https://www.listennotes.com/e/69e4c7a7fff74701899d6a7cb560644c

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart and your attitude. And welcome to the Get Attitude podcast, the GAP. I am your host, Glenn Beck, international best-selling author, America's number one attitude keynote speaker, and somebody that is focused on helping you bridge the gap from who you are to who you want to become and from where you are to where you want to go. And we do that by interviewing very successful people, authors, speakers, athletes, politicians. We've had them all on this show. And I'm really, really excited to bring in a young entrepreneur from a fast growing business. He's also an author. He was a high school football star, him and his brother. I've known their family from a skip in generations, but from the south side of Indiana, from the south side of Indianapolis, the one and only Chad Peterman. Welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Thanks for having me. Really excited.

All right, so Chad is the owner of Peterman Brothers, heating, cooling and plumbing, I believe. and has had some astronomical growth. If you're an entrepreneur, this is going to be a podcast that you're going to want to listen to. But let's just first of all, talk about, Chad, your definition of attitude. What is your definition of attitude? And who was your first attitude coach when you think about it?

Yeah. So when I think about attitude, it kind of goes back to what you were, what you were alluding to. I don't know if I was a star, uh, by any means, but it really goes back to athletics throughout my whole life. And I think with any great coach, and I've had many of them over the years, is you're going to get knocked down, you're going to have successes, you're going to have some trying times. But as I think about my definition of attitude, it's that anything is possible so long as you have a good attitude and you can dream it, to come to life. And so whenever we're tackling tough things here at work or even in my personal life or teaching the kids or whatever it is, it's that there are no failures, there are only opportunities. And if you can continue to move forward and learn from everything that you encounter, you're always going to be moving forward.

That's awesome. And, and I'm sure you were CYO St. Jude guy. This is a national podcast, so people are gonna be like, hey, what are these guys talking about? But you know what, man? We're just gonna give it to 'em. When you think about your attitude, coaches, if you will, or the person that had the most influence on your attitude that has really helped you become who you are today, who would you say that would be?

Yeah, so one of the prime examples of this, I was lucky enough to play at Wabash College, and my position coach there, his name is Jamie Lamond, who was there my freshman and sophomore year, still a guy I still communicate with. He was the guy going in as a freshman. You're somewhat timid and unsure of yourself and not really sure what in the heck you're doing here. You just got uprooted, you're not living at home anymore, and I'll never forget it. I actually still have the the index card that he wrote this message to me on. And it was all about attitude. And on that card, he put, you need to start practicing like you're a starter on this team. And up until that point, I had no business, like, even thinking about that until he told me. And from that point forward, with that attitude, kind of adjustment, if you will, that he gave me, that was one of the things that I feel like is pivotal, pivotal in playing football. And then, you know, now leading, leading our company is, hey, you know, the time is now to start acting like who you want to be in the future. And so I kind of take that and try to inspire our team to, to do that as well.

Man, that's, that is so cool. So let's just roll it back a little bit. This company was started by your father and 1986, is that correct?

That is correct, yes.

And then when did you guys take it over?

Yeah, so he started in 86 out of the back of our garage. And my brother and I joined, I joined in 2011. My brother joined in 2013. He's a few years younger than I. And then around 15 is when we kind of took over the day-to-day operations of the company. And dad has since retired but was with us kind of 15 on up through about 2020. And yeah, so that's kind of when we got our start and started learning the business and finding great people to help us push it forward.

