HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed, a podcast dedicated to revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business.
HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
EP: 228 Ryan Matthews w/ My Guy Plumbing - Plumbing Profits and Passion
I had the pleasure of hosting Ryan Matthews on the latest episode of *HVAC Revealed*. Ryan, founder of My Guy Plumbing, shared a wealth of knowledge on navigating the entrepreneurial journey from a tradesman to a business owner and leader. The episode is packed with insights that can benefit anyone in the HVAC and trades industry looking to start their own business or improve their leadership skills.
Here are 3 key takeaways you won't want to miss:
- Set Clear Goals and Learn from Employment: Ryan highlights the importance of having a specific goal and learning valuable lessons from your time as an employee. These elements are crucial when transitioning to and succeeding in running your own business.
- Transparency and Empowerment: Ryan practices transparency with his employees, encourages their education, and supports them in potentially running their own ventures. This approach fosters a culture of mutual respect and accountability within his team.
- Hiring Based on Character and Soft Skills: Both Ryan and I discuss the importance of prioritizing character and soft skills over technical abilities during the hiring process. Honest and genuine care for customers can often outweigh the need for prior technical experience, as skills can be taught, but character cannot.
Don't miss this episode to get more insights and tips from someone who has successfully grown a business from the ground up, learning along the way and valuing his team above all else. 🎧
How to Connect with Ryan:
On The Web: myguyplumbingnj.com
Facebook: facebook.commyguyplumbing&drain
Instagram: instagram.com/n.j.myguyplumbing
Twitter: @myguyl
Join Our Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed
Presented By On Purpose Media: https://www.onpurposemedia.ca/
For HVAC Internet Marketing reach out to us at info@onpurposemedia.ca or 888-428-0662
Sponsored By:
Chiirp: chiirp.com/hssr
Elite Call: elitecall.net
Service World Expo: serviceworldexpo.com
On Purpose Media: onpurposemedia.ca
I say it all the time. I'm not a plumber anymore. I'm a coach. I'm a advisor. I help grow people.
Evan Hoffman:Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan. Although I am alone today because Thad happens to be down in Cancun, Mexico at a retreat sharpening his axe when it comes to running our business, the marketing agency, On Purpose Media. I'm actually in Calgary where Thad is living because one of our partners in business Amanda Wilhelm with Profit Fill lent out their office to us because they're having a private party tonight for Stampede in Calgary and Aaron Pritchett is going to be performing at it. So I'm super excited for that. So she lent out her office to me today to be able to shoot the show with Ryan Matthews from My Guy Plumbing. Super stoked for this episode. Ryan's someone that I connected with, three, four years ago, originally, and we just chatted back and forth. It was back when we were new into marketing and we just reached out to as many people as possible, introducing the show, introducing ourselves, just trying to network with people, connect with people, not trying to be pushy sales guys or anything like that. But we first connected there and then it was at service world last year. Ryan and I met again and we got to finally meet in person. We chatted a little bit, asked him when he was going to finally be on the show. And he's like, yeah, in due time, And so excited to finally get him on. He reached out here a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, I guess it was now, and said, Hey, I heard that doing podcasts is good for my SEO. So I want to hop on the show. I feel like I got some things to share. And I'm excited for it because he's got a plethora of experience. He's been in the industry for 23 years, started My Guy plumbing in New Jersey. Seven years ago, gone through all kinds of growing pains through that process. But last year built up his team to 18 people had six trucks on the road to 3 million on pace this year to hit 4 million. So a growing company going through it, going through the struggles and I'm excited to, to learn and peel back some of the lessons behind that growth, because a lot of people do tend to get stuck in that one to 3 million range, and Ryan is now jumping out of that and growing past it. So I'm super excited for it. I also reached out to a friend of ours. Ryan Redding, who happens to do his marketing. He is with Levergy and he said, Ryan is generally one of the most selfless guys I've ever met. He's a hard worker, an amazing lover, which you'll have to ask Ryan Redding about that one and an incredible believer in people. He is legit focused on just making a positive impact on the people around him. So with that being said, I'm super excited for this show and to jump on with Ryan, but of course. We wouldn't be able to do these shows without our sponsors. 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And last but not least, we have On Purpose Media. enhance your presence with On Purpose Media your go-to home service marketing expert with everything from web design, SEO and PPC. We get you to the top of Google. We run pay per click ads where we minimize wasted ad spend using softwares like ProfitPhil, thanks Amanda and making sure that your websites look stunning. Visit onpurposemedia.ca to start your digital transformation today. All right, without further ado, we'll be right back with Ryan Matthews. Ryan, what's good man?
Ryan Matthews:Hey man, just appreciative to, you let me on the on the podcast. It's pretty cool.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, no worries. It's been a long time coming. you've been in some kind of a growth mode as of late with growing My Guy you've done a tremendous job with it. So why don't we just start with your story, man? How did you get into plumbing in the first place? And then why did you want to start a business?
Ryan Matthews:I've told this story a couple of times but I guess I'll tell you, this was I was actually a carpenter before I was a plumber. I worked for a guy, he wasn't the nicest guy and one day me and him, just, We had it out on the job site. It got into a battle, like physical and I quit that day. I walked next door. There were some plumbers that were there. I had made friends with over the course of the time. And I asked him, I said, Hey, what do you think your balls are higher? Hired another plumber. And they said, yeah, go in for an interview. So I went in that day and I was hired as a plumber on Monday. So it was pure chance.
Evan Hoffman:Who won the fight?
Ryan Matthews:We were broken up. We were broken up. I mean, He's a lot bigger than me. I'm a small guy. But yeah, it wasn't any fists thrown. It was more like me just shoving my fingernail into his face. And it wasn't, he was bleeding when I was done. But they broke us up. I walked out. He apologized to me. He had a bad day and I don't know, I'm not a person to let other people treat people badly and especially myself.
