Ep 324 - Rich’s Road to Year One Service success...and $90K Months

Transcript

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Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the last one.

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Joe, if you guys heard the announcement, this is the last episode under this name, electricpreneur Secrets.

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The following should be the same links, guys, but new name the Million Dollar Electrician.

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But this one we're going out with a bang.

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We've got our homie Rich with us from TrustPoint going to join us here very soon.

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Joe, how excited are you to get into this interview with Rich?

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Rich is a very particular individual that's become very close to my heart because one the man's from New York, only like an hour away from where I live.

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He is also bald and beautiful, so I can't complain about that Fellow Italian right.

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But the fact is is that Rich is the kind of guy that it's impossible not to respect and love.

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He just has this charisma about him that you want to hear the things he's saying and when he says something, you want to do, the things he's asking you to do.

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He's like a natural born leader.

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I really have an immense amount of respect for him.

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Couldn't say that better.

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Some people you do want to follow.

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Rich has had some people following him into this new venture he's headed for, having just started his business in November, really going out on his own Again, some some entrepreneur experience from before, but ultimately on track to do 1.2 million in home service this year in his first year, really reaching kind of 90 to 100K months in that area.

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So we're super pumped about Rich, super pumped about his success and how just such a great student he is and his entire story is going to help you guys with your adventures, with your visions.

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And one of the most noteworthy things I do want to say and I hope that Rich doesn't take this the wrong way for me saying it but is closer to middle age, this is a guy feeling the pressure of you know, hey, do I have another kick at the can do?

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Do I really have time to do this again?

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And so there's a message here that's between the lines that I want you guys to take away.

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That is absolutely.

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You have time.

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I think colonel saunders was like 67 when he broke it open, right.

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Yeah, it's wild when it happens, but it's true.

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I mean, the thing is, is how many of these great businesses started?

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Either a out of a garage or two out of someone who is already finishing one career and starting another?

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It doesn't matter the time, it matters the volatility and the viability of the idea you're trying to do, and Rich wants to serve people at the highest level, and that never goes out of style.

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I was told a quote when I was younger, which is you know, there's a million doctors out there, but there's always room for another good one.

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The same can be said about electricians, and Rich is clearly, clearly one of the good ones.

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You nailed it, man.

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Definitely a dude centered on his values.

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He's got a big why.

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It's big enough for all of us to fit in.

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So let's bring Rich in and get into this interview.

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What do you say?

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Let's do it Come on in.

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Rich, let's go, rich.

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Welcome Rich, he's in the house.

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How are you doing today, my brother?

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Hello New Yorker here.

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Good morning boys.

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How are you doing?

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Fantastic man, fantastic Rich.

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Can I point something out right off the bat?

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Sure, you've got that record behind you, damn right, he does.

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He knows what's what you didn't know.

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We were going to talk about Wu-Tang today, but I have to.

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I've got to bring this up.

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That's a Wu-Tang record behind you, is that right?

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It is, it's uh from 1993.

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It's uh 36 chambers.

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Okay, will you share with us why that's there.

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What does that represent for you?

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Uh, sure so, I'm a, I'm a huge wu-tang fan.

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Um, love hip-hop and uh and I, uh, I really got.

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Uh came out in 93 and my wife, uh, my wife knows my love, so we went to the uh, we went to the 25th anniversary concert.

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For our anniversary.

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She took me to Tucson and we went, and then she gave me this gold album that's signed by the whole crew.

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So, you know, I became a huge fan because of their structure and because of their culture, and I don't know how much you know about them, but all the way from you know, they compare themselves to an old eighties cartoon, voltron, where they form his head and body.

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Yeah.

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I mean, it's, it's, it just spoke to me.

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And the way that they take care of each other, the way that they compliment each other, the way that they build off of each other and use each other to propel, propel, each yeah, it just felt, felt, good.

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So, would you say, then, going right for the heart, are those some values that you also try to install at TrustPoint Electric?

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I do.

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I think that you know we start, we get our our need to start our business and to go off that entrepreneurial seizure right as Gerber calls it.

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But it's so important to know our team and to know that we're all here together.

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I always tell my guys this is not my company, it's our company.

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I couldn't do this without you, you couldn't do it without me.

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We're all here to to work together and and fill the pieces and help each other.

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so very similar yep I love that rich yeah, thanks if there's one thing we can tell you guys about rich is rich has been with us sheesh, it's coming up on almost a year now I think.

