How Investor Partnerships Help Service Businesses Scale | Podcast Ep. 170 | Toolbox for the Trades

Hello, contractors, and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Jackie Aubel, and today I am chatting with Richard Lewis, the CEO and founder of Redwood Services. Richard and the team at Redwood Nation partner with home service businesses across North America who want to have their cake and eat it, too. In other words, retain ownership of their business while joining forces with Redwood to unlock their full potential. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Richard Lewis, you are the CEO and founder of Redwood Services. Today we're going to be talking about how one can take a different approach to partnering with investors to grow their service business. I'm so excited to welcome you here on Toolbox for the Trades. Thanks for joining me.

Yeah, thanks so much, Jackie. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to the conversation.

So am I. We're going to kick this off, though, with an icebreaker so the folks listening can get an idea of who you are as a person. I would love to know, if you could have an unlimited supply of anything, what would it be and why?

Oh, that is a very good question. I think I would have an unlimited supply of babysitters because I have four kids at home and I would love to get out more, but it's hard to find a babysitter that's number one available and number two, willing to come to my house and deal with the insanity. So I would say an unlimited supply of ready, willing, and able babysitters.

That is a fantastic answer. And I need you to know that sitting across from me, but who is not on screen is my colleague Amanda, who literally was having babysitter issues earlier this morning. And so I knew if she had heard that, she would be laughing. And I think it's actually a wonderful answer for kids. I don't know how you do it, man, because you're running like a ton of businesses here. But let's actually get into how you got into the trades. We're going to talk about how you grew Redwood Services and what Redwood Services is. But before we even get there, like, how did you find yourself here running kind of a partner group for all of these wonderful home service businesses?

The story actually starts probably 15 years ago. So when I graduated from college, I went to school in New York City. I was born and raised here in Memphis. So I tried my hand at the Wall street thing for a couple years out of school. It wasn't for me. Didn't like it. And when I was ready to move back to Memphis in 2008, there were only at the time, a few large employers that I Thought would be a good place to kind of really start my career. One of those large employers was at the time one of the largest home services companies in the country, called Servicemaster. And so at the time, Service Master had just been acquired by a private equity firm. And I got an interview with the strategy team at ServiceMaster. So got that job, moved back to Memphis in 2008. And that started a 12 year journey at ServiceMaster where I got an opportunity to rotate around different functions, different trades. And really two things happened to me during those 12 years that I reflect on. Number one is my love of the home services space. I love the fact that there are real customers, frontline employees. It's, it's a, an essential service. Many home services are essential. So I love the industry. And the second thing I learned is I do not like corporate America. So a few years ago I was trying to find a way to have a career where I could achieve both of those. My love for home services and the desire to stay in the industry and also the desire to get out of corporate America and the bureaucracy and red tape and everything that comes along with that. And that kind of is how the dream for Redwood Services came about.

Yeah. And I mean, also just have to add there corporate America. Can we also talk about how bad the jargon is? Like circle back, follow up. Let's think on this. Can you ping me later? Oh my gosh. Makes you want to walk into the ocean.

So definitely a lot of that.

I'm right there with you. So let me actually ask real quick. At Servicemaster, so you come in with this Wall street experience, you're a finance guy, you go into Service Master, you mentioned you were in different functions in different industries. I'm imagining you probably work probably on the accounting, on the finance side, maybe on the operations side. Can you just tell us a little bit about what those different areas were?

I was very blessed in those 12 years, partly because there were people way above me that saw some potential and were willing to take a chance on me. So I started in corporate strategy, spent two years there, then I moved to two years of analytics. Then I moved into operations and ran one of our smaller business units. And so literally every two years for 12 years, I was able to rotate and have exposure to pretty much every function that existed within Servicemaster. And I think just looking back and reflecting back on those 12 years, it was such an amazing opportunity that I think set me up well to do what I've done at Redwood because I just had so much exposure to different trades, different Departments and really got to learn, you know, the 10,000 foot view of a lot of what goes on in this industry.

Yeah, that's super awesome. I want to talk a little bit about how Redwood Services is kind of different than other private equity firms out there in the space right now. So you reached out to me, your team reached out to me, because you partner with a couple service titan customers. You're very familiar with the service titan environment and everything. And your message, as I've understand it, is that Redwood Services is a little bit different. So why don't you tell me how it is? How is it different than the other private equity firms operating in the space right now?

