AC Lockyer - Pioneering Soft-washing & Mastering Home Service Entreprenuership

Branden Sewell, owner of Seal Pro Painting and host of the Off the Ladder podcast, interviews A.C. Lockyer, CVO of Droplet International, about his background in the home services industry and the companies he has founded. Lockyer shares his journey from being an owner-operator to an owner-investor, emphasizing the importance of starting with the end in mind and making sacrifices in the early stages of business growth. He highlights the need to trust and delegate to skilled employees, and to focus on building a team that can take over day-to-day operations. Sewell and Lockyer also discuss the mindset shift required to scale a business and the importance of strategic planning and branding. In this conversation, AC Lockyer shares his journey from failure to success in the business world. He discusses how he went from being broke to starting multiple successful businesses, including Softwash Systems. AC emphasizes the importance of tenacity, strategy, and leveraging relationships in business. He also talks about the benefits of leasing equipment and vehicles instead of buying them outright. AC shares his five keys to pattern success and highlights the value of being deliberate, having a plan, executing, analyzing, replicating, and systemizing. He also mentions his book, 'The Five Keys to Pattern Success,' and his podcast, 'Building a Lifestyle Business with AC Lockyer.' AC offers his contact information for those who want to connect with him or learn more about his businesses.

Takeaways

• Start with the end in mind and make sacrifices in the early stages of business growth.
• Trust and delegate to skilled employees to build a team that can take over day-to-day operations.
• Shift your mindset from being an owner-operator to an owner-investor.
• Focus on strategic planning and branding to scale your business.
• Building a successful business requires dedication, hard work, and a long-term vision. Tenacity and hard work are essential for business success.
• Leveraging relationships and strategic thinking can help you overcome financial limitations.
• Leasing equipment and vehicles can be a cost-effective option for business owners.
• The five keys to pattern success are being deliberate, having a plan, executing, analyzing, replicating, and systemizing.
• AC Lockyer's book, 'The Five Keys to Pattern Success,' offers valuable insights and strategies for business growth.
• AC Lockyer's podcast, 'Building a Lifestyle Business with AC Lockyer,' provides

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:00.652)
Hi everybody, I am Branden Sewell. I am the owner of Seal Pro Painting and now Seal Pro Seal and Wash, located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder. Today's guest is A .C. Lockyer. He is the CVO of Droplet International. Welcome to the show.

AC LOCKYER (00:30.432)
Well, thanks, Branden. I really appreciate it. Wow. I didn't quite, I didn't for whatever reason, quite catch that you're in central Florida. So like we're like neighbors here, you know, I'm, yeah. I live in Water Springs. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (00:40.172)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm up in your neck of the woods. Yep, I'm up there all the time. Actually, yesterday I was in Winter Park. We're doing a large custom home out there. Absolutely gorgeous home. But we do a lot of work in East Orlando. So that covers the east part of Orange County. We'll go up into the southeast part of Seminole.

And we even service like the northeast side of Osceola. So, and then all of Brevard County.

AC LOCKYER (01:15.264)
Okay. So you're going down into the Lake Nona area and Waterford Lakes and the University Park and all that down the East West Expressway, a little bit into Oviedo and yeah, we would make great referral partners.

Branden Sewell (01:20.076)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:26.412)
Yeah, yep, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds excellent to me. So yeah, we do a lot of work over there because that's where our first location was actually over in Conway. So like just north of the airport off of 436. And then we ended up starting a location over here in Brevard County. So now we service, you know,

AC LOCKYER (01:33.056)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (01:53.932)
that whole area over there, East Orlando and then all of Brevard County on the coast. So yeah, and as I had mentioned pre -show, I actually, once I purchased the pressure washing and paver sealing company, you started popping up everywhere on my social media. I was like, who is this guy? So I started to kind of like see that you were creating these different soft wash systems and.

AC LOCKYER (01:57.248)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (02:13.984)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (02:21.868)
things like that. So it really, excuse me, piqued my interest and I figured I'd reach out and see what you're all about. So one of the things that I wanted you to just expound upon really quick for the listeners is your background in the home services industry and then just kind of break down the companies that you founded and the different ones that you own and how that's all set up.

AC LOCKYER (02:48.608)
Yeah, so I'm actually a third generation home service business entrepreneur. My daddy was in the home service business. My granddaddy was in the home service business. And this is almost like a, people have heard me on podcasts before. I could probably almost repeat this whole thing, but you're listeners are different, so I'll tell you. I wanted to be a lead singer in a heavy metal rock and roll band, and that didn't quite work out, because I had this entrepreneurial gene, you know, and...

Branden Sewell (03:14.988)
Okay.

AC LOCKYER (03:17.376)
home service gene and so I ended up getting into the home services. My grandfather started an appliance company back in the 30s and that was called Elite Appliances. It got bought out by a company called Toastmaster and my grandfather literally invented the pop -up toaster, the electric blender and the fountain soda machine and sold those intellectual properties to Toastmaster and got some Toastmaster stock out of that.

He started another business doing driftwood furniture out of, if you've ever seen furniture made out of driftwood, but it was really big back in the 30s and 40s. And, and so he did a driftwood furniture studio in Miami, one up in New York and one out in LA and Jet set it back and forth between them and had movie stars and everybody is customers. And, and he thought the driftwood furniture thing was going to go forever. And it was, and it didn't. And he,

Branden Sewell (03:49.964)
Yeah.

AC LOCKYER (04:14.4)
didn't pay attention to his other businesses and those declined like a lot of us entrepreneurs did do. And so he ended up getting sick, getting some heart issues and stuff. And my dad ended up having to take over the family business literally as a sophomore in high school, drop out of high school and start running appliance calls on a scooter. And...

Branden Sewell (04:31.34)
Wow.

Branden Sewell (04:35.98)
Wow.

AC LOCKYER (04:37.6)
you know, and build up the little family at that point. You know, my grandfather sold off his toast master stock to pay the hospital bills and all that kind of stuff. But they kept a little appliance showroom down in Miami, Florida, and it did repairs and parts sales and appliance sales and stuff. And my dad took over that company. And when my grandfather died, ran that with his mother for a number of years, sold that company, moved up here to Orlando in 1980 and started a company doing.

appliance installation and delivery and that later turned into kitchen and bath remodeling. And I don't know if you remember the Circuit City days and the Bellows and Southeast Eel and all these companies that sold appliances back then. My dad owned the company that delivered all of that. They would sell it, he'd pick it up, he'd deliver it, he'd install it and he did that for a long time. And I don't know if you remember the song by Dire Straits, Money for Nothing.

