From Hockey Dreams to Home Service Millionaire | Adam Chapman DSH #1181

I played semi-pro uh by Sam when I was 20.

Uh I played that's the only thing I did my whole life was hockey.

I was not a business guy at all.

It was just straight NHL or bust and got pretty close and then had a pretty big injury.

So that's kind of what they ended up.

Concussion, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I was in a fight and I fought a lot too.

Really?

Yeah.

All right guys, Adam Chapman here today from Canada.

Welcome to America.

Welcome to Vegas.

Thank you for having me.

Yes, sir.

Is this your first time in Vegas?

First time in Vegas, yes.

What are you liking about it so far?

Well, you had a really good event last night.

That was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

Pretty much all we've done so far is head to your event.

It was a lot of fun.

A lot of cool people there.

Yeah, yeah.

We were talking outside.

You met all sorts of people, right?

Yeah.

We met an F3 driver last night, some guys in the online space, yourself.

It was a really cool event.

Absolutely.

Anyone recognize you from your viral videos?

Yeah, just

one guy was trying to convince me that we went out in Vegas together, and then he pulled up my instagram and say oh you're the christmas light guy that's what i say yes was that your first viral video the christmas light stuff uh no the first stuff that started going viral was driveway sealing it's like seal coating yeah and you made money off that and just filmed you like performing that on other people's driveways right yeah well it kind of started with just me filming it for my my actual company pad pal filming videos and then A bunch of guys started reaching out to me from all over the place asking for help with their business.

And for me, at least, it was a lot of older guys in the industry, like 65-year-old guys.

So it was just kind of cool to talk to other people that were looking at home services that weren't old.

And then it kind of spilled into creating more and more content.

Damn.

I didn't know the industry was that old.

It's ran by older people.

Yeah, it's a very, it's a very old industry.

It's a very,

let's see, like a little bit more unprofessional.

So being a young guy in it and meeting other young guys in it, it's a lot of opportunity for us.

Yeah.

Do you think it's because our generation is a little lazier?

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like everyone wants to be like a TikTok star or do drop shipping or Amazon FBA, whereas no one wants to go and kind kind of get their hands dirty and put in the hard work.

Yeah, or a podcaster.

Yeah.

I get asked every damn day, yo, how can I start a podcast?

Yeah.

Yeah, well, they think it's easy.

Nothing's easy, but that's a little bit more sexy to be a podcaster than a home service guy.

Yeah, yeah, but these, these jobs are needed, man.

I mean, they're not going away.

AI is not at the point where it can replace them yet.

No, and it's one of those things where I know everyone's afraid of AI for everything, but.

A lot of these services, I just can't see it being a priority of things that AI is taking over.

Maybe it's going to help make it more efficient for business owners, but the actual physical labor is not going anywhere.

Yeah, hanging Christmas lights.

That'd be very hard for an AI to do.

I know there are robots now, though.

Elon Musk dropped one.

Yeah.

Did you see that one?

Yeah, his little, he did the whole release a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, I saw that.

But then, again, you want to think of like application of if they're going to have all that technology, is it going to be for something like Windows or Christmas lights?

Probably not.

It's going to be in a...

a different field, I'd imagine, that's going to be more lucrative than these types of things.

Yeah.

And I love what you teach because it's so relatable and you don't need tons of money to get started.

You started with zero bucks, right?

Yeah.

So I started with basically ground zero.

I was sleeping in my car and then I went door to door, collected deposit money,

used that money throughout the winter to buy my equipment.

And then that was almost nine years ago now.

Damn, what was the first equipment you bought?

First equipment was a squeegee and a scrubber.

I didn't have any of the fancy stuff.

It was just like a bucket, some rags.

Really the basics.

I started with window cleaning and then just kept reinvesting back in my business.

Those window cleaners make decent money though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Window cleaning is an awesome gig because it's cheap to get started with and it's scalable and easily can do about a thousand, fifteen hundred dollars a day by yourself.

So what type of buildings were you doing that for?

Residential.

So we do some commercial stuff, but the biggest one we got into is residential.

There's some that do skyscrapers.

I'm like, dude.

