How a Results-Driven Culture Fueled $9M in Growth | Ken Wood (Ep. 251)

I would say us first joining the Success Society after Accelerate, that showed us what was possible. And then the ability to get in front of guys like Charlie Gindell. You can't put a price on sitting around and talking to Charlie. And now I'm in Vince Nardo's group, and again, the stuff just oozes out of these guys. And to go and sit with them 3 and 4 times a year for 2 to 3 days is invaluable, as well as to be with other people that are going through the same things you do.

Hey, welcome everybody to another episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. With me today is Ken Wood from Five Star Bath Solutions. He's a member of our Success Society, runs a great business with his partner Mick. And, uh, welcome Ken. Happy you're here.

Thanks, Brian. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Yeah. So I've known you guys now, what, like 3 years, I think, 3, 4 years, 4 years. Yeah. Yeah. And I finally have come around to inviting you. And as we talked about earlier, I mean, you got— I could have had you on last year because you guys have made so many strides in your business and you've learned some tough lessons too over the last few years. And so I thought it would be, you know, a great conversation to learn about you, learn about your business, and some of what you've encountered over the last, you know, the last few years being in business for yourselves. And so why don't you give us— why don't we start off with a little background? Because you guys, you guys have a very interesting kind of background, you and Mick. So why don't you give us the kind of 2-minute version of the of your background.

Sure. So we started in 2019, Mick and I, and we're business partners. And as you alluded to, Brian, we own Five Star Bath Solutions, which is a bathroom-only remodeling business in Minneapolis-St. Paul marketplace. It's also part of a franchise system. So Five Star is a bigger opportunity, or there's multiple Five Stars throughout the country. And Nick and I go back probably 30 years. I used to work for him. One of my first jobs out of college actually was working for him. So we'd known each other, we'd stayed in contact. We got into the home building business together. So he was, we were general, it was a unique home building business, more of a do-it-yourselfer. We taught people how to be their own general contractor. Um, and we did that for about 5, 6 years. Uh, Mick was running it at that point. My background is finance and I was the CFO. Um, and we were doing business in about 13 states, uh, helping people be their own general contractor. That all kind of blew up in the crash of '08. And, uh, so we went our own separate ways. I went back into corporate America and My wife said, you got to go get a job because we wasn't making any money building houses. And Mick went to work for a company called Cambria, which is a national, like, countertop—

countertops. Yeah.

Big, big operation based here in Minnesota.

Yeah.

But they were selling throughout the country and we bumped into each other actually at church one Sunday and we don't actually go to the same church, but just happened to work out. And he said, what are you doing? And we started talking and one thing led to another and we got in the bathroom remodeling business. So good. Yeah.

Good. So you went from 0 to 100 real quick, right?

Yeah. Well, big learning curve. But I mean, I think the division between us works well, makes greatest Nick's best assets is the sales side. Yeah, that's where he focuses the business. Mine is finance operations. And so it was a natural fit for us. He focused on that area and I focused on, on that side of the business. We started out, we had one sales guy that we hired, another guy we knew who was actually selling in the industry, which helped a lot. He was actually working for Re-Bath at the time.

Okay.

But Tom came to work for us right from the beginning and you know, we kind of took off from there. So we went from basically zero in 2019, and this year we'll probably sell close to $9 million in that.

Amazing. Amazing. Usually, by the way, that's not a good idea. Bringing people from the industry is usually not a good idea, but it did work for you guys. It does, it does work once in a while. So In the time that I've known you, I mean, there's been lots of, you know, stuff that you guys have had to implement. What are some of the things that, you know, were tough at the beginning? And now, you know, you look back on those things and it's like, oh, wow, I got— I should have done that different. I should have done this different. Can you— what are some of those things?

