Ryan Murphy, CEO of Magic Maintenance

Episode Transcript
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Joshua Maddux (00:08):
Welcome back to the Voices of Business, a Santa Clarita
Valley Chamber of Commerce podcast.
It's good to be with you.
I'm your host, Joshua.
My co host, Corey Nathan, isoff on another adventure, and
we'll have to hear that about,about that one at a later date.
I am so glad this week to be talkingwith another awesome local business
owner here in the Santa Clarita.

(00:28):
We talk about business all overSanta Clarita, really all over the
nation, the world, and the country.
But a lot of the business owners thatwe talk with are right here on our own
backyard in our hometown, Santa Clarita.
Sometimes we don't stick to business.
We talk through leadership,management, life, and wherever the
spirit and the conversation takes us.
Please remember to subscribe.

(00:48):
If you haven't already, tell a friend,give us a good rating, leave a review.
Those all help get theword out about the show.
And today I'm super excited to behaving a conversation with Ryan
Murphy, the CEO of Magic Maintenance.
Ryan, good to have you on.

Ryan Murphy (01:02):
Thank you, Joshua.
I

appreciate it.
Look forward to it.
Awesome.
Well, I know I've grown up here locally inSanta Clarita and I know I've seen, seen
the business name around, um, a long time.
You guys, you guys have beenhere for, for just a bit.

Forever.
Yeah.
Since 1964, uh, Magic Maintenancehas been a Santa Clarita staple.

1964.
So we're coming, we're on 60years from now, that's right.

60 years.

That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Yeah, my

family's owned it for, uh, since 1985, so.
Okay.
Long time.

Now, now, you, uh, you obviously didn't start that, um, you know,
you said your family owned it since then.
So what was your, what wasyour career path before that?
Did you say construction and, andthat director, you know, direction
is something you wanted to do?
No.

No.
I, uh, I wanted to be a sports agent.
That was kind of my, that was my game.
I was big sports fan growing up andthe business back in the eighties and
nineties was predominantly janitorial.
So in carpet and upholsterycleaning, that's what my parents did.
Cleaned all the model homes backwhen Valencia company was building
out, you know, new Holland and farm.

(02:24):
So we were doing all the modelhomes and all the final cleans.
And, uh, that was their game.
And I just.
Wanted no part of it.
As a kid, we were in the back, my brotherand I, filling spot, spotter bottles for,
uh, for chemical spot cleaning on carpet.
Your hands, you'd go to school andyour hands had blisters on them and the
teachers were like, what are you doing?
Slave labor on the weekends?

(02:44):
And my brother and I were justsitting here going, Yeah, we
were filling hot spotter bottle,you know, spotter chemical.
And, you know, so that was how it was.
So I wanted to know part of it anddecided, uh, wanted to be a sports agent.
My dad and I were big sports fansand, uh, started going to college
and my dad got diagnosed with cancer.
And I was like, Whoa.

(03:06):
Um, and at that point we'd starteddoing painting and drywall as well.
Back in the late nineties, 99, we boughtout a painting and drywall company.
And we did all work for builders.
So builders were like, Hey, you wantto do our customer service work and
you guys are super clean already.
What can you do to be special?
And I, I actually, that was when Ifirst got an interest in the business.
So I started working in the companyand one thing led to another and

(03:31):
dad got real sick and I said,you're not selling this business.
So I decided to go all in on itand he put some hard training in.
And for the next five years, I, five, sixyears, I learned right under his tutelage.
And then.
Ended up passing away in 09.
So, but at that point we startedchanging the game and we became
a whole different company.

(03:54):
Wow.

Yeah.
A lot, a lot to unpack there, you know,taking, taking a little bit of a step
back, you know, you mentioned, youknow, from an education perspective.
So, you know, the business hasbeen in Santa Clarita for 60 years.
So did you grow up, grew up inSanta Clarita high school here?

Canyon high school.
Yeah.
Went to Canyon, went to, it was thefirst, you know, full graduating
class at La Mesa when the Mesa opened.
So Valencia High School had opened.
So some of the kids went to Valenciaand, you know, it was at the same time
La Mesa came about, went to Canyon andCOC for two years and was getting ready
to go to SC when this whole thing took a.

(04:31):
Got it.
Yeah.

Yeah.
And that seems to be, it's crazy.
Like we've had over a dozendifferent conversations now with
business owners in Santa Clarita.
And that's the common theme.
Like I made a plan.
This is where my education was going.
This was my career trajectoryand life made a left turn.

(04:56):
And whether it was, you know,someone dropped out of college or
didn't complete or did finish, but.
You know, has a degree in one fieldthat has a job in another, and that
seems to be more common than not that,you know, aren't necessarily today
where you think you were gonna be.

No, you know, it's, uh, I'm the, for a while
I was like, you know what?
I want to go on in this sports thing.
I wanted to get my law degree, wantedto be in the law, wanted to be a
lawyer, wanted to go that whole route.
And then when I realized when I startedworking in the business pretty heavily
was the construction industry is abrotherhood and it's all about your word.

(05:41):
And it's all about.
When you tell somebody you'regoing to do it, you do it.
And if you don't see somebody forthree years, but you always took care
of them and then they see you, it'slike, you never missed a beat and
you're back right in, in good gracesand you're doing all their work again.
And I really fell in love with that whole,it reminded me of team sports in a sense.
You know, you rely on your brothers.

(06:02):
You take care of each other.
I grew up playing soccer.
Um, and that was one of thosethings for me that I was
just like, dude, I love this.
And ultimately that's why when he was.
Still contemplating even thoughit's like, don't sell it.
Um, he saw my passion for it andI wanted to change the business.
I didn't want to stick withwhat we were doing before.
And he's like, when I'm dead, youdo whatever you want right now.

(06:24):
You're going to do whatI said, what I say.
So I'm like, all right.
So, you know, I fell in love with itand here I am, you know, 25 years later.

Well, that's one of those things I think where the business was
working, you know, you know, Hey, don't,let, let, get your feet wet, get in
there, understand how the system works,you know, you can sort of, for lack of
a better term, like, coast a little,rather than like, I'm gonna overhaul

(06:52):
everything and change everything.

Not with my dad.
There was no coasting.
It was like, it's 530 in the morning,I'm in the office, where are you?

