The Home Service Expert Podcast - Ken Goodrich’s Proven Strategies to Build and Grow a Sellable Business

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Ken Goodrich is an expert in business process, negotiation, mergers and acquisition, business planning and operations management. As Chairman of Goettl, he is widely recognized by organizations such as the Las Vegas Business Press, Top 40 Under 40 Professionals, and the Business Professional of the Year Success Club. In this episode, we talked about selling businesses, mentorship, hiring practices…

so and i want everybody on this podcast to hear this is just because you sell your business once does not mean your business life is over you know you just got to look at it this is a project i did like imagine you're a real i always like to compare it to a real estate developer i bought a piece of dirt i had a vision what should be on there. I double-checked the numbers to make sure it was highest and best use for my money in the land. I went out and hired architects, this and that, and I put my team together. I built this beautiful building. I got it occupied. It started cash flowing.

I had my problems, but I figured it out. And eventually somebody came and paid multiples of my cost for it in a few years and it's the same thing that's what these good guys do all the time you can do the same thing with businesses except if you're really good at business you can make a ton more than any real estate developer with a lot less money welcome to 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. 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. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I have one of my favorite guys on the planet, one of my mentors, a guy that's let me in his shop, let me in his home, got a big heart, always takes phone calls out there to help everybody. He's the GOAT of home service. He's, I mean, he started out in the trenches, big fan of Michael Gerber, wrote a book, wrote a lot. You know, the guy is just a legend.

It's Ken Goodrich. I can tell you he's an expert in so many things, but there's really nothing he doesn't understand about business. He's been in your shoes. He's flipped a lot of businesses. He understands the role of a business is to sell it, not have a 25-year, never learned how to do an exit, never understand how PE works. Obviously, Gettle is a massive brand from the

1930s. He rebranded it. He worked with the right partners. He recruited the right people and built a fortune. He's got a private jet. He recruited the right people and built a fortune. He's got a private jet. He's got locations all over the country. I spent time with him in Lake Tahoe. And he's happy. He's got a beautiful family. He's got investments.

He's doing a lot of things. And there's just, he'll open his door. He'll listen to you and he'll help your company. And he's going to be at the Freedom event. I'm super honored to have him. He came and spoke at Garage Door Freedom, which is Vertical Track. And he just changes the way we look at business. Ken, how are you doing today?

Good, man. And thank you for having me. And I really appreciate the kind words. And back at you. I think you and I have had kind of a symbiotic relationship. Did I say that right? But anyway, and helped each other succeed. And I appreciate that as well. I appreciate you having that out there.

A1 right now is fixing your doors. And you just showed me. And all the springs are Red Max life. So I didn't realize you were... A lot of people don't know this, and I don't know if we're at liberty to say, but Ken actually is an investor in A1. He's the one that brought me Cortec. And he's the one that called me one night and said, this company will hold your hand and be there for you. And that conversation, we'll get into

that in a little bit, but it changed my life. And the education I'm getting right now is you can't pay for this at school. And I'm honored and I owe you big time. So if you ever need anything, you know, we're friends and I would do anything for you because you've done so much for me. Well, I appreciate that. You know what the most gratifying thing of, you know, that I got today from you for all the years we've been helping each other is when your guy walked in, he executed. He introduced himself properly. I told him what my challenges were.

I went through the whole situation. My key goal here was to make sure these garage doors are safe because I travel a lot and I didn't want my wife or kids getting caught in the door, falling on the Mercedes or whatever. And he just went through every piece and point and he executed a brilliant, I don't want to say a sales system, a customer service system. And I said, just do it all. He's completely rebuilding every single part of the door. And I'm glad to see that you've clearly listened on how to price properly. He's going to bring a nice ticket home today. That's fantastic. I love it because guys like you and Tom Howard, who's your neighbor, they've used us. And what's really cool, by the way, guys, is Ken didn't call me and say, hey, brother, did I get the blue collar

mentor hookup? I didn't even know he was out there until five minutes ago. And it's fine. I would definitely give you whatever you want. But what's nice about this is, you know, if I went to your bar, Ken, I wouldn't expect free drinks. I'd want to contribute. You know what I mean? And that's important to me. And the fact that you're an investor, I spoke to all the LPs in Manhattan. And as I finished, I said, you know, guys, I really can't tell you how much this relationship means, the fact that you got behind our company. And I said, Cortex has been nothing but gold for us, the things that they've been able to do with this company. By the way, as LPs, you should invite

A1 Garage Door service over and invest in a new garage drawer if you want to support this company. And they all laughed. But it truly is like this support system. And Tom didn't call me either. He just said, hey, by the way, I just spent 40 grand with you. And I'm like, sweet. And he's like, I don't want anything off. He's like, dude, that was good business. These guys did great. No, listen, I'm with you man because you know we know better than anybody what it costs to do business right and you know especially i'm in the air conditioning business so every every the first 100 degree day i get you know people from elementary school that don't even remember calling me looking for a free deal right and i know what it costs and i'm not bothering anybody for that. I just want the great service

and the guy's executed perfectly. You know, my dad used to be the top AMCO transmissions in the country and a guy named John Lindsay owned a bunch of the shops. And he said, Tom, if any of my friends call, charge them double.

