The American Dream S4 E1 - Do Nothing Average: The Justin O’Neil 9-Figure Playbook

Justin O’Neil breaks down how he built Fair Claims Roofing and turned a mindset into a movement with DNA Do Nothing Average. This is a conversation about execution, identity, and building brands that stand out.

Justin will also be joining us live at the Billion Dollar Panel at the American Dream Event (June 18–19 in Houston), where he’ll be sharing insights alongside other elite operators on scaling, building enterprise value, and thinking bigger.

https://americandreamevent.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, Steven Martinez with the American Dream. I just want to say a big thanks to all our supporters and fans. It's because of you guys that we're able to keep growing. Having said that, please don't forget to follow and subscribe. It means a lot to us. That's what help us keep growing. And also, I hope you guys enjoy the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey guys, welcome back to the American Dream Podcast here with another special guest, Justin O'Neill, owner of Fair Claims Roofing. And an investor with DNA Do Nothing Average. Absolutely. Thanks for coming, man.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

And thanks for having me. Excited to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Well, yeah, it's about time. I know we've connected through social media. We're gonna get into that too. You are killing it with social media as well.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

But for anyone who doesn't know Justin, give me a little backstory. You know, before you got into Fair Claims Roofing, talk to me about Justin.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yes, man, I uh I'm a kid that grew up in a small town, you know, very uh where'd you grow up? Athens, Texas. If you know where Athens is at, it's uh it's near Tyler, Texas. About a 10,000-person town, little county seat town with a little courthouse square. And you know, it was uh I grew up in the country. It was a it was a good life growing up, but you know, it was not a very extravagant life by any means. You know, I grew up pretty pretty humble, uh pretty simple roots. Um, you know, my my parents were in high school when I was born, and uh, you know, so uh obviously they kept me, raised me. Uh my grandparents had a lot to do with my upbringing too. I got a lot of influence from them because obviously they spent a lot of time looking after us while my mom worked. But um, but yeah, I mean I my my grandfather was uh kind of a small town entrepreneur, was one of the early pioneers in the garbage business. Where you know back in the 80s, you know, especially the early mid-80s, if you didn't live within the city limits, most of the time you either had to take your garbage to work with you, to throw it in a dumpster there, or you or you burned it. A lot of people just burned their garbage back then.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

And obviously, EPA, that kind of stuff started started looking bad and frowning on that. So with that need, he started offering garbage service for people that lived outside of the city limits, out in the country in rural areas. And uh that he built that business, would grow it, he'd sell part of it off, grow it again, sell part of it off. And it was kind of my destiny to kind of take over his business someday. My mom was an only child, um, so and having me young made me kind of like a son to my grandfather because the close proximity and and age there. But um, you know, he kind of taught me work ethic and the kind of the hustle and grind that I've been able to apply in most of the areas of my life. But, you know, I was I was hauling garbage six days a week. I was working for my grandfather family uh three days a week, I was working for a family friend three days a week, was mowing grass. You know, this is right out of high school. I turned 18 on a Wednesday and moved out on a Saturday, so it's I've always been independent. Um but I started getting burnt out a little bit on the on the garbage business. Um it was just between the the hours there, I was still taking classes uh at the junior college there. Uh had an opportunity to uh get involved in in roofing. I was 19 years old, uh a man I knew at the church that I went to actually had talked to somebody else about trying to get into outside sales, and this is back in 2000, dude. This is you know 26 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Um and I kind of spoke up and said, hey, like I think that's something that I could do. You know, one of the things that my grandfather would have me do even, you know, when I was young, I mean, I started working on a garbage truck when I was about 12 years old and would do that in the summers. But as I got older and actually started having a bigger responsibility, you know, if I was driving a truck, you know, he would just tell me, if you somebody's outside, somebody's out in the yard and they're not a client, you pull over the truck and find out why. Why do you what are you doing with your garbage? And it kind of taught me being comfortable, you know, approaching strangers and just, you know, so I've always kind of grown up with that. Some of that's personality. I've always been a people person, but that kind of rooted me, you know, in being comfortable in sales and um ended up getting the opportunity to go to work for that roofing company when I was 19. Uh funny enough, one of the owners didn't even want to entertain, interview me because you know the 19-year-old kid, you know, coming to sell, he just nodded, that wasn't gonna work in his mind.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I think it's the best when they're young.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, and you know, I started with that company uh in uh February, part-time. Ended up doing well, uh kind of right out of the gate. And I'm like, man, I don't know that I want to be a garbage man. You know, I like outside sales, I like this industry, I like not smelling like a garbage truck when I get home at that at night. You know, there was uh, you know, I growing up the way that I grew up, everything was blue-collar. There was not much uh white-collar opportunity. Um, even though roofing's a blue-collar industry, doing the sales side of it is is not as challenging as the obviously the installation and the blue blue-collar part of our business. So that was appealing to me too. So I kind of had to have the conversation with my grandfather, like, look, I think you might need to think about selling your business instead of expecting me to kind of fill in and take over. This is something I think I can make a good living at. Did it full time, became the top sales guy of that company. Uh the first year I was there. Uh, in 2001, you know, pre-9-11, and that in that summer, there was a big hail storm in Houston that some of the OGs may remember in in April of 01 that hit a real big area of Houston. So there was a lot of guys that were coming in working. My company wanted to come down and and kind of get started with that market. So came down here uh with the expectation of moving down here. I was here when 9-11 happened and just some of the things that kind of went along with that. But ultimately the company I was working for started having some challenges, uh, you know, saw some mistakes they made too that I even carried into uh the business that I had. But by April the following year, had the opportunity to start my company. Oddly enough, with the partner that had left their company that didn't want to interview me because of my age. Uh but he ended up leaving, starting uh our company, and and I kind of joined along with him there in the beginning. We started this company, and that was in 2002. Uh, you know, I mean, it just and have grown and built ever since.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

You know, you start out kind of how's that transition? I always think it's unique, and I always like to ask the question because most owners before they get into ownership, they're usually in sales. How was that transition getting into it's two different ballgames? One thing is knocking on the door, another thing is running an infrastructure. How is that?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

