December 8, 2025 • 49 mins
Trent Hason
CEO and President of the Roby Family of Companies
Trent Haston is the CEO and President of the Roby Family of Companies, which includes Andrew Roby, Roby Commercial, Roby Services, and Roby Realty—together offering a full spectrum of residential construction, commercial construction, and home service expertise across the Carolinas. A third-generation leader, Trent has guided the organization’s growth while staying true to the family values that have defined the business since 1950.
Trent is an active member of YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), where he connects with and learns from fellow leaders committed to personal and professional growth.
Known for his energy, deep community involvement, and genuine love for people, Trent is also the co-host of the At Home with Roby podcast, where he and Patrick MacIsaac spotlight local leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers throughout the region. Whether he’s on a jobsite, behind a microphone, on the golf course, or volunteering in the community, Trent brings a relationship-driven leadership style rooted in integrity, hard work, and service.
Roby Family of Companies
Founded in 1950, the Roby Family of Companies is one of the Carolinas’ most trusted and long-standing providers of construction and home service solutions. What began as a small, family-run remodeling business has grown into a comprehensive group of service-focused companies—Andrew Roby, Roby Commercial, Roby Services, and Roby Realty—offering everything from custom residential construction to commercial projects, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, handyman services, and real estate.
Rooted in integrity, craftsmanship, and a can-do attitude, the Roby Family of Companies continues to honor its multigenerational legacy while evolving to meet the needs of clients across the region. With a shared belief in service—both to customers and the community—the organization prides itself on building lasting relationships and delivering quality work with a genuine commitment to serving its customers and community.
CEO and President of the Roby Family of Companies
Trent Haston is the CEO and President of the Roby Family of Companies, which includes Andrew Roby, Roby Commercial, Roby Services, and Roby Realty—together offering a full spectrum of residential construction, commercial construction, and home service expertise across the Carolinas. A third-generation leader, Trent has guided the organization’s growth while staying true to the family values that have defined the business since 1950.
Trent is an active member of YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), where he connects with and learns from fellow leaders committed to personal and professional growth.
Known for his energy, deep community involvement, and genuine love for people, Trent is also the co-host of the At Home with Roby podcast, where he and Patrick MacIsaac spotlight local leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers throughout the region. Whether he’s on a jobsite, behind a microphone, on the golf course, or volunteering in the community, Trent brings a relationship-driven leadership style rooted in integrity, hard work, and service.
Roby Family of Companies
Founded in 1950, the Roby Family of Companies is one of the Carolinas’ most trusted and long-standing providers of construction and home service solutions. What began as a small, family-run remodeling business has grown into a comprehensive group of service-focused companies—Andrew Roby, Roby Commercial, Roby Services, and Roby Realty—offering everything from custom residential construction to commercial projects, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, handyman services, and real estate.
Rooted in integrity, craftsmanship, and a can-do attitude, the Roby Family of Companies continues to honor its multigenerational legacy while evolving to meet the needs of clients across the region. With a shared belief in service—both to customers and the community—the organization prides itself on building lasting relationships and delivering quality work with a genuine commitment to serving its customers and community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, I'm another episode of CEOs You Should Know,
brought to you by iHeartMedia Power by Thompson. We have
Trent Hasten here from the Roby Family Services. Trent welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, how you doing, will oh Man?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Good brother. I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, man, great Thanksgiving, A lot of family time, little
Christmas tree hunting, did a lot, I hate a lot.
Exercised a little, so try to keep the net gain
down there.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You you bettered me out of a house full and
my family members of Florida sleeping in my home gym.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So I did not get my exercise this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I guess that's how it is.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Oh, I know, man, I was actually happy to see
Monday man. I got right back into it. Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
At least you putting the gym to work all times. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, Trent, welcome to CEOs You Should Know. And let's
just hop right in. Yeah, let's start with just Roby.
You know, tell listeners about the Roby Family Services. When
I'm looking at it, it's almost like the cheesecake factory.
You guys got all sorts of stuff on the menu.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, well, this our seventy fifty year anniversary of our
founding business that a man named Andrew Roby Chick started
Andrew Roby. My granddad was his first employee in nineteen
fifty and it was him and my granddad, uh, and
they were just you know, I think that was about
(01:24):
the time the aluminum side and was becoming popular, rooming
them windows, and they were just a little, you know,
one man shot small company. And my granddad worked for
mister Roby for a decade decade and a half, and
then I think mister Roby figured out that you know,
still really really really small company in the sixties, that
(01:44):
that his legacy is state planning was going to be
he was going to eventually sell the business to the
to the Haston family, and uh, the story goes, they
didn't have any money for bonuses, so he went out
and got a credit line for Christmas gifts for my
dad and his siblings, and he gave my granddad a
(02:04):
little bit of stought and that's how it started. And
then eventually my family, my dad and my uncle grew
up in the business with my granddad and under mister
Roby's leadership, and they bought the business from mister Roby
in nineteen seventy six, and my dad and granddad and
uncle ran it through the eighties and nineties. My dad
(02:27):
was more in the leadership role. My granddad was still
still a legacy guy. And me and my brother grew
up in the nineties dicking ditches and such in high
school and college, and I graduated college. My brother came
out of college in the late nineties and a little
older than me, and I graduated in two thousand and
(02:51):
had more mouths to feed. You know, we were a
company of about remodeling custom residential. Did some new houses
as a child in Myers Park and deal Worth and
East Over and Quell Hollow, the neighborhoods that we know
so well today that have the nice homes and mostly residential.
(03:11):
And you know, all my jobs were roding the dump
truck with Fred and Leroy from fourteen to sixteen. I
drove the dump truck from sixteen to eighteen. My high
school buddies would have worked then. I was a really
good brick mason's helper. Mixed a mean batch of mud
and I could I could dig footers, pour concrete and
do stuff like that. Cleaned a lot of brick, cleaned
(03:34):
the mortar off and then and in full time out
of college, I became a project manager. My brother's more
than the field side, So we kind of managed projects
with the operator in the field of superintendent so to speak,
and a project manager as the estimates in the sales side,
and we grew the company up about quadruple in size
(03:58):
through the early two thousand. My dad was a wonderful leader.
Uh he wanted to He hated being in the office
and hated dealing with the money. It was a necessary
evil during his leadership of the eighties and nineties. But
when when I was so dumb to try to push
him out of the way, he moved out of the way,
(04:19):
went back and did what he loved and worked with
the guys in the field. My granddad was out and about,
my uncle and my brother, and we had a My
lifetime boss was our superintendent named Ken Laney passed away
in early two thousands, prematurely, but he was so all
(04:40):
those folks were in the field, so we were able
to grow this business still doing custom residential in Charlotte.
Eight to nine happens. I really honestly thought we were gonna
lose a fifty nine year old legacy business that I
that was my life under my leadership, mine of my
(05:03):
brother's leadership. I thought it was going down three o'clock
in the morning, many nights in the bathtub, crying and praying,
and we figured out how to make it through and
coming out of that, we basically had the goal to
vertically integrate our customer, the residential client. They were usually
movers and shakers in Charlotte, ran businesses, a lot of
(05:27):
them had second homes, had investment commercial investment properties and
investing in commercial businesses. So it's like, what can we
do more for this person than get beat up by
them and their wife because they're tired of having their
kitchen gutted for months and months. The husband's traveling doing business,
(05:48):
the wife's got three or four kids and muddy dogs
and no kitchen. I mean, that's my life working out
of a microwave into foyer and you're trying to get
a progress payment.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I love it a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And then so so we coming out in twenty ten,
we started roby electric. By way of that was the
lowest hanging fruit. We had had a guy named Jeff
Robinette and then with us a long time carbonry and
done some electrical but we had, you know, said hey,
let's start the services side, mechanical electrical plumbing, Handyman, We'll
(06:25):
start with electric. Uh. We started branding Handyman more we
had always done Handyman for our clients with doing thing
for you, and then we also started Roby Commercial, which
now is UH we do do their homes. We have
two offices in the Mountains for residential do second home
(06:46):
market and we do commercial for the same client. And
then we do mechanical electrical plumbing services on both commercial,
residential and second home properties. Most of our clients like
to help their kids with their first house, which which
I can kind of understand now and kind of say, hey,
(07:06):
you need to use these guys. That's the right choice.
You know, when you're when you're young in life and
you don't have much money, you oftentimes want to go
for the for the easiest and cheapest uh. And and
we like the parents and the clients that say, no,
you need to hold by your principles.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, man, that brings up something in ourdustry. We always
say low bed, low quality. Sometimes I know it's not
always the case, but you got to be a little
a little careful. Sometimes you get you get what you
pay for it generally is the case, I would say,
And that even applies to us because we're a general contractor.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Uh And and we use a lot of trades, you know,
roof in every facet, we use subcontractor trades and uh
Oftentimes you get what you pay for. It isn't one
hundred percent in the norm. There's fear businesses and folks
that have fedgured out how to provide value. But we
(08:02):
always say, We've always told our residential clients, you can
have a speed of a job, you can have quality
of a job, and you can have cost of a job.
You can only get two of those, can't have all three.
Can't have a real fast job, really cheap and high quality.
