Putting People First When Scaling with Cameron Bawden

Foreign.

We're talking today, we're really sharing a story about growing a business well past 100 people, over 100 trucks, over a number of years, and all of the different lessons that go along the way with CEO, founder and also a fellow show host with a really couple of interesting and unusual shows. So that's our conversation today, Everybody. I'm Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes to you every week with a couple of conversations with authors, gurus, entrepreneurs, CEOs about their experience in growing their company. And you'll find all those shows and more@scalingcoach.com Scalingcoach.com is also where our workshops, our events, our free tools, Downloads and over 500 past shows can be. You can find them all there or where you're getting this right now, of course, is also good, like subscribe turn on notifications so you don't miss one because there's stuff every week about a huge range of topics. So listen, I'm joined now by Cameron Bowden, who is bought in.

It's all good man.

Who joins us from the Phoenix area where he's got a great business. And we'll tell you more about that, about the business, about the whole thing. He'll share the stories with you. Green Mango Pest is his business. Cameron, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks, man. Appreciate you having me on.

So, guys, Cameron is the founder of this business started back in 2014, was it? Or 2010?

2010, yeah.

10, right. 24 years. 14 years now in business, started very small now over 100 trucks doing a kind of pest control. Tell us more about that. So and then he has a couple shows, podcast shows. One of them, his show, what is it called?

Well, one's called Premium Mindset and the other one is Flying High with Cam, which is the helicopter one flying high with.

So he does an interview like this, but they do it while flying in a helicopter, which I just think is fantastic. Conversations with entrepreneurs are when I take them out in somewhere unusual. I like to take people out sailing in the San Francisco Bay. But anytime you get people out of that kind of thing, it adds a little element of something to the conversation.

So, yeah, it's been fun to get people kind of out of the studio and just seeing nature and, you know, they open up a lot more and their mind's kind of off the pressure of having all the right answers and all those things. And so we've had a lot of fun with it.

Yeah, it's really great getting people to just speak like casually, informally being real, not all rehearsed. Unlike, say this environment which is like, looks like studio camera. We might as well be on CNN talking to each other. Like it takes something to pierce that polish.

Right, right, right.

So why did you start this green mango business? What is green mango? And why on earth did you start it?

Yeah, so I never, I never grew up thinking, hey, I'm going to be a bug guy when I'm older. You know, that's the last thing I thought. But I served a mission for my church in Canada, Edmonton, and when I got home, a lot of missionaries get recruited to go work for these door to door companies, right? Um, you know, pest control is one of them. Alarm, solar, you name it. But like, we're used to knocking doors all day long and used to getting rejected for religion. And so we get heavily recruited. And so I was, I was no different. When I got home, I immediately got recruited by one of my good buddies. And what's funny is the guy that we were working for just handed us a credit card and just said, hey, I don't care what you guys do, just make sure that there's guys here come April 1, which is usually the beginning of the summer. And so we started doing all these three on three basketball tournaments. I was putting gas into the airplane and we were flying all over the place and I was like, you're telling me there's money in pest control? Like, what is this? And so that's kind of my first, I guess, experience of saying realizing that one, there's money in pest control. But then as I dug deeper into it, I learned about this concept and that is residual income that is just amazing within, you know, most service companies, but especially the pest control model. And it just kind of started there. We thought like, hey, you know, we can do it bigger and better. Not to say there's anything wrong with the company that we were working for, but we just want to be our own boss and we want to do our own thing. So literally took the last couple thousand dollars that I had, put it into a spray rig, you know, into the back of the truck and we started knocking doors. We had zero customers, one truck. And like I told you, like now we have over 120 vehicles and we're the largest company in Arizona now. And it's been this crazy ride of 14 years where I didn't go to college. I never really worked for anyone else besides that other company. And that was only for six months and I never got paid from them. So I've never Really, like been an employee with anyone, with anyone else. So any lesson, and I've had to learn them all. I've had to learn through trial and error, being, you know, the one in charge. And it's, it's. I've been through the school of hard knocks. It's been crazy, but good. I wouldn't change it for anything.

You know, I think it's really interesting that there are so much things that we can learn and apply from these kind of accidental experiences. Yes. Go study accounting and finance and economics and management and things like that. And it's especially good if you're going to go work for a really big company, but not necessarily if you're going to start your own business. But you go out there and along the way, if you do some kind of volunteer work, you're going to learn something about getting things done, about dealing with people and hardships and that kind of thing. And so whether you serve a mission or you, or you volunteer for some group or you're in the Peace Corps or whatever, you're going to learn some really practical things that can be applied to a business.

Right.

And build your life around. What's the name Green Mango have to do with why Green Mango?