Yeah, we're not into that.

Yeah, I'm good on that one.

They probably make more, but the risk.

Yeah, and it's very, that's very, like, very uncompetitive.

Like, there's not enough companies that do it, but that's, that's not a route we're going to go down.

Yeah, the liability probably is just insane.

You You know, if you're up that high, I remember being on the 40th floor once and I saw someone outside like, dude, that is crazy.

Yeah, it's like, or like those guys that do the free solos up the building and stuff.

Oh, that documentary was my favorite one.

What was that guy's name?

The free climber.

Alex Honold.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was nuts.

And then I saw that one with the boyfriend and girlfriend.

It's on Netflix now.

They're like, I forget what it's called, but they're like going up like the Dubai buildings and stuff, like no harnesses.

What?

That is crazy like sweating watching it you ever do crazy stuff like that uh crazy stuff like that no I love swimming and jumping off cliffs and stuff all right cliff jumping is pretty pretty wild what's the highest cliff you've jumped uh probably like 50 feet or something like that I've done 40 and that was that was pretty scary love throwing the gainers off yeah I had a fear of heights and I was in Jamaica I'm like let me just conquer this I was like I'm not gonna look before I jump I'm just gonna jump off

that's what it's all about tough landing though shit hurt to be honest but there was an 80 foot cliff there and like the the guy's team Shout out to today's sponsor, Specialized Recruiting Group.

Navigating the professional job search is hard.

You know, the perfect job is out there, but you're not sure how to find it.

The good news is, you don't have to go at it alone.

You just need a specialized recruiting group.

You can connect with them at srgpros.com.

They're here to guide you and help you find a role that fits, all without costing a dime.

They're offering a tailored approach to find your next role at srgpros.com and help you get on the right course.

Your local specialized recruiting group team knows which businesses are hiring and can offer you a path to contract and full-time roles.

If you don't see the role you are looking for on their website, specialized recruiting group also recruits for confidential roles, so give an office near you a call to learn more.

Take the next step in your career by starting at srgpros.com.

Teaching everyone we're jumping off that one and doing backflips.

I'm like, yeah, dude, that's wild.

But cliff jumping is fun.

You do a lot of stuff in nature?

A lot of stuff in nature.

Not too much.

I like getting getting away and going to the going down south and taking the winters i call it off i guess but working on the business while my guys are kind of taking care of the lights and stuff taking them down um but yeah i like i love going going swimming and stuff like that getting out of canada for sure it's cold out there yeah it's already snowing and blowing so it's nice to get down here there's spots to swim out there though uh kind of a little bit like lakes and stuff it's only good for like july or else it's pretty cold yeah you like the u.s better overall yeah i love the states so you want to move here yeah it's either gonna be florida or texas okay well las vegas is pretty nice so far yeah it's hard to be vegas that process is hard i heard yeah i have a company that's kind of like down to get my visa and do that with me if i wanted to yeah kind of looking into that i just met someone and he said it was like eight thousand bucks or something and that's a lot for most people so yeah yeah definitely for a lot of people but uh it's definitely a lot of opportunity here too and coming down to meeting a lot of successful people and Yeah, it's definitely the move.

You think your business is replicatable in the U.S.?

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we haven't started franchising.

It's something that we've considered.

considered, but for my online stuff, everyone just kind of copies and pastes what I do in Canada, in Ottawa, Canada.

And we have guys in Florida, California.

We have a couple guys in Vegas as well.

Yeah, copy, paste the same systems, the same strategies, and they're doing really well.

Wow.

Yeah, I guess it's needed everywhere, right?

A lot of people celebrate Christmas, so they need the Christmas lights getting hung.

And there's no one really teaching that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's.

We teach a variety of services.

So like, and that's the other thing that comes into play is like where you are.

So people that are like in California or Florida, anything on the coast, like soft washing is a big service.

Soft washing?

Yeah.

So it's like you're cleaning the roof with the chemicals.

Yeah.

So that got a big thing.

Whereas where I am, it's not really a big thing.

So different places have different services that are more needed or more popular.

Whereas

there's our services that are the same everywhere.

Like window cleaning is going to happen in Vegas.

