#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
Are you feeling stuck in life, wanting to grow, improve your income, or build a stronger community? Join performance coach Jordan Edwards as he interviews world-class achievers—including the Founder of Reebok and the Co-Founder of Priceline—who share their success stories and actionable strategies. Each episode provides practical tips on how to boost your personal and professional growth, helping you implement changes that can make a real difference in your life.
This podcast is designed for anyone looking to make progress—whether you're aiming to improve your mindset, relationships, health, or income. Jordan distills the wisdom of top performers into easy-to-follow steps you can take immediately. Whether you're stuck in your career or personal life, you’ll find new ways to get unstuck and start moving forward with confidence.
How to get unstuck? It’s a question many face, and in each episode, you’ll hear stories of how successful individuals broke through barriers, found purpose, and created systems to overcome obstacles. From building resilience to developing a success mindset, you'll gain insights into how high achievers continue to evolve and grow.
Looking to improve your income? This podcast also dives into financial strategies, offering advice from entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built wealth, created multiple revenue streams, and mastered the art of financial growth. Learn how to increase your income, find opportunities for advancement, and create value in both your personal and professional life.
Jordan also emphasizes the importance of building community. You'll learn how to expand your network, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive environments that contribute to personal and professional success. From philanthropists to community leaders, guests share their experiences in building impactful, values-driven communities.
At the core of the podcast are the 5 Pillars of Edwards Consulting—Mental Health, Physical Health, Community Service/Philanthropy, Relationships, and Spirituality. Each episode integrates these elements, ensuring a holistic approach to self-improvement. Whether it's enhancing your mental and physical well-being, giving back to your community, or strengthening your relationships, you'll receive actionable advice that’s grounded in real-world success.
This podcast is for everyone—whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to advance, or simply someone seeking personal growth. You’ll gain actionable steps from every conversation, whether it’s about increasing your productivity, improving your health, or finding more purpose in your life.
Jordan’s interviews are designed to be perspective-shifting, giving you the tools and inspiration to transform your life. From overcoming obstacles to building stronger habits, these episodes are packed with practical insights you can use today. Whether you're looking to grow in your career, improve your income, or enhance your personal life, you’ll find value in every conversation.
Join Jordan Edwards and a lineup of incredible guests for thought-provoking conversations that will inspire you to take action, improve your performance, and unlock your full potential. No matter where you are on your journey, this podcast will help you get unstuck, grow, and build a life filled with purpose and success.
#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
#197 - From Family Business to HVAC Industry Leader: Matt Ballard's Journey
Ever wondered how to turn a family business into a thriving enterprise while navigating personal dreams and responsibilities? Listen to our conversation with Matt Ballard, CEO of Sunrise Mechanical LLC, who reveals the secrets of his unique journey from working in the grueling Las Vegas heat to becoming a pivotal figure in the HVAC and plumbing industry. You’ll hear about Matt’s early experiences in his family’s business, the transformative mission trip to Brazil, and how these formative years set the stage for his eventual transition into a sales role within the company. Matt’s story is a testament to resilience, effective communication, and the power of embracing opportunities even when the path is tough.
Imagine balancing a budding career, college, and a mission to Brazil, only to discover that your true calling lies in sales. That’s exactly what happened to Matt, who then had to make a critical decision to drop out of college and fully commit to his career in HVAC sales. We explore the emotional and professional challenges he faced, the lessons learned from navigating family dynamics, and how empathy and clear communication became his cornerstone skills. Matt shares his insights on the importance of aligning personal goals with career choices, making tough decisions, and fostering financial independence.
What happens when a successful consultant decides to pivot into private equity and business acquisition? Matt Ballard tells us how a conversation with industry expert Tom Howard led to a transformative partnership and the acquisition of Sunrise Mechanical. This episode covers Matt’s entrepreneurial ventures, the complexities of balancing family life with demanding work commitments, and the importance of vulnerability and seeking help. Learn from Matt’s experiences about the significance of timing, goal-setting, and leveraging professional networks to create meaningful opportunities in the HVAC industry. Don’t miss his valuable insights on career growth, company culture, and the various pathways to success in this ever-evolving field.
How to Reach Matt:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ballard-9b0a8725/
Email: mballard@sunrisehvac.com
Website: https://www.sunrisehvac.com/
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Hey, what's going on, guys? I've got a special guest today. Here we have Matt Ballard. He's CEO of Sunrise Mechanical LLC out of Las Vegas, and it's one of the fastest growing HVAC and plumbing companies. Matt, I'm so excited to have you here today. How does someone get into HVAC and plumbing and how do you get into that?
Speaker 2:Well, my dad is an air conditioning contractor and so from the time I was a young kid he'd always have me involved in the business in some capacity. I started off in the summertime, sometimes just picking weeds in front of the shop, other times I was sweeping, pushing a broom and just kind of grew through that uh, through that progression, kind of naturally uh working with the, with the family business. So uh, oh go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I was going to say absolutely, Cause most of the people they would their, their father might do it or their mother might do it, and then they just kind of follow their path. But it's interesting, cause you, you kind of blaze your own path with a little bit of both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean from the time that I was in high school I would work summers. I'd get, you know, little odds and ends kind of jobs that my dad would have me come in and do. Eventually, towards the end of high school, started taking on a slightly more consistent role. He had an aging service manager at the time and so I was brought in. This was going to be the last guy's summer that he'd be working out in the field, so my job was to make his job easy and so I would just lift everything. So I'd lift the ladders, I'd secure the ladders on the roofs, I'd lift his tool bag up onto the roof, I'd take the different parts up and down the refrigerant, everything. It's just. The job was to make sure that he didn't have any major problems his last summer out in the field.
