Thor Rippy - Gen Z: How You Can Learn A trade in the Military & Start Your Own Business!

summary

Thor Rippy shares his journey from dropping out of high school to becoming a successful business owner in the construction industry. He started his own construction company in 2015 and faced many challenges along the way. Thor emphasizes the importance of honesty, integrity, and good customer service in building a reputation and growing a business. He also discusses the need for more awareness and appreciation of trade jobs as viable career options. Despite the ups and downs, Thor finds fulfillment in his work and the rewards of running a successful business. In this conversation, Thor Rippy and Branden Sewell discuss the challenges and rewards of being a business owner in the home service industry. They emphasize the importance of learning and leadership in order to grow a successful business. Thor shares his personal journey of starting and growing his own renovation company, highlighting the lessons he has learned along the way. They also discuss strategies for rebuilding a business and offer advice for young entrepreneurs. Overall, the conversation encourages listeners to persevere through challenges and stay focused on their goals.

keywords

construction industry, entrepreneurship, trade jobs, reputation, honesty, integrity, challenges, success, home service business, challenges, rewards, learning, leadership, starting a business, renovation company, rebuilding, advice, perseverance

takeaways

• Trade jobs offer viable career options and can be financially rewarding.
• Honesty, integrity, and good customer service are crucial for building a reputation and growing a business.
• Challenges and setbacks are part of the journey, but perseverance and a positive mindset are key.
• Success in business requires continuous learning, adapting, and making tough decisions. Being a business owner in the home service industry requires continuous learning and strong leadership skills.
• Challenges are inevitable in business, but they can be overcome with determination and a positive mindset.
• Building relationships and maintaining a good reputation are crucial for success in the industry.
• Taking calculated risks and being honest with clients are important aspects of running a business.
• Young entrepreneurs have various options for starting their own business, including pursuing a trade or joining the military.

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.481)
Hi everybody i'm Branden Sewell i'm the owner of seal propane and now also seal pro seal and wash located in central florida i'm also the host of the off the ladder podcast and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder i am excited today to have a guest on here's name is thor rippy

Just a quick bio on Thor really quick. He served in the army for 10 years. He is a carpenter and brick mason from 18 to 28. 28 years old, 18 to 28 years old. He took that experience to the civilian world and started his own construction company. And after many failed attempts at finding a happy work environment.

He's always been an entrepreneur at heart, even at a young age, selling stuff at school and flea market to make his own money. He's been in business with his construction company since 2015. And he also officially started a photography and videography company as well. His life has been nothing short of an incredible journey and he has a lot of stories

Thor Rippy (01:29.304)
Thank you. Nice to be

So my name is Thor Rippey. I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina. Just a little bit about me, kind of my story. I grew up, had a very rough upbringing. I knew at a young age, know, in Sewell, middle Sewell, high Sewell that I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And kind of, you know, that's kind of where it started. Growing up, I mean, I took jobs. I started working when I was 13 years old. I ended up, I think my

job was like belling hay on a farm. went from there, you know, just took normal jobs. My actual first job at 18 was a janitor for a large, manufacturing company where I worked there for a little bit. left there ended up going, you know, back to Sewell, I guess you could say I went back to Sewell to be an EMT and a firefighter. was actually a volunteer firefighter for about three years on and off. did

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Moved around a good bit. Joined the military at 18. Actually, funny story and kind of where I'm at today, I actually dropped out of high Sewell. I hated Sewell. I was not good at Sewell. I failed English too five times. If my English teacher happens to listen to this, she can attest to that. Failed English too five times. I ended up dropping out of high Sewell.

I met an army recruiter. said, what do you like to do? I said, I like to work with my hands. He said, I've got the perfect job for you. I ended up signing a contract. Did not have a clue what I signed. I just went to the recruiter said, Hey, get me out of here. I want to make money. I want to join the military. I did that, signed the contract. He comes back to me and says, Hey man, you don't have your high Sewell diploma. And I said, no, I don't. I dropped out of high Sewell. I thought I told you that. And he was like, you can't join the military. And I was

Branden Sewell (03:30.08)
wow.

Thor Rippy (03:31.146)
Okay, well that's what do I do? He was like, well, you need to go back to the community college and see if you can get your diploma. So I went back to the community college, was like, Hey, I want to join the military. I really need to get my diploma. And they were like, well, we have a high Sewell program. It's basically a GED, a high Sewell diploma equivalent. So I did that. And it literally the day that I got my paper handed to me that says, Hey, you finished high Sewell. I went to basic training the next day. literally overnight, I was on a plane going to Fort Benning, Georgia,

that's where I went. was, it was very tough experience for me, especially from the way I grew up. was very insubordinate, hated, you know, hated our peers and stuff like that. It was just, it very eyeopening experience for me going into the military. finished basic training and then they're like, Hey, we're shipping you to Mississippi. You're going to be a carpenter and brick mason. And most people know what they're going in the military for before they join. You know,

you pick your job and all this stuff. I was like, why I'm going to be a carpenter and brick mason in the army. That's so cool. So I got to go for Mississippi where I was trained by the CBs in the Navy and red horse, which is the air forces engineers. and then we had army engineers there. So I trained with all three branches, which was super, super cool. we actually, our training was basically building a house from ground up. You know, we did kind of like surveying for the footers, did the foundation, did the block work, then built the frame.

Branden Sewell (04:33.928)
Mm -hmm.

Thor Rippy (04:57.612)
built walls, the roof, the whole nine yards. I left there and I guess to recap on the military, I joined the National Guard, North Carolina National Guard, which the way that works is in the summertime, you go for a couple of weeks in the summertime, full time, you know, and then throughout the rest of the year, you're, only go once one weekend a month. So for two or three days every month, I'm there just for the weekend. So it

reserves basically reserves for me. So I get back home after completing my training and everything. found a job with some contractors cause I was like, Hey, I'm a carpenter and brick mason. Now, you know, I've been through this Sewell and I hadn't really had a, and I didn't really hold a capacity of that type of job before I joined the military. I did help, you know, growing up, we did, you know, roofing framing decks and things like that growing up, but I never like understood like the training behind it or the Sewell behind it.

got back home, took some jobs with some contractors, as you know, just laborer helper, a brick Mason, whatever I could get. took it and I absolutely hated most of the jobs I took. The contractors I worked for were very disrespectful. I mean, I get it. It's construction job sites. You know, that's kind of how the epitome of all those are. And people say, it's just construction. Like you got to have a, you got to have tough skin and all this stuff.

which is cool, but when you're, when you're treated like the bottom of the barrel all day, every day, it gets old pretty quick. So I actually left this contractor, went to another one left out and went to another one. And I ended up working for a road construction company at the end of bouncing contractors there for a little bit. And I was a brick Mason. So I did all the concrete culverts, medians. I built all the drains up and I laid all the pipe for the drainage systems that go under the roads.

Branden Sewell (06:28.638)
Mm

Thor Rippy (06:50.766)
And then we would actually help pave the roads too. So we would do all the motor grading and stuff. I did that for about a year and a half, back in 2013 when I left there, cause they, we finished, when they finished the road construction, you know, I just had to another job. I left there and I went to, work for other contractors because you know, there's a bunch of contractors everywhere you find, you can find work with contractor pretty much anywhere. So I left road construction, went to work for some contractors here and there ended up meeting,

Branden Sewell (07:11.517)
Mm

Thor Rippy (07:20.302)
this one contractor that I love to this day. We don't talk anymore. I haven't spoken to him since back in 2014, 15, but he was the nicest guy. Like it didn't matter what happened. He was always there for me. Like, Hey man, you know, you were out yesterday. Are you okay? Like he would call and I'm like, that's the type of contractor I want to be. I want to be a contractor. And at that point I was like, I'm going to, I want to be like him. I want to be that guy who has employees who love coming to work, who enjoy coming to work.

