Burned Eyebrows, Business Breakthroughs, and 40 Years of HVAC Legacy with Tom Storrer | Ep3

um, books, but it seems to work pretty well. Perfect. Nice. Everything sound good. Audio is good. You like where's Mike's at? Do you want me to go up and under more? Awesome. Okay. Sweet. Yeah. If we can have, this is a little bigger, so you just block from here down. It'd be, that'd be great. You look great on there. Yeah. Look legit. You look like an HVAC man. Okay. Well, that's good. That's a compliment. That's what I want to look like. I could have said plumber. You know, well, thanks for not that one. That could have been worse. Welcome Tom. I'm glad you're here. You ready for this? I certainly am. Yep. How personal am I allowed to go? Are you, are you planning on crying? Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Perfect. Everybody can think of a lies quick enough. I'll throw that in there. Yeah. Well, welcome to the killer growth podcast. I've got Tom store here, owner of Don's heating and air. Going to have a chat about his story, uh, what it takes to build a service company. Um, get into one after 40 years, be born into it, be born into it. And, uh, take it from where it was to where it is now. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. That one always does go out. Yeah. That's weird. Oh, wow. Those are what are filming us. Yeah. We have three running. So you got the wide camera there. I thought maybe that was just for stills or something. No, that one is you, right? So that one's you right now. And then it's auto switching based on our, our mic talking. So whichever mic is picking up, that's the camera back and forth. And then it defaults to the wide just camera on more of like a timer. It'll go wide. So we'd have to do a lot of producing at the end, which is not a lot of editing. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like, it needs to be dummy proof. If Norris isn't in town, I can just walk in and hit a button and I can just sit down and talk and then we're set. So I love it. I love it. Awesome. Okay. Well welcome to the killer growth podcast. Got Tom store on today from Don's heating and air. Uh, he's only been in the HVAC industry for, I think 40 years. So 42 years, not very long. Yeah. So you don't have much to talk about getting started. This is going to be hard to come up with enough to say. Uh, but yeah, let's start out, uh, Tom, how'd you get into the HVAC industry? Well, there's a second generation company. My dad started it and from the time I was about 12 years old during the summers, I was dragged kicking and screaming to from the swimming pool into the working world, crawling around under people's houses and stuff. And worked for him summers all through school. And the day after I graduated high school, I started full time and this is all I've ever done. Yeah. Yeah. So you went right, right out of high school, right? Yeah. What was it like, you know, I'm not in that position of a generational business. Um, and I see pros and cons on both sides. Oh yeah. Um, there's days where, you know, but then there's days I see it's like awesome and I'm like jealous of it. You're right. But like, what, what was that like? Well, do you work with family? I do. So I know the family dynamic. So yeah, it was, there were advantages and disadvantages. Sure. Um, everybody, I had to always overcome the, I guess, stereotype you'd call it of nepotism and how, you know, I got it easy because my dad owned the company when in reality more was asked of me because my dad owned the company and because of how long I'd been doing it. Yeah. And it worked out. We, we made it work. Yeah. We both survived until he retired. He had the handoff happened. He didn't stay around for too long. No, he didn't stay a hair too long. That's a common theme. I hear. It depends on who you're talking to. You're talking to him. No, if you're talking to me, yeah, he hung around a little too long. No, at the end though, we were clashing a little bit on ideas and I'm pretty, I'm sure my guys would tell you the same thing about me today that you, your default is to back in the day, how you did things back then. And you know, that's what he, where he and I clashed at the end was I wanted to be a little more progressive than he felt comfortable being. And he was trying to pull me back and I was fighting against the. And so, yeah, that's, that's kind of what led to him finally saying, you know what the heck with it, I'm going to go ahead and go relax and take my camper and go to Yuma every winter. And it's a good gig. Oh yeah, it was. Uh, what, what advice would you give someone that's in the middle of that right now? I have some peers that are in the middle of that. They're in the middle of that. They're about to begin that transition or feel like it should be beginning. Oh, from there, the transition from the generation to generation, generation. Um, well, my dad and I were from so much from two different worlds. So somebody younger than me, who's, who's dad was younger or predecessor, whether it be a dad, uncle, whatever was younger. I would think maybe that'd be a little easier because my dad grew up during the depression era. So what was your age gap from you to your dad? About 30 years, 28, 29, right in there. But he was born during the depression era at where you didn't, you used everything, you didn't throw anything away yet. Um, and so that was a little harder for the handle as we went on. I didn't have time to hunt around for the bargains and stuff that he did. And so it was easier for me to just say, Hey, let's go buy this and get the work done and get, but yeah, it just really depends because transitioning from doing your books by hand, which is what he did back in the day to having them computerized and having software scheduling and dispatching software and stuff. It's just a totally different animal than he ran and not because it's necessarily, I think my ways any better than his. It's just the way things are today and you can't keep track of things nowadays if you don't have the software. Yeah. Yeah. What year did you guys transfer into 2003 software? Okay. Well, no, you guys transferred. At that time the secretary was still doing all the books by hand and I can't remember for sure when we started using, you know, QuickBooks online and stuff like that, but he wouldn't allow, he wouldn't allow the books to be done on computer at all. Which is ironic because you can write down whatever you want to write down, right? Like, Oh, absolutely. There's