Crafting an Enduring Team with Dustin Winter - Ep.285

0:00A lot of companies, they just, they take a great pride. They rip your sticker off, they put their sticker on or put it right over top of it. And they take it kind of like a trophy. Some of them actually, they have wall trophy walls. I've been in some of the other door companies where they actually have trophy walls of other companies' stickers that they put on, they put on the wall. And it's a source of pride. And I understand it. I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with that. But, but that just shows you like, look, if you're looking at the lifetime value of a customer, you take like a residential customer and you have to say, no, that's a problem.

0:31So having a larger team and be able to get to everything and have that, it definitely makes it easier. A lot of things when you're growing get more complicated, but that's one of the things that gets us get easier. The having a more robust, larger team, a deeper team, you miss less of those opportunities and that feels great.

0:53Alex Bridgeman: Dustin, thanks for coming on Think Like an Owner. This podcast I've hosted for the last eight years is all about building small businesses. And it's been fun to get to know you here in Minneapolis and hear all about Metro and what you're working on. Can you tell us, like, how'd you get into this? Like, how'd you get into garage doors, this business? We were just talking about you used to live in Missouri. Now you guys moved up here. Walk me through, like, how you got here. Well, it seems like maybe I kind of fell into garage doors, but it was somewhat purposeful. I was in commercial finance for roughly 15 years.

1:32And especially on the back end of that banking career, I really wanted to find a business that I could buy and kind of be creative with and apply some of the knowledge that I had learned in finance and working with small businesses that I could apply and kind of build my own thing. And I really got serious about it. I really tried to back into a profile of something I wanted. So I wasn't necessarily looking for garage doors, but there was a profile that I kind of developed over the years of something. I wanted something that was relatively low risk, wasn't cyclical, had good pricing control, a good sales diversification.

2:15A lot of things that a banker might look for underwriting for a healthy company or a company that is strong in different cycles, different markets. Anyways, so I built out a punch list of what I was looking for. And I was looking at a lot of off-market opportunities for a while and bird-dogging opportunities for other buyers. And I finally saw something to really kind of check most of the boxes and decided to make an offer on it. So I made an offer on Metro Garage Door. And fairly quickly, we had it under LOI. And I came into this with my brother, Dietrich. He's more of a passive owner. He has two businesses of his own up on the Iron Range, but he's been an operator much longer than me.

2:57And it really felt like a good partner for me to especially kind of be my first full-throat adventure in entrepreneurship. I did start some small businesses for, you know, a ways before that, but smaller things, things I could experiment with. And so it's been a good partnership. Yeah, we just decided to dive in and it really did check all those boxes, garage doors. It's service based. It's when things are broken, they need to get fixed. Doors aren't really going to probably go away anytime soon. Door technology is not something that could be outsourced or, you know, generally speaking, sold on Amazon, even though they've tried to get into this space.

3:40It really comes down to, I mean, local service companies are just, you know, they're relatively stable. And we, I think a lot of folks saw that, especially during the pandemic here, not too many years ago, where home services really performed well during that period where a lot of other businesses really suffered. And so this industry was fortunate that, you know, whether someone's going to extend the life of their door, it kind of goes to the service side, or if someone's going to buy a new door, you know, it's a service that we can go either way. And so during maybe lean times, we've noticed that it leans towards more service revenue where folks are extending the life of the door.

4:20And then maybe where things are maybe not as lean economically at a macro level, at least there's more door sales and replacements.

4:27Alex Bridgeman: So have you seen that even over the course of your ownership last couple of years? Yeah, I have. Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's really fascinating. So they just kind of invert a little bit. And there's obviously there's definitely a seasonality to it as well. Well, there's a lot more door sales during like late spring, going into late fall as far as residential doors. And then in the wintertime, that kind of drops off. And but then the inverts where service revenue, service revenue and work goes up during the wintertime. And it's really kind of our Super Bowl as far as service work is in the wintertime and the volume goes up tremendously.

5:05And part of that is because things break when it's cold. But also, I think there's a lot more, I think, real estate type minded things. Folks are working on their garage more during the summer. You know, it's cold Minnesota winters when it's, you know, negative 10, you know, unless you have a heated garage. But even if you have a heated garage, maybe the doors aren't going up and down as much because you're trying to keep everything in. So maybe the doors aren't cycling as much in the wintertime, I guess, is what I've heard from some folks.

5:33Alex Bridgeman: But if it does break now, everything in your garage is negative 10 degrees. Yeah. Yeah. So the stakes are higher. And then on the commercial side, it's a little more, it's not quite as cyclical. It's a little more steady. And, you know, we're, you know, we're about, I think 2025, we finished up at 52 % commercial as far as our mix versus residential. And that keeps growing. And, and that side's really about continuity business. So for our customers, you know, so yeah, I mean, they're using that door for their business. So if it's broken, it's got to get fixed or it's a bottleneck in their operation and workflow.

6:10So, you know, it's far more proactive historically where we're doing a lot more preventative maintenance on the commercial side. So it's more ongoing. That happens somewhat on the residential side too, but it does, it seems like longer time horizon. Sometimes you'll only see a customer every three to five years. but we've also done a lot more preventative maintenance like programs with residentially either just getting, you know, making sure we let the customers know it's, you know, if we're coming out there every year and doing a lubrication adjust, you can avoid a lot of the big problems down the road.

6:44Alex Bridgeman: You know, it's been$160 a year instead of all of a sudden having a$2 ,000 bill for something that probably wouldn't have broke if the door is balanced, lubricated and adjusted every year. So, you know, that's kind of the thought. Yeah, Michelle and I are closing on a house in Oregon next week. Yeah. And the walkthrough of the builder, they're going through all the different parts of the house. And we get to the garage door and they're saying, yeah, we recommend lubricating once a year to maintain health door. And I was back in my mind like, yeah, all right, that sounds good. Yeah. Thank you for that pitch.

7:19most manufacturers actually if you look in the fine print on on the actual product from the manufacturers it actually avoids the warranty on a lot of doors if you don't a sale say you know it needs to be lubricated adjusted annually or avoids the warranty look i mean you know it is what it is i mean some folks depends on how much you use and i think a door the cycles and that whatnot and also we've got some we put out videos even where folks show people how to do it themselves. Like we don't have to be the ones, but we recommend it. We want to make sure we're educating folks like, Hey, a little bit, just a little bit of lube and a little love and care can avoid a lot of problems.

7:58You know?

7:59Alex Bridgeman: And when, when did you buy the business and what did it look like in terms of team size mix when you bought? Yeah. Purchased Metro Garage Door in August of 2020. At the time, you know, we had, there was 18 employees, I believe. Today, almost six years later, we're right around 30 employees. So we keep growing and yeah, we've, we've, as far as the revenue and, and, and amount of work we do, we've more than doubled what we do. and it's been, we keep on growing. Was it the similar 50-50 commercial residential? It wasn't, no. Initially, it was only about 12 % commercial. It was a really healthy 12 % and we had really strong relationships and technicians that were really just, they were master technicians, really strong.

8:56I think there was, you know, I think owners have to make a decision and like in this type of industry, you know, kind of what they want to do. I really kind of feel like moving more commercial. I don't we don't want to diminish what we do on residential. That's growing as well. But commercial, we're growing at a more rapid pace. And we really like that. Whereas some owners don't like the working capital needs that are required to grow a commercial side of their business, where, you know, a lot of folks are on terms or if you're doing new projects, ground up projects, you know, that cash conversion cycle can get kind of long.

