$1.8M Business. $0 in the Bank. Here’s Why.

When we get audited, it would be a freaking shit show.

Today we're in Tennessee visiting Blair with BEC Innovations.

You know, I would love to be retired at 40. Not having to work for money sounds pretty sweet.

This year the business is on pace to produce $1.7 million in revenue.

What are you dabbling over here in the 1.8 and 1.9? Like we're looking at the 3.5 million? Like, where are you at? Right, we're over here.

But the company has over $120,000 of credit card debt.

I have done a terrible job selling it. I am not a good salesperson.

We're gonn reset the way the business is built.

This is pretty standard for you, but I'm much more comfortable selling large projects.

Blair had to take a $145,000 HELOC on her house in order for the business to survive. Worse yet, the business checking account has a negative balance. No one wants this business right now. I think we can agree on that.

And she's got her home and her livelihood on the line.

That has no multiple. Like no one wants to buy a custom build remodeling business.

That was a good idea. You know, I hope that works and it's not going to cause more problems.

This is the business Turnaround show. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 190 locations around the world now. I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. Then it becomes like, how do I market, how do I expand, how do I actually make this happen, get more trucks, etc.

Right, right, right, right. I mean, it's a little daunting, but you know, everything that I do is a little daunting.

I love it. You're.

I'm Blair. I own Beck Innovations. We are a residential remodeling company.

Yes, they're doing 1.8 million in revenue this year. But in their kind of working capital checking account, there's negative $300 right now.

What started out as kind of a handyman company has now morphed into much larger projects, more resources that are needed, much more expensive insurance, you know, all the things.

And across all their accounts, like I think about $17,000 total. And last month they did $177,000 in re. They have approximately three days worth of cash flow right now. That's extremely risky because what I've always.

Heard is that the area that we're in right now, which is 1.5, 1.8 million, is kind of hell on small business because you're not a small business. You have the overhead and responsibilities of a bigger business, but you don't. You have not the projects and the revenue of a big business. And so it's kind of this, like.

Hellscape of the middle that's extremely risky. And it's sounds like they've already tapped their home equity line of credit, basically took another mortgage out in their house. And so they're already kind of tapping out their. Their ability to be able to stay up with this cash flow problem.

So I would really like to punch through this weird purgatory situation as quickly as possible. And I just kind of don't know.

How to do that. The thing that's really interesting is they had this goal of selling the business in three days. I don't think. I'm sorry, three years. I don't think I've ever had a turnaround where they're that clear. Like, within three years, we want to sell the business. So, like, what I say to them is going to be completely. And so what people always see in these turnarounds is like, why did you say this to one person and this to another person? It seems like they're contrary. It's like, well, no, this person wants to sell their business three years. This person wants to grow their business by 10x over the next 20 years. So, like, how I approach it will be very, very different. And so for these individuals, the entire lens has to be through. We're trying to sell the business by the time she's 40. That's the goal. All right, well, then we'll work backwards. Like, I am not here to tell them what to do in terms of their goals. I work with what their goals are, and then we work backwards.

Hello.

Good. How are you doing? And what was your. Rusty. Rusty. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. And are you doing the admin side of things?

Yeah.

Okay. Very cool.

Profitability was. We're probably doing better than we were last year, which is great because she's been pretty on, like, track with her goals and how it's all forecasted. Like, so our team has scaled down, but everything else seems to be going up and up and the calls are coming in. It's not like there's any shortage of, like, hey, we gotta get people interested in what we're doing here.

Hi. Hey. Blair. Good to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Awesome. This is a cool spot. So how much of it is, like, square foot is the office versus, like, shop space?

About 1500 and 2500.

Cool, cool.

So it's pretty decent.

Customers will actually come in here sometimes.

And no, we try to not have them come here.

Got it. Okay. Usually you're trying to meet them on site.

Yeah.

Very cool. You want to kind of maybe show me around a little bit?

Sure, sure, sure. Let's go this way.

You rent this space?

Yeah, we rent it. So we've got a ton of space out here. We keep all of our project back stock over on this side in a grid system that we've set up. We've got a staging system.

Our various jobs, and then pretty much everything out here is tools, random material that somebody said they wanted off of a job site, you know? So we're working on a project right now that is a historical renovation of an exterior and then a bathroom. The siding on this historical house was basically just like melting off. And so we are rebuilding it from the ground up, more or less. So we had to do foundation repair and framing. The roof goes on later this week, and then she gets a brand new bathroom. All of the tile, all of the waterproofing fixtures, et cetera, are all staged over here. So they're ready to go.

Yeah.

So we have really focused on homeowners. We're licensed for commercial, but we prefer working with homeowners. And our favorite areas are historical areas.

Cool. So then this is the back space, kind of all the shop space.

Yep.

And then up front, is it just your office and Rusty's in?

Tosh and Rusty both have offices as well.

So Tosh is she project on projects?

Yep.

Okay, got it.

My name's Tosh. I'm a project manager for Beck innovations. I like to have fun. Pick on each other. You're in the way, dude. We're gonna leave this the same. We're just gonna add blocking here and move these out.

It's already hot. Feel that humidity.

We're about to put on some long sleeve shirts.

You know what sounds good?

Long sleeve shirts. Where's the thought in the bag? Hi, guys.

Good morning.

Team meeting to do's and daily logs. We just went over that. Any questions? Nope, Sorry.

We're going on to the next.

Work is work until you realize it's not, and you get to do really cool st and working with a really cool team. I like being a part of bigger things as far as, like, connecting to people.

So how did you kind of get into it?

Accident.

Really?

Yeah.

Did you do your own project and you're like, ah, I'll make a business with it?

No, no, no. So we have, you know, the closest thing to a hobby we've ever had is renovating our own house, you know, and so we moved into this neighborhood with a bunch of people who don't know how to work on their houses. So that was my way of forcing my husband to go meet people, was by, you know, hey, go get, like, a six pack of beer and, like, go help your neighbor and whatever. Whatever. And then it was like, oh, maybe we should charge, like, something. And it was like, oh, maybe we should, like, get licensed and, like, have a business and all the things, so. And now here we are.

And this was her, you know, her baby and her business, and she's got her home and her livelihood on the line for all of these, you know, seven families who work here. Supporting her in that and trying to implement things, and her trusting you to do that. And you're hoping these, like, that was a good idea, you know, I hope that works and it's not gonna cause more problems.

What were you doing beforehand?

I worked in corporate construction.

Okay, so this is already something you've been doing for a long time.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Got it.

No, we've both been in construction for over 15 years each.

Got it. And is he working the business as well?

Yeah.

Okay.

And is he out in the field with the team? What's his sort of role?

Yeah, so he's a field tech. He wants nothing to do with the management of the business. He is smarter than the rest of us and wants to go home and go to sleep at night. Good stuff.