You can have fast and high quality, but it's gonna
(08:23):
be expensive. You can have economical, but we're gonna get
it done when we can get it done, and it'll
be good quality.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So you know you're paying for quality either way on
the speed side or on the overall economical piece of that.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Right. Amen. And I was gonna say something about my dad,
but my dad passed away in twenty fourteen, and now
our business is led by me and my brother and
we have two partners in our commercial in our services business.
Who is our CEO of our business. David McGuire, who
(09:02):
I met in the ninth grade, went to college with
him and lived with him multiple times throughout our lives.
He joined us in eight right before the recession, biggest
hire ever. Wonderful guy, wonderful partner. And then Patrick mccayasack,
who we actually have a podcast we do together. You
(09:23):
run on our podcast kind of kind of cool. And
he's our partner as well in the commercial and the
services business. He leads those divisions of our business.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It's amazing to hear about the evolution of the business
from seventy five years to what happened in nine where
you and your brother took it.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
So tell the audience a little bit. What's the scale
of Rugby Family Services? What is it now? What does
it look like from an employee base?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Where do you do work? Were you trying to do
work that you're not there yet?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So we had our monthly financial review yesterday, so I
do know through the end of October we had one
hundred and forty seven employees. To be accurate, I always
guess on that when I tell people try to guess low,
don't overshoot. I always joke with my friends and my
(10:15):
wife that I always add twenty percent to everything. You know,
it's human nature.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But uh but yeah, and we're gonna do We're our whole,
our whole, holistic business, all the business. I just said,
going to do about eighty five million in revenue this year.
Kind of give you some perspective about twenty five or
thirty employees in two thousand and fifty year old business
(10:41):
and did about three to three and a half million
in revenue, so kind of kind of some perspective. And
now God bless that that our folks are doing a
great job and our brand is growing. We either shut
it down or we grow. And that you know, they say,
(11:02):
you're either growing or you're dying. But you better figure
out how to how to run a business efficiently and
do a good job where you grow yourself completely instantly
out of business.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I always say this. You do fifty million dollars and
make five percent your business returns as a as an
investment in equity to you know, two and a half
million dollars, or you can lose five percent and you
lose two and a half million dollars. You're completely destitute.
I mean it's one way or the other. You know that.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So what do you think the biggest benefits are to
the scale?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I mean, I think you have some a lot of
efficiencies that you can create. You know, we were talking
about AI. You know we're able versus a little small,
just say relative three million dollar custom remodeling business. You're
not probably really investing money and spending time and energy
on AI. You probably aren't having many more marketing dollars.
(12:00):
Our marketing dollars can carry uh carry over. The breadth
of the family of companies is really what we call
our so the Roby family of companies and talent. I
say this a lot. An example is we started at
zero when we started Roby Commercial, which is a commercial
construction company that mirrors the residential It does boutique hospitality,
(12:25):
amenity projects, some retirement scent facility stuff, more more customized
stuff versus building a warehouse out in the middle of
forty acres where we where we can add value. But
I cannot. When I'm starting out and I have a
million dollars worth of business in this business, I can't
(12:47):
go hire a veteran thirty year guy that has all
this knowledge and experience and can really get a job
done that's going to cost a cost some pretty penny.
He deserves to make a she he deserves to make
a pretty penny. But she got to build the business up.
And now that that business line, let's say it's thirty
(13:09):
million in revenue, and now we have a team of talent,
and we're able to attract talent. Uh, I mean even
things like pre recession. I'm a big I'm a big
Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett believer. I've had mentors introduced me
to him in the early two thousands, and had I
had an employee's father who I had become close to,
(13:34):
took me and his son to the shareholders meeting in
Omaha in eight right before the I thought we were
about to launched out or space. We were doing so
well and then little did we know. You know, within
six months to market, the world had had crumbled from
a financial standpoint. But uh I came back all fired up.
(13:58):
Buffett talked about a couple things there. I mean, I'm
talking kind of how I'm geared. I don't sleep when
I'm in Omaha listening to Warren Buffett, and I get excited,
and I love his pragmatism and how simple he can
make billions of dollars in seventy five years of strategic investments.
(14:22):
He can simplify that down and help an idiot like
myself understand what he's saying. But a couple of things
I took away, Like I said, we were still only
custom residential. We were still only Andrew Roby in May
of eight when I was in Omaha, and he said,
a level five business has made enough money to sustain
(14:45):
a viable business, you know, has added benefits to its
his staff. And at level five, you polish your diamond
and you give increased benefits. You help your staff build wealth,
and you also polish your brand diamond and and you
hang your hat on how you polish it and give
(15:06):
back to the community that you live and serve. So
so I came back with two goals. I needed a
retirement too, man, I mean, what do you mean you
don't want to work forever? Dad had a couple of
rental houses he you know, the nestle away after five
or ten years, fifty thousand dollars by a little rental
(15:29):
house that was his retirement. I remember him sending me
a five hundred dollars rent check. He'd co sign it
and mail it to me to Chapel Hill and that
would be my running money for a couple of months.
I go cash it. Hey, it works right, But I
wanted to and I had cut my teeth on some
(15:51):
rental properties and stuff. You sweat equity in the early
two thousands. But I wanted a retirement and we had
Leroy Oates I said. I grew up in the dump
truck between friend and Leroy. He started, he was the
third employee in nineteen fifty. He basically raised my dad,
raised me and my brother, you know, sage of a person.
(16:13):
And we helped him and funded and did the physical
labor along with him. In addition to his house in
like one and o two, we bought all the stuff.
And uh I ran the math and Leroy being a
simple man, not wanting anything, just being a wonderful human being. Uh,
(16:36):
at his at his income, which was not extravagant over
over his tenure, just kind of Warren Buffett buffet time
value money. Uh you know, at seven percent four oh
one k out of sight, out of mind, he would
have had over men and a half dollars and I
(16:56):
knew also from the early two thousands, and we took
a lot of pride that we were able to help
him do this to his home and for his family.
We loved him our family. If we grew to the
if we grew like I wanted to grow, we couldn't
do And we had a bunch of fifty year employees.
We couldn't do kitchen additions for all all of them.
(17:17):
We just physically couldn't do it. Uh. So we started
a four oh one k July one of eight and
really wanted to polish that diamond. Starting at ground zero,
we did a we did a match. It has a
has a three percent match that the company does which
(17:37):
cost us money. And UH we paused that in nine
for about a year, and our old traditional family business
that was suffering wanted to throw the whole four oh
one K out said no, let's pause the match, and
God blessed my dad and my brother. Uh. They had
(17:58):
fortitude and be lieved and believed that we would get
to the other side. So we didn't, and we started
our match back up. And then we started UH through
some business planning and consulting with my wife and some
of our staff. We started a corn hole tournament in
eight We just did our eighteenth year. The last fifteen
(18:22):
years we've supported solely the Make a Wish of Eastern
and western North Carolina through that one endeavor, and we've
raised well over in conjunction with Harris Teeter as our
partner came on about ten years ago. We've raised well
over three million dollars doing that. So Buffett gave the analogy.
(18:42):
He said, just like you O eight I remember, he said,
just like everybody knows that Toys for Tots is Marines
and Marines is Toys for Tots. He said, do something
consistently so people think that's you, and it's kind of cool.
I'll be I'll be at you know, at a restaurant
or bar, and somebody will catch my name and catch
(19:03):
that I'm with Roby and and they'll say, you're the
corn hole guy, You're the Make a Wish guy. I like,
literally have people that think I work for Make a
Wish not get I can't be more proud than that, right.
Another cool thing is when we started our four oh
one k uh my financial advisor and friend Ben Horn,
(19:27):
who we got together in like one or O two
with my little side investments and stuff and have no
dang money. But he believed that we would grow together.
And uh he helped us start our four oh one
K from scratch. And he told me, he said, hey,
I have this client he started from scratch about two
(19:47):
or three years ago. And now that his company has
a million dollars in their four oh one K. And
I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. And
now our company has probably right or over as a company.
My family, the Roby family, has ten million dollars and
now and now the reinvestment's happening, and I can't wait.
(20:11):
You know, if we just keep running our business and
growing and people are committed to building building well all
at all levels of our business for their families, it'll
be worth I mean, the numbers will grow.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Let's camp out there just for a minute, because what
I heard you says, Hey, I went out to Omaha.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I heard warm Buffett.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It was eight.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
We were really we were, we were moving along.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
The recession hasn't hit yet, but you really weren't scaling
the way you've been scaling in the.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Past, what ten fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But you said, hey, we're going to come back and
do for our employee base, and we're going to do
for our community. How important are do you see those
two things both as being a big catalyst to your
overall skill did?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
How did that correlate or or was their correlation?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh, it's a direct correlation. Number one. I knew benefits
for our staff. I wanted to compete with I mean
the banks in my in my young life, Charlotte grew
on the banking industry, and I used to use the analogy,
I want to compete with talent, with Bank of America
(21:20):
and Jacovia pre pre recession, and BB and T. I mean,
I want I want those people to want to come
work at Roby. I didn't even know up to that point.
We were just a custom residential company, which that was
foreign and was out there. But you eat the elephant
one bite at a time. I'll tell you what's really
(21:41):
crazy is I told my dad and my brother, I said,
I want to do I want to start this charity.
Do it every year. I said, just think in ten years.
My dad said, we're not a promoter, we're a contractor.
