Transcript:
Well, happy Friday, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Service Legend podcast. Today we are thrilled to have an entrepreneur and business owner, Jake with us today. He’s the founder of Cape Fear Pro Wash and Patriot Illumination. And he has been, uh, has built two successful businesses from the ground up, which we’d love to talk about that he’s also passionate about developing leaders and helping other entrepreneurs grow, grow personally and professionally with his expertise in building company culture. And his commitment to empowering others has become a valuable resource for aspiring entrepreneurs, and we cannot wait to learn from him today. Jake, welcome to the podcast. Man Thank.
You. Thank you. It’s an honor to be here and I appreciate you having me on today.
Yeah, man, super excited about this one. Um, you know, obviously we don’t know each other as well as I’d like to right now, but I’m looking forward to it. Um, I think we come from, you know, a very similar cloth here, and, um, you know, for everyone that doesn’t, you know, know you as well as everyone else does. Just give us a quick intro from you. I know that, you know, there’s a military background. There’s a lot of, you know, things that people might not know, um, versus, you know, on the, you know, in the audiences that you’re speaking at or on the, you know, on the Facebook groups or whatever that you’re doing right now, if you could just give us an intro to who you are kind of some some origin story, if you will, leading up to kind of your first service company.
Yeah, absolutely. So, Jake, I live in Hampstead, North Carolina, area near Wilmington, Wrightsville Beach area, beautiful area from New York, originally born and raised up there and had a childhood where we were not so fortunate growing up. And we did a lot of moving as a kid, moved to Florida, moved to North Carolina, moved back to New York, went to college, found out college was not for me. And 2000 I the school said, Hey, thanks for your money, but you just don’t need to come back here. So that was my cue to get out of New York and move to North Carolina. My dad, my dad’s an entrepreneur. His father was an entrepreneur, worked with him, tried going back to school, tried finding myself, and I found I was going nowhere fast. And at the age of 23, I was like, I got to do something. Like I was just really just in a bad place. And I woke up one day, went to the Army recruiters office and said, I’m ready. I’m ready to join. I’m ready to list. And while I’m there, I hear this guy. He’s like, Go, Army, go Army just in my ear like Mr. Army, like G.I. Joe over there. And I was like, this is not for me like I am. I’m out. So I walked next door, went to the Navy office, had a conversation with the Navy. Long story short, four months later, I was shipped out to boot camp March 2004 and started my military career. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even do any research about anything. And I just showed up and I was a true entrepreneur.
No research, just go, right?
That’s it. I didn’t research my job. I didn’t research the military. I just went. And if I’d done some research, I would have known that March is the worst time to be in Great Lakes. Chicago with a wait until the summertime because it was freezing snow everywhere and we had to march everywhere. But anyway, joined the military in 2004 and had an amazing career, like very, very lucky career that I had. I was able to accelerate pretty fast through the ranks. I was in Guam for three years out there, did small boats, security overseas, deployed, lived in Guam for three years, but it was only on the island for a year. So I did a lot of traveling and I love traveling. That’s kind of why I joined the Navy and 2008 I was in New York at my second station and met my ex-wife at the time, beautiful young lady. She had a nice daughter. And I said, You know what? Rather than staying in, let’s just get out and move back to North Carolina near my father and we’ll start something there and just set our roots down there. So 2009 moved to North Carolina and E5 Military. I could do anything I want in the Navy. I said, Well, good, I’m going to take that now.
Do anything I want in civilian side. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Like you’re not easily transferable from military to civilian with no real background other than small boats and shooting guns. Like that’s not a job you can get anywhere. So I found out real fast that that was not the case. Did a bunch of research into the landscape lighting side or landscaping side, and there’s a million landscapers down here. Somehow I found pressure washing friends or something on a forum way back when. So I said, Let’s do pressure washing. My dad and I started Cape Air Pro Wash 2009 Baby steps didn’t really know what we were doing. Like everybody back in the day, there wasn’t as many resources as are now or the training groups that you can go to and things like that, the events. But we did it 2010. I get deployed to go overseas. I’m home for a year and they’re like, Hey, you’re going back overseas. So I went over to Dubai. Her year, came back, moved to New York for three years while my dad was running the business for me. And 2014 moved back home to North Carolina. Full time Navy, still part time pressure washing and just it was a hobby at that point, really.
It wasn’t really a business, it was just a hobby. But we do the work, show up, worked on our branding, we worked on our reviews and was really good about that because we wanted to do quality service. We weren’t shucking a truck. We really did focus on doing things right and the right way. Well, 2017, I actually found out about the Christmas light installation at a trade show. So I was like, This is amazing. I can make money doing what I love doing most, which is hanging lights and. We did it. We like, went home. We tried it out. We hung lights on my house for the first time with no training at all. The house didn’t burn down. I didn’t fall off the roof and it looked good. And the neighbors are like, Wow, this looks amazing. It looks better when you did last year. And I was like, Cool, we’re on to something. So we started Patreon Illumination in 2016 and then 2019, it was a big follower of Pat Clark and just seeing what he was doing, just going up through the ranks and like just leveling up, leveling up. And I was like, How is he doing this? And I believe it was January of 2019.
I got the.
Courage to text Pat and he didn’t know me too well. I’m like, Pat, like, I need help. What’s going on? What are you doing? And he’s like, Give me a call. And we talked and he’s like, Have you heard about conquer? I’m like, What’s conquer? And that call changed my entire, like, entrepreneurial career. Like right there I joined Conquer on the spot, went to sales boost two months later and then everything started changing. We started hiring building systems, dialing everything in and just growing and growing and growing. So we went from just dad and son. And if you’ve ever worked with family, you know how toxic that can be. You know, I’d fire my dad and hire my dad. And he stuck with me from from day one till even today, he’s still by my side. But we’re able to scale the company. We finished out last year at $1.8 million. We’ve had a peak of 22 team members on our team and just worked on building an amazing company culture and just and developing leaders within our company to make them or have them the opportunity to level up within within the company. And that brings us to here today.
That’s incredible, man. I mean, 1.8in last year was pretty incredible for a power washing company. I mean, that’s a lot of jobs.
Yeah, that was the washing and the and the lights combined.
Okay. Okay. Which is a lot of jobs in general. I mean, you know, it’s, you know, it’s a lot of stuff to, you know, to happen in one year. Um. I want to touch on real quick the fact that there was not as much coaching, training or events when you were doing your thing as there is now. I mean, you know, I think there’s a lot of guys that talk about, um, you know, growing companies right now with the available resources, with coaching, training resources, swiping employees, you name it, right? Um, you know, I mean, you mentioned sales boost. There’s, uh, Tommy mellow stuff. I mean, Brandon Vaughn at Concord Breakthrough Academy. I mean, it’s incredible the amount of resources we have now. What was it like back then trying to do all of these things without all the resources available?
