Mastering Leadership and Scaling Success in Home Services with Chad Peterman

Unlock the strategies that have propelled Chad Peterman to the forefront of the home services industry in our latest episode. Our conversation peels back the layers of scaling a trade business, emphasizing the importance of people skills and leadership. As two professionals who entered the trades from different backgrounds, Chad and I share unique insights on empowering teams, the critical role of customer focus, and why self-awareness is the secret ingredient to broadening your company's reach.

Leadership is not just about having a vision; it's about structuring it into actionable steps and trusting the right people to carry it out. We dissect the transformation from a hands-on leader to one that orchestrates from the helm, using the dynamic of a visionary and an integrator to foster monumental growth. Through our talk, you'll grasp the essence of letting go, nurturing independence in your team members, and the significance of adapting in a business environment that keeps evolving, especially in the wake of global events like the pandemic.

The nuts and bolts of business transition come to life as I delve into the story of our family-owned company's generational shift, adapting from new construction to residential services. This episode is not just about business tactics; it's a human story of trust, succession, and personal growth. We round off the discussion with an exciting preview of our company tours, emphasizing the community's role in the industry's success. For anyone in the trades or intrigued by business growth and leadership, this episode is filled with wisdom and inspiration that's ripe for the taking.

https://indianapolis.petermanhvac.com

http://linkedin.com/in/chad-m-peterman

chad@petermanhvac.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Chad Peterman. What's up, Chad?

Speaker 2: 1:04

How's it going, Corey? Thanks for having me on Excited to chop it up here for a little while.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Yeah, I'm excited to have you all. You're an icon a little bit in this space. You've done something that really nobody else has done. You're arguably one of the largest or the largest, I should say plumbing, hvac and electrical. Is that right Outfit in the country? Yep, all for all three.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah, I think we've definitely seen some scale and size. I don't know if we're the biggest, but we're definitely getting up there. But I think the biggest thing we've focused on is it's not so much about the bigger. I always tell our people let's focus on better, and the bigger will take care of itself.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Sure, yeah, 100%. Here's what I find fascinating about that, and the thing that you and I have in common that we have not really talked about is I came from. You didn't really come from outside the industry, but, like you're not a plumber, you're not a technician, you never have been. I think you've been a plumbing manager for a very temporary period of time, from what I understand, but the same for me, like I came from outside, I fell into the industry, completely outside the industry, and so it really is. It's not that easy of an industry to get into if you don't know anything about the actual trade.

Speaker 2: 2:37

For sure. Yeah, I fell. I've been around it my whole life because my dad started the company. But yeah, I have no technical aptitude whatsoever and that goes well beyond HVAC, plumbing and electrical, as my wife will attest but I just have learned to stay in my lane and do what I do.

Speaker 2: 2:56

But I think to your point, I think it's difficult to get in, but I think the one thing that I learned very early on and what gave me kind of the confidence to continue on in the industry, is that it's very little about working on furnaces and water heaters and electrical panels. It's more about people, and it's connecting with the people on your team, connecting with their field professionals and then ultimately supporting them to a point where they can connect with the customer and build trust, build a relationship that makes it easy to do business with. And so for me, that's where I've leaned into kind of the people side of things. And how do we build a really strong culture and a company that really cares about their people and wants to see them succeed as the company succeeds as well 100%.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Yeah, I think, not being a technician, not being a plumber, I have a little bit very similar to what you just said. It is about people and it's about being able to have conversations with people. It's about being able to have empathy for people, and sometimes that's hard to come by as a tech. I'm not saying all technicians don't have empathy, but they're kinesthetic people, right, they work with their hands. They're not great, they didn't come out of the box with great communication skills, because that's not what they focused on, naturally. And so that's where, I see, I think that's. I actually have wondered if that's the reason, a lot of the reason that you've been successful as you have, because it's just from a different, I guess, mindset, if you will.