Speaker 2:And in the process of doing that I learned quite a bit. I learned a lot on the technical side of the business service and repair and installation and airflow and all those different types of things but ultimately I also learned that I did not like air conditioning that much. It was brutal work. Las Vegas summers are hot as it is. And then to be 17, 18 years old and climbing around in attics all day at 130 plus degrees and being on rooftops in the sun, and it was absolutely brutal work, and I kind of decided inside my head that, yeah, this air conditioning thing is not for me, and so you know. I'm really grateful, though for the component of that is that I learned how to work from a very young age and ultimately knew that, no matter which direction I would go in, I was going to be fine, because I learned how to work in such brutal conditions and everything seemed easier after having done air conditioning in Las Vegas in the summertime.
Speaker 1:So a hundred percent. I just want everyone who's listening to realize this that, like you might be doing blue collar work, you might be doing white collar, completely align, but they're similar. It's the underlying values that we're really going to carry through.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so right around the time that I finished up, that last summer after high school, I decided to serve a mission for my church and so I moved down to Brazil for a couple of years and in the process of my time down there, you know plenty of email communication back and forth with my dad.
Speaker 2:But while I was down there his company joined a contractor success organization and they pushed really hard that like, hey, there's a real big difference in customer engagement between a service technician that generally has kind of that mindset of like I'm here to fix an issue and, at the same exact time, the importance of having dedicated sales processes. And so he starts emailing me telling me that hey, when you come home, I'd like to have you step into this straight commission sales position. And in my mind I'm thinking I hate air conditioning, it's brutal work. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be into that. And he says, well, you're not going to have to spend a bunch of time on rooftops and in attics, and so you know it may be a good job while you're going to college and that type of thing, and so I no.
Speaker 1:that's a major distinction between sales and operations and most people think, when they think of the AC guy, it's oh, it's the guy who came over to my house and cleaned my AC. Not always the case.
Speaker 2:There's many different ways to be in the business dynamic between, you know, the the operation side and the sales side is that, like these guys are spending all day long out in the sun, rooftops, attics, they're just getting beat up and their job is to, you know, figure out what the problem is and how to solve it. And oftentimes, you know, a lot of these technicians don't have any formal communications training or any real sales training. And so we can have the greatest service technician in the world that's capable of solving any problem, repairing any issue, but if he can't communicate that effectively to the customer, he's going to be at a major disadvantage. And so the idea was to have a salesperson come in to be able to supplement that. So, instead of technicians having to sell everything themselves, knowing that that's not necessarily what they're good at, is that they would be able to flip a lead to a salesperson that was trained on how to go in, work with the customer, build out the project and close the deal. And so that was the idea behind it.
Speaker 2:And dad tells me that, yeah, you're not going to spend a bunch of time on rooftops and attics, not true. When you're in the sales side of the business as well, you still have to be able to understand what you're selling, you have to understand the challenges that you're going to encounter, and so it's still required going up in attics, going on rooftops and those types of things just not, you know, all day long, constantly in that environment. And so the idea was is that I come home, I start going to college, start going to UNLV and would run sales calls at the in the afternoons or evenings, and so I did that for quite some time, just running sales leads.
Speaker 1:Was that remote or same location? Same location, so I all in all in las vegas, so I'd go to school in the morning you go to school and then you drive over there like people ask and they look and they go oh he's so lucky. And it's like you start seeing the work ethic. It's like who else in college is working three jobs doing this thing, trying to make it happen, and you start stacking experiences and things start to change.
Speaker 2:Well, in the straight commission.
Speaker 2:For me it's such an important aspect because, you know, anytime you have like family dynamics in business it always gets a little bit iffy in some places because you know, everybody always looks oh that's the boss's son, he's probably getting paid more than everybody else and he's doing less than everybody else. But definitely was not the situation with my family. It was straight commission sales. So if I failed and I was not good at what I did, I did not make any money and I'd force myself out. But if I could close deals and make sure that customers are happy and have some success, then I was able to stick around and continue doing what I was doing and fortunately I built up a massive tolerance of rejection as a missionary that walking into air conditioning cells where essentially I'm walking into a home of somebody that I don't know, I'm building a relationship over 60 to 90 minutes and hopefully at the end of the day I'm walking out with a check you know. So there's been massive preparation going into that space.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, but I also want everyone to realize, like, how cool it is Matt goes. I did missionary work and I got rejected. I'm doing AC work and I'm getting rejected. I'm talking to girls and getting rejected Like it's all. I'm being honest, though, though it's all the same thing, because we sit there and go. How could someone go from missionary work to AC? Like most of them would be like that makes no sense, but you connected the dots, and most people in their careers, they just have to connect the dots to make it all make sense to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, ultimately the interesting thing with air conditioning, plumbing business in general is that we look at that and we think of, like this trade component, of this massive technical component which there is, but it's still very much it's a people business, done face to face. It is somebody has a problem, they find us as a solution to their problem. We go out, identify it, present solutions, close the deal, fix the problem, make sure that they're happy and satisfied. But it is very much a people-driven business. Without the technicians, installers, call takers, dispatchers, without all of those people nothing happens. And so there has to be that very, very high level skilled communication and people focused side of the business as well.
Speaker 2:And so that was one thing I learned as a missionary is just how to connect with people, how to listen and understand that everybody's at a different place in their life, everybody's problems that they, that they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2:And if you can listen and be empathetic and understand that, like hey, you potentially have the ability to provide some relief here. Um, that's something for me that that means a whole lot, and it was such an easy transition from being a missionary doing that to going doing that in sales with people that I was dealing with all day long that didn't want me in the home, generally because nobody wants to replace an air conditioning system. It's expensive, it's time consuming, it's inconvenient and nobody's like you know what. Instead of planning for Disney World this year, let's go ahead and set aside a budget for an air conditioning system that may or may not fail this summer. You know so. You're in an uphill battle from the very beginning, but when you approach it properly, it's really easy to connect with the people and help them understand that like, hey, we, you got a problem, we know, we know how to fix it and let's just figure out a way to make this as painless as possible for you so that everybody wins here.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And when I literally had an AC issue the other and I'm in Tampa Florida and I had an AC person come out Friday at four o'clock or five o'clock and I called them like an hour before and they came out and they were cracking jokes like did the work?
