The Home Service Expert Podcast - Building a High-Performance Team: Insights from a Multi-Million Dollar Home Services Powerhouse

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Chad Peterman is the president of Peterman Brothers Heating, Cooling & Plumbing, a family-owned, full-service HVAC & plumbing company located in Indiana. It was recognized as the 2019 Residential Contractor of the Year by Plumbing & Mechanical. He is also the host of the Can’t Stop the Growth Podcast. In this episode, we talked about greenfield, networking, personnel management, operational metrics…

when you're growing really fast, you can afford to make mistakes, right? You can hire a bunch of people and they not be the greatest people, but you're just stacking basically people to solve problems. And I think where we are now, where growth is a little bit slower is you've got to be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more strategic. You've got to be a little more dialed into your costs and what your overhead looks like and kind of matching that to what you think the growth rate will be. And so for us, it's really just been about getting a lot more efficient with our conversion rates, our average tickets, our gross profit margins, all of those things this year for us are better than they ever have been. And for me, focusing on those things

ultimately lends itself to a more profitable business, which is the exciting part. I think for us over the next three years, it's really looking at really perfecting the greenfielding model. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to

fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states.

Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the home service expert. I've got the one and only Chad Peterman here. Chad is the president of Peterman Heating, Cooling, and Plumbing, a family-owned full service HVAC plumbing company focused primarily on residential installation service and repair. They grew their business over the decades, and he's the host of

Can't Stop the Growth podcast. Chad, how are you today? Doing well, Tommy. So, you know, we're part of this group where it's Ishmael, Tom Howard, Yano, you, me. I'm going through all the Hoffman. Who else am I missing? You say Aaron? Yeah, Gaynor, Aaron Gaynor. So that's, how important do you think it is to have a tribe of people that are aspiring to grow and be able to shoot things off of one another? I mean, the stuff that's come out of that group has been nothing less than a miracle, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, you know, we all have our good days and our bad days. We all run into issues. For me, it's been you know, we all have our good days and our bad days. We all run into issues. For me, it's been more of a, yeah, there's a lot of good ideas, but, you know, I think put simply, it's just a place for motivation, right? When you're having an off day or, you know, feeling sorry for yourself, there's other people working and getting after it and growing their company. So I think that just the, you know, it's,

what is it, spirited competition, I feel like, where we're each kind of pushing each other to get a little bit better. You know, for me, what try to have a call every month, the one I took from you and implemented right away was the 10 or 15 second video on Facebook for recruiting. It has been a game changer for us. It's the simplest thing. It took me all of 15 seconds to shoot the video, put it on Facebook, and all of a sudden our leads for technicians went through the roof as opposed to, you know, sitting on Indeed waiting for people to reach out. Well, last time I checked is there's probably not a whole lot of good technicians who are like scanning Indeed to apply for jobs. Whereas we got candidates out there that were maybe just interested in learning about what it was all about here. So I think there's ideas like that. I share that one because I got it from you. So, but I tell everybody about that now. And so I think for me,

yeah, just having a group of people that you can bounce ideas off of. I know I'll shoot you a one-off text message if I run into something like, oh yeah, Tommy's probably went through that. What are you using here? Introduction or whatever it may be. So yeah, I think it's hugely important. I agree. I think the competition, you know, I have a buddy of mine that joined this group, Tiger 21, and he was around all these bath refitter guys and window guys and just kitchen remodelers. And he's watching these guys. Some of them are doing over a billion of revenue. So one of them is 2.3. And he goes, you know, he's a little bit older.

He's in his 60s. And he goes, man, these guys are hungrier than I am. A lot of them are my age. It removes the excuses and starts to like put on, you know, maybe my goals aren't big enough. Maybe I need more. If they could do it, I could do it. I mean, when I saw Ishmael getting in shape, it was one of 20 things. If the signs were all there, I mean, it wasn't him. It wasn't two people. It wasn't three people. Then I pushed Gaynor, you know, and it's not this competition, but it is in a way of like, man, Ishmael's working out.

This guy's working out. This guy's doing Travis Ringy. Didn't drink at all when I was with him. He's taken the whole year, one year off of alcohol. And I'm like, cool. Like these guys got a little bit of discipline. They show up, they do the work and it's in every facet of life. It's and what I appreciate about you guys, and I'm probably the only one in the group without a kid,

is just watching you guys, how you handle your kids and how you parent, because it's a good example for me going into this. I'm not having a kid next year, I don't think, but I want kids. So that's, what's really cool is watching. I don't think it's necessarily work-life balance because you guys do work when you're on these trips. You guys talk about business. I know Yano comes out and sees you quite a bit. And you guys go out to the lake. And it's pretty impressive.

Yeah, it's a full-time gig. That's for sure. But yeah, I mean, I think it's just, you know, I would say that there's probably, to your point, there's probably more life talk, whether it's getting in shape, whether it's how do you handle this. There's more life talk sometimes than there is even business, which is good because that's all part of it. How we show up at work is oftentimes how we show up in our personal life as well. You know, a lot of people, when they ask me what was the catalyst of A1? I say Service Titan, Al Levy, and the podcast. Because the podcast gave me access to a lot more people than I normally had access to. A lot of that was through the first Pantheon. They happened at the same time.

