Business Innovators Radio - From Military Service to Running a Thriving Business: Darin Hoover’s Vegas Business Spotlight

Starting point is 00:00:01 Welcome to Vegas Business Spotlight, the podcast that brings you the brightest minds and success stories from the bustling business scene in and around Las Vegas. Join us as we journey behind the neon lights and uncover the strategies, triumphs, and insights that shape the entrepreneurial landscape of the city of lights. From visionary startups to industry titans, get ready to be inspired by the stories of those who've turned dreams into reality on this iconic stage. And now, your host, Tim Mifton. Hello and welcome to our first ever episode of the Vegas Business Spotlight. I am your host, Marco, and I am thrilled to have you here with us today as we continue our journey through the vibrant world of Las Vegas entrepreneurship. Now, before we dive into today's conversation, I want to first introduce my special co-host today.

Starting point is 00:01:03 joining me is Mr. Tim Nifton with RSVP Las Vegas. Tim, say hello. How are you guys doing today? Fantastic, fantastic, and really happy to have you here aboard joining us. And then on top of that, the whole reason, the main reason of that we're here is we have a very special guest that we'd like to introduce. And we've got Mr. Darren Hoover. And Darren is the owner of ladder truck and toolbox handyman services here in Las Vegas, Nevada. And he is a somebody here in the, in the Las Vegas business community. So we

Starting point is 00:01:40 invited him on the program. We want to learn a little bit more about him and about his journey and his background and all the fun, cool things that he's doing with ladder truck and toolbox. So, Darren, welcome to the program. Well, thanks, Marco. And thanks, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here. That's fantastic. We will jump right on in here. We've got, like I mentioned earlier, we've got some questions that are lined up. We want to learn a little bit more about your journey and the incredible work that you're doing here in Las Vegas. So one of the things that I like to start with, Darren, is when we introduce or when we speak with a business owner, I like to know a little bit about how you became an entrepreneur.

Starting point is 00:02:16 Have you always been an entrepreneur? Did you have another career before you had this business? Can you take us back to kind of the beginning of your journey as far as a business owner? Well, sure. I think the easiest way to put it is, is I grew up broke. So when it came to fixing things or having to figure out what? whether this was going to get fixed by somebody else or fixed by my dad or myself, it was an easy answer because it was going to get fixed by one of us or it wasn't going to get

Starting point is 00:02:39 fixed. So I joined the military a long time ago. And in the military, you learn a lot of self-resilience and, you know, the ability to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, it, if you will. And my job actually in the military was damage control petty officer, which is basically, you know, if it's broke, you go fix it. It's you make sure everything's safe in the process of getting through the ship. So I took that with me along with a little bit of education. jump into college after the university or after the Navy. And I learned a lot and did quite a few different careers. I was an IT guy for a lot of years. And then realized at some level I was running my own company and then I was working for other people. And then I'd go back and forth between

Starting point is 00:03:19 running my own company and working for other people. And I always felt it to be more fulfilling. And I felt like I had better control when I was working for myself. So I finally hung out my shingle, as it were, in 2019, started ladder truck and toolbox as myself, just so, practitioner. Went out, got my licenses, got my insurance. It's one of the good news, bad news, bad news things about being married to an attorney. I had to do it right from the beginning or else it wasn't going to get done at all. But yeah, started the whole process and have struggled a bit and have looked forward a bit and looked back and tried to sort of figure out what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong a lot. You know, because as a sole practitioner, you do really have to

Starting point is 00:03:58 figure it all out yourself. Even if you've got a great team of people and advisors around you, it still all comes down to you. Yeah, absolutely. One thing that stood out to me, Daryan, that you mentioned, and by the way, that was a really interesting story of how you went from military to eventually doing your own thing. And we see a lot of people do that. A lot of people make that transition later in life. But the thing that stood out to me the most was you mentioned that you started your business in 2019. And that stands out to me as the last normal year that we saw before, of course, everything got flipped upside down. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like being a new. new business that had started just right before COVID kicked in and the whole world shut down. Well, sure. I think the best way to put it is, is like a lot of entrepreneurs, you look back on things and you think, if I'd have known then what I know now, I never would have done it. I didn't know how hard it was going to be. But the reality was is that I fell into a really weird, lucky place where people wanted, were forced to be home. And as it turned out, the governor of Nevada

