John sits down with Harmony Brownwood, CEO & founder of GreenWorks Inspections & Engineering, to unpack how she grew from zero connections in 2009 to one of the largest independently owned inspection companies in the U.S.—now operating across six states with 11 locations, 2,500–3,000 services a month, and a runway from ~$15M toward $20M in annual revenue. Harmony shares the mindset work that kept her going for 16 months without a sale, the systems that let her scale beyond herself, and why “happy clients + happy team” is the non-negotiable core KPI.
They get into how GreenWorks blends home inspections, structural engineering, and environmental services; why market flatness forces true market-share plays; and the playbook for entering new states by leading with engineering/environmental before residential inspections. You’ll hear how she measures client experience (NPS, “happy calls,” QC + AI on 80k+ reports), builds SOPs that actually stick, and keeps standards sky-high while still being beloved by realtors, investors, and homeowners.
If you want a concrete blueprint for scaling a people-powered, service-heavy org—without PE money, franchising, or letting quality slip—this one’s for you.
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John Wilson
🎙️ Guest
Harmony Brownwood
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OAO 253 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 northeast Ohio. And for fun, I run a podcast talking about how to do the same. Today I'm joined on the show by Harmony Brownwood, and she is the CEO and founder of Greenworks Inspections and and Engineering.
Welcome to the show.
Harmony Brownwood: Hey John. Thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate being here.
John Wilson: This will be fun. This, this, uh, this is, I think the first time we're, I dunno, 300 episodes in. This is the first time we've ever had like inspection. On the show before. So you've set the bar pretty high because now if we come in and bring somebody else in from the inspection, you know, industry, they're gonna have to follow probably one of the largest inspection companies that I can think of.
So this is gonna be a ton of fun. I, I'd love to hear, uh, some of the background on how you got Greenworks to where it is today, which is. A six state organization with, you know, hundreds of employees and $20 [00:01:00] million revenue. I'd love to hear how you got there.
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. You know, I, I, um, I love to share and talk about this because it's a wonderful thing to look back over 15 years mm-hmm.
And try to sum it up right in just a couple minutes or less. Um, one of the biggest areas of my life that I have. Profoundly, uh, focused and put energy towards is my mindset. Um, I am just constantly evaluating and taking a critical look at what is it that I'm thinking, and how do those belief systems serve or not serve me?
Mm-hmm.
And it's a constant process of change and e evolving, but. When it's all said and done, um, if you ask me like, what's the one thing that helped me go from completely nothing, I was a [00:02:00] broke, obscure, lost, depressed student, um, five years in school, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Um, I really had no direction whatsoever and I ultimately ended up finding my way.
Into home inspections because I went on the internet and just searched, how do you find mm-hmm. Your passion. And I got lucky, found a cool ebook, and this ebook was like, Hey, if you're lost and confused, you know, um, click here and I'm gonna take you through these questions and we're gonna do this quiz and we're gonna go through all of these steps to figure out what it is that you love.
And I'm like, okay, sounds great. And you know, one of the first questions was, well, what do you like to do in your free time? And I'm like, Ugh. I like watching tv. Like
mm-hmm.
Duh. Whatcha you talking about? What do I like to do in my free time? Like, I, I wanna do nothing. How about that? But the ebook was really smart.
It was like, well, even if you like just watching tv, what do you like [00:03:00] watching on television when you're not watching television? And it was just peeling an onion, right? Mm-hmm. And I was like, well, these are the shows that I watch. And all of them were real estate related in terms of like HGTVs. Okay. Home buying shows.
Yeah. Yeah. You remember, I mean, those are still around, but those were really big.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: Um, and I would obsessively watch them. I mean, just like constantly, like, which house are they gonna pick? You know, and I'm, and it goes, what do you like about the show? And, and I answer those questions and it was basically like, well, if you like this and this is what you're doing with your free time, you should look for careers in real estate.
And I was like. That's kind of smart. Okay? Mm-hmm. What do you do next though? Like look for careers in real estate and they're like, well, these are the careers in real estate. Call everyone. So there's four major categories. You've got appraisal, you've got mortgage, you've got inspection, and you got the realtor.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: Those are the big kind of four for the real estate category. So the book next is like, call those four categories, call people [00:04:00] and ask them what they actually do every day. Don't read about what people do, call and ask. Okay, pick up the phone. I'm like, hi, Mr. Mortgage, lender. I'm Harmony. You don't know me from Adam, but I just wanted to know what your day look like.