There's a lot. And I mean, I would say our path When we started our business, we really thought that, you know, our goal was to build, it was a 5-year business plan we wrote to go from 0 to 5, 6 million. We thought that was kind of the cap on the marketplace at the time. And so that's what our focus was. But quickly after getting into it, we realized the opportunity is way bigger than that. And I would say that our first eye-opening experience was probably coming to the very first Accelerate. That's where Mick and I, I think, I don't know if we met you the very first one, but, um, that's where we got exposure and started to see, hey, it's not just us out there in the world. Now we also had the support of a franchise system, but I remember the first year we went to our first franchise meeting, one person had done over a million dollars in the Five Star system. And we told them, look, we're going to build a $5, $6 million a year business. And they looked at us like we were from Mars.

Yeah.

You know, and I would say, I think it was in 2020 that we went to the first Accelerate and that really opened our eyes. And then actually just reading your book as well, you know, was a great start and great exposure. So we learned what was possible. We also started to learn like, how do you, instead of working in the business, how do you start to work on the business? Those are some of the best tools that, you know, I think we received early on in the process. And it takes a long time because literally when we started, there were 3 of us, you know, plus we hired some outside installers. So we were going out to every job site. We were, you know, you're just doing those baby steps to keep alive, you know, and then obviously COVID hit and, you know, and they were like, oh God, what did we just do? You know, we mortgaged our houses. We put all this money in, you know, we did all this stuff. And is this going to work out? And what we soon found out, which I think was good across the whole home services industries, COVID was good for a lot of people. And it was really, it was good for us as well.

Yeah. You said a few interesting things there. So franchises, you know, I think you and I have had this conversation, you know, and I've had this conversation with, there's a couple other guys in the group that are also part of franchise networks. They're not really always geared for people like you, especially in the home, you know, in our space. A lot of franchises are— if, if their franchisee gets to $1 million in revenue, that's like huge success. Huge. They're not really designed for $9 million, a $9 million, you know, franchisee. And that has its challenges. And so by you coming to an event like Accelerate, and it really like, oh my God, wait a minute, there's people that are doing $30 million a year in baths. You know, wait a minute, did we misjudge this whole thing? And the good, the great thing about you guys is you're implementers. You know, you take the information, but you actually go and you do something with it. And that's the biggest difference, as you know, you know, it's, you don't get to even a million bucks without doing. But to go from a million to 5 and then 5 to where, you know, 10, where you guys are going, it's— they're different businesses and you have to be a different person.

You're absolutely right. Franchises are geared to build, to create— I think create a job, a job, build a business. And there's a lot of good use for them. And there's a lot of great people in the Five Star system.

Yep.

But what, you know, what I would say is, you know, I would say $0 to $3 million was pretty— I make the world simple. So it was simple. You know, you just followed the script, you worked hard, you invested dollars in, you know, you made it work. But, you know, what I— and I would say us first joining the Success Society after Accelerate, and we didn't do it right away. But, um, you're right. That showed us what was possible. And then the ability to get in front of guys like Charlie, uh, Gendell, and, you know, he was one of, I mean, you were the first one actually started with you, you know, but then as Success Society grew, you know, you got, you know, you can't put a price on what sitting around and talking to Charlie does. You know, and now I'm in Vince Nardo's group and again, just the stuff just oozes out of these guys and they go and sit with them, you know, 3 and 4 times a year for 2 to 3 days, you know, is invaluable as well as to be with other people that, you know, are going through the same things you do. I mean, you're not unique. We're not special from that perspective. So the other coaches that you get in front of. I mean, I'll never forget the first time I saw Scott Berman talk at, at Accelerate, and I thought, he's hiring 12 sales reps every 2 weeks. I mean, to me, that didn't even seem as, as possible. Now I'm still not hiring 12 every 2 weeks, but just to listen and kind of watch guys like him and the story they've got is, is absolutely invaluable from my perspective. Perspective and helped us to look beyond the franchise and go, yeah, look what these guys are doing and what can I learn from that? And then try to take that, as you said, and implement on ours.

It really is. It's fascinating to watch. Are you guys the biggest 5-Star Bath franchise?

The largest actually in Detroit. Run by a gentleman named Dean Hartley.

Oh yeah, Dean.

He's also the brand president. So I kind of look at it as a corporate-owned store. But it's either us or the Atlanta side, Joe McSpadden down in Atlanta. We kind of push back and forth for one or two outside of Dean. But yeah. But now, I mean, I would say we've changed the whole franchise system.