Speaker 1:They're like is it okay if I do this, like it's gonna be a little bit more, and I'm like, dude, you came here on a friday, I could have woke up saturday sweating. I appreciate this and it becomes this like real reciprocity factor where everyone's just very appreciative of the work that's happening, because you see them, they are drenched in sweat, it is hot as can be, and and it's just like thank god, like I appreciate you coming quickly and being able to communicate that and being there on time, because there's so many businesses and there's just so many just relationships in general, where someone might send you a text or ask you a favor and like you just ignore them because it's a no, where you could just say no or you could say yes, it doesn't matter. But people like that communication style, like respond or like don't like, but you got to let me know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, communication really is something that we train on so consistently and regularly just over and over and, over and over again, um and and all facets, facets of the business. But you know, ultimately in that sales position I did that for a number of years. I think I got pretty good at it, put up some good numbers over a long period of time, made some good money, but eventually got to the point where I'm kind of in like this kind of weird dynamic where I'm still going to college, this weird dynamic where I'm still going to college but at the exact same time I'm working and trying to balance these different things. As a missionary I learned Portuguese and so I speak Portuguese fluently. One of the colleges up in Utah offered credits in Portuguese and so I could transfer up to that college. I could knock out 42 credits in Portuguese in a semester. I transferred schools, I transferred up to BYU, started taking all of these Portuguese credits, just so that I could have that boost from the language.
Speaker 2:When I was going to school up there I was kind of bored, so I started looking for a job and back around that timeframe I think minimum wage was like $6.25 an hour and so I'm finding college jobs at $6.25 an hour and I'm used to making really good money working in sales for air conditioning an hour and I'm used to making really good money working in sales for air conditioning. And so I found an air conditioning and heating company up in Utah to go work for. So I went and applied. It was a pretty easy application process. They said this is where you came from. That's where I came from. This is the training you've been in Great, you're hired. You want to go run calls today? And so I jumped on board right away, started running sales calls for the company. So it's kind of the same format as I was doing at home in Las Vegas is I would go to school in the mornings and then I would run sales calls afternoons, evenings, weekends, all that type of thing. And so I started selling at this business up in Utah, started selling at uh at this business up in utah, found a lot of success very quickly, um, and eventually got to the point where I realized after a while that I was going to have my career in air conditioning.
Speaker 2:And at that time I was kind of in a funny spot because I I hated school so much, sitting in a classroom for hours on end listening to lectures and everything else there In my mind. I'm like I could be out running a sales call right now and making $1,500 in 90 minutes. Why am I sitting in this classroom? And so I made the decision that, okay, I'm done with college, I'm going to drop out and I'm going to work in air conditioning. And so I knew that in the process of doing that that, my dad was probably not going to be too happy with me. And so what I did is I started looking for a job.
Speaker 2:Before I dropped out of college had an offer to be a sales manager at a competitor to my dad's business down in Las Vegas. So I called my dad and I said hey, dad, I'm dropping out of college, I'm moving home to Las Vegas and I'm going to take a sales manager position at one of your competitors. And he was not too happy, you know, obviously. You know the first thing was like well, number one, you're not dropping out of college. And at that point I'm like Dad, I'm, I'm paying for my own school, you're not financially supporting me, you don't get to tell me, no, you know.
Speaker 2:And and obviously it was not the funnest conversation I've ever had, but you know, he realized that I was serious, that I decided that air conditioning was going to be my career, and so he said well, give me a little bit of time to talk to my partners, maybe there's a way that we can bring you back here instead of going to one of our competitors. And so, a little bit of time passed, he calls me back, says OK, we'll bring you back, you can come in as a sales manager here. And so I was like great. So I quit school, dropped out, packed up all my stuff, found somebody to take over my housing contract that I was in, and moved back home to Las Vegas and started working full-time in sales management.
Speaker 1:So I just want to bring this up.
Speaker 1:It's just when everyone, whenever anyone prepares a move, probably would have like, if you're not going to make the move, then you call your dad and go hey, dad, I'm thinking about dropping out of school. When you make the move, it's already decided, you already set up the plan with the other job and he's like, basically checkmate, where it's like, hey, I'm letting you know. If I don't tell you, then we're not even communicating anymore and this can make a major issue. So my point being here is that when people are going through times of transition and people have different expectations on things, it's super, super important to convey to the people, even if it is bad news, because that allows the lines of communications to keep going. Because if you just told your dad F off, like I'm not, meanwhile you look at him, he's an ac guy. He probably was like, oh my god, if my kid could go to school, what a blessing. And you're like, yeah, I'm doing the school thing and this, and it's just not a blessing, like it's the opposite well like?
Speaker 2:the funny thing is, is that? So there's five kids in my family? Oh wow, I have two older brothers that are identical twins. They're a couple of years older than me. There's myself. I've got a younger brother five years younger than me, a younger sister I think she's eight and a half years younger than me, and my older brothers didn't get the chance to work at the business, at the family business, because my dad would say well, the problem is like I don't have enough work for both of them and so I don't want to just pick one of them. And so I was the first one that went and worked in the family business, and I believe 100% that my dad's intention behind that was so that I would go to college.
Speaker 2:My dad was going to college, I was married with my mom.