It turns out people are really nice. They answered. Yeah. Like, they're like, oh, sure kid. Like, um, here's what I do every day. And I was like, okay. And I'm listening and like just, you know, jotting notes here and there, and I'm like, okay, thanks next. And, and I'm hearing what their work is. And I didn't like it.
I didn't like the actual task. I'm like, that doesn't sound that interesting. Like, I don't think I'd be good at mortgage. And I called the next person and the realtors and I'm like, well, realtor. I mean, it sounds kind of cool, but they, they do so much lead generation. Yeah. Like that is the majority of what they have to do every day when they're not showing the house.
They're generating more leads. And I was like, ah, I don't know if I can make a difference there. And the appraisal appraisal sounded cool. Um, very neat going out there doing appraisal. [00:05:00] But the reality is, is that industry was changing. You have to have a degree mm-hmm. To actually become an appraiser and you can't drive a business.
Um, 'cause the banks are choosing and I'm like, 'cause they were telling me these things and I was like, well, I don't know. That's great. And next was inspection.
Mm-hmm.
An inspection was, I called the guy and I said, hi, I'm Harmony. What do you do every day? And the home sister was like, well, sure, I'll tell you.
I go to realtor offices, I make presentations. If I'm lucky, they give me work. And then in the afternoon I get to go out and do a home inspection. And I went, wait, wait, wait a minute. You have to go make presentations to the realtor office and go generate all your own work. For no pay. And then if you're lucky, you get to get a paid job doing the thing that you actually wanna be doing.
And he was like, yeah, I do. And I was like, interesting. Called the next person, said the same thing, called the next guy, said [00:06:00] the same thing. And I'm like, oh my word. That makes no sense. I mean, just makes no sense to me to this moment. That makes no sense. Um, why would you have to work so hard? To generate so little money.
'cause the realtor basically does the same thing, except their commissions are very different. So it justifies the effort. A home inspector, no, it doesn't make sense. And I went, that's it. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go get work for these home inspectors.
Mm-hmm.
And to this moment, that is literally what I spend my life doing.
And absolutely love every minute of it.
John Wilson: That's a, that's a good origin story too. I like the book. I Yeah. The, the calling people and asking is funny. Can you give me a, like, what's the scope of this now? Like that was where it started. We're gonna talk about the in between, but like where are we today?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah.
I mean today, you know, we're doing, um, 2,500 to 3000 services, whether that's commercial. Mm-hmm. [00:07:00] Residential. Um, we do both. Um, we got about a 80 20 mix on that. 80% residential, 20% commercial. Uh, and that's across our inspections, across our engineering, and across our environmental services. So we're going into a lot of homes, a lot of buildings and performing services.
And so much of our business, you know, we obviously we have to generate a lot of business to get there. Mm-hmm. But it started very small. Um, and we're doing that through all kinds of ways, but the big thing for us is to be very word of mouth. It's huge. Um, we want our neighbors to recommend us, refer us, realtors recommend refer us.
And so luckily, um, being able to provide really high quality service has been our way to do that, and it's kind of in the backbone of everything that we've done.
John Wilson: It was 2,500 to 3000 clients a month. Right? A month. A month. Yeah. That's crazy. And then, how many people [00:08:00] are on the team? How many inspectors?
How many like administrative? Like what does the team split look like?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah. So, um, we've got, uh, the moment if you include inspection, leadership, um, there's 82 give or take. Mm-hmm. Um, of them. Um, I've got, uh, 11. Engineers. Um, I've got, uh, like six environmental people and then I've got like a admin call center team.
There's 30 ish mix of them. Yeah. And then the rest are just like other leaders. Yeah. Um, over those categories. So yeah,
John Wilson: I, I feel like there's a lot to unpack here. Uh, and what, what was revenue? What was most recent revenue? Just so we have scope there.
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah. So, um, closing 15, uh, trying to get to 20 million this year.