Evan Hoffman:Which, you find that a lot in the trades in terms of, not wanting to get pushed around, not wanting to take shit. I understand that completely. When it comes to now you being the boss, how do you tend to keep your emotions in check so that you don't blow up and let shit that has nothing to do with your team affect how you're managing them?
Ryan Matthews:I've learned to take a breath and not react that same day. I try to hold it off to an another day at least. today I had an issue in the office, and instead of me blowing up in the office, I removed myself from the office. And I just left, just because I let them get a feeling of this, what you did. And instead of me, putting your place in front of everybody, I'm just going to remove myself at that time. And now I'm going to deal with it later. when both of us are a little calmer, the best thing that I've learned, and I learned this from working at bad places is always, discipline in private, don't ever discipline in front of people. And then, but praise as much as you can in public, even a one or two minute praise a day to a random person it helps so much and it helps the team and it helps the individual who you're praising greatly.
Evan Hoffman:No, that's a great lesson. How often do you get your team together? It a daily thing? You do daily huddles where you bring them all in and you're able to recognize someone then? Like, when is it that you're doing it?
Ryan Matthews:We have weekly meetings. I have a weekly meeting every Thursday. But when the guys come in in the morning, we all get around, we talk, I try to hang out with them. We have two shifts, so it makes it a little more difficult. But I get there first thing in the morning for the first shift to come in and then when the second shift's there I'm already there. And I try to be as engageful as possible and talk to them and see where they are in their lives. Talk to them about other stuff than just work.
Evan Hoffman:No, that's good. You need to connect to them on a personal level cause people don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care and their give a shit meter is always on point. So they want to know that you actually give a shit about them. So that makes sense. so you were a plumber, got in the fight or sorry, you were a carpenter, got in the fight, walked over, got the job as a plumber. Did you work at just the one company or did you bounce around a little bit before you started My Guy?
Ryan Matthews:I've been a loyal guy, loyal employee. What I learned after starting this company was I was always undervalued. So my first company, I stayed there, I was new construction company and I stayed there for, I think eight years it was miserable to be honest with I didn't get paid well, I didn't have any kind of benefits, no health insurance, but I learned how to plumb very well that I did learn. And I was. When I look back on all the jobs that I was at, I was glad that I worked at them because when I left that company, it was a new construction company. I was in school to get my license and I had to read this book. It was my fourth year in school and I read this book Where Did The Money Go by Ellen Rohr and she had started this company called Ben Franklin plumbing I was like, you know, I can't, I don't want to be a one trick pony. I want to learn service. So this is when I really realized how good I was and how well much I was needed because I actually applied. And had a job at three different jobs at the same time. And it was all three different service companies and they're all big names around here. These were all like next star companies. These are all big companies. And I worked at, I worked all three of them at the same time to see which one I wanted to stick with. And I realized how valuable I was at that time because everybody said, yeah come and work. I picked Ben Franklin because they were local. And it helped me learn again how not to treat people and how to focus on the technician and always do the right thing by them, especially when it comes to their money and their pay. But yeah you would think you join a franchise and every franchise would be treated the same, but they're not, they're independently owned. So it's hard. A lot of companies will trash Ben Franklin, but there's a lot of great franchises out there. But every once in a while you get a poor management, and people don't stay for management. They leave and that's why I left.
Evan Hoffman:And it's, you gotta give some grace when it comes to any trades business, because. Most businesses are started by technicians turned business owners, and they've got to learn an entirely new skillset when it comes to running the business. you gotta give some grace where it's due. Okay, so you went to work for Ben Franklin. How long were you there for before, did you go straight to My Guy after that?
Ryan Matthews:No, so I was there for three years. So my goal with him, when I was working at the new construction job, I started school there. This was in the middle of COVID. So when COVID hit they said, everyone can stay in it, even if you didn't have a sponsor. And I didn't have a sponsor at the time. So when I went over to Ben Franklin, my goal was to get my license and I told him, I was like, I want to get my license. I need you to sponsor me and I'll work for you as long as you sponsor me. And he agreed. And that was it. We did it on a handshake. And then it was about three years later, he fired his whole HVAC department and he's got me doing on call. I would do on call for one week, two weeks straight. The problem was the place with the revolving door. He couldn't keep anybody. So as soon as somebody left, I had to take on their own call. And it was making me so miserable. But then he decided to fire the whole HVAC team. And all of a sudden I'm doing furnaces, heating and air. And I'm great at HV boilers, hydronic heat. I do a lot of that, I've never done furnaces. So for me, this is an integrity thing. And I told him, absolutely not. I'm not going to learn at somebody else's house. I don't know what I'm doing. And I said, no. And he told me yeah, he said, Ryan is, you're going to do this. All Monday you're gonna sign a piece of paper saying you're gonna take all no heat calls. HVC or not. And so the next text back with him was my tools next to his truck. And I told him to come get his truck. And that was it. I quit. And so I go to take my license. I'm like, all right, I'm registered. He did his part found out he lied to me. He never registered me. So I did three years there hard time but again, I learned what not to do and. I learned how not to treat people. And so I went and I got a I went back to new construction. I found an old friend of mine that had a company. And I went to him on a handjet. I said, listen, I said, I will work for you. I said, all I want to do is just put my time in to get my license. And he said, Ryan, I want you to be a foreman. I want you to run it. I said, I don't want to be a foreman. I don't want to do it. I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about leading people. All I want to do is put my head down and get my job done. And it was about a year and a half later where he finally talked me into being a foreman. And so here I am. I'm a foreman now. I'm a foreman now. I'm running his jobs. And what I realized then was like, he wasn't holding anybody accountable. And it made me realize that people need to be held accountable and people thrive for it. And people want it. And again, this was another job that I took that opened my eyes up to how I should treat people and how to lead people. Because back then it was like, these guys would show up high as a kite, smoking pot in the van, right? general managers, they would come out there to contractors and be like, come up to