Greg McAfee – Why Execution Matters More Than Ideas

I remember my dad saying at the time, you know, you have a

Cadillac taste on a Volkswagen pocketbook.

So I thought at the time I either have to change my taste

or change my pocketbook. So I decided to change my

pocketbook. Like I said, 2008 when everybody

was down, we grew 46%. I bought these big buttons that

everybody had to wear and it said we don't participate in the

recession. And we just kept chugging along

and we did not hunker down. We did not layoff.

We hired, we bought new trucks. We just, we just excel 46%.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show

where we inspire and encourage the next generation of free

thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have been

there, done that and are still getting it done.

Building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands

and their hustle. I'm your host, Eric Loden.

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great. We'd really appreciate it today.

I'm really excited to have Greg McAfee joining us.

Greg started McAfee Heating, Air and Plumbing and ran that

business for many years before recently selling in an

incredible exit. He has also founded and manages

Platinum RV Storage. Greg is a husband, a father, and

a Christian. So, Greg, thanks for joining me.

OK. Thanks for having me on.

I appreciate it. Great.

Well we will dive right in. We start every show getting to

know a little bit about you. So can you tell us a little bit

about your life growing up? What was childhood like?

Childhood. We were basically blue collar

family. My dad worked at Firestone Tire

and Rubber Company, which was in Akron, OH, which was at one time

called the Rubber Capital of the world.

They had Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, and then a couple

others and my grandfather retired from there.

So my dad did what his dad did. And then I actually went to work

for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company when I was 19 for a

while. But before that I, I grew up, I

had a, back in the day, I had a paper route.

I actually delivered papers seven days a week and I worked a

vegetable route where we actually used to carry baskets

of vegetables door to door and you got paid so much per basket.

So I was, I constantly worked since I was probably 12 years

old, went all through high school and played sports when I

grew up in a blue collar. And my parents, they didn't

manage their money extremely melt well, meaning they didn't

save much. But we always had a home.

We always had food on the table. We always had clothes on her

back. But I remember I, I had a little

bit, I had two brothers and I had a little bit higher taste

than most people in my family. And I remember my dad saying at

the time when Volkswagen was extremely cheap and Cadillac was

extremely expensive, my dad would say, you know, you have a

Cadillac taste on a Volkswagen pocketbook.

So I thought at the time, I either have to change my taste

or change my pocketbook. So I decided to change my

pocketbook. Now, I didn't always manage my

money well. I made a lot of money as I was

in my early 20s. I actually let me back up a

little bit. I actually went into them.

I worked at Firestone for a few years and realized I didn't want

to do that the rest of my life. So I told my dad.

I said we were looking together in in the same warehouse because

I moved to Dayton, OH and that's where I went to work.

I was from north of Dayton, OH and I city called Mansfield, OH.

But my dad said if you want in, I get you in.

We're transferring to Dayton. Well, I've never heard of

Dayton, but I said I'm in. So it paid good.

I was 19 years old. I was the first of first 15 of

100 people going to be hired. And I went to work there and I

went to find big records, loading, unloading tires, all

those types of things. But I decided I just didn't want

to do that the rest of my life. So I joined the Marine Corps and

I went in and served in the Marine Corps and when I was in

the Marine Corps I took a random force for extra credit in

refrigeration of all things, and I liked it.

So when they got out, I was still in the reserves.

Firestone held my job. So I went back to work at

Firestone and I took heating and air at night and I got my one

year certificate in heating and air, took a 50% pay cut, which

is good for when I speak at high schools and trade schools.

It's good for people to hear this.

You don't always start out and at the top.

So I took a 50% food cut in heating and air within the first

year. Basically he let me go.

He said you'll never make it as a mechanic.

I was devastated. Like I said, I took a 50% food

cut. I went to heating and air

school. Now I'm fired.

But he was right because I was an average technician, but I had

better ideas on to how how to grow his business and he didn't

quite listen to me. So I went to work for another

company. They put me in as a technician,

trained me better and about a year later they they actually

laid me off and they went under. He wasn't managing his business

well at all. So in 1990, which has been 35

years ago, I start 36 now, but I've started.

I got married and bought a home and started McAfee heating all

the same year. Wow, that's a busy year.

So I'll stop there and you can ask me some more questions, but

that kind of that's the fast track to getting into heating in

there. Yeah, that's great.

Well, if going to work for Firestone at 19, the heating and

air conditioning technical school, I'm assuming there was

no formal college education in there, is that correct?

No Marine Corps. Was I took the easy way out?

Join Marine Corps, but no, no college, just trade school and

never took a business course in my life.

Was it from a family of money? As I said, was in Dayton, OH, so

I had no name recognition when I started and really did not have

enough heating and air experience.

If I was coaching people today, which I do, I would tell them

get a little bit more experience before you go out on your own.

But you know, it seemed to work OK.

Yeah, yeah. Clearly you've wound up in a

good spot. You made do with what you had.

What was it you did in the Marine Corps?

I was in communications and basically I was a grunt and

carried a radio on my back. So it's kind of a funny story

because today I, I have my own podcast.

I speak a lot, teach a lot and I didn't know I didn't do well in

school. I hated school.

It was boring to me like a lot of other people.

But the problem was, you know, when you do that, you don't, you

don't really study hard enough or learn enough in school.

And then later on you have to pay for it to learn.

You know, it was free then and you didn't take advantage of it

And and then later you've got to pay for classes.

I really had a very poor vocabulary.

And so I had, I took a lot of vocabulary classes and English

classes. And I get asked often today did

did you major in communications? I was like, yeah, in the Marine

Corps I carried a radio. So, you know, basically I if you

if you use the word self-taught, I'm self-taught.

Great. I, I actually spoke to a group

of students yesterday and that was one of the things I told

them was right now and in my life today, I spend an

incredible amount of money on education and I wish that I

could go back to when I was being educated for free.

I did well in school. I worked hard in school, but I

did not leverage the opportunity that I had.

I, I did to do to get through school and get the grade.

I didn't see the incredible opportunity to gain that

knowledge and I I wish I would have done so.

So that's great. Yeah.

So 1990, you start McAfee. You know what were those early

years? Like you said, you're kind of

lacking in experience. You'd worked for two leaders

that maybe we're not doing the best job running their business.

How do you get a start with that little experience and no

business knowledge? Well, I remember I, I would sit

down and write what I wanted to do and, and a lot of things that

I wrote each day was what I didn't want to do.

So I would, I'd go to work at these heating and air

conditioning companies and then I would figure out, I'm never

going to do this if I have my own company and I am going to do

this if I have my own company. So I used to try to talk one of

them into advertising a little bit more so we weren't so slow

during the slower times anyway. And advertising doesn't work,

well, it actually does. And that's why Nike and

Budweiser and everybody else advertises that they're #1 to

stay #1 So I really got into learning more about branding and

marketing and advertising. But when I but back to them, I

would really write down what I don't want to do.

I don't want to be like this. I want to raise the bar.

This was my goal from day one. I wanted to raise the banner in

the heating and air industry. I wanted to have things like

this clean trucks, no paperwork on the dashboard, organized

system in the Bank of the truck. I wanted to be, I wanted I had

uniforms from day one. I wanted to be a more

professional heating and air person, even though I didn't

even have a company yet. So, but it worked and it and it

was a gradual for those listening that are having a slow

start, that's okay. Slow is okay.

Actually I teach slow growth. There is nothing fast about my

growth at all. And now that I've learned 35

years later, fast growth will take you under for most people

faster than lack of capital because you're not ready for it

yet. You don't have the capital to

put into it and you couldn't handle the growth today.

If I mean, people have problems hiring one peep person, you

know, and, and so imagine trying to hire 10 at once.

So fast growth isn't necessarily good.

Now there's 1% out there that can really handle it and they do

well with it and they take off. Especially those in hotter

climates who are very business savvy.

But my philosophy is slow growth.

It's not a race, it's a journey. Keep doing what got what got us.

Where we got to was taking care of people better than anyone

else and doing things others weren't willing to do.

And so from the beginning, what I learned was professional

management. I had a professional company.

I started hiring people and training them my way, a

professional way. We had we had to wear uniforms.

We had to keep them tucked in. You had to wear a belt.

Now, some of this stuff came from the Marine Corps, but also

it raised the bar in our industry.

I had vinyl lettering, which is common today.

Now you got the wraps and all that stuff.

But back then, sometimes it was painted, a logo was painted on.

It wasn't even straight. It didn't even look good.

Trucks were Derby. It was very unorganized.

It was unstructured. And I took my little world of

Dayton, OH. And as we grew, people were

like, well, if Mcafee's doing it, we better do it.

And that's what basically how it got it got to it got to a huge

way of doing that from shoe protectors.

We were the first one in America to wear shoe protectors.

We even did ATV commercial on it.

It exploded. And now guess what everybody

else had to do? They need to go out and buy shoe

protectors because they weren't alone in people's homes without

them. But that's, that's a example of

how we raised the bar in the industry.

And then I started teaching, coaching, holding boot camps.

I'd like to say I changed a little bit of the industry

nationwide because people would come from all over for a 2 day

business boot camp to Dayton, OH.

And if you couldn't Payton Ohio and you know, October, you're

not coming there for the excitement.

You're coming there to learn business and they can take ideas

back with them. So it's very important to me to

run a professional managed business.

And from the we started off at a kitchen table.

We built a garage behind our house.

But if you walked into that garage, it was the cleanest

office. You would have thought you were

anywhere. And then you know, 10 times that

later. And my last building was 30,000

square foot. It looked like a medical

facility when you walk through the front door, it was just

clean and professional. And I always said if customers

come through my door, they know we keep our office clean.

They know we're going to keep their home clean.

And we did. We always tried to leave, but

the area around the furnace cleaner than what we found.

And like I said when I joke about it today, when I say it

must have worked well, it worked extremely well because we were

number one for 10 years in the market.

And I can explain to you how we measured that and got to #1 but

when you hear me say it must have worked, it's kind of a

smart remark that it definitely worked.

That's incredible. It sounds like you run a tight

ship and it sounds like you'd be a great place to work.

So can you tell us that the process of building that

business, I know you finished your career with a massive

thriving business, but you mentioned you went from the

kitchen table to a 30,000 square foot warehouse.

What were the major steps along the way?

Kind of, you know, how did things start and and when did

they really start to escalate? Yeah.

First couple of years, first year, year and a half, I was by

myself and I made hundreds of phone calls.

Back then, it was mostly landline and we actually had

what was called a crisscross directory.

It was a big, thick blue book and it had everybody's landline

in it according to your street. So I could just start on one

street and go down and call every house.

