Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Accelerate your electrical service business to six-figure months and seven-figure success in record time. Hosted by Clay Neumeyer and Joseph Lucanie, this podcast breaks down the proven frameworks, sales systems, and high-performance strategies used by top electricians and service teams, worldwide.
Each episode delivers real-world scripts, elite communication tools, option-building tactics, and premium homeowner experience frameworks that help contractors grow fast, close confidently, and dominate their market ethically.
If you're ready to shorten the path to consistent $100K+ Service months, build a recognizable premium brand, and step into the next level of leadership and income, this is the place. Plug in, level up, and get ready to scale with speed.
Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
S3 EP46 From $2M to $9M Without Chasing New Builds
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Want the exact framework we use to build a premium electrical service business that survives slow markets and scales without competing on price?
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Want to see how this system works inside a real electrical company?
https://youtu.be/uAl9loaLBxo
And if you want to watch us break down more real contractor transformations:
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Most electrical contractors think more work solves everything...
Bid more jobs.
Lower your prices.
Win more construction.
Hope next quarter is better.
Repeat until the market changes... and your pipeline disappears faster than yesterday's coffee.
Meanwhile...
We've worked with electrical contractors across every stage of business.
And the biggest breakthroughs usually follow the same pattern.
Like "The Matrix."
Same choice.
Different electrician.
Because great electrical businesses don't win by chasing work...
They earn the right to choose it.
But behind the scenes?
The strongest companies are built more like a system than a hustle.
In this episode, we break down the exact shift that helped build a premium electrical company that:
• survive economic downturns without racing to the bottom
• replace low-margin construction with recurring premium service work
• build systems that create consistency instead of chaos
• develop technicians into trusted advisors instead of order takers
• create customer experiences that justify premium pricing
Inside, you'll discover:
• Why the 2008 recession wasn't the real problem... the business model was.
• How leaving a software engineering career changed the future of a family electrical company.
• Why service is an entirely different business than construction.
• The systems that helped grow an electrical company to nearly $9M.
• Why competing on price is the wrong game for almost every contractor.
• How technician training becomes your biggest competitive advantage.
• The customer experience decisions most contractors completely overlook.
• Why chasing construction work is broken if long-term stability is your goal.
• The mindset shift that changed everything—and can change your business too.
Also...
There's the story of walking away from a successful software career to join the family business.
The uncomfortable reality of making tough decisions during the 2008 recession.
The moment they realized service wasn't just another department—it was a completely different business.
And the lessons learned while transforming a second-generation electrical company into a premium service organization.
If you're new here, binge the channel.
If you own an electrical service business, steal the framework.
If you want to scale to $1M+ with less chaos...
Watch the Million Dollar Plan below.
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And if you want to see our Million Dollar Plan — how we help Electric Service Business Owners build $1M+ companies without becoming a slave to the truck, the phone, or the chaos…
Watch here:
• The Service Transformer™: The 4 Stages of a Million Dollar Electrical Business
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Service work, that's evergreen. People always need stuff fixed. I had given up a high-paying career to basically stake my family's future on this business. We were just out of work and letting people go, you know, in the field, in the office. These were good people and it was painful. I was pretty panic stricken to be honest. In 2012, when I purchased the company, we were down to eight people, three in the office and five in the field.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So you've quadrupled staff and revenue with it, likely.
SPEAKER_03I'm interested in continuous improvement. So to have a whole new world opened up before me, I was just licking my tops. I was like, oh my gosh, there's so much to do here. Wow, look at all these cool things these people are doing. And yes, absolutely, like this is a real business.
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and work up those sales.
SPEAKER_04I'm Joseph Witchani, and together my co-host, Clayton Meyer. We're here to share the secrets of how electricians sell over a million dollars in single service.
SPEAKER_00Now, it's time for sale. It's time for sale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician.
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another great episode of the Million Dollar Electrician. Today is a special episode, but I am joined, as always, by my esteemed co-host, Joseph, the sales bot Lou Candy, also known as the Wizard of Options. If you guys didn't know this, uh, at the time of this coming out, I think there's a boot camp happening in this very moment. Every month, Joe's going front to back in a sales process that you and your team could attend. So if that's something that interests you, please send us a message where you heard this first. Today's a very special episode. We've got a special guest, Hans Frederickson. And Hans has a really cool background. Uh, Frederickson Electric. He went back. This is a family business, second generation, but Hans is going to tell us about how there's actually, I think, three generations of electricians. They're on uh track about just under 9 million with 34 staff after just a couple of hires. And when Hans joined back uh prior to the 08 crash, I think you mentioned you're doing about 2 million, mostly construction. So this is gonna be a really cool story. Hans, welcome to the show. And how are you doing, my brother?
SPEAKER_03Doing great. It's great to be with you guys. I appreciate the chance to chat with you both.
SPEAKER_01Pleasure's ours. Likewise. And Joe, how are you doing today, man?
SPEAKER_04I'm feeling beyond pumped. I don't know what it is, whether it's the third cup of coffee that I happen to be sipping, or the fact that I had a great start to my morning. I'm living the dream, my brother. I'm living the dream.
SPEAKER_01And I think there's a few more things I should point out about this interview. Hans, at one point you guys are really big in solar, or maybe still, is that true?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Solar is a big part of what we do. We're in three trades. So electrical is our core business. Uh, we started solar actually uh during the Great Recession to have some additional work to do. And uh and HBAC is our latest trade. But our cat our solar uh department works under a different brand name, Cascadia Solar. That's how people know our solar team.
SPEAKER_01Really cool. And I think prior to the show you mentioned your grandfather was uh an inspector locally, is that right? So also an electrician by trade?
SPEAKER_03He yeah, he actually trains to be an electrical inspector, I believe. I don't know if he worked much as an electrician, uh, but he uh was good at what he did and became the chief electrical inspector in Alameda County, actually down in California, where his family originated. Uh so that's that's our history in the electrical trade.
SPEAKER_04Three generations is no joke, my friend. And if nothing else, at least he had the insight with the inspector, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and uh, you know, it was it was my grandfather's involvement in the trade that uh led to my my dad learning the trade and and supporting our family and and starting the business that I run today.
SPEAKER_01How old were you when that business was started, established?
SPEAKER_03He started it the year I was born, so way back in 1974. I don't have you know, I'm businesses as old as I am. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_01That's really awesome. Joe, do you remember we just had an interview with Connor Bray? When his twins were born, he started the business like two months after. So this could be you know, this like inception into the future, a little insight here, foreshadowing maybe for Connor's kids one day.
SPEAKER_03Maybe lucky in that regard. That's amazing. Oh, there's something about the birth of a child that really makes a parent think about what's next. How am I gonna take care of this little human? And and business is obviously a great way to do that. So I think that's probably a common story.
SPEAKER_01So this is I didn't have a father who is an electrician. Uh, my dad's truck driver. Uh hold your jokes, guys, provided for us, did great, held the same job for like 45 years, I want to say. Uh awesome, awesome stuff. But like for you, was it always known that you were going to be an electrician? Was there lots of encouragement for this?
