December 9, 2025 • 27 mins
Want to scale your service business without burning out or bottlenecking your team? In this episode, Fractional COO Forrest Derr and coach Jeff Guldalian (The 360 Electrician) break down the exact systems high-performing businesses use to grow past $1M. Hear how to step out of daily decisions, train your team to quote and invoice in the field, and build simple, documented processes that get used—all part of the $1M systems checklist.
New to Jobber? Masters of Home Service listeners can claim an exclusive discount for Jobber at http://bit.ly/4kAzgm0
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I hate it when I see the guy saying,million dollar service company, bro,
let's get you to a hundredgrand. Let's get that money,
and let's get you two 50.
And then at two 50 we couldprobably talk about a million.
Welcome to Masters of Home Service,
the best podcast for home service Proslike us. I'm your host, Adams Sylvester,
and I want you to crush it in business.Is your business doing 20, 30,
(00:22):
$40,000 a month, maybe250 to $50,000 a year?
Do you want to get to amillion dollars? If you do,
then we're going to give you strategiesfor that because here's the thing,
to get to a million dollarsa year and two or $3 million,
it requires different systemsin place, different leadership.
You have to become better leader.
You have to hire differently and marketdifferently, all these different things,
you have to have a game plan for that.It's not just going to happen naturally.
(00:44):
And here's the thing,I own two businesses.
I have a six figure businessand a seven figure business,
and I enjoy the sevenfigure figure some more.
It's more exciting and more fun for me.
So that's you and you want tobecome a million dollar business.
Today is your day because mytwo guests are great at this.
They've done thisbefore, they do this now,
they're million dollar guys and they'regoing to give you a plan for how to
start building your business toa million dollars in revenue.
(01:06):
So why don't you guys introduce yourselvesand tell us who you are and what you
do. Jeff, you go first.
My name is Jeff, the 360 electrician.
I actually started my personal brick andmortar electrical contracting company
in Los Angeles 20 years ago this year.
And I always tell the story ofmy guys got tired of me and said,
Why don't you retire early? And so duringCOVID, a lot of my systems changed,
(01:34):
and I decided to move toMissoula, Montana, got bored,
and opened up my second brick and mortarthere within a year of being there.
So now I operate two electricalcontracting companies in two different states,
and I saw the void. There was nobodydoing electrical contractor content,
so I decided to get on board.
Social media we're the number one socialmedia channel for electricians that
(01:55):
want to become electrical contractorsand for electrical contractors looking to
level up in their business ineverything from zero to 360.
Sounds great. Thanks forbeing here. That's awesome.
It's a great ride.
Forrest[Forrest] Yeah. My name is Forrest Derr.
I've got a company called Derr Consulting.
I'm a fractional chief operating officer.
So my niche is helping businessesdo what you're talking about,
scaling their business to getover that million-dollar mark,
to get to the 10 million, to the 20million. A lot of these entrepreneurs,
I tell everybody they have builttheir business with brute force.
(02:17):
Now it's time to make it easier.
Now it's time to build the systemsin place to build that business,
since that's where I focus my time.We scrape and we claw and we grind.
You can only get so far by doing that.
So we're going to talk about how tosustainably build a business and boost
profits, and that kind of stuff.
What would you guys say is the biggestmisconception that people have in
(02:38):
getting to that size? We're talking aboutgetting a million dollars and above.
I think the biggest misconception isthat it's super hard and it's impossible,
and they don't think they can do it.It's a blocker from the beginning.
The big thing I preach and teach now iswe're not doing it like our dads and our
grandfathers did. That's huge. We havesocial media now. We have software,
we have consultants and coaches. Andif you're not taking advantage of that,
(02:59):
you're doing it like dad and grandpa,
which is brute for scratching andscraping, why not take the easier road?
Yeah, work smarter.
Yeah, I totally agree,
especially with the automationand the social media aspect of it.
But it seems like a lot of the peoplethat I talk to have pride and they don't
want to ask for help.
And if they would just take that stepand just ask for a little bit of help,
it could make the road so much easier.
(03:22):
You could either swim around theocean looking for this random fish,
looking for the answer, or youcould listen to this podcast,
get the answers you're looking for. Solet's give our listeners the answers,
the checklist of systems theyneed. Because here's the thing,
I think it starts with us,
John Maxwell's Law of the lid islike your organization's potential is
capped by the leader you, you'rethe lid of the organization.
(03:44):
Do you think it startswith a leader and how so?
I absolutely think itstarts with the leader.
A lot of times the leaderis the bottleneck in the business and they were the
person that was driving every decisionand pushing everything to happen.
They were the person out on the truckwhen they were the one man chucking a
truck on getting it started.
And they've got to come to a point wherethey're ready to accept that they can
(04:04):
let things go and delegate thosethings to other people. So absolutely.
Yeah, I think all the newpeople that are starting out,
you're building your foundation.We're all construction people.
How big a base are you going to build?
How big is your structure going tobe? And if you're thinking small,
you're building a small foundation.
(04:24):
It's going to get really hard toscale and grow. So I tell everybody,
dream as big as you can. And then exactlylike Forrest was saying is reach out.
And if you got that end goal, a lot ofpeople start their business and they say,
oh, I was great at the trade,
but I always say that youprobably suck at business,
which is it's okay because you can getsomeone to help you run the business.
You can't get somebody to teachyou the experience of doing it.
(04:47):
You got to go through that.
I think it's really important that theysit back and they actually think of the
end in mind.I usually call it the middle.
It's not the end unlessyou're dead or you sell out.
So you're always goingto be in your middle.
Did I ever think I was going to do amillion-plus-dollar electrical projects by
themselves? That was like, are you crazy?So you never know where your end is.
So I always say in your middle,
but if you lay out that foundation andthen you specifically say, Okay, look,
(05:08):
I know the first year is going tobe tough. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this, get thatroadmap. But on that roadmap should be,
I know I don't know. I know what Idon't know. You got to write it down.
And when you get to that point,reach out to the people that do know.
Building an exit strategy.
And that's one of the first questionsI ask clients is what is your exit
strategy? And most peopledon't have an answer,
but if you don't have an end inmind, how are you going to get there?
(05:29):
How are you going to know what that is?
So if someone's listening,they're doing $250,000 a year,
they've got two helpers,
what do they need to do now to startbuilding that future towards a million
dollars?
They've got to think aboutwhat that endgame is.
So they got to lookinto the future and say,
in five years I wantto be at this revenue.
(05:50):
If in five years you wantto be at this revenue,
how many trucks does that require?How many employees does that require?
What kind of tools do you need? So you'vegot to think about the end in mind,
much like a project, you've got aproject management, I use a Gant chart.
What's the furthestpoint where I want to go?
What are the incremental steps that Ineed to take today to get to where I need
to be in five years?
(06:10):
So you got to have that end inmind and know where you're going.
Yeah, look, if you're doing$250,000, I'm proud of you.
That's a great milestone.
I love that number because itgives you enough cash flow,
hopefully profit that you cannow afford to really scale.
I hate it when I see the guy saying,million dollar service company, bro,
let's get you to a hundredgrand. Let's get that money.
(06:33):
Let's get to 250 and then at 250 wecan probably talk about a million.
