EP: 211 Greg Gabler w/ Platinum Plumbing - Crafting a Thriving HVAC Business and Smart Goals
Apr 22, 2024
Evan Hoffman
Welcome to another energy-packed episode of HVAC Revealed! This time, we're excited to share insights from Greg Gabler's remarkable journey as owner of Platinum Plumbing in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Tune in to unravel the secrets behind setting and achieving extraordinary business goals. From writing them down to reverse engineering success, Greg's story is a trove of inspiration and practical advice.
Here are 3 key takeaways from this enlightening conversation:
Realistic & Visible Goals: Learn the power of public commitment by displaying your ambitions where everyone can see. It's not just about the big dreams; personal goals like buying a new bed can fuel overall success.
Overcoming Early Challenges: Greg openly shares his initial hurdles in sales, marketing, and understanding business mechanics. Absorb his experiences on why dedication and the right educational resources can pivot any business toward prosperity.
Culture & Community: Discover the soul of business in prioritizing people. Greg's emphasis on creating a supportive work environment and the hosts' advocacy for industry collaboration holds the essence of collective triumph.
Greg's entrepreneurial spirit, founded upon patience, learning, and a no-competition mindset, makes this episode a must-listen for anyone in the HVAC industry or anyone who seeks to lead with perseverance and integrity.
Welcome to another energy-packed episode of HVAC Revealed! This time, we're excited to share insights from Greg Gabler's remarkable journey as owner of Platinum Plumbing in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Tune in to unravel the secrets behind setting and achieving extraordinary business goals. From writing them down to reverse engineering success, Greg's story is a trove of inspiration and practical advice.
Here are 3 key takeaways from this enlightening conversation:
Realistic & Visible Goals: Learn the power of public commitment by displaying your ambitions where everyone can see. It's not just about the big dreams; personal goals like buying a new bed can fuel overall success.
Overcoming Early Challenges: Greg openly shares his initial hurdles in sales, marketing, and understanding business mechanics. Absorb his experiences on why dedication and the right educational resources can pivot any business toward prosperity.
Culture & Community: Discover the soul of business in prioritizing people. Greg's emphasis on creating a supportive work environment and the hosts' advocacy for industry collaboration holds the essence of collective triumph.
Greg's entrepreneurial spirit, founded upon patience, learning, and a no-competition mindset, makes this episode a must-listen for anyone in the HVAC industry or anyone who seeks to lead with perseverance and integrity.
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. Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where traditionally we have good conversations with good people, and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk, but we haven't quite made it to the bar yet. That'll be for our next time. We're live at the Epic 2024 event in lovely Disney in Anaheim, and today we have on just Greg, Christy's behind the scenes. She didn't want to come on the podcast, but I'll still call her out a little bit from Platinum Plumbing down in Shreveport, Louisiana. Been in business for three years. You've had a pretty good rush in terms of some of the revenue numbers that you guys have hit so far, but I want to walk all the way back to the very beginning on how you got your start in the trades.
Greg Gabler:
How I got my start in the trades all right, so I got out of the service and wound up back in Shreveport and running to a buddy of mine and he said, I know somebody that's hiring for plumbing if you want to do plumbing. That was the exact pitch and I had bills, so plumbing never really bothered me. I didn't really, yep, I didn't really know what it was or how it was fortunately, company that I got started with got me into a trade school fairly quickly.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Yep, learned some of the skills right off the bat. so fast forward to three years ago. I'm gonna start a business why?
Greg Gabler:
So after I wound up working for the same plumbing and HVAC company for 17, 18 years, and I went to them one day and I said, okay, so I've been where I'm at for a long time maxed out, I really don't do much work anymore, I literally had it made, and but I want to go to the next level, what do you got for me? Crickets. There was absolutely nothing, I took that as an insult, but I'm glad that I did at this point, and it pushed me into a situation where I had to go work for myself that was the once I stepped across that fear that was ultimately it it did take me quite a bit to get across the fear.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Great. It's actually funny you mentioned that. I've been messaging a friend who's wanting to start his own business today and I would mention the word fear to him. I'm like, sometimes we get a net, we get paralysis around this fear of starting a business because we're leaving what's comfortable or going into an unknown or even just the inaction relates and causes more fear. But it's sometimes just that first step, that first action that helps reduce that fear of starting your own business. What was that journey like for you?