Yeah, and not just like coasting, but more in the aspect of
like, you know, not changing everythingand adding 14 bit servers, like,
you know, that type of an element.
You're still not coasting.

Yeah, don't reinvent the wheel.

Yeah.

Owning

a small business is not coasting.

No.
Sometimes I wish I was a, youknow, I went the other route.
Maybe I should have been a,maybe I should have been a
sports agent, but nah, I love it.
I

don't know.
I don't know.

Nah, I love it.

So, so been a family business.
Um, you know, you sort of, you know,transit your, your dad passed away.
You transitioned in, uh, you know, boughtthat from, from the rest of the family.
Um, sort of carrying, carrying on thattorch, uh, leading on that legacy.

(07:51):
What is, what is sort of thatnext generation look like for you?
Obviously you've sort of alluded tothat a little bit with like, you know,
adding additional services, expanding thecompany, growing that, um, but what does
that sort of, what does that look like?

Yeah.
So when my mom and dad were partnersin the business, my dad was operations.
My mother was backend.
So she.
Was brilliant with the money.
She handled all that, handled theinvestment kind of side of it.
And my dad was a grinder and verysmart man, but he was a grinder.
And growing up in that, I said, youknow, there are certain things about

(08:28):
the business that I didn't want to do.
I didn't want to be out there in themiddle of the night cleaning model homes.
I didn't want to be out there, youknow, I wanted to have a family.
So, and my dad made a pointevery night, they're going to be
home by six o'clock for dinner.
That was our thing, right?
So, but I wanted to go into somethingthat tailored to my creativity.

(08:50):
And I really have I love design.
Um, I love the construction side.
I love the remodel side.
So we got out of doing commercialjanitorial final cleans.
And then it really made my,my staff really nervous.
Like, what are you, you'regetting out of this?
And then I got rid of my carpet andupholstery cleaning business side of it.

(09:11):
And I'm like, whoa,whoa, what are we doing?
I'm like, we're going to follow ourpassion and we really love construction.
I want to get into doing high endremodels and I want to get into
doing things with a particular eyeand you can go into a project and.
Homeowners giving you a little bit ofautonomy to do what you see fit in their
home and and let your vision run wild.

(09:33):
Um, got into doing mold remediationand the mold remediation side
of it was interesting becausewe did it all down south.
It's all basically Beverly Hills,Brentwood, Palisades, Santa Monica,
And we do a little bit of HOA stuffup here, but our pricing tends to
put us down in the market down there.

(09:54):
We don't do as hot here.
We don't do insurance work.
So when you don't do insurance work,people tend to want to rely on that.
And I tend to work a littlebit more for business managers.
And that became our niche.
So we got into the remediation, thegeneral construction and remodel
side, and the painting and drywall.
And we've made a name for ourselvesin, in those three lines of work.

(10:16):
Um, we have the HOA division.
So locally out here in Santa Clarita,I was like, you know what, we're
going to have this HOA division tostill have some janitorial, right?
We're going to maintain reccenters and communities.
And then that's going to be kind ofour last leader to get in the door.
And show them that we could do otherservices to help them, whether it's
their concrete, their block walls,you know, painting their clubhouses or

(10:38):
doing the remodels on their bathrooms.
It allowed us to havedifferent sectors of business.
So when the economy does shift, wecould be working in real estate.
We could be in, you know,the industrial side.
We could be on the commercialside, the residential side.
So it's, it's given usa lot of flexibility.
It's worked out.
And now moving forward, it's.

(11:01):
A lot of, a lot of focus on theconstruction remodel side, the
remediation, the painting and drywall.
Those have been really trying to growthose, but I'm not the big painter
out here, not trying to go outthere and, you know, paint the Taj
Mahal or, you know, whatever it is.
I just, we like to stay in our nicheand I believe we have a good niche.

I think, I think there's a few elements there to unpack.
One is, you know, you're talkingabout diversity a little bit in
what you guys, the offering was.
And looking at where we are todayand the housing market over the past
few years, like they've obviouslynot been building as fast as they

(11:46):
have historically in Santa Clarita.
Now they're talking about a handful ofdifferent expansions and other, you know,
places that they're looking at building.
Like I'm on the far end of candycountry and there was a project
that they were supposed to put in500 homes and then another 500 and
another five, it was like 1500 homes.
Connecting.
Um, Soledad and Shadow Pinesup over to Sierra Highway.

(12:09):
So you could actually go up Soledad, takea left onto Shadow Pines and then take
that all the way out to Sierra Highway.
And that whole 1500 homes, like theyhad some tractors back there moving
dirt and then interest rates shifted.
And they were like, Nope.
And they hit a pause on that.
And so with that not coming intothe market, like there's not
as many model homes to clean.

(12:30):
And so, you know, it's thatelement of like hindsight's 2020.
It's like.
Okay, what would we as a businesshave done during this stage of the
economy if we wouldn't have shifted?
Um, and who knows?
There could have been other thingsyou guys found, but, um, obviously
expanding into stuff like, youknow, I know, um, I know a few other

(12:53):
businesses out here that do, you know,locally, uh, mold remediation, and
some of that type of stuff, and, uh,You know, there's obviously, there's
always going to be that as a problembecause water damage just happens.
Like we can prepare as much as wecan for it, but inevitably, like

the night before you go on vacation, your pipe breaks.
Yeah.

Yeah.
My, my neighbor next door literallywas on vacation for a few days.
He got home and he waslike, Oh, that's weird.
I got some water on my front porch.
Oh, Gardner must've watered the plant.
That's there.
Went inside.
Like, a day or two later, he walksinto, he opens the door in the front
bedroom, and the pipe that was in theslab had been leaking and bubbling up
through that room, and the whole room,the, all the carpet was just totally

(13:43):
drenched, and it went down the drywall,the carpet, like all of that, and then
re pipe everything, and yeah, you don't,you don't plan for that, and nope.
You know, a remodel you can't, youcan plan for a little bit more,

but yeah.
Well, a lot of water damage in themarkets that we tend to service
more, they end up shifting a littlebit more into the remodel side.
They're like, well, We'realready tearing things apart.
You know, we have a homeowner righthere in Valencia, actually, that's
right over here by Bridgeport.
And it was the same thing.
They had a big water damage,whole downstairs flooded.

