How He Escaped Corporate America | Andy Brody

Most people dream about building the next tech startup.

Andy Brody went a completely different direction.

He bought a small pool route.

Today, that decision has grown into Palm Beach Pool & Spa Services, one of South Florida's growing pool service companies built on recurring revenue, systems, SEO, and doing the boring things exceptionally well.

In this episode of the Gold Coast Podcast, Eric Winegard sits down with Andy to talk about leaving corporate America after nearly 20 years, buying a business instead of starting one from scratch, and why "boring businesses" are becoming some of the most profitable opportunities in America.

They dive into:

Why recurring revenue changes everything
Buying vs. starting a business
The hidden opportunity in home service companies
SEO that generates leads every day
Building systems that scale
Growing through Google instead of paid ads
Escaping the corporate world
Hiring, delegation, and automation
Why operations matter more than most entrepreneurs realize
The future of small business acquisitions

Whether you're thinking about buying your first business, growing a home service company, or simply looking for a smarter path to entrepreneurship, this conversation is packed with practical lessons you can apply immediately.

Guest:
Andy Brody
Owner, Palm Beach Pool & Spa Services

Hosted by:
Eric Winegard

Subscribe for weekly conversations with founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders on the Gold Coast Podcast!

Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the reasons is is I I have to build my like personal brand and awareness. And it's one of the simplest ways to do it. Yeah. Number two, it's an easy way to meet cool people. Yeah. You know? Even if even if we never did business together, you might talk to some uh plumber in six months, be like, oh, I know this cool dude down in Boca, right? Vice versa, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:25

And um maybe even a pool guy that's not in my territory.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Um but third is like the the real exciting part for me is you know, I like I love hearing entrepreneurial stories. Right. Like, dude, I didn't I didn't become an entrepreneur until I was 40. Me too.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Wow. Yeah. Never had any desire to either. It was never the uh the whole thing I would always hear from those types was uh they just wanted to be their own boss. Yeah. And I had just I never I never wanted that. I just didn't had no desire for that. So I liked W-2. I'm kind of risk averse, so it's kind of like a security safety thing for me. Yeah. Um, which I still uh you know, I'm I'm fighting now at this uh size as we kind of scale. I've got to uh turn that down or off. Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, but yeah, no, it was it was honestly, it was admittedly, it was I've kind of you know they they um I spend some time on uh SMB uh Twitter. Yeah just like home service small business guys, really uh helpful resource, honestly. I can write that down for sure. Just like Twitter, you know, Twitter group. Um and I just found my way into I mean it's where I met my uh my firm now, uh my uh digital marketing firm that I'm with. I've been following those guys on there for a couple years and uh uh learning a lot of of information on there. But um honestly I was always W-2, mostly like operations, management, some consulting um for a private equity firm that just bought different like franchises and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

But uh I was um I'd moved down here, so no network. I had nobody my wife's. Where'd you come from? Louisville, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

And my wife's from Jupiter Farm. She always wanted to move back here, and I finally gave in and I was kind of uh done with um the company I was with. I kind of just saw the end in sight, and I was probably getting a little bit burned out too um doing the same some same thing or close to it for you know, 20, like close to 20 years. I guess it was just um that and so it was just an opportunity and so uh I was I was lucky I was kind of able to uh transfer a a similar um uh a a sister company of ours um recruited me to help some uh trouble stores uh the the um in Palm Beach, uh Palm Springs, like near Lake Worth and West Palm Beach. And um but uh when and then kind of you know, it went great there, but they didn't really yeah, ever pay what they kind of promised, and I took a pay cut uh because it was a smaller market, smaller stores, and I agreed to it as long as you know there was gonna be a um you know, I was gonna be compensated at some point for results. And I was always able to turn around uh locations and whatnot, but that didn't work out, so I kind of started looking and I looked for a while. I'd spent my lunch break on the uh the uh apps with the you know uh zip recruiter and all those, even applied, but never really saw anything that was really exciting or um and honestly I didn't get a whole lot of calls either. Wow. Um I uh yeah, I mean I even uh paid one of those professional uh resume writers to kind of update my um resume, but uh I didn't didn't get a lot of bites, and even even when I did, it wasn't anything really exciting. So I kinda basically bought a job, which is, you know, yeah, um they make fun of on Twitter the guy that just buys if you don't do this, this, and this, you're just buying a job. I've literally bought a job. Like I bought a pool round. That's true. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Uh I mean it's not what it is now, but it's definitely all I was looking for at the time. I had no real aspirations to like scale or grow something huge to sell or or anything like that. I just like wanted to find a safe place to land um that could give some level of security. Literally, I and I and I I remember telling um a few friends at the time, like, I just want to replace my my salary. I just don't want to take a step back.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

And uh, you know, that happened pretty fast um and then just kept growing and growing and growing like crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Good for you. Yeah. So you come from it's interesting, so you like you come from the ops background. So I would argue clearly you have a good brain for business in one side of it.

unknown 5:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I don't come from the ops background, I come from the sales background. So I know sales marketing and business development. Right. So I know how to grow a company, I just don't know how to run a company. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

