John sits down with Tyler Griffin (Swift Pro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing) to unpack how he launched a fast-growing HVAC + Plumbing startup in one of the most competitive markets in America: Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia. From selling his previous exterior business to private equity, taking a six-month reset, and then sprinting from zero to multi-million in year one, Tyler shares the gritty playbook—reviews over revenue early, Angie Ads to jumpstart demand, vendor partnerships (hello, Trane/Ferguson), dialing memberships, and building leaders who model → mentor → multiply.
They get tactical on launching from scratch instead of buying, recruiting in a saturated market, wiring culture for speed, standing up next-day installs, and using Nexstar’s OPEX roadmap to avoid the common HVAC pitfalls. If you’re eyeing a greenfield launch or adding a second trade, this one’s a field guide.
💡 What You’ll Learn
- Launch vs. buy: why greenfield can beat pricey acquisitions
- The “Day 1 legitimacy” stack: branded wraps, website, and review flywheel
- Demand plumbing: Angie Ads, map pack, and referral loops that convert to system replacements
- Memberships as a moat (and how to fix a lopsided install/service mix)
- Vendor strategy: pricing, warranty support, and picking partners who bet on
🎙️ Host
🎙️ Guest
Tyler Griffin (Swift Pro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing – Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia)
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https://www.ownedandoperated.com/
OAO Transcript
John Wilson: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. During the day, I run a $30 million home service company in Akron, Ohio. And for fun, I run this podcast showing other people how to basically do the same thing. It's a lot of fun, and I'm super glad to join me today. Today on the show we have Tyler Griffin from Swift Pro Heating, cooling, and Plumbing.
In DC welcome to the show.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah, thanks John. Great to be here.
John Wilson: Yeah. This is gonna be, this is gonna be fun. I think you've got a compelling story. Uh, it's, it's interesting. It's like a startup. It's fast growing. It, it's good. Um, so I'm, I'm excited to like double click on this. I'd love it if you just started off a little bit with like, gimme the 62nd.
Tyler.
Tyler Griffin: Sure. Well, one thing I figured out in the reset period, which we'll talk about before I started Swift Pro, is I'm wired to build things.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: And, uh, I, uh, if I don't. Find healthy outlets that I can use my pent up creative energy, um, [00:01:00] and kind of love of chaos. Mm-hmm. I will create chaos. Yeah. You know, so I like to channel that into it's my reality too.
Productive things. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna make mayhem somehow. Yeah. So I might as well do it. Building something that matters. Right. And, and so entrepreneurial endeavors are the perfect outlet for that. Yeah.
John Wilson: So you, you're right now, you're an hvac. Plumbing.
Tyler Griffin: Yep.
John Wilson: Uh, you were, what was your previous background?
Tyler Griffin: So I've been in the trades my whole life. Grew up in rural Wisconsin. Um, at 13 we bought a barn, turned it into a house. Oh, nice. And, uh, I was homeschooled, so we, so our school for a couple of months was, was doing that project. Um, so grew up in the trades, also working on farms outta high school. Started doing construction of all types.
Mm-hmm. You know, building houses from scratch, everything. Uh, so learned the trades at a young age. Moved out to the east coast in 2010 with my wife and then one son. At that time, got a job swinging a hammer for a little bit, then applied for a, a, a startup company. And, uh, applied for a job [00:02:00] there as a, as like a laborer or whatever.
And they're like, we think you'd be a better fit in sales. I'm like, I've never did sales before. Yeah, it's 26. Give it a shot. Yeah. Um, and so they're like, well, here's a truck. Run five appointments with this guy. They had no sales process, no training, you know, but you're just watch him for five appointments now, go sell stuff.
Mm-hmm. And so I did, and they kind of did. Everything. Pretty much. Not HVAC actually, but um, everything else nearly in a house. And so roof. We did roof, roofing, roofing, siding, windows, but we'd also do renovations, bathrooms, kitchens. Oh wow. Anything that we could sell. Pretty much. We kind of just did the GC thing.
Yeah. Uh, for a while. Um, more roofing, but. Plenty of other stuff. And then I ended up getting really good at kind of the design build side of things. Yeah. Um, so I was with that company for, you know, for a, a good run there from about 2010 to 2016. Okay. Um, and in that time, it and, uh, became a partner on the design build side and.
And learned that I didn't want to do that long term. Mm-hmm. Um, it is just very, very stressful. And at the time, low margins, we were just at focusing on the wrong demographic. But yeah. [00:03:00] Uh, transitioned out of that, joined another company, um, in 2016 American, no contractors that I worked, uh, in for, I was there for about eight years.
Mm-hmm. Um, so first year just joined the sales team. And then in 2017 moved to, well, first drove back and forth for Maryland, but then moved to Northern Virginia. Yeah. Opened up a brand, um, under their name. Basically bought in as a partner, um, and started building from the ground up. And so we, we, uh, built a good size team there over a few years.
John Wilson: And what was the industry?
Tyler Griffin: Uh, roofing, siding, windows. And then eventually we got into solar as well. Okay. Um, so we had a good, so
John Wilson: similar to the gc, like touching the bottom Yeah. We narrowed
Tyler Griffin: it more so, yeah. Yeah. We wouldn't do anything inside the house, aside from maybe drywall repair Right. Or occasional insulation.
But yeah, we didn't touch any remodeling projects. Okay. It was just exteriors, right? Yeah. Is what we focused on. Not even really decks or anything like that. Yeah. It was mostly what could be done in a day generally. That was kind of a rule of thumb. Yeah. Project in a day. Type of thing. Uh, so we had a really good [00:04:00] run, a lot of building years.
Yeah. Built a good sized company, had a great team. Um, and then we sold in 22. Okay. Um, to a private equity group. I stayed on for, um, almost two years. Mm-hmm. Um, and then transitioned out in February of 2024.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, took a little bit of time to figure out what was next. And, uh, did, ended up doing a six month sabbatical, which was really a key time with my family, just kinda hitting the reset button, figuring out what we wanted to do next, what I wanted to do next.
Mm-hmm. You know, I just had, just turned 40 and so it was like, all right. Big, big kinda life decisions. Um, considered things like coaching and consulting. Yeah. Just taking a, you know, partnering up with somebody else in an existing company or doing like sales management, whatever. There's a lot of different options.
Plenty of people that. We're interested. I mean,
John Wilson: that's like the hard thing about selling. I mean, you read all these, like the post-sale. Dilemma. Yeah. Of like, yeah. How, how like it's so much of our, I mean, so much of my value, right? Like how I think of myself is like, well, I built this business for the last
Speaker 3: day.
[00:05:00] Right? Right. Like, that's
John Wilson: like a core part of who, who I am as a human. Right? And obviously I need to work on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: But, uh. It is hard. I think the transition's hard from what I'm told. And the last, so it sounds like that was a moment. It was moment. The last couple
Tyler Griffin: years were difficult there too.
There's just a lot of transitions. After we got acquired, it was a bit of a painful ending and so, so that was, that was tough. So we took some time because we didn't wanna react to that and make the decision hastily, which I, and really glad
John Wilson: a lot of people do.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah, we did a bunch of family traveling. One global trip for 23 days outta the country.
That's amazing. Visiting places like Rome, Greece. Yeah. That was awesome. With the family. Yeah. A road trip, you know, to Wisconsin where I'm originally from. Um, so just did a lot. I went to the Oshkosh Air Show first time. Oh, that was Amazing's. Cool. So just a lot of memories made with the family during that time, which were, which were great.