And I did like on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I made phone calls

and Wednesdays, Monday and Wednesdays, I went in the door

and knocked on doors and I knocked on both residential and

shopping centers. I just go shopping centers,

knock on doors and say, hey, do you, do you guys need anything

done with your heating and air? I mean, believe it or not, a lot

of people said, well, even if you could change my filters for

me, I mean, that was a job. Yeah.

Or if you, my belts are making a noise and replace belts or

whatever. But it was, you know, for the

phone calls. I had to make 100 phone calls to

get one scheduled. And my wife was very patient.

She worked outside the home then for the first three or probably

three years or so in business. And but I would have sticky

notes up on our cupboards today. We laugh and say that that was

the first, that was the invention of the D board because

of the schedule. But so we would have sticky

notes on the cupboard if she'd come home and there were little

sticky notes that meant there was more work.

So she never complained. And she she was a great partner

all the way through in business. And I'll get back to your your

question here in a minute, But it's very important for guys to

know if you don't have if you don't have the support.

From home your your. Business is probably going to

fail, so you've got to be on the same team and you've got to have

good support because there is a lot of balance in a business

with family and business. And if you neglect 11 will go

under. If you neglect the other, it

will go under. So either you lose your family

or you lose your business. So it's very important to

balance properly. You can't give, you can't give

more time to one than the other if you want a successful

business. I just, I did whatever it took

for the first couple years. I hired my first employee

somewhere in year 2. He knew nothing about heating

and air. I trained him.

He stayed with me over 10 years. A lot of the things we did all

the way for 35 years, we adopted from him.

He was extremely meticulous, you know, we started pre bending

copper line sets, tubing and all that stuff from him.

I would invest in the benders and he would do it and it that,

you know, stuff like that stuck all the way through my company.

I'm always about new ideas and doing things better than anyone

else. So I trained him and then we got

in, you know, like year two or three-year three started having

a lot of phone calls and I don't know what a lot means back then,

you know, maybe 5 for end up cleaning.

I thought, man, I'm getting more phone calls for air duct

cleaning than I am heating in air.

So I found an air duct cleaning truck.

I refurbished it and we did, we started doing air duct cleaning

and it was perfect timing. There were only two other

companies doing it and they weren't doing it right.

And within the first two years of air duct cleaning, we had two

trucks on the road, four guys, 22 per truck and it just took

off and we killed it all the way.

We still do it today. And so that was an added

service. You got to be open.

You got to be open to things and you got to figure it out because

if you don't figure it out, somebody else will.

And I've always been, I've always been open to that.

And I've always been, I don't care who comes up with the idea.

And I pay people for ideas, you know, if it's a good one and it

sticks. So we constantly were coming up

with things nobody else was thinking of.

And along the way, probably one of the biggest things we ever

did, we called it the 8 to 8, same great rate.

And we came out with this in 2003 and at the time we were

doing 3.5 million. And when we came out with 8 to 8

at the same great rate, we skipped 4 million and went to

like 5.4 in one year. So 8 to 8 was the greatest thing

I ever did. And that means that from 8:00 to

8:00, we charge the same ring. We didn't charge overtime Monday

through Friday. So building clocks, typically

the most coveted time for people to want.

That way they can get their system serviced or fixed and

then they can get to work. Well, it became between 5:00 and

8:00 was the most coveted because now I can get home.

I don't have to rush and you can work or fix on, you know,

service my system after hours at the same great rate.

And it just took off. And we took more market share

over the next five years, believe it or not.

Nobody came up, nobody came with anything.

Nobody tried to compete with it. I guess they didn't think it

would work. You know, like everything else

that's very successful and we killed it.

And that was just one of the things we did differently than

any other heating and air conditioning company, not just

in replicate, but. Personally, again thinking

outside the box, what does your customer want?

I was actually in a class in an entrepreneurial center,

entrepreneur center. They asked the question, what

could you do for your customer that no one else is due?

And when it got to me and I was the only heating and air guy out

of about 75 companies, I just turned it around and I said,

what do you guys want from your heating and air company,

residential heating and air conditioning company.

And it was unanimous. We went after serve, we went

after dollar service. And they didn't even say at the

same great rate. We came up with anything.

We just added it. But the 8 to 8 same great rate

stuck. It was catchy.

You're the 8 to 8 guy, you know, and I would have people come up

to me in restaurants and you know, you're the 8 to 8 guy.

I became known as an 8 to 8 guy. And because I did a lot of

advertising and I was in a lot of the ads back then.

And this the funny, the funny one was this guy came up to me

and got husband and wife and they had a little baby and they

said we nicknamed our baby 8 to 8.

And I. Thought what?

And they said, yeah, he sleeps from 8:00 to 8:00.

I mean, it was just funny. What, you know, whatever sticks,

whatever people can remember what happened, they meant you

figure out a way to give it to him.

Yeah. So long story.

Nothing. I will say this.

Nothing came easy for me. Nothing was handed to me.

Nobody gave me a dollar and said here, put it in your account,

I'll help you grow. Nothing.

Every. A lot of things we tried failed.

We tried. We tried chimney cleaning.

That was a big failure. I bought a window company

thinking I could turn it into home improvement with heating

and air that that failed. We tried a lot of different

things. We tried carpet cleaning.

That actually did pretty well. I just, I couldn't compete with

the big with the big boys and I, my emphasis was more on heating

and air, so I didn't want to take away from that.

So we sold that. But you know, if you don't try

things, you'll never know. And if you don't fail, you'll

never know. Failure to me is just, you know,

what Thomas Edison said about, you know, it's just another way

to figure out how to make a light bulb.

And he failed hundreds of times making a light bulb, if not

thousands. So failure doesn't bother

someone who's a go getter. It's just there's got to be

another way. So we put emphasis on heating

and air conditioning, trying to be the best heating and air

conditioning company for many years.

We lost money we didn't make. We didn't.

I personally invested everything I made profit wise when we

started making profits back into the company for growth.

So I took a very small salary and I invested everything back

in and. Point.

About year 15, we, we kind of started having, I don't know

milestone if you want to call it of we started winning a lot of

awards which got our name out there more.

Even though we would advertise. I've always spent somewhere

between on average 6 to 8% of growth revenue on advertising

and marketing. So it was 6 to 8% no matter how

much we did, I didn't vary, I didn't, it didn't change.

And what we did now was I always had an advertising plan that we

would come up with by November for the next year.

I mean it was done by November. So I'm working on it September,

October and by November it was done and ready to go.

And it was an all year plan. It wasn't off the cuff where a

lot of guys sit around and maybe we should advertise.

Now it's too late if you're thinking that you should already

have advertised or you should have already had your media

bought and we need to put out to market by then.

And that's what we did. We scheduled it January through

December, OK, So we had employment, you know, and that's

again, it goes back to professional management.

I don't know if it's if that was a God thing for me or a Marine

Corps thing, you know, be ready at all times.

Readiness is very important for me or just a gift.

But I was doing things that most people.

Couldn't. Conceive and they were much

smarter than me. They were much better at heating

and air than me and many times they had much better people and

better buildings and all that stuff than me.

But I don't know if they just don't take the time to think.

And I've read over, you know, 1200 books today.

I've read some really good books on John Maxwell talks about

thinking for a Change. Yeah.

And I've read almost every book genre.

I got to meet him several times and read his first book, Think

on these Things. So think I would go away.

And I do this here today. I mean, I have a time where I

just look out my window and think.

We have learned that sometimes because thinking can be

strenuous and thinking is very important in business.

Yeah. So yeah, I'll pause for a

minute. Oh man, that's, that's good

stuff, man. I could listen to you talk all

day, I think. But you've clearly been through

some things, you've been through some ups and downs.

What was the most difficult step in building your business?

A lot of times it was waiting because nobody likes to wait and

I'm very impatient and I will see other companies coming in

and they had newer trucks, by the way, I started with $274 and

a used truck with no air conditioning.

So I would see other companies coming in, they they'd go out

and get loans for new trucks and all this fancy stuff.

I'd see them going down the road and I'd pass them and I'd like,

what am I doing wrong? And I tell people all the time

today you're not doing anything. I wasn't doing anything.

I just, it wasn't a matter of if I was going to succeed, it was a

matter of when I was going to succeed.

It just takes time. And as you nurture it, I talked

about in a podcast the other day about the bamboo tree, you know,

you got to water it, nurture it, fertilize it for five years

before anything comes up from the ground because everything's

going down the first five years to build a strong root system so

it can withhold the 80 foot tree that's about to blossom in five

months after the 5th year, which is crazy.

But that's a business. That's a business when you have

a strong foundation and you build a strong foundation, then

it's ready for your growth, when you're ready to grow.

And so the toughest thing for me was waiting.

The toughest thing also for me was probably hiring.

You know, nobody really takes a hiring class.

Even those who go to college to have a business, they don't take

a hiring class. They don't know how to hire.

And so people would come in and apply for a job and they were

aggressive or they were motivated, rather aggressive.

They, and if they were in the Marine Corps, I'd hire them.

Well, most of the time that was not a good hire.

So, you know, you've probably heard this, but I teach hire

slow, you know, fire faster because we keep people too long

and we hire them too fast and we we don't know how to train them

properly. So, you know, if you ask a lot

of people what's your biggest challenge, they'll say people,

but people's not the challenge. It's you managing people that is

the challenge. And we don't take time to

understand that concept and learn how to hire properly,

which we did at the end. And we can give your audience a

little bit of a few tips on hiring, which has really helped

us. Yeah, that's great.

And then training, I mean training, once you get the right

person hired, training them is the key.

A lot of companies will hire someone, they've got a little

bit of experience and they'll throw them out of a truck.

They'll throw them in a truck in two days and say go.

Well, then they wonder why their culture is all screwed up

because they just took someone from another culture.

And I always explain culture real quickly, like Thanksgiving

dinner. If you have a spouse or a

significant other and you go to their Thanksgiving dinner or

Christmas, it's going to be totally different than how you

do your family's Thanksgiving or Christmas.

That's called culture. You're not going to go into

theirs and go, hey, let's do it the way we do it because that's

their culture. That's what they're used to,

that's what they're comfortable with.

That's what they like. Companies have the same kind of

culture. You mix, you mix some culture

when you do that and it's not healthy for a business at all.

So that's why a lot of times we'd rather hire someone that

has zero experience so we can train them in our culture than

to bring another culture in and try to retrain culture in from

another company. And they're not used to showing

up on time and they're not used to doing this right.

They're not used to doing that or tucking their shirts in or

wearing a belt and wearing boots.

And if you wear, it's got to be a company hat.

If you're going to unbutton your shirt more than one button, you

better have a T-shirt on. And all those types of little

things that we did. You know, it was a very tight

ship. But believe it or not, people

enjoy the guardrails of professionalism once they get

used to it. If you don't and you just throw

someone in a truck, then don't be disappointed because they're

going to do things exactly the way they were taught and the

culture of the last company they worked for or sometimes the last

culture of the two or three companies they worked for.