(14:17):
They hired a contractor.
They weren't super thrilled with the work.
And then they brought us into the foldand referred through our electrician.
And, uh, we walked in next thing,you know, it's this massive remodel.
Um, I mean, kitchen floors, smoothwalls, European style doors, I mean,

(14:37):
and the home is absolutely Oh, wow.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, uh,they went all out because they saw
the opportunity and they're like,well, we're already displaced.
And we weren't planning on this,but this is no better time than now.
So we, a lot of times we end upwalking into those situations.

Yeah.
My parents house, they had a, theyhad a A waterline rupture in the
kitchen, took out half the kitchen.
Um, and so they gutted it.
This is, uh, 10, 15 yearsago, 15 years ago, I think.
Um, they gutted the whole kitchen and thenit was like, well, the kitchen's gutted.
The den's right next to itis already partly damaged.

(15:18):
Like there's a wall there.
We might want to take it out.
Well, when we went totake the wall out, it was.
Um, my dad and I were doingsome of the demo work and we
went to take the wall out.
We realized it was a tilt up that theyjust, they already had a header beam.
They just tilted a wall in its place.
And then, so it was an optionalwall and we're like, Oh, well,
that's easy to knock down.
Like no engineering done.

(15:40):
Did that on one side of the kitchen.
Then we look at the otherside of the kitchen.
We're like, there's also a wall there.
Like, we might want to take that out.
So we start to rip the drywallback and there's the sewer line
for everything on the second floor.
Oh, just kidding.
And so the plumber's like, youknow, you can move any pipe,
like you can move any wall.
It's a matter of like, you know, youdon't need that load bearing wall there,

(16:03):
but you need to put the load somewhere.
So.
There's an engineering cost, there'slike, you know, Removing that wall may
cost you 100, 000, but you can remove it.
Like, and so they're like, well, yeah,everything was already opened up.
They already had a jackhammer out halfthe concrete in the kitchen, like to

(16:24):
get to the pipe anyway, to fix stuff.
And so they're like,we're already this far.
They're like, okay, what are welooking at to move that thing?
To just open up both sides.
And they're like, okay, let's do itbecause it was one of those things
where it's like, It's already a mess.
Like you might as well just do itnow rather than a few years later, be

(16:45):
like, Oh man, it would have been like.
Three more grand to get rid of that.
So

very common.

So you guys, you guys are a family, you know, family business.
Do you guys have immediate familiesto work in the company or is it now?
It's, you know, what doesthat dynamic look like?
Yeah.

So when I took over in 08, um, my brother was a police officer.
Um, he was down in VenturaPD. He's a motor cop.
And my mother was.
Not wanting any part of it.
I mean, she was still in it.
That was her way of coping, youknow, just doing the back end.
And I was a sales guy, so I would be outthere selling and running the operations.

(17:26):
Basically took my dad's position.
And then what ended up happening ismom kind of started stepping away.
Um, and she was, you know, out of it.
My brother decided he,Well, he didn't decide.
Tours the LCL.

Oh.

Yeah, straight out of, straight out of the movie Point Break, you
know, jump the wash, comes down, lands,there goes his knee, bad guy gets away.
So, that was that whole thing.
He comes back, you know, I think itwas like literally the first day or
first week he was back on tour again.
And they medically retiredhim from the police force.
And I was like, well, dude, mom's retired.

(18:05):
You know, why don't you comeon and do HR? And kind of

bottles for you to fill in back bottles

in the back.
Did you miss the blisters?
Um, so he's like, mom was trying to, youknow, work this deal because frankly, I,
I really didn't want him working with me.
We were oil and water asfar as personality wise.
Um, I was always like, hey, let's do it.
We can do anything.
And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We can't do that.
And you know, we were optimistpessimists a little bit.

(18:33):
He came from, you know,seeing a lot of violent crime.
So it's a little different when you getinto a family service business where
everybody's like, you know, rah, rah, rah.
Um, but it was probably the best move mymother ever made was engineering that.
So Yeah, she got us together and itwas tough sledding for the first four

(18:54):
years, really, if he and I together.
He lived here.
He ended up buying a house six doorsdown from me, seven doors down from me.
We never saw each other, eventhough we lived on the same street.
Um, except when we did our Sundaywalks, um, but, um, it's been great.
He ended up moving to Colorado.

(19:15):
So he works remotely for me now.
So he does HR and kind of back endand deals with all of the nightmare
stuff that not only do I not havethe patience for, um, or the, you
know, know how, he's, he's brilliant.
So he handles the back end of the businessnow for me and I get to do what I love.

(19:35):
And it works great.
Now we have a better relationshipthan ever and it's he and I. So
I run the, I own the businessand he's my right hand man.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.
So it sounds like there's a lot oflike hands on experience, hands on
leadership, just hand, like justfiguring it out, getting the nitty
gritty of it, just figuring outwhat, what needs to be done there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I have, may not be family, but I've got a lot of managers
who've been here for like 25 years, so.
I mean, Lourdes, yeah, I mean, my brothermight be my right hand, Lourdes is My
left hand or the other one and Victor,you know, they're they've been here 25
years themselves and You know when youhave managers that have been with you that

(20:22):
long through your whole maturation in thebusiness We all came in at the same time.
Um It's you become family.
Yeah, so We have agentleman who works for us.
It's been here since I was five yearsold and And i'm gonna be 42 here
and he's he's still Juan, I meanhe's he's still working away and You

Yeah, at that point, yeah, that's all, those are all family.
Yeah.
So, looking at just, you know, industryconditions and changes in both your
guys industry, sort of the economicalshift, economic shift, and some of
that, how has the business changedor adapted, you know, over the years?

(21:16):
And some of those could be like, Obviouslythe chemicals that you guys used 30 years
ago and use today are probably differentbecause California laws have changed.
Also, if you know where toget like actual paint, not the
water based stuff they have.
Anyway.

Well, yeah, the paints obviously have changed.
They got some new good products,these alkyd emulsion kind of deals.
But, um, the chemicals, yeah, we've goneto a little bit more of the green side.
We use a product called Bio Esc forour, you know, um, Um, it's a thyme
based chemical, um, but it's superclean, used in the food industry,
and it came about because of COVID.
So, COVID was, yeah, COVIDwas a big change for us.

