From Stuck to Sold: The $18M Turnaround Story Every Business Owner Should Hear

ever look at your business and think, hey, we're doing fine.

But deep down, you know something's off.

That was Elaine and Todd.

15 years in business, solid margins, good reputation, and completely stuck.

They hit a ceiling most owners will never break through.

Then they got real about one thing.

The business only grows as fast as the owner does.

They stopped chasing vanity metrics like revenue and started chasing value.

Instead of bragging about trucks on the road, they focused on profit per truck.

They stopped pretending that busy meant successful.

They joined a network that forced them to level up and scaled from $3 million to almost $20 million a year with margins most companies would kill for.

In this episode, we're going to break down exactly how they killed the ego, focus on the right metrics, and built a business private equity couldn't ignore.

If you're tired of playing small, this is your wake-up call that you've been meeting because the mindset shift they made might be the one you've been avoiding.

So you guys owned an HVAC electrical plumbing company for 21 years.

And based on kind of some of our discussions, 15 of those years were

good, but they were just kind of stagnant growth.

And that took place until what year?

I think that was 2017.

So you guys were just in the electrical space doing about $3 million a year?

Actually, it must have been 2015 because we've spent 15 years.

So it's 2015.

And then we got into HVAC.

We added HVAC.

Got it.

So

you're up until 2015, 3 million, you're good, running good margins, 15, 20%,

now good, good things.

And then

something happened.

What changed?

They're like, hey, I'm sick of it, ready to make some moves.

Like, where do you see the big changes that took place?

I would say

Every year we'd get to the end of the year and assess, you know, how do we do, what'd we do different?

And finally, the mirror had to be held up to like myself and Todd.

At that time, I decided to go get my MBA to expand my horizons.

And

a business can only grow as much as an owner's mental limitations.

And that's where we started.

So it sounds kind of like just like a hard-hitting, like, oh, maybe I don't know everything.

Maybe,

you know, it's interesting.

I went through similar things.

So my, my first business failed then i started some other businesses and i just couldn't grow like i was just like

and then it was like finally i was like you know i'm the issue i'm the problem i got to go figure some stuff out and so like what what So you went to go get an MBA.

What are some different things that you guys did to like make the big changes to go from 3 million to eventually you guys before you sold to private equity, you were doing like 18, 20 million a year?

That's right.

Okay, cool.

So yeah, what were like those big bridges?

Gosh, we joined an organization called Nextstar Network, and it was just full of like over 300 contractors who were successful.

And we just decided, let's just copy and do what other successful businesses are going to do.

And we can't help but be successful.

That was another thing we did.

Nice.

So deciding like, hey, we want to go mirror success, see what other people are doing in the space.

And then what did you guys do for like your own like personal development from a, from a leadership standpoint?

Well, we got involved with Tony Robbins.

Yes.

Started doing some personal development layer, you know, getting out of our own way basically was the biggest thing with Tony Robbins.

And what were like the hard realizations for yourself personally?

Because I'm sure you felt like a king of your own anthill at 3 million bucks for some time, right?

Like you're like, hey, I'm pretty awesome.

We're doing great.

Cause like, you know, making 600 grand a year like is not a, you know, especially, especially pre-COVID, before things went, you know, double in price, I mean, 600 grand was pretty awesome.

So like, what were like some hard personal realizations that you had to go through?

Well, you know, being an electrician by trade, I really, I really thought we could show the whole industry that we could, we could do what everybody else was doing, just an electrical.

And it took a lot of years, 15 to be exact, to realize,

you know, the.

The big money is in HVAC and plumbing.

The demand's different.

The money's different.

They want stuff done right away.

And it just

having to realize it's time and just that shift.

This is the one day you're like, we got to do this.

And I think she brought it to my attention.

It's like, we have to bring on HVAC.

And

so, so it's interesting.

You're saying like, hey, you know, I felt like I wanted to prove that you could do this.

Like, who was talking

in the back of your mind that was like that you were trying to prove wrong?

Because everyone's got someone that they're trying to prove wrong.

