Boomers aren’t your best bet anymore. While everyone’s still chasing the so-called Silver Tsunami, the truth is most aging-out home service businesses won’t sell — and the ones that do often aren’t worth buying. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John and Jack explain why smart operators are ditching the outdated playbook and going all-in on modern growth strategies.
They unpack why 2026 is their multi-market year and how they’re expanding beyond Ohio through greenfield launches, tuck-in acquisitions, and strategic partnerships. From leadership infrastructure to population-driven market selection, they share what it actually takes to scale a home service company past a single location. You’ll hear hard-earned lessons from failed multi-location attempts, the red flags of unscalable markets, and why buying a business isn’t always the best move — especially if the fundamentals aren’t there.
If you’re a plumbing, HVAC, or electrical operator looking to grow into new markets, this is your real-time roadmap — not the recycled Silver Tsunami narrative. John even teases behind-the-scenes strategies they’re using for greenfielding (the stuff he’s not ready to fully reveal… yet).
This is the episode that separates yesterday’s growth myths from today’s $100M playbook.
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Episode 230 Transcript
John Wilson: [00:00:00] 2026 is our multi-market year. That's coming up quick. There's two different ways that we're thinking about like growth right now. What does our core location look like and what does a new market look like? Anyone that's looking at a new opportunity, population matters a lot. The where really matters.
And I think there is an advantage to not being the biggest in market. I think a lot of. People that I've talked to that have struggled with green fielding, they all make the same decision and we're gonna choose to not make that decision. I'm not ready to like air that one.
Jack Carr: John Gatekeeping the secret sauce here.
Welcome back. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am Jack Carr. Own a few, uh, HVAC and plumbing companies in Nashville, Tennessee. We're hoping to hit 6 million in gross revenue this year. What's going on, John?
John Wilson: What's
Jack Carr: up
John Wilson: guys? We're trying to introduce ourselves better. So, I am John Wilson. I run Wilson Plumbing in Ohio, and, uh, about 160 people on the [00:01:00] team aiming for 30 this year.
Jack Carr: What's going on, man? I'm glad we, uh, we gotta jump on today. We had a cancellation, so it's a John and Jack episode. Yeah,
John Wilson: it's good. It's good. Um, yeah, what is going on? It's July. It's the end of July and, uh, July's been weird. I mean, maybe I say that about every month. Do I say that about every month?
Jack Carr: I think.
I feel like we end up do saying that almost about every month. I know, but, um. Yeah, it's been, it's been weird for us as well. It's been, but we're, it's the same stuff as last time. It's like too many leads, not enough people, but we just, we are bringing on our, we're gonna finally be staffed up August 1st, right when it hits 82 degrees.
Oh, we miss the heat wave. Yeah. But it is what it is.
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I mean, HVAC is so hard to get right. It, it reminds me, um, I think it's called Perfect Power Wash, but Perfect Power Wash is a really big, uh, power washing business near me. They're headquartered like in Akron and I think they're the largest power washing. Business in the US it's like 35 or $40 million, like single brand.
It's ridiculous. Mm-hmm. 10 or 12 locations. And, um, like ridiculous story we should have 'em on. But, uh, but they had, every spring they have to hire like 400 people and then like 200 people like [00:03:00] don't work out in the first month. And yeah. And it's like, what happens if you miss. Or
Jack Carr: I, I don't understand businesses like that.
John Wilson: I, I don't either. I mean, another even more extreme example of just like, hey, like what happens if you miss like Mike Gly, if people haven't checked out his stuff. I think his shows the, it's called the Gly Show or something. That's his YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. And
John Wilson: it's gly.com. But, uh, he's, he's a cool guy and he, he has a fireworks business and like Exactly, it's one day.
You build up the entire year for one freaking day. Mm-hmm. And if you miss it like that was it.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And so I saw this actually a lot when I was in my, the start of my business acquisition journey. Yeah. Back in 2022 is 'cause I was looking specifically early on in like Boise, Idaho Yep. And Montana and, and Wyoming.
And there's such a large snow season there that when I was looking at a paving company, [00:04:00] what they do. For the back half of the year is they furlough everyone or they, they lay 'em off, they go and they get government assistance and then start spring they come back to the company. Yeah. But like it's such an it like exceptionally seasonal business that I always have to go, like, what happens if you don't get those people at the start of spring?
Like you just don't operate. It's, it's just there's such a high, I mean, or
John Wilson: like lower, you know, capability. Well, we were talking to our friend, you and I are in this chat with our friend Yasi from Monkey Wrench. And it's like he said it was 60 or 70 or something in LA right now. And like they're having a summer that isn't a, like, it didn't arrive and he sent us a screenshot from LinkedIn or something and it's like, it's this 40 person HVAC service team, like being trained.
'cause they don't have, there's nothing else going on. I, I
Jack Carr: do think, yeah. Which is wild.
John Wilson: It, yeah, it's wild. I think like HVAC is weather enhanced. Like, there are things you can do, [00:05:00] but it is a tough game. We're like, like I, I don't, we didn't nail the summer either for hvac. Um, now granted we still grew a lot over last year, which is cool, but we, we didn't do what we thought we were gonna do and we didn't execute what we could have done.
So, so that, that was sort of disappointing.
