Glen Osvold Transformed Colonial Electrical Services in 18 Months by Buying into the SGI System & Getting His Team Excited to Change, Too.

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Well, I explained to my guys, I said, I don't want you to sell.

Exactly.

'Cause if you try to sell somebody something, they're not gonna buy it. I want you to show the customers and just inform them. And then give them the option and let them make an informed decision on whatever you're trying to— I said, I don't want you out here trying to push people or trying to sell anything. And they didn't wanna do that.

Exactly, exactly. But they picked up on that, that they understood what you were explaining and they didn't push back too much.

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, one tech that worked for me, Sam, he's been with me for about 10 years, he said, I wanna go back to every house That I ever did a service call in because I feel like I did the homeowners wrong.

Oh wow! Holy cow! So he is all bought in.

He bought in 100%. That's great. I feel like I was wrong because I would go in and just fix the problem, right? Not check anything else for him. Right.

Welcome to the Successful Contractor Podcast, powered by Success Group International, 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.

Hey there, podcast listeners. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I love what I do working with SGI. It's because our members are so inspiring. They're determined men and women who aren't afraid of change and are willing to change for their own betterment, but also the betterment of their teams and their community. What truly inspires me is to see new members jump into the SGI system both feet first and see immediate results, because it is possible with the right mindset and work ethic. Today, I'm talking to still a relatively new member who's demonstrated that great things can happen with great effort and will. I'm talking about Glen Oswald of Colonial Electrical Services in Yorktown, Virginia. Glen joined SGI a little bit more than 18 months ago. In that time, he's drastically changed his business in almost every way imaginable, As you will hear. And his team has bought in as well. Glenn's making more money at a better margin, and he's no longer chasing the dollars he used to earn from general contractors. Glenn's proof that self-starting individuals with some guidance and direction can make immediate improvements to their business and life utilizing the SGI model. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Glenn and pick up a nugget or two.

Well, Glenn, thank you so much for being here. I'm very excited to get a chance to talk with you. Can you kind of share with everyone your name, your company name, and where you're located?

I'm Glenn Oswald with Colonial Electrical Services, and we're out of Yorktown, Virginia.

Very good, very good. And can you kind of share with everyone what's your company look like? What kind of employee makeup do you have?

We have about 15 techs in the field. They do— it's a mix of some commercial, but we've pushed Over 50% of them now are doing residential service.

Right, right. So you've only been with SGI, for those listening, seeing this, for 18 months or so, right? And you were all commercial at that point, right? So it's been— or mostly.

We had 2 techs doing residential.

Okay, so it's been a big transition for you guys, and I know you've been very busy in implementing the model, talking with Sonya and some other folks.

You've been—

you've had a lot going on, especially with the whole COVID thing too. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of All the change you've been doing. I always like to dig into people's stories and figure out how they got into this crazy business. So how did you get in the trade?

My father was an electrician.

Okay.

But he never would go in business for himself.

Really?

He always worked for somebody else. I tried to talk him into going into business together, and when I went into business, he was kind of like, you're a joke. He was. He passed away. He's not here. He's never actually seen me be as successful as we are. It kind of bothers me over that.

Yeah. Was he always— was he in residential or was he in commercial?

He was actually in commercial.

He was in commercial. Okay. Well, so when— so I guess you just grew up maybe riding shotgun with him on calls and stuff like that?

I actually, yeah, I've helped him several times and he would do stuff for people on the side work.

Sure. For sure. So how— so when— so who did you work for his company then for a while?

No, actually I didn't. I went to the union for a while.

Okay, okay.

I went through the union apprenticeship.

All right, very good. And then you decided at some point you wanted to do this on your own?

Yeah.

Where was the entrepreneurial spirit? Where'd that come from?

I've always, always wanted to own my own, be my own.

Okay.

It's just always been.

Okay. When did you open up?

I've had a couple partners.

Oh, okay.

But no, we've been in business under this name for the last 12 years.

