Want to Grow Your Contractor Business? Stop Trying to Do It Alone | Rebecca Ackerly (Ep. 242)

When I first came into the business, about 98% of his company was built on aggregators. He had a single landing page for a website. I almost lost my mind. So since then, we now have a website that's about 140 pages. So creating content, all of those things. But yeah, we're doing print, we're doing radio, we're doing TV. There's nothing that we're not doing. We have a brand ambassador. I just hired a marketing manager. He's got drone experience, he's got videography experience, he's got production experience. And I'm working hand in hand with him, and he's going to be the most spectacular thing ever. I just booked a vacation. That was my present to myself when I replaced that seat, that I was going to go away without my cell phone.

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. I have another great guest, Rebecca Ackerley. Rebecca, hi.

Hey Brian, thanks for having me.

So Rebecca is a partner now at Universal Windows Direct out of New Hampshire. Rebecca has been in our Success Society group for a couple of years, and Rebecca has an incredible backstory, which you guys are going to hear about now. And then also, we're going to talk a little bit about what's kind of happened in their business the last 2 or 3 years because it really is a great story. So Rebecca, again, welcome. I'm so really excited to share your story because some of the stuff that you've done and you've gone through, it's just, it's really incredible. So give everybody kind of like the 2-minute version of the before Universal Windows Direct story.

Okay, so I am the youngest of 5, grew up on Long Island in New York, and I was kind of always the black sheep and was the jock. Everybody was the scholars, and they're like, what do you want to do when you grow up? I'm like, is playing soccer an option? It kind of wasn't. I was always the one that was sticking my Barbie dolls into the toaster oven, so I'd have to get tools to pry everything, take everything apart. I was always breaking things so that I had an excuse to play with tools.

You put— hold on a minute, you put Barbies into the toaster oven?

Anything that I can do to break something so that I can go get tools and take it apart and put it back together. That was like my thing. Yeah.

Wow. Okay, cool.

So, um, I'll never forget, I think I was about 8 or 9 years old. My parents had gotten a deck put around their pool and they left all the leftover wood, and I ended up building a treehouse and like a little flower box and all this other stuff. So I always kind of lean towards building and creating. When I graduated, my parents were like, what are you going to do when you grow up? And I thought I wanted to be a pilot and they were like, over our dead body. So then I ended up doing a summer apprenticeship with the union down there, the electrical union. Loved it, applied and got accepted into their 5-year program. It was an amazing experience. Now this is telling my age, but that was back in '96. So I was one of 3 women electricians. At that point in time. Learned fairly quickly that I really needed to always push harder and all that. I took foremanship classes, OSHA classes, anything that I could possibly do. I was a straw, which is kind of a sub foreman when I was 22, 23 years old. First one out of all my siblings to buy a house and move out of the house and all of that fun stuff. Got into the business development and strategizing, project management, team management, um, in my early 20s. And that was just amazing. And as soon as I got a taste of that, I was just hooked. So yeah, that's kind of a little bit of my story. Um, when we decided to start a family, my now ex-husband and I moved to New Hampshire and started our own business. Um, we were an electrical contractor we had that business for a number of years. Um, it was very different from coming from New York where everybody's kind of in each other's business, but it's just really weird. And then all of a sudden you move to New England, had no friends, no family, and everything is grassroots. I've been here for about 20 years and I'm still not from here, but it was kind of the school of hard knocks of how to start a business basically from the ground up and figuring out what works up here is very different than what works in New York. So that was, um, quite a learning curve, um, and like I said, it's kind of the school of hard knocks. Did a lot of grassroots marketing and, um, yeah, we grew our business. It was amazing at the time. My husband was travelling a lot for his work. So basically it was me and 3 little kids and running crews and all of the, all of the things. When we decided to get out of the business, I ended up getting a position as a business development director for a radio station, which was awesome. And somehow I ended up being on air, with that, but I love the creative aspect because I was able to find incredible people in the community to highlight. And that's actually something that I brought here with UWD. And then I was a partner at a digital marketing firm for a number of years. They chased me the entire time that I had my company and they're like, what are you doing? And I was just, I'm just trying to survive. I'm trying to raise a family and build a business. And they're like, well, you're doing marketing. And I was like, well, I never went to school for marketing, so I'm not really doing marketing, am I? But yeah, I totally was. So I ended up working for a digital marketing firm. They soon after made me a partner and I was there for about 6, 7 years. And I always kind of leaned towards the trades just because that's where I had the most knowledge. And I just, I love it. I love it. How I ended up to Universal Windows Direct was unfortunately my ex-husband and I, were separated and I was like, kind of got tired of building businesses and I would get flowers like, hey, thanks, we just sold our company for millions of dollars. Um, and then I have to go find more clients. So when I was kind of in this transitional point in my life, I was like, well, what does Rebecca want? And I decided I wanted to find a company that was, you know, fairly young that I can make a big impact and reap those rewards. Long-term. And that's what I found on Indeed. I ended up running into Shawn's ad and I was like, what is this company? And it was absolutely perfect. I mean, I'm in my office right now. I'd say it's probably about 15 by, I don't know, 15. And Shawn and I used to share an office space like this, and that was about 5 years ago. We since have a humongous showroom and We have 17 full-time employees, and that's not including our installers. And life is good, Brian.