And, you know, as I look and I've been in the real estate business for 35 years and I knew Peterman Brothers, you know, before you took it over. And there's a lot of people that listen to us. We just we've had several people that we've interviewed who have taken a family owned business and really exploded it. And that's what I see when I look at you, what you and your brother have done. Can you talk about what was it like to take it over from Pops? And then my guess is he wasn't doing what you've done, not that there's anything wrong or right, it's just the way it is. It's just the nature of business. How did that transition go? And what gave you the guts to say we're going to full court press this thing and blow it up and have the type of meteoric rise I think you have? Maybe you haven't, I don't know, but let's just talk a little bit about that attitude and how that happened.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a good spot to mention kind of my dad's attitude and how that really helped shape what this place has become. And from very early on, even when I didn't know much of anything about the business, he was always one to let us make mistakes, let us make decisions, let us do things that he probably thought were crazy at the time. But to me, and a transition with a family business can always be difficult. because oftentimes the vision of what the founder had is maybe different than where my brother and I wanted to take it. And he was always very supportive of that. You know, he put in his two cents for sure, which he earned that. But him allowing us to push forward even doing things that he didn't know about or, you know, just like you said, it wasn't right or wrong. It was just what his vision of the company was versus what ours is. And, you know, I think he's obviously very proud and excited to see where we continue to go. But, yeah, it's a, it's a whole different place than when I started. When I started in 2011, I think I was employee number 21. and today we have almost 700 people across the company. So it's definitely different, but it's a good different. And I think that all to your point and the purpose of your podcast all goes back to kind of the attitude my dad had and then that attitude that he instilled in us to, you know, anything is possible, keep moving forward, you know, learn from everything.

And so was he a South sider.

By.

I mean, it has, have the Peter Bins been running around there. And when you think about you're the founder of this company, what was his attitude in business and in life?

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, Southsider grew up in Beach Grove. And my mom did as well. And then my dad's brothers and sisters, obviously. But, you know, his, and he tells us this, when he first started out, you know, It was he knew what his bills were for the week. And so he knew what he had to bring in for that week in order to keep the company running. And I think that it's interesting to me to kind of reflect back on that, even though I wasn't there. But it, to me, that's kind of the key to business, right? It's very simple. It's taking care of customers. making sure that you've got everything aligned and then just doing really good work. And for me, looking back on, you know, just watching my dad kind of interact with us on a personal level and then business, it was always hard work is going to always win out. And I think that's something that he instilled in us is that, you know, you can have big dreams, but you got to make sure that your effort and desire to work is aligned with that. You know, it's one thing to say it, but then you got to back it up with that hard work that he definitely taught us from a young age.

Now, how many siblings do you got?

It's just me and my brother.

And neither one of you was a kicker? You got a cousin that was a kicker?

I don't think so. I held in college, if that counts.

Well, we can, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

One thing we always talk about with our guests is, you know, many people do say, Hey, yeah, my attitude coach certainly came my mother and father and we talked about your grandpa. And I believe that so many times grandparents are some of the biggest influences on our attitude. Were you able to know all four of your grandparents and if you were great, if not, that's okay. But did one or two of them stand out with the relationship? And where did you learn from that generation prior to your parents, if anything? on attitude.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So very fortunate. I think fortunate that my grandparents had my parents early in life, and then my parents had me early in life. So actually, I've got all of my, all of my grandparents are still, still living. So I get to, uh, get to see them quite frequently. You know, if I think about my dad's parents, my grandma is, oh, we'll just say mid 80s. And what I will tell you is she will outwork anybody and everybody. She runs around and is not afraid of hard work, that is for sure. Almost works to the point where I know she's almost worked my grandpa into the ground a couple of times. She's always asking for younger help. Her help's getting older. And so both of them were from, you know, there was never My grandpa can pretty much fix anything, do anything. He was never, you know, hiring anybody out to do that. And so they're both very, very hard workers.

Cool.

And then someone who I'm really close to and is always probably been one of the most supportive people that I know is my mom's mom, Grandma Becky. She is one of the most caring and compassionate people. and has always, always been there. If there's an article written or this podcast, you'll want me to send it on over. And she's just always been in my corner. And I think from an attitude perspective, knowing that you have people that are proud of you, knowing that you have people that are backing you, to me is one of the biggest sources of being able to continually have that positive outlook on life. is knowing that, hey, you know, I've got to go out here and do this because, you know, not that if I did something wrong, my parents, my grandparents wouldn't be there for me, but you want to make them proud and you want to do, do those things that, you know, they're, they're, they want to be there and be supportive of.

Now, what did they, what careers did they have? What, where's, what was their work deal?