Okay, 12 years. Very good. And Colonial, I guess that's because of just the region you're at. It just seemed like it would work well. Right? Okay. Okay. So talk about— so 12 years you've been in business. Mostly, you know, commercial. You said you did some construction before too?

We did. When we first got in business, we did whatever we could do to make a dollar.

Right, right.

New homes, it didn't matter. And then we found out new homes were not—

there was no dollars.

There's no money in that. Right. And we found a niche in medical commercial. So we were doing medical commercial and a little bit of residential service because I knew that was a good market, but I didn't know how to capture the market.

Right, right, right. So, but for 12 years, I mean, you're probably making some money. I mean, it sounds like there was a lot of headaches though.

There was a lot of headaches.

Just trying to— there's slim margins. What were some of the issues?

Getting paid, getting paid from the contractors. That's the biggest. They— general contractors make you jump through hoops all the time.

Right.

And don't want to pay you for the inconvenience.

Sure, sure. So you're like, okay, there's got to be something else. So did you know you joined SGI? Did we find you or did you find us?

It's funny, Eric Upton came to my office and told me— I saw him last night and I thanked him— came in my office and told me, you've got a problem with this, you've got a problem with this, and you've got a problem with this. I said, I do. He said, I've got the solution for it.

Is that right?

And I was like, well, I'd be stupid not to let you talk about it.

Yeah, that's interesting. So you go to Profit Day.

We went to Profit Day.

And you were— you ready to join before you even got there? I hear the story sometimes. People are like, I know what it is. I know I needed some. Other people like, I don't really know so much.

I'm gonna be completely honest. We went to Profit Day. My wife and I went to Profit Day. We signed up. We're a little leery.

Yeah.

Flew to Texas for EP.

Yeah.

Sitting in the hotel before we'd ever gone to EP the night before, and we're going, I hope we didn't sign up for like one of these condo scams or something like this.

Yeah, right, right. You're locked in forever. You can never leave.

I'm like, I don't know what we signed up for, but I'm— like I said, we were at EP having cold feet.

Sure, sure. It's a lot.

After we got out of EP, I was like, this is just the Oh, good.

So you did stick through the first— I thought you were gonna tell me you flew back home and then got talked into coming back again.

No, after we went through EP and they gave us the price book, and when they first handed me my first price book, I said, I didn't come here and pay all this to get the same amount of money. We need a—

A bigger one.

Oh, good.

So you were charging not terribly then?

Yeah, I was like, I want a higher price book.

Good. Nice. Okay. Okay. So yeah, let's dig into EP a little bit. So you're ready for a higher price book. What are, you know, 2 or 3 things you recognize right away? that you needed to do when you got back?

Well, I was— the service fee, and I was like, nobody's ever going to pay that.

Right.

Nobody's ever going to pay that.

Yeah.

And then when we came back, we implemented the service fee. They were paying that. And I have a service manager, and he was like, these people calling wanting the same day are killing us. So we went to a $129 same-day service fee.

Right.

So, if you call that day, we're $69 normally and $129 if you call that day and want somebody that day.

And they pay it.

I was just amazed. I was floored.

Convenience. It's convenience. So, who was handling the phones for you then?

I actually went with CallPoint.

You went with CallPoint? Okay, very good. So, they know the scripting and that takes that burden off you. So, they— You know, and they're just booking, you know, $129 for the same day?

Same day. $69 for a scheduled appointment. $129, $249 for after-hours.

And we That's great. So boom, service fee immediately.

Service fee immediately.

That's great.

I never thought they would pay it. And then we played with it, lowered it down some, and the calls were just— it was like, no.

Different clientele.

Don't ever change the service fee.

Yeah, that's interesting. I know that's a big thing a lot of guys, they struggle with, because I mean, like, it's a lot of money, but people pay for convenience. So what were some of the other big changes? We talked before we started recording about uniforms and some reluctance.

