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: 234 Kim & Kenny Byrne w/ Call The Whale - Building Businesses Built to Last: Losing is Learning and Exploding in Right Markets
In this episode, Kenny Byrne shares his extraordinary journey of transforming a $5.4 million commercial business into a residential powerhouse and skyrocketing it to $12 million within just a year. Together with Kim Byrne, they delve into their innovative approaches and hard-earned lessons in the HVAC industry.
Here are three key takeaways from the episode:
Strategic Decision-Making & Data Analysis: Kenny emphasizes the importance of basing decisions on hard data and profit margins. Understanding operational inefficiencies and customer demand can drive substantial growth.
Innovative Recruitment Strategies: From sending personalized letters with QR codes to creating zero-dollar service calls, the Byrnes highlight the need to think outside the box to attract the best talent in small markets.
Leadership & Mentorship: Building a strong team isn't just about immediate results; it's about creating systems and fostering leadership that can thrive independently. Kenny and Kim stress the significance of maintaining relationships and supporting former colleagues even after exiting the business.
Catch the full episode to delve into their incredible journey and insights. And don't forget to join our Facebook group "HVAC Revealed" to continue the conversation and share this wisdom with your network!
#HVACRevealed #Leadership #Recruitment #Innovation #BusinessGrowth #Podcast #HVACIndustry
Find Kim and Kenny:
Via Email: ken@callthewhale.com
kim@callthewhale.com
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Like it's a crazy idea, but if you don't have a vision, you don't know where you're going. You can't get anywhere. You know what I'm saying?
Evan Hoffman:Hey, welcome back to another HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan. I'm going solo this week with two amazing guests. Kenny and Kim Byrne they are phenomenal people. I'm super excited for this episode. One, because we had them on the show in the past and they delivered, they over delivered with exceptional value, gave real hard facts as what it is that they were doing that was leading to the operational excellence that they were seeing in their business, which was called the Bee. They've since exited that business I had a very successful exit there with the money that they took from that. They've reinvested it and they're diving in and exploring other markets, looking to expand their business and grow their Call The Brands business across the U S and they're looking for great businesses to partner with that. But we'll get to that at the end of the show. This episode is going to be all about diving into what were the lessons? What did they learn and unpacking? Some of those things that they did really well in that exit and then into the transition and investing, but also some of the things that they would do differently today. So I'm super excited for this episode to dive in with them because they are absolutely brilliant and masterful. They've been involved in multiple different businesses. Now, I think this is a, yeah, this is number six now there we go. So i'm super jacked to have this episode with them because they really problem solve at a masterful level because there's always a way through when you have enough resources and resourcefulness To power through whatever problems it is that you're facing. So I'm super excited for this episode, but of course we wouldn't be able to do this podcast without our amazing sponsors. We've got Chiirp, we've got Elite Call, Service World Expo, and of course, On Purpose Media. So let's go ahead and get started with Elite Call. Ever thought about outbounding your databases to fill your dispatch boards with lucrative service and sales appointments and boosting your memberships to enter Elite Call a us based call center that does just that for over 20 years, they have their dedicated teams. Don't just make calls. They get directly integrate appointments into your CRM and fill your dispatch boards. Don't let your competition get ahead. Let Elite Call connect with your customers. First, visit EliteCall. net to learn more and next up, we've got Chiirp. Transform your home service business with Chiirp, the ultimate automation toolbox. Capture more leads, connect instantly, and skyrocket your sales. Chiirp integrates seamlessly with platforms like ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro, offering automated text messages, emails, and even ringless voicemails to boost your Google reviews and your customer loyalty with their proven rehash programs. Schedule your demo today and get an exclusive 25 percent off visit chiirp.com/hssr to learn more about them and we have Service World Expo. You can join us for the most magical contractor experience at Service World Expo in Orlando, Florida, the home of every home service event for the next six months October 15th to 17th, 2024. Enjoy keynotes, breakout sessions, four hour workshops. Social mixers and an exhibit hall with industry leading products and podcasts like this one We will be podcasting live from Orlando. So come check us out there come meet us ask us for some swag and maybe that'll open up his Santa sack and give you some there'll be amazing keynotes all designed to help contractors like you elevate your business register now with the promo code secrets 100 for a hundred dollars off your ticket to service world expo you can check them out at serviceworldexpo.com and we have On Purpose Media. You'll hear it from us in the middle of the show. But On Purpose Media, your home service marketing experts. We do everything from web design, SEO, PPC. We get you dialed in so we can get the phone ringing with new customers and grow your business. Visit onpurposemedia.ca to get your demo scheduled there. Kim, Kenny, thank you so much for joining us.