But I always feel like that's the pointat 250 is a sweet spot where you have
the resources, you can analyze whatworked, what didn't work, and then again,
reaching out, whether it's coachinglike me, Forrest, or any of these guys.
Also, the proven track record.
You want to start following peoplethat are showing you, I believe I show.
(06:57):
So if I say, Hey guys, let me show youhow I sold this million-dollar project.
I better be on a million-dollarproject. And that's the important part.
And then whoever resonateswith you, whoever you bind with, whoever you go with,
go all in that 250 range.
You should be spending at least 10to $20,000 in investing in coaching.
What does the marketing plan look like?
So you're 250,000 and you need towant to get to 500 and then 750,
(07:21):
then a million.
It's different once you startgetting bigger and bigger and bigger.
So how does it change?What do you guys think?
I think from a marketing strategy,
what I find talking to people a lot oftimes is they don't have a defined target
market. And when you're atthat a hundred thousand, 250,
you're just taking any business youcan get. Just whatever you can grab,
you're going to take it.
And so to be able to scale andget past a million dollars,
you really got to define what that targetmarket is and figure out where those
(07:44):
people are.
Defining the target market is a challengesometimes because a lot of people are
stuck in, I want toget any business I can.
But once you define that andreally clarify who they are,
then you can start building a marketingstrategy around how to go find those
individual people.
I think if you're sloppy small,
you'll be sloppy big.And I think that when you're at $250,000,
(08:06):
it's a great time to pause and think,
all the headaches that I haveright now, all the problems,
all of the frustrations,
you guys where I'm going withthis multiplied by four x,
I'd be miserable, right? And they're notgoing to go away on their own. In fact,
they'll even get worse. And soI wish that I had done this.
(08:27):
I wish I had million dollar systemswhen I was a quarter of the size
because if you don't, then you'regoing to get to a million dollars.
Everyone's going to be direct to you,
all the problems are going to floatup to you and you're miserable.
You kind of wish you'd just gone back.
You're taking on too much workthat's not in your wheelhouse.
There's so many things that people doat two 50 that are just bad decisions.
You got to weed those decisions out nowand course correct now so you actually
(08:50):
enjoy the ride.
Absolutely. So it's funnyyou mentioned marketing.
So in electrical on my channel,
I have the ultimate marketingfor electrical contractors.
I spent money in advertising and marketingonly in the first four years of both
my companies and I have not literallyspent a dime without a direct target.
Sometimes you're going to sponsorsomething or we have a lot of veterans in
Montana that aren'tgoing to be on the phone,
(09:11):
so we have a very specificmarketing for that.
I don't because I'mtalking about all the...
Google ads and TV.
I'll say the bad words, Yelpand Angie's List, and all those.
I didn't do it because I told people,
there was a point where I realizedthat every single client I go to is a
gold mine, a potential gold mine. Therewas a nugget there, you found a nugget,
they called you, you got in thedoor. You spent all this time,
(09:32):
money getting there, whether it is fromAngi, Yelp, and all those, I don't care.
When you're starting out, you gotto get anything and everything.
Once you know that there'snuggets in that home,
my whole game plan for allmy technicians, all my SOPs,
everything changes to you start gettingthat shovel and you start digging and
digging and you make sure that you'restaking that's a mine and you're looking
(09:53):
for more gold, which is your referrals.Plain and simple. I tell everybody,
don't pay for leads. Be the lead and who'sgoing to be your biggest cheerleader,
your existing clients.
Everybody wants to kind offollow the herd. Let the
herd do the same advertising,let them be there.
You just go with what you know is solidgold and that's your existing customer.
So that's how you'll scaleimmensely fast. I always say it,
(10:18):
and I can count really fast to oneto three, three to nine, nine to 27,
after that. I don't want to dothe math, right? But imagine,
and that's how I 10x myclient base very, very fast.
I've used this method I callthe upside-down pyramid,
but it doesn't take a lot of money at all.
It just takes a little bit ofplanning, systems and train your techs.
(10:39):
They are the face of yourcompany no matter what.
Every person you own has to be thebiggest cheerleader for your company.
Give them some incentive, andyou'll go a long way with marketing.
It's really not that hard.
It's amazing how many people are afraidto ask for a referral. Oh, unbelievable.
You've got a customer that'shappy with you, they're pleased,
they think you did a great job. Theymay give you a good Google review.
Just ask 'em, Hey,
do you know anybody that's havingchallenges with what I helped you with?
(11:00):
Yeah, can I do something reallyfun right now? This is here. Okay,
so I usually don't have cash in mypocket. I'm in Vegas to do this. Okay?
This is what I do when I go to a customer.Now I'm not really ripping hundreds,
okay? I'm not that rich. Buthere's the analogy. Listen to this.
This is serious marketing. Youguys are going to be blown.
This is my number two, number threequestion in all coaching. I go to Adam,
(11:20):
thank you so much forbeing such a great client.
I want to give you a little giftand your friends and family a gift.
Would you pass that on for me? Okay.And you go, okay, great. And I go, okay,
Adam, here. Here's the I'm ripping halfa hundred. There's one for your mom.
Here's one for your coworker, and youknow what? Here's one for you next time,
okay, we're done. So you got three halfhundreds. I'm taking the other half.
(11:41):
If your people call me, I'm goingto apply that to a service call.
Whatever it is, I want tomake sure all your friends,
family or customers for life, I leave.If you don't do this and I leave.
The same thing happens. Life takesover. Adam gets a call from the IRS,
heaven forbid, and you're being audited.Your wife calls your significant,
your partner calls, something'shappened, your kids fell.
(12:01):
Life's going to instantly take overand you can care less that that plumber
cleared your toilet.
You can care less that the airconditioned filter was changed.
You can care less that I put inrecess lights because life took over.
I don't even know what Ihad for lunch yesterday.
So when you come back from life andyou don't have ripped up hundreds,
life took over.
But if you come back and you see threeripped up a hundred dollars bills,
(12:22):
what's going to happen? Adam?Whatcha going to do with those 300?
You're going to remember the wholestory that you had. Not only you,
but you're going to be like, Hey mom,
this crazy guy called the 360electrician just gave me half hundreds.
Put that on your refrigerator and youbetter believe I'm going from one to three
to nine to 27 every single time.
I love that. That's agreat visual. That's great.
It just so happened I havethe cash. How lucky was that?
I'll tell my wife it'll begone by the time I get home.
(12:43):
That's great. I think whatyou're touching on guys,
is in the beginning you'refocused on one layer of marketing
and then once you get some breathingroom and you're like, okay,
we've kind of exhausted thatchannel, whatever it is, yard signs,
then we do the next layer ofmarketing, and maybe it's Google ads,
maybe it's more advanced, more complexonce you get to a million dollars.
I personally have never experienceda company that can thrive just on a
(13:06):
referral. Maybe you actuallyJeff, but after that it's so hard.
You can sustain three to four technicianson referrals like minor marketing,
but after that, youjust kind of hit a wall.
At least that's what I've seenfor many clients, many companies.
And so I think there's a point whereyou have to excel your marketing to keep
fueling the sixth, seventh, eighthtechnician for most companies.