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We've been working together in different capacities, but rich has been full of heart the entire time.

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Like every class, rich shows up great questions, which again seems to be a trend of people that come on the podcast right, highly engaged, engaged with others in the group.

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You just said in the back, behind the scenes here, before we got started with the recording, you were talking about how much you enjoy when other people actually have reached out and sought any advice from you.

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They could get so Rich.

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I just wanted to honor you by saying, man, we appreciate you and thank you so much for for really being a part of the crew for so long.

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It's awesome.

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Thank you so much.

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It's my pleasure.

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Honestly.

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At the end of the day, rich, you know, having great students is really a joy, but being able to make a friend out of it, I feel like I could visit your state at any time and know that there's a door waiting for us that's open, and if you ever want to come back to New York, my door is always open for you as well, because we've got nothing but love for you.

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You're just a genuinely good person, and I'm so honored to be here to support you with that.

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Thank you so much.

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Same for you guys.

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You guys have always been great so as we mentioned in the intro, rich has been around the block.

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You've been through some stuff, man.

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I can't wait to jump into a bunch of this, but there's this rubber band principle that I love to discuss and I think you're the perfect example of it, if I may.

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Law of conservation of energy States that it's neither created or destroyed, simply transferred.

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Rich has been transferring energy into this business launch for a while now.

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This is something that you clearly had a vision for.

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You've been working up to.

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You were working with us before you started the business, and then you started the business in November of 2023.

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Is that right?

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That's correct.

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And now, at this point, you're on track to do 1.2 million.

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Hopefully, things keep going the way they're going.

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You're on pace for that, and that is exact exemplification of this principle, where we're putting so much energy into this and taking all the collective experience and knowledge that you've attained throughout your different careers as an electrician, as a teacher, as an entrepreneur and a student and putting all that energy forth to create something so beautiful in such a short time, man.

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So again, I wanted to commend you on that and we've got a lot to look forward to here.

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But will you take us back to like why'd you get into the trade then?

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What was the electrical spark for you, man?

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That's a great question.

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So I originally was.

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I went to a kind of a renowned high school in the Bronx, fort McRap.

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I was going to go for law.

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I wanted to be a lawyer and a single parent going to be a lawyer and single parent.

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You know my mother was a Catholic school teacher and administrator and you know working up through the ranks they're not the highest paid.

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You know business to be in but the tuition, I think, was about $5,000 a year.

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So in order to pay my tuition I had to go to during the summer to stuff envelopes for alumni, to ask for donations, to do different tasks.

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So one of the tasks towards the end of the summer was renovating part of the school and they literally did a lot of it in-house and it kind of just opened my eyes to more of the construction industry.

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My grandfather was a brickie in New York City and spent a lot of time in Manhattan, you know doing all different types of jobs.

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So I saw that I had that work ethic kind of through my childhood.

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I saw that you know a tiny man comes home every day to his family and you know just the roughest hands you could possibly think of, but the strongest morals and the strongest structure for family and just, uh, just grinding it out every day, and my grandfather was a big, big influence in the person I wanted to come and uh, and when I saw, when I saw an opportunity, it just it pulled me.

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I don't, I don't have a, you know, I, I, it was a, it was a here you go this is what you're doing at the lighting bolt like this here's your sign, kind of thing.

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Yeah, it's so funny because my, my oldest son right now is is struggling.

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He's 16 years old and he's he's going through and trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life.

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And my wife and I had this conversation.

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You know she had she struggled with it when she was picking her, her, you know, trade, trade or job and for me it was just like no, there's no options.

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I didn't have any options, it was immediate.

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I want to be an electrician.

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I lucked out because I was able to work with a family member who had a shop in the Bronx and took me through.

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Everybody says Phoenix is the hottest place on earth.

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I beg to differ.

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It's a bakery in midtown Manhattan in the summertime, right on Arthur Avenue man, like you already know.

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So bad.

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So I just remember like melting from the fires and ovens.

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And, yeah, my cousin, through marriage he owned a shop, small mom and pop shop, and he kind of brought me in a laundromat mom and pop shop.

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And he kind of brought me in the laundromat the second day I was there, had a row of maybe like I don't know what felt like a hundred washers and dryers and he said, look, this is how you wire one, go ahead, just go.

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And I just went and uh, and I became completely obsessed with with the industry.

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Wow, so, uh, yeah, that, that was, uh, that was 93.

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Yeah, it was.

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Uh, it was 93.

