I Had to Stop Working IN My Business to Save It

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly cleaned up. Expect the odd misheard word.

1. 0:00
   Alek Ivanov

   Every organization limit is the leader. What he is willing to do, what risks he's willing to take. Share will can bring you to 3 million. But past that, people need to have SOPs ready for the people coming in. 30 plus headcount. How do you build culture? This is what sets our company apart. I f***ing genuinely people want to work here. Talking HVAC.

2. 0:21
   Wes Mathews

   I know you're the best, but at some point you gotta let the next man up. And they're not doing it half as good as you. Everybody needs continuous training. That's the name of the game. 8 million in revenue.

3. 0:31
   Alek Ivanov

   Where do you go from here? The vision is 100 million. Money goals are not the best, but it's hard to avoid that.

4. 0:39
   Wes Mathews

   Alek, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

5. 0:42
   Alek Ivanov

   Thank you for having me. Thank you. Well, I think it's funny.

6. 0:46
   Wes Mathews

   We've been trying to get on now for about 40 minutes, but it's kind of funny because I think it's like life as an entrepreneur, right? You gotta be ready. You never know what life's going to throw at you. So I appreciate you being flexible, and here we are. So excited to dig in with you. Talk a little bit about your business, right? So your HVAC Plumbing Electrical? Correct. Pennsylvania, New Jersey? Correct.

7. 1:11
   Alek Ivanov

   We're located in Philadelphia, in the heart of Pennsylvania, the heart of America. And actually, most of the work we do is actually heating related. Philadelphia still have a lot of boilers, so a lot of hydronic work. So I'm saying we're mostly heating company, and we do a little bit of air conditioning, and we do a little bit of plumbing.

8. 1:35
   Wes Mathews

   So what led you down that path, right? I read a little bit of information on you. I thought it was awesome. I saw something about $8 in your pocket. I love those stories. But why HVAC? Why do you do what you do?

9. 1:47
   Alek Ivanov

   Yes, I was asked this question actually recently. We just celebrated officially. We were incorporated March 1st in 2006, so I was asked to reflect on some of the past experiences. And that was actually one of the questions for real that someone who was making an interview with me asked me. And I said that the life has brought me to HVAC. I need to pay my bills. And I separated from my father. I worked for him for a little bit. And basically, I was just left alone.

   And I went to one of our clients, a very smart and wise Jewish lady. And I asked her, I said, what should I do? And she said, you have two options. You either go to a Russian store, work as a loader for $12 an hour. You'll have plenty of hours, but there's no growth. You will be a loader for the rest of your life. Or there's a guy named Igor that looks for people for HVAC. And I was like, what's HVAC? She said, air conditioning. I said, OK.

   So she gave me the Igor's number. I called Igor. And the rest is history. Here I am, owner of HVAC company.

10. 3:01
    Wes Mathews

    So this is 19 years ago. How long have you been in the States?

11. 3:06
    Alek Ivanov

    I came 2004. And like I said, I worked in the home remodeling business with my father and then actually worked at Wawa. I know there's no Wawa's in Detroit, but they're very, very popular here. It's like a guest station with the convenience store. So I worked a little bit there. That's my first official work in America on the paycheck, of course. And then that's what happened. And I got into HVAC.

12. 3:44
    Wes Mathews

    So how old were you when you went in 2004? Twenty one. So like when you came and you came over here, HVAC just figured out like, I want to hear what Igor is doing these days. But I mean, so you what you come into this world of HVAC, I mean, did you ever think that you would have built an eight million dollar company over 30 employees? I mean, or were you like, I'm just going to get HVAC, kind of do my thing.

13. 4:08
    Alek Ivanov

    I wanted to I think I was an entrepreneur for all my life. You know, even in middle school, I was able to pull off to have a kiosk selling candies in our school. And in our school, we had a cafeteria which was run by the school principal and the cafeteria director, which was lady of this size, because she liked to eat, I guess. And so they had dealings going on where they would, you know, I know, bribe each other under the table for stuff. Right. Kids were buying food.