I'll bet you have. All that you have.

Because, you know, we're asking all kinds of different questions, right? It's not just do from a marketing perspective. This is a sales and marketing business. So it's not just, you know, put Google in, do Angie's HomeAdvisor, you know, now you've got to start to go out and look. And I remember talking with Charlie, um, back to Success Society for a second, but, and him telling me, no, you got to get in the presentation. He did. No, you got to go find 20% new leads, sources every year, right? Not just get more aggregators, right? Yeah, you're gonna do different things. So there's just lots of almost invaluable— they are actually invaluable lessons to pick up from that.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people will, you know, they'll see that and they'll say, like a Scott Berman, I'm hiring 12 every 2 weeks. Well, but what you guys understand, and I think most of the members of Success Society understand, is that when Wait a minute, the fundamentals of the business don't matter. Yeah, his is a little more complex. It's a much bigger company, but the fundamentals that he talks about are applied whether it's 12 every 2 weeks, maybe it's 3 or 4 a month, but still the principles, the fundamentals are the same, are the same. They— you have to train people. You have to hire them the right way. You know, you've got to train them the right way. You got to give them the opportunity to leave if they're the wrong— if they're the wrong people. You've got to have a good training program, and then you've got to have a good managing and accountability program afterwards, whether you have 3 salespeople, 30 salespeople, or, you know, Charlie, you know, he's doing that. Just interviewed him. That might People may have already heard that, but he, he, he went in temporarily to the RBA in San Francisco, and he, within what was it, 2 or 3 months, took them from 35 salespeople to 70 salespeople. But he had a sales management problem that he talked about that applied to regardless of what size you are. All of those principles apply to every size, every size business.

I mean, that's absolutely true. I mean, you're still, you're still doing all those blocking and tackling every day. You know, are you recruiting? I remember you telling us when we hired, I think it was our third or fourth, that you're like, hire three. And we're like, look, we just want to hire one. And you said, no, hire three because one's going to work out of the three, you know, and to get that. Feedback on a regular basis, you know, you know, it's great. Most people get all tied up in their day-to-day world and it's hard because running this business is, it's hard work. You know, this is not easy. I mean, you got to put effort in if you really want to grow it and make it and build something. But it, but it does take you starting to making sure you're working on your business. And not in your business. And that is whether you're the one doing the hiring or you're just putting the pieces in place to do it. I also remember Tim Brown and listening to Tim talk about his struggles early on and watching the success that he's had over time.

We had to crack his head a couple, and he doesn't mind me saying this, but we, for a year, I mean, we were boom, boom, boom on him to make the changes that he needed to make. But like you said, I mean, it's not easy. And the whole, you know, like the advice of, you know, you're looking for one salesperson, hire three. To most people, that's like, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. I need one. Well, yeah, but the chances of you getting the right one the first time and placing all your bets on that one person, you're setting yourself up for losing a lot of time, let's say, time and money. And so, yeah, sometimes it's like we have to go against what seems like common sense. But when you have, when you're surrounded by people that are all telling you the same thing and telling you, hey, look, man, when you come back here 3 months from now, we're still going to be here to support you. And when it works, we're going to celebrate that with you. And if it doesn't work, we're going to talk it through and you're going to do it again. And then when you come back, you're going to have it figured out. It's about speed. It's about confidence. And it's about having those, getting those capabilities to be able to do the things that you need to do to grow your to grow your business.

It is that. I mean, you call it, I mean, it's tough love, but it's done not to make you wrong, right? That we ask each other the tough questions. And when you get in the hot seats and, you know, you're presenting something, I mean, at first time, it can be super intimidating. But as you soon learn that we're all facing the same stuff, I mean, My problem might be sales management this, this quarter. You know, hopefully I get that resolved or get us on a path, but then it could be a production or it could be that. And we're all going through the same thing. We're all trying to get leads in the door, convert them, fill our calendars every day, sell X% of them, and then get them installed and walk away and get a 5-star review.

And make a really good profit.

