How to Grow a Business From Start to Finish?

Now das, you started your own business in Connecticut, is that correct?

I was self employed, you know, like.

Solopreneur type deal, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just what'd you do?

Yeah, you know, when I first came to the US as many immigrants, you know, you don't have too many choices. Well, one of the choices is construction. Right. And so I was always happy and able to work with my hands. And so I got right, right into construction, did handyman work for, for probably six months or so until it led me into more complex work, remodeling and quickly built up, you know, a little clientele and, and when I needed help, I'd hired temporary help. And, and that's what I did for, for quite a while until I discovered roofing. And now did you discover that in.

Connecticut or down here in Connecticut?

In Connecticut, what happened is I had a deck to build for somebody and under that deck there had to be a flat roof. It was over a room. So I had to figure out how to do that. Couldn't find any contractor to do that. And, and so I just learned, you know, I went to the roofing supply place and they were kind enough to walk me through the, through the steps of doing a torch down roof and I discovered that there just wasn't too many guys doing, you know, able skill to do that. And so I learned and, and I began to move in that direction and made that a niche for me. But I still, I still didn't want to pursue a business structure because I was also very involved in the ministry. And so I split my time between doing ministry work and working enough to provide for my family. And it was a good living. Coming to Texas 10 years, you know, into my United States experience, my family grew, you know, and when your family grows, your needs grow. And so in 2000, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that by the way, they say when your kids move out, you know, you all like empty nester and then it'll cost you less. That's not true. That's not true.

No big lie. Used to be that way, not that way anymore.

No, it's not that way at all. But anyway, so coming to Texas, family grows and so forth. And to 2005, I said, you know what, I need to develop this thing. And had some guys that I had known up in Connecticut that skilled. I landed a couple of large apartment jobs, flat roofs, and said, hey, why don't you guys come down here and help me with this project? Which they did. And that was early 2000, I believe. You Know, crash had just happened, and so up in that area.

Yeah.

Wow. There was nothing for them. And so these guys just moved their families down here, and we started the company clean cut and. Yeah. And the rest is kind of history now.

Tell me about that a little bit. So you started the company in 2008.

Well, 2005, officially, with name and registration and all of that. But 2008, you know, at the bottom of the economy, is when I decided, okay, I'm gonna hire permanent employees, which was kind of different, and it's still different today. You know, guys who will work for me as technicians, and I'll keep them busy. They called me their agent, and they were the guys who got it done. You know, I still did the physical work sometimes when needed, but that's how we started. And from there, you know, I hired more, I built the crew, and from there, you know, hired a salesman probably about a year later, really first administrative. That was a huge step for me to hire somebody that would do my work. But, yeah, from there, it just grew.

So I have a question about that.

Yeah, yeah.

So your labor, that's one thing, right? Like, you know, that work, you're. You're. You're doing that work, your skill set. Sounds to me, especially if they called you their agent, you were the guy that procured the work. You were the one that was able to go out and meet clients, convince them that you were the. Or persuade them that you were the. The right choice for them. And. And so that was how it went and probably stayed that way for a little while, I would imagine.

Yep.

And then you went, okay, let's see if I can get somebody to do what I'm doing. Is that your first step of really having somebody outside of crew working for you?

No, my first hire was an office lady, kind of an admin that did my books.

Yes.

And I had this one room office. You know, it was kind of strange in a way. It was a room, and I still actually rent this particular property as well. It's so strange. If I could show you on camera, your whole audience would be laughing. But it was this one room, and it had a bathroom in the middle, and my desk was on this side, and Maria's desk was on the other side. And then, you know, it was just strange, you know, I mean, she was like, I'm going down the road to get me a coffee, but she really was going to the bathroom. You know, she would wait till I leave, you know. Yeah.

Uncomfortable situation right there.

Yeah, yeah. But it was a really small Office. So. But yeah, that was my first hire. The second hire then was. Was a salesman that. Yeah, I mean, I was just. I think I just read the book. Good to Great was one of the first business books I read. And from there it was just learning, you know.

