The Huddle - Episode 165 - How to Transition from Installer to Business Owner
Making the leap from installer to business owner isn’t easy—it’s a whole new world of challenges and opportunities. In this week’s episode of The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose break down what it takes to successfully transition from working on the job site to running your own business. From mindset shifts to managing finances, building teams, and creating long-term sustainability, this conversation is packed with real and raw insights for anyone looking to take their career to the next level.
🎙️ Tune in, join the discussion, and let’s talk about how installers can become thriving business leaders.
Why Tune In?
✅ Learn the biggest challenges installers face when moving into ownership
✅ Understand the skills needed to run a successful flooring business
✅ Get practical tips to make your transition smoother
✅ Hear real stories from pros who have made the leap
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What is up guys? Welcome back to the huddle, your weekly playbook helping you gain forward progress in your career.
Simply put, we are hel here here to help you guys win. For all the new viewers,
welcome to the team. Want to give a give a quick shout out to Shag Tools and
thank them for sponsoring this episode of the huddle. Today's topic
is transitioning from installer to business owner. Now, this is
really like if you're an employee installer and you're looking at going out on your own. If you're a subcontract
installer, you absolutely should already be a business. Um, and if you're not,
hang in there on this podcast and we'll give you some tips and tricks on how to,
you know, make that a reality. how to be, you know, legal eagle, so to speak, and and um run your company where you
can grow it, right? All that being said, what's up, Mr. Daniel? What's going on? To have people stop
hiding from uh good old Uncle Sam and stuff trying to
see what they can get away with. Well, I think that, you know, every time we get into this
this particular topic and we go over it what, two or three times a year, we bring this up, you know,
probably even more than we bring it up more for sure, but two or three times a year, we have a topic
that's kind of specialized at operating as a business.
um all the pitfalls and downfalls. But just to kind of open it up, I mean it's
really unfair to the rest of the market if you are not incurring cost
that the other people in the market are incurring because they're doing it right. Um
and I say not fair. I don't mean it like oh that's not fair. I'm saying you're
running the market for the rest of us because you bid things cheaper than the rest of us and you can still get work
and make a heck of a lot more money than undercutting everybody because you're not paying your, you know, you you're
not paying your FICA and your social security. You're not paying your installers as employees. You're 1099 and
a 1099. Who's 1099 and a 1099? Right? It's just that vicious cycle,
right? It's just keeps on going and going and then they think that, well, this is again, we talk about this
all the time, too. This is the way I've always done it, so it's right. Yeah. What does the case?
Well, it's hardly ever the case. You know, it's like when is it right to
not do it the right way? You can only 1099 down so many times before the
quality is nothing. And there's and people shouldn't be working for those kind of numbers. And it begs the
question, well, like if your sub can sub to somebody else for way less, then
where do you uh why don't you just go sub to them? Because most of the time those guys don't have the insurance and
stuff, so they team up with somebody who does. And really the best thing we can
be for our industry, every installer out there, hire employees as a sub. If
you're a sub, you're the boss. Hire 10. Don't hire 1099 or sub things out.
Again, hire employees. Pay those social security like operate as a business as a
you know, more like a business. And that's really what we're talking about, right? Jose's
joining for a second and he's his son's got a football game, his first football game of the year today. So,
gotcha. And then uh Mr. Garden here says low man
always sets the bar. And I mean,
and it's not and it's not just installers we're talking about, right?
Because some of these businesses are, you know, that you go up against, you see their numbers in some of these
public bids and you're like, how are they even bidding at 20% under my cost?
Mhm. But that's where those installers do come in, right? Because they they're not
doing things right. So they're like, I can just do this job for X amount
just to get it. And I know that they're not going to get it because they have to charge more.