Speaker 2: 4:36

Yeah, I think that I always say that. Yes, I would agree with you 100%. I think that's where I've gained traction, not because I don't know anything, but I think it's because I didn't have to jump over that hurdle. I was very aware from the very beginning that I didn't know anything, and so I needed to over index and care for the people on our team that did know stuff so that we could actually get work done. But I think it's one of those hurdles where so many people my dad being one of them, where he was a technician Well, technicians pride themselves on having the answers, being able to fix things, and leadership is a whole different skill set.

Speaker 2: 5:14

I always tell our people that want to move up in the company is you need to trade in your plumbing tool belt for your leadership tool belt, and unfortunately, the pipe wrench isn't in your leadership tool belt, because as a leader, you can no longer do the work. You have to empower others to do the work, and so I think it's just a hurdle, but it can either be a really big hurdle or a smaller one, but it's an understanding of it's there and I'm going to have to work with that. Knowing that's how I'm wired right. I like to fix things, I like to have the answers, and leadership is very little about having the answers. It's about making sure that you ask the right questions so that others can figure out problems.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yeah, and putting people in place that can, that can answer those questions because, obviously, if without the background and deep understanding of for me anyway deep understanding of how to fix these things, I'm going to like a lot like you, I couldn't fix anything, so, but it's important to have people in your corner that you can depend on to be able to pick up where we're not good at right. The same thing is the right seat, right people in the right seats. Exactly the same thing. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Yeah, and I think that's a piece of the puzzle, that, again, not knowing anything about the industry, I think that I'm more and it's taken time right. I was one that wanted to be involved in everything and I know what to do once you get your feet under you. But it's really just understanding that in order to grow, you have to empower people to do things At scale. You can't solve every problem and if you are currently, then that is as big as you're going to get. Your capacity is as big as the company can get. It's about expanding that capacity, expanding that bandwidth with really great people that you allow to make decisions and make mistakes and fix things, and so on and so forth. So that's a great point.

Speaker 1: 7:21

So let's pause right there for a second. Tell me a time when that was really hard for you because you've gone, there's different levels of how you've had to grow and so I'm sure there's been times where I don't know, I guess lack of control, you have to let go of control in your situation and you've had to do that on multiple levels. So maybe telling about a time when that was maybe hard for you, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:57

So a great example of that is about two, maybe three years ago now that we're almost done with twenty three, when we're recording this, about three years ago I made the decision. We were growing, we're getting bigger and what I was learning was that I was trying to be the CEO and the CEO of the company, and there's a reason that there aren't many people that have both titles. It takes two people and it's because a CEO is more operationally minded. They get stuff done, they figure it out. So prior to three years ago, I tried I emphasis on tried to fill both roles where I was trying to cast the vision for the company and then to put the vision for the company. And so I'm not saying if you're a four million dollar company, you can still play both, but it's important, I think, to understand in your trajectory, your growth trajectory when am I going to need to make that shift? I think that's a good example of that. You can still play both, but it's important, I think, to understand in your trajectory, your growth trajectory when am I going to need to make that shift? When am I going to need to separate these two roles so that we can accomplish more? And so back then I handed over control to my brother was we were doing a lot of things together, but I said hey, when we both agreed, hey, you take on this. And then we put our director of operations, christy, who's been with us for 20 some odd years now, because they're two of the best operators that I've seen as far as getting stuff done process, procedure here's how we're going to get work done.