You know, I I tell people it's taken one step back to take two steps forward. You know, there's definitely a step back because you've got uh all these other responsibilities and especially starting over, right, where you're a brand new company. You know, it's one thing when you're established, you've got a little bit of that, you've got a base of business, you've got a clientele, people that are already referring you. And some of that comes with you, but you still have to, that first customer, you've got to convince them that, hey, you know, you'll be my first reference, and we're gonna do a great job for you to be a good reference. That's that's a lot of risk for for a person to take, and obviously it's a lot of faith they show in you to give you those opportunities, but you're you're probably not gonna do as much business in your first year or two that you might have been doing just selling, working for somebody else. So that was part of that transition. It was helpful partnering with with somebody that was older, more established, too. Uh you know, my my former partner, uh, his background was in uh retail management. Okay. So he did a lot of management within retail. So he had good business expense or experience uh at least running those and seeing how those businesses were done. And he was obviously a big mentor for me just in learning the the business side of it, but my main, you know, um responsibility in the company was sales, was not only selling, but also helping recruit, hire, and train uh the sales team that we would have. And uh and then that was what I mostly focused on. But as the years go on, you know, you start kind of migrating into other parts of the business, you start thinking, okay, how can we grow? How can we do things different? How can we do more? Because you don't want to be complacent, you know, and then just kind of uh stay in the same space. You want to be able to broaden that. And and we've done that over the years, just getting into different things, and and it's cool how the business has evolved. You know, our name is Fair Claims Roofing, and obviously insurance claims is a big part of what everybody in the industry does, it it seems, but it's become less and less uh a fair identity for us because I you know full insurance re-roof, maybe 30-40 percent of the business that we do. Uh we actually do more retail re-roofing now than we do uh insurance jobs on a year-to-year basis, especially. Now that can change if we have a storm hit, we might have more insurance work that one year, but we've kind of positioned ourselves to be able to have good, consistent, organic leads and opportunities that come in. And most of those just kind of cater more to a retail environment because the people that are calling you usually are calling you because they have a problem with the roof, other than I just had a hail storm or we just had a weather event that that's created a need. Now, some of those can still turn into claims depending on the situation, the location, but a lot of those are just retail opportunities, which we welcome. I think that's more of a sustainable uh business model because you're not so live and die by the storms. I mean, you live large when the storms happen, but when there's not one, and it can get thin pick pickings. Uh especially we've seen it over the last few years, man. I mean, even the storms we've had, it's not like it used to be, man. The criteria, these in the insurance companies have have tightened up uh on A, what they want to, you know, extend coverage to, and then even once they extend coverage, there's so many policies now that have changed. You know, everything's not replacement cost across the board anymore. There's a lot of roof schedule policies, there's a lot of ACV policies. And more challenging than even that is the the deductibles, you know. They man, when I got into this business, dude, it was deductibles were 250, 500 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

I believe it.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

And it was I believe it. Those are not hard to get, uh, you know, but you know, goes to one percent, okay. Well, now it's mostly two percent. We're seeing three, five percent deductibles out there, but you know, I talk about this a lot up. And that's two percent of the home value. Of the home value. So, you know, and again, you think about 20 year 20 years ago what home values were, or even as recent as five, seven years ago, you know, before the COVID boom, uh here, you know, you're uh up in the woodlands where I'm at, which is a more affluent area, you know, the median home price up there was still 400,000, 450,000. Um you know, and that's changed to where that's now more like seven, eight hundred thousand. And the nicer homes, I mean, there's a lot of homes that were five, six hundred, you know, five, six years ago that had a five or six thousand dollar deductible. Well, now that house is a one point two million dollar home with a two percent deductible, you know. So you've got somebody with a twenty-four thousand dollar deductible. Now, granted, the roof might be thirty-five thousand to replace, but you're still you're knowing out the gate the client is responsible for two-thirds of it.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

And what I've experienced at least, you know, some of my sales guys have experienced before when you'd have a storm come through, it was a no-brainer to spend five, six thousand dollars to replace your thirty thousand dollar roof. But if your roof might might maybe maybe your roof's only 11, 12 years old, you think you can get five or six more years out of it, even though you can buy it on a discount by only paying two-thirds of it, it's still a pretty big investment that's an unexpected expense. Then not everybody's some people are okay, just well, I I know I've got damage, but I'm not gonna do anything because I really don't want to spend my deductible to replace it, even though it would qualify. We'd rather just let it wear down even if it wears out quicker and and take take the risk if if something does happen with it. But you and I both know it takes pretty significant hail damage to make it actually leak. Yeah, typically it's just affecting the longevity of it and how it how it wears, which is why it's a a covered peril. But you know, so I I just see uh a little bit of a prolonging effect uh for most of those clients, which doesn't worry me or scare me. I mean that's that's actually just saying not now. It's it's not saying no. Uh and I think that'll be more opportunity opportunity for for companies like us in in the future. Absolutely. Um but it's definitely creating a squeeze for the companies that are solely dependent on those type of jobs because they're becoming harder and harder to get than they were five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I agree. I think la last year someone from QXO was saying how last year there was like a significant jump on businesses shutting down in Houston for roofing companies. I thought that was interesting as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So I have a two-part question. Sure. This is very interesting as well, because I always find it when when owners start their own venture, most stories when it involves a partner, it always goes down south. It's like someone was stealing or like tell me about that, because you guys have been in business for 20 over 20 years, 2002.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yes, it'd be 24 years in April, so long we've been in business.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Oh, that's awesome. So, what was the secret there in finding a good partner in business?

