April 15, 2025 • 45 mins
Al Levy transformed his family's heating business into a multi-trade powerhouse spanning four generations by developing comprehensive systems, training programs, and clearly defined organizational structures.
• Building operating manuals that defined processes objectively in writing
• Creating a corresponding training center to transform willing apprentices into skilled technicians
• Implementing a merit-based pay system rather than rewarding longevity
• Early adoption of technology like two-way radios and computerization
• Developing clear roles and responsibilities using "the box chart" to prevent micromanagement
• Prioritizing supplier relationships by paying vendors first
• Using a training center to test new products before taking them to customers
• Giving employees the opportunity to try products in their own homes at a discount
• Managing family business dynamics through clear communication and defined responsibilities
• Creating true career paths rather than just jobs
Check out Al's "7 Power Contractor" book and online programs at 7powercontractor.com for more resources on building a successful home services business.
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But we paid it off within two years because we
(00:03):
drove callbacks down, wemaximized each ticket and we
always had more calls than wecould humanly do.
And now we had a way to getmore people on the road.
You know, taking these young,willing apprentice people with
no skills and getting them to bewilling tech.
Welcome to the Small Business.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps,
pitfalls and dangers that lurkwhen navigating the wild world
of small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
(00:40):
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
Alan, we're ready for anotherepisode.
Are we ready to rock and roll?
(01:01):
Are you ready to light it onfire?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
If I was a dog, I'd be wagging my tail, Atta boy.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like that.
Let's wag some tails today, butI'm feeling the power.
I'm feeling the power, I'mfeeling the energy, I'm feeling
the heat of what's about tohappen today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Are you doing your dad joke?
I am doing my lead in man.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We got I mean we've got a home services legend, Al
Levy, today with us and he isgoing to talk about what he did
in his business and what he grewand how he's helped so many
people grow their businessesthrough discipline.
But his first business was inthe business of making heat baby
really it was what kind of heat?
I don't know.
Let's find out, shall we?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
let's yeah thanks, I'm going to take this back to
be a little cleaner.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, it was heating people's homes is what I was
eating and did you realize thatchris was already going in the
gutter with that al I mean I I II'm really good at stepping in
and helping us get back on thecurb he's gonna keep you on the
straight and narrow he's youraccountability partner
accountability coach yeah boyall right, yeah, all right, I'll
shoulder up because it's gonnabe a long episode.
(02:05):
Yeah, I'll lift with your legs,not with your brother brother,
I'm here, no problem.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I was born literally into a, you know, a
family heat business.
That was fuel oil heating and,for around the country, if you
don't know, in the northeastused to heat with fuel oil
instead of what basically islike propane for heating homes.
And I showed up, my brothers,my two older brothers, and we
were the third generation.
(02:31):
We started out of mygrandfather's gas station 1936.
And when my brothers and Iarrived, ultimately we moved
into gas heating, plumbing, airconditioning and finally
electrical.
So plumbing, heating, cooling,electrical is, and here
electrical.
So plumbing, heating, cooling,electrical is.
And here's the great news, mynephew is the fourth generation.
He's there with my middlebrother today.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
What year did you guys go heating, heating air,
electrical plumbing, what I mean?
Decade.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, so that was really about in the early to mid
nineties, and the reason why isI had joined the forerunner of
Nexstar, which was C2000 at thetime, met a lot of great people
and what I realized at the timewas that my really best
competition was starting to gointo different trades.
And what I said to my two olderbrothers and my dad?
I said if we don't do thesetrades, we're going to basically
(03:24):
put our competition in ourbasement.
So we have to start doing this.
The good news for us is we hadmastered our first trade, and
the mastering of it wasoperating manuals that defined
how we did stuff objectively inwriting.
And then we built acorresponding training center
and training curriculum, becamebetter trainers ourselves so
(03:45):
that we were able to takewilling apprentices with no
skills to willing techs withgreat skills.
And that's why, you know, inthis competitive world, it was
what allowed us to stand outwith our 2,000 competitors on
any given day.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So when you guys were in this phase and day, so when
you guys were in this phase, uh,let's just hold on for a minute
.
Everybody, 1990, uh, there wasno such thing as internet.
There was no such thing aslaptops phones I mean best I
mean no it was no covid and nocovid I mean you think about how
you were able to do that andyou guys were doing that off a
(04:23):
pretty large footprint in theearly 90s.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
We were already $17 million in sales.
So we're not a small company.
We were 70 people, we were aNew York City union shop and, by
the way, the union provided menothing in the way of talent.
They just, whoever came in, hadto join the union.
So it was really up to us totrain these people.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I've already got.
One person's been on thepodcast that we've had to put in
the witness protection program.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So it sounds like we're going back in again,
because if we keep saying, Iactually became pretty good
working with it originally, thatwas, if you have a moment.
The story is, when I steppedinto the business, it was a lot
of head-butting between us andthe union, right, and I, as as
the last brother in kids tospeak, I went to the union guys
and said, listen, we arewrestling towards a cliff.
And I got to tell you I'mwilling to go over the cliff,
(05:12):
are you?
Because if you don't want to goover the cliff, let's figure
out how we make this worktogether.
And, to their credit, they said, yeah, let's do that, and
that's what really changed themomentum.
They said, yeah, let's do that,and that's what really changed
the momentum, because I was borninto a system where they made
more money the longer theystayed, yet their talents were
awful, and so I changed it toyou move up that ladder based on
(05:35):
the talents and things you candemonstrate and do.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
That's how you make more money.
Oh, a merit-based system.
Whoa, whoa.
That's a novel idea.
I know Gold bucket everybody.
How about paying on meritocracyas opposed to longevity?
How long you're sitting on yourbutt in the chair?
I know it's a brand new idea.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I hope all of you were strapped in and not driving
, because I'm sure that musthave took you off the road.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That one's like wow, never thought about that.
Paying for performance.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You think back on how hard it was, even then, to do
what you did.
I mean so paper-based, notknowing where everybody was.
There was no such thing as anext tell, even, which is uh
those are the coolest when theyfirst came out, didn't?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
you feel?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
so cool putting that giant thing I can top.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I have a story topper to that, actually, and part of
the good news is my dad, to hiscredit, my dad, my uncle
actually found they were thesecond generation in the news is
my dad, to his credit, my dad,my uncle, actually founded they
were the second generation inthe company, but my dad was
always a big believer intechnology.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So what is?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
technology?
Was he put in two-way radios inthe trucks when all of his
other people at this competitionwere finding pay phones?
When you could find pay phones,and they actually used to tease
him, what's the matter?
You don't have a quarter for aphone booth, or?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
something.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
But, he knew, always investing money back into the
business.
We computerized way beforeanybody computerized in our
business, and so we were alwayson that cutting edge in
technology.
And to this day, my brother andmy nephew, they are always
looking for what's new, whatmakes us more of a niche and
less of a commodity, becausethat was really our challenge
(07:06):
from day one.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, two other great gold nuggets right being on the
cutting edge of technology.
You don't have to be thebleeding edge, because that's
going to cost you a lot,especially home services, but
being on the cutting edge andstaying on top of it.
In fact, I'm sending my generalmanager this year to Fast
Remodeler, which is thetechnology summit for remodeling
guys, because I'm going to goto the NERI conference this year
instead.
(07:27):
But you got to stay there anddo that if you want to stay
relevant and stay again back toa niche and not a commodity,
because customer service is bornout of that technology.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I love for those who can't see my phone or can't see
my phone.
A lot of my vendors in my homeare my customers.
They're in my online programshere in Arizona and they're on
Service Titan and I get a texttelling me how soon my tech is
going to be here and I can trackit like an Uber.
It's amazing to me.
(08:01):
I mean, just what you can doNow.
There is a limit and hopefullyyou guys out there hear this the
right way.
I think AI is coming and Ithink it's already here.
But if you think you can justturn your company over to AI and
it's all going to be right andpeople love the whole thing,
that's like when you call up andI'll speak to AI or whatever
(08:22):
automated thing it is for one ortwo questions, but by the sixth
time they say to me I don'tunderstand you.
Representative.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right, isn't that you know?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
in fact, we're just I think he just answered his
customer service.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Pet peeve yeah, so in my accountability group that I
meet with monthly, the CEO groupfacilitated by Hanks we
actually got into thatconversation again was a lady
tried to use an hvac companyhere in atlanta that clearly had
an ai uh front end.
When she said and she's the,she's the nicest lady, but she
kept going, I just go with.
I just started going,representative, representative,
(08:58):
representative.
I'm like, well, you beat me,because if I had the phone back
in the day I'd be beating thatone and that zero so hard.
I mean I'm surprised my phonedidn't fall to pieces.
But I agree, al, you'veactually hit it on the head and
that's what we surmised here AIis coming back to bleeding edge.
Yes, that's great, I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That's what made me think about it, the way that you
call the bleeding edge.
That is a very appropriate andthe word could not be better
bleeding.
We were not the first, but wewere right near the first when
we changed the type of heatingsystems we had.
We tested them in our house,not your house.
That's the beauty of having atraining center, getting really
familiar with it, and the waythat we got our team to actually
(09:40):
buy into it is that they couldget this product and take it
back home and try it out and ifthey liked it, they could keep
it at a severe discount.
Well, if techs touch it, letalone put it in their own homes,
you don't have to teach them tosell.
You have to teach them to shutup.
They love it so much.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's a great point too.
God man, he's killing goldnuggets.
Because you give your employeesthe opportunity to sample your
service and your product, whobecomes your best proponent?
Because I've got 15 techniciansrunning around here in Atlanta
and four more up in Athens,georgia, and they have to be the
face of my company because I'mnot there.
