Ep 157 - "Owner's Chat, With Kevin and Coral"

0:00 Okay. Hello. Hey, dude. That's the whole... Well, that's a deep subject for dad jokes. Oh, man, dude. I feel like there's this tug of war happening inside me where on the one hand, there's the ambitious, driven, achiever part of me that's like, let's get as much... I mean, we've onboarded a couple of clients just in the last few days. We've got a few more clients that yes, let's just finish really strong, you know? And then there's this other part of me that's like, I could pack my bag and leave for Christmas vacation. Like right now. Like this afternoon. Yeah. You know? And I am not, I'm not even going to pull back the punch.

0:43 I'm dragging ass. Oh, 2024. I'm headed to the gym after this because it's my only hope of like staying in gear is staying in the gym. Yeah. So here we are. This is actually a really great show. So last year, in fact, I remember we were sitting in a barbecue restaurant and you and I had our iPads out and we were basically mapping out an editorial calendar for this year. Where was that? I don't know. It might have been Texas. I don't know. Yeah, I think it might have been Texas. We were sitting in a barbecue joint and just thinking through topics. And this was one of the things was, hey, let's get more owners. Yeah. Like owner-operators on to just talk about their story. Again, kind of along these lines of so many of us feel so alone lots of the time.

1:24 Yeah. That our problems are limited to us. Everybody else is executing better except for the people we quietly make fun of, our competitors. But everybody else has it all figured out, making more profit, making more top line, succeeding more than we are. And we can just get stuck sometimes in that negative self-critical headspace. And when we just hear other people's stories, like, oh, shoot, well, they kind of languished in that stage for a while, or they struggled to get from here to there too. Okay, I'm not alone. Yeah. Because so often the game of entrepreneurship is just hanging in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not quitting when it's hard and it's disappointing. It's discouraging. It's frustrating. And so I just, I find so much inspiration in other people's stories.

2:06 It helps me keep going and be like, oh, no, no, no. I know this happens. I know people struggle with this. So today is one of those owner stories. We got introduced to Coral and Kevin. They own a one Tom plumber franchise in Melbourne, Florida. And we got introduced to them by Cameron Hensley. Mm-hmm. I was having a chat with him about something else entirely. He's like, hey, do you guys ever like to have owners on your podcast? I was like, hell yes, we do. We've done it like once. And yes, we want more. I think Julie Roberts was the last big time, super successful ServPro owner. She and her husband. So yeah, it was just a quick yes. He introduced me to Kevin and Coral. I had a phone conversation with them two or three days ago.

2:48 And I'm like, oh my gosh, these guys are a hoot. Yeah, well, technically it'll be like five weeks ago by the time you hear this show. This is true. This is true. There's always that lag time. But they're the real deal. They're two and a half years into their business. They haven't been doing this for decades. This is the very first business that they've owned. And they have a rich background in the restoration industry that I think a lot of people are going to relate to. And their desire is... Oh my gosh. And they'd been sort of nurturing this desire to own a business for a while. They had another opportunity that was presented with them beforehand that they decided not to take. All of this, I think, is going to amount to a story that many people listening, you guys can relate to their story.

3:29 They may be a few steps ahead of you where you're at, or maybe a few steps behind you. But in any case, it was a real fun conversation. So yeah, Coral comes out swinging. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Listen, if you got a problem with F bombs, like this may not, you may start by turning the volume down low and then you can turn it back up. But oral just, she break that F barrier right out of the gate. That's right. So better her to break that barrier than us. Right. We're trying to implement the cussing jar here at floodlight and we haven't had a ton of success yet. It's fucking painful. Brandon. All right. The problem there. All his fault. Right. All right. All right. Let's get going. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head Heart and Boots podcast?

4:11 I can't tell you that react how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you're not already following, please do so. And ultimately share, right? The coolest currency that we have in terms of supporting this is share it with a friend, share it with somebody, a colleague, a peer, one of your downline team members. Let them be able to take advantage of the information you're already leveraging in your favor.

4:54 And finally, guys, if you hear a show that really moves you, that really moves the needle, will you please leave us a review? Those five-star reviews help Right on. And listen, if you're trying to grow your business, you might consider checking out Floodlight's Business Opportunity Audit. It's free. We provide it at no charge. It's actually what we use to assess new clients as they come in. It's 110 point assessment for your business. And we've now decided to give access to the general public for it. So go and take our business opportunity audit at floodlightgrp.com. It's going to help you identify the biggest gaps and opportunities in your business right now. And at the end, it'll assign you a health score to let you know exactly where your business stands right now.

5:36 So go check it out, floodlightgrp.com forward slash audit and take the BOA. It's a great way to get a pulse on your business. All right. Well, another episode of Head Heart Boots. This is another of what we're calling owner stories. That's right. Yeah. We decided, well, really latter part of last year, this is something we want to do more of this year. You and I were kind of mapping out different topics and stuff for the podcast. Well, it'd kind of be really cool to have owners of companies to come talk about their story. And then Cameron Hensley from One Tom Plummer, I was in a conversation with him and he's like, hey, by the way, would you ever want to talk to any owners? Yeah. I'm like, heck yes. He's like, well, I have two that like you would have fun talking to. And so here we are today.

6:17 Coral and Kevin have joined us. They own a one-time plumber. They are not married, which was the misconception I had before we first talked. And they didn't say so at the beginning of the call. And I'm like, God, are they married? They're talking kind of like they might be, but not really. That's what happens when you own business. That's when your business partners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, so Coral and Kevin have their own spouses that are not on the call today. But we just thought it'd be really fun to hear about their story, kind of coming up in their careers, how they ended up partnering. Because many people that are listening to this are thinking about they want to start their own company at some point. Maybe they're working for another restoration company. They're like, I want my own. And so I think it'll be really inspiring for them to hear how you guys came to this and what your experience has been so far with running the One Tom and so forth.