Was it, was it friends?

Was it family?

Was it people you grew up with?

Was it people from the trades?

Like, what, what was,

what was like eating you that made you like, no, I'm going to do this?

Boy, I'm not exactly sure.

I haven't had that asked of me yet.

That's my goal.

Every show is to ask a question that you have never been asked before.

Hey, guys, it's Chris.

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Now, let's dive back in the show.

I don't know when we were around all these Nexstar members that had huge HVAC shops and plumbing.

I just really thought there's a lot of electrical work out there, but it's super, it's a little more challenging than HVAC and plumbing to bring in revenue.

Yeah.

And I mean, I just thought we could really, I thought we could go to like 20 million in our small little market, which there's probably great electrical contractors that do that.

We just, we weren't able to do it.

And we just had to put our ego aside and say, listen, we're in business to make money.

Yeah.

And even more money.

And we can do what these other big players are doing.

We had the talent and we had, you know, we had the team and

we just went for it.

Yeah.

Ego is such an interesting thing.

You know, I had a guy come in the other day.

One of my sales guys had brought him in and,

you know, he was interested in getting some help with his business, but.

it didn't appear that way when we sat down and talked.

It was like, it was like this measuring contest of like what he's done and who he is and everything else.

And I like, you know, cool, but like it's so often you know there's a lot of people that are just stuck in that and like the fact that you're able to overcome that i think it's one of the hardest things to do as a business owner is just come to that realization like hey maybe i don't know everything and maybe i don't need to try to prove someone else wrong and you know maybe i just need to go with what works yeah

yes well one of the things we decided early on though when we were we were meeting with all these great contractors and it was always discussions about how many trucks you had yeah and we realized we don't care how many trucks we had.

What we cared about was that net margin, that the EBITDA number.

And we focused on that.

And, you know, it really sounds real sexy to say you have 100 trucks, but if you're only doing 5% net, that's not good.

No, it's terrible.

And yeah, I mean, everybody knows that revenue is just for the ego, right?

Profit is where all the sanity is.

And

one number that we had talked about before the show is like the gross margins you guys were selling at.

You want to share a little bit more of that?

Yeah, we were selling around 65% 65% gross margins.

And, you know, I'm just going to give you a round of applause because, you know, this is that's the exact range that we train people.

Like, and so few contractors can wrap their head around that.

They're just like, no, I got to be at like 30%, 40%.

And all they do is they try to compete with that bottom tier.

And, you know, the interesting thing is when you peg against the bottom tier, you're never going to be the cheapest and you're still trying to deliver a quality experience for the bottom tier price, which is just like, the thing doesn't work and so um you're 65 gross and then i i from a net standpoint what percentage were you guys hitting on a consistent basis we're we're in the 15 17 yeah which is which is which is phenomenal right like you can build a real business with with that can i share a mantra um actually i'm having an aha moment after all of this discussion um we would ask ourselves all the time to keep focused do we want to do a five million company at 20% profit or a $10 million company at 10% profit?

Did I say that right?

Yeah, exactly.

You're doing twice some of that's work for the same amount of money.

When we would, it's easy to get sucked into the conversation of the number of trucks and we'd be like, nope, how do we maximize the 6% we're spending on marketing?

all the follow-up and how can we even make that smaller and just focus, focus, focus on that.

and um because we want more money and half the headache yeah half the half the work more money all day

why do it and not make money so you know it's it's crazy i uh so we had a a company come into our our community that was doing a hundred million a year okay and to everybody they would be like oh man 100 million so cool

net EBITDA margin, which includes ad backs, was 2 million a year.

And it's just like,

and frankly, when you looked at the books, they were on the verge of negative cash flow.

And it's just like, oh, shoot me now.

Yeah, I would, I would much rather do 10 million at 2 million in net.

I mean, so that's an extreme example.

And the level of stress that these people were going through and everything, just to really feed their ego.

And a lot of it, I think, is driven by the inability to have hard conversations and address the real elephants in the room, right?

Like we're paying too much, we're losing efficiency here or whatnot.