Blair has literally cut her teeth in starting a new business in this field and then growing it. Majority of people would assume, oh, a woman's just gonna fail. Cause they don't own this industry. But then when you really put it into terms, it's like, nah, dawg, she's got this dialed in.

Is it four team members in the field?

Three, but we're interviewing another person. So we're trying to figure out if it's gonna be number four.

Got it.

And one of our guys is about to leave at the end of August for six weeks. Cause he's going on tour. So we're trying to. Like, there's a lot happening as far.

As the airlock goes. If y' all are going in and.

Out a lot, we can leave this unzipped as long as we shut the okay.

Right.

Well, then we can just zip this one.

Yeah.

I've been here for, like, two years or something. It's good, man.

I'm still here, so.

So turnover in this industry, but it's good People, man.

And then Last year was 1.2. This year, expecting, like, what?

Last year was 1.5.

Okay.

And this year we're hoping for 1.8. We're a little bit behind.

Okay. 1.8. Somewhere in there. Yeah, kind of. What's that flow? Like, are you on sales? And that gets handed over to Rusty once. Project management. What's kind of the flow between people?

So I manage business, sales, et cetera. So I'll manage pre construction, and then we'll hand it off to our project management team, which is Tash, and she's already on site.

I really want to work with a team that cares. Not only cares about homeowners and care about what we're installing, because I feel like that gets lost a lot of the time, especially in production. You just. It's just like a blow and go. You go in, you get it done, you get out, and you're just like, I'm done. You have to have a passion for this, and you have to care and. Yeah. I feel like we found the. Or I found the niche. The.

And Rusty and Tosh manage kind of the financials and the project and the process and all that stuff.

This was the yard sign that we'll put in that looks like a caution sign. Mm. It's supposed to be like, what's going on at that house? And we hang this up. So. Because we had a project where the neighbor wasn't too pleased with some of.

Our subs, there's this glowing sign behind me that has a QR scan on it that this is very recent, actually. It was like, we need to come up with a way to not only brand ourselves, but also, look, if there's a mess or we're causing problems, if we're. If we're the stirrer. Go over here and take.

Take your phone.

QR code, scan it and let us know.

So this is an immediate. Not only another happy customer, but it's like. And you can contact them if you're not happy with anything without having to disturb your neighbor or maybe you didn't know.

Do you ever come back on job site or like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, got it. So sales, but then kind of also wrapping up the project, I'm assuming, kind of just making it throughout the things are gone.

The goal is to. Yeah. Make sure that we are delivering what we promised we were.

And how many of the projects are custom? Like, a lot of the bathroom unit. Okay. So everything's custom. Got it.

Yeah.

And so a lot of times you're going in you're doing a design. That whole process is.

So sometimes we work with third party designers frequently really. But one of the things that we're talking about doing is hiring someone who is sales and design possibly combined, call them a pre construction specialist so that I can remove myself from that portion of business.

Got it. I'm assuming that's a pretty difficult to find though because they have to have the skill of actually looking at the job and knowing what to do.

Right. I mean, but you know, I'm such an analytical person. I've taught myself how to work with people's ideas and thoughts and everything else with the constructability standpoint. So it can be taught. But it's always like a question like what is the next step?

Right. You don't have anything to sell if the business can't run without the owner. And right now the owner is both the owners are in operations and admin sales. The business is not built on systems and it doesn't have recurring revenue. It's basically worthless. And then your goal is really to sell the business in like three, four years. What's sort of that like goal? Because I want to work backwards from that because that changes kind of everything in terms of what I would give.

I mean that's like a pipe dream. You know, I would love to be retired at 40, but that's probably not realistic, is it?

Is that a number that you want to hit for like by 40? I want to be retired. Is that.

I would love that. Yeah.

All right. So three years, that's three years from now.

Yeah, it's kind of a pipe dream. I don't know if I'll actually be able to like.

But you know, not having to work for money sounds pretty sweet.

The business is not built on systems and it doesn't have recurring revenue. It's basically worthless. I'm going to try to say it in the nicest way possible, but if you're trying to sell the business right now, it is worth nothing.

And so if you're going to change in the next three years, we've got to really, really focus on the thing that seems to be working half decent, which is this recurring revenue package. Tell me a little bit about the home team side of things. So what is that? I looked on the website. It's $99 a month subscription. It's kind of like a, I guess inspections each month, quarter. What does that.

So it's preventative maintenance. We provide filter change outs, all of the maintenance stuff that you should be doing on your home that most Homeowners don't do because they don't know how. And so we come in quarterly. It's $100 a month. We just come in March, June, September, and December and handle seasonal stuff. Cleaning gutters, all that stuff.

When I got here, that was when I was learning about Blair's business model. I was like, oh, that's cool. Like a subscription service for maintenance. Like, okay, why didn't anyone else think of that?

A former employee's husband just of, like, randomly came up with it. It was like, oh, my God, that's perfect.

And I'm always, like, kind of expecting, in my experience in sales and that they're, hey, what is this again? Like, I haven't seen you in two months. Like, out of sight, out of mind. So I'm. But I'm surprised that people are. They love it. And if they get behind, they're like, we just want to, like, please don't cancel. We want to catch up, you know, so it's like, you're fine, you're fine.

And how many customers are on that now, do you know?

14.

Okay, so it's relatively new, or has it just been kind of on the side?

It's not new, but I have done a terrible selling it. I'm not a good salesperson.

Okay.

And I've challenged Paul to, like, sell more.

Is he one of the technicians? Yeah. Got it.

He's our handyman, so he's kind of the face of this side of our business.

I haven't seen anyone go all in on it. They are already. It's. It's working for them right now. Like, if on their website, like, it's. They're pushing it, and it sounds like it's working. And is there someone dedicated to that division directly, or is it kind of like, hey, once a quarter, we kind of send the crew out and knock out this 14.

We just have Paul do it.

Okay.

So he schedules his own stuff, and we use calendly. We're getting into some other, like, software CRM stuff that'll help with some of that.

But those 14 customers doesn't make him full time doing just the home team.

Correct.

Got it.

He's.

He's on other projects, doing handyman stuff, et cetera. Correct. From, like, handyman to renovations versus, like, home team, which is a smaller piece of it. What's the kind of, like, the breakdown of revenue?

Last year we had around 75,000 in handyman. That included the home team.

Got it.

And then everything else was construction.

