:53–30:00
• Hiring for Sales Leadership & Process Building – 33:27–40:10
• Cross-Selling Memberships & VIP Model – 41:06–43:55
• Strategic Expansion & Picking New Verticals – 48:28–50:46
• Hiring for Culture Fit & Smart Leadership – 54:02
• Origin of ‘Abacus’ Name – 57:00

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Outsiders can succeed in the trades—if they lead with humility, are relentless learners, and build genuine relationships.
• Technology adoption and streamlined processes are key for scaling, but change must be championed with empathy for the “boots on the ground.”
• Strategic, measured expansion—only moving to new divisions or trades when core operations are running efficiently—prevents distraction and ensures sustainable growth.
• Cultural fit and communication are crucial when hiring leaders from outside or inside: move quickly if it's not working, and be transparent with your team at every step.
• Membership/cross-sell programs and a unified brand win customer loyalty, multiply revenue opportunities, and lower acquisition costs.

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Final Memorable Moment

• On his leadership journey:
  "I had to have humility when I came in here... I had to park my ego... I'm going to learn this business. I'm going to learn these people. And I had a constant drive to learn." — Tony Patino (54:02)

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For any home service company considering a leadership transition, new trade launch, technology project, or simply wanting to grow, this episode is packed with actionable insights “to the point.”

Transcript

[Tony Patino]

This is to the Point a Rhino.

[Chris]

Experience voted one of the top home.

[Tony Patino]

Services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the and getting to the point.

[Podcast Announcer]

Hey, what's up to the Point listeners.

[Chris]

It's your boy Chris hosted the Point Home Services podcast. And I see my good friend, my dear friend, sweet little chatty P sitting on the other side. Looks like it's a gloomy day out there in the great state of Indiana, Chad.

[Chad Peterman]

It is pretty darn gloomy. I don't think the sun has shown today, so it's getting cold.

[Chris]

It's actually the same here in, in Phoenix. It's rained yesterday and today and it's a little gloomy. And I have a long sleeve shirt on today because, you know, it's like 60, so it's nice and chilly here. This is an old shirt I've had for a lot of years and I put it on, it was a little tighter, so I. Getting fatter, I think. So there comes the fat face comment. If my face is getting fatter, why is getting fatter? Damn it. It's old age. It's the winter coat.

[Tony Patino]

There you go.

[Chris]

Oh, boy. Well, listen, I am glad to have our vest, our guest on here today. I, I say vest because I think of Chad, but really he's our guest and that's Tony. Tony Patino is on here today. Tony, Tony's down in Texas. Now here's, here's, here's the deal. We've had a previous guest on Alan o', Neill, Legend of Trade. Great, great, great, great guy. Huge, you know, beautiful monster. Build a monster business. You know, abacus down in Texas and continues to keep growing. And, and you know, some of the conversations that we've had before just on here in general at Rhino X are, hey, we have like these legends, I use air quotes, these legends in the industry. But then you have the current day operators of these, of these big businesses and Tony, and Tony's at. Tony's the president of Abacus Plumbing Plumbing. Plumbing, air conditioning and electric. Now, even though Abacus has been around since I think, 03 or something like that, 2002, you came on board in 2017, is that right, Tony?

[Tony Patino]

That's correct.

[Chris]

By the way, I noticed something. You know, Chad and I are, are big Purdue fans. We love Purdue basketball, which in case you checked the polls, you know, the rankings. You see. All right, I don't know if you saw where we're at and where is, where is Houston sitting at right now?

[Tony Patino]

They went down at number two.

[Chris]

I didn't see it. I just Was double checking. I couldn't quite check. Didn't know if you saw.

[Tony Patino]

It's gonna be a great season. I was just at the game last week.

[Chris]

Yeah, dude, it's gonna be a great season. I'm excited for it. But, man, that felt good to be able to rub that one in that you're just, you know, just one spot behind. But you know what? You ain't first. Yeah, last. You last.

[Tony Patino]

That is true. That is true, my friend.

[Chris]

So anyway, man, we're excited to have you on here, too. It's always interesting when we have someone on one of those are currently operating these big businesses, because I'm always curious to hear how, like, the transition happened, all that stuff from Alan to you. But. But what makes even more interesting is you came from outside the industry. So Alan's like, hey, take this behemoth of a company, you know, even though you didn't come from the. Come from this world and, like, run it, you know, like, this sounds like a great idea, but you've had a lot of success since you've been on board there, too. And. And, you know, and you, you know, you have a great friendship with, you know, Daryl, who's been here, Bingham from Parker and Sons, who's current day, you know, operator over at Parkinson's, and, you know, some of the other, you know, Wrench. You know, wrench group guys you have good access to. But I'm curious, you know, it's always interesting. Like I said, we have somebody from outside the industry, and. And you have this. You have this history from. I think you're at Aramark, which is the. The uniform services, and then you went into moving. The moving business, and then.

[Tony Patino]

Right.

[Chris]

I think I'm trying to get your. I'm trying to get your history right. I'm gonna actually have you re. You reiterate some of this stuff for me. But then you got. How you got into. How you got into abacus wasn't like you knew Alan. It was. I think you got recruited into. Into that world. And so part of what I wanted to cover is and you got recruited into like. Like a upper. Like an upper leadership role in this business. And. And so I'm just curious. I want to walk through Alan's thought process on pulling into the business and then how you like what you did, because I'm certain you had to earn, like, the trust and, like, you know, these people. People probably thinking, what the hell is this guy doing? Like, why is Alan bringing him in? You know, And. And I want to talk through some of those challenges. But, but a lot of what I hope is for our listeners is, you know, Tony comes from outside the industry and has been very successful in the industry. And I think we need to understand why, like why and how, what did that look like? And so that's kind of my hope for, for this one is exactly that. So maybe what we can do is we'll, we'll just, you know, maybe we'll be, we'll share, you know, I'm going to have you share a little bit more depth to your background so people can kind of understand where you come from. But you've spent a lot of time in management, I mean, even since like the 90s, right? General management or district management. And so maybe just go ahead and share. Like I said, maybe some Cliff Notes version of, of your back of your background and then I'll jump into some of the, some of the other questions.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, Chris, thank you and pleasure to be here, man. It's exciting to be on the show. I'm a big fan of you guys and long time listeners. I'm a long time listener, man. I'm, I'm a student of the game. I'm, that's, I think one of the secrets to success in any industry you get into is you got to gotta, you gotta be a continual learner and you gotta dive yourself into whatever you're, whatever you don't know. You just got to figure out and get, and get educated, however you can get educated. Right. And this is one of the areas I, I or one of the shows I listen to.

[Chris]

Hey, is this your first podcast?

[Tony Patino]

It is my first podcast.

[Chris]

Chad, we did it.

[Tony Patino]

So excited, excited, excited to be here, man.

