If You're Not Growing, You're Dying with Chad Nikkel - Next Level Growth

Chad Nikkel shares his journey from building a roofing business to orchestrating its exit. He discusses entrepreneurial insights, merging ventures, and strategies for growth and resilience. Chad emphasizes building strong sales teams and effective strategies. He explores scaling systems, strategic planning, and revenue generation. The episode includes lessons from selling a business, covering deal structures, seller financing, and legal documents. Chad also reflects on his leadership in EO Arizona, giving back, and offers advice to his younger self.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay.

(00:01):
So the roofing business, I that was your wasthat your business biggest exit?
It was.
Yeah.
So, the roofing business in the Front Range OfColorado, which I sold in 2009, that was my
biggest exit.
So we bought that business.
I think it was about 600,000.
I say we, it was me, I guess, no partner, but$600,000 in revenue approximately.
And seven years later, six and a half, sevenyears later, sold it at $47,000,000 in annual

(00:24):
revenue.
Sold it to private equity, a couple of guysthat, had their own fund and, you know, just,
just it was it was time it was time for theopportunity to to get out.
Right?
Have
you ever wondered how successful architecture,engineering, and construction companies scale
their business?
Or have you ever wanted guidance on how to getmore growth, wealth, and freedom from your AEC

(00:47):
company?
Well, then you're in luck.
Hi.
I'm Will Forret.
And I'm Justin Nagel, and we're your podcasthosts.
We interview successful AEC business leaders tolearn how they use people, process, and
technology to scale their businesses.
So sit back and get ready to learn from theindustry's best.
This is
Building scale.

(01:11):
Hey, listeners.
It's Will here.
Our mission is to help the AEC industry protectitself by making technology easy.
If you've ever listened to our show, then youknow that the three pillars of scaling a
business are people, process, and technology.
So if you suspect technology is your weak link,then book a call with us to see where we can
help maximize your company's IT andcybersecurity strategy.

(01:35):
Just go to buildingscale.net/health.
Today's guest is Chad Nichol.
Chad is a partner and business guide for nextlevel growth, where he helps entrepreneurial
leaders build elite organizations.
He's a mastermind in business growth, and he'sfounded and scaled 11 companies, including

(01:56):
seven acquisitions and four successful exits.
One of those exits was a roofing company at47,000,000, which is super impressive with a
background in engineering from K State.
Go wildcats.
Kansas State goat.
Goodness wildcats.
Chad brings a unique mix of analyticalprecision and creative leadership.
At Next Level Growth, Chad helps leaders gainclarity, build alignment, and drive growth by

(02:18):
aligning short term action with long termvision.
He believes life's too short not to enjoy whatyou do, and his coaching helps business owners
rediscover both freedom and fulfillment intheir work.
And with all that said, Chad, welcome to theshow.
Thank you, man.
That was a heck of a bio there.
I'm not sure that how you write those thingsfrom now on.
That was awesome.
Well, I'm I'm glad, that, it's approved.

(02:41):
Great.
Great to be here, guys.
I, when we first met and we actually we gotintroduced, from Scott.
Yeah.
Right?
Franchini.
Yes.
Which, who was also on the podcast, many ayear, half ago, Will, something like that.
Yeah.
It's been a while.
It's been while.
That's a few episodes back.
Definitely.
You're gonna have to scroll to to find theepisode.

(03:01):
You're gonna find him in there.
Yeah.
Great guy.
Scott's an awesome dude.
Yeah.
He's awesome.
Yeah.
So, I said a whole bunch of fun stuff aboutyou, but tell us the background.
How'd you get how did you decide to become abusiness owner?
And then, obviously, how did you get into theroofing side of things?
And then why now are you a business guide atNext Level Growth?
Yeah.
For sure.
That's a lot of questions there.
Might actually
might know on the part.
But yeah.
How

(03:23):
did I decide?
Let's go with the business owner thing.
And I think it sort of just found me, like, I Idon't think I decided.
I I was I was very a teenager at the time.
I was 15 when I started my first business.
And, you know, I always had sort of anentrepreneurial spirit.
Right?
I was born and raised in Kansas on a farm.
So, you know, sort of wanted something to getoff the farm and and get away from that.

(03:43):
But one of the things that farm life taught me,I think, was that whole, you know, you shake
somebody's hand, look them in the eye, you dowhat you say you're gonna do no matter what.
Right?
That's the deal.
There's no, you know, you don't you don't youdon't there's no contract.
Right?
Like that is the contract.
So, you know, I I go back on that a lot.
That's good.
But starting the first business there happenedto be in the roofing space.
So that was my first sort of foray, if youwill, into, you know, home services or

(04:08):
construction type businesses.
And, yeah, cut my teeth in in sort of a hardbusiness to cut my teeth on.
So then what has brought you to become a coachfor others?
Yeah.
So, I mean, obviously, it's been a longjourney.
Right?
So I'm 50 years old today.
So thirty five years of entrepreneurship alongthe way.
11 businesses.
You know, you mentioned 11 business.

(04:28):
It's 11 businesses that made a profit.
There was many more that I started that, youknow, just didn't work out.
Right?
I learned as life went to fail fast.
Right?
Like, yep.
This isn't gonna work.
It's time to cut, you know, you know, get awayfrom that.
Right?
But, but, yeah, 11 businesses have made aprofit.
Out of those 11 businesses, seven of those werein the home services or construction space.

(04:53):
So I've got a lot of experience in that.
And then even out of the four that were not,there were somewhat adjacent.
Right?
So I I own a marketing company that, you know,was focused on contractors, on the unique
things that home service people deal with.
Right?
Like, contractors in general, what produces acustomer is much different than what produces a

(05:15):
customer for a bank or a restaurant or, youknow, a software company like you guys.
Right?
But that whole perspective, I think it's an itwas an adjacent business, but it's still built
on things that I understood really well.
That's awesome.
I also love the openness to say like, Iactually started more, but those did I don't
count those because they didn't make a profit.
So that's awesome.
Yeah.

(05:35):
Those zunks.
It's it's like going to another country and nothaving a meal there.
It doesn't count.
You can't count it if you don't you don't havea meal in that country.
That's the rule.
That's super fair.
Does that also count for states?
Because I don't know if I've eaten in everystate I've been in.
I'm not sure.
I I I'm not sure about that.
That's a good question.
Okay.
So let's talk about let's let's start with someof these businesses that you had.
So you've done a ton of founding as well as,roll ups that go into that.