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Yeah, it was, it was 93.

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So I was a little too young to work, so I don't want to get in any trouble.

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But but no, I, I did that for for the summer, completely fell in love with it and I just I had a real hard conversation with my mother that said, look, you know, I'm going to this high end Jesuit high school and I and I don't think it's going to be the right move for me.

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So we looked into some trade stuff and kind of went back and forth.

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I ended up transferring schools and set myself up to go to trade school.

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The nice thing about the trade school was it gave you credits for high school.

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It was like a 12 to two program, so you would go to your regular high school in the morning and then go 12 to two to to, you know, electrical school.

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And I did so well in the first like two quarters that I was there that they said, look, they offered me a work program kind of situation to where you can, as long as you had over a 95, you know, maintained average, you can get a job with a contractor and it would count you for credit for high school.

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So I was like, yeah, that's me, I want to go to work, I'm good to go.

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I started doing that third quarter of my junior year and spent my whole senior year, literally of my junior year, and spent my whole senior year literally gym at 7 am for school, because you have to take that.

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I think it was English, and then I think it was one other class and I was on the job by 9 am for the end of coffee and the coffee break.

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So I spent my whole senior year working from 9.30 until 4.30 every single day in the trade.

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And I feel like that's absolutely amazing because, for anyone who goes through the modern education system, the thought of being able to say, hey, I'm going to not only take the time that you're there, but we're going to give you an applicable skill that you're going to be able to build I'd rather learn that than some of the math that they're teaching.

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You were able to learn something that you were directly able to apply to a career.

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What would we have done if we had that extra year?

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It's amazing and I think it's so cool the fact that you already just knew.

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Like a lot of times when people think of, like a typical high schooler, we don't know what we want at that time.

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So the fact that you knew and you're going to like so much so that you went from I'm going to be a lawyer, you're in a high-end Jesuit school, you're then going to transfer out and do what you need and it's just so in sync to who you are and what you want as a person, almost feels like divine intervention.

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At that point you could have gone down a completely different path and, regardless of whatever path you did, I have faith you'd be incredibly successful, just because the kind of person you are, you don't get those character morals without ending up with something.

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But like man, I feel like I'm just sitting here with my jaw open listening to how in sync everything was.

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It's crazy.

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I don't know, I can't explain it.

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I just it was uh, it was just how it happened, and I think that spoiled me a little bit, Cause, like I said for my older son, I'm like what do you mean?

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You don't know what you want to do for the rest of your life, you know, and it's like it's not that easy.

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So I got to call out another coincidence here.

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A coincidence, joe, for all our diehard fans that are listening to all of these and aren't just here for the Rich Show.

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Did you notice how I had my Canadian brother north of the border here last time?

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And now Rich the New Yorker is here for Joe.

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Joe's been organizing these interviews and I'm starting to wonder if this is a little bit of a coincidence or what.

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Joe.

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Honestly, I have a bit of a bias towards Rich.

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In all honesty, rich is one of those guys that you just meet and it's hard not to fall in love with him.

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And what I mean by that is like you find certain morals and certain character traits that stand out, but when you find good character, attached to integrity, attached to good business sense, attached to good, like it's he's the package man and like it's hard, it's hard to not want to showcase that to someone.

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You know what I mean.

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Yeah, he's from new york, yeah, he's bald and beautiful, but hey, what else?

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You know what I mean.

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Yeah, he's from new york, yeah, he's bald and beautiful, but hey, what else?

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You know?

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And we all, I got my biases.

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What are you gonna do?

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right, not to mention the ball.

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I see what's happening here.

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All right I had hair last week.

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I just shaved for joke for today.

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That's what that's specifically what he had, like a long mullet locks.

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That I get it, yeah yeah, do you guys ever consider a toupee?

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Is that weird?

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no, no, no, no, I was no, no, I was going to say I um.

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I've known people who are close in my life who used to wear rugs, and it's just.

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I like it.

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I like it being off man.

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I'm aerodynamic and rated for maximum heat dissipation in an attic.

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That's how I like to describe it.

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Yeah, yeah, it's a sunblock holder up there, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a sunblock holder up there, right, yeah, eventually, anyways, wow, that was we digress.

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Rich, you became a master electrician in 2002, from my notes, and then you moved.

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You left New York, sorry, joe.

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Oh, I'm sorry.

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And you moved to AZ.

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Is that right?

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Yeah, honestly great part of my story.

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If you don't mind, please, by all means, we all want to know.