And he actually started my education journey. So that's where he sent me to Schluter classes. So I went into Schluter classes to learn how to put their products in for waterproofing tile showers. I took some tile classes with him. And then I got activated in the National Guard to go help with a hurricane. And we were gone for, man, I think about a month. We were going to be gone for a month. I know I was there for like two or three weeks or something. Honestly,

There was so much going on in my life and the military career. It's really hard to keep up with like all of those dates. I left, came back. I called him and said, Hey, where do I need to be at Monday? He said, I quit my company. And I was like, what, what am I supposed to do, man? Like I need a job. And he was like, well, here's what I'm I'm going to teach you what you need to do to come work for me as a subcontractor. And I was like, okay, that sounds great. That sounds cool. I'll be my own boss.

Branden Sewell (08:32.34)
wow.

Thor Rippy (08:48.558)
In 2015, I mean, I was 20 years old, 21 years old. And I was like, okay, I'm going to be my own boss. Like I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, but I didn't know anything about business then other than I make money. I need to spend money on this and this. And this is what I got with. That's all I knew. So he was like, you need to go get your business certificate from the courthouse. So I went and did that, got that, got some insurance.

And he actually worked for a very well known restoration company. And I became a subcontractor for a restoration company. And he would just send me work all the time. And he would take care of me. If I didn't have tools to do it, he would bring his tools from his shop and leave them at the job site for me and my guys. And we would work and then take his tools back to him. Or he gave me a key to his building. Like I said, super nice guy, the best contractor I've ever worked for.

helping start my company. And that's where it started. That was back in 2015. And that's, that's kind of like where the start happened. me, it was me, two buddies and my brother who worked together that the rest of 2015. And that was very, very hard for me, you know, being 21 years old, I've got three employees that are older than me and I've got to make sure they get paid. I've got to get paid. I've, know, all this

I was upside down within like six months, man. It was it was so bad. was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have tools. I didn't know the first thing about business. But I made it like my bills were paid. I had food, my cars, you know, all that stuff was paid and I was still working. But I was nowhere near anything of being a business owner, even though was, quote unquote. I left at the end of 2015. I ended up leaving there and

taking a job at a complete change of course. I took a job at a dealership as an entry level mechanic. so I ended up being an entry level mechanic, which was honestly great, especially now today, because I have, I ended up when I was working there, it was a big Chevy dealership or GMC dealership and they put me through GMC tech college where I got like, I think I have about 38 certifications now through them, which was

Branden Sewell (11:08.413)
Mm

Thor Rippy (11:09.134)
Sewell, I ended up working there for like a year and a half. And now I can work on my own cars, which is great. So I don't have to pay a lot of people to do a lot of stuff on my stuff, which is, it saves a lot of money. Left there, worked at Papa John's. That's when I became a volunteer firefighter firefighter in EMT, went through EMT Sewell, went through a lot of firefighter training and stuff. Kind of bounced around from that working for different contractors, Papa John's, worked at Domino's Pizza.

Ultimately, at the end of all that, I was like, I really, was still doing construction at the time too. Like I was just doing like small jobs here and there for people, know, repainting a wall, fixing a wall, building a small deck or anything that I could do on my own or with just my brother when he was, when he was free. So I left all of that said, I'm going to be a police officer and I go sign up for police academy back to the college that I got my GED from and went through the police academy there.

Branden Sewell (12:05.155)
Mm

Thor Rippy (12:07.778)
got out, became a police officer. worked at campus police department for a while in Charlotte, actually. It was, it was great. Honestly, it was one of the, one of the best jobs, most fulfilling jobs I ever had. Being able to just get out, like, I mean, there's a lot of disrespect and a lot of people that hate police officers, but working in that capacity for about two years, like you see a lot of stuff. And at the end of that two years, I was just like, I'm, I'm drained

And I'm sure a lot of police officers can correlate, you know, absolutely 100 % with this. You get to that point and you're just like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore and I need to make a decision now because that's one of those careers that you either stay in long -term or you just, you just get out of. It's not something that you do like on the weekends or something, unless you're retired and you did policing your whole life, then maybe, but it's really hard to keep a police mindset and then also do something else on the, on the side or something.

Branden Sewell (12:52.574)
Right.

Thor Rippy (13:06.06)
Me and my, me and my wife decided to just, I was just going to be done with it. So I got out of law enforcement. That's when I took that job as the project manager for a construction company in Charlotte. And I actually was, I didn't start out as project manager. I started out as a handyman and lead carpenter with them a few short months in he was like, Hey, I don't know anything about construction. I just bought this company. I'm going to rely on you for pretty much everything. And I'm like, great. Okay. Well,

I had some experience in 2015 back to that, that I ran a, I ran a company with me and my brother and two got two of our friends. And, I was like, yeah, I know how to run a business. This is great. So I started taking business classes, like online, like I would sign up and pay for, these, these business coaches and take these classes and stuff. And I kind of like, I mean, I went full force on how to run a business. And I was like, I'm going to help this guy succeed is if he succeeds, then I succeed. And.

I had that mindset the whole time I worked for him. He was always calling me. He basically gave me the company phone, company car was like here, do what you need to do. I'll approve the budgets and I want you to basically run the company. So I did what I could, but with the franchise, like there's rules that you have to follow and all this stuff. And he would have meetings every week with these franchise people that are telling him how to run the business. I'm like, dude,

It's not going to, it's not going to work here. You know, and it's, it was one of those models that just, I guess it could work if you don't have a heart, you know, and you just want to take money from people. But it was, I can't do that. I have a, I have a huge heart, man. Like I just really want to help people. And if I'm at your house, like doing a, you know, a bathroom renovation, I can't charge you an extra $20. Cause I had to go to my truck to get a screw. I just think

Branden Sewell (14:35.434)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (15:00.617)
Yeah.

Thor Rippy (15:01.186)
like that's wrong man and it's I think companies gotta make money I get it but there's ways to make money holistically if you want to call it that like you can be an honest business owner and still make money so I was just like okay I'm gonna help you run this me and him actually fought the franchise the whole year that I worked for him he was like I want to do it your way because I agree with you and we threw a lot of the rules from the franchise out the door and we just kind of ran things the way that we could

Branden Sewell (15:24.788)
Mm

Thor Rippy (15:30.988)
He had the numbers and business mindset and I had the construction application, you know, education stuff put on site. So it was a good team. It's just employees, man, back to employees. Like I was supposed to be the manager. I was supposed to help him find the employees and just send them to the job sites and me just sit back, make sure that's getting done, show up, you know, once or twice a day. Check in. If you need something, call me. I'll go pick it up from Lowe's. it to you. You know,

employees back to employees, man, it was really hard. Finding honest employees, finding employees with the same vision as you finding employees that get along, man, is, you know, we had five or six employees at that company. And two of them absolutely hated each other. So we could never send the job site together. And that made things super difficult, especially for trying to get jobs done when you need more hands. Long story short,

Branden Sewell (16:15.871)
Mm

Thor Rippy (16:26.484)
a year later, year and some change later, he come to me and said, Hey, I don't want the company anymore. actually a very sad story. He actually come to me and told me that he was going to kill himself. And, and I was like, Hey man, let's, let's go have a long talk because I understand that you're stressed and all this stuff. That's not the answer. we sat down for probably about four hours that day, man, had a long four hour conversation. Hey, I love you.

Branden Sewell (16:53.204)
Mm.

Thor Rippy (16:56.992)
I just want you to know that you've been a great boss to me and I appreciate you coming to me, but let's get you help, man. I want you to, let's do a clean exit. Like let's get you out of the business. I know that you're upside down. You took your 401k out. It was an older guy and I was like, Hey, let's do whatever we can to help you. he's doing great today, by the way, just so nobody gets any like sad feelings here. He's doing great. he's doing a lot better. He went back to corporate America. He, know, he's back in the numbers field doing what he loves, what he wants to go for.

Branden Sewell (17:17.621)
Too bummed.