SPEAKER_03Or absolutely not. My father was interested in me being a happy person. I remember having a conversation with him when I was a little kid, I can't remember, maybe 10 years old. And he said, Hans, I just want you to be happy. If you're happy driving a garbage truck, so be it. There was no pressure to get into the trade, although it was I did like to make money in uh, you know, whether I was buying a new BMX bike or skis or something. And so he always provided that opportunity. But there was no thought uh even as a teenager that I would do this for a living.
SPEAKER_04I remember originally you were telling me about your history in music and the fact that you weren't even before even the.com era, you were doing uh becoming a recording studio, correct?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I loved music. Um, I played the cello in high school and thought I'm a technical person as well, so I thought, oh, what can I do for a living? And I thought it'd be really cool to be a recording engineer, and so that's what I went to college for originally. And uh it's really important when you think you know what you want to do to give it a try. So I did an internship at a recording studio in Seattle one one summer and during college, and I'm glad I did because it there were some cool things that happened, but I realized pretty quickly this is not what I want to do for a living.
SPEAKER_01At what point did you transition back to uh what you do today, electrical?
SPEAKER_03It took a few turns in the road. Uh, I went to grad school for engineering. Incidentally, my favorite class in grad school school was taught by a business professor and it was on entrepreneurship. And I should have taken that as a clue and got I could have got started earlier, but I stuck with the engineering. I had college loans to pay off. So I got a good job in software development and learned about systems and processes and and good stuff like that that I use to this day, as well as technology. But actually, with the birth of my son, we were living in the city and I didn't love it. I didn't love my job uh working in a cubicle. And at that time, my dad approached me about whether I might be interested in coming back and working with him again. And so that was 2005 that I made that change, had my loans paid off by then, so I was good to go. Took quite a pay cut initially, too, from being a software development engineer to uh being an electrician trainee again. Um, but it all it all worked down. How interesting.
SPEAKER_01So your dad gave you a pay cut. Well he wanted you to be happy, just not wealthy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he was actually more than fair. I think I was probably the highest paid uh trainee ever. But yeah, compared to what I was making, it was a it's a cool journey though.
SPEAKER_04You went from recording studio engineer to then software engineer at the height of software and then going to an electrician. So E N E engineer, engineer, electrician.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Really cool. Crazy. My co-workers in the tech industry thought I was absolutely nuts doing what I was doing, but it felt right, and I'm so glad that I did.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. So tell us, what was it like at that point? If you could describe the business in a few sentences, you know, what were you guys focused on, even going into the shop? You know, I'm just so curious on what those first days were like for you getting in there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, we were a great construction business and are to this day. We do a great job in in custom construction and remodeling. We don't do spec homes or developments anymore. We sort of priced ourselves out of that with the premium service that we offer. But we were super efficient, provided great service to general contractors on custom homes and spec homes and and developments, but just really moving fast, uh getting the work done, doing it with high quality, go, go, go. It was it was fun. And construction still is fun, although, like I say, we're in a little different segment of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very cool. And you mentioned at this point about 16 staff, is that right? And maybe maybe around 2 million a year in revenue.
SPEAKER_03That, yeah, I wasn't privy to the to the uh top-line numbers, but that was about the size of the company at the time I joined during the the big residential construction boom, 2005 to 2007 or so.
SPEAKER_01Are there people here today with you that were back then as well?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, absolutely. We got uh our our longest serving electrician. I worked with him as a trainee as a teenager. He's been with us 37 years. Wow. Um, yeah, yeah. No, my dad built a great team. Uh, I was so lucky. I mean, I I bought the company, yes, but I also inherited a great team that he had built. And a lot of them, bookkeeper is still with us, the office manager are our longtime who I would call my right-hand man, Frank. He's been with the company since I was a teenager. So, yeah, a long, a lot of longtime employees.
SPEAKER_04You know, something else that's cool in there is you seem to be talking about the original electrician that trained you with like a warm heart. And it's weird because not many electricians can say, Oh, remember the old guy who first brought you in? Yeah, I mean the one who made you go in the attics and the crawl spaces while you sat in the truck. Yeah, he was a great guy. So I think it's really good. You were able to have a great relationship with him too.
SPEAKER_03Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he's terrific. Uh the trainees to this day love him. And you know, the older and wiser electricians get, you know, the better mentors they make.
SPEAKER_01What do you think is the secret to keeping guys for a decade, let alone multiple decades?
SPEAKER_03You have to take good care of them. You have to provide a good environment where they can thrive, where they get the just right challenge for them, where they feel supported and not micromanaged, just providing the right combination of support and challenge. And yeah, I just just love our team, uh, especially the people that have been with us a long time, uh, and try to try to serve them really as is my job as an owner, is to make sure they're getting what they need to be happy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's amazing. That that's a great insight. I think this episode is going to be full of some insights that we don't get to cover too often. I really do appreciate you coming with this, Hans. Yeah, we've got so many different questions than we get to ask in in many of our interviews. So, yeah, I want to keep going with this. So you mentioned that the Great Recession happens and some things get shaken up. What was that like for you guys? What happened there?
SPEAKER_03It was really, really hard. Uh, I had given up a high-paying career to basically stake my family's future on this business, and we were just out of work and letting people go and you know, in the field, in the office, and these were these were good people, and it was painful. And I was pretty panic stricken to be honest. I immediately we got into advertising. I said, well, service work that's evergreen. People always need stuff fixed. Let's get in the yellow pages, let's build a website. And so we started it at that time. I realized diversification was going to be the key, especially in our small rural market. It wasn't like we could just slug it out with with other construction electricians and grow our market share and survive that way. We really just needed to be doing more things, and so we got into service and it was and solar at that time as well. And it was a slow start, and I had no idea what I was doing. If only I had access to uh the information that you all have developed 20 years ago, it would have been a completely different story for us. But that's the way things were rolling out then was what can we do to keep those vans rolling and keep those people in work.
SPEAKER_04I have a question on that, if you don't mind, because I agree with you that service is evergreen. And I think that's a phenomenal direction to go. Because if you had gone full construction, it would have been just who can go lower and who can do a little bit more. What made you decide like to come to the conclusion that service was evergreen? It was like a group concession that y'all came to saying we're gonna shift to this, like because that's a big shift. What made you decide to take it on?
SPEAKER_03You know, honestly, I didn't know enough to really even think it was a big shift at the time. It was like, well, we know how to do electrical, so let's just uh make sure we're doing anything electrical that can be done around here. But it wasn't until much, much later that I realized that the service business is totally different from the construction business. And the customers have pretty different needs uh between a general contractor and a homeowner. We, you know, for years and years and years until we started, I went to a conference and industry conference and started running into home services professionals. We were treating homeowners like general contractors. And they're not the same. Builders want they want you to stay on budget. Uh, they maybe want you to offer some value engineering, they want you to stay on schedule, you know, they want you to minimize your change orders because that's just more work for everybody, and they want you to execute on the plans that are drawn, right? And homeowners, they want you to solve their problem, they want you to educate them, they want you to give them choices, they want you to help them make a good decision. And you know, you can't assume that they're gonna deal with all the loose ends, the the patching and painting and excavation, and oh, you know, you need to go and get your own trench dug. Really? That's the way we used to operate. And um, so yeah, it was a real epiphany uh when I went to a conference and with a home services conference and and heard people basically speak in a different language from me. And I knew that what we were doing, we were doing with really talented, good people on our team, but we were working so hard. And we were successful to a point, but man, there had to be an easier way, and we discovered that there was, and we're well on our way uh to doing that.