9:33And so you, you got to be comfortable with the idea. You're going to, you're going to need a lot more work and capital and, you know, you're gonna have to float a lot more product and labor. And, but if you lean into that, we feel like that's one, a great moat for us, our expertise in that area, but also it's just, it's a very stable piece of the business. It's just seemed to be very stable year to year. It's one of the most stable pieces that we've noticed revenue-wise and relationship-wise.

10:00Alex Bridgeman: Do you think the higher working capital requirements, does that mean, practically speaking, that there's just fewer competitors and fewer folks bidding on service work in these projects? Or is that not really a side effect of the working capital requirement, you think? There are. Yeah, I think so. I think there's very specific niche commercial areas that certain garage door companies focus on. So that's very, as it gets kind of segmented, but also just in general, the expertise and commitment for commercial, yeah, it does seem to like narrow it down to just like a very small group of door companies that are doing that type of commercial work.

10:46So yeah, there's less people involved. The working capital, maybe more as referencing is, it's just, maybe that does kind of weed out also yeah i mean look i think we we recently acquired you know automated door service and merged them into our operation in april and and the prior owner because of their smaller size even though they had really great relationships service wise they were almost 100 just commercial service on the door work i think it's very difficult for some owners when you're when you know, when you're a smaller outfit to put out, you know, maybe 50, a hundred thousand dollars for product, for a project that you're not going to get paid for, you know, maybe functionally for 60, 90 days sometimes just due to logistics.

11:35You got to buy the materials, lock down the price, and then you can't necessarily, you know, the product doesn't necessarily start right on time every time. And then, and then once it's done, then you bill it out and then you got, you know 45 to 60 days for you know the gc to work with the owner get the you know get everything the you know your pay app approved your progress billing approved and before you know it you're you know you floated it for three months and you start doing a half a dozen jobs like that you know you know you have to have that that's that cash and that working capital and you've got to get comfortable with it getting tied up you know so and if you don't have good processes to manage the cash conversion cycle, it can really get away from people.

12:17I mean, to where maybe it's six months before you get paid. And I don't want to get into the weeds, but if you don't have good controls and processes on making sure you get paid when you need to get paid, it can really spin out on people. Or if you just don't even know what your company's rights are, I mean, you can really feel squeezed sometimes. Like, how far should I ask? You know, we should have been paid by now, but I'm making sure you know you're building relationships but also setting boundaries and and and expectations and in the construction world of commercial construction definitely is that's always kind of a push and pull and depends who you're working with you know is there usually an

13:02Alex Bridgeman: opportunity at the end of the commercial job to get a service contract in place yeah i mean that's look, I mean, I think everything's to some degree is a play for service, whether it's residential or commercial, you know, it's about a long-term relationship one, but also the margins are going to be higher on, on service and it's just the way it is. And so that's kind of the, the key to that lifetime value of the customer. So like, if we're going to, if there's a ground up project for new doors, new building, we put the doors, new doors in, if we can capture the service on the back end, then the, then that project, the way we look at it as far as what our actual margins are, how, how aggressive we want to be, it really depends on whether we can get that service after, after the install.

13:51Because if we get that service, lifetime value for the average lifetime of a customer in this industry, it changes just dramatically, you know? So yes, you know, so we have, we have procedures. So like most of the time you're not dealing with the owner, you're working with a GC, a general contractor, like say like Kraus Anderson or, or somebody like that. And it's, and the key is once do great work, get it finished. And then the final close out and walk through it is sometimes the first time we're actually meeting the actual end user or customer for the first time, really. So, and we're walking around with the GC and the customer, and then we make sure our master technician, the person who led the team to put the doors in are, are there walking through, you know, the system, how it works, making sure they understand, you know, you know, what they have.

14:45And then also just what's needed to make sure those things don't break, you know, cause they're huge investments for some folks. And so that's the time when we're usually presented like, look, you know, let's get together a prevent and maintenance schedule, you know, that's suited for the number of cycles you're going to be running here, you know, these type of doors and get that lockdown rate at closeout. So, you know, still go through like the, like the warrant one year warranty period, but then even beyond that, just making sure we have the, you know, the real, a good relationship and understanding what's needed to make sure, you know, everything stays healthy.

15:20And I think sometimes folks want to use their own folks, you know, like maybe someone, maybe they have another facility and they're already using someone for maintenance. But, you know, and so we understand that, but then also, so, but also we do encourage folks to use us, obviously. Well, one, we want the business, but, but beyond that, you know, when the person that built the system and put it in is really, I do feel like the best person to service that. You know, sometimes things can get lost in translation and your standard just kind of lube team, you know, with some companies might be cheaper.

15:56But if they don't understand some of the more complex systems, they might not be preventing doing PMs maybe the way it's necessary to make sure that door is really healthy, I guess.

16:07Alex Bridgeman: How does the profile of technician differ on your team between residential technicians and commercial in terms of the personality? What do they like doing in residential and then the techs on commercial? What drives them to like doing commercial work? I think most of our team, the technicians we're looking for are usually hungry people who really want to learn the trade. They love mechanical things. They're, they love work with their hands. And we run things a little different than most shops in the industry. I mean, I know some other folks do it this way too, but most, most garage or companies, and even Metro when I first got here was segmented where we had residential installers, then we had residential service, commercial installers and commercial service.

16:55And it was very segmented and there was different pay grades and different, you know, they were, it was very like, these are almost wholly owned different, separate business units. Like four totally different teams. Yeah. And so we changed that up. Part of us through necessity during the pandemic, we, you know, the labor market was tough and tight and we became more cross-functional just because we had to and just kind of a happy accident. We kind of found some secret sauce that works for us where we just decided to have a fully cross-functional team where there are no residential techs or commercial techs.

17:30Everybody's on a path to becoming a master technician. And to become a master technician, you need to be, you need to pass four out of five certifications through the International Door Association or their education arm, the IDEA. And to do that, you have three out of the four are commercial. So that means you have to have a residential, to become a master technician, you have to be proficient in both sides, commercial and residential. So we just really liked that one. We found that we could run with a smaller team and get more done. or if like one bucket of the funnel was lowered, like seasonal, whatever it might be, the fall some we don't have enough residential door installs that we don't have to say, hey, we don't have work for you.

18:14We kind of went to more of a universal technician that could work across different, you know, different areas. And so we start everybody off, you know, like say a student tactician is getting trained in, they start on residential install and then they work in this residential service, then start, you know, if we see a lot of app students and they're doing great, then we start moving into commercial, a little more higher stakes situations. And it's, they're always paired with say like a master technician. So it's a very like, almost like apprenticeship type training program, but everyone's on some path become a master technician.

18:49So they're working on both sides. And we really like that here. Cause there, there is like a, there's almost like a different breed of technician historically, where you have a lot of commercial technicians that are, they're kind of grizzled. They're kind of, you know, hard nose, you know, they're fun though. I mean, they're just like, you know, there's just, there's a different personality I saw kind of in that, that came with that culture. And on the residential side, it was more people facing. It was very more customer service kind of facing. Just, I just see more of it. Not that the other doesn't have that, but it's just, and what we found also just through happenstance was when our commercial folks started working also on the residential side, it kind of softened them a little bit.