Yeah. Good, good, good, good. You deserve it, too. And there's, there's, you know, I am, as I say a lot in the meetings, I am such a fan of women. I don't know where I would be without Addie. I know a lot of the men that we have on these episodes, these podcast episodes, have somebody like you, like Addie, like Sandra Angliss, like Sherry O'Leary behind them. And we get all the credit, and— but you guys do all the real work, all the stuff. I was talking with John Angliss this morning, and we were talking about how, you know, that the— thank God that we had the women in our lives that, uh, that did all the crap that we hated doing, that they also hated doing. but because they were willing to do it and let us go and do what we do in front, it looked like Brian and John and Sean are, are, and John O'Leary are rock stars, but we, none of us could have done it without that support behind the scenes. Now, in the time that when I first met you guys, tell me a little bit, you guys were Where was the business when we first met?

So I think we were right around $3 million or so. We are since just shy of $5, but we are profitable.

Yeah.

So there is a very big difference. What's awesome about working for someone like Shawn is he kind of gives us free range to be creative. And what has been amazing and beneficial for our company is he's just like, just do your thing. Like, there, he's, you try anything you want at least once. And what I love is, from my past experience, my specialty has always been SEO and email marketing. I mean, we have like 40, my average open rate is about 46 to 48%, which is tremendous.

Amazing.

Yeah. Amazing. I think the industry average is like 11%. But what was great is he had an established CRM, so it's just a goldmine. And I think that that's something that I've really been able to dive into for ourselves. And you just like, it's to me, I don't really go to work every day. I thrive on the crazy. I thrive on just always trying to just tweak little things. And also we get to give back to the community. We're very, very involved with community organizations and our team. You know what I love about Success Society is I have everything I need right here. There is at least 5 or 6 guys that I regularly communicate with and they reach out to me. I reach out to them. I have meetings with their marketing teams whenever they want or whenever I need. Or anything like that. So Sean and I are getting married in August and—

Congratulations. —that's awesome. —you will be invited.

I mean, like, you know, there's people from our Success Society. And what I actually— I'm not a huge, which is surprising. Like, sometimes I don't really love change. And I was like, oh my goodness, we're getting a new coach and we're getting a new team. And it's been spectacular because I'm still keeping in touch with our old team, you know, which I call them my team because they really are. Like I said, I think I actually— I like that.

Yeah. It's like your mastermind group, but it's also your team. It's your board of advisors. It's your friends. They are. There's so much in when you have this group of people, of like-minded people, when you come together, it's magical. It can be magical with the right, obviously with the right people in place. And we try and put the right people into these groups. Yeah. So talk a little bit about some of the things that you guys have done over the last— because so you said when you guys joined, were you guys— were you making money? A little bit. A little bit. Okay. A little bit.