Kenny Byrne:What's good, brother?
Evan Hoffman:Welcome back.
Kenny Byrne:We love being on these shows, man. Give us the quick overview for anyone that doesn't know you two. How did you get here? If anyone wants to go back and listen we'll put the link down in the show notes for the previous episode that you guys were on give us a quick overview of how you got to where you're at now, but mostly focusing on where you've been in the last 12 months here. Yes. My name is Kenny Byrne. Been involved in a lot of businesses. This is our sixth our sixth business that we're doing right now. Been involved in multiple startups from scratch, been involved in saving companies from going out of business, been involved in just implementing our process and our business system that we developed into businesses. And just, just trying to make it better and better every single day. We've experienced a lot over the last 18 months. We'll say that, we'll say that for sure. Life has changed for us quite a bit. We've done a lot of moving. We've built some houses, some really cool houses. We've built some really cool businesses and we're here to share our experiences. Not everything's, not everything's the way it seems. We, we've been five, four, one's not a bad record. Not bad, man. You know what I'm saying? Like you got to learn sometimes. And I say I try and be humble a little bit. I have a really hard time doing that. Kim can attest for that, but I say we lost for the first time. With the last business that we tried to launch and really it wasn't there was a lot of factors that played into that. I'm not working out very well, but I can tell you that our business systems are solid and we put some huge numbers up, right away. It's just, there's some things that you that are out of your control that you got to work around and like my. One of my mentors, Ken Goodrich, and I'm very lucky to have that guy not on speed dial, when I have questions and thoughts, he'll respond and try and, he won't guide me, but he'll, he'll just, he knows put some lipstick on that pig and punt it is what he said. At least we have the data, it's really about having the numbers, you know what I'm saying? We have the data to show and prove Hey. Is this working? Does it make sense to continue? And, when you have a business system and processes that you've been developing over the last 20 shit, almost 25 years now That work and that have been proven over multiple businesses very fast. Sometimes you just, you need to have a gut check and be like, listen, man, this isn't the right spot. Don't even waste your time. The good news is we're, we're in another market. We're seven weeks in, we've done more revenue more sales and revenue and in seven weeks than we did in six months in the last venture. So it just shows that, that
Evan Hoffman:and more importantly, more profit too.
Kenny Byrne:Oh, huge. 23 percent EBITDA in seven weeks. Yeah, exactly. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Evan Hoffman:Kim, how has your role evolved as you've transitioned out of Call to Be to now running a few different brands in a variety of different areas now?
Kim Byrne:The transition was rough because you get very emotional and you care about the people you worked with. So every day you still think about them, even today. So you don't leave that behind and you keep up those relationships, but then you have to move forward as well and develop new relationships with new people and learn how to trust them and build them up into new leaders. So that's really what we're doing now is trying to find the right leaders, the right people to back us up. And then Just try to grow from here.
Evan Hoffman:The dark side of selling a business. You pour your blood, your sweat, your tears into something to watch it grow to finally be running the way that you always envisioned it the way that you always dreamed it. And then to get that offer that's so tantalizing on the table to know that you can do so much with it. And then walk away. Meanwhile, looking back on this thing you build your baby, and there's the people there that you cared about, that you poured so much into walk us through some of those emotions and dealing with that and how you were able to manage those feelings and those emotions as you started to walk away from call to be.