Speaker 2:They end up, you know, getting pregnant with identical twins when they're really young. There's a lot of health complications with my older brothers during, you know, when they were delivered, and so it forced him out of college to go find a job and start providing for a family immediately, and so my dad dropped out of college, and so I think there's part of him that was like geez, if I put him in enough bad, burning hot attics and just you know the worst conditions that you can work in that eventually he'll be like, yeah, it's really important that I go to college, that I go get a degree and everything. And I look back, you know, 20 plus years later now and it's like, yeah, he was absolutely doing the right thing of putting me in that position, hoping that I would get there. But in the process of it I realized that I loved working in air conditioning and I loved working in air conditioning so much that I was willing to walk away. It was just starting my senior year in college, so it wasn't like.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't like you know, two semesters in. You know I was, I think currently I have like 108 credits in college or something like that. So I was really close to graduating and just realized that I found something that I really loved doing and wanted to pursue that completely. And at that point, the decision which you know obviously, looking back, I probably could have just finished up and been okay, but in my mind it was when I know what I want to do, I'm not going to allow something to get in the way of what I want to go out and achieve. And so I never even questioned the decision as to whether or not I should drop out of college. It was no, this is obviously the right thing I should do. So I just went all in on it. And I think, for me personally, and as we talk a little bit more, I've, for some reason, I feel like I've been blessed with just a massive amount of risk tolerance, and it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. But I was willing to take that risk and because of it I was able to go out and find a tremendous amount of success working in the space, and you know. So I moved back to Las Vegas. I take the sales manager position. We start building sales for the company, doing really well with it, and eventually transitioned to the operations manager and was overseeing all the operation of the business on the day-to-day.
Speaker 2:But again that itch came and so I'm talking with my dad and I'm telling him hey, I want to grow this thing aggressively. I want to be an owner in the company. I'm not satisfied just taking the management position and making decent money. I want to be an owner in the company. I'm not satisfied just taking the management position and making decent money. Like I want more. So when are you going to retire? It was was kind of the conversation. You know, and my dad is such an amazing guy, such a hard worker, such a great example that I and I respect him tremendously for this is straight up told me I'm not ready to retire and I'm not going to be ready to retire for a long time. I don't want to, and so I had to make a decision.
Speaker 1:I'm getting chills as you're telling me this man. Yeah, I can see how scary that is. Having that conversation like moving out of the way kind of thing, and you're like absolutely not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, that was a wildly uncomfortable conversation and eventually, you know, it got to the point where we had this open dialogue and said okay, dad, I respect that a hundred percent. This is your company, this is not mine, I'm not entitled to anything here, so I don't expect you to just hand it over. And if you're not ready to retire and you have no idea when that's going to be, I have to do something different. And so I again, I respect him tremendously for not, uh, not making it too easy on me, but also standing up for what he wanted to do to take care of himself and my mom and their livelihood.
Speaker 1:I think that's super important for people to actually have authentic conversations, because there's so many times where your dad he could have led you on for 20 years and like your life would be completely different if he wasn't able to be as blunt with you as it like with you being like no, not doing that. He could have been like three more years, because there's probably people in this audience who are listening who have gotten two more years, three more years, just keep going and you throw away 10 years of your life where you're like what the like dude? That wasn't what we agreed on, that wasn't the plan.
Speaker 2:No, and you know, while this, this whole thing is playing out, I remember going home and talking to my wife and you know, my wife has been my biggest cheerleader, my biggest support. She's, she's encouraged me, she's the one that, like, when I have crazy ideas, like, hey, I'm going to walk away from the family business, I mean, she's just so supportive and has all the confidence in the world with me. And so I have that conversation with my dad, I go home and tell my wife about it and she goes good, do it. And I'm surprised, I'm like I have. I did not expect that from her. You know, at the time we had young daughters and financial instability is terrifying when you have little kids. And you know, and my wife and I, from the time that we got married, we made the decision. Something I learned from my parents too, is that my mom stayed home with the kids. She didn't work until all of us were a little bit older and more self-reliant, but I appreciated that so much of having my mom home with us all the time, and my wife very same way. You know, we talked about it and decided that, hey, when the kids are young, she is going to stay home with the kids, I will be the sole breadwinner from the family. And when the kids a little get older, if she wants to go back into the workforce absolutely, and so I was the only breadwinner for the family my wife tells me yeah, go ahead, I'm on board with you, go ahead and quit, let's find something else.
Speaker 2:And so at the time I'd been doing some consulting and training work for a wholesale distributor in the space, in the HVAC space, just part-time. I'd go do some sales training classes for contractors out of state, and they approached me and wanted me to come on full-time and to open a new product division for their company. And so the wholesale business. We think of just the physical boxes of air conditioning and parts and that type of thing. But there's a whole segment that not a lot of people know how to do really well or don't dedicate enough time and attention to, and it's all about air quality products. How can we improve the air quality inside homes and businesses. And so it was something that I kind of gravitated towards, was having a ton of success with, and so they offered me a position to come as a product manager and to develop that product segment for them. And so I quit my job. I left the family business.
Speaker 2:I started working for a wholesale company with 30 locations all over the Western United States in a space that I'd never been in before. I didn't know the wholesale business. I didn't know B2B sales. I knew B2C pretty well, and so all I did was start taking what I'd learned in terms of the sales processes, of building relationships of trust and learning how to close a deal, and started applying that all over the place. And so we built a product offering, did a bunch of work there and started building this product division and started having a lot of success with it.
Speaker 2:And then company grew and so my boss, who was the CEO of the company, tells me hey, you need to hire some people to come work for you. And so I start looking for people to come work for me. Kind of the interesting thing was is he calls me up one day and my younger brother was working for the same wholesale company. He was working as a salesperson in Las Vegas and he was very good at what he did. And so my boss, the CEO, calls me up and says hey, I hired your brother, nick, to come work for you. I started laughing. I was like you told me to go find people to work for me. You wanted me to build out this team. And then you go and hire my brother and tell me after the fact he goes. Yeah, I know you, no way would you have hired him because you wouldn't like the optics behind it. But he's the most qualified and he's the person that we want in that position. So it was really cool.
Speaker 2:My younger brother, five years younger than me, came and worked directly for me and it was amazing to have my younger brother as kind of like my right-hand man for a number of years, and so we eventually grew that product division. We were handed other product divisions to oversee as well because we had such a tremendous amount of success. I eventually moved from that role into more of a corporate training role. So I built the sales processes for all the outside, inside salespeople, branch manager trainings. I facilitated all of that and my younger brother was promoted up into the position that I had, and so that was really cool to see him and I think when he was promoted I think he was probably like the youngest executive in the history of that company. He was really young and had a tremendous amount of responsibility but was just so good at it and was such a better fit for that position than I was, and so it was. It was really cool to see him kind of grow into that role.