It's going to happen everywhere.

Same thing with the lights.

We do the Christmas lights, permanent lights.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's depending on what people want to do, I talk a lot about service stacking.

So what we'll do is get a client for window cleaning and then we'll upsell them gutter cleaning and then get them on Christmas lights.

And now that one customer spending $2,000 a year, you do a good job, do what you're supposed to do, and they'll come back.

Yeah, dude, my handyman is booked all day, every day.

It's nuts.

Yeah, $60 an hour, and he's booked all friggin' day.

Yeah, just people don't want to do it.

And if you, people that are doing it, as long as you do a good job, like people stay loyal because everyone's been burned or like kind of stood up by a contract or by a company.

So it's unlike other industries, you can kind of just do the basics and really stand stand out.

So if you take it above that, it's the world is yours.

Facts.

Plus the marketing is all word of mouth.

So like if you do good work, people are going to refer you business, right?

I've sent a ton of referrals.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely, man.

Yeah, but there is that negative stigma with contractors for sure.

Because it's always like they give you that initial quote and it's never that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're well, a lot of these guys can charge and they, they know that.

Like if they're really good at doing like pavers and stuff, they'll be booked out for a year.

So they have that take it or leave it kind of mentality sometimes.

I remember when i caught my house this one guy wanted to charge me like 10k to replace the ac units and they were all like fine yeah i'm like dude yeah yeah you gotta you do gotta be careful and that's why i tell guys to like build up a good google reviews build up a presence and do the right thing because it's gonna pay off in the long run yeah so when did home service university start because you've been doing this for nine years you said right yeah so i've been doing my own company for almost nine years now and i started home service university about two years ago now uh and it's the uh

i feel like it's as lame as it sounds i feel like that was like why i was put on planet earth earth it's uh it's really cool to see guys from all over the place and some guys come in and they're struggling and and to see them a year later be able to go from either losing their job or maybe only making like 40k a year to working for themselves making a hundred thousand dollars a year being able to have their wife at home with the kids so about two years doing the home service university but it's two years of uh 24-7 obsession.

So it's moving quick.

Yeah, it's cool.

You're saying you got some testimonials already.

People in Cali are visiting.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're going to California on Sunday to go visit uh two of my students so it's a husband and wife combo we don't have a lot of those so it's kind of cool dynamic um husband and wife we were kind of doing as a bit of a side hustle the wife quit her jobs to do more of it and then now this summer her husband quit and now they're their dream was to have a business together and they're doing about 25 000 a month and damn yeah yeah there's there's plenty of money in the home services so they're making more money and they're working together and then also like yeah have control of their time so 25 a month is that just off one service or did they kind of do everything yeah so 25 000 a month that's what you can do for like a a one- or two-person crew.

And that's pretty standard across the board for like window cleaning or gutter cleaning.

Right now, they're doing Christmas lights.

You can make more Christmas lights.

So it'd be interesting to check in on them tomorrow and see if they're so I've never paid for that like Christmas lights.

Where do people pay for that for their house?

So we start at $1,000 minimum.

Whoa.

People pay a thousand for Christmas lights?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's, it's an experience.

So it's not just like hardware store lights.

Like we use commercial grade lights.

We make it like really, really, really nice.

and yeah like our our average ticket at my company last year was 1800 damn yeah

that's nuts and we lease the lights too so it's like a rental basically okay so they're just paying for the service oh wow so they don't even own the lights no holy crap yeah what a business model yeah it's it's very it's very lucrative like my company this year we got 250 000 uh and just christmas lights damn yeah so october november december right yeah october november right through december yeah so it's not even like a year it's just three months you're doing that revenue yeah which is crazy yeah yeah and we we have, we have some people in home service university that have like normal jobs and then they always take all their time off in the fall and make a bunch of money with Christmas lights.

Yeah.

Damn.

It does, it probably does take a long time to hang them though in the house.

It depends on what exactly you're doing, but like when I send out two guys, my goal for them is to do $5,000 of jobs a day.

So it's either like two jobs or sometimes three jobs.

We have some residential clients that that'd be one full day at their house, $5,000.