Most people, though, they say, well, it's not really working. But then like you look at their website, their advertising, what they upsell customers and they don't even mention it. It's like a side thought. It's like, oh, it only makes up 10% of our revenue. But if people actually realize that that 10% of revenue is making, let's just call it 20 or $30,000 a month has greater value than the $200,000 a month of one off projects that you're doing. And if you're trying to sell the business and optimize for a second sale, you would focus more on that recurring side of the business. And so I just want to get them to focus on that. Even if the business does a million or 1.2 million in straight recurring revenue, that will have a higher valuation than a business 2 or 3 or 4 million in these one off free models, projects, new builds, etc. Hey everyone, real quick, just wanted to say thank you for watching the video. I really appreciate it. I'm on a hike, it's on the weekend. But I want to say thank you so much for all of your support. Those inside of Augusta Nation that joined Copilot CRM. I joined home service. Web design is really what makes these turnaround shows possible. We've the whole team out there. There's no cost to the business owner and it's all because of the community support. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Now back to the episode. It's one off income. It's no guarantee that revenue coming back. But if you can build this one thing they got going on, which is this recurring maintenance, we go, it's $100 a month like a subscription. I'd rather sub out all this one off massive installs and remodels and then just focus on that. Because right now doing complex renovations and new builds, no one's paying a multiple on that right now. It's very hinging on your ability custom work and that's challenging to hand off to someone else in terms of a sale. And so if that's the goal, I would really be like, okay, how do we restructure this around the home team and really emphasizing on that. And that could be a function also of just like how do we upsell existing customers in our database into this home team thing? How many people right now are in the database? Like just from years of history? Is that a thousand? How many customers contacts do we have in there?

Probably 750.

Do you think most of them we pitched the home team kind of service or is that it's been just not really emphasized much to them.

I don't think that we have done a good job selling it to them at all. So Paul is running handyman, so we are increasing his handyman responsibilities.

The handyman service, like the recurring one, is that what you're talking about?

No. So that's in addition. So handyman, they just hire us for blocks of two hours, but every quarter we do preventative maintenance.

And then usually when someone does sign up for it, is it after their renovation or their project and like, oh, it'd just be nice if you guys check things out once in a while?

No. So most of the time, these are people who are hearing from other people who have been on the subscription package, or they are people who are handyman clients. And they're like, you know, Paul's talking to him like, hey, you're paying 275 for two hours, whereas you could get this amount of work and more on the home team for twelve hundred dollars a month, a year.

You know, Paul is a salesman. Like, he has always. I think he was trying to sign you up. He's always wanting to mention it, and he's always mentioning to people.

Have you ever considered rebranding to the home team?

Yeah. So we've kind of stopped for our small projects. We're trying to 1 not. Not call this handyman. We're trying to call them small projects, and then anything for the small projects. We're trying to call that home team as opposed to Beck Innovations. Beck Innovations. Feels like somebody said to me one time, it seems like you're building skyscrapers with a name like that. And it's like, okay, well, we want to be approachable. We want, like, people to feel comfortable calling us and, you know, doing all the things. And so part of it is just the softness of the name, I guess. But it's not super memorable either.

Blair already has the foundational pieces to rebrand the business to something that's much more memorable. I happen to think that the home team, this brand could be really strong if it was put on the trucks. If the logo has changed, I don't want to. I don't know what bec innovation does, but the home team, this is memorable. This is something that customers will remember and their neighbors will remember the community remember this. If I clash this all over my truck. Yeah, I really like the home team and leaning, even like the font leaning into, like the baseball jersey kind of collegiate vibe. Very memorable. The home team, it also is like, I'm on the home team, like there's so much slogans you can do all over it. And then I think it lends more towards the handyman, simpler services. The subscription side, which is more sellable, the project side. I think there's a really easy way to like, hey, let's figure out your funnel and your sales process and grow this thing to 5 million. I also then say, okay, if you want to sell in this, call it three to five years. Even that has no multiple. Like no one wants to buy a custom build remodeling business because there's not any longevity of that revenue. I have no guarantee that someone's going to come back to me. And if I lose two or three technicians, I'm out of business. When I hear the goal of the entrepreneur is I want to sell the business, I think how do I increase the amount of people that could buy this business? If you only can sell this to five people in your local market like that have this kind of industry experience, you're not going to get top dollar. But if you make the business in a way that is quote, simple and boring, then you're able to sell it to anyone that has enough money and therefore the valuation goes through the roof. And so focusing on simple, boring things makes money when it comes to valuations and selling the business down the road. And because that's her goal, that's what I'm building towards. I would be hesitant to keep scaling what's currently happening if we're trying to sell the business. Because the only buyer that can come along is someone that has your experience.

Yeah.

Which is difficult.

Yeah.

Like we just like narrowed our buyer pool by like 99%.

Right.

Versus we build a business where it's like, hey, you need to come in here with capital and if you want to take us from 5 trucks to 20 trucks, here's the path and we have the subscription and every single month it's been growing and our turn rate is this. That becomes a very sellable business. And your multiple is probably two to three times more on that compared to a construction project based jobs.

Yeah.

Situation. Then the challenge becomes focus on that versus growing top line. Because growing top line looks like you having a salesperson, you having another project manager, you probably getting very, very good at like the sales process of big projects. And if we're going the direction of, let's call it small projects and the home team, very different business model. This becomes a marketing and sales play. This becomes much more like we go out and we are trying to get 750 people to convert 200 of them into this plan. That's $20,000 a month. Yeah, it's only 10% of revenue, but that revenue, that 20 grand of revenue a month and recurring is worth more from a sale perspective than $200,000 of one.

Yep.

And so that's the part where it's like, okay, which way do we want to go? And if the sale is what we're optimizing for, I would just be like, okay, we're gonna have to reset the way the business is built.

Yeah, I mean, it's a little daunting, but, you know, everything that I do is a little daunting, you know, so it's like, you know something, we've gotta start somewhere. Next right? Step. Yeah. And trying to make progress and not.

Worry about perfection from a subs perspective. You do some of that now, right?

Oh, yeah.

Do you feel pretty confident in your subs like that you could lean on them quite a bit or like, as right now, it's like, hey, they're decent at some parts, but like, we've got to kind of fill in the gaps.

We do. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, that's been a big push for this year, is adding to our bench.

I think that looks really interesting in the long run. If we can lean more on the subs for doing of the work. And then we become the person that facilitates the home team and we make sure everything is up to spec. It's up to our standards.

We kind of knew in the background. You know, it's like, we don't know if these subs are gonna work out for us or not. And then you start saying, like, yeah, we're surpassing them. I think you got a little glimpse of that in the meeting today. They're 40% are kind of coloring outside.

The lines a little bit. I called them out when they were using the wrong caulking on Darby the painters. Yes, I noticed that quick.

So then it becomes, well, how many subs do we need in this area?

And then it becomes much more of a systems game. It's like, hey, if you're on the home team, here's the point CH list that we go through. And if there's problems with one of these, we will go find one of our vendors, we will do the work, and we will bill you. That makes more sense to me in terms of trying to sell it.

I think the hardest part of this in this industry, gaining the buy in from subcontractors. And we're on the same team as you because all they are are extensions of Beck Innovations. So we have to be very intentional about the subs. That's been a very hard part.

The challenging part sometimes with this is the staff that you currently have going into that model and like what the transition looks like. Right. Because even right now I think it could take three years to transition most of your revenue from 1.7, 1.8 of what we currently do to let's just call it 1.5. But all of it's recurring.