And my dad said, what do you mean charge them double? He goes, if their car breaks down, they're calling me at midnight on a Saturday and it's not worth the havoc. He goes, if they want to go somewhere else, that's okay. And my dad used to tell people, they said, we're taking it to a dealership. They're cheaper than you. He goes, do you go to your general doctor when you need a heart surgery? Because we specialize in transmissions. There's no other warranty like ours. And the average ticket for my dad compared to the rest of the company, and that's where I came up with the Pinnacle Club

because my dad used to have all these rings that he'd win the awards for. And we were on the golf course on Saturdays and Sundays. My dad's like, I'm taking those calls because no one else is. But I got so much to talk to you about. This morning, I want to start out with this story. I got all my technicians on the call and I said, there's 168 hours in a week. 50 hours of those are meant to sleep. 50 hours are spent to work. 10 hours are supposed to be working out or doing long walks. You still got about 60 hours left. I said, Kent Goodrich was at a board

meeting with all of my leadership team, including Luke here, our COO. And he looked at all of us and said, Tommy, you're growing so fast. He goes, if you guys do not commit right here today to 15 hours of self-improvement outside of work. Tommy, he looked me dead in the eyes and he goes, you need to fire these guys because you're going to outgrow them and they're going to hold you down. They're going to be an anchor. Luke told me that was the first day he started podcasting. He finished his first business book that week. They took you very seriously and they started committing to excellence.

They started to self-improve. They started asking more questions, wanting to get trained more, wanting to do shop tours, going to Pantheon and other great events. And I asked them to do the same today. I said, listen, if you're willing to improve and ask for help, I'll never, ever, ever leave you down. I'll never let you down. If you got a will, I'm going to find a way. It's the guys that stop asking for help that think they've already accomplished it. And I said, yeah, but it's what they needed to hear because it actually got them to change and take a step forward. So I want everybody to I'm going to kind of paraphrase what he said here, because I want everybody to hear this and how important it is. One thing I learned very, very early in my career is you got to find mentors.

Right. You got to have a, or some mentors, right? And somebody who is not going to, you know, stroke you, listen to your bullshit. And someone's going to stand up for you and kind of like, Hey man, there's a big pothole coming in 7.2 months to the right. And if you don't open your eyes, you're going to fall right into it. You need that guy. And in that particular case, think about this. We're at a board meeting with his key guys that he's built this beautiful business with. And he wasn't anywhere near

where he is today, but certainly an admirable business. And the key guys were not, he didn't hire Harvard MBAs. These were street guys like all of us who he's built up and trained and they've learned a skill and they've all, you know, were part of something bigger than themselves. But after the meeting and I saw his vision and everything he was working on, I looked at all of them in the face and said, I want you guys to wake up. If you guys don't start working on yourself, self-improvement, learning new things every single day, sharpening your saw every single day, you're going to be left behind because he's running too fast for you. So everybody needs to know that. I think you've done a great job this far, but if you don't tighten up, you're going to be left behind. And that's how I close the meeting.

And I think that's something everybody needs to hear, and I think that's something that, you know, it's really not something bad for a leader to tell his team. Like, listen, guys, I've got you this far. And, but here's what I do every single day to sharpen my saw. And if you're not doing the same thing, there might be a point where I'm so far ahead of you, you're just not in the game anymore. I'll tell you this. I made a commitment back when I first started my business as 26 years old that I was going to read something about the air conditioning business every single day, every day. And I have and I still do today. Now, it's been really easy now with, you know, with, you know, the Internet, right, to read stuff and gather information. But before, I'm reading books,

business books, this and that, but I try to at least get 15 to 20 minutes a day in something. And over time, small things add up to big things, right? And I credit a lot of my... I think that I know I have a bigger perspective on business than a lot of guys in our industry. It's really because of that. I go to the trades meetings and I pay attention. I go into best practice groups and I sit front center every time and I take notes and I decide before I leave, I'm going to implement these three things before I, when I get home, I'm not going to waste this money in my time. You know, I make it a commitment. It's not like, it's not just to go hang out with the boys at the bar at the end of the day. And like I said, I, I'm a student of this

whole industry and I urge everybody to think about that. You know, I don't know if you remember this. It was either 2018 or 2019. You had come to our grand opening and you flew in for it. You were with Landon Brewer and you guys had walked in and you sat in the middle, you stood in the middle of the warehouse and we were in the middle of kind of revamping construction and putting the signs up. And it was a grand opening, a big ice bar. There was a lot of people there. People were leaving and you said, hey, I want you to stop and look. You said something along the lines of,

never forget this feeling. You'll never feel this feeling again. You said, this is what you and your team have built. And you should be so proud. This feeling, these goosebumps, these butterflies, this is something special. And you said, look around. This is the beginning of something massive. And it was like, you made me slow down. I got goosebumps right now thinking about it. And you said, just sit here, look at this. And I was like, dude, you made me like,

it was, I'll never forget that. And it was like, I had to slow down and just be in the moment right there. And that will never ever leave. And it was like, wow, it was almost like we've done it. And it was still so much work ahead of us. But you said, I would pay any amount of money to have the feeling because i haven't had this feeling in so long and you need to cherish it well it's just the calm that you know that's the the culmination and i and i looked at your team and like i said you know they weren't a bunch of harvard mbas they were just regular hard-working people that believed in you, believed in your vision,

and wanted to be a part of something bigger than themselves, which is the goal of every leader, right? That's the culture. You made them believe they could be someone. You made them believe they could be somebody, and it was doing it through that business. And you could clearly see that. It was this big, great warehouse.

