brandUP Your Business Podcast
Hey, I’m Matt Jackson, and I’ve been through the highs and lows of building brands that make an impact. On the BrandUP Your Business Podcast, I take you along on my journey and sit down with other entrepreneurs to share the secret sauce of branding, marketing, and sales that actually works.
In each episode, you’ll hear real stories, fun conversations, and actionable tips to take your business from zero to hero. If you’re ready to level up your brand and learn from the best, this is the place for you!
Let’s turn your business into something unforgettable. Tune in and join the fun!
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brandUP Your Business Podcast
Episode 3: "Thomas Potteiger: Success, Setbacks, and the Journey to Inner Balance"
What if your journey to success didn't begin with ambition but rather a chance conversation at a construction site? Join us as Thomas, a longtime friend and fellow entrepreneur, shares his intriguing transformation from a disinterested student to a passionate real estate investor. At 24, inspired by a podcast and a colleague's advice, Thomas ventured into the world of property investment, marking his first significant step into entrepreneurship. Along the way, he faced the unpredictable challenges of managing rental properties and learned vital lessons from both triumphs and failures.
Thomas's story doesn't just stop at real estate; it weaves through various entrepreneurial endeavors, including a stint in truck driving and launching a pressure washing business. While many dream of effortless passive income, he exposes the reality of hard work and financial instability in non-turnkey properties. We confront the empire-building mindset, stressing the importance of aligning business with personal values and sidestepping the allure of superficial success. Thomas's insights highlight the power of strategic planning, the risks of excessive debt, and the joy that comes from a balanced life.
Throughout this journey, the role of integrity, mentorship, and genuine relationships stands paramount. Thomas emphasizes the profound impact of personalized customer appreciation, like handwritten thank-you notes, in fostering loyalty and business growth. As we navigate through his experiences, we explore the essence of community and the priceless value of shared wisdom, underscoring the importance of creating a legacy focused on family rather than merely business success. Tune in to discover how aligning life and work with one's values can lead to genuine peace and fulfillment.
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What's up, guys, and welcome to Episode 3 of Brand Up your Business Podcast. I'm your host, matt Jackson, and I brought on a special guest, thomas. We go back a few years from the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey together. We were in mastermind groups and networking groups and known each other through different parts of the process of our businesses. And now Thomas he's dabbled on a lot of things and now he's kind of doing like contractor work and you want to. You want to kick it off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me, matt. I appreciate the opportunity to spread my message, talk a little bit about business and life on your podcast. So I appreciate you having me. So so my story goes back. Uh, I've been in business now oh, probably about 10 years. Um been working for myself for about six years. Uh, working for myself full-time about six years. Um, let's see, it started.
Speaker 2:I really got interested when I, when I first started getting into, like interested in owning a business, I would say I had zero interest in owning a business up until I mean, through high school. And like no interest in high school, um, I was forced to go to college. Basically, my parents said that's the only way to be successful in life is to get a four year degree and get a good, safe job. It's the only way to be successful. So I went to college for about a year and hated every second of it. I'm not the type of person to enjoy college enjoy, you know, learning that way. So it didn't suit me one bit and because I hated it, you know, I looked for other outlets in college that you know were not so great and stuff like that. So I went down that path for a little bit um, and ended up leaving college after about a year and started working for a drilling and construction company. Uh, we were doing it environmental drilling, drilling water wells, stuff like that. It was a lot of like brute force labor work, um, but even though it was really difficult work like I finally, just like I enjoyed it. You know it was the first time that I was like you know what this is great. I'm out here in the middle of winter drilling with water. You know we're slinging water everywhere covered in mud, um, but I love this a whole lot more than I love being in college, no doubt. So I'm one of those people that you know I do better just working, yeah, and how my entrepreneurial journey started was one of the drillers I was working for. I was a rig hand. Underneath this driller, he was a business owner, he was a landscaping company, and he would just talk to me about business and stuff like that His landscaping company that he did on the side and he used to do full time, and it really opened my eyes to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:So I started listening to podcasts and the first one I listened to was Bigger Pockets podcast, which is a real estate podcast, and I was open to the idea of real estate. Uh, my dad had some rentals uh, when I was growing up, um, they were trash, they really were. He didn't have for very long. Uh, he never had good success with them. Uh, we worked on houses growing up with my dad. I worked on houses growing up with my dad worked on houses growing up with my dad I worked on houses growing up with my dad. The landlord that I was renting from was a is a family friend and he had some success in rentals. So that's kind of how I came into like bigger pockets and maybe you know rental properties, you know.
Speaker 2:And for the next, that's probably when I was like, I want to say when I was 20, I listened to a podcast from Bigger Pockets and this is a simple, a very simple line in the podcast. But I remember I mean I remember literally sitting in the bathroom, I think I was like you know, sitting on the toilet listening to this podcast. I remember this line where he said you can design your life any way you want it. Nice, and it's a simple line. It's, you know, a simple statement. But to me it was just like a aha moment, like no one ever told me that you could do that.