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Well, hey, it you've got to work with people that you can trust. You know, that's that's that's a big part of it. Uh in integrity is a big part of it. And you know, the the man that I was in business with for so many years was, you know, just kind of that that was just part of who he was, you know, and and both of us having the the core beliefs and doing things the right way, doing things above board. Um and when you operate that way, the other stuff, you know, doesn't really come into play. Uh the only challenging thing, I guess, that I could say that that came from that is we we started the business together and with with an understanding and an agreement that he would just retire someday and it would be for me to take over the business. You know, when you're 21 years old, you know, yeah, that sounds great and you just do it. But I was so young and naive then, I didn't realize that, hey, that we should probably figure that what that looks like now, put that in writing so that we have something that we're working towards. And even though we had a great relationship and a great run through all of those years, as he aged and got into the age of the years where I would have expected him to retire me take over, we never really defined what that looked like. What does retirement look like for him? What type of uh monetary expectations should there be for that? And hey, what is the timeline for that? Because at some point you get down the road and realize, okay, I would have expected that to have happened by now. Um and then you kind of almost have to go through a little bit of um not really conflict or friction, but just a little bit of difficult conversations to be able to transition into the next step. And that's something we've both gone through in the last few years. You know, I got to a point where you know we we had a conversation, I ended up splitting our partnership, and we we operated as two different entities. You know, he was based more in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I was based here. Okay. And uh, but but we worked out an agreement for be me being able to buy that business out where it was mind-free and clear here. And uh more recently, I just you know got it worked out for us to be able to kind of take over operating throughout the state, you know, the way that it was originally. And uh and it all worked out, it was good, but I I think it would have been better had we defined what that looked like in the beginning. You know, that would have been some advice I would have given to myself.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

An exit plan essentially.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah, you know, and you've you you have to know what you're working towards to be able to get there. And and I think we were all aligned in what we were building and growing, but there wasn't, even though there was a concession plan or a succession plan uh long term in in in regards to who, but but how and um how much and all of that just wasn't defined. And and and in some ways you don't really know what that's gonna be, but I think that's even more important to figure it out in the beginning so that you're all on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

And uh at the beginning, were there any like pain points in business where I mean everyone has their their moments where they mess up something for it could be like a marketing thing or they go in debt. Is it were there any pain points? And if there were, like, how did you guys come over that? How'd you how'd you push through that?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah, some of some of it's just you know, God blessing us, you know, everybody makes mistakes, man, and there's there's definitely those pain points. One one that comes to mind uh was is a roof that we did in oh probably early 2008.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Uh it was for a builder in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and it was a situation that A, our reps that did the job got really loose and didn't do all of their paperwork right, didn't cross all their T's and dot their I's, which is something you would normally require. Um, but I think the appeal of this job, it was in a kaleidoscope a home thing, it was gonna be in magazines, it was supposed to be for Jason Witten, you know, the the the tight end of the Cowboys.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

And it was a it was a nice project. I mean, it was like uh I want to say like an$80,000 designer series, a slate line roof uh that we did, and we installed it. Well, as you know, back then there was a housing crisis that we had, a lot of mortgages were going belly up, and a lot of builders were going bankrupt uh during that period, you know, just because everything kind of crashed all at once. And unfortunately, the builder that we did this job for, even though they were this premier builder, they went bankrupt. And we never got paid for the work.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

And you're$80,000 in debt.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah, well, seven, I mean, I think the job cost on that thing was like$72,000. I mean, there's a low margin in new construction. And um, you know, losing$70,000 on one job, that's that's painful for anybody. But uh, you know, and that wasn't the only one. We probably had four or five. That that was obviously the biggest, but you know, I would say we probably lost somewhere around$150,000 on just bad debt, you know, for new construction jobs from custom home guys that went bankrupt in the middle of the process and we never got paid. Now, what saved us, you know, that that could have potentially put us out of business. Of course. Um, but what saved us was that fall we had Hurricane ICAT hit. And, you know, we did, you know, four or five consecutive months doing over a million dollars in re-roof sales that was also insurance sales with with high margins, and you know, allowed us to be able to make up for that to where it wasn't as painful as it could have been. But you know, you you go through that, and now the the agreements and just kind of my terms and everything for any custom home builders that we work for is is a little different. We kind of cross our T's and dot our I's probably uh a little stronger because of it. And you know, cash flow is key, you know, and and again, you know, unfortunately as the contractor, sometimes you get expected to be the bank, even though you're not the bank. You still have your bank that you have to rely on to give you good lines of credit to kind of help be the bank for some of the the builders, but you know, you still have to have good working terms and because it's not worth doing any job if there's a risk of of not getting paid and losing a significant amount of money. So you have to vet those people uh pretty well, have that good trust and understanding that hey, we're we're a partnership and you gotta make sure that there's good understandings of when and how you're gonna get paid for the work that you're doing so you don't get left potentially in that kind of situation.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

I agree. You know, it's interesting as well, as I'm listening, I have so another two questions. One, when we had Michael Gerber on here, author of the EMIV, and I believe the statistics, if I'm not mistaken, is around 80% of businesses fail after like eight years. So how do you adapt? You know, we're talking 2002 to 2026 where marketing in general is changing.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