(13:27):
Yeah, you can't just rely on one thing,
but referrals to his pointare absolutely huge. I mean,
especially if you can stack thereferrals and get referrals on referrals.
Yeah.
I mean a little bit agree todisagree on that because again,
what is the number one guaranteedalmost sale? It's referrals.
So I understand. So again, I'vegot the upside-down pyramid,
(13:48):
and the point of that is anupside-down pyramid is like a funnel.
You want to throw everysingle thing you can,
from ripping hundreds to magnets.
I heard the podcast before this aboutwrapping your van with whatever you want.
The whole point is when youdump it in that big funnel,
you really are only still going to gettrickled down as much as you can put in
there. So a lot of people wantto do it. The upside-down way,
(14:09):
and I know we're going to talkabout this hopefully later,
is they want to go with onethree. Like I just said,
that's just one of my 20
different ways. So I absolutely agree,
but also this is a million-dollarcompany plus is going to spend,
(14:29):
I want to say a minimum of 20 to$50,000 in advertising minimum.
I would say that's right.
If you really do take half of that andgive it back to your team and just spend
some time training on,again, get a sales guy in,
I get hired all the time by plumbing,electrical companies, and they say,
our electrical's dying, Jeff, canyou come and boost it? I said,
I'll boost everything. Getsomeone in, pay them for it,
and then give the balance of that backto your guys' incentives as a booster.
I personally think you're seeing two,three customers a day. I don't care what,
(14:51):
say,
how many dollars am I going to put intoadvertising to get three customers a
day? Probably not. It's going to be10. So give it back to your guys,
your company, and then you build thatteam. Again, I'm very unique. I get it.
I sold golf balls whenI was eight years old.
Did you go in the water and pickup, pull them out of the water?
The point being is when me and forcewere talking outside, I'm thinking, oh,
(15:12):
I know. And then I'm like, whoa.
He just took me to a different levelon something I didn't think about.
And if I'm in that place right now,that's exactly what I would do.
So that's why we're coaches.That's why we're doing this,
and that's why we'reprobably on this podcast.
Guys, this is a great conversation.
I do want to pause for a minute to talkabout Jobber and how Jobber can actually
help business owners get $2 millionthrough processes and systems. Jeff,
(15:35):
from your experience,
how has Jobber helped you build thosesystems into your business to make it
scalable?
All my systems are Jobber withinJobber. So I am a helicoptering, Jobber.
I can sit at home in mypajamas and helicopter,
but every single one of my technicians,
I give them the authority as team leadersand to invoice to schedule and to see
everybody else and see what they'redoing so that they need help.
(15:55):
They can bring in. I mean, Jobber AI,forget about it. It's unbelievable.
You cannot scale a business to a milliondollars without having field software.
Ours is obviously Jobber by choice.
Jobber is the best one.
Jobber is the best one.
You heard him say it. Jobbers the bestone. If you don't have a software at all,
you definitely need one. Sogo to jobber.com/podcastdeal,
(16:16):
start using Jobber today, get thatexclusive discount and baby scale,
baby scale. Forrest I want to get intothe operation side of the business and
making sure that we build a businessthat we enjoy that's sustainable,
that our technicians arehappy, those kinds of things.
What are some of the things,the checklist, if you will,
that we have to really make sure thatwe're dialing in or else we'll just be
miserable when we get bigger?
(16:37):
Yeah, accountability.
You've got to make sure that you've gotclear roles and responsibilities with
the team members so that there is a clearchain of command for each one of those
team members to know whatthey're responsible for and who they're responsible
to. Otherwise,
you're going to be the owner that'sgetting every single phone call.
My goal is to help owners get towhere their phone doesn't ring.
It's okay if a million-dollar customercalls and wants to get a sale,
(17:00):
but I want to get your phone tonot ring from your team members.
You need to get to your business towhere you are not getting called to make
every decision, the $500 decision,
empower your team member to make thatdecision. If they make a $500 mistake,
they'll learn from it.
It's a teachable moment andthey'll probably never do it again.
But if you demand perfection andthat your team members can't make a
(17:25):
mistake and can't make decisions, thenthey're never going to make decisions.
You're just going to suffocate.
Yeah, so accountability is, I would say,
number one in my bookas far as a checklist.
You've got to get that squared away.
And Jeff, earlier, youmentioned training your people,
training them on the craft of theskill. They're learning, obviously.
How else do you need to train themso that you can actually sustain this
(17:46):
business in the long term?
I mean, labor's really tough rightnow in the trades, we're down,
and there's a big gap that's coming. So,
I like to say if you have a big turnover,then you're not training correctly.
Number one, I feel like if your team'sequipped in all aspects of running
the business, then you're justgoing to have a better team.
And exactly what Forrest says,
the phone's going to ring less becausethey have the authority, the knowledge,
(18:08):
and especially the foresight to makesure that mistakes don't happen.
But training is super important. So alot of people will concentrate. Again,
my coaching clients will call me, andthey say, Well, I'm worried about theft,
I'm worried about this. I'm worriedabout, well, they'll know the numbers.
I can't tell 'em what I charge.They'll know that, and I go,
maybe you got the wrong employees. Doyou want to be that glorified handy?
I can't say handyman because handymanare great. My brother's a handyman,
(18:30):
but as an electrical contractor,you're kind of not a handyman.
Are you in this thing to be an electricalcontracting company, a business,
or are you just going to beyour most highest paid employee?
Are you building an assetor are you building a job?
Yeah, I want to own the trains. Idon't want to run the trains every day.
Not that I'm degrading anybody.I did it, but my job, I feel,
is to make sure my team makesthe most amount of money,
(18:52):
puts as much food on theirplate, gets to do the vacations,
everything I want to do.
The funny part is I get paid less thanany individual person that works for me
except I have 20 of them.
So I have the collective thatreally is the team part of it,
and I get to step awaycompletely teach 'em sales.
Sales is the most importantpart. No lying, no cheating,
(19:12):
not even a smell or hint of it.Otherwise, that's instant termination.
My hiring process is probably wherethe training starts. I have the worst.
You don't want to knowhow I hire. I'm in LA,
the most litigated state in theworld. One bad hire is bankruptcy.
I'm not joking, if you're just startingout, that's just the way it goes.
So my hiring process iswhere the training starts.
(19:35):
I'm going to make people sweat, andit's a very uncomfortable situation,
but that's your first training. Ifyou can't handle and pass that test,
you're not going to work for me.There's just no way to do it.
I also think that you have to make surethat your technology scales with you.
I used to think, Oh, I'm thesmartest guy in the world.
My two people aren't nearly as goodas I am. They could never invoice,
(19:55):
and they're literally the ones at thehouse. They know exactly what they did,
why can't they invoice? And so now allmy people send invoices every single day.
It's probably happening right as we speak.
And that was a big mindset shift for me.
I thought there's no way theycan invoice, but they could.
But I can't imagine being 5 millionand have me seeing all the invoices.
That's Looney Tunes. And so you hadto make sure that your processes,
especially around technology,
(20:16):
really scales or else the technologywill become a burden, not a blessing.
If they're invoicing inthe field, guess what?
They can collect money in the field.
Exactly.
Right. So they can take creditcards through the application.
