Cancer Survivor. Reality TV Winner. International Speaker. Contractor with 600% Growth. Meet Luke Soderling.Shape

Welcome to The Successful Contractor powered by CertainPath, a show for residential contractors about residential contractors. We chronicle business journeys, share insights, and celebrate successes in this wonderful industry. I'm your host, Bob Houchin. For more information on how CertainPath can put your contracting company on a certain path to success, visit our website, www.mycertainpath.com.

I hope you enjoyed today's show and take away About 3 days later, the doctor called and left me a voicemail. Oh, I missed the call, and he said, call me back, here's my personal cell phone number. Oh, it's never good news when the doctor, you know, gives you his personal cell phone number.

Not at all.

So I called him back and he said, you have stage 3 thyroid cancer. And I was devastated. I found my first victim and I approached him and stabbed him with the spear and it bounced off his back and he rolled around. I didn't realize this at the time, but alligators get really pissed off when you stab them with a pointy stick at 5 o'clock in the morning. I found one around the edge that thought he was hiding, and I switched tactic and got my machete out. And so I snuck up behind him, so I had to get really close to this one. He was about 4 or 5 feet long.

Okay.

And I hacked down into the water. Am I a good father and go home?

Yeah.

Or am I a good father and stay here and show my boys that with hard work and determination you can accomplish anything?

Yeah.

We, we busted it wide open. We did, uh, 600% in 4 years.

That's fantastic.

So it was great. With the help of all the coaches and everybody here at CertainPath, Yeah, as far as, you know, that work with it, but then also the members. It's very hard to complain now. I do my best, you know, to find things to complain about, but when my kids complain about something, I was just like, you go, do you remember what I did?

Exactly.

You have nothing to complain about.

Luke, thank you so much for being here. Greatly appreciate it. For those who've not had the pleasure of meeting you at an event or a training, can you share with everyone your name, Your company name, where you guys are located at.

Yeah, thanks for having me here. Uh, my name is Luke Soderling. I'm from northern Minnesota. We're about an hour south of Canada. Yeah, uh, way up there. Way up there. Uh, Proof Home Services is the name of our business. Uh, we do plumbing and electrical.

Very good, very good. Well, the electrical is a new thing. We'll get into that. We'll get into that. Uh, but I'm having you on because you just got a great story, great business story, great personal story. I think people are going to really enjoy it. How's business going, by the way? This last couple years?

The last year's been a little interesting.

Yeah, right.

You know, everybody kind of had the challenges earlier this spring, right? Uh, just a lot of uncertainty and things, but otherwise going really well.

Very good.

It's been exciting to see. Got my foot on the gas and we're going for it.

Yeah, you're one of the only contractors I've interviewed that has such a unique personal story. I mean, you've done some, some interesting things. Uh, I want to, I want to touch on those first and then we'll kind of backtrack and Sure. Into other things. But I know, you know, I hate to— it's kind of a somber tone, but a lot of it was shaped by a health challenge you had, right? Would you mind kind of sharing with people what that was?

Yeah, it was 2013. I was at my parents' for 4th of July dinner, and my dad had made burgers, and I was reaching across the table, and my mom said, what's that lump on the side of your neck? And I said, lump? What lump? What are you talking about? Sure enough, there's a 2.5-inch tumor I had on my thyroid.

Oh my. Yeah.

So you went in for, you know, the screenings and things they go through to take the biopsy and they send you home.

Yeah.

And they say, well, we'll let you know what we find out. Yeah. And so now you're in this limbo, not sure what's happening. And finally, about 3 days later, the doctor called and left me a voicemail. Oh, I missed the call. And he said, call me back. Here's my personal cell phone number. Oh, it's never good news when the doctor, you know, gives you his personal cell phone number at all. So I called him back and he said, you have stage 3 thyroid cancer. And I was devastated.

How old were you then?

I was 33.

33.

I mean, 33, you're never thinking about that. You're invincible still, you know. I mean, it's— yeah, so it was really devastating to learn that, and I didn't know how to overcome it. Yeah, you know, it's just this huge mountain that you don't know how to overcome and deal with.

Yeah.

And so I realized right away that I had to just take things one day at a time.

Is that right?

I had to go and focus on what I needed to do today and break things down into small manageable chunks, and that's how we managed getting through it.

Yeah. How long was the treatment process?

Yeah, so the treatment process was almost a year.

Yeah.

And it was very interesting. They first did the surgery and removed the thyroid, but then you have no thyroid or hormone that's made by your thyroid that helps your metabolism.

Okay.

So your energy levels start to go down. So surgery, right, happened 3, 4 days later. I was back getting back to work. Yeah. And but my energy levels were tanking. And after about 2 weeks of that, I was falling asleep during my lunch breaks in the truck.

Yeah.

You know, still running plumbing calls and things. But that's part of the treatment is they're starving you of that hormone in your body, and they're also starving you of iodine during that time. So everything my wife had to make was from scratch.

Wow.

Yeah, so ketchup, mustard, you name it, because there's salt in everything they put in our diet, right?

Yeah.

In processed foods and in all of the salt in the Midwest. Because we don't get enough fresh fish, they put iodine in it.

Really? Yeah.

So it's in everything.

Oh my God.

They're starving you of this whole process of iodine during this treatment. And after about 3, 4 weeks of that, your body's completely depleted of this. You have no energy left or anything. They brought me to the hospital in Duluth and led me to a back room. And the— when they opened the door, there's a nurse in this big ballistic face shield, big leather gloves and a lead apron. And this is all before COVID Yeah, right. So now that's a little more normal, but then it was really weird.

Sure.