But what we love is, you know, you don't know what you don't know, right? And there's things that, you know, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. What we absolutely love, and I will never forget, is the first time I sent you one of my postcard campaigns and you were like, this is awful. And I was like, oh my gosh. But you know what? Like, it's out of love. It's a place coming from a place of, you know, good. And that's what we need. We need to hear those hard truths. So we're so appreciative of it. You know, not only do The masterminds help us with our personal development, but it helps with our professional development. It helps with our team management. And, you know, teamwork makes the dream work. I know that seems like so cliché, but it's just, it's really cool because you have people from all over the spectrum. You have individuals that are just starting with their businesses. I think, you know, maybe they hit $500,000 last year, you know, and, and you get so involved with them, you want them to succeed. And I mean, I share my email campaigns with other members all the time. We— it's for the greater good and it's awesome to be a part of it. And I see the differences in Shawn and I every time we come back. And at first it feels like you're being waterboarded with information. And now I just try to do little tidbits, you know, and the— and what we also have learned, which I have gotten so much better at, is delegating. You know, one of the things that we actually took on over the past year or so has been EOS. And there's a lot of society members that are doing it. And we're kind of like, oh, what is this? And it's been amazing. And, you know, we went to our meeting a couple of weeks ago and they're like, Rebecca, you're sitting in 17 seats. That's why you feel so overwhelmed. Well, I just hired a marketing manager and to take that hat off But it's, it's being involved with an organization that helps you not lose your mind and not feel so isolated. Yeah.

So let's talk though specifically about because you guys have done a lot since, since we've met and was it— did you guys start by coming to Accelerate with Wealthy Contractor? Yes. Yeah. So, so tell me a little bit about what are some of the big things that have changed over the last 2 years? And part of the reason that I'm asking this, and for the listener, is because one of the things we all know is implementation is key. There's— we did an exercise in the knowing-doing, the knowing-doing gap at Accelerate this year, where people know, quote unquote, what to do, but they're not doing it. Well, why aren't you doing it? And the, the, the shorter you make that knowing-doing gap and you get to work and you implement, the faster you get results. And that's part of the reason why I always say that I think that if you can come up with this idea of what your business looks like, your ideal business looks like, I think you can get there in 3 years or less. And if you're doing something like an EOS, the way it breaks out is you have 12 quarters, which are essentially 12 mini years, as Mark Curry calls it. Within that time frame, if you're structured properly, you can accomplish in one quarter what would take most people a year or more to do. And if you've got 12 of these mini years and you've got a good structure, a good accountability chart, you've got the right people in the right seats, it is absolutely incredible what can be accomplished. So let's talk about some of those things that have changed for you guys, and what are some of the things that you guys went and implemented in the business that have made the biggest difference?

So I would say the biggest difference was when you introduced us to Profit Masters, um, and when you really get into the financials. I think that a lot of people are in business to— they don't realize it, but they're just providing themselves with a paycheck. Yeah, that's not the goal, right? I mean, we want to create legacy. We want to create— I mean, everybody talks about a work-life balance, but it takes a lot of work to get there. Um, but not cutting— I'm so bad at these phrases— I'll have like, cut your nose to spite your face, whatever that is, you know? Like, we, um, We work so hard and grind and we give to, you know, our people and to our customers. But that's not how you build a sustainable business. You know, if what we offer is a true lifetime warranty on your labor and materials, well, how are we going to provide that if we're giving everything away? So it's, it's really, I think, and a lot of companies have an identity crisis. Who are you and what are you? Because you can't be everything to everybody and you can't be chasing the dollar. So I think that the big differences was with help of the groups is figuring out who we are, what we are, what is our number, what do we want, what does Shano and I want at the end of the year, and then help us reverse engineer that so that we can attain those goals because you can't pour from an empty cup. And if you're always, you know, empty as a business and you're just providing for your workers, then you're doing yourself an injustice. So Profit Masters was tremendous for us just to know and understand our numbers for sure.