Branden Sewell (05:18.284)
Yeah.

AC LOCKYER (05:35.488)
Nope, okay. You never heard the song? We gotta install microwave ovens, custom kitchen delivery, it's funny, but it's, it was like this song back in the 80s that was a hit, a big hit that talked about a company that delivered refrigerators and microwave ovens and installed custom kitchens. And I'm like looking around going, who is following my family and writing music about them? And it was just kind of easy growing up in this, you know, and so it was just funny. And so,

Branden Sewell (05:48.62)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (05:58.86)
Alright.

Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (06:05.408)
I went to college and I was the first person, I was the first lock year male to ever graduate from high school. And I was the first lock year to ever go to college. I was also the first lock year to ever get kicked out of college. And so I was, I wanted to get married and I proposed to my girlfriend in college. She became my fiance. I came back here to Florida and wanted to start a business. And I started a business back in...

and it was the fall, October of 1991, but it really didn't get going until probably spring of 92. It was a company called Mallard Systems. I don't know if you've heard of Mallard Systems here in central Florida, but they're a roof and exterior cleaning company that I started. And I grew that business from 1992 to finally the year 2000. In that eight year period of time, I grew that from my first year doing $83 ,000 in revenues.

Branden Sewell (06:45.644)
Mm -mm.

AC LOCKYER (07:01.152)
to eight years later, $4 .8 million a year in revenues. We had 18 service trucks. Oh, especially then. That's like, with inflation and all, it's almost $8 million a year now. And so we had 18 service trucks on the road, 18 sales trucks on the road, had three branches. We had an Orlando branch, a Tampa branch, and a Delray Beach branch. And really, really was kind of the first guy to...

Branden Sewell (07:06.828)
That's phenomenal, especially then.

Branden Sewell (07:14.028)
Yeah.

AC LOCKYER (07:29.248)
really professionalize what later would be called by a guy named Tim Asselton out of Tallahassee, Florida kind of coined the phrase soft washing. And so I didn't call it soft washing then. I didn't pressure wash. I came up with this way of cleaning things that didn't involve a pressure washer. So I call it the Mallard system because I like ducks. And then the company, I just decided to call the company Mallard Systems.

And we just told people we had cleaned buildings using the exclusive Mallard system and with our secret duck sauce and stuff like that. And just funny and people remembered it. And this other guy started calling it soft washing. And it was a good run that ran till about 2002. And my dad and I got to the point where, you know, later in life, I brought my dad into the business because I had a tiger by the tail and he had gray hair and.

He could borrow money from the bank. I was only like 25 years old when I brought him in. But by the time we were doing $4 .8 million a year, we did that for a couple of years, we got to the point where like two bulls occupying the same hill. And we decided to split the company. He kept Mallard and did all the residential work. I birthed the company called TerraClean and did all the commercial work. And my clients at that point were Disney, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, the state of Florida.

You know, we did three quarters of a million dollars a year just an apartment cleaning and big stuff You know our website was the big stuff calm and so and so I had Tara clean and did that for a number of years and then found myself When the economy crashed back in 2009 2010 here in Florida with the real estate bubble Found myself in a position where I needed to make a change

Branden Sewell (08:59.756)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (09:20.736)
And so we started putting people into the soft washing business then. And to date, we have launched over 2 ,500 soft washing companies around the world and built in excess of 3 ,000 pieces of equipment. And it's just incredible what we've been able to accomplish. A few years back ago, we started a licensing program where people come on as soft wash systems licensed affiliates.

And so we now have 150 licensed affiliates in nine countries around the world.

Branden Sewell (09:54.572)
That's phenomenal. Sounds like you've really had quite the run and I'm inspired just hearing your story and not to get too off topic for just a moment, but you mentioned that you wanted to be a rock star. My father was a drummer and so like back in the 80s, 90s, he played for a band that...

traveled up and down the East Coast and opened for big acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top and all that. They're called Great Train Robbery. And he actually still plays with that band now. So I guess, I don't know, it was probably a few years ago, they asked him to come back in and sit in as a drummer, fill in, and now he's playing with them full time again. But...

But yeah, so that's interesting. Did you play up to a certain point or what did you do in music?

AC LOCKYER (10:52.416)
So, I was primarily, for a long time I was a rhythm guitarist because I wasn't really good enough to play lead. Honestly, most of the bands I got into was because I owned the PA. And so, and then we were auditioning singers and auditioning singers and I was always a better singer than all the singers that we auditioned. In fact, I have the dubious distinction of firing Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. And so,

Branden Sewell (10:59.276)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (11:05.068)
I gotcha.

Branden Sewell (11:18.604)
Oh wow.

AC LOCKYER (11:20.064)
He sung for our band for a little while and the girls loved him and he had those smoky eyes and everything else, but he didn't really sing that well back then. And he was trying to keep up, he was trying to do too much of like a Jeff Tate thing from Queens, where I could sing real operatic and falsetto all the time. He hadn't really discovered his smooth kind of, you know, just kind of cool voice. And he was just awful back then.

Branden Sewell (11:36.3)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (11:41.356)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (11:43.616)
So I just started doing all the singing and so I became a singer. I play guitar, I play drums, I play bass, I play keyboards. Pretty much anything I put my hands on, I can play about 70 % kind of average, you know? And I love to do it, love to collect guitars, play drums at church up until about seven years ago. And now if they need me, I'll set in and stuff like that. But there's a lot of younger people that...

Branden Sewell (11:56.46)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (12:04.684)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (12:11.904)
need the opportunity to shine and I don't need the opportunity to shine. I like sitting out in the audience with my wife now and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, playing for almost 40 years and various different instruments and various different bands and everything.

Branden Sewell (12:17.388)
Right.

Branden Sewell (12:23.596)
Wow.

Branden Sewell (12:27.404)
Yeah, that's really cool. My uncle and my dad, that was them. That was what they did was play music. So both of them came from that background. And you sound a lot like my uncle. He plays everything, you know, bass, you know, guitar, piano, whatever, you name it. So, but that's really cool.