Yeah. I do wonder if some of the repetitive tasks that come with doing the same thing for a month at a time and some of those things might get kind of boring. A lot of these guys really like variety. They love being on different kinds of projects and seeing different clients and all the things. So there might be some repetitive nature with that. But I think that selling additional services would be something that would keep them kind of engaged, incentivizing towards additional sales.

Where do you see kind of the holes in that strategy?

My fear is I am not comfortable selling that thing, you know, And I know that lawn care care is kind of a similar situation where you guys sell lawn maintenance and all the other things. And so this is pretty standard for you. But I'm much more comfortable selling large projects because it's like, okay, here's the path that we follow, etc. Etc. My concern is finding people who are interested in it or want to proceed. Even as a consumer, I hate recurring bills. Maybe I'm not the norm. If that's a concern for some people, how do we fix that? If it's not a concern for some other people, how do we play that up?

The 14 people that have currently purchased the $100 a month, have they stuck around for a long time? So there is a market for it. But I think from what I'm hearing, it's like we don't really emphasize it. It's kind of just been on the side. Yeah. Okay. I think one way to kind of prove to yourself whether or not it works or not is just simply messaging all of your existing database. I would have guessed if I had to imagine out of 750, maybe 50 or 100 of them have even heard about what the home team offers. It's function of educating the customer as to why this is a better option than waiting for the heater to break down. And so it becomes a marketing play.

Our team has been very receptive to the changes that Tasha's brought in that Blair's come in. Crazy ideas like social media. We did a big five year anniversary party, so it's like anything you want them to do in a video. So pushing this and leaning heavily into home team I think is a great idea.

And so if we're optimizing for the sale, that's where I'm like, okay, can we get 500 people, people in your service area to accept this service? We've only done 14.

Yeah.

Can we get 50 to 100 though? If we really dial down what does that offer? What is the offer? What does it include? What even if you surveyed like, I would go to the 14 customers that's done it for a long time. Like what do you like most about this? And then just double down on that in terms of how we then pitch it to the 750 people in our, in our database, those 14 customers will tell us what to pitch to the 750.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what our clients will want. You know, right now we go to a lot of showrooms and stuff like that, trying to show people different options and all that. So that wouldn't change. And so we'll see how clients will receive that.

I guess A couple things I had questions about. So right now we have a couple looming things. One is the rent and like this facility. Yep. The next is the just from a liquidity perspective, like we have the credit card debt, we have the heloc. How tight are we? Because I'm trying to figure out how we actually focus on the new recurring side of things and where we need to go. And then we have this whole shop space thing, how we can solve that. But a lot of it comes down to the fact that we have a bit of a liquidity crunch in terms of just cash available. There's hardly any money in the bank. They kind of have this profit first mentality where they have some cash set aside for taxes and other things. But even if you combine all of that together, it's on $18,000 that I see on the balance sheet. That's not a lot for business. It almost $200,000 in revenue last month. And what's worse is their kind of working capital checking account has a negative balance of $300. From the balance sheet that I looking at, we have about 125 on credit card debt and then about 145 on HELOC. I'm just trying to figure out where is the liquidity going to come from and like what, how much space we have when it comes to the space, the shop space and just like the.

Future, we're really trying to like stash cash away. We've been adding to those accounts pretty regularly over the last couple months. But yeah, we, we've got to start making some progress on the. Those debt pieces were, you know, all those. Yeah, all those bits.

What's the monthly cost right now on the HELOC? It's probably just only about $900. Okay, not so bad. Question of whether or not it is good or bad to use a home equity line of credit in the business really comes down to your personal risk tolerance. Bottom line, if you have a home equity line of credit and you're using it on the business, if something goes wrong in the business, you still have that debt against your house. The positive part is that you can pay it off as time goes on. Usually interest rate is really low because you are securing your house as the collateral, but it's also very risky. And then on the credit card, approximately what's that do you know?

So we pay the minimum, which is like 35ish.

Do you know how much the interest is on that though?

I think it's around 2,200.

You can see this by the fact they have $125,000 on American Express and they're paying 2 to $3,000 a month in just interest. On the other hand, they have a home equity line of credit for $145,000 thousand dollars and they're only paying $900 a month in interest. This is the difference between the interest rate that you're going to spend on a credit card, 15 to 20% versus a home equity line of credit, which might be 4, 5, 6, 7, 8% in comparison to a credit card. Are we tapped on the HELOC and the credit card? Like those can't really go up anymore.

Yeah, okay.

All right, makes sense. I want to kind of go through some of the areas of opportunity in each of these and then we'll kind of create a game plan for moving forward. From a liquidity perspective, when we look at like just money in the bank. The 4L framework shows the four reasons why every business will stop growing. Either there's a lack of liquidity cash, there's a lack of leads, there's a lack of labor, or a lack of leadership. And this cycle continues as the business grows. In order to get to the next level of business, you've got to conquer each one. I think there is a bit of a cash crunch.

On just the cash side. And then we have the credit cards and the heloc, which again, I know it can seem like bad, but I've also been in a place of growing from 1 million to 1.55. It's a cash stock. I do not necessarily warrant doing this, but it's certainly something I have used when I was in the same stage when I had equity in the house is like, I gotta use it. Like if the business goes down, I'm going bankrupt, so I might as well use the home equity that I do have to try to get the business to work. And so I'm not saying don't use it. Just know that you are increasing the amount of risk because if something bad happens in the business now your house is on the line, more overhead, you have less technicians. Your technician to in house at admin staff is a worse ratio because you're trying to scale.

Yeah.

So there's waste. So don't. Please don't take that as bad. No, it's a solvable problem. So from a liquidity cash perspective, we have a bit of a crunch. This is a huge constraint to growth because when it comes to liquidity on the 4L framework, I want to have at least one month of revenue in the bank account. This allows me to grow the business and not feel the stress and the constraint of liquidity. And that would be like 150, $200,000 cash in the bank. And we're a long ways away from that with a negative bank balance. The credit cards and helix are tapped, which. Okay, that adds. So these are tabs. Okay. From a leads perspective right now, what does that look like? I know you're not spending marketing. That's great. Got leads coming in. How far are we booked out on the project side?

Two, two and a half months.

How does it come in? Usually just from like on your website or people calling in, where's the lead?

So we have really been focusing on our Google reviews. And so all of a sudden we're moving up because of our 65, 60, however many.

Yeah, that looks really good Google reviews. Yeah, I went there this morning.

But those are not quality people who want to talk to us. You know, those are traditionally people who have no belief in what we're doing or anything like that. So while they're valuable, they are not like qualified.

So the most qualified you're saying is referrals. Yeah, got it. And that's someone calling you like, hey, I'm not getting bids. I just want you to come to the work because so and so said you were great.

Yeah. My neighbor, this person said that this project went great and I want you to come look at this and hopefully we can make it work.