Jack Carr: Yeah, I was, I was laughing the other day. I was talking to somebody who, who I was telling this to. I was like, I'm so disappointed. Our team didn't do it, and we didn't hit the numbers.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And he's like, he said, Jack, aren't you like 60% up year over year? And I went, yeah.
I'm upset about being 60% up. Overlap Yeah. This year. So I try to put it in perspective, but definitely, um, I, I just, I'm always blown away by those kind of. Extreme hiring circumstances where you have to do it and you have to get it right. Yeah. And then the back half of the year, you just let everyone go and then try again the next year.
It's crazy. I mean, I assume a, a good portion of people come back if they like the job.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Jack Carr: But I mean, talk about a weird business to have to run is like, Hey, I need to hire 400 people in two [00:06:00] months and train them.
John Wilson: No, I, I, I totally agree. I totally agree.
Jack Carr: Yeah. I mean, speaking of acquisitions. So we are talking to two different groups right now and, uh, I know that you've grown, you've had what, 10 acquisitions?
John Wilson: Yes. I think my 10th one was like, kind of fake.
Jack Carr: Those damn fake acquisitions didn't
John Wilson: match it. Well, it doesn't feel like
Jack Carr: this is, is it not a real business? 'cause it was too small.
John Wilson: It was like a, it was a revenue list like. Phone number. Yeah. So it, it's sort of like, I almost don't wanna count it as my 10th because like 10 feels like, you know, all my 10 should be big or something, but mm-hmm.
It, it was like it was $9,000. Right. But yeah, no, we've acquired 10 over the years.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Are you, are you guys like. Talking about like growth and acquisitions. Yeah. Are you guys still, I know at one point in, in your journey you kind of slowed that down.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Just [00:07:00] because go growing organically at the same cost with the market the way it is.
Yeah. It felt like almost. At least from, from my point of view, that you had more opportunity to grow your systems organically than to try and smash in like a two or $3 million company. Yeah. That really doesn't change your top line all that much or your bottom line and mostly causes headaches. Yeah.
Where, where are you guys sitting now with that? Or what's the, what is your, your plan and outlook going forward?
John Wilson: Yeah. Uh, so this is something we've thought a ton about. I do think the economics of Tuck and acquisitions do get. Like, they just get different, the, the bigger you get in one location. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I think that's, there's two different ways that we're thinking about like growth right now.
Like what does our core location look like? Which we only have one right now, and what does a new market look like and how do we think about each one? Like we acquired our way from 4 million to to 10, and I think there's a lot [00:08:00] that I could say about that. Good, bad, hard, whatever. But it got us from four to 10.
And I do think that there is a solid argument of using acquisitions as like a way to take share as fast as possible. Like if I went into a new market today, uh, and I either launched or acquired, I would run a localized rollup strategy to get them to like 10 to $20 million of revenue as fast as possible.
Like could we do that in the first two years, three years? So how, how do you, how do you like sort of break into that size? You know, we've talked about like placing senior leadership team. How do you get into the size where you can place really talented leaders that can run with a meaningful business?
Jack Carr: Yeah. I think a good example of this too is, so I've just had this conversation. So one of our, our team members is from an Apex a or is an Apex company in the area. Yeah. And he, he's, uh, one of the people who [00:09:00] leaves Apex because it's Apex. Yeah. Um. And what he was saying is right. They, they went in and did this, the, the acquisition strategy, right?
They went in, yep. They bought a really good company. They probably paid a six, seven x on, you know, two to $3 million in ebitda. And so they're, they're walking in and hitting that number straight out of the gate of, Hey, we're doing 10 to 20 top line.
John Wilson: Yep.
Jack Carr: Day one. Um, very difficult because. There's a lot of change that happens, a lot of turnover, et cetera, et cetera.
And then there's other companies like Hoffman Brothers and Coolray who did the opposite, and they kind of have two different diverting paths, right? Like Coolray came in, spent something crazy, like 25 million. It's 25 or $30
John Wilson: million. Yeah.
Jack Carr: Yeah. To reach their first, uh, couple million in ebitda, if I remember correctly.
Yeah. And Hoffman's been pretty open about his, is he spent three to hit 15 in top line. Right. So like, there's, there's [00:10:00] multiple types of greenway or greenfield strategies on top of it. So, you know, I'm, I'm curious 'cause there's, there's like multiple, a multitude of different ways to, to run. Acquisitions are greenfield and so I'm curious, so are you guys now my take is that you guys are starting to think about moving into different markets.
John Wilson: Yeah, so our plan for a while now has been 2026 is our multi-market year.
Jack Carr: That's coming up quick. It's coming up quick.
John Wilson: It's coming up quick.
Jack Carr: I have
John Wilson: a lot of thoughts on this and I will share most of them. I think, uh, the why is important. Like our vision is to be a hundred million dollar business. We think that it's, we will accelerate by going to new markets.
There is a challenge with being the biggest in market that I don't think gets talked about very often. 'cause maybe, I mean there's not that many biggest in markets I guess, but like if you're biggest in market, like there's a target, they're like, everyone's chasing you. [00:11:00] And I think there is an advantage.
To not being the biggest in market. Um, I think there is an advantage to being, but I also think there's an advantage to not, so it sounds attractive to like be someone that is getting market share inside somewhere new. I think it'll accelerate growth if done well. It obviously can slow growth if done badly.
