Home Services Success Stories

From Electrician To Entrepreneur

• Peakzi • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Peakzi Podcast: A layoff, a promise, and a leap. That’s the spark behind Shocking Difference, the electrical company Darrell Furgison built to serve customers, protect family time, and prove that craftsmanship and profit can coexist. We sit down with Darrell to unpack how a hands-on tech became a steady owner, why the early years felt thin, and what finally unlocked sustainable growth.

Daryl shares the turning point that saved his business: learning to price the full value of the service, not just the hours on-site. Shoe covers, spotless cleanups, clear communication, reliable warranties, trained techs—those details are value, and they belong in the rate. With help from a business development group, he moved from annual losses to consistent profit and rebuilt his confidence in the process. Alongside that shift came a powerful partnership at home. His wife left a demanding ICU career to run operations, bringing direct leadership and systems that matched Darrell calm, customer-first presence in the field. Together, they built a culture that keeps great people and makes quality repeatable.

We also talk about faith as a practical operating system, not just a belief. The words “I will provide” fueled a risky start and still guide tough decisions. Darrell explains how he’s adding structure—service management, warehouse control, better job costing—to support growth without losing the personal touch. And yes, we dig into technology. AI-driven marketing tools like Peakzi help extend their reputation online, meet modern homeowners where they search, and turn word-of-mouth into steady demand.

If you’re a home services pro wrestling with pricing, profit, and growth, this story will give you a clear path: respect your value, build culture with intent, and let systems do the heavy lifting. Listen, subscribe, and share with a friend who’s undercharging for over-delivering. Then tell us: what’s one change you’ll make this week?

Powered by: www.peakzi.me

Find More Info: www.shocking-difference.com

Peakzi Podcast: Home Services Success Stories

Julian Placino:

Welcome to the Home Services Success Stories podcast, powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business. And on the show today, we have Darrell Furginson, who is the owner at Shocking Difference. Darrell, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Darrell Furgison:

Great, thank you.

Julian Placino:

It's great to have you on, Darrell. So let's jump right in. What first drew you to the electrical trade in your early career?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, I always wanted to do something with my hands. And I knew that. And I actually didn't start in the trade in electrical. I was working for a uh um a company that did refrigeration and appliance repair. And early on, after about six or eight months, the promises that they had given me weren't panning out. So I heard about the electrical trade. I went and interviewed, got hired on, and I just loved it. Uh I love going out and helping people, and and um I've always enjoyed using my hands and building stuff and figuring things out. So here I am.

Julian Placino:

Interesting. What was kind of the earliest inclination that you discovered that you liked to working with your hands?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, as a kid, I was raised by a single mom, so I had to learn a lot of stuff on my own. So I honestly, right out of high school, I wanted to be an auto mechanic. So I never made that. So I just kind of went through life and ended up working on cars on my own, and that's my big interest, and ended up stumbling into the electrical career, and I loved it, so I stayed with it, and here I am almost 30 years later.

Julian Placino:

So it was just kind of uh an inclination that you had a knack for something, and you started kind of experimenting with it, seeing how you could add value, and ultimately landed in electrical.

Darrell Furgison:

Yeah, and finding something that interests me, that um I could use my brain to figure it out and work with my hands. And I like figuring out, you know, going in and you someone has a problem, and you got to figure out how the last guy do this to make this work, and so it's kind of a puzzle piece.

Julian Placino:

So there's kind of a an interest in the problem solving using your kind of natural intelligence. Okay, cool. I like that. So, what was the turning point that made you start shocking difference in uh 2006, I believe it was, right?

Darrell Furgison:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2006. Well, I was working for a large company and ownership had changed, and the new management and I did not uh see eye to eye, and my mom was having some health issues, and she was uh living with us, and so between that uh between the business changing owners, my mom's health, and I have a young son at the time, it just made sense to open my own shop.

Julian Placino:

And have you ever started your own business before? Did you ever have any kind of entrepreneurial experience?

Darrell Furgison:

Yes.

Julian Placino:

Okay.

Darrell Furgison:

When I was 24, my mom and I owned a restaurant together. So I ran that for 10, 11 years before I got into the restaurant uh the electrical business.