That's right. And make money. And that's the other great thing about, you know, Success Society, um, and the Wealthy Contractor and all. I mean, I want to thank you. I think my first exposure to you was your podcast, but, you know, and then the ability to get to Accelerate and then, you know, letting us into Success Society, you know, and now expanding it, you know, it's, it's kind of crazy how many watching and being around. All these people and you build what I believe will be lifelong friendships.

You do.

Out of this as well. And you look forward to seeing the people back every quarter. And now we get to meet new people and it's, so there's just a lot of positives that come out.

You were talking and you said this at the beginning also, but I like to get your actual, like, what are your, what do you consider in the business activities and what do you consider on the business activities?

We just did this exercise the last time. I think, you know, I can't remember the exact title. So it was like technician, you know, manager versus like owner, founder.

And yeah, the time freedom, the time freedom breakthrough tool. Yeah.

And it was, it was eye-opening to me when we did it because I'm a natural doer. That's what I am. I do stuff, you know, I fix problems. So me to stop doing that or stop working on that, you know, takes a lot of time and effort and a different mindset. So I would definitely still say I got a ways to go. I'm still probably way too engaged on our finance side more than I should be. And for us, I mean, one of the things I was struggling with And it's always, I don't know if I'm struggling, but, uh, I remember coming with one on one of the quarterlies and said, you know, look, should I go hire a marketing manager or not? And the advice out of the group was first you got to go own it and learn it. Cause I don't, I didn't have any marketing background whatsoever. And this was at the point where I had to start doing different things than what the franchise brought to the table. And so, you know, the advice from the group was no, go own it. So I kind of dove in, I hired a production manager and got rid of production off my plate because that all reported through me. So then I could take on marketing and now I'm still engaged in marketing, but I'm working like right now I'm looking for, all right, now I'm ready to hire that marketing manager because we again have to start to do different things. You know, I, we're, I'm almost out of, you know, aggregators that I have to have. We've hired an events and show manager to get going. We're working on, I got my first brand ambassador hired, you know, so there's, there's different pieces. So for me right now, you know, what some of the things I'm doing, I'm still managing marketing on a day-to-day basis. I'm still managing finances on a day-to-day basis. So those are two of the things that became really clear when we went through that exercise that I can't, you know, if I want to take this to the next level and we put it together, we're working on finalizing a plan to make this a $30 million business in 5 years. And so, yeah. And, you know, we're also looking at some geographic expansions as part of this. That means that's not going to happen unless somebody's starting to think about, oh, How do I open a satellite location 4 hours away? Right? It doesn't just happen on its own. Somebody's got to, you know, own that and start thinking about that. And, oh, I need to go hire a general manager for down there who can then, you know, do those types of things. You know, so there's a lot on a day-to-day basis that I will continually have to work at personally.