I knew a little bit, uh definitely uh the flip side, it's some sales and like a little bit of marketing, but that was most of that was handled at the corporate level. So it was like small stuff. Uh yeah. So yeah, I mean it was I had to uh drill down when I uh bought bought this. Um you you buy uh pull routes. I was actually looking at uh insurance branches. I was gonna go into insurance. I liked I dealt a lot with like recurring revenue models, that's what I was used to. Um, you know, monthly, you know, average monthly tickets for um we did financing, like in-store financing for like home goods. So I always liked that. You know, you start the first of the month and you already have this, you know, X amount that's owed to you and you just collect on and grow on it. So I definitely it's not an accident that I ended up uh looking for something like that. Insurance seemed like a good one. Uh Brightway insurance, they're like a local, um, which was actually uh who who my broker was when we moved down here. Uh but so I almost um bought a bought a um problematic location in uh Wellington. Wow almost, and then somehow I ended up looking like in online at like classifieds and found these brokers. I I thought I wanted to do um landscaping, which I literally I cut my own grass, but I never even like a lot of uh like here it's um a lot of kids growing up did uh uh pool cleaning as like a job in college or whatnot, and and back home like a lot of other places, it was cutting grass. And I didn't even I never even had a job cutting grass, but I thought I think basically I was looking for the opposite of what I'd been doing for 20 years in an office, a lot of times sitting down in the air condition, looking over numbers and reports and managing staff, and like what I ended up at was like the exact opposite of that outside, physical labor. Um, and then you know, I was I was definitely also looking a big one was hours. I had spent, you know, 70, you know, six, depending on you know which location, sixty plus hours a week. So I was looking for something and got it for sure. Um it's not that now, but for the first number of years, it was you know, I was off by four every day.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Four o'clock?

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

What time do you end today?

SPEAKER_03 7:48

What today?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Yeah. I mean, I don't. And now it's nonstop. I just have to I'm figuring out ways to kind of turn it off.

unknown 7:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

So I'm kind of we're we're in a transition period right now. Um, I uh just just you know, in the last six months got to the point where uh I I um not only can I not get a whole lot done like in the field, I can barely keep up with just responding to cut taking the inbound calls and whatnot. So between um that and uh also because of the volume and uh uh as much time as it takes, I'm also kind of getting burnt out on it. So I never thought I I I didn't know if I'd ever be able to pull the trigger on like turn, you know, of all the things, I didn't think I'd ever be able to turn over inbound hot leads to just some other person to trust them with like what I see as the most important resource really.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, how they massage that call.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah, yeah. So um, but I'm I'm there. I didn't think I, you know, three months ago, even I was like, I don't know how I'm you know, so who's this person that's handling them? Uh well uh my daughter, I think, is gonna be our our first uh full-time office person. Yeah, I've looked at some different options and I was gonna go, you know, they've got some really nice um VA call centers, even um, you know, in the US that are trained on even, you know, I use a lot of the software systems that they know, so it's tempting because they're not that expensive. A lot of them are uh trained and can handle those. So I I've gone back and forth. Um I mean I've needed to hire a VA for like a couple years. I just uh it always seemed like more more trouble than it would be worth having to go back and forth and explain this and then have them, you know. Um I guess definitely see the value for it now. But yeah, um she she's uh been doing like pool cleaning and she's got her own route now and she's she's out doing that. Um but yeah, I think uh we're having our new uh CRM system built out now.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Which one are you using? Uh Go High Level. Smart, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah, I just I've been back and forth on that decision for a couple years. I've always it'll always end up back at Go High Level. Um so we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

They're great with their automation, they have great automations. Are you getting automation set up? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

I have a lot of automations now. Um I'm using Jobber, which I love, uh, but it's not really a CRM. It's more field management. It probably has everything that I need as big as I, you know, uh want the company to get. Yeah, I really considered hiring someone to kind of just build some add-ons to that.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Because I like it neat and clean and everything being there. But yeah, that's but yeah, we're gonna move over to to them and we'll see how it goes. Finally, um, you know, I always I've been back and forth with one phone, a company phone, a personal phone. I hated having two phones. I did two lines on one phone, so finally, and I knew what I was getting into. I knew it one day I'd be like, all right, you know, I've got to change this, but my literally the main advertised number is my lit my literal personal cell phone. So I can you know I can call for it and turn it off, but so I'm finally gonna port this number into Go High level, go back to my old Louisville number. And so that's gonna be in the system. So that's a couple weeks out, so we'll see. And then we'll be able to, you know, I can take the calls, I can have her take the calls, probably a lot of uh taking messages and relaying messages and filtering a lot of nonsense. Um but yeah, we're hoping to do that in the next 30, 60 days.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I always uh like whenever I do business with someone, like on the marketing side, yeah, I always ask them, like, because they're they're like, oh, you know, give me a bunch of leads. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, hold up. How do you handle the leads? Yeah, like who's picking up the phone? How available are they? Um, how competent are they? I'm like, what's is there because listen, not everybody buys on the spot. Like, what's do you have automation set up with your CRM? So what our company does is when we work with people, like that's you need to have a process for the lead flow in the first place. Yeah, I could dump, we can just candidly, you can just spend money and get leads, but how do you manage the flow? Yeah, you know, I can get you 400 leads a week if you want to spend that much. It's just how are you properly, are you ready to handle it?

SPEAKER_03 12:18

So that's yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um mine's, you know, I I think the system that I kind of have, which is just really just me and my phone, uh, works pretty well, even even now. Um, you know, some slips through the cracks, but the time it takes me to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks is too much time. And yeah, so I'm I'm working on just kind of building the workflows from scratch. Um I'm always just researching. Um, you know, I've been uh you know, using even even Claude has been helpful lately. I've been surprisingly good uh stuff from that. And so uh try Manaus. Have you tried Manais? Yeah, I downloaded it at the same time uh I got Claude because I heard about that, but I just uh I didn't touch it and I ended up removing it from my phone, so I gotta give it another visit. But I've heard it's solid. Yeah. I mean honestly don't use Claude that much either. I even set up the uh agent and the I forget what it was all called, but I've got a I had this um iMac. I thought I was gonna switch from Windows to Apple, but I just can't. So I just have this brand new iMac sitting in my office with dust on it, and I heard all this talk about the Claude uh Apple uh thing everyone's building, so I kind of did that, but it just sits there. I don't really use it.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

We actually sell that as a product, like we call it the executive assistant, you know. So there's like all these companies, they don't even know how to implement it, right? And they don't even understand all the like if there's workflows or menial task that you're doing every couple of weeks that only you do, you only trust yourself to do it, you don't really trust somebody else to do it, you don't want to take take the time to teach them how to do it, so you just kind of do this annoying thing for four hours every two weeks. Yeah, that's what that cloud bot can do. Yep. You know, it's nice. Yeah, yeah. Tell me tell me about the business a little bit. Uh Palm Beach Pool and Spa services, like what what are kind of break down some of your key services?

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Yeah, so um a big part um, you know, down here it's it's the pools are open year-round, so uh in in service, they have to be cleaned and and treated weekly. So that's always um the biggest part of most uh companies, especially the biggest ones, are mostly built around that.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Um that's what you know um like private equity uh is moving in the space big time, and that's all they care about. Like how many monthly return recurring pool cleaning customers do you have? When uh in reality, it's like the small the biggest headache, smallest margin, 80-20 rule to a T is weekly pool service. You have to it's you know uh staff-wise, they're not you know, not always the experts um that that you use for the other stuff. So um we don't struggle with this as much. I think we have a higher tier of um people doing that. We pay more than our competition, but generally, you know, you have to manage that and make sure every everyone shows up to every single one of your three, four, five, six hundred accounts every single week. Yeah. Um maybe with a you know, one-off here and there from rain, and then you know, and like how we model it most majority of it is you know paid paid to them, so like you know, it's not much. Uh so but you know, a lot uh everything's built on that uh for the most part, uh, for probably 99% of companies. Yeah, and I don't I I considered getting away from it, but it's kind of a necessity if you want to scale. It's a feeder for the other work. I get it, yeah. Um but that's but that's what we you we've moved into and we're doing remodeling. We started remodeling like a year or two ago. Um pool remodels? Is that a lot of people? Pool remodels, yeah, yeah. Um and I and I finally got licensed, my contractor's license to do that and and everything in between, everything but build, which is kind of a whole different is it's almost a whole different division. If it's if it's part of any company, it's kind of set sets alone, it's separate from everything else. It's just a whole different thing. But um, but yeah, we weekly pool service up to remodeling, but really like in the middle there is our my favorite, and where I've seen the most upside, it's it's you know, equipment sales, it's the heaters, it's automation pumps, uh mostly pool equipment. Um and that's you know uh overtaken our um weekly pool service by quite a bit. That's like 70% of the company. So we're uh average, medium, like we're medium sized, not average, but um on on like uh recurring weekly customers, and we still take customers and our our we're we're our pricing is um more, and that's like a super uh uh price shopping heavy service. Like it doesn't matter what income or if I'm on the island or if I'm in uh Riviera Beach, people shop price. Like so if you don't have a competitive price on weekly service, yeah, I don't I don't close most of those. Um that's one of the things that I that I that I'm not good at following up on because it's kind of like another weekly service. Like I know the headache that comes with it. I'm not super motivated to go after them. Yeah, I definitely don't want to compete on price because even where we are, it's still like it's I'm I'm sure our margins are better than many because of our because of our pricing tier, but it's still not great. So um, but that's uh yeah, that's that's a feeder for for the other things. But once I saw what, you know, the equipment side and like um the money you can make there, it's like uh what is it, AC, AC companies, it's the uh you know, new HVAC system. You know, it's starts as a customer on like an annual maintenance plan or a service call, but you know, out of X number of those, it turns into a real job. And that's what it is for me too.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Let me ask you, this is I'm asking this for like entrepreneurs to hear. How many customers would you need in the pool service side of the business to earn EBITDA a million dollars a year?

SPEAKER_03 18:33

I mean, I can uh um the num it's hard to say on we're such a anomaly as far as that goes, but just from the market research I've been able to see, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Rough numbers.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Probably, well, let's see. It probably would be only 25%.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

So four to five hundred monthly. Wow. So you know you know why that fascinates me? Because I feel like if you're a good door knocker, like it this is just where my head's going.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Which isn't a thing in the in our institution.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

I wouldn't think so. Yeah. I wouldn't think so at all. But I'm also thinking, like, if um if a young 18-year-old man came up to my door and he said, hey man, you know, um, you know, I'm a local family-owned business, my dad runs the company. Um, you know, we run a pool servicing business, and we just want an opportunity, we want to do a free cleaning for you, we wanted to um, you know, show you what our what our services are like and the quality, and you could make a decision from there if you want to work us moving forward. I almost feel like I don't know, like I I could easily walk up to 400 houses. Yep. Like that's just where my brain goes. So I'm thinking of like a 22-year-old man. Like if I had a business partner that did the work and then I just did a bunch of door knocking, I feel like I could grow that business. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like you could grow through meta ads too.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people, I never uh really haven't tapped into Facebook ads. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Oh, I feel like that's yeah, that's a layup for you.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

And then door knocking too, but it's like Yeah, I don't think I'll ever door knock, but there's definitely if the if someone wants to come in and do that, they you could definitely dominate for sure. Because a lot of people are a lot of people are slow to replace their their pool guy for Are they? Yeah, slower than we would think.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I wouldn't assume because I don't have any loyalty to mine, just so you know, I don't even know who it is.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Yeah. Is it the it is it been the same guy for a long time?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, we've been in this house three years, my wife uses it. Like if some cool young kid came up to my house and be like, all right, sure, I don't you know, and I'm not trying to be dismissive of your business. I'm just saying, I'm just trying to think of where the opportunity is.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean that would be a good approach because like a lot of people are probably should and are close to being ready, and that something like that that you can show them, you know, that that you uh, you know, as long as you the service you provide is close to the service you can uh promise to happen every week, yeah, or something close to it, you you definitely would would crush. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, people are yeah, a lot of times uh because we uh like a majority now of our customers are are non-customers, they're not our weekly customers.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Oh really? Right. They call in and say they're if the heater's broken.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

It's ever yeah, it's it's everything from and I don't always get the story um and I don't pry too much, but I'm all my ears are always open. So sometimes it's DIY people that take care of their own pool and you know, but but don't want to get into troubleshooting or fixing like equipment or motors and all that. So a lot of them are those. A lot of them know the there's uh it's su it's such a unique, I think, unique um industry. Um definitely down here more so than than other markets because the barrier to entry is really low. You technically are supposed to be licensed to do some things, but it's really not enforced. So like anybody can um get a truck or sometimes not even that and get some equipment and open a pool company. So there's there's uh a lot of that for sure. Um but uh so even if and I tell people and I never try to poach uh clients or push the weekly service, like I tell people, uh like they'll tell me if they like a lot of people will ask if we do a good job on this. Um do you guys offer this? And I'm like, yeah. But I tell people all the time, if you're happy with your guy and you've had him for a while and his prices, what a lot of the other prices around here are, and he shows up most of the time and does a pretty good job, you're doing pretty well. Like, you know, if you like him, keep him and just call us for the other stuff. Because you don't necessarily want, especially the guy that's just the guy in the truck who knows how to clean a pool, you probably don't want tearing apart your pool heater or even touching it sometimes. So I think that's a lot of it's that. A lot of them they have a pool guy, literally a guy, maybe if a small company of a few guys, maybe. Um and that's kind of um the the industry's like that. It's so atomized. Yeah, it's like there's some there's a couple big giant players, but not as many as should be. Um and then a fair amount of medium size, which we I'd say we fall into, yeah, uh, that have a build-out and they have, you know, repair guys, technicians, so the weekly guy can call the office and get someone out there. Um, but a lot so many of them are just it's just a guy. And so I think a lot of them are those. Like, so we um yeah, they'll they'll call us if something goes wrong, serious, bigger than just weekly, weekly service.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

You you've you've mentioned the word private equity a few times. Is your goal to sell at some point?

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Or you just no, I almost did a few years ago. It's tempting. Um, but no, I I get calls every week.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

I don't I don't are they buying individual outfits or are they trying to package a bunch of them together and sell it to somebody?

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Yeah, they want to buy up uh a bunch of my sized or smaller and bigger and package them, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah, yeah. Because that's that's where they're I wanna say 10xing their return, but they're the multiples higher.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Yeah, yeah. But like from what I've uh from what I've seen, like I think it's uh I'm not I'm not real versed in this space. A lot of that's uh new to me. Yeah, I mean uh the firm I worked for was a private equity firm, but I was in operations, nothing to do with that stuff, but I think it's lower. Like what they were were willing to pay me, it like the math did not add up. There were there was no I mean it was tempting because it was a large sum of money now. Um but the only reason I even entertained it and um uh was because I knew I could start over and just do it again and just speed run it this time because of everything I've learned. Um but uh uh I knew better than that because you know at one point it dawned on me, I'm gonna have to sign a non-compete. They're not just gonna let me. Yeah, yeah. Um so if the right person would have came along and let me just start completely over, like not trying to uh not not trying to use my contacts to like get them back. If the non-compete was just for the customers, and but I could open up my own shop, I probably would have done it. But when I did the math, it just it it doesn't it wasn't enough. It was I don't know, I just yeah, I don't think the multiples are great. No, no, no. Compared to other industries.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

23X maybe something.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I think yeah, three to yeah, yeah. Yeah, it when it that was the other thing, is like once I heard some of the stories.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

That's EBITDA, 2, 3x, EBITDA. Right, right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Um I've heard higher, but I think at the end of the day it probably ends up being that because of shadiness that happens at the closing table. And it kind of gets you by the, you know, and um yeah, because they probably don't give you all the cash up front. Well, yeah. Right? Yeah, and probably have to. Somebody like me wa was um, you know, so I wasn't running it like I was gonna sell it. I wasn't running it. Uh still kind of don't, like I wanna scale it. Like I'm gonna let it grow and I'm not gonna like turn away. Well, I'm starting to turn away some business, but I'm not gonna not let it grow, but I'm not my goal is not necessarily to get to 10 or 15 million. But um what I would have had to the hoops I would have had to jump through, you know, lease an office, um, buy the trucks, W-2 everybody, uh, wrap all the trucks, um all the money I would have to invest in that, and then at the close, you know, at the closing table they cut it back and say, well, actually, no, this this is our offer, and you're kind of they're hoping that you're just sunk cost, you just like go along with it just because it's you know, because you invested all this money, and but uh so you know that was a was a turn off. But mainly it was just the math. I was like, it sounded nice, it was a lot of money, it was more money than I'd had at any one point if I would have done it. Um and it was also, you know, one in particular was tempting because um, you know, I'm approaching nine years away from my office job that I was sick of. And so some of that, you know, um, I can think I got the uh that out of me. So like I'm finding my way back to being okay with managing people and operations and like starting to dig in more to my numbers. It's it's shocking how how uh neglectful I've been of some things that I just know know better than it was drilled into me for 20 years. I was it was all numbers, like all reports, numbers, this percentage, this rate, and like I could like I'm so uninterested uh in doing that with my own company, but we're at we're at a point now where it's I need to drill down and like really get it together and know like there's it's embarrassing some of the numbers that you could ask me that I'm that I wouldn't know. Right. And I need to uh I don't need to actually churn little things like churn and yeah, I just there's yeah. Um so I I've got a AOV, L T V, those things.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

L T V I got, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

And like also if it wasn't a a a term I'm familiar with from you know 10 and 20 years ago, every once in a while I hear one I don't even know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

But oh people throw some stuff out at me and I gotta pull out Chat GPT real quick. Yeah, yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Yeah. Yeah, I remember when EBITDA started uh uh started hearing like what is this EBITDA thing a few years ago? And it's like it's not that complicated. No, no, it's basically just profit. Pretty much. If you just kind of wanna sum it up, right? I think we used to, yeah. I think it's the closest I know from our old reporting from our PLs and balance sheet was um it was it was basically like gross profit before taxes or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

It's like pretty close to profit, what you measure, but it's how much you can say you're making, but you don't actually care about.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

It's like uh I barely even know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Or how much you're actually keeping after you say how much you make.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, you know, some of those I just I get it's it's it's um not our priority because I personally handle so much. So like I c a job cost, like I'm terrible at job cost and everything I'm starting to and everything that would be involved in tying all that into the system.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

Whereas but but our but our margins and our like you would think we were excellent at it, just because but you know, but I but I I know the numbers, so I know I can quote this. Yeah, like I know I just had a price increase from this manufacturer, so I need to bump this to this, I'm gonna pay this for it. So I know like to the dollar what I'm gonna make. Um, but then that's it. Like I quote that, I get paid that, and it goes in with everything else, and I don't um so like yeah, that's one of the things I'm having built out with uh some of the systems is tying together, like my weekly service is sits over here in this separate billing software system that you know, other than um you know, going into the same uh bank account, it's they're kind of separate. So one of the things I've got to do is tie those, and then I use Jobber for like quoting and and the big jobs. Um, so I need to tie those together and um get a full full picture, but so it's cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I so your daughter, like you know, listen, you're a young dude, 40 47. That's young, dude. I'm I'll be 46 in uh right next month. Like we're young. You know, you could have a big pile of money, but then with you know, you still gotta you're still gonna have to work.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Um, but that's cool. So the daughter's involved, and um, and then you have a 16-year-old, too.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

Yeah, cool. So we'll see. At this point, he's not doesn't want anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

I don't know if that's oh this is so you have a daughter and a son. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Yeah. Um, which she was the same way for a while and then at some point uh changed her mind. Um maybe when she discovered what money was or something like that, or had a couple jobs. Um but yeah, uh it's yeah, it's up to them.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Um I mean, I would want to, but yeah, I uh I mean it'd be kind of cool when you're 60, they're kind of running the show and just paying you a little old scratch on the side. Yeah, hopefully something like that. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

I don't think I'll retire that early, maybe, but it probably not. Right? Yeah, these days, and I and I can, you know, with with doing my own thing, like one one thing that's been nice is like when I get tired of a job, I can not do that job anymore. Yeah, I can just hire someone to do it. If I get tired of doing it, you know, I'm getting tired of answering the phone, so I'm gonna hire someone so I can always shift. So if you know, at 70, if I want to maybe go meet people and quote, remodel jobs or oversee pool builds or just um be in an office pouring over numbers like I used to. I can kind of if it's you know, I can do whatever I want to do. So yeah, you don't really need to retire these days. We're not working in the coal mines.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. Yeah, we're back's not broken.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Somebody told me uh years ago, like uh it's also not in the Bible. There's no retirement?

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Yeah, it's not that's a good call.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

That's a great call.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

I'm sure for probably a couple reasons, but yeah. I was like, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Retirement. Yeah, Jesus never talked about retirement. Yeah. And there's no discussion of it. Right. Right? It's not a thing. Yeah. That's just uh that's just uh manufactured thing. Yep. What did um what had the company look in like the first couple years?

SPEAKER_03 33:04

Rough. Yeah, on paper, not great for sure. Yeah. Um, I enjoyed it the whole way and it was awesome, but like um the that first uh I always always knew I used to tell new hires, uh, when you when you start a new job or in a new endeavor on this, there's always that one big unknown surprise, not a good surprise. There's like one big one.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

And mine was and I even after all the due diligence I thought I did uh and all this, like the the pricing, the the the market is some of the lowest in the country here, which is yeah, ironic because one of the reasons I ended up at pools and not some other thing is because it's like when in Rome, you know, it's like every it's pools per capita, I think we're almost uh like we're in top one to three, I think, in the world, and pools per capita. Yeah. So I was like, you know, we in and that around around that time we had um more or less decided we were gonna stay here for good. So it was like I definitely wouldn't have done pools um if I thought we were gonna move back because it's just not to the market, yeah. Yeah, no way. No, yeah, it was rough. I definitely lost money year one. And and and um I didn't want to touch any retirement, so like I took out a um loan. Uh oh, it was a bank loan, yeah. I was able, everyone said, like, oh, you won't be able to get a bank loan for the a pool route, because that's all I was buying was a was a book of business. It wasn't a name, it wasn't no tangible assets. And they said it couldn't be done, and then I was able to get what I needed, which wasn't a ton, and bought this little route, and it seemed like a good deal until I I guess a lot of my a lot of the information that was available on the internet and even uh even one of the coaching uh programs that I did, he was in California. There's these different markets, and so I didn't I just didn't do enough due diligence on margins and everything and and what how low um low the rates for for weekly service are here. Just and again, I think it goes to like what what we're it's a race to the bottom because the guy in the truck doesn't need $190 to you know, he can do it for $120. He's not gonna do great, but he can uh feed his family for it. So that drives down the prices. So the the the the and I went through the most reputable um pull uh pull route broker uh in the country. Um but the guy the guy that actually um that they brokered it through the guy who sold it, like that's what he did. Like he would still see him sometimes. I I don't think he's too he's too far from here. He still operates. They just th throw out these big mail campaigns and advertising for like the insane low prices that just don't even make sense. I still see him now, like uh and um and then he sells routes. So the route I bought was way, way down. Like uh, you know, per customer, it was it was not great. But one of the reasons I did it is because um it comes with kind of like a training program. And I had, I mean, I only even had one in-ground pool. That was the one I lived in at the time that I made this shift. So I I happened to have a pool that we inherited with this house, but we had a pool company that you know, so I'd when I was first serious about it, I would post up and like watch my guy and the process and how to do it. I had no idea how to uh how to clean a pool, but um, what was where was I at? Where were we uh oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like it was it was fun and it was exciting, and I got away from that and I didn't know right away that I wasn't making a whole lot of money. I mean, I knew I wasn't crushing it, but um that was rough. But um, and then early on with no presence, I was I was also racing to the bottom. So I was just kind of copying those rates, and I would get clients from like Thumbtack and some of these, you know, um price shopping places. Thumbtack was actually I don't I don't touch it now, I'll leave my profile there because it was a good profile. That was the first place I really built up like reviews, and I would like pop up at the top of Thumbtack and I'd get hits and I was competitive on price, so I'd land them, my closing rates good. Yeah, so I grew, you know, slowly, gradually increased my monthly, but not not fast enough. But um as soon as I was uh able to or in a position to because I still thought I was just gonna do it myself. Yeah. And so there's obviously a cap, you know, which is arguably between 80 to 120 accounts for me was on the 120. Um so uh, you know, which I actually ended up selling routes within like like year three, uh three and a half years in. I got I was approaching, I was like, all right, I'm I'm over a hundred and like I'm you know starting to work past four a little bit. I don't like that. Like four at four thirty, five, sometimes some days it's a lot. Service. And what time were you starting? Pretty early, pretty early. Um some I think there were times like seven, pretty early.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, yeah. Like you're are you are you in a pool at seven or like yeah, yeah, there were times.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah, it was so as I would um as the route would grow, it would grow kind of both ways. I would first start to uh move into earlier morning hours. So there's times where I almost got a headlamp because depending on daylight savings, it'd be dark. Um which headlamped, I've never heard it called. Yeah, yeah, uh like the yeah, the little uh yeah, yeah. Um yeah, because it'd be dark. Um and then, you know, and then when I started approaching getting to what I could handle myself, I still had no plans to to grow beyond that. So I just started I'd I would sell a chunk of route. So I first threw that broker, I don't know why, it went back to them. I found a better broker after that um and started selling, you know, so I'd sell off. I'd list uh you know, I'd list 30 to 60 available, this area, and it would take a few months and meet with the person and train them like uh, you know, and I still um I still help uh all of them that stayed um around or still around. I still kind of mentor and help and um any way that I can. But so that was cool. So that was a f you know, a big chunk of money right there, and I was like, wow, I know how to get customers and I can grow the route like pretty good, it looks like, and then you know, I can just sell off. Like I could do this forever, and I probably could have. And it was actually uh an injury kind of having your cake and eat it too a little bit there for sure. And yeah, and then you you sell this chunk off, and then your day-to-day gets a little bit easier for a while while you try to build it back back up. But yeah, I mean day one, it was you know a crash course on how to you know do anything with a pool, um clean it or anything else, and then how to get customers. And so that was uh that was everything I built. The the website, which I can only imagine was just a total disaster because I didn't know what I was doing, but it was a website, and um, you know, looking back, I made some surprisingly good choices, and then some of them not as much, but not disastrous. But I it was you know, I was running on a uh a budget, you know. I I took out this loan and I didn't want to touch anything else. Yeah, and I wanted, you know, I was I was kind of buying an income, so like I I paid, you know, bought that with the bank loan, and then you know, so technically and I had money coming in, so I was you know profitable. Yeah but um but yeah, it wasn't uh so yeah, so I uh didn't really have a budget, didn't know how to run ads, didn't know any like I said, all that stuff was always handled up here.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

And um, but I found this thing called uh uh SEO. Oh I didn't know what it was. I was like, what is this SEO? There's kind of like a going joke a lot of times, not maybe not so much anymore for a while, because I would be talking about this thing called SEO, and my family or my friends would kind of make fun of me, it's like what is this thing? And it's like you know, organic. Like, what is this thing that you can invest in or do now that you don't have to pay every month to get leads and it pays off over time? Like this sounds really good. I'm kind of a cheapskate in my personal like budget. Okay, so it sounds great, and uh so you know, through that the SEO organic, I you know, did a deep dive. I kind of I built the website, which you know I had done professionally later, which was a huge move, matter of fact, a big shift in the company when I had the website rebuilt. But yeah, I found out what a GMB was. Yeah. Also, like so it's not the same. Your business is critical. Yeah. Uh I have the same domain, but the website's been rebuilt like two or three times. But still the same domain and still my first GMB are still when I break down leads for the month, though those are still my top assets.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

And uh reviews crush you. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

When I it's the mat pack, is it the mat pack we get most years?

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah, yeah. I yeah, I I think so. Um I'm not I'd like to get uh some clarity on that. I've asked a couple times, um whether how much of it because like I started when I started doing this research, then I started trying to search like customer search.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

And when I heard maps, I was like, oh, on the Google uh maps app, because I started I shifted from Apple Maps to Google Maps uh when I opened the company, my wife suggested it and it was better. And uh, but I started seeing where you can search for companies and home services. And so I always assumed everybody was finding me on the actual Google Map app, but um it turns out I was wrong, and I think a majority of it is on search, the Map Pack on Search. Yeah, exactly. But where are the where you know uh I've seen numbers on my like my analytics and whatnot, but I don't know how accurate they are where people actually find you on the app. But either way, probably pretty low.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah. It's mostly search, it's mostly search, yeah, yeah. Right. And probably on the mobile, right? And you know, just you know, uh pool services near me, pool cleaners near me. Yeah. And a lot of that is geographical, right? Geographically based too. Oh, yeah. Right. So it's like like if I if I Google, if I type in fast food near me on my ride home from work, right? Uh I live in Boca Rutherford, Florida, it's not gonna give me a McDonald's restaurant in California. Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

It's right, so it's a lot of that stuff is uh that's why multiple uh multiple uh GMBs is uh or GBPs is a good move. Yeah, for sure. If you can, yeah, you can. We're doing that. It's not that hard. No, it's not that expensive. No, not at all. Um but anyone that's looking to do it, I I suggest doing it a hundred percent uh by the book. Uh like I think try to think long term. You know, like uh in an office space that I um can have and keep and is a good spot and that I can just keep forever. Um and not have to worry about, you know, when Google, you know, Google does these updates every so often and people get hit for this or that, they catch on to shady things, or you know, as happened to me and many times, you get kind of caught in the net doing even doing things a hundred percent right. Uh like we don't have one fake review on our deal, but we've had reviews taken down in these updates for who knows what reason.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

But um, yeah, I always try to, you know, actual office. I was like, uh everyone's like, I'll do the co-working space. I was like, there's no way they're not gonna crack down on that at some point. How many are they gonna allow, you know, to be in this one place? And like it's not yeah, it's not really legitimate. So um yeah, we're I'm looking at looking at a third location. I just don't want I'm I'm not ready to spread our territory out too far, so I've got to be careful. So like year over year, it's you know, a little bit of uh cannibalizing one to the other. Like what my main one had a slight drop, whereas my other one raised quite a bit, but you should really look into meta-ads, I really think.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Like is you can like how what's the what's the radius of your territory? Like how many miles?

SPEAKER_03 45:31

Mileage, I'm not sure. It's like is it West Palm? Almost Lake Worth, West Palm border to Jupiter. Jupiter to Questa border. That's a big area.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yeah, yeah. You can literally draw a circle around that area. Right. And you can target, like let's say, is maybe so whatever your ICP is, like you know what customers you want. Yeah, so we can literally pick which zip codes, right? And you don't even need crazy ads, you can just do images, you don't even need to get on camera yourself. I I would think now meta ads, just like Google Ads, takes a little bit to stabilize because you you got to get to the magic number of 50. You got to get 50 leads before it, and and that is a mathematical formula for meta. They say we need 50 leads before we before we're fully optimized, so there is a learning phase. But I would think I don't think I know that that's a good move for you. So if your current company can do it, I would look into it.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I actually I love the the this organic thing so much that just I've gone all in on that to the point of point of investing money, but I know that you know, one that's not gonna last forever. Um, and all it takes is, you know, I know I rely too heavily on Google. Um, but yeah, that's definitely I have so much opportunity. And you mentioned territory, that's another like a just an easy lever I could pull tomorrow. If I'm not happy with our inbound leads, I can I just like everything being kind of closed. I like the areas I'm in. I like that I can, you know, like we have um I I like to think like really, really, really good response and customer service rate. Like people are shocked how quickly we handle how responsive we are and how we um handle issues that come up big or small. And I like the ability to uh, you know, if I get a call, you so there's a really high percentage chance that uh one of my calls for whatever it may be, either a lead or a quote or a problem, is gonna be in Palm Beach Gardens. And I'm you know, so I I'm in my truck in Palm Beach Gardens doing this or that, the supplier, almost everything is near there, so I can, you know, personally go there to get something small, like knocked out that's like five minutes out of my way. It looks great to the customer, but but yeah, that's a big lever we can pull and then yeah, always I mean and and not even just meta ads, um, you know, and Google ads, um, even just social. Like I've been just have not taken the mainly just because I I've gotten everything I've needed to get. And I'm spoiled by the these are like high intent leads. So like when the person who's whose pool heater isn't working, like they need somebody now, they're gonna search now. If I'm in the top of that search, I'm the call, I've got the best, I'll probably answer the phone, or at minimum I have the best response rate.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

I'm gonna handle it, you know, somewhat professionally. And so it's just, you know, the closing rate's really high, they're good jobs, and um, it just does so well for us. I just haven't needed to, but there's yeah, there's all these other levels, uh levers that I can pull, which is pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Just my just my this is take this or leave it. I'm I'm saying this for the camera. Like we probably have 12 to 14 ways that we get clients. And we, you know, we're part of chambers of commerce. We we do now. Yeah, oh cool.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

Which the other one you joined? Uh I first um I'm in mainly gardens, so it's north. Uh was the first one I joined a few years ago, and then last year I joined the one I think that's closest to Palm Beach Island. I think it's downtown-ish.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

I forget the oh yeah um Chamber of the Pond Beaches or something. Yeah, I think that might be okay. So it's your territory, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

I've literally never been to any of these offices. Wow. Ever been to a meeting. I kind of said maybe I would, but I literally, yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's great for all these reasons. I literally got them for the for the link. For the smart everything. Once I learned about kind of like uh all the little signals Google looks for, almost everything. Like I've got uh my application in with Better Business Bureau, which I've been back and forth on. It's like five or six hundred bucks, and it's like I'll probably even get uh an you know an older customer or two, um, and then just the link juice or whatever signal, anything like that. And next, probably some type of uh sponsorship, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah, just get some type of link. Yeah, you know it's a really smart one. I almost want to tell you this off camera. Yeah. But try to get like a dot edu. Find your local high school or and and do like a little sponsorship and just say, hey, in return, would you mind just posting this on your website that we did this? Right. Yeah. Look, I'm I'm giving you all this food.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

I know, you know, it's uh I've I've I have probably three or four lists I've put together, and most recently with like ChatGPT or something, of what would be the best uh like most legitimate um you know sponsorships I could because I'd you know I would like it to cross over with something I'd like to donate to anyways, but yeah. But then it's I always said I'd probably have my firm or somebody that knows better maybe handle that for me because like even when I I'll get on the phone with somebody that's in one of those offices, they don't know what I'm talking about. Like, what do you mean a link on your my website?

SPEAKER_01 50:59

And like I'm not yeah, yeah, I think Google ads would be good for you too because like uh you know you're already seeing the success with with Google, so that's just kind of you know, you just want to buy the keywords, you know, uh water heater, yeah, repair near me. Like I own properties, I deal with this all the time, and I just search on Google.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yeah, I think in in ads I've learned and I've uh played around a little bit, I've run some campaigns with like mixed results, but 100% I think people should hire an expert to run Google Ads. For sure. It's just like you you can burn through so much, I hear so many stories and not burn through some, but uh you know, I didn't go too far in on it, but you can you can burn through so much money making all these mistakes, and maybe you'll figure it out in six months, but you don't you won't know for six months, nine months, and yeah, you it's definitely should be left to if somebody's never lifted weights in their life, and let's say they're trying to get into a bodybuilding competition.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

