EP: 208 Jarod Smith w/ Clog Busters Drain Cleaning and Repair - From $100k to $3.7M in 3 Years
Apr 15, 2024
Evan Hoffman
In the most recent episode, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jarod Smith, the mastermind behind Clog Busters drain cleaning and repair. In just a few years, Jarod has propelled his business to remarkable success and shares valuable secrets with fellow home service professionals.
Here are three key takeaways from his episode:
1. Investing in Growth: Jarod's incredible journey from starting the business with just one employee to envisioning a remarkable fleet of 50 trucks across multiple cities and states is a testament to the power of growth and strategic planning. His emphasis on building the Clog Busters Academy to train and equip employees is a refreshing approach to nurturing talent and ensuring top-notch service.
2. Cultural Transformation: Jarod passionately advocates transforming his business's culture, reshaping the image of "dirty" drain cleaners, elevating their status through proper training, investment in equipment, and instilling a sense of pride in their work. His dedication to making people better every day is truly inspiring and underscores the importance of cultural alignment in achieving business success.
3. Empowering Teams: Jarod's commitment to employee well-being and personal growth is a standout feature. From financial planning to training programs, he demonstrates a genuine care for the holistic development of his team, believing that empowering individuals fosters a collective spirit of excellence and contributes to the organization's overall success.
Episodes like these remind us of the incredible stories and strategies within the HVAC industry. If you want to unleash your HVAC business's ultimate potential, this podcast episode is a must-listen!
In the most recent episode, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jarod Smith, the mastermind behind Clog Busters drain cleaning and repair. In just a few years, Jarod has propelled his business to remarkable success and shares valuable secrets with fellow home service professionals.
Here are three key takeaways from his episode:
1. Investing in Growth: Jarod's incredible journey from starting the business with just one employee to envisioning a remarkable fleet of 50 trucks across multiple cities and states is a testament to the power of growth and strategic planning. His emphasis on building the Clog Busters Academy to train and equip employees is a refreshing approach to nurturing talent and ensuring top-notch service.
2. Cultural Transformation: Jarod passionately advocates transforming his business's culture, reshaping the image of "dirty" drain cleaners, elevating their status through proper training, investment in equipment, and instilling a sense of pride in their work. His dedication to making people better every day is truly inspiring and underscores the importance of cultural alignment in achieving business success.
3. Empowering Teams: Jarod's commitment to employee well-being and personal growth is a standout feature. From financial planning to training programs, he demonstrates a genuine care for the holistic development of his team, believing that empowering individuals fosters a collective spirit of excellence and contributes to the organization's overall success.
Episodes like these remind us of the incredible stories and strategies within the HVAC industry. If you want to unleash your HVAC business's ultimate potential, this podcast episode is a must-listen!
Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets Revealed, a show where we interview industry leaders and disruptors, revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Now your hosts, Thaddeus and Evan.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan. We are live at EPIC 2024 at Disneyland, of all places. I got in late last night, so I haven't even seen a lick of Mickey Mouse anywhere, but we're super excited. We have Jarod Smith on from Clog Busters Drain Cleaning and Repair pretty cool story when I was chatting with him before we got on, he's been in the business started his business three years ago and had a pretty nice rapid growth plan from it, but he's, been around since 2001. So super excited to dive in to it today with you, Jarod so welcome talk to us a little bit about your start into the trades.
Jarod Smith:
First of all, my name is Jarod Smith from Des Moines, Iowa. I got into plumbing when I was 18 years old at a young age started a company called AJ Plumbing new construction right now we currently still do we still have the new construction side we all know what happened in 2008 when everything crashed, the economy crashed and so I learned to, never went to school, but I did go to school, the School of Hard Knocks, so I understood it and always never really was in the service side of it just more in the multi family side and new construction and so 2001 and I don't know a lot of people don't know this but in Des Moines Iowa is where Roto Rooter originated from before they franchised out and then you have a Smith sewer service that's been there for generations you know a hundred years so no plumbers at home really ever ran drains or did drains they always just refer to it to Roto Rooter or Smith Sewer Service just seeing an opening and an opportunity for clogbusters. Lucked out with our brand. I like the brand, by the way the brand and the wraps on the vans and if you get on the website it's cool to get a lot of compliments on the van. So that it's fun so yeah started in 2001. It was I know nothing about service never did. We always just had one service guy he was, we called him Fat Kenny. Getting into the service has been, a lot of fun. I have the passion for it, the dream and just seeing people, just making people better every single day and so when it started, obviously it's rocky and we're still growing. But the first year, 2021 that we started, I had one guy in a van. I thought, Oh, hey, if he does this, we're going to do good and if drain cleaners, cause drain cleaners, aren't plumbers and plumbers aren't drain cleaners. So let's just get that, so everybody knows, there's two, there are two totally different types of people. Drain cleaners are known as your dirty scum of the earth, no, I'm not going to clean a drain. So changing that culture and seeing that opportunity and changing that culture of, where the drain cleaners are in uniform and onboarding with all the different stuff.