It was hard. It was a lot of growing pains. A lot of mistakes were made. And, you know, we didn’t even have social media so much. It was a website you had to go to and you put the question in there and check back the next night and see if anybody answered for you. So you weren’t getting those instant results or instant answers. Now you can just go on there and ask, How do I write a business plan? And Chatgpt and Chatgpt just spit everything out for you. So it was it was definitely a lot of growing pains going through that. So it took longer to be able to grow your company successfully. And back then, you know, getting to $500,000 was a huge thing. Then it was $1 million. It was a huge thing. Now both of those are pretty easy that I’ve seen people do it in 2 or 3 years versus the ten, 15 years. And the other thing, too, is we’re in a very small market here. I have 350,000 people roughly in my area. So, you know, for the stigma for people to say like my market is not a good market. Well, I mean, we don’t even have a million people in our market and we’re doing these numbers. So it’s really not about where you are. It’s about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Yeah, you know, that’s a great point, too, because, you know, Cardinal, our home service company, did like 1.5 the first year. But but you’re talking about a population of I mean, gosh. Like 5 million now, something like that. Here in Phoenix, you know, and, you know, in Phoenix and the audience on Facebook ads or whatever was like maybe like 1.8 or whatever, they run an ad, so which is, you know, pretty, you know, um, you know, optimal, if you will.
Yeah. We’d have to have a five hour radius just to get that many people in the ads funnel.
Yeah. So, you know, it’s, it’s pretty remarkable what you were able to do with that size of audience versus this, you know, this you know, it’s easy to say 81.5 and this massive audience, even though there was a lot of competitors in Phoenix. But like to say that you could do that in a smaller audience really speaks to the brand and the service that you guys were able to offer. People must have enjoyed the, you know, like the service, right? Which is which is, you know, a big thing when it comes to systems operations. And we’ll get into that. Um, I want to talk real quickly about the military side. Um, what were some of the things that you learned from the military, whether it’s leadership or structure or, um, you know, hard work, whatever it was that kind of translated into scaling the company versus keeping it, you know, smaller or, you know, more intimate. Yeah.
One thing that you learn right away when you join the military and you get off the boot camp, is that mean you’re just in a room with all fresh recruits and there’s nobody that stands out other than your drill instructor or your recruit instructor that that are in charge. So while you’re there and you’re alone, somebody’s got to take charge. And, you know, you can either sit back and just wait for somebody to do it or you can take control and take leadership right away. And for somebody who didn’t really have that type of background myself, I mean, I was I always worked for other people. So they didn’t really teach these skills. I knew right away that I had two options. I’m going to sit here and get yelled at because somebody else is not doing their job or step up and do the job for everybody so that we can be successful. And within the first like 24 to 48 hours, they made me the master at arms of the class, which was pretty much not the leader, but the guy overall in charge of getting making sure that the get things done. So that was pretty cool to see that. And then as we went through the ranks, you found that everybody can be a leader. It doesn’t matter if you’re an E1 or an E9, E1 or A05, you’re all going to be leaders and at some point you’re going to be leading senior more senior personnel and vice versa. So it’s important that as you’re growing your company and developing your team, that as you hire them, they know that, hey, you can be a leader. Like you don’t have to wait for you to reach this pinnacle or to become a operations manager or a tech lead to become a leader.
You want to develop those skills and traits or traits early on with them working with you so they can develop them and hone them in and perfect them growing up the ranks. So that’s real important to employ your team and empower them to become leaders. Young Not say, well, you have to wait six months to even think about doing this. So one start that early and two, in the military. You know, we’ve been through some. Bad situations like mean I’m stuck in the middle of an ocean on an oil terminal living in a 20 foot Conex box for six months. It was no fun. Like it was the worst situation for us, not the worst in the military but for us at that time. But you had two options Make it suck or have fun with it. So part of that was building up the culture within our with our crew and our team. The camaraderie was to have fun doing no matter what you do, and I carry that on to my company too, is that even though it’s a job, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun doing it. So having that culture, being intentional about it is important from the time you start hiring people because you can’t wait till you’re two three years into it to really start focusing on your culture because then it’s a little too late because you can’t change it overnight. So being intentional, having culture to to have people want to work with you, not feel like they have to work with you.
Yeah, and that’s a big deal because I think most, most service company owners, um, start the company, their installers, their painters, their landscapers, whatever it is, Right. They’re, they’re working for a company. They start their own company and that’s the majority of service company owners is they start their own thing, owner operator they scale up and it takes sometimes I mean, I’ve seen three, five, ten different years before they started to talk about these different things or join coaching programs. And, and it’s really unfortunate because the information right now is available. I mean, culture, leadership systems, hiring, whatever it mean, whatever you’re going through, the information is so available today, never like before, You know, unlike what you went through right when you were starting, you kind of had to figure it out by yourself. And now we can just join a coaching program. They’re swiping employees. I mean, it’s incredible. Um, and so it really speaks to kind of what you were able to do when those things were not available.
Yeah. So two things with that is, you know, people, their mindset is I don’t need it because I know it all. And two yeah, why would I want to spend that much money on, on that coaching group or that platform or that training when I could just do it myself and they got to get over that, that fear or that, you know, that misconception of like, you know, that money is an investment, not an expense. So that’s the one thing I hear when I tell people about my coaching groups that I’m in and how much I’m paying. Like, like, that’s crazy. Like, why would you pay $60,000 a year for a coaching group? I’m like, Well, why wouldn’t I pay $100,000 to do another coaching group to get me even further? Like, you know, it’s just a number, but how much faster we’re able to move the needle because of that and how much money we saved by not making mistakes that they already made. So.
Yeah, well, you know, it’s kind of like going to school, right? I mean, you pay let’s say you’re going to learn business and, you know, let’s say business in, uh, marketing or communication or whatever it is. You might spend 40, 60, 80 grand a year to, you know, to get through that. But if you can spend 60 grand a year, 40 grand a year for, you know, 24 months, 36 months, then kind of kind of go your way, it’s really a lot more affordable, if you will, um, than doing the traditional route. So but also your experience too, if you can multiply the experience that you had, you know, for the military, all those different things and then kind of go into the coaching programs or the resources that are available and then combine those two, those, those two things, you can create a lot of magic, which I think, you know, you know, is what you’ve done. If you could speak to us really quickly about the two different divisions and how like you know, what you recommend, whether it’s, um, you know, how quick you should start different divisions or whatever. So like if you’re doing concrete coatings, when should you do power washing? If you’re doing power washing, you know, is there a good time to bring on Christmas lights or should you wait kind of what’s the the, the dynamic between that?