7:01 So Coral, I'm going to start with you. Give us kind of the nutshell version of where did you come from? How did you get into One Tom? What's your background in the restoration industry? Yeah, absolutely. So I got into the industry when I was 19, worked in a various different businesses, some local, some corporate, worked for a big rental company guy and ultimately landed at a reconstruction company, which is where I met Kevin. My husband actually was already working there. They were a past client of mine when I did equipment rental and Kevin was actually my husband's boss. And we used to always complain about Kevin and would basically call him fucking Kevin.

7:42 The day I met him. Yeah. The day I quote unquote met him for the first time, I walked up to him at the printer and I said, hey, my name's Coral. And I heard I'm probably not going to fucking like you. And he's like, cool. I'm probably not going to like you either. And I was like, cool. I'm glad we got that figured out now. And the next day, the ownership actually put us in a vehicle and sent us down to South Florida to go look at a project. And so we were in the car for about three hours together. And by the time that car ride ended, we kind of looked over at each other and we're like, did we just become best friends?

8:22 And the rest was kind of history. So him and I started working together on various projects for that company. And Kevin really did a good job of developing kind of the thoughts and ideas and skills that I had. But he was able to develop them in a way that was just much more beneficial to the mission. And so we just really connected and we were very, very successful in a lot of the jobs we did. We really prided ourselves on getting paid quickly, which, as everybody knows in this industry, is something that's very hard to do. And we always talked about how we wanted to own a business. And it was kind of a joke for a while. And somebody had come to us and said, hey, you know, we have an opportunity that you may be interested in.

9:10 And we were kind of at the time and it didn't really work out. But that was kind of the start of realizing that us owning a business was real. Right. Like we could actually do that. Yeah. And we were up at Chuck DeWald's class. Kevin and I had spent a lot of time up there because we had completely reworked the way that we dry buildings because of Chuck and Chris and his entire team. And Rocky was up there sponsoring the dinner. And I asked Chuck to introduce us. to Rocky and he did. And we all kind of sat there and started chitchatting and they looked over at us and they were like, can you guys shut the fuck up? We're trying to start dinner. Like, seriously, like shut up.

9:50 And then we just, we all instantly became best friends and we were really looking for something to kind of add to the current business that we were at, even though we were employees. And so we brought the idea originally to the ownership of where we worked. And we thought it was a great idea. We thought it was a way to continue to have at-home restoration business. And I will never forget the feeling leaving that room. But they laughed us out of the room. They were like, you want to you guys want to start a pink plumbing company? Like, are you kidding me? And I just remember walking back to my office and feeling like, man, you know, like I just suck, you know, and this is such a shitty idea.

10:34 And I called Rocky a couple days later and I said, hey, you know, I just wanted to thank you for your time. And I really appreciate it. And we have a lot of autonomy in what we do, but we don't own the business and they don't want to move forward with us. So thank you so much. but we're going to have to decline and maybe one day. And he said, well, what do you mean maybe one day? And I said, well, I'd love to own a business, Rocky, but you know, and he goes, well, what do you mean, you know? And I said, well, I mean, I'm just an employee. I can't own a business. And he's like, why not? And I said, oh, I don't know, maybe money. And he's like, Coral. Come on. Money is the easiest thing to find. He's like, you can own a business. I guarantee it. And it was those words that kind of changed everything for us.

11:16 And I called Kevin and I was like, we're going to be fucking plumbers, dude. And I didn't, I talked, there's a Christmas party that we had and I kind of talk about this in it, but you know, I didn't know if it was profitable. I didn't know if it was good. I just knew it was pink and I wanted to be a part of it, you know? Okay. All right. I got to stop you there, Coral. This is great. You've got a gift for Gab. It's awesome. I want to pivot over to Kevin. Then I want to dig into this a little bit more. Kevin, walk us back. Obviously, you and Coral met at some point working at this other company and hit it off and ended up collaborating a lot, working together on staff. But what were you doing before this? What was kind of your intro into the industry?

11:58 So the company that we worked for was a planned renovations, specializing in senior living, but they kind of did everything all, you know, commercial finishes, upgrades typically. So I started with them as a, basically like a foreman or supervisor running individual jobs. I was responsible for my one job, worked my way up to where I had a group of project managers that I was responsible for working. in a very large segment of their business, roughly half. And as a part of the plan of innovations that they did, another service that they offered was restoration. And it was like restoration as a general contractor. So it was a little bit different than being like, they were construction first, restoration second, which is a little bit different than most of the industry.

12:43 When they brought Coral on, Coral had experience in the large loss segment. She had a very good process as far as how to do TNM and the paperwork and all the things that were involved with that. That wasn't anything that we had ever been exposed to. We were doing commercial restoration, basically by hiring a restoration company, subbing it out to them, collecting the 10 in 10 and the restoration company doing the rest of it. Coral came in and so now it was time to self-perform. The first job that we did, we go out there. I'm going out there as support from the construction basis. Coral is out there to obviously run the show. She yells at me a bunch and tells me how I screwed everything up. And then I start to learn how T&M works and I look at it and go, hmm. The finance background in me goes, well, we really make some money doing this, especially the way that we do things.