The podcast, I got people from Pantheon, Tom Howard, got close with Darius Livers. What is doing a podcast and building a personal brand done for you? What would you say are like the aha and like the big takeaways? Well, I think there's a lot, right? I mean, when I first started it, I know it was used as an internal communications tool. You know, we did a lot of stuff. So if you go back and listen to some of the early stuff, it's just me communicating to our team. And then once, you know, I'll never forget being out somewhere and someone was like, oh, yeah, I listened to your podcast. And I'm like, why? You're not even in the home service industry. Why would you do that? And they're like, well,

there's some good stuff on there. I was like, oh, OK, cool. And so once I kind of saw it, you know, building a little bit of traction is when we kind of ramped it up with guests and different stuff like that. And to your point, it gave me access to a lot of people. I sit here and we'll take a ton of notes, either being on one or hosting one. I'm asking all the questions that I'm interested in learning about. And so I think that there's that piece, but to your piece about the personal brand, I think that that is one of the most underestimated things and powerful things that it's generated. And I think that, you know, it gets a knock because I think it can come off as like, oh, you're building a personal brand. Don't you think you're all high and mighty?

And it's really not because the business, the leader of the business, for me has to build that brand. I mean, what are we about here at this company? Well, you know, as I always say, our core values align with my personal core values in a lot of ways, because I got to come to work here every day, and we're leading the business and all of that stuff. And so I think that, you know, building a personal brand, I've had a number of talks with Chris Hoffman around the subject of like, you know, social media is what it is, but like people are listening

and there's a lot of people on it for a reason. And, you know, whatever your persona is out into the public is what people are going to, you know, right or wrong are going to think about your company, because you're the leader, you're the face of the organization. And so for me, it's been kind of one of those things where putting that out there, especially as it relates to recruiting, people want to come work here, because a lot of the times the stuff we put out, especially higher level people, you know, there's interviews that I'll sit in, they're like, Oh, yeah, I listened to your podcast. Well, if they've already listened to the podcast

and have an idea of what we're about here, more times than not, we're going to have a good shot at bringing that person aboard. I agree. I mean, I love it when people have studied me, they study what I put out. They're like, I want to work here. They're like, even if it takes 90 days to onboard, whenever you're ready, I'll be waiting to transition out of where I'm currently at. And typically that's not the unemployment line, right? So that's, it's a huge advantage. And I watch, you know,

Grant Cardone years and years and years ago, whether you like him or hate him, people wanted to show up and be part, they looked at him, he always wore a Rolex. They said, I want this guy to train me. And keeping that relationship and mentorship is huge. And that's something we talked about on your podcast. It's just how do we communicate, become a trainer of life for the people that want it.

And if they want to get it, we got to make time for that and make them into machines. I mean, a machine of good in the culture, doing good in the community, changing their life. What I mean by machine is discipline, showing up, having goals. It's machine-like. It's hard when people have so much, a lot of people, especially in the blue collar space, have a lot of drama. And they're looking for us to guide them through it. Yeah. Well, and I think too, it's, you know, for me, it's a way to kind of humanize when your face is on the side of trucks

and, you know, you run a big company, I think you can be looked at as like, you know, this high and mighty, you know, invincible type person. It's like, no, like I'm going through all the same struggles that you're going through. And so for me, it's allowed me to be vulnerable. Like, hey, this is what we should do. But just know that if you're struggling with it, so am I. And here's an example of how I'm struggling with

it or something that we're going through. So I think it's a powerful tool, whether you want to start a podcast or not. I think just having awareness that your personal brand is being created and you can either be the creator of it and kind of curate that message, or you can just, you know, kind of allow it to transpire however you want. And so for me, it's just been kind of like, almost like not setting the record straight, but like, no, no, no, this is what we're about. And this is what we're going to talk about. I agree. I think it's very powerful. Let me go back. I'll tell you, when I met Eric Van Dam, he, I couldn't have been more than five and a half million of EBITDA. And for some reason, he decided to plant a seed and water it with me and spend a lot of time knowing that we were going to grow. I don't know what he saw in A1 or me.

He told me, this is where I think you're going to need a lawyer up a little bit more. He introduced me to Foley. Then he said, sounds like you're going to need a better CFO. And then he helped me with the recruiting one. And then he said, let's get really serious about this. Let's figure out this. And he doubted me at times, which was good because it made me want to try harder. So I know, you know, Eric, and I know, you know, a lot of guys that kind of understand

how to build a company that's worth a lot of money, which ultimately, I think we all want a company that's worth a lot of money because we can help everybody around us. My first deal, 25 millionaires came out of it. What have you learned specifically from guys like Eric that understand and seen a lot of transactions? They've seen how companies are presented in the SIP, which is a fancy word for saying this is kind of the differentiators of what makes your company great. Are there any key insights that you've learned just talking to guys like that? Yeah. I mean, you brought up the CFO and our CFO has been with us for a little over a year. And I think guys like, he came out of

big four public accounting and just looked at things differently. And I think guys like Eric as well, they just look at the business a little bit differently than maybe say we would have been in it so long. And I think it's not that our perspective is wrong, but you know, if I've learned anything over the last couple of years, it's just looking at problems from a different perspective, I think is always good. You know, I think that there's a lot of things that we may or may not pay attention to that, you know, drive value in a company. You know, what are those things that we may not look at because we're operating the business on a daily basis. But when you, you know, really get down

to it and you start looking at the data, the data tells a story. The numbers don't lie. And so for me, it's, you know, talking to guys like that, it's, you know, getting really clear on what numbers matter. You know, I think that one of the ones that I always focus on now is from a growth perspective is, you know, your revenue could be up, but there's a lot of factors that go into your revenue being up. You know, did you just increase your price or are you truly growing via volume? Are you putting in, you know, in HVAC terminology? Are you putting in more systems, you know, this month in 2024 than you did in 2023? And so on and so forth. And I think looking at those, because that was something I would have never looked at, right? It was just like, oh, yeah, our revenue is up. We're growing.

