[00:00:00.270] - Brandon
So my bro, we have a fun show today. Guys, hey, before we jump into the show, I just want to test something out, okay? I know a lot of you that listen to the show, you know who Chris and I are. You're part of our sphere where we've brushed elbows somehow in the past. For those of you that maybe this is the first time keying in and you're like, who are these a-holes? Why would I even bother thinking or listening? Well, Chris is the a-hole, not me. But why would you listen? So here's the reality, guys, is that Chris and I have spent the last 13, 15 years, respectively, building teams in this particular industry. The teams that we've built, led the teams that we currently work with. Many of them are in the eight and nine-figure size in terms of revenue that they're generating. And along the way, we've both earned our stripes and our battle scars, and we've shared some beautiful experiences with a lot of very smart entrepreneurs to develop the rest of our toolkit, our worldview, and our professional view in terms of business and how to build service brands. So that's where this comes from.
[00:01:04.190] - Brandon
The show, specifically, is just designed for us to cover the topics that cover the rest of who we are as entrepreneurs. So we get into the tactical stuff from time to time. And a lot of times we're talking about the mind, body, soul. The rest of us as a human that's committed to our business and the one sacrificing often to build the platforms that we're investing our time and energy in. So just real quick, that's who we are. It's where we come from. It's why we talk about the stuff we talk about. So hopefully that's enough to pique your curiosity make you listen to this show and maybe another one. But dude, today we're talking to literally the definition of serial entrepreneur, Rocky Hensley, of now, One Tom Plumber, and previously a lot of companies, but specifically, Icon Restoration.
[00:01:44.100] - Chris
That was a very pastoral introduction to it. It was like an opener.
[00:01:49.460] - Brandon
I was just talking to Wayne about it. It's so goofy. You guys are so funny. Yeah, when you listen to the show, you guys hear, we basically just think out loud. But Wayne was like, Hey, bro, what makes you I think that if somebody's never listened to a podcast, they'd want to stick around when you guys literally start your show by saying, Hey, dude, and they know nothing else. It's like, Okay, that might be fair. There was a brief intro, if you will, on who we are.
[00:02:13.030] - Chris
That's good. Why we do it. Maybe I'll take a stab at that next time. All right. We'll pick. This podcast with Rocky, I told you before we came on, I actually thought the intention was to talk more one Tom Plumber. Oh, sure. Which you and I are both fans of and just fascinated by newer franchise. We have a number of clients that are a one-time plumber franchises and restoration companies and blah, blah, blah. But this quickly turned it more into an entrepreneur profile, which was super fun. Hence the name of the podcast, which no doubt grabbed several of your's attention. You're like, Well, shit, I have to listen to it now.
[00:02:52.300] - Brandon
You got to listen to that. I got to listen to this one. This thing goes, yeah.
[00:02:55.670] - Chris
But it was truly a lot of fun. Rocky's a fascinating person. You and I have had time to hang out with him in person and break bread with him, ride in his cars. He's a car enthusiast. He is.
[00:03:05.620] - Brandon
EV car.
[00:03:06.810] - Chris
Yeah, he's an EV guy. Those are a hoot. But we got into a really robust conversation, not only about the various businesses he started, many of which are outside of the restoration industry and plumbing. But we really dug into systems, processes, accountability. Oh, man. Some of the real structural items that have made his restoration company successful over a long period of time. But also what drives the success, it sounds like, of one-time plumbing as well. It all fits together. Yeah.
[00:03:38.670] - Brandon
It was really good. It's a great show. I think we cover a lot of interesting elements. I think there's something in it for all of us as key leaders and business owners. In general, you guys will hear that Rocky, in many ways, is just like us. His mind's going a million different directions. He's got weaknesses and strengths just like the rest of us. He's found a way to commit to a specific line that builds business that he wants to own. I think you're going to hear a lot of really great reasons why and how he's able to do it. I think it will challenge some of our own assumptions and mental models for how it gets done. Anyways, it's a great show. He is literally an entrepreneur in spirit and definition. We've seen it, we've been up next to it, and the guy does exactly what he talks about, and he does it day in and day out. It owned until has accumulated into more than 11 organizations that he's grown, built, started, and sold. And then, of course, he's knees deep in building out One Tom as a franchise model, and then Icon Restoration, doing business and doing it well.
[00:04:45.520] - Brandon
So let's get into it. Wow.
[00:04:47.000] - Chris
How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:04:57.970] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we We wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours.
[00:05:07.410] - Chris
I'm noticing that, and I really appreciate it.
[00:05:09.630] - Brandon
I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't, and I am not happy with it. Hey, all, thanks so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you're not already following, please do so and ultimately share. The coolest currency that we have in terms of supporting this is share it with a friend, share it with somebody, a colleague, a peer, one of your downline team members. Let them be able to take advantage of the information you're already leveraging in your favor. And finally, guys, if you hear a show that really moves you, that really moves the needle, will you please leave us a review? Those five-star reviews help us a ton.
[00:05:44.640] - Chris
Right on. And listen, if you're trying to grow your business, you might consider checking out Floodlight's business opportunity audit. It's free. We provided it no charge. It's actually what we use to assess new clients as they come in. It's a 110 point assessment for your business. And we've now decided to give access to the general public for it. So go and take our business opportunity audit at floodlightgrp. Com. It's going to help you identify the biggest gaps and opportunities in your business right now. And at the end, it'll assign you a health score to let you know exactly where your business stands right now. So go check it out, floodlightgrp. Com/audit, and take the Boa. It's a great way to get a pulse on your business.
[00:06:25.140] - Brandon
Well, Rocky, thanks for joining us, my friend. I know that you are currently not looking for new things to fill your time with prepping for annual, but thanks for jumping on with us, man. We appreciate it.
[00:06:34.410] - Rocky
Good to see you guys. Yeah.
[00:06:37.210] - Chris
Yeah, it's fun. It's been a minute.
[00:06:38.760] - Brandon
Yeah, for sure. All right. So one of the things that stuck out to Chris and I when we came and met you guys in person and had a chance to hang out with your team was there was a lot of backstory, free Icon restoration and free one Tom, that really defined a lot of who you were. And you were not afraid to talk about both the upside and the downside to that. So I thought that's where we'd start. Sure. Give us your version of the story of what built Rocky prior to Icon and One Tom.
[00:07:10.170] - Rocky
Well, most entrepreneurs didn't have a hugely structured past. I was out on my own when I was 17 years old. My last day at high school, I was taken out in handcuffs because I got a pretty good fight. Got my GED in a little bit of college and figured there's only one person I can count on, and it's this guy. And just figured I was never going to make a lot of money climbing a corporate ladder with the GED in a little bit of college. And struck out on my own and started picking up cardboard bails behind a Walmart on a Saturday. And the next thing I know, I built a company to five million, sold it off. And when I got that check, I was like, Hey, that's pretty freaking cool, man. Let's do that again. And now I've done it 11 times. And I love the battle. I love the structure. I love bringing in the right team, moving people around, organizing the chaos. That's why I love the restoration business so much. And built and sold 11 businesses along the way. And one of them, I sold in 2004. It was a $110 million a year company.
[00:08:07.920] - Rocky
And I was never more miserable, to be honest with you. Isn't that funny? Never more successful, never making more money. It was horrible. So I sold it and got a check when I was 38 years old for more money than I ever dreamed. I got to be a father. I had two young kids and didn't have the pressures of making mortgages and things like that anymore in my life. And I got to be a dad. I got to be a better husband because I was around all the time. You know what it's like when you start a business, man. Oh, man. My wife used to joke that the kids called me Uncle Rocky. Yeah, I guess they'd see me on the weekends, maybe. But that's our life. You guys have lived it. Most people on this podcast have lived it. But it did make me realize that who I was, and I'm an entrepreneur, and I hated being a businessman. I know that sounds weird.
[00:08:54.050] - Brandon
What do you mean by that? That's an interesting comment.