And then you've got a mess because it takes a long time.

It takes years to form the culture you want.

And it can be destroyed in half that time.

Yeah. And you know, you know whose

fault it is? It's the the owners fault.

It's the president's fault. It's the, it's the manager's

fault, whoever typically and say it's the leaders fault and you

allowed it. You got in a hurry.

You wanted to put someone in a truck to make more money and run

calls and all that stuff. Besides not even understanding

how they run calls. You know, I mean, just to give

you an idea, when we hire someone at McAfee with

experience, it was somewhere around 60 to 90 days before they

were actually, we'd give them a truck to drive home, but it was

60 to 90 days before they were running calls on their own

because we wanted them to see from maybe the top five

technicians how we do things. So we're going to pull them with

the top five and let them work with them for 60 to 90 days

before we say go. And then all the five have to

agree they're ready because a lot of people, just because they

have experience doesn't mean they're ready for your company.

Now some companies will say I just can't do that.

We need them now. Well, you touch chance, you

know, I mean, 97% of companies today go out of business in the

1st 10 years. So if you want to be the, you

know, 97 out of 100, then go ahead and take a chance.

But I'd rather wait and make sure they're extremely ready.

And, you know, not only that, even if they have an ego and

even if they're some of the best technicians, they appreciate

that. They appreciate being trained

because then they know what's expected from them.

And that's a whole nother class. Leaders don't give expectations

enough, so employees and team members have no idea what's

expected. When they know what's expected,

they perform better. If they don't know what's

expected of them, they just think they do.

So if you want to retain people, make sure you let them know your

expectations. You know you should be

interviewed during an interview process too.

I tell people all the time now I haven't interviewed in years,

but I used to tell people if they don't assist me too or

three questions at the end, I'm not hiring them.

And a key question should be, how do I excel here and how do I

succeed here? When they ask those kind of

questions, they're hired because they're asking the right kind of

questions. Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff.

15th year we started excelling. We started winning all kinds of

awards, Integrity Awards, best places to work, best contractor

to work for nationally, all those kind of awards.

Over the next 15, sixteenth, 17th year, our name got up

there. We were growing faster than we

ever had. Like I said, 2008 when everybody

was down, we grew 46% because I bought these big buttons that

everybody had to wear. And it said we don't participate

in the recession. And we just kept chugging along

and we did not hunker down. We did not layoff, we hired, we

bought new trucks. We just, we just excel 46%.

And the average company in 2008 was somewhere between a -5 and a

5% growth and that's it. And we were up 46%.

So I knew then, you know, that we got something here.

And if you just continue to think differently and give

people what they want, you'll continue to grow in a very

healthy way. Good stuff.

Well, yeah, I know in our company when I was running it, I

always said I'd way rather hire someone without experience and

train to do them my way, then hire somebody with experience

and have to fix all their bad habits.

So I can relate to that. But it sounds like you really

have your hiring dialed in. I'm guessing that was earned

through, you know, hard lived experiences.

If someone identifies an issue of culture in their business and

they have not set those expectations, have hired too

quickly and kind of the train's already on the tracks and

rolling, do you have any advice for someone trying to correct

that culture and and bring it back?

I think if you're starting from scratch, it's maybe a little bit

easier to set that culture you want, but how do you correct it

when it's gone off the rails? Well, it starts at the interview

process for the most part in our market there were over 500

heating and air conditioning companies.

We didn't start plumbing till the last year in biz when I was

I owned McAfee over the last year.

So it was strictly heating and air conditioning, air dump

cleaning and then we had a full blown sheet metal shop where

everything was custom for fabrication.

So it starts at the interview process and this is what a lot

of people don't understand. So when you have 500 heating and

air conditioning companies, you realize that probably 20% or

less have brick and mortar. They're they're more of

established companies. So you know who they are in your

market and you know who you you compete against.

So if they came from those companies, typically you should

know as an owner or as a manager in a company interviewing, you

should know a little bit about that company.

So I asked questions like tell me more about how you did this.

Tell me what happened when you did this?

What time were you supposed to arrive at the job?

I mean, I'm gathering information.

I'm not correcting anything or anything like that.

I'm gathering information. So if it does come down to we

actually hire these people, then we would say, hey, if you

remember at the interview process you told me this, is it

going to be a problem for you if we tweak that a little bit?

And we say you have to arrive promptly at 8:00 for a service

call and you don't go to the door until one minute till or

you have to wear shoe protectors because you've never worn them

before typically. I mean, it's a high bar, but if

you're #1 you want high quality players, you're not, you're not

going to pick, you know, you're not going to pick lowball

players here. You want, you want high caliber

players. So, and again, every culture is

different. I won an award once and I was on

the panel with other award winners and the one company said

you couldn't work for our company.

And I said why not? And she said we don't allow

facial hair. I said, well, that's cool

because it's your company and I don't have to work for it.

But if it works at the beginning, that's fine.

You know, it worked well for them.

They were bigger than us, but that was their culture.

That's what they did. That's up to them.

You don't have to work for them, right?

So every culture is different, but we that's what we will do

during the interview process because let's face it, most

people interview someone once, maybe twice and that's it.

And a lot of times people get hired because you need someone

so bad the first round and that's about the worst thing you

could possibly do. Most of the time.

There's, there's, there's occasions where it works, but

it's rare. So our interview process would

go something like this and I think it's changed a little bit.

So my interview process would go something like this.

So manager A would interview and then we, he, he or she would

rate that person. If they were really good, they

might go get someone right at that time and bring them in and

say hey, I just want you to meet this person for 5 minutes and

let's see what you think before we go to Round 2.

So, but Round 2 would be another day.

And depending on the caliber of the person, we realized we, you

know, in our industry, you got to get someone hired because

they're going to go somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

But but if they wanted to work for the number one company, they

also will stick around a little bit longer through the process.

So then #2 come in with a different manager and maybe a

key or lead technician along with that manager.

So now we get two or three people opinion and then the

third one. And by the time we got to the

third one, and nobody shares any information before the interview

because we don't want, I don't want to distract you on thinking

I really want to hire this person.

I just want you to tell me what you think.

So by the time the phone came along, then we would meet

together, the three people, the four people, the five people,

whatever it was. And we would say, what did you

like? What did you dislike?

And if the pros outweighed the cons, then we would make them an

offer. Well, before we made them an

offer then. We would go to them and say,

like I said, you know, hey, here's here's what we're going

to expect. Why wouldn't any surprises?

I tell people all the time, I hate surprises.

Here's what we're going to expect.

Here's what you will probably need to change because we're not

going to do it that way at all. Here's what we can work with.

But would you be OK if we showed you a different way?

And most people go, yeah, I want to know the best way.

OK. And do you have a problem doing

this, this and this? And if they go no, then they'll

make. Them an offer.

And now lately, and this will help your entire audience who's

hiring younger people and younger people needs 18 to 22,

maybe 23 a lot of people category of younger.

People gets bigger the older I get.

Yeah, but everybody, I get a lot of questions on how did you hire

18 year olds right out of high school?

Because we did we, we eventually put together a complete training

program with a complete training lab that had probably 10 to 12

operating systems in it with a complete training in school lab

desks and training inside, inside, external, internal.

And anyway, we had all that so we could hire someone.

We partnered with a HVAC college, so they did all the

accreditation work and we did all the training so.

But anyway, so. Did you provide training for

people that weren't prospective employees?

You did training for other people at the college or only

for your own employees? It was 90% our own, but a lot of

times other colleges if they would lose an instructor or

something like that, we would help them and put the class,

whole class, maybe 1520 people through their last quarter to

get them graduated or something like that.

But we really did. We can bring in a lot of people

outside of. That OK?

Yeah, that's pretty cool. And this was for in house

company employees. It was one of the best labs for

obtaining because we had multiple things going on from

cutting holes in a roof to put A to.

Measuring duct work. To we had like 10 thermostats on

the wall operating so we could program them, set it up, you

know, of course, the troubleshooting furnaces, air

conditioning, heat pumps, all that stuff, disassembling a

motor, putting it back together, all those types of cool things.

So it was, it was pretty cool. But what we did with the young

people, we learned how are they going to stick?

Because the, the statistics show that hiring an 18 year old, they

probably they're less likely to last a whole year.

OK, that's just a fact. And there's many reasons to that

could be the company time limit, could be management, or it could

be the individual. So how do you hire and get a

1819 year old to stick? Well, we found when you hire,

when you ask questions like tell us about some responsibilities

you had growing up, did you have to make your bed?

I mean, really ask that question.

You've had to make your bed and you have a side job during high

school and you've had chores either around your house or in

the neighborhood. You just were more likely to

stick and be more of a success at our company.

And so we we would sit down and we would brainstorm better

questions for that purpose. And it just got better and

better and better. We role play.

Role play, by the way, is extremely critical with

technicians, sales, installers, office staff.

You role play, you role play, you role play, you role play.

If you're a professional sport, if you're playing a professional

sport, you better believe you're going to practice, practice,

practice, practice. You don't go out on game day and

and be the best. You've already practiced all

that. You've gotten good at it and

practice. So why don't we practice in

business? I mean, we did and we did a lot

until people were sick of it. I paid people to come in new

people, new faces to role play with us because I wanted their

perspective. How did how did that affect you

when he asked you that question? Did he how did really make you

think? Did you want to make your house?

Because if we can get good at it and real playing and we can make

mistakes after mistakes after mistakes and role-playing, then

when it's live and we're in the home because we did 95%

residential, we're going to be fine-tuned, crisp, clean, sharp,

ready to answer the question, eye to eye contact, not looking

down, good handshakes, all those types of things.

Ask good questions, all those types of things.

It's called practice, it's called role-playing and my whole

company did that and we did it quite often, especially with

within certain departments like sales.

So you know, those types of things differentiate you from

everyone else. The new employees coming on,

they don't know any different, but the older ones coming on,

they do. And again, some of them stick,

some of them don't. I can tell you from interviewing

many, many people over the years, you heard the old saying

it's harder to teach an old dog new tricks.

And there are new tricks. Business changes annually.

I mean, business changes as fast as my cell phone changes.

And nobody knows that some companies are still doing

business the way their dad did, the way their grandpa did, and

they wonder why they're not growing.

You got to change, You got to adapt, and you got to figure it

out that your job is another you figure it out.

Take classes, hire a coach. I told someone the other day, I

said I probably had, I figured it up.

I probably had 15 coaches from 1992 to 2024 and I had four

boards of advisors with three people on the board.

They would stand a contract for two year a contract.

So for many years I had a board of advisors and these, these

people were not affiliated with Heating and Air.

There were business gurus in many different areas.

And they advised me. I had, you know, 4 meetings a

year, 4 hour meetings. We had an agenda.