(10:22):
But just think about if youcould give them the service or
product in their own home andthen have them go out there and
champion it, they would everyday Brilliant.
It is good I'm actually takingthat one, filing that one away.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It really makes a world of difference.
And again, this part, you knowit really wasn't originally get
them trained here rather than ina customer's basement.
We used to have a.
We were embarrassed to say itout loud.
We used to call it OTJT, whichstands for on-the-job training.
Oh yeah, because that's theonly training most owners do,
(10:55):
including us for a very longtime, and so we realized how hit
and miss it was and ultimately,what?
Also really not fair, becausewhat does it mean?
I'm coming to your home tolearn how to do my job Right,
exactly right.
Really a bad thing.
So we actually built it intothe sales and marketing
advantage, the 10 reasons tochoose us, and that was one of
(11:17):
them.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Go Alan, you wanted to say something.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Jump in Well, and I just want to take the
opportunity, because we don'thave the opportunity to ask this
question for very many of ourguests.
I have so many friends, al, whohave a business, and they are
just beside themselves becausetheir kids don't want to be in
the business and so they'refaced with either someday
shutting it down or, hopefully,selling it.
You've got four generations inyour business.
(11:43):
What's the secret sauce to that?
Just child labor.
You know when they're five andthey don't know any better.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
How did you know that I was eight years?
Old and I was cleaning fittingsand toilets and being a helper.
By the time I was 10?
.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I can just see it.
Hey Dad, I think I want to bean accountant.
Dad, that hurt, Get back overthere Tighten that wrench.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It is my favorite thing that I can share in the 23
years now that I've done thisis when I encounter family
businesses and how it progressesthrough that.
I base it on myself, which wasmy father believed that I should
never ask anybody to doanything that I had not done
myself, and when I was young Ihated that idea.
(12:26):
But when I got a little bitolder I go oh, that's why he
said that yeah, and so basicallywhat I could say to you and I
did all of the recruiting andhiring even though our company
was big at the time I felt itwas so important the recruiting,
hiring or anything trainingplace to get you into the
program was that if I am notgoing up on the roof in the dead
(12:51):
of winter, you don't have to go, but if I'm going up, you're
following me or this is not theplace you should be.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So I started my business after being in the
corporate world for a number ofyears and what I did was I put
myself in my own truck, hired aguy and put him in a truck to
learn the handyman trade, and somy training it always starts
with me at the culture trainingnow, where I don't do the rest
of it.
I think we do a good job almostbetter, better than average job
(13:20):
.
But the first thing I say isyou're never gonna be asked to
do anything that I didn't do.
I said.
That being said, I've done somecrazy shit.
I said so hang on.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well, I also try to very carefully as I progressed
along is they're never going tobe my clone.
So all of you listening outthere, if you think your clone
is showing up, good luck.
And even if that was somebodythat you found is really good,
try duplicating it.
I've always used the expression.
That's like trying to catchlightning in a bottle over and
(13:51):
over and over again.
You might get lucky once if youdon't get electrocuted.
But the point of it is it'simpossible to repeat.
So it's not scalable, and allof what we were trying to do was
control the daily chaos, thestress, because we were still
making a ton of money with allthe mistakes, everything that
(14:13):
was missing, because the basicfamily dynamic was work hard and
make the results come out theway you want them to be.
So I don't know if you guys haveheard of Ellen Rohr oh, yeah,
I've actually had her on thepodcast.
Yeah.
So Ellen and I we met in C2000all those years ago and then we
always kept in touch.
We worked together asco-consultants.
Then we actually owned afranchise together with one of
(14:34):
my former customers, zoom Drain.
So yeah, we've obviously gotall the circles together, but
she was a really great mentor tome, as I was a mentor to her
because we were talking aboutstuff like I didn't grow up
knowing what a budget was,exposing so much from my
(14:54):
experienced old gangster kind ofthing is.
Back in the 90s we bought amotor for 30 bucks, we paid you
30 bucks and we thought, well,if we sell it for 100, we got
$40 of pure money.
We didn't know what indirectcosts were, and you know I read
her book, by the way, prettymuch every year and for nothing
else.
Her book I'm speaking to is, tothis day, is still a big, big
(15:16):
seller.
Where did the money go?
Just for the glossary alone,because I would ask my
accountant, I'd go what doesthis phrase mean?
And they'd give me anotherstupid accounting term.
And so she defined these thingsin plain English and she really
broke it down slowly.
So, for those listening, rohris spelled R-O-H-R, and I'm
(15:37):
jumping ahead because you wereasking about what book to
recommend.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I know you're doing good, though Jump ahead, my
friend.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I think there isn't anybody, even if you think
you're good.
Uh, ellen roars where did themoney go?
Is the first book to read, andher second book is how much
should I charge?
And that's.
Those are two really seminalbooks that put you on a better
path, and what I call financialpower and talking about that
podcast that we had.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You go back and check it out.
You can google it.
Ellen Ellen Roher on the SmallBusiness Safari man.
She just brings the power andthe energy and she is such a
dynamo you can't help but feelbetter when you're done talking
with her right.
Wasn't that fun?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
She is electric and, yeah, there's no.
I'm very passionate about whatI do, but she's the person on
fire.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, no, that's great, but you said something.
That's very interesting is thatyou know you said something.
I was a mentor to her, but shewas also a mentor to me.
The other line is you know,iron sharpens, iron, talk a
little bit about how you, as youguys, started to talk, how did
you guys elevate each other?
Because I think that's one ofthe things we were working
together alone, as you guysstarted to talk, how did you
guys elevate each other?
Because I think we were workingtogether and alone.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Even we actually used to get together for a yearly
conference when we weren'tworking together and uh, her
sister ellen oh sorry, gail anduh so it's funny because my name
is alan, by the way a-l-a-n.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
And uh the correct way yes, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Thank you, Alan.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Thank you, alan.
So we used to call it the AgeConference, age, and we would
meet every year and look at eachother's business.
Because the problem I hadlearned a long time ago is when
you're in your business youcan't see because the glasses
are rose colored.
But anytime you ever go visitand we used to go visit shops
(17:26):
all the time it's magical howgreat you can see all the
mistakes, anything that's reallygood, and that's what I did for
Ellen and that's what she didfor me, and Gail was able to do
it for both of us.
So, because you did all theback end bookkeeping- it's also
being vulnerable and showingthings.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I'm in a monthly accountability group.
Many people would know the termVistage.
This is not one, but it's a guyby a guy who was Vistage
trained here in Atlanta.
It's been amazing.
But that is one area wheregetting a deep dive in the
financials still haven't donethat in seven years.
But I will tell you.
I had a chance to do it herebecause the National Association
(18:04):
of the Remodeling Industry wehave a local chapter here and a
guy asked me hey, come look atthe books.
He goes hey, what do you think?
I said well, I think they suck.
He goes hey, do you think youcan help me?
I'm like well, I can, but Ijust don't know if I want to get
involved in the committees andall that stuff.
He goes no, just help me.
I'm like.
So I started helping him.
We started working on it.
He goes hey, do you want tochair the finance committee?
(18:25):
I'm like all right.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
That's how they suck you.
And now I'm putting him present, step by step.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
He was so good, mark Gailey was so good, I will tell
you this.
So I went yeah, these suck.
And then I fixed them, and thenI went back and looked at my
own books.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I suck.
It's almost impossible to notjust get numb to your own
environment.
I remember an example of justgoing up the steps of one of my
stores and there was this giantweed that obviously had been
growing for months.
And I'd walked through thosesame steps and I'm like I mean I
can't even see the weed on myfront porch.
What's going on in my business?
I mean, the thing had beengrowing and it's.
You know what I mean?
(19:07):
It's just, yeah, you needsomebody else, you need that
second set of eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I was very lucky.
I had really great industryfriends like Ellen Rohr, who
would tell me what I needed tohear, whether I wanted to hear
it or not, and the great DanHollihan, who is also the
connection between myself andEllen, who is a great industry
writer, helped us with themanuals.
We hired him in to do itbecause I had tried, for I don't
know, for years, to write itand every time I wrote these
manuals they came out like a lawbook, article 1-6.35.
(19:36):
Yeah right, no one was going tofollow that and then so he also
knew me very well.
And when we finally knew it,this is what we had to do,
because I had read the E-Myth byMichael Gerber and that really
changed my life.
And Ellen Rohr and Dan Hollahansaid you have to stop what
you're doing and read this book.
And for the first time in mylife I knew why things didn't
(19:58):
work and I knew what I needed todo.
But it didn't really give methe how.
But you know what I'm reallygood at how?
And between myself and mybrothers and the money we spent.
We spent about $150,000 in theoriginal manuals and they're a
fraction of what I have today,but we paid it off within two
years because we drove callbacksdown, we maximized each ticket
(20:22):
and we always had more callsthan we could humanly do.
And now we had a way to get morepeople on the road.
You know, taking these young,willing apprentice people with
no skills to getting them to bewilling techs with great skills.
By the way, I was a hostage tomy staff, which I think is bad
enough, and I told my brothersand my dad that's why they
(20:42):
allowed me to go out and do thethings I did.
But I actually came to workwith a customer that Ellen
called him up one day and saidwhat time do you want us there?
And usually contractors willsay, if you let them, they'll
say 5 am because they startedearly and I go.
I'm in Arizona on Pacific timeand you're in the East Coast.
(21:05):
I'm not waking up at 1 am tocome to your place.
So this guy says to him, hesays to Ellen, two o'clock and
she goes.
I'm sorry, what time did yousay?
He goes.
Oh, I don't come into thisoffice to two o'clock because I
hate all my employees.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
True words have not been spoken, my friends, I mean,
I love my team, I built a goodculture.
But that line speaks so volumes.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Here's the happy ending to that story.