Yeah. So for us it was I mean, six years in, obviously, I was gone for four years of the military, but we had good systems in place and we had good fundamentals. We we had drone pro wash to be a very successful company. We we, you know, strive to be a five star company. And we made sure that our customers were happy with our service. Like we have almost 505 star reviews now in pro wash. So it wasn’t like we were just dabbling in the washing. And then all of a sudden the shiny object came and everybody’s like, Oh, you can make so much money doing this. And it’s like, Well, let me go over here and I’ll put this one on pause. It’s, you know, it’s give and take. You got to make sure that once. Fun, like running smoothly so that if you take the time away from this one that you can grow this one, this one doesn’t come all the way down. It still stays right here. And that’s the thing that we found was we were able to step away from the washing. But still keep it successful. And we had for us, we had to pivot because we were doing so much in Christmas lights. We either had to shut down the the washing or hire more or do another route. So for two years we actually.
First year we employed another local company. We brought them on as a W-2 employee and they took on all our washing Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Wow. As our employee because they were slow and we needed somebody to wash and we couldn’t do it because we were doing so much in lights that we said this is a win for everybody. So that worked out that year. The next year we tried doing it again ourselves and again we were so busy with lights that we had to shut it down till December and then go back to washing in December. And then another year we actually brought on somebody else where we just 1099 them another local company and somebody that we trust to different companies for those two different years. But both companies we trusted. We had a great relationship and it was a win for everybody because we were able to keep our customers and not lose them by just referring them out. And you know, the following year we can go back to those customers and say, Hey, we’re ready to wash your house again this time. But yeah, before you get that shiny object and try jumping in one thing, make sure that the other company is running smooth. You got systems in place and you have a contingency plan in case this one doesn’t work out so well.
Yeah, because, you know, there’s a lot of guys going into concrete coatings from power washing or from power washing and concrete coatings and Christmas lights. And then you’ve got painting guys going into coding and coding, going into painting. I mean, it’s incredible what’s happening and it’s good. But, you know, I think it’s really important what you said because unless you have a proven process with the existing business, it’s really counterintuitive in a lot of ways to go to a different thing without having those things in place. And I’ve seen it time and time again with clients of service legend that start different divisions without having the processes or the systems or the team or the leadership, you know, in place. And I think that’s a big, big deal that a lot of guys don’t miss or that a lot of guys miss without having the training and the, you know, like the education within coaching programs, etcetera.
Um, yeah, because I mean, business is business, you know, the way you run the coatings business, the fundamentals and the systems and processes is the same. You’re going to do the washing. So if you can’t get one down right, you’re not going to be able to get the other one because it just sounds great. And it’s like, Oh yeah, because concrete coatings, everybody’s doing it right now. Let me just jump into that and I’ll be a rock star, but I can’t even do this one right? And how am I going to do this one right? So I’ve seen that. I’ve seen a lot of guys invest a ton of money to into the concrete coatings and thinking that, you know, the washing. Yeah, we’re all right with this, but we know we’re going to crush it here because everybody else is doing it. So let me go spend all this money. And then it’s like, Well, why did you just sell your company? It didn’t work out. So yeah, get get one down before you jump to the next or get a coach to help you get that one down. Yeah, yeah.
Get some accountability because you know, like, even for me too, like there’s so many different things that I wanted to do and I’ve dabbled and I realized if I could just focus for a small period of time and, you know, and that could be six months straight on one thing. The results are so much better than doing five things at once, as much as you want to. And I love that about what you’re doing, man, because, I mean, you got military. My dad’s in the business. There’s power washing, there’s Christmas lights. Now I’m speaking now. I’m wearing the Christmas jacket everywhere. And now I’m getting taking pictures. No, Um, but there’s so many different things that I think from the outside in that you’re doing. Um, and it’s really cool to hear, I think for especially smaller guys that are just starting or that are doing less than maybe $1 million a year, for them to hear that there’s actual structure and strategy in place to kind of execute these things versus just thinking about the money or thinking about the growth, like there’s actual business plan in place. Um, and I’d love to hear the things that you’re doing outside of the service companies because, you know, it’s been amazing what you’ve been able to build, build with your dad and yourself and your team when it comes to pro Wash, when it comes to Christmas lights. Um, talk to us a little bit about what you’re doing outside of that, you know, maybe working on the business or things that you’re doing over and beyond the traditional revenue sources right now.
Yeah. So, you know, we just so one thing about the what afforded me the opportunity to be able to step away from both the companies is one, we’ve got just amazing leaders within our company. I mean, all for marketing, admin production and sales, just absolute rock stars. We just hired a GM and I’ve been able to empower them to trust themselves to to run the company without me having to be there. And that’s so important too, because again, you can’t get that shiny object and step away for something and don’t have a fallback plan on what you’ve been working on. So, you know, just the my team is incredible and. I can leave for a week. I can leave for a month and not have to worry about anything because of what they’re doing. And we just hired the GM to to really step up and build the processes even finer and get the black and white and everything so that we have textbook answers for everything so that if anybody wants to come and take our company, it’s like, here’s the process. Here’s everything black and white and then you can replicate it easy.
Is the plan to sell or to exit?
I mean, isn’t it for all eventually. So, you know, we realized that we were doing good things, but there’s some things we could be doing better and to make it more attractive for somebody, we wanted to fine tune all those things. So, you know, if you got an offer, let’s go. We’ll talk. If you do.
Exit, I want a picture of you with that jacket in the picture right there. You know, like, could that be the most epic picture of an exit with you with that Christmas light jacket? Like, just doing, like, a piece or something like that? That’d be amazing, dude. That’d be a great Christmas card for the family, right? Yes.
Yes. But yeah, outside of work, you know, last year I had the opportunity to join the Clipper team and with Matt Ryan Brennan, the Christmas queens. I just relabeled them. Not the Clipper girls, but do traveling and do national training for future Christmas light installers. And that’s been a lot of fun. I’m very passionate about the Christmas lights. I love helping people. It’s always been just something that I’m I enjoy doing. If anybody ever calls me, I’m going to answer the phone. If they have a question, I’m going to answer the question. I’m not sending them an invoice. Like I’m always generous and want people to succeed. If they succeed, I succeed. And so I was fortunate enough to join the Clipper training team last year and train and travel around the United States. We just got done doing Clipper Con and the training season now, so we’ll be out there all across the US doing some more training. That’s been a lot of fun. It’s fortunate enough to speak on stage with Jamie Schmidt was the first one that opened the door to me to speak on stage in Florida back in January, I believe it was, and and that really ignited my desire to want to do more. And again, it’s just I want to give as much as I can for other young entrepreneurs, even even guys that have been in the industry for a while to be successful. Like, why do I need to keep everything in here when I can share it with somebody else and help them avoid the mistakes that I made? Because everybody has the capability and capacity to do things. It’s just whether or not they want to apply themselves to do it and get over that self limiting belief that I can’t do it.