What do you and we don't have any money? How
are we going to give our money away. That's the
two things he said. Uh, there's some wisdom in that,
(22:04):
and he and he was pushing back and you know,
he's doing what a father should do and the CEO
should do to the whipper snapper. But uh, but I said,
just thinking ten years, we will have raised for the
same charity one hundred thousand dollars. That was where my
mentality was. And uh, I think in year three we
(22:27):
surpassed easily one hundred thousand race for the charity. In
ten years we were probably a million and a half dollars.
So you don't even know until you start doing something.
And that's always been and I don't you know, I grew up.
You give money to the church and uh. And if
(22:48):
one of your good clients is championing something, you give
them a little money because they're a good client. That's
what you do. And you have a Little League team
that's a sponsored But but see, you don't really know
what you can do until you do it. And I
come back to people, especially early early on. Now now
(23:09):
I don't really get much pushback from people when I
ask for money for a good cause. Is what are
you doing if you've got a good cause I'll back away.
But people like to say, but I just think it
all goes together because the benefits and and our families
(23:29):
of our business with the Roby family, their families accumulating
some passive wealth and educating them on that allows you
to they attract the Always tell our people, if you've
got a good cousin or a good lady down the road,
or somebody that you're always impressed with at the barbecue,
tell them to come. If you're really proud of what
(23:50):
we're doing, tell them to come work here. We can
grow with the right people. So it's all of that,
and then the ethics and the code of conduct and
what we're about resonates through the pitching for wishes and
Make a Wish and Little League and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So I made a quick comment on that as a
as a CEO of a non for profit human service
organization that was a little older.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And Ruby will be one hundred and forty years old
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That is awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Hard to tell, but you know understanding the importance and
the weight that comes with leading in a legacy organization,
if you will, I think even more for you because
of your grandfather's involvement than your father, you and your brother.
That's amazing. But kudos to you guys for what you're
doing with community corporate social responsibility. I'm getting ready to
speak to the fast fifty winners. If you're familiar with that,
(24:46):
you know those that who have applied. We know there's
other organizations that are growing fast as well. I think
yours and ours and others. But later this week, and
the importance of leaning into community as you scale, and
I think to your point too, is now in this
in twenty twenty five, twenty six, the new employee base
really wants to work for organizations to give them back
(25:07):
to community. Well, what I really love what you're doing.
You're taking your resources and your effort with intentionality and
you're going deep into one organization.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So I love that you're doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
A lot of non for profits might be here and say, well,
let me introduce you to what we're doing, and those
conversations ken it will be had.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
But here's the truth. I would really encourage.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Any organization to go deep with one or two or
three instead of taking those resources and spreading them across ten, fifteen, twenty,
the impact is going to be so much less to
what you're doing, so you're having tremendous impact. I think
it's a model for other organizations.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
That's awesome. Well, I mean it's what Buffe says, keep
doing the same thing over and over. Yeah, and if
you have enough time, time's your best asset. He says,
own twenty or thirty great businesses, and you might have
one the Falters, but you have twenty eight to do
(26:03):
really well. Don't own two thousand.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
You know, you came out smart, mister market And I
think that just goes with life and simplicity. I mean
the world's a small place, so what you put in,
if you're patient enough, you're going to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So you've referenced your dad, You've referenced Buffett. Let's go
back to your dad because I'm gonna just quote you. You
said my dad was a great leader, and that must
have been amazing to be growing up in the family
and then in a business where your father was a
good quality leader.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What were some of the lessons learned that you carry forward?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Well, I told my wife in like five my wife, Reagan,
God bless her, and my five kids. They put up
with me and my in laws and all that stuff,
and my brother and my business partners. But in about
oh five, I said, I want you. She's a good writer, ghostwriter.
(27:03):
I said, I want you to write me a book.
She said, you got to buy three pages, go make one.
You know, if they get out of here time based
on you. But I wanted the book to be on
all my all my stories. And I'm you know, I'm
a storyteller. My dad was. My dad was pretty stoic.
He was quiet when he passed away. One of our
former employees, a young man who helped us, who had
(27:26):
non Hodgkin slim foam, and when he was twenty four workforce,
Brendan Hackett, he had moved back home up in New
York and and and he texted me and he said,
your dad was all at the same time, the toughest
and the sweetest man there could ever be. Uh. I'm
gonna cry, but uh, but I'll tell you a couple
of things. Number One, friend leroy, Uh, they were a
(27:51):
little different color than me. And that's just how it was.
And every other word Fred said was probably not an
appropriate word. But he was as good as they come.
And every morning from the time I was fourteen and
my brother as well. He dropped us off when we
didn't have school at the restaurant at six point thirty
and trusted them to take care of us. And did
(28:14):
they did they take care of us. They treated us
like I was a fifty year old man, and uh,
I was top priority. They didn't hold back on what
they thought about others. But it was that trust, and
it was that I say, I was an office monkey.
I used to like to hang around the office, even
before I legally worked. I just hang around, not for money,
(28:35):
just because I like to be there. And uh, every
time somebody came in my dad's office, and we were small,
we were just a little business and it was that
worked out of a house and he'd say, hey, this
is my son, Trent, and I'd shake their hand like
a man like I think my ten year old son
(28:55):
does and my daughter's and he'd say this is so,
and so you want to stay or go training? One
hundred percent said I wanted to stay. And I saw
people ask for loans, I saw people ask for jobs.
I saw people get reprimanded and fired. I saw people
ask as a subcontractor for a check.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I saw it all.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And it wasn't anything special when it was just the
way life was. And so he taught me there's there's
no there's no hiding, there's nothing that that that you
can't hear if if you if you're taught how to
how to hear it. One other thing. And and I'm
one of three, I'm the middle child. My brother's four
years older, my sister's three years younger. Uh, my brother
(29:40):
is my partner, and uh, we're we're equal partners and everything.
Dad said, if we couldn't, we were both capable, he said,
and if we couldn't be equal partners, would burn the
dang thing down. I thought that was a good lesson.
He said, you got to work at it like a marriage.
My sister he got a doctor out of us to
cook two contractors in an e R doctor. She lives
(30:02):
in Augusta. But my dad told me real young, because
I'm the boisterous one. My brother's a little more quiet
like him, he said. He said, you know, you can
follow me around by the house beside me. You can
ride with me to work. You can, you know, be
in my ear all the time. Your your role is
more in the office with me. He's like, uh, He's like,
(30:24):
but all three of my kids are one equal, no
matter what what happens, no matter. I hate to say
it this way, but if you go mess up and
commit a terrible crime, I'll you're still my child, and
you realize that. And that that helped me, and then
h two other things. When I was in the sixth grade,
(30:46):
I had a neighbor, a girl at my school. Her
father had committed suicide. So it was a big head
thing middle school. Father commits suicide. My dad's my world.
And it took me about two weeks to get the
courage to ask him if he would ever commit suicide.
(31:08):
And I couldn't never get it out of my mouth.
I remember where we were. We were driving home from
basketball practice. I was, you know, dark, middle of the woods,
and I said, I blurted it out, Dad, would you
ever commit suicide? He stopped the truck. He looked at me,
he says, son. He said, I love myself too damn much.
If I'm ever dead, you best go find the killer
(31:28):
and turned his head and drove and never said anything
else about it.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
His whole life.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
About that topic. And I really think the ability for
him to lead in that manner and provide confidence for
me in so few words is invaluable. And you know
I'm the talker. Saw, I worry often even leading our
business over my twenty five years relative to mine and
(31:59):
my brother Jing and Yang. It's like, do I I
know I did so much over talk our guys a
lot back in the day. I've backed off of that.
It's been fun to watch my brother's voice elevate. I
talk a lot about that. I brag a lot about him, Travis.
He's awesome. Uh. And we are fifty to fifty and
(32:19):
everything that we do and you don't have to worry
about it if that's how you roll.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I'm here in faith, fortitude, confidence, leadership.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Words words that are key to our company.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And words are powerful, right, they really are. You gotta
live them?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, you got to live them out so as you know,
one thing that we believe in our organization is our
values and living out those values.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Do you guys have a set of core values?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And how does what are they and how does that
play into your day to day decision making?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna mess up yours, all right. I can't
all this integrity, diligence, hard work. I mean those are
those are our core values. Faith is not a core
value of our company, but faith is the backbone because
(33:13):
you gotta believe. If people don't believe that we're the
right business that they work for, you're not going to
be the right business. I mean, it's with any religion.
I'm a Christian, but you know, you gotta believe and
you can't question everything. Sometimes you just got to put
your nose down and keep going. And that's that's kind
(33:34):
of what my dad. I got a story about my dad.
I turned fourteen. I'm about to turn fourteen. You could
legally work for a family construction business at fourteen. My
birthday is June to sixth, I mean literally the last
day of school. Half of my life in growing up
was my birthday. I graduated to high school on my
(33:56):
birth my eighteenth birthday, which was pretty pretty special. But
my dad came to me about a month, you know,
a month before I turned fourteen, and said, son, you're
able to work when you don't have school or extracurricular activities.
This will not replace We played sports, but he said,
you don't have to play sports, but you got to
(34:17):
do something keep you out of trouble. And it won't
be work, he said, but when you during the summer,
during vacation, holidays, Christmas break and Saturdays or you know,
I don't think he said Sundays. He did not work
much on Sundays except around the house. But uh, you know,
he said, you can work, but you can't work after school.
(34:39):
You will do something through school. After school, that was
cond of, he said. But I'm going to put a
thousand dollars in your savings account, and I'm going to
pay you minimum wage at the time was four twenty five.