Yeah. So my, my grandfather actually owned an electrical company. Oh, Peterman Electric. Um, and so he's obviously since retired. And then my grandma was a stay-at-home mom. But she worked, my dad will always talk about she used to clean the entire house every single day and may still do it today. And then my grandma on my mom's side, she's worked in a bunch of different stuff. She worked I can't even remember what the bank was. It had a different name at the time, but worked at a bank for a long time and it has done a little various other things as well.

Yeah, cool. Very interesting. So, yeah, you were employee number 21. Now you have 700 on the payroll. Did you ever think in all your wildest dreams you'd have 700 people that are that are drawing a paycheck from your company and like, is that daunting to you anymore? How do you wrap your head around that? and what's your attitude about growth?

Yeah, so my attitude about growth is you can never stop growing. And that goes personally and as a company. And so we look at it with more people, we don't grow bigger, we grow better. And so that's really shown in, you know, back in 2020, we started our own trade school. We'll train over 150 technicians this year that were not in the trade prior. And so we look at it, especially from an attitude perspective, is we have to keep growing in order to provide opportunities for our people that are getting better each day. And if everybody's getting better, the company has no other option but to grow. And so that's been, I think, instrumental in our success is really placing our people as our number one customer. We want to take care of them and make sure that they have all the resources and career opportunities so they can be at their best at all times.

Yeah, that's awesome that you do that. Tell us a little bit about whose idea was that, hey, let's start a trade school and build our own employees. I mean, that's brilliant. Did you get that advice from another HVAC guy in a different state or did you just come? Yeah, you did. Who was it?

Yeah, so a couple of peers that had done this prior. One of the bigger influences was Jonathan Bancroft who runs Morris Jenkins down in Charlotte, North Carolina. He's been a mentor of mine. I met him first back in 2018 and he had a school and, you know, so always looked at that even from the first time I visited and have all, what we found was we were growing faster than we could find technicians. And so we were going to have to put our money where our mouth was when it came to training and developing our own people. So in June of 2020, I went to my then assistant, Danny, who now runs our school, but went to her and said, hey, I think we need to create a school. And she kind of looked at me, kind of probably cross-eyed and probably said some choice words under her breath, like, what are you thinking? But she was able to put it together. And we now offer training in HVAC service, plumbing service, electrical service, and HVAC install. So really proud about that. and just, it's probably the most fulfilling thing that I get to do is to sit in on graduations and listen to these people who prior to it worked at this job or that job, but now they have a set of skills which in my estimation will always be needed here into the future for sure.

Yeah, that's so, so good. Is there an attack on the heating and air business? Like, is it clean? Is 90% efficient good? Or is sooner we looking at we're gonna have, I don't know, some environmentally friendly way to heat and cool our houses and the furnaces and central air conditioning are getting pulled out, which would be great for you, I would guess. So, what's the future of that?

Yeah, so as I look into the future, it's very similar to what we're seeing with cars. So they're converting from combustion engines to electrical vehicles. I think they're making the same push in the home as well. So it's already started. Some of the higher ups that a lot of these manufacturing places think that by you know, 2030, 2035 in that area, they may not even be manufacturing a gas furnace. It'll all be moving to the electrical side of things, which will be very interesting. And it will provide some challenges for sure, a lot like we're seeing with vehicles, like, hey, we'd love to have everybody drive an electrical vehicle, but there's charging stations and different things like that. I think that's where the industry is going. But on the HVAC side for sure is definitely cleaner energy. They're rolling out a bunch of new refrigerant mandates here as we speak and trying to make stuff more efficient and moving down that path.

How do you have fun with your 700 person company? Is fun a part of your mission statement? And what do you guys do that makes you happy and proud besides the trade school?

Yeah, absolutely. So from a fun perspective, I always tell, I was sitting in with a new hire class this morning. I said, we're gonna over index and fun because I don't want to come to a place that sucks to work. It better be fun. And so we work hard, but we try to play hard as well. We have a huge event at the beginning of every year. I think our, our party to kick off 2023, I think we had close to 900 people there.