some accountability with, and you can still fudge books. When he was concerned about theft, you know, people stealing from him and he could follow, man, he was like a bloodhound. He could follow. He could steal. He could follow from a service call from what was just a call to the office. Somebody wanting something worked on. He could follow that through the books to where it became a payment, where that got deposited, where that got. And I don't think it was possible to steal from him. Yeah. But so that's why he wouldn't allow anything done on computer. And cause he didn't understand how to follow the trail on a computer and he would have felt like, and it would be easy for somebody to steal from me too. That's why I have people I trust that take care of that kind of thing. Yeah. I don't have time. Even, even if I was able to follow that trail, I would don't have time to do that. So. So back to the, my original question there, what, what is something you wish you would have done different in that transition? Is there anything in that generational transition? If I could have gone back a ways to start kind of easing into that more cause it kind of got, I don't know, I don't know if you'd kind of just got hit over the head with it all of a sudden. Gotcha. It was all of a sudden he finally decided he was sick of it and I decided I was sick of it. That's literally how it happened. Yeah. He felt like he was losing control. So he was tired of fighting it and I felt like I was tired of him looking over my shoulder. He was, it's, it's, it was really kind of funny. We were on vacation and he called and was mad at me about some job because the way I had ordered whatever, some materials for it. And so when I got off the phone, we were in Houston and my brother-in-law's, I told my wife, I said, that's it. I'm going back Tuesday morning. I'm quitting. I'm done. I've had it. Right. And she had heard that before. I'd said that more than once. She's like, sure. Okay. Okay. And I'm like, no, I'm serious. She's like, I know, I know. And so we come back and we get back Monday. Well, my dad knew we were back. So he called me and said, Hey, can you come down to the office and talk to me? So I hung up and I looked at Missy, my wife, and I said, all right, I'm going to go down. We're going to get this over with now. So we go meet him at the office. And I let him talk first and he kind of stole my thunder. He said, you need to go find a job. I'm closing this place down. I'm sick of fighting. So I'm like, gosh, I couldn't wait. I was going to be the one that dropped this. And he beat me to it. But so then I said, well, that's all right. Cause I came down here to quit anyway. So it's no big deal. So, so after a couple of days when everybody had a chance to cool off, we decided I'd go ahead and just take over. He said, you know, I'd worked there long enough and built up enough equity that I could just take over. I could rent the location and everything from him. And that's how it took off. And yeah, so it's been, so planning a plan transition before the combustion, the explosion would have been more strategically placed dynamite. We had talked about it before, obviously, but we had talked about several different ways, several different options. We hadn't actually settled on anything and yeah, finally. Yeah. To wait till you finally say, heck with it. You know, I'm out. That's I wouldn't advise that to be how they do it. Yeah. Start talking about it and find common ground and work like that instead. Did your relationship get better after that? Yeah. Cool. Good. Yeah. Because, and that's, that's the bad thing about it where you start to as the son, you almost start to associate, just associate your dad with work. So every time you think of him, all you think of is work. So that can't help but affect your relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was, and there were times when I thought, man, I wish I'd gone to college and done something. Yeah, sure. But no, that's if, if I could give anybody any advice, it would be to come up with a plan and there are a lot of different options. There are a lot of different ways to do that, but find one that works for both of you and stick to it and just stay the course and everybody stick to what they say they're going to do because, and I'm starting to understand this now as I'm getting older, they don't want to leave when they get to 65 or whatever. They've decided retirement age is they think, man, I can still do this. I can, I can get one more year. Well, trust me, your son has been planning for you to leave at this time. Yeah. And, and that's tough for them to, for them to leave. And I'll know here in a few years how just exactly how tough, but stick to it. Come up with a plan that works for everybody and just stick to it. Yeah. It would be my advice. Yeah, that's good. That's awesome. Um, can you, one thing I really respect about you, excuse me, uh, you've, you've received business coaching for how long? Oh gosh. Almost 20 years now. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's been a worthwhile investment. Oh my gosh. If, if not, I wouldn't be sitting here. Yeah. It'd be, you'd be interviewing my boss. Yeah. Whoever that was. Yeah. No, I, the only advantage I've ever had over anyone else is knowing what I don't know and not having so much ego that I couldn't admit that I didn't know something. And when I was given the opportunity to work with my first business coach, well, I jumped at it because there were a lot of things, a lot of questions I had of my dad before he got out of the business and I don't think he even knew the answers to them because in those days it wasn't important. And so the first business coach taught me how to, how to calculate those different things and figure out what my overhead was. Well, and in that era you didn't sell your business. You just, it went down to the next generation, right? Right. Like in our era now, we're also like, Hey, it might not go to the next generation. We want to build it so we can sell it or it makes sense for anyone to take it that's wants to buy a good business. The first day I walked into the first business coach, first class I walked into the first question he asked, he said, all right, let me see a show of hands. Who in this room would recommend to your son that you go into this business? Not a hand. Yeah. Not a hand went up. Wow. By the time I got done with the business coach and had things moving in the right direction. He