Greg Gabler:
Getting across the fear.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Yeah.
Greg Gabler:
That's a funny story and I actually tell the, team, this story, they want me to tell it to everybody that joins the team but so my journey across the fear was actually running a marathon. I'd been out of working out for a long time. I got pushed into a gym because my back was messed up and because I rode around in a truck all day, instead of doing,
Evan Hoffman:
I was going to say, as most technicians are
Thaddeus Tondu:
tough on the body,
Greg Gabler:
but
Thaddeus Tondu:
I'd
Greg Gabler:
actually quit being a technician and I oversaw a technician. So I just drove around the truck and looked at you and or looked at your product or whatever. That almost forced me into a back surgery. Alternate to that was a gym there was a very instrumental person. He was a startup on a gym and he told me in order for me to participate in his gym not only did I have to pay him money, but I had to set a goal. I said look better, feel better. He said, no, it's gotta be a smart goal. So you call it what you want. We'll look better. he taught me smart goals and I think it's one of the most instrumental things in my life. So we went into the smart goal. I gave him a not such a great goal I told him I want to run a 5k in 30 minutes anybody that runs even a little bit, we can, most of us can walk a 5k in 30 minutes, right? So he made me set a baseline my baseline was 28 minutes at the end of that, he said, okay, now, right now, while you feel good and everything, what's your goal? And I told him, okay, so I never told anybody, but I always wanted to run a marathon. I had no idea what the training cycle and all that stuff was going to be for a marathon time I got through doing that, spending a bunch of Saturdays running four hours a Saturday, I got a lot of time to spend with me and God and that's where I learned that I can think about those fears and concentrate on those fears, but if I give my energy to the other side of the fear, so I have to spend enough energy on that fear, to understand it. I had to have the knowledge, but once I had the knowledge, the only reason not to step across is because I don't think I can and I got a real closeness and found out that there's a lot of stuff I can do that I didn't never believed.
Thaddeus Tondu:
It's the mindset breaking down that mental barrier.
Greg Gabler:
And honestly, that's why I go to stuff like this. I love to meet new people, but to listen to these speakers and stuff they're re energized in that mindset that you are capable. You're absolutely capable.
Evan Hoffman:
Especially as a business owner, on an island by yourself. A lot of the times and you don't have that, when you don't have that peer group that you can go to, and you can vent to, and you can get re energized again. It can be really difficult, and there's a lot of people that really struggle with that having groups like this, having events like this, where you can get together, get re energized again, connect back with your goals so that you can continue to strive forward real quick, smart goals. For those that have never heard of that before, what is it?
Greg Gabler:
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this wrong, but Chrissy is the brain. She's not getting on camera, but she probably knows it right off. Tell me. Just say it. Time. What's the S? I'm forgetting the S. Specific. Specific, measurable, attainable, and it has to have a time.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Realistic and then technically you can add in another R and call them smarter goals. The very last one would be a reward. So what's your reward once you hit that goal? Because sometimes people will set a goal and they say, great, I achieved it. That's all there is, right? What's next?
Greg Gabler:
I'm a Tony Robbins fan
Evan Hoffman:
man
Greg Gabler:
after
Evan Hoffman:
my heart
Thaddeus Tondu:
been
Evan Hoffman:
a couple
Thaddeus Tondu:
episodes since Tony Robbins came up, though.
Greg Gabler:
But one of the things he says is it's not really about the goal. It's about becoming the man to achieve the goal. So what more reward do you need? If I become that man, she looks at me better. My image in this world is better and I don't mean that by I look better, I feel better, but we're all shining examples of what God can and will do and so If I grow to achieve that goal, I shine better.