Thaddeus Tondu:
But one thing that I, when we started chatting 2021, you started, you did about a hundred grand first year one in business, 2022, 1. 6, 2023, finishing up with 3. 7. What's the goal for 2024?
Jarod Smith:
All right. So 2024, you say that 2022, we implemented ServiceTitan, right? So like we were still paper tickets,
Thaddeus Tondu:
fucking yellow pad technology,
Jarod Smith:
so when you say when you say 2021, we did a hundred grand or 150 grand, to be honest with you I, it's somewhere in that ballpark.
Thaddeus Tondu:
According to the IRS we did this month, maybe forgot to send a few invoices to people.
Jarod Smith:
So I went to the wet show. In Indianapolis and it was a breakout time to eliminate the flat rate frustration. Okay and I listened to Rodney Koop, the founder of the new flat rate speak and when I was there and I heard him speak, I dreamed about it okay so I left that deal and I said, you know what? I'm going to change the lives of everybody. I got it. I got it figured out. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't, it was, and I'm telling everybody, Hey, listen, I got it. I got this great thing. I remember coming home and telling one of my buddies, not in the plumbing deal. I was like, dude, I got this figured out. We're going to kill it he's I thought you were going to tell me like some major deal or something, I don't know. He got Smith sewer service. I've been around for a hundred years. You're not going to be able to compete. And so the new flat rate has been a huge help to the success of where we're at. So we went through the onboarding with the new flat rate and service Titan all at the same time, right?
Evan Hoffman:
Ripped the Band Aid off,
Thaddeus Tondu:
Right? I'm glad you talked about that because it was one of the things that like, what was the learning curve? What was the struggle to go from, a hundred K to 3. 7?
Jarod Smith:
And so then, and then basically, you go through it, we, I had my mom in the office. That I hate to say it. Love you, mom. But she was a professional video game player and a professional glorified errand runner, right? She was there for the new construction side, but all those calls came to me. Then you're starting to hold people accountable, answering the phones, following processes. We never had any process. We never implemented any process. The biggest struggle is really change and change is hard. Nobody, most people don't like change, but the biggest thing is, as you come to these events and you do this stuff and the big reason from our growth, from the a hundred grand to the million, six to the three, seven is, you hear a lot of people talk about it, but only 1 percent of the people implement it and we can come and come back with these high expectations and, oh, hey, we have our team meeting and come back and, don't worry, Jarod's all worked up and he's got all these ideas and, oh, it just happens when he goes to these, seminars and, don't worry about it, give it a week, it'll wear off and everything will be back to normal. Yeah. No, you implement it, you follow the process. and like I said the new flat rates ServiceTitan, been a huge part of that. So it's been fun, but for 2024, so what we're doing right now is our goal is in three to five years is to have 50 trucks in multiple cities and states. That's our goal. That's what we will achieve. Okay how we're going to achieve that is we are in the process right now of building The Clogbusters Academy. Okay so our model wants to be where we can, so we're duplicating every scenario in the field, as many as we can with prefabbing up all the, concrete in the lines, tree roots in the lines, I don't care if it's grease, everything to where we can bring people in, build them up, prepare them, and send them out as the model. So we can recruit those. You'll hear Tommy Mello talk about those A plus players and bring them in. And hopefully ultimately have them out in their own truck within the first, within two months time, ultimately, I'd like to say a 30 day time. But so 2024, I'm hoping here by the end of May that we have our Academy done we're hoping to add a potential three to five trucks by the end of the year and then go from there. So that's our goal as far as our revenue goal in 2024 a revenue goal in 2024 will be 5 million. I don't see significant growth because of the, because you got to go slow to go fast and so that was part of the growing pains of, implementing all this stuff and doing everything is okay we had a zoo that was running every which way, but no zoo keeper and no zoo fence. So you got to go slow to go fast to regroup and I would say that's the biggest thing is, me being, he always wanted to jump on everything, but and hiring key players to your, your, a lot of people don't want to spend the money on the people in the office and so we went from, my mom and a part time accountant to now we have full time accountant, a part time accountant this is for the AJ and the clog buster side, but we have two CSRs, one head dispatch and a personal assistant that helps out with some of the other stuff. So the guys will joke about it and they'll say, the guys on the AJ side, they'll be like hey, they'll say, hey, can you do this? I'm like, I don't know and he says can you get one of the 15 people in the office to do it? They get to laughing at me, it's Hey, but I know where we want to go and it's important to, it's important to show the team. Where you want to go and your vision and the passion of what it is so they can see it on the wall.