Julian Placino:

Did that some way somehow prepare you to start your own business, do you think?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, I think it prepared me for um balancing the load of the jobs and everything. Because when you're in a restaurant and you're cooking, you got all those tickets and you have to multitask. Oh, that guy over there wants a well-done steak, so I got to start it now while I'm doing all these other so you have to always be watching everything that's coming at you and figuring it out as you go, and so that everything comes out at the same. So at the end of the job, you don't want to have any forgotten parts or pieces. So I think that it prepared me to do what I do now.

Julian Placino:

Interesting. I think it's really cool to see how experiences kind of like one thing serves the other, even when you're not like really conscious about it, right? So you you kind of tapped into your why already as far as why you decided to start the business, but I know an important aspect was family, and specifically you had a young son. So talk a bit more about how that influenced your reason for starting shocking difference.

Darrell Furgison:

Well, um, part of the reason was, you know, I had a young son, I wanted to spend time with him. Um, I wanted to try to be home more. Uh, the company I was working for was sending me two, three hours away every day, and it was lost time. You know, when you're traveling on the road, it's lost time. So um I wanted to figure out a way that I could spend more time with my family and and with my son, and it just made sense to start my own shop and and hopefully have a better control over the the amount of time I'd be away from home.

Julian Placino:

So it was control over your time and your schedule and how much you could you could really support and be with the family at the same time carving out kind of uh that financial path for you through through the the skill and the trade that you've developed. So so what were those early days like? I'm sure there were challenges, but stories kind of come to mind for you.

Darrell Furgison:

Yeah, well, those early days were pretty uh pretty thin, you know, as far as an income. Because in the early days, for me, you know, I'm an electrician, I'm not um a businessman. So figuring out how to price yourself correctly, you know, how much does it cost an hour, how much is your fuel, you know, how to put all the pieces together of the puzzle, you know, the insurance and uh all that stuff. And I think that um those are the biggest struggles is figuring out how to manage your time on the job, manage your time doing the books, manage your time with your family. I mean, you have all these things that you gotta put in one pot and then figure out you know, how do I manage a time with everything and still be successful? And and that's a challenge. I mean, I think I think that was the biggest challenge was figuring out how to make money enough to take care of the family and have enough time to spend with the with the family at the same time.

Julian Placino:

So it's the puzzle piece of putting it all together, right? So being a master of your craft and delivering great service at the same time running the business and all the pieces that run into it, you know, marketing, operations, evangelism, delivery, all that kind of jazz. Um, so that's that makes a lot of sense.

Darrell Furgison:

So there's so much that you don't realize when you decide to open the business. Oh, I can do that. Yeah, but did you really look at all those aspects of running that business? Insurance for the vehicle, insurance for healthcare, insurance for your employees if you have any, and so on and so forth. There's so many pieces that until you're in deep, you don't really know that are even there.

Julian Placino:

Okay, and and was there a point when it all just started to kind of click for you?

Darrell Furgison:

And I don't know if it ever clicked clicked for me. I will tell you that uh my wife has been a big part of helping everything click.

Julian Placino:

Tell us about that. I know I know she took a risk also. She left, I believe, a healthcare career. She was an ICU nurse, is that correct?

Darrell Furgison:

Yes, yes, yeah, high-paying job. Um, she'd been doing that for almost 30 years. Well, right at 30 years, and she was feeling the weight of that, dealing with, you know, she worked in a pediatric intensive care and feeling the weight of dealing with the the um the illnesses and whatnot of children. And she was already helping me kind of as an extra job, and so when my business got to the point that I couldn't work in the industry, work out in the field to do the work, to bring in the money, and still do all the books and the paying everybody and all that stuff, she started helping me out. And eventually, after 10 years in, about eight years in, she started helping me um after her nursing job, you know, weekends, uh, after hours, all this kind of stuff, and quickly realized that I wasn't doing as good of a job as I needed to to get paid fairly for my services. For everything that I was giving to the customer, I wasn't pricing myself fairly. So she stepped in and and helped me, you know, find a way to turn the turn the ship in the right direction.

Julian Placino:

Interesting. And and how would you say that you sort of work together, complement each other now? She seems kind of like maybe like the business manager or CEO of that kind of thing. Like how you guys work together.