I've got a huge smile on my face. Huge,
huge again. Okay, so here's the scenario.
So you have a qualified journeymanmaster electrician on the field.
(20:39):
This is the way I did work for acompany very briefly before this,
and this is how it worked. So you'dgo on the field as that technician,
you would have to call the office sothat already you got to have someone that
is going to price for all theseoverheads. Oh my gosh. What are the, okay,
so we are all in the trade.I put people on the spot.
If you are bidding an electrical job,
so we're in the studio and we need toput like 20 lights and run a couple of
(21:02):
outlets. If you got to call me,I'm the boss. I'm the bottleneck,
and I'm going to give you a price there.
This is a universal language forthe trades, right? HVAC, plumbing.
There are two questions I can ask you10. One of it be is how's the customer,
are they a pain? Is ithard to get to what's,
but there is two universal questionsthat must be answered for me
(21:25):
to give you a price. You guys knowwhat that is? Think about that.
Not sure.
Okay. I show up, I analyze it, I lookat it, I call you and I say, Hey,
how long is it going to take?Perfect one and the next one?
What materials are you going to need?
Boom. You see what I'm saying? [Adam] Howsmart are we? [Jeff] I know smart guy.
So check this out. If I've trainedmy guys and for example, dude,
one technician one dayis $1,000 labor rate,
(21:49):
and when they call me, what'sthe, how long is it going to take?
Why are you calling me? It's going totake one day. You already need a thousand.
My tech is going to tell me what itis. If he says three and a half days,
three and a half thousand, why are youcalling me? Okay, material, some type.
You got 10 wholesale houses. Yougot friends, have them make a list,
call up and say, what is this materialgoing to be? About 800 you can,
you see what I mean? So I justempowered them to not call me.
(22:11):
We are really ruffling some feathersright now because there are people
listening. There's just no way. Youdon't, they don't trust us. I'm special.
My business is different in myindustry, this and that. And yes,
your industry is differentthan what maybe electoral cool,
but it's the same if you trustyour people to go out in the field,
people's homes, put on those little thingson your feet, walk into their house,
talk to the client and fixtheir house or cut their grass.
(22:33):
You should trust them toinvoice. Give them an incentive.
Maybe there's a language barrier maybe,
but I think a mindset shiftis really important here.
And your frontline techniciansare going to be people.
Persons you're not going to put That'sright. I have non-people, persons, too.
They make amazing panels.They never call back.
They're not my frontline and incentivizethat. What's the incentive? Look,
(22:54):
you bid it for three and a halfdays. I'm going to incentivize that,
but if it takes four and a half,hey bro, something's wrong.
Let's talk about that, ya know?
Forrest, how important is it aswe close out to have repeatable
documented processes that are the same,
whether it's John or Joe, whetherJohn's in a good mood or a bad mood,
whether he got sleep lastnight, it doesn't matter.
(23:15):
The same result is produced everytime. How important is that?
It's vitally important. I mean,
if you go into a fast foodrestaurant and go in the kitchen,
there's repeatable processes,documented out visual diagrams.
They don't document every singlething, but it's the 80/20 rule.
It's what are the 20% of thethings that get 80% of the results.
(23:35):
Those are the things that you have todocument and you have to document them as
simple as possible. One of thechallenges I see is people over document.
Ok.
And I ask them, show meyour processes. Well,
they pull it out of SharePointor Google Drive or whatever,
and it's a 20-page document. Nobody'spulling that out and look at it.
It's overkill. So everything that you do,
(23:56):
look at the 20% that produce 80% ofresults and get that simplified as easy
as possible. And the threesteps is get it to 20/80, right?
Yeah, I agree. And work withyour team. Again, in my trade,
I have to be an electrician.
I'm a master electrician anda journeyman electrician,
and I have two unlimited contractor.You can't get anything by me.
I've been there and done that,but I still get my team in there.
(24:17):
Sometimes when I'm building a new system,
especially if I got a systemthat has to be run my way,
I have to do it on a higher level. Idon't really want them to get involved.
Everything else, I get them involved.And I always find them saying, Oh,
but Jeff, what about this? And thenget your system. And now they're in,
they've bought into the system.
They bought in, and now it's their system,
not Jeff's. [Jeff] I had avery interesting situation happen two weeks ago.
(24:42):
Well pump three-phase motor for allyou electrician geeks out there.
Nobody wrote that. Itwas a three-phase motor.
They all thought it was a singlephase. So one of my lead guys, Joseph,
love him, love you guys. He comes andhis head's low like He's got it. I said,
No, no, no, no, no. He goes, well,
come in three minutes before themeeting or usual three minutes.
I think we're going to need longerthan that because I said, No, no, no,
we're not getting three. I said, andbring our job flow chart with you.
(25:05):
And he goes, okay. He came, he putsthe paper on the table and I just said,
just point where you messedup. He went, oh yeah,
obviously it was between Aand B, let's just say. I said,
do you know what youdid wrong? Absolutely.
You going to do it again because nowyou hell. Oh, heck no. Okay, done.
Three minutes, we solved it again.We did lose some money on that job.
I don't say lose, we broke even. [Forrest]But it wasn't a 20-page document,
(25:28):
was it? [Jeff] It's one single sheet.That's the point. It's one. Now,
I'm a social media guy. I could talk28,000 steps to that, but you're right,
you're going to lose them. I've got threeactual items I think our listeners can
do right now to startgetting to a million dollars.
Number one is you have to have agoal and know what the goal is.
If your goal is a million dollars andwhat is that a month per week? Per day,
(25:49):
is that eight grand a day? 10 grand a day?
You need to have a visual of what youwant your business to be and look like and
then work backwards from there. Numbertwo is you have to train your people,
your people, the most important partof your business. You got to train 'em,
empower them, trust them. Don't makethem call the office every five minutes.
Ask them this question, thatquestion, empower them. Say, Hey,
you make the decision.If you make a mistake,
(26:11):
we'll learn from it and you'llget better moving forward.
And number three is processes,repeatable, documented processes.
You have to have a simple,
maybe one sheet that explainssomething that you're doing.
That way they mess up. You cansay, Hey, you missed number three,
and it's accountability and itempowers them to do the job, right?
You need to have a documented processso that whether it's John or Joe or
(26:33):
Louise, they're doing it thesame way every single time.
Absolutely. I love thosethree. And of course,
I think it's super important tofind a coach, to find a program,
a system that shows you the end game,the actual results on the field,
not just on a piece of paper or awhiteboard that you resonate with in your
trade, your company, orwhere you want to go.
I think that's the winningtrifecta right there.
(26:55):
Well, you guys are crushing it in businessfor us. Appreciate you being here,
Jeff. You guys are both dominating it.
Just thank you for the impact thatyou guys are having in our space.
It really means a lot.
Yeah. Thanks for having us.Appreciate you. Thanks for having us.
Forrest, how do peoplefind out more about you?
You can find me on derrconsulting.com,DERR consulting.com.
Fill out a contact form,be great, and talk to you.
So me, it's super simple.
My calling card I tell everybody is justgo to YouTube and end the search bar,
(27:18):
type in electrical contractor. I'm goingto apologize to you and your family.
They're going to see this face alot on there, but that's my niche.
And also everything I do is at
www.the360electrician.com.