And you just kind of sit on the back burner like, well, at least I'm doing 100 million, right?

Like the justification.

And I think that's where revenue always comes into place.

People use it to justify their inability to run quality business.

And so it's that the fact that you guys had figured it out, obviously that's one of the biggest reasons that you were able to go and exit to private equity because that's what private equity wants, right?

They want somebody that

it's good quality, healthy margins that they're going to be able to go and scale.

Yeah, plus we always kept a lot of money in reserves too, to weather any storm if we did have a bad month.

We kept a lot of capital.

That's a great,

I got a great question for that.

Did you have a methodology or an algorithm that you used as far as like how much cash that you wanted to keep in the bank?

Not really.

Just more of like six months worth of money, you know, and that liquid that was easily, you know, used for the company.

So like six months of fixed costs?

Right.

Got it.

Got it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So typically the methodology that I teach, it's, it's 10% of the previous six months of revenue is usually, and which comes close to aligning on the fixed cost

type deal.

So it's just way too stressful if you don't have any reserves.

Yeah.

It's just way, way too stressful.

And it's really easy.

I've seen contractors do it.

Take the money out and they're buying jacked up trucks and

lift kits on their pickups and swimming pools.

But man, you have to keep retained earnings.

So that's, you need not throw in your business.

Like it's, it'd just be way too stressful not to have it.

What is your guys' position on debt?

Like leases, debt, finance?

Like what did what did you guys use for your philosophy there?

Well, we owned most of our vehicles, but like we had to finance quite a few of them.

But our philosophy was half of our fleet had to be paid for.

That way, if anything happened, the bank couldn't come take it from us.

So we've always felt like we were in a good position.

Towards the end, we started leasing more.

It became more advantageous to lease.

So we got out of the...

Just, you know, we were buying them on like five-year terms and we started doing those track leases.

Yeah.

But we were trying to have about half of our fleet paid for at any one time.

And as far as like an operational line of credit, did you have one in the background?

Did you ever use it?

We had one and we hadn't used it in years.

And

we would just sometimes

take money in it just because the bank wants to see you using it.

We were just doing, just pay it right back, like just to move money around, but we didn't need it at all.

Right.

Now, I mean, you guys built a great business, built it up to 18 million, sold it to private equity kind of during 2021.

That's right.

Perfect timing, I would say, in the, in the private equity world.

So you did fantastic there.

What regrets do you have in building your business?

Not starting plumbing and

HVAC sooner.

Okay.

Yeah.

So not getting outside of the ego earlier on and realizing, man, maybe I don't know everything.

Okay.

So that's great.

What else?

Operationally.

Maybe, maybe let me phrase this.

What actually got me thinking of this question was your stance on debt.

Do you have any regrets on not utilizing financing more, knowing that you were running good quality business?

Or is that the way that you would do it every time?

I think that's the way we would do it every time.

I just don't want to behold any bank.

When we first got started, we had SBA loans and just the reporting and all the stress of having to take your line of credit down to zero.

And then, you know, by the end of the year, and it's just, if you can do it with your own money, that's way, to me, it's a much easier process.

Love it.

So you guys ended up running north of 80 vehicles out of one location.

Do you have any regrets as far as opening up additional locations?

Would you ever consider, like if you could go back and talk to yourselves 10 years ago, would you have ever opened up an additional location

we we did open up at one we opened up one in seattle with electrical electrical

and so this was pre-2015

yeah that was this was when you were only doing electrical only that's right that was probably what 2012

yeah 20 yeah and it doesn't it doesn't sound like it went to a few years

all right

It was like for four years?

Yeah, three or four.

Why'd you shut it down?

Well, well we had helped a friend out that had electrical business over there he was struggling you know so we bought it we paid off all the debt and um

we got to work and

you know just like we kept him on as a minority owner

and um of just that branch right got it right and it just wasn't working out like i we would make money if i was there all the time so i was actually leaving spoken

Monday mornings.

I'd drive to Seattle and I'd come on Thursday night.

