How Word Of Mouth Turned A Tough Trade Into A Thriving Company with Zeke Seaton

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.

0:36All right, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners. I'm excited to have Zeke Seaton with Solid ARM Solutions as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So, Zeke, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. Yeah, thanks Cliff for having me on. So, long story short, I'm in the helping business. So, what do I mean by that? Well, I've got three companies, they all tie in together, but obviously I'm focusing on solid arm solutions today.

1:19I've been a home inspector, licensed home inspector for four years, created solid arm solutions in 23. Got another company, Radon Mitigation, called Carolina Radon. uh we focused on people's health you know helping people breathe easy um keeping people healthy um just longevity um that's my kind of my ministry um kind of how i can help people um not really doing many home inspections anymore just really focusing on you know keeping homes healthy uh breathing good mold remediation crawl space in caps uh you know have anything to do with moisture, leaky basements. We do tear outs. We do it all. But yeah, I guess we'll dive into that a little more.

2:10All right. Perfect. Perfect. Nice introduction. So if you had to start your business from square one, would you do anything differently? Well, yeah, for sure. I've learned from my mistakes, but I've made plenty of those. But no, the number one thing I would do is don't be afraid to reach out. So obviously any business is going to be based off of your referrals. And it was slow at first. For the first six months, we had just a handful of jobs. Me and a lot of the time inspector, I know real estate agents. But the ticket in my business was contractors and other home inspectors, actually. You know, in the home inspection business, you're kind of, you know, you want to keep yourself hush, hush.

3:03You know, home inspectors don't talk to one another. But I was at CE class and, you know, I was wearing my solid arm shirt and I just went up to some other home inspectors like, hey, you know, yeah, I'm another home inspector, but willing to work with you. You know, send us some referrals. I'll send you some referrals. So that's actually how I met Kenny McBurney, which is a business partner with Carolina Radon. And she's helped us out tremendously. She does the marketing for Carolina Radon. But, yeah, it's just building those networks because that's the best referrals you can get is word of mouth.

3:38You know, you can you can do the I've done billboards. I've done signs, but there's no referral like getting word of mouth. You know, something or some service you've done for somebody and they can they can refer you and say, hey, you know, they did this and this is the the way they did it. The professionalism, the cleanliness, getting it done correctly. So. OK, but so what have your biggest learnings been as an owner and employer since you started your business? So, again, like I mentioned, you know, we had the billboards. the biggest learning thing for me at first, you know, marketing was, I thought the flashing lights and the, you know, the nice shirts would get you business and how professional you are, but you know, that's not it.

4:27Some of the, some of the companies we compete against, you know, we, we obviously, we do a better job because we're getting paid to fix their stuff, but they're getting more jobs. And I used to think how in the world, but it's all about the marketing. It's all about word of mouth, you know, but that's the biggest learning curve for me was really figuring out that it's the word of mouth. I mean, I'm going to keep hammering on that because that's what's transformed my businesses is that making those connections there. Being in some groups, you know, like today, you know, I'm on this podcast because I was referred by Ann with College Hunks.

5:06She's in my B &I group. I was referred from Kimmy to being B &I. It's just a chain of command there. But yeah. Okay. So what are some common misconceptions about running a business and how do you address them? Oh, man. People think that you can create your own schedule, which you can. You can. People think that you work for yourself. But no. Whenever you own your own business, man, you work for everybody. You don't just work for yourself. It's, it's, and me personally, how I, how I run things and how I, how I do things is I'm kind of an extremist. So if anything I do, I'm going to go to, you know, full till, you know, turn that baby to rabbit.

5:51We're going to, we're going to mow it down. But, uh, but man, it's, uh, I, it's hard cause you can't shut your mind off at night. You know, you're up thinking about things, you know, what things you could have done better. or, you know, you kind of have to, that's another learning curve too, is you kind of have to learn to shut that off. You know, after about six o 'clock, I just turn the phones off, you know, turn the computer off and just kind of, you know, tell my partners, Hey guys, you know, time to, time to clock out. And, uh, but yeah. Okay. So you basically tell them to clock out and go live your life, right?

6:23Yeah. Or have a personal life. You go crazy. Yeah. Especially on Friday nights, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. So yeah, I really liked that. So what have you attributed to your growth so far in your business? Well, I'm trying to say not, I'm trying to not say, you know, word of mouth again, but, uh, growth is well, obviously hiring people too. Um, that's been a big thing is I've hired a couple of guys now, so we can get more done, we can get done quickly and we're booking into February right now. So, you know, I'm not, we've lost a couple of jobs just because they're both are booked out and these other companies can come you know in a couple weeks so hiring people has really moved things along i guess you can say um but yeah that's that's helped with growth um obviously just knowing making these connections with people and treat people right okay and when you're hiring people what are you typically looking for so man it's what we do is super hard You know, we're crawling around crawl spaces.

7:27It's hazardous. You know, you're dealing with mold. You're dealing with insulation. You're getting that fiberglass all over you. It's, I've done a lot of work. I've worked in mill riding. I've done sawmill work. But this is, it's one of the hardest, in my opinion, job that you can do. It's nasty. Spiders and snakes. You know, I seen a couple weeks ago, that was a mama coyote with some pups in a crawl space. I mean, you never know. So when hiring somebody, it's hard to find somebody willing to work like that. So you've got to pay them good. And obviously, I give them bonuses. We'll go out and eat on the company card quite often.