And she's holding this tungsten pot, and I knew that in the pot was radioactive iodine. Oh, that was the final stage of the treatment. Yeah. And she told me, she said, open the lid in a strangely deep voice for a female nurse. It was kind of— I was like, okay, all right. So I'm opening the lid kind of tentatively, waiting for like green light to come emanating out. Right inside was just this innocuous little gray pill in a paper cup. And she said, take the pill. I was like, okay, all right. I went in to grab the pill and she said, not with your hands, use the tongs. I said, wait, so I'm supposed to use the tongs to take this pill to put into my body?

My body, right.

Okay, I didn't argue with her, so I took the pill and swallowed it and nothing happened. You know, I expected like green light to come out of my fingertips, right? Turn into the Hulk or something. But now I was radioactive.

Whoa.

And so I had to go straight home. And when I got home, my whole family was gone because radioactive exposure can be really bad for little kids.

Oh, wow.

And so that was my first experience of being forcibly, you know, separated from my family.

Yeah.

And I had to be alone for— it was like 4 days. Whoa.

Yeah.

So it wasn't, you know, I had Netflix, you know, snacks. Really wasn't that bad.

Yeah.

But it did kind of set the stage for some of the other things that came later on.

Yeah. So what— so what was it like when you got, I guess, a call or a letter that said cancer-free?

Yeah, that was huge. Yeah, that was huge. It was about a year after the final treatment. They do a full body scan again and they say there's no cancer present. And yeah, I've been— let's see, it's been 10 years, just over 10 years cancer-free. I'm really blessed.

Big celebration, I'm sure, that evening.

Yeah, for sure. Yep, absolutely.

How did that experience kind of change your focus on life and your approach to life?

It— especially when it first happened, it made you evaluate everything and reduce everything down to the brass tacks.

Yeah.

Right, of really what's important.

Yeah.

And I got rid of a lot of things. You know, there's some things that just weren't worth it.

Right.

And it really puts things in perspective for you.

Right.

And it's really very different to go and tuck your kids in at night when you don't know if you're going to be there for them in the future. For sure.

How old were they at the time?

So the— let's see, I was 33, so that was— I had 3 boys. Yeah. And the oldest would have been, oh man, probably 9. Or so.

11 and 0. That's hard. That's hard stuff.

Yeah.

How much did that drive you to do this next kind of wild thing, this winning The Wheel?

Yeah.

Which I'd forgotten about. So what is that? I'll set the stage, you take over. What is that all about?

Yeah, The Wheel is a survival show on Discovery Channel. I had signed up for a show called Top Shot. It was a shooting competition show. I did a lot of that at the time. in a 4-state area around my area. But that show got canceled, and I kept getting different emails for different shows.

Yeah.

And none of them were really that interesting to me. One was a fishing show and some of these other things that go on.

Real quick, let me interrupt. Why the desire to try it, to try this? Is that, is that maybe just, hey, a new lease on life and try something crazy?

So this email came across and it said survive in the wilderness for 60 days.

Yeah.

With minimal equipment by yourself.

Yeah.

And I said, well, what's not to love? Who wouldn't want to do that?

I certainly would not.

I don't even camp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know, this was an opportunity for me to show the world that there's life after cancer. You see, a lot of people, when they go through that thyroid hormone replacement therapy that we have to do, where I take a pill every day to replace that so my metabolism works, it's very hard to get that balance right.

Okay.

And so a lot of people struggle with that their entire lives of dealing with that. And so I remember laying on the couch with no energy and And I said, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life like this. I'm not going to live on the couch. I'm going to get out there. And I figured out how to survive cancer. And I'm like, well, let's try it in the wild.

Yeah. So talk and share with everyone what were some of the crazy things you were doing?

Yeah. So the wheel was unique in that they took 6 people that had no idea what they're doing, dropped us off in 6 different places in South America and said, good luck. We'll see you later. I had to film myself, find my own food, water, shelter, everything for 60 days.

Weren't you like killing reptiles and stuff?

So I— yeah, I mean, we were hunting for piranha in the Amazon with a pointy stick stabbing them. them, you know, and trying to get piranha there with a net and different things. And so I ate piranha there, I ate vampire fish. They have teeth that can grow up to like 6 inches long.

Yeah.

Yeah. After I caught one of those, I no longer waded in the Amazon anymore. I realized that there's no way.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So in one of the zones, I was, you know, getting kind of hungry and tired of eating fish all the time.

Yeah.

And I was like, well, there's caiman here. The black caiman can grow up to like 20 feet long.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, alligator tastes like Chicken. Chicken, right? Everybody knows this.

Yep.

So I fashioned a spear and got up really early in the morning, at like 4 o'clock in the morning before the sun had come up. And I'm wading around with the moonlight looking for the tips of their nose and the tops of their eyes. And I found my first victim and I approached him and stabbed him with the spear and it bounced off his back and he rolled around. I didn't realize this at the time, but alligators get really pissed off when you stab them with a pointy stick at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Sure.

And so he swam off into deeper water and I kept doing that. It's like trying to stab a mossy rolling log in the water. Over and over I'm trying this, and finally the sun's up by this point. They'd all swam into deeper water.

Yeah.

And I found one around the edge that I thought he was hiding, and I switched tactic and got my machete out. And so I snuck up behind him. So I had to get really close to this one. He was about 4 or 5 feet long.

Okay.

And I hacked down into the water and I had breakfast. So excited.

Wow.

I went and, you know, took the tail off and stuff and skinned it and roasted over the fire. That's how I ate everything. I didn't know how to cook Sure. So I charred it over the fire and ate some of it, and it tastes like fish.

Is that right? I was gonna say, now does it taste like chicken?

No, it was super disappointing. But you know, you got to find things to be thankful for.

So what was the hardest thing about that whole experience?

Being away from my family.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, um, the, the hardships and the difficulties of not eating and going for days without eating and bug bites. And I had thousands of bites over my body at one point. Yeah. And But being away from my family. Yeah, you know, I brought pictures of them with me.