Speaker 2:You know right, you couldn't design your life, you. You went to school and you got a good job whatever the job that came your way. That paid the bills yep. And then you listened to school and you got a good job whatever the job that came your way. That paid the bills Yep. And then you listened to your boss and you worked your way up the ladder, you know, but you didn't actually get to design your life Exactly. If you wanted to go on vacation half the year, you couldn't. You know, you can't design, um, so anyway, this guy talking on the podcast said you can design your life any way you want, and he was in the middle of doing that through real estate, nice, and that got me really involved into learning about real estate and I went from driving, I went from working in construction to driving truck and I drove cross country for a while, which was really good money it was, it was great, it was really good. I was young, I was like 21, 22 years old, making over six figures Uh, that beats most college kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, and I was, I was. I don't think I listened to the radio for almost probably eight months. All I was doing was listening to podcasts and listening to books about real estate listening to podcasts and listening to books about real estate.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and teaching myself how to, how to, you know, be a landlord, how to value real estate. And when I was 24, I want to say when I was 24, 24 or 25 years old that same driller that first talked to me about entrepreneurship said to me. He said we should buy a property together. He said, cause, you're interested in real estate, I'm interested in real estate, but we should do it. We should, and we were good friends we should buy a property together. And, um, I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2:And for the next probably eight to nine months, we just walked properties. I remember every single Saturday going and walking properties and we were walking foreclosures. That was still, let's see back in in. I guess it was 24, because back in 2018 there's a fair amount of foreclosures, which actually was from the 2008 bubble. Nice, they were still foreclosures hitting the market, finally coming up for sale. Uh, in 2018, from the 2008 bubble, wow.
Speaker 2:So we were, we were walking for like probably two to three foreclosure properties every single Saturday, running the numbers on every single one of them. You know, does this work for a rental, does this work for a flip? Putting in offers, and we were very new to it, so our offers probably weren't the best day. In my opinion they were a little too conservative. But after eight months we finally found a property. That was not a foreclosure, it was an off-market deal on eight unit property where the numbers worked on it. So we put in an offer, negotiated a little bit and we bought. Um, we bought an eight unit rental property. Uh, my, between my partner and I, we put 20% down and uh, the bank financed the rest. I worked with a local bank on that, which I highly recommend for um real estate investors finding a good local bank.
Speaker 2:Um, and I wasn't done at that point. I was young and young and call it dumb, but uh, I was like you know what we can do more? I was, I was getting into the mindset of empire building, where I think this is where I started to get away from things. I recently had a reset Um, I, I started getting into empire building and less focusing less on uh, designing the life you want the way, designing life the way you want it. Um, so I start. So six months after he bought the eight unit, I bought an 11 unit as well. So in one year went from zero, zero to 19 units and I was self managing all of them, which was a huge reality check, coming from I don't want to say I'll say slightly sheltered. You know a very small rural town. You know they get out a whole lot to uh, managing 19 units with. You know they weren't in the ghetto but they were in some rough locations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine if you said they're going like more foreclosure or like more affordable, you're not buying.
Speaker 2:The 11 unit was definitely like low income. Yeah, um, the eight unit was it wasn't low income, but it also wasn't like grade a apartments yeah, it wasn't eight bucks, um, but uh, that was completely educational for me.
Speaker 2:you know, uh, it, uh it was. It was great. You know, I learned so much about not just um dealing with like the prop, like I knew how to deal with the properties and I could fix growing up with my dad I could fix the properties. That was the easy part. Yeah, Um figuring out. Okay, you know what to do when this breaks or this is going to break soon, so plan for that. Um, like that was the easy part of rental property investing. For me, the hard part was managing the properties. Um, I know there's plenty of property management companies out there, but um and most real estate investors will agree with me when I say that, say this uh, most property management companies suck, Like they suck a lot.
Speaker 1:I've noticed that from just dealing with them, from pressure washing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so have I. Yeah, and um, so anyway, uh, what my biggest learning curve was was the people aspect of it. Dealing with the people, uh, problem solving with people, even though technically it wasn't really my job to problem solve as a landlord and owner, I was there in charge of the building. You know, in collecting rent I wasn't in charge of the people, um, you know, and man I'd be getting. My wife always tells me I should write a book. Um, I'm sure every other real estate investor could write a book.
Speaker 1:You definitely haven't written lessons and stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like uh, one that sticks out to me that you know we had a diffuse was. Um, oh, lady from upstairs at the eight unit called me saying Mark from downstairs. Mark from downstairs called me and my daughter fat cows, and I'm like, oh man, I'm really sorry to hear that. You know that's, that's not nice, that's not a nice thing to say. I'll have to say something to Mark, you know that's not. And then she right idea either. And she's like, yeah, well, now the police, the police are on the way, so I'm getting out of here, okay, I guess. I guess this is where we're at, where we're at yeah and I was out plowing snow.
Speaker 2:I was out plowing snow, I was in the middle of winter, we were in the middle of huge snowstorm till uh, like we were getting like one to two inches an hour. Um, and next thing, you know, I get another phone call. Hey, the cops are here, they're banging on her door, they're gonna bust down the door if, uh, she doesn't come and answer the door. I was like, well, don't let the cops bust down my door.
Speaker 1:Don't break my door.
Speaker 2:I don't want to replace the door. I'll be there in like 15 minutes. I'll open. I have my keys on me. I'll open the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2:So I get there and next thing you know she comes. She wasn't even there. After I get, after I pull into the property which we didn't plow the property yet. We always had our property blast, um, so the lot wasn't plowed. She comes into the. She comes driving into the lot, goes sideways in her little Volkswagen bug I mean, there's now six to eight inches of snow on the ground. She's out driving, this Volkswagen bug, uh, gets sideways, gets stuck on the Hill and she steps out.
Speaker 2:Man, she is not sober at in the list I bet there's cops beside me, I'm just like, oh man, this is, this is one, this is one for the for the books here. Um turns out her daughter was in the, her daughter was in the apartment and when the cops were knocking on the door, her daughter flushed a whole bunch of drugs down the toilet. Nice, which then backed up most of the septic in most of the sewers in the whole eight unit. Nice, because it blocked it.
Speaker 2:It blocked the main line going out to this, out to the city sewer line nice um, so then we had to call, uh, you know, a local plumbing company to come out in the middle of a snowstorm and wrote a route, you know, the whole way down to the sewer line, like 130 feet, uh it was huge yeah, that's, that's um tons of fun.