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So I was.

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I got so into electrical, like I was.

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The 2002 code book.

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I was like I could pretty much recite the pages.

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It was that bad when I don't have interest in something, I kind of disconnect from it.

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And that's where I was with the academic side of high school, after, I mean, I went from getting into all three high schools I applied to to just not doing so well, because I was just like no, I'm focused on electrical.

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And having a mother in education, that's like no, you have to do this.

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We went through our hard times occasionally, but my mother, being an awesome person and an awesome person and, and, uh, and, did a great job, you know, raising me, I feel, um, it gave me the chance to really just excel.

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Right, I fell asleep in my code book.

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I was constantly in it, um, so I, I got my electrical license in 02, but I, I'd gotten into the union in in 97, uh, or you know, 97, 98.

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And I was.

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I didn't start going to school until close to 2000.

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So I was hitting my third year of apprenticeship in the local, but I already had my time to take my master's test and had gotten my license in 02.

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So I was a third year apprentice with a master's license, which is kind of it was a little bit of a challenge, because going to work every day and having somebody tell you what to do, and then you're like yo man, I gotta you know a little tougher.

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So a little bit of a chip, you know, on my shoulder when that happened.

00:17:14.251 --> 00:17:15.861
But uh, but I met my wife.

00:17:15.861 --> 00:17:20.508
So my test was, uh was April 13th of 2002.

00:17:20.508 --> 00:17:29.709
And I went on a blind date, or my blind date was set up for April 12th and I almost didn't go, uh, almost decided not to because I didn't want to fail my test.

00:17:29.709 --> 00:17:32.584
I was like so nervous but I did and it was.

00:17:32.584 --> 00:17:33.325
It was the.

00:17:33.325 --> 00:17:46.301
It was one of the best things I ever did was go out on the 12th to meet my wife and then uh, be able to call her on the night of the 13th or 14th and be like, hey, I passed my test.

00:17:46.301 --> 00:17:47.464
So we uh, it was a crazy time that, that April of two.

00:17:47.484 --> 00:17:49.088
Okay that that alters the course here.

00:17:49.128 --> 00:17:50.172
I'm sorry, man.

00:17:51.434 --> 00:18:01.288
Not only do we have a successful master electrician, a successful business owner at this point, but we did not know we had a successful blind date candidate.

00:18:01.288 --> 00:18:03.113
There's very few of you, Rich.

00:18:03.294 --> 00:18:16.147
I don't know many blind dates that have gone all that well, yeah, somebody I worked with set it up and she was a nurse, she worked with his wife and he was like, hey, you want to go out tonight?

00:18:16.147 --> 00:18:17.330
Go to the bar and hang out.

00:18:17.330 --> 00:18:20.925
I was like, yeah, whatever.

00:18:20.925 --> 00:18:25.596
And she almost didn't go because it was raining and she got her hair wet and she was on the way in she was like, you know what?

00:18:25.596 --> 00:18:26.237
I'm just going to go home.

00:18:26.237 --> 00:18:28.721
So we both have our stories of why we almost didn't go.

00:18:28.721 --> 00:18:35.020
And uh and I got two beautiful kids and uh and a great family to to thank God every day.

00:18:35.040 --> 00:18:37.563
We did so yeah, I mean, man, that's wonderful.

00:18:37.563 --> 00:18:39.223
I'm really really happy for you there.

00:18:39.223 --> 00:18:54.673
You know, the thing that I think is really cool and I don't know if it's just a me thing, but being able to say you knew your wife before your license almost feels like a little flag in the ground there, because I remember I knew my wife before I passed my test.

00:18:54.673 --> 00:19:02.527
And it feels so good that we can celebrate that memory together and be like hey, remember all the studying, hey, remember digging the.

00:19:02.527 --> 00:19:03.211
So it's really cool.

00:19:03.211 --> 00:19:04.542
Even though I know it was the day after.

00:19:04.542 --> 00:19:06.988
You can technically say Nope, I was with you before.

00:19:06.988 --> 00:19:09.922
I think it's really cool, is your wife?

00:19:09.981 --> 00:19:10.865
in New York, or two then.

00:19:11.339 --> 00:19:11.682
She is.

00:19:11.682 --> 00:19:12.405
Yeah, she is.

00:19:12.405 --> 00:19:13.634
She lived in Westchester County.

00:19:13.634 --> 00:19:17.442
I moved up to Westchester after we left the Bronx.