[Chris]

Okay, well, sorry, I'll stop interrupting you. I'll go ahead and let you go now.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, no, so, yeah, my background's a little, little different. Right. So I started off in retail. I, I've been, I got in retail right out of high school and kind of spent 20 years in retail from a stock guy all the way to multi unit director and did that and then kind of said, hey, listen, I got a pivot. And then I got on with Airmark and I was a general manager for Airmark, running their Houston market for them in the uniform side. And, and, and it's funny because, you know, working in retail, you, you learn a lot. You, you learn how to connect with people at, at all different phases and especially when you got into multi unit and different leadership. So I started leading teams at like 24 years old. So I was, or I've Been, I've been doing, I'll be 51 tomorrow. So it's been, it's been a minute since I've been leading, leading groups.

[Chris]

So yeah, Tony, Chad was at retail too, except his was a little different. He worked at Abercrombie and.

[Tony Patino]

I didn't work there. I worked in the sporting goods. Man, I love tennis shoes and, and so I got, I got to, yeah, I got exposed to that early on, so no Abercrombie for me.

[Chris]

I love doing that to you, Chad. That makes my heart so happy to watch you get frustrated when I say those things that aren't true.

[Tony Patino]

But yeah, man. So got out of retail. Then I went into Aramark and we spent almost five years as a GM running their Houston market and learned a lot there. More on the B2B side, but learned how to run a sales team, learn how to, you know, how to sales reps, learned all that business. And then I got into moving. I did moving for a little bit and that was a whole different animal for me. Ran, I was a director for them in the, for the state of Texas and learned call center. I learned how to, how to run a call center out of there. A little different than order taking call center, but more of a sales center. So that, that was unique. And then got recruited over to Apkus. And so, yeah, unique background came on Abacus 2017. We were probably a little over a year into the Wrench relationship and one of the first companies in with Wrench and, and I think at the time we were, you know, $30 million. So we, we've, we've grown a little bit since then and, but it was just kind of timings everything and the opportunities were everything. But once I got a chance to spend some time with Alan, I knew this was the place to be.

[Chris]

And what, Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. You said 30 million. I did. I do remember that conversation. And then where is Abacus at? Where were you guys finished at roughly today?

[Tony Patino]

Just for some, probably a little bit. Almost 100 and 708.

[Chris]

Okay. So obviously big, big jump since you've been on board there. So I'll be curious to kind of talk through that phase with you. I, I'm, I'm interested. I didn't ask this question. I should have asked it because we were busting your chops about Houston University of Houston. But what did you go to school for?

[Tony Patino]

Well, I, I say I went to school. I went, I went to school for business. I, I, I wasn't the best student man I, I know. I, I, I, I enjoyed school. I enjoyed, you know, the, the elements of school. I wasn't the best student.

[Chris]

Did you get a good social degree like I did?

[Tony Patino]

I did, yeah. Yeah, I got a master's degree in it.

[Chris]

Something to be said for getting a good social degree.

[Tony Patino]

That's right, man. That's right. But no, but you know what? In every stop you do, man, you learn, you learn different things. You, you build relationships and you learn and you, and I think that's kind of been my, you know, you asked me what's, what's helped me along the way. It's being able to, to, to pivot and being able to learn and being able to understand, hey, you're good at certain things and you're not good at other things, and you got to figure out how to surround yourself around people that are better than you.

[Chris]

Help me understand this real quick. Okay, so, so you get your, you come. I mean, you clearly, you must be great with people. Like, so you have these people skills, and if you're, if you got a master's degree in your social game in college, you're definitely good with people. I'm good with people. But when you get recruited for this and you have your first conversation with, with Alan, who's a, who's a plumber by trade, right? And what's like, what is that conversation where he's like, yeah, you seem like the perfect fit for this, for this job. Like, how did that conversation go?

[Tony Patino]

Well, you know, so, so uniquely, you know, so a little different. Chris, I think we, we talked about this previously. So initially, when I met Alan, they were looking for a GM. So this was 2016, right? Maybe. Yeah, yeah, 2016. So I was, I was a GM for, for Abacus. I mean, excuse me, for Airmark at the time. Yeah. Were looking for a gm. The GM at Abacus was, she was moving out of state, and so she, they had to get a. Looking for a GM and, you know, went through the whole process with him and really, really got a chance to meet him and just understand what his, his background, how he was. And it just, we connected. We connected really, but it didn't work out. It just wasn't in the cards for me to, to take that role. At the time. They went a different direction. I was, you know, Chris, as I said, I was devastated, man. I was like, what? Hell, because I, you know, I didn't, haven't had, I haven't worked in a lot of places and, but, but not getting a job was like, what the Hell's going on. And, but I knew, you know, just things happen and, and I'm a man of faith and things happen for different reasons and you just got to run the course with it, right? So Fast forward about 18 months later, I get a call from the same recruiter, says, hey, you, you still interested in advocates? I said, hell yeah. What's going on? He goes, well, we got this, this role. It's not a GM role, but it's different. I go, okay, well, I'll be working for Alan. He goes, no, you're going to be working for the gm. Oh, so the person that got the job from me, right? I said, oh, okay. Well, tell you what. Yeah, I'd love to talk to him. So had lunch with Alan and, and, and you know, we just kind of picked up. He said, hey, we're changing a little bit. We're changing the model. I need you to run. I want to, I want to put a different leader in the plumbing division. And we, we want to scale the business. I need an operator. I need somebody who understands how to, how to build this business out. And you got to remember, we started as a PL company and Allen's RMP and everything still runs through Allen on, on the, on the plumbing side. So to take on his baby, right, you gotta like, okay. And, but it just, Timing was good. I mean, I came in at the right time. We were getting ready to move buildings. We had just, like I said, we were a little bit of a year plus in the relationship with ranch. A lot of things were happening and he's like, you know, I, I, my background was operations and building great teams and, and it just, it kind of worked. And it's, I had a lot of success early on and got added in. He's probably six months in. He said, hey, I want you to take on the electrical division as well. I said, well, you know, well, let me back up a little bit. Our lunch meeting. He's like. I said, alan, I'm not a plumber, man. I don't, I don't know anything about plumbing. Said, I don't need you to be a plumber. I got you. You're going to have master plumbers that are going to be working for you. I need you to be, you know, you, you have a different skill set that they don't. I need you to come in and help me build this business and help me scale it. And so I, it was good. But, you know, knew, knew at first I had to overcome, I had a big thing to overcome. A. I Had a brand new industry I was getting into. I had a whole new team that was really, really tied to, to the, to the founder and the, the guy that's in charge. And so, but I knew if I, if I could build relationships with those guys and get the plumbers on board with me and where, you know, what I could do for them, help them, you know, ultimately get what they wanted, things would happen. And, and that's, that's, that's kind of been the secret and just building relationships with people.

