When There's No Plan B, With Aaron Gaynor

Aaron Gaynor tells Jack about his journey from plumber’s apprentice to owner – with a bankruptcy in between. Aaron talks about how being good enough to work in a business doesn’t mean you’ll be good at running a business. Aaron’s biggest lesson was learning to take full responsibility instead of blaming external forces.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hi, this is Jack Tester and welcome to another edition of Leadership Lounge. I'm in Saint Paul, Minnesota as I almost always are wanting to do these and sitting across the desk from me is Aaron Gainer. How are you doing Aaron? I'm fantastic. How are you today? What brings you to town? Service manager training. Okay. You're here observing some of your managers getting training. I am a vet. Three guys here today. Um, well yesterday, today and um, it's been exciting. It's been great. That's been doing an awesome job and the guys have been taken away a ton of stuff and myself included. I'm glad you're here. Thanks for coming. Absolutely. Thanks for letting me come in here today. I got to know you and you've been a member for what, four or five years? Yup. Basically five years now. Okay. But I really didn't get to know you until I attended your peer group this summer. You have, you had a formal peer group through next door and I went and I was so impressed with your business and what you're building there in Columbus, Ohio. So your business does echo the echo, plumbers, eco plumbers, Eco, and what I say Echo. So I, we say it up here. Yeah, it's all good. The ECO plumbers. Yes sir. All right. Very cool. And you've got a great thing going and you got an interesting story to get to where you've gotten in your, your young guy too. I just turned 41. So yeah, that's Phil is young and old all at the same time. You starting to get maturity and you got a lot of it too. The grays coming in, that's for sure. It is by the time you're my age year and it's going to be pretty white up there to do something, but you got a full head of hair. That's good. I do have that going for me. So anyway, I want to talk about your journey. So this, I want you to just describe your business as it sits today. You know, on August 22nd, 1990 19 nine 2019. All right. Uh, well, I mean, we're service plumbing company, residential service, 99% of our businesses, residential plumbing service with a sewer sales too. So, uh, plumbing is our main focus. That's what we do. Uh, we're around$12 million and we'll finish this year at$12 million in revenue pacing around 40% growth this year. Wow. A pretty strong growth. EBIT as strong feel you'll you've seen in our peer group, our job where we are. Um, so we're very fortunate. We have a lot of great people aren't team put around 63, so a team members trying to finish the year around 72 as the goal. Okay. Uh, to put ourselves, set ourselves for success going into 20, 20 and 20, 21. So, uh, business is great. Growth is great. The market has been really good to us. Our team works really hard. I'm very fortunate. I've got a lot of great young leaders on our team that have just done a fantastic job and really have bought into what we do at eco plumbers and obviously the stuff we've learned through Nexstar over the years. Yeah. We all I and I know. So, um, it's probably always been that way. Let's that. So it's about, we are so much. When did you start into business? Tell me about that. I started as a up in the trades plumbing trade in 1997 right after I graduated high school. Okay. Um, you know, I was doing, I was working, uh, at value city furniture warehouse at, at high school and when I got out of high school, I was working second shift there. And, uh, I was offered a position to go basically as a helper apprentice at a, uh, you know, plumbing, construction company. Um, it'll make it around, I think it was$7 an hour at that time. And it was first shift, so that sounded awesome. And I took it and, uh, that's where the journey, I guess, started, had no idea, hadn't, didn't know anything about plumbing, never thought about plumbing at all in my life. Got It. So how'd you get into plumbing then? Cause you're working at a furniture warehouse? Just a guy that I knew. Um, my, my best friend, uh, growing up, uh, his brother-in-law worked for Ferguson and he said he knew a guy that was looking for some young guys to get into the trade and the plumbing. And so him and I both took that. So no college for, you know, college for me. Pretty cool. Uh, wasn't the best student in high school. My only means just seemed like just a, uh, a student of, of information today. Uh, I think it's something I've matured in and grew into as time went on and understood more about where I really wanted to go with life. And I don't know if I had all that direction at that time. So you weren't a good high school student? No, you weren't. Um, college bound, you're going to get a job and you're working on warehouses. Guy Said you knew somebody in the plumbing industry and looking for a young guy to work, that's pretty much how it went down. Uh, just went to work. And when I got there I just started to realize this is something I could pick up pretty quick. Plumbing, plumbing. Yeah, it's, I think it worked for me. Well because, uh, I think it allowed them to be somewhat creative because it was construction, plumbing, residential too. So you're out the plumbing the house. I could have started to really pick up on the code quickly. I could visualize you're doing new home plumbing, new home plumbing. Yeah. Construction. You are the guy doing the work, doing the work every day, digging under grounds. Uh, I worked for a company for awhile where my main focus for almost two years was basically digging undergrounds. So I was fortunate enough to basically have a shovel, uh, you know, a pic and a spud bar for about two years. Well through summer and winter. Did you like it? Uh, I did. I did like it. I, I, I think at that time my mindset was I'm getting paid to workout and get a tan in the summer. So I, that's how I literally worked through that at that time. So, uh, but then I started growing more into it, learn it, learned a lot more about plumbing in general. Uh, virtually around the age of 23, I took my state masters plumber's test and uh, got licensed as a happened license plumber. You took it for a reason. Yeah, I took it for reason. Cause the thing cause we wanted to start to think about, you know, is that a technician wanting to become entrepreneurial or manager, right? Kind of jumped into that thought. You know what? I can plumb good. I can plum better than most people. So why shouldn't I and in the housing, but why don't I own a plumbing company? This is, this is Michael Gerber's E-myth, isn't it? 100% Michael Gerber's the math. I read that book after I got started and I go, wow, that is, this is me right now. Myth being for those who haven't read it, the myth being that because you're good at the work of the business doesn't mean you're good at the work of running that business. And I learned that lesson and I can tell you that too, but we're going to talk about that. So what, tell me about this new construct. What was the name of the business? You started a precise mechanicals, precise mechanicals, start as precise plumbing, and then it turned into precise mechanicals, which had HPAC and electrical. You're going to do it all. We are, we're going to do it all, all new construction, all new construction, all residential, new construction, residential, new construction is your oyster wasn't, Oh yeah, it felt amazing. Tell me about how it grew and how much money you made. So we grew it to around almost$3 million. Um, it was mostly stole the plumbing side, but we, you know, we decided to get some HPAC and some electrical and we have bigger contracts mostly with, um, you know, some of the production builders. And, uh, so, you know, here we are running around doing tons of construction jobs, doing all these things. Uh, you know, uh, what year was this? This was, um, early two thousands. So you know, that mid, early two, that