What happens when business meets conviction? In this episode of Owned and Operated, we explore how faith, intentionality, and grit shaped one plumbing entrepreneur’s journey from early struggle to long-term success.
Dalton Hatch, founder of DH Plumbing in San Antonio, opens up about the mindset and personal transformation that fueled his growth. From rejecting aggressive sales tactics in favor of real customer care, to learning the hard lessons of money, mentorship, and marketing—Dalton lays it all out.
If you're a trades entrepreneur, service business operator, or just getting started, this episode will shift how you think about scaling, culture, and staying true to your values in business.
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208 Transcript
Dalton Hatch: [00:00:00] One in the morning, I'm standing in my shop and I'm like, so crying. Mm-hmm. Like I got four, five miles to feed. I got no, I'm go down to like my last 500 bucks. I got a mortgage, like all the pressure, right? I was the guy that made fun of God. I made fun of Christians, like openly mocked Christians kind of guy.
I'm like, it's yours, dude. I obviously can't do this. You're the last resort. And then the next day we've been booked. I truly believe that is first and foremost the reason, um, secondly is just like we don't, we don't put sales as the most important saying, like, we just take really good care of people.
John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Today on the show I have Dalton Hatch from DH Plumbing in San Antonio. Welcome to the show. What's up brother? This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I. As we sort of like gave you a tour around you were, you were dropping some stuff and I was like, holy shit.
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We'll uncover what's holding you back and lay out a path forward. No fluff, no corporate finance speak, CFO made easy.com. It's time to grow with clarity. I had a friend out maybe two or three weeks ago. Yeah. And he, he's in one of my peer [00:02:00] groups and really inspirational guy. And he was running a $200 million business.
And I didn't actually know that until he came out. I thought he was running a $50 million business. Uh, it's a pretty big difference. This is a pretty big difference. And I was, and I, I just plain asked him, I was like, Hey, man, like, why are you in a peer group with me? Like, I'm not, I'm not your peer. Yeah.
Like, I'm just plainly not Yeah. Like, you know, we'll do 30 something this year. So like, what, what do you get from this? And uh, and he said something I've just been like, I honestly reflect on it every day since I talked to him about it. And he said, uh, look, the best way to draw inspiration is from the smaller companies because they're innovating.
Because they have to innovate. And, and I was like, fuck, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. 'cause like I, we have the resources to not necessarily have to innovate in the same way. So Yeah. Like he hearing. How productive your team is at the size you are is like, oh, okay. You're in, you're doing something that I don't know.
Yeah. And I, I wanna know what it is. You're, [00:03:00] you're interv, you're innovating in a way that we don't know. I'm
Dalton Hatch: flattered.
John Wilson: Well, I think, I think it's, I think it's great. I think it's, I think it's interesting and it's the same. He came out here to visit and draw something from us. And I think, uh, God, it was just a different way to look at it.
'cause I think you're here and you're like, all right, how can I learn it? But like, fortunately, I get to do the same thing. Yeah. Which will be fun.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. I, uh, man, it ain't me like, like I told you, I'm Christian, it's God, like mm-hmm. God saved my life a year ago. And dude, we've been like so blessed to the point where every day or anytime I pray, whatever.
Mm-hmm. Like, just thanks, man. Like, this is insane. Yeah. Like, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be this guy. Mm-hmm. Like, before I found God, I, I was like cool. Like I used to, my wife and I, we've been together since we were 15. Yeah. And I would tell her all through high school, like, I, I'm probably gonna die before I'm 30.
Mm. I just always thought I was gonna die young. How old? How old are you now? 31. All right. Well, you beat it. So I'm, I'm gonna live forever. Yeah, you beat [00:04:00] it. Yeah, you beat it. But, but it's, it's funny. And that's a whole other thing too, like being Christian, I, I'm not afraid of death. I'm just aware of death.
Mm-hmm. But, but yeah, I just like, and it's funny too 'cause I grew up in a, in a great household. My parents are amazing parents. My dad, Jeff, my mom, Marlo. Mm-hmm. Both teachers. Um, very middle class, like lower middle class, kind of whatever justifies that in 2025. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, giving, giving my company to God, he's the owner.
I'm just the guy that asks him what to do.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: And he has been leading us down a wild path of success and growth and yeah, I truly believe that is first and foremost the reason. Um, secondly is just like, we don't, we don't put sales as the most important saying like. We just take really good care of people.
Mm-hmm. Care, we, we legitimately care about you. Like we go to your house and you know, like sales coaches will teach you, we'll, sympathize [00:05:00] and empathize. Like, well, yeah, duh, their house is flooded. Mm-hmm. What, like, what human being isn't already gonna feel that way for them. Mm-hmm. You shouldn't have to train to be that way.
Yeah. Just be a good person, you know, we're not gonna sell you something that you don't need in the sense of like, I'm not gonna go to your house for a toilet flapper, and without putting a sewer camera down your clean out, be like, you need a new sewer line. That's the cause.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know what I mean?
That's sleazy stuff. But I'm not against, you know, the, the upgraded sales of options. Like you should be giving your customer options. They don't go to the grocery store and have one kind of peanut butter to choose from.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Unless it's
John Wilson: salty. But, but I'd love to hear about the origin story of dh. So you guys launched it in 2021.
So we got
Dalton Hatch: the LLC in 21. Yeah. But I didn't start actually working for myself till 23. Okay. So I, 'cause I, I knew that's what I wanted to do and Sure. I [00:06:00] knew, I've known for, oh, probably since I started in plumbing. So I started in plumbing right outta high school. Uh, at about 18, something like that. But yeah, I started right outta high school.
Um, I started in plumbing because my wife, girlfriend at the time, uh, got pregnant with our first child in her senior year. And my brother-in-law was a plumber at a service company. And he was like, Hey, well, you know, we need helpers. We need apprentices. So I was like, all right, cool. I'm about to have a kid.
So time to go to work. Need money. Yeah. Tiffany need money, you know, and, uh. Right. My wife graduated the day she graduated high school, moved in with me into an apartment and we just got after life and had a lot of bumps in the roads, had a lot of downs, mainly majority caused by me. Uh, and then at about 21 we [00:07:00] separated for two years.
I had fell into drugs and alcohol pretty heavily, you know, worked through plumbing companies throughout that whole time. Like I was chasing 50 cents here, an hour there, dollar there. Wherever I get more money. 'cause one, I'm a poor, two, I'm an addict. So I'm like, need more money for both of those things.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Um, but for some reason, like I just knew I wanted to own something. I'm too high strung and I'm too control freak to work for anyone. I'm not good with authority. Mm-hmm. I like to be my own authority, which was probably the reason I didn't come to God until I was 30 years old. Because having to accept that I have to surrender my life to God is like.
I'm not doing that. I got this, you know, pride. But yeah. So worked, worked for plumbing companies up until I was 29. Yeah. 29. And then my, my buddy Cameron calls me, I'm super, I'm like super competitive. Like I still, I saw [00:08:00] your shop today and the first thing in my head was like, I'm gonna, and he said, he got here eight years.
I'm gonna do this in seven. You know, like I'm just, I, I'll build a war in my head for no reason. Make it happen, dude. I love it. And, uh, that's just a, I just, I don't know. That's what drives me. I, I have to build it in my head to Yeah. Go. Yeah. But, um, my buddy Cameron was like, I got an LLCI got my master's, like I'm going.
And like within five minutes later I had an LLC and
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: I had a, a master plumber willing to rent me his license. And I told my wife, I was like, we're starting a company. Mm-hmm. If he can do it, I can do it. And so I was like, all right, I'm ready to go. And I did it. And then I was a superintendent for a plumbing company doing residential new construction.
Which I'll never go back to that industry. Goodness. Yeah. Take the worst dude industry. Yeah. No money. Builders don't know what they're doing, but they're mad at you. It's just, yeah. I'll never go back to that industry. But, um, and then, so I, I started the company, I was doing jobs [00:09:00] after work and on the weekends for like, for only like three weeks.
And I, and I thought I was busy 'cause I was running around, but when you look on paper, you're only doing a few jobs a week. Yeah. You think you're slammed. Mm-hmm. So I was like, I'm quitting my job, I'm good to go. We didn't get a call for three weeks and I have four babies. Yeah. And a wife at home who does not, does not work, but she's a stay at home.
Her job's harder than any job I've ever had. I'm with my kids for like one hour and I'm like, babe, I need you to come please. And so three weeks, nothing. And I'm like, it's one in the morning. I'm standing in my shop. It's like a RV carport at my house. And I'm like, so crying. Mm-hmm. Like I got four, five miles to feed.
I got no, I'm go down to like my last 500 bucks. I got a mortgage, like all the pressure. Right. We, we we're, I'm out there and I'm just like, cry. And I, I, I was the guy that made [00:10:00] fun of God, I made fun of Christians, like openly mocked Christians kind of guy. And uh, I'm like, it's yours dude. I obviously can't do this.
You're the last resort. Mm-hmm. And then the next day we've been booked. Yeah. And then I still didn't even like fully surrender after that. 'cause after a week of that I was like, well, I got it now. Mm-hmm. Like, pretty much like, appreciate you. I got it from here and then started getting slow again. I was like, okay, I see I'm my bad, my bad.
Mm-hmm. And then just, uh, my little brother calls me one day. He is like. I've been thinking about going to church. I was like, okay, cool. Let's do it. And I was driving home, saw a random church. I was like, cool, we'll go there. Mm-hmm. The moment I walked in that door, they have, they met me with so much genuine love and kindness.
Like that's what helped me because I was looking for any reason not to go to church, not to accept God, not to be a Christian. Right. I'm like, I'm gonna go in there, they're gonna piss me off and I'm gonna go home. And [00:11:00] I told you so kind of deal. And it was opposite.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: It was amazing. And it's been amazing ever since.
Got baptized, uh, mother's Day of 24. I baptized my wife right after I got baptized. And then a few months later I baptized my oldest, my 11-year-old daughter. And God has taken care of us in a dramatic way and yeah. But, uh, but yeah. So been busy ever since and just been growing, just, just doing the thing, man.
23. April 1st 23 was when we officially went out on our own. Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: We're obviously giving God a lot of thanks and credit. What happened And you've been rewarded. Yeah. Like that, that's how you're approaching this, which I think is great. What happens when things go bad now? Like are like, it's sort of like, how do you turn it around?
Or how, I just don't, how do you leave like a personal stake inside there? Or how are you approaching that?
Dalton Hatch: I, I, it doesn't affect me [00:12:00] as a, as like a bat when things go bad. I don't view it that way. It's just a, it's just another day. It's just something to get past, you know? Like I don't stress about money.
I don't stress when we're slow. I don't stress when we're busy. Like, I know he's, when take Jeremy, we're not really about anything anymore. Mm-hmm. Just 'cause you know, it's, I think it's, uh, Matthew 6 34 is like, or no, I can't remember, but it's, it's pretty much just do not worry though. I do that the best of my ability.
'cause I fully trust. That he will take care of us. Mm-hmm. I still do my job and what I'm supposed to do for my guys, for the company, but like, whatever happens, happens. If it's in his will to the company goes down, then the company goes down, I go back to work being a plumber.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know, but I truly believe that this company was, is my calling what I was supposed to do.
'cause it's the only thing I've really ever done that I'm good at.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: To the, uh, like good at [00:13:00] in the sense of like, well, you, there's results. It feels right. Yeah. There's results. Yeah. Yeah. It feels right, like being able to pay guys more than anybody
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: And change their life financially. Like we just gave a kid, uh, going to a trade school, we gave him $5,000 in a scholarship.
That was crazy. That was the most fulfilling thing I've ever had happen in my entrepreneurial career.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Um, we donate money to causes constantly. Like, uh, there's a, a gym that I go to in Bandera called Firing Glory. And, you know, we're gonna make shirts for them mm-hmm. And we're gonna supply barbecue for them.
Like, that's, that's the stuff that makes me keep being a business owner.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know, like, I don't, I don't really have an interest in money. It, it doesn't make me feel any kind of way. It did just 'cause I'd never had it. And then now I'm like, I like seeing what money can do for others. Mm-hmm. More than like, my bills are paid, you know, I'm fine.
I, I pay [00:14:00] myself the bare minimum salary to live a comfortable life. I'm a pretty simple guy. My wife's very simple woman. She does not, she's not materialistic in any sense. I like blessing other people. Mm-hmm. I think that that was what I'm supposed to do with this, because I am blessed enough to be able to do that.