He su, I'm gonna pay you through payroll. I think
I needed after Social Security, Medicare and taxes about two
sixty at the time. But he said, uh you and
(35:03):
if you want extra work, I'll find you somem overtime,
pay you time and a half to pay roll, he said.
But however much money you have saved when you turn
I'm gonna put a thousand dollars in your savings account.
That's what you start with. However much money you have
saved when you turn sixteen, I will buy you a
vehicle for that amount of money. You don't spend your money,
but you can't touch it until you're twenty one, and
(35:28):
I say, that's creating a miser one oh one. I
had seventy.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Five overtime coming.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I had seventy. I was working every chance, like I
was cutting loans in my neighborhood, everything everything I could do.
I did baseball card shows. But I had seventy five
hundred dollars saved when I was sixteen, and he bought
me a vehicle for seventy five hundred dollars. And that
was a foundation to just having Buffett talks about having
(35:57):
your house paid for, and everybody in the world of
economics is you don't you want to leverage your house,
you know, cheap money, good asset backed investment. But he says, no,
it's a peace of mind. How you want to live.
You want to live without head trash. And and that's
(36:17):
kind of what that taught me, is, hey have this foundation.
It's hard when you it's hard when you're grow in
a business and growing five kids and now they go
to private school and now got one going to college.
I have two of them drive. Now one's about to
be driving as well, and there's a lot insurance, gas
(36:38):
and and they you know, it hadn't been the same.
So I've had to do my version of how I
raised my kids. Yeah, because life's different than it was.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
But he was laying some foundation with not just on
the kind of financial stewardship of things, but he was
also teaching you work ethic well. So as a leader
of a of a growing scaling company one hundred and
forty plus one hundred and forty seven employees current day,
I think.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
What do you see?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
What are the challenges that you're seeing, whether there's always
challenges And I'll tell you this. We do a business
management communications system. We started about three years ago. We
have a coach, Robert Fish. I'm sure there's another term
other than coach. Sorry, Robert. Entrepreneurial Operating System EOSUS. We've
(37:27):
done in about three years. It's been world changing for
our business. But our one main goal in ten years.
So we're three years in and we it's hard because
you go in stints is to employee five hundred. We
call them family units, you know, because we want the
(37:49):
kids to be around the business at the cornhole tournament,
messing around the office on Saturday like I was. So,
so that's our goal. So we do. We started along
with this several years ago, you know, we've evolved for
being a real tight everything's kind of kept in the family.
You don't want to talk about money to your staff
(38:11):
and they don't understand numbers. To HEYLO, let's do the
opposite through EOS, we're educating our staff. They can't help
us make money on our asset or add money to
everybody's for a one K if they don't understand how
it works. Furthermore, they can't improve their family if they
(38:32):
don't understand how it works financial education. But we do
quarterly town halls and we champion that. Our goal was
five hundred family units. And we got a lot of
pushback on that last year. And it was shocking to
me because I wouldn't what's the matter with that? But
(38:55):
these folks said, we love working for a family business,
this tight knit. We don't want to work for a
big old business.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I fear it's going to get so big you don't
feel the family family environment anymore.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And uh. And we told them the way they're able
to improve their income they're returned, the way they're able
to add more money to therefore a one K, the
way they're able to have better health insurance and and
and do easier physical jobs that they can last longer
(39:28):
in the business is by us adding those talented folks.
And uh, I never thought that would be a pushback,
but then we got to go educate them on that
and we got to live it. It can't just be bigger, better,
fig there's not better. Uh. Dad used to always say,
he said, son, he was trying to temper my excitement. Uh,
(39:50):
he'd say, you know, every bit bigger is worse. You know,
smaller yard to better yard. Well, well that's good if
you want a little lifestyle business. Uh. But I have
a goal to empower people. And my brother is one
hundred percent bought in on our goal, and our leadership
team is and I want to see people excel. And
(40:11):
uh I mean, I mean, just in relative terms, we didn't.
My biggest hire in two thousand and three was a
book keeper for a forty two thousand dollars year salary.
In two thousand and three, we were fifty three year
old business. And I'm blessed to say we have tons
(40:37):
and tons of family units that make well over that
now and have a four to one k and have
health insurance and get vacations and drive a company vehicle
and do all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
So I love how you reference the operating system model,
whether it's EOS or other operating systems, and we run
an operating system at Thompson and it's been a game
changer in reference to how transparent we are with our
performance data, our financial performance, you name it. And it
really has required us to have more intentionality about how
(41:10):
we communicate, how we meet becoming more efficient, and how
we do those things very intentional, and how we run
very similar. We don't have a ten year goal, but
we have a five year goal of serving eight thousand
lives plus their families on an on any given year,
that's clients for us, it'll probably end up being eleven
(41:31):
hundred employees plus their families in order to make that
happen in our body of work. But that operating system
is so important. I kind of tell our team it's
like your computer. If your computer operating system isn't functioning,
then your computer doesn't work. So think of it that
way in the business. So if the operating system isn't
you're not running that the right way, or it's not
running the right way, it's not going to function the
(41:52):
way it's supposed to. So it's been a game changer.
It's good to hear other leaders and businesses say the
same thing.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Well, you know, over over my twenty five year career,
UH and my brother's you know, pretty much hand in hand.
You know, we've we've embraced and invested a lot of
money in in Sadler sales training.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Is is at the heart of our sales culture. Uh.
But to my example earlier, if you if you don't
have more bandwidth and a bigger a bigger organization and
more staff, you can't invest in an entrepreneurial operating systright,
you're flying by the seat of your pants, which is
which is valuable. We did it good. We're hardworking people
(42:38):
and we're honest. When I came into what you can't
take back. My granddad, my dad, my uncle, Ken Laney,
mister Roby, they created fred Leroy. Uh, I mean they
created we were known as uh honest as the day
is long, harder working than anybody doesn't always doesn't always
(42:59):
uh get done right, but they'll always get it done
right in the end. And I you know the old
school that's out there thirty years or sweating tier forty
eighty hours a week. I always said, hey, let's be
the hardest working, let's be the honest, but let's always
be working to study and get educated and create systems
(43:23):
to where we're trying to let it go wrong less
we'll fix it. And they go, oh, well, that's not
why you say we don't you know, we never mess up,
you know, with your heart, sweat and blood and tears
is in it. But that's kind of been our goal
and it's been embraced, and it was changing our culture.
(43:46):
And I always use the analogy, you can wear twenty
dollars blue jeans are two hundred dollars blue jeans. Why
do you wear two hundred dollars blue jeans? Because they
make you feel better? They laugh longer. But that's a
ten x payment. It's ten times you're paying ten times.
(44:06):
And I'm not saying we're twenty dollars blue jeans are
two hundred dollars blue jeans. I'm just saying people, we're
two hundred dollar blue jeans, and then were two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I little out of my league, but uh yeah, now
you're right about it. I think your mindset on that's right.
So let's as we kind of wrap this up. So
we talked about what Rugby was known for, what what
are you known for now? And then what do you
want to be known for, if anything different in the
future and your ten year plan.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I want to be known as the best rand family business.
That's not just the Hasting family. I mean we're a
family business because we're not blood, because we're all united.
And I want to compete. You know a book that
our business has built off of good to great what
(44:58):
was big in the early two thousands through Sandler that
was introduced and then take it the smaller business similar
book Breakthrough Companies as another book. But uh, I want
to I want to compete with the companies that I
think are the best. I mean I want to compete
with with companies like Berkshire. That doesn't mean be as
(45:21):
big as Berkshire, but be be as good for all
the right reasons. And the right reasons are our integrity
and and honesty and and diligence and hard work. But
you don't always have to do it the hard way.
Why not study and figure out how to do a
little easier route go to I don't go through the mud,
(45:43):
drive on the pavement. So uh, but that's what I want.
I just want I just want us to be known
as good damn people that have a sustainable business and
and and and if you join us and you commit,
you'll find success through that. That's awesome, and success at
and all money. It's a it's a quadrant. I more
(46:04):
say ability to to help till Lee raise a family,
but it's it's time and it's showing love to your family.
We want employees that love their families. And and honestly,
we're all human. Nothing's perfect. Everybody needs grace. We want
a company build on grace and uh, nobody's right, no,
(46:27):
you know not. We're all gonna fail. We're all human. Yeah,
So I.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Love that to commit commitment to family, commitment to faith.
I'm hearing commitment to leadership, learning a lot of the
things that we believe in at Thompson's that we share
a lot of those those those mindsets and beliefs and
how we're running our businesses. And obviously I have no
doubt that you're gonna hit that ten year goal five
hundred family units.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
The love and I love how you're thinking about that,
you know, because a lot of a lot of you know,
like we're thinking about how many lives we can impact
through our services other organizations or will think about numeric
dollar amounts in the future and those type of things.
So I think it's really cool and commendimle that your
your goal is like, we want to have five hundred
family units that work here in our organization and everything
(47:16):
else will work itself out, and you have faith in
that that I will happen.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
I mean my euphoric thought is we have multiple offices,
and I drop in on an office in ten years
and there's five or ten folks that work for us,
and they got ten or fifteen kids running around messing
around while their dads or moms are doing something, just
(47:41):
picking up some you know, and they fill at home.