lot of houses going on, so perfect time to get into it. Right? Right. So that's what I thought. My buddy and I, we started the company, um, and uh, it was going well. I mean it was doing well overall. I mean, from what we could do with it. With our knowledge, we still had so much to learn, but we were just good plumbers that we just figured we'd figured out how to plow them in. India. Worked hard, worked a lot hours. Uh, so, you know, as this downturn came along, um, around 2006 we saw a little more of that and we started to slow down and obviously from the, not just that we, we probably didn't really understand business very well, so we weren't really sound with making financial decisions too. So we definitely learned some lessons there, but that downturn came and, uh, you know, we hit it, we felt it hard as the Syntex Centex homes was one of our bigger, uh, I don't, I don't think they can send Texas around anymore, but, uh, but they were one of our bigger ones. And, you know, as they started to downsize and we moved out, they moved down, we started losing contracts and we also weren't, you know, weren't cashflow strong enough to keep that and sustain that. And, uh, you know, unfortunately the lesson was, is we ended up losing the business and went bankrupt. Wow. So 2000, eight, 2000. Yeah. So right around the age of 27, 28 was for me, uh, bankrupt. Yep. Bankrupt, lost my house, lost my car. Uh, everything, everything I had and you know, still got, had to pace a cup, got stuck, a couple of tax, uh, issues. Obviously as a business, wraps up some tax things that we don't not get to pay. Those don't go away with a balance that will go away. So had to figure those out. And I'm, at that time my son was around three years old, so I had a three year old son and uh, it was, you know, Kinda time to think about starting over and what that looked like. How'd that feel? Um, and the moment it felt like probably one of the worst and most disappointing things to myself personally. Did you, did you, did you, did you, were you blaming the economy or did you, what did it, I don't know. I tried to reflect on that sometimes and I don't think I really did. I think there was a moment where I kind of realized that I kind of blamed that. I think I blame the fact that, uh, really just put all my eggs in one basket for the most part in a sense. Right. And then didn't really understand enough of, you know, how to really think about my business properly. I really never owned a business when I think about it afterwards, I didn't own a business. Right. I didn't know. And I mean it just as part of those lessons, I guess, right in life. So I realized I didn't own a business. I had a tax id with a business name, but I was really just a subcontractor at all these builders and really all it was only as good as they were or however much they allow me to bill for service or for more what they decided they wouldn't pay me. Uh, so I didn't ever, I really got a chance to learn, like what the operational apart maybe of moving around, but I didn't really get a chance to really know what it was like to really grow and understand business and marketing and, you know, building culture. So, uh, I, I definitely take a a hundred percent responsibility for it. And I think that was the biggest growing moment in that was taking full responsibility for what happened and not the market. And I think that's when I was able to really see it differently. Yeah. So what'd you do? You, did you, in fact, I hate to take you back there, but, uh, no, it's all just what did you, what were you thinking as you were thinking about fighting through it? Uh, how did you decide that it was finally like, this couldn't work anymore? I would definitely try to fight through it. So it wasn't like we just said, oh yeah, it's not, it wasn't really in my, not in my spirit to not fight, but I mean, uh, at some point the, you know, you just get forced into it, right? Like there was no snow, there was no, there was no plan B anymore. And, uh, as much as we wanted to keep trying to create, you know, many plans to try to make it work, uh, eventually it just was, there was no plan. And, you know, that's, that's what had to happen. Um, for, you know, everybody that was involved and ultimately for myself to restart, I would imagine. Because, you know, you were probably friendly, if not at least, you know, cordial with some of the other subcontractors building with you. It was that going on across Columbus and the other friends or masons or, yeah, I mean, I think there was definitely, I mean, what, we know what happened in 2007, so it's terrible. Right. And, uh, you know, it's, uh, I mean, it's part of life. It's part of the economy. Things happen like that now that we have to learn how to work through them. So yeah, it happened around the, around the area and, uh, but still, I mean, still should've been, should've been smarter with things. Okay. So you, you went bankrupt, you shut it down. Precision mechanicals was no more, no more did not exist. And what did you do then? Well, um, at that time had to go back and you know, I went to my mom's house and, uh, basically sleeping on her couch in her two bedroom apartment that she at and, uh, had my three year old son, uh, he come stay with me still on the weekends here, here, there with, I wasn't now working. Um, and I remember being on the couch with him and, uh, laying there and I just, uh, had told him like, I promise you this won't be your life. Yeah. That's what you said to him as a dad. Yeah. And uh, it'd be, it'd be a tough moment. Yeah. I mean it was, it was a moment of just kind of realizing that you gotta get up and you got to go. Yeah. Make it happen. Right. And, uh, so I think when I decided to do is I called some of the builders that I had worked for, cause that's what I knew still. Right. I said, hey, tell you what, if you're willing to give me an opportunity to do some of your work still moving forward, I'll warranty all the houses that we had done with the other company on my own time. I'm like, so, you know, which I still should, I mean, we did the work with the company, but obviously the company was gone bankrupt. No, navigated that. And uh, so, uh, we started doing that. Um, you know, I had made some agreements with that. I had some, you know, family that helped me get back on my feet and some friends, which I greatly appreciate. I had to borrow$50 from somebody cause I didn't even have$50 at this time. Uh, which was crazy. 2009. Yeah, 2000, uh, seven into 2008. Okay. So right in that time frame. So, okay. Uh, I had to do that to borrow 50 bucks to open up a bank account itself. Uh, also that don't think they really even let me open a bank account cause of all the stuff that happened, I had to work through all these other issues. Right, right. So borrow 50 bucks and, uh, got a bank account open and asked some builders if they would give me an opportunity to work. Why don't you go work for somebody else? I mean, that's a, that's a great question. I never collected unemployment when I went, when I wouldn't do it. And I mean, I could, I think there was a way I did have the ability to do that even know where it, Oh man, I'm good plumber. I was, I was a good plumber. I was pretty good residential service or residential plumber for sure. I know a lot of work had dried up, but still there's, it just wasn't, I think it wasn't in me to want to work for somebody else. I just didn't want to work for psych. I thought about that. Obviously it crossed my mind and I thought, well, I could obviously go get some employment, do something somewhere. Uh, but something in me just wouldn't let me do. Like, all right, so you really didn't, you, you never went on unemployment.