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Victor lays it all out
16 Plays28 days ago
Climatecare plans to resist the dark side!
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
There we go. Oh, no. Now it's all legit. but not what to say ah Record. We're on the record. On the record.
00:00:11
Speaker
So you you you are tight with Michael. Michael Riddler? Yes. Yes, I am. How do you know Michael? but We have we've crossed paths many times.
00:00:24
Speaker
Uh-oh. Michael and I. Yes. He's an awesome guy. He is a good guy. Yeah. Are you like a supplier to him then? The other way around. He's a supplier to us.
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh, okay. Will you buy his equipment? We're just starting. He just joined. Eden Energy just became an approved vendor in February. Oh, yeah climate so super fresh.
00:00:48
Speaker
Well, I've known Michael for 20 years. he yeah I've known him since I got into the business. uh it took you 20 years to trust him enough to go into business well no we needed many things to conspire for the opportunity to happen but yeah yeah i i was i worked for a company in toronto um that was a water furnace dealer and uh so i actually learned to do fusion welding at the back of eden energy oh okay years ago yeah Nice.
00:01:17
Speaker
yeah Nice. And um how long has Climate Care been around? Climaker has been around since 92. Oh, forever. Forever. yes Yeah, basically. Yeah, like a life, a couple lifetimes, couple, a couple, ah you know, consolidation rounds. We've been, we've had a very, so it's funny, like when things happen, I'm like, oh yeah, we've seen this before. Like it's nothing new, nothing new under the sun. um But we started in 92. There was a group of six small business owners, you know, HVAC contractors who,
00:01:52
Speaker
wanted to be in business and not be beholden to the gas company this is kind of the kind of the intersection of that conversation that you were having yeah yeah yeah so back in the day and you know up until the ninety s in ontario if you were a gas contractor you were basically just a subcontractor for the gas company yeah and we had two in ontario union gas in the southwest and consumers gas in the east in the in the toronto area And eventually that all became Enbridge, right? In the last years, Enbridge has acquired everything. So back in the day, ah you know you would wake up in the morning and roll into the office and your fax machine would spit out all your leads for the day.
00:02:38
Speaker
And you would go and those were the things that you could, you know, those were the customers who had called the gas company and said, I need my furnace tuned up or I need a new barbecue or I need. a Oh, so you got them directly from the energy provider, basically.
00:02:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it was complete and utter monopoly vertical integration. um And then climate care. So climate care started in 92 with ah with ah six contractors who were like, we actually want to figure out to be in business.
00:03:06
Speaker
and actually run businesses and not just be beholden to the gas company. And then um the first round of consolidation that happened kind happened at the same time or right around the same time as the deregulation of the Ontario energy industry.
00:03:25
Speaker
So in 1999, Ontario Energy Board said you can't be the provider of the fuel and the provider of the appliance. they They kind of did the same thing in other industries. Like Bell Canada couldn't afford you to rent a telephone. Remember those days? Yeah, I remember those days. you know We had, what was it called? Alberta government telephones out here. And then... It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's crazy. Can you imagine telling kids today, you couldn't own your own telephone. I remember, with my we you know, you had to pay. i don't remember this enough. Maybe it wasn't the same.
00:03:57
Speaker
But in Ontario, you had to pay for each outlet that you had. Yep. Right? yeah Each place you can plug in your phone. Like, yeah wow. This is like unbelievable. That's why, I mean, there's still houses today that we go in service that have one outlet. Like, it's and it's in the living room. Like, how do you only have one outlet?
00:04:16
Speaker
and My kids ask I'm like, because you had to pay for it. So you weren't going to put one in the bedroom or in the kitchen and one down in the basement because it was they were just, every month you'd get your stupid bill. Exactly. Instead, you really have that super long. Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
ah the forty foot long phone call. Totally crazy. Oh my God. So yeah. Yeah. So in, in 99, they deregulated the, on the Ontario industry. Now the unintended, so in climate care members were very involved in that fight.
00:04:47
Speaker
Um, HRAI had this thing called the, um, at the HVAC coalition. And it was made up a lot of a bunch of climate care members and other members of HRI. And we fought against this government, well, not government control, but this monopoly control.
00:05:05
Speaker
i mean, people actually thought the utility was owned by the government too, which was another crazy thing. So, um, So you didn't you guys didn't go through that because we had sorry to interrupt, but we had Enbridge out here that turned into MX and that was all owned by the government.
00:05:20
Speaker
And then I would say maybe 2010, they all split that up. And now it's it's gone to private equity, I guess. oh yeah yeah so so this So the route here was a little different. So Enbridge ah consumers gas, which was originally Toronto gas consumers gas became Enbridge.
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah. And then Enbridge actually they had the member, the 90 income trust for all the rage. I mean, it also it was oil and oil and gas income trust in Ontario, we don't actually make anything. So in Ontario, it was water heater income trust. Yes. So they spun out their water heater portfolio into an income trust.
00:05:59
Speaker
And that was that was originally managed by direct energy. And then enter care. That's right. That's right. Here became the Direct Energy left Ontario, they left kind of they left Ontario and they sold it to what became Enercare.
00:06:18
Speaker
And Enercare was basically just the water heater rental company. And then and the same thing happened in the southwestern Ontario. Union Gas spun out Union Energy, which became Reliance.
00:06:32
Speaker
ro okay Reliance got got got sold to a private equity group called Alinda. And then Alinda sold it to CKA Holdings, Li Cushing, right? leeka yeah So Li Cushing still owns Reliance through CKA Holdings.
00:06:51
Speaker
And Enbridge, sorry, um Enbridge, you have Enbridge Gas and then you had Enercare, right? And Enercare was servicing the water heaters that were formerly owned by the utility.
00:07:03
Speaker
And then Enercare went public. It was traded on the stock exchange trump stock exchange for for a while. And then it got sold to Brookfield. Yeah, for like billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. so four point three It was crazy. So and what was crazy was, i said you know, like, what do we create in Ontario? Really bad business ideas.
00:07:24
Speaker
So red you're talking to an Albertan, so I agree with you. hunt Oh, yeah, no, I'm this is a crazy place. When I try to explain, you know, what climate care is, you know, to people outside of Ontario, I always start with I'm not going to be the guy from Ontario coming to tell you how to do anything because we don't know how to do anything.