When we were an EP, I was I was dead set. I was like, my trucks are wrapped. There was a black and white logo. And I said, they're wrapped. They're not wrapped, they're lettered. They look good. I'm never changing that. Well, after looking at everybody and talking to everybody, now I've got fully wrapped trucks. And then my guys, they said, oh, you need to put your guys in uniforms. And I was like, no, they've got nice t-shirts.

Right.

But once we put them in uniforms, the morale boost it gave them and the way they felt more professional about it all.

That's great. So they bought into it right away?

Some of them. I had trouble with a few.

A few, sure, sure.

I mean, it is what it is.

Yeah, yeah, but that's great. There was no upheaval. You know, I've heard of that story before where everyone's like, this is crazy. So you had, sounds like some pretty good guys that were on staff at that point, or still do, right? So you didn't have a huge turnover?

We—

Or some?

We had probably about 30%.

Okay, okay. Yeah, that's not— I've heard again, the whole tech room leave, so.

But I mean, we changed a lot really quick.

Right, right. For sure. So, okay, so we got uniforms, floor savers, I'm sure. Right, right. Do you guys do mats or—

Oh yeah. I had masks imprinted with the company logo on them.

Yeah, yeah. Very nice.

Hand sanitizer.

Yeah. But little like mats, like around the work areas.

They've got the little red mat to roll out at the front door. When I heard that idea, I was like, that's— I've got to have that.

Right. I mean, it's just an immediate impression, right? Very good. How about like guarantees and stuff like that? Did you— I mean, did you always kind of— I'm sure you always stood by your work, but did you have stuff printed like, you know, these are the certain guarantees and warranties we offer?

No, we didn't have anything printed.

Okay.

And that— the book, the book made all the difference in the world.

So you got the guides. So you said immediately, I need the higher price guide. So did you— I guess you got the file from us and got it printed up?

Yep.

Okay. Did you do much tinkering with it inside at first?

Funny story. The first price guide I did, I changed like 2 prices for permits.

Okay.

Stuck my company logo on the COVID of it, printed it.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna stick around. I'm not— they say this works. I'm going with what they say works.

Right. So did you run those first calls? Or did you have one of your guys run it and try it first?

We all kind of did one.

Yeah.

And the first call I ever did, I popped like $4,500. And so I told my guys, I said, look, I went out and did $4,500. I mean, you It works.

Yeah, right. That's great.

It works.

Yeah. Now, did you go on any training or anything, or did you just say, hey, I'm just going to give it a shot?

We did. I quickly realized that the key to it is training the guys.

Right.

So while the price guides were being printed, and we were working on all the paperwork, proofs and all that, we logged in the Hub and started playing videos. 30 minutes every morning we do with them. Every day.

Great.

Yeah, and you have—

it's a lot of change, so you got to really work on it.

So they watched all these videos, and they've watched them all to where they can, they can recite it word for word as it plays.

Yeah.

Because they've seen them so many times.

Yeah, yeah. But that's great. They're on board though. They're willing to, to do that and everything. So, uh, now you said you're getting things printed up, I guess, was the inspections and stuff like that. Did you start doing that right away?

Yeah.

Okay, very good. And they were on board with that? They were willing to do the inspection? That's the thing that's kind of hard sometimes.

I got it. I grabbed it all really quick and I explained to them, I said, you do the inspection to build the ticket, to give them the options. And my guys took to it and they found that 60% of the GFCIs they tested were bad.

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Smoke detectors are wired wrong. Bad or wired wrong, which would still be bad, need to be replaced.

Absolutely.

And the smoke detectors. So we sell Tons of smoke detectors and GFIs.

Right, right. And I guess what your guys just explained to homeowners, I didn't know it until I— because I'm not a tradesperson— until I got into this. They have a shelf life. I just figured they're there forever, right? It's 10 years. Homeowners don't know that, you know, and that's what— it's part of the education process.

Well, I explained to my guys, I said, I don't want you to sell.