Um, and then, yeah, I, I figured out during that time that man, I'm where to build stuff. And even like at the five month mark, I could hardly control myself anymore. I'm like, I, I gotta freaking go something. I gotta go do something. Yeah. So August, we were already laying the groundwork. I had formed a couple, you know, [00:06:00] kind of a couple entities in May.
Yeah. Um, and I had come up with a name and a concept. Yeah. Um, and then just over the next several months, con con confirmed what I wanted to do next, which was gonna be the focus on hvac. And then HVAC and plumbing kind of became what the, what the focus was. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, we uh, we kind of got the ball rolling.
Late August, officially soft launched September, and then two months before we kinda got real revenue numbers, but started building the team there in, in September, just me and one other guy mm-hmm. That had a background in the HVAC industry that shut down his small, you know, smaller business to, to join with me and, and, uh, be our first time full, uh, first full-time team member.
John Wilson: Yeah. Tight deadlines, breakdowns, last minute jobs. That is just the life in the trades, and that's why we trust we supply trades.com. They're family owned and with nearly a century in business, they stock thousands of HVAC, plumbing and hydronics parts from brands that you are to use. They're shipped fast and even same day, if you order by three 30 Eastern with a [00:07:00] free pro membership, you'll get better pricing, free shipping over $99.
And real experts who actually know the field get 20% off your first order with the code owned 20 at the link below. We supply trades. Finally a supplier who actually gets it. I want to, I wanna click a little bit on the, uh, the acquisition. Yeah. I don't think we talk to many people on the show who have been acqua like most people are.
Yeah. Building in some format. I, we've had a few people that did it, but like, not much so. Right. Are you open to talk about it for a couple minutes? Yeah,
Tyler Griffin: absolutely.
John Wilson: Like what's, what's the decision look like? Hey, it's time. Like right. You, was it like dynamic? Was it like this is, we timed the market. Like, you know, if if someone out there is like, Hey, maybe this is the right time.
Like how did you guys get comfortable with that?
Tyler Griffin: Well, it was challenging, I think, for us. So there was multiple partners involved. Yes. One of the partners was older. Um, and kind of looking for that off ramp. Yes. The, the, the challenge I think was that, um, [00:08:00] you think at the start that success is gonna solve everything.
Success actually complete, uh, creates additional complexity. Yeah. Um,
John Wilson: like personally or professionally, or both?
Tyler Griffin: Well, I'm talking about business success. Yeah. Yeah. Like you grow something large and it's like, all right, let's just make a bunch of money. Yes, let's build a very great business. But then you have a lot of decisions to make, right?
Yeah. And you have different time horizons, different goals. And so I think goal alignment's huge and those conversations need to happen on the front end. And you, you know, of course I was just. Trying to build something, right? Yeah. So, so I didn't know what I didn't know. And so, so that, that played into the decision though.
Yeah. Right. Is is like, okay, this, this is a way for us to create options for everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, and I had intended to stay on and, and help build that was the original intention. And, and for various reasons that didn't work out past, uh, again, just under two years. Yeah. Um, but uh, yeah, I think, I think that's part of the decision.
Um. And, and so if you have good goal alignment, and then it's like, what? What is your [00:09:00] end goal? You know? Mm-hmm. What you know, are you building it just to, to cash out? You know, are you building a legacy business? And so I'm much so the reset for me was really good on getting to my why. Getting to what I care about, like what, what really matters and what's next go around.
So I could do with a lot of intentionality. I'm really thankful for that experience. I learned a ton. Um, I do think overall,
John Wilson: like in the experience of like going through a sense Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: And getting, yeah, I mean like getting a lens into that world. Yeah. The private equity world. Um, and again, I think, I think that we sold to one of the better groups.
I think there's a lot of good people on, you know, on the team. Yeah. Um, but I do think it's important to understand what private equity is. Because in some ways it gets this reputation as, as sort of this ruthless corporate, you know, side of it. And, and there's truth to that though, because at the end of the day, um, you're gonna do whatever it takes to get that EBITDA to grow.
Yeah. To get your multiple up, to be able to get a next, the next exit, right? Yeah. And that's just a reality. Now, what you can gain from that, and what I learned a lot about was efficiencies. Um, you know, performance, you know, [00:10:00] just, just really kind of driving growth. And then it was funny once it wasn't, um, our money, like I also saw close up some really strategic risks taking, you know, in massive investment.
We grew so fast, you know, once we kind of put the gas down, I was like, wow, we could have done this before. Yeah. You know, so I learned some things even that have applied now with this, you know, with SW Pro. That I just learned by watching, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and, and no two pathways are ever the same, but you can learn principles, you can see.
So I, I feel like I did, I did learn a lot and it was, it was a good lens and, uh mm-hmm. Say they're, they're still going on to build, build a, a great platform.
John Wilson: Yeah. One of the things we've thought about doing over time is, uh, like we thought, we think it'd be fun to raise. And like, I think choosing the right partners.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Like
John Wilson: the complicated part. But how many, you know, when I think of j just about my own life, like how many opportunities will I have as a human being to build a billion dollar business? Sure. And I think I, I think we have one here and I think that is like, [00:11:00] I should probably do that. Okay. Yeah. Like I think it's sort of, um, uh, like, you know, if you're given the possibility of something Yeah.
Like if you don't do it like. Who didn't get that possibility that could have executed, so, right. Uh, yeah. I feel like you have a response. Not, not you, but like Right. That's how I feel about myself, right. Is, Hey, I've been given this opportunity. I have a responsibility to do it for all the people that did not get this opportunity.
Tyler Griffin: Right.
John Wilson: Uh, which could be ridiculous, but, um, yeah. But it, it's intimidating. Yeah. Because, you know, like, yeah. Who, who, who's the partner? Who's the right partner? What's the right structure? Like, how do you make this work in a way that is a win?
Tyler Griffin: And that's where I think too often the exit is focused more so on the multiple and the money side of things.
And I think the values alignment is the most important thing. Yeah. And then it's like, well, unless you're just exiting and walking. Right. And I guess it's like whatever you get at that payday, then that's all that matters perhaps. But if you care about the team. That you built, right? The brand, the legacy that you've tried to establish through that over the years.
You ran the company, built [00:12:00] the company. Um, then I think the group matters a lot, and I think that decision has to be made carefully. Um, so yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
John Wilson: All right, cool. Let's talk about Swift. Uh, swift Pro. So you took, uh, six months sabbatical. At five months, you're like, Hey, I'm gonna launch an HVAC company.
Yep. Started, you know, conniving your way into launching this. Um, walk me through why hvac, why, why plumbing? Like how did we land here?
Tyler Griffin: Yeah, I considered a lot of different service oriented businesses as well as, like I said, a few other pathways, um, and landed like, okay, I wanna build another service business.
Mm-hmm. Um, I had to find a new pathway from what I came from. Right. Yeah. I just sold the company. Yeah. Um, I'm not gonna build a competing brand. I had some non-compete stuff, so it's like, all right, what, what could I do? And of the options that were available, like the one, like what we had built was a residentially focused company.
Right. We were not doing much commercial. It's pretty much all residential, so it's like, all right, that's the world I know. Um, so. What industry would lend itself towards ticket items that are similar to roofing? Yeah. You know, in a business [00:13:00] model that at least I thought in concept would be, would be somewhat similar to to roofing, and that's where I landed on hvac.
I also had a good friend of mine that was. In HVAC actively. Yeah. And had kind of started his own thing for the last year, year and a half, something like that. Um, and I'd watched what he was doing and, and so I had kind of an insider view to a, to a, you know, small operation. Um, and he had told me, Hey, if you start something, I'm willing to shut this down and come join you.
