Preaching Through the Pipes: Bubba Thurman's Journey to Leading a $100M Business

Summary

Podcast Summary: To The Point Home Services VIP Room

Episode: Preaching Through the Pipes: Bubba Thurman's Journey to Leading a $100M Business

Release Date: June 16, 2026
Host: Chris (with co-host Aaron)
Guest: Bubba Thurman, President of Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electrical (Dallas-Fort Worth, TX)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features Bubba Thurman, president of Baker Brothers, a legacy plumbing, HVAC, and electrical business in Dallas, Texas. The discussion focuses on Bubba’s unique transition from full-time ministry into leading a $100-million revenue home services company, the evolving dynamics of running such a business in a competitive, private equity-fueled market, operational and marketing challenges, and the impact of AI on the industry. Listeners gain actionable insights on leadership, integrity, and adapting to rapid industry change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bubba’s Background and Transition (06:24, 55:12)

• Bubba spent 22 years in full-time ministry before joining Baker Brothers, where he is now the first non-family president.
  • “I was asked to speak at [Jimmy Dale’s dad’s] funeral... It was just an honor to be trusted by the family to kind of be at the helm of something that they put their heart and soul in for a long time.” – Bubba (05:47)
  • On advice for his younger self: “I would write down the non negotiables, like right out of the gate... I think when you’re a young guy in the business, shiny objects are huge temptation... Keep the main thing the main thing.” (55:12)

2. Company Scale and Market Position (06:56)

• Baker Brothers has over 400 employees and is slated for about $110 million in revenue in a fiercely competitive Dallas-Fort Worth market.
  • “It’s super well known, well respected, big brand down in Texas... joined the Wrench Group back in 2017.” – Chris (05:18)

3. Peer Relationships & "Iron Sharpens Iron" (07:39, 09:30)

• Despite competition, Bubba maintains deep peer relationships with other local industry leaders, like Josh Campbell and Gus, marked by mutual respect, support, and even informal agreements not to poach employees.
  • “Our friendship supersedes all that. ...We try to sharpen each other... there’s a sense of reassurance, like, hey, we’re in the same boat here.” – Bubba (08:14)
  • “We have a gentleman’s agreement. ...If someone applies, Gus will call me and go, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ...We just kind of have a really cool gentleman’s agreement. ...We can still sharpen each other and not do anything detrimental to the business.” (11:32–13:55)
  • “Iron sharpens iron.” – Chris (14:01)

4. The Impact of AI & Digital Evolution (15:15–34:19)

• AI is fundamentally changing consumer review transparency, pricing pressure, and how companies must present themselves:

  • “AI is creating exposure. So nothing’s hidden. ...Our focus lately is we want to be good drivers, we want to be safe, we want to be dressed properly—all the small things... sentiment is really going to matter I think in the next 18 months as AI becomes more of a search engine.” – Bubba (15:15)
  • On pricing: “We're getting more and more pressure to give a price... I think AI is really changing that.” (15:15)
  • Community grassroots marketing is resurging; mere reliance on PPC is no longer effective due to drastically increased costs and competition.
    • “It’s so nice to be able to hear that from my seat today... It has changed drastically.” – Chris (21:20)
  • “AI will tell you quickly. ...This is fascinating to me.” (38:41)

• On starting with AI and customer sentiment:

  • “We partner with a company called Pixie... it kind of tells us, you know, where we’re good, where we’re struggling... We want to be a trusted brand. We promise great service.” – Bubba (24:39)
  • “If we’re going to be [a premium provider], we have to deliver on that. ...We failed to provide the value that we charged.” (25:31)

• AI in Internal Operations:

  • “We have AI in our call center now... our agent is Lacy. If the phones aren’t answered, you might get to talk to Lacy. ...If you’d asked me five years ago if we’d have like a bot answering the phone, I would have been like, what? This ain’t the Jetsons yet.” (30:33–33:29)

5. Transparency, Integrity, and Industry Reputation (41:20–44:24, 50:24)

• On what’s “broken” in the industry: “Transparency. ...There is a lot of people that do things that probably they’d be terrified if people knew. ...That tarnishes [our] reputation.” (41:20)

  • “Just being above board...there are things that are broken around how pricing is done or warranty stuff that’s not real, and I just think we need to fix that.” (42:14)

• On operational "hill to die on": “We'll always do what we say. ...No limit to not making it right. If we make a mistake, we’ll own it. I don’t even care how much it costs...just the integrity hill.” (50:33)

• On community and people: “People matter more than anything else. You’ve got to really be attentive to the people that we call teammates.” (52:55)

6. The Challenge of Sustaining Calls & Ad Costs (34:21–36:12)

• “That pressure—I can’t afford to leave. ...To me, that is the one thing that just really eats at me is when I got to walk the yard in the morning and go, hey, I’m sorry, it’s slow.” (34:21)
• “The competition’s driven the price per lead so high...I have an $800 lead and a $300 ticket. Well, that’s really not good business.” (35:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On transparency and industry ethics:

"What part of the industry is broken but nobody wants to admit it? I would say transparency. There is a lot of people that do things that probably they'd be terrified if people knew." – Bubba (41:20)

On facing AI disruption head-on:

“If I don’t get ahead of this, I'm going to get left behind...We have to embrace this AI movement or we're going to not be relevant in the market.” – Bubba (33:29)

On leadership and mistakes:

"I’ll die on the hill of guaranteed. ...No limit to not making it right. If we make a mistake, we'll own it. I don't even care how much it costs." – Bubba (50:33)
"I've also tried to tell our team, like, look, I'm never going to terminate somebody for making a mistake. ...We never run from it. We never hide from it. We never try to avoid it. We lean right into it and you solve it." – Aaron (51:46)

On seeing the value of local relationships with competitors:

"We have a gentleman’s agreement...We just kind of have a really cool gentleman’s agreement...We can still sharpen each other and not do anything detrimental to the business." – Bubba (11:32)

On maintaining business focus:

"If you make a really good hamburger, you need to keep making hamburgers...If I told a young person, it'd be keep the main thing, the main thing. Define what the main thing is to you and be absolutely committed to it, no matter what." – Bubba (55:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:27 – Origins of “Baker Brothers” and Bubba's role as first non-family president
• 07:00 – Company scale, revenue, and market dynamics
• 09:12 – Value of staying connected with competitors (Josh & Gus)
• 15:15–21:20 – Impact of AI and changing marketing strategies
• 30:33 – Implementing AI internally (call center, operational shifts)
• 34:19–36:45 – Call volume pressures, lead costs, and sustaining large team operations
• 41:20–44:24 – VIP Final 3: What’s broken in the industry (transparency)
• 50:24 – The “hill” Bubba is willing to die on—integrity and always doing what's right
• 55:12 – Advice to Bubba's younger self & focus on non-negotiables

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Summary Takeaways

• Leadership rooted in integrity, faith, and service can drive both culture and business success—even in massive, legacy organizations navigating private equity pressures.
• Building peer relationships—even with direct competitors—can lead to mutual growth, ethical competition, and emotional sanity in high-pressure environments.
• The industry is entering a new era where digital exposure via AI, authentic branding, and real community connection will separate industry leaders from those left behind.
• Operational consistency, transparency, and staying true to foundational business values are the long-term differentiators in an increasingly crowded and scrutinized marketplace.
• For those at any stage—clarifying non-negotiables, staying focused, and being willing to evolve are timeless lessons.

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Final Quote:

“You get to do preaching, just...you get to do it through preaching through the pipes. Right. Just looks a little different.” – Chris (58:13)

Transcript

[Host Intro]

What's the password?

[Aaron]

Don't talk about it, be about it.

[Host Intro]

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

[Chris]

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to the Point Home Services VIP room. And we have a VIP in the room today. I'm excited to. To share him with you. You guys might have heard him on a few other podcasts and who knows, if you're down in Texas, you've been to church. Might heard him, might have heard him in church once a while. Once or twice. But ag. I got one co host on here today because Chad ditched. Now, I'm not gonna talk any smack because you guys held it down for me last week, and I appreciate that.

[Aaron]

Yeah, your voice is doing well today.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's because it's numb, you know, because had an ENT appointment this morning, and they put that numbing stuff up your nose and they shove this, like, tube down if you're. It sounds amazing. So I can't feel my teeth or like, my face is all. All numb right now, and my throat was hurting before I went in, but now it doesn't hurt because it's numb. So let it rip on here. And it sounds like our guest has got the sniffles. We've got Bubba Thurman on here today, who's the president of Baker Plumbing Air and Electrical down in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas. Bubba, it's good to finally get you on. I know it's my fault. I think I've had this book, like, four times with you. We finally made it happen. But we're excited to have you on the show, brother.

[Bubba Thurman]

Hey, today's the day. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Chris]

Yeah, buddy. Hey, before we get into anything, you know, there's something that was brought up to me last week that, you know, I used to do the dad jokes, you know, early on. And then I started doing some idioms, like, you know, idioms are. And I stopped. I just kind of forget to do them. But one come up and because I know that you are an avid hunter, as am I, Bubba, and you usually, the last time I talked to you, you get to, you know, deer heads up on the wall behind you, but you're in a different location right now. And I thought, what. What a good idiom that came to mind today as I Was thinking through this, and this literally came to me as I was driving from my ent appointment to. To hear. Because a song come on the radio by an old classic country called bluegrass e band by the name of Alabama. I'm sure you guys heard of them. And there's a. A part in Alabama, there's a song called mountain music. Okay, so listen, Aaron. Okay, I know we grew up a little differently. I'm looking at the country side of things. So, yes, I listen to a lot of Alabama. Listen, I got a lot of great hits.

[Aaron]

Yeah, Alabama is. I know who they are. But. Okay, I wouldn't say it was on. It's typically on my playlist, but I know who they are.

[Chris]

Well, there's a part of the song in mountain music that says bending over. Skin and cats. Skin and cats. And you get. Maybe think of the idiom. The idiom that is there's more than one way to skin a cat, which sounds kind of morbid, right? So. But it's if. If you were a hunter or, you know, a frontiersman back in the, you know, mid-1800s, which neither of you were, but your ancestors probably were, then they talk about skin and cats. Well, it doesn't mean house cats, right?

[Bubba Thurman]

It.

[Aaron]

It.

[Chris]

That's not what. That's not what skinning cats meant. It meant that it was like bobcats and stuff. So hunters would skin, you know, the cats to use the. The. You know, the fur. But what I found out in Alabama was that actually has nothing at all to do with skinning cats. And what it meant was they would bend over these old hickory trees because they didn't have playgrounds to play on. So they play on the trees. And I guess the. Those playground, the way that the bark is or something on the trees, would cut them all up and skin them up and stuff like that. I don't know. They're two completely different versions. But the version of more than one way to skin a cat, the popular way of saying is there's more one way to accomplish a goal or a task. That's. That's what today's term means. So fun fact is, yeah. More than one way to skin a cat dates back to the mid-1800s. And I figured that that would make sense to you, bubba.

[Bubba Thurman]

It does. I actually thought that that song, growing up in Texas, I thought that meant skin and catfish

[Chris]

that would actually make love.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, you brought a whole different perspective to it. But I. I thought about skin and catfish.

[Chris]

I'm not 100 sure that I even understand still how they come up with skin and cats means like you, you know, yeah, you, you were hanging on trees and you're getting, you know, marked. I don't know, I can't connect the dots on it, but whatever that was a couple minutes of your guys life that you'll never get back. So you're welcome to that. I want to go jump into this too because it's interesting that I think Baker brothers was either 1944, 1945, somewhere around there was when it was originally established. Is that right, Bubba?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, 1945.

[Chris]

Super well known, well respected, you know, big brand down in, in Texas and you know, joined the Wrench group back in 2017. And if you guys don't know who Jimmy Dale is, like, Jimmy Dale is a predecessor for like fantastic human being. Still never been on this fight. I gotta get him on here. Yeah, great guy. I'd love to get him on here. Interesting. Yo, Bubba, though you're present today, you're the first non family president in that business, is that right?

[Bubba Thurman]

It is. You know, Jimmy's dad passed away recently and I was asked to speak at his funeral. And that was one of the things that, just saying that in front of that crowd because Jim Dell, Jimmy's dad, was, you know, he was quite a character and he, you know, they built a legacy business. Three generations. Jimmy's grandfather, Jimmy's dad, then Jimmy. And that was something that I pointed out at his service that I, you know, it was just an honor to be trusted by the family to kind of be at the helm of something that they put their heart and soul in for, you know, a long time.

[Chris]

Yeah. Pretty honorable position to be in. And what a cool moment for you to be able to have that, to be able to do that. You know, that's, that's especially. What's kind of interesting is, you know, I introduced you guys right before we had started, but prior to Bigger Brothers, I mean, you were in ministry for like what, a couple of decades or something? Like administrative years.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, 22 years full time. And this will be my 14th anniversary here this coming year.

[Chirp Advertisement]

Yeah, that's.

[Chris]

And what size is Bigger Brothers today? Just out of curiosity? I have no idea.

[Bubba Thurman]

We have a little over 400 employees. We're, you know, slated to do about 110 million this year. Revenue.

[Chris]

Yeah, got it. So super obviously crazy competitive market. I competed against you guys for a while because Berkey's was a customer of mine. This is in a prior life, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Chris]

But never got to work with the guest directly, but always respected, kind of having to fight against you. And then last week, another one of your guys down there, you know, we had Josh Campbell on good friend of ours, you know, so it's cool to have him on. I'm bummed I had to miss that episode because, I mean, I was. Those are. We're all friends. So it was like, that was gonna be a fun episode. I had to miss it, and it gave these. Gave Aaron and Chad free reign to bust my chops while I wasn't there to defend myself.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, Josh is a good dude.