Exactly.

Because if you try to sell somebody something, they're not going to buy it. I want you to show the customers, And just inform them.

Right.

And then give them the option and let them make an informed decision on whatever you're trying to— I said, I don't want you out here trying to push people or trying to sell anything.

Exactly.

And they didn't want to do that.

Exactly, exactly. But they picked up on that, that they understood what you were explaining, and then they didn't push back too much.

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, one tech that worked for me, Sam, he's been with me for about 10 years. He said, I want to go back to every house that I ever did a service call in because I feel like I did the homeowners wrong. Oh wow.

Holy cow. So he is all bought in.

He bought in 100%. That's great. He's like, I feel like I was wrong because I would go in and just fix the problem and not check anything else for him.

Right.

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Welcome back to the show.

In the first half of my conversation with Glen Oswald of Colonial Electrical Services in Yorktown, Virginia, he shared his journey in contracting and outlined some of the huge changes he made after joining SGI. In the second half of our chat, he'll explain how he's helped educate his team on how to build service tickets. He'll talk about how he keeps his team accountable. He'll share how he's finding eager young people to add as technicians to his team. He'll talk about the exciting future of the business, including some new divisions he's recently started and a whole lot more. So let's jump back into the conversation.

How about the options? Did you guys practice building options and stuff like that? How did they— how did that education process work?

We were on the Hub. Every day. There wasn't— the Learning Alliance thing hasn't come out, and we're getting ready to join that. But we were on the Hub every day playing them these, finding a new video. Rebecca Castle, I think, said 400 videos on the Hub, and we've probably watched 400 of them.

That's funny. Okay, so they got that. And then, so now, were you looking at tickets as they came in, talk to guys and try and coach them through that?

Yeah, because we had— they had problems building the tickets Correct.

Sure.

They wanted to do the lowest price option top, and I was like, oh no, no, no. They had to kept— then I would like à la carte, like a menu. I was like, no, no, no, it's 3 options, right? So it took a while to get them to, right, get that built right.

So you were just looking at the tickets coming. Were you having one-on-ones with guys, calling them, or you just talk about it every morning?

Every morning. Every morning.

That's great. Now, did you do like a scoreboard or anything right away?

We have not.

You've not done that yet?

Scoreboard, it is drawn and hanging in the room where we—

Oh, okay, okay. But we have not No.

Started actually recording the numbers on it.

Okay. So yeah, that'll be another little rocket boost, I think. I'm sure you guys want to get that going.

But that's great.

Everyone's on board. They're looking forward to— they're changing. They're buying into it. Are you still doing the daily training, or have you got it more like a weekly thing now?

We do daily, every day.

Is it a huddle, or is it really training for 30 minutes every day?

It is training. Sometimes we'll cook them breakfast. I went and bought a grill.

Oh, good for you.

Put it in the shop.

Yeah.

Like on a Monday or Friday, because thanks to SG, I learned on Mondays and Fridays they don't quite learn as good.

Yeah.

They'll show up and we'll just cook them all breakfast.

Yeah, that's great. So what are you making for them?

Most of the time scrambled eggs or fried egg sandwiches with bacon and cheese.

I'd make sure to show up on time for those days. That's great. So that's great. So you're still training that much, and the guys are into it. And there's also value. Everyone's getting together every day. Right? So I'm sure it's picked up morale in the company.

Yeah, and what I started doing was reaching out for manufacturer training.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Because we wore the Hub out.

Right.

Like I said, they're so sick of the videos from the Hub, so I started looking for manufacturer training, and we've done some conference calls with different manufacturers and stuff like that.

That's good. What is your— what's your— that 30 minutes, so you're playing a video, but they're not all 30-minute videos. What else do you talk about? Do you talk about some The goods and bads from the previous day, or what's that?

We'll use it to congratulate them, or— and I don't call anybody out. We'll go back over, like if I see some tickets that were wrong, I'll just go over, this is, you know, some people aren't doing the tickets right. This is the way the tickets need to be done and the options need to be laid out.