We just had this conversation on the Monday meeting that you guys weren't a part of and it was, what else could we offer our customers?

That's important. Branding is so important. And our team that stands behind it is what really pushes the aspect of what we're doing. That's how the word of mouth is happening.

Are we doing anything in terms of incentives, social media, anything to kind of make that happen more? Or are you just so tapped with work right now you're like, we don't really focus on it.

We try to stay in front of people. You know, we post maybe like four times a month on social media. But I mean, nothing is like planned or, you know, it's rusty and I just kind of flinging things out there. About once a quarter we send an email blast like, hey, here are quarterly maintenance items that should be done. Oh, and if this is too much, then here's our home team product, you know, something like that.

So, okay, so once a quarter we're doing an email blast and then social media is kind of hit and miss. But we do post. Right now the home team is sending out an email or text message maybe once a quarter and it seems kind of random. I want to create a calendar of events for every single month of the year based upon the season, upon holidays, based upon the baseball season in the calendar and create a reason to contact the customer. January, February, March, each month of the year, text and email. By doing that, I'll upsell more of my existing customers that have done one time projects that 750 people in the database into the home team package and a recurring revenue model. And then from a labor perspective, we have four people in the field right now. Three, three laborers in the 4L framework. The next constraint is labor. When it comes to labor in BEC innovations, I don't think it's the biggest problem, but certainly an opportunity for the. I said today there's a really good labor. It sounds like you're hiring a fourth one.

We are interviewing him tomorrow.

Where's the line where like, okay, we need a fifth one. What line are you trying to cross there?

I don't really know. I think it's kind of like, can this person add to our revenue? Can this person add to our profitability? Can they bring in more money than what they're charging us? Like, you know, where is that balance? And I don't really know what I've.

Come to find with our team.

It's really, it is a small but mighty team. There's A lot of knowledge that's at the table between Cody and Paul and Gabe and then myself included. You'll put supports at an angle just to get it in place. And then slide in a stud pack.

Do a temporary stud pack.

Put it on a bottle jack.

Usually the doors, you got a double stud, right? They're right on it. Usually they'll add another third block just to avoid the door casing.

That's what I was asking.

Like, do you want the fitting and then sweat it or are you sweating to the fittings?

No.

So this drop here, get a drop.

Here, I'm not around. But I want it to be no different when you guys are there.

Yeah, got plenty of space. Yeah. Like this is going to be outside of the entire width of the van.

You know, we all have a particular portion of the business that kind of brings all the brain food to the table.

Right.

Do we track anything in terms of like labor, revenue per employee or anything like that? Okay, great. What is that now?

150,000 ish years.

Oh, okay, got it. Perfect. So about 150k per employee per year. And I'm assuming, assuming that means that.

Includes current like as of now. So hopefully by the end of the year that will be closer to 250.

And when you say that, are you saying that is revenue or labor? Revenue.

Revenue.

Total. Got it. Revenue total. So 150. We're trying to shoot for that quarter million of revenue per employee. And that would be team members out in the field. Okay, so technicians. Great. As the company scales, it will be difficult to find people that are willing and able to, able to do all these different aspects of home improvement. These handymen, they're expensive, they're hard to find.

So the efficiency overall in that aspect would be, are we utilizing our technicians? There's only three. And if we don't, you're definitely going to see it in a small business. We've tried it once before. We're like, yeah, this is not that bad. It's just a couple pieces of drywall and finish. Man, we crashed and burned on that project. It was like we don't have the, not only the capacity or the capability to do so. So yeah, you just have to be cognizant of our guys and the ability of such and using our strength, our advantages.

But if I can simplify what they need to know, I'm able to create a system by which I take a lower level employee and make them very valuable. And then anything else, I'm able to subcontract and still get A margin on that work by being the resource that the customer knows, likes and trusts to get the right subcontractor on their property. Yeah, like I would love it to be where we have a. As time goes on we really iron out how much revenue does each team member make before we hire another person. And once we are booked out X amount of time and the backlog, then we hire another person and make it very systematized in terms of we know we start breaking even when someone makes over 140 or $150,000. Ideally if we could get it down to what's the labor revenue per employee? Like how much do they actually produce because they exist versus just marking up a whole bunch of materials. If we get that number and then figure out what's our break even on per employee then we be able to figure out okay, when do we hire a fifth person? When do we hire a sixth person? Like where are those thresholds and where are we profitable and when we're not.

Profitable and there for a while I'm like it's more important to find a 4 4th person. But it really isn't. It's the equal stance with the subcontractor and the fourth technician. So three technicians as I've looked at you and I'm like yeah, you have to play on the strengths that we have. Meaning it makes more sense for our guys to install the smaller things like plumbing, electrical, H vac, leave the big stuff for bigger crews. That's why we've hired a handful of subcontractors to come in to do the bigger jobs. They knock it out a lot faster.

When you go do estimates is it mostly using hourly rate that you're working with? Got it. And is that ranging? I'm guessing a handyman lower projects more. But like was that $100 an hour?

150 Paul bills at roughly 137 per hour. On Handyman I build budgets at 5516.

So his efficiency is around 50% of his time on the job. Because we're billing at 60. We're. But we're okay. Got one 137. Okay, that makes sense. Right now I don't see a huge problem with their current pricing and the fact that most of their time is spent on the job site earning $137 an hour. That's not bad. And it's going to be highly skilled people that are doing these jobs and that's like 40$50 an hour is going to be what you're paying someone to do this type of work. But if I can keep that person out in the field doing 7, 8 budget hours of work in a regular day, very efficient. I don't think labor is the biggest constraint here. It will become the constraint as they begin to grow the business because they'll dial in the systems for what each individual maintenance tech needs to know, what each individual project manager needs to know as the business skills. But for now, changing the business model is the most important thing from a leadership perspective right now in terms like systems, etc. What are you doing? Because I know one of the things you said, there's not enough time in the day and like, when I hear that, I know what that's like and I want to prevent that at all cost. I understand the need to always stay busy and that I'm never going to retire. But she's obviously burnt out in this industry and burnt out what she's currently doing. Whether it be creatively burnt out or time wise, she feels stretched or financially, she's tired of not having any money in the bank account, all of which are reasonable. Bottom line, let's make the business profitable. You will have options. And that's why I always say money solves everything. Although it is tongue in cheek and a little bit on the nose, it's a matter of if this business makes more money, she can do other things. Whether it's spending more time with her family, whether it is going and painting and doing music. I don't care what like. I just know if you make more money, those things will become options. And right now she has no time to even think about those things. And that's what leads to burnout. And so what do you see as a constraint right now in terms of creating systems and delegation? Is it simply, okay, we have financial pressure and I know what this feeling is like, I cannot afford to let someone else do this because we do not have the money. Is it more of that or is it a matter of like, how do I systematize this so I can hand it off to somebody?

