30. Leadership: The Company You Buy (Everyday)

Hey, my friend, welcome back to leadership in a nutshell. This is episode number 30. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Today we are talking about the company that you buy every single day. And you might go, wait a minute, Kenny, I'm not in the market to purchase. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the world. There's all kinds of changes and challenges and different things taking place. What are you talking about? I'm not buying a business. My friend, you buy every single day. Whether you own any of the stock in your business or you are a leader in your business, whether you're a community leader, whether you're a family leader, you are buying every single day. And today I just wanted to share kind of this exercise that I rolled out. I recently had the opportunity to do a keynote speech at a Blue Collar Success Group event. And I was on the session and I was talking about operator DNA and I wanted to share this kind of the exercise I ran through because I want you to think about the purchases that you make every day. Now, these might be mental purchases. These might be intrinsic purchases. These might be purchases with your time. Let that land for a minute. They might be purchases with your time because your time is actually the biggest asset that you have. We all have different amounts of money in the bank. We all had different levels of skill and education, but we all share the same amount of time. You might challenge me on that, and I would love to have an offline conversation. Hit me up kennykennychapman.com and let's talk about time, because it's such an important topic here. So here's what I want you to think about. And regardless of your industry, I just want you to think about three different types of companies that might have some similarity to what you do or the type of company that you manage. And so first, I want you to think about what type of that you want to run. Like, let's go kind of dream world, if you will, kind of perfect, ideal. What would be the ideal type of a scenario or situation? I want you to just give that a thought for a moment. And while you're kind of thinking through that and coming up with that in your mind, I want you to think about three different types of companies. My company that I founded, oh, wow, man. It's been a decade ago now. The Blue Collar Success Group coaches a lot of in the trades, and there's programs and trainings and coaches and all, all types of stuff available specifically for the trades. When I say specifically for the trades, I Mean, you know, really changing behavior and helping people get out of their own way is a lot of what we do. And then I'm able to focus on what we're doing here today, going into the psychological side of things. My book, the Six Dimensions of Change. I've got a. An upcoming book about purpose and guiding leadership through purpose. That's where I hang my hat now. And so I want to share this from a psychological standpoint. So again, insert whatever company type that you have or whatever into this exercise. But here's what I did. I want you to think about three companies. One is a plumbing company, one is an H Vac company, One is an electrical service business. Those are the types of companies that operate. It doesn't matter what the names are. You can insert any names that you want. One company, let's say the plumbing company does $4 million in revenue and has a net profit of 500,000 a year. The H vac company does 2.5 million in revenue and has a net Profit of 350,000 a year. And the electrical service business does a revenue of $2 million a year and has a net profit of 175,000. Plumbing, 4 million at 500,000 net. H vac 2.5 million at 350,000 net. Electrical service, 2 million at 175,000 net. Here's my question for you. Which company do you buy? And I want you to just think about that for a moment. And again, if you're in garage doors, I want you to think about that. If you're in the chiropractic business, want you to think about chiropractors or massage situations or different, you know, companies that would resonate within your own field and scope. But I think regardless of your immediate vertical, if you will, I want you to think about what this looks like for you. And so we had primarily plumbing, heating and electrical contractors on this session that I was doing. And, and I had them type in the box. We were doing a virtual meeting, so I had them type in the zoom chat box about which one they would buy. And we had all different people choose all different companies. Now we can all agree that all of them are doing, you know, multimillion dollars in revenue. All of them are doing, you know, from high single digits to low double digit net profits. But they are profitable businesses. And so then we think about the psychology of why. So when I want you to think about which one of those businesses would you pick? Let's say you don't have any trade experience like I did, not when I bought my first small Drain Cleaning Co. April 1, 1994. Had no business being in business, didn't know anything about plumbing or the trades, and now have built multiple national companies and helped all kinds of people all over the world, from 500,000 to hundreds of millions in revenue and everything in between. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew the type of company that I wanted to get involved in and serve. I want you to think about that for a moment. Would you in this case, buy a $4 million company that nets 500 grand in plumbing? Would you buy an H vac company at two and a half, at 350 grand? Or back to that electrical service business? And so what's fascinating is we get to the why Some people said, oh well, I would buy the plumbing company. Why? Because I'm a plumber at heart. I'm a plumber, I'm a master plumber. That's what I know. I'm third generation. I'm. I would buy that company. Cause that's what I know. Other people said I would buy the plumbing company. Why? Because I'm an H Vac and electrical company now. And I see that I could add plumbing to that. It's already a $4 million business. It's gotta have some structure, it's gotta have some management in place. It's gotta have some things that I could bolt on and make my overall offering more valuable, if you will, more profitable, more in depth, more, you know, overall overreach. So I want you to just kind of take a step back and go, okay, for the operator that I am, the manager that I am, the leader that I am, why am I making these decisions? Because if we circle back to the way that we do anything, is the way that we do everything and what you got up today and started to execute on or the tasks, if it's early in the morning and you're with me here, the things that you did yesterday reflect the type of company that you are buying every single day. I was able to buy a small broke drain cleaning company and start my scaling process from there. When I got into the coaching and training business, I ended up launching the Blue Collar success group as the founder from scratch. Now I don't work in the day to day operation of that business. I've got a phenomenal team that allows me to focus on things like this right here, where we get to connect at the psychological level, at the higher leader level to help you, help you get out of your own way, to help you really think about what am I doing every day? What is my task list? Why am I doing the things that I'm doing? And perhaps why am I not doing certain things? If I look at buying a plumbing business, I think pain. If I look at buying garage doors, I think opportunity. Why? And then here's what I want you to think about, and I'll let you go for the day in just a moment. What were the reasons that you bought? Was it because of the trade? Was it because of the size? Was it because of the revenue? Was it because of the profitability levels? Like, what was that? How did that show up? But then let me ask you this. Did you think about buying any of those based on your own confidence, your own desire, perhaps the culture, perhaps your own clarity? What would be the most fulfilling for you? In some cases? What might stretch you the most? What might challenge you the most? You. To take a step back today, my friends, and really think about this. Regardless of the trade that you're in, you know, how are you showing up? Why are you showing up in the way that you are? Because every single day you do purchase, you purchase with your time. And as I mentioned before, it's such a powerful asset. I just really wanted to take a moment this week and have you take a step back and go, huh? Am I buying what I'm doing every day because it's the best thing for me to do, or am I buying, you know, time? I'm buying things with my time. That. That's what I've always done. When I think about the opportunity in what I'm doing every day. You know, if I'm a plumbing contractor, we see too many times in the trades where somebody gets to a certain level in revenue. Oh, I gotta add another trade because all my clients want that. Rather than getting really, really super good at what you do. There is no wrong answer here. When I rolled this exercise and some of the plumbers that raised their hand and said I would buy the plumbing company, why? Because I'm already a plumbing company. I already do 2, 4, 8, 10, 20 million in revenue. This is a tuck in business. I can easily tuck that in. If this is 4 million already doing 500 grand in net profit, I could tuck it in and send more of that to the bottom line. Nearly half of that becomes from gross margin to net profit. Holy cow. I could probably add another couple hundred in net profit, if not even a million in net profit. Adding it to my own repertoire now. Okay, so I want you to think about. There's not a bad answer, but there's only an answer of honesty for you, for your own truth, for who you are, how you operate, why you do what you do. Think about it. What's the company you buy every single day? What's the company that you are choosing? I'm Kenny Chapman, your host of Leadership In a Nutshell. This is episode number 30, the company that you buy every day. Do me a favor. Give me a rating, give me a review, and share this with somebody. I'm working hard on growing this community, and I just want to hit you 10, 12 minutes a week to get you thinking outside of your box and helping you manage that driven mind that you've been gifted with. I'll see you next week. It.