Evan Hoffman:
I
Greg Gabler:
do love what
Evan Hoffman:
Gary Keller says, and he says the purpose of a goal, people think it's to achieve it and he's it's not it's to be appropriate in the moment. When you're trying to run a marathon, 26. 6, 2, that's what it is. It's easy in kilometers, just 42 kilometers, done round, easy numbers.
Greg Gabler:
It's actually made off a kilometer,
Thaddeus Tondu:
But
Greg Gabler:
I always find
Thaddeus Tondu:
it confusing when people are running in the states that talk about kilometers all the time, yet they do everything else in miles. But hey, neither here nor there.
Evan Hoffman:
But I digress. But no it's okay. So how do we break that down? How do we make it to be something that's realistic and how can we stay appropriate in the moment so that we stay on track for it? And that's the thing that when we set goals more often than not, we write it down. It ends up on a piece of paper. We're all proud of it. We're excited about it. And then it goes in the drawer and we'd look at it again next year.
Greg Gabler:
what do we do with our goals?
Evan Hoffman:
Love it.
Greg Gabler:
And the whole team.
Evan Hoffman:
The whole team can see it.
Greg Gabler:
Yes. Everybody from the lowest apprentice to the CSR writes their goals and puts it on the board.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Writes their goals. Perfect. I was going to ask is it just your company or is it the CSRs and everybody else in the team for that matter? Now, do they also write down personal goals?
Greg Gabler:
Yes.
Thaddeus Tondu:
So
Greg Gabler:
we don't, those goals are not business or personal or growth or any, it's your goal. One guy this last month he wanted to buy a new bed so he just wrote down, I want to buy a new bed. We thought it was silly, but hey, that's his goals. We added that maybe one without bed bugs, but It's your stuff, man.
Evan Hoffman:
How specific do you want to get? We can go to the dump right now and pick up a free one if you want. Boom! Goal achieved!
Greg Gabler:
So then you get into the measurable part and then tearing that goal apart. You're absolutely right. If I write down a goal and I put it in a notebook, I've got notebooks full of goals, right? And they're in some drawer or on some desk or whatever. But we write them down, we put them on the board, and then we try to help each other re engineer that. How do I reverse engineer to get to that point? Which is what me and her do on a, on an annual basis. We want to get to four mil this year. So how are we going to do that? What are the parts and pieces it's going to take to get there? And I think it's a real cool, season in our life because for us to get through the first year, we had to learn certain things and to let go and let some stuff happen to realize that the way that I've always done things weren't going to work anymore. The most important lesson that I got, that I knew coming into business when I stepped across, stepped off a cliff. I just stepped off a cliff and said, okay, we're going to figure this out. Did some research and all that stuff, but I wasn't ready. But I knew that I knew nothing about business. I knew a little bit about how to turn a wrench. I knew a little bit about how to talk to people, and that was about it. I was pretty good at we, we had some accountability money stuff that worked in our favor. But going into this year, I believe that the most important thing we're going to have to conquer is getting the people around us the right people around us to get to our goal because it's no longer about us I can't drive it, I'm in Anaheim.
Thaddeus Tondu:
It's leading leaders, right? And developing leaders to be able to run the organization and that's really that, that next hump that I think a lot of people get stuck at and they can't do. One of the things that you mentioned is your first year struggles and some things that you had to let go of that helped you to get to where you're at right now. And just for those that are listening two years in business, 750K the first year, 2 million year two, goal number two is to double that to 4 million. So almost double that. On pace to, for three years in a row of doubling growth, what were some of those biggest struggles for you in year one that you guys had to overcome?