13:24 And so it was a very natural connection of me on the building side, managing the building piece of it and making sure that what we were taking out, we were setting up to put back together in an efficient way that was good for the customer. And then Coral on the other side, managing the restoration processes and techniques and all of the back end because she's a savant when it comes to the back end of all these things. And so then the more we work together, the more that I then... I'm a production guy. And I like the parts and pieces. I'm an analytical guy. So the second that I could figure out, Hey, this is super cool to figure out how to drive building and to do it the best way possible. So then I started taking on more and more of that where Coral was obviously the face and the client relations because a customer would come to me and be like, What do you know?

14:05 I'm driving the building. And she'd be like, You smack me in the back of the head and say, Shut up and get out of the way. And she'd go talk to him and fix whatever I had just screwed up. So... That's how we came to collaborate. And then as we were... There was always talk, as there is any employees of that, like, hey, we'd love to do our own thing one day. I had thought for a long time that it would be being a general contractor. And then as the restoration piece of that business started to develop, I fell in love with it. And Coral and I were... We were like a team within that business of that. We had that whole segment of the business. We were in charge of it, soup to nuts. Yeah. And so we had always talked about like, gosh, it would be great to just do this on our own because we were given a lot of autonomy, but there were obviously some strings attached and some things that we couldn't do and things that we would have probably done differently.

14:51 And so the only way to do that is to kind of go hang your own sign and go to work. It sounds like you guys were confronted with an opportunity. Can you guys talk a little bit about that? You mentioned there was an earlier opportunity to either buy into a business or buy a business and you kind of glossed over that. It didn't work out. Can you go into that a little bit? What was the opportunity you ended up walking away from? So we were at an industry event and had met somebody at a dinner. It was really a chance encounter. A gentleman just sat down next to me and we struck it off, started to have a conversation, told him what I was doing. He was sharing about his business. He was in a place in his business where he was trying to take it to the next level. He was kind of looking for somebody who was of the caliber of Coral and myself, where we were really accustomed to doing large scale commercial projects and being really successful at it.

15:38 So as a part of that whole conversation, I told him, man, I've always wanted to own my own business and that whole side of the story. And he looked at me and he said, why don't you do it? And his offer to us was to come with a lot of the cash, come with the brand recognition, and essentially open a satellite division of his company down in Florida. And then we would have a chance to have some earned equity as time progressed. It was kind of a hybrid. Sure. We would have never owned the whole thing, but we also didn't have a whole lot of the risk. You know, he was taking on a lot of the risk and we were kind of the talent, so to speak. And then we were going to build that business out and then also help him with his large loss division that he was trying to get out of the ground within his brand as a whole.

16:24 And the more Coral and I kind of looked at it, one thing with the two of us that we really share is that we're not really good at following rules. And so we were kind of tired of the rules that were already set for us. And so when we kind of looked at it and said, well, we're kind of just jumping into abiding by another set of rules and we won't have control over the whole thing. And so for that, you know, we very kind of respectfully stepped away. And, you know, to this day, that guy's a great friend of ours. And we actually thank him. on a regular basis, because if it wasn't for him kind of having the faith in us to be able to go off and step out on our own, we probably would have been a lot less likely to actually make the jump because it was a scary move. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's really useful to share that story because so many people have found themselves in that and they may even have that same opportunity in front of them right now.

17:06 Right. And it is. It's really good to think through, OK, am I going to actually feel good in this kind of arrangement? Am I going to be OK with this? So really smart on you guys just to know that you probably wouldn't thrive under that, that setup. Okay. So you're talking to Rocky, you guys are hanging out with Rocky and Rocky's a hard guy not to love. I've got questions around that. Yeah. So I'm curious about that interaction. And then ultimately a lot of people are hearing that story and they're like, okay, so you have no money. Rocky says, well, money's the easiest part. I'm not sure everybody understands exactly how that's true. Yeah, with a massive exit. Yeah, the serial entrepreneur that has a bank account with more zeros than most.

17:51 But so take us back to that moment where you guys decide, oh man, maybe we can buy this franchise, whichever one of you kind of wants to take lead on that. How did that start to come together from, God, I don't know how we would do this. So before you guys get started, I'm just going to say something super obvious for those that maybe are not watching the video. Like the difference between our two guests' character is really hilarious. So Kevin, his face hasn't cracked anything remotely near a smile since we've started. And Coral hasn't stopped smiling since we've started. So I'm going to assume that somehow that plays a role in your guys' functions within the business. And by the way, Coral, thank you. You broke the F-bomb barrier long before right out of the gates and normally that's my problem or job is that i'm the one that that gets everybody salty comfortable and well i actually was you guys remember keisha edwards from hickory north carolina yeah so she works for us um she actually ended up down here her husband ended up moving and so i told her about this and she goes oh my gosh i love them tell them i said hello and she was like but they have a potty mouth and i was like oh of course I'll fit in with them then.

19:03 I'll fit right in. How dare you outing us, Keisha? Gee, at least. That's right. Yeah, what was happening, guys? Like, what was the catalyst with Rocky's kind of speech to you, Coral? Like, how did that turn into the two of you launching a one-tom? Everything in my life, honestly, has been around who I know, not what I know. Right. And the connections that you make through time and the relationships that you make over time. And I think Rocky saying that as lit a fire under us where we. we started to make phone calls, right? We started to talk to people. We started to talk to banks. We started to talk to people. We started to talk to people that might even want to invest or friends or other business owners.

19:46 And that led us down the path to find the solution that we needed, you know, which was a few hundred thousand dollars to, to get the thing up off the ground and we didn't need that much money. So that was helpful. And then we ended up turning around and in our first year did a million dollar hurricane with myself and a few amigos. So that was nice to have that cash, too. But I think it really just lit the fire for us to start searching for it. Right. And if you don't search for it, you never get it if you don't ask for what you want, you know. And so we started asking and we found it, you know. And we were able to get the money. We were able to get a really good deal on it. And I mean, gosh, we're over halfway through repaying it at this point.