Okay, but hold on a second. So let's talk about, let's use the marketing manager as an example, because you've heard this a lot of times in the group is that we as entrepreneurs, first off, you said about fixing problems. So when we went through the exercise, so I created this exercise because it was, you know, how do we determine what, what is our highest and best use activities? And so what I did was I broke down all of the activities inside of a home improvement business. They said, you're either going to act like a technician, a manager, a builder, or a visionary. And then we went through this whole exercise of how are you using your time? And then how do you start to get rid of things. And when you said fix problems, you know, that is our unique skill. So, one of our unique skill sets as entrepreneurs is we know how to solve problems. Put a problem in front of us and we will come up with a solution. Now, that's great at the beginning. But as we grow, what happens is if we're the problem solver, now every fire becomes our problem. We become a firefighter. So, now all day is spent fighting fires. You go home exhausted and your spouse asks, your partner asks you, so, you know, why are you so tired today? What'd you do? And it's like, man, I was fighting fires all day. I didn't do anything. I didn't get anything done, you know? And we have to be careful of that because, because we're just good at it. We just know how to do it, but it'll keep us small. Now, the other thing, the whole marketing thing. So, The reason that we always give that advice is because people always say, I want to hire a marketing manager or sales. Those are the two popular ones. And then it's like, okay, well, talk to me a little bit about what are they going to do? Well, you know, I want them to set up my marketing department and find what works and this and that. And I'm like, okay, but hold on a minute. You don't have a system in place. You don't have a budget in place. You don't know what works right now and what doesn't. Work. So basically what you're saying is you're looking for a unicorn. You're looking for somebody to come in and completely run your business for you. And you think you're going to be able to get that person for $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year, which is all you can afford because you don't have any money. Is that the story? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, it is pretty close, right? And it's the same thing with the sales manager too. I had a conversation with one of our members And they're hiring a new sales manager. And this is like their third one. And I said, and they were on a coaching call. And that wasn't even the topic was the salesman, but it just happened to come up. And I said, wait a minute. Let me ask you something. So you want this person to hire, recruit and hire and train salespeople for you? Yeah. Okay. What is this person's background again? Oh, well, they sold you know, $2 or $3 million a year at this other, at this other company. And they were acting like the manager. And I said, okay, great. Did you ask them if they'd ever hired a salesperson before? No. Do you have a system, a good system for hiring salespeople? No. And so how do you expect this person to, like, succeed in their job if You don't know how to do it. They've never done it before. So what, now you're going to figure it out together while you're paying this guy whatever you're paying him? So people make— do this stuff. And it's— look, part of the thinking is right. It's a who, not how question. But when you're a smaller business, you know, like a Scott Berman can go hire any marketing man. In fact, he hired the best. Recently. Amy, he just hired the best. Okay. Now, why can he hire the best? Well, one, he's got a system. He's got a budget. He already knows, okay, this is all of our statistics. Now you say, okay, here's every— here are all the numbers. Here's our performance, what works, what doesn't. Now go make it all better. Here's your budget. Go make it better. You could do that. Definitely. But when you're a $2 million company and you have a $200,000 or $250,000 marketing budget and you don't know what works and what doesn't work, how the hell are you going to hire somebody good to come in and do the hardest job in a home improvement business? Yeah. So anyway, it's like, it's like you're, we're looking for unicorns.

I think you're right there. 100%. The right advice was, hey, No, Ken, you go own this, right?

Yeah.

You go figure it out. You understand the metrics, the KPIs, because now you can set the table and you can hold them accountable. You know what the right questions are to ask when you're in your L10 meeting and, you know, the numbers aren't coming in. And so, I mean, that's been really helpful. I now know, I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but You know, I think I've taken it as far as I can take it. Now I need somebody who can look at it and focus on it, you know, 12 hours a day versus me.

But you did it the right way. And look, and a lot of people will say, well, God, I don't want, I don't want to have that job. Well, then get really good at it fast. Because there's no, there's nothing that says you have to do this job for 5 years. You could, you could get all that done in, if you can get that done in a year, and get your KPIs and get your stats, and you know, line by line, what's working, what's not, and you've got a budget and you know how to manage the budget, you know how to hold people accountable. Okay, great. Now you can go hire that person. But until you put in the work like you did, then how are you going to know if this person is successful? That's the thing that, you know, and I look at, I've done this before too. Is like, if you don't know the answers, how are you going to manage somebody? How are you going to know? You have to know the answers. You got to know, okay, this is where I want to get to. This is what makes sense for us to get there. And if you don't even know the basics of it, you know, you're, you're just shooting yourself in the, in the foot.

Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, absolutely. So, I mean, there's just a lot of good stuff that comes out of our quarterly get-togethers.

Yeah.

You know, if nothing else, you get 2 days to get out of your office and think about your business in a different way. And there's prep work ahead of time you need to be doing and thinking about. But those 2 days, you know, there's never once that I came back and said, well, that was a waste of 2 hours. That was a waste of 2 days. I mean, that just is never ever occurred for me. I come back with more stuff to do than I know I'm going to possibly get done and more good ideas, you know, to try to implement.