Okay, very good, very good. You said you did have a little turnover, right? And in this industry, we're always looking for good people, right? Because you want to grow. So what are you doing to try and find people? Do you have apprentices, or what are you putting into place for recruiting?

Well, I actually have some apprentices, and you'll think I'm crazy for this. A friend of mine has a trade school, and I started teaching night electrical classes for him.

Wow, okay, that's a commitment. How often are you doing that?

2 nights a week.

2 nights a week, but that's a great way to get in front of people. Have you found some leads yet on some young people?

I've got some guys that There's 2 that are getting ready to graduate, and I think I'm gonna hire both of them because they're great. I just want to see how they came out because they're the, like, first 2 that have finished this class.

Yeah, that's exciting. So what made you think to do that?

Like, a friend of mine had the school, was starting the school. He did HVAC.

Okay.

And then he added electrical and plumbing. And so he came to me, he was like, look, I'm having a hard time finding a night teacher. Can you help me out with—

So you were just doing it to be helpful?

And I was like, This could work out.

Okay, so you put 2 and 2 together real quick.

This could work out. I said, yeah, I can come help you.

Yeah, how long you been doing that?

About a year now.

A year? Okay, so not, not too terribly long, but is that, is that like summers too, or is there any breaks there?

No, there's breaks.

Okay, I was gonna say, now you're gonna be burnt out.

And to be honest too, I also swung a deal with him where I stuck 2 guys in his school, and so I don't even take a check. I just— it covers their tuition.

Okay.

Oh cool.

All right, very good. So have you had to hire licensed electricians? I mean, when you've had these few spots that have opened up, what are those people— where are you finding those people?

A bunch of different places. Finding good help is hard.

Right, right, for sure. That's why I'm asking you.

And I've come to the conclusion of, like some people say, is hire for attitude and then train the aptitude up.

Yeah. So where are they? The 3 guys or so that you've had to bring on, are they guys that were in residential or commercial that you tried and you saw some personality and said, oh, I think you could maybe learn the system?

Actually, the one guy, he was commercial and he'd always worked— we hired 2 together. So sometimes I don't get it, sometimes an electrician's— 2 guys want to pair up and they don't ever want to leave. And the guy that he was paired up with was just not Oh, okay. But he was always like, I won't say apprentice because he had his license.

Yeah, yeah.

So I finally pulled him off to the side. I said, look, you can really do this.

Yeah.

And you don't need to hang around with him.

Right.

I gave him some incentive and he's just shooting rocks.

Is that right?

Maybe his buddy was kind of just kind of limiting him a little bit.

Well, his buddy just came in and quit.

Is that right?

Yeah, Monday.

Yeah, I mean, if you don't want to do— if you can't— if you It's a different system. It's certainly not showing up and just turning wrenches, right? There's more to it, a lot of communication to it. So what's that onboarding look like? So this new guy starts, does he just ride along with your other guys for a while? Do you have him sit in the office and watch those videos?

Well, we make him watch the videos, and Jeff and I kind of butt heads over it a lot, who's the service manager, because I'm like, he wants them to ride along for a month, and I'm like, if they're not getting it in 2 weeks, Because I saw somebody else from SGI and they're like, no, it's 2 weeks. 2 weeks from the time we hire them to the time we put them in the truck.

There's a lot of— I've heard lots of different things, but yeah.

I mean, if they've got electrical experience.

Right. Okay. Okay, sure.

It shouldn't take them a week of watching some videos.

And you're training every day. I'm sure they're sitting in on those things every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, very good. How do you talk to your team? I mean, do you have— again, you've done a lot in a little bit of time. We always talk— a hot button topic lately has been performance management. where we talk about, you know, we'll sit down with the guys one-on-one and talk about their development and what, you know, here's some things we can help you with. Do you do that kind of stuff, or is it mostly a group setting at this point?

