Batten House Podcast
Batten House Podcast
Batten House Podcast
Ep 2 Balancing Business, Family, and Passion: Michael's Insightful Narrative
What happens when a civil engineer embraces his entrepreneurial spirit and takes the helm of a beloved family business? Join me, Heather Joy Batten, on the Batten House Podcast as I sit down with Michael from SOS Power, a company gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Michael shares his unique journey from engineering to entrepreneurship and the seamless transition of SOS Power from its original owners, Albert and Patty Ralph. Discover how he has honoured the legacy of the Ralph family by keeping them involved and how moving to a new location has spurred growth in both service and sales of top brands like Toro, Honda, and Echo.
Throughout our conversation, Michael paints a vivid picture of the vital role family plays in his life and business. With four children and a wife who runs her own business, Michael's household thrives on a foundation of entrepreneurship and community spirit. Listen as he reveals the impact this environment has on his kids and the joy it brings him. Not just a business enthusiast, Michael also lets us in on his passion for football and his unwavering support for the Redblacks. If you're looking for inspiration on balancing work, family, and personal passions, Michael's story is a guiding star.
SOS Power Sales
Michael Reid
950 Moodie Drive
Ottawa ON K2R 1H3
sales@sos-power-sales.com
1-613-728-2633
sos-power-sales.com
This Batten House Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, heather Joy Batten. Hey, michael, thanks for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks Heather. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm great Thanks for asking. We feel or at least I feel very festive. We're matching with our red shirts.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us. You're wearing your lumberjack plaid today. It's very Ottawa based.
Speaker 1:You going to a.
Speaker 2:Red Pots game later today.
Speaker 1:Football fan through and through. It's my sport, it's where my heart is and I love to represent as much as I can. So you're here with us from SOS Power. Tell us about the great work that you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so SOS Power Sales actually has been around since 1975. So we are celebrating our 50th anniversary next year, and that's kind of a good time, because I actually just acquired it in April of this year.
Speaker 1:Outstanding.
Speaker 2:So SOS Power has spent the majority of its time on Clyde Avenue and it was a family-run business and I got the opportunity late last year to start meeting with the owner, albert Ralph, and his wife Patty, and I struck a deal and we closed on it in April of this year, so we moved it from Clyde Avenue to 950 Moody Drive.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I own that property and there's a couple other businesses there as well, and now we're ready to rock.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I love that for you, but I love that for them. How special, after pouring heart and soul into a family business, to know that this is a next chapter that's going to keep serving the community in a meaningful way. I love that. Tell us about your journey. How did you get here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm a civil engineer by trade and I've always kind of been interested in how entrepreneurial spirit. So when the opportunity came about for this, I thought it would be a good fit with another business that I own, canlock Stone, and we moved it over and I met like with Albert and Patty and they were phenomenal people and so easy to deal with. So putting a business deal together with them was really good and Albert's knowledge of the repairs and maintenance on the equipment is just outstanding. He spent his whole life working with his dad and his brother and uh, yeah, and now his son works there too, so I kept him around.
Speaker 2:So wow yeah, it's super cool, very family-oriented business and we moved into a bigger showroom and a bigger shop and you know it's a little bit of a different location, right, but on Clyde we're servicing more of central Ottawa now. Now on Moody Drive we're more southern, you know southeast southwest kind of location. But it's been great. We service, you know, toro, honda, cub Cadet, wacker, newsome and Echo and Skill Products and then we sell for new sales. We sell Wacker, cub Cadet and still and echo. So it's pretty exciting that way and yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I honor you for just creating such an organic approach to your business, recognizing the family aspect that clearly was important to them and being able to continue working with their son and I understand you have children yourself. You've got four kids and I imagine that, being an entrepreneur and a business person, that family is really important and finding ways to make sure that everyone has a place.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right. So with our four kids, my wife actually is an entrepreneur as well. She owns her own business Play On Pediatrics. So the kids just kind of grow up in this mentality of just, oh, you always just own your businesses. I think that's how they just assume the world works.
Speaker 1:So it's pretty interesting that way. I love that. Well, it brings me to my next question what do you do for fun? Obviously, work is fun for you. It shows I get a real sense that you know your businesses are important. But you make it fun anyway. But when you're not working in your business, what? What do you do for fun?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, I'm 39 this year and I think, for fun right now, for the next 10 years or 11 years, I keep telling my wife, from 40 to 50, we're gonna live for the kids, kids, right, we're going to be involved in all the sports that we can and take them to as many places as we can, and that you know we're working to provide the lifestyle that we want for the kids to do the things that they want to do. So you know now I spend probably oh, I don't know 10 hours a week at the hockey arena, just an action on the ice with the kids.
Speaker 2:My daughter does cheer. This weekend we were just in Newmarket for a hockey tournament and then stopped on the way home in Oshawa for a cheer event.
Speaker 1:So it's a super busy house, but I don't think I'd have it any other way. I can tell and our kids they just bring us so much pride and joy. Right, you wouldn't want to be doing anything else.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And I think we all know how quickly this time goes with them when they're young. We want to make the most of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting, you know. I find, I guess, turning 40 next year, you always kind of look at life in stages and you think about when I first started in business, it was like how much you know, how much can I make, how much can I grow, how many different things can I do. And then, as you get further along in business, it's like okay, so what do I need to do to live the life that I want to live? And you know, the important thing, like you know, my, my legacy and my wife's legacy is is, you know, our family and our kids and the lives we've impacted.