Yeah.

And I wasn't strong enough to look at those for about 2 weeks because you pull those things out and yeah, that's all you think about is going home.

Right.

And there's this huge problem that I had, this dichotomy of, am I a good father and go home? Yeah. Or am I a good father and stay here and show my boys that with hard work and determination you can accomplish anything? Yeah. So fighting with that. And so it was a mental battle.

Did that, uh, experience again reframe life at all, make you think of things differently at all?

It's very hard to complain now. I do my best, yeah, to find things to complain about.

When my kids complain about something, I'm just like, you go, do you remember what I did? Exactly.

You have—

there's video.

Nothing to complain about. Yeah, exactly.

Um, okay, another very interesting thing about you is you do speaking. Yeah, I'm sure it's about your experiences, right? So, uh, how often do you speak? You know, where are you going to speak?

Yeah, so I've been able to travel all over. I was in London a few years ago, and I was in Canada a couple times last year, and all over the country. And I speak about once a month or so.

Yeah.

And I share the 3 main lessons that I learned when I was surviving cancer and in the wilderness.

That's so cool.

And it's a lot of fun. We have a blast going through it, and people laugh and they cry, and it's, it's really emotional and moving. And it's been really rewarding because I'll go and make some connections to what I learned out there through cancer and these different things I learned and how I apply them to my life and tell people about those. But then they come up to me afterwards and say, you know what you said really resonated with me in this area.

Yeah.

And every single time it's something unique and different, and that's really rewarding.

That's super cool.

You could never make that up. Yeah, it's, it's amazing.

What led us to attend the event today, we've been watching the Certain Path podcast on YouTube for quite some time. And it just had a lot of good content, so we wanted to come and see what that content was live. Coming into this, I had no expectations of what it might be. I've never experienced anything like this before, but it proved to be a truly moving and engaging experience all the way around. My most powerful insight from this is that there are other contractors just like me, just struggling to make it, to figure it out, and it's wonderful to know that there's a network of people that can help support you and have your back. The most exciting thing to take home here, what we're going to implement, is going to be the call-taking and dispatching for profit. I can truly see from the coaches what the value of that is, and for us, that's going to be step one. I would recommend others come and experience so that they can find out what they don't know, to understand that they don't know what they don't know, and to be able to experience a community that's willing to help answer that question.

I could end this podcast now and that'd be a good podcast because you're creating wild stories, uh, but there's this whole other side of you, you know, plumber, electrician, business owner, uh, so I want to pull on that thread a little bit.

Sure.

Um, how did you get into the trades?

Well, so my dad started the business, uh, he was— had a degree in civil engineering and worked in the mines in northern Minnesota.

Okay.

In the '80s, they laid a bunch of people off and he lost his job.

Right.

But he wanted to raise his boys there. I grew up with 3 brothers there, so 4 boys there. I have 5 boys now. We have a lot of boys in our family.

A lot of boys.

A lot of boys.

Yeah.

And, uh, so he wanted to raise a family there and just did whatever it took to make a living.

Yeah.

It turned into a plumbing business. He taught himself how to do the trade, and then he taught all of my brothers and I how to do it in various forms. And I'm the one that stuck around and kept doing it.

Yeah.

So I've been doing it pretty much full-time since I was 16.

When did he— when did he start the business? How long ago?

Let's see, so it was 1990.

'90, '90, okay.

And then how did the business—

was all residential service?

We did some new construction things to start with, but then in 2003 I was looking to either decide if I was going to work in the trade, the family business, go somewhere else, and I wanted to get married, you know, all these different things. And my parents were thinking, well, how are we going to make this viable for Luke as well?

Yeah, right.

And so they joined CertainPath. They went to one of the profit days And at the time it was PSI.

Yeah, PSI.

International.

Yeah.

Yep. And so 2003 they joined and I went to training and Carl did some of the training there.

Yeah.

So I give him a hard time about that now. He was one of my oldest mentors.

Yeah.

He'll be really excited I said that.

Right, oldest mentors. I like that. Yes, yes.

But I learned so much from him there and I was dead set against it. I thought this is never gonna work.

Yeah.

And I said, all right, but we're gonna try the straightforward pricing. And I did. And the first customer I did it for was just tickled pink.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, this works.

Right, right, right. Now I know you guys are doing, you know, recession hit, you guys, you guys left for a while.

That's right.

Yeah. You know, and then, uh, you guys came back. Well, did you come back at that point or were your folks still involved in the business?

No. So in 2020, my parents and I had been talking about this for years.

Yeah.

My dad wanted to go south for the winter, semi-retired, and run the business from the road. I said, you know, it's just not going to work, right? It's time. We've talked about this enough. Let me buy the business. And we sorted everything out and that took a while. But then when we finally did, he said, all right, the business is yours. And I said, you're fired.

And he goes, thank you. Yeah.

He's like, all right, great. We're out of here. And they left for Texas like the next day.

Is that right? Yep. What part of Texas are they in?

So they were in South Padre Island.

Oh, that's not bad. Yeah.

So it was a lot of fun.

That's cool.

But yeah, I took the business over from them and it went from 2 employees Yeah. To one, to me.

Right, right, right.

And I had to learn how to run a business.

How big was it revenue-wise?

Oh, we did like $204,000 that year.

Wow.

That was it. Yeah. So very, very small. Yeah. I did everything from, you know, some of the answering the phones. My dad did some of that, but everything in the field, all the parts ordering, everything I did.

Wow. And then you came back, I guess I wrote it down, 2021, right?

That's right.

Not long after.

No. So I took it over in the fall of 2020.

Yeah.

And then by January of 2021, I believe it was, I went to a Profit Day and said, you know, I bet you some things have changed.

Yeah.

You know, since we learned all this stuff and they're great things that carried us through, but I knew that we needed to update and needed some help with this if we're gonna do something with it.