20:29 So that feels good too. Kevin, do you remember anything different from that? I mean, I remember it was terrifying, but I think that one of the most important points that Coral's making is that you don't get what you don't ask for. And the other big part of this was that both of us, throughout our professional careers, one of the things that we always acted and decisions that were made were always, not always in our best interest, but in something of that no matter what, whether it's gonna actually maybe negatively benefit us, How do we always be above reproach and never burn a bridge, never do anything that would leave a foul taste in someone's mouth? And so because of that, we had a large group of friends, even larger than we probably even realized.

21:12 And so the second that we got real about talking about it, we didn't just have the money. We have multiple people courting us with money. because they realized that we're of high character and that we were going to put our heads down and go to work. Yeah. And so I think that's a pretty important thing for anybody who's thinking about making the jump is just, you don't realize how many people are your fans until you kind of put it out there. Yeah. That's super interesting. So when, I'm just kind of curious, get a little bit of nuance here. So Rocky makes this statement to you, Coral, you were the one that reached out to him. So was there like this immediate ring of Kevin like, dude, you don't ever guess what happened or, How did like it go from Rocky inspired to the first action step? Oh, yeah.

21:52 I mean, I called him straight up on the phone and was like, we're going to be plumbers. You know, we're going to figure this out, man. Like we're going to do it. Coral comes to my office to give me the update because she was having the conversation because you guys can't tell she's the front end of the relationships. Yeah. So she comes in, tells me the thing, and she goes, Rocky said that we can do this on our own. Do you think we can do it? And I said, well, let me run the numbers. And so I built out a spreadsheet and came back to her about four hours later and said, oh, yeah, yeah, we can do it. Here's what we need. Here's what we can do. And we took that and ran with it. So there was a little bit of sharpening the pencil and going to work to see if you could affirm what Rocky was, Ellen, huh? It was just putting pen to paper in something that I could digest as the financial mind of our partnership to see, hey, is there, what would it take?

22:34 What's the real dollars and cents of it? We're going to like truly jump out of a plane without a parachute because we're going to quit our jobs with, you know, some nominal savings and open this thing and pray that the parachute opens when we pull the rope cord. And so for me, it was more of just like, okay, assuming we can get this amount of traction and this amount of people, like what, what can we do so that we could make an educated decision that was going to affect, you know, potentially the rest of our lives. I'll also say, cause they don't, this pivoting a little bit, but they don't get enough credit for this. But Kevin and I literally came home and in those moments looked at both of our spouses and were like, we're quitting our jobs. And mind you, my income came from one company.

23:15 So yeah. If I was quitting my job, my husband was quitting his job too. And Kevin's wife was in dental and loved it. You know, that was what she wanted to do with her life. And she was good at it. And their support really made the process easy too. Because I think people forget that sometimes when you're going to open a business. Like I get that maybe that's your craft, but it also has to be the love of your partner. Because if it's not, then you're at a constant, you know, disagreement and you're constantly at arms. So it was really pivotal in our whole journey that both of our partners, we walked in that day and they said, let's go, you know, let's do this same thing.

24:01 And they never questioned us. They never hesitated. My husband actually for a while worked two jobs. You know, he worked during the day here and worked at night at the space center. And, uh, get off at three and we'd say, Hey, we got this. Can you save us this way? He was the savior. A lot of days. He spent his 30th birthday in a bar, unclogging a sewer drain, you know, so that was just a true team sport from the very beginning. Like, yeah. Okay, I'm curious. And I don't know, maybe I'm drawing attention to something weird. But Chris and I can relate to the fact that like it's this work marriage thing. You know, when you're a business partner and your business partner's in a startup environment, it's all consuming.

24:41 Like there's just so much life that you're sharing with this person just to survive and build the machine and do the thing. Let's see, I guess we just can be black and white. It's two dudes, right? Like my partners aren't worried about like my work wife because it's Chris, right? So you guys, obviously, that's a little bit different dynamic. How come there's just this kind of collective support of you two? What are your partners seeing? What does that internal dialogue look like between you all where there's this really profound trust that you guys are meant to work alongside of each other? And like, how do you balance that internally as couples? You know what I mean? I thought about that the other day because it is interesting, right? Like it's just so uncommon.

25:22 And Kevin and I see so very often where you'll have like a male and female partnership and then you realize that they're banging. And we're like, but we're, it's almost like finding out Santa Claus isn't real. You know, it like breaks your heart a little bit, but it is, it's very different. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. So you were going where I was going, right? Like, how do you guys... What does that look like? How come there is so much trust between the four of you? What kind of is the background and how that's been the case? I think it's a built thing in that... Before I worked with Coral, I worked with Rick. So I had a relationship with him. He was one of my direct reports at the old company.

26:05 So... And as a part of that, we were friends. And he had saw our character and everything else. And so when he brought Coral in... And when Coral came into the fold at the business that we were at, Coral and I worked together a lot. And so Rick, I already had the friendship with her husband. And so when she came in and then we became friends, it was just kind of a natural thing. And then Coral and I traveled the country together before we ever even jumped into business. So we spent all kinds of time together out of town in hurricane situations where you're in a house and you're just praying that the lights turn on when you get there. So... We spent a lot of time in really close quarters. And I think that just as the relationship was kind of generated, the trust just kind of happened over time.