You know, most people are perhaps doing door-to-door a lot, but now maybe Google's more of a tool, right? Or social media. Like, how did you adapt and how did you maintain that adaptability throughout the years as everything's evolving?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Well, number one, you've got to be open to it and flexible to it. And because if you just stay stagnant, you're gonna get passed up, you know. And the the best thing that you can do though in a home service business is just to do good work. You know, when you do good work and you've got good relationships with people, the old saying, you know, word of mouth is alive and well, you know, people are gonna refer you and and tell other people that are gonna give you that credibility. But what what I've learned too, like when you do things like roofs, you know, there's some element of maintenance, but for the most part, if they hire you and you do a good job on a on a new roof for them, they don't really have much reason to see or talk to you for a long period of time, and it's possible that they fre forget or or whatever. So you're having to always invest into ways to make the phone ring, uh, but also invest into the relationships that are gonna be more reciprocal, you know, where you can refer people to them, you know, to give some value in the referrals that you're getting, but also, you know, opportunities where they're gonna be more more abundant, you know, more opportunities. So, you know, we really made a focus on on real estate relationships with realtors. We've got a lot of realtors that we work with on a on on the regular. Nice. You know, and I've got you know several that that I'll do four or five jobs a year for, which by by itself is not a ton, but you know, if you've got ten that you do four a year for, that's 40 jobs a year that you pretty much can count on because they know the job that you're gonna do, they know that they can trust you, you they know that you know you'll even work with them. There are jobs that we do that that will just wait to be paid at closing to be able to help out. If they've got a seller that maybe is equity rich but but cash poor, you know, there's ways that we can help those things when there's that trust there, right? I wouldn't do that necessarily with a a stranger off the street, but if it's somebody that I work with several times in the year and I know they're gonna price it to move, you know, there's you you build that trust and you and you work together with it. But you also have to be aware of the the market that you're in. You have to be aware of things that change and trends. You have to, number one, keep track of where your business comes from, how are you getting that business? You know, you you talk about how many years. I mean, believe it or not, you know what the biggest source of uh I guess revenue from advertising was when Hurricane Ike hit? And you're probably not gonna believe it. Even back then, even in 2008, it was pretty much considered obsolete. I quit doing phone book advertising I would say around 2006, just because you can see the trends change to where people are no longer finding you in the phone book. If you track your every call that comes in how they hear about you, well you can see the statistics of what goes up and what goes down and you could just know that hey we're not getting business from the phone book anymore relative to the cost so we started cutting that out. Well when Hurricane Ike hit in 2008 there were still a lot of people that still had the the Woodland specific phone book it was the interfaith. Wow it was probably a two year old addition right because you know they for whatever reason the most recent ones I didn't advertise wasn't here. But when that hit nobody had power nobody really had phone uh like internet service I mean there was just a lot of infrastructure that went down you know if a lot of people were just going to the phone book and and calling so they still found us so we got a lot of calls that came from that. That's incredible. But but still that I mean that's still something that we have obviously cut out. I mean we used to do a lot of um direct mail direct mail was very effective for a long time but I mean I I I remember being able we would go in and cherry pick neighborhoods that had been hit with storms say maybe nine months ago right where the the big you know rush had already died down there wasn't as much activity but you could go through a neighborhood and still see 40% of the homes that could visible visibly had an old roof. Well we would go in and write all the addresses down or record it notate the address so you you go in you could spend an hour going through a hit neighborhood and generate you know four or five hundred addresses sometimes of homes that you knew had been hit by a storm that you knew they hadn't replaced the roof no who knows why maybe they were denied maybe they weren't home maybe they you know didn't have the deductible at the time it happened maybe they got busy who knows but we would handwrite envelopes you know do a nice little letter with a picture of our family you know something that was a little more of a a personal connection rather than just a a postcard piece. Of course man I I I would get three or four percent return every time I would send that out you know you could send out a hundred I'd get three people that would call me off of that letter to come out and do a roof inspection. That's a return on that for sure awesome return on that. And it's like everything you you do keeps putting your base at a higher level because A, you've got that much more business under your belt. Uh people are that much more familiar because it's that repetition. It's that consistency. You know it's not any one thing that we're doing that's of this aha thing later down the road. It's the fact that we've been consistent in our branding efforts for over 20 years where people see you. Now we have maybe have shifted that because we're still you you've got to find where the impressions are at now because the impressions that you were getting that were working for you 10 or 15 years ago of course aren't working for you now right so you've got to be able to deviate and find where that's at.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

And are are you quick on that trigger for example? Like if something's not working like okay like let's focus here. Typically yeah it's like I I I feel like you let it go until it doesn't make sense anymore but once you realize hey this is not looking good we just got to cut it and and and kind of with the with the social media aspect of it I think that's an interesting question because it could go both ways because some someone might say I've been doing social media ads for a month and I'm not getting anything but I think social media is more of a long term game thing. Definitely a long term game.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

And the biggest thing with social media too is that you have to understand people buy from people you know people buy from people they like know and trust. Of course uh and and brands too but you have to understand that you like Justin O'Neill is a brand you know my company Fair Claims Roofing is a brand too but people connect more especially on a social media level with people with individuals so you have to embrace branding yourself making yourself the face of your business they're synonymous you know when people think of Justin O'Neill they think of Fair Claims Roofing but if you're only branding Fair Claims Roofing there's no personal connection to it. And people are just and I can see it I mean between my my business page and my personal page my personal page is what has blown up and got a lot more followers a lot more interaction because people connect with people more than they do companies. So if you're running a home service business and you're only promoting your business and you're not having a consistent face and I would dare say it needs to be you it needs to be the the owner of the company but if you're just that is not you not what you want to do you need to pick somebody who's you know who's gonna be that person because it's the consistency. Because if they see a different person every time you're not building that continuity. But if they're seeing the same person consistently in the content and you're having the delivering the same message that's what builds that trust factor right they they know you because they see you. Hopefully you're putting content out that makes them feel good so they like you and the consistency of it is what's going to make them trust you. And when you put those three together that's the winning formula for success.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Have you noticed any results with building your personal brand with hiring like people like hey man I want to come work for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

I am getting probably more benefit on that aspect of it than even from from clients right I mean people that would potentially hire me for work yeah they they see you they see they at least see you as a relevant person because people will check that kind of stuff they'll check all these other stuff but from just being a a guy they want to work with right they they kind of know your personality they see the stuff that you're doing they're like man that's somebody that I'd like to work with you know that looks like a fun environment. I like the culture of what they're doing over there because there's a lot of people out there that are working for companies that are not investing into those things. And these guys feel somewhat stagnant or stale not supported and but they see the content that we're doing they see the the the people that we have around they see the fun that we have and it and it's appealing. And especially when they they start there and then they start doing a little research about your company and who you are and they realize wow man these guys have been around forever they've got you know 4.9 rating with over 500 reviews on Google. It's like man these guys are doing something right and that that's somebody that I think I'd like to work for. I've I've actually hired several people this year that reached out to me in my DMs just because you know they were interested in partnering with us.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Nice. So okay so as we talk about business obviously sales is one thing we spoke about marketing how that's changing and adapting how you guys are killing it with brand exposure personal exposure. Now in terms of the foundation right we got it all set up and you're getting people that want to come and work I think hiring is a is a very um undermined one like concept right hiring is very very important. It is so when you when you see people for example I guess it's you know that middle line because it looks like a good culture looks like fun but at the same time it's a business and you got to produce and meet your numbers. That's right. How do you keep those people how do you train them and how do you obviously you find them through social media but before that too like hiring recruiting onboarding training talk to me a little bit about that because I think that's a secret sauce and not a lot of people they kind of just oversee it like oh yeah hiring recruiting but I think it's it does man and it's it's been probably one of my biggest challenges and and I've kind of shifted even my mindset of of of where I'm at and who I would potentially be be looking for.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

