Thursday Mar 26, 2026
34: The Brad Davis Episode
On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, host Sheila Smeltzer sits down with Brad Davis of Best Exterior Cleaning in Seattle, Washington, to unpack one of the most honest kinds of growth stories in home services: rapid sales success followed by the hard reality of building operations that can actually support it. Brad shares his unconventional path from ironworker and crane operator to top-producing real estate agent and eventually exterior cleaning business owner, explaining how he helped grow the company from about $60,000 to $600,000 in a year through relentless networking, outreach, follow-up, and sheer volume of sales activity.
Brad and Sheila also dig into what happened after that explosive growth. Brad opens up about the breakdowns that came from scaling too fast without strong enough systems, including hiring issues, poor training, inconsistent job quality, operational chaos, and the financial pain of expensive mistakes. The conversation then shifts into what he is building now: clearer technician levels, stronger onboarding, better accountability, a more structured training process, and a roadmap for creating real career paths inside the business. Along the way, they talk about leadership, culture, recurring revenue, commercial versus residential work, and why long-term success in service businesses depends not just on selling hard, but on creating simple, scalable systems that help people win.
Resources:
Transcript:
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer From North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in the industry, folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses, and they want to help you succeed.
Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience, 0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the wild. Journey of entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.
Welcome today to today's Huge Transformations podcast. I am Sheila Smeltzer here with you and I am interviewing Brad Davis. Best exterior cleaning outta Seattle Washington. Fascinating story about Brad. I met him recently in the huge mastermind group and I had the pleasure of interviewing him today. Um, this is a guy who was an iron worker journeyman, got his spine crushed, uh, moved into real estate, became a top producing real estate agent, um, rookie of the year, and ultimately started an exterior cleaning company.
And sounds to me like he can sell like crazy and we're gonna talk a lot about that. But he also, 10 Xed his company. One year going from 60,000 to 600,000 and he shares the trials and tribulations and the really difficult things that came along the way of that type of rapid growth. And we dive into that today and, uh, we have a great conversation and talk a lot about training.
We talk a lot about. Sales. And, um, by the way, he's an excellent, um, digital creator, has excellent video content. Highly suggest you check out his stuff on social media. Um, and yeah, we're learning together here at the Huge Transformations podcast and really enjoy you joining us and listening to Brad Davis's interview and promise.
You're gonna find some gold and you're gonna learn some things that either A, you can relate to. Or B, can help you prevent making some of the same mistakes that we do as entrepreneurs. So welcome to the huge community, and thank you for listening to today's show. Hello. Hello everyone. This is Sheila Selzer with The Huge Transformations Podcast.
And thank you for joining us today. We have Brad Davis, Brad's with Best Exterior Cleaning outta Seattle, Washington, and, uh, a new, um, attendee with our huge mastermind group. Brad, welcome. Thanks, uh, thanks for having me. Uh, yeah, I'm exterior cleaner out of Seattle, Washington. Uh, happy to be here. Really love the huge convention.
Yeah. So Brad, I, uh, you and I got to know each other a little bit whenever, uh, at one of the recent masterminds and we connected on the safety topic. Don't know if we're gonna get into that today, but, um, happy to. But, um, I'm just really excited to be able to get to know you a little bit better and share, you know, your experiences with our, with our viewers.
Um, you know, I see that you've done some real estate. I see that you've done some iron work and you're about two years into your, uh, company in the exterior cleaning space. So, c tell us, tell us a little bit of your background please. Yeah, so, uh. So like a lot of entrepreneurs, I, uh, didn't do well in high school, uh, A DHD and dyslexia.
And so that was a struggle. So I became an iron worker outta high school, um, four year, four plus years. Um, after being an iron worker, I was nearly crushed to death at work. Um, I have four fuse vertebrae in my lower back. Had to learn how to walk again. Took multiple back surgeries and years of physical therapy.
Um, and I say it like it's nonchalant, but you know, it's kind of normal for me, uh, now. And so then I, um, after that I got into construction cranes, uh, was doing like mobile cranes and, and tower cranes, um, for a while. And then got an opportunity to work at Boeing, was a overhead crane operator at Boeing for five years.
And then, um, started a, uh, cannabis processing company out of Oregon. Um, we. They make marijuana products. Mm-hmm. Um, realized I was in over my head, but I was a part of like a group that started it and decided I just didn't want to be a part of it. So I left that, uh, got into real estate, got like a top, um, top producer, uh, one year and rookie of the year, my first year.
And, um, rookie of the year. Yeah. So they gave like a rookie of the year for our office. There were like 200 agents. Um mm-hmm. There was like five, five, uh, five rookies, five new people. And so I, uh, I, I actually, uh, proudly won it by quite a bit. Um, and then I got, uh, top five, uh, real estate agents in my offices, um, the next year.