That's impressive.

You ever get into moving?

Moving?

Yeah, like moving house to house, house moving company oh no no no no that would be uh it would be uh moving sucks really well i don't know if the business model sucks but personally oh yeah personally yeah we can all agree on that yeah i just i just asked because i paid this moving company like i think it was like fifteen hundred two thousand bucks just to move i was like damn i wonder what their margins are on that yeah it's just labor right just labor right yeah there's no really i guess the truck but yeah and the the other thing that's beautiful too is you could like like i tell guys like get creative like if you want to start a moving company you could find the lead quote the job and then go rent a truck and get a buddy and start building it up from there so yeah the margins the margins would be good absolutely do you have a process for finding leads using social media for my pad pal and stuff yes yeah we i started the business off door to door because i was broke i had no money um and it's awesome i love door to door because you can start from zero and make a thousand like i could leave this podcast today and just because i have the skill set i could come home with a thousand bucks easy like from window cleaning uh but i tell guys to build up your brand name do it right, like get that repeat business.

And then that's kind of what we do.

And then, as well as you do Facebook ads, Google ads, yard signs.

Yard signs, people find it surprising if they ever called a yard sign before.

But yard signs, people call yard signs and they work really well.

What?

Yeah, like those signs that you'll see on the people actually call those?

People actually call those all the time.

No way.

That's like a billboard to me.

Like, I've never bought off a billboard.

I promise you, man, like, especially when it comes to Christmas lights, like, we give in Home Service University, we give them everything at PadPal that my company does.

And we have these yard signs that are like 12 by 18.

It just says holiday lighting, phone number.

And guys get phone calls before they even get home from putting the signs.

What?

Is that a Canada thing, you think, though?

No, everywhere.

Everywhere, all over Canada, the states, maybe some places are not as popular, but every single one in Home Service U.

If I opened up the app right now, it's like you type in sign, got the job from yard sign, got the job from here.

No way.

Wow.

I mean, I guess it's a it depends on the industry.

Like if someone did that for something else, it probably wouldn't work.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Like it works for Windows and stuff.

Of course, other people that have those the windows and gutters is more popular but when you have that holiday the holiday lighting sign just

it's a money printer man like a sign's going to cost you like a buck and then a job's a thousand like you can't get that roi on facebook ads or anything yeah gutter cleaning i didn't know the money was that big in gutter cleaning my parents used to get that when i lived in jersey yeah so like the kind of like standard rates like window cleaning you're gonna be about 250 a job gutter cleaning about 250 300 christmas lights is a thousand soft washing about 750.

uh depending on the driveway ceiling you're about 500 bucks for driveway ceiling.

Yeah, so the money's there.

Which ones do you lean towards out of all those?

My favorite service is holiday lighting.

It's high ticket, recurring.

It's very sticky.

Like unless customer moves, they come back.

Yeah.

Second after that, maybe the seal coating.

You can get pretty big into parking lots and stuff like that.

I'd say those are my favorite two.

They all have their kind of like pros and cons, I guess, as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's so many ways to make money.

I saw people flipping Christmas trees last year.

That was pretty viral.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, flipping Christmas trees.

And that's the other thing, too, is like my company, PadPal, I could go tomorrow and launch PadPal Painting because we don't do painting right now, send out an email campaign, and we'd be booked out for months because even though we've never done painting, they know what to expect when they contact my company and they work with PadPal.

They want us to do everything for them.

Wow.

So you got a great reputation.

Yeah, it's been a lot of work.

And yeah, it's, but we have a good reputation.

How do you handle like angry customers?

That's a good question.

You just refund them or what?

Try not to too much.

But yeah, we do always make sure that our customers are happy because like I said, it's a lifetime customer, right?

So if they're getting their gutters clean and there's treats around, they're going to do it next year.

So sometimes, yeah, like if you need to like waive a service or something like that, absolutely.

We do pretty good, though, especially now that I've been gotten my hand on it.

Yeah.

When I first started out, of course, had more issues and stuff.

And people are pretty understanding for the most part as well.

I've only had two in the past few years, but I just refund them both because I don't want them like bad mouthing me.

