Dan Poeta of Horizon Heat and Air - From A Team of 4 to 65

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:37Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs powered by Action Coach Growth Partners. You likely went into business to have more freedom and flexibility so that you could spend more time with your family, do more things or travel or enjoy your hobbies or whatever it is that you like to do in your spare time. We're here to help you find better ways to make more money, build better teams and get that time back so that you can have that freedom and flexibility. We'll help you simplify things and make sense of business, investing, and wealth building so that you can be epic and achieve all your dreams and goals.

1:10And now, enjoy the show. Good morning, Bill. This is Dan Poeta, owner and president of Horizon Heating and Air. We established our business in 2010 with myself and two technicians and an office administrator. And over the past 13 years, I've grown to about 65 co-workers. It's been quite the fun ride. Wow, that's impressive. We'll get to the growth in a little while, Dan, but how'd you get into this business in the first place? I grew up in this business, so to speak. My dad was a technician and worked in the refrigeration field. I was blessed to have my dad and my grandfather both very mechanically inclined.

1:54I learned how to do electrical work and was wiring a house with my dad when I was 13 and continued on that and had the privilege of being able to take things and disassemble them and occasionally put them back together again. But like most teenagers, they got disassembled and forgotten. But the mechanical ability has always been probably one of the best gifts I was blessed with. So usually I might go to the dad. I want to talk about your grandfather a minute you said your grandfather was mechanically gifted too tell me a little bit about your relationship with your grandfather but i'm gonna tell you my grandfather is probably my best friend i'm gonna well up talking about him that's awesome yeah go ahead he passed um early in 2017 at the age of 89 and we that was the man who taught me to fish taught me about the outdoors uh took me to a trap shooting range when I was 11 years old and we got to go and do things together.

2:58We camped together, just worked under his toolage and he was a phenomenal woodworker. And later in life, he became a real wonderful craftsman when it came to carving. Now this bill is with macular degeneration. So most people may know what this is, it may not. You lose the vision in the center or where your point of focus is and you effectively only have peripheral vision and he would kind of hold it to the side and craft and carve and i've got a couple of his carvings and just just a wonderful man and and absolutely one of my best friends in life that taught me so much yeah i think that relationship with grandparents if you're lucky enough to have had them or to still have them uh is just something special and i i i just sensed that since you mentioned him it was probably important to you.

3:51So, uh, that's fantastic that you had that relationship. And then you also had the, had the, uh, the gifts of being able to, to work with your dad, the warehouses and stuff. Sounds like they both instilled kind of a, uh, work ethic to you. Yeah. A work ethic. Uh, granted I was not the, the, the best teenager in the world. I wasn't I just wasn't very motivated. Uncle Sam, the United States Air Force, got me motivated. Helped me find accountability and responsibility and instilled that need to see things through and finish. And I believe that's probably the best trait I've learned is to have the vision to start and more importantly, have the vision to finish.

4:45Yeah, it's a lot. It's easy to start a lot of things, isn't it? Easy to start. Everything's easy to start. It's that finishing and seeing it through. And that translates in. I'll just go off on the tangent a little bit. That translates through to later in life. I worked at McNutt Service Group. And they're no longer business. However, Reed McNutt worked there. He became a really good friend and mentor. And he handed me the book on CD, Seven Habits. yeah and most of you are familiar with those seven habits and i listened to that in my work truck day in day out for a few months and that became what my driving force was and it was you know first things first have that goal know where you want to go learn how to work with everybody find the win-win and what ends up being that ends up being really great management skills because you You can help see first to understand before you want to be understood.

5:49And so you stop and listen for a second. You will get that feedback from the people around you to find out what their goals are as well. So how did you make the leap from working for someone else? I mean, I want to come back to mentors in a little while. But how did you make that leap to say, all right, I need to be doing this myself? Okay, that was spring of 2010. It was actually my dad and I sitting and visiting us right around Easter. And obviously, we had the Great Recession at the time. And we were talking, and neither one of us were real happy with what we were doing and where we were working.

6:34And my dad said, we have the skills. and I was working at the time. I was managing a department, so to speak. So I wrote my own budgets. I was producing my own P &Ls. And so I had that experience with understanding the accounting side of it to some degree. Granted, never did any data entry. And so we took that and built upon those skills. I was already licensed as an electrician. I had been through the apprenticeship. I had worked in the field doing heating and air conditioner, HVAC work, HVAC work. And so went and sat for the exams and passed those tests and put together an LLC and got started in August of 2010.

7:27So really it was, for you, it was a little bit more of a natural progression. there was some dissatisfaction with where you were you didn't love it but uh and and and once again you're one of your mentors your dad uh and you were working together kind of kind of talking it out and said yeah why not we talked it out exactly and then we you know we do what you do when you are a bootstrap business you go out and you walk and you knock on doors and you make phone calls and you write letters and you do everything it takes to let people know you're doing this. And then you provide a service along the way.