And, you know, so sometimes it just takes somebody saying like, I struggled just like you. I went through all those things for them too. Like, look, I’m not alone. Like, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for telling me that. And that’s why I do the postings. The videos just got, you know, started the 30 day Facebook Live challenge, which changed something completely different. That was just supposed to be me on Facebook Live, talking about me and talking about my day, which scared the crap out of me. And I’m so grateful for every single person that signed up. So because now it’s an interview process where I get to talk to other people like you and myself and just hear their story, whether it’s about life, fitness, business, relationships, and it’s fun hearing everybody’s story, but we all come together as one, as entrepreneurs to do the same thing, build the business, grow, build a legacy and, you know, pass it on or sell it, whatever it may be. And now I’m just taking advantage of all the opportunities I can to get out there and speak like the podcast, get it on with you, and just getting the word out. Because again, I didn’t have these resources back 13, 14 years ago. Now it’s just so readily accessible. You just got to listen. You just got to show up. You just got to, you know, pay to get into the coaching group or whatever it may be. So it’s just. My goal is every single day I want to be able to motivate, encourage or inspire one person to do do better, or know that they’re already doing what they need to be doing and just to keep on that path.
Yeah. And the crazy thing is, is like there’s so many different paid programs out there, whether it’s Concord, Breakthrough Academy, you know, master, you know, masterminds, whatever it is, events, there’s tons of I mean, there’s plenty of opportunity to pay for your your way through. But there’s even more in a free perspective, whether it’s YouTube, these podcasts, Facebook groups and I’m a very visual learner where I can just, you know, jump into a podcast or whatever and learn so much. And it kind of reminds me of golf, the game of golf. I’m a golfer and, um, you know, I can go out there with a person who is more critical or, uh, you know, um, or maybe the super new, and I kind of feel, uh, you know, anxious or whatever. But if I go out there with somebody like a coach or somebody that’s been more experienced and they’re like, Hey, bro, just turn your wrist this way, swing this way, this very minute, kind of, um, you know, lessons, if you will, on the course and boom, I’m hitting straight, boom, I’m hitting, um, kind of greens. And that’s just like the same way I think about business is like, there’s those people out there that have that experience, that have that, you know, that know how that can change your grip a little bit.
That can change your tone a little bit, can change your system a little bit. That can really kind of just like just catapult you into, uh, the revenue, the team, everything that you know, that you want, which at service legend we always talk about more profit, more freedom, more impact, because without, you know, profit, you can’t have a lot of freedom because there’s no money to hire people, etcetera. Um, without the freedom, you can’t really have impact because if you’re in the day to day, you cannot impact your community, your team, your family, etcetera. So there’s this progression of make the money, make the profit, create freedom, build the team, build the systems, and then actually have some impact. Opportunity to impact your community with love, money, time, energy, effort, whatever it is. And I feel like you’re a good example of that. And I’m kind of curious, like for those of our audience that are doing 1,000,001.5, whatever, um, how do you think they can impact their team and their community by having the freedom, having the impact in the business?
Yeah. I just want to go back real quick to one thing you said, you know, about having that coach teach you and that’s a mindset or a bad trait that a lot of entrepreneurs need to get over is being critiqued and having. And a lot of.
Golfers too, bro. Like so many different golfers that I golf with, they’re like, Oh my gosh, you got a coach? And I’m like, like, Yeah, dude, I paid somebody that knows so much more than me. Yeah, tell me how to do it. Like, what’s wrong with that, you know?
Yeah.
And we got to be able to accept that criticism, whether it’s good and bad. And I love bad criticism. Like when I got off the stage at, uh, at Clipper Con and I went to Moab with legacy entrepreneurs, the first thing I did, I went to 2 or 3 people. I said, All right, tell me the bad. Like, I don’t care about the good. I don’t need the attaboy. Like, what was bad? What could be better? Like, I need high school.
Dude, that’s high school football. Baseball, you.
Know? So it’s it’s being able to accept that and be open to it because we think we’re doing things perfect. And in reality, we’re not because we’re just one sided. But like you said, you had that guy look on the outside of your grip and your hand and he’s able to tell you like, No, you’re doing it wrong. And for you to say, Oh, wow, all right, let me do this. And oh my God, I hit the green. So we got to be open to all that.
Yeah. Because if I like my own personal belief is like, I could figure it out. Like, don’t tell me you’re an asshole. You’re wrong. I’m right. I’m going to grip it like this. And then I keep missing to the right, To the right, to the right. And then he’s like, No, do it this way. And I’m like, Well, it’s uncomfortable. Yeah. And he’s like, I know exactly.
What you’re talking about.
Welcome to reality. It’s uncomfortable. And then after three weeks, I’m like, This is comfortable, you know, And I relate it a lot to business like what you mentioned.
Yeah, that’s right. And I preach a lot, you know, there’s no comfort in your growth zone and there’s no growth in your comfort zone. And we just need to step out of that. And sometimes we’re so comfortable we don’t realize it. And then once we like, take an outside look at it, I’m like, wow. All right, well, let me try this like you said. And now things start changing. Things start moving. And now you’re like, Oh, well, that wasn’t so bad. And we’re just afraid to get uncomfortable. But once we do it, it’s really not that bad. It’s. It’s easier than you thought. You’re just scared of that moment. But just you need to make that step. All right. So go back to your question. I’m sorry. The things that we’re doing to impact the team and the community you said.
Yeah.
Um.
Yeah, for me is one being present and showing up, two for my team, knowing that I’m there no matter what, even when I’m gone, I’m consistently reaching out, making sure that they know that if they need anything, they can, they can call. But also I’m empowering them to make the decisions without me. Because back in the day, it was always like, Hey, Jake, what do I do for this? And I’d ask like, Well, what would you do? Well, then go do it. And then if you call again, Hey, what do you gotta do for this? Well, go do it. And then it got fewer and fewer calls because I empowered my team to make those decisions and trust them themselves that they were making the right decision. And, you know, we micromanage a lot because we want everything perfect. And it can’t be perfect as much as we want. It can’t be perfect. And the way you do something in your business and the way I do something in my business, we’re both going to get to the end result and it might be a little bit different. But if by allowing my team to get to the result their way, as long as nobody’s getting hurt and it’s not like a financial disaster for the company now, they built self confidence in themselves and they’re going to make those decisions without you and also bring you better ideas and decisions within the company because they feel good and comfortable and safe to be able to present those to you instead of just like, No, this is my way and my way only. And real quick, when we get in like a tangent real quick, but another thing that we’ve done recently is. It’s always the business owners. You see all these trade shows and all the trainings.