(05:59):
So let's let's kinda talk about what thatlooked like.
So you said you started in roofing initially.
Where where did things go from there?
Yeah.
So what I found along the way is that Iactually like m and a.
I I enjoy founding, but I really like findingsome company that has opportunity to do better,
do more, be more optimized, let's call it, andand sort of help them help them build, you

(06:21):
know, build from that.
So I in the roofing business, I also rolled upsome companies underneath there.
So I went and bought, you know, some othercompanies that made sense and rolled them in
that space.
In the pool business, I did the same thing.
So my last business that I sold, three yearsago was a pool service company.
Small a very small company when I bought it,25, 30 pools a week.
And six years later, sold it doing 2,000 poolsevery week in the Scottsdale Paradise Valley

(06:44):
areas.
Wow.
But I bought others along the way and rolledthem up underneath that that same company.
Okay.
So the roofing business, that was your was thatyour business biggest exit?
It was.
Yeah.
So, the roofing business in the Front Range OfColorado, which I sold in 2009, that was my
biggest exit.
So we bought that business.
I think it was about 600,000.

(07:05):
I say we, it was me, I guess.
No partner, but $600,000 in revenueapproximately.
And seven years later, six and a half, sevenyears later, sold it at $47,000,000 in annual
revenue.
Sold it to private equity, a couple of guysthat, had their own fund and, you know, just,
just, it was it was time it was time for theopportunity to to get out.
Right?
So yeah.

(07:26):
That's insane growth.
That's bananas growth.
Yeah.
It it's probably one of those things.
I always wrapped it back in.
Right?
You know, you make some money and instead ofbeing like, alright, sweet.
We should, you know, go do something else withit or, you know, buy a rental house or
whatever.
No.
I always put it back into the business becausemy goal was bigger, better, more.
Right?

(07:46):
And, you know, really build it.
And and we did succeed in that in the frontrange.
So we were the largest steep slope roofingcontractor in the front range.
So steep slope meaning, like, shingles, tile,metal, that kind of thing, not commercial
buildings.
And 6,500 roofs a year approximately.
So that that works out to, I think, 17 everysingle day.

(08:07):
And Colorado does not have the best weather inthe world some parts of the year.
So learning how to roof and apply product whenit was, you know, 20 degrees and blowing snow
and whatnot is still important because you hadto you had to sort of produce product or
produce jobs.
But we we work from Pueblo all the way to FortCollins.
You know, obviously, the heart of that businessis in Denver, you know, all of those
communities along the way.

(08:27):
And we did a lot of super custom stuff liketile and metal and that kind of thing.
You know?
So so custom homes, we did some of that work inthe mountains as well.
Very complicated projects, people that would,you know, they'd fire multiple roofers before
they found us and and, you know, we always likethose kind of projects for sure.
Let's figure it out.

(08:47):
2,009, I would imagine that's not the easiesttime to do, especially when the house housing
market basically just blow it up.
I don't think that's the easiest time to gosell a company.
Or is it?
Maybe I'm wrong.
Well, I I would tell you, the one thing aboutroofing is roofing is economically inelastic.
Right?

(09:08):
You can put off your new kitchen.
You can, you know, not buy a car.
You can, you know, do all those things.
But when your roof leaks, you gotta dosomething about it.
Right?
And so it's a economically inelastic businessand something I've always loved about that.
You know?
Nobody.
What comes with that, unfortunately, though, isa negative sale connotation.
Nobody ever wakes up one day and says, oh, youknow what?

(09:28):
I want a red roof.
Let's just tear off the gray one and put a redone on.
That just that doesn't happen.
It's not a thing.
And, you know, like a kitchen, you're like, oh,yeah.
I'd like some new countertops or whatever.
So, you know, we'll go ahead and and do thatkind of sale.
Roofing is always negative.
It leaks.
You had a hailstorm.
Something happened that means you have to dealwith the roof or maybe you're selling the house
or, you know, whatever the case might be.

(09:50):
And that aspect of it is both good and bad.
Because the sale, you're overcoming theobjection of the fact that I have to spend
$30,000 on my roof, and you're convincingsomebody to do that.
And it's not a sexy fun thing.
It's gonna be a mess, you know, all these otherthings that come with it.
But the flip side of that is the roof leaks.
It's causing damage.
We need to do something about it.

(10:10):
And so you you have even in bad economy, youhave the opportunity to sell roofs.
That is my belief about that business.
So you're right.
Housing was really, you know, really gettingits ass kicked.
And yeah.
I don't know.
Maybe I should've hung on to it longer.
Probably a learning lesson.
Yeah.
Alright.
So roofing, was was your most successful.

(10:32):
What were some of your other exits?
Just talk about those, the companies and theand the exits, just so we kinda get a gauge.
Yeah.
For sure.
So the marketing business, we we really weresuccessful in sort of finding a niche in the in
the marketing world and and, you know, did alot of pay per click and radio and some other
things like that.
Right?
So we're very successful in that and ended upselling that to a partner.

(10:55):
That was was really it was a really good, goodexit for me.
I was also in the logistics business.
So we did trucking essentially.
So that business we sold as well.
So the those went to sort of smaller kind ofstrategic buyers.
And then but the two private equity plays, theroofing business, and then my pool my pool
company.
So my pool service company, very small company.

(11:16):
I think it was about $11,000,000 in revenuewhen we sold it.
That business went to a private equity roll upcompany that is the largest pool service
company in the nation now.
So they've, you know, operations in Florida andArizona and Texas.
Think last time I checked, I think they servicesomewhere around 28 or 30,000 pools a week.
Sizable, sizable company.

(11:36):
Woah.
That is scales.
That is magnitudes.
And scales and magnitude.
And it the thing about pool service versus likeroofing.
Right?
Roofing, if if it's a 25 or $30,000, you know,roof every time, full service is a $120 or, you
know, a $150.
Right?
So it's a lot of little widgets you've got tostring together to make a sizable company.

(11:59):
So much more complicated.
It is reoccurring revenue.
That's good, but a much more complicated, youknow, aspect when it comes to home services for
sure.
A Okay.
Of technicians, technicians and trucks andinsurance nightmares.
Right?
So let's talk for a second because when weheard the number, there was you said that, you

(12:23):
had said something about that if you don't growessentially fast enough, there's some there's
reasons for it and you should be able to growit at a good clip, especially let's say for the
roofing business.
Talk a little bit about that?
Like, why that is?
And what did you do to actually get it up therethat quick?
Well, some of the things with with any kind Idon't think this is just home services or just

(12:45):
construction companies.
But if you're not growing that whole if you'renot growing, you're dying thing, that that's
that statement is a reality.
Right?
Because it's not just inflation that catchesyou.
It's level of risk.
It's people.
It's it's all of these other sort of overheador or built in cost to operate that don't go
down.
Right?

(13:06):
So as you as you, you know, sort of let's justsay you're at $10,000,000 and you're sort of
stuck there.
Right?
Or or struggling to grow past $10,000,000.
We overhead costs are staying fairly static,but they're going up with inflation.
So your your costs of, you know, thatleadership team, your costs of those employees
is actually going up and, you know, healthinsurance, everything is rising on a fairly

(13:29):
consistent basis.
So if we're not selling more and selling itmore efficiently, somewhere in the neighborhood
of five to 6%, I think it's double inflation isroughly the figure.
So if you're not doing at least five to 6%growth, you're going backwards at a at a fairly
significant, clip.
And so if you get two or three years down theroad and you start to look back and you're

(13:51):
like, well, we used to be making ten, eleven,18%, whatever it was, EBITDA.
And now all of a sudden, we're like six, seven,eight.
We're sort of like stuck in this thing.
Why why are we suddenly two or three pointslower?
Well, the fact is because you stayed at thatnumber, you actually went backwards at at
double inflation.
So so that's that's the thing you need to growa five or 6% just to stay static.