Well, if I can, let me just, if I can with that, because you said a lot of, a lot there. So, you know, we know what we do. We know how we do it. This goes to the Simon Sinek thing. And this was also something we talked about at the last meeting. But why? Why? And I think that a lot of business owners, they know originally, initially, why I went into business in the first place. But what happens along the way, because the business, if you allow it, it will take over your life. It will take over your life. And the why you're doing it. Gets lost. And that's a dangerous thing. When the why gets lost, now all of a sudden it's just like you're just trying to keep up. And you, you, you don't have the same motivation anymore. And then that motivation turns into, for some, in some cases it's survival. In some cases it looks like just getting by. You know, a lot of people make a living in this business. A lot of people make a good living in this business. But did you go into business to make a living? There's a lot better ways to make a living than pulling out windows from people's houses and putting in new ones, having to measure that properly, having to make a case at the kitchen table of why you are the best value in the marketplace instead of the other people. And then the hardest part of all is just getting that opportunity in the first place to be able to even pitch your services. And so with all of that work to realize and say, hey, wait a minute, us just making a living isn't fair. It's not right. And then also, this is not what we started this thing for. We started this thing and, and, and I talk about this all the time. I think ultimately, if I ask you enough questions about why you're in business, it'll come down primarily to two things, time and money, time and money. And so I want to be able to make enough money to do whatever that is. And I want to have the time to be able to live life on my terms, but that gets lost real quick. And what's funny is like when you get it, when you get it, you realize the money buys you time. Because we all have the same amount of time, but money can be, it's all in our heads. You know, the bigger the number you can imagine, the bigger number you can create in your life. And everybody's number is different. Everybody's number is unique. So you guys, I think, got reconnected with your why we're doing this also. So sorry, I just felt I needed to, to say that because it's cool to see how you understand what you do and you're great at doing it, the how. But when you realize the why, now it's like, oh my God, okay, why am I, why am I in 7 seats on the accountability chart? That's not what I signed up for. Crazy.

Yeah. But what I, what I love is that when we go down there and we just completely get out of the day-to-day grind. Intensives, sorry. When we go to our intensives, it gets us out of working in the business and working on the business. That's right. And that's something that you really drive into us about taking some time. You know, we probably don't take enough time to actually spend like one day offsite. We try for every other week. You know, sometimes that's easier than others, but when you are always in the grind, it doesn't allow us to have the clear view and understanding of what really is going on. Yeah. And yeah, it's just been—

well, and also, you guys aren't only working on the business, you're also working on yourself. Because in order to get where you want to go, you have to become that person ahead of time. And you have to believe that that is you, that that is me. I'm capable of that. I deserve that. And when you get that and you couple that with your why, now it's like you're off to the races. So, okay. So let's talk about some of, you know, the main things are attraction, marketing, conversion, selling, delivery, which is production in the case of a home improvement company. And then there's scale. You know, that, that kind of wraps the whole thing up. So you, marketing-wise, you, you sent me a postcard, which, or a direct mail piece, which a lot of people, you know, I encourage to do, and a lot of people don't take me up on it. And a lot of what I see is not good. And so the idea is, well, let's try and put stuff out there where we're not wasting money, and it's got, at least it's got a shot at working. So you went from there and kind of haphazardly doing marketing to now you have a marketing manager. So talk about that. I mean, how did, how did that happen? Because that's the ultimate. Everybody wants a marketing manager. When somebody— that's like a unicorn. Somebody that's responsible for making leads every day, the hardest thing to do in the business. So talk a little bit about that journey.

Yeah. So, um, I mean, that's That's basically what I got hired as, was to be the marketing manager. And when you come from a background of doing and implementing and having a whole team to kind of coming into an organization where you're starting everything from scratch and figuring out what the vision is and all of that and doing all the things, you know, what I've learned from our group is that delegate. Okay. Rebecca is not a graphic designer. Brian can attest, you know, figure out what your strengths are. Like, I will never relinquish our email marketing. That is Rebecca's realm, and I earn my keep because— and, and that's what we have to say is, if this is what we want in a year, okay, what am I doing on the daily to earn that? And if I'm doing anything less than that, then that's a hat that I should be taking off and giving to somebody else. And there's plenty of people within— I mean, I probably got 4 messages last week. Hey, who are you using for this? Or, hey, who are you using for that? And it's not competition. It really isn't. Everybody wants everybody to succeed. So you know what? I reached out to someone in Miami and I'm like, who are you using for your graphic design and print mail? Bam. Gave me 3 people. I interviewed all 3 people and I— and guess what? Our postcards look amazing and they do way better than Rebecca could ever do them. So it's the delegation. Delegation is huge. Stop doing all the things.