So that's kind of the thing like this back in the day, there wasn't anybody that coached or did any of that kind of stuff. So you kind of just learn, and it's a little bit of guesswork. Do I hire the admin person first or do I hire a salesperson that I can afford? The admin type of situation, we tend to, like, coach that. It has everything to do with your skill set. Like, if you are a salesperson, hire your admin first. If you're more an administrative person, then hire your salesperson first. It really has a lot to do with that would hire your weakness. Right?

I agree.

What made you decide that? You were like, was it that book Good to Great? You read the book and went, okay, I'm going to go ahead and scale this thing up and like, make a real business out of this. Because there's so many contractors out there. I mean, so many. We've actually been doing a bit of a study on this, and 10% of the contractors are over a million dollars. So 90% are less than a million dollars.

Really?

Wow. But of those 90%, 90% of them, so 80% of the overall are under $200,000 a year in revenue. And a lot of that is because of those first decisions. Like, what do I do to take my first step? Do I hire an admin? Do I hire a salesperson? Do I have the crew? Can I procure the work? There's all these first decisions and. And a lot of times we make those decisions. We bring a bunch of extra stuff on us. Now we're out of time. How did you manage that? Struggle.

Yeah. You know, as far as books that I read, I'm thankful I read that book. I don't know how I came upon it. Somebody must have recommended. And then from there I read the book Traction. And that book helped me a lot because I decided I wanted to run my business in a certain way. You know, I want to have some structure to our business and just, you know, discovering. Yes, a business is about sales. You know, a business is about production, and a business is about finances. Just laying those foundations was very important. So then I realized, well, if it's about those three things, I've got the production down, I've got the sales. You know, as Much as I can do. But on the financial side and the admin side, I realized that's where the, that's where I need good support. And so that's what I did. I hired a bookkeeper person that would answer the phone when they're in the office, but it was part time. Right. And then just increased their time, became a full time position and then the salesperson and then, you know, today we have five ladies and you know, it could have been men, but we have five ladies that handle phones and admin work. And really that's a huge backbone for our business.

Yeah, I think a lot of people underestimate the value of that. And the way you approach it is like, okay, part time first because that's all I can afford probably. But because of that time that you now gain to go out and procure more work, you got more work, you needed more admin help, more financial help. And so that turned it into a full time job for them. Yeah, I wish more contractors follow that path. Like, okay, if that's the thing that frees me up, the thing I'm not good at.

Yeah. I also decided, you know, I'll put my trust in a cpa, I'll hire a CPA and that'll be my CPA from now on. And that's the person that stole my cpa. And I don't always like, I don't always like what they tell me, you know, or how they handle things. But it's kept me, you know, I'm not worried about getting audited or anything like that.

It's a good check and balance. Whenever we throw all of our eggs in one basket, like, hey, I've got a bookkeeper. So my bookkeeper is going to do the thing for me. They're going to take care of my finances, run my QuickBooks, do all of that. If they don't have some kind of check and balance, you open up opportunity for all kinds of not great things to happen. You could get an audit and she's not doing it correctly. You open up this trust factor thing, like, is she doing things the right way with my books, I actually went through it. I had a person that I trusted as my bookkeeper, slash cpa and she ended up procuring a few dollars from us, let's just put it that way. And so having that balance of that CPA to keep you grounded financially and smart about your money, but also keeping you, your bookkeeping, a check and balance on that probably gave you a little bit of peace of mind.

Yeah, definitely. You know, definitely there was always this, well, everything is getting checked by the cpa. I mean, the CPA is the one that double checks everything we do and takes full responsibility. So, you know, again, as much as that, in my very early years, I didn't do that. You know, I remember going a couple of years one time without a bookkeeper, without a. And just being self employed, you know, but my good money. And then all of a sudden discovering, oh no, I owe the IRS a lot of money and that was not a good. I never want to have that feeling again, you know, that that was not good.

So yeah, I can remember that one too.

Oh, wait a minute.

That check I got to write to the IRS is bigger than my wife's whole year. Like I remember her saying that, like, that's more than I make in a year and you gotta write a check for that. I go, yeah. And that like taps me, like, we gotta start over and figure this out. That was when I went, OK, CPAs and all that other good stuff too.