Mm-hmm. And so. I was like, all right, you know, let's do it. And so that's when, yeah, he was first, first guy, uh, first full-time guy, um, on the team. And he had already had a helper that was willing to step in on the installs as we needed him. And, and then he had a couple other guys he knew that we'd hope, hopes of, of getting to join the team as soon as we were ready.
And so that's, that's how we launched, man. Um, I mean, it was, it was messy, as you can imagine. And I didn't know what I didn't know. And even though he'd come from the industry, had never worked in, in, worked in like really established brands Yeah. That had good systems and processes and so he couldn't tell me like the design of the company and you know, [00:14:00] and, uh, I didn't know about things like next like
John Wilson: org structure.
Is that what you
Tyler Griffin: mean? Yeah, yeah. Just like what the roadmap even looked like. Yeah. Right. And so I kind of just started out like, I'm gonna try to build this thing like a roofing, right? Yes. Um, and the challenge and the differences are, which are numerous. But like one
John Wilson: I was gonna ask how similar you felt like they were.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. Like there, there, there's overlap and then they're wildly different. Yeah. Um, so roofing doesn't have this extreme seasonality. Um, and you know, I mean, what I liked about HVAC was the service cycle. There's more service required. Yes. Like HVAC and plumbing. Why I chose them, uh, to finish that question is primarily 'cause I felt like if I could own HVAC and plumbing, I could own the home.
Then I could, you know, add other services if I wanted to in the future. Um, like electrical and other things. But I, I was like, if I can own HVAC and plumbing, things break down a lot more with HVAC and plumbing and there's more service requirements, maintenance, et cetera, and then the ticket items on the hvac.
Yeah. You know, so learning the plumbing world, uh, but, uh, HVAC side, I kind of quickly got the concept right with the equipment [00:15:00] replacement, full system replacement in particular. Mm-hmm. And so that was the idea. Um, and so we launched with that and then I just went hard after trying to build out a brand, you know, right away.
I mean, we hit the ground running with reviews. Uh, that was a big deal for us, right? From, you know, so, so we didn't care what we sold service work for. As long as we get a review out of it, you know, just go do something. Help somebody get a review, right? Yeah. So get on the map on Google. Look like a real business, right?
That people could draw so we could start selling bigger ticket items. Yeah. Um, we started getting some referrals, which helped, you know, and get us stability, but we didn't, we didn't have real, we didn't hit, um, you know, our first uh, a hundred plus thousand dollars month was November. I think we had like 150.
John Wilson: So it's like four, four months, three months.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah, it was a September october. We're just like getting our footprint out there. I mean, like, I didn't even hire, to be honest, that feels pretty. I didn't have a rap fan until October. Yeah. You know, um, that feels
John Wilson: pretty good. Like I know sophisticated operators.
Yeah. Doing like greenfield locations. Yeah. And that's roughly there. Like roadmap to revenue.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. What was really, really hard, I [00:16:00] worked with Angie a long time. Um,
John Wilson: Angie, like the marketing. Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. So we started out with like the Angie lead side. Yes. Actually switched to Angie ads. Yeah. Um, and, and there's still like our largest Yeah.
Um, system replacement lead source right now. Yeah. Because I'm, you know, I'm only a year in. Right? Yeah. So building out that brand. So they're still our number one. And so we, I partnered with them right away. Yeah. And that was how I started getting leads, you know? Yeah. We got a few reviews on Angie. We were building out the Google profile and by November we started to get traction where we were like, okay, we're actually running leads, you know, actually selling some stuff.
Yeah. Um, at that point I had, uh, you know, two guys that were capable of, of doing lead install or. Service work. Mm-hmm. Um, and neither one is like in that role now, or like, you know, they're more like kind of, they're still kind of flex, right? Mm-hmm. So there's upsides and downsides to that, but, uh, it was a huge benefit early on that they could flex around to whatever I needed them to on the given day.
Yeah. Um, so yeah, November we kind of started to hit some real revenue numbers and get some traction. [00:17:00] Um, and then I think we, it was January when we brought on like. Our first guy that was like, full-time just install focused, right? Mm-hmm. Um, where we try, then we really focused on, on the install side of Yeah.
Ramping, like
John Wilson: selling like comfort advisor style?
Tyler Griffin: Uh, no. No. Just like, or like in. Yeah, like, like our lead installer. Okay. Like the other guy, time. The rest of the time it was like, today you're doing service. You know, tomorrow you're doing commercial service. The next day you're doing this system installs.
Like, it was like whatever we needed on that given day. Yeah. Um, all right. Tomorrow, you know, we don't have work today. You're coming in the office helping me on the, on the Facebook, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah,
John Wilson: yeah, yeah. That, that makes sense. Are you a part of the next star?
Tyler Griffin: I am, yeah. Okay.
John Wilson: I don't think, I think I knew that at one point. I, I didn't remember. Yeah. You wanna just like, I got
Tyler Griffin: lucky. I think that the, um, I think they were having a lot of people exit from my market. Um, 'cause they let me in. I I am aware. I'm, I'm very lucky they let me in when, when they did. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, I think that's great.
It was early this year. Yeah. Uh, so I've been in a while already. Uh, so yeah, we went to opex, which was. Eye-opening. That was the first time I really understood the [00:18:00] roadmap of what a company should look like. Oh, interesting. That was when it was like underneath the hood. Okay. Oh, you know, next day installs.
Oh, okay. You know, it's just a lot of things that I, I hadn't really got, which we wouldn't have had the summer we did, if I didn't at least have that part of the roadmap. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, we're still working on implementation, right. We're, we're far from hitting every, um, checkbox. Uh, but because of that roadmap, we're a lot closer now, so,
John Wilson: yeah.
Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Nexar has been a win for us too.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. And just the, the coaching access. There's a lot of great coaches. Mm-hmm. We have access to, uh, example, I have our marketing manager connect with the marketing coach. There's a couple of them, um, digital, you know, print, um, all that. And then I have our, you know, accounting person that connects with Yeah.
The accounting coach, you know, so it's, it's really helpful to, to get like. Industry insider information. Yeah. Um, through a coaching lens. Yeah. So, yeah, it's been, it's, that was, that was a big win. You know, OPEX was, was a huge win. Mm-hmm. Um, we're actually going down to the budget meeting with my business coach.
Oh, nice. Yeah. So I'm taking, you know, taking my, uh, one of my guys down. Yeah. And we're gonna sit down and try to map out next year with the budget side. You know, it'll be good to bring that back to the [00:19:00] team and, and sort of, uh, get everybody's head wrapped around what next year can look like.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.
We're doing, we're hosting one here, so. Awesome. We have like 20 some companies popping in a Oh really? Couple weeks. Yeah. It should be fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: Should be fun. Yeah. That, yeah. That's great. Uh, okay, so we, we launched, uh, that's why HVAC plumbing. Why, why starting from scratch like most people are buying. Yeah.
Right? Like, most people are gonna go to biz Buy, sell, they're gonna find a broker. They're acquiring their way in. You did not do that.
Tyler Griffin: No, I, I. One reason is I would argue, and I'm biased obviously, 'cause I live there, so we're in Northern Virginia, the DC metro region. Yeah. I think I'm in arguably the most pe saturated market in the us.
You've got Horizon, I mean, everybody's there. Yeah. Um, so most of the mid to larger companies have already been acquired. Um, and so the, the, the multiples, like la like last summer when I, you know, when I would've been looking, I mean, I, I didn't see anything worth buying. Like the multiples were so high, um, is one aspect of that.
And I, [00:20:00] I just didn't find anything that, that looked, and I, and I didn't look too, I know people look years, right? I, I looked a couple of months, you know, I was kind of watching what was available and I just, I just didn't, didn't see it. And then the other thing for me is like. I kind of like, I don't know, like, I like the, the idea of creating from scratch.