me. It's ah, do you know what your guy's doing out there? And I'm like, all right, let me tell the boss. And the boss is like, Oh no, don't do that again and nothing would happen and it got to the point where it was like, I'm not going to hold these guys accountable anymore because you're not, and my wife, she went around my boss, she made me go, I would bring all my paperwork in, have him sign it, bring it back, she would send it in, like we completely took him out of the equation where he could not, I could not get screwed again, right? So I did that, so I was supposed to be there for a year and a half and I was there for three years. And what happened, I'll tell you this story, they set me up for failure. Okay. So they get a trip to Aruba the owner and the foreman, I'm the second foreman in charge. They get a trip to Aruba and they say, Ryan, you're in charge for a week. I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And I know that they didn't do much, anything. I basically ran the whole company. So they are going to go to Aruba and I'm sitting here. I come in Monday morning. And I'm sitting here, I got my feet up on the office desk. I'm like, this is great. I don't got to do nothing. And I'm just sitting there hanging out and I'm looking like I have, they left me no direction. There's no calendar. There's a, they don't tell me anything that's going on and it was probably about 11 o'clock. My phone finally rang it was one of the general managers, again, one of the, one of the people running the companies and they say, Hey, Ryan, he's like you guys are supposed to be over here. I'm like, over here for what? He's there's a finish going on. I was like, oh is there? I was like, alright. I was like, give me the address. So I shoot over there and I do what I do and I get organized. And I start ordering materials. I start juggling the guys, moving. All of a sudden, my phone rings again. Another contractor. Hey, Ryan, you're supposed to be over here. And all of a sudden, this goes on for two or three days, four days. I start shuffling everything around. Get through the week everything went great get through the week and this is what I didn't realize was happening. I did not see this coming at all. So when they got back Monday, come up and my boss they expect me to fail majorly. That was the thing don't get Ryan in direction. He's going to not do well. The difference was when they came back, the guy goes Hey Joe. He says, I don't want anybody running my jobs with Ryan. Ryan has to run my jobs. Now, this didn't come from one of them. It came from every single one. What happened was we were ahead of schedule. We were under budget. I had all his materials done. The guys were all happy. Everyone was happy, but the person who wasn't happy was the foreman because he was scared I was going to take his job. My goal was to start a service company. That was my goal from the very beginning. And I had here's a funny, another funny story. I told him. A year and a half in that I would start a service company inside of his company. And he told me I was, he told me I was crazy. He told me I couldn't do it. So I ended up getting fired from that job because they thought I was going to take their work. So they started treating me badly. And they did something to me on a personal level. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that here, what he did to me. I'm really not but what I did was I blocked his phone call. So the head foreman, the chief foreman, I blocked his phone call. So I wouldn't answer his phone calls anymore. So he would have to literally drive an hour and a half to the jobs to see what was going on and he didn't want to do any of that. So he goes to the boss and complains. Boss comes back to me and says, hey Ryan, he's I don't care what you got going on so and but you need to answer your cell phone. And I looked at him. I said, listen, what he did to me was on a personal level. I'm not answering my cell phone for him. I said, I'm not going to do it. He said if you don't answer your cell phone, you're fired. And I said, okay. I said, you're going to eat those words. He's like, yeah. I was like, okay. I said, who's cell phone is it? Is it your cell phone or is it my cell phone? And that right then he knew he made a mistake because it was my phone. He couldn't make me answer my phone for anybody. So I took my unemployment. I left, I was fired. This was, I had failed the first plumbing test. I failed the business of law. I got a 69. I needed a 70 and I failed the business law. I'm coming up to take it. So I'm unemployed. I scheduled it on my birthday April 2nd. If I was passed, this would be the greatest birthday present I could ever give myself at all. And I remember taking that test and I remember sitting outside because they had just changed the rules where it was computer. So you knew as soon as I was done, I knew. And I was, I remember just sitting outside. I couldn't even get on the phone and call my wife. I was just crying. I was in volunteers cause like it was either I passed this test or I got to go back to work for somebody. And so I passed it. April 2nd. 2018, on April 4th, I started my company. Unemployed, nothing. Out of a pickup truck.
Evan Hoffman:Wow. long did you collect unemployment for? While you were still running the company?
Ryan Matthews:You know what? Honestly I didn't. soon as I got my first contract, My first major contract, I reached out to my aunt Lorraine. She was very helpful at that time. And I reached out to her and I said, listen, I said, I don't feel good about this. I said, I don't feel good about collecting unemployment and actually working. It's I don't feel good about it. And she told me, she said, Ryan, you should go with what you got. I said, if I give up on employment, it's I'm all in. There's nothing else. Like I got to be all in. And she said, go with your gut. And so I did, I gave up my unemployment. I was just all in on the business I ended up doing the last job in the, so that my old boss, he was worried I was going to take all his builders. I didn't take all of them, but I did take one house and that house I did. It was a five and a half bath house. Two stories had I remember because I did the whole job by myself. The only thing I had one, I had a guy helped me do gas. That was it. Everything else I did alone. All the water, all the waste. I did the water and sewer outside in the yard. I did everything by myself. It took me seven days to rough it. It took me four days on the finish and I did it all. And I had zero warranties and then I quit doing new construction altogether. It was enough money for me to get my first van and to wrap it That was it.
Evan Hoffman:And I know that's something that like unemployment can help in starting a business.'cause it can provide enough. It's not a lot of money. It's not gonna be able to bankroll you for a long time. But if you can feed your family, pay your bills and allow you to reinvest in the company, hire someone, get the trucks wrapped, do all that, invest in some marketing while you're getting started. To do it for a couple minutes is not a bad thing and at the same time, I really admire what it is that you did and just said, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel right. There's people who are actually needing this. I need to bet on myself and just go all in, burn the boats and fully commit to it. So I a hundred percent commend you for that. I don't think either one's a bad one. Like your aunt said, it's about doing what it is that feels right for you.
Ryan Matthews:I was always lucky enough to have my wife my wife is a LPN, so like when I was unemployed she was working, when she was unemployed with our kids, I was working yeah, she, it was, I had a little bit of, a little bit of safety net there.