Speaker 1:It's crazy that all this started with AC sales. Like you know what I mean. Like it's you never know where the opportunities are going to take you, and I think that's kind of a very open-ended thing of like being open to new ideas and different things. Then you start becoming receptive to them, because the biggest thing I heard recently was that successful people actually create their own change. People who are struggling are forced into change. So basically, being like if you got laid off from your dad's company, then you'd have to go find a job and rush. Instead, you're like no, I'm firing myself and I'm going to go find something, like even though you did a seamless transit transition. But it's that looking out to what's new is always an important thing for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in the wholesale space we're having all the success lots of different locations over the entire Western United States. I was traveling nonstop as I have my wife and three young daughters now at home and you know it puts a strain on marriage and family when I just wasn't there and you know I miss things from my kids that I shouldn't have missed, and so right around this is all happening. Covid comes into play.
Speaker 1:Did you feel a conflict between between? I am the sole provider, so I have to do everything I can to set on, set, provide. And then you're also like I have, to be like cause it's such a challenging dynamic where it's like I want to make sure I put my all into this Cause I don't want us to be homeless and then you start to realize like we will actually never be homeless. That's a ridiculous concept.
Speaker 2:Jordan. We could do an entire podcast on the guilt that I felt every single time that I, that I left my wife and my kids to go, uh, do something that in my mind, was for the greater good Um, I mean it, it, it tore me up every single time I'd get in my, my truck and drive to the airport early in the morning before my kids were awake and, uh, you know, coming home late at night and having them already be in bed and seeing my wife raising these three daughters pretty much all by herself, and, yeah, the guilt was incredible, not just that I was putting so much effort or shouldering or my wife having shouldering so much of that effort, but just the fact that I didn't get to be there for, like, all the things that I should have been there for for my kids. And so COVID comes into play and we were essentially grounded. We weren't going out different locations and so you know. So Zoom comes into play, and so we just continue on doing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:But COVID was such a massive disruptor and so many people were affected by it in so many negative ways and family members that passed away and different things like that but in spite of all of that, being able to find that silver lining is I was home with my wife and my daughters. Yes, absolutely, and it was incredible. And so, while this is all happening, some different dynamics are playing out in the business and I make the decision again I'm going to leave. I feel like I kind of tapped out my progression there. There's some decisions that were made with the company that I wasn't fully in alignment with, and so, you know, during COVID, I'm talking with my wife, I'm saying, hey, you know, I think I need to leave this company and it was much harder believe it or or not much harder to leave that than it was to leave my family's business because I was doing so well financially yes, they all the golden handcuffs were intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're so golden. And you're like I've heard that a thousand times where it's like wait, you're gonna say no to this like, but we have this like. And then you look back and you're like oh yeah, like, and who knows if you have pets or anything like.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people here like oh yeah, and you know, had such a tremendous amount of success, was doing so well financially during all these years that you know we build this lifestyle and I'm feeling better because, like now, I feel in my mind I'm providing the lifestyle that my wife and my daughters deserve. But I've got this itch that I can't just keep doing what I'm doing and I don't know what I'm going to do. And so, just in the process of kind of COVID and all of this time, I realized that what I enjoy doing most is training technicians and taking these guys that are coming right out of tech school that have no real skill set other than the basic stuff that they learn, and turning these guys into absolute, incredible communicators and helping them have the type of success that I've achieved. And so I decided that I'm going to start a training and a consulting business for HVAC contractors, specifically around again that air quality space.
Speaker 2:And so I start laying all the groundwork during COVID, early 21, I reach out to my company, the CEO of the company I tell them that it's time for me to leave. They were super cool with me, very respectful, they were happy I wasn't going to the competitor, and so they, you know, they were really cool with me in the transition, and so I make this leap in early of 21 that I'm going to build this training business. And so I do. So. I build this training consulting company and it's just me. And so now I've got to go out and find customers, and so I start reaching out to a lot of the contacts that I'd built over years as a contractor and in the wholesale space, and I landed my first customer within the first week of opening up. It was a great contract I had. It was with a massive contractor, multi-state, private equity backed, and so I I land this training contract with them. In my mind I'm like, I'm set, I've made it like I'm playing in just that hard.
Speaker 1:It is that hard especially in the beginning where you go, okay, friday's not coming anymore like we get paid any day of the week. We got to make it happen, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So now I go from great steady paychecks to nothing to I land this great big contractor, big, big contract. Uh, I looked at it and said, geez, I, I can. Probably, if I, if I had to, we can survive just off of this contract alone for the next year. And so in my mind I'm like I'm on easy street, this is going to be great. And so I start doing that and I realized that I'm traveling even more than I was in wholesale because the company demand was so high and they were growing so fast and they wanted me at all these different places at the same time. And so I'm fulfilling that contract.
Speaker 2:And then I get another really great contract with one of the biggest private equity firms in the space that's rolling up HVAC and plumbing businesses to help with leadership, training and development. And it's like I never had the intention of doing that, but was good enough at it and talked with, talked with them. They thought I'd be a great fit, so I started doing that with them. And so now I have these two big contracts and I'm pulling in small contracts all over the place.
Speaker 1:That's the cool. That's the coolest thing about being on your own. Is that, like the one is like you have your job and they just keep giving you more stuff and you're like still getting paid. It's still more stuff. Where're a contractor? You're on your own. It's like yo, we can scoop up all of these contracts and you got to start hiring people and doing these different things. But for a while you're doing three different jobs at once and you're like I guess I'm getting paid for three different jobs now. So it's a give and take.
Speaker 2:I had to learn accounting, which was funny because all of a sudden I got this money coming in. I'm like, oh, I should go sign up with QuickBooks. So I joined QuickBooks. I started teaching myself accounting just off of the training videos they have in YouTube, and so I'm doing all that and I'm managing the customer relationships, I'm managing my travel schedule. I'm doing all these things and I'm having a ton of fun doing it. But it was wildly stressful because a hundred percent of everything was dependent on me.