00:07:41
Speaker
but we just destroy we destroy things here so so they took all these water heaters they realized that hey we've got all these people paying us like money to rent the water heaters which originally back in the 1950s you know it's an interesting backstory about why yeah tell me how that started like we don't have any of that here all right and I mean, we don't. I've never rented anything. I've never seen a rental.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah. It's an insane financial cancer. and I'll tell you i'll tell you where where it started and where it's gone to. So it started it started in Toronto, from what I can tell, my research, back in the nineteen fifty s um gas utility consumers gas was just starting to expand and they wanted to expand into new construction so the housing boom that was taking place after the second world war in toronto um and so they realized you know how are they going to get gas into new homes and because at the time people had electric water heaters right and they were renting those from the city too from toronto hydro
00:08:43
Speaker
So the gas utility went to the builders and said, we will provide a free water heater for you and a free gas connection and yeah and we'll rent the water heater to the homeowner for a dollar a month.
00:08:55
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. And by the time, you know, you balance simple things. so because so it was like Why should I put in gas? What do I need to put in gas where there's electricity?
00:09:06
Speaker
And they said, we'll put in the gas for you. It won't cost you anything. And we'll put in this water heater and we'll save you the cost. What would you spend for a water heater? 40 to 40 bucks. i don't know what it was back in the 1950s. Yeah. Yeah. you know but And we'll give it to you for free and we'll just charge the homeowner a dollar a month.
00:09:21
Speaker
So that was how it got started. And by the time you fast forward to the 90s or to 2000, basically, you've got a million people or two million people in Ontario.
00:09:34
Speaker
renting their water heaters between Union Gas and Enbridge. You had like two million people renting water heaters. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So so when they spun it out into because they got deregulated and the Ontario Energy Board said, you can't do this. They created this new standalone entity that it was originally called the Consumers Gas Water Heater Income Trust.
00:09:57
Speaker
Fancy name, right? You can tell that was a name that they really spent a lot of time thinking. That's right. What should we call it? What should we call this thing? I don't know. Who the hell cares? And we'll turn it into an income trust because that's that was the hot thing at the time.
00:10:08
Speaker
And I think they didn't they didn't really think about anything. It was just like, we got to get this off the books, right? Yeah. So a few years later, somebody realized, wait a second, if we're renting them water heaters, what else could we rent them?
00:10:22
Speaker
Right. And that was the beginning of rental HVAC in Ontario. And there's this crazy PowerPoint that I have that goes back to like 2003. That was called how to build a rental bias.
00:10:36
Speaker
And it was from to oh like to convince people to rent. Yeah, basically. yeah what What kind of math? What kind of crazy math do we have to use? then to convince people to rent instead of buying this thing. Because like, is there another appliance that you rent? Like I don't rent my dishwasher or my fridge.
00:10:54
Speaker
No. Why the hell am I renting my water heater, right? So, and then what, but we had been conditioned for 40 years. People on Ontario have been conditioned to rent their water heater. And so it was, well, if you rent your water didn't you rent your furnace?
00:11:06
Speaker
Well, that doesn't make any sense. Oh yeah, I can make it make sense. Just give me half an hour and your kitchen table and some crazy math. And so they trained, it was Reliance at that time, trained their home comfort advisors in how to create a rental bias. And Reliance did it. And then Enercare was like, oh, if they're doing it, we got to do it too.
00:11:23
Speaker
um And so Reliance has this has their rental. Enbridge has their rental. They call it the Advantage program. And they created dealer networks outside of their traditional area.
00:11:34
Speaker
And then Enercare was like, you know what? We want to expand across the United States because they were publicly traded. So Enercare went and bought um service experts.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yes. and And they bought service experts. It's a crazy thing. There's this interview now. The interview is like 10 years old. John McDonald, who is the CEO at the time, explaining on on on um BNN why they bought service experts. is Because we want to expand our rental program to the United States.
00:12:01
Speaker
And they're in ninety there are 90 service experts locations across North America. yeah and they didn't buy because they thought they were great i mean i shouldn't say i don't know why they bought what what other reason they might have had no you can say exactly what you mean that's fine what they what they said explicitly was they wanted to expand their advantage program to the united states that they saw this huge opportunity and then you know at the time entercare was publicly traded so every quarter i would go on their website their investor relations website it's amazing
00:12:33
Speaker
what companies will tell their investors yeah and how it differs from what they tell their customers. Unbelievable. And so they're talking about like- That's the name of the game though, right? What's crazy is like, why the financial reporters never think to be like, or the consumer reporters never think you go like, what are they actually telling their investors? You should show up in an investors meeting is what the consumer reporter should do. They should 100%. So they were talking about like how they lobbied you know, to make it more difficult for people to get out of contracts in Ontario and how they insisted on, you know, everything that they would do came under the veneer of like consumer protection.
00:13:13
Speaker
I always joke, yeah, the consumer they were protecting was their own consumer. Yes. Yes. Protecting them from their competition. So it got very messy, but, but what happened was, you know, asset managers realized that there, if you've got patient capital,
00:13:31
Speaker
that a rental water heater portfolio, rental HVAC portfolio is gold because these people pay you each month, it escalates every month and it escalates a lot. It's like three, Reliance's contracts are 3% year.
00:13:45
Speaker
And Entercares contracts have been CPI plus two. So whatever the rate of inflation is, plus two. Yeah, it's insane, right? Wow. so I did not know that. yeah And then you get to the depreciation schedules and the buyouts. And on the HVAC side, the buyouts can be incredible.
00:14:02
Speaker
The buyout on the Entercares program never goes to zero. At 15 years, it goes to 5% of the original value, and then it stays there forever until you exit. and So when you go to sell your home or whatever. Right. So they come up anyway, well, yeah, the the contracts are assignable. They don't want to force you to to pay it out. They want to get them. They want to use as a hook to get the next customer.
00:14:28
Speaker
Right. So, yeah, yeah. The contracts are assignable and they want the the new buyer to take over the the the rental agreement. Yeah. So these were the first two. It's interesting. I mean, bad things, bad financial things that could create it in Ontario. So, so this was really the dawn of private equity.
00:14:49
Speaker
or asset managers owning residential HVAC companies. And then, um you know, it just it just kind of spiraled and continued to grow. And basically everything in Canada that exists in the rental space and private equities, almost all them are derivatives of these two companies. So the guy who started at the right time he came out of Union Energy. So he did it at Union Energy and then he left Union Energy and he redid it.
00:15:18
Speaker
And then the second company created was RightTime. And then you mentioned RightTime was bought by Clairvest. Yes. um And then it was sold by Clairvest to Griffin. And now Griffin has held it for five years and I don't think they can figure out how to sell it quite yet. In the meantime, they bought Southern Air in the US. So they got, you know, they're they're very big.