Greg Gabler:
Year one, so coming into this, I knew that I could change out a water heater and that I could diagnose and replace gas pipe and stuff like that, but I knew nothing about sales. I knew nothing about marketing and I knew nothing about process. business process. So we had it in our mind from day one that we wanted to grow a business. We didn't really know what that meant, but we knew we wanted to grow a business not to create a harder job for ourselves. I think the biggest thing that I let go of was thinking I knew something. Started reading. That's the one thing that I'm pretty good at is consistent reading and the real basic stuff in the beginning, rich dad, poor dad, never split the difference. Profit First. if you hadn't read Profit First
Thaddeus Tondu:
Should check out Clockwork, his second book. Mike Michalowicz, I believe is the name, is the author. Yeah his, I haven't read Prophet first, but I just listened to Clockwork and it was actually, that's a really good book.
Greg Gabler:
Have you, you've done Clockwork?
Thaddeus Tondu:
Yeah, really good book and then the third part of that is Gino Wickman's Traction that's on my list right now. I just had a coaching call and Traction was the Yeah, we're going through EOS in our business and it's a game changer. So What are you reading right now?
Greg Gabler:
I'm actually re reading Never Split the Difference I almost have gotten to the point to where I don't really sell that much in our company anymore which is crazy to me because I never thought I would have somewhere that I didn't turn wrenches. But, now, there's certain things that I sell, of course. But, for the most part, I don't sell, but I just took a sales class again. I'm going to go ahead and plug them because I think this is one the new flat rate. If you're in HVAC, electrical, plumbing, any of that stuff, and you haven't looked into specifically the new flat rate, then you are probably leaving a lot of bread on the table. Third year in business, knew nothing about business. We have three trucks on the road. All of them average over an 80 percent closing rate. All of them average tickets over 1, 700, 1, 800 a ticket. We're in a market, it's Louisiana, look into it. Probably number 49 on the poverty scale. If you scroll plumbing in our area, we're about it our whole area, as far as we could go, 50 miles radius, maybe a million people. And we're doing these kind of numbers, this kind of revenue. The other part about that is if you look up plumbing in our area, you'll scroll infinitely that's what it is there's no bottom and so to show out in that arena, they don't mean show out like I don't show out. These cats show out all I get to do is come to places like this and learn stuff from people like y'all. But it's amazing. It's amazing. I feel like I'm bragging right now, but we're blessed.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Right? It's humility to know to put away the ego and put it beside, right? When you start and say, hey, I don't know what I don't know and I'm gonna go find those answers shit good example of this is before we even got going we started talking briefly about marketing and you ask a couple questions and you're like, what need to understand it, right? And you ask the questions and seek validation, but also seek validation from others, from multiple sources, right? Just don't rely on one person's source, unless it's best practice, like the new flat rate or some of the other coaching groups that have those best practices in there, which is a, it's a key thing. I think a lot of people miss that mark when they start their business because they think they know everything.
Greg Gabler:
Oh, I think you're right any best practice group is better than none. I don't know. I've, we were part of a couple. There's probably some bad ones out there, but we haven't found them yet. And I think, just like we said, we gotta find the people that are smarter than us at the stuff that we're not good at this year. I believe that type of stuff once I start knocking on the doors they'll open they'll open and we just hired a girl that's, think Chrissy's got a bachelor's degree. I dropped out in ninth grade. I got let out in 9th grade and we just hired a girl that's about to have her doctorate in marketing and right am I mistaken? Yeah. So I'm like, why would you come work for me? But, in school, nobody works for us we all work together. Anyhow, that's pretty amazing.
Evan Hoffman:
To go back to what you said about the best practices group and how there really isn't a bad one that's putting out bad advice. No one's going to put out malice advice because at the end of the day, your success is their success if you're not succeeding, they're failing as a best practice group. But I think the important thing is that it's never on the group itself taking that time to pause, think, reflect, ask yourself, how does this apply to me? How is it that I can implement what I have learned? That's what makes all the difference and that's where I love what you briefly said while you were talking about your running. Because when you went running for four hours, it allowed you to think about those fears. It also allows you to think through what is it that you're going to do about it taking that time to actually pause, reflect, and go through that if all we needed was more information in order to succeed, everyone with a fucking internet connection would succeed but the reality is there's a lot of people in this room right now that aren't. Right? So what is it that you feel like is allowing you to implement what it is that you're learning at a lot of these events and those best practice groups that's giving you that leg up to have the growth that you've had?