It’s always the owners. They take all this information, they overload in their head. Then they go back and then they got to try and regurgitate, regurgitate what little they remember because they’re out drinking all night and try and say, Hey, Tim, I got this great idea and this is what we’re gonna do. Uh, let’s just make it happen. So lately, we’ve been investing in our team to go out to these trainings. I sent Liz, my office manager. She went to the rock star Edmond Boot camp down in Florida with the Fight Club, ladies. And yeah, it was incredible just seeing how much fun she had, how how much she was able to, like, just be herself among like minded individuals and how confident she felt saying like, hey, we’re doing this, but and we can do this better, but we’re also doing this. So it empowered her to know that what she’s doing in her everyday job is right and that we’re on the right path. We just need to tweak a little things. And I sent Joe, my operations manager. The trans world learned about Christmas lights. I’ve already been there. Why do I need to go again? He felt so much better about his skill set now because he went there. Patrick, my sales guy, and I, we went to Ryan Lee’s landscape lighting live and learned about landscape lights together so that I didn’t have to go back and show him like, Hey, this is how we’re going to sell it. Now he got to get the experience one on one. So investing in your team and sending them out to these things is more powerful than you going out there, spending all the money and coming back with half the results.
Yeah, because, you know, a lot of times the entrepreneurs, if you’re listening on live, there’s only a couple live. But on replay, we are the worst. People to communicate things to people, right? Whether it’s family, business, family, whatever it is. We’re the worst at communicating, um, and articulating the things that we want done. When it comes to being effective and productive. Um, now we can share ideas and things like this, which is great. We all need this in place, but do you have the people in place that can support you and serve the clients in a way and in a fashion that actually creates effective, productive results on the, you know, on the end? Um, and I think that what you’re mentioning here is, you know, is amazing. Um, and I did that myself too, man, like bringing our team to events and kind of participating in that, but then kind of, you know, and challenging and encouraging them to think about the event, right? Like, how are we going to bring these ideas and these these thoughts into implementation, you know, into the business? Like, how are we going to do that, right? Versus us thinking that we know everything because, you know, think the reality is, is that, you know, entrepreneurs, um, you know, historically were the smartest people in the room, quote unquote. Right. Which is like from an idea perspective or vision or whatever it is. But, um, we forget that our team is very smart too. Like, we do not want, you know, people that we think that are less than around us or, you know, I’m going to say it dumb around us.
Um, and think that other people around us that are less than dumb again, you know, less educated, they don’t, you know, are not as smart as us, whatever you want to call it. We cannot expect that mind frame and those people to, you know, create this amazing business for us. We have to invest and serve into these people and give them an opportunity to have the same access to information as we do. Because I think the reality is, is that when we go to events, we get educated, we have the information, we have the networking, the people, the knowledge, and we bring it back to our team and we don’t articulate it right. But if we can bring our team there, then it’s a big deal. I’ve done that this whole year, last year. Um, and I want to kind of transition into the team there a little bit because I think that for you. The team around you is probably amazing, you know, for you to do what you’re doing right now. It’s probably impossible for you to do what you’re doing right now without an amazing team. Same thing for me, and I want to speak to that for a little bit. Um, how do you find those leaders? How do you build them up and kind of how do you kind of manage or coach or scale them up to the point where, you know, mean you can get to 3 million without putting, you know, like mean without pulling your hair out? Yeah.
Yeah. It’s there’s no I mean, I don’t have a set formula. I wish I was where you just put it on. Indeed. And, and you get the rock star every single time and you know it’s. Let me know.
When you get that in place.
Yeah yeah.
49.99 for that one. So, um, but yeah, so.
One.
You got to know your why and your vision for the company and the culture behind that. Because when people step into our office, even the postal people, the UPS, any delivery, even customers who walk in, they get excited when they come in there. They see the culture. They see what’s on the walls. They see dogs running around. They see, you know, we have treats and drinks for people like we care. We care about our people. We care about the people we serve and we care about the community. And it’s just important to for them to know that you truly do care them as a person and not as a number. They’re not I don’t use the word employee. We use team and, you know, that just changes the whole dynamic. Also, we tell people we want them to have a career with us, not a job. So job, I think is short term. Career is long term. So you can grow personally and professionally with us and being able to trust in your team, build them up, work on your core values, which is something we sadly didn’t really fully implement until recently. And I wish we had done it sooner because we always knew what we stood for, but we never had it on paper and we couldn’t hold anybody accountable because it’s like, Oh, you don’t follow our values, but we don’t have our values listed, so what are they? But now we want our team to be the light.
And it’s like loyalty, integrity, growth, humility and teamwork. And we have them displayed on the wall now. We have it displayed on our job ads. And when we talk to people that are trying to work with us, we talk about those core values to make sure they align with them. And we want everybody to align again, talked about earlier, everybody wanting to have fun. If I can’t have fun doing something, I don’t want to do it. And if you’re not fun for the team, you’re not part of the team and that’s your cue to get out of here. So having that great company culture is really important to build all those things, to have the team want to be successful with you, to grow personally and professionally, because it’s not just about the company, but it’s about what we can do for you on the outside of the company. Buy a house, buy a car, travel whatever it is. I’ve got one guy he wants to ride across. I think I want to say he wants to ride across the United States on his bike. And I told him like, look, if you actually go ahead and do this, we’re going to pay you this much money to go do it because it’s something that you’re passionate about and we want to support your passion as well.
But yeah, and the hiring aspect, trying to find those rock stars, you get lucky sometimes. And you know, I got very, very lucky with the staff that I have right now. Liz, my office manager, she’s just incredible. She loves this company. She loves working for me. She loves my kids. Probably more than I love my kids someday. It’s just nice to have somebody to have that buy in that they’re there in invested 100% in the company. And no matter what, you know, they want to do what’s right for the company when you’re there and when you’re not there too. So, you know, just working with them and showing them that you actually care, not just care enough for them to show up to work, you know, you got to have that empathy. You got to have the sympathy and and treat them as a human. They’re not just a number. They’re not just an employee. This is not Amazon. I do care if you’re checking out. I do care about if something’s wrong at home. I do care if your car broke down because I want to take care of that for you.
Yeah. And also just like a number one, Liz, if you’re listening and you need any more kids to care about, you know, uh, um, for me, man, it’s been very similar. Um, you know, I’ve worked for companies before, before I started these companies, just like you, like we were employees, whether it’s military or whatever it was. Um, and what I’ve realized is how you do one thing is how you do most things, you know? So if you’re lazy at home, you’re most likely lazy at business or your career. Like if you’re an account manager or if you’re a technician or a marketing assistant, whatever you’re doing during the day, whether it’s in service, digital marketing, whatever it is, how you do one thing is how you do most things. So if you are lazy, you’re probably lazy at home and at business. If you’re unorganized, you’re probably unorganized with your own life and your own business career. Um, and I think if we can teach people like what you’re saying, Jake, if we can teach people how to be better humans. In their personal life, they’re going to be better people for our business. And I think a lot of people come to us and they’re not good humans. Now they’re not bad, but they don’t know how to manage their calendar, their finances, their 401. K, their credit, how to show up on time, how to do all the crazy things, the awesome things that we know, right? Maybe we don’t. Maybe we don’t implement them like we want them to. But we know these things are viable things in practice to be great human beings, great fathers, husbands, friends, brothers, sisters, business owners, leaders, managers, whatever it could be for you.
