The Home Service Expert Podcast - Understanding the Four Aspects of Leadership to Get Your Team To Commit 100%

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Val Sigmon is the President of Entrematic, a global leader in entrance automation. He began his career in 1995 as an assistant Door Center manager at Amarr (now part of Entrematic). Since then, he has held several executive roles within the company across multiple areas, including sales, customer service, product structure, applications engineering, supply chain, and human resources. In this episode, we talked about sales management, new business development, customer service...

I think about our growth journey. We doubled in size every five years for a period of 25 years. And that's why that's an impressive stat. That is very difficult and complex to manage. So the enemy of growth and expansion is complexity. And I think that back to the comment on process driven, we really focus on processes. But the one thing we've kept in mind, it cannot be 100 percent processes. We still have to keep the entrepreneurial spirit, number one. Number two, we've got to empower our people. I think about all of your locations, Tommy, when there's a problem where our general manager that runs the door center,

they're empowered to do what they need to to take care of your business and their other dealer's business, not to have to go through this bureaucracy of a clearly defined, rigid process, or having to get approvals through corporates. So that's the balance we've been able to strike to drive processes to reduce complexity, but once again, to keep that local relationship, that local decision-making, which is what's made us successful. 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. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I have a friend of mine joining us. He is the CEO of a very great company, Amar, which is also known as Entrematic. I've got Val Sigmund joining us. How are you today, Val? I'm doing excellent, Tommy. I appreciate you inviting me on today. Very excited to be with you and your listeners. Yeah. So you're an expert of sales, management, new business development, customer service. You're based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. You're the president from 2017 and now of Entrematic.

Executive vice president, VP of national accounts, commercial human resources from 2013 to 2016. And before that, you were AMAR, which which Automatic took you guys over the VP of National Accounts and Commercial 2010 to 2013 Director of Retail Manufacturing from 2009 to 2010 Director of Retail Business from 2005 to 2008 Director of National Accounts from 2002 to 2005 I mean it keeps going you've had a long career there. You also earned a bachelor's degree in industrial relationships and psychology from the University of North Carolina and an MBA from Wake Forest University. He started at the AMAR branch in 1995 as the assistant door center manager, and he's played every role in the business. So just wanted to let people know

where you were coming from. And you're our biggest partner here at A1 Grocers. I mean, you guys are 99.9% of our business and we've had the opportunity to meet each other several times. And I just wanted to thank you for the way you take care of us and everything you do for us. Yeah, I appreciate that. You guys are an incredible partner and it's continue to grow. And we're incredibly excited with our relationship with you guys. And specific to my work history, Tommy, I've been incredibly fortunate. I think I've worked for a lot of great mentors in the business with our company founder, Richard Brenner, and then Jeff Mick is my predecessor. And I've been very fortunate to do a lot of different things.

And I've been very blessed. Yeah, you guys have an amazing thing going on. I mean, you are the largest. What do you guys place? I don't want to say it without, as far as as big as AIM or not traumatic is, what do you guys place in North America? You know, if you look at our sandbox, if you will, North America, we're the third largest in terms of sectional door manufacturing

and distribution. There's some back and forth whether we're first and second in residential, which is our core competency, but clearly we're a large player in the business and really have been able to grow with our distribution model. So we focus on manufacturing. We manufacture sectional doors, as I said, residential and commercial, but distribution is really our secret sauce in terms of local distribution locations. And we sell a lot of different products that we don't manufacture, but that's really give us the opportunity to grow dramatically for the last 61 years. That's so cool. So why don't you give the audience, you know, you started in the warehouse in 95. And here you are 25 years later running the whole company. And why don't you give us the journey through your rise to the top?

Absolutely. So I know you spoke through the positions, but I don't really get hung up on titles. It's really about responsibilities and opportunities. So to your comment, I started as an assistant manager in one of our locations in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is just one of our, what we call a door center because we sell door products. And was fortunate enough to do that for a number of years. And at the time, Tommy,

we basically managed sales and operations. It was really all one role, one responsibility. So I did that for a number of years and then worked my way to do regional sales and operations at the time, still one responsibility. So I did that for a number of years and then worked my way to do regional sales and operations. At the time, still one position. Then focused specifically on sales for the entire southeast. And that was from Florida all the way up to Virginia, as far west as Tennessee. And you can tell from the southern accent, my roots are in the Southeast. And then from there, it really started our National Accounts Department. At the time, in 2005 and 2002, that time frame there was a new business for us as a company.

So really was able to expand that business, a lot of different roles, a lot of different opportunities. And throughout my career, I'm really, you know, very hands-on, very in the details of the business, truly so I can understand it. And I think, as I mentioned before, had a lot of mentors that gave me a lot of responsibility. They empowered me, allowed me to try different things. And I think that's, you know, allowed me to be fortunate enough to grow with the business. But to make no mistake, our business is all about a team. We've got a great team with Intramatic, the previous AMR. We've got a great culture that our founders have driven tied to empowerment,

tied to having a high work ethic, and ultimately innovation, not scared to change things. And that's really been my journey. But once again, it's really been a journey of the entire corporation, not just me moving from position to position. So you guys are a lot, you know, Richard took a, when did all that go down when you guys switched the ownership? So basically Richard and the Brenner family owned the business from 1951 to

2013. In 2013, the family multi-generational decided to sell the business. It was one of the last businesses they owned. So they looked for a strategic buyer, and that's what they found in Asa Abloy in 2013. And then just for clarity, Asa Abloy is the parent company. Intramatic is really the focus on what's considered the indirect business, which is selling through dealers, distributors like yourself. Really, our core focus is to support you, not to sell direct to a consumer. Gotcha.