So Ken could do all the workthat we did At the end not even
in the transition when thingsbegan to run smoothly because he
realized you know the famousexpression attributed to
Confucius when you point afinger, four are still facing
you.
As I had to take the, I had totake the lumps because I was
very busy early on blamingeverybody except myself.
(21:55):
So he did take thatresponsibility on, and here's
the truism today he wakes upexcited to go see his staff and
one of his sole focuses ismaking their lives better.
Think about how that 180 went.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Wow, man, that had been a big change, because he
has to see the value in it andalso he also had to be ready to
accept it.
You know, one of the things youtalk about with coaching and I
know we're going to get intowhat Al does is that you've got
to be willing to be ready toaccept it.
One of the things you talkabout with coaching and I know
we're going to get into what Aldoes is that you've got to be
willing to be ready, and we hada great coach consultant on said
.
The third question is do Ithink he's ready?
(22:36):
Do I think whatever I'm goingto do is going to 10X him or 1X
him or whatever it was?
But I think you've got to beself-aware and if you're not, is
somebody going to shoot youwith it?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And you know I've had a lot of guys who've worked
with me, usually when I wasdoing one-to-one consulting,
which I don't do anymore, but itused to be two to three years
for people that wanted to runthe whole can All seven powers
planning, operation, staffing,sales, sales coaching, marketing
finance.
Ellen handled two, thefinancial and the sales coaching
.
I did the other five with them,but they would get through.
(23:11):
Things would finally go reallywell.
Money was coming in, that wasgoing down, they were growing,
coming to work was much more funand invariably, like a year in
or so, they would say to me Iwish I had called you five years
ago.
I go, you weren't ready.
It's the oldest one is, youknow, is the teacher appears
(23:34):
when the student is ready.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And I was the same ways, you know, when I was young
, like most young people, I kneweverything you know, I wish
some people say that, hey, ifyou could go back to your
17-year-old self and tell himsomething, I'm like I could, but
that motherfucker wasn't goingto listen to a word I had to say
.
I promise you.
Because I knew everything at 17, Al.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I know Coupled with that, I was not as bad as most
kids, but it's amazing how muchsmarter my dad got when I
graduated college.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah amen, that's a Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I know it's originally with him, or at least
it's so spot on.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It is too, because we all have that A lot of
adolescents, especially men,listening to this.
We all have to do that.
It's part of our journey tobecoming, uh, entrepreneurial,
but not really entrepreneurial,but just independent.
We all have to.
At some point, we have toreject our parents, we have to
be able to say I'm not going tostay with you.
(24:36):
I got a launch, and so the waywe do it and very for many of us
, very not gracefully, I thoughtI was pretty good, I wasn't as
bad as it looked, but Idefinitely can tell you a story
that in the backyard there was asledgehammer thrown and there
there was a compressor flipped.
I can't tell you by who and bywhich, uh, but I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
There were two guys involved.
At least there wasn't anyhatchet throwing before it
became popular, so good that wasme and my dad working together.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And that gets all the way back to the story that I
wanted to finish up on is whenthey you talked about the next
generation, I was very happy.
First of all, I had to get thefamily who was there to work
together.
So what was one of the keys?
Those keys that I learned atour companies.
My brother is my two olderbrothers and I spent of our
times in the 20s micromanagingeach other or duplicating what
(25:30):
each other was doing, because wehad no idea, we didn't
communicate, we didn't have anymeeting, we didn't have anything
, and so I have to watch thetime for you guys.
But can I tell a quick story?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You got to tell this one, because I love this,
especially a three-brother story.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So my brother, marty, would never worked in the field
, although he went to schoolwith me the tech school and I
couldn't understand why hewasn't getting it because I was
getting it.
And then when, a year or twolater, I was in somebody's
basement at 2 am and he was homesleeping, I realized he was
still the smarter brother.
2 am and he was home sleeping,I realized he was still the
(26:08):
smarter brother.
But anyway, so he's first in inthe morning at like 6 am.
He gets a phone call from anirate customer Somebody was here
last night and now I have noheat and I come walking in at
630, heading to the servicedepartment to get things
straightened out for the day,and he starts.
I already see that he's yellingat the service manager who is
now on the roof ready to jump.
(26:30):
Now my first task of the day isto gently walk him off the roof.
And then I'm get a phone callwhen I'm sitting at the dispatch
desk from one of our suppliers.
And I understand my dad raisedmy brothers and I as young
teenagers that our suppliers getpaid before you do, because,
push comes to shove, they'lltake care of you, which, by the
(26:51):
way, was brilliant, it was toldto us when we were very young.
When Sandy hit Long Island,which is where our business was,
guess who got?
Taken care of Us To the maximumdegree.
I love this story us to themaximum degree including we lost
20 trucks and the leasingcompany came through like champs
, just to name one.
Anyway.
(27:12):
So I apologize, I hang up thephone, I go tearing across to
the office to rip into theaccounts payable person and
finally Marty and I are right inbetween the two offices and I
said to him I said you don'tlike the way the service is
being handled, you tell me andI'll fix it.
And he goes well, if you don'tlike the way the bills are being
(27:34):
paid, you tell me and I'll getit fixed.
And then we both looked at eachother and I go you know, this
is really good.
We ought to write a chart up orsomething that was the birth of
the box, or chart we finally wefinally have it it takes to fix
, to run the business, andthat's where everything goes in
(27:55):
a better direction.
And the point of this is for us.
We had so many trucks.
It was a big big deal theinsurance, so marty would get
three bids, richie would getinsurance, so Marty would get
three bids, richie would getthree bids, al would get three
bids.
And once we realized, no wait,wait, it goes in your box, marty
, you go get three bids and thencome and give a proposal,
(28:15):
explain it to us and then we'llvote on which way we go.
What a dramatic reduce in notonly time but tension.
There was so much tensionbecause we're all running around
with our heads chopped off.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
How fun to watch that go down.
You hit on one thing and Idon't think I'm going to get him
on the podcast, but I reallywanted to.
But he's retired and I thinkhis appetite of coming in here
and drinking with us to talkabout it is gone.
But we had a local supplier.
These are the people I buy allmy windows and doors and decking
(28:51):
packages from During 2008,.
When I started in 2008, theyhad been going on for 20 years.
One of the things they did andthey did it right was they
always paid their vendors and alot of times you have a vendor
angst relationship, right, Imean so?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
yeah, you get it.
If I don't, you know, work themover.
They're going to take advantageof me.
You know, and we, we finallywoke up one day, and that was
because of I've been to goodtraining is I don't make.
That's not how I make my money.
Holding the vendor down, Iactually like and prefer a
primary vendor, uh, vendor thathandles it.
One source of accountability.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
So the company he was with there was two of them in
the area at the time and thecompany he was with paid
everybody, and when they had toclose down they made sure to pay
everybody off as they wentbankrupt and the other guy left
everybody else holding the bag.
So now fast forward to 2010,which it sounds like forever two
(29:49):
years, but really is not noRight.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
But those were rough years.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They were, trust me, brother.
Yeah, I don't remember them.
Yeah, alan, again, that's howhe lost.
His business was 2008.
There's no way you can get outof that one.
But when they got ramped backup, you know which vendors
extended credit.
You know which vendors madesure that they could get people
in business.
Larry and his team what comesaround goes around, and the
(30:16):
other guy actually ran tail andgot completely out of the
business.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
100%, Good yeah right , it just shows you.
It does show you.
Yeah, right, it just shows youno-transcript.
(30:43):
You know we should go around,we know where their trucks are
and we can, you know, advertiseto take this up.
And he goes and reaches for thephone and he gets on.
He picks up the phone and hegoes sit down, you have
something to learn.
I'm going to put it on speaker.
He calls the guy up.
His name is Nate.
He goes Nate, my son just toldme about fires.
I want you to know I'm going toservice any of your customers.
(31:06):
I will never sell any of them.
I will only be talking aboutyou.
I'll do whatever you need inthe way of help.
And then he hangs up the phone.
He looks at me, he goes.
You know what?
The road has many bends.
I go.
What does that mean?
He said how would you feel ifyou were in that position?
Things happen.
Just do the right thing.
(31:29):
So, anyway, nate, his businessnot to us, to somebody else.
He waits for the non-compete tofinish and he goes to every one
of his big clients and goes.
The only person you should bedealing with is irving wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
See what comes around , goes around, and again we we
talk about that's one of ourcore principles at the trusted
toolbox is integrity and peoplesay, well, you know, that's not
really an integrity.
I'm like it is when you teachit like we do, and that's doing
the right thing.
When nobody's watching.
Sometimes it doesn't feel goodto be at a customer's house at 2
am l and the pipe doesn't cometogether.
(32:02):
Or in our case, you know doingsome carpentry work maybe that
trim, I could have just cockedthe hell out of it and walked
away and done it the wrong way.
And they'll never know doingthe right thing when nobody's
watching.
That's the one that pays offand I will tell you it paid off
for me and I is.
I've used that story all thetime with my guys, I, I, I
absolutely 100 agree.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So if you're staying with this off the chart bouncing
around the wall thing, here isI've also talked kids and only I
always ask you know the peoplewho are there about, do you want
me to talk to the nextgeneration?
I'll have a privateconversation with them and then,
if they're good with it, we'llget together.
And so a great company in theMidwest who has absolutely
(32:46):
exploded in a great way he's Igrew up to start this story.
It was 2004.
I was sitting.
He had a metal building hebuilt on purpose so that his
house was in the building of hisoffice because he knew it was
the only way he could see hiskids.
You with me so far.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
And I'm sitting on the couch waiting for him to
finish up with his kid.
You know his kid's there atthat point.