Evan Hoffman:
Want to talk about getting the buy in from the team because being able to, like you said, build the fence around it and then have that person that's going to hold them accountable, the zookeeper, right incredibly challenging and that's where a lot of people fail and when we talk about coming to these events, we joked about it even today. Two worst days for an employee first day back from vacation and the first day when the owner or leader comes back from conference every time because they just, they brain dump ideas onto the team. How do you then transition from that excitement, maintain it, and then have that accountability to actually execute and implement?
Jarod Smith:
The keynote speaker that we just had said it best, you got to be a good judge of people, right? And you got to understand people for me, it's, you got to understand the why, the employee has to understand the why. I'll give you a prime example, like when we implemented the debriefing process and blocking the board on service type, right? Where they wanted to see all their jobs and their whole schedule for the whole day and they felt like the dispatcher was their boss or over them and the dispatcher's just following the process and I said, here's the why we're doing this we're doing this because, our callbacks, our one star reviews are, did we get the pictures that we needed? Did we, is that, are the notes in the job? And I'll give them examples of, here's a customer that called in, or here's a technician that went back to a job that we did six months ago, and the notes are, ran kitchen sink line. And so the purpose of the debrief, you got to give them the why we're doing it and the, why we're doing it is to make them better and so the, I do believe a hundred percent that we have the best drain cleaners by far. That's all they've ever done. That's every single one of our trucks are equipped with everything they need. Big machine, which we run all Spartan Machine so every truck's got a big machine, small machine. We run all rigid cameras every truck's got a camera reel monitor, small camera given them the tools and the resources and under having them understand the why helps them with the buy in. Now saying that, I think prior to them coming to work for Clogbusters, I think the highest paid one might've made 50 or 60 grand a year running drains our lowest paid drain cleaning tech made just shy of a hundred grand in 2023 and our highest paid drain cleaning tech made like 130, 000 and that's working 40 to 45 hours a week. They understand the why and they understand and so the buy in is to make them better and you constantly got to make the people around you better and so that's how I've had success with it again, you hear I'll bring in a financial planner. It's funny cause our team meeting that we had before I left for this conference, I brought in three different financial planners and out of the 45 total employees that work for A. J. Plummet and Clogbusters, how many of them do you think have ever met with a financial planner? Maybe a couple, two or three because it's important for your employees. They got to take care of themselves first and foremost, and you got to make sure you take care of them. If they're not taking care of themselves and they don't have their own goals, it's important. You can come in and say, Hey, Jarod's got these goals and he talks about these goals and. it's great. Oh, hey, you need to have goals, but who helps them get their goals? Nobody, they don't have anybody.
Thaddeus Tondu:
They've never had the education around it either.
Jarod Smith:
And neither did I and you do the best you can and so the buy in and it goes into it, somebody, if somebody gets it, Hey, take the day off, go to the chiropractor, go get your back adjusted. You gotta take care of your people and you take care of your people. Your people take, it pays you back tenfold. And it's the passion, the growth, and just seeing everybody do better.
Thaddeus Tondu:
And that that goes back to the, one of the very first things you said about changing the culture, right? You have to change this culture shit, the last 10 minutes of what you just talked about is how you change the culture. People are like how do I create a great strong culture? We'll just go back and listen to what you just said. Cause there's a lot of validity in that and a lot of small things that go into that. Even the Academy, and talking about building out an Academy okay how do you increase the wealth of your individuals? You teach them to be better and when you do that, now you have the ability to impact them and their why and bring that together.
Jarod Smith:
You could put me at a job fair next to any union contractor, right? And I could say, Hey, listen, here's why you should come to work for clog busters you can have within two months, we can put you through the Academy and you can be making six figures plus a year with your own truck, with your own stuff and here's how you're going to do it. Here's how the people that we have are currently doing it. Or you can go to, the plumbers union or the electrical union, and you can go through an apprenticeship program for four years and then you might get a truck, right? And then you might start making 70 grand a year or 80 grand a year, where us, where we want to be in multiple cities and multiple states and the opportunity,
Thaddeus Tondu:
I thought of my, Oh, the two months the Academy in the two months yeah, it just, it came down the lanyard. Yeah, a little droopy was last night on the plane ride when it hit me, when I landed, but the Academy in two months and going through that but also the other part of it is the the equipment in the van and I think a lot of people miss this mark, especially when they're in the first few stages of the business, because they're pinching pennies and you look at Billy Stevens talks about efficiency in a job, right? The average efficiency is 35%. You need, if you can double that to 70, 75, 80. By just having the extra equipment in there was an important thing, but you're doubling your bottom line without increasing your cost, because now, okay, you have one camera split between five trucks. Fuck, how are you gonna do your job if you have one camera split between five trucks, right? You can't, and so just invest in the money and invest in the equipment for your guys, and it's gonna go a long ways. But that academy, that two months, do they, when they start with you, are they going through are they working at like, how does the academy work? How does this training work in terms of a whole two month lead up and build up?