Sure. So, again, to kind of understand how we designed Redwood, you have to go back to my time at servicemaster and my last role at Servicemaster. I was with our largest business unit, and they were an M and a factory. So they had organic growth initiatives and then inorganic growth initiatives, which was basically buying competitors. And so this. At ServiceMaster, we would buy a competitor. We are such a large business that we would almost always immediately rebrand the business, centralize the call center, because we could more effectively answer the phones, or at least we thought somewhere else. Centralized marketing, centralized accounting, centralized hr, and more often than not, those businesses that were for 50 years running independently as an entrepreneurial, you know, small business, now they're part of this behemoth. And all of a sudden the growth rate would. Would slow, or in some cases they'd go backwards. And so sitting in corporate America, looking at how acquisitions came about, I. I thought to myself, there has got to be a better way to invest in a home business company and a contractor. A way where you don't rebrand the business, you don't centralize key functions like marketing, accounting, call center, and where you leave the owner in place, you leave the management team in place. So that, that idea is what started me down the path of Redwood. And in the early days, when I was thinking about this, I thought to myself, the only way I will be able to build this business the right way, in my opinion, was to have backing from wealthy individuals, wealthy families that entrusted me with their capital to build this business and to build it the right way. And, you know, I think most of the competitors in the space, most of the other investors are backed by private equity funds, traditional private equity funds. I did not want to go down that path primarily for the fear of ending right back up where I started. In this kind of corporate environment where decisions are more short term and, you know, cost is and Removing costs from the business is a. Is a major driver of decision making. So that was kind of the vision of trying to invest in the space differently and doing it with a different type of capital from wealthy individuals. So that's. That's how this all started.

Yeah. And one thing that you talked to me about when we first spoke was how most of your partners retain some ownership component when they partner with Redwood Services, so the owner still has a stake in the game. You're not necessarily looking for buying these shops and the owners, you know, taking their buyout and then going on their merry way. You're interested in partnering with folks who want to grow their business still. They still want to be active in it. And by partnering with Redwood, they have a little bit more capital, a little bit more resources to help them reach those goals. Is that correct?

Yes. Yeah. So that's correct. So let's go back to 2020. When I finally made the decision to leave. I found a family in Memphis that was willing to back me and to raise some capital to allow me to do this and to do it the right. So in 2020, left ServiceMaster started Redwood with the whole idea of going about this strategy differently. And you're exactly right. So we do not acquire businesses. We don't purchase assets. We invest in partnerships. That's the goal. And every one of our deals has been the same structure where we invest in a majority of the business, but every one of our owners that we have invested in has maintained a significant minority investment piece, so they are still owners of the business. And then the goal is not to rebrand that business. It's not to put our own management team in. It's not to centralize key functions. The whole idea is to find the best contractors in the country, invest in those businesses, and then run at it together. And today, it's no longer just me at Redwood. There are now 29 of us, including some of the brightest minds in the industry. So when we invest in a business, we say to them, keep doing what you're doing, because you're good at a lot of things. But the Redwood team, we have a unique skill set, and we're really good at a lot of things. And let's put those two things together and try to accomplish more than either one of us could on our own. And that has been the approach. And as of next month, there will be 15 Redwood partners from coast to coast, from Fresno, all the way to Washington, D.C. and everywhere in between. Those 15 businesses will combine for roughly 1700 teammates. And the dream that I had four years ago is playing out and it's very humbling and very exciting. It's a lot of responsibility that I take seriously.

Yeah, I can certainly tell that. And congratulations. 1700 people across all the partnerships, 15 partners altogether, 29 people at Redwood. That is incredible. I have a couple questions from that. Okay, first off, 2020, did you decide to do this pre pandemic or right in the midst of the pandemic? You're like, oh man, this pandemic is sure stressful. You know, make this even more stressful. Starting my own business. Like, what was, what was your think your thought process there?