Kenny Byrne:One of the biggest, one of the biggest things is the why, if people don't know why you're doing something or. And obviously what's in it for them too. Everyone that, all of our leaders and people that have been with us for 10 plus years there they all got paid out really well. Their lives also got to change. Not only ours, you know what I'm saying? Because it's all about a team. Everyone's got to win, you know what I'm saying? And, we didn't, I could have retired when I was 28 years old. You know what I'm saying? If we're not doing it for the money Money is just a byproduct of what we do. You know what I mean? And the people's lives that we're able to change in the process. probably one of the first times that I cried. You know what I'm saying? Like when we got the email from from Apex and the, the deal was signed and everything went through Tyler Caldwell was there. He's one of our good friends now. Awesome. Awesome. Stand up guy. You know what I mean? I love working with that guy. We're working on some more things together, which is great. It was very emotional because we care about these people. You know what I'm saying? We spent a lot of time, incubating them, turning them into the people that they are today. can't tell you how proud we are of these people that literally just listen to us and learn from us. And they just had their first one two, 2 million months in a row, a million dollars, their first million dollar month and 1. 2 million the next month, like without even being there at all. And it's because of what we taught them and the systems that we taught them and really spent time, teaching them how to treat other people. You know what I'm saying? Because now in order for them to move up, they know, have to replace themselves. You know what I'm saying? So if if our system sucks, then the whole thing sucks. You know what I mean? A lot of guys sold their businesses, had to get rebought again, failed. You know what I mean? Like we're proud that the, every single business that we've built, that we've walked out of. Is running, flourishing in multiple, some of them are in multiple locations now. You know what I'm saying? It's not a bad track record to live up to, you know what I'm saying? It's not bad. It's a crazy idea, but if you don't, if you don't have a vision, you don't, you don't know where you're going. You can't get anywhere. You know what I'm saying?
Kim Byrne:Yeah. It's just like pulls out your heartstrings a little bit because, like I consider them family. So every day still root for them. Luckily we still have really good communication. And I can still. See what they're doing and and we go down there and we visit, which is really nice. You just got to keep the relationships and just
Kenny Byrne:keep helping them grow. Yeah, that's it. You know what I mean? Stay involved.
Kim Byrne:Yeah, we're still their mentors, Any questions they have, they can have, they can act, come to us anytime.
Evan Hoffman:Kenny, you mentioned the systems. That you put in place and that's what's allowing them to thrive Is there any sort of i'm curious if there's any sort of animosity When you see them have that million dollar month and you weren't able to do that with them but now you see them doing it. No. All right. Good. I was just checking the ego I didn't think that'd be a thing but I was checking
Kenny Byrne:what that's no actually it strokes your ego a little bit more because now you don't They're still doing it. You know i'm saying like People how many companies fail or go back? I mean go backwards You or just, fold up, once the leaders leave. And, I read that book built to last and that's how we build our company. You have to have a plan because if you leave and it goes backwards, were you really a great leader? No.
Evan Hoffman:So for those businesses that are struggling to build out that system and to keep it consistent what's your advice to them in terms of where to start? Is it through the best practices groups and getting involved with them to try and shortcut it? Is it by finding mentors to try and shortcut it? Is it just doing the grunt work and putting pen to paper and starting to put ideas down and documenting what it is that you do? Where should people start?
Kenny Byrne:The biggest thing is, listen I didn't wake up one day and know how to run a business, right? We ran a very big commercial company. It was a super stressful business to run because there's a lot of variables that you don't control that stress you out. Hey, I need 20 guys at the job today. And then you show up and you can't even do what you need to do. So now you're paying 20 guys for eight hours a day. Just to hang out and then have to go do it again. The best thing to do is, find some people that you really got to trust them. You got on, you got to work well with them. I learned everything from Nexstar. You know what I'm saying? That's who taught me. But this is the difference between me and a lot of people. Like when I do something, I put 200 percent into it. You know what I mean? Like literally when we joined Nexstar, Listen, I sat there and I watched every single freaking video on their website. Every single one till I was done watching them. And then I watched them again. I literally