    And then I opened the kiosk under precedent of collecting money for some charitable cause. And then kids stopped coming to the cafeteria and something started to come to my kiosk. So of course, she complained to the principal. Principal shut me down. So I was in the seventh grade. All my family was proud of me because it was really something unheard of, you know, to pull off. So I think since then, and actually, cool fact, I just remember it's 100 percent true. All the money that I earned, I went to the we had flea markets.

    We didn't have real, you know, official stores. And I bought the head of Charlotte Hornets. If you still, you know, there when there was Charlotte Hornets back then. So that's the money I use them. Bugsy Bogues, right? Yes. Yes. But that had for myself. Yes. That's awesome.

14. 5:43
    Wes Mathews

    So you caught the entrepreneurial bug come over to the States. You worked with your father. Was that back in Russia or was it here in the States?

15. 5:49
    Alek Ivanov

    No, here, here first six, seven months, you know, he's he was doing like mainly finished basements work, some bathroom remodel painting, a lot of painting, actually. In good areas in New Jersey, Princeton is Brunswick, North Brunswick. So Middlesex County in New Jersey, very affluent area. Good, good people.

16. 6:11
    Wes Mathews

    So you spit up the company. I mean, I think that I mean, some of the questions I want to dig in, you know, I think as an entrepreneur, it's right now, it's really hard to attract talent. I hear everybody in the home service world, it's really hard to get good people. Like, how are you, you know, 30 plus headcount? Like, what's your like, how do you build culture in your organization and like this economic climate?

17. 6:35
    Alek Ivanov

    This is what I think sets me apart, what sets our company apart. And I want to become known as let's say, I'm starting my tour right off the service businesses and businesses in general. And I guess I want to be known as a culture guy because I think I get the culture. I think we have the right culture. I know, you know, we have multiple people that with us for five plus years. And I can see genuinely that people want to work here. We have a lot of things going on internally, a lot of celebrations, a lot of cool activities that that is ours.

    And I think that's what attracts same minded people. I know we have a very Ukrainian oriented community where our office is located. So that's what people say. Of course, you tap into those. Sure, that's part of it. But it's someone bringing someone in, and then that someone recommends someone. So we have godfathers, as we call them. So this guy is a godfather for this, this, and this guy. And this guy is a godfather for others. So they bring, we had multiple times we had brothers work in our company.

    At one point, we had three brothers in one family and three brothers in the other family working in our company at the same time. So that tells you because brothers are, you know, it's a different bond. They wouldn't recommend the company if, you know, the company wouldn't be good.

18. 8:19
    Wes Mathews

    Oh, I have four boys and I can't even get them to agree on what do they want for dinner half the time. And they'll like punch each other in the face for that. I can only imagine in a high tense environment around HVAC. But so with that being said, I mean, it's, I mean, for me, that always comes from like the visionary or like you, right? I mean, what are you like? How do you show up differently to promote that or like, you know, you talk about culture, like, hey, we have these things and this happens, but like, they're there because of you and that tone that you set, like, what are some things that you're like non negotiable, or what do you bring to the table that these other companies don't?

19. 8:58
    Alek Ivanov

    You hundred percent correct. It starts with the head, right? It starts with the owner of the company. So I say to everybody, if you're a toxic person, you will have a toxic culture. If you're a weak person, you'll have a weak culture. If you're a positive person, you'll have a positive culture. Not necessarily positive culture is always, I mean, positive, like funny, not necessarily it's it's always it's all or the only thing you need to have. But yes, it starts with the owner. I think I think what I bring is, you know, never give up mentality.