Evan Hoffman:Nice. That's great. It's always good to have that support as you're starting a new business.'cause it's not easy. Both the financial part of it. Is incredibly stressful and then the emotional part of it and the learning curve is so steep. Couple of lessons I want to pull out of what it is that you just shared in your whole journey and getting to just launching the business one is having the specific goal and that end in mind, and what, knowing that you wanted to open a business at some point and specifically a service based business knowing that there were things that you needed to learn in order to get there. And this is something that Robert Kiyosaki talks about in Rich Dad, Poor Dad as well, is, if you're going to go get a job, do it for the purpose of learning something. It's not about getting a paycheck. When you do it for the paycheck and that's all you're looking for, you're trapped and you're stuck. But if you have that end in mind of, I need to learn this skill, I need to learn this technical aspect of the business. Great. Once you've learned that, now it's time to move on. Now it's time to go learn the next thing or to start. And so I love that part. I'm curious, how has your journey in that and specifically in telling your bosses, I want to run a service business. I want to launch my own business. And then having that create friction for you and your job. How has that changed now? When one of your guys, one of your techs comes to you and says, one day I want to start a business. How do you approach that? How do you have those conversations with them?
Ryan Matthews:So I'm a, I'm probably your most transparent business owner you ever meet. I always tell them to I live in New Jersey and what you have to realize in New Jersey the state law says that anybody can work under my license. I don't need to have licensed guys work under it. So anybody in New Jersey, they don't want their guys to go to school they're afraid. And this is probably why, when I worked at Ben Franklin, he didn't sponsor me. Because maybe he saw me as a threat. I look back now, and he was right. I am a threat. I was, and I am now. I'm probably one of his biggest competitors. But, how do I treat My Guys? The exact opposite. The exact opposite. I pay for them all to go to school. I want them to go to school because I can tell them to do something. if they don't understand why they're doing it then what's the point? And I always tell everybody if something ever happened to me, you need something to fall back on. You don't need to always rely on me. If some happens, you'll go out and I tell everybody, listen, if you just, do what I teach you to do and my thing is I teach everybody how to run a company inside my company. That's what I do. show them like, I'm going to give you a van. I'm gonna give you my office staff. They're your personal secretaries, right? I'm going to give you somebody now I have a warehouse manager. You need stuff ordered, call the warehouse manager. They're going to shop everything for you. I'm basically teaching them how to run their own truck and run a company. The only thing they can't do is get to work, right? That's about it. I'm teaching them everything else and I do and I tell them, I was like, I want you to be, comfortable. I want you to feel good. I want you to feel safe because I didn't when I worked at these other places, it was always, I was always living week to week, to see some of My Guys just go out, they're not living week to week our girls in the office aren't living week to week anymore, but it's just a different mindset of, empower these people to give them, everything they need, all the training, give them all the tools, all the equipment and see what they can do and I'll tell you what, I'll take the most undervalued guy at the best company. And make him a star just because I'm going to find out what they're good at, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give him whatever nobody else gave him.
Evan Hoffman:No, it's amazing when you've got that power of why the goal, the vision, the dream, whatever it is, whatever you want to call it to have that guiding you. I think Gary Keller says it best. He's the founder of Keller Williams real estate, not a small company. He says the purpose of a goal is not to accomplish the goal. The purpose of the goal. is to be appropriate in the moment. Because when you are constantly weighing your daily decisions, it's not the big decisions that end up derailing you from achieving something. It's the things that you're doing on a daily, moment to moment basis that are either going to get you where you want to go, or they're going to completely derail you and take you way off track. If you're trying to lose weight, it's not the one meal that you went out for and binged on, it's the bag of chips that you ate every single day. The six pack of beer, et cetera. So I love that and keeping them appropriate and using that as something that's going to drive them and help them to accomplish something. I also love the fact that you're transparent about it because, and this is something we've been a big believer on for years now is you're going to do one of two things by being completely transparent and helping someone actually get their ticket, by helping someone get their license, by allowing them to start their own business. You're either going to get more buy in from them as an employee and get them more engaged in the business and then be so transparent that they're not going to want to leave because they don't want to run the business. They don't want the headache of it, or they are going to leave cause they were going to figure it out anyways. And now you're going to have another ally that's in the market instead of someone that you're constantly butting heads with. So yeah, hats off to you on that cause I think you're doing a bang up job on that. The other thing that I took note on from the lessons that you learned was the accountability part and it that it's not something you do to somebody, but for somebody. How has accountability showed up now for you as you're leading this team of now 22 people in your business, how has that allowed you to grow and what were some of the early mistakes where you thought you were helping someone be accountable, but you actually ended up pushing them away?
Ryan Matthews:I've had, I don't know, I've had two people leap. I've never, I've only had two both of them regretted it one came and asked me if they could work at night for me and run my on call at night just to make extra money. I don't know. I hold everyone accountable and it's the weirdest thing. Like you think that people would be defensive when you're doing that, but where you're doing it, how you're saying it, how you're relaying it, your emotional, everything, all that comes into play and if somebody's defensive when you're holding them accountable, you're not going to win. You're not. But if you're on the same level as them, that's what I tell them. Like it's funny, I'll show up at one of their family's houses and like their mom will come up to me and be like, I know I'm not allowed to call you the boss because that's my thing we're co workers. I have my job. You have your job. You can call me the boss. I don't like it. I don't like it. I want to be, I want to, I'm your co worker. We work together. One hand feeds the other. That's how it goes. I want them to hold me accountable too. I want them to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I want them to explain it to me. But it's hard for him. I know it is. I know how I am. on the disc profile. I'm a High D and that's all I am. That's it. There's nothing, there's no sugar coating at all. I take control of every single thing I'm in. I cannot help it. But I would, I love them to hold me accountable. Just so I can learn what I'm doing wrong when I'm doing it wrong. But I don't know. I can't answer that question because I haven't seen anybody just bail on me because I did hold them accountable. I just haven't.