downloaded every single form on their thing and I read through them and I tried to understand them and luckily I had Scott Brinkley and John Conway, two brilliant guys, my coaches and then Keith Mercurio was there at the time, like really just had It was like the stars aligned, you know what I'm saying? Like we had the best team there and I'm not sure anymore, it's a great organization. I'm sure it hasn't changed much. They always have great people, I feel that I was really lucky to be there when these guys were like the best of the best were there at that time. You know what I mean? When I was involved in that organization and listen, turned a$5.4 million a year commercial company into a$5.4 million residential company in one year, and then brought it to 12 million the next year. So listen if you don't know what you're you only know what you know what I'm saying? And if it's not working and you're scratching your head and you're feeling frustrated, you gotta find some people that you gotta be able to work well with'em, right? You got to be able to listen. You got to be able to take constructive criticism, right? Because listen, I'm not perfect, but these And me of all people, I need someone that's hard on me, right? Dude, Ken, you're fucking up, dude. You know what I'm saying? You're not doing this I need that. Sometimes I need that, I need someone to be harsh with me, right? Because if they're not, I'm just like, eh, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. You know what I mean? So definitely, you definitely need to learn, and the big, the biggest thing about these best practices groups is we've all been there, you know what I'm saying? Like we just burnt 744, 000 in over the last eight months, you know what I'm saying? So let's just take that number right there, that's a lot of freaking money, right? And that's a lot of experience right there. That you can you skip that, right? No one wants to do that. You know what I'm saying? But Hey you learn, you, you try things. It is, it is what it is, but if you definitely have to surround yourself with the right people, you know what I'm saying? And get the right knowledge because there's a lot of these guys out here and they're just trying to make money, you know what I'm saying? But when you get with the right people and their motive is right, you know what I'm saying? Like special shit happens.
Evan Hoffman:Yeah, I'm sure people are dying to know. How did you burn through 744, 000? And I guess to set the stage, you had, it was called The Whale, right? That's what was the location there?
Kenny Byrne:Correct, yeah,
Evan Hoffman:yeah, so you opened in Southern Boston?
Kenny Byrne:Yeah, in Southern Boston, pretty much Rhode Island, outside Providence. Outside of Providence. Okay. And so when you're driving around people's neighborhoods, and you notice that people really aren't taking care of their yards. They're probably never going to take care of the inside of their house either. That's just plain and simple. So we went up to Vermont and we looked around and we're like, man, these people really care about their, they really take care of their yards. You know what I'm saying? Guess what? They take care of their houses too. Like more than anywhere else we've ever seen. That was a huge lesson. We had, we had a marketing company that we worked with and there was a lot of change over at the time. And we could feel it, you know what I'm saying? Like when people aren't, when everyone's had employees that have left, right. And you can see that change in their mood when they're not happy anymore or the, they're thinking of making a move and they really, this isn't a place. We felt that, you know what I'm saying? And listen, I'm not, dude, I don't, I'm not bad. These guys helped us grow an awesome company before, and things happen and people leave and want to go start their own companies. And Hey, that's America. That's why we get to all get to do what we do. And that was 450, 000 of it. You know what I'm saying? Just in spending money on marketing that wasn't working. And listen we grew, we were doing 225, 000 a month and two months off of home advisors. You know what I'm saying? So if you got to use home advisor to grow your business there's some serious issues going on. You know what I'm saying? And waiting period is not six months or a learning phase, not six months. I can tell you that, especially as we walked in seven, seven weeks, we were doing more, you know what I'm saying? And it's just we trust these people because they did such a good job for us that, we want to continue going and going and you know the answer was spend more money no, like you can't do 40 percent of your budget to walk into a market You know i'm saying where now we're spending like three You know what I'm saying? Because we have those numbers and the data that we, you know, that we, that Kimmy analyzes every single morning, like Kimmy says, you have a gut and you have a feeling dude, choose your gut, you know what I'm saying? You're usually right. And you got to move on sometimes, you know what I'm saying? And
Kim Byrne:And we just came from the Bee so we were like, ah, now we can just recreate the Bee over. We can do it anywhere.
Kenny Byrne:Yeah.