    I and I and I let people do their work that I don't micromanage. I actually, I believe I under manage in many situations and looking at it now. But it works better than ruling by fear. They know I have the power in them. They know. So I don't have to mention, oh, if you don't do this, I'll fire you. They know. So I don't I don't think it's it's the right way to present yourself. I think it's the right way. Hey, let's have fun. But also let's remember we hear it's a business at the end of the day.

    We need to do the work that is required for business to be open and for us to have place to work. But let's have fun. But let's have fun doing that.

20. 10:25
    Wes Mathews

    So my entrepreneurial assumptions are, you know, you come over 2004, you start the business, you're doing the majority of all the work, right? Like it's you doing everything. At what point? At what point did you start to like, was it a certain amount of revenue? Or what sort of happened in transit? Because I think in your space and the home services, you've got guys that, you know, they can't get out of their own way. And they're like the best one in the organization, they try to build a company, and you hit a ceiling.

    What I love about what you've done, like eight million, you've had you had to do something you had to scale, you had to get out of your own way as an entrepreneur, and sort of build like at what point did you go from founder led entrepreneurial led to you started bringing in resources and building the business?

21. 11:12
    Alek Ivanov

    I believe I thought about this question many times myself, I believe about three million is what is possible. Again, that's my personal opinion. What's possible would just I call the share will. When I was the warehouse guy, I was the I put the orders in. I would do proposals, requests for proposals, some of the billing, you know, some of the selling. So I think that can bring you to a three million. That's that's what I think, you know, I was able to do. But past that, it's it's when it's the time to let go.

    I think a lot of people have this problem of letting go. And I think that in parallel is the hardest thing. And we all were still struggle with that. Trust me, if, if we if I didn't struggle, I would tell you my revenue is 100 mil. So we're still struggled with building standard operating procedures, SOPs, right, and processes. So we're building them, but we're building them slowly. I actually look for even specialists that can just come in and videotape us what the hell were we doing and write the SOPs, you know, for us help us writing us SOPs.

    So that's, that's what I think it is that after three million people need to let go, and in the process, try to have some SOPs ready for the people that coming in and taking those roles from the owner.

22. 12:48
    Wes Mathews

    No, it's really great perspective. I think as an entrepreneur, I mean, to be able to look in the mirror and recognize that's huge, right? Because I think, you know, your ceiling was three million, like you're only one man, you know, you can only do so much, there's only so much time in a day. And then it's like, if you want to continue to grow, you kind of have to look and how do I replicate myself? How do I? So like, what was that? And that's hard, right?

    To do that from nothing to three million, like that's freaking difficult, like really hard, right? Yes. But then you take the next leap, which is, okay, now I'm at three, and I want to continue down this path. Because something probably happened to you. You're like, I can't do this anymore. I'm not seeing my family or like something happened where you're like, I got to do something like what was that? What was that next triggering event for you?

23. 13:35
    Alek Ivanov

    You're asking all the right questions. It's hard not to cry. Two divorces. How about that? That's what happened. So I think once you divorce twice, you lose two families. You know, you know, something's got to change.

24. 13:51
    Wes Mathews

    Yeah, so you got to, you got to do what's right for you and really figure out like, because it's tough, right? I mean, I know in the home service world, right? Just, and I have a lot of, I'm actually like, I'm, I have no like physical home experience, home service experience. But my previous life, I did a lot of websites for home service contractors. So I know that world in terms of just how intense it is. So I have a lot of respect for home services, because I think even now in 2025, in the future, you know, there's just so much activity.

    There's so, there's so many things going on in the home service world. But for you, right? So like having that moment of, okay, I have to scale, like, what's your feedback or recommendation for, you know, it could be 500,000, it could be a million, it could be 10 million. But that, that other entrepreneur that's like hitting that ceiling, what like really worked for you? Like, what was that first lever you pulled inside the business?