Evan Hoffman:So when they did get defensive, how did you approach that in a way that allowed them to either get back on board or was it taking the pause, like you talked about earlier, and then coming back to it and they realized it?
Ryan Matthews:Yeah. If they're getting very defensive over that, I'm going to slow down. I'm going to change my tone my mannerisms. And I'm going to let them know you're not in trouble. This isn't me reprimanding you. This is me showing you what you've done and showing you my expectations and what I need, what we need to fix. Now, if we go past that and you don't fix it, now we're going to have a serious conversation, but I give so much and I expect probably more than others. But it's only because, I give them anything, I give them everything you think that you should get from a boss, they get
Evan Hoffman:As someone who's a high D, how do you let go of control? As you've continued to grow and now you're starting to get to the point where you're starting to train managers and bring managers and leaders up in the organization. How have you started to let go of control? Cause that's incredibly hard as a high D.
Ryan Matthews:Try not to micromanage. I allow them to do their thing. I always thought it was funny because I hired, the two girls in the office, I love them to death. They're so great, but neither one of them came from a CSR background, dispatcher background, right? And honestly, the first when Jill came to work with us, she was working out of my house. I was working where I'm sitting now, where I was in my, this is in my living room. I was sitting here and she was sitting in front of me. And she was so petrified. She was so scared, like I was judging everything she said and everything. And it took her probably about three to four months to realize, you have to allow people to make mistakes. If you don't allow them to make mistakes, they're not gonna learn from it. And if you scold them every time they make a mistake, they're not gonna learn from that either. So the best thing to do is allow them to make a mistake. And they come and have a conversation about it, hold them accountable for the mistake, and ask what we can do to make it better. And allow them to come up with a solution instead of you always telling them what to do. the moment they say it, then you won. You won it. So you just need to allow them to realize the mistakes they're making. And it was funny, so then we had a new girl that started she was working at a liquor store. And she was super persistent coming in. And same thing. She's Oh, she's so nervous. Cause Ryan's sitting over there across from her. Now we're in an office, now we're in a shop and I'm sitting there. I'm not paying attention to what she's doing. Again, I'm going to allow you to make mistakes. I'm not sitting there to micromanage and they all learned is it hard for me to let control of a lot of things? If I'm in the middle of a project, I'm taking control. If it's has to do, I'm going to let you do your job. And when there's a problem, then I'm going to get involved. But until then, I'm not getting involved at all.
Evan Hoffman:I love that. Yeah, Gary Keller, again, he's a brilliant thought leader. One of the things that he also shared was a leader's job is not to teach people what to think, but how to think. And if you can help them problem solve through the mistakes that they make, now they're not going to make those mistakes again. So I love that. It's still so difficult though when you see them making a mistake, you see them leading down a path. Do you ever step in that and try and guide them back before they actually get to the mistake itself?
Ryan Matthews:Unless it's super detrimental. let's say I'm looking on the schedule and I see a call on the schedule of wait a minute, this shouldn't, we shouldn't even be on the board, but. I step in, I'll get on the phone, I'll talk somebody through something, they get it off the board so I can get a more prominent job, yeah I'll do that but typically the answer is no. You have to come to me but what I found out a long time ago, I think it was like when I took like a, what is that, what are the tests you take back in like high school you probably don't know because you're not from America, but It was like this test that you take. The military had you come and take it, right? I took this test oh, okay. Yeah and they told me what I was good at problem solving. Like I was good at coming up with solutions very fast and I scored like a 90 on that. So I learned at a very young age I could solve problems pretty good. yeah, when the guys come to me with a problem, yeah, I typically have a solution. Actually, 95% of the time I have a solution, but I'm so transparent if I don't have that solution. I'll give you somebody here. Call this guy. He'll have it. I don't know everything I've been doing this for 23 years, but I've only been service plumbing for nine, 10, right? Wait, what was the, I can't even do the math. 8, 11. Yeah. 13 years. I've been doing service. So it's I don't know everything. I run this stuff. I ran into some pipe last week. I've never seen in my life. I was like, what is this? And I had to go out and find this material. I took the whole water out, heater out, and I couldn't put it back. How do I adapt to this pipe? I had no clue. We figured it out. We got it done, we don't know everything.
Evan Hoffman:I don't, train people that not to not come to you for solutions and to start thinking for themselves?
Ryan Matthews:All right. So I tell them, if you're going to come on to me with a problem, You have to have a solution first. So when they come to me with a problem, I want a way out of it. Now, I'll give you my opinion on what to do, but I don't want you constantly come to me questioning, like how to do something. And a lot of times it's simple, it's a lot of times it's they think I'm like the smartest person in the world, but I am not. I'm the simplest person in the world because I'll just find a simple solution. It's like, to me, it's like, wow, that's, That was rocket science. That wasn't rocket science. That was simple. Here's an answer. And they always tell me it's the simplest things that like are the most genius and That's typically how it goes.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, one of the things that we started to implement, and this was an idea from Thad, that I think he took from a book called Clockwork, and it was the 1 3 1. So you got one problem, come up with three solutions, and then the one that you think is the best solution. And more often than not, when our team comes to us with any kind of issues, we just say, yeah, fill your boots. Go do it. Even if we think there might be a better solution, we want them to try out what it is that they came to a result on. Because we want to train that. We want them to be able to come up with solutions and feel confident that what they decided was actually the best. And then we'll go back and dissect it afterwards and see, was it actually the best or was it something else that you did or something else that you realized during the process that might help it to work better next time, but it's not easy.
Ryan Matthews:No, it's not easy letting people fail.