00:15:40
Speaker
yep there's like There's like a hundred of these private equity owned companies now. It's, it's, and I mean, ours is, our story is just a little bit, um it's a little bit different because we mostly because of our, uh, natural oil and gas resources where they're so abundant that we're like, we electric, electric application is sort of being pushed back upon. But the only, the only, um
00:16:12
Speaker
people that are pushing that are the reliances and the service experts of the world where they do their ah rentals. And then there's, because we have we have three here in Calgary that are part of the service expert group that sort of came up with that exactly in the timeline that you spoke of. um And they do the same thing where ah we just dealt with one a couple of weeks ago where a guy was selling his house and the remaining balance was like 4,600 bucks. Yeah. And they decided, like you just said, well, it'll just be cheaper for us to, you know, continue with what we've got going on here as opposed to trying to come up, you know, their house was 600,000 bucks or whatever it was.
00:16:54
Speaker
We can't really afford another five. So we're just going to pay them. no yes people well It's crazy, man. It's crazy. I, and And, you know, yeah, they've been they've been slapped down a couple of times by the Competition Bureau for, you know, for making it hard to get out of their contracts. They haven't gotten any easier. They're they're brutally difficult to get out of.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, intentionally so. 100%. So how do you, mean... so how do you i mean ah The truth is, is three or four times a year, I'll have somebody, and three or four times a year, somebody from one of those types of firms will reach out to me and say, Bob, we love what you got. We'd love to invest, blah, blah, blah. And one it out of those, one or two is quite serious. I'm like, listen, man, my number's 10, eight to 10 million bucks. Unless you got eight or 10 million bucks, like don't, like let's not go for lunch. And we've had a couple of those.
00:17:51
Speaker
my, ah situation is, is um it's basically being given to the boys and they can do whatever they want with it going forward. But my question to you is, how you must have those guys coming after you, not coming after you, but, and you know, so thats i had one i had one guy try to do like a hostile takeover of the co-op.
00:18:12
Speaker
Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, it was crazy. That's an interesting. That's a crazy story. It happened a couple years ago. So ah so basically what happens like this, you know, these guys, there's two things that they're looking for. They're looking for a platform. I'm going to switch into PE lingo. Right. Yeah.
00:18:28
Speaker
They're looking for a platform, which is an existing multi branch business that they can now add on to. Right. They can do yeah tuck in acquisitions into the platform.
00:18:39
Speaker
yeah So if you have multiple locations, if you've got you know good market share, you've got a good thing going on, that they can just buy you and platform you, then then that's worth something to them. Now, if you're in that position, they're going to often give you you know a a half decent multiple on your EBITDA, although there's a bunch of negotiation that goes on there. Yes.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then if you're a shrewd negotiator, then you'll get a second bite of the apple, which means that when they sell it the next time that you still have retained a piece. Right. And and that part's always open to negotiation. How um how important the more important you are to them, the bigger a piece that you can get and for the second bite of the apple.
00:19:23
Speaker
Gotcha. But the idea of all of these guys and this was the ah real education for me. As you said, because, you know, we've been approached so many times I had to understand the one in the game is that they're in the business of buying and selling businesses.
00:19:36
Speaker
They're not in the business of running businesses. And you are at a huge disadvantage because you are going to sell your business you know once, twice, maybe if you're a serial entrepreneur, three times in your lifetime. These guys do that like before they go for lunch, they bought and sold three businesses, right?
00:19:55
Speaker
yeah So you're at a serious disadvantage because they they know they you know, whatever, New York financial math is worse than Ontario financial math.
00:20:06
Speaker
So so So if you're not that big, then they'll look you as like a tuck-in acquisition. So you're a business that they want to buy and stick on, glom onto their existing platform. Become a service expert thing or something. Yeah. Join that brand. RightTime's a good example. Because RightTime, they had a core like five or six businesses the beginning.
00:20:30
Speaker
that they bought all in one fell swoop, because what happened was when Enercare bought service experts, and on right? They had Enercare had existing franchise agreements, seven existing franchise agreements in Ontario.
00:20:45
Speaker
So when they bought service experts, they could not take all of those service experts locations in Ontario without violating their non-competes with their existing franchisees.
00:20:56
Speaker
So they sold off a bunch of those Ontario locations to the guy who had created Reliance at Union Energy, a fellow named Vaughn Gettler.
00:21:07
Speaker
and And so Vaughn took these like six companies and and then started making tuck-in acquisitions. Right? Yeah. And then you know that was Clairvess coming in and investing in him. And then when they got big enough, he then flipped it.
00:21:25
Speaker
to he got his second bite of the apple and exited when they sold to griffin so the the issue is that when they look at climacare they say oh this is a ready-made platform this is just like we could just buy the whole thing actually the no you can't we're a cooperative we're a co-op it's like you know and i have to explain especially americans like what is a co-op it's like it's a completely foreign concept to them Um, you know, a co-op is like a franchise, but the franchisor is owned by the franchisees.
00:21:57
Speaker
That's how I typically explain it Right. So all of our member companies own a share, own a common and share in the co-op and we exist to help them have more fun and make more money. So they want to buy the whole thing. They say, oh, there's value in the co-op corporation. We'll buy all the member companies. It's like, that'll never happen. i have enough trouble herding cats on a daily basis.
00:22:17
Speaker
We're not going to get them all to agree to sell. Um, so. they have picked off our members over time. A bunch of the right time locations in Ontario are former climate care members.
00:22:29
Speaker
Um, because okay we're pretty good at helping people build good businesses. Um, the challenge happens, you know, what happens when it's time to retire? And I think you highlight this, you know, like, are your kids going to come into the business?
00:22:44
Speaker
If they are, then that might be a good off ramp for you, a multi-generational family business, you know, um, if Did you start your business or was that your dad your grandfather? My dad. Yeah, my grandfather, dad. So it's, I mean, um for as i'm ah for tax purposes, it's a different legal name, but essentially it's.
00:23:05
Speaker
Continuation of the family. It's a flow through of from beginning to me type of thing. yeah Right. So your kids get in. It's like fourth generation in the family. That's beautiful. And it's getting harder harder to find. i think, you know, the boomers, you know, from from the greatest generation to the boomers, the boomers, the Gen X are, you know, I think a lot of the the millennials and i don't know Gen Z, whatever we're up to now. they you know are they Do they want to go into the trades? Now the trades have become sexy again. They have. Yes. Maybe it is a good opportunity. but i I find like a lot of our members, they had kids late or they didn't have kids or their kids you know don't want to do this. They see what dad went through.