Kim Byrne:And so we came out, we got a building, we like, all kinds of marketing materials. We got, call center set up. We like, we're, we were out, we were going to like, just and and you have to practice patience. That's what I've been talking to Ken about a lot and things don't just happen overnight and so you got to ease into things. That would be my lesson here and that's what that
Evan Hoffman:doesn't seem like the kind of easing in kind of guy. Ken and I had some messaging back and forth last week or a couple weeks ago, whenever it was, when we first started chatting there, Ken about the business and pivoting and moving. So you were in South Providence, decided to shut it down there move it to Vermont. Obviously, that's a difficult decision to make, not one that you would take lightly, especially when you've got a building involved, you poured all this money into it, and now you've essentially set that money on fire and you're walking away from it. All the momentum you built is now gone. What led you to making that decision? Like, when did it feel right that this was the right thing to do and to walk away? Because as someone who has You've had success in the past. You've built the businesses in the past, like that bulldogged persistence to just push through and persevere every roadblock that's in your way. It's there, it's in you. So that definitely would not have been an easy decision. How did you get to the place Of knowing that this was the right thing to do and then at what moment did it actually come to fruition when you did make the move?
Kenny Byrne:Like I said, dude It's all about the data You know i'm saying like and having the right numbers and when you have five employees and only one office staff and you're doing two hundred twenty five thousand dollars a month And you still can't turn a profit. You know what I'm saying? Like it's time to put your, it's time to put your pride aside and be like, listen, this is just the spot. You know what I'm saying? and when you're having to sell work at more than half of where you're doing it in your other locations. It's just like, why do you want to work that hard? You know what I'm saying? Like everywhere else, it's been easy. What, why do you want to keep dragging yourself through the mud? And you got to work 10th at Hey, listen, I was driving. I had a brand, I bought a brand new truck and I put 55, 000 miles on that truck in six months. Okay. So there was a lot of determining factors. The Providence Bridge went out, so now my one hour commute turned into two hours one way to get even to get to our office, so I wasn't getting home till late nine o'clock at night, so it was just like, yeah, God said, Ken, you don't belong here, these people don't, they don't deserve the service that you provide because they don't even want it, you know what I'm saying, and sometimes you just got to look at the numbers and hey, okay. We've turned businesses that were running, losing 300, 000 a month in six weeks and made them 640, 000 in eight weeks. You know what I'm saying? If you can't, if you can't make a little business, with no overhead. Work in six months like it's time to drag, I'm saying like
Evan Hoffman:How long did it take to open up the location there after you made the move? Three hours month and a half
Kenny Byrne:We had the nice thing we didn't have to redo our website We just had to do some modifications to it. Obviously google takes forever to Get you verified and
Evan Hoffman:redo the verification yeah,
Kenny Byrne:in the process up here of doing it because you know Another building up here because you got to have the show, you know what i'm saying like people just they're not going to leave their established companies to come work for someone out of their house matter what you do, you got to have a place where people can go and then you can't teach them. We already got this whole, we got a 4, 800 square foot facility here already. We got the training facilities set up, all the the live fire stuff is getting set up as we speak. We got our boiler process done, which is awesome. Dude, we did two, we've done, we did two, boilers in six hours. You know what I'm saying? That's insane. That's how well we run these businesses. You know what I'm saying? And how much thought is put into them. So it's just stuff like that when you're, you're just like, dude, what we do works. And it's worked time and time again. You just gotta, you just gotta put your pride aside sometimes. Hey, it's just not worth it. Let's move on and let's get some better people and let's get let's actually work with, work for people that actually want to be treated a certain way.
you're doing grassroots, you want to be where the grass is. I could see if you're acquiring another company and there's people and you have a, Team in place. You can do it more remote and dive in and dive out. But I think the way Ken and I would green fielding in the very beginning, you have to be here to set everything up and it takes a lot of time and effort and dedication.
Kenny Byrne:The biggest thing is, we're looking to partner with some people that really, really need some help and got some really great people that are just, spinning their wheels, need a really great brand. Like dude our brands, they take off zero to 8 million in 24 months. Fast, right? This, this one's going to be pretty good too. It's already, we've already done half a million dollars in seven months. That's pretty good or seven weeks, right? So this is going to be pretty good too, but it works. We just, you got to find the right people and we're looking for them because we want to put these, we got, we have 212 of them and we want to put one everywhere around the world that makes sense. And actually what we're finding is that if they don't make sense, it works even better, right? Cause you're, we're up here in Vermont. We were going to do call the owl up here. We got that ready to go. And we launched the whale and people are just like, that makes no sense, but I am going to remember that. You know what I mean?