In the weeks I wasn't there, we'd lose money.

And after four weeks, the first year we actually made some profit dollars and I thought, well, this is going to be good, but

it just didn't work out.

You got to have, when you have a

second location, you're only as good as your management team.

Right.

If you don't have a good team that could run it without you there,

it's just not going to work well.

So knowing what you know now, right?

You ran the business for 21 years?

Yeah.

Okay.

Everything you know now, and you go back 21 years.

How different would that business look over a 21-year span?

Pay me the dream.

What do you think could be done different?

How would it look?

Would it be multi-location

or would you keep it to 20 million, just making incredible profits?

I don't know if we need to do multiple locations.

That always sounds sexy, but it's a lot harder than people think.

It's it's super challenging um

i would think i would think no one now i would just add more streams of revenue i would probably get into like um

restoration work water mitigation and high margin stuff like that yeah i would add that to our to our local area i'd i would before i move locations i'd i would probably add different things like roofing and these these new things for home services that are coming out

pest control i would i would probably invest in those things before i'd I would move a thousand miles away.

So one thing I've seen, I've worked with thousands of business owners.

And one thing I've seen that one of the biggest deterrent to success is focus,

right?

And so, you know, what you're talking about is maybe a little bit of diversion of focus.

At what point do you decide to add an additional service where it doesn't take away from the focus of what you're building?

What would you tell a young entrepreneur there?

Go ahead.

Well, first of all, I think you have to be super profitable in the areas that you are growing.

If you're not, don't even do it because it's going to take a lot of resources to add that new line of revenue or new location.

So that'd be the first thing.

So then it's, so you got to be running like a well machine before you add this other, you know.

Especially if it's outside of the trades of what you're doing, you would definitely have to be functioning really well and highly profitable.

Yeah.

That's

because there's learning curves to all of it.

Yeah.

And to take that year or two or three years to get to start making money, it's going to take quite a bit of capital to do it.

Yeah.

So that's, I mean, I don't know if I answered your question.

No, no, that's that's that's good.

So what what organizational change or what like big obviously there was like a leadership aha for you, but allowed you guys to be able to expand into HVAC, expand into plumbing.

Like what what moves did you make from an organization standpoint?

Gosh.

We didn't really do anything at first.

Like, honestly, like,

we were, we were, like, so we were running well.

Um,

you know, we just took it slow.

I mean, you could, there's many avenues.

You can buy a company, you can do this.

We just decided to start from scratch as greenfield it.

Yeah.

So we just, we just

put ads out looking for a technician that could service and sell uninstall.

Right.

One guy.

And we found that guy.

Unicorn.

And

we did that by just talking to everybody we knew, doing the traditional advertising for employees, but then just everybody we ran into and just let them know, hey, we're looking for this journeyman, you know, skilled HVAC tech, you know, who could sell and install, service and install.

And

lo and behold, one of our,

was it our graphics person?

What was his name?

Anyway, he said my son-in-law just lost his job at another one of your competitors let me have him call you so talked to him that day and he was working so do we only looked for like five days and found this guy so it got our foot in the door we made a lot of mistakes but being in the next star network having friends in the hvac business they helped us through phone calls of what to do and how to get going and pricing and um all that thing so we got started like that and then we just started adding you know he this this gym, this manager, service manager that would do our service and install, he brought on a friend that he knew from the trades, and we just grew up from there.

And we actually

used our database, leveraged our database.

So we called every electrical client and said, hey, basically, you get a free tune-up because you just did electrical work with us, or you've done it in the last year.

And they're like, send them over.

It was like super easy to get calls.

Same with plumbing for water heater flushes.

Yeah.

Just get a free.

uh yeah nice the challenge the challenging thing with hvac for us was not getting a demand lead we i don't think we got a single call because the thing was broken for like three years

because they didn't nobody knew we did it yeah yeah yeah we actually had to call people to do what was the what was the name of your company did it have like electric in the it was mainstream electric heating cooling and plumbing we just but for years it was just mainstream electric right and then we'd added mainstream electric and heating and then we added cooling you know eight heating cooling right and then we added plumbing and drains Yeah.