Evan Hoffman:Nope. No, it isn't. You can watch them floating towards Niagara falls and you're like, I just want to go grab you out of the raft but sometimes you just got to go down. You got to go down the falls and hopefully you survive. Sweet. We've come to our random question generator time. So this is one of our favorite parts of the show where we have a school question that has nothing to do with anything. This is brought to you by On Purpose Media. Hey, look, if you've got some marketing going on right now, you just have questions about where you're at. And are there things that you could possibly do better? Go ahead and check out on purpose, media. ca slash second dash opinion. And we'll take a look at what you got going on right now. Provide you with some feedback. You can take that to your current marketing company and be able to ask some questions and help you be better prepared for those conversations. Oh, let me get rid of that. All right. So random question generator. This has nothing to do with anything we've been talking about. You got three choices to pick from. You do not get to know what they are beforehand. So would you prefer question one, two, or three?
Ryan Matthews:I'm going to go with one.
Evan Hoffman:All right. You win the lottery. What is the first non essential item that you are going to buy? What kind?
Ryan Matthews:Dream boat is a Parker, but I've been looking at these Yamaha boats. There's a fishing boat only because it's best of both worlds. My wife will have some that she likes and I'll have some that I like.
Evan Hoffman:Love it. Is it like ocean liner fishing boat?
Ryan Matthews:Yeah. It's going to have to be able to go. Yeah. At least the 25, 27 footer go out in the ocean be able to fish in the bay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm right here in You probably know Seaside Heights Jersey Shore. That's where I live.
Evan Hoffman:Nice. Love it. What's the biggest fish you caught?
Ryan Matthews:Striper. 44 inch Striper.
Evan Hoffman:How long did it take to reel her in?
Ryan Matthews:Not too long. no, cause we were, we I wasn't happy about it. We were trolling. We were trolling, but I like to jig. But what are you going to do? It's a 44 inch fish. It was bigger than my kid at the time. I got a picture next to him, man. I got a picture next to him. It was bigger than him. It's crazy.
Evan Hoffman:That's awesome. That's super cool. All right. One of the questions that I asked you before the show was what is your superpower? And you said getting everyone to follow the vision. So one, what is the vision for My Guy?
Ryan Matthews:So The hardest thing anybody has to do when they start a company is getting people to follow you without having any benefits at all. All you can do is pay them. You have no health. right? What do you do? You got to give them a vision. My vision of My Guy. The reason that I have zero problems of putting My Guys through school and I want to open multiple, I want a ton of them. I want, if they want to get their license and I say, okay, where do you want to, where do you want to open a shop? So if they want to do their own thing, I want to be able to provide that for them. And yeah, I would like to open up more locations. Thinking about South Carolina, thinking about North Carolina, not a hundred percent certain where I'll end up. But I hear there's a lot of good value down south where I can come in and do my thing down there.
Evan Hoffman:I love it. So would you want someone to take over your shop there in Jersey and then you would go south?
Ryan Matthews:I've been working on that for the past couple of years.
Evan Hoffman:Love it. So how do you get the buy in to that then? Obviously the one part of it's easy and, I want to help you achieve your dreams and start your own business and run your thing. And I'm going to do it with you. So you don't have to do it by yourself. That part's great. don't want to fund your move down to South Carolina. How do you get that buy in from the guys at that point?
Ryan Matthews:A lot of them want to move with me. That'll be a hurt on this company, right? Because they're like, but it's not gonna be my problem anymore but the buy in is just they already have the buy in now. It's just knowing that basically if I tell you something and I say it, I follow through on everything, single thing I do every single time. There's no confusion. They're zero. I am, I have four core values. They're on the outside of my building. They're on all my business cards. They're everywhere. They say them all over the radio all day long. Honesty, integrity, efficiency, and family and I live, those first two are my core values to the T. Efficiency drives me insane. If I do stuff twice, I lose my mind. Family is a work in progress. But those first two. And I live by that. I live my life by that. So if I tell you something, it's true. I don't lie. There's no reason to. And I don't bullshit. It is what it is. When I tell them I'm gonna move down to North or South Carolina and start another company, do they think I'm gonna do it? They know I'm gonna do it. They know it. Because I've stood by every single thing I've ever promised. From, Hey, I'm going to get you guys health insurance. I'm going to get you a 401k. I'm going to get you everything you ever wanted and I've proven it because I've done it.
Evan Hoffman:Oh they're always watching. They are absolutely and we said it earlier in terms of, You don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. Another thing that I've always loved is I don't care what you say, because what you do speak so loudly. I can't hear what you're saying, right? And, I do my best to live up to that. And I also know that I have my shortcomings because I'm a quick start, big dreamer, big thinker. I'll get it started. But then the follow through I need help on that. Because I'm already off on the next thing. I'm already off on the next idea. And sometimes that really frustrates our team, which is why I'm separating off into different roles that are more geared to to really help the whole organization succeed by doing that thing. And I think that's really hard when you're just growing a business and you're just starting out. If that's the way that your brain works, you have to be able to fight through some of those early struggles of doing the things that you suck at. What were some of your biggest failures in getting started?
Ryan Matthews:Working for the wrong people. That's what I'm talking about. When I first started My Guy I took everything I could. I never said no. And they were, there were a lot of contractors that took advantage of me. Thought I should charge a certain thing and they undervalued, value me back then. But I did it just to keep the gears turning. I dealt with it, but yeah, it was, people always take advantage, one way or another. And it's, that's the hard part, and it's, you gotta separate yourself from everybody. It's the hard thing about starting a business is you put yourself on an island. You're all out there by yourself. No one really relates to you anymore. Everyone's used to that 40 hour week, nine to five, you don't live that anymore. My job is 24/7 and, I wake up at two o'clock in the morning thinking about budget, thinking about payroll, thinking about, advertising. And it's tonight I'm going to, I'm going to get done with this everyone's gonna be done working. I'm going to go to a a networking event, I do that all the time. So yeah, at the very beginning it was biggest problems I had was just people taking advantage of me. People, because I am a nice person and I do have a big heart but I think you have to deal with that at the very beginning because now I can just fire anybody I want. It's one of the best things I could do is just tell a client, I'm sorry, but we're not a fit and just move on. Back then I was at your mercy.
Evan Hoffman:Yup. We've had to do that numerous times. It's not fun at times when you think about the revenue that you're missing out on, but the headache to not have that is a, it's a breeze. Are you still doing a lot of new construction now?