Mm-hmm. That's what I feel. And. I truly believe that. I just, I have a lot of, I mean, I, I like my, one of my favorite movies is a John Wayne movie called True Grit, and I have it tattooed on my knuckles. Okay. Yeah. I was trying to read, yeah, they're a little faded. Okay. But, uh, but yeah, I have, uh, I have a lot, I, I feel like I have a lot of grit.
I'm very driven. I'm super like, let's go, let's go. You know, my dad calls it my, my it characteristic. Mm-hmm. I'm very comfortable with risk. I'm very comfortable with, let's just see what happens. Mm-hmm. It doesn't bother me, like, I thrive on, I like pressure, like stress doesn't feel [00:15:00] the same to me. That it doesn't, a regular person stress is like, alright, let's go, let's do it.
Like, if we're slow, I'm like, all right, well, I'm gonna, I'll go find some work. Mm-hmm. We got it. I'll got it. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Like, I don't feel stressed the way, like the normal definition of stress. If that makes sense.
John Wilson: Yeah. I don't know that I do either, but it
Dalton Hatch: might be more. But yours a little, a little drastically different.
Judging by that warranty pile over there that might get, that might actually make me stressed. Yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. What um, how about we walk through the business a little bit? So like head count revenue. Okay. What, what do we do? Like, what are the actual
Dalton Hatch: services that we perform? So almost, I would say 99% residential service.
Um, I'm super picky on the commercial service. We'll do mm-hmm. No new construction. Uh, really no remodels. Uh, like if you buy a, a mobile home and it's at your house and we need to connect your sewer, your water line, cool. We'll do that. [00:16:00] But I've been burned so many times in the early days of like doing new construction remodels by people not paying or losing your butt.
'cause it's hard to make money on those jobs 'cause you have to do so many return trips. Um, but, so almost strictly residential service. Mm-hmm. Um, it's me, a guy named Walter. He's a journeyman, a guy named Matt. He's a tradesman. And then I have Andrea, who is my sister-in-law, she's my office manager. Admin, like, does my like, assistant stuff and, uh, handles, oversee the CSR and like, and then we have Stacy, who is our newest, uh, CSR.
And then, 'cause I, I hired a second CSR knowing that I wanted to hire a third and a fourth plumber. So I was like, okay, well I want her, there's two CSRs, one and a half. Stacy does all the phone calls and everything. Okay. And then Andrea kind of sees, oversees the admin side of everything. Yeah. Like, I don't do well with laptop work.
Hmm. She pretty [00:17:00] much does everything. Um, she's account receivable, accounts payable, the whole nine yards. Right. And then she trained up Stacy. And then once. Now that she's trained up, I'm like dumping money every month into marketing, trying to get more and more leads, more and more leads to get more guys.
And now that that's working and that's going, looking to find that third guy. Yeah. Possibly the fourth.
John Wilson: Yeah. There was a, I've told this story a lot over the years, but, um, so, uh, my good friend Anthony, he runs a plumbing company here locally. He was best man in my wedding. And we worked, uh, we worked together in Wilson for like first four or five years of our career.
And then I bought Wilson and then like nine months later, he went and like, similar to your story of like, oh, you did this so I can do this. So he went and launched his
Dalton Hatch: own. It makes it tangible when your friends do it, like it makes it like, oh, it's possible. Yeah. Instead of like, you hearing about [00:18:00] it,
John Wilson: it's, yeah.
I, I think so. I think so. Uh, so he went and launched his own. It's called plumbing excellence. And, uh, I, I remember, and you're in this sweet spot right now, and I'm, I'm just curious how this resonates with you, but there's like these different plateaus in your growth, right? And like when you're at each plateau, you make a lot of money.
Mm-hmm. Like, you just make a lot of fucking money. Yeah. Because like, you are capping out the infrastructure for like what you've built so far. Yeah. We are currently in a plateau right now. Which, which is good. We're enjoying that. Yeah. Like, we're like extremely profitable, which is a lot of fun. Yeah. We are reentering our next growth phase, which like, we're approaching cautiously.
Yeah. Because we know we've got, we've gone through like seven of these now. Yeah. So we understand what we're about to do. Yeah. And know what comes with it. But I remember, uh, it was just like the wild ex experience for me. [00:19:00] This was eight, nine years ago. So like the economics are different than they are now.
Yeah, of course. But Anthony had three plumbers. Mm-hmm. I had 10 or 15. Yeah. I don't even know how many. And he was taking home more than I was. Yeah. Because there's like, the most money that you make in home service as an entrepreneur is the size that you are at right now. Like, this is the most money that you will make.
Yeah. Until you cross like 30 or 40 guys. Like it is a wild
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Journey. I've heard this before and it's, it's crazy to hear every time I hear it.
John Wilson: Oh yeah. Well, it's just the literal most money. Like Yeah. And it's cr um, it's crazy. There's just no overhead is there's just, there's just no overhead. Like, hey, you can, because what could happen?
It just depends on like what the goal is. Mm-hmm. Um. But you don't need a manager yet. Mm-hmm. You need one or two CSRs. In theory, those CSRs [00:20:00] could be remote. Like a lot of people running, they work from home a lot. I let 'em work from home a lot. I I mean, even offshore. Oh yeah. Or like a or, you know, AI could start to come into play.
You don't even, you don't have an office's, like, there's no like infrastructure cost
Dalton Hatch: for real estate. We have a, a, a tiny office, but it's for the address on Google. Totally. And it's a like a six by six office that Andre and Stacy will sit in.
John Wilson: A hundred percent. Yeah. Most of my friends that have been, yeah.
It's
Dalton Hatch: like they've done storage units. Right. Or like I've had the bigger shop, I rented a bigger one. Yeah. Thinking that's what I needed to attract guys. Yeah. And all I did was waste my money. Waste money.
John Wilson: Right. Totally. So, um, yeah, it's, it's wild. And I, I remember, I remember, uh, I mean it was years like, 'cause Anthony, it was, it was a really funny like, thought experiment because Anthony kept his company the same size, like three guys.
He actually just started growing it maybe. Yeah. Uh, six, seven months ago. So for eight years he's run a three person plumbing company in cash flow. [00:21:00] Just like a motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah. Like, just all like, yeah. And I'm, and like we've been, I've been like, you know, doing this. Yeah. But like, we only started making more than him like a year and a half ago, like two years ago.
That's wild. Is wild. That's wild. It is wild. So, uh, so it sounds like you've heard this from others too. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I have seen like, what, what's the take? Like, how do you think about that? Because right now you are cash flowing, probably like crazy.
Dalton Hatch: It makes you really wanna hone in and realize what your goals are.
Mm-hmm. Like, are you cool with where you're at and being there for a while? Yeah. Or do you want this next step enough to understand that this is Yeah, this
John Wilson: is, or, or is the next step even worth it because I do, I do think there's a tangible. Why do it at all? Yeah. I think that that's like, should be a real problem some days.
I think about that at my size. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, so, so that's why Anthony, that's why he ended up growing. So for eight years he ran this three person shop. Yeah. And he [00:22:00] just cash flowed like crazy. And he loved it. Yeah. And eventually he was like, okay, now I have this company. I've made a ton of money.
Yeah. Uh, and I need to, we have to, we have to grow it. So I can either sell it or like I want to just spend my time a little bit differently. Yeah. But like, what I don't think he sort of grasped is like growing your company becomes an an all encompassing thing. Yeah. It's not like that's the easy route is like, no, oh, we'll grow and then hire people.
I don't think there's anything easy in business.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: People talk about like. We, you know, I'm sure it'll happen during this conversation, but it'll sound like, we're like, yeah, you just do this, this, and this, and you get here. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, that's not, yeah. Like, that's not what happens.
There's a lot of nuance that goes into it. Like, yeah, not being stressed is very new to me. Mm-hmm. Like, I had debilitating stress. [00:23:00] Just 'cause it's the nature of the beast, right? Mm-hmm. And I remember the first employee I ever hired, I didn't sleep for three days. Yeah. Because I was laying, I and I, it didn't hit me until I'm laying down in bed with my wife, it's like 10 o'clock at night, and then a thought hits my head.
It goes, you're responsible for all of his bills. I was like, oh, what did I do? Didn't sleep for three days. I could not sleep. Yeah. I didn't eat. I have never felt stressed like that in my life. Yeah. And yeah, but like the whole not feeling stress the same way. Like that's like a, a six month thing. Like just.
Very new to me. I just,
John Wilson: well, I mean, I think there's a good argument to like, staying in this zone for a while. Yeah. 'cause I mean, like, because like you'll just add stress the bigger you get. Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Because you will add it back. Because like right now, like, I'm here in Ohio and I get to have a great conversation with you.
Mm-hmm. Well, my guys are back home making money.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know, this is, this is cool. Yes. I've never felt this before. Right. Yeah. I've never had these [00:24:00] opportunities to, to be able to spend time at home with my kids, which, you know, which is what I, I do to my best of my ability to let my guys have as well.
Like, we don't do after hours, we don't do weekends. Mm-hmm. Like Monday through Friday, and if they wanna work on a Saturday or they wanna work late, that's on you. If you wanna do that, it's cool. I'm not gonna ask you to do that. Yeah. It's funny you say that 'cause I, I just had this con conversation with, with Jared on his podcast about like, what's, what are your goals for the company?
Right. And, and it changes all the time. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the, the main goal of like. Why I started it was just to change the financial future of my family. Mm-hmm. Of every single human being in my family.
John Wilson: We've done that.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. You've done that. Absolutely. The goals of how many trucks do you want, how big do you want to get?
Mm-hmm. You wanna stay this, yeah. That changes all the time. Some days I want, you know, three main, uh, municipality locations in Texas. Some days I want two more plumbers to justify a [00:25:00] manager so that I'm at home more. And that's it. Like
John Wilson: my quick take, having gone through this ride a little bit further is I wish that I would've known that that was an option earlier.
Staying that size was an option, or, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know that I would've, I feel like guys that built a company that you've built, that you're, that you're calling, like you wouldn't have been able to. I, I think that I, you're too driven. I don't think that I would've been able to contain myself.
Yeah. But I wish I would've known that it was a choice. Because I, I didn't understand. I really didn't understand until, until I saw my friend do it and I was like, oh, holy shit. You can stay that size. You can stay that or, and be okay. Or would I have stayed that size longer in order to prep to grow, um, larger, like leading up to it.
Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of because what ends up happening, you end up on this. At least we have, and you know, the people that we see that have got gone where we want to go is you end up on this, uh, it's like a ride. You don't get to [00:26:00] get off. No, you, yeah. You don't get to call in. Yeah. You don't, it, it, it's a, it's a train that, like once you're on it, you're on that train.
Yeah. And, um, because what ends up happening is the, so the company grows and you start bringing in like really talented people mm-hmm. That you want to work with. They're smart and they're capable and they're fun and they're driven too, because that's what you are. Yeah. You attract those. You attract. Yeah.
It's, you're magnetizing the same type of people that want to be around that situation. Yeah. And you get more and more of them. And like, we've had this, this was before we understood like, oh, we're on this train. This is, this is the train. We thought we could control this. Uh, that was foolish. So we, we were like, okay, we'll slow down growth this year.
We have never, we have literally never been able to slow down growth. E even if we attempted to slow down growth, it would be hard to do. And ha, half of the reason is because we're [00:27:00] attracting talented people that want to grow. So like, well, how do you, how do you tell 170 people that we're not gonna grow this year?
Like, everybody's here to grow. That's what they're here freaking to do. Yeah. That's why they're on this train.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. So then that's why they wanna work for, I mean, I asked your guy over here. What enticed you to come here. And his first word was growth. Yeah. That was literally what he said.
John Wilson: Yeah. Like that's, that's, that is like who we are at our core.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. So you can tell like, walking into this building Yeah. Everyone's like, everyone is, is, is collectively agreed. Let's all be the, we're here to move best versions of ourselves. We here to move to make this company the best version they can be.
John Wilson: Well, that's our first core values is betterment. So like, we're, we're literally here to win individually and as a team.
Yeah. That's like, that is a core tenant of who we are as people inside this building. That's sick. So, so you get on this train and like, and that's kind of it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you're like, all right. There is no, I'm committing, I'm committing to, uh, 30 to 50% growth for the rest of my career. Like, and that's just like where it's at.