Uh, I think it gives our team opportunity to grow. I think it, I think there's a lot of wins and you know, over the last, if you've been following the show. For really the last year and a half, like in my head, we started talking about multi-location, multi-market about a year ago, and we at the time said, Hey, let's do this in 2026.
Like we roughly knew that the timeline we were gonna be working with, and I've just been spending a lot of time talking to multi-unit operators basically as often as I could to try to understand like what were the pitfalls. What worked, what [00:12:00] didn't work? Would you do it again and time and time again?
The, the, at the, at the end of the day, the, the biggest companies in the industry are probably multi-location. There are some exceptions to that. Parker and Sons, four Seasons, like there are, I say Four
Jack Carr: Seasons out the
John Wilson: wood. Yeah. There's a couple exceptions to this rule, but like those are the exceptions and.
What seems to be the most reliable path to growth is multi-market. And, and at once we sort of nailed that down, the question became, okay, where and when? Like where, where are we going to, where are we gonna do this? Are we gonna do this in these tiny markets that we can own very quickly? Are we gonna do this in extremely competitive markets like Columbus?
Like Columbus is like. Ridiculous right now.
Jack Carr: Um, and so that, that was gonna be my question Yeah. For you, like, if, if we can dig in a little bit on this is what I've [00:13:00] been receiving as we're running the J Acquisitions podcast is specifically from, from HVAC and, and try Tri Trades operators, is what we're seeing is.
Like this new thesis strategy that's coming out, and I've seen it about four or five times with different Yeah. Uh, individuals and they have this belief and I've, I've been very upfront with them. So this, this shouldn't be a shock if, if you're listening and you're hearing this for the first time and you're one of them is like, I've tell, I keep telling them, I said, you know, this is a really difficult path because the idea is that, Hey, I'm gonna buy small HVAC companies in tertiary cities.
Yeah. I'm gonna buy like. Two or three or four of 'em and run them because from a, from a standpoint like, uh, Peterman brothers, right? Like it makes sense for him to do that. He has the infrastructure to be able to handle that. Yeah. But like the idea of a roll-up strategy in tertiary markets to me sounds like a nightmare.
Um, just because it tough for me to do it. [00:14:00] For me to do it, I would have to go and find like really good operators in very small towns. Yeah. Like that's what I say to them. You need to go find a really good operator in a small town. Labor's a nightmare. Marketing's easier, I would assume. Um, yeah. But like, I keep coming back to this, this idea that people keep bringing up to me and I'm going, a where is this coming from?
'cause I don't hear it from any of the gurus. And b, unless you have like a really big foundation.
John Wilson: Well, I, it's, it's easier or, or it looks easier at the offset like. Who's who? Well, if, if we're acquiring, who's gonna buy 'em? Right? Like, I, I see all these deals. There's a, there's a 5 million HVAC business that is for sale and like, who's gonna buy it?
Like, it's in the literal middle of fucking nowhere. And yeah, if I was gonna buy this, like I'm not near a big city. They're the biggest in their market and their market is probably like 20,000 people. Like, I can't get bigger than five or $6 million. [00:15:00] And I like that, that for, for a private equity or for a serial acquirer, or for, for me and anyone that's looking at a new opportunity.
Population matters a lot. Like what's the population, what's the demographics like, the where really matters. So I, I think, but it looks easier 'cause it's probably cheaper deals and like, it's easier to own a market if there's no one's there. But I think the big question you have to ask yourself, is that market worth owning?
Is no one there because it's not good. And I think like we're, we're miss Like if the, the first thing is, oh yeah, I can own this market. It's really easy. The second question you should be asking yourself is, why is it so easy?
Jack Carr: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So how are you then, as you're talking about this, looking at that, that question, I mean, I think you answered it for the most part, but moving forward, like where's your thesis and strategy on
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: What you're looking for and kind of what's that balance? Because it's, it's a, it's a scale, right? Yeah. It's like it's a moving scale on size of market to [00:16:00] competition.
John Wilson: Yeah. So we're following a pretty. Uh, well documented playbook at this point. So we've talked to dozens of multi-unit operators, either on this show or offline.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: And most of the feedback is the same. Hey, I went multi-unit at 20 to $30 million, and most of it's like, can do I have the team to do it? Do I have the accounting team? Do I have the HR and recruitment team? Do I have a good onboarding process? Like is my business built to scale? Yes. No, some people do it before that.
Uh, like we did it before that, you know, we bought these, those businesses in 2021. We were running five locations for a while and we, it was not good. Like we didn't do a good job of it. So I really have a healthy respect for multi-location. 'cause we did it for two and a half years. So, yeah, I think. But running in between [00:17:00] 20 and 30, that's a, a very common size to go multi-market.
There are exceptions again, like Chris Hoffman ran up to 80 before running to multi-market. Um, yeah. There's a lot of people that go Peterman Brothers. Yeah. One really before running multi.
Jack Carr: Yeah.
John Wilson: Well, well, Peterman got, they did it at 15, so they did it really small.
Jack Carr: Oh, they, I thought they did it a lot later.
John Wilson: No. Okay. Uh, eco ran at 30. Tommy I think was 20 ish. Like it, you know, but it's, mm-hmm. It's roughly if, if we, instead of revenue, if we look at like, what does the business look like at the time that they went multi, the characteristics are roughly the same. Hey, I've got a good finance team, I've got a good HR team, I have a good sales process, like I have the bones of a good business.