Now also with marketing though, didn't you guys expand your mix of sources, of lead sources?

Yeah. So one of the things that was interesting when I first came onto the, um, came into the business is about 98% of his company was built on aggregators. Like he had a single landing page for a website. I almost lost my mind. So since then we now have a website that's about 140 pages. Um, so creating content, all of those things. Um, but yeah, we're doing print, we're doing radio, we're doing TV. Um, there's nothing that we're not doing. We have a brand ambassador. Um, I just hired a marketing manager. He's got drone experience, he's got videography experience, he's got production experience, you know, and I'm working hand in hand with him and he's going to be the most spectacular thing ever. I just booked a vacation. That was my present to myself when I replaced that seat that I was going to go away without my cell phone. Good for you.

Awesome. Yeah, see, that's living. That's living. Okay, so, um, that's a little bit about marketing and some of the things that changed. A big thing was, yes, you guys were so dependent on aggregators, and you weren't the only ones. I mean, especially during COVID there were so many— you know, there's a bunch of aggregators out there and people are buying leads because there was just a flood of leads out there. And for them, it was easy because they kind of know what to do. But today, if you're relying on aggregators entirely, you don't have much of a business. And it's, it's on very, very shaky ground. I was telling somebody the other day, I was at an industry event last, last week or the week before. And whereas 3 years ago, there was probably 5 or 6 aggregators at these events, I think there may have been one. There may have been one, because it's getting harder for them to make leads also effectively and profitably. And so they're kind of starting to go away a little bit. But that's not a bad thing, because you shouldn't be relying on other people to make leads. Like, you know this very well. I mean, you went out and you started to do other things besides just this one you know, this one bucket. So you added print and you added, um, uh, your guys are doing shows and events too, right? Yes, a ton, right? Yeah, that's— but today, this— it— we're in a make marketing environment, which is what this business always was to begin with. Is take marketing is waiting for the phone to ring. Make marketing is going out, and that's the beauty of home improvement. Is you can go out on any given day, go to a neighborhood, knock doors, and within a pretty short amount of time, you will have an opportunity to sell somebody something. Yeah. So that is— okay, so that's one leg of it. Another leg is sales. So tell me about what's changed in sales. What was it like when you first got there? What is it like now?

So when I first came on, we had 2 sales reps. One of them was great, one of them was so-so. He really kind of sold on his personality. He was funny and quirky and he'd come back to the office and he'd have like a cat. I was like, well, how did you end up with a cat? And he was like, oh, well, it kept following me. They asked me if I wanted to bring it home. I'm like, did you get the job? He's like, no. I was like, okay. Oh yeah. So that was interesting. But we have a training program now, Sean, that That's going to probably be one of our next hires is replacing him in the seat of sales manager. But we have an amazing team. We actually just got an idea from our mastermind group a couple weeks ago about bounty boards and that has like lit them all on fire. So we have 4 guys right now and we're in the midst of finding our 5th. We have amazing candidates and what's really great is because we're no longer in an identity crisis and we know who we are, people are actually coming in and knocking on our door and they're like, I want to sell for you. And I was like, well, how do you feel about canvassing first? And they're like, okay, you know, so it definitely makes our life easier. But really, I think when you get out of the grind of chasing, chasing, chasing and not having any compass, and that's what I'm truly grateful for. Because we went to the Accelerates and Accelerates are great, but we did go to your luncheon and we heard about the mastermind group and all of that. And we were kind of like, and we tried it and we're completely hooked just because there's an accountability. It's almost like we know how we're supposed to eat. We know we're supposed to work out every day. We know all of these things. Do we do it? No, I love ice cream. Well, actually now I do work out every morning, but it's the same thing with business. And our coach and our team members hold us accountable. I have a gentleman who might be watching this, you know who you are, um, who I'm constantly like, hey, did you do anything with that? Hey, did you do anything with that? I'll pop into a CRM, I'll show them how to get data, I'll show him what might, you know, and that's part of it is, and I'm a firm believer of giver's gain, you know, you can't always pour from an empty bucket, but they're like, I know if I'm ever in a pickle that there's a whole bunch of people that I can call and will be like, what do you need?