So here's the thing. My business partner who I started Green Mango with, he served a mission in Brazil. And he said that the way in which he survived, you know, the thing that he lived off as well, was the mangoes. Like, it was his way of living there for survival of food, right? So when we started Green Mango, he wanted mango there because this is what was going to provide for us. This was going to be our way of life. And then the green came from when we started in 2010, our compet. Our competition was like, like the industry had a bad rep, right? Like you had an overweight pest control control guy came with a mustache. He was in a nasty van. You know, there's oil leaking out of the back. And it was just. It was just bad. You're in and out five, 10 minutes. And there was this movement around 2010 where everyone was starting to get a little bit more health conscious. They wanted to have natural products and natural, you know, organic, you know, whatever, around the house. And so we just thought, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna bring a different vibe to this. We're gonna be called Green Mango so that people understand, like, hey, the products that we use are safe for pets and also children. We're gonna have all the nice things. So we went out and we bought, you know, we Put rims on our service trucks. We have 22 inch rims on our service vehicles. All of our technicians are decked out and Nike dry fit, you know. You know, we have a dress and grooming standard that's very strict. And so we just started to enter into this market where we've literally changed the game here and people appreciate it. We created this vibe that instead of, you know, having this nasty old, you know, rundown van, pull up to your house now a Green Mango truck pulls up in a flat black truck. And it's almost keeping up with the jones is like, hey, who's your. Who's your bug man? Oh, I use Green Mango. Who do you use? I use, you know, XYZ company. It's almost embarrassing. And. And that's what we wanted to create. And so, you know, people thought we were crazy. And it is a wacky name, but people remember it and they get that. That fresh, clean feeling that, that we wanted them to feel when they experienced. I love the.

The simple branding thing. Like, what is the image of the industry now and what do we want to be? And then you pick a name that's roughly nothing to do with it. Not really. Like, no. Something that you connect with. Green Mango. Like, well, it kind of says this might be organic. It kind of says that this might be natural. Right. It suggests something.

Like, a lot of people are like, are you guys a weed dispensary or what are you guys. You know, it's like, no, we're pest control, man. We're Arizona's finest. Premium service. That's who we are.

Yeah.

Smoothie shop. No, not a smoothie shop.

A couple of guys coming back from serving missions for their church, starting a dispensary. Well, maybe someday.

Right? Right, Right.

All things change. Yeah. That's really interesting. So you start with one truck and then you grow out from there. Right. And now you have 150 people, roughly, and 120 trucks.

Yep.

Yeah. So that's roughly a person per truck plus some folks in the office. Right?

Exactly.

It's really interesting. And along the way, a lot of lessons learned. Right.

You.

You get started through the whole thing. One of the stories that I thought was interesting from our preparation was the. The setup outside your wedding. Tell. Tell us that story.

So I got married a month after we started the business. And my business partner, like, that's his zone of excellence, Right. He was a marketing genius. And he knew I married into a pretty wealthy family here in the valley. And he knew there's going to be just a Lot of influence there. A lot of money. And I don't think my wife passed off on it, but he made sure there was a green Mango truck parked out front of the wedding venue so that when people were walking up, they saw the green Mango truck.

And.

And that was kind of our first, like, hey, we're here to be the best, and we're here to do what we want to do. And so it was just kind of a funny, funny time of life and funny, you know, move that my business partner made, you know, without my wife's permission.

Isn't that interesting? And then she worked with you. Does she still work in the business with you?

She never. I mean, she's always been super supportive, but she's never been on payroll. You know, I've never had her work in the business for a number of different reasons, but, yeah, but she's always there.

Supportive stuff. You said something about stuffing packets at night or doing that kind of thing.

And that's what I mean. Like, she's super supportive. So, you know, a lot of people know at the beginning, you have to wear every single hat. One of our staples for our customers is that we. We give them, like, a marketing piece, a folder that we leave with them after each service. Well, there's three or four inserts in that folder, and, you know, it takes time to stuff those. And so we'd be at the office multiple nights a week till, you know, 11, 12 at night, after a route, after billing, everything, stuffing packets. And she always came and helped out with that. You know, one of the funniest stories is she was pregnant with our little boy at the time, and we were like, hey, we want to fly her this. This neighborhood. But we couldn't afford a company to go out and fly her. And so this is what I mean by being support. She's like, hey, I want the exercise. I'll get on my rollerblades and go flyer this neighborhood for you. Well, you know, rollerblading without any weight is one thing, but rollerblading with, like, a vest full of flyers, you know, 30, 40 pounds is another thing. And she. She ate crap a few times going down people's driveways when she'd have the folders on her front, you know, chest going down on Rollerblades. But it was. It was kind of funny. But like I said, if you're going to be a successful business owner, like, you need a supportive wife behind you that supports you and sees and understands the vision and where you're wanting to take it. And she's definitely Been that for me.

Yeah. It's good to have partnership in that and, and find a way to have your marriage survive the collaboration.

Partnership, yeah.

Can often be a little bit. How has that been for you over time? You say she, she hasn't really worked in the business except. Except for sort of volunteering, contributing in some of those ways. But how has the business been in your life, in your marriage and your family?