19:35I liked it. I could be wrong. That was my perspective. And I just really liked that it kind of softened their approach and vice versa. It seemed like a really battle-hardened kind of some of the more residential folks as they got more commercial experience. They just kind of seemed to think of things at a higher level. And as far as mechanics of the door and confidence in kind of what they were doing. So, and also kind of gave folks maybe traditionally would have just been residential had no path other than for a career development, other than just being a residential tech, having that career development be, be able to be moving towards a master technician and doing some commercial work.

20:13It just kind of felt like it gave a little more purpose behind the role and more of a trajectory instead of kind of maybe like, well, maybe I'll be a commercial tech at some point.

20:22Alex Bridgeman: It's a path and a new challenge. It just, we just liked it. We kind of fell into it by accident, but then we just liked it so much. We've leaned into it over the years and that's just how we approach everything. You do have to, commercial technicians tend to, historically have always been paid more. And I think that's why it was segmented is I think owners wanted to, you know, not pay top dollar for maybe something was lower margin, lower ticket, maybe on the residential side. But what we find is that's kind of, you know, if you run things a specific way, I feel like you don't. you gain enough efficiencies and other added benefits.

20:59I think it just works better this way, you know. From a pay perspective,

21:06Alex Bridgeman: if every technician is trained on both residential and commercial, how do you determine a pay scale? Oh, yeah, I guess I kind of. Like if a new hire is sitting here and you're laying out the career path at Metro, what does that look like? Well, so look, because we did kind of go to a cross-functional team, we do pay technicians kind of above market, I guess, maybe historically than some other place, other garage door companies. So again, I think it's just on that path, you know, as they get more functional, get more, more cross train, their pay goes up. But just in general, though, we pay kind of more above market than maybe where I think some installers and some, some companies are, it's really kind of a more transient.

21:51It feels like a more transient kind of, you know, not as lucrative kind of, uh, opportunity for some folks. I mean, they're learning doors and I get in, I guess different people have their different paths for advancement, but, but yeah, I think just on a scale, I think on average, our probably, our pay grade is well above, even on entry level above most folks because we expect a lot. and you're going to be doing, you know, we're expecting you to learn a lot of things over the course of a number of years. So, and it takes, you know, it can take, it can take several years to really get a seasoned, great commercial technician.

22:30But I feel like to some degree, it kind of compressed like the, the range between top pay and bottom pay among our tech team. But the tech team that we have though, is so much more proficient and well-rounded and skilled where we can almost, you know, during a given day, if we need a commercial, we can pretty much send almost anybody to any call, whether it's commercial or residential. You know, certain folks who are still obviously in training and don't have experience with things, we pair them up. And we just eat that cost. They don't pass it on to the customer. So we build that, some of that pairing and mentorship in just to, that's cost of doing business.

23:08That's basically part of our training program. So we don't pass that along, but we'll put two commercial people on maybe something. Only maybe would traditionally require one, but we'll send them out there. We want to build capacity in all our folks as much as possible. We'll win at the end if we do that, if we feel like.

23:27Alex Bridgeman: Absolutely. Yeah. And how do you balance, do you have a commission plus hourly pay combination of some kind? When I got here, we had what's something called a unit-based system or piece rate system where it was heavily, and it was just on the residential side, but the residential side, it was, you know, kind of, yeah, it was very heavily commission-based. And, but very early on, we went away from that within about a year of me purchasing Metro and, and there was, you know, the reason was that is the, the kind of the customer experience of what, maybe it's because I had fresh eyes coming in from outside the industry, but we just noticed that something was kind of a miss in the in a lot of service-based industries where the customers were kind of on guard.

24:15I think they were kind of getting, they were used to getting taken advantage of or high pressure sales. And when the technicians are incentivized to sell, whether they're presenting something that's legitimate or not, the customer picks up on that. And we kind of sense that like fight or flight response. And we're kind of, I was really watching and I was really trying to figure out what that dynamic was. And we really felt like it was the sales piece of it. And so we decided, how do we get, well, we questioned, like, how do we get, we want our customers to see us as professionals and more of like someone who is objective and is going to give them the best advice possible.

24:58And it just seemed like for us, it was one of the only ways we could really do that is get rid of the incentive-based structure. So we basically took the existing team and said, hey, here's what you made last year on commission. We're just going to pay you that this year, build it into your base pay. We're going to up your pay. We're just going to assume you're going to do that same great work. And then we're going to give you a little raise on top of that, just so there's no way, you know, so there's no concern about losing money on this. And we're just going to like approach this differently to where we're going to approach the customer and we're going to present what's a media need.

25:37What's a need that maybe you're going to have in a couple of years. Maybe we can take care of now. And then maybe needs that are long term, probably don't need to be done. But if you really want to bulletproof your garage, we can do it. But it's probably not necessary. So it's more about media. See, we didn't really like the good, better and best because I like what does that mean? I don't know. Better than what? best. I don't know. I think it's really about the functionality of the door, you know, safety, or if you just really want a nice and pristine door. So it's really about, I think, immediacy of a need more than it is, is it better?

26:14I don't know. Maybe I'm splitting hairs a little bit, so we really went to that kind of model. And so I think...

26:22Alex Bridgeman: Have you seen any changes from average ticket before or after? Oh, we saw right away. So, cause initially it kind of scared us cause it was an experiment. And when we initially ticket sizes went down, I think for the first couple months and we're like, oh, maybe we made a mistake here. And then they started creeping up and then it surpassed our average ticket size and they just kept on going up. and it was and so it was like okay i think we might be on to something here the other thing is our customer like service type like five-star reviews and the customer service experiences that people were going out of the way to show praise was just started skyrocketing and we had like maybe 270 reviews on google and now we're sitting at around 4 000 you know and and we didn't really see that start happening until we went away from the commission-based model.

27:19And when you read reviews, it seems like every seven to 10 or like maybe it's even more of that depends, but you'll see like smattered in like in our five-star reviews, a lot of people say, hey, I really appreciated like the no pressure sales, you know, but you were thorough and you presented everything, but I didn't feel any pressure. And that's really what we were looking for is that experience, like the no haggle, no pressure. Because unfortunately in these service-based industries, there's so much pressure and people are so on edge whether they're getting ripped off or not, whether it be, you know, whether someone's telling them to replace something, well, is it because they want the commission or is it because they were actually really giving me advice?

28:01And it's really hard to tell sometimes. And there's also just a lot of scam companies out there, you know, maybe I shouldn't call them scam, But it definitely seems like they go in with the mindset, I'm going to get, I don't know. I've actually heard some door companies will set like a minimum ticket size of like$1 ,000.

28:20Alex Bridgeman: Well, how can you set, in my mind, how can you set a minimum ticket size? You haven't even looked at, you don't even know what's there yet, you know? And so what it does is I think it puts pressure on the technician, making them more of a salesman than a technician or a professional. And all of a sudden they're going in and trying to find a thousand dollars worth of things they can sell. And unfortunately, I think what that tends to lead to is folks maybe unintentionally kind of leaning towards pushing things that maybe aren't needed. And that's, that's where the trust I think is broken. And, and what we also found was when we went away from the commission base, it took the pressure off the technicians too.

28:59They just want to do a great job and do purposeful work. And they don't want that pressure. You know, nobody likes selling things. Maybe has that term traditionally used. You know, it can be kind of, I think it's liberating them to know that, hey, there is no minimum ticket size. We just want you to be professional. You know, we really are going to judge you on the customer experience, not on how much you sell. And kind of come at it back, kind of backdoor. Like find a way to get optimizing, you know, what we do and how, you know, how profitable we are, you know, how much we do through just a great experience and, and, and, and being upfront, honest.