Thor Rippy (17:26.798)
and he's been appreciative. He actually gave me all of the tools from the business that he bought. He gave me the clients. He gave me everything. And that's when me and my wife said, look, we have everything basically. wouldn't say handed to us because most of the work was from me at the company anyway. So it's kind of like I built that, that clientele, that database, those tools and stuff. So he gave me a good bit of the tools. He split them with me and two of the other guys that were kind of higher up there.

And so I took what, whatever he gave me and I of ran with it, you know, so back that's when he, closed down in 2020. in May we started up full time. That was the start of Rippey's renovations, a hundred percent, seven days a week from there. And I took, I took one employee with that, from that company with me, me and him worked for that whole year. was just me and him. And from May to December, I think we brought in around 80 to $90 ,000.

Branden Sewell (18:00.221)
Right.

Thor Rippy (18:24.718)
somewhere around there, which was, was good, you know, especially for what seven months, six or seven months. That was really good. but it was also split between two people and then me learning, Hey, I need this. got a trailer now. got to buy tools. I need that. I got to this equipment. so the second year in business, so 2021, you know, we're in the middle of COVID at all this too, which is a whole nother conversation.

Branden Sewell (18:40.475)
Right, right.

Thor Rippy (18:53.666)
but COVID was probably one of the best things that ever happened to construction. And I'm, don't know if you had the same experience back then,

Branden Sewell (19:02.741)
Yeah, I mean, we, we definitely grew through like 2020 2021 and 2022. I had a bad year in 2022. But that's another story. But but yeah, it definitely was a good year. Really quick before we like, you know, go too much further. I just wanted to like interject for those who are listening to this, like I think it's really amazing. Your story.

And jobber actually, I'm a user of jobber. don't know if you've ever heard of them, but they just put out the blue collar trades report for this year. Basically, it's just a report on how the trades are doing, kind of like the pulse of the trades in the United States. you know, last year through their research, they found that there was like a 500 ,000 plus worker

deficit in the trades and that for like every seven people who are retiring or leaving the trades, there was only like one person coming in to the trades. And obviously you hear a lot about, you know, the difficulties of finding skilled laborers, you know, whether that's carpenters, plumbers, electricians, you know, the list goes on. But there's challenges in finding that skilled labor and

You know one of the things that they talked about this year and they're really making like a push for is that more of gen z, you know, like you and I millennials the generation below us really need to be made aware of the opportunities that are in the trades and You know, I even think back to like when I was in high Sewell. I don't know how old you are. I'm I just turned 32. But back when I

Thor Rippy (20:58.254)
I'm 30. I'm 30. So close.

Branden Sewell (21:01.329)
Yeah, yeah. So we were in high Sewell around the same time. But I just remember like back when I was in high Sewell, like the push was like go to college, go to college, go to college. And there's there wasn't as much information out there about like trade schools or like the viable options of like becoming an electrician or a plumber or, you know, carpenter or, you know, and the list goes on, as I mentioned before, just there's so many different trade jobs you could go into.

And I feel like there was some exposure. We had shop class. We had a shop, auto body shop or whatever on our campus at my high Sewell. So there was limited exposure, but it wasn't presented as a viable option to everybody. It's like if somehow maybe

somebody else told you about it, maybe you might know about the trades, but it wasn't, like I said, the main focus was like go to college and avoid having to work with your hands. Go to college and be able to sit at a desk or make crazy money. So then we have a generation or generations of people who went to college, took on massive amounts of student loan debt.

only to come out of college and get very like average jobs, you know, and then be overburdened with massive amounts of student loan debt. Now, I love your story because here you are, you dropped out of high Sewell, you decided to get your GED, but you've worked, right? And I think just through listening to you, it's easy to tell that

an intelligent person, obviously have skills and you've been able to do well for yourself and start your own business. so I think just on that topic of what jobbers been talking about, man, and obviously student loan debt is a huge topic of conversation in today's world, but I just think more young people need to hear stories like yours.

Branden Sewell (23:20.501)
And no like hey college isn't the only option you can still be successful if you work hard and you're dedicated and You know put your mind to something you can still be successful. It's not like college is the only way to Be successful and make a living. So anyway, I just wanted to interject those thoughts there and just say that props to you for you know, just

being a hard worker and getting after it so it looks like it's a pain off for you so you left off talking about two thousand twenty one so kind of continue in that story there.

Thor Rippy (24:01.26)
Yeah, absolutely. So that's where that was kind of the epitome of us starting up officially full time as Rippey's renovations. And I started taking classes online, like business coaches listening to these podcasts, the build show, which I'm, don't know if you're familiar with the build show with Matt rising or, they are huge advocates for not going to college. They're, they're, they're not saying like, don't go to college, but they are.

Branden Sewell (24:19.029)
Mm -mm.

Thor Rippy (24:28.408)
Kind like Mike Rowe. know you know who Mike Rowe is from Dirty Dirt. They are trying to like get together with him right now to support people going into the trades. Blue collar man, like that's where there's a lot of money to be made there, especially with time and experience and knowledge. You could be making as much as a doctor in some aspects of construction. Yeah, exactly. Or more. Underwater welders.

Branden Sewell (24:30.697)
Yeah, yeah, for

Branden Sewell (24:50.066)
or

Branden Sewell (24:53.621)
and not have the like and what I really try to like drive home is and not the same amount of debt. Like even if you made a little bit less than a doctor, you know, let's say like a doctor is making, I don't know, you know, 200, $300 ,000 a year, you know, maybe more or less in some cases. But if you're even making like, you know, you know, 150 ,000 a year, but you don't

you know, hundred thousand plus dollars worth of student loan debt, plus a multimillion dollar house and $300 ,000 car. You can do well for yourself. So it's just changing your mindset and you know how you look at that. So it's a good

Thor Rippy (25:40.78)
Yeah, absolutely. that's where so back to like Matt rising or I actually recently finished a building science one on one course that they offer and they give you like a little certificate for completing it and stuff. And that'll be like future conversation. I'll get into that. But back to, you know, us starting up full time. That's when I dove in. I was like, Hey, I like this is my life now. I have to support me and my wife

I was like, this is, this is going to be rough. You know, it's a complete difference from me just running a company who was giving me all the money that I needed to buy things and get things and pay payroll and all that stuff. It's me now. So it was me and one guy the first year, you know, we brought in about 80, 90 grand that first year, which was very 2021. We picked up and honestly just word of mouth, you know, we, I realtors. went to BNI groups. went to networking groups.

I started joining these Facebook groups where people were like, I'm looking for a contractor. need someone who's honest. And I'm sure that you get this story all the time, but the construction world and any contractor in general, there's not many honest contractors out there. You know, people show up, they'll take a deposit and they're gone. They never come back. Peace. You know, we're taking your money. We don't care about you. And we've built my company. I'm sure you've done the same on our reputation.

and quality and honesty, integrity, you know, all those things and being a good human being, you know, you don't even have to be like perfect or anything, just be a good human. And basically, you know, we had those tough times in, in the last three years of me running the business where I've had to go to customers and say, Hey, I've got to have a hard conversation with you. This wasn't in your contract. can't do it for free, you know,

Branden Sewell (27:10.793)
Yeah.

Thor Rippy (27:30.894)
Hey, I've had the conversations where I've went to a customer and said, Hey, I quoted your job at $100 ,000, but it's going to cost me 130 now. And I don't have the money to fund it. And what can we come to a good solution at, you know, and being able to have those conversations has definitely built my reputation and helped me get to where I am today. in 2021, we just, because of that, it was just.

hurricane of people just coming through. And I was like, I can't keep up. I ended up hiring like five people within the course of three months. And that's a lot like hiring five people on W2. None of my employees have been 1099 at all the last three years except one. And we, we ended up building a model where we did everything in house. So we didn't sub anything out unless it was licensed trades.