asked that question again later of the same group of us and almost everyone raised their hand. That's awesome. Yeah. So it's, it's something that is pass on pass on a bull. I'm not sure that's a word. But it's something that you could also sell if you wanted to. Yeah. And that's how a lot of companies are going nowadays. I have, I just had one yesterday, a lot of people calling asking, Hey, are you interested in selling your business? Yeah. And I don't know where they come from or how they find not just me, but any other business. But yeah, they're always, there's always investors looking to buy viable companies and I don't have, I would like to pass mine down. Yeah. Have one of my employees buy it. Yeah. And keep it going rather than it just be pieced off to some PE group. Yeah. So that's, hopefully that's the way it's going to happen when it does. That's your hope for the transition. Yes. Yeah. On a building trust and having good people. Um, you did you get that right every time? Did you always have, did you always hire the most trustworthy? Perfect. Well, I thought I was, I always thought I was. Yeah. But I'll tell you this, because I've had people ask me like the family members when things would go wrong with an employee and my wife or one of my daughters, they'd look at me and say, did you even interview him? And well, yeah, I did. He was funny. And yeah, great. I can hang out with them. Well, and that's what I came to learn pretty quickly. Nobody ever went to a job interview and said, yeah, you know what? Probably going to show up drunk about half the time and I'm going to steal what I can and five o'clock I'm out in a big hurry. Right. Nobody ever said that you should do with your actor's club. Yeah. Honest interviews. Nobody ever says that. So they say, you know, when you're interviewing a guy, he's, he'll tell you he's done everything but bear children and he's willing to learn that if you'll teach him. And so you just got to try them out. And what would you, if a guy said he did bear a child, what would be? Yeah. Well, you know, the, you know, the CEO positions open. If that in fact happened, you're more qualified to run this place than I am. But no, it was, it's been hit or miss and I've got, I'm very fortunate. I've got really good people that I would trust with anything. Yeah. In fact, and I tell my customers all the time, because we do work in a lot of people's houses when there's no one home. And I tell them all the time, you know, I would trust these guys in my house. And if I, if, if I wouldn't trust them in my house, I wouldn't hire them and send them to someone else's. So I'm very fortunate that I've got good, not only honest employees, but they're very knowledgeable and they're good at what they do. So. What, uh, in this day and age, finding help is a big issue across all the clients we have, all the businesses we talked to, like we come in, right. And they're like, yeah, you guys do our marketing. We're like, yeah, we could do this for you. And then they're like, well, I can't even keep up with what I got because I can't find people. Right. Um, is that a problem for you as well? Not right now. Like I said, I've got a really good crew and we have got, I've got the number of people to do the amount of work we've got. Yeah. And I try everybody I'm sure tries this, but a lot of businesses don't go broke. In fact, the majority of businesses don't go out of business due to lack of work. They go out of business due to unmanaged growth. And so we're trying to grow. Obviously every business is, but I'm trying to manage that and keep, keep the amount of work that I have the number of people for and increase the number. I just had a new guy come to work Monday. And because we've got a lot of work right now and keep the number of people I've got for the amount of work and vice versa. And as we add work, add people. Yeah. And then sure. Hope like heck you can keep that amount of work. The hard, the right, the, the hardest part about managing growth, I feel like is your reputation management too. Right. Because it starts to, and that's where you guys come in. Right. Exactly. That's where killer growth. There you go. And well, and you've got, first of all, you've got to make sure you have a reputation to manage. Yes. You have to do the kind of work that you're proud of that you want on your website. You want pictures of that work on your website. And I couldn't be more proud of my employees for the quality of work they do. Yep. And they know, they know what I expect and they don't, they don't leave anything less than what I expect of them. Somebody. So you kind of answered this a little bit ago, but somebody that's just starting in the HVAC industry, like let's say they're two years in right there in that critical time, right? Like that's an awkward time. I feel like for any service company. Oh, absolutely. Cause you know, first year you do it all yourself. Second year, you've got some help and then you're in that awkward spot of like, I do need help, but I don't have enough to keep them busy. Right. But if I don't hire this or this, my quality, I can't get to anybody on time. Like that awkward, that's what you've got to have. And I just recently learned how, how much easier that makes life to have the people. And I just talked to another guy, a friend of mine in the industry, he's actually worked for a distributor that we buy from. And we were talking about another dealer that I, that we both know who's struggling more with that. And I told him, you've just got to go find, find good people. They may be working for someone else, and this is going to sound mean and harsh, but it's his life. Yeah. It's a dog eat dog world. And you know, when you see that your employee or your competition has a good employee, sure. You got to go pay him more than that guy's paying and get him to come to work. Create a better opportunity for them. That's capitalism. Yeah. And that's what I, that's the advice I gave the guy to give to that other dealer. You have just got to go find who you want and pay them what it takes to get them to come to work for you. Yep. And then from that, you set your prices and sell your, sell your product for what you have to sell it for. Right. And too many people try and shoehorn their prices into just to get work and then they can't afford to hire anybody. Right. Exactly. It's a vicious cycle. Um, the, the, at that two year, two year mark, when you find good people, I feel like owners get stuck and they aren't willing