Speaker 2: 9:41

And when I did that, the largest growth years that we ever had in the company were after I did that and I think, looking back, hindsight is 2020 and I wouldn't say that I'm some sort of genius, because I probably waited even too long to do it. But when you can divvy up that, there's a big difference between being the dreamer, being the vision caster, and being the implementer. I'm not a great implementer. Like I like to put the idea out there and then I like to hand it off because people know the process and procedure and are asking the right questions that I wouldn't think about or my mind just doesn't work Like I don't like to think at that granular of a level, and so to me, that's a great example of kind of in our growth story of really separating those two roles of visionary and integrator. I think traction the book traction talks a lot about that. We don't run the EOS system, but there's elements of it for sure, and that's one of the big ones that we took away.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Do you feel like you had to sacrifice what you thought to get to that next level? In other words, you were trying to do both roles and I'm sure you were just running burning the candle at both ends, and so there had to be. It almost feels like there could be a level of sacrifice of well, I got to take my hands off of this in order to grow. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah, absolutely. What's the biggest fear of giving up control? While no one's going to do it like I do it, no one's going to do it as well. And the key with any scaling piece is that no one is ever going to do it like you do it no one. Not that you will never find somebody who does it exactly like you, because we're all different, and so I think it's really just getting comfortable with the fact that they're going to do it differently. And if you let them do it, rather than stepping in and say, oh no, I wouldn't do it that way, oh, you're doing it wrong, it's just let them do it. Let them do that.

Speaker 2: 11:51

And what happens is when they see that trust from you carry over into like, oh my God, like this guy's, like, really like, just let me go to town and I'm scared that I'm making mistakes, but I've also got some confidence because I made some good moves I've made, I've got some things working, and to me, that's when you really see the momentum, that growth momentum of you got people in the right seats, they've been empowered to do their job and with little to, with little oversight, because there's trust built there, and I think that's the one thing that I see in smaller companies there's a lack of trust. It's always well, the technician does this and that and this and the other, and it's like one. You talking like that about your people is a recipe for disaster. But two, it's no one is ever going to get any better. No one is ever going to grow.

Speaker 2: 12:52

If you are trying to grow for them, you can't do that. They've got to grow on their own. It's like a. It's like raising a kid. Right, my kids are little now, but there'll be a day when I got to take my hand off the wheel and say all right, you need to make some of your own mistakes, and we've all heard the horror stories of the, the helicopter parent or the person that they end up doing some crazy stuff afterwards because they're trying to get out of that. So I think there's a lot of correlation between that and leadership is by the parent. You're a true leader. You got two little ones looking up at you and wanting to know where we're heading next.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Yeah, and to think that there's not going to be failure within that is absurd.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Yeah, absolutely. That's a recipe for constant frustration, for sure.

Speaker 1: 13:45

Yeah, 100%. So you've got about 600 employees at this stage.

Speaker 2: 13:55

Yeah, right around 600, I believe when do?

Speaker 1: 13:58

you see in terms of employees? Where do you see that going over the next, let's say, 12 to 24 months?

Speaker 2: 14:06

Yeah. So the interesting part about where we are now and I think this is an overview and I've talked a lot about this here recently and I think that 2023 was unlike the previous three years and, unfortunately, where I made a misstep and working to correct that is, we were trying to continue to build the company in 2023, like we had built it the previous three years, and I think the important thing to understand is that there were a lot of factors that won, a lot of factors that we had never experienced before, because we'd never gone through a global pandemic. There were also a lot of factors that were encouraging people to essentially like front load demand. So I was going to replace my system in three years. Well, shoot, I'll just do it now because I'm home, I've got the time, all of these things that factored in, and at the time, we were just like celebrating, right. It was just like, oh crap, this is great, more business, we're growing, this is awesome.

Speaker 2: 15:08

And then this year comes and it's a little bit different. And so, to answer your question, from a people perspective, the really cool thing and I've never been in this position, because in the trades it's always like I don't have enough technicians, we have enough people to, for the most part, double in size, which is really it's a really great place to be because we've got all the talent. Now it's really cracking or not cracking down is the wrong word but just really buckling down and getting better with what we have, getting better with the four calls that we run today getting better at training, getting better at everything, and so it's a really interesting spot. I think it really opens the doors and I think what I would encourage listeners to go and look at is when you look at your budgets, if you increase average ticket and conversion rate, can you see the same amount of growth with the exact same amount of people that you have Just getting better? And to me, that's the blocking and tackling that we've all got to focus on as we move into 24, which most people are predicting is going to look a lot like 23. And so, if it is, what did we learn from 23 that we don't want to repeat? And then, what are the things that we need to double down on in order to grow? And to me, the successful companies that come out of 24 are going to be the ones that focused on the blocking and tackling of how you run a service business. What are we focused on?