Wow.

So it was, it was a big to do. And then we do a lot of things within the community. So we have a Peterman cares program where we ask our people to identify people out there in the community and our customers as well that need a little bit of help. They've come upon a hardship or something like that, so we'll donate. We donate a system or water heater, electrical panel every single month there. And then we have every year it's kind of fun. We have our March Madness charity showdown. So we have a bracket and people, all our people on social media vote on who our four charity partners are gonna be for the year. And then we donate a portion of each repair done during that calendar year to those four charities, which is a lot of fun. We actually had them all at our kickoff party this past January, had them all there where we presented the big checks and all that fun stuff and allowed them to talk a little bit about their charity and really connect that with, you know, a lot of our staff is out there doing difficult work, whether it be in a crawl space, an attic, you know, wherever it may be. But the work that you're doing is helping a bigger cause and is having an impact on a whole lot more people than just those customers that we're doing work for.

So you mentioned that you're a big believer in personal development. Do you have certain people you like to follow? Are there certain coaches? Are there certain books? Are there certain podcasts that you like to listen to where you go, Hey, man, that's talking my language.

Yeah, so huge, huge Maxwell fan, as I believe most are. Patrick Linchione is another one that we follow here. We actually utilize his book, the Ideal Team Player, and he talks in that book about the three virtues: hungry, humble, and smart. That's actually how we recruit our top tech students. because they have no experience. We're looking for character and people that align with how we view the world. You know, the other things that we do in that realm is back in '18, I guess we officially launched our podcast, which is interviews and different things like that, but it's really a collection of our future leaders program that we have here. at Peterman, where I talk on a topic every other Friday on a leadership principle or something that I'm learning to share. And I think that that's a critical piece is as leaders, it's great to learn, it's great to read a book, listen to a podcast, but the real impact comes when we share what we've learned with others and continue that kind of path forward, if you will.

And that's cool. And that podcast is called Can't Stop the Growth, right?

Yep. That's what it's called. And we have a lot of fun interviews on there and different teaching modules that we hear at Peterman Brothers are learning about and trying to get better at.

And as I understand it, you can find the can't stop the growth podcast on any podcast platform, but you can also go to Chad's personal website. Chad, what's the middle initial?

M. M as in man.

Chad M. Peterson. Peterman. Chad M. Peterman.com. that's his personal website. That's also a book, correct? Can't stop the growth. Right?

Yep. Yeah, I wrote the book back in 2019 and currently working on another book which will launch at the end of the year. Still working on the title, but it's centered around employee empowerment and how in order to grow a company, we must empower the people on our team to hopefully all push the organization forward together.

And so Can't Stop the Growth of Book, tell us some of the pillars that the book's built on, some of the ideas or themes that you're trying trying to bring to people.

Yeah, absolutely. So back in 2019, this was, my dad was nearing retirement and I felt it fitting to kind of capture all that we had learned over the last, would have been, you know, since I had really started what I had learned. And so a lot of the pillars in the book are centered around leadership, are centered around, you know, hey, here are some of the common things we have thought to be true in the trades. And here's how we think about them. And it's a little bit different. And so it's really about, as I said earlier, how to grow a better company that will ultimately grow bigger and making sure those things are aligned. And so that's really the whole premise of the book is how to strengthen the culture within your company so that it carries forward with it you know, the message, the why behind why you're actually in business.

