The Home Service Expert Podcast - How Treating Relationships as the New Business Currency Can Make You More Profitable

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

Chris Hunter is the founder of Hunter Super Techs and Go Time Success Group. He is also the Director of Customer Relations with ServiceTitan. Over the last two decades, he has delivered quality service and leadership in his industry, earning him over 3500+ positive online reviews and a plethora of awards and recognition. These include the Tom McCart Consultant of the Year Award, Nationally Recognized Contractor of the Year in 2016 by ACHR, and the Ron Smith Industry Trailblazer Award. In this episode, we talked about HVAC, entrepreneurship, leadership, customer service, team building, strategic planning...

let them know, hey, this is what it's about. This is where we're going. This is the satisfaction out of the job. So I think what it really comes down to is connecting the dots for these, this younger generation of one, having a system in place to find out what's most important to them, why they're there, because it's not the same as it used to be. It's not, you know, you show up and you do your job and you work 30 years and you retire. They're looking for instant gratification. They have a completely different set of needs, maybe, but you don't know unless you have a system to determine what that is.

So once I would figure out what was most important to them, my next biggest job was to connect the dots to what was most important to them, to our company's goals and initiatives as well. Once those dots are connected, that's really where the magic happens. And when you're working for a bigger purpose, you're a better boss, you have a bigger vision about where you're going, and they can see instant feedback of how they're performing, what they're doing is making a difference. And if the company does well, it can help them accomplish whatever they're wanting to accomplish personally. That was the secret. 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. Well, I got Chris Hunter here. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, we are going to be talking a lot about some really great stuff. He's an expert of HVAC, entrepreneurship, leadership, customer service, team building, and strategic planning. Right now, he lives in Prosper, Texas. He's a director of customer relations, which happened this year at Service Titan. He's the Go Time Success Group co-owner from 2016 to present.

He's the founder of Hunter Supertechs, 2006 to 2020. Hunter, Heat and Air LLC president from 2006 to 2020. An AT&T air conditioning specialist from 2001 to 2009. Chris is the founder of Hunter Supertechs and the Go Time Success Group and the director of customer relationships at Service Titan. He was the Tom McCart Consultant of the Year Award winner, nationally recognized contractor of the year in 2016 by ACHR, and was named the best contractor to work for. He was part of the top 40 under 40 in the HVAC industry and in the Inc. 5000 fastest growing private companies. He's won the Ph.D. magazine's top 20 contractors and was a Ron Smith Industry Trailblazer Award winner. He has over thirty five hundred positive

online reviews, delivering quality service and leadership for over the last two decades. Chris, my man, what's happening, brother? I need to make sure my kids watch this because that made me sound way more cooler than I actually am. So, yeah, thank you for that. Yeah. You know, you're doing some amazing things. I don't think people understand what you've done so far in your career and what you're building. And now you're on Service Titan's team.

From what I've read, you know, you didn't get started in the HVAC industry. You've been involved in a lot of things. Why don't you kind of tell us your story and where you're going in the future? Well, like most, a lot of people that get into this trade, I didn't set out to be an HVAC guy, right? So I actually took a class in high school as a blow off. I just thought, hey, that'd be an easy half a day. I'll do that. Then I'll go play baseball the other part of the day. So I did that not knowing that I would eventually become an HVAC tech, but it's funny how things work out like that. And my steps, I look back now and it was just like divine

intervention or something because I went to work at AT&T, like you mentioned there, and all of a sudden 9-11 happened and they were going to lay off 10,000 people. And I was one of them. I was a new hire. And this old gentleman, an older gentleman that worked there named Sandy Kelso, I'll never forget this. He said, Chris, do you know anything about air conditioning? I'm like, it's funny you mentioned that. I actually took a class on that. And he said, well, I've been thinking about retiring. And if I retire, my job will open up. And if you could pass the test, you could probably keep your job here and take mine. Lo and behold, I passed the test and I was off and running. I was an air conditioning technician. So that was where I got my start at anyway. I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. And then you decided, you know what,

I could go do this for myself and you started your own company. So from there, I was really blessed to have never worked for another heating and air conditioning company. So the reason why I say blessed is I didn't have any bad habits. I just worked for AT&T, you know, did the commercial side and I had a really good boss. And this is really a key point. Sometimes it takes somebody that see something in you that you don't even see yet. And he said, Chris, I really think you need to go get your contractor license. He said, I think you can do it. I think you would be really successful. So I never even thought about it. I'm like, OK. So I went and did that and started my Hunter Heat and Air in a town of 25,000 people in Oklahoma.

And at the time, we had more air conditioning contractors per capita than any other city in Oklahoma. So it was very competitive, very small. And I started doing it after hours. And quickly, after a couple of years, I realized something's going to break here, me or something. So I had to make the decision to leave AT&T and started going hunter, heat and air full time in 2009. And a little bitty town there, I knew that, hey, if I was going to grow, I was going to have to widen my circle a little bit. So I started learning from all the best people that I could.

It was back to not knowing any of those bad habits. So I learned from Ron Smith. I joined the Service Nation Alliance and started learning from very successful people like Ben Stark and Larry Taylor and all these mentors. Hey, you got Ron's book right there? There he is, my man. Yes. Yeah. I didn't know any better. So all I did was do what these other successful people said worked. So little did I know it did work. And I didn't make a lot of mistakes. I brought in a lot of really good people and we were able to keep expanding. And I took that little town of 25,000 people, had a vision of developing people and then planting them in the next town over and giving them all the benefits of like being their

own owner, except for without all the things they didn't like. We maintained all the call center, the marketing, the bill payment, and all they really had to do was plug into their community and build their team. So we did that to five other locations before we were acquired by Turnpoint Services, a private equity firm at the end of 2018.

And now I will say this, all of those leaders in those other areas, they also have equity in the parent company Turnpoint now. So it worked out really good for all of us. I love that story. I want to dig into Turnpoint services. That's what you said? Yeah. Coming on my podcast later is the Private Equity Playbook. This guy, Adam Coffey, he right now owns the largest HVAC company in North America as far as commercial goes. So it's called CoolSys Incorporated. And he talks to me all about private equity, how it's done,

how it looks, and when you go to market, how to get more out of your multiples. There's a lot of cool things that we could dive into. But first, I want to find out, when you were doing this and you were small and you were in the truck, what was the biggest takeaway you had from going out on your own? When you went out there, how did you learn to just get out of the truck? Yeah. Well, it was back to those mentors, right? You hear me talk a lot about go time and the go time, you know, it's actually a formula or, and it starts with setting goals. So my original goal was, man, I got to figure this thing out. I got to get out of the truck. The O in go is for observe, which means go and learn from others that have already done it. So I sought

out them. I said, hey, how do I get out of the truck? And they told me, they said, here's what you do, Chris. You get your tools and you hide them. You take them out of the truck and you can't get back in it. So I actually did that. And the temptation is always there to jump back in, right? Because I'm a service tech at heart. I love serving. I loved our customers. I wanted to do that. But the T in go time is take massive action. So once I was out, I took massive action on developing myself. So then you can't give what you don't have. So I knew I had to start with me and then I started developing my team and help them replicate the I is for inspect which is you got to measure this thing right so I was measuring our effectiveness the M was for modify so it's always improving and the last was the E the engagement

this is all about building your team and your customers. So long answer there, but I learned from the others. I just took massive action. That was the real secret and getting out of my own way. It's kind of funny. Always improving is my first core value on there. Heck yeah, man. That's the name of the game, isn't it? You're right.