[00:28:00] And I didn't know that we were making that choice. Um, I, I probably still would've 'cause I think that's who I am. Hindsight's 2020, right? Yeah. But I, I think it is interesting 'cause, because at this, this, this perfect. Two to three truck size. Yeah. You literally just mint cash. Yeah. In a way that you just don't for a long
Dalton Hatch: time.
And just for reference, like one of our vans is paid off. Yeah. And it, and it doesn't, I think it only has like 80,000 miles on it. Mm-hmm. Just because it was the first van I ever bought. Mm. And I bought it for my mentor. Mm-hmm. He hooked me up. He was like, I'm, dude, I'm so blessed. Like it's, I shouldn't be where I am.
Mm-hmm. He, he sold me a, a transit that got totaled, like the day he bought it. Oh, nice. And it came out of the shop and he was like, I don't need it now. I have all these other vans that I've had to buy. Yeah. And he was like, I only owe 28 grand on it. It's got 20,000 miles on it. Nice. It came with shelves.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Like the partition, [00:29:00] everything. He was like, just pay me what I owe on it. Mm-hmm. I was like, absolutely. Let's Absolutely, absolutely. I let's do this. Yeah. That's funny. You know, and that van's paid off. Mm-hmm. And you know, I have two others and. You know, I don't owe very much on either one of them.
Mm-hmm. And like, I still only give myself my bare minimum salary just because I'm, I wanna reinvest everything. Yeah. Whether it be tools, marketing, uh, you know, payroll, um, parties, bonuses, like, like I just paid for the entire company and the entire company's families to go to Topgolf mm-hmm. And paid for the food, paid for their beer.
Let's go have a good time. Let's stuff, let's just go have fun. That's just, that's what I love. That's my, that's my thing, man. I love that stuff. Yeah. But yeah, that's, things like that are what are, what would, like what you said, keep me from pressing the gas really hard. [00:30:00]
John Wilson: Yeah. It harder to do that.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
Because I, I've, I've seen and heard from mentors and other companies, like, I see what happens when you grow. Like we're talking about your, your VMI over here, like, and I asked you, I was like, how do you prep
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: To spend this much money and know it's not gonna make money Yeah. For this long, you know?
Yeah. And, and that's another thing that's like,
John Wilson: I kind of like where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a good thing and culture becomes challenging to manage and, you know, you get to have, um, so we're 171, I think, team members total. That's so crazy. You're making like, that's a huge difference in the economy.
Yeah. It's wild. It it is. It is wild. That's that. You're like, that we've, we've, I believe that's insane. Begun to make a dent. Yeah. Which is cool. You're
Dalton Hatch: blessed, bro. That's awesome.
John Wilson: Yeah. It, it is fun. But there's, um, the, the bigger the organization gets, it gets obviously like more and more and more complicated.
Yeah. And, um, driving [00:31:00] just everything takes, uh, maybe more intentionality. So. I'm, yeah. I'm like currently working through this new stage of my career, so as the business grows, like the way we say it to our leaders, and the way it has manifested is every six months you have to relearn your job because every six months, like either your team or the company or something requires like a different version.
It's a great way to put it, a slightly better version of you. Yeah. So like my new six month challenge is, um, we're adding, we, we've built out our senior leadership team, which is something that we've been working on for a long time. Yeah. What? They're very competent. They're very capable. And, um, I'm now in a spot, which is very weird.
Mm-hmm. Where, and I've been in spots that are adjacent to this, so it's just like, this is the newest one. Mm-hmm. Um, but I'm now in the spot where in, I had friends tell me that this was coming. So like somewhere between [00:32:00] 160 to a 200 team members. Every single task has a home. Okay. Opening the mail is someone's job.
Taking out the trash is someone's job. Listening to calls is someone's jobs. Coaching salespeople is someone's job there. There's no more like open job Gotcha. For John to come in Yeah. And tactically operate. Yeah. Which one do you spend eight years of your life tactically operating and like you're the janitor as well as the CEO, as well as the sales manager.
Wear a lot of hats. Yeah. Like that's how it works when you, when you're growing. So we're now at this stage where every single task has a human attached to it. Yeah. Or an ai, a human or an AI attached. Yeah. Uh, so like, so now we're switch. I'm switching over to this. Um, it's a, it's a big shift where I can, it's no longer tactical.
It's more like, okay, how can I coach? Uh, in a new way and how can I impact culture from like six layers down? Yeah. How can I do that? [00:33:00] And that's funny. It is. It, I don't know. Like I'm still figuring out, I dunno. That's funny you say it.
Dalton Hatch: So, when we were walking through the tour, I had a question in my head and I wanted to wait till I ask you now, was, how does it feel to have that many employees and how hard is it to be intimately involved with that many employees?
Yeah. You know what I mean? Because like Yeah. It's, it almost feels like in the business side of it, this is like the mega church where the pastor doesn't know everyone's name. Mm-hmm. And it's like, how do you battle that? Because I feel like, especially plumbers, you know, we want to know who works for us.
Yeah. We want to know who you are, what you're about. Like, but at 171 people, it's pretty hard to do that. Yeah. So I'm very curious how, how, like, how, I guess how intentional. You are with that or how, like, how even how possible it is. I guess it's possible. I, I mean, I know everyone's name. Yeah. Um, I feel like to [00:34:00] keep a good culture, you kind of have to be that guy.
John Wilson: Yeah. I mean, I, I think that I know other people that have roughly the same team size and they do not make it their goal. Mm-hmm. And I like my quick take and some of them are my friends. Uh, my quick take is like, they're coming off like an asshole. Yeah. Like these are your team members. Uh, they matter.
Yeah. Um, a lot. Yeah. And, and like all our job at the end of the day, like my job at the end of the day is to facilitate, uh, good culture. Like I joke about it, um, like my title's, CEO, but like underneath my name tag next to my office is Chief Vibes Officer. It's joke, but like, it is real. Be honest. Like that's like, Hey, that's what I'm here to do is we're here to like create a culture that continues to move, especially.
When it gets bigger, it's almost like it's easier to ignore when it's smaller, but when it's bigger, you have to be more dialed in. Mm-hmm. Because you're no, you, I don't [00:35:00] get to go to Topgolf Yeah. With my whole team Yeah. And their families. Yeah. That'd be, I now have to like, how do I coach my apprentices mm-hmm.
To eventually move up through the organization when I have literally five leaders in between me and that apprentice. Like, how do I do that? Uh, so I do You do know their names? I do know their names. Yeah. Um,
Dalton Hatch: obviously at that many, I don't, I don't expect an owner to be, I'm an intimate level with every single That's wild.
Yeah. So, so that would be your entire job. Yeah. Was just be like, oh, let's sit down and have a conversation. I wish I
John Wilson: could, I think it'd be, I think it'd be fun. That'd be a lot of time. It'd be fun. Um, but I, uh, so it takes a lot of intentionality. Um, I do it differently than my president, Brandon. So Brandon actually has flashcards.
Like photos and photos and flashcards. Uh, it's, it's that important to us that we practice. That's awesome. Uh, we also have like org charts with names and faces up on the wall. Yeah. And uh, that helps a lot [00:36:00] because often like I'll go a month without seeing someone. Like that's just how it works, you know?
Well, yeah. They're all out in the field. Out in the field,
Dalton Hatch: you know,
John Wilson: I don't know, like come in at a different time than them and, uh, it, if I see someone once a week, I see them a lot. Yeah. So, uh, so yeah, we try to be really intentional about it. Brand practices with flashcards, I use the org chart.
ServiceTitan helps because it's got the name, the photo. Yeah. Um, yeah, we can, we stay pretty on top of it. And then I have skip levels once a week, which is like, I skip multiple levels and I work with our service managers or install managers. We call 'em frontline leaders. Yeah. And, uh, I talk to 'em about their team's performance.
So I'm very still in tune with what's going on at the front of our organization.
Dalton Hatch: That's awesome, dude. Yeah, that's huge for culture in my opinion. And I don't know what it's like at your level, but. I'm thinking of it as, as like a former employee mindset. Like that would be, that would be a very, um, enticing thing to want to work here is that your owner cares that much.
'cause [00:37:00] I think you would agree. Most, most owners nowadays that's not, that's not the case.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, I, I think, uh, it's a part of our culture now. Yeah. So if I didn't like, I would be held accountable to it, which I think is good. Like, I think I'd get called out.
Dalton Hatch: That's huge. And that's good culture.
John Wilson: Yeah. A hundred percent.
A hundred percent. Like, like I need the feedback the same as anybody else needs feedback. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want Yes. Men around me.
Dalton Hatch: Right. Yeah. Accountability is huge. Yeah.
John Wilson: But it, it does get harder. You do have to be intentional about it.
Dalton Hatch: Um, I like that you use that word intentional a lot. 'cause it's, I, I feel like that's, I feel like that's the most important thing in business that a lot of people don't know, especially guys in my position or even, uh, a little bit lower when they're first starting out, is mm-hmm.
You need to be intentional with your money. You need to be intentional with your time. To be intentional on how you market, where you're marketing, like intentionality is huge. Be intentional with your discipline. Mm-hmm. Like, I highly suggest anybody that's starting a business, like [00:38:00] wake up in the morning, uh, read your Bible and journal.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. Write
Dalton Hatch: your goal down every day. Put it on paper. Make it real.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Be intentional with your time, intentional with your thoughts. Yeah. Intentionality is huge.
John Wilson: I agree. I I like that. You, there's, uh, something that I think is kind of funny is, you know, the decisions that you're, and that's why I was encouraging you to think about, like, Hey, do you really wanna move from this size?
Uh, the decisions that we made at 3 million mm-hmm. Are things that still impact the organization today. Yeah. Um, like kind of a lot. Yeah. Like key vendors, uh, how we source vehicles and like our strategy behind vehicles. We use the same strategy today. Wow. Like. Same exact thing. Uh, softwares how we think about marketing brand, like all of those were decisions made between three and $5 million.
Wow. And so when we think about being intentional, that's a big part of [00:39:00] it is because we can look at, Hey, I'm doing this today and this is the impact that, like, when I decided to source vehicles this way
Dalton Hatch: mm-hmm.
John Wilson: Seven years ago. Six years ago, and I'm still doing it now. Like that's the impact. Like that first vehicle set the tone for me to buy 95 more in the same exact way.
That's a big deal. Yeah. Uh, so now we just see like the second and third order effects. So Okay. So if I, if I make a decision today mm-hmm. And that decision is I wanna be on tv, maybe like a TV advertising or something. Yeah. Or billboards, like a branded activity like that is a multi-year ripple effect.
Like a five to 10 year ripple effect because we're still feeling decisions, good or bad, that we made five to 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is crazy. Um, so yeah, we, we do, we do our best to be intentional and we do our best to be thoughtful about, Hey, [00:40:00] what is my second order effect? I'm gonna make this change.
Then what? And then what? Yeah. Like what's gonna happen after that first thing breaks? Yeah. And how will I feel about this decision in four or five years? Is price the most important thing? What am I gonna get from it? What's the long term plus minus?
Dalton Hatch: Yeah, that's cool. And then I, I never would've thought about it like that.
John Wilson: I mean, you're making decisions right now that if you do decide to go on this, you know, growth journey, like you've already made decisions that will ripple when you're Yeah. 10 times your current size.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Like we just, we just signed a, our contract on our first, uh, um. Actual size billboard. Mm-hmm. Like, because we live in a, a rural town, we have like a eight by 16 billboard in town.
Yeah. But we just signed our first, like actual 14 by 48 foot billboard. Nice. And I thought of that when you said that. 'cause I'm like, yeah, I don't expect a lead to come from that the next day. Mm-hmm. It could. That'd be cool. But [00:41:00] that's, that's the branding stuff where like, when they think of plumbing, we want them to think of us kind of thing.
Mm-hmm. And I feel like when you said once you're on the train, you can't get off. I feel like that's the first step that I've taken to like, get on that train. Mm-hmm. Like that's the first quote unquote big company move. Yeah. Um, that we've made. And I definitely would, I don't know. I don't know if I would want to grow to this size just 'cause this is like, you're, this is a machine dude.
Like this, this is a machine like. For the people watching this. I hope that they Yeah, I
John Wilson: mean, you are, you are looking, uh, at my, at my life's work. Yeah. Yes. Like this is your baby.
Dalton Hatch: Like Yeah. Every company owner is, their company is their baby. But this is like, I can see how much attention to detail, how much, like, just what you've put into just your, the [00:42:00] organization side of it.