And what would help me more now is more distribution,
Jack Carr: which, yeah, I mean, that makes sense. Based on like the episode we did a few weeks ago that where it was like, Hey, when do you, when do you have a [00:18:00] C-Suite team? Or when is your top level management team? Yeah. And it's around that 20 to 30. So if you're able to get that top level management team that can handle most of the daily ops at a singular location and then have the bandwidth to go into multi-location Yep.
Um, it may be a good idea
John Wilson: and I, I think it can be a force multiplier. Um, yeah, we, we haven't had Rich Jordan on for a while, but for him multi-market has been a real force multiplier. He is growing faster than he would've otherwise because he has two locations growing at steam. Um, three now. Three now.
Yeah. Which is, that's awesome. Right? I think that's amazing. Yeah. And uh, I think he's about to clip his first $3 million month. I dunno if he wants to me to say that, but like, that's that's amazing. And a, a big part of the success there is the, is the multi-location. So, so we're, we're running a well-documented playbook.
A lot of the people that have come before us also spread out at that 20 to 30. I think that revenue matters less like what one company's 20 to 30 look like compared to mine. [00:19:00] It, it's almost irrelevant. Like, what does your leadership team look like? Are they capable of running the business without you?
Can you disappear for a month if you've got that type of leadership team? Like you are capable of taking on new opportunities.
Jack Carr: Mm-hmm. And, and then, so for you specifically, I mean, not to to use this as like a plug, but like what are you looking for now? Going into something? Yeah. Like where, where's once again, what's your theory?
Where's where are you actively
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Jack Carr: And openly participating.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack Carr: In, uh, looking for things.
John Wilson: Yeah. So we've got,
Jack Carr: we have two well. If we wanna step back, so just not to make this show all about me, which I'm gonna do here.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Jack Carr: Um, but like the, the opposite of what we're saying, and I think what most of our listeners are gonna be running into is like, we're still focused on the opposite.
So all of our acquisitions are within an hour Yeah. Of our main location so that we can tuck it in Yeah. To our main brand and our main name, so that we're running those efficiencies of scale and really when we're buying a three or [00:20:00] $4 million company. We're merging the two, taking the people, the systems.
We're still utilizing a lot of what the company is providing, um, to try and grow us to that 10 like you guys did.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um,
Jack Carr: so just to be really clear, like this is the opposite strategy. We are not going, uh, we have, we've looked at a company, we got really close to buying one three hours away, but because of it's such a big
John Wilson: lift.
Jack Carr: Yep. Such a big, such a huge lift that we realized later on that we ended up backing out of the deal.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Um, also some SBA rule changes made it so it wasn't as valuable 'cause we were gonna get the business essentially from, from a cash flow free standpoint. Yeah. Or a debt, debt payment free standpoint, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Jack Carr: Um, that all being said, uh. Like opposite strategy, like something localized to us where it will meaningfully move our top and bottom line, give us trucks, give us employees and be able, or maybe even a new vertical that'll be able to push us into, uh, more revenue in our singular [00:21:00] location.
John Wilson: Yeah. So yeah, we're, we're thinking about this in three different ways.
Um, so in, in our core location, like I would. Yeah, we're still growing organic organically. We're still growing a lot organically. Um, like 25 ish percent I think, year to date. So we, that feels healthy and that feels good. We're gonna keep pushing on that. Mm-hmm. I would look at a local deal if it moved the needle, like if I found a, it'd probably have to be north of $5 million for me to get excited.
Oh yeah. Um, I would get very excited for a north of 10, but there's like two of those that aren't PE owned, maybe one. There's just not a lot. If you're an HVAC tech plumber or electrician, you know that time is money and Supply House gets it. With over 280,000 products from 500 trusted brands, they make it easy to get what you need fast.
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Jack Carr: real service. And I mean, you run a try trade business. Is there any difference for you to like bolster your HVAC department versus your plumbing department or it just, you don't care?
It would just be any deal over 5 million that made sense.
John Wilson: I would look at any deal over five. That made sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think like, yeah. So core market, we're really just focused on organic. Um, and the way I'm thinking about this is I have this really like competent team that has a plan, a roadmap, and they're doing a great job.
I don't wanna break that. And I think that's been what I've been saying over the past two years is like, Hey, we're not really thinking about deals because we're growing like crazy organic and I don't wanna break that.
Jack Carr: Uh, yeah, that makes sense.
John Wilson: I think there is a moment where you can run organic and inorganic and we're, [00:23:00] we're approaching that moment again.
That's the first way is like inside our current market. The next one is Greenfield. I've talked to enough people. Now, obviously I have not done this, so like, you know, theory counts for shit. Like, I'll, I'll tell you what actually happened once we did it, but like, you know. When I look at what other people have done to launch a Greenfield and I, and I just like sort of look inside our own business, I can identify what looked like some pretty clear opportunities.
Jack Carr: Yeah, I would agree to that. 'cause somebody asked me the other day, like, Jack, you know, start up again, verse purchase. That question comes up a lot, right? A lot buy verse build and. The, the answer now is different than the answer two years ago. So once you know how to run an HVAC or plumbing Yeah, or electrical business, the answer becomes different because I, I'm pretty sure that if I was forced to do it again with the same knowledge I had now I would go greenfield maybe just [00:24:00] because like I know how to market it.