I'd already done it once. Now I had a brand to build off from. I'd taken from Maryland to Virginia. It wasn't like quite like this. Yeah, yeah. You had some infrastructure, maybe literal from zero. Yeah. Some infrastructure support and things. Yeah. Um, but at least I felt like I could do it and I'd learned like solar roofing and we'd kind of built that side up from, so I was like, I just like a good challenge, you know, I'm a glutton for punishment, I think is, is part of it.
Right. The chaos thing I mentioned earlier. So, so just, uh. Yeah. That, that factored into it. And then culture is really important to me. Mm-hmm. And I did feel like I'd have the chance from the get go to really, um, build the culture the way I wanted. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that way. 'cause I, I mean, I'm very open to acquisition for the right opportunity, especially the family owned brands that wanna sell to another family brand.
Right. [00:21:00] Um, instead of a, you know, big P platform. Right. Kind of keep it in a local family brand. I that, that, you know. I, I already had those conversations. Right. I would love to do that for the right opportunity. Um, but I just didn't see the right opportunity. Uh, nobody knew who I was. Yeah. I didn't have a back, I also didn't have a background to where a family brand would've trusted me.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, he hasn't built anything. Yeah. Who, who's this guy? He's in a different, from a different industry. Right. So I just felt like I had to prove myself first, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and so we did, I mean, and the first several months were rough in a number of ways, right? We started out on ServiceTitan, which was really tough because they don't know what to do with somebody that's a startup.
Yeah. They don't, they, they did not have a box to put me in. They gave me terrible support. Yeah. It took months to get any type of traction with them. It was a nightmare. It was actually one of the hardest aspects of the business. We're still. Playing catch up on that, like we're a year later and we're now finally finishing up custom built price books and stuff.
It, it, it was tough. It was a really, really tough start with them and tough first year, but, um, you know, we're still all in and, and, uh, making the best of it moving forward and cleaning things up still. So that's one aspect. You know, another thing [00:22:00] was recruitment was really, really tough. That'd be the benefit of buying, right?
Like you get
John Wilson: established brands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got a team.
Tyler Griffin: Nobody knew who we were. That's tough. And again, our market's very saturated, so we have a lot of big brands, a lot of really heavy hitting brands in the area. Um, and, uh, so, so a lot of things that, that made it hard. And then even, like, it took me a while, I couldn't even get supplier representatives, like sales guys, outside sales guys to return my calls.
Like it took a while. So I think we were around a month in or so, and I finally got one guy that was like, Hey, I'll come and meet with him, you know? Yeah. Um, 'cause again, we weren't doing any revenue to speak up. We didn't service work at that time. Yeah. And he came into my office and he sat down. And I laid out my vision, right?
This is where I'm gonna go. This is what I'm building. And he bought it and he believed it and he believed in me. And he went back to his boss and he battled with them for a couple of weeks. And he got me really aggressive pricing. And he, he, he took a bet out. What were you
John Wilson: doing prior,
Tyler Griffin: like
John Wilson: over the counter [00:23:00] Home
Tyler Griffin: Depot?
Like how were you getting equipment? No, no. I mean, we set up accounts, you know, I had the license and all that stuff. We were able to set up accounts, but our pricing was terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were just paying through You just, you're just a house account. We had no revenue. No. Yeah. You're a house account.
So, so he essentially, he, he, he like, um, went to bat for me and gave me like, really like mid-tier aggressive pricing. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? Like, like way better than I should have gotten.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, and I'm so grateful to him. And you know what? He gets a big check from me every month still. So, you know, if I, the lion's share of our materials goes through him, like, I won't ever forget that he had my back, you know?
Um, and so that was, that was, uh, uh, a rep, um, from, uh, Ferguson, actually.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: And so that's where we, so we became Trane dealers then. Yeah. Um, and, uh, kind of went all in on that. Um, now we have multiple relationships and we're thankful for those. We have some other great, you know, great representatives as well.
Um, like I had a rep, we have a great rep from, uh, from Johnstone as well, and he came and sat down and he's like, what do I have to do to get more? I was like, well, if you'd have been here a few months ago. Mm-hmm. You [00:24:00] know, like, you know, took my, he just, he didn't know about us or whatever. I think he might've been new to the role.
He is a great guy. But, but yeah, it was just funny. It was like, look, I, I need someone to take a bet on me. And they did, and it's paid off for both, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and so, uh, so even this year, like, made some revenue prediction or made some kind of purchased predictions and negotiated really aggressive pricing for this year.
Um, and, you know, he told me, he's like, yeah, you know, I know you're not gonna hit it, but we gotta give him this number. Mm-hmm. We're gonna crush that number. Mm-hmm. So, you know, we're we're, I think we might have already hit it, you know. Yeah. Um, on purchases, so, so no, it's, it's done well for, I mean,
John Wilson: yeah.
Vendor like partnerships or. Are real.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. I, I think there's these like, it's a huge deal. Yeah. It, it is. You don't realize it until you're in it. Yeah. Yeah. How big a deal? It's like the support too. It's not just the pricing. Yeah. Like that's one aspect of it. Um, now we can get, you know, a lot of good pricing from a lot of places, but it's also that level of support.
Yes. What happens when you have warranty claims? How fast and, you know, well, do they handle that? Um, when they mess up, do they own it? Like there's a lot of aspects to it. Yeah. Um, [00:25:00] so yeah, we, we, we have great relationships with a lot of local vendors. Now we're thankful for that.
John Wilson: Are you still running your business on pen and paper or a clunky software Field?
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Field pulse, a field service management software for those who need more. Something that was interesting. I, I had, uh, I was talking to someone earlier today and we were talking about, uh, like he's, he's not an HVAC plumbing, he's in septic. And we were talking about like the competitive landscape, right. And I think the competitive landscape is really interesting in plumbing HVAC because Yeah, he, he was talking about his industry in septic and Yeah, like septic is not sophisticated, right?
It's like million dollar plumber or like million dollar shops is like considered big. And it reminds me a lot of, like my [00:26:00] early career in plumbing where like, I remember. Like $2 million was considered big right at the onset of my career. Like that was a big shop. There was only a couple in town and there was one company at like eight, you know, they were the big dog.
And, um, it, it's funny now 'cause I'm thinking about you like. I chose to start not buy. Yeah. Which I think is becoming a, like a, a good playbook. I, I agree with everything you said, like we're, look, we're about to go regional and we're way more attracted to starting than buying for all the reasons you said.
Yeah. It's easier to control culture. Prices for acquisitions are like out of hand and frankly, it would be cheaper and probably easier for me to just launch it. Yeah. Not to say that it's easy, but it'd be easier than me dealing with like a cultural nightmare two hours away.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. Uh, well, and you know, the roadmap, I'll say that's the one challenge for me starting from scratch and not knowing the map.
Yes.
John Wilson: Well, and we have the infrastructure backing, industry
Tyler Griffin: insiders. It's different. It took me a few months to kind of get good traction on the recruiting side. Right. Where like, we're like, yeah, [00:27:00] I mean really only in the last. They were a year in. Yeah. And we're only in the last three, four months where we really have real traction.
And now we've got a bunch of industry insiders that have joined the team and are bringing the fronts. Right. Yeah. It's, it's a huge deal to have that, that helps. Huge, huge advantage. It helps a lot. Um, 'cause recruiting was really tough in those early days, you know, kind of had to take whatever we could get, you know, in a sense.
Like just, okay, we gotta gotta find someone that can plug that, that role.