One kid was maybe 10 at thetime, the son.
And as life will have it, workgoes on.
He and his wife call me up, wego.
We have a problem.
I go.
What's the problem?
He goes.
My son doesn't want to go tocollege and we want him to have
that experience.
(33:26):
I go.
Well, my brother, richie,didn't want to go to college
either.
My father insisted that he goat least six months to a year
because he didn't want him everto come back and go.
You know what?
I really should have gone tocollege to find out what that
was like.
That was the longest that hecould hold.
It was six months before Richiecame back and said Richie could
never.
Richie could never come backand go.
(33:48):
Listen, richie was born with awrench in his crib.
He knew what he wanted to do.
He's 70 something years old andhe's up in an addicts and
people go.
Why?
I said because he loves it.
And so they asked me will heever retire?
I go, yeah, feet first.
Maybe that's about it.
But the point of this thing is Isaid to this kid.
(34:08):
I said your parents, who arehere, want me to talk to you
about this business.
And they agreed to thefollowing You're going to start
at the bottom, not at the top.
You're going to do like what mydad told me when I came in.
He said I owe you anopportunity, not a guarantee,
and you're going to work at thebottom and don't come to me
(34:30):
complaining about who you'reworking for, because they're
totally empowered to be yourboss.
And if you can put up with that, and then you will earn your
way up, you'll have everyone'srespect.
But that's the deal.
Otherwise, go wherever you want.
By the way, the good story herewithin two years he was the
best tech their kid.
(34:50):
How about?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
that, Al, we're coming towards the end.
I want to talk a little bitabout you.
Don't do one-to-one coachinganymore, but you do help people.
And we've talked a lot aboutnostalgia, but what's funny is
that in the nostalgia I stillfind these are the same problems
.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Oh same problems.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Again is that in the nostalgia I still find these are
the same problems.
Oh, same problem.
You know.
Again it's not any different.
It's been the same problem.
You had the same problem in the90s we have today.
You can't find good texts, youdon't know how to get them going
.
All this stuff.
Tell me what you're doing now.
How are you giving back to thecommunity?
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So I do have a book and the book that I wrote is was
purposely I 120 pages becausemy editor.
When I spoke to her I said I'vebeen doing podcasts, writing
for trade magazines for years.
I've got tons of content.
She goes.
Well, what do you need me for?
I go.
There's a thousand of my kidssitting in the audience telling
(35:41):
me to pick me, pick me.
I said that it would look likea ransom note, not a book.
So this book is made to be readin two to four hours for any of
you contractors out there.
I'm dyslexic so I can stillread it.
The point of it is to read itover and over again and use the
yellow highlighter.
It is inaudible because thisvoice is golden, obviously.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So if you prefer to drive around and hear it, yeah,
it's on Audible.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
It's ebook, the rest of it.
That's the first way to start.
It's really good.
You'll get a great foundation,or what I call the platform, to
take control of your businesstoday.
But scale it and there arecompanies right now using all of
these principles, from 1million to 250 million, and in
this PE wave I've had a ton ofcompanies who have been bought
(36:25):
out for PE money, for big money,generational money, and they're
built on these platforms.
So what I do today.
There's two programs I haveonline called Signature
Operating Manual System, andthat is the org chart that I had
.
Famous org chart I described,but it's how do you cover those
boxes with a manual that covers80% of the time?
I have that already for you,especially if you're in the
(36:47):
contracting trade, and so that'sreally where you start to take
control.
The second program is calledSignature Staffing, which is all
about the five steps ofstaffing Always recruiting,
always hiring, always orienting,always training.
And the last one we all missbecause we think they're on the
team is always retaining.
(37:07):
Fifth step, and if you do agreat job in the first four and
you offer what we did because Ihad read a book about the
employer of choice years ago andI said to my brothers if we can
provide a career, not just thejob, we win.
And that is exactly what we setoff to do.
The kids quote unquote that Itrained all those years ago all
(37:28):
made it to the very top of theorg chart.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's great.
What a great testament.
That's a lot of fun.
Again, everybody, we're goingto put this in the show notes.
But, Al, do you want to give usa shout out on what those two
books are?
We can go look them up.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
The two books that that you wrote.
The one book I have is the 7Power Contractor.
The 7 Power Contractor yeah, andif you go to my website, the
number 7powercontractorcom, goto the products page and you'll
see.
You know the two programs I'mtalking about.
You can tour it.
It's all there and that'spretty good.
(38:02):
But also I have a ton of blogsthere On purpose.
There's a ton of educationthere and, like you guys are
saying, I know you would like itwrapped up in a prettier bow
and you thinking there's got tobe something that's brand new,
that's better.
And it's not because of my egoor conceit, it's solid and it's
proved and it's proving now,right this minute.
(38:25):
Yeah, I agree, working withcompanies from Arizona, from
sorry Australia, new Zealand,canada, united States and UK,
because the programs are online.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Wow, that's amazing.
No, that's good stuff, guys.
I've been out to the website,I've checked it all out.
That's why I was excited to getAl on the podcast talk about
all this stuff and I mean I lovethe stories and the history and
I just I just I mean that'swhere I think it really comes in
.
You guys all know that I'm abig fan of history not as big of
a fan of world war ii historyas alan, but we are still big
(38:56):
fans of a certain age where thatbecomes interesting yeah, I
like other history I like Iguess
okay, you're gonna move on now.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
All right, hey, let's finish this thing up, let's
talk about it.
I want to talk about the famousfour questions.
Well, he's already answered two, so I know we're down.
So we already got the booksright.
Go check out Ellen Ward's book.
Got the customer service.
Go check out the seven powercontractor Again another great
book and his customer service iswas the AI.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thing yeah, I will.
You can't have, you can'tescape the AI that you put in
that you think can automate yourbusiness and you never have to
have a human involved.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, good then we can get to the my fun, my fun,
most famed.
What's the favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
well, I'm prejudiced Heating and cooling Because he's
in.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Arizona.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I always like to eat and cooling, to say the least.
But cooling out here is not anice thing, it's a life and
death thing.
I've got two systems in herebecause one night one of them
rolled over and there was onlyfour years old, but stuff
happens right and so we wereable to trudge on to the other
side of the house and stay coolfor all night.
Of them rolled over, and therethere was only four years old,
but stuff happens right, and so,uh, we were able to trudge on
to the other side of the houseand stay cool for all night
(40:11):
power is expensive out there I,you know, I came from new york
where power wasn't expensive itwas
Speaker 3 (40:18):
a little bit expensive exactly right.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You know that's uh.
I talk about this all the timeas a handyman, a remodeler.
We don't have a need-basedbusiness.
So when we're in somebody'shouse, you don't need to have
that door changed out, you don'tneed to have your siding
changed out.
It's just why now, but whenyour air conditioning is out in
Arizona in July, that's a need.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Oh yeah, and if you're in Minnesota in the
winter, heating is also not anice thing, it's an essential
thing.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It's an essential thing.
I mean you want to stay alive.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
The demand business is and, like Tommy, the garage
door business that most peopleknow, A1 Garage is.
If the door is not going up orit's not coming down or it's
halfway in the middle, that's aproblem, because you've got a
wedding to go to.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It still makes me laugh when that, when he he did,
I got a chance to talk withTommy as well and I want to get
him on the pod too.
I'll maybe throw it a throw alittle bone over there to him to
get him on.
But he said it's a need.
You know we were talkingoffline and I'm like, well,
can't, don't, doesn't everybodyknow you can just pull the
handle and pull the damn thing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
No, they don't, they're trapped.
And if they did?
If they did, they probablywould hatchet something and the
door coming down died it down.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
So yeah, user error that's just, oh my god, it was
crazy.
All right, al, you've beenaround the trades, but I love a
good diy nightmare story.
I, uh, it's got to be you.
Uh, I have plenty of myself.
I've done a lot of dumb shit inmy life, but I want to hear a
good DIY nightmare story.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, so you know we're used to the duct tape will
fix everything.
So there was a problem with oneof the key things for analysis
here is when my team couldn'tfind the problem.
My brother and I knew it waseither up in an attic where they
didn't want to spend time, orthey went downstairs in the
basement or crawl space wherethey didn't want to spend any
(42:10):
time.
So I was trying to figure outwhy they couldn't get air.
Couldn't get air, and I'mcrawling along the crawl space
with a flashlight in my mouthand I come to a section that's
this big apart.
It's not that big apart.
It's supposed to be duck work.
But he didn't decide the duckwork, so he took a cardboard box
.
He just cut the two ends of itinto this giant.
(42:34):
I don't know if I'm describingit.
Picture it again the duck workis round.
And then there's a cardboard boxtrying to gap this whole thing
that he thought.
Of course, he never mentionedthat to me and he also never
told anybody else that this iswhat he had done, but that was
one of my favorite diy stories,so that the duct tape.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
The duct tape sealed all the gaps, didn't it?
Duct tape should work like achamp and cardboard boxes that
are square rectangle.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
For a man like that, no problem with stalling out the
air yeah, it didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
It didn't capture everything, make a vacuum yeah,
no, not a great job I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
That's awesome and also when it gets wet.
You know it's another, anotherthing, but that was, that was uh
, and the reason.
I think it was the location,because if you see what I'm
doing, I'm crawling on my handsand knees with a flashlight in
my mouth and they're trying tofigure out why has everybody
missed this?
And I, I finally realized, yeah, that's why they missed it
that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
al.
This has been great man.
We thank you so much for comingon and sharing your wealth of
knowledge and a great career andeverything you've done in your
history, and I really appreciateit.
It's been a great episode.
If you guys didn't learnsomething, man, that's on's on
you, get in your truck, go back,relisten to this thing, go back
and check these episodes backout with Ellen Rohr.