[Chris]

Yeah, I was gonna go, go down that path. I just want to ask you real quick. Did you have some, like, misconceptions about this industry coming into, like, I mean, you came from the moving industry, so it's not like, it's as, it's much glorious. More glorious. I mean, but like, but did you have some, like, misconceptions?

[Tony Patino]

I did. I really did. I really didn't. You know, coming in, I was like, man, you know, it can't be that difficult to run this, you know, come from the moving business. You got all this, different clients. You got B2B coming from retail. But so, yeah, just. It's not a very complex business that, but it can be. There's a lot of moving parts to it and I think, you know, operators make it more complicated than it needs to be. I think you just keep things simple and, and things kind of work itself. But yeah, there was a, definitely some, some misconceptions on my end when I, when I came in the door.

[Chris]

So. Okay, so let's, let's. I'm gonna, I'm gonna like, walk through this journey with you. Okay, so you, you started talking about this. But what I immediately think of is, okay, now Alan, the founder of this business is, is now, now Tony. And Tony has to lead these, these plumbers and master plumbers, right? And some master, like. And you have to earn their trust, respect all the above. Right? Person might be able to lead them. Clearly, Alan must have saw something because he said, no, no, Tony, you have a different skill set. I don't need plumbers. I got, I have plumbers. Right, so you talked about having to earn their trust. What, what did you do? Well, I'm assuming the team was. It's a big team. You had a lot, probably a lot of plumbers. And so what did you do to start, like, like, walk me through, like these first six months. Like, are you just taking the time to like, create relationships? Like, how did you earn the trust and respect the team? Because you can't scale it and grow and do the things without that.

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[Tony Patino]

Yeah. So first of all you got to like put park your ego and title and everything else you, you think you have to decide, right? These are guys that are so for I, I, I'm a, you got to have humility. And I, I think that's the number one thing is you, you gotta be genuine and you gotta have humility in what you're doing and you gotta come from a place of wanting to truly help people. And I think that's what the, the guys really recognized early on with me is I'm not here to, to be your boss. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. Really I am, I truly am vested in your best interest as a leader. My job is to lead people, not to Boss people around. So I genuinely wanted to roll my sleeves up, understand what they did, understand where their pain points was and understand what their goals were. Like, hey, man, most of them, it's financially, I want to make more money or I want to buy my first car or my first house on my car. But, you know, they each had their own individual story. And I think that's the whole key to. It's just understanding their story and them understanding my story and understanding that, hey, I'm not here to, to change anything. I'm here to make it better, right? I'm here to kind of build some things that we have a phenomenal brand, we have a phenomenal foundation. How can I make life better for you so you can earn more money and help me kind of build this business out? And at the time, we were probably 20, 20, but about 20 people, 20 plumbers at the time. I mean, we're up to about 60 something now. So in Houston. So you, you figure like, hey, you, you're just learning, you know, you're kind of learning. But I had to first get the managers to buy it, right? I had to get. I had three, I had three managers, you know, two journeyman plumbers, one master plumber that I had to get on my team. They had to understand that I was, I was in it for them and I was here to help them grow as well. So that was, that was my first order from then, was in, you know, working with the guys in the field.

[Chad Peterman]

Hey, Tony, I guess I think what you said is spot on.

[Chris]

It's.

[Chad Peterman]

We, we always have the philosophy around here of ease their pain out in the field. And oftentimes it's not like, it's not full scale changes, it's the little stuff. Like, I had a meeting with electricians today who said that it would be really nice if we could just get these damn connectors on our truck so that I don't have to go and like submit an order and do all this. And we're like, well, that would make you happy. They're like, yeah, it's just a pain. Can we please fix this? Like, absolutely. That seems like the easiest thing I'll do all day with the biggest result. What were some of those things? Like, maybe early on that you discovered that, you know, not that anybody was doing anything wrong, it was just they were overlooked. Or as you're building relationships, it's like, hey, this is some really low hanging fruit that can make a big impact, even though it may not look or feel like it would.

[Tony Patino]

That's a great question, Chris. Chad. That's a great question. So the timing worked out. We were just. We were going through, like I said, wrench, early stages. And so Service Titan was rolling out, right? We had to get. That was like task number one. So it was getting these guys to really go. And Abacus was probably ahead of its time because we were already using iPads and this type of stuff. But they weren't necessarily. It was all done on PDFs and anyway, so helping them with the transition and it. And it just the small things of just making the. Making Service Titan as easy as possible for them. So I was the guy who rolled out Service Titan. I was the one that was leading it up for Abacus. And of course, you know, I was very intimate with them and the guys as far as learning what Service Titan can do and then helping them, really. But just listening to them, what do they want to see in this? What can. How does it. How does the price book need to be set up so that it's easy for them to build tasks and find or find tasks and to. To, you know, ultimately do things that they need to do? So those are just some of the things. I mean, there's probably. Man, there's so many little things that we did over the. Over the. But it's. A lot of it is just kind of talking with the guys in the meetings, hearing them, and because I tell the team here all the time, we can have the greatest ideas in the world sit in the side of a room, but until you go out there in the field and see what these guys are dealing with, it doesn't work. And sometimes it's just a small change. It's just hearing them out. And if one or two of them are having a problem, all of them, it's something that's relevant to all of them. And it is the small things. It's the small things that matter to them. Could be a phone mount inside of a truck so they're not, you know, fumbling around with their phones. It could be a bunch of little things over the years. But, yeah, early on it was. I would definitely say Service Titan was a big. A big. And once they understood, hey, I was here to help them with Service Titan. I wasn't here to try to make their life more complicated with it. They really. That kind of helped me a lot.

[Chris]

I. Okay, so hang on a second. Let me. Let me. I think you skipped over something that I want to make sure. Or maybe I heard it wrong. So you come on board, you move into A new facility in that time frame. Is that, is that right? That's right. New build. Okay. You bring on another trade at some point and you bring on service Titan. All this stuff is happening like simultaneously. Is that, is that, did I hear that right? Is the timeline right?

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, within the, within the first year.

[Chris]

Within the first year. Dear God. On the scene.

[Chad Peterman]

Well, we know why Allen was looking for help. Hey, there's some big projects. I'm gonna need an extra set of hands off. Makes all the sense of the world now.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. And I think, you know, again, my background. Yeah, I work. I, I've always been really good with technology. I've always been really, really good with technology. And it, it was, you know, just my dad was an engineer growing up, so anyway, so I was always, I was always fascinated by ways to be more efficient, how to use technology in your favor, make things easier for yourself, um, et cetera. So learning service Titan was easy for me. That was like the easy part. Learning how to bring some of this stuff to the trade. So that was probably where I, you know, where I found myself, you know, at early on is just sign, hey, these guys struggle with this stuff. They struggle. They, there's not that they, they can do a lot of great things in the house. They can do a lot of phenomenal things. If I can make their life easier with just technology and understanding it a little bit better and, and building it so that it's, it's, it's user friendly for them and it's built for them, then I have a little bit of a, I have some, you know, and then as I learned the bit, as I learned the trades a little bit more and learned the business. But that, that's what I, that was kind of my early wins and, and that really helped me a lot with the guys because I became the, the go to guy for, you know, anything, anything service titan related.