(14:15):
So if you're a $10,000,000 company, if youdon't do 10.5 next year, you're not static,
you're going, you're going backwards.
So that's why I, all my clients, the goal is toalways have double digit growth because we need
to be, you know, we we need to be consistentlyhitting those those growth numbers.
So that 20% number should be well within reachif we organize the business to run efficiently

(14:38):
and and optimize.
Well, so in order to grow, then the obviousside is that you have to have sales.
Yes.
For those of you that didn't find that obvious,just need to point that out.
Right?
Sales and everything.
Then sounds like you might have an experiencesome experience about growing sales teams.

(15:02):
Yeah.
Sales I mean, I love sales.
Right?
So sales is fun.
You know?
It's it's the old aspect of, you know, teachingpeople, learn you know, hunting, all of those
things.
Good salespeople that are really good at, youknow, good at the kill as we as we say.
All all these, like, terms we use, war terms,whatever they are when it comes to sales.

(15:24):
Right?
It's it's it's got its whole own vernacular.
But I I think that aspect of good salespeopledoing what they do best, like really selling,
not doing too much of the minutiae.
Right?
Good, really good salesperson that's reallygood at closing, really gonna be a salesperson
should be selling and not doing too much of theminutiae because there's other ways to get the

(15:46):
minutiae in there.
Right?
And, you know, so that's a strong belief ofmine.
It's like building a sales team that has realrainmakers, like the really good killers on
that team and letting them be salespeople asopposed to making them, you know, be order
takers and, you know, CRM fillers and all thisother stuff.
Right?
How do you solve that problem?
Because I would say most owners, leaders wouldsay, yo, you need to fill out the shit.

(16:12):
Like, I I don't know.
I have no idea what you're doing.
Like, you you gotta fill these things out oryou gotta, you know, you gotta hit KPIs.
And how do I know if I if if I have no data toshowcase any of this?
So how do you solve that problem?
Or is that just like, oh, that's ridiculous.
Just go, you know, just shoot from the hip andyou'll be fine.
Yeah.
No.
It it's it's the old, chicken and the eggtheory.

(16:34):
Right?
So but in reality, there's lots of simple waysto do this.
And in today's world, there's lots of goodautomations and other things that that can help
with some of the stuff.
But I told always told my sales guys, look, thesimple thing I I just want you to do is go into
iPhone notes or iPhone memo and just hit recordwhen you leave the customer's house and just
brain dump everything about that job for tenminutes into that note and just send that to

(16:58):
the office.
And then the office person now has 90% of thedata that they need.
They can fill out the job profile.
They can put all this stuff in the CRM that theowner is gonna want to see, you know, all of
that stuff in there.
And then they can call you and spend tenminutes on the phone or text you back and forth
or whatever it is to get the other 10%.
And now we actually have a job file that we canbuild.
Now we actually have the data correct.

(17:19):
Like, now production, when they get the stuff,they go, we have the right color for the metal
and we have the right amount of, you know,vents or whatever the whatever we're doing.
That aspect is far easier than a salespersongetting back to the office and spending two
hours going over a damn folder and probablycan't read their writing anyways.

(17:40):
And, you know, they are terrible at typing.
And so you're the status in the wrong place inthe field of the CRM anyways.
And so it just complicates the system.
You know, I don't know how many salespeople Ihad where they would put a space after a
decimal point, and it would just screw up theKPIs.
Right?
You're like, wait.
No.
No.
You know, I think today's world's a littleover.
Some of that stuff is a more automated.

(18:01):
But back then, it was like, bro, just like,don't put us you know what?
Never mind.
Just go sell some more stuff.
We'll figure the rest of that.
Because that aspect because production youknow, the old argument, production never builds
the jobs on time.
Sales never turns in a job correctly.
Right?
That's that's back and forth.
If we can eliminate that, massive beneficial.
It's better for the salesperson to go, youknow, detox and from that sale and go have a

(18:27):
coffee or something instead of trying to, youknow, get a file put together that, there's
other people that could do it better.
Okay.
So what makes not a good, but what makes agreat salesperson?
Yeah.
Well, depends on depends on the product to somedegree.
But I I think really great salespeople arereally good at relationships, first of all.

(18:50):
Like, really good at relationships.
Like, not know, I'm not talking about personalrelationships, but, like, making people feel
comfortable very quickly.
They that that that's key.
If if somebody somebody's just, like, maybe notso great at conversation or a little bit odd.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
It just you a salesperson has to be somebodyyou want to talk to.

(19:12):
Right?
Like, I gotta want to talk to.
That's part of it.
That's key.
With that, it's like the three legged stool.
Without that leg, none of the other legsmatter.
So you have to have that first.
The second thing is salespeople should follow anatural flow and process, like a sales process.
Right?
There should be like a natural flow and salesprocess that is like innate to them.

(19:33):
And it might be the process that the companydeveloped like, hey, you know, we talk about
this and then we talk about that and then wetalk about that.
But they should follow that flow sort ofautomatically.
Right?
It shouldn't be like they're reading a scriptor anything.
It's like that flow is built in.
And then I I had a, like, a sales trainer yearsago, and one of his key points has stuck with
me.
I think it's like probably twenty years of thisbill at this point.

(19:55):
One of his key things was other than price orpayment, is there any reason we couldn't put
you in a whatever today?
Right?
Other than price or payment.
And that little thing, it gets it got all theobjections off, but that's part of the flow.
It's like, what is that objection flow beingall those objections gone?
And now all we're talking about is the price ofthe payment.
I think just having that flow that gets you tothat point is the other piece that makes a

(20:19):
really good salesperson.
Right?
And then the last thing is they should bedriven to continually want.
When you have a salesperson that gets a bigcommission check and, you know, they have a,
like, oh, we had a really good month and theygot a nice big commission check.
They don't need to work for another two orthree months to pay their bills.
It's the worst thing Because the company needsthem selling more, selling you know what I

(20:44):
mean?
And because there's no consistency.
If they sold great, and then all of a suddenthey fell off the cliff and didn't, you know,
went to Fiji for three months, the problem isthat doesn't work for the business.
It's fine for the salesperson, but it doesn'twork for the business.
So you need salespeople that like consistentlyand are hungry for the next kill.
Salespeople are all money motivated, but theyalso need to be kill motivated.

(21:07):
It's like the next job, the next deal.
Right?
And you need motivated by that as well.
So those three things, in my opinion, make amake a great salesperson.
Oh, what you're saying is that they shouldn'tbe really long term, overly articulate
thinkers.
They need to be able to be fast moving and getto the end results.