Starting point is 00:05:00 designated businesses like mine as a required or essential service. So we were still able to go around and do things because, you know, if somebody's water heater blew up, they couldn't just wait for six months or whatever until it to get it fixed. They had to have somebody come fix it. So we were able, you know, masked and gloved and everything to come into people's houses. So oddly enough, the pandemic was really good for me in a weird way because we were still able to operate. And so I wasn't like all the restaurateurs and the people who had people coming to them that had to just shut down. We were the other way around. We never got busier. As the pandemic got worse, we got busier because people were eventually just home all the time and they looked at their walls and thought,

Starting point is 00:05:40 I don't, I don't like that. You know, I want bookshelves or I want a different color or I want a new ceiling fan or whatever it was. So we really got busy. I went from being sole practitioner, single employee in 2019 to at the peak, I think I was running 11 different guys, along with my operating manager, a field manager, and another gal in the office. Gosh, my goodness. So after COVID, did it kind of cool down a little bit? Or have you kind of been able to maintain? Like, what's the last year or so looked like for you in terms of busyness? Are you noticing some things with the economic changes? Sure. Yeah. Well, I tell you, the business has absolutely changed. We shifted from being, you know, focusing on all the home office things that were

Starting point is 00:06:25 critical during the pandemic to the marketing worked really well. So while I was in the trenches doing the work, as I started hiring people, I was also marketing my business. And I would go out and make, I'm a member of a BNI, business networking international. I'm a member of local chamber of commerce. I get a chance to get out and talk about my business quite a bit. And those things took me years to get really good at. But then in the process of doing that, my name got a little bit more out there, and I do a little more brand building and things like that. So now we do almost exclusively what's called inspection punch list clearing for real estate agents. So there's dozens to hundreds of real estate agents around the valley that reach out to us when they have a transaction go on,

Starting point is 00:07:08 a buyer or a seller will say, hey, I don't like something about this house. We need somebody to fix it. And we are licensed in the valley. And so what's called Galvar, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors requires certain things on their contracts. Like if you have to be a licensed individual, we fall into the category of capable of answering the call to fix the things that are on there. So the answer to the question of did we get, you know, did the business change? It absolutely changed. But we got nothing but busier. I mean, the good news is I guarantee my work. So whoever does it in the field, whatever happens, whatever issue shows up, we don't, we're not done until it's done. So that has made it easier for me to get busier and busier because people see

Starting point is 00:07:47 that we don't always do it perfectly, but we never end until it's done perfectly. Very, very cool. Very cool stuff. One of the things that I like to talk about when I interview a business owner is, you know, I think that a lot of times people see the end result of many years of hard work, right? The business owner will finally have gotten to a point where he's achieved something significant or maybe he's living comfortably. Maybe he's got a nice vehicle.

Starting point is 00:08:12 Maybe he's got a nice house, what have you, right? but they never look at what the business owner went through to get to that point, right? And that part seems to be like, you know, just forgotten or whatnot. Is there anything that happened kind of early on, anything that stood out to you that you can kind of share that was really difficult, maybe a big setback that you had overcome? God forbid I use the word actual just failure. Is there something that you, you know, that you experienced in this business that was pretty big, you know, that was a pretty big significant, either just flat out setback or just. just at least something that you had to make a pivot on. Again, we already know that COVID was there, right?