to go backwards. Right. So I think an owner also kind of has to be willing to go backwards financially to have good people. Right. But the benefit of, you know, less money in your pocket to your life is better and your reputation is better and your business is more turnkey. Right. And that's my current business coaches call that a building wall. Okay. And we're kind of up against one right now there you hit, there are several from between where you start and where you end, hopefully. Yeah. And you get to a point where you you're doing all the work you can do with the amount of employees you've got. Yep. So you hire some more employees. Well, it takes a little while for the work to catch up with that. So that's the building wall they're talking about. So you're sitting there up against this wall, making less money for a while, until you get the amount of work built up that you need to equal the number of employees you've got. Yeah. And then you go on and you, do you repeat efficiently? Yeah. Making all the, doing all the work you can do with those people. And then you do it all over again. Yeah. This was more people. How like more advice for HVAC industry? How far out is acceptable if somebody calls for a service call from your, like your four years, say it's summertime is a hundred degrees and they got no air conditioning. Yeah. I don't like to, for my people to go home with anybody not having air conditioning that night, but it realistically it happens, but I don't like anybody to go beyond the next day. Next day is the goal for service, especially in extreme weathers. And that's kind of that is, and I hate to, I don't want to hijack the conversation. That's the why you're here. I'm just asking questions. That's a kind of a balancing act too. With my new, with this, these business coaches that I've got now, they told me because when I came up doing this, you worked until the work was done, whether that be nine o'clock at night, 10 o'clock at night, whatever. And I was dumb enough to just move. Well, that's just life and heating and air. Yeah. But nowadays you can't do that. You can't work. You guys like that. Yeah. They'll, they will leave. Yeah. And I understandably. So I don't, I don't begrudge them that. Sure. Um, so now in order for them, because they need, they have to have a life. They've had, they all have families, they have other interests and everything. So what we're trying to do now is manage the number of calls that they do a day and get them home by five o'clock. Yeah. And, um, dang it. I, it was right on the tip of my tongue. I can't remember what I was. Well, that's huge for culture and retention. I mean, especially the, I would agree the same age and my generation. Yeah. We're not, we're not doing HVAC cause it's our passion. We're, it's a job. Right. And, and yeah, you want, you're just doing that to make the money. So you can, yeah. So you can pursue your passions. Correct. And I totally understand that. And I wish I had been smart enough. And how old are you? I am 59, 59. Yeah. Yes. And back to those, how we work them. We are, we're trying to become a maintenance company that also does demand service. So kind of trying to manage people's breakdowns and make sure they don't happen. So if we can get all of our customers to sign up for our maintenance agreement plan, very seldom do we see a maintenance agreement customer other than when we do their maintenance agreement, they just don't have breakdowns. Yep. So if I could get everybody in town to call Don's heating and air, you're just, I'm kidding. But I just hired a guy, give us some calls please. And there, but we want to by doing and getting as many people as we can on a maintenance agreement plan, we can better manage and plan for the service. Yeah. That number one keeps our customers from having unscheduled breakdowns when the day before the labor day or Memorial day, when they're going to have a house full of company, but also gets my guys home at five o'clock so they can enjoy their lives. Really smart. Yep. That makes a lot of sense. So hopefully we can make that work. My coaching and consulting company says that it's worked for everybody else. So hopefully I can make it work. That's a great recommendation for anybody. And HVAC is yeah. Focus on maintenance. Cause yeah. Retention and scheduling makes everybody's lives easier. Because everybody calls and you've heard, I'm sure everybody has heard, you know, lack of planning on your part doesn't necessarily constitute an emergency on my part. Right. And that's the smart Alec way to say it. But it's true. I mean, because we're already scheduled out. Yeah. So if you call it four o'clock on a Friday and I've had this time, it happened time and again, call it four o'clock on a Friday. You go out there, guy calls, he swears, man, this is working when I went to work this morning. I get home tonight. Darn thing's not working. So you get there though. And he's not there. His wife's there and you hear the truth. And she said, I told him this thing was making a noise on Tuesday. And he was supposed to call you and he kept putting it off and kept putting it off. So then you hear the real story. Sounds like my life. Yeah. Well, yeah, we all do it. But we're trying to prevent that kind of thing happening because I know what that's like. So on that service, that maintenance plan, you're also like asking questions where it's like, have you noticed anything? Yeah. Any weird noises? Did you hear anything out of the ordinary? You know, any flapping or squealing or banging or anything? Oh yeah. I heard it all. And the guy that calls like, Oh, it was running fine. I didn't hear anything. The wife will always tell you the truth. That's awesome. Um, if you don't mind me asking, we just started working together. Um, you've done, and it's very, very recent, um, that we just started working with you, but can you talk about the digital marketing world experience from your perspective, the last 20 years, like the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the. Well, yeah, it didn't exist. I don't think if it existed 20 years ago, I didn't know anything about it. And nor did I see the, I probably wouldn't have seen the value in it if I had known about it. Um, so it's been within probably the last 10 years that I started with a marketing company. And, um, at that point, I'm using that term very loosely because I was paying them about $300 a month and I was getting what I paid for, which wasn't much, but I didn't know what else