Electrical plumbing HVAC yeah, or gas which is under plumbing we we did everything in house So I ended up hiring a painter and drywaller. I hired a I hired two master carpenters who are probably 40 50 years old I ended up hiring two laborers last year or the year before last and then we had a I Guess he's kind of like a trim carpenter handyman. He could do a little bit of everything and then I hired a towel guy

Branden Sewell (28:56.361)
Mm

Thor Rippy (28:57.518)
just a full on tile guy. So my business model was when you hire me to come do your job, it's going to be me. It's going to be my guys. They're W2. They're not 1099. Everything has been methodically put in place. Like I have tons of just like papers and like, I would guess you could call them, handbooks that I've personally made for my employees and like a ladder system. Like, Hey, if you, you know, you start out as a laborer, this is what I think a laborer should be able to do.

And when you say, Thor, I'd like a pay raise. I'm going to give you that carpentry desk because now you're, you're an entry level or apprentice carpenter, you know, and if you pass that test, Hey, you're going to use a pay raise. You're going to go up, you know, there's gotta be structure there. We as humans, you know, we want structure. need structure without it. We couldn't operate, you know? So we, we just, people just kept coming in. I started hiring employees. We grew, we grew exponentially. The second year was great.

Branden Sewell (29:45.319)
Yeah, for

Thor Rippy (29:56.384)
not off the ladder. I was still there. I was on ladder, handing stuff, holding stuff, know, building, meeting with engineers. If we were trying to get lamb beam beams put in to take out a wall or something, you know, all of this stuff. And then it was great. The second year was, was pretty good. It was still stressful. but I learned a lot that second year, you know, especially those hard conversations, like being able to have those hard conversations, I would say has probably been one of the best things that I've ever done at all in my life.

really because you can use hard conversations anywhere. Last year, we just kept growing and I actually backed off. last year, January through April, we did a really big commercial project. Probably bigger than we should have taken on, but I ended up taking it on because they they basically begged me to take it. They called me out there like three times. We can't find a contractor that'll do it. We can't do this. You know, I said, Cool. Here's my contract.

We'll do it on time and materials with a paycheck every Friday. I'm not the project was so big that I couldn't just say, it's going to cost 300 grand. So I gave them a rate of me and my basically 16 employees or how many ever we need allocated to your project for that week. Here's the hourly rate for employee or business. That's what it's going to be.

and they agreed to it. like, yeah, that's great. That's awesome. We love it. You know, honestly, we think we can come in under budget because you're doing it hourly instead of for the project.

We got into it. We tore all this stuff out. We found tons of stuff in the building because the building was built back in like 1968 or something like that. We found a ton of structural issues. We had to get another engineer out. We had to get an architect out because it was such a large commercial project. They come out. They're like, Hey, this is what you need to do. They come to me. How long is it going to take? Probably an extra month. And they're like, Whoa, we don't have that money.

Thor Rippy (31:57.228)
Long story short, we ended up in a lot of hard conversations with them. We ended up trying to walk. We did walk off the job site one day because of them not paying us on time. We ended up going back to finish. we finished the project. project looks great. There's pictures, videos of that on there, on my, on our website and stuff. We, because of them not paying us on time. So when we left that last month, I had all these employees, they ended

basically not paying us for almost two months. I didn't get a check for basically two months and I'm trying to start other projects and stuff. But in that time, those four months, I was off the ladder. I was away. I was in here in the office. I had a full time office guy who was helping me to who was helping me do renderings and blueprints and meetings and you know, getting all this stuff lined up. Me and him were in the office full time. So we had two, two full time people in the office and that's huge.

Branden Sewell (32:47.839)
Mm

Thor Rippy (32:54.616)
for a company like that's big. I had all the guys out there working. I had two really good guys who were my lead guys, basically project managers that I trusted with everything. Hey, you don't even have to call me. It was that there was that much trust there. I trust, you know, your vision. I trust the experience you have, just make a, make a decision and go on with it. And kind of, kind of from there, like when they didn't pay us, I didn't have the money to pay my guys.

I told my guys like, hey, I'm going to pay you. It's just going to be a while. Some of them actually was like, I got to leave, you know, and I respected it. And I still talk to all those employees today that I used to have their work and other jobs are probably not happy at their jobs. Actually, I don't think most of them are happy at their jobs. But man, it was, it was really hard. So we took out personal, maxed out eight credit cards, some of them with a $10 ,000 limit.

We did everything that we possibly could. I sold stuff. I was selling my Xbox, you know, whatever I could sell just to make bills, just to pay our personal bills, not even the business bills. And it was, it was really stressful. And me and my wife were like, we need, we got to do something. We got to change what we're doing, you know, try some different marketing, all this stuff. was like, okay, you know, let's, let's step back. Let's just stop taking the big jobs.

We had a lot of employees that left. I ended up getting a phone call from a buddy, a really good buddy of mine. He's actually probably my best friend. Hey man, would you come and have tacos for lunch with me today and talk to me about some work? Cause we have some work for you. Okay, cool. So go have tacos with my buddy. I get there. I meet his, basically the second, second in charge or second hand owner of that company and they travel all over America and they install

lights and cameras and stuff are like these big church like mega churches if that's what you want to call them for their stages and their like I say concerts man for their worship or for their congregations right but it's it's kind of it basically is concert you know and he was like would you guys be willing to travel with us and install these acoustic panels that go on the wall and I said I've never done it I don't even know what you're talking about he said we'll train

Branden Sewell (35:01.013)
Mmm.

Thor Rippy (35:18.112)
If you can, you and you can bring three employees with you. I was like, okay, cool. So we ended up closing our office here in Charlotte and we took this contract with this company who agreed to pay us a certain amount every week. which was great pay me and three of my guys went on the road. ended up having. That's for the last six months of last year. And we, had three full -time guys. ended

letting, I had to, that's the third person I fired. So I did fire a guy last year. really bad situation. I hired him, hired another guy, and then I hired two college kids who went with me when my other employees were like, Hey, I've got to take a week off. You know, I've got surgery or whatever going on with my family. One of them had a, had a baby coming in. He was taking two weeks off for his wife to go have a baby. So I hired these two college kids who were off, off of college or off from college. guess that's what you'd say.

And they would go with me to kind of fill in for those guys. Probably the coolest job that I ever had. You know, it was great. We had consistent money. I didn't have to worry about anything. We worked 60 hours a week. We went to Disney World. We went to Waco, Texas. We went to Laurel, Mississippi. I did all the HGTV tours. Personally, I love HGTV. I know a lot of contractors made it. We did all this stuff, And last year...

Branden Sewell (36:41.877)
Yeah.

Thor Rippy (36:46.649)
through the end of the year so the first half of year we had you know up to 16 employees last half of the year we had probably six two of them were part -time or prn and then at the end of the year they didn't renew their contract with us to travel this year and we started back up in charlotte again so we we didn't open our office again but we started back up in charlotte my full -time office guy from last year ended up with a lot of medical complications where he was overseas and poisoned

He no longer works with me. He's a lot of medical stuff going on. But when he left, I was like just overwhelmed with the office stuff and everything. couldn't keep up. We ended up downsizing. We let some of the employees go just due to budget cuts, just because of everything that happened. And then we started back up in Charlotte. So now I'm trying to find new hands of help, because having employees that can travel full time and then having employees with a certain set of skills that can be local.

two different categories of employees. Like it's really hard to find either or. so we did that. We started back up in Charlotte and just kind of started doing renovations again, from January of this year to April of this year, we built a deck, which was the, basically the detriment of our company. So on and so forth. We built this deck, we had snow, we had ice, we failed inspections, which

failed because we built anything wrong. They were failed because the inspector that came out had no experience in what we were doing. So then we were sent back three weeks to wait on an engineer to come out and sign off on what we'd done. He come out and said, why did the inspector fail this? Long story short, they went back and forth. The engineer had to put a stamp on it. We were able to move forward. That job just basically killed everything. My guys ended up

Branden Sewell (38:29.322)
Mm.

