If you’re building a home service business in a rural market, the playbook looks a little different — and this episode shows exactly why. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Plumbing in Ohio, sits down with Laura and Brian Belts, founders of Belts, to unpack how they’ve grown from a one-truck startup in 2001 to a 49-person team — all while staying true to their community roots.
If you’re thinking about expanding into multiple markets, growing in a rural area, or taking the leap into acquisitions, this conversation is a masterclass in building a durable trades business from the ground up.
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🎙️ Host:
John Wilson
🎙️ Guests:
Lara & Brian Beltz
233 Transcript
Brian Beltz: [00:00:00] I remember our banker, he was like, you know, you need to go work for somebody else. What? That just kind lit a fire in me. I'll, I'll show you. Can't do everything. You know yourself. What do you mean?
John Wilson: Are you the biggest in your market?
Lara Beltz: I would say yes. I don't really worry about our competition that much.
They don't have the same ethics and they don't have the same values, and that's one of the main things that sets us apart. What are the like passing
John Wilson: lessons here
Lara Beltz: for people starting off in the trades? Who equals money? That's just the name of the game You have to invest in. The people slow to hire, quick to fire.
It's not a bad thing. Oh, I have one more too.
John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. I'm the CEO of Wilson Plumbing in STO, Ohio, and today I'm joined on the show by Laura and Brian Belts. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us. This is fun. Yeah, I, I don't get to talk to a lot [00:01:00] of married couple partners and I don't get to talk to a lot of people in Ohio, so like, we're checking off some boxes today.
This will be fun. I'd love to hear a little bit about the start of belts, like how did that look? A little bit of background on the company and then where we are today.
Brian Beltz: Yeah, absolutely. So I started the business in 2001 and, uh, I got out of, we went to the Navy outta high school and was a electrician in the Navy.
So I got out of the Navy, moved back Toley, and started working for a service company doing, uh, electrical, picked up plumbing and heating and cooling as well. And um, uh, my boss at the time said, you know, all these systems work together so you have to do all of these things. And it was the same thing in the Navy.
We worked on all of the systems, so I didn't know any better. I was just young and, and I didn't know any better. So, uh, we did, [00:02:00] started off doing all of the trades.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: And, uh, I, I wanted to, you know, I was in that young phase, uh, where had a young daughter, uh, new, uh, newly married and house and broke and wanted to make more money.
Yeah. And, uh, you know, I wanted to, I went to the Boston and asked him about that, and he said that, uh, he pays the best in town and, you know, so I wanted to make more money. I had to entrepreneurial seizure and, and decided to open my business up. And, um, it was 16 years later, you know, we started to make, you know, warm, started to make money.
You know, that, that, uh, that cycle.
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Brian Beltz: That's, that's really where I got started.
I joined in to nexstar. I was contractors 2000 at the time. Mm-hmm. Back in 2003. And, um, uh, like things were, things were moving really fast. We were super busy and, and cheap. We didn't know what the heck we were doing. Was it always service or was new construction? We started doing new construction, uh, as, as well as service and, and playing that game.
Yeah. Dabbled and, uh, yeah, dabbled some money. All of the stuff to anything to pay the bills. Yeah. Uh, just like any, any new business like that. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, anyhow, Laura, uh, uh, joined me in 2008 and, uh, with her marketing mm-hmm. Background and, uh, we [00:04:00] joined forces, uh, going forward to really grow the business.
Yeah. And, uh, and really implement all of the, the nexstar, you know, processes. Mm-hmm. Instead of dabbling.
Lara Beltz: What he forgets to tell people is, uh, when I came on the scene, he, you know, I'm like, well, what kind of marketing do you have? And. Oh, well I have a yellow page ad and I have, mm-hmm. I have the trucks wrapped and I'm like, and that was it.
That was all I had, so I kind of couldn't help myself. I got sucked into it. Yeah. I never, I had my own design company, so I had, I had literally no desire, no interest in, in joining the company and, and jumping on board, but I couldn't even help myself. I mean, I think the trades just kind of get in your blood and suck you in and Yeah.
And, um, so helping him and create, you know, all the marketing and I just took over. I didn't really give him a choice. I just took over everything and went from there and, and, uh, it's been amazing to see kind of our journey of,
John Wilson: [00:05:00] yeah.
Lara Beltz: Where we've come from and where we are now.
John Wilson: Yeah. When, when you joined in, how many people were on the team?
Lara Beltz: Three.
John Wilson: Yeah, there was three of us. And that's like you, someone in the field, the office, another guy in the truck and, and somebody answering the phone. Yep. And then team size now 49. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah,
Lara Beltz: it's pretty, pretty big.
John Wilson: Yeah. Well, in, in, um, like we didn't talk about much where you are, but like south of Toledo, so like fairly rural community.
So like Yeah. That's a lot of people for a Yeah, it's very rural community,
Lara Beltz: very rural area. Um, you know, we, on average there's a lot of different areas that we pick up. We can go 50 miles, um, outside. Wow. I mean, it's, it's a lot of, well it's 50
John Wilson: miles. Is that like you're right on 80. So is that an hour or is that two hours?
Like how long is 50 miles? That's about an hour. Okay. Well, you typically go beyond an hour.
Lara Beltz: Sometimes, yeah,
Brian Beltz: a little bit, but in the [00:06:00] majority of our business is in, um, you know, in one town, in one county. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so within a 20 minute, you know, travel area, I think the population is, that's under a hundred thousand, 80,000 maybe population.
That's fascinating.
Lara Beltz: Yeah. When we picked up the, um, secondary business a little bit further to the north mm-hmm. We picked up in a whole nother area. So that's been kind of interesting and, and figuring out how we're going to staff that and, um, potentially, you know, grow that, that area and that business.
That's, that's been a very interesting process.
John Wilson: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the first nine years, 10 years, were, were working hard and just grind. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Uh, Laura comes in, we start implementing nexstar. Sounds like there was an acquisition in there. So that was the first nine years. What, what happened in the next 15?
Like, what's happened since then?
Lara Beltz: Well, the [00:07:00] acquisition was actually, um,
John Wilson: beginning of this year.
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
John Wilson: Oh, wow. This is very fresh.
Lara Beltz: Yeah, very fresh.
John Wilson: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: The, I don't know, we, we were using some of Nexstar mm-hmm. You know, kind of dipping our toe
Speaker 4: mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: Doing the service system, um, but not really diving in fully, you know, going to super meetings, seeing these amazing companies and, oh, we're gonna go home and we're gonna implement this and we're gonna do this, and we didn't.
And I think we were just so busy with the daily grind that we just, yeah. We just didn't take the time. Um, I don't, just trying to just pay the bills.
Brian Beltz: When, when you're in, just in that grind for so long, you know, it's, uh, it's very easy to, I, I remember our banker, I think, uh, we needed a. We were trying to get a loan or secure a line of credit.
And, uh, I remember him looking at me and looking at our books and our numbers and was like, you know, you need to go work for somebody else. You know, [00:08:00] this, this doesn't work. You know, you're not, um, this isn't profitable. And, and I don't know what you're doing. And, and I don't know, I think I feel like that just kinda lit a fire in me.
Like, I'll, I'll show you. Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah. So, you know, really we went to a couple of other Nexstar shops. I think a lot of it was in our head. You know, you hear a lot that this is, you know, you can't, can't do that in our area. And we're in a smaller rural area, so I, I believe I bought into a lot of that.
Yeah. That, you know, you can't use the, the systems that works great in a bigger area mm-hmm. In a bigger town. So we went to a couple of other Nexstar shops that were in smaller areas than us and just rocking it. Yeah. And they weren't doing anything special. They were just using all of the tools that we have access to.
And we just, we decided let's just, let's use all of the tools. Mm-hmm. And that's really when we started to grow.
John Wilson: What were the big ones that come to mind? I mean, it sounds like service system, like a sales process basically.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. Just using the process. Yep.
Lara Beltz: Just basically drinking the Kool-Aid. [00:09:00] Mm-hmm. Like quit trying to reinvent the wheel.
It's all right there. Next door has the whole entire process. The whole entire business model. Just do it.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: You know, stop thinking that people smarter than you, that have been in business longer than you. Dunno what they're talking about. They do. They know what they're talking about. Just do it. Um, and I don't mean to literally be kind of a commercial for nexstar, but I mean, it helps, it's literally the reason that we found success and, you know, for us to look at each other one day and be like, I, I don't know if we can do this anymore.
And then as soon as we implement those processes, then magically, I mean, it's not magic, it's just follow the process and the results will come. Mm-hmm. And being consistent. I mean that, that's the big key. 'cause you can't just follow it sometime and then, you know, slack off, you know, it's every day, every single day in every department.