John Wilson: I have full faith. I, I have full faith. As you're, as you're thinking about, like, [00:09:00] first question that comes to mind, just as we're thinking about like pacing and budget, has real estate market impacted what you're doing? Uh, I don't know what it's like in Texas right now. Like, Ohio still seems to be fine.
Florida is like crazy. So like how has that impacted projections for the year?
Harmony Brownwood: Oh yeah. I mean, it's definitely matters for us because we are so driven by, um, whether people are buying, right? Yeah. So yes, it's definitely been a flat year mm-hmm. To almost on the lower end for us. You know, we, we serve some of the hottest markets in America, um, luckily, but when those markets start flattening out like Austin.
Um, it impacts us. Yeah. And so it's been really hard trying to like, do better than the market. It, it, it, it has been substantially, you know, more difficult 'cause you're putting yourself in a position where your only way to gain is to take market share at that point. Um, which is its own. [00:10:00] Little mountain to climb.
Mm-hmm. Right. So that's, that, that's been a, a speed of growth. It's been a lot of learning. And with scaling, the good thing about that is, is once you start learning the skills of how to take market share and increasing market share in other ways, you know, like we don't wanna just eat from one pie. Um, we're always trying to add more pies and expand the existing pie.
So how many people know about our service know that it exists? Why do people need the service? Who out there could benefit from what we do? And then are they willing to obviously pay us to give them this service, right? Mm-hmm. And, um, be well worth the value to them.
John Wilson: I said this before we started recording, but I feel like, you know, I've, we've talked with, I don't know, variety of inspectors, just personally over the years.
Most of them seem to be like two to three. People on a team, you're obviously much larger. Can you give me like what's the biggest in the industry? How close to the top are [00:11:00] you? Are you middle? Are you high? Like where are you size wise?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, so we're the largest independently owned inspection company in the country.
John Wilson: Yeah, that would feel like that would be the answer because everyone I talk to is like two or three people. Yeah, right. That's very normal. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And you guys are still private, you're not, uh, like private equity backed or, or anything like that. You're exactly right. Yep. No
Harmony Brownwood: private equity, no franchise, no licensing, nothing, just
John Wilson: owned a hundred percent by me.
Cool. Let's dive into the sort of the early stages. We, we read this ebook, we called some people and we're like, Hey, walk me through what you do, which I think that's great. Like, what did the first year look and feel like? For you,
Harmony Brownwood: it was a disaster.
John Wilson: Um, yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: There's no other word I could describe that would be more true.
I [00:12:00] put in all the effort, right? So I had this idea of like, oh, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna go out here, I'm gonna do this. Mm-hmm. However, um, nothing worked. I had no skills, I had no connections. I had no money. And so I wasn't getting anywhere. I spent 16 months. Sincerely, putting in a full-time effort meeting people.
Mm-hmm. Going to networking events. I built my own website 'cause I didn't have any money. Um, at this point I'm literally homeless and I'm desperate to get this to work and the only thing I can do every day is get up and try again, and try again and try again. And I'm just trying. Mm-hmm. Um, I found ways to make some side income.
Just to survive. But the reality is, is I knew that this made sense for me to solve it. Uh, I just wasn't getting anywhere. Finally though, um, got my first customer, um, 16 months later they [00:13:00] found me on my website. I still don't know how. Mm-hmm. Paid me $93, um, to come out and do a home inspection on their new construction house.
I then called that home inspector 'cause I'm not a home inspector. I've never been a licensed home inspector. Um, I was the person who wanted to get them to work, right? So I called one of the inspectors, I said, Hey, can you meet me out here? I got a job for you. And it's like, yeah, how much? And I went, uh, they're paying $93.
And he was like, okay, yeah, that'll work. Meet you out there. I didn't mean to give him all of the $93, but I did. Um, and I still was happy. Met him out there like, okay, it happened. Got my second customer four months later. So it's like, is this ever gonna happen? Like, I gotta give up at some point. But I, I don't know.
I think I was, I was too obsessed with this idea that it could work and it could be something I just knew I hadn't found the way.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: And I was determined to figure it out. Um, so once I got that second [00:14:00] customer, I'm there and I'm, I'm asking, and I'm talking and she ended up loving me. And she's like, Hey, listen, let me introduce you.