It's mostly a group setting, call out one-on-one when we have a problem.

Okay.

But there was a lot of insight yesterday in everything that Gus said.

Yeah.

A lot.

Yeah. I was going to say, there's a lot of value coming into these events. I mean, you've only been here a day, right? This is your first expo. That's a crazy thing. So you haven't had it— have you had a chance to start talking to some of the other fellow members?

Oh yeah, I'm a talker.

Yeah. So it's nice, there's lots of great nuggets, you know, it's nice to see what other people are doing in their businesses. There's always something to pick up.

Right.

Yeah, very cool. Oh, you know what I didn't ask you about is, you know, the financial thing. We always talk about using a Daily Management Essentials report, and we have certain KPIs to measure your company against.

We're in the process of it.

Starting to dig in?

My wife is working on all that. We're trying to switch. We were using a management software, so we're in the process of switching to ServiceLine.

Oh, are you? Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, that's exciting.

Yeah, she's— she reeled me back on— I've been trying to get her to jump in and she's been reeling me back. You're making too many changes. Just give me a break.

I mean, you have done a lot in a very short period of time. But no, that's great. I mean, that's going to be exciting because once you get that in and you know, you know, every day where your numbers are, you know, You can tweak. But you're a good-sized company, but not big enough. You can still be able to review tickets and see when your hot-button things are.

I look at every ticket every morning.

Right, right.

They turn in all the tickets from the day before. And I still— we have iPads for dispatch, but I still love paper.

Yeah, yeah.

So they bring it, they have to write everything on paper. I take all the paper tickets in the morning, I sit down and review them all.

Sure, sure. Oh, I totally understand. Have you tweaked any kind of marketing yet? I mean, obviously you wrapped the vans and the trucks. That's a big investment. right? And that's a huge marketing vehicle right there, no pun intended. But yeah.

We went— I— well, the website I had was junk.

Oh, okay.

So I went to the marketing type guys, worked with them, because that was before this placement. Yeah, placement SEO. Tweaked a really— they built me an awesome website. I love it.

Okay.

Um, then they started with the SEO, which I didn't do any of that.

Okay.

So there's been a lot Okay.

Has that been your main source for new leads?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that, the trucks.

Right, right.

We get a lot of calls from the trucks because our trucks are really loud.

Yeah. Oh, are they? What are the colors? I don't know that I've seen them.

Yellow and blue with Paul Revere holding a light bulb on the side.

Oh, wow. So you can't miss those things.

And the hoods say, the servicemen are coming, the servicemen are coming.

Is that right? That's great. That's great. Now, did you just come up with it yourself, or?

The hood, Jeff and I, the service manager came up with it. The actual wrap itself, I went on the SGI Facebook page, posted a picture of my lettered van, told them I'd bought some new vans and I needed to wrap them. And it's actually— I took all the ideas that came back from them on the Facebook SGI Electricians, took them to a graphic artist, he came up with that. I posted it back on the Facebook thing because I loved it immediately. And I had one member send me a picture of the Paul Revere statue.

Oh, nice.

So, and when I posted them back, everybody was like, that is it. You've got to do it. So they're yellow with— really stand out.

So that's been— have you really noticed the jump in calls and stuff from before?

We get people who call just strictly because they say, we saw your truck.

Right. Because that's a big challenge to me. I mean, and I think that's something a lot of guys struggle when they come. It's like, okay, I'm all commercial and you're telling me I need to start this new division basically and get away from something I've been doing. And now I, you know, and you've done— you were doing some residential before, so it wasn't completely new, but still, that's a, that's a big change, right? And where do you find all these new calls at? So it just sounds like you did the wraps, you did some, some online stuff, and you've been staying busy, right? Yeah.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah, we're, we're comfortable. If we book out too far, when we start getting booked out too far, we see a lot of cancellations.

Okay.

So we're comfortable right now. Everybody has something to do every day.

Yeah.