And then my third year things just slowed way down and I was just, look, I, it just wasn't. What I wanted to do long term. And so I looked for something that I could, a machine that I could build. I wanted to build a business that I could slowly work my way through every single position to where I could then be able to, um, have a asset that works.
And so I knew right away to get, you know, coaching and training and things like that. Um, my first, uh, we started in September of 24. Mm-hmm. Um, September, October, November, and then December. Um, that combined, I did about $60,000. Um, and then after, uh, and then, and then, so that was 20 24, 20 25, uh, we pushed really hard.
I, uh, essentially like brought on a partner who had, um, a really small, like one man show business that did a lot of multifamily. Okay. And I, um, essentially what I say is I took what he had and I put gas on it, and we did. Um, and he did like about 200 or less a year. Um, but he had a lot of, like, his wife was going through cancer treatment and, um, had two small kids and just couldn't really grow it.
Um, there's just too many hats for him to wear between the business and home. Mm-hmm. Um, and so he, he, we partnered up and we did 600 K last year. And so we just like, uh, and it was, and about three quarters of the way through it all started like falling. So, um, I thought this was going to, you know, like I was selling and things were going really great and we just didn't have systems that really made what, like made it work.
It was just like we were going off of. Momentum and just trying to make everything happen. And about three quarters of the way through the year, I was getting pulled out a lot for, um, uh, about, actually probably about halfway through the year I was getting pulled out of, of selling to go and fix problems and deal with things.
And we just, my focus couldn't be in, in sales and trying to make things happen. So, um, we were just having to, you know, try and, and we were, we weren't training people as well as we could. We didn't have as good expectations as we could. We weren't hiring that well. We were just kind of doing everything okay.
But we were selling really well. Okay. So it was a lot coming in, a lot of problems. And then we were delivering, but the, but we'd have jobs that were big, that were like, oh, this is gonna take us a week. And then it took us a week and a half or two weeks because. The problems. Right. And can can I stop you for a second?
Yeah. So I just heard you say that you 10 x your company in a year. Yeah. You did that through sales. So can you take us, can you take our listeners through your sales process? 'cause that's, that's pretty damn good. Thanks. Um, my sales process, yeah. Was, uh, what do you think was hardly a sales process? I felt like though it's, you know, there's something to it.
Um, so like the main, so what I did was I looked for, I got lists of, of multifamily, um. Of like commercial slash like multifamily, um, contacts. And then I would, um, and so that's, that's phone numbers and emails. And then I also, um, got connected with, um, the, our local CI, um, and so I, which is like an organization that focuses on, um, education and, uh, and mar uh, networking in the multifamily space.
Okay. So they, so now I'm a part of the education board on the, for like the organization. So we. Work on, like putting together events that can help teach, uh, homeowners of multifamily and property managers and what we are called business partners. Um, and so that it kind of puts that together and it teaches everybody like, like there's certain things that people need to learn, uh, contract law, um, just some of the, like the understanding of what needs to be done in some of these properties.
And it's everything from, they do have people that are just their own single family home. It's not very often. It's normally that they'll have like owners of, um, you know, town homes that have like five town homes up to like these like really massive properties. And so, uh, so a lot of networking. Uh, we're a part of also a, um, BNI group, which we don't get a lot of, like a lot of like single family.
Home stuff. Sure. Um, but really it was just cold outreach or meeting people in person. Right. Um, it's, we did, we ran Facebook ads. I would say like a lot of the ads and all this stuff, like, it just kept the lights on. Um, we, we could, we had a lot of like, single family, like, we're just, the, the advertising is so expensive that we're, and we are still dialing in our pricing and such.
The first time you, you know, when you're getting a, a new lead off of Facebook and you land 'em and you, and it's just like, it's enough to kinda keep the lights on, but not, you're not really making money. Mm-hmm. Um, at least not the first time you, you service 'em. Like the next time after that, you service 'em, it starts to get better or it does get better and it gets better over time.
But, um, but yeah, just having like different Hmm. Yeah. Networking and community outreach, getting involved in different, just different events, things like that through Yeah. Your lo local network. Um, prospecting, like all the real estate agents. How I started really was just calling all my real estate agent friends and being like, Hey, do you have any listings coming up that you need cleaned?
Yeah. And they're like, yeah, no, I do. And so, um, that started going, it was, so, it's just all, all these different angles is what I'm getting at that I didn't say no to anything. I mean, we do Thumbtack, we do like, um, Yelp, we do like all these different things that can get us in front of people. 'cause the most important thing is that you need to be in front of people.