And I think we're at a place in in our business and in our industry where I'm not trying to hire the person that's green, somebody that's completely green to the industry. I think a good fit for me is somebody that's seasoned that you know maybe they've been in the industry for three or four years. We're looking for people that are already high performers you know or top producers in what they're doing. But maybe they're not being supported well enough they're not being appreciated well enough and we're able to provide them maybe a a backbone of of support and visibility that's worth more than just you going out and knocking on doors and that and that's what I see there's so many guys out there that that's 100% of their business. They have to go out and kill and they they eat what they kill and that's good obviously right but when you're having to go out and and do that you know if you don't have that support to go along with it or to have the leads that can be given to you along with it eventually the company you're working for may not have as much value to you. So and and not that I won't hire somebody that's green and train them but the thing that I've I've struggled with is when you build your business to basically operate off of organic leads which we have we really don't have a culture of door knocking much. You know we we'll have some guys that'll do it but we we do a lot of business solely off of organic leads. I don't buy leads we just our phone rings every day uh with somebody wanting us to come from a referral real estate or X, Y, and Z Yeah or hey you know you most mostly neighbors, you know a lot of with social media groups too there's so many neighborhood Facebook pages where people will say who who's worked with a good roofer you know we've we've been doing this and we've done such a volume in the same area for so long it's rare for those to come up and us not at least get an opportunity or an atbat. And not all those are new roofs I mean we do a lot of repairs. I've got a full service repair team you know that that you know we we keep busy every day too. So we we don't just replace roofs we repair them too but we're always getting those leads the challenging thing with that is if you're trying to bring in somebody new that hey I'm not just trying to dilute my lead pool even more amongst my guys it's hard to teach somebody how to go out and do that grassroots door to door hustle and to be able to create it when it's not really being modeled for them. So that's been one of our challenges is you try to bring somebody in, you think this guy's got a lot of promise and you put them through the training but most of our training is more about the sales process of what to do with a lead rather than how to go out and generate leads. And we can teach it but we don't really model it. So we're that's why I've kind of focused more on people that already have that part down where we can put them into a position where there's a better sales process than what they're used to. It's going to make them more effective at closing the opportunities they're already generating and I don't mind deleting the lead pool for somebody that's bringing in business with them right it's it's hard to dilute the lead pool when somebody's not bringing anything with it that they're just kind of being a a taker of those leads amongst the team that I'd rather support. Of course and obviously there's exceptions if we get into an environment where there's a storm I mean the after barrel we we had over 400 calls the first week after barrel. Wow I I could have had 50 sales guys and still been overwhelmed. So it's all time and place. But on the regular there's just not enough leads that come in to be able to support a whole lot more than the the team that you have so you have to be able to expand. You have to be able to find people that are in maybe different areas you have to find guys that maybe have been doing this a while they're doing really good but they're they're looking for better support and that's actually been my focus more recently if some and and I haven't really sought after that these are people that are coming to me so I'm vetting those people making sure they kind of fit the bill but it's really more of a plug and play of somebody that's already established rather than somebody that's just hey I th I'm interested in roofing I'd I'd like to come to work for you because those have proven to be a little bit harder fit to try to really get going just because our our culture and environment is not your typical door to door company where everybody just goes in and goes out and knocks doors every day.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

And that that was my um my question as well would you say in the Houston market now would you say door to door is dying declining in general?

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Man I I don't believe that at my core being a a sales guy I still feel like door to door is still probably the most effective way to go out and generate business. Is it harder now than it ever has been sure but if you are a person that can communicate well and you know you are willing to go in and put the grind and hustle and work smart instead of hard even with some of that I think that's still really effective. I think you can have a lot of success with it but it is not for the faint at heart and it's not for the person that's not polished or confident.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Which again kind of goes back to somebody that's that's green and unsure of themselves and maybe a little insecure about even doing that to begin with yeah they're really gonna struggle and it's saturated I think people out there too I mean I the clients that call me every day will always reference yeah we we get our door knocked on at least once a month by somebody you know trying to look at my roof and we're just not comfortable working with somebody knocking on our door. So I know that I know it's saturated and I know those guys are getting hit. Obviously they're still having success so they wouldn't keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

You think that's also the same for in the retail market I can obviously insurance makes sense. Yeah you get hit with a storm you go door knock that same day in the morning but retail you would you say door to door is also effective in the retail side of course it is because if you're if you're not just shotgunning right if you're only focusing on people that you can visibly see has an old roof.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

That's one of the great things about roofing unlike say HVAC or something you can't see necessarily how old their unit is or what kind of equipment they've got in their attic but from the street usually you can tell if that roof's older there's going to be algae stain on it typically number one but you know you can also see the sun reflecting off all the fiberglass in it as it as it's wearing so if you're only focused on those people you know even if they don't think they're in the market they're gonna be in the market soon and you've got to have a long-term mindset with it too you know obviously I talk about hunting and farming right you've got to hunt to be able to eat today but if you're not farming along with it building that pipeline building those long-term follow-ups well you're always gonna have to hunt so even doing a retail approach on on door to door if you're going in with the right approach and not trying to high pressure to sell them today you know the goal would be to be the person that they use when they need it and and building that contest or the contact list that you have of people that you reach out to or even use an AI platform that is going to do automated follow-ups with those people. Yeah because how often do you do you get calls now or get people say man my insurance company just sent me a letter said if I don't replace my roof they're gonna drop my coverage because the roof's 13 years old or 14 years old. So that's happening more and more too if you're the person that that knocked on the door maybe maybe they let you give a an estimate just so that they know what it was up against. Well they get that letter well man they've already got the go to person to be able to to go to and you know get that process going rather than starting from from scratch.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

But so I I have another two questions I love this conversation by the way so for someone watching they're like man it's easy for Justin right you've been in business for 20 plus years so you built the foundation you came in when the market's hot so for someone new you know one year in business two three and then haven't set that foundation so let's say it was you right per claim surfing just started last year or two years ago obviously that client based that referral based system it's gonna take time. It does what would you do what would you be your your first approach to to tackle the market?