I can top both those because it was even worse. I left ServiceMaster on March 14th and the world shut down on March 15th. So the day after I left was done. The airport shut down. Everything shut down. Travel, everything turned off. And so again, I think that was a blessing in disguise because I got to spend the first 60, 90 days of my time at Redwood locked in an office, just focused on strategy. And had the airports been open and had Covid not been a thing, I would have been all over the place, traveling, trying to figure things out. So again, I think it was a little bit of a blessing in disguise, but it was definitely the world's worst timing, just from the COVID standpoint, for sure.

Yeah. And it's interesting as we've gone, this podcast launched on in April 2020 and so as I've gone through episodes, you hear people being like, yep, I did this really big thing in February or March and then I had to figure it out. So thank you for being candid about that. I have another follow up question to your last bit of information you shared with us. You know, you mentioned at your time that during your time at Servicemaster, you watched that organization kind of homogenize all of these different entities that they were bringing in all these different assets. So centralized call center, centralized marketing, centralized. You know, all of it's kind of like putting it all under one brand. You specifically mentioned rebranding more than once. And I would love to know what is it about that process that didn't rub you the right way? Like, what was it about that. That you were like, nah, when I do my own thing, I don't want to do it that way. I'm just curious from your perspective.

So first of all, Service Master was filled with some of the best people I've ever been around. Awesome people, great brands, and they were, you know, a multi billion dollar get publicly traded business after private equity ownership ended. So I Understand why they did what they did. And so for me it was about trying to be more nimble, where I, I could be more flexible and try to look at every situation for what is the right thing to do here. And it's my opinion, just being around home services that customers want to work with local brands. Customers believe in local brands. They want to work with someone that lives in their neighborhood. And some of the brands that we have partnered with at Redwood have been around for literally over 100 years. So for me to think that I have a better brand or that I could do something better than they could, I think that would just be a bit of arrogance. I think the businesses that we've partnered with, they know their customers better than I ever will. They know their employees better than I ever will, they know their team better than I ever will. And so the idea is not to come in and start changing things for the sake of change or to try to drive some short term profitability. The idea is let's partner for the long term. You're going to keep a big stake in this business. Let my awesome operations team help coach you on how to grow your business and then let's do this together. And that was the pitch. And early on I was worried because there were, there's so many other investors in the space and so many of them do it differently. I was worried about being the outlier. Like what am I missing? Maybe we're not going about this the right way, but I think the market in a sense has spoken because we have 15 of the absolute best contractors, best home service companies in the country that are on the Redwood team. Part of the Redwood family that, you know, I believe we, we have gotten it right so far.

That's awesome. And I 100% agree with you. Community involvement is so integral to some of these brands, especially brands that are operating in more rural suburban areas. I'm a city gal myself from New York. We actually discussed this in the pre interview that you and I went to similar colleges right down the street from one another. So I think that is so important to keep that community touch in intact. When you, when you come on and not really taking away what's not working, it sounds like instead you're looking to see like hey, how can we help and how can we help you guys just grow and reach your full potential.

Yeah. And it's not just about the brand. I want each of our businesses to remain active in their communities. One of the, probably the only common theme across all 15 of the redwood partners are there are good people with good cultures that give back to their communities. And not only do I want that to continue, I want it to flourish. And so one example is each of our businesses supports their own local charities and their own local causes. That doesn't end with a partnership with Redwood. We don't have a Redwood national charity or national cause. We have 15 local sets of charities and causes that we believe in giving to. And so it's not just about keeping the brand. It's about making sure that these businesses stay active members of their community that they're giving back. And I want to try to enhance that, not detract from it.

Yeah, I think that's great. So tell me some success stories. If I've got any folks listening right now that are like, oh, this is interesting, I could partner with Redwood Services. I could get a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit more help in some of these areas where I could use some more cash, use some more resources to tell me about some of the success stories that you've had with Redwood. Like what have you seen since, you know, helping some of these partners.

Yeah. So first of all, I can't take credit, nor could Redwood, nor could our team take credit in the success that has happened over the last couple years. It is all because of our partners and their management teams and their drive. All of the success and all the credit goes to them and to their teams, the technicians, the comfort advisors, the csrs. They are the heroes. And we are in the background just trying to do our part. So first of all, all the credit goes to them. There are so many success stories, it's hard to pick a few. Some of the most rewarding stories, by the way, are hearing that, you know, a technician has grown into a field supervisor that has now grown into a department manager because the growth of the business. So my favorite thing are the individual stories of helping change somebody's life because of the career growth that they've experienced with our support. So there are so many of those. But just thinking about some bigger picture stuff, you know, one of the biggest success stories has been our partnership with Right Way. So we partnered with right Way at the very end of 2020, and they were a business that was doing roughly $30 million a year in revenue. They ended last year roughly double that in the $60 million range.