Yeah.

And so I joined and I set a BHAG of growing by 500% in 5 years.

Yeah.

I wanted to hit a million in 5 years. That was the goal.

And you hit that.

We busted it wide open. We did 600% in 4 years.

That's fantastic.

So it was great with the help of all the coaches and everybody here at CertainPath as far as, you know, that work with it. But then also the members. Yeah. Oh, tremendous help. You know, just everybody there. And it's been great.

Yeah. People always go, how have you been in one workplace for like the last 20-some-odd years? I go, you— if you came to an event and met the people I get to work with in terms of members and then our own people, It's just a great community. It's like a family. I always say it's like a family. All right, let's rewind the clock a little bit. So you go to Profit Day, then you go to Executive Perspective. Let's see, back then, I guess we were in Texas by that point.

That's right.

Okay, what were your memories, your takeaways from EP outside of the BHAG that you shared?

Yeah, so that's interesting. There were so many things. It was like drinking from a fire hose, you know, but I've been told that Executive Perspective And so I will take 2 or 3 things away and say, all right, this is what we're gonna do. And one of the first things was get priced right.

Right.

You know, we just were so far off on that that we had no idea what we were dealing with. And I learned the importance of having somebody that would answer the phones. And so that was one of my first hires, is to find someone that would answer the phones and do that. And that was huge. So those were a couple of things right away that set us on the right path. Also realized the need for a PR team. Piece of software.

Yep, yep, yep.

And that was just huge because we were still doing paper invoices.

Sure, sure.

And yeah, we were in the stone ages there with some of them.

Well, I mean, there's a lot of businesses that are still that way.

Yeah, right, exactly.

How did things, you know, grow? It sounded like maybe pretty quickly.

I mean, yeah, it was really crazy to watch. We were always concerned that because we have a small market, there wasn't going to be enough room for us to grow there, right? So that was kind of what we were always worried about, right? But I started to realize that we actually didn't have any competitors. Nobody was doing what we were doing. And the level of service is just nonexistent in some of those places. And just simply answering the phone was, you know, beat out most of our competitors right there.

That's interesting.

That's interesting.

How did, in terms of truck size and people, how did it grow over the last, you know, 3, 4, 5 years?

As we've seen the need for more technicians, increased marketing, things like that, I've been adding some on there. And the first year, I had an apprentice that started working with me, and that helped a lot.

Yeah.

Because I was sitting— I mean, on my lunch breaks, I was doing Zoom calls and learning about pieces of software and trying to figure this stuff out and then do all the work myself. And so it was just unattainable.

Yeah.

And so I really needed somebody else to step in and to take over some of that. And that was hard.

Right.

That was hard to be able to let some of that go.

Sure.

And still supervise and, you know, see what's going on, but then go out in my truck and I just lived in my truck for probably 3 years.

Yeah, I mean, you were a high performer too, right? Because you were multi— 3-time Crown Champion.

That's right.

Yeah, that's why I thought so.

Yeah.

And then, so here you go, I'm like, but you pulled yourself out. So when was that? What was that, last year?

Yeah, for the most part.

Yeah.

Uh, what I decided is that I won the Crown Champion 3 times, and I was like, now the next goal is I want to put a ring on one of my technicians' fingers. Yeah, I want them to win that thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so now I'm focusing on supporting them and facilitating them to the goals that they have.

That's great.

And I can't wait until we get to have a Crown Champion.

It's coming, I bet.

Coming soon. It's coming.

How are you— I mean, again, small market, you know, technicians so hard to find. So how are you finding people?

It was very difficult right after COVID. It was, it was just tough. And we had a hard time finding people that fit our culture. And we were still trying to mold our culture into what it was going to be.

Right.

And so it wasn't until we really solidified what our culture was and what our purpose was, our mission statement and things of, you know, our statement, you know, is faith, family, fantastic service. That's what we're working towards. And our overarching goal is to go and support families on the Iron Range where we live, that mining community up there, because a lot of people raise children and leave. The kids leave because there's not much for work there, right? So in the mines or in the support industry. So they move somewhere else. So we wanted to go and facilitate young people of raising families there.

Wow.

And so once we found that, then I was able to market for the right type of person. And when somebody that supported that came along, we nabbed them up. And, uh, we've been trying to find people that are— worked really well for us is they're, they're running in maybe the last 4 or 5 years of their career.

Okay.

They know a lot of stuff, but they're still willing to learn and learn our systems or are familiar with something similar.

Yeah.

That will train young people.

Really?

And that's been great.

That's fascinating. So they're the whole career shift from becoming a technician at their later stage, and then they're willing to raise up some apprentices at the same time. Exactly.

And they want to invest in it. They want to see new technicians come up. And it's been great because it sets the standard for the new guys, the younger guys, which Millennial work ethic is a little difficult, you know, it can be. And so, but it really sets that, that elevate— elevates that to a point of what would be acceptable to us.

I do love that you focus on that, that those core values and how important that is. I know a lot of people— I know when we rolled it out years ago, I was like, oh, it's kind of fluffy. But then you're like, no, it really drives every decision you make, you know. And I think in terms of people looking for a career shift or a new career, start a career, go, why else— why wouldn't I want to work for a company that is focused like that?

Exactly. Yep. Now, so along that as well, we've also used a couple partner network companies. Um, used to be ApplicantPro, they were bought out by iSolved, and we've used them. That's been really helpful for us in getting quality applicants. I now have a backlog of applicants.

Is that right?

Every position I want. So I can really just pull from people whenever I need.

That's fantastic.

So that's really been helpful. Also, Culture Index has been huge for us.

Yes.

Just really to understand where people come from. And I'm just— I was so tired of trying to force a square peg in a round hole. And so much damage happens when you force them through that hole, right? You might get a round peg on the other side.