You know, I, I've. I've opened up five other service companies in 2016, and most my partners that I partnered with have gone through a divorce. And so I've seen it firsthand. I've got a lot of business, I got a lot of friends that own businesses that have gone through divorces. It's rough for many different reasons. You know, I always tell people your business is the most needy girlfriend you've ever had in your entire life, because if you want it to succeed, like, you got to give it everything. And sometimes, unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, put their wives, put their kids on the back burner and go, you know, take that phone call. They go work on the Saturdays, they go work on the Sundays. And, and you know, if your wife's not on board with you, if you guys aren't completely, perfectly aligned with the sacrifice that it needs to take, the outcome that it could be, you know, if you have that success, you know, she's going to resent you for it. She's going to feel like she doesn't mean anything to you and she's going to eventually leave you. And so, luckily for me, I just had a wife that was supportive. You know, I didn't do the things that I coach people on now. And that is like, hey, make sure you're both. If you guys want to make this a $10 million company, like, you guys both need to understand what it takes to have a $10 million company. You need to understand that on the weekends you might have to take some phone calls from the salesman or from some employees or, you know, customers or whatever it might be. But there's going to be a level of sacrifice that has to happen. And that's what I mean by being on the same page with each other. She's just been supportive with that. I haven't really done a great job communicating with her up until probably the past year and a half. But as I've seen that, I've given more context and more like up to date, real time information of what's happening in the company. It's been a game changer. Even. Even with it being good before, like just her buy in and her and her supportiveness that she's had for me and going through, you know, problems as they come up. But so I, I always tell all entrepreneurs, I get on the same page with your wife. Make sure you're both, you know, in the same realm of what you, you know, what success means to you and what that looks like and then what you're both willing to give up and sacrifice to get there. Because if you don't, it probably will lead to a divorce or you'll resent her. Right. You'll want to leave her because you're wanting to have a $20 million company and she's okay with you having a $5 million company. And that lifestyle is completely different. And your commitment to work is completely different. Yeah.

And just to emphasize, there's a couple of guys talking and sharing from that reference, but we have a lot of female CEOs and founders. Listener audience. Right. So whether it be your husband or wife or partner or whatever it is, the people around you have to know that you are not living necessarily a normal life. Doesn't have to be bad, but there's unusual demands and a different pattern than somebody who just has a 9 to 5 job. Right?

Yeah. I mean, even, you know, so we did $24 million in revenue last year. And you know, my goal is to get it to 50. And I went to her and I just said, hey, like, this is what it's going to take. And it's a, it's like, it's a whole nother level of commitment and sacrifice. Are you okay with this? And luckily for me, she signed on the line. Right. But if she wasn't, then I couldn't, I couldn't push forward and go for that 50 million mark because it would just, it would cause problems.

Yeah, I think that's really, really important. I mean, and it could go lots of different ways. I was really interested in taking our last company to 250 million. And I had this vision for getting to 250. And my wife was a big no. Yeah, she was a big old no. And she, her name was on the door. She was the founder. I was the mere CEO who'd come in to run things and grow things. But it was too much. It wasn't the vision that she had. And it led to us not together. And you were still together, but not working together. And of course, then it also led me into coaching because that bit of like the big growth is a game I like to play. It's Just, it's one kind of game to play. Right. But it's not only kind of game to play. And now I work with many companies who have their eyes set on 100 million or a billion or whatever the number is that they. They're going.

Right. I love that.

So you, you mentioned a kid. You have more than one? Do you have just the one?

How old are they? I have two. So I have a little, little boy who's 10 and girl who's seven years old. And it's. It's awesome.

Seven and 10, boy and a girl.

So.

And what do you think? Like, how has family life? We're going to talk about your leadership and the company more and stuff like that, but since we're on the kind of the spousal part, let's talk about family, being a dad, the kids, what do you expose them to? Not expose them. What do you talk to them about? The business at this age?