Yeah, it's I mean it goes on our level like you said like on the companies who are bidding these public projects,
hotels, casinos, you know, hospitals and such. Um but even in the resid it's on
our level but even in the residential side on the retailer level it's just
it's a little different because all you really need in the commercial business is a a DB you know your business and
some insurance and then you can start bidding work. You you can do it out of your house. You just need a warehouse to
right or storage unit. Like people hack and slash this stuff together. I know a guy
that did that. But I can tell you
100% of the time that in my experience anyway when people shortcut those things
when they're cutting and slicing and dicing and trying to like I don't know almost
hustle as opposed to have a business like like um like a side hustle almost
right kind of odd. Um the guys that are working for themselves and still say, "I got a side job to do
this weekend." It's like, bro, you you you don't there there isn't a such thing
as a a side job anymore. Yeah. The um Georgie,
the um the guys that I've seen do that in our
area, they just don't make it. They don't stay around long term. um most of the time they don't uh
attract good subs and do poor work and they go out of business. I mean people want to do business with another
business that is responsible. So anyway today's topic is is is
relevant at the company level. When I say company, somebody who's bidding to
the market. So, whoever is bidding the project, buying the materials,
delivering materials, that's the company. In the residential world, that's the
retailer who's buying the materials and all that. Um, on the other side, you have tons of subcontractors. That's who
we're really talking to. We're going to be coming out with a um a webinar series
that really goes deep on this subject in particular. And um
when I say we're really talking to the installer, that's again not to say these these
things don't happen at the company's level. It does. It's just more frequent in the installers. And what we found is
it's mostly because installers it's either fear or lack of
knowledge. Fear of being legal because you got you think you got some there's
just fear built around it. Whether it's maybe, you know, being legit means
you're on the radar or or something like that. Um, I've heard any multitude of
things, but we're going to go through a few of the um main items of being a
business, but I thought I'd kick it off with you, Daniel, and ask you, what was
the hardest thing for you guys when you first went from just installing and kind
of thought about starting a business? What was the what was the biggest hurdle for you? man, we started at like ground
zero with zero knowledge of running a business at all. Right? It was um I'll
be honest with you, when we first started it was 2010, right? So, I actually used a
pirated piece of software to start doing invoices and stuff and it was like like
when you're talking about doing things non-legit, I mean, we were right there.
and then just trying to get the information like do I need this, do I
need that? And um I think that's where we were a little different though because we were actually asking those
questions and trying to find the information like we went to our um we
just had a DBA for for a while and
you know that that's the way we we started and uh it wasn't until I think
four or five years in where we actually switched to an LLC but it was that constant um
constant pressure in the back of your mind like well now we're kind of building up what am I going to do to
protect myself and the hardest thing was trying to find
that information and now that we're we've kind of established ourselves we and it it sucks because it would have
helped out way earlier but that's why we're here right to tell these guys there's resources out there for you and
you know all these people that we're talking to now It's like the small business and administration, the um
I mean well just just whether it's an actual organiz the huddle itself. I mean
we've put enough information on here that you should be able to effectively
go start your business. Now we're in our webinar series, we're going to go in
depth t trip tips, you know, tricks, things of um everything from legal to
accounting to operational. I mean, we're going to get really deep on how to be an ei how to efficiently manage a project
so that you know you're making money. Uh that webinar series is going to be a um
master class in going from installer to uh to business owner, right? uh for
sure. And some of the topics I'm going to list these off that we're going to be hitting in that webinar series and we'll
touch on a little bit today. But legal, so it's company setup, you know, an LLC,
a sle proprietor, okay? When's an SC corp? Should you consider that CC corp?
And of course, insurance. And Dave, you know, he just put, you know, it's like a fundamental like responsibility
if you're an installer to have proper insurance. And I could not agree with you more. Then we're going to get into
operations like estimating, project management, delivering materials, all this kind of good stuff. Uh tools uh
that will help you in that uh both, you know, like physical tools as well as
software. And then we'll get into accounting. We'll have an uh and a lot
of these we'll have like an attorney and we'll have um an accountant an actual
accountant uh teaching portions of this uh webinar series. So it's going to be
legit for you guys. Um but yeah so accounting pra best
practices software that kind of stuff and then of course marketing and advertising yourself and these are going
in this direction because you shouldn't do any of the any of these other activities before you do the the one
before it. So for example, you should not be operating, estimating, and doing stuff like that without having your
company set up and your insurance in place first. And then accounting, you
really don't have anything to account if you're not estimating and managing and
actually doing the work. So we're going to get into a lot of those when it's uh
when when this also comes up. will teach you how to properly manage and and uh
maintain a good subbase if you are going to use subcontractors or uh like both of
us also have W2 employee installers and I honestly believe that's the best way
to go no matter where you're at. That's how I started when I first started it.
Um soon thereafter when I started hiring guys we were hiring W2s. We never for
the first five years, four years, we didn't have any subs. Uh we only outgrew
and got it was hard to keep up with just employee installers. But I think most
companies should have a mix of both and learn how to treat them differently. So
one you're dealing with on a contract basis with clear objectives of work and
a a a price tied to that activity. And then the other you're you have you know
employee installers. Yeah. I mean we wouldn't be able to do what we do without that mix, right? And
a big reason why we um don't just do all employees is because then the employees
start becoming overworked and it's like you got to alleviate some stuff sometimes and and have them you know
that the other team so to speak in the back of your pocket so that way it's like hey it's we're so busy right now we
need some help on some of these projects and just pulling people in. Yeah. I think there's a good mix of
like, you know, most of our work gets done by subs now and we use our hourlies in the
projects that that best suit them, but also to have that flexibility that if a
sub is having a little bit of a problem, we can move hourlys over and help supplement them without pulling their
contract and going to another sub or trying to get two subs to work together on a job. Uh, sometimes that has to
happen, but for the most part, we use our hourlys just for customer satisfaction to always be able to have
somebody, you know, hey, I need this little thing fixed over here. We can probably get somebody over to your
facility within, you know, 24 hours, uh, by just pulling a few strings. So,
that just happened on a project, too, where they were like, uh, they called me and they're like, "Hey, can you come do
these reducers real quick?" um you know, our turnover date is tomorrow. And I'm
like, you know, yeah, someone's like literally within walking distance. Let me just send them over there real quick.