My concern right now is how do I systematize it? What do normal people who are not me need in order to be successful in a position like the one that I'm in or one of the positions I'm in?

Right. Do you find it hard to delegate once you have a system in place? Is that ever a problem? No.

I have heard that there are times where rather than explaining how I want something done, I'll just go do it and say this is what happened as opposed to talking them through it. And teaching and all the things.

Right. Does Rusty want to come out here? Can Rusty hear me?

No comment. Situation. That's good. I'll input. Come on out. Come on out.

Are we analyzing your management?

Hey, thanks so much for watching the video. Real quick, I wanted to invite you to a private event that I'm hosting online@mikeandys.com BlackFriday that's right. It's on Black Friday. It's gonna be a live stream that includes a whole bunch of training that I've been working on for over a year. It's gonna be completely free for the first 500 people that sign up. So go to mikeandys.com black Friday sign up for the registration and there's also three massive announcements that I haven't even shared with my team that I'm gonna be sharing at the end of that live stream. So you'll definitely want to be there. Mikeandys.com Black Friday we'll see you there. You take all the phone calls, emails, runpay, all admin related things. I see a lot of that is being burdened by Blair. In terms of when I say burden, I mean like taking on a lot. And so my first thing is how do I deconstrain the entrepreneur to be able to think about other things? Because right now we have no capacity to think about home team. When you see her have that constraint and then needing to be able to delegate, where do you usually see that breakdown in terms of her ability to be like, hey Rusty, this is how to do X, Y and Z. Go for it. Is there a breakdown there or is like that pretty smooth?

I don't know. It's kind of half and half. The non delegation comes from like things have been delegated. This needs to be done now. So I'm gonna do it because it's more of a time sensitive matter. Then you know, I'm just gonna do a little bit of everyone's job. You know, Blair has got a lot that she's trying to do and it wasn't an issue of not wanting to delegate.

It was.

I always thought I was like, I don't think she's real sure what to. Especially with. With me, the administrator being so closely involved in the business aspect of it. It's a unique position to be in when it's like, do we hire more people? When the team we have now, she's wearing many hats, I'm wearing many hats. So I think that that's the breakdown in delegation. I don't think you have an issue actually, Delegating dishing it out.

I have a feeling there's a lot more under the hood here. And although there wasn't a lot of talk about her having problems with delegation, I personally, from what limited time I spent with her, I feel like delegating, trusting other people and not micromanaging them is going to be a hard thing for her to figure out. A lot of times this is very common when you have custom work and projects that the owner has to get involved in every single job. She's involved in every job. The sales process, the walkthroughs, et cetera. And if that's the case, I almost can guarantee you there's going to be a lot of trouble handing that off to other people without micromanaging and trusting them to do, do a good job. Do you see a lot of crossover, though, between, like, what your role is responsible for and then versus, like, her sometimes, like, hey, is that mine? Is that yours? Who gets this done? Or is it like, hey, it's kind of like, we gotta get this out the door so whoever can get to it, gets it to it?

Yeah. It's also my first year, so working this closely with her in this first year, she's been doing my job and her job, it's been a lot of kind of like learning, building trust, figuring out exactly who should be doing what. The last year, it's been a lot of focus on projects, processes, and the synergy of our team. You know, Tosh comes with a lot of construction. I come with a lot of administrative experience. So when we all got here and to support Blair's vision, it's us bringing all this experience and these ideas to make these processes work together and flow. So exactly what he said. We've said to her before about, like, you need to be focused on, like, scaling this business, driving this business, and we'll do all the operational stuff.

Talk about someone who eats, breathes lives, sleeps, sweats, you know, it's a constant.

Blair absolutely does that. And probably in a subconscious mind, she's asleep thinking about Beck Innovations. It's like, what can we do for our customers?

Before Rusty came along, were you taking the phone calls, like, doing all the admin?

Yeah. Well, not doing the admin. No. We had someone else, but she hated answering the phone, so I had to get.

That's a problem for admin.

Yeah, bit of a problem. There was some stuff there. Yeah.

And then from your perspective, Rusty, when it comes to. To the actual business, like the home team versus the bigger projects, do you think the 14 customers that we currently have for the home team. What's sort of like their response to the subscription? What do they like? What do they not like from your perspective as people that call in or might have complaints, etc.

I haven't really received any complaints. I'm seeing that they are really taking advantage of the, like, don't have to think about it. They are really liking the convenience of not having to worry about it. It's like you're a homeowner but you have maintenance and that's what they treat it like. We'll get a text or an email or a call and it's like, hey, our something's broke. And when can Paul come? It's like, well, send him over. You know, this, that, and the other. I've had clients say, you know, he's like a member of the family. We keep a running Paul to do list. You know, like, we all just talk about Paul because he's going to be here once a quarter.

So he got invited to a client's baby shower.

Baby shower.

Whoa. Okay.

I was thinking like, like, okay, like.

We weren't invited, but he was.

That's awesome. I saw Paul's name mention a whole bun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They have a very unique relationship with Paul. The feedback I'm getting from clients about, like, Paul's just a member of our family and seeing him getting invited to stuff, it's like, Paul, you know, and it's like, oh, you little Casanova. Because all these old women, like, when's Paul coming back over? When's Paul coming back over? They'll see the van out and they'll call like, he's next door. Is there any way you can come over today? And I'm like, no, not today. But, you know, we can get you on the calendar. I help him a lot with, like, his scheduling, but he's really doing a lot of the face to face and the interactions. He is really, really, really good, but it's like we're not tapping into him fully. We are not using him to his fullest because not only is he great at selling it, but he's really good at the client relationship.

Paul does a ton of work with selling this and everything. So he's excited, he's ready to go, and we just want to set him up to do his thing again.

Really, no complaints. But I don't have a lot of people calling and canceling either.

So if someone wants to sign up for that, is it $99 across the board or. Or does it change based upon the House and things like that, 100 bucks a month. Got it.

He goes through each quarter to show you, and then when he comes to do a visit, he checks off and he makes any notes, and this gets loaded. So I can show you every time he came what he did. And it's also a selling point of if you ever have any insurance claims of homeowners about a refrigerator or a water heater, you have proof that you've maintained it. So warranties, you know, can't be voided.

He's going through a list of stuff. If he finds something, this is a bigger project. I'm assuming he's like, hey, this needs to get fixed. Here's the additional quote for that. Is that, well, if you have, like.

A unique situation, like, we offer to, I don't know, drain your water heater every quarter, but your water heater is a special filter that normally a filter cost us 20 bucks. So this filter's gonna cost. I think that's more customizable that Paul would then say, well, this water filter is included as part of the core service that we're offering. If there's a unique circumstance for your home, like your range or your water heater or your, you know, that is built in in the beginning. So it's not like, well, you're outside of our scope is what we not offer to everyone else. It's like, no, the service is designed for your home particularly. So it's not like we're just doing these things. And if they apply to your home, then great. So it's customized. We're offering a discount on anything that goes bey. Just regular routine. He's checked your dryer vent. He's checked your gutters. He's done this. If you have something extra, like, we had a lady, she had some art needing to be hung. One lady had an issue with a door frame. She needed stain, something like that. Paul would come and say, I can do that in two hours. It'll be a level one handyman, but you get a discount for being a home team member.