Yeah, I share everything. And, you know, like I told you, I. We've started our podcast now about eight months ago. And one of my favorite things is that when I go into my little boy's room at night, he's got my podcasts on, you know, where I'm talking about business. And I just, I love that. I never thought he'd listen to it. I never thought he'd, you know, stay engaged. He's 10 years old, and he's literally could, could, you know, rehearse these podcasts back to me. And he's sharing with me these business principles that are just next level. So that's been absolutely phenomenal. I do share with my kids everything I talk about because I don't want them to think that this world is just all perfect and, you know, hey, dad, how's your day? Oh, it's great. No, I want them to know, like, dad got. I got knocked in the teeth today. Like, today was hard. You know, this employee was frustrated because I did this or that. And I think that transparency is very important for kids. And talking about an entrepreneur lifestyle, you know, being on the same page with your wife, I believe that same communication needs to be with your kids. They don't know any better. So when you say, hey, you know, when we go on these nice vacations for, you know, a couple weeks at a time, or we're able to do this or we're able to do that, it's because I work hard. It's because, you know, I do have my own business. And it's because sometimes I do step out at dinner and I Do take those phone calls with people. So I create. I try and help them see the bigger picture of. Hey, when I'm on the phone, please don't interrupt me. It's with clients. We're talking about business. If I succeed in business, that means more, you know, time at home, more vacations, more toys, more nicer cars, all the things right. But I try and connect the dots for them and I think that's been very critical. But also setting boundaries with your kids is important. You know, my kids wake up at six o', clock, I wake up at six o' clock and they want, you know, a lot of times for a while there, it's like they want me to play right away at 6:00. And I let them know, hey, I have my goals. In the morning I'm wanting to work out, I'm wanting to read my book. You know, I have a goal of 20 minutes of reading a day. I haven't been a great reader. That's my goal this year. Hey, I need 20 minutes alone. I need to do all these things from 7:50 till 8:30. You know, when you leave for school, like I'm phone down, I'm 100% with you. And that's. And so that time is important. They understand, hey, before 7:50, like dad's doing his thing and then I'll be home at 5 o' clock. And from 5 o' clock until your bedtime, I'm with you. But you know, from that 8:30 till 5:00', clock, I'm at work and I'm doing my stuff before 7:15. And they understand these boundaries. They might not like them every time, but at least you're on the same page and you're connecting the dots for them. And that's been huge for me because before it was like, why do you have to take the phone calls? Why do you work so much? Why do you do this? And so I started sharing this information more and more and it's really helped out our relationship and helping them understand or understand, you know, why I do what I do.

So take the flip side of it then. What are your boundaries with the team in the office? When do you tell them, no, I'm busy with family now. And how does that go?

Yeah, so most people know, like they won't get a response from me before 8:30 in the morning 1 because I don't like to look at my phone. And we can go into all that, you know, research and why a lot of people don't. And then after 5 from like 5 till 8 o', clock, they won't get a response from me either. So because I'm with the family now from 8, I have a zero inbox policy, you know, so zero text messages, zero emails that go without being responded to. So if you text me or call me during, you know that 5 to 8, I'll get back with you from 8 till 10 o' clock at night. But there's that time where it's like, hey, I'm just, I'm not available.

And then in the evening.

Yeah, that 5 to 8 at night, not available. And then 8 and then 8pm I'll respond to everybody.

So you've got 8:30 in the morning until 5 and then you've got 8 to 10. Basically, yes, I'm available then. So flip over to the business a little bit. How has your leadership evolved in the business? What did it look like when you first started and what's your style and the kind of people that you have working with you today?

So the first five years it was, no one can do it as good as I can. I can't trust anyone. So I'm going to wear all the hats, right? And that's when we weren't making any money. That's when I was working 16 to 18 hours a day. That's when I wanted to sell the company and I was miserable all the things, right? And then finally it was like, if I want to scale this thing, if I want to have a normal life, I have to trust people. So I would classify myself as a very passionate, passionately detached on certain things of like, hey, I want it this way. But I'm open if you feel like you can have an argument with me or a conversation to where you win, like, you'll win. But until then, this is how I want it done. And that's been successful for me because all my managers know, like, hey, there's a system and a policy put into place for a reason. And these systems have been tried and true now for 14 years now. If you have an idea that you think is better, I'm always open, but you're going to have to win the argument. You know, when we go into that conference room to decide if we want to change it or not. And then of course, you know, having the KPIs put in, put into place the key performance indicators and I just leveled up. I feel like as I got some advice from a mentor of mine to where I was getting frustrated that I was having to repeat or like, go through the same problems every single Year like, hey, why isn't this manager following this system and process? Why isn't he doing this? And you know, I would bring it back up to him. They do a great job at doing it for six months, eight months, and all of a sudden I come back to it and they're not doing it again. And my mentor told me, he said, look, you need to have an auditor for every single system and policy that you put into place. And I was just like, you mean I have to hire someone above the manager to make sure the manager's doing the job like that? It's kind of crappy, right? But he just said, look, if you want to make sure that everything's being done the way in which you want it done, have an auditor in place. So I've hired two auditors to audit every single system and policy. And it's been absolutely phenomenal the past four months that we've had this done because one, it helps my manager stay accountable, but two, gives me insight of where we can improve and what systems and policies aren't being followed in real time as opposed to whenever I get around to it, six to eight months later. So those are the two things. As a manager, for me, that's been a big, big difference maker.

You know, that's a really interesting thing and I have not heard people share it so explicitly before, but I think many entrepreneurs and CEOs struggle with inspecting everything and they know they should inspect it and they should have metrics and things like that, they should have a plan, but they don't necessarily love doing it because they're onto the next thing and forward looking and they need that done. So having somebody who gets into it and makes sure that it's tracking seems really great. And having just that specific role instead of layers of management that do it is interesting.