I mean, we wrapped the trucks, we did like all that stuff, and. So there's not, what I'm getting at is there's not any one thing that is gonna get you, like that kind of growth. It's like just spend work from 6:00 AM to midnight every day on trying to make sure that you get in front of as many people as possible.
Right. And that's great advice. Mm-hmm. And then from there, it's follow up. Follow up, follow up. It's, make sure you're in front of people. I mean, like, I'll admit, there's times where I dropped the ball. I could have been in front of people more and could have followed up better. And that comes from like realizing that I am trying to do this and then going in, having to go fix, you know, uh, I have to go clean windows at a house 'cause they weren't done right.
Or the, or my tech didn't show up at all. Right. Or I had like, I don't know how you have five people in the field and somehow none of them show up. On a day
it happens. Like, I, I mean, it does, it happens, it blows my mind. Like I didn't miss, I, I think I missed, like, actually, I don't think me and my business partner missed a day that we didn't, that we were like, you know, unless we, we like purposely took it off. We didn't miss a day last year and somehow we have all these guys that just don't show up and having that bad, it was just a bad culture and like, just a lot of things or are problems.
But like, going back to my sales process Yeah. Was literally, it was just, was any kind of outreach I could, any kind of inbound, lead, outbound, anything, calling, emailing, following up, getting them a bid, get it, uh, following up on the bid and just, just keep going after 'em. And the crazy thing is that. You get like all this business is so random in that you have, with like the bidding process and like the prices where you get, it's really easy to get discouraged where you're saying like you, you're bidding house clean, uh, window cleaning or roof wash, whatever you're doing.
And they're like, you'll get, that's a great price. I will take it to, that's five times what somebody else was charging me. And you're like, go with them. Yeah. And you just have to be, and, and understanding your numbers that I did not, I didn't fully get right. And there's a lot of unknown unknowns that are, that make starting a business difficult.
And then when you scale it that quick, you end up like making a lot of mistakes. And now it's like, I look back and I'm like, oh, okay, that's, uh, this is the mistake I made and this is why I can't do it that way. And these like, discounts were like too big and these like, you know, like these things, like the, or just this price in general wasn't enough.
So now I need to like adjust that. And so, and we're constantly like tweaking little things and it's, to me, it's fun. Mm-hmm. Uh, I love this business and like, little secret with everybody. Like I haven't really taken much of a paycheck at all in this time because I know that, like, for one, I'm fortunate, I'm financially set up well enough to do it.
But I also know that it's like, it's really hard to scale quickly when it scaled quickly. I made no money. Mm-hmm. And because you're, you're making a lot of mistakes. Well, that, and you're investing, right? You're investing continually into the company, right? Yep. Yep. People, people, a lot of people don't realize that sometimes as the business owner, we are the last one to be paid.
Um, and it really should be the other way around, but that's life, right? Um, and we do whatever we have to do. But, um, it's, uh, so before I wanna, I wanna talk about the mistakes because with the rapid scale that you've gone into, and you've mentioned several already, and I would like to dive in to a couple of those, but I kind of wanna go backwards a little bit.
And you're talking about being in front of people. Um, me checking out your social media, um, on your Facebook best exterior cleaning, and then your LinkedIn page, you've got some awesome digital content. Um, how did you, did you hire somebody to do that or are you the digital creator? Because there's a i there's a really, there's, there's really good quality to your video in a number of different ways, and I was telling you before we came on the show, but I'd like to share with the listeners.
I don't know if they'll pick up on the same thing as I, but there's, there's kind of like a, you know, a lot of exterior cleaning companies do a lot of different, like we all have our different style, but to me, Brad, your style is, it's, it's extremely authentic. It's very. Kind of like calming and nurturing and feel super comfortable.
And like me as the viewer, it makes me feel like, oh wow, what a, just like, so easy if I call these people, like, it would be so easy to do business with them. But this, like, this kind of like feeling that comes through in your video. But tell me about your video creation, because video's huge and you've definitely done it extremely well.
Well, thanks. I, um, I feel the opposite. I feel like I'm just doing my best to try and figure it out and I don't know. Um, I think that you naturally end up coming out with, uh, like a style. Um, uh, to answer your, your question that, uh, I've hired some different people over the years, uh, over the, this like year and a half of doing video, um, are my.
By salesman slash like marketing, a person I hired, uh, at the end of last year, he's now helping me with like, he has a video background. So the problem is we're just so busy all the time. It's like trying to get these videos put together. Yeah. And done. But we have like, um, so we're like building more videos.