You get out of your own way. You start hiring around your weaknesses. You know, first of all, how much of liberty are you able to talk about as far as the potential of revenue you reached before you sold? I know you can't talk about it now of what it is today, but right as you were about to sell and then how much was your percentage of profit out of that? So maybe the previous year, I don't know when you sold, if it was a full year, but did you have a revenue amount and a percentage of profit out of that. So maybe the previous year, I don't know when you sold, if it was a full year, but did you have a revenue amount and a percentage of profit that you tracked or

is that something you're at liberty to discuss? Yeah, no, I can definitely do that. So as we were going, I knew $10 million was the magic number because that's what they told me. That's what all these experts said. They said, Chris, here's the deal. You got to try to get to a million dollars of EBITDA and you got to get to around $10 million of sales. We weren't quite at the $10 million. We were nine and some change or whatever. And we were really close to that million in EBITDA as well. And that's when I started getting the phone calls from the private equity groups. And I even flew out to Vegas, talked to Ken Goodrich. And he told me, he said, Chris, here's the deal. The window is open. He said, the window doesn't stay open a long time. He said, so what do you really want to do? And I even asked Ron Smith the same thing. I'm like, Ron, when is it time to sell your company? When is it time to do something to maximize?

And he said, Chris, when you get to the point where you've got everything that you've built tied up in this business, and if you ever wanna really have uncommon wealth, where you're able to finally harvest it and then bring on another partner like a private equity group that can really help you get that second bite of the apple and sometimes make your second bite even bigger than the first bite.

I heard that and I was like, oh man, that's exactly what I want. So whenever a turn point came, they flew down and I realized right then these guys were next level. They could help me go to a place that I didn't feel like I could currently get my business to in this rural area in Oklahoma. So I knew, okay, it's time. That's interesting to me. So obviously you got a multiple of EBITDA and then they said, Chris, you got a real good opportunity here. You're a good owner. Did they give you a bite of the second piece of that apple? Yeah, they sure did. So not only me, but like I said, those other key leaders that we developed, they all have a piece of the pie too. We still do. You're just not involved now. No. So I was going to be involved. I actually stayed on after that. And then

I had a major health thing come along that just wiped me out for like a year. It kicked my butt. And so once I was out and I was so sick for that year as I was healing, spent a lot of time in Phoenix, by the way, at the Mayo Clinic out there. I love Phoenix, by the way, but the leaders did a really good job without me. And I knew that, okay, they've done really good. And it's time for me to kind of go and spread my wings and do something else. And I knew I'd probably do more harm if I tried to come back in after they had done so good without me. So that's whenever I decided to step back and then service Titan called and said, hey, Chris, you love helping contractors. I know you do.

This is your chance to do it at scale. And they asked me to come on board. Tom Howard called me and Aura called me and I thought, you know what? They're right. This is an awesome opportunity. So that's why I went ahead and took the job with them. And it's been an awesome ride there as well. You know, what's funny is you surround yourself around certain people. Tom is coming next week for two days to Phoenix to stay with me. Ken Goodrich is meeting with me here tomorrow at 2 p.m. I've noticed just the people I've accidentally surrounded myself with. I was just out to see Ishmael and Ara not that long ago, met them in Vegas.

I mean, look, my lawyers are next level. The guys I'm meeting with that understand private equity and understand an IPO. And I accidentally started hanging out with big time players that mean a lot to a lot of people that can help me out a lot. And it's amazing where it's brought me just to be in a different group. Not to say I love my parents. I love my family, my friends. I've accidentally been kind of pushed into an upper echelon of business and it's done wonders for my business. I mean, you look at Dan Antonelli did my reps. You look at who I've got doing my SEO. You look at the strongest players in the world that do my social. This is no longer a garage door business. Now we're a wrecking ball.

And it's fun. It's fun because the big owners that are doing 200 million, they love taking my call now because now they know we're playing in the same basketball court. So I have fun with this stuff because now we're talking about next level. Now I'm talking about bringing on 70, 100, 200 technicians a month. And that's crazy talk, but it used to be crazy talk. Now I'm like, oh, why not? We can do it. Well, you think about, so Jim Rohn says you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Well, it's the same in your business. You're the average of those that you network. It's like golf. When you go play with better golfers, you play better golf, right? So, I mean, I did it.

Yeah. Thank you. Got my cola here. Just the extra go-go juice. It's been a long day. It started at six. Not complaining. Today was a very productive day.

Yesterday, we set a record, by the way, the best day in A1's history. So, very exciting. We're on pace to beat our best month by 400,000 this month. So that's exciting. You need to be in Prosper, Texas too, because you told me something one time, you probably don't even remember this, but yesterday I had some people walking outside my house and they stopped and looked at my garage door and they really liked it. And they started asking about it. And I said, well, I had a wise guy tell me that 40% of your curb appeal is actually your garage door. And they were like, I've never thought about that. And I didn't either.

I guarantee you they're buying a garage door today because of something you told me a long time ago that stuck. You know, this is my famous line. 40% of your home's curb appeal is your garage door. It is the smile of your home. And it's the only thing on your house that'll deliver 102% return on investment, more than your kitchen, more than your bathrooms. And you know what? It saves you a lot of money on your AC bill in the summers. And it saves you a lot of your furnace bill in the winter. And it transforms your home. I mean, look, I'm passionate about garage doors. I love garage doors. So, and you know what? I'm playing a different game. One of the things I noticed today is a guy sent me some pictures of my biggest competitor on Facebook. He sent me a picture and they're building a training

studio. They're starting to carry colored rollers like me. And I look at it as a compliment. Look, let's raise the bar of the whole industry. Everybody follow the leader. And you know what? I hate to say it, but it's my team. It's the people I've brought on to help me. And we've become the leader and everybody knows it. And now they get to chase me because I'm going to better the best I've ever been. I continue every day to think better your best because now there's no one else to chase. So we know what's going on. We still study other businesses, but what I've learned is forget studying garage door companies. Let's study the 500 million, the billion dollar HVAC companies, the wrench group, the guys that are rolling things up. It's fun to watch. You know, you've done a great job with hiring. And I think now is more important than ever. I hear two things. I need more leads or I need more great people. And lately, because we became essential and people are using their houses more, it's I need more great people. How do you find great people? They don't exist. That's what I hear all the time. And I'm like, man, people, I had 500 applicants between Saturday and Sunday this weekend.