00:23:45
Speaker
And they don't want to follow dad down into the basement again. a lot of there's a lot of intergenerational family trauma. the tree You know, i love you. You know, like walking into spider filled basements and that's the trauma that you get to do. oh you know you know In the States, there's a huge guy, a huge company owned by private equity to now called Gettle. And their logo is a kid holding a flashlight.
00:24:10
Speaker
And I always joke that, you know, what you don't see is, is the slap that. That's right. Not in my eyes, idiot, pointed at the furnace.
00:24:24
Speaker
it's Exactly. Like so many of my members have this, this trauma of like, you know, it's, it's Friday night or Saturday night and the heat's out. So, at you know, Mrs. Jones's house and like get in the truck and hold the flashlight. Let's go kid.
00:24:37
Speaker
And so, personal that right. And so it's like, do you want, are your kids like, you know, we're the, I think a little bit more touchy feely and gen X and our parents were. So like, are we going to do that to our kids? We got, we got too soft. So, so, um ah so I'm just looking at your, I'm just looking at your history. I'm on your website. Oh, okay.
00:24:55
Speaker
And so you started off as CEO group, right? that right? CEO group. That's right. That was the contractors, uh, excellence organization. I think it was executive organization, executive organization is what it says. Yeah, there we go. there It's right. Yeah. CEO. yeah And then in eight, and then 98, you turned into the climate care group.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that had a little, uh,
00:25:21
Speaker
The Climacare Cooperative Corporation? Climacare Cooperative, yeah. So the the irony is, so our first president, fellow named Gerald Inch, he was also one of the first companies to get rolled up by Lennox in the service. So at service experts. Oh, okay. Yes.
00:25:40
Speaker
Service experts was a roll up by Lennox, right? Of their... Yep, it was. So Gerald Inch in 92 was the first president of climate care in 98. He sold Roy Inch and son. So he was second generation.
00:25:54
Speaker
He sold Roy Inch and sons to, to service experts and his kids ran that business while it was owned by service experts. And it got sold a couple of times and everything was good until Brookfield bought Enercare and then it all kind of fell off. The wheels fell off the cart.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:11
Speaker
So that was, ah and then yeah, 2000, we became a cooperative. Well, don't forget, in 2019, you got your new mascot. 2019 Captain Comfort came into being. Yes, yes.
00:26:24
Speaker
Very nice. And then, uh...
00:26:28
Speaker
And then so all it says here you had your 30th anniversary, and then 2024, you're 30. So if I understand, and i'm you know I'm just going to shoot from the hip, and if I get it wrong, I get it wrong.
00:26:40
Speaker
But it appears to me that I would join your group if I was looking for support, for training, for training,
00:26:52
Speaker
better pricing maybe is that what you sort of your advantage that you get to we have negotiate with mikey what's that all the four pillars you get to negotiate with mikey for better pricing mikey with that exactly exactly so we've got so what we try to do is you know i first of all it's member driven right so i've got a team the the the support center team is 10 people um but We're really everything we do is like I said, how to help our members have more fun and make more money. So what are those things that as a small mid-size you know HVAC mechanical contractor,
00:27:31
Speaker
that you struggle with. So and typically the first one is purchasing. And so we we have a buying we're a buying group, right? And so, you know, across our members, we buy about $30 million worth of stuff a year.
00:27:45
Speaker
And so we're able to negotiate better programs with our vendors. And we also pay our members back. So there's a, you know, the the vendors pay a rebate to the co-op.
00:27:57
Speaker
And our members get ah patronage dividend and rebates for buying through the approved vendors. So the vendors like, like Mike Riddler at Eden, yeah they want, they want to do business with better contractors that pay their bills on time.
00:28:10
Speaker
Right. yes and yeah And so what we, what we guarantee for the, uh, the vendors is that, you know, share of wallet, our, our members as part of being in the co-op, they have to buy.
00:28:24
Speaker
a majority of their stuff from approved vendors and they have to pay on time. You got to pay your bills on time. And those are two challenging things in our industry, as you know. Yeah. um So, and do you guys monitor that?
00:28:40
Speaker
ah hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. Each month, each month, each vendor sends us a report of what each member company bought it yeah and dollar volume. And if they paid late,
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah. And if they pay late, they get penalized. So we there's a bit of a stick. There's a bit of a stick. But it means that our members, you know, when we go to a vendor and say we need better pricing or we need a better program, they know that our members pay on time and that's worth something to And the the the risk of a delinquent account is a lot less.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. So so that's you know part of what we trade, you know. So. So if you're a delinquent, do you think is your membership in jeopardy? No. or is if i ah So i I'm part of Enercare and I'm delinquent.
00:29:25
Speaker
Like the first month I get a stick. What's my stick? Can you share that information? or is that timeing here Well, the rebate that the vendor was supposed to pay. So the rebate only pays the vendor if the member pays on time.
00:29:37
Speaker
is with the vendor on that And so if the if the member does not pay on time, then we bill the member for the lost rebate. okay Yeah. There we go. so And it's it's a big enough number that it it creates an inducement to pay on time.
00:29:54
Speaker
And if I continue and like let's just pretend, which happens to everybody, I have a sort of a six month down where my life sucks or going through a divorce or I i mean, pick one um that I'm delinquent. Do I, but is my membership at risk with you guys? 100%. Yeah.
00:30:10
Speaker
yeah And, and we, I mean, we'll, we'll work with, Okay, so that's the first, let's go through the pillars because this will become important. do You'll see why why the- let's do the pillars. Okay. So the first pillar is purchasing, right? So we also, we have a consolidated purchasing program ah with carrier. So we buy carrier, we carry the AR on that, we sell it to the members. It gives our members even better pricing and because it's like they're buying, you know- So you know sure you has i have like warehouses and stuff then? Like do you actually stock or do you make them? Okay.
00:30:41
Speaker
We only push paper. We only push paper. no But we buy, when ah you know as far as carrier is concerned, we look like an organization that's buying a lot of stuff, right? So each of our members is shipped to and that that program is works pretty well. We do the same thing for water. We have a water treatment.
00:31:00
Speaker
you know water ROs and softeners and stuff. We have a company in Ontario called Excalibur. We have the same kind of deal with them. And then we also do warranties, extended warranties. We used to do it with a third party. Just this year, we started underwriting the the warranties ourselves. tos ourselvesves ye But again, we can this is something I would tell a single owner operator, do not underwrite your own warranty.
