Epic Entrepreneurs

You Never Stop Having A Boss As An Owner with Christian Adams, Carolina Temperature Control

• Bill Gilliland

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You can feel it when a company is built on pride and you can also feel it when it’s built on pressure. We talk with Christian Adams, owner of Carolina Temperature Control, about what growth really looks like inside a modern trades business serving Northeast South Carolina with HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and indoor air quality. He shares how the company jumped from about 10 employees to roughly 50 to 60, and why the popular fantasy of “having no boss” turns into a much more demanding reality: you answer to customers, you answer to your team, and you answer to payroll every single week. 

We get practical about scaling a home services company without losing quality. Christian explains why processes matter more than hustle once you start growing fast, how roles evolve from everyone doing everything to clear accountability, and why letting go of control is a leadership skill you have to earn. We also unpack what actually moves the needle: employee performance powered by culture, trust, and the kind of workplace that makes good people bring their friends. If you care about customer service, five-star Google reviews, and building a durable local brand, this conversation delivers real-world lessons. 

Then we look forward: how AI automation may change phone answering, dispatch, and smarter HVAC systems, while field technicians stay essential. Christian also lays out expansion goals and the mindset he leans on when business gets heavy. If you’re building a service business, running a small business, or trying to scale a trades company, you’ll leave with a clearer playbook for people, process, and staying steady through the hard months. Subscribe, share this with an entrepreneur friend, and leave a review if it helps. What’s the biggest myth you had to unlearn as an owner?

CONTACT INFO:
christiana@orangetrucks.com
https://www.orangetrucks.com/

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review,  and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/


SPEAKER_02

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McCray with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today I'm excited to be joined by Christian Adams with Carolina Temperature Control. Christian, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00

Doing great, doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, we're excited to have you. So let's go ahead and jump right into things if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00

That'd be great.

SPEAKER_02

All right. So for those of you who may not know it yet, you know what is Carolina Temperature Control?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so Carolina Temperature Control, we're a trade business based in Northeast South

Meet The Owner And Company

SPEAKER_00

Carolina. So we're we've got offices in North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle's inland. It's kind of we're on the north and south side of Myrtle Beach. We do HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and indoor air quality services. We've got about 50 to 60 full-time employees, and we've been around since 1983.

SPEAKER_02

Nice, nice. And who are you as a person? Who is Christian Adams?

SPEAKER_00

Yep. So I'm the owner of the company, second generation. So it was founded by the Kavanaughs. They founded it as the family in 1983. They ran it until 2023 when I actually they sold the company to me, financed it to me, and took it over. And when I started three years ago, we had about 10 employees. And then today, like I said, we've grown to about 50 to 60. And so it's been a fun three years.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay, nice. And then what about you personally? Any kids, wife, anything like that?

SPEAKER_00

No, no kids. My I'm I'm 30 years old. My wife's 29. So we've been married, actually, ironically, today, we've been married eight years. This is our anniversary.

SPEAKER_02

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00

We started dating in high school. So we've been together a long time. And I think hopefully now that we're at a point in our life we'd we'd like to hopefully one day have kids.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Okay. You looking for a bid family or kind of keep it small, one or two?

SPEAKER_00

That's a good question. I'm sure my wife is in control of that.

SPEAKER_02

All right. So, you know, Christian, real talk. Let's go ahead and get right into the nitty-gritty. You know, what's something about running a business that people think is amazing, but is actually complete BS when you hear it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think uh the biggest fallacy is like, hey, you when you're when you run a company, you don't have a boss, right? You're in you're in charge of everything. And the the fallacy of that is you always have a boss, right? You do have a lot of freedom of uh decision making, right? And freedom of decision making comes with a lot more stress and responsibility, but you've always got a boss, right? It's either your boss at a company you work for. I worked for a family and business for five years before I took over Carolina temperature control and I had a direct