SPEAKER_04It made me so happy to hear. I don't know if you guys saw me like pop out of my skin, but you're like, when you offer the painting, when you offer the patching, when you offer the trenching, when you offer to bring the materials, offer to pick the lights out, a lot of electricians will be like, You're nuts. Like, that's just too much risk. Why why can't I just deliver the generator and have the customer sign for it and leave it there? But the person who does say, all you gotta do is write the check. That's all you have to do. I'll even give you a hard hat and a margarita, you can watch me work. That's really top-tier service. Was that like something that you just came through via experience, or did someone actually like teach you that?
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, it was a lot of you guys and your content that I watched, honestly, because I I think until I started watching your videos, Joseph, that I still resisted being the general contractor and taking care of all of those loose ends for the customer for the same reason that everyone does. If you're used to being a subcontractor, you aren't thinking about those things. And you think maybe the, you know, you're used to working with builders who just pick up the phone and call the excavator they use, and they call the drywaller they use, and the painter. And your homeowner doesn't have that in their toolbox. And it just you people have to realize you've got to you they don't have to accept that top option that includes that turnkey installation, but you better be offering it and you better make those phone calls and build your own team of subs. Yeah, no, we're electricians, we don't patch and texture the holes that we make in the walls. But if we're not offering that service, then you know we can't call ourselves a premium service provider.
SPEAKER_04Music to my ears.
SPEAKER_01I've never had a more right time to admit what I'm about to admit to you guys. Before getting into service myself and eventually joining forces with Joseph, there was a period of time where I was going to take the opposite angle to try to teach basic project management to homeowners because this service provider, this style of service that we represent today, did not exist. There was no one doing service at this level, not that I could find, not that I was experiencing. And I was seeing homeowners suffer, right? And so they don't understand the constraints of project management, they don't understand how the general contractors are looking at it, and so they're they're feeling let down consistently, and the contractors feeling like they're doing their job, and so this gap actually has two sides. Uh, but I'd much rather the side that we represent now, this is the better fit. I don't know where that would have gone, but yeah, it it's a big problem. It really is.
SPEAKER_04I can tell you where that would have gone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_04And here's why because obviously you're brilliant at what you do, and I love that you would arm them, and I guarantee you would have taught them well. But what that means for us electricians is now we're going to homeowners who know everything. They're like, I got my budgets, I got my materials, I spec this out. You're not getting away with nothing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we would have been enemies for sure. I just it's the same want though, and that's why I admit it here, right? Is because I just wanted better outcomes. I I want everyone to be happy too. And so, same thing Hans is saying. Another thing you said, Hans, and I'm gonna go a different direction in this podcast a little bit, guys. I want to also kind of pull the curtain back on what you said about custom homes. Is the crash around the time that you started realizing that spec homes were gonna be really commoditized after that? There's too much bidding happening, bidding wars, etc. And is that where the custom shift happened, or was that later?
SPEAKER_03Well, with spec homes and developments, basically construction for developers, they're looking to maximize their profit. And so they're uh willing to manage sort of sub uh contractors, subcontractors with subpar service uh in order to um get a better bottom line on their project. And that really just wasn't what we were offering. So it was sort of a natural shift. We didn't tell anyone we're getting out of the spec home business. Like I we would do a spec home today if someone would hire us to do it. Um, but we just found that as we as we priced our work appropriately to stay in business, we found that we were just started the phone stopped ringing for those types of projects. And developers was the first thing to go. We at the before I joined the company, actually, we'd lost the contract, but we at one time wired all the new homes in a in a whole community to the south of us. But it they were just constantly, you know, changing ownership, and the new owners would look at everything and try to get everything done cheaper. So it's just not a great business. You look at the people that that work there and you wonder, do you have health insurance? You know, do you are you able to provide for your family? Uh I just didn't ever want to run a company like that. So we we haven't looked back.
SPEAKER_04You know what's cool about that, Clay? You actually made a cool uh I remember you you quote something pretty often, and I'm gonna do my best to get it here, but I think it's a perfect representation, which is if you don't have a plan of your own, you fit into someone else's plan. And what do they have planned for you? Not much. And that sounds like the perfect development situation with it. It's like they want to cut their costs, so they're gonna make sure they squeeze you because you fit into their plan. But you decided to break out of that cycle, and now you're in a situation where you can take it, but only at the price range you know actually equals your value.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, excellent, exactly. Yeah, really good. If you had to sum this up, I don't know, maybe you guys already have a playbook in House Hans that you use for this, but if you had to sum it up in just a few sentences for guys listening that want to succeed uh better with custom homes in their area, what would you say is the playbook to success with that, with uh custom home wiring?
SPEAKER_03You gotta pay attention to your customer. Your general contractor has an incredibly difficult job. They are managing a custom project that's full of changes. Uh, one thing that that changes that the customer doesn't want to change is their budget. And so you have to be providing a quick feedback loop to the builder whenever their customer asks for an extra. This is what this is going to cost. And do it quickly enough that there isn't a schedule impact. And the builder can put that information in front of their customer and you can keep going. The worst thing, and we lost builders, quite honestly, when I first joined the company, because we, if if a project was too complicated, we would do it TNM. Um, we had some real exotic structures, and we still like we have a TNM project going right now, just because the structure is so exotic that there is no estimating tool. But you know, you have to we lost a really important customer because we sent them one bill after three months of work, one TNM bill, and we just weren't keeping them updated on the cost of our work, really created a big problem for them. So, you know, builders, we love our custom builders, or you know, they're loyal to us because we provide you know the service that they need to run a successful project for their customers and understanding that is the key to success.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. Yeah, great insights. I'm hearing lots on communication and and staying current with your communication as well. Kind of takes a team, doesn't it? Do you find that your custom builders, you're working with quite a number of their people, or do you usually just have one representative that all things flow from you guys to them?
SPEAKER_03Well, it depends on the size of the builder, but yeah, we we work with their whole team. One thing about communication is that you must always keep them in the loop. When their clients come to you directly, you reroute them. I mean, you don't you you just CC the builder on your reply, you check in with your builder. The worst thing you can do to a builder is go down a path with their client that they have no idea what's going on. Um, so that's really important. Um, understanding the different personalities of the people working for your GC and what they need to be successful. Basically, just trying to be the star employee uh on their team is is is what uh ends up creating success for everybody.
SPEAKER_01Really good. Do you find that you've had payment issues over the years in construction? And if so, how have you what systems have you been able to put in place to help with that?