But I think that you're not just getting ideas. What you're getting are the actual things that you need to do to grow your business. It's not like, you know, the one thing just by nature, at Accelerate, we have to cover a lot of topics over 2 days. So I always start off with that funny fire hose slide, because that's what Accelerate is. It's 2 days of being firehosed. But when we get together for our intensives, we're focused on this, like in November, we're doing planning and profitability. You know, one of my, one of my goals for next year is I want to get everybody on the same chart of accounts. I want to get everybody looking at the P&L the same way so that we can help each other, so that we can report on P&L because we haven't done a really good job of that. And so, I want to make sure that we're focused on— because, you know, every meeting I talk about profit, every single meeting, you know, I beat it up, beat it up. You think I talk about it a lot here on the podcast? Just, you know, if you get in the room with these guys, ask them, you know, I beat the crap out of them about profit, profit, profit. Because, you know, why are we doing this?

Well, you've been down that path, right? With your—

oh yeah.

I mean, you, you've done that.

Yeah.

When you're trying to help everybody else.

Yeah. When you lose everything, you've got no money at 40 years old. It's not a good feeling. And so, you know, the more people I can help avoid, avoid that fate, the better, you know, I think the better my life is. So, okay, so you're doing marketing and finance, which, by the way, my mentor Dan Kennedy, for years, I mean, he still says it, the last thing that any owner should give up is marketing and the checkbook. And so those are the two things that you interestingly are working on. But I do, I love this because now, look, you have, you're probably spending a million plus a year on marketing. That's significant. So now you have to have somebody that can manage a million-dollar budget. And you as the owner now has to know in your level 10 meeting every week, okay, are we on track or are we off track? Here's the number of issued leads we needed this week. Are we on track or off track? And if they say that we're off track and we go to the issues list, now you could have a conversation to help them through it and say, okay, What about this? Did you do that? Did you do this? And because if you didn't have the experience, how are you going to know? And that's when it just gets away from people. It's like, okay, this week we had to issue whatever, 20 leads. We only got 12. All right, well, we'll make it up next week. Well, next week is 14 and we're supposed to do 20. Well, now we're just every week falling further and further behind. And by the time anybody figures out and says, oh shit, we got to do something about this. The quarter's done. And we've made no money. And so anyway, I can ramble on about that.

Yeah, no, I mean, there's lots of good stuff.

Yeah. And so, and then Mick is focused on the sales team.

Yes.

And he's killing it over there. How many salespeople now?

We have 6 full-time right now. And We will be at 8 by the end of the year, but we are also finally have hit that point that we're hiring a sales manager. We've been doing— I mean, that was our—

You're at the right point.

That was our big project coming out of the second quarter out in California when we met out there. And so now we've been going through the interview process and we're ready to make an offer. Because what we realized is, you know, we got to get better at continually adding people and, and, and taking, you know, your A, B, C performers and those Cs have got to move out. And we were not good at that. We got too emotionally attached to some of our people, which I think is just natural for us.

It's natural.

And we have to do a better job of looking at those numbers objectively. And we weren't as good as we should have been on the training because in the end, Mick just didn't want to do some of those tests anymore. And we're like— I'm like, it took me a while to get him there, but I'm like, that's OK. It's not wrong. Let's fight. Let's bring somebody in to focus on helping improve our team as well as how do we continually bring new people in. That's part of this business. And it's a lesson I had to learn. When I started, I thought, oh, we're going to get salespeople that work for us for life. It's going to be great. We're going to create a great environment, career, and culture. And that's just not the realism of this business. And it took me a while to get to that.