Starting point is 00:08:49 But you seem to have done well with that. I don't know, maybe it was more so as COVID faded out that maybe you had to kind of, all right, now we're in a new phase of life here, you know. Is there anything like that that stands out that you can share with us, Darren? Sure. Well, I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not, but I have a lot of failure stories I can pick from to answer your question. Probably the first biggest, worst one in my world was I had gotten big fairly quickly.

Starting point is 00:09:13 I hired my first employee in 2020, so four months after I started, second employee fairly quickly after that. And I got busy enough that I had to have somebody answering the phones. And I got a gal, and she was on board with me and trained up. You know, she went from sort of being my marketing person to being, you know, the gal that would help dispatch the guys to being my accounts payable and receivable and just really took over the office. And we actually got to the point where I was ready to expand. This was in 2020 late in the year. I saw that I had family. up in Oregon and I was talking to them and they were like, we're in the same boat, but there isn't a ladder truck and toolbox up here. And so I looked into licensing for Oregon. I looked into,

Starting point is 00:09:52 you know, where I would base my business out of, got myself a phone number, got myself, you know, the process started on my general contractor license, bought a trailer, got in my truck and was towing that trailer north when my operating manager quit on me. And so all of a sudden, now I'm running the business from my trailer in Oregon. I haven't got everything set up there yet, but I'm still managing and dispatching and billing and paying everything in Vegas. So that lasted about a week. I got in the trailer and drove right back down here. So that was a humbling experience to realize that, you know, when you start, you're

Starting point is 00:10:25 yourself and you know what you can and can't do or maybe you believe you can do things and then you find out you can or you can't. But as soon as you start trusting someone else with any part of your business, you've now got that other part of you walking around out there doing, you know, the things that they're doing and they think is right and everything. And so you start to depend on them. You start to trust them. And that relationship builds and builds and builds.

Starting point is 00:10:48 And then when they leave, because of, you know, in this case, it was a, her husband had gotten a transfer or something. They were, she was leaving. So it was like, okay, let's figure this out. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a challenge to go back and then realize, you know, how much as you move through the growth process of being an entrepreneur to being a manager to being, you know, an actual CEO where you're running. other managers, not just the business. It's a real mind shift change. You really have to put yourself

Starting point is 00:11:16 in different places to answer questions in ways when you're the operating manager again, as opposed to the CEO. I'm not setting policy anymore. I'm answering a question of a client on the phone right now while the guy is standing there waiting for my answer. So that was probably the biggest negative, which I learned a lot from, which is you know, you've got to have the right people. And when the right people even with the best intentions fail or have to leave or leave for whatever reason, you got to be able to get back on top of that pretty quickly. There's a lot going on and you can't just have the line of people that are already expecting a person to show up at 9 o'clock and then 1 o'clock and then 4 o'clock.

Starting point is 00:11:54 You know, if they don't show up, my reputation goes in the toilet very quickly. And the operating manager had all of that under her umbrella. So it was a real challenge to get back on top of that and make it work. Yeah, no, very, very understandable. And I think that is a perfect situation and story to share. So thank you for sharing that. I want to call on my co-pilot over here, Tim. He's been a little bit quiet.

Starting point is 00:12:20 And Tim, is there a question that stands out to you that maybe you want to throw at Mr. Darren here? Yeah, Darren. I mean, Las Vegas is known for being vibrant and a unique business landscape. I mean, you got the strip downtown. You got the old Fremont Street. You got North Las Vegas. You got Summerlin that's expanding very quickly. And then you have all of Henderson as well.