Speaker 2:Uh long, that was just. That's a fun story I love to tell, but, um, I learned a whole lot from it. Uh, learned a whole lot from it. Um, and while working at the rentals, uh, I was talking to my business partner. We were redoing a kitchen and I was like, dude, I got to make more money Cause I was. I now started. At that point I started driving truck for myself rather than driving for a company. So I had my computer bill and, man, it wasn't paying the bills. I quickly found out that's not an industry that you make a whole lot of money in.
Speaker 1:Like the owner operator side of it as driving for a company.
Speaker 2:Especially, especially when you're like leasing on to another company. So you own the truck and you lease on to a company and they give you the loads. I see, I was like. I was like, dude, I'm not making enough money here, I gotta figure out something to do, right? And he nonchalantly said to me you should, you should look into pressure washing. Those guys make dumb amounts of money.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, I love dumb amounts of money. Okay, I'll look into. Yeah, exactly, and that's literally how I got into pressure washing yeah, there you go and then I'll.
Speaker 2:You know I'll keep this short here, um, but my whole, as we got into pressure washing um, that I still had the focus on, like, empire building instead of designing the life that you wanted. Like, my original focus was designing the life you wanted, yes, and um, that's where it kind of got hazy. You know, I tried to scale too fast, um, in my own pressure washing business, then thought it was better to buy a business, uh, to scale even faster, so took on debt to buy a business. It wasn't a good buy. Unfortunately, um, I lost a lot of money, um, a lot of money in that. Unfortunately, um, unfortunately, um, we sold our rentals. Um, my partner and I sold our rentals. Um, we were both, we were both too busy in our own businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you buy properties that are not turnkey, so they're not perfectly fixed up with perfect tenants in it, when you buy properties that are not turnkey, it is management intensive, so you need to have the time to focus on it to either fix up the house or place new tenants, but you need to have the time to focus on it. It's not, like I said, if you want to buy real estate, and it'd be truly passive, if that's possible. You got to be buying turnkey properties and we weren't. We wanted properties that we could value add and you know, increase, increase the value, increase our equity in the property, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I guess, like when you see online everybody's pushing like, everybody pushes this, like, oh, just leverage somebody other people's money, get into real estate and you have passive income for life and you're building, you're you're having tenants pay off your mortgage, so you're saying there's there's a little bit more to that than what they're saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not as it's not as um picture perfect as that paints it. Yeah, so we ended up selling our selling our properties because neither one of us had the time, had the time, to um put towards it. We did sell at the peak of COVID, so we made some money. Luckily, we didn't make as much money as we could have. I will say that because, again, we didn't have the amount of time to put in these properties that they needed, so they weren't perfectly. Even though we fixed them up a little bit, they were still a work in progress. They weren't perfectly fixed up. They didn't have perfect tenants in it, so we didn't get top dollar for our properties, but we did make some money. I was happy with um and I was still focused on empire building and it took a major reset in my life to realize, hey, what am I doing here? Yes, and that major reset was extreme business failures with the business that I bought and stuff like that, and it spiraled into my personal life. Marriage was harder, raising kids was harder.
Speaker 1:It's a big distraction yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like, man, this isn't, this isn't what it's supposed to be. Yeah, so that huge reset really made me think OK, what, what do I want out of business? What do I want out of business? Out of business, um, what do I want out of business? And it came to be is I want to be an entrepreneur, cause I want to control my life?
Speaker 2:And go back to that original line of the podcast you can design your life however you want to. Um, so I like, okay, well, what can I do? Well, I've always worked on houses. I've always been, you know, whether it be houses with my dad, my dad's friends, uh, being a handyman when I was in my early twenties, you know, just for side money. Um, I said, you know, let's, let's, let's try being a handyman, being a home improvement contractor. So I went back to that this time with the focus of um, designing the life how I wanted it, wanted to want it to be. And, uh, we have definitely found a lot more success with that. Um, yeah, in the past, probably year, year and a half uh, plenty of ups and downs. Plenty of ups and downs is always in business. Yeah, um, but I'm I'm enjoying it a whole lot more. I'm enjoying the business a whole lot more I think too.
Speaker 1:I like how you're saying empire building, because that's that seems like. Why else do you get in business to like build an empire and like put all this money on the books and and have like, oh, look at me, look at all this, and then it's like that's not the reality for majority of us. Yeah, unless you're a sociopath, most of us don't want that. Yeah, so like there's more to life than that. So like you're able to design like a business or way to make money around your life and provide yourself with freedom. It's funny I had bob on, who we both know, and he a lot of his story too is is similar to you and me where it's like, hey, we don't want to beat our dicks and say, look how big our businesses are, like, look how much nonsense, and look at us on social media. We're more trying to design our lives in the way that we want and create our own freedom.
Speaker 2:So and I've noticed too, as I've talked to more business owners and um opened up and been honest with more business owners that, like those people that are empire building, it's a house of cards. 90% of the time it is a house of cards, and I've found that a lot of times the business owners that are doing that they're not the main breadwinner in the family yes, or if they are, they have family money to fall back on or that supplements their lifestyle and their life yeah, and or what's their relationship?
Speaker 1:with their family. That's a big thing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And the more I talk about that and talk with business owners and you know they open up to me or you know it's just wow, this is, it's the trend that the people who are trying to do empire building are not as well off as they make it seem, unfortunately. Yeah, and that was another realization for me. Uh, that was another realization for me. Like, okay, you should be focusing more on your building the life, the way you want it to look, rather than like that really solidified me, like I am happier than most of these guys right now and I'm making more money than most of these guys right now. Even though I'm making more money than most of these guys right now, Even though I'm not making a whole lot of money, I'm still making more.