[Aaron]

It was fun to catch up with old Nextar buddy through Josh. And we just saw Josh a couple weeks ago, too, so. And you mentioned that you have a good relationship with Josh, and you guys talk probably every week or so. So that's. That's great to hear that people in the marketplace stay friends, and even through the private equity model of each of you sold to different companies, that you stay pulse, you have communication, and stay connected. So that. That was great to just hear some of that from you today too, I think sometimes different ways, and then you kind of the communication relationships break, especially in a really competitive market like Dallas.

[Bubba Thurman]

Right? Yeah. Josh and Gus both are just great partners. Like, you know, we're both in the trenches. Obviously, we compete against each other, but I think our. Our friendship supersedes all that. And we try to, you know, sharpen each other even. But, you know, it's definitely good to call guys outside of this building sometimes when you feel like, man, we're not getting calls or what's going, you know, there's. There's a sense of reassurance, like, hey, we're in the same boat here. And I actually spent some time with Josh up in Connecticut not long ago. We were at a conference together, flew home together, and so really got to hang out with him a little more than. Than I normally do. Had dinner, and just really have a lot of respect for both him and Gus. You know, they just are high character guys. They do things the right way. They care about their people, and, you know, so when. When we're, you know, having an issue here in our market, it's really great to go, hey, I'm not crazy. You know, they're.

[Host Intro]

They're.

[Bubba Thurman]

They're having the same thing. So we kind of do a Monday check in usually. How's it going? How are calls? And I probably would surprise a lot of people, to be honest, but for me, that's, you know, really important to have guys outside of our building that kind of keep me grounded, kind of.

[Chris]

What kind of conversations you guys having in those, like, if you're able to. To share, like, because you're. You're basically saying you're all. You're kind of open about the stuff that you're dealing with in the moment. And so do you have that weekly check? It means like, these are like, pretty current topics that you're dealing with or current situations.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, we talk about, like, calls a lot. Like, you know, we've obviously, we've had some headwinds in the industry in general, but our market in particular is just super crowded. It's so competitive. And so we, you know, we kind of check in on each trade. Sometimes, you know, Gus will send a text and go, hey, do you have. You guys have any electrical calls today? Or how's plumbing doing? Or, you know, calls in general? That's kind of the check in. But we talk about other things. I mean, they've been texting me since I sat down on this call. And, you know, we. We check in and go, hey, is there anything I can pray for you about? Like, they're both guys who, you know, are grounded in their faith. And so that's kind of a cool thing too. And I've known Gus, I met Josh through the business, but I've known Gus prior even to coming to work for Jimmy. I knew Gus. We live like a mile apart, knew each other in the community and actually, you know, would meet occasionally for lunch or breakfast. And so I've known Gus for guys probably over 20 years now.

[Aaron]

I think that's interesting that for people to keep. Keep taught hearing this story as. Even as these relationships scale and the businesses are Gus private, other guys got equity. You're running one in there. That the relationships are there, that. And they're important to have this open flow in your. In your market. Because I don't, you know, I. I wouldn't say that many of us always do that, especially in our own market. A lot of times you're connected with people in other areas, but I guess Dallas, Fort Wayne area is a giant area, right? With a lot of stuff. And so is that just three guys that come up, know each other and just would rather see the three of you guys win than anybody else and you stay on the same pulse, like. Yeah, I mean, we do. Yeah.

[Bubba Thurman]

I mean, we're pretty open like about what we're doing and not in a way that, you know, we're not doing anything detrimental to the business. But I mean, I can. Even with Gus's team, Gus has had me over to speak at his company, and, you know, that's crazy. He brought me in to speak on their family day, and, you know, I'm in front of all his 500 employees doing a talk. Just nothing to do with, like, business. And we have a gentleman's agreement. Like, I would never poach anybody from Josh or Gus, and they would feel the same way. If someone applies, Gus will call me and go, hey, what's going on? This person, you know, showed up over here, and I would do the same. If somebody comes here from Milestone, I'll call him and go, hey, what's the story here? Is this somebody. Do you care if they leave or do you want me to pass? Or, you know, we just kind of have a really cool gentleman's agreement. I think the commonality. We've all been very involved in certain path used to be sgi. We've all kind of met through that. And so, you know, about twice a year, we go to Expo and go to dinner and hang out. And so I think it's something that just kind of feeds to continue the conversation. Even. Even though we're competitors, I think it's good to sharpen just leadership. Like, what book are you reading? You know, what are you learning? What kind of, you know, you do anything new in the market? Like, and if y' all have had Gus on or interact with him a lot, I mean, he's. He's an idea just guru. He just constantly thinks outside the box. And I love to pick his brain. Like, hey, what are you seeing? What are you doing? And, you know, he's. He's pretty open. Like, I've even interacted with her general manager on certain things, like how we're doing. We just exchanged, you know, communication just on underground work the other day, because we see our market. There's people in our market that are doing, like, lifetime warranty now on underground sewer repairs. And so we're kind of like, hey, it's a limited lifetime warranty. So I'm trying to get my head around what does that look like? You know, So I reached out to them and said, are y' all doing this? And if so, what are the conditions? And so they're pretty. You know, we're definitely not guarded against. I don't feel like, you know, there's anything malicious. Obviously, we're competing in the same market, but we can still sharpen each other and not, you know, do anything detrimental to the business. So it's just a great camaraderie.

[Chris]

Yeah, iron sharpens iron.

[Bubba Thurman]