Like reputation is super important these days.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Reputation is more important than a couple hundred bucks.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And some customers, I know there's that saying, like, you should always like do right by them, but at a certain point, like, you know, they're taking a little too far.

I'm just going to refund you so we don't have to do business together.

Yeah.

I think that maybe even more so when it comes to someone's house, sometimes they think,

oh, geez, do that while you're here.

Do this while you're here sometimes.

So, yeah,

you got to kind of keep an eye on it.

But if you're kind of marketing marketing yourself to the right clients and charging a premium price for your service, I always enforce that on guys.

Like teach guys like, hey, charge a premium price.

You can pay your guys well.

You pay your workers well, they're gonna do a good job.

They're gonna stay.

And then your customers are gonna come back.

You get for what you pay for.

Yeah, exactly.

Like you should never, especially for your house, you should never go with the cheapest quote you get.

Definitely not because you're gonna get the worst quality work for the most part.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Or, or they're uninsured, and then they get injured, and that's you and the homeowner.

So yeah, I usually pick like the middle one.

Yeah.

You know, I'll get like at least three quotes and I'll pick the middle one for the most part.

Yeah, it's a good way to go.

So you played hockey and you were really good.

Not decent enough, I guess.

Yeah, so I played, I played semi-processing when I was 20.

That's the only thing I did my whole life was hockey.

Like I was not a business guy at all.

It was just straight NHL or bust and got pretty close and then had a pretty big injury.

So that's kind of what laying in the service.

Concussion, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I was in a fight and I fought a lot too.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was in a fight and a guy had my helmet off and I hit my head off the ice having convulsions for like three days.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

So he like flipped you?

Yeah.

You got like a 16-game suspension because you're not allowed to do that.

Like it's just like physics.

Like if you, someone's on skates and you push them and pull their pants like this.

Yeah.

They're going to flip.

And then I didn't feel anything at the time.

Like I got up and then I was in the change room after like the, it was like right at the end of the game and the coach was talking and then I just started like convulsing.

Holy crap!

So, I was 20 years old, thought I was like this close to going to the next step of my first year of playing pro.

And next thing you know, I'm being told by the team doctor, hey, like, you're not playing hockey here for at least another year.

And then the team, it's pro, it's a business.

They said, Hey, see ya, like

good luck.

Hope you get better.

Damn.

That's insane, dude.

That was probably the lowest point of your life, right?

Oh, for uh, yeah, I've definitely had a not the easiest upbringing and stuff, but like when I'm in the middle of Georgia from Canada and sleeping in the back of a car, I was definitely and didn't know anything about anything in life, just hockey.

I was definitely questioning what I should do.

Right, because you put all your eggs in that basket.

Every single thing I knew was hockey at the time.

Yeah, there was no backup plan.

And then when that got taken away, you were probably like super lost.

Didn't know who to talk to, right?

Yeah, I was very, it was very, very dark for sure.

I didn't really have anywhere to go either.

Like my mom was living with my great-grandma at the time, like an old age home.

yeah so it's technically like i guess homeless for like you were in georgia you said i was in georgia at the time yeah wow that is crazy so what were like the steps you took from there to get out of that funk so the the way it works in canada is like well i guess for hockey wise is you play major junior so that's like semi-pro I guess that would be considered

and then after that you the universities try to get you in Canadian universities because you can't go to the states anymore to do D1 because you're paid to play

so they try to like poach all the guys when they're 20 And my brother and I were the same age.

We went in the summer and just did a bunch of school tours just to kind of get the money and have fun for the weekend and then leave.

We were both going pro anyways kind of idea.

And one of the schools reached out to me during that time and said, hey, we saw you got injured.

Come here.

We'll pay for your rehab.

We'll give you somewhere to stay.

And I was like, might as well at least have somewhere to stay.

So I went there.

I started doing my rehab.

And that's kind of.

the full circle of how I ended up getting into the home services was a really bad concussion was really wondering if there's any real point of life anymore to falling into the home service space to being the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Wow.

So that school saved you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everyone at that school was awesome.

Like the people at the hockey team were good.

The doctor, the team doctor was really awesome.