Speaker 2:And so I would say a couple of things that I found out from that, a couple of takeaways, for that, you know, I would love to put to tell new business owners would be build it slow. Yeah, that's not the sexy way to to put it, Um, but if you're the main breadwinner, if people depend on you for an income, you know, or if you don't come from uh, uh, you know expensive, if you don't come from a very rich family um yeah you, it's harder for you to take that risk.
Speaker 2:So build it slow, uh, and watch debt, I know, uh. This is another one where business owners and gurus will tell you, like you just said, take on debt, leverage other people's money, make it work. We figured out, when we looked at it. You know the most we were ever in debt with our rentals and our business ownerships from buying the business, from buying a business, you know the most we were ever in debt was nine hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, and the year that we were in, nine hundred thousand dollars worth of debt, um, I made hardly any money, hardly any and there's probably a ton of stress with that over your head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I just rough figures. You know it was over $10,000 a month over 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, over $10,000 a month going out in just debt payoff you know, yeah, that's insane, you know yeah, that's um, so we figured that I make more money when I'm not in debt.
Speaker 2:The peace of mind as well you do, so I'm one I. I know I was listening to bob. I was listening to your, your and bob's uh podcast and I know bob said something about dave ramsey. So I chuckled to myself because I remember I wanted to say this. I said yeah, I'm more of a Dave Ramsey fan now that I'm not an empire builder. Yeah, because my life is less stressful now that you know we don't use a whole lot of debt, if any.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you seem a lot more calm and chill this go around than like a year or so ago last time we hung out in greenville. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah it's like hey, there's a lot of growth that has occurred in the meantime. As you've like, detoxed yourself from this empire building mindset that I think entrepreneurs can be like, really susceptible to catching yeah, sucked into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, I will say I'm not opposed to debt, but, um, the only debt that is and I've, I've, this is my conclusion the only debt that is good debt is debt that other people pay for.
Speaker 1:Um, so that's like rental properties and stuff like that um, you're not saying take out a loan and say my business is going to cash flow x and Y and then if it doesn't, or like, the economy shifts or you lose an account, you're on the hook for all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, and you know I would say save up the money for equipment. If you can't figure out a way to save up $10,000 to $15,000 for some equipment, whether it be in pressure washing or in the home improvement realm, like I'm in If you can't figure out how to save up $10,000 to $15,000 for equipment, then you are either A mismanaging your money or B bidding your jobs incorrectly. Yeah, fix both of those first, before you take on debt.
Speaker 1:I would say that's also a good lesson. Yeah, fix both of those first before you take on debt. I would say that's also a good lesson, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't fix both of those before you take on debt, debt will not be your friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I feel like that self-control muscle some people don't have. Because you open up a business account, an American express card, they'll say, yeah, if you just cashflow X amount, we'll just give you an unlimited line. And then, before you know it, it's like hey, we need, we need this. And then you're looking at the interest charges. You're like what in the heck is going on?
Speaker 2:Yep, my first year in business, when I started driving truck for myself, I opened up a credit card line and, um, right away they approved me for like twenty five thousand dollars yeah, it's like a brand new business, like why is this? This is predatory here, yeah yeah, yeah, um, so that would be. That's something that I really learned and, uh, my life is simpler and I make more money when I follow those principles.
Speaker 1:That sounds like winning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know when you're not paying, when you're not paying payments, you can save up more money than two, obviously, because your money's not going out with payments. And then if you take on debt to grow your infrastructure before you have your customers set up, you know before you're ready for that infrastructure, that's what can sink companies. So that's why when you save up, when you save up and then finally make the investment into bigger infrastructure, your business can support that bigger infrastructure.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I see this especially in the wash space, because I know you've kind of removed yourself a little bit, but with all these like YouTube gurus and everybody's like, oh, finance this rig or lease this rig for $30,000. These people don't even have any business yet and they've been kind of brainwashed into due to like the pressure washing industrial complex where, like there's like, yeah, just if you buy this, you'll be able to pay it off easy, because this is just cash flows in these businesses yeah, because you can make four hundred dollars an hour with this 10 gallon a minute machine exactly and then there's no customer base but wait, you're making zero dollars an hour because that machine's sitting in your driveway not working exactly.
Speaker 1:I know like I leveraged a little bit of debt when I grew from like owner operator getting off the truck because I was like, hey, I want to make a jump and I think we went from like $170,000 solo to like $360,000 with two trucks. But I had to take on debt to kind of expand with skids, wraps, trucks and then like the cash flow of having employees, people, people kind of overlook like man. It seems like whenever you're paying out, it's like this is the money coming in. It seems like it's slower to catch up with all that money going out when you got everything filling up trucks with gas, getting bleach, replacing stuff You're like man, like you're doing 40, $50,000 a month and you're like there's so much money going up and down. In the beginning you're kind of just like behind the whole time. And that's a lesson where I'm like catching up on on on debt and like kind of zeroing myself back out again, as I was before I took on debt to expand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I feel you there. Yeah, I know that exact feeling. I, um, I felt, especially in our busy months when I had, you know, three employees, when I had three employees and we were, you know, it was April, may, june, so you're crushing it and pressure washing and stuff like that I felt that I was all I was doing was paying my vendors and my employees. I was paying my marketing guy, I was paying the bank for you bank for all the loans we had. I was paying the employee's salary, paying the bleach dealer, the maintenance guy, the garage fixing my trucks. All I was doing was paying my vendors. Vendors it's so easy and I know a lot of people call that slippage in business when you have a lot of money coming in like that, so easy for it just to slip away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's, it's true, you, you, it's like strong revenue can make you slip away all your profitability and your expenses kind of. I guess it it almost creeps as well, because you're like, oh, I don't have to be as like on it, because look at how much money we have rolling in every week we're making $40,000 this month.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I know in in like our peak month in May. Last month we did like 70, something grand. So you're like who needs to keep track when you know like every day we're getting like three or $4,000 worth of combined billables from two trucks? And then you're like, oh man, I've, I've incurred this spending habit based upon that cashflow that I need to. I need to like really taper off, because when the end of the year hits and then there's no money coming in, there's still money flowing out.