Greg Gabler:
Okay, so first I want to plug Clover Marketing because they are another new practice or best practice group that we're a part of that's been implemental in our success. The new flat rate and freedom builders are, they've been massive in our lives and our business. We just started with Clover Group and Josh and Kelly. I saying it right? I'm bad with names.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Josh and Laura and Laura.
Greg Gabler:
I knew I was saying Laura. But anyhow, we've only done a few groups with them, but immediately, I promise you, the very first group we implemented the way that I do tech meetings.
Evan Hoffman:
Love it.
Greg Gabler:
We had two trucks on the road, we implemented a new practice with tech meetings, and that day they turned 20 grand. think the most important thing that I implement is I'll try. There's two things. One, I'll try, and two, I have no competition and Chrissy get into disagreements about this all the time. Because we have those marriage and so the try it deal, she never discusses that with me. We're both willing to try it, right? That's not what she said.
Evan Hoffman:
I was gonna say, you're just like our friend Jared, you're willing to try anything once, right?
Greg Gabler:
I'm sorry, I couldn't leave that one there. but the no competition I think is key. I'm going to talk about the, let's, I'll try it first, which is implementation. So before I walked in the room today, I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to lose. Somebody said something that was worth listening to and honestly, I hate that I missed, I can't remember her name right now, but there was a lady in the last breakout session, she was wearing a pink blazer and she's got a company out of San Diego.
Evan Hoffman:
Mary
Greg Gabler:
Jean. I think so. Amazing and she was talking about the how instrumental it is for women in the trades and anybody that's visited Shreveport, Louisiana, you couldn't pay a million dollars to get a female plumber in your house. You couldn't do it. So that's my goal, right? We're going to get female plumbers on our team. The reason why, my wife's a testament to what women bring to this world, right? And the fact is that we see them all the time. Amazing, right? So we're gonna try it. We're gonna try it. I got nothing to lose. But if I don't try, I'm gonna be in the same place I was yesterday. No matter what and if I try it and I fail, maybe not talking about the women thing, but something else, right? Because I know that one won't fail. But if I try a sales technique and I go into this customer's house and I do a thing and it doesn't work, first I need to know, did I actually try it? Because I always want to shift the process instead of me and then two, okay, so I have tried it, I measured it, it didn't work. Okay, what have I lost? Nothing, because now I know that doesn't work and there's nothing.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Nothing, lose everything in the game. Yep. What about the no competition one?
Greg Gabler:
So the no competition thing is, back to y'all both, Tony Robbins, right? I should give 90 percent of my energy to the solution and 5 percent to the problem. Or 10 percent to the problem and the 10 percent that I give to the problem is knowing the problem. It's not actually giving energy to that problem. It's just understanding this is what the problem is. Okay, so what's the thing that, to get over that, right? And that's 90%. So if I have no competition, these other people in the market Tommy Mello did it really good, right? He said that when he goes into another market, they love to see him in their market because he's bringing the cost up. He's bringing the cost of what we do up and we all know that, really, if you get down to the nuts and bolts, what the problem is in the industry is that we don't charge enough, so we don't pay enough, so the people hate doing what they're doing, and then the customer gets cheated from their experience, right? That's all it is and of course we measure it off of nuts and bolts and all that crap, but we don't need to get into all that. What I need to know is that when I go on Google, and I just told you there's an infinite list of plumbers in my market, we consistently stay on the top three. We've been in business for two, two years and a quarter, right? And we stay on the top of that because we provide a different experience. I can't provide a different nut or bolt. We all just have the nuts, sorry. I do want to know what this is, though. I need one of these. Anyhow, the that's if I'm competing with these people, that means that all I'm concerned with is the nuts and the bolts. That's all I'm concerned with. But if I'm in the market and I'm trying to bring those ships up with this ship, then we're not competing anymore. We're helping each other out.