Like you said, the secret sauce is your distribution centers. You guys kind of lead the way at Grosjean Distribution Centers, don't you? We do. We do. We've got more than any other. You take a step back and on a map, it looks easy. You got 66 dots on the map, but clearly there's a lot of complexity with getting consistency. So if I think about our journey through the years, it's really been one of innovation. We're very entrepreneurial in our location management, but then also we have a lot of processes to be able

to get that consistent service level and it sounds easy but at times it's very complex but that's been fortunate for us once again to be able to grow the business and it is part of our secret sauce so i think that's what amazon did well and you've got other companies now that aren't really direct competitors like service Spring Corp that seem to be doing the same thing and trying to get the boots on the ground. And I think it's not quite the exact same as Amazon, but it really creates a lot more opportunity. But there are some downfalls to having too many locations, right? There are. I mentioned complexity. If I think about our growth journey, we doubled in size every five years for a period of 25 years. And while that's an impressive stat, that is very difficult and complex to manage. So the enemy of growth and expansion is complexity. And I think back to the comment on process driven, we really focus on processes, but the one thing we've kept in mind, it cannot be 100% processes. We still have

to keep the entrepreneurial spirit, number one. Number two, we've got to empower our people. I think about all of your locations, Tommy, when there's a problem where our general manager that runs the door center, they're empowered to do what they need to to take care of your business and their other dealer's business, not to have to go through this bureaucracy of clearly defined rigid process or having to get approvals through corporate. So that's the balance we've been able to strike to drive processes to reduce complexity, but once again, to keep that local relationship,

that local decision making, which is what's made us successful. Tell me how the whole process works because I'm pretty familiar with it. You know, this is pretty much like a lot of other industries you guys manufacture out of Kansas so what's the city name there again out of Kansas it's a Lauren Kansas so the University of Kansas Jayhawks we're in the college town but that's where our primary manufacturing plant is and we've got two others another in Kansas and one in North Carolina and you get everything

sent out from there so it's basically you manufacture the product in the rest of its logistics and you got boots on the ground and all these different areas so it's a huge operation in that regards and kovat hit us and you guys did what everybody did and what we did too is figured out how are we gonna downsize through this downturn because we don't know how bad it's going to be. And then all of a sudden we've seen ourselves like, hey, we're essential. We can still work. And it's bounced back harder than ever. But if you weren't planning on that, especially in your kind of shoes where you're manufacturing,

you got all these people in that city. How did you guys as an executive team come up with a decision on how you're going to play it? When you look at a downturn in the economy, as you know, kind of textbook 101 is you aggressively make changes and you make them quickly. And I think us, like you and numerous other businesses, that's what we did. But to your comment, what the home improvement spending has really not declined dramatically. We are an essential business. A lot of people not taking vacations. Well, clearly they're investing in their home. And I think what we've had to do is pivot quickly and focus on numerous things. But ultimately, how do we produce more volume out of our manufacturing facilities to be able to supply our customers ultimately through our distribution?

So what we've done is a lot of different things. You know, we're at a point now we're trying to hire a hundred plus people in our manufacturing facilities, all three, so we're pulling multiple levers. We're, you know, short term we're asking our folks to work some overtime, they've been gracious enough to do that. We're pulling in a lot of different folks, some temporary, we're really looking to hire, so we're pulling all the labor levers. The other thing we're doing, Tom, so we're pulling all the labor levers the other thing we're doing Tommy is we're looking at sourcing if there's things we can do to source from some of our suppliers direct to our distribution

centers to not manufacture in our plants or to ship through our plants we're doing that we're also looking at short-term efficiency opportunities I'm in the plant this week in Lawrence Kansas there's three different things we came up with the idea last week we're testing it the the plant this week in Lawrence, Kansas. There's three different things. We came up with the idea last week. We're testing it the beginning of this week, and if things go well, we implement it, which will allow us to produce more products driving efficiencies. And I think the fourth final thing we're doing is what are other things we can produce in our door centers?

So that's really specific to our business, but my point is we're aggressively taking action to really drive more velocity and volumes through the plant to be able to meet your demand and then ultimately meet the marketplace's demand so that's from an executive team or really leadership team to where you're in a constricting mode to where you immediately turn to expansion mode that's been our our focus and once again with empowerment, we've been able to do a lot of different things, but there's still a lot of opportunities. So I said a lot there, but that's just the key. I think focus is flexibility and the ability to change. And that's what we're doing right now. Yeah. I mean, it's tough for everybody. I mean,

there's winners and losers, but overall, this is what makes the company stronger. And this is what, if I was going to invest in a company, I'd like to see that they could get through the tough times you know here's one thing i've noticed is you know i talked to a lot of home service companies and from what i noticed is air conditioning the hvac industry has so many things figured out and it's a lot easier because you think, I don't know how to explain this to people, but you and I know you get a different size garage or a different color, different pattern windows, different insulation, different springs for that, different cycle life. There's so many different factors than a five ton HVAC unit. And I'm not undermining the HVAC industry, but regardless of the manufacturing side, let's step out of that door for a minute.

And let's talk about the business in general, because you, for the last 25 years, you've met different owners with different attributes, whether it be marketing or the thing that I don't necessarily love. And I don't think a lot of people love is working with builders because they're out so far in pay and something goes wrong with the plumber, we get blamed for it. But ultimately, what do you think has excelled so far? There's so many business owners versus technicians that are owners in the HVAC and plumbing and electrical industry. It's almost like in the mid-90s, something took over and said, we are going to be a profitable company. We're going to be able to compete with all these other companies that the business owners make a ton of money. But I feel like there's other industries, whether it be, and there's a lot of them, actually the majority of home service

industries, whether it be chimneys or window washing or garage doors. What do you think the difference is about the mindset of the industry and what are those factors that change it? No, I think it's a good question. I mean, I think if you look at the evolution of those industries and more specifically our industry, I think your comment, there was a lot of historical technicians that started a business and then they just managed a business to a certain level. And then I think with any business as it grows, once again,

you get that complexity and you got to introduce new people, new processes, and just new things to help drive the success of the business. So if I think about our industry, I think it's twofold, right? I think it's what you spoke to, to where all of our dealers are becoming more and more professional. And I think you know the industry as well as I do, if not better, Tom. You have different levels of companies, right? You get multi-million dollar companies like yourself. You get kind of a mid-tier that's a million, maybe less. And then you get small dealers.

But I think that level of professionalism continues to increase. And I think from a dealer perspective, it's the willingness to try different things. Before, it was more about order taking. Now, it's about sales and marketing savvy. What can you do to get the phone to ring? And I think that's where a lot of independent dealers have really started to put more time, effort, money, and have excelled their business. And then I think the second part of that tied to the dealer is the operational side of the business. So clearly, how do you drive the sales and marketing machine and then sales and operation? I keep talking about process, process, process, but

for the independent dealer, it's process in terms of scheduling. A lot of that's been advanced with software applications. Same thing with how do you drive your installation process, whether it be your steps, whether it be your steps, whether it be the trucks, the vans that you run. I think that's created significant advantages. And I think from a supply perspective, thinking about my part of the business, is we've added a lot of tools and things to help you and your business, whether it be software, whether you design a door on a home, you give that to consumers to help in on the sales process, whether it be how you order the product to make it more seamless and simple for us to receive it

and then ultimately deliver that to you or for you to pick it up. So a long-winded answer, but I think both paths, there's been a lot of different things, but it really boils down to willingness to try new things, and then ultimately innovation yeah you know this is the tough one and this is there's anybody in that is in the garage industry listening I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about something that's really controversial because it's not only the garage industry it's every industry and the people in these Facebook groups they're generally technicians they pride themselves on being able to fix a 1938. The first year they came out with HVAC, they'll figure out a way to build a part and weld it together and make it work.