(21:29):
Quicker, the better.
Yeah.
I mean, let's ask for the sale.
I I mean, let's get all let's make sure thecustomer understands everything.
You know what I mean?
I am not I'm not from, you know, I don't Idon't say you should, like, be snake oil
salesman.
Right?
Like like, no.
We you should understand all the components ofwhat you're buying.
But the salesperson should naturally beexplaining that.
There's there's this is, like, part of theprocess where people are ready to buy.

(21:53):
A really great salesperson sort of recognizesthat and and sort of maybe pushes for that
right before that comes up.
Right?
You know, I used to teach this thing years ago.
Back in the day, we had clip.
There went the dog.
It happens.
It happens.
Shit.
Sorry, guys.
Back in day, had clipboards, and we would sortof take the pen and, like, remove the cap so it

(22:18):
would sort of roll.
And you just hand that to the customer and sortof angle it their way.
Well, the pen's rolling toward the customer.
They naturally grab it.
Right?
This is a little sales trick, but that thing ofsalespeople sort of leading people to make that
next decision, You know, it's it's the naturalthing.
Okay.
So really, that experience so would you saythat you need to have highly experienced

(22:43):
salespeople to be good so you have to havefailed for twenty years to be a good sales
salesperson?
Is that what you're looking for?
No.
No.
Absolutely not.
In fact, you know, sometimes that twenty yearperson is the wrong is the wrong person.
But you need that that innate ability.
I think if you have that sales personality, wecan teach everything else.
You can you can teach that flow.

(23:04):
You can teach those things, but you have tohave that salesperson out.
Do you have litmus tests for testing for forthat personality?
Yeah.
I don't know.
That that's it it little bit on the business.
In home services, it's really like aconversation.
It's like, can you have a conversation with methat that sort of draws me in that I'm

(23:26):
interested to talk to you?
I think that's, you know, that's key.
Now, I think good successful sales teams allhave a good sales manager that's, you know,
sort of helps pull the data together and, youknow, you know, keeps them excited and that
kind of thing.
Right?
So that person is probably doing that hiring.
So, you know, they would need to understand howto, you know, kind of pull that conversation

(23:49):
together.
But if somebody cannot carry on a conversation,if they're not, you know, willing to talk about
the bears, then that's not gonna work.
Win or lose?
Sorry.
Everybody everybody should be able to talkabout the bears.
That's that's
my thing.
Yeah.
With the six and three record, holy cow.
Sorry.
Real quick segue there.
There you go.
Taking the last You
mentioned a sales manager.
What what's the difference there?

(24:10):
What's their personality?
Are they are they different than a salespersonor are they the same?
Yeah.
No.
100%.
I'm not saying that there's never a goodsalesperson that makes a good sales manager,
but most of the time, that is not the case.
Good sales managers are really good at managingpeople and and sort of like the herding the
cats, stuff.
Right?

(24:30):
Because salespeople are not gonna be veryfocused.
So a really good sales manager needs to be ableto sort of herd the cats.
So somebody that's, you know, really good at,you know, probably keeping 11, 12 year old kids
in a going in the the right direction is ispop.
I really like the metaphor.

(24:50):
I can imagine it.
So yes.
Yeah.
There you go.
But that that's pretty key.
The other thing is salespeople really goodrespond well to, you know, the pat on the back.
Like, hey, good job, Jimmy, man.
That was awesome.
So you need a sales manager needs to have thataspect of it too.
It's like that rah rah aspect is important.
Makes sense.

(25:11):
Why the so why the short attention span?
Just to
Why do
you have the dots?
Have short Yeah.
Well, I I think that that's a good thing, not abad thing.
You know, Mike might disagree with me on that,but I think a short attention span is is okay
in sales because you have you get a shit ton ofnos.
Right?

(25:33):
Sometimes those no's are not the nicest notsaid in the nicest way.
Right?
You know what I mean?
And so it's important for salespeople to beable to forget that.
Right?
Just like, let that one go, go right on to thenext one, and, you know, get them in the frame
of mind that this client, you know, missusSmith is gonna buy from me.
Right?
Versus like, oh, man.
I, you know, I really got my ass kicked on thatlast one.

(25:54):
And now I'm, you know, pull that into this nextsale and desperation.
Nobody buys from a desperate salesperson.
No one.
Right?
Like, so you need to have that short attention.
You need to be able to forget.
It's like forget and move forward.
That's that's
I would totally agree with you.
A 110% there.
Because if it it is the no, because you'regonna get no way more than you get yes.

(26:18):
So if you can't let that roll off and you can'tjust forget and onto the next one, you'll, you
know, you'll live in your you'll live in thenegative.
And if you live in the negative, you're notlike, it's harder to sell because you don't
bring the energy and you don't do you know,it's just like this cyclical thing.
So or even, like, when a a great salespersongets in a funk.
It's like, oh, yeah.
You're just you're in a funk right now, andthat's your problem.

(26:39):
You need to get your head out of your ass.
And then once you do that, you're gonna be backto, you know, slanging sales day after day.
It's just, you know, negativity can be such acrucial demotivator in sales.
Negativity breeds negativity.
You know?
No.
Nobody nobody listens to a motivational speakerthat's not motivational.
Right?
They only get booked once.
Sales the same way.

(26:59):
Right?
It's the same way.
You gotta bring you're just not in front ofmissus Smith again.
You're just in front of, you know, missusJones.
Right?
So you gotta bring it 100%.
So sales, obviously, hugely massive when you'rebuilding a business or, you know, putting a
business together to eventually exit thatbusiness.
What are some other systems or other, you know,essentially fractions of the business that,

(27:19):
like, need to be in place that that makes yourbusiness, you know, worth something?
Yeah.
For sure.
Well, when it comes to action, I think everybusiness should be built to sell.
Right?
It's even if you're gonna run this business forthe next thirty years, pass it on to your kids,
whatever that is, the business were to give youthat sort of return on life or that, you know,

(27:39):
space.
It needs to be organized in the same way.
And what I mean by that is it it needs tooperate without you.
So the owner, quite often, especially insmaller businesses, is the bottleneck.
Right?
So we we have to build we have to build thebusiness out to operate somewhat independently
of the owner.
You know, the way to do that is get a, youknow, get a really good leadership team in

(28:00):
place.
And even if you can't afford a full leadershipteam, if you're at the sort of the spot where
we can't afford these people yet, sort ofbuilding out the roles of those people and
having, you know, one person might act as twoor three of those roles, but they're sort of
like really concentrated on those roles at thetime.
Building that leadership team or that sort ofoperating system, for the business and putting

(28:21):
that in place is really, really crucial fromthe perspective of each role should have what I
call we call obsessions.
Right?
So each role should have five or six thingsthat they all they think about is those things.
Right?
So sales manager, those five obsessions, youknow, are are in place.
Right?
But it's not 28 things.
Right?
It's these five things.
People get sort of trapped in this thing wherethey have a job description that has 30 things

(28:43):
that this person should be doing.
And so we're not doing any of them well.
Right?
So so I'm kind of boiling that down to thosefive or six things that they that seat obsesses
about every time.
That's critical first.
Right?
Like, really get those key things in place andfigure out what those key things are for each
seat.
And then the business sort of starts to operatewith more autonomy over the owner.