[00:08:57.350] - Rocky
Okay. My life became forecasting and budgeting in boardrooms and dealing with HR and just the minutiae of running a business with 170 employees and traveling around. And you were always traveling around, fixing this location or that location. Or it was just It was just a constant battle. And then I ended up having two partners that helped me get there. And they were so monumental. I gave them both 10 % for $5,000. So technically, they bought in. And once they had the word partner in their name, within a year and a half, I sold it because it became so miserable. We worked together so well when I was the boss and I was the guy, and they were pushing forward my vision. But once they became owners, whether it was their wives or friends or other employees, manipulate them into trying to manipulate me. And it was just a It's a battle. Sometimes I was fighting both of them. Sometimes I was fighting one. Sometimes I was the middle guy between the fight. It was horrible. And I'll tell you a quick story. I was driving in one day, and I knew I was going to sell it because I literally got one of those brand new Jaguar convertibles.
[00:10:00.450] - Rocky
I'm driving in, and the thought of going into this business that I built that was literally putting in $30,000 to $40,000 a month into my pocket, I pulled over, opened the door because I thought I was going to throw up. And I'm not that guy. So I got into the office I just told my assistant, Tammy, said, get me on the phone with nothing but business brokers. And within two and a half months, I was sitting across a subsidiary of a Berkshire Hathaway Company, which was Better Home & Garden. And I sold off all three companies. They We're all tied in together. And I got another quick funny story because we made the sacrifices along the way, like I was telling you earlier, for a month and a half along the way of not taking a paycheck for four months. We didn't have water. We're throwing empty milk jugs in the back of the Intrepid, going over to my mother's and all, filling them up, coming back, because that's how we'd have to heat it up to take showers for literally a month and a half. And so my wife was with a struggle. I delivered pizzas at night for four and a half years because I need money I had two kids in diapers.
[00:11:02.210] - Rocky
And I'd go on and on about my struggles. But I look back on them and I loved them because I figured it out. I had to make those mistakes along the way. And it probably took longer than there would a person that was college-educated or classically trained, but I figured it out. But I told my wife, I'm done. I can't take this anymore. I'm selling the business. I was on the phone with business brokers. I came home. She literally cried. I was like, don't do this. We finally made it. We've done the struggles. I'm taking care of the home. You take care of work, this, that, and the other. And about a month later, I got a letter of intent from this company.
[00:11:38.020] - Brandon
Oh, yeah.
[00:11:38.710] - Rocky
And I took it home, and I showed it to her because she's my spouse. She really needs to make those decisions with me. Looked at the letter. You know what she said? I apologize, but I'm about to cut. She goes, Don't fuck this up. So it went from tears a month and a half later to my letter of intent. And she's like, You do not screw this up.
[00:11:58.630] - Chris
She saw the commas.
[00:12:00.470] - Brandon
Yeah, there was a couple of commas in that letter that stuck out. Yeah. You were 38 when that happened, Rocky?
[00:12:08.110] - Rocky
Yeah, when I sold that business.
[00:12:09.520] - Brandon
That's unbelievable. You were dogging on yourself in terms of barely getting out of high school. And getting a little bit of college. Where's the instincts? Where did that come from? Because it doesn't sound like you were nurtured in your family in such a way that promoted it. But what did that look like?
[00:12:24.790] - Rocky
From the time I was 12, if I ever wanted anything, I grew up country. I grew up in Critten in Kentucky We're a population 460. And if you wanted anything, my parents weren't going to buy it for me. So I was out literally cutting tobacco, hanging tobacco, putting up hay from 12 years till I left when I was 17 years old or 16. I left it right before I turned 17 because I had a very abusive dad. And at that point, you don't want to feel like if you didn't really do anything wrong, you don't want to get beat on. So I left, and I actually lived in an alley for 10 days and ate out of garbage cans. But my motivation was from that point forward, I loved work. I loved getting the money. I loved when I was 12 years old. I worked for $2 a day back then. That was in the mid to late '70s, and $2 a day was all the money in the world. And if I'd work 10 hours, I took a $20 bill home. Back then, when you're 12 years old, that was everything. You work a whole week, you had $100.
[00:13:21.690] - Rocky
Oh, my God, I was the richest person in the room. So I just love the money. I love the work. I never minded the work. Growing up on a farm, 180 acre farm with racehorses and stuff. You just learn to work. You don't have a choice to work. So it's just part of my DNA. And I always love people. I always love interacting. But more importantly, I love hearing other people's stories because you'll find most entrepreneurs, if you guys know, have a story like I have. Otherwise, they're going to be a corporate rater somewhere, or they're going to be an accountant somewhere, or a doctor. But people who are money motivated and want to be successful in life that aren't classically trained or Harvard or some of these other things, most entrepreneurs have the same story I have, just different. And I love hearing those stories. That's why I love the restoration business, because we've all got some story like that. And it was just that motivated me. It drove me. It made me realize I was, too, that if I ever want anything in life, you're counting on this guy, and you get some great people around you, and there's nothing that you can't do.
[00:14:23.940] - Rocky
And honestly, those two guys, I give them most of the credit for where we went because I didn't know what tech I was doing. They were the classically trained. One of them graduated from Nepal, and the other one graduated from Princeton. And part of my job was just to okay most of what they were doing. Just became a personality conflict once they became owners. It wasn't because they got stupid all of a sudden. So I hired great people, stayed out of the way, given what they needed, stayed to my strength. And that was leading people and selling and motivated. I'm really good at those three things. I really suck at probably most of everything else in the world. But I picked up something early from those guys and mentors. I've always had mentors is the reason you're there every day is to have profit. Absolutely to have profit. You can't pay the most. You can't give the guys the best uniforms. You can't have the best trucks, equipment unless you have profit. So if you're not focusing on profit and motivating yourself, And the company, based on profit, why bother? Okay? Because you make them good profit.
[00:15:21.010] - Rocky
You're taking care of your people. As you guys know, you've been to my place. I pay 20 % more of the market. We rotate new trucks out every three to five years. Equipment, we rotate every three years. You can't have the best equipment. You can't give them that culture if you don't make profit. And so we bring them into that. So I've always been really profit-driven, more so. Here's my thing. And sorry to get a little preach here, but culture is number one, period. I don't care What business you have, how much money you make. If you don't have great people, you don't have camaraderie, you don't have people looking out for each other. We always say, My man, brother's keeper. You don't have that. It doesn't matter how much profit you make. You're just going to be rotating people out. And two is accountability. Even more than And what's most important than profit is accountability. You got to hold people accountable of your system. And if you're not, then you're constantly fixing things. So accountability, in my opinion, is number two. But also they have to hold you accountable. If you're telling them you're going to give them all these things, you're going to make more than anyone else in this market.
[00:16:18.000] - Rocky
You're going to have the best equipment. You're going to have the best uniforms. I'm going to give you the best product to sell. And you're not. Their job is a whole meat comp. And then third and fourth is profit. Culture, accountability, and profit, you can win anything. I can sell widgets with that formula and win. I really believe that, and I've done it time and time again. You know my history in the 1,800 packouts and the 8,59 board up. And that first business I did was a recycling company. And then I built and sold a solar company, so on and so forth. And then my big win in 2004 was a mortgage and title. And we had grown so big that we were literally securitizing, building 10 loans, seven B through D, which now we know it was really F. And then we put three conforming loans, which was the A customer. And then we securitized and sold them on Wall Street. I mean, that's how much business we were doing. Again, you're looking at a guy that didn't graduate from high school, that had a GED that is doing this because they had those three things.
[00:17:18.270] - Brandon
Leveraging that formula.
[00:17:19.400] - Chris
Question around that. You've had these series of things you've created in different verticals. A lot of leaders, a lot of successful entrepreneurs I guess, would say, Hey, focus on what you know. You've dove into various different things that presumably you didn't know a whole lot about before you got into it. How do you spot up? How do you decide, I'm going to get into the mortgage and title business? Or how did you see the cardboard in the alleyway spilling out of the container and decide, I need to start a recycling company that later became a $5 million exit? I think for a lot of us, that's a little bit baffling. What's your decision making process?