was available. I didn't know. And so then about every year, year and a half, another marketing company would call me and they'd start asking questions. Well, does these guys do this and this and this? I'd be like, no, I didn't know that existed. What do you mean? And they've never said anything. So then I would jump ship, jump, then just gradually work our way up until the, the marketing company we were with before you, I would say is when we really started seeing the value and taking advantage of everything they offered. Um, but then when you guys came along and showed me what you guys could do, and that's another step up from what I had. So yeah, it's been, it's been a tiered journey, but yeah, I'm very happy with what you guys have done and we haven't even gotten started. I know. Right. So yeah, I'm very, I'm excited about the, about the future and our relationship and yeah. Well, what, what are you excited about? What, uh, off the top of your head, like in that transition, you said a step up. So I'm going to be selfish now and ask that question. Like, what describe what that actually means to you with, because again, you, you're really good at saying you don't understand it all. So there's a lot of trust in there as well. You said that was your superpower. Okay. You teed me up. So, um, no, just like in the, what, month we've been working together or I'm sure you guys were working behind the scenes longer than that. But you know, with that video we made that I got, you got a huge response. At least I felt like it was a huge response. Yeah, for sure. I remember first post, it was awesome. None of the other marketing companies I've worked with ever even mentioned doing anything like that. And so that's what I'm most excited about. You know, here we are just a month in and you're, we're already doing things that no other marketing company has talked to me about even let alone have we done and shown me the value of. Yeah. So I can't wait to see what you guys come up with, you know, moving forward more of those. And I've got, by the way, I've got some scripts in my head. Yes. Can I bend forward here? Oh please. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. You got to do your promotion. Yeah. I also am an actor. I'm a thespian and I'm in the act one players. We put on plays at the Elks. We're doing a Christmas play December 12th and 13th trying to read back. Pull it back closer to your face a little bit more. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. They're not going to hear you. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Nice. Okay. All right. Here you go. Elks Lodge. Yes. Promotion time. Elks Lodge. Um, doors open at six is the dinner theater. Tickets are $25 if you want to eat dinner, $15. If you just want to come see the play, um, tickets are, well I told you 15 and 25 I'm trying to read backwards and upside down through this. The cow hands, the cow hands, Christmas Carol and black and blue Friday where it was plum tired of plum pudding. Yes, yes. So it's December 12th and 13th. Nice. I see everybody there. I wanted, I want there to be a line around the block. You heard it. El Dorado. Get there. Get those. How did they get their tickets at the door? By the door? Yeah. I'm at the door. Love it. Yes. Come see us. Do it. Come, come see me. Act silly. What's, what's your part in this program? I am. I'm the hero. Oh boy. In the cow hands, Christmas Carol. And I am one of the, just one of the hillbillies in the black and blue Friday. Yeah. Just another hillbilly in that one. Awesome. So, so outside of, uh, work. Yeah. I appreciate all that background. Uh, you, you love writing. I do. I, that's what I want to be when I grow up. Yep. I love it. I'm an aspiring writer and I enjoy, I've gotten into voice acting. Yeah. Um, you've got a great voice for it. Reading, acting out novels. I've done a full length novel. Just this year, did my first full length novel where I did all the characters. So you had a voice for every character while reading? Whoa. Yeah. And it's funny because I, I just, I would pull voices from my memory. So one of the detectives in this book is coach Meltzer. Oh, and that's perfect. That's a local famous coach. Everybody thought that I was doing a very poor Jack Nicholson. I said, no, I'm doing a perfect Gary Meltzer. That's what I'm doing. That's perfect. That's awesome. So that, and that keeps me busy. And I, I do just parts in other books for some of the writers in our, in my writers group. And then between that and writing and I've taken up the guitar also. Oh, cool. So how long have you been doing the guitar? Not long enough to be any good. Yeah. About two years. Yeah. I'm kidding. 20 years. Yeah. I'm going to get it when I was 30. Any day now. I'm going to break through. I'm going to turn that corner. And he keeps saying, it's going to click. Yeah. It keeps paying them now. So that's what I'm trying to do is come up with things that I'm going to do going forward as we become less busy with the heating and air business. Those are the things I want to keep other interests because I see too many people, whether it's heating and air business or any business, your business, anything that you do all your life, you have to work hard to keep from becoming that, keep from that, having that become you. Yeah. So that you, when that goes away, you got nothing. Yeah. You're just sitting around like, Oh, what do I do now? Yeah. I feel like you got to keep diversified for lack of a better term. I like to fish and the other things that we just talked about. So hopefully I'm able to, well, you see too many people retire and then their health just goes away. Yeah. They don't have a focus and I think that work keeps you alive longer, but yeah. But why would you want to be alive longer? There you go. Yeah. Well, that's cool. So, uh, the work-life balance. So you, what were your interests like at the heat of the business, like the busiest times? There was no work-life balance. It was all work. It was all work. I would, again, ask my wife, she, for a while, we went around and around about that being gone all the time. And she was basically a single mom raising three daughters. I never, I never missed any of my kids' ball games or choir concerts or Christmas program, anything, any of that kind of stuff because of work. But there were several times where I had to go back to work after the ball game or after the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, where I had to go back to work after the ball game or after the Christmas pageant or whatever. And so owning a business did afford me the ability to not miss my kids things. But I missed a lot of other things just because you've got to get the work done. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what's your advice on that? When you think that's the only option, there's a lot of us still in that. We don't think there's another option. You just got to do it. Do you just do it? You just do it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you got to do what you got to do. Yeah. And I mean, there's some things that there's no shortcut for. There's no, you can't hire somebody else to do it or you can't, you, there's no choice you've got to put in the hours. So it's sad to say, but some of those things have to be done. All right. Do you, uh, are you thankful that you stayed in the business life and didn't get a job? There are days when I think, man, it'd be cool if I just got to go home at five o'clock and somebody else got to worry about this place all night. But if, if, if I have any regrets, it's that I didn't go to college. Yeah. And a lot of people, when I tell people that they all kind of, uh, whatever, dude, you know, you've done all right. And I, my response to that is, yeah, yeah, I have done all right. But if I had gone to college and gotten a degree in whatever, anything I could still be working on your air conditioner. Yeah. But since I didn't go to college and get a degree, all I can do is work on your air conditioner. Yeah. Yeah. So, and not only I'm not even talking about going to college to have done something besides heating and air. Sure. I wish had I known at the time that I was going to own the place, I would like to think I would have been wise enough to have gone to college and gotten a business degree. I probably wouldn't have been because that wasn't my focus at the time when I was young like that. I had a lot of other focuses besides work and school. Yeah. And, but that's what I would encourage anyone to do. Who's wants to own any kind of a business. I don't care how good you are at doing that type of work. Learning the business side of it is going to be far harder than having learned to do that work. Go get a business degree or at least take some business classes so that you know how to run the business side of things. Yeah. That's good advice. Community wise, giving back. You were on school board for, I was on a school board for 16 years. I was a couple of terms as on the board of trustees at the first Baptist church in the Elks now working, working with them. So yeah, it's you and you've, it's very important that you give back. And that's what all of my business coaches have. Yeah. One of the one, they all have different philosophies and different strategies, but one of the one common themes with all of them was you have to give back. You can't just be seen as someone who takes from the community and you have to give back. And even in the other communities where we work, we've got a shop in Hillsborough and we advertise in the local baseball fields and on the radio up there and stuff. And when we're up there doing work, we don't take materials from here. We buy all of our materials from that community. I don't want to be seen as someone who is just up there taking money out of that community and running back here with it. I want to buy everything I can locally up there and here. Yeah. I always like to do business with people who do business with me. Yeah. So, and I think that's really important on the local level for those listening. Like I think there are people that forget about that part of it. Cause yeah, you can do all this other marketing initiative, but you also got to do the things that don't have a return on spend. Right. That are just showing that you're supporting local programs, local nonprofits. And it doesn't matter to me. Well, obviously I would like everybody to be a Don's heating and air customer. Sure. But if you are not, it is equally important to me that you are a customer of someone who is works out of El Dorado. Yep. Any of my competition, just support local contractors. Too often. I see Wichita trucks and vans over here changing out people's heating and air conditioning equipment. And and it's not because the Wichita companies underbid the local companies because all of us local contractors, we're pretty friendly just because in a town like this, you've got to cooperate and swap parts back and forth. So I will call the owners of my competitor competitive businesses and ask them did you get to bid the job at such and such address? And almost without exception, they said, no, they have. So, so on networking, I think that's also really important to become allies with your competitors on a local level. Absolutely. What are the benefits, you know, for that, for you? Like ultimately you can get help if you need it. You have someone you can trust to refer to when you can't get to something. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and am I allowed to mention the names of any of my competitors? You can do whatever you want. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't want to. It's your, it's your podcast. This is this podcast about Tom's story. He can say whatever he wants. He can drink his diet. Dr. Pepper on camera. Everybody put your kids to bed. I'm kidding. Sit back, relax. I'm going to tell you a story. No. Um, I mean, I use my competitors, you know, Carlisle heating and air is a competitor of mine, but they also do plumbing and electrical work. They come to my house and do my plumbing. Yeah. And Matt and I have made, have a kind of a gentleman's agreement. I told him, you know, I'll refer them for plumbing services or electrical services or whatever. And I refer a lot of them. I try and shake them up. Sure. All the different, all the plumbers, local plumbers. I try and refer, but anyway, I told Matt, I'll refer your people to you for plumbing, as long as you don't steal them as heating and air customers. And so far that's worked out really well. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I refer, try and refer all of the local trades, whether it be electrical contractors, plumbers, I try and spread it around and hopefully they do the same thing. When, when you become so competitive and so white knuckled, I feel like in a local community that like that, it does hurt and that travels and you've got to be really careful. Like you've got to be excited for your competitors wins. You, you can internally be bummed. You don't get it. Right. But everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to win, but you also like it's the game. Right. And we go home. You can't do it at home. And we're all humans trying to make our way. And that's what I tell people when, you know, they know that I have seen my competitors over there changing out their heating and air when I've given them a bid and I'll see them next time I see them out eating or something, they're like, Oh, you know, and I just tell them, Hey, you know, don't worry about it. I can't do them all. Yeah. And I don't want to do them all. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Sometimes the bear eat you. It's that simple. That's simple. Those bears get hungry. Yeah. And, but you've got to be in a town this size. You've got to be friendly with your competitors because you need them. There's times I have needed their help. They've needed my help. We all cooperate and get along and that just benefits the community. Yep. Yep. For sure. And yeah, we've all helped you put each other out. I remember Steve Stewart, when he started Steve's heating and air and I was working for my dad and Steve and my dad had worked together previously at the same place. And Steve helped me a lot as I was learning this. And Steve helped me a lot as I was learning this. And Steve helped me a lot as I was learning this. Helped me a lot as I was learning this and didn't ask for payment or anything like that. And when younger people in this business come and ask me for help, I, I try and pay that forward just like Steve did. And so on the topic of heating and air equipment, um, how big of a difference, and you don't have to answer this cause you're obviously a dealer, but, uh, what's the big difference in brands, uh, from what they're like to work with when you represent their equipment, um, versus the quality of the equipment. I'm assuming you kind of weigh the whole thing, right? Like, so if you're deciding on a brand to represent, you're looking at how good the equipment is, how good they are to work with like parts availability, like for someone that's in HVAC that listens to this. Because there's not in all honesty, and I'm going to give away some trade secrets here. Yeah. Thank you. Everybody's going to get a look behind the curtain. There's not, you have just like cars, just like anything else, the appliances you have, what are considered the premium brands and you have then this, their second lines and you have entry level equipment. A lot of the, a lot of the brands have all three under there. So a single brand has high quality. And so there's not a huge amount of difference in equipment nowadays. What the big difference for me is, and how I decide if how good a brand is, is the service I get from the distributor and their availability for technical support, how much inventory they have in stock, both parts and new equipment. And the two brands that I sell are great at that. Yeah. And they, and they'll open up on Saturday. They'll open up on Christmas Eve if I need them. I mean, anytime midnight on Christmas Eve or noon on the 4th of July, if I need a part from them, they will open up and get it for me. So when pricing apples, apples in your world, if you, you put a quote out different branded unit, competitor puts out a quote, different branded unit. How often are you guys selling the brand itself versus yourself? that's, that's why I don't have any brands on any of my trucks on my side. Do dealers do that? Or there are certain dealers that play that game. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And my brand is, is Dawn's heating and air. Right. And since there is so little difference and, and I, I shouldn't say that there are some equipment that is, you can't make it good. You can't install it well enough to make it reliable. Okay. But the majority of the top. Right. But the premium equipment by installing it incorrectly, you can make it junk. And so that is why I am so thankful for the employees. I have that have been in this business for a long time. They have, they do it right. They've been to different classes put on by the different brands that talk about the intricacies of each specific model of equipment. And there are things that you have to, you have to pay attention to on. So, especially as we move into the higher efficiency equipment that they're making now, that is all variable speed and communicating and all this stuff. There are, there are, there's some differences in how you used to install the old stuff versus how you have to do this new stuff. Yeah. But by and large, the way I decide if a brand is any good is the, with the service I get from the distributor. Yep. If somebody comes across this podcast and you can say no and I'll cut this part out. Okay. If somebody comes across this podcast and they want advice and they're not in the area and they, they want some advice on how to run their business. By all means. I'll help you be open for a 10 minute phone call. I'll help. I'll help local. Yeah. Great. Just because it does, it only benefits me for them to run their business. Right. Yep. And to know, because the biggest part and again, another big reason that small businesses, specifically HVAC businesses fail is because people don't know how to price things and they don't sell them for enough money to. Yep. And that just hurts all of us. Yep. And that's such a hard thing to understand when someone's more expensive than someone else selling the same item. Right. It's not, it's the consumer assumes it's price gouging. Yeah. But as the business owner, you know what it actually takes. Right. And I've told people time and again, when they've called, I said, you know what? And I'll tell everybody this, I priced this to net 10%. Yep. And it's just the way it is. And my overhead is what my overhead is. Yep. And yeah, my overhead is higher, higher dollar wise than some smaller competitors. But it's not higher percentage wise. Yeah, there you go. They just don't know that. Yeah, sure. And so they don't factor that in sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Oh, that just left me at another question for you on a, on a local level. What's the, yeah. What, what is the best thing you've done for your local reputation in the last 20 years for your brand's reputation? Just being a, having good work ethic and being a hard worker. It, it, I swell up a little bit with pride when one of my employees goes out to work on an air conditioner. If someone's