Everybody has to be pulling, pulling their weight and doing what they're supposed to be doing. Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: Over the past, like, I guess [00:10:00] 14 years, 15 years since really, like pushing hard on Nexter. Mm-hmm. Like biggest a, any like I acquisition that's gonna be a game changer. Or like, are you guys on ServiceTitan?
What, what are the level up changes that we've seen inside the business
Brian Beltz: leadership team and, and people, I think has been the, the biggest change, right? You can't do everything, you know yourself and you gotta get, what do you mean people around?
Lara Beltz: I think that was probably a realization though, is like, you know, I felt like in the early years we, we, well.
He thought, I think that he could have just gotten in the truck and just worked and worked and worked and worked. Yeah. And eventually pulled it off. And I think you get to a certain size where you just can't do that anymore.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: You know, you're not physically able to go to that many calls. You, you have to start growing your people.
Mm-hmm. So in turn, they do what they're supposed to be doing and they, they can grow more people. I mean, it's, it's, that's just the nature of the business. [00:11:00] Mm-hmm. And realizing that you can't be the only person that carries that drive that you have to, you, you have to make sure that your team is just as driven and understands the, the purpose behind what you're doing.
'cause you know, we'll, we'll sales fantastic, but the name of the game is helping people. Mm-hmm. Because if you're helping people, then eventually the sales will come, it just will. Mm-hmm. You know, 'cause your name gets around. People respect what you do. They trust what you do. Therefore it ends up, you, you get more business.
Yeah. 'cause there's so many fly-by-night companies out there. There's so many. One man in a truck, one woman in a truck, um, they don't have the same ethics and they don't have the same values. And I think that's one of the main things that sets us apart is the way we treat our customers in the way that we treat our employees.
And, um, you know, he, he's talking about bringing on our operations manager [00:12:00] and our implementation manager. They were extremely key in getting our alignment to where it needs to be with our people internally. Mm-hmm. And then therefore that shows through to the customer, um, just like a well-oiled machine amongst all the.
Key players.
John Wilson: Yeah. When, when did, what size did you bring on the operations manager or, or director of ops? Director of operation. Wanna make sure
Brian Beltz: I get it right. Uh, so that was right about a little over 5 million. Okay. Yeah. And I feel like I was able to, to just will the business. Yeah. Uh, to 5 million and improv three to five is a brutal, it is slog.
John Wilson: It's a grind. It three to five. Yeah. We call it, uh, the hell zone or something on the show. It's awful. Okay. It's aw, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a well known fact. I
Brian Beltz: feel like the, the, the five to 10, uh, where we're start to get fun. Yeah. It can start to get fun, but, uh, I feel like we have a lot of hell that we, um, yeah.
Maybe ignored in the mm-hmm. [00:13:00] Shoving through to the three to five range that, that reared its head.
Lara Beltz: Mm-hmm.
Brian Beltz: You know, trying to get to the next level.
Lara Beltz: I think COVID helped with that too, because I was gonna, I was gonna ask
Brian Beltz: about the COVID years. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: Well, we had some pretty rich years. Basically, but I would say when the money stopped coming.
Yeah. You know, when the government subsidies stopped and, and you had people spending less money and all that gravy train kind of came to a halt, then all the problems that you could kind of ignore. 'cause money is coming in suddenly become these giant red flags. Yeah. And you're, you can't ignore them anymore.
You have to actually do something about them.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: There was multiple factors, I think. Yeah.
John Wilson: I was listening to Chad, uh, Peterman show, and I don't remember which episode it was. I'll have to try to find it, but it talked about that.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: Um, 'cause they, they started COVID at like 20 million and they ended COVID at like 85 or 90.
Like it was Absolutely, it was absolutely insane. For like a 36 month [00:14:00] period.
Lara Beltz: We had all these people who were at home.
John Wilson: Yeah. You know,
Lara Beltz: using all of these, all, all of the systems in their house, so much more than they were before. So it was like magic.
John Wilson: Yeah, totally. Totally. I feel like that is revenue higher now than it was in COVID for you guys, or Oh,
Brian Beltz: absolutely.
John Wilson: Yeah. Okay.
Brian Beltz: Um, I, I, I feel like the, uh, the process and some of the fundamentals were, uh, were lost or overlooked. You know, when you have, when you have a lot of business coming in Yep. And you have money rolling in mm-hmm. You kind of ignore some of those, but, um, I, I really feel like that was some of the areas that we really started to focus on
John Wilson: and like Sounds like in the last year or two.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think most people are in like a, like a recalibration.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: You know, growth's no longer a hundred percent year over year growth is 10 to 30 or whatever. Yeah. You have to get better. Yeah. When, uh, when did we [00:15:00] drive
Speaker 6: EOS into the business? Hmm. It's been 2015. Okay. That right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Well established years.
Lara Beltz: Yeah. It's, it's kind of ingrained.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Like what, what was the, how do you think it's helping you today versus 10 years ago?
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Brian Beltz: Or, we've had a lot of practice at it, so we're, I feel like we're a lot better at it now. Yeah. And it's a, it's a normal cadence that we have.
Yeah. It's what we do on a daily, uh, weekly and monthly, quarterly basis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: I think it makes you more willing to, instead of just come, come with a problem and have no solution, like people are already ready to solve mm-hmm. Instead of just complain. So I think it gives more clarity than we probably would've had.
It gives a process to, to actually solve things. Um. And I, I think too along the [00:16:00] way, especially with the leadership team, um, it's given some an an area where they could improve their own leadership skills, um, in their departments and Yeah. And given them some tools to, to do that as well.
Brian Beltz: It's, uh, also, it, it doesn't allow us to, uh, to lose focus of what we're trying to accomplish, you know, in a quarter or in the year, the daily fires and mm-hmm.
And the daily things that go on within, within the business. Uh, we get to refocus at least every week.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: And there's
John Wilson: five leaders in EOS,
Brian Beltz: like in your No, our leadership team, we have six, seven. Okay. Altogether.
John Wilson: Okay.
Brian Beltz: In our leadership team.
John Wilson: How many l tens a we, I'm just, I don't, I don't think I've, okay.
Yep. We do
Brian Beltz: one a week.
John Wilson: Yeah. That was one of the air, that was one of the gaps that we. Had with EOS Earl we're four years into it ended 2021. Mm-hmm. And, uh, one of the [00:17:00] challenges was we couldn't like, keep up with the amount of L tens that had to happen, which I, you know, they don't really explain that to you during onboarding or in the book.
Mm-hmm. But at one point it was 14 l tens a week. Oh
Speaker 5: my
John Wilson: gosh. That's a lot. Yeah. Well, 'cause it's supposed to be, you fully roll it through the whole organization. Okay. And you cascade messages and you do this whole thing. And, um, I mean, people just didn't have time to do their jobs. So right now I think, I think we now run four and that, that has felt pretty healthy for us.
Uh, it's, you know, senior leadership team and that's like directors and then the frontline leaders have like some under that. And then we might have five. 'cause the, a few of the support teams, like marketing has one, HR as one. Okay. Yeah. At one point 14, 'cause it was call center had one dispatch, you know, everybody had one.
Um, it was just so
Brian Beltz: much We are, we're working on, on our second L uh, L 10 with just the, the [00:18:00] managers and the, the department Yeah.
Speaker 6: Leaders.
Lara Beltz: I think we had to get the right people in the management positions to even, you know, disseminate that down. It was like, like I said, we feel like we've got the team, so, yeah.
Um, there were, there was a lot of time over those years where we did not have the right people in the seat and you can't push that down if you can't get the right person in that seat. So
Brian Beltz: that's a
John Wilson: game
Brian Beltz: changer. We're,
John Wilson: uh, once you
Brian Beltz: feel like you're there, yeah. We're, we're doing a lot with, uh, communication in our huddle and then mm-hmm.
Our check-ins midday and like daily. Daily huddle you mean? Yeah. Daily. Yeah. And, and that's resolving a lot of the issues that, that come up. Just 'cause we're, we're dealing with them right away.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I. We, we actually, we don't talk as we probably should. We don't talk like as tactical as daily huddle on here very often.
So I'd love to hear about your daily huddle. Like, what's that look like?
Brian Beltz: Uh, it's, uh, it's very specific. We do, uh, 10 minutes, uh, [00:19:00] it's 9 0 3 and, uh, that's when we start And we do it like on purpose? Yeah, on purpose. Okay. Just, just, just to make it a little bit different. But, uh, we have, uh, I mean, it's grown over the years and, uh, we stole, uh, a spreadsheet from, uh, from another member and we modified that to, to go through all of our different departments and, and we have it tied in with our budget and we have the, so we have the field managers that will, that will call in, uh, and participate as well.
