Buyers and Builders
00:13:02 · Nathan Lindley
One guy was making like $40 an hour and he'd go out and he'd have a, you know, dollars 400 day or or sometimes even less. And and then... But then we'd have the other days where we would, you know, bring in $20,000 and that was that was tremendous. Right? But it was just impossible for me to create some sort of formula where I could kinda see how I could work myself out of the situation. And I had done this experiment, in my book publishing company where I had put everyone on a on a piece pay pay rate in our... We had a print shop, and and it was this experiment that I was trying, and, we ended up not not really going forward with it because just documenting all the work that everyone did was just arduous. But the thing that stood out to me was within an hour of implementing this pay experiment, they started coming to me with all of these efficiency improvements. I'm like, well, why? It's too much detail to get into. But they started thinking differently. Literally within an hour, they were thinking differently about how to optimize their pay. And that had always stood out to me like one of those little things that you file away in your mind. And as we were trying to figure out how to right this ship, I I I kept coming back to this idea of we need to get our... We need to put our our technicians on performance pay, on commission. And I would come to them with a suggestion like, one would ever work for commission. It would never work. You would never be able to hire anyone. We wouldn't work for you on commission. And so it just kind of kept getting shot down and kept getting shot down. Well, finally, I'm out of money this for the second time. And I I go into the office. I drive down to Austin to meet with these guys and say, guys, I literally... I can't pay you again. I just made payroll. I have, 2,000 left in the bank, and our credit card was maxed out. I'm like, I... This is the end of the road. Like, we're we're done. And I said, so the the only way that I can pay you now is if you bring in the money for me to pay you. So effective immediately, we're all going on commission because there's just no other way. The physics don't allow this thing to survive any other way. And they all quit on me that day. And so it was was it was kind of one of those things that I knew was going to happen but also hurt way more than I expected it to when it actually happened.
00:15:13 · Nathan Lindley
But it was it was kinda... I remember the the exact conversation that I had with my dad on the phone because my, know, my dad is obviously a shareholder, and also he's my best friend. And I'm kinda like... I'm bouncing ideas with him all the time. But I just... I told him, like, I feel like everyone else has been running this company. And they're making these decisions that just don't make any sense. And I kinda know in my gut that they don't make any sense, but I... But these are the guys who've been doing this for twenty years. And so I'm obviously... I'm gonna defer to their expertise. But it just... It didn't... Never passed the gut check. So I remember talking to my dad saying, feel like I have to take the reins on this thing because no one else is doing it. Yeah. I kinda keep waiting for someone else to step in and and show me how this works, and no one's showing me how this works. And so it was... I, you know, I said, think I'm just gonna have to do this the way that I am pretty sure it needs to be done. So I drove down, had that conversation, and everybody quit. But what was interesting was right at that same time, I had had a guy respond to an Indeed ad. And I think the Indeed ad was, like, 28 an hour or something like that. And he's like, you know, actually, I I have worked on commission before. I actually prefer that. Would you be willing to do a commission? And, like, as soon as those words came out of his mouth, I was like, dude, you're hired. Like, because I was so desperate to try this and no one else in my company was willing to even experiment with this, with with me. And so I was like, dude, you're hired. Let's do this. And I I didn't know what to pay him. I I don't know what discretion structure would look like. He's like, how about we do it this way and guess what I've done at this other company? I'm like, sounds great. I'm like, I didn't have anything to compare it to. So, yeah, let's let's go. So everyone in my company quits. Right? And I and I just happen to have this one guy coming on, like, right as everyone else is walking out the door, which, by the way, was great optics for him to be coming in right as everyone else is leaving. Like, you know, he was seriously wondering if he had made a good decision.