00:19:17.442 --> 00:19:23.347
But what really sealed the deal for me is when she heard I passed my test.

00:19:23.347 --> 00:19:27.412
I used to drink a lot of Dunkin' Donuts coffee right, I was a big coffee guy.

00:19:27.412 --> 00:19:36.367
And she showed up to my door with a large coffee one night and I said to her oh, thank you so much.

00:19:36.367 --> 00:19:38.320
And she goes, come out to my car, I want to show you something.

00:19:38.320 --> 00:19:39.603
And I was like what?

00:19:39.603 --> 00:19:49.483
And she popped it open and she knew I had wanted a DeWalt combo set and she bought me, like the Sawzall, the screw gun, the flashlight at the time.

00:19:49.845 --> 00:19:52.231
It had just come out, carried her instantly, instantly.

00:19:53.123 --> 00:19:54.448
She sealed it, sealed the deal.

00:19:54.448 --> 00:19:57.108
So, this was a week after we met.

00:19:57.108 --> 00:19:59.167
It was a $500 combo set.

00:20:00.162 --> 00:20:01.167
I'm already calling that.

00:20:01.167 --> 00:20:13.750
Her love language seems to be giving gifts, because between her going out of her way to take you to your favorite concert and get you an amazing gift and now get you the combo set, like it seems, there's a lot of very good, thoughtful intention behind it.

00:20:13.750 --> 00:20:15.444
You landed a good one man.

00:20:15.886 --> 00:20:16.409
It's a great one.

00:20:16.409 --> 00:20:19.067
I wouldn't be half of what I am today without her.

00:20:19.067 --> 00:20:20.651
I love that.

00:20:20.900 --> 00:20:23.304
You want to know how you could tell I'm Canadian.

00:20:23.324 --> 00:20:25.009
Yeah, How's that?

00:20:25.365 --> 00:20:34.590
I mean, at one point I had a partner buy me a chainsaw Husqvarna chainsaw for an anniversary gift and I literally teared up.

00:20:34.590 --> 00:20:37.893
I was like, oh my God, this woman really cares about me.

00:20:39.135 --> 00:20:39.656
That's awesome.

00:20:41.165 --> 00:20:43.010
Sorry, I couldn't help but reminded me of that.

00:20:43.551 --> 00:20:43.952
Oh boy Okay.

00:20:45.464 --> 00:20:48.295
So what brought you guys out west then?

00:20:48.295 --> 00:20:51.425
Why the big move?

00:20:51.425 --> 00:20:53.450
And tell us about getting into home service now.

00:20:53.470 --> 00:20:58.366
So my at the time, you know, new York union, I was doing all you know we were doing all.

00:20:58.366 --> 00:21:02.258
I worked for about 125 million a year contractor.

00:21:02.258 --> 00:21:04.688
We were doing all bigger commercial work.

00:21:04.688 --> 00:21:12.713
And I love commercial work, I love bidding it, I love like studying the numbers and figuring out how to break the break the barriers.

00:21:12.713 --> 00:21:17.105
And so I was working she was working as a nurse.

00:21:17.646 --> 00:21:22.857
My in-laws actually came out here and and found we live in Anthem, arizona right now.

00:21:22.857 --> 00:21:27.656
They found this little town that was just being, you know, had just been built, just being developed.

00:21:27.656 --> 00:21:28.807
They fell in love with it.

00:21:28.807 --> 00:21:31.296
And they they said to her hey, you know, had just been built, just being developed.

00:21:31.296 --> 00:21:31.857
They fell in love with it.

00:21:31.857 --> 00:21:34.204
And they said to her hey, you know, we're going to go on vacation, come with us.

00:21:34.204 --> 00:21:36.525
She fell in love with it.

00:21:37.025 --> 00:21:39.717
We were trying to buy a house in New York and it was like everything was $500,000.

00:21:39.717 --> 00:21:41.510
We needed 20% down.

00:21:41.510 --> 00:21:42.789
I just couldn't do it.

00:21:42.789 --> 00:21:50.507
You know, I wasn't even a journeyman yet and we just couldn't do it.

00:21:50.507 --> 00:21:58.771
So we decided, um, we got married in 04 and we decided that we were going to buy a house as an investment $200,000, you know, whatever, move there and go have this house as an investment.

00:21:58.771 --> 00:22:02.827
Well, we started to kind of just want to be here, so we came out.

00:22:02.827 --> 00:22:05.833
Um, I still had a ton of family back in New York.