So from out in the trucker, um, or if they're in the office. And, um, it's just, we run it really efficient and we've, we've gotten a lot better at. Doing a quick job of reporting the numbers of what happened yesterday, celebrating wins and uh, but it's more focused on what are we doing today to cover the gap and what commitments do we have to
Lara Beltz: win the day?
Brian Beltz: You win the day. But it just takes it, I mean, I think back to, I don't [00:20:00] know, five years ago when we were doing Yeah. The huddle and it was terrible. We used to call it a muddle.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Just '
Brian Beltz: cause we just muddled through it. Yeah. Yeah. Not even sure. I think we spent most of the time just reporting what we did yesterday and trying to figure out those numbers and the, we would just let the day happen.
Now we're attacking the day at nine o'clock.
Lara Beltz: I think a lot of those, whether you're talking about EOS or that it's practice. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like anything else. The more you do it and the more, yeah. More people get on board with it, the easier it becomes and then it's second nature and you don't necessarily have to think about what you should be talking about.
You already know.
John Wilson: Yeah. It is kind of funny. I remember like we first got on the OS and they told us it would be a two or three year implementation. And you're like, how? They're like four years in we're like, uh, we still don't do that. Yeah, that's true. Have have you guys looked at scaling up yet? What do you mean?
No. So there [00:21:00] eeo uh, scaling up is like a slightly different version of EOS. Okay. No.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: It's a rabbit hole. It's kind of interesting. If you have Spotify premium, the audio book is free. Okay. Okay. So there you go. But, uh, EOS was really helpful for us for like, how are we, how are we meeting, how are we solving all the stuff you just said, meeting, solving problems.
What's our pulse? What the challenges are that we have felt, and I don't know when people start feeling this, but I've heard, you know, a variety of sizes. Uh, I think it's a headcount like 150 EOS becomes a little bit more challenging and part of it is like you don't cover all the problems. Um. So EOS is like, let's solve problems.
And what that usually means is let's solve operational problems like we're not going to solve. Uh, I mean, we might, but it's not set up to solve cash flow problems with a leadership team. Right. And it's not set up to solve, um, like people problems 'cause the people in that room might be the people [00:22:00] problem.
So it's, they're not really set up to do that. But scaling up does, is set up to do that. So it's a very similar like mechanic, like how you meet, how you pulse, how you do daily huddles, but it's worth a read. Uh, even if you don't fully implement it does sort of hit some of the other stuff. So we're getting ready to move from EOS to scaling up.
And the four pillars are leaders, like how do you continually develop and bring on new leaders? What's your pipeline? What's your infrastructure? Are you built to scale? Like do you have the software stack, the automation, whatever? What's your ex strategy or execution like? Do you have one? And then is it good?
You know? So step one, step two there, and then the final one is cash, which that has been interesting for us. Like, and you guys will feel this too if you, if you don't now, but we never used to talk about cash or like net with leaders or you guys doing that? Yeah, we are. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. We, we didn't, and then we started [00:23:00] going like full open book financial down to cash, which was like a transformative experience for us, uh, like a year ago.
Uh, but it really, like, it drove alignment with the whole Oh yeah. It was wild. It was wild.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. We have pretty good alignment. Yeah. Uh, with, with the leadership team and, uh, it was a big deal bringing the, the supervisors up Yeah. And getting them immersed into the numbers. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: It's like an eyeopening that they have, you know?
Oh yeah. They, they, they finally understand.
Brian Beltz: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: You know, oh, oh, that's, that's why we're doing this, and. Yes. You know? Yeah. When you finally open those books and, and just become more transparent Yeah. And they get to see more of the backend of Yeah. How this whole entire engine works.
John Wilson: Well, I, I think that for us anyways, sounds like it might be for you, was the key to unlocking better leaders was they just actually know the score and then they started making decisions that I would've made.
But in my [00:24:00] stead,
Lara Beltz: I think that what you, I mean like cost
John Wilson: savings decisions or like they understand the game
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
John Wilson: That we're now playing, which was helpful. So everyone, we're on a year of open books. So like, at the end of the month, we, here's the PL here's what happened, here's ca did cash go up or down? Um, and that, yeah.
It's been amazing.
Lara Beltz: I could see that.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. I, I feel like there's a lot, uh, more ownership, uh, from the, from everybody in the leadership team, especially the, uh, the department supervisors where they're, they're, they're empowered now to make some decisions. To play the game. Mm-hmm. Uh, versus just seeing some of the results and not understanding
John Wilson: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: Some of their moves that they're, that they're making and how they affect the, the numbers a,
John Wilson: a fun thing we're, I'm curious if you guys have already done this, 'cause it sounds like you did this way earlier than me. A fun thing we're doing is we've, we're taking up p and l and like we're, instead of the number next to it, we're putting a name.
Have you guys done that? No.
Lara Beltz: No.
John Wilson: So that was, that was something that we thought was kind of [00:25:00] interesting. Is it because we're open book financial, how do we, how can we like drive, like GL code alignment, like, hey, you are responsible for this line on the p and l, and then we're gonna print it out on a four foot tall sticker and like smack it around the office.
Brian Beltz: But yeah, so, uh, per department as well. Right.
John Wilson: Uh, so it's gonna be the rolled up PL Okay. And then we'll go a little bit lower than that for frontline leaders. Yeah. But like, who's accountable for materials and who's accountable for revenue? It was eyeopening. Um, you would imagine we have stuff more put together than we do, but we're learning every day.
And there's definitely some lines where, uh, like revenue,
Speaker 4: yeah.
John Wilson: Doesn't sound complicated. Ended up being a little complicated. Like it because the way we've divided our company, it's, uh, lead, so like marketing call center dispatch, and like the lead side of the business, the sale and the fulfillment. So like, that's [00:26:00] how the org structure is set up.
That's how everything is set up, is like, we try to make it as simple as humanly possible, but revenue gets complicated. Is it sales or is it fulfillment? Because like they're both sort of doing it and Okay, the actual revenue is achieved by the install team. Like sales doesn't do the revenue install team does the revenue.
So they're really trying to nail down who's accountable for what, who's accountable for the lines. Below that got kind of interesting 'cause there was mixed accountabilities between two senior leaders. So hey, two directors are potentially in charge of revenue. Well, how, who owns it?
Brian Beltz: I
John Wilson: could see this,
Brian Beltz: uh, as a, as an issue coming up.
Yeah. As we, as we scale and
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. It was an issue. We ended up landing on sales, I think. But for which is, uh, that maybe sounds obvious. Like it even sounds obvious to me as I, I'm saying it, but for the last year that's been fulfillment. Like revenue is fulfillment. Like they're the ones that complete the job so that revenue is their deal.
Uh, so that was like sort of [00:27:00] like, okay. Wow. This is interesting.
Lara Beltz: It sounds a lot like the rabbit hole of where did the lead come from?
John Wilson: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Attribution's a mm-hmm. Whole nother. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Alright, so day to day Yeah. You are running operations, you're sitting in the EOS visionary role.
Yes. And you are running the marketing and
Lara Beltz: together PR
John Wilson: and like community sounds like. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: We, we come together when we make larger company divi decisions
John Wilson: together. Mm-hmm. What are some example like acquisition, like a lets do acquisition.
Lara Beltz: Um, sometimes it has to do with employees. Mm-hmm. Um,
Brian Beltz: growth.
Growth areas where we're gonna expand to, uh, just stuff we're looking at. Bigger picture.
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: Bigger picture year, down the road, three, five years
John Wilson: down the road. I'd love to hear a little bit about the acquisition earlier this year.
Brian Beltz: That
John Wilson: was interesting. That was
Lara Beltz: very [00:28:00] interesting.
John Wilson: Yeah. Alright. I'm de I'm even more interested now.
Brian Beltz: Well, this was our first one and, and we wanted to mess up on, is there gonna be more? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Sweet. Solid. Um, but, uh, so our, our first one came through a friend of ours mm-hmm. That was, uh, I know doing a sign for this guy and he, he wanted to, he was looking to retire, wanted somebody that was multi trade to be able to take care of his customers.
Lara Beltz: He wanted somebody like him. That's what he wanted.
Brian Beltz: Did he find it? Don't sell it.
Lara Beltz: Oh, yeah. He, he loves Brian.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. We, we were, uh, you know, we were cut from the same cloth and Yeah. And,
Lara Beltz: uh, he wanted to make sure his customers were taken care of in the same manner they were used to being taken care of. Yeah.
I think we've exceeded all right. You know, and we get plenty of reviews back where we've blown their mind.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: But you know, it's a bigger operation and Yeah. You know, sometimes that comes with more Yeah. Services, more amenity, you know, just different opportunities that, um, a shop the size of his don't, just doesn't have [00:29:00] the, um, ability to do so.