Starting point is 00:12:43 How is being based in the city influenced your business strategies and decisions? I tell you it's a good question, Tim. The town from the outside and all of the marketing that the Las Vegas conventioner and visitor authority has put out there wants to lead you to believe that Vegas is very much a monoculture of gambling. in the strip, and that's pretty much all that exists. So if you live in New York City and you hear Las Vegas, you think somebody's rolling dice at Caesars. The reality is this is a very small town when it comes to business, there are a lot of times when your business reputation just by wearing a hat or driving around in a truck, you know, with a logo on it, that somebody will say, hey, I know things about you, and you wouldn't expect them to know that because, you know, I'm in as many

Starting point is 00:13:28 marketing organizations as I am, and the way I get myself out there is by being very present, And you'd think it would be, oh, nobody will ever really hear me. You know, there's just too many, too many ears out there and my voice is so small. But the reality is people notice when you do something. So, you know, you don't get to run red lights as often as you think you could. You can't just be the, you know, I'm going to screw this client and the other clients are going to be okay with it because they'll never hear about it because it's a big town. You really have to be, you know, watch your P's and Q's. You make sure that you treat every client like they're the very important client.

Starting point is 00:13:59 and make sure you don't just assume that, you know, you can, what do you call, sweep your mistakes under the rug because it'll come back to bite you quick. It's a very small time when it comes to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now, there's a question that we like to ask business owners about networking. Tim, I know Tim personally, and I've known him for a while, Tim is a master networker. Very, very good at it. And I was just going to say that I'd like for him to ask it, but then I think he's having a little bit of a temperate. We are, yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:28 We may be just the two of us for a minute there, Marco. I guess that question is back in my lap again. But it sounds like you're very similar to Tim, Darren. I think you have a lot going on. You've been doing a lot of networking. You're part of different associations and what have you. But can you share some tips on building meaningful connections? I think it's easy to go out there and just chit chat and exchange business cards

Starting point is 00:14:50 and then just go on to the next one. But the real business growth comes from a meaningful connection, right? Can you share some tips with us? on what strategies you've used yourself there in Vegas to kind of build your business and make those connections with other fellow business owners? Absolutely, Marco. And this is going to sound like a commercial for the organization of whom I'm a member. But the reality is B&I. I made the luck or skilled decision to join B&I when I was in business for a few months because I had some friends that were in a chapter. And they said, hey, come out and meet us. And I immediately also

Starting point is 00:15:26 joined Chambers and was involved. with other organizations where you stand up and speak or you trade business cards. But the reality is there's a lot of places you can go and shout. But there's not a lot of places that you listen and respond and get to know people. And for me, B&I was really that. It was that the dedication to making the meetings, to getting to know the members, to really spending the time to understand their perspective and share your perspective, generates more of a relationship.

Starting point is 00:15:55 So I've gotten more business out of business out of business. B&I than I have out of any chamber or any other outside association. For whatever reason, I know the other ways are good for getting my name out there, the shouting, but it's pretty much everybody standing in a room shouting. You could trade all the business cards you want, but at the end of the night, you go home with a stack of 30 business cards, and you're like, I remember maybe two of these guys, maybe, you know, three or something. But in B&I, it's one group that sits there the entire time. So lucky or skillfully, that's what I attribute a lot of my success to is that I got involved with an organization that used that sort of responsibility

Starting point is 00:16:32 and accountability as a keystone to their organization. So I got known not only in that group, but it also taught me how small this town is in a business sense. And so that I needed to be accountable for my actions because I can't just mess up a little bit here and then go on and act like nobody's going to see that. Sure. 100%. Now myself, personally, I'm also a member of a B&I group here in my city. So I know the routine. I know the process and I know the power of a good B&I group. If we were at a B&I meeting right now, Darren, what would your, give me your 30 second elevator pitch. What would that sound like for your business?

Starting point is 00:17:09 If you could just share that as if we were at a B&I meeting right now. Sure. Yeah, the easy answer is that ladder truck and toolbox is a licensed and professional organization. We have all of our ducks in a row when it comes to coming out and fixing the little things in your house that you could fix yourself. You need a new ceiling fan. You want to change your smoke detector batteries. You want to upgrade your smoke detector to the new 10 years sealed lithium ion. A battery model that, you know, you don't have to change the batteries for 10 years.