I was ready to rock. I paid them anywhere.

It started off like $500 a meeting to 2000 a meeting.

And I'm a sponge on how to improve this.

I would pay people to, we do full focus groups.

I pay people to come in and watch our new commercials.

When I when I brought up like 6 people in to watch a new

commercial, we did and they cried.

I knew it was a home run because when you touch hearts with

children and feelings and when you're touching hearts, you're

going to change people and they're going to want to do

business with you and they're going then like no other.

And it's crazy. And I didn't do it for that

reason. I had no idea people would cry

and. It's just cool.

Stuff, But if I went broke, brought the focus group in, they

need people to come in and say, hey, sit down for an hour and we

want to talk to you about our, our strategy here and show you a

couple new commercials we developed, which we called Super

Bowl commercials because we were actually on the Super Bowl, you

know, in our area 3 times. Oh wow.

So they were Super Bowl material and they were high quality, and

we paid for it. We didn't pick millions, but we

paid hundreds of thousands. And it was just a well worth

investment. If you're going to be the best,

you better look the best. You better fit, you know you

better look the best of what you do.

And. People think of you as the best,

and that's what I wanted to be known for.

So I'm I was willing to think outside the box and do things

that nobody was doing in heating and air until we did them.

And that's another story. I used to get aggravated people

topping off of us until I realized at least they're doing

it right now. You know, at least they're at

least they're more professional. I can't help but they can't

think for themselves anyway, you know, It's just a lot.

Of I'd rather have somebody copying me than me trying to

chase them. It's no wonder you built such a

successful company. Just listening to you.

You've got me fired up. I want to start a new business

just to implement some of these ideas you've got around hiring

and training. And then we we'd hired a lot of

young people as well. And my biggest threat was the

girlfriend. We'd hire a 10 year old, they'd

fit our culture, we'd get them trained, they'd be doing great,

and then they'd get a new girlfriend that wanted to move.

Yeah, a lot of times, by the way, we would bring in the

girlfriend or the wife during the final interview process to

make sure they were on board. We are a seasonal emergency

business. Is it going to be a problem for

your spouse to work overtime? Because if it is, we need to

know now because we do work overtime.

Yeah. I mean, again, you're setting

expectations. A lot of the spouses would say

that have been with us a long time.

They would say, you know, I'll never forget you bringing me in.

That really helped me understand why you did what you did.

And it's not, it wasn't a perfect place to work by any

means. And I'm falling from a perfect

owner, manager, president. I tried to just think outside

the box. And I did learn that when people

know their expectations, no matter where they sit or what

seat on the bus they're in, whether they're a spouse of an

employee or an employee or in the office or in the field, when

you know your expectations, you'll perform at a higher level

and you won't be disappointed and you won't have any

surprises. There's a fair surprises, then

we drop the ball. It's not a secret.

I'm telling the business owners. It's not a secret what you do.

Let people know. People know.

I let people know when we're making money.

I let people know when we're losing money.

And it wasn't a secret. I never really put.

I never really shared how much. I think there's some things that

are confidential. But if we made money, I also was

able to share through bonuses when we did make money, When we

didn't make money, guess what? There wasn't a bonus.

So, you know, you got to have skin in the game.

You'll you'll get it if it's there.

And if it's not, we need to work smarter and figure out how to

make more money so we can all make bonuses.

Yeah. Yeah, good stuff.

I know. That was a key part of how I ran

my business as well, was performance based pay

structures. And man, we win as a team, we

lose as a team. You know, I'm the owner.

I take the biggest risk. Everybody needs to have a a base

pay structure that covers their bills, takes care of their

families. But if you help me win, you're

going to win. And if we're not winning as a

team, things are going to be tight.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you got to make it. You got to make, it's a micro

theme. We were in a tight ship, but you

got to have some fun. You know, we were constantly

having some cool stuff going on from volunteering.

We supported our community, I say hugely, children and

families. We supported our community from

day one. I supported Little League teams

first year in business and it just grew and grew and grew and

grew and grew. And so we did a lot of support

of charity and together we volunteered, volunteered.

We did a truck or treat event for the last 10 years where our

parking lot was a quarter mile track basically around the

building. And we would have truck or treat

other companies, a couple of heating in there, but very few,

mostly, you know, other companies would come in and they

would decorate their trucks and themselves for Halloween and

give out candy or have games for kids.

And we had three to 4000 people in our parking lot on our

property for four hours. Very safe.

Saturday during the day, a lot of police officers, we support

FOP, all those types of things. It was a very safe place for

children to come and have fun and get candy.

And it was community effort. And a couple years we'd have 90%

of our employees volunteering and we did, we purchased

Christmas gifts for children who would not have Christmas without

us. Just some cool stuff.

And and then we'd have like chili cook offs and you know,

cookouts we'd deliver to the, we'd deliver to the field guys.

Food just did a lot of stuff for fun.

So you got to make it fun. You can be serious.

It's you got to have a profitable business to stay in

business, but you can also have a lot of fun.

That's great. That's some really good stuff.

Like I said, you got me all fired up and ready to go here.

So was was there something that significantly delayed your

growth? And if so, how would you handle

it differently if you had to do it over again?

Well, you know, I guess the main, the main thing for me, I'm

very energetic, very motivated and very outspoken.

That's good and bad. So in 2020 I said something, you

know, 2020 was a very sensitive time in America for many

different reasons. And I said something on my

personal Facebook, very sensitive, very insensitive

during a sensitive time. I like to word it that way.

And I could have said that today and and probably got a little

bit of backlash. I could have said it 10 years

ago and got 0 backlash. But saying it during that time

of 2020, it went viral and I got attacked personally, business

wise and everything else. I recovered well within the next

4 years. We grew 88%.

That year, 2020, I took a hit, lost some customers, lost some

employees, didn't lose my confidence.

But boy, it knocked the wind out of me because it was one of

those things where if you wouldn't have opened your mouth,

Greg, you wouldn't be in the situation.

I also, there's a lot of there's, there was a few

employees that came back and there were quite a bit of quite

a few customers that came back after they realized, wow, I

mean, the next, the next big thing after me was bigger than

me. But anyway, you know, if you

asked me what would I do differently, I'd probably lay

low on exactly how I think. And even though what I said

ended up, I don't know, I use the word 90%, but probably 90%

true. Even though it's true, you don't

have to say everything. Just lay low.

You're a business person. You know you can't you can't be

too political and you can't say everything you think as a

business person because the limelight's on you and your your

your customers think differently than you.

And I found that out the hard way.

And so that was the biggest thing in my career that

definitely moved my cheese that I wish I would have done

differently or not done. But the rest, I mean, I just, I

just come from a different kind of background.

The way I was raised, failure does not stop me.

I was told that I couldn't do this, that I couldn't start a

business. I was told.

I didn't have enough education. I was told that I would fail and

that just motivates me. I don't, you know, anything like

that. Any failure, wipe it off.

Get up, wipe yourself left, get up and let's keep going.

And that's just what I did every time we failed.

And I had many things going wrong in business.

We were building our face building.

All the framing was up and I was over there like chalking off my

office. So because I was going to bring

some family over and show them what my office was going to be

and I left to go home and eat lunch and I got a phone call and

they said your business collapsed, your going collapsed.

Hell no it didn't. I was just there they go, yeah,

it collapsed and it did. It just collapsed.

They didn't have enough supports on the wall.

Fortunately I wasn't in it, so it already had, it already had

four walls of block and everything collapsed.

So we had starved all over. Oh, man, you know, it was

devastating for a minute, but we kept going and it got built and,

you know, it probably delayed us, you know, a month or so.

And but there's just a lot of things you, if you don't expect

anything to go wrong, you're going to be very disappointed.

Because if you're an overachiever, if you're trying

to make things happen, if you're trying to provide jobs for food

on many tables, things are going to happen.

We're not going to be around. And how you react to how they

go, it will determine your success in the next five years

or the next three years or the next 10 years.

So you just need to be prepared. And nobody is at first because

you're like, Oh my gosh. I mean, I started air duct

cleaning and I was sued from. One of the other two.

Companies for using the term air duct cleaning because their

company name was Air Duct Cleaning Company.

I mean, that would be like suing someone for using heating and

air conditioning. Yeah.

So I was devastated. I was, you know, a young company

I didn't have. I didn't have squat.

And here this big attorney's writing me letters and suing

this guy suing me for using the term air duct cleaning.

So I got with my attorney, who I didn't even have an attorney at

the time. I got with a friend's attorney

and he said I got a quick fix for this.

Can you put the name McAfee behind the air duct cleaning?

Yeah, I think I can do that. And I did.

And he registered the name McAfee Air Duct cleaning and

would solve the problem. So I wasn't that big of a

problem, but scared me to death, right.

I've never been sued in my life. Here's I'm just a young

businessman trying to provide jobs and make a living and I get

sued. So expect it just expect expect

people to not like you expect people me.

I'm not talking about like customers.

I'm talking about people in general.

When you start succeeding for some reason, it's human nature.

You've probably stolen or did something wrong to make your

money If you just expect that you won't be disappointed

because I've been attacked in that way too, that, you know,

it's, it's sad that the people that won't get up and go out and

try are the ones who attack people who do so.

But if you get used to that, it's just part of life and you

can believe all the, the wealth, the top 100 wealthiest people in

the world are attacked the most. So, you know, you got to have

broad shoulders and you've got to be prepared for negativity

and still take care of people and still smile and still do

what you're called to do. Because I believe being a

business owner is a calling. I believe I couldn't have done

what I did without it being a calling and not having the

experience I really quote needed to be in business.

So it was a calling for me and I took it very serious and I took

paying people very serious, paying as much as I could,

competitively paying my taxes. If if someone came in and bought

a $10 filter, it went in the pot and we paid taxes on that.

There wasn't any side work. There wasn't any cash jobs.

It was extremely unprofessionally professional

management. I got audited.

I got audited by the Department of Labor because someone, one of

my employees turned me in for, they said I charged them lunch

when they didn't take lunch. So it, it was, you know, those

are things you run into and they typically go back two years, but

they couldn't find anything in two years.

So they went back three years and I had to pay a fine.

I think it was $60,000. Well, that's a lot of money.

But yeah, they, they even told me typically, you know, we, we

get $150,000 fine because we find all kinds of stuff.

Well, they couldn't find enough meaning.

You know, you were taking lunches, so we just

automatically took your 30 minutes for lunch because we

found out you were taking lunches and not writing it down.

But anyway, they didn't like that.

So people will turn on you and that's OK.

You still have to take care of the other or the rest of your

flock who do appreciate you. And remember, you're providing

jobs and you're putting food on a lot of tables.

Yeah, they're working hard and they're working for you, but

you're providing jobs and you're putting food on a lot of table.