Thaddeus Tondu:
And I always liken it to people, product, price and a lot of times businesses will go price, product, people, and this kind of goes on to the Tommy Mello thing, right? And so they want to be able to set their price and then there's the product and then they take care of the people. No, it's actually inverse. If you take care of your people first, that allows you to have a better product, which AKA relates to a better customer experience. And then it allows you to charge more, which increases your price. And it all starts with that people component of things and making sure that rising tide, raises all ships and that's a great philosophy to look at. We're here to help each other out in an abundance mindset.
Greg Gabler:
I love that people thing and the people part of it is the technician the technician is the most important part of the whole equation. I've taught, my wife and I, she did a lot of time in retail. So she was always taught that the customer is the most important person and we don't ever want to cheat the customer. That's just true everybody knows that everybody, I'm sure, listening to this knows we don't cheat the customers. But the important part though is when I take care of the technician, It takes care of the customers. He wants to, or she wants to, they want to, move my pronouns around.
Thaddeus Tondu:
And it's not just, it's, it's every single person in an organization too, and that's that key thing. But to be respectful of the event and the time we want to thank you for coming on. we could keep going. That's the tough part about coming to live events and trying to do 25 minute micro episodes, because normally we're like 60 minutes. Thank you for taking the time out of the event to sit and chat with us. Thanks to the new fly rate for hooking us up and getting us together to be able to do this podcast. But before we do wrap up, we have one final question here for you, Greg.
Greg Gabler:
Go ahead.
Thaddeus Tondu:
What is one question that you wish people would ask you more, but don't?
Greg Gabler:
An answer to that. I know because I talked a lot during this, but I'm usually naturally more reserved. Just in the last couple of years, took this. How could we help each other more? That's really, all of this is about helping each other. We're all in the service industry because of that. We like to help. I don't, it's not like I need a lot of help. If I did, if I told you that, then I wouldn't be very macho, yeah.
Thaddeus Tondu:
It's, that's thinly veiled throughout the entire, normally I'm just like, okay how can we help each other more? That's thinly veiled all throughout this entire, message that we just had in this podcast and this show, is that when we get together and we band together, now we can be stronger together and shit, that even goes back to what we were talking about marketing earlier yeah, let's just have a conversation, right? If we go, if we can help other people out, everybody wins yep.
Evan Hoffman:
What do you wish that you knew in year one that you didn't know you didn't know?
Greg Gabler:
How important patience is. Because I, not only did I come from a technician standpoint, but I come from a very specific construction standpoint and my job was to push you literally, the company that I would never mention their name because of the stuff I'm fixing to say, but their culture was, burn a drill up and replace it are y'all familiar with that? Every man's just like a hand drill, and once you burn him up, replace it and I got taught that culture, and I implemented that culture, and I started out bringing it into the team that we're building and I think if I would have known more, really, the importance of culture and what a leader is. I had no idea what a leader was, and I spent years in the military, probably doing too much stuff I wasn't supposed to do instead of learning how to be a leader, right? I had no idea that's I don't remember the name of the book, I can tell you in a minute, but one of our coaches, Roger, told me to read a book about leadership so, boundaries for leaders, I think. But it told me how, as a leader, my job is to create the environment. It's not to make you do anything, but if I create the right environment and you fit in it, then you'll rise to the position that you're in. I didn't know. I thought my job as a leader was to tell you how screwed up you are and push you to go faster honestly.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Most people don't like that method of leadership either, right? Some people need that. Most people don't.
Greg Gabler:
You're talking about the push?
Thaddeus Tondu:
Yep.
Evan Hoffman:
Hard to push a string. Awesome. Cool. Greg, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.
Greg Gabler:
Yeah, thank y'all.
Evan Hoffman:
And yeah, dropping some knowledge with us here today.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Appreciate it and until next time,
Evan Hoffman:
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.