[inaudible] you'd never even considered it. I mean, you know, I'm sure you did a few side jobs for folks just to kind of get some money, you know, go put a water heater in for buddy or something I suppose. But I went straight back to the builders that I had in store working 100% for them. No s no real side work, no other miscellaneous stuff. Right to plumbing. Went right back to writing right into the, Yup. Doing whatever remnant new construction was left in town. You are going to do it as a figure out a way to do some of it. Okay. But you are going to warranty your old work. Yeah. Start at what your plan was to back in or do go bankrupt in new construction and go back into new construction. No, my actual plan was to figure out what I did wrong the first time so I could do it better the second time. Okay. So part of that process was really trying to understand, okay, well what did I do wrong and really think about that. Um, and I obviously came more to the conclusion of like, well, first off, you need to start educating yourself more in these areas. You know, what are new opportunities in the market? Uh, you know, what is it, what is a service based company look like more than a construction based company. Right. You were thinking this back[inaudible] start thinking about that. And I started looking around online and reading about stuff. There was an organization called green plumbers in Australia. I'd found online, reached out to them, learn some more about some of the technology and training they had. I'd been part of that training program when they brought it over here in around 2009. I went through that. It kind of helped me innovate and think a little bit more. Um, obviously I started a new plumbing company, uh, you know, had my sisters called Phoenix plumbing at that time. Okay. For all the apparent reasons of Phoenix. Right. Uh, so yeah. Shouldn't see me like rise hang a fundraiser for the ashes. Right. So creating into a sim. Yeah. Well both real creative, right? No, but, uh, that, that's, that's where it came up, came up with. And, uh, you know, I got my, uh, my sister to help me get started with some of that, cause obviously my bankruptcy and then, uh, no, Brian, my service managers, uh, who's with us still today was part of that process. Um, so kinda got it up off the ground and got going. So, and so that's the, it started Phoenix. So we started at Phoenix and I'm trying to, in 2009 Phoenix anymore. Not Anymore. Yeah. So how long that run? Uh, just a few years and then started to really think about, well, you know, what does branding look like? Well, how can I brand this? What makes sense? What's, what do we, what's important to me? And, uh, you know, and that's when kind of came up with that name, uh, eco plumbers and really thought about, well, what can we do here from water, you know, paper, you know, going paperless, all these other things. So, uh, created that brand in 2009, uh, federally trademarked it to really own the name. So we could have it and use it anywhere cause I didn't want to get myself locked in any other positions, issues or positions. So, uh, went ahead and went about that process as I was still working, working really hard and to start a service company, uh, without any money was another challenge cause nobody knew who we were. Right. And didn't have any money to market. Right. Right. Would you do? So obviously in our area, Angie's list was big and Angie's list is still out there. So what we did was as a, I got on Angie's list as a, um, like just as a, I guess a consumer. Right. And I look through there and I was reading all the reviews and I also, I didn't know anything about, you know, pricing really for service. So, uh, s this sounds kind of ridiculous at the same time, but what I did was I read every single review on every plumber and then I wrote down the price to whatever a customer said that the market price was for them and that area. So I can understand that. And I had notebook papers and I just would write down water heater x drain cleaning, all these things. And I just read through all of that to get an idea through there, what the pricing was, what people were saying or paying for pricing. And then went back obviously and tried to balance that against what I was paying and what it was costing me to do. And then I reached out to Andrews less cause you know, the Angeles, you know, was uh, well free to be on but not free to advertise on. So, um, it was like, I think it was at that time was like 15 to$18,000 to, to sign up for a year. Um, I didn't have 15,$18,000. But lucky for me, they would finance me through it, right. Basically. So I said, all right, why not give it a shot, you know, sign me up for a year, I'll pay monthly payments and go. Um, and that's kinda where it started. So what w w when you say you've got these prices, is that what you decided to charge? Is that, what was that? That was all about, or what it was the idea to understand even what some of the service pricing was. Cause I didn't really know that because my background wasn't in service. I never worked for a service company, so I didn't have any idea of like, you know, service structure, pricing in general or even understand the market of pricing for it. So that was my only idea. I had to figure out where it was coming from. From pricing in general. Did you then take this notebook with these average prices? And so then when you installed a water heater, that's what you charged? Yeah, I mean I created my own price book from it front. I got that and I got an idea, well, an idea of what the market was. Uh, people are saying they're paying for it. And then I went back, obviously my supplier figured out this is what my water heater is about, where I need to be. And started working from there, from the cloud, just kind of facial tic. He doesn't know why right now, frank glower founder, he talks about how to arrive at pricing. You would if he's listening to this. Oh, absolutely. This is all part. I agree 100%. This is all part of the lesson learned. Right? Right. Awesome story. I had no idea. Frank listens to that. Like trust me now I look at, I was like, wow, now don't worry about the market prices, worry about you. But that's a whole different, I get it though. You got different times where you came from. Yeah. Because price was rather important in new construction. Plumbing, I would imagine. Yeah. Obviously everything was always price, price, price, price, price. So, uh, that was definitely a mindset to get over. And as time went on, we, we conquered that obviously. Now here we are today, but well let's talk, let's, we'll keep going on this journey. So your precision plumbing, you're, you got with Angie's list, they financed your yearly memberships, you start to get some call volume, is that right? Yeah. Started getting some calls here or there. We get a couple of calls a week. We were real excited. Uh, our number one focus then was just get reviews really because we wanted to get[inaudible] on it. And Andreas, so we're like, let's get a review. Let's make sure we get a review. Let's make sure we get everyone in the calls yourself too. Yeah, absolutely. I was wanting to serve as calls, you know, we were still doing some remodel construction, started doing service calls, right? Or We'd be on a construction job and then we'd leave and go run a service call or, you know, try to have one night or whatever we could do. Right. So, uh, to try to build that up. And our goal was just to get as many reviews as we can, um, and then really work on the branding. And uh, it really started taking off for us in that area. And I think what really happened for us in this area to be able to take off was our reviews started beating companies that had been in business a lot longer than us on Angie's list. And we were starting to climb fast in that area and it created social validation. To be honest. I feel like we created some social validation about us as a smaller company and we'd literally have people would be three or four of us that work there and people are like how big is this company? Are you guys a national company? Cause we had our branding, we finally dialed in a branding message and and clearly on our trucks and the way that we were able to operate from back capacity at a four or five shop was was allowing people to see us in a different way. Okay. Then what you would think of four or five shop? Yeah, operation would look like, all right let's talk.