Speaker 1:So it's almost like creating like a matrix or like a performer of like cash flows, just so you're you're not getting super confident in the busy seasons. And then fall comes, it slows down a little bit and then you're just, you're not losing as much, but you're you're never going to be able to catch back up. Yeah, yeah, that's the empire building trap of like, hey, look, I want to hit X number to be this. And then you're like, like you said, you're like, hey, I'm, I'm busy, I feel, feel productive and successful, my google ratings are going up and like my revenues are going up, but my profitability isn't necessarily following that same, like increased trajectory. That's as you would think yeah, that's, um, that's.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty goal oriented and I know it's easy to be goal oriented when you're empire building too, but like, yeah, that's another reason why I tell people, like, sit down, you know, for days if it takes days, but think about what you truly want out of your business. Think about what you truly want out of your business and how you want it to, how you want it to grow, how you want it to either control your life or you control it and and build it, build it around that. Um, that's like I said, that's been one of the things that I've I've been really focusing on recently and it's it's helped me bring some success.
Speaker 1:So where did this influence come from? Did you like, are you listening to somebody, or did you read certain books, or is it just like come to you through, like, discernment of like, okay, I went through this storm. Now that, like, the skies have cleared, this is what I want.
Speaker 2:A lot of that, yeah, a lot of that. I wouldn't say, I would say a lot of like just self-reflection.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Self-reflection. You know what self-reflection? Reflecting with my wife, you know, talking with my spouse about it. That's huge.
Speaker 1:I think that's very overlooked too, because, like when people empire, build, they think, oh, I have to be the provider, and like they're not using their spouse as, like, a mentor.
Speaker 2:Exactly your spouse is a mentor, like if you trust your trust and love your spouse enough to marry them and have babies, marry them and have babies then you should trust their judgment, even if they don't know anything about business, you should trust their judgment because you trust them enough to marry them and have kids with them. Yes, so you should be talking about business and life decisions with them and planning and goals. Katie and I had an impromptu goal planning day where we just almost storyboarded that's cool Earlier this year. It was like the 2nd, january 2nd or something like that, yeah, and I was like it was like the second, you know January 2nd or something like that, and I was like it's so cliche, but we should, we should storyboard and try to plan some goals and, you know, refocus, make sure we're aligned with where we want to go.
Speaker 2:I'm a Christian, so I'll say praying about it helped too. Yep, praying about it, praying about it Whether you hear the voice of God or not, I firmly believe that praying about it, voicing your concerns, like actually manifesting it, that can help as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Regardless if you hear the voice of God directing you a certain way, so definitely praying about it. Um, talking to a couple, if you have a few good mentors, um and I, I have a couple of good mentors. Um, you know one's a business, one's a business mentor. He's a good friend. Uh, another one is you know a mentor in my church who I look up to. Um, you know he's he's still a W2 or he is a W2 employee. So I don't exactly want his um, his input on that kind of stuff. But you know his life decisions, his Christian decisions, like I could see myself could see himself, you know, living, living my life the way he does as far as you know christianity and stuff like that yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's like that value-driven life and then, and then, like the money kind of takes care of itself, but like, if you're not living on your values and you're not authentic with yourself by, like chasing this dream of whatever empire, somebody painted a picture in our head of, like usually, that that's just going to cause burnout and stress, and like you're saying, a lot of these, a lot of these people, you see, that are like pushing this narrative of like oh look, I'm the biggest, baddest guy in the world. Like it's a house of cards. You look into it and you're like, oh well, their family was rich, or like this or that, or, or, or sometimes they're just living on debt until the debt catches up to them and they just go bankrupt or they disappear or they get divorced. So like, like to me it's like life is way too short to deal with that kind of nonsense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like people people like run into entrepreneurship to escape, like being in a rat race, in a trap of a corporation who's dictating all this, yet they build businesses that kind of put them in their own kind of prison and trap. So, I think, like the ability to like know what your clear vision is and your goal and go about it the correct way and find peace through it. Cause, like you said, if you like listening to the voice of God or like you, you're having peace in doing something, whereas, like, when you're doing this over here, you didn't have peace. You're, you're more in like correct alignment with the direction you need to be going in and then, like you said, like money catches up to that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've found, like what you just said, I found that when you do align with the direction that you truly want to go, yes, the money comes. Yes, you're not forcing it, it doesn't really come, it doesn't come fast. I guess, if you're lucky, it does. Um, it doesn't, it doesn't come fast, but the money comes, um, yeah, for instance, this is normally the slow season, even in the home improvement realm. Um, this is, this is a slow season and this is the first winter I've had where I'm not super worried about work.