Well, and I always say it, every answer you need to your business questions is in that room without— there's, there's no question about it. Let's go back. So you were talking earlier about Profit Masters and understanding your numbers. How did that then relate into pricing. What was your pricing strategy before and what is your pricing strategy today?

Well, I think what was the most amazing thing— so how— I forgot how many days that, that initial class was. I think, what, 3 or 4 days?

The Profit Masters? It seemed like 4, but it was 2.

It was 2. But I mean, we were like completely wiped out after it. It you know, you think that you've been in business for however many years that you understand your numbers. It's amazing to have individuals who are as good as your team is with that to be like, oh, well, no, you're reading this wrong. Or if this is what you want to get to, this is how you have to do it. And that part is, it's, it's very hard when you're in it. And you're grinding and you're grinding and you're writing all the checks. It's just amazing to come and just be like, this is what I have. And they do a thorough analysis and evaluation without, you know, critiquing or being like, well, you shouldn't be doing it like that. And I mean, honestly, like, people have to come to these groups and these events with an open mind. If you don't think that you have anything to change, You know, good for you, but we try to come like a dry sponge, like give it all to me and you will get it. You will get it. And that part is awesome. And I mean, Shawn just loves it. We have our weekly meetings with our Profit Master team and they constantly are nagging us if we don't give them exactly what they need and how they need it. They're like, you did that wrong. You know, we're constantly being graded, but you know what, that's the part of what's going to get us next level. We have some really strong goals for the next 3 years. Yeah, I want Sean to be able to retire, retire in 3 years if he wants to.

Yeah, good. So pricing strategy then has gone from what the competition's doing and price strategy to what now? Value, value-based selling.

Yeah, it's always been value-based. However, if you're not, you know, things are changing so rapidly and I mean, COVID was just the destroyer of all things, right? And you need to be on it. Like the financial seat of our business is more than a full-time job. With us changing that, it makes us better owners, it makes us better leaders. And it gets more buy-in from our employees, but it also gives us the confidence that we can— what we're selling, we can actually give. Okay, so when we say we're going to be here 10, 15 years from now to be able to provide you with the services that we're selling, we wholeheartedly, confidently know that we're going to be able to do that because we have in-house an in-house service team, you know? So I think that you need to justify it. It's not that, you know, that you're making it rain, but like, you know, there's a value that we add. And if we do not ask for the prices that we do, and you know what, Brian, we're still not the highest, you know? So that tells me there's room. No, I'm only kidding. There's room, but it's just being fair.

But you understand now the correlation between gross margin and pricing to your bottom line. And unfortunately, I mean, look, over the years I've looked at hundreds of P&Ls in this industry from companies in this industry, and it's shocking to me how people just don't understand how the relationship between their pricing, their gross margin, and their net profit. Yeah, people will say, well, yeah, I have a 2 multiplier, so I have a 50% gross margin. Okay, really? Do you? That's not what your P&L says. And oh, by the way, now you're doing it on cash instead of on accrual. So you think you're doing better than you are, or You're so up and down every month because this month, oh, we got a lot of cash this month, so oh my God, look how much money we made. And then next month we don't bring in as much and now we lost money. You can't run a business that way. You've got to understand. That's why this bit— not to get too into the whole finance thing, but you got to run accrual accounting so that you understand and you're looking at your You're, you're, you're looking not at apples and oranges, but you're comparing the right thing to the right thing. And this is where a lot of people don't understand price strategy and how to price jobs properly. And you just said something too. You have a service team. Well, how the hell do you pay for a service team if you're undercutting your prices just to get a job? Right. Just to keep my crew busy. I'm sorry, but that's lazy. You guys don't do that. You guys don't email estimates to people. You go in the home and you make a case for why you are the best value for the customer. You may not be the, the lowest price, but they shouldn't be going with the lowest price person because they're leaving stuff out. You know they are, whether it's service, whether it's actual materials that they're going to downgrade, it's cheap labor that's not going to do a great job. Something is going to be different. Something is going to be off. And it's when people understand that and they say, yeah, I deserve to charge the right price. Not necessarily, oh, I'm going to be more expensive than everybody else. No. What is the right price for your business? And the right price changes as the business grows. You know, I always talk with people about, well, what are the two things as your business grows and scales? What are the two things that are going to grow marketing and your overheads. Well, how are you going to pay for that stuff? You got to raise your prices. I mean, there's other strategies, but the main one is I got to get more money per job. It's costing me more in marketing dollars. I have to pay for a marketing manager now. So my marketing costs just went up automatically. So boom, I don't pay for that. My customer pays for that. Customer pays for everything.