So I'm like, we can't, we're hiring like crazy. But I'm curious, what's your approach when it comes to hiring amazing people? Well, Tommy, you nailed it. So the best companies are a magnet. And it starts with the leadership, right? You constantly paint that picture, that vision of what it means. And just like Ken Goodrich does, I even had a waiting list of people wanting to join our team as well. And and it was because I was passionate about what I did. I was out front, actually told the story and had the programs in place to actually build these technicians and build the people instead of just

looking for the unicorns all the time that came in with a lot of maybe bad habits, just like I was, I didn't have any whenever I started. So if I can get somebody with the right attitude, the right desire, the right personality profile, which definitely we screen for, and plug them into a program to build them, you can get amazing results. And I think I've even heard you say this. I mean, if they're not smiling, maybe they're not a fit for your team, you know, just those type of people. It's like, look, you find the people that are like, they're in an interview, and they're like, they're just all about it.

They've done their research. They're like, look, I mean, the referrals are coming through the union. I mean, look, my customers, my internal customers, we wrote a big, big check last month to referrals from our employees. And I'm like, Adam, my COO, I was like, dude, this is getting expensive. I'm like, no, it's not. I'm like, trust me, this is the best money we've ever spent because we choose who we hire. If we didn't do the background drug test, referral check, reference check, we got to do the best job to hire just because they're a referral doesn't mean we need to hire them.

But most people here are A players and they want to bring A players. They don't want to put their name behind someone that's not A player great. I think there's something special now when it becomes this machine and you can feel it. And now I'm very fortunate. I have a pretty innate ability to make the phone ring off the hook. We can't even keep up. And I brought in 70 guys the last two months. And I know this.

I know it's the tango, but I say, continue to hire. I don't care if we don't have enough jobs. I will make the phone ring. I think I get 10,000 jobs a day easily. 10,000 jobs, no problem. 10,000 jobs keeps 3,000 techs busy, easily done because we got the whole country and all of Canada to still go to. So everybody talks about the millennials and it's hard to work with them and they're prima donnas and they want too much and they have all these feelings. And I'm right on the borderline of a millennial. And I say, yeah, we do, but it's not a bad thing. So what do you have to say to someone that just can't get, be successful with these younger, the 20s and young 30s that just say it doesn't work with these guys. It's

not like it used to be. Yeah. I built a whole team out of those people. Personally, Tommy, I would go and talk to second graders at these schools. It didn't matter if I ever had an opportunity to go start talking to those in schools about the trades I did and let them know, hey, this is what it's about. This is where we're going. This is the satisfaction out of the job. So I think what it really comes down to is connecting the dots for this younger generation of, one, having a system in place to find out what's most important to them while they're there, because it's not the same as it used to be. It's not, you know, you show up and you do your job and you work 30 years and you retire. They're looking for instant gratification.

They have a completely different set of needs maybe, but you don't know unless you have a system to determine what that is. So once I would figure out what was most important to them, my next biggest job was to connect the dots to what was most important to them, to our company's goals and initiatives as well. Once those dots are connected, that's really where the magic happens. And when you're working for a bigger purpose, you're a better boss, you have a bigger vision about where you're going, and they can see instant feedback of how they're performing, what they're doing is making a difference. And if the company does well, it can help them accomplish whatever they're wanting to accomplish personally. That was the secret. I love the younger one. In fact, so much so that in ServiceTitan,

we would have our systems in place for the perfect service call. Well, I loved it because some of the older technicians that may have thought they were the best, well, numbers didn't lie, right? And so in the company meetings we would have, almost all the time, one of the younger, newer techs sometimes was putting up the best numbers. And I would ask them, hey, how are you doing this? What's going on? And they're like, well, Chris, we just follow the system you have. We do your steps that you outlined. I'm like, huh, OK. So you follow these steps and it works and you get this result and it's the great equalizer. So I think the best advice for people that say they can't work with them, One, get to know what's most important to them

and then connect the dots. That's really all it really takes. You know, it's so funny because I was thinking about this last night as I'm whiteboarding for my meeting this morning is I really go back. A lot of guys, the veterans that they start coming back and I go, dude, these last two weeks you've been on fire. And it's almost like a golfer losing their swing and getting it back as they go. I went back to my roots. I stuck to this eight steps, eight steps to customer satisfaction. We used to call it the eight step sales process. Now it's eight steps.

And I had a guy that came from two other companies and he said, your eight steps, explain those to me. And I went through each one of them and why we designed them the way we did and how it makes sure we don't get warranty calls and happy customers and build instant rapport. And he goes, you know what? He goes, I'll try it. Seeing is believing. And I said, all right, well, I want you to go out with a guy that just got out of training a month ago. You tell me what you think. And he texted me last night. and basically the text message went a little bit like this if i could find it i need to find it on demand here but he was so excited and he basically said to me and there's so many text messages you know how this goes but he said basically oh i got ken

goodrich and i love ken man he, he's taught me out a million, like you couldn't even believe, but I got the CEO of Service Titan in here. Long story short, I don't need to find the exact text. So many there. He said, this is the most incredible thing I've ever experienced in my life. I'm a lifetime believer. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be part of your company. And I said, hey, get ready because we're about to get on a roller coaster. We're still in the tiny stages. I'm glad to have you aboard. And he's like, tiny stages. And we just kept texting and having fun with each other. But ultimately, we're a fart in the wind. We're a pimple somewhere.

We're nothing. We are tiny, tiny, tiny compared to the company we're becoming. And most owners I meet, they've had it. They've had it with their employees. They can't keep up. They're ready on their way out. And the reason I know that A1's still in the small stage is because I'm having the most fun I've ever had. I'm like, there's no anxiety. There's no stress. There's so many laughter and laughs in here. And we're just having fun. And when you stop having fun, I think is a time where you start thinking about taking on a partner, too much anxiety, too much stress. But, you know, I noticed a lot of the people, they just lose their drive and they just say,

it's not fun anymore. It's not what I signed up for. I'm ready to get rid of it. And, you know, the biggest problem is I feel like a lot of people think their company's worth a lot more than it is. And I wanted to spend a little bit of time on that, Chris, because most companies have no idea how little they're worth, especially when the company evolves around them. So can you speak to us a little bit about what private equity looks for and what's very important that you do as a business owner if you want to sell within the next five years? Yeah. So basically too, what we were talking about with what you just said, you told this guy, hey, we're little, here's where we're going.

People want to get on that rocket ship. And it's all about the story. I had no idea how key for private equity the story was. They talk about it all the time as well, because they're going to sell again at some point too. It's what they do. And it's all about this story of where we've been, what we're doing and where we're going. So the story is really important. The culture even, how you treat your customers in the relationships. Oh my goodness. So most private equity companies or really any company probably that's looking to acquire will send out an NPS survey. And I've seen some really successful companies that were almost right at the closing table, get this survey back and they didn't have good customer sentiment and it cost them deals. So

you better always be worried about, or not worried, just concentrating on your relationships with your customers because that's going to be very key. The other thing is most business owners, they treat their business as their personal piggy bank. Let's face it, that's what they do. And then whenever they come time to sell, it's all about the EBITDA, right? I mean, basically, it all comes down to that. So having your house in order and being especially up on the time where you're running to the trailing 12 months of looking to sell, it's time to get really efficient, have your financials in impeccable order. I didn't even realize this until visiting with somebody much smarter than me, Kevin Comerford from Service Champions North.

You can even bring in a specific CFO for this time and it can be even considered an ad back. So I had no idea. And so all these things like this and how you do your accounting, it's worth investing and finding people that know what they're doing and helping you maximize because all of these things, like I said, every dollar gets multiplied. So even something as simple as wraps, vehicle wraps. Well, here's what I didn't know. I always just thought that's an advertising expense or whatever. I wrote it off as an expense. It lowered my numbers. My profit level was lower. If I would have done that right, that could have actually been a depreciable asset. So then therefore, I would have had those dollars added back and been multiplied. So there's all these things on the financial end that was much, much more out of way above my head that I think people need to get in order.

But it starts with their story, their culture, having that game plan of where they're going and painting that picture of there's plenty of meat left on the bone. And here's where we are, but here's the potential. That's also very key as well. You said some stuff there. I just want to explain to the listeners that NPS is the net promoter score. And that's a value that's given to your customers between one and 10 and anything less than a nine is not good. It's neutral. And if it goes below a seven, it's bad. So one of the things I try to do to prevent a bad net promoter score is say, Mr. Hunter, we want to make sure you got a five out of five service today. We mentioned five out of five. The reason we don't say 10 out of 10 is because I can't leave a 10 star on Yelp or Google. I say five out of five, because if you get a two out of five, it's the same thing as a four out of 10. A three out of five is the

same thing as a six out of 10. Eight out of 10 is the same as a four out of five. So you can really reduce those numbers. But I think it's important that everybody understand and study what the net promoter score is. And another thing is, I love what you said about depreciating the rap means that your multiplier you've got on the company, the rap becomes part of the multiplier. It's genius. You know, Alan Rohr worked with me for a while on my financial quick check

and taught me how to really learn to use the financials to my strength and not hate them. For my master's degree, I'd give the master's degree back if I could have more time and energy from the people that have helped me. Because I'll tell you this, what I've learned from people flying them in and just the investments I've made to become better have been the best investments I've ever made. And it's kind of cool because I'm starting to surround myself with the right people. And, you know, I know very soon the new people I'm going to have to start hanging out with is the guys like that Adam coffee guy right here, because now he's

building a billion dollar business. And he says, you know, I'm not as involved in the operations or I'm not the go-go cheerleader. They brought me in because I could find companies and I could roll them up fast and I find money where nobody else could find money. So he goes in and then he's got a thousand thing checklist when they buy a company. Make sure this, do this, get this, get this. And they've got a whole team. And I think it's really powerful stuff.

And you're absolutely right when it comes to what's your story? What is the company's story? What's your story brand? Yeah. And very, very important stuff that your trainees, when you got all these people training, they get to understand and learn that. And I got to be here. I love to say I can work from home and I could for a month or two at a time,

but it means so much more when I'm here meeting the employees and becoming the cheerleader and just, here's what we built. Here's where we used to be. Here's where we're going. And it's going to be fun. Yeah. And you show them how they can win. I think there's so many, you know, I was at Jack Tester's breakout session at one of the Pantheons and he taught us how to build leaders within our company.

And I think that's what we're doing. We're helping to build leaders. And I wanted to ask you, what can you tell us to be better effective leaders, especially with all this stuff going on right now with this pandemic? Yeah, you just said it. I mean, so especially during times of crisis, when a leader is not out front, you don't have to have all the answers. But when a leader is not out front and showing the people that your customers, your team that, hey, we're in this together, when they're quiet, it leaves room for them just to make up the worst things they could ever think of in their mind, which then starts to cause discord in your organization.

And it quickly festers like a cancer and spreads. So it's terrible. So one, be out front. But also, I'm a huge study of leadership. So I studied John Maxwell, went through all of his certification programs, you know, just absolutely love what he teaches. And he talks about an inner circle. And you just mentioned as well, you know, these people that you need to start bringing in and being more close to and learning from. Because the painful thing is the people that got us where we are today aren't necessarily the people that can bring us to where we want to go tomorrow.

And that was very hard for me because you care for these people. And it doesn't mean you have to get them out of your relationship, but maybe your inner circle needs to level up a little bit. So that's the next thing. Always be leveling up on your inner circle, I would say. And then the next part on really developing leaders, especially in times of crisis, but anytime, is I believe that our job as leaders, the two most important things that we should be doing is recruiting and retaining our talent. And retaining goes into developing them. So I spent an inordinate amount of time helping my team grow, just like that boss, that first one that encouraged me to start to grow and push myself. That's what I did with my team as well. And that costs, right? It costs

money. It costs time. It costs effort. But when you can help create more leaders, you don't just start adding people to your organization. You start multiplying because then they can go out and multiply your effectiveness and it creates something really nice. You know, this is two different drawings here. One's a pretty flat line. It's called linear growth. The other one's exponential growth. Yeah.

And when you learn to build leaders and with sophisticated software to handle a lot of the KPIs and operations, it's amazing the outcome of exponential growth because if each guy and gal here recruits two people each that's exponential so it's really really interesting just to be in the midst of what we always talk about because i'm in it right now and and you know i was talking to you i looked outside and there's a guy rolling around a brand new guy in training we just got out his apprenticeship. He's becoming a junior tech and he's rolling around with this magnet and

it rolls around and it grabs nuts and bolts and screws. And I just love it because it's not uncommon for me to be sitting here for four or five people taking the garbage out, carrying something, doing something important. And I just love to be part of it. Just that when you get the right people and you give them the right drive, you can instantly take a C player to an A player because now they have a reason. They have that. Why the Simon Sinek, why of why they're doing it, who they're doing it for. And I had someone really a few podcasts ago, I had a guy explained to me,

you know, figure out what they want. And sometimes instead of giving them a raise to achieve what they want, buy them what they want and sometimes instead of giving a raise to achieve what they want buy them what they want buy them that new pair of nikes every three months because every time they run they're going to look at their shoe and they're going to think of your company and how gracious you are to get that for them and i think you had a really good point of understanding what people want the money for everybody wants to work for, but what do they want to do? Because if you could give them maybe their husband and wife a trip for their fifth anniversary to Hawaii, they're there going, wow. And during COVID, you watched all these people walk away and collect

unemployment. And you got a company like ours that didn't happen. So it's just kind of nice to know that going through the tough times that we've got, it's not just a leader saying it's a family, it's everybody saying, wow, we stuck together strong. On that point right there, Tommy, I actually had part of our onboarding process was identifying what they wanted. And then I had some really great ladies in our office that would then put that into a vision board for those employees. And I put this up on our wall and it was a wall of vision, you know, and had all the employees. I spent so much time going and looking at that wall. And anytime that I can make something happen for someone that they couldn't make happen for

themselves, I would do it. And they never forgot that. And those became some of the best, most loyal people in the organization. And things that might not have meant a lot to me, or, you know, like a trip to here or learn to speak Spanish, whatever it was, I would have just assumed it was money, but it wasn't necessarily money. And then, like you said, above that wall, I had our company vision. And my goal always as the leader was to try to connect the dots between the two. Here's where we're going, guys. And here, if we perform at this level, look here, we can make this happen for you as well. I had more people that were finally able to buy homes.