And they love it. And in my opinion, what I love to do the most, and I told this to my technicians the other day, as I said, I pride myself on giving people the option. If you're going to flip a house, I'm going to give you a really, really sexy door as far as curb appeal, but I don't need it to be heavily insulated. It's not going to serve your purpose well. So I think I've grown the business in the last 15 years because I said, what would I do in this situation? And some of it's speculative, but most of it is because I ask the right questions. And I charge more than a lot of people when someone wants the tank. We custom build doors with our own high cycle parts. We do a lot of different things. And a lot of people, they either love me or hate me. They love me because we're on the podcast. We're always giving good insight. But

the people that tend to hate me, they're still working out of their house. The crazy thing, Val, is a lot of the people that I've met in this industry do a little bit of commercial, a little bit of residential, a little bit of property managers, a little bit of home warranty work. They're kind of like they do 10 things, but they don't do anything really, really well. Have you seen that? And it's like most industries. Yeah, there's a lot of diversity. And my opinion is basically there's room out there for everybody, right? And everybody's a loosely worded term. But if I think about our core competency and our strength is local distribution. So whether you're a multimillion dollar business or whether you're somebody that, you know, really is doing a couple doors a day or a couple doors a week, I think our business model supports that type of customer. And we have different tools and support for each of those types of customers.

But once again, if you look at the marketplace, I think there's room out there for everybody. You know, the good thing about our industry with garage doors, sectional doors and openers is there's a ton of demand. Housing's not slowing down anytime soon. I keep up on the macroeconomics. And even with COVID, we see a lot of gains from month to month. And there's quite frankly, just a lack of inventory and housing and on the replacement part of the business, which is a key focus for you and for us. Well, that's not slowing down either. So I think there's still a ton of opportunity for everybody out there.

Yeah, I agree. And last year was the first year that millennials bought more houses than baby boomers. And I think the buying decisions are starting to slowly change. And we're seeing it every day. But it's hard to see it because as day by day, it's hard to be super apparent. But going back, you know, the pricing thing is you've got guys that are all over the spectrum. I know guys that sell 16 by 7 hollow back doors for $600. And I know guys that sell them for $. And I will say this, I was in Aspen, Colorado a month ago, and I'm telling you, there's no labor there. And I don't have a business there, but I'm telling you,

it's hard to get labor. So when I see these different people criticizing someone else's business, I could criticize the guy at $600, but hey, maybe that's what the market will bear. And I find it hard to believe that someone should be able to tell a different company that they don't know the expenses or the trademarks or the patents or the staff or the overhead. That's like me telling you, you're crazy. You guys are freaking nuts, Val, to sell a door for that price, but you're doing really, really good. And I just, my whole point about this is hopefully the people listening, we don't have to criticize someone else for charging too little or charging too much. As long as they, I would criticize people a lot more by saying you didn't stand by your warranty.

You do bad work. You don't have a price book. You change your price for an old person versus someone that's price shopping. And I think there's a big issue there. But as far as the fluctuation of prices, I'm sure you've got some distribution centers, for the most part, that are hard to charge the same price as other ones. Is that fair to say? You know, I think the way, you know, pricing is market specific, right? You said an important factor just a minute ago, thinking about labor, right?

And you and I both know the cost of living in the greater New York area versus the cost of living in Charlotte, North Carolina is completely different night and day. So you think about pricing, you got to think about cost of living. And most importantly, it's not for us to try to price to the consumer, we price the dealer, but ultimately, it's about the value you provide. You and I both know that specific, speaking from my perspective, our product is not the lowest priced product out there. We don't claim for it to be, and we don't want it to be, but that's really a function of the value we provide as a manufacturing distribution company with the services we provide, with the quality. But my point being that price is

all a function of the marketplace you're in and most importantly, the value you provide to your customers. And there's a lot of things that go into that. I mean, this is a great topic because timeliness to be in there. How good's your warranty? Did you clean up after yourselves? Do you do drug test background checks? What do you do over and above and beyond? What kind of different products do you carry? And I think I know why the hvac company came so far is because they became so good at best practices they taught people customer service answering the phone be open nights and weekends and i know people say i don't want to work nights and weekends well business doesn't care about what you want like you got to service us the dealers and we've got

to service consumers and people say i didn't go into business so i could work nights and weekends well then why'd you go into business because ultimately the consumer's got to be the one that you need to work around not what you need to do and i just find it hard when i hear different businesses and i love talking to you about this stuff because you've seen it all you've seen guys and i want to pivot here because it's one thing we talk about is pricing but there's a lot of people that focus on new construction versus retrofit. I tend to like retrofit because I think there's more money in it. And I think I can market easier. I don't need to compete all the time to be the cheapest. And I don't need to carry a bunch of accounts receivable. And I don't need to have a ton of inventory waiting for the builder. The builders really call their shots

and so does Home Depot and Lowe's. And I realized for the most part, the big builders in Home Depot and Lowe's, it's really, really hard to make money. Although, you know, Val, we look at it and we say, you know, we made $300, but I'm like, wait a minute. We did the labor ourselves. We didn't think about the truck stuff we had.

We didn't take any precautions about not receiving the money in that 90 I just don't think people understand the real cost of a service like you tell me a little bit about what you guys deal with and not you know not proprietary information but you understand really what it cost to build a door I mean you guys study this stuff and I think we don't do that as much as when we're B2C as we are as you B2B in manufacturing. Tell me how you guys come up with your pricing for an overall structure, because I think this is really going to enlighten a lot of us that do B2C. No, I think it's fair. Once again, if you look at really twofold,

right, there's the manufacturing piece of it and then the distribution side. But when we look at our manufacturing products and the process, of course, you look at the material. But one specific thing we do, Tom, is whenever we're looking at product design, you know, we're always looking for opportunities. We're working with our supply base, but we do what we call VOC, and that's voice of customer. So when we're looking at making changes in our product, looking to enhance the value of it, whether it be quality, whether it be gauge of steel, whether it be new product offering, we do a lot of VOC work. And we've got different outlets to do that. Clearly, you know, close dealers like yourself.