Ryan Matthews:No, we're 90, 90 percent service. I'm saying 95 percent service. I do very light remodels. They have to be high end, have to be worth our time and I do like commercial, but strictly residential service. Yeah. Eight trucks all doing service all day long.
Evan Hoffman:But when you started you did get back into the new construction a little bit, cause that's what you knew.
Ryan Matthews:I did new construction. I did that one house I was telling you about and I did a lot of renovations, a lot of remodels they take advantage.
Evan Hoffman:No, they do. And it's, I see it all the time on the HVAC side, the plumbing side, doesn't matter. Like the new construction. I do feel like it has a place, especially because it allows you to train guys like you, right? You got your start because of new construction and you're doing the same work over and over. It gets you the feel of the equipment, the understanding of what needs to happen, where, why this happens. And it's just the bones of the house. So it's a lot easier to work on it and see. How everything works together. So it has its place, but man, do you have to watch your bottom line as a business owner to make sure that you're still profitable on those jobs? And everyone is trying to penny pinch you.
Ryan Matthews:Yeah. Other mistakes that I made was hiring the wrong people, trusting people. I never, again, I didn't realize how good I was until I hired someone else and allowed them to go out and run a truck. And what you're going to realize is when you let somebody go, you finally let them go. And it might be that guy that you had from the very beginning. And he might've got you to where you are now. You just have to realize that people that are going to get to where you are now aren't going to get you to where you need to be in the future and you give a lot of people a lot of trust, and you find out when they're gone, as soon as they're gone, everything comes out the woodwork, everything. All of a sudden it's hey, did you know he did this? Hey, did you know he did that? And all of a sudden all these warranties are popping up, and I'm like, what is going on with all these warranties? He used to do all his own warranties, so it never got back to you, right? He used to underprice everything, never got back to you. that was a big mistake. So now I'm just I grow guys. I don't even try to hire plumbers anymore. I don't, I hire apprentices. I hire them on character and if they have any kind of mechanical ability, I can teach them how to be a plumber. And that's the route I've been going. And I only have one, two, I only have two plumbers I didn't make.
Evan Hoffman:So where are you finding them? Are you, are they finding you on things like Indeed or are you going out actively recruiting at some obscure places where you wouldn't normally find them?
Ryan Matthews:No, a lot of times it'll be me. Most of My Guys came straight from Facebook. I would just put an ad saying, Hey, and I would always put on my personal Facebook. It was like, all right, I'm putting this here first. Does anybody know somebody? And all of a sudden somebody would pop up. now it's just crazy because. It's like everybody wants to wear. I'll get a slew of applications come in. I also put up Facebook ads. I put up ads to hire when I'm not even planning on hiring. I'm not hiring, but I'll put up hiring ads and I do it on purpose because to me, it's not a hiring ad. It's an ad to show everybody how I treat our people. It's an ad for our clients. To see how I treat our people and to realize everything they get. So then when they come back to me and say, Hey, Ryan, your price too high. I'm like, Oh, did you see that Facebook ad? Do you realize what I do for our guys? Like maybe we're not on the same page, maybe we're not fit to work together, unfortunately it costs this much to run a good business and take care of the people who are taking care of you.
Evan Hoffman:Yup. No, I love that philosophy in terms of like, it is a branding play. It lets people know that you're growing. It lets people know that you're doing good work because people are trusting you to continue to come into the home and continue to service more customers. But it also does allow you to build up that resume stack and this is, I learned this from an old accountant that we had to was always be recruiting, always be taking applications, always run interviews because you never know when you need someone, but now, instead of going straight back to launching a new ad to try and recruit someone new. You go back to that stack of approved applications that you took in, you call them all back and you'll see who's ready to jump on board and come in for another interview. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic play. You never know when you're going to need somebody.
Ryan Matthews:Let's see. I don't know. I'm, I don't know. Here's one of the more savage things I do. And I don't know, it's not meant to instill fear. It's meant to show them The truth. So for the longest time my, we had a table, right? It was a conference table. I got rid of it. I have two desks now, but forever it was a conference table. And I sat at the table. I didn't have a desk. I would sit at the table. Everyone else would work around me. And what I would do is I would get applications to come in and I would just line them up down the table. All of them. I have 15, 20, 30 applications sitting there. We're having our regular meetings. I don't even talk about it. I don't say nothing. They're reading them. They're looking at him. Who is this? What is this? One of the craziest things is the last three times I let somebody go, next day, there was a replacement. The exact next day and it opens their eyes to realize I'm not playing around. I give you so much. I expect so much, and it's not a fear thing. I'm not trying to scare you and make you worry about your job, but I'm going to let you know that I'm not messing around. If you're not, if you're not doing your part, everyone comes back to me. If you come to me and say, Ryan, but I make 4, 000 in revenue a day. It's okay. And I pay you a quarterly, I'm not paying you any less because you're making that right. Good for you. You're making more money for your family. Great. That's awesome. Don't come to me and act like I owe you something more for that. I don't care. I'm paying you a quarterly. But that's my philosophy. It might be mean
Evan Hoffman:the savage side of Ryan Matthews. No it's completely fair and I, I like having bonus programs in place, but I. I also believe in bonusing on efficiencies as opposed to, and behavior as opposed to results. Revenue is a by product of doing the right things. So whether that's presenting opportunities, whether that's time spent in the home, whether that's the amount of objections you tried to handle with the customer, reward the behaviors and coach to behaviors, don't coach to results.