The Myths Of Business Ownership

SPEAKER_00

boss there. And and now that I run a company, right? I work for the employees, right? Because I got to address their issues and concerns. And then you work for the customers, right? So I always hear that sometimes it's like, hey, it must be nice to run a company and and and you don't have a boss. And that's just that's that's not the case.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I and a lot of times I hear that, you know, you're you're you're stupid, wealthy, you got all this money, got a Lamborghini and a Bugatti sitting in the garage and all this stuff. It's another thing I hear a lot.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's uh that's that's uh that's another one. They always there's there's always an unlimited supply of money, and it's expensive, right, to run a business and take care of people. And there's months where obviously the business is doing really well, and there's months where the business is slower and you're not collecting as much. And so whether in that storm, I mean, that's part of running and out of business, and it's not always sunshine and rainbows. And I think, yeah, it's a lot of times that's what people think, right? Is there's always just an unlimited supply of capital and the business must just must always be making a lot of money, and that's that's not the case.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Now, what would you say was the exact moment where you realized, you know, this business could either well, you said you're second generation, so this might actually be a little different for you, but you know, you realize that this business could either really work or it could completely blow up in your face and you lose everything.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I mean, uh before I got into the industry, did a lot of research, I grew up around a custom construction business. So got to watch my dad build a home building business my whole life. And one of the downsides in home building was obviously it's cyclical, right? And I mean, when people, when the economy's great and people want to build homes, it's a really, really good business when the economy's slower, right? Not as many people want to build new homes. It gets more difficult and times were tough. And so at a young age, I was like, man, I really want something that's not tied to the economy. I want something that's recurring. I want something that people always need. And so like I said,

Why Trades Stay In Demand

SPEAKER_00

I spent five years working and consulting, trying to learn how to run businesses. And during that time, I was always trying to figure out like what would be a great fit for me one day to hopefully be an entrepreneur and run a business. And so finally kind of concluded on something related to construction that everybody needed. And that's that's how I got into the trades. I kind of zeroed in on saying, hey, HVAC's a really, really good starting point. And then it was just trying to find the right company and the right situation where it was somebody looking to get out of the business. And that's that's when I met the owners of Carolina Temperature Control back in early 2023.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and like you said, it's a great idea, right? Because it doesn't matter if, you know, the the economy's doing well, the economy's doing gr bad, you know, people are going to need their AC fixed. I mean, that's just how it works.

SPEAKER_00

They want to stop water from leaking. They want they want they want power to their house, and they want heating and air conditioning in their house. Those are three things people that in today's society can't live without.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Yeah, no, especially. And now, have you ever thought about, you know, going a different route other than this? Have you ever thought about other anything else? Or has this really just been kind of the where you where you wanted to go is kind of in the trades?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, I've definitely thought about different businesses when I was kind of thinking about, hey, what what what do I want to get into? I've looked at uh a glass glazing business, looked at real estate at one point, like getting into rental properties, looked at property management, looked at a linen cleaning business. So like it was always kind of service-oriented, something with recurring revenue. And then I never really fell in love with any of those. And so when I learned about HVAC, and I actually, before I bought this business, I had a longtime friend of my dad's worked for worked with my dad, and we kind of created a little partnership very small where I supported him kind of get started on his own, and I was still working and and consulting, and I I saw him do it, and I said, Man, this is really what I want to do. And that's really what I dug in, was like, hey, I want to figure out how to get into the industry.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now, if you could wave a magic wand and instantly fix one part of your business tomorrow, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

Oh gosh, that's a great question. That's a good question. One thing.

SPEAKER_00

Man, I would say it'd be the processes, right? So, I mean, one the one benefit of big businesses is they've got a big team, they've got really developed processes that can make things streamlined, right? When you sell something going to production, right? There's a lot of automated processes. When you're growing a small business, you kind of are creating those on your own in large part. And so that's a

Scaling Fast Needs Better Processes

SPEAKER_00

good thing because they get to be your processes and you get to hopefully make them the way you want them to be and they're efficient, right? The downside is you have to make them all, right? And it takes a lot of time. And when you're running a business, there's a lot of time just devoted to running a business and solving the problems that are right in front of you. And so finding the time to to develop those processes, it's always it's always difficult. And so if there's one thing I wish, man, magically it just would be here, is that I mean, we had all the processes to kind of facilitate us to continue to grow. And so that's been the the challenging and fun part as we've grown is trying to develop processes and the administrative side of the business to match where we're at as far as a company and the amount of business we do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, I like that answer. Now, what do you think is currently preventing that from getting solved right now?

SPEAKER_00

Time in the time of time in the day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, just not enough time in the day.