It was organized. You had your sales system, the different doors that split out for customers. And your office looked great. And I'm like, okay, now you're ready to go. Now you've built the rocket. Now time to lift off. Yeah. And it was. I just got chills saying that again. Yeah, I just got chills to say that again.

Yeah, it was a great day. Yeah, that was awesome. I still got pictures of that and you guys. I want to jump into another story because this one's been really top of mind. You know, 2022, Tom Howard had flown out and you were part of my board. Tom Howard is part of it. Eric Van Dam, who you got to know very well, and that's who did your deal. I had my brother-in-law, Brian. I had a CPA and I had Dan Miller. And you guys would sit down and you said, this is kind of a joke of a meeting, Tommy. No offense, but this is not how a board meeting is supposed to run. You said, there's nothing prepared. He goes, you need to come to one of mine. But what happened is Tom flew out. The IPO market for SaaS products

had literally cut into a third from what they're raised at for Service Titan. And Tom had flown out and said, have you ever watched the big short? We talked that night and he said, I told you never sell this business. It's a cash cow. I'm telling you right now,

the multiples are through the roof. It's a cash cow. I'm telling you right now. The multiples are through the roof. Something's going to happen. You've got more opportunity to buy than you've got a delay draw term loan for. You need to make a move. That night we went and watched that movie. We whiteboarded for three hours and I called Dan. I said, we're going to sell. And you're the first person I called.

And you talked to me a lot about Cortec. You said you're a smart guy, Tommy, but what you learn from these guys will make you. You're 40 years old or I was 39. You said, when you learn, he goes, I would give anything to be back to your age and learn these things. And you said, you're a smart guy. You understand home service.

These guys are number ninjas. They understand a deeper meaning of raising capital, of what hedge funds look like, of how arbitrage works, of lending partners, of even how they raise from pension funds. And if you pay attention and you watch these guys, specifically Doug and Mike, the guys you worked with, you are going to walk away a new visionary and you're going to be deadly. And I just remember you said to me, you cannot pay for this education. That's going to change the way you look at life and a business. And that's what I decided to do. I followed your footsteps. I did exactly what you said to do. And I played it exactly how you said to play it. I listened to every call we took and you took a lot of calls with me. And you literally came into the deal on their side of it, which was awesome. And we're going to get you a huge return.

I know it's not going to change your life because you've already lived in the perfect life, but you made me realize I could have the money when I'm 55 or I could have it when I'm 39. And I could grow faster with a partner and have a smaller piece of a massive pie and get an education that no one else is getting. And that's why I did the decision. And that's why I'm with Quartec.

And I just want you to talk through that a little bit because you've got more experience than I'll ever have because you haven't sold one company. You've done this over and over and over and people just tell me they never want to sell. Well, I've built and sold six companies. So six times I've done it. And I think what I was speaking to you about that, about the education piece and the new perspective and vision you're going to have from it, it's from my experience, right? So I sold the first time. And I sold the first time to ARS. I was a founding member of a

company called ARS. It's a national HVAC plumbing company. And we went to market. We were a public company. And I started taking over the Southwest region, literally about the same region that Gettle's in today. And prior to buying the company, I had bought a few businesses. And I started buying broken companies. The reason why I buy broken companies is because I broke my company early on in the 80s. I broke it pretty bad. I'll just say this. The IRS almost shut me down. I had $3,000 cash. No one would take my checks. I couldn't hire anybody. Everybody quit my business except two guys. One guy named Vince, he was a Vietnam vet. And he said he had to shoot up this medicine every day to calm his nerves from Vietnam, which turned out to be heroin, I believe. And the other guy was a midget, a midget tech, because back then I thought it was fun. I was 27 years old. I thought it was fun to have a midget tech, right? And those are the only two guys who stayed with me. And I had $3,000 of cash in my pocket and a couple of trucks left. And I had to go out every single

day and sell a job, go buy the materials with cash, Vince and the midges go put them in, go back and get another lead. I mean, every day that was my routine till I dug out of the hole, got the e-myth book, figured out how to build my business system. And all of a sudden I woke up one day, kind of like the vision that we had in your warehouse today. I woke up one day and here I am at, I don't know, 32, 31.