Yeah.

But look at the backside of it, all the splintering and everything goes on. And that's their family side, right? That's their life. And I didn't want to— it seems so unfair. to go and try to force someone into the wrong position.

Yeah.

And so using those tools has really helped a lot. It allows us to reduce the stress that's in their home-work life.

Yeah.

Your balance. Right. And then they are better performers at work and fit into our culture better. They're happier. And that's been huge for us.

Is culture index scores— is that a make or break kind of thing or you just at least you know how they are wired and so it helps you communicate with them better?

It can be both. When we, with the employees that we have, it really helps us understand how to communicate with them.

Yeah.

Right? The type of praise they like, for example, right? Do they like public praise or a quiet pat on the back?

Yes. Right?

And things like that has helped a lot. But with Culture Index, we've taken C-job surveys where a manager, the owner, the technician will say, what would the perfect CSR look like? And we take that survey and it brings us a profile of what we think the perfect person for that would be. And then we go and try to market for that person.

Okay.

And that's been huge for our hiring as well.

Finding the right person, that's step one, but obviously it doesn't stop there, right? So you got to train those people up. What does, what does training look like for you guys?

We meet once a week, Mondays. We'll go do some training with all the technicians and we'll bring in some of the, the CSRs so they can kind of see some of that if we're working on similar things that affect Yeah. Right. Communication between techs and CSRs. We want the CSRs there so they see that. And so we've been routine with that. We've sent them, some of them to Dallas, CSRs and office managers, emotional intelligence.

CertainPath training. Yep.

That's been great for the CertainPath training. And then all the online stuff and the Coach Connect calls and every opportunity we can, we're going through this training. And that's hard when you're trying to grow because I'm like, okay, that's time we could be making money.

Money. Yeah.

This is what we need. But it's so important. And especially this spring when things were slow, I had the option of laying people off or investing in them in training. And I said, you know, we're going to take this time, we're going to train. And we spent a lot of time training through things and making their scripts and everything. And that's been, that's been huge.

How do you decide on what you're going to talk about on Mondays?

It's—

I make lists over the course of the week.

Okay.

And so it basically is things we've run into. Yeah, for the most part, we're in the process of becoming excellent in our systems.

Yes.

And so there's a lot of changes that have been happening there, so there's no shortage of things to go over.

So who is in the— so how many trucks do you guys have in each department?

Yep, so we have 2 plumbing trucks, adding our 3rd right now, and then we have 1 electrical truck.

Electrical truck. So you are pretty much then filling that need of like a service manager, right? In terms of general management?

I do everything.

You do everything, right? Right. So I bring it up because I want to know how closely are you watching those tickets and how they're building options? Are you doing the inspections and doing all that stuff? Is that most of your day?

Yeah, that's part of it. It should be more of my time.

That's fair.

And so our next move is because I'm, I'm not the best on doing things routinely.

Okay.

And so I realized that there's some of the weaknesses that I have and I have to hire people for those things. And so I have someone that's really good at that, and they will be moving into the manager role for the technicians. And they're, you know, everybody wears lots of hats when you're small.

Yes.

Right. And so you have to have people that are flexible, willing to work on different things. And that's, that's been huge to find the right people for that.

Hey, let's be honest. If you're listening or watching to The Successful Contractor, you're looking how to get better, more revenue, more profit, more time, a happier team. You're a self-starter, an avid learner, all great things, but you can only learn so much from a podcast. That's why you need a coach, a system, some accountability, a network of 1,200 contractors, industry-leading training, all of that and more. You need CertainPath. At CertainPath, we offer a free discovery call with a CertainPath coach. It's real one-on-one conversations with someone who can help you, help you get clarity, get focused, and start making real progress. At CertainPath, since 1998, we've helped thousands of service business owners in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing build companies that run on systems, not stress. Businesses that grow fast and profitably, but also protect their time, their team, and their values. If you're working long hours, carrying all the pressure, or stuck at a ceiling, this call is for you. Our coaches have helped contractors go from $500,000 to $5 million, from $5 million to $20 million, and from $20 million to $100 million plus. Whatever your goal, CertainPath can direct you along a path to achieve it. So if you're ready for a real conversation with CertainPath about your business, your goals, what's actually in your future, go to the episode description and click on that link that says book your free discovery call. You don't have to figure it out all alone. You just need a proven path. And someone who's walked it before. That's CertainPath. Book a discovery call now. So you got the training part, right? So then the money starts coming in, right? You start selling some stuff, but obviously there's that whole part of the business that technicians don't have a background in books or KPIs and stuff like that. So what was that transition like? How are your books? You've worked with Sarah on our team. How's that been beneficial?

It's been helpful, especially this last couple months because We were good plumbers, right? We had the system down. We followed everything and did everything we were supposed to do. Then we tried to do this electrical side. And now I have to deal with electricians and they're different. They're different than plumbers, right?

They are.

So we're learning all this sort of stuff and we had to just pick a number out of the air of what we're gonna start with as far as our pricing for the first couple months. And we went with it and they were getting lots of work and doing lots of jobs. And I was kind of wondering, not really making any money. You know, what's going on here? And I wasn't watching the actual numbers of that new division as closely as I should have.

Right.

And so I knew our margins weren't quite where they were supposed to be, but I didn't know how bad until we really split it out. And I realized that my margins for the electrical were materials for 47%. Oh, it's just like, oh, okay, that's why.

Yeah, exactly.

We gotta fix some of this.

Right.

So it really emphasized for me the importance of watching the numbers. Yeah, I have it written on my whiteboard in my office right now. It said, check the numbers.

That's good.

And it's really interesting because this is what I learned when I was in survival mode and cancer mode and going through these, these survival experiences. It's a mental game. Yes. Getting through this stuff. And so often I had to tell myself, no, that's not true.

Yeah.