(21:56):
Um, I started doing a little janitorialcleaning, you know, movie sets, or
providing people out there disinfectingso they can continue to shoot.
Um, and there's a greatstudio out here, LA North.
that started really using our team a lot.
And the owners over there, John andAnthony, were fantastic, big supporters.
And we actually got into doing some airscrubber rental together, but they really

(22:19):
started introducing me to other chemicalsthat I needed to, you know, bring into
the film industry to make it work.
So we brought this productBioEscin and it's worked great.
We use it in homeowner associations,we disinfect, it's like basically
you can clean anything with it.
Then we have, you know, obviouslyour other cleaners now that are
mostly green cleaning chemicals.

(22:41):
Um, but outside of that, as far as howwe have shifted and how we've changed.
I'm pretty old school.
Um, I feel like, you know, I wasraised, my dad always had a pad of
paper here with a pen in his pocket,and I did too for the first 10 15

(23:01):
years, because obviously dad did,right, and the toothpick in the mouth.
Um, but I ended up realizing that a lotof the old school methods work best.
And there's a reason they were donefor so many years that way, and I've
been, it's really been difficult forme to adapt and change with some of the

(23:21):
newer age kind of ways of doing things.
Um, but we, you know, we're working on it.
We're getting there.
Um, I'm always trying to be at theforefront of construction side of things.
Um, you know, the way homes are built,uh, the way we can soundproof product,
you know, projects, um, you know, product,uh, products that we use that are going

(23:42):
to last much longer, because a lot of theproducts today, because they have changed,
they don't maybe have the longevity.
Um, also it's become aproduction based business, right?
So how fast can you do it?
And as you see with all thehomes, they throw up out here.
Um, the reason I'm in thatindustry is because when you

(24:04):
build them so fast, there's boundto be an issue here and there.
Which means job security.
They're so cookie cutter.

I know we, we moved and bought a home in Candy Country in 2020,
and man, touring homes in 2020 was weird.
Um, but I can't tell you how many,like, we walked through some tracked
homes and some new stuff, and I waslike these are, yeah, you just you just
flipped the living room and the kitchen.

(24:32):
Like, that's all you did.
It's the same layout asthe last two we looked at.
You just, you know, Flip the rooms.
Like,

yeah, I mean, there's, there's always been a lot of that.
Um, production's a different, youknow, it's a different game, but you
know, in that sense for the guys likemyself, the faster they build them,
the more business I get, not only ona production standpoint, but on when
you're trying to have, you know, theyused to have back in the 2004 boom,

(25:03):
you'd have like a superintendent,one or two assistant superintendents.
Then you'd have customerservice reps on each project.
Well, then that kind of went awayand it was like, well, you got one
superintendent and one guy that kind ofassists a couple of projects or so there's
only so much that these guys can do.
And the build schedules gottighter and tighter and tighter.

(25:23):
And the cities became overwhelmedwith trying to do inspections and the
plumbing companies and the framers andeverybody else got spread thin because
who wants to run away from a dollar?
It was, let's just get it done.
And that led to reallygiving us more business.
Unfortunately for the builders,I mean, they've taken some hits.

(25:45):
But I'm pretty sure that, you know,with the way the, over the years,
the inflation has taken place andhow the economy's rising out here,
our home values have gone up.
They're making a pretty penny.
So, you know, we're coming in therestill trying to give our best dollar
or our best price to them to be lockedin, but it's a different game, man.

Yeah.
Have you guys seen, I'm interested insort of your insights on this, have
you guys seen a higher rate in theindustry of people retiring and leaving
the industry than new people coming in?

There's nobody that wants to work in construction.
So even the people that were coming over,you know, coming up here from Mexico
that were a lot of our labor force,or South American countries, that's
even more difficult to get them nowbecause they have computers also, right?
So if they can learn a computer scienceprogram or they can get into other

(26:44):
industries and have more opportunities,why go get your hands dirty?
Um, so you've seen, we used to have,literally, I'd walk in the office every
week and I'd have at least 10 peoplea week sitting in our lobby wanting
a job, even when unemployment wasdown, because They were coming over,

(27:05):
whatever the case was, they wantedjobs, they just, you know, got their
work visa, whatever that case was.
Now, we're like, we have to payemployees, um, basically finder's fees.
for bringing people that'll stay with us.
And you get a certain amount of moneywhen they stay at three months or, you

(27:25):
know, you know, you know, six months,you get money based on the amount of
time that that person stays employed.
And then we give that employee sometimes,okay, if they're going to come over and
leave a job, you know, to come over here,it's like you have to almost give them
like a, like a signing bonus in a sense.
It's a whole different industry.
Um, it's, it's tough because a lot ofthe guys that I have in our painting and

(27:49):
drywall division, for example, I've got10 guys in that division, that division
that have been with us more than 18 years,and they're getting older and they're
the ones that built our reputation,you know, we were known in the industry
as the guys that can match texture, soyou can go in a house and people have
these flood cuts or ceiling bursts.

(28:10):
And they bring a production companyin there and there'd be dust
everywhere, the texture didn'tmatch, homeowner wasn't happy.
Our true skill set was making itlook like it truly was the way
it was the day you bought it.
And that's what we specialize in.
And to this day, that'swhy the builders use us.
We're clean and we can make itlook like it never happened.

(28:32):
So when that, when that occurs,It's great, but now I'm seeing these
guys start to retire and I'm beggingthem, Hey, please train the new guys.
Train the guys that are coming in.
And we've had some great stewardship.
So, you know, some great guys, um,we have a guy here, Gerardo, who's,
I mean, he's trained, I couldn't eventell you, 10, 15 drywall guys with us.

(28:56):
Um, I have, you know, two wandsthat work for us, the same thing.
They've been fantastic, great painters.
Um, we have a guy, Alex, who leadsour construction division, who's
passing his knowledge on to the otherguys in our construction division.
And Alex is a younger guy, buthe came with the skill set.
So it is much different.
Um, we do see a higher rate of peoplewanting to, but it's harder to retire now.

(29:16):
So they stay workinga lot later into life.
Um, but we have a lot less youngpeople coming in to want to work.