SPEAKER_04Good question.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's really good. Not anymore. We will fire a builder if they don't honor their commitment to us to to pay them to be paid. We have builders that we won't work for because of the history of non-payment or slow payment. It's it's a respect issue. So I'm I'm glad that we're in a position to do that. I think a lot of times people getting into the trade, they'll get picked up by unscrupulous builders and they'll get burned. And that's really tough. Uh, I sympathize with that. You're just trying to get a business started, and some, you know, someone who's just going through subs, uh, like they're changing underwear, might pick you up, and it can be hard. One thing we can do, we have lien rights, but you'd have to understand what uh how to make them enforceable. Uh, we had a situation last year. Um, new contractor approached us, taking over a project from another electrician, red flag immediately. And so we we you do a little research if you see anything on that general contractor's online reputation that isn't good, you know, poor reviews from customers or even more uh subcontractors not being paid. We had a builder with that kind of profile, and I said, hmm, okay, well, uh, here's your bid, and here's the lien notice we're sending to your client. It's just a formality. Uh, we do it with all our builders, not really, to just to let them know that um, you know, if we don't get paid, that we can put a lien on their property and never heard from that builder again. So um protect yourself and your your people. Because if you get in deep in a situation where you're not getting paid, it can be devastating.
SPEAKER_04I agree completely. Um thinking back as like a new electrician or someone starting their business, what would you advise? Because I know you said there's some warning signs, but like what specific steps would you take as someone who's new to the industry who wants to get in that area? What are there other specific warning signs other than looking at reputation?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think a lot of people who get into construction, they you know, just starting up, maybe they worked for another company because they're on site every day with a certain builder, they establish a relationship and then they turn that into work for their own business. That's a pretty common scenario. If you know that that builder did right by your previous employer, you can probably trust them. But I think understanding lean laws and just making sure that that you're covered, that you're protected, and that you send your invoices on time and then call immediately if they don't get paid on time, make a big deal out of it. Wow, what's going on? Uh are you okay? You know, you could say to your builder, I learned this from a from an attorney because I took a contract law class. He says, I'm just make a huge deal out of not getting paid on time. Like something must have happened. Were you in a car accident? You know, just so they are on the same page with you that, hey, yes, it's important actually that you that you pay me.
SPEAKER_01Joe, I want to take a run at your question too, here and weave in what Hans is saying because when I reflect back, the greatest threat to me getting paid was not actually them, it was me. And here's what I mean by that an ounce of discipline is worth a ton of regret. And so what Hans said in doing the due dilly, right? Do that due diligence and actually look into people you don't have relationships with. Ask around, try to find someone that does, try to get some experience out of this instead of what we end up doing when we first start is the desperate thing. Out of desperation, we dream about how this project will save us, how much money we'll have in the bank account after this one. Which, by the way, one out of a hundred projects actually ends that way. In my experience, it's never that big glorious finish. It's like, no, this is a good investment of our time and resources to do this and come out with a uh suggested profit margin. And we think we could do that. Would you agree with that, Hans? Just a quick sideshow there. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but yeah, that big glorious vision. So that ounce of discipline worth a ton of regret, if we'll take the time and be kind of objective to what we hope and dream about a project, I think that goes a long way. And the second piece of it that ties directly into this is the ounce of pre-frame is worth a ton of reframe. I love both of those expressions. Everything I've learned about collecting after the fact has suggested that if we did more upfront conversation about money, it's way better on the back end, just like Hans just mentioned with like then make a big deal out of it because you had an agreement, and it's very uh troubling when someone doesn't follow that agreement, but it's troubling for them too. And if you don't talk about these things up front, and then you bring it up concerned after the fact, you've got way less ground to stand on. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it's scary. You know, I can agree with you. Like almost like not having a handshake deal, but also making sure that you got some to back it up as some terms because if you don't, they could say I misunderstood. And okay, then prove me wrong. I can't. So therefore, it is gonna be net 90.
SPEAKER_01Enjoy your weight. Like, even in service, what we teach that 50% deposit rule. I've had way more arguments with business owners and the reluctance to just ask for a deposit than I ever have with homeowners asking for a deposit for the work.
SPEAKER_04Yes, 100% agree with you. You know, there was actually even circumstances where we were advised to collect payment in full. And I remember there was a point where I was taught that and I didn't agree with it, and a customer actually insisted to pay me in full. Where I was like, Well, we only take 50%. Well, can I write it at all? Well, no, you don't have to. Well, I have the money now, I may not have the money later. Can I just square this away while we have it? And my mind was blown. So yeah, I agree. Deposits are absolutely essential, and the customers are willing to give more than we expect that they will.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And sometimes um trades professionals won't do take really important steps because there's actually it's they they see it as an obstacle, like, okay, well, how do I actually take a deposit? How do I invoice for that? How do I do the bookkeeping? Like, I'm not sure, so I'll just bill at the end, you know. And they let minor inconveniences prevent them from doing really important pre-frames, pre-work to make sure that they have a successful outcome. And I think for people starting out in business or trying to improve your business, work on your processes and your systems before you grow big, like I did. It's so much harder to turn a big ship and do things differently after you're running it full steam. If you have some downtime because you just started your business, man, take advantage of that. Borrow from the wisdom that's being shared online now, set up your systems, get everything just polished so you can scale. Uh, you don't want to solve those problems later on.
SPEAKER_04You know, there's one other thing speaking while we're still on deposits, is I've also found it as a truth device. And the reason being is that you can have a customer who's like, yes, we're gonna take this job, we agree with you, you're gonna be our guy, schedule us. Okay, wonderful. Well, I need a 50% deposit. Ooh, well, I'm still getting estimates, of course, you know, but like, no, I can't give you right now. I you don't have the job. And a couple seconds ago, they're like, oh yeah, you're the guy, schedule it. Or even worse, it's like, why should you front everything? They have no reason to honor their agreement with you, but you already expended for the generator and there's minimal return policies. It's like that's a huge risk. Why take it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Hey, you guys, if this episode sparked something for you, imagine stacking that every single week. That's how businesses stop flickering and start running steady. If you subscribe to the show or leave a review if you're on audio, and if you're driving down the road, please pull over when it's safe because I've got something you're not gonna want to skip. For every person that subscribes and or leaves a review and fills out the form below, letting us know that you did that thing. We're gonna draw one monthly subscriber for our open circuit lifetime membership worth $1,500. And that's no. Every six months, we're actually gonna draw another subscriber for our $5,000 scholarship, which you can use for any of our electric service packages to get your business and your service rocking better than ever. Come on, guys, let's brighten this thing up. Is it gonna be you? Back to the show. Hans, I want to get back to the story if I can. Just in that great recession, did you take ownership of the business already? Or was your dad still?