It turns out she was an investor. Um, she saw, found my website too. She ends up saying, Hey, let me introduce you to some more investors that I know, and maybe they'll use you too. Oh, and by the way, you need to raise your prices 'cause you charge me $99 and that's not enough. She's like, no one's gonna use you.
That's all you're charging. She's like, charge $199. And so she starts mentoring me a little bit and it worked. Um, that just grew upon itself. So then I slowly start getting, I like to say that because then I went to one inspection a month. Mm-hmm. And it became one inspection a week. Right. Then it becomes, and I'm going to all of these, um, and I'm learning and I'm asking questions and I'm talking.
I'm really. Trying to understand like, why are you using me? What do you like, what do you not like? And I do this for years. Uh, we get really busy. I end up hiring my first inspector, uh, he's still with me today. Uh, we spent [00:15:00] tons of time together crafting the perfect service, you know, something that would really make sense.
And last, and make people have a feeling of. Man, that was not enough. Like I would've paid more for that. That's the, that's the feeling you are always trying to walk away from, I feel in home service, because so often we experience home services where we feel like we've paid an arm and a leg for something and we're grumpy about it.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: Um, right. And it's like, okay, I don't care who I use again, I'm not, I don't care if I use that company or if I get a better deal next time. I don't, for me, that's not a model I wanted to build. I wanted to build something that could be referable mostly, I think because it took me so long to get a customer right?
So there's this underlying fear that like, I still may not ever get another customer again. I mean, it's just a part of the DNA of myself and Greenworks. Like I tell my team every single week, every single week, nobody has to call us.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: No one needs us. If we went [00:16:00] away tomorrow, everybody's still gonna get a service done.
So we can still have to earn our opportunity each and every day, um, with every single person that we touch. And luckily, it's really transformed and turned us into, um, a huge force that we are and trying to still grow more.
John Wilson: So the, how much of the dynamic of like challenging to get customers was, you launched it in 2009.
So I think like home transaction levels were just really, really low. Like was a lot of this like highly competitive, you're up against a bunch of other home inspectors trying to make it, did home inspectors leave the industry? Like what? What was the sort of dynamic at that moment?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, you're exactly right.
So home inspectors were leaving the industry. Home cell levels were low at that time. Mm-hmm. Um, the opportunity was always still there though. 'cause you are in Texas, right? And so we have been getting an influx of people for many, many years.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: Um, but that was a particular low. So there was a really, the [00:17:00] timing was awful.
Um, people weren't willing to try new things at that point. Right. So I hit a really. Bad time, but the persistence and the willingness to stay with it, I think helped me that once the market started to change things started to get better. I'm still there. Right. And I'm at this point learning every single day.
Like I'm reading, I'm reading like I, I'm an avid reader. Like I, I wanted to know how to do this.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: And I'm all self-taught, right? I did go to school and, and I did study business, but I never got a degree to graduate. So. I had to teach myself and learn. Um, and so much of it was just going out and obsessively listening.
You know, I think there's a, there's so much to be said for listening to the client.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: They will tell you everything you need. Like, I'm sorry. Like if, if there is one thing that any of us can do tomorrow to transform our businesses is just. [00:18:00] Ask the clients what they want.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: What do you want more of?
What do you want less of? Where do you, where did you like spending money here? Where did you not like spending money here? And then just adapt and change. Right. And make the changes that can be done. Um, and it will, it will work.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: Because at the end of the day, like the market, the market does decide, it does tell us.
What it wants from us, what it wants our business to be. You know, our client base is determined by that. Like we can choose certain things, but then there's a part of it that's really not within our control, um, to be mega successful. I genuinely believe that. I genuinely believe that when Amazon began as a book selling company, they did this better than anybody.
We just adapted and learned and had a big, huge vision of what they wanted to be, and they changed and modified to become it. You see, apple has done the same thing. Like they're able to reinvent themselves, but they stay corded and true to who they are. And that's some of what [00:19:00] I think comes, comes as a miss in the home service field where we too much want to put our own stamp in ideas on what we want instead of what is the market's actually asking us for.