But are you growing? Now, that's not to say that, you know, growth by a price increase or, you know, negotiating better terms is a bad thing. It's a good thing. But looking at all the levers of what actually what that growth story really is. And for me, you know, I think it's just them putting eyes on the business from a different lens and looking at what people truly value as you build your company. I agree. I think it's one of the biggest questions was, well, this just a COVID lift when we did it, we went through a process because you raised your prices. And a lot of people don't understand that, like more transactions got to go through. Or one of the things I really respect Paul Kelly for is, is he'll find another way to do other type of business with the clients

he already has. And I don't think there's very many people that even compare to him in home service because, and I called him the other day and I said, dude, how do you do this? And he's like, well, it's a lot of gamification. It's constant reminders. It's having a head of that channel of that service. It was crazy because he does a lot, but he owns his audience. And I've never been into that. I've been to own my category, which is garage doors. And I don't want to be a one trick pony. I want to show people more than anybody in my team that we could do something else and we could sell more to the existing clients. And that's something we're heavily working on right now, because if there's

any way to raise the average ticket, it's not going to be raising just my prices. It's going to be offering a little bit more. Yeah, that's a great point. And probably another number that I think it was, it was probably Eric who brought it to my attention was like, how many times have your current customers, you know, we offer essentially four different services between sewer, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC, you know, how many of your customers are using your other stuff? You know, is it just a one? Oh, I had a, you know, my furnace didn't work. So I called you. Well, did we, did we open them up to all the other services? And so looking at that number of like, you know, what, how many, how many times are your people using everything that you have as opposed to just one of the

services? Yeah. It's a huge breakthrough when you could actually get them. I think most people are in the single percentages. You look at a company like Neighborly, they're not doing very great at crossing over to the other franchises, but they don't have a real good program of attribution. Whereas when it's under one hood, like your business, you could actually see that.

We haven't really started paying attention to a lot of details, which sometimes I feel like it's data overload, but it could fix certain things. Like I told you earlier, are the technicians getting to the first job on time? Capacity planning is by far the hardest puzzle to solve. I need more techs. I need more installers. I need more leads. I need my guys to show up. I need them to run. Not that many leads in one market, but less leads. And then now I need a guy that can actually work the late shift. Now I need a guy that's, I don't got anybody in the market around Sundays and it's hard, but I think it's going in intentionally saying, I'm going to hire a guy in this area that can work weekends and

nights. And I didn't understand that a long time ago. I just was like, let's recruit somebody. And nobody wants to work nights and weekends where I would work all those shifts because both decision makers are home. And guess what? They're usually going to spend more money because they know you're showing up on a night or a weekend. Yeah. Well, and I think, too, is that there's a lot more people, you know, just because we work during the day, Monday through Friday shift, and the vast majority of people do. There's a lot of people.

I always tell people this. I'm like, well, you do go eat at a restaurant in the evening, right? So there are people that work evenings and that works for their schedule. And so that was kind of a breakthrough for us is when you just start offering other shifts. It's amazing that people are like, oh yeah, my wife's a nurse and actually it works better if I have a day at home during the week so we can, you know, I just talked to one guy not too long ago. He's like, yeah, it works out great that I'm off on Fridays because we take our kids to the doctor's appointments and the this and the that. We can get some stuff knocked out as opposed to just being

off on Saturday and Sunday where, you know, stuff like that may be closed. Yeah. You know, Paul mentioned to me hybrid shifts. You can go down to four to three days if they're willing to work those odd hours, but they put in a little more time on those days, three or to me hybrid shifts. You can go down to four to three days if they want to work those odd hours, but they put in a little more time on those days, three or four days a week. I'd be fine with that. I mean, literally, if you want to work five calls, three days a week, and you're going to take your time to start a little bit early and work late, and you could have four days off to take care of your kids or travel with your wife

or whatever it is you want to do. I've always looked. I've seen people on one day where their performance is so much lower. I found out one guy liked to take off to Lake Havasu on Friday by 1 p.m. So he burned through his calls. And you got to be able to look at that in the data. Yeah. Well, I always, I always, when we started doing different shifts, I just looked at, you know, like you look at nurses. I mean, how many nurses have you talked to? And they work the weirdest hours of like, hey, I work three days in a row and I get seven off and then I come back and it's like, well, if they can do it, we can probably do it too. And it probably works for, you know, different people's lifestyles and stuff like that. And I think it's too, and I don't know if you're, I'm sure you're seeing this, but like, you know, this generation that is our technicians now, that 20 to 30 year old person, like their values are different. And it's not all like, you know, maybe you and I grew up of where like, it's just hard work all the time. Like they want time off. They want to, you know, maybe you and I grew up of where like, it's just hard work all the time. Like they

