How Anchor Heating & Air Rebuilt to $8M From $2,000

00;00;00;23 – 00;00;09;26
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

00;00;09;28 – 00;00;15;07
Unknown
Oh!

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;31;15
Speaker 2
Welcome everyone to Blue Collar start up the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life and the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media, and I’m your co-host, Derek Foster of Daigle Cleaning Systems.

00;00;31;15 – 00;00;57;09
Speaker 2
How are you? I am well, sir. How about yourself? Good. Are you all, rested up from, your vacation last week? I, you know, I wouldn’t call it a vacation, though. But, yes, I’m almost you allocation from the vacation. Well, you know it. We were just going up to camp. A couple of my uncles were going up and and, so I wanted to be able to be up there with, and but I made the mistake this season of putting Starlink up there.

00;00;57;09 – 00;01;16;14
Speaker 2
So I have internet. And so, I was still working, although I couldn’t do the podcast late last week with you because the, Starlink signal up in the Adirondacks kind of fades in and fades out. So I keep getting kicked off video calls. But, it was so great. I still worked a lot, though, but we had a great time and,

00;01;16;16 – 00;01;35;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, recovered. I caught up, I think. Glad you enjoyed it. And you’ll have to, you’ll have to listen to the podcast with Paul Raymond. I saw we posted the, the social media notes and it went out from there. So. Yeah, I mean, no for you, dad. Mike, you know how I did. I will, I will. We’re actually going up to camp tomorrow, and I’m going to listen to it in the car on the way up.

00;01;35;07 – 00;02;05;07
Speaker 2
So there you go. I’ll give you a scorecard. D how about you? Well, how’s things in your world? Good. Busy. Busy as ever. A lot of new stuff coming through. Obviously, thanks to, to you and your team, but, yeah, it’s been great seeing a lot of growth from, some of our, our staff and, just upholding the accountability within, within the company and, and personal growth, that I see happening with some of our leaders.

00;02;05;07 – 00;02;34;17
Speaker 2
So it’s really exciting and fun to watch. So, all good, all good, all good things. And I know one last piece before we, introduce our guest here, I, I think the summer slump that I talk about is coming to a close. Like for us up here, northeastern New York, Saratoga Springs, July and August. It is the slowest months for like, new business development and trying to get people to move on, whether it’s changing scope, upgrading scope, new clients coming in because everybody’s in vacation mode all summer.

00;02;34;17 – 00;02;55;16
Speaker 2
But know you’re got to try. Yeah, everybody’s at the track of it and I get it. I mean, we’re trying to do the same thing. Enjoy our summer before the, snow comes in here. And, but, yeah, things are things are getting busy, so things are moving. Let’s get up. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right, let’s jump over to our guest here.

00;02;55;16 – 00;03;07;07
Speaker 2
So, very excited from beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. We’ve got, Stephanie Postel from, Anchor Heating and Air. Stephanie, welcome.

00;03;07;09 – 00;03;09;21
Speaker 1
Thanks for having me. I’m so glad to be with you guys.

00;03;09;26 – 00;03;30;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, likewise. I, I see I was checking you out online a little bit and, seeing what you guys are all about, and really, I, I always love hearing from people that do heating services down south or in warmer climates. I’m always like, how does that work, exactly? Because I always in my mind there’s no heating needed.

00;03;30;18 – 00;03;39;09
Speaker 2
But, so I can’t wait for the discussion. Step seven, if you don’t mind, you know, tell us a little bit about you and your company.

00;03;39;12 – 00;04;09;12
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Well, my husband and I own Anchor Heating and Air here in Charleston. We’ve been in business almost five years. December will be five years. We started with just him and I and $2,000, and and a little bit of, kick in the butt from some former, some former business that we were in, and, but, we have grown very quickly with an amazing staff.

00;04;09;15 – 00;04;36;28
Speaker 1
We’re, all residential. We do a little bit of light commercial, no new construction. And we have grown, year over year. Every year. We actually, we’re just, landed number 851 on the Inc 5000 list in our first year to be eligible for that. So very proud of that. And, and we are we’re on track to do little over 8 million this year, in our fifth year.

00;04;36;28 – 00;04;51;23
Speaker 1
So, we’ve had a lot of, a lot of success, but we’ve worked our butts off for all of that success, and we’re just surrounded by an amazing team. We have a great culture. And, and we’re absolutely just very blessed to be where we are.

00;04;51;25 – 00;04;58;17
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And when you guys started, did you, buy an existing business or you started from zero?

00;04;58;19 – 00;04;59;27
Speaker 1
How? We started from.

00;04;59;27 – 00;05;02;15
Speaker 3
Zero. So, yeah.

00;05;02;15 – 00;05;31;19
Speaker 1
So we have a little bit of, of a story. So, I actually, David and I both worked at a large plumbing, heating and air company here in Charleston. I started in 2012. He had started, I think, a couple or three years before that. We were not together at that time. And, but over that time, I, became the operations manager, grew that company from 4 to 14 million, 25 to 75 employees.

00;05;31;19 – 00;05;58;05
Speaker 1
And of course, all pre-COVID, David was our lead installer. I made the rookie mistake of making our lead installer, our install manager. However, even though he doesn’t think that was a great thing and it wasn’t at the time, it actually was all in God’s preparation for what was to come in our lives. But after seven years, I got fired.

00;05;58;08 – 00;06;16;23
Speaker 1
The owner wanted to take the company back over and run it. And I was running it, and, really, the only way that could happen was for for me to leave, and, you know, at the time, it was very devastating because I had treated it like my own. I had implemented all the processes and the procedures.

00;06;16;23 – 00;06;45;13
Speaker 1
You know, I had been a huge part of growing the company. Luckily, I got, a little bit of time off in between, what I did there and my next job, David actually got fired about three months later. We were together by then. But, we had the opportunity to go into business with an investor, because, you know, it was 2019, and we were like, what?