Mm-hmm. And, um, it, it, it can be. That resistance, right? It's like, why does this feel so hard? Why does this feel so hard? Why does it feel so hard? You know, for me, I'm, I'm always trying to remove friction, you know? So it starts getting a little too difficult. Like, in other words, when the market's not behind me, perfect, I gotta go back out in the field.
You know, I was just out in the field, um, last week. I'm going out again. Tomorrow I'm gonna go talk to clients because it's feeling too difficult. So I'm missing it somewhere. Where, what do they, what do we need to do now? Mm-hmm. Because what, what we were giving you two, three years ago. It may not be exactly what you're looking for today.
So why not make sure that we're delivering exactly what it is that's gonna make us five star worthy, right? And continue to build this, [00:20:00] um, snowball that can roll down the hill faster and bigger.
John Wilson: So we've driven, like customer obsession, focus, sort of like a fanatical response. So what are all the different ways you're measuring it aside from asking like.
Probably some basics, like reviews, but are like NPS. How, how deep are we diving here? Are we calling after every appointment? Like, what's that look like?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, net Promoter is huge. Um, you gotta measure that. I, I, I, I couldn't even imagine. Um, I've been doing that for very, very, very long time. Reviews, of course.
Um, yes, we make happy calls, um, as well, right? So like to make sure that everything that we promise. Is getting actually delivered and when are we going above and beyond and when are we not? Um, so that's major. Um, tracking, um, the reports itself, you know, there's a quality control process for us where we can actually look at those.
You know, we use [00:21:00] AI tools to measure and see and compare. 'cause we've served over 80,000 clients in our existence. So. There becomes a lot of data, um, to help us know, um, what we are expecting to see. Um, and then of course there's outliers, but we have a gauge there.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: Um, we have a lot of in-person training that we do, so like we're going out and assessing and asking, um, the clients and the inspectors, uh, and their leaders like, Hey, um.
What are we seeing? What are we doing? What is the response here? So there's lots of tools to measure. Um, you have to lean on those tools, and that's just, you know, that's the field side. Then you also have the phones.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: Um, tons, tons, tons of talk about there too, right. But overall, um, it, it's using all of these tools and resources to make sure that we're, we're hitting it.
Right on that bullseye. As much as we possibly can and as [00:22:00] often as we can. And as long as, you know, we've decided, you know, I, I, I am fanatical about client experience. Um, I'm obsessive and, and I'm a perfectionist in that way. Like, there, there's nothing else that has to go right. As far as I'm concerned life.
But as long as we are exceeding our client's expectations, we're always gonna have jobs. Um, it's, it's, it's as simple as that. Mm-hmm. Let's do that and let's do it really, really, really well. And then let's build from there. And it gets hard when, especially when, when you're like me, like I, I know the model that I wanna build and it's, it's difficult 'cause I wanna add more services and I wanna be this one-stop shop.
Um, so every time I do something new, I have to go back to start.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: And make sure, you know, we're meeting the expectations and refine and change and tweak from there. But that work ethic is, is, is there and we're willing to do it, you know.
John Wilson: I want to hit multi-state and we're probably gonna spend like a decent [00:23:00] amount of time here.
'cause that is really interesting. So when, at what point did you go multi-market? Like what year do you remember? Um,
Harmony Brownwood: first market when we left DFW, 'cause we can call that one market. We went to Austin, that was 2018. Um. 2019, we went to Houston. That was awesome. Uh, did that and then just last year, well, maybe it's been about 18 months.
18 months, we were like, okay, we're gonna start branching out. We're gonna start going into Florida. We're gonna start, we're gonna start taking opportunities, um, on engineering and environmental services. And the way that we get to do a home inspection is if we. Um, land, some sort of contract experience. Um, you know, that lets us go into the state.
So we're not just performing home such services in all six states. Um, but we are doing the engineering and the environmental there. Um, and that's been us putting [00:24:00] someone in that state, right? So another part of our model is the home inspector or the engineer or the environmental person, like they're the star.
Of everything that we do 'cause the knowledge and what people want from us is what they're paying us for, is to know that this person's coming in and giving them the expertise that they're looking for. So they are the center. Um, and that's something that we have as a consult service that we have to focus on.