Yeah.
Which is crazy.
And the one thing I will say, likeas a business owner, it's really good
that you guys are acknowledging likeemployee A has all this knowledge.
That they have that you guys are settingstuff up so they can pass that on.
So you guys are encouraging that becauseif you don't, then that old workforce

(29:50):
retires, you guys bring in a new one.
And now other than the processes,procedures, and customer service,
the frontline is an entirelydifferent company, more or less
like an entirely different crew.
And now, customer service changes,quality of work changes, like, and

There you go.
Quality of work changes.
And that's everything to me.
I mean, you can have a hole inyour ceiling and we patch it, and
the homeowner's like, oh my gosh,you guys are fantastic, and I
walk in and I can see that patch.
I literally freakedone of my managers out.
I was like, sorry ma'am, I'mso happy you love it, but we're
going to have to redo that patch.
And my manager looks at me and I go,I'm not going to let a patch they can

(30:28):
see like this stay in their ceilingwhen somebody else is going to walk in
that house and go, Oh, you had a leak.
I don't want anybody to know that.
This is our reputation and our guys inthe field have that pride of ownership.
And that's why our reputations lasted.

Good.
That's, I mean, it's sustainingquality, longevity, and that Also
ensures like longevity of just whereyou guys are at the company as a
whole, which is, which is really good.
Thank you though.
Awesome.
What would you say is sort of likeyour most important habit or sort of
mindset that contributes to eitherpersonal success and or company success?

Um, two things I always tell my team, we don't run away
from problems, we run towards them.
Um, so that's always been kind ofthe thing I was raised with that.
Um, if there's a problem, why are yougoing to defer taking that phone call?
Like, that homeowner's maybe had an issue.
Just face it head on,be upfront, be honest.

(31:33):
Tell them what it is.
And a lot of times 99 percent of peopleare going to be understanding and
let you work through the situation.
Because we're not perfect.
So that is a big mindset I have.
Um, I've also always been Thissounds really bad, but I've
always been driven by the dollar.
So, you know, as a kid, I had adream that by the age of 30, I

(31:54):
wanted to have a Ferrari, right?
So I had a FerrariTestarossa poster on my wall.
And my parents, I used to always tryto design little things, thinking I was
going to make it rich as a kid by havingsomething get, you know, patented, and I'm
going to go on to be this guy that can sitat home and drive a Ferrari and not work.
And what I realized is.

(32:16):
When everybody else is at home andhanging out and sleeping, you have to work
because you have to find the advantage.
So I'm not the smartest guy inmy company, in the room, not.
I'm a college dropout.
Um, but I, my whole goal is if Ican work harder than you, um, I'm

(32:37):
going to gain respect, number one.
And number two, I'm going to have anadvantage because the guy that's putting
in, you know, eight hours a day, isn'tgoing to be able to hold a candle
to me working till 2 in the morning.
Now, I don't do that every nightlike I used to, but I'm a big thing
as I want to get home, be there formy children's sports or activities,

(32:57):
have dinner with the family, andthen when I put them to bed at 8.
30, 9 o'clock, I love my wife,but I got things to do, and
I'm gonna go back to work.
And so, the one thing I always tellmy team is, Be honest to a fault.
I'm sorry.
You got to tell them what it is,what it is, run towards the problem
and you got to outwork everybody.

(33:18):
And if you can just do that,I kind of feel, you know,
the old golden rules, right?
That it's so easy.
Business is so simple.
If you literally justfollow the golden rules.
And

that's, yeah, it's so true.
And I think it's interesting as you'retalking through those different elements,
I'm definitely seeing similarities.
Like those were definitelyinstilled in you from.
Your parents, like, because there'sa lot of those similarities that
are roles of an officer, like anofficer runs through a problem.

(33:53):
So like, as you were saying,your brother was an officer.
It was like, okay, that, that, thatmakes sense of why he went that path.
Because those are the same qualities,like, like you guys are running to a
problem, someone's house is flooded.
Like he's running into a problem.
Someone's in trouble.
Like now he's not, but anyway, it'slike, you know, those are, those are

(34:15):
Both issues you're running to help fix.
Like

my parents were Midwest folks, right?
So my mom was from Chicago.
Uh, my dad was from Annapolis and theywere just raised with those Midwest
roots and it was like, it was family,it was honesty, it was, you know,
do what you say you're going to do.
And when you say you're going to do it.
Um, so that's what he, my motherand father built this business on.

(34:39):
And like you said, theyraised us that way.
We had no, there wasn't a,a second guess in your mind.
You know, it was, you wanted to do that.
Now, as a kid, you tend to embellishthings here and there, right?
You tend to make them a little bigger thanthey are, a little smaller than they are.
But as you get older and you settleinto your career, your roots really
become everything in your careerand your, in your trajectory.

(35:01):
And that's why there's so much, I feel,in our society that's gotten off base
and, and lack of, You know, I grew up my,even though my mom ran the back end of
the business, our whole childhood until Iwas like 12 or 13, she was home with us.
And having that stability, seeing yourfather work hard, your mother work hard

(35:24):
at home, it sets an example and you'reraised with different values where you
have so hard to live in California.
You have two parents working,nobody's home, these kids are going
home and it's here's some money.
And then that's why we have,I believe part of the reason
is we have a big drug issue.
You know, we have a bigdrug issue in this valley.
You know, I have an employee andwe have people that we know that

(35:45):
I've had people they love and thatare close to them pass away from
fentanyl and you hear it all the time.
And, um, friends I grew up withthat couldn't stay away from drugs.
And my parents were always like,look, just be honest with us.
I remember the first day.
I mean, anytime I had a momentouslike occasion occur in my life, I

(36:06):
couldn't wait to get home and sit atthe dinner table and tell my parents.
Okay.
I mean, hell, the day I lost my virginity,I went home and told my mom and dad
at the dinner table, and my mom'slike, I don't want to hear this, and
my dad's like High five, that a boy.
Now this is what you're goingto do and this is how you're
going to be responsible.
And that was really the same thingthat we, my wife and I, really try

(36:29):
to instill in our four children.

Well, I think that is one of the things that I see that just,
it, it hits hard for me because Igrew up with the same type of element.
We as a family sat around the tableand we had dinner, not all Every single
night, but 90 percent of the time, youknow, there was always something that

(36:54):
came up once a week or someone had extraor whatever it was, you know, going on.
And so, you know, that'swhat my family does now.
Like, we've got two littleones and do the same thing.
You know, our three and a halfyear old is like, Hey, what'd
you do at preschool today?
And you know, how, Oh,you're learning this.
So you made a new friendor whatever it is.