All my social media channelsare at the 360 Electrician.
Great. Well, thanks for beinghere, guys. Really appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you get to a million dollars
(27:41):
in revenue. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.You can find me at adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients andyour family deserve your very best,
so go give it to 'em.
I hate it when I see the guy saying,million dollar service company, bro,
let's get you to a hundredgrand. Let's get that money,
and let's get you two 50.
And then at two 50 we couldprobably talk about a million.
Welcome to Masters of Home Service,
the best podcast for home service Proslike us. I'm your host, Adams Sylvester,
and I want you to crush it in business.Is your business doing 20, 30,
(00:22):
$40,000 a month, maybe250 to $50,000 a year?
Do you want to get to amillion dollars? If you do,
then we're going to give you strategiesfor that because here's the thing,
to get to a million dollarsa year and two or $3 million,
it requires different systemsin place, different leadership.
You have to become better leader.
You have to hire differently and marketdifferently, all these different things,
you have to have a game plan for that.It's not just going to happen naturally.
(00:44):
And here's the thing,I own two businesses.
I have a six figure businessand a seven figure business,
and I enjoy the sevenfigure figure some more.
It's more exciting and more fun for me.
So that's you and you want tobecome a million dollar business.
Today is your day because mytwo guests are great at this.
They've done thisbefore, they do this now,
they're million dollar guys and they'regoing to give you a plan for how to
start building your business toa million dollars in revenue.
(01:06):
So why don't you guys introduce yourselvesand tell us who you are and what you
do. Jeff, you go first.
My name is Jeff, the 360 electrician.
I actually started my personal brick andmortar electrical contracting company
in Los Angeles 20 years ago this year.
And I always tell the story ofmy guys got tired of me and said,
Why don't you retire early? And so duringCOVID, a lot of my systems changed,
(01:34):
and I decided to move toMissoula, Montana, got bored,
and opened up my second brick and mortarthere within a year of being there.
So now I operate two electricalcontracting companies in two different states,
and I saw the void. There was nobodydoing electrical contractor content,
so I decided to get on board.
Social media we're the number one socialmedia channel for electricians that
(01:55):
want to become electrical contractorsand for electrical contractors looking to
level up in their business ineverything from zero to 360.
Sounds great. Thanks forbeing here. That's awesome.
It's a great ride.
Forrest[Forrest] Yeah. My name is Forrest Derr.
I've got a company called Derr Consulting.
I'm a fractional chief operating officer.
So my niche is helping businessesdo what you're talking about,
scaling their business to getover that million-dollar mark,
to get to the 10 million, to the 20million. A lot of these entrepreneurs,
I tell everybody they have builttheir business with brute force.
(02:17):
Now it's time to make it easier.
Now it's time to build the systemsin place to build that business,
since that's where I focus my time.We scrape and we claw and we grind.
You can only get so far by doing that.
So we're going to talk about how tosustainably build a business and boost
profits, and that kind of stuff.
What would you guys say is the biggestmisconception that people have in
(02:38):
getting to that size? We're talking aboutgetting a million dollars and above.
I think the biggest misconception isthat it's super hard and it's impossible,
and they don't think they can do it.It's a blocker from the beginning.
The big thing I preach and teach now iswe're not doing it like our dads and our
grandfathers did. That's huge. We havesocial media now. We have software,
we have consultants and coaches. Andif you're not taking advantage of that,
(02:59):
you're doing it like dad and grandpa,
which is brute for scratching andscraping, why not take the easier road?
Yeah, work smarter.
Yeah, I totally agree,
especially with the automationand the social media aspect of it.
But it seems like a lot of the peoplethat I talk to have pride and they don't
want to ask for help.
And if they would just take that stepand just ask for a little bit of help,
it could make the road so much easier.
(03:22):
You could either swim around theocean looking for this random fish,
looking for the answer, or youcould listen to this podcast,
get the answers you're looking for. Solet's give our listeners the answers,
the checklist of systems theyneed. Because here's the thing,
I think it starts with us,
John Maxwell's Law of the lid islike your organization's potential is
capped by the leader you, you'rethe lid of the organization.
(03:44):
Do you think it startswith a leader and how so?
I absolutely think itstarts with the leader.
A lot of times the leaderis the bottleneck in the business and they were the
person that was driving every decisionand pushing everything to happen.
They were the person out on the truckwhen they were the one man chucking a
truck on getting it started.
And they've got to come to a point wherethey're ready to accept that they can
(04:04):
let things go and delegate thosethings to other people. So absolutely.
Yeah, I think all the newpeople that are starting out,
you're building your foundation.We're all construction people.
How big a base are you going to build?
How big is your structure going tobe? And if you're thinking small,
you're building a small foundation.
(04:24):
It's going to get really hard toscale and grow. So I tell everybody,
dream as big as you can. And then exactlylike Forrest was saying is reach out.
And if you got that end goal, a lot ofpeople start their business and they say,
oh, I was great at the trade,
but I always say that youprobably suck at business,
which is it's okay because you can getsomeone to help you run the business.
You can't get somebody to teachyou the experience of doing it.
(04:47):
You got to go through that.
I think it's really important that theysit back and they actually think of the
end in mind.I usually call it the middle.
It's not the end unlessyou're dead or you sell out.
So you're always goingto be in your middle.
Did I ever think I was going to do amillion-plus-dollar electrical projects by
themselves? That was like, are you crazy?So you never know where your end is.
So I always say in your middle,
but if you lay out that foundation andthen you specifically say, Okay, look,
(05:08):
I know the first year is going tobe tough. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this, get thatroadmap. But on that roadmap should be,
I know I don't know. I know what Idon't know. You got to write it down.
And when you get to that point,reach out to the people that do know.
Building an exit strategy.
And that's one of the first questionsI ask clients is what is your exit
strategy? And most peopledon't have an answer,
but if you don't have an end inmind, how are you going to get there?
(05:29):
How are you going to know what that is?
So if someone's listening,they're doing $250,000 a year,
they've got two helpers,
what do they need to do now to startbuilding that future towards a million
dollars?
They've got to think aboutwhat that endgame is.
So they got to lookinto the future and say,
in five years I wantto be at this revenue.
(05:50):
If in five years you wantto be at this revenue,
how many trucks does that require?How many employees does that require?
What kind of tools do you need? So you'vegot to think about the end in mind,
much like a project, you've got aproject management, I use a Gant chart.
What's the furthestpoint where I want to go?
What are the incremental steps that Ineed to take today to get to where I need
to be in five years?
(06:10):
So you got to have that end inmind and know where you're going.
Yeah, look, if you're doing$250,000, I'm proud of you.
That's a great milestone.
I love that number because itgives you enough cash flow,
hopefully profit that you cannow afford to really scale.
I hate it when I see the guy saying,million dollar service company, bro,
let's get you to a hundredgrand. Let's get that money.
(06:33):
Let's get to 250 and then at 250 wecan probably talk about a million.
But I always feel like that's the pointat 250 is a sweet spot where you have
the resources, you can analyze whatworked, what didn't work, and then again,
reaching out, whether it's coachinglike me, Forrest, or any of these guys.
Also, the proven track record.
You want to start following peoplethat are showing you, I believe I show.