Speaker 2: 21:30

So the, that's Kinda how the the company with this new company is birthed and then you a branded it eco plumbers and you started to grow through the social validation and reviews on Angie's list. And I imagine it was kind of a, a slow build. What were some of the, I was calm inflection points. These moments in this journey, if I'm going to talk from 2009 to maybe until recently, that that maybe some things that, that kind of breakthrough moments where you said to yourself, wow, I finally figured something out, or I, I was, I really finally realized that I was making a mistake and the mistake, was this anything jumped into your head?

Speaker 1: 22:06

Yeah, I mean, sometimes I wonder, like you don't realize them in the moment as much as you're just pushing debts, right. And you're just pushing through and when you're pushing through, uh, and they just kind of happen and sometimes you don't even realize that they're happening. Like, as you know, as we do training, I was like, hey, write down your Aha moments. Like, you know, I don't know if all the time I could say I had this Aha moment as much as I just kind of had it happen. Right. And then, yeah, I do. Yeah. Like, I better start doing this. This is an idea or this happened. Uh, you know, as you reflect through time, you look back, you kind of go, okay, well I made that move. And you know, that worked out and that didn't, uh, so, you know, there's a ton of different things I think, but the biggest one was still is just stay the course. But it was just stay focused, stay the course and realize that, you know, every day is you gotta get up and you gotta stay focused and you got to stay disciplined and you got to, you know, execute. It. Just got to stay disciplined. You gotta execute this man. Like if this is your plan and this is where you're going, don't lose foot. What is you fight?

Speaker 2: 23:08

Did you fight, uh, the ability to sleep in? Did you fight that you've earned, you worked hard yesterday so I don't have to work so hard today. What was what tell me about that? Or is that just you look back and said, wow, I came all this way because I kept my head down.