And there's a lot of responsibility and a lot of

liability for doing it. And don't be ashamed to make

money. And profit is not a bad word.

That that's a mouthful. There's there's a lot there.

Yeah. I don't know what I have to add

to that. That everything you just said,

you nailed it. There's a lot there.

Is there something you kind of we're not in a few things there,

But when things get really hard, when you're feeling attacked,

when you're dealing with, you know, people turning their back

on you, it getting reported, when you're not doing anything

wrong, doing everything above board and the best that you can.

What is it inside of you that gives you the motivation to just

keep grinding it out and keep pushing instead of giving up?

Well, first of all, a lot of prayer.

You know, you mentioned at the beginning, I'm a Christian.

I got, I, I became a Christian two years before I started my

company and got married. And so prayer is the key.

It definitely helps me. I have good family support.

I've got a strong, my wife, my children who are adult children

now. I've got good family support.

But there's also just something that you know, you just, you're

just kind of made with a lot of entrepreneurs have it and you're

just, there's a toughness about not quitting.

You just can't quit. And the more people tell you

that you'll fail, the stronger you become or the more obstacles

you have to go through, the stronger you become.

And when you realize, because I study successful people.

So I just did a podcast called The Big Three where I did Bill

Gates and Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos.

And I wanted to know how their first five years of business

went. So that's what I talked about

for 30 minutes. And they all had obstacles.

They all had nobody was handed. They weren't born with a silver

spoon. Bill Gates was the closest, but

his first business failed horribly.

And then we started Microsoft. Jeff Bezos, he left a, a good

job to start Amazon. And he told his mom and dad, you

know, if, if you loan me money, there's only a 70%, there's a

70% chance I won't pay you back. They loaned me like 350,000.

They're worth 30 billion today from that investment in Amazon.

But he was working with a a door, an interior door over 2

pieces of wood that was his desk.

And then you got Steve Jobs. I mean, sold his Volkswagen van

for 1500 and then his partner sold his Hewlett Packard

calculator back then for 600. So they started with 2100 bucks.

And yeah, that could have been worth maybe 5000 today.

But they started with nothing. These guys started with nothing.

They had tenacity. They were doors were shut in

their face. They were told that you you

can't sell books online and the biggest bookstore in the United

States sued Amazon because they didn't like that, you know, we

didn't think of it first. And so they had they had a lot

of obstacles. You ask, how do I get through

that? You know, there's no SI always

say there's no S on my chest. If there was, it would stand for

struggler. But there's a just a tenacity

and a never give up attitude where you're just going to plow

through and and get it done. And regardless, you, you know,

there's, I say what McAfee, there's blood sweat and tears

spread all through that 35 years, but it kept going.

I was hoping the the positive part of it override would

override the blood, sweat and tears.

And there were some exciting times.

There were some celebrations. You know, there was some.

The last. When you're growing, when you

grow 88% in three years, when you're at the top of your game,

there's profit where you go. I never dreamed I would take

this much money out of my business.

Yeah, that's there's, there's profit.

That's why I say profit is a good thing.

I invested it for years back in the business.

Instead, if you're an S corporation, you're paying taxes

on it, right? And you're investing your money

right back in the company so it would grow.

Because you didn't want to fail and you were willing to live on

less. And you told your family we're

only going to take two and three day weekends for the next 5

years. We're not going on a long

vacation. And they were OK with that and

they supported you. So later on, you know, I'm

getting emotional here because I love family, but then you take

care of them later. Thanks.

You know, we got to go out to eat after the sale of my

business. And we got to go out to a really

nice place and rented this really private room in this

really nice place. And I read and I wrote, I took

my, my key leadership team and my family and I wrote a page

about each one of them individually and read it as my

eyes were sweating the entire time and got through it because

I appreciated all of them, especially my family dealing

with what they had to deal with for years in order for us to get

to the place, which is today. And it paid off extremely well.

Plus what I didn't mention real quick.

So 10 of 20, I get a 10 of 2021. I'm starting to have, I'm taking

care of two elderly parents and start having cold chest pains in

my right upper shoulder. Everything I Googled was stress.

It would dissipate, go away. I go, I worked, I worked almost

every Saturday unless we were out of town.

It got to be full, full Saturdays.

And then eventually I was out of there by noon.

But I love going in on Saturdays.

It's a time to think and a lot of a lot less stress.

And I go in on a Saturday and I go to lift my hands to type and

I couldn't lift my hands. So I call my wife real quick and

I say I'm I'm going to the emergency room because

something's really wrong. Yeah.

Well, sure enough, I mean the first two tests they did, I got

in the emergency room fast. First two tests were negative.

If they would have sent me home, then I'd be dead because the

third test showed my heart enzymes were elevated and I was

either having a heart attack or already had one, which led to

the heart exam of my widowmaker was plugged 99%.

My right coronary was 99% plugged and three other ones

were like 90% plugged. So I had a quintuple bypass that

next morning. I go, everything went well

through the surgery. I go home, my wife was all ready

to help me mend. She came down with COVID, but

not only COVID, COVID pneumonia. This was 20 November of 21 and

she was in hospital 19 days. She almost died.

I actually in my in my recovery of a quintuple bypass, I was

able to sneak into the hospital a couple times because of a

doctor friend who said you need to get her on ivermectin, which

was illegal. Within three days, she's the

black circles around her eyes started clearing up and she came

home and for the most part she's doing extremely well, but it

really affected her. But she was almost dead.

So my kids almost lost both parents within 30.

What makes you think differently right there?

Yeah. So when people went not

attacked, but when they questioned why would you sell

your business to private equity, I say that's a terrible question

to ask certain people because you don't know their

circumstances. You don't know their kids do not

want to come into the business and that they're doing their own

gig and they're very happy doing their own gig and they don't

want to work in my company. Well, you don't know that

there's health reasons and that it's a perfect opportunity for

you to get out of your business. So before people attack someone

for selling to private equity, they need to know just a little

bit about them. And actually it's really none of

their business anyway because it's not their business.

Amen. So it's actually how many, how

many people are still interested or consumed of how you sell your

business, you know, But anyway, it was perfect time.

I'm glad we're OK. But that does make you it, you

rethink everything because if you've ever been in heating and

air, it's 24/7, 365 emergency business you've never done,

you're never off no matter who you are in the business.

It is just non-stop. It's a great business.

We had fun. We served thousands of people

trying to do it better than anyone else.

We made really good money doing it.

You know, probably especially the last 10 years and it was the

American dream, but it was also time to sell.

I was ready, I was done. I went out at the perfect time

and I had all my ducks in a row running a tight ship.

Our numbers were to the team, you know, five months of due

diligence, they really couldn't find anything.

And we, you know, we got, we had one of the highest multiples and

we had a very strong EBITDA. So put those two together and

you walk away feeling very confident in what you built and

pretty excited for the family. Since the next stage, I'm like I

said, I'm sitting here at Platinum RV storage facility,

which we built from scratch on 32 acres of farmland.

We're only in phase one. We've got 90 units under roof

and it's going to one day it's going to be the largest indoor

climate controlled RV storage slash motorcycle custom car in

the United States. So we're excited about that.

It's just another goal to hit without all the stress, without

as many people to run it needed. But it's it's called refiring

and not retiring because I still need a place to go every day and

I still need a challenge. And I built that, fortunately

before I even sold McAfee. So I just say we've been

blessed. It was good timing.

And I'm looking forward to the refirement over the next couple

years, which means, what are you going to do with that, Greg?

Well, you know, I really am into family, generational wealth,

family trusts, all those types of things which we're going to

be able to do. And we've had a foundation, the

McAfee Foundation for Children and Youth, since 2006.

So we just get to help more children and families.

So I'm excited where we're going.

That's awesome. And with you running it, I have

no doubt that Platinum RV will be the biggest company in the

country, probably sooner than anybody expects.

I'm I'm excited to see where that goes and what you do with

it. That's cool.

Thank you. I appreciate that, Eric.

I had that on my list of questions a little later, but

you dove into this a little bit. So can we talk a little bit more

about your exit? You know, you mentioned you had

a really healthy EBITDA and I'll say multiple.

What details are you comfortable sharing about your exit and that

process and and just walking through that?

Well, you don't know what you don't know.

And I even though I have really good friends that have sold

their companies much bigger than us, much bigger than ours, more

zeros. And they, they did extremely

well for themselves. But nobody can explain just what

that due diligence looks like or what it feels like.

I mean, how much can someone really, how deep can they go?

Well, they can go pretty deep. And typically in a private

equity company, they might have 10/12/15 attorneys on your

company, only your case per SE. And they dig in deep with

everything. They dig in all the financials,

you know, all the legal, the legal, you know, the

environmental, they dig in and you, they dig in on you, your

background, everything like that.

You know what, how much risk am I taking buying this company?

And if you were writing a check for that big, you would want to

do the same thing. It's just that they've done it

more and they know how to do it. So the due diligence part I

recommend highly. You have to have a team to help

you. And as a business owner,

especially me with my personality, I probably take

things more personal. It's my baby.

I started it from scratch. What do you mean you're

questioning me? I just didn't need to be part of

that. I needed someone else to filter

all through that, which I did. I had an operations manager and

accounting manager, and they did all the filtering and all the

questions, and I very rarely had to get involved.

Which one's a good thing? It wasn't that I couldn't do it.

I just took things too personal. Because it was.

Mine and sometimes you got. You need someone to manage that

purchase that is separate from any emotions.

Yeah. And you know, it'll go a lot

better for you. And honestly, they're just

looking for answers. Yes.

No. Tell me why that's all they're

looking for. Once they get that, they move

on. But you've got to be prepared to

sell before you sell because I did, I did a podcast the other

day. 87% of businesses will not sell because they're not ready

to sell. They're not.

They're not sellable. They're not buying.

Them. They're just not ready.

They're, they're not profitable. They're not in order.

You know, and you know, I, I, I tell, I told a story about, you

know, a guy that started the same year I did and came to me

and wanted out. He just, I mean, it's really

sad. He just wanted $100,000.

Just Get Me Out. All he had was 1 truck lift.

He didn't have a customer base. I'm like Steve, I'd love to help

you, but you don't have anything worth 100,000.

And it's sad because you know what I built, He had the

opportunity to build the same thing.

He was actually much smarter than me as far as far as heating

and air goes. And but it just wasn't important

to me. He made he made money and he

spent money and it came down to needing money and he just

wandered out and I couldn't find any reason why I could give him

that much. But anyway, you've got to be

ready to sell and you've got to build your company either.

If my kids wanted to take over because they both worked in my

company many, many years, especially my son.

I mean, he started when he was five years old and he worked,

you know, probably he's 31 and he probably worked 23 years out

of 31. He worked almost in every area

and when he realized that's not his calling, he's he's a year

away from getting his PhD in leadership now, but he realized

that's not his calling. He had a good example at home.