(29:07):
Doesn't mean the owner shouldn't oversee orcheck on or whatever.
But when we get it in place where people areactually making decisions in based on their
seat on the on that criteria and based on thecore values of the business, then we can
actually expand and scale.
K.
So that's first.
How so, obviously, you you, you know, map itout, what brought it out.

(29:28):
How are you?
You'd make some strategy planning and saying,like, hey.
I need these three departments, four to fivedepartments, whatever whatever it shakes out to
be for you.
And then you say, okay.
Hey.
There's two of us or three of us, and we gottafocus on you sit in these two seats.
I'll sit in these three.
And then slowly, depending on what the needs ofthe business are, you fill those seats.

(29:50):
Is that am I hearing that right?
Yeah.
That's correct.
I think as you know, if if you sort of thinkabout inception of a business and and when it
sort of reached critical mass, you know, youthink about, like, like, where are we gonna
spend our money or our capital from aperspective of human capital first?
And, know, obviously, generation is critical.

(30:10):
Right?
We without revenue generation, we can't affordto, you know, pay the light bill.
Right?
So, so we have to we have to think aboutrevenue generation and and how can we drive
revenue generation.
Now, that that doesn't mean so if you look at aa home services or construction business, a lot
of that sort of production or operations partof the business, that doesn't mean you should
ignore that.

(30:31):
You need to find ways early on, you need tofind ways for that department to also drive
revenue.
And so what I'm what I mean by that is, hey, iflet's just say we sold a pool services client,
well, the production department needs tocontinually find ways to make that client turn
into more.
Right?
So not just $150 a month period, period.

(30:52):
Go, go, go.
It's a $150 a month plus.
Well, hey, look, do you need your tile cleaned?
Or do you need your filter cleaned?
Or, you know, who do you know?
Like, you know, hey, by the way, can we talk toyour neighbor?
That kind of thing.
The production department needs to be thinkingabout that from a revenue side of things as we
roll forward.
Because if we're not thinking that way, untilwe become a bigger business where we have

(31:13):
people like sort of siloed and thinking aboutrevenue generation and, you know, operations
separately, we never be able to afford thatpart of the business.
So revenue generation critical.
Gotta figure that out.
Everybody needs to be focused on that in theearly parts of the business.
Do you think that's the biggest hurdle,especially early founder startups or, you know,

(31:35):
early to the business that they find, hey, Ireally I'm a really, really great drywaller.
Like, I'm extraordinarily good at this, butI've not had to, like, go hunt myself.
So now it comes like I opened my own businessbecause I thought I can do it better than
whoever was paying me before.
And now I'm in this scenario where I gotta feedmy yeah.
I gotta feed the the business.

(31:55):
Is that the biggest hurdle you see with yourclients?
Well, yeah.
What happens a lot of times people, especiallyin that smaller scale, they just have built
themselves a job, right?
It's not a real business.
You just created yourself a job that you sortof manage control.
And, and in some cases will be more work,considerably more work than what you had when
you're working for someone else.
Right?
So sort of getting away from that aspect of thetechnician doing everything, especially the

(32:21):
part where the technician's answering thephone.
You know, it's like, I'm the owner.
I'm answering the phone.
I'm handling customer service calls.
I'm handling a sales call.
I'm just doing the work.
It's the worst thing you can do because thepotential new customer coming in to that phone
when you're on a job trying to deal withsomething else, you're not giving that person
the amount of time that they deserve to make agood buying decision to buy from you.

(32:42):
So, of course the sales process goes bad, goespoorly, right?
You're gonna sign some just because you as theowner have the vested interest, but the process
isn't going to work well for it's not going toscale from there.
It's the super low hanging fruit of everybusiness is having someone else answer the
phone rather than the the owner.
You can afford to do that very, very early on.

(33:04):
And especially today with AI, this stuff is,you know, there's really no no excuse for that
anymore.
Right?
So that's key.
Because the customer service aspect of callingyou, wanting to buy from you, that's your most
important phone call.
That's the most important thing.
If we we have to, like, frame it that way andreally think about everything.
So you're basically robbing Peter to pay Paulif you're not doing it.

(33:27):
100%.
Right?
And the old argument, I'm sure there's peoplelistening to this, their argument's like, well,
yeah, but I got this problem customer that's,you know, upset, and it's a warranty, and
they're gonna go give me a bad review and allthose things.
I'm not saying you shouldn't deal with them,but missus Smith is calling in because she
wants to decide to she's potentially decided tobuy from you.
You need to have a good experience in place sothat Mrs.

(33:49):
Smith can make a good decision.
Okay.
It's a good delineation.
Okay.
So, sales process and pretty much everything,both incoming as well as cross selling, if you
will, on new service jobs.
Right?
Those are, those are processes.
Getting such a technicians to help feed themachine also helps.

(34:10):
Okay.
So is any of this, does it make sense whenbuilding these teams?
Does the culture look any different with these,with these teams?
Or do you find that it's all the same?
Explain that a little bit more.
Well, so is it, so from a culture perspective,so let's say sales culture, right?
Do they all look fairly similar in terms ofsale culture, or is everyone going to be unique

(34:33):
to their own organization?
Yeah.
I it really depends a little bit about aroundthe core values of the business, I believe.
K.
Because certain businesses, you know I mean,let's look at roofing for an for a for a
minute.
So roofing is very, let's go conquer, you know,sort of, but that's the sales mentality of

(34:55):
roofing.
Right?
Whereas businesses like maybe pest control orpool service are more of a, build the trust
long term, let me show how I can protect yourfamily kind of thing.
That sales culture or that sort of businessculture or culture in the business has to be
sort of framed around that a bit differently.

(35:17):
I think like roofing or even outdoor sales,like like pool construction or, you know,
things like that.
It's more of that, like, conquer the, you know,the lead, right, thing versus the reoccurring,
more, products where it's a little bit more ofthat trust building.
If I'm going in your backyard on a regularbasis, you have to fully trust that I have a

(35:39):
technician there that's completely vetted.
You know, they're not gonna steal from me.
You know, I'm gonna give my key to the gatekind of thing.
Right?
Versus a project where it's like maybe two,three days.
I I need to make sure the company knows whatthey're doing and installs a good product, I'm
not going to see them again.
I'm just gonna refer them after that.
Does that make sense?
That answer your question, Will?

(36:00):
A 100% answered my question.
No, that was, that was really good.
No, which might be a good segue to talk aboutsomething that we haven't talked about yet,
which was what you called an accident duringyour roofing company's run that spark a
Are you talking about when I sold the business?