Absolutely.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I think those are important for people to think about if they haven't reached out to people in their market or build friends with people in the re in the industry and even that I've got a chance to visit Gus at Milestone. Just a great guy. Saw him in New York, I don't know, maybe two months ago. We even text and said we should reconnect. We haven't talked in a while. Genuinely, just great deal. So I'm glad to finally get a chance to meet you because I know those two guys and never got a chance to meet or hear from you. So. But I think, I think one thing we do want to know is a little bit more about, I guess probably jump into Baker. We jumped right into this random relationship, right. Conversation. But maybe sharing a little bit of the story of what you're doing today. What are you guys up against? You're in a major market, you know, what are you thinking about today at a hundred million dollar business? Sounds like me and you are pretty much the exact same business size, employees, everything. So I'm curious for myself. I'm be selfish on this one, Chris. I'm curious to think like at this size and operating your business today, like, what are you thinking about? Like what's, what's the most important thing for you every day when you show up and you're trying to grow this business to whatever your goals are right now, operating this business besides just networking and asking questions about call volumes, what are you doing in the business today?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, so I really think the most glaring thing that I would say to that it's relevant to, you know, obviously we have the same size business. There's a lot of symmetry. But what I see is AI and what AI is doing in the background. I've been real curious about that. And so my takeaway is that AI is creating exposure. So nothing's hidden. Like there's no, you know, you're not able to manipulate reviews, you're not able to hide a traffic, you know, incident. You're just going to be exposed. And so I think we can do one of two things. We can hide from it or we can embrace it. And so the message from me to our company is that we truly have always said that we want to be the best like our bhags to be the best service company in the world. And every day we got a poll down. Every call, every customer matters more than ever. Because if AI is going to be price transparency, bad reviews, lawsuits, any of that stuff is now going to be front and center because of AI. And so I think what we have to do is just be better than anybody else. And so that's kind of been our focus lately is we, we want to be good drivers, we want to be safe, we want to be dressed properly, we want to. All the small things, you know, we've talked about them for years, but I think they're becoming more and more important that we actually execute at a really high level because sentiment is really going to matter I think in the next 18 months as AI becomes more of a search engine. And so we're, we're really focused on like, hey, who are we really like, let's not, you know, try to pretend or let's, if we're going to be like a four, you know, you know how restaurants are rated on price, you see the little dollar signs at the bottom. And I think Google's already calling behind and going, hey, what service do you have done? What did you pay for it, if you don't mind me asking? They're already gathering data on price. Well, you, you guys know this as well as I do, man. I, it's hard to give a price over the phone for a plumbing issue, right? You just don't know what's going on. And so it's always been standard to go, let us get a technician out and then we'll tell you. But we're getting more and more pressure to give a price. Like we have people call and go, hey, what would it cost me to replace a 4 ton air conditioner? And instead of like resisting that, I think we got to lean in and go, hey, what can we price over the phone? We've sold water heaters over the phone forever. That's been our strategy and now we're kind of going, hey, what items can we completely talk about on the phone? And so I think AI is really changing that and it's causing me to be reflective into, hey, instead of like, you know, going oh God, is going to expose everything, I'm going, this is a great opportunity for, for us to literally, when they go do that search to be top, you know, in the market, to be really good. And you know, Gus, those guys are good operators. Josh is a good operator. There's several in the market that are really sharp. And so I know that I'm going to have to be really good to compete in this market. And so I think before you could go buy calls, right, you could go put money into Google. And obviously the ROI has changed drastically on that. I mean it's become a deal where you can go spend ten grand and go, we need electrical calls, you might just as well go give $10,000 to a homeless person. Some days you go get 10 grand more, it doesn't generate one call. And so man, that is something. The way we go to market I would say is a big deal. I'm a little worried about that. And I say worry, I'm not worried. I'm concerned enough to go, hey, what could we do different? Is there something disruptive in regard to how we market ourselves? And I do think there's a movement toward partnering with communities, sponsoring football teams, being visible that I think has more teeth than it did 10 years ago, five years ago. And so I think PPC, LSA, all that stuff's changing drastically and I think it's AI at the end of the day, when does AI become the primary search engine? You know, that's, that's kind of what is on the front of my mind. I hope I didn't over answer.

[Aaron]

No, no, that's. No, that's great. No, I think this is a topic people don't, don't think about a lot. And I've been, Chris has probably heard me beating on this drum a little bit too. Like people are always like AI in my business. I'm more worried about AI in the search and how you show up and how you develop. Right. Because AI in the business is inevitable. Most of our companies would do software with go find tools and resources to help us. Whether you're a Surface Titan or Broccoli or a Boca or whoever. Right. Supposed to use sponsor, sorry. But you know, all of them are going to help kind of navigate that. The one place that you're on your own is in this place.

[Chris]

Right.

[Aaron]

And that's still the traditional deliver great service. Your pricing alignment, how you structure your site, how you structure your pricing model, how you do pricing online, how you do all these things. And I do believe that you need to lean into this or you will be a race. And I do think there's a big movement in the AI area and I think you hit something there. Great too is people still want to feel part of something and I think community presence is building again because there's a lot of this old fight area and all this different, you know, social stuff. And now it's like, oh, did you sponsored my local football team or the community, the high school or like we have, we have our name on billboards at some of the local high school in some of the local schools and stuff. Right. We started doing some of that last couple years. We probably could do a lot More, but you're starting to see some of that start to find its way back in, in many different ways as this, as this machine is changing. So I imagine Chris has a lot more thoughts on this due to his background and experience. But, but I'm aligned with that. I think, I think those are great thoughts and I'd like to pick your brain a little more. But, Chris, what do you got on this?

[Chris]

No, I'm just gonna say I'm 100 on board with this grassroots stuff. And, you know, on the roofing side of the business for Chad and I's company, that's like what we did right out the gate was we hit all the local high schools, the parades, the, you know, the Lions group or the bnis, all the stuff that everybody doesn't want to do. But relationships matter so much and it's not a quick fix, so you just gotta do it and let it build and run. And, you know, I'm a big believer in all those, in all those things. And I just want to address the, the PPC piece of it. It's so nice to be able to hear that from my seat today because now I'm like, yeah, maybe, I don't know, not my problem, but I just pumped a shitload of money into PPC for my own business at Redbird Roofing, so. But I also hedge my bet on who's running it for me, so I know what I got. But I think that there's. It's, it's right. It has changed drastically. And my hope is that more people get scared to spend money because it's not like volume's gone, it's not gone, it's gotten more expensive. But people get nervous and don't spend money. Great. I'll continue to go down. As long as the money, as long as the, the numbers shake out and make enough sense to keep my board full, I'm fine. Now. The LLMs, the large language models, the chats, the clods, the whatevers. Yeah, I've been paying attention to that for a long time now. And now they're rolling out the paid version of Chat GPT, which is the, which is the, the wave. So when we start talking about market share, that's when things are really going to start to push because people who are saying, I'm not going to do PPC, but it's like 100 grand minimum to put into it, but I'm gonna let that thing figure itself out first before I jump into it, because I don't know what that's going to look like either and to drop, you know, 100 grand on the test scenario. I'm not sure I want to play that game just yet. Especially because we got. If you have good or good organic ranking, but you certainly should be paying listeners to. Should for sure be paying attention to it. The worst thing you can do is be like, don't get it, don't understand it. It's scary, and you do nothing with it. Like, that is the ultimate mistake to make because it's, It's. You may sound good right here in the moment, you can ignore it. It's kind of like if you get in a, you know, fight with your spouse, you can't just keep ignoring it. Like, the. Just builds behind the scene. Like, you. You can't just ignore these things because you're scared of them. Or, or you don't know enough about it to make a decision, or you don't know how to implement the things. You can do something otherwise it's gonna move on without you. And so is market share.

[Bubba Thurman]

Right.

[Chris]

You're gonna start to lose just the way it is. Like, this isn't a. This isn't like a theory. This is fact, guys.

[Chirp Advertisement]

Agree.

[Aaron]

I. I agree. I agree. So I, I'd like to follow up, though, on something that you said either, because, like, I. Like you said, it exposes a lot of stuff. AI because the way the search is good stuff. So right now, when you're bringing that stuff. And I heard you mentioned customer sentiment, which I think is a metric that people need to start to really understand. And it's not really a metric that can be measured because it doesn't have a star rating. It's just customer sediment trying to figure out how you can measure that. But as you went through this with your. I'm assuming you've talked to your leadership and you're having all these conversations throughout the organization. How. Where are you starting? How about that? Where are you starting through this journey to help, kind of help anybody include. Like, I'm interested. So where are you starting in this journey to work through. Through that? Like, are you starting in customer sentiment? Are you starting through search?