00;06;45;16 – 00;07;21;00
Speaker 1
What’s our next opportunity? Keep in mind, like, people always forget this, and I do too, you know, pre-COVID, the connection and Facebook was not the way it is right now. Right? Like, there were still people on Facebook, but, during Covid, Facebook groups got to be a big thing. So 2019, there really wasn’t that. And when I got fired, you know, being a woman in the trades in Charleston, South Carolina, running one of the largest companies in town, I didn’t have a lot of options, to be honest.

00;07;21;00 – 00;07;40;05
Speaker 1
And I was like, you know, what am I going to do? And so, so this opportunity came up and, we worked with this guy who really just wanted to be the money. He did not want to be involved in the company at all. He was looking for a place to put his money and, you know, wanted an operator.

00;07;40;05 – 00;08;09;07
Speaker 1
And I was like, well, I can do that. And by the way, you know, this guy that’s about to be my husband can hold the license and do the work. So, you know, let’s figure it out. And to your point, we actually did try to find a company to buy, and we couldn’t. And so we finally just decided kind of at the end of 2019 that we were going to start from scratch and, you know, create a whole brand, which I did, and opened the company.

00;08;09;09 – 00;08;23;23
Speaker 1
So David and I got married February 15th of 2020. We went on our honeymoon. We came back from our honeymoon. We opened that company on March 3rd, and two weeks later we went home for Covid.

00;08;23;25 – 00;08;24;05
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;08;24;05 – 00;08;46;16
Speaker 1
So it was kind of, a crazy whole deal. But as you know, you know, it was actually probably the best time that you could start a company, at the beginning of Covid and during Covid, because, you know, we went home and we had a dispatcher. We paid her to stay home and answer the phone, and we were answering the phone, but we went and did work.

00;08;46;19 – 00;09;11;04
Speaker 1
And so we were able to actually grow that company pretty quickly. We did like a million for our first year. We did a small acquisition at the end of that year and, ended up going from, you know, David and I and a dispatcher to 24 employees. We did ran up to 5 million in about 20 months.

00;09;11;06 – 00;09;13;08
Speaker 1
And then he fired us.

00;09;13;11 – 00;09;15;15
Speaker 3
Oh, no. Yeah.

00;09;15;17 – 00;09;48;07
Speaker 1
So, we, had not covered ourselves properly in having a great, employment agreement, and we were, you know, let’s get to work. It’s Covid, like we know what to do. And, and so we had employment agreements, but, you know, when you read them, when you’re in a certain mindset, you’re like, oh, okay. And, and I remember reading mine and it and it’s and and he, he gave it to me and he asked for it back the next day.

00;09;48;09 – 00;10;08;17
Speaker 1
And I was like, okay. And I said, bullet stores in there that you can fire me. And I and I, we owned a small percentage of the company, very small percentage. Looking back, and he said, yeah, you know, I mean, if you killed somebody or something, you know, we would have to be able to fire you. And I was like, oh, okay, well, that’ll never happen.

00;10;08;17 – 00;10;40;12
Speaker 1
So sign on the dotted line. Never had a lawyer look at anything or whatever. And, we don’t know. There’s a whole lot of, soap opera to that story on his side. But anyway, what happened was he accused us of being in subordinate and all this kind of stuff, and he fired us and took back our all of our ownership in the company basically left us on the side of the road with, three days worth of salary.

00;10;40;15 – 00;11;02;02
Speaker 1
So, again, pretty devastating because we had a great little company, you know, we had 25 employees. Like I said, we were, set to in that year, 5 million. It was, you know, we had worked really hard. We were working, we were working 60, 70 hours a week. I mean, we had to like, you know, people wanted us.

00;11;02;05 – 00;11;22;24
Speaker 1
So, again, we had used everything that we had learned in, you know, growing someone else’s company. We kind of came in and thought we were growing our own company, that this was going to be a place that we were going to retire from. And, and again, he fired us. And I just looked at David, like, we can’t do this again.

00;11;22;24 – 00;11;28;05
Speaker 1
You know, I mean, really first of all, the truth part of this story is what are we going to do?

00;11;28;07 – 00;11;29;07
Speaker 3
And they will say, right.

00;11;29;10 – 00;11;56;26
Speaker 1
You know, David’s like, we’re going to go put an air conditioners. And I was like, okay, you know, and, and he was the license holder. And God’s provision has been in our lives in so many different ways and not knowing. But, when David was the license holder for that company, I did not know that I had to seat his license with that company.

00;11;56;28 – 00;12;19;01
Speaker 1
He was a license holder, but it really should have been seeded with the company. And I didn’t know that, and I never did that. And so when we left, we just took the license with us, and we opened a company two weeks later and that’s anchor heating and air. So, we were very blessed that, we had done everything the right way.

00;12;19;01 – 00;12;46;15
Speaker 1
We had amazing community support. We’ve lived in Charleston, both of us our whole lives. I’ve owned other businesses over the years. I was PTA mom, you know, so we when we left there, you know, again, lots more to that story, but we, we’re we’re not. We said we would not solicit any of those customers or any of those employees, and we did not.

00;12;46;17 – 00;13;15;26
Speaker 1
However, I have a knack for marketing, and, somehow our faces ended up on billboards all across town. Eventually. So. But but in truth, we we had we had not planned to leave there and we had $2,000 and we took that $2,000 and bought the first unit that our nephew called and said, hey, I have a friend on Edisto that needs a unit, go out there and quote the unit.

00;13;15;29 – 00;13;30;11
Speaker 1
And we sold that unit, we bought it, we installed it, and we took that money and rolled it into the next one. And the rest is history. So, we’ve, startup is absolutely in our blood. There is no question about that.

00;13;30;13 – 00;13;49;04
Speaker 2
I, I, I’m beside myself right now to me that like, that is a wild story. And the fact that you built a $5 million business in 20 months and then in a sense, had it taken away from you and then rebuilt an eight bit million dollar business that is wild.

00;13;49;07 – 00;14;16;04
Speaker 1
Better, better, bigger, better. Everything. Like, you know, if the motivation wasn’t there to make sure that everybody knew that we knew how to do this and we were going to do it one way or the other, you know, I mean, that that has been the basis of us starting anchor was basically to say, like, we are going to create the place that we would want to work and the way that we would want to be treated at a company.