[00:18:03.420] - Rocky
It's funny. I couldn't tell you that. And I'll tell you what I mean by that is me and a friend needed money. We had the weekends, and he knew somebody that worked at Walmart. His dad was the general manager, and he couldn't get rid of the cardboard in the back of Walmart. It was stacking up. They had the Baylor and the wrap and just that there. And my friend actually called around and found a place right here in Cincinnati that if you took it over and dropped it off, they pay for the ton for cardboard. So we rented a truck, one of those trucks, the box truck with the thing that pops up and goes up and down. And we rented the pallet jack. And we spent a Saturday going around to Walmart back and forth. We ended up making, well, over 1,300 bucks. I forget what it was for that Saturday, after we paid for the truck, paid for the pallet jack. And then we started going around all the Walmarts and so on and so forth. And five years later, we had 14 employees, and we were doing five million dollars. And We had two alpha males, though.
[00:19:01.400] - Rocky
So I ended up selling my half to my partner and started another business. And it was just what it was available. It was the mortgage and titling business. And that was where I grew from there. And I learned so much figuring out on the recycling side. And that was '96. And I sold in 2004. So that was eight years later. I built it into me and a team, great people, built it into that. And then I had a friend that was in the state Senate. Okay, not a big deal, but he was a state senator. And there was a lot of mold problems back then. They had some people dying from mold stuff. And he's like, hey, because I was like, dude, I got a five-year non-competent, I don't know what I'm going to do. And he said, well, we're trying to pass this law to where every house in Ohio, if it sells, they have to get a mold test. And he goes, he's actually just phrasing me. He goes, Hey, if that passes mold, it's going to be gold. And I was like, okay, you had me. Yeah. So I opened up a mold company, which was Icon Environmental Group.
[00:20:04.610] - Rocky
And then I realized pretty quick that mold was not gold, but water was. So we changed it to Icon Property Rescue. And we went around and solicited plumbers. And all we did was plumbing business because I've always been a profit-first guy, and I wanted to make a million dollars in taxable profit. I always say taxable profit because you can pull a financial report 10 ways to Sunday and get different numbers, okay? At the end of the year, you can't argue what you I filed taxes on. And we all try and cover up as much as we can, company cars, fuel, maybe some people mowing their grass, let's call what it is. So if I filed taxes on a million dollars, that was undisputable. So I wanted to do a million dollars because I already sold a big business. And this is what I wanted to live off of, so I didn't have to touch that money as much as I could. And it was about three and a half million dollars doing water damage. And we went out and solicited plumbers. And I had two salespeople. And I think we were doing three and a half million with 15 to 20 people, depending on when it was.
[00:21:04.320] - Rocky
And we were finally taxes on a million dollars in profit, give or take, every year, up until 2013.
[00:21:11.520] - Brandon
So what I'm hearing you- You got a little long winded there.
[00:21:14.150] - Rocky
Sorry about that.
[00:21:15.160] - Brandon
No, that's okay. I think part of what I'm hearing you say is that you're just not overly romantic about the mechanism because in your profit, accountability, and culture, the reality of it, you could ultimately create those three things in whatever widget or service line you're providing, right?
[00:21:32.540] - Rocky
Yeah. To that point, I'll tell you a funny story. My buddy, he was one of my VPs at the mortgage and titling business. He saw an article in 2007 in USA Today, which was a big deal back then. That was really And he said, Hey, I'm seeing that solar is coming to the Midwest. He goes, you want to go on partners with me? And I said, yeah. And we started a solar company and built it up to shy 10 million. That was when we had to start hiring HR departments, which I do not do. That's And that's when I realized once we do an HR department, I'm out.
[00:22:03.280] - Brandon
That's your threshold. I'm out.
[00:22:04.980] - Rocky
And that was at about 9.6 million and sold it to another person and him. He brought in another investor, and they're doing great. So that's how I decided to get in the solar business. So it's just what opportunity presents itself. But it's all about those three things. It's all about the system, the culture system. Got to have a system. A great mentor told me one time, he goes, there's only two reasons that you have a problem in your business. And he was a real gruff. You're an idiot. If I'm an idiot type guy, you know what I mean? He had no problem to call me. That's just idiotic. Why are you doing that? And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. But at the time, it was horrible, it seemed like. But he said, there's two reasons why you have a problem in your company. And I was like, oh, yeah, what are those two reasons? And he said, you don't have a system. And then when you create the damn system, you're not holding anybody accountable to your system. Oh, man. Okay? If you will create a system for every problem you have and then hold people accountable that system, You're going to be great.
[00:23:01.500] - Rocky
And I did that, and I followed that. And that's why I say number two is your system. It's accountability. It's really accountability to the system. There's always things you're changing and moving and stuff. But if people know they're going to be held accountable, they do better work. And they know, more importantly, I found as long as the rock stars know you're going to hold other people accountable, they'll still be rock stars. If they know that you're going to hold them accountable, but not other people, they start to slip because they're like, Why am I working so hard when everybody else isn't?
[00:23:32.430] - Brandon
A hundred %.
[00:23:33.860] - Rocky
And that was game-changing for me. And fortunately, it was in my first business. And we did that, started doing that, started seeing the profit, and we had to rotate probably 60 % of our people out because they didn't want to follow the system. So it was game-changing. You just learn as you go. And then like, okay, so now if we have a problem, let's create a system. And then people aren't following the system. They either follow the system or they go away because they should be making 20 % They can't go somewhere else and make more money if you're doing things properly. That's number one is culture.
[00:24:06.360] - Chris
Yeah. I want to validate this because I think it's possible. Some people listening to this are like, holy shit, this guy has the Midas touch and everything just seems to fall in place. I'm not sure how real what this guy is saying is. He's speaking a lot of best practices principles. But when you talk about that whole accountability in the system and stuff like that, it reminds me when we visited Icon and you gave us a tour of Icon.
[00:24:31.180] - Rocky
You guys were here for two days.
[00:24:32.490] - Chris
Yeah, we had no small amount of time on the ground with you guys. I remember you talking about some of the systems and accountability you have at Icon. One story in particular stood out to me. Well, Two, actually. One, I think I asked you about your after-hours call system, which virtually every restoration company has some- Absolutely. Some system. We're a 24/7 industry. I was just ripping with you about how that after-hours system You can be fraught with challenges and inconsistency. It's like somebody takes the bat phone home, so to speak, and they get out of cell range and they can't take the call. They end up going on a date with their wife, part of town, no cell signal, and they don't answer the call. And then customer, that call gets dropped or whatever, or somebody sleeps through the call, that thing. I asked you, I said, well, how do you guys handle that? Would you mind sharing your answer to that of how you guys deal with on call, both the system and the accountability measure?
[00:25:33.740] - Rocky
Yeah, I don't mind at all. We've got it set up. If you get a salary, you take a rotation in the phone because we want people that work here every day to be part of that. And they rotate out. I think we have probably 14 people. So every 14th day during the week, which is Monday through Thursday, and every 14th weekend, you have the phones, and you get one write-up if you don't answer the phones. And then the second one is gone. I don't care how long you've been here. When we set that expectation, when we hire people, we are a true emergency service company. Don't make any plans. You know when you're going to be on call. You just don't make any plans because you have to answer the phone. If you're taking a shower, it goes up on the tower. We don't care. It's like There is no, oh, it was this, it was that. It doesn't work here. You know the deal and so on and so forth. I literally fired somebody that got a second time that been here six years. But what that does is it lets everybody else know that's our system.