26:46 Yeah. And Kevin and I are super close, but like I've probably only ever touched Kevin twice in my life. Like we don't you know what I mean? Like we don't hug. We're not like that kind of close. We're just we're good friends. You know what I mean? But we're not like that. There's the takeaway for business partners. No touching. No touching. Yeah, no touching. We got to change things up, bro. I start rubbing his shoulders and he looks at me funny. Yeah, it's kind of weird. Okay, so this is really interesting. So how long have you guys owned the One Tom now? How long have you guys been open for business? Two and a half years. Is that right, Kevin? Two and a half? Yeah, pretty close. Okay. Sort of early days, right? In terms of one-toms kind of coming into the market and whatnot.

27:28 So you guys were one of the early pioneers, one of the OGs. And it was also both of your first businesses that you owned. Is that right? Yes. Business owner. Okay. What was the biggest shock or biggest fear? fear or difficulty that you guys encountered as you opened the business that really kind of knocked you off balance for a moment? Was there anything that you were like, Oh my God, this is real now? Yeah. We talk about this a lot is where when we first started, our only employee was unpaid and it was my mother. And we used to joke that she kept us out of jail like that was her job because Kevin and I in our minds had this vision where Kevin was going to run production.

28:11 I was going to run systems, processes and marketing. And we were just going to have this great business, right? Because that's all it takes to run a business. And then we realized we're like, oh, wait, you need a business license. I didn't know I needed a business license. You know, we didn't know that we had to pay. We got a bill for, you know, taxes for some equipment that we owned or whatever. We're like, what? We have to pay this bill, you know? So there were so many things going through the process of developing a business that is just not what you think. It's all the minutiae and there's no book on it. There's nobody that tells you, I mean, I don't even think there's really a podcast on it that is like from day one, you need to register this and do this and have an OSHA manual and do this over here and it just all of those little things.

29:00 I mean, we were just constantly stubbing our toe in that first year. which was shocking and difficult. It was very stressful in the very beginning. How do you prevent that from overwhelming you? And, or did you have moments where you're kind of like, F this? Like, what have we done? I think our personalities is that we will never give up. We absolutely were overwhelmed. I mean, the first year, none of us slept. We worked all day at the office. We literally, Kevin and I would go cut concrete together. Rick was over at the space center. Chelsea's grabbing the three kids and helping us answer phones. None of us were sleeping. We were delusional at times because we were just so dang tired.

29:42 We had terrible employees because we were brand new. Right. So like, you know how it is the first guys that you hire. I mean, it was, it was everything that could break you was breaking us. We just refused to be a hundred percent broken, you know? And we just kept pushing forward, you know, because at the end of the day, like I felt a responsibility to Kevin and his family. Kevin feels the responsibility to my family and my dreams. And they're just it wasn't going to fail. It never was going to happen. And we worked so much. I think being in restoration really kind of prepared us to be business owners because, you know, it is in restoration like. You're on hour 15 in a hurricane.

30:23 You haven't showered in two days or had a good meal and you got to keep going, you know? And I think we kind of took a little bit of that and inserted it here and just kept pushing forward because failure was not an option. It wasn't going to happen. That's the least way I see it. What about you, Kevin? Yeah, I think that we put our blinders on and went to work. And when all those things popped up, I don't know how much attention we really paid to them. What ended up happening was the support staff around us ended up screaming at us and beating us over the head until we finally stopped long enough to deal with whatever it was. Because like Coral said, we didn't, you don't know what you don't know when you open a business. And there are a lot of duties as a business owner that have nothing to do with whatever the product is or, you know, whatever you're selling.

31:07 It's all the insurances and the licenses. And all those very fun things that you have to do that nobody likes to do. So I think that a big portion of our success from that probably really comes from Coral's mom, Susan, or my wife, Chelsea, who were kind of the in the background saying, hey, you're forgetting this. Hey, you're forgetting that. Until we would finally kind of stop and try and tend to whatever we had managed to screw up. And we're scrappy. Like, you know, that's just how we've always been. We were plumbing out of Chevy Malibu's in the beginning. My nephew would sit and do his homework in the front seat while my brother went and unclogged a drain. For the record, there was a pink plunger on the side in case Cameron or Rocky were listening.

31:49 You're following all one-time obligations. I think you'll hear from other business owners is they'll be like, well, yeah, we didn't have a guy. So, you know, we couldn't do that job. And Kevin and I will hear statements like that. And we're like, what? What do you mean you didn't have a guy? So you couldn't go do that job? Because if we don't have a guy, we're going to do that job. Like it's our business, you know, like it doesn't matter. We do whatever it takes, no matter what. It's interesting the connection you make to that storm response, cat loss response, because I think you're spot on. It's something that we've talked about a lot internally with our promotion of military personnel into our industry. You get people that have been in combat arms.

32:30 They've been placed for multiple years in scenarios where it's high stress, it's high demand. This idea of an eight to five is like a non-negotiable. It doesn't even make sense to them. They don't care about it. There's this general grit mentality of adapt and overcome, which at the end of the day, makes us more successful in our industry because the industry demands it. And so I think that's a really unique kind of connection that you're making. And I think it's informative and affirmative for those that are in our industry, grinding gears, getting their launch, getting their startup, building their businesses, that we are uniquely equipped to do hard things because the environment's demanded it. from us. And so I think it's really cool to watch that kind of win out for you guys.

33:11 And as you've taken on your own endeavor, liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You've heard Brandon. I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe even heard our episode with Zach Garrett, the CEO and founder recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews, why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 to 25% conversion, right? So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be adding right now, 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year. If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify.com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is.

33:54 I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You know, we spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is sometimes we leave it to chance, right? Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like AnswerForce.com is we can systemize that. We can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help, right? Somebody goes on vacation. Somebody's out sick. We get a storm surge. We get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team.

