How to Hire a GM or Operator for Your Home Service Business (and Avoid a $100K Hiring Mistake)
Scaling past $10M can expose a brutal truth: the leadership team that got you here might not be the team that gets you to $25M+. In this episode, John Wilson talks with Brendan Aronson (Founder of The Military Veteran, TMV), a recruiting firm that places military veterans into executive and operator roles at home service companies.
They break down what an “operator” actually does in a growing HVAC, plumbing, or electrical business—how to know when you need one, and how to avoid the expensive hiring mistakes that come from unclear expectations and a sloppy process. Brendan shares why veterans often excel under pressure, what to look for in reference checks, and the biggest red flag after a senior hire: changing everything on Day 1.
You’ll learn:
- What a true GM/operator looks like in a $10M–$40M+ home service company
- How to test for performance under pressure (behavioral questions + reference checks)
- The #1 red flag: leaders who “rip up the carpet” immediately
- Why the best operators listen first—and when fast change is required (safety/acute risk)
- How to build a real hiring pipeline (dozens screened → ~7 serious interviews)
Host: John Wilson — https://x.com/WilsonCompanies
Guest: Brendan Aronson (TMV) — https://themilvet.typeform.com/to/BDwkmCU0?typeform-source=www.themilvet.org
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More Ways To Connect with O&O
John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC
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What someone behaves like under pressure, they're Marines, so they're professionally trained in running into brick walls with their head. First, you are hiring someone that is a professionally trained teammate. As you get more senior and you're able to take sort of a longer term view, if you find yourself spending a lot of time either on low margin tasks or low ROI tasks, it's probably time to think about bringing someone on.I would assume that a red flag. Is someone immediately came in and started like ripping up the carpet. The military is actually like a great place where you see this in effect because people change jobs every couple of years. You don't come in and immediately change things. You like listen for a little bit, Hey, is this team capable of going from 40 to a hundred?Does it need retooling or does it need to reset? That's why leadership is so hard 'cause you're figuring out how do I motivate someone to, to be able to do this? And then also how do I give them the tools to be able to do it? Why should we hire military veterans? Man, that's a good question.Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. During the day. I run a 40 ish million dollar company now, which is kind of fun. Uh, we're a plumbing HVAC electric, and we are Indiana and Ohio. About to be one more state so that, uh, hang tight. That should be pretty fun. Today we brought on Brendan Aronson, the founder of TMV, the Military Vet, which is a recruiting firm that places operators from military veterans.Stay tuned. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, this will be fun. Uh, I, we were just talking a second ago off camera, how I feel like this has become more and more of a, of a topic of, hey, there's all these, uh, military veterans out there. I think you said 16 million. Yes. Yeah. And this is becoming a, a hotter and hotter topic of, hey, can we place these, uh, you know, skilled professionals into leadership positions?And they're uniquely qualified. To come in and, and lead. So this will, this will be a ton of fun to dive into. Let's talk about actually hiring the leader. So we're going through this interview process. How many, how many people is like a good amount to talk to if you're hiring like a high stakes role, like a GM president, CFO.I mean, you know, if you're working with a firm like ours, we've talked to dozens of people before you have, and so we've kind of pared it down a little bit. Um, for our own. So is dozens the numbers? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, for our own, uh, hiring process, we don't make hiring decisions unless we've talked to seven people for like a specific role.Mm-hmm. Um, and it depends again, on the seniority of the role. Um, but yeah, I would say, uh, a big pipeline's better. 'cause you're obviously, you're just gonna see a lot more things and have more opportunities. Um, so we've talked a lot about. How you are going to try and suss out whether someone is a good fit for the business and the role.Um, what we haven't talked as much about is passive talent and convincing them to come over. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So there's two types of talent. Typically, there's active and passive. Um, active talent is like, I am in a job hunt. I'm applying to a lot of different roles. I'm, you know, putting my name out there a lot.Um, and then passive talent is like, man, I'm happy in the role that I'm in. I've been here for like 3, 4, 5, 10 years. Yeah. Um, and I'm not looking around. Like our jobs, go out and find that person, pry 'em out where they are, and help your, you know, our client hire them. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, the other side of the hiring process is in addition to letting you get to know someone, it allows them to get to know you and see how you do business and how you operate.You know, you can tell a lot about a company by the hiring process that they run. Yeah. If you're applying for a job or you're, you've been hit up by a headhunter and they, you know, say to you, we will get back to you by next Wednesday. With a response and you don't hear from 'em. And then Wednesday goes by and you know it's Friday, you still don't hear from 'em.And then it's like three, two, you know, two weeks later and they're like, Hey, we'd love to move you forward. It's like, what does that say about how you are running your process if this is supposed to be important to you? Yeah. Um, again, like that's where a firm like ours where our team will like, actively check in on a candidate, give them updates, um, along the way and keep them, you know, warm throughout the process can be helpful.And then, you know, selling the opportunity of like, why should you come work here? You're a hitter at your current organization. We recruited, uh, the CEO of our business. I'm, I'm in a board position, uh, and spend my time investing now. But, uh, the CEO of our business, we recruited him out of a firm. He had been out for 25 years.So he left the Marine Corps in like 2000. He got stop loss and brought back on service for a year after nine 11 and worked in the Pentagon. He's the only guy to ever have positive things to say about his experience in the Pentagon. Um, and then went to work at a recruiting business, um, which was acquired by Korn Ferry.Spent a number of years there, which is like the, one of the premier executive search firms in the world. You know, was a very senior partner there. Um, again, specifically focused on this military population. He, so he'd been with the same company for 25 years and you know, when we started talking to him, we were like, man, Jim, like we really respect and admire what you do.We think that you're like 800 pound gorilla in our space. Yeah. You know, we had run some numbers and estimated that he had talked to like half a percent of all the veterans in America over the years. That's crazy. It's a wild number. He, I mean, he was running these veteran recruiting conferences for decades.Yeah. That through, you know, the throughput of them was very high. Um. And everybody knew Jim. Um, he's a monster and has done a lot for our community. And so we had to, you know, talk to Jim about like, Hey, like what are you looking for in the next phase? Like, this can be a really long-term partnership. We want you to be really happy here and you know, we think the world of you.Um, and so we had to help him understand why we would be good people to work with. And at the same time that we were doing, you know, our evaluation of him as a partner, he was doing the same thing for us. He was backdooring, you know, asking everyone that he knew that knew us, what do they have to say about us and what we're doing with the community.And so that is sort of like the flip side of having a process is in addition to evaluation, you've got the selling aspect of it. Like, make someone want to come work for you and, and, and. See it as a way to accomplish their goals. That's better than the role that they're in right now. Yeah. I talk to a lot of home service business owners, and if you are anything like the many shops that I know, you're getting flooded with AI pitches right now.Most of 'em sound great, but then they fall apart. The second they hit the real world. The one that I've kept coming back to is Avoca. What impressed me is they actually get how contracting businesses run, and it's not just some AI answering service. Avoca is going to handle inbound calls, outbound follow-ups, texts, web leads, dispatching, and even coaching your CSRs.Inside of one system that's built for growing home service companies. And if you're on ServiceTitan, this matters. Your integrations go deep so you're not duct taping five tools together and hoping nothing breaks during your busy season. I also like that they're honest about what AI should and shouldn't do when a call needs a human, they have a 24 7 live transfer built in, no drop balls, no awkward customer experience owners using Avoca are seeing hold times, basically disappear and booking rates jump.Sometimes by more than 30%, and that is real revenue, not just a vanity metric. If you're looking for the one AI partner that actually helps you book more jobs without creating more chaos, this is worth taking a look. Book a demo at the link below. What are some like ways to do that? What are some tools? Oh, I mean, like, you know, I would feel like, uh, any business owner who has gotten to the scale where, uh, they're hiring someone into one of these types of roles has like a good idea of why someone should want to come work with them.Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, I'm guessing, you know, you guys have been around for a really long time. Mm-hmm. Um, but, you know, you can tell me better than anyone why someone might want to come work at your firm. Um, yeah. I mean, I guess what you're trying to get at on the hiring side is what is someone's motivations?Are they at a position in life where they are looking to where compensation is the number one driver? Right. Is location incredibly important to them and their wife really wants to move back to be around her family and mm-hmm. They're not gonna look at roles outside of that. Um, or is like equity and long-term incentives, like they wanna feel like a part of the team, they wanna be incentivized by equity.Is that what is going to move the needle for them? That's part of like our team's job. That's part of any hiring manager's job is to suss out like, what is most important to this candidate? 'cause it's not always the same thing. Some people. Um, like our CEO Jim, like, you know, he had a conversation with me that was very direct, that was like, look like I really like to ski and I've got three girls and they like to ski too, and like, this is an important part of my life.And it was like, Jim, like, bring your skis as long as I can come with you for a day a year. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care. You know? Um, and, and so, uh, people have all kinds of different reasons why they make decisions around their careers. Um, so understanding what those decisions are. Do they wanna spend more time with family?Do they want a more flexible. PTO policy, do they need to take a certain amount of time off for X, y, and Z life event? Yeah. Um, or is it just all about the money? Um, yeah, there's no right or wrong answer. I don't think that that impacts how you would view a candidate. It's just something that's important to know so that you can then help them understand why it is a good fit, or be able to be like, look, man, like it's just not the right fit.You're awesome. We'd love to have you on the team, but like, you gotta be in, you know. X location and we're just not there yet, but we're gonna call you when we buy a business in your, your area of operations, your ao Yeah. Um, you know, these are the kinds of things that you should be sussing out. Yeah. How do you unpack, um, uh, workplace behavior?I guess So like some of, some of the examples we've brought up. Um. Building a process versus running this process. Like, you know, where are you comfortable in that zone? Uh, like what type of pressure can you withstand? Um, trying to think of some example. We, we were doing a interview for, um, first off the wrong thing, but, but that doesn't matter.Uh, this was like four or five years ago. And, um, I was really fortunate because the candidate told me, hmm. That, uh, it was a, it was a, like a finance role, and it was during a period, it was like 20, 20, 20, 21, 22, somewhere in there. It was during a period of like heavy growth, heavy growth, heavy cash consumption.Like the business expanded quite a bit and, and the, uh, the candidate, I think we were hiring. We should have been trying to hire for a controller. And we are, you know, I think the titles we were looking at were like VP of finance or whatever, but um, the candidate said like, Hey, is this, uh, I don't remember what word she used, but just like, basically evergreen, profitable, like, are there any challenges throughout the day or like.On a range of this is Evergreen, profitable and like you're a turnaround, like a one to 10, right? Like where are you in that range? And like, we were probably like a four and a half, right? Like we were like right in the middle. We had just tripled the business in 90 days or something. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, like that's amazing.We're tired, you know, we have stuff going on. But, but I was, I was really glad that she brought that up. 'cause otherwise she would've been a great candidate. But like we were in a pressure cooker. Hmm. Because of the, just demand of the business at this time. Yes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.So like, so some of those like, okay, well how, how does somebody behave under pressure? And how do you like under, aside from the, well they were in the military. Well like, sure. But like, how else can we understand like what someone behaves like under pressure? Man, that's a good question. Um, I mean, I would say that the reference checks are probably like a great mm-hmm.Are like your, maybe your best proxy for getting at that. You can ask, of course. Like everybody knows behavioral interviews, like, tell me about a time that you did X or Y or whatever. I mean, those kinds of questions I think are helpful for, and, you know, what is, what feels high pressure to one person might not for another, it just depends.Um, so like for instance, when I transitioned outta the Marine Corps, I was. A year out from having done an A deployment to Iraq. Right. And this was when ISIS controlled like, you know, most of the country. We were on the small outpost in the middle bad guy country. And um, you know, then I went to work at Goldman Sach's in New York and it was like super high pressure and it's like, you know, everything's gotta be right for the clients 'cause they're paying this huge bill.Um, and, you know, I looked around, the other interns were young, you know? Yeah. And it was like, it would have like analysts come to me like, you know. Crying 'cause they got something wrong on a slide and whatever. And I was just like, look man, like nobody's shooting at us. Like we're gonna be just fine.Mm-hmm. This is gonna, you know, buff out. And like, that feels like a tremendous amount of pressure for one person. And it might not for another person because it's just like they've had these different experiences or different kind of perspectives. Yeah. Um, so I think like the, the subjective experience of what that felt like for the individual is super important.I guess those, maybe it's a little bit of a squishy answer, but probably both of those two things, like ask them about it so that you know what their own. Level of comfort is with high pressure situations. And then ask the references like, what was a really stressful time that, you know, you had this person on the team, and how did they react?You placed a few hundred. Yeah, yeah. How often is it a turnaround situation? I mean, for most of those placements, the client was like a private equity backed business that was buying a business and the founder was looking to step away and there was gonna be an overlap period. You know, three months to a year, right?Mm-hmm. Um, but they try not to buy assets that are not good. So typically on the way, in their view is like, man, we're lucky to have this. Like, we're lucky to be able to buy this asset. Um, so I would say it's atypical for us to have, uh, where we're plugging someone in on a turnaround situation. But it, this definitely happened.Um, we've had leaders come to us and say, like, this. Business is not what we thought it was going to be. And this is a turnaround situation. Um, and those, those are always, uh, I mean, it's a challenging spot to be in. Like it's scary. Yeah. Right. Um, for ev for all parties. And I think for turnarounds you're kind of looking for a specific person.Something that has the joy of the turnaround. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because for them it's higher. If you like turnarounds, like, you know, you like turnarounds. Totally. Yeah. We had a guy on the podcast who's a great American, he was a Marine, he worked on a turnaround for KKR. Over the course of like a two year period and got it done, but it was like it aged him, you know?Mm-hmm. Um, but he just loved it. And my questions to him on the podcast were like, tell me about, you know, what that experience was like and why you sought it out. Um, because like, if I'm thinking about a private sector career, for someone that's come outta the military, a lot of times they're trying to de-risk their career in their early innings and going to like a name brand place or an MBA program or something like that, or an undergraduate university, 50% of veterans transition through higher ed and then.You know, they are trying to not place bets with their career that could fail. Right. You know, everybody, I mean, especially folks from the military population because it's such a linear career path, they're oftentimes trying to pattern match in the private sector. And the private sector careers are really non-linear, which is really tricky, I think.Um, but uh, saying to someone like, this is a really high stake situation that you're stepping into. The business has some hair on it. Um. Is intimidating and you need the, you gotta have the right person in there. 'cause otherwise someone's gonna come in and be like, O yeah, like this is just like, what? How did I get into this position?And that's not a good look for us either to like have a candidate Oh yeah. Get onto a job who's either poorly prepared for it or who is, um, I would have to imagine it just starts to happen more. I mean the industry had a tough 25 and like we're seeing more and more, um, like pe castoffs. Yeah. It depends.Yeah, for sure. Like I had, uh, I mean I have like five friends that bought a PE castoff this year, like just this year. Interesting. And so they were buying a business that was owned by a sponsor that the sponsor was just like, we don't want this. It wrecked it and left it. Yeah. God. Yeah. Real. Yeah. But I mean, an opportunity for somebody.Sure. Like let's come in and fix it. Um. It doesn't sound like that's a big part of the current like offering. I mean, we, we, like I said, we've worked with those kinds of companies. I think it's just like we've worked with companies man, from like, these are mature businesses that have the process. They've got the playbook, they've got the scorecard.They've used it dozens of times to like, we've done employee number one. Yeah. At a company. We've done employee number, like two or three outta HoldCo that's backed by a family office or a sponsor, et cetera. All the way in between those ranges. Yeah. Um, so I think it's something that we'd be really comfortable looking at.But it's also like we have to understand our client's needs. Yeah. Really, really well. 'cause we just can't, you can't operate otherwise. And we're gonna, it's a waste of everybody's time if we don't have, uh. Alignment or an understanding of what you need. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Let's talk about scaling a little bit.Um, so the segment is building a, a bench that scales. Mm. Now we've done this a little bit. I'm, I'm curious how you think about this. Uh, less so from pipeline. Like we have not done a great job with pipeline. But what we have done a good job with is taking frontline leaders and turn, taking frontline team members, turning them into frontline leaders, and we're getting better at turning frontline leaders into senior leaders.And we're like sort of unpacking that right now. Over the past, um, about a year and a half. So we've been doing that more and more. Like what do you see out there that's best in class? Like you're working with some of the largest firms in our space, like how are they doing it and how are, how does that look?I mean. You know, for us, typically when we're interacting with a client, it's when they have an acute need. Mm-hmm. Um, but they always ask us like, can you just keep an ear to the ground? And if you hear of someone that might be of interest to us in the long term, like let us know about it. Yeah. Um, for any good executive, the role over time, especially if you're like, you know, the E-Myth kind of progression of like, I was a technician and now I'm a small business owner, and now I'm trying to scale.Your job becomes more and more hiring based over time. 