Mm-hmm. So there's some benefits.
John Wilson: Yeah,
Brian Beltz: there is.
John Wilson: And how, how many people did it have?
Brian Beltz: He, he had, uh, he was down to two technicians. Okay. And himself, uh, and somebody in the office a week after. So is that like a half a million bucks? A million bucks? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a half a million dollar business.
He had, uh, up to 14 people, you know. Wow. Uh, a few years prior. And then he was just. Whittling it down 70. 70, I think, and, and was just done. So it, the last couple years had really just dropped. But this was, um, you know, so one of the things that we learned was looking at somebody's books a little better, being able to get access, uh, to their customer list.
We still have yet, uh, to, we've done pretty well in that area, uh, of acquiring customers, but we still don't even have a, a proper mailing list. Um,
Lara Beltz: no.
Brian Beltz: When they came to the table and we were doing negotiations, they brought two large [00:30:00] Yes.
John Wilson: Rolodexes. Yep. Yep. Literally, yeah. I've seen this handwritten, I've seen this.
Yes.
Lara Beltz: It's
John Wilson: like we've had to not take them on.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: Like, we're, like, I literally, I can't, I mean, like, I will not get enough out of this deal. Yeah. To devote the resource that it's gonna take to deal with this.
Lara Beltz: We we're, I feel like we're at the point where we're literally gonna have to hire somebody to just do data entry.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: Because, I mean, there's a ton of customers in there. Yeah. But on the other side, flip side of that, you know, word has gotten out and we've had enough trucks in that area. We we're getting calls. Yeah. We took over their number. So
John Wilson: is it in Toledo? Like is it in Okay. Is it also it's also very, it's in the
Lara Beltz: middle of nowhere.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: But you know, they're very appreciative customers and Yeah. In those communities, you have to remember, I, I try and remind him of the big picture, you know, word, like word for about a new company that's doing really well spreads like wildfire. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4: Like,
Lara Beltz: you know, they might have neighbors 10 miles away, but they're gonna call 'em.
Mm-hmm. So getting [00:31:00] our name out in that area has not really been a difficult thing. Um, 'cause the customers have been so happy with us.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: And I think it went a long way. Brian actually went. Over to the shop and he kind of did a, you know, um,
Brian Beltz: a little PR tour, little PR
Lara Beltz: tour, kissing babies. Fucking, I'm exaggerating, but it kind of was 'cause how many co how many coffee shops?
And, and
Brian Beltz: we just went around and he introduced me a mm-hmm. You know, to, so the whole
Lara Beltz: town, how
John Wilson: far is it from your current? Uh, or like close to an hour? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Are you guys thinking about merging it or are you thinking about like, what's the, what do you thinks?
Brian Beltz: Separate location. So we'll set up a, uh, another set up a little warehouse and, and, and a hub out of there.
But we've been training everybody at our current location. Um mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: Just getting to, figuring out how that makes sense to, to add another, you know. Manager tech. Yeah. Call, you know, it's call center there. We still run it at our current location. Mm-hmm. Those kind of things
Brian Beltz: as, as [00:32:00] we have been thinking about scaling out.
Scaling up, right. Mm. And, uh, and going to different locations. It uncovered a lot of inefficiencies in our Yeah. In our own warehouse, in our own operation. Yeah. We're like, if we gotta duplicate this, you know, even at a smaller scale, we gotta get our stuff together, uh, in-house first. It's, so that's what we've really been working on.
Yeah. So I, I feel like the, the small acquisition and, and the, the small business that we, that we took over was really good. 'cause we, we've learned a lot of stuff. Yeah. And you wouldn't wanna buy a large company and, and go through all of those learning curves. Yeah. That could be really expensive.
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: So it's, it's been a very valuable training experience. Yeah. And I think we took a lot away from it. So, yeah. I think it was a, a good move and, um. Give us extra, an extra coverage area, more customers. And, um,
John Wilson: did you feel like you were capped at your current?
Lara Beltz: No.
John Wilson: Yeah, [00:33:00] no. Just like an opportunity that came up.
Yeah.
Lara Beltz: It was just an opportunity. And, um, you know, I, I think it always goes back to the, the original goal. Like, we're here to help customers and, and being able to, to grab a whole nother section of customers that we can help. Um, you know, that's the goal at the end of the day is just to help more people.
John Wilson: This is a model I'm seeing more and more. So, like conventional wisdom would be, we ran multi-location for almost exactly what you're doing. Uh, for like two years, three years. Okay. 'cause we bought a, a bunch of businesses in 20, 21, 3, we bought nine total, but three in 2021. And then we ran all three of those separately, like different locations.
Mm-hmm. And they were all just here round, uh, like Cleveland ish, like, you know, within. The farthest one was an hour.
Speaker 6: Okay.
John Wilson: And, uh, yeah, learned a lot. Learned a lot. And we now operate in one, so we did that a couple years ago. Do you still occupy
Brian Beltz: No, uh, [00:34:00] locations? No. Okay. No physical brick and mortar.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think all where we were different than what you guys are doing is we start, we did a smaller, like half or less than the size you guys were at when you did yours.
So we were like 3 million bucks.
Speaker 6: Okay.
John Wilson: Um, so we didn't have structure, like we didn't have anything. I don't know why we thought we could do it. You didn't know any better. Yeah, I didn't. So we did it. Yeah. And we lived. Uh, but yeah, it was ridiculous. Um, but yeah, I, I'm seeing this smaller locations going multi-location sooner, uh, than it used to be.
Right. So like what it used to look like and I think industry norm is, uh, like a plant then expand. So 20 to 30 million, you, your headquarters is 2030, and then you start popping an hour away, an hour away, an hour away. And I'm meeting more and more people running, like [00:35:00] more of a shared like, hey, 5 million here, 5 million here, 5 million here.
Uh, like, I don't know if you guys see Call Dad, but Matt down there is running, I think they're 35 or 40 this year with eight locations. Fair friend of ours, Mike Wilson. He's a one to plumber, no relation. Great last name though. Uh, he's a one-ton plumber and he has I think three or four locations each doing two to $3 million.
It, it, it's just interesting. It mostly driven rural and I think that's a, like a response to pe 'cause I we're just seeing more and more people running these like Yeah. Rural, we're like, Hey, it's more community focused. I can't go and I'm not pe but like. That's a harder market for PE to work in. 'cause the, the market's not big enough.
Yeah. Like how can you meaningfully compete in a market with 40,000 people or 30,000 people? You need a million. Yeah. So it it, yeah. It's an interesting model that's like starting to emerge and kind of like big, you know, there's some big players. Matt is probably the biggest one I know, but it's interesting.[00:36:00]
Brian Beltz: The, the clients, the, the customers, um, are super receptive. And uh, I think that was another filter that we had to remove as well, that they're small towns, uh, and they're, they're very loyal to the local plumber, the local electrician.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: And most of them don't know what they're doing business wise. Right.
The local person does. Yes. It's still the old model. Yeah. And, you know, how are these customers going to react to, you know, the prices we have to charge. Yeah. And. It hasn't been an issue at all. Mm-hmm. They, they just love the process. They love all the options, things that they never knew that they could get mm-hmm.
That, that they were never offered. But obviously you don't have the volume, you don't have that, that huge, you know, area to, to work in. And it's a lot of extra windshield time. Mm-hmm. Um, have to get involved in those little communities as well. So we're trying to find technicians that live in those areas to plant trucks and mm-hmm.
And, uh, and be [00:37:00] visible, uh, in those areas.
John Wilson: Yeah. Does, does the place you're at have like a college or a main street or university or
Lara Beltz: No?
John Wilson: Uh, in, in our current location or the new one? Yeah, new one or either, I guess either, uh,
Lara Beltz: current, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: There is university and everything. That was Chad's, we had Chad on the show.
Yeah. About a year and a half ago I think. And that was his measurement. 'cause he did this too. So he did, he went multi-location at 15. Which again, conventional wisdom, like that's early, but like obviously it works, he's a hundred million dollars. Mm-hmm. And uh, he chose small communities where they were not very competitive.
Like you could go in and win Yeah. Somewhat easily, you know, versus like a Cleveland or Indianapolis or something. And his measurement for, is it big enough? Is do they have a college, which I thought was interesting. Do they have a college? Do they have a downtown? And you start seeing that a lot at like 40,000, 50,000 people.
Lara Beltz: Yeah. No, the acquisition is super small.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6: Um, I have a couple stoplights.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. [00:38:00]
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: You guys are driving. Those are measurement.
John Wilson: Yeah. So how are you thinking about growing that?
Brian Beltz: Uh, just really having a, uh, our plan was to have more of a visible, uh, brick and mortar location and be able to operate out of there.