Thor Rippy (38:44.27)
Two of them still work for me PRN. the other two ended up just taking other jobs. And one of them moved to like Pennsylvania or something. So that's kind of where we hit in April of this year. back to, guess, like money talking about those three years, the first year, you know, we did 90 ,000, 80, $90 ,000. Our second year, we did about 300 to $350 ,000, which isn't a whole lot when you're talking about five employees.

Branden Sewell (38:56.362)
Mm

Thor Rippy (39:13.23)
plus a business owner plus, you know, plus plus plus. and then last year we did just under a million dollars. which was pretty, pretty good. Other than the fact from April through June, we had like every credit card maxed out business loans, personal loans, like just to keep afloat. We did really well last year. last year was the first year that I made a paycheck. actually made a paycheck last year of 120 grand, which dude,

You talk about like a good feeling. That is a fantastic feeling when you go from, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel, like just trying to like make ends meet. then like, boom, you make 120 grand as a business owner. You're like on cloud nine, man. So that's kind of like, that's kind of like what happened over the past three years. And then where I'm at today. So we, with all of that being said, all the stress, like, was it worth it?

Branden Sewell (39:59.401)
Yeah, for sure.

Thor Rippy (40:12.342)
Yes and no. Like there's a lot of times where we're just like, let's just close the company and like never talk about it again. You know, let's just forget it. Let's just, and there's those days that every business owner is going to have, but man, the, reward, feeling of like, Hey, I was successful last year is just astronomical to all of those down days. It's just a day difference. with all that being said, we did.

Branden Sewell (40:36.531)
Yeah, for sure.

Thor Rippy (40:42.008)
quote unquote, close the business. We're not closed. We still pay taxes. We're still licensed. We're still insured. We're still open. I just now work maybe two days a week under Rippey's renovations. One day a week, two days a week. We're doing super small jobs. I took a job with a company where I'm a lead, basically a maintenance technician there. And you know, we're in charge of renovating buildings and things like that. I do that four days a week. So I'm off three days a week.

Branden Sewell (40:54.708)
Mm

Thor Rippy (41:10.898)
And the three days that I'm off, am doing this one or two days. And then I also started my photography videography business this year, basically officially like I still need to get like an LLC and you know, branding and all that stuff done. But we've already made money from that too, which has been great. So I'm you talking about busy man. We're, we're busy. So that's kind of where we're at today. I work a normal full time job.

I'm still doing this. We're trying to build back up, you know, maybe by the end of the year, maybe next year, I'll be able to go back to this full time because that's, that's my goal. and we have different like business models and stuff that we're like throwing around right now. which we could, we could talk about those if we have time and then that's kind of, you know, that's where I'm at now. I work a normal job and then I do this and photography, you know, on the side.

Branden Sewell (42:03.677)
Yeah, yeah, that's good. I mean, so let's kind of break this down. So ultimately, like I said, our mission is to help home service business owners, you know, get off the ladder. And, you know, to do that, you have to learn and that's either going to come through trial and error or, you know, just you're constantly learning. You have to learn a lot to be able to run a business and get off the ladder. And you have to be able to lead well.

And, you know, in order to get off the ladder, you can't be doing everything right. That's kind of the whole point. You have to be able to lead others, delegate authority, and get stuff done without you having to do it. And so that takes leadership. So I think it's constantly learning and constantly leading. And, you know, so what I love so much about your story is that anyone who's listening to this, no matter where they're at in their business,

can get encouragement to keep moving forward because clearly in the midst of all of the different challenges that have come your way, you're still moving forward. I think there's probably some really hard lessons that you've had to learn along the way. I think any business owner is going to experience challenges at some point.

and even face those challenges to the point of where they might consider quitting or giving up. And I think there's two ways you can look at it. You can either look at it as like, okay, I learned from that and I didn't fail. I just learned how not to do this. I learned what not to do. I learned, you know, how I have to do it different moving forward. Or you can say, well, that was the ultimate.

like and I'm gonna fail and quit. So I think business is extremely challenging. I think that it takes a lot of heart. It takes a lot of just grit and determination. You know, I have a, you know, in my business in 2022 was one of the like hardest years for me. And I've talked about this multiple times on my podcast.

Branden Sewell (44:28.405)
You know, having 12, 13 employees and then losing all of them, thinking I was going to go out of business, you know, kind of just thinking the worst and then turning it around. I got a business coach, turned the whole situation around. And, you know, here we are, you know, two years later now and we're doing great. So all that to say is like, I think if you're listening to this and you're listening,

to Thor's story and you're hearing what he's gone through, be encouraged that you can face those challenges and keep moving forward. Now, let's jump into this. Here you are, you're in this position where you're trying to rebuild your company, trying to make it your full -time thing again, you're working for somebody else. I think the greatest...

thing that I did when I was young that caused me to be able to go full time in my business and be off the ladder since I started my company in 2017 is there are some pretty key things and I didn't do these things necessarily.

Because I knew that it was going to benefit my business or was going to like make it possible to like do what I'm telling you right now. But in hindsight, when I look back, I'm like, well, those decisions really put me in a place where I could, you know, do the things that I wanted to, which was like, own a business, be off the ladder and have freedom and like do what I wanted to do every day. And so

A couple of those things were like, minimized debt to like, you know, we barely had, my wife and I barely had any debt. So that was like a key focus. We saved money. So like we had money to where like, if, you know, if I didn't have work, if I didn't sell a single job or do a job for, you know, three to six months, we could still pay our bills.

Branden Sewell (46:45.877)
So that gave me the ability to where I literally went full -time into the business from this time that I started it. you know 2017 Left from one job started my business had money in the bank just went into it full -time Didn't really make a lot of money my first, you know a few years in business but I was able to devote all of my time to it and I think it was just having some of those key

key things in place like and really simple is like minimal debt Living below my means and save money like those three things like just enabled me to to like go into my business And think there's a lot of people out there. They like they they work a full -time job. They have a business on the side They want to go full -time in their business, but there's those obstacles of like well, my bills aren't just gonna like stop, you know, I still have you know these

things that are going to require, me to make X amount of dollars. So, I think if you can plan and set yourself up that way, you can accomplish that. Like getting, you know, back to your business full time faster, if that makes sense. otherwise, like you're going to have to do the legwork of like, okay, I got to work really hard.

when I'm not working to get the business to a point where it's either at where my income is, like that threshold or greater, right? It's like simple. Like I've got to either be, it's got to be covering what I'm making now or it's got to be making more. obviously to like minimize that time and to make it easier, obviously like minimum.

minimize your responsibilities, if that makes sense. And then like obviously from there, it's like jumping into marketing. And I love what you said, because you hit on some things that I'm really big on, which is like, really focusing on a firm foundation for business to get off the ladder is word of mouth, like have really strong word of mouth referrals, BNI.

Branden Sewell (49:10.261)
networking, building relationships in your community, meeting people, talking to people. And then once that word of mouth and those referrals get going, and that's a really strong foundation, and you're getting a ton of work that way, it's the lowest risk, right? Because it's not like you're paying thousands and thousands of dollars. I think one of the worst ideas you could have is like, I'm going to start a business and drop 5 ,000

like ads and all of this stuff. It's like, well, that's, you know, not the brightest, smartest thing to do. So word of mouth, BNI, networking, Facebook, those. when I say Facebook, not Facebook ads, like getting in community groups, getting those recommendations and referrals is like, you know, just a solid foundation for getting your business off the ground. So anyway,

What do you think? is your strategy? What is your time frame that you're giving yourself to go from like, I'm working this full -time gig or four days a week, I'm working this gig and then I'm doing my business on the side. What kind of strategies, how are you processing or thinking through? What are you planning and doing to be able to get back to your business full -time?

Thor Rippy (50:36.206)
So that's a really good question. I want to go back to the first thing you were talking about there for a second about being scared to, you know, go full time, like people that are working a normal job and they want to like quit and go to their job. I want to like talk about my wife for a second because without my wife, I would not be, I wouldn't be here talking to you about this business. Like I said, our first year we made 80, 90 grand that was split between me and an employee.