You know, they were able to go on vacations with their family. All these different things. Wouldn't have known if we wouldn't have had the system to ask and then make it visual for them and me. I comprende. I love thinking about relational over transactional. I had a guy come to me the other day and he goes, dude, you're going to love me. He goes, I just contacted this person and they knew the head of the the hoa and then i got a hold of that guy and he he's a manager who knows two other managers and it's this relationship now that's just you're connecting the dots it's holy cow it's seven degrees of separation but when you learn how that works it's like he took his time and he created i always say this chris always say, what would you do for your mom?

If my mom's moving out of this house, make sure the house, make sure it passes inspection, make sure it works, make sure it's a good looking door that'll sell. If she's going to be there for 20 years, make sure that door never breaks, fix it the right way. Find out what's best. Diagnose the person before you diagnose the problem. And that means listening. That means literally sitting here asking a lot of questions.

How often are you using the garage door? We literally go through all these things. Would you like something same as cash and have a small monthly payment for the next year? All these things, gathering data and explaining what we do and how we differentiate ourselves from others. Can you give me some insight on what you would do to move away from being transactional to being more relational? Yes. So we are in the people business. So that was the first thing in your core values and all your messaging that needs to be reinforced. Otherwise people get very focused on their sales or whatever it is. But ultimately we had a saying, you know, if you always do what's right, you'll never be wrong. And so we would prioritize that. But the thing that we have now that makes this scalable, and it's another reason why I chose even to come to work at Service Titan, because as a customer, I knew that we could help make that repeatable by using the forms inside of Service Titan. And people are like, forms?

What in the world does a form have to do with a relationship? Well, here's the thing. Even before the form, the relationship was being built because on the incoming phone call, we had the scripts. So here's the right scripts and the right questions we need to ask. And then all of a sudden, because you know you do this, you send out the technician bio. This is a system. Well, it's not just a bio. How about attaching the video that's with it that puts a name and a face, makes it relational. So,

hey, I'm Chris Hunter. You know, I've been in this business over 20 years. I've got a wife and three kids. We're right here from Prosper, Texas. And hey, I'm looking forward to coming to your house. I'm going to serve you at a very high level. See you in a few minutes. So they automatically get that. Now on the relationship, they track you to the house with the technology. Then once we get there, if we have the checklist in the forms, I don't like calling them forms because really they're just ways to implement our systems. But if we have a way where every time we can ask the right questions, we can uncover the needs of the homeowner. Now, it's not about selling. It's about doing our job and doing it technically the best we can. All the ways that I can help people save money, keep comfortable, protect their home or their family as an HVAC guy,

and gather that in a systematic way that is required in our software, then all I got to do is present the options of how good a job I was able to perform to help their family. Now it's not about sales. It's about doing my technical job the way that I did. Then from there, continue to build the relationship with the review, the follow-up system, all of that. So my point is this. It's all about the people. But to scale it, we have to find a way to leverage technology to be able to do this. And you've done it better than anybody that I know, honestly, in numerous locations. And I know a lot of that has to come with technology.

It's not everybody can text Tommy Mello. Well, I'll tell you what's really cool is people say process, or is it the people, or is it the product? And I say it's the process, because the process we do determines the people, believe it or not. We use technology. We use greenhouse. We use five different softwares to pull in the people. And then we use an LMS. And then after the LMS, and then we use service time to run the KPI reports on how they're doing. And I always say, unless you're trying to get lucky and flipping heads

and tails, it's the system and the process dictate the people. So where are we getting them from? You've got to take a predictive index test. You've got to go and background check. We're checking your references. We're doing all these things to make sure we're getting the right people. Those are processes in place. And I think a lot of people forget that. They don't understand. I'm on my fifth CRM, by the way, and this is the one I'm sticking with for a long time. People are always like, do you work for Service Titan? And I'm like, no.

They're like, well, that's all your book's about. I'm like, the system's allowing me to really run and do what I do, which is marketing and sales. I don't need, you know, the new COO is now a CTO. It's the technology runs the operations. So Adam, in a way, is more of a technology officer than he is an operations officer. I can tell you that. And he understands the system more than most people at Service Titan. I don't care if I can run the system.

Show me the dashboard. Let me do what I do as a CEO. My job is not to live in there. It's not to figure out payroll. It's not to figure out how to get the call bookings better. It's able to find the bottlenecks, find the good stuff on this standard deviation by outliers and make the training about that and figure out what to do about this side of it. And this side is going way faster than this side. And that's what's fun is it's like, holy cow, I don't sit there and stress about the negative stuff. I don't sit there and study about this pool of people on the left side. I praise and call and wonder and ask questions on this side. And the stuff I learned is it's like, we could repeat that and we can motivate that and we can make sure we've got performance pay to get the things you're doing. So it's so much fun just being on the seat that I'm in and still being in the seat to be able to talk to guys like you in

a podcast and share it. You know, I think that more people need to find time to build relationships. And actually the best advice I give at the end of podcasts I'm on is Chris, I think the smartest thing I did was go to Ken's office. I went to Ishmael's office. I've been to Josh with Parker and Sons and you know, those guys over there. I've been to George Brazil. I saw their operation. I mean, I've been to Michigan. I've been to Florida, to Keegan's operation and Chance. I've been all over the country visiting shops. I've been everywhere. And every time I pull out a dozen things that I can get better at. And if you keep doing that and getting out of your element, learning and taking notes. In fact, here's what I'd like you to do. If Gianni is watching or Joanna,

I like for us to do a vision board and post it on Facebook that everybody can see it in our group. The home service expert is we'll do one. We'll have you do one with maybe an old employee or something. And just maybe you could run through and show us how to do a vision board. I've done vision boards and I think it's amazing. The visual, you look at the different factors and you've got different elements. Where's your personal life? What do you want to do for your kids? What do you want to do with your parents? And you start to go through the family, the personal, the body, the religious. I'd love to see how you do it. I think that would be absolutely phenomenal for the listeners. Is that something you think we can arrange? I've got the exact system. I'll actually send it to you because like I said, it was part of

our onboarding system was to gather all of that info. The amazing thing too, Tommy, is once we went through that, a lot of people had no clue. And that was like a light bulb that went off to me. When you asked them, hey, where would you like to go? Where do you want to be in three years? Or what's something that you would like to do to improve yourself? Whatever it may be, whatever the question was, so many times they were like, almost like a deer in a headlight. And they never thought about it. And I'm like, huh? So how many people are just going through this life? Just through the motions, they're not ever even thinking about where and they wonder why they're not making any progress, why they're not gaining anything, they're not thinking big enough. Even whenever I went to visit Ken Goodrich, and I told, I'm like, Ken, I want a $20 million shot. When he told me, he said, why 20, Chris? You could be

at 40 just as easy as 20. I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, why not? I'm like, okay, why not? I don't know. So I think so many people just by these vision boards, they make people stop and think, what do I really want? And it also may make them realize what they don't want. For example, I had a guy that said, hey, I want to skydive, you know, bucket list. So one day I made it happen. I'm like, look, guys, guess what? I got booked skydiving. And all of a sudden he realized, wait a minute, I don't think I really want that anymore.