We have to focus on our, on our people versus like you, John, like you get to go out and do really great work. Right, and if I'm happy with how my HVC system is running, like temps happening, the way I want, my phone app is doing the things that I wanted to do, like I'm overall happy and the technician is a, maybe a part of that service, but maybe not the feature versus in my world, they're the whole feature.
You know, how the information was communicated, how it's delivered. Follow up questions to ask later. All that has to kind of hit it outta the park. So, [00:25:00] um, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to get that right and every single time that we can find the right person, um, who really is gonna believe in our mission and honestly do the extra work that it, that it takes to work at Greenworks.
You know, we're not an easy company to work for. Um, our standards are very, very high and we are very open and honest about that. You get the benefit of what being a very high level inspector and high level engineer and high level environmental technician gets you, which is a lot of work. Like you, you get, you're in high demand.
Mm-hmm. You're liked when you walk in the home. 'cause honestly, lots of time people already know you. They've already seen you. Things of this nature is happening even at our scale. Um, but it doesn't mean that you aren't putting in the effort. To gain that. So it's a, it's a, it's a world in which you're, uh, trying to attract, um, the type of person who wants to be seen, um, wants to be known.
[00:26:00] Um, wants to not just be someone in a uniform, right? Mm-hmm. But their name actually be next to the name of the brand. That's what we, that's what we do and that's what we build. And, and, and honestly, I look forward to doing that in more states, um, over the next few years. Like, we're gonna expand in the states that we're in for now.
We're not gonna go more
John Wilson: long term. I wanna go national, but there's the three service types, and I just wanna understand this a little bit more. So there's. Property inspection, like home inspection, point of sale, there's structural engineering and there's environmental testing. So for Texas, Austin, Houston, DFW, we, we were, uh, like really focusing on home inspection, uh, Florida.
Georgia, Colorado. I think I have those right. Um, you do, that's mainly engineering, like no home inspection, mainly engineering. Okay. What's the, like, walk me through the difference. 'cause like I, I don't know that I understand the difference.
Harmony Brownwood: Well, the engineering part of it is a [00:27:00] lot more focused on say, your foundation, um, part of the home and the framing aspect of the home.
Okay. Right. So anytime, um, that we're making large investments, we wanna know that we have a good, solid foundation. Foundation expense on homes can be very, very high. Mm-hmm. Um, there are obviously basements, um, say in Ohio and things of this nature. Right. So like that is a huge part of anything that you're doing.
Yeah. Especially if and when you wanna go up. So additions like we love, or we're really big on those, um, you wanna expand out on the house, right? So we want an open concept home, like the, we wanna remodel. Uh, we do a lot of that work. As well. So any, any of that and all of that is a part of our engineering service to where we are now with our investors who wanna open up the house.
Whether they wanna flip the house or whether they wanna turn it into a long-term rental or whatever they wanna do, we're [00:28:00] there for them in that way. Um, same thing with our realtor clients. Um. It turns out like there's a lot of them who want to get in that game and then just turn around and sell. So we love to do that for them.
Um, and then on the environmental side, again, it all started tying together for us. 'cause once you start opening up walls, oh, here's asbestos, right? Mm-hmm. Oh, here's mold. Um, what's the water quality gonna be like in this home? You know, all of these things that we can help with and provide a solution for.
Uh, is just a part of the service offering that we wanna give so that way people can feel, uh, the same commitment level of not just. Buying a house and having us necessarily do the inspection and write up the report and tell them what's wrong. But part of it is us getting into the work side of it. So the work of the consulting though, still not swinging a hammer?
We are not [00:29:00] general contractors. We're never doing that. Mm-hmm. We've tried to do work. Turns out we are not good at materials and trucks and all of that. Like it's not our world. We are. Um, people who like to inspect. We are people who like to consult. Um, and we are people who like to connect, so we wanna connect them to companies like yours, John, right?
So that way they know, like, who are the trusted people to come in here and actually get this fixed For me, oh, we need to call Wilson, but our side of it is to point it out and say, Hey, here's something that we're identifying. It is an issue, you know,
John Wilson: call a trusted
Harmony Brownwood: professional
John Wilson: and get it fixed. Why that service type, like, what makes it different?
Like I, and thanks for explaining, uh, the difference why launching with that in a new market versus the home inspection. Like what makes it more or less attractive?