Starting point is 00:17:39 Think of us to come do that because we're insured. We're the answer to the, you know, do you want to do it yourself? Great. Knock yourself out. If you don't, give us a call and we'll take care of it right for you. All right. And what would a typical ask sound like from your business, ladder truck and toolbox? You mean somebody asking me to come out and do work for them?

Starting point is 00:17:59 Yeah, like in other words, if you're in a BNI meeting and at the very end, you're like, okay, now here's my asks for the week. I'm looking for, you know, you see what I'm saying? I do understand what you mean. Yeah. No, what I'm looking for from a networking perspective or, you know, teaching you how to help my business perspective is I want you to remember that real estate agents are very big for my business because every single real estate transaction in the residential world has to have an

Starting point is 00:18:24 inspection report. Well, it doesn't have to, but the reality is many, many multiples of 99.9% plus will have an inspection report and the buyer and the seller have to negotiate who's going to fix the things that either one of them says needs to be done. And we're the people that can handle those. So that's my easiest ask is introduce me to real estate agents that are not currently using me. Because we do fill that GILVAR checklist of they can do it and it's legal, it's okay. We get a lot of business that way. Otherwise, property. management companies, anybody who's got a stable of houses that have renters in them, we love to help them out because we do just work order work for them. They'll just send us a list

Starting point is 00:19:04 and say, replace these two vertical blinds in this toilet and this unit. Here's the key code. And then we invoice them at the end of the month kind of thing. So those are the biggest things. That's perfect. Tim, just to get you up to speed, I guess apparently you're on dial-up today, but that's okay. We still love you anyways. I was asking Darren about the whole networking thing. giving you props for being such a master networker, but it looks like Darren is definitely shares some of the same qualities. So I asked them the question about, you know, tips on building meaningful relationships within that world.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Can I trust that your internet will hold it long enough to ask Darren another question? You know, achieving a work-life balance can be challenging for business hours, especially as you're, you know, managing multiple crews and accounts payable, accounts receivable, doing your own marketing, doing your own advertising. How do you manage your professional and personal life effectively, especially in the city as they have? Well, I'll tell you what, Marco, I think I understand the question he was trying to ask or was trying to get through there. And the bottom line is that is something that I both believe in and don't believe in. I understand the concept of work life balance. And in terms of turning off my phone and turning off my desire to be,

Starting point is 00:20:24 accessible to every single person and employee every single minute. I'm good at that. I'm fine with sort of setting the boundaries in that respect. But when I walk out of my house, if I'm going to go check my mail or I'm going to go grab a beer with some friends or I'm going to get a cup of coffee with somebody, this hat's on, this logo is on. I'm talking to somebody. I've got business cards in my pocket.

Starting point is 00:20:45 So I'm never off from that respect or perspective. So there's no work life balance when I'm alert and alive and awake and out there in the world, there is no balance. I'm the representative of ladder truck and toolbox, and everybody that I run into will generally know that. If I'm working out at the gym, I've got a hat on. If I'm, you know, doing something anywhere in the valley, no, we are currently geographically restricted. I don't have this as a worldwide phenomenon at this point. So, you know, when I go to California, we just got back from L.A. for a family trip. You know, I wasn't all badged up for that. I was pretty much off for that. But the reality is, it is important, and I'll take this a little further.

Starting point is 00:21:23 it is important to give yourself the ability to shut off at times because I do get overstressed. I do get overstimulated. You know, too many people with too many questions too often and I kind of got to step back from that. The nice thing is I did hire a manager. So I do trust her. I give her a lot of authority to make decisions for me. And then we do little meetings afterwards to kind of talk about what worked and what didn't.