Let me let me pick a different bucket list. So the point is be clear and actually do some strategic thinking about what you want because it's amazing how many people don't. You know, it's funny you mentioned Ken on that because he told me one time, he said, my manager brought me this budget to do 30 million. And he goes, I told him to get the hell out of here. He came back with 35 million. And he says, is this a joke? And he came back at 42. And he said, now we're starting to talk. Can you get it to 45? And he goes, well, this, this, this. And he had to think out. There's a good book by Grant Cardone called The Ten Times. Ten Times. And basically, told Ken, I'm going to

do a billion. And he laughed. He's like, how? I said, I need roughly 20 or 2000 technicians and the 700 times 12, that's 840. That's under three years. And he said, well, how would you build that machine? I said, well, first I'd have to figure out how to get the trucks out of production and get them wrapped and done right. Then I'd have to figure out the tablets. Then I'd have to have a training center. Then I'd have to figure out the tablets. Then I'd have to have a training center. Then I'd have to have an LMS. Then I'd have to have a field supervisor to watch them. Then I'd have to have continued training, a morning mojo call. I'd have to create. And all of a sudden, I knew exactly what needed to happen to do what I want to do. And now I'm like, when I see him tomorrow, I'm going to tell him,

billions out, forget a billion. That's crazy. Let's do 10 billion. That's it. Because why not? But I don't know what I'm going to do with it, Chris. I don't have this grand scheme of how many yachts I'm going to buy or my private jet. But I'm like, wait a minute. I just am signing a deal this week that's going to allow me to do 10 billion. And I know a lot of people are looking like, yeah, dude, first do 100 million. And I understand that. But now it's like this. It's that exponential curve. It's going, holy million. And I understand that. But now it's like this. It's that exponential curve. It's going, holy crap. And they go, that's not even possible in

your industry. And I'm looking at it thinking to myself, the problem is it's not possible if you look at demand. But if you create demand where it doesn't exist, for example, if Amazon wanted to get every garage door on prime so they could deliver big packages so they can make more money because their average tickets go through the roof as you order electronics that you don't want to leave outside. Hmm. Maybe that's creating demand where it never existed. That's right. I think I got to shut up because I don't want to give away all my secrets. But I think the biggest thing is so many people look at this is the way it's always been done.

It's black and white. And I say, well, let me study the HVAC industry. Let me understand how pest control grows. Let me understand this chimney sweeping business and really what I can take from that. And how the heck is the vacation rental industry doing what it's doing? And what is Uber's main goal? And how's that going to affect garage stores? And as you start to put all these different factors in instead of saying, this is how it's always been done. We're thinking outside of the box. You know, there's an old thing we used to do. It was, you used to have to take, to basically take six dots and you make the six dots in a row. And these are really bad, but you got yourself a little box there and you say, but without lifting up your pen, connect all the dots. Well, to do it, you got to go outside of the box and you got

to go like this. So I didn't pick up my pen and I got them it, you got to go outside of the box and you got to go like this. So I didn't pick up my pen and I got them all connected, but I went outside of the box. And it's very few times in life where you meet people that think so far outside. And I got to tell you, it's not me. It's my thirst for knowledge and hunger and education and always being a student that I go, holy cow, wait a minute. If the AMC theaters are closed and this and this works, and if this happened, holy cow, let's try that. And it works. And you're like, but I got to tell you, I failed 99 out of a hundred times. But it's that one time that you hit, forget a home run. I'm talking to outer space. You're outside of the solar system.

And that's what I'm about. So I get so excited about this stuff, Chris. You know me. I was sitting here signing stuff, doing things. And I'm like, let's do this. This is my fourth podcast today, by the way. And I love it. Well, and I will say this, Tommy. This was a hard lesson that I learned this last year or the year before, whenever I got so sick, I actually had an oncologist that told me, Chris, you may not have six weeks left on this earth. And all of a sudden here, I've been running so hard, you know, all about the strategic different work goals and things like that. And all of a sudden this stark reality hit me. So this is another big takeaway for even somebody like you. This is what I need. Give it to me. That is going hard. These things

are important. We are built to create and enjoy, but it truly is all about the relationships. Because in that moment, whenever I was faced with that stark reality, it was a gut check of what does matter most. And a lot of people aren't religious or whatever. And that's OK. I'm not saying that. But there are certain things that last forever. Right. And faith, hope and love. So I think about that and I think about at that moment, I didn't think about all the dollars we made.

I didn't think about all the dollars we made. I didn't think about all these things. I thought about all those relationships and all those people along the way and all those people that got to do things that they didn't get to do before. And I thought about the houses they bought and their families and then those leaders, like I talked about, that were now duplicating those efforts. So it was a wake up call. So my big takeaway is don't forget why you're on this earth. It's fun to conquer the whole world, but don't forget what's most important and why God's got you on this earth.

You know, that's great. And the seven habits of highly successful people and a lot of the different books I've read lately, they say, what are they going to say at your funeral? And there's one thing we know is going to happen for sure is we're all going to die. But for me, I've never had more fun in my life. But, you know, I'm starting to want to do more with my family because I'm starting to see that they're getting older, even though sometimes I think I'm not getting older. Sometimes I look in the mirror.