(06:57):
So if I say, Hey guys, let me show youhow I sold this million-dollar project.
I better be on a million-dollarproject. And that's the important part.
And then whoever resonateswith you, whoever you bind with, whoever you go with,
go all in that 250 range.
You should be spending at least 10to $20,000 in investing in coaching.
What does the marketing plan look like?
So you're 250,000 and you need towant to get to 500 and then 750,
(07:21):
then a million.
It's different once you startgetting bigger and bigger and bigger.
So how does it change?What do you guys think?
I think from a marketing strategy,
what I find talking to people a lot oftimes is they don't have a defined target
market. And when you're atthat a hundred thousand, 250,
you're just taking any business youcan get. Just whatever you can grab,
you're going to take it.
And so to be able to scale andget past a million dollars,
you really got to define what that targetmarket is and figure out where those
(07:44):
people are.
Defining the target market is a challengesometimes because a lot of people are
stuck in, I want toget any business I can.
But once you define that andreally clarify who they are,
then you can start building a marketingstrategy around how to go find those
individual people.
I think if you're sloppy small,
you'll be sloppy big.And I think that when you're at $250,000,
(08:06):
it's a great time to pause and think,
all the headaches that I haveright now, all the problems,
all of the frustrations,
you guys where I'm going withthis multiplied by four x,
I'd be miserable, right? And they're notgoing to go away on their own. In fact,
they'll even get worse. And soI wish that I had done this.
(08:27):
I wish I had million dollar systemswhen I was a quarter of the size
because if you don't, then you'regoing to get to a million dollars.
Everyone's going to be direct to you,
all the problems are going to floatup to you and you're miserable.
You kind of wish you'd just gone back.
You're taking on too much workthat's not in your wheelhouse.
There's so many things that people doat two 50 that are just bad decisions.
You got to weed those decisions out nowand course correct now so you actually
(08:50):
enjoy the ride.
Absolutely. So it's funnyyou mentioned marketing.
So in electrical on my channel,
I have the ultimate marketingfor electrical contractors.
I spent money in advertising and marketingonly in the first four years of both
my companies and I have not literallyspent a dime without a direct target.
Sometimes you're going to sponsorsomething or we have a lot of veterans in
Montana that aren'tgoing to be on the phone,
(09:11):
so we have a very specificmarketing for that.
I don't because I'mtalking about all the...
Google ads and TV.
I'll say the bad words, Yelpand Angie's List, and all those.
I didn't do it because I told people,
there was a point where I realizedthat every single client I go to is a
gold mine, a potential gold mine. Therewas a nugget there, you found a nugget,
they called you, you got in thedoor. You spent all this time,
(09:32):
money getting there, whether it is fromAngi, Yelp, and all those, I don't care.
When you're starting out, you gotto get anything and everything.
Once you know that there'snuggets in that home,
my whole game plan for allmy technicians, all my SOPs,
everything changes to you start gettingthat shovel and you start digging and
digging and you make sure that you'restaking that's a mine and you're looking
(09:53):
for more gold, which is your referrals.Plain and simple. I tell everybody,
don't pay for leads. Be the lead and who'sgoing to be your biggest cheerleader,
your existing clients.
Everybody wants to kind offollow the herd. Let the
herd do the same advertising,let them be there.
You just go with what you know is solidgold and that's your existing customer.
So that's how you'll scaleimmensely fast. I always say it,
(10:18):
and I can count really fast to oneto three, three to nine, nine to 27,
after that. I don't want to dothe math, right? But imagine,
and that's how I 10x myclient base very, very fast.
I've used this method I callthe upside-down pyramid,
but it doesn't take a lot of money at all.
It just takes a little bit ofplanning, systems and train your techs.
(10:39):
They are the face of yourcompany no matter what.
Every person you own has to be thebiggest cheerleader for your company.
Give them some incentive, andyou'll go a long way with marketing.
It's really not that hard.
It's amazing how many people are afraidto ask for a referral. Oh, unbelievable.
You've got a customer that'shappy with you, they're pleased,
they think you did a great job. Theymay give you a good Google review.
Just ask 'em, Hey,
do you know anybody that's havingchallenges with what I helped you with?
(11:00):
Yeah, can I do something reallyfun right now? This is here. Okay,
so I usually don't have cash in mypocket. I'm in Vegas to do this. Okay?
This is what I do when I go to a customer.Now I'm not really ripping hundreds,
okay? I'm not that rich. Buthere's the analogy. Listen to this.
This is serious marketing. Youguys are going to be blown.
This is my number two, number threequestion in all coaching. I go to Adam,
(11:20):
thank you so much forbeing such a great client.
I want to give you a little giftand your friends and family a gift.
Would you pass that on for me? Okay.And you go, okay, great. And I go, okay,
Adam, here. Here's the I'm ripping halfa hundred. There's one for your mom.
Here's one for your coworker, and youknow what? Here's one for you next time,
okay, we're done. So you got three halfhundreds. I'm taking the other half.
(11:41):
If your people call me, I'm goingto apply that to a service call.
Whatever it is, I want tomake sure all your friends,
family or customers for life, I leave.If you don't do this and I leave.
The same thing happens. Life takesover. Adam gets a call from the IRS,
heaven forbid, and you're being audited.Your wife calls your significant,
your partner calls, something'shappened, your kids fell.
(12:01):
Life's going to instantly take overand you can care less that that plumber
cleared your toilet.
You can care less that the airconditioned filter was changed.
You can care less that I put inrecess lights because life took over.
I don't even know what Ihad for lunch yesterday.
So when you come back from life andyou don't have ripped up hundreds,
life took over.
But if you come back and you see threeripped up a hundred dollars bills,
(12:22):
what's going to happen? Adam?Whatcha going to do with those 300?
You're going to remember the wholestory that you had. Not only you,
but you're going to be like, Hey mom,
this crazy guy called the 360electrician just gave me half hundreds.
Put that on your refrigerator and youbetter believe I'm going from one to three
to nine to 27 every single time.
I love that. That's agreat visual. That's great.
It just so happened I havethe cash. How lucky was that?
I'll tell my wife it'll begone by the time I get home.
(12:43):
That's great. I think whatyou're touching on guys,
is in the beginning you'refocused on one layer of marketing
and then once you get some breathingroom and you're like, okay,
we've kind of exhausted thatchannel, whatever it is, yard signs,
then we do the next layer ofmarketing, and maybe it's Google ads,
maybe it's more advanced, more complexonce you get to a million dollars.
I personally have never experienceda company that can thrive just on a
(13:06):
referral. Maybe you actuallyJeff, but after that it's so hard.
You can sustain three to four technicianson referrals like minor marketing,
but after that, youjust kind of hit a wall.
At least that's what I've seenfor many clients, many companies.
And so I think there's a point whereyou have to excel your marketing to keep
fueling the sixth, seventh, eighthtechnician for most companies.
(13:27):
Yeah, you can't just rely on one thing,
but referrals to his pointare absolutely huge. I mean,
especially if you can stack thereferrals and get referrals on referrals.
Yeah.
I mean a little bit agree todisagree on that because again,
what is the number one guaranteedalmost sale? It's referrals.