[00:26:28.910] - Rocky
You hold accountability to it, period. That's who we are. They work for us. We don't work for them. And if their schedule doesn't work for us, they don't need to be here. And I'm sorry, that's just the way it is as far as answering the phone. The other thing is we call Wom to the tomb. From the time the phone rings, there's a system, there's a script, and they practice it. We go over it monthly, and we're constantly listening to phone calls with our team, with everybody that answers the phone, we're in here training. And if you don't like the way you answer your phone, because it's going to be shown in front of everybody. We're going to play the good in the bad, okay? Because we want to pat people on the back, too, and go, Listen to this call, man. Barbie did this one amazing. High five, Barbie. Let's give to Barbie a round of applause. Round of applause, because we want to applaud the wins, too, okay? So once the phone rings and it gets dispatched, they have to be on site in 59 minutes or less, period. But our guys sell the job.
[00:27:23.950] - Rocky
Our lead technicians are trained and sell the job. And we've got... I mean, you guys were here, you saw our closing rate. It's 93 %. We have a 93 % closing ratio because if they don't close, and we track every month, we go over to them, over them with their closing ratio. And if you've got an eight in front of your closing ratio, you're in some deep, serious training, okay? Until that comes up and goes back, because it's a law of average. Sooner or later, if you stay in 80 %, you're just not good enough. And we're a sales organization that does restoration. Let's face it, that's what it is. From the time the phone rings to the technician showing up to the estimator, to thanking them for the business and asking them for their check, we're telling them how amazing Icon is an Icon property rescue isn't one Tom Plumber. If we call from the womb to the tomb, we're selling. Period. Everybody's a salesperson here.
[00:28:13.450] - Chris
I think it's important to draw a little bit of contrast, too, because those things you just described are very consequential to the business, right? Our system. I think even though some people hearing that are like, Oh, my gosh, that's extreme. It's like, well, it is a fundamental part of the business. It's a big deal. Same with closing percentage and so forth. But I think I was really impressed or maybe taken aback a little bit at first. That systems and accountability goes all the way through your business.
[00:28:44.950] - Rocky
It does.
[00:28:45.610] - Chris
And another story that you told was about your guys as standards in terms of even how your vehicles are parked and positioned in your parking lot. When people return, there's an end of day process. I think this is valid. Do you Can you just describing that a little bit?
[00:29:01.700] - Rocky
Because- No, not at all. What you're saying as far as our parking lot in the building that we have- Yeah, when people come back from a job and so forth, before they go home. You have to back your trucks in because people driving by are going to look and see how your company If you drive by a company that's got the vans, the wreck, they may be jacked up because they're changing a tire and stuff, and people see that driving by every day, are you going to want to use that company? But if you drive by a company that all the vans are clean and backed up and parked parked sequentially, you're going to want to use that company. You're going to think that's how they're going to treat my house. So it's all perception because that's most of selling is. And get a lot of calls from people because they say, yeah, I drive by you every day. And if you drive by every day and it was junky, we wouldn't get those calls. But it's all how you do one thing is how you do everything. And that's why we also do weekly inspections.
[00:29:54.440] - Rocky
But if I could go back to, because one of the big problems that some of my brothers in the restoration business have is getting people on those jobs to take the emergency service piece and stuff like that. One thing we realized that we did was a lot of guys have their guys, they pay them hourly to go to emergency calls. We pay $200 for the first three hours of any helper that goes to an emergency call. And people are like, hey, how can you afford to do that? Well, when you're talking about water, it's 80 % profit margin on water. How can you afford not to get people there and get them trained and do that? So we pay 200 bucks a cover for the first three hours. After that, if we need them more, they always get time and a half, no matter if they really get time and a half. But so we have people literally trying to take other people's on call schedules because if they get two or three calls, it makes 600 bucks. And sometimes they may not get a call, so they didn't make anything. So they're trying to work it out.
[00:30:49.730] - Rocky
So we actually never have a problem filling those slots for on call.
[00:30:54.320] - Brandon
There's something here that I think is really important that you're pointing to that I don't want to lose track of, because I think this is this balancing act that most of us as entrepreneurs and key leaders get stuck in. It's this weird relationship to cause and effect. But we're making assumptions instead of living out experience. And here's what I mean by this. So you've already talked about three things over and over and over again, but digging hard into this drawing hard lines in the sand. Here's what I mean. You've dialed in on profit, accountability, and culture. And what's funny about that is I think in most In these cases, when we start talking about culture, it's not actually in direct relationship to the profit and accountability. And what I'm hearing you actually say is that what happens at Icon, for example, is that we establish clarity around the standards and deliverables. We hold the line very, very hard. Then because of that, we're able to pay our people a premium to have a spot on our team. I guess what I'm trying to highlight for people is the effect is coming from this idea of we're going to invest hard into culture.
[00:32:08.420] - Brandon
We're going to create clear lines and definitions of what winning looks like. And then we're going to be unapologetic on holding that line. And lo and behold, what happens? Better culture, higher accountability, higher profit, which I think most of us would struggle to connect the dot to. All of it is on the fact that you just continue to retain A players because they watch you toeing the line on those standards. Is that fair to like- It's very fair.
[00:32:34.660] - Rocky
Again, I don't mean to beat this point on, but you guys were here for two days. I shared my financials with you. I mean, we did seven and a half million dollars last year, and I filed taxes on two. I wrote a check from Icon to the government for $460,000 that I paid in taxes because we made $2 million. And I see financials all the time because of my one Tom franchise, where people are $30 million, and they're barely breaking a million dollars. And they focus too much on the top line. I'm okay with seven and a half million when we're profiting $2 million. But that's how we can afford to do all those things. But getting people to buy in. And mind, I'm talking a lot about accountability, but culture There's also, you got to celebrate wins. When we go into the quarterly meetings, we call them all hands on deck meetings, all we talk about are wins. We celebrate people that have been here. You see our jerseys. If somebody has been here five years or more, we got everybody's jersey on the wall with their name and a five, five, five or 10 or whatever.
[00:33:33.950] - Rocky
And we've got 43 employees, and 26 or 27 of them have jerseys on the wall. We talk about profit. We don't go into a KPI meeting, our monthly KPI meeting, Without profit being the very first thing we talk about every single time, period, every single time, because everybody has to buy into the fact is the company making money. Because if the company makes money and we're talking about profit constantly, that's the most important thing. Where your mind goes, where your energy goes, is where your body goes. And if people are putting their energy and their mind towards the company making profit because I'm going to do better, that's where they go. It's just human nature. And it sounds simple, And it truly is once you get the right people, okay? And that's the hardest part is rotating people out. We always say good works down the road, okay? Good ain't going to make it here because I have rock stars. If we don't have rock stars, then that's the weak chain. And we rotate people out. But here's the thing, too. Our helpers, we don't, I think, get $22 an hour. Our lowest paid person here is $21 or $22 an hour.
[00:34:42.700] - Rocky
But we can get better quality helpers with that. And you guys are in business. If you get a guy that's a 20 percenter is what we call it, because 80 % of all work gets done by 20 % of the workforce. That's a mathematical fact, okay? If you get that 20 percenter, they do twice the work. So really, you're paying an extra five dollars an hour to get twice the work with the guy who comes in every day, keeps his truck clean, keeps his uniform clean, has a great attitude. I mean, you're paying 25 % more to get twice the work. But you got to stay the corks. You cannot, like you just said, you can't not... You got to settle. You cannot settle, period. You have to rotate that person and not be scared to get rid of good. We talk about all the time with our franchises. If you're not afraid to get rid of good and to Keep going until you get great, you're going to be really successful.
[00:35:33.360] - Chris
This accountability thing, man, I just think it is so huge. I think a lot of times as business owners, we don't know how far to take it. And we hear these concepts like accountability and culture, and we Often, it feels sometimes like in order to keep the culture, everybody happy, loves the job, all that stuff, that sometimes you have to get lax on accountability. Just really quick, that parking lot story, the thing that really impacted me is You mentioned an example that it just happened a week or two prior where you had one of your either technicians or PMs or somebody come back with a job.
[00:36:08.900] - Rocky
It was a water tech.
[00:36:09.660] - Chris
Oh, yeah. They had hurried back from their last job. They had their kid's birthday party.