John Wilson: Yeah. So a hundred percent. Uh, let's talk about like. Early lessons. What, what did we learn starting off in hvac
Tyler Griffin: that coupled with like just what I'd do differently. Um, yeah. You know, you don't know what you don't know. Right. But like memberships is a huge deal.
Yeah. And I didn't understand how big a deal it was because it hadn't been that big of a deal for my exteriors background. Sure. It was just a different business model. Um, but I think for HVAC and plumbing in particular, uh, memberships are huge. And if you don't want to just keep paying through the nose for marketing right.
Especially in a saturated market as well, it's like, 'cause it's like you [00:28:00] want to keep that customer and someone will steal it from you if you don't have a way to stay in their lives actively, right? Yeah. To provide value, you know, that it's, it's, it's like you, you, um, kind of own that home, right? Where you're in there multiple times a year and so I would've done.
I would've pushed a lot harder. A lot faster on that. Yeah. Doing it over. Um, I'd now in the last three months understand that. And increasingly our team is focused on that, and we have some real traction on that. Um, but for our revenue's gonna be for this year versus our membership, it's, you know, we're a little lopsided,
Speaker 3: you know?
Yeah. So
Tyler Griffin: a year from now, I hope we're right-sided and we've fixed it and we've got a really good membership base. And that's really gonna be our, our focus. I mean, what we did well. That shocked. Every, like, shocked a lot of people, um, is reviews, right? I think we're, I I don't have the count actually. Um, I think it's like 350, 360 reviews at this time.
Right. Uh, so we've, we've done, well, five star ranking. Google. Yeah. And then even Yelp, which has been a nightmare, but we finally have traction with anywhere at 19 reviews on Yelp. They remove more than they leave, you know? Mm-hmm. [00:29:00] That whole game. Um, and Angie, decent amount. So, so we've pushed really hard on our reputation.
Uh, to establish ourselves. And these are real reviews. Like if you read them, most of them are, you know, talking about their experience and actually mentioning people by name. Yeah. And then we have quite a few with pictures. Yeah. Yeah. And so we've tried to get quality, not just quantity.
John Wilson: Right. The picture, the picture game is real.
Yeah. We started a contest for that.
Tyler Griffin: Nice.
John Wilson: And, um, like it ramps. So we, we. We've gone through like ebbs and flows of being consistent with reviews. So like right when we're at our peak, we'll do like a hundred a week, which like, that's a lot. When we're at our like low point, we'll do like 30 a week. Yeah.
Yeah. So like, not great for our volume, but we started, we just did this new contest and like we started pushing, I think we're back up to like 70 a week or something. It was like, Oop. And most of them are pictures, which is,
Tyler Griffin: that's huge. Yeah. Like a lot of fun.
John Wilson: So you wanna talk about how you guys delivered so well in reviews?
Tyler Griffin: Just emphasizing it. Yeah. The challenge for my team is like, I feel like they do one thing really well all the time. So whatever I'm emphasizing at the time, [00:30:00] that's the one thing they focus on. Right. I
John Wilson: think that's a core lesson for any field. Like you should only focus on one thing. 'cause your team will only focus on one thing.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. Yeah. And there's obviously, we've learned that that hurt us on like the memberships though, it's like, yeah. Yeah. It's, and it's like now we're doing better on memberships and we need a little work on reviews again. Mm-hmm. So I, it feels like one thing is they're gonna excel at, you know, at the type.
So it's finding that balance.
John Wilson: It's just more training. Well, you can divide it.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah.
John Wilson: So that would be a way to think about it too, right? Is like, how can this team focus on this and this team focus on this? Oh, that's a good point. Because that's what we ended up doing. 'cause we kept seeing the, the big swings.
Yeah. So we took memberships basically out of the equation for our field pros, because we wanted Okay, like reviews and sales, like that's, that's your job. Like reviews and sales and memberships like call center. Uh, maybe the installers, maybe the, you know, someone else up the pipe should be responsible for the membership.
Tyler Griffin: That's a good point. That's a great point. So, uh, because they
John Wilson: will only focus, like, you can only give them so much to do.
Tyler Griffin: Right? Well, what I would say we've done well, uh, [00:31:00] so we have a text chain basically with all, you know, all um, US-based people, you know, in it and. We shout out reviews on the regular. Yeah.
Um, so anytime someone gets a really great review, especially, you know, very detailed and mentioning people by name, then we'll share that. Mm-hmm. And we celebrate that. Um, so I do feel like as a business owner, you get more of what you celebrate. Yeah. Right. And too often we only celebrate sales. Right. Or you only And it's like reviews.
Yeah. We just celebrated it from early on. We emphasized it. We kind of became a, a core part of our culture is like just. And
John Wilson: reviews are like top three most important things. Yeah. Like it is kinda wild. And I think at the age of like AI and Yeah, like how search is changing, right. It is only becoming a bigger and bigger deal.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. Like, yeah. In the beginning you'd search Swift Pro and the first thing that comes up is a printer. Yeah. You know, I, I was jokingly showing, uh, our install manager. I was like, look, even AI now, it'll say Swift Pro's, two things. It's actually a [00:32:00] hvac, a plumbing company that's in Northern Virginia. And then second thing it is, it's a printer.
I was like, you finally took number one, let's go. And even on a local Google search, you'll see like, you don't have to put Swift Pro HVAC, where you just put Swift Pro and we'll come up usually number one. That's fine. That's funny. So yeah, that, that, but uh, just back to. Um, what we did well, we did, we did well on the reviews.
We've maintained. We keep coming back to that harping on that. Um, we did well on, um, when I finally brought on a service manager a few months ago, like he was shocked. He's like, how are you doing all these installs and you have no service.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Tyler Griffin: He just didn't get it. But, but I had, I knew the Angie game and I knew like how to get leads and then how to sell.
Right. And that's what I was good at. Um, now we're still working on building out more of the service side, you know, so that we keep that, again, the memberships, but also service demand calls, all that. And so we've really focused on that in the last, um, several months. So, uh, probably would've, uh, emphasized that sooner, you know, if I, if I could have, again, you can only do so much at the same time.
Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean the, the other thing we did a good job of [00:33:00] is we built a real brand. You know, I, I didn't, uh, mess around like I, you know, I outsourced that. We, we hired professionals. We came up with what I think is a, you know, it's a great looking band wrap and we, we put, we invest a lot of money in that and invest a lot of money in band wraps.
Mm-hmm. We invest a lot of money in our website. Just wanting to look legitimate from day one. You know, nobody was showing up in a white van. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and so we looked real from day one as a real company.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: And so we, we really, I think, have done a good job for one year in on that.
Now we're trying to build out all the socials and gain followers. Yeah. And all that.
John Wilson: Yep. Yeah. I wanna talk a little bit about people. So you said you've started to dial this in, you're developing better people. Walk me through the people journey.
Tyler Griffin: I think, um, what I have found, uh, is that two things, our best people are coming from referrals.
Uh, friends of friends essentially, right? Mm-hmm. Or at least people they know fairly well they've worked with in the past. Um, and that's most of our growth. Most of our people growth. We're up to about 25 [00:34:00] team members in total. Right now, most of our growth. And our best people have come through that. Yeah.
Um, friends of friends and now we have quite the chains going. Sometimes it's this friend brings this friend and this friend brings this friend and it, you know, and it's multiple people deep. Um, so that's been fun and as opposed to recruiting from random essentially, and not having that. Now, initially I was a little bit scared of that 'cause it's like, well, what if they bring their friend?
It doesn't work out. Um, but the opposite has happened for us, right? As long as they, it is like they knew that this friend was gonna be a good culture fit. Mm-hmm. Like, they knew they were gonna, they knew what Swift Pro was. The sacrifices you have to make, the fact that we're, uh, build, building a brand, we're not established.