34:37 And so AnswerForce.com can support you, be a bolt-on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So AnswerForce.com forward slash answerforce. blood light. That's great. CNR Magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry, right? You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully, right? She's got that great articles about all the four quadrants of our business, right? CNR is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry.

35:19 It is the water cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine.com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us. If you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine.com. You guys, many of you have already heard about actionable insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the actionable insights profile for Xactimate? That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered.

36:00 All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope. And it can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. And it also helps the grizzled vets add back that few percent that we've just forgot over time. So actionable insights, get insights.org forward slash floodlight and take a look at what the actionable insights exactimate profile could be doing for you and your team. One of the things I'm curious, and certainly all the small business owners out there that are listening to us, I think might be curious about the same thing. How did it go in terms of getting sales when you first started?

36:42 I mean, you know, one Tom, we do know has been pretty extraordinarily successful with some of their digital marketing and branding campaigns and the stuff that corporate's doing, at least from our perspective and what we've heard from other folks, but was where the phone's just ringing off the hook and you had as much business as you wanted day one, was how did you guys figure out sales and growth? And what'd you encounter as far as that goes? We grew up in this town. So we had a little bit of a reputation here before we got started, even though neither one of us ever worked in this town, right? So I never had a career here before we did this, but people knew us. And one of the things that I will tell anybody that's interested in opening a one Tom and comes from the restoration industry is that, Plumbing is the easiest thing to sell in the world.

37:27 Everybody needs plumbing and everybody understands what it is. When you go to sell restoration, you're going to sell an idea to somebody about something that may happen in their lifetime that most of them don't understand. They can't see it. They can't touch it. Sometimes they can smell it, right? But they can't see that water in the wall. They look at the wall and it looks normal. When you talk about plumbing with somebody, it is so obtainable. You know, a stay at home mom has ever been on a construction site in her life understands what plumbing is. She understands what her water heater is, you know. She understands all of these things and in the commercial level as well. Right. So you it's just such an easier thing to talk about.

38:10 So versus walking in the door and having to talk about restoration that, hey, you might have this issue. In the very beginning, one, our phones did explode. And then two, on the days that we would get slow, I would just go out and talk to people. And I'd be like, hey, you need a plumber? You need something fixed? You need this? You need that? And we just and we did a lot of community outreach. So we did a lot of things that were kind of unconventional. Like we had a booth at a craft fair, you know, and we passed out plungers kind of deal and pink popsicles to the kids because it was summertime. You know what I mean? We did the boat parade. We had an airplane flying by and it said, call one Tom Plummer. The name is the number across the beach.

38:52 We did lots of things like that, that were really just, it wasn't necessarily, we weren't going to get ROI from it, but we were putting our name out there. We're recreating a brand in the community that, And then we really tried to change how the service industry is perceived. And that starts with your employees and your guys. And I want my guys to know that they're valued and that they're just as good. And they probably make more money than an executive or maybe even a doctor sometimes. I mean, these guys are making great money, you know. and they should be respected that way. And they should respect themselves and they should respect their job and they should respect their customers. And then that trickles all the way down.

39:33 So I think that helped us a lot by just really making our mark that we were different. We were pink. We were here to do plumbing. We were different. We offered a different level of customer service. And honestly, by the time we got through a year of this, I looked at Kevin and said, pick a service, any service, because we can make it a million dollar business in a year. We know exactly how to do it because I think a lot of people lose in the service industry, the customer service and truly being a professional and not being a quote unquote blue collar type person. We do blue collar work, but we need to act like professionals. Dude, that is so... Okay, I want to hang in this pocket for just a minute because I find this super interesting.

40:14 So one of the things, my daughter and I were having a conversation a couple days ago one evening. We were just chatting about her age group. So she's 23, basically, and my son's 25. And they're kind of in this group that we've seen as... I don't know how to say this exactly, But they're kind of in one of these transition groups where they're more native to tech, they're more native to some of the things I think that we would all experience around like social media, social media anxiety, some of the things that it's pushing, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, here's where I'm going with this. Also, though, one of these groups that I feel like has their eyes on and are returning to the valuing of blue collar service industries, the work, the type of incomes that you can get from it, the type of business ownership opportunities, all these things.

41:00 And they were, my daughter and I, as we were talking about that, she was even speaking to the fact that the generation just below theirs, so let's call it another eight or so years younger than her... they're very interested in the trades, very interested. And we've got some very big influencers now that are pushing this kind of revival on tradecraft and being a professional that does work with their hands to earn a good income and be respected that way. And so I guess part of where I'm going with that, my question to you guys is, Is that been your experience? Are you guys finding that there is a larger audience now that is interested in participating in something like this? Or do you guys still feel like your business is maybe still early in that kind of engagement?

41:43 What's your worldview regarding this receptiveness to the surge in blue collar again and trade craft again? Yeah. I think that society as a whole is changing. And when you see people that are maybe in your kid's generation, they're looking at things where when Coral and I were in school, it was, hey, go be a doctor, go be a lawyer. You know, that was the push. Go to a four-year university. And when you leave, you know, you're going to have a great job and a great life and this and that and the other. I think that a lot of people coming out of that, like 08 to 2010 type of thing, if they were in school in that area, you come out of school and you're looking at it and you're like, oh my gosh, I got a four-year degree. I got $200,000 of student loan debt and I can't get a job making $35,000 a year. Right.