Yeah. Um, the, the challenges I feel that we are gonna have with that is having somebody that is, that's there, that's self supervising. Sure. We have a couple of warehouses right now that are separate from our existing office, and that was a huge challenge that we ran into was Yeah. Having that separate location, even a couple miles away and having the people be self supervising.
Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: You really have to have the right person. Yeah. It's gonna take on that role.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. If not, there's a lot of shenanigans that goes on and inefficiencies,
Lara Beltz: and I feel like if you're gonna have that few of people to make a, an impact, you really, they need to be involved in the community.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: Um, it's so rural and they're so tight knit. Yeah. You really have to be to make an impact. [00:39:00]
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How does, how do leads work? Like how does that work? Is it, I would have to imagine it's slightly different than what, how I compete.
Lara Beltz: I think that, um, making sure that you have the right combination of marketing [00:40:00] avenues, um, but also, and I don't know if I'm answering your question, how you really intended it, but I'll tell you if you don't, just making sure that you are, have the right mix and that you take in like, like the basics of marketing, making, making sure that you know your audience and mm-hmm.
And. You know, be where they're going to actually see you. Um, we've got a lot of industry in our area. A lot of 'em are just going to work, going to their kids' games, going home. Uh, you know, that's kind of where some of the, the community aspect of it comes from. Yeah. Because if you're trying to reach some of these folks, it can be difficult.
Um, they're not necessarily, you know, I'm, I'm trying to plant seeds before they ever even need to call us and, you know, are they going to ball games every single week? Yeah, a lot of 'em are. So we do a lot in the community with purchasing, um, banners that hang [00:41:00] on a lot of these schools, fences for a lot of the different games.
Yeah. Basketball, baseball, all that sort of thing.
Brian Beltz: We do a lot of billboards.
Lara Beltz: We do a ton of billboards. Um, probably the most, most billboards in, uh, our area. Um. They seem to be extremely effective. Um, we have a ton of people who specifically talk about the trucks and or the billboards, and I see you everywhere.
I see you on the billboards. So just going back to the, the right mix of, of the traditional, you know, um, knowing exactly the matrix of what works for you to make the phone ring. And, um, handing that, doing good handoffs between departments, you know, from the calls that come in to the call center to mm-hmm.
Dispatch to the technician. Just making sure, making sure that there's no holes in that whole process.
John Wilson: Would you say it [00:42:00] is competitive for leads? I think world's just world's fascinating to me. So, I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna go down a rabbit hole here, but I just think it's so interesting.
Lara Beltz: I would say it can be, um,
John Wilson: are you the biggest in your market?
Lara Beltz: I would say
John Wilson: yes. I would have to imagine, yeah. The size of market. Yeah. You guys are big.
Lara Beltz: There's a lot of, there's a couple smaller shops. There's a couple, one man, one man truck. And, and I always hate that term 'cause um, there's so many women in the field now mm-hmm. That you really need to include them as well.
But
Brian Beltz: we have a number of, uh, other larger companies that are in our area and even in the rurals rural areas, but they do a lot of new construction. Yeah. Commercial, industrial, and, you know, and they have a couple service guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: I just don't think their focus is as laser focused as ours. You know, they, they're gonna go wherever the money takes them.
Mm-hmm. And I don't know that they really have a plan. And I feel like, um, [00:43:00] you know, with Nexstars, you know, business planning and ways to make sure that you are very dialed in on what your goal is and how you're gonna accomplish that, um, just makes, makes us a bit stronger. Of a company than somebody who's just flying by the seat of their pants, which is, I think, what most of them are doing.
So, you know, when we think about marketing, um, it's more making sure that people make the connection between the brand, um, no matter which avenue we're going down from for marketing and, and making sure that that stays the same, you know, across the different platforms. And I think it makes a, a, makes a huge impact.
'cause you know, when people call in and they can't even tell you exactly, well, I saw you here, but I also saw you here. And you know that sometimes it's a challenge for the call center to know where the, where the accountability lies for that, that lead. Mm-hmm. But [00:44:00] I just, I think we've gotten things dialed in enough that I don't.
I don't, I, I hate to say this even out loud, but I don't really worry about our competition that much 'cause they don't seem to be as focused as we are. Mm-hmm. And I think that makes a huge difference.
John Wilson: It sounds like most of the spend is like branded spend is like LSA as much of a
Lara Beltz: Yeah, we have a pretty beefy LSA paid Yeah.
Um, we contract out, uh, we, we use camp. They're a nexstar preferred vendor. Uh, we also use Johnson Media for mm-hmm. They do a lot of negotiation for us for, um, yeah. Broadcast and cable. We do pretty much everything. Mm-hmm. Just making sure the mix is where it needs to be. Yeah. You know, adjusting that when it needs to be adjusted and checking, you know, what's working and what's not working.
But I try and make sure that we hit everybody multiple times in some way, shape or fashion.
John Wilson: Yeah. I [00:45:00] mean, I think, I think you guys are gonna win. I think like when I hear, um. One of the advantages of like small town, there's like a, it's, it's both an advantage and a disadvantage and it depends on who you're talking to, but the advantage is it's winnable.
Like it's winnable like by ha like by having a marketing strategy and just spending money, like you'll probably win, you'll win the market. But, but the downside is like, there's a cap, so how big can it ever get, you know? Yeah. But I don't know if it depends on the person. That might not be a downside at all.
But
Lara Beltz: I, I don't look at it as there being a cap. I just, I think our town is a little bit, and you can correct me if you don't agree, but we have so many different industries that are changing out. Mm-hmm. So often. Um, we have the corporate for marathon. Mm-hmm. The corporate off offices are in our town. Yeah.
We've got the corporate offices for what used to be Cooper. Um, so like
John Wilson: Cooper Tire?
Lara Beltz: Yeah, yeah,
John Wilson: yeah. So, yeah, because auto has to be a thing and Toledo's glass. Right? A lot of [00:46:00] glass. Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of industry that's changing out. Yeah. You know, they've got a lot of people coming in and leaving, so you've got different people with different needs coming in and, and out all the time.
So, I don't know, is there really a cap? Um, we haven't found it yet. Mm. We're planning on expanding our area, so I don't know. I think that's just kind of our mantra to, to roll with it. Mm-hmm. And just figure out a way that's what we've always done, is just figured out a way to make it work. Mm-hmm.
Brian Beltz: I think one of the key areas for the rural, um, is most of the people that live out in, in the rural area have lived there for a long time and, and continue to live there.
Yeah. And they're, uh, they're more willing to invest in their home. Mm-hmm. And, and to see options to, uh, uh, to fix things or upgrade things.
John Wilson: And, uh, yeah. I think it opens up a lot of things that might be less typical inside, like generators are probably every single house. [00:47:00] Um, like Yeah. It, it is different.
Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: They just have, they have more invested. Yeah. You know, so they're willing to, to take care of it a little bit more than the transient person who's not gonna be there forever. I mean, some of those people that have been there for 80 plus years. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a lot.
Brian Beltz: There's, there's great opportunities though, but you have to have technicians that are, uh, that are flexible.
Yeah. Because you got a well system versus city. Yeah. Water system. You got softener systems, great opportunities, but if you're, mm-hmm.
Speaker 4: If you
Brian Beltz: just focused in the city and then you don't have those skills, then you gotta have the right technician to send out, out
Lara Beltz: to those areas. Yeah. I think it builds their skills, you know, not just, it builds their skills because they have to think on their feet.
Um, that's kind of one of the things that we look for in new people, you know, are, are you an out of the box thinker? Mm-hmm. Can you, you know, adjust on the fly? Because those are, those are definitely skills that the [00:48:00] technicians are gonna need on a daily basis. Yeah. And I think that's probably one of the reasons that people come to that, particularly for our particular area, because there is a challenge daily, and especially the younger generation, um, they seem to thrive on that.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: They seem to thrive on daily change and, and being able to, you know, be creative with the solutions that they're, they're offering the customer.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: How does labor work in a smaller market? And this is some, um, my, where my question is coming from, or Cleveland. So Cleveland, like three and a half million people.
So like we can always find someone, it just usually takes more money, but we can always find someone and a concern or. Like, something we've thought about is like, okay, do we take, and you can hear us muse on this over like a two year period of like, how do we think about market expansion? Do we want more Cleveland, like Cincinnati, like big cities?
Or [00:49:00] is there opportunity in a hundred to 300,000 population? And our biggest concern is how does, how does labor work? Like how do you bring on the team members and what does that training ramp look like? Because if I went into a Cincinnati, there's like 40 nexstar companies, right? Like I can find people that are trained on nexstar.