[Chris]

Oh, I, I can see it now. Dude. First off, you took. This all makes sense on how you earned your trust real quick because you, you took the technology, learned it for him, were the crutch for probably some time for some of them. And, and, and, but that way you're like, oh, okay, cool. They, and so you leverage that complicated process for them and which was a strength for you, and you earned their trust through that, which is great. Like, so that, that makes total sense. So then, then let me think about this. When, when that was kind of done, you know, and which is a, typically a pretty long onboarding process. And, and, and you know, for, for all that were there some, like, early challenges, too, that you face where, like, some of these people are pushing back on you, you know, because that, that has a shelf life, right? Like that. That has the shelf life.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah.

[Chris]

What were some of these, like, early challenges where these guys push back on you? Like, hey, man, like, thanks for the service titan stuff. We really appreciate you running a business, but you don't know how to be. You're not a plumber now, did you. You had to have gotten some of.

[Tony Patino]

That a little bit. Yeah, definitely. You know, but I would say, Chris, we had a, I have a great team of managers, right? I, I, I built a great, Brought my own guys, you know, brought a few of my own guys in, and a lot of it was just team internal. I promoted some guys, of course, working with Alan on, hey, making sure I've gotten the right, the right kind of guy that we're looking for. But the managers really kept a lot of that off me in terms of, like, the tech. I didn't have to answer technical questions and they would, you know, those guys handled all that part. I handle more of the operational pieces and, and leadership functions of the, of the department and kind of strategy of how do we grow, right? How do we grow? How do I make things easier for them? How do we, you know, leverage this? How do we expand into treatment? You know, I was all, I was that guy that was coming now. Then it became fun, right, as you, as I started to learn the, the trade themselves, the trade itself and saying, okay, well, why don't, you know. And I, I had the benefit of being the guy from the outside so I could ask the dumb questions and not like, okay, well, like, why is that? Like, make, make. Help me, Help me understand it. Right? And, and, and so then it's like, okay, but yeah, you guys are missing the easy stuff that's right here. So that was also helpful for me with building, building the relationships with the managers, building the trust inside the building. But then it just, I think Alan kind of saw that in me, and I, that's why he said, hey, well, I need you to kind of lead up this electrical division as well. And by the way, we were like a million dollars in electrical at the time. We're, you know, we're pushing north close to 20 now.

[Chris]

When did you add electrical? When Was that?

[Tony Patino]

Late 2017. So within the first year, I had two, two departments. Okay.

[Chris]

Okay, so was, so was it okay, Got it. Okay, I'm tracking.

[Chad Peterman]

All right.

[Tony Patino]

Yep.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Tony Patino]

So yeah, and, and, but electrical, again, I, I wasn't necessarily the. I was the guy in the background. We had it. We had a operations manager that was the face of the department with the. In a very small department. Right. But my job was to help scale it. It was to help, again, take the same things I was doing in plumbing. Help them with the price books, help them with the service titan pieces that was coming up, but also kind of get. Get anything out of their way that was helping them from growing. Worked with. We worked with Chris Crew a lot on the electrical side to help kind of build that out for us. So, yeah, I got in it all the stops. I was just learning. I was learning different things. I was learning from different people. Of course, wrenches at time, we just keep. We kept growing. So building relationships within wrench and anything and everything I could get my hands on, I was. I was. I was absorbing.

[Chris]

I mean, you got Tony of plenty of mentorship in that. In that group.

[Tony Patino]

Tons of mentorship. I mean, again, timing's everything, right? So. Built some phenomenal relationships with Kevin Comerford. And of course, Allen, you have pk. You have all these guys that are. You know, these are the guys, legends of the business that I got a chance to work with and. And just sit. I was the guy in the background. And of course, Alan was still running the company. But I got a chance.

[Chris]

I'm.

[Tony Patino]

I'm one of those guys that just sits there, observes, takes notes, figures it out. But just being exposed to those guys and say, well, how the hell is Kevin doing it out there in Northern California where it's. It's 200 degrees in Texas and we're not nearly his size in H vac. What is he doing? So, you know, got a chance to go out there and spend some time with him and Ray and those guys to learn their business. So I've always been a student of the business, and I think that's what people say. You just gotta be continually learning how to. How to sharpen yourself.

[Chad Peterman]

So I've got a question for you. This may be somewhat selfish. Cause we're trying to solve this problem here. But you mentioned water treatment. And I feel like water treatment is one of those things where it's often overlooked. I think we're aware of it, but, you know, customers overlook it because there's companies out there that just do water treatment. And, you know, you're the plumber, so just fix the pipes. And it's like, well, no, we can actually, you know, improve your water quality and do all of these things. Like what? Give me a sense of what you said when you focused on that like what. What does that look like for you guys? Is it part of plumbing? Is it somewhat apart but separate? What's that look like for you guys?

[Tony Patino]

Well and great, great question. So yeah, Alan, Alan always wanted to do water treatment but we could not do it. He just wouldn't have a lot of success with the plumbers. They just couldn't, they couldn't buy into it. So he said listen, I want to do water. So in 2019 he said that was one of the things he tasked me with was to launch a water to treatment division. We did and we had, but we had a, we had a. I went out and hired a guy from, from, from Culligan and, and we brought. It was totally separate. Hired a salesperson, an installer. But he wanted to do it the advocates way. We wanted to have high quality and wanted a plumber to install it. So we did all of the things that you know that, that meant something to the brand and kind of consistent with us. But. And then the plumbers, all they had to do was turn leads over. They were, they were the ones that were. So we had a whole spiff program around them turning leads over to our salesman. Salesman would sell it, we would install it. And then we went from there now and then of course as we built it out the plumbers started. Now they started seeing them. Well that's a, you know, six thousand, seven thousand, eight thousand dollar sale. Let me, let me get some of that action. Let me figure out how to, how to, how to sell water treatment now. Because it became real to them. So yeah, I think that's. We had to separate it because we just weren't getting traction by just trying to keep it inside our plumbing group.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, I think that's what we're seeing too. Like it's what gets focused on, gets fixed. And I think that. And then I think you know, very similarly like generators on the electrical side. To me I kind of categorize those two in the same kind of realm as like these are totally separate. There are business. What I always see when there are businesses that just do that we ought to probably think about it like they think about it. Even though we offer a bunch of stuff.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, we. And so generators is a great story because we, we had. Everybody was asking us when are you going to do generators? When are you going to generate man, until we get our service like our, our normal, our, our core business of electrical down into where we're. That's our, that's our core business. And we'll worry about generators when we got there. And so 2023, we kind of did, we launched generators and we did it as I call it a hobby. Right? It was just like we want to do it in the background, we want to make sure we're doing it right. But. And then we quickly learn, hey, there's a whole lot of complexity to this thing versus electrical. And it's. So yeah, we, and then last year, fast forward last year, we had all the storms in Houston and we, we did a small tuck in in Austin with it and all of a, all of a sudden we became, we got in the generator business and we learned really quickly that you have to pull it out and separate it. You have to have a whole different work process because it involves plumbers and you got all this stuff going on. And overnight it became a, you know, a separate vertical for us in both Houston and Austin.