[00:36:15.590] - Rocky
They had to be home. It was their sister's birthday party.
[00:36:18.830] - Chris
You finish telling the story.
[00:36:20.290] - Rocky
Okay. Well, this is how diligent we are about it. It was someone who had been with me three, three and a half years. He'd been out all night on a water call. He came And he dropped this truck off, just left it and drove. And I happened to be coming in on a Saturday and saw it there. And I called him and said, Hey, what are you doing? Do you run to the store? And he's like, No, I'm running to my sister's birthday party, and I'll be back in a couple of hours, and then I'll finish up. And we are very strict about, your job is not done until that truck is ready to go to the next job, period, and parked properly. And I was like, no, you're turning around and you're coming back. You're The job is not done until everything's finished. And he started getting sassy with me. And I was like, look, dude, if you're upset, I need you to find the closest McDonald's. I want you to pull into the McDonald's, run into the bathroom, look in the mirror and go, dude, you know the system. You know we hold you accountable of the system.
[00:37:19.160] - Rocky
Why would you try and cheat the system? If you're going to get mad at me because you didn't do what you were supposed to, that doesn't work. That doesn't play for me. Okay? So if you're upset, you need to go and look in the mirror, okay? Get your butt back here and do it right. And he goes, well, I'm not going to do it. And I was like, Well, Monday will be your last day. And he's like, What? He goes, I've been out all night and started doing that. I'm like, You know what your job is. You knew that's the deal. You know that you're a 24-hour guy. And if your sister's birthday, you're supposed to tell her, I'll get there when I can. I'm working because this is my job. This is my career. This is what I've chosen to do for a living. So do not pull that on me, dude. Okay? You either come back or Monday will be your last day. And he's been an unbelievable employee. But what happens is, guess what he was doing on Monday? He was bitching about that to anyone that would listen. And everybody is probably going to, dude, that's so unfair, man.
[00:38:11.500] - Rocky
I can't believe you would do that. But secretly, they're thinking, oh, shit, I'm going to I'm going to make sure-I'm going to be me. I'm going to make sure that never happens to me. Yeah. And it works. And then you hold people accountable. And if you're paying more, they can't go somewhere else. And that's his choice. If he wants to take a pay cut, go somewhere else because he wanted to go to his sister's birthday party. And we do not compromise, period.
[00:38:33.620] - Chris
Liftify. Com/bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe even heard our episode with Zack Garrett, the CEO and founder. Recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews. Why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 to 25 % conversion, right? So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be We're adding right now 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year. If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify. Com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.
[00:39:16.770] - Brandon
Com/bloodlight. We spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is, sometimes we leave it to chance, right? Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us. Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like answerforce. Com is we can systemize that, we can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help. Somebody goes on vacation, somebody's out sick, We get a storm search, we get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so answerforce. Com can support you, be a bolt on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So answerforce. Com/bloodlight.
[00:40:09.110] - Chris
That's great. Cnr magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry. You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully? She's got that. Great articles about all the four quadrants our business. Cnr is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. It is the water-cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine. Com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us, if you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine. Com.
[00:40:53.850] - Brandon
You guys, many of you have already heard about Actionable Insights and the training and the technical expertise they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the Actionable Insights profile for Xactimate? That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered. All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope. And it can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. It also helps the grizzled vets add back that few % that we've just forgot over time. So actionableinsights, getinsights. Org/ floodlight, and take a look at what the Actionable Insights Xactimate profile could be doing for you and your team. I want to hang in that pocket for just a minute, Rocky, and I think as a third party, I want to validate something. When Chris and I were there, so we met your one Tom staff, obviously, and we met all of most of your icon staff and a lot of your leaders. And this was not the rule of an iron fist.
[00:42:07.940] - Brandon
There was not this negative vibe. There was no fear. There was no sense of do this or else or anything.
[00:42:16.690] - Chris
Nobody's rushing around frantic.
[00:42:19.160] - Brandon
No, there was not a vibe of chaos and fear in the business. I'm just thinking to myself of how many companies we've been on the inside, to include ones I've been leading, and how often, even in this effort, in quotes, to produce a healthy culture, somehow we ended up with a mix of fear or else. And so with as aggressive as you guys are toeing the line, there's this really healthy relationship with the bulk of your staff. Again, not necessarily even the tactic, but from your perspective, why is that happening? What's the connection between these clear expectations and actually a culture where people are not fearful at all about the standard? It's a great question.
[00:43:02.070] - Rocky
And that is a little bit of a dynamic as far as you got to get better at that as you go along. I'm 58 years old. I've been in business since I was 23. I got better at it. I'll give you a great example. Like I said in our quarterly, All Hands On Dead meetings, we just talk about positive things. We pass away their little blue cones that are like, I appreciate you. Blue cones is what... And we pass them out to everybody, and everybody talks about somebody that helped them, somebody that stepped up for them. Constantly, I just took three-fourths of the business to Norris Lake in Tennessee for three days. We rented literally five houses and took them down and team built and stuff like that. We kept the people with the least seniority behind because we still have to stay in business, but it was probably two-thirds of the people. We got a football game planned in October. We're taking people down to Paul Brown Stadium and watch the Bingoes play. We work on the culture hard. And keep in mind, the accountability piece is a private setting, okay? If he wants to tell people it's up to him, I only held him accountable to himself.
[00:44:01.610] - Rocky
I would never do that in a public setting and humiliate him in front of people. I wouldn't want that. I don't do that to them. So the accountability piece is a private thing. And if they want to tell people, it's up to them. But the culture is all about us. Like I said, am I my brother's keeper? We say that all the time. Am I right or not? And if you're not, this isn't the place for you. But if you are, we got your back. We're not going to let the customer tell us what a bad person you are. We're going to have your back even with the customer, okay? Because We know who you are. We know what employee you are. We got your back. So most of the culture stuff is done with everybody, and it's all positive upbeat. The accountability piece is done one on one.
[00:44:41.450] - Brandon
I think, too, what I see is, and again, I don't know that I could point to an employee that said this verbatim by any stretch of the imagination, but it's just this idea of there's a lot of trust because they know where the lines are. I think one of the things that we see fear live inside these organizations so heavily is that it's because everyone's just not not very clear on where the lines are. What is winning? What's losing? What's right? What's wrong here? It's all this like, well, it's my perception or my interpretation. And I think that just creates way more fear than just this clarity on, don't cross this line, period.
[00:45:14.470] - Rocky
And I'm sure he was trying to... Back to your example, I'm sure he was trying to go me into arguing with him. I wouldn't do that. Dude, look in the mirror. This is on you. It's not on me. The only time it got a little bit was when he said that I'm not going to do it. And that's when I said, well, then you don't belong here. That's the only time. Other than that, I just kept pointing it back to him. And you know the policies, you know the procedure. You're the one choosing not to do this. Never got to raise my voice, never got upset with him. I even said at one point in time, I'm really sorry that you chose to do this because you probably would already be out of here by now and you'd be at your sister's birthday party. I don't let them get me like that either. And that comes with time. It comes with practice. And then the profitability piece. Do KPIs. I'll give you a great example. You know this, but I leave 2-3 months in the wintertime. Okay? Yeah, I take some phone calls and stuff.
[00:46:04.850] - Rocky
But this company runs itself because of the accountability pieces in the Wometoom program system that we put into place. But I come back, honestly, I almost feel like they're sorry that I came back because I'm disrupting things. They're rolling it forward, and they don't get along so well, and they work as a team so well. When I come back, it disrupts things a little bit, to be quite honest with you. But I'll give you one example, our mold division leader, because we're very division Originalized, okay? Somebody's in charge. Somebody is responsible. I don't let people go, oh, he did it or he did it. No, you're the vision leader. We talk about three things. First and foremost is profit, and that's 50 % of what his bonus is based on. And then the second thing is the top line revenue that they brought in. That's what a quarter of his bonus is based on. And then we talk about customer satisfaction. That's the third thing that his bonus is based on. We don't talk about anything else during our time where he's got to justify his existence here. And then we always in it with a fourth thing is what can we do as a company to make your job better, to make us more money, to make you more money, to make everything flow better, to make your division amazing?