(37:17):
Like, but it's having those exactconversations and having your kids being
comfortable with having that conversationbecause the, Oh, you made a new friend.
Great.
Oh, you made that drawing.
Cool.
Like those conversations now turninto the bigger, deeper conversations.

(37:40):
years down the road.
And that's exactly like what you're sayingis then the conversation of I'm having
anxiety issues or I'm really strugglingin the school and I'm, you know,
struggling with depression or whateverthose elements are, aren't talked about

(38:03):
because that conversation of Look what Idid in the school today never happened.
And that open line ofcommunication is not there.
And so I think, I think you'rea hundred percent right.
Like we've seen so muchof a shift of that.
of those conversations not happening.
And, and so many people, likelittle kids that like, families

(38:30):
like, okay, dinner's served.
Everybody grab your plateand go to your rooms.
Like, it's crazy.
Why, why sit around atable and have a meal?

They had kids and they didn't want to have them is honestly
what, what ended up happening.
And it's like, my wifestarted this thing years ago.
Um, when we all sit down at dinnernow, I have two kids in club soccer.
I have one daughter who's a gymnastand a dancer and another one
who just does Competitive dance.
And then they've all done karate.
My son's a second degree black belt,my other daughter's a black belt, the

(39:01):
other one's a black belt, and the otherone's trying to become a black belt.
And that sense also kind of goes inline with building character, strong
mind, you know, doing these things.
But my wife said what we're going to dowhen we sit down is we're all going to
say our favorite thing of the day andour least favorite thing of the day.
Right, so everybody gets three favoritesand three least, and usually it's like

(39:24):
three favorites and one or two least.
And what you start to learn is, you startto see that some kids do have anxiety,
some of your kids, and some kids, theyhave bad dreams at night, and other
kids don't feel good about themselvesat school, so what that's led to is, I
never thought this would be the case,but we have two children that have gone

(39:44):
through therapy, and one that activelydoes it, and it's made a huge difference.
Because my one who's gone throughit, I have a son who's You know,
in junior high school now, andhe's had his first girlfriend.
And what does he do?
He sits with me andgoes, Dad, what do I do?
And he's showing me atext message with her.

(40:05):
I'm like, Oh my God, I get to be a kidagain and like help you text her back.
Like, let me tell you the lesson, son.
Always be respectful.
You may not, don't bethat jerk over there.
Who cares if she likes that boy?
You stay true to your rootsbecause ultimately you're
going to end up with the one.
Your mom and I werehigh school sweethearts.
And that happened becauseI didn't care about her.

(40:26):
I was the short kid and she wasthe hottest girl in the school.
And I landed her becauseshe had good values.
Your Nana and Abuelo raised herthe way that she read, she valued
a person versus he's the bad boyor he's the, you know, the football
quarterback or whatever it was.
And it all started back withthis, you know, so different.

(40:50):
Yeah.

Yeah.
Hey, I said, where arethe conversation takes us?
Yeah.

And I'm sorry about that, Josh.
I can go off on a tangent.

No, you're good.
And, and these are the types ofconversations that we love to have
because people may know the business name.
And in reality, it's like, okay, justanother construction maintenance company.
Like whatever, but it's like, cool.
What makes you guys, you like, andthat's what does like, you're a family.
You've, you guys have beenin business for 60 years.

(41:19):
Like you have guys on the staff whohave 15, 20, 25 years of experience,
both in the company and or industry.
Like those are the things thatmakes the business different then.
Someone else down the road.
And so those are the types of stuff welove, love having those conversations.
Um, well, we're going towrap it up here in a second.

(41:40):
I have two last questions.
The first one is what is one of thebiggest losses or mistakes, um, in
business that you, you've done andmaybe it didn't turn out the right
way or, or it led to something else.

Biggest loss or biggest mistake?
Um,
I've been pretty fortunate.
Um, there, there hasn'tbeen a lot of big losses.

(42:16):
The one thing I learned is documentation,documentation, documentation,
um, photograph, photograph.
And when you think you have enoughphotographs, more photographs.
And when you think you haveenough plastic, add more, right?
That's another one.

Especially in, especially in your industry where you guys are coming
in and it's like, Oh, the damage is here.
And then you come back and they're like,there's this wall, you know, on the
other side of the house that also has,and you're like, how is that related?

Yeah, I mean, and it's probably, I'm probably going
to hang up with you and say, ohgosh, that was my biggest mistake.
Um, I would say my biggest, mybiggest issue is sometimes I tend to,
I don't want to say spend too much,but I, I get invested and sold too

(43:05):
quickly in ideas for the business.
And sometimes I'll make a big purchaseon equipment or I'll, I'll think we're
going to do, go a different directionor I'll, I hired a consultant at one
point and I paid this guy like, youknow, 25, 30, 000 for absolutely nothing.
Um, you know, I've had those thingsand then I keep coming back to it.

(43:26):
Now we just invested more money thanI'd ever like to admit into Salesforce.
Um, so we have a CRM platform and ithas been the biggest struggle I've
ever faced in my, My business career,getting it launched because we have

exact description, I think should be their marketing headline.
I own a marketing agency and I can't tellyou how many companies we had a client
who literally signed up for Salesforce.
The salesperson was like, Oh, thiswill do this, this, this, like gave
them all the things that can do it.
They're like, this is amazing.
They got set up and they're like.
It can't do any of that.
No, like, Oh yeah, you have to hirea company to customize it for you.

Which is what I'm doing.
So I am heavy six figures into customizingand do my contract with Salesforce.
Um, but I will say this.
Shane in my office, he and his sisterwork for me and they're fantastic.
Um, and they're both kind of the onespushing me out of my shell of, Hey,

(44:24):
you got to be a little bit more newschool and Lourdes, who's my right hand.
She's kind of right there with them.
And Lourdes, myself and Shane made adecision to do Salesforce and it was.
I was literally on the golf coursefor my birthday, uh, three years
ago down in, um, Palm Desert.
And I'm walking to my car and I see acard on the floor in the parking lot.