And they're like, that's why we like to call you guys because it's it's not only
like that stuff, but they say we want we know who's going to show up
with, you know, some of these other guys that only have the subcontractor. just like sometimes they they'll send people
and then it's a different person on the next phase and then different person on the next phase and they just like that
um you know they they know that if it's preferred preferred is who's going to show up a majority of the time. Mhm.
Yeah, it's certainly um different aspects of how you uh approach the
business, but some level of a mix between the two. Like we're probably more 7030 or 8020 80
70 to 80% of our work's done by subs and about the other 20% done by our in-house
guys. Right. But you you used to be closer to two that you use, right? It's not like
you're turning over and turning over. It's like, you know, they still want to work with you. So, it could
Well, we really do use the hammer rating. If we're using someone new, uh the new VTI, the you know, we use what
will be trade tap uh uh go Carrera. We use that to when we are using new subs.
I mean, we actually use the hammer rating. Most of the guys at the very least, even if they're better than what
their hammer rating says, we're able to like have that discussion with them. What it does is it sets the tone that we
want high quality, period. Like, hey, you got a crappy hammer rating. It we
may not come off like that, but you know, your your rating's pretty low. What what can we do? what tell me more
about how you got to where you're at because your your rating doesn't support this project
and at the very least we've been able to have some really meaningful discussions because that but the point is is that
you want to make sure you're using high quality guys. Um, and for the subs of
the world, um, you know, we'll go ahead and kind of start trickling into some of
the content. You know, we have legalist first off because we know a lot of companies or a
lot of installers who just go sole proprietor for and they don't go ever
get any like protection. So one of the reasons you have a uh you know an entity
is so that if something drastic was to happen happen that you are protected
personally to uh a great extent. uh not a 100%, not always, not in all
circumstances, but you have a a layer of protection in lawsuits and accidents,
things like this that you know can protect your home and your your personal
property uh from being taken in a uh you know, a lawsuit, say, so to speak. Um
now, obviously, I will always tell you to go talk to an attorney, get their best advice, don't listen to me. I'm
just a guy on the internet. But I'm telling you from experience that you you definitely want to have
that in mind. Now, we're talking about really is risk management and compliance.
Risk management because you want to reduce your personal risk. That's where
insurance also comes in. It's risk management for your business. So you layer on these layer, you pile on these
layers of risk management so that your business doesn't take you down. Um if
your business thrives, it could be purchased because it's separate from you. Uh there's a lot of reasons to
start a business, start a actual company. Um,
you guys when you started, are you did you guys set up as an LLC or No, we were
a DBA for for many years before we actually switched over to an LLC.
And we kind of um did that the same time where we realized, you know, cuz when we
were working, we were paid on a 1099 and then that's how we continued. And then
there was a point where it's like uh you know, you start talking to more people and they're like, "Well, we'd come work
for you, but we want this and we want that." And it's like, man, we better
start making some changes. So, we kind of did everything all at the same time. And it's like, if we're going to do one thing, let's package it together and get
the LLC and and switch everyone over to employees on a on a W2 instead of a
1099. And then you know the following year it was all right let's start looking at different things to add you
know we added insurance and um so health insurance and
uh the IRA so we have retirement and it was just it didn't all happen at the same time
right but it was things that we seen the market asking for well and and a lot of those things will
come later, but at the very least, you want to have a legal setup that
accomplishes your personal and professional goals. So,
of course, we'll have an attorney kind of talk through these things, but there's a time when an LLC is the best.
There's a time when an S corp is the best, a time when a CC corp is the best. And I've owned all three of those types
of entities. uh own several now that are in different um uh setup and they're
they're for different reasons. Uh one thing that goes along with that legal is
the insurance and we're talking about li your very first you should always have
is liability insurance and then of course
you have your W2s and your you have employees you need to have your workman's comp. Those are the two most
important insuranceances uh to have. And that right there gets you like set up
into um well, like Daniel just said, I mean, it took years, right, Daniel? Before you
were you guys set up that way, um you know, the
that helped allow you like you start operating like a business and doing the other things you were talking about.
Yeah. And you know, like like we said, it doesn't all have to happen at the same time, but you you at least have to start looking at things like
I mean, just like you said, you're protecting yourself. Look at everything. Look at your family. It's like if I if
I'm a DBA and something goes wrong on the job site tomorrow and you know, the
guys that work with you are your best friends, right? Until something happens and then it's like
they're going to do whatever they can to protect themselves, too. Jose's jumped on the stream. Welcome
Jose. I've been been listening but no signal
out here in the booties for the first week of football. Well, congrats.