I could definitely hire and I could definitely drive a million dollars in revenue in the first year, like nobody's business. That being said, three years ago, I could not. Yeah. Like I needed that to be able to start. So it, it's a kind of a loaded question for new, new buyers, um, because I don't think it's the same unless you've
John Wilson: No.
Jack Carr: Ran an HVAC business. No. And also like,
John Wilson: what's the team? So for us, like, you know, I've spent the last 12 months like talking to everyone that I could on, on show and offline. Hey, how did you launch this location? What did marketing spend look like? What did team look like? Most of those conversations are public.
Like you can just go back through the podcast and like you'll get an idea of where, what we're about to do. Um, but I, what I've continued to learn is, uh, it is, it's the team. It's built on the team. Yeah. And we can only greenfield. I'm sure we could greenfield and figure it out, otherwise other people [00:25:00] have obviously.
But the way I feel comfortable is I have the team that we know how to drive leads. We know how to recruit, we know how to onboard, we know how to sell, we know how to answer in book calls. Like we've got a great team. We have a great system now. Like let's just go get more gross profit dollars. So Greenfielding looks easier to me because we can check a lot of the boxes.
Hey, you know we had Premier Home Pros. And they talked a lot about working with their lead partners and like, how do they look at new markets? How do they assess like which one to do at what point? That's the process we're in right now. We're talking to our lead partners. We're checking in with our, with our marketing team.
We're, we're finding what are the opportunities around us that have the leads that we can buy easily and how do we, and does it have the talent pool that we need? Um, so like green fielding does feel not easy, but like. Straightforward. I think a lot of the people that I've talked to [00:26:00] that have struggled with green fielding make some decision, like they all make the same decision and we're gonna choose to not make that decision, which is, I'm not ready to like air that one, but let's how they approach leads basically.
So we're gonna be approach, like I've talked to people that do this really well and executed at a high level. I've done this with people that run a big business, but they don't execute this well. And we're John Gate
Jack Carr: keeping the secret sauce here?
John Wilson: Yeah, I think like that's
Jack Carr: fair 'cause you guys are about to do it, so I'm not gonna touch on that.
We're about to do it,
John Wilson: so we'll find out if it works. If it works, yeah. We'll talk more openly about it. My, my concern with, I'm always afraid to like, give a recommendation for something I haven't tried, like anything we talk about, we've tried. So like I don't want somebody to like go, you know. Take what I'm saying as a wreck and ruin their life.
So yeah, so, uh, that's that. And my third one, which I think I'm the most excited about is like partnerships. Like how do we create partnerships? So, you know what, and I'm really, I'm [00:27:00] taking a lot of inspiration again from Rich Jordan. Uh, good friend of mine. He's come on the show a few times, so just search and shout our feed.
And I think he's done a what make, what made him a. Uh, grow as fast as he did was he partnered up with the right people and they each owned a market and they each owned a location. And that was, it's inspiring. Like they're growing like crazy. And I think that that level of partnership is really good. So as we're thinking about more locations, a big thing that's on our brain is yes, how do we greenfield and how do we just keep, keep on the plan and continue executing at a high level.
But also how do we go partner with other people out there that are running good businesses, like 5 million and up in plumbing, HVAC, electric, and how can we bring the playbook? How do we bring SOPs? How, how do we bring like our team's expertise, our buying power, how do we bring all of that to a [00:28:00] partner?
So that's a big way that we're thinking about the next 12 months too, is like, how do we partner up with people? They still run that market and we just provide them a ton of resources and we grow,
Jack Carr: which is interesting. It's like a private equity playbook, but it has an extra step and that extra step is you're not.
Somebody in a suit that works for a, uh, yeah. You know, it's, it's not somebody in a suit that works up in Chicago or New York. It's like, Hey, we actually own a business. So this is the assistance that you're getting. Because a lot of times what I hear from owners that sell and then continue to operate on that playbook, they're like, yeah, like they help me buy trucks.
They helped me buy trucks. Yeah. Or they helped me with this small issue and some insurance and things like that, like the, the really, the admin tasks. But a lot of what I needed wasn't admin tasks. It was, Hey, I need help like with strategy and running the business and team that I can work with. And so that, that's a [00:29:00] really interesting way to, you know, attack this problem.
John Wilson: I think so, yeah. I think, I mean, rich has been an inspiration for it. Like seeing what he's done has been amazing.
Jack Carr: And you get good operators, right? Like that's the, one of the hardest parts is dude, that's the
John Wilson: hardest part. Like, as I think about like, so when I think about Greenfield, what's, what is nice about that is like, Hey, I have the team and we have a leadership pipeline.
We have a leadership development. I can replicate leaders, which mm-hmm is like the first and foremost biggest problem you're gonna have with any like expansion. Mm-hmm. Is how do you drive new leaders into the business? But like partnerships sort of does similar. You get someone bought in, you get someone that can run this business and that you can grow it together.
So yeah, it does solve kind of a, a major issue because if I'm green fielding, it's gonna be within driving distance. Partnerships give me the ability to go anywhere. And as long as it, like, does it make sense? Is it easy to get to if there was a problem or like on a monthly [00:30:00] basis or something? Or how do we, how does HR go there or accounting go there or whatever has to happen.
But like, does the location make sense? And if it does, then like yeah, we can, it becomes a, a bigger win.