Mm-hmm. So like that solves like a whole series of problems that I would have to figure out on my own if I launched in Youngstown
Lara Beltz: For sure. And I think you, you are correct. Um, I think you have to change your mindset when you think about hiring technicians, uh, in a smaller area because it's the long game.
It's always gonna be the long game. And I would much rather. Pick up somebody who's got soft skills mm-hmm. And train them, take the time to train them on the service system and all the ways that we do different, you know, do business differently. Then try and take a seasoned person [00:50:00] who has, you know, junk for skills talking with the customer that I can't, I mean, I can try, but we've learned over and over again, it doesn't work.
Mm-hmm. You have to, you have to have those skills. So I think for us, we just kind of figured out along the way that invest, you have to invest in the people. And does that take a lot more time than, than you're talking about? Yeah. It takes a heck of a lot more time, but I think that we find they're more apt to stay longer.
Mm-hmm. Um, because we've invested so much into them and built that relationship so. You know, we're not only building relationships with customers, but we're building relation, long standing relationships with, with our employees as well. And I think it's just a different mindset to how, how you're gonna hire
Brian Beltz: if we're getting a lot of the, uh, people from factories or from trade schools, uh, coming in [00:51:00] and, and applying and from different industries.
And we're just, you know, very open to that. And, and just like she said, they, they, they thrive in that freedom to be kinda creative. Mm-hmm. And when we just train in-house and, um, you know, on the technical side and the customers, customers just love that.
John Wilson: Yeah. How many people a year are you like training?
How long does it take? Like two years, one year?
Lara Beltz: It can take two, two years, um, to fully train, sometimes four. And it really depends on the individual. Mm-hmm. Um, we've been using next Tech Yeah. To, through Nexstar to train a lot of, of the green, super green, uh, people who come in. Um, but you know, it really depends on the individual.
Like I had an electrician who went through the entire Next Tech program in two months. Mm-hmm. Which is mind blowing. That's a lot of content and a lot of videos. Mm-hmm. And a lot of [00:52:00] checkoff to make sure they know what they're doing. So it really just depends on the individual, on, on their capacity to learn at a faster pace, but somebody who already has the, the knowledge and you're really just working on refining their, their service system.
And how, how long would you say for that six months?
Brian Beltz: Yeah, it's, you know, it's really tough 'cause you're trying to plug in a person into a, into a department and you want them to get, be productive and, and be able to bring revenue in mm-hmm. In, in the shortest amount of time. Right. And, uh, and that's, that's not, that's not always ideal.
Yeah, it's not ideal. I mean, you gotta think, think out six months. So we've went to a little bit different model, uh, on our staffing and, and I don't know that we have anybody, maybe a couple of HVAC technicians, uh, but most everybody has a trainee, uh, that's in their truck right now. So we're just trying to get ahead of that curve on the staffing.
Lara Beltz: It's something [00:53:00] that I think once you get it in your head that you have to constantly be hiring and constantly be training all the time, like mm-hmm. All the time. It's just something that you have to do to maintain that steady, steady stream of individuals coming in for, to, to build them all up to be that.
Um. That revenue producing tech. Yeah. It's just a constant have to.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: And especially now, I mean, there's less and less coming in to the trades that I, you know, I, I have high hopes for, for the newer generations of, of realizing, you know, you can make a really good living, not going to a four year college, and you can just come right on into the trades and I'll welcome you with open arms.
Mm-hmm. Like, come on in. Um,
John Wilson: you've got the data on this 'cause of your work with it's Explore the trades. Yes. But like my, I'm, I'll give a vibe. So this, you know, zero, zero facts all vibes over here. Okay. [00:54:00] It, my vibe is that. There are more and more young people joining the trades. Yes. Every day. I mean, TikTok, I think this was just on either Wall Street Journal or New York Times, but like TikTok is driving like a trades revolution mm-hmm.
For exactly what you just said.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
John Wilson: Hey, you wanna make a hundred grand at 25 and you can buy a house and you don't need college debt. Like, that's a hell of a pitch.
Lara Beltz: It is. And I feel like it's finally getting heard because, you know, there's not, there's not, yeah. There's TikTok, but it's, it's finally getting, I feel like it went backwards.
It's like it's, it's gotten from industry and finally into the schools. And the schools are finally getting the point that, oh, oh, I don't have to tell them all they have to go to college. Mm-hmm. You know, 'cause, uh, I mean, I could, I could almost quote, um, Mike Rowe, you know, for how many years have we been Yeah.
Shoving it down everybody's throat that you have to go to a four year college and you don't.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. You know, a funny anecdote about my life
Lara Beltz: Okay.
John Wilson: Is I was not a very good student. So I became a plumber. Right. But [00:55:00] I was not a very good student. And in junior of high school, I had a teacher that told me, Hey, if you don't get your grades up, you're gonna end up being a plumber.
And she was right. And she was right. But like, you know, here we are today, 160. I know employees later.
Lara Beltz: Don't you wanna just walk into their office and be like,
John Wilson: no.
Lara Beltz: Really?
John Wilson: Like, no, I won. Like I won. But I do, I do think it's, I do think it's funny 'cause it's sort of like, yeah, yeah.
Lara Beltz: It's the exact guy
John Wilson: and I'm really glad that happened.
Lara Beltz: I, I have a similar actual experience like that. Yeah. My guidance counselor told me not to bother going to college 'cause I never make it and it's Yeah. Exact opposite. I got my degree. Yeah. And, and here I sit, but mm-hmm. They never would've, you know, I, I just think the point is stop trying to push them in areas Yeah.
That they don't wanna go.
Speaker 5: Yeah. You
Lara Beltz: know, if they don't like school, they don't like, um. Doing what they're doing. If they wanna explore other options, give them other options. I mean, I'm not, [00:56:00] I'm not opposed to four year colleges. Obviously we need that for other trades. Mm-hmm. You know, if you want a doctor, you're hoping they're, they're going to be licensed.
So it's, it has its place. But don't forget, there's other areas, other conversations to be had about opportunities. You know, don't just shut the door. Don't even tell them the door exists. I mean, if you wanna go down that rabbit hole, you can go down women in the trades and how that was unheard of. Mm-hmm.
My grandfather actually ran the same type of business that we have. Mm-hmm. It was never, ever brought up, ever. Yeah. Ever even occurred to him. Yeah. He had two daughters. Yeah. And it never even occurred to him to ever pass down his information. It all died with him. Yeah.
John Wilson: That's wild.
Lara Beltz: And it's sad, you know, all that knowledge that just went.
To the wayside. And, you know, quit assuming you know what's best for the kids that you have influence over and start asking more questions instead of, you know, this is what you need to do. Yeah. Well, what do you want to do? What are you [00:57:00] good at? You know, I think that's another conversation. What are you good at?
And where do you wanna be? Because if you just tell them what they have to do, you know, they're gonna go do that, and then four years later they're gonna have 200, whatever, $500,000 in debt and they're still gonna be lost.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think we'll have a boom here shortly. I think it's already started. Mm-hmm.
But, uh, I don't know how much of your business so far has been impacted by ai, but I mean, it's, it's a thing. So I think the more that we see ai, like take over more of the jobs that were entry level or, uh, even like knowledge worker jobs, ops, the next best earning. Here's the trades. So I, I, I think it'll be interesting to see like Gen Z is already there mm-hmm.
With TikTok and like, Hey, no college debt. Hey, a lot of money. There's a lot of good here. What happens when the 30 and 40 year olds start getting displaced [00:58:00] from jobs that were historically like safe, but between offshoring and ai, like, they don't exist anymore. Like, do accounting jobs exist anymore? I think that, like, that's a real question that I think most of the industry is trying to figure out.
Uh, so yeah, I, I think we're, the next five years are gonna be fascinating because we have Gen Z really coming into their own, and a large portion of the country being displaced, and they gotta, they gotta put food. I think that's a
Brian Beltz: great opportunity.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
Brian Beltz: Yeah. You're talking about the 30 and 40 year olds.
Mm-hmm. Uh, because the, you know, the young generation, the 20, you know, the mm-hmm. The 20 year olds that are coming in, they have their own challenges of, of maturity and, and life skills that they don't have yet. Yeah, for sure. That we, that we all to deal with. So if I think about, uh, somebody that's in their thirties and forties and have a lot of life skills, that would be a great transition into the trades.
Yeah, it would. Yeah.
John Wilson: No, I think so too.
Brian Beltz: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: I don't, and and I don't really have stats to back [00:59:00] this up, but it sure feels like plumbing is going to be really big. The business. Yeah. Plumbing is plumbing. Is plumbing's great? Yeah, plumbing's awesome.
John Wilson: Plumbing's great.
Lara Beltz: Um, it just feels like there's, well, it's less
John Wilson: ai.