We were just talking about kind of legal setup and um you know how each one has
its purposes to make sure talk to an attorney. Um, but you definitely want to
have a business set up and then get insurance past that. A lot of
if it's just your accountant that you're talking to, right, they can really lead you into the right direction. They and
they'll say the same things. I'm not an attorney, but this is what I've seen work and this is where I think you
should go. Well, getting with both of them. Yeah. I mean because your next the you
know I put a operations in front of accounting because you really got to have something to account for. So you
need to be doing some activity that's going to produce money. Um operations is
like estimating jobs. Where do you find the work? And we won't get into all that
here, but there's a lot of different places we'll share in the webinar of
where to go find the estimates, where to go get um accounts that can help you to
uh find projects to bid on. Um setting up your vendors,
uh setting and that moves right into accounting. been setting up vendors and getting accounts set up and all of that
stuff. All of that is kind of operationally important for your
success. Uh estimating a job poorly will make you lose money as fast as anything.
It's hard to come back from a bad estimate. Although, if you're really good at project management, you'll find
some tricks and tips in our webinar that will kind of help you through that. Um,
but those operations is where you the rubber meets the road. It's where all
the risk is and it's where all of your uh profit all your profits made is in
operations. You can lower cost by and always maintain your your cost. But you
know operations where the money's at. That's where you bid the work,
get the work, where you actually need to know that you have to be profitable and you're not
just working to work, right? A lot of people are just
working to work and when you're not keeping track of this stuff, you you don't have any concrete evidence
that you're actually making money. Yeah. So really probably could have been
maybe the first thing we said was a mindset shift from
working and owning your job to starting to build systems and putting the tools
in place and the structure in place for you to own, run, and manage a successful
flooring business.
Operations is also where you never
um dare I say you never arrive if you're just it's like you're always trying to
improve something always a new system. Um, I'm going to give you some tricks in
the webinar that we use and I know that uh Preferred has used to um help your
operations out, help you run smoother, put systems in place that'll help you to
kind of guide through, excuse me, some of the processes easier. Um and having
kind of a a process management so that people can come in start doing a
job that is directed and um they can automatically start creating value for
your business. That's where operations can make make
you the most money is when you have systems in place that allow people to come in and be successful out of the
gate. Right? And it's way easier to do when it's just one or two people than it is when you're already in full swing of
things. Ask me how I know. Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard, right? Because you're
still, you know, you're you're on the job site a majority of the time. So, it's like when I'm when am I going to
have time? But, I mean, the way that we were built, um, it was actually like my
son when he was younger, he was like, "All you do all day, Dad, is type type." Right? because I would get out of work
and then I would come home and then I'd get on the computer and it's like billing and this and that and it's
always something. Yeah, it's it's um
the earlier you start doing some of the stuff that I think Preferred started
doing several years into their venture, um I had the benefit of having a um
project manager from the company that I worked at um come with me when I started
my business and he had some some office experience and kind of set up a
QuickBooks and we set up an a uh escorp and you know so we started doing some of
the things automatically right the one thing we didn't do is is write down our
processes or log anything that we did that happened every day because anything
that you do as an owner that happens every day can probably be systematized
for somebody else to do. I want to take a minute here and uh
again thank Shack Tools for being this episode sponsor and have you watch a
quick video from our friends over at shacktools.com.
Heat. Heat. [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
Well, thank you, Shag Tools. I always get uh laughing at Oh, yeah. We we tried popping it up at
the same time again. Yeah, but I always get uh crack out of Jorge
Shagalistic. Uh, thank you to Shagg Tools for being our sponsor today. Remember,
remember Huddle 10 for your discount code 10% off your tools over at Shagg Tools. You can get all the the best
brands at the best prices at shaggtools.com. Yes, sir. And uh Kevin says his only
question is how do you feel about your fantasy football team this year?
Well, started strong in the draft.
Uh before you know it, you uh fall off. I've got a I've got a rough year ahead
of me, but you know what? Last year, I thought I picked a great a great team
and and I think I finished dead last. So, probably flipped that. I'm gonna improve at least one r one one spot this
year, Kevin. I'll at least not be last. That's my uh that's my last last year.
Yeah, I think I think I finished at last in our league. Hey, better than me.
How do you feel about yours, Kevin, is what I'm asking, too.
All right. So, as we're continuing here, where'd you guys leave off?
Well, we were talking about I want to make sure that I'm not chiming in. We're talking about uh operations
and how systematizing a lot of those operations as you see them happening
day by day by day like the same thing that it's probably something you can put into a system in a process and hire
somebody much more affordable than you as the owner uh and
often much more efficient 99% of the time at doing those types of duties. So,
so we were talking about uh operations, how that's really systematiz, you know, doing the operations where you make your
money and then systematizing prior and and putting those processes into play.