Jack Carr: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that com completely agree.
John Wilson: Well, the, and the economics are dumb too. Like we've seen Oh yeah, of course. You know, we, we do like open book pe you know, we have this community, uh, uh, it's like a peer OO Pro.
Yeah. OEO Pro. It's a peer group community. It's good. Like we're adding a, like, I think two people a week right now, which is a lot of fun. And um, one of the things we do is we do open book financials, like literally here's the p and l and what continues to be just wild. And, and I'm sure it gets even like I'm saying this from my perspective, but like, what's it like for Apex?
You know, like what's it like for the biggest in our industry? But I'll look at people's like water heater pricing and I'll look at their HVAC pricing. [00:31:00] We literally buy 50% less. And I'm sure Apex buys 50% less than us, right? Mm-hmm. Like, but the economics of buying is crazy. So when you start like bringing in like, Hey, how do we add this company, this revenue, and how do we reduce their cogs like crazy.
What if we could give a 30% or 40% overall material cut? What if we could drive more leads? 'cause we're best in class at it. What if we could save on all your software? What if all of that and the business went from a 10% profit to 20 or 25 and you still had a portion of that.
Jack Carr: Yeah. 'cause you're, you're able to, right.
You're able to cut the gross margin down off the top Right, right away with, with material costs. So now your gross margins jumping, which is absolutely huge. That's one of the hardest things to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Jack Carr: Uh, because especially if you're scale like 50, 50% on gross martian costs, like, I'd be like,
John Wilson: oh, it, it's, it is ridiculous.
Like we're seeing what water heater pricing. 50%. Yeah. And I'm like, this is crazy. [00:32:00]
Jack Carr: Yeah. And then on the bottom line, so you've just like boost uh, gross margin by a ton. And then on the bottom line you're like, oh, actually here, we'll help you with hiring, we'll help you with hr, we'll help you with this. Yeah, we'll help you with that.
And then all of a sudden now you're like, your my ServiceTitan fee per person went from 300 to 180 and now you're like, okay, I've just cut all my expenses by about. 20, 25% as well. Yeah. So you have gross margin inflation. Yeah. And you have cuts in your, your, uh, bottom line. And so like that has to drive your net.
Like how good would that feel if tomorrow in your business you're just like, ah, yeah, like now we have a. You know, a couple hundred thousand, maybe 500,000 more on the bottom line per year that we can spend. Yeah. 'cause that's like cash.
John Wilson: It's yes. Real. Like it's real. And I think, yeah, we've gotten a lot more conviction around this, the more frankly, that we've seen Rich Grow.
Like I brought this idea up in December of last year. I don't, I don't remember, I don't know if you remember that, but [00:33:00] like we talked about this like partnership model on the podcast and like people texted about it. Like I, it's, it makes. Makes sense. Cut
Jack Carr: that. Yeah, cut that. We don't want to be an explicit podcast.
Podcast explicit John. Don't wanna explicit on Spotify,
John Wilson: but like, it, it makes a lot of sense. So, so that's the, yeah. That's something that we're working on really over the next 12 months. Like, hey, we're looking for people that wanna partner with us. Yeah. Um. I dunno. That's cool. So if anybody wants to, do you have any specific, shoot me a,
Jack Carr: do you have any specific regions that you're working on?
'cause a lot of people like to work only in the southeast or Southwest or Midwest, you know, I mean we're have a specific region you're targeting. We're
John Wilson: aim much, we're aiming pretty much Midwest. I don't think the Carolinas, I think that's like two East probably. But like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania is kind of both.
Maybe Midwest gets cut. There's a portion of Pennsylvania that's absolutely Midwest.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: Uh um, Illinois. Tennessee, Kentucky, maybe Minnesota, Wisconsin. But yeah, like Midwest basically. Uh. [00:34:00] But yeah, I think we're able to bring, I think we're able to, uh, bring a lot to it, but that's something that I'm getting more and more excited about.
The more our leadership team takes the bandwidth off. Just seeing how fast we can grow together is like, oh my God, this, this makes a lot of sense. Mm-hmm. And then can we, how fast, Hey, if that, if that company's five or 10 million, how do we come in? How do we. Change the whole p and l, take it from eight or 10% profit to 20, and then how do we execute a rollup strategy around them and build them up to 20 to 30 million top line in like a year or two and like, that's the game.
That's, that's the plan. So how, how do we do that? And then how do we then do green fields from them? The same as into little
Jack Carr: submarkets, right? As you would do with yours? Pretty much. Which, so that's the ones. That's why I ask about kind of geolocation and where you're focused because like that's what it's, it would be makes more sense to do that strategy specifically in like.[00:35:00]
A series of 10 states close by each other. Yeah.
John Wilson: Versus one in California, versus
Jack Carr: one in California and Southern California and one all the way up in Maine. Like you, the, the greenfields just mean less and Yeah. The, it just means less altogether. And so, I mean,
John Wilson: yeah. It's a lot less efficiency. Yeah. And the way we're thinking about it, like, I don't want to go too far.
Um, because I do think, like, how easy is it to get there?
Jack Carr: I was gonna say like an hour long plane ride is, is not a bunch of lift compared to like a six hour pla long play ride with a bunch of time zone changes and such. Right. Um, and, and then so like on this same topic, um. You know, we, we talk about a lot and we hear it about it a lot, but from, from, as you're starting to move into this and as you're seeing the businesses that are for sale and potentially looking at 'em, do what, what's your feeling on, on the idea of.