(36:20):
The mistake when I sold
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I've done great.
Perfect.
Well, let's talk about it.
Yeah.
Now it's all good.
Yeah.
So when you sell a business, I learned the hardway on a couple of things, right, over the
years.
And I sold the sold the roofing business, had anice deal put together.
And ultimately, the I don't know, six monthsin, nine months in, whatever, I was chairman,

(36:45):
and they said, hey, we got it.
You go play golf.
You know, go ahead and and, don't worry aboutit.
And a month or two later, they they fired thesales manager.
And so the sales team, a third of the salesteam are very, very loyal to the sales manager,
and they left with him.
Basically said, you know, screw this routehere.
And this $47,000,000 company that needed, youknow, $4,000,000 in sales every month to feed

(37:06):
the engine suddenly overnight basically went tohalf that.
And the, you know, the buyers were like, hey,what's going on?
They're trying to find something wrong with thebusiness.
They stopped paying me.
I you know, so I sued them.
They sued me.
And ultimately, we found a very small amount ofmoney, $40,000 in in revenue that was
misappropriated.

(37:27):
And a $47,000,000 company, and they found a repand warranty in the in the contract that
allowed them to sort of sue me over that.
And they stopped paying me, and I left 6 and ahalf million dollars uncollected in that
business.
So very, very hard lesson.
And I
beat beat myself up over it for a while.
But what I learned from that was reps andwarranties and all sales contracts, and this is

(37:51):
worth every dollar price of admission, whateverthis podcast is to you, can be sunsetted.
They don't they're not you know, back then,didn't know that.
It was an ongoing clause, And every businessI've sold since has sunset of their ups and
warranties so that at twelve months or eighteenmonths or six months, whatever it is you can
negotiate, that goes away.

(38:13):
And and so there's no other look back orclawback opportunity for the buyer because
they've had the opportunity to make surethey've got everything, you know, they they
want it.
And then the other thing is really minimizingwhat the reps and mornings cover and keeping it
to be things like, yeah, I paid my taxes.
I didn't hire illegals, you know, that kind ofstuff.
Right?
Like, these are very core business kind of repsand warranties versus just like we put

(38:38):
something wrong in QuickBooks, which ultimatelywas what happened to me.
Even though they had nine or six months of duediligence, still that clause still cost me
$69,000,000.
So now every business I've sold since, I've hadthose clauses minimized.
I've had to hold back, minimize reps andwarranties, and I've never had that issue
since.
And frankly, I've done more sophisticated dealssince then.
So, you know, that being said, hard lesson.

(39:01):
I beat myself up for a long time over it.
And then one day, was like, yeah.
Okay.
Next, what can I do with that information?
And what I can do with that information is notmake that mistake again, but also help other
people.
I mean, obviously, in my coaching business, Ihelp other people not make the same mistakes, I
guess.
You know, you learn from my thirty five years.

(39:22):
You pay my thirty five years of experience.
While I know what it is, I am not sure if alllisteners know what it is.
Can you explain in, you know, from anacquiring, from an acquisition perspective or
from a selling perspective, what reps andwarranties, like what that really means and why
it's written, etcetera?
Why don't you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, for sure.
So as a buyer, your reps and warranties is issimply shorthand or abbreviated for

(39:47):
representations and warranties.
Right?
So I am representing that what the data thatI'm conveying to the seller is correct and
true.
Right?
So it depends how it's written, but let'sassume that it says something like this LLC is
wholly owned by me, the seller.
All the taxes have been paid.
There's no outstanding lawsuits.
There's no outstanding things that might comeback depending on whether it's an asset sale or

(40:10):
or not, you know, depending on how the sale isstructured, but there's nothing that's gonna
come back essentially and hurt the buyer.
Right?
That's basically what that clause is.
I'm warranting that what I've said is true, andI'm I'm representing everything that I've
represented to you, the buyer, is accurate.
And typically, it's outlined as to, you know,taxation, you know, liabilities and things like

(40:31):
that.
So it's actually called out in the paragraph,but that is basically it in a nutshell.
Right?
Now from a buyer's or from a seller'sperspective, I'm sorry, you want that to be as
small as possible.
Right?
You want it to be things like taxation andlegal.
Right?
From a buyer's perspective, you want theopposite.
You want that to be as broad as we can get it.

(40:51):
Right?
Like, hey, look.
I wanna know that there's no sales out therethat are under profit or whatever.
Yeah.
Of course, nobody's gonna sign that.
But let's assume from a seller's perspective,you want to get this to things that you 100%
know are a 100% real.
That makes sense?
Did I explain Yep.
That's a great way of explaining it.

(41:13):
I think everyone would understand that.
So and why what happened did happen?
Yeah.
The attorney will charge you $5,000 to explainthat to you.
But at that.
We just saved every listener $5.
So that's kinda that's, you know, worth it.
I'm I'm I'm sure that, you know, again, I'm notan attorney or a CPA, so don't take this as tax
or legal advice.

(41:33):
But but do ask if if you're in a transaction orthinking about a transaction, do ask about what
you can do about that clause.
Good, good sound advice there.
Good nuggets.
And frankly, to just touch on attorneys for amoment, very, very important in a business
transaction.
But attorneys are really good at adding time.
Right?

(41:53):
They bill in tenths of an hour.
So they're really good at adding time to deals.
And I really encourage people to work out thebusiness aspects of a deal without the attorney
putting the legal stuff on it.
Right?
Work out like, hey, this is this is what we'rebuying.
This is why I'm interested.
This is what I can I'm willing to pay and andwhy what I'm not willing to pay.

(42:13):
Those aspects are business arrangements orbusiness agreements that I think can be worked
out.
And then the attorneys can put the legal stuffto it.
Right?
Because that's that's all very important, andthe document needs to be clean.
But the business aspect of selling a businessdoes not need $700 hour attorneys negotiating
that.
Yeah.
Every six minutes, the clock is running.

(42:34):
Every six minutes, baby.
Boy.
Okay.
Used to be my least favorite thing to get theattorney bill and see what they charge me to
get my voicemail.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Like You're timing your own voicemails.
You're, like, making sure, alright.
I gotta I gotta shorten up this a little bit.
This is too long.
It's Chad.
Call me back.
Hang up.
Yep.
No.
It, that really used to bug me.

(42:56):
I used to tell the attorney like, hey, look, Iknow you legally have to disclose this, but,
you know, hide that somewhere else because itreally annoys me to look at that on the
invoice.
It's awesome.
Why don't we talk a little bit about dealstructure?
Because you've done a bunch of deals.
Right?
So were they all was it seller finance or wasit an or anything else?
Yeah.
So there's there's this little bit of amisnomer on I know it's a misnomer, but on

(43:18):
buying and selling closely held business thatespecially in the construction home services
space, people think, I'm just gonna get a checkand I'm gonna walk away.
Right?
Like, our business is worth a million dollars.
You're just gonna wire me the money andmagically, I'm gonna go away tomorrow and it's
all gonna be great.
That almost never happens.
Like, in all and I I'm not and I don't eventhink it should.