Darrell Furgison:

Yes. Well, my wife is more of a direct, dominant type personality, and I'm more of the laid-back, easy-going personality. So I think I do better out in the field talking to the customers because I'm face to face with them. And she's definitely better running the office and kind of overall manager of the of the business because of her directness. Uh, she can see things and talk to people in a direct way that I would probably beat around the bush and never get them the message across. So I think that we make a good pair in that way. As I can go out and get the customers happy and do everything that we need to do on that end, and then she can make sure that the services are being kept up and and all the employees are following the rules and all that kind of stuff. So we work good together.

Julian Placino:

I mean, what a blessing to have a partner, not just in life, but a partner in business who truly complements your strengths. And I think an interesting lesson when it comes to finding business partners in general, finding folks that complement your your strengths and your weaknesses. Um so you mentioned that you're you're you're good in front of customers and you you can help get the business. But I know you mentioned that joining a business development group really helped ramp things up when it came to acquiring revenue. So tell us a bit about that experience.

Darrell Furgison:

So absolutely. Um I believe that if we would not have joined this organization, I wouldn't be in business. Due to the fact that they helped us to learn how to be managers, how to run the business, how to do all the calculations to know, you know, hey, if you're going to be doing all of these services, how do you price yourself? So they taught us how to get the right pricing for the job that we were doing. And I think that if I I truly believe that if we wouldn't have joined that uh certain path, we wouldn't be we wouldn't be in business today. I would be working for somebody else. And I'm thankful that we we found that organization to join. They've been fantastic. Uh, and we've learned so much that um now we're now we're making money. Before I I lost money every year for 10 years until we joined, and by the second year, I was making a profit. So I mean, huge improvement the first year. The second year we started making a profit, and I've made a profit every year since then. And so I we couldn't have done it without them.

Julian Placino:

So it sounds like they really helped you in terms of like optimizing your pricing to make sure you run a prof uh a profitable business. What was the most important thing they may have taught you in terms of getting your business, in terms of you know, marketing or client acquisition? Like, what can you tell us about that?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, I think that the biggest thing that I needed to learn was I have more valuable than I was valuing myself. You know, you as an individual say, oh, you know, I'm worth $60 an hour. When really you're not putting all the pieces in when you're figuring out your value. Your value isn't just your time. And I was only charging for my time. I didn't have all the other pieces in that value. Hey, I'm giving excellent service, I wear shoe covers, I clean up after myself, all those things that bring value that I wasn't charging for. So they they help you to understand that all of those things that you do bring value, and that value has a dollar amount attached to it. It has to. Um, and I needed to understand that. Because I'm thinking, oh, I'm just doing this because I'm respectful to the client. When really, how many people are doing all those things naturally? Um, is I I've found out over the years that most uh people in construction industry don't clean up after themselves, don't worry about wearing shoe covers, don't worry about a lot of things. They don't advise the customer in a in a in a great way. And and they're still charging more than I was. And so once the I learned that I needed to value myself because of all things I was doing, then my pricing and and stuff started falling in line. And that's what I think is probably the biggest thing that I learned was how to value me and and put that all together to where I can go out and and and make a comfortable living for my family.

Julian Placino:

I think that's a really great takeaway. It was they kind of guided you through the process of understanding your value, the things that you just thought were this is the way things are done, right? But when you look broad at the marketplace, there's like steps, there's line items of value that you just thought were the way. And um, I think that helped kind of maybe shape your identity, maybe get give you some more confidence when it comes to approaching the customer and asking for your fair market value, right?

Darrell Furgison:

Right, right, exactly.

Julian Placino:

Okay. Well, today you employ, I think, 16 uh individuals. You've won awards for service, you've certainly become a leader in your market. What do you think has been the key to that growth and success, Daryl?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, I think that um I think that first our faith had a lot to do with it. Um, you know, it's not easy to step out there and and start a business because I mean it could fail tomorrow. And um and it still could, but now this many years in, um, I've built a reputation and whatnot. So I think that for the success of this would be my faith, my my my um determination to succeed, building a good culture within my business, because I think that the culture of the business is huge for retention and keeping good good guys, good people, um working for you. You know, you have to have a culture that they all can appreciate, connect with, and and it makes it enjoyable to come to work. Uh, I know that I wouldn't want to go to work for a place that I had to drag myself in there every day. I want to go to work for somebody that that treats me fairly and it has a great culture that we can I can get along with other co-workers. And then I think that the last thing really is is you know having in my case a good partner to work with that that has my back no matter what, and that um can help me help me to strive to be maybe better or keep going on every day. Because that's tough some days, you know, when you're you know having a rough week, you need that other person to kind of give you a helping hand, pull you up to the next next step or whatever.

Julian Placino:

So the keys to success, I heard number one, your faith, number two, developing culture, and number three, having a good partner.

Darrell Furgison:

Yes, I think so.

Julian Placino:

Encapsulates kind of like the story. I think that's great. Awesome. Um speak a bit about your your faith, Darrell. You that was your first go-to, and it takes a lot of trust in yourself, in in God or whatnot, um, to start a business. So, what were you apprehensive about and how did your faith help you take that first step?

Darrell Furgison:

Well, uh, I was working for the other company before I started this, and I believed that God was telling me it was time to make a change in my life. And my wife, I talked to her, I expressed that to her, and she says, No, I don't want you to open your own business because she comes from a family where her dad was self-employed and struggled over the years. Um, and her dad's a good starter, so he starts a business and then loses interest and then he goes on to something else, and so he never had the determination to keep going. And and I got the drive to keep going. You know, if I like it, I'm gonna keep going with it. And then I think that uh, you know, after her and I having that conversation, uh certain situations happened in our in our life, in my career with my business. I'd worked for the company almost 10 years, and all of a sudden, layoff came. It's like, whoa, I've never had this before from any job I've ever worked at. Um and so I thought, you know what, maybe now's the time. So I went and took the proper steps, got the proper licensing, and that company hired me, had me come back to work. Thought, oh, okay, it was just a hiccup. Kept working, and well, unfortunately or fortunately, God had a bigger plan, and he started beating me up every day I'm driving to work, saying, What are you doing? Well, I'm going to work, you know. You know, and uh he kept telling me, Well, I told you what I want you to do. So I explained, you know, hey, my wife doesn't want me to do this. Of course, God has a bigger plan, and he usually points you in that direction. He can't force you to do it, but he points you there, and he just told me, he said, the one thing he told me when I told him, Well, my wife doesn't want me to start my own business. He said one thing to me and stopped, and he just said, I will provide. And it's like, okay. So I went home. My wife was making dinner and getting ready to go to her nursing job. And I said, Well, I was talking to God again today, honey, and uh he told me that I I, you know, he reminded me that I needed to start my own business. And she said, Well, you know, we've talked about this, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Well, he spoke to me today. He said, Well, what do you have to say? You kind of, yeah, whatever. And I said, Well, he told me he would provide. And she just stopped what she was doing. She turned and looked at me and said, I guess you're opening your own business. And she was totally against it. But when I told her what he told me, and we've never looked back. I tell you, I've leaned on that so many times over the years, you know. Um, I believe that God wants us to hold each other accountable, but I also believe that he wants us to hold him accountable if he tells you he's gonna do something and you don't think it's happening. I just say God, you told me, and you know what? I just didn't wait long enough to see what the results were gonna be, but he always works it through, and he's always made us whatever that thing that we thought, that rock that we thought we couldn't move, he moved it. So I never worry, I don't think about money. I couldn't tell you if I got five dollars or a million dollars in a bank. Money doesn't matter, the matter is that he's still providing, he's still showing me the way every day, and I just trust and lean on that. And when my time is done to pass the torch to somebody else, it'll happen. So I just know that every day I get up, put my boots on, my uniform on, and I come to work and I do whatever I need to do to get through the day. Wow, and that's how I succeed.

Julian Placino:

That is uh an unbelievable story. And look, that simple act of faith, of obedience, of just saying yes, and look what it has turned into. Even your wife, who is apprehensive about starting a business, is now the CEO of COO of your business. I mean, it's amazing how God works, right? Yeah, exactly. So thank you for sharing that testimony. I think that's tremendous. Um, so Darrell, this podcast, of course, is brought to you by Peakzi. You are a customer of Peakzi. How would you describe to other home services um business owners what Peakzi is?

Darrell Furgison:

Okay, so Peakzi is a um an app that helps you to um I'm I I'm not the office person, so I don't understand it as well as my wife. I'm just a dumb electrician. Um but really we've we've been using it for only a what a couple months, three months maybe. So we don't know all the all the ins and outs of it yet. Um we're learning day every day. Uh, but it's an app that helps to get you noticed, if I understand, out there in the internet. And um their customer service has been fantastic. Anytime we have a question, we call, they're right away, they're happy to answer our questions, guide us through. Um, again, I don't hardly do anything with the computer, so it's mostly my wife and my office staff that deal with them. But I get nothing but good reports from the office, how they've been really learning so much, and how well they've been at answering the questions and helping guide them through getting this whole program up and running and benefiting us.