29:44Alex Bridgeman: I mean, no, I mean, this is like a similar thing you talked about with preventative maintenance was the less you made it sound like a membership of some kind. Yeah. The more successful it became as a pitch. It is. I think as soon as someone hears, like, we don't even use the word contract because it's like, look, what are we trying to do? We're just trying to stay in contact with you and make sure we have a relationship with you and do what's actually needed. So it's not like pay this annual membership fee and do, you know, sign this contract or this agreement. It's really about just saying, hey, can we call you annually at around this time to come out and do your, do a lubricant, adjust your door, you know, no pressure.

30:29If we call you at the time and it's not in, you know, and you change your mind, maybe money's tired or whatever it might be, it's fine. There's no commitment. We're not going to charge you, but we want to build that relationship where it's again, it's no pressure, but we just want more of kind of almost like a handshake agreement to some degree. They don't, they're not locked in. They don't have to pay in advance. They pay when it happens, but we just get them on the schedule and set up a routine.

30:54Alex Bridgeman: So after a repair and the technician is closing out the job with the customer, do they schedule at that moment for a year out? They do. For that? Okay. So they walk out of, they leave the customer's home with a lube and adjust the next year. They do. Yeah. And so what it is, is on the final walkthrough, they go over everything, bill, of course, what was done. And then when, and you make sure they're completely, a hundred percent satisfied. And if they are, they say, Hey, is it okay? You know, and they say, Hey, is it okay? We, you know, to get on our annual PM program where we come out and we lubricate and gesture your door every year.

31:34We give them the pricing and, you know, and they explain to them, Hey, it's, it's, it's a low commitment. If, you know, if it's not going to work for you or if you ever want to just, you know, not do it, it's fine, but we're just going to call you every year. And sometimes we, we do, or some of our technicians, you know, kind of emphasize the fact that Like one thing, again, we really don't like the pressure sales thing. So we don't, despite our vast database of customers from since 1978, you know, we don't, we don't farm our, you know, our data and start and do, we really don't do outbound callings.

32:14So we tell the customer, look, we're never going to text you like, hey, how's your door doing? Or spam your email. Or so like, hey, we're here in front of you. This is when we do it. So that's what we really focus on is like at the time of a service and a good experience. Hey, do you want to keep this going? Here's a way we can kind of keep on top of things or continue to improve the doors. Because maybe there's things that they do need in a couple of years, but maybe each year we can knock out a little bit something else within their budget. You know, maybe change out one operator this year, but maybe the other two doors are in the budget.

32:48Maybe next year we come out and we knock out another one. And we can do it over time. So where it's not all at once or. I think that's a, it just feels healthier that way. But yeah, we lock it down at the end of the, end of the call. The technician does, we, we put in our PM schedule and then, you know, we call them in a year and then we call them every year after that as long as they want to, want us to.

33:10Alex Bridgeman: And what's been the, have you measured what the kind of success rate is of adoption of an annual plan? Yeah, it's kind of tough to say what it is because it's been growing so much every month since we started doing it. I mean, just even like four months ago, we were probably averaging about 80 signups a month, which was exciting because, you know, I think just a few years ago was almost nothing. until we kind of dialed in how we wanted to approach it. And then like in June, I think we had 168 people sign up for that in one month. And it's just a great way to also, you know, just to build that out.

33:50Because then if we can keep the retention high each year, that should build on itself and we'll have a nice base of calls for each year, kind of locked in. And it is really great for any business to have that recurring, you know, relationship, especially during times of the year, maybe there's ebb and flow as far as seasonality, whatever it might be. If you got kind of a slow day, if you have a nice pool of PM folks that within a month could be called, you can, you can fill in spots, smooth out schedules, make sure we can get, make sure guys can get their hours. So you don't have the choppiness that you have without it.

34:27Yeah. So smooth it out. Yeah. It's great.

34:29Alex Bridgeman: Try to schedule them for that like period of time where you know it's gonna be a little slower. Yeah. Well, typically we just say, Hey, it'll be 30 days. It'll probably be within 30 days of today, like when they set it up. And so what we can do over time is say someone's like, you know, if, if historically March is maybe a slow month for us, you know, if someone signed up in April, we can migrate that the next year and maybe do 30 days before and slowly migrate calls towards historically slow periods. And each year we can kind of migrate a little more. So over the course of two, three, five years, you can kind of find, you can kind of start settling these schedules into where they're most needed.

35:12And then over time, it just helps smooth everything out. And so we have a team that works on that. So each month, when to pull things forward, when to maybe push, do them when right on the mark or push them out. And so it's just something, And I encourage folks that if they're going to do that, don't get too rigid. I mean, it's a great tool and you can use it in different ways and just leave enough flexibility in there where you can like use it for these other purposes, you know, for your team.

35:42Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. I mean, it seems like a, I'm sure from the financials, you can see the smoothness that that creates over time. Yeah. Where maybe before the plan was implemented, it was maybe more fluctuating. It is, especially as you do more commercial. I mean, commercial can be choppy. It's big to a bigger ticket. of bigger projects. In some ways it's smoother because it's more reliable, but it's like, it's very, like it's intensive type work. So say we're just like, we just did a, we're working on the Victoria fire station is a project we're working on right now, a large project, bi-fold doors, I believe eight bi-fold doors.

36:18It's a big project. So it can be really intense for like three weeks and then, all right, now we're done or it's at a pause till the next phase. And so, you know, that'll tie up maybe four or five technicians, you know, but then it'll free up. You know, so it's the commercial can be kind of choppy that way where it's very intense or even the service work. It's not just maybe changing a bus at spring. It's a little more intensive and it's just it's choppier in ways. As we grow and get the portfolio bigger, it does just naturally smooth out a little bit, but there's still enough. There's still some chop in there.

36:54So that's why I really like having the residential piece also involved is all these things kind of play together to help smooth it out. You know, it's smooth out everything we do. And the smoother we can get our flow as far as work, the easier it is to manage. Obviously, the labor pool, our guys, what we need, budget, working capital, all these things kind of play into that smoothness. It's because, yeah, if you have giant peaks in your year, it can be, can be kind of jarring to a business. I'm sure a lot of business owners know what I'm talking about. Like if you're doing a million dollars in June, but March, you're only doing 400, you know, a hundred, 400 ,000.

37:38It's like, and then, and then you go back down to three, you know, something like that, you know, it's, that can be kind of as far as staffing levels. and then just cash flow. And it just, yeah, the smoother the better. So you want to fill in all the gaps and make sure you're optimizing your time, making sure you're making the best use of your technician team.

37:59Alex Bridgeman: Are there other benefits of building a more scaled and growing business that you see across the rest of the company? Like you have with a larger group of techs that are all cross-trained, as you have more techs, there's more ability to get to jobs faster and kind of manage where people go. Yeah. Yeah. Look, there's a lot of benefits to growing. There's a lot of pains, but as you get a deeper team, deeper knowledge, you know, more flexibility in a lot of ways. Yeah. Growing, you know, when we were 18 employees, yeah, you got much more limited resources to take on maybe a large project and disrupt, you know, I mean, when we, you know, if you only had, you know, there was a period like when we had maybe nine technicians and it was you know that was many years ago and it was just like yeah well if you take on a large project like victoria and you tie up four technicians well you just chop your team in half now if service volume picks up while that project's going you're having to tell customers no i can't get out there and that's you just never want to say no because then they guess what they got to call the next person and the next company maybe because it's an immediate need now you've kind of functionally lost that customer in a way maybe they'll come back because they've known you maybe for a long time but it's one of the lifeblood of this industry is stickers on doors so if somebody else goes out on a door maybe you've serviced for or a customer you've serviced for 20 years on their doors now somebody else had to get out there because you couldn't get to them well guess what that other company they're going to put their sticker over your sticker we always ask before we do that we're always we're very sensitive you know we want to make sure the customer's like, hey, do you want to put a sticker?