Or no, you need to do this. Right, even though you don't want to.

Yeah.

And being able to do that is so crucial. And I realized just last month, um, that the only reason I didn't look at the numbers was because I didn't want to know the truth. And that's hard. Yeah, that's hard. And you really got to come to grips with that and tell yourself, nope, nope, you're just being lazy. You don't want to know the truth, right? You know, and then that's the only reason I didn't.

Better to pull the Band-Aid off though than let it drag on.

Absolutely.

Now, how are you— do you use like a deemer or are you just using software to keep an eye on your margins and all that stuff?

Yeah, so we use the DMER and I'll review that routinely. I'm learning to read that better and look for some of these things now. And we're looking to separate out the electrical and plumbing so we have separate ones for each so that then we—

I know it's more work, but—

It's more work, but then we can actually track things properly and really starting to look at our closing percentages and things like that and work on some of those things as we've been throwing money at marketing. But if your closing percentages aren't good, it's just wasted money anyway.

So yeah, do you have a— correct, I asked earlier— a club membership?

Yes.

Very good.

Yep, Diamond Club membership.

Nice. So is that, uh, now combined with the electrical? They get both services?

Absolutely.

So I'm sure that's helped with lead generation.

That's been huge. Yeah. And especially with getting leads from the technician to technician from different trades. So the plumbers will go and say, you know, we're doing this whole home inspection for you, We just added electrical, and I see that you might have a few electrical issues.

Yeah.

Would you like the electricians to come out? And for the same service fee, they'll come and do that for you. And people love that.

Is that right?

They just absolutely love it.

That's fantastic.

And so we've been converting a lot of jobs from that.

Yeah.

And what I didn't realize before is in plumbing, something leaks or it doesn't, right?

Right.

But electrical, there can be a lot of problems that are hidden.

That's right.

It's kind of working, or one outlet works sometimes and not other times, and But there's issues behind the walls or safety issues that are there that the potential for helping people with larger projects is huge with electrical.

I was just thinking, there is— I mean, I know the model very well and there's that whole diagnostic and it's very similar to plumbing, but that diagnostic's different. So how do you manage that? Get back to that Monday training when you're talking to these, you know, these 3 guys, soon to be 4, you know, how do you manage training with them?

Yeah, so it's been a little bit where we have to separate some of it, right? Because trade-specific. But for the most part, with the scripting and with using the pricing guides, we've laid them out so they mirror each other. They're the same, same process for everything. Pages are laid out the same and trying to keep that as similar as we can so that they can go and do role-playing with each other.

Good.

And that we do all that and we always designate one person who's Gladys. And Gladys is— Gladys is our token homeowner.

Yeah.

And so they, they walk out of the office or the conference room and they have to knock on the door, and Gladys opens the door and introduces herself as Gladys.

I love it.

So yeah, it's a lot of fun.

So you're doing the role-playing?

Yep.

Good, good. I mean, I, I— it blows me away how many people don't do it. I know it's uncomfortable, but I mean, I'm sure you've seen their production go— it's driven by that, right?

Yeah, it is. And it's A lot harder to do in a role-play situation, much easier when you're in the customer's home. It's just more natural. So this is really kind of forced and awkward and difficult. Yeah, but we try to make it fun, right, by having Gladys, you know.

Yeah.

And we'll poke fun at each other a little bit and things like that. And so before too long now, I'll start playing Gladys and she's going to start getting pretty combative. Yeah, she's going to get much more difficult.

Getting ornery.

And we're going to do objections and things that way. Well, that's good. Have fun with it.

Absolutely.

It is necessary.

Right. So the clubs, that's been a great way to have recurring business, but still lead generation is where it's at. So what's been good for you in terms of finding leads?

So we've had difficulty with some of our print stuff. There was one newspaper that we spent, I mean, thousands and thousands of dollars with. And when we were going through where people found us, when the CSRs asked, you know, we had a list everything. I saw we didn't get a single job from that.

Yeah.

At all. And so we were just like, all right, we're not doing that anymore. And that was hard to cut the cord on some of those things, you know, that we've just always done.

Right.

But if it's not producing, we got to cut it. So now we have a digital billboard up that's really fun. And so we can change that ad whenever we want and we get good response from that. It's kind of fun because when we added electrical, now we have a picture of an outlet with water pouring out of it.

Oh yeah.

And with the question, who do you call?

Right.

Well, now you can call One's Place. We do both.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter if it's water or electrical, we can take care of it for you.

How did you decide on where to put that billboard?

Uh, it was the only one available.

There you go.

Simple.

High traffic though.

High traffic area there. And we built a new building and built that right off the highway.

Oh nice.

So we get a lot of exposure there. That's been huge. And we actually justified that with some of our marketing dollars to pay for some of that because it's great exposure. So that's been huge for us, but the wrapped branded trucks, you know, and techs in the white uniforms. And honestly, the best lead generation that we had this last year was there was flooding in our area and a lot of city sewers backed up. And so we're putting in backwater valves to stop that from happening. And my 14-year-old son with a backpack and flyers walking through there. Isn't it wild? It can work. Yeah, I literally, you know, paid him a couple hundred bucks. And, you know, he— the ROI on that was ridiculous. Yeah, probably $100,000 worth of work easily came out of that.

Some of that old-school stuff can be very effective.

It is. That guerrilla marketing is— it's been put signs in people's yards and some of that stuff, but it's really just being flexible and finding the thing that works.

Yeah.

And not sticking with the thing that doesn't.

Right.

And you got to track it, right? If you don't track it, then you don't know.

Yeah.

And so we're really working on that to have good numbers. And one of the things we realized is that we were asking people, well, where have you heard of us? And they would say, oh, we saw an ad in the newspaper. And half the time they're just making something up. And I was like, well, we haven't had an ad in that newspaper for the whole year and they're still saying that.