At this point, we know what to do in our minds. But how do we you know, and God talks about, you know, how do we teach this to others? How do we turn around and teach it to other people? Because our employees, keep in mind, are making $20 an hour, 22, 23, 24. And if we think back to what we were making at that point in our lives, are we able to know everything we know now? No, it’s you know, it’s impossible. Right? You know, I love what you’re doing because you’re really pouring back into your team and you’re meeting them where they’re at. And I think a lot of business owners in the service industry right now, um, have these expectations up here and provide a level of experience down here. Yeah. And then we get missed expectations up here. We’re like, Well, you’re supposed to be amazing. Yeah, you came to me eight months ago and you were a disaster. You had a kid, you were out with their father. You couldn’t show up on time. Your car was in trouble, and then you couldn’t meet my expectation. But, like, how are we meeting them where they’re at? And I think that’s a big deal in small business when you have five, six, eight people. And I love that about you, man, because I think that you care about people. And I think if you can care about people, you can care about business a lot more.
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And and just got to get over that cost that you know, that expense of how much it cost to care about them because you know, if you’re doing a half day fun day out with the team, you’re doing so many different things. Don’t look at, oh, well, we’re missing out on $4,000 worth of revenue today. Yeah, but how much are you generating within that team building that culture, that trust and all those different things that working with that team so that the next day they go to work, they’re like regenerated and they feel so much better and empowered about themselves that they’re going to just go make you that much more the next couple days, weeks or whatever. It can be.
So well, because most people.
Can go make money more like mean here in Phoenix we have a one ghetto, you name it, right? Why wouldn’t some 22 year old kid go make $20 an hour at Cardinal in a technician or go make 24, 25, 26 working at a one and, you know, like or or whatever it is. Why would they do that? Because they they like being the people. They like being around the people that they like being around. Right. You know, at Cardinal, they like the service they get. They like the, you know, like the options, you know, options. They get the 401. K, the benefits, the time off, the whatever it is they like, the culture that they’re, you know, involved in. They like the upward opportunity, um, in a small business. And I think that a lot of that is forgotten and I don’t think that you’ve forgotten that. Um, and I like to bring it back to what we’re talking about earlier about the military. Your father born into him. Um, how do you guys provide opportunity over there at the Christmas lights? You know, like the pro wash? How do you guys provide opportunity when it comes to, um, upward mobility? Because I think it’s a missed kind of thing here in home service is you start as a technician. They leave in 13 months because there’s no opportunity. How do you guys provide a opportunity kind of, you know, pathway for the team over there?
Yeah. So I mean, we were very.
Transparent when we hire, especially with our seasonal guys and that’s a very hard hire for that. The lighting industry is hiring seasonal people in four months to be able to be rock stars, care about the job and and execute what you’re asking them to do. So we’re very clear with those, especially the part time ones that, hey, you’re here just for a season, but if you’re good, we want you here like there’s a home for you here that come January, February, when it’s time to let everybody off, we’re going to look at you and see if there is a career for you because it’s easier and cheaper for us to keep them than it is to retrain somebody every single year. But like our operations manager, Joe, I mean, he started out as a technician four years ago working. He was working for another pressure washing company and it started working for us. And I mean, just I’m able to work with him one on one for the last four years. And we just had a conversation even yesterday and four years ago. Joe And four years ago or today. Joe It’s just completely different. Joe is like hotheaded off the off the charts, you know, whatever. Now it’s controlled, calculated and just very. Caring and just deliberate with his message and his team. And he cares about the team. He cares about the job.
And now he’s doing the same thing to his guys. You know, if they’re like hot headed like he was, he’s like, slow down, Let’s take this down a step. So, um, you know, there’s not too many opportunities within our company because we’re very on the smaller end. So you got the lead technician or the assistant, the lead tech and the operations manager. And then same thing with sales sales, territory manager and the sales manager. But we always want to be able to build from within. Like we moved one of our technicians to a sales role and it was actually like incredible change to see what he was doing over there to the sales side. Instead of saying like, Well, we really don’t have space for you no more. Just go find another job. We were able to adapt, move them to what he was more comfortable in doing and just watch him accelerate over there. And that was fun too, to be able to move somebody and see what the potential that they had. But we hired him, for one, realized that he was should have been someplace else. But yeah, just being open with them too, and let them know the pathway to get there is important and that there is opportunity to stay here for a career and how you can grow with us.
Yeah, I think it’s small business. What I’ve realized for myself at least, is if you can change at least one life, you know, because a lot of, you know, a lot of times in service businesses, you have a guy that comes in with not the cleanest background or they’ve never made more than 50, 60 grand a year, whatever it could be. And if you could change the life, the trajectory of one person in the business, you’ve done a job well done and you’ve done the Lord’s work 100% time and time again, and you’re changing the life. Because if that person. So if you could change one person’s life and they can change five other people’s lives in the business, you’ve done a job well done as a leader. Um, and I believe that leaders create leaders. They don’t create followers, you know, even in a small kind of operation. I’d like to learn more about what you’re doing now with the Christmas lights and the training. Um, give us some kind of some expectations of like upcoming trainings or different kind of things that you guys are doing with Clipper, um, and different opportunities that people can have getting into the business or just more education there.
Yeah.
And so let’s go back like three years, four years when they started doing these Clipper trainings and even the pressure washing training and all these other trains, my mindset back then was completely different from today. And I’m like, Why would we train all these new people to be future companies? And like, why are you just going to saturate the economy with 1000 Christmas light installers right now? Let’s just keep it tight niche. And once I realized like, wait, you know what? Actually, they’re leveling up the industry because they’re getting the training, they’re setting them on the right path to be able to price things right and not be the truck and the truck. And those are the guys that we want to work against or with, if you will. I don’t like using the word competitor, but you know, others in the area because I’d rather be competing with somebody that had the training and has the knowledge that I have so that we’re all on the same level and not going like, let’s just say my job is 5000 and the new guy is like $1,500. Like we’re not even close. Let’s at least be close on this. Yeah, so the trains are important. Clipper We just got done with Clipper icon and they’re starting their first training next week down in Cali and they got training all over Florida, Atlanta, Texas, Salt Lake, Canada this year as well, too.