My physio.

I didn't do anything that rest of that year.

So I took the rest of that year just to do rehab and stuff.

And then the next year I went back to hockey at university, did academic all-Canadian, which is good grades essentially, and you did a lot of points.

And then did hockey for the rest of my university career, but my main focus at that point, I really knew that I liked business more than sports because everything is in your control.

Whereas in sports, unless you're a superstar, there's so many things that are out of your control.

Whereas business, it's, if you suck, it's your own fault.

Facts.

Yeah.

Because sports, especially team sports, you can only contribute X amount of percentage.

Right.

You can only contribute so much.

For all you know, like you're on a bad line or you get benched or you get hurt or you get traded.

Like there's so many, especially when I was playing pro, you'll see guys run like NHL two-way deals.

So they need to be the one that's getting the most ice time so that they can get pulled up for politics.

Yeah, there's a lot of that, especially when it comes to pro and like a lot of things are out of your control too.

Yeah.

I think you would like chess.

I know we were talking out there about chess because if you lose chess, it's your fault.

Yeah.

It's not like some lucky thing happened.

Yeah.

I love chess.

Yeah.

And that's the same thing with business too.

And a lot of people.

Aren't good at business.

Let's be honest.

It's not for everyone.

Fucks.

I mean, I think, what, 95% fail?

Something crazy like that?

I have no idea, but it's,

I look at business like this, at least for what I know in the, I don't know every single industry, obviously, but for home services and stuff like that, like, as long as you stay consistent with it and don't give up, I think that's where most people fail.

I know that stat, like everyone, a lot of businesses fail, but how many people that you know, at least, that put in like a half-assed effort and I technically count it as a business.

That's true, yeah.

Opening up an LLC and then not doing anything.

Yeah.

They probably count that as a fail, but they never even tried.

Yeah, or they don't try long enough.

I think people underestimate underestimate how much it takes to get as far as some people do.

Like when you say people come to the podcast, because they see you, they see the studio, they see who you are now, but they don't see you tripping over your words and having a hard time even knowing what to talk about and figuring out your audio for the first time and sticking with it.

Yeah, plus the seven years of personal branding and personal development before that.

Yeah, you know, even getting to that point.

It's like when people see me now, like they it's weird because they don't know my whole like they assume that I like came from money or a super smart guy or anything like that, whereas it's not the case.

Or like my first, my first business vehicle is a 2003 Chevy, the same 2003 Chevy Malibu I was sleeping in.

Wow.

The next one was a 1972 F-150 that was just enough money to get enough jobs done to get a nicer one and then kept upgrading.

Love it.

Yeah, raised by a single mother too, right?

Same here.

Yeah.

Good for you, man.

Yeah, it was tough at the time for sure.

Felt pretty lost, especially in sports, like not having that father figure.

I was super like passive.

Bro,

it's such a helpful thing if you have a father that's involved for the kids playing sports and can give some influence.

I had no idea how it worked.

My mom just said work hard and

basically go to the NHL and work hard, but I didn't really know how the whole process worked.

So I admire that you got that far and done well for yourself, man.

Yeah, no, for sure.

Shout out to my mom.

She did her best.

But yeah, my mentality was just so timid.

I was shy.

I didn't have that confidence going up.

Yeah.

But it sounds like you had some, right, with the hockey stuff.

Had some confidence?

Yeah.

It's just the only, it was, yeah, it was just the only thing that I, I looked at hockey.

I remember being young and being like, okay, like, I can't, I don't want to have a life like this one day.

So hockey is the only way to get rich is what like I always believed.

So being really good at hockey was something to kind of like escape everything else that's going on.

And I just saw it as a way to like, be able to like one day take care of my mom and like when I have kids and stuff, I want to have a better life for myself.

Yeah, that was your outlet to escape.

Yeah, it was hockey.

Who initiated the fights mainly?

Had you gotten a lot?

I find people always find this funny when you, when I tell them this, but some of them are really like,

I don't want to say set up, but you know, you're going to fight.

Like, it's before the game, like, if you're like doing warm-ups, you'll see you guys talking at the red line.

Like, that guy's tough.