On the one hand, you know, it's, we want it to be like that. We want people to come and we want to create this incredible culture. And we, we, We want people to stay with us for a long time. And that's well and good. However, if people aren't being held accountable to results, you can't grow a business. And so we have, you know, there was in our group, and I've interviewed him here before, and he talked about this. So I'm not divulging anything that is private or confidential, but John from Grey Boys talked about this where his family had this company and they had all of these people that have been there forever, but the business wasn't performing. It wasn't doing well. The parents owned the business and they made a little bit of money every year and they were happy, you know, they did well. But then when John came in, it's like, well, wait a minute. If we want to grow this thing, if we want to build a real business, we can't manage it this way. And then you got to manage to results. And that's how you build a great business. And, and, and the great part about that is that it's almost like at the beginning, you have this, you want to do this, you want to be right by people, you want to hire one salesperson, you want them to stay a long time, and then you're going to hire one more and one by one by one. But it doesn't work that way. So you have to go through this period where you're almost like, well, I'm just looking at numbers. Listen, you met, you're a great guy, but you're not working here. Go, you know, I'm going to release you, go take your unique talents. You're a great person, but go use those talents somewhere else because they're not working here. And you go through a period of that and it's tough. It's tough. I had to fire somebody the first time. I had to fire somebody in years because I insulated myself from that. I did a good job and I had to fire somebody recently and it hurt and it's horrible, but we're a results-driven company. And so it had to happen. Now, when you do that though, and you build this culture of accountability and results, and yeah, you're going to let the bottom 20% go all the time. You're going to, you know, there, and then the top 20% are going to shuffle around a little bit, but you're going to continually build a stronger team. And as you build a stronger team, what starts to happen is what you wanted originally. What you wanted originally are people that are going to stay, people that are going to be, you know, in love with the company and part of the culture and all of that. So then you'll have people that'll stay with you for years. And Charlie had salespeople that had been with him for 20 years, but he had to build that culture first. And you got to go through the discomfort of just looking at results and just looking at numbers. But if you do that right, you build the right culture in the business, then on the other side of it, you'll get what you ultimately wanted at the beginning. But if you don't do that, you'll never get it. At least, at least you'll get it, but you won't make any money. And you won't build a great business. You'll be tied to the business and, you know, be a firefighter all the time.

It's no different on the sales side than it is on the production side. Oh, yeah. On your installers, you know, are you constantly bringing people in? You know, are you looking at your whole team and going, Yeah, I know you were great. And the other part of our growth and pain is, you know, some really good people who, you know, have been with us for a long time, you know, they're really great in $3 or $4 million business, but at $9, $10, or $12, which is what we're trying to do next year, they can't play at that level. You know, it's kind of sad, but It is.

Okay.

It's okay though.

Yeah.

I mean, they're not having fun either.

You got to remember. No, no, no, no.

Because when you start to hold people accountable and their feet to the fire in those L10 meetings and your quarterly reviews, you know, that shines out, you know, back to, you know, are you on the bus or off the bus? This is where we're going. You got to decide.

Business is serious. I mean, you got to be, you got to have a little, you got to have a strong stomach. And you got to know that as long as you are doing things the right way, that you're being ethical, and that you're not firing people because you don't like them, because of their, the color of their skin or their religion or who they love, that none of that shit matters. All that matters is, do you, do you understand what your job is? Do you want your job? And then are you committed to the results that we expect from you? And, you know, it's get it, want it. What is it in EOS? What the hell? Get it, want it, have the capacity to do it. Right. So, yeah. So as long as all of that matches up, hey, look, you're going to have a great experience here. We've created, we've created something for you to come and succeed. But then Also, that does happen though. What got you here won't get you there. What got you to $10 million now is not what's going to take you to $30 million in a few years. And, you know, it's the same with like your leadership team too. It's like, you know, the marketing manager you hire at $10 million might not be the right marketing manager at $30 million.

Well, that's kind of the interesting part. If you just staying on the EOS thing for just a second, because we live in that world for us, you know, the accountability chart and who's filling the slots. You know, for a long time, Mick and I were filling multiple slots. My goal for next year is we're not filling any of those slots. You know, we're starting to act like more, I mean, just being the owners and trying to grow, push the growth. And are we asking the right questions? And holding people accountable? Do we have the right team? In the end, you've got to ask yourself that repeatedly.

Yeah. Well, that becomes your job as the owner. By the way, those are my favorite phone calls from members is, Brian, I just hired an integrator. They're doing EOS or something like EOS. And then, They're like, oh my God, what do I do now? I don't have anything to do. And they're freaked out over it. You know how many of those freak-out conversations I've had? And I'm like, oh my God, I love this. This is my favorite conversation. You're there. You get to decide now what you want to do with your life. And it's a great place. So what do you do? So I've got two, two last questions for you. These are my nosy— this is— I have a nosy question that I've been asking people lately. And then I've got a closeout question. So the nosy question is, what do you do after work?