I mean, that's a part of this too. Yeah. Like there is already, uh, with the Google glasses, like AI can diagnose, uh, furnace problems. So that is a part of the, is there a displacement there or likely less of a displacement and more, Hey, we can onboard an HVAC tech in 30 days because AI does all of the work instead of, you know, years of experience now.
Yeah. Whereas plumbing, I, that feels harder, like is probably not gonna drill a drain.
Lara Beltz: No, they're not. And I feel like plumbing always has this. This like unspoken, like you gotta want to be dealing with some of the worst parts of a house.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: You know, I mean, that's, that's the reason that it's expensive.
Mm-hmm. Because you gotta wanna do that. Not everybody wants [01:00:00] to do that. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know. We kind of have a saying that it just equals money. Mm-hmm. Like poo equals money. Yeah. That's just the name of the game. But that's not something that AI is gonna go do.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: So, I, I would agree that just backs up the whole theory that No, I, I think plumbing's gonna do really well.
'cause Yeah, you're still gonna have to have people to physically do that.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a list. Microsoft dropped this list of like, what's gonna be displaced, what's most likely to be displaced, what's least likely to be displaced, and then the number of jobs associated with each displacement.
Really interesting. Read plumbing was not on the least likely or the most likely really. But when I looked at it, I was like, plumbing should be on here. Like it should be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean some of 'em were um, like concrete work, which honestly I has been already displaced. I don't know if you've seen those.
Remote control. Yeah. Like con Yeah. Like they can already do that.
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
John Wilson: Which is grace. It's wild that, yeah. It's wild
Lara Beltz: sometimes too. I have to wonder like, [01:01:00] you know, big city. I think that's another factor for rural, you know, big City has bigger companies and bigger ability to kind of take on some of that new technology.
Yeah. I can,
John Wilson: what's a race to innovation? Yeah.
Lara Beltz: And I can pretty much guarantee there's a lot of companies in our area. Yeah. They don't have that ability, so that's not gonna affect them now. Mm-hmm. Maybe down the road, but, you know, it's a, maybe it's just a fact of a slower pace of.
John Wilson: You have less of a, yeah.
There's less people pushing you towards it. Mm-hmm. Probably, uh, whereas I mean, it, it depends. I mean, in a big city, you could also just not be pushed, which is fine. The, the way that we, we like, you know, we like to push. So, uh, yeah. For us, we're losing a little bit of our hunger to be the first out of the gate with everything just 'cause like disruption.
Mm-hmm. Now costs a lot of like, real dollars. Uh, but [01:02:00] we, we wanna innovate. We want to keep taking share. So, um, yeah. We, we feel pushed
Brian Beltz: into it. We've been using a lot of AI internally mm-hmm. Through operation of operational things.
John Wilson: Yeah. What, like what are some examples?
Brian Beltz: Uh, we use a lot of it in, um, uh, in throughout teams.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and, um. With different forms. Communication,
Lara Beltz: um, tracking, tracking. Lots of tracking. That's, you know, when you talked about your dashboard out there, um, instead of trying to hire or find somebody that can make that, we're doing that in-house. Yeah. Just bringing a lot of technology, a lot of tracking, a lot of display.
Just anything that we can automate, we're doing it.
John Wilson: Yeah. Um, I think that's probably one of the craziest parts is, is like the ability to develop apps. Half the dashboards you guys saw as you walk through the office. Like we internally developed. Yeah. Uh, like with lovable.dev is the name of it, but like 20 bucks a month and you can start just whipping up web [01:03:00] apps.
It, yeah. It's crazy. We've, I think we're 10 or 12 deep at this point.
Lara Beltz: We've been just really blessed the fact that our director of ops mm-hmm. He already had a lot of those schools, a lot of those, um, he was a nerd. He You
John Wilson: need him. Yeah. You need him. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: He came, he came to us from kind of the corporate world.
So there's a lot of. A lot of skills that he brought with him that we just didn't have, just because that's not kind of the, the business model that we run.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: But, and his ability to adapt all of those great things that come outta some of that mm-hmm. Has been really invaluable in driving us forward to be more efficient and more modern and mm-hmm.
And, you know, um, more streamlined. Yeah. More streamlined. Yeah.
John Wilson: That's awesome.
Lara Beltz: Yeah.
John Wilson: So what is next for belts? We've added a new location, figuring out growth. We're building a new building. I don't think we said that on air, but we're building a new building. So what, what's next? What does the [01:04:00] next couple years look like for you guys?
Brian Beltz: Uh, at some, some more acquisitions and, uh, and, and more growth.
John Wilson: Where do you, where do you see acquisitions? Like hour away, hour away, like that type of model? Or like, you guys wanna buy me smaller town, two hours away,
Speaker 6: smaller towns. No
John Wilson: giggles.
Speaker 6: I liked that. I was like, come on, let's do this. He was reaching,
Lara Beltz: he was
Speaker 6: reaching.
Yeah. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: Um, yeah, I, we were just talking about this on the way over, you know, um, just the goals for the business in general and, and just trying to bring our services to as many people as possible, you know, however that makes sense for us. And I, I think that our particular area is just so rich with opportunity.
Mm-hmm. You know, you've got a lot of, I'm sure, like you had mentioned, the PEs. They look at these different areas and they, they just don't think it's worth the time or it's not worth,
John Wilson: I couldn't, yeah. Like that's, I think that's part of [01:05:00] what makes this just fascinating to me. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
John Wilson: Is like, we're looking at our next markets and both for Greenfield, which like we're launching mm-hmm.
Or acquisitions and. It's tough. Like we've looked at deals and they have 40,000 people and I'm like, I don't know what I would do there. Like I just don't know what I would do there and win. Well, you would definitely like, we would definitely win. Which I, that part sounds really fun. It's like, oh you could,
Brian Beltz: yes.
John Wilson: Like if you take the level of competitive that we have to be here, there like it's so much you would just win in like a day. But it caps and that's I think where I struggle with it is like, can you get to 20 million? Can you get to 30 million? Just to add more of you probably. Can
Lara Beltz: you just add more?
John Wilson: No, I mean each market, each, yeah, each market.
20 million in each of those markets. Yeah. Yeah. It gets, so this is something that we're thinking about. I don't know if this helps you or not, but this is how, uh, [01:06:00] we're currently thinking about it. It is really especially three trade. It is hard and you guys are in it, but it's hard to run a three trade company under like 15 million.
It's not hard. Under 10, it's hard under five. Three trades is hard. Like it's, I
Lara Beltz: think three trades is hard period.
John Wilson: Three trades is, yeah, three trades is hard, period. Uh, totally. And uh, and the smaller you are, the harder it is. Like you just don't have the infrastructure. Mm-hmm. You don't have the, you don't have the experts in all three 'cause you can't, 'cause it's just not big enough to have it.
Like as far as management or trainers. Mm-hmm. You know, whatever. So a lot when like PE or larger operators, which I'm not considering myself a part of that cohort are looking at new markets to launch into. And their three trade, the goal is like 10 million by end of year two. 'cause it's really hard to hire the team you need under eight figures.
And then by end of year three it's 15 to 20. So that's where [01:07:00] most of 'em want to end up
Lara Beltz: because they're only looking at the number.
John Wilson: Well, how do I potentially, but how do I provide the resources mm-hmm. Somewhere else that I'm not, so how can I hire a best in class general manager? Well, that's gonna cost a lot of money.
Well, how do I hire the people that can run each trade? Well, that's also gonna cost a lot of money. So this is now $2 million of salaries. Well, what can afford that 20 million bucks? So that's how most of 'em see it, is it's hard to run in under 10 or $15 million location, which like that was most of my career.
So,
Brian Beltz: um, I I, I don't, I don't know if we're on the same page onto that. So,
John Wilson: be fascinating.
Brian Beltz: We have, so we have a couple, we have three different people, uh, that have come from, uh, corporate jobs.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Brian Beltz: And the culture that we have built and, uh, our ability to, to, to adapt. Yeah. Make changes in a small business mm-hmm.
Atmosphere. And to be able to really take care of customers and the employees. [01:08:00] That's, that's not something that. You can do in a corporate world.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Brian Beltz: I've never lived in that corporate world. Mm-hmm. Uh, uh, but the, the feedback that we get from the people that have come from that world is like, you know, yes, we made fantastic money, uh, in the corporate world
Speaker 4: mm-hmm.
Brian Beltz: But we don't have this flexibility, uh, or the work-life balance. Mm-hmm. Happiness, uh, or happiness. And so I think there's plenty of opportunities, uh, for somebody with those skill sets. Well, there's way
John Wilson: more
Brian Beltz: opportunities. Is is the real answer. I mean, there's more
John Wilson: rural than there is big city. Yeah. So I think that's a part of the, like Yeah.