SPEAKER_03No, but that was the plan, but things were so rough that it didn't make sense. So we actually delayed the transition. I did step into the management role um and he stepped back. This would be around by 2010. I think I was running the day-to-day mostly. Yeah, it turned from about a three-year plan into a seven-year plan just so he could see the business through the choppy waters. You know, he had he'd been successful, he had, you know, the capital to keep the business going in the down months, and and he did that, thank God he did, because there was no way if I had purchased the business in 2008 that we would have I would have been able to keep it going.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. You know, you remind me so much, and I'm sure I've told you about this before. For 12 years, I worked in different capacities for a family-run business. And when I was first hired, I was hired by the dad in a transition where the sons, the two brothers, were taking over. And the one son was really the ops and management, and the other son was out in the field. So I had the great pleasure of working with both in different capacities and eventually just contracting, consulting to them. But I will never forget named Don Sterling, he passed away, unfortunately. Rest in peace, Don, just a couple of years ago. Looked like Santa Claus, big mitts on him, and we'd spend weeks estimating these industrial projects, and he'd go, What's your number? And he'd pick up this pack of paper that you just estimated from all your drawings, right? All the stipulations, all the RFP documents. He'd pick it up and by weight, he'd throw it on the table and say a number. And he's usually within five or ten percent of what we would have spent so much time estimating, and he'd go, Yep, it's good. Let's do it, send it. And that was like our test. It's just such a funny story, and your story reminds me of this. So I wanted to bring it up. What are what's a couple of the like moments or major impacts that your dad had on you taking over this management? And what was that transition like for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was just really lucky with my dad. Like I said, he built a really great team. So I wasn't, you know, there on my own doing things. There were really experienced people all around me. My dad gave me the nuggets about you know how to treat customers, how to treat employees to serve them and take care of them, and they'll take care of you. Those kinds of ethics are really the key things that he passed on to me. I've ended up changing the business quite a lot since I joined, but uh it uh he allowed me to do that. I mean, I remember one month, like I had this big commercial solar project going. It was in the depths of the recession, and I hadn't done a progress billing, and so he was looking at a huge loss for the month, and he he kind of a little bit concerned, but just kind of comes up to me and is like, uh, so do you have any billing to do? Like, what's happening? You know, and I mean, I'm sure if I was in his shoes, I would have been sweating bullets, but he trusted me, and that trust was priceless. It really allowed me to to innovate and and turn the business into what it is today. And I'm very thankful to him for that.
SPEAKER_01That's really beautiful. Is there something you did along that journey that he disagreed with, but let you roll forward with anyway, like a big change solar maybe service? Did he apply?
SPEAKER_03Sure, there was, but he never told me. Okay.
SPEAKER_04That's a good dad there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. And so you officially bought the business from him. Wasn't uh legacy passed down, this was an actual transaction that you guys did.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we worked with a business advisor who had experience in valuing and selling small businesses, and it was really helpful in order to sort of capture some of the value that I was creating with the new areas of business. We used a Phantom stock mechanism to sort of give me some idea, uh, some actual equity in the business before the transaction occurred. So essentially I got a discount on the purchase of the business that was equivalent to the value that I added. And it was pretty cool uh the way it all worked out. Very proud, you know, to have been able to buy the business from my parents and help them with their retirement. I think it was a win-win for everyone.
SPEAKER_01Do you see yourself and learning from that experience, do you see yourself uh with a bit of a skill set and a hunger to buy more businesses in the future? Or is that something you've done again since?
SPEAKER_03I've really I've considered that. My preference for building a business is to train the people in-house. I've always placed a high value on training. We've always had electrician trainees. We've been making huge investments in training. We uh went through the process to become a registered apprenticeship, in-house registered apprenticeship program here in Washington State, which is no small feat. And uh, so we have apprentices and they are in, we're we're paying our master electrician, Mike, to teach apprenticeship classes, 206 hours of class a year. So the thing is, you can hire invest in people, you can hire for your culture and train them to the idea of acquiring a business and having sort of unknown quantities. The majority of experienced electricians that I've hired over the years have kind of moved on after a while. We have some great folks that we did hire with experience, but we've had better luck in the long run training our own people. So that's my preference and not quite sure. I do want to continue growing. It's important to me to make a difference with my business. I won't say no to acquisition, but it's not top of mind right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's fair. I didn't know. Joe, have you heard of that before? Is that a common thing in the US? I mean, it sounds uncommon for to answer the beginning of that question, but I didn't even think that was possible north of the border here to actually do the theory side of the training. That's what you're saying, right? You're training the theory side and how it's teaching classes.
SPEAKER_03206 hours a year of classroom and labs, over 40% are hands-on labs. So conduit bending, troubleshooting, controls. Apprenticeship is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I don't love that we're forced to do it. And here in Washington now, it was either we do our own or we I had to send our apprentices two hours away toward the nearest classroom for that same 200 hours a year of class, which was gonna be a real burden for them. So we because we're in a rural area, so we we started our own and it's been great, very costly to do, uh, no help from the state, really, and for the costs of it, which is difficult, but so far, so good. And yeah, it is it is rare. We're one of only a handful of independent programs in the whole state. Wow.
SPEAKER_04That actually makes a lot of sense because in my perspective, I'm not aware of the legality of it, but my preference was to take new technicians, teach them the skills, and then invest in them so they stay. So the way I saw it, apprenticeship was almost like a requirement of being in business. So we would create workbooks and we would teach the theory, and it just became essential. But as far as creating like an accredited program like that is truly above and beyond. And I cannot stress the amount of respect to have that you did that. It's truly, truly impressive and very out of the ordinary for an average electrical company, let alone the kind of scales we're trying to create.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it took us several years to make it happen. So it was a it was a big effort.
SPEAKER_04It's like taking a requirement and just excelling it, because I can also imagine that being like a recruiting agency, too. Or it's like we have this whole accreditation program. Why wouldn't you just go and start with the internship with Frederickson? Like, we're the ones who taught you. Here's a one shoe in the door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we we have our program because it's registered is is searchable and we we get regular inquiries from apprentices who either out of work or want to be an apprentice. Um, I wish we had more capacity to train more people, but you know, it's it's limited by business in a in a small rural area.
SPEAKER_01But you have your essentially you've got a funnel of interested parties then coming through you. I mean, you kind of have to the crop then for for the rural area anyway.
SPEAKER_03That's yeah, it's pretty exciting, you know, in the last five years, I would say, the amount of respect that the trades are getting now, and particularly the electrical trade. You have a tremendous amount of people interested in being electricians, which is not has not been the case historically. So we if we open up a position for an electrician trainee, we'll get 50 applications for one opening, which is uh pretty remarkable. I used to struggle to get just a few when we started. So so yeah, it's pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this apprenticeship chat. I mean, this is a whole other one. We could do a whole other podcast on this.
SPEAKER_04Agreed.
SPEAKER_01I used to consult for the Board of Apprenticeships and uh and we we have the Industry Training Authority, they call it here, and I I helped write the Red Seal exams a few years ago, and it's there's an underwhelming response of electricians willing to take time off work to go and help these people do that. So we have a uh kind of a problem in in Canada as well with this, where it's like some of this is kind of just bootstrapped. There's teachers that don't really know the field, and there's field guys that don't really show up for the teachers, and so it uh the whole industry suffered very interesting dilemma. So really cool. I'm really interested in that. I want to get back to your story though. And so you take ownership, and at this time, how big was the company when you take ownership, Hans? And how big, how much growth have you seen since then?