42:23 Yeah. And I think that now you're starting to see a paradigm shift where enough people have seen that, oh, you can do that and walk out of a four-year institution with not a whole lot, or you can learn a trade directly out of high school. refine that trade, spend that four years getting good at it. And in your same timeframe, you're somebody who's making six figures comfortably. The service industry and plumbing, especially is a young man's sport because it's very physically demanding. You don't see a lot of older people doing the job very successfully. They might know how to do it, but it's just, it's hard on your body and your body can only hold up for so long. So the majority of our staff is probably 35 or below.

43:05 We have a few younger guys on the team. I think that we're still, there's still a lack culturally, in my view, of people who want to work hard. They think that it's just going to be easy, that it kind of more of that entitlement culture. And this is not an industry where that works. There's money to be made and there's opportunity everywhere that you look like Coral just said. We turned the phones on and it exploded overnight. We didn't know what to do. That's why we're plumbing out of sedans. But our main problem was the manpower issue. And we don't have a manpower issue now because we've built a reputation and we pay our guys very well. So we have a lot of guys that are coming.

43:46 But like bringing that up and coming generation, like it's very hard still to find people who want to work hard physically. And they might say that they want to, but then they get into it and they realize what the true physical demands of it are. And a lot of times they change their mind. You know, one of the things that we saw firsthand, because we've had some extended time with the One Tom family there at HQ, and Chris and I also have, let's just a closet interest in One Tom and what it would look like for us to even participate in some of that. You know, one of the things that we had the opportunity to see was their, you know, home office, like the actual One Tom plumber outfit that was running their day-to-day business.

44:27 And we had a chance to hang out with Sonny, I believe is his name. and watch their team. And I remember walking into their shop and it was one of the days of the week. It was just a morning tech meeting essentially. Yeah, it wasn't even, you guys do once a week. There's more of a culture focused like team meeting, right? This was just your run of the mill morning huddle. And- I was really excited to watch, one, the youth of the team members' faces. They were some young men in that room. And then to hear Sonny and his staff talk about those team members' competency and their sales growth and what they're doing on a day-to-day basis, how they manage themselves and how they're finding success out in the field. And I just thought, in general, there was a really interesting thing happening in terms of how they were treating them, how they were talking to them, and the expectations they set for them.

45:15 Could you guys dive into that a little bit? Like what is some of those things that the system, the franchise itself is focused on? And how have you guys continued to leverage that to create that kind of cohesiveness and some of that, those factors like you were talking about, Coral, of we have to respect ourselves and act like professionals. We might be doing blue collar work. So just give us some picture. What does that look like in day-to-day life at one time with you guys? Well, one of the things that one Tom is really adamant about is one, you know, the uniform and like the look of the guys. The second thing that they're really adamant on is the culture meeting that you just mentioned there. And not that Kevin and I were against that.

45:56 Honestly, one of our biggest gripes about where we worked before is Kevin was there for 11 years and they didn't even know his wife's name, you know, and yeah. So it makes you feel very alone and like they don't care about you. And you're putting all this time into something and traveling all across the country and you're away from your family. And, you know, we didn't I never even had a cheeseburger with the owner of that company, you know, kind of deal. So every Thursday we have fellowship together. And that is something that one Tom Corporate initiated originally. And then we have kind of developed that. And so we cook a homemade breakfast every Thursday. And this is not like, we don't go to Chick-fil-A. We don't pick up McDonald's McGriddles.

46:36 We literally cook, I think tomorrow he's making... breakfast burgers. We do steak and eggs. We do breakfast tacos. We do fruit parfaits with them. I mean, we, it's a spread. And in the very beginning, it was kind of hard to get like the guys to come in for that kind of stuff. And now they appreciate it. They're like, oh, what are we having for breakfast this week? You know, but it was really about bringing that community together. We're at the point right now with our guys. And I cried in my office And we had five or six plumbers out there in the office, just hanging out, you know? And I think sometimes as owners that we forget, you know, these people want to be our friends and I get why they can't be your friend, friend.

47:23 Right. And I get that. I understand that. But They think we're cool. They think what we're doing is cool. They're a part of this mission and what we're pushing forward. And they appreciate our insight and the way we look at life. And they want to be a part of it. And, you know, you're going to find a person that's just a jerk and doesn't want to. But for the most part, people want to be a part of something that's bigger than them, that they can attach to, that they can be a part of the group. And so many people nowadays are lonely. That's just the reality is that you have a lot of loneliness in this world. And so we put a lot of time into, and this started because of One Tom Corporate.

48:05 We put a lot of time into making sure that our staff knows that they are valuable and that we appreciate them and that they're not just a number. And I know that this makes everybody cringe, but we're a family. Like the reality is, is we spend more time together than anybody spends at home. So we got to like what we're doing, you know, and we got to work well together and we have to take care of each other. It's not just about doing your job and nothing else that needs to be done. We need to be there for each other. And that's very important to us. We didn't want to carry the culture of what we came from into our business. And we refused to do that because that's why we left. If the culture would have been different and if we would have made a little bit more money, we probably wouldn't be sitting here on this conversation right now.

48:48 Um, and we were high performing employees and they lost us over that, you know? And so we made a promise to each other that we would not forget what it felt like to spend Rick's 30th birthday unclogging a sewer drain because that's what your people go through. And when you start to make money and you start to have a bigger office and things start to get a little bit easier, you tend to forget about that stuff and your staff realizes it, you know, and then they act accordingly kind of thing. So we have a real big push of that here. Well, so this has been really great. And I appreciate your guys' transparency, like really talking through a lot of these different pieces of your guys' experience. Bring us to present day.