Speaker 1: 23:24

If it was that at first, I think it was weary that over time it was like, I just stayed focused on what the goal was and, and, uh, didn't lose focus of that. And I think just knowing that it would just grinded at every day, you know, you know, no sleep, whatever. It didn't, it didn't matter. Right. It just, you just kept going and going and going and going. Um, and then, you know, I think knowing that hard work still works. Yeah. Right. Right. When it's done right. Obviously[inaudible] so I think that hard work really was ingrained in me to stay after it and not to not to stop. Did it, did that early experience you have with the bankruptcy, did that, did that chase you? Absolutely. That's still chases me today. Yeah. I bet. I, I mean, I, I think it definitely chased me and kept me on my toes and it still does today. I mean, it was, it was a moment of pain, I think. And uh, don't want that again. I don't want that again. So, you know, and I want to live in your son, right? Yeah. You know all that. I could see it. Yeah, I can see that. You know that, that on some level, I hate to say that it was, it was great that it occurred, but it's kinda great that it occurred. I'm talking about the, the challenge you had in, yeah, no, I, I think like I mentioned before, earlier that would have happened. You were my age. I happened to me at the right time, the right place. God was able to, you know, work through it. I'm young enough, you know, still very ambitious and you know, didn't I made lost stuff but didn't lose everything like that. Polio, the fact of the matter is even at 27 you didn't have a lot. And I don't mean that negatively, but you just didn't have time to create a lot of wealth and you know, absolutely not locked to lose. And, and you had so much, so many decades to make it back. And I think you've, you did a pretty good job in that. So that's cool to have. How through these challenges that it creates, this, that focus you're talking about. Cause I would imagine that, that, that drove you and yeah, definitely healthy way. Yeah. No, I, I think it has and I mean, you know, like I said, it, this has been there and when I was driving around in the truck, it was kind of created this, I've read the book, think and grow rich, right? And so just kind of start stumbling across books out and looking, I'm thinking how do I get better, how to get better. And I think when I read that book at the moment, it was like kind of like, well, you've got your desires. So, you know, but it was really about trying to find like a number to keep yourself focused on was the first kind of step for me at that point. What was the number I created this number. I still have it today. It's 100 million. That's my number. It's been my number$100 million in revenue, um, as my number. And that's been keeping me going. And uh, even as driving around the truck by myself, I would think about that and you know, envision that and think about how we would, how could I get there? What do I need to know? What kind of skills do I need to learn, you know, listen to audio is a, that was the best time for me to listen to, you know, to listen to stuff was driving, um, in between or around. And uh, so that was super helpful for me to really have that and create that kind of mindset and that goal of that number. And from there I had just made me and maybe learn new skills and I still have a long ways to go to get that number. But you know, that's what Dr Advi if I get to 80 lease, I've had a target, had a goal, had something to work towards, um, in this area. My, you know, in this area, I'm talking business hall, so you know, so that's kept me, that kept me going and every person I've ever hired on or talked about is, I'd still tell them that's the number. So we all know what it is. 100 million, 100 million. You're at 12 right now? We're at 12 right now on the 12. We're, we've got a lot of work, but you know, I think things are going to pick up for us over the next couple of years with some other plans. But, uh, regardless of, you know, it at least gave me something to focus on to keep me moving and, and understanding. I started this, this latest conversation here with, with what are these inflection points? What did, uh, what were these moments of clarity when you realized to do something right? Maybe had done something wrong. And he said, what, what you really came out of this and reflecting back is you really had a focus. You had a dedication every day. You got up every day at the right time and gotten into work at the right time. If you had a good day, he didn't say, I bought the right to screw around tomorrow or I'm going to work hard tomorrow. I'm going gonna screw around today. And then I say, screw around. Just take a light schedule or whatever. You just have to just went to work. Yeah. I mean, I just think that the only way I was going to win was by, you know, we all have the same amount of time in life. Right? Yeah. So I think it was that time and you know, it's always, it's what do you do with your time? Right. So what did I do with my time? Well, I had to work cause I had to pay bills and you know, and grow. But at the same time my other time was I had to learn like I had to catch up, you know, you know, redeemed. So like, you know, the, the from redeem is like I had to redeem the time that I've missed out on education. I had to redeem it now. Okay. So like I had to do that. I had to put the hours that I had to put the time and I had to read, I had to watch audios, I had to listen to stuff. Like I had to, you know, you know, start to reach out and you know, to network. Obviously here, here I am at next, our last five years. Like I had to redeem that. Like, I didn't have that, I didn't do it and I didn't invest in those areas early enough. So, you know, I had to redeem that time and that time had to be spent then and still now to get there. That's interesting cause you, you, you, there was, uh, a sense of not anxiety but of, uh, urgency on your part to catch up. Yeah. You know, some reason, right? Even though you're still young guy. Right. But still, I get it though. I mean my goal was always, you know, I had in my mind always by the time I was 40 to, you know, be a millionaire and I was like, I got at that was always plugged in my head too. So I was like, I, you know, run in. Where did these numbers come from? I did just in my own head. I don't know where they came from that just thinking go rich. Did they come from some of this? Some of it. I mean a lot of it came from thinking grow rich was powerful book for me up read probably about six times and parts here and there. And, um, I think it's just myself, like wanting to set goals for some areas. Yeah. You know, and, and they're not all just like these money targets, but they were the first things to help me start to pursue, you know, and I, there's a lot of things you've got to do inside of too, you know, to build wealth and, you know, hit money goals, take care of other people. And you know, I read, I ran into a Earl Nightingale along the way to very, I don't know if you're familiar through Earl Nightingale news and I, this really stuck with me and still on the wall and the buildings are rewards in life and our exact proportion to our contribution, our service. So like what we give is what we get, right? Yeah. Same thing. And in the old theories with when I read, think and grow rich was like, well that's fine. Get a number, but now also identify what are you going to give

Speaker 2: 30:11

to get to that number?[inaudible] right. So you got to give something to be able to receive. And, uh, no, I think those have kind of guided me in a little bit and I'm not, yeah,

Speaker 1: 30:22

perfect. I still have a lot of things to learn and mess some things up like everybody. But I think those have guided me a little bit. Those, those things.

Speaker 2: 30:29

That's so cool. What, you know, cause I want to say this, Aaron, our art industry has been full of people that worked hard generations worked hard. Oh absolutely. That is if you had to put a descriptor on the tradesman of your, it would be hardworking guys and women. Absolutely. And I've heard it but, but I also heard guys worked their whole life and didn't at the end of their career had an asset sale. You know, they didn't create wealth. Right. So you worked hard, but what were some of the key things that, that you learned other than working hard in this focus, uh, you, you started to double down on education. Um, think about the way you ran your company early in precision or eco plumbers life. Where were some of the, the key breakthrough moments in that business where you started to think different versus just a hardworking plumber? Cause the world's follows. Well, I, well I think one thing I realized was, is that it didn't really just run a plumbing company. Um, and I learned in my office as heard me say this before the team is that I don't really run a plumbing company. We run a, you know, a marketing company. We brought a delivery company, a inventory story