Perfect. I really like this new thing. Okay. All right. I think down the road, this leadership problem might pop up. But for now, I've got to focus on the rebrand and figure out more recurring revenue. But down the road, if this begins to scale, if we really start to figure out a lot of these. These things, we've got to get Blair to spend more of her time figuring out systems and procedures and delegating instead of doing the actual work. And as the business grows, if you're doing $1.8 million in revenue and you're still out doing the work. That's a problem. We need to be able to migrate as the business grows from doing the work labor in order to then be a manager of other labors and then eventually being the architect, the person that steps back from the building and actually figures out the points of stress and how to improve the processes. And right now at a $1.8 million business, players spending hardly any any time in the architect role. She's constantly in manager and even sometimes still a laborer. I think there's a lot you could do with this. So I think one of the things is your pricing using the subscription so incentivizing it very heavily. So for example, right now you have projects. I'm not saying we should cut them out. I say we should increase the prices by 20%. Unless you are part of the subscription, you're part of the home team for the home team, you get 20% off. By doing this, I think 90, 100% of people are going to accept this new package and get more recurring revenue coming into the business. So then by doing this, I'm incentivizing monetizing the home team subscription and I'm selling it every single step of the journey. And because we so confident in the value of the subscription, yes, there will be someone that will one or two months and then cancel whatever that's our current prices anyways, who cares? Better yet though, we know if the value's there and customers love it and they're doing this to do list thing, we can keep 80, 90% of them for a long time. And like the goal, as Alex Hormuzzi says, make an offer so good they feel stupid saying no to and you gotta be stupid to save five grand and spend 1200. And as long as they produce a service, get the customer in the door, they might keep that customer two, three, four, five years down the road. And that's a valuable business that's sellable. I think if we do that over the next three years, that looks very interesting. From what percentage of our revenue is recurring versus this one off stuff that is very much custom. What I'm looking for is where are all the points where we get home team to be the main go to the other part of that is after the job is done. So like on walkthroughs, if someone does not take us up on that, we're trying to pitch them again. For any customer that does not accept the home team package in the sales process during the walkthrough with the customer. I'm going to be highlighting the value of that package and that recurring subscription to try to get even more people to sign up then. So whether that incentivizing the team, the technicians that are on site, or if you're being there because like these are big projects. So I'm assuming you're usually going back and doing the walkthrough.

No, Tosh handles them and I'll come in if we need to.

Okay, so Tosh, let's just say it's Tosh or yourself doing the walkthroughs. We're also trying to upsell the customer into these packages. Not only will subscribers of the home team package get 20% off their original project, they'll also get 20% off any future services from the company. 20%. So it makes a lot of sense to sign up for the home team package. If you sign up for home team, you get 20% off. That looks very appealing to a homeowner. There's so much value there. And so I think then our whole business model becomes how do we retain people on the home team?

Yeah.

And so when he goes there, it's like, okay, we're going to really refine that customer experience. Booties we're going to have trying to get a review after. We're going to take them a gift on the fourth visit. We're going gonna ask for refer like all of those little things. And I feel just based on my very short time meeting you, that's where you're actually gonna shine.

See that gift over there?

Yeah.

It's a pretension gift.

Did it say home team on it? Yeah. Oh goodness, it's red.

You're not seeing the merch closet.

Measures too.

You have branded tape measures.

Yeah, like two different kinds. Like leaving people with stuff that they. So we're trying to was thinking of like what other little gifts. So we like have the cutting board, like tape measure. Like what are other things that people can actually use?

Yeah, here's a cutting board, right?

Yeah.

Big old wood one too.

So they like.

Or you take this on your initial visit and then you leave it with them like here where you can keep it if you have anything else to measure.

Hey, the home team is the brand. It is the 100, the go to. Like I can totally see that being on the trucks. I see that being wrapped, whether it be red or some other color. And they, the tech show up in the jersey looking thing. You're a part of the home team. You know, their first visit they get a hat that says you're on the home team. Or like even on social media again, them holding a sign, we're on the home team. The home team wins. Like that's our focus. Yeah. And that also gets shared a lot on social media. The other part is like social media, we are going to lean into this whole like home team thing. Right now our most valuable customers are coming from referrals of our example customers. We want to grease the gears of that to happen as much as possible using social media instead of depending on someone to go talk to. So and so at the water cooler at the office, I'm going to take a picture of them with my jersey with the sign with the home team logo and I'm going to tag them on social media so all their friends and family see it organically in front of their brand new kitchen or their brand new bathroom that they're really proud of. No one remembers. Is it bec. Yeah, no one remembers that.

No one remembers.

Don't be so ashamed.

Like I think the creativity part, from what I've seen so far, you light up when you think customer experience. I just generally believe that's where your strength lies and that the visionary versus the operator. We are doing 95% of our day operator tasks when we should be. If we just flip that, the business will do very well. And so when we think about even down the road when it comes to this facility, you would not need this large of a facility or even this kind of office if the technicians in their vans had all they needed for the home team. We need to keep the projects going, but building out the bench of the subs that we can lean on more. And then you'll also get really good ironing out the process with them.

Yeah.

Like when are the checkpoints? When do I that part. Right now we filled all the holes in versus like how do we actually fix the problem of the system with these subs? Right. How much is rent for here?

4,600.

Okay. That is five. Let's just call it three. Let's say three fully equipped vehicles, fully financed, wrapped in that and one or two technicians in each. That's all we need. And so if each of those vans are equipped with what they need for the maintenance side and then you have a process in place to be able to get the subs taking care of everything else. We don't need this space. When I think about sellability, much more appealing to a buyer when I don't have to go rent a massive space.

Yeah.

If you Just say oh yeah, if you want to copy and paste this in Nashville, you just need 10 trucks. And if you do that, and here's the recipe for what you need for the checklist for the quarterly visit. Here's the skills that are going to be required which is much less because now we don't do the big projects. And then you need one very skilled person to be able to sub out to the people and project manage. And here's how they're going to project manage these jobs and you're going to get 37% margin on all those. By the way, that looks very appealing to a lot of buyers. If the home team is able to focus on their recurring revenue and their subscription model instead of these big one time projects, they'll be able to move away from needing all of this shop space and this real estate and all this inventory and custom pieces and projects. But more importantly to do that we've got to build a bench, a backup, a bunch of different subcontractors that we can tap into so that when big projects come we can still sell them the customer and get our markup and get high profit margin on those jobs. I would send an email and a text message to all of your existing customers saying hey, here's the package, here's what includes by the way, one of the things now is 20% off of all of our prices. So message.