00:22:05.833 --> 00:22:07.276
My grandparents were still alive.

00:22:07.276 --> 00:22:09.098
It was too early, we didn't have kids.

00:22:09.098 --> 00:22:13.703
We probably we should have not come to Arizona or we should have just stayed once.

00:22:13.703 --> 00:22:18.055
We were here because it was just it was not the right time.

00:22:18.055 --> 00:22:19.546
Something pulled us back so we were only.

00:22:19.546 --> 00:22:24.218
We came out to Arizona for about a year as a married couple lived in the home.

00:22:24.218 --> 00:22:25.750
I actually gave up electrical.

00:22:29.727 --> 00:22:30.067
I was a.

00:22:30.067 --> 00:22:31.413
I was a poker dealer in a casino.

00:22:31.413 --> 00:22:31.554
Whoa.

00:22:36.424 --> 00:22:39.979
Yup, I refused to work in the in the heat for $10 an hour when I was just working for 40 in uh in New York.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:52.519
So yeah, it was a little bit of a mindset shift, um, but I, I, we ended up going back to New York that following year, Cause I just felt like you know, uh, we still had family and I was a little homesick and I feel like I didn't finish what I needed to, so I went back.

00:22:52.519 --> 00:23:02.648
Unfortunately, we had some family pass away my grandmother, my father, my grandfather but I did start my own union shop, so I got approached by the local to teach.

00:23:02.648 --> 00:23:04.271
I was teaching from 06 to 13.

00:23:04.271 --> 00:23:06.536
From 06 to 13.

00:23:06.536 --> 00:23:13.047
And and then we I started my own union shop in 09.

00:23:13.067 --> 00:23:17.375
Yeah, we were doing mostly retail office renovations and college renovations.

00:23:18.597 --> 00:23:20.808
Very cool yeah, we were doing about 3 million.

00:23:20.808 --> 00:23:34.634
We got up to about three, three and a half at the height, and then we ended up having kind of just a reality check and and just life check and saying you know what we we had.

00:23:34.634 --> 00:23:48.676
My son was born in 07, so he was kind of, you know, was going through and um and uh, and you know, toddler stage, um, uh, my, my, uh.

00:23:48.676 --> 00:23:53.041
Youngest son was born in 12, in January, um of 2012.

00:23:53.041 --> 00:23:54.509
So we kind of just said, you know what?

00:23:54.509 --> 00:23:55.953
We have kids where we're thinking about them.

00:23:55.953 --> 00:24:00.997
So we decided to move to Arizona in 13 and uh, and step out of the rat race.

00:24:00.997 --> 00:24:01.438
We call it.

00:24:03.048 --> 00:24:03.671
So, yeah, that is.

00:24:03.671 --> 00:24:05.115
That is kind of what New York feels like.

00:24:05.115 --> 00:24:14.230
It's not necessarily priced to live anymore, and you know the thought of being able to take your kids to have a better opportunity.

00:24:14.230 --> 00:24:17.040
Yeah, they may be a little bit further away from family, but you can create your own and give a better future for them.

00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:19.511
Just, it's no different than our parents coming from Italy.

00:24:19.511 --> 00:24:20.924
You know our grandparents come from Italy.

00:24:20.924 --> 00:24:21.865
You know what I mean At that point.

00:24:22.007 --> 00:24:22.708
It's all about the kids.

00:24:22.708 --> 00:24:25.151
You know it's, it's all about we could.

00:24:25.151 --> 00:24:32.961
I was fine in New York, we were making money, we were doing okay, but it was more about what does their childhood look like?

00:24:32.961 --> 00:24:39.355
And I had one of the best childhoods I consider ever and I grew up in the Bronx and it was a great experience.

00:24:39.355 --> 00:24:42.404
But it's not like that anymore as far as I'm concerned.

00:24:42.404 --> 00:24:47.277
So good opportunity for them to come out here and just have something new.

00:24:48.905 --> 00:24:49.207
Awesome.

00:24:49.207 --> 00:24:50.451
Do you ever regret the move?

00:24:50.451 --> 00:24:51.915
Sounds like you're on.

00:24:52.705 --> 00:25:00.114
No, the only part that I, that I, I wish it's like a bittersweet thing right when we originally came out here in 04, if I, would have stayed here.

00:25:00.153 --> 00:25:03.646
My business would have been uh, it would have been crazy right now.

00:25:03.646 --> 00:25:05.329
What would it possibly been?