Starting point is 00:21:47 But that's really sort of the crux of it is you have to do more work in order to do less work. that's what I did is hired and brought in enough people that I've got the right people on the bus right now in order to make this business bigger and bigger. All I need now is more employees, like line employees, people who can go out in the field and actually do the work. That's where I have the biggest struggle. I have the marketing working pretty well. I have the management working pretty well. And the guys in the field, it's hit or miss. Very difficult to keep them. Yeah, and I don't think you're alone in that problem. Yeah, fortunately, unfortunately, I agree. I even talking. to people that run businesses. You know, I have, for whatever reason, I've been involved in

Starting point is 00:22:29 consulting for a lot of years. So I have a lot of C-suite friends. And, you know, we get sit down over a glass of wine and commiserate. My guys are making $27 an hour. His guys are making, you know, $270,000 a year. But the reality is there's still, that you still have to have that person who does the work, show up every day, clean, sober, capable, you know. and check all the boxes. Otherwise, you're doing it yourself, and that's not a business. That's a hobby. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:00 The interesting thing is those boxes that get checked, a few years back, maybe a couple decades back, there was no problem checking those boxes. It seems like a somewhat of a recent phenomenon, but I think that might be for a different podcast, Darren. Yeah, I think that might be a whole series of podcasts right there. I think I agree with you at some level, and I think I disagree at some level, because I've seen the joking cartoons where, you know, they have somebody in 2023 saying, oh, I can't find good laborers.

Starting point is 00:23:30 And then they'll show another panel and it'll be from 1986. And it's like, I just can't find good workers from, you know, and then it's 1902. And then 18, I think it's always that way. I think it's always hard to find good people. And retention is a big part of what I do and making sure that I'm keeping aware of what my employees want and making sure that I'm, if I'm able to offer it, I do offer it. and, you know, coming up with good incentivized incentive programs and things like that, but it's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

Starting point is 00:24:00 You know, it's like, there's a new issue. Let's fix it. There's a new issue. Hopefully they're not jumping up too fast that I can't whack them down. Sure, sure. Yeah, no, you bring up some really good points there. And it is, it is probably the everlasting problem always has been, always will be. But maybe to the extent of it maybe goes up and down a little bit, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:17 of just how many numbers are in that category. but it certainly, I think, is always an ever-present struggle for any business, right? For sure. Something that's always been there, always going to be there. Yeah, I mean, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, go ahead. The reality of it is, is anytime you're running a business, if you ever get to the point where you're not playing whack-a-mole,

Starting point is 00:24:39 you're not growing or you're not expanding or you're not, you're not increasing your reach in whatever way your metrics imply that you should. So I think the reality is, is even if you get calm and relax, That's probably a sign that you need to be paying a little more attention to what you should be doing to make, you know, I mean, if I really have a good answer to the handyman or the honeydew list, I should be doing more to make more of those people want to work for me. And I should be making myself more available to more potential clients so that they're aware of me as a resource. So, I mean, if I'm, if I'm ever really, really relaxed, I'm probably not doing my job very well. I hear you. I hear you. So you've been self-employed for basically about four years? In this position, absolutely. Yeah, this job started in 2019 as just me by myself under the sink trying to answer the phone and put in a new angle stop valve.

Starting point is 00:25:30 And then, yeah, fairly quickly I started to hire more people. So I went from, you know, solo entrepreneur or whatever to business manager fairly quickly. But yes, it's been around for four years. So let's just call it freshman year through you just graduated from, you know, from entrepreneurship, at least with this business. high school, what advice would you give to somebody that says, you know what, I'd like to, I'd like to start a business. I want to be an entrepreneur. You've been doing it for about the last four years. A lot has happened in that four year time period, right? Besides having stable internet, what advice do you advise to anybody that's starting their entrepreneurial journey, whether it's Las Vegas anywhere, anybody that could potentially be listening to this? Yeah, sure. I tell you, there's, there are a lot of great resources out there.