(44:46):
It was a Salesforce card.
And I picked up the card and thatwas the beginning of the end.
And I literally went back and said,Hey guys, I've heard about this.
What are we going to do about this?
Next thing you know,we're into Salesforce.
So, what I would say to expedite this,because I know we're under a time crunch,
is we still haven't fully launched.
We are two years into this, andnow we have, you know, our painting

(45:10):
division is starting to use it, um,our HOA division uses it, our molding
construction divisions, we're kind ofgetting there, um, but it is a big change.
When you come from a paper schedulebook, I mean, hell, Josh, don't laugh.
But I mean, I still schedule myappointments on a binder, and people

(45:31):
laugh at me like, what are you doing?
I'm like, well, when I'm driving inthe car, I gotta write fast, right?
And I still haven't fully cometo technology, and neither
has 90 percent of my staff.
You know, these are guys in thefield that, you know, they work
with their hands for a living.
Now you're telling them to grab theirphones and type in what they did for
the day, and click a button to sendit to their time cards, and It's not

(45:55):
been my biggest mistake because Iultimately think it's going to be what
saves us as a business, but it has beenmy biggest investment and hard, the
biggest hardship I faced in my career.

I guess hardship you faced Salesforce.
I will, uh,
I have seen, I will say we'vedone some Salesforce integration.
So like we, we built a website for ourclient that actually integrates fully
with their Salesforce, pull Salesforceobjects publicly onto their website.
Uh, they have like anevent management thing.
And.
There are instances of Salesforce thatI've seen that are set up beautifully

(46:34):
and make businesses run amazing.
And the problem is, like you said,it's six figures to get there.
Um, and that's what a lotof people don't realize.
They're like, Oh, it's justthe Salesforce subscription.
It's like, no, it's not.
Like, that's the cheap part.

Well, it was the cheap part.
I have a lot of employees and youhave to have a lot of users and
those users everyone equals dollars.
And I feel guilty because everyyear we do a big Christmas party.
You know, we're, we're at the Odyssey.
We have everybody out there.
It's a time for us to dance andhave fun and kind of let your hair
down and just enjoy each other.

(47:17):
And we do bonuses usuallythe week before that.
And I'm going.
Oh my gosh, we've been verysuccessful as a company, but
I've put so much into Salesforce.
I don't think their bonusescan be what we're used to.
And now I've been in this struggle overthe literally every night this week.

(47:38):
Already working at night trying to figureout the numbers because I want them
to get those bonuses that they're usedto, that they deserve, because they're
leaving their families to be here withme and they're working when we're on
call because every, every week fourdifferent people have to rotate on call.
Um, there is, there's,

(47:59):
It's a lot, man.
It's a lot.

Owning a business.

It's a blessing and it's a lot.
They go first.
The team goes first.

Awesome.
Well, do you have any questionsfor me before we wrap up?
We, uh, flipped the tables on it.

Oh, man, you know, I wasn't expecting this, so You know, the only
thing, I don't know much about you, didyou, you said you live in canyon country.
Did you go to Canyon High School as well?

No, I was actually homeschooled.
So I did homeschool, and thenwe did, I had, um, my science
teacher was a NASA engineer, like.
Oh, wow.
So yeah, had some fun experiences there.
Um, yeah, and so I did a ton ofdifferent co op type stuff and then
I actually went through the ROPprogram, which is now the Pathways

(48:50):
program, um, through Heart District.
And so, um, as a outside Heart Districtstudent, you were allowed to do that.
And so I was on campusat Canyon at Hearts.
And one other one I can't remember.
Um, like one day a week.
And so I was at different schools.

(49:12):
And so the funny part is growing up,For one whole semester, one whole year,
I'd be on campus at one high schooland then on campus at a different one.
So I have different friendswho are like, oh no, you went
to Canyon during high school.
Oh no, you went to Hartford.
Technically, I went to both.

I was there.
Same

year.

Okay, and then how did this business went?
How long have you beeninto the, uh, yeah, so been

running I've been, uh, doing marketing websites,
all of that for 17 years.
Uh, yeah, so started, started back in2007 ish, a little bit before that.
Um, But yeah, right at the, you know,right at the crash of the market.
So great time to start a business.

And how's your business doing in this economy?

Man, it, it, we're all over the place.
It's weird.
We have, the business has shifted andthe industry as a whole has shifted so
much in the past four or five years.
Right.
And we historically have donelike larger software systems.
We built, uh, we built a system years agothat manages like vehicle repossessions.

(50:22):
Um, it's sort of like a system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like the guy who's in the field, thiscompany, so there's businesses that are
like, Oh yeah, we're a little old school.
And I'm like, Oh, you don't evenknow these guys had a single office.
And they'd have field techs that woulddrive sometimes three hours one way to go

(50:47):
pick up a file folder of their job workorders for the day, then turn around and
drive three hours back to their servicearea, do two hours of work and wake
up and do the same thing the next day.
I was like, have you heard of a fax
machine?
The crazy part is they wereprofitable, but that's just how
they set their business model up.

(51:08):
And I was like, have youheard of a fax machine?

Well, what you've done now, it's probably made a millionaires.

So, we digitized, like, the form entry and a
lot of that type of stuff.
And so, as you were talking about,like, the guys in the field, One of
the things that I would say in regardsto like Salesforce stuff is if you
guys are on iPhones, iPads, however,they're doing that, uh, make sure that
keyboard has the voice to text functionin the bottom corner, because that guy

(51:35):
can hit that and instead of sittingthere typing all the notes out, they
can hit that voice to text button andbe like, okay, there's damage on the
living room ceiling, blah, blah, blah.
And they can just talk through it.
And then it puts it in there.
They may have to correct two orthree words, but like it gets
them 80 percent of the way there.
Okay.
Um, just like they would standthere and describe it to you on the
phone, like exactly the same way.

(51:57):
They just describe it to an iPad instead.
Um, yeah, so there's some of that type ofstuff or like, you know, common problems,
put some check boxes in, but, um, yeah,there's friction points in any new system.
So, yeah, so we did a lot of stuff.
And then when COVID hit.
Um, a lot of businesses really shiftedwhat they were spending marketing on.