You've got to go back andrelisten to this one man,
(43:53):
because there's gold nuggets allover the place.
You can implement those today.
Get them going, make it happen.
Get up that mountain.
Let's go get successful.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
We've got to go.
Cheers everybody.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Cheers.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember to keep that positiveattitude, which will reflect in
a higher altitude as you're outthere making it happen in the
wild world of small businessownership.
Until next time, go make it agreat day.
Adventure team.
But we paid it off within two years because we
(00:03):
drove callbacks down, wemaximized each ticket and we
always had more calls than wecould humanly do.
And now we had a way to getmore people on the road.
You know, taking these young,willing apprentice people with
no skills and getting them to bewilling tech.
Welcome to the Small Business.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps,
pitfalls and dangers that lurkwhen navigating the wild world
of small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
(00:40):
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
Alan, we're ready for anotherepisode.
Are we ready to rock and roll?
(01:01):
Are you ready to light it onfire?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
If I was a dog, I'd be wagging my tail, Atta boy.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like that.
Let's wag some tails today, butI'm feeling the power.
I'm feeling the power, I'mfeeling the energy, I'm feeling
the heat of what's about tohappen today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Are you doing your dad joke?
I am doing my lead in man.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We got I mean we've got a home services legend, Al
Levy, today with us and he isgoing to talk about what he did
in his business and what he grewand how he's helped so many
people grow their businessesthrough discipline.
But his first business was inthe business of making heat baby
really it was what kind of heat?
I don't know.
Let's find out, shall we?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
let's yeah thanks, I'm going to take this back to
be a little cleaner.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, it was heating people's homes is what I was
eating and did you realize thatchris was already going in the
gutter with that al I mean I I II'm really good at stepping in
and helping us get back on thecurb he's gonna keep you on the
straight and narrow he's youraccountability partner
accountability coach yeah boyall right, yeah, all right, I'll
shoulder up because it's gonnabe a long episode.
(02:05):
Yeah, I'll lift with your legs,not with your brother brother,
I'm here, no problem.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I was born literally into a, you know, a
family heat business.
That was fuel oil heating and,for around the country, if you
don't know, in the northeastused to heat with fuel oil
instead of what basically islike propane for heating homes.
And I showed up, my brothers,my two older brothers, and we
were the third generation.
(02:31):
We started out of mygrandfather's gas station 1936.
And when my brothers and Iarrived, ultimately we moved
into gas heating, plumbing, airconditioning and finally
electrical.
So plumbing, heating, cooling,electrical is, and here
electrical.
So plumbing, heating, cooling,electrical is.
And here's the great news, mynephew is the fourth generation.
He's there with my middlebrother today.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
What year did you guys go heating, heating air,
electrical plumbing, what I mean?
Decade.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, so that was really about in the early to mid
nineties, and the reason why isI had joined the forerunner of
Nexstar, which was C2000 at thetime, met a lot of great people
and what I realized at the timewas that my really best
competition was starting to gointo different trades.
And what I said to my two olderbrothers and my dad?
I said if we don't do thesetrades, we're going to basically
(03:24):
put our competition in ourbasement.
So we have to start doing this.
The good news for us is we hadmastered our first trade, and
the mastering of it wasoperating manuals that defined
how we did stuff objectively inwriting.
And then we built acorresponding training center
and training curriculum, becamebetter trainers ourselves so
(03:45):
that we were able to takewilling apprentices with no
skills to willing techs withgreat skills.
And that's why, you know, inthis competitive world, it was
what allowed us to stand outwith our 2,000 competitors on
any given day.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So when you guys were in this phase and day, so when
you guys were in this phase, uh,let's just hold on for a minute
.
Everybody, 1990, uh, there wasno such thing as internet.
There was no such thing aslaptops phones I mean best I
mean no it was no covid and nocovid I mean you think about how
you were able to do that andyou guys were doing that off a
(04:23):
pretty large footprint in theearly 90s.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
We were already $17 million in sales.
So we're not a small company.
We were 70 people, we were aNew York City union shop and, by
the way, the union provided menothing in the way of talent.
They just, whoever came in, hadto join the union.
So it was really up to us totrain these people.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I've already got.
One person's been on thepodcast that we've had to put in
the witness protection program.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So it sounds like we're going back in again,
because if we keep saying, Iactually became pretty good
working with it originally, thatwas, if you have a moment.
The story is, when I steppedinto the business, it was a lot
of head-butting between us andthe union, right, and I, as as
the last brother in kids tospeak, I went to the union guys
and said, listen, we arewrestling towards a cliff.
And I got to tell you I'mwilling to go over the cliff,
(05:12):
are you?
Because if you don't want to goover the cliff, let's figure
out how we make this worktogether.
And, to their credit, they said, yeah, let's do that, and
that's what really changed themomentum.
They said, yeah, let's do that,and that's what really changed
the momentum, because I was borninto a system where they made
more money the longer theystayed, yet their talents were
awful, and so I changed it toyou move up that ladder based on
(05:35):
the talents and things you candemonstrate and do.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
That's how you make more money.
Oh, a merit-based system.
Whoa, whoa.
That's a novel idea.
I know Gold bucket everybody.
How about paying on meritocracyas opposed to longevity?
How long you're sitting on yourbutt in the chair?
I know it's a brand new idea.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I hope all of you were strapped in and not driving
, because I'm sure that musthave took you off the road.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That one's like wow, never thought about that.
Paying for performance.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You think back on how hard it was, even then, to do
what you did.
I mean so paper-based, notknowing where everybody was.
There was no such thing as anext tell, even, which is uh
those are the coolest when theyfirst came out, didn't?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
you feel?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
so cool putting that giant thing I can top.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I have a story topper to that, actually, and part of
the good news is my dad, to hiscredit, my dad, my uncle
actually found they were thesecond generation in the news is
my dad, to his credit, my dad,my uncle, actually founded they
were the second generation inthe company, but my dad was
always a big believer intechnology.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So what is?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
technology?
Was he put in two-way radios inthe trucks when all of his
other people at this competitionwere finding pay phones?
When you could find pay phones,and they actually used to tease
him, what's the matter?
You don't have a quarter for aphone booth, or?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
something.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
But, he knew, always investing money back into the
business.
We computerized way beforeanybody computerized in our
business, and so we were alwayson that cutting edge in
technology.
And to this day, my brother andmy nephew, they are always
looking for what's new, whatmakes us more of a niche and
less of a commodity, becausethat was really our challenge
(07:06):
from day one.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, two other great gold nuggets right being on the
cutting edge of technology.
You don't have to be thebleeding edge, because that's
going to cost you a lot,especially home services, but
being on the cutting edge andstaying on top of it.
In fact, I'm sending my generalmanager this year to Fast
Remodeler, which is thetechnology summit for remodeling
guys, because I'm going to goto the NERI conference this year
instead.
(07:27):
But you got to stay there anddo that if you want to stay
relevant and stay again back toa niche and not a commodity,
because customer service is bornout of that technology.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I love for those who can't see my phone or can't see
my phone.
A lot of my vendors in my homeare my customers.
They're in my online programshere in Arizona and they're on
Service Titan and I get a texttelling me how soon my tech is
going to be here and I can trackit like an Uber.
It's amazing to me.
(08:01):
I mean, just what you can doNow.
There is a limit and hopefullyyou guys out there hear this the
right way.
I think AI is coming and Ithink it's already here.
But if you think you can justturn your company over to AI and
it's all going to be right andpeople love the whole thing,
that's like when you call up andI'll speak to AI or whatever
(08:22):
automated thing it is for one ortwo questions, but by the sixth
time they say to me I don'tunderstand you.
Representative.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right, isn't that you know?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
in fact, we're just I think he just answered his
customer service.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Pet peeve yeah, so in my accountability group that I
meet with monthly, the CEO groupfacilitated by Hanks we
actually got into thatconversation again was a lady
tried to use an hvac companyhere in atlanta that clearly had
an ai uh front end.
When she said and she's the,she's the nicest lady, but she
kept going, I just go with.
I just started going,representative, representative,
(08:58):
representative.
I'm like, well, you beat me,because if I had the phone back
in the day I'd be beating thatone and that zero so hard.
I mean I'm surprised my phonedidn't fall to pieces.
But I agree, al, you'veactually hit it on the head and
that's what we surmised here AIis coming back to bleeding edge.
Yes, that's great, I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That's what made me think about it, the way that you
call the bleeding edge.
That is a very appropriate andthe word could not be better
bleeding.
We were not the first, but wewere right near the first when
we changed the type of heatingsystems we had.
We tested them in our house,not your house.
That's the beauty of having atraining center, getting really
familiar with it, and the waythat we got our team to actually
(09:40):
buy into it is that they couldget this product and take it
back home and try it out and ifthey liked it, they could keep
it at a severe discount.
Well, if techs touch it, letalone put it in their own homes,
you don't have to teach them tosell.
You have to teach them to shutup.
They love it so much.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's a great point too.
God man, he's killing goldnuggets.
Because you give your employeesthe opportunity to sample your
service and your product, whobecomes your best proponent?
Because I've got 15 techniciansrunning around here in Atlanta
and four more up in Athens,georgia, and they have to be the
face of my company because I'mnot there.
(10:22):
But just think about if youcould give them the service or
product in their own home andthen have them go out there and
champion it, they would everyday Brilliant.
It is good I'm actually takingthat one, filing that one away.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It really makes a world of difference.
And again, this part, you knowit really wasn't originally get
them trained here rather than ina customer's basement.
We used to have a.
We were embarrassed to say itout loud.
We used to call it OTJT, whichstands for on-the-job training.