I would say hire a trainer for at least 90 days. Yeah, learn how to work out so you can build muscle or whatever you're trying to do. It's the same thing with running your marketing. Like you like you're gonna end up saying in six months, oh, my body's different, it didn't work for me, um, I just don't have the good genetics. No, no, no. I said all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

About lifting.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Yeah, yeah. It's like it's like, no, no, no, you just don't know what you're doing, you're not committed to it. Um and and that's and that's really marketing.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

So yeah, no, yeah, 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

So you're saying a lot of cool stuff that I can use for my ads, by the way. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 52:42

Yeah. I I run my I do run my own LSA. I love LSA. Those are simple. Yeah, they are. That's why I keep it. Super simple. I don't even know if they would charge me the firm I'm with now to oversee it. Probably something, but like it's just too easy. It's just like, you know, I mean, it more it's pretty much said and forget, but like it is even the little things, little things that are supposedly uh again sending good signals to Google take a couple minutes every few days, and it's just always up on my computer, and it's just like nothing.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

I can connect you. I got a guy I can connect you with. He has a um like how do you handle the missed calls on LSA?

SPEAKER_03 53:18

Uh I mean, I I try to handle them like everything else, um, even though like all my leads are free except these one cost me a million dollars. Like sometimes when I do the math, it's a lot. Every month I do uh down to the dollar what I uh I stick with revenue just to make it simple. Yeah but um I always end up ahead. But um I've always I I've definitely always um up until recently for sure handled them much more carefully. Like I'll make sure that person gets a call back. Yeah. Um well missed calls hurt you.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

So there's there's AIs out there now. Yeah, cost you a few hundred bucks a month.

SPEAKER_03 53:56

Yeah, I did that, I have that. So uh yeah. Um yeah, it's yeah, I I remember uh I learned uh I learned it the hard way when uh I went on a vacation to Italy, yeah, and I was like, ah, how am I gonna do this? I don't really go away for you know, I would go back home, but I'd always have my phone, I could take calls, but this was like a real like you know, nine-day uh vacation, and so I wasn't gonna be answering my phone or talking to customers. So I had one guy that does some work for me that was letting me just send him job, you know, repair jobs to, you know, call and I and I trust him and that went fine, but it was like all these missed calls, a week's worth of missed calls, and many of them were LSAs, and I noticed I didn't know this at the time, or I would have thought about turning it off before I left. But uh it that was like at the yeah, I think that was towards the end of of a month. Um because I think it's kind of lagging too, it's not immediate. Uh I think they would know they they notice at some point during the month and then it hits you that first month. That was my experience. So like I think it was even it may have even been May. That that first week of May, it was like no LSAs. Um, but I I mean I do miss some and um I mean I call everybody back fast. Um but yeah, I mean mostly up until recently, I just I just I just answer every call as they call in. It's just you know, if you can do that.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

Um who's answering them right now if somebody calls?

SPEAKER_03 55:24

Right now, my AI.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

Okay, cool. Yeah, my AI. Um yeah, the it's I it's through uh job or it's decent. Um it yeah, works surprisingly well. Only made one or two mistakes, and um I use it for weekends and after hours since we went 24-7 on our GMVs. But it's useful on some days if I'm not, you know, feeling it or uh I'm busy with you know a big project or something, like I've just left it on for a lot of today.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

How long did it take you? Last thing I cause last thing I want to ask you, I don't want to keep you too long. We've been going about an hour. How um how long did it take before you because you said it was a rough first couple years, expected. When did the company stabilize? What year?

SPEAKER_03 56:08

Probably year three. Yeah, I mean, especially yeah, year three is uh you know added in one or two route sales, which helped a great deal, and and kinda started to get some um equipment jobs. Um yeah, probably probably around that time, um, maybe four, maybe year four. Okay, but yeah, I think it was um year four. I sit down at some point way too late in the year that I should have been like drilling down to numbers and I was like, oh wow, like we can make a lot of money doing this. Uh yeah, and I remember uh like the first That's a good feeling. Yeah, yeah. A sense of relief. Yeah. And and I think I still am so big on uh the equipment side, which isn't like a a common thing to specialize in. It's just like, you know, everyone does the weekly service, and then if you get big enough, you can also deal with all the other stuff, and that's kind of just part of it. But I'm I remember the first time I sold a high-ticket item, and again, like I'm always job cost in my head when I did the math, and I was like, you make I can make this off this one sale? And it was just like, you know, I'm used to making nothing off each account every month. It's just like, you mean I can make this off this one sale versus all these accounts I have to go or have somebody go service, and like from that point on, I was like, this is where it's at.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

And um, so that's kind of like our niche, our niche is is there, and I you know, I kind of try to tell people that. And it shows up Google's really good about that. Like they I get calls for those things, and you know, whether it's I'm sure some of it's our website and targeting and like some of the stuff, especially that's that's going on now, and then reviews, because we we've grown um a huge number of reviews, and people it you know, you know, it's like he replaced my pump, or they came out and fixed my heater next day, or they did this, and a lot of it's like that's the stuff we do, and you know, they're surprisingly good at recognizing that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, um yeah, it's huge.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Well, this is cool, man. I you know, you got a a great story. I think you got a inspiring story being a late entrepreneur, and you know, and I think what's really cool about your story too, Andy, is that you know, if you would have asked yourself at the age of 35 if you'd be the owner of Palm Beach Pool and Spa Services, you probably would have looked at that person cross-eyed. Oh yeah, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:36

I would have said Palm Beach, what am I doing there? But yeah, I definitely wouldn't wouldn't have imagined. Yeah, I definitely always just I didn't think I'd retire from that company or necessarily that industry, but I definitely would just saw myself, you know, run and operate, you know, being an operator in an office, doing the same thing uh or something like it. And yeah, I never would have.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Guys, thanks again for tuning into the Gold Coast Podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Eric Weingard. Make sure to like and subscribe. Go ahead and give Andy a follow, check out his website, and we'll see you again.