Evan Hoffman:Funny you mentioned surrounding yourself with right people. We actually have a special webinar that we're going to run on Monday. We are bringing in Tommy Mello. We're going to launch it here tomorrow so that everyone can get registered for it. But it's a special webinar just on hiring, recruiting, and performance pay. So you led me right into that. Thank you so much for that. Everyone go ahead and watch for that being launched tomorrow and get registered for it because it's going to be awesome And that leads us right into our random question generator, which you asked before the show Are we going to do that random thing again where we have the three questions and I was like absolutely we can't leave that out kim i'm gonna let you go first you get to choose your question. Which one would you prefer you don't get to know them before beforehand right. What is the most adventurous thing you've ever done?
Kim Byrne:I went to China.
Evan Hoffman:Nice. I thought you were going to say hook up with this guy, but Kenny, question one or two or one or three, I should say.
Kenny Byrne:I'm going to do three this time.
Evan Hoffman:All right. If you were a professional wrestler, what would your stage name be? Jeez. Sorry. I just pictured you in those tights.
Kenny Byrne:Bigelow male Dregelow. I don't know.
Evan Hoffman:What was it? Sorry.
Kenny Byrne:Kenny Bigelow male Dregelow. I don't know.
Evan Hoffman:So we're in Vermont now. We've got the location there. We're thriving. Hey. Things are going well. We're starting to build the team. We're starting to bring in the right people. Walk me through your recruiting process now. How are you going about finding new people as we're heading into that webinar here on Monday? What's your thought process around recruiting? Because I know nothing for you just comes passively. I'm not sure. You're not just putting up a hiring ad on Indeed. So what are you doing to actively recruit and find great top quality talent?
Kenny Byrne:This is the problem. This is like one of our secret sauce. I don't know if I could tell everyone this. You gotta find these people. They're not looking for you, especially when you show up into. So listen, we, we sent letters to every single licensed person in the entire state. With a QR code, with a video, letting them know who we are, what we're about, the facility that we're building here, how we can change their life, why they want to be part of our team. And then then we're starting to interview and talk to these people on the phone and they're like, holy shit, dude, we're starting to see these bands. Like everyone's cause listen, man, up here in Vermont, this is we're like in the backwoods, you know what I'm saying? This is a super small market. And no one knows who we are they don't even know what branding is up here. You know what I'm saying? And they're they were shell shocked. Is this even for real? Like these people are, these people were able to make this much money doing this job. You know what I'm saying? Like that, guaranteed, like now that we're, now that we've been here for a while and we're talking to a lot of people, we're learning that they're not getting paid nothing up here. You know what I'm saying? It's really the, it's really the reality of, is this real? You know what I'm saying? Okay, these people are saying that this is an opportunity. This can happen. They're watching our videos. Now they're coming in to see us. You know what I mean? Now they're seeing all the vans driving around because we got six of them ripping around up here. So it's like we just turned on the light switch and all of a sudden Call The Whale's all over the place, right? and there's zero brands up here, right? There's just all the, there's all the white noise running around that everyone looks the same. And It's really cool to see how it happens, because now they're seeing the vans. This is reality now. They sent us letters, they sent us multiple letters, wedding invitations, right? Because people open up a wedding invitation, but they ain't gonna, they're just gonna throw postcards. Everyone will open up a wedding invitation. Because they think they're getting invited to something. Yeah. You're getting invited to join Call The Whale, you know what I'm saying? Or call the owl or call the woodchuck or call the bee whoever it is. But there's ways to find out who's got the licenses. You know what I'm saying? You just got, dude, my wife's a genius. She knows about all this stuff. She worked for the government. She's been, ran huge companies, the electric company for New England. And you just got to, you can't sit back, right? Recruiting is a full time job. We literally, listen, just like in Connecticut our branches, our office is right across the street from the biggest supply house. And guess what we're out there doing on Monday mornings. We got to sign out there. We're cooking breakfast. We're telling them to come in and meet us, come in for a free breakfast. We would love to meet you. Okay. We're cooking breakfast for everybody. Everyone else's employees. So you just, you got to think outside the box. And then they come in and they're like, holy shit. Just like everybody else's shop or not like