Yeah.

So it's your mentor that suggested that to you?

Yeah. Yep.

Well, it's interesting to me. So you start, you have this idea that the industry is tired and dated and not really relevant or current, that the image is of a, of a heavyset guy with a dirty truck who's going to come around and spray toxic chemicals. And you want to create something fresh and new and contemporary and that kind of thing that speaks to that. Is the actual product much different than what the, the oh guy is going around spraying? Yeah.

I mean, it's not to say they can't use it, but a lot of these companies, especially at the time and still almost today, is. It's just like anything else. You can buy a Ferrari or you can buy, you know, a Prius, and it's just, you know, the difference of how much it costs. So we've decided to take the route of what we consider to be premium product. So our product that we buy is definitely the Ferrari of pest control, but that comes at a cost. But guess what? Our reservice rate is a lot lower. It's under 1% every single month, where most companies hover around 4 to 5%. Obviously, Reservice is when a customer is not happy, they're seeing bugs. We have to go back out for free and get them taken care of. Well, that costs a lot of money. And so what our model was is like, hey, spend the money on the product up front so that the customer has a better experience. No pest. Our re. Services are lower and. And then our referrals are higher. So that's one of the things I love to talk about and I love to boast about. And it plays into not just the service, but it plays into our branding, how our technicians, you know, communicate with our customers, how our customer service representatives, you know, confirm an appointment. But our referral program is the number one source of new sales for us above everything else. We spend over $2 million a year on marketing. Radio, Billboard, Google Ad, all that stuff. Our customer referrals outperform every single source almost 2 to 1. And that's because our service is the best. Like, it literally is the best. We wouldn't have been able to grow to be the biggest company in Arizona without the best service from top to bottom, everything.

So you're not getting. You're not the cheapest service and you're not selling to everyone, but you're the biggest overall because of the quality of the. The service and the product, the whole thing.

Yeah, well, and you say, like, no, we're not the cheapest, but we're definitely not the most expensive. We're probably right, you know, we're probably right above, you know, the middle of the mark there. There's still some companies, when I hear their contract rates, I'm just like, how do they rip people off like that? So I try and be as fair as I can with the customer, but we have our margins that we like to hit. And, you know, but we're still not the most expensive, but we have the longest average service time at the home. And then we spray the best products, which is your two highest overhead components in pest control in the industry. And we just decided, you know, that, hey, we won't make as much here. We'll do a better service there. And yeah, that'll result in lower margins, but we're going to make up for it in the acquisition cost of free customers when they refer.

Yeah, it's interesting. We have had a pest control for many years and it changed some years ago because of some breakdown or whatever. But my house is over 160 years old and so we have ongoing issues keeping out of the crawl space in the walls. So we have traps and things like that. And then every now and then we have to spray stuff around the yard for, I don't know, spider flare up or something. Like something that's just out of hand but. Right. That kind of thing. That is like a regular monthly thing. And so there's a recurring revenue piece to it and a relationship. And I know that our pays a lot of attention, but they're not particularly contemporary. If somebody asked me about them, I'd go, yeah, we're happy with ours. But I wouldn't be like, they're awesome. Come on over. You know, they're great. You could use them. You know, I'm not firing them. They're fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was our goal. We wanted to be a cool company that literally it was keeping up with the Joneses. Like if there's a pest truck that pulled into the neighborhood, like you wanted a green mango truck to pull up in front of yours because of the, you know, your neighbor's perception of who you're using. And so we, you know, we used a lot of influencer marketing and, you know, kind of made it cool to have green mango there. So we, you know, pest control is not sexy. It's not, it's boring. So we, we did our best to make it as cool as possible and, and have people, you know, want to be part of the club, if you will.

So what was it like to recruit people and what kind of culture and turnover? So talk about the people side of your business. So.