We have an educational event that we have routinely. We have a dealer advisory council. We have gatherings at our distribution center. So we get a lot of feedback from our customer that tells us whether we have something built into a product that there's really no value in. So maybe you can pull that cost out of the product or vice versa, that we don't have something in a product that we really need to be able to provide more value. So looking at, you know, what we do to design product, it's really not about pulling all the cost out. It's possibly we add cost in if there's more value for you to be able to sell to your consumer or to a builder or to an end user or developer. So that's what we do on the manufacturing

side. And then similar on the distribution side, our distribution model has evolved substantially. Our goal is to stock 70 to 80% of what's sold in the marketplace. And candidly, over the years, that's become more and more difficult because there's such an explosion of options. So we've evolved our distribution model to look at maybe we have a hub in a region that services a lot of other surrounding door centers. The main point being to be able to get you a product as a core partner within a one-week time frame. And that's all built into the value we provide, which ultimately you and I both know works its way into the price. But most importantly, it's not a focus on a chase to the bottom. We're the lowest price manufacturer

distributor out there. It's just what are all the services we provide you that allow you to capture more business in the marketplace, which in turn works its way all in the price. But once again, you know, price is all about the value you provide and price is not always directly correlated with cost because price, once again, the function of what value you provide and what you can drive in the marketplace. Yeah, I think that's really, really important. And, you know, I love what you said about marketing and sales. We might dig into that in a little bit, but I want to talk a little bit more about, you've had a good run here. I know you guys got a good team. I know you, and a lot of times when I call you, it's kind of funny because you'll get a lot of the executive's perception.

You don't just say, yep, Tommy, I can do that. You'll bring the leadership in. And it's not like you have a monopoly that you're just going to be like, I'm the guy that picks everything. So I know you feed a lot off of Lyle or Blaine and just the whole executive team. So you've become in a leadership role. And one of the things when I first met you, you sat there, you asked a lot of questions, you listened and you took notes. And I think that's what we need to do to our customers as well as our internal customers, which are employees. Tell me a little bit about your strategy when it comes to leadership and when it comes to

getting everybody on board to make decisions? Absolutely. I think that for me, there's really four key things and they're all linked together. But you already talked about the first one. It's about collaboration. You know, I think it's all about everybody, you know, having a voice. Right. And the reason I say that when you're in crisis mode with specific to Corona pandemic, I mean, that may not necessarily be the case, but generally when we're running the business, we're looking for collaboration, and that's internal with our team members, but then just as importantly external with folks like yourself and our dealers, but if I think about collaboration, that's number one. I think number two, it's about alignment, so we get together as a management team, we collaborate, we talk about what the right strategy is, what the right focus is. Then to make sure we have complete clarity,

there's a lot of communication to ultimately drive alignment. So that's step number two. Step number three is really all about empowerment. You said it eloquently, when you and I have a discussion, I'm not going to be the one to say, here's exactly what we need to do. I'm going to talk to the subject matter experts. And that's Lyle or Blaine that lead our sales team, or that's Corey that leads our operational team. The people that are closest, most importantly, to the customer and our team empower those individuals to come up with the right solutions and ultimately empower them to drive those solutions. That's number three. And then number four is accountability. Ultimately, with empowerment comes accountability as far as making sure we do what we say we're

going to do and most importantly, meet our commitment to our customers. So it's really not rocket science. I mean, making sure we've got collaboration and you have alignment, then you empower and then you drive accountability to push the business forward to make sure we have a strong collective team to service our customers. But for me, that's really more of my natural tendency. And that's basically the way we run this business as a whole. Yep. You know, right now with COVID, you mentioned COVID is there's a lot of employees right now that are frustrated. There's a lot of people that I'm sure you wish you could have brought back, but you did the right thing for the company. I mean, there's a lot of people that I'm sure you wish you could have brought back, but you did the right thing for the company.

I mean, there's a lot of tough choices. How do you handle employee frustrations, especially right now when it's like, well, whether it's customers that are frustrated because of supply chain issues because their customers are upset or employees, it's a tough thing. What do we do in those situations? You know, the way I handle it and the way our organization handles it, it's all about transparency. The minute we try to mislead our customers, most importantly, or even our team members and start making up excuses or start pointing fingers, that's a problem. So the way we handle frustrated team members and even customers is complete transparency on what's going on. You know, hey, we got caught behind the eight ball. We're a little bit behind on labor, but here's where we're at.

But most importantly, here's what we're doing. And then ask for feedback. What do you think about that? Maybe we're missing something, but it's all about having that transparency, that honesty, that collaborative discussion, and just an open flow of communication to try to bridge that gap. And with that being said, well, you can't always bridge that gap, right? I mean, sometimes, you know, our team members get frustrated. They decide

to leave the company. While I don't want that to be the case, my stance has always been that if one of our team members leaves the company better off than when they arrived, well, I call that a win. With that being said, we do everything we can to keep our talent and to try to keep people on board. But that's really the philosophy we've lived by. Yeah, it's a tough one. It's really, really tough. The hard part is the people. And I always tell people, you really got to try to focus on getting an expected result. And there is a process, but I'm a big fan of kind of inspecting what we expect. How do we hold them accountable? Because even myself, when I woke up not feeling very good or couldn't sleep that night,

is there anything to hold me accountable? And I love the accountability, consistency thought of things because I was on a podcast the other day and I said, look, until you create processes, until you create an exact expected outcome, and people said, well, how do you create an exact expected outcome? And I'm like, you got to inspect it. You got to make sure that there's a checklist and you got to hold people accountable. And it's very tough to do in the home service space. And this is one of the reasons I don't think that there's a lot of companies that

have gone nationwide for garage doors and a lot of other businesses is it's a lot easier to contain the process in a closed environment, like a restaurant or a movie theater or, or a bowling alley. It's a lot harder to contain the process when there's so many moving parts, like a truck, advertising, CSR, dispatcher, manufacturer. You know, we just had a supply chain issue with our openers that you're well aware of. And what are we supposed to do? I mean, no one's got product and you can try to switch openers and then you're dealing with warranty issues because you don't know the product and you're kind of SOL, right? Yeah, it's a challenge, right? I mean, and I think you think about

leadership years and years ago, and I'll definitely make credit for this, but the most difficult part of leadership is really getting others to work closely with others. So I'm going to take it a step back. So I think about what I call a little bit of psychology, self to self. That's all about self-motivated. I control everything. I work.

I get things done. Then there's self to others, which is really all about people that report to me. They report to you. You can provide direction. You can guide them. you can guide them, you can empower them. But the most difficult part of leadership is others to others.