'cause you're identifying the constraints, putting the person in that can solve those constraints. And so as you get more senior and you're able to take sort of a longer term view, you are, and I'm sure you do, this, is like you are spending more of your time interacting with folks.Mm-hmm. And building your network so that when a need arises, you at least have someone that you can call that can be like, hey. You know, we talked about X problem that I was facing at one point, and I've got this other problem now. Can you help me think, how should I even think about this? Um, so I think just like naturally being open to having a lot of conversations, um, is something that some of the best executives will do.It's hard, it's so hard because you've got so many different priorities and so many different things going on. Um, but yeah, I mean, having that like broad network yourself or at least having access to people that have like a super broad network. It's really helpful. There are a variety of roles that are professional networking roles.Yeah. Obviously, like headhunting is one of them, obviously. Um, like, you know, we talk about, uh, we just hosted the Military Veteran Startup Conference. Why we missed your guys conference a couple weeks ago. Hmm. The HoldCo Conference. But, um, like venture investors are, they have that, like they've got, they're, you know, an inch deep and a mile wide a lot of times.Yeah. They've got like a really broad network. Um, yeah. So having those people that you can also just like call and be like, Hey, like here's a problem I'm facing. Who can I talk to? That can be really helpful. Mm-hmm. Um, and then, yeah, I mean for like a large mature like enterprise company, um, they will keep running.They'll keep it running. How, how do you define, I mean, if your, if your business is doing like over nine figures right? Or it's a billion dollars a year of top line. Yeah. Yeah. Like you have a list of people, right, who are. Hitters in a variety of different spaces, and you think really, really highly of them, and you're like, you know, man, I would give anything to be able to work with these people.Um, so you've kind of like got an ear to the ground and you, you probably have like a formalized list. Mm-hmm. So with some of our partners, again, oftentimes it's like an acute need, but we do have relationships with either their backers or like, you know, even a level up from the HoldCo at like the sponsor level where they're like, can you keep like a running list for us for folks that might be.Outside of the band that you're typically working at and is maybe like a notch higher. Yeah. Um, just so that we have that bench. Um, yeah. It's hard to answer 'cause it's like, how do I build a leadership? How do I build a bench of additional like auxiliary people that I might be able to work over to come and join us?So most of your answer is external. Most of what, most of your answer was external. Yeah. I think that's sort of like build a network. Yeah. Um, be be ready to call. Yeah. Yeah. How, how do you think about it internal. I mean, one of the values or one of the most beautiful things about your organization growing and like we've experienced this firsthand Yeah.Is as you bring on the right people, they've got a network of people that they've worked with, right. You know, they might have like a non-solicit or something like that in place for a period of time, but ultimately that's part of the benefit. And everybody on the team, everybody does sales, right? Um, and everybody does hiring.So it's like, as you're bringing people on, it's also just great, especially at the senior levels. It's also great to be able to have folks that have that network from having been in the space for a while, who can be like, Hey, you know, we have this acute need. Here's what we need. And like, here's five people I've worked with over the last 20 years who would be like.Total no-brainers. I would love to work with them again. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, internally you can naturally develop that too. You can formalize that and have that be like, let's keep a running list. That probably is not gonna be the case, just 'cause it's like you got a thousand different fires to fight every day.Yeah. Um. But, um, you know, even just knowing that you've got experienced leaders on the team that have that kind of broad network is, it can be really helpful. Yeah. If you're running a home service company with a fleet, here's a question for you. Do you actually know what's happening at the pump? Not what you hope is happening, but what's actually happening?I'm talking shared pins. Manual, odometer entries, cards that still work even when the truck isn't there. That stuff adds up fast, and that's why a lot of operators that I know are switching to Coast Coast is a smart fuel card built for the trades. It uses GPS and vehicle data to verify transactions in real time.So if the vehicle isn't present, then the card declines. If the fuel volume looks off, it flags it and it's backed by a $25,000 fuel fraud guarantee. Some terms apply. It's also a Visa card, so your techs can fuel wherever. Makes sense. No detours, no weird network limitations, and you can control exactly what each card is allowed to buy.One company Milestone Home Services saved over 130,000 a year after switching. Plus cut down fraud and admin time. If you've got trucks on the road and fuel is a meaningful line item, this is worth five minutes. Go to coast pay.com/owned and operated, or click the link below. And get a custom savings estimate and see where your leaks are coming from.If someone's bringing on like the senior leader, I keep going back to like CFO gm, something like that. What, what does it, what's a normal time to impact? Uh, it depends. So frustrating answer again. Mm-hmm. Um, are you talking about a normal time length for a search or for someone to get into the seat to make contact for them to make an impact?Because I think that, uh, like the, the farther up in the organization, the longer that the time period of like the measurement of successes. So like if I'm a technician, my measurement of success is yesterday. Right? Right. Sure, sure. Like, Hey, did I do a good job yesterday or not? Is there a callback? Is there a sale?Um, if you're a frontline leader, it's like, did we win the week? Did