The fact is that we can't be as competitive on benefits yet and things like that. But we offer a lot of opportunity, a lot of, a lot of development, growth, and, and that the, they can grow with the company. They could be in a completely different role within six to 12 months if they, you know, worked their butt off that, that kind of thing.
And so it tracks those types of people so they know the people that should be coming, you know? Mm-hmm. And so now as I've kind of gained more trust and just [00:35:00] empower our people and giving, in some cases referral bonuses for key hires, that, that kind of thing, uh, it's really, we really gained traction. And so, so it's been to, to the point where we have more people that would join, you know, and want to join as soon as, as soon as we're ready for them.
Yeah. Um, so. That's, you know, that's been key. And then the other thing is, um, I'm really big on, in this time around is just proved it again, it's really tough to hire leaders. Yes. Um, I, I think the best in most situations is to promote from within. Mm-hmm. Um, find people you trust and then, you know, that have high character, that know how to do the job, that they're gonna lead others in.
Um, and then be able to promote them into leadership roles. And, and so we're doing more of that now. Like my install manager who, who still has to go out in the field to do installs sometimes has to go do troubleshooting on systems, you know, callbacks, that kind of thing. But, uh, he was our first lead installer.
Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and as [00:36:00] opposed to someone I had hired for that role, like installs run smoothly now. Yeah. He, he knows what he needs to do to set that up for success. Yeah. Um, so even though he hasn't been in that role. As an installer. He knew what he always wanted. He knew what he liked from other people that have supported him in the past from other companies.
And so he's helping us build that. Um, so that's, you know, that's, that's been key. And then just the importance of culture, and that's a constant battle. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, we still have a long ways to go with systems, processes, accountability. The right performance structure, like for incentive pay and that kind of thing.
We're, we're still figuring that out and navigating that. But as I've seen, you know, with newer hires, if I can find the right incentive structure, those are the people that perform the best. And so we're really trying to dial that in and navigate our way through that, and then shift more of our team towards that model.
Um, so they're just, you know, they're, they're winning when the company wins. Mm-hmm. And they have more upside, you know, to really drive, uh, the goals, you know, whatever they're contributing to in the company.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think the promoting from [00:37:00] within. Like I, you've walked around the office, you probably saw that.
Yeah. I have up on some of, yeah. I've met a few people that up on, up on some of our walls at this. At this point there's only, I think there's 20 liter or 18, maybe two were external hires. Wow. Like into that seat. Like obviously everyone at one point was an external hire. Right. But directly into that seat.
It is kind of interesting as it starts to, as it starts to snowball, um, I think one of the. There's like good and bad. So I wanna add this caveat, right? Just as people think about this, what we found with internal hires is one, our hit rate is better. So like our chance of success with an internal hire is like nine outta 10.
Our chance for success with an external hire is like two outta 10.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: So like that's been really challenging, but. How you have to be able to figure out external hires too, especially in leadership. 'cause eventually you'll come up on problems. Oh yeah. That is not, no one in your business knows the answer to.
Right. And they're core [00:38:00] problems. Right. Like, how do you sell h Like do you need an HVAC sales manager?
Speaker 3: Right. Or do you
John Wilson: need, like, trying to think of something else. Um, like a sales trainer, like someone could do an acceptable job at it, but sometimes you need world class. And I think, yeah.
Tyler Griffin: You know, a hundred percent
John Wilson: I think like nailing that.
Down because when we were like 5 million. Almost all of our hires were external
Tyler Griffin: Yeah.
John Wilson: For leadership. And some of them terrible and some of them amazing.
Tyler Griffin: Right.
John Wilson: Uh, right. But I, I never really cracked the code on that. I mean, now it's easy 'cause we have like leadership development Right. Cohorts and we have like Yep.
25 people to choose from to promote and, but yeah, it's harder.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. So an example would be, um, our service manager. Um, 32 years in the business. Yep. Worked for several of the largest companies in the region. Mm-hmm. You know, kind of been there, done that, learned that, right. Yep. Um, so finding him was key. Yes.
I hired, like, it was actually like a difficult decision for me, you know? 'cause I was like, is this gonna fit our culture? Right? Mm-hmm. [00:39:00] He's, he's kind of already a very set in his ways in, in a sense, right. Um, and so we had several meetings about it. He came recommended from the guy told you about the, you know, the Yeah.
The, uh, um, the sale outside sales rep from, from version that had, that had, uh, connected me with him. Yeah. He's like, man. I know you both really well. Yeah. And I was like, these guys don't come available very often. He's like, I really think you should grab 'em, Tyler. Yeah. Um, and so couple meetings and, and I finally just took a swing.
I'm like, you know what, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it. Because even my, my next star coach was he, he is like, I don't think, uh, I think he'd be care, you know? 'cause he is just, he's probably seen it go wrong a bunch of times. Yeah. Um, that was a really key hire for us. Yeah. He, I now have six people on my team that came from him.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: All young, hungry and motivated and fit our culture. Yeah. And. That, you know, and, and then we now have, you know, we have a list of other people through him and the other people that wanna join our team when the time is right, you know, and we can give him the right opportunity all because of, of that, where it's like, [00:40:00] we didn't have that before.
So that was the, that was one of the key breakthroughs that we needed. Yeah. Um, so I would just say, uh, now, like moving forward, my hope is that when we're not promoting from within. We're hiring through a connection that we already have. Yeah. That can say this person leads with character mm-hmm. In integrity and fits our culture.
They're gonna work their butt off. They're not coming to sit on a chair. Um, you know, they, they, they are not coming just to plug the clock nine to five and go home. Like they're gonna do what it takes their team player. And they understand our core values, right? Like, like they're, or they're in alignment rather with their, with our core values.
'cause it's somebody from inside that's rep, you know, that's recommending them. So that's what I hope can happen. Yeah. Um, because like you said, otherwise it's a little bit of a roll the dice. You, you know, you, you're gonna get some right. And you're gonna, it's hard. Wrong.
John Wilson: It's hard. It's really, it's really tough
Tyler Griffin: and, and it's really tough.
The toughest thing is it takes a while to figure that out too. Oh yeah. Because some people can come in and everything's great and then until it's not,
John Wilson: you know? Yeah. It's like, oh, you know. Well, yeah. Over time. It, it [00:41:00] depends on like, where are they in the leadership stack? Are they are, is this a frontline leader or a senior leader?
But um, like a senior leader, what we've learned is it, it takes like a year. For them to, like, it takes less than a year for them to begin making an impact, but it takes a year for them to like drive real impact. Yeah. Like they can make some entry level like, Hey, I'm here. You know, all that stuff. Right.
Like a year's, a long time. It is. That's a, a lot can go wrong in a year. And that's,
Tyler Griffin: that's,
John Wilson: yeah. It's, it's
Tyler Griffin: tough.
John Wilson: It is tough. I mean, frontline leadership is a little bit more straightforward. Like you can usually get a pretty good pulse in like 60 days.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. And one of my keys to, um, I, you know, key principles is what I call 3M.
So I'm just really big on, uh, that I only want leaders that practice what I call 3M. So it's model, mentor, multiply. So number one, you gotta be a model. Of what you're leading others to do. Yeah. In most cases, that means you can do the work or have done the work. Yeah. And you can do it well. Yeah. And so you can teach that, you know, but it's also just the work ethic, the attitude.
Mm-hmm. Right. That you gotta [00:42:00] be a model of, of, of that. Um, and hold the standard high and then mentor where you're actually willing to teach others. Coach others. Yeah. Mentor them. Um, to understand that, you know, we can't just have exponential growth unless we come alongside someone and show them the right way to do it.