25. 14:45
    Alek Ivanov

    So a couple of things I actually brought, one was the person. So definitely people are the limit, and my limit is myself right now. I believe that everybody's, every organization limited, still the biggest portion is the leader, is the is the president, the owner, how what he knows what he is willing to do, what risks he's willing to take. And the started for me, you know, I met Gary Alakis, I, you know, really think he was even for a brief moment, the mentor, but that person that really changed perspective of, hey, it's not about you, it's about everybody else.

    So for me, it had to paradigm hit had to shift from being all attention on me. You know, I was the one giving out awards, I was the one deciding everything. And it shifted, hey, now team votes for everything team decides who gets what team. Now it's all about team, I almost, I want to remove myself completely, and see what happens. And the second thing happened, I read this book, I brought it because I was hoping you would ask this question. So another gentleman, Carla, lady, introduced me to this book.

    And the same thing, the book points out that most of the problem, it's inside the person. And it's there's a great saying, as soon as you have a thought that the problem is out there, that same thought is the problem. And that was one of the biggest changes for me, I, this is like my home Bible. If I have a problem, I open this book, and I read on the subject to remind myself again, and again, and again, how to listen, how to mostly how to listen, actually, right?

    Because the people

26. 16:41
    Wes Mathews

    perspective, and that's seven habits of highly affected people, right? Correct. That's a phenomenal book. My kind of guy love that book. And I love EOS. I love traction, what Geno Wickman did.

27. 16:54
    Alek Ivanov

    Yes, we remember when we first met, we spoke about it. That's that's that book came later in my life, but also it's on my close to my nightstand. And that book right is about processes and the systems of self evaluation, and the plant growth.

28. 17:15
    Wes Mathews

    But they talk about that, right? Or like, as that growth and you hit on it, it's, it's letting go of the vine, right? So like, we're talking HVAC, like, I know you're the best guy to do it, right? So you're like in your company saying I built the company to 3 million. You're not you know, you're serving customers, you're doing all the proposals, everything's perfect. But at some point, you got to let the next man up, or the next woman up, right? And they're not doing it half as good as you, right?

    Like, probably not even 80%. Like, how did you transition from, you're the best you built this company, and now you got to hand that torch over and kind of, you know, deal with that, right? To get to the next phase. We had for 15 years, I had a partner in the business.

29. 17:58
    Alek Ivanov

    And he is, and he was and he is very technical person much more technical than myself. I am technical enough, but he was more technical. And we quickly realized that the training is the key. Everybody needs continuous training, not just even the people that think they know technology changes industry, our industry changed few changing again with the new refrigerant. So we're constantly being exposed to the new technology, new refrigerants, so you know, what have you new codes. So we quickly realized that we need training. And we started to devote portions of the building for that purpose.

    At first, it was in a warehouse look rinky-dinky. It didn't look professional, but the idea, the effort was there. The purpose was there. Hey, guys, let us let us pay you to train yourself to get better. And now, as we last year, we grew even a little bit more to the point that our main meeting room is now becoming a training center where it's stations, live stations. And we just promoted one of our senior attacks to the in-house trainer position, still part-time, but with even more dedication towards direct one-on-one training, mandatory constant training, pretty much.

    That's the that's the name of the game.

30. 19:36
    Wes Mathews

    So when you reflect back right in some milestones of the company, you know, now you have like trainers on staff and your training and rooms, but do you ever think back to like the one to two million dollar days and like you're just probably running around with your hair on fire and you know, now you've got training rooms and developing people.

31. 19:56
    Alek Ivanov

    It's scary. It's scary. But you know what, there was no there was no going back. You have to them getting too emotional. Sorry. You have to you're almost like standing on the cliff. Yeah, you either fall down or there's there's no backing up. It's and that's just that's how it was. So you have to be in this you have to be in this mentality that there's no turning back. There's not there's never giving up. I know all those words, you know, they sound cliche, but for me, they weren't.

    For me, it was a survival.

32. 20:37
    Wes Mathews

    How important you mentioned a partner in the business, like how important was it for you to have that partner during the start throughout those years, right? Like in hindsight, reflecting back, it was it was huge.