49:28 So two and a half years in, as much as you're comfortable sharing, where are you guys at today? And then, you know, as we kind of land the plane in our conversation, where are you at today? And then what's the vision for, say, the next two and a half years? So... We're at the phase in our business where we've built the foundation, right? Like we've put in the hard work, we've held our nose to the grindstone. We've given a lot more than we've received, I would say, in all aspects, whether it's time, financially, just in general. We've grown a team from what was four of us when we started to we're a team a little over 20 now. We have... We're running nine vans. We're pushing to get a tenth on the road. We're actually starting to set up some processes to where we've been owner operators in every sense of the word, down to putting the shovel in the ground.

50:16 We're now to the point where for the business to grow any further, we have to put the shovels down and work truly on the business and not in the business. Mm-hmm. Coral's been a lot better at that in that she's already sort of stepped away from that piece of it. And she is a lot more working on how things get done and the processes within the business. Whereas I'm a little bit more hardheaded and I'm the production guys that, you know, it's a little bit more difficult, but... We're now to the point where I need to step out. There needs to be somebody who becomes a general manager to run the day-to-day because our plan and our commitment is not to just have this one time. We'll actually have five when we're done.

50:58 The markets that are next to us too are really great markets that we could really jump into and be super successful right now. But we're trying to create that process and have it so tight that when we go, we don't lose the heart and soul of the business. So for us, that's kind of where we're at. Every dollar that we've made has gone directly into the business, whether it's buying equipment, inventory, more vans, more... expanding the office, all of those things. And now what we're looking at is that we don't have a business that is hitting the profitability that we would want to see, right? Because we've spent on all of these things. And so now what we're really looking at is, okay, as we dial in these processes, like how do we take that 8% and go to 10?

51:40 How do we take that 15% job and go to 20? Like, what are those things? Like where are the time sucks? Where are the guys going in and that job they only did for $200 and it really should have been 500 because yeah, that's only a couple hundred dollars, but you do that 300 times in a month. And that number is a really big number. So like for us in our journey, that's really where we are as refining ourselves as entrepreneurs is, is, is really getting into it. And we have a great business. It's very well respected. Our phone rings off the hook. We're very blessed in that regard. Even when other businesses that are like ours around our town are slow, we tend to not be just because of the customer base that we have. And they're fiercely loyal. And we were just in a parade the other day and there were people literally screaming on the streets, one Tom Plummer.

52:23 I mean, it was incredible. Coral was in the back. We were supposed to be making snow and Coral was just weeping because she's like, this is the most beautiful thing ever. But so we have all that. And so now it's really just how do we create a business that doesn't need us to run every day so that we can go do some of these other things. Just one last question, I think, is from your perspective, this has been two and a half years that normally for most businesses, the first five years are excruciatingly challenging. you're two and a half years in, you've got this thing right on the horizon where you need to begin shifting and working on the business. If you had to give people one or two key mental shifts that they need to be prepared for to make the commitment that you're talking about, and Kevin, maybe this is best for you since you're the one having, maybe by the sounds of it, the hardest time making the shift.

53:15 What would you tell somebody to your left and right how to get out of their own way and make the shift that you're committed to right now? I think you got to trust your team. You got to trust what you built. And you have to have the realization that if you only want to be what you are right now, then keep doing what you're doing. If you have a bigger vision, then you have to allow people to help you build it. And part of that is stepping away. And then I was actually listening to y'all's podcast in preparation for this. And I listened to one about accountability. And I thought that you guys had some really good things that you've got to create accountability loops of, okay, someone else is going and doing the task. I'm now coming in and looking in on this task to make sure that it's being done properly. Tell me more about what you learned from us.

53:57 Kevin, I just kind of got caught. No, I'm just kidding. Well, listen, guys, this has been really fun. And it's exactly the kind of energy I think we were hoping for with these owner stories and really appreciate you guys coming in and sharing really candidly. And like even two and a half years in, I think for people listening that are small business owners, one, I think I'm sure the vast majority of them can relate a lot to the transition point that you guys are in. So again, it's kind of one of, we talk about this a lot of just how knowing you're not alone in this game. It sometimes is all the difference you need to just keep going. And there's a lot of inspiration here for folks listening. So I really appreciate that. I just want to add something to that really quickly.

54:39 So unbeknownst probably to you guys, we're actually pretty well acquainted with some fellow one-time plumbers. And they unanimously have all spoken very highly of your guys' willingness to, to provide information, share experience, be willing to take a phone call. I think that you guys are constantly highlighted from Rocky and the team in terms of people that will give a real answer on what the experience has been like. And the only reason I just bring that up is I think that's part of what was contributing to your guys' personal brand that you referenced as part of your success is the goodwill for those to your left and right. Right.

55:19 I will tell you as a third party person with zero connection to you before today, I would affirm your guys' story is true. And we've heard it through our other relationships that you walk that walk. And I think it is a major contributor to your guys' success already. So just highlight that for folks listening is we have a tough time. I think especially in the early days of building our businesses where... we just really lose sight of the fact that, look, this shared experience makes us all better. There's not some fat trade secret that somehow is going to make your business so much different than somebody else. It really boils down to your ability to execute. And so anyways, I'm just affirming your guys' willingness to share.

56:00 That continues to be the case. And a lot of people talk about you from that perspective, just FYI. Thank you. That's really nice. Thank you. Yeah, big time. Yeah, it's been pretty overwhelming, actually. We've gotten away. Well, Kevin, Coral, thank you again for joining us and your first appearance on the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. Congratulations. But yeah, God bless you guys. And best of luck here as you finish out this year and moving forward. And I'm sure we'll be in touch in the future. Absolutely. Thank you guys. Merry early Christmas. Yeah, same to you guys. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Great week. Take care. All right, everybody.

56:40 Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.