everyone else's shop. They got a bunch of stuff in the back collecting dust that just needs to be thrown out. Cause I hope you're not putting that in people's houses while you're charging them. They're like, wow, like we've never seen anything like this before. Like you have a training facility, you want to teach us, you want to make our lives better. We open up the trucks and just Tommy Mello's trucks, we have customized shelving with every little parts and piece goes and everything we have. And every single tool that they need to do their job has a spot. And they're just like, they're just blown away. They've never seen nothing like this before. And and then the magic starts to happen because then they start coming and then, We stand by our word and they start making this money and then they tell all their friends and then all of a sudden we, we swallowed up a whole company, you know what I'm saying? And it's, it's not our intent, but it's just what happens. We want to attract the best people and the best people want to work with other best people. And if you have opportunities where, people can really change their lives and then you start producing that and then they start getting those paychecks and they can start, Buying their own houses and having a little family and being able to afford them. Then, everyone, just like Walt Disney says, right? We talked about this last time. My favorite quote, do what you do it, do what you do and do it well. Do it so well that people will want to come back and see you do it again and again. And then they want to bring all their friends to see it, to show them how well you do what you do, right? Kind of butchered that a little bit, but you get the point. It's just this, then the snowball just gets bigger and rolls faster, right? But it really, you gotta deliver on your promise too. You know what I'm saying? And we're able to deliver on our promise because listen, we have service time. We've been on service time for 10 years. Literally sat for hours, 20 hours, building a price book and testing it, making sure it works. And now, this year, my whole motto was zero, zero dollar calls. Okay. So I literally sat and talked with my brother and talked with Joey, my, the one of our leaders that called the B and I ran this crazy idea by him. And then I built it in ServiceTitan and now we're testing and we really were, we're getting zero, zero dollar calls. So it's amazing. You know what I mean? You just gotta, you gotta sit like whatever you want to do, you just got to think about it, and you can do it. It just takes a little thought. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just people, their business in their lives are just so chaotic. They don't have time to sit there and think, you know what I'm saying? And then, everyone says you got to get out of the field. Sometimes it's good to get back in it because now you got to, now I'm testing all the things that we've built. And dude, we're doing shit in a quarter of the time, you know what I'm saying? It's crazy how fast we're able to do this once you like build this stuff and then you go out and test it and then now you're like, holy shit, I got three other things that I can make this even easier. You just gotta, you just gotta, whatever you focus on, you get done, you know what I'm saying? So like when we need people, we focus on it and we get people. We need, if people are upset or like things aren't going well, we focus on that. We look at the process to get their feedback and then, I'll go out and test it, right? Because if I can't, if I can't do it, no one can do it. So plus the biggest thing too is, you got all these leaders at these companies. They just sit behind their desk and don't do much except dictate, you know what I'm saying? But hey, I'm out there. I'm freaking trying all this shit I'm telling you to do. And look at how fast I can do this, you know what I'm saying? If I can do it, you can do it too. You know what I'm saying? I'm not that great. I'm just a human being just like everybody else.
Evan Hoffman:One of the points that I wrote down is that recruiting is marketing. It's a contact sport. It's not something that's just passive that you put up an ad and sit there and wait for technicians to come. You gotta find creative ways to get out there and market to them. The handwritten letters in the nice envelopes with the what's it called? With a rubber stamp on the back, make it look special, make it look unique and that was something that we learned with our agency in terms of, targeting your dream 100 clients, putting out a list of who are the top 100 that you want to work with, write them handwritten notes, because that's getting through the gatekeeper, right? That is getting opened 10 out of 10 times.
Kenny Byrne:You gotta have the wow factor.
Evan Hoffman:That's it.
Kenny Byrne:These people are pursuing me. They must want me. And then they feel special. You know what I'm saying? We don't want the guys that are looking for another job. Evan, why don't we want the guys that are looking for another job?
Evan Hoffman:Chances are because they're screwing up at their job and so they're unhappy and they want to leave. You're looking for loyalty.