SPEAKER_03In 2012, when I purchased the company, we were down to eight people, three in the office and five in the field.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So you've quadrupled staff and revenue with it, likely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean, we we had a fifty year Or 40-year reputation at that time. The reputation was there in the community to support the larger business, but we just spent through a terrible time with the recession.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no doubt. And you said you learned some lessons with solar as well. And you're still doing solar today, you mentioned, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, solar is a is a really great business. There are certain things you do as an electrician that are really rewarding. Um, new lighting, where you light up a work someone's workshop and and they're just delighted with that. Solar gives you that every single day. People just love installing solar. It's not something they have to do, it's something they want to do. And now with batteries, the lithium-ion batteries that are available and the the emergency backup systems, it's a really exciting space. It is pretty competitive, and we were facing some headwinds in the US now with the ending of some really nice incentives at the federal level, but people are still moving ahead with solar, and it's just a really fun business.
SPEAKER_04The accreditation, they um the promotions really have drastically changed. I agree with you. Like I remember, what was it, like in 2012, 2013, you could almost get like 50% off of the entire thing, the government feedback. And now, from what I understand, when I was researching it a couple of years ago, they give you as much as like 20,000 as a tax rebate. And then how low has it gotten at this point?
SPEAKER_03Well, there was a 30% federal tax credit for both residential and then commercial, and that's a big deal. Uh on the commercial side, you know, also it's it's capital improvement, so you get depreciation on that. So with that 30% tax credit gone, that is uh a tough value proposition. We're getting less people who are purely in it with a financial motivation, and more of the people who want the emergency backup, want the clean power, the environmental aspect of it, tend to be more of those customers than than prior.
SPEAKER_04Your pool becomes good people then.
SPEAKER_01Do you find that you're doing more commercial residential equal split?
SPEAKER_03Well, we're we are, we're in a rural county of 30,000 people, surrounded by other rural counties for the most part. Most of what we do is residential, just across the business. About three-quarters of our revenue is residential and uh on the commercial side, small business, you know, local government, uh, those sorts of projects are what we're doing currently.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Do you find there's competition in your area with uh the bold walkers, the people just going door-to-door, creative financing, leveraging the rebates, and just trying to get you and solar on your roof for basically nothing up front?
SPEAKER_03Fortunately not. They didn't come our way. They they were present in in the metro areas and they did leave some kind of unhappy people behind. They're they're basically gone now with the tax credits gone. I I don't think there's much of that around anymore. Major, we call them solar bros, sales-focused uh and not execution-focused companies. Uh really unfortunate that they existed because solar is such a cool technology and it gave it a bad name in a lot of people's minds. But they're not around as much anymore, thankfully. Also, Washington, uh, the legislature was on top of things and they passed a consumer protection bill specifically for solar that made a lot of those practices illegal and required transparency and bidding and so forth that really helped protect an industry of good folks here in Washington. So I believe highly in contractor associations. In Washington State, we have the solar, used to be called Solar Installers of Washington, and now is the Washington Solar Energy Industries Association. But I highly recommend that contractors get involved in associations so that your interests can be represented uh in your local government and state governments because it makes such a difference to an industry to have good regulation. So it's something I believe in a lot. And I agree with you there.
SPEAKER_04Now I remember at one point, you know, you and I have had obviously multiple different, you know, conversations, and one of the things that came to mind was the Franklin A-Gate, because I was super sold on it. I was like, it's the best technology ever. But I remember you explaining how like it wasn't future compatible. Is that still like a thing that is a concern for the solar industry? Like it's developing so quickly that it's hard to gauge where it's going to land.
SPEAKER_03We'd have a whole podcast on the future of energy in the smart grid. Um, and I don't know that Franklin A-Gate's not future compatible, so to speak. Uh, but they we have a lot of with the battery manufacturers and their and their um equipment, we have a lot of proprietary communications technologies. Um I don't feel comfortable selling someone an incomplete grid-connected system with just the transfer switch portion of the battery for the with the idea in mind of adding batteries in the future. With the solar industry in particular, the code has changed so rapidly from when I started to being, you know, maybe one or two pages in Article 690 of the NEC, and now it's I don't know how many, but it's exploded. And to the point where when we go back to try to maintain older solar PV systems, sometimes we have to take the array apart and reinstall it to bring it up to code. Um, depending on what the customer needs. We can't get the old inverters that work with those systems anymore. And so it's it's a it's dangerous, I think, to recommend to a customer a solution that's not complete at the time of installation.
SPEAKER_04You know, that actually makes a lot more sense in context, because my intention was to say if this is a perfect thing, you can do EV and yeah, and solar and generator backup, so just install it in every home next to the meter. But now I understand what you're saying, where it's like if you can't do the whole thing all at once, it may not be able to come back to in like a 10-year time or a five-year time.
SPEAKER_03It would be wonderful if all the manufacturers would get together and agree on a standard communication. You know, like we have two-wire transfer switches and generators, and any generator can probably work with any two-wire transfer switch. Um, it'd be nice if if there was some communication standard for batteries and in their transfer switches. I won't hold my breath. There's a lot of money to be made with uh uh so-called virtual power plants and demand response from battery distributed energy storage. Like I say, a whole other podcast topic, probably.
SPEAKER_04We look forward to having that one with you.
SPEAKER_01So, from what I'm hearing, just without much context on that conversation, for anyone that isn't, it's not so much a capacity or ampacity issue, more of maybe a compatibility and the and products actually staying on the market. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and then the code changing and making equipment obsolete, even if it's perfectly functional, suddenly you can't buy a piece that goes with that old equipment anymore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fair enough. And my logic with that was if you have something that can offer your customer value, like let's say we take apart a service and you're already doing the meter and we're already doing the new line, why not install something? But with that logic, yeah, it's like I'd hate to offer something. Exactly. It's perfect. Like, why not put the ATS if you're gonna do it? So that was more the logic, and Hans was able to guide me in the right direction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, cool conversations. Love that. Uh, do you have like a Hallmark solar project Hans? Maybe one you even shoot pictures over to someone when they're interested in solar. Is there one you're particularly proud of? Uh that's always a fun question I find with the solar and the battery banks. Anything stand out for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the ones some of the most exciting projects we're doing right now are actually funded by Washington State. We have a carbon tax here, and then some of the money from that goes towards resiliency projects. So we've done some solar and storage projects on churches and other sort of places of refuge. Uh, one of the things that we're concerned about here in Washington is a it's called the Cascadia subduction zone with the potential for just a massive earthquake and tsunami. Distributed energy storage and solar power is really a terrific way to address that. And we've done some really cool projects on churches. The most recent one we did was a project called Helpline House on Bainbridge Island. And this is a food bank where the walk-in refrigeration is backed up with batteries and solar. And uh we just brought that online about a month ago. They had a power outage recently in the late afternoon, and the solar was powering the refrigeration. The batteries didn't even have to pick up the load yet because the sun was still out. Really cool things. And to think about how valuable that'll be to the community. I mean, it's a nonprofit organization that is going to see low or or zero uh electric bills on their building for you know the next couple of decades, but they also have this awesome emergency power system that that might come in to be extremely valuable, worst case scenario. So pretty proud of those installations.