750 clients offer and that offer is sign up for the home team. $99 a month, two hours handyman. Here's all the things you get and you get two hours handyman, $275 value right off the grip. So let's go through our list here. Pricing up by 20% and then if they do home team, they get the 20% discount. Walkthroughs with cash, same thing, upselling. Now I believe that eventually you're going to sell 90 to 100% of people on the initial. I would not. It's literally an offer so good they have to be stupid to say no to. But if they don't, you're going to on the walkthrough explain how here's your last chance. Yeah, exactly. Pricing. We are going to incentivize the home team. So we've already talked about that from a 20% off in future. So if you're on the home team, all of our get this discount. You save more just by having this. Let alone the fact that we come four times a year and do all of these things.

Do all the things you're supposed to Be doing great.

Social media, we're really pushing the home team branding logo. The trucks eventually. But like, social media, like that swag, for example, that they're holding it up, you get a corrugated plastic sign. They hold that up after the renovation. You tag them. What's your. What's your Instagram? You tag them on Instagram. That just greases the gears of the amount of people that are going to come from referrals, which is what we want them to come from. BEC Innovations, if it got sold to an investor, they would rebrand it. The home team creates a huge. A bunch of loyalty, a bunch of social media presence and a brand that people see the trucks and they say, oh, yeah, big red truck says home team on it. Looks like they're in jerseys. Like, if you guys can dress up in jerseys.

Let's go. We have jerseys.

Oh, my goodness. Like, the fact that. Yeah, like, it's such a slam dunk.

I'm go grab one.

Yeah, let's go, let's go. Like, that's social media gold. Right? And then I think the building up the subs that their bench of them in the next six weeks would help Again, I'm just trying to get you to be like. When the recurring charts filling up, you're like, okay, I can cut ties with this real estate. If we cut ties with the real estate, immediately unlock profit that next year, then it becomes like, how do I market, how do I expand, how do I actually make this happen, get more trucks, etc. Right, right, right, right. But I just need the confidence by having the subs. Oh, that's beautiful. Goodness.

Your gift with purchase.

Oh, my goodness. Let's go. Imagine your customer. You just got a great renovation project completed and you get this as a gift. This is awesome. I get to wear this in front of social media, post to my Instagram, my Facebook, and all my friends and family get to see it. And I get a who saying something like, the home team won. This is a great promotional offer for the customer to be able to flex in front of their family and friends in a fun manner and get my brand in front of the customers so they give me more referrals. And those leads that are coming from those referrals right now, they're the highest quality. Let's get more of them. Do you give this to the customer? No. Okay.

Not yet.

Do home teams always wear white like in baseball?

The home is white.

The home is white. Yeah, that's what I thought.

But white for a construction team, not good. Not great.

But see what you could do is they are the home team, the customer. It's all about the customer.

The hero. Yeah. I want them to be the hero.

So they get this.

Yeah.

Your team wears the red ones. So the folks in the red van that says home team on it, they bring me this. I am laughing. I have to make it button down. So it's a little bit more like. Doesn't matter about the size of the person. Make it button down. You give that to them, put this on, and then they have a red sign that says, I'm on the home team. It'll crash. Absolutely. Crush on social media. You do not need to spend money on marketing to do that.

Having people amplify this themselves sounds really cool, and I think I'm excited to try to figure that out.

I cannot wait to see the rebranding. I'm excited. I know she is. Did she say anything? Have you guys said anything yet?

Leaning heavily into home team, I think is a great idea. Plus, we already kind of have, like, the image built in with, like, the baseball logo and stuff and then jerseys. So I think they're gonna be ready, receptive to it, especially with Paul leading in the front.

I've read some of it already. She sent me. Oh, what are you talking about?

Dude, what did I say?

I told you.

I was like. She texted me a few minutes ago. Let me see.

I have to share.

I have to share. This is going to go on camera. I'm like, let me go through this real quick. And then I went back and looked. There's one thing that I caught, and I was like, that's what's up. The conclusion of everything.

Right.

But it was talking about the commitment, rebranding, pushing the home team and handyman. That's what's up. That's going to be cool. It's going to be cool to see everything. I'm so ready for it. I'm so ready for it. She is, too.

It is a rebuilding of the business, which can seem very daunting.

Yeah.

I think you already have the parts. I'm not telling you to go make a new logo. You have it.

Yeah.

I'm not telling you. You have the jersey. It's a matter of how we pack business better the customer, and most importantly, build the business in a way that can be sold.

Yeah.

Because no one wants this business right now. It just. And I think we can agree on that. But we build this, we can build it in a way and take elements that we have and just shine those up, polish those, emphasize those, and Build a much more recurring revenue model.

There you go.

I love it. You're hired.

So one of the first things that Mike said that we needed to do was raise our price by 20% and then have a discount for home team clients basically. And, and we've really not implemented that because so many of our projects are large, large. Like you know, we've got a couple hundred thousand dollar contracts and so a 20% discount is tens of thousands of dollars, which is interesting in Exchange for a $1,200 a year.

Maintenance contract. So I there, I think that there is a benefit there and I think that there is a play there. I don't really know what that answer is yet, but it's something that we're like actively reviewing and checking out. So that's something that we're looking into but we've not made progress on it.

Walkthroughs with Tosh and use that to upsell. So like if he sees that there's a drainage issue, like we want him to bring that up to the client. Like our job is to be an advocate for the client in their home and a lot of people don't know any better. So he is a great resource. Tasha is a great resource. Social media home team. We are definitely focusing a lot on Paul and home team especially like we're doing all of our quarter three maintenance right now and we have had great luck. Also Paul is such a great person, person to like focus on with socials because he just, he has so much fun with it. Like we, we set up our Christmas tree in the office and got one string of lights and draped it around him and got some really cute photos and he just ate it up. And we use that for like don't wait until Santa's coming down the chimney to get your like holiday stuff done. So he's been fantastic. He, he eats this up. He comes in contact costumes. He has like all the, he just, he loves this. He is the perfect person for this. And then building our sub bench, we're always in the lookout for additional subs. We always want to have three for each trade. Most of the time we're looking for three for sure applicable subs. And I think that, you know, this is something that's always going to have to be part of our priorities, especially as our business grows. We're leaning into, on the handyman small project side, we're leaning more into the home team but as far as like actually rebranding, we're not planning on doing that. We're, we're going to stay back innovations because, you know, the home team feels very small town, you know, bestie, which is great, which is what you want in a handyman company, but that is not who you want doubling the size of your house. You know what I mean? So no matter where you are in your business, whether you're 500,000 or 5 million or 50 million, I like, I think that there is always somebody who can be a resource, who can look at things and spot opportunities that maybe you don't see that can change your life. So I would tell everyone to come in with an open mind, come in with an open heart and take the lashings and then move on about your day.