Speaker 1:And that's the. That's the biggest thing that people don't realize is that when you're looking at that, it's like okay, let's wait a sec. Travel scheduling Most people are capable of scheduling a flight Like that's a $10 task and it's like why am I the one teaching this, doing this task as well? And then you start to realize you're like I need an assistant or need something because there's too much going on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I'm so stubborn that I didn't need an assistant. You got to save the money. I had to save the money. I didn't want to afford help and so I just kept grinding, grinding, grinding.
Speaker 2:In the process of all this is happening, I come across this contractor out of California Somebody connects me with them a guy named Tom Howard. He owns a big business in Fresno, california, called Lee's Air Conditioning. He's also like ap of customer experience at a major crm in the space, and so I meet him and um, within I think like the first 30 minutes, and we kind of hit it off uh, really similar backgrounds. And uh, and he tells me he goes. So when are you going to quit this consulting crap? And I start laughing. I'm like what are you talking about? Like I'm making great money, I'm having a lot of fun, having a lot of Like. I feel like I'm making a name for myself. And he goes yeah, have you figured out yet that you only get paid when you're working? Though Within a few months I'm on the phone with him again.
Speaker 2:I'm like Tom, you're right, man, I'm so burnt out. I don't think I've ever worked this hard in my entire life. There is no rest. I'm away from my family constantly. You're right, like I got to find something different to do and we just kind of had that conversation. I didn't think much of it.
Speaker 2:About a week later he calls me up and he says hey, I got some guys that I think that you should meet. And I go oh well, you know, I appreciate that and everything he's like. Well, you're on speakerphone with them right now. And so he introduced me to two guys that were starting a roll up in the HVAC and plumbing space. They'd made a few acquisitions and they were looking for somebody that had the operational experience in the space. And so he tells them hey, I got a guy, he does experience in the space. And so he tells them hey, I got a guy he does consulting work. He's not going to be able to keep doing it. It's not sustainable. You should approach him.
Speaker 2:So I end up partnering with this small little private equity company that's doing this roll up in the space. I take the role as the COO. I oversee all the operations of the business and was kind of in a unique space. Like their thesis was any construction, you know trade related business. There's a service business that lives there. So they purchased a new construction company in Arkansas that does HVAC new construction. They purchased a mechanical contractor that did commercial HVAC and plumbing out in the DC market and then a commercial plumbing company in Phoenix, arizona. So they have these non-traditional businesses that are traditionally less um less attractive to private equity.
Speaker 1:And so I come in and my job is to build service companies there, and so I started working and yeah, no, no, I can bring this up really quick that I think it's so important that people so Matt is running a consulting business for the audience to realize he's running a consulting business, he's trying to do his thing. Everyone does this. Where you ask him, how are you? It, it's my favorite. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Then he actually got vulnerable with the guy and he said, hey, man, like, this is like and that's a hard conversation in its own capacity and then this guy, he's like kind of a liaison mentor-esque where he's just like, oh sick, I know some guys, I'll set you up. Matt didn't ask for that, but Matt was just like you're right, and that guy wasn't going to set up this next opportunity until Matt called and said, hey, I'm struggling with this. So it's that vulnerability. Sometimes you got to let people know where you're at with things because otherwise you'll never, never have people help you. So it was kind of like Matt asking for help. It was kind of not like Matt asking for help, but it's super valuable. So my point being here is that the audience, whenever you're feeling friction, you should ask for help, like it's good for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I'm, I'm stubborn, I'm, I'm prideful, like I'm, all those things, uh, but you know, the the, the one thing that I think has been very successful for me is I've, I, I'm not afraid to, I'm not afraid to admit the truth. You know, as painful as it is, I was not afraid to say, hey, you were right, I was wrong. This is grinding me down to nothing. And so, yeah, I need, I need a change. And so, you know, when I partnered with a smaller private equity company, I tell them say, hey, you know, my lifestyle sucks right now. I'm traveling nonstop. And so they tell me like, yeah, you're not going to have to travel nearly as much. We only own three companies, you know, so don't, don't worry about it. And so I start working with these businesses and, of course, I'm traveling more and more and more. But I'm also enjoying it so much and it's like I love the people that I'm working with, I love the companies that I'm out helping. We're finding success. The service businesses are growing like good things are happening.
Speaker 2:And in this process of this going on, they asked me to start helping on the acquisition side of the business, said like, hey, you know the operations better than anybody. We want you to start helping with operational due diligence and so I started getting into that side. So I started learning acquisition from some really great people that worked on Wall Street and M and A and you know some big deals, like one of the guys that I was working with uh was, uh, you know, helped out on the the deal when when Dell uh went from public to non-public and so he helped in that process. So it's like these were, these were high quality players, yeah. And so I started learning with um and just kind of naturally morphed into I started helping with acquisition, helping prospect, putting leads into the funnel, the operational due diligence side, and eventually, as the company played out, I eventually oversaw all of the acquisitions for the company moving forward while I was operating as the COO, helping with the improving the operations at all the companies that we had, and so the funniest part?
Speaker 1:the funniest part to me is that you're learning about all these things and you're learning by doing and you're open to that. But in college you were like this doesn't make sense. But you're actually like a super learner, because most entrepreneurs are super learners. They just learn by doing instead of sitting there reading a book. You're like you gotta, let's do it, like let's learn while we're doing it on the fly.
Speaker 2:I like, if we rewind like 10 years here, I forgot like one thing since you brought that up. So when I was the operations manager at my family's business, I was also teaching night classes at the College of Southern Nevada in the HVAC program. So two nights a week, from like 5 to 10 pm almost, I would go and I would teach at the college night classes. My dad taught there as well, so he and I would work together all day long. My dad taught there as well, so he and I would work together all day long, drive out to the campus, teach night classes and then drive home. So I went from a college dropout to technically I think I was considered adjunct faculty at the time. I was teaching college courses without a degree and it was just pretty funny.