want time off. They want to, you know, they want to go do their things and that's more valuable to them than, you know, maybe even the money sometimes. And I've, yeah. And I've told our team, you know, we have to meet rather than just complain about how their value system is different than ours. Like we need to work to understand it and we need to meet them where they are because if we don't, and we just expect them to be like us or, you know, have the same value set, well, we're gonna be sorely disappointed

because none of those people are gonna feel inspired to work here if we don't meet them where they are. Totally agree. So in the last few years, I know you guys have had a lot of shifts and change. You bought companies, you're green-fielding. I'm just curious, if you were to talk to yourself two years ago, is there anything you would have done and what you feel comfortable on a podcast

explaining, but what would you have done differently? Yeah. So what I would have done differently, two things come to mind really quickly. One is don't buy small companies. So we did in, what was that, 20, well, really 21 and 22, we got really heavily involved in kind of this acquisition model, even to the point where last year we bought four companies and we left them standalone and just let them run their own thing. Similar to how you've seen a lot of these PE shops do it, where they just kind of, hey, we got this major brand and then we've got all these other ones. Well, what I learned from that is that it's very difficult to, especially if you want to kind of centralize some stuff,

it's very difficult to do that for four different brands. And so what we did is over the first part of this year was we rebranded them all so that it's one brand, they operate under the same operating system, and they do things exactly like. And unfortunately, we bought, they were good companies. And you know, we've got a lot of those people still on our team today who are doing amazing things. But it was, you know, they were a small company for a reason. And trying to make them a big company and grow them can sometimes be difficult. that if I had to do it all over again, I would probably just go Greenfield, different locations, and put our people who we've trained and who have worked in the business

is put them in those places. Like we've got another Greenfield coming up here at the end of the year. And one of our managers is going to move to that location. Well, it turns out he's from there and wants to get back home. So it works out perfect. But it provides an opportunity for him. And he's going to take what we built

here, and then he's going to take that to another market. And so for me, that's the exciting piece about kind of our strategy now of, you know, if we want to grow and we want to expand, let's just take it there ourselves. And it may be a little bit slower growth pattern than having acquired a company. But as we talked earlier, it's kind of set up the operation, get everything moving, and then maybe go acquire some of these small database buys. Because at that point in time, it's more of a marketing play than anything as you dump them into your system. I would say the other one, if I had to talk to myself two

years ago, would be figuring out our training program. So we started our school back in 2020 and we ran it like a school. And I don't know that I would do, well, I'm not doing that again. It's more so how do we create a training program that, one, I can get everybody here to Indianapolis at some point in time. They need to see the mothership. And that's where our training lab is. That's where everything is. Well, in our first iteration of the training program, it was like 10 or 12 weeks long. Well, I can't bring people here for 10 or 12 weeks.

That just won't work. Not to mention we were paying them to be here. And so what we're looking at now is how do we use kind of online learning to create a pool of candidates? system, giving them all this information and essentially training them online? Because we know that a lot of our younger people, that's how they learn. That's how they've learned through school. And can we train them there to create a huge pool of candidates who are already, you know, one kind of vetting them, like, do you really want to do this? Or did you just do this because nothing else worked out and someone told you to get into the trades? It's like, hey, let's train them first. And then once they pass all the tests and all of the things within this, then I can interview them.

And I know that they already have a base of knowledge, interview them, and then can I train them up in two weeks or so to be a maintenance technician? So I've only got two weeks of, you know, really bringing them in, training them up. So that's one of the things that we're working on right now is how do I create a bigger pool of candidates without having to bring them in each time? And so really excited about kind of where our school's heading and what we're doing with that. I think it's going to be a really, really good thing for us to say, hey, I've got 100, basically, technicians that are training right now. And essentially, I'm not having to fork out the dollars there. And if 100 and then, you know, let's say 10 of them decide,

Hey, this isn't for me. It's not what I thought. I don't know if I want to do that. So now we're down to 90. Then we interview and we decide that, you know, 45 of them are good. Well, I've already trained them to a certain point. Now I just got to bring them in and fine tune them. So they'll be really successful out there. I like that. We've got a pretty good program, but it's like we said, as my personal brand grows, I'm going to say we need somebody in Austin or we need somebody in Detroit. I'm hoping that the personal brand

continues to grow dramatically because people actually choose, look, I want to work with that company. Things are happening over there. We want to kind of row in the same direction. I want to be on that boat. Things are happening over there. We want to kind of row in the same direction. I want to be on that boat. I think that's very powerful. I, you know, I always tell people on stages,

I say, who here is planning on building a company that you could sell within five years? And I say, I choose three. I want to be invested in most companies that want to turn in three years because I think it's selfish not to. I think that's when a lot of people actually get a piece of the company and make money. And when the company transacts is when everyone gets a big sum of money. But then again, this opportunity to roll equity and a guy like, you know, Paul Kelly, for example, has rolled five times. So what is your thought on, I mean, look, we all wanted to be a platform and big and we got big goals.

You know, the guys we hang out with have big, big, big goals. But what are your thoughts as far as like the average person listening on getting a plan within five years? Or do they say, you know, I won't be able to hit this goal for 10 years. I just think there's too many uncertainties in that. But what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think you're 100% right. Whether you're planning on selling the company or not,

a lot of people, I think, you know, they come to your event, they go to Pantheon, they go to these events and they see these guys who have built these big companies. And they're just like, they go to Pantheon, they go to these events, and they see these guys who have built these big companies. And they're just like, I want to grow my company. And my first question is always like, what does that mean to you? Is that being a $10 million company? Is that being a $30 million company? And just saying you want to grow, to me, is a recipe for disaster. Because to your point, you don't have a plan. How do you know who to invest in?

