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

You ever look at your business and think, hey, we're doing fine. But deep down, you know something's off. That was the lane 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 for 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 build a business private equity couldn't ignore. If you're tired of playing small, this is your wake up call that you've been needing. Because the mindset shift they made might be the one you're going to play. You guys owned an HVAC electrical plumbing company for 21 years. Based on some of our discussions, 15 of those years were good, but they were stagnant growth. That took place until what year? I think that was 2017. You guys were just in the electrical space doing about $3 million a year. Actually, it must have been 2015 because we spent 15 years. So 2015 and then we got into HVAC. We got it at HVAC. Got it. Up until 2015, 3 million, run a good margins, 15, 20 percent, now good things. Then something happened, what changed that you're like, hey, I'm sick of it. Ready to make some moves. 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 how do we do what we do different. Finally, the mirror had to be held up to 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 in owner's mental limitations. And that's where we started. It sounds kind of like just like a hard hitting. Maybe I don't know everything. Maybe it's interesting. I went through similar things. So my first business failed. Then I started some other businesses and I just couldn't grow. And it was like, finally, I was like, I'm the issue. I'm the problem. I got to go figure some stuff out. You went to go get an MBA. What are some different things that you guys did to make the big changes to go from three million? To eventually, before you sold a private equity, you were doing like 18, 20 million a year. That's right. Okay. Cool. So yeah, what were those big bridges? Gosh. We joined an organization called Next Star Network. It was just full of 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 mere success, see what other people are doing in the space. What did you guys do for your own personal development from a leadership standpoint? We got involved with Tony Robbins. Yeah. Started doing some personal development there, getting out of our own way, basically was the biggest thing with Tony Robbins. And what were the hard realizations for yourself personally? That because I'm sure you felt like a king of your own ant hill at three million bucks for some time, right? Like you're like, hey, I'm pretty awesome. We're doing doing great because like, you know, make it 600 grand a year. Like it's not a, you know, especially pre-COVID before things went 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 thought we could show the whole industry that we could, we could do what everybody else was doing just an electrical. Yeah, it took a lot of years, 15 to be exact to realize, you know, the big money is an HVAC and plumbing. Yeah. 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 where like we got to do this. And I think she brought it to my attention. It's like we have to bring on HVAC. 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 friends? Was it family? Was it people you grew up with? Was it people from the trades? Like 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'm going to have that asked to me yet. That's my goal. Every show is the asset question that you have never been asked before. Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now it's that back in the show. I don't know when we around all these next star members that had huge HVAC shops and plumbing. You know, 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. Even more money. And we can do what these other big players are doing. We have the talent and we had, you know, we have the team and we just went for it. Yeah. It goes 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, 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 talk. It was like, it was like this measuring contest of like what he's done and who he is and everything else and not 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 coming 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. 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. And we realized we don't care how many trucks we have. What we cared about was that net margin that the EBITDA number. Yeah. 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. Oh, it's terrible. And yeah, I mean, everybody knows that revenue is just for the ego, right? Profit is where all the sanity is. 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% gross margins. And, you know, I'm just going to give you a round of applause because, you know, this is it. That's the exact range that we train people who are like, and so few contractors can wrap their head around that. They're just like, no, I got to be like 30%, 40% and all they do is they try to compete with that bottom tier. And, you know, the interesting thing is you pay 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, you're 65% gross and then I, from a net standpoint, what percentage were you guys hitting on a consistent basis? We're in the 15%, 17. Yeah. Which is phenomenal, right? Like you can build a real business with that. Can I share a mantra? Actually, I'm having an aha moment after all of this discussion. We would ask ourselves all the time to keep focused. Do we want to do a $5 million company at 20% profit or a $10 million company at 10% profit? Can I say that right? Yeah, exactly. You're doing quite so much work for the same amount of money, you know? 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 because we want more money and half the headache. Yeah, half the work, more money all day. Why do it not make money? So, you know, it's crazy. So, we had a company come into our community that was doing a 100 million a year. And to everybody, they were like, oh man, 100 million is so cool. Net EBITDA margin, which includes addbacks, it was 2 million a year. It's so cool. 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 much rather do 10 million at 2 million in net. And then, 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. 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. And 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 the fact that you guys had figured that out. Obviously, that's one of the biggest reasons that you're 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 and reserves to to whether 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 method, all of you, 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, liquid that was easily, you know, used for the company. You still like six months of fixed costs. You're right. I got it. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, so typically the methodology that I teach, it's 10% of the previous six months of revenue is usually, and which comes close to aligning on the fixed costs type deal. It's just way too stressful if you don't have any reserves. Yeah. It's just way too stressful. It's really easy. I've see contractors do it, take money out and they're buying jacked up trucks and, you know, lift kits on their pickups and swimming pools. But man, you have to keep, you know, retained earnings. So that's, you need that to run your business. Like it's just be way too stressful not to have it. What is your guys's position on debt? Leases, debts, finance. Like what did you guys use for your philosophy there? Well, we owned most of our vehicles, but like we had a finance quite a few of them, but our philosophy was half of our fleet had to be paid for. Yeah. That way, if anything happened, the bank couldn't come take it from us. Right. So we've always felt like, and 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 it 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 you to see you using it. We were just doing this pay 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 private equity world, so you did fantastic there. What regrets? Do you have in building your business? Not starting plumbing and a, uh, he aged back sooner. Okay. Yeah. So, so not getting outside of the, the ego early on and realizing, man, maybe I don't know everything. Okay. So that's great. What else? Operationally. Maybe, maybe let me phrase this, uh, 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. Yeah. It just don't want to be holding any bank. Yeah. You know, I don't, um, when we first got started, we had SBA loans and, um, just the reporting and all the stress of having to, you'll take your line of credit down to zero. 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, uh, to me, it's a much easier process. Love it. So you guys ended up running north of 80 vehicles, um, out of one location. Do you have any regrets as far as opening up additional locations? Well, would you, 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 a one, we opened up one in Seattle with electrical. Electrical. And so this was pre 2015. Oh, yeah, that was, this was when you were only doing electrical. That's right. That was probably like 2012. Yeah. 20, yeah. And it does, it doesn't sound like it went to well. Just for a few years. And all right. It was like for four years. Yeah, three or four. Why'd you shut it down? 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 them 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 Spokane Monday morning. So I had drive to Seattle and I come on Thursday night. And the weeks I wasn't there, we'd lose money. And after four years, the first year we actually made some profit dollars. And so, 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, this is not going to work well. So knowing what you know now, right? 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 21 years span? Tell me, give it, gave me the dream. What, what, what, what, what, what do you think could be done different? How would it look? Would, would it be multi-location? Or would you, 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, that always sounds sexy, but it's a lot harder than people think. It's super challenging. I would think, I would think, no, now I would just add more streams of revenue. I would probably get into like, restoration work, water mitigation and high margins, stuff like that. Yeah. I would add that to our, to our local area. I would, before I move locations, I'd, I would probably add different things like roofing and these new things for home services that are coming out. That's the whole. 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, I've worked with thousands of business owners, and one, one thing I've seen that one of the biggest deterrent to success is focus. Right? And, 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, what, what would you tell a young entrepreneur there? Go ahead. Well, first of all, if you get 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, that'd be the first thing. So then it's, you see, you gotta be running like a well-machined 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. And to, to, 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, to do it. Yeah. So that's, I don't know if I answered your question. No, no, 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 were only doing 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, there's many davidans, 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, um, put ads out looking for a technician that could service and sell and install one guy. And we found that guy, like, unicorn, you know, and, um, and we did that by just talking to everybody. We knew doing it. 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 techs, you know, who could sell and install service and install. And, uh, when we hold one of our, um, what's that our graphics person? What was his name? Anyway, he said, my son-in-law just lost his job at another, one of your competitors, when we haven't called you. So talk to him that day and he was working so to willy looked for like five days and found this guy. So I got our foot in the door. We made a lot of mistakes. But being in the next our network, having friends in the HVAC business, they helped us do phone calls of what to do and how to get going and pricing and, um, all that thing. So we got sort of like that and then we just started adding, you know, he, this, the 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. Yeah, it's actually, um, we used our database, levers 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 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, I just get a free, uh, yeah, nice. The challenging thing with HVAC for us was not getting a demand lead. We don't think we got a single call because the thing was broken for like three years. Because they didn't know what he knew. We did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually had a call people to do. 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 added mainstream electric and heating and then we added cooling, you know, 18 and cooling. Right. And then we added plumbing and drains. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, it's interesting. I was talking to a guy down at Pantheon. And I won't say is the exact name of his company, but he had the word wrench in his, in his name. Oh, and, and, and we're like, oh, so you do plumbing. He's like, no, I do this. These other things like, he's like, why do you think I only do plumbing? I'm like, well, wrench is in your name. I mean, I don't, I don't know what else to tell you, but, you know, it's, yeah, it's just funny. You, 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, we didn't call, call people we didn't know. We called our existing client base. Right. And you automatically were entailed to a free tuna per 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, is a route that we want to go and sell our business? I think it was probably more of my idea. I was just burned out and stressed out. Mm, 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, 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 too, that you actually go and, and close the deal. How long was that between, was that years, months, like just a year? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So a pretty, 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. It's do a high level assessment and yeah, make us an offer. And the offer, based on what we knew in the industry was seemed low, seemed low. Yeah, seemed low. So, 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 a situation a little bit. Hey, these guys are coming to us. Let's just give them a low-ball type of offers. Is that how it felt or, 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 would you do from there to be able to take it and get it in from the We had decided there was a number we needed. Yeah. The seller was just wasn't going to be worth it to us. Right. So we then contacted an investment banker that's, you know, other people have been using, they've 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 of what he thought he could sell it for. Yeah. And then, and you're like, hey, that aligns. Yes. And he said, he lane, taking this number is going to be okay. Okay. We're like, sell it. Sell it. Yes, donate. Please. So, so awesome. So you, you decide, hey, we're going 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? Take a 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 all the avernings. All that stuff. Your cash flow. You know, there's just a lot of your, there's a lot. A lot of, you know, a lot of, a lot of, you employ stuff like they want to know your senses, your employees senses like it seems like all the time. Like they almost daily for weeks, but you know, it's interesting. This is like one of the subjects that isn't heavily covered on the internet. Right? Like, yeah, there's not a lot of YouTube's out there. I produced another video where I kind of went through the process. And it was like one of our best performing videos just because people were like, oh man, 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 both know that that's absolutely not how it goes down. Right? So, you got all this due diligence, all this work. So you go, you hire, you hire the banker, they put together the package, they go and, and they send out a teaser to everyone. Initially, how many L.O.Ys came across the table that of interest in groups? We have like 20, 25? That's pretty remarkable. We had a high number. Yeah, that's a, 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, most will, so that was L.O.Ys, not, not I.O.Ys. Well, I mean, we, a lot of intent. We only, we got a bunch of, we have like 20, 25 companies in the rest of the, okay, so those are really I.O.Ys, which is still, still pretty high. Most, I would say, get five to 10 I.O.Ys. I think we had five, because we had narrowed it down to people out of that group. I've like 10 companies that we would want to. But you had five L.O.Ys come across though. I think that's about right. Which is also fantastic. Whenever you can get, I mean, that may be competing. Most people hope for two, maybe three to be able to compete. And then, 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 L.O.Y, 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, you know, 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 L.O.Y to seal the deal? Get a check. I think it was like 120 days, maybe, maybe, maybe 160, maybe, like 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, you know, they're really, yeah. So they're just fact checking you. That's just all they're doing. They're just sharing your stories. Holds 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, 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, 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 going to survive this. Yeah. And providing more information. Yeah. So yeah, there was a lot of fatigue, stress, anxiety, just because anything can happen a long way. Like we were confident in our, in the information that we provided. Knowing what you know now, I mean, I don't need you to like divulge info about the deal, but like just far as like deal points. Because a lot of people don't realize that it's not just cutting 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, 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. You know, there's like try to get a distribution for your taxes if you were a equity. This is an our deal. We don't get that. So, you know, we get a K one 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 that money and we don't get a distribution of taxes. So that you're saying on the on the roll forward basically, my equity, yeah, because they're still there. They're not distributing in that capital yet. We're partners in the business, right? So I think right now we own about 10% of the platform. Another thing and so we get we get a share in 10% of the profits, but but you're not getting 10% of the distributions. No, we don't get that. Right. And it's it's terrible. It's paid taxes on dollars that you're not getting. Right. Yeah. And um, very great. This is this is actually a very important thing for like entrepreneurs to understand and the way that corporations are structured, right? Like when you're talking about an S corporate LLC, everything that comes on that K one 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 a hundred thousand dollars of income that you never receive, right? In the event that you're an S corporate 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 is not 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 for it in the future and you're like, oh, you know, I'm going to hate this sometimes. 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 a 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 different, they they're just going to do what they're going to do. Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say and for for me to watch those changes was really, really difficult. I mean, we are awesome operators together and super profitable. 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, right? Like if you can't handle your baby being, I mean, like slightly torn apart and tattooed up and you know, whatever else and all the things that you would never do to your own child, that they're going to they're going to go and do like, yeah, just you just understand that's going to happen. And I think the other thing we did was we worried a lot about our employees and how they're going to 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 into buy at 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. Yeah. Right. It's just like, oh, nobody could do this better than me. My way is the only way. Yeah. It's a interesting. And I think looking back to 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 eroded the business and to really see them get to become the leaders that they're meant to be. Yep. That was pretty cool. And 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 today of a business? Not that business. It's nice. I mean, I they recommend it. Yeah. Takes a while to use to it. We're you know, I was electrician first and then started the business. So like for 30 years, I got up at 545 every single day. Right. And yeah, you know, 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 we got to do tomorrow? These, you know, all day long. And it's it really 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 Maiden Vietnam. And it is my memoir about being an admiration, 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 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 aspired 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 us.