Yeah, and he he's married now with two kids, and he is so glad

that he didn't. And I never once made him, I

never once made him feel guilty that well, you know, I've built

this for you. You should come in here.

That was not my intention at all.

If they wanted to come in, if my daughter wanted to come, she's

in nursing. If they wanted to come in, then

we would have figured out how to accommodate that.

But when they said we have no interest, don't be upset, we

have my son told me in 8th grade, are you going to be upset

if I don't come in the business? And no, what do you want to do?

And you know, it's, it is what it is.

So you have to figure out as an owner, are you, are you

transferring it to the family? Are you going to leave it?

I, I, I hate the word leave because you don't leave a

business. It's a baby.

You don't leave a baby with someone, trust them to manage

that baby. Are you going to sell it?

Are you going to sell it to another company?

Are you going to sell it to private equity?

I mean, honestly, there's there, you know, very few companies

would, very few heating and air conditioning companies would pay

me what I got for my business. You know, if they did everybody

be calling on those companies to buy businesses?

Do I agree with everything private equity does?

No, not at all. And some of it really sucks and

some of it sucks for a company that I built for 35 years and

done some really cool things that they're no longer doing.

But I had to come to reality and say it's not my business

anymore. You know, I did what I could do

and I was I'll, I'll be held accountable for what I did when

I owned it. I don't own it anymore and I

can't control that. So I'm not going to worry about

it. But yeah, there are, there are

some negatives to anything you do, no matter who you sell it

to, nobody's going to do what you did exactly anyway.

So you just have to decide and we're getting ready to sell #1

it's going to be ready to sell. And there's books on this.

There's you can hire coaches on this, how to sell your business.

If I had A to do over again, I probably would have prepared

another six months for sale because I think now knowing what

I know, I probably could have done a few cool things to make

it worth a couple more million per SE.

I mean, a million is 1,000,000 bucks, right?

And it would be worth waiting six months for, But I, I came

out well and I, and I did, I did, I did some cool things And

but I help, you know, I can help other people.

Hey, if you think about doing this or this that, you know,

it'll probably be worth more. So I enjoy doing that.

And there's other there's other guys that do the same thing.

If you've run a good business, then you all you need to you

need to run it through all the way through the end.

In other words, you need to be ready.

You need to be ready to sell or, or transfer it to someone else.

But you don't want to just even if you're transferring it, if I

was transferring it to my kids, I wouldn't say, OK, here you go

see you later. You know, it would take a lot of

coaching and it would take still being.

Anybody on the board or a consultant or always there to

say here's what I would do, we would think, you know, to

consider. So there's nothing easy about

starting a business, there's nothing easy about running a

business, and there's nothing easy about exiting a business.

Amen. I can relate to all of that.

And yeah, I had a lot of those same experiences in our process.

I know I didn't have a whole financial team handling due

diligence. I did a lot of it myself and I

remember getting frustrated one day talking to the, it was APE

firm that I actually ended up not selling to.

But I was talking to their accountant and like you said,

they just kept digging and digging and digging and digging.

And I said, what do you think? I've been paying more taxes than

I was supposed to for the last few years.

Like you guys are the ones that came to me with an offer.

I wasn't soliciting it. And you think I've been paying

extra taxes on purpose. Like it is what it is and here

it is. But man, they dug in.

They they dug through everything so.

Yeah, yeah, it's deep for sure. And I think you nailed it

earlier. Getting through that process,

starting with the extreme professionalism, doing things

right, paying all your taxes, recording all your income,

running clean books, that's the the start of all of that.

That can make a big difference between a sellable business and

one that's not. Is is just making sure you're

doing stuff the right way and with integrity.

Yeah, I, I didn't mention this, but I had a sister-in-law who

set me up on bookkeeping the first year.

And that really got that kept us in order because I went from AI,

went from her. She managed my books for

probably 7 years and she had a full time accounting job.

So until it got just too much and then she turned me over to

an accountant and then I went for ACPA.

And then I went from an individual CPA and then I went

from ACPA to ACPA firm. And then along the way, we built

our own accounting department where I had an account account

manager. So our books were, you know,

they balanced to the penny every month.

I was blessed to have. I took care of her as well after

I sold the business for getting me started strongly on my

bookkeeping because that's the key.

Yeah, so many guys, you know, as I coach them, I'll say when was

the last time you got a financial statement?

And if it's January, you know, some of them say, I think, I

hate that. I think August, how do you know

where you are? So that's very important.

I mean, we had a goal that we were going to have the books

completed by the 10th of the month.

So January 10th, we would have, you know, December's wrapped up

and we stuck with him. And, you know, sometimes it was

the 12th or the 15th. And but when we were going

through that due diligence, they would ask for all kinds of

things and they would say things like just give it to us within

two weeks and we would have it to them within two days because

we already had it. All we had to do is find it.

When you're that organized. And it's not me because I

couldn't do bookkeeping today if I had to.

It was my team. When you hire strong team

members and you tell them your expectations, now I can't

balance. I can balance a checkbook, but I

couldn't balance the the books. But I could tell them I wanted

my books done by the 10th and that's my expectation and that's

what happened. So you know, business is pretty

cool. It's a structure and it's fun,

but you have to have a plan. You have to have a goal, and

your goals aren't just about making money.

Your goal is about structuring a business where the byproduct of

all that structure equates to money.

But it's not just about making money.

If you're going to chase money, you're going to be chasing it

the rest of your life. Everything we did was structured

to, of course, produce a profit on pricing.

I mean, if you've ever heard of Ken Goodrich, you know, he's the

Goodwill in Heating and Air. He's out of Las Vegas.

He's sold dental for a lot of money.

Ghetto air. I had him review my books

probably eight years ago. We were talking one day and he

said, hey, just let me take a look at your books and I'll tell

you what you're doing wrong. And I thought, you know what?

I have nothing to lose here. And he had been reading my

articles for years, followed me a little bit.

And he get he's, you know, he sent me like an e-mail like a

day later, because I'll tell you your main problem, what your

prices are too low. I go look, Ken, you're in Las

Vegas, I'm in Dayton, OH, you're going to tell me how to price my

jobs. He was 100% correct.

As we released our prices, we didn't miss a beat.

We actually sold more. People expected us to be higher.

And we kept bumping and bumping and bumping them higher and

higher. And when you do that, it just

goes to the bottom line. You're not changing anything

else when you raise your prices, you're you're directing that to

the bottom line. That was an eye opener.

Our sales team, at first they were scared and they bought,

then they bought into it and it for about a year, every other

month we bumped them up a little more, bumped them up a little

more, but nothing changed. We kept selling more and more

and more. And then we looked at our parts,

our service department. We'd bump it, we'd bump it, we'd

bump it. So 8 years ago we started

becoming a much more profitable business and but we do all these

things that's an easy way to, you know, jump start your profit

right there, raise your prices. But all these other things we do

create the atmosphere to produce profit, you know?

In other words, you can't produce profit if you don't have

a system. Here was ours.

Here's a quick system we have. We start promptly at 8:00.

We want to be done with a full replacement retrofit

installation including humidifiers, air cleaners,

smarts, thermostats and maybe an ionizer or whatever it is.

We want to be out of there in 8 to 9 hours.

Done. And that's with custom ductwork

around the furnace. You know the the take off and

the return and our goal was 8 to 9 hours and.

For the most. Part we'd hit that some.

Some jobs, of course, going into problems would be 10 or 11

hours, but for the most part that's what we hit and that that

was the expectation. So when you have your jobs

priced right and you're getting done in 8 to 9 hours with two

guys per job, it's fairly profitable.

But without that system, we would not have been as

profitable. Because remember, if you don't

set the expectations, then you're relying on your team too.

Maybe the team said, I don't even think we should be doing

this in one day. I think it should take a day and

a half. Well, what's that cost to go

back again? It's like I recall, it's a huge

amount to go back again a. Day and a half really cost you 2

days because they don't get another half a job done.

And the others, yeah man, it's it's super balls, you know, from

super profitable to losing money off of the smallest little thing

that nobody thinks matters. Yep.

And. When I first came in the

industry, that was norm 2 day for an install and one company

who had been around forever was a three day install.

I'm like, what in the world? So when we first came in, I

mean, we started doing, you know, a 2 day and I got it down

to a day and a half and I go, why can't we do this in one day?

We figured it out. And then when we started our,

you know, our sheet metal shop, I've always been custom

fabrication early on the furnace.

So everything's been custom made when the seat metal job called

me and said, look, I'm not interested in growing anymore.

You're going to have to figure it out because I can't, I can't

do any more jobs for you. And then pace.

That blew my mind. But I said, well, we either have

to buy it. We have to buy a company, we

have to find another company. Both stung around.

So I've always been good at organically stirred up.

And that's what I did. I, I, I went out and bought some

used machinery. I found a fabricator, we started

our own. And at the end.

We. For the last 7.

Or eight years we were under 1. Roof with everything our fab

shop everything. But when you own your own fab

shop, you control how fast they make sheet milk.

So if I, if I'm tearing out the job and have it tore out by 9:00

AM and we measure and I have the measurements called in by 9:30,

well then I need the sheet metal delivered by 11, OK, That's my

expectation. Because if we can get it

together by 11 and it's all together by 1, then now you're

looking at putting all of it together, all that stuff and

we're out of there by 4:00. So that again, as a business

owner, when people call me and go, how do you get your guys to

do that? I'm like question, wrong

question. It's not how do I get my guys to

do that. It's studying the pace at the

initial interview. This is what we do, this is how

we do it, and this is the expectation.

Are you good with that? Oh yeah, I get it, I get it.

Well. You know, if you surprise them

six months into it and say, hey, I, you know, I want you to do

this now, that's not going to go well.

So it's preparation, setting systems in place, procedures.

Here's how to do it. I'm going to make it easy for

you because I'm going to buy you every tool that makes your job

easier because I can spend a lot of money and tools and save a

lot of money and time. Time mostly cost more than tools

nowadays. So anyway, I think you're

getting drift. But for the guys that can't

figure out how to make their, I hate that word make, make their

guys do that. I'm not sure.

Maybe maybe you should be an owner.

Maybe you should just go work for someone because it's not

making anyone do anything. It's explaining what your

expectations are. It's explain, it's explaining

that I also pay bonuses if we make, if we do this amount, you

know that you're I want you, I want you to skin in the game.

I want you to make and be profitable yourself.

So if you do these things and you get good at it, by the way,

it becomes a habit. You know, I mean, guys have told

me before I would never go back to the way I was doing it when I

first got here. You know, the other company I

learned from, I'd never go back to that way because it became a

habit. And they like the look and they

like the time it took to do that, and they just got used to

it towards clockwork. In general, people like to win

and you build systems that produce winners.