we win the month? If you're a senior leader, did we win the quarter or did we win the year? Right. And it gets harder and harder to measure, uh, like a, a president. Sure. Um. Like measure the positive or negative impact that they made? Yes.Upon hire. So like I would assume a red flag is, and you sort of alluded to this earlier, but I would assume that a red flag is someone immediately came in and started like ripping up the carpet. Yeah. Like if you're making a ton of changes off the rip and you don't know a lot about the organization, like you should not be looking for that.Yeah. I mean like the military is actually like a great place where you see this in effect because people change jobs every couple of years. So like a commander of a unit might only be in that seat for 18 months. Mm-hmm. Right? Um, and they're inheriting whatever the previous commanders have done, the institutional knowledge.And then every person in that organization is turning over every three years. Right. So, um, so you get, so at least in our community, we get people that are like, at least a little bit familiar with change management. And the rule of thumb in the military is like, you don't come in and immediately change things.You like listen for a little bit. Unless there's a problem that is like, you know, acute. Yeah, yeah. It's like a big problem. Like, you know, behavioral issues or something that's gonna put the business at risk or something like that. For us, it's like, you know, if you see like a safety issue, like where you're gonna, Hey, we're gonna go fire some orders, but we haven't really like plotted it out.We haven't really thought about it. Like, I'm just gonna go like, let the boys sling some, you know, explosives, downrange. It's like, all right, let's not do that. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, to your point, I think you kinda answered the question, which is like. As an organization gets bigger, it is, it takes more time to steer.So like, you know, the difference between turning a cigarette boat and turning an aircraft carrier is like one of them is gonna have a tight radius and the other one is gonna take some time to turn. Um, and I think the same thing is true in the private sector of like, if you're bringing someone in and giving them a $40 million a year business to run, they are not going to.Be able to make as hard of a pivot as someone that runs a $5 million a year company. What if they did? It'd be probably a nightmare. Totally. Yeah. You would at trite people, you'd have, you know, cultural issues. Yeah. I mean, you're creating additional problems along the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would imagine, um, you know, back to this sort of like pain point of hiring.Like there's a need. We're feeling it every day. Um. I would imagine that people think that they want that. I mean, everybody wants their problems to go away overnight, especially when they're painful. Yeah, for sure. Um, but yeah, I mean unfortunately that's not the world that we live in, so it can take a little bit of time.Yeah. One of the phrases that we have talked about on this show a lot is, uh, maybe a little bit different here, but I think it ties into this next question, is, uh. Who you start with is not who you end with. Yes. Which it's like a painful truth of growing the business. Especially like if you're starting small, like you are bringing on people that like, Hey, they're probably not gonna be with you when the business is 50 or a hundred, or, you know, whatever.Like as, as we think about how to process that or as we think about like what to look for, what are some signals that you see? Hey, it's time to upgrade like this position or like this even suite of leaders. Like how, how are you thinking about that? Um, I mean, there's no like hard and fast. Well, once I hit $20 million a year of revenue, I need X because every business is different and the skills of the individual person are different.But you can, again, think about it in terms of constraints. So, um, you guys have had Chris Hoffman on in the past. I think he talked about this and he's a fellow Marine. Um. But like, can I hand, how much of my time am I spending on various tasks? And then is there someone that is more capable of dealing with those tasks than I am?Or is my time better used in a higher leverage way? So like, you know, if a business is going through scaling from like 2 million to 10 million, it's still probably founder led sales. But to get to that $10 million point, like you're gonna have to have people who can sell on your behalf. Yeah. And so. That is maybe the highest ROI use of your time.So if you're spending a lot of time on the operational portion of the business, it's like a no-brainer of like, hey, like we have to have fantastic operations. Someone needs to give this their full-time love and attention because we've gotta make our clients really happy and we pride ourselves on the work that we do.And if I can spend more of my time selling, then ultimately that will make the business more efficient. Um, or, you know, it'll make the business grow. Then that's an obvious time when it's like, yeah, like a. Operations manager, a director of operations, might be a really good fit for you. Right? And now you've alleviated that piece on the founder's shoulders and they can then move on to selling all day.And then it's like, man, I can't get enough leads on my calendar 'cause I'm always on the phone with potential clients. It's a good problem to have, but like let's get some people in here that can generate some leads. Right? Yeah. Um. I think it just changes over time. Like you would know better than me the needs of