Speaker 2: 16:44

I was just meeting with our operations team today and I said, hey, here's the cool part, we just have to focus on different things and we're going to get the result that we want. So it's not, hey, we got to change everything we do. No, we don't have to change anything, we just have to focus on different things. And in the prior three years, we didn't have to focus on anything, it was just hire people, hire people. The leads are coming in. This is fantastic. Well, now we've got to get back down to basics and we got to dig in and we've got to get really good at operating our business. And I personally am extremely excited about this because the cool part is, if we buckle down and we really get good at the operations side of the business, in a year when it's going to be tough when interest rates go back down, things settle down on the political front, like you're going to be really good at operating that business and when the leads start coming in, well, you're already going to be maximizing the heck out of all those. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Well, I'd say one thing that I think you for sure did right and I think at this point is you implemented your guys, me, your sales guys, your CAs or whatever you call them do a lot of their sales over Zoom and I think it's bizarre to me how that hasn't caught on. And I know there are a lot of companies that do it, but there's a far more that don't do it than do it. And I just think, from an efficiency standpoint not just from the efficiency standpoint from the customer right, the customer when you leave that house is 60 to 70% chance you're not going to close that sale. And you've eliminated that by using and I'm not sure what you call it now, but your process with getting on Zoom, how is that? How do you think that's played into this scenario with you in terms of your growth?

Speaker 2: 19:08

Yeah, so great point and it's been a newer thing. It's been a labor of love, I will call it. So we've screwed it up a couple of times. We finally landed on something that I think is going to be really good, and I'll explain where we messed it up. So at first, we had basically call it comfort advisors and we said, hey, you're just going to sell virtually and you're going to help out the technicians, you're going to do all this stuff and like, on paper, that sounds fantastic.

Speaker 2: 19:38

What we found is there's a conflict of interest. Where I make my money selling systems, I make far less money coaching technicians and helping them out, and so there's this balancing act of how are we going to get these people to focus. Well, what we did is we separated the departments. So now we have what we call direct field support. So they're the people that are coaching new technicians. They're coaching ones that are struggling. They're there helping them build options, work through financing, all the stuff that we know that they need help with.

Speaker 2: 20:10

And then we have a group of what we call VCA's, which are virtual comfort advisors, and the big piece is we still give the customer the option. So if I'm a customer and I've got a 15 year old system and I say, yeah, Johnny, I'd love to see some options on a new system. We go, great, let me call in and let's get you an appointment set. And so they'll call in internally. We call it our turnover hotline I can't remember what we call it externally, but we don't call it that. But essentially, they call in and one of the ladies in the office will pick up the phone and say hey, Mr, Mrs Smith, glad you want to do this. We can do this one or two ways. If speed and efficiency are top priority, I can get someone on a zoom call right away to present you some options and do this. If it's something where maybe this is a year down the road purchase for you, whatever it may be, or your spouse isn't there and you really like them to be there to hear it, then let's schedule you with a comfort advisor and he can be out there at 5 30 this evening when everybody's home and we can talk through everything. So we give them the option.

Speaker 2: 21:23

The cool thing is and I was just meeting with a group of technicians this morning is we're really refining this process and I'm like hey, can you tell when a customer, when that urgency is there, Like I want to. Someone needs to replace this tomorrow. I'm not going without heat or air conditioning and they said, yeah, you can tell as you're talking to the customer. So a lot of their pieces, they set it up right, it's? Hey, I've been with Mr Mrs Smith. They're really excited about potentially moving forward with something and getting that put in tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 21:55

I mentioned something about our virtual capabilities and I think that's the way they're leaning and the lady in the office will say that's fantastic, that's great. I just want to take a few pieces of information and I'll get you hooked up with one of our virtual comfort advisors here shortly and they can go through all your options. We get the job sold. The technician is still there, so they get all of the measurements and specs and all of that stuff. We turn the job in and in less than 24 hours we turned around an entire system install in solid.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Yeah, damn, yeah. I didn't realize that.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Yeah, most of our stuff goes next day.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Yes, I mean you streamlined this process massively because the average what's the average company out there? How much time does it take for this whole process? Three days.