Speaker 1: 31:51

company and inventory company. We run, you know, all these other companies aside of this plumbing company. And I think I had to start to realize that like all these other things are happening inside this company. Instead of just taking myself as I'm a plumbing company or I'm a service plumbing company. Well we're more than just that. And that's the identity that the public might see us as or we see ourselves as. But the reality is there are so many more parts and moving pieces inside it to, I started to really understand that, you know, if I have a marketing team than I need to understand like how it is to run a marketing basically company inside. If we have operations and you know, inventory and flea, I need to understand what, you know, supply chain management and stuff. Think about right. Yeah. So it was just started breaking these pieces apart inside and realizing that I had to understand those more and learn some of those and then trying to get the right people in the right places to help do that, that are, you know, hardworking people that were motivated and um, it to become part of the team and contribute and I could learn from them as much as they could learn from me. That's so cool. Cause I, you're right, because what is different from the hardworking trades admin of your, in what I just heard is they kept endeavoring to get great at better at the trade, right? The trade of plumbing, trade of HVC, electrical. Right. But they didn't endeavor, and I'm not blaming them, but they didn't become great at running a call center, you know? Right up. Great at running the inventory, great at running, you know, the, the fleet, all the things you just talked about. There's really, if you said, we gotta get, we gotta have excellence across the business. So you focused on some disciplines in the business that weren't plumbing. Right, exactly. Yeah. Just started really thinking about all the other areas.[inaudible] that's about it. I think if, to answer your question of why the previous generations or maybe still today, it was, that's it. What you just had, I mean, you know Jackie, well, no, it's just it, you articulated quite well though, right? We always say, you gotta work on the business. What does that mean? Well, I, another way of saying that is you got six to eight different kinds of companies within your business and you got to get excellent at all of them, right? Absolutely. You got to put the right people now in place to say, look, we want to run an extraordinary marketing firm or an extraordinary sales organization and extraordinary warranty service organization. All of this has got to be great, right? Yeah, absolutely. And we're still, we're still learning that and identifying that for me was the, was a powerful moment okay. To really say, wow, this is what's really going on. And then, you know, and then start to get, you know, great people in the positions to help do, we'll talk about that and what does that mean? Great people, I hear that all the time. Tell me what it means to you. Great people is really, you know, you know, I've heard these things, you know, we, you know, you tried to create these core values and uh, your missions and the stuff like that is a, and have them up, but really identifying that people that really do believe in that want to work with you. Uh, still something we're still learning and working through. But it's really just getting people that believe in the mission that you're doing. Right? And a million, there's 100 million, 100 million or the mission and what the company does every day, how it works, how it operates and you know, really driving that, that, that mission as much as possible and getting in front of them as much as you can with that. Um, it's something that I think we've even learned more over the last year, a two year and a half as you've seen even in our peer group. But I think we've always had our vision and mission, uh, in the company, uh, but haven't really has always articulated it very well to everybody on a regular basis. Come out once a year and be like, Hey, here's our annual mission and that's what we're doing. And then now we've really got into really making sure everybody understands that we've worked hard, kinda through understanding some of our core values as a company. Um, and then making sure everybody knows where we want to go like that. Everybody sees that every day, understands whether we won or lost the day. And I think those are things that we've picked up through, through the network and next door. There are things that you guys have, uh, taught us and things that we've, you know, experienced and learned on our own. And I think by having that as created a culture of people that want to be there, want to be part of it, want to grow. Uh, we've been fortunate enough, pretty much all of our frontline managers that we have today, all, uh, were promoted within the company. So it's, you know, so you got a promotion from within and thing. Yeah, we, we love to, if we can, if they're the right people for certain positions, obviously you're not going to probably promote call center into us, to the CFO, but you know, but at the same time within call center, Call Center manager or lead or you know, versed in dispatch and areas like giving those opportunities to them. And uh, uh, you met, you met our team, great people, great people, talented team, you know, young, hungry, dedicated