[00:47:13.550] - Rocky
That's the fourth thing we talk about. We always in those KPI meetings every month with that. And if they ask for something and it's reasonable, then it's our job to get it for them. That's how regimen we are as far as our monthly KPI meetings and our quarterly KPI meetings. And then the quarterly bonus is based on those three things, and that's it. Other than that, if something's going wrong, it's his job to fix it. We told him along the way, we don't do disciplinary in those KPI meetings at all. Those are when individual acts happen, and we pull them in and go, why is this happening? Why isn't the equipment being cleaned? Why isn't this? Why isn't that? That's along the way. But the quarterly meetings is all about how do we make things better? And that's just the way we do things. I'm not saying we're perfect. You know that we love when people come here. I I go there for a day to different places every year to twice a year, and we bring different people in twice a year because somebody's always figured out a better way for us to do stuff.
[00:48:09.360] - Rocky
Most of what you saw either had a mentor tell me, or I went to a... Until COVID, I went to two restoration companies a year for an entire day, and then they would come here for an entire day. And now I'm down to, I've only done it three or four times since COVID. So I actually miss it.
[00:48:26.910] - Brandon
One of the things that really stood out to us when we were on site with you is you're very unapologetic about the way that you've built Icon. And I think for a lot of people, they heard you maybe mention it or tap this six and a half, seven million mark for your business and how with that focus of profit, it's producing more than what a lot of 30 million dollar operations are. But I think what I keyed in on is there was two stances that you have where you're not spending a ton of time or mental gymnastics battling this out. And that was you're going to design a business to meet what you want. It's not a need. It's I want this business to look and act this way because it's what I want. The other thing is, is you're very unapologetic about your glaring weaknesses, those spots that you just know are a black hole. Just lift those down. If you could at a high level, because I'm just thinking all our entrepreneurial listeners, they are acting as if, and we're pulled in this direction of we have to be everything to everyone. And that's just not really the truth.
[00:49:35.470] - Brandon
And so what established your conviction around building a business the way you want it versus what others tell you? And then this just unapologetic posture around where your core weaknesses are. Where does that come from? And how do you really live that out?
[00:49:49.850] - Rocky
I'll try and shorten it up as much as I can because it's a 20-year history if we're talking about the restoration business. But we started out, like I said, we wanted to be a three and a half million dollar company, and we were just soliciting plumbers, okay? Because I wanted to do a million dollars in taxable profit. That's about it, okay? Sometimes it took four million, so on and so forth. And then I'm in Cincinnati. Rota Ruta is based in Cincinnati. They were one of of our biggest clients, and they decided that they wanted to get into the restoration business. And I helped them do that. I was business friends with the President of Rota Ruta. And it was one of those things you make a lot of money for a little while, or we're going to get someone else in here and so on and so forth. So I did it. And while I was there, though, I learned very much about how much commercial work was they're doing. But I got diverted away because I was like, someone told me about this one magic world of TPX, okay? So I decided that you don't have to pay some plumber who pretty much acts like a whore.
[00:50:51.720] - Rocky
Sorry, my language, but where they're going to leave you for 25 bucks. They've been sending you business for two years. And these insurance companies are just going to send you business and all you have to do is a good job. Well, that's the way to go right there. So from 2013 to 2016, we went from three and a half million to six million. My profitability went from about a million to 250,000. And I was like, okay, well, this isn't what I thought it was going to be. So I remembered back in my Rota-Ruta, helping them get up and going days, that they were just bringing in tons of commercial work. And I was like, I want to do commercial work because there's hardly... Because insurance companies really aren't involved. Okay? If it's not 100 grand or more, they pay out of pocket. So I created one Tom Plumber, and we literally took a whiteboard and said, Everything that we make 60 % on is on this line, and everything that we don't make at least 60 % gross profit on is under this line. And then drew a line and said, these are the products that we sell.
[00:51:53.870] - Rocky
We're doing emergency service. We're doing mold. We're doing rebuild, but only rebuild if it's drywall, paint, and We no longer want the emotion of kitchens and bathrooms involved. Okay? Because once you started getting kitchens and bathrooms involved, the profitability went down, the emotion went up, so on and so forth. And that's what we focused on. And we went from five and a half million to six million, I think, that year, and 250,000 profit to what you guys saw last year. We did seven and a half million, five million of that was water, 80 % of it was commercial. I filed taxes on just shy of $2 million because I gave out $150,000 of bonuses to employees. I would have been over the $2 million mark and was pretty proud of that. So it took us four years to grind it and get it there. But we stayed the course. We stayed true to who we wanted to be. It was just that simple. Then we rotated probably 60 % of our people out. Well, not 60, probably 40 % of our people out. Yeah.
[00:52:52.900] - Brandon
So they couldn't tow that line. They weren't able to make a standard. Yeah.
[00:52:57.550] - Rocky
They weren't 20 percenters.
[00:52:59.330] - Brandon
I think It's so interesting about that and what that journey highlights is if you are convicted to build what you want, right? I think so many of us start with this vision in our business. I mean, Chris and I clearly have one for floodlight and where we're going. And I think so many of us just get caught up in this giant gap that exists between what we wanted and what we had hoped to create and what we feel like we've been left with, right? The reality check. And what I hear and saw from your guys team is, don't give in to that. It's ultimately what we're living as entrepreneurs is a byproduct of either what we've allowed or what we've built. And I think if we're honest with ourselves, most of our companies have been created on the back of what we've allowed, not on this conviction of what we were building. And I think what we saw in Icon, and again, you don't have to agree with the methodology. It's not even the point. And if you want to be a $20 million revenue business for whatever reason, you make that happen. But I think what the The opportunity is as an entrepreneur, as leaders, you can literally build what you want if you're convicted enough, and you just don't give in to that path of least resistance.
[00:54:11.660] - Brandon
It is viable. You can do this if you're convicted and you execute.
[00:54:17.290] - Rocky
Yeah. And to your point, I don't know how many of your listeners know that I'm the founder of One Tom Plumber. The plumber whose name is his number. We only sell to restoration companies. We're a bolt on to restoration companies. Okay? I've been on one plumbing job. We started three and a half years ago franchising, and we are signing our 82nd franchise next week. And we're going to for sure, cross the $50 million mark this year. In our third calendar year open. So to your point, as long as you stay true to who you are, you keep your energy focused, and you don't try and be all things to all people, you're going to be really successful. Brian Mara, who owns Waterout in Pittsburgh, because we always have franchisees come here because we have Discovery Day. We have to show them who we are, and they're only restoration companies. So fortunately, I need to see 80 franchise or 80 restoration companies, how they work. I only mention him because I can't tell you How many times I've been with him, and I respect this guy so much, that he only does water and he does some mold, okay?
[00:55:22.110] - Rocky
And he always gets all the time like, I'm with him. They're like, Why don't you do rebuild? Why don't you do this and do that? He stays to who he is. All he does is water and mold. I think he did six to seven million dollars, and he made more than I did. We're very competitive with each other that way. He woke my butt, but he woke my butt because he stayed true to who he was. Because it doesn't matter if you use six million or 40 million. At the end of the day, what's that bottom number say? And I always say it's a top number for us, because if I could give anyone a piece of advice, every financial report you get or every financial report you give to one of your employees, that profit number should be at the top. So we don't do quick books. We do quick books, but she has to put it into an Excel spreadsheet because she has to move the profit number to the very top because it's the most important thing. You'll be amazed at how your mindset change and how your employees' mindset change when profit consistently is the first thing you're looking at.
[00:56:15.810] - Brandon
And it doesn't feel from the culture. I think you got to prove that it's not a trade, right? No. It's not a trade.