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[Chris]

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[Chris]

Be Prolific. Yeah, man. In a good market for it.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If it isn't freezing, it's freaking raining, and. And. And hurricanes and tornadoes, man.

[Chris]

You know, when you and I were. When you and I were. We're talking, I think it was a week ago, a few weeks ago. I can't remember at this point, you. I had asked you a question because it was around, like, who's your hot. Who's your. Like your hire? Like, when you said, when you finally got your feet under you, you know, and. And when you. You. I mean, Jesus, when you were starting, you were tackling a lot at the same time. I understand why Alan brought you on board, and clearly he thought you were capable. And. And then once you proved it out, then adding the other industries was. The other service lines was easy because he knew they knew how to scale these things. But if you remember this, I asked you, I said, well, what was the one place where you realized like, hey, man, I'm, you know, we have a major problem here. This is one thing that I'm focused on too many other things. I said, who was your first hire? Like, who was your first real hire? That kind of, you know, that. That helped you. And you said, sales. You needed a sales leader. And so maybe it was just talk about, you know, how did you. How did you identify? Like, that gap in sales leadership? And. And then, like, what. Just, like, what was the process there? Because then you got to bring in a leader, and then you gotta, like, hopefully bring in somebody else that those people trust, like, and then try to build some. So you're kind of like, doing the same thing Alan was doing for you. You're now having to do it for this person you bring in. So maybe how deep into this. Like, into your time there was it before you did this and then maybe explain that process.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. So this would have been 2022, 2021. I think we. We made it. Alan and I were talking, and of course, I'm at the point. I was. I was a vice president at this point of operations. And I said, alan, I think we, you know, we plateaued a little bit in the trades. I think we've got to, you know, we've got to start looking at maybe, you know, bringing in. Because we had, of course, we grew at different stages, but we had. Electrical was its own division. Everybody was running in their own way, but they weren't necessarily Talk Our sales process was all over the place. We were different in each trade. I said we need to bring in somebody that can help standard sales process so we can scale this thing on the sales side. We do. We do a lot of great service stuff install, but we're really inconsistent trade to trade and and then with. With at the time we were about to launch the Greenfield, I said we really got to get a sales process down. So that's really what drove the decision to get a sales, you know, director. So we went out and went outside the the company and hired somebody and, and you know, the person had all had the great resume, the great background, but just did not connect well with what like the culture of abacus and who we were. We pivot. You know, you hire quickly or you take it. You hire, you take your time hiring the right person and. But if they don't fit, they don't fit. You got to move quickly. And we move. We pivoted pretty quickly off of him and got another person in and. And that person was a home run. Right. That person really kind of helped us and what it did is just helped us build some process helped us show what we could do with when it came. If we had somebody focused on sales and and driving the business the top phenomenal year in 2023, 24. And then so yeah, it really really set. Set the stage for us as we as we move forward with.

[Chris]

Did they come from the industry or outside the second.

[Tony Patino]

He came from inside the industry as well.

[Chris]

Yep. Okay. Okay. And so, so does that process look like you have a recruiter reaching out or is this somebody you guys had on your radar or like how. How that go? How'd that work?

[Tony Patino]

Yeah yeah. By that point we. We have. We have a recruiting team here, local recruiting team for put put together a rec for that job and job description and what we were looking for went through a bunch of different candidates, but found one that was a, that was a great fit for us.

[Chris]

Did you maybe maybe just talk through then you. You place this first off, you put in one person. I'm not sure how long that person was there before you said see you later. What was that time frame? The first one that came in because you said you hired you fired him pretty quick because you knew within six months. Okay cool, so six months. So but enough time to where now you bring somebody else back in. They're like okay, here we go again. Like. Cause now that person has to prove it out right? Because so like what maybe explain how that process like well, how did you support that person? First off, I was like, did you know? Like, because, you know, you had to know you're going to be battling that trust piece of it, right? From the, from the team. How did you, how did you approach that to support this person? Like, what did they do? Did they kind of follow a similar process to what you did when you came in from the moving space where you're trying to build trust? Like, maybe just explain that to me a little bit.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. So we brought this gentleman in. So again, he, he, he was local. The other guy was from outside the city. So we, he moved in. So it was a little. He had a lot going against him, the first, the first gentleman, and then he just could not connect with the people. So the first, the second one, as we brought him in is like, hey, more than anything else, a, you got to have the skills that we're looking for, but B, you got to be able to. Are you a culture fit for us? Are you a fit for what we're trying to do? Are you a fit for me and my team and what we're trying to do? And, and, and the answer was yes. I think, you know, he, and he brought in a few people with him, transition himself, you know, a few, a few top, top tier sales people. That was, you know, a little bit different for the guys as well, because you're like, okay, here comes this guy bringing all his own people in and so learning how to mesh those with our existing team. That's really where I kind of helped him a lot with that is like, okay, we're, we're, you know, we're one team. Here's. But here's, here's why we're doing it. And I, and, and Alan always talked about like, hey, you, you address the guys and you, you do everything up front. You tell them what you're doing, why you're doing it, the, the why behind it, and how we're going to have a path forward instead of trying to, you know, when you don't say that or you don't come up in front of everybody and tell them what that is, then they start speculating. Then, then the rumor mill goes and then everything else kind of follows it. Right? So always kind of remember, you know, always into this day, we do the same thing. So I think when you, when you look at the transition from me to Alan, a lot of it was just me observing what he did, kind of taking those lessons and saying, okay, here's what we got to do. We got to, we got to acknowledge the fact that we, that we struck out, like, hey, we. We brought a guy in. It wasn't, you know, I've always tell you, we're not, we're not afraid to push the envelope. We're gonna, we're gonna make some decision. We're gonna strike out, we're gonna make some bad ones. But we move quickly, we pivot, and here's what we're doing going forward. And I think people, they have one or two choices, they're gonna accept it and move forward, or they're gonna kind of live in the past and you just coach those other ones out. You coach the ones or, you know, get them on the right page.