So I understand. So again, I'vegot the upside-down pyramid,
(13:48):
and the point of that is anupside-down pyramid is like a funnel.
You want to throw everysingle thing you can,
from ripping hundreds to magnets.
I heard the podcast before this aboutwrapping your van with whatever you want.
The whole point is when youdump it in that big funnel,
you really are only still going to gettrickled down as much as you can put in
there. So a lot of people wantto do it. The upside-down way,
(14:09):
and I know we're going to talkabout this hopefully later,
is they want to go with onethree. Like I just said,
that's just one of my 20
different ways. So I absolutely agree,
but also this is a million-dollarcompany plus is going to spend,
(14:29):
I want to say a minimum of 20 to$50,000 in advertising minimum.
I would say that's right.
If you really do take half of that andgive it back to your team and just spend
some time training on,again, get a sales guy in,
I get hired all the time by plumbing,electrical companies, and they say,
our electrical's dying, Jeff, canyou come and boost it? I said,
I'll boost everything. Getsomeone in, pay them for it,
and then give the balance of that backto your guys' incentives as a booster.
I personally think you're seeing two,three customers a day. I don't care what,
(14:51):
say,
how many dollars am I going to put intoadvertising to get three customers a
day? Probably not. It's going to be10. So give it back to your guys,
your company, and then you build thatteam. Again, I'm very unique. I get it.
I sold golf balls whenI was eight years old.
Did you go in the water and pickup, pull them out of the water?
The point being is when me and forcewere talking outside, I'm thinking, oh,
(15:12):
I know. And then I'm like, whoa.
He just took me to a different levelon something I didn't think about.
And if I'm in that place right now,that's exactly what I would do.
So that's why we're coaches.That's why we're doing this,
and that's why we'reprobably on this podcast.
Guys, this is a great conversation.
I do want to pause for a minute to talkabout Jobber and how Jobber can actually
help business owners get $2 millionthrough processes and systems. Jeff,
(15:35):
from your experience,
how has Jobber helped you build thosesystems into your business to make it
scalable?
All my systems are Jobber withinJobber. So I am a helicoptering, Jobber.
I can sit at home in mypajamas and helicopter,
but every single one of my technicians,
I give them the authority as team leadersand to invoice to schedule and to see
everybody else and see what they'redoing so that they need help.
(15:55):
They can bring in. I mean, Jobber AI,forget about it. It's unbelievable.
You cannot scale a business to a milliondollars without having field software.
Ours is obviously Jobber by choice.
Jobber is the best one.
Jobber is the best one.
You heard him say it. Jobbers the bestone. If you don't have a software at all,
you definitely need one. Sogo to jobber.com/podcastdeal,
(16:16):
start using Jobber today, get thatexclusive discount and baby scale,
baby scale. Forrest I want to get intothe operation side of the business and
making sure that we build a businessthat we enjoy that's sustainable,
that our technicians arehappy, those kinds of things.
What are some of the things,the checklist, if you will,
that we have to really make sure thatwe're dialing in or else we'll just be
miserable when we get bigger?
(16:37):
Yeah, accountability.
You've got to make sure that you've gotclear roles and responsibilities with
the team members so that there is a clearchain of command for each one of those
team members to know whatthey're responsible for and who they're responsible
to. Otherwise,
you're going to be the owner that'sgetting every single phone call.
My goal is to help owners get towhere their phone doesn't ring.
It's okay if a million-dollar customercalls and wants to get a sale,
(17:00):
but I want to get your phone tonot ring from your team members.
You need to get to your business towhere you are not getting called to make
every decision, the $500 decision,
empower your team member to make thatdecision. If they make a $500 mistake,
they'll learn from it.
It's a teachable moment andthey'll probably never do it again.
But if you demand perfection andthat your team members can't make a
(17:25):
mistake and can't make decisions, thenthey're never going to make decisions.
You're just going to suffocate.
Yeah, so accountability is, I would say,
number one in my bookas far as a checklist.
You've got to get that squared away.
And Jeff, earlier, youmentioned training your people,
training them on the craft of theskill. They're learning, obviously.
How else do you need to train themso that you can actually sustain this
(17:46):
business in the long term?
I mean, labor's really tough rightnow in the trades, we're down,
and there's a big gap that's coming. So,
I like to say if you have a big turnover,then you're not training correctly.
Number one, I feel like if your team'sequipped in all aspects of running
the business, then you're justgoing to have a better team.
And exactly what Forrest says,
the phone's going to ring less becausethey have the authority, the knowledge,
(18:08):
and especially the foresight to makesure that mistakes don't happen.
But training is super important. So alot of people will concentrate. Again,
my coaching clients will call me, andthey say, Well, I'm worried about theft,
I'm worried about this. I'm worriedabout, well, they'll know the numbers.
I can't tell 'em what I charge.They'll know that, and I go,
maybe you got the wrong employees. Doyou want to be that glorified handy?
I can't say handyman because handymanare great. My brother's a handyman,
(18:30):
but as an electrical contractor,you're kind of not a handyman.
Are you in this thing to be an electricalcontracting company, a business,
or are you just going to beyour most highest paid employee?
Are you building an assetor are you building a job?
Yeah, I want to own the trains. Idon't want to run the trains every day.
Not that I'm degrading anybody.I did it, but my job, I feel,
is to make sure my team makesthe most amount of money,
(18:52):
puts as much food on theirplate, gets to do the vacations,
everything I want to do.
The funny part is I get paid less thanany individual person that works for me
except I have 20 of them.
So I have the collective thatreally is the team part of it,
and I get to step awaycompletely teach 'em sales.
Sales is the most importantpart. No lying, no cheating,
(19:12):
not even a smell or hint of it.Otherwise, that's instant termination.
My hiring process is probably wherethe training starts. I have the worst.
You don't want to knowhow I hire. I'm in LA,
the most litigated state in theworld. One bad hire is bankruptcy.
I'm not joking, if you're just startingout, that's just the way it goes.
So my hiring process iswhere the training starts.
(19:35):
I'm going to make people sweat, andit's a very uncomfortable situation,
but that's your first training. Ifyou can't handle and pass that test,
you're not going to work for me.There's just no way to do it.
I also think that you have to make surethat your technology scales with you.
I used to think, Oh, I'm thesmartest guy in the world.
My two people aren't nearly as goodas I am. They could never invoice,
(19:55):
and they're literally the ones at thehouse. They know exactly what they did,
why can't they invoice? And so now allmy people send invoices every single day.
It's probably happening right as we speak.
And that was a big mindset shift for me.
I thought there's no way theycan invoice, but they could.
But I can't imagine being 5 millionand have me seeing all the invoices.
That's Looney Tunes. And so you hadto make sure that your processes,
especially around technology,
(20:16):
really scales or else the technologywill become a burden, not a blessing.
If they're invoicing inthe field, guess what?
They can collect money in the field.
Exactly.
Right. So they can take creditcards through the application.
I've got a huge smile on my face. Huge,
huge again. Okay, so here's the scenario.
So you have a qualified journeymanmaster electrician on the field.
(20:39):
This is the way I did work for acompany very briefly before this,
and this is how it worked. So you'dgo on the field as that technician,
you would have to call the office sothat already you got to have someone that
is going to price for all theseoverheads. Oh my gosh. What are the, okay,
so we are all in the trade.I put people on the spot.