That's what it's about. I mean, you know, so and through.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
That, you're going to have that multiple multi generational workforce
through those other families too. You have you seen any
of that outside of the Hasten family, other multi generational.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Oh in our business? Yes, heck yeah. I tell our
staff at the town Halls. My best feeling is is
when the child of one of our long tenured employees
wants to work at our business, it's really cool. When
they work as a teenager it's really really cool when
(48:18):
they get out of school, whatever schooling they do, and
they want to make a career out of it, that
is cool, and we have that. I'll tell you one
other thing, uh, you know, being a family business and
doing business with with other great business leaders. Outside of
our family business, my friends, everybody says always is you
(48:38):
know one of your kids going to run to business
or one of Travis's kids, And uh, they might work
at the business, but I have folks that are leading
this business. Uh. I spoke about Dave and Patrick and
many others. But let's grow the business. I mean, I
(48:58):
don't I don't see it as a nepotism thing. Maybe
they maybe they'll be the best, that they could be
the CEO of the Ruby family. But I see them
more running a business that we don't even know about
today that feeds off of our flywheel. That's what I see.
So we'll see. I don't know, I know, I know
I have a couple entrepreneurs out of my five. We'll
(49:21):
see what happens. Well, I don't want no.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Doubt in mind that the best is yet to come.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
And see.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Thanks for thanks for coming on board, and thank you.
Will spend a little bit more time with me.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I know we chatted last week prior to Thanksgivin really
enjoyed that, but thank you again for coming on and
being part of CEOs You should Know.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Brought to you by iHeartMedia, empowered by Thompson
All right, I'm another episode of CEOs You Should Know,
brought to you by iHeartMedia Power by Thompson. We have
Trent Hasten here from the Roby Family Services. Trent welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, how you doing, will oh Man?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Good brother. I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, man, great Thanksgiving, A lot of family time, little
Christmas tree hunting, did a lot, I hate a lot.
Exercised a little, so try to keep the net gain
down there.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You you bettered me out of a house full and
my family members of Florida sleeping in my home gym.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So I did not get my exercise this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I guess that's how it is.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Oh, I know, man, I was actually happy to see
Monday man. I got right back into it. Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
At least you putting the gym to work all times. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, Trent, welcome to CEOs You Should Know. And let's
just hop right in. Yeah, let's start with just Roby.
You know, tell listeners about the Roby Family Services. When
I'm looking at it, it's almost like the cheesecake factory.
You guys got all sorts of stuff on the menu.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, well, this our seventy fifty year anniversary of our
founding business that a man named Andrew Roby Chick started
Andrew Roby. My granddad was his first employee in nineteen
fifty and it was him and my granddad, uh, and
they were just you know, I think that was about
(01:24):
the time the aluminum side and was becoming popular, rooming
them windows, and they were just a little, you know,
one man shot small company. And my granddad worked for
mister Roby for a decade decade and a half, and
then I think mister Roby figured out that you know,
still really really really small company in the sixties, that
(01:44):
that his legacy is state planning was going to be
he was going to eventually sell the business to the
to the Haston family, and uh, the story goes, they
didn't have any money for bonuses, so he went out
and got a credit line for Christmas gifts for my
dad and his siblings, and he gave my granddad a
(02:04):
little bit of stought and that's how it started. And
then eventually my family, my dad and my uncle grew
up in the business with my granddad and under mister
Roby's leadership, and they bought the business from mister Roby
in nineteen seventy six, and my dad and granddad and
uncle ran it through the eighties and nineties. My dad
(02:27):
was more in the leadership role. My granddad was still
still a legacy guy. And me and my brother grew
up in the nineties dicking ditches and such in high
school and college, and I graduated college. My brother came
out of college in the late nineties and a little
older than me, and I graduated in two thousand and
(02:51):
had more mouths to feed. You know, we were a
company of about remodeling custom residential. Did some new houses
as a child in Myers Park and deal Worth and
East Over and Quell Hollow, the neighborhoods that we know
so well today that have the nice homes and mostly residential.
(03:11):
And you know, all my jobs were roding the dump
truck with Fred and Leroy from fourteen to sixteen. I
drove the dump truck from sixteen to eighteen. My high
school buddies would have worked then. I was a really
good brick mason's helper. Mixed a mean batch of mud
and I could I could dig footers, pour concrete and
do stuff like that. Cleaned a lot of brick, cleaned
(03:34):
the mortar off and then and in full time out
of college, I became a project manager. My brother's more
than the field side, So we kind of managed projects
with the operator in the field of superintendent so to speak,
and a project manager as the estimates in the sales side,
and we grew the company up about quadruple in size
(03:58):
through the early two thousand. My dad was a wonderful leader.
Uh he wanted to He hated being in the office
and hated dealing with the money. It was a necessary
evil during his leadership of the eighties and nineties. But
when when I was so dumb to try to push
him out of the way, he moved out of the way,
(04:19):
went back and did what he loved and worked with
the guys in the field. My granddad was out and about,
my uncle and my brother, and we had a My
lifetime boss was our superintendent named Ken Laney passed away
in early two thousands, prematurely, but he was so all
(04:40):
those folks were in the field, so we were able
to grow this business still doing custom residential in Charlotte.
Eight to nine happens. I really honestly thought we were gonna
lose a fifty nine year old legacy business that I
that was my life under my leadership, mine of my
(05:03):
brother's leadership. I thought it was going down three o'clock
in the morning, many nights in the bathtub, crying and praying,
and we figured out how to make it through and
coming out of that, we basically had the goal to
vertically integrate our customer, the residential client. They were usually
movers and shakers in Charlotte, ran businesses, a lot of
(05:27):
them had second homes, had investment commercial investment properties and
investing in commercial businesses. So it's like, what can we
do more for this person than get beat up by
them and their wife because they're tired of having their
kitchen gutted for months and months. The husband's traveling doing business,
(05:48):
the wife's got three or four kids and muddy dogs
and no kitchen. I mean, that's my life working out
of a microwave into foyer and you're trying to get
a progress payment.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I love it a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And then so so we coming out in twenty ten,
we started roby electric. By way of that was the
lowest hanging fruit. We had had a guy named Jeff
Robinette and then with us a long time carbonry and
done some electrical but we had, you know, said hey,
let's start the services side, mechanical electrical plumbing, Handyman, We'll
(06:25):
start with electric. Uh. We started branding Handyman more we
had always done Handyman for our clients with doing thing
for you, and then we also started Roby Commercial, which
now is UH we do do their homes. We have
two offices in the Mountains for residential do second home
(06:46):
market and we do commercial for the same client. And
then we do mechanical electrical plumbing services on both commercial,
residential and second home properties. Most of our clients like
to help their kids with their first house, which which
I can kind of understand now and kind of say, hey,
(07:06):
you need to use these guys. That's the right choice.
You know, when you're when you're young in life and
you don't have much money, you oftentimes want to go
for the for the easiest and cheapest uh. And and
we like the parents and the clients that say, no,
you need to hold by your principles.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, man, that brings up something in ourdustry. We always
say low bed, low quality. Sometimes I know it's not
always the case, but you got to be a little
a little careful. Sometimes you get you get what you
pay for it generally is the case, I would say,
And that even applies to us because we're a general contractor.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Uh And and we use a lot of trades, you know,
roof in every facet, we use subcontractor trades and uh
Oftentimes you get what you pay for. It isn't one
hundred percent in the norm. There's fear businesses and folks
that have fedgured out how to provide value. But we
(08:02):
always say, We've always told our residential clients, you can
have a speed of a job, you can have quality
of a job, and you can have cost of a job.
You can only get two of those, can't have all three.
Can't have a real fast job, really cheap and high quality.
You can have fast and high quality, but it's gonna
(08:23):
be expensive. You can have economical, but we're gonna get
it done when we can get it done, and it'll
be good quality.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So you know you're paying for quality either way on
the speed side or on the overall economical piece of that.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Right. Amen. And I was gonna say something about my dad,
but my dad passed away in twenty fourteen, and now
our business is led by me and my brother and
we have two partners in our commercial in our services business.
Who is our CEO of our business. David McGuire, who
(09:02):
I met in the ninth grade, went to college with
him and lived with him multiple times throughout our lives.
He joined us in eight right before the recession, biggest
hire ever. Wonderful guy, wonderful partner. And then Patrick mccayasack,
who we actually have a podcast we do together. You
(09:23):
run on our podcast kind of kind of cool. And
he's our partner as well in the commercial and the
services business. He leads those divisions of our business.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It's amazing to hear about the evolution of the business
from seventy five years to what happened in nine where
you and your brother took it.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
So tell the audience a little bit. What's the scale
of Rugby Family Services? What is it now? What does
it look like from an employee base?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Where do you do work? Were you trying to do
work that you're not there yet?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So we had our monthly financial review yesterday, so I
do know through the end of October we had one
hundred and forty seven employees. To be accurate, I always
guess on that when I tell people try to guess low,
don't overshoot. I always joke with my friends and my
(10:15):
wife that I always add twenty percent to everything. You know,
it's human nature.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But uh but yeah, and we're gonna do We're our whole,
our whole, holistic business, all the business. I just said,
going to do about eighty five million in revenue this year.