I want to fight him.

And then you'll go up to, hey, man, you want to fight?

I'm like, yeah, sounds good, bro.

Why?

It's very chill like that sometimes.

Really?

Yeah.

Like, when I be in junior these times, like, hey, man, let's fight.

They're like, no, man.

Come on, man.

Like, he's like, no, no, no.

Man, like, your coach will love it.

You haven't played in, like, fucking five minutes.

Like, let's go.

Okay, fine.

And then you fight and then you're paying blocks.

Hey, man, thanks.

I needed that.

Like, what?

It's very, like, that.

Sometimes they're very intense and like mad and all that.

But a lot of times it's like, you know, you're on a way game.

Or like, let's say you're on a way game, you're down to nothing.

The other team's tough guy knows that someone else on their team is going to come up and say, hey, bro, fight.

And it's like, he owes you one because next time that their team will need momentum, he'll ask you to fight and you fight him back.

Oh, so it's like a momentum shifter, that's why people do it.

Yeah, oh, yeah, I never knew that.

I always see them on TV.

I'm like, what's the reason for this?

If someone just ran, if you've ever watched an HL game and someone just like drops the gloves and starts fighting, and it's random, it's because someone that's on the team that doesn't have momentum went out and said, Hey, can you help us out fight me?

And then that's kind of how it starts.

Yeah, damn, that's crazy.

So, you made a full recovery, though, from that brain injury, yeah, yeah, it was uh, it was a big process, um, did a lot of stuff for that, but made a full recovery.

But I just didn't want to continue.

I finished my university because you don't quit what you start.

So I finished my university, finished with the hockey team.

But then as soon as I was done, I just doubled down on the business because, like I said, I realized that I didn't love hockey.

I just saw it as a way to one day provide a life and be able to take care of my future family.

And then when I saw that and the window cleaning and these simple services, I just...

doubled down.

So as soon as I graduated, that's when I first added Christmas lights and really took my business to the next level.

Nice.

So you've been doing that business for nine years.

How, how long did it take to get to six figures in revenue with that business?

Uh, two years.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's quick.

Yeah.

So, my first year, I did 55,000, but that was from April until mid-August because I was in university.

So, then we have training camp and stuff.

And then my second year, yeah, we did the 140.

And then by university and graduating, we got 260.

Damn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really impressive, dude.

For real.

I mean, not a lot of businesses you could start within two, three years do that type of number.

Yeah.

So if you're doing the home home service business if you're doing it full-time like a good benchmark to hit for yourself if you're doing the right thing should be a hundred thousand your first year first year holy crap a hundred thousand revenues your first year good margin if you're doing yourself you're working hard of course but that's like a solid like first year if you're going to start in january february and yeah i mean average salary in the us is i think 50k so yeah you can do a lot better for yourself just doing these simple jobs like gotta get your hands dirty though that's the thing that's the difference yeah that's that's the only that which a lot of guys now i think are starting to open up and like see how much opportunity is there but we had a guy just before i came in here i was looking we have our our app for home service you a guy said hey i've done 54 000 this year in christmas lights and i remember that guy when i first met him he was like yeah i work for a marketing agency they haven't fired me yet but i feel like it's coming and then he ended up getting fired but he started his business ahead of time inside of it so it's smart to probably do this on the side at first It's a good, yeah, depending on what you're doing in life, like it's something that I always tell people you want to do it right, like build up your brand, like do it right, do it for the long term.

But yeah, you can start up on the side.

We have a lot of guys that do it on the side of their nine to five to start.

And yeah, like I was just in Colorado visiting a guy, he has four kids and a nine-to-five, but he's like, it's not going to leave anything behind for my kids.

I want to build something.

He started doing his Christmas light business this year, doing a massive mega church the other day.

Damn, yeah, yeah, those churches got money.

I've never seen that in Canada.

That was nuts.

That was in LA.

Yeah, there's the Rain Trover parked out front.

The G-Wagon.

Oh, the classic.

Yeah, that's not in Canada.

Yeah, it was in Colorado.

Yeah.