Speaker 2:I had work up until I decided to take off for Christmas. Uh, we finished a job, I think, two or three days before Christmas, um, a major porch renovation, and I took three weeks off for Christmas. And nice thing about being a business owner, um, and we're starting I'm starting a basement remodel tomorrow. So, um, that'll keep me busy for about, I would say, two to three weeks, and then after that we have, I think, one, at least one small remodel after that. So this is the first winter after, like I said, resetting, realigning with my goals. It's just started working out better. I don't know how to put it. Call it, call it God, call it luck, call it hard work, finally paying off.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's like getting out of our own ways. Yeah, it's easy to be like hardheaded and say I'm going to force this, but sometimes that's not the right path. And then oftentimes, if you're just allowing that path to happen, it'll naturally pan out. And it's like I know, like with me, like Ashley is like a good beacon and she's like hey, this is, this is not working. Do this over here.
Speaker 1:It's like, and like we're saying like our wives are smart enough to like know us and to know what's right for us and to be able to say I don't know what you're doing in this business, but this isn't right.
Speaker 1:And then they give you that helpful nudge of like hey, this comes from a place of love, I'm not trying to be controlling. And then they like give us eyesight, they give us like a vision that we don't see because we're so fixated like goal oriented guys that sometimes it takes somebody as an outsider who cares about us and is in our corner and has like no ego in the game to be like why don't we do something different? And that's kind of like the value I see of having like a spouse who's like truly on your side. It's like I, I don't really care, like what you do, like that's, that's your game, but I think whatever you're doing is not working because it's not making you happy or it's not aligning the correct thing with you. So I think that's like a superpower, that it's really cool to have somebody in your corner like that yeah it, it's an underestimated superpower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like everybody wants to wear the badge of honor. Like I see it in this, like red pill man movement, where everybody's like, oh, like I was. Like your wife should. Like you should listen to her. Like that's, you don't need to be. Like I'm the provider. I tell her what to do is like, no, you should you shouldn't?
Speaker 2:you should view it like more as a partnership you shouldn't, you should view it like more as a partnership, yeah, and, and that's exactly what it is, um, but I wanted, uh, some other things. Uh, you know, as we, as we talked about I'm looking here on some notes that I wrote yeah, um, I guess, some other things I wanted to say. Uh, brand and marketing strategies, um, I could go on and on for hours about that. Uh, I will say I know this is cliche, but a lot of people say it the best thing that has worked out for me is just to do good work and be good and be a good person. The best thing that has worked out for me is just to do good work and be good and be a good person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, that has. And that like pay attention to the work you're doing, make sure it's. Make sure it's high quality, because most contractors out there whether you're in the pressure washing realm or window cleaning, gutter cleaning, home improvement, real estate there's too many contractors out there that aren't doing high quality. So another thing that my business mentor has told me he said really all you need to do to beat the competition is pick up the phone, get quotes out quickly and be a nice guy and do good work. That's all you got to do. That's the secret sauce, right there.
Speaker 1:Yep, that seems like it. And then don't try to be like quick overnight, cause I I see people trying to be quick overnight and by doing so they're sabotaging exactly what you talked about, like caring, showing up, doing the best you can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like as far as me, with my branding and marketing strategies, um, I'm on Facebook and I love Facebook lives. Um, I go live at least once per job. So, depending on how big the job is, um, but at least once per job telling people about what I do. I have found decent success with Facebook lives and I I'll put it. I don't know if this is the reason, but this is the reason that I that I believe, uh, cause Facebook is so detached from reality. You know, it's a highlight reel. It is not what's actually happening in reality.
Speaker 2:Yes, um, so people love watching live videos because it's an actual dose of reality. It's not hiding behind a highlight reel. Yes, so I get crazy good engagement and a lot of views on my, on my lives, and all I'm doing is telling people, you know, being at the job site, saying I demoed these stairs and I'm rebuilding them up to code, right, here's, here's the code, here's how I'm building them to code, here's how the here's why they'll last for years to come. Or this was a rotten beam that could have caused this whole porch to fall down, and this is what we did tore it out, built the shore, built the shoring wall, tore it out, rebuilt the beam, flashed it with aluminum, made it look. Made it look pretty, um.
Speaker 2:So, in my opinion, boring live videos talking about you know fixing things yeah, but crazy good engagement on it and people just reach out to me that, hey, I saw your live video. Can you quote me for new steps? Yeah, sure can, and um and um. As far as custom, like I said, doing high quality work and customer care afterwards, making sure they're happy with the job, uh, showing up on time, cleaning up after yourself, and then I always try to send a thank you card afterwards and you always do like handwritten cards too, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love handwritten thank you cards. I love handwritten thank you cards. I've gotten so much positive feedback from my handwritten thank you cards, um, and it's just like stuff I'll do after my kids go to bed. You know I'll get my. I have a whole little I don't know a little box with Amazon special thank you cards and you know templates for each thing and I'll just write out. I'll wait until I have like five or six of them to write out and write out, you know five, six, eight, whatever, in an evening after my kids go to bed and mail them out. And I want to say I always and I'm pretty sure about this I always get referrals from that and I almost all, and I gain customer loyalty. So after, when they need me again for another project, they call me um. So, like I said, marketing branding strategies it's nothing fancy. It's not an seo out, it's not an seo out website. It's not uh crazy, uh crazy amounts of google reviews, not saying those are bad, those are great, those are definitely great. I highly recommend them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, for me, though, it's just been uh, consistently posting on facebook, going live, doing good work and um, thank you cards yeah, hey, that's it's humanity, though you You're like, you're keeping it like it's an, it's, it's not fake, and I think a lot of times, like you were talking about people, it's the get quick fix. Like hey, if I throw money in these ads, on these like super edited reels, people are going to think that I'm some like big baddie. In reality, I think people are so blind and annoyed by that that if you're putting out something that's like hey, this is simple, this is how, this is how times used to be. Like I, I'm going to have a live on there, me working for 30 minutes, just being my authentic self, and then I'm going to write a handwritten card that's like Whoa, this is. This is of a different era.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just like you said, being genuine like that, yeah, um, when I had my rentals, one of the things we always did was, uh, we deliver Christmas presents to the tenants. Um, so each tenant would get a $50 visa gift card and a tin of Christmas cookies.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And um, that that always, obviously, it always. I mean, anytime you give people free money, that goes over well, yeah. But um then, throughout the year, if, like, rent was late or something, I could be I don't want to say a dickhead, but I, I could be a more, I could be a more difficult individual and the tenant wouldn't really hold it against me right.