Because of poor management on my end at the beginning, like we had the highest turnover rate. It's so easy to recruit people because how is it not, hey, we'll put you in a brand new truck. Nike Dry Fit. We had the latest technology, all these things, but because we didn't have great managers in place, and it starts with the top with me to where I didn't care about the people or didn't know how because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. People, it was just a revolving door. So I was at this, you know, I was, I was in Recruiting mode, Right. As an owner. Yeah. Especially with the turnover rate we were having. I was always in recruiting mode. So I was at a Diamondbacks game here in the Valley, and I was in this line at Dutch Brothers. Right. And you, as a business, you don't have to be a business owner. You know, when someone's impressive or not, they carry themselves well. They communicate. Right. You know, they. They just, they're a little bit different. I'm sitting here in this Dutch Brothers line and there's this girl that kind of stood out to me. Like. Like this girl's different, you know, and she took my order and of course, you know, I went to recruit her and my pitch was all about how much money that she could make. Because. Because I could. I paid more, right? I paid 2 to $3 more than the average person in that department. And so my pitch was all about money because we didn't have a great culture. I couldn't talk about that. I could talk about the branding and latest technology and all that stuff, but the pitch was money. And, you know, long story short, she turned me down. And the reason why, she said, look, I make minimum wage here at Dutch Brothers, but I'm going to stay because of the culture. And. And I was like, man, selfishly, you're telling me I don't have to pay more than anyone else. I just have to have a great culture. And then everyone's winning. And so, like, I went back that, I think that weekend I ripped out my whole warehouse. I added soda machines, massage tables or massage chairs, basketball, Hoo Xboxes, 65 inch TVs, and I created this lounge. And I'm like, I'm going, I'm. I'm going to have the best culture in the Valley and I'm going to pay more. And then that's like, really when I exploded with not only being able to get people in the door, but retain them and make it to where, like, they love working here. And that's, you know, I'm sitting at the office right now. I can hear on the other side, like, people are laughing. People are, you know, they love to come to work. They spend more time here than they do at home. We want it to be enjoyable. We want them to feel like they're a family. And that's what it's about. That's why I come to work now. You know what I mean? Like, it's what makes life fun.

Yeah. I think that that's not often appreciated, that people are attracted to companies with great culture and great environment, and it's not just giving them stuff, it's creating an environment that's creative, that's related, where people know each other, they're seen, and then, and then why do quit places? Because their boss sucks. Because the environment sucks. Right. And if your boss sucks, if the culture sucks, and if you're just trying to bribe people, it will cost you more.

Yeah, I had to learn that the hard way.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a fascinating thing. So how many people, what kinds of roles report to you today? And how many people do you have?

How many people? I have that report to me.

Yeah.

So I have three people now. So my coo, my CMO and my cfo. Those are the only three people that I work directly with. And then it fans out from there.

Yeah. So a small number of folks. And are those the same people that started with you or if you had to change some people out as you've grown?

No. And that's probably been one of the most difficult things that I've had to face as an entrepreneur is there's a lot of people that started with me that as we grew either they weren't growing and evolving. It's kind of like what we were talking about with the husband or wife. If one person just keeps going and the other person just is happy with where they're at. You know, you got, you got, you know, a manager at a 5, 7 technician, you know, company. You need a different manager when you have 130 technicians. And that's just what it is. And so unfortunately, I mean, there's one person that's been here for nine years now. So I mean, that's, that's my longest 10 year employee. And she's been great because she's evolved, she's wanted to grow and she understands like, hey, you know, I got, I gotta step up. And the other people that didn't. It was a hard conversation of just like, hey, I can't have you in this role. I'd love to have you, you know, as a technician, but they don't want to go from a manager to a technician or whatever, you know, or a team lead in the office to just a customer service rep. And I understand that. And so I've had to, you know, there's almost no one that was here when I started and that. That's been difficult. For sure.

Yeah, I totally get that. You know, there's a, there's this thing of. It's true for us as leaders as well. Right. If you don't keep leveling up and evolving as a Leader, then you will either pull the company down to your comfort level or you will get ejected by the company. You'll. You'll kill the company or somebody will push you out, right? So you got to keep leveling up yourself, and so too does your team. And there are people that you have on in the beginning, and they just aren't really interested. They want to keep doing the same thing with a bigger title and a bigger pay, but operate differently. And there's a shift, right? Like, that's the shift, in your view, we all have 24 hours of the day, right? And we all have to sleep some amount and, and eat and, you know, take a shower, bathroom and do things like that, right? We have basic human needs in the same amount of time. So what's the shift that has you level up? What's the shift that you've gone through? How is Cameron of today different than Cameron of 14 years ago?

Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I think it's just. It's just desire and commitment, right? It's the consistency key for me and wanting to be better and not settling. I could have sold green mango three years ago for 60 million and retired and never worked another day in my life. And I turned it down, you know, like that. And if you would have told me in 2010 that, you know, in what would have been nine years from now, I could have made 60 million bucks, I would have been like, I would have taken that all day long. But when I got there, it was like, this job's not finished. I'm going to hit 50. And I'm sure my biggest fear is when I hit 50, I say, oh, now I want to get to 100 or 75. And so it's just wanting to continue to level up, having that desire. And that's why I say, not everyone has to be like you or me trying to hit these outrageous numbers. And there's quite a few people actually that aren't. You know, I meet a lot of business owners that want coaching, and I say, look, you got to do this, this and that. And I can see it in their eyes of like, I don't want to do that. It's like, hey, that's cool. Like, I don't, you know, don't do it for me. I don't care if you don't want it. And I think it's just. That's why I said a desire you just have, if it's in your cards, to want to run a, you know, $30 million company, well, your life's going to be different than running Ten, a $10 million company, period.