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Number one, I would go in and try to do as much networking as I could possibly do. Again people do business with who they like know and trust that tenure it helps a ton but if you establish yourself as somebody that they like know and trust you can overcome how long you've been in business. If I was going to go into a new market for example you know say for example I was going to go to San Antonio. I don't have any presence in San Antonio the first thing that I would do is find out okay where where is the market that best part of that area that suits my business and the way that we market where we can add value. And the second thing I do would be okay find all the realtors that are performing there that you know kind of your your high producers would try to connect with them take them to lunch start building those relationships start getting involved in the chamber of commerce where you meet other uh business leaders and start serving start giving because people are not going to just start giving you referrals because you called them one day but if you show up and you work with them and you're doing service projects with them and they see that that you're legit all of a sudden hey you're their go-to guy but you also have to get out and you have to hustle you have to get out and do some door knocking you know you you have to do that you have to hunt so that that you can eat but you also have to do the investments into networking and into branding and to be able to have something that's gonna be fruitful a year from now two years from now you can't wait to make that investment because every day that you don't make that investment is another day that you're not going to get that return even down the road. So you start right away in establishing that brand presence the the relationships the familiarity start becoming the person they lack know and trust from day one but you're gonna have to get out and hunt and actually do some door to door do some things that are going to get you an opportunity today. You know go go out into the neighborhoods where they're building multi-million dollar homes and call the builder on the on the sign of hey I'd love to bid on one of your plans I mean to be diversify you know too don't don't put all your eggs in one basket because you know some things may be tough insurance may be tough right now you're you feel like everything's having to go to appraisal it's taking months to get well that's a delay on you being able to get paid. I mean if you're if you're doing some some custom homework too you know that that can maybe turn around a a little bit quicker. But the realtors too many especially I I tell people go into neighborhoods that have the size homes that you want to work in if they've got a real estate sign in the yard and a visibly old roof that's an easy phone call to talk to that realtor like hey I'm sure this has probably come up I'm sure you've discussed with the client about this roof maybe being a thing. Maybe maybe they don't know that you're willing to go in and and do that roof and get paid at closing as a as an opportunity to be able to help them get that taken care of but you know it's at least about as warm of a cold lead as as you can call on yeah and uh I mean I've early in my career man I would do that I I remember there was one realtor in particular that the house I called on she's like yeah I've talked to those people about it but they're not going to do it. But you know I don't live very far from there. My roof's old too you know can you come take a look at mine? And this lady owned like 50 rental properties. I bet I bet I did a dozen roofs for her in the first couple years I was in business all from that cold call from her calling a sign in the yard of somebody else's house that I could see had an old roof. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

And where does uh the mindset come into play because it's always funny to ask you know our guests you know the mindset of that winner's mindset every day you wake up with that drive and hunger what instill that into you?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

So when you go in and you have that that positive mindset you we we all have a choice every day of if we're gonna focus on a positive outcome or a negative outcome. And no matter what even if it's not the answer that we want you can still turn it into something positive. But if you're constantly perceiving things in a positive way and that is your attitude and that's your hustle and and you're you're driven to just go out and get it you can't help but be successful. I believe that to my core man like that's true when you go out with the right attitude and you're willing to put in the work and take the actions but but having just that perception that attitude that you know it's worth that phone call it's worth doing it because the people that just sit on their hands man I mean that's there's no wonder that you're struggling or that you're not you know having the success that you want. You've you've got to put in the work but you also have to believe that there's a better than not chance that that's going to lead to something when you make that call. If you make that call defeated I bet you you know that's not gonna work. If if you call somebody thinking that they're not going to listen to you or thinking that they're gonna shut you down a pretty dang good chance that they're gonna shut you down. They might shut you down anyway but if you if you believe in the opportunity if you truly believe and you're excited I tell people all the time man if you're not excited about what you do why should somebody else be excited about what you do. That's very true. Very true you know you you've got to bring that number one you've got to buy into it fully. If if you're struggling with that you need to evaluate whether you're truly bought into what you're doing or not. But once you're truly bought into what it is that you're doing man you you've got to get excited about it and go tell everybody else why you're excited about it because that's infectious man. I agree when when you've got that excitement and that attitude of wow this is whatever this guy's got going on I want some of it that man that just attracts people it attracts people to you and it honestly makes closing that much easier because it's it's natural it's organic. I mean they you you're obviously excited about what it is that you're gonna be able to do for them so they get excited about it too. And then how with with that said I'm assuming discipline consist consistency play a major role 100% you you've got to stick with it because you're gonna go through ups and downs but the consistency is the most important thing you know it's like just doing doing the work day in day out having having a regimen having you know like even my social media stuff you know it's like I have every day you know for for me it's a minimum of three or four stories. Sometimes it might be you know 10 but it's like every day you know I I'm gonna put something out there. And there are days that it it's not easy to do those because you're busy you know but if you're not intentional about it it's not gonna happen and you just it just it becomes part of your normal day-to-day to where you don't even think about it anymore on that aspect. But you have to have the same thing in other areas of your business your personal life whatever so that you stick with it because if you're not being intentional about it it won't happen. But you have to be intentional about it on a daily basis because it doesn't do any good. Whether it's social media marketing or anything if you just do it for a few weeks. Yeah you're not gonna get nothing out of it 100% most any kind of branding man it takes months sometimes years for that to fully start getting the return that you want but what most people don't realize is the effect that you're having that's Of unspoken, you know, people only measure the success based on whether their phone's ringing. You know, you don't realize that all these different things that you're doing are making impressions out there that are kind of putting seeds in people's mind that are setting you up to be the premier person or be the go-to person when it is that they need it. And if you're only judging it based on who's calling you right then, right there, you're you're you're missing out on the gains that you're making long term that just aren't as easily measured.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