00:31:23
Speaker
There's too much risk. yes my risk But i can I can take that risk and spread it out over 30 member companies. Yes. So so it's not like, well, maybe Bob's doing a bunch of bad installs and he's going to have to eat it. But I can take Bob's bad installs. no not Bob's Jim's at bad installs. You can say Bob.
00:31:41
Speaker
Sometimes I install stuff badly. I blame it happens. That's our purchasing. That's our purchasing. We did have a rental program or we we called it the unrental program. We had a program called Clarity, which was not a rental.
00:31:54
Speaker
It was financed on a on a it was a 10 year amortization. and um and it was finance and you owned it from day one but what we saw in ontario is that some people want rental right it's so crazy to me i got a lot of flack for that because i did a little thing on rental and i'm like listen rental and finance are two totally different things but i mean i you i everybody has financed something at some point in their life but the end goal is that you own it yes right like i own this piece of i own this asset right when you're rental you never own shit like it's yeah it's ever it's gone
00:32:32
Speaker
And listen, for some people, it makes sense. I don't want it like there are some people that it makes sense. But the way that I'll give you an example, sometimes maybe you want to rent a house or you want to rent an apartment.
00:32:45
Speaker
You want vacation, you know, hotel room. Yeah. Right. Because you don't know what your plans are. Right. yeah Or you don't have the assets to go and buy it. But but I wouldn't rent my dishwasher.
00:32:58
Speaker
but no i was just going to say, how many appliances does we do we have in our homes? We have like in today's day and age, we have like a dozen. Yeah. And you're rent and you're renting two. They want to rent you everything. They want to, they ultimately, they want to rent you everything. car chargers for crying out loud. It has no moving parts.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Car charges, EV car charges. They want rent EV car charges. And to them, it's like, this is the best thing to rent. It'll never break. It's a freaking plug. They're renting you a plug.
00:33:27
Speaker
so So, okay. So we had this program called Clarity. We were doing not a bad amount of business with it, but we could never get really get the traction we wanted. But that what people want, but we what we observed that people want was a fixed monthly payment. Okay, we can pull that off.
00:33:43
Speaker
And... maintenance included and breakdown protection so just let me pay you one amount each month for the next 10 years and i don't have to worry about it i don't have to think about it again if it breaks i'll call you if it needs maintenance i'll call you and i just yeah i don't have to think about it make it simple so we tried that for 10 years we pivoted never really got the traction we wanted but that's their purchasing side then the next thing is marketing Not everybody is great at grill marketing like like Baker Plumbing. So um you know we help our members with with with marketing, whether they're branded Climate Care or they're branded something else. We have 10 members that are what we call you know their legacy brand. Brooks in wellel sorry brooks in Georgetown, Postma in Chatham, Peter Inch and Associates in London. They have their own brand. They've got a nice little badge that says, a proud member of the c Climate Care Cooperative.
00:34:41
Speaker
but they run their own legacy brand. Well, I'm just, I'll just, I'm looking at your website again and like your very first, you got a guy with a van that says Climate Care all over it, but then it says Dawn's Climate Care. Dow's, that's Dow.
00:34:56
Speaker
Oh, Dow's, sorry, there it is, yep. Yeah, so we have 18 of our members are branded Climate Care. And right now, I mean, that can always change. And 10 of our members are branded their own legacy brand. So Dow's, Rob is actually our president this year. He's finishing up his term.
00:35:15
Speaker
ah But Dow's Climate Care, yep. he's He's second generation in that business. His dad joined Climate Care, um I don't know, 15 years ago. um But if you look at, if you go to the locator, ah then let me see.
00:35:32
Speaker
You might have gone. Are you on join climate care or climate care dot com? Oh, I'm on join. Do you want me to just go to join or climate care? is that better? you go know If you go to the just regular climate care dot com, then and you click on the find your local climate care, then you'll see that there's a bunch of companies that have different branding.
00:35:54
Speaker
Oh, there you go
00:35:58
Speaker
So we wanted to make it easier. we For 10 years, it was like we were real stick in the muds. If you didn't brand as climate care, you couldn't join the co-op. yeah And it was just an impediment to growing. And since our real mission is helping people have more profitable independently owned businesses, it was like, are we in the way of our own mission?
00:36:19
Speaker
So we let them keep your own brand. And so we've we've only got to we've only got to pillar one, but I'm going to ask you a second question. Sure. Or maybe we'll save that i'll save that one for the end. So pillar two. so No, so pillar two is marketing. Pillar one is purchasing. Pillar two is marketing.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. Pillar three is training. And this is where we do technical training um or or business training and coaching or sales training. And so so a bunch of stuff we do in-house.
00:36:53
Speaker
We have our own coaches and business trainers um who have industry experience. And so Glenn Mellors is our main coach. he he you know He's been in the his father's plumbing business. And then he went and he's worked for in the wholesale side and the manufacturing side. And he's a coach for our members really about, you know, the nuts and bolts, the day to day how to, um operate your business profitably.
00:37:24
Speaker
You know, what do you need to be doing? Do you what are the financials that you need to understand? you know, he calls it a daily do or die. Like what, how much revenue do you need to generate today? at what level of gross margin in order to meet your profitability goals.
00:37:40
Speaker
And so that's very, very tactical. We also do, um more business platform coaching around a system called EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And and so we help our members just ah build a system that's repeatable in their business so that you know there's clear communication in the business. They know how to how to get things done in their business. So that's like a very high level kind of thing. Glenn works on the very tactical.
00:38:09
Speaker
we do We do marketing coaching. um and more and more operations coaching. So that's on the training side. And then we'll bring in people. So we're doing our our first techapalooza.
00:38:20
Speaker
um next month where we're bringing in, you know, we'll have 100 technicians from across Ontario um and we've got our vendors coming in. And I said, i this is not sales training. This is technical training. You are limited to five minutes at the beginning of the presentation for the why we should buy from you.
00:38:39
Speaker
And after that, the remaining 85 minutes have to be actual technical training. Real technical stuff. so So we're setting that up We're really excited. That'll be a full day.
00:38:50
Speaker
You have a real technical training. And then we do sales training. We bring in coach sales coaches and trainers. for technicians and for owners and for comfort advisors. you know like this is how you you know You need to present yourself well. How do you explain stuff to the customer in a way that they can understand what you're saying?
00:39:08
Speaker
um And you know just trying to create that gelling through the companies that everybody's kind of on the same language. So we're trying to build, can say, Rob, we're we're capitalists.