[00:56:22.450] - Rocky
And then they know what's important. They focus on what's important at that point, and that's profit. You can't pay them more. You can't give them better uniforms, drugs, and so on and so forth if they're not making more money, if they're not making more money, they get that. Yeah.
[00:56:34.840] - Chris
I want to dig into the one-time plumber piece. Sure. But Brandon and I were pretty fascinated by the idea from the first time we heard before we met you. And then subsequently, we've had Our consulting clients, we've had a number of them buy one-time plumber franchises, and some now are actually continuing to expand and buy other territories and so forth. And working in our industry, there's a very high presence of franchise companies, franchise brands. People are very mixed. It covers the gamut in terms of the support that they receive, how well that franchise is able to deliver on the promise or the vision that they cast. Consistently, without exception, actually, in our experience, with the clients that we have that have bought one Tom Plumber franchises, to a T, they've all said it's exactly what we were told it was going to be in terms of the support, the systems and processes, the follow all that stuff. And so Brandon and I have taken notice to that. We're like, okay, this is cool.
[00:57:34.090] - Rocky
That's how I praise coming for you guys. Thank you for that. You guys are just like me, though. I mean, you don't settle for second best. I love that about you guys.
[00:57:41.460] - Chris
Yeah. We have high expectations. And we came to the Discovery Day, and that affirmed a lot of the things that we'd seen and heard. It did catch us off guard a little bit when you showed us your one-time plumber tattoo. We were like, whoa.
[00:57:54.370] - Rocky
I love that.
[00:57:56.630] - Chris
We didn't know we were going to go there. So soon, relationship. Yeah.
[00:58:00.600] - Rocky
For people listening, that's on my right cheek. So I had to pull my pants down to show them with that, too. And yeah, that's the only time I think you guys have blushed in probably the last 20 years. It's true.
[00:58:10.560] - Chris
It was very fun. And we had a client with us at the next table over. Anyway, it was a great moment, though, Rocky. I appreciate that. But can you talk about the system? And obviously, you've been exposed to a variety of different businesses. You had an insider view of Rota Ruta, consulting for them. When When you guys set out to do One Tom Plumber, what were the things that were really important to you to build into the franchise? And then I guess wherever else you want to take it. But yeah, love it.
[00:58:40.010] - Rocky
Yeah. Well, the most important thing was we wanted commercial work. We wanted to get in the commercial business. Okay. And the best way to do that is emergency and service plumbing. There's people that say they do emergency and service plumbing, but very few people actually do it. So that's all we do. We don't do rebuilds, remodels, buildouts, anything like that. In fact, by contract, you're not allowed to do But we wanted it to be like, I owned three of the 1,800 board up franchises. I owned Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus, and built it up the same way and ended up selling it off to one of my friendly competitors here in town. And I knew what I didn't get when I bought that franchise, all the pieces that I was missing. So I had that advantage. I saw the best of what Rota was doing, so I had that advantage. So I wanted to take... And we failed early on with one-time plumber, just so you know. When we were doing a proof of concept, we had to shut it down twice because we had a master plumber that we brought in because we didn't know plumbing.
[00:59:34.860] - Rocky
Then we became like everybody else. And then we changed it up our model and only did service. And still, we're like everybody else. And so we shut it down a third time and rebooted it as a water damage company that did plumbing. And once, because that was the system we knew, that's how to do it. And once we became that, and we went back to our roots. And in fact, one-time plumber is not a plumbing company. It's a sales organization. It's a sales system that happens to do plumbing, that bolts onto your restoration company. And truly, once we realized that we just need to be who we are, and this is what we need to focus on, and how do we draw business, bring business into the restoration company? And it was commercial work. That was a first-of-market concept. And like I said, the $5 million in water we did, 80 % of it was his commercial, which means rarely do we ever even have to talk to an insurance company. It was just game-changing for us. And I'll tell you a funny story. Avis was never a franchise to be. I just wanted to improve on Icon and get Icon into the commercial space.
[01:00:40.640] - Rocky
And we were growing so fast that we hired Chuck DeWald from the Drying Academy. And his team, we actually hired him to come here because we didn't have time to go to his Drying Academy. And while he was here, he was walking through and seeing everything. And you know, Chuck, he carries a baseball bat around. He's a college baseball player, and he can call And he's like, Willby, because he teaches with this baseball bat. And he's doing this, that, and the other. And he's like, dude, if you don't start sharing this with other people in the restoration business, I'm going to freaking take this bat to your head. He goes, I see all these other restoration And the big companies, dude. They need this. They need this system. They want to... Belfour, I mean, why does Belfour get to own the commercial business space? Get over how you guys are killing it. And Chuck and I have that relationship where we tell each other what we're thinking. And I'm not positive He wasn't joking. If you know Chuck, there's a good chance he could have taken that baseball back to me. He's about the most passionate person I know about water damage, truly.
[01:01:41.590] - Rocky
So I started talking about it, and then I still own the 1800 packouts franchises at the time. And so I went to Bart, who's a great brander of things. He just doesn't understand what support means, okay, when you support your franchises. But I took it to him and said, Hey, what do you think? And you think this is a play? And he ended up trying to buy it from me while I was there. So I knew I had something. So we hired a few consultants and franchised it three and a half years ago. Our whole goal was to do five a year. We thought, if we could do five a year, we're going to be walking in high cotton. And like I said, we're three and a half years in, and we're signing our 82nd, and we've got three people that we're scheduling to sign Maryland, Pennsylvania, and somewhere else. So we'll literally finish the month at probably 86 franchises. It's crazy.
[01:02:28.190] - Brandon
You have a super young team, too. Too. When we're on site, everybody in the business is generally fairly young. There's a lot of creativity, a lot of leaning into technology. Your guys' social media presence is super interesting. A lot of the videos we had an opportunity to check out are just fun and totally relevant. But you guys really leaned into the social media forward brand and presence. There's just a lot of creativity and energy behind it. From a cultural perspective, what are the things that brought in and deployed from your previous experience? I mean, I'm sure the parallels are numerous, but what were those fundamental things right from the gate that you planted the flag on?
[01:03:09.260] - Rocky
Are you talking about our franchisees or One Tom plumber or icon?
[01:03:13.360] - Brandon
Yeah, I would say the model with One Tom because you guys build a very specific model that, again, you hold the line on very, very intensely.
[01:03:22.250] - Rocky
Yeah. One of the things I think the big misconception is that we're selling everybody. We have a 42 % turndown rate. We're We're turning down four out of every 10 people that send us their financials. We've turned down 30 million dollar companies, not because it's good place in the culture, not because they weren't financially feasible. Obviously, they were. They didn't fit our culture. We're a team. It's the same thing as my brother's keeper. We say that, I think I said that to you guys when I was talking to you guys about it. We want networkers. We want people who are not only going to want their business to be better, but we want people who are going to... If someone calls them and says, Hey, how How are you doing this? How's your sales team killing it so much? That you'll take the time and help them. But it needs to be reciprocal. So we want a network across the country of networkers that are going to help each other become better because truly. So The number one thing that we look for is fit. Now, obviously, you have to be financially capable of... Because it's expensive to start a plumbing company that within a year, you're going to have six trucks rolling on the road.
[01:04:27.440] - Rocky
But most time, the bank takes care of that. But my long-winded point is, you got to be successful. You got to be forward-thinking. But secondly, you got to have an ego on the side. You got to help each other. You can't get help from someone if you don't tell them your problems and say, Dude, I'm struggling with the sales thing. I don't know what the heck to do? And get that better. So we're really looking for a network across the country of like-minded restoration professionals that want to get into the commercial space because that's what we are. We're a commercial play. We're going to get restoration companies into the commercial space. And we've been obviously very successful at that. So you got to want to go that way. And you want to be water-centric. If you're not water-centric, this one-time plumber is not the place for you. If you want to do more rebuilds, we're not the place for you. So we're very careful about who we bring on board. But once we bring them on board, we'll move heaven and earth for them. Like you said, you talk to the guys. We'll give you all the support you need.