Jarod Smith:
So we're in the process right now of creating the curriculum for it. So the academy is not a hundred percent done. So I'll start with that but the, and I'll back up so on the academy, what we want to do is we want to create that the process for you bring somebody in that's never even been in the field, never ran drains, done plumbing or anything before. So you know, when the growth, you go back to the growth and the pains. I remember there was a guy that I hired and he came in once and he came in, he's Oh, I got to leave and go do something and he lacked to quit and then he came in another time because you have chaos. I throw him an iPad I'm like, Hey, here's the iPad go do a ride along with this he's an experienced drain guy, but I throw him the iPad and I say, Hey, go have, go ride with him and he's dude, this is just a clusterfuck and so he leaves and I'm like, what happened? I just don't think I'm ready to come and I said, okay. So he comes back again, does it again? And I'm like, okay. So understanding that on the growth and so the training, so when you come in, you have a process where they go through, where they understand the iPad, you have a process where they understand our sales tool, which we use as the new flat rate. So prior to, okay discovering Rodney Koop and the new flat rate at the wet show, our average drain ticket, and I hate this number, it was 180 an hour and a 50 trip charge, which is 230, which with tax is 246. 10. If I see that number on Service Titan, I am pissed, okay? And everybody knows it, they're like, oh, if they fill out a ticket and it's 246. 10, they know they're going to get a call from me. I'm going to be like, come on, dude. 5 shop supplies add something to it but then now our average drain tickets, like a 801 800, it varies month to month, it ranges between 750 and 850 and where they were running drains for 150 bucks, now we can, we're able to offer that customer different levels of service. If you've got a main drain, that's backed up, we're Roto Rotter and Smith sewer service was just a pop and go boom and if you've got a basement and it's backed up and you got sewage all over and it ruined your stuff, I want to know the why, yeah, you can take the mandate option in this case and scenario, we can poke a hole for it and then, and charge that cheap rate or I'll exaggerate. I'd be like, we could charge you 1, 500 and we can cable it, we could jet it, we can camera it, we could locate it, we can mark, we can make sure and give you that peace of mind that you know, it's not going to happen again, and so the importance of the Academy is one, they got to understand, they got to understand the iPad. They got to understand ServiceTitan. They got to understand the sales tool that we use, which is the new flat rig. They got to understand the, they have to understand the machines and how to run the machines and when to use what machine at what time. When to use what cutter at what time. When to use what jetter, what nozzle, why to use the jetter and there's nobody out there that's doing that and nobody's teaching that and it's hey, how did you learn how to run a drain? Bob's been here for 30 years and Bob uses this machine and Bob told me this is what to do. and that's what the cool part about it is that bringing together partners and people and partnering with the academy, trying to make people better and trying to push the certain products that,
Thaddeus Tondu:
I love that. I love that philosophy. In the interest of Epic, we're going to try to keep these short to the 20 25 minute mark. Thank you for taking some time during the break. So you didn't really miss anything from in there, but before we wrap up though, we do have one final question here for you, Jarod. What is one question that you wish people would ask you more, but don't?
Jarod Smith:
How to make people better. What are ways to make people better? John Maxwell. You heard John Maxwell?
Thaddeus Tondu:
We're in a mastermind with him and they, we're having a, it's a semi private coaching session with our masterminds later today.
Jarod Smith:
He's a, he's one of the keynote speakers that I've, I'll never forget and it goes something like this and I'll probably mess it up. You can ask him later, wake up every single day and I try to find ways to make people better. I wake up every single day. I try to find ways to make people better. I do things to make people better. I try to create things to make people better. I help others try to make people better and number five, before you go to bed. I jotted down ways tomorrow that I can make people better and so if somebody's going to ask something like that, that would be my thing is how to make everybody better every single day.
Thaddeus Tondu:
In really the essence of what you just described in this whole episode does that right? And when you elevate your team, a rising tide raises all ships and so I'm super pumped that you guys are doing all of that and you're gonna be great things. Can't wait to see your BAG come to fruition for you in five years.
Jarod Smith:
Absolutely, buddy.
Evan Hoffman:
Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Jarod. And until next time. Cheers.
Jarod Smith:
Cheers.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Well That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed the other thing. If you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time, cheers.