00:39:23
Speaker
Yes, we're kumbaya. Nothing wrong with that. I'm a capitalist 100%. So that's a dirty word to me. You got to make profit. Profit is the fuel for your business. It's not a dirty word.
00:39:33
Speaker
No. um But i like to say we don't. Our goal is to make profit keeping our core values, not in spite of our core values. And so for us, you'll see a lot of what we do is supporting local communities, supporting our our people, um supporting our customers. You know, we want to it's not just that it's not just that's not just a marketing fluff.
00:39:55
Speaker
Our owners, you know, are have deep roots in their communities. um Yeah. You know, I like to say it's like think home hardware instead of Home Depot. There we go.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that's their, i well, we have we have that same dynamic here. We have lots of but small town home hardwares and that's their whole thing. Come and meet Sherry or come and meet Bill or and home Home Depot.
00:40:21
Speaker
You have no idea who you're going to run across and what his level of knowledge is. Exactly. Okay. So you've got, so is that your fourth? That's three. The capitals fourth is capitalist and make money. Fourth is pure support. peer support And this is, this is, I think the thing that's really been incredible.
00:40:43
Speaker
um because we're pretty self-selective of who we let into the co-op, right? We're not an association. We don't have to let everybody in. So we're looking for people who gel in the culture. And so we're looking for owner operators, folks that have been in the business themselves, have turned wrenches.
00:41:04
Speaker
um They're either you know technicians themselves, former technicians or the kids of technicians, right? And they are looking to grow their businesses or improve their profitability without giving up what makes them special, that that independence, that owner operated independence.
00:41:21
Speaker
So the beauty of the peer support is that you know all of our members are partners in the cooperative. And so when we get together, we get together at least four times a year. We have four quarterly meetings.
00:41:33
Speaker
We get together and it's incredible to see the sharing that takes place. People say like, I've got an issue. i don't know how to deal with it in my business. how I know that you're doing this well.
00:41:46
Speaker
How did you do it? And that willingness to share and to say, you know what I'll come over to my shop. I'll show you what I do. Let's get on a zoom call. We can talk about how we made this work and the support that they give each other in saying, you know, even like the here, the co-op just facilitates, we just create the opportunity for it to happen.
00:42:08
Speaker
Um, but you know, I often say that the best part of our general meetings, which are two days is the hospitality and dinner in between, you know, because after you've had a drink and you've relaxed and you've had dinner and you're shooting the shit at the bar,
00:42:24
Speaker
You're willing to say like, okay, I'm not making any money right now. Like, what am I doing wrong? You seem to have it under control. How are you doing it? And the willingness to share that's that that peer support. And unlike other groups, cause there are lots of these success groups that exist. yes um Unlike these, we're local, you know, so we've been in Ontario forever. We've now expanded. We're now in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI.
00:42:52
Speaker
um Yeah. And our plan is to is to is to go national. um Except Quebec. That's a different nation. That's a unique name. ah It is a different nation. Maybe. don't have that You don't have to tell me that. We'll find some Anglos on the island of Montreal. So yeah that's that like the the idea is that that everybody should feel comfortable sharing with each other.
00:43:16
Speaker
And so we're very, you know, we're really selective about who we let into the club because we want, we you know, we've got a no jerks rule. I like that. Yeah. And the process for getting in is long. It's like it takes six months. You got to come to two meetings as a guest.
00:43:32
Speaker
We want to see if there's a gelling. And it's like, you know, it's not like write a check and join. We're like very, very selective because we want to maintain this sense of I trust the guy, that guy.
00:43:46
Speaker
and ah and if I think there's an issue, I'll raise it with him. Like there's a real peer to peer kind of thing. that happens that i haven't seen anything else so that's my that's the four pillars i see i see you got two locations in uh in um new brunswick and pei so trade wins trade wins yeah trade wins is both they actually have they have five locations they have four locations in new brunswick and in one location in pei
00:44:18
Speaker
And we just signed up a new so there are discovery participants there in their first year. So this is like dating. Right. So you come to two meetings. Yeah, we got to see that you're like, you know, there's a good fit. There's a good culture fit.
00:44:31
Speaker
We have a membership committee that's made up of members. So like I can't be like this guy's good. Let him in. You got to pass muster with the membership committee, which is peer peer to peer.
00:44:41
Speaker
yeah And then you join as a discovery participant for 12 months and prove that you want to be in this thing. And then after discovery, then you can become a member of the co-op. So we just added Annapolis Valley Air Management.
00:45:00
Speaker
Today's their first day in in Nova Scotia. So that gives it that's our fourth province that we've we've expanded into. um And yeah, it's funny. And you have plans coming west? 100%. Yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
yeah Like I say, it's a bit of a different animal animal altogether. Anyway. Yeah. i've i worked but Before I came to Climate Care, i I worked for a company that became a Climate Care member. That was my start in the industry in 2005. Yeah. and then for Emco. Oh.
00:45:31
Speaker
from two thousand and ten to ah twenty twenty i worked for mco
00:45:38
Speaker
Okay. And as a what did you frame go like as a pro no, so I opened I started off doing business development. I opened a new location profit center in Hamilton, Ontario.
00:45:52
Speaker
all Okay. um And then i actually this is the this is the crazy part was I started our own rental program. So I'll tell you. so what how right You are a capitalist. i've run I've been on all sides of this. What happened was, this is a very long, sorted affair, but I'll give you the Coles notes.
00:46:12
Speaker
So ah I went from being a contractor. I worked for a contractor for five years. right and in ontario you have to and rental was the thing like direct energy at the time which became inner care yep rental rental rental and i was i when i went to work for emco i was like listen guys we need a rental program we need a leasing program we need some kind of a program that allows our contractors hvac and plumbers to have access to the market we're not like we we have it's a what for bob what percentage of water heaters residential single-family homes what percentage of water heaters in ontario would you figure our rental
00:46:55
Speaker
oh man thought you're gonna ask me here it would be like two percent but there is probably like 82 it is 80 in new construction it virtually 100 but and a new construction it is virtually a hundred percent it's it So it's ongoing.
00:47:12
Speaker
Nobody's triggered out the game yet. Oh, 100%. The game is not even close to me. So almost 100% new construction. so Really? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so... Yeah, so if you're wholesaler... Quick question.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah. If you're the wholesaler, and you're ah so you're obviously selling to the builder, and who who's your biggest builder out there? Madami, maybe? Yeah. Okay. Oh, Mattamy showed up here couple years ago. They don't rent.