33. 20:53
    Alek Ivanov

    I would what I would recommend for people that are starting companies now and they're looking to partner up. The I recommend the Simple Numbers book by crack. Grabtree. And he specifies how to properly set up the relationship because I believe our relationship was not properly set up. And therefore, yes, the relationship was last lasted 15 years. We still have some business dealings that weren't together, but I think it could have been it could have been better. I think we're both afraid to face to face the different differences that we had.

    And we didn't address them. We should have addressed them and say, look, OK, you're strong here. I'm strong here. I think this is this is what I want. And I just agree to, you know, 50. And then but inside, I didn't agree. And I carried this weight. And, you know, when you carry something, then blow ups happen. So I think if we would have set it up differently, openly, put everything out on the table and make a win-win deal or make any deals right. Like again, the seven habits suggest win-win or no deal at all.

    It would have been it would have been different for us.

34. 22:22
    Wes Mathews

    Yeah, no, it's interesting perspective, right? I mean, I got real fortunate with one of my partners and I've had like bad partnerships. I've had good partnerships. But my longest standing partnership, you know, we were very like, I'm really good in this lane and he's really good in this lane. And it was almost awesome because it's almost like opposite magnets. We couldn't even really cross over and do what each other could do. And in hindsight, I'm like, that was such a blessing, because I couldn't even fake do what he does.

    And he couldn't do what I did. So it just made this perfect marriage. But I've had a lot of other extremely bad ones along the way. So like, what's next, right? So you're at you're at 8 million, you've got a good team, training, you're starting to build this, you know, HVAC empire, like you mentioned 100 million, is that is that the goal? Where do you go from here?

35. 23:11
    Alek Ivanov

    That's written on our, you know, we have like a postcard, not postcard eight by 11 core, you know, our vision core values, brand promise, KPIs, and the vision is 100 million. I think this is very hard to do, but it's possible. I told my team if someone else did it, why, why can we do it? We just have to and I know the money goals are not the best, but it's hard to it's hard to avoid that in our industry. Okay, we've won a couple, you know, hard to get awards.

    There's really not like, hey, best HVAC company in America, maybe I should start that one and win it the first year. But so the numbers come to mind and yeah, that is and so when you ask me previous questions about, you know, what, what did I, you know, give up and what was the consequences? And now I'm at the crossroad where I'll be honest, I am comfortable and that comfortability is prohibiting me to grind again. And very, as we're recording, I'm about to propose this Saturday.

    So she doesn't know. So I'll be hopefully third time, you know, married and I'm having a hard time. And we had a couple discussions that said you understand that if I go all in, that's that's going to be a different life for us. So I'm telling her, but inside myself, I'm, I'll be honest with you, I'm 5050, not saying I know I have it. I haven't me. I want it. But I know what it costs. I know what the consequence of that. Let's go 100 mil.

    I think I know what it is. I know what it's going to cost me. And I'm not sure that that I want to lose my life that I have today that I so I worked 19 years to get to that comfort level to live the life that I want finally and willingly to lose it again.

36. 25:21
    Wes Mathews

    It's great perspective. And what I love about it, right, is like there's there's there's always challenges and problems along the way, like whether they're small or big or, you know, and I've had a lot of like consultants around me in my life. And they're like, most of them are worth the shit. But the one guy I remember, he said, Wes, he goes, bigger businesses just have more zeros at the end of the number. Like they have all the same problems. They're just bigger problems, smaller problems.

    I'll never forget that. But I mean, but in your world, right? Like there's private equity, like there's a lot going on in your space. Like I if I if my crystal ball works, I'm sure you're getting the door knock or the phone calls like, hey, hey, Alek, like, let us come in and every day.

37. 26:06
    Alek Ivanov

    I'm not even kidding. Every day. Yesterday again, Ace Hardware. Hey, would you like to resume the conversation? I'm like, no, I told you to reach back to me in three years. That's what I told them. But they're but they're very persistent. Yes.

38. 26:24
    Wes Mathews

    Yeah, it's it's crazy out there because you have like, you know, in your world, there's like the home House Call Pro, the service titans of the world. A lot of like in Michigan, there's a lot of roll ups, a lot of I hate to say mon pop, but like a lot of them are getting kind of bought, shoved together because you do HVAC plumbing and electrical. Yes. I want to switch gears. 2019, you did an Ironman. So you're busy enough growing a company. So talk about the Ironman.

    I don't know a ton about it. But 11 hours sounds like that's pretty, pretty solid of a time.

39. 26:58
    Alek Ivanov

    Yeah. So you so you swim first, you bike, then you run. So you swim about 2.3 or 2.6 miles, you bike 112 miles, and then you run marathon at the end. So and in the process of training for that, I did multiple half Ironman. So basically half the distance of the full Ironman. And, you know, at the end of 2019, in September, I did the full one. Very painful. I and but I felt that I needed that. Again, in order to get out of comfort, you know, comfort zone, and kind of, you know, that saying when people say you come out different on the other end, or on the other side, that's what happened to me.

40. 27:49
    Wes Mathews

    I think I'm I'm no mathematician, but 2.3 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking. And is that 27 miles of running? 26.2 Correct.

41. 28:02
    Alek Ivanov

    In less than 11 hours, 11. So 11 hours, 13 minutes. So my goal was under 11 hours, but didn't quite make it that normal. Like what's normal? That's just sounds insane. That's that's good. So I was so anybody who's above 11 hours, let's say 11 and a half hours, you're not running marathon, you're walking. So people that 12 hours 1314 they walk the marathon, they didn't they didn't run. So I was able to run. Let's say eight, eight and a half nine minute pace, something like that, I believe.

    So bike was about five, five hours in the change.

42. 28:47
    Wes Mathews

    Swim was a little bit over an hour. You're doing like 20 some miles an hour on your bike. Yeah, time. Yes. That's fast. Yes. Yes. Like that's not like I mean, you're like cooking.

43. 29:01
    Alek Ivanov

    Yes, I was very fit. I was I was very fit. I was very it's a lot of anger. What I mean, coming on the other end differently was like you flushing yourself. You're releasing lots of baggage, lots of anger, lots of frustration. So you're you're you're you're changing your autonomous nervous system for sure. It's 100% that.

44. 29:30
    Wes Mathews

    So then from that is the next big thing you did three days of backpacking. You know, yeah, so that wasn't enough.

45. 29:36
    Alek Ivanov

    And I decided to punish myself. So I took my bike. And I went to in the middle of the Iceland. It took us. So was my brother and my brother-in-law. They drove me to that point. So I think we drove for three, four hours through the Iceland. And then they said, Okay, bon voyage. And off I go. And the start was a cliff. I'm not kidding you 20 feet, 24 feet high. And I had to carry my bike. And they're like, Let us help you. I said, No, you understand if you help me, and I can't get up myself, then I don't know what's what's going to happen after no one's going to help me up there.

    So I have to I have to do it myself. So at the start of that thing, my heart rate was about 160, 170 beats per minute. And they're like, Hey, see ya. See you in three days. And yeah, I had to sleep in a tent in the middle of, you know, Iceland, drink water from running water from the mountains, you know, eat some food that I, you know, you had to prep like a small, not even a stove. I don't even know what to name it.

    It's pretty, pretty crazy experience.

46. 30:51
    Wes Mathews

    Was that more difficult for you than the Iron Man? Mentally, yes.

47. 30:56
    Alek Ivanov

    It was, it was your, I met maybe 20 people along the way because it was a trail. I did have a GPS phone with like SOS from Garmin, supposedly helicopter would come and pick me up. I didn't, I didn't test that one. Thanks God. So I was able to text, text my family saying, Hey, I'm okay. Like, I'm okay. But I actually felt pretty hard once, like hit my head. And I was like, well, man, you would have died here and no one would find you for days.