Kind of give you some perspective about twenty five or
thirty employees in two thousand and fifty year old business
(10:41):
and did about three to three and a half million
in revenue, so kind of kind of some perspective. And
now God bless that that our folks are doing a
great job and our brand is growing. We either shut
it down or we grow. And that you know, they say,
(11:02):
you're either growing or you're dying. But you better figure
out how to how to run a business efficiently and
do a good job where you grow yourself completely instantly
out of business.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I always say this. You do fifty million dollars and
make five percent your business returns as a as an
investment in equity to you know, two and a half
million dollars, or you can lose five percent and you
lose two and a half million dollars. You're completely destitute.
I mean it's one way or the other. You know that.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So what do you think the biggest benefits are to
the scale?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I mean, I think you have some a lot of
efficiencies that you can create. You know, we were talking
about AI. You know we're able versus a little small,
just say relative three million dollar custom remodeling business. You're
not probably really investing money and spending time and energy
on AI. You probably aren't having many more marketing dollars.
(12:00):
Our marketing dollars can carry uh carry over. The breadth
of the family of companies is really what we call
our so the Roby family of companies and talent. I
say this a lot. An example is we started at
zero when we started Roby Commercial, which is a commercial
construction company that mirrors the residential It does boutique hospitality,
(12:25):
amenity projects, some retirement scent facility stuff, more more customized
stuff versus building a warehouse out in the middle of
forty acres where we where we can add value. But
I cannot. When I'm starting out and I have a
million dollars worth of business in this business, I can't
(12:47):
go hire a veteran thirty year guy that has all
this knowledge and experience and can really get a job
done that's going to cost a cost some pretty penny.
He deserves to make a she he deserves to make
a pretty penny. But she got to build the business up.
And now that that business line, let's say it's thirty
(13:09):
million in revenue, and now we have a team of talent,
and we're able to attract talent. Uh, I mean even
things like pre recession. I'm a big I'm a big
Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett believer. I've had mentors introduced me
to him in the early two thousands, and had I
had an employee's father who I had become close to,
(13:34):
took me and his son to the shareholders meeting in
Omaha in eight right before the I thought we were
about to launched out or space. We were doing so
well and then little did we know. You know, within
six months to market, the world had had crumbled from
a financial standpoint. But uh I came back all fired up.
(13:58):
Buffett talked about a couple things there. I mean, I'm
talking kind of how I'm geared. I don't sleep when
I'm in Omaha listening to Warren Buffett, and I get excited,
and I love his pragmatism and how simple he can
make billions of dollars in seventy five years of strategic investments.
(14:22):
He can simplify that down and help an idiot like
myself understand what he's saying. But a couple of things
I took away, Like I said, we were still only
custom residential. We were still only Andrew Roby in May
of eight when I was in Omaha, and he said,
a level five business has made enough money to sustain
(14:45):
a viable business, you know, has added benefits to its
his staff. And at level five, you polish your diamond
and you give increased benefits. You help your staff build wealth,
and you also polish your brand diamond and and you
hang your hat on how you polish it and give
(15:06):
back to the community that you live and serve. So
so I came back with two goals. I needed a
retirement too, man, I mean, what do you mean you
don't want to work forever? Dad had a couple of
rental houses he you know, the nestle away after five
or ten years, fifty thousand dollars by a little rental
(15:29):
house that was his retirement. I remember him sending me
a five hundred dollars rent check. He'd co sign it
and mail it to me to Chapel Hill and that
would be my running money for a couple of months.
I go cash it. Hey, it works right, But I
wanted to and I had cut my teeth on some
(15:51):
rental properties and stuff. You sweat equity in the early
two thousands. But I wanted a retirement and we had
Leroy Oates I said. I grew up in the dump
truck between friend and Leroy. He started, he was the
third employee in nineteen fifty. He basically raised my dad,
raised me and my brother, you know, sage of a person.
(16:13):
And we helped him and funded and did the physical
labor along with him. In addition to his house in
like one and o two, we bought all the stuff.
And uh I ran the math and Leroy being a
simple man, not wanting anything, just being a wonderful human being. Uh,
(16:36):
at his at his income, which was not extravagant over
over his tenure, just kind of Warren Buffett buffet time
value money. Uh you know, at seven percent four oh
one k out of sight, out of mind, he would
have had over men and a half dollars and I
(16:56):
knew also from the early two thousands, and we took
a lot of pride that we were able to help
him do this to his home and for his family.
We loved him our family. If we grew to the
if we grew like I wanted to grow, we couldn't
do And we had a bunch of fifty year employees.
We couldn't do kitchen additions for all all of them.
(17:17):
We just physically couldn't do it. Uh. So we started
a four oh one k July one of eight and
really wanted to polish that diamond. Starting at ground zero,
we did a we did a match. It has a
has a three percent match that the company does which
(17:37):
cost us money. And UH we paused that in nine
for about a year, and our old traditional family business
that was suffering wanted to throw the whole four oh
one K out said no, let's pause the match, and
God blessed my dad and my brother. Uh. They had
(17:58):
fortitude and be lieved and believed that we would get
to the other side. So we didn't, and we started
our match back up. And then we started UH through
some business planning and consulting with my wife and some
of our staff. We started a corn hole tournament in
eight We just did our eighteenth year. The last fifteen
(18:22):
years we've supported solely the Make a Wish of Eastern
and western North Carolina through that one endeavor, and we've
raised well over in conjunction with Harris Teeter as our
partner came on about ten years ago. We've raised well
over three million dollars doing that. So Buffett gave the analogy.
(18:42):
He said, just like you O eight I remember, he said,
just like everybody knows that Toys for Tots is Marines
and Marines is Toys for Tots. He said, do something
consistently so people think that's you, and it's kind of cool.
I'll be I'll be at you know, at a restaurant
or bar, and somebody will catch my name and catch
(19:03):
that I'm with Roby and and they'll say, you're the
corn hole guy, You're the Make a Wish guy. I like,
literally have people that think I work for Make a
Wish not get I can't be more proud than that, right.
Another cool thing is when we started our four oh
one k uh my financial advisor and friend Ben Horn,
(19:27):
who we got together in like one or O two
with my little side investments and stuff and have no
dang money. But he believed that we would grow together.
And uh he helped us start our four oh one
K from scratch. And he told me, he said, hey,
I have this client he started from scratch about two
(19:47):
or three years ago. And now that his company has
a million dollars in their four oh one K. And
I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. And
now our company has probably right or over as a company.
My family, the Roby family, has ten million dollars and
now and now the reinvestment's happening, and I can't wait.
(20:11):
You know, if we just keep running our business and
growing and people are committed to building building well all
at all levels of our business for their families, it'll
be worth I mean, the numbers will grow.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Let's camp out there just for a minute, because what
I heard you says, Hey, I went out to Omaha.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I heard warm Buffett.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It was eight.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
We were really we were, we were moving along.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
The recession hasn't hit yet, but you really weren't scaling
the way you've been scaling in the.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Past, what ten fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But you said, hey, we're going to come back and
do for our employee base, and we're going to do
for our community. How important are do you see those
two things both as being a big catalyst to your
overall skill did?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
How did that correlate or or was their correlation?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh, it's a direct correlation. Number one. I knew benefits
for our staff. I wanted to compete with I mean
the banks in my in my young life, Charlotte grew
on the banking industry, and I used to use the analogy,
I want to compete with talent, with Bank of America
(21:20):
and Jacovia pre pre recession, and BB and T. I mean,
I want I want those people to want to come
work at Roby. I didn't even know up to that point.
We were just a custom residential company, which that was
foreign and was out there. But you eat the elephant
one bite at a time. I'll tell you what's really
(21:41):
crazy is I told my dad and my brother, I said,
I want to do I want to start this charity.
Do it every year. I said, just think in ten years.
My dad said, we're not a promoter, we're a contractor.
What do you and we don't have any money? How
are we going to give our money away. That's the
two things he said. Uh, there's some wisdom in that,
(22:04):
and he and he was pushing back and you know,
he's doing what a father should do and the CEO
should do to the whipper snapper. But uh, but I said,
just thinking ten years, we will have raised for the
same charity one hundred thousand dollars. That was where my
mentality was. And uh, I think in year three we
(22:27):
surpassed easily one hundred thousand race for the charity. In
ten years we were probably a million and a half dollars.
So you don't even know until you start doing something.
And that's always been and I don't you know, I grew up.
You give money to the church and uh. And if
(22:48):
one of your good clients is championing something, you give
them a little money because they're a good client. That's
what you do. And you have a Little League team
that's a sponsored But but see, you don't really know
what you can do until you do it. And I
come back to people, especially early early on. Now now
(23:09):
I don't really get much pushback from people when I
ask for money for a good cause. Is what are
you doing if you've got a good cause I'll back away.
But people like to say, but I just think it
all goes together because the benefits and and our families
(23:29):
of our business with the Roby family, their families accumulating
some passive wealth and educating them on that allows you
to they attract the Always tell our people, if you've
got a good cousin or a good lady down the road,
or somebody that you're always impressed with at the barbecue,
tell them to come. If you're really proud of what
(23:50):
we're doing, tell them to come work here. We can
grow with the right people. So it's all of that,
and then the ethics and the code of conduct and
what we're about resonates through the pitching for wishes and
Make a Wish and Little League and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So I made a quick comment on that as a
as a CEO of a non for profit human service
organization that was a little older.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And Ruby will be one hundred and forty years old
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That is awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Hard to tell, but you know understanding the importance and
the weight that comes with leading in a legacy organization,
if you will, I think even more for you because
of your grandfather's involvement than your father, you and your brother.