00;14;16;06 – 00;14;37;06
Speaker 1
And we’ve been able to do that. You know, we’ve always paid the most we’ve taken care of our people the best, you know, and not shown like I said, you know, we this year has been a very big blessing of a year. We actually just got number nine in the state for best places to work.

00;14;37;08 – 00;14;56;26
Speaker 1
So, you know, I mean, we really, really worked hard for all of the things because, you know, we want we want to attract the best people, but also we’ve had the best people. You know, it’s not like we’re not constantly looking. We want to be the place that people are looking for. And so we’ve we’ve, you know, worked really hard at.

00;14;56;26 – 00;14;58;26
Speaker 3
That as well.

00;14;58;28 – 00;15;19;02
Speaker 2
Well, I’ve got to tell you, anyone listening to this episode here in a couple of weeks is going to be sitting here going, how do we do it? Right. Like, I mean, yeah, I, you know, statistically it’s like 4% of all businesses even break $1 million one time, let alone becoming a, you know, building a company in 20 minutes is 5 million.

00;15;19;02 – 00;15;23;22
Speaker 2
And then building a starting all over again and going to eight. So what we have

00;15;23;25 – 00;15;30;07
Speaker 2
the floor is yours, Stephanie. How do we how do businesses do this? Like what? What’s the secret sauce here?

00;15;30;09 – 00;15;56;23
Speaker 1
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00;15;56;26 – 00;16;02;00
Speaker 2
the floor is yours, Stephanie. How do we how do businesses do this? Like what? What’s the secret sauce here?

00;16;02;02 – 00;16;31;09
Speaker 1
You know, I would say one thing is there isn’t any, it’s a lot of hard work. We, have again been very lucky that over time, we took everything and every experience that we had at other companies and implemented that and what we were doing, you know, we had, we had processes from the first day in both companies that was started because that first company, we actually were next our members.

00;16;31;12 – 00;17;01;14
Speaker 1
And that was huge for us because it helped us understand the the importance of the processes and how to treat people. And you know that it’s it’s so much in our industry. You know, I could have a whole nother conversation about how like, we basically eat ourselves, we are eating our young every day, you know, because there’s just such a mindset of pricing and what you should do and what’s ethically right and wrong and all of that kind of stuff.

00;17;01;14 – 00;17;32;28
Speaker 1
And, you know, we’re absolutely there’s some companies that are in the sales like that’s what their their sales, that’s all they’re doing. They’re not doing the right thing. But we have to look at what we’re doing as educating customers, and that they don’t have the access to the information and the products that we do. Right. And any other thing that you would purchase when you go to a car lot, you have a hundred cars on the lot, and you can look at every single one of them and push the buttons and drive it and all that kind of stuff.

00;17;33;00 – 00;17;55;02
Speaker 1
You can’t do that in our industry. You can’t go look at the air conditioners. You can’t go feel the air and smell the air and test the air and all of that kind of stuff, because everything is so different. And so we’re really bad at being gatekeepers. And I think once that mindset really changed for us, that it’s our duty to tell you the good, bad and the ugly.

00;17;55;05 – 00;18;15;23
Speaker 1
Like, I haven’t lived here for 20 years, I haven’t enjoyed your air conditioning. I haven’t enjoyed all of the things here in your house. It’s not my fault it’s broken right now. If it is, I’ll fix it. But for the most part, it’s not my fault. It’s just that we have to deliver the education to you to help you make a good decision about what’s going on.

00;18;15;25 – 00;18;48;22
Speaker 1
And and for some companies and for some technicians that registers as selling. Right. Let’s just fix it. Well, fixing it is absolutely an option. And sometimes it’s the best option, sometimes it’s not the best option. And so we’ve worked really hard to not have that hard sales, kind of mindset, but also to say, well, if we didn’t sell it, if we didn’t offer it, it gets turned around on us just as many times as well as like, well, why didn’t you push me to buy it?

00;18;48;24 – 00;19;20;08
Speaker 1
Well, because we didn’t want to push you to buy it. Well, if you would just told me, I could have bought it. And I think those lessons have really probably landed with us harder than the times where we did sell hard, right? You know, because we want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing. To be honest, we’re in a position now where I’ll tell a customer, you know, like I want you to be comfortable, but honestly, it’s 72 at my house every night so you can make this choice or not, right?

00;19;20;08 – 00;19;52;01
Speaker 1
My technicians always air conditioners are always working at their houses. Right. So we don’t need to sell you anything. What we need to do is educate you about what you don’t know and let you make a great decision. So, you know, I think that one thing, just that, that process that we’ve had, the other thing by far is that that first unit that we sold when we needed to sell that first unit, we still sold ductwork and a new unit for $15,000, and that’s what it should have been sold for.

00;19;52;06 – 00;20;14;08
Speaker 1
And did we need the the profit that came out of that job because it was just me and David. You could argue that maybe we didn’t, but I wasn’t charging for what I had right then. I was charging for what I wanted to have today. And so the market bore $15,000 for, a new system and a duck system.

00;20;14;11 – 00;20;35;04
Speaker 1
And so why would I sell it for ten? Right. And I think that’s the mindset that so many guys that get out of the truck, it’s like they’re saving the world because they’re cheaper. No, no, you’re not you’re not going on vacation. You don’t have health insurance. You got to be upset because you don’t have good help that stays around.

00;20;35;06 – 00;21;03;24
Speaker 1
Your kids don’t have braces. You’re probably getting drunk every night and your wife don’t like you. The extra $5,000 would help you, right? Yeah, it might be peace of mind. It might be mental health. Maybe y’all can go to counseling. I don’t know what it is, but the fact that you want to finance someone else’s problem that they’ve lived in for 20 years so that you can go out and wave your flag and say how great you are as a HVAC technician.