(43:40):
If a deal is small if if it's like reallysmall, fine.
But in businesses that are worth any amount ofmoney, the deals are typically structured in a
way that encourages the buyer to perform andencourages the seller to perform.
So let's say the deal is worth let's just useround numbers to say it's worth $5,000,000.
Maybe out of that $5,000,000 200 or $2,000,000that is seller financed.

(44:05):
Right?
And maybe even there's a million dollars thatis is tied to an earnout.
Right?
So it keeps everybody sort of involved.
Now I will say this about earn outs.
Earn outs are intended to be better than theway the business is now.
So if I, the buyer, am buying a business andI'm gonna put an earn out in place, I want that
business to perform better than it was in thepast to hit that earn out.

(44:29):
So lots of sellers get this wrong.
They think, well, the earn out is just part ofthe compensation.
And as long as the business performs as well, Ishould be able to rank ding that earn out.
That's not the real reason for an earn out.
So structuring an earn out that's beneficial toboth sides is really the key.

(44:50):
Right?
It's the opposite of a divorce.
Right?
Divorce, it should be you both should feelpain, then you pretty much have it right.
Right?
But an earn out, you should both, you know, youshould both win.
The buyer should win and the seller should win.
Right?
So, earn outs are to help instigate growth.
So, clawbacks would be essentially the oppositeof that.

(45:12):
Yeah.
So, different than seller finance.
So, seller financing, you know, clips along.
As long as the business is doing well, youknow, you're gonna get paid as the seller.
If the business isn't doing well, or there'ssome other reason comes up, you know, the buyer
may stop paying you, right?
So, so seller financing is a risk.
But most businesses get sold with some form ofseller financing.

(45:34):
It's because it allows you to sort of structurethe deal in a way that's been a little bit more
beneficial to the seller.
Right?
So if it's like a, you know, a an SBA loan thatmight have a piece that's a, you know, a
partial piece that seller financed or keep inmind, SBA I'm not an SBA banker.
So, you know, please ask your banker for the,you know, the right ways to sort of do that.

(45:58):
Seller financing is also a way to sort ofstructure deals to keep it, to make it easy.
So let's just use that round number again,5,000,000 doll somebody's business is worth
$5,000,000, but the person buying the businessdoesn't have $5,000,000 liquid, but really
wants to pay that.
There's options to sell the business at a lowernumber and, you know, less less value.

(46:20):
Or this person comes to the table with 2 and ahalf million dollars and finances 2 and a half
million through the seller, and they actuallyget the number.
The seller actually gets the number they wantor or needs or the value for the business.
Right?
And frankly, seller financing is also a way forthe seller to, you know, roll for the nice
payment, make some interest, all those things.
Right?

(46:41):
It's sort of keep things in mind.
Seller financing, I think, gets a bad rapbecause people are just scared of it.
Right?
There's lots of ways to put it in there, makethe promissory notes so that that, you know,
it's well collateralized.
It's all tied, you know, tied in, without ithaving to be a disaster.
Okay.

(47:01):
Any other experiences that may be not as wellknown, that you'd like to share, whether it's
gotchas or maybe things of note that you thinkpeople should be looking at buy side or sell
side?
Yeah.
I think one of the things that maybe people,especially if you've not done this more than

(47:25):
once, are not familiar with the idea that LOIs,like letter of intents, are pretty much just
that.
They're worth just the paper they're printedon.
That's it.
Right?
So so I have had multiple people.
In fact, I've got a client right now that had anice LOI.
But in reality, the LOI is just to get to thenegotiation point.

(47:47):
Right?
And so the the purchase agreement is gonna lookmuch different than the LOI.
So people get very excited when they get an LOIand they're like, hey, look, I got an LOI for
$5,000,000.
I'm I'm gonna be able to, you know, buy my, youknow, condo in Hawaii and, you know, whatever
is gonna be amazing.
And they sort of start thinking that way.
That's the wrong thing to do from a seller'sperspective because that's what the buyer wants

(48:10):
you to do.
He wants you to be like, okay, sweet.
I'm thinking this way.
And now the buyer's gonna come back andnegotiate you down.
Right?
So think of an LOI as the opportunity to getyou to the point where the decision is made.
So it takes you off the market.
It gets you sort of aligned, but almost neverdoes an LOI and a purchase agreement completely
align.

(48:31):
Because and in fact, it probably shouldn'tbecause in reality, I, the buyer, if I'm buying
your business, I'm giving you an LOI based onsome very preliminary data you sent me.
You probably sent me a handful of reports thatI have no idea what the quality of earnings
are.
I'm I'm basically making assumptions off ofthese things.
I've signed a non disclosure and you've givenme that data.

(48:52):
And I basically come back and said, I thinkthat your business is worth this and I'd be
willing to pay this if due diligence supportsthat.
And so in due diligence, it's my job as thebuyer to find ways to try and drive the price
of the business down.
And it's your job as a seller to provide me duediligence that doesn't allow that to happen.
Right?
So that aspect of buying and sellingbusinesses, LOI, that's that's part of my my

(49:17):
one statement, Will, is like the letter ofintent is just that.
It's a letter of intent.
Do not go make decisions from your financialfuture off the letter of intent.
So don't go trying to buy that house, in Hawaiior in the Cayman Islands until you've, until
you've actually signed.
Yeah.
Don't tell
for handling the business.

(49:37):
And it's really, really yeah.
It's really, really important to that from boththe buyer and the seller aspect, because deals
fall apart all the time.
Deals fall apart at this at the closing table.
It's really important to not disclose, like,people inside the company, like key employees,
things like that.
Like, they can get wonky quick.
And, you know, don't go talk about this stuffin the in the blogosphere.

(50:00):
Don't, know, don't go out in the general, youknow, public and and have these discussions
because employees need to feel safe.
Right?
They need to feel like, hey, I'm excited tocome to the business every day.
And the minute that I don't feel that way,guess what?
I'm gonna have to find a way that I can feed myfamily.
That's just natural.
That's natural human behavior.
So, I I seen people make this mistake.

(50:22):
Hey, look, I signed an LOI.
As far as I'm concerned, the business is soldin ninety days we're closing.
And the reality is it's nine months.
Doesn't nothing ever happens in sixty days orninety days, unless there's just unless it's
like the most basic business of any kind.
Due diligence takes time.
It's the most soul sucking process you've everbeen through.
You thought it was if you thought it sucked toget a mortgage, try selling a business.

(50:46):
Due diligence is terrible.
I also wanted to talk about EO.
You are the president of EO Phoenix, Arizona,whatever.
What's your title?
What's what's the official?
Let's see.
What what is the grand poo paw?
No.
Yeah.
So president of Arizona.
Yeah.
Arizona is a chapter for the whole state.