has been a customer of ours for a long time and they tell what I consider to be a good story about me being out there at 11 o'clock or midnight. Yeah. You know, getting them heat, getting their heat going or getting their air conditioner going on the 4th of July when they've got a house full of company that, that goes a long ways. Their town, this size word of mouth is huge. Yeah. Yep. But yeah, just taking care of customers is the core. Yep. Absolutely. And that's been related to your team solving their problems. Yeah. It has been. And I'm, I'm very particular about how we do things. And my guys have taken that and run with it. So they don't even, a lot of times they exceed my expectations, you know, with their, I don't want to call it artistry, but you got, you got to be a little bit of an artist. You make things look good and, you know, take pride in something that not many people are even going to see. Right. But they see it when they're done and they, they're proud of it. And they, yeah. And that's what I wanted to be. So. What's the weirdest thing you've ever experienced on a service call? The weirdest. Hmm. Craziest, weirdest. Well, hottest. I found a possum. I'm for some reason, wild animals, just, or wild like situations hunt me down. I found a possum wound around, wound up in someone's blower wheel. One time. Oh God. Oh yeah. And I found snakes and rats and all kinds of things in units and circuit boards where they've gotten electrocuted and blown things up. And I've, I've, I've been blown up. I have been literally. Oh, you got put back together. Well, it was totally my fault. I was, I was short some hair for a while and eyebrows and eyelashes and had second degree burns all over my face. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. It was. Yeah. And the, and again, it's totally my fault. Totally. And afterwards I thought, wow, that was stupid. But I, it blew me back away from the furnace against the washer and dryer that's behind me. And it had melted these eyelashes together, the top and bottom eyelashes. So I couldn't open my eye and I thought, Oh my gosh, it blew my eye out. So I'm freaking out thinking I'm blind in one eye and I'm still smoking. My hair's on fire. My eyebrows are gone. And the lady, this is way I've seen out of home alone. Yeah. Well, the lady who lived there, she came back, she heard me hit the dryer. She can, she goes back there and she's, are you okay? I'm like, you know, smoke puffs out of my mouth and I'm still kind of smoking. My hair is still smoking. And I'm like, and I'm mostly delirious. I'm like, I gotta go get some parts. Jump in my truck and head back to town. I'm still smoking still. And then the pain sets in from the burns on my face. Yeah. As I'm coming back to town and it's getting bad. Oh no. So I pulled up, it hurt so bad. I pulled off out here, North of town down to the low water bridge, went down there, stuck my face in the river. To cool it off. Don't worry about the open wounds. You can't get sick. I was just dealing with the pain at this point. Yeah. And stuck my face in there a few times, got back in my truck, thought, okay, I can make it home. Get home. I walk in and a friend was walking up to our front door at the time and she's looking at me. And she finds it. You all right? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I might've still been smoking. Right. And she's like, I don't think you, I don't think that's right. I think you should probably go see somebody. Yeah. So the way we go to the doctor's office and yeah, it was, that's, that's a pretty, everybody who worked in heating and air long enough has got a similar story to tell. Yeah. My dad used to tell stories about that happening to Steve Stewart on a job out East of town and the same. And I got blown up on the same unit there too. Oh really? Yeah. It's a lot of, it's a different, totally different kind of unit, but some of them used to be sketchy and how they were designed. And so, yeah, you had to know whether or not you could have this panel off when it lit or not, because if you had this panel off, a lot of times the flames would follow right out there. Yeah. So you, wow, this is, that's a pretty common tale to tell in this industry though. So yeah, I'm sure anybody that's done that work for any length of time. Oh yeah. This probably had something. Yeah. They've lost eyebrows and eyelashes. Yeah. Wild. Well, we're about at the hour mark. Um, any last, uh, piece of advice for any small business owners? You covered a lot. It's been super helpful. I've learned a lot. Enjoy it. And. Take advantage of all the help that's available. Yeah. To you now, because there's a lot more help available for people now than there was when I started, but also there was a lot more available for me then than when my dad started. So it's becoming better and better. The amount that everybody's access to information. Yes. Yeah. Access to information and networking and things like that. And, and do business with people who do business with you. Yeah. That's that's my main focus when I'm buying things. And yeah. So yeah. Build relationships, network and take advantage of all the help available to you. Yeah. Work hard, be ready to work hard because you're not going to be successful if you don't. Right. Well, I've we've loved getting to work with you guys thus far. And, um, I'll say I love the combination of your, um, creative glass half full optimistic with the, uh, humility to say, I don't know what I don't know. I think it's really powerful. I'm not sure that's even humility. That ought to just be standard. Everybody. Yeah. Everybody, everybody should look at the most dangerous person in any situation is a person who doesn't know what they don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, they'll be weeded out, I guess, by their own. Sure. I don't want to say humidity, but ignorance. Yeah. It'll be. Yeah. Yeah. Natural selection. Natural selection. Yeah. You heard it here, folks. Well, thanks for hanging out. This is fun, man. Yeah. I'll do it again. Anytime you need somebody to fill a spot. I'll do it. Well, we, uh, we need to do a whole nother segment on just writing. I think would be cool. Yeah. Let's talk about some fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Do some more creative. We got the business day job out of the way. Now you can do the evening, how you spend your evenings next time. So, yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thanks for hanging out. Thank you, man. Appreciate you.