Buyers and Builders
00:38:32 · Nathan Lindley, Mikk
[00:38:32] S1: This kind of a kind of a mix. You know, right now, all of our manager slots are are full with guys that I'm fairly happy with and so, I think there are probably a couple of guys that would like to be in a manager slot at some point and as we continue to grow and and create need for more management positions, I kinda have my shortlist of of candidates and some of them I'm I'm communicating that with and some of them are are not. I'm just, you know, you don't wanna make a commitment or create an expectation that maybe ends up changing, you know, as time goes on. So [00:39:08] S0: And how do you integrate those firms when you do those larger, smaller acquisitions? Is it the holdco and then
00:39:15 · Nathan Lindley
[00:39:15] S1: Yeah. So so we've actually integrated everything under one brand except for there's there's that newest deal down in in Victoria. So Victoria is kind of a small town and and everyone knew the owners there. So, there's we're trying to be a little bit delicate in how we handle that that acquisition and not rocking the boat too much by by changing the name of the company But everything else is is under one brand which we called Done Right. And and so when we acquire a new company and fold it in there's there's honestly not a lot to it. We we first thing we do is we forward the phone number to our our phone system which all of our CSRs work remotely and we just use a web based phone program which is awesome because then these these, you know, amazing ladies can all work from their home while their kids at school and and you know, we we can get really great talent that way. They don't even have to live near us and and we can still hire them which is awesome. But we forward their phone number and we, you know, we create a voice greeting saying, you know, hey, thank you for calling Nick's AC, now part of Done Right and and we we we make that voice memo so that people know that we did call the right number. They didn't miss dial but that there has been a transition in ownership and then, we train the CSRs, you know, to to answer the phone the same way. So, thank you for calling Nick's. I've heard it done right. You know, whatever. There's that kind of integration of the branding there where we're kind of like doing a little bit of a co brand initially and it will phase out that that legacy name and just call it done right over time and then, we take the the customer list and we import it into our CRM and we and we parse it into different calling lists, you know, for our outbound calling efforts and that's really about it other than retraining the technicians that we inherit. And that is probably one of the biggest steps actually because again, going back to our technical standards are very high. And then also our performance pay is a huge shift for a lot of people.
00:41:11 · Nathan Lindley
So a lot of times what we do is we'll give them the choice of staying on with their legacy pay rate or making the transition to to performance pay and frequently, they want to stay with their legacy pay rate until they've been with us for a couple of weeks and they make, you know, say a $15 zero sale and they realize that they could have made their entire week's paycheck off that one commission check and they start to go, oh, okay. I get it now and you know, and so that's there's but we do want to we don't want to chase away good people who maybe are just, you know, scared to go commission only because it is very scary if you've been on hourly. So we kind of give them that that grace period to kind of just like see how much better this process is. And especially too once we retrain them and show them... It's so funny. You send a technician to a home every year for five years, then and then you and then you retrain them, and you send them into that home that sixth year. And there's all these problems that they've seen every single time that they've ever been there, but they never noticed it. And and we're training them how to notice, you know, dirty components or or ductwork that's incorrect. And there's all of these technical things that a lot of people don't even know. And then they start going back into the same customer's home that they've seen every year for the last five years and all of a sudden they're saying, oh, this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong. You know, let's let's start, you know, fixing some of that stuff.
00:42:38 · Mikk, Nathan Lindley
[00:42:38] S0: So you're pretty much taking them into a group. You're making this acquisition, and then you're teaching those technicians how to fish. You pretty much teach them how to sell. Their lives and their families families' lives improve a lot. [00:42:53] S1: Yes. Significantly. And I would say everyone in our company essentially doubles their pay rate. Yeah. Some of them even more. So, yeah, our our average technicians are making north of 100,000 a year [00:43:08] S0: right Wouldn't say you probably mastered this this model how you how you incentivize people and everything is just so much better. Out of those eleven eleven acquisitions you've done, has there been any any of those which which hasn't gone well? After now, knowing it all. Okay, what what has happened?
00:43:31 · Nathan Lindley
[00:43:31] S1: Yeah, okay. So, yeah, we're we're always learning. Right? That's, you know, that's kind of part of the fun and part of the trauma of this is is that you you thought you had it figured out and then there's some new variable that you've never considered before. So we we just did one, late last year. That was an owner operator, and we knew... So we knew a lot of the red flags would come along with that, but we got a good deal on it. And then a couple of weeks later, we got a letter from an attorney saying that we're being sued. So it was the previous owner had not treated a customer fairly, had had installed the wrong air conditioner in their home. It was of lesser quality than they were promised and so, as well as soon the previous owner, we we were lumped into the lawsuit because of, you know, we were now the new owners of the company and we had to explain to the lawyer that it was an asset sale and all this kind of stuff. We were eventually able to get it dismissed, but that was kind of indicative of the quality of the work that the Skype did. So as we called out to that customer list, it has not been nearly as successful as as other databases that we've acquired. And so that's one. We had another one that we acquired down in Austin because we've done three deals now in Austin. We did another one down in Austin that was... I didn't realize it but it had actually recently been acquired And then the guy that I was buying it from had had some issues and so was trying to get out of it. And so I bought something that had recently already transacted. And so I think a lot of the customers were, you know, getting a lot of whiplash and, you know, not... There there is some confusion among among the customers. One thing that we are finding is that if we're persistent in pursuing these customers, we're able to generally kinda turn the relationship around, but some of them take a lot more work than others. So, but yeah, there have been a couple. Those are the the two main ones that come to mind. I do know too that the the very first deal that we ever did, the one that I started with, that only generated like $100.00 of revenue last year for us. And it it had been like a million of employee. And that speaks to the cost of the learning curve.
00:45:58 · Nathan Lindley, Mikk
That, you know, of hiring terrible employees who just go out and provide awful service and just destroy your reputation in the marketplace. So, but I'm still paying $8,500 a month on an SBA note. You know, you're six of ten years on that on that note and so that is the incredibly high tuition that I'm paying on that. So, yeah, I mean, I would say I would say two deals so far so far would be categorized as kinda not great. And then several others that we we just screwed up on in in the process of learning how to how to do this. [00:46:32] S0: Hearing the full story and the the the two year period of of very dark, dark days. Now you seemed very relaxed and happy. You're laughing a lot. Seems like you're having a great time. Yeah. You've built this you've built this machine, and you've you've learned a lot what works, what doesn't work, and you you keep learning. Yeah. Where where do you want to take this?