People like to be on a winning team.

Yeah. And by the way, we had multiple

meetings, not for meetings sake, but we had company at the end.

And we've had company meetings since the garage days.

I'd meet with three or four people in that garage and we'd

discuss the week, but we'd have company meetings mandatory 4 * a

year every quarter. Saturday mornings I'd I'd cater

in Full breakfast from 8:00 to noon and we'd have company

meetings and they would be extremely high energy, fun

updates. Here's where we're going, here's

what we're doing, here's what we're not doing anymore.

Here's what's happening. Need some volunteers.

And then I had one hour called TWG time with Greg, one hour,

and we were out of there before noon.

And everybody was honest. Now, did everybody like it?

No, I didn't ask them if they liked it.

I just said, this is what we're going to do.

Now, You could miss one meeting a year, field a vacation

schedule if something happened, of course, but you better be

there. And it was very informative and

it kept everybody on the same page.

Again, I get people calling me, asking me, what do you talk

about during a company meeting? Wait a minute, you're the owner

and you're asking me what you're going to talk about?

Seriously, what should you be talking about?

So I, I, I start from scratch and I say, what are some things

you'd want your employees to know?

Well, I'd like for them to know this.

Write it down. This is a great time to tell

them. Well, I'd like for them to do

this instead of this. Write it down.

This is a great time to tell them.

Is it? Is it easier to tell them at a

calm atmosphere with breakfast and fun, or when you're upset

they didn't do something? You call them in your office?

Yeah, doesn't go well. So company meetings are critical

to the success of a company. And you ask any successful

company, they will tell you they have company meetings.

Now some companies are so big they can't get everybody in the

same room, so they have multiple groups, but they still have

meetings. Yeah, yeah.

Good stuff. So now you're a a little ways

away from the exit of your business.

Do you ever look back and and second guess or regret that

decision? Is there any hesitation at all,

or was that the right decision? I will say this, which I'm going

to write a book on it one day doing something for 35 years,

day in, day out, loving what you do 98% of those 35 years and you

just up and leave within a six month period.

I went through a moping period, I call it, and I could not put

my finger on it was I, I won't say depressed.

I was down. I had like lost myself.

I had no idea that would happen. I was excited, but I would wake

up down and I'm not like that at all.

If I get down, I'm down for a day or two and we're back at it.

And but it was it was a moping period.

And three months, two weeks, I interviewed 10 different people

who sold their business and retired.

I read books about transitioning.

I read. I just was.

I had to figure out how, how am I going to get through this?

Because I can't live the rest of my life like this.

This is mental. In three months, two weeks, I

snapped out of it and everybody I interviewed said, yeah, I

don't do that. Yeah.

And some, some were only three to four weeks, some were six

months. But they all said, yeah, I went

through that Mopic pivot. And one guy said I would get up

and get dressed to go in. And he goes, I didn't, I he was,

I was a mess. So once I realized, OK, I'm the

rebel, I'm just going to look through this.

I'm going to read stuff how to work through this.

I'm going through this. They never agree.

They did. Should have not done it.

No, no, perfect timing shouldn't have been better.

Glad I did it. Opportunity galore.

Now I plan better than most. When you start building another

business before you even sell your own, and then you get to

transition right into your other, you've got somewhere to

go the next day. Which I did, thank God because I

don't know, I probably would have been in that moping period

much, much longer if I went and had platinum to come to.

And my son's here every day he comes in here, he helps me with

this. He's been here longer than me.

You know, I guess I just call that a God thing.

It was just plant well, but no regrets.

Oh gosh, no regrets. I even, I'll say this, I went as

far as now do I miss some of the things?

Gosh, I miss having an assistant because I stuck without an

assistant. I had an assistant for so long,

I can't keep up on up. You know, I'm AI call myself a

very expensive check writer. I'm writing checks here.

Like I'm like, I don't do this. Do I miss a lot of people in an

office? Yeah, I kind of miss that a

little bit. Do I miss some things?

Absolutely. And I had, you know, one person

that was with me over 30 years. Yeah, I miss that.

But I don't miss. I don't miss or regret anything

I did. It was perfect timing couldn't

have been better. Glad I did it when I did.

Congratulations. Thank you and I'm looking

forward to growing platinum. That's that you know that Keith,

we're going to a RV show this weekend.

My son and I, you know, we got a booth just like I used to do in

the early days of McAfee. We do a lot of home shows.

So, you know, it's just, it's kind of a phase two, but I, I

don't have to make a sale today. I'm not going to not eat.

Yeah, a lot less pressure. So a way better place to be

doing it a second time. Still, still celebrate a sale.

I'll sell. I'll, you know, we lease a, a

smaller place out here for 350 a month.

And I'm like, we sign the one, you know, but I don't have to

sell anything every day. Like in addition to McAfee, I

mean, we don't sell, we don't eat.

And that's how I said that for years.

And I mean, we so you know, you're putting when I say you're

putting food on tables. There was many times we made

payroll when we didn't have the money to make payroll.

And we always paid herself last if there was any left, you know,

with my wife and I sit around a table writing checks like I do

right here. All that pressure is gone.

I've been blessed financially. That's why so many people hit

the lottery and they're broke within seven years.

Fortunately, I've had some higher income, especially over

the last 10 years to kind of get used to that.

And I'm not going out and blowing in.

I'm trying to make really good investments and a good steward

of of God's property, of the money of just what we're going

to do over the next 10 to 20 years.

Yeah, yeah. IA couple weeks after we closed

on the sale of our business, I had to go renew the registration

on my personal vehicle. And I was like, oh, well, I

haven't done this in over a decade.

I always just dropped it on my secretary's desk and let her

take care of it. So yeah, going for that.

Assistant. Yeah, it's true.

I mean, you get used to something for many years.

I have assistant for many, many years and I'm just used to how

do you do that? I mean, you mean I got to call

them my? Cell and I got to go run

errands. Oh man, what's the?

Stamp. Where do you get them?

Yeah. Stamps are that high today.

I'm sure that decision to sell, it sounds like you guys had some

some health stuff going on, a lot of considerations, but what

were some of the things that maybe you wrestled through or

had to consider as your wife and I or your wife and you made the

decision to sell or not? Again, I'd say we we prayed

about it, but we talked a lot about it, about it's.

I'd say, I don't know, you know, to put this nicely because who

knows who listens to this? But when my expectations that

I've always had of working hard, working long hours, I mean, it

was just part of who I am from day one.

I mean, I, I joke with people all the time, say I only worked

half days. I just picked which 12 I worked

because my dad worked hard. I got my my hard work from her

dad. He just worked hard and I had to

mix smoke with I had to work hard and work smart, but I just

work long hours because it we had to eat.

And my wife's goal, by the way, was always to be a stay home

mom, even when she was little. I want to be a stay home mom.

So when we met, she did graphic arts when she was when she when

we were expecting Travis, she quit because of the fumes around

the graphic arts and she put a notice in and we did something

cool. Then because I was just really

getting to understand finances. Lived on my salary for a while

without hers. We banged hers and we said if we

could live on it for so long, then you'll be ready to cook and

and we did. So that gave us a little

confidence to live without her salary because I was not drawn

very much at all, believe me. So we did that.

We talked and said, you know, I'm going in on Saturdays myself

and all the trucks are here and nobody's working.

But we have jobs on the board and nobody wants to work past

4:00. And I hear people are

complaining about working past 4:00.

My DNAI just couldn't take it because everything and it's a

great company today and there are great people that work there

and there. I would recommend them highly.

Matter of fact, I'm building a new house and they're going to

be doing some of my work that I'm that I like running the line

sets and pre bending and all that stuff that I love.

They're doing that for me. My new house.

Of course I'm paying for it, but they're great people.

But everything I I said at the end, everything that I have done

to get where I am, a large portion of the team no longer

wants to do that. I can't I can't stay any longer

because it's not going to go well.

I was getting an attitude. It was making me sick.

So, you know, if they have, you know, this group that bought us

have different ways. I mean, they'll just double or

triple the workforce and figure it out.

I wasn't going to do that. So that alone, it was time.

When I say it was time for my mental health and for my health

for stress wise, I don't. I don't need another heart.

Attack. I've lost 100 lbs since my heart

attack without drugs. Congratulations.

Good for you. Thank.

You took me. I did it in one day under nine

months and I got off all I was on 6 medications for high blood

pressure and high cholesterol. I'm not on any today.

I take a water pill that actually helps with high blood

pressure. Believe it or not, just a water

pill still OK Anyway, I don't need another heart attack and

that's why when I I stay a lot. It was just good timing and it

was time for me to exit and I even went as far.

I owned the building. They were leasing it back to me.

You know, I went by it. I had to go in it a couple of

times, especially when I was going through the moping period.

That was hard because things were changing and I'm there and

I'm like, it's making me more upset.

So it's kind of funny now, but I was going through a moping

period. Believe it or not, I do a whole

story on bald eagles. American bald eagles go through

a moping period around the age of 40.

So that's why I called it the moping period.

If you if you Google that, you can read about it.

But you know, I was going into building and I noticed changes

and I noticed certain things like my American flag wasn't

being changed as often as I like and some of the potted plants

weren't being changed as often as I like.

I don't need any stress. So I said, I told my wife, let's

do some numbers because if I sell the building for this

amount, I think, I think we can make as much right now as we do

in 10 years leasing it. And it came up pretty darn

close. So I said, why?

Why do we need that real estate? Let's sell it.

And I used the word godsend a lot, but it was just a godsend.

The second person who looked at it made me an offer and wrote me

a check for it. We closed within 30 days.

Oh man. So I've simulated myself

completely is less stress for me and gave me a little bit more

income of building a new house. So I said now we can do this,

this and this and that I wasn't going to do yet.

And and that's freedom and that's just nice.

And so it's been, it was a good ride and now I'm on another ride

and I'm going to make it a better.

Oh man, that's good to hear. That's good to hear.

Is there a viewpoint or an opinion that you once held

strongly and changed your mind about over your 30 plus year

career? If I would change.

Is there a viewpoint or an opinion that you once held

strongly and it has changed throughout your career?

I would say a couple things. Today I teach business owners

quit touching things. We touch too many things.

We should be employed from the neck up.

And if you're not, you're touching too many things.

You should be thinking more and strategizing and setting goals

and with other with other key players, but you should be

employed from the neck up. And I touched way too many

things probably the first 15 years and probably Michael

managed too much earlier on. So when I teach flow growth, I

probably could have grew a little bit faster by putting

better professional management systems in place earlier.

No regrets per SE because everything worked out fine.

But that's some things I would have done differently than I

than I thought was right. I thought I was a best salesman

in the world until I invested in a really good salesperson and

even put them through a series of tests to match me strengths,

weaknesses and they tripled my sales the first year.