Harmony Brownwood: I think specifically we have, um, a need, um, that is there in other markets that's a little easier for us to get [00:30:00] into. So it's interesting. We could start with the home inspection and build that, but it is a very intensive marketing, uh, step for us to take.
It takes a lot of money to get going for home inspection and to stay busy. The home inspection. Yeah, the home inspection versus the engineering and the environmental part of it. Turns out, like most of the states in the states that we've chosen, they already need these services. Um, there's a lot less com competition.
Okay. Shockingly, um, for those services. And we're really good at understanding the real estate transactions. So like us going in and communicating our value proposition to investors, to HOAs, to um, realtors. Um, for the engineering and the environmental service, it's just way less resistant. So it's easier for us to get started there in that and then build the home inspection later.
John Wilson: So we've, over the past couple years, we've expanded. We're in a few states now. Uh, how many locations [00:31:00] or is it, how, how do we determine that? Or is it like six states? That's the same thing.
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, it's six. Yeah. It, it's six states. Okay. 'cause we can, we can work all over, but we do like, we do have like 11 actual locations.
Okay. So like, we have a location in Denver.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Harmony Brownwood: Right. Um, we have, you know, like our location in, uh, Tampa, you know, so like we, we, we are there. It's a funny though, like when you start getting in, and this is a big one for me too, is when you start getting in there and we have, we're looking to see where are we gonna be able to penetrate?
Um, because there is always an audience for us of people who want what we're selling, and we want to find who it is that wants what we're selling and then grow and build from there. Mm-hmm. So sometimes. Like we tried to start in Boulder, which isn't too far off, but like, it was like, wow, you know what, Denver seems to be a lot more interested in the service.
Okay, let's pivot and go a little bit more that direction. Yeah, [00:32:00] let's keep here, right? And let's expand into these suburbs. Um, and, and go from there. So it, it's, it's, it's nice to be able to have a, uh, not a tied down identity because my guys like, they can travel like engineering work. Like we can, we can get into.
Homes and commercial buildings very easily. Um, especially on the environmental engineering side, it's, it's a lot more flexible. Um, so we don't have to be so tied to specific, you know, city markets if you will.
John Wilson: So, you sort of alluded to this, but like what's next for Greenwork? Sounds like we're gonna be building like more density inside our existing markets.
Harmony Brownwood: We are a hundred percent. There is so much for the taking. Um, it's kind of incredible. Like every, like I, we look at our market share and it's so small. Mm-hmm. It's so small. I mean, we don't have 1% of the market share in Texas, so, you [00:33:00] know, one could argue that you, we, we don't need to leave Texas yet. Um, and I would actually agree with that argument.
Um, we just have a desire. To be in more places, um, overall, and we're going to do that. But at the moment, it's the density, uh, that's gonna matter most because you do start getting more economies, right? Yeah. As if you stay tighter. Yeah. Um, and at the same time though, you also have the risk that happens when being in the central market, right?
Like, okay, there's a major disaster, you know, in, in a certain market. And now that market's underwater. Like we run into that with Houston. Um, if all of my work was there, now I have nothing, um, to protect me. So I think it's a, it's a combination, right? Trying to get that right, knowing where to put capital resources is huge.
And, uh, just trying to make the right decisions at the right times.
John Wilson: What's your advice for owners building out [00:34:00] large, uh, like service driven teams? You said that your person is the main stage here, so like what, what's your advice to be able to even get close to what you built?
Harmony Brownwood: You know, um, there's, it, it takes a lot of things to go right.
I'm, I'm not gonna lie. Mm-hmm. You know, there, there is a, there's an aspect of, I think, hard work and time spent in the business that a lot of owners get caught up in where they're working, but genuinely they're working on the wrong things. They're not working on the business, they're working in it. I think that that is long term, the wrong way to go.
I think you have to take what, for instance, I've done, like with my president of service, um, when we first started to expand and grow, I, I, I said, Hey, you can't ever do an inspection by yourself. Like you gotta take someone with you and train someone next to you. Mm-hmm. So that way you're teaching along the way, and then once you do that, [00:35:00] now that helps you create.