00;21;03;29 – 00;21;43;16
Speaker 1
Makes zero sense to me. Like, you deserve to make the money for the skill that you have have cultivated over the five, ten, or 15 years or 20 years that you’ve been in this industry. Why do I value you more than you value you? I will never understand it. And if that is the one thing that I have spent this 12 years that I’ve been in this industry and the presentations that I’ve done, and I’m going to tell you hours that I have spent on podcast on one on one with technicians that were buying companies or starting companies, and I haven’t charged a dime.

00;21;43;18 – 00;22;00;21
Speaker 1
And I tell them all the time like, don’t waste my time. You take what I’m telling you right now and you go do it. Because if not like you, you wasted my time and I think I get paid $500 an hour. So if you don’t go do it, I’m gonna send you a bill. Right. And that’s what our that’s what our industry deserves.

00;22;00;27 – 00;22;32;06
Speaker 1
Right. And so, it’s so unfortunate, though, that right now, it’s been a, it’s a, like a 360 degree thing, like we’re back to $8,000 change out in Charleston, South Carolina. That’s insane. Like when I got in this in 2012, it was $8,000 for a change out. Why why are we doing this? And and and I my theory is that it’s what private equity.

00;22;32;11 – 00;22;54;26
Speaker 1
It’s it’s exactly not what we thought private equity was going to do. Right. We thought private equity was going to come into town, and they were going to drive the prices down because their prices were going to be better. That’s not what is happened. Their prices are just about what they were, or 30% more than than mine. And I’m in the middle.

00;22;54;27 – 00;23;21;10
Speaker 1
Right. But what’s happened is they’ve driven away all of the the good technicians who thought, well, now I can go start my own company because I know everything, and I’m going to I’m going to get the man. Right. And so they’ve gone out not understanding business and, and they’re, they’re cutting each other’s throats, and in, in the process cutting my throat, too, so I don’t understand it.

00;23;21;13 – 00;23;45;03
Speaker 1
That part of it, I’m sure. Like, we’re totally off of what you wanted to talk about, but I think that it’s, I think it’s something that, you know, there are no doubt there are 250 new companies in Charleston in the last 18 months. Absolutely. Licensed and unlicensed. And there’s no way they’ll make it to five years.

00;23;45;06 – 00;24;08;17
Speaker 1
There’s no way, because you cannot sell a system that cost $5,500 for 8000 and think like you’re you’re making 500 bucks a day like that doesn’t to them, that’s a lot of money because they weren’t making that money when, you know, they were at the big company. But it doesn’t allow for growth. It doesn’t allow for you to take care of good people.

00;24;08;20 – 00;24;30;20
Speaker 1
And so you’re always in this hamster wheel that you just can’t get out of. And if that’s the one thing you know, I don’t I don’t overcharge. Everything that is in our cost of our, jobs, it makes sense because we have to pay salespeople and we have to pay, you know, people to answer the phone.

00;24;30;20 – 00;24;51;28
Speaker 1
And, you know, it’s it’s, there’s a cost to all of that. We have to be available when you want us. And that costs money. And to be honest, you know, that’s about $12,000 for a regular change out for us. But there’s people absolutely in town that every day they’re doing that for 8500 right now, and I, I can’t understand it.

00;24;51;28 – 00;25;12;23
Speaker 1
So, so if that’s if that’s something that people can take away listening to it, you should be charging what the market will bear. You should not be charging based on. Absolutely. You have to look at your cost, and you should know your numbers and you should look at overhead. But there’s got to be a part in your overhead that says when I want more, right?

00;25;12;26 – 00;25;37;09
Speaker 1
How I want to take care of my employees, what I want next. And so that’s, that’s that part that they don’t put in to the equation. And when it comes to it gets a little harder even than it is now when the economy is even worse than it is now. You’re not going to be able to keep your doors open, and that’s going to be bad, because you could have made that money.

00;25;37;12 – 00;25;46;09
Speaker 1
You’ve been leaving two, three, $4,000 on the table for the last 18 months. That would have put you in a much better position.

00;25;46;11 – 00;26;10;10
Speaker 2
That’s amazing insight. It’s interesting too, because I used to 20 years ago, used to work for, a snow and ice company. Right. We did commercial snow removal and ice management, and my boss, used to talk about exactly what you’re saying all the time, and he would call. We’d go up against guys. We call them trucks and a truck, you know, just and great people.

00;26;10;10 – 00;26;26;05
Speaker 2
But he would. Cause he’s like, yeah, he’s like, they’re suicide bidding right now. He’s like, they are. They are going out of business. They don’t even know it. They think they’re making money, but it’s just not sustainable because they’re they’re cutting cutting themselves short on what they should be charging and coming in so much less than we were.

00;26;26;05 – 00;26;27;04
Speaker 2
That’s amazing. It.

00;26;27;07 – 00;26;27;16
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;26;27;21 – 00;26;49;17
Speaker 1
Unnecessary. Unnecessary. You know, I mean, and don’t get me wrong, I think from the for the wrong audience, that sounds like, oh, they’re so expensive. We are absolutely not right. I mean, we are absolutely in the middle, which is part of our problem. Right? Because if I was way more expensive, I could they could be like, oh, you’re, you know, yeah, we should get yours because it’s way more expensive.

00;26;49;17 – 00;27;22;13
Speaker 1
Right? And that’s just not who we want to be. We want to be right in the middle where, where we should be. But, yeah, again, like, I just think there’s so much potential and we just sell ourselves short all the time. And I think, again, you know, compounded now with the availability of information and people looking at AI and using ChatGPT and thinking that they’re going to, you know, out talk, my technician, because ChatGPT told them what they should ask for.

00;27;22;16 – 00;27;41;00
Speaker 1
And I’m like, yeah, but like, you don’t even know how to prompt your ChatGPT like, you’re like, how much should a furnace cost? To your point, we’re in Charleston, South Carolina. Let me tell you how much we use a furnace and we do not call our stuff furnaces like the furnace is the little box in the middle that barely gets used.