Speaker 2: 36:33

for what you said at your meeting, which is so cool. And I've heard this at one of the peer group one at the time, which I thought was great. So you are introducing your business to the people that have visited. And you said there's two things guys that went, yeah, Willie opened your ideas was so excited to hear what you've got to tell us. The first thing you said was that I don't have an interest right now in another trade, so if you're going to go away and recommend HPAC or electrical right now, that's just not what I want to accomplish. So it was nice that you kind of knew who you were, what you wanted to grow, but then you also said, I really want you to look at my team and if you got recommendations on how they can get better, we're all ears. But she also said that that I don't want to hear that one of these people should go, you know, you, you just said, I'm committed to, to grow in these folks.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Well first of all, and there wasn't anybody you're protecting by the way, your good teams. So that that wouldn't have come out anyway. But the fact that you set it up front was kind of, to me like a one that you had worked really hard to create a team that was worthy of having you say that, but also kind of a commitment to growing them because so so often at peer groups it's easy to say is your role in as an owner from outside and you're kind of clinical, it's like dropping a bomb from 30,000 feet, you know, it's easy to do cause you, you just say you run, you hit and run, right. Yeah. Is this person should go or that person's in the wrong seat or you know, that kind of deal. And I thought it was really cool. You know, your pre, I don't think your people heard it, but I liked it. Yeah. I mean I appreciate that Jack. No, I mean I think one was a talked about really focused and disciplined to me was just like if I feel like if we get another trade, at least where we are today, um, you know, I, I just, I think it would throw us off course. Yeah. I think we tried to add it and traits from what I can tell, a lot of people who's super successful do great. I think sometimes we think about adding in trades before. We're actually really great at the one we're already doing. I can't agree more. I agree. And I think adding multiple trades is a great way to streamline revenues and expand market and all that advantage of the same customer. All of them. There's all the stuff that we all know around. Yeah, right. It's just when, yeah. And I just, you know, I just don't think that we're ready when we know that we could be around 23 million in plumbing alone, right. Running at, you know, our good allergens margins that we want. And if we feel like the next step is to add HVHC or electrical or whatever into that, then we'll be ready. But once we feel like we have 15% of the market and we're doing it well and we're staying after it, then, then that's when we look at wanting to do it. Um, actually I think, I think Jack Guard, we have, I'm wrong here. Maybe. Did you mention something about that in your book at one point. Okay. And I think, I think it's more books, more popular, the think and grow rich. It's a joke. I remember I did in your book and I did. I think I had the focus that did that stuff. And I remember reading your book and you saying that and it was like, yeah, no I totally, I see it. And and I think that helped keep me thinking the same way more. So I just want to get it out there at the peer group. Like Hey I get it. Anybody cause I add another trade. Right. I feel like that's easy, you know, to easy things he's saying. It's easy to say until you try to do it. And I hear this all the time. I was talking to a gentleman here that added plumbing and he was telling me his struggle and what the plumbing Trey from HPAC to plumbing, electrical and you can hear it all the time across all the channels from everybody. So right now we just want to do that. Well, like inside of plumbing into, I think it was one of the things I realized too is like, we think of plumbing, but then we don't really think about plumbing. It's like there's, there's no plumbing service. There's the drains, there's the sewer excavation, there's water treatment. Um, you know, there's re re-piping and placement and then the repairs. So it's like there's almost six things going on inside of plumbing already, if not more. If you want to break it out into more categories, it's going to, it's easier to jump there then way over here. Right. So like, uh, so we know in all those six kinda areas of plumbing and we still have a lot to do. Yeah. So we want to focus there. And then I think to follow up the rest of your statement there, I was like, yeah, no, the team is great. They've, they've been committed to us and they've worked hard and uh, I'm not a perfect person, so I've got a lot to learn. And they did too. And we committed to working and learning together. Like I tried to share with them, I was like, I've never ran a$12 million company before, so I'm learning along with you. We're all learning this together every day. So, uh, I think that was the commitment to make sure that, you know, it's e it could be easier to get rid of somebody if there's a blind spot. Obviously we want to know, but it's, it's better if they can tell us how can we help improve this person. Yeah. And I think that's what we try to look forward and we're still learning that, cause I sometimes can fall into the trap of thinking they're not, this person's not doing this. Look, let's move them out. And sometimes you have to, we understand. I get that. But you know, what did we go? Where did we fall short first? Let me, let me say that I'm going to qualify what I said because I, it was, it was impressive to me, but I've heard that in others, other environments that it wasn't so impressive and want to hear it in other environments when the business isn't doing well. Right. When the businesses underperforming. And, uh, you know, when that's happening, no one's safe and no one should be safe. That owner that, but your business was operating at a high level. I mean it was a very well run business. I mean it was clear from the income statement, the balance sheet, it was in great shape from what I saw walking into it. And it's reading your peer group manuals like well this is a well-constructed well run business. Right? So it felt, you know, to me it was like, yeah, I get why, why you'd say that, you know, let's just save everybody's time here too. So let's not go there now. It won't be here as you guys craft plans on day two, it's not just don't hit me with this. You'll be very disappointing if these two things come back. Right. Cause I'm not going to do it cause we're not doing it. So yeah, I agree though. Try to just create some directions. So very proud of the team obviously. And I will say this with the Peer Group we had, we got a lot of great feedback. We enjoyed it. Obviously I got a chance to really connect with you more when we've talked a few more times since then. So, uh, that was awesome. Uh, Jim, our coach has been great. Everybody has shared great stuff with us there. I think the biggest takeaway for us for the peer group was all the work up to the peer group and how close it helped our team come together, really learn from each other and everybody get out of their comfort zone. Um, so that was powerful in its own know and I think it really made all of our team and managers and people grow, do presentations, think about things differently. Um, brought us all really close together. Um, it actually helped our team become stronger. Uh, I believe so if anybody's looking at these peer groups as like this get tore apart cause that happens sometimes, but, and I can understand it is like should be thinking about as an opportunity to build their team closer together and love to see more people sign up for peer groups that they can. Yeah. Well yours was a great one and that's, that's, that's great. Yeah. Well thanks man. I can comment on that for sure. So what else, what happened with, tell me since you joined Nexstar you joined in what year? Uh, what five, about five years ago it was the Philadelphia, uh, Philadelphia super beating 2016 wasn't that I didn't even know. I don't remember exactly. I think that's right. Four or five years ago. But the Philadelphia super meeting was our first event we went to. Okay. Um, as a guest, what happened? The, you know, this isn't about trumpeting next to our sworn, but you were, where was your business when you joined? What signs? On 3 million. Okay, so now you're running at 12. Yeah. You've done a really nice job. That's big growth. Um, why, why did we join next doll? Why is it happened? What's happened since then that has made it I for X in five years? Well, again, I think it was everybody clearly understanding that we wanted to go that direction and focusing in a direction of growth. Um, I think, let me, let me say this though. When we, we, we were, I was pursuing and looking for something and think, thinking, and I gotta think of the male for next door. So I said, cool. What, why not at this point? Let me go check this out, see what's going on. Cause I'm already in this growth mindset. And when we went there, we, it was great, uh, you know, talk to Lisa and she was awesome right out the gate. So obviously, but, uh, we went there and we'd learned and learned a lot of stuff and it really made me think about, you know, what does it like to have network? I talked to some people, uh, that were, they're just not at the training events but just stuff and realize, wow, there's great people doing great things here and really like to tap into that knowledge. And uh, I think when we went back and I think I, when we went back, mine was y we are graduating high school probably right now as I explained it to the team that we had been a smaller team. So w w we'll just think of this way. We graduated high school where we are right now and next year is going to college for us. And I think that's the approach we need to take and we need to find ways to improve training and invest in our people and make sure we're doing that. So I think the biggest part of our growth has been investing in our people. So that's, so what's happened in the five years is that you've used nexstar train to invest in your people. It's absolutely cause I started training for next. I think it's piece of it. It's a big piece of it. And obviously next our training can't now take it back and hold you accountable to getting it done. But I think all the concepts to training the programs, uh, the, the staff and team members, they love going to the training. It gives them a new outlook on stuff. Right? So I believe that investing in the people has been probably one of the biggest reasons why. And then helps buy into the culture, helps them understand things and they just not getting the message pounded out on one way from their direct manager or myself. Right? Yeah. So that's been probably one of the most powerful things is, is the invest in your people through Nexstar with the training and other training things too. But that one and the clear vision, right? Just clear vision. We always try to share, share everybody in our three year, we're always trying to work towards a three year plan, you know, similar to the eos process, right. A three year plan and then bring it down and then constantly be working towards that. So, you know, I think that's important and they're not, um, they're not educating everybody through KPIs and numbers, which would come back to, I guess some of the heart of next door at the beginning. Right, right. Is that really getting everybody to understand the numbers and what they mean and how can we move the needle of those properly? Yeah. Very cool. I think, you know, my, my, my, my EBITDA number I want, well, I know so well. Well, I'll let you know if we get there. Yeah. I don't know if I know that, but, uh, it's okay. It's all right. I can just do the math. I can do that on$100 million. And I kind of figured out if you just hold your margin where it is, that's a lot of money. Just letting you know. That's pretty good. Well Aaron, you've done a great job. Congratulations. Well, any final thoughts? Anything you'd like to share? Just a with the listeners out there, these are members, these are non members. This is just mostly industry folks. Anything like this year. I mean I think it just goes down to, it's just, you know, clearly for me I would just say, you know, I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn and uh, but I mean I think if you're feeling like where, where can you go? It's just like get a target, put that out in front of you and just, you know, get to work and use all the resources that, that are available. Cause it's all out there. It's available to all of us. Just can we get it, can we get the knowledge? And I think a lot of us have the knowledge and even in the service manager training as here in today is like, you know, just asking good questions because a lot of times people have the knowledge or there's some stuff you don't know, but have the knowledge, you just don't let that knowledge go to waste. I guess it's just get action on it. Right. And just pursue, pursue it, go after it. Dream was don't a service company. Um, and I'm, I'm doing that in a store, have a long way to go, but I think it's just stay focused, stay the course, stay disciplined and you know, you'll get there over time. And, and uh, I guess just paying those dues is just, it just takes time. Sometimes rights to the switch a factor. It just takes time. But um, and then you, and then, you know, you're obviously people are next door. It's like use the training, like the on-sites to training programs. It's amazing business coaches, business coaches. And then all of a sudden, uh, I want, you know, obviously I'm just fortunate enough to be the leader. Like they're the ones doing, I'm sitting here in an office with you right now while they are doing right work. Right. Not that what we don't do is work for the company, what you're saying, but you know, they're the ones doing this stuff right now. Like, yeah, you know, we have people here and St Paul are training with people in Baltimore right now in training. And then we have people working right on the front line today doing stuff like that. And it's kind of, it is kind of, it's pretty cool to think of where we were and where he came from to where we are today. And just think of what, what your business is doing right now. It's serving a lot of customers in Columbus and you're investing in your people right now in two different cities at the same time. Yep. Great training going on there. They're going to come back and they're, it'd be different people when they walk back and they're going to be jazzed up, excited, a new ideas, creativity. They love that people come back and bring ideas and energy to help us become better and collaborate. So, yeah. Um, so I just thank everybody at the company, uh, Eco Plumbers, I think any, you know, people that have supportive family, you know, uh, I love lunches, whatever, all that good stuff. Right? So anyways, I just want to say a good, it's a, it's cool. That's just a, it's a cool experience to be through. So what I want to say on editorialize for a minute, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take over the mic for a second here and you've done a great job and I, I blocked out of your peer group. So impressed and, and, uh, you know, next door to