Speaker 1:It's really funny once you start putting it in perspective, where you're like none of this stuff matters, like not saying it doesn't matter. It does matter, but it's just, everyone learns differently and that's cool and like if you don't align or mesh with something, maybe there's a different thing out there. And the thing that I'm most impressed with you, matt, it's just your ability and we're going to keep getting there to where your current day is but it's your ability to keep figuring out the lifestyle that you and your family want and working towards that.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so I'm at the private equity company, eventually, after a couple of years, realized that, all right, I've had enough of the travel thing completely, I just needed to be done. It's just funny. There's a lot of people that look at business travel in general and they're like, oh, you get to fly on planes and go eat at nice restaurants, and it's like no guys, I'm flying Frontier Airlines from Vegas to Arkansas, I'm staying in a double tree that smells like you know feet and I'm eating fast food whenever I can find a meal that I can, you know, a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2:There's no routine and it's, it's, it's grinding, it's grinding, it's grinding, and I finally get to the point where I tell the company that I'm with we need to buy a business in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:uh, because I'm, we need to buy a business in Las Vegas because I'm done, I'm not going to travel anymore.
Speaker 2:I'll still. I'll do everything that I can remote. You know, I'll commit to once a quarter. I'll go out for a few days or a week or whatever that is, but I'm not going to be on the road constantly. So they agree, they say okay, so let's go ahead and find a business in Vegas.
Speaker 2:And so I have this team of salespeople, this guy, mo he's probably looked like he was about 14 years old at the time, but he cold calls into this business in Las Vegas called Sunrise Mechanical. Now, in my mind, I'd been in Vegas, I'd known that company, I'd worked here a long time. It was like they're one of the biggest players in the space period. Mo calls up Sunrise Mechanical, gets the voicemail of the CEO of the company and gets a phone call 30 minutes later. Ceo calls him back and says, yeah, I'd love to talk to you guys. And so the next day I'm on a Zoom call with the owners of Sunrise Mechanical in Las Vegas. I'm on a Zoom call with the owners of Sunrise Mechanical in Las Vegas. Now they're a residential new construction HVAC company. So all the new homes that are being built, sunrise Mechanical puts probably 40% of the air conditioning systems in every single new home that's built in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada in general.
Speaker 1:They're blowing. Vegas is going fast and people don't realize that. Matt knew these people the entire time. But who's gonna go up to someone who's got such an established thing and go hey, man, you're selling right and it's like, I don't know, you got to get people at the exact moment. So it's like, but you don't get there without putting a real target on the board of hey, we want to go here. So that's why I think it's always so important to set a target and set a goal, set an intention, because then you work towards it and like if it wasn't sunrise, it would be somewhere else, but you would find something that would work for you.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And you talk about timing. I think had Mo not called that exact day at that exact time, it wouldn't have happened, because he caught that CEO. The guy's name is Dave Hahn. Fantastic guy. Love him to death, catches him at the right time, right pitch, gets us on the phone.
Speaker 2:And the crazy thing is that we you know the Sunrise Mechanical people myself we'd been in Vegas for a very long time. They knew of my family's business, they knew of my dad, they knew the reputation that we had, they knew the family name and all these things, and so it just made the conversation so much easier. It made it to check references too. They could call anybody in the industry and just say hey, tell me about Matt Ballard, and it was all out in the open. So it just opened up the conversation so easily. We get the deal under contract. We're working with lenders to fund the deal, but eventually this unexpected thing happens that all the lenders look at the deal and they say we don't like the debt structure of the private equity company that you're a part of, so we're not going to fund the deal. It's like, oh crap, I've just worked months of trying to put this thing into place and we're getting shut down by lenders and they're not going to lend on the deal because of the debt structure of the company. And in my mind I'm like, oh, this is an absolute nightmare. And then one day we get a phone call from our banker advisor and he calls me up and he says hey, I just want you to know I'm having this conversation with you after I've already talked with the CEO of your company. This isn't me cold calling you or anything. He goes one of the major lenders loves the Sunrise Mechanical deal.
Speaker 2:One of the major lenders loves the Sunrise Mechanical deal. They will not lend to your company, but they want to make you and another guy from the company who was working for me in acquisition, a guy named David Brown. He's 29 years old, he's an accountant, he's freaking brilliant. They said they want to have you guys be sponsors. They want to independently sponsor you two on this deal. It's like you what? We have a bank that doesn't want to lend money to the company I'm with, but they're perfectly fine, throwing all of that behind me and who would then become my business partner, david Brown, it's like okay, so my company's okay with this and they go well. Obviously they're're not happy about it. But you know, they think that there's a way that we can get this thing done, and so eventually we work through this process and David and I quit the company that we're part of, the private equity company.
Speaker 2:We form our own holding company. We put a deal in place to acquire Sunrise Mechanical that would allow our previous employer to be a minority shareholder in the deal, and so we leave. We put Sunrise Mechanical under contract for us with our previous employer as a minority shareholder. We get the bank to lend us every bit of money that we needed, with the exception of a little bit out of our own pockets pennies compared to the deal size that it was and they tell us the sellers tell us you basically got 60 days. You have to close this deal before the end of the year.
Speaker 2:This was in October of 23. And so we're like oh crap. So we have our banker advisor, who was fantastic, a guy named Mel Gilbert from GVC Financial. We have our attorney, a guy named Chris Wilson. We have our accountants with I Bailey, a guy named Chris Wilcox, and so we got like this. In my opinion, we have, like this, super team, and so we just go all in. So David and I quit doing everything, and it is nonstop hustle to get this deal done before the end of the year, because the sellers told us if you cannot close in 23, we're going to take the deal to market. We'll hire a broker.
Speaker 2:And you're done, you're done, and so the stress was so intense that, like that final month in December, I come down with pneumonia. David, I think, probably had pneumonia too. He had some weird respiratory thing. So like we're sick as dogs, he's East Coast, I'm West Coast.