And it's just desire, you know, I think it's a shift. There's a desire, there's a shift. I remember in my 20s when I had started this part of a bigger company and I had grown it, and now it was over $500 million and I was out of the country. I was on vacation in Mexico and I woke up with a really bad hangover and I just felt like hell and I had to deal with something. I forget if I got a message of fax, like what it was an email. Something alerted me that I had to deal with something on vacation with a hangover. And clearly I was not on a mission. I was on a mission to party. Anyway, so now I have to deal with this thing and I'm like trying to clear my head and I'm like, I am responsible for $1.6 million today and tomorrow and then and every day. No matter how I feel, I'm accountable for it. I'm responsible for it. So, like, doing things about it, dealing with when I don't feel like it, that level of accountability was different. And I'm like, what's. It's not. I have no more time than anybody else. And I have the same need to blow up some steam or do what that anybody else does. But, but there's a. I'm willing to be accountable for that and to deal with, to pull myself together when it, when it demands for it. And then also the approach, like, I, because I was in a big company, I didn't have direct control over a lot of people. So I had 550 million doll, but I had indirect influence on lots of people. So I had to figure out how to persuade people and encourage them and bring them along and carrot and stick and push around. And that's a very different skill than like wearing every hat, doing everything yourself. Right?

Yeah. That's a whole nother level of commitment. Yeah.

Lesson, right. Like, and I think when you grow a business from inception, you have to move through those spaces. Starting a company within another company, that was a totally different thing. And I got the fortune of having that experience without that path. Later I went through the other kind of thing.

Well, being. Yeah, you got to be self aware. And so like you said, you know, you're a different owner when you start to where you are today. You know, I, you know, in 2018, I hired a life coach and like, he helped me level up. He changed my life. Without him, I probably couldn't have jumped from 15 or whatever. We were at 12 or 10 or 12 to $20 million in revenue. You know, there's just, you know, one of the, like I mentioned to you, books, right. I'm not a great reader. I don't enjoy it. But I know that in order for me to take that next jump, like I need to be reading a lot of business material. And so my goal, and it might seem dumb and small to a lot of people, but like 20 minutes a day for me is like it's a lot. Right? But that's my goal right now. And I'm plowing through books. It's crazy how many books you can read just by reading 20 minutes a day. And that's what I'm doing. And it works. And so start with just the little things. Ten minutes a day, right? Doing something that you don't like, that's going to help you become a better business owner. Well, it evolves to a lot at the end of the year.

You know, it's funny, growing up I read and enjoyed a lot of thought provoking kinds of things. And then as I got older and maybe lazier, I started to just be interested in like spy novels and science fiction and I would read that and geek out on it. And I struggled with, even though I was in business with the business, I'm like, I spent all day with business. I need to escapism. And I had an advisor say, no, you need to keep reading business books. And I'm like, they're boring and they say stupid things and, and they, they have like four pages of actual value packed around 300 of filler. And she, she was like, yeah, you're right, that's true of many of them. And many of them are badly written, but they, you need to read them all. And now I have, you know, some bookshelves behind me and I have bookshelves there and I have.

It looks like you got a lot of books, man.

And then I have books over on the floor there and, and I, and then I have a library downstairs and so I have a lot of books. But she taught me to like tough it out, to skim it, to do whatever it took to listen to them, like to just get the world of them. And the thing that I started to learn is that yes, the ideas might be simple, but the stories were rich and helped you to picture and imagine things. And so I started. No, I appreciate better business books than others, but, but there's definitely something about, you've got to find some way to keep Leveling up for yourself. And so your daily reading habit is super admirable.

Oh, thank you. But again, going back to your point, like, you had that desire to want to be better and a lot of people, if they're okay with settling, they're not going to want to pick up a book or do something that they don't want to do, or pay a hundred grand for a life coach or do, you know, like whatever it might be. But you just have to have that desire to go. And if you don't like, that's okay too. But it's just, you won't, you will not get there, like, period, if you don't.

I love that honesty. You're like, I don't really like it and I don't really love them. And it was hard for me. And I probably in time, you certain, you start to appreciate them as we often do. But I think a lot of things that we start off with, like, you know, we kind of suffer through and then along the way we find a way to connect to it, to something to appreciate about it and then we actually get better at it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Before we run out of time, tell me a couple things. Hardest day in business.