And I owned the residential HVAC replacement market in Las Vegas. But then I started buying broken companies because I knew exactly how to fix them. Because I had to fix my fucked up company that I created years, a few years before. And I just knew the formula, how to buy a broken one, get it back on track and make it work. And they were the least expensive and actually the biggest opportunity in some cases. So that's how I built it there. But then after that, I had built a real pretty scaled business in Las Vegas, and I was able to get involved in this roll-up. So I got involved in the roll-up, and these guys came from

a BFI called Browning Ferris Industries, a garbage consolidated, that would consolidate all the garbage companies in the country, which eventually became waste management. So they had all the M&A experience and big business experience and acquisition integration experience, all kinds of these things that they had going for them. So because I had some acquisition luck or ability, they said, hey, we really need you to go work on the acquisition team. You report to the chairman of the board and you and a couple of guys are going to run around doing M&A, which I really liked. I knew everybody in the industry and I could talk their language and I was very successful at it, going and buying these companies. So when I was in that piece of the business I really got good at the

acquisition buying companies integrating companies and then operate in the region running a multi branch operation then I lived out my non-compete and I put together seven more branches and sold it back again to ARS. And they said, okay, we're going to give you seven more branches of our broken businesses. And then you build your new region with your seven and our seven, and we'll pay you an earn out based on what you do with the other seven. And those guys came from Terminex and TruGreen, right? They were the new CEO and COO of ARS. And they really taught me some high degree leadership ability in multi-branch operation. Really, how do you look at them? How do you pick the guys? How do you

measure them? All that stuff. And I really got an education there. And on and on and on with the different ventures I've been in, all six of them. So that's why I was giving you that information. And I want everybody on this podcast to hear this, is just because you sell your business once does not mean your business life is over. know you just got to look at it this is a project I did like imagine you're a real I always like to compare it to a real estate developer I bought a piece of dirt I had a vision what should be on there I double checked the numbers to make sure it was highest and best use for my money in the land. I went out and hired architects, this and that, and I put my team together. I built this beautiful building. I got it occupied. It started cash

flowing. I had my problems, but I figured it out. And eventually somebody came and paid multiples of my cost for it in a few years. And it's the same thing. That's what these good guys do all the time. You can do the same thing with businesses, except if you're really good at business, you can make a ton more than any real estate developer with a lot less money. Ken, I want to ask you a question about that because I see a lot of business owners that are literally divesting. They decide, this business, I put in the seven-year sweat equity. I'm going to buy a Harley. I'm going to buy a second house.

I'm going to buy the boat and I'm going to get into VRBOs. I'm going to start investing in real estate and I'm putting money into my buddy's bar. And they divest out of the one thing that's finally started paying them back. And they put the sweat equity. They did the hard work. They handled the canceled appointments. They worked out the sweat equity. They did the hard work. They handled the canceled appointments. They worked out the vendor deals. They built a good culture. And then they divest. After the hard work's done, when they just rolled it back in and did a couple acquisitions

or just a few more guys with a few more leads and put it into marketing and just culture. And they say they deserve these things. We are hustlers. We're putting money in other things. Everybody heard flipping houses and this. And I'm like, no. The one thing by Gary Keller. Focus on the one thing. It's your biggest asset. There's no better return. The arbitrage, if you get it from $2 million to $10 million of EBITDA, you'll get an extra five turns. And I don't think people understand that. No. And let me tell you this. There's a good example to that point.

So just today, I was on this residential electrical business services group on Facebook, right? This guy asked, what's the one man show life like? I'm ready to go. Okay. What's the one man show life like? I'm ready to go. Okay. What's the one. So he's like, I'm ready to get a van and start the one man show. And a lot of guys is saying it's great.

One guy said, it's great. I'm 47 years old and a bit tired, but you know, I'm my own boss. You know, there was a lot of kind of positive things. There was a lot of few guys who said. There was a few guys who said,

you don't do that. And here's what I said. It's tough at best. Owning a business should be about building a machine and team that delivers you a profit every year. And those profits grow every year. And one day you can sell the business for 10 to 20 years of profits. That happens every day. Buy yourself is just a job with a lunatic for a boss. Yes. Oh, that's gold. So, but to your point, look, you don't have to sell. Here's what I've been telling people lately. You do not have to sell your business. It's not the only way to do it. But you have to make your business saleable. You have to make it saleable so one day, if whatever circumstance in your life comes to you, you know that the value of this thing that you built continues to grow. And you need to build a business that everybody wants to buy. It's like Monopoly, right? Which properties do you want?

Parking places. Yeah. Yeah. Build that. And you can keep it as long as you want, but you know that anytime you want to get out, you can create a significant wealth gain or liquidity event with significant wealth to do other things. And here's an analogy I've always thought about, and it's a weird thought, so bear with me, but let's pretend it's March. My birthday is March 4th. And I've got about 10 months, nine to 10 months to get into this shape. And let's pretend my body, like if I get into this shape,

it was going to stay for 50 years. You know that 10 months what I would be doing, I'd be working out crazy cardio. I'd be watching everything I'm eating. I would be so disciplined on sleep. I would be drinking two gallons of water a day. I'd be going hard in the paint on supplements. I would do everything I could to ensure that body is the best shape by December 31st. A lot of people, the analogy here is your business. Yeah, well, I'm not selling, so I'm not going to get rid of my uncle who's

kind of useless. I've got everybody on payroll that I've got all my family because they've been loyal to me. I'm definitely not going to switch vendors because, but if I was selling, I'd have to do this, this, this. I would probably replace the trucks. I'd get rid of that piece of shit that always breaks down. I'd have to actually probably get kicked charged to make my brand better. And they do all this stuff, but they know that when they do that stuff, they're actually preparing for a sale. And what you're trying to say, I think, is you should be built to sell. You should be, do those things today.