Me? Well, I'm a little bit of a workaholic, but I love to read and I listen to a lot of podcasts, yours being one of them. And then I like to play golf. I'm a golfer. And my wife and I like to travel. So it's the other nice thing about, you know, trying to pull yourself out. You know, I can be gone or I can do the stuff I do remotely. Um, so those are kind of our big things. I love it. And we don't have any grandkids yet. So, but our oldest son is getting married this, in the next year at this time. So that'll be the next phase of our lives.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Addie, Addie. I got to say this quietly. She's like, she's like starting to think grandma and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no woman. Not yet. I'm not going to be married. I'm not married to a grandma yet. And I am certainly not ready to be a grandpa yet. What's the best advice you've ever got or given?

That's a great question. You know, I mean, I would say the best advice, if you're in this business, you know, get involved with a group like this with Success Society, The Wealthy Contractor. The ability to intermix and intermingle with other people, whether you're in the— it doesn't matter, you know, if you're John Grabows, who's in the window and siding business, you know, or you're Ryan and Jamie in Madison, you know, or you're me that's just in the bathroom business, or if you're offering multiple products, the ability to inter— mingle and talk to and pick up the phone and call these people, you know, is just invaluable. You know, you're not out there alone. You're just not in this industry. There's a lot of great people and a ton of people who are constantly giving back. I mean, whether that's Scott Berman, Charlie, Dave Kroll, Vince now, I mean, you, the amount of experience that comes with this group is worth 5 times the price of admission. That's not a reason to raise the cost, but it is worth it from that perspective. And then the other thing I would say is I'm a big Stephen Covey fan. So if you stick and if, you know, if you want to succeed in life, you just follow the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you'll do okay.

Yeah. And one of them being my favorite, begin with the end in mind. Yeah, what are you doing? What are you doing all this for? Well, I look, you know, I appreciate all the nice words about Success Society. You know, we designed it to be a place for people to come together and help each other, encourage each other, and root for each other. Because the reality of it is, You know, when you make a million bucks, who can you go tell? Who can you go celebrate with? Not very many people. But in that room, oh my God, everybody's going to be thrilled. No envy, no jealousy. And, you know, and you talked earlier about tough love. Well, that's our number one, I guess, kind of like the guiding principle is we are going to deliver tough love and hard truths. But it always, always is wrapped around love and respect. It always comes from a place of love and respect. Never judgment, never criticism. It's never about ego, me being better than you. Look at me, I'm right, you're wrong. Never. It's always with love and respect. And so I appreciate you being a part of— you guys are awesome. It's like, I, you know, I look forward to these meetings because I get to see, you know, I get to see my friends at these, at these things. And it's just awesome. So real quick, I'll tell everybody that we are doing a Discovery Day at our next meeting. Go to theentrydoor.info if you want to learn a little bit more, get into one of our Discovery Days, talk with Dave. You know, he'll lay out what Success Society is all about. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. It's not for everyone. But if you're really serious about growing your business and doing it fast and having a support system in place, you know, and, you know, I got to say this, I am constantly in awe and just humbled by the people that have kind of, um, that contribute to the Wealthy Contractor, like Scott Berman and Vince Nardo. They're not there for the money. I couldn't pay them enough, really. I mean, I just could not pay them. They're not there for the money. They're there to give back and they're there to help the next kind of the next group of entrepreneurs. And, uh, I'm just, I'm always just so grateful and humbled by them. It's really cool. It's really cool. But thank you. You are the most important person in the group. You and all of the other members are really, you know, why we do it. And so anyway, theentrydoor.info. Also join us at Accelerate. Accelerate's coming up in February. Ken, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Give my best to Mick. We, we, we maybe we'll have to have Mick on next to get his take Yeah, you should. On his side of the story, if you will. But you guys are just fantastic guys. And I love having you in the group. And I'll see you in a few weeks.

Sounds great. Thanks, Brian.

Yeah, thank you. And to everyone listening, and hope you got a ton of value out of this. And until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan. And this is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast.