I Almost CLOSED My HVAC Company After 10 Years | Here’s Why…

This video is brought to you by truetech tools, quality tools, essential support and by rls rls press fittings. Let you make a permanent and reliable mechanical connection in just 10 seconds without the need for brazing. The rls press fittings were specifically designed and engineered for use in high pressure, hvac and refrigeration systems. They are fully registered and listed to ul 207 for pressures up to 700 psi for more information go to rapidlockingsystem.com. So it’s been a little while, since i’ve done a vlog, so today it’s going to be a vlog style. I’Ve got some equipment that i need to go. Do some inspections on, but in today’s video i’m going to be talking about how i almost closed down. My company and i’m going to tell you why, but before we do that, let’s get some coffee, i’m going to work. Buddy i’ll, see you later bye bye. I love you [ Music ] diesel fuel is about 3 39 right now and regular unleaded is 309. So i think it’s been dropping. I haven’t really been noticing the gas prices too much, but i’ve been seeing. A lot of people complain about them, but i’m curious on what the gas prices are, where you guys are located and how bad it’s getting for you, [, Music, ], [, Music, ], all right, coffee time, coffee time, love my coffee in the mornings, it’s hot! What kind of coffee do you guys drink leave it down in a comment below i’m interested? I’M a coffee guy, my favorite drink is an americano. So if you’re not familiar with that, that’s going to be espresso and then you add hot water to it. To get a full cup of coffee, so it’s a good cup, i really enjoy it. I wish i had an espresso machine at the house, but to get a good one, they’re very expensive, all right. So the reason i almost closed down my company after 10 years was for quite a few reasons to be honest with you and i’ll kind of go over them. The first thing was, i was wearing too many hats and what i mean by that is, i was doing too much right. I was trying to take on tasks that a company of normally, let’s say three to four people – would be handling not all by myself. So that was one of the big reasons that kind of just um wore me down and burnt me out a little bit to be honest with you uh, so yeah i mean uh. I was you know doing all the paperwork. Doing all the estimates. The service calls the repairs, the installs, the maintenances uh warranty, calls just anything and everything you know registering the equipment, all the just any any of the behind the scenes stuff right. You know it just takes a toll on you. It’S a lot of work, so you know, if anybody’s out there thinking that they want to start their own company, then it’s going to be easier or they’re going to work less. It’S not the case. You’Re going to work a whole lot more than you do. If you go and work for a company, i mean there’s a lot of pros and cons. You know that’s a whole nother topic, but just know that there’s a lot of work to be done behind the scenes. You know growing your company, the paperwork i mean just just all of it’s a lot. So basically, i was wanting to have my hand on everything right, because i wanted everything to be perfect and i was like you know what, if i want it done right, i need to do it myself. That’S not really the best way of doing it. I mean that’s kind of the mentality when you first start out, which is a good thing right, because you want to do something different than everyone else is doing. You want to make sure that you’re of the highest quality, the best customer service. You know yadda yadda attention to detail, but it comes to a point where, when the work starts to pick up and that’s keeping you busy, you need to be doing that and you need to be paying someone else to run the books. You know. Do all the paperwork? You know things like that um! You know if there’s any type of online stuff that you’re doing i didn’t do any advertisements. You know i originally started up a website and i had one for just a short while and realized it wasn’t. For me, that’s not really the way i wanted to go, so i kind of stopped doing all that. So i didn’t have to really worry about that part of it, but yeah figure out all the things that you have to do to run the company figure out. What you are best at and what you’re going to perform well doing and then the rest of it delegate that to someone else, pay uh. You know a cpa to do all your book, work it or all your paperwork and your um. You know all the behind the scenes stuff when it comes to running the business. If that’s not something that you are really good at or care to do, and for me i don’t care to do that so um, just you know, that’s that’s. The first topic was basically trying to wear all the hats at once, and it was burning me out: [ Laughter, ], [, Music, ], um, [, Music ] is [ Music ] all right, so that was just a little quick heat inspection. Nothing too crazy. I don’t really like to do the cleanings in the winter time, just when it’s cold outside dealing with the water. It’S just not my thing. So as long as everything is running right, then [, Music ]. As long as everything is running right, then i’ll just schedule. The cleaning to come back out in the springtime when it’s warmer and go through the whole system scrub it down clean it up real nice, so today was just an inspection all right. So another reason that was kind of bogging me down running my company by myself was um. You know i was just running the company acting like i had several employees now. What i mean by that is, i was taking on a lot of work, uh doing installs, doing changeouts doing just a lot of tasks that you would uh normally see a company of you know at least a couple of employees. So what that meant for me was. I was just wearing myself thin. You know, i wasn’t being very smart with the work that i was doing uh by myself. To be honest with you um, i kind of wore it as a badge of honor that i was doing all this work by myself, not needing any help. You know and for a short period of time. That’S fine! You know you got to do what you got to do sometimes, but for longevity like that’s, not the way to do it. You know, and i’ve learned that you know if you want to be sustainable in this company or in this business in this industry. You need help if you’re going to be doing that type of work. Now let me also say that you don’t have to operate a company or operate an hvac business. The way i’ve been doing it. You can choose the type of work that you do. You know i feel, like some people or including myself, get caught in this trap, that we have to be like every other hvac company out there, and what i mean by that is, you can pick and choose the type of work that you do. The type of customers that you have, especially if you’re just a one-man operation, you can easily do that. So let’s say you only want to work in a certain location like for me. I was running all over town, not sticking to just one city or one county and then also the type of work that i do. I was doing anything and everything retrofits tear out redux, new construction, commercial jobs, just anything and everything, and what i realized is that i would need to hire two three four guys to do. The type of work that i was doing before for it to be sustainable and not for me to get burned out. So what i’m? What i’m? What i’m learning is that i want to change the type of work that i do. I don’t need to follow. The mold of every other company – that’s out there, so sticking to service work, sticking to doing maintenances, maybe changeouts here and there, but not very many, not doing larger projects. You know it’s okay to tell customers. No, i don’t do that, but here’s a number that you can call, because, if you’re providing a really good service, those customers will continue to come back to you for the work that you do provide and if they need to call someone else to um. You know replace their whole duck system. Then they’ll do that and they’re going to come back to you when it comes time to servicing their equipment. I found that that actually does happen. I never thought that before i thought that, if i wanted to keep my customers, i needed to do anything and everything that they needed, no matter. If i was capable of doing it, manpower, wise or not – and that was a big thing – that i’ve learned all right. So another reason that was kind of bogging me down running my company by myself was you know i was just running the company acting like i had several employees now. What i mean by that is, i was taking on a lot of work, uh doing installs, doing change outs, doing just a lot of tasks that you would uh normally see a company of you know at least a couple of employees. So what that meant for me was, i was just wearing myself thin. You know, i wasn’t being very smart with the work that i was doing uh by myself. To be honest with you, i kind of wore it as a badge of honor that i was doing all this work by myself, not needing any help. You know and for a short period of time. That’S fine! You know you got to do what you got to do sometimes, but for longevity like that’s, not the way to do it. You know, and i’ve learned that you know if you want to be sustainable in this company or in this business in this industry. You need help if you’re gon na be doing that type of work. Now let me also say that you don’t have to operate a company or operate an hvac business. The way i’ve been doing it. You can choose the type of work that you do. You know i feel, like some people or including myself, get caught in this trap, that we have to be like every other hvac company out there, and what i mean by that is, you can pick and choose the type of work that you do. The type of customers that you have, especially if you’re just a one-man operation, you can easily do that. So let’s say you only want to work in a certain location like for me. I was running all over town, not sticking to just one city or one county and then also the type of work that i do. I was doing anything and everything retrofits tear out redux, new construction, commercial jobs, just anything and everything, and what i realized is that i would need to hire two three four guys to do. The type of work that i was doing before for it to be sustainable and not for me to get burned out. So what i’m? What i’m? What i’m learning is that i want to change the type of work that i do. I don’t need to follow. The mold of every other company – that’s out there um, so sticking to service work, sticking to doing maintenances, maybe changeouts here and there, but not very many, not doing larger projects. You know it’s okay to tell customers. No, i don’t do that, but here’s a number that you can call, because, if you’re providing a really good service, those customers will continue to come back to you for the work that you do provide and if they need to call someone else to um. You know replace their whole duct system. Then they’ll do that and they’re going to come back to you when it comes time to servicing their equipment. I found that that actually does happen um. I never thought that before i thought that, if i wanted to keep my customers, i needed to do anything and everything that they needed, no matter. If i was capable of doing it, manpower, wise or not – and that was a big thing – that i’ve learned now. Some of you may be thinking. Why are you not hiring somebody to help you do all this work to take the load off your shoulders, and you know i thought about that. Quite often, to be honest with you – and i just could not get to the point where i could hire somebody full time – i kind of did that a little bit in the past didn’t have so much luck with that. So i kind of decided that working by myself is really the way to go. I just need to tailor the work to being alone. That makes sense. So that’s what i’m going to do guys. I mean what i’ve learned from working with that other company. If you didn’t know, i went and worked with another company for about a month month and a half, and then i just came right back to doing what i was doing. I didn’t close anything down, so i just picked up right where i left off, but what i took away from that was. I can tailor my company to the way i want it to be. I can have that mindset to where i’m not just running around being pulled in all different directions by my customers from all over the middle tennessee area. So long story short, what i’ve decided to do is narrow my customer base down to my county right. So that way, i’m within you know 15 20 minutes drive, no matter where i’m going and then also the type of work that i’m going to be doing. I’M mainly going to be sticking to service work, maintenance, smaller, install jobs, more like replacements, i’m not going to get into doing new construction or you know larger projects that takes a lot of work. I’M just going to keep things simple and i think it’s going to work out well for me. So anyway, that’s what i took away from that whole process. I’M actually very glad that i went there and worked for that company because i learned quite a bit – and it’s gotten me to where i am today – and i’m very grateful for that. So anyway, i got to clean this truck out. I’Ve got my friend coming over. He’S gon na be buying this truck for me today, so i need to get it all cleaned out, get ready for. So i used my truck uh the other weekend to go camping, so i got to get the bed out of here sleeping bag, all that fun stuff, and i utilize all my milwaukee pack outs for all my camping gear, which works out pretty good and it’s crazy To think this truck is leaving uh cool, the rest goes to the buyer um, so you have an inverter and to turn that on. Is this switch right here? Man appreciate you dude all right well, just like that truck i’ve had for seven years is gone on to the next guy and i think he’s gon na absolutely love that truck i’ve taken very good care of it done a lot of work to it. So it’s still a solid, solid truck for being an o5 model, but it’s kind of bittersweet. You know i’ve had that truck for a long time. I’Ve really enjoyed that truck, but it’s time to move on. Well, that’s going to end today’s video guys. I hope you got something out of it hit that thumbs up if you did subscribe to the channel, if you haven’t already until next time, see you guys later [ Music, ]