I'm like, what is going on here? But, you know, I I'm having fun every day. But the thing is, is I don't talk to friends as much as I probably should. And I'm probably not the best son that I should be. And I'm probably not the best brother or uncle. And, you know, those are things I want to work on and change. But the good news is now I can I look at money as freedom. I can do what I want with my family. I can do nice things. I don't have to worry. So many people are sitting in a spot right now. And I like, I'm very, very fortunate. And I thank the Lord is I really don't have to come to work. I care about everybody here and I love, I enjoy it. But one of the biggest

things, you know, it's just so funny because I did a vision board about a week ago and this guy goes, I'm working on a lot of things. This is business and family related. And it's for me. And he goes, this is the best vision board I've ever done. And he actually asked me questions and we filled it out. And he goes, so you want to travel a third of your life? And I said, yes. And I want to be around the ones I love. And I said, it's not far from here. And it's great. You know, we're still in a COVID society, but once that COVID is gone, I'm going to be on a first-class flight. I think I'm going to start out with, I want to bring my cousin who just got married and his wife has a nicer wedding gift and I want to bring them to Greece. So yeah, I want to just go, look, I'm ready to

live. I'm ready to do stuff. My dad flew to Michigan last week. He fixed five of my trucks and sold all five of them in less than a week. When my cousin who runs that market said, it's not possible. We could get five grand total. He got 20 grand for five of them that they said they could only get a grand a piece for. And my dad, he fixed every single one of them. And I'm like, talking to my cousin and I got teary-eyed. I'm like, what a dad to go out there, do that. You know, he's got a bad back and he made it all happen. So I'm in this life right now and I just enjoy it. And I'm glad I get to enjoy everything that God's given us. Well, that's it.

And that was the main thing. Enjoy the ride and the people that are on the ride along there with you. Right. So that, that was my big, big aha takeaway. You know, there's some stuff that's just making me teary eyed in here. It's like the dust in the room. So when you were still a hunter, I want to just ask you a couple more questions and we can start to wrap it up. You started offering club memberships instead of maintenance agreements. What's the difference?

How does that affect your customer's perspective? Well, it affects two things, not only customer perspective, but back to the acquisitions. This is a big point, so don't let me miss this, Tommy. But like anything, Tommy, whenever I had a reoccurring problem in my business, I always wanted to look at it and analyze back that go time formula and figure out who can we learn from to fix this thing and put a system in place to make it not happen again. Well, so many times with a maintenance agreement, a prepaid maintenance, for one, it was a struggle to track. Every time you sold a full year, they had two visits. Well, guess what? Believe it or not, people don't want you in their house. They're very hard to get a

hold of. They're very hard to schedule. So what would happen was they wouldn't take advantage of one of the visits. And the next thing I know, a year and a half later, they're calling and they're going, hey, you still owe me one from way back when. More like, oh, my goodness. So and then also as a prepay every year, we basically had to resell them. And it was a nightmare. So I studied and I found out there's companies doing it successfully. And I looked at all like all these gym membership, these, my wife's a member of all these things, the clubs of shopping things or whatever. And they're happy club. Yeah.

Costco club membership. Yeah. And it don't matter if they go there or not. They never call Sam's club and go, guess what? I never came this year. Can I get my club membership feedback? They don't do that. So once we've made it a

monthly only, you know, you just pay per month. Here's the deal you get as a benefit. If you so choose, we'll come out and do your maintenance for you. We'll even give you a no breakdown guarantee with it. But if you don't use it, hey, that's okay. You just didn't take advantage of the benefit. So hold on, hold on. Tell me about this no breakdown guarantee because now you got me excited because wait a minute. Is that if you get all these parts and we install a new unit or how does that work? So I made it where it was no red tape, no hassle. I made it as simple for my team and for the customers. And it was simply this. If you had a no breakdown tune up or a club member and we go out and you have a breakdown, then we would basically apply the cost of that maintenance towards your next repair.

So there was no risk for them. Right. If it breaks. Hey, guess what? All your maintenance money that we put in there towards that. Wait a minute. So my fifth year, I'm giving you $120. I've got $600 in the coop or is it just this previous year? Just one year. So basically 120 bucks would go towards that next repair. Oh my gosh. I'm going to become a club member. I'm signing up for the Hunter Club right now. Yeah. Well, and it's a marketing dream. Whenever you can go out and promote, everyone else is promoting low price or this or that. You can prevent, hey, we're so confident in our maintenance ability or in our benefit of this club membership, we can offer you a no breakdown guarantee. And we very

rarely had to do it, but even the few that we did. So guess what? The customers felt like they hit the home run ball. They won because they basically got this discount on their repair. But we also had what was called a diagnostic fee and a dispatch fee for a typical service call. Well, chances are, Tommy, if someone, if you did a maintenance for somebody and they called you back, you'd probably waive that anyway, at least the dispatch fee to get out there because you were just there. So it really was the equivalent of us just waiving our normal dispatch and diagnostic charge. And so it was no risk. And I didn't let the team members overcomplicate it. They would say, well, Chris, what if I recommend this capacitor and they don't replace it? I'm like, no worries. So if they called us the next week and that thing was broke, but think about it. Now the ball's back in our court. They didn't do the recommended

repairs. So most of the time when you don't do the recommended repairs, much more expensive things end up breaking. So yeah, we would credit back the one 20 or whatever the number could be towards that do the repair, but now the ball's in our court and we need to do whatever we need to that time because it is truly a problem. I love it. I just private equity loves this. See you put a wall around your house that you service. It's called a club membership.

And then the four walls you put around or fences around or gates around these properties, the more they love you because that's future revenue. That puts a guard around future revenue. They're calling you. And on average, the conversion rate goes through the roof and the price goes through the roof because they're not shopping because you've been out there every year. You said what you're going to do and you did it and they love you for it. And I think it's an amazing thing. So we had to make it easy to buy, easy to keep. We wanted it to be very sticky. So it was a perpetual thing. We never had to go back and get the renewal. Service Titan actually made that very easy to automate. So that way a technician in the field hits one button and it

takes off going with the process. But then whenever it went to sell, this was a big deal. If I would not have had it structured, when I went through all the auditors doing all the gap, you know, all the stuff that they do there, if it wouldn't have been called and structured a club membership, I could have been in a big bind because I would have been required to have this liability account sitting over here waiting. But whenever we described it, hey, it's just money coming in each month, these benefits that they can or they don't have to take advantage of it, it didn't require this big liability account because it was no prepay for typical maintenance. So it made a huge difference. So yeah, when you sold a private equity, you would need a pool of money to handle. They want

to make sure you didn't lifetime warranty everything. They wanted to make sure there were certain things done. So I think that that's a big mistake. I think anybody that's planning on selling in the next 10 years needs to have somebody go through. And let me just explain something to the audience here, Chris. Is anything you do for your people that's not all the time, like a lunch every random month, you take them on a vacation, but every Christmas party, you don't do the same things. Or you pull in an expert, like I got Al Levy to help me with my manuals or all that stuff's an ad back. Now, I'd rather hire a ton of contractors for different things, but it can't be I need a contractor, the same contractor every single month for the rest of my life. So you got to show a history of taking and absorbing and moving on

to different things and certain years using more than less. And right now, what I'm telling everybody is go talk to a guy like Chris, who's done it. Go find an expert like Adam Coffey. That'll take the time to talk to you. And Adam's a really big, I mean, he's busy every day. So he's a hard guy for me to get ahold of. But, and not to say you're not, I mean, but you've got the time to talk to people because you've done it. And there's so many things you can add back and strategic things you can do and ways to, I'll say this, pay it forward to beat Uncle Sam up in the beginning, but at the end, give him way more than he'll make. So I like to say we take advantage of the laws out there