AC LOCKYER (12:46.656)
I like drums the best. I like drums the best because you can just kind of show up and do it, you know? You don't have to practice, you don't have to tune your instrument, you know, it's just, you have to ask what key you were in, you know? Everyone's gonna make a joke, I'll look at the guys and go, what key are we in again? And they're like, shut up, you know?

Branden Sewell (12:51.948)
You're right.

You're right. Right.

Branden Sewell (13:01.74)
You're right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, I will say though, the, I remember as a little kid going with my dad to shows and like carrying his hardware in this big chest that he had. And that thing was like, oh, it was so heavy. You know, and then his cage that held his drums and everything. So I think that as far as like the equipment side of things, that's the hardest is, you know, set up, but yeah.

AC LOCKYER (13:15.776)
Oh yeah.

Branden Sewell (13:30.604)
But that's cool. Yeah, I have some somewhat of a connection with you there on music and unfortunately, I didn't grow up with my dad. So didn't really catch that talent, you know. But yeah, he's a phenomenal musician.

AC LOCKYER (13:38.24)
Cool.

Branden Sewell (13:50.284)
Well, anyway, like I said, not to jump off on too much of a rabbit trail there. I just thought that was interesting. So back to, you know, all of this, you've got an extensive experience in the home services industry. Really interesting and congrats to you and hats off to you for the success. You know, I'm sure that took a lot of dedication and, you know, time, effort, hard work. And that's.

AC LOCKYER (14:02.528)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (14:11.488)
Thank you.

Branden Sewell (14:14.892)
you know, to be admired. So as I stated, you know, really my passion with this podcast is to help guys, gals out there who have home service businesses, and they have these big dreams, big aspirations of having a very successful company, you know, something where like, you know, maybe in...

20, 30 years, somebody that's younger than them is looking at them and feeling that same inspiration and just being like, wow, how in the world do you get there? How do you do that? And so, for our listeners who are out there, they're working in the field, they have these dreams, these aspirations of building something that is bigger than themselves.

AC LOCKYER (14:48.736)
Right. Right.

Branden Sewell (15:04.524)
Let's kind of jump into what would be some really key things that you think you did right in your career to help you build these amazing businesses and what advice would you give to somebody who maybe has those same aspirations and dreams to build something great like that?

AC LOCKYER (15:24.576)
So there's a saying that you've probably heard before, start with the end in mind. And so it takes us a while to kind of figure that out and learn that in life. And because I had a father that was the child of an entrepreneur and I was third generation, I heard a lot of this stuff growing up. And so I probably had the equivalent of an MBA by the time I was 15 years old, if you know what I mean. And so.

Branden Sewell (15:32.076)
That's good.

Branden Sewell (15:53.324)
Yeah, sure.

AC LOCKYER (15:53.824)
I am a child of privilege. I'm blue collar privilege. And, you know, so when you grow up with in the blue collar world and your parents have been successful, when your grandparents have been successful, that's a lot of wisdom that's being passed down. And so you've got you do have a leg up with everybody else from everybody else. And so one of the things that that I really, really like is, is, is you can start with the end in mind. So

Branden Sewell (15:59.5)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (16:08.524)
right.

AC LOCKYER (16:22.944)
A lot of us know, we'll say things like, boy, if I could only make six figures, boy, if I could only make $100 ,000 a year, my life would change. And then you get to $100 ,000 a year, you go, well, if I could make 150, now I'd be really set up. And then you realize, man, if I could make a quarter million a year, you know, that's like upper middle class now. I remember upper middle class was like, when I was growing up was 50. If your friends, parents made $100 ,000 a year, you're like, whoa. And then in the nineties, it became like a hundred and you're like, man, they make a hundred grand a year.

Branden Sewell (16:45.388)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (16:52.96)
But now the equivalent of a hundred grand a year is a quarter million dollars a year. And so when you look at that, people are like, man, I want to, I want to live well. I want to be able to put my kids through private schools. I want to be able to drive new cars. I want to be able to go out and buy a house. You know, I want to be able to save for retirement. You start adding all, I want to be able to have six months salary in the bank. So I have a nest egg and I have to worry about, you know, if I need to change jobs or anything else. You start lining all those things up.

It's like a quarter million dollars a year you gotta make so that the government can come back and take away. Believe it or not, it's 55 cents on the dollar. You know, because then your 28 % income taxes and then you have sales tax, you have gas tax, you have property tax, you have intangible taxes, you have taxes on your electric bill and you have taxes on your cable bill. When you add it all up, the tolls and everything else you pay on the 417 and all that stuff, it's 55 cents on the dollar, okay, for you to put.

Branden Sewell (17:46.508)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (17:47.104)
basically, you know, $120 ,000 of spendable money into your pocket. And so you're like, man, how do I do that? How do I do that? And it's very, very difficult because a lot of people start as owner operators. They go, hey, I want to start a plumbing company, an appliance company, an electrical company, a carpet cleaning company, a pressure washing company, a landscaping company, whatever it might be. I want to start that. And as an owner operator, generally,

Whatever you do in revenues, you can put about 50 % of it back into your pocket. Okay. So if you got $150 ,000 a year, you probably living on about 75 grand. You got a $200 ,000 a year company. Hey, you're probably getting pretty close to six figures with all the stuff you get out of your company. You got a $400 ,000 a year company. You know, you're probably making about $200 ,000, but there's a thing that happens right there at about $400 ,000. That's about all you can do as an owner operator because you're wearing all the hats, you know?

You're marketing, you're selling, you're going out and doing the work, you're working on the truck, you're doing the dispatch that night, you're doing the books. And we all only have 168 hours in our week. Everybody has the great equalizer. Everybody has 168 hours. So you gotta sleep some of those, you gotta go to work for some of those, you have to spend time with your family, you gotta eat, you gotta recreate. You start splitting that all up and you realize, crap, I don't really have a lot of time.

to do this thing called business as an owner -operator. So a lot of people cap there. And then there's a gigantic no man's land all the way out to what you have to revenue to be able to get that same 200 grand a year as an owner -investor. Okay? And so, you know, if you've got a really, really tight company, it's really, really skinny down, you might be able to flirt with 200 grand a year.

Branden Sewell (19:34.284)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (19:42.272)
If you have like a million dollar company and you might get off the ladder, so to speak, or you might get off the lawn, so to speak, or you might get off the tools. Okay. Um, and so, you know, between 400 grand and a million is a lot of work. And you actually sometimes take a pay cut to traverse that no man's land. So you'll be able to hire employees and get a bookkeeper and get to the point where you have a team to delegate things to and bring the company up to the next level.