Like, yeah. I hope you don't take it lightly. 'cause you should be Yeah. You should realize how blessed you are. It's awesome.
John Wilson: We're, we're blessed. We're, we're not where we want to go. We're not where we want to be. Yeah. I feel like that we, we are happy with, I
Dalton Hatch: feel like that's your personality. I feel like it's a, I feel like you could be 200 million a year and still be like, well we could probably do two 50.
Yeah. Like, like you're most entrepreneurs that I meet for sure. I'm very similar like. Never. I, I don't like saying never satisfied. 'cause that makes you sound ungrateful for, but I don't know any other better way to say it. Like you're just not a satisfied kind of person. Like, you're not gonna satisfy me.
I like the drive, I like the chase. I like the, the, the day in, like, let's go. Yeah. Yeah. That's very much most of ours personnel. I'm very much that way. Yeah. You're like, you're like the top personality type that likes that. I could tell it's super cool. Well, it's,
John Wilson: the mountain has no peak.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah, exactly. You just keep walking out.
That's
John Wilson: the
Dalton Hatch: problem. Yeah.
John Wilson: We're gonna get there.
Dalton Hatch: It's not,
John Wilson: it ain't there. Yeah. That's, it's, uh, it [00:43:00] is a core part of, uh, who I am. Yeah. Good and
Dalton Hatch: bad. Yeah. Yeah. It comes at a, at a fault sometimes, right? Yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: As far as, uh, yeah, you asked about VMI and, and just sort of like, how do you, how do you make a decision knowing that there's gonna be less of an impact or like less of an immediate impact?
Um, I think a lot of it stages and a lot of it is, uh. Very tactically knowing your numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Which sounds like a dumb way to put it, but I, it really is that. Yeah. Where, um, if I, if I know, uh, a budgeting, which is like probably the most boring topic. Yeah. But, so budgeting is not just like financial, like, Hey, I expect this much revenue and this much profit.
Yeah. Budgeting is also, here's how many calls I think we're gonna get. Here's how many leads we're gonna get. Uh, so if I, if I budget 500 appointments in a [00:44:00] month mm-hmm. Um, then I knew that I needed let's say 700 leads in order to get that, because I'm budgeting an 80% close or something. Mm-hmm. I think my math's off, but.
Work with me. So I know my call center, like marketing knows that they need to drive 700 phone calls. We know we're gonna book 500 of those phone calls and then we know we're gonna sell 50%. No. That's what we budget anyways. Yeah. So we think we're gonna sell 250 jobs, an average ticket, $2,500. So once you start under understanding, um, there's lead measures and there's lag measures.
Mm-hmm. So LA a lag measure would be like revenue. Revenue is a result. Yeah. It is not like the thing, revenue is a result of other things happening upstream. Yeah. And those things happening are like, well, how did we drive a lead? How much money was that lead? Mm-hmm. What's our booking rate on that lead?
What's our demo rate? Like, how many actually show up or reverse, cancel, or whatever. Mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause that [00:45:00] becomes a whole thing. Mm-hmm. And then once we get out there, how many do we close? And those are all leading measures that drive revenue. Yeah. So all that to say. You can start making longer term decisions when you have a, an understanding of, Hey, in June, my budget for June is $2.4 million or something.
Yeah. Uh, our actual budget I think is like 2.8, but $2.8 million. And I know that I will be within 10% of that because I understand the leading measures. Like I know we're gonna drive this many leads. I know our closing rate is this, our average ticket is this, you know, plus or minus a couple points. So like we know the data.
And when you have that, when you're armed with that type of information, you can make really good projections. Like, Hey, I, I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna be within five, 10% of our expected leads. Yeah. I know our conversion rate, like that's just like [00:46:00] all pretty standard. Mm-hmm. I know our average ticket, so as long as I deliver leads, which we will, then I can make.
Six month investments. Yeah. Or I can make decisions that, like right now we're adding three managers. That's a big deal. Like that's huge. That feels like a big deal. Yeah. It's huge, uh, to me. And, um, and on one hand on it, I think I'm like caught up in like, that's a lot of overhead. Yeah. But on the other hand, like it will actually just not really make a ripple in our p and l at all, which is still like, I'm thinking I'm getting used to that.
Like, I don't even think we'll really notice like we will, but it'll be like a half, like percent. It's, it's crazy. So, so we're That's three salaries. Yeah. I
Dalton Hatch: know, dude. Whether it makes a difference on paper, it makes a difference up here.
John Wilson: Yeah. You know. Yeah. So we're, so we're adding in these, we're adding in these new leaders and we feel confident in it because we know our leads are on point.
Our conversion rates here, our average tickets here, and we're continuing to [00:47:00] perform, but it did take years to get. To get there. Yeah. Like a lot of that has only happened within the last two years. Yeah. Knowing your
Dalton Hatch: numbers, I wish I would've known how huge that was earlier on. Now granted, we're still like, you know Yeah.
Two years of some change in, so it's still early, but like, it's also a catch 22. 'cause if you don't, if you're early on and you don't have any data to pull from Yeah. There's no numbers to know yet, or what's the right or what's the right numbers. Exactly. And,
John Wilson: and like, not knowing how to impact them.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
Like, crazy enough. And I guarantee this is gonna, you're gonna be like, what the hell? Uh, we've, we've gotten, we've had three or four bookkeepers, something like that, and we've been screwed by every one of them, uh, al a little over two years in, and we just now have an accurate p and l. Yeah. And I've been able to do what we've done.
That doesn't, that doesn't surprise me at all. Just because we've
John Wilson: gone through like 10.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Yeah. [00:48:00] Just because like, I. I've known running this like we keep getting screwed. The p and l's never been accurate. Like Yeah, I like went, I went like nine months without looking at the p and l because I was like, it's screwed.
Like
John Wilson: we didn't have an, we, we didn't have an accounting department. Yeah. We full department for six months in 2023. 'cause they did something stupid. So we fired four people and uh, and we were like $15 million business. Yeah. Running without anything like off the, yeah. Off the bank house. So like, and that's when good decisions come, bro.
That's how it works. Come into play. That's when good decisions come into play. We, we only got tight reporting like a year ago, dude. That's, and that's in the, that's so comforting. That's in the mid 20 million.
Dalton Hatch: That's so comforting to hear. 'cause like, you know, I've talked to, I've talked to other, other business owners and they're like, yeah, you know, we get accurate p and l by the 10th of the month.
And I'm like,
John Wilson: I'm, yeah, me too. I'm on my, uh, I'm on my fourth month, I think of having an accurate close by [00:49:00] the 10th of the month. I mean, fourth month in my entire career, that makes me feel so much better. So much better. Yeah. It was awesome. I was like, holy shit. This is just like, this is incredible. This is what it's like to not have to go.
It's go. I
Dalton Hatch: wonder
John Wilson: we'll do 31 this
Dalton Hatch: year. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, it's just, it's hilarious, but like, I mean, it's a journey, but it's back to intentionality. Like, because that I've never had an accurate p and l I've been extremely intentional about money.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Extremely intentional about where I put the money in the business, where I, where I put it in marketing.
I, I study our, our numbers on service and ServiceTitan is a godsend. I was telling your guy
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: The first six months of ServiceTitan, I want cancel the membership every day. Yeah. I'm like, I hate this. This sucks.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: But what really is, is I'm a plumber and I'm an idiot and I don't know how to use it yet.
I don't know about agreeing to the idiot, but it, it is,
John Wilson: it is a hard software.
Dalton Hatch: It's, the learning curve is huge. People say it all the time, but it, it's, it's, it. It is huge. [00:50:00] And now that I, I have it and I understand it. I'm like, this is the greatest thing. Oh yeah. Ever. And ServiceTitan has been the biggest part, like we've grown more in the past six months with ServiceTitan mm-hmm.
Than we've grown the entire company. Mm-hmm. And I have like all credit to ServiceTitan with that because like, we've been able to see like, okay, what's our opportunity job average? What's our, what's our conversion rate? What's our call rate? What's, what's our booking rate? Like, you know, and, and that's, that's why we hired those, those coaches for CSRs and dispatchers.
'cause our, our booking rate is like anywhere from 67 to 78, which I was that higher that, that, that was on, that's on ServiceTitan just knowing what our booking rate is and or from classifying calls and all that. And, and of course you want it to be higher than that 'cause you're paying for those phone calls.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Um, granted we get. A stupid amount of spam calls.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: But
John Wilson: well, there's two different booking rates. Exactly. There's raw booking rate and then there's booking
Dalton Hatch: rate. Yeah. So the raw booking rate is the [00:51:00] 68 73, and I think the,
John Wilson: that's, that would be considered high. If that's raw.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: So like our raw booking rate 30.
Okay. So that, that's, now I'm second guessing myself. Well, that's okay. Like, it, it becomes a much bigger deal. Like it might not be as much of a thing, you know? Yeah. Because your number is just not as broadcasted everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So like for us it's vendors calling. It's people calling for hr, it's customers calling with random inquiries.
Yeah. So you, when you're looking at, uh, you wanna make sure you measure it twice. Like so raw booking rate is every single phone call that comes into this building. Mm-hmm. If they're calling for accounting, we count it and. If I get a thousand phone calls a day, which is about accurate. Mm-hmm. That's insane.
It's insane. So if we get a thou Yeah, it's
Dalton Hatch: nice.
John Wilson: Thanks. Yeah, it's
Dalton Hatch: that's so wild to think about.
John Wilson: It's freaking wild. It's freaking wild. So we get a thousand phone calls a day. Like we should be [00:52:00] booking 250 to 280. Okay.
Dalton Hatch: Okay. When we're done, I wanna see that. I wanna see what that looks like on service time, if you don't mind the booking rate.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I actually don't necessarily know how to find that, but That's awesome. Someone will. That's so cool.
Dalton Hatch: That's so cool. That's how you, that's how you know, I see the reports. That's how, you know, you built the machine. You're like, I know what it looks like on paper. I know what it needs to be. I see what it looks like on my email.
Yeah. I'm not, I'm not
John Wilson: sure how to find it, but Yeah. But no.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah, we hired, we hired those coaches to help them out. Yeah. 'cause and the, and another that I just thought, another really cool thing about the size that I'm at is like. We book a lot of calls from people who just wanna talk to a plumber and they get to talk to the owner.
Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, like I book every call they send me like, Hey, uh, so and so. Mm-hmm. Uh, I, you know, I ran through the spiel. I tried to get 'em booked, but they just, they have some questions before someone goes out. Uh, and I tell them, tell them, would you like to talk to the owner? Because what's cooler than getting told that as a customer.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. [00:53:00]
Dalton Hatch: Like, Hey, you want a personal phone call from the owner of the company you just called.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: So I'll call and be, Hey, how you doing? Office said you had some questions. What can I help you with? I book everyone. I'm a hundred percent closed on those. Yeah. Because as soon as I call them, 'cause I call 'em the second that text hits my phone.
Yeah. And which is usually within five minutes of them calling them and they're like, oh my gosh.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Hi. And that's like, that sets the tone for the tech going there. That sets the tone for them as a lifelong customer rather than a one time customer. Mm-hmm. And I like that part of this size because.
John Wilson: Yeah. An example's. No way you could do
Dalton Hatch: that.
John Wilson: No, this is an example of exactly the type of tactical thing that I can no longer do. Yeah. Like, and or if I do it, it it's, um, like we have to make a process for it. You would, you would absolutely. Would have to. 'cause Yeah, because you, um, you imagine if every one of your texts were just like, Hey, can you Yeah.
I text you. Like, can you call this person? Well, there, there, there was a, there was a period, so like as we were really, um, as we were in like, [00:54:00] so when, in 2021 we bought a lot of companies. Over the years we bought nine. Yeah, that's awesome. And uh, when in 2021, we went from 32 team members to, uh, 105, in like 120 days or something.
It was like, that's nuts. It was ridiculous. We bought three companies. We bought a company in July. We bought a company in September. We bought a company in December. It was a lot. Yeah. You got on the train buddy. Got on the train. That's awesome. So we went from 32 to 105 and obviously like the infrastructure demands are totally different.
Yeah, yeah. Those two at those two sides. So, so we, we basically spent the next three years figuring out what the fuck we were doing. Yeah. Every day. And most of that was either like myself and my president, Brandon. Um, most of it was like us leading teams directly or us standing up teams directly, so.