[Chris]

But that's upgrade. Yeah, but I mean, I, I imagine, like, you know, you have your new sales guy come in and he brings, I'm assuming you bring some, like, strong salespeople with him. Now you're like, oh, we get some competition. So you either people are going to be like, screw this, or they're gonna, like, step up. You know what I mean? Like, and you kind of got both sides in the. On the sales world. It's interesting because Chad and I, in our roofing business just brought on a two new sales people, which sales leaders at that, too. And so I'll be interested to see how all that stuff plays out. And they kind of came together as a package deal where they'd done it previously for another roofing business. But you got to kind of have everybody, you know, bought in and want to be led by them. And those that don't will weed themselves out, you know, I think naturally, I think that's what I think. Obviously, I, like, I, I, I'm a sales guy, I guess I should say. I started as a salesperson, so I really understand, like, the thought process of salespeople, and I think that and the decision making of salespeople. But it's when you get, like, intimidated, I think, is when your reaction is to just talk, you know, or, like, be toxic, and then, you know, and then you leave because you actually don't know how to, like, just, like, just go and compete. Like, but I want to go and, like, compete. I'm like, oh, you're gonna bring in somebody you think is better than me? Like, okay, like, let's go. And I think you got both ends of the spectrum. And then you have the middle people, which we all need. We need that, like, median that are just kind of cool with, like, ah, it's cool. Like, I just want to keep selling, you know, and making, you know, My hitting my numbers and I'm fine with that, you know, and, but, but still, you know, the, the, you know, you have to develop as a leader, you still have to develop your team, like even the best salespeople. So. But in order to do that, you have to have people's trust and respect and things like that. So when that person came in, I'm certain he probably had like, did he have like a. Hey, I come in. Here's part of my sales training process. Like, here's what I like, my regimen, I like to have. Was it like, did he bring that in? Did you guys give him what you want? He had to marry the two together. Like, how did that work?

[Tony Patino]

No, Chris and I think that was our biggest. Like we didn't have a real defined sales process. As big as we were at the time. We, again, every trade was kind of doing their own thing. We didn't have a abacus system, if you will.

[Chris]

Were you cross marketing, Tony? Were you guys cross marketing between trades?

[Tony Patino]

Yes.

[Chris]

Yeah, like cross selling. I mean, between.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, that. Well, not as much as we are today back then, but, you know, back up a few years ago, plumbing, you know, not. Yeah, not, not to the degree like we wanted. Right. That was an opportunity for us. We feel like we have a phenomenal brand. We're not just a plumbing company. We're not just an H vac company. People still didn't know we did electrical and they definitely didn't know we did water treatment. So that was, that was the other part of. Is how do we build up sales process that tells a customer that, hey, we, we're your one stop shop. We can sell the entire, you know, we can help you in your entire home, not just your plumbing needs or so that was part of it. And that to this, I mean, even to this day, we're still, we're still refining that whole thing with. When it comes to cross selling.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, Tony, on the cross selling thing. So I asked this question because I think you're 100% right. Is there is so much opportunity there that I think we sometimes add other trades. Forget that it's still one company offering all these services. So we may want to tell the customer about all of this stuff we just got done building like this app thing where all the technicians, their stuff goes and we put the referral tool right by the button that they hit four times a day to talk to dispatch. And just in the first two weeks of rolling it out, along with a spiff program for cross trade leads, the results were phenomenal. And then you start to look at, well, every lead on Google continues to cost more and more. This lead, I've already paid for it once. My cost per lead is just basically the spiff that I pay the technician. So what, I guess maybe tell us a little bit more about that program, like how you guys do it, because I think it could be super beneficial for contractors out there that are, that have multiple trades. And you know, I think everybody says, oh, well, we could do that. But like, there's got to be more than that to really make it fruitful.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. So as we're, as we were talking through this, you know, backing up a few years ago, we, we asked, we, we said, hey, we've got a good membership base. But believe it or not, our membership base, they're, they're in silos too. We started off as a, you know, we have a, we had three different core memberships. And you know, we had, at this time we were probably pushing 18, 19,000 memberships in Houston, but only like a thousand of them. A thousand home had us for all three trades. So that's what really drove our, our, our, our whole model shift, right? And it, and it married up with our cross seller. And that's when we rolled out vip. So VIP is a one membership, it's a monthly membership, it's a single price, and it gets you all your, all your maintenance throughout your house. So now the customer say, so I'm not just a plumbing member, I'm a VIP member for your entire house. And so we, we pivoted off that. So that's how, you know, we kind of got around the house. Like, hey, we're not just your, we're not here to, you know, now the plumber's going to do his, his water heater flush. He's looking at an electrical panel. He's taking a picture of it as part of his safety check. And now we got a, we got an opportunity for our rehash team to go in and, and kind of, you know, book a job on or as we evolved our sales team over the last few years, now we, we cross train our, our sales team to be now their VIP salesman. They learn how to sell not just the H VAC system, but there we taught them how to sell. You know, we built out packages for them for water heaters, tankless water heaters, electrical panels. So now they can go in there and they may go on a lead or turnover lead for a, for a underground job or for, you know, and turn it into something that's Bigger right and leverage. Leverage, you know, one stop shop for us. But it all starts as a VIP member. We do so much business off our VIP memberships.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, that's awesome.

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[Chris]

You. You would have had a hell of a mentor in selling memberships and increasing revenue off memberships in Jamie D. Domenico down in Florida. He's just exceptional.

[Tony Patino]

That he was. He was.

[Chris]

Yeah, we did a podcast with him. God, Chad, I can't remember if you're on here, how long I actually might have been before you too, where we talked about how he scaled that, you know, cool. Today is his business. If you guys aren't familiar with Jamie D. All right, Chad, do you know who Jamie D. Domenico is?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, he's a neck old neck star guy.

[Tony Patino]

Right, right, right.

[Chris]

Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, it was a good one because he was just talking about how he scaled that thing off of like, I can't remember how many. It was huge. Like 25, 30 million the bucks or something like that off of membership, like, upsell revenue. I'm like, dear God. Like, so, yeah, you had a. You had. Had a good person to reach out to on that one. And you know what I was thinking about when you guys are talking about water treatment, you know, pushes it really, really hard. Out here is Parker and Sons. I pushed Ro, like quite a bit.

[Chad Peterman]

Like, that's when I was there, like three years ago. I remember they had like a barn of water softeners. And I'm like, are you moving all.

[Chris]

All these things?