Branden Sewell (19:47.116)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (20:11.968)
All of a sudden you go from for with 200 grand and paycheck and benefits and fuel and vehicle drive around and everything else. Also, you slide down to 125 to achieve your goals. And most people don't have the stomach for that, especially realizing that going from 400 grand to a million might take you two years to do. And most people are like, oh, screw that. I'm not taking a pay cut for two years. Okay. But then once you get and you build a company up to about $2 million, then a $200 ,000 a year paycheck is only

10 % of the company. That just means you're taking 10 cents of every dollar and it goes into your payroll and benefits and the things that you get out of the company for you to have that $200 ,000 a year package. And if you, you know, a lot of us went to school and we heard if you would just buckle down, if you would just, you know, apply yourself, you know, a lot of us entrepreneurs heard that in school, you know, it's a common theme. But we get out to the real world, we go, oh, that stuff in school didn't matter, but it did. If you would just apply yourself, if you would just buckle down,

Branden Sewell (21:03.596)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (21:11.808)
If you would just exercise some delayed gratification, if you would just go ahead and take the pay cut and take some of your pay and put it towards hiring great people, you might go from owner operator to $2 million. And then what do you have? Now you don't have a job. Now you're an owner investor. You're not having to go into work every day and do the thing. You're managing the team. You can have three day weekends. You can go and take a trip to Europe for a month and your business runs without you.

Branden Sewell (21:32.748)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (21:41.056)
And not only are you getting a great paycheck, but at $2 million, you actually have something that's worth something as an asset. Then now you can start planning for retirement and say, hey, if this thing just grows by 15 % per year, a $2 million company, at the end of a decade, at 15 % per year, now you have something that's doing 15, $20 million a year. You've got a big staff. And if you get a six to eight times EBITDA on that,

you're darn near walking away with 15 to $20 million before taxes at closing. And when you take care of the people that got you there and you pay your taxes and all, you're putting $10 million in the bank at 10%. You're on easy street now the rest of your life. If you would just buckle down and say, this is my plan for the next 10 years, but instead, you're an owner operator year to year to year, because they won't trust people and they won't exercise their reputation and they won't build the team.

Branden Sewell (22:29.132)
Right.

Branden Sewell (22:34.636)
Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, one of the things that I preach a lot to people, because I've been off the ladder, honestly, since I started my business. That's just how I started. I just knew, okay, if I delegate the things that I don't do or I'm not good at, and I just focus on what I'm good at and what I can do, I can make this work. And so that's what I've done.

AC LOCKYER (22:39.232)
That's it.

Branden Sewell (23:02.316)
But one of the things that I tell people a lot of times is there's two things that I think are key to that is like one, don't go crazy trying to like put your lifestyle first, meaning like trying to like get, you know, for example, when my wife and I bought our first house, you know, we had what we were approved for and we bought like 150 ,000 less than that.

Because we were like, what's the point of us buying all of that house? We hadn't even started a family yet. And we were like, we want to be pretty modest so that we can comfortably live and not be overextended. And so I think just people, it's like you said, they can kind of put those things that shouldn't be a priority in the upfront. And it's like, if you just had, like you mentioned, the end in sight.

or put the, what did you say, start with the end in mind, you can think, okay, well, if I invest now, make some sacrifices now, what is that going to look like for me in 10, 15 years? And, you know, so like my first house was like nothing to, you know, brag about, small house built in the 60s.

And, you know, but it was super easy for us to afford and it gave me the ability to invest in the business in a way that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise and to not be stressed, you know, personally on, you know, for my finances. And so, you know, it's like you mentioned, you know, somebody might have to get off the ladder, take a pay cut, you know, because, well, now you're paying employees. Well, if you're overextending yourself in your personal life,

That makes that a lot harder to say, okay, I'm going to take less money with the priority of getting off the ladder because now you have to think like, how are you going to afford your lifestyle? So I think that's wisdom there. And then like you said, trusting people. Man, I think that's, you know, I think every episode we probably talk about this, just the fact that people who are out there in the field, they have this mentality of like, oh, like, you know, nobody else can do it as well as I can or.

AC LOCKYER (25:06.112)
Yeah.

AC LOCKYER (25:20.832)
as well as I care, yeah.

Branden Sewell (25:21.292)
Um, yeah. And, um, you know, that's just not the truth. Um, but you know, I've got amazing guys who work for me.

AC LOCKYER (25:27.52)
The dirty little secret is most of them can do it better than you can.

Branden Sewell (25:31.02)
That's 100 % the truth. I mean, my guys are more skilled than I am at what they do. If I show up, it's like, no, you don't want me to do anything. It's like I could create more work for you. I could make a mess. You do what you're good at and I'll do what I'm good at and then we help one another. So, it's so true. And I think...

AC LOCKYER (25:33.6)
It's like a

AC LOCKYER (25:38.048)
Yeah. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (25:58.444)
One thing that I've done to help, because I think part of it is mindset too. You have to really work on your mindset. And one of the things that I've done, I think, home service businesses, there's like this pride in the craft, right? So if you have a craftsman who does the work themselves, they have this pride of getting that job done and what the finished results are. And I think you can get kind of tied to that. And...

AC LOCKYER (26:13.504)
Right.

Branden Sewell (26:27.34)
I try to take myself out of that and look at businesses that aren't related to my industry that might have a lot of success, whether it's a tech company or something like that. And I look at these big CEOs and stuff or owners and founders of these businesses, they're not doing all of the different roles in their business.

I'm sure Jeff Bezos isn't over working at Blue Origin down here, doing all the engineering and doing all the actual work on the rockets and stuff they're building. That's not his role, but he can find people who are experts in those different areas to do those jobs really well. He doesn't have to do that. And so I just try to think like...

In that sense, I don't have to be the expert for everything in my business. I can communicate vision. I can communicate the mission of the business, the values, and the guidelines of where we're going, and then get these amazing people that are skilled and experts in their craft to come alongside that. We all work together to accomplish that mission.

AC LOCKYER (27:47.488)
Totally, yeah.

Branden Sewell (27:48.908)
Jump into, you know, it's even me with where I'm at. It can be hard for me to even fathom getting to, you know, accomplishing the things that you have. What do you think besides, you know, trusting people and obviously being able to get out of the field, what do you think are some of the most important things to focus on in the beginning when you're trying to grow something from the ground up? Like, you know, you have a...