00;27;41;06 – 00;28;09;17
Speaker 1
We’re like, yeah, keep that one right. Because it’s it’s it’s never been used. So it’s good. Right. But when you’re you have to think about that. We’ve had so many people that have moved here from the north, all due respect. And they only have heating. They don’t understand air conditioning. And so they’re prompting their ChatGPT to say, how much should a furnace furnace cost in Charleston, South Carolina?

00;28;09;19 – 00;28;31;25
Speaker 1
Well, again, when they get that price, which may be eight, $9,000, they’re not realizing that like that is just the furnace. Like you have to you have to give all the information. Right. And so then they they get our price and they’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t expect this. You’re gouging the public, right? Your prices twice as much.

00;28;31;27 – 00;28;57;13
Speaker 1
Well yeah. Because you have a heat pump and you you need ductwork and you need all of this stuff. Like you don’t just need the heating part, which you asked your ChatGPT and they gave you the wrong information. So, you know, so I think there’s been a lot of things that are now compounding the issues of people with less business experience, honestly, less technical experience than ever.

00;28;57;20 – 00;29;22;00
Speaker 1
You know, again, go back to that ChatGPT thing like that’s your GH, where you never learn how to get from A to B if you didn’t have the chat like the GPS, because you’re always relying on it. We’re seeing a lot of that issue with technicians now too, right? So now you’re not as technically sound. You don’t know how to run a business, but you’re smart enough to get to pass the test, pass the background check.

00;29;22;00 – 00;29;27;12
Speaker 1
And now you’re a business owner, right? Yeah. Recipe for disaster.

00;29;27;15 – 00;29;45;10
Speaker 2
I know I have tried to use ChatGPT to diagnose my sheep, so we have I have we have a small farm. We have sheep on the farm. And, it is so wrong all the time. Like I had to stop even talking to it about the animals and just call the vet straight away because I’m like, I’m like, what does this mean?

00;29;45;15 – 00;29;56;23
Speaker 2
And it’s like, it’ll it’ll give me this whole diagnosis. I’m like, okay, well, what about this? And it’s like, oh yeah, scratch that. It’s this. Instead I’m like, and you go back and forth 50 times. It’s just right. It’s wrong.

00;29;56;26 – 00;30;17;00
Speaker 1
There’s no doubt, you know, it has its place. There’s definitely, you know, as a as a marketer man, it saves me so much time. You know, I mean there’s there’s lots of things. Do we want that as part of our diagnostic before we automatically call somebody? Absolutely. We do. Right. And a lot of times for us it’s on it’s it’s right on.

00;30;17;03 – 00;30;23;04
Speaker 1
But on that other side of it, when you’re on the consumer side is when it gets a little bit more difficult for sure.

00;30;23;06 – 00;30;42;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. As a marketer and again, if this is, if this gets into secret sauce, you can tell us to, you know, never mind, but would love to hear how someone growing a business that fast, which means obviously you need the gas to make the engine go right. So you need the market. You need to get clients in.

00;30;42;28 – 00;31;00;03
Speaker 2
What are some of the things, sounds like billboards, which I love. Billboards, especially if you’re putting your own faces on them. What are some of the things that you guys are doing or you’re seeing that’s working? Because obviously this marketing environment we’re in is changing so fast, like every day.

00;31;00;06 – 00;31;25;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. For sure. You know, I think the answer to that question has changed, of course, over time. We didn’t have a marketing budget right when we first got started. I spent hours on, Facebook hours, you know, morning, noon and night. It’s funny that you mentioned Paul Redmond. I love that man. He actually was when I lost my the second job.

00;31;25;28 – 00;31;54;27
Speaker 1
For the first six months of anchor, I worked for Paul at Contractor Commerce. Oh, yeah. I did, and I got to work from home, and I worked morning and afternoon, and I dispatched and was on Facebook in the early morning at lunch and all night. And so, you know, it allowed me to be able to, to grow, this company, you know, again, the other part of it is that I do, I’m a self-taught marketer.

00;31;54;27 – 00;32;18;03
Speaker 1
It’s just I’m a, I’m a brander, you know, and you’ve got to have a great brand. And I would say that’s the other thing, you know, now with, with AI and ChatGPT, you can create a great brand. You gotta prompt it, right? You don’t want it to. Look, I, but coming out of the block with a great brand is a huge thing, right?

00;32;18;03 – 00;32;39;15
Speaker 1
I mean, no more of the days of John’s heating and air. You know, we don’t need to have that. Right. But. But if you do, make sure you have a great brand. Make sure you have great uniforms. I don’t care if you got to go, you know, get your t shirts printed, don’t wear jeans. Have a look. You know, and I think the other part too is that you have to have a story, right.

00;32;39;15 – 00;33;01;18
Speaker 1
Why are you doing this? And it’s not just because you like heating and air, right? You don’t really like heating and air. You might like helping people. You like giving back to your community. And I think for us, we knew the the importance of that. And we were very lucky we had it on our radar that, we had had a great brand with the, the company in the middle.

00;33;01;20 – 00;33;27;21
Speaker 1
But we were able to use, Dan Antonelli and Kick charge and we got branded. Our brand is our brand. It’s anchor. We started the name came from a quote that my sister sent me in that two weeks between companies, which was about our anchor being placed in God and that no matter what happened, as long as that anchor was there, like we were going to be fine.

00;33;27;28 – 00;33;51;15
Speaker 1
And I looked at David and I said, we’re going to be anchor heating and air. And so that’s always been part of our story. I wear pearls. I have worn pearls every day for 41 years, and our pearls are wrapped around our anchor. And so again, like then that that just began. We have the Pearl promise. We have the Purple Anchor Award, we have the Captains Club, we have the Admirals Club.

00;33;51;22 – 00;34;16;19
Speaker 1
You know, it’s this cohesive story and none of that cost anything. Right. But it cost time and development of what your brand is going to be. And it’s very difficult to have that story behind John’s heating and air. Right. Because you just can’t build on it. And so that’s why I would I always encourage people to have like don’t don’t think small, think big.