00:47:41
Speaker
Mattamy doesn't rent, as a matter of fact. oh they don't? Peter Gilligan is like, that's not good for my customers. They don't rent. oh Yeah, good for him. Ethical, ethical builder. and So he's able to get it at a wicked price. We'll say like, oh, you oh you want another, this might be another episode. That's behind the curtain stuff. Yeah, exactly. On rental water heaters. I'll tell you like, ah that's another episode, but I'll tell you like yeah like this. That's fine. We should do it again.
00:48:10
Speaker
If you're a wholesaler and you want to sell water heaters, you better be selling into the rental channel. Because if you're not, you're fighting only for that remaining 20%. And you've got big box, you've got like, like Home Depot and Lowe's.
00:48:23
Speaker
They've got like half of what's left. Right. So all of like Wolseley, Emco, they're fighting over the remaining 10% unless they can get into the builder channel, into the rental channel. So, so I came to Emco, I said, we need a rental program.
00:48:41
Speaker
But what I wanted to do was create a rental program because i'm I'm a capitalist, but I'm a kumbaya capitalist, not a rapacious capitalist. So I wanted to find a way. How do we support our contractors in fighting the rental guys?
00:48:56
Speaker
Right. And so we created our own rental program. And the idea was that we would help our contractors, right, help Baker Plumbing go to the builder and say, instead of using Enercare Reliance,
00:49:13
Speaker
we will rent you the water heater. well We will do the same thing that you would do, but you get to deal with me instead of dealing with them. And we were actually getting quite successful. And then COVID hit and the whole thing called pieces, the whole new construction market fell apart.
00:49:27
Speaker
But that's, yeah, the game the game is intense, but it's another that's another conversation. so But putting together a rental program, that's what I did at EMCO for a few years. And we were very successful.
00:49:43
Speaker
in accessing and helping our our plumbers and HVAC contractors access the new construction market. Because if you're, what they'll do, and this is this is how it can be insidious, is that the rental provider goes to the builder and says, install my water heater, I'll give you an installation allowance.
00:50:04
Speaker
And then the builder goes to you and says, Bob, include the water heater installation as part of your scope of work. Yeah. But I'm not paying you anything for it. I know. but And they're pocketing the installation allowance that the rental company gives them.
00:50:20
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So I said, I'm going to go to you and I'm going say, Bob, bring me to your builder. And we're going to figure out between the two of us how much he's getting paid by the existing rental company.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah. I've got this much money in the pot. Whatever they're not paying him, I'll pay you. Gotcha. And that's how we we made it work. And that's it and that's why. yeah And that's how you attracted basically the tradesmen to your exactly to your door. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. because and And what it meant was that we ended up selling water heaters like crazy.
00:50:54
Speaker
I mean, I was in an HVAC division, but we ended up selling, by the time I left, we were selling more water heaters than we were furnaces.
00:51:04
Speaker
because Because of that program, because of the rental thing. 100%. Wow.
00:51:11
Speaker
And then you joined and then you came to climate here after Emco. Yeah. So my job got COVID um and Emco decided to.
00:51:22
Speaker
That's a funny story. We were on a call manager's call, like right at the beginning of COVID. And one of the vice presidents said, so we're going to be any project that's not ah budgeted to being profitable this year, we're going to pause And I'm like, who else on this call ah has a project that's it's a startup and isn't budgeted into profitability? Okay. And then the phone, then we got off the call. My phone rang about 20 minutes later. i was like, oh, it was me.
00:51:57
Speaker
um And that was the end of my career at Emco. But I had a great four month vacation and ah climate care was looking for a new executive director. And I was like, hey, I not only was I working for a member, you know, at that point, 15 years before.
00:52:17
Speaker
yeah But I um had when I was at Emco, I was responsible for the climate care account. So I had stayed in touch for 10 years. And so I was fortunate enough to move over.
00:52:29
Speaker
and make Make the switch over. And so that is that your role now, the executive director? I am. Yeah. Yeah. Since August 2020. Nice. That's awesome. And it's going well.
00:52:41
Speaker
It's been going really well. It's been going well. we So, you know, we've been growing, expanding. We bought our so we so we actually came up with this solution. What happened with private equity keeps knocking on your door. So we lost our one of our biggest members to private equity right after I started. Like I started in August and May the following year, our biggest company at the time. And he was the president of the co-op.
00:53:04
Speaker
They got acquired by right time. And I said to them, like, what would that be like a but betrayal? a little bit. A little bit. but he And you don't have to give me the details, but did is he better off because he sold?
00:53:20
Speaker
Listen, COVID was hard, man. Like, I can't. COVID was hard. COVID was And they had grown. they had grown from, they bought that business from, it was Marcy and Andre. And mar they bought it from Marcy's dad. And it was a little business. was doing, I don't know, like under $3 million dollars a year.
00:53:37
Speaker
And they grew it to a nine million dollar business and it was doing well, but it was big. You know, you've got a lot of people you're managing. They were managing a very big team and COVID was very hard.
00:53:49
Speaker
yeah And, you know, right time knocked on the door and offered them a number they couldn't say no to. I can't, yeah yeah you know, i I can't fault them for that. You're in business. your biggest asset. Somebody says, I want to pay you twice what it's worth. you know, you're not going to say no.
00:54:04
Speaker
So they rang the register. um But I asked them on the in the exit interview, like, what what could have prevented this? And they said, well, if the co we would have sold it to the co-op, if the co-op could have bought the business.
00:54:17
Speaker
So it was like, oh, that's interesting. How do we do that? So that started us on like a five year journey to figure out how to pull that off. And um that's our navigator program, which you'll see on on joint climate care under the about us.
00:54:33
Speaker
And we bought our first business um last year. So Bob, and you actually you actually have a the co op owns one business well owns one company now.
00:54:46
Speaker
So if you go look at that navigator page. um And so that that company in Newmarket, Ontario, CanCo, is now owned by the co-op, effectively owned by our other 30 member companies.
00:55:00
Speaker
And so Bob and Nancy, you know they've been in that business for 40 years. They grew it from nothing. um And their kids are adults and not in the HVAC industry. They weren't interested in taking over the business.
00:55:14
Speaker
Their employees weren't in a position to buy the business. And we said, you know what? You guys have followed the climate care playbook. You can let's make Canco the first business that we acquire.