Do the hard work. Put in the work. Why wouldn't you be a company that's sellable? And I get a lot of these two-man, three-man shows that say, dude, I got 30,000 contacts in my database. How much do you pay yourself? I just take draws. How much does a company make? 300 grand. Well, the business after I replace you is probably worth, I don't know, you know, 400,000.

And you think it's worth this different number. We don't even have your finances. You haven't closed out the three months, last three months of books. Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. A quick reminder, the Freedom Event is happening on September 25th to the 27th. In today's stuff 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, the 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 Door Service. Get your tickets at freedomevent.com. That's freedomevent.com. Now let's get back to this episode. I had another company recently we just purchased in Vegas. I can't go into the details. I'm not trying to talk bad about them, but he goes, I paid $2.2 million last year in taxes. That's how much money I made. I said, I've overpaid in taxes

too. He goes, what do you mean? I could show you. I paid taxes for 2.2. I said, well, my lenders, the way this works is we do a quality of earnings. That's what it came back at. Less. 1.6. Still got the deal done. Still got them happy. But just because you do taxes, like these things, they verify the bank accounts, the inventory, all these things. There's companies that you go out like Forbis and that's all they do. And it's like, why do people wait to become the company that they know they should be? I was guilty of it. You were guilty of it. But what is that? I can't go back to where my head was at at that time. Well, they don't know. What I would say, most people who start a business don't really understand that they can build a business that can create 10, 20, 30, 50 years of average income

in one payment. I don't think they understand that can really happen. They just really started out, Michael Gerber says, with an entrepreneurial seizure, they don't want to work for the next guy, blah, blah, blah. They know a trade, a skill, and they can do that and make some money. But no one really sits down and looks at it and decides, I'm going to build an asset. I'm going to build a business, an asset that's worth $100 million by this time. And then I'll fill in the blanks as I go. You know, I got people coming to me every single day, asking me questions, looking for some advice. And especially the younger guys who haven't even started in business yet. And I go, listen, man, do not quit your day

job. Do not quit. First thing you do is go to this best practice group, sign up for their beginning program. Once you get through that program and you know it well, and you know the fundamentals of the business, how it works, then go to the next one. I would say, give yourself a year of education with the information that's already out there before you even start business. And then make sure part of the equation that you're looking at is how to raise a little bit of money so you go in with a little bit of war chest and not try to bootstrap it and make it impossible to do. Now, let me ask you, Tommy, had you gotten that advice before you started, where do you think you'd be today? If somebody told me the book to read, the best practices group, the understanding of financials, what it means to be a leader, understanding payroll, understanding what accelerated depreciation is, and a cost segregation study and to own a building and to lease your vehicles to own,

I would have saved a decade. That's what I was going to say. I was going to say just that number. You would have been 10 years ahead, which means in 10 years, you're going to be, you know, I would bet at least 5 billion. You might think. Yeah, I mean, I literally, I reverse engineered what I need to do. It's mathematically impossible to not hit my goal if I hit this budget based on simply how many calls do I need? What does my booking rate need to be? What is my conversion rate? What does my average ticket need to be? What's my cost per lead to generate those calls? If that happens and I could handle capacity planning and build that average ticket, which is never the top 20%, it's somewhere,

it's called a mean or a median, depending on statistics of how many people you have for a reason. And you use that number. And if you could grow the mean, you could start shifting those numbers in a calculator, but it's mathematically impossible not to hit your goal. As long as you can get the leads and you can match up the capacity with great people that show up and people are like, well, how do you get more leads? Well, that's a problem. How do you get more people? That's a problem. How do you get more people? That's a problem. You got to become a machine.

There's a KFC store opening every 11 hours. Every 11 hours. They created a machine and they know exactly how much revenue that's going to do, just like McDonald's. And when you get this science down, it becomes more predictable. That's why people offer bigger multiples. Because if I die or get hit by a bus or hit the lottery, whatever, disappear, the company still runs and the machine still runs. That's what's so beautiful, Ken, is me and you could be out of town for months and we don't skip a beat. We're the visionaries. And I think people, if you can't leave your

business for a month and it's very, very in ruins when you get back, you're going to get a low multiple because it's too dependent on you. By the way, let's go back to this one point, the best practice group, the peer group, right? The first one I found was I told you a little bit of story. I was struggling, $3,000 in my pocket, blah, blah, blah. And I got this trade magazine and they had an ad for ACCA, Air Conditioning Contractors of America, and they had a convention that started the next day. And I'm like, well, what the fuck do I have to lose, right?

So I just took some of my last money, and I got on the plane and went to San Antonio, and I met some guys there who were ahead of me in business and they started helping me a little bit and I went to the classes and like I said I sat in the front row and I got the material and I started making plans and I want everybody to hear this everybody in this home service business has incredible access to all kinds of materials and training to make their businesses work. When I started and some of the older guys that you see at these panels and stuff that I'm on with, you know, we were working with sticks and rocks and we had the one book,

the E-Myth book, right? But then these other, these best practice groups started to be born and that's where we all really learned a lot. I'm still in best practice groups today and I think everybody should be in one. And certainly for anybody in the, should be in the home service experts. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. I always tell people, you know how I make my money, Ken? Garage doors. I do this because of the relationships I get, the people I meet. I mean, when I'm at these, my own events and other people's events, I can't tell you how much I can't wait to build relationships.