39:44Do you want us to put it over their sticker to remove it? Or, you know, we don't just do it. But a lot of companies, they take a great pride. They rip your sticker off. They put their sticker on or put it right over top of it. And they take it kind of like a trophy, some of them, actually. They have wall trophy walls. I've been in some of the other door companies where they actually have trophy walls of other companies' stickers that they put on the wall. And it's a source of pride. And I understand it. I'm not saying there's necessarily wrong, anything wrong with that, but, but that just shows you like, look, if you're looking at the lifetime value of a customer, you take like a residential customer and you have to say, no, that's a problem.

40:21So having a larger team and be able to get to everything and have that, it definitely makes it easier. A lot of things when you're growing get more complicated, but that's one of the things that gets us get easier. The having a more robust, larger team, a deeper team, uh, you miss less of those opportunities and that feels great so yeah i like that we're in an enviable position right now i really like you know the size and uh we're going to keep growing but yeah it gets easier as it goes along as the team grows and develops i'm also curious about and what i what i find so

40:55Alex Bridgeman: interesting about garage doors is you have every day you have a certain number of customers that calling, whether they're repeat or they're new customers. And so every single day, if you have 15 or 20 techs each doing three to four jobs, that could be almost 80 jobs in a day. So every single day, you have a pretty large sample size of opportunities with customers to try things. Yeah. Like, hey, does this approach work better? Let's try it just this week. Like, we'll get feedback on it today if it's working or not. Like, the feedback cycle is for trying something. Oh, it is. Your error rate tends to actually come up sometimes.

41:35I guess that's how you learn sometimes. But we do a lot. We love iterating our process. Obviously, we've challenged different, you know, I came up with fresh eyes. I wanted to do some creative destruction, I guess what some would call it where not everything was right on the mark. But we did find some great like competitive advantages. by doing that? We're constantly doing that. We're constantly, the technician team and the ops team, everybody, and the sales team, it's very collaborative. So we try to, we open, have very open real-time feedback. So if, say, a couple technicians are on a residential install and they run into something that maybe could be improved and maybe can be improved on the sales side and maybe present, you know, make sure the customers may be a little more informed about something up front or maybe consider other different setups, ways to sell that setup, our technicians will reach out to sales right away and they direct line.

42:33There's no like filter. Our communication, we really encourage everyone to communicate across every department robustly. We encourage it. We actually expect it. And so that we're constantly improving what we do, how we position the sale, but then also how it went on the backend. And that also plays into just the health of the business too. Like, you know, if we're budgeting three hours for an install, but we're finding that type of install is actually going five hours or something, you know, that type of door. Getting that feedback up front can really help make sure you protect your margins and make sure you're actually charging what you should be for that type of job.

43:14You know, a good example is like low headroom doors. You know, it's been a kind of a, you know, you know, you know, low headroom doors where there's just not a lot of space on top, you know, maybe a low ceiling, low clearance. It becomes a more complicated situation. And we found over, especially years I've been here, we found pretty early on, like we thought we were charging enough for some of these, but we weren't. I mean, these were just taking way longer than sales was. They didn't realize it. And so we, you know, but as we got more communication going early on, they're like, Hey, this, this didn't, you know, you know, uh, this, this took a day over a whole day.

43:54It didn't take three hours. It was a full day install because of the complexity of that. We need to make sure we're built, you know, charging for that. And if we're upfront with the customer at front, it's like, Hey, this is kind of a unique situation you're set up here. This is going to take extra time. You know, they're almost always fine with that. You know, they understand, but you can't surprise them later. So you got to eat it. So that's a good example of like, Hey, there's gotta be good communication. Yeah. We've got to iterate what we're doing continually. I mean, if you, you know, and that's across everything.

44:25And then, you know, as we build out more systems and technology, you know, especially with our software, then you start getting more real time job costing when it's done. So you don't have to like, you know, you see, you see a lot of it, like more proactively, you can see it, you can see an aggregate over time, like, okay. yeah, this is what our margins, what we projected when we bid it out. Here's how it actually played out over time, over a sufficient sample size. And then you can make really educated adjustments to your pricing and approach. Yeah.

44:59Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. But what recently maybe comes to mind as something you experimented with and was like, oh, this is a way better way to do this. We should start doing this. Well, I mean, geez, it happens all the time. I think like this isn't necessarily on the technician side, but on the, well, on the project management piece, especially on the commercial for like larger bid projects, you know, we really changed the way we approach the project management is in that we really broke down the different elements of how we, of the project and how we can bill and how we can get the cash conversion cycle shorter.

45:39so it's not you know and we found a lot of ways we could do that it's i mean one is just yeah and this is going to sound silly because a lot of companies probably already do this so it's going to sound probably a little elementary but we weren't we weren't delivering the product to site uh you know in you know in storage containers i know a lot of companies already do that we thought well you know we're going to get it on site and then when we got to install it and we'll just build it all out with the labor what we found is like when we have delays on a project, you know, also, you know, or which happens quite often because on a larger project, you have several other subcontractors you got to dance around.

46:17Like you think you're going to be out there next week, all of a sudden some, the site supervisor all of a sudden is like, oh, decided they're going to start painting in there. Well, now we can't go in there. Or all of a sudden they, you know, the, the, the people are stepping over each other's schedules. So what we just realized like, hey, we really need, just as a matter of practice, we found, you know, put a storage container on site is very marginal, very little cost. Let's just get it to site. And then every contract we do for commercial bid has a clause in there where we can build out materials once they're delivered to site.

46:51So we can get that. So that means that we can order the product, lock in the price, make sure we avoid any price increases from bid, the bid time of bid and get it out there and then bill it immediately. So we already have that pay app in right away before the project even starts. So we can get that product at least paid for within a cycle where we're, you know, floating that much shorter, you know, so, and that's probably our biggest working capital expense is that floating that the product that we've got products where we float$300 ,000 in product, you know, or more for one project. So even a week of accelerating cash conversion can be a huge deal or especially a month or two months, you know, where if you're floating$300 ,000, you know, that money just gets sucked out of the bank account.

47:41Now you can't have that working capital for another project. So you need to get that cash churning as quickly as possible. So that's just one thing is like, we just like, no, we just need to do this on pretty much every project. Just make sure we get materials built out right away. So ideally, the nice thing about that is there's nothing to inspect. There's nothing yet. So the approval part is really simple as well. We found that we separate the materials upfront and get that billing. It's not like it has to be, oh, is it installed right? Is there any errors? Is there any adjustments? There's no delay.

48:14It's just like, is it there or is it not? Is it insured or is it not? We have our insurance, we have our container, we have the materials there. We bill it. And then we can get paid within maybe 45 days instead of, you know, if we wait 30 days, do the project, bill it, and then you lose a month, you know, because now, and then also it gets a little more complicated because now you're, it's got to be multiple rounds of inspections and sign offs on the work and then the materials, it's all lumped together. So that's just like one little thing, but where you can just all these little things, the cash conversion cycle, you just find all these little things like make it see if the GC can pay you via ACH instead of mail.