Uh that's where you increase profits. Yeah. And it's way easier today than ever before with AI right now. I mean,
definitely a tool to have in that toolbox. Yeah. from AI all the way to just having
um you know if I was to give any advice to my old my younger self um in operations
I would say get fantastic at hiring get absolutely fantastic at hiring and
firing people like just the employment side how do you do that there's some people who are the best at
it and those are the ones who uh really rock and role. Uh if you can hire and
fire well, meaning doing being ethical, doing
things the right way, but at the same time being very efficient. Um it's it's
a little secret to success. Next on our list is accounting. And so we'll we'll
you know you want to get with an accountant obviously and I would recommend that every installer have an
accountant and put together a system that allows you to track your expenses
and your your revenue. So how much are you bringing in and how much are you paying out and um you know finding the
delta there so you know you're operating a a profitable business. There's best
practices and software and thing that surround this. Um, QuickBooks we talk
about a lot. That'll take you a long long way. Just QuickBooks
um, and a few other pieces of software for estimating. Um, but that'll take you
a long way. You can also do it offline with Excel spreadsheets and Google Sheets is free.
And Google Sheets is free and uh, it works just like a spreadsheet. So, um
you can do that. You can also do what I did, which is, you know, probably not
the, um, best way for the accountant, but man, I had a file full of freaking
receipts, and I just wrote down on every receipt what it was, what expense it was for, and just handed
it to my accountant every week. This was a third party. They did everything but
payroll for us. And we still have an accounting firm that does uh a big part
of our as we grew, you know, you got to start getting reviewed or audited financials for your bonding companies
and stuff. That's down the road, but um for a lot of companies starting off, you
probably don't want to get into a a bonded and uh project situation right
out of the gate. Um, but if you do, there's practices and best practices to
that as well. But accounting is one where I think a lot of people fall down,
guys. They do. And it's because you and it's not even hard. It's simple when you
know how to do it, right? But it's just the learning curve to know how to do it. Um, I was in that, too. And it's just
like the bookkeeping aspect. Where does this go? Where does that go? And you know like like Paul was saying we're
going to have a webinar series and a deep dive into like chart of accounts and stuff like that. So you know what is
happening when you get these receipts where do they have to be allocated to?
And then you know a lot of stuff is down the road but I want it doesn't have to be if if you
do want to like do it all right out of the gate. the webinar series is going to give you all the tools that you're going
to need to do that. Um, but that that being said, you can you can start with,
you know, starting an escorp and getting a a corporate now you have your
corporate attorney, have an attorney write up your escort paperwork, you know, go get yourself an accounting firm
that specializes in construction and now you have your uh accountant. Um, but
there's a lot of things in that accounting side once you get into being a company dealing with general
contractors with how you have to put your pay apps in and all this stuff. And we will get into that, just not not
here. It just is so deep of a subject by itself. That's why all of this is being
put into a webinar series because we couldn't possibly go through y uh any of this with great detail that
would serve you in a way of being able to actually start a business and be successful. Um and all of that success
falls in that operations which is in your hands and your ability to go out get business and get the business done.
But from a structure setup, the webinar series will do a great job and give uh
great service to each one of the topics. But accounting's just one where I see
guys, they just take in money. I I mean, I still see guys, you know, they go to
their bank, they withdraw the money, they're out handing out hundreds to
their guys. Like, that's still how they're operating. Um,
I don't think accounting is hard. I think it's scary. And, um, having an
accountant, an actual accountant on your side that can help guide you would be a is a almost a must. Uh, once you start
doing, you know, if you're an installer and you're doing half million to a million
or million plus a year as an installer, you should probably have an accountant.
So, and some software and then we we hit
we'll hit on marketing and advertising. Uh, which is how to market yourself, your unique stance in your market. What
do you bring to the table that's different? Um, and then advertising, where to go to to place ads,
word of mouth, location can be important if you're doing retail, um, those types of things.
But, um, yeah. So, I mean, that's really today's topic is is, uh, the the four
biggest items, and there's many more uh, if you broke down each one of these, but legal, operations, accounting, and then
marketing, and advertising. You could say branding, which would be in your marketing and advertising. You
could say purchasing, which is in your operations, and you could really beat this uh down. But the one that I see the
most uh benefit to the installers is just just get yourself set up, right? I
think all four at level one is better than none of them. You know what I mean? like get to level one on all four of
those uh main subjects and you're going to be doing more than 90% of the people
who start a business. I got a couple questions and and maybe this is for to help the audience as
well. Um you know going back and looking back when when we all started and and
some of the older gentlemen that are are established that are in the audience as well.