Wow.

And they're in Tucson, Arizona. They're not in Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago. I mean, they're in a medium sized market in Tucson. And so I think we've been good partners. Again, they have an outstanding management team. Our partner there, Rick Walter, is a legend in the industry. But, you know, I think we have brought some strategic help to the table. Our balance sheet has helped. And just thinking about something specifically. Right way has done five tuck in acquisitions in the last 24 months, and they had never done one prior to Redwood's partnership. And so I think in that case, one of the strategic muscles that we help them develop is around tuck in acquisitions. And so we found five really good smaller businesses in Tucson that we have helped right way fully acquire. Their team, moves over to Right Way, gets all the right way benefits, joins the Right Way culture, and that's helped add new service lines. It's helped bring in tremendous talent. And so a good bit of the growth over the last couple years has come from us continuing to do the tuck in acquisition strategy approach.

Can I just say, tuck in acquisition strategy approach. I think I first heard the term tuck in like maybe like a hundred episodes ago. It's the cutest phrase. It's so cute. We help them with some tuck ins. Anyway, I may have to have you introduce me to Rick because he sounds like quite the entrepreneur. So that's very cool. And I also wanted to tell you that one thing that I'm hearing because consistently throughout your answers here is this idea of humility. You know, you are very quick to put all of the success on your partners and not so much to talk about how Redwood is the reason that they are the way they are. And I think that probably is a really big part of your success. So I just wanted to share that with you. That's something I'm observing just in our conversation right now.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And you know John Conway, who's our coo, who's another industry legend, we talk a lot about when we're hiring for the Redwood partner support center, which is what we call our office here in Memphis. It's the Redwood partner support center. When we're hiring additional staff members, one of the first things we're looking at is ego free. You know, we are in a support role. Our job at Redwood is to support our partners. And if you're looking through the lens of what's good for me, you're already off to the wrong start. So we. Not only is it important for the leadership team at Redwood to be humble and to put our partners first, that needs to carry through the entire organization.

Yeah, 100%. All right. So I would love to know now that you've partnered with almost 15 brands, you have your experience at Service master. What, in your opinion, differentiates a good home service company from an exceptional home service company?

I actually wouldn't phrase it that way, and I wouldn't think about it that way, because it depends on what you want as a seller. Let me put it that way. There are, let's say, 50 investors in residential H vac and plumbing today, 50 different groups that would love to buy your business. And each one of them, I think, could be the perfect fit for a specific seller. Let me give you an example. If you want to sell 100% of your business right out into the sunset and have nothing to do with that business after the close, there are a lot of good buyers for that business. It's just not Redwood. So I think about it as we have designed Redwood to be attractive to a certain type of seller. And that type of person is somebody that doesn't want to sell 100% of their business, does not feel like they're done, that wants to take some chips off the table and de risk their life. Because a majority of the owners that we talk to, they're 99% of their net worth is tied up in the business. So this allows them to de risk, take some chips off the table, but they're still running the business. It's their team, it's their brand, it's their employees, it's their customers. And so life doesn't change drastically from the day before closing to the day after closing. The biggest thing that changes Is there's now 29 people in Memphis and around the country that are helping them share the burden of running the business by helping, by sharing in expenses and everything that comes with running a business. So I believe we are the perfect investor for people that fall into those categories that don't want to stop, that care about the culture, care about the people, and want to make sure that, you know, what happens after the transaction is over is way more important than what happens during the transaction itself.

Okay, well, that's definitely. That's the ideal partner for Redwood. So anyone there, anyone listening who's like, ooh, that sounds interesting. Contact Richard. I also just want to say, like, when you're looking at partners, because obviously you're very specific about, okay, who are we partnering with? Who are we going to allocate our resources to? You know, EBITDA is. Is big in the private equity space, but I'm wondering if that's not necessarily the metric you use, are there any other things that Redwood is looking for? In the ideal partnership, we have a.