That's amazing. But kudos to you guys for what you're
doing with community corporate social responsibility. I'm getting ready to
speak to the fast fifty winners. If you're familiar with that,
(24:46):
you know those that who have applied. We know there's
other organizations that are growing fast as well. I think
yours and ours and others. But later this week, and
the importance of leaning into community as you scale, and
I think to your point too, is now in this
in twenty twenty five, twenty six, the new employee base
really wants to work for organizations to give them back
(25:07):
to community. Well, what I really love what you're doing.
You're taking your resources and your effort with intentionality and
you're going deep into one organization.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So I love that you're doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
A lot of non for profits might be here and say, well,
let me introduce you to what we're doing, and those
conversations ken it will be had.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
But here's the truth. I would really encourage.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Any organization to go deep with one or two or
three instead of taking those resources and spreading them across ten, fifteen, twenty,
the impact is going to be so much less to
what you're doing, so you're having tremendous impact. I think
it's a model for other organizations.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
That's awesome. Well, I mean it's what Buffe says, keep
doing the same thing over and over. Yeah, and if
you have enough time, time's your best asset. He says,
own twenty or thirty great businesses, and you might have
one the Falters, but you have twenty eight to do
(26:03):
really well. Don't own two thousand.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
You know, you came out smart, mister market And I
think that just goes with life and simplicity. I mean
the world's a small place, so what you put in,
if you're patient enough, you're going to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So you've referenced your dad, You've referenced Buffett. Let's go
back to your dad because I'm gonna just quote you. You
said my dad was a great leader, and that must
have been amazing to be growing up in the family
and then in a business where your father was a
good quality leader.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What were some of the lessons learned that you carry forward?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Well, I told my wife in like five my wife, Reagan,
God bless her, and my five kids. They put up
with me and my in laws and all that stuff,
and my brother and my business partners. But in about
oh five, I said, I want you. She's a good writer, ghostwriter.
(27:03):
I said, I want you to write me a book.
She said, you got to buy three pages, go make one.
You know, if they get out of here time based
on you. But I wanted the book to be on
all my all my stories. And I'm you know, I'm
a storyteller. My dad was. My dad was pretty stoic.
He was quiet when he passed away. One of our
former employees, a young man who helped us, who had
(27:26):
non Hodgkin slim foam, and when he was twenty four workforce,
Brendan Hackett, he had moved back home up in New
York and and and he texted me and he said,
your dad was all at the same time, the toughest
and the sweetest man there could ever be. Uh. I'm
gonna cry, but uh, but I'll tell you a couple
of things. Number One, friend leroy, Uh, they were a
(27:51):
little different color than me. And that's just how it was.
And every other word Fred said was probably not an
appropriate word. But he was as good as they come.
And every morning from the time I was fourteen and
my brother as well. He dropped us off when we
didn't have school at the restaurant at six point thirty
and trusted them to take care of us. And did
(28:14):
they did they take care of us. They treated us
like I was a fifty year old man, and uh,
I was top priority. They didn't hold back on what
they thought about others. But it was that trust, and
it was that I say, I was an office monkey.
I used to like to hang around the office, even
before I legally worked. I just hang around, not for money,
(28:35):
just because I like to be there. And uh, every
time somebody came in my dad's office, and we were small,
we were just a little business and it was that
worked out of a house and he'd say, hey, this
is my son, Trent, and I'd shake their hand like
a man like I think my ten year old son
(28:55):
does and my daughter's and he'd say this is so,
and so you want to stay or go training? One
hundred percent said I wanted to stay. And I saw
people ask for loans, I saw people ask for jobs.
I saw people get reprimanded and fired. I saw people
ask as a subcontractor for a check.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I saw it all.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And it wasn't anything special when it was just the
way life was. And so he taught me there's there's
no there's no hiding, there's nothing that that that you
can't hear if if you if you're taught how to
how to hear it. One other thing. And and I'm
one of three, I'm the middle child. My brother's four
years older, my sister's three years younger. Uh, my brother
(29:40):
is my partner, and uh, we're we're equal partners and everything.
Dad said, if we couldn't, we were both capable, he said,
and if we couldn't be equal partners, would burn the
dang thing down. I thought that was a good lesson.
He said, you got to work at it like a marriage.
My sister he got a doctor out of us to
cook two contractors in an e R doctor. She lives
(30:02):
in Augusta. But my dad told me real young, because
I'm the boisterous one. My brother's a little more quiet
like him, he said. He said, you know, you can
follow me around by the house beside me. You can
ride with me to work. You can, you know, be
in my ear all the time. Your your role is
more in the office with me. He's like, uh, He's like,
(30:24):
but all three of my kids are one equal, no
matter what what happens, no matter. I hate to say
it this way, but if you go mess up and
commit a terrible crime, I'll you're still my child, and
you realize that. And that that helped me, and then
h two other things. When I was in the sixth grade,
(30:46):
I had a neighbor, a girl at my school. Her
father had committed suicide. So it was a big head
thing middle school. Father commits suicide. My dad's my world.
And it took me about two weeks to get the
courage to ask him if he would ever commit suicide.
(31:08):
And I couldn't never get it out of my mouth.
I remember where we were. We were driving home from
basketball practice. I was, you know, dark, middle of the woods,
and I said, I blurted it out, Dad, would you
ever commit suicide? He stopped the truck. He looked at me,
he says, son. He said, I love myself too damn much.
If I'm ever dead, you best go find the killer
(31:28):
and turned his head and drove and never said anything
else about it.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
His whole life.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
About that topic. And I really think the ability for
him to lead in that manner and provide confidence for
me in so few words is invaluable. And you know
I'm the talker. Saw, I worry often even leading our
business over my twenty five years relative to mine and
(31:59):
my brother Jing and Yang. It's like, do I I
know I did so much over talk our guys a
lot back in the day. I've backed off of that.
It's been fun to watch my brother's voice elevate. I
talk a lot about that. I brag a lot about him, Travis.
He's awesome. Uh. And we are fifty to fifty and
(32:19):
everything that we do and you don't have to worry
about it if that's how you roll.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I'm here in faith, fortitude, confidence, leadership.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Words words that are key to our company.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And words are powerful, right, they really are. You gotta
live them?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, you got to live them out so as you know,
one thing that we believe in our organization is our
values and living out those values.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Do you guys have a set of core values?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And how does what are they and how does that
play into your day to day decision making?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna mess up yours, all right. I can't
all this integrity, diligence, hard work. I mean those are
those are our core values. Faith is not a core
value of our company, but faith is the backbone because
(33:13):
you gotta believe. If people don't believe that we're the
right business that they work for, you're not going to
be the right business. I mean, it's with any religion.
I'm a Christian, but you know, you gotta believe and
you can't question everything. Sometimes you just got to put
your nose down and keep going. And that's that's kind
(33:34):
of what my dad. I got a story about my dad.
I turned fourteen. I'm about to turn fourteen. You could
legally work for a family construction business at fourteen. My
birthday is June to sixth, I mean literally the last
day of school. Half of my life in growing up
was my birthday. I graduated to high school on my
(33:56):
birth my eighteenth birthday, which was pretty pretty special. But
my dad came to me about a month, you know,
a month before I turned fourteen, and said, son, you're
able to work when you don't have school or extracurricular activities.
This will not replace We played sports, but he said,
you don't have to play sports, but you got to
(34:17):
do something keep you out of trouble. And it won't
be work, he said, but when you during the summer,
during vacation, holidays, Christmas break and Saturdays or you know,
I don't think he said Sundays. He did not work
much on Sundays except around the house. But uh, you know,
he said, you can work, but you can't work after school.
(34:39):
You will do something through school. After school, that was
cond of, he said. But I'm going to put a
thousand dollars in your savings account, and I'm going to
pay you minimum wage at the time was four twenty five.
He su, I'm gonna pay you through payroll. I think
I needed after Social Security, Medicare and taxes about two
sixty at the time. But he said, uh you and
(35:03):
if you want extra work, I'll find you somem overtime,
pay you time and a half to pay roll, he said.
But however much money you have saved when you turn
I'm gonna put a thousand dollars in your savings account.
That's what you start with. However much money you have
saved when you turn sixteen, I will buy you a
vehicle for that amount of money. You don't spend your money,
but you can't touch it until you're twenty one, and
(35:28):
I say, that's creating a miser one oh one. I
had seventy.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Five overtime coming.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I had seventy. I was working every chance, like I
was cutting loans in my neighborhood, everything everything I could do.
I did baseball card shows. But I had seventy five
hundred dollars saved when I was sixteen, and he bought
me a vehicle for seventy five hundred dollars. And that
was a foundation to just having Buffett talks about having
(35:57):
your house paid for, and everybody in the world of
economics is you don't you want to leverage your house,
you know, cheap money, good asset backed investment. But he says, no,
it's a peace of mind. How you want to live.
You want to live without head trash. And and that's
(36:17):
kind of what that taught me, is, hey have this foundation.
It's hard when you it's hard when you're grow in
a business and growing five kids and now they go
to private school and now got one going to college.
I have two of them drive. Now one's about to
be driving as well, and there's a lot insurance, gas
(36:38):
and and they you know, it hadn't been the same.