Kenny Byrne:You
Evan Hoffman:know
Kenny Byrne:what I mean? Like it's not just loyalty. It's just there's not much loyalty anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like everyone's out for themselves and that's okay because hey, listen, this is why we're here, right? But you have to look for the right people, right? Because if you just hire anybody, then you just listen, I said this the last time, we could have these huge companies that are shit or we can just have these companies that run really efficiently. Everyone gets a smile when they come into work. They're not like oh man, I got to go do this another one of these jobs. You know what I'm saying? Dude, they're like, man, this is going to be easy. I can do two of these jobs now and make double what I was making before times as much as I was making before, because I can do two jobs in one day, you know what I'm saying? And still get out in time to go see my kid's soccer game. Or have dinner whatever I want to do. You know what I'm saying? So you just got to set people up for success. That's the name of the game, right? A players aren't looking for jobs for anyone who's interested in learning more about call the brands. You mentioned that you're wanting to expand and that you've got 212 brands now that you want to expand across the U S. You're looking for top quality people. You're looking for people who might want to partner with you. So I'll give you the floor here between the two of you. Who are you looking for? Who are you wanting to partner with and how can someone get in touch with you? So they can get in touch with us. They can do ken@callthewhale.com or kimatcallthewhale.com. They can also go on our Facebook group, which is Business System Experts. We're actually going to be changing that to Call The Brands because that's, Dan Antonelli, thank you for that. We were doing Business System Experts. We were going down that rabbit hole thinking, because that's what we do. We build these businesses on the systems. And he's dude, you, he's you guys are called you're the call the brands. So that's what we're going to do. And we're just, we're looking, like I said, we're looking for happy, productive, professional people that are just, you got something really great. You're struggling. You need to have the right people to surround you with that have a lot of energy, right? I got a lot of energy. I can spare it. You know what I'm saying? And literally we could, like I said, we could plug this business system into your business I did some consulting last, last summer for eight weeks, business was losing 300, 000 a month. And in six weeks, we got that thing making 645, 000 the next month. That is how good this system works. And we're just making it better and better every single day. And the more markets that we get to go into and test it. And, do our trials and our research and development. It's just going to get even better and faster from here. You know what I mean? Really looking for people, listen, Hey, there's a lot of people that are retiring out there and they don't have no clue what to do with their business. We'll buy your business. We'll partner with you for a percentage and we'll help you. We'll help you get to the promised land so that you can have a great retirement. You know what I'm saying? But you gotta, you know what I mean? You gotta trust people, right? And we're not here to take your business. We want to make your life better. You know what I mean? We've done it for, we've done it for thousands of people. Now I've had over thousands of employees now over the six businesses that we've been either, either built or been involved in. And you know what I'm saying? We're just looking for great people to partner with and we want to take this crazy idea that I have of, these call the brands and put them out all around the world. If we can go that far, you know what I'm saying? Because I'm only 40 years old. I got a lot of energy. We like helping people and we just want to grow this business. It's not about the money. It's just, it's about changing people's lives. And, there's not for us, man. It's for all your people, because at the end of the day, if your people are happy, everyone gets to live a different life. You know what I'm saying? It just makes it so easy for people just go to work. What we do is what we do is not hard, right? It is hard, but it's not hard. Like you got to have that mindset and you got to teach people that mindset. Hey, what we do is hard, but if you go in Hey, this is easy. And these people are setting us up like crazy to just be able to go and do this job and not have to leave and just get it done, you know what I'm saying? And get your numbers, like your numbers, everything, our thing is bulletproof almost. We were able to help, we were able to hand our business over in one day. I think it was an hour. Literally, Kim took the files, gave it to Apex, and they're like, holy shit, that was the fastest transaction we ever did. And then it was like, man, I gotta wait 45 days, right? Like just pacing back and forth. Is this even going to happen? But like literally we handed our business over and that's how organized we are, that Kim sets these things up and then teaches the office staff how to run these things. Like one day, you know what I'm saying? We handed the whole thing over in one day and they're like, wow, we want this. You know what I'm saying? How many more can you do? As many as people want to get on the ride and run with it. You know what I'm saying so.
Evan Hoffman:Thank you so much, Jenny and Kim for joining us this week. We truly appreciate it. Thanks for bringing in the heat. Bringing the knowledge as always. And we truly appreciate both of you.
Kenny Byrne:Love you, man. Thanks for having me on your show again.
Evan Hoffman:No worries. We'll talk to you guys again soon. Until next time. Cheers.
Thaddeus Tondu: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.