And that's really people that I don't directly influence, how do they work collaboratively with the team and work with other people? And I think about supply chain shortages or when there's crisis mode or when there's challenges. More specifically, that's all about our door center management, our general managers. How do they work closely with you, Tommy, to kind of bridge that gap and understand,

work through the frustrations, but most importantly, find a solution? If it's specific to openers and we don't have a set opener in stock, while it's not ideal to go to another manufacturer or even another model. Well, our job is to try to provide solutions for you in the short term, and then make no mistake about it on the supply chain side, on the back side, we're working closely with vendors to try to improve the situation. That's just one example, but it's ultimately how do you empower and build a team to where they're providing solutions and working through other people that they don't directly manage.

And that's a key part of leadership that served us well in AMAR and Intermatic. You know, I think there's something that's hard for me to do because I know you, I know Lyle, I know a lot of the people there. Is this hard? And I've done my best to do it and I don't bother you guys very often, but it's hard to follow the chain of command when there's certain things that have happened in the past. And we look past and it's important. One of the things that I've learned to do is there are a lot of times

that people skip the chain of command. And I don't mind because ultimately, people have to come to me if there's an issue. If I'm closed off and I don't say, at least I can make some time for you. And that's a really bad thing to say. Nope, nope, you can't come to me if there's an issue. If I'm closed off and I don't say, at least I can make some time for you, then that's a really bad thing to say. Nope, nope, you can't come to me with that. I think there's gotta be some type of open door policy,

but at the same time, I gotta respect my colleagues and the people that are in charge of certain things. So the one thing I do follow is pretty strictly is did you ask this person and did you go to this person first? And if so, especially with my own employees now, I'm talking about my own employees. How do you get away from, you know, when you got to,

I don't want to say lower level, but let's just say there's other people in between there. How do you kind of respond to those kinds of questions? Because as an owner or a CEO or a president, you tend to want to go to the top to see what they think. And I'm sure you've dealt with that. No, I have. And just to be very back to the transparency and openness and my business card has my cell phone number on it. And that's my personal cell phone. And I answer that phone 24 7. So I'm very approachable. I'm open so to that point somewhat counter to what you know

the topic of the question you answered truly I'm very approachable I'm very open and we are only as good as our customer so I take all calls all feedback which generally what I do Tommy is I get the feedback and you talked about it earlier then it's I collaborate with our team whether it be Lyle whether it be Blaine or even our general manager in a specific door center and say, hey, you know, here's the situation, here's the problem. So what do you feel like the right solution is? And then two things, it becomes a coaching experience between myself and whoever the person on our team is that's closest to the customer or the problem. And that's a great experience to have. And then the second part, when I go back to

the customer, it's just, you know, here's collectively what we decided as far as a solution. And either I'm going to have that discussion or that individual team member is going to have that discussion with the customer. Because really, I'm not in the ivory tower making all the decisions because I don't have all the answers, quite frankly. So I think it's a combination of those things, but that's the way I treat those situations. But once again, if there's something that only I can manage and solve, whether it be resources or whether it be investment,

well, clearly then at that point, I take ownership of it and we push forward. One of the things that I talk a lot about that I used to hate hearing guys like us talk about is culture, because I was in a bad spot when I started the business. And I'm like, what kind of culture? We're working ourselves to the bone,

ranching the phones. There's people that don't respect us. And in my opinion, I was one of those guys that said, no one is going to work as hard as me and no one can do what I can do. So I got to do it all. And then I learned culture. And I got to say, I love that word now.

And it was one of the worst words in the world for me. And I got to say, when people come in now, it's just this ambience, this air that we breathe. It's like this fire in the air. And it's like things are happening. We're making good changes. And change is another scary word for a lot of people. And I think there's a lot to be said about culture. One of the things is a shared vision.

I'm a dreamer that created a vision vision that created a ladder on how to get to there. And I've heard people echo Richard Brenner's name and I hear it on a weekly basis of, Oh yeah, Richard taught me this and Richard did this. And I think at the time you worked for him, I mean, 25 years ago, he was a good leader and you've taken the over the reins. How do you create that vision and culture? No, it's a great question. And, you know, when we were acquired by Asa Abloy, that was one of the first questions, internal and external, when is your

culture going to change? And so I'm going to answer it a couple of different ways. If I think about the purpose and the mission of our company, which I think is incredibly important, it's not just an MBA buzzword, is what are our people truly focused on and what type of difference are we trying to make? You know, our mission is every day we help people enjoy the quality of life at home, at work, and at play. And that's very high level, but then that works its way down the culture, Tom, where we talk a lot about a culture of caring service. And I talk to a lot of our new team members, whether it be our team members on the production floor, in our distribution centers, in our support center. And I think the first thing we have to do is explain exactly what culture means.

When I say something as generic as a culture of caring service, well, what does that mean for me? And if I'm on the production floor and I'm working on a production line, well, my culture of carrying services and making absolute sure that I deliver the product that I am producing, just produced to the shipping department so they ultimately can ship it to a customer. But we break it down to what it specifically means to them. And that means that they're providing a product that's on time, damage free, and then ultimately complete to the shipping department. But we break that down specifically to what it means. And then it's the empowerment piece. Here's how you can impact that culture, ultimately to provide a caring culture of service to the end

user. And we talk a lot in manufacturing as another example. So you're producing this product, you see this little scratch, you see this little dent you see this little den is this the section the door that you want on your house on your mother's house or on your grandfather's house that's what we talk about when we really talk about culture and that's part of the empowerment piece as well to make sure they understand that they live that all of our people in the production floor if they see a problem with the production line that's repetitive issue they can all hit the emergency stop, stop the production line, go solve the quality issue without repercussions, thinking about where it's all about velocity,

it's all about production. It's all about quality, making sure we have that caring culture of service to take care of the end user. And we've got goals around that. We've got training seminars and sessions, but ultimately that's the way we look at the business and it's it's been incredibly powerful and that was taught by Richard Brenner and numerous others that have worked in our business yeah there's a lot there with culture and I think that people want to have an impact people want to be heard it's exactly what you've been talking about and I think I think there's a piece of it that it's hard to carry on when the company changes hands. You look at a guy like Jack Welch, who's one of the best CEOs of all time.

But one of the things that he did in a book, it's called Built to Last, that Jim Collins talks about, is he talks a lot about making a company better. And not only that, but getting the next people below you to run it better and basically getting them ready to run it. And then you got like private equity companies that'll come in and certain type of investors. And they'll say, cut the spending, cut the awards, cut the benefits, cut the free lunches. And you watch them fall apart because that's what made people want to come to work. And I've seen it over and over again. And there's good companies that understand that's not what you do, but it's kind of interesting to see how certain people, like,

the more I'm around great CEOs, presidents, and business owners, the more I see they do stuff for their people all the time. And I've tried to really adopt that, not because I want to be like them, but because I actually do care for our employees. And I think you care for yours. And I think that's something to be said is as long as you care. And what I say is immediate family, I mean, my sister, my mom or dad or my brother, I don't have a brother, but really part of your true family is they're looking after you. And it's hard to explain that to people until you live it, isn't it? No, it's difficult, right? Just to get that feeling of once again, purpose, right? What's your mission when you come to work every day? I mean, and make no mistake, some people it's difficult, right? Just to get that feeling of, once again, purpose, right? What's your mission when you come to work every day?