So I had two two questions before we jump into DNA, which I want to talk about DNA as well. So the first one, Texas is the wild west, as we know that, right? Anyone can come here and then they're a roofer. But I like I like to say more I'm a business owner, right? Yeah, but um pricing, I think it's a unique topic because in the market now you have A, yeah. There's no B over there. There's like this big gap of pricing. So it's like your premium pricing, your low-end pricing. So if I'm a company, roofing company, for example, I'm in the woodlands, I give my my quote, my fur quote with my fur margins, and then homeowners comparing A and B, and then B is just significantly low. Obviously, there's something going on there with red flag, exactly, with shady material, stolen material, whatever. How do you win that? You know, how do you set yourself apart to get those premium luxury owners when you're competing with owners that are companies sorry that are low-end prices?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah, number one, I'd I'd like to think that most of the people that are are the kind of clients that we're wanting to work with, they're usually educated people. You know, that they usually can read between the lines. To me, the worst thing that can happen is they just get two bids and they get you and then somebody there. And if that happens, I say, look, get two or three more bits. That way you've at least got a median, you find out where the median's at. As a business owner, you have to know where the market's at. And you know, and I feel like all of us kind of know where the market's at. And you've got to stay within market, no matter how much you want to get or how much you think you're worth. I know I'm worth more than that guy. I feel like I'm worth more than most guys, but no matter how good I think I am, I realize most people aren't gonna pay more than a 10, definitely not more than 20% more to do business with you over somebody else, right? It's the whole perceived value. So A, you've got to stay somewhat in within reason of where the real market is at. But you also you have to establish value. And I feel like we have a pretty good sales process of communication when we sit down with a client, the way that we run through our proposals. We establish on all the reasons why we're the best and safest choice.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Education.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Education, a hundred percent. And you know, we use keynotes, you know, uh, you know, on our iPads or on our laptops, and it's it's already laid out all the things that we want to communicate. And it's like, you know, a mentor of mine, you know, taught me about setting living room landmines. That was the way that they would would would call it. Because when you go in and you talk about things, you talk about how you're gonna do things, or you talk about it, maybe the drip edge, for example. Everybody should be replacing drip edge, and most people do. But when you talk about replacing the drip edge and you talk about the size that you do, you know, we do two-inch drip edge. Some guys will only do one and a half, they might leave a little paint line there, but chances are nobody else is even gonna bring up drip edge. And the fact that you talked about it, and it may be a very normal thing, but you've set a landmine now for the next guy that doesn't talk about it because they may have to ask him, but it creates doubt, like, oh, is this guy gonna do that? So the the more that you communicate and the more that you educate him, the more landmines other people are to step in it because they may have not put any emphasis whatsoever on those little things. But um attention to detail. Attention to detail.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

I love that. And then my my my second question is so as as we know during 2020, private equity came into the home service space during the recession, they saw how lucrative home service is. Yes. And you've been in business for quite some time. So I want to ask you, I guess, why why haven't you sold, right? Everyone, people have sold their business. For for you, what's I've had my opportunities, don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Yeah, I know, I know. For me, yeah, A, I I've built this business, it's part of my identity, number one, and it provides me a great living. You know, I make really good money, and I really have a lifestyle that I don't really want for much, to be honest. I mean, I, you know, are there things? Sure. But for the day-to-day, for my happiness, you know, I love being able to be the captain of my own ship. I love being the guy that's fully in charge, that can make decisions, you know. The second that you're working with PE, and I'm and I'm sure I'll partner at some point, but at my age, I'm 45 years old, you know, I'm not young, young anymore, but I'm also not anywhere close to being old or wanting to quit. And um, you know, right now I see the ability to maybe consider this in in 10 years. I've got more gains that I feel like we can make to be able to potentially add more multiples down the road. Absolutely. But there's a reason that somebody wants to buy you, right? Of course. They see the long-term gain, they see their investment, they can help you grow and build it more than what you could yourself. Uh I'm I'm choosing to bet on myself. You know, I feel like I there's a lot that I can do. But I'm also, you know, e even if you're you're you're somebody like like us, I mean, we would be in that seven multiple range. But in seven years, I'm gonna make that anyway.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Right?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna make that anyway, giving that to me all at once. But but most of the way those things are structured, they're usually benchmarked where you're getting a little bit here, getting a little bit there. You don't really feel that windfall as as much. I mean you would, but until you get into those uh other levels that I'd that I'd hopefully like to get into someday, it just didn't make sense for me, especially being able to you know these guys that hadn't been in business as long. I I get their goal and what they're trying to do because they're just trying to get in and and get out. You know, for me, I've already got the long-term investment into it. And it's almost like this golden goose that I've built. You still have to earn it every day, but I can pretty much depend on what my business is gonna do year in, year out. Is there is there a chance something could happen? Sure, there could be economic downturn, all kinds of things, but you'd still be caught up in that if you sold because you're not gonna hit whatever it is they're expecting you to hit. So there's still some risk even if you sell. Man, I'd rather take that risk myself, continue to build, continue to grow, continue to add value to where P would be willing to do even more for me when the time comes. Uh, but it's also you you also have to think about the long term. When you're 45 or even younger, you gotta think, how long is that money gonna last you? You know, if you're thinking about it from a retirement standpoint, or what type of no computer you're gonna have for for you to be able to go out. I think most guys the the the sell is to basically partner with PE and you kind of get into the the second levels and third levels of of selling and you know all that's great, but you're also entering into a partnership with people you really don't know that well.

unknown 51:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

That's very true. Partnerships are really big on all the the trust factor, but also even from a culture standpoint, right? You you want to enjoy what you do every day when you become a a small partner in this big machine, you no longer have any control over that. And protect your team too. What if it just get them up in? 100%. I get it. So there's there's all those things, and uh, I've I've got some pretty big plans in in mind, even with some of my team, you know. It's like I want everybody to be motivated and have benefits uh long term for the route that we're going. But but for now, you know, it's like I've got what we've built, I just want to stay on that train and and keep taking it forward.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