Gotcha. So like that type of activity two years ago I did, I [00:55:00] was like running call center because we moved into this building two years ago. Yeah. Almost to this day. Like tech will, tech will move to a new building if you move, but like CSRs tend not to. Yeah. Um, so, uh, like one random day, our entire call center basically quit.
Wow. And so I had to rebuild, I had to stand up a call center, $15 million business. I had to stand up call center in 24 hours, which we did. Like we, yeah, but like, I was on That's so cool. I was on the phones too, so like, um, that's so cool. But over the years we used to, whenever a team needed rescued, like Brandon and I would go in and rescue that team.
Yeah. So like we've each run every single department in this building. Yeah. Uh, twice.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. That makes it easy for you guys to believe in you too.
John Wilson: Yeah. I, I, I think so.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Um, but yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm looking to hire an apprentice right now mm-hmm. To float. 'cause we, we have, we have so many jobs that it would help, especially 'cause I'm playing the apprentice.
Yeah. So like, I [00:56:00] went to a sewer line job. I sold the sewer line job, had my guy go do it. He needed a hand. So I went out there with him. We're in the trenches together. Mm-hmm. Put in a sewer line. And in my head I'm like. This is what I wish owners that I worked for would've been like mm-hmm. Because they'll be, they're the kind that stand outside the church
John Wilson: now that, that you can still do.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. That's that. Because like I've, I do, I'm a plumber through, through that. That's been hard for me to give up is like Yeah. The going out on calls thing and doing jobs. 'cause that's, that's what I fell in love with plumbing. Yeah. And you,
John Wilson: you can still kind of do that. I think people tell you there's like a stage in your growth where you can't, because like, you have to be working on the business, but eventually working on the business is working with, directly with your team.
Yeah. So it looks more like ride along though. Yeah. I just want them, I've in the field like 10 times
Dalton Hatch: this year so far. I just always want them to know that I have their back. Like I'll always be able to help them no matter what. Like, and they understand like there's gonna be a point where we just have so many guys that they don't need me.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: But you know, like I had a guy, he sold [00:57:00] a, a water heater in Texas. We have 'em in the attic and in the garage 'cause we don't have basements. Sure. And he sold both water heaters and a PRV and we put PVS in the ground at the meter. Yeah. And you know, he is like, Hey, can you go get the water heaters and meet me out here?
We're we, were there till 8 30, 9 o'clock together, like mm-hmm. I'm like, I'm not leaving until you're done, bro. I got you. Mm-hmm. Like, I want them to know that I won't ask them to do things that I'm not willing to do.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: That's why I don't ask them to work after hours. Mm. Because I'm not willing to.
John Wilson: But yeah. Can you walk me through something you were sort of talking about earlier is like your, the revenue for the size of team members you have Yeah. Is outperforming Yeah. That I would've expected. Um, can you walk me through like performance? Yeah. So, um, how many jobs a day? How about we start there?
How many jobs a day are you guys running? Anywhere
Dalton Hatch: from [00:58:00] two to four per tech. It just depends what the job is. If it's a quick job, if it's a, they end up selling a water heater or softener or whatever, right?
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Dalton Hatch: How many days out are you booked? We usually can schedule everything same day. I try to keep it that way, uh, either same day or next day. I try not to be days booked out just because that's when they're, they have a bigger tendency to cancel and go with someone else that can get there faster.
Right. So if that's when I hire people is if we're scheduling, I, if they call on a Monday, we schedule 'em for a Wednesday, that's when I'm hiring people for the most part. So it's, it's two techs full-time in the field. Me when I'm needed. So like, I think our year to date is just shy of 600,000 in total revenue.
Mm-hmm. Between like two and a half plumbers.
John Wilson: That's a lot.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Yeah. And honestly like. The biggest reason is communication is huge. Mm-hmm. We have a company group chat, that's how we talk through the whole [01:00:00] day. Mm-hmm. My guys are really, really, and I, and I, I expect this from them. They're really good communicators.
Like the moment they sell the water, Hey, I'm gonna be here for a couple hours. Mm-hmm. Just letting y'all know, uh, hey, I just finished my job. Does, does Matt need help on a job? Does Walter need help on a job? I can be there. What do, what do you need me to get? I can get material. Like we're, it's all about communication to be able to do that.
And it's all about, in my opinion, just coordination. Yeah. 'cause, 'cause we don't have a shop with inventory, right. So we have to pick up material. Mm-hmm. Well, if you go to a house and it's three 30 and you sell, you know, a water heater, a water softener, and a PRV, well let's knock out the water heater and the P RV so that we get them happy and get the water back on and.
Then tomorrow morning we'll come back out and we'll do that. This softener the thing that's not exactly needed right now. Yeah. Um, and that, that's, honestly that And when, what's a [01:01:00] normal week in performance per guy? Like 15, 15, 15,000. Mm-hmm. I, there there are minimums that I ask for, I say ask instead of required, because at the end of the day, it's on me to provide the leads.
And if I don't provide enough leads, then I can't expect them to sell enough. Right. If I give them one lead a day. Mm-hmm. But, 'cause sometimes it's slow, it happens. Um, but I, I, I would like 3000 a day per tech and then, uh, 10 to 15,000 a week
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Per tech. And then monthly I'd like 'em to be 45, 50, you know, but I mean, at 35 we're still doing fine.
Mm-hmm. And just. I've, I honestly, the biggest thing is having guys that are driven, guys that want to do good and guys that want to make money.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Because if they don't wanna make money, they're not gonna wanna make you money. Yeah. You know, if they're complacent with making the minimum amount of check they can, [01:02:00] they're not gonna want to excel for you.
Right. Um, but I give 'em incentives, you know, like I give 'em bonuses.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: There's no point in making all this money. How, how does the comp plan work? So I, our pay scale's different for everybody. So I ask them, you know, what do you wanna get paid? What do you like? What style do you like to get paid? You know, do you want all commission?
Do you want hourly plus commission? Do you want hourly? That's cool. I'll try anything with you. But you're still expected to perform and produce. Right. So, you know, one guy, one guy could make 45 an hour, one guy could make 25, 20% of the ticket. It just depends. And then, you know, like I told them, uh, if y'all hit 2 million in revenue this year, I'll send.
I'll send everybody in the company to, uh, cruise in The Bahamas.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Because, I mean, what's the point of making all the money if you don't do anything cool with it?
John Wilson: Yeah. We just took 45 people to Dominican
Dalton Hatch: Republic. Yeah. See, like that's next year, like I said, I did the $5,000 scholarship for the kid to go [01:03:00] into trade school.
Next year I wanna do 20,000 between four kids. Mm-hmm. That's a goal I have, you know? So 15,000 a week, two to four leads a day. Yeah. Uh, last month was our record month at 1 91. Um, we average about And how often were you in the field in that month? More than now, but not like a crazy amount. Yeah. It was definitely a decent amount.
Um, 'cause I, I mean, if I go out to a job I am, I'm probably gonna sell a bigger job just 'cause I can make on the fly decisions they can't. Like I have to get approval for something, I don't need to get approval. Mm-hmm. So. But I think, I think I only did like 30 or 40 grand of that and the rest was them.
That's a lot. Yeah. And that was mainly just selling the job and letting them do it, you know? [01:04:00] Hmm. But, but yeah, I mean, just, just communicating and, and not expecting my guys to bury themselves in the ground. Like I'll push 'em until I feel that, you know, it, I need to let up a little bit, and then that's when I'll work more if we're busy.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: When do you think you bring
John Wilson: on your third?
Dalton Hatch: Super Soon. Mm-hmm. Like, I feel it. I, I feel it coming. I've had, I've had, man, I was not the leader that I needed to be, to have the guys that I have now.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Two months before I found them. I had to become the leader I needed to be to be able to get them.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: And then I hired both of them the same day. Like I, I was super blessed, found out about both of them the same day. Hired both of 'em the same day. I, I'm, I've had, because I was such a crappy leader and not the owner I needed to beforehand, I've had plumbers work for me and leave. Mm-hmm. [01:05:00] You know, because I'm, I wasn't organized like they would pretty much, I had like a half-ass price book.
So they would be like, Hey, what do you want me to charge for this job on like every job? Mm-hmm. That's not their fault. That's mine. And then so I got my price book built out. I, I got everything ready to go and then I found both of them. And then that's when the scaling happened. And that was the, like the turning point for as far as revenue goes, learning that I have to evolve myself in order to get that third guy my, right now, now that's, that you
John Wilson: learn every six months.
Yeah. I mean, that's a never ending. Yeah. It's kind of. Like the company gets bottlenecked. Yeah. By me or you?
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Yeah. I, or what holds it back? I realized as you were saying it, the, uh, learning your job every six months, I was like, yeah, that's, that's pretty on the nose. 'cause now I'm having to learn processes, I'm having to learn systems, I'm having to learn, like, you know, getting job costing down.
[01:06:00] Mm-hmm. Uh, as far as like knowing what job costing is Exactly. So we know exactly what we're working with kind of thing. Mm-hmm. But honestly, it's like, I, I, I think we'll have a third guy. I think by the end of June we'll have a third guy. Yeah. Right now we're steady. It's not slow, but we're steady. Yeah.
And you know, we're, now you've said you're spending, like, you gave me a rough idea how, how much you spending? Yeah. So in marketing, anywhere from 20 on the super low end, like 16 grand, and then on the super high end, like 30.
John Wilson: Can you break that down? Like what's inside there?
Dalton Hatch: So, P-P-C-S-E-O-L-S-A, uh, website.
I include my retainer for, uh, my marketing company that I pay. Um, and then we have, uh, billboards that we're putting up, like the eight by 16 small ones that we do in the rural towns. Uh, I have three more going up. Those are [01:07:00] anywhere from five to $7,500 for the year. Rented the space, and then it's like 2,500 bucks for, uh, the sign to get made.
And then I do yard signs. I, I usually buy about a hundred every two to three months and I'll go out at like. One to three in the morning on a Friday. Mm-hmm. And just put 50 out somewhere. We get a lot of revenue from that. I just started doing a lot more social media stuff on TikTok, like videos, editing, things like that.
We've been getting, starting to get some leads from that. Majority of our leads, I would say is probably PPC, which is why our cost per lead's higher than where I would like it to be. Just because we're competing with like nine different big shops that are putting a million plus a month into just BPC.
John Wilson: It doesn't matter.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was
John Wilson: gonna say it, it doesn't matter like your, you win marketing, whoever has the high, whoever can afford to pay [01:08:00] the most for the lead Yeah. Is who wins. Yeah. And frankly, I know the average tickets of the companies that you compete against. They've all been here and visited. Yeah.
And yours is higher. We're so, like, you can afford to pay more. We're priced properly. Yeah. 'cause I understand
Dalton Hatch: the market we're competing in.
John Wilson: Yeah. You, you can afford to pay more for a lead. So like, it, it's almost irrelevant. I mean, it'd be nice to have like a 5% marketing. I do a lot of, of gorilla
Dalton Hatch: marketing too.
Yeah. Like I did, I did six career days. Mm-hmm. This, these past two months. Uh, we, we did that scholarship thing. Like I do a lot of that kind of like events. Yeah. I try to be involved with the communities as much as humanly possible. Like for teacher Appreciation week, we took donuts and kachess to every school in Bandera for the, for breakfast, for the teacher, for the whole staff of the school.
Mm-hmm. That kind of stuff. Uh, is, is a big driver for leads for us. Hey, we saw that you did this or, 'cause I asked. I asked. I'm like, how'd you hear about us? I wanna know. I wanna know the data. [01:09:00] Yeah. Um, and I tell my guys to ask. And then also we have like. Really good reviews. Mm-hmm. You know, we have, I think two hundred and thirty, two hundred thirty reviews with 4.9.
Yeah. And our only negative reviews are price. Mm-hmm. And I'll take that any day of the week. Yeah. That's what we say too. Yeah. I'll, I'll take, if you, if you have a negative review about service, I'm gonna call you the second I see it and we're gonna figure out why the hell that happened. 'cause that's unacceptable.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Like customer service is my jam. I love, I love customer service because I feel like I am, I'm doing customer service the way companies around me talk about they're doing customer service, if that makes sense. Like we care about our customers, but then it's like, not really, but like I sympathize with, I get it.
Like, we're meeting you on your worst day. Mm-hmm. Nobody wants to call a plumber. Nobody's like, man, I really hope I can spend $3,000 today. I'm so pumped. [01:10:00] You know, but like. We just, we just, we just actually care. We understand it sucks. We're gonna do anything and everything that it takes to help you out.