00;34;16;19 – 00;34;34;01
Speaker 1
Like think what? Think what. Somebody if you were going to sell this company, do they want to buy John’s heating and air and are they going to keep that brand. Or if it’s green leaf heating and air, are they going to have a better chance of having, you know, the the Orange Leaf Club? You know what I’m saying?

00;34;34;01 – 00;35;02;11
Speaker 1
Like you just have to think about what what’s going to live longer and what can you build a story around. And so that’s one thing that we did from the beginning. And that was free. Right. And and if it’s not free, consult with somebody that is good at marketing. And then spend a lot of time in Facebook and making sure that in those groups and in those community Facebook groups, I tell people all the time, and this is, I think, a good secret sauce.

00;35;02;14 – 00;35;25;25
Speaker 1
Every time somebody says, I need an HVAC person, you and your ten friends need to go put the name of your company and tag your client every single time. And here’s the other thing. You should go look in every community group when nobody’s asking for HVAC, and go look at post from six months ago, from six weeks ago, from six years ago.

00;35;25;25 – 00;35;54;22
Speaker 1
And go put your name on that post again, right? Because when somebody goes so many times, it’s not the original poster that calls you. It’s the 25 people that watched who got recommended. Right? And if you’re on that list of people that get recommended, then they might call you. And that happens all the time. So that’s one thing that you can go do when you’re like, well, nobody’s asking in October for a HVAC company.

00;35;54;24 – 00;36;18;12
Speaker 1
No they’re not, but there are 1700 posts of who’s the best HVAC company in town. Go put your name on every single one of them. Right. And so those are the kinds of things that’s labor intensive, but it’s also free. So and I think the other part, you know, to your point, billboards were something that we were able to do and I was able to get a good deal.

00;36;18;12 – 00;36;52;29
Speaker 1
We do have a really awesome billboard right now that’s double stacked, that has our anchor on it. But that’s that’s so far down the road, like, that’s what a $8 million company does. When you’re $0 million, you’re doing Facebook, you’re doing your branding, you’re doing your story. And you are absolutely having everybody that, you know, get your Google business profile right, spend the money on a marketing company that knows what they’re doing and is not taking advantage of you, and realize that they are not the silver bullet you are, no matter what.

00;36;53;04 – 00;37;16;27
Speaker 1
It comes back down to you like nobody is going to make this work better than you are. And if you’re if you’re hopping from marketing company to marketing company looking for that, like, that’s why you’re, you’re wasting all of your money. So, and finally, community is has been the biggest thing for us from day one. That first that was in December.

00;37;16;29 – 00;37;39;02
Speaker 1
I looked at all of my teacher friends and I was like, when y’all go back to school and you have the first faculty meeting, I’m going to bring Chick-Fil-A, for everybody, for, all the teachers. And all I want is three minutes to get in front of everybody and say, like, I’m anchor heating and air and again, free right use.

00;37;39;02 – 00;37;57;14
Speaker 1
But and it might not be teachers for you, you know, but you have to find that thing in the community, go to every event where you can set up a tent, anything that you can get out there and have your brand in front of everybody. That that’s what we did find the one thing where you are going to spend money.

00;37;57;17 – 00;38;25;09
Speaker 1
Is it a concert series? Is it a a farmers market? I don’t care, but be out there, give away swag and talk to those people. And I tell you, we still do that today. Blessing of the fleet in April. Wine under the Oaks in December. People are walking into those huge events that are the people that I want to sell to, and they are looking for anchor a heating and air now, because I’ve been there for four years, and they know that they can count on us.

00;38;25;09 – 00;38;47;24
Speaker 1
They use us, you know, so community is really, really big. What I would caution in that and I’ve had people say this over time, they are like, oh, I’m going to go take pizza to the firefighters. And I’m like, well, that that sounds really great. Like, do you love firefighters? Well, of course we all love firefighters, but like but why are you doing that?

00;38;47;24 – 00;39;11;28
Speaker 1
Like, are you doing that so that you can take a picture and say I gave pizza to the firefighters? Because to me that’s not a really great reason to do that. Like find the thing that matters to you. Is it veterans, is it teachers, is it nurses? Is it whatever and make it authentic? And the other part of that is take pictures and post about it.

00;39;12;01 – 00;39;34;26
Speaker 1
Like you in this day and age cannot have a Facebook or somebody tell me social media is not my thing. Well, making money is also not your thing. Being a business is also not your thing, right? Because that’s how we communicate. Go look at my TikTok. You know, go look at our Facebook. You know, it’s active. We’re posting 2 to 3 times a day on all of that.

00;39;34;28 – 00;39;57;18
Speaker 1
And not so easy. Like, you just can’t tell me that that’s hard. And it’s also free. And one thing that’s not, but it’s not very doesn’t cost a whole lot. One $5 branding ad on Facebook that runs every single day. Every day. Don’t stop it. Right. Update it maybe every three months. Tick tock. Likes or tick will tick tock too.

00;39;57;18 – 00;40;24;11
Speaker 1
But Facebook likes consistency. And so that that same ad, we usually have just a branding ad. We might have a free second opinion ad, those two $5 a day and just let it ride. Those things have been really if there’s nothing else, it’s just every time you open up, messenger, every time you open up marketplace, here I am, you know, and eventually you’ll use me.

00;40;24;14 – 00;40;30;25
Speaker 2
Love it. And I love your viewpoint and your refreshing directness as well. So.

00;40;30;27 – 00;40;32;08
Speaker 3
Listen.

00;40;32;11 – 00;40;38;05
Speaker 1
I’ve gotten old now, so I don’t, you know, I don’t really care. I can tell you I’ve done this three times.

00;40;38;07 – 00;40;39;00
Speaker 3
I’ve.

00;40;39;03 – 00;40;59;26
Speaker 1
We are startup people, you know? It gets more difficult for us the longer that we get in it, because we like the the thrill of the hunt at the beginning, you know, and because it’s just so fun. I mean, to that point, we’ve actually, we won. We are a part owners in a HVAC company in Louisiana.

00;40;59;28 – 00;41;25;15
Speaker 1
We saw some real, potential in a couple, she was, running a $40 million HVAC company at 26, or 27. And, they got bought, and she didn’t want to do that. And her and her husband were just going to jump in and start a company, and, and David and I were like, let’s do this.