If you are bidding an electrical job,
so we're in the studio and we need toput like 20 lights and run a couple of
(21:02):
outlets. If you got to call me,I'm the boss. I'm the bottleneck,
and I'm going to give you a price there.
This is a universal language forthe trades, right? HVAC, plumbing.
There are two questions I can ask you10. One of it be is how's the customer,
are they a pain? Is ithard to get to what's,
but there is two universal questionsthat must be answered for me
(21:25):
to give you a price. You guys knowwhat that is? Think about that.
Not sure.
Okay. I show up, I analyze it, I lookat it, I call you and I say, Hey,
how long is it going to take?Perfect one and the next one?
What materials are you going to need?
Boom. You see what I'm saying? [Adam] Howsmart are we? [Jeff] I know smart guy.
So check this out. If I've trainedmy guys and for example, dude,
one technician one dayis $1,000 labor rate,
(21:49):
and when they call me, what'sthe, how long is it going to take?
Why are you calling me? It's going totake one day. You already need a thousand.
My tech is going to tell me what itis. If he says three and a half days,
three and a half thousand, why are youcalling me? Okay, material, some type.
You got 10 wholesale houses. Yougot friends, have them make a list,
call up and say, what is this materialgoing to be? About 800 you can,
you see what I mean? So I justempowered them to not call me.
(22:11):
We are really ruffling some feathersright now because there are people
listening. There's just no way. Youdon't, they don't trust us. I'm special.
My business is different in myindustry, this and that. And yes,
your industry is differentthan what maybe electoral cool,
but it's the same if you trustyour people to go out in the field,
people's homes, put on those little thingson your feet, walk into their house,
talk to the client and fixtheir house or cut their grass.
(22:33):
You should trust them toinvoice. Give them an incentive.
Maybe there's a language barrier maybe,
but I think a mindset shiftis really important here.
And your frontline techniciansare going to be people.
Persons you're not going to put That'sright. I have non-people, persons, too.
They make amazing panels.They never call back.
They're not my frontline and incentivizethat. What's the incentive? Look,
(22:54):
you bid it for three and a halfdays. I'm going to incentivize that,
but if it takes four and a half,hey bro, something's wrong.
Let's talk about that, ya know?
Forrest, how important is it aswe close out to have repeatable
documented processes that are the same,
whether it's John or Joe, whetherJohn's in a good mood or a bad mood,
whether he got sleep lastnight, it doesn't matter.
(23:15):
The same result is produced everytime. How important is that?
It's vitally important. I mean,
if you go into a fast foodrestaurant and go in the kitchen,
there's repeatable processes,documented out visual diagrams.
They don't document every singlething, but it's the 80/20 rule.
It's what are the 20% of thethings that get 80% of the results.
(23:35):
Those are the things that you have todocument and you have to document them as
simple as possible. One of thechallenges I see is people over document.
Ok.
And I ask them, show meyour processes. Well,
they pull it out of SharePointor Google Drive or whatever,
and it's a 20-page document. Nobody'spulling that out and look at it.
It's overkill. So everything that you do,
(23:56):
look at the 20% that produce 80% ofresults and get that simplified as easy
as possible. And the threesteps is get it to 20/80, right?
Yeah, I agree. And work withyour team. Again, in my trade,
I have to be an electrician.
I'm a master electrician anda journeyman electrician,
and I have two unlimited contractor.You can't get anything by me.
I've been there and done that,but I still get my team in there.
(24:17):
Sometimes when I'm building a new system,
especially if I got a systemthat has to be run my way,
I have to do it on a higher level. Idon't really want them to get involved.
Everything else, I get them involved.And I always find them saying, Oh,
but Jeff, what about this? And thenget your system. And now they're in,
they've bought into the system.
They bought in, and now it's their system,
not Jeff's. [Jeff] I had avery interesting situation happen two weeks ago.
(24:42):
Well pump three-phase motor for allyou electrician geeks out there.
Nobody wrote that. Itwas a three-phase motor.
They all thought it was a singlephase. So one of my lead guys, Joseph,
love him, love you guys. He comes andhis head's low like He's got it. I said,
No, no, no, no, no. He goes, well,
come in three minutes before themeeting or usual three minutes.
I think we're going to need longerthan that because I said, No, no, no,
we're not getting three. I said, andbring our job flow chart with you.
(25:05):
And he goes, okay. He came, he putsthe paper on the table and I just said,
just point where you messedup. He went, oh yeah,
obviously it was between Aand B, let's just say. I said,
do you know what youdid wrong? Absolutely.
You going to do it again because nowyou hell. Oh, heck no. Okay, done.
Three minutes, we solved it again.We did lose some money on that job.
I don't say lose, we broke even. [Forrest]But it wasn't a 20-page document,
(25:28):
was it? [Jeff] It's one single sheet.That's the point. It's one. Now,
I'm a social media guy. I could talk28,000 steps to that, but you're right,
you're going to lose them. I've got threeactual items I think our listeners can
do right now to startgetting to a million dollars.
Number one is you have to have agoal and know what the goal is.
If your goal is a million dollars andwhat is that a month per week? Per day,
(25:49):
is that eight grand a day? 10 grand a day?
You need to have a visual of what youwant your business to be and look like and
then work backwards from there. Numbertwo is you have to train your people,
your people, the most important partof your business. You got to train 'em,
empower them, trust them. Don't makethem call the office every five minutes.
Ask them this question, thatquestion, empower them. Say, Hey,
you make the decision.If you make a mistake,
(26:11):
we'll learn from it and you'llget better moving forward.
And number three is processes,repeatable, documented processes.
You have to have a simple,
maybe one sheet that explainssomething that you're doing.
That way they mess up. You cansay, Hey, you missed number three,
and it's accountability and itempowers them to do the job, right?
You need to have a documented processso that whether it's John or Joe or
(26:33):
Louise, they're doing it thesame way every single time.
Absolutely. I love thosethree. And of course,
I think it's super important tofind a coach, to find a program,
a system that shows you the end game,the actual results on the field,
not just on a piece of paper or awhiteboard that you resonate with in your
trade, your company, orwhere you want to go.
I think that's the winningtrifecta right there.
(26:55):
Well, you guys are crushing it in businessfor us. Appreciate you being here,
Jeff. You guys are both dominating it.
Just thank you for the impact thatyou guys are having in our space.
It really means a lot.
Yeah. Thanks for having us.Appreciate you. Thanks for having us.
Forrest, how do peoplefind out more about you?
You can find me on derrconsulting.com,DERR consulting.com.
Fill out a contact form,be great, and talk to you.
So me, it's super simple.
My calling card I tell everybody is justgo to YouTube and end the search bar,
(27:18):
type in electrical contractor. I'm goingto apologize to you and your family.
They're going to see this face alot on there, but that's my niche.
And also everything I do is at
www.the360electrician.com.
All my social media channelsare at the 360 Electrician.
Great. Well, thanks for beinghere, guys. Really appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you get to a million dollars
(27:41):
in revenue. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.You can find me at adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients andyour family deserve your very best,
so go give it to 'em.
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