That's cool. So we have a lot of entrepreneurs that are sitting here listening to this interview. And we're with the one and only Chad Peterman of Peterman Brothers Heating and Cooling. Big time entrepreneur here in Central Indiana. Chad, let's just take the two topics that you hit. Like, what are your three lessons for leadership? Like when you think about leadership, give us one, two, three or one, two, whatever it may be. For the entrepreneur that's out there that's going, all right, I just started a roofing business and this is how much my bills are and this is how much I need to make this week, like your dear old dad, right? What's the leadership lesson for those starting out entrepreneurs?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of our core values here at Peterman Brothers and one that is a personal core value is lead ourselves. Oftentimes we get caught up in that, hey, I'm the boss, I'm the one in charge, but it really starts with ourselves. And how we lead ourselves is ultimately going to cascade down through the organization. If I'm late and not responsive and kind of out of tune with what's going on, well, others are going to take that and that's going to potentially cause some issues. with the company as you're trying to grow it. So lead ourselves is one thing that we really live by here. Always be improving, always be moving forward. I would say the second kind of leadership lesson that I've learned over the years is find, it sounds simple, find really smart people. And you know what's the saying, you always want to be the dumbest one in the room. And then you'll know you did it right. And that takes time. Don't get me wrong, when you're just starting up, you got to be scrappy, you got to wear a lot of hats. But as you grow, finding the experts in that specific discipline or what have you is critical in moving it forward. And so a lot of those people, even for us today, come from outside the industry. They have a fresh perspective. They're not caught up in the, well, this is how we've always done it type mentality. And so we have really benefited from a ton of smart people that are part of our team now. And then I would say the last is really in line with, once you're leading yourself, once you've found those really smart people, is you have to empower them and you have to get out of their way. That transition from wearing all the hats and making all the decisions It's a tough one to empowering your people to do what they're best at. And so as we have grown, I found myself in, you know, less tactical meetings and different stuff like that because I want our people to figure out those solutions. I want them to come up with ideas and really move them forward because no one moves an idea forward better than an idea that they came up with. They're invested in it as opposed to me telling everybody what to do. And frankly, I can't tell 700 people what to do every single day. single day. That's impossible. And so if I would have went into it with a, you know, kind of a closed mindset and not have been open to letting people make decisions and, you know, sometimes make mistakes, but hey, we'll all be fine and we'll all learn from it. I don't think we would be where we are. So that's one thing I try to try to push down to our leadership team and really leaders at all levels is that, you know, you can't, when you become a leader, you give up kind of all control. And it's a weird dynamic because you give up control because you can't do the work, but you have to take ownership for those that you lead. And so understanding that dynamic is tough, but it's the ultimate way to grow in my mind.

Yeah, good. And then let's talk about culture real quick. What's your pillars on creating and sustaining the right culture for your company?

Yeah, so I think as leaders and entrepreneurs, we have to understand that we are the cultural champion for the organization. And so I take, you know, my job as I tell every incoming new hire class is that it's my job to make this the best place that you've ever worked. and that's our mission. And to me, that kind of sets the barometer for where all our decisions are rooted in. They're rooted in, is this decision for the betterment of our team? And if it is, then once we figure out all the logistics behind it, well, then we can move forward. And so I think that from a cultural perspective, and especially as it relates to attitude, and this was one I had to learn because I am naturally an introvert and I could sit in my office or sit by myself and all of that, but understanding from a cultural perspective what the organization needs from you. And the organization doesn't need me sitting in my office all day long. The organization needs me out talking to people, making sure they're having a great day. pumping them up, asking about their weekend, you know, how their kids baseball game went. That's what the organization needs. And when they see, hopefully, when they see me doing that, they realize that, hey, this is a company that really cares about me and is really intense on actually making this the best place to work, not just saying it and then not backing it up.

Right, right. Very good, very good. What's the biggest challenge you're facing right now in your business?

The biggest challenge I think for us is learning how to operate when you're a different company. And so we have grown extremely fast, which is great, but the organization changes really quickly too. And so, Last year in 2022, we hired 300 people. Well, so we went from a company of 300 to 600. So the company has to operate differently and you can't make decisions like you did and things get slower. That was the one thing I always wanted to prevent was like, Hey, I don't want this to be a slow process, but it does become slower because more people are involved and you got to get a number of different viewpoints and things like that. I think that's our biggest challenge right now is to essentially adapt as we are growing really quickly. And fortunately, we have a lot of people who are willing to change and adapt, but we've got to even sometimes do it faster than what the organization is growing so that we can be ready for that change. So seeing into the future and understanding, okay, Here recently we just acquired some locations outside of Central Indiana. It'll be moving into, we've got a location in South Bend, one in Colorado, and soon to be two in Ohio and one in Tennessee. And so it's understanding what does our organization need to look like when we've got all of those people on our team and how does that look differently than what it looks like today. So to me, those are the biggest challenges is just learning to adapt and running a 300 person company is entirely different than six or seven. And you've got to grow and be willing to change. It's not, well, I don't understand why they can't figure this out. Well, maybe it's different now. So we've all got to lean in and figure out where people are and how we can continue to grow better each and every day.