    So it's, it's the trail was designed more for the mountain bike than the gravel bike. So that was, but you know, you read, and that's another feedback for people. You read those forums. I wouldn't trust any of them anymore. Because people said, yeah, sure. I did it on a, on a gravel bike. No way. I walked more than I, than I rode on the bike and there was still a lot of snow. That was another mistake, but it was June. There were, there was like snow almost knee deep in some, in some spots.

48. 32:07
    Wes Mathews

    So, so what's next? That's a couple crazy. What's, next on your bucket list? That's totally crazy.

49. 32:12
    Alek Ivanov

    So next I switched. So I did, I did gravel biking for, for a few years. I competed in Texas. I competed in Kansas. The Kansas race is super known. It used to be called dirty Kansas. And then they had to switch the name because it was not good enough for local tribes. So they start calling it unbound gravel. So that's considered hardest, you know, gravel biking race in the world. So I did that. It's actually lottery. So many people want to do it. You, you get a lottery ticket if you win and then you, you, you compete.

    So I come, you know, did three races, did the bike packing trips. And now I switched to road. Last year I was in Belgium for tour of Landers, one of the classic monuments for, you know, for, for road cycling. And in April I'm going to France to do a Parirou Bay. So that's another monument. So you know, back on the, back on the road. And, and that's the thing. Like now my life is full of, you know, cool things and adventures. And that's what's very hard to give up now for me.

50. 33:23
    Wes Mathews

    That's really cool. I mean, are you able to do these things now in your business and not like really stress out about what's going back on at the office? Like, are you in that position now? Honestly, 70,

51. 33:35
    Alek Ivanov

    I can't say a hundred percent. I wouldn't lie to the audience, but to give huge credit for my team, 70%. I get zero calls. That's, that's huge. Zero calls. So I come back and I say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to, to everybody, not just to the office team, but when I come back, there's usually a big meeting I tell about my trip. And then I say, thank you for allowing me to do what I want to do in my life. So that's, that's huge.

52. 34:06
    Wes Mathews

    Like you mentioned KPIs and stuff like that's, you know, key performance indicators. Now when you set out to do that, did you do something custom or like I know in your industry, there is like service Titan or certain things out there. Like, do you feel doing something internally versus sourcing that through a partner?

53. 34:23
    Alek Ivanov

    Do you have a recommendation one way or the other? Uh, some of the, uh, crucial ones we, we got from Gary Alakis when we had a one-on-one, uh, with him and, and they're very credible because he consults and he operates, uh, many companies. So he knows what the leading guys in the industry, uh, what are they benchmarks are in. And those are very hard numbers. For example, one of the hardest is 1% callback ratio on, uh, your installations. So a hundred installs, one callback that is, that is, I don't know even if it's possible to, to give you an example in 21 and for, for, for all the others who wondering, uh, why you're not making money in 2021, we actually lost money.

    We lost more than half a million on 8 million of revenue. Our callback ratio was 52%. And now, and I keep reminding everybody, remember, remember 21, remember what happened 52%. And, and you, you don't see those losses. You think, oh, it's okay. Let's go back. Let's go back. We'll fix it. No, it's not okay. It costs you much more than you think it costs you thousands of dollars every day. So we're, we are very serious this year. It's one of the company goals this year is that KPI.

    We have five goals this year for the company.

54. 35:48
    Wes Mathews

    And one of them is 1% callback ratio on, on all. What was, what was those special or different of 21? Like why some, why so many callbacks?

55. 35:57
    Alek Ivanov

    Uh, we've had a satellite office. Uh, we in, in the Chester County under different name, we, we've brought a person on board, uh, to roll, uh, in this area under different brand. And, uh, I wasn't, I wasn't ready. I've never done it. I've never had an satellite office with a different team and just the culture was different. Uh, and, uh, I was concentrating on running it here and trusting it over there. Uh, and it was again, bad setup. So that's why it's up. I know it's a big word.