8:05We, you know, we've met and had some great friends in the industry who were willing to work with us. Again, 2010 vendors were looking for somebody with a different perspective, looking for somebody fresh, looking for something. I found a place to rent. It was a two-bay garage to get started out of. We got that very inexpensively through local folks right off of Spartanburg Highway here in Hendersonville. We just started right there. It's very organic. It takes time. It goes slow. Eventually, you find yourself in a very favorable place. You came sort of out of the technical side of things. I know you had been running a division.

8:56Talk a little bit about how you had to change your mindset, maybe around sales and marketing, or maybe had you done that before? I don't know. Well, you change your mindset has a progressive mindset. And so we looked at it in this industry or any industry you're working in, a lot of places you'll work in the business. And by in the business, you are in the field, you are doing sales or you're doing technical. And then I would intentionally work, spend some time working on the business. So I came in, I would usually be up and be in the office by 5.30, 6 o 'clock every morning before everybody else got there.

9:41Spend that time working on the planning, working on the marketing, thinking about what we're going to do, trying to project where we're going to go. And that was the idea behind it is to work a little bit on it. Then when basically 7.30, 8 o 'clock arrived, work in it and then stay there to about 6, 7 o 'clock at night and and recap what I did that day. And that would have a lot to do with another lesson I learned along the way is to-do lists are great. The only problem with a to-do list is they'll sit on a list until you get there. And what someone taught me, and I can't remember, it was a class I went to somewhere along the way, put a time on it.

10:26You have this task to do. How long is it going to take you to do it? Okay, that's something I'm going to do from 9 o 'clock until 9.20. and then when 920 is up, if I'm finished with it, great. If I'm not finished with it, it'll go on the list for the next day and I'll start another time with it and put those lists down and then a specific amount of time for each one of them. That kept you within a parameter to work on it and it didn't let you get off focus or off target. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, absolutely. We always recommend it. So the working on versus the working in, Was that something that someone taught you or did you just come on that on your own?

11:07It was actually, no, it was a bit of a mentor and mentorship. One of our largest brands is Train. And everybody knows who Train is. Make some of the best heating and air conditioning equipment in the world. And they offer a lot of classes. The other thing they offered is our regional managers who were in Charlotte would gather other small businesses together. And very early on, I had a great friendship with our regional manager, and he invited me to visit with some of these other folks. So I got a chance to talk to some of these folks about what we were doing, what we wanted to do, and how we could grow.

11:48And I got that opportunity to interface with these other business owners. and they offered me some ideas on what it should be. And I was telling them what I was doing. I said, okay, you need to carve out some time to work on it. You're going to want to transition that role at some point, not overnight. You will go from an hour a day to two to four. And eventually you will be working on your business, not in your business. Yeah, perfect. So you've been open to mentoring. Absolutely. Yeah. And so let's talk a little bit about how to work with a mentor. What would be your advice for a person either a few years into their business or maybe even just getting started or maybe they don't even have a business yet, how would you tell them to seek out and find and work with mentors?

12:58All right. Well, I've had an opportunity to visit with some other businesses that I've been asked to do some mentoring on my own myself. Sure. Yeah. Well, you look at it. You've done it both ways. You've been mentored and you mentor. Yes. So let's look at the first side of the coin to your question. When you have a mentor come in, take what they have to offer and take it with an open mind and be ready to say or relate the embarrassing parts. You know, going back to Reed McNutt, he came in and we were first in business and he talked to me a little bit. And he did some he was doing some mentoring and he showed me some things that he did in business that helped.

13:43and he asked for me to explain to him what we were doing. And a couple of times I was flat told I was wrong. I wasn't doing it right. It hurts your feelings. It hurts your pride when somebody from outside your organization comes in and says, you're not doing it right. What you really need to take that with a grain of salt in that you're going to have to use their experience to help you. What the end goal of a mentor is, is to give you enough information and help you learn the lessons that they've learned without you having to learn it the hard way. Yeah, it's a hard lesson to learn that one. Yes.

14:24But yeah, if you can avoid the trial and error stuff, it'll save you a lot of time and a lot of money. Yes, it will. Yeah.

14:36So did you seek out mentors or did they just kind of show up? A little bit of both. A little bit of both. I didn't hire a mentor, so to speak, other than having friends and relationships and just just asking questions, being open, honest and willing to listen. Be coachable. I think is huge. And if you're going to run a business because you don't know what you don't know. And there are so many pitfalls that come along that can get you out. If I give you an example of pitfall, if you are looking to start a business and you need a partner or you'd like to have partners, every partner should run a credit check.