That's what it's really about is networking. We go do. So I gave away a free two, like I'll come help your company for a day at the last Freedom event in November. And I go to this company, his name's Lee Downing and AirServe. And I'm thinking, I'm going to go in here and teach these guys a bunch of little things to really double their business. And I go in there and I'm studying their call center. I go, how many calls does your average CSR take a day? They're like, well, it takes 60 opportunities and call out 40. We're at a 94% booking rate. I go, that can't be right. I started going through the service, listening to the calls. I watch a call get transferred to a girl that fought for the job and booked it. And then I validated it all. And I said,

this is better than me. So what happened? My COO and my head of dispatch and CSRs went out there for two days. And we're actually giving them everything we've got. We're learning from them. That happened from the freedom event of me just doing a giveaway, a free tour. Yes, I talked to him about how to exit and who he needs to talk to and getting ahold of Eric Van Dam and these people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I tried to give as much as I possibly could. That was crazy. And that's what happens is I learn a lot. I'm not going there just to teach. I mean, it was so nice when you have to teach, Ken, you got to become a master of it. You got to actually know the materials and actually implement these things. I get, you know, I get a lot of, like, my wife always asks me, like, why do you talk to all these guys and give them all your secrets

and blah, blah i go well first of all i don't think there are any or any real secret uh but second of all i learn more from these conversations than i believe they do and it doesn't matter what size contractor that i talk to everybody's got something some little gem that i didn't think about, something they're doing different. A lot of the stuff I've ever built and implemented have been based on that. So we have a particular sales system that we implemented in Gettle that you're aware of, right? Which I'm not going to talk about, but you know where I learned that sales system? At that grand opening of your first grand opening of your new warehouse, your new building at A1. I was talking to some guy who was in the garage door business.

I guess at that time there was a big $100 million plus garage company that ended up going here or something. And he was part of that. And he talked about some of these things that they use in this sales system. And I went right back the next day and said, we're doing this and completely revolutionized our company from that one conversation. And he was, he didn't have a job because the company went bankrupt. And I got one of my best ideas from him. So, you know, get in a best practice group. And listen, let me tell you this.

I probably had 20 personal trainers in my life, and I'm still fat. So, you know, you got to do the work. One thing I did with my business, though, is I didn't have a choice. You know, it was sink or swim. I had to feed my family and I could not fail at the business. So when I went to those best practice groups, like I said, front, center, notes, implementation every single time. And I made sure that I sat with smarter people than me.

I made contacts. I got their business cards. I followed up with them. I have a network like you can't believe all over this country. And it's from these kinds of groups and it's the sharing that have gone on. So that's a big part of your learning when you don't, when you work for some big, great company, you know all the answers. You know, I've not talked about this in a long time, but I realized a long time ago that this garage door industry was not going to help me. These guys are selfish. They're self-centered. They don't share. And so all I did was really I looked at the books out there.

And there's this book, HX Spells Wealth by Ron Smith, who passed away recently, a couple of years ago. And I started to learn. And then I said, who's got the most private jets? And at that point, you had a private jet. And I started following just these kind of icons of this industry. And I said, this is it, Service Titan, Pantheon. And then you let me come visit. And then Keegan and then Leland let me come in. And all these different guys across the country. And they opened up their doors. And they're like, come on in. And then Frank Blau did it in 1991 with George Brazil and these guys. And I said, man, this Ron Smith guy was sharing in the 60s and actually having these groups come together.

They decided they were stronger together and going to change an industry rather than being selfish. They said we could all win. We're in the same trade. We can all win. And that mentality is what sparked every industry. You guys just figured it out a long time ago that we could ask and share and all win together. And there's not really these major secrets and we don't need to like steal people from each other. We can work together. And I think that's admirable. And I don't know if it was Ron in the 60s or it was a pact of people,

but the fact that you said that, that's what sparked everything. You said, hey man, who do you want to sit down with? You want to meet my CFO? You got to ask questions. And I said, yeah. And you introduced me to everybody. You let me come into your office. You sat me down in that room and you said, I want to meet my CFO? You got to ask questions. And I said, yeah. And you introduced me to everybody. You let me come into your office.

You sat me down in that room and you said, I want to introduce this guy. Then you said, hey, I want you to meet this guy. Then you said, hey, go watch Dale sell a couple of jobs. And you said, hey, listen, I want to introduce you to this. I didn't even have to ask you. You just brought it one by one by one. And I said, how do you get those little Sadie? And you're like, give them the contact.

We get those little dogs from China with the flashlights. Like, give them this, give them this. I want you to be my mechanic of how we handle our fleet. Here's who I use, this Kick Charge company is who I got branded. You need to call them. That's who created the story behind the success and changed the whole paradigm of it.