I'm sure you're familiar with Dan Antonelli. I had Dan on the show and man, he's just an incredible, amazing guy when it comes to branding. He could literally just blow your mind. Super great expert, everything with that side of the business. But I think you can...

AC LOCKYER (28:24.064)
Sure.

Branden Sewell (28:47.852)
When you think of building an amazing business, like you think of like Tommy Mello, A1 Garage Doors, and you think of like, you know, big businesses that have built these amazing brands, it's like, and here you are, you're a smaller business and you're trying to get there. What do you think is like that secret to getting there to where you have like the funds, the capital, to be able to accomplish something like that? Because it takes money. And, you know, when you're smaller,

AC LOCKYER (29:09.888)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (29:17.996)
Maybe funding is harder and capital is harder for you to come across and it's like, okay, well, where do I start? What's important? What do I do now to get there? Could you speak to that at all?

AC LOCKYER (29:32.128)
Yeah, so, you know, I mentioned to you offline here that I don't think it was during the podcast, but back in 2009, 2010, due to a really bad family business breakup, I, you know, ended up having to cease business, signed my business over to the person I had as a business partner at that point. And I left that business with my last 250 bucks left to my name. By the time I settled my accounts and paid my debts and

and took care of all my responsibilities. I had 250 bucks left to my name. And so, didn't know what I was gonna do. Didn't wanna get back into the cleaning business. So I did what everybody does. That's basically failed in business. I mean, the business didn't fail, but I failed myself. I failed in business. I failed my business partner who was my father at that time. And failed in the relationship. I was a failure. And so,

What do all failures do when they fail in business? They become business consultants. I went out and started doing that and so it was nice because I made really, really good money on it and I was coaching people that needed help with the specific slope that I knew how to traverse very, very well in business. And taking people from $200 ,000 to $300 ,000 a year to $2 ,000 ,000 to $3 ,000 a year, it's like, I can do that blindfold.

Branden Sewell (30:31.244)
Hehehehe

AC LOCKYER (30:55.808)
it's very very easy for me and so I start three million dollar businesses you know I've decided I'm not a hundred million dollar a year guy but I can start a hundred three million dollar a year businesses pretty easy you know and so help people do that and and I was doing pretty good at that but they all were just like but AC I just want to have a baby mallard systems I just want to do exactly what you did I want to have your equipment your chemicals your systems everything else can't you just make me a mallard systems and I'm like

Branden Sewell (31:10.028)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (31:24.448)
Why would you ever want to do that? But that's what people wanted. And so, you know, I started Softwash Systems literally broke, called all of my vendors and said, hey, I got this harebrained idea. I'm going to start Softwash Systems. I'm going to sell the equipment that you used to build for me. I'm going to sell the chemicals that you used to blend for me. I'm going to sell the, you know, this and that and everything else. And all my vendors, they said, AC, we love you. Whatever you want to do. I'm like, great. I'm broke. And they're like, dude, we'll give you credit. Just pay us when you get paid.

I don't know why did I why did why why AC because you've always been an admirable person you've always said done what you said you were going to do you've always had a great relationship with us we understand you're in a pickle and everything else and we want to help you know you don't have to start a business with money you have to start a business with tenacity and great relationships if you have tenacity and great relationships you can start a business with zero dollars.

And you know, and so it's kind of crazy. I mean, Grant Cardone did the, I've always fantasized about doing this and then Grant finally did it. You know, I used to tell people, parachute me to any town in America and I'll have a million dollar a year soft washing business in 18 months or less. And everybody's like, oh, come on. And Grant Cardone did that, you know, went to anywhere in America, started a business he wasn't completely familiar with and literally inside of six months had a multimillion dollar business going or however exactly what happened. And so how do you do that?

Branden Sewell (32:21.708)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (32:50.848)
Tenacity, tenacity, okay? Strategy, you need to be strategic. What money do you have? How do you leverage that best? What relationships do you have? How do you leverage those? I don't believe in the lie of, well, I just wasn't well -funded and that's why I failed. No, you failed because you're lazy and unimaginative. You need to get out there and work, work hard.

Branden Sewell (33:16.396)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (33:19.936)
Work 18 hours a day until you build something. You don't need money to do it. And so when the money comes, it's great. I'm sorry, I'm a multi -multi -millionaire, international businesses, own businesses on three continents, okay? And literally, I pay myself $75 ,000 a year. My wife takes home a paycheck because she's the CFO of the company. $75 ,000 a year.

Branden Sewell (33:42.796)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (33:50.592)
I get one vehicle payment out of the company. Okay? And I bought my wife a used 2017 Suburban about three years ago. Okay? I drive around, I don't know if you've seen it or not, but I'll show you what I drive around in. Let me pull it up here. Okay, so you can see.

Branden Sewell (34:01.132)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (34:18.08)
That's my daily driver. Oh, nice. Okay. I bought it for $15 ,000. Okay. I did. Um, and just so you know, I own it free and clear. Okay. Um, during COVID I did a thing.

Branden Sewell (34:20.204)
Oh, nice.

Branden Sewell (34:26.028)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (34:33.548)
Right.

Branden Sewell (34:40.62)
So for those of you that aren't watching this, it's a classic truck. What is the year and model of your truck?

AC LOCKYER (34:40.864)
It's a Coyote engine.

AC LOCKYER (34:51.2)
It's a 1960 Ford pickup truck that I bought for $15 ,000. I drove it, I bought it in 2017. I drove it around for three years as a $15 ,000 1960 pickup truck. And during COVID, I put a Crown Victoria front end in it, stripped it all the way down to the frame, sandblasted the whole thing, painted the whole thing, completely redid it, put a Mustang GT 5 .0 Coyote engine in it.

The truck now does 155 miles an hour. I've taken it to 135 before I chickened out. And you know on the Lake Jessup Bridge, you know the Lake Jessup Speedway. And so, and, but you know, I don't, I don't, and that's, that's my one nice thing. And, and I'm working my business. I love going to my business every day. I reinvest back into my business.

Branden Sewell (35:23.852)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (35:27.308)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (35:35.66)
Right.