I mean, and make no mistake, some people, it's a nine to five, right? And it's a J-O-B and it's a paycheck and that's okay. I mean, there's a position for those individuals, but we really want individuals to understand the passion and the focus. But you summed it up nicely. That's all about the sense of belonging and being part of a family. And make no mistake, the bigger bigger you get the more challenging and difficult it is we used to be able to turn on a dime that's more difficult to

do now we've got a parent company so there's a little bit you know a few more hurdles and obstacles we have to do to get access to capital but it doesn't change what we focus on every day and that's taking care of the customer and ultimately making sure we're driving the business. So I think it's really living it, breathing it. And it's more than just you and I, Tommy, it's the entire team doing it. And it's got to be every level of the organization. And I think that's, once again, what made us successful. So one of the things that I was thinking about, there's a smart guy that he wrote HVAC Spells Wealth.

And he said, you got to get customers and you got to keep customers. And basically, I think a lot of us, and I've been guilty of this, is we forget that we've got to put a protection, a guard around our current customers. It costs us 10 times more to get a new customer than to keep it existing.

And a lot of times people have a rotating door. They're so hungry for these new customers that they forget to take care of the existing ones. And I'm not saying this from a manufacturing standpoint. I'm saying this for just most businesses in general. What do you think the secret sauce to really let that sink in? And I'm sure you guys had a point where you guys lost customers the faster you were getting them in the history of the company. I mean, everybody has been through some trials of that nature. So how do you really cement that into the marketing team and the

customer satisfaction team, if you will? No, I mean, it sounds somewhat cliche, but we listen to our customers, right? And I think the bigger you get, the more complex at times you can get the false sense of security thinking you may know better than the customer. And that's the kiss of death. So I think what we've done as an organization, and there have been times where we said, well, all right, product development, we're going to get on this path. And we did not do the proper vetting to understand exactly what the customer needed. So for us, it's really as simple as listening to our customers and being flexible and I'll use our partnership Tommy as an example. There's been times that you and

your organization not just you specifically but your organization has come to us and say hey here's what we need as a partner right it'd be ideal if you provided this product or provided this service and I'd love to say we did it in the snap of a finger we did it within a week but what we have done is say well you know that's a great idea we really need to focus on that think about that and certain cases it may be a couple weeks certain cases it's been many months in the making but listen to provide you a better quality service which in turn enhances our partnership. And then we in turn

grow together. As soon as a manufacturing distributing partner, we feel like we've got it all figured out. We start dictating, you know, here's what you need, Tommy. Well, then we're in trouble. And thankfully through the years, we've not done that. We've really focused on that's what it takes to be successful and grow. And that's really more of our focus than how many new customers can you get as a sales team and continue that pipeline. So that's really allowed us to grow through the years. I'm going to start asking you some tough questions here. By the way, the guy's name was Ron Smith, who spelled that.

He is like the godfather of HVAC. He started in the 60s. He's still around, and he put on a good legacy. He was on the podcast about a year ago. Really, really great guy. The tough questions, I think, number one, are a lot of the people listening right now, they don't understand from a manufacturer's perspective. We get upset and we get frustrated. And, you know, one day somebody told me this lesson that I've really echoed is a lot of people say, how do I become a better wife to a business owner, a better husband to a business owner? And I heard a guy once say, Josh Latimer said, no, no, no.

They made a lot of promise to you when they got in the business. How do they become better for what they did? But ultimately, my question to you is, how do we become a better client of yours? Because I think there's a lot to be said there that we don't really, none of us ask that question is, how do we become better clients to our vendors? No, I think it's a really steep question. And I think about specifics, right? It's really just how do we make sure we're communicating fluidly together? And that's not you and I, right? It's really just how do we make sure we're communicating fluidly together? And that's not you

and I, right? That's your local manager and your local location communicating with our general manager and our local location and just making sure that expectations are very clear and understood. So I think it's really making sure that from your perspective, you're communicating frequently your expectations of us or any other manufacturer and or distributor. And then I think ultimately when problems arise, and they do arise, that we're working together to fix it, not always pointing fingers and, you know, here's what you cost me. I want you to cover my retail.

I want you to cover my margin. You know, when we make mistakes, man, we got to do the right thing, and we will do the right thing, but there's give and take in that regard. And we've been fortunate. I'd say 95 plus percent of our customers that's the way we operate and we work well back and forth together but I think that's really what we need and I think as I mentioned before it's really proactively telling us what the marketplace needs just so we can kind of help get ahead of it. And that's really twofold. One is product design tied to innovation. Number two is technology. What is technology we can use to better service your business? And I think, you know, you've talked to us quite a bit about it,

and that's thinking about service type as an example, right? I mean, you were the first to come to us and say, hey, here's an opportunity for you to really enhance your business to support your dealer community that's the type feedback we need and what we want to be able to help drive the business and be a better partner you know what's interesting about that is I do think technology has taken over operations for a big big part of it I mean I had a guy walk through here the other day and he's like dude he's like you're running more software than I've ever seen one company operate. You're a garage company.

And I said, look, we've got our recruiting software. We've got our fleet software. We've got two different fleet softwares. One is the OB2 sensor. One of them is the camera system. I'm like, you've got all these different things. We're running active campaign to keep in touch with customers. We're running different things for mailers.