[01:05:25.080] - Rocky
We'll talk to you every day if we need to. We'll get you up and going. We're going to make sure that it's a smooth transition and that your restoration company is thriving because of one-time plumber, and that you're going in the direction you want because of that. Did that answer your question?
[01:05:38.570] - Brandon
It did. Yeah, and all of it, 100 %. I mean, for those that maybe don't understand the connection, so Chris and I, in full transparency, have very seriously been considering the participation in a one-time partnership, and we were being vetted as part of our visit. And it was a true being vetted scenario. There was lots of time for conversation about getting to know us personally and what we would be bringing to that relationship. It wasn't just financials and business prowice. It was very much culture fit, relational fit. And I really appreciated that. I think, if anything, and again, this isn't a pitch fest for One Tom. I just think that it's pointing back to this theme throughout the show is when we are committed to experiencing what we want and toeing the line that gives us the environment that we want to live in and exist in, it's amazing It's amazing the business in the world and the friendships that you begin to establish. And you guys are 100% committed that on the One Tom side, totally unapologetic. And it was at the forefront of most of the two days we were with you and us being tested on whether or not this would be a relationship you guys would want to invest in.
[01:06:47.880] - Brandon
And I just think it's fucking rad, to be honest.
[01:06:50.880] - Rocky
Thank you very much for that. Yeah.
[01:06:53.510] - Chris
And I actually just want to speak to the sales component because a lot with our consulting clients and with my in the industry, one of the things we spend a lot of time teaching restoration companies how to sell commercial. And one of the tools that Brandon and I utilized and exploited was a carpet cleaning division, a floor maintenance division, as out of our tip of the spear into commercial accounts.
[01:07:18.440] - Rocky
And it's wonderful.
[01:07:19.580] - Chris
Yeah, and it works fantastic. So when I heard about this one Tom model, I thought, well, first of all, I was a little bit jealous because one, plumbing is one of those functions that every single property management company, hotel group, senior living group, all of the key verticals that any restoration company, if they're going after commercial is chasing, all of them routinely need emergency plumbing. Of course, right? Not all of them budget or prioritize their floor maintenance, which we learned. I have seen subsequently with these clients of ours that have brought our one-ton plumbers, immediate success. In commercial accounts that they'd been cultivating and chasing. Now, all of a sudden, they have a now offering that they're able to provide. A now offering. When I think of one of our clients in North Carolina right now. I was on a sales call with their team, and he was just describing to me what the reception has been when he started co-presenting one Tom Plumber and their particular restoration brand. And he's just like, immediate openness. Oh, you get to do Oh, my gosh. 24/7? Oh, man, I could definitely use that. It was just an immediate open door.
[01:08:38.300] - Chris
It's not to say that everybody has to have a plumbing business attached to the restoration be successful and commercial, but it is proving to be a fantastic tip of the spear for that reason is that so often, I think the uncomfortable that sales reps have in our industry is you never quite know if you've made the sale until that phone It's a very odd and frustrating aspect to our industry. I think whether it's floor maintenance or some other now service, you can package for your clients or it's plumbing.
[01:09:14.290] - Rocky
To your point, If you don't get business for them in two weeks in the plumbing side, because everybody needs emergency plumbing, especially these big property managers. It's not your account. Get your butt back in there and sell it. This way, you know. I mean, you might not know for a year and a half whether this Cushman-Wadefield building is going to flood or not. You know within two weeks on the one-time plumber. But to your point, I don't want to oversell. I wasn't really even planning on talking about one-time plumber. But what people don't realize is that piece is actually more profitable than my restoration piece. That was the golden goose. I had the goose that was getting me into the commercial. I'm like, what? This is actually more profitable by percentage. I'm like, okay, well, let's do more. It just took off like we were talking about earlier. It wasn't really planned. It just I put my mind to it, put a system in place, got the right people and never looked back.
[01:10:04.920] - Brandon
We've had a client. I'm going to protect his name, but he literally sometimes will be like, yeah, man, if I was doing it all over again, I think I would just run the plumbing.
[01:10:13.940] - Rocky
Just did a one-time plumber.
[01:10:16.580] - Brandon
Validating what you're saying.
[01:10:18.350] - Rocky
Don't out at me. It'll be here next week for a national convention. He's Farad.
[01:10:24.600] - Brandon
It's just funny to hear him talking about his relationship to the program because he's definitely seeing the wind.
[01:10:32.080] - Rocky
Yeah. Back to the restoration piece, too. I have people come here all the time. I'll be happy to get on the phone with anyone and schedule some stuff up, but I don't mind. I'm a huge advocate of the restoration business. That's why I've done what I do. That's why I've kept this business. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary is because I love the chaos, love the chaos of the restoration business, and it's what I was built for, honestly. I just absolutely love. So I would help anybody out there in any way I can within time restraints. But I'm more than happy to talk to anybody if they want to go through you guys to do that.
[01:11:06.150] - Brandon
One of the things I was thinking about, Rocky, and we'll tee this up later. I think Chris will chase you down for it. But one of the things that we found super interesting, we don't have time to get into now, but was some of your pay models. And of course, state by state, to be very cognizant that we can't just all do the same thing. But I really did appreciate the way you thought through some of that. So one of the things I had in the back of my mind is I would love to tee up a webinar and have you lead us on those. Sure. I think there was two or three different models that you used within your organization. Just to give people a perspective of what else is an option, I think that the participation of that would be super high because you are doing some creative things on the pay side that allows you to pay very well, substantially higher in most cases than most people we know. But there's still this really interesting accountability element that's attached to it, which we just think is awesome. So So anyways, that'd be something I think would be fun, and I think the listeners would love.
[01:12:03.210] - Rocky
I'd be happy to host a bunch of your clients if you ever wanted me to. I can't get over how quick. I know you're talking about me, and thank you for that, because obviously, I'm very shy and don't really like talking about myself.
[01:12:14.260] - Brandon
Yeah, clearly.
[01:12:15.070] - Rocky
Yeah, clearly. But I've been super impressed. Like I said, we vetted you guys hard. We even call suppliers to see how you guys treat them, because how you treat them is how you usually treat... How you treat everybody, you treat us. I can't get over the growth you guys have had. I mean, you guys are I'm doing something amazing. I'm sorry about this, but I'm super impressed with you guys. That's why I couldn't wait to get on this podcast, because what you guys are doing and how you're changing the restoration business, honestly, is commendable. And I've asked you guys questions, too. I can always learn from everybody. I'm not doing it perfectly. I pick your brains all the time, or not all the time, but regularly on how you're doing things. So kudos back to you guys. And anybody listening, I'm telling you, these guys can help your business do better, way better, more profitable.
[01:12:58.620] - Brandon
Thank you.
[01:12:59.200] - Rocky
I appreciate. Thank you for jumping in on our industry and helping everybody because we all need help.
[01:13:06.150] - Brandon
Amen.
[01:13:06.600] - Chris
Well, this has been a fantastic conversation from cardboard recycling to butt tattoos to and There's the name of the show, guys, from A Hardboard to butt tattoo.
[01:13:20.810] - Brandon
There you go.
[01:13:21.900] - Rocky
I'll pay for any one of your listeners to get a one-time plumber, Plunge your butt tattoo. It's on me. Okay? There's going to be a line at the door. You guys know that, right? Yeah.
[01:13:34.010] - Chris
Oh, yeah. Post it to Instagram. That's right.
[01:13:37.250] - Brandon
Yeah, that's right.
[01:13:38.940] - Rocky
Yeah.
[01:13:39.680] - Brandon
Well, man, we appreciate you. Thanks for hanging out with us, man. It was a good chat, and we know we'll have more to follow, man.
[01:13:46.230] - Rocky
Yeah. Thank you, guys. I can't wait to see you guys.
[01:13:50.300] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.
[01:13:55.420] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show, if you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.