    It needs to be more granule, right? If someone would be interested in asking me, I can get into details. But for example, we were paying some of their bills, but not all of their bills. And therefore what they see in their financials didn't match what we saw in our financials, but I saw our bank account and it was going down. But on their end, the spreadsheet looked good, of course, because we were carrying lots of, uh, um, expenses that they weren't carrying workers' comp, you know, they don't, he didn't realize how much worker comp costs, but I knew, you know, trucks, trucks, insurance, all of that.

    Um, so that's, and, and, and then, uh, you know, them not following, uh, installation evaluation forms, uh, really not measuring what they were supposed to measuring. The goal was to sell. And then we'll figure it out. We'll figure out the most important thing is to sell. So they would sell and then the guys would come in to install in half of the time. It wasn't, uh, what, uh, you know, what, what they thought it would be. So bad, bad, bad, uh, evaluations. We call them evaluations because you have to evaluate the system.

    So you as a leader, like that's a big number, right?

56. 37:58
    Wes Mathews

    That's a lot of money. Like how did you course correct that quickly? Like you saw that metric through your dashboards you created. How did you jump all over that and solve that?

57. 38:07
    Alek Ivanov

    I didn't, I didn't. And I only did when, uh, and that's, that's my problem. I only act when there's a gun to my head and there's, when there was no gun, I was like, okay, okay. Well, let's work on this. Let's work on this. And only when, uh, I started losing sleep, uh, and I measure my HRV. My HRV was very low for, for all that year. I set that person down and I said, listen, we have to find a way to, uh, separate, uh, you know, separate.

    And we, and we did. And guess what? The next year we, we, we made profit and we back on the trajectory, uh, even better trajectory. So, but, uh, again, confronting the fears, confronting the reality was something that I wasn't working, uh, on, uh, in 20 and 21 and 22. Uh, I hired the therapist and I actually credit a lot, uh, of, you know, recent success to work with her. Uh, you know, at the beginning I, I was working with her every week. I had a session every week, uh, and still working, you know, until, you know, until this day on, on, on working on these, uh, internal issues that I have, not the issues, but you know what I mean, uh, recognizing a blind spot, recognizing, uh, what's bothering me, what's prohibiting me from living, you know, the full, the full potential that I have.

    Yeah.

58. 39:38
    Wes Mathews

    Well, I mean, I think from my perspective, man, I think why you're, why you're successful, it's, it's, it's that self-awareness, right. As a visionary, as a leader and like recognizing that you don't have all the answers. You're not perfect. I mean, along the way you've identified your weak points and faced it and created a solution around it. Maybe it wasn't the exact timing you wanted, but you're implementing things and you've recognized that. Like that's the one thing that I see that, you know, really takes a leader from it just, that's what grows a leader.

    So I want to thank you for being super open and vulnerable and sharing that stuff because it's not super easy. Um, but I want to congratulate you on building a great company. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. How can people get in contact with you? I mean, I know home service guys, they just, you'd be a great resource to contact and share war stories and just communicate.

59. 40:37
    Alek Ivanov

    What's the LEK Ivanov IV and OV on LinkedIn? Um, I think this is, those are the easiest way or, uh, through synergy tree.com message to the president. We have a special section where people can send me message directly. Uh, that's, that's the third option.

60. 40:57
    Wes Mathews

    Well, awesome. And we'll put all that in the notes too in the podcast, but Alek, dude, thank you so much for coming on. Good luck this weekend. We won't post this before the weekend. So good luck with that. And I thank you again.

61. 41:08
    Alek Ivanov

    Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

62. 41:11
    Wes Mathews

    This has been another episode of entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us for show notes. For other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel.com until next time.