How do you know whether to bring on a CFO? How do you know whether to build a school? I've talked to so many people that have come and toured our place and they're like, I'm going to build a school. And I'm like, what size are you? They're like, you know what? We're pushing 2 million this year. I'm like, you do not need to build a school yet.

If you can't find enough technicians to grow from two to probably 15, then there may be another problem. And so what I always ask people to do when I talk to them is let's write down what, to your point, in a short time span, we always do three years. So what do we want to look like in three years? And write it down. What does that look like? And then you can work it backwards. Simply saying you just want to grow is not going to get you anywhere because what does that mean? Once you set up, you know, a peg, then you can start to work towards that. And I think to your point about big goals, what I've always challenged people to do is, you know, whatever goal you write down first, you're better off probably just doubling that. Because, you know, as many say, you know, the purpose of know, 300,000. I'm like, well, what would your actions look like if you had to hit 600? And if you don't get to 600, that's perfectly fine.

But my guess is you're going to get more than three. And so I think that that is extremely important when it comes to goal setting. And, you know, having a plan of where you're going. You know, we talked earlier about your plan and kind of how you're, you know, executing upon it. But I think so many people have no plan whatsoever. Yeah, it needs to be itemized. I mean, I always take it back down to how many calls do I need?

What's the cost per lead? Then I take that down to booking rate, divide that by conversion rate, divide that by average ticket, boom. I've got a formula and a recipe now to know what this needs to look like. I find that most companies don't know how to generate revenue. They just, they don't understand how to get leads. It's like, where are you getting the leads? And then again, I say, you're not putting the

A plus players on those leads and you're not cherishing those leads. If you're blowing through leads now, what would, what's good about you're making single digits profit. There's no point. Focus on profit. Get your profit up before you start focusing on more leads. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. A quick reminder, the Freedom event is happening on September 25th to the 27th. And today's tough economy with PE firms invading, lead costs spiking, and customers cutting back, it's time to protect your bottom line and your future. At Freedom, you're going to learn how to bulletproof your business from home service legends like Paul Reed, owner of Northwest Roofing, a $30 million a year business.

Aaron Gaynor, the owner of Eco Plumbers, a $75 million business. Ken Goodrich is chairman of Gettle, a $250 million business. And Leland Smith, founder of Service Champions, a $500 million business. Listen, you can keep doing what you're doing and hope for the best, or you can arm yourself with the proven strategies I've used at A1 Garage for a service. Get your tickets at freedomevent.com. That's freedomevent.com. Now let's get back to this episode. You got to fight for every one that comes through. You need to be getting reviews on everyone. You need to be making sure your guys are hitting the gas on every single lead and converting those. Very few companies are doing that. Yeah. I mean, I think most people probably have enough lead

volume to double in size, but the problem is, is they don't book the call, their conversion rate's terrible, their average ticket's terrible. All of these things where, you know, are you truly maximizing what's coming in the door? My guess is probably not. I mean, we're all guilty of it, right? There's always a, there's always, we're always trying to get better, always trying to improve all of our metrics. But, you. But where are your metrics today? I think that's the one thing that's interesting. We talk about a plan like, do you know your numbers? And I know that gets thrown out there a lot.

But truly do you know your booking rate? If you don't, you need to figure it out. How many calls came in today for people wanting your service? And how many of those were you able to set an appointment with? And then you got to look at cancellation rates and different things like that. But like, to me, that's most important before you go spending more money on marketing or think your agency sucks or whatever it may be. Like, are you actually capitalizing on the leads that are being generated? You know, I've never seen a company grow faster as when they start looking at their org chart and start really putting numbers on people, how good they're doing out of 10.

And when you start to shift the people and you start going who, not how. And sometimes you got to go outside of the field to find these people, especially in the C-suite. And that's been my biggest hurdle this year in getting ready for what we're trying to do. It's going to be, I mean, I'm talking to Luke, my COO, and I said, dude, you're a bottleneck. You've got way too many reports. And in my mind, I didn't put these two and two together until recently, is he's going, if we grow at this pace, how am I going to keep up? What's my life look like? So unless everyone's running at these goals and I said, then let's hire either a chief revenue officer, you turn into the chief revenue officer

and get another COO. I'm like, where are you spending your time with your direct reports? Who's eating all your time? Is that the right person? Are they, is everybody right on the bus? Because you could grow so fast when you pull in the right team. And it's the teamwork makes the dreams work, right? I can't tell you if you're going to grow dramatically, it's going to be bringing on the right people. I think Aaron, I talked to Aaron quite a bit. He's like, we kind of had to do a reset and start getting back to the basics.

And I've lost a lot of great people, but it was the right direction. I brought on a lot of great people. I'm not seeing this dramatic growth we were seeing a few years ago from anybody really. I mean, if you're acquiring just every day, but then they suck at integrations. So then they're like, you do five good acquisitions, your company, now you're hitting pause. Now you're not in growth mode. Now you got to work on integrations. You're greenfielding like crazy. Well, you're pouring a. Now you're not in growth mode. Now you got to work on integrations.