And I think that our reputation is what drives a lot of leads as well. We've, we've been able to, to build a really, really good 'cause in the Hill country where we live. Those, those bigger companies, people don't call 'em out there. Right. 'cause they know what they're gonna charge 'em. Yep. You know, granted we're not cheap, but we're not that.
Mm-hmm. You know, I'm not spending a million dollars a month in marketing. Mm-hmm. So my, my members don't, my prices don't need to be that, where, that, where that is and then nothing against them. That's where their prices like you, like I guarantee your prices are more than us because you have more going on than we do.
Mm-hmm. You wouldn't stay in business if you charged what we charged, you know? Um, but we've kind of taken over the hill country because not there's really no company out in the hill country out in rural Texas like that, that. [01:11:00] Answers the phone when they call that shows up same day or next day, that, um, provides options that charges flat rate.
Yeah. That treats 'em like a human being, like, like the number one thing I hear. 'cause there's, there's plumbing companies around us, you know, that are, that have more people. Mm-hmm. But they don't do near the amount of jobs we do. They don't do near the numbers we do because they, they're, they're not focused on the most important thing.
And the most important thing is, one, taking care of your customer and two, taking care of your guys. If you pay a guy 20, $25 an hour, he's probably not gonna go over the moon to take care of your customer. Yeah. You know? Um,
John Wilson: and if you walk, how are you? Sorry. No, you're good. Um, when bringing on the third guy, 16 to 20,000 is a lot.
Yeah. That's just a lot. Like a tangibly a lot of money. Yeah. How [01:12:00] in, but it sounds like you're not feeling like you have the leads yet. Despite, that's a lot of money.
Dalton Hatch: There's two different feelings of having the leads in my brain. So there's, I have the leads on paper, and then there's having the leads in my head.
Okay. Because I still, and I get caught up in this. Yeah. What's the difference? Because I what you're saying? Yeah. So I'll, I, I still think like a plumber, right. So I still think if we're not slammed, that doesn't justify a guy. Oh, gotcha. But you don't have to be slammed to justify a guy. Yeah. You have to have a certain amount of leads.
52 leads a month. Yeah. Like, like I was, I was telling my. My mentors, uh, the other day on the phone, I was like, I have, I have the leads to, to hire a guy. I don't have the guy yet. Like I need to find a guy that can capitalize on those leads.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. '
Dalton Hatch: cause those are the two guys I have, they capitalize on their leads, like their closing rates are 90 to a hundred percent.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Um, and that's even with like, I've changed prices to, to accommodate that. [01:13:00] 'cause I mean, you know, the rule of thumb, if it's a hundred percent and you're too low, if it's, you know, 60% you're too high like that, they stay at like 88 is average. And then like anywhere from 88 to a hundred percent conversion rate, uh, opportunity converter rate.
I don't have the infrastructure to train a guy to get to there. I'm at the size where I need the guy to be there and find him. And that's what I'm doing currently is recruiting. Yeah. I think that's, that's 'cause I'm so picky on, on higher. Like, like I tell people. It's easy to get an interview with me.
It's really hard to get a job with me. I'm really picky. 'cause I've had so many guys, you know, say they wanna stay forever and then leave. Mm-hmm. Granted, most of that was my fault, but still, it's like in the back of my head, like, I'm like a woman that's been cheated on a bunch of times. I don't trust you.
You're just like all the others. That's funny. But yeah, so like
John Wilson: yeah. That's just a lot of dollars
Dalton Hatch: current. I'm currently [01:14:00] recruiting.
John Wilson: Yeah. It's just a lot of dollars. I, I wonder if you could even jump up to four.
Dalton Hatch: That'd be kind of interesting. Probably. Yeah. On paper probably. I just need a fourth van.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: I have a third van that's like my van.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: You know, but I haven't, I haven't even started that van in almost a week and a half. Mm-hmm. So that's all I, I get in the bad habit of just, of, of, of justifying hiring on how many calls I'm running. Yeah. Rather than. Looking at the lead board, looking at like, yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. So one of the things that, um, it was, it's sort of like a funny impetus to start growing the business, but Yeah. One of the reasons we started pushing on it was we had, I don't like feeling vulnerable. Yeah. It's not my favorite. Yeah. I don't like that. And I never have. And, uh, you know, I'm big shock.
Right. And, [01:15:00] uh, so I don't like feeling vulnerable. And when I, you know, part of the job is how do we identify weakness and how do we like, remove that weakness? And, um, a big part of how we think about growth and how we think about continuing to push. It started with feeling vulnerable. Yeah. Like, oh, one guy is our entire HVAC department.
What happens if he leaves? Yeah. What happens if he quits? What happens if I piss him off one day? Yeah. Yeah. Redundancy is. Important. Yeah. And, and it, it turns into this, uh, it becomes comical the bigger you get. 'cause I, I still like, it'll happen in accounting. Like, ah, man, I only have one staff account. Yeah.
I should have two. You know, it's, it's like dumb stuff like that. But I always remember back to like when it was one HVAC tech and like, that was what inspired us to start pushing harder and harder. Yeah. Was because I felt vulnerable. And I think it's, it, that is one of the things that does get easier with the, [01:16:00] in, uh, like the bigger the team.
Yeah. If there's 10 plumbers, like someone's always gonna be six, someone's always gonna be on vacation and it no longer impacts revenue. Yeah. It just doesn't Yeah. Because that's just like, it's costed in Yeah. But at two. Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: That's a big deal. Yeah. Like I had one guy, one guy called in, uh, super sick mm-hmm.
On a Monday and he even came to work sick Tuesday. Yeah. And. I had to get in the van and go to work. It's a real, yeah, it's a real impact. It throws a wrench in everything. Yeah. You know, when,
John Wilson: when, when my dad was running the business, he had a guy named Lee, and Lee worked for me for like a year or two before retiring, but Lee fell off a ladder and he broke his leg and he was, you know, he was in the cast for six months.
Yeah. And you know, this was like, this was the early two thousands. Like indeed wasn't a thing. Recruiting plumbers wasn't a thing. Like put an ad in a newspaper. You didn't know somebody talk books, supply house. Right. Like we, I, I don't remember who we found, but like that my dad had three [01:17:00] plumbers and that one guy being down is a third of his business being down for six months.
Damn. Yeah. It almost ran him under. Yeah. And it, and I think about, I think about that possible. I'm, I was thinking about that as when, like, when you were like, oh, the third guy in, in my head I'm, I'm always in that place of like, I. Uh, permanently paranoid is probably the best way to put it. I'm, uh, there's a book called, I think I think about it all the time, dude.
Yeah, I really do. Yeah. There's a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. I'm gonna have to add that to the list. It's, it's a good one. It's a good one. I definitely agree, but like, I really, it really like, it hits home for me because I'm like, oh, I've always been paranoid. Like, I'm always expecting the shittiest thing in the world to happen.
Yeah. Then I'm just rarely surprised. Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. That is the story of my life. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. That's funny you say, 'cause I've, I've thought about, that's been a reoccurring thought for a couple weeks now. Like, like I've only had these guys. We've, dude, our growth has been so rapid mm-hmm. Throughout the [01:18:00] entire Sure.
Span of our company. A hundred percent. I've only had these guys for a month and a half. Yeah. Like, I went from me, a plumber and a helper to me and a plumber to me, to me and a plumber to me, to me and two plumbers. Mm-hmm. That's kind of the, been the last year and a half. Yep. And I think about that a lot now.
'cause I'm like, damn, what if, what if so and so gets hurt? What if, what if they quit? Yeah. What if both quit? What if like I think about, I'm like, it's real. Yeah. It's very real. 'cause I'm at the point now where like that would really affect me. Yeah. And that's what's that those thoughts have been pushing me so much closer to the third guy.
Like Yeah. If you'd asked me two weeks ago, I'd have been like, we'll probably hire another guy by like November. Yeah. And these past two weeks I've really been thinking about that. I'm like, you need, you need to, you need to do this. Yeah. You need [01:19:00] to get this done. Like, like if you don't have another guy, if one guy calls in for a week straight and I have to go to work every day for a week, other things fall off that I need to be doing.
Yeah. Which can also make us lose money. Yeah. You know? 'cause like I was telling you, like marketing is like, it scratches my creative itch. I love marketing. I love, I love like the, the branding. I love going out to the community, meeting people that talking to people. Um, but yeah. Yeah. The the third guy. The third guy's gonna happen very soon.
Yeah. Very soon. I just need to, I gotta find him. Yeah. But I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing everything. I, well, I could be doing more and I will be doing more because this, this is like real time kind of convicting to be like crap or get off the pot kind of thing.
John Wilson: Well, the, you know, we're talking outta both sides here.
It's like, hey, you're making the most money, uh, you'll make for a long time. You sure you wanna grow? But on the other hand, I'm in the permanent paranoid. Yeah. Uh, like how do you [01:20:00] de-risk the situation? Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Dealing with overwhelming emotion no matter what the emotion is, is in my opinion, the hardest part of it business.
Because as an employee or just a general human being, you can run away from emotion. Yeah. You can run away from situations. Your business follows you home? Yeah, it does. I don't get to turn my phone off. Yeah. I don't get to, you know, enjoy a a, a Saturday or a Sunday with my kids after a negative review comes in and debilitates me for 10 seconds before I'm like, ow, whatever.
You know what? We, we did everything right. Like, you take it personal, you know, like I had a, I had a lady, um, literally as I'm flying here yesterday, the night before, or Yeah. Monday night at like 11. Leave a one star review about price. Yeah. Which does not affect me the way it used to affect me. Yeah. That used to, I'd be like, I'm gonna come to your house.
Like, you know, but it's just like, [01:21:00] man, I miss being an employee. 'cause if that would've came in, I wouldn't have even known. Yeah. You know, but it's, but also in the same breath, it's like, yeah, we're doing, we're doing the right thing. You. Because she, I called her, and of course I called, I'm like, Hey, you know, did they do this?
Did they do this? Did they give you options for this? Blah, blah, blah. And uh, you know, the service is always amazing. The guys are always amazing. They're so am I, they're polite, they're knowledgeable, this, that and the other. Right? And it's always price. And I'm, and I just realized we're just not for everybody.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Just like your company is not for everybody. Mm-hmm. And that's fine. It's okay. I don't need to get every single customer. Mm-hmm. That was a big lesson for me to learn. Mm-hmm. Was understanding that just because it, it's kinda like what I said on Jared's podcast. Just because I can't afford a Ferrari doesn't mean that Ferrari's price gouging me.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know, not saying that we're a Ferrari or whatever, but that's the best way I can think to [01:22:00] explain it. Like, you know, some people can afford a. $2 million Bugatti.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Some people can afford a $3,000 Chevy pickup on Facebook marketplace. Like, it's just, it's just the way the world works.
There's different, there's different financial classes. Mm-hmm. And, you know, yeah. Sometimes we go to, we go to a house and we know, like, I can't remember the lady's name, but we went to this lady's house and uh, you know, she's like 90 years old. Yep. She's on a fixed income. Before we touched the door, she was like, look, I'm not gonna, I don't wanna waste your time.
'cause I'm, I already feel horrible. She's like, I got 200 bucks and let me explain what's happened. We did the job for free. Mm-hmm. I'm not gonna take the $200 you have in your account, whether that's honest or not. That's between hiring God.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: To get back to the third guy thing. Like, you have to be, like you said, willing, just willing to be vulnerable, right?
Mm-hmm. Like, that's what's kept me from [01:23:00] hiring the third guy for sure. 'cause I'm. It's a scary feeling. Mm-hmm. It's a very scary feeling. Every guy hires a scary feeling. Yeah. Um, but the third guy for sure, because that's like, that's that step, right? That's that. Yeah. It's a step. You're deciding something.
Yep. And I don't know. I do, but I, my brain's like, no, you don't. I don't, I wanna say like, I don't know if that fast growth, I wanna keep doing that. You know? I kinda like the time I'm getting to spend with my kids, the time I'm getting to spend with my wife. Three's not, but it, it makes you, it makes me think five years ahead is what I mean.
Yeah. Yeah. You know? Um, but I know I like You could stop at three. Yeah. Yeah. Like your, like your buddy said he had what, five? Yeah, he had three.
John Wilson: Yeah, he's at five now. He had to hire a manager.
Dalton Hatch: He had three.
John Wilson: He had three.
Dalton Hatch: Okay.