8:05I give the guys anything they need in tools, PPE, obviously, but also give them some nice merch. Just take care of your guys. Okay. And you kind of went into this one here earlier, but I'd like you to dive into it a little bit more, especially like when it comes to vacation and things of that nature. How do you balance your personal life with the demands of running a business? The biggest thing is just, you know, in the evening times, just turning it off because it's nonstop all day long. We have, Hey, one thing we have just got for Carolina Radon was a virtual assistant and she's out of the Philippines and she's been great.

8:43Man, she's taken a load off us tremendously. she handles all the marketing, all the Facebook, the website, all the cold calls, all the incoming calls. She handles the majority of everything now in the office. So that's been tremendous. But the biggest thing is just learning how to cut it off in your mind. There's a time you guys gotta be like, alright, it's time to hang out with the family. But yeah, knowing when to cut it off and that's pretty much the biggest thing okay how do you handle vacations typically well i go on about two vacations a year that's the one week each and uh unfortunately you know i gotta handle all the office stuff so i mean you know i take the morning time usually i start at about eight o 'clock you know until about 10 and handle all the emails and then, you know, hang out with the family throughout the day.

9:46And then in the evening time, usually I get some phone calls throughout the day. So I'll just kind of ignore those. And even time I'll touch base and see, you know, if everybody's doing okay and kind of just see how everything's going. But I'll try to, you know, that's when I really have to pinpoint on my mind, you know, Hey, you know, it's vacation time. We'll have to, we'll have to slow down this thing. All right. Perfect. So what, you know, you kind of went into this a little bit. So what qualities do you look for in employees that you hire as far as personal traits? Yeah. Well, obviously, the biggest thing is the physical part.

10:21I've had some guys, you know, want to work, and, you know, we get in there, and they just literally, you can't physically do it. I mean, if you're a big guy, you know, you just can't do it. But, no, just being cordial with people, it's just like any other business. I mean, I don't like cussing. I don't like, you know, cracking dirty jokes with clients. So that's the big thing with me is, you know, we're professionals. You know, we're in our PPE. You know, our shirts are tucked in. You know, we are we're here providing a service. So, you know, we won't let them know we're serious about it. That's the biggest thing.

11:00But, yeah, that's pretty much the biggest thing I look for in employees. Okay. Okay. All right, so let's head into the quickfire round. So basically, I'm just going to give you one word, and you just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business. First thing is education. Well, education, I've learned a lot, but the biggest thing is keep learning. It's run what built in a day, and every day is a new learning curve. Great, great. Planning. Planning. So usually I do the night before, but, you know, any business, you have to come up with a plan, you know, make sure.

11:41Well, in construction, obviously, you got to come up with materials and whatnot, but, you know, you got to go ahead and it's like, like Muhammad Ali said, you got five to five a million times before you start it. Okay. Yeah, I like that. Inspiration. Inspiration, just being, you know, happy with what you're doing, you know, especially if you're providing a service, you know, you're really helping people. and just know that you're providing somebody. It could be a life-changing experience. Okay. And commitment? Commitment, well, I think most good business owners don't have a problem with that because you have to be committed to anything you do, have dedication.

12:24But I think commitment comes naturally if you are a good business owner. Okay. Okay. And what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow? Don't be afraid to reach out. You know, don't be afraid to talk with your competitors. You know, just a phone call, what they're going to say is no. That's all. I mean, you can't be afraid to get rejected when it happens. But some of those phone calls you make might change your business completely. Okay. And can you offer any kind of, you know, particular instance? Did that happen? Yeah, with Kimmy McBurney. You know, she's the other home inspector.

13:02She owns one of the biggest home inspection companies in Western North Carolina. And one day I just reached out with her and said, hey, you know, we do mold and crawl space. And, dude, we've had, I don't know how many jobs come from that. I mean, it's been, that's why I'm here today is because I met her. So it's just, you know, don't be afraid to reach out. Nice. I love that. Love that. So what's the next big thing for your business coming into the new year? Next big thing is we're looking to hire some more. Like I said earlier, booking into February now. So I'm looking to hire some more folks, getting ready to buy another van.

13:38So anybody, you know, hopefully some people listening to this podcast, if you're looking for a job, you know, it's nasty and it's hard, but, you know, you'll be there right with me. I'm going to have somebody in there to do something I wouldn't do, but, yeah. Okay. And you already talked about kind of what you're looking for earlier from an employee. So, uh, is it, are you looking for it right as we speak or is it going to be early next year when the job goes up? Well, actually, honey, I have some flyers in my hand. I was getting ready to post up at the gym. It says help wanted, you know, pay 25 to$30 an hour.

14:13So I guess we can say we're, uh, we're ready to hire right now. All right. Perfect. So, and if, in case anybody wants to get in contact with you, what's the best way to, to get in touch with you? So I'm pretty old school just give me a call um you can go my website at solid arm solutions um it's www.solidarmsolutions.com or you can just give me a call it's area code 865-474-0959 and that's my cell number perfect and texas all right yes sir perfect perfect and what about any social media oh we got facebook um i'm on linkedin but the facebook is the biggest thing I don't have Instagram or anything yet, but the Facebook's got a good media platform for us.

14:59Perfect. Perfect. All right. Well, yeah, fantastic. Thank you so much for being a part of the community and for all you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success, and I really appreciate you coming on. All right. Well, thank you, Cliff. Yeah, thank you.

15:14All right. That was awesome. Yeah. Glad we were able to get out there that year. How do I do this? Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com.

15:59Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.