SPEAKER_00

And you're you're always developing people. It's like we've always been lucky. We've had really we built a really good culture. That'd be one thing I think we did really well. And so we've been able to keep some really good people and developing those people into growing roles. And right, going from where, like when I started, you may have one person that did accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, right, and other administrative functions in the business to today, right? We've got one person that does accounts payable, right? And we've got one person that handles kind of scheduling of our HVAC install department, and one person that does payroll and and and so on and so on. And so as you grow, you try to develop these more defined roles, right? Where they're they're doing one task versus kind of five or ten tasks. And so as you develop those roles, that's always that's always a difficulty. And so it takes time to get those roles developed and then to get people trained to take them on. And so that's the challenging part. As you develop those people, it's really rewarding and you get some of your time back. And so that's that's the part that's that kind of takes away from being able to solve that. Is it's just the time in the day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Now, let's say if you did have the time in the day and you were able to solve that, what what do you think would that would accomplish ultimately for the company?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think, I mean, it would I I truly think we'd have the opportunity to really continue to grow and serve the customer better. And also just quality of life for everybody involved, right? I think if you've got those processes in place, everybody's job gets less stressful. Everybody's job gets more enjoyable, right? Because you're not there, there's less unknowns, right? And so what people like is certainty and knowing what to do, right? And so the more you have systems and processes around what everybody does each day, the job becomes more enjoyable, right? So I think that's one thing is it it makes it a better workplace. And you also obviously there's the financial side of the business. When when you have good processes, things are more efficient, right? So more stuff can get done. So from a profitability standpoint, I think it's just instrumental, especially as you grow. Because that's the hardest part when you're growing really fast is to keep quality, right? And to keep margins because you're gonna start everybody's kind of getting stretched, and you've got to make sure you got guys developed and in place to manage people effectively as you grow. And so that's always the challenging piece.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm. Okay, okay. Now, what it and you know, maybe this hasn't happened to you, but you know, I'm gonna ask it anyways. Has there anything about you personally or in your personal life that had to change in order for your business to grow? Would you say?

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, letting go. That was the hardest part. Growing up, I would say, and even in my first job out of college, I was really, I mean, I wanted everything to be right. Always been a hard worker and I struggled. I was always kind of the best at what I did, right? And so like I went into consulting, I went through the training program and I learned right how to be really good at that job. And so when I had guys working under me, I knew how to do their job better than they did, right? So I had to maintain I I was able to maintain control and always teach them how to do it. And when you jump

Letting Go And Empowering Leaders

SPEAKER_00

into a new field, you're not the smartest at. You I had to quickly learn how to rely on other people and manage from a different style, right? Management through kind of control is one way, right? And that kind of restricts everybody else from learning and getting better at their jobs, and then management by empowering others is a completely different way to manage and grow a business. And I would say when when going into this role, that was the biggest thing I had to learn, right? And a lot of it was forced on me, right? I didn't have a choice because I was I had a lot to learn. I knew nothing. I kind of just jumped in without really knowing anything about the business or how the job was done. I mean, I knew business at a high level and how to how businesses worked, but a lot of it was I had to figure it out. That was really a good thing that happened, but it also made me pretty un pretty uncomfortable for six to twelve months.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, until you adjusted to it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Now, in and and this, you know, question might be hypothetical. Maybe you've done it already, but you and you could talk about it. But let's say if someone shadowed you for a full day, kind of married everything, kind of watched everything you did for a full day or even a full week. What would surprise them the most about how you operate the company?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would say how much time spent uh taking care of managing employees.

SPEAKER_00

I always say that's the biggest thing that surprised me is when you think about running a company, especially like when you get to 40 to 60 people, you're thinking, oh man, they're probably just making big strategic decisions. They're probably dealing with big customers or strategy meetings with the department managers. And so much of the day is spent just taking care of employees, right? Or interpersonal issues or making sure customers are taken care of. Or if a guy's got an an issue, I mean, the guys still want to come and and meet with you, right? And then you got to show them you care. And so so much of the day is spent spent just taking care of the guys that work here. And I feel like that's the most important part of my job. When I first started, a lot of days I'd stay late and they'd just be sitting talking to the guys and getting in. Because I always said, like, hey, I can always go find like another job to quote, another job to sell, but I cannot always, I can't always go find the guys that work here today. Right. And and the longer that I keep these guys and get them excited and let them know that I care and I want them to be a part of where the company's headed, right? You start to build those relationships, right? And they know you care and then mutually, right, they start to care. The other side of that is right, when when people work for you for a long time, there's a level of unsaid communication, right? When you work for somebody, you just know what they expect, right? Through trial and error. You know what quality of work, right? You know how they want things sent to you, you know, you know what, what what time they arrive, right? You know what time they leave, right? And so there's a lot of things that when you hire somebody new, all that starts over. And so when you find good people, you got to keep good people, right? And part of that's having a relationship where it's mutually beneficial. And so building the culture, building the guys here has always been kind of for at the forefront for me, and it's I think what's led to a lot of the growth.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I feel like that's underrated, an underrated prospect or aspect of of building a business is you know, you're like you say, your team communication. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I think that's underrated.