It's an almost unlimited buy. If
Lara Beltz: I get what you're saying though, you're saying, you know, it's, it's a, it's a dollar
John Wilson: sign equation. Its more, it adds more complication. Yeah. And the way, uh, like a PE would approach it would be what percentage of the market do they have? Can I grow this? If I'm paying a premium for this business, how much can I grow it so that premium becomes [01:09:00] fair?
And if someone already has 80% of the market, there's only 20% more versus like, we have six and six is big in Cleveland. Like that's a lot of freaking market. Mm-hmm. But we could go up to 15. So there's a, there's room. Mm-hmm. You know?
Lara Beltz: Yeah. I think you're asking the wrong question.
John Wilson: Alright. Lay it on me.
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Lara Beltz: I think it really is a completely different mindset because although yes, at the end of the day, we have to look at revenue and we have to look at, um, sustaining our business and growing our business.
At the bottom, bottom line, it's about the people. And I, I think we have that luxury with the way, with the size that we are, and I'm not saying that, you know, somewhere down the road that that's gonna be unsustainable. Probably sounds like where you're at, it's unsustainable because maybe you have to look at the bottom more of the money bottom line.
But I think where we're particularly at and how we run our business mm-hmm. And how we hire people, it's more about the relationship than, [01:11:00] than it is, I'm trying to think how to word this. Like, we know investing in them now is going to get us to the goal eventually. It's just not an overnight thing.
Mm-hmm. It's, it's a slow burn. Mm-hmm. You know, it, it's just a slow burn that you have to invest in. And I, I don't know that I'm going to be able to answer your original question because the mindset, the mindset is completely different on this side of the table in a more rural market. You really have to think about your customers and what's best for them and be able to provide what they need.
And you win every day.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Lara Beltz: Because they know you do, therefore they call you. Yeah. I mean it's, it's not rocket science in that, I feel like there's a whole lot more math that comes in when you're a much larger company and you're in a much larger and
John Wilson: not founder led. I think that's where it gets hard too.
Mm-hmm. Like if I was gonna go launch something, [01:12:00] me personally, like Yeah, the math is different. Yeah. But like if you're hiring people Yeah. Number has to be bigger.
Lara Beltz: Yeah. Right. And I think he does have a good point though. You can get really good people mm-hmm. Who are willing to make that jump and who see the end vision.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Lara Beltz: And can see where that they will be down the road and that they will accomplish more and get more rewards, more than just money. Mm. And money will come, you just have to. I don't know. I hate to say sacrifice, but you, you just have to learn, learn to dig in a little bit at the beginning so you can get the rewards at the end.
Mm-hmm. Because it's, it's so much of a different environment, you know, the kind of culture that Yeah. That a smaller entity has than, than this corporate. And I think that's, you know, they've had both of the two people he's speaking of, they've had their friends want to come Yeah.
Speaker 4: As well. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: Because they're hearing how their lives are going and Oh man, I wanna, I wanna get in on that.
And it's like, [01:13:00] you're not gonna make as much, but you're gonna be a heck of a lot happier. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying that in the end, you can't make, you can, it's just
John Wilson: slow burn.
Lara Beltz: It's a slow burn. Yeah. Yeah. Be willing to work for it.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. So the next couple years we're building our building, we're acquiring.
You might, you might've said how far, like an hour away is typical or do you, are you thinking.
Brian Beltz: Indiana, uh, down in, uh, uh, Kentucky, we're looking Oh, yeah. Down there as well. Okay. Mm-hmm. Um, but, uh, we're looking at, uh, we're trying to build right now, uh, like a franchise model. Mm-hmm. So we've got a, a number of people within the company that have raised their hands.
So, you know, you know, I want of the launch, I wanna run. Yeah. I wanna run a branch. Mm-hmm. I wanna run a, a, um, an area.
Lara Beltz: And I don't think it's really, I don't think it's really, you're thinking more like expanding from a central location. And I think more our thinking is more like, where can we go that this, this, that we have this model, [01:14:00] this thought works best.
Yep. Maybe that's, you know, northwest Ohio and maybe it's down, you know, rural eastern Kentucky, maybe it's, you know, it's not necessarily let's just keep going and going and going where we are. It's where, where does it work for us?
John Wilson: I think that makes sense. Yeah. I think both work, uh. I can think of examples of both.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: Um, the standard playbook is an hour ways, but I don't think we're gonna fall at that playbook. Uh, I, some of it's gonna be opportunistic. Um, like we have people in different states that we're talking to. Mm-hmm. And we'll partner with them, and that's gonna work if a few of them are more rural. So we're just like, I don't know, uh, how willing are you to move?
Uh, so I think that's part of it. Um, but an an hour away, an an hour away is like the, I would say normal, um, playbook, but I, I don't know that it's as relevant, uh, as it was 10 years [01:15:00] ago or 15. I would agree with that. I mean, the amount of tech that's out there now, like. I think the most important thing is like, does the platform work?
Can, do you share buying? Can you get the actual efficiencies of scale? Mm-hmm. And that's where I see people mess up if they're going into like multi-state is, hey, yeah, I'm in two states, but what did that actually do for you? Like, is your buying better? Mm-hmm. Do like, are you getting parts cheaper? Did you somehow get a benefit from being multi-state other than just saying you're multi-state?
Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. So I, I think that's where people seem to trip that I've seen. But we're hoping when as we're looking at it's how can we combine equipment purchasing to get better? How can we combine software purchasing to get better? What can we centralize here? Can we centralize sales call center dispatch, install coordination, permits, accounting, HR, marketing?
Like what can we centralize of? The actual benefit of each is like tangible and we don't just get to
Brian Beltz: have
John Wilson: it.
Brian Beltz: Right. And without having all of those [01:16:00] different. Businesses, right. If you will, uh, in those different locations.
John Wilson: Right? 'cause it makes size, a lot of it makes size a less relevant because if, if 5 million or 10 million becomes like really good at, no matter how many trades, if they have no opex expense because suddenly, oh well that's just $3 million of gross margin.
Like, yeah, toss it my way, let's go. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I think that's how, that's how we're trying to approach it. See if it works.
Lara Beltz: We'll let you try it first.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks. Well, this was awesome. I appreciate you guys coming on. If No problem, what are the, what are the like passing lessons here for people starting off in the trades?
Lara Beltz: Do it,
John Wilson: do it. Jump in
Lara Beltz: with both feet.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. All in. Follow the process. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nexstar sounds like a big win. Oh, huge. Or big win for us too.
Lara Beltz: Huge win. I think the other is people, 'cause I don't, you know, one of the big. [01:17:00] Milestones was just all in with Nexstar, but the other one was getting the right people.
Oh, yeah. And you know when you have them. Oh yeah. Like it's plainly obvious when you have them and it's plainly obvious when you don't. Mm-hmm.
John Wilson: How well do you sleep? How bad do you sleep?
Lara Beltz: Mm-hmm. How, how much do you stress?
John Wilson: How late, how late can you show up to work? Mm-hmm. That's usually my measurement. Oh, no, he's, he's
Lara Beltz: there at the crack of dawn.
Yeah.
Brian Beltz: That's always tough, uh, when you're growing. Yeah. Uh, is is putting up with, uh, some of the people issues. Oh yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. I mean, that's the, so you get to, that's the whole issue, so you get to a certain point. Yeah. Yeah. That's almost the only problem that exists. You don't want
Brian Beltz: to deal with any of those, or you don't deal with any of those.
Yeah. You know, and you, uh, draw the line and mm-hmm. Let people go. Yeah.
Lara Beltz: I think that that probably is another lesson. Just if you know it's not a good fit, you know, it's not working, even though it's gonna be painful, get rid of them. Yep. 'cause they're, they're poisoning your culture more than you will ever know.
Yeah. Just get rid of them.
John Wilson: Yeah. Agreed.
Lara Beltz: Slow to hire, [01:18:00] quick to fire. Mm-hmm. It's not a bad thing. Mm-hmm. Oh, I have one more too. When you have an applicant who comes in, whatever you see in that interview is, is the best you're ever gonna get. Mm-hmm. Great words. I can't even remember who told me that. It wasn't a next door event though.
John Wilson: It's so real.
Lara Beltz: It is so real. It's so
John Wilson: real. It's so true. If, if there's like a beige flag mm-hmm. In that interview, it's like, yeah, we're, we are actually good.
Brian Beltz: That stuck with me as well. This is the best you're ever gonna see. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: That's funny.
Lara Beltz: For sure. You got anymore pearls of wisdom?
John Wilson: I don't.
These were great. Yeah. Good pearls. Yes. Thank you for coming on.
Lara Beltz: Thank you for having us. Yeah.
John Wilson: If you like what you heard, make sure you check out owned and operated.com.
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