Oh yeah, because that's theonly training most owners do,
(10:55):
including us for a very longtime, and so we realized how hit
and miss it was and ultimately,what?
Also really not fair, becausewhat does it mean?
I'm coming to your home tolearn how to do my job Right,
exactly right.
Really a bad thing.
So we actually built it intothe sales and marketing
advantage, the 10 reasons tochoose us, and that was one of
(11:17):
them.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Go Alan, you wanted to say something.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Jump in Well, and I just want to take the
opportunity, because we don'thave the opportunity to ask this
question for very many of ourguests.
I have so many friends, al, whohave a business, and they are
just beside themselves becausetheir kids don't want to be in
the business and so they'refaced with either someday
shutting it down or, hopefully,selling it.
You've got four generations inyour business.
(11:43):
What's the secret sauce to that?
Just child labor.
You know when they're five andthey don't know any better.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
How did you know that I was eight years?
Old and I was cleaning fittingsand toilets and being a helper.
By the time I was 10?
.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I can just see it.
Hey Dad, I think I want to bean accountant.
Dad, that hurt, Get back overthere Tighten that wrench.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It is my favorite thing that I can share in the 23
years now that I've done thisis when I encounter family
businesses and how it progressesthrough that.
I base it on myself, which wasmy father believed that I should
never ask anybody to doanything that I had not done
myself, and when I was young Ihated that idea.
(12:26):
But when I got a little bitolder I go oh, that's why he
said that yeah, and so basicallywhat I could say to you and I
did all of the recruiting andhiring even though our company
was big at the time I felt itwas so important the recruiting,
hiring or anything trainingplace to get you into the
program was that if I am notgoing up on the roof in the dead
(12:51):
of winter, you don't have to go, but if I'm going up, you're
following me or this is not theplace you should be.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So I started my business after being in the
corporate world for a number ofyears and what I did was I put
myself in my own truck, hired aguy and put him in a truck to
learn the handyman trade, and somy training it always starts
with me at the culture trainingnow, where I don't do the rest
of it.
I think we do a good job almostbetter, better than average job
(13:20):
.
But the first thing I say isyou're never gonna be asked to
do anything that I didn't do.
I said.
That being said, I've done somecrazy shit.
I said so hang on.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well, I also try to very carefully as I progressed
along is they're never going tobe my clone.
So all of you listening outthere, if you think your clone
is showing up, good luck.
And even if that was somebodythat you found is really good,
try duplicating it.
I've always used the expression.
That's like trying to catchlightning in a bottle over and
(13:51):
over and over again.
You might get lucky once if youdon't get electrocuted.
But the point of it is it'simpossible to repeat.
So it's not scalable, and allof what we were trying to do was
control the daily chaos, thestress, because we were still
making a ton of money with allthe mistakes, everything that
(14:13):
was missing, because the basicfamily dynamic was work hard and
make the results come out theway you want them to be.
So I don't know if you guys haveheard of Ellen Rohr oh, yeah,
I've actually had her on thepodcast.
Yeah.
So Ellen and I we met in C2000all those years ago and then we
always kept in touch.
We worked together asco-consultants.
Then we actually owned afranchise together with one of
(14:34):
my former customers, zoom Drain.
So yeah, we've obviously gotall the circles together, but
she was a really great mentor tome, as I was a mentor to her
because we were talking aboutstuff like I didn't grow up
knowing what a budget was,exposing so much from my
(14:54):
experienced old gangster kind ofthing is.
Back in the 90s we bought amotor for 30 bucks, we paid you
30 bucks and we thought, well,if we sell it for 100, we got
$40 of pure money.
We didn't know what indirectcosts were, and you know I read
her book, by the way, prettymuch every year and for nothing
else.
Her book I'm speaking to is, tothis day, is still a big, big
(15:16):
seller.
Where did the money go?
Just for the glossary alone,because I would ask my
accountant, I'd go what doesthis phrase mean?
And they'd give me anotherstupid accounting term.
And so she defined these thingsin plain English and she really
broke it down slowly.
So, for those listening, rohris spelled R-O-H-R, and I'm
(15:37):
jumping ahead because you wereasking about what book to
recommend.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I know you're doing good, though Jump ahead, my
friend.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I think there isn't anybody, even if you think
you're good.
Uh, ellen roars where did themoney go?
Is the first book to read, andher second book is how much
should I charge?
And that's.
Those are two really seminalbooks that put you on a better
path, and what I call financialpower and talking about that
podcast that we had.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You go back and check it out.
You can google it.
Ellen Ellen Roher on the SmallBusiness Safari man.
She just brings the power andthe energy and she is such a
dynamo you can't help but feelbetter when you're done talking
with her right.
Wasn't that fun?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
She is electric and, yeah, there's no.
I'm very passionate about whatI do, but she's the person on
fire.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, no, that's great, but you said something.
That's very interesting is thatyou know you said something.
I was a mentor to her, but shewas also a mentor to me.
The other line is you know,iron sharpens, iron, talk a
little bit about how you, as youguys, started to talk, how did
you guys elevate each other?
Because I think that's one ofthe things we were working
together alone, as you guysstarted to talk, how did you
guys elevate each other?
Because I think we were workingtogether and alone.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Even we actually used to get together for a yearly
conference when we weren'tworking together and uh, her
sister ellen oh sorry, gail anduh so it's funny because my name
is alan, by the way a-l-a-n.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
And uh the correct way yes, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Thank you, Alan.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Thank you, alan.
So we used to call it the AgeConference, age, and we would
meet every year and look at eachother's business.
Because the problem I hadlearned a long time ago is when
you're in your business youcan't see because the glasses
are rose colored.
But anytime you ever go visitand we used to go visit shops
(17:26):
all the time it's magical howgreat you can see all the
mistakes, anything that's reallygood, and that's what I did for
Ellen and that's what she didfor me, and Gail was able to do
it for both of us.
So, because you did all theback end bookkeeping- it's also
being vulnerable and showingthings.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I'm in a monthly accountability group.
Many people would know the termVistage.
This is not one, but it's a guyby a guy who was Vistage
trained here in Atlanta.
It's been amazing.
But that is one area wheregetting a deep dive in the
financials still haven't donethat in seven years.
But I will tell you.
I had a chance to do it herebecause the National Association
(18:04):
of the Remodeling Industry wehave a local chapter here and a
guy asked me hey, come look atthe books.
He goes hey, what do you think?
I said well, I think they suck.
He goes hey, do you think youcan help me?
I'm like well, I can, but Ijust don't know if I want to get
involved in the committees andall that stuff.
He goes no, just help me.
I'm like.
So I started helping him.
We started working on it.
He goes hey, do you want tochair the finance committee?
(18:25):
I'm like all right.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
That's how they suck you.
And now I'm putting him present, step by step.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
He was so good, mark Gailey was so good, I will tell
you this.
So I went yeah, these suck.
And then I fixed them, and thenI went back and looked at my
own books.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I suck.
It's almost impossible to notjust get numb to your own
environment.
I remember an example of justgoing up the steps of one of my
stores and there was this giantweed that obviously had been
growing for months.
And I'd walked through thosesame steps and I'm like I mean I
can't even see the weed on myfront porch.
What's going on in my business?
I mean, the thing had beengrowing and it's.
You know what I mean?
(19:07):
It's just, yeah, you needsomebody else, you need that
second set of eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I was very lucky.
I had really great industryfriends like Ellen Rohr, who
would tell me what I needed tohear, whether I wanted to hear
it or not, and the great DanHollihan, who is also the
connection between myself andEllen, who is a great industry
writer, helped us with themanuals.
We hired him in to do itbecause I had tried, for I don't
know, for years, to write itand every time I wrote these
manuals they came out like a lawbook, article 1-6.35.
(19:36):
Yeah right, no one was going tofollow that and then so he also
knew me very well.
And when we finally knew it,this is what we had to do,
because I had read the E-Myth byMichael Gerber and that really
changed my life.
And Ellen Rohr and Dan Hollahansaid you have to stop what
you're doing and read this book.
And for the first time in mylife I knew why things didn't
(19:58):
work and I knew what I needed todo.
But it didn't really give methe how.
But you know what I'm reallygood at how?
And between myself and mybrothers and the money we spent.
We spent about $150,000 in theoriginal manuals and they're a
fraction of what I have today,but we paid it off within two
years because we drove callbacksdown, we maximized each ticket
(20:22):
and we always had more callsthan we could humanly do.
And now we had a way to get morepeople on the road.
You know, taking these young,willing apprentice people with
no skills to getting them to bewilling techs with great skills.
By the way, I was a hostage tomy staff, which I think is bad
enough, and I told my brothersand my dad that's why they
(20:42):
allowed me to go out and do thethings I did.
But I actually came to workwith a customer that Ellen
called him up one day and saidwhat time do you want us there?
And usually contractors willsay, if you let them, they'll
say 5 am because they startedearly and I go.
I'm in Arizona on Pacific timeand you're in the East Coast.
(21:05):
I'm not waking up at 1 am tocome to your place.
So this guy says to him, hesays to Ellen, two o'clock and
she goes.
I'm sorry, what time did yousay?
He goes.
Oh, I don't come into thisoffice to two o'clock because I
hate all my employees.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
True words have not been spoken, my friends, I mean,
I love my team, I built a goodculture.
But that line speaks so volumes.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Here's the happy ending to that story.
So Ken could do all the workthat we did At the end not even
in the transition when thingsbegan to run smoothly because he
realized you know the famousexpression attributed to
Confucius when you point afinger, four are still facing
you.
As I had to take the, I had totake the lumps because I was
very busy early on blamingeverybody except myself.
(21:55):
So he did take thatresponsibility on, and here's
the truism today he wakes upexcited to go see his staff and
one of his sole focuses ismaking their lives better.