Branden Sewell (50:57.173)
Sure.

Thor Rippy (51:03.582)
Plus we bought tools we had insurance and all that stuff if it wasn't for my wife's income We would not have survived at all the last you know and I think that's I'm sure that there's a lot of like People that are very weary to do that because they don't have that that wife or spouse or whatever that can help them you know that second income is it was huge for me and I love my wife and I to this day like

I her with all my heart because I wouldn't be where I'm at without her and her everything that she has, you know. So our plan now, because like we've been talking about it, we've thought about changing different business models. And like I said last year, the last three years, we've been a full renovation company with everything in house. And I can't tell you how many people love that. Like it is a great business model.

it's fantastic, but when it comes to money and managing, is horrible. I mean, being able to like, took so many classes over the last three years with my employees, like I hired painters. We were at Sherwin Williams, you know, taking their classes with them, learning their products. made really like back to relationships. made really, really good connections with, building supply companies, paint supply companies.

all of these companies, like you have to make those connections too. Cause when you're looking for something, if people don't know who you are, they're not going to go that extra step to try to help you find it. So like my rep at Charlotte Williams, if his store didn't have it, he would actually spend like an hour. Look, he would call around, you know, we probably have 35 different Charlotte Williams stores here in Charlotte, North Carolina, cause it's huge city. But if they didn't have it here, he would call like another state and say, can you ship this to us overnight or by next week? We need it for Thor.

they would do it. So like you really, really need to make those connections. Like without those connections and those relationships, you're not going to build a business. Like you're not going to get anywhere in life. And if you do, that's awesome. That's great. You know, but for me, it would be pretty much impossible if I didn't have those relationships with clients, with these other professionals, other businesses, basically everything that you need. Our goal now to move forward, to try to like get back.

Thor Rippy (53:25.288)
full time with this. We swapped from doing everything in house. We let that go. I do sub a lot of work out now, but I only go through trusted people like friends that I have that own companies or my said employee that I had for three years or two and a half years who started his own company, hire him out still. But he, again, you have to build those relationships too because if...

you hire out a sub and they show up and do work for you. If they don't know your expectations, you're going to end up angry at the end of the day. And even if you have that conversation, here's my expectations. You're still going to be let down. You have to like, you just have to go in it knowing that you're going to be let down the first two or three jobs that you use somebody for and help train them to what your expectations are, you know, so that they can help you grow in the future. Cause if not, I

It's pretty much impossible. You got to have good communication. so we stopped doing that. We're subbing workout now we're still doing like small jobs. We have two business ideas right now that we kind of like started doing. One has been extremely successful. So back to Matt rising or in the build show, I took that building science one -on -one course with them. fantastic course by the way, anybody that does construction.

I highly suggest taking it. It's a few hours every night. You can knock it out in like a week. It's a great course. I learned a lot about thermal imaging, thermal bridging with heat, how insulation works, how poorly we build houses in America and how that we should build them to a better standard, kind of like the UK. The UK has a lot of really good building techniques and stuff that they use that we don't use here because we think that our houses are built great and they're really not. I'm sure that

Probably the house you live in, probably complain about the AC not working like super well sometimes or.

Branden Sewell (55:24.821)
Not right now. It's a newer house and I actually, it's funny, I just had a AC service done and I live in Florida. I don't know if you know that, but it's hot here, obviously, all year. And the AC guy comes in and he does the service and he looks at the thermostat and he goes, you keep this at 70? And I was like,

Thor Rippy (55:27.863)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (55:50.965)
24 seven I never change it and he's like and it stays 70 and I was like, yep It's a it works great. And so he was he was like a little so he was a little surprised but But yeah, I mean but being in the painting Industry like I do know that so many of our homes You know these like builder grade cookie cutter pop out homes are just

Thor Rippy (55:57.591)
That's awesome.

Branden Sewell (56:18.559)
They're not built well and I have complaints from customers all the time about it. I mean, unfortunately I live in one of those like, you know, builder grade cutter, cookie cutter homes. But as of right now it's fine. It's more comfortable than our last house, but.

Thor Rippy (56:37.41)
Right. our house, we deal with the AC issues all the time here and I've done what I can little by little. We're planning on moving. That's a whole nother story, but my like, so what I do right now, I do, we have two things that are one that's officially going on and we have one that we're actually fixing to meet with a logger and have a contract for it up. the first thing that we're doing right now is I do energy efficiency, reports for people's homes.

So I go in, I look at your installation, have thermal guns, have cameras, I have all kinds of stuff that I go through and like scan your home. And I'm like, Hey, we really need to add this here or we need to do this here. and there's, that's a long conversation of things that we could do, but basically we go in and we look at your home. Let's say you're spending $300 a month on your power bill, right? Which is, know, sometimes that's normal to a lot of people. Sometimes that's really high. I'll go in your attic.

I'll remove all your insulation. We'll basically air seal all the holes and penetrations that are up there, put in new insulation, better insulation, make it thicker. If we need to add a radiant barrier to your roof deck, we can do that. There's a lot of stuff that we do, but basically we, we help people save money on their energy bill by taking the, basically the thermal blanket of your home and making it better. And so we've been doing that and I've

Basically every day that I've had off for the past like three months, I have been in somebody's attic and in the middle of the summer is probably the worst job I could have ever picked to do. But seeing my customers call me back and say my power bill went down by $40 this month. Dude, that's, that's super cool. Like just physically seeing those changes and differences in people's homes, man. It's great. The other thing.

Branden Sewell (58:28.469)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Thor Rippy (58:30.074)
The other thing that we're doing or trying to do right now is I am we've we've met with a lot of people on it. We're building a home maintenance membership plan. So we're going to have customers sign up. They pay, you know, two fifty down to sixty down. I don't remember the exact numbers right off the top of my head. Then they pay two hundred and fifty dollars a month and that gets you X, Y and Z and services for the year. Basically, we take all your guesswork.

and everything out of like, you don't have to call, some of the services that we offer, which I can pull a picture up right here, would be like trash can cleaning, dryer vent cleaning. you get 18 or 16 handyman hours included in that membership. So like, if you're like, Hey, I just need a ceiling fan put up and you can do it. We'll come out and put your ceiling fan up and we just take it from your hours that you're allotted for that time. some of the other services, which I've got here, gutter cleaning.

the trash can cleaning exterior window washing, dry event cleaning. We'll take your dishwasher apart and do like a deep clean on it once a year. Pressure washing. We do junk haul off. like two times a year for all of our clients that are on that scheduled system. You know, we do one in January and we do one in July where we just go around with a trailer and pick everybody's trash up that they want to get hauled off. Like big things, know, mattresses, old bicycles, anything you want to throw away, we just go pick them up. So we've,

sent that out to a lot of people and we've already got a lot of people are like, Hey, I'm going to send you money tomorrow. I'm like, no, no, like, can't do that yet. We've got to get a contract. We're going to get a lawyer to like basically type out a contract because what we don't want to happen is people sign up, you know, and get the services and then just quit on it and not pay the rest of the year, you know, cause we have a lot of stuff in there. We also do the home home inspection. It's not a home inspection, I home, help.

walk through. like I go through with thermal cameras and all the imaging stuff that I have, and I'll give you a report on your home included in that membership plan. And it's really affordable. I mean, for all of that stuff you get for the year, 3000 bucks. And I think the price point and like all the stuff that you get, we've started, you know, sending this out clients and customers like, Hey, what's your feedback? And they're like, we want to sign up, like, where, where do we send the money? Where we sending check to? And what you know, when

Branden Sewell (01:00:52.255)
Yeah,

Thor Rippy (01:00:56.768)
just tested the waters with it and we had that many people call us back for like, I think this is something that we should really do because there's, know, like all of your other companies, your landscapers, your pest control companies, they're all membership, you know, I guess membership type programs. You got with the painting.