[Chad Peterman]

He's like, oh, yeah, probably like 50 a day. I'm like, oh, my God. All right, let's go sit down and talk about this. I didn't figure this piece out.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Tony Patino]

And I think that's the. The power and the beauty of, like, so when we were talking about it, you know, Alan said, hey, like, reach out to Daryl and those guys at Parker. They've got a phenomenal, you know, model. And that way we don't have to necessarily, like, reinvent the wheel. Like, let's just take what they do. You modified for us. Now, of course, we don't. In Houston, we don't have hard water. We just have bad water. Right. We got a lot of contaminants in the water. Austin, they have hard water. So it's a little different in each market, but the process is the same. You still got to get. You got to get people to feel like they need it. Right. And. And that was the thing in Houston. People didn't necessarily, you know, they didn't grow up with. With water softeners. And it wasn't a neat item, but it's, you know, over time, it became, hey. As we marketed to it, people started saying, hey, can you give me one of those. Those water treatment systems? They're going to give me some fresh water. And so, yeah, it's. It's really evolved. But yeah, we definitely learned a lot from. From Daryl and the guys at Parker.

[Chris]

You know, I want to make sure I get the timeline of this thing right. So you. You start your, you know, Abacus is a plumbing company. Ads HVA adds H vac. That's the second. That's the second trade, right? Yep. And that was a 2000 and somewhere in2017. No. H H vac was 2010.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Electrical. Electric was 2017.

[Tony Patino]

A little before, like, 16 is there was. Yeah, because when I got here in 17, they were probably a year into it and doing a little bit under a million.

[Chris]

Got it. Okay. So then when, like, before you start adding in, like, I'm. I'm. Water heaters aren't another vertical, but let's look at it like it's its own business. Just same as, like, generators. Like, the conversation we're just having. When do you start feeling like, okay, we added this one. Excuse me, we added this one. Okay, now it's starting to click. Now we're adding it. Like, do you. Because I would imagine, like, if we're wanting to bring on more things, they're kind of being like, well, okay, well, Tony's our guy. We're gonna bring on this line, or we're going to bring on this trade or this thing. They're trusting that, you know one. How to. How to build it, support it, and that you have to. But there's got to be something in there where you're like, okay, cool. Now this thing is, like, now we're going. This thing is clicking. Is there something that you're paying attention to on that? Is this, like, in the sales process? This installation is on the, you know, economics of the business? Like, what is it that you're. That you're saying, okay, cool. Like, this one's. This one's clicking? I could start thinking about something different.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. Because I don't know if there's anything that we were necessarily looking at. I think it was more of a, you know, strategic plan Alan had at the time to hate when it came to water. Like, electrical was already in the pipeline when I got here. Water was something he always wanted to do. We got that launched in 2019. We took our time with generators and a lot. It was a lot of, you know, him and I just saying, no, we don't, like, let's just get really good at what we do best. Right. Let's stay in our wheelhouse. Let's not try to outreach and do this or do that, because then you get distracted. Let's just stay really focused on this. But I think as we evolved and we got our electrical division where it was, like, best in, like, it was. It was humming along. Average ticket was there, close rates were there. You know, we're. We're. We're. We're maximizing this thing. Great margins. Let's say, okay, let's layer in generators and let's learn generators, but do it the abacus way. It was always making sure that we did it the abacus way, the standards that we have, not losing that touch when it came to our customer service, our quality, those were all important. You know, it wasn't necessarily about price or. And we knew that this was a phenomenal generator market. Generator superstores is the biggest, you know, place out there. So we knew that this is a good market for us, but we also knew we had to do it our. The right way, our way, and we had to make sure we layered it in properly. And so that's really been kind of how we. How we've done things over the years is just making sure we don't try to look too far ahead and just, let's take care of the blocking and tackling first. Let's make sure we're. We're executing the basics of the business at a high rate to where we feel like we're, you know, we're leveraging well, and then we can move into something else. We can take. We can take on that next. Next vertical for Us Whether it was, you know, generators.

[Chad Peterman]

Most recently, Tony, when you. When you bring on this new trade, and I think you mentioned in the water treatment, you had hired somebody to kind of lead the effort, would you say that finding that person that can be the champion behind it is the biggest piece of it actually being successful? I feel like I found where, you know, if you go tell the plumbing department, hey, guys, we want to focus on water treatment, it's like, well, no. 1. It's just like, okay, well, that. That along with a hundred other things that you're asking me to do. Sure, I'll get around to it. If I do, would you say that's the biggest key or is there some other piece of the puzzle and lifting up kind of a new line that you feel like has made you successful?

[Tony Patino]

I think we had to have an expert because none of us were experts in water, right? And at least for us, we knew about water and, you know, but we. We weren't good at it or we would have been really successful already. So we had to go outside and hire somebody that was an expert and somebody that was going to help us build it from the. The right way, from the ground up. And then from there, you know, we said, okay, how do we layer this in with what we want to do and. And let that person know, hey, I get it. You used to do your installs with this over there at your other company. That's just not our way of doing it. It's got to be this. We got to have this, and it isn't. And when we do that, it now it's. It ties into the brand times, into what we're saying from. From a marketing standpoint, and now we can get behind that. So, yeah, I think that the key is getting the right person, A person who doesn't have like, oh, it's my way or the highway type of thing is like, they understand what. What they're brought in for. And. And they're. The exciting part is they. A lot of people like to come in and say, hey, I can put my fingerprints on this along with your. Your brand and sell. And. And he's still here today. This was 2019, so he's. He's still leading our water division today. So I think we got the right person.

[Chris]

Hey, Culligan, man, Remember that old advertising?

[Tony Patino]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Isn't that what you brought in? You said he brought in a dude from Coligan.

[Tony Patino]

We did. We did.

[Chris]

So you gotta. Basically, this is actually gonna be. One of my questions was when you're. Whether you're when you're bringing in somebody from, like, outside the trade or even inside the trade in this instance, it makes sense because you want to have a specialist, but that specialist also needs to be somebody who's flexible to, like, learn that there's another way to get it, you know, to get it done, I think, which is what you get. Anytime we have somebody who's tenured.

[Tony Patino]

Right.

[Chris]

They kind of get set in their ways. But, so, so yeah, you want a specialist, but you want somebody who's also flexible to kind of maybe do it a little bit different that matches, like, what you guys want your culture.

[Tony Patino]

Correct. Yeah, you have to have that.