00;41;25;15 – 00;41;56;10
Speaker 1
Like, we know we know how to help you. So here’s all our resources, here’s who we used, here’s what we would do. And they are finishing year one, over $1 million. You know, so, so that that’s been big for them. And then into that, we also, we ride side by sides. And so we’ve taken what we know and into the mud community and, and we have started a website, in the Mud community called where to McCombe.

00;41;56;12 – 00;42;24;13
Speaker 1
And and we are we’re doing big things in that too. So, so it’s kind of cool just to, to take what we know and what we, we love the mud community because it’s so similar to HVAC probably ten years ago. So much potential awesome trades people, people that are turning wrenches, people that are doing good things, that aren’t charging enough and don’t know how to market themselves.

00;42;24;15 – 00;42;39;25
Speaker 1
And so it’s just an opportunity for us to take what we know and help grow, you know, some companies and some people in that, in that area as well. And then we get to do what we love and build big side by sides and ride around and drink our bourbon.

00;42;39;25 – 00;42;42;22
Speaker 3
So.

00;42;42;24 – 00;43;07;13
Speaker 2
Seven oh, we’re getting short on time. But I do want to ask you, because this, this has been screaming in my brain since you first told us the beginning of your story. But growing from $0 to 5,000,000 in 20 months, that is a breakneck pace. How do you. How do you. I know that you mentioned processes, but, like, how do you scale a business that quickly?

00;43;07;13 – 00;43;16;23
Speaker 2
Like you’re going from no employees, you got a hire, you got a fire, you got, you know, you you got to do all the things to get there. How do you do that? Like how did you manage that?

00;43;16;25 – 00;43;44;28
Speaker 1
Well, let’s go back to the first answer to the first question. Right. You have to charge enough from day one. And if you if you are doing that from day one, you have all the freedom in the world, right? Because when the right technician comes along, then, I mean, I’m, I’m paying that guy market rate plus, right? I’m not I’m not trying to find somebody for 20 bucks an hour that doesn’t know what they’re doing.

00;43;45;04 – 00;44;08;25
Speaker 1
Like the number one thing is your reputation. And so if I can charge, if I can pay damn near the highest in the area, then I can get the best guy. And then he can go and he can do the best job, limit my callbacks and make sure that my customer has a great experience. And they write a five star review and I’m on to the next one.

00;44;09;01 – 00;44;34;09
Speaker 1
Right. And so but that that money has to be what is that driver like? That’s why it’s not wrong to charge appropriately because you are you have to be able to have those people and have that option. So yes, I mean, does it, does it take the fact that you are a student of business and you’re trying to figure all that out, that stuff out?

00;44;34;11 – 00;44;55;21
Speaker 1
But I’m still to this day, like I’m I was a great operations manager because I got fed the numbers and I can interpret the numbers. I’m still terrible now with like, what this should be and what that should be like. My thing is, I just want us to make so much money that like, we’ll we’ll figure it out because we got enough money, right?

00;44;55;21 – 00;45;16;28
Speaker 1
Like, that’s really the thing. And that’s terrible. Like, do not do that. But it’s better to be that than to not have any money and be trying to figure out what to do. So again, having the right people and spending more than you think you need to, to be able to have that person. Because that’s what we did.

00;45;16;28 – 00;45;46;06
Speaker 1
I mean, even from the beginning, as soon as we had that opportunity, we, hired David’s nephew, who actually now is with us again, but super smart technician because David was the installer. So I could answer the phone, David could go put the units in. And then we had somebody actually, both David’s nephews, came in and they had experience, but they only came because we could pay them what they were making at the current companies that they were at.

00;45;46;13 – 00;46;18;04
Speaker 1
And so then they could go run service calls. And then now the loop is, is made because they’re run in service calls. They’re set and leads were selling jobs, were installing them. And then we have money to go to the next one. Right. So I guess for me I’ve always thought like it’s not that hard. Like it’s not that hard, but you know why it’s not that hard is because we were charging what we should be charging for that install that then created the money to be able to say, okay, now we need to do a little bit of marketing while we got a little bit of money, so we can put a little bit

00;46;18;04 – 00;46;36;04
Speaker 1
of money in marketing, or we got to get a, we got to get a new van, we got a little money to put down on the van, like, don’t go buy vans and cash. Like I don’t know who told you all that was a good idea. Like learn business stuff, right? Like if you buy in your your your personal stuff, you want to pay for your stuff.

00;46;36;04 – 00;46;57;10
Speaker 1
But business like business financing is fine. You get the tax credit to get all that kind of stuff like learn business, you know, like watch videos, see what other people are, do and learn from people, ask questions. You know, there’s so many people in our industry that are, well, willing, obviously, because I could talk forever, like if you want to, if you want to know.

00;46;57;10 – 00;47;21;04
Speaker 1
And I really think that you’re going to implement what I’m telling you to do, come spend a day with me. Come spend a day with David, you know, come see what we’re doing. Because, like, you’re you could save yourself two years by stint by spending a day here, right? Like the we’ve made the mistakes. We see that. But again, there is no secret sauce.

00;47;21;04 – 00;47;41;23
Speaker 1
And so understanding that it is just going to be a lot of hard work, but, but a lot of hard work when you got money in the bank is way easier. And let me tell you, any, any day, I would go back to five people in a 38% net profit at the end of our first year on 1.4 million any day.

00;47;41;23 – 00;48;08;10
Speaker 1
So yeah, don’t tempt me. And it is. Absolutely. It’s listen, it is way more fun. It’s a lot more people. We are we are growing people here. There is no question. But it’s a and it’s not ever our people. It’s it’s other things always. But you know when you’re, when you’re 10% net on 8 million, right.

00;48;08;13 – 00;48;29;20
Speaker 1
Which is good and it’s way above what the standard is. But again, you know, 38 on, on one point for like, it’s the same money and it’s a whole lot less headache. So, you know, so I mean, but those are the things, you know, we we didn’t want to stay small. We wanted to grow. We wanted to be able to provide those opportunities for other people.