So mergers and acquisition is a, I'm guessing, a reality of your company. Do you like, do you do those M&As on yourself? Do you have a broker that does them or do they, you just, if they come to you, they come to you and you figure out how to make it happen?

Yeah. So we number of resources out there, the HVAC, plumbing and electrical space is extremely fragmented. And so there's a lot of people, especially that are, you know, maybe my dad's age that are kind of that baby boomer generation. that are looking for kind of that next chapter of their life. And so we send out a ton of letters. We actually do tours here once a month where we invite other contractors in to see our operation and see what we're doing and, you know, let them know kind of what partnering with us would look like. And so we're always out there networking and, and trying to show people you know, hey, if you're stuck or if you want to move on to the next chapter, being with our group would be a great place for your employees to land and your customers to land so that we can continue on that tradition that you've worked so hard to build and create more opportunity for your people.

That's brilliant, man. Good for you. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I mean, that's smart. I do a lot of M&A work. in the business that I'm in. So I'm always curious what other people are doing to grow. So what have you, I'm looking forward to this answer. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In 10 years, I hope I'm still here, you know, leading this organization. You know, our goal is to continue to get better, continue to grow because we feel like Again, with our philosophy, we can better the entire industry. And that's really what I want to keep doing. I really enjoy what I do. I have no mechanical background whatsoever, so I can't work on your furnace or your water heater or your electrical panel. I'd actually probably be the last one in the company they may ask to do something like that. But the reason why I fell in love with this business in this industry is it's a people business and it's about taking care of people, whether it be your external customers or, you know, you know, most importantly, your internal customers. And so to me, the next 10 years is going to be filled with a lot of learning and a lot of growing and a lot of, you know, a lot of development and training, which I'm really excited about.

Yeah, I think education is, as I look at other industries, that's where the real growth opportunities come is helping your industry become educated and giving value to the industry. You did talk about, you know, the consumer and, you know, a lot of times, and I'd love to just, you know, number one, it's a commodity, right? Is it a commodity? Is it not? But it is, hey, it's a furnace, it's an air conditioner. So now, hey, we just had XYZ come in and they're $1,300 less. so I'd love to know for the sales people out there, for the people that are in the Commodities business, you guys aren't the cheapest. I'm not the cheapest. And, and, you know, that's just the way it is. So, number one, how do you go about the pricing or the, the commoditization of what you do? I know there's a lot of different things, but, but more importantly, like, do you read your reviews and how do you feel when you feel like a customer feels like you guys totally rake them? over the coals, which happens all the time in HVAC with many different companies.

Yeah, absolutely. So reviews are a huge part of what we do. And so we're monitoring those on a daily basis. I could pull up a report now and tell you how many reviews versus how many calls the technician has ran. And, you know, for me, when we have an upset customer, we view it as a great opportunity to one, get better, and two, as my dad taught us, is to always stand behind our work. So when we think about our salespeople or our technicians that are out there in the field, our main goal is to make sure that they are first at a company that they know that cares about them, because then they're gonna in turn care about that customer. So it really starts with our culture, with our training, with our development. And then we want to hopefully transfer that value that we're hopefully providing to our people, to our customers. And so teaching our team that, you know, we've got to show the value. And a lot of times the value is not, as you pointed out, it's not in the furnace. The furnace is the furnace. You can go buy one from anybody. But the time and effort and care we put into installing that properly, standing behind our work if something should go wrong, We have an entire department here that we call our customer assurance department that is there to be the customer advocate and to say, hey, we didn't do right by this customer. We need to give them some money back or we need to get a technician out there and fix it. To me, that's the most important thing we can do. Our reputation is critical and something that if I had to ask my dad what's most important, it's that. It's reputation. It's making sure that We provide really good service. And yeah, to your point, we're not going to be the cheapest, but we hope to provide value far more than the cheapest guy out there. We want to provide a premium product and a premium service to our customers that feel like that's what they want.