00:55:28
Speaker
Does that I mean, i don't does that become competition to your others or do you have at all? That's do you like have you geo fenced your and we don't geo fence. We were mindful of not like oversaturating a market with climate care members, but the amazing so we've got a member in woodbridge which is like 20 minutes west of kenko maybe 20 20 certainly they've like overlapping territories we have members we have a member you know another half hour east of canco we've got a member half hour north of canco we've got members half hour south of canco um
00:56:07
Speaker
And what's interesting is the opportunity is let's figure out how to make stuff work in Canco. That can be our test, our testing center now. Yeah. Yeah. We figure it out. Then we can give it to the other members.
00:56:21
Speaker
Right. um The other thing is like, I've got a guy. So our our members at the plan, like the whatever, So basically if 30 members own CanCo and let's say CanCo does a million bucks, they take, is it gonna be like the NHL where you take your escrow funds and stick it into the middle and then everybody gets a little piece of that at the end? Yeah, to some degree. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the profit from CanCo and we're going to invest it in programs for our members right so we do we do pay dividends we actually pay dividends to our members i was good was writing down some questions here which we may run out of time don't know your schedule i've got another 10 minutes but we so we we pay pay uh we patronage dividends uh we gave out a half a million dollars last month
00:57:11
Speaker
and pay tribute to our members. And then we also, members can acquire equity in the co-op. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but they can acquire equity in the co-op. They do acquire equity in the co-op. And so we pay a dividend on that prime plus one or prime plus two.
00:57:25
Speaker
So that's another nice little, you know you can get five grand back in the dividend. um But then, you know, the retained earnings, we are investing in new programs for our members. So more trainers, more events, things like Tekapalooza.
00:57:38
Speaker
um You know, when we bring in a trainer, we'll be able to subsidize it, right, based on the profitability. So Canco will be a profit center for the co-op and the profits will get plowed back into developing new programs and and things for the other member companies.
00:57:54
Speaker
Wow. That sounds pretty good, actually. And... Sorry, i I'll let you off it. but And that, I mean, um so are you turn into No.
00:58:12
Speaker
no but Absolutely not. And I can tell you this with great certainty. Okay. because Well, first of all, I mean, we're driven by our core values, right? And yeah members who want to sell to private equity, they can go do that.
00:58:24
Speaker
There's nothing that stops them from leaving and and going to private equity. And listen, for some people that it will that will be attractive. That's what they want to do. i yeah I was down in an event in Vegas couple weeks ago.
00:58:35
Speaker
And i was struck in the States, man, there's like this its it's the gold rush. Like everybody wants to become you know contractor millionaires. yeah And I'm not against becoming a millionaire as a contractor. I just want to do it inside our core values. Right. And so if you care about your people, you care about your community, care about your customers, and then you should look around and see, like, what does what is private equities track record?
00:59:01
Speaker
It's not so good. It's terrible. Yeah. Right. And so how so so Navigator has been about like, OK, how do we help you sell your business to your kids? Right. So I've got that. We've got that right now. We've got businesses that are going to transition from parents to kids and we want to help the business become profitable so the parents can make enough money to retire.
00:59:22
Speaker
Right. So the kids are going to pay what the business is worth. Right. Yeah. And then the kids will have the support to continue to grow the business and maybe their kids will take over like your third generation. or they'll sell to another member in time, right? Or they'll be able to sell to the co-op. That's our ultimate goal is to create a self-perpetuating thing. Why do I know we're not going to sell to private equity as a group?
00:59:45
Speaker
We've been a pro or become or become private equity. could Yeah. Because when we when we sat out to create the navigator program, we made the conscious decision that wasn't going to be something we wanted to do. We want we're a cooperative. We're incorporated under the Cooperative Corporations Act in Ontario. We have a mission to help our independently owned businesses grow and co-op and we're unique. I mean, we're unique as far as I can tell, it maybe even in North America as a contractor co-op.
01:00:14
Speaker
yeah um And this, it's not gonna appeal to everybody. I don't need appeal to build everybody, but for the 5% or 10% of contractors that are like, this is cool. This is what I could imagine being part of this. Fine, that's who we wanna help.
01:00:28
Speaker
Everybody else can do other things. It's a big market. It is a big market. You remind me a bit of, I don't know if you've, I think it's called be ah ah BDI, where they have that sort of business group where you get to, and it's ah it's a variety. And they're basically doing the same thing that you're talking about.
01:00:45
Speaker
where you sort of share in the pool of talent to um magnify your business. ah But the thing the attractive thing about yours is you're all actually in the same and experiencing the same problems, successes and all the rest of that stuff. So it's it's real world as opposed to listening to a chiropractor or a a real estate agent tell you how they solve their problems. I'm like,
01:01:12
Speaker
bro that's got nothing to do with me i don't care yeah exactly like we just did at our general meeting which is our general meeting um last two weeks ago man time is flying by it was two weeks ago um so we did a round table we called the three rings to success this is glenn mellers came up with this you got to get the the the phone to ring the doorbell to ring and the cash register to ring if If you're going to be successful in the home service business, you need the three rings. so What we did was we put together a panel of of five members that each one excels at one of the rings.
01:01:50
Speaker
And we had a you know two hour conversation for the rest of our members about how they do it. Right. it's Like get the juices flowing. Like how do how do you get how are you consistent about lead generation? How are you consistent about conversion at the kitchen table? How are you consistent? How do you get your AR down that you're not drowning in AR?
01:02:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fantastic. well so you're basically year six we'll say or year five going well yeah that's awesome thank you yeah and i want to i want to be respectful of your time and uh know you got we should definitely be happy we should have another one we have another one we can do the you know behind the scenes of private equity funding behind the scenes of water heater rental programs what they won't tell you what the rental company doesn't want you to know Yeah, yeah.
01:02:40
Speaker
Lots of there's lots of angles for sure. That's a beautiful thing, right? Like there's lots of interesting stuff going on in the world. And and as you said, and I've said a million times, the trades are sexy right now.
01:02:50
Speaker
Yeah. And and relevant. And so I think that's worth the discussion. Like these, of course, people want to get into this. All right. That's how it works. That's it. Awesome.
01:03:02
Speaker
Bob, it is a real pleasure to meet you. Same here. And when you see if you go when you go for lunch with Mikey, you smack that dude for me, will you? Absolutely. He's smaller but bigger than me, but I'll smack him. That's right.
01:03:14
Speaker
no you Use your height advantage somehow. Exactly. All right. Send me this whenever you get a minute. You got it. Thanks so much. Thanks, pal. Appreciate it.
01:03:24
Speaker
Bye.