Starting point is 00:26:22 I've watched and learned from Ramit Sati. I will teach you to be rich. His stuff used to be very focused on sort of AB testing of ideas. And like, if I want to make money, let me try these different ways. Very specifically for my sort of thing, if, if you want to go do something, take out a quick ad on Craigslist and see if anybody wants to pay you to do it. You know, don't go get a business license and form a company and get logos and buy shirts in a company van and then go find out if you have clients. You know, you might get lucky,

Starting point is 00:26:53 but you're probably out 100 grand. The reality is you need to find out if there's a market for whatever you're doing. And then also, can you fill that market? Because you have an impression in your mind that you do job A, B, and C. Like, I'm good at A, B, and C. And you may put that A, B, and C ad out there on Craigslist or wherever you do it, you know, to say, I do A, B, and C, and if somebody calls you up and then says, that's great, but I really need C, D, and E. Can you do C, D, and E? You're like, then the question becomes, do you sell yourself as being able to do things you don't actually know how to do? Because YouTube, you is out there and you can figure it out, you know, because everything shy of, you know, the legal world and the medical world, you can pretty much figure out on your own, you know, once you've gotten a couple videos under your belt. So the question always has to be is, can I do the things that only I know how to do and stay in my absolute lane or should I expand my lane as my client-based changes?

Starting point is 00:27:45 And those questions, I mean, it's a scope creep question or it's a capability creep question. Do you want to do that or do you not want to do that? Those questions I would answer pretty clearly if I'm going to start a business like, what do I offer? What do I want to charge for it? How do I mean, all those things are ever present in the business world. Yeah, I agree. I think I like the concept of ready fire aim, right, as kind of a way to go versus let's get everything. I got to do the, I got to get the LLC set up and then we got to, you know. Right. I mean, people, business owners or want to be business owners really get so wrapped up in those details like that, right? Well, that's the progress over perfection question. Excuse me, progress over perfection question. Do I do, do I get everything perfect before I start or do I start and kind of fix it as I go? And I'm a fan of starting and fixing as I go. I mean, I could have probably done more with the getting ready and done more Craigslist ads or things. But I was lucky enough to reach out to a few friends and say, hey, I'm starting a handyman business. You know, do you. Do you know anybody or do you need anything done? And I had a couple people that were like, yeah, I've got a cracked window. Do you guys do that?

Starting point is 00:28:51 And I was like, yeah, I'll figure that out. You know what I mean? It was easy enough to sort of say, I do have these stable business ideas that I could offer as a licensed individual. And also, you have to know your lane to know what you can't legally do. Like, you do have to be careful about that sort of thing. But in the beginning, I mean, you know, be ethical, be moral, do the right thing. and go try to do the best you can,

Starting point is 00:29:16 but be also aware that you might be still. Like, it seems like I should be able to help you with, you know, if my guys know how we should be able to change some part of an air conditioning unit. Sure. Not according to the state of Nevada. So don't step out there on Craigslist and say, hey, I'm an HVAC technician. Right.

Starting point is 00:29:33 You're going to get caught. You're going to be a bad guy. And so you do have to be aware of the legality of what you're offering. But if you, you know, common sense has to rule at some level and then be a, on that obviously, you know, get more education. But I like the ready fire aim as well. Reflecting on your, on this journey so far, these four years or so, if you could go back to 2019, knowing what you know now, four years into this thing, what's something that, that maybe that stands out in your mind that you would tell yourself and say, all right, you got to do this part

Starting point is 00:30:05 different. You got to do this part less. You got to do this more. You know, is there something that maybe just four years in you, you'd already advise yourself? Or would you not. change a single thing. No, I definitely would, you know, given the opportunity and facing the things I'm facing right now, to be honest, is the employee issues is really being better, faster at recognizing. I got, let me tell you a little story is the first guy I hired was a friend of a friend. And that guy is still with me. He's amazing. He's got good capabilities. He's got a great work ethic. We are not friends at this point, but he's definitely been around long enough that I'll go to his house. I'll come to my house. I've had a beer with the guy. I got lucky and unlucky because I thought