SPEAKER_00

That's always, I think, if somebody was to shadow, that'd be the biggest thing that would surprise how much of the days uh spent on that, right?

SPEAKER_02

And like you said, you get you get such great rapport of people that they know already what you're what you're thinking and how you're feeling about moving a certain way without even saying it, right? Yeah, yeah. I like that. I like that. Now what would you say actually moves the needle most in your business right now? And when you say moves the needle, what from kind of what point of view is that uh Yeah, so basically, you know, example like leads are uh leads moving the needle, conversions, uh is it your team's pricing or is it your team's performance that moves the needle most?

SPEAKER_00

Uh performance. Yeah. It's definitely, I mean, it's we we've got a bunch of guys that really, really care and and do a good job. And and and they're like, they're not just here, right, for hey, this is a job, right? Hey, I want to see this company grow. I want to be a part of its growth and customers see that, right? When you go in people's home, right, where HVAC

Culture As The Growth Engine

SPEAKER_00

technicians and the guys are happy and they're talking good about the business, right? Customers are aware of that, right? And then when they see their neighbor, they're like, hey, you got to use my company, right? And the same goes with sales guys, right? And so when you build a company where people care, right, a lot of people start to hear about the business because the employees are proud of the business, right? If it's one guy that cares and that's me, that's one guy going around telling everybody they they know that it's a great business and use them. But if there's 50 people doing that, right, that's a lot of people marketing the business. And I think in a lot of companies, that's what restricts the growth, right? Is because it's just it's kind of the owner and then the employees, right? And there's no really mutually beneficial relationship. And the employees are just there for the job and the owner's there to make sure there's work to get done and right in in a good business, right? It's it's everybody's business, right? And so when everybody believes in that growth, everybody kind of they promote the company and they want to see it be successful. And so that's been the biggest driver of our growth. It's the people and the culture for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I love that. I love that. And that's hard to find these days. It's hard to find people that actually care about the place they're working at. I mean, you know, 100%. Yeah, you see it on social media all the time with people working at these fast food places and they're disrespectful to customers and it's just like, wow, I don't even know how that I don't even know how that works.

SPEAKER_00

Just there for a job. Yeah, exactly. And so it's like, how do you how do you build a culture where I mean guys care about where they work and they want to be there and they want to see it be successful? And so I think it starts by leadership showing they care, right?

unknown

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, I agree with that. So, and that probably goes into the next question, then I guess you know, is that does that kind of give you an unfair advantage over your competitors, or do you it can you think anything else, or is it really just that?

SPEAKER_00

I think that's the number one, right? In our in our industry, a lot of our competitors are private equity-owned, corporate-owned businesses, franchises. And so if you like Googled, right, what's the issue in trades, they would all say, right, the number of tradespeople, right? Employee headcount. In the last two years, we have no issue hiring people. I mean, if we need somebody, all the guys that work here, right? Trades guys talks, they're like, hey, I want to work here. I want to work here, I want to work at that company. And so we need somebody, we just tell our guys, hey, we need another guy, and then they go talk to all their friends at the other company, and then somebody's applies to our company, right? And so it really allows us to hire good people too, right? Because if you've got good people, they're attracted to other good people. And if they plan to be at the company, they want you to hire good people working at the company. And so when we hire people, just about all of our new hires come from our existing employees, right? And so that's a really, really cool thing that differentiates us, gives us an unfair advantage from our competitors.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's huge because at least you know, you know, especially coming from somebody who's a reliable person on your team, you know, if they're gonna refer somebody, they're probably gonna refer somebody that's reliable like them, right? At least halfway reliable.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly, right? Because they plan to be there and they don't want to refer to somebody that's gonna hurt them, right? Because it's a team four.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, I definitely agree. Now, what separates your best employees from everyone else, would you say?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00