Speaker 1:And so without him.
Speaker 2:He was, he was just an absolute amazing guy. During the entire time He'd wake up early East Coast time and get working. I would eventually get up, we would work together all day long and then I would be working late into the evenings and he was still with me even on East Coast time zone. And we did so many different transactions in one. I mean, there was a real estate deal. It was buying two separate legal entities. It was putting the agreement with our previous employer. It was putting an agreement with the lender. It was putting the agreement with the sellers.
Speaker 1:The coolest part about this whole story to me is that Matt never really like. He did a little bit of this, but like never like did you. That's what I'm so like. Life is so amazing where you can just put yourself in that situation and you figure it out, if you believe, because it all came back from working in college, working that other job, doing all these high-level things where you're like the grinding is the consultant. All of these things coming down to this one culmination moment where it's like let's do it, it's cool. Let's do it Like it's cool, it's exciting, because people don't realize that life has that opportunity, because they just stay in the same role that they're in. So you've got to make those changes and those adjustments.
Speaker 2:The craziest thing of like the whole process isn't like for me wasn't even the transaction, it was the fact that, at 39 years old, I tell my wife I'm going to quit this private equity job. I'm going to take a huge, huge chunk of our life savings. I'm going to throw it at this deal that if it doesn't happen and we can't close it, I'm going to lose that money. It is not coming back and her response was let's do it.
Speaker 2:She's like I trust you completely and there's something for me specifically with her that she never wavered in her confidence and trust in me no matter how crazy an idea or how big of risk, she was on board pushing me, encouraging me, like the days when I'm sick out of my mind, that December and just like struggling to get out of bed, she's like she's the one that's pushing me, is like no, we're going to do this and it's going to work. And so we grind through everything. We get to the final week in December. We're still not done. My partner, david Brown, flies from Washington DC to Vegas on December 26th without a return ticket and we just worked, and worked and worked, and on December 29th of 2023, with about 20 minutes left, with the Fed being open, wires were sent, docs were signed. We closed this massive deal and when I say massive, this was a $55 million contractor, $55 million in revenue, over 5,000 homes in terms of construction the previous year, these 203 employees. This was a huge, huge deal and we close it. We have two days of reprieve the 31st and the 1st and January 2nd. We both show up at Sunrise Mechanical early in the morning to meet everybody from the company that we just acquired. And then it was like, okay, it's go time. And so we're eight months into it. We've put a massive focus on building the service business. Our construction company is doing excellent. We're pacing at like over 20, I think it's 24% over where we were last year, all organic. And then our service business. We're growing at about 85% year over year right now and just having a tremendous amount of success.
Speaker 2:But for me, I look at all of like everything that is culminated to get to this point and I look at the acquisition. But the reality and I think kind of to drive this home is the part that I enjoy most is that I'm home every single night with my wife and my three daughters and I don't miss the things that I used to miss. And I don't miss the things that I used to miss and I have the ability now to help instill that mindset with a team of over 200 employees too is that you can succeed as much as you want in your professional career. You can make as much money, you can have the titles, you can have all of those things, but if you lose your family in the process, it's for nothing.
Speaker 2:And it's amazing being able to have that balance finally in my life and at the exact same time, be able to see employees at the company have a little bit more freedom, to be able to take a little bit of time for family and to not have to worry about whether or not you know what's going to happen if I need to take some time off with a sick kid or whatever that looks like. But instilling that mentality everywhere that hey, we are going to come here and we're going to succeed at Sunrise Mechanical. Absolutely we're going to. There's no question in my mind. I've never doubted that. But in the process we need to see a whole bunch of people win with us, and not just financially. We just need to see people win and progress in life and be able to achieve the things that they want to achieve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's absolutely amazing Because I think the coolest thing to me is that by the time you finally, most people sit there and they go and build on their own and they'll go try to build their own AC culture right, or their own HVAC or whatever it is. They'll try to go build their own company from zero and get the culture. You did a massive transaction and now you're like we have 200 families Good, we're changing the culture right now and like that is such a profound thing because most people have to go through that little grinding stage of like doing all the little. But you did that in like 20 different jobs which allowed you to finally get there and go. Dude, we're not traveling like that, we're not doing it. Like like that is not how the world is. And you start to realize, like you're 40.
Speaker 1:The other guy, david's 29. A lot of years. Like yeah, the time to change. Like I'm in tampa, you're in vegas. Like the times have changed. Like the fact that we're having this conversation, like I'm at, if one of us had a flight or the other person would be oh dude, I don't know when are you here at this time, this might work. I'll see you in six months, like you know what I mean. It's not a we're so accessible now and it's like I've had days where I've had meetings with someone in the UK, someone in California, like it's not a big deal anymore, and to have that opening and realize that life has so many opportunities for us. But we have to decide what we want, I think is the most important thing to me, and it sounds like it is to you, which I think is awesome. Yeah, so where can people learn about Sunrise Mechanical? Where can people learn about you? Where can people find all of you?
Speaker 2:So our website is sunrisehvaccom, so it will tell you about our service business, our construction business there, our construction business there, um, easiest way to find me is either on uh, just email matt at sunrise hvaccom or uh, I'm on, I was. I still call it twitter, but x. Um, I'm on x. I'm really bad at it, but I'm like trying to get better at it, so it's like I could. If you give me like two seconds, I'll tell you what my handle is. I think it's's uh. I think it's MJ Ballard. Let me just double check. Oh, excuse me, on Twitter at M Ballard, eight, three, uh, that's uh. That's how you find me on on X. Excuse me, I got to stop calling Twitter, um, but those are usually the best places to connect and uh yeah, uh, happy to tell the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, this has been incredible and I love hearing different perspectives and different people because, like most blue-collar people, do not pull the story that you just did like it's an incredible career trajectory and it's you could never pick it out. You just said I need a change and we're doing this, and now you're finally seeing those changes and it's just, it's awesome to see. Yeah, exactly.