00:25:05.329 --> 00:25:08.877
But at the same time, I needed that experience of having.

00:25:08.877 --> 00:25:23.008
You know, I had 15 guys in a union environment where, every month, every Monday, my, my, I think it was like 70 or $80,000 in payroll every Monday and I needed that, I needed to see what that was and I needed to experience it.

00:25:23.548 --> 00:25:24.932
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

00:25:24.932 --> 00:25:26.596
Oh, that's remarkable man.

00:25:26.596 --> 00:25:34.901
And so fast forwarding a bit more into more of the home service stuff then, because you really just began in that in in arizona, then is that right?

00:25:35.843 --> 00:25:36.044
yeah.

00:25:36.044 --> 00:25:46.313
So I I came out here and uh, and I I brought my van with me, brought my, my e350, and I was, you know, getting myself situated, and I remember a guy pulling up to me.

00:25:46.313 --> 00:25:50.009
He was a pest control guy in town and he said, uh, he goes.

00:25:50.009 --> 00:25:56.811
Well, either you're the I've never met this guy before in my life and he says to me you're either the worst electrician in the world or you just moved here.

00:25:56.811 --> 00:25:58.075
That's it.

00:25:58.075 --> 00:25:59.525
Yeah, I just moved here, man.

00:25:59.525 --> 00:26:04.666
And he's like, because nobody's like standing by doing nothing midday, you know, cleaning out their truck.

00:26:04.666 --> 00:26:06.974
I'm like, oh, thank you, you know, nice to meet you.

00:26:06.974 --> 00:26:18.854
Uh pulled me into a networking group there and the next thing, you know, uh, I got two trucks and we're doing, we're doing residential, residential stuff wow, that's a funny story.

00:26:18.874 --> 00:26:32.280
That's like bill envol, here's your sign, right, oh man, okay, so did you started up shop on your own again then, right off the bat, or were you working for someone else, or what happened then?

00:26:32.884 --> 00:26:38.173
No, when I came back out in 13, I had to do my own thing.

00:26:38.173 --> 00:26:41.519
I was already got to taste the entrepreneurial life.

00:26:42.305 --> 00:26:43.007
Yeah, hard to go back.

00:26:43.988 --> 00:26:47.054
I wasn't going back unless it made really like a lot of sense.

00:26:47.054 --> 00:26:49.878
And I did that from 13.

00:26:49.878 --> 00:26:57.057
So from 13 to 18, I did that in Anthem Arizona.

00:26:57.057 --> 00:26:59.132
I had a company, anthem Electric.

00:26:59.132 --> 00:27:09.496
We kind of went around, we did everything from you know hanging a ceiling fan all the way up to you know a store in one of the malls or something nearby.

00:27:09.496 --> 00:27:11.612
We just we did pretty good.

00:27:11.612 --> 00:27:19.892
We didn't get super big, we were doing about like five and change a year, but I was content it was, I was making money.

00:27:19.892 --> 00:27:25.017
But again, I always go back to Michael Gerber type of stuff and I owned a job.

00:27:25.017 --> 00:27:31.290
I didn't have procedures, I didn't know anything even remotely close to what I know now or you know.

00:27:31.290 --> 00:27:39.955
So there was just a lot of you know, $75, service calls, 125, you know kind of situations and um, yeah, you know, am I making it?

00:27:40.076 --> 00:27:41.220
oh, great is everybody getting paid.

00:27:41.345 --> 00:27:42.606
Great, you know, are we happy?

00:27:42.606 --> 00:27:55.055
Yes, check, let's go um no, no kind of vision for the future, no vision of what my why would be, which is a big part of you know I am now and I didn't really have a path for the guys.

00:27:55.055 --> 00:27:57.212
I didn't have a set plan.

00:27:58.605 --> 00:28:03.574
Did you hit a wall, then Did something cause you to have to stop, or what happened next?

00:28:03.875 --> 00:28:10.386
No, I was approached so kind of a little bit of a of a unique situation is, you know, it's very small town.

00:28:10.788 --> 00:28:18.192
So everybody knows each other and and I liked I, I just really liked a lot of the other trades, like the guys.

00:28:18.192 --> 00:28:18.994
They were just good guys.

00:28:18.994 --> 00:28:23.715
You'd see them, you know, once a month at least in a networking event or a chamber or whatever else.

00:28:23.715 --> 00:28:31.630
And I got approached a little bit of a sticky situation for uh, for an HVAC plumbing contractor, a local guy.