Do you think that it's easier to start from ground zero now than it was 10
years ago, 15, 20 years ago? Um, and the reason I ask is that there's a lot of
information out there now. There's a lot of a lot more tools available at your
fingertips to get the information you need to make sure that you are taking those right steps to make sure you're not missing something. Um, as far as
starting in, you know, DBA, LLC, accounting, beginner accounting,
advanced, depending on where you want to be at. Um, well, I think a lot of it has to do with
what your strengths are and then hire, you know, hiring, whether it's hiring a company or hiring somebody on staff to
do the things you're not so good at. Um, you mentioned like early on. Well, early
on is the I think it is it's easier to get set up and make sure you're paying
your taxes, for example, and you're doing the things necessary to check the
lowest level boxes to to call yourself a company and doing those legally and doing those right. Um, and then you can
get into are you building your company to sell it? Are you building it as a lifestyle company? Are you building it
to pass on to your children? Like what is your what is your goals and purpose?
And that goes with Gardens comment a little bit too. Yeah, it does. He says you need to have
a a new business. Let's Oh, me and Daniel are good.
Yeah. Every single time you do it. You need to have a new business growth
plan every year. And what that what that says that is not
being said is that that means you have to know where your successes and failures were the previous year to be
able to grow from them. Like it indicates that you know where you were at to have a growth plan. And Dave built
a great company guys so you should listen to him. Um, yeah, he's saying that because he he he would
have been able to tell you the year before, what was his revenue, what was his, you know, cost of goods sold, what
was his overhead, then what's his net profit before taxes, how much did he
actually have access to after taxes? And then that was a either a good or a
average or a great year or maybe even a poor year. And then you can adjust and
make business growth plans off of that.
So, and grow growth doesn't mean making more money and getting more jobs, guys. Growth just can be for making the right
decisions to to to help your company stay successful. Success is not always
doesn't always more money doesn't always equal more success, right? More jobs doesn't always equal more success. So,
um, yeah, I mean, you bring up a good point. Growth could be growing in your knowledge and growing
your systems and th that type of growth. Um, I think Dave's probably aiming more
at the revenue growth. Oh, yeah. But you bring a really good point. We have
had years where we did more money, more revenue, and made less profit.
less bottom line profit on a bigger year. Um, that's not good. Like, why do more
work and make less money? Um, and part of that is like
figuring out how to go, you know, from zero to a million and then how do you go
from a million to five million and then from five million to 10 million and then that 10 million to 15. And each one of
these kind of jumps require a whole new level. Maybe not a whole new level, but
some level up of your skills and ability to manage and uh uh uh produce profit
from that work. And uh it's easy to kind of lose sight of everything as the
owner. Uh so you got to have systems and processes and people in place to pick up
that stuff that's out of your peripheral. Make sure that you've trained them and and taught them
correctly and you have good good systems and ways of doing business that those things can happen without you.
Like my boy Biggy said, mo more money, more problems.
Paul, you were frozen for a second. that I I thought it was you guys that froze
out. I said it looked like I said that looked like I said more money, more problems. And you just look like I don't
get it. Well, I finished your sentence for you
because I knew I knew exactly where you were going. I was like I thought you froze up anyway. But yeah, there there
are certainly more more things to to manage. You got to have higher
insurance. You got to watch your expenses. One of the things that can get out of control on you without you even
noticing is expenses. Like you just don't realize and next thing you know
you're spending all this money on things that you don't have to have anymore.
And I'll say that one of the nicest things
is when you go in and you go to strip expenses out of the company and you find a bunch of credit card like charges. you
know that oh I don't need that anymore. You save 5800
a,000 bucks a month because you just cancel a bunch of crap that you don't need. Newsletters or some subscription
to this or subscription to that. That stuff can get out of control on you. So you want to have a method of of like
making sure you're you're checking those things. And that's that's where I found a ton of value is the chart of accounts
being accurate that Daniel was talking about earlier. And I don't want to get in the weeds so far that I lose people, but having your chart of accounts,
right, where you can see which line items you're spending what on and then create a budget for that next year. Um,
and and that'll help allow you to grow, but also keep your expenses under control.
Yeah. And we have it set up, you know, so that way we can track the revenue
from from different sources too. So we can know which market is the most
profitable for us. So that way we can start making decisions like it's this market right here. So we need
to start bidding more of these jobs. Yeah. And and if you put that into an installer's perspective, it could be the
same thing like tracking your carpet revenue versus your vinyl revenue
installing wise and where are you making the most money. You know, um sometimes
it's not the product you get the most down in or even the one that you have the highest revenue in. It's a product
that is just it fits maybe your skill set or you have an installer on staff
skill set that you're really efficient and you make really good money on. But knowing
that man, I make a ton of money when I do X, Y, or Z product will help you
understand your growth process. And like Jose was talking about earlier, it
doesn't have to be growth and money. It could be growth into something we've covered in this podcast many a times
which is into new sectors um you know we're we're going to be
opening a maintenance division. We do some maintenance anyway and um for our
clients but we're going to open up a full maintenance division because of being able to analyze things. Um that's
not a decision that just got made. Uh but that's growth. You know, it's not a
huge revenue growth year one, but it's growth in how we're approaching taking
care of our customers. It's growth in going into a new sector. So be the same
as an installer going from a carpet layer to, you know, binding stuff and starting to do more spindled stairs and
runners and and area rugs or a tile guy deciding to get into larger panels
or tile guy deciding to start looking at hardwood, which is from our last week's
uh podcast is starting to really increase in the marketplace, starting to
gain share again, you know. So, if you think about it, growth can be a a
different uh things, but it does all end up in how do you grow your your top line
and how do you manage it effectively to have the most at the bottom line when you're done?