Branden Sewell (01:01:11.765)
We have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started a service contract. I don't know. It was probably the beginning of this year. So we've been doing it and yeah, it's been a hit. mean, we just did a service yesterday for one of our service contract clients and you know, it's

It's a great idea so definitely run with it because it definitely works and customers definitely pay for it and you know if you can offer that much value with multiple different trades and stuff that's. That's huge i mean you're basically just putting you know like i have a AC you know service contract you know so i'm getting that done anyway so it's like if you can put that all into one place that's that's even better and.

You know, it's almost like you're becoming like a property manager for, but for like a homeowner opposed to like, you know, people who are renting out properties, you're just being like their, their property manager for their property that they live in and reside in. So, no, it's a, it's a great, great idea. Do you, I know I found you on, the job or entrepreneurship group, or I believe you found me there vice versa, but,

Thor Rippy (01:02:21.888)
Right.

Branden Sewell (01:02:34.325)
Do you use Jobber? Or have you used

Thor Rippy (01:02:35.98)
Yeah, we've been using Jabra for the last three and a half years now.

Branden Sewell (01:02:42.013)
Yeah, so we, I actually had Janine Chambers help me with setting up like how the reoccurring payments work. And so we like, we require a card on file for people who are on the service contract. So we send them our service contract and jobber. They choose whether they want to pay monthly or pay upfront for the year.

Thor Rippy (01:02:51.788)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (01:03:06.645)
And there's a list of our services and kind of like you, have an allotted amount of hours between two visits for the year. And then if they want to go over those hours, they just get charged at an hourly rate. it's been great for us. And really, at the end of the day, we're not looking for it to be like a big

you know, money making profitable thing, we're looking at it more as like we can stay top of mind with these clients and extend the life of our customers life cycle, you know, you know, opposed to like painting a house once and then never hearing from that person again, or maybe we hear from again in like seven, 10 years by like some miracle.

well, this now puts us in front of our customers twice a year and we can maintain that relationship, stay top of mind. So if they have big projects that come up down the road, well, now we're their painter, you know, we've been there helping them along the way. no, service contracts are huge and I think it's huge for like the value of your company. So I would say definitely do it because it's amazing.

Thor Rippy (01:04:26.04)
Right.

Thor Rippy (01:04:30.54)
Yeah, for sure. And like I said, we sent it out to a bunch of people we've sent it out to, I sent it out to probably five of my friends or clients of mine. They're friends now, like we go out for coffee and stuff. I've sent it to them and they own, they own a ton of rental properties. So I want to get feedback from them because they're, they're a business owner, you know, Hey, what do you guys think of this? Would you sign up for this for your house? And every single one of them said, yes, like when can we sign

Branden Sewell (01:04:46.121)
Mm

Thor Rippy (01:04:58.45)
And I sent it to another client of mine who's not a business owner. He's just a very, detail oriented person when it comes to their home. Like they have spreadsheets. It's, the coolest thing. Cause I geek out over it, but they have like spreadsheets for each room of every renovation they've ever done in each room. And they've got pictures like attached to them. And I was like, man, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. So like we showed up to a renovation and he's like, look, man, he's got this whole book, basically like a Pokemon Pokemon card, you know, deck book that comes out and it's

bedroom one and it's got like pictures of every renovation like the wall, the studs, like, you know, everything is sent it to him. And he actually emailed me back like a three page response of I see value in this, this, this, and this, but not this. that makes sense. so just, just sending it out and getting the feedback. We've had nothing but great feedback from people on it, you know, and the big thing for us is consistent income, you know,

Branden Sewell (01:05:40.309)
Yeah, yeah,

Branden Sewell (01:05:52.213)
That's smart.

Thor Rippy (01:05:55.586)
Even in the season for us, like, I don't really say we had, we never really had an off season, but in the winter time, it's hard to manage exterior projects, you know, for doing decks or patios or whatever. It was really hard for us to manage those with weather and all that stuff. So having consistent income, but also keeping those relationships and taking care of people's homes is just kind of like what we're looking for, you know?

Branden Sewell (01:06:19.347)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what all of the things that you're mentioning are why I started it. You so now we have those people, it's reoccurring revenue. We're going to get, you know, get that money coming in consistently. So, yeah, that's been a really big, you know, point for us doing it as well. And we did the same thing, you know, like when I was looking at starting it.

I did the same thing. I sent out an email blast and said, like, hey, this is what we're looking at doing. We'd really appreciate your feedback. Please get back to us. Let us know, like, if we did this, would you use it? Do you think that, like, what we're charging for it is fair? Would you be willing to pay this? And so we got a lot of feedback from customers saying, like, yeah, I think that's a really great thing. I would definitely use it. I'd definitely sign up.

You know, even if it was just for this one service, I'd do it. And we have a whole list of like different services that we offer inside and outside. yeah, I mean, I think it's a great idea and it definitely works. So, you know, I'd say definitely run with it. But yeah, man, it's exciting to hear about your story and your business.

you know what you're working towards and what you've been through. I feel for business owners who go through challenges because you know on the outside looking in I actually know I recently had to take a episode down off of my podcast and because the person who I interviewed is actually

being sued, like there's tons of like terrible allegations coming out against them and like business going under massive amounts of debt, not being able to finish people's projects. And, you know, it's

Branden Sewell (01:08:29.181)
It's tough because you have somebody like it's hard to determine like is that do you think like I well I think to myself I'm like did this person have do that intentionally did they have you know like ill intent did they do this knowingly that they weren't going to be able to fulfill their promises or was it just the nature of business and like things went wrong things fell apart and

for reasons beyond their control. Now they're struggling to fulfill these promises that they've made to people. And I don't know, mean, it could be both, but it's tough because you see somebody who's taking a risk, doing what so many people will never do, will never even attempt to do, running their own business.

and chase after this dream that has so much risk and so much liability and then to have it fall apart. And, you know, ultimately the responsibility of that does fall back on that individual, but it's just, so like, it hurts for me because it's like, man, I bet this person, if I was willing to bet, it's like they probably were just taking really big risk.

didn't know what they were doing, were trying to do the best that they could, but just failed, like catastrophically. And, you know, so it's sad, man. Business is tough and things like that happen. And unfortunately, people get hurt and that's the unfortunate side of things. you know, it's like that situation you are in where you're not getting paid.

man, was probably like, doubt that was the like, I'm sure those people were probably trying to figure out some way to like make it all work and pay you on time and pay you what you're asking for. But for whatever reason, they were probably like, they're like, sitting in an office like panicking, like, man, how are you going to make this work? They're going to walk off the job? Like, what can we do? You know, what loan can we take out? What, you know, and it's kind of

Branden Sewell (01:10:54.517)
I'm sure you follow what I'm saying. It's just it's not a cut and dry like I don't think there's you know ill intent on all that stuff. I think it's just the nature of of business sometimes and it's messy.

Thor Rippy (01:11:08.266)
I think that goes back, man, like you really, really, really need to learn how to have hard conversations with people. I mean, they're uncomfortable. They're super uncomfortable to go up to people and say, Hey, I messed up. But that'll get you further in life than anything else. Honesty will always supersede every other thing. And like I have proof, there's proof stories of that, even from my clients, you know, where I've been like, Hey, I messed up. I quoted this job.

I'm young, I'm new, I'm stupid. I didn't know that it was gonna take me four weeks to do this job and I courted you three weeks. Is there any way we can negotiate the price on this? If you say no, guess what? I'm still gonna finish your project and you're gonna be happy with it and I'm gonna make sure that at the end of the day you're happy. That's my goal. But I'm hoping that you give me grace in me coming to you and having this conversation and you're like, I understand

I probably would be in the same boat. And I will say 99 % of the time, all those hard conversations that I've had like that, they have always went well. And the reason that they went well is because I went to the homeowner and had a very hard conversation and said, Hey, I messed up. want to fix it. I'm going to fix it because that's my, that's my reputation. That's my integrity. I don't want to just walk off the job site. You know, that's never my.