I didn't ask for it. I asked if I could come in and you said, here, here, here, here, here. And a lot of people, for some reason in the AJAG industry were like, dude, you're a garage drug guy. Good luck. Come on in, take everything we have. And without that, I would never be here today, ever. And the important part though is for everybody here is you asked, you asked, you asked, can I come see you? Can I, can I meet with you? Most people don't do that. And let me tell you this, talking about the jet thing, you know, this is all about goals. Like I've been big on goal setting. You know, I got, I started my

business and I kind of, you know, thought I was going to be a big, big timer and buy my fancy cars and all the stuff. And I thought I'd live the life of a MTV rap video on the weekends. But it didn't turn out that way. So I got to this point where I was doing pretty well. And I was part of this best practice group, but I won't name it. And the guy was like, you know, the Oracle of the industry, like he was the god of the industry. And everybody wanted to be in this group. And I tried to get in the group at first. And they were

selling territories. So I was in Vegas at the time. And one guy bought up all the territories. And he wouldn't let me have one. So I kept calling the company and saying, hey, I really want to be part of this group. How do I get a territory? And they said, well, you've got to buy one from him. And I go, well, he won't sell me one. And I really want to be a part. And I can do this. And I can do that. And like, well, he won't sell me one. And I really want to be a part and I can do this

and I can do that. And like, well, the only way is to have a territory. So one night I just wake up in the middle of the night, I had this brainstorm. I'm going to go buy a territory in Phoenix. So my accountant was in Phoenix. I call him up and I said, hey, you know any business brokers? He said, yeah, blah, blah, blah. I go, I'm flying in. I need a meeting with them. Please set it up. I fly in. I say, do you have any air conditioning companies?

He said, yeah, I have this one. It's pretty good. It's about 35 years old, blah, blah, blah. I said, let's go see it. We had dinner with the people. I cut a deal with them that night. The next day I had a contract written up. I bought the business.

I was doing $800,000 in sales, total sales for the year. A little side note to that, I bought it on August 2nd in 2001, and we did $800,000 that month. But then I got back on a plane. I flew to Florida for the first meeting of this best practice group I wanted to be involved in. And I get up there and the Grand Poobah Oracle guy sees me. He goes, well, what are you doing here? We told you you couldn't join. I go, well, I bought a territory here in Phoenix, Arizona. Here's my Phoenix, Arizona business card. So now I'm in. So he goes, okay, you know, you set a goal and you accomplished it. So

good for you. You're in. So I get in the group. And like I said, front and center, every meeting, I'm networking with everybody there. And what the, when you went to these meetings, like the big honor is if you get to, if you get to go to this guy's suite and show your financials and get some advice from him and have him bless you, like, okay, yeah, you're doing great. You're doing not, you know, blah, blah, blah. But not everybody got to do that. He would only talk to the people he thought that were really executing well. So I keep applying, I keep applying, I keep applying. And so finally, I get chosen. And so I'm all excited. I bought new clothes to go to the meeting. I'm probably mid-30s or something. And I was really excited to go meet with them.

And I get to the meeting. And at the time time I'd already sold a group of companies and I was building my second group of companies and I had three different businesses. And so I took the businesses financials and I put them all together in one spreadsheet. So you could see what they look like together. And then i had the three different financials so we sat down and i give him the spreadsheet and he looks at it and he goes well what's this is the spreadsheet i said yeah this is the my combined businesses together blah blah and he goes oh i don't look at spreadshe. I don't believe anyone who puts a financial on a spreadsheet is lying. I don't believe it.

And he throws them to the side. Completely demoralizes me, right? Now, at that time, I had a nice business. I mean, I was making, you know, in my mid-30s back in the late 90s. You know, I was making a couple million bucks back then and so he talked to me he's like well what's your goals tell me what you're building blah blah blah and what's your goal so i'm thinking what would impress this guy and i go and i just made it up just comes to me i said i'm gonna fly private i'm gonna own my own my own private jet now i've never

been on a private jet before and i don't even know what that meant or what it would cost. I just thought it would impress the guy so I could be in his group and his graces and be close to him and learn from what he had to learn from. expectations correct you're never going to have a private jet based on these numbers you'll never get there so you know i he goes even me he goes i only charter private jets for vacations and christmas time this and that so you need to start focusing on realistic goals and then he kind of dismisses me you know i got to get to my next appointment uh Thank you. Blah, blah, blah. So I was, you know, I was humiliated and pissed off. And I walked out that door and as moment that door closed, I said out loud, I'm getting a motherfucking private jet. And I set that goal and I went after it and i went after it and six years later i got my first one it's funny how some of these obstacles come from a point of like it's it's like i'm gonna prove my parents wrong or i'm gonna prove my whoever it is and then it turns into a good thing but i love that story you share that on stage and it's so freaking awesome. My daughter says, Dad, everything you've built is built on Spiked, which is kind of true.

So when I bought Gettle, I bought Gettle because, first of all, Gettle was very important to me because I got a long story about how Gettle, my dad was a Gettle dealer when I was a kid and I got to buy the company, but Gettle was owned by ARS and it had some challenges. The company had some challenges and one thing led to another, I got to buy it. But as soon as I bought it, there was a lot of gossip around the industry that I caused the challenges so I could buy it, which wasn't the case. But, you know, that's the way that the rumor mill started. Nobody wants to see anybody succeed anyway. So all the gossip happened. So I literally bought Gettle just to show everybody what I could

really do on my own and out of some spite, and here we are. Now, I'm trying to be a little more healthier about it now and more purposeful about it, but that was a couple of examples. And so now, so Gettle, I'm still a meaningful shareholder on the board, but now I started buying standby generator companies. So now I've got a couple in Texas, one in Florida, and we're going to keep rolling that industry up and fixing that industry. I know. I'm a big fan of what you're doing. And I will say, I would never bet against you. And anybody that bets against Ken Goodrich is insane. And you're just the perseverance and the knowledge.