(52:17):
Um, and just where dollars are.
And we're seeing a lot less nowof like large website projects.
Um, and it's a lot more like, do we need agiant website with, you know, 85 pages and
all this content, like what do we need?
And especially over thepast year or so with.

(52:38):
The shift of Google companies that hadall this content, like really solid
custom content, that's unique, that'skeyword rich, that should help them rank.
All of a sudden overnight, like they'renot ranking well at all anymore.
So it's like, okay, then whyare we creating tons of content?

(53:00):
If it's just not gonna rank like theseare established websites that have been in
business been around your guys's websitelike you guys have been around for years
you've had a website like you have contentthere like and then all of a sudden the
ranking just dropped and it's like okayunless we're gonna spend 000 on content

(53:21):
development over the next few months.
Like, it doesn't make sense to do that.
So it's like, okay, well, where arejobs coming in and really taking
a step back and looking at that.
And so we have some CRM stuff that we'veimplemented for a lot of companies, a
lot of our clients and like, okay, let'strack where are those jobs coming in?
Okay.
90 percent of your jobs are coming fromthese two different referral sources.

(53:45):
Great.
Let's spend more money there.
Let's, let's, You know, maybe it'sa HOA association or something like
for you guys, like maybe there's anassociation that we can join that we
already are in the LA County one, andwe can join the Ventura County one.
Like, and so looking at some of thattype of stuff, we had a client like

(54:05):
two years ago, um, they're a sewercontractor and they do a lot of like new
construction for like apartment complexes.
And they're like, yeah, we're thinkingabout doing like Facebook ads.
Great for why?
Like, Oh, to get new leads.
I was like, for your industry?
Like.
There's no general contractor who'sbuilding an apartment complex of

(54:29):
150 units who's going to click ona Facebook ad and hire a plumber.
Like, the chance of thathappening is like, pretty much 0%.
And so he was there like, we justdon't know, like, what should we do?
I was like, honestly,you have to eat lunch.
Here's what you're going to do.
Your office manager every week is goingto go down a list of general contractors

(54:52):
who would do that type of a project.
And she's gonna call a handfulof them and schedule one of them
to have lunch with on Friday.
You're gonna pay for it.
You're gonna take a generalcontractor to lunch every Friday.
You gotta eat lunch.
Take them to lunch.
Hang out for an hour, hour and ahalf, and just have a good lunch.

(55:12):
And that's your networking.
And he's been doing it for two years.

And you never know what it's going to lead to.
Um, yeah, honestly, we, wedon't do a lot of marketing.
I haven't added inside SV Magazine andI have it inside there because Gina
Crawford's a great friend of mine.
It's a really pretty magazineand you know, it gives us brand
recognition in the community.
But my business mostly isderived from word of mouth.

(55:39):
And frankly, it's not a lot up here,and it's new home construction.
So what do we do?
And it's HOAs.
We have to go out thereand form relationships.
And it's all this, this things, that'swhere I have a hard time adjusting
to the clickbait and all theseother things that you need to do.
And there's great companies out here.
I mean, there's other, um, contractorsthat have just amazing social media

(56:02):
content and they do all these fungags and spoofs and do this stuff.
And my team's like, you gotto do this and you got to, you
know, jump through paint cans.
And I'm like, It's not who I am.
That's who they are, and that's great,and that works for them, and they've
been very successful doing that.
But I'm the guy that wants to build arelationship, and work with people I
like, and work with the friends I like.

(56:23):
And if I don't really have a relationshipand you don't like me and I don't care
for you as much because there's not alot of commonality, bygones be bygones.
Good to see you.
Have a great day.
But you don't, you know,you don't need to work.
I like to build therelationship the old school way.
And it means a lot to me to do that.
And I tend to do that with ourclients as well because I get lucky.

(56:46):
I click with clients and whenI click with those clients, We
have longstanding relationships.
It turns into, or they knew myfather who was a, you know, a
really big member in this community.
And it's great to work that way.
And I think what you did there for themprobably made them feel good again.
You know, it bring, it actually bringssome warmth in you when you get to have

(57:07):
those relationships and not everythingis cold anymore, you know, no, everybody
sends an email, nobody picks up thephone and calls and I'm huge on.
Hey.
I know we're texting.
Can I call you?
Cause there's nothing betterthan human interaction.

Awesome.
Well, this has been anawesome conversation.
We've covered a ton of stuff.
And, uh, how can peoplelearn more about you?
I mean, we, before we hit record,I was joking that I couldn't
even find you on LinkedIn.
So, um, obviously your guyswebsite, Magic Maintenance, awesome.
Yeah, we'll have

(57:47):
that
link in the show notes.
Um, but you guys are a chamber member.
And so obviously, you know, you guys arearound, someone wants to connect with you.

Yep.
1 800 MAGIC 11.
That's our, you know,easy number to remember.
1 800 MAGIC 11.
You've got our website.
Um, I'm Ryan Murphy.
You know, I give my cell phone out.
They can call me on my cell phone.
You know, 661 810 1638.
I answer it all the time.
Call me if you want to crank.
Call me.
That's fine.
I'll have my kids call youback and crank call you.
Um, it's, uh, that's,that's how we roll, man.

(58:20):
Um, I don't have any social media.
So, yeah.
Personally, none.
Um, I'm not on LinkedIn, but youcan walk in the front door and
hopefully find me, or you cancall myself when you have it now.

There you go.
Awesome.
Well, as always, please follow, rate, andreview wherever you find your podcasts.
You can find us at The Voicesof Business on social media.
I am Joshua Maddux on LinkedIn.
Corey, uh, my co host.
You can find Corey S. Nathan.
We love to have conversationslike this and others.
Uh, if you're a local business leaderand part of the chamber, reach out.

(58:52):
We'd love to have you on.
We'll see you next timeon The Voices of Business.

All Episodes

What You Will Learn:

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:08] – Welcome to The Voices of Business

[00:01:18] – Magic Maintenance: A Santa Clarita Staple Since 1964

[00:02:24] – From Sports Agent Aspirations to Family Business

[00:05:16] – The Unexpected Path of Entrepreneurship

[00:09:33] – Shifting the Business Model

[00:26:06] – The Labor Shortage in Construction

[00:31:10] – Leadership & Business Philosophy

Episode Transcript

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.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ryan Murphy, CEO of Magic Maintenance