You're greenfielding like crazy. Well, you're pouring a lot of money out and those take time. Those are usually more than one year to see a good ROI. Yeah. What do you, what are your take on that? Yeah. I mean, your, your point about the people, I think that it's, it's, uh, and we've, we've went through this as well. You know, sometimes you'll put a person in place and that gets you from one place to

another, but either their skills or you haven't done a good enough job developing them or whatever that looks like. But I think that bringing on the right people, I mean, our leadership team, I don't think anybody's ever installed a furnace or knows how to work on one. It's all people that are specialized in a particular area and have expertise there. And I think that that's a I think it's pretty powerful when you're able to bring on those people. But also understanding, especially if you're growing quickly, is that sometimes you'll hit people's ceilings quickly as well.

And then all of a sudden you've got to kind of you're wondering why we're not growing as fast or where did why is this getting overlooked? And it's like, well, you've hit their kind of aptitude threshold. And then you've got to bring in either someone above them to think a little bit more strategically or whatever that may be. It's not always two. It's not always replacing people. It just may mean you need to find them a new seat on the bus. And so I think sometimes people get scared of that. They're like, well, I really like John. It's like, well, you can still really like John. But, you know, John

looks like his role is here and you need someone up here. And so John can still play on the team, but like bring in somebody that can think strategically or tackle that next challenge that you're looking to tackle. Well, it's a lot. I think there's a lot there to unpack. I mean, this guy knows the business. He understands the business. He knows the KPIs. It's so much easier for me to keep this in this role because if I bring somebody new on, it's going to make my life a living hell for the next 60 days. It's going to be asking all the same questions and all these things, even if you've got a good LMS and you teach them. And it's a necessary evil to bring on new people. And the fresher the eyeballs, the better. Someone that

doesn't, they're not rooted in the business. They didn't come up in the business. Now I'm all about promoting from within, but not everybody, especially not the C-suite and the VP level. And a lot of people are like, what else can I do in this company? And I'm like, what do you want to do? Because quite frankly, some of the people that want a better role or a more prestigious role, it's a paid cut, but there's an opportunity for equity. And a lot of the people don't want to make that cut. They're like, well, I've already lived at this, this number. Well, you're going to have to live off of this number, but you're going to, you know, in three years, what does that look like for you? And it's a trust thing. Yeah. Well, and I think too, if you're the smarter people you bring in,

they can catch on pretty quick. What we do is not rocket science. They can pick it up pretty darn quickly and a lot quicker than what you think. And the hope is, is you're upgrading the person so they should be able to catch on. But yeah, I think to your point, you know, I've had a lot of people come to me and they're like, oh yeah, I want to do this. And I'm like, do you know what that role does? Well, no, not really. Well, here's what they have to do day in, day out. This is what they do. Okay. Nevermind. I don't want that. It's all good here. I don't, that doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I just had a technician, amazing guy. I interviewed two technicians a week about how great they are.

This guy's name is Mike. He's amazing. He's like, you know, I don't want to be known as Mike, the technician forever. And I said, so tell me what you want to do. But I'll tell you some of the guys you mentioned, they sit behind a computer all day. They make phone calls. I just don't see you wanting to do that. But if I knew what you wanted to do and where your passion lies, there's roles that haven't been created yet. And I'd like to know

how you make impact. And if there's a lot of impact, there's roles that we're going to have that we don't have right now. But I'm not creating a role for you unless you could show me there's going to be a lot more revenue and profit associated with it. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah, no, I think that makes total sense. And I think sometimes it's, it's really about just leveling with people because they don't know what they don't know. And that's perfectly fine. You know, why would they know what that person does within the organization? That's not their job. And I think that your point about finding what they're passionate about and finding where they can make impact. When you get a person in the right seat on the bus, it is amazing what can happen. You know, it takes off in ways you can't even comprehend. And I

think some of the time, most of the time, the founder and the owner is a bottleneck. I think either they want to grow too fast or they don't. Most of the time, they're the smartest one in the room. And that's a big mistake too, is they want to know, this is my vision,

this is what I want to do. And then they make really foolish decisions that aren't really strategic. And my biggest goal is to get specialists that know more than me about what they're doing. Yeah. And I think that's a great point. And I want to say this just because I've learned it here recently. I think everybody's heard, don't be the smartest one in the room. And I think some people get fearful of that. Like, how am I ever going to find somebody who knows more than me about this business?

How am I going to find that person? And I think it's to your point, it's about finding specialists. Like my CFO knows a hell of a lot more about the finance and accounting and reports and spreadsheets and all of this stuff that I need him to know, but I don't know any of that. And so when we're in a room, I look to him and say, Hey, what do we do here? Or what is this same thing with HR, the same thing with training and operate all of these things. It's like, how do I find somebody that can do that? And I think for me, it's been one of those things where, you know, if you find yourself micromanaging somebody, one, you probably don't have the right person. And at that point in time, you definitely are the smartest one in the room because you

know how to do it better than they do. And that's why you're micromanaging them. So I think that's something for people as you're growing to keep an eye out for of, you know, where can I insert specialists into the business? I think the finance piece is the one that's glaring for me. It's like, when you reach a certain level, having someone who is an expert in the financial piece, because more than likely, if you're the leader, you're more of the visionary. And that's how I am. Like, I don't know how to make spreadsheets or anything. I mean, I can