48:55Stuff like that. You know, just all the, it doesn't sound like a big thing, but the mail system here in the Twin Cities sometimes can be fairly unreliable. Also pretty risky. Yeah. It's big checks. If you're waiting for a check for a couple hundred grand. Yeah. It's floating in the mail. I don't know. I don't like that.

49:12Alex Bridgeman: Falls behind a desk. for six months. So it's just about being proactive about these things. And just, and so then you get paid, you ACH, you know, just for the mail system, you might be getting paid at least two weeks earlier. And you just start adding up all these little things that, you know, that we've built out over this, just in the last 12 months where we've really got diligent about, you know, really condensing that cycle. So those are just a couple examples. And there's several others in that space where you can really accelerate your cash conversion. and it's so you know i love that concept of cash conversion because i think you know especially as a former lender too yeah yeah i used to be in finance but you know i'm you know there's certain areas of our business that have actually have a negative cash conversion cycle when you use the word negative you think it's a bad thing but that's i don't know if you know about cash oh yeah i want that as my license plate for when it's negative like neg w you know nwc yeah Yeah.

50:06So it's like, if you don't understand the concept, it's like, you want to turn on that. So like, I think Costco really, I think was one of the big case studies years ago, like, really like capitalize on this is where you negotiate the best terms possible with your vendors. So let's say you're net 30. But if you can turn on your inventory three times within that month, you know, they're basically funding your working capital. So it's negative, you know, It's a negative cash conversion set up to where they're, you know, they're funding not only that, but they're actually funding working capital for other parts of the business.

50:44It actually can. And so we can't we haven't found a way to get to a negative cash conversion cycle on the commercial side, but because of especially the bid projects. But we're going to get as close as possible. One area where it is a is a negative, negative cash conversion, which is a positive is like our residential doors, you know, to where, you know. So if we can get our doors, get good terms with our, we have good terms with our residential door manufacturers who are dealers for, and then if we can order the door, get it quickly and get it installed in like, say all within a couple of weeks, then we're getting paid in two weeks at the end of completion.

51:25but we you know that but the bill isn't due for the doors and materials until then you know the end of that 30 cycle so you're actually getting out ahead of you know when it's due versus when you're getting paid to charge a deposit and then that's the other part so then we charge fit you know we make sure we get 50 percent down to protect us and so you're getting 50 percent down which covers the material so you're actually you're getting paid for the materials before you order them and you get invoiced for them. So what it does is say it's kind of a secret bank for a lot of, if you manage it right, a secret, kind of like an invisible bank for your business, if you can make sure you're taking, getting deposits and making sure you're moving quickly, getting product quickly, getting in quickly, to where that can actually help fund the other parts of the business.

52:13And it does, it helps us. I mean, we've had to borrow not a lot for working capital because we found creative ways like that to create working capital with other revenue buckets of the business. So residential actually, like residential doors helps support commercial install. So residential install supports commercial install for working capital. I mean, not directly, but I think you get what I'm trying to say. But it's somewhat, it's fungible, I guess, to some degree as a business to where the more places you can find that where you're getting paid immediately or even in advance when it comes to a deposit.

52:50That's great. And we get deposits on commercial too, but there's a lot of projects you don't can't, like especially government projects, they don't do down payments. Or even some of the larger private projects, a lot of times you got to do it through the payout process and progress billing. So if we're doing maybe more of a one-off rolling steel door for a facility and it's not managed by a GC, yeah, we'll try to get something down to make sure we're protected in case like if they do back out, we're not stuck with a custom rolling steel door cut to their, that we'd have to just throw in the dumpster.

53:25Basically, it'd be a shame and eat the cost. We got to make sure we're at least getting a deposit for that. I mean, there's protections we have, but you never want to get into that situation.

53:36Alex Bridgeman: Shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned acquiring a smaller commercial business. Yeah. And you've looked at lots of different small garage businesses that you might pull into Metro. Like, how do you think about doing tuck in acquisitions around Minneapolis or just around Minnesota? I think, I mean, I think there's a lot of great companies here. And so when I think of like great tuck ins, it's more like companies I really admire. Like there's some really great companies like automated door service. they were operating since the 80s and just they had such strong relationships with their commercial customers and just there's so much trust there and and relationship and there's quite a few you know i think they're companies maybe that are traditionally seen as too small for like a private equity firm to roll into a platform or a strategic to be interested in or even you know but we love it because it's just such great like underpinnings the business because is so, so relational.

54:40And if you can transition in a way to where you can maintain that and make sure you have key people that come over and are on board, they fit in our culture. And then it's like, yeah, this is, you know, it could be a great opportunity for everybody, including the customers. So like with automated door service, yeah, it's great for the customers because we can offer a lot more different services, more flexibility because of our size of our team, but also just, we can actually do better pricing because our pricing multiple is better because we do so much more volume. So we can do a lot, or we had one customer who was with Automated Door Service that came over and Automated worked on some of their locations here locally, but they also had locations in St.

55:22Cloud. Well, they just didn't have a big enough team to be able to jump out to St. Cloud whenever it's something that was needed. So, but we have people out near St. Cloud. So I was like, so right out of the gate, we're like, you know, we can also service your facilities out in St. Cloud. And they've been asking for years for ADS to do that. And we're like, yeah, we can do that now. So now we're servicing all their properties. And, but yeah, I think the opportunity is there and there's lots of great companies and it can be a real win-win too, because we can pay a little more than maybe you're, you know, well, we can, we can pay more for that opportunity because we can save a lot on some of the duplicative costs and better pricing we can get because of volume.

56:04so we can pay a little more. So a seller, you know, maybe has an EBIT of, maybe it's, you know, it's not really nothing to write home about maybe in the broader business community, but we can almost 4X that right out of the gate just from the efficiencies that we have here. And so the multiple we pay is very generous, but our effective multiple for us is very low actually, you know, because we might be able to pay five, six times to that company. owner who's looking for exit who would normally only maybe get a three multiple but for us we can effectively once we really kind of do a pro forma analysis of it you know after you know we consolidate uh core functions we can actually effectively maybe it's only a two we're actually

56:54Alex Bridgeman: paying for what we're getting and you could probably borrow for most or all of that after you've proven that with a couple deals and you go to your lender and say here's what we've done the previous two or three deals, this is what happened. And we think it's going to have, we're going to, we're planning on that again here. Oh, absolutely. I know other business owners that, you know, they've definitely capitalized in that. If you have a good banking relationship, especially once you show a track record, the nice thing about maybe looking at companies, maybe on the lower size of the scale, as far as size, it's a lot of times we can just pay cash, you know, so you don't have to continue to build any debt and keep you can keep your leverage lower whereas maybe if you so if you're buying a company with 300 and even 300 000 ebota you know you don't have may not have to take how much debt is if you have a company with maybe a 1.2 million in eba or something like that if you see an opportunity like that it's like yeah it's a great company and they're already hitting some hit you know hitting a lot of the similarities already firing but you know you're gonna pay full multiple on that and guess what then you maybe got an additional you know four four to five million dollars in debt and debt can you know i i'm not a big despite working in lending for 15 years i'm you know debt can be a real anchor on your neck for one just if you hit tough times or you have to you know you run into whatever issues you know when you're in business you're always going to run into some kind of snag somewhere coming out of the loop but also it can i think i feel like it can cramp your creativity so you can get a little scared on that creative destruction that I really like where you're trying new things, experimenting with, you know, incrementally experimenting new things.