Speaker 2:So I think that's really where we'll be spending the next. You know, the rest of our lives and life can be so short, too right you want to make sure you're enjoying what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I honour you for it and your wife. Actually, it sounds like you guys have a really great balance to. You know, there's no shortage of things that pull us in all kinds of directions as parents, but it sounds like you guys make the most. You know, when it's a trip to Oshawa, you make it count, right yeah, we definitely don't.
Speaker 2:Uh, we don't live a life of uh uh relaxation there's not a lot of downtime but it's still exciting to keep so busy.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's awesome. Well, I wanted to ask if, um if there are any myths or misconceptions about your industry as it relates to SOS power you know, being a small equipment dealership, there's a couple of things that you need to kind of keep in mind.
Speaker 2:One there's a couple things that you need to kind of keep in mind. One you could go to a big box store and you could buy, uh, very similar equipment, and it's going to be made a little bit differently, but, at the end of the day, what you're coming to like an sos for is you want to be able to have that representation with somebody who lives and breathes this equipment every day. And even if you bought equipment at a box store, if it falls under one of our brands that we manage or that we repair, you would end up coming to see us anyways if there was any maintenance that needed to be done, whether it was under warranty or anything like that so people often think that if they didn't buy something at the store that they can't come in to get the warranty work done.
Speaker 2:I'd say that's the biggest misconception that people have. Let's say you bought an Arian snowblower and you needed service to be done on it. You could bring it on and we would service it.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So that's an education piece that's important to you, to clients, to make sure that they know that you're there, regardless of where you bought it. If it falls under your jurisdiction, they can come to you. That's right.
Speaker 2:And because of the length and the time that SOS has been around, they've had a lot of longstanding clients and we offer a pickup service, which isn't always normal, and not a lot of small equipment. People don't do that. So let's say you lived in Canada and you didn't have a truck, but you wanted to get your snowblower service Of course. We offer a pickup service. Now, there is a fee for that, obviously, but it does allow you to not have to stress about how am I going to get this fixed.
Speaker 2:So waiting until the very end to get it done the same thing with lawnmowers or riding mowers. Perhaps you have a big estate property, but you don't have a truck. So it's like how do I get my lawnmower to get service? Well, if you call us at SOS, we send out a gentleman. His name's Sean. He's been with the company for 35 years and wow picks it up that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's great that. I think that's great news for anyone, especially in this weather that we're having in Ottawa at the moment, to know that they don't have to find their own way to get their snowblower to you to be serviced. That's right. Um, personally, is there anything in your life that's been a particular hardship that you know at the time was a real struggle? But you can look back now and say you know what I'm, I'm stronger for it, I'm better for it and it's made me who I am today.
Speaker 2:You know, in my life in general, I mean, there's lots of hardships as entrepreneurs and you know people, people want to at the the good things that happen or the big successes that you have, and a lot of times when you have the failures you're, you're by yourself or with your wife or with your close family or your closest friends.
Speaker 2:So you know it's uh, it's funny because the the big wins are always noted and people say how lucky you are, how smart you were to make these investments and how it's so amazing that your life goes this way. But in reality, it's the small losses that you take on your own that are, you know, can be can be tough to get through, and I think that it's important to understand that. You know what you see in people on the outside right. You know you're looking at social media or all these different things.
Speaker 2:It's not actually showing you the work or the stress that goes into the day-to-day running of a small business.
Speaker 1:Right, that's very well said. Sean and I have a similar path to where we are today, and what you've shared has resonated with me in a big way, because you know it's certainly not without its hiccups along the way that bring you to where you are. Thanks for sharing that? What do you wish our listeners to know about your business? I mean, you've shared, you have delivery or, sorry, we have pickup service. We'll service your equipment, even if you've not bought it here. What else would you like people to know?
Speaker 2:Having moving a business from Clyde Avenue to Moody Drive. The most important thing I want people to know is that we've moved.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, absolutely, and that we're still there.
Speaker 2:Especially a large standing business in Ottawa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, we're still here, you can find us here.
Speaker 2:We're still here. We are the same. You know, we have the same kind of ownership group, with some additions obviously. And you know, Albert is still there, Mike is still there. It's that same family atmosphere, just in a different location. So that is what I think you need people to know, and I also think you can't replace the experience that comes with somebody like Albert who grew up in the business. You know his son, Mike, who also, you know, obviously younger than Albert, but who grew up in the business as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, it's invaluable. Yes, that's right Now that, now that we've met this way, I'm going to, I'm going to pop in and bring a few of my kids so we can check out your shop, and I encourage our listeners to do the same, because it's a real honor and pleasure to have a chance to chat with you, michael, and hear more about the great work that you do. And thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much, and I appreciate the offer.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:You too, thanks. Thank you for listening to the Batten House Podcast. To nominate your favourite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to battenhousepodcast. ca. That's battenhousepodcast. ca, or call 343-308-3606.