Or maybe they saw it 3 years ago.

Yeah, right, exactly. So we started switching to ask, where did you originally hear from us? And now that kind of changed things in their mind a little bit and they're thinking back to, okay, you know, I did— my friend told talked about having you, oh, you know, a couple years ago or something like that. And they, they, they start to remember exactly where they found you, and I think that's a lot more accurate info.

Yeah.

Do you—

I'm assuming you still do some digital stuff too?

Yeah, social media and things like that. Yeah.

What are you doing social-wise?

Uh, so on Facebook, we have a Facebook page, and a friend of mine does, uh, social media marketing.

Oh, okay.

And so it's been great to hire him and work with him on that. And yeah, we also did, uh, some ads with a company called GeoTarget that will go and someone walks into a store and that's a geofenced area, and if that's a product or type of customer that we want, it will geotag them to that, and then when they play Candy Crush on their phone, they'll see our ad. And that's been really fun to see. So a lot of people have seen that and generate some stuff.

That's cool.

Yeah, very cost-effective too, very surprisingly.

Very good. You mentioned the electrical. What made you decide to branch off into that?

I wasn't sure how big our market share could be with just plumbing.

Right.

And so I wanted to grow and I didn't want to get stifled with a smaller area. We, within an hour's drive, we have about 100,000 people.

Okay.

If we want to travel outside of an hour, then there's another community, Duluth, we could get probably another 100,000.

Okay.

So I wanted to make sure that we were still growing and still moving, and I realized the need for electrical. Work in our area.

Yeah.

That nobody really does what we do with flat rate pricing and service for electrical.

Yeah.

It's all time and materials, pretty much everybody I know of.

Interesting.

And so I saw a big hole there.

Yeah.

And I said, all right, I'm going to do this in a couple years.

Okay.

And I put it in an article I'd written in one of the local papers we advertise in.

Yeah.

And, uh, one of my neighbors stopped me at my mailbox and said, you know, I retired a few years ago.

Yeah.

And he said, you can use my license And I'll help you with this.

Wow.

And so he stepped right into that, and we did it about a year earlier than we expected.

Okay.

I told, uh, I told, uh, my coach, uh, Denisha and Sonya, I was talking to them, and I said, so we're gonna start electrical. And they're like, oh, I don't think this is a good time, you know, I don't know if you're ready for this yet. I said, too late, already happened.

Already happened.

So I'm not, not asking for permission, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically started it and then said, "All right, help me fix it." Now help me fix it.

Exactly. Hey, it's different.

A little different business. That's right.

But no HVAC.

Maybe we went one day next year.

Oh gosh!

Do they know that? No.

Now they do.

Get ready.

Get ready. It's an even different model. That's great though. But like, I think you like the challenge itself.

Yeah, absolutely. You got to keep your foot on the gas and keep going. And I'm the type of person that when I go on vacation, I get bored and I start a new business.

Right.

So yeah, I've done that before. So I need to keep moving.

And I can tell by going over your whole life history up to this point. Yeah.

If things aren't stressful, I'll create stress just so that there's stress.

And you have 5 boys at home.

Exactly.

Right. So I mean, there's stress everywhere. They're just running around. Exactly.

But I realized that after the fact, after we started electrical and saw the benefit for our customers, that we'd been doing a huge disservice to them by not providing this.

Right, especially a small community like that. If you're telling me the level of service is not good, I mean, you can fill that need.

Well, we had one month last December 2024, I had to refer probably 3 jobs to an electrician, 4 jobs maybe. And I started looking at that job because I sold the plumbing side of it and customers were telling me about the electrical problems they had. So I just tallied it up in my head and was like, you know what, I just handed about $100,000 worth Yeah. And these electricians that came through, I followed up with some of these customers later, didn't do even close to what was there. I mean, they probably on 4 jobs did a total of $10,000 for the work.

Yeah.

And I just realized that these people still have this problem.

Yeah.

They've still been complaining about this. It's been a problem for them for years and nobody helped them with it.

Right, right.

So I just can't be referring someone that's not going to follow the needs of the customer.

Makes you feel bad.

Exactly. It's just like, this is not what the customer needs.

Yeah. As you've grown from Chuck in a truck to now—

My dad's name was Chuck. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.

Well, that's just perfect. But one guy, now you're adding people.

We're up to 9 now.

9 people. So obviously you've had to grow a lot and now you're leading people. What have you learned about your leadership capabilities, what that needs to look like as your companies continue to grow?

Sure. That was something that we've always tried to hire apprentices when I was working with my dad. And they would leave after a little while. And I had to have an honest conversation with my dad at one point. It's just like, I don't know, am I something, someone people can follow? Is this really going to work? And started to have to look into that a little bit. The more I've realized just with the culture and attracting people is that I have to work on myself to be able to properly lead people.

Yeah.

And so the emotional intelligence training through CertainPath was great and some of the manager training and reading books from Simon Sinek, Start with Why, all these different things, Leaders Eat Last. There's been so many helps and resources out there that I've had to dig into and then really understand how to effectively help people.

Yeah.

And, and part of leadership is— a big part of it, I think, is encouraging them to see a little bit more of the big picture, right? So that they can work for it on their own, right? And if we have a common goal that we're all working towards, then people take different paths, and that's great in a business because they do things different ways and they're all working towards the same path. If someone deviates from that a little bit, then we can bring them in line by saying, here's the goal, right? This is what we're working towards. We should all be working towards that.

Yeah.

And really having a clear goal of where we're going has allowed me to help lead people in an effective way.

How much do you spend time on Mondays or just through casual conversations talking about big picture type stuff like that?

Whenever we introduce something new, especially for technicians, we always talk about about the big picture, right? I say, all right, we need to have better communication in this way with the technicians to the CSRs. And the reason for that is the CSRs don't know what the heck you're doing out there, you know, and they're blind. And, you know, or calling back into the office and adjusting the job type from a repair to replacement.