One of my most favorite, um, of your breakout groups was Charlie Gindel, who everybody loves Charlie, everybody knows Charlie, was when he was talking about how to evaluate your employees. You have ABC employees. Oh yeah. And you know what, it's— that part is hard because we love everybody, you know, um, and, and everybody says that, you know, your teams are close and stuff, but honestly, we do feel like we're a family, you know, but there's expectations. And we're starting to live and breathe our core values. They're going to be actually put on our wall. We just redid the new design and everything else. But living by that, understanding who you are and showing the team that, then there's no confusion and you hire accordingly, you fire accordingly, and ultimately I have— I— we just got the, um, the print of what it's going to look like, and we have a person who's going to look like they're sitting in a chair on the wall in our conference room where we have our team meetings, and it says 'Our Customer,' you know. So everything that we do needs to be with that focus of why— who are we doing this for? And anything we say in that room or anything that we do needs to make them happy. And proud. So good for you.

I love that. You know, my, my good friend Brian Kaskavalciyan, every meeting that they had, they used to have an empty chair. And that empty chair represented the customer, just like what you're doing. So that's such, that's so great. Because yeah, sometimes we forget that we're here to serve. And we're here to serve that customer, and everything we do needs to be about them. Because if we take care of them, we get taken care of.

Yep. Yeah, there's many people they can choose from. So yeah, we have to—

yeah, I love that. Wow. So the core values are going up on the wall. There's going to be— are you going to have pictures to be able to show us at the next meeting? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I want to see that. I want to see that. That sounds great. I love that. So one of the things that we are going to do is we're going to open up the next meeting, the July intensive, to non-members for a sneak peek to see what it's going to be like. We're calling it our Discovery Day. And so if anybody— I'm just going to do a little pitch for it right now. If anybody's interested, go to theentrydoor.info, theentrydoor.info, and we'll put it in the show notes as well. But, you know, you meet people like Rebecca and Sean, who are just some of the nicest, coolest people that you ever want to meet. And it really— you see that, hey, there's really, really good people in this industry. You know, we get such a bad rap as contractors, and my experience has been, yeah, there are some of those out there, but the people that are involved with the Wealthy Contractor that come to our events, that are in our Success Society, that are part of Profit Master— I mean, all of these people are just such good, hardworking, decent, honest people. Um, and it's really all about using the business to build a life that you love and getting to do the things that you get to do. Do you have as much stress as you had a year or two ago?

No, I don't at all. I sleep fine. Yeah, that's good.

It wasn't like that. I remember when we first met, it wasn't quite like that.

No, it's been a, it hasn't been an easy go, but like you said, I mean, you have to let go of the things that you think are the right ways. Honestly, and just go with an open mind and learn from everybody around you. The last thing you want is to be the smartest person in the room. And, and that certainly doesn't happen when, when we get to go and hang out with our, our team.

And yeah, yeah. Like, if I'm the smartest person in the room, I don't want to be in that room. I want to be like the dumbest person in the room. And I want to be around smart people, good people. And Yeah, hopefully I think we're curating that pretty well at The Wealthy Contractor.

Yeah, we are. And honestly, the development that you have and that you get just from being around these people, and I think that when you have a business, especially in the construction industry, it's isolating. People do not get it. And it's a grind and they're like, what do you know? So sometimes it's hard to make friends. Your family doesn't understand you. Your kids are like, what the heck? You're up at this time. Down. But when you start finding the balance, and start finding all the tricks, everybody's looking for the magic, you know, button or the magic thing. And really, it's a process. And I just tell our team, just do 1% better than you did yesterday. That's it.