58:35Well, it feels a little more dangerous when you got a big anchor around your neck. I think leverage can really,

58:42Alex Bridgeman: you know, make it hard to feel creative because you're, you feel more protective. And I think there's great opportunities that, you know, where you take on that debt. But I personally, I think for us, we really want to just be careful about that. I mean, we can do that. We're looking for some opportunities here locally, but I feel like some of the best opportunities are being overlooked because I think they're quote unquote too small. And we just see it differently. Or not differently. I think a lot of number of people see this as well, but I guess just kind of what your appetite is and where you're at in your growth cycle.

59:18Alex Bridgeman: And especially when you've had a couple, you've already done a couple of these. Yeah. And you can go to an owner and, you know, here's the phone number of the owner that we bought their business last year. And it was a similar size. Go talk to them. They'll tell you how the experience was. Like they'll have a reputation that you can build. I think so. I mean, even that opportunity came to us through reputation. So it wasn't something we were, we found or used a broker. I like working outside of that broker framework. I really like off-market things and where it's a little more, it feels more evenly paced and collaborative i'll just leave it at that yeah reputation is a big thing and people yeah they want to know that they're maybe their legacy isn't going to get you know just kind of blown up or thrown away and make sure the people and and their customers are still going to get taken care of and and so yeah your reputation matters you know yeah well i mean that seems like the owners have a, usually one of their biggest concerns is their team because they, first off they care about their team, but they also worked hard to assemble this team over many years often to get the kind of the right mix of people to their business.

1:00:32Alex Bridgeman: And so like, I worked really hard for, you know, to get all these people excited to work in my business. Yeah. And I feel as an owner, you feel that kind of that responsibility. It's because you get people, especially maybe if you've gone through lean times or tough times you know there's you have people who buy into the vision and you know what you want to do and you want to you know you want to honor that like folks really you know we have a lot of folks that really you know we really worked hard to grow and and and evolve kind of you know as a company and oh I think yeah I mean the last thing I'd ever want to do is just like have new owners show up one day and then like hey, surprise, and then have everything change.

1:01:13I'm open about these things with folks. We have no plans to exit, but we want to keep growing. But yeah, we want to make sure we take care of our stakeholders and the stakeholders are all through the company in every type of position. And we're really trying to find really highly engaged folks. So we want to be purposeful of

1:01:37Alex Bridgeman: what we do i don't know if that answered your question yeah what do you so for the second half of this year what are you excited to to get done what are the key projects you're looking forward to it seems like it always takes up the oxygen a little bit but like software man i you know that's been a that's been a battle we've talked about that one before like to some be it's been a battle like my entire working life like i think through all the different banks i worked with it i was thinking about this the other day, I feel like almost every two years for the last, you know, 25 years, I've had some sort of been involved with a company or bank upgrading their software, trying to get something actually works.

1:02:21And it's just, it's so frustrating. And I know a lot of business owners probably feel similarly, but because I've talked with a lot of them trying to find better solutions. I've talked to so many people. I've flown around the country to see what other folks are using. I look over the shoulder. Does this actually work? And that's really tough. Yeah, I don't know. It's a strange dynamic. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm not sure if you've talked to anybody about this, but it's one of those things where I think some of these companies build great software and then companies spend years just trying to figure out what it is they built and how to use it and like gosh there's got to be a better way to onboard this stuff or or dial it in and i do feel like we finally found a really good partner with we're working with acumatica yeah so a sticker on your guitar yeah no you know we had some challenges with like our var value added reseller which is like a third party that optimizes for acumatica for specific industries and what we found is for us it works better to go straight to acumatica and that's not i don't think that's available to everyone so i don't even sure if i'm supposed to be talking about it but we can cut it later maybe ah whatever but look you got to feel it out and i think you can't do too much due diligence when it comes to software because we did do a software upgrade when i first got here because we had hardly anything and the first one i wish we'd spent more time because then we had to do it it didn't work out and over the course of a couple years, we're like, oh, this is not going to be our end-all, be-all software.

1:03:58And then that's when we did a second round, like due diligence. Let's find what our long-term partner is going to be. And we, we spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and, and, and landed on Acumatica. And it was, it was kind of between kind of your folks, the folks, people are mostly looking at the service industry, including service Titan was right there as for all of the options. And then we really dug in on service Titan. And, but at the end of the day, we had just very specific needs and long-term and a long-term vision that just felt like Acumatic was the best fit for us.

1:04:32Alex Bridgeman: Especially for commercial stuff too, right? Yeah. And especially with all the project stuff, they have some really good project tools and you kind of got to build it out a little more over time. But once you have it locked in, it's really great. And also, I really love their pricing structure as well, where I think a lot of this, most of the software companies are doing kind of that SaaS model, membership model where you add three technicians and now your price went up. And, you know, which kind of was a concern for us because we wanted to grow and scale and make acquisitions. So I had to kind of try to budget it.

1:05:04I was like, okay, now if I add 12 technicians due to an acquisition of another company, what's my pricing now? And sometimes it can jump just dramatically with Service Titan. And I get it. That's their model. I don't begrudge it. But what I really loved about Acumatic was there was incremental increase for volume and users, but it's very, very minimal. It's almost non-existent. So I am sure different people are going to have different pricing, but I'm just going to kind of use a ballpark. But like your pricing is, say, around$50 ,000 a year. If you add like four or five users, it's still$50 ,000 a year.

1:05:41or maybe just maybe a few hundred bucks more for this and that. But I really like the idea of an overhead cost being able to be diminished as you grow. And that's how you get economies of scale. There's something that I do bristle about that an overhead type expense like that kind of follows you. It's almost like it's chasing you as you grow. I don't like it, but I know it is what it is. I don't have any hard feelings or anything, but I just love the idea that Acumatic was a little more stable and we could diminish that because that is the idea when you're scaling, you know, you want your overhead to stay somewhat flat as you grow.

1:06:18So you're bringing more of your gross profit to the bottom. And that's kind of what we want. So over time, you're actually making more of every dollar or keeping more of every dollar you earn.

1:06:27Alex Bridgeman: So I just like that model as well. So there was, but there was other things. And I think the working relationships with Acomatic had just felt just like a better fit with us, just personalities, culture, whatever it might be, you want to call it. But it just felt more natural. But yeah, software, boy, I tell you why. So the big, this is a long, long curve here, but, but basically what I'm excited about is like, we're just really over the last, especially over the last handful of months, really been able to like fine tune some great workflows and, and things, and we actually have a project we're working on with, with Acumatic right now to really build out some even neater things.

1:07:06and wants that we were kind of dreaming of. And they said, no, we can do that in like 90 days. Let's put it together. And so I'm really excited between now and the end of the year to get that dialed in to some tools across different departments and get things really streamlined, get our data more fine-tuned in real time. So I'm really excited about getting that dialed in. One thing I've been trying to do is use stuff like Fable 5

1:07:33Alex Bridgeman: has been really good for building apps. Okay. And stuff like little, like smaller functions. Have you tried any tools making your own custom apps or things to kind of tighten around the edges that maybe Acumatic is slower to do that you might be able to do faster with an AI tool? We have experimented with that a little bit here and there, but not, I wouldn't say very much. Well, what we found is we'll build something and then we'll find out Acumatic can actually do it without us having to build that out. Or we'll have a, or you know what I mean? It's one of those things where it is such a robust software that sometimes you really got to maybe sometimes even talk to a couple of layers within the different people at the company where you're like, oh, actually, I think we can do that without you having to build, like add this extra app and expense on and actually streamline it.