We're running all these things. And he said, is that very important? And I said, this day and age, 2020, it's become the most essential piece of everything. You know, Lyle was in town not that long ago, and he met with a very, very impressive company who's going to be making a huge impact, I think, in a lot of the supply chain and how things are done. And it's important to stay up on this stuff. And I'm probably trying to surround myself with everybody more around technology than anything, because if you look at how Google works, Google's work style of algorithm is technology. You look at everything we're working with. And I'm starting to think, well, actually, I know that we're working on

exponential step forward, not linear. And I think that changed a couple of years ago. And what's going to change is you're going to see things changing at a very, very fast pace. And I think that a lot of the people, what got you here won't get you to that next step. And I think that's hard for people to do it. They said, we've always done it this way. I mean, I've talked to a lot of your big customers. I mean, you were nice enough to invite us out to the Mexico trip. And these guys were the best run companies and they still are. But the one thing they say is, no, we don't need to change. You know, I've heard things come and go. This will come and go or that'll come and go. And I look at it and I know this. I know my average call booking rate. I know per CSR. I know every single campaign,

we track 4,300 call tracking numbers. Those on the podcast have heard me say that a million times, but it's the unfair advantage. And they say, well, that's another expense. And I say, no, no, no, no, no. It's an investment. And I think there's a hard disconnect with a lot of small business owners that they don't understand cost versus investment and they don't understand technology. What's your take on the next decade when it comes to technology and a little bit, if you could go afterwards about cost versus investment. Yeah, I wish I knew exactly what would happen. I'd be the next Jeff Bezos, right? I think, using Amazon as an example, as a consumer, right? We look at the Amazon experience. I know people talk a lot about that, but that is going into every single industry.

I read an article about three weeks ago, and it's talking about home improvement, manufacturers and suppliers, and Amazon was ranked fourth. And that's not a surprise, right? But you generally don't think about Amazon for home improvement as far as products or even to a certain degree services. And not to point out Amazon as a potential competitor for you or I, but really to point out the experience. The Amazon is incredibly successful because of what you described. They embrace technology. They're incredibly agile. And I think that's what we have to do as an industry. And it's on my side as a supplier to make sure we develop those tools,

we work with the right partners, like the company you mentioned in Phoenix that's doing well, and then numerous others. But then ultimately, how do we disperse those tools into the marketplace and really adapt those? So I think technology, it leapfrogs and leapfrogs and leapfrogs. So we have to make sure that we're continuing to invest and we're willing to change. And we're doing that as an organization and a lot of different fronts, not only the forward facing software, but also the backend software to make us more efficient so we can spend less time doing manual work and more time focusing on what's important to the customer and providing that value. So I think that's the key aspect of technology. And I think to your point about kind of investment versus cost, it's easy to get intimidated

to think about the software, right? Because a lot of times software charges per user. And let's say they're going to charge $500 per user per month. That sounds like a lot of money. But back to really understanding the value you get out of that, once you're engaged and it's dramatically changing your business, it's really not a lot of money because you're making that twofold, threefold, fivefold in what you're doing to drive your business. So it's just a willingness to try different things and invest that I think every

single industry has to do or they're going to be left behind. It is, and it's more important than ever now. And I think it's, I hope the people listening understand what we're talking about. And I want to put one thing, this is the last one that we'll have the close-up questions. But, you know, I hear a lot of people, they say, what are you going to do about Amazon? They're commoditizing the business. What are you going to do about Facebook now? What are you going to do about Google? Google is the smartest one when it comes to home service, because I feel like Amazon and Facebook specifically, they look at home service like Uber. They say anybody will just get the proximity and we'll make it happen for them. And we'll get a high rated person. The problem is I had a company, a very, very, very reputable company, a billion dollar company, 2.2 billion.

They approached me. They wanted me to fly out to San Francisco and they're in the review. I don't want to go into too many details, but basically what they said was, we got it all wrong, Tommy. We thought we should go after all the small guys and we should be available for the small guys, the underdogs. And I said, so what's wrong with that? Tell me a little bit about your situation. And they said, well, the problem with the small guys is they don't drive reliable cars. They're not insured properly. They don't do drug tests or background checks. They don't have the right tools. They don't carry the right parts. They have a campaign they could do a ton with the first week. Then they're out of town the next two weeks. The small

guys don't have any consistency. They don't do anything. So the one big thing I've realized, Val, is all these people coming up with this technology to try to screw the dealers, which is us, and screw the manufacturer, which is you, and commoditize it. They don't understand the complexity. They want to go to home service and say, man, we could commoditize this because it's such a big business. And the problem is, how do you get the workers, the processes, the checklist? You know, you want to do business with people you like. So they got to have a personality. They got to be clean. I mean, I want to let someone in that I could,

you know, have around my family. There's so many factors. There's traffic that you have the part of supply chain issues. And I just think that the big behemoths, they go, you know what? We need to solve the home service. We need to commoditize it and take a piece of it. And every single one, the Home Depots, the Costcos, all of them that got into the business, they all keep running into way more issues than they've ever realized. I mean, trust me, you guys know firsthand about those stories,

how much issues there are. And I don't want to go into details with it, but they truly think, and a lot of people think Amazon's going to take over this. And if they do, I think that's going to be partnering with a company like us that have amazing training, that have enough money to buy new trucks and have GPS systems and have enough money to be able to do background checks

and draw tests. And I'm not saying it's about we're rich or anything. I'm just saying that they need to partner with a company that knows how to make great technicians, that they deliver great customer service, that understand the operational aspect of it. So technical operational, and there is a sales aspect to it. I hate to tell people, but you're selling yourself when you walk in the door by listening to the customer. That sales is listening. And people hate the word sales. They're like, we don't have to sell anybody. I'm like, then I won't do business with you. If you don't find out my

needs first and why I'm calling you and why I need this, then if you don't take time to connect with that customer, usually 45 minutes to ask the questions, diagnose the person before you diagnose the problem, then you're not doing us a favor. You go in, you tell me you need a new spring. I'm like, how do you know if I'm even keeping the house? How do you know what kind of spring I need? There's so many people that I think have this all wrong. And I just wanted to hear your take because I keep hearing, look out for Amazon. Look out for Facebook. Look out for Google.

These guys are coming in. They're going to commoditize your business just like they did with the farming industry commoditized. And I'm like, they're not even in the same hemisphere. And Amazon Home Services, I was the beta. All the times they've done it, and they've failed every single time. No, and just to provide clarity on my statement, I mean, our core business is taking care of dealers and distributors,

and that's our growth. And so when I talk about an Amazon, it's really about the technology platform. No, no, you're right. And it had nothing to do with what you said with Amazon. Well, there's two different things, right? There's delivering a product, which is all about the marketplace, your technology versus a service, which is what you just spoke to, Tommy. And you and I both knew it's really night and day. And I think our job is how do we continue to embrace technology, provide technology to continue to

enhance the service. But at the end of the day, it's all about relationships, right? When I have somebody come to my home and they're going to provide a service and, you know, it is somewhat invasive, right? When you're working in a garage, when you're working in a house, whatever it may be. So it's all about trust. It's all about relationship. It's all about, as you mentioned, the sales process and the value you provide. You know, I don't think the major corporations, while they sell a lot of products in a lot of different industries, that's hard to replace. And quite frankly, I don't think it will ever be replaced. I think they'll use technology as an advantage, and I think that's okay.