AC LOCKYER (35:41.087)
Um, you know, I make sure that I take a, I take 5 % of every dollar. I put it into a capital expenditure fund for expanding the business. We are our own bank in most situations. Um, you know, the only business I have that has any debt is a company called disruptor manufacturing, which I have that shirt on today. Um, because I went out and I spent about a half a million dollar on fabrication equipment for our fabrication department because my accountant said, AC, you're paying too much money in taxes. Go buy some crap that I can.

you know, depreciate and amateurize and, you know, and get you out of this spending a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in taxes every year. And but other than that, we're, you know, debt free and, you know, delayed gratification. I mean, you know, if I don't know that I would do anything different if I ever did it again. But the one thing that I did and I did do right is I started slow and I cash flowed it along. And every once in a while, I borrowed a little bit of money, but I paid it off in three or four months.

Branden Sewell (36:13.388)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (36:28.684)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (36:39.968)
and I just steadily plotted and built it.

Branden Sewell (36:44.396)
Yeah, that's good advice. And I kind of get stuck between two different personalities, Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki. So I've studied both since I was about 18 years old. So in my personal life, I'm almost debt -free except for my house. And both of our cars are paid for. We don't have a ton of consumer debt.

And that's really, like I said, it's enabled me to have less stress in growing a business and really be able to focus on it. Whereas there could have been seasons in the business where if I was over my head and consumer debt and had car payments and all of that, which there was a season where I had car payments, but I was like, okay, I'm done with this, got rid of that. And so now I own my truck and it's paid for.

AC LOCKYER (37:19.84)
You can sleep at night.

AC LOCKYER (37:38.144)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (37:42.316)
But yeah, to your point, it's just, you know, I love that you said start with the end in mind because that's how I, you know, I don't necessarily have somebody telling me out all the time, but that's the way that I think about my business is I think, okay, maybe I'm not making, you know, even what you're talking about 150, 200 ,000 a year right now. But I have a...

a solid business that has a lot of great things going for it. I know that if I just keep moving in that direction, then better things are going to come. I'm just having a healthy foundation. I think for people who are listening to this, I think there's a couple of takeaways here.

AC LOCKYER (38:11.072)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (38:29.868)
You know, really just try to focus on what you want to accomplish in the long term. Don't be so short -minded that you make decisions that put the future success of your business and your personal life at jeopardy. If you can have a long -term mindset, that's going to serve you well. So think, you know, I know a lot of business owners, they talk about always have a exit in mind, right? So the way that I'm...

AC LOCKYER (38:56.512)
in it.

Branden Sewell (38:57.9)
constantly thinking of my business is, let's say 20 years down the road, my son is in a place where maybe he's deciding whether he wants to take over the family business or wants to do something else. Well, I want to build a business that I can sell. So building a company that has all of the right things in place that

is attractive to somebody who might want to purchase it in the future and is a sellable business. So thinking long term is how I think about my business. And I think if you do that, that would serve you well. I will say though, like for where I'm at, obviously you've accomplished a lot in your career. Sometimes I'm like, man, how in the world do I get to the place where

All of my vehicles are fully wrapped and have, my dream is to have locations in South Florida, over in Tampa. I've even thought of starting locations in Tennessee and North Carolina because I've got family there, maybe in Maryland where I've got some other family. But that's something really big to...

try and take on and you know so it's just yeah it's what I hear you saying yeah yeah for sure.

AC LOCKYER (40:31.488)
Well, can I speak to that?

So, you know, I'm an anti -debt guy. I'm a Dave Ramsey guy too. But I do understand sometimes you have to take on debt. So, like for instance, my business is we lease our buildings. If I own the buildings, that would be debt. Because I lease it, it's an expense. So, same thing if you buy a truck. If you buy a truck, it's debt. If you lease the truck, it's an expense. So you can have a fleet of 10 trucks with payments on them.

Branden Sewell (40:46.732)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (40:56.428)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (40:59.584)
and still say that you're debt free in your company because you don't technically own those trucks, you're leasing those trucks. Now I'll tell you why I like to lease trucks. Is that you do an equity lease, you can turn around and you can name a value of the truck at the end of the lease. Like let's say you bought a $55 ,000 service truck. That's what trucks are running right now. 55 grand for the work package, which blows my mind. I mean, 20 years ago you could buy an F -250 long bed quad cab truck for $25 ,000.

Branden Sewell (41:07.884)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (41:28.704)
and you know, and now they're $5 ,000. But if you want to buy that truck right now, and if you put it on a 60 -month loan, you would be spending, you know, $1 ,000 a month for that truck. You can lease that truck now for about $750 a month, and you can say, I'm gonna buy this $55 ,000 truck, but at the end of the lease, we're gonna say it's worth $20 ,000. And so,

Branden Sewell (41:29.26)
Right.

AC LOCKYER (41:55.136)
Your payment you make on it is the difference between the 55 and the 20. That $35 ,000 is what you're paying off during the term of that 60 month lease. Then at the end of the lease, you hand them back the keys, they take the truck back. And if they sell the truck and you have equity in it, they take that equity and they carry it forward into the next lease. Okay. Or they'll write you a check for that. Because we know that trucks have a high what's called residual value.

Branden Sewell (42:06.412)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (42:21.676)
Right.

AC LOCKYER (42:25.312)
And so, so when you go through a company like Bancorp or you go through a company like Enterprise or you go through some of these leasing companies, GT Leasing or some of those leasing companies out there, they'll also allow you to go ahead and put the sprayed in bed liner on it, the truck wrap on it. Even sometimes even depending on the price of it, the piece of equipment at the back. So we sell a $55 ,000 piece of equipment that goes in the back of the truck that will do everything but wipe your butt. I mean, it does.

Branden Sewell (42:44.524)
Mm.

AC LOCKYER (42:54.848)
everything in the house, okay? And so it cleans it from the chimney all the way out the windows, spot -free water, waxes the house, does everything, soft washing does. And so, you know, so we've got companies out there that will sell you the truck as a lease, wrap it, hot spray it, put the piece of equipment back into it, wrap it into one monthly payment, and at the end of five years, you own that piece of equipment free and clear, because they divide that over the five years, okay?