When did you guys uh when did you guys start really considering marketing and advertising?
Um, you know what? That's a hard one to to answer because I've always been we I
say I we've always been pretty shameless when it comes to it, but I think Daniel strategically started attacking it a few
years ago. Um, and Daniel could take over on that one because that was that was his is just a lot of it we rely on
we relied on word of mouth, family, friends, um, and just doing a just doing a good
job and having integrity and and that's what we relied on a lot. But then the shameless plugs here and there and then
Daniel kind of took over a few years ago and started doing work. Well, just a quick
note. I would say that just like I said, accounting, this is one that a lot of installers miss. I feel like advertising
or marketing, some level of that they want to do like and almost get out ahead
of themselves with that before they have the other stuff in line. Um, I know several guys that have gotten just too
busy to do any of the other stuff so quickly because they did do good at
marketing or advertising themselves or they did do good work on top of being good at marketing and advertising
themselves and then they're going back trying to figure out how to structure their company and how to do these other
things. And Daniel said it earlier, it's like it's so much harder to do in the heat of the battle.
I will say that uh we did uh we did pay for some local companies to do some
advertising for us uh like you know paid for a little spot here and there and they got us zero business and I think
that's what Daniel was like yeah we ain't paying nobody to do that I can get zero business by myself
I can make no money on my own it's way it's way cheaper to make no
money on your own than to pay someone to make no way more cost effective. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of those like advertising and that type of stuff. I mean there is
just you can you can spend your way into oblivion with advertising and marketing
stuff that don't pan out. I always tell people the reason this is last is
because it you need to really know and understand your business before you start doing that to get it right.
And so you got to have your have your legal set up, have your accounting set
up, go through some projects and operations, find your strengths and who you are as a business before you start
marketing and advertising that. Many of the uh guys market and advertise
themselves, which is good if you're an installer, but they're better at that than they are
setting up the systems and making sure that they're, you know, the other stuff is is covered. Either hiring somebody to
cover it for them or them having the knowledge to cover it for themselves, right? Rollins says you have to keep on
reinventing yourself. And then Dave says that the Chamber of Commerce was a building block for them and it was for
us too. And I mean, we're we're on a podcast now, but the I
also listen to podcast and that's where a lot of it started was listening to podcast and uh listening to other people
that have been through it. And it's like and it it once you realize that business
is business and you can kind of relate any business to another, it it becomes
way easier because it's just a matter of, you know, all marketing is marketing. It's just what are you going
to market? Yeah. Getting clients and delivering value. Now, who are you marketing to?
That's now the value is in multiple different things. If you're selling software or you're selling flooring or
whatever you're selling, but you're we like to say here we're selling an experience, not flooring because down
right down the street you can go buy flooring. You can buy flooring at five 10 different other places around here.
You're with us. You're buying experience and expertise. You're, and when I say experience, I'm not talking about our
experience. You're buying the experience of getting a job done with us versus
getting a job done with someone else. And a lot of times our goal is to make
that as fluid and seamless as possible, right? And then does, you know, bring up
a good point. Once you're there, you you do have to be consistent, right? Once you you're in front of people,
you they always you always have to to get back in front of them. It's that consistent part. That's really the hard
part is because you you can see some traction and you're like, "Oh, we're good now." But no, it's it's just never
ending. Just like it never stops. Well, like Garden said earlier, right? He said the low man sets the bar, right?
Like and that's that's going to create your that's your control. That's your consistency. So, if you
Well, I think he was talking more about the the the bid. You know, like low bid
is setting the bar. I think it goes across too. You certainly can apply it in different
manners. What do I used to say? You're only as weak as as your best install or you're only as
you're only as good as your as your weakest installer. Yeah.
Well, what I I tend to really love and lean on processes, procedures,
and systems anymore, but step one is like this. The the most
important thing is be legal and know how much money you're making. Then you can
start to build off there. You can say, "I want to make more money. what worked and how can I double down on that stuff?
What didn't work? Can I make any adjustments and improve myself there or improve my business there? But it's, you
know, it's tough if you don't track anything. And so many guys just do the
work, they get paid, they pay their guys, and they live off of what's left. A lot of the guys over here, like they
don't keep track to the point of someone gives them a work order, when they're done with the job, they sign the work
order, they turn it back in, that's their invoice invoice, and then they get paid.