John Wilson: Yeah. He had to hire a manager at five and it was like,
Dalton Hatch: he, is there a difference between a manager at four and a manager at five?[01:24:00]
Is it just one of the same, you either hire?
John Wilson: No, I, I think it's like a direct report problem. Um, yeah. Like, not really, you know, I think, you know, the, the manager, uh, so there's, there was five plumbers, an admin, a manager, and my buddy Yeah. And the manager basically ran the admin and the five plumbers. So six direct reports.
Yeah. And then my buddy, you know, had the manager. So to me that's like a perfectly fine org chart.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: Probably makes a lot of money
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. To fulfill the goals that I set out in the beginning, I have to.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Because I, my, my ultimate goal is retired at 40. Mm-hmm. Like, retired from the day to day.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Um, so if that's gonna happen, I mean, I got nine years to get it done. So, um, yeah. I would love, I would love to have, and I'm gonna, I wanna do everything I can to have that guy by the end of June for sure. [01:25:00] Because May is usually, like April is usually our, our big month. That was our record month. Last year.
It was our record month. This month. This year May is usually steady. June is steady to slow for some reason. Like summer vacation I think is why.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Um, again, that, that's the other thing I'm learning, being very early in business is learning, uh, consumer patterns. 'cause we just don't have a whole lot of data to go off of.
Yeah. We're just kind of like year to year. Yeah. Um, but July is usually like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. July and August are huge for us. Um, and I don't wanna hire a guy July 1st. Yeah. I wanna hire a guy as soon as I can in June. Yep. So that when July hits he's running. Yeah. Not, well you got three more days with Yeah.
So and so before you're let go on your own. Yeah. You get more, you get more, you just be more intentional about it. Yeah. The, the, the hiring. The hiring for the [01:26:00] future is, is is the scariest thing for me. Like how AC companies will hire mm-hmm. In the spring so that when the summer hits, you're not screwed.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, I, I think plumbing electric and HVAC, like, you know, we have a big hiring push. I think we've onboarded like 30 heads in the last 60 days. Well, yeah, you were saying what like every, every two weeks. Every two weeks. Yeah. Today, today was, you know, this week there's five and I'm, it's wild. And, um, yeah, it's a lot.
Uh, but, you know, peak season, summer, yeah. So like our, you know, our revenue will go from like two to 2.2, up to like 2.7 to three. Yeah. Uh, like that's a 50% jump. That's a big jump. Yeah. Um, and it happens really quick, like probably starting next week in June, we've already started to see it, like trending, like day by day we're going from a hundred a day to 140 a day.
Yeah. So like, it's moving, you know?
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Instead of thinking about. Maybe what's best for the business? I think about what's best for the guys.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Too [01:27:00] much. Um, which that can be a thing.
John Wilson: Well re it does remove some pressure from them. They can take vacations.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Can be sick without feeling guilty. Well, in the sense of like, I don't wanna hire a guy and then he takes some calls from them and then they leave or something.
Like, it's just like Yeah. It's the permanently paranoid.
John Wilson: Well, so one of the, uh, what I have found Yeah. Is the, if you're going to make a step change like that, faster is better. Yeah. 'cause if you do it in a year, then they're used to having all the leads. They've been here for a month and a half. Yeah.
They're not used to having all the leads. They've only been here for 45 days. Yeah. But if you did that in a year and you'd be like, Hey, I'm gonna change this now kind of dramatically. That makes sense. Then it's more challenging. Yeah. So like when you're expecting someone set in a routine to be like, oh yeah, let's change a hundred
Dalton Hatch: percent.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: That makes that,
John Wilson: there's a lot more change management. The more stuck in a specific way. A team is, but if that's huge, if like, if we have, uh, like we've had teams where we have one [01:28:00] salesperson mm-hmm. And it is a very big deal to add a second. So now when we're launching a new team or we're like investing in, or whatever that is.
Mm-hmm. We wanna get that team up to three as fast as possible, because there's a lot less drama.
Dalton Hatch: When you, when you hire a salesperson, how do you, in my head, the reason I have never hired a salesperson is how do you deal with the customer seeing that they sold the job, but they're not the one doing it.
Yeah. Well, how do you keep your customer
John Wilson: from taking I would, I would push back and say that you currently have to salespeople.
Dalton Hatch: No, I, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. I'm saying from a customer standpoint. Yeah. How do you deal with their, if their thought process goes to wait, you're just here to sell. Then the plumbers come in and do the mm-hmm.
Because there's companies in, in San Antonio where the salesmen aren't plumbers. They don't know anything about what they're selling. They're just sales salesmen.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, I think, uh, so we run a sales install model. Yeah. But our salespeople are [01:29:00] plumbers. Okay. So that's where you're, they know what they're doing.
Yeah. They know what they're doing. Yeah. They know what they're talking about. That's why there's a bad reput reputation in San Antonio. But the, the benefit, um, like it's kind of easy to explain, like, okay, great. Here's the job. Awesome. I have to order parts. That's gonna take some time. So we'll be back later today or tomorrow.
And they schedule it. But, uh, Hey, I got the materialist, we're gonna go get the parts. You know?
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. Rob is gonna come install this. Does the sales person handle the collection at the end of the job, or is that the installer?
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. I, I, 'cause like I was telling you, I've never worked for, I never worked for a company that has an install crew or a sales department.
So I, I know that much about how that works. So it's like the, I have that like old school lumber plumber mentality of like. Well, you teach a sales plumber then. Mm-hmm. Like that. 'cause you don't know, so you just judge. You
John Wilson: guys also are sales plumbers
Dalton Hatch: right now. Yeah, I've, trust me, I've learned owning a business, like whether plumbers like it or not, if you're a service plumber, you're a salesman.
Yeah.
John Wilson: You're a sales guy.
Dalton Hatch: So plumber is just your product.
John Wilson: A hundred percent. So like your guys right now, if their average is 15 grand a week with that [01:30:00] average ticket. Mm-hmm. Um, like what you probably could do as a third guy is hire an installer. Or you could get each of them an installer. Because what ends up happening is, hey, instead of running two jobs a day mm-hmm.
You can run four and you get to sell anything you want. And then if it's above a certain threshold, flip it over to this guy. If it's below it, you still do it. Yeah. It keeps the guys that are already producing at a high level producing. Yeah. Because that's a strong average ticket. Like they're performing.
So at 15,000 a week of like selling and performing the work mm-hmm. That might be 25 to 30,000 a week sales, which is a lot. Yeah. So that's that. I mean, that's how we approached it is we had a guy whose conversion rate was really high on water heaters. Yeah. So we got him an installer that just followed him around.
'cause he would like, he would sell every water heater he saw.
Dalton Hatch: Are you paying them performance pay installers as well? Yep. Yeah. 'cause my thought process on that was [01:31:00] like, I wondered if installers made hourly. I'm like, what if they don't have anything to do? Then you're just, then they're just sitting there.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, their performance. Yeah. Um, and they make a lot, like our installers make a ton of money. Yeah. Which is awesome. Like they should, they deserve it. Yeah, absolutely. Um, like they're doing hard work. So, um, it, the, the rough way that it splits is sales gets 10%. Install gets 10%.
Dalton Hatch: That's why I figured Yeah.
That's how a lot of the companies that I've, I've heard.
John Wilson: Yeah. That's how Radiant, like we told 'em to do that. Yeah. Um, so that's how they started doing that. Like, yeah. Six months ago.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: They were up here in January.
Dalton Hatch: Nice.
John Wilson: So. It seems to be working ish. They're starting to pivot. They have 28 plumbers that are all service plumbers, and they're trying to divide it in roughly half for them.
Dude, that's huge. That's huge. Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. They're big. Yeah. That's, that's a big, yeah. Their, their service area is a little bit away from us. They're like new Braunfels area, I think. But no, I, I mean, anytime I go towards that area, I see their trucks all the way all the time. Oh yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. I bet.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah.
They're big [01:32:00] 62 million.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. Big. It's huge. Huge.
John Wilson: Yeah. If you had any, uh, if you had any advice for folks starting off their company, what,
Dalton Hatch: what would it be? Don't worry about what you look like to other company owners. Don't try to look bigger than you are, just so that they think you're rich.
A lot of guys fall into the, um, they start making more money, and so they start buying things that don't help their business in any way. Mm-hmm. Way too early. Mm-hmm. So that other company owners think that they're this big. Um, they care more about what other company owners think of them than what their customers think of them.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: And that's a big, uh, that can crush you. Um, I was very close to falling into that, and luckily I have really good mentors who are like, Hey, you need to stop. Mm-hmm. Like, who cares? Just like trucks and boats or what? Trucks, boats, clothes, like watches, whatever people are buying. Like, don't fall into that.
It is, it means nothing at the end of the day. Um, trust in [01:33:00] God. Um, people are dumb. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. We
John Wilson: are, we're all, we, we, we make, we are all inherently flawed. I've, I've made that, uh, I've made that joke a lot. I've always thought it was funny, like, we would be buying these companies that like, couldn't grow, they couldn't figure it out when mm-hmm.
Uh, and they're like a fraction of our size. Yeah. And the owner rolls up like in a nicer car Yep. Than me. He's got a lake house, he has a boat. And, and on one hand I'm like, oh, what should I, what did I do? And then on the other hand, I'm like, well, I did build a big business. Yeah. Uh, but it yeah, it is, it is kind of funny.
Yeah. Um, still driving Ford Ranger.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. So, hey,
John Wilson: I don't know if I made it.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. There's nothing about a vehicle or a watch or the kind of pants you wear that's gonna make your company grow. Yeah. There's nothing about that. I think, guys, I think one of the biggest things is don't compare yourself. Stop comparing yourself.
Mm-hmm. Like so many guys will look at guys like you. Mm-hmm. And. Be like, how do I get there? How do I do that? Like, well, well let's, let's get to [01:34:00] one tech first. Yeah. Like, let's do that. Like let's get to 500,000 before we think about a million. Yeah. Let's get to a million before we think about 10. Mm-hmm.
You know, so you hear, you hear a lot of guys say, you, you have to buy brand new vans right out the gate. You do not have to do that. Mm-hmm. But you do need to buy one with as low miles as possible. Yeah. Because you will put miles on that sucker. Yeah. Yeah. You'll run it. Um, I built my company off of certified pre-owned vans
John Wilson: mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: That had 30,000 or less miles on it. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. Our buy box originally until 2019 was, it had to be less than $17,000 and I had to have less than 30,000 miles. Yeah. Gosh. I wish that was the case still. Yeah. That different. It was a different world eight years ago,
Dalton Hatch: but um, now that same truck, that same van's, 40 grand.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's,
Dalton Hatch: yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Like I just bought one with 26,000 miles on it. It has, it's got all the shelves. It was a plow that didn't wanna do plumbing anymore, so the material came with it too. [01:35:00] Nice. Yeah. Which is super sick. That's a win. That's a win. Super sick. Like, like literally 60% stocked.
Hell yeah. Of what we carry. And I was like, alright, let's go. That was 42 grand. Yeah, that's solid. So I financed like 23 of it and paid the rest cash. Mm-hmm. And yeah. My, my, my, my thing on, on buying vehicles is keep it, keep it less than a thousand dollars a month for the pay. Yeah. Whatever we gotta do to do that.
That's what I'm cool with. Yeah. What? But, but yeah, you don't have to buy brand new vans. Just buy, don't buy, don't buy something crappy.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Like I, I, I started the company in a crappy F-150. That's fine if you're gonna start it in your vehicle that you currently own. That's cool.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: But do whatever it takes to get out of that.
Mm-hmm. Work to something that looks better. Customers, customers are all judgmental on your looks. Mm-hmm. Like the first five seconds you're at the house, they wanna see the, what your vehicle looks like. Mm-hmm. Because however you take care of your [01:36:00] vehicle is how you take care of everything.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: They wanna see what you look like.
So don't roll up to the house wearing a t-shirt that has got mustard stains on it from your gas station roller dogs. Mm-hmm. Don't roll up like, just crap. Look at like, just like try put some effort into your appearance. 'cause whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, that's how they're judging you.
Mm-hmm. And if you want, that's all they
John Wilson: have. They don't know you
Dalton Hatch: first five seconds. That's the only thing. They don't you after that, it's on you to gain their trust. Yeah. You know, so if you're already starting off with a, with a disadvantage because of how you appear to them, you're just making your jobs so much harder.