[Chris]

How do you find that? Like, when you see. This is where I always get struggle. I had, I had an interview today and I'm trying to ask, like, all the questions, you know, in a PC way to really get to the answer I want. I don't ever interview anybody ever at this business. Okay. Like, and for good reason. I don't because I'm definitely an HR issue, like, waiting to happen, because I don't know what questions you can and can't ask. I always forget. So, so I, I, I'm interviewing this person today and I'm trying to find out if, if their favorite color is, you know, red, if it's, you know, blue, they like, you know, elephants or donkeys or like, I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what, what questions can I ask of these people to find out, like, are they going to be a good cultural fit for this business that I, you know, that I'm not crossing the boundaries. So I, you know, I say those things, joke. I didn't ask them that, that person either one of those questions, but I asked chat. GPT. What are some questions I could, I could ask to find this answer. But there's got to be something that, like, you know, that you, you, when you have somebody who's skilled like that, it's a specialist coming in or any leadership role. There's still things that you guys probably have that you're asking to find out, like, are these guys gonna, are these guys are gals? Sorry, Are they going to work in this environment? They have the skill. We got it. Have the skill. But are they going to fit in this environment? Like, is there a go to, for, for you? I don't have anything. So I'm like, you're legit curious to hear what you're asking.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah, we, we do it, we try to do our best to find out is this person, do they have the Humility. Are they hungry? Are they humble? Hungry and smart? Right? Do they have the humility to. To take on, you know, to come in here and maybe, yeah, they may have 20 years at whatever company they come from. But are. Do they think. Do they have the ability to kind of part that to the side and say, hey, I'm going to come in and. And learn abacus? To learn the abacus way and the standards that abacus has? Am I hungry? Am I. Am I. And I don't. You know, do they. They have the drive. Do they have the drive to. To want to learn? And. And I. And I think that's, for me, like, I look back and I say, okay, I had to have humility when I came in here because I. I definitely needed. Well, even though I had years and years of experience of leading people, I knew nothing about the business, so I had to park my. My ego, park everything to the side and say, I'm going to learn this business. I'm going to learn these people. And I had a constant drive to learn. And I think that's the one thing I look for in leaders today, is I got to have people that are. That have that humility, that have that drive, and they have to be smart. And I don't mean book smart. I mean people smart. They have to have the ability to read a room. They have to have the ability to connect with people. They have to have the ability to say, hey, what's the right thing? What's the next right thing to do for this person? Or how do I help develop him or her? And so those are the things I look for, because again, Steel is still right. They. A lot of people will have years of experience in the industry, but I'm looking for somebody that's got that. That. That's got those other three traits.

[Chris]

Well, you know, one of. I've asked Chad this question before, and because Chad loves karaoke, that's one of his favorite questions is like, hey, what's your favorite karaoke song? Because, you know, Chad says, don't Stop believing. He's really good at singing Journey. And then, so, I mean, not everybody agrees with that, but I think it's, you know, you can tell a lot about the song choice. Somebody's asked hood, pick Chad, why don't you give us a little rendition, buddy?

[Chad Peterman]

I'm gonna go ahead and not do that. We'll continue on. I don't want to steal the spotlight from Tony here, so maybe on another episode.

[Tony Patino]

I have to do karaoke with you, man. I'm Terrible.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Hey, for our listeners and maybe even you, Chad, the abacus. You know what? You know what an abacus is?

[Tony Patino]

I do not.

[Chris]

So it's like a OG Calculator. It's like the old. So you. You put, like, one of these. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Do, you know, do a little math on that. On that thing? That's what an abacus is. Which, you know, I don't know if, Tony, if your teacher told you this, I'm sure that they did just like mine did.

[Tony Patino]

Right?

[Chris]

Is. They'd say, you know, I sucked at math. Like, really bad. Still suck at math. But they said, what are you gonna do, Carry a calculator in your pocket? Yeah, right. Called cell phones, so. So, Mrs. Fratrick, if you're listening, I got a calculator in my pocket every single day.

[Tony Patino]

That's crazy.

[Chris]

And, you know, I was not an abacus. That thing's too big.

[Tony Patino]

It's a. It's a phenomenal story. I don't know if you guys know the story of how even Alan came up with the name Abacus, but, yeah, so when he started the company, he was. You know, he was told, hey, you know, yellow Pages, obviously, was. Was the big. Was the big play at the time. So he wanted something that was yellow page friendly. So aba for abacus. And then. And it came to him and said, aba. Okay, you can count on us. You can count on an abacus. That's our tagline. You can count on us.

[Chris]

Could have worked, too.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, that was. It was funny because we were in Austin yesterday, and he was talking to the group, and he was kind of walking through the story of how he came up with the colors and how he came up with everything else. So it was a. It was a good history lesson for that group.

[Chris]

I don't think I asked that question. I didn't. I didn't know that. But that's actually. That makes total sense.

[Chad Peterman]

That's pretty cool.

[Tony Patino]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay, listen, I don't have anything else. I actually think that we hit on quite a bit of things, and we covered some of my questions just in the answer to some of the other stuff. But I'll tell you what. I think we got to get Chad. I think we got to get Tony. Do a rhino X. That's what we need to do.

[Chad Peterman]

That'd be awesome.

[Chris]

And mingle with the. You know, with the. With us, you know, common folk. Pretty good group coming. I'm excited for it. And I. I was talking to. To PK Yesterday. Okay. I was Actually in. I was actually at Google yesterday, so it was a. They basically bring in their top 40 independent largest agencies, like the C suites in there. And you basically. It's like one part. How did we do last year in supporting your business? One part. Here's all the new stuff. And then here's. Here's what you're going to get for next year, like, in support. And so it's kind of like a. Like a small group, like I said, Just 40 of us, you know, and. And every year I'm like, give me rebates. Give me rebates, like, to give back to our customers. But they have a lot of really cool. That they're building and putting out that we weren't. That we weren't using, that we have total access to for. For nothing. Right, right. And so it's just. It's interesting to hear, like, all the new things coming out, you know, And I'm like, okay. And I'm trying to think about all the cool. Google puts on a hell of a show when you go there. And I try to think, like, how can I make Rhino X cooler every year? And. And they're like, well, we can just come speak. I'm like, I said I want to make it cooler, not nerdy. Okay. Like, no, thank you. If you would have sat in that meeting, you'd have been on your phone like, the whole time, because it's like, so, like you're tech savvy, so you probably would have got.

[Tony Patino]

But my God, yeah, but I have attention span of like, you know, it was like 10 seconds, so I don't know. I don't know if I would have made it through the meeting.

[Chris]

Well, listen, man, congratulations, like, for being a cool success story for someone coming in out of the trades. Like, you've certainly earned, like, you're. You're here, you're in it, and you're doing well in it, so congratulations. And like I said, I kind of said jokingly, but Alan, you know, thinks the world of you. And he had so many nice things to say about you, and, and even, like, followed it up with, like, metrics, you know, to support his theory or his. His opinion on you.

[Tony Patino]

Phenomenal person, man. He's. He's a. He's a great leader, but he's an even better person. He is just one of. One of one.

[Chris]

And he already wins because he's got a cool accent, you know, so he's got that accent.

[Tony Patino]

Right?

[Chris]

But listen, man, we appreciate you making the time for us in the middle of the day. You know, and. And I'm glad we have what got done. I'm glad to be your first podcast.

[Tony Patino]

I'm excited. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity.

[Chris]

Yeah. Chad and I will have a special place in your heart for the rest of your life, I'm sure.

[Tony Patino]

I appreciate it, guys.

[Chris]

All right, man. Well, Chad, if you don't have anything else to go ahead and close us out to our listeners. You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero days.