Yeah. I I really just I I would be talking to a lot of flooring companies.
I've traveled the nation talking to a bunch of different flooring companies and it would blow your mind if I named
some of them on how they treat their installers. Um, and when I say treat their
installers, they think they're doing them a favor by just doing all their paperwork.
Well, first off, you're treating them as an employee. And I know a lot of them do it because
they want to have control over them. If the sub would break out and gain his power, gain their power I should say,
and this industry would change because of it. There, you guys are the driving force. If you want this to change, it's
going to be on the installer community to change it and take responsibility for your work,
turn in your invoices. You should not want a flooring company to have control over your invoicing and and your your
your like you should have the ability just yeah you should have the ability to
look at the job consider whether or not you want to do it for that amount.
Not just getting assigned work going and doing the work and getting a paycheck. Um you're you're letting the company
treat you as an employee if you do those things. And uh you might be able to just be like, "Yeah, well they I don't have
to do it though." Well, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, until the poop
hits the fan. The poop didn't hit the fan. And when it does, you know, that's
when you realize that you needed insurance. And you wish you had all the records to
prove that you paid your t the right amount in taxes. And you wish you had all the paperwork to prove that that guy
that said he he he never got paid from you on a job and filed a mechanics lane
and now you have to pay him that you have proof that you paid him. Like all of that stuff, it it really matters when
it matters. And that's what building a risk model around your business and you
know trying to lower your risk profile is part of owning a company managing
your risk. Guys, I got to step away. They're start
the game started a minute ago. Uh but well I think we're getting ready to close it out. All right. Well, here let me say what I
got to say and uh on this is uh for beginning of the transformation I guess everyone just don't be afraid to ask
questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If if you're if you're leaving, if you're an installer and
you're leaving, do it the right way. Don't take any shortcuts.
Let it hurt at the beginning instead of in the middle or at the end. Let it hurt at the beginning. Um,
lean on people for information. Like, lean on them hard. squeeze it out
of them if you have to, but don't be afraid
to ask the questions because otherwise failure is eminent. Well, and I'd like to point out what you
said earlier. Is it easier now? I would say yeah, it's easier, but a lot of people also have paralysis analysis now
because there's so many things that you can go with. but picking one and going with it,
whether it's an accounting system, attorney, a a a a entity structure, just
moving forward with that as opposed to uh waiting. Um but yeah, there's a lot
of tools out today we didn't have 20 years ago. Yeah. And like for the first few years,
yeah, it's a grind, but you're already grinding, so it's just a different kind.
And um eventually it will get easier and then it'll get harder again because then
you'll have to put some more systems in place and then it's just but you're used to it and it's
kind of that it's kind of a stair step, isn't it? Like you get to the next level and you got to start building again.
Yeah. I mean it only gets easier like this. If you're just going like this, that means there there's no growth, right? So
it's Yeah. It's going to be harder every step you take. But that's that's what that's how you build that that growth
and just reach out to people and like don't be shy.
And for you installers on here, there's going to be a lot of opportunity if you
are looking at like really building your business. Um, if you wanted to turn into a full-fledged business in many parts of
the United States, there's going to be a a drop off in the old I know I bought a
guy up in Kansas City. He was just going to shut down at the end of the day and
figure out how to close his business. It was just him and another person. And they operated out of his house. And he
did good business though, a good amount of business. And there's these cases all over the United States where they don't
have a succession plan. A boomer is going to retire. It's leave a void, a vacuum in the marketplace. And you guys
can fill it. We're certainly going to do our best to fill it. And um so
installation is going to be that that knowledge that you have from being an installer is invaluable in the office if
you can make the transformation into a business owner and even your circle wisely too.
Good advice, man. And even if you even if you um stay on
your knees for a lot of years, I know plenty of guys that did that for forever
and did really well. It was always the guys that paid their guys right, took
care of their money, reinvested, like just didn't live off of their money. And
there's a lot of t tricks to doing that. Um and we'll share them with you in the webinar.
Well, Jose, you got a game to get to and we got a podcast podcast to close out
on. So, I am going to go ahead and do that all at the same time. I want to thank everybody for joining us today.
All the great comments and really appreciate you guys. Give us a like and subscribe. If you catch us on
YouTube or Facebook, Instagram, wherever you catch us, wherever. Give us some give us some
love. Uh go see Shagg Tools. Remember Huddle 10 for your for your uh discount. Go see
Shag at shagtools.com. Want to thank them again for being a great sponsor. Want to thank you guys as always for
being here and being great at what you guys do. And well, we're all we're all
uh we've all been in the the car. Don't get mad. Don't get mad at the
signal. And just always remember that many small time make big time.
Great thing to leave off with. Thank you guys so much and we will catch you guys next week. Thank you everyone. All right, see you.