The silver tsunami.
John Wilson: Ooh, that's a term. Maybe I'm not, I probably don't follow the right people. 'cause that's a term I don't feel like I hear a [00:36:00] lot anymore.
Jack Carr: It's still popping. I mean, we still, I still see it from some of the gurus. Uh, I wrote, I mean, yeah, I, I did a long episode on, on what I think about this silver tsunami about a year ago, and it, it still gets quite a bit of views just because people find either maybe evergreen content talking about it, or there's new creators that come out all the time.
I, I don't want to influence you though.
John Wilson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do I think of the silver tsunami? Well, so I think, let's define the silver tsunami. So the silver tsunami, there was some article like five or six years ago, or like a series of articles and it, it said, Hey, uh. There's the thing coming where it's the greatest transfer of wealth in history, and that's the silver tsunami.
And the idea is that baby boomers are the most concentrated, uh, like section of wealth that's ever existed, that that generation, they're getting ready to die simultaneously, ever.
Jack Carr: The the largest group of business owners, right, because then [00:37:00] sub that to millennials, less people,
John Wilson: well, and real estate owners.
It was real estate, stocks and business. So the idea is what happens to all that property? Where does it go? And it was like $10 trillion was like supposedly the number, right?
Jack Carr: Correct, yeah. In assets. So it's like where are their assets being sent to? How are they being divided up as they start to move into retirement?
John Wilson: Yeah. I like, I guess my take is there's certainly a lot of acquisition activity. I'm sure that acquisitions are more pop it, it seems like small business acquisitions are a really popular asset class that didn't exist 10 years ago, or it probably did, but like, not to this extent, but I bet, I think I did see a chart that, like SBA data like disproved that thought like SBA like loans have like roughly stayed the same.
Right. So, but that's just a feeling probably 'cause the bubble I'm in is like, oh, it's increasing. But like, [00:38:00] SBA is like, no, it's like basically the same. Mm-hmm. So I guess my thought is isn't the, isn't the statistic like 94% of businesses listed for sale don't sell?
Jack Carr: I don't know if it's 94, but it's very, very high.
John Wilson: It's high. And so I think that is a part of it. Like some of these businesses aren't good. Like they're just not, and are they really gonna sell or are they just gonna be displaced? 'cause what I've continued to see. And, and I know that this is coming for me eventually too, but like innovation catches up to us all.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: And are you, does that business transact or does that business just decline and a new up and Comer takes that share and that, just like from what I see in the industry, that is what I tend to see more of.
Jack Carr: Yeah, no, that, that's super interesting and that's why I'm asking you is 'cause you get a, a bit more of [00:39:00] an in industry look.
Um, and what I've noticed from my in industry look is that. The big companies for the most part, like obviously there's going to be some outliers. There's also gonna be some confirmation bias in, in, in the sense that like the people that we talk to are going to be the young owners, um, naturally. Right. But I think if you were to look at the large businesses on the whole, they've already changed hands.
Like they, a lot of 'em have changed hands to a younger ownership or operation group. And what is left out there is most of the silver tsunami is a subsect of the business buying group that is actually not viable. Um, they are 1 million or, or haven't
John Wilson: gotten there yet,
Jack Carr: 1 million, 1.5 million top line businesses and they just have very little value, uh, in comparison to what they think they're worth.
Rather, you know, these guys have put, you know, 40 years worth of blood, sweat, and tears into this [00:40:00] business and. You know, realistically the $20,000 in EBITDA that they have is just not worth the million dollars that they, um, believe it's worth based on their, you know, equity, personal sweat equity into the business.
Yeah. And so, unfortunately, like that's, I at least in home services from what we've seen like that is the vast majority of the silver tsunami is these unviable small businesses that, uh, are just gonna close shop. Yeah. Uh, and then the ones that are viable, um, I mean, we've seen it over the last six years.
Quite a few of 'em have been snapped up already, so they're no longer,
John Wilson: yeah,
Jack Carr: they're, no. And I do think SBA
John Wilson: A is a bad measurement of this. 'cause I think you're right. Like SBA data is like, Hey, not much has changed. But PE is not SBA a. Correct. And PE is obviously very active in a ton of different asset classes.
So I, I think you're probably right. We're like, we are. I mean, we're in it in some version of it, but a lot of it didn't go [00:41:00] to millennials or Gen X or whatever it went to institutional.
Jack Carr: Exactly. A lot of it went institutional and it went early on. And so what we're dealing with now is, you know, the, the article came out six years ago, but.
People are still pushing the idea, and I think a lot of the idea is like, well, there's still 52 million businesses in the trades that are up and available. And it's like, well, yeah, those 52 million businesses are not really viable businesses. Yeah, most of 'em like, I mean even yourself, like your. Boomer parents have traded your Yeah.
Business to you. The younger generation. Same with Hoffman, same with like all of these large companies. As there was a point in time where they, they traded, uh, early on, right when that article came out and then institutions got involved, swooped up quite a bit of the rest, and now we're sitting on a subset of just a very small amount of viable, yeah.
Businesses that would actually make sense to purchase. And now with all the SBA rules [00:42:00] changing on June 1st, making sure that you have to have licenses and all this kind of other stuff, um, like it's just making it less viable to even buy an HVAC business or a licensed business. And even crazier John is like what I, what I've been chewing on quite a bit is.