What separates a good employee from a an average one? I'd say it's it's really their their personal effort to grow, right? Some employees, especially as they get older or more mature in the trades, they can take the mindset of like, hey, I kind of know what I want to know. I just want to kind of do a good job and go home, right? And other guys, especially if we've had young guys, they want to they want to continue to learn, right? Every day they're like a sponge. They want to be the best version of themselves, and that's whether they're a service tech or a service manager. So they're in charge of themselves or they're in charge of others. They're receptive to feedback and they're eager to grow and expand their knowledge and responsibilities, and they're coachable, right? Because we all got to be coachable, right? I mean, including myself, right? Everybody's got things to learn and improve on to be better in the role we're in. And so it's that that growth versus fixed mindset. And that really separates the great employees from the average ones, right? We've had really, really good technically intelligent and skilled labor that's kind of average in productivity. And we've had kind of younger techs that are really eager to learn and be successful, and they're really high on the productivity side for us. And so, right, your your knowledge and your technical expertise right in the trade field is important, but right, your desire to grow and your desire to be better each day, it's it's more important, honestly. More important to the business itself and also to their individual success.

SPEAKER_02

Now, have you ever had to make a tough call and like an example of that being like, you know, letting someone go that just wasn't a fit for the company, or maybe cutting off or denying a job that ended up being the right move long term?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, denying a job, that's probably something I need to learn. And as I get more experience, some I mean, one thing you learn is some sometimes saying no to a job is is better than taking on a job you shouldn't. And that's a hard lesson to learn. That I mean, we all learn it. I think me being a young owner, I've definitely made that mistake. But the hard the hardest decisions are always letting people go. And I haven't had to do it a ton, but I mean, part of building a

Hard Decisions To Protect The Team

SPEAKER_00

good culture is when you have an employee that's not a good fit, you got to let them go, right? It takes one one bad kind of employee, somebody that's bad for culture, that can disrupt a lot of a lot of what everybody enjoys coming to work for. And so over the last three plus years, we've had, I don't know, a couple and two to two to four people where we've hired them and uh pretty quickly it became apparent that for one reason or another, they just weren't a good fit for the company, right? And And a lot of times, like when you've got a good culture, other employees will bring it to you before it's an issue that kind of you recognize. And so each of those times, that's mostly been the case, right? One of the other employees would come and say, hey, I think there's an issue here, right? And that's always a good feeling, right? When they come to you and it's out of like spite, it's out of throwing somebody on the bus. That's never a good feeling. But it's like, hey, I don't think this guy's a good fit. I think he's going to damage our reputation. It's always a good feeling to know, like, hey, these guys want to look out for the company. But it doesn't make those conversations easier because when you let somebody go, that's their job. It's what I mean provides for their family. But at the end of the day, kind of what I how I've always thought about it is just because I care about one person, I can't make a decision that's good for one, but not good for every other employee that works here, right? My job as the owner and president of the company is to protect the company and protect the employees that work here. Right. So sometimes that means making difficult decisions, but they are really hard conversations. Definitely part of the job I I do not enjoy, but have to do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, you know, you rather upset one person rather than upset 10 people or however many people work on that team, right? Yep. By not by not taking action on that person. All right. All right, perfect. So we're gonna head into the what's called the quick fire round. So how this works is I'm going to give you one word, and then I just want you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear each word in regards to running your business. And then give me kind of like a blurb after it, like a good two or three sentence, like a small paragraph on why you chose that, if that makes sense. Yep. Okay. First word is success.

SPEAKER_00

Oh gosh. Profitability. So what I mean is that success in a business, there's a lot of factors that go into profitability. But I mean, that that really kind of exemplifies success, right? If you're running a good business and you've kept good employees, you've developed good employees, you've got good efficiency,

Quickfire Lessons On Running A Business

SPEAKER_00

you've got really good lead generation and turnover to close those leads, that's going to lead to profitability.

SPEAKER_02

Failure.

SPEAKER_00

Unhappy customers. That for us, it's like bad Google reviews. That would be a failure, right? If you're letting the customer down. We've always had a belief if you take care of the customer, put the customer first, you're doing good work, you'll always have plenty of work to do. And so a failure for us would be letting the customer down and getting a bad Google review. Luckily, we've gotten I think like 400 straight five-star reviews.

SPEAKER_02

So nice, nice. Burnout.