Speaker 2: 22:51

Oh yeah, it may take a while, and so we actually in our business, we guarantee a next day install. So that's one of our kind of selling propositions. Is no, we guarantee we'll get this in tomorrow. Now a lot of people are probably like, well, how do you do that with this, that and the other? At the end of the day, if we can't put it in next day, we give them a little bit of money off and say it's going to be the following day, but it gets you in the home for those people who want to make a decision and want to get something taken care of today.

Speaker 1: 23:24

Yeah, and it's on the forefront of their mind. I can have this.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Yep, you got it. Yep, yeah, we'll be here in eight hours to start the project.

Speaker 1: 23:33

That's crazy, that's wild.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Yeah, I mean, speed is the name of the game.

Speaker 1: 23:42

That's too. That's bad, as bad as I love that. So and so, how many? So I like the fact that you split this process up, because part of me is to think well, the comfort advisor, it's there. I mean, my thought is, you would want the technician, you would want to coach the technician, so you get the outcome you're looking for, which is probably how you were thinking of it at first. But then I guess, things shifted and it didn't really work out that way, which seems like the comfort advisor would be shooting himself in the foot if he didn't do it that way. But now that you've separated the two, that's amazing. Because the service technician, he doesn't want to sell, right, and so, and it's all training, right, it's all training those, each one of those pieces for the guy coaching, that's his job. Training for that job, service tech, obviously, training for that job, the virtual comfort they all know where their spot is.

Speaker 2: 24:49

Yep, yeah, and I think the other thing is too that I'll put in. There is a heavy out to this. So I don't, if you're, if you've got five to 10 technicians to me, you could use one person. The biggest piece we ran into is we took an idea. That was a really good one. Joe Coursera teaches it service MVP and it works.

Speaker 2: 25:15

However, I think the one caveat to it is understanding. Does it work at scale? I think it can. I think with our kind of culture and process and stuff like that, there was something, and it doesn't mean it's a bad process, it's a great process. It works. But I think that there are considerations to take in as you scale and what that looks like.

Speaker 2: 25:38

It would have been different, too, if we would have started this process when we had five technicians and it was just ingrained in the culture Well, I'm trying to flip. I think we've got a hundred and some odd HVAC technicians out there, like trying to convert all of that and then get all the training and do all of this. It was just like this is too big of a mountain to climb and we're going to create far more frustration within the organization than we are benefit. So like, how can we do this in the least invasive way possible was how we looked at it. So I think that there you could do it both. You could do it, as both there's companies out there that do and have great success with it. It just so happened that it didn't. We've taken elements of it, for sure, but it's just modifying it a touch to make it work for what and how we do it.

Speaker 1: 26:30

Yeah, that makes sense. And now, as you sit here and explain it, I'm like, yeah, I could see how, if there were 10 technicians, hypothetically for a smaller company, I could see how that virtual comfort advisor would very much so be picky on who's who he's coaching and who he's not coaching, right, and then that doesn't build a good culture when you've got five guys that feel like they're being left out and essentially race maybe not a race to the bottom, but they're certainly not racing to the top because they don't get the attention that they need, that they need.

Speaker 2: 27:04

Yeah, you got it. We call it here the cool kids club and we can't have cool kids clubs inside departments.

Speaker 1: 27:12

Right. So you, you got a book coming out right.