probably fake my way to it with a YouTube video. but there's people in the business that know how to do that really, really well. And we're doing it. Yeah, exactly. Doing it day in, day out. So as far as your company, what do you see in the next three years? I mean, are you focused on revenue? Are you focused on profit? Would you say both? Would you say continue to grow the markets to be the largest market you're in or continue to get into a with that revenue number, right? It's like, I think in 22, well, yeah, from 21 to 22, we went from 50 to 90 million in 365 days, all organic. And it's like, you can get really infatuated with that. And also when you're growing really fast, you can afford to make mistakes, right that. And also when you're growing really fast,

you can afford to make mistakes, right? You can hire a bunch of people and they not be the greatest people, but you're just stacking basically people to solve problems. And I think where we are now, where growth is a little bit slower is you've got to be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more strategic. You've got to be a little more dialed in to your costs and what your overhead looks like and, you know, kind of matching that to what you think the growth rate will be. And so for us, it's really just been about getting a lot more efficient with our conversion rates, our average tickets, our gross profit margins, all of those things this year for us are better than they ever have been. And for me, focusing on those things ultimately lends itself to a more profitable business,

which is the exciting part. I think for us over the next three years, it's really looking at, you know, really perfecting the greenfielding model. That's really what we're focused on right now, as we talked earlier. And there's a number of cities across kind of what we look at in the Midwest. We're in Indianapolis. So Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky is really the states that we're really focused on right now. And I think there's a lot of opportunity there too. So it's really about how do we expand and grow there. And then I think too, is, you know, just dominating

the Indianapolis market. I think we've got a ton of room to grow here in our backyard. But sometimes that focus can be derailed if you're focused on expanding other markets and different things like that. It's like, well, we need to focus on what we already have as well and continue to grow those branches. So when you think about Greenfield, you asked me this earlier in your podcast, what do you think, what makes a successful Greenfield? When does it turn profitable? What are the things to not do? right ones who are going to fit the culture and are going to do some really great things. Because every lead in a greenfield is even that much more valuable because that's a customer that you need to get right now. I think the other piece is the leadership perspective. I think it's either, you know, we've had some success bringing in some people from outside

who are doing some really amazing things. But, you know, kind of our model right now is to grow these leaders within right now. I don't know where our next five greenfields are going to be. But what I do know is I can start training those leaders right now in understanding how a branch operates and different stuff like that so that I can keep my I can get my leaders on the bench. And then it's just a matter of, hey, here's where the next opportunity is. Are you willing to relocate? Are you willing to go there? So on and so forth. So I think the leadership piece is key. I think finding really good people out the gate, like we greenfielded Louisville,

Kentucky in February, and just found some amazing people to get it lifted up off the ground. And they're doing they had their best month last month, and I'm sure they'll top that this month. So I think that is key in the foundational, from a foundational perspective. And then I think you have to be willing to spend money. You've got to be willing to market and go at it hard. And I think that's where, when you're starting up a new location, is really separating your marketing budgets and looking at, you know, yeah, do I need to spend 15 or 20% in Indianapolis? Well, no, but we've also been here for 40 years. So my spend in Indy is quite a bit lower than what I'm going to spend in Louisville, Kentucky, because no one there's ever heard of us. So we've got to go blitz the marketing. We've got to do all of the things. Whereas in Indy, we can be a little, you know,

not lazy is the wrong word, but we just don't have to spend as much because we have a customer base and we have brand recognition and all that stuff. So I think those are the key things of not being afraid to spend. Like you're not going to grow a greenfield by spending what you're probably spending in your primary market right now. Right. And how long do you think it takes to make? What do you consider a success? What revenue would you say this was worth that it was a good greenfield?

So my goal is if you can do in the first year, if you can do about between three and a half and four million out the gate, then you're ready to go. And then I think the growth rate will get exponential at that point in time. So really our goal is to crank out the gate, then you're ready to go. And then I think the growth rate will get exponential at that point in time. So really, our goal is to crank out about $300,000 to $400,000 a month from the jump. And then once you build that base, then it's about turning it around. You keep the gas on the marketing still. because the goal for me is for a branch,

if they could do eight to 10 million in maybe three years, then I think you're set up for success. You've got some market penetration. And let me preface that by we're going into the Louisville's, the Dayton's of the world, the, you know, we're not going into Chicago or Phoenix. So these kind of... I don't even know how you'd classify them. They're not your... They're like mid-markets. Mid-market. Yeah, we're going into mid-markets,

mainly because the competition is less. Not as many people are marketing. Marketing costs are usually a little bit cheaper, even though you're going to spend the dollars to put the leads on the board. But to me, that's kind of been our strategy. And then kind of building up locations that are maybe within an hour of one another so that we can share labor on the inside is the key. Is there any books you've read recently that have really just like changed your way you look at business? I would think that you've, you've talked about it a lot. The Dan Martell book is,

is really good. I think that's one of those things. It's easy to get overwhelmed as the business gets bigger and bigger. It's like, well, how am I going to do all of these things? So that one's really good. Another book within that same vein is Who Not How. I can't remember who wrote that. Yeah, Ben Hardy. Yeah, so I was going to say, I knew you were going to say that. I was like, who not how? Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan. Yeah, and I think that goes to kind of what we were talking about earlier,

the specialist role and different things like that, of finding these people who are really good at it. Because at the end of the day, you're not good at everything. And how do I stay in my lane to where the things that I'm working on are the things that I'm best at, I think. I think one of the biggest takeaways for people listening to this podcast

is you don't know what good looks like until you see excellent. And because I have so many people now part of A1, what I viewed as great was not really great. I didn't know. And a lot of people are like, yeah, I love my general manager. I love this guy. I love this guy.