So I've had to do my version of how I
raised my kids. Yeah, because life's different than it was.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
But he was laying some foundation with not just on
the kind of financial stewardship of things, but he was
also teaching you work ethic well. So as a leader
of a of a growing scaling company one hundred and
forty plus one hundred and forty seven employees current day,
I think.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
What do you see?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
What are the challenges that you're seeing, whether there's always
challenges And I'll tell you this. We do a business
management communications system. We started about three years ago. We
have a coach, Robert Fish. I'm sure there's another term
other than coach. Sorry, Robert. Entrepreneurial Operating System EOSUS. We've
(37:27):
done in about three years. It's been world changing for
our business. But our one main goal in ten years.
So we're three years in and we it's hard because
you go in stints is to employee five hundred. We
call them family units, you know, because we want the
(37:49):
kids to be around the business at the cornhole tournament,
messing around the office on Saturday like I was. So,
so that's our goal. So we do. We started along
with this several years ago, you know, we've evolved for
being a real tight everything's kind of kept in the family.
You don't want to talk about money to your staff
(38:11):
and they don't understand numbers. To HEYLO, let's do the
opposite through EOS, we're educating our staff. They can't help
us make money on our asset or add money to
everybody's for a one K if they don't understand how
it works. Furthermore, they can't improve their family if they
(38:32):
don't understand how it works financial education. But we do
quarterly town halls and we champion that. Our goal was
five hundred family units. And we got a lot of
pushback on that last year. And it was shocking to
me because I wouldn't what's the matter with that? But
(38:55):
these folks said, we love working for a family business,
this tight knit. We don't want to work for a
big old business.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I fear it's going to get so big you don't
feel the family family environment anymore.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And uh. And we told them the way they're able
to improve their income they're returned, the way they're able
to add more money to therefore a one K, the
way they're able to have better health insurance and and
and do easier physical jobs that they can last longer
(39:28):
in the business is by us adding those talented folks.
And uh, I never thought that would be a pushback,
but then we got to go educate them on that
and we got to live it. It can't just be bigger, better,
fig there's not better. Uh. Dad used to always say,
he said, son, he was trying to temper my excitement. Uh,
(39:50):
he'd say, you know, every bit bigger is worse. You know,
smaller yard to better yard. Well, well that's good if
you want a little lifestyle business. Uh. But I have
a goal to empower people. And my brother is one
hundred percent bought in on our goal, and our leadership
team is and I want to see people excel. And
(40:11):
uh I mean, I mean, just in relative terms, we didn't.
My biggest hire in two thousand and three was a
book keeper for a forty two thousand dollars year salary.
In two thousand and three, we were fifty three year
old business. And I'm blessed to say we have tons
(40:37):
and tons of family units that make well over that
now and have a four to one k and have
health insurance and get vacations and drive a company vehicle
and do all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
So I love how you reference the operating system model,
whether it's EOS or other operating systems, and we run
an operating system at Thompson and it's been a game
changer in reference to how transparent we are with our
performance data, our financial performance, you name it. And it
really has required us to have more intentionality about how
(41:10):
we communicate, how we meet becoming more efficient, and how
we do those things very intentional, and how we run
very similar. We don't have a ten year goal, but
we have a five year goal of serving eight thousand
lives plus their families on an on any given year,
that's clients for us, it'll probably end up being eleven
(41:31):
hundred employees plus their families in order to make that
happen in our body of work. But that operating system
is so important. I kind of tell our team it's
like your computer. If your computer operating system isn't functioning,
then your computer doesn't work. So think of it that
way in the business. So if the operating system isn't
you're not running that the right way, or it's not
running the right way, it's not going to function the
(41:52):
way it's supposed to. So it's been a game changer.
It's good to hear other leaders and businesses say the
same thing.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Well, you know, over over my twenty five year career,
UH and my brother's you know, pretty much hand in hand.
You know, we've we've embraced and invested a lot of
money in in Sadler sales training.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Is is at the heart of our sales culture. Uh.
But to my example earlier, if you if you don't
have more bandwidth and a bigger a bigger organization and
more staff, you can't invest in an entrepreneurial operating systright,
you're flying by the seat of your pants, which is
which is valuable. We did it good. We're hardworking people
(42:38):
and we're honest. When I came into what you can't
take back. My granddad, my dad, my uncle, Ken Laney,
mister Roby, they created fred Leroy. Uh, I mean they
created we were known as uh honest as the day
is long, harder working than anybody doesn't always doesn't always
(42:59):
uh get done right, but they'll always get it done
right in the end. And I you know the old
school that's out there thirty years or sweating tier forty
eighty hours a week. I always said, hey, let's be
the hardest working, let's be the honest, but let's always
be working to study and get educated and create systems
(43:23):
to where we're trying to let it go wrong less
we'll fix it. And they go, oh, well, that's not
why you say we don't you know, we never mess up,
you know, with your heart, sweat and blood and tears
is in it. But that's kind of been our goal
and it's been embraced, and it was changing our culture.
(43:46):
And I always use the analogy, you can wear twenty
dollars blue jeans are two hundred dollars blue jeans. Why
do you wear two hundred dollars blue jeans? Because they
make you feel better? They laugh longer. But that's a
ten x payment. It's ten times you're paying ten times.
(44:06):
And I'm not saying we're twenty dollars blue jeans are
two hundred dollars blue jeans. I'm just saying people, we're
two hundred dollar blue jeans, and then were two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I little out of my league, but uh yeah, now
you're right about it. I think your mindset on that's right.
So let's as we kind of wrap this up. So
we talked about what Rugby was known for, what what
are you known for now? And then what do you
want to be known for, if anything different in the
future and your ten year plan.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I want to be known as the best rand family business.
That's not just the Hasting family. I mean we're a
family business because we're not blood, because we're all united.
And I want to compete. You know a book that
our business has built off of good to great what
(44:58):
was big in the early two thousands through Sandler that
was introduced and then take it the smaller business similar
book Breakthrough Companies as another book. But uh, I want
to I want to compete with the companies that I
think are the best. I mean I want to compete
with with companies like Berkshire. That doesn't mean be as
(45:21):
big as Berkshire, but be be as good for all
the right reasons. And the right reasons are our integrity
and and honesty and and diligence and hard work. But
you don't always have to do it the hard way.
Why not study and figure out how to do a
little easier route go to I don't go through the mud,
(45:43):
drive on the pavement. So uh, but that's what I want.
I just want I just want us to be known
as good damn people that have a sustainable business and
and and and if you join us and you commit,
you'll find success through that. That's awesome, and success at
and all money. It's a it's a quadrant. I more
(46:04):
say ability to to help till Lee raise a family,
but it's it's time and it's showing love to your family.
We want employees that love their families. And and honestly,
we're all human. Nothing's perfect. Everybody needs grace. We want
a company build on grace and uh, nobody's right, no,
(46:27):
you know not. We're all gonna fail. We're all human. Yeah,
So I.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Love that to commit commitment to family, commitment to faith.
I'm hearing commitment to leadership, learning a lot of the
things that we believe in at Thompson's that we share
a lot of those those those mindsets and beliefs and
how we're running our businesses. And obviously I have no
doubt that you're gonna hit that ten year goal five
hundred family units.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
The love and I love how you're thinking about that,
you know, because a lot of a lot of you know,
like we're thinking about how many lives we can impact
through our services other organizations or will think about numeric
dollar amounts in the future and those type of things.
So I think it's really cool and commendimle that your
your goal is like, we want to have five hundred
family units that work here in our organization and everything
(47:16):
else will work itself out, and you have faith in
that that I will happen.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
I mean my euphoric thought is we have multiple offices,
and I drop in on an office in ten years
and there's five or ten folks that work for us,
and they got ten or fifteen kids running around messing
around while their dads or moms are doing something, just
(47:41):
picking up some you know, and they fill at home.
That's what it's about. I mean, you know, so and through.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
That, you're going to have that multiple multi generational workforce
through those other families too. You have you seen any
of that outside of the Hasten family, other multi generational.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Oh in our business? Yes, heck yeah. I tell our
staff at the town Halls. My best feeling is is
when the child of one of our long tenured employees
wants to work at our business, it's really cool. When
they work as a teenager it's really really cool when
(48:18):
they get out of school, whatever schooling they do, and
they want to make a career out of it, that
is cool, and we have that. I'll tell you one
other thing, uh, you know, being a family business and
doing business with with other great business leaders. Outside of
our family business, my friends, everybody says always is you
(48:38):
know one of your kids going to run to business
or one of Travis's kids, And uh, they might work
at the business, but I have folks that are leading
this business. Uh. I spoke about Dave and Patrick and
many others. But let's grow the business. I mean, I
(48:58):
don't I don't see it as a nepotism thing. Maybe
they maybe they'll be the best, that they could be
the CEO of the Ruby family. But I see them
more running a business that we don't even know about
today that feeds off of our flywheel. That's what I see.
So we'll see. I don't know, I know, I know
I have a couple entrepreneurs out of my five. We'll
(49:21):
see what happens. Well, I don't want no.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Doubt in mind that the best is yet to come.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
And see.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Thanks for thanks for coming on board, and thank you.
Will spend a little bit more time with me.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I know we chatted last week prior to Thanksgivin really
enjoyed that, but thank you again for coming on and
being part of CEOs You should Know.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Brought to you by iHeartMedia, empowered by Thompson
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