SPEAKER_00

Oh let's say angry or exhausted. And I've been there. I've been there before. When I get burned out, you now I've started where I try to go on vacation every three months because I I tend to work a lot. And I I start to get in that burnout phase, right? And I think what you have to be aware of as an entrepreneur is when you get there, find a way to reset, right? Find a way to rest, reset your mind, go on vacation, take a weekend. Because if you don't, your productivity gets worse, my emotional response to the employees gets worse, right? My state of mind gets worse. And so I had to I had to learn kind of two years into being an entrepreneur. That's just not a good way. It's not productive, right? So you got to learn, find a way to reset.

SPEAKER_02

Scaling.

SPEAKER_00

Processes. You gotta have good processes to scale. Hiring. Culture. To hire good people, you've got to have a really good culture that people where where new employees desire and want to work at the company, right? And culture itself will sell new employees to come work for you because they'll hear it from their peers who work in the industry.

SPEAKER_02

Competition.

SPEAKER_01

That's a hard one. Competition. Competitive competition. That's a hard one.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you'd think it'd be easy.

SPEAKER_02

A lot of people like to say none. You know, there's no competition or something like that.

SPEAKER_00

But there's definitely competition. I think for us it's uh when I think of competition, like how do you overcome competition? I mean, it goes back to culture. It goes back to we do a lot of team meetings, right? And part of our team meetings and and my goals for joining those is to help keep the guys motivated, right? And a lot of times in those, right, we talk about where the company's at and and how we can beat our competition, how we can be better salespeople and service techs and dispatchers. I'm very, very competitive. Played high school basketball and played college basketball at Coastal Carolina here. And uh was not the most naturally developed athlete, but the one thing my high school coach said when I was signing to playing college is he said he's relentless and competitive. So I've always been extremely, extremely competitive. And I think it starts with building a good team to win.

SPEAKER_02

And the last word is freedom.

SPEAKER_00

Good employees. Freedom, what I think I think of employees, right? And who you hire. If you want freedom as a owner, you've got to hire and develop really, really good employees who can do the things in your job that you don't want to do and take those responsibilities off of you.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay. All right. I appreciate you getting through that quick fire round. So, you know, with all of this talk of AI and self-automation and all this stuff, where do you think your industry is going? You know, where do you see your industry 10 years from now?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, you you definitely can't, I mean, AI is not going to replace our service techs doing the work on equipment or plumbers repairing pipes or electricians installing new breaker panels. I think where you'll see AI for us is people who answer the phone, right? AI, it's already, it's kind of already started to get embedded in our industry. But like, I mean, AI, they can

AI In The Trades And Smart Systems

SPEAKER_00

answer phones now, right? They can direct customers on where to go. And I think in certain businesses, like when I call and stuff, that can be frustrating, but you've got to think that'll continue to develop. I think in how cars are driven, I think AI will definitely play play a factor in the in in driving cars. I think it'll play a factor in the equipment that we use, right? We already start to see smarter and smarter, like HVAC systems and water heaters, right? And artificial intelligence is gonna be more and more embedded into those. So they require less service, less repairs, they last longer, they're more energy efficient. I think that's a good and bad thing, right? The bad thing is, right, requires less work. The good thing is it requires probably more product expertise to work on that equipment. And so it makes our our job more important, right? And so then there's probably a higher labor hour and and and more higher salaries than our employees can make. So I think there's good and bad, but I think AI is going to be pervasive. I mean, in all aspects of society and especially in our industry. I don't think it'll ever replace the guys who do the work, but I think it'll replace a lot of other parts of the business.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of that, me personally, I actually got my AC replaced late last year. And with this new system that we got, there's actually AI automation that lets you just it it it can cool and heat your house when it it automatically. Like I don't have to do anything. It goes based off of feel, which is really cool. I think it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's pretty amazing what the type of technology that um has been developed. A lot of these systems are so smart, they'll kind of get a they take a reading of outdoor temperature. And they have different, I mean, some of our systems have 750 different speeds, right? And so they take a feel of outdoor temperature, and that kind of helps direct how fast that unit needs to run to maintain temperature in the house, right? And so it's really, really cool how smart these systems get. And obviously for the customer, it it results in better comfort, right, and less energy usage. And so I mean it's I think it's only the beginning.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. Now, where do you think your particular business will be five years from now? Where do you where do you plan it to be?