growing a business from, you know, 10 to 40.Um, and so you could probably speak to a lot of those pain points that you've solved for over time. But I think that's like the general framework that I would give, which is like if you find yourself spending a lot of time either on low margin tasks or low ROI tasks. Um, or you're doing something and you know that you're not doing it as well as someone else can do, then it's probably time to think about bringing someone on.Yeah. Are how many of the engagements, um, as a p, like a PE backed or a sponsor backed, uh, customer they're coming in? Like, there's some firms that replace the gm mm-hmm. Always no matter what. Uh, so I just sort of wanna like ignore those ones. For the ones that decide post acquisition, like, Hey, am I gonna replace, am I gonna keep, like, what are those pain points usually look like?I think they usually have like an idea of whether they are or not, like going in. Yeah. Um, based on the candidate. Based on No, but going into like buying an asset. Okay. Right. Um, because they're purchasing the asset for a reason, someone's exiting their business. And then the question is like, well, does that person want to stay on?Yeah. Do they want to roll over their equity and Yeah. Just be a part of a larger organization, you know? Is it an asset to your point that you're buying from like another sponsor, like another private equity backed company? Or is it an asset that we're buying? Buying from a founder who might like bristle at.Being part of a larger, maybe more bureaucratic organization, um, I think they kind of have an idea of it in mind ahead of time. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm, I'm trying to understand, like, I know the reasons that I've had that we've upgraded leadership and I'm trying to, can you talk about any of those reasons?Yeah, I mean, it's almost always like a Peter principle problem. Okay. Um, but I, you know, I don't know what I don't know. So like, Hey, yeah, I could walk somebody through the 10 to 30, 10 to 40. Like what happened? Um, I don't know what happens, 40 to 80, like I have guesses. Um, but it, it gets harder, you know, the more and more removed.You get from the minutia. Yes. It's harder to figure out when someone, Peter, principles to be honest. Uh, and like that's obviously the point of like KPIs and metrics, like, Hey, is your team lagging? Is, is succeeding and trying to like set up the guardrails, but it does get trickier to figure out and, um. So I'm, I'm just trying to imagine like if I was a, if I was a buyer and, and I was out there, like, what would I be looking for because, uh, for my next stage, because I don't really know, you know, I don't know.Yeah. Uh, I don't know how they would think about it, and I don't know how someone would look at our team as like, Hey, is this team capable of going from 40 to a hundred with, does it need retooling or does it need reset? I mean, when you say reset, you're not, you're talking about like, that'd be like hiring, retooling would be like training.Sure, sure. Is there like a knowledge gap that we can enhance or, um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, again, I think it really depends. Um. But like Id in a really ideal world, like you want to create somewhere where people can come work for a really long time. Yeah. Um, and have like a pathway. And you know what the basic human motivations are?Like people wanna make more, they want to have more responsibility, more authority. Yeah. Maybe, maybe they don't, some people don't. Um, but like, are they capable of getting to that next level? It's not, those are hard leadership questions. Um, you know, I guess I had the benefit of, like in the Marine Corps there are, it's, it is structured in terms of how you progress.Yeah. Like there's like. Doctrinal schools that you will go to when you hit different wickets along the way, that's not really a benefit that you have in the private sector. Mm-hmm. Um, but having like, you know, being willing to make the investment in training and development for your people is obviously really important.Sounds like just like a platitude, but we've seen the benefits of that. Yeah. In our own team. Um. Being able to formalize that is obviously like a luxury for, as you get bigger, you can make it more formal. And in the earlier stages it's just like, you know, more challenging. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think that the companies that we've seen be really successful, they do take a really long-term view of their talent.They want to create a place that people wanna work for a long time, and that there's a variety of ways that you can support that through benefits. 401k stuff, whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, and then they create the conditions that will allow someone to uplevel. Right. Um, but yeah, it's hard. I mean that's the basic, that's why leadership is so hard.'cause you're figuring out how do I motivate someone to, to be able to do this? And then also how do I give them the tools to be able to do it. Yeah. So, yeah. And all of those things cost money. They do while you're trying to grow and money and time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which is like the limiting resources.Yeah. So that's why business is so much fun and fascinating. It's like. It's hard and it's, mm-hmm. I think for me it's been just like an incredible tool for personal development. Oh yeah. You know, when you're like in that seat and the business isn't growing as fast as you want it to grow or it's failing in some kind of way.Yeah. You like look in the mirror and you're like, well, I know what the problem is. Yeah. I wish it wasn't, but it is. I don't, I'm sure that we sort of covered this along the way that Yeah, probably. Why should we hire military veterans? I mean, uh, we're big fans of military veterans. We named our company the military veteran.Uh, we did, we did. It's pretty direct. We're not maybe great at, uh, subtle marketing. Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, veterans have unique skill sets. Um, there's, there's like multiple components to this. One is the values based piece. Yeah. When you're hiring a veteran, you are hiring someone that is a professionally trained teammate.Right? Mm-hmm. They are. If they've adopted the best attributes that the military has to offer, they are someone that has been trained to put a team and a mission above themselves. Right? You find that across all the branches of the service, regardless of what the specific role is. You find people that are super mission oriented, that are like, you know, when I was at the infantry officers course.You know, they asked a question of the, um, students, like, what is, what is what is most important for you as a junior officer? And it's like, well, that we like give it our all every day is what someone said. And the instructor was like, no, that is not what matters. The only thing that matters is victory in combat.Mm-hmm. That's it. And that you bring home as many people as you can while accomplishing your mission. Like no one cares how hard you tried. So you're, you're finding those kinds of skill sets that have been, or, um, attributes that have been built over a long period of time. And then when you layer on top of that.Those experiences alongside someone that has been in the private sector for a little bit. We do help companies hire people that are straight outta the military, depending on the role, um, which can be a great fit for people, especially if you're looking for like athletes. Um, or you've got like a general more of like a generalist type role.Um, that can be really good. You know, it's a really powerful combo for someone that can. Speak the language of business, understands their KPIs, understands what needs to happen, and then they also have this robust leadership capacity, and they have the ability to align a team and to earn the respect of a, you know, variety of types of type of types of employees.Mm-hmm. Um, and teammates, you know, it's really powerful combination. Yeah. Um, and they've got this grit factor, right? This adversity quotient. Aq. Yeah. Um, a lot of our clients talk about aq. We want someone that's gritty and that's gonna mm-hmm. Persevere. I'm thinking about some of my friends who are just like, man, you know, they're Marines, so they're professionally trained in running into brick walls with their head first over and over again.You know? Um, and so yeah, you're finding people with high adversity quotient who know what it is to suffer and to say to themselves, I had this conversation this morning with a really close friend of mine, uh, who's got a lot of, a lot of moving parts in his life, both personally and professionally. Mm-hmm.And he was like, look man, I was like, you got a lot on your shoulders right now. He was like, the only way out is through. Mm-hmm. It's like, yeah. I mean, that's what you want. So, yeah. Yeah. I think that was a great primer on why to do it. I don't know that we, I don't know why. I think in our frontline leadership, we have a few military veterans.I'm not sure how they've sort of never snuck up into senior leadership, but, we'll, we'll have to look at it now. Customers today expect pricing online, and whether we like it or not, homeowners want transparency before they ever even pick up the phone. So we decided to lean into that. And that's why we use contractor commerce inside Wilson.It costs us about $1,600 a month, and we run it across hvac, plumbing, and electrical. We use it for things like generator install estimates, water heater estimates, full HVAC replacement estimates, and it's producing real revenue. There are months where we've driven 20,000, 30,000, and even 40,000 in book sales.Directly through the platform, we've had double digit jobs booked in strong months straight from our website. What this really does is it turns our website into a guided sales process. Customers can see their options, they can see pricing ranges, and when they contact us, they're way more educated. If you're trying to modernize your sales process and capture demands that would otherwise bounce.It's worth looking at. Go check out contractor commerce and book a demo at the link below. Well, thanks for coming on today. This was a ton of fun. I feel like we had a good, uh, I feel like we had a good discussion here and hiring leaders what to look for, how to do it. This was really fun. Yeah. I appreciate you having us on.Um, you know, if we can be helpful in thinking about people's talent strategies, uh, you can Jo Yeah, I can make it a hold. Yeah. At the mill that.org. Okay. And then, um. You know, we've got like an intake form there. People can actually select that they heard about us through. Oh, nice. Your show. Yeah. Great. Um, and then, um, other than that, if you're a veteran, we have events for military veterans to help build their private sector network across the country.Yeah. We've got podcasts, newsletter, you know, go on our website, check out those resources. Um. And, um, you know, good luck to people that are scaling and building their businesses. Um, and then for you personally, like you, if, if 22% of your workforce is veterans grateful for your, uh, you know, support for our community.It's been awesome and it's really cool. So thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I.