I love this guy. I love this gal. And we don't know until we don't know. And you're right. What you said about having to micromanage, even if they take orders well, you're still having them come up under you. I want to get people that can take me to where they've been in the past. Not that I have to guide to where, you know, it's a big misconception

and buying back your time and getting the right who on board. If the people listening take those two things, that's amazing audience. That's massive. Chad, what do we do if we want to reach out to you, just have a conversation or come see you? What's the best way to do that?

Yeah, absolutely. So we're doing tours every other month. If you go to, you can go to our website or you can go to my site, chadmpeterman.com and sign up for one of the tours. We do a full day, similar to yours, I believe, where we'll take you through the entire business and, you know, on LinkedIn quite a bit there. But yeah, feel free, reach out. You can email me. It's just chad at petermanhvac.com. Feel free to reach out. Would love to help in any way that I can. One more question, and then I'm going to ask you the closing question. As far as you, whether it's a EA chief of staff, how do you, who are you delegating most things to?

Do you have somebody that, because I don't check my own email, I don't do my own calendar, and I'm kind of addicted to this. It's like bringing on more and more and more help. Now that I got a chef, I've got a driver. It's a little bit, and I'm humble as can be. I've just changed my mindset towards these people.

I'm like, they're there to help me and I need help. Because if I can get more hours, I can build stronger relationships. I can make more critical decisions. Who do you have in your corner? Yeah. So I don't have a chef yet, but, but yeah. But my chief of staff who's been with me for a little over a year, I think now. And I've had people before that, but she, again, similar to you, she reads all my email. She does my calendar, does all of that stuff, which has been a godsend.

It's amazing. Again, like you said, how much time you get back from, you know, trying to schedule a meeting. Like this podcast here, I don't think you or I set any of it up. I just saw it on my calendar and I showed up and here I am. So yeah, that's been hugely beneficial. And to your point,

I think that it can often, it can have a bad rap like, oh, you can't do all your stuff. And it's like, no, no, no. I just want to do the stuff that I'm really, really good at. And, you know, scheduling a meeting or doing something like that, like I'll forget or I'll double book it or whatever. It's like, find the people who are really good and have them do those things. A hundred percent. And I had to change my mindset on the fact that getting help actually gives more time to the people I should be spending time with because not only, I know I could schedule a meeting, but there's someone that actually knows my schedule better than me.

And I don't enjoy it. I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy doing mundane things. And it's not to say that when they understand us, it's you got to take a step back because now you got to train them. They need to understand how you want your flights booked. They got to understand what you want to eat.

They got to understand when you're going to go work out, all these different things. They become part of your personal life as well. Some people don't like, they don't like that privacy they give up. Me, I'm super comfortable with it. I'm like, cool. You're allowed to know all this stuff. You got access to a lot of my stuff. And there's documents they have to sign and NDAs and all these things. But at the end of the day, I think I'm better off for it. I'm able to get way more done in a day. 100%. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it is giving up. I've talked to a few people and they're like, you let them read your email. I'm like, I don't think there's anything crazy going

on in there, or at least I hope not. Like it's pretty standard. Yeah. So they can do that. And you know, if there's something that, you know, she needs my input on, or she doesn't know the answer to, she just puts it in a folder and that's the only email that I read. Yeah. You get a lot more economies of scale with your personal time. Finally, Chad, I always ask this question. We struck upon quite a few subjects here that were very important, but maybe there's something we didn't talk about. Maybe there's something heavy on your mind that I didn't ask. I'll let you close us out with whatever you want the audience to finish up with. Yeah, I mean, I think in what we talked about today, it was, you know, a lot about finding the right people. And I think that you would do yourself an injustice if you didn't take some time to do an examination of who's on your team. Who are those people? Are

they specialists? Are they the best at that particular thing? Are you still the best at it? You know, if you're sitting there going, well, these are my five key positions, and I'm the best at four of them, then you got the wrong person on the bus. And you need to find that right person. And again, the growth and the, you know, the business side of things will start to take off because you get people who are really, really smart and are really, really skilled at a particular area. Brilliant. You know, I love a podcast like this because I've got four pages of notes. And just when I do this stuff, there's stuff I know, but there's just stuff I got to check in on.

And just I love the idea of if you're still micromanaging for this position, then you're the smartest one still. And that's a problem. And that doesn't alleviate anything. That doesn't help growth. But Chad, this is always fun, my friend. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Freedom event. And I thank you for everything you do.

This is, I love relationships that it's like both of us, whoever we're with, it's 50-50. It's the first time I met you, I never felt like this guy wants to like steal ideas. I give everything and it usually comes back tenfold. And I think you've really embraced the idea of putting yourself out there, sharing, doing shop tours, and only good things come out of it. Yep, absolutely. 100%. The more you give, the more you get. Well, thank you for doing this,

my friend. I hope you have a fantastic week and set a record. Absolutely. You too, my man. All right, brother. All right.

We'll see you. Thanks again, Tommy. I'll see you here in a month or so. Sounds good, my friend. Take it easy. Have a great week.

Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team

from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.