00:28:31.630 --> 00:28:37.330
I got approached by them to uh to want to know if I wanted to come aboard to to run their electrical division.

00:28:37.330 --> 00:28:50.055
And you know, we made kind of a little bit of a deal for um for me giving up the business and me coming aboard and uh, I I don't think I could have, I definitely couldn't have done it with anyone.

00:28:50.055 --> 00:28:52.330
It had to be somebody that was like minded, somebody that I knew had a good heart.

00:28:52.330 --> 00:28:59.413
These two guys are are great people and I just felt like like it was a, it was a great move.

00:28:59.432 --> 00:29:03.731
I thought it was a good son especially when you could judge it by the people.

00:29:03.731 --> 00:29:06.453
Like the first thing you said wasn't that, oh, they were doing so.

00:29:06.453 --> 00:29:09.768
Well, it was, they were good people.

00:29:10.130 --> 00:29:10.751
Right, I had.

00:29:10.751 --> 00:29:16.119
No, there was a, and I I told them that after we you know I could have never done that with anyone else.

00:29:16.119 --> 00:29:24.211
So I joined up as the electrical portion of an HVAC plumbing company and and I really went into it with.

00:29:24.211 --> 00:29:26.116
You know, we're going to swing for the fences.

00:29:26.116 --> 00:29:32.153
Sky's the limit kind of kind of mentality, but I didn't have a lot of the education you know I didn't know a lot of it.

00:29:33.034 --> 00:29:43.326
You're also, when you do something like that, which I didn't realize is that you're also it's hard to change like, it's hard to be in control of anything.

00:29:43.326 --> 00:29:45.490
You have to kind of there's checks and balances, there's there's a progression and you have to.

00:29:45.490 --> 00:29:51.288
You know they were extremely open to suggestions and very receptive with growth.

00:29:51.288 --> 00:30:02.836
You know things I wanted to do, but at the same time, you know there's also they used to actually kind of give me a hard time about, you know about my style of running Anthem Electric in their company.

00:30:02.836 --> 00:30:05.333
So it was all fun though.

00:30:07.630 --> 00:30:23.627
So, yeah, I did that until this past November and we we got bought out by private equity two years prior to that and you know a lot of a lot of things that kind of I didn't maybe prove up a hundred percent or kind of just things drift.

00:30:23.627 --> 00:30:28.131
But some of it, some of that, some of that.

00:30:28.131 --> 00:30:36.165
What attracted me to the company in the beginning kind of kind of wasn't, didn't stay and uh, and it was unfortunate, uh.

00:30:36.165 --> 00:30:40.775
But you know, again I just look at it as it paved the road for something else.

00:30:41.195 --> 00:30:46.967
So yeah, fair enough, you know that's the best way of looking at it because, like I can relate with where you're coming from.

00:30:46.967 --> 00:31:00.180
Like you think something is the way it is and then you join it and you're like time changes your perspectives, you know, but at the same time you can look back at it and say, yeah, but I needed to make those moves, because those moves brought me to a place where I could do something better.

00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:05.492
Right, and looking, yeah, looking back, the perspective on that is huge, right.

00:31:11.164 --> 00:31:12.067
So I think it's two sides of that right.

00:31:12.067 --> 00:31:13.730
For number one, I think that you learn what to do.

00:31:13.730 --> 00:31:14.593
You learn what not to do, right.

00:31:14.633 --> 00:31:17.991
You learn there's both sides of that and it's the same thing of when we fail in life.

00:31:17.991 --> 00:31:22.166
Right, if we do not learn from that experience, that's the real loss.

00:31:22.166 --> 00:31:24.490
It has nothing to do with the failure.

00:31:24.490 --> 00:31:25.813
Everybody fails.

00:31:25.813 --> 00:31:33.992
It took me a really long time to understand and know that right, but we have to get something from that.

00:31:33.992 --> 00:31:35.757
There has to be a positive spin on that.

00:31:35.757 --> 00:31:39.074
The other thing, too, is I could pick up the phone today and call either of them.

00:31:39.074 --> 00:31:44.325
There were two brothers and I can call either of them and say, hey, you know, can you help me with this or whatever.

00:31:44.325 --> 00:31:49.051
And I know they would drop whatever they were doing to help me, and that that means a lot.

00:31:49.051 --> 00:31:52.416

Ep 324 - Rich’s Road to Year One Service success...and $90K Months

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