I love it. All right, so we're going to close the interview here with a couple of questions. We call it Knowledge Through the Decades. and I just like to take our guests back through their life. You're a young man, so this won't take long. But I always like to ask people, when you were 10 years old, what was the attitude lesson of being 10? That'll put you about fourth grade. Was there something that happened to you? Coach, teacher, parent, where you go, oh yeah, I remember in fourth grade, here's the attitude lesson I learned. What was that?

Yeah, so if I had to think back to fourth grade, I think that's about the time And both me and my brother both played, you know, all kinds of sports and everything like that. And so athletics has been a huge part of that. And I think that's about the time you start to get a little bit more serious about sports. And so I would say that that was probably, you know, if I had to think of a lesson, it was probably from my parents when a game didn't go right or, you know, we lost or came up short. It was always, well, you got to get back out there and practice. You know, you're not going to get any better sitting here crying about it. You need to get back out there in the driveway or get out there in the yard and you need to get better. And so for me, I think that's one of the big things that my parents who are both hard workers themselves really instilled in me at that age when you can start to, you know, it's not just, you know, going to tee ball practice and playing in the game on Saturday. you gotta put in more work outside of that in order to get better.

I like it. So you gave us Coach Jamie Demons when you were 20 at Wabash. But Wabash is an incredible institution with a very rich history of a lot of dear friends of mine. If you could show up and have the attitude that you're a starter, that's one thing. But is there anything else from when you were 20 that could be an attitude lesson that maybe Wabash taught you? to carry through to what you're doing now?

Yeah, I think that from an attitude perspective, and as you asked me that question, I think back on kind of our company philosophy and then the philosophy at Wallbash. At Wallbash, there's only one rule, and that's the gentleman's rule. And for me at 20, that was just like, oh, so we can do whatever we want? This is awesome. As I reflect back, I think what that did for me is really mold again kind of our core philosophy now of taking care of others, treating them as you would want to be treated, acting as a gentleman. And so as I think about our philosophy and what we do today, to me that was probably ingrained in me with that simple lesson that that's the again, that's the only rule at Wall Bath is the gentleman's rule. So it's, you know, do your work, you know, be proud of it, stand behind what you do, and treat others how you would want to be treated.

I love it. That's such, I mean, very simple advice, right? We should all know this, but you can't ever improve on the basics. Are you 30 yet?

Yeah, 36.

36. Oh, so you are old. You're kind of older than I thought you were. All right, so let's talk about when you were 30. What's your attitude lesson at 30? You remember? Did you have a party when you turned 30? Where were you? What was going on? What was the lesson there?

Yeah, so 30, I would have, well, I would have been really close to, so my daughter turns five in August. And so right about that time, we'll just kind of include that with getting married and I guess I would have had her a couple years later. But, you know, for me, it was getting married to my wife. I think I got married at 29, I think, and then I turned 30 right after. But for me, it was, you know, there's more to life than work. And, you know, to me, my kids, my family, that's why we do what we do. It's why I come to work and work so hard is to take care of them and hopefully at least for my children is to set that example like my parents did for me and kind of passing down those lessons that even I learned from my grandparents and still today learn from them on how to act and how to be, how to make an impact with the one life that we have.

I love it. That's so cool. You're not 40, so I won't ask that to you. And I do want to let you know, I am a customer of yours. You guys have worked on our stuff. I'm actually gonna call you for a plumbing job on my way home from the studio today. So if there's any issues, I'll email you, but I'm sure there won't be.

Yeah, you know who to call. I do. For sure.