Yeah.

It's it's interesting.

I was talking to a guy down at Pantheon,

and I won't say the exact name of his company, but he had the word wrench in his, in his name.

And

we're like, oh, so you do plumbing?

He's like, no, I do these other things.

He's like, why do you think I only do plumbing?

We're like, well,

wrench is in your name.

I mean,

I don't know what else to tell you, but, you know,

it's, yeah, it's just funny.

It's, and it is one of those hard things from a demand standpoint, like when you've established yourself in one thing to be known for anything else.

Yeah, that took a while, but we just did it through cold calling just by calling our own.

We didn't cold call people.

We didn't know.

We called our existing client base.

Right.

And you automatically were entitled to a free tune-up or system check if you did work with us.

Yeah.

And that worked pretty well.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

So let's, let's fast forward.

So

at what point did you guys decide like, hey, maybe this private equity thing is a route that we want to go and sell our business?

I think it was probably more my idea.

I was just burned out and stressed out and,

you know,

being in the service industry, it's an everyday show up all day long game.

And we had some friends who were selling around us.

And

I was like, I'm ready.

So it wasn't necessarily like a build to sell.

It was just like, man,

I'm done.

This is stressful.

I'm ready to move on to the next thing.

Yes.

So at what point, so you made that decision to that you actually go and close a deal?

How long was that in between?

Was that years, months?

It was just a year, I think.

Wow.

So pretty quick process, frankly.

And so initially,

if I'm recounting it right, you guys go and approach a private equity group and say, hey, you know, make us an offer or how did that go down?

Yep.

Just do a high-level assessment and, yeah, make us an offer.

And the offer...

Based on what we knew in the industry seemed low.

It seemed low.

It seemed low.

And was this a group that had bought other...

trades companies or whatnot?

Yeah.

Okay.

So they were just hoping to be able to maybe take advantage of the situation a little bit.

Hey, these guys are coming to us.

Let's just give them a low ball type of offer.

Is that how it felt?

Or and

maybe we didn't do a good job as owners building the value or we didn't know where we could add value.

And so you decided, hey, this isn't the route we want to go.

And then

what did you do from there to be able to take it and get it in front of other groups?

We had decided there was a number we needed to sell or it just wasn't going to be worth it to us.

And so we then contact an investment banker that's, you know, other people have been using or they had actually sent us i think an email or a letter yeah and then i contacted them and sent them some financials and then they gave us i mean instantly within 30 seconds gave me a number what he thought he could sell it for yeah and and then

and you're like hey that aligns yes he said elaine do you think this number is going to be okay

like sell it to my sell it yesterday yesterday please

so so awesome so you you uh you decide hey we're gonna to go with him and then walk us through the process.

How long did it take?

What did the process look like to be able to take it to market and go and close a deal?

I got to remember back that was almost four years ago.

So, you know, you got to go through your financials.

You got to go like

just through the, you got to give them quality of earnings, all that stuff, your cash flow.

You know, there's just a lot of your, there's a lot.

A lot of dude just.

There's a lot of dude, a lot of

the employee stuff.

Like, they want to know your um

census your employee census like it seems like all the time like day almost daily for for weeks but you know it's interesting that this is like one of the subjects that isn't heavily covered on the internet right like yeah there's not a lot of youtubes out there and uh i produced another video where i kind of went through the the process and it was like one of our best performing videos just because people were like oh man i i didn't even know that like most people think like you know just one day a buyer shows up on your porch and is like, hey, I want to buy your business.

And the next day they hand you a check.

And, you know,

of course, we, we both know that that's absolutely not how it goes down, right?

So you got all this, this due diligence, all this work.

So you go, you hire, you hire the banker.

They put together the package.

They go and they send out a teaser to everyone.

Initially, how many LOIs came across the table of interested groups?

I think we had like 20, 25.

That's pretty remarkable.

We had a high number.

Yeah, that's a great number.

So clearly you guys have built an awesome business.