Yeah.

Because the customer, if they're not home— we have a lot of cabins in the area— they will call and ask the CSR, oh, how'd the project And they're like, oh yeah, we've fixed the leak. And they said, but I got an invoice for replacement and it makes us look like idiots. Yeah. And so that was a big part of that, is just show them the future or show them the reason for why we're doing this and the benefit of it. And they really are more on board with it then.

It creates more of a team environment when everyone knows what you're doing and you're rowing in that same direction.

Yep. If you like the CSRs, you're going to help them out.

Yeah.

Right, if you have good relationships with them.

Yes.

So you really have to start with culture.

Yeah.

You know, if people don't like each other, they're not gonna see the benefit of helping this person and doing extra work when it doesn't directly benefit them.

Do you do a lot of like one-on-ones, or is it just more just private conversations 'cause the size you're at?

Yeah, it's a lot of private conversations with some of that stuff, you know, when we need to direct someone a little bit.

Yeah.

Especially with the technicians, most of them are not extrovert really. real social type people.

Okay.

So praise in public forums is not really what they want, you know.

But again, you figured that out.

Yeah, exactly. I had to learn that. So now we do it this way. And I have some that I really want to win the ring, right? The Super Bowl ring, you know, and get that crown champion.

Yeah.

But they probably will not be walking the stage.

Okay.

Right. That's just not them. Not their personality.

So I'm not going to have them on the podcast in the spring. They might be able—

We might get one of You might be able to. Okay, you might be able to talk them into that. Might be able to get one of them.

Okay, okay, that's cool. Back to the leadership part of it. You know, you said you mentioned different classes you've attended. I also know you've made a big investment to be a part of Brandon Marshall's Lions Pride program. So for those that, you know, we got a lot of non-members that watch this. Sure. And heck, there's probably plenty of members that still don't know what it is. Can you kind of just lay out what what that program is all about?

Yeah, the Lions Pride has been great. It's really helpful. able to have a connection with somebody that's helping mentor you.

Yeah.

Right? And, and someone that wants you to succeed more than them, that's huge, right? I always tell my kids that about the only person in the world that wants you to beat them eventually is your dad.

Yeah. Right?

I want them to be better than me.

Absolutely.

And Brandon has been that for so many people, and that's just been a tremendous help. He really honestly wants you to succeed and do whatever he can to facilitate that.

How frequent are those conversations?

So we meet once a month as a group with all of the Lions Pride members in our group.

Virtually, right?

Yep, virtually. And that's been a really big help for a lot of people to give perspective. And then, as a great way to learn is to teach people.

Yeah.

You know, and so it solidifies some of that stuff in your own mind when you say it. And then I meet with Brandon once a month.

Yeah.

So there's 2 meetings a month basically. And then we We meet twice a year in a regional event, and one time for our group, our level, Brandon would come out to our place for one day.

How do you feel like it's impacted you personally?

It's helped me grow a lot. My relationship with Brandon has grown a lot. There's opportunities and doors that have been opened as a result of it. It's helped me understand kind of and solidify more of what my focus This is what my goal is.

Yeah.

So it's been a lot of reinforcement in that.

Yeah.

Because when you go and create a culture that you want to create, you know, have, and you're, you're kind of going off out into the wilderness a little bit in this, you're not always sure about it, right? And so now it's really reinforcing a lot of that stuff and allowing me to see the need for that.

Yeah.

That's been huge. I love it.

Okay, so we already know you're adding HVAC next We'll play. I won't get you in trouble. I won't bring it up. I'll let them learn on by watching.

That's right.

Where do you see the business in 5 to 10 years? You're a young guy. What are you hoping to grow it to?

Yeah, I set another BHAG. We went to EP this last year.

Okay.

So did another— for those that don't know, a BHAG is a big hairy audacious goal. And so we set that at $10 million in 5 years. Whoa.

Okay.

That's what we want to grow to.

It gives you something to shoot for.

Exactly, that's right.

How much has the organization just kind of helped you in general, walk with you throughout these last few years as you've been growing the business?

Especially starting out, the coaches, you know, Julie was my coach to start with and she was just a tremendous help, you know, walking us through the process. And there's so much information, there's so much to do that you have to pick just a couple of things. And I'm constantly, you know, coming to these events and expos and different things. In learning all these different things, I'll write many of them down and say, all right, I want to do that, but it's not necessarily the right time right now.

Right.

And so having a coach that understands that has been really helpful.

I love it.

Just to be flexible and work with us on our pace and then also pick up the pieces when my pace is all of a sudden much faster than they think it should be. So it's been a little bit of, you know, Give and take there.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love it. Well, Luke, thank you so much for all your time. I'm looking forward to having you on in a couple of years when when when when we're almost that ten million. Maybe maybe maybe it'll be sooner than five years. I don't know.

That'd be great. I'd love to.

Yeah, very good.

Well, thanks for having me. It's been great, and thanks for everything that you guys do at Certain Path.

Oh, appreciate it. I hope you've enjoyed today's show. If so, please like and subscribe on YouTube. If you're on your favorite podcast player, please leave us a five-star review. The 2 seconds you take to leave a review will help other success-minded contractors like you find us and hopefully get a little bit better, which elevates our entire industry. And please join me for future episodes. This has been The Successful Contractor powered by CertainPath. The Successful Contractor Podcast is part of the CertainPath family. CertainPath builds successful home service businesses and has for 25 years. We do it by providing contractors with a proven path to success. Professional coaching, software solutions, and a member community of 1,000+ strong. Doubling your sales with a 20% net profit and an inspiring company culture is all possible. Let us show you the way. With CertainPath, success is made certain. Visit www.mycertainpath.com for more information.