[Bubba Thurman]

We kind of got a whole docket of stuff, so we. We partner with a company called Pixie, and one of the things they do is provide, like, where we are in the market. Like, they do a competitive analysis, and it pulls everything out of AI and so then it kind of tells us, you know, where we're good, where we're struggling. And I definitely think we're starting at the level of how are we trusted? Like, we want to be a trusted brand. We promise great service. We've been in business since 1945. We have a huge. We have 20,000 members. And so how do we maintain a level of trust? Like, we're not. I think, too, another thing that we have to focus on is if we're going to be a. Or, you know, we're not the cheapest, we're not even the middle of the road.

[Aaron]

We're.

[Bubba Thurman]

We're on the higher end, price wise. And we have to deliver on that. Like, we have to provide service that equals what the investment is. And so I think there's a little bit of area right there to improve. I think we've had a couple, you know, miss fires where somebody has, you know, posted that, hey, we're too expensive. And, and, you know, I, I don't. I don't take that as we're too expensive. I take that as we failed to provide the value that we charged. And so I think that would be an area. But I definitely think customer sentiment, like, who are we? You know, who's. Who's Baker? What is our identity in the marketplace? And I think as AI becomes more prevalent, we have to. We have to tell our own story. Like, we have to get out there and blog and talk about who we are and share those things that I was talking about. Like, we're making a donation here. We're partnering with this organization here. I think people are attracted to that, you know, to know that literally, like, no, we're not crooks. We're not a ripoff. We're not, you know, the whole PE non PE thing has become a big topic. I see it every day. Somebody posts about it, and I always want to jump in, but I'm really hesitant to get, you know, into the comment sections. I'll just, like, bite my tongue and I go, do we have a. I know this isn't true. There's a ton of PE companies, but I know here. Have things changed? Yes, they have at certain levels, for the technician, for our core values, for how we go to market. No, like, their pay plans haven't changed their manager. We haven't had any, like, major turnover. We haven't changed our, you know, mission, what we're trying to do. We're still taking care of people. Like, we're 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed. Like, if you're not happy, we'll give your money back. And so I think we have to, instead of being defensive, I think we have to be offensive and tell our story. To, you know, when AI goes and gets that information, we have to participate in going, hey, no, we're a good company. We're, you know, we have good values here. We, we do care about people. We want to do it the right way, we want to win the right way. And I think when you're up against, you know, people getting every piece of data possible, it's really easy for them to compile that and tell a story about who you are that's inaccurate or not fully the truth. So I do think that's probably priority number one is to maintain our brand reputation and you know, whatever we got to do to make sure people still trust Baker Brothers is really important. And then I think around the price stuff, I think we really have to be careful in how we present that, you know, how do we talk about, you know, whether we're, you know, top third of the market, top 10% in price because you have to talk about things and you understand this running a big organization, dude, I mean the value is we warranty our work. We won't leave you hanging, we'll come back 10 times if we have to to get it right. And I think people do appreciate that. I tell people this all the time. I don't like to buy cheap things. Like I'm not some wealthy person. But if I'm, you know, Chris, talking about hunting, I don't like cheap hunting gear. I don't go to academy to buy a firearm. Like, I don't, I want a custom built rifle. I want to go, I like nice guns, I like nice sporting equipment. I don't buy, you know, I don't go to second hand store to buy golf clubs. And you know, I have a nice truck, I have a really nice diesel truck. And so I think there's a huge sentiment in our population who, you know, they'll appreciate that. I had this conversation with my friend, he's like, man, yalls, air conditioners are too expensive. And I'm like, bro, you drive a King Ranch F350, your wife drives an X7, you live in a gated neighborhood and all of a sudden you want to be cheap when it comes to buying air conditioner. Like nothing else in your life is cheap. But you know, I think it's funny that sometimes that's what people do.

[Aaron]

And I think it's like anything, people value things differently, right? You value what you buy, you're hunting versus this. Most the majority of time, the home is the most biggest investment people make in their life, right? And the largest payment that they're paying every month and they should want to invest in good equipment. But let me, let me ask you this question on the follow up of this. Like, how'd you get down this journey? What. What sent you down this? And how'd you get into this too? Because I don't hear a lot of people talking. I think it's picking up momentum. It seems like you're talking about all the right things. From what I've been hearing in the industry myself, I've been on this journey for about, probably about a year and a half, similar to where you are as AI Shift in this piece and stuff. So I think it was too.

[Bubba Thurman]

I've just been in circles where it's come up. Jimmy, you know, his son has recreate AI. It's a company and he works with us on our web traffic. So when somebody logs into our website and asks a question, he captures it. His booking rate is incredible. And so Tyner went to Colorado School of mines. He graduated 2019, same age as my middle son. He played football there. But he's really brilliant on computers and stuff. And so he brought some new information that Jimmy and I were able to kind of talk to him about. And this has been a couple years back. And then a friend of ours named Pawan who, you know, I don't know if y' all ever heard of Pulse M before. Pulse M was really a good online reputation management. And what they did was they ranked your technicians based upon the reviews. And it was a powerful deal that we used for a long time. But he is local, he's in Dallas. And so I interact with him a lot as well. And he founded PC. And, you know, he's been telling me for years, hey, AI is going to change, you know, how you guys market, how people find out who you are. And so those were just early conversations. And then, you know, and I'm kind of old school, dude. I'm not very technical when I have a marketing call, Chris, you'll appreciate this. They'll bring these massive data sets, right? So Wrench is a big organization, and so there's a lot of horsepower around data. And talking to Tenuity and talking to these organizations, dude, here's where I'm at. I'm like, I need three calls a day per tech. Like, that's my marketing strategy. I don't care how you get them. I really don't. Like, I'm disinterested. I don't want to see the data sets. I got other things to do. So as an operator, I'm kind of like, hey, what is the most practical? And so I heard AI really didn't understand it. Then one day I go and look at co clawed. And I can't even sleep that night because I'm like, that was frightening. I mean, dude, wow, this AI stuff is weird. And, you know. And so then I start leaning in and going, well, I need to pay attention. People have been telling me this. So about six months ago, I would say my temperature kind of went up, and I was like, you know what? If I don't, like, get ahead of this, I'm going to get left behind. And so I really feel like, how do I capitalize on it? Like, we have AI in our call center now, and we use a company called Lace. And so our agent is Lacy. If you call, you might talk to her. If the phones aren't answered, you might get to talk to Lacy. But if you'd asked me, like, five years ago if we'd have, like, a bot answering the phone, I would have been like, what? You know, this ain't the Jetsons yet.

[Chris]

You know?

[Bubba Thurman]

But now I'm like, man, I'm gonna ride a drone to work one day. You know, I'm like, that may happen before I die. My parking spot may be a drone. So I think it's just kind of. It's like, the longer it goes, the more momentum it gets. And so now I feel like it's imminent. Like, we have to embrace this AI movement or we're going to not be relevant in the market. You can still go run a good service company. You can not do any technology and put ads out and probably still make $10 million because people need the services. But I think to optimize, you know, you probably feel the pressure. I do. Like, I have 400 families depending on me to make good decisions 100%. And so that pressure, I can't afford to leave.