Very defined criteria, and Let me start by saying we are geographic agnostic. So if you go to our website and you look at our map, you'll see that we have locations scattered all over. There are many other investors that pick a market and they want to saturate it. The Florida investor, the Northeast investor, the Pacific Northwest investor. I like to think of us as the people investor. So we're looking for good people with good brands and good cultures, and we don't care where that takes us in the United States. And the other thing is, because our, the, the backing, the capital from Redwood is from wealthy individuals and not private equity, we can be as patient and as picky as we want on new partnerships. So I don't have a certain amount of capital that I have to deploy. We are looking for good stories. And if that means five new partners in a year, that's awesome. If it means no new partners in a year, that's okay, too. And so that, to me, it's more about the story. Of course, there are certain sizes. Most of our partners are 15 million of revenue and above $1.5 million of EBITDA and above. But there's a lot of flexibility in what we do. And the other thing I'll mention is, you know, when John Conway and I do an initial call with someone that wants to learn more, 90% of the time it doesn't end up working out. So we, we've done, like I said, 15 partnerships are soon to be. We've probably had 200 conversations in the last three and a half years. And a lot of times it's not the right fit for us. A lot of times it's not the right fit for the contractor. And so, you know, the thing I'm most proud of, or one of the things I'm most proud of, is that all 15 of our redwood partners have come referrals. So either people in the industry that have said, hey, you need to talk to Redwood, or they knew John Conway or they knew Scott Brinkley and they wanted to talk. So we have never done a deal with a broker or a banker. It's all been referrals. And typically, another interesting point is when the first time we talk to someone, they're not looking to sell their business. They just know that there's this world that exists out there of people investing in H vac and plumbing. They want to learn more. And when they learn about Redwood and the fact that I believe they can have their cake and eat it too, because they're going to get the money and they're Going to, you know, set their family up for future success financially, but then they continue to do all the things they love about being a business owner. All of a sudden, you know, even though they weren't actively looking to do a deal, you know, they start exploring with us. And so it's. It's gone quite well so far.

That's really cool. And I appreciate the transparency about this process and what this looks like for anyone who's listening and is kind of thinking about this strategy potentially partnering with someone like Redwood. What should they be preparing for in their business now, if they want to reach out or if they want to pursue something like this?

Yeah, it's a good question. And again, it comes back to what your goals are through a transaction. If you're looking to get out, if you're looking to stick around for six months or six years. And so I think the first thing to do is just do your homework on the different groups that exist. And, you know, I'm always happy to talk to people just to explain to them the landscape. Even if they're not interested in doing a deal with Redwood, or if I'm not the right fit, I'm happy to introduce them to someone else that might be. But I think just doing your homework and talking to people that are currently within the group that you want to join. So if someone wants to potentially join the Redwood family, after an initial call with John and myself, the first thing we do is we send them the cell phone numbers of all of our current partners and we say just pick one, pick two, pick three, call them and find out what it's been like. Because of course I'm gonna sing the praises of Redwood, as with anyone in my shoes. But I think where you really understand what it's like to be a part of a group is to talk to people that are currently in it or have been in it in the past. And so that's one piece of advice I would have. The other thing is just, you know, getting your ducks in a row ahead of time. Obviously, the more buttoned up your business can be, the easier the process is going to be. A lot of people struggle with the accounting and financial side of a transaction. And so one of the things we recommend to all of our partners and the people looking to possibly join the Redwood family is have a great controller, investing the money to have a really good controller in your business that can help with the finance and the accounting side of the business and is going to be critical.

Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone was like, getting that type of support has changed my business for the better. I would have several dollars. I can't exaggerate that that much. I have to say I was very happy to see that Mike Marcel is on the Redwood Services team. He actually was a guest on Toolbox for the trades maybe about two years ago almost now. And he's a service Titan expert. So it sounds like you've got some really great service titan experts there at Redwood.