A format for SOPs. Yeah, because guess what? If you don't have strong SOPs, no one can do this besides you. And that's a major weakness, right? So we gotta build SOPs and then from SOPs it's okay, now what's the process to achieving those SOPs? And then what are the systems that go next to those SOPs? Um, it's so, it's gotta be a love, you know, of business.
Learning about business because I think where, what you tend to find, in my opinion, John, is the people who get to the higher percents of their industries, um, owner operate. And, and I know your industry is absolutely huge. You have a ton of pe right? Um, and, and, and, and, and consolidation, um, that happens. So it's like really cool to see businesses like yours where it's.
You. Um, and it's as big as it is, but I think there's so much that happens where you have this lack of [00:36:00] love for the actual business. And you see a lot of technician driven owners mm-hmm. Who love the technical work because it's what they're strongest, what they feel good with, but they don't wanna go and learn the parts of the business that actually make the business grow.
Right? So they don't wanna learn the accounting, they don't wanna learn the sales marketing, they don't wanna learn about Legion, um, they don't wanna learn about roas and, you know, all of the things that are going to actually grow the business. And so they're getting caught. In these gaps. And honestly, here's the thing.
You either replace the gap, you find someone who loves those things, and you lean into that and partner with them in your mindset. Like, I've never been a home inspector. I'm not an engineer and I'm not an environmental tech, so how do I get to have a company mm-hmm. That does those services? Well, because I have amazing people who I have worked with for a very long time who do those services, and I lean on them and we communicate together [00:37:00] really well, and we depend on one another.
Right To do that. I'm also not the best operator in the world. You know, I, I'm not a great efficiency person. I'm not a great system builder. I'm not. So I have a person who does that in, in, in my world, right? And that's where we say, okay, listen, I need a system to run this, and then I need you to create automations, right?
To do that. Um, I'm not a call center expert, right? So like, I'm, I'm, I'm really good at not. Going too deep on any one thing, John. Mm-hmm. Like for my story, I, I, I haven't done that. I just know how to put all these pieces together and I keep my focus on the number one KPI, which is, do we have happy clients?
Mm-hmm. Right? Because if I have happy clients, I have, if, if I have high NPS, my flexibility, um, to. Change and adapt and add services or need to increase a [00:38:00] price here or there. It's there. I have that because I've earned that, because I've kept that in the forefront. And then at the same time, gotta have happy team members, right?
Like they've gotta, they've gotta love what they do. They have to believe in the mission, they have to believe in the vision of where we're going. They have to see a better life for themselves inside of Greenworks, because if the life isn't better inside of Greenworks. Why should they stay?
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Harmony Brownwood: Right?
So then we're not retaining our people. Um, and we're turning people all the time. And if we're having turnover, we have problems, right? We can't make money with high turnover. So it's a, it's a lot of pieces. It's a lot of pieces. And luckily, um, my mind works that way and I love that aspect of it, and I love my people.
Um, and I, I'm willing to do business, um, to get to the people.
John Wilson: That was great. This was, uh, this was an awesome conversation on like walking me through Greenworks, walking me through, uh, you yourself, [00:39:00] uh, and I'm just Yeah, thankful you jumped on with us today. If people want to connect with you, how can they find you?
Harmony Brownwood: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can, uh, find me on social media. Um, so I've got, um, you know, LinkedIn account. Mm-hmm. LinkedIn do Harmony, Brownwood. Um, I've got, uh, an X account, harmony Brownwood without the o uh, Facebook, um, it's Harmony dot Brownwood, so I have that. Um, I can definitely put it all out there for you guys, so like.
Please reach out to me, ask me questions. I you can message me. I'm happy to do that on Instagram. Um, I'm there, it's Harmony Brownwood on Instagram as well, so yeah, like, reach out to me, let's connect. Um, let's talk more. You know, I love talking business. It's my, it's my favorite thing to do. I learn a lot.
Um, I spend a lot of time sharing and learning and listening to great podcasts like this, right? So I think it's a, it's a great opportunity for all of us to expand. Get to know one another better and see, you know, what are you doing Great. Um, [00:40:00] that can help us and obviously we share what we're doing well that we can help someone else too.
John Wilson: Awesome. Thank you Harmony for coming on today.
Harmony Brownwood: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, John.
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