And I think if there really is any magic to it, it's having a group of people. I mean, look, whether you joined Success Society or you have your own mastermind group, or now this has inspired you to go and create your own mastermind group, God bless you, go do it. But when you realize, hey, I can go to other people that are in the same business that I'm in, competitor or not, you know, let's just say not, you know, not a competitor, but, and say, hey, how do you do things? Can, you know, and can I, can I see something that's done better than what I'm doing right now? Why try and figure it all out yourself? You know, when I first discovered this idea of mastermind groups, it was like, oh my God, instead of being in the office all by myself, banging my head against the wall, yelling at myself, telling myself what a loser I am. Now, when that starts to happen, no, no, no, no. Like you, like you said, I, you could just pick up the phone and say, hey, wait a minute, I, you know, either I need a sanity check here or I need, because I don't know how to do this, tell me, give me a resource for how to get this done for me. And I think that if there is any magic, it's making that shift and understanding you don't have to figure it all out yourself. And this podcast, I mean, I'm, I'm so fortunate that I have great guests because this is not at all, never has been about me. It's always been about the guests and hearing stories like yours and learning from you. And this is out there free. When I was coming up, when you were, when you were the electrician in the '90s, you know, in Long Island, I mean, there was no such thing as podcasts. No, you didn't get all of this free information to be able to use in your business and also feel like a part of a community. Now, there's so many opportunities to get information and to feel a part of a community. If you're not taking advantage of that, again, whether it's our group or another group or your own group, man, don't go at it alone.

And where do you get to go to these places and meet all of these incredible people? I mean, Brian Gottlieb, like, for crying out loud, I've read Beyond the Hammer probably 30 times. I could probably recite some of the pages. But you want to talk about feeling isolated and all that. And I mean, you read this book and you're like, oh my gosh, he's like reading my soul, you know, and you give us access to these amazing people that have done it. And then you're like, holy cow, he created that. Yet he's— he felt like how I feel today, yesterday, you know? So it's completely attainable and just having the patience to do it. But I mean, it takes— we wake up every morning and Shawn and I, you know, we start with gratitude. You know, what are we grateful for? How are we going to kick ass today? Ooh, sorry. It's okay.

But, um, we'll put the little E for explicit on this episode. It's happened. Don't worry.

But it's, it's mindset, you know? And when you, you acknowledge what you're, that you're worthy of all of these things and you surround yourself with all of these incredible people that have done what you have done and, and still go through those, you know, hard days. Like it's, it's not that, I mean, you get bigger. It doesn't necessarily mean it gets easier. Uh, you know, you hope it does. But at the same time, it's just, you don't get so scared, if that makes sense.

Well, and you know what the beauty of it is? And I thank you for this, is that now you are now being the one that also gives back. And you mentioned this earlier, giving is such a blessing. To be able to give and to help somebody else is such a blessing. And by being here today and by being in the group, you, you are a blessing to all of those people that are around you and you're just getting started. I mean, with all of the stuff that you guys have put together and where you're going in the business, I mean, the foundation that you have right now, there's really no— the end is wherever you guys want it now to be. It's not this pie in the sky thing anymore. It's understanding, hey, wait a minute. If we want that, we know the roadway to get there. It's what do we want to do? That is that what we want? And that's, I think, one of the best places to be in life is to be able to say, you know, I'm going to run my race. I'm not going to look at the, this other person and what they did. Let them run their race. I'm going to run mine.

So I love that. Awesome.

Well, Rebecca. We will have to do this again in a year or two and get an update on where you guys are a year or two from now. But I thank you for being here. I thank you for sharing your story. And look, if anybody's interested, again, it's— we're doing a Discovery Day at our July intensive, and Rebecca will be there. Sean will be there along with a whole bunch of other really cool people. Just go to theentrydoor.info and you'll see a video there from me inviting you to learn more. So Rebecca, thank you. Give my best to Sean. And for everybody listening, another episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan. And go out, run your own race, believe in yourself. You deserve to be successful. Go out and make it happen. I'll see you next time.