SPEAKER_01You described prior to the show kind of a moment that changed everything. And this might have been regarding service, even something with Pantheon. Do you know what I'm talking about there?
SPEAKER_03So I have a complicated business. We're in three trades. We do construction, we do service. Uh, I couldn't make sense of the numbers. Like I knew we we were a profitable company always, but uh I didn't know why. And I didn't know if one uh department might be subsidizing another. And so uh Service Titan is is a very powerful, very complicated software that keeps track of all those things. And so I I bought into Service Titan about four years ago now uh with the goal of bringing light, shedding light on the financials for for all the business units. And uh they invited me to come to their conference. I'd never done anything like that. I was not sure I would go. Uh their conference is called Pantheon, and they they alternate between California and Orlando. Well, they gave me a free ticket, so I'm like, oh what the heck, I'll go. So glad that I went. That was the beginning of this epiphany that I had that service was a different business. People were speaking a different language at that conference. They were talking about booking rates and average tickets and and things that I hadn't heard before in my little neck of the woods. And uh that was just the beginning. It exposed to me, you know, eventually finding folks like yourselves, subscribing to podcasts, reading books. So that was sort of my introduction into what real home services businesses look like. It was pretty exciting. And I've been going every year since.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I always maintained that service was more like a, and forgive my language for for the projects folks and yourself, but more like a real business in the sense that we really had to focus on marketing to many customers, control and around many leads, booking rates, etc. Is that kind of what you mean by that, Hans? Just lean into that a bit. And did this kind of itch that entrepreneurial scratch uh uh scratch, that entrepreneurial itch that you mentioned a bit more earlier?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm interested in continuous improvement. So to have a whole new world open up before me, I was just licking my chops. I was like, oh my gosh, there's so much to do here. Wow, look at all these cool things these people are doing. And yes, absolutely, like this is a real business. You can run a successful construction business with zero marketing, and we did for many, many years. And having my eyes open first with marketing and then with sales. Sales is not something that I intuitively get or love, but I've developed a huge respect for it. And yeah, home services is everything. It's got all the challenges as any business owner could could want are in in home services. Uh, you got the challenge of marketing, the challenge of sales, customers, execution, delivery, finances, developing employees. I mean, we're the skilled trades. One of the most common challenges for home services companies is how do we get skilled labor? So it's it's made my job incredibly interesting to get into all of this.
SPEAKER_01At the same time, if you just heard that for the first time, you might want to crawl under a deck and hide. You know, run, sprinting away from that. What compels you to move towards that?
SPEAKER_03Well, uh I agree. And uh there's so much expert knowledge. You guys give a lot of free knowledge out on the internet, as do others. There's so many experts now that didn't used to be accessible. Uh for anyone who's feeling overwhelmed, I would say, you know, start with a group like yours. Learn from the wisdom that is being collected and and distributed on the internet. And uh yeah, just just take it one step at a time. It is possible to start from nothing. And and if you follow the the well-worn path of of the folks who've been there and done that, you can avoid a lot of their mistakes, which is, I think, ultimately what gives you guys satisfaction is, you know, hey, let's help these people not step in the same holes that I stepped into, and and just to watch them be successful. So it's it's probably with AI and everything, there may not have be a better time to get into this business where all the knowledge is there for the taking if if people have the motivation and the drive to do it.
SPEAKER_01If I had to choose a partner in a completely new business, I would a hundred out of a hundred times choose someone who has managed or owned a service company versus someone who has managed or owned a construction company. And it's not to say or discount the skill sets that come with project management and all the rest of it. I think just like you and the software and the sound and and what you learned with those uh in those um organizations, I think that helps you immensely too. That's been my experience also. But just for the fact that you've seen that whole business cycle and you understand how to get a customer and keep a customer and how important it is. You mentioned something earlier, um, kind of how you have to treat contractors and homeowners different. And prior to the show, you were talking about time material pricing and being Mr. Fixit a bit. Is that how you started service? And and if so, what do you mean by that when you say Mr. Fixit?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so we send our very experienced uh electricians out on TNM service calls. They with a description of the work that the customer has requested, and they just dive right into it and they do it efficiently. People loved us. We had five-star ratings when we were doing TNM. We were efficient, we were quick, we were profitable, um, not overly so, and people people liked it, but it was really challenging to manage, really challenging to scale. Uh, you've got uh electricians bringing back material lists, and you got a bunch of office staff cranking out invoices, emailing them, hoping they got paid. So just that the logistics of it were painful, but worse than that was really for the customer. They were getting just the bare minimum that they could think of. The electricians weren't being creative, uh, weren't allowed to be creative really under this system. They're basically there just to do what the customer stated, and going to an options mentality where you start with a customer's pain point or goal or objective, and you offer them a range of solutions so that they're able to pick. It's it's like magic. I mentioned that our average ticket for electrical service in the first two months uh we started in May, so just three months ago, doubled from what it was prior to when we were doing TNM and Mr. Fix It. And it wasn't because uh we were upselling, we followed the process, we gave people options, we didn't pressure them one way or the other. Any any option is a good option. Don't expect you to take this top option, just want you to know what's possible. And dang, if they don't pick that top option and you're wondering, gosh, did I really give them the top option for them? You know? So that's what we're doing right now. Like, like, okay, so if you're selling the gold option every time, maybe we need to get more creative and offer these people even more mind-blowing solutions and just to let them know what's possible, because some people are gonna want that.
SPEAKER_04That is a key difference in mentality, and I absolutely love it because there are some people who be like, I keep closing platinums, I keep closing gold, go, keep doing the same thing. But you're looking at it like, okay, well, if that's the limit, that's the level, do we actually want to sell the platinums? No, we want to know if we want to put it as a bar that you can't reach. But when they start reaching it, now you know how to come up with more creative solutions. I love that you adopted that mentality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a really great book called Go for No. And it's all about um make sure you keep offering things to your customer until they say they've had they they have what they want. Because if you don't, you're not serving them fully, you're not making the most of the opportunity. And so you're really and it's not a pressure thing. It's like, okay, you wanted that, so how about this? You know, I think one thing that uh that we're still working on is the installer upgrade where yeah, installers are keeping their ears open for additional requests. We've had some success with that when we have our technicians who are trained on the process involved with an install, uh, and it's worked out great. And the customers love to be able to add things to the project as it goes on. So that's an exciting thing we're working on as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love what you said there. And sounds like you've got some staying power with the customer too, making sure that you really are not just meeting their needs, but expanding maybe on the wants, like you said about solar. It's not something they need necessarily, it's something they want. A lot of the challenge here is they don't know what they don't know. So we have to very eloquently do a bit of a dance to educate them on what they might be interested in knowing. And that dance is kind of eloquent because we err on the side of too much. A lot of guys do this, make this mistake, and now it's just a confused mind can never buy. There's just so much information that went too far. So deciding that relevance factor is really this dance that I've that I'm kind of talking about. In that dance, you mentioned solar bros earlier. Hans, how do you stop from being, and maybe you answered this a bit already, but how do you think about it and keeping yourself from becoming service bros, focused too much on the sales and not enough on the execution?