Julian Placino:

Okay, so it sounds like uh like awareness, kind of visibility. So um, if you were to speak from from your perspective, and a lot of the folks tuning in are not necessarily technical, so whatever your perspective, earnestly, whatever it is, is is really great. So if you were to say that Pixie helped you do a particular thing or outcome in your business, what would you say that is?

Darrell Furgison:

I think it's just giving them another tool that's gonna help us to move forward in this new world that we're coming into of all the AI and all those things that are coming out, you know, you need to be on top of the changes. And Peakzi gonna give us that tool that we need to keep up and keep us at the leading edge of the curve of things that are changing. And that's why we joined up because we want to be on the leading edge, you know, in our community, being able to reach those customers that are more technical than uh myself. So, you know, it's a it's a fantastic tool. I think that uh everybody should look into having tools like this, uh, because it does get you out there in the in the in areas that you aren't used to.

Julian Placino:

Great. I think that's uh I think that's a great way to to to to go about it and to explain what the value is. So I appreciate that, Darrell. So um, so we're almost at the the end of our conversation here, Darrell. So what do you see the shocking difference doing in the next five to ten years? What what is your vision for the business?

Darrell Furgison:

Oh my goodness. My vision is I retired. No, um I've had that vision for a long time, so it hasn't changed. So uh no, I think that um this year has been a kind of a growing year for shocking difference. We bought in our um a couple managers that we haven't had before. It used to be just myself and my wife carrying all the load and wearing all the hats. And we've now brought in one of our technicians, is now our service manager. Um, and then we brought in a warehouse manager to help get better on top of the parts and our material management, and which is helping understand where our money's at and how much we're spending and not and how we need to make adjustments. So I think over the next you know five to ten years would be to bring in more managers in key areas to help us to uh keep growing. Um I would like to see the company you know uh grow to be um maybe the largest in our community. Um and and just the biggest deal for me is to keep turning out qualified people to become licensed electricians, to keep doing the the great work in our community. I always believe that there's you know, when you you know when you go and talk to people, there's good good contractors out there and there's bad contractors out there. And I think that part of my job as the owner is to make the best quality electricians I can so that the community can see people be able to have quality people come into their home and do quality work. There's so many that that just come in, oh I can do this. They go in and then they mess things up, and then they call somebody like ourselves, you know, ourselves. We're we unfortunately, as your business grows, you have your financial grows, and you have to charge more per hour to go out and do a quality job. There's lots of guys, one guy in a truck that's out there trying to get his name, but he's cutting corners, and people have to understand there's a value between you know who you choose to work with, and you know, getting out there and getting the message out there that you know, be careful who you choose to work with and choose a company that has is gonna give you the value that you're looking for.

Julian Placino:

I think that's great. So, what I heard was number one, investing in personnel to in specific key areas so you can continue to grow the business. And it really just seems like you are so caring about quality, excellence, and service to the community and continuing to do that at an even greater degree. So um, so with that being said, Darrell, close us out. Tell our audience where they can learn more about shocking difference, connect with you online, tell us all these things.

Darrell Furgison:

Well, as what I know is that uh we obviously have our own website, and then um we're all over, you know, uh Yahoo. Uh um I don't know, we're all over the internet, all of our reviews. We have over almost a thousand reviews that we've received. We have a nine point or four point nine consistently. We have been that way for 10, 12 years. Um, yeah, I'm sure if you look up Shocking if our electrician in Olympia, Washington, you're gonna it's gonna bring us up.

Julian Placino:

Sounds good. And especially with with thanks to Peakzi, you guys will be everywhere.

Darrell Furgison:

So that's the goal is to get our name out there better and reach a wider and broader um group of people so we can keep going out and helping educate them on you know hiring quality technicians.

Julian Placino:

Sounds good. Well, Darrell, it was really fun getting to know you. Thank you so much for sharing uh your story, and we wish you and the team a shocking difference continued success.

Darrell Furgison:

Thank you.

Julian Placino:

And everyone else, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Home Services Success Stories Podcast by Peakzi. And we'll see you next time on the next episode on the Home Services Success Stories Podcast powered by Peakzi.