It was right in the ballpark of what people were looking for.

Typically,

most

will, so that was LOIs, not IOIs.

Well, I mean, we,

a letter of intent, we only...

We got a bunch of, we have like 20, 25 companies interested in us.

Okay, so those were the IOIs, which is still pretty high.

Most, I would say, get five to 10 IOIs.

I think we had five because we had narrowed it down to people out of that group

of like 10 companies that we would want to be.

But you had five legit LOIs come across though.

I think that's about right.

Which is also fantastic.

Whenever you can get

that many competing, most people hope for two, maybe three to be able to compete.

And so,

and then

once you decided to go with the group that you signed with,

how many days of due diligence did it, because obviously, so there's the initial due diligence for those that are watching this.

You have your initial due diligence.

And that's like, you know, basic financials and everything else.

But then once you sign the LOI, then these companies, they decide to invest real dollars, right?

Like they start bringing in all their, you know, security assessment teams and financial, like they, they go and hire an outside accounting firm that's going to go and do more than just what you had previously prepared for them.

And so they start investing a bunch of dollars.

And a lot of these guys, they say they're going to do it in a certain amount of time.

How much time did it take from LOI to seal the deal, get a check?

I think it was like 120 days, maybe

160, maybe 120.

Yeah, cool.

And that's probably pretty standard.

A lot of these guys will come in and they'll say, hey, we'll do this in 30 to 45 days.

You know, and with all the intentions of the world, but they're really, yeah.

So they're just fact-checking you.

That's just all they're doing.

They're just making sure your stories hold up.

And tell us about that.

Was it stressful?

Was there any anxiety along the process?

Like,

were you just ready to, you know, hand the keys over by the time it was done?

Was there any deal fatigue?

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

I just think the due diligence and the fact-checking, just slicing and dicing the information and questions in so many different ways and i'm thinking god i just gave that to you yesterday it literally was i felt like eight to 12 hours a day of due diligence of sending information days upon days which turned months into months and at one point um i think our closing date was in a november and then they pushed it back to like december 21 and i thought i am not gonna survive this yeah um in providing more information so yeah there was a lot of fatigue stress anxiety,

just because anything can happen along the way.

Like we were confident in our, in the information that we provided.

And knowing, knowing what you know now, I mean, I don't need you to like divulge info about the deal, but like just as far as like deal points, because a lot of people don't realize that it's not just cut and dry, like, here's a dollar amount, right?

It's like, how are things going to operate from a go forward?

How are you going to allocate

capital that's currently in the business?

And, you know, how, what value you're going to get for that?

Is there anything that you missed that you wish that would have been done differently from just a sheer deal point standpoint?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I think I would coach anybody that's like, try to get a distribution for your taxes if you roll equity.

This is in our deal.

We don't get that.

So, you know,

we get a K1 and it can be a large number and we got to pay income tax on that money and we don't get a distribution.

We don't get any of that money and we don't get a distribution to pay taxes.

So

that you're saying on the roll forward, basically.

On my equity, because we're still there, they're not distributing

capital yet.

Yeah, we're partners in the business, right?

So

I think right now we own about 10% of the platform thing.

And so we get a share in 10% of the profits, but you're not getting 10%.

No, we don't get that.

And it's, it's terrible.

It's paid taxes on dollars that you're not getting.

Right.

Yeah.

And

this is actually a very important thing for entrepreneurs to understand

in the way that corporations are structured.

Right.

Like when you're talking about an S-Corp and an LLC, everything that comes on that K1 is a pass-through to your individual taxation.

And so even if dollars, right, there's, let's use a million dollars as an easy example, right?

A million dollars is earned as a company and you own 10%.

You're going to be taxed on $100,000 of income that you didn't receive, right?

In the event that you're an S Corporate or LLC.

And I'm assuming that's what the structure

is.

And the only way around that is if the corporation is set up as a C corporation, because then,

and the C corporation isn't all great and dandy either, because C corporation pays taxes.

for the corporation, but then when you ultimately do get paid out, you got to pay taxes again.