SPEAKER_03Good question. Well, it starts with hiring the right people and having the right culture, right? Because there are people who find themselves into sales because they love winning, you know, the big commission check. And, you know, I've heard from employees who worked at other other companies that they had technicians who would forge customer signatures to get the uh on contracts to get the commission they wanted. Like you cannot allow someone like that in on your team. So starting with people, you know, that was the thing with the Solar Bros, too. Like, you know, that stuff would go on and and you just can't allow it in your company. You have to you have to be aware if you're gonna do performance pay, and this is something we're starting on. Just have to be really careful that your team, your employees, and your customers remain aligned in their objectives and uh just being really careful with that uh to not let that go in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it almost sounds like the difference between something like pharmaceutical sales and service sales, because in service, you actually have to have the customer end up with a better result than what they wanted. You genuinely have to serve them in order to create the longevity compared to, well, I've got a budget of $100 million. What can I do to market with that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, our guides are so conscientious, our team, and they care so much about the customer that I think our biggest challenge is getting discouraged when you run into the occasional customer uh who doesn't want it anymore, doesn't want to listen to any options, they just want this one thing done. Why aren't you doing it? And just saying, okay, yeah, some customers, that's the way they want to be served. And we're still gonna offer them an option or two just to make sure that they they truly understand what we can offer. Um, but don't let that get to you, you know, start fresh with the next customer, and and it helps to have some wins and and people selling top options just to counteract that because there's a lot of weary customers out there who've been burned by salespeople before, and they don't want to talk about it, and they don't want to, you know, necessarily hear a bunch of options, and it takes a little while and I think a lot of skill and experience to kind of really. Deeply empathize with those people, get on their side of that line and say, Gosh, you know, I'm so sorry you went through that. That's really not what we're about. And just everything that Joseph goes over in his training is towards that end. And that's why I decided to work with you guys because I've really felt a good alignment with our culture that I didn't necessarily feel with other outfits that I looked at, and they're like, you know, doing a measuring contest like how much do you get for a service change? That's that's not the way I think about this at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, win-win-win. I like you said it really well about alignment between us, our team, and our customer. Everybody can win in this, and that's so important to hold. A few fast questions for you, and then we've got to wrap up. We're gonna run out of time. We could easily have you on again, Hans, if you ever wanted to join. Amazing time talking to you, brother. If you could name, uh we'll call these rapid questions, kind of have fun with this. Try to just say the first things that come to your mind. Name the top three things you're proud of since owning this company and and running with uh that you would never turn back on.
SPEAKER_03I'm proud whenever I hear someone on the team just express their appreciation for me and what I've done for them. Uh, that really is for me what it's all about at the end of the day. Um, watching people just grow and and succeed is it's so rewarding.
SPEAKER_01That's a big thing.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if there's a two and a three. Uh, I love it when customers are happy. Um, we go over happy customers every Friday at our safety meeting. Everyone, all the five-star reviews and the four stars get read. Uh, we don't get anything other than five-star and four-star reviews. So there's that. But uh that that's just a something that's really important is happy customers.
SPEAKER_04What about that customer who comes to you and like gives you a hug on the way out and says, Thank you, you saved me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love it. Appreciation from people, whether they're team members or or customers, goes a long way because it's not an easy job.
SPEAKER_01On the hard side, what's a thing or two that you would undo if you could?
SPEAKER_03For me, I have a lot of regret at spending way too long thinking I'm a smart guy, I'm gonna figure out the best way to run this business, trying to do it without help, without expert guidance. Man, things could have I could have created a lot more opportunity for a lot more people and done a better job and not lost some important employees over the years if I had been humble and sought out the wisdom and knowledge that's freely available out there. So that's probably the hardest thing for me is is how long it took me to get to where I am now. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Character development is huge.
SPEAKER_01Hit heavy the way you put that. Really well done. If you could go back 15 years and give yourself some advice, try to do something new here if you can. What advice would you give yourself?
SPEAKER_03Don't be afraid to try new things, take risks. The the payoff is can be unbelievable. If you're focused on protecting the little thing that you've created, you'll never get the big thing that you're dreaming of.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Let's try one more fun one. Recession is imminent, it's happening again, whatever. I'm not saying that. I'm just hypothetically, what advice would you give someone who was in your shoes before, or even for yourself? What would you do differently this time?
SPEAKER_03Double down on uh just serving the customers well. As I said at the beginning of the podcast, service is evergreen. People are gonna need help. Just do everything you can to stand out in a crowd in a diminishing market. Um, there's really nothing else you can do. All hands on deck, everyone's doing the best they can to keep the team going and keep everyone in work. Recessions are really scary, really stressful. I think as the business owner responsibility is to steer that ship through the choppy waters, keep everyone's heads up and keep stay optimistic and and just just work through it.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing else to do. Really good.
SPEAKER_04Good advice.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Last quick answer question. Are you telling your son to become an electrician or passing on your father's advice?
SPEAKER_03Heck no. And if I did, he'd probably even be less likely to know. I uh truly, my dad taught me, you know, pursue your your dreams and and do what's going to make you happy. I don't expect involvement from either of my kids. I certainly offered them, just as my dad, the opportunity to be involved and make some money in the business. Who knows what'll happen in the long run? Um, I'm having a good time. I've got lots of years left. And it doesn't have to be a family member uh that takes this business forward. It, you know, it's it's more about putting it in a position for long-term success than depending on uh another generation to carry it forward.
SPEAKER_01Love that. Yeah, great shares today, man. We've had so much fun. I know I speak for Joe too. Uh such a great interview. We're we're so blessed to have you on the show, Hans. If someone wanted to reach out and give you thanks uh for what you shared here today, what's the best way to uh chat with you?
SPEAKER_03Uh you can find me on LinkedIn. It's probably a good way for any business owners that want to talk shop. I've had great luck approaching cold calling business owners. Business owners are are uh very generous and and I try to help people out. Same thing with people who are interested in being electricians. Uh, you can find our website at fretteelectric.com and just call in. I try to make time for for every aspiring electrician, at least that in my area, if they're looking for advice on how to get going.
SPEAKER_04Great noble goal. I love it. It's really something I can respect about you, man. You're amazing.
SPEAKER_01We took this one right to the last minute. So we have to say goodbye. But again, thank you, Hans. Thanks, everyone. If you got something from the show here, we have questions you want to add below the show, go ahead, leave us a comment, leave us a question, leave us a review wherever you found us. If this added value to you, don't forget to hit subscribe on YouTube if you're watching us live there. Uh, thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week.
SPEAKER_04Be blessed friends. Be well. All right, thanks, guys. It was fun.