1:08:25That's great. So there's been a few times where we've done that where we built something out of the stopgap and then they're like, oh, no, we can do that. You don't have to build it out. But yeah, we have a few things like that. Like one is, you know, we, we use like Go Forms for a little while. It's just some different forms, like some different apps and add-ons that just add a lot of neat functionality. And, and even with Acumatic, some things they do, there's just certain things that they have like kind of partners that work really well on the app side that it's like, Hey, it's best to actually use their thing.

1:08:56It's really dialed in and, you know, maybe it doesn't cost a whole lot more. Just that's probably the best way to go. And there's a few of those we use, but we haven't really done any custom some stuff too much of it, I guess really, or I'm not real familiar with that. What the one you were mentioning.

1:09:12Alex Bridgeman: Oh, uh, Claude Fable of five. It's one of the latest. Oh yeah. Okay. It's pretty powerful. Is it? Yeah. Well, I don't think we got a Claude person here. Maybe we need, maybe I need to hire somebody or if you know somebody, let me know. Cause I do think there's a lot of opportunities in that area to build out our own stuff that. Yeah. I don't know. some things we really dove in real quickly like especially with the ai stuff and it's working well other things it feel kind of there's a sense that maybe some things aren't ready for prime time and maybe they're not as reliable as we had hoped and maybe it's different with clob but we've tried with other ai systems that where it's it just doesn't feel like it's like it you know i don't Have you heard any of the CSR type tools or anything like that?

1:10:01CSRs. Like answering the phone? Yeah. So that's one we demoed. And that's actually a great example where we found a great AI phone for, and then we just wanted it for after hours because, you know, we have a call center because we need it for emergency service after hours. And, you know, we don't want our folks, we want our folks to be able to sleep at night and not have to do that internally. So we, you know, we, we get that out to an answering service, but then even the answering services can be somewhat unreliable sometimes. So we're always looking for a better mousetrap. And so we looked at a demo that was just, actually, it was amazing.

1:10:36The functionality, the quality with the demo was great. But then when we asked for references and when we checked the references, the customer service was great, everything was great. But what we found there was there was still a lot of folks saying, it's not a set it and forget it. And you really got to keep an eye on it because like sometimes it just doesn't work like quite right. Or the data is unreliable, like an address or whatever it is or a phone, whatever it might be. It could put it in the wrong place. Yeah. And then if you're not double checking it and then we got folks, technicians, you know, it goes to the schedule.

1:11:11Then the technician goes out and you're in the wrong place. Customer, now you're late for the customer. I mean, there's just a lot of different things that could go wrong there. But even then we even had some folks say it was glitching. like every once in a blue moon it'll almost like start thinking for itself and like talking to somebody i think i was talking to somebody where they were like customers talking just out of the blue it starts trying to give them away give them like a like a free book not a book on the industry or business or anything you wrote or anything it's just no it was just like a random something got well some wire got crossed up and like i don't know and so it's just like that makes you nervous.

1:11:50It does. So it's like, so we've kind of taken a little slower approach on some of that stuff. And also look, I think, I think emotions are high on a lot of this to where, you know, I've heard some customers, there was a customer of another door company that I know who a customer basically said, because they were using AI now for their answering service, that they're no longer into business with them to cancel all their services. And it's just like, oh my gosh. So there's a lot of passions and I understand that there's a lot of, this is all moving so fast. I think there's politics involved and there's emotion.

1:12:26It gets kind of, I don't want to get in the weeds on that stuff. I feel like we're going to be a little more cautious. And beyond that, we really like a human touch. Even if it is maybe an answering service, it is still human. And I think for right now, we kind of actually, we're just going to like keep that as a differentiation for now. I know, again, our customers really love when they call in during the day. We really, our intake does such a phenomenal job of just, you know, trying to kind of diagnose things and have a great conversation. I think that's, our customers love that. We don't want to get away from that during the day, but even for after hours, maybe it's just, I don't know if it's ready yet.

1:13:07I want all the bugs out before I, you know, feels like there's still some things it needs to figure out. Is this just me or I don't know? What are you hearing from other folks? I mean.

1:13:19Alex Bridgeman: I think others have been like more disenchanted by the early versions of these answering tools. Yeah. More often than not. Yeah. I think I'm going to keep looking at it. But that being said, I'm not in no hurry on that. I really do like a human touch. And I mean, it's way less expensive. And if it does get to a point where it's set it, like kind of more set it and forget it, and it's running reliably. I mean, I think, again, I don't think folks will, they don't really regard just having an answering service in general, you know, because they understand, hey, we got to sleep too. But I think. It's also common in like medical too.

1:13:58Alex Bridgeman: Like you'll have an after hours answering service. It's a third party outsource that is more for triage. Like if a patient's trying to call, like my mom's a family physician. So the family clinic that she owned and ran, there was an answering service that if a patient of hers called at like 8 p.m. about something, there was this service that was trained for to be for medical triage. And they could tell the patient, OK, you're fine. We'll schedule you in the morning or go to the urgent care or go to emergency room and they could help kind of coordinate. Yeah. So I think you're right. I don't think there's like a grudge against answering services generally.

1:14:37Yeah, but the AI stuff is touchy a little bit. You got to position it. Like, I just, I think for now, we're just going to hold tight on that. I don't know. And I do think even with the answering services outside of AI, I think there's other things to consider, like local, overseas. Some of the local end up subbing out overseas and you're like, you know, but so it ends up overseas anyways. I think one of the models we really like is where your answering service has a dedicated team where it's not just a different person every single time and it's bouncing all over the country or even around the world.

1:15:15I think some people, and it's like, if you can get a core group that where it's at least a core group and the answering team that is kind of assigned to your account, they do tend to learn more as you engage with them and develop your script and your expectations and have a working relationship. they can actually start learning some of that things that like doing kind of a light triage, like we do on intake. We're not, we're not going to fix a door over intake, but there are some really key things to ask and maybe suggest, or, you know, maybe it's just a photo eyes alignment and you can kind of figure that out sometimes pretty simply.

1:15:49And we'll usually walk someone through that. So, you know, they're not, we don't have to charge them to go out and do something that basically just have to move up, twist a little, you know, photo eye, maybe a quarter wrench to the left and it works. Like, you know, we actually try to get out ahead of that. So because like, Hey, you know, we, we only come out there and charge you for that. I think, I mean, there's different ways of looking at some folks just want to get out in front of the customer, but you know, if it's something like that, um, I mean, and even then we'll ask like, Hey, do you still want us to come out?

1:16:18We can still lube and adjust your door and maybe look at other things. And, and they'll, some oftentimes still like, yeah, why don't you come out and check everything else out? But, but sometimes it's like, Oh, I'll really thank you. And then you've built a long-term customer. And then next time something more serious happens, they'll call you and you can get on it. But yeah, having a dedicated team, I think it's something we really like, even in your answering service, if there's a way they can structure it. And there's some answering services that do that well.

1:16:45Alex Bridgeman: It's a good place to close. Dustin, thanks for coming on the podcast. This is a ton of fun. I appreciate it. Alex, I don't want to take too much more of your time. No, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Absolutely.

1:16:57Alex Bridgeman: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Think Like an Owner. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a review and telling a friend to help more folks find Think Like an Owner. For full episode transcripts in our weekly newsletter, please visit our website at tlaopodcast.com.