And it’s just important for you to be able to invest in yourself. I don’t care how good you think you are with anything. If the day you stop trying to learn is the day you failed yourself. And I still go to trains every single year. Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because there’s something that’s going to change every single year. Somebody’s gonna be doing something better that I didn’t know about. And more importantly than the networking that we’re getting there is absolutely incredible. I mean, I’ve worked on my network the last year very, very clear to be like more what’s the word more get involved with more people in a network. And it’s changed everything in the last 12 months. And I’m thankful for that. Thankful for stepping out of my comfort zone to do that. And then one of the other things we’re working on, too, with Brett Madison, Ryan Fox and Matt Hyde and myself, we’re starting Beyond the Bulbs, which is a Christmas light mastermind group. And it’s right now the lighting industry does not have this. A lot of the other industries do. I mean, you got service legends, you got conquer, you got some other things.
And a lot of these are more for a broader case. But we’re going beyond the bulbs to be specific to the Christmas light industry. And it’s going to be a collective of individuals that get together and we’re going to hold everybody accountable because with the lighting industry, we get so hyper focused, we get so busy. October, November, December. All right. We just made a bunch of money in three months, take everything down in January and then we breathe. It’s like we go on vacation mode until September, October, where we restart and we’re losing. On so many opportunities to stay focused, reach out to clients, find new clients and build your company year round. So beyond the bulbs is going to be that that ticket to hold you accountable, to keep you on track throughout the year month. By Montana, what you need to be doing. You need to be working on marketing right now, reaching out to these clients right now, getting your inventory. Start your hiring process. Do the training here. And we’re really excited to get this to the market here come May 1st and just really try and level up the ones that really want to succeed in the Christmas light industry.
Yeah, I love that. When does the Christmas light season start normally? Like, is it September when it kind of officially starts.
Depending on where you.
Are? I’ve seen guys install lights as early as August, especially in the northern climates with a lot of snow. July is really a huge push. I mean, the Christmas in July is real when it comes to marketing, to your customers.
Like the reoccurring.
Stuff.
And coming up.
New customers, they get all excited about it, too. So but yeah, our season officially starts October 1st. Usually I don’t think we have we might have one job in September, but. Across the region, across the nation. It’s usually October. And then I say around December 15th is where we see the the calls fall off and the installs stop. I’ve seen guys do lights as late as Christmas Eve, but it’s like far and few. That’s wild.
Huh? Yeah.
Yeah, that’s like me. Like the late, like, um. What’s funny is so is service. Legend is preparing to do, like, a four month Christmas light marketing campaign for people because we have a lot of coding companies, power washing companies that do Christmas lights on the, you know, on the side. And I feel like we could do a really good job with like pre-planning this stuff and we’ve done it with for concrete coding companies with basements is like in September we offer a pre sale winter promo and it’s like, you know, 10% off, 10% down thing to pre-book stuff. And I think we can do the same thing for Christmas lights. You know, we book early on with Facebook ads, retargeting, TikTok, even YouTube shorts, um, and kind of retarget those things with, you know, like maybe a reactivation campaigns and different things for current customers, cold leads, cold estimates, things like that. Um, but I’m kind of curious too, man. Um. If somebody’s looking to get into the Christmas light division. Right. Whether it’s concrete coding companies, power companies, how could they reach out to get this information from you guys? Is it like sign up for like like on a website? Is it deeming you. How could they reach out to learn more about this kind of division or kind of process?
Yeah, I mean, there’s plenty of Facebook groups out there. I’m always available to speak to anybody. I love talking about it. I mean, I literally live this 24 divided by seven. I wear this jacket all the time, not because I want the attention he does.
Dude, I’ve seen it too. He does. Guys, if you’re.
Listening, he does.
Traveling next week and I’ll be wearing this through the airport every single day and it could be 100 degrees outside.
It’s just stopped over there, too. Do you get stopped?
Oh, I’ve had dance parties at the Delta Sky Club before. I’ll walk in and they literally start dancing. It’s like. Absolutely. And one time they’re like. They’re like, It’d be so much cool if that jacket had lights on it. And I was like. And I had that one actually had lights on and I turned them on and they just went crazy. Absolutely crazy. So but yeah, it’s just, you know, I’m so passionate about the Christmas lighting industry. I truly am. I used to be passionate about the the washing. But when I found out that I can do something that I loved as a kid and now I can do it for my kids and other people that I just I love talking about it. So I have no problem reaching out to anybody. You know how to get started. All those things point you in the right direction. You know, I highly encourage everybody to get training. And I don’t care who you go through, as long as you get some form of training and investing yourself and investing your team to do that because you’re going to shorten your curve of making mistakes and spending money that you don’t need to, and you’ll be able to get higher average tickets, higher closing rates and all that because of the training.
And are you going to the huge convention?
Oh, I can’t wait.
I’ll be speaking there this year. It was a it was a goal of mine last year. I’ve got a picture. I’ve got a Post-it, actually, that I was there with my I brought my daughters last year and my dad, and there was an empty room with a podium. And I get up there and took a picture and I’m like 20, 24, I want to be on a stage speaking. And they afforded me the opportunity to be up there this year. So I will be there and I’m very much looking forward to it. And we’re actually doing Christmas Light training the Monday and Tuesday of the week of the huge. So there’s another opportunity for you to get some training while you’re there.
Okay. So I’m going to be speaking at the huge convention as well, Um, on marketing stuff, of course, But, um, I just got secured for that a couple months ago and man, I didn’t know you guys were doing Christmas stuff. Dude, I’d love to come experience that. Like, I’ve loved Christmas as a kid as well. Um, so maybe I could kind of jump in there. I’m going to do some golfing while I’m there though, so, dude, dude, if you want to go golfing. I do. Let’s go, dude. Yeah. Seeing you golf with that jacket would be amazing.
Dude, I want to come to Phoenix.
I bet you have some amazing courses out there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I went yesterday. I went. I went twice this week. I’m trying to go four times a week to get better. I’m like low 80s right now.
Um, I’m not that good.
That’s like my miniature golf score, probably, but not.
I’m kind of getting to the.
70 so I can play an amateur tournament like, I think it’s so important to challenge yourself outside of your work. Like whether I mean pickleball working out, like, whatever it could be to challenge yourself. So I really commit to that outside of work. So I’m doing golfing right now. Um, and dude, golf is hard. Golf is hard, dude. Like it is. It is.
Tough, fun.
Fact. I actually went to college on a golf scholarship and yeah, I played golf a lot in high school. And when I went to college, I never partied any in high school and it opened up Pandora’s box. I went to one golf practice in college and they’re like, Why did we give you all this money if you never showed up? And then they kicked me off the team and then I was gone from that school. But I love golf and I’m just starting to get back into it myself. And I don’t get out as much as I want, but fortunately, I have a good friend of mine that forces me to go out every couple of Wednesdays a month. And yeah, I’d love to come out to Phoenix and go golfing with you there.