Speaker 1:Cause they see that you care about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this guy's, you know, he's still a genuine decent guy, you know, and he just really wants the rent money because he needs the rent money, Cause that's how you know this game is played. So, um, like I said, just being decent, being genuine, like that has helped me, not just not just in, you know, a handyman, home improvement contractor. I've been doing that since we own rentals and no matter which way I do it in, whether it be gifts or handwritten thing, the cards has always blessed me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, yeah. So I mean, is there a specific thing you've done that's your favorite, whether it be like marketing, or I guess I've always seen you do like you do christmas cards that are handwritten. Is there a specific card? Is really just like the. The concept of like reaching out and saying like, hey, I appreciate business, like something simple yeah, honestly, it's really just a simple thank you card.
Speaker 2:I buy these ones off of amazon, uh, that are blue and they have a big thank you across them. I write the little note in there. I tell the people you know, I make it specific to them. So I say I want to thank you for hiring me for your porch repair project. It means a lot to me that you chose to support my small business. I mean it means a lot to me that you chose to support my small business, um, and I mean it means a lot to me that you chose to support my small business for this project. Um, if you have any other uh home improvement projects in the future, uh, I would love to be an asset for you and help you out with those projects. Um, you know you're truly, you know you're handyman, thomas. And then the bottom, I would say yes, if you um PS, if you loved my work, uh, I would love a review on Facebook or Google.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Honestly, that was just my. That's my favorite thing. I love it. It's simple. Stamp costs 55 cents and I've I can guarantee you I've done over six figures of work, strictly from recurring work because people love me with, from the thank you cards or referrals that people who received thank you cards gave out to their friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, honestly, I think that's a good idea that I may try to implement in my business. Just, everything's so automated and and like by separate, like, yeah, like they get the text, the email, follow-up and this and that, but when you get a handwritten letter in your mail, that's like, oh, that's different yeah, I mean I couldn't.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell you the last time I got a handwritten letter. Yeah, me either.
Speaker 1:No, exactly like I can, especially dvm people to death, but they don't care, they just put it right in Like it was handwritten. I'd open it and read it and say, oh, that took somebody's time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my first year, pressure washing, um, pressure washing full time. Um, you know, I did uh, I don't know pressure wash the house and their back, their back tracks deck, and did a window cleaning. It was like a thousand dollar job. Um, sent them a thank you card and then, uh, you know, winter rolled around. I was out of money. I was out of money and, uh, needed some Christmas light jobs. And just reached out to a couple of my clients and said hey, you know we're doing Christmas lights. I mean, if you need anything, you know Christmas light designs, stuff like that. And I remember the clients and said hey, you know we're doing Christmas lights. I mean, if you need anything, you know Christmas light designs, stuff like that. And I remember the lady specifically said to me I called you back because I love your thank you card, I love that sentiment, I want you to do a Christmas, we want a Christmas light design on our house. And then I sold her a $5,000 Christmas light install there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like $6,000 right there just because you took the time to write somebody a letter. Yeah, exactly. And then every year after that and she still. I mean I sold that business but she still gets. Now she even added more lights to it. So now she gets like a $6,000 Christmas light, six or $7,000 Christmas light install every single year.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's, that's awesome. Yeah, that may be one of the things I implement because, like, especially in the pressure washing scene, where we are everybody's like doing the exact same thing with the digital marketing, with the rap drugs, with the facebook ads, so you're just racing against everybody else and we're like, if I'm spending x on google, you're X on Google, like nothing's, differentiating ourselves. So like, maybe bringing back something hand touch, handwritten and just say, hey, an office day, I'm going to go through all my customers for the last year or so and then we're going to uh and then, and then I'm just going to send them out and uh, it'll be good. Sorry, I kicked off the video there, but something just to remind people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I understand that may not be the best for us for a scaled up business. You know, yeah, if you're, if you're doing a neat job, you know five, eight jobs a day. That's a whole lot of cards to handwrite, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, you're doing, we're doing like a hundred jobs a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot of cards.
Speaker 2:I would say I know there's companies out there, um, maybe like cherry, pick like good customers cherry pick, good customers, profitable jobs, you know customers you want, you want to go back, but I know there's like companies out there like building raving fans, yeah, and other ones that you know integrate with your crm and you automatically send thank you cards and stuff like that, which is great. Uh, I guess, like I said, when I'm when I'm talking, when I'm talking, I'm talking when I'm talking about this, I'm talking to the small business owner starting up, or you know, two years in business, um, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um.
Speaker 1:Hey, I mean every stuff like that, yeah, um, hey, I mean every. Everything, though, can be carried into into different size businesses. Yeah, I wouldn't be like coca-cola and then do certain things like this, but I mean it's sending somebody a handwritten card who's a decision maker, or like a property management company, that that could lead to relationship built work where, like hey, this one client gives us fifty thousand dollars to work, that's, that's worth it for any size business. Yeah, so, like you don't necessarily have to like write a handwritten letter to every little pressure washing job you may do, it's like it's a good kind of a strategic approach that most people, when they're listening to a podcast on marketing and branding it's not the sleekest, sexiest tech thing that they can do, so it's kind of a good like reverse Uno to what people think.