00;48;29;23 – 00;48;52;10
Speaker 1
And we’ve done a lot of really fun stuff. Our people enjoy coming to work here. We fingers crossed. But we are taking the whole company and their spouses on a four day cruise in January. We’re going to shut down, for four days, and we’re going to take the whole company on a cruise and, and do we have to do that?

00;48;52;12 – 00;49;15;10
Speaker 1
Hell no. We don’t have to do it like, you know, that’s that’s $100,000 it that we could take home. But man, like, we’re all working really hard when we get on that cruise on that Friday, we are going to have such a blast. And to be able to be together and enjoy the hard work and the fruits of our labor, like for us, for David and I, like that’s what it’s all about, like that.

00;49;15;10 – 00;49;44;19
Speaker 1
That’s that’s where we made it. That’s where we succeeded. But that might not be your goal, right? And that’s okay too, right? That’s okay. But I think, again, you know, back to your your original question. You have to know where you’re going. Like what? What are you looking for? What what does your five look like. And it might be that it’s just you and your buddy and your wife and is still just the three of y’all, and you’re at a million and you’re making 40%.

00;49;44;22 – 00;49;55;09
Speaker 1
I mean, God love you. That’s amazing. I get it. Like, I understand that your house has paid off. All your cars are paid off year. You got all that. But that doesn’t happen if you’re not charging appropriately.

00;49;55;16 – 00;50;03;26
Speaker 2
So I don’t know. I don’t know about Derek, but I know after this I’m going to go and raise all my prices. So,

00;50;03;29 – 00;50;27;15
Speaker 1
Listen, I’m not saying, you know, I know it’s it’s hard out here. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, diesel is expensive, gas is expensive. And, you know, we’re not we’re not trying to add to that. Right. But but there there is, there is an MSRP out there, and we should all be working at the MSRP. And for some reason in our industry, we have allowed that not to happen.

00;50;27;17 – 00;50;54;23
Speaker 1
And and it it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for what we’re doing because it makes people look at my company that is giving back $100,000 a year to their employees and to the community, supporting the charities around town that need to be supported. And we have to be ones that do that, but it makes them look at my technicians and go, y’all are nuts.

00;50;54;29 – 00;51;28;23
Speaker 1
Your prices are outrageous. And I’m like, actually, her prices have been damn near the same for the last probably three years. It’s just all these other jokers out here that that don’t know how to get it to where we are. And they’ve actually backed down to 2012 prices. Right. So it’s, it’s not us, but but by the same token, when you need something, when you want a donation, you come to my company that you don’t use because your HVAC company will never have the money in order to be able to donate to you.

00;51;29;01 – 00;51;49;15
Speaker 1
Right. And so it’s like this, I don’t know, is this crazy line to me. It sometimes it makes me really happy and sometimes it makes me really angry, you know, and, and I, and I wish that, that people would look at it that way and see the value in what we’re doing for our people, for our community.

00;51;49;17 – 00;52;16;14
Speaker 1
And in the light that we’re trying to be, you know, we don’t brag about our giving back to the community because we think we’re so amazing. We do it because we want you to do it too, right? We want you to to be able to give back to you, challenge us. If I gave 100,000 and you give 102, and if that’s the case, then and now I actually gave double because you wouldn’t have given 100 if I didn’t give 100, right?

00;52;16;14 – 00;52;33;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so that’s how we raised the bar. And that that’s who we want to be, right? We, we are always going to have you in our, in our rearview mirror, unfortunately, because we’re not watching what you’re doing. But but if you’re trying to keep up, I love that. And if you want me to help you, just ask.

00;52;34;02 – 00;52;36;22
Speaker 1
I don’t care. I’m happy to help.

00;52;36;25 – 00;52;51;29
Speaker 2
It’s amazing. Stephanie, I know we’re out of time, but, I have so many other questions. When I’m in Charleston in January, I’m coming by the shop and we’re going to sit down, and we’re going to we’re going to do another podcast, but we’ll do it in person this time, long.

00;52;51;29 – 00;52;54;07
Speaker 1
As we’re not on the cruise. You are welcome, Doug.

00;52;54;09 – 00;52;55;03
Speaker 2
All right. That’s right.

00;52;55;03 – 00;53;00;29
Speaker 1
So we’ll have to check dates, but absolutely you’re welcome. It’s over a weekend. So I think we might be in good shape.

00;53;00;29 – 00;53;07;17
Speaker 2
All right. All right. If, if people want to learn more about anchor, maybe they want to get in touch with you. How do they find you guys?

00;53;07;19 – 00;53;28;14
Speaker 1
Absolutely. So we’re anchor heating and air.com. Obviously, we have the best website in the whole industry. I know, because I have the best, marketing company. And, also, you can find us on TikTok, you can find us on Facebook, all the social media. And then I’m s posto at anchor heating and air.com.

00;53;28;17 – 00;53;32;07
Speaker 2
That’s awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show and spend some time with us in our audience.

00;53;32;09 – 00;53;34;28
Speaker 1
Absolutely any time. Happy to do it.

00;53;35;00 – 00;53;54;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. And thanks, of course, everybody, for listening. And you know, big shout out and thank you to our sponsors as well. Without our sponsors we wouldn’t be able to a do the show would be we also wouldn’t be able to donate the money that we donated to, some organizations, for the kids that are, you know, going to trade school, they’re going to Boces, you know, tools and tuition.

00;53;54;18 – 00;54;10;07
Speaker 2
So thank you to everyone that makes that possible. You can find this podcast, all of our podcasts at Blue Collar Startup, Dot, IO. And of course they’re on Rumble, Spotify, Apple and YouTube. Dee, did I forget anything? You did great. Thanks. Thank you Stephanie.

00;54;10;13 – 00;54;38;11
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;54;38;11 – 00;54;51;11
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;54;51;14 – 00;55;00;19
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

00;55;00;21 – 00;55;01;27
Unknown
Oh!