You give them back the truck, they strip the wrap off of it and everything else, they sell it and they bring your new wrapped truck that's been, the bed liner's been sprayed in and you drop your piece of equipment back into it. And that way, you know, the wrap, the sprayed in bed liner, the piece of equipment's built into there. The second time around, the piece of equipment's not built into it anymore because it's paid off. And you just know every month you have that payment, it's an expense. It goes into your overhead. It's part of the cost of

goods to provide your service. Okay. And it shows up on your business financial statement. It doesn't show up as a debt. And so it makes your books look better and everything else. If you get into trouble, if you get into trouble, okay, you, you know, you, you keep the piece of equipment, you'll have a little bit of debt on that. You have to pay them off on that, but they take the truck back. They were pulled the wrap off of it. They clean it up. They auction it off and you only owe them the difference between what the vehicle's worth at the time.

Branden Sewell (43:54.572)
Right.

Branden Sewell (44:01.74)
Right.

AC LOCKYER (44:21.536)
versus what you still had left on it between that and the residual. Well, in many cases, they take it back to auction. Like, let's say in two years, you fall on your face, but the truck's still in good shape. It's probably about worth what you have left on it. And so you're not a huge amount of risk on it. You might get hurt by three or $4 ,000, but most of us in business can take a three or $4 ,000 hit. So, you know, there's a lot of glory in saying, well, I own every vehicle in my fleet, but right now there are $55 ,000 trucks.

Branden Sewell (44:35.66)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (44:50.624)
It's hard to take $55 ,000 cash flow out of your company and drop it down so you can wear a badge of honor that you own all your trucks. You know? But if you lease it, and just understand you're always going to have a truck payment, but every five years you're going to get a brand new truck and your fleet's going to be up and running, you don't have to worry about breakdowns and everything else. That's how you get the trucks wrapped and you get the sprayed in bed liner and you get the beautiful new truck and you put the piece of equipment in it and boil it down to a monthly payment that in our particular quick cap.

Branden Sewell (44:51.372)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (44:59.948)
Right.

AC LOCKYER (45:20.736)
you know, case, that monthly at $1 ,500 is only about half of what our average residential job is.

Branden Sewell (45:27.532)
Yeah, that's good. So you mentioned a couple of the companies, Enterprise, I think you said Bangcorp and some of those. So if somebody is listening to this and you've perked their interest, they would just go in, set up a meeting and kind of evaluate what that would look like for them.

AC LOCKYER (45:35.424)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (45:49.824)
Yeah, so, you know, I mean, people are not as liberally doing these deals as they did four or five years ago, you know, with inflation and banks have gotten tight and they're not loaned money to a lot of people. But generally, if you've been in business at least 18 months and you have a pulse, they'll lease you two vehicles. So that gets you going. And so, yeah, just Google, Google fleet leasing. All the players will show up.

get two or three or four of them to come out. You're gonna have to sign a personal guarantee. Don't be all afraid to sign a personal guarantee. It's not like an S, B, and A loan where they're using your house to secure your loan. Okay? You're not gonna, if you default on it, you'll have debt, you'll have a responsibility to pay off whatever the remaining balance is after they auction off the vehicle, which may be three or four or $5 ,000. It's not a big deal. But it's not like an S, B, and A loan where you default on that. They'll take your house away from you.

Branden Sewell (46:28.332)
Mm -hmm. Sure.

AC LOCKYER (46:46.88)
And so, you know, you'll have to sign a personal guarantee, but it's not a big deal. I mean, nobody gives you money nowadays without signing a personal guarantee for your business.

Branden Sewell (46:47.596)
share.

Branden Sewell (46:56.3)
Right. Yeah, sure. Now that makes a lot of sense. So we're coming to a close here. We've got a few minutes left in the hour. I'd like to just kind of open it up for you to share some advice. If you went back to, you're starting your first business, you're working out in the field, what is something that...

you know, some maybe core, maybe talk about a couple core things that you would need to focus on to get yourself off the ladder. And I know you said start with the end in mind, but if we could go a little bit more specific, maybe talk about some marketing strategies, leadership and sales development, how can you, you know, focus on those areas to get you off the ladder, producing enough revenue to like hire employees and really grow something?

bigger than yourself.

AC LOCKYER (47:56.384)
Yeah, so, Shameless Plug, I do have a book. And yeah, so it is called the Five Keys to Pattern Success, the Five Keys to Pattern Success. And basically what the five keys are is be deliberate, have a plan, and then execute, analyze, replicate, and systemize. And so, you know, this is a nice book. It's an actual hardcover book and...

Branden Sewell (48:01.26)
Awesome. What was it again?

AC LOCKYER (48:26.112)
and you know it's about 230 pages and it's a good read. It even has some illustrations and drawings in there for those of us that you know that that helps and all. But I really boil down some of my best success systems that I've used for growing my businesses in here and I tell my story which is great. You know I don't you know you're a central Florida guy I don't know do you like inshore saltwater fishing are you a fishing guy at all?

Branden Sewell (48:53.548)
Yes, absolutely. I actually had a YouTube channel for a while and all of that I did stand up paddle boarding, catching snook, redfish, tarpon, all that.

AC LOCKYER (48:55.648)
Okay.

AC LOCKYER (49:06.048)
So I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm the 2006 Redfish Tour National Champion.

Branden Sewell (49:11.276)
Oh wow, no didn't know that that's awesome.

AC LOCKYER (49:12.928)
Yeah, so I built my businesses to a point where I was able to fish 150 days a year. So if you think about, you know, okay, what's the ultimate goal, you know, of building a lifestyle? That's my podcast is called building a lifestyle business, building that business with the end in mind. You know, what size engine do you need to power your boat? Let's really think about this. What do you want your life to look like and everything else?

Branden Sewell (49:20.172)
That's amazing.

Branden Sewell (49:28.812)
Yeah.

AC LOCKYER (49:37.024)
So, you know, for me, I wanted to fish. I mean, other than music, the other thing that I can say that I am good at, and I have a national championship trophy to say, no, I'm really good at this, is I'm really, really, really, really, really good at fishing. And so I love fishing, and I use the five keys to pattern success to in my rookie season win the Redfish Tour national championship.

I was keeping Microsoft Excel spreadsheets while I was pre -fishing for the tournaments. I was holding with the teams like the Ranger Pro Staff team and the Solar Bat Pro Staff team, you know, Solar Bat sunglasses, I was Pro Staff with them. I organized their whole Pro Staff forum, did their marketing and everything. We would go and stay in my RV after the captain's meeting and I'd say, okay, where's everybody at catching fish?

Branden Sewell (50:04.3)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (50:11.916)
Wow.