[Host Intro]

Yeah.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yes.

[Aaron]

Every day you gotta feel I can't afford to.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah. That's what I always tell the marketing, like, the big marketing people. I'm like, dude, come here for a week and go out in the yard and tell the electrician that he's got to go home because I don't have enough calls. Or go tell four plumbers that they're on call. You know, you just hang out with us for a little bit, but, sorry, we don't have calls. To me, that is, like, the one thing that just really eats at me is when I got to walk the yard in the morning and go, hey, I'm sorry. It's slow. You know, I wish I could go, hey, guys, you can work as long as you want. We got calls till 10 o', clock, you know, and I think to do that, we're in a transition from where, you know, ppc, lsa. That was the play that worked in our market. Chris, what's amazing is the competition's driven the price per lead so high that you almost go, man, is it. Is it worth it to have an 800 lead? I mean, I have an 800 lead and I got a 300 ticket. Well, that's, that's really not good business.

[Chris]

No, you get your call, efficiency has to be off the charts. And your average ticket for that person running that call needs to be high. Like, there's so many things line up perfectly. I get it.

[Bubba Thurman]

And right now we're doing good. Like, we, you know, we had a terrible May and June's crushing it. But, you know, the thing we can't ever talk about is the weather, which always blows my mind. You know, you have meetings, they go, we can't talk about the weather. I'm like. And it's like having an uncle with a fake leg. And he comes over Thanksgiving, you tell your whole family, don't talk about his leg. You know, it's like. Like he doesn't know he has a. Yeah, I think he's fully aware that he has a fake leg. And you're like, don't say anything about the weather. And I'm like, it's a part of what we do.

[Aaron]

Like, we talk about the weather a lot more than we should, but it is a reality to what happens in the business and what goes up or down. You know, I know we want to be very much like our membership. We want to sustain. We want to be able to operate all the time. But we are weather enhanced, right? We are all very much weather enhanced. And that's reality on the weather. But we have to be weather enhanced as an industry in all trades, really. I mean, really, all the trades have their own time in the weather. H vac, a little bit more plumbing, drain does. You know, I don't know much about electrical. We're still figuring that out over here at Eco, but when you figure it

[Bubba Thurman]

out, let me know. That is the hardest space to figure out. Like, I'm like, why do people call

[Aaron]

us a great obverse sale when you can get in there and do some good stuff? But there's a lot, there's a lot of opportunity in that, for sure, the electrical. And I think it's just been One of those trades that have been under undervalued between the big two trades and plumbing and H vac. Right. For say now it's starting to get some momentum. So. But I know we've hung out in this AI area for a while, and I do think that AdWords are just a spike to the level really high. I do think there's a potential that those costs get so high that it kind of collapses, that people just start failing on it more and more, and that Google's gonna. Google or AdWords in general are gonna have to come to reality that this is just not a sustainable cost. Now, I do know that they've been losing traffic in that area to LLMs, and I think that that's also drove the price up in some of these areas. But I think over time, gonna have to have a fallout there. Just. There's just. There's just no. No sustainable way that I think that these prices stay the way they are with the way that margins are, the competitive environment. All these things are going on. I think you're speaking to that right now, and you're adapting that through looking through these AI sediment things. And I'm assuming you probably spent a lot of time on Gemini or other sources just talking and asking questions about your own business, right? To understand what it's saying. And I've got a lot of that. I peeked out on that for hours and hours at times, right. At all. To your management team, do you do this? What I do is I'll do all this research on AI and then I'll download it into like a PDF or something or Google Doc and send it and blast it to all of my managers so they know it. Have you done that yet?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yesterday. I sent it yesterday. I can send you the same email I sent yesterday to my leadership team. I said, check this out.

[Aaron]

Please do send it to me. I want to see if it's similar to what I do. I'd love that.

[Bubba Thurman]

I said, we're gonna meet. We're gonna meet this week and talk about it. Because I want to know, hey, what's our five biggest threats? Like, where are we missing the mark? And AI will tell you quickly. Like, that's what's cool about it. Like, yeah. And keywords. This is fascinating to me. Like, we always talk about, hey, what keywords we need to use? And I'm like, hey, what if AI tells us what are the most predominant keywords in the market yesterday? Like, that's kind of weird to think I can get this information, like, now. Used to you know, you had to do a market study and it was

[Aaron]

a lot for Chris to get a call with you a month from now and then tell you a bunch of whatever and. No, I'm joking,

[Chris]

man. I'll tell you what. I. I mean, listen, I'm paying attention to it just because I'm not in the business anymore. I mean, I'm paying attention to it because I'm just genuinely interested in what's going to play out and. And like, how. Because there's still so much theory around what it. What are we doing to manipulate. Because that's what really all this is. Manipulation of the keyword or the results. It's. It's what is actually going to put prove itself out, because nothing has really had enough time to prove itself out yet. So we're seeing some success from things. Everything's changing so fast still, like, you can't. There's no. So I just want to see, like, all these AI agent. AI only agencies. Like, I keep hearing people talk about. Dan Martell talks about it. Tommy turn me on to him. But I don't know that I've seen it actually play out, like, with consistent success on the client end enough to be like, yeah, okay, somebody's got it figured out. I just don't think it's there yet. And people won't say they have, but they have. It's not been long enough yet. So, hey, real quick, Aaron, do you know what time it is?

[Aaron]

It's time for some questions to wrap up here, right?

[Chris]

It is time for the VIP Final 3. What do you think, Aaron? You think that one will stick? The VIP final three.

[Aaron]

All right, you got him.

[Chris]

The VIP final three, Bubba. What this means is we have three remaining questions that inquiring minds in the want to know, need to know from your perspective. Are you ready to tackle these last three questions moment?

[Bubba Thurman]

Absolutely.

[Chris]

Okay. If you think you are, we're gonna find.

[Bubba Thurman]

I will give it a shot. How's that?

[Chris]

Perfect. All I'm asking for is the most honest answer out of you, which I know you will give. Okay, so number one is what part of the home services industry is broken but nobody wants to admit it?

[Bubba Thurman]

What part of the industry is broken but nobody wants to admit it? I would say transparency. Like, I would say that there is a lot of people that, you know, do things that probably they'd be terrified if people knew. And I think that tarnishes, you know, the whole. I think people are, like, skeptical sometimes when we show up. Like, they're already, you know, it's like, oh, no, the contractor's coming over. And I think that's something that we could overcome.