Bought them a brand new GMC Denali truck and actually gave

them the one which was like 2 years old.

Bought me a new one so you know. What?

What our? Biggest problem, just doing

things a little bit differently. As an owner, I would have done

differently. I'd say I tried to.

I was a member of mixed groups, you know, through the ACCA where

you visit other companies and learn from them.

I did that really well. I probably would have done more

of that. You can't learn enough and you

can't take enough ideas from other people.

So when I said I had 14 or 15 coaches, I did.

And I kept getting better coaches and better coaches and

better coaches because I'd ring that sponge.

I'd ring it out of them and I'd get everything I could out of

them. Then I'd get a better coach and

more offensive coach. I spent, you know, a lot of

money, hundreds of thousands of dollars in coaches, but they

helped me. I have no ego when it comes to

helping me. I'm blown away today by company

business owners who will not invest in a good coach.

And if you tell someone, well, I charge 5000 a month, they're

like 5000 a month. They think that's high.

I can't, I just can't tell you what I paid for a good coach

that helped us, helped take us to the next level that nobody

had hit yet, that nobody. I mean, when you grow 46% in

2008, that didn't just come from me, that that came from a lot of

strategy from other people that helped me and my board of

advisors who challenged me. And I don't know what, you know,

a lot of people just want free advice, but you know, you kind

of get what you pay for. So, you know, I'm probably would

have. I don't know.

I don't know. I also say this.

I say a lot. There's a lot of things that we

wouldn't do any different because I've done it

differently. I might be in a different place

today and we don't know where I'd be.

Yeah, I know where I ended up was what I call life

accomplished. And it's good.

Doesn't mean I'm perfect. Doesn't mean everything is

perfect. It just means I did a few things

really good and right and I landed in a good place.

OK. There's not, there's just not a

whole lot I would want to redo because I don't know what

redoing or it would take me. Yeah, but those are some things

touching too many things, micromanaging and selling on my

own way too long. You you think you're the owner

and that you could sell better than anybody.

I was good. But there the team that I left,

the team that I trained and met with almost every day, we were

we were closing close to 80%. Wow, wow.

And that's pretty impressive. It's very strong and we had and

we role played and we had a lot of fun and we screened out a lot

of the calls. That means we didn't run every

call that came in, nor should you.

Because if someone was getting more than a certain amount of

estimates, we would ask them a few questions.

And if they're, if they were stuck on getting 7 estimates,

we'd say, you know what, go ahead and get your six or seven.

And if you really think you need another one, then you know, give

us a call because I don't want to be in that stack.

And if they weren't making a decision right away or anything

like that, I mean, we screened the calls.

So the calls we ran were prime customers or candidates to close

a sale. Because I often said I'll hire

salespeople, I hire closers. And we did it with no pressure.

We had, I think when I left, we had 3600 Google reviews.

Not one of those ever said McAfee pleasured me to buy, not

one. We, we had fun selling.

We had the technique and it, it was powerful.

And we celebrated every sale because without a sale, we don't

eat. And then I don't care how big

you get, you know, you're feeding a lot of people.

And so we celebrated sales all the way to.

The end Well, I know you're doing some coaching now.

You spoke there a lot about coaching.

How does someone find a quality coach?

How do you screen out that coach that's going to help you go to

the next level versus you know, it seems like everybody is in

consulting and coaching nowadays and I run into a lot of them

that that aren't worth getting their free advice, much less

paying for. How do you find a quality coach?

Well, first of all, you ask around and you find somebody

that has used a coach that they recommend.

It's if you just Google One, I'll probably come up in the top

10 even today. But you need to interview the

coach. I mean, don't ever hire anyone

that hasn't done what you want them to do for you.

You know, these coaches out there never ran a company.

These coaches are in groups, these big groups of coaching,

charging 10s of thousands of dollars to coach that were

managers of big businesses. Most heating and air

conditioning, plumbing, electrical, landscape, lawn

care, roofing. We're not huge businesses.

I mean, averages like 10 people or 10 to 20 people.

So why do you want to have a guy that managed, you know, 100

people and 1000 person company coaching you in a small

business? I don't.

So I always stuck with what have they done on their own?

What could they do for me? And that's one of my questions

when I interviewed them, OK, I've went this far.

This is what we're doing. You know, there are companies

that I've coached that are completely broken, that need

fixed. But I would tell people we're

not broken. I just want to get to the next

level. Are you able to?

Do that for me. You're not fixing anything.

If you come in here and try to fix things, I'm going to fire

you because we're not broke. So get a recommendation, find

out what kind of reviews they have and have they been there,

done that. If they haven't been there, done

that, that's first thing I say. I I'm not interested.

Gotcha, Gotcha. That's some good advice.

Well, as we're getting here close to the end, my favorite

question, You've mentioned that you you are a person of faith,

that you're a Christian. How did that affect your

leadership journey and the way that you ran your business?

Yeah. My perfect answer would be my

church answer would be I thought through everything before I said

it and I was a really nice guy. But that's not, that's not the

truth. But what it did was I, I read,

this is actually right here. This is my leadership Bible I've

had since like 95. It's based on there's so much in

the Bible about leadership. And I try to read that every day

to get wisdom about business. Because when you don't have a

background in business, you've never worked as a business

owner, you never took a business class, you need all the wisdom

you can get about business that you can gather by reading,

watching others learning. So you know, I would pray for

help, God help me be a better leader because leadership,

everything falls on leaders, on leadership, as John Maxwell

says. And if you're not a good leader,

you're not going to have a good business, you're not going to

run a good business. So you first of all, you have

to, you have to learn to lead or very small percentage are

natural leaders, but they're, they're out there, but there are

a lot of them. You have to learn to lead.

You have to learn to lead better.

You got to have some natural leadership to or initiative or

drive to start a business, of course.

But then you got, you got to learn how to lead because you're

going to be hiring people and sometimes that's the first time

you've ever hired anyone in your life.

And then you've got to lead them every day.

So I pray for wisdom, learn how to lead.

I pray for my team every day, help them.

There are family issues and hurts, pain, divorce, children

issues that people go through every day.

You got to be where people with tech, my team would text me or

meet with me and say, hey, could you just pray for me?

I'm going through a rough time going through a divorce and

that's cool. Or my son is on drugs, or my

daughter ran away or who knows? I mean multiple things.

So we even have a prayer request form online and people in our

community would fill it out and it was all through the website.

So it would just come to me and we would pray for people's

problems and challenges in life. Everybody has a challenge in

life. And if, say, you don't, you

probably have more than others. But it's not a crutch by any

means. People say Christianity is just

a crutch. No, no, it's not.

It's a, it's, it's strength, it's power like no other.

There's more, Jesus talked more about finances in the Bible than

any other parable. And there's a lot of business

information in the Bible of how to run a business, how to treat

people. And I prayed for work every day.

I mean, I'm, we pray for work again.

It goes back to putting food on tables.

I don't want my team to come in here too often and not have a

job. And if you're in the heating and

air plumbing, but you know, installation wise, that happens.

Just stay home today because we don't have any work for you.

Well, that's sex after about two days, you know what I mean?

Do it one day and go, oh, I get a day off, but after two or

three days that's going to affect your paycheck.

Yeah. So I prayed.

I prayed for work for everybody. I prayed for families.

I pray. I do.

I try to pray a lot and I rely on God.

I try to do this. I rely more on God than myself

because if I rely on myself, it's probably not going to go

well. God.

God gave me a gift to do certain things, but I can't do it by

myself. Yeah, Amen, Amen.

Well, that's good stuff. Our our last question, we wrap

up every interview to either fuel or settle the debate.

If you have a job to do and need a cordless tool, which brands do

you prefer? I'm going to stay in Milwaukee.

I think that's probably, but not, you know, I say 90% all the

time. I say I don't know. 75% of our

tools when I left were Milwaukee.

I figured that part of the country you're in and and just

the HVAC industry, I was guessing that was going to be

your answer. Yeah, awesome.

It it hold up well. They're powerful.

I think the batteries match about everything you buy with

Milwaukee and you know, so you don't have to be buying separate

batteries all the time. We had less challenges and

that's a good thing with employees.

We provided, they had to provide their hand tools, but we

provided a lot of cool tools. They had to be responsible for

it. But I'll go, I can, I won't go

all into the depth of what that means.

We provided some cool, anything that would make the job go

quicker and more efficient or neater if you can.

If that will cut that line cleaner and look nicer, we might

invest in it. Or if we can, if we can get that

meter that makes that more accurate, that refrigerant

charge more accurate, we probably will.

Or if that thermostat shows us the meter gauge and it's more

accurate, we'll probably buy that thermostat.

I've also really stickler. I'm a buy American type of guy

and that's something that has changed as well, which really

bothers me, but it's not mine anymore.

I tried to buy American products as much as I could.

All my furnaces and air conditioners were made in the

USA and our A coils were assembled in the USAI couldn't

control that. A lot of the thermostats were

made in the USA. Our air cleaners made new

humidifiers made in the USA. In the new group, they could

care less. So again, it's not my company

anymore. It's theirs.

Yeah, yeah. Awesome.

Well I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me

and chat with all of our guests. And you are still actively doing

coaching and consulting, correct?

I am and my son helps me. We do some testing for people

that kind of tells you your your strengths and your business and

who you need to hire and why you shouldn't be doing something.

So we mix that in with the coaching.

I don't do any technical coaching at all.

I haven't touched the furnace in 1520 years.

I do strictly how to grow your business, how to think

differently, how to become #1 how to put systems in place, how

to get your finances in a row, and how to just think

differently than your competitors.

And that's worth, I mean, that's worth gold.

Like I said, you're, you're, you're paying for something

that's going to pay off later. You just don't know it yet.

Gotcha. Yeah, that sounds good to me.

And so if our listeners are interested in engaging with you,

what's going to be the best way to reach out to you or get a

hold? Of you, yeah, you can.

There's a couple different ways. I have AI, have a Greg

mcafee.com, GR, e.g., mcafee.com, it's my Greg McAfee

website, getting ready to update it, but it's there.

And then if you look up Platinum RV Storage, it's our new

business and there's a way to get a hold of me there as well.

But it's not hard to find me if you Google Greg McAfee, there's

all kinds of business and HVAC stuff out there.

So it's fun and I love, I love helping guys who are very

interested in getting to the next level.

Awesome, awesome. Well, we'll make sure we link

both of those websites in the show notes.

And man, this has been incredible.

You've got me fired up, excited about leadership in a way I

haven't been for a while. So, and I really appreciate your

time. I really appreciate your insight

and your knowledge. And this has just been wonderful

and excellent time. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it, Eric.

Thanks for having me on. Yeah.

And thank you guys for joining us here on from the Ground Up

show. If you want to reach out to us,

you can find us online from the ground up show.com.

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