Ryan Matthews:And I know everyone says always be recruiting. I get it. That's philosophy that I should probably live by but I don't, I don't live by that. I love my people so much. I have guys, they're not lighting the world on fire, but, at the end of the day, we're friends we're we hang out together. I know your wife, I know your kids. You really have to mess up for me to say, Hey, this isn't working out anymore. So I'm not always recruiting. I'm not. I do leave those applications up there just to show'em what's possible but that's it. There's, I don't know, man. I don't have a negative bone in my body and I'm not all about profits. I'm about taking care of people and watching them grow and just being a good person all around and as long as they're good people and they're doing the right thing, they're good by me. Even if they're not lighting the world on fire, right? I'll coach that. I'll make that better. So I know everyone says, keep recruiting, always be recruiting. I don't know. I just, I don't, I get tired of going on those interviews. I just get tired of it all. And you know what? I would really I really like to make plumbers. I don't like to hire them. I like to take somebody who has nothing in this, make them into someone awesome.
Evan Hoffman:Oh, totally and that's, even if you look at what Tommy does with his recruiting, Tommy Mello, he'll recruit servers from restaurants. Similar philosophy, right? Let's look for character. Let's look for soft skills to be able to communicate with people, to be able to connect with people, to just naturally have that connection with people, to care about someone, to want to take care of them. Yeah, those are the skills that sometimes you can't teach turning a wrench, it's teachable. It's not easy. I don't want to downplay that in any way, shape or form. It's not easy, but it is teachable. You try you try and hug a non hugger and it's really difficult.
Ryan Matthews:Our first CSR, she was server at our favorite restaurant. so I tend to, I don't. I don't have your typical interviews. If you're going to interview with me, we're going to do it at a bar or a restaurant. My last hire, his interview was two and a half hours long but I'll get back to the CSR. We were there on an interview. My wife was there and I was giving her the lead on this. She was going to interview. She wanted to hire her first first girl in the office and I said, all right, we're on this interview and I'm listening to this. My wife, she's talking about everything, but, What she should be talking about. She's talking about sitcoms and shows and, what she does on the side, on hobbies and all this, and I'm sitting, I'm listening what is going on? And I don't, again, I don't get involved. I let it all finish and play out. She finally leaves after 34, five minutes. I look at him like, what is, what are you doing? What was all that about? And she goes, I hated her. She goes, I didn't like her at all. It's I didn't know what to say to her. And so we're sitting there and then this is in the middle of COVID. Okay. This is like peak COVID. We're sitting, all of a sudden Jill comes out. Now this is our favorite server. And, she comes out and she's wearing a mask, whole face covered. And we're looking at her and we get, Hey guys you can see this, like you hear the smile. You can see it. My wife goes, she said, hi. She goes, she's not even serving us and my wife goes to me, she's I want her. I said, her? She's yeah. I was like, all right, let me go get her. I was like, Hey, come over here. I said, we want to talk to you and yeah, we gave her an opportunity that night. And it took her about two days to get back to us and she was like, you know what? She's been a server her whole life. She doesn't know anything else and she came to us. She's you know what, Ryan? And Gina, she's like, I'm gonna take you up on that offer and best thing that could have happened to us. And honestly, best thing that could have happened to her. And we love Jill to death. She's fantastic. she lights the whole room up when she comes in. She's such a great person. She actually last month she went on her first vacation ever paid. And it was like, for me, that's why I do what I do to see these people grow and just see them. Enjoying life and just being happy and not living week to week anymore and, I'm not I say it all the time. I'm not a plumber anymore. I'm a coach, I'm a advisor. help grow people and it is the most satisfying thing I've ever thought I could ever do in my life and I love it.
Evan Hoffman:Thank you so much for coming on, Ryan. Truly appreciate you. Thank you for sharing some knowledge, some wisdom some trials, some tribulations along the way. Appreciate the vulnerability behind all of it as well. And thank you for making a difference because truly, that's what the trades is all about right now is really impacting people in a meaningful way and giving them another opportunity that they didn't even know existed. Thank you for living that out on a daily basis, man. Appreciate you. For people that do want to reach out to Ryan, go check out the fantastic website that Leveragey built for him. myguyplumbingnj.com shout out to Ryan Redding. Appreciate your brother. And yeah, you can reach out to Ryan as well on Facebook. Just search him up Ryan Matthews on Facebook. He is with My Guy Plumbing in New Jersey. So should be able to find him through that. Do you have one final question for you here, Ryan, before you go? And that is, what is one question that you wished people would ask you more, but they don't?
Ryan Matthews:Oh man, I don't know. You got me on that one. Of question people, I wish people ask me more and they don't yeah man, I can't even, I have no idea. You got me, bro. You stumped me.
Evan Hoffman:Here's another way to think of it. A lot of people will come up to you with a question. How did you do what you do? Why did you do what you do? The real surface level stuff. But there's underlying questions that they really should be asking. they just don't because they don't see it. They don't know that it even exists. What was a question like that for you even when you were running your business? What was a question you wished you would have asked to someone like an Ellen Rohr? To help you get to where you're at now quicker.
Ryan Matthews:How to treat people and make good relationships. I learned that through reading books and I typically try to do this a lot. I'll go out to a place and I'll meet somebody new. It'll be like on a golf course or something like that and we'll be sitting there and I'll try to engage, I'll try to engage to see what they're interested in see who they are, with all, Expectations of them, asking me, so I can tell them a little bit about myself and what I realize is people do not know how to treat other people and talk to other people and create relationships and friends and think that would be it because Probably where I am right now in the company, 90 percent of what I do is relationship building, right? I made a promise that my goal this entire year was to create as many solid relationships as I can. Again, the reason I want to go on podcasts is to get to meet more people in our industry and talk to these people to be able to create relationships with them and yeah, I think a lot of people need to ask the question is like how can I make more relationships and treat people better? And just basically have a conversation with somebody that I don't know. and I think that was That was something very hard for me to accomplish and get over but yeah, I wish I learned it a lot early in my career.
Evan Hoffman:Love it. Nah, it's great advice and it is, you turn into a leader of people and it's a crazy transition to think about to go from turning wrenches to now shaping minds, if you will. And being able to help lead people through the, this wild thing of life as well, journey of life. So I appreciate you, my friend. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for dropping some wisdom and yeah, to everyone else. Thanks for listening in and until next time, cheers. Thank you.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well, That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all. One person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.