AC LOCKYER (50:30.432)
Well, you know, I'm doing good. Okay, I'm struggling. Okay, well, here's a couple spots that I found that I'm probably not going to, you know, go back to during the tournament. And I'd organize a whole group of guys and those group of guys ended up the next year. One of them won the national championship. All of them won their divisions, you know, and everything else. I'm very, very deliberate in what I do. And if you're looking for a guide for service business for life too, I talk about, I use the five keys to pattern success to meet,

Date and win my wife Okay And I go through all that in here and everything This is a great resource for you talks about tracking and measuring in your company talks about the year that I thought My company was not doing well because I was guiding my company by this not by this And I started for the first time keeping scoreboards and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and KPIs and all that stuff and realized I went from going

Branden Sewell (51:20.62)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (51:28.832)
I thought I was having an awful year too. We're actually getting ready to have our best year ever. And I ran around with all these spreadsheets and everything like my head was on fire after I took all the years of bank reports and put them into a line graph and showed we were going and everything. I went, guys, look, we're getting ready to have the best year ever in business. And also in the whole, actually the company's like, we're getting ready to have the best year ever in business. And just watching the place catch on fire. I tell that story in here. This is Chalk Full, the five keys to power and success. It's on Amazon.

Branden Sewell (51:33.932)
Mm -hmm.

AC LOCKYER (51:58.592)
It's on Kindle, it's on Audible. You can listen to it going down the road. But it will really, really, really, really help you guys. And it's my second book. I've got the third books in the works right now. And yeah, it's just, it's a great, great resource.

Branden Sewell (52:18.86)
I'm looking it up now. Let's see five keys to.

AC LOCKYER (52:24.288)
patterns.

Branden Sewell (52:29.388)
Alright, yep, we got it here on Audible. Buying it now. So I'll definitely be listening to that.

AC LOCKYER (52:37.568)
Cool. I even read it. I even read it myself, so.

Branden Sewell (52:43.724)
Yeah, awesome. Yep. Got it. So I'll be I'll be checking that out. I I'm a big reader. So and I will I mean I should say a big listener because I listen to audit. Yeah, because yeah, yeah, so I'll definitely check that out. And you know, so if you're listening to this, I hope that you're getting some value from this. I know that I have and I'm very appreciative of your time AC and.

AC LOCKYER (52:52.864)
Audiobook guy. Our university, yeah.

Branden Sewell (53:11.276)
sharing your wisdom with the listeners and I'll definitely check out your podcast too. For those who are listening, if they want to connect with you, if they want to, you know, I know you mentioned your book, but if they want to find your podcast or connect with you in any way, how could they do that?

AC LOCKYER (53:29.76)
Yeah, so you can go to any of the major podcast formats. It's building a lifestyle business with AC Lock here, presented by Softwash Systems. That's one of my bigger companies and the soft washing company. You can also certainly call the office of Softwash Systems. I'm on Facebook and my wife will tell you I am usually Sunday afternoon sitting on the couch with her, watching a movie, chatting with people on Facebook Messenger and helping them with their businesses.

So you can find me on Facebook Messenger or if you're an Instagram person on Messenger through Instagram at AC Lockyer, L -O -C -K -Y -E -R. Happy to talk to anybody, happy to help. I just learned early, early on, Brandon, it's an old Zig Ziglar saying, if you help enough people get what they want in life, you can have everything you want in life. And so, you know, I'm.

Branden Sewell (54:24.652)
Yeah, that's good.

AC LOCKYER (54:26.848)
I'm a Christian and I just believe that the more people I help, God sends wonderful blessings through me as a conduit to send them to other people. And I just try to be that funnel, that conduit to bless other people. And so I very rarely ever say no to anybody grabbing a little piece of my time. So I'm available for anybody that needs help if you're in a 911 situation, don't be afraid to reach out. You don't have to be alone.

Branden Sewell (54:40.076)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (54:54.764)
right yeah I'd love to connect with you in person at some point since we're here local so maybe we'll have to arrange that off off the show and then lastly

AC LOCKYER (55:04.704)
Oh, you gotta come and tour this place. Yeah, for sure. Come over for a tour.

Branden Sewell (55:08.172)
Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely arrange that with you. And then if somebody's listening to this and maybe you have a product or something that would be useful for their business, maybe somebody's listening to this and they have a...

you know, a soft wash company or paver ceiling company. What type of – could you go over really quick what you sell and manufacture and maybe if somebody is interested in that, how they would get it and get a hold of you?

AC LOCKYER (55:39.264)
Right. So Softwash Systems is an exterior cleaning supply company that we also have a licensed affiliate program for people that want to use our business systems and business model and all. So we sell exterior cleaning equipment, supplies, chemicals, all those types of things. And you can find that company at softwashsystems .com. The other big one, like for instance, you know, paver sealing or pest control or anybody that needs spraying equipment,

I own a company called Disruptor Manufacturing and we build about 200 trucks a year for spraying companies, pressure washing companies, soft washing companies, car detailing companies, pest control companies. Anything that has to do with spraying, you can go to Disruptor Manufacturing. We build really nice paver ceiling carts and paver ceiling skids for trucks and anything like that, that's Disruptor.

manufacturing .com. We have a wonderful line of hose reels that we manufacture called Stingray hose reels. We've got an incredible facility that we're expanding over here. I keep buying more toys and equipment so we can keep making more cool and neat stuff. We give tours over here too if anybody wants to come. But certainly you can do that if you have a home that needs cleaned. Softwash Systems has a division called Softwash Services.

And if you go to Softwatch Systems website and click the locations tab, you can see our 150 licensed affiliates in nine countries. We have 111, I think here in the United States. Love to clean your home or your building. We have a lot of great family -owned businesses that are flying our flags that you could bless them individually and that would be wonderful. And yeah, and that's pretty much it. And you know, so there we go.

Branden Sewell (57:27.596)
Awesome.

Yeah, awesome. Well, hey guys, if you're listening to this and AC can help you out, you know how to get in touch with him. And again, thank you so much for your time. If you're watching this podcast on YouTube, please like this video, comment, share your feedback.

Subscribe and turn on the notifications so you can see other great content that's going to be coming your way. I really appreciate that. And also, if you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast platform, please rate and review the show. That really will help us to continue to reach people and help home service business owners. And we will see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast.

AC LOCKYER (58:17.312)
See you guys later.