Our job is how do we help our dealers embrace that same technology? So not only do you provide the great service, the great processes, and the value add to the consumer, but then you also have a seamless way to do it. So I think that's the balance between the two, and I think that's ultimately how we have to, as an industry, continue to evolve. And most importantly, the consumer decides what they want, right? So how do you make sure you're meeting that consumer need at the end of the day? I'm going to go into the final questions, but when we talk about technology, I looked

at my phone and I, real quick, to take a quick peek at the time. It said one unfulfilled, one non-converted job and one on unbooked phone call. I'm the owner of the business, but yet I know within a moment's notice that we didn't book a phone call and I could hit one button to look at it. I don't need to look into that. And I'm not the guy to do that, but it's so easy to do that stuff and know what's going on within my company and with technology. And I think the people listening, especially if this goes out to a lot of the garage door people, because I want to do what Starbucks did. I want to improve. When Starbucks came out, everybody was worried, but everybody started buying more coffee from every coffee house. Not only that, but they raised the prices

of coffee. Restaurants stopped giving it away. They started charging a couple bucks. And the Starbucks effect is global. It's amazing what happened. And if we could do that in these industries, especially, I'm a little bit selfish now, because I hope it happens in the garage industry. I want more business owners to enter this market. I love the fact that it's a clear taking, and I'm not saying there's very good, there's a lot of amazing people. You and I both know that. But I want people to start saying I can make a hell of a career that really looked good to my kids in this business. I don't have to work and grind it out and have 70 hour weeks. I don't have to take all the phone calls and get gray hair when I'm in my early forties because the industry needs to propel and go

forward. But I always end with three questions, Val, and I'm going to give you some time, but if someone wants to reach out to you, you're a busy, busy guy, but if someone has just general questions, what's the best, maybe email or LinkedIn, what's the best way to get ahold of you? So I'll give you an email address to do the best, which is val.sigmons, S-I-G-M-O-N, at intramatic, which is E-N-T-R-E-M-A-T-I-C.com. So that's the best way to reach me. But then there's always my cell phone as well. And I don't mind sharing that with you.

It's 336-978-3425. So questions, comments, concerns, that's the easiest way to reach me. I would text Val before I'd call him, but that's just me. And then I always ask if he had to pick three books, they don't need to be business related, but maybe three books that impacted your life. We always hear the E-Myth, the Ultimate Sales Machine. We hear a lot of the common books, but what are the three books that really shaped you and helped you out along the way?

You know, I look at the different functional areas of the business. You mentioned Built to Last, and it's an older book, and that everybody's aware of a good to great. I think when we took our journey as a corporation to be more professional and to continue to drive, I mentioned that complexity. Good to Great by Jim Collins really helped form our company in thinking about a BHAG, what's our core strategy. And while it is a little dated, it truly helps continue to help us drive the business. So Good to Great by Jim Collins, I think that really helped us thinking about strategy and what we need to do to keep improving the business. Thinking about execution, we're a big fan in the company as well about the four disciplines of execution, which is Sean Covey, Jim Covey, and Chris McChesney. And I think about the four disciplines, which is all about focus, leverage, engagement, and then accountability.

So I think that's a key book we live by. And then thinking about sales, a little red book of selling. There's a lot of incredible sales leaders out there. There's a lot of content, but the little red book of selling, simple read, but just a lot of core concepts on what's important to be effective in the sales. So those are three books that I really enjoy. I recommend a lot of people and it really helped form our company and me personally. It was John Covey and Jim Hewling. I made a mistake. Yeah. And the Little Red Book, wasn't it? Goffrey? That's exactly right. Tim Goffrey. He's a person out. I saw him speak one time, but that's exactly right.

He's very effective in the sales process, and it goes back to listening to the customer and just having a defined process to sales. It's not ad hoc, but you're following your sales process every time. There it is. It's on my shelf. Twelve and a half principles of sales greatness, how to make sales forever. Jeff Gatomers.

Little Red Book of Selling. And then lastly, I'm going to close it out with letting you take the floor and give us some final thoughts, maybe some action items, maybe just some things to think about before we end here today. No, I think in a time of crisis, right? I get the question a lot from our team members and our customers, God, what's next? And my advice is focus on what you control. Not really a takeaway or an action item, but we talk a lot about it. It's easy to get hung up in the media. Oh, my goodness, there's these issues with COVID. There's supply chain.

There's all these other aspects with a lot of social injustice. But really, as a business and even even personally focus on what you can control as an individual. And that's breaking it down week to week, day to day, hour by hour, customer by customer, and even relationship by relationship if it's personally. And I think that's a core focus to be able to push forward. And then I think the second tidbit I'll leave you with, Tommy, is just, you know, attitudes, everything. And same scenario, we talk a lot internal, is you focus on what you control, and it's really all about your attitude. It's easy to get down, but once again, focus on the positive, celebrate the positives, reward your team with the positives. And I think for us, that's made a key difference in our business and really helped us in our customer relationships

and really helped me personally our customer relationships and really helped me personally in my relationships with my family. So I think that's what I'll leave you with. I think as a company, we're very approachable. We are truly focused on the customers. So if there's questions, comments, feedback, share it with me, share it with our team. And my commitment is we'll do everything we can. Improvement to listen and enhance your experience to ultimately make you a better supplier to your customer but that's that's the gist i can go on and on but no no that's great and last thing i'll say is i've worked with other companies of course there's multiple manufacturers and the one thing i love is you guys are a private company and you guys, because of what you guys built for so many

years with Richard Brenner and the family about a handshake and what it means. And you know what I love the most is you give people the ability. There's not a lot of politics. You don't need to go and pull all these people in and get 10 years to make a decision. And I realized public traded companies, they've got a lot more things that they've got to go through and more decisions. And there's a lot more things involved. I like the fact that you guys get it done and you're approachable. You just gave out your cell phone. You're the largest residential in the United States, North America. It's crazy to me, but ultimately you care. And I love the fact that leadership cares. It's not just another number. You actually do care. You care about the small

guys, the big guys. I was a small guy, so I always wanted to give the small guy a choice, but selfishly, as we grow, I hope you've given us a lot of attention. And I think you give everybody a lot of attention, but I will say that Val's a great guy. Entrematic slash Amar is a great company and you guys do an amazing job. And I really, really appreciate you taking the time to come on. I know you guys are half a billion plus company and you run that thing. So to take the time to come on the podcast means a lot. Tell me, I appreciate that, my friend.

And I appreciate the time with you and with your listeners. So anytime. Appreciate it, buddy. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it 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're going to 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 homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club you 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.