[Chris]

Okay, that was a very PC answer. But you're talking about, when you say, you're talking about decisions that companies might be making that might potentially could lean on the unethical side or sides they'd be embarrassed if someone actually knew that they ran their business that way. And there. That also gives the industry a bad name. So when they show up, there's this preconceived notion of what's going to happen to us.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, I think just transparency around, hey, who, this is who we are. We have an opportunity to go and provide a service at a high level in exchange for, you know, compensation for that. And I think just being above board, I know, you know, just talking to guys, I've heard ideas thrown out that I'm just like, man, I wouldn't do that. You know, it's manipulative, it's not honest. And so, you know, PC would, you know, like you said, I'm just, I'm saying there are, there are things that are broken around, you know, how pricing is done or, you know, warranty stuff that's not real. And I just think we need to fix that. I would like for not just Baker's reputation to be good, but home services in general. Like, that we're trusted people, that our guys are professional, that we're going to do things the right way, that we can be a trusted partner for your family.

[Chris]

Yeah. And when people are like, people would, you know, Google reviews, There's one way. But now, like, I listen, I'm in Claude every day. Every day I use Claude for something every single day. And when I go to use, you know, use something, I'll ask it, you know, to give me the reviews. And the way it breaks down reviews is so amazing for companies and that, that what's interesting is I believe the consumer that uses it actually trusts it more than a, than a Google search for whatever reason. Like, I'm like, oh, okay, cool. You know, cloud or chat, GPT or whatever you're using gave me the breakdown and here's the bullet points on why they gave me the breakdown and here's the positives, here's the negatives and like to me it's like, oh, okay, cool. Now I just believe it. And so a decision's being made faster based off of the result of the search on the LLM versus Google. It's interesting place, place to live in. So I agree with you. This kind of goes back to everything you've just been saying about, you know, being transparent about how you run your business and just being about true, legit value. And it's going to find all the little things and it's going to take it and bundle it all up for you and you know, in about two seconds and spitting out the answer to you and uncover everything. So, so maybe a lot of ways that transparency actually helps start to change the narrative of the industry. Who knows?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, I think that's what, so what would you say on that one?

[Aaron]

Earlier.

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[Chris]

What I say?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, or Aaron, what would you say is broken?

[Aaron]

Asking Chris. Chris is now.

[Bubba Thurman]

What would you say is broken?

[Aaron]

I gotta come to the show every week. Chris, you go.

[Chris]

I mean, I, I, I can only speak from my perspective, right? Because I, I don't, I've never run a business as big as your, a contracting business as big as yours, or ran a marketing company, you know, of similar size. But here's my perspective and you actually talked a little bit about the, a little bit about this on the show. And I think that there's some brokenness in what you said around marketing. And I do think that as a guy who lived in that space now, now I'll preface this by saying I ran when Ann and I ran the business of Rhino, when we really scaled it, we looked at it through the same lens that both you guys do about your employees. Like you have a mouth to feed. And we would run the business the same way. It wasn't just about a logo that they saw. There's human beings behind that logo that are depending on us and their livelihood is depending on us. And how we show up each day to fill their board, that's legit. How we run how we ran the business.

[Aaron]

So.

[Chris]

But there were times when even if we gave our best that we could not get it done because there was nothing to go get based on either maybe spend or if it was competitor Spinach. You have no control over. Like, there's variables that we have no control over, even if we're at our best. So that's why people get pissed at marketing, because they're like, oh, well, we're slowing down. How do you feel about, like, I, I be like, no, no. Like we, we gave it 100 and we still couldn't get it done. Maybe that wasn't enough. I don't, I don't know. I still think that marketing in today's world should still.

[Chirp Advertisement]

It's. It's a.

[Chris]

You both got to participate in it. It's not a, you know, it's. You can't just spend the money with the agency and then let them spit out their beautiful words to you. Like, you have to be participating. It. It's not 2021, it's not 2022 where like the faucet was just on like that, that ship failed.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So. So. But everyone still wants to. To blame marketing in some cases. It's probably true. I know Tenuity. I've had lots of conversations around tenuity for a lot of years, and because of some of the other players who had to use Tenuity and I had to work through things with them in the early years when T came on, Geiger used them early, early on. So I just don't think there's some brokenness around how your partnership to marketing company is supposed to be and what you're responsible for as a contractor versus a marketing company.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. And look, all of our partners, I want to say this to be honest about things that are broken. I don't think that people are like, not trying. Like, I think it's a complex market and it's not easy to solve. You know, digital used to be easy, and it's not. It's complicated. And we're trying to figure it out. We're still spending a lot of money on an area where I'm going. We're just not getting the same. So I do think that there's probably something that'll be a breakthrough, maybe it's AI, maybe it's, you know, movement. Mark Cuban, I want to say this because it's important to this conversation. Mark Cuban said something that I read last week, and he was talking about, over the next three years, AI is going to be super aggressive. And he said there's going to be a revolution or an awakening that drives us back to conversations. And he talked about human interactions are going to probably become more important. I mean, we all complain about our kids. I mean, I don't know how old your kids are, but we talk about, you know, they text, they don't call, they don't interact. They grew up in this digital generation where I grew up graduating in the 80s. I still knew what a handshake was, how to sit down and have a conversation. And I think there's going to be a resurgence around that, and I think that also will impact marketing. Like, you know, we talked about organic. We talked about just being present in the community. So I do think that maybe that's been broken for a while, but I do think that AI is going to push us toward craving more human interaction at some point, and I think that's a good thing for the industry.

[Chris]

100 agree. Yeah, we're not going to get the 3. I don't think Chad or Jesus, Aaron. I don't think we're gonna get the three questions, buddy. So we're gonna have to just. Just pick one. Pick one of the last two and let's. Let's.

[Bubba Thurman]

Sorry.

[Aaron]

We're gonna stay. We're gonna stay on it. What hill are you willing to die on as an operator, no matter what, as you operate Baker Brothers? Like, what is the hill you're willing to die on?

[Bubba Thurman]

We'll always do what we say. Like, I'll die on the hill of guaranteed. Like, we. There's no, you know, limit to not making it. Right. If we make a mistake, we'll own it. I don't even care how much it costs. Like, just the integrity hills, what I would say.

[Chris]

And that's. And that's a long play, right, because, yeah, you have to be able to sustain. Well, hopefully you don't make a bunch of mistakes. But. But I think that your hundred percent cash back or satisfaction guarantee represents that if it's truly what it is and you're truly willing to say, oh, yeah, yeah. So I'm a big believer. And, you know, my mantra had. Having been for so long, reputation over revenue, reputation over revenues, business. I legit believe that. And, man, I had to write some big checks that were super Scary times because an employee made a, a mistake. Well, I'm still responsible for it. And it's like. But I genuinely believe like that's what helped build our reputation. Is we same hill. We would die on that same hill. Like, let's just what's right. And try to encourage your team to speak up faster if they made a mistake. Make it safe enough for them to speak up. That to say, hey, I made a mistake. So that way we can actually get to the solution faster.