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. I think our near-term goal is to become the number one trade company in our area. I mean, I'd hope we could accomplish that in kind of two to three years. And then after that, we'd like to duplicate what we've built here in Orion Georgetown into another location in the state of South Carolina and just can I mean my goal is to continue to grow the company as much as the employees want to grow it. And then I just got to continue to stay in front of that. And so a lot of these guys and girls really want to see it grow. And so, I mean, I would hope in five years we've got another location opened. And our current location,

Expansion Plans And New Markets

SPEAKER_00

we're the number one in this region of the state.

SPEAKER_02

Now, if you were, let's just say if you were to open another location, any any particular cities in minor areas?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a first on our list with Charleston or Florence.

SPEAKER_02

Charleston or Florence, South Carolina. Okay, okay. Any any chance of getting you guys up into the uh the Northern Carolina?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, for sure. I think we would our North Portal branch is right there near the border. So I think Wilmington would Wilmington would be a great market for sure. And I grew up in Winston-Tale, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, nice, okay, yeah. Right down the road. Okay. All right. So I, you know, and I want you to be as candid and as honest as you can with the answer to this next question. But, you know, let's say, Christian, that the the uh, you know, a business owner or a small entrepreneur is listening to the podcast episode with you today. And let's just say they're having a rough goal at 2026, you know, they're they're feeling stuck or overwhelmed, they're not profitable, just not getting a good feel of any anything here. What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear from you today?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would just say, I mean, stay positive. Keep your head up. You never know how close you are to crossing that threshold or being successful. I really do have a belief that just if guys obviously it it's there's never certainty, but if you show up, you work hard, you've got a good attitude, you're in it for the right reasons, you treat other people the way you want to be treated. I mean, success will find you. And and I just for anybody who's having a tough time, I mean, I've I've been there, my wife would tell you there's good days and bad days. And there still is. And there's days, right, when you're one in a business, right? Payroll's expensive, especially in a service business. And there's days where you're trying to figure out right cash flow, right? And how does that all work together? And how do you fund the the the business, right? As businesses grow, it costs a lot of money. And so there's always gonna be good times and bad times. My dad used to always say you can't enjoy the good times if you hadn't been through some bad times. And I do think it's true, right? But when you hit those bad times, I mean, you got to keep your head up and just try to keep trucking. I mean, do the best you can and one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Now, what's next for uh Carolina temperature control? What should people be excited about coming up in the near future?

SPEAKER_00

That's a good question. We kind of we we started out just on HVAC and then we added plumbing probably about a year ago, and we added electrical about the same time. So we've kind of run out of things to add. I mean, I think as far as our scope of work, HVAC electrical and plumbing, I mean, that's kind of as broad as we want to get. We do everything under indoor air quality. I think the biggest next kind of stage of Carolina temperature control would be us adding like a jetter. So adding that's a plumbing service that really goes to commercial customers for clearing out main sewer lines. That'd be the next big investment for us kind of to continue to grow the business.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay. And finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or Lorma about what you all do?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, anybody's I mean, welcome to reach out by my direct email is uh Christian C H R I-S-T-I-A-N-A at orangetrucks.com. And then our website's orangetrucks.com. So, I mean, if you go on the website, you'll see kind of what we do, uh, how we market ourselves, what our trucks look like, and feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_02

Perfect, perfect. Any social media?

SPEAKER_00

I do not have any social media. We do as a company, we've got a full-time girl named a young girl named Dara who manages all of our marketing, does a fantastic job. And so

Advice, Next Moves, And Contact

SPEAKER_00

she manages it for the company. But me, myself, I do not have any social media except for LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, perfect, perfect. Now, is the is the handle Carolina temperature control for people who want to look it up?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I wish I knew that. I do not know that. I probably I probably could. That's why that's why I've hired it there. That's part of being a good owner is hiring people better too than what they do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. No, that's no problem. That's probably no problem. I didn't know if you knew it, but yeah, we can we can look it up and put it in your show notes. That's no problem. We'll put it in the show notes for everyone. We'll look it up before this episode goes live. But uh yeah, man, Christian, and you know, this has been fantastic. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and your perspective. Any last words for the audience here?

SPEAKER_00

No, I've I mean, I really enjoyed it. Uh glad thank you for having me on the show. It was great to speak with you. But no, for any entrepreneur people listening, I mean, it's it's always good to hear other people's stories and happy to answer any questions.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. No, great. And thank you, everything you're doing for the community. Really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_02

All right, you too.