Yeah, a massive church.

yeah i got to bring this up because you said this outside canadian uh jobs so 25 of canadian jobs are for the government yeah that is insane yeah you think that's too high right it's makes a very uh slow uh moving society for sure yeah so people are just comfortable yeah comfort comfortable enough yeah i wouldn't say i'm not happy i'd say comfortable or uh yeah like being an entrepreneur there is probably like looked down on almost Yeah, if you stand out a lot, like if you're flashy, especially like kind of, I'm in Ottawa, like it's it's not something that's celebrated.

Like when you're here in vegas and in miami like you see people are doing big things it's i wouldn't even say as much celebrated as people are interested and want to learn more and stuff whereas in in canada it's much more uh closed off play it play it a bit more low-key for sure there's parts of europe like that too it's just like I hear all the time America's like the best entrepreneurial country and we live here so we just don't know what else is out there you know you guys are hungry you guys are go-getters like I'll talk to a guy from the states that's like yeah man like my girl just left me I have five thousand dollars for my name I hate my job I just need a change in life and then they'll be like, cool, let's start my home service business.

And then a year later, they're putting up numbers and hiring workers and like going after it.

Whereas like, yeah, a lot of guys from Canada are very like,

yeah, risk adverse and want to really like take their time with things.

Damn, that's wild.

It's so close to here, too.

It's not even that far away.

It's a whole different world.

There's just a lot of like a lot of different factors kind of like play into that, of course.

A lot of government workers just kind of like embedded into our society the mentality.

And then obviously a lot of like red tape on things.

Right.

you were saying the companies have monopolized a lot of industries out there yeah yeah like a big ones like phone plans and basically all the grocery stores like yeah they do that here i don't know if it's as bad but like if there's a healthy food brand coming up they'll get acquired by like an unhealthy one and then they'll change you the ingredients real quick to make more money a similar idea yeah it'd be like five grocery stores are under owned by one company so they just yeah kind of set that is the one downside of capitalism i guess you know the big dogs are just gonna eat they'll buy out the up up-and-comers and stay big but I don't know if there's a better system honestly yeah I don't know the states are doing pretty good you guys

we rebounded well from the COVID stuff I don't know how you guys handled that stuff but apparently we rebounded better than most countries in the US yeah Canada's had a hard time that's for sure I remember you couldn't even fly in at one point yeah I was I left a lot during covet just because I was like yo screw this

like especially it was like during January and stuff yeah so you you were able to get out yeah well I left uh right before I was like I could tell the second time they're shutting it down i was like hey i'm not it was january so at that time of the year my guys are just taking down the christmas lights anyways so i don't need to be around so i i went to uh anguilla in the caribbean okay that sounds fun yeah my mentor's from there and funny enough he's from canada built an asphalt company and sold it and then damn moved down there how'd you meet him uh social media he reached out to me he saw me creating content for driveway sealing and he has a supply company now so they supply seal coating stuff and he said hey come down i was like say less I love that.

And that's the power of social media right there.

Yeah, it's it's it's incredibly powerful.

That's how we met, you know, content posting daily.

You never know who's gonna see it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I got like big people coming up to me.

They're like, Yo, I've seen your videos.

I'm like, Holy crap.

Yeah.

It's nuts.

It's cool.

Like it opened so many doors.

Were you posting nine years ago, like on social media, or were you doing it more behind the scenes?

My first three years, the only thing I was doing was door to door.

Just while I was in university, I just didn't didn't know, you know, but then as I was getting more and learning more, I was posting a lot of content for my company, PadPal.

Um, and that's how people found me to help them start and grow their businesses:

seeing the content that I was creating for homeowners, being like, Hey, Ottawa, like, come get your windows cleaned, or stuff like that.

So, love it, it's what brought me and started, I guess, my, like I said, my life's purpose, Home Service University, was from just creating social media content.

It's powerful.

Uh, where can people find your social media and what else you got going on?

Uh, yeah, my social media, it's Adam R.

Chap, C-H-A-P, Tracy Chapman,

and then you can go go to like, we have a website, join home service.

JoinhomeserviceUniversity.com.

Perfect.

We'll link below.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Okay, thank you very much.

Check out his stuff, guys.

Peace.