And so, Chad, you know, as, I mean, it's just so cool for me to see what you've done with this and you guys have gotten even bigger than I had realized. And I think that's just so exciting and I love seeing Central Indiana companies just explode. But for that entrepreneur out there that may be, you know, and everybody's like, oh, he's got it made, he's got 600 employees. I know you struggle. I mean, I know, you know, you're like, yeah, you just got different problems when you have 600 and someday you may have 6,000, which I think would be awesome. But for those young entrepreneurs out there, for those young business owners that are listening to this podcast and we have a lot of them, and then anything on a personal note, we just like to have you get on the pulpit and give your message of hope to them. What's the best Chad Peterman pregame speech you can give these guys so they can go out and build their business? Ready, go.

So the key in building business is you're going to have to have people. It is, or at least in most businesses, you're going to have to have people. And I think the key in any business is first understanding not about how much money you're going to make or not about how much you're going to do is how you're going to make an impact on those that you serve. and making sure that your people come first on your team. And when you align those with people before the revenue and, you know, money you're putting in your pocket and everything like that, the equation takes care of itself. And where I see people get in trouble is when they place the revenue in front of their people. And what ultimately happens is you can't push. You can only push the company at that. you can only push it as far as you personally can push it. But when you align the equation as people before revenue, you can do some amazing things and have an amazing impact on a ton of people.

Man, that's so cool. Quick question as a logistics thing. So many people in small businesses are like, yeah, Chad, great. hire great people, but I got no money. I can barely pay myself. What was your solution? I mean, did you just say, screw it, go to the bank, get the debt, invest and bet on yourself? Or did you create ways to bring on really smart people that you maybe couldn't afford that were creative? I'm just curious how you cleared that hurdle.

Yeah. So my dad always taught us, we've kept a ton of money in the business to make investments like that. You know, at the beginning, it's just kind of everybody doing everything. There's many days that my brother and I will talk and it's like, oh my gosh, we used to do that. Or I even had a conversation this morning. It's like, well, when I used to do that, I remember we were talking about a permit or something. I was like, I used to pull them over here and it was this or whatever. And so, you know, I think at the beginning, yeah, it is wearing a lot of hats. It's being scrappy trying to push it forward. But then there's a point, and I always tell people, at least in our industry, it's between that like three and ten million dollar kind of hurdles is a lot of people get stuck behind it because they don't want to trust anybody to do it. And so it's not so much about, oh, I need to go hire an executive from somewhere. It's more so, how do I find people? And then how do I, you know, build them up so that I trust them and that they can go make decisions on their own? And so To me, it's not those good people, there's tons of good people out there. Sometimes where they get held back is the owner or entrepreneur not trusting them to do their job. And I kind of lucked into this because I didn't know how to do the work. So I had to trust people to do it. Whereas a lot of people like my dad, he was a technician, so he knew how to do the work. So giving up that trust is a little bit more difficult and so that would be the one thing, especially if you're skilled in that area, is you can't do it all and understanding what your role will look like when the company gets bigger and then finding those people under you who are capable and care about the company and, and want to see it move forward.

But the finances, did you have to borrow to hire those people or did you say, hey, yeah, no, we stockpiled cash, and when we was ready for us to make a hire, we we would take our own money.

Yeah. So we never borrowed a dollar until we started acquiring companies.

And so that is completely South side.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My dad, my dad would get mad at paying the $100 fee on the line of credit every year. He's like, I'm not using it. I was like, all right, well, we don't have to. But, yeah, that's the South side mentality right there. I don't want to owe anybody anything.

The, I, I have a dear friend, you know, at O'Brien Toyota and all the O'Briens, you know, you know, they're like, Yeah, you know, our North side, 90% of the people getting loans South side, 60% of the borrowers like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the money. We're good.

Dude, no financing. You got it. Yeah, that was born on the South side for sure. I love it.

Well, Chad Peterman, it was a real pleasure to talk to you. I think we did some good. I think we helped some entrepreneurs bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to go and who they are and who they need. to become and you just did that in spades and I can't thank you enough for being on the Get Attitude podcast.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

All right, brother.