Speaker 2: 27:18

Second book yeah, second book is due out, q one of next year, in 2024, probably February timeframe Really excited about it. I wrote a book back in the end of 2019 called you can't stop the growth, and then this is the second piece of that. It's called the empowerment project. So you'll notice that on this podcast I've talked a lot about empowerment and as it relates to leadership, and so essentially, the empowerment project is basically detailing how we've taken it from where we were in 19 to where we are now, all the learnings that we've had leadership lessons, different things like that. So really excited, the book is finished, just buttoning up all the all the cross and all the T's dot and all the eyes type of thing. But, yeah, really excited about it. It definitely speaks to the culture that we've built and a lot of the amazing people that we have around here doing a lot of great things. For sure, that's really cool.

Speaker 1: 28:24

It encompasses a lot of what we talked about today, really, when we started this conversation about how the issue not issues, but the challenges that you did have and how you overcame those through empowering other people and trusting them yeah, that's incredible. So I was going to ask you. So 2015 is when you took over the business, right?

Speaker 2: 28:49

Yeah, so I started in 2011 at the time and my brother started in 13. He's three years younger than I am, so after he graduated from college, he started right away. Dad was still involved in the business we were heavy new construction at the time and so, in 15, dad was phasing out a little bit, just working a little bit less, taking more vacations, doing what he deserved to do after 20, some odd years. And so we made the decision and he was on board with it hey, we want to take this in a more residential play to a more residential company. And that's when we took over that piece. He was still doing some big projects and different things like that just to stay busy, right, and it was a slow evolution.

Speaker 2: 29:38

So you hear the story a lot about. I think it's pretty common hey, we're in new construction, we want to be residential, we know it's the best thing to do, but how do we do it? Well, what I will tell you is it took us probably seven years to get fully rid of it, and I would almost encourage that rather than, like I know guys who have just, like, said nope, we're not doing it anymore. And to me that seems a little bit scary for my risk tolerance level and so essentially, what we did is just phased it out. Hey, we did this much revenue this year, we want to only do this much next year, and then so on and so forth until it's completely phased out. 2023 were a hundred percent residential service repair and replacement, but it took time. But, yeah, that 15 was that demarcation in the line of when we started moving that direction.

Speaker 2: 30:25

Today, dad's been retired for a couple of years. He still be bops in here to the office every once in a while when he's in town, but yeah, he's just watching from afar, which is and hanging out the grandkids and doing his thing.

Speaker 1: 30:42

So how hard do you think that part was for him to be able to? Just because it's it, he built it up into the time you guys came in. How hard do you think it was for him to let go what we were talking about earlier and empower you all to do your thing? Not to mention the fact that you want to change the business model from new construction to residential. How hard do you think that was for him?

Speaker 2: 31:10

It is. I think about it often because there's a part. My kids are young, they're five and two, so I got a little bit of time, but I've thought about what would that be like to. We talked about giving up control earlier. The one thing I have not figured out is how I would ever give up control and let go Now. The big difference is that when we focused on the residential side, that wasn't something that dad was super focused on, so, like when we started going down that path, I think it was a little bit easier for him to part. But to your question, it had to have been tough.

Speaker 2: 31:45

What I will tell you and what I think is extremely important for family owned businesses that are multi generational and different stuff like that, the thing that my dad did and I don't know how he did it or how he grappled with hey, this is the right course of action. But the one thing he did was he never told me no and I was the ringleader, being the older brother, and hey, we're going to go do this and we're going to be. I remember back in 15, we sat down like dad, we're going to be a $20 million company. You just watch, this is going to be awesome and he's probably like you're such an idiot. But he let us make mistakes and I think that is one of the most difficult things to do is to allow your children to make mistakes. But ultimately, I think it has been the biggest catalyst for our growth, is he let us do that? And if he would have been standing over our shoulder and trying to make decisions and given his input and stuff like that, I don't, I do not think it would have went as it's gone. And so as I talked to me, I've talked to many a family business like how'd you do that? That's crazy. Like it's been a total struggle.