Um, and give helpful feedback and, and kind of be in it for the long term. So it's like that model, okay, watch me do it. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna model it for you, mentor. It's like, all right, we're gonna do it together. You know, and then multiply where they can now do the same thing. And so it's like, but if you just jump to multiplication, it's just mayhem.
Mm-hmm. Because, um, if that person's not a model, for example, they're not leading from a place of authenticity. Nobody takes them seriously. Nobody respects them. Yeah. They can't hold anybody accountable. Um, you know, or if they don't take the time to mentor.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Uh, then especially for the younger. Younger, um, people like, it's just, it, it's gonna be really tough for them to, to learn.
They're not gonna just learn from a book, you know, or here's, you know, here's our five steps. Like, they, they need to see it, you know, they need to get [00:43:00] feedback on it, right? Yeah. They need to have someone in, in the trenches with them, so,
John Wilson: yeah. Yeah, this resonates. I, I like the way it's laid out. Uh, we mentally think of it this way.
We don't like verbalize it. So this is gonna be one of my like takeaways. Uh, someone gave me this. Um, from Nexar, they're a Nexar member, and they talked about, uh, training the trainers, which like at first was like, okay, sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: But then I, I was listening to a Chad Peter Man's podcast, which is a, can't Stop the Growth.
It's a great, it's a great show. Yeah. Primarily like, and internally face show, like about how to develop this team. And he spends a lot of time on the multiplication of leaders and uh, like thinking through that and just thinking through like our own team. It was clear like in some areas we've done an amazing job and in some areas we've done a terrible job.
Yeah. Of, of doing that. Right. Like, it, it was, it was a good like mirror, um, because there were definitely some wins and, and some not, but it did help us reform how we think about leadership development. Yeah. Which we're [00:44:00] pretty, I'd give us like a six, outta 10 on leader. Like we do a It's intentional. It's a real program.
Yeah. We are actively graduating people from it.
Tyler Griffin: That's awesome.
John Wilson: Into leadership. We've, I think we're on our fifth graduate now, so like, yeah. It is an, it is a real part of our business. So like six outta 10, maybe seven. Um, but like the, the big focus on multiplication was I think like that's our seven to nine of being able to, how do we like create this training program to then spit out these leaders, right.
We did that. We did a good job of that. Right. What we didn't do a good job of was then continuing ed training for those leaders. This train the trainer mentality, right? Where they turn it, where they can now like multiply themselves amongst there. 90 people in the field and suddenly we're developing more people for the cohort.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
John Wilson: So, yeah, I, that was a big lesson for us, like in the past four months that we really like Yeah. Stuck with.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. No, we've got a lot to build out with that. You know, as we said, a year in, and a lot of people joined in the last few months. Oh yeah. So, and you know, it's kind, well, I mean, you've got cohesive, you've
John Wilson: got the framework like Yeah.
[00:45:00] Nine years ahead of me, so, yeah. That's amazing. You launched plumbing. How quick into this did you launch plumbing? I think it's a common conversation that I said like when do I launch the second trade? Like you're a year in and you have two trades, so like clinically somewhat quick.
Tyler Griffin: Right. So, um, we were looking for a plumber because we recognized that we needed in-house expertise.
Um, you know, we didn't wanna sub it out obviously. And HVAC guys can only do so much plumbing. Yeah. You know, I mean like, it's very, something very minor. 'cause sometimes it comes up water years. Running a water line for a humidifier that we're installing on a furnace. You know, things like that. But, but like we couldn't really do real plumbing till we had a plumber.
And so we had ads out. We were looking, yeah, this is somebody that came through recruiting agency. Um, but I had a master plumber come in for an interview. And I looked at his resume and looked him up before he came and I'm like, what in the world? This guy's got a company. And so he came, sat down like, what happened to your company?
He's like, I just shut it down. Yeah. Um, this happens, you know, he'd ran it a couple decades. Yeah, it went well. And the last few years hadn't gone well. It's too tough. Um, and [00:46:00] so he'd, he'd never really built a team. He had a couple employees at one point, but he never had like an office staff or anything like that.
Yeah. And so I was like, all right. And, and so long story short, we ended up, I ended up hiring him Yeah. And then buying his brand from him and his list of customers and his phone number and his website, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: And so it's called the, the Irish plumber. And so we, we, we, uh, haven't done a ton with it.
Um, we've done a little bit of revamping of it. Um, but honestly, because then by the time, you know, we, we kind of, we tried to find. More plumbers and have had a hard time getting traction until recently on that front. Nice. Um, and so we just kind of went into maintenance mode on that. His customer list kept him busy.
Yeah. And, and so we had the phone number and we just kind of ran with the customers we had, we converted some of them to hvac and that was part of the goal. Yep. We did a lot of outbound on his old customers, you know,
John Wilson: successfully
Tyler Griffin: or, uh, moderately. Yeah. Moderately. I mean, he didn't have an engaged customer base.
Yeah. He wasn't doing any kind of regular engagement. No. Membership. Yeah. That kind of thing. They would just [00:47:00] call him when they needed him. Right. And so it's been really up and down, but, but fairly steady for him. And then usually we've had one other person. Yeah. Um, in the plumbing role, in the plumbing seat as well.
Um, and so. That. And then we started to, like, April we spiked, right? April was our first month. We got over 200 in revenue.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, and, and so, and this is,
John Wilson: is five, six months in se? Seven months in,
Tyler Griffin: yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so we were like, all right. You know, 'cause we've been kind of hovering right around that one 50 mark.
Yeah. Um, from November onwards, right. Uh, per month. And then April jumped and we're like, all right, summer's coming. Got excited and so I just doubled down on hvac. Right. To be honest, I put plumbing on, on on maintenance mode. Yeah. I can only focus on so many things and I'm like, I gotta scale up hvac and so.
April through the summer, I, I focused on scaling that up. May we hit 300 and then June was lights out. We went almost 800 in revenue in June. Yeah, it's crazy. Um, and then July was great until the end, you know, and then August sort of nose dived a bit, which I think across the industry experienced that. But we had a lot of really mild weather.
Like seventies. Yeah. [00:48:00] From the end of July onwards. And so that was challenging coupled with I think busy back to school month and a lot of other things. Mm-hmm. Came down quite a bit. And so in the last two months in particular, I've really refocused on plumbing. I think that's gonna give us long-term stability.
And so we're focused on expanding that right now. We're bringing another younger plumber on the team soon. Yeah. Um, who's got pretty robust background, very hungry, willing to work nights, weekends, whatever it takes and help grow something very motivated, wants to be a leader and hasn't had that opportunity.
So we're super excited about him. He's in a perfect stage of life to do this and, and a good background, good base to work off from. Has some, uh, you know, good experience with underground and things as well. So yeah, we're excited about that. That's kind of where we're at right now. So plumbing is a big focus on our of ours right now, um, to really scale that up and I think that'll help, um, to give us more stability as well.
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Tyler Griffin: I mean, we're at 3.3 since January.
John Wilson: Okay.
Tyler Griffin: You know, we're chasing five. Our goal was, so probably like three calendar hit five.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, so yeah, I think we had hit right around. 3 50, 400 in our first four months. Yeah. September, October would virtually nothing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was mostly November and December combined, I think was a little north of 300.
Yeah. And then September, October, a [00:50:00] little bit in there. It was just maybe just under four.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: Um, so yeah, I mean, definitely right around what we are, um, what we are now. Yeah. You know, because October we did. Uh, we did about four change.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: So,
John Wilson: okay. So someone's launching a business. What's the big piece of advice you're gonna give them as they go to launch a home service brand?