And we still get a couple cancellations because we're too far out.

Sure, sure. Who's doing your dispatching?

Jeff does all the dispatching.

Okay, very good. So he knows what guys are good on what kind of jobs, and he's got that all— he's got the dispatching for profits figured out.

Yeah.

Okay, very cool, very cool. So you've done a lot in just 18 months, but I'm sure you sound like the type of guy to me that have a lot of big aspirations and things you still want to do. So what do you see the next, you know, next year, next 5 years?

I just signed up for ASI.

That's what I thought I saw that in the database.

Okay, signed up for ASI because of COVID The resorts where we live laid off all, all their maintenance people. Oh, so I picked up a couple HVAC techs that were from the resort industry. So they have the HVAC experience and have the customer skill set, but they didn't ever have to charge them.

Right.

So we've got to teach them to charge them and also to get them out of the mindset of just get the unit going and look at it as a whole.

Right, right, right. So when did that start? When did you launch officially?

We joined probably about 30 days ago.

30 days ago. So have you started, uh, started calling your electrical database yet?

We had Minuteman Press do a flyer.

Okay, okay.

Out to all our customers.

Great.

And the calls have started to pick up for that. We're not really pushing it because my guys need More time to get right.

Who's, uh, who's gonna sell for you? Are you gonna— is your service manager, or are you gonna—

I'm, I'm gonna— I've got one guy in mind, okay, that came from there with— that came in with the resort to run that side.

Okay.

But for the meantime, I'm working with him.

Okay.

Him and I are working together, and I— my goal is to make him the service manager.

Okay. No, but that's who's gonna run all your lead— like the sales. Who's gonna sell, sell the equipment for you?

Oh, well, for now it's gonna be him and myself.

Okay, very good. Have you, have you looked at— are you gonna try and adopt the Airtime sales model, or do you have something in mind?

Oh, you know, this funny thing is I printed it. I'm a believer in the book.

Yeah.

The Straightforward Price Guide. I believe— I don't care if you gave me whatever book, I don't care what number book.

Yeah.

My guys will sell it.

Yeah.

I don't— the price doesn't matter.

That's great.

I ordered my airtime book. I'm in a 250 electrical book, so I ordered a 250 airtime book thinking, oh, well.

Yeah.

And I feel like I made a mistake. I'm getting ready to go back and either get a 300 or a 350.

Just because you're just the guy people are just saying, yep, no problem.

Yeah, I just feel the prices are too low.

Yeah, good for you. To me, that's the biggest thing I find with members is getting that mindset in the right place, that, hey, I'm worth this money, right? Because you guys are skilled tradesmen, you're showing up on time, you're backing up your work, you're worth what you— you should get that amount of money.

So, well, we already in 18 months, we joined, they gave me a 1-something book, I left EP with a 239.

Okay.

And in January I went to $250.

Okay.

In electrical.

Yeah, yeah. So you just were like, you just were like, we need to keep going.

Yeah. Oh, they, they say raise the prices every year, so.

Right. Yeah, that's true. At least, at least once. At least once. So the margins have been, been really good on the residential business? That's exciting. That's exciting. So, okay, so HVAC, and then so you're just gonna— that's your, you know, you've just got a lot on your hands trying to grow these 2 businesses.

Well, I've got my state license already to do Plumbing also.

Oh, really? Okay, so you've got some, some big, big plans.

I've got big, big plans.

I love that. That's great. Well, wonderful. Glenn, I really appreciate your time. This has been, been really exciting learning your story and hearing about, you know, what you've done and where you're heading. So I appreciate it, and thanks for sitting down and talking with us.

Thank you for having me.

All right, buddy. Thank you. That's Glenn Oswald of Colonial Electrical Services, now Colonial Home Services, in Yorktown, Virginia. Thanks for listening to the show. If you feel like you have a great story worth sharing that would also help other contractors, email me at bhouchin@yoursgi.com. Also, if you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a rating.

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