Starting point is 00:30:49 the next guy was going to be like that too. And so I didn't realize how much I had to be really aware of the second employee after the first guy that was easy. Like, is he going to be the same way? Well, I just assumed he was and he wasn't. So I think I would go back and I would tell myself, don't be complacent in the hiring process and be faster to the firing process. As soon as you realize somebody is not that they make a mistake because everybody makes mistakes, but when they make the mistake and they're either unwilling to hear you tell them they've made a mistake because their pride gets right up on their shoulders and says, well, I'm a professional. I do this all the time. You don't need to be telling me how to do it. You're fired. Yeah, I can't work with you if that's

Starting point is 00:31:27 your attitude. I need to be that guy faster than saying, oh, let me learn from you a little bit, journeyment tile layer or, you know, a plumber that's moonlighting. I need to be able to understand that my job is your manager requires me to be. be aware of your capabilities and do things the way I think you should do them, obviously, within the bounds of the law and good practices, but, you know, that sort of thing, I would have changed faster. Makes sense. There's always going to be a few of those things that are out there. Darren, what does the future of ladder truck and toolbox look for you? You know, it sounds like,

Starting point is 00:32:02 sounds like the world's for the taking over there for you in Vegas. I tell you, you could be right about that. I would love to think that the future holds expansion for me. in this company. My job is to make sure that, you know, policies are set down and that strategy is sort of laid out so everybody knows where we're going. I would love to be able to expand into other markets. Once I've gotten Las Vegas fairly well covered and I have a good stable of employees that

Starting point is 00:32:28 really know what they're doing and want to be involved and are capable on all those things. I would love to bring this to other markets because I think I have proved the concept that, you know, a well-run handyman business can exist. I just need to figure out how to like replicate that and myself, whether it's a franchising or if it's just generic expansion where I go get business licenses started up or do I go start to sell it to other people. I mean, I think I've got good ideas along those lines, but that would be where I would say

Starting point is 00:32:58 that I would go next is to get bigger and bring more geographic locations under my umbrella. That's awesome, man. You're an inspiring guy and I think you've done a lot in four years. and for very turbulent years for any small business owner, to be completely honest. And so the fact that you're still thriving and doing well really says a lot. Tim, you've been a little bit silent, a little bit absent in this episode, but that's okay. We forgive you.

Starting point is 00:33:25 You got any final parting words here for Mr. Darren Hoover before we part ways? Well, I just wanted to recognize Darren. You know, we met a couple months ago, and I can tell he's smart and good at advertising and marketing, we got working together right away. And then he's just been killing it. He's my number one MVP for RSVP, Las Vegas. So I appreciate Darren and happy we could bring us your phone calls. I appreciate you, Jim. That was a wonderful experience.

Starting point is 00:33:54 I'm enjoying the heck out of the fact that this has worked so well for me because RSVP marketing has been very helpful in the last couple of weeks since the postcard hit. It's been a wonderful thing. But, Marco, before we go, I do want to address one of the things you said is as far as starting a business in turbulent times, I would posit that there is no time that you can say, oh, it's going to be clear sailing for the next however many months, years. If you're thinking about doing it, give it a shot. Go find out if there's a market for what you have for skills, find out what people should be charging for what you want to offer and see if it's something

Starting point is 00:34:26 you can do. I think that the world is your oyster if you want to make it. Fantastic point. And a really a great note to leave this podcast off on. So Darren Hoover, Ladder, Truck, in Toolbox, Handyman Services, we thank you so very much for being our guest today on the Vegas Business Spotlight. Thank you, gentlemen. It's been a pleasure. And that does it, guys, for another episode of the Vegas Business Spotlight. We'll catch you here next time. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Vegas Business Spotlight. For more inspiring stories and insights from the Las Vegas business community,

Starting point is 00:35:03 be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. And remember, you can catch new episodes each week at Vegas Business Spotlight, where we keep the spotlight shining bright on the entrepreneurs who make Las Vegas thrive. And don't forget to like and subscribe. See you next week.

Business Innovators Radio - From Military Service to Running a Thriving Business: Darin Hoover’s Vegas Business Spotlight

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