[Aaron]

I agree that so we do the same thing here. Like, I think it's important over time we make mistakes. I've owned some big ones. But I've also tried to tell our team is like, look, I'm never going to terminate somebody for making a mistake. Sure, you tell me. Right? You tell me. You talk to me, you share it. You get ahead of it quickly. Let's go. Let's get ahead of this. Let's not try to cover up something if there is right. And I think that that's important that they understand that too and that that's a cultural thing in the business. It sounds like you spent your organization spent decades building that relationship. And we. I agree. I think that that's something you want to die in. You're running a reputable organization and there's mistakes made. You just own it. And I always tell our team is like, look, we make a lot of. We make mistakes. But I think the one thing that we've done really, really well, at least in our market, against a lot of our competition. I guess I'll use for lack of a better term, is that we never run from it. We never hide from it. We never try to avoid it. We lean right into it and you solve it. I'm assuming very much a reputation you built and that's the reason why you've been able to have and sustain a business that you guys have culturally wise for so long.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, I don't want to be the guy that blows it. We started in 45. I don't want to be on the news. I don't want, I don't want to be the Titanic legacy and I don't

[Aaron]

want to be the guy to blow it. So I get it.

[Bubba Thurman]

I'm like, no, it's not going down with me. That's a great, that's a great question. I would say if I had a mini hill, another hill would be people. Like people matter more than anything else. You know, people run our business and I think got to really be attentive to the people that we call teammates.

[Chris]

This isn't, this isn't one of. By the way, that's a, that's actually a common answer that I, I think that we'll probably hear quite a bit about it being the people. I'm gonna slip in one more. That's not technically part of the VIP final three. We usually ask a question around most mar. Margin leakage, but I don't want to ask right now. I'm actually going to ask something else because when I listen to a podcast when I was prepping for this, you, you had. When you, you know, you come from preaching, right? From ministry into plumbing, right? And so from, you know, multiple 20 worries, 20 some odd years of it, that's a heck of a change. And so to make that drastic of a change and come into this now contracting world, I mean, you were in, I think I listened to. You're in like maybe six, seven months. Something like that was where you first started to feel like, oh man, like that I make the right call here. Am I like, is this actually going to be what I thought it's going to be, going to be as impactful here as. That's a heck of a change. And so I think you, I think it was a situation where you had, you, you had a, you know, somebody who just wouldn't, didn't want to hear what you had to say or didn't want to, you know, do what you were suggesting to do or whatever that thing was. But you kind of ran into your first moment of like, oh, did I make a bad decision now? You said, obviously this has been many, many years ago at this point. And I think what happened is you were still trying to earn some trust, you know, of people to want to listen to you. And I don't know the situation, but, but now to thank all. You know, that was early, early on in your entry into the business. It seemed like that was the first like trip up that you had in your journey from, you know, ministry into the trades. So here's what, here's what I want to ask you is then as simple as it can. What, what would you give your younger self? What advice would you give your younger self before starting your business, like, to those maybe who are out there that are new in business or just getting started or still early on the business, like, what advice would you give your younger self if you were in their shoes?

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, I would write down the non negotiables, like right out of the gate, hey, what. You asked me what hill I die on. I would go, hey, what is it that I'm trying to achieve here? And is it a, you know, is it a. Is it an impact goal? Is it to provide, you know, a life for families? Is it to reach a certain, you know, valuation? Is it to, you know, is it to provide service that's extraordinary? I would write down those things that you say, hey, these are the things that I want to achieve and I would like hone that in. And I just would be not willing to negotiate around those things. Like where you go. I think when you're a young guy in the business, shiny objects are huge temptation. You hear about this new idea or this thing. And I think the simplicity of our business is we are a service to people and we go and we provide a service and we get paid for it and we come back. And I think when you start complicating it, you lose your way. Like Jimmy used to always say this. If you're. If you make a really good hamburger, you need to keep making hamburgers. And sometimes, you know, you go, well, maybe we could get into this. I see young guys all the time, they get multifaceted before they're ready. Like they haven't mastered one thing. And then they want to do four things. And you're like, now they're doing pest control, and now they're doing lawn care, and they're going, you know, and then all of a sudden it was their plumbing they were good at, and that starts slipping because they took their eyes off the main thing. So if I told a young person, it'd be keep the main thing, the main thing. Define what the main thing is to you and be absolutely committed to it, no matter what.

[Chris]

I love the thought around non negotiables. I think that's so important. And I remember whenever we were going into our deal with Rhino, when we were going into our private equity partnership is I was able to be put in the position to give my non negotiables. That was a cool feeling, and I'm glad we didn't. We stuck to that over all these years because then you feel good about when you go to bed. Like, I knew I built a business the right way and. Because how you make your money is as important as how much money you make, right? If not more important. And I truly believe that. So listen, man, I'm glad to finally get you on here. I'm sorry it took me so damn long to. To get locked in on this thing.

[Bubba Thurman]

Oh, it's all good. Supposed to be the day.

[Chris]

Yeah, supposed to be today.

[Aaron]

Appreciate you guys Having me absolutely appreciate the conversation, love the insight, and imagine all your success that you've had individually and the success you're having in the market that you guys are doing today. So really great to get a chance to, to follow up with you. Love to get that email so I can see if they're similar to what I send out.

[Bubba Thurman]

I'd love to. Yeah, we have a lot of same size businesses. It'd be great to benchmark with you.

[Aaron]

Let's do it. We'll connect. Chris will get us in a text together and we'll chat.

[Chris]

All right.

[Aaron]

Appreciate your time today, my man. Thank you.

[Bubba Thurman]

Great. Hey, appreciate you guys.

[Chris]

Yeah, man. Appreciate you, man. Keep on doing your thing. I think it's cool, man, that you got to do now. You get to do preaching, just. You get to do it through preaching through the pipes. Right. Just looks a little different.

[Bubba Thurman]

Yeah, my youth ministry looks way different. But they're still here.

[Chris]

This.

[Bubba Thurman]

Hey, ever here. We'll get lunch. Good to see y'.

[Chris]

All. Absolutely. And to all our listeners, look, man, this is so cool. I mean, this guy come from ministry into the now, preaching to the, you know, the technicians and, and now he's at the, you know, he's. He's running a big business down there. We're incredibly competitive market. He's got a peer group he leans on. Like, all these things are not complicated. You just gotta find your group, you know, and to Aaron's point, I don't know how easy it is to find someone local who's willing to kind of openly share, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask, right? And I think, see, because you can find someone across the United States, guaranteed, like, unless you just don't try. You. You could easily create your own peer group, but finding someone in your own market that understands your exact. Your market situation, I think there's a lot of value in that. If you get. I think now's better than any time than ever to ask. Right. You know, given that it's hard for probably everyone. So. But, you know, even though even the simplest things of just, you know, being a, you know, being transparent, you know, and, and do it running the business a clean way and, and understanding that maybe marketing looks a little bit different today, like, you know, just, you know, maybe don't focus on all the things so I find one thing and just keep chipping away at it. And then I'd say to, you know, Bubba's point, you know, to his younger self, like, maybe just try and get your first trade down and feel really good about it before you start trying to move on to something else and making it more complicated, so. Well, listen, you know, until next time, until we see you back here in the VIP room, who knows who the surprise guest will be on the next episode? But I appreciate you, Bubba. Appreciate you ag. And to our listeners, you listen. Don't talk about it, be about it.

[Host Intro]

What's the password?

[Aaron]

Don't talk about it, be about it.