Speaker 2: 33:00

It is really getting that generation that's passing it along to understand that at some point you're going to have to rip off the band aid and you're going to have to get out of the way and you're going to have to let them make mistakes and it's really hard. I can't. Even my dad started our company on the back of our garage it was him and nobody else in a van and to see it where it was and you know where we are today, but where he grew it to before we took over. Yeah, there's a lot of pride and a lot of just blood, sweat and tears that you want to see it continue on. And so I'm eternally grateful to my dad for allowing us to do that and really having the confidence when he here's another crazy thing when he did that in 15, my brother and I were in our mid to late twenties, so you're talking about.

Speaker 2: 33:58

We weren't like, oh, you're in your 40s, like, okay, you've been around the block, like I'd been in the business for four years. My brother had been in the business for two and he had the courage and the wherewithal to turn it over and let us do it. So I don't know where he got that courage, but I hope that one day I have it, because that's how the business will carry on.

Speaker 1: 34:23

I'm curious if he was like that prior to this endeavor, throughout your life as a kid or a teenager, did he allow you to fail and allow you to make mistakes? And not because, look, dude, I got a 14 and a half year old and up until recently I would try to control everything she did, period.

Speaker 1: 34:45

Like because I think I'm smarter than her, I know better, I see what's gonna happen. It doesn't matter. None of that shit matters, because what she's gonna do is she's gonna do Like, in a quicker I understood, have found that out or the quicker I learned that dude, my life has been significantly less stressful.

Speaker 2: 35:05

Yeah, I can imagine I got a five year old daughter. I'm just I'm counting down the days till the teenage years. But I think back in growing up he was always there to support us. He would work long hours. I remember many times he'd come watch our baseball game and then go back to work, or evenings when we'd be finished dinner and he'd pull out out of set the prints or working on an estimate or whatever it was.

Speaker 2: 35:35

And at the time when you're young, like you know, none of that registers, like oh yeah, dad, just work in, like I'm gonna go play video games or go outside or do whatever. And so now that I have a little bit of more or a little bit more perspective, I think, looking back, yeah, he did allow us to make our own mistakes and allow us to do things like that. I think it was also a relief because at the time in 15, we were probably call it 40 employees and so we're still at that level where running the company you can still control. Everything May not be perfect, but you can have your hand in a lot of stuff. And I think it was a relief for him, because when you're small, it's surrounding yourself with people that you trust can get a little bit wonky, like, oh my God, I can't trust this person.

Speaker 2: 36:30

And I think when Tyler and I came into the business, it was okay, I can trust these people and we can grow. And there wasn't that he didn't have people that he could trust. It was just maybe there's a larger level of trust because, well, we're his sons and he can tell us what to do if things go wrong. But but yeah, I think that's been kind of a characteristic of his kind of throughout our childhood and even now he's there to support us. He's there to provide, as I always say it unsolicited feedback. That's one thing that's on his resume, but guess what? He earned it so he can make suggestions and do different things like that whenever he wants, and we'll take it under advisement.

Speaker 1: 37:19

So do you think anybody that's been in business for as long as you have, you've had bad apples, like you've had people I may even know a couple of them. Right, there's been experiences that you've gone through that probably didn't anticipate it turning out to be a bad experience. Do you think because of how your dad trusted you, do you think you got through those things or you handled those things with more emotional intelligence than the average person? Because I know some of the things that you've gone through, we don't have to bring all this. We don't have to bring anything specifically up. Yeah, but I know you had to felt burnt at times. There had to be, there has to be times where you just want to squeeze somebody by the neck. Do you think because you're how your dad handled you emotionally, or having that emotional intelligence did that kind of kick in these situations? You think 100%.

Speaker 2: 38:20

I think that you have to have people are gonna do. We're wired to seek out our best interests and so thinking that your employees or your people on your team aren't gonna do that is naive. So at the end of the day, it's really on you. If I had a bad apple to me, I looked at okay, what could I have done to course correct this? And so what we try to do is really over indexing our culture so that if you're gonna be a bad apple, you're not gonna fit here long because people are gonna find you out.