Yeah. How do you expect people to spend money with you if they don't trust you? Yeah. And they're not gonna trust someone that looks like a crack addict. Yeah, a hundred percent. You know, so just my advice is, is just do your research. You know, like follow guys like you, the content that you're putting out, man, changes, changes the world [01:37:00] of entrepreneurs because we live in a day and age where we have this thing in our hand with endless knowledge.
Yeah. That's wild. People aren't using it, and it's crazy to me. Yeah.
John Wilson: I, I wish, like, that was why we did this originally, is I wish that I would've had this, I'm so fortunate that I did shorten our learning curve by like,
Dalton Hatch: years. That's why I've grown. What I've grown. Yeah. Because you can just listen. I didn't, yeah.
I, I listened, but not only did I listen, I implemented what guys like you said. Mm-hmm. So I didn't make those beginner mistakes that a lot of guys make. Yeah. So. You know, like I started out with the F1 53 months later I had a transit with a wrap. Mm-hmm. I didn't just put my name on the side of it. Mm-hmm.
I had a wrap. Um, you know, like I, I YouTubed like learning how to present pricing, learning how to build options, learning how to, how to excel in customer service. What is marketing, how many different kinds of marketing is there, how do you do marketing with no budget, [01:38:00] with no money. Mm-hmm. Learning how to use social media.
Like you, if you're just gonna start a company and then just wing it and things, things are gonna come together. You're in for a very rude awakening. Yeah. Because it's gonna suck. Yeah. Really bad. Yeah. Um, to go back to that word we've been saying, like be intentional. Like if you really wanna start a company, then do it, but do it with intentionality.
Like just, just study how to run a business. The same way you study your fricking TikTok algorithm. If you can spend four hours on TikTok, you can spend four hours on YouTube searching how to start a plumbing company. Mm-hmm. And watch every video that's there. 'cause there's thousands. Yeah. And then use some discernment.
This guy's kind of crazy. He doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. Mm-hmm. This guy clearly has built this business. That's why like you and Jared are great guys to follow. 'cause y'all have done it. You're, you've built this huge company. He built a huge company and exited. Like, you know, there's guys out there like, uh, other guys can't think of their names, but other [01:39:00] content creators that are plumbing company owners, because that's all I know.
That's all I care about. I don't care about how somebody built a tech company that's not, you know, you can still get cool stuff from that, but it's few and far between compared to guys that are in your industry. Yep. Um, comparison's, the biggest advice, stop comparing yourself. Mm-hmm. I, I was a, I have a bad habit of that.
I'm way better now, but like, I'll see other companies that are close to my size doing bigger and better things and I'm like. What the hell am I not doing? That doesn't mean that you're not doing it, that just means that you're doing it differently. Mm-hmm. Or like thinking that, you know, the market in Kansas is the same as the market in South Texas or California is the same as like Wyoming.
Like, yes, you need to be priced properly, but also you need to be priced properly to what your market will allow. Mm-hmm. I can't charge what people in California charge 'cause it's not $18,000 a gallon for gas. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, but [01:40:00] I think guys just need to just do your research. Yeah. Just do, just, just try.
Just put some thought into it. Don't just wing it. Replicate and duplicate R and d dude. Like yeah. Who cares. Yeah. If you're doing exactly what somebody else, like so many times in the beginning, I would search what the giant companies in San Antonio were posting. Mm-hmm. I would take that post and just make my version.
Mm-hmm. Because I'm like, well, if they're doing it clearly works. Mm-hmm. So replicate and duplicate. Why not? Yep. Like, who cares if someone goes, you made the same post? Be like, yeah, I did. It worked. And thank you.
John Wilson: Yeah. You
Dalton Hatch: saw it, didn't you? You know, like Yeah. And, and, and learn. The other biggest one is learn, learn marketing.
Learn where wasted money. Yeah. Because you can waste a lot of money on marketing. Mm-hmm. Like, I see these guys, they'll like, they'll like pay a, a pizzeria tons of money to put their name in a pizza [01:41:00] box. Yeah. How many freaking people open a pizza box, see a logo go, I should call that plumber.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: You know, it's good for when you get to the point where you can afford that.
Mm-hmm. But if you're starting out. Dude, like get, you don't even have a Google presence. Yeah. And you're doing pizza boxes.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Like,
John Wilson: well, I, I think that's the first things first.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: Get on Google. Yeah. Get your first things first. Yeah. Get on Google. Yeah. Now. Yeah. But yeah, these were good and tactical.
Yeah. I appreciate you coming on. Appreciate you having me, man. This was fun. I feel like, uh, hyper-productive, fun, early journey. Like getting ready to, getting ready to add more on, like, I think you're at a fun, I think you're at a fun stage. Yeah. About to decide if you're gonna do the not fun part. Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: Honestly, it feels cool. It's really cool. Like it's easy to get wrapped up in the fear.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Dalton Hatch: You know, especially like at your level, it's
John Wilson: really easy
Dalton Hatch: to get wrapped up in the fear.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, I, I heard a quote this morning, if this helps. Yeah. And the quote was, uh, and it's [01:42:00] like for your life. Yeah. Yeah.
Career focused. Um, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? I thought it was kind of interesting. That's sick. Um, that's sick. Yeah. It was a good, it was good. Yeah. So I've, I've been reflecting on that one, uh, because I, I think, uh, wow. We, we've always had a strong bias for action. Yeah. And I am finding myself like holding back a little.
Yeah. Uh, because the next step for us is a big step. Yeah. And that's like going regional. Yeah. And. Uh, like John from three years ago would've just ripped that shit. And John from today is much more cautious. Yeah. Uh, so I'm like trying to send it, bro. I'm trying, trying to figure out which one is right.
Dalton Hatch: I'm trying to, I'm trying to reign that characteristic in myself.
John Wilson: Yeah. I'm trying to, trying to understand which John's gross. I'm very quick to Yeah. Send it, dude. Yeah. Well, yeah. But it, it was an interesting thought exercise. So, so then it was like, okay, well, am I holding back because I'm [01:43:00] afraid of failure? Am I holding back? Because that's the right decision? I actually think it's the right decision, but like, could be masking, you know?
Yeah. But yeah. What, what would you do if you knew, you knew you couldn't fail?
Dalton Hatch: Oh, man. If I knew I couldn't fail, I would, I would hire as many people as humanly possible. Mm-hmm. And just get it. Mm-hmm. Like, just go. Mm-hmm. Because my biggest fear is, is this not working and disappointing my kids and my wife.
Yeah. That's really my only fear in life. Like everything else can be replaced, but like disappointing the people closest to you is like, damn. Yeah, that kind of sucks. That would suck. But yeah, man, if I couldn't fail, I couldn't. You'd send it Sounds like you full, I, I I full send with failure possible. So I'm like, dang, if I'm doing this with the possibility of failure, I it'd be concerning.
Yeah. My wife would be like, what did you do? Like, that's cool. I can't fail. It's, it's fine. John told me I can't fail. We're good. Cheated gr in the wish. [01:44:00] We're totally fine. Yeah. This was funny, man. This was good. Yeah. Uh, I, I'm glad that you're having guys add my level on because that's what this industry lacks is there's so many, and, and again, no offense to like Radiant or Victor Rancor or, you know, those, the dudes that are like Tommy Melo mm-hmm.
Like billionaire guys, right. There's not a lot of dudes. At the, at the beginning journey, the first five years mm-hmm. That are getting a, a platform to show other guys that hey, you're relatable, you're not alone. Yeah. Because no matter what level you're on, an entrepreneur's life is very lonely. Mm-hmm.
There's not a lot of people that can, that can relate to your, your, your amount of drive and motivation and relentlessness. Mm-hmm. And just your personality type in general. Right. And it's even more lonely in the beginning because [01:45:00] all you think about on vacation mm-hmm. When you wake up before you go to bed, your dreams, it's all about your business.
Yep. Which, not to say that you don't either. I'm guarantee you do. Yep. But it's different. But you un, you know what I mean by it's different. Like, it's new. You've been doing this for long enough. It's just your day-to-day. It's your, i it's your day to day talks. I, I was worrying
John Wilson: about making payroll at 22.
Yeah. So like. I've never known anything else. Yeah,
Dalton Hatch: exactly. Exactly. Like, like I think about it all the time, like payroll This week, uh, my, my, my office manager texts me yesterday, Hey, payroll's, uh, just over 12,000 this week. I'm like, yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah, we're good. We made it. Yeah. You know, but like on Monday when I wake up, it's like, so we're probably gonna need to be at least 10 to 12 grand this week mm-hmm.
To make payroll. Mm-hmm. That's cool. You know? But like, it's cool that you're giving guys on the, on the smaller end, a platform where to talk and [01:46:00] get the stories out there. Yeah. So that, it's kinda like aa, you go to a and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only piece of crap.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, I, I, I think we, like you
Dalton Hatch: feel very alone.
We
John Wilson: try to cover like the whole That's cool though. Breadth, because, you know, we've had Tommy on, we've had, uh, Chad Peterman on, we've had Chris Hoffman on. We had the guys from Premier Home Pros, they're like a hundred million. That's huge. That's, but that's good. And then we've also had a guy on who started like six months ago, he did $500,000.
And I, I, I, yeah, I, I think it's good. And for me, one, we, we do wanna create a resource that I wish I would've had eight years ago. Yeah. But I, I agree with what my friend said. I think Regar, like, I wanna draw inspiration from wherever. Yeah. And like, one of the biggest core benefits that we've gotten from running this show is I get to talk to a lot of people.
Yeah. And I get to find out, hey, this, this worked for you did, size is kind of irrelevant. Like everyone has something to teach. Yeah. And um, like I went to lunch last year with a guy that I directly compete [01:47:00] with, and he's like half our size. And I took a ton out of it. Like it was awesome. Awesome. Um, it was a really great conversation.
And he was an open book, which was really cool. And I think, I hope he got something out of talking with me too. But I feel like you can learn something from everybody. I agree. And that's
Dalton Hatch: why like the, honestly, the coolest thing that's happened. Um, personally is, um, like I, like I'm an open book. I don't gate keep anything.
People that call me and ask me questions, I'll answer 'em all day long. And I said that on the other podcast, like I've had, I had like, I had like 12 plumbers from across the country call. Mm-hmm. And like actually take me up on that. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, man, that's got like 3,400 views and 12 guys did it.
Mm-hmm. I really wish the others would call.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: Because they were like, well, yeah, let's, okay. I have questions, like, get the answers, talk to people. Mm-hmm. Reach out, like take that, take that initiative and like that offer will stand my entire life. Yeah. If someone can get ahold of me, I'll answer your questions.
[01:48:00] Yeah. Like, and one of those guys I I talked to now we're like really good friends. Yeah. And you know, his name's Randall. He just literally on the 28th was his first day starting as a company. Oh, nice. And I think he's already done like. 14 grand or something like that. And I'm like, all right. Hell yeah, Randall, I told you dude.
So can go, you know, he's in Oregon, Wolf Works plumbing. Mm-hmm. If you're in Oregon, call that guy. Mm-hmm. Sweet. Um, but yeah, it's, this is any, anything positive for the trades? I am 100% for, yeah. Because unfortunately the plumbers before us have allowed people to make the assumption that we are somehow less than, like, we're dirty, we're whatever.
Which is why most people think plumbers should be $50 to put a toilet in or something.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Dalton Hatch: So this is kind of like getting the word out there to change the industry, to be like, Hey, let's hold ourselves to a really high standard and let's change that narrative. [01:49:00] Yep. And I love that. Yeah. That's awesome.
That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I feel like I can speak for. All plumbers. We appreciate you.
John Wilson: Oh yeah. Well, yeah. I, I appreciate it. It's a, it's been a, it's been a really fun part of my life.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. I get, I've made a lot of friends now, which is really cool. Yeah, we have, and anytime we have a problem, um, big or big or small, like we, we have someone interesting to, to talk to.
Yeah. That, well, that's solved. It,
Dalton Hatch: that's our biblical calling is to go out and make disciples. And you're making disciples through, through what you do for a living in
John Wilson: Definitely not disciples, but I am, well, it's discipleship,
Dalton Hatch: making friends. It's men's together. It's men together, it's community. It's talking like, yeah.
Yeah. You got it Is the same idea. And that's really cool. Yeah. That
John Wilson: this is awesome.
Dalton Hatch: Yeah. I appreciate it, man.
John Wilson: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Um, if you like what you heard, make sure you check out owned and operated.com. Subscribe and sign up for the [01:50:00] newsletter.
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