If, if you are, say you're, you're running a $5 million electrical, plumbing, and HVAC business, right? It's a small business, but it's buyable, right? It, yeah. It has really three small verticals, whatever, whatever, whatever. But the fact that you need your hvac, plumbing, and electrical license, three license to go and actually buy that business makes it almost.
Impossible if you don't already have at least the majority of those licenses. Yeah. Or you have the ability to get them like a private equity group. So it takes out like this subsect of the silver tsunami in the sense that like now even more people can't buy because they're multi trade businesses.
John Wilson: If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that we've been big fans of service scale.
One of the things that they just dropped that we [00:43:00] are really excited about is a pay lead program. So what they help you do is they help you directly gain access to leads and scale up your lead partner program. Go to service scalers.com and say, we sent you. I think that makes sense. I, I think what, what's gonna be really interesting what I, I think about this a lot.
Um, 'cause 'cause we're in this, like we're in all these groups and all these businesses are like fast growing, right? Like we have a lot of. I have a lot of friends that I like in the industry that I made under 10 million of revenue. Mm-hmm. And like, we're all in the twenties, thirties, forties now. Like, we're moving.
Yeah. We'll, we'll get there. But, but it, it, it, I just think it's kind of interesting because it, there was, I agree, five years ago there was this moment where basically every big business sold, but what is starting to happen is that pool. And the pool emptied. So like how many businesses in the [00:44:00] US are there above 20 or 30 million that are still private, right?
Like, it's not a lot, uh, like people have made guesses at it. Um, but like it's under a hundred is is like the guests that I usually see. Some people are more aggressive and they say under 50. I, I don't think that's right, but like. It's not a lot, but what I'm starting to see is as these smaller, more, uh, like in innovative businesses are growing, they're taking that spot.
And I think what's gonna be interesting is the next wave. Yeah. Because I think we're gonna, in the next five years, hey, that pool emptied all of the businesses north of 20 sold. But now that pool got refilled and it's just this cycle. Because there's way more investment, there's way more eyeballs, there's way more tech solutions every fricking day inside the trade.
So the trades are still like experiencing a lot of growth. So yeah, I, I think all these businesses are still growing really fast. And I [00:45:00] think like all the people that traded, all the big boys, the legacy winners, the cool rays of the world, like they're quickly being replaced by the new. Generation and then in 10 years it'll probably be, it'll probably happen again.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Super interesting. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't disagree with you there at all because that's what we've seen in every other industry as well. So like, if you grow a giant, um, drink or chip manufacturer, you know, you, you're going to get bought up by Frito-Lay in about five to 10 years. Like, so it, the, the younger inter more innovative companies who are doing new solutions and, and.
Kind of pioneering. Well, yeah. You just keep feeding the machine and they keep feeding the large machines. Just keep
John Wilson: feeding the machine because you know what I see in other, yeah, that's a really great example. 'cause what it is there, an institutional buyer at the end of the line. And that's how, that's how like you, you are, should be thinking about these opportunities.
Like in pest control. There's, [00:46:00] there's an institutional buyer at the end. Like there's public pest control companies and they'll buy you.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: So a lot of, and, and plumbing, HVAC electric is approaching that where there is now just a pipeline so you can just grow and grow and there will always be new entrants to sort of like the larger size, uh, where they can just sell to some institutional buyer.
'cause there's more and more of those institutional buyers now. So I, I do think, uh. It'll be interesting 'cause I, I think you're right. I think we went through a lot of the silver tsunami already and what we're getting ready to experience is like the millennial tsunami.
Jack Carr: Yeah.
John Wilson: Like people that bought their business that are a millennial 10 years ago and hey, that business is $50 million of revenue now.
And what happens. Yeah. They've
Jack Carr: gotten to a point where they can either continue running these difficult businesses or they can exit. So I agree. I think that the silver tsunami is changing into a, a sort of a repoing of a millennial tsunami that we'll see here in the near future, [00:47:00] probably the next 10 years, the next decade, we'll get a big portion of that, um, as people want to retire.
Retire at 45. That's the goal. Let's go Lake House chat. Half of us can't retire 'cause we just all type A personalities and are super obsessive about everything. Yeah. I'm speaking for everyone out there. Thank
John Wilson: you. I I, yeah. I think you have to be to get to here.
Jack Carr: So sweet. That, that's awesome. This is a good, good conversation.
I love it.
John Wilson: Uh, I will plug myself really quick. If you want to partner with me, you should reach out, uh, info at owned and operated or DM me on any of the platforms I'm on. But yeah, we're looking. I think it's fun. I'm ready for the next stage. I'm ready for the next stage.
Jack Carr: Awesome. I'm ready to like,
John Wilson: do business with friends.
Jack Carr: Do business with friends. 2026. Yeah, I'm in. Love it. 2026 LFG. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for listening. We, if this, is this gonna launch before the workshop? Maybe?
John Wilson: Uh, I don't know. Yeah. Workshops in a couple weeks. Probably not,
Jack Carr: probably not. So we won't plug that. But, uh, head on over to owned and [00:48:00] operated.com.
Check out OAO Pro and, uh. Sign up for the newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter. Appreciate it guys. Like it's up. Let's go.
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