Tyler Griffin: I, I, I would have to say start with the end in mind. Mm-hmm. So that comes back to the first part of our conversation. I, I think it's really important to know your why. Yeah. Because if you don't like. You're gonna go through hell to build a business. The ups and downs are real. It's a roller coaster. Um, and the lows can be low.
Yeah. And you can wake up a lot of mornings like I have in this last year and be like, what the heck did I do? Yeah. Like, why am I doing this? Yeah. Because, or go to bed late at night, you know, after another 14, 16 hour day and you're putting out fires, you know? Um, so there's a lot of tough days, especially early on.[00:51:00]
And so I think it's really important to know your why if you have a family to include them. Um, you know, there was a lot of family conversations because you know what? I miss a lot with my family. I do. There's no shortcuts if you're gonna build something. And so if you want to keep your family and have them not hate you.
I think one key is to have them on board with why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. That this is, you know, and have your reasons for that. Like for us, it's part of our family legacy. We wanna build a family business. My oldest son, you know, he wants to follow in my footsteps. So there's a lot going into that for us, but whatever that looks like for you, I think is important to know your why.
Have your family on board. Yeah. Um, have a trusted circle. Because I think one of the mistakes that can happen is you can, you can face isolation, entrepreneurialism, you know? Yeah. You're building something, man. It's freaking lonely. Yeah. It's gonna take you a while to build a leadership roster that makes you not feel alone.
Like, like it just takes a while in my, took
John Wilson: me nine years start partner. Yeah. It took me nine years. Once you start
Tyler Griffin: with a really great partner, and sometimes that happens and that's wonderful. Mm-hmm. But [00:52:00] most of the time, especially if you're the sole owner operator, um, it's gonna take some time, man. So I think having a few other business owners in your corner, like I know you have groups, um, yeah.
That people can be part of. I think that's key. I think it's really key. Yeah. Uh, 'cause on the lowest of days, you need someone that you can call, that'll answer your call and, and kind of have your back. Right. I have that. So, um, that's a, you know, that's a huge help to me. Um, and then, and then it's like, figure out the right pathway for you.
Like for example, you know, the brand we came up with Swift Pro, fast and Professional, and then also HVAC Plumbing. It fits me. I like speed. I like chaos. I like solving problems. I like responding to urgent situations. Mm-hmm. Um, I like what we, you know, do I like every aspect of what we do? No. Do I like being in 110 degree attic?
Inspecting a, you know, a a, a furnace or an air handler? Um, in the middle of summer? No. Like, do I like having to deal with calls at 11 o'clock at night? No. There's parts of it that are not fun. But overall, I find a lot of fulfillment in what I [00:53:00] do. Yeah. And what we're building and the brand we're building fits me, you know, is, is like I'm all about, like, I, I try to, I'm always trying to become a better version of myself.
Mm-hmm. And I go fast, right? Like, we have, like, we're, we're trying to hit 5 million in our first year here, first full calendar year. Um, and so I think those are, are key things, right? Like having that vision, the values, the why I think is key in knowing what you're trying to do. Having your family on board, having people in your corner, um, and then being really clear with team members you hire about where you're going and what they're joining.
Yeah, I'm like, I'm very clear. He's like, I, I'm not gonna offer you world class benefits. I hope to. You're gonna help me build something that I hope can provide you world class benefits, but we don't have it today. Yeah. So don't be what you're not, but what I can give you is opportunity to grow and become something you're not today, that you can grow with me.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. You could
Tyler Griffin: become a leader in this organization. I'm not gonna give it to you. You're gonna earn it, you know, but if you help me build this, then uh, the sky's the limit, you know? Yeah. The, we're creating the road together. And so when you invite people into that and you're just very honest about what you can and can't do, but what the [00:54:00] opportunity is, and you can communicate that in a compelling way, uh, people can get behind that, get excited, like, we have more talent than we deserve.
We, you know, in terms of where we're at in a business, right?
John Wilson: Yeah.
Tyler Griffin: We have some really great people that work for us. I, you know, honestly, like, they just take enormous pride in their work. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, that, that are just top notch. Um, and we have them because they believe in where we're going, and they believe that this provides them an opportunity to build their career in a way that a more established brand would not be able to do.
Um, and then we're, we lean hard into being a family brand. And our, most of our team members are attracted to that. Like they wanna be part of a local, kind of the best of the old world, you know, the best Yeah. Family brand that also embraces technology, embraces growth, embraces, you know, um, trying to be the best at what we do, right?
Yeah. And, and, and then them becoming that. And so, so yeah, like, we're like if somebody wants a nine to five, I, it's like, look, we're not the place for you. Right. Um, if you just want something really comfortable, if you want really secure benefits, we're not the place for you. But if you wanna come build something, if you want a wild journey, you know?
Mm-hmm. If you want opportunity, if you could imagine yourself in a [00:55:00] completely different role in two to three years, we can give you that opportunity. Mm-hmm. And, and you could come build it with us.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think that's compelling. Yeah. I think that, so it sounds like. I'm gonna add onto yours just a little bit.
Yeah. It's, it's knowing where, but also being able to communicate it.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah.
John Wilson: Because I, I think that you, you hit it, but being able to share that is where rubber meets the road.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. I like early, my first hire, I did a one pager. Yeah. Like our, our, I call it the Swift Pro Manifesto. I still have that. Um, and, uh, it, it's still true.
Right? And, and that, that really helped me to just kind of articulate in a concise fashion. Who we are.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Tyler Griffin: Why we're doing what we're doing and where we're going. Right. Yeah. And, and then do you wanna be part of that ride, right? Yeah. So like interviews. Alright. You're onboarding, like we kind of try to embed that.
We don't have as formal of a process as like you guys do and what we should yet. Um, but we try at least with what we have to communicate the mission, the values, the vision, you know, and make sure people are up for it. You know, that they're, they're, [00:56:00] they're on board. Um, and then people self-select out.
Like, we, we miss on the hire sometimes, you know? And, and we hired a really great person for a role. With a lot of experience, but very shortly into that, they realized they were not the right fit. Yeah. For our culture, they didn't wanna work 12 hours in a day, which sometimes is required. I don't require that all the time.
I'm just saying it's a whatever it takes in our company. Right. Yeah. They didn't wanna do that, you know, they didn't wanna be out late at night. They, they're like, I just, sorry, you know, you told me. You know, you told me what it was, but I get, you know, a week to two weeks in and I realize like, this is too much, this is not, yeah.
You know, it's actually, I think it was like, you know, it was like just over a week and they're like, yeah, this is just not the fit. And, and they were able to self-select out. Yeah. We didn't waste a lot of time 'cause we're really clear about what we are and what we're not, so.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great.
Well, thanks for coming on today. This was a ton of fun getting to dive into the journey and I'm thankful you shared it.
Tyler Griffin: Yeah. Thanks John. Appreciate it.
John Wilson: If people wanna get ahold of you, how can they, how can they find you?
Tyler Griffin: Yeah, I'm on most social media. I mean, obviously Swift Pro. Look, we love, love any support and follows we can get, especially if you're in our region.
[00:57:00] Yep, yep. So please, please give us a, like, give us a follow on, you know, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. I'm personally on there. You can search me. Mm-hmm. I love connecting with folks on Facebook or Instagram. I'm also on. Twitter. Yep. Um, and so underscore, uh, scrappy Startup. Okay, that's, let's go. That's me. And that's what this is.
It's a scrappy startup, you know, that, that, that, that we're building here. Uh, so would love to, to connect on there and, and hoping that can happen. But yeah, it's just fun to connect, especially with other business owners, people that are building, people building from scratch or buying or, you know, just as we can all learn together.
John Wilson: Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah.
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