Yeah, well, so I mean, so my wife and I are going to Nashville. Um, we have like two other people, so we’re like bringing like four people from service legend and we’re going golfing, like, twice at the resort. Um, so I’ll let you know, man, And maybe you can come, you know, and we’ll play. But I’d love to come to the actual training for clip. Or is it clip a training?
Yeah, clip a training for Monday and Tuesday, the week of, uh, I think it’s the 23rd or no, 28th is the huge. So it’ll be that Monday. Tuesday.
Okay. And how would people sign up for that if they’re interested in that training they go to clipper.com.
Yeah.
Dot com.
It’s clipper.com.
Clipper.
Okay so clipa.com. If you’re interested in this if you’re going to the huge convention which is going to be one of the most awesome home service conventions of the year, Jaycee’s is going to be speaking. I’m going to be speaking marketing. What are you going to be speaking on over.
There on leadership and culture? Yep.
Okay. So on leadership culture, you guys cannot miss it. I’ll be speaking on marketing, the home service marketing in the. Future of marketing for home service, whether it’s TikTok Chatgpt. Facebook Ads. Instagram. Youtube ads. Linkedin, Pinterest, email marketing, rehash, whatever it could be. We’re going to be talking about those different things. But in addition to that, we can talk about Christmas lights and that division and, you know, and what clip can you know and can offer you guys over there. Um, JC, I like to always in the podcast with two different questions. You know, I love this one. Um, and it’s basically just the best and worst advice you’ve ever received. And I think it’s huge because the best advice and the worst advice can always kind of push us in one direction or the other. What is the and I’ll start with the worst. You know, what is the worst advice you’ve ever received when it comes to business?
Um oh, that’s a good one.
And don’t tell Brandon this because. No, I’m just kidding.
The worst advice. Oh, man.
Technically, that’s the worst advice. Take off the jacket. Yeah.
Oh, man. The worst.
Advice? That’s a good question. Um, I think I’d have to say is, um.
You know, sometimes we try to empower like, you know, you.
Tell kids they can be anything they want when they’re younger and it’s kind of the same thing. Like, you could do anything you want and then just go do it. But they don’t tell you to invest in the time to train, to invest in the time to do the research, to invest in yourself, to to see if it’s something you even want to do. Because I see so many guys just jump into these services that they have no clue about, they’re not passionate about, and then they just ethically fail. So just telling somebody to go do it because they’re, you know, they’re excited about it is probably the worst thing. And instead of saying, like, you need to figure it out first and that’s like with the Christmas lights thing, Like I did a lot of research. I knew it was something I wanted to do. We tested it for a year, then we finally did it and knew it was something that was going to be successful. Instead of just jumping into something and saying, Oh, we’re going to be go big with this. And then we just failed.
Yeah, which is really nuts, too, because. So I think a lot of people are afraid of that. You know, like it’s, it’s pretty interesting. Um, now the best advice. So this one’s pretty interesting too. Um, what is the best advice you’ve ever received when it comes to business?
Again the coach and joining conquer and it was that day wish I had the date with with Pat Clark I mean it was just we got on the phone he was real. We talked and we went through both our stories. And he was humble. And, you know, he said, you need this. You need to join Conquer. It’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. And I’ve never looked back at one time and said I regretted that. So because of that or any coaching group, I mean, there’s so many out there, but just to invest into a coaching group and don’t look at the cost like anytime says how much is it? And they’re like, Oh God, that’s expensive. No, like that’s it. That’s all you should be saying is like, that’s it. Because the first phone call, you’re going to get so much value out of it and then it’s just going to exponentially grow from there. So obviously the I mean, because I had that mindset, I know it all, I don’t need it. And then once I got it, I was like, holy cow. Like, what was I doing? Why did I waste all this time?
Yeah, I mean, you are short changing yourself, you know, And I tell clients this all the time at service legend, whether they’re smaller or bigger or whatever it is. Um, and we’re like, Hey, it’s going to be 500 bucks extra to do YouTube ads, branding or whatever it is. And they’re like, Oh my gosh. And I’m like. You cannot not afford to your potential customers to see this stuff like you’ve got to get out there. If you ask Tommy Melo, you know get all you asked Victor Ranker, you Brandon, Jeff Gear, whoever it could be. They’re always doing it. I mean, they’re always doing it. They’re putting themselves out there. You know, they’re they’re they’re they’re paying for coaching programs, technology, software, payroll, whatever it could be. And I think it’s such a big component, man, of, you know, what we’re doing here. So, you know, I appreciate that. Um, any final words you want to share with the group here?
Um.
Yeah. I mean, invest in yourself, invest in your team. Don’t be afraid to fail. I fail often. I mean, I failed as a father. I failed as a son. I failed as a husband. I failed as a business owner. And I just keep learning from that. I keep going forward. Don’t let that set you back. Don’t let that hold you back from continuing your growth personally and just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re not alone if you’re if you’re struggling or if you’re down, reach out to somebody, find that support, find that network and find somebody you can trust. And to be able to reach out and just tell them like, I’m having a bad day and I need help and that’s okay. It’s okay to ask for help. And that was the hardest thing for me to do for a long time, it was always me. I got this. I’m going to take care of myself and now I’m not afraid to ask anybody for help. I’ll reach out and say like, I need some help on this today, please. And usually they’re open arms ready to help us. And it’s just incredible how much that changes my mindset on a lot of things in life. So you’re not alone?
Yeah, man. Love it, dude. Thank you so much again for your time, your energy, your effort here. If you guys want to reach out more to JC about whether it’s a Christmas light training, whatever it could be, where could they find you? Man on Instagram, Facebook, wherever.
Yeah.
So I’m on a journey right now. I got a goal of getting 500 new Instagram followers in a week because I don’t like Instagram and I got to figure that out. So yeah. Jc underscore Chudnofsky on Instagram. So definitely hit me on there so I can add those and make that challenge even easier. But yeah, LinkedIn, I mean all of them, I’m on them all and just reach out to me. I will gladly respond and help anybody out however I can to make you more successful in whatever you’re doing.
Love it, dude. Hey, if you guys are live, there’s like one live here or two live Now, um, put in comments. Hashtag live. If you’re on the replay, put in comments, hashtag replay. Let us know where you’re tuning in from. If you’re on Apple or Spotify, let us know that you’re alive. You’re out there. Let us know that there’s some feedback available, whether it’s good or bad. We’d love to learn more about what’s going on, what you guys want to hear more about, etcetera. And JC, Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Have an amazing weekend, guys. We’ll see you guys next Friday.
Take care.