15:18I don't want to go into details and I certainly will not give any names. But one of our first accounts came back and said, we can't give you issue credit. So I know my credit score is fine. So, well, yes, yours is fine. And two out of three of you are fine. There's one we just can't issue credit to. So, you know, my dad and I got into becoming the personal guarantors and happened to do this. And it kind of changed the dynamic of the business and it changed the relationship across the way because not everybody could contribute what they had promised to contribute. So save yourself the headache and the pitfall and make sure you know who you're getting into business with.

16:01Yeah, do your homework. Do your homework for sure. Yeah. It sounds like you learned discipline in the Air Force. 100%. Yeah. So did you go into the Air Force willingly or were you? Willingly. Yes, willingly. I wasn't a very good student. It wasn't that I wasn't a very good student. I won't tell you I'm the smartest person, but I'm reasonably intelligent. The problem was I was lazy. I hate to admit it. I was just a flat, lazy kid. And, you know, college was not going to be something that I was going to. I had an opportunity to do. I got by with low C's, D's. I mean, just just I did enough to get passed through and keep on going.

16:55I just wanted to get away, go do something else. Got into the Air Force. was responsibility is thrust upon you. Basic training is thrust upon you. And immediately found myself moving forward and to some degree becoming a leader. And then I ended up working, you know, the swing shifts or the overnight, the 11 to 7 shift. And I was the only person there. So if it was going to get done, I was the only one that was going to do it. And that is a great lesson in life. when it's all on you, you need to finish. You need to make sure everything is taken care of. And that was probably the one thing that helped me the most in having that structure.

17:40And I can't recommend it for everybody, obviously. My son's in the Air Force now. Far better student. Far better everything. When COVID hit and everything shut down and the thought of online classes just made him cringe. He said, I don't really want to go to school right now. I want to do this. And he's been in about a year or so now and is excelling. Yeah, it's a nightmare. That COVID thing was a nightmare for a lot of students. Yeah, so let's do a bit of a quick fire round, then we'll wrap back up. So EPIC is an acronym. It stands for Education, Planning, Inspiration, and Consistency. So let me get your thoughts.

18:26What's the importance of education or self-education or however you want to define it? Learn something every day. Education is incredibly important. It's one of the things Horizon believes in most and our relationship with Henderson County Public Schools, the Leader in Me initiative. These things are huge for helping kids grow. Yeah, I love that. How about planning? planning constantly planning you're always thinking about what's out there what's next looking for you need to look at small goals you look at by the season you look at it by the year and we are myself and the two vps that i have working with me we are working on our five and ten year plans and where we think we're going to grow and how we're going to get there I love that.

19:19I love that. How about the importance of inspiration? You can be inspired by looking around you. I get inspiration from people I work with. When they come to you with an idea, say, hey, I think we can do this. Where I thought I was doing it the right way all along, they said, damn, what about this? That's a great idea. Let's run with it. inspiration comes from, inspiration also comes from other businesses and other philosophies and looking at things. There are so many ways to find inspiration. It doesn't take long. And even just a couple of days with the New Testament. I do, I do love your sort of openness to what's in the world.

20:07Like if it's, whether it's people or mentors or books or reading or the Bible, whatever it is, you're, yeah, I love that. I love that. When you realize you're not the smartest person in the room and you open yourself to being able to learn or listen, you will go a lot further. Oh, yeah, so true, so true. How about commitment? Commitment. you have to stay on task. You have to stay there. And another thing is we got into a quick situation. I know we're getting close on time. We were in a segment of our industry. We thought we were doing well with it. We realized that we weren't doing well with it.

20:58And we refocused and committed. Basically, find what your niche is. Find what you're good at and do it. We were not good at large commercial or touching on industrial type things. Small commercial, residential type things. We had the right people, the right staff, and we could excel there. So we refocused the business and committed to providing better service that way. Yeah, that's a great story. Do what you're great at and let the other stuff go. So tons of lessons here. Um, quick question. What, what's one thing that you wish you had known or wish somebody had told you about business before you got into it?

21:45Wow. Good question. I guess I would have liked to have known about some of the advertising. we went with some different things and I found that the most fruitful is to be very local very focused pay attention to little leagues and there's one particular group here I really love especially sports take care of look at ways to support education those are probably the things We did that early on, and had I known how impactful that is, I probably would have done more of it. Yeah, thanks. That's a great lesson. So some great lessons here on discipline, mentorship, working on versus working in, how you do partnerships, seeing what must be done and doing it and finding your niche and focusing on what you're good at.

22:54So there's a lot we packed into this thing. Dan, I really appreciate you being here. Congratulations on your success. Seems like we probably ought to have another one and actually talk about how you go from one to 65 employees. So we may do that later. But anyway, thanks for being on. It's been a pleasure. I only wish we had another 20 minutes to visit. Yeah, we'll do another one. Take care. Hey, and until next week, we want you to be happy. Thanks for joining us for this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. Here's four things you can do. First, you can listen every week on Biz Radio Mondays at 1.

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