and that's able to give us more opportunities to hire more people. Here's what I can tell you. It's for every employee that I've hired, which has been about almost 100 in the last two and a half months. They're paying more taxes than I'll ever pay back to the government where before they were taking money on unemployment. So I don't feel bad that the government gives me assistance to grow my business because last what? The chances of failing are still very, very high for most business owners. So if everybody thinks it's easy, you're welcome to go do it. But, you know,

and I don't think it's easy to be an employee either for a bad boss and a bad owner. It's not easy. That's why they came up with unions and they make sure that we treat people right and make sure we do a good job and make sure we have a clean work environment for them. So I'm not pro only business owner. I understand what it's like to be, to have a bad boss and a bad owner too. I mean, I've, I've worked at a lot of restaurants, so it's nice to talk to somebody like you that has a big heart. You've been through the ringer, you had a near death experience and it made you kind of see the light. And I think you smile all the time. You seem like you're always happy. So it's definitely bleeds through and everything you do. Chris, if someone wants to reach out to you, you're at Service Titan now, you're killing it there. What's the best way to reach out and

get ahold of you? Yeah, love it at Service Titan. So a couple of call outs. Thanks for that. So easily. So I actually do have a training company as well called Go Time Success Group. We have an awesome tech building school there in Hearst, Texas. So you could easily go to gotimesuccessgroup.com. Ben Stark and I actually have a book coming out this month as well. And we took all those lessons that we learned and we captured them in a book. So if it does a fraction of the value that your book did, I'll call it a win. And it was just really our way to give back to this industry that's blessed us so deeply. But also, I am very active now with Service Titan.

And we have an awesome Facebook community called the Toolbox for the Trades. All kinds of tips, tricks. There's a podcast there as well. So we'd love to interact with you on there. So definitely you can connect with me on that way as well. So I was on there. I was the third one. You had Ken, John, and me. I felt good to come number three to those guys. I think they say the third time's the charm.

What's the book going to be called? It's called it's go time, believe it or not. So what fitting term would that would that would send me the send me the transcript? I'll go through it. If you got it out, I'd love to help you get it out there, because I think if you guys put a book together, it's worth endorsing. I don't want anything except a free signed copy. Yes, sir. I'll send you one then. And so it's go time. What are three other books? This is a great one. We talked about HVAC spells wealth. Do you have three books that you'd highly recommend for the listeners? Yeah. So, I mean, ultimately my three big books that I think

have made the biggest impact in my life, obviously number one for me was the Bible. Two, I loved Entree Leadership by Dave Ramsey. Yeah, it was a great book just on everything. But then the John Maxwell, 21 Laws of Leadership, I think is definitely the staple. The Law of the Lid, I think is why so many contractors in the HVAC industry get stuck at the 1 million mark, 2 million mark, and they can't get out of that truck. It all goes back to the law of the lid. Once I heard that, I knew, oh my goodness, I am the bottleneck. I have to raise my own lid. So the 21 laws of leadership, it has to be a must, right? And then of course, Home Service Millionaire. Oh, good. And the E-Myth HVAC version by Ken and Michael Gerber. I was thinking a lot about kind of what is the power of working with a guy like me when you're an entrepreneur. And a lot of it is how I have my meetings, how I've learned to delegate. But

really, the big power has come from the Rolodex I built, like Alan Rohr, or like hanging out with and about learning. And guys like you, it's like, I had the opportunity to meet him in person twice. I've listened to his book twice. I've read it once. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that I think is my Rolodex of how I handle my SEO. My amazing guy, Forrest, who handles my pay-per-click. I mean, look, it's the unfair advantage.

And I really believe that. And I'll tell you, you know, people say, I wish there were 10 of me. And I'm like, man, if I had nine more of me, I'd have nine really, really annoying competitors. And I don't want 10 more of me. But listen, I always end it like this. I want to give you a chance. You said a lot of great stuff. I love what you said about what when your life seems to be less time in the foreseeable future, you start to really think about that. So take the time. It's kind of like I've heard another. There's something I'm thinking about. Take the time to do it now before it's too late. And I tell people, you know, I don't have any kids yet and I'm not married, but obviously you do. And it hit home in a lot of other ways, but you've already told me about, and us and the

listeners about how important it is to really do this. So I'm excited to see the vision board and share that with all the listeners, but talk to me more. You can finish it on anything you want. You could talk about the book. You could talk about a life lesson. You could talk about a little strategy that got you ahead in life, but I want to leave you the floor to talk to the audience about anything you want. Yeah. And a lot of this is in the book because it is not only is it best practices that we learned along the way, but it's also these lessons. But so just yesterday I was talking to my wife and I said, hey, what would be an awesome day for you? Design that. And she had to think about it. I'm like, it could be anything.

So the point was my dad one time told me, said, Chris, if you want something bad enough, it's go time, right? Why not go get it? And I was like, you're right. So, so many people get stuck in that rut and they just do the same old thing, but stop. Do like I told my wife, let's just design what you want and then reverse engineer on how to go make it happen. So that's my advice. It is truly go time. Don't settle. Enjoy this life. You only got it here for a short time. Might as well enjoy it. Invest in the relationships and connect with people like you. That's just going to make you stronger and better. Hey, listen, I might be good at business, but I'll tell you what, you're well-rounded. And Dan Thurman wrote a book off balance on purpose. And I don't believe

anybody's perfectly balanced, but it's really prioritizing your life. Make it sure. Look, I needed to get money out of the way to really feel accomplished because now the world is my oyster. Literally, I could do anything. I'm going to get, I'm hiring a personal trainer, one of the best in Arizona. Look, I could do this stuff now. I'm having the most fun I've ever had. I'm going to have the best vacation. I told my field supervisor yesterday, if you do what I'm going to raise the bar to do, you guys have a lot of traveling to Greece, Italy. We're going to go to Hawaii

together. We are going to travel. We're going to go to every basketball game, every football game, every soccer game, every baseball game. I love Ken, what he's doing with NASCAR and going to stuff like that. So I really appreciate you coming on Chris. And I think the more we can share with people, the better we're going to be. I would say I don't make money on the podcast, but I've probably made darn near a billion dollars worth of knowledge at the rate we're going. So it's not only what I save, it's what I'm able to accomplish in the people's lives that I'm able to change in the way. And thank you so much because you've definitely helped me just in this quick moment, wake up and smell the rose a little bit. So I appreciate it. That's it, buddy. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I really do appreciate you. Well, it's close to being go time. So send me that book and then let's get that vision board going. I appreciate it, brother. Will do. All right. Thanks. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast from the bottom of my heart means a lot to me.

And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You you're gonna be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on and and do me a quick favor leave a quick review it really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review make it four or five sentences tell us how we're doing and I just wanted to mention real quick we started a membership it's home service millionaire comm forward slash

club you get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're just, we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your life season further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it. you