Speaker 2: 38:56

But I think that the one thing that I try to do today, and why it's so important to me, why I'm writing this book called the Empowerment Project, is because my dad empowered me and I didn't know a damn thing, and to me it's that pay it forward type of thing where he trusted me. So I've gotta trust some people to do some really great things too, and to me it's in what he started is our obligation, both my brother and I, to trust people to go do a great job, because, at the end of the day, most of the people that we trust have a hell of a lot more knowledge than a 29 and 26 year old had and he handed over the keys to the damn business. So if we can surely trust someone to run the plumbing department or run the install department or whatever it is. So, yeah, it's something that I think about a lot. But I think it did give us kind of a basis for like hey, someone trusted me. Like I've gotta be able to trust other people.

Speaker 1: 39:56

Yeah, yeah, 100%, I would have to agree. That was probably yeah, that makes total sense and I think that's probably the reason that this has been. There's a lot of reasons this has been successful, I think for you, among a million other reasons, but that I think it's just a trait that a lot of people I don't know about a lot, but I just don't know if but you got to do a lot of personal development to get there. You've got to be able to look outside yourself, you got to be aware, you got to be, you got to know who you are. Yep, and I question a lot of times if people know that unless you've done a deep dive into your soul and been through some hardship, but some people don't have the opportunity. That I don't know if they don't have the opportunity, they just don't know that they need that piece. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 40:47

Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, it's one of those things that you've got to constantly be learning. Um, we've never, while we've built something really special and I'm excited about where we're heading in the future. We've got a lot of great team members. It's there is no mountaintop. Being a leader, I believe, as Simon Sinek says, is it's a journey that never ends. It's like parenting parenting never ends, and understanding that piece of it, I think, allows you to wrap your brain around the fact that you can always be getting better. There's always something that you can be working on to make just a little bit better.

Speaker 1: 41:33

Yeah, 100%. Well, Chad man, this has been great. I would encourage everybody to go listen, you know, to your podcast. Don't can't stop the growth. Almost said don't can't stop the growth. And then the book will be out in February, which is incredible. If somebody wants to reach out to you I know you do monthly, I think it's monthly shop tours If somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to do that?

Speaker 2: 41:59

Yeah, so best way to get a hold of me is either LinkedIn fairly active on there. I've started into the Facebook journey. I'm still navigating quite a bit there, so don't feel bad if I don't get back to you LinkedIn. Honestly, the best way is email. So, chad at petermanhvaccom, if you got a question, if you're struggling with something, whatever it may be, don't hesitate to reach out. You're not bothering me.

Speaker 2: 42:26

It's really my mission to make as big of an impact in the industry as possible and you do that by helping people. And then you mentioned tours. So we've got a tour coming up here in a few weeks, on January 11th, and then we'll have another one in March, and so we do these tours every other month. It's a full on day of we do tour the facility. Then I have people from marketing, recruiting, call center, whatever it may be, come in and talk about how we do things.

Speaker 2: 42:55

So it's been. We did them all last year, we do them again this year. I've got January. I think there's about 50 people coming in, so it'll be interesting on wrangling everybody in. But but yeah, and we push out kind of the signups you can sign up on our website and different things like that but yeah, I think the biggest thing is don't hesitate to reach out. The reason that we were able to achieve what we've achieved is there are a lot of people along the way that help me. How do you do this? What's the best pay plan? How do I turn this? Oh, all of these things is we're all just trying to help each other out, which I think is so cool about the industry.

Speaker 1: 43:31

I have 100% agree. Chad really appreciate the conversation. I really appreciate the time today. This has been a great conversation. My friend Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 43:43

Thanks for having me excited to hopefully help some people out there, which would be great.

Speaker 1: 43:49

Thank you, brother.