And we've did honestly that's carried us being honest, being upfront, being on time, giving the quality that you say you're going to give just being a good person. You know, that's, that's all it boils down to. And you just gotta learn how to have those hard conversations. There was a, I don't even remember the name of the book that I read. One of the books I read is how to win friends, people. would suggest that book to everybody. but you, there's

Branden Sewell (01:12:49.237)
Yeah,

Branden Sewell (01:13:00.531)
Mm -hmm.

Thor Rippy (01:13:04.078)
think it's actually called hard conversations. There's a book called hard conversations. I'd have to look back and try to find it, but it's like, it's just how to go to people and just have a conversation. And it's really just, you have to put your humility at the back door and walk through the front door. You gotta leave it there. Like just go with grace. And like I said, 99 % of the time when I went to a person with grace, I was received with grace. And it's always been great.

Branden Sewell (01:13:10.643)
I think I've heard of it,

Branden Sewell (01:13:32.711)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I think it's good, Ultimately in business, you're going to take risk. I think you've got to try and be as calculated as possible. think there's a difference between trying to make a calculated risk and just being negligent and reckless in your decision making.

I know for myself, I found myself in difficult spots in business, but thankfully I've been able to work hard and pull myself through those difficult situations. yeah, think just a lesson to be had with that is don't take on more than you can handle. And if you're kind of questioning it, that's why for me, I personally like no...

no exceptions. I won't take on a commercial job. If I don't have the money to pay for that job, not alone, but I have the money in the bank to get that job done without getting paid, I won't do it. Or the other option is the customer can pay on our terms, but if they won't pay on our terms, then I won't do it.

It's like having like those hard boundaries and sometimes and I've had to learn that like luckily on some smaller scale like jobs, but I've had to learn that the hard way. And so then it's like, okay, well, based off of that, I'm not doing anything that could be catastrophic for my business. But anyway, man, I am I'm going to bring this to a close. I could probably talk to you for the rest of the day. But

Just before I close, there any final thoughts that you want to share with the audience? Anything that you want to chat about in a couple minutes?

Thor Rippy (01:15:26.542)
just honestly, it's really hard for the young listeners out there. you don't have to go to college to be successful in life. And I don't suggest dropping out of high Sewell ever. So if there's any high schoolers listening to this, don't finish high Sewell. the military has a lot of options. I know that there's a lot of stuff going on with the military, but my 10 years in the military have given me so much experience and

paid experience like when I went in the military I was getting paid the day I left I got paid to go through carpentry Sewell masonry Sewell I got paid to go through all the schools I went through like I've been through financial management classes I've been through combat lifesaver so like medical all this stuff that I've got I got paid while I was there to go through these schools it's a good option it's not for everybody by no means but it's a good option all of

you know, all of those younger people that are listening, like you can, you can get a job making really good money. You can be your business. You can be a business owner if you want to, just go into, you know, the trades, look at the trades. There's a lot of really good options out there to be in and be successful in. The other thing I would say is, don't give up. Like I hit a lot of walls and if I ever do another show, with you, Brandon, like we could talk about

I'm a very, very open person when it comes to my business. I don't hide anything from anybody. So if anyone has hard questions, were they like, what did you do here? Here? I will be utmost honest about everything that I possibly can be. And I've always been that way. Like the biggest thing for me was, you know, my name is Thor. You're not, you probably don't even know another Thor. So running my business.

with my name Thor and I have, obviously I have the Thor hammer in my logo. I really cared about my reputation. Like that was the biggest thing for me. It still is the biggest thing for me because when I do one bad job and you're like, Thor did my project, that's going to go so quick. It's going to be like wildfire going around the city, you know, like, so for me, was, reputation was big, be honest, show up, do what you say you're going to do. Just be a good human being.

Branden Sewell (01:17:19.848)
Yeah,

Branden Sewell (01:17:36.255)
Yeah, yeah.

Thor Rippy (01:17:44.248)
But don't give up. mean, if you hit those walls and you know, you're like, Hey, I don't know what to do here. Dude, I I'm an open book. Anybody could reach out to me and I'd be more than happy to help anybody with the experiences that I've had, know, or to stay positive. It really is. But if you're spiritual, if you go to church, any of that, make sure you lean on that stuff, you know, like whatever it may be yoga, you know, whatever you do to de -stress and stuff, like you really need to do that. Like stay grounded, you know,

don't let it get the best of you. Just, you know, keeps driving. Like we all hit bad times. You hit bad times. Like no, no business owner is going to come to you and say, it was perfect from start to beginning or from start to finish. There, there might be those lucky people at those unicorns if you want to call them that out there, but you're going to hit walls. Like just don't let them slow you down. Go to ladder, get over them. You know, that's all I can say, man. Like you just

Branden Sewell (01:18:27.044)
Alright.

Branden Sewell (01:18:40.489)
Alright, there you

Thor Rippy (01:18:42.412)
You gotta keep your head up. Just keep going, don't give

Branden Sewell (01:18:46.793)
Yeah, that's good stuff. mean, I think you'd be hard pressed to try and find a business owner who hasn't been through some type of challenge. So, you know, it's definitely not for the faint of heart. It's also not for everybody, but it's possible and you can do it if you want to. you know, myself, you know, like I was a college dropout.

I finished high Sewell but dropped out of college after my first semester and becoming an entrepreneur was just what I knew I was going to do. There's a lot of different options out there for young people and so I hope that from our conversation today that there will be some young people who hear this or maybe even others who maybe...

You know are like restarting, know, career didn't work out and they're looking for another option. You know, the trades are a viable option for you. So being a business owner, it's possible like you got a hustle. You got to work hard, but it's 100 % possible. You don't have to have a business degree to start your own business. You don't have to have it all figured out. I think what you have to have is some grit and some just.

want to do it, you like you have to put the time and the hard work in and just go make it happen. And it's like, man, there's something about that that is super fulfilling for me is this challenge of like, you know, people talk about, you know, commission based jobs or, you know, sales jobs, like being a business owner, it's 100 % commission. I love what Dave Ramsey says, like business owners are those, those people out there who like they go out and they kill what they're going to eat every day.

You know, it's like you got to put food on the table and you got to go out and you got to hunt. You got to go go work for it. And some people don't have that the desire and that's fine, you know. But if you're going to be a business owner, it's 100 percent possible. And I think that there's like, like I said, I think two things it requires is just like the hard work and the grit and just like the the determination to go make it happen. So.

Branden Sewell (01:21:10.235)
Anyway, if somebody wants to connect with you, Thor, if somebody listens to this, they're encouraged, they've been inspired, maybe they have follow -up questions for you, what's a good way for somebody to connect with

Thor Rippy (01:21:22.446)
Sure. So, my Instagram is pretty easy to find. it's Carpenthor, you know, like carpenter, but Carpenthor. So that's pretty easy to find. and then my email is rippysrenovations at gmail .com. So anybody that wants to send an email, reach out there, I'll give you my phone number. We can talk, you know, podcast, zoom meeting, whatever coffee, your local, Hey, you know, I'm down for

Branden Sewell (01:21:50.281)
Yeah, that's awesome. Keep that spirit because I know Zig Ziglar used to say, if you help enough other people get what they want in life, you'll get what you want in life. So, you know, helping, being open to helping others is huge. And I don't think you can, you know, giving to others and helping others. Like that's why I love doing this podcast is I know that somebody might listen to this and be encouraged by something you said today.

or something I said and it's going to change the trajectory of their business, their life, and for the better. And so that's why I love it. I I think there's a lot of fulfillment in that. So definitely reach out to Thor if you want to chat with him. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to the Off the Ladder podcast.

Like always if you're watching on YouTube, please like Subscribe turn on the notifications drop a comment share your feedback If you're listening to this on any major podcast platform Please rate and review the show that will help us to reach more people get the show in front of more people so that they

be encouraged and get this amazing information to help them with their business as well. And thank you so much. We'll see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder podcast.