Speaker 2:But anyway, um, what's the next section we want to talk about?
Speaker 1:Hey, I think you covered a lot. I what whatever you'd want to mention or like? Is there something that you would want to say to yourself like 10 years ago, or like when you first started out? Like what's one piece of advice and wisdom that you know that you have today that would have saved you like heartache or headaches or like a lot of time in the past?
Speaker 2:I would say be consistent, be disciplined and be consistent. That was stuff I struggled with and still can still occasionally struggle with. Um, be consistent. You know that if I would have stayed consistent, that would have helped me a lot. And stay focused on your goals. Like I said, I think that would have helped me a lot too, where I wouldn't have gone so empire building and gone off in a different direction. Stay focused on your goals and your goals can change, and that's all right too. But discuss your goals with with your spouse, with a trusted mentor, and um, stay focused on them.
Speaker 2:Like I said, our goals now, uh, don't include anything about scaling my business. We have zero, zero interest in scaling my home improvement business. Um, I thoroughly enjoy being the highly paid technician on site. There you go, um, us levels are down, profits are up, um, and what we plan on scaling is our rental property portfolio. So we went back to focusing on that goal. Our original goal, you know, years ago, of building a rental property portfolio. Um niched it down into like what type of properties? Like I'm right now, I'm looking for ranch houses um that are 30 to 45 minutes outside of a major city. That's cool. I live in Harrisburg, pennsylvania. Yeah, so, uh, I want to get chouses around me. I don't want multifamily houses, uh, like I used to have, but something, something like that that needs work. Um, those are my preferred type of rental properties, and buy them, put a 10 year note on them so you don't make much cashflow at all, um, but they get paid off quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which it seems like it's probably a wise thing to do, because if you're like getting a ton of cashflow and you're stretching everything out for 30 something years, you're going to it's you're going to pay too much for these homes, versus like hustle for a little bit and then everything's taken care of. Yeah, yeah, for these homes versus like hustle for a little bit and then everything's taken care of. Yeah, yeah. So you got my dog in the background. He's. He's like dad.
Speaker 2:Let me have to pee but yeah, I said, looking back, you know, 10 years ago, things I would say would be um, get good at something. Like I said, be detail, be detail oriented. Like I said earlier, focus on doing good work, being genuine, getting back to people, stay consistent and focus on your goals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems that's kind of a realization I've been making as well. It's like we want to hustle, hustle, hustle, improve ourselves and then when we get to a point in business where we're like, hey, I hit the number I want to hit and that's not what I really want, it's like backtracking a little bit and getting that clarity. It's like I I'm mainly I'm not trying to really scale too much, as much as I'm trying to like kind of cut the noise out and really like focus on profitability and like simplicity.
Speaker 2:yeah, so, especially as a family man too. Like, yeah, well, you, you have. You have a little little banks, yeah, a little banks. I have three little girls. Like, yeah, simplicity is great because that gives me the mental space to be the engaged and present father that I need to be.
Speaker 1:I think that is the ultimate goal, especially when you have kids, and that's like the realization I have because it because like banks doesn't care if I make all this money and I don't have time to be with him and I'm not making those memories for myself as well. Like I was talking the other day to Ashley, it was like the nonsense of these people who were like your kid doesn't remember anything, like until they're X amount of like years old, and I'm like that's bull crap First off. And like it's just like that toxic drive of like, build your empire, build your empire. It's like what are you going to? Just throw money at your family to keep them happy Cause?
Speaker 2:like there's no relationship that's been built, so um yeah, yeah, no, and they may not remember, you know, earlier than five years old. Yeah, but if you distance yourself from your child from zero to five, you're not going to have that good foundation of relationship built with them for the time they were Exactly, and also you're depriving yourself of all these memories. Like you know, my kids right now five, three and one yeah, you know they won't remember most of what we're doing right now, but I'm going to. Yeah, they won't remember most of what we're doing right now, but I'm going to.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like the focus should be on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the focus is like the most important thing you can possibly build on this planet is your family, but like why are we going to focus more on building a business that is just means to pay the bills? That to me it almost is a form of like escapism from reality to some people. So I think a lot of a lot of us like normal, you get like discernment, you have like a relationship with God and you're like I'm getting peace and I'm pulling myself back into, uh, into like what I truly want and what's good for me and my family. So, but that's about all I have. I know my my video camera adapter gets a little finicky here and there that's all right.
Speaker 2:No, I think we we covered a fair amount. Hopefully, uh, hopefully it was. It was uh solid information for you and uh some of your listeners I think so too, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's cool because I was going through like the same podcast, uh um platform that I host all these two, as we did the wash bros, and I mean the wash bros.
Speaker 1:We had like 2700 downloads on that and, like, after us stopping it, we had like a thousand people listen to the show. So, like you put it out there and then some people stumble upon it and be like I'm just gonna randomly listen to these people and they're like, oh, that one guy had a cool story of like if, like, I think too, like something like this, where it's like this is a life lesson of like alignment that's more important than like a piece of marketing tip to grow $10,000 in revenue. It's like somebody's listened to it and they're like I don't feel like I need to be doing this, and then they'll listen to a show like this and his two guys have like, hey, we've been there, done that. It's not necessarily the right path for us. It may like open somebody else's eye, so they're not just like figuring out themselves. Yeah, so, but yeah, I thought it was good.
Speaker 2:Appreciate catching up it's always good chatting with you, man Matt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, no doubt I'll hit the outro button and I'll do a little outro and then I'll end the recording. But I appreciate it Sounds good.
Speaker 2:Sounds good, yeah, man.
Speaker 1:I'll see you Bye Night.