And so it's, that's kind of the downfall of the C Corporation.

But it's it is an interesting thing to like consider, right?

Because these aren't things that you like look forward in the future and be like, oh, you know,

I'm going to hate this sometime.

Is there anything else that was like similar to that?

Like knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to somebody that's considering selling to private equity?

Let's see.

Advice.

I think

there's going to be some changes and they're not always pleasant to watch them make the changes that you've built.

You know, you've took 21 years

to build something and have this outcome.

And

right, wrong, or indifferent, they just going to do what they're going to do.

And yeah,

go ahead.

I was just going to say, and for me to watch those changes was really, really difficult.

I mean, we are awesome operators together and super baby.

Yeah.

And in the end,

it's going to be okay.

Yeah.

It's okay.

Yeah.

You know, I

and I, but I do think it is an important thing for anybody that's considering selling to understand that is going to happen.

Yeah.

Right.

And if you don't understand that, don't sell.

Like, like, if you can't handle your baby being, i mean like slightly torn apart and tattooed up and you know what whatever else and all the things that you would never do to your own child that that they're gonna they're gonna go and do like yeah just you just understand that's gonna happen and i think the other thing we did was we worried a lot about our employees and how they're gonna act but you know really the reality is some of them just do very well in that environment.

There's a lot of boundaries when private equity or corporations come in and buy it.

They set hard, fast rules of what's allowable and what's not.

And we were a lot softer on that stuff.

And, and people, your employees will just, will thrive in that.

A lot of them do.

And I think we put way too much stock in the fact that they're not going to be okay.

Right.

And they are okay.

Right.

And then that they rely on us.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, and that's just the ego talking again, right?

Like, yeah, right.

It's just like, oh, nobody can do this better than me.

My way is the only way.

Yeah.

It's a and I think looking back too, I can really see where Todd and I probably stepped in the way of our leadership team and they didn't really get to thrive into what their potential was.

So once we were out of the business and to really see them get to become the leaders that they were meant to be, that was pretty cool.

That is pretty awesome.

So

relationship with private equity aside, whether that's good, bad, or ugly, whatever,

what, do you have any regrets?

about selling your business and no longer being active in the day-to-day of a business not that business.

It's nice.

I mean, I highly recommend it.

Yeah.

It takes a while to get used to it.

I was an electrician first and then started the business.

So like for 30 years, I got up at 5.45 every single day.

And

when I finally retired, it took me like three months to get.

used to the fact that the night before I didn't have to worry about what I was doing tomorrow.

You know, that thing of what do I got to do tomorrow, these, you know, all day long.

And it's, it literally took like three, four months for me to kind of just settle down

and have some slow mornings and then start working on projects and things that I've left behind in the last 30 years that hadn't got done.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's the thing that everyone fantasizes about, right?

Like to be able to have that free time, to be able to go and do,

what are some of the, how are you using the extra hours?

Well, spending time with our kids and grandkids.

And then I just wrote a book.

Awesome.

Tell us about it.

Yes.

It's called Made in Vietnam.

And it is my memoir about being an Amerasian woman growing up in the mountains of North Idaho with a dragon Asian mother really hard on me.

And I had a life-changing trip with my parents.

My mother's Vietnamese, my dad's American, back to Vietnam when I was 36 years old and their love story and what they went through to, so I could be born in America as an American citizen, rocked my world

and to have ultimate forgiveness and love for my mother and love her the way she deserved to be loved before she passed away.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it sounds, it sounds like a great book.

And I mean, ultimately, living the American Dream.

Yes.

And at 36, discovering this story, that is my why and driving me to be successful and becoming more in the United States of America because it's our capitalism and free market that

allows us to thrive and grow.

And that's how I pay my gratitude.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, I appreciate you guys both coming on the show today and sharing your great story.

I know it's very inspiring to other people in the trades.

You know, a lot of people aspire to get there one day, to be able to let go of control, let go of the ego a little bit, to allow other people to come in and flourish and ultimately be able to have a nice little exit.

So, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for having us.