00:17:18 · Mikk, Nathan Lindley
[00:17:18] S0: Before we continue, you now had acquired two companies. First company had this owner, one technician. How many employees had the second company, and how many [00:17:26] S1: So, actually, the second company was pretty big. Second company had... I don't even remember now, but it was around 15 to 17 people in the company at one point. And lot of them [00:17:37] S0: in the field, how many in the office? [00:17:39] S1: Three in the office, and I think they have, like, two install crews and four techs or something like that. It was it was not a not a small operation. Even today, was still good, you know, a fairly good sized operation. Yeah. And... But it had just kinda kinda, like, slowly withered. I mean, you know, the just... The revenue was terrible. [00:18:01] S0: And on the lowest moment, it was just you and this Indeed guy?
00:18:01 · Mikk, Nathan Lindley
[00:18:01] S0: And on the lowest moment, it was just you and this Indeed guy? [00:18:05] S1: And... Yeah. And actually, I... Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I would have to drive down to Austin and run calls with him. And then I would and then I would drive back and run calls in Dallas. So I And actually, there was a time where I was even the guy answering the phone. I would be up literally up in an attic taking calls and trying to schedule the appointment for the next day. And I would be driving back and forth from Dallas to Austin, which if you don't know Texas geography, it's about a three hour drive each way. And so I'd get... I'd book a hotel. My wife and kids would be up here in Dallas. I'd just be gone for a day or two running calls in Austin with that other guy and then coming back to Dallas. And I'd, you know, try and, push as many calls for, you know, two days from now as I could and kinda cluster my Dallas calls together, then cluster my house calls together. And basically, we're just like doing that for, you know, a couple of weeks. Was it was How [00:18:59] S0: were the conversations at home with your wife and and kids? Because it's... I have kids at home as well, and it's... You were in a pretty dark place, I guess. Like, what was... What [00:19:12] S1: Every... Everything that you were imagining it being, it was. Mhmm. It was absolutely awful. It was it was the most scared I've ever been in my entire life, and it stayed that way for a while, for about two years. The... So so what ended up happening with this Indeed guy is
00:19:12 · Nathan Lindley, Mikk
[00:19:12] S1: Every... Everything that you were imagining it being, it was. Mhmm. It was absolutely awful. It was it was the most scared I've ever been in my entire life, and it stayed that way for a while, for about two years. The... So so what ended up happening with this Indeed guy is [00:19:34] S0: Before we go there before we go there, maybe you could share what were you doing during those days? Because when things like this happen, days are very, very long. [00:19:44] S1: Yes. [00:19:45] S0: So Yes. Emotionally, did you start to working out? Did you were working out? Did you have long walks? Like... Or what was going on on your head and the the [00:19:54] S1: Yeah. The conversations you must had, [00:19:56] S0: and what's going on there because it's not too many people are recovering this, I guess.
00:19:56 · Mikk, Nathan Lindley
[00:19:56] S0: and what's going on there because it's not too many people are recovering this, I guess. [00:20:00] S1: Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, is part of why I tell this story as frequently as I do because I know that there are guys out there who are in this spot. And I remember being there and be like, you know, listening to all these, you know, business books and it was just all how, you know, how great my successes have been. And then no one ever wants to share the bloodshed. And everyone has these bloodshed stories and and I feel like it's so important to to focus on them because that is the honest truth about how you get to that mountaintop is you go through some some horrible valleys. The honest truth on how I got through that is I drank a lot, and it is... It was an issue. And and my my wife ended up, you know, having to kinda sit down with me and say, hey, this is a problem. And I'm like, yeah, you're totally right. And I don't know. It was... You know, I would try working out. I ran a lot. And the running in helps sometimes, but as often as not, I... I'd get up done with my run. I'd just feel horrible. Just panic. You know? [00:20:59] S0: I I've never had this issue myself, like, shrinking. I I I just don't enjoy doing this. Yeah. I know folks who do, but I know their next day, their early mornings, till the afternoon, they are not in the best state. How was it for you? Like, Yeah. [00:21:16] S1: I don't [00:21:17] S0: care anymore, or how are you able to perform?