Think about how that 180 went.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Wow, man, that had been a big change, because he
has to see the value in it andalso he also had to be ready to
accept it.
You know, one of the things youtalk about with coaching and I
know we're going to get intowhat Al does is that you've got
to be willing to be ready toaccept it.
One of the things you talkabout with coaching and I know
we're going to get into what Aldoes is that you've got to be
willing to be ready, and we hada great coach consultant on said
.
The third question is do Ithink he's ready?
(22:36):
Do I think whatever I'm goingto do is going to 10X him or 1X
him or whatever it was?
But I think you've got to beself-aware and if you're not, is
somebody going to shoot youwith it?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And you know I've had a lot of guys who've worked
with me, usually when I wasdoing one-to-one consulting,
which I don't do anymore, but itused to be two to three years
for people that wanted to runthe whole can All seven powers
planning, operation, staffing,sales, sales coaching, marketing
finance.
Ellen handled two, thefinancial and the sales coaching
.
I did the other five with them,but they would get through.
(23:11):
Things would finally go reallywell.
Money was coming in, that wasgoing down, they were growing,
coming to work was much more funand invariably, like a year in
or so, they would say to me Iwish I had called you five years
ago.
I go, you weren't ready.
It's the oldest one is, youknow, is the teacher appears
(23:34):
when the student is ready.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And I was the same ways, you know, when I was young
, like most young people, I kneweverything you know, I wish
some people say that, hey, ifyou could go back to your
17-year-old self and tell himsomething, I'm like I could, but
that motherfucker wasn't goingto listen to a word I had to say
.
I promise you.
Because I knew everything at 17, Al.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I know Coupled with that, I was not as bad as most
kids, but it's amazing how muchsmarter my dad got when I
graduated college.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah amen, that's a Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I know it's originally with him, or at least
it's so spot on.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It is too, because we all have that A lot of
adolescents, especially men,listening to this.
We all have to do that.
It's part of our journey tobecoming, uh, entrepreneurial,
but not really entrepreneurial,but just independent.
We all have to.
At some point, we have toreject our parents, we have to
be able to say I'm not going tostay with you.
(24:36):
I got a launch, and so the waywe do it and very for many of us
, very not gracefully, I thoughtI was pretty good, I wasn't as
bad as it looked, but Idefinitely can tell you a story
that in the backyard there was asledgehammer thrown and there
there was a compressor flipped.
I can't tell you by who and bywhich, uh, but I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
There were two guys involved.
At least there wasn't anyhatchet throwing before it
became popular, so good that wasme and my dad working together.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And that gets all the way back to the story that I
wanted to finish up on is whenthey you talked about the next
generation, I was very happy.
First of all, I had to get thefamily who was there to work
together.
So what was one of the keys?
Those keys that I learned atour companies.
My brother is my two olderbrothers and I spent of our
times in the 20s micromanagingeach other or duplicating what
(25:30):
each other was doing, because wehad no idea, we didn't
communicate, we didn't have anymeeting, we didn't have anything
, and so I have to watch thetime for you guys.
But can I tell a quick story?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You got to tell this one, because I love this,
especially a three-brother story.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So my brother, marty, would never worked in the field
, although he went to schoolwith me the tech school and I
couldn't understand why hewasn't getting it because I was
getting it.
And then when, a year or twolater, I was in somebody's
basement at 2 am and he was homesleeping, I realized he was
still the smarter brother.
2 am and he was home sleeping,I realized he was still the
(26:08):
smarter brother.
But anyway, so he's first in inthe morning at like 6 am.
He gets a phone call from anirate customer Somebody was here
last night and now I have noheat and I come walking in at
630, heading to the servicedepartment to get things
straightened out for the day,and he starts.
I already see that he's yellingat the service manager who is
now on the roof ready to jump.
(26:30):
Now my first task of the day isto gently walk him off the roof.
And then I'm get a phone callwhen I'm sitting at the dispatch
desk from one of our suppliers.
And I understand my dad raisedmy brothers and I as young
teenagers that our suppliers getpaid before you do, because,
push comes to shove, they'lltake care of you, which, by the
(26:51):
way, was brilliant, it was toldto us when we were very young.
When Sandy hit Long Island,which is where our business was,
guess who got?
Taken care of Us To the maximumdegree.
I love this story us to themaximum degree including we lost
20 trucks and the leasingcompany came through like champs
, just to name one.
Anyway.
(27:12):
So I apologize, I hang up thephone, I go tearing across to
the office to rip into theaccounts payable person and
finally Marty and I are right inbetween the two offices and I
said to him I said you don'tlike the way the service is
being handled, you tell me andI'll fix it.
And he goes well, if you don'tlike the way the bills are being
(27:34):
paid, you tell me and I'll getit fixed.
And then we both looked at eachother and I go you know, this
is really good.
We ought to write a chart up orsomething that was the birth of
the box, or chart we finally wefinally have it it takes to fix
, to run the business, andthat's where everything goes in
(27:55):
a better direction.
And the point of this is for us.
We had so many trucks.
It was a big big deal theinsurance, so marty would get
three bids, richie would getinsurance, so Marty would get
three bids, richie would getthree bids, al would get three
bids.
And once we realized, no wait,wait, it goes in your box, marty
, you go get three bids and thencome and give a proposal,
(28:15):
explain it to us and then we'llvote on which way we go.
What a dramatic reduce in notonly time but tension.
There was so much tensionbecause we're all running around
with our heads chopped off.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
How fun to watch that go down.
You hit on one thing and Idon't think I'm going to get him
on the podcast, but I reallywanted to.
But he's retired and I thinkhis appetite of coming in here
and drinking with us to talkabout it is gone.
But we had a local supplier.
These are the people I buy allmy windows and doors and decking
(28:51):
packages from During 2008,.
When I started in 2008, theyhad been going on for 20 years.
One of the things they did andthey did it right was they
always paid their vendors and alot of times you have a vendor
angst relationship, right, Imean so?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
yeah, you get it.
If I don't, you know, work themover.
They're going to take advantageof me.
You know, and we, we finallywoke up one day, and that was
because of I've been to goodtraining is I don't make.
That's not how I make my money.
Holding the vendor down, Iactually like and prefer a
primary vendor, uh, vendor thathandles it.
One source of accountability.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
So the company he was with there was two of them in
the area at the time and thecompany he was with paid
everybody, and when they had toclose down they made sure to pay
everybody off as they wentbankrupt and the other guy left
everybody else holding the bag.
So now fast forward to 2010,which it sounds like forever two
(29:49):
years, but really is not noRight.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
But those were rough years.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They were, trust me, brother.
Yeah, I don't remember them.
Yeah, alan, again, that's howhe lost.
His business was 2008.
There's no way you can get outof that one.
But when they got ramped backup, you know which vendors
extended credit.
You know which vendors madesure that they could get people
in business.
Larry and his team what comesaround goes around, and the
(30:16):
other guy actually ran tail andgot completely out of the
business.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
100%, Good yeah right , it just shows you.
It does show you.
Yeah, right, it just shows youno-transcript.
(30:43):
You know we should go around,we know where their trucks are
and we can, you know, advertiseto take this up.
And he goes and reaches for thephone and he gets on.
He picks up the phone and hegoes sit down, you have
something to learn.
I'm going to put it on speaker.
He calls the guy up.
His name is Nate.
He goes Nate, my son just toldme about fires.
I want you to know I'm going toservice any of your customers.
(31:06):
I will never sell any of them.
I will only be talking aboutyou.
I'll do whatever you need inthe way of help.
And then he hangs up the phone.
He looks at me, he goes.
You know what?
The road has many bends.
I go.
What does that mean?
He said how would you feel ifyou were in that position?
Things happen.
Just do the right thing.
(31:29):
So, anyway, nate, his businessnot to us, to somebody else.
He waits for the non-compete tofinish and he goes to every one
of his big clients and goes.
The only person you should bedealing with is irving wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
See what comes around , goes around, and again we we
talk about that's one of ourcore principles at the trusted
toolbox is integrity and peoplesay, well, you know, that's not
really an integrity.
I'm like it is when you teachit like we do, and that's doing
the right thing.
When nobody's watching.
Sometimes it doesn't feel goodto be at a customer's house at 2
am l and the pipe doesn't cometogether.
(32:02):
Or in our case, you know doingsome carpentry work maybe that
trim, I could have just cockedthe hell out of it and walked
away and done it the wrong way.
And they'll never know doingthe right thing when nobody's
watching.
That's the one that pays offand I will tell you it paid off
for me and I is.
I've used that story all thetime with my guys, I, I, I
absolutely 100 agree.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So if you're staying with this off the chart bouncing
around the wall thing, here isI've also talked kids and only I
always ask you know the peoplewho are there about, do you want
me to talk to the nextgeneration?
I'll have a privateconversation with them and then,
if they're good with it, we'llget together.
And so a great company in theMidwest who has absolutely
(32:46):
exploded in a great way he's Igrew up to start this story.
It was 2004.
I was sitting.
He had a metal building hebuilt on purpose so that his
house was in the building of hisoffice because he knew it was
the only way he could see hiskids.
You with me so far.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
And I'm sitting on the couch waiting for him to
finish up with his kid.
You know his kid's there atthat point.
One kid was maybe 10 at thetime, the son.
And as life will have it, workgoes on.
He and his wife call me up, wego.
We have a problem.
I go.
What's the problem?
He goes.
My son doesn't want to go tocollege and we want him to have
that experience.
(33:26):
I go.
Well, my brother, richie,didn't want to go to college
either.
My father insisted that he goat least six months to a year
because he didn't want him everto come back and go.
You know what?
I really should have gone tocollege to find out what that
was like.