I love it, man. So talk talk to me about DNA. Uh when did you start? What's the idea behind it? What's the purpose? This is really good, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Man, I appreciate it, man. This is um a business I got involved in um really the beginning of of last year. You know, the the company's uh almost two years old now. Uh it was a relatively new company when I got involved in it, but um, you know, I I had the opportunity to to come in as an investor. Um, but even before investing into the company, I was introduced to the product and uh was really sold on the product, and there were you know, I was wanting to like, hey, how can I get involved in this business? Because I knew it was gonna go places. There wasn't an opportunity at the time. But um the thing that really sold me the most on it, in addition to the the obvious brand name that just resonated hard with me, you know, it just felt like it was meant to be something that I was involved in. Do nothing average. Do nothing average. I mean, that's kind of uh what defines me as a as a person. And anything, you know, it's if you're gonna do something, do it to the best of your abilities and try to be the best that you can about whatever it is, you know. Um it, you know, the the country was don't do it half-assed, right? I mean, that's what I was brought up kind of being being taught, you know. But you know, the more uh correct way is do nothing average. So that resonated hard with me. But the healthy aspect of it, right? I mean, our products are some of the healthiest on the market. Uh we don't have any artificial ingredients in it. Um everything is naturally sweetened, it's naturally the energy, the the caffeine is all natural that that's in it. Uh so to have that in it and it taste the way that it needs to taste. Anything that I've had most of the time, it tastes like trash, right? Most healthy stuff just doesn't taste that good.

SPEAKER_03 53:38

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

You know, so it's like, and people are not going to consume stuff that doesn't taste good. I mean, there's there's you you have products that you do for purpose and ones that you do for pleasure. The ones that you do for purpose are a lot harder to stick with, right? Uh when you can mix the two together and you can have some pleasure while you're achieving purpose.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

To me, that's a that's a winning recipe. And then you combine that with the the branding that's in it. Um was all in on the product, and we had an opportunity to become an investment partner with them at the beginning of the year last year, and man, it's it's taken off. Uh it's it's taken, you know, time, work, and you know, things don't happen quick in this market, the drink market, super competitive. But we've got a fantastic team uh that that works uh diligently on on growing and uh but but just the relationship aspect, you know, we're finally getting into some major retail spaces. Um, you know, we went into Costco 54 stores, nice um kind of right around the beginning of the year, mostly uh out west, you know, kind of Denver Phoenix West. Uh there's 54 Costco's that that have our collagen product uh in there. Uh we're also in Target in the Southern California area, just as individual cans. Uh we're available, you know, pretty much nationwide on Amazon, but we've got some other things that are cooking that should have us into some other big places uh pretty soon that we're also excited about. The the next product that's coming out is our our healthy sodas. You know, those have kind of become popular with Poppy and some of the others. We've actually created a healthy soda that tastes like sugar soda, it's so good. I've been able to sample all of them. Uh you know, when when you know truvia is where our sweetness comes from. And most of the time when you have stuff that has a truvia sweeten sweetener, it's got that aftertaste that's just like, yeah, it's not as not as desirable. You know, our formulator's been able to fine-tune that to where you don't have that. You don't have the aftertaste. Wow. Uh so I'm super excited about that because you can actually, you know, drink our root beer or drink our cream soda or drink our lemon lime. And it tastes like you're drinking a sugar soda, yeah, but it doesn't have any of that weird aftertaste, but it still has no sugar, still no artificial stuff in it. I mean, it's uh it's good stuff, man. I think that's even gonna take us off even further.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

I love that, man.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

You gotta you gotta try it, man.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

I am, I am. Hopefully we'll bring some for the for the event. Obviously, you're gonna be speaking at a billion-dollar panel, it's gonna be exciting. Yes, I'm excited about that. It's gonna be uh for us, the American Dream has always been about impact. Everyone has their own version of the American Dream, but it's very much so possible. And it's about teaching people uh financial literacy, fundamentals in business, but more importantly, impact. I think we are a self-reflection of our business, so we have to take care of uh us right drinking something, for example, like this, where it's it's healthy for you. So it's good for you. Having said that, I know we're running short on time now, but for any young entrepreneur watching and well, they don't have to be a roofing contractor or in the home service space, but they just want to chase you know their goal with being somewhat somewhere in business, being a business owner. Yeah. What's your your one tip you would give them or advice?

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Man, but number one, set surround yourself with people that are already running successful businesses or get around, reach out to people, go to uh events where you have the opportunity to meet those kind of people, you know, go to events like the American Dream Conference, go to uh things like the Aspire conference that I was at, because those are typically full of high performers, people that are already putting themselves out there, growing and doing. And get away from the guys that are you know pretty much focused on just living life and popping off rather than building something long term, especially when you're young. You know, it it takes some time, it takes some grind, but I firmly believe that if you have the right work ethic, which that's the the biggest key, you're gonna run over everybody. You know, it's just the guys that are willing to put in the time, and in the younger generation, it seems like so many people are a little lazy, a little entitled, you know, they want to clock in, clock out, and you know, you you have the biggest platform out there now with social media, and it's just so easy to make sure that everybody that you know and meet knows what you do. You know, that's a big part of it too, regardless of what service that you're providing or selling, you've got to always be on and always be selling, always be making sure that whoever you meet knows what it is that you're offering and doing, but also surround yourself with people that you can go to and that you can ask advice to that you know, with with really no motivation other than wanting to support you. I I know myself there's other entrepreneurs out there that'll always entertain a phone call or to try to help a young entrepreneur just be able to give non-biased advice, you know, just on whatever it is that they're doing or where they're trying to grow or are doing different things. And um I think that's key because if you're not if you're not getting that, sometimes it's it's a little bit harder, you know, just trying to to figure out or or find the path. But you know, it's uh I think the the the road is wide open for for people that want to do that. I've always believed that entrepreneurship's where it's at. You know, education is great, formal education is is good, but you know, for unfortunately education doesn't teach entrepreneurship. So the only way you really learn about it is by having mentors that are there that are doing it already, and uh and and surrounding yourself by people that you want to be around, people that are already doing the things that you're doing or that you're wanting to do. Um best advice. Do nothing average. Do nothing average. My man, appreciate it, man.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Thank you guys. I'll see you guys in the next one.