Yeah. So our operations team, which is the biggest team that we have at the Redwood partner support center, there are nine business coaches that specialize in different areas with the goal of just supporting our partners to go from good to great or great to excellent. So we have marketing coaches, we have a call center coach, we have an accounting coach, we have operation coaches, we have a sales coach, and most recently we have a Service Titan coach. So out of our 15 partners, 14 of them are currently on Service Titan. The 15th is in the process of, of moving over to ServiceTitan. And what we found was as good as Service Titan is with their customer service and as good as some of the third party consultants are at helping, given that so much of our business revolves around that product and that tool, we wanted to have the expert on our team and Mike is nationally known as being the guy. And there's rumors that when ServiceTitan has a question, they'll call Mike, which. So to have Mike on the Redwood team and to be able to support our partners in maximizing the value of the Service Titan tool has been tremendous.

I cannot confirm nor deny those rumors, Richard. So we're just going to have to keep that in the Service Titan lore. This has been a wonderful conversation. I've loved chatting with you. Is there anything we should have talked about that we didn't get a chance to.

No. I think, you know, it's an interesting time in the home services space. There's obviously a lot of M and A activity. I think that's going to continue for the time being. If you look at, you know, pest control, they're probably 20 years ahead of our industry. H vac and plumbing in terms of investment consolidation, M and A. So I like to think that we're in the second or third of a nine inning game in terms of the, the investment in this space. But now is as good of a time as ever to the market's still hot, business is still going well across the country. 2023 was a rocky year for the industry, but things are starting to rebound in 2024. And, you know, things are going well at Redwood. We're continuing to invest, we're continuing to grow the team, and again, all of our partnerships have come from referrals. And that's something that I pride myself on and will continue to make myself available to people like you and others in the industry that have influence and that have a voice so that I can continue to tell our story. Because one of the biggest challenges for us is we get bucketed in with everyone else. And because we're so unique, really, the only way to explain it is to have an opportunity like this to share how we're different, how we're going about things, and then just to get some chances to explain that story to, again, the best contractors in the country. I was humbled to be invited to this podcast. There have been a lot of amazing guests in the past and just looking forward to continuing to grow our relationship, service Titan and Redwood. And also seeing the journey that Red was on and where we'll continue to hopefully go.

Oh, what a beautiful way to end this show. And unfortunately, you're. You. What you just said made me think of one other question, because the 2023 slump following, you know, the COVID boom has been on our mind a lot. We know people have been struggling with the kind of this giant business, like this giant boom in business for 2020, 2021, and then kind of the resetting of everything with 2023. So I'm curious, what are the partners at Redwood doing to kind of continue that. Continue their momentum, continue their growth in spite of, you know, not the. The most lucrative.

Yeah.

Opportunity.

That's the big question. And we spent probably 75% of last year trying to answer it. And I think we as H Vac and plumbing contractors had gotten so used to everything being up and to the right. 20, 30, 40% revenue growth, a million tailwinds. And as long as you could answer the phone and you had technicians to go service customers, you could grow the business. And back then, it was all about talent, opening universities, getting more technicians in the door, training. And 2023, the world changed. And it's not that things didn't grow. It just wasn't growing as fast as what we had been used to. And so for us, a lot of it was about matching costs. With the new world of revenue growth, if you're expecting 30, 40% revenue growth and you budget for cost associated with 30, 40% revenue growth, and then revenue growth is 10%, well, you could end up going backwards in profitability because of all the Budgeted cost. And so last year we as Redwood Nation had to learn how to manage in a an environment that's not 30, 40% growth. And a lot of that was about cost control. And I'm very proud of our team. We did not lay off a single person last year anywhere in the country because of what happened in the industry. So there were no layoffs either at Redwood or our partner companies. Everything we tried to do was about maximizing every call, getting our gross margin aligned, controlling OPEX and making sure we could get through the year unscathed and also not doing anything that would have long term implications to the negative. So we fought through an entire year. We ended up, we were up double digits on revenue and EBITDA last year through the efforts of Redwood's finance and operations team, working with these amazing contractors and their management teams. And so 2023 was a learning year, I think for the industry, but especially for Redwood. But what I'm excited about is we're so much stronger today than we were last year because of that experience. So while during, you know, the times where it was rough, it was not fun and there was a lot of long nights trying to figure out the best way to handle it, we're so much stronger as a team here at Redwood. I think our partner companies are so much stronger because of that experience. And now we're just off to the races in 2024.

Amazing. Well, Richard, thank you so much for being a guest on Toolbox for the trades. I learned a ton. I'm going to be rooting for Redwood. Please keep me posted with how things are going. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.