That was the longest that hecould hold.
It was six months before Richiecame back and said Richie could
never.
Richie could never come backand go.
(33:48):
Listen, richie was born with awrench in his crib.
He knew what he wanted to do.
He's 70 something years old andhe's up in an addicts and
people go.
Why?
I said because he loves it.
And so they asked me will heever retire?
I go, yeah, feet first.
Maybe that's about it.
But the point of this thing is Isaid to this kid.
(34:08):
I said your parents, who arehere, want me to talk to you
about this business.
And they agreed to thefollowing You're going to start
at the bottom, not at the top.
You're going to do like what mydad told me when I came in.
He said I owe you anopportunity, not a guarantee,
and you're going to work at thebottom and don't come to me
(34:30):
complaining about who you'reworking for, because they're
totally empowered to be yourboss.
And if you can put up with that, and then you will earn your
way up, you'll have everyone'srespect.
But that's the deal.
Otherwise, go wherever you want.
By the way, the good story herewithin two years he was the
best tech their kid.
(34:50):
How about?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
that, Al, we're coming towards the end.
I want to talk a little bitabout you.
Don't do one-to-one coachinganymore, but you do help people.
And we've talked a lot aboutnostalgia, but what's funny is
that in the nostalgia I stillfind these are the same problems
.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Oh same problems.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Again is that in the nostalgia I still find these are
the same problems.
Oh, same problem.
You know.
Again it's not any different.
It's been the same problem.
You had the same problem in the90s we have today.
You can't find good texts, youdon't know how to get them going
.
All this stuff.
Tell me what you're doing now.
How are you giving back to thecommunity?
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So I do have a book and the book that I wrote is was
purposely I 120 pages becausemy editor.
When I spoke to her I said I'vebeen doing podcasts, writing
for trade magazines for years.
I've got tons of content.
She goes.
Well, what do you need me for?
I go.
There's a thousand of my kidssitting in the audience telling
(35:41):
me to pick me, pick me.
I said that it would look likea ransom note, not a book.
So this book is made to be readin two to four hours for any of
you contractors out there.
I'm dyslexic so I can stillread it.
The point of it is to read itover and over again and use the
yellow highlighter.
It is inaudible because thisvoice is golden, obviously.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So if you prefer to drive around and hear it, yeah,
it's on Audible.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
It's ebook, the rest of it.
That's the first way to start.
It's really good.
You'll get a great foundation,or what I call the platform, to
take control of your businesstoday.
But scale it and there arecompanies right now using all of
these principles, from 1million to 250 million, and in
this PE wave I've had a ton ofcompanies who have been bought
(36:25):
out for PE money, for big money,generational money, and they're
built on these platforms.
So what I do today.
There's two programs I haveonline called Signature
Operating Manual System, andthat is the org chart that I had
.
Famous org chart I described,but it's how do you cover those
boxes with a manual that covers80% of the time?
I have that already for you,especially if you're in the
(36:47):
contracting trade, and so that'sreally where you start to take
control.
The second program is calledSignature Staffing, which is all
about the five steps ofstaffing Always recruiting,
always hiring, always orienting,always training.
And the last one we all missbecause we think they're on the
team is always retaining.
(37:07):
Fifth step, and if you do agreat job in the first four and
you offer what we did because Ihad read a book about the
employer of choice years ago andI said to my brothers if we can
provide a career, not just thejob, we win.
And that is exactly what we setoff to do.
The kids quote unquote that Itrained all those years ago all
(37:28):
made it to the very top of theorg chart.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's great.
What a great testament.
That's a lot of fun.
Again, everybody, we're goingto put this in the show notes.
But, Al, do you want to give usa shout out on what those two
books are?
We can go look them up.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
The two books that that you wrote.
The one book I have is the 7Power Contractor.
The 7 Power Contractor yeah, andif you go to my website, the
number 7powercontractorcom, goto the products page and you'll
see.
You know the two programs I'mtalking about.
You can tour it.
It's all there and that'spretty good.
(38:02):
But also I have a ton of blogsthere On purpose.
There's a ton of educationthere and, like you guys are
saying, I know you would like itwrapped up in a prettier bow
and you thinking there's got tobe something that's brand new,
that's better.
And it's not because of my egoor conceit, it's solid and it's
proved and it's proving now,right this minute.
(38:25):
Yeah, I agree, working withcompanies from Arizona, from
sorry Australia, new Zealand,canada, united States and UK,
because the programs are online.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Wow, that's amazing.
No, that's good stuff, guys.
I've been out to the website,I've checked it all out.
That's why I was excited to getAl on the podcast talk about
all this stuff and I mean I lovethe stories and the history and
I just I just I mean that'swhere I think it really comes in
.
You guys all know that I'm abig fan of history not as big of
a fan of world war ii historyas alan, but we are still big
(38:56):
fans of a certain age where thatbecomes interesting yeah, I
like other history I like Iguess
okay, you're gonna move on now.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
All right, hey, let's finish this thing up, let's
talk about it.
I want to talk about the famousfour questions.
Well, he's already answered two, so I know we're down.
So we already got the booksright.
Go check out Ellen Ward's book.
Got the customer service.
Go check out the seven powercontractor Again another great
book and his customer service iswas the AI.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thing yeah, I will.
You can't have, you can'tescape the AI that you put in
that you think can automate yourbusiness and you never have to
have a human involved.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, good then we can get to the my fun, my fun,
most famed.
What's the favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
well, I'm prejudiced Heating and cooling Because he's
in.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Arizona.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I always like to eat and cooling, to say the least.
But cooling out here is not anice thing, it's a life and
death thing.
I've got two systems in herebecause one night one of them
rolled over and there was onlyfour years old, but stuff
happens right and so we wereable to trudge on to the other
side of the house and stay coolfor all night.
Of them rolled over, and therethere was only four years old,
but stuff happens right, and so,uh, we were able to trudge on
to the other side of the houseand stay cool for all night
(40:11):
power is expensive out there I,you know, I came from new york
where power wasn't expensive itwas
Speaker 3 (40:18):
a little bit expensive exactly right.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You know that's uh.
I talk about this all the timeas a handyman, a remodeler.
We don't have a need-basedbusiness.
So when we're in somebody'shouse, you don't need to have
that door changed out, you don'tneed to have your siding
changed out.
It's just why now, but whenyour air conditioning is out in
Arizona in July, that's a need.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Oh yeah, and if you're in Minnesota in the
winter, heating is also not anice thing, it's an essential
thing.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It's an essential thing.
I mean you want to stay alive.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
The demand business is and, like Tommy, the garage
door business that most peopleknow, A1 Garage is.
If the door is not going up orit's not coming down or it's
halfway in the middle, that's aproblem, because you've got a
wedding to go to.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It still makes me laugh when that, when he he did,
I got a chance to talk withTommy as well and I want to get
him on the pod too.
I'll maybe throw it a throw alittle bone over there to him to
get him on.
But he said it's a need.
You know we were talkingoffline and I'm like, well,
can't, don't, doesn't everybodyknow you can just pull the
handle and pull the damn thing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
No, they don't, they're trapped.
And if they did?
If they did, they probablywould hatchet something and the
door coming down died it down.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
So yeah, user error that's just, oh my god, it was
crazy.
All right, al, you've beenaround the trades, but I love a
good diy nightmare story.
I, uh, it's got to be you.
Uh, I have plenty of myself.
I've done a lot of dumb shit inmy life, but I want to hear a
good DIY nightmare story.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, so you know we're used to the duct tape will
fix everything.
So there was a problem with oneof the key things for analysis
here is when my team couldn'tfind the problem.
My brother and I knew it waseither up in an attic where they
didn't want to spend time, orthey went downstairs in the
basement or crawl space wherethey didn't want to spend any
(42:10):
time.
So I was trying to figure outwhy they couldn't get air.
Couldn't get air, and I'mcrawling along the crawl space
with a flashlight in my mouthand I come to a section that's
this big apart.
It's not that big apart.
It's supposed to be duck work.
But he didn't decide the duckwork, so he took a cardboard box
.
He just cut the two ends of itinto this giant.
(42:34):
I don't know if I'm describingit.
Picture it again the duck workis round.
And then there's a cardboard boxtrying to gap this whole thing
that he thought.
Of course, he never mentionedthat to me and he also never
told anybody else that this iswhat he had done, but that was
one of my favorite diy stories,so that the duct tape.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
The duct tape sealed all the gaps, didn't it?
Duct tape should work like achamp and cardboard boxes that
are square rectangle.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
For a man like that, no problem with stalling out the
air yeah, it didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
It didn't capture everything, make a vacuum yeah,
no, not a great job I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
That's awesome and also when it gets wet.
You know it's another, anotherthing, but that was, that was uh
, and the reason.
I think it was the location,because if you see what I'm
doing, I'm crawling on my handsand knees with a flashlight in
my mouth and they're trying tofigure out why has everybody
missed this?
And I, I finally realized, yeah, that's why they missed it
that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
al.
This has been great man.
We thank you so much for comingon and sharing your wealth of
knowledge and a great career andeverything you've done in your
history, and I really appreciateit.
It's been a great episode.
If you guys didn't learnsomething, man, that's on's on
you, get in your truck, go back,relisten to this thing, go back
and check these episodes backout with Ellen Rohr.
You've got to go back andrelisten to this one man,
(43:53):
because there's gold nuggets allover the place.
You can implement those today.
Get them going, make it happen.
Get up that mountain.
Let's go get successful.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
We've got to go.
Cheers everybody.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Cheers.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember to keep that positiveattitude, which will reflect in
a higher altitude as you're outthere making it happen in the
wild world of small businessownership.
Until next time, go make it agreat day.
Adventure team.
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