Speaker 2: 49:49

do your why we do what we do here at Nexstar your company, you personally is what makes this job fun. Cause that's, you know, you're, you've got a lot of gratitude in your life. You, you actually put into practice that what you learn. So yeah, when you're talking to Aaron and you're talking to the folks that, uh, your business, you know, it's going to go to good work. You know, it's not, it's not fallen on deaf ears, you know, and that makes your work fun. So thank you for that. I mean you really, you're inspiring guy. I had worked for you. I'm not interviewing, but I would have would cause, you know, cause here's the thing, let me know when you're techstar. No, I won't be done at door. I can tell you that.

Speaker 1: 50:28

So I have no doubt this is bad. Your passion, this has been my life's work. I, I'm have to do it.

Speaker 2: 50:32

I'm happy to do it. Um, no. The, the idea of, you know, a great leader does have vision and they share that vision and uh, a great leader, a great vision is something that includes more than just what the owner wants. It's an and it involves including other people in that vision. There's$100 million division and I know what you do. It's just not about what you want to make. Cause I don't think that's what drives you. I think it's, you want to build something special and you want to build something special for people in your business and have them feel the same sense of, of ownership and connection and pride that you want to feel right. That whole thing. Absolutely. And you know, without, I gotta tell you that, that, that for me, the key to motivating the staff and they're going to believe this, the key to for me and motivating is I've got to believe tomorrow's going to be better than today. The minute you think that's it. And it's funny if you'd have told me 27 years ago that I'd be where I am doing what I'm doing, make them want to Macon and Jack, will you be happy from that day forward? If, if I can guarantee you that I, Oh yes, of course I would, but I'm a liar. It's not the way it is. Does that make sense? 100% makes sense. And that's the key to a motivating environment in a business. Right? And I see that with you. And the thing that it's motivating too, and I'm going to editorialize some more, is that you just don't talk about it. You know, you don't sit here and, and big, you don't. If you, you know, big dreams without action is just hallucination, right. You know, but you actually get to work every day. You know, you wanted to do some coaching with me, um, after your peer group. And I said No. I said, why don't we do this? I thought you know what? I want to test him. I want to see Phil do Friday afternoons. Cause I know as a business coach a lot of times it's tough to get an owner in their office Friday afternoon.[inaudible]

Speaker 1: 52:11

oh, so I've got a test. I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that. Right. It's also a time of the week that I have more time. Okay. Right. So my words are you, you tell me when you're available and I'll make it nice. Let's do three o'clock yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:22

Time Center. Yeah. On Friday afternoon, see what, how it works. It wasn't really a test as it might my s my schedule is open then I thought to myself, cause I remember as a business coach is it's not hard to get somebody in the office Monday morning or Tuesday morning. Friday afternoon you set an appointment. A lot of those start to fall out. Aaron. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That makes sense. And you know guys, I can't make it Friday afternoon. What's going on Friday afternoon? I wonder, I wonder what's happening Friday afternoon. I'm a suspicious guy by nature. I feel that they're playing golf or something like that. Right? Well I don't play golf so worry about that. I don't mean that negatively because I do, but, but no, that, that, that's inspiring too because a big part of leadership is presence. It's watching your actions every day and saying, okay, um, that's inspiring to me and it's a good example for me. So, well done man. I appreciate it. Thanks. And thanks for challenging beyond those one-on-ones. A been great. Really helped me think about my one on ones are very glad they're doing them well and we're supposed to talk tomorrow about that, that we are there. I look forward to that. All right. Well, Hey, thank you again here, and I know you gotta get back into class here and observe and I appreciate you spending just over 53 minutes with me, so thank you so very much for what you're doing and thank you all for listening to this very cool, very awesome edition of Leadership Lounges of Jack Tester

Speaker 3: 53:43

with Mr Aaron Gaynor. If you don't, we'll catch you next time. Thanks so much.