Oh, man. So how long do you want this to go? Man, there's so many things that happened. Not a 20 minute version, not a 20. No. Well, so long story short, right, I, I opened up five service companies within an 18 month span and there were things that I, I didn't know, you know, basically like how to do or knew, you know, what you don't know is what you don't know. And that's where you get in trouble. But you know, honest to goodness, the hardest day, there was a close family member that had, was a partner in the business that I had and I had to cut ties with him. So I do that first thing in the morning. I had an investor back out two months prior and so that meant I had to close down a company because I couldn't financially keep it up. So after I, you know, cut ties with my family member, I walk out into a room full of technicians about, I think There was about 50 technicians and I had to let them know that I had to pretty much fire sell a company. And I didn't know, you know, what was going on next. So after that I came back in and about an hour after that, my, I think it was, you know, the HR manager or someone text me and said, hey, ICE is here and they want to meet with you. And this was during the time where Trump Was. Was in office and he was. He was, you know, really getting crazy about, you know, hiring illegals. And I wasn't hiring illegals, but we didn't have the proper documentation for all the i9s that you need to have on file. So, you know, they came in and basically, you know, raid. Sounds pretty dramatic, but it was a raid. Like, I had to get my lawyers down here, and they weren't leaving. And, you know, that resulted into almost a $500,000 fine. I think it was like four something, 4:35 or something. And then. And then there was one other thing that happened that day. What was it? Anyway, so it was just like fire after fire of things that got brought up. And that's when you're on the lowest day of your life, right? Of just like, man, how does anyone make it? How do these entrepreneurs pull through? And it's just by getting up again and continuing to show up and be the best version of yourself and working hard.

Man, an awful lot of success comes from simply being unwilling to quit. I just get up today, I stand back, I get knocked down, I get back up again, again, and something shows up. Then if you are. I mean, sometimes you're forced out. There's no. But that's different than quittings from saying, well, it looks really hard. It looks inevitable. So I'm going to go ahead and quit now. Play to the end is much more inspiring. Let me ask you a question we didn't prep for. What's the future? Have you announced any public thing or have you talked about any sale of the company or when, how long? What's the. The end of this road for you?

So I don't know if it's the end, but I will take chips off the table when I hit $50 million in revenue just because I don't want to have happened. What happened to me a couple years ago when I got that $60 million offer, you know, at some point, like, enough has to be enough, and I want to spend time with my kids and do that. So my goal is the 50 million within the next three to five years and just continue to work as hard as I am right now. My wife's on board with it. My kids understand where we're going. My employees are bought in. They catch the vision. They have invested interest to do it. So when I do that, I hope that I can stay on. It won't be a complete exit to where it's like, hey, take it, and I'm gone. I'd love to, you know, stay on and roll some, some equity or roll some, some capital with the next company. Private equities. Our buyer, a lot of them are getting into the home service space. And, you know, I've, I've met with them a ton and been communicating with them, and they know my goals and plans and, you know, they'll, they'll come in and scoop it up and let me roll some equity and be an advisor at that point or be on the board and, and, you know, continue to see it grow. But I pinch myself every single day, man. I never thought that I'd be in this position to be able to, you know, provide for so many people. You know, a lot of people's dreams fit within, you know, my, my dreams and my goals. And, you know, that that's everything. You know, you talk about payroll and responsibilities. You know, our payroll's over a million dollars every, every couple weeks. And it's like, that's pressure. But also with that pressure, hey, like, people are buying their new cars, they're buying their houses, they're going on vacations with their family because of the job that, you know, I created for them. And we're all working together. And as I grow, there's going to be more leadership roles that open up and greater responsibility, which comes with greater pay and more opportunities for those people to level up and become better. And that's kind of the, you know, where I see the joy come from over the next three to five years of seeing that, because, you know, it's not like the money doesn't matter, but, you know, I have sufficient for my needs. And now it's just like you said, the game of why not? Why not 50, you know, and once we get there, after I take some chips off the table, I know they'll turn it into 100 to $150 million in revenue, no problem.

Well, let me just share with you as somebody who regularly helps companies sell for 100 million, even up to a billion, private equity is often not your best buyer unless it's a strategic private equity. But finding a strateg multiple rather than a private equity multiple on your, your income, earnings value, some other kind of valuation can make a big difference in that what that financial security is for your family. So think carefully, Appreciate. Give us on that. I mean, you're talking about private equity multiples from three to seven, and then we can see 10, 20 when we're talking to strategic buyers. So really different outcomes. Yeah. Yes. What a great conversation. I hope our listeners have dug it. The company is green mangopass.com green mangopass.com and we'll throw that in the show notes and there it is on the screen as well. And just a reminder, we bring our shows to you like this every week and we have all kinds of these past shows plus tools. We do a workshop every month. I've got a free download that takes you through the stages of growth. What happens in the first stage when you're just kind of getting the strategy right? How do you build the leadership team and the systems out? How do you start to add a lot of people and how do you fund that and then what goes towards the exit? What happens at each stage? How do you navigate all that? We have a free course on it at our website, scalingcoach.com oh there it is. There's on the screen as well. Scaling coach.com Go get it and you can download it. You watch it in little bite sized segments. We've got tools and things like that so you can start to see what you've got. Anyway, there you go. Thanks again everyone for watching for listening. We'll talk to you again next time. Oh, big shout out. Thanks as always to my friend and mentor, Vern Harnish, who created the whole scaling up framework that we used in our business. And to the folks at Storion, Christelle, Cameron, Seth and the team who get our show ready and out the door and promoted every week. Thank you guys. Thanks everyone for watching for listening. Until then, keep scaling.