(51:07):
So we we only have one chapter here.
So I'm current president of EO Arizona.
I've been EO for ten years and yet just I was achair of a regional event we just had a month
ago that was pretty awesome here for the West.
So all of the chapters in the West tookeighteen months to put that together with a co
chair of mine, Mike.
Yeah, it's a it's a journey.
I've I've been on the board, I think, sixyears.

(51:31):
But I really love I love EO, and and, EOArizona has done a lot for me.
So
Awesome.
What's what are some of the big takeawaysyou've had from EO?
And why then become president of it?
Because it seems like a lot more work.
Well, it's not less.
The good news is I get a great salary, $0.
Right?
It's a solid big success.
That in lumps, or is

(51:52):
Yeah.
However you'd like it.
They'll cut it up if, you know, once a week.
But, it's it's, it's a lot of a lot of blood,sweat, and tears for for volunteer work.
But, no, it's it's fantastic.
You know, I think your question is why EO.
Right?
Like, EO has done a lot for me.
You know, been informed for, you know, theseten years.
And, you know, I've been through both myparents passing away.

(52:13):
I've been through a business sale.
I've been through divorce.
You know, all things that you need that sort oftribe of people around you.
Right?
You know, my mother passed away from ananeurysm.
Probably the hardest seven weeks in my life.
She was in a coma for seven weeks and finallydied.
Right?
So Sorry.
Without my e o family around me for that, Idon't know, man.
You know what I mean?
Like, was people there for, you know, for me inthat whole thing.

(52:35):
You know, in the divorce, I I think I came toforum every single month and talked about that.
And I know that my forum was probably sick ofhearing about it.
Right?
But having that sort of people around you,whether you belong to EO or whatever other
network there is for business owners,entrepreneurs, you need a tribe.
You need a team around you.
Right?
You need people to talk to.

(52:55):
Just you know, it doesn't matter what it is.
Right?
And I, you know, I know I know, you know, youguys understand this, but but that aspect of
having that group that is similar to you, theyown businesses, they go through the same
struggles, they do all these things, is justit's impossible to quantify.
Like, because of EO, there's a lot of thingsthat I think that I've successfully managed in

(53:17):
my life for sure.
Well, it's not friends.
It's not family.
It's forum.
It's forum, baby.
Yep.
And I yeah.
I'm an fellow Eeyore as well, although not astenured as you.
I will say that it has helped give meperspective in not being alone in the struggles
that are very real and can't be shared with toomany people because there are very few people

(53:41):
that can understand the struggles that happen.
Yeah.
From an ownership perspective and and from aleadership perspective, what happens in home
life affects the business.
Whether you want it to or not, it does.
Yep.
Yeah.
100%.
Yeah.
That that whole aspect of, you know, justhaving people there to talk.
We talk about the 5%.
Right?
It's the 95% we talk about with anyone, but the5% that you're not willing to talk about with

(54:05):
anyone, that's the stuff we really wanna bringto forum or bring to you and and talk about.
And it is massively, massively valuablevaluable on that.
Now to the president thing, I think, you know,for me, it's a way to give back.
It's a, you know, it's a chance to make mymark.
You know, I I serve on some other boards aswell.
So I do a fair amount of, you know, that kindof thing.

(54:26):
But, you know, it definitely has made me abetter leader, like learning to lead leaders.
Right?
So not only is this for mates or whatever, thisis a board of, you know, 15 people that are all
much more qualified than I am to, you know, dowhat I'm doing and, you know, sort of be the
person to try and, you know, lead that group, Iguess, is, you know, is something I take I

(54:46):
don't take lightly.
Right?
That that aspect of the stewardship that wehave for this chapter to make sure that we're
providing member value for every dollar thatthey spend and exponentially providing that, I
take that very seriously.
So highly recommend you.
Love to talk about it at any time.
I'm sure Will is the same way.
I am.
I definitely am.

(55:08):
Probably don't talk about it enough on thepodcast, but if I did, it probably would take
over.
So thank you.
Thank you for repping.
There you go.
Thanks for the question.
Awesome.
This, this has been a ton of fun, but I thinkit's time for our last question.
I 100% agree.
So this is a question that we ask on everyepisode.
So if you were to go back twenty years, sowe're talking about 2005.

(55:31):
Okay.
If you were to go back and give yourselfadvice, what would you tell yourself back in
2005?
Almost happened in 2005.
Yeah.
That was a that was a that was a bit ago.
Let's see.
First of all, I stock in companies that makeface masks.
Boy, where did that come right?

(55:53):
No.
I think I think honestly, probably my one thingwould have been to I I think I sold the roofing
business just a little bit too early.
So it was like, probably stay focused.
You know what I mean?
Like, I I think what I what I see now withentrepreneurs is the biggest danger is the
founder falls out of love with the business.
Right?

(56:14):
So it's like trying people trying to helppeople recognize the value that their business
creates to the people around them, you know,their employees, their lives, their families,
all those things.
Like, don't fall out of love too soon.
I think that's probably a piece of advice.
It was like sort of find ways to be in lovewith the business again, you know, stay
focused.
I I'm not unhappy that I sold it, but, youknow, I I definitely think we were changing the

(56:39):
world there.
I think I just jumped off the train when Ishould have probably stayed on it at the
moment.
Very neat.
Very perspective.
No.
Totally.
And probably join sooner.
Yeah.
And join EO then.
Then.
Exactly.
Exactly.
This has been a ton of fun.
If somebody wanted to get ahold of you, what'sthe best way for them to do that?

(57:00):
Yeah.
Sure.
There you know, obviously, you can reach out tome on on LinkedIn and and all the the social
media stuff.
But my our website,nextlevelgrowth.com/chadnickel is another way
to kinda see my bio and check that out.
You know, [e-mail] is my emailaddress.
I'm more than happy to have a conversation, seewhere I can help out, you know, go for a

(57:21):
coffee, whatever it is.
And and, I just love talking business.
And for sure in the construction home servicesspace, that's my people.
So I love it.
Also, shout out to you for your awesome, coin,card that I got.
This thing's legit, and I've had that for, Idon't know, months at this point.
I love it.
Yeah.

(57:41):
No.
No.
I don't know if you give that to everybody orif I'm just special.
Hopefully, don't tell me.
I'll I'll just believe I'm special.
It's just you, Justin.
That's it.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell thepeople before we say goodbye?
No.
I I it was great.
I'd I love just chatting business.
Thanks so much guys for having me.
I'm very excited to have had the opportunity tobe on your spot on your podcast.
You guys are awesome.

(58:02):
Cool.
Cool.
Cool.
Cool.
This has been a ton of fun listeners, and untilnext time.
Adios.
Adios.
Thanks for listening to building scale.
To help us reach even more people, please sharethis episode with a friend, colleague, or on
social media.
Remember, the three pillars of scaling abusiness are people, process, and technology.

(58:22):
And our mission is to help the AEC industryprotect itself by making technology easy.
So if you think your company's technologypillar could use some improvement, book a call
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Just go to buildingscale.net/help.

(58:45):
And until next time.
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