The fact is it's not going to change your life, but it's fun. I will say you have a lot of fun in business. I think people don't understand. They think we're crazy. They're like, when's enough enough? Well, we don't ever go to work, so keep doing it. It's the game.

I just love the game. I love the game. Look, I love the game. I love to grow people. And I love that day. I love that day. Like what, what at your grand opening, I love getting to that point when you see regular people clearly empowered and clearly feeling a part of something bigger than themselves, and you can see the accomplishment that you've led them to create, I want that day over and over again. I'm excited to hear about it. Every time you invited me for a cigar, I always do it. I make

time. I've been with you probably a dozen times. Every time I learn a ton. How do people get ahold of you, Ken, if they wanted to reach out? I know you've got your Facebook group. It's like Walking with Ken. What is the group called? The First Step. The First Step with Ken Goodrich. Ken Goodrich, yeah. So, you know, just for the listeners, you know, I got in a bad place. When you're in business, sometimes you get so myopic and focused on everything and you forget about yourself and taking care of yourself. So traveling around, business centers, this and that. I woke up one day and I really felt like I was going to die. I thought, I don't know if I'm going to get up tomorrow morning. I felt so bad and I gained 100 pounds.

And so I just decided that day and I went to work on it and I started walking first because I hadn't exercised in a long time. I started walking every single day and I found out walking was very therapeutic on top of getting exercise because it kind of clears your head and you're able to kind of focus on things better that way. So then I got in a healthy routine of doing most of my business calls in the morning with my headphones on while I'm walking. So I've been doing that every single day for a number of years now, about four years now. And, you know, working out and watching, getting my diet fixed and everything. And I lost 100. And I'm still, you know, I still deal with the typical swing, 10-pound swing of trying to keep it off and this and that. But so far, good so anyway i put this with paul um paul and uh chris yano from rhino we uh they started this group and uh it's just we share each we share walks we share health advice uh we share a little business advice but i think there there's, I don't know, 1,300, 1,500 people

on the group. And we're all talking every single day, kind of encouraging everybody. Interesting enough, one of the members who came to me about a year ago for some help in his business, and I had a couple conversations with him, and I was walking. And so he goes, I'm going to try walking like you do when I call you. So he would, he would walk and I would walk and we'd talk. And then he got in a group and he started, he really got addicted to this walking thing because it cleared his head. When you're building a business, you don't know quite how to do it. And you're trying to learn so fast and, you know, you need to make steps every you need steps forward in the business every single day you know it's stressful and the walking

really helped him get his head clear but interesting enough he set a goal for a thousand miles this year and he's ready to hit it he got so into it he's ready to hit 1,000 miles August 3rd. And so he said, will you walk the last miles with me for the 1,000 miles, right? Which I thought was really cool. And so we're going to be doing that in Lake Tahoe on the 3rd. That's amazing. Yeah, he was at the last Freedom event, and he was walking with me around the buildings. I'm walking roughly two and a half hours a day, and I don't like to sprint.

I've still been doing some high-intensity normal training, but I'm addicted to it. Funny enough, my trainer got here seven minutes ago to work out in the other room. You're worth making him wait. Brigham's here. You know Brigham from Power Selling Pros helping us out, getting our booking rate a little higher. He's going to be working out too, but I'm excited to just hang out on September

25th in San Diego. There's no more beautiful spots September 25th through the 27th. You're going to be there. I'm not a big fan of pushing sales. People want to come and they don't have a great time and it doesn't change their life. You come find me or Jim there. I'll give you back your money. You can leave.

I just try to put the coolest, some of the most knowledge I could put in one room and share it with more. Christiana does a fantastic job, but his are a little more intimate. 40, 45 people. I wanted to share what you guys give and

let everybody experience this big, small and different and make it a little more affordable. And I'm not trying to give you a pitch on sales. It's just, I think you come from the right place that you would like to see people win. And you've helped me out in more ways than I could ever thank you enough. Like even on a podcast, I can't say how much I'm indebted because you've always set me on the right course. I don't bother you a lot. I just, I just, I call you when I need you. And you just say, I do this, this, and this, and talk to this guy and you do it.

So I appreciate you taking the time today. You know, this is the best podcast. Zero of the questions on my forum get asked because me and you have a big history. But I really appreciate you doing this. Any final thoughts, Ken? Well, appreciate all the kind words and back at you. I think it's been a great relationship and let's and it will be forever of helping each other succeed. And I want everybody to hear this. Every independently wealth self-made person in this industry was involved in a best practice group. End of story. Every single one who's made significant wealth, who's had multiple businesses, multiple branches, multiple sales, started dedicating themselves in these best practice groups. So make the time. It's part of the process and see in San Diego.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. 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 help 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. you