I create, I typically create the script. The, and uh, you know, to be honest, a lot of it could be, I could do more ahead of time to prepare. Um. Most of my stuff is like one-liner, uh, put toge, a bunch of one-liners kind of put together, or I'll voiceover as well. So like I'll record something and I'll say like one line, and then I'll shoot something else, and then I'll record and I'll say another one line and like I just kinda chop it up.
And then the way it's kind of put together, um, I also, because I am like, I do come across as a little more like, like I can come across as too calm where it's like boring. So I have to like, and then camera, like a boring person seems even more boring. And so you have to like amp up yourself. And so these videos are like me as like try and be animated.
Right? Um, one, I've done video for the last like 15 years, so you definitely were doing video and real estate and. I was also used to, the thing I left out is I used to compete in drifting. Okay. And so, I don't know if you know what that is, but it's like car racing. Okay. Um, and so I had videos with that and so, um, that tra that taught me a lot about like your energy level because it's really hard to sound excited when you're losing or when you completely blow up a $10,000 motor and you are not happy and you are trying to like, not seem boring on camera.
Right. And so that is tough, but when you're winning, it's really easy to be excited about it. Mm-hmm. So, and it's really easy to have good content when you're like, yeah, but this is blah, blah. You, like, they get you. Right. You got a card and you're just like jacked 'cause you're excited. So, so we're talking a little bit about the acting element.
Yeah. So the acting element is definitely one of those like. And, and I found that I essentially have to have somebody do the recording and editing because I'm too ultra critical about myself. Hmm. And I will take forever trying to get, and I'll just never do it. Like, I'll, I'll keep recording and keep recording, set up a tripod, do all this stuff, and I'll just never do it.
'cause I'll just be like, I didn't think that was great. That was terrible. That was terrible. Oh, I, I forgot that word. I, blah, blah, blah. Versus like, I'm, I'm so the opposite. I'll just do it. And I'm like, it's great. Put it out there. I, I am so jealous of that. And, and the thing I do too is that there's like, somewhere, there's a ton of like, like stuff that was never used that I'm just being like, super goofy.
Um, I like to just get like, like just be goofy and, and, and do like funny things and say funny things. And it gets me kind of like in this like fun, happy mood to do videos, but I can't, it's hard to do it by myself. 'cause I have this like weird, uh, I don't know, maybe it's the class clown from being like the kid that always got in trouble in school.
But like, I will like the person that's recording, I will just like mess around and I like, and you like, make 'em laugh and it's fun and then it like, and then we go into like recording the stuff and it's a good time. Yeah. And so it's hard for me to shoot footage by myself. You know, the thing for someone like me, which I know most of the people looking at your video content, are not gonna be the Sheila Smeltzers of the world that come from deep industry background, that are trained in safety, that are looking for professional skills and tactics being used.
But I see that in your videos. I see, um, I see skill craft, I see safety, um, like, like professional image, like all those things. Those are the things that I am like really loved about your video content because that puts an image out to the world that we are professionals in exterior cleaning, right? Like, this is an industry and that's what I care about.
Um, so anyway, I just wanna give you kudos for that. And all of our listeners, you know, just seriously go check out Brad's content. I think. You guys will really enjoy it. Um, but let's, let's talk about some of the difficult stuff. Can we Yeah, yeah. I'm an open book. So you have talked about systems, like basically you created chaos because you're a selling machine and you create a chaos because yeah, you can sell the jobs all day long, but then you need the operations to be able to fulfill them.
You need the finance, you need the administrative. Um, and so it sounds like you have the sale, you have the sales and the marketing pretty well intact. That's great. Leads coming in. Um, but now you have to actually fulfill that. And these are the different roles of the company. Um, what, I mean, it sounds like you tackled operations first and you're kind of learning the finance and whatnot along the way.
Am I right by saying that? Yeah. Yeah. We're, um, the thing that we, so we waited till. I didn't really wait. I think we had to wait, I guess, till things slowed down enough to be able to put the effort that it needed. Mm-hmm. Uh, but the, the thing that we are really concentrating on, right, uh, like I'm at the tail end of is our hiring process, firing, uh, training, um, doing different ma giving people a roadmap that when they get hired on, they can see how they can make more money.
Yep. Just trying to put these like really important steps in that bring on a good quality person that will, you know, guaranteed we're gonna hire people that just don't, they're they're, they're just, they don't, aren't looking for a, um. Career in exterior cleaning. They're just looking for a job for now.
And maybe they have a good attitude. Maybe they, we get, you know, there's, you'll meet. Like I had one guy who was great and he was just between jobs, he was tech sales and he did, and he just cleaned and he just was looking for a job for now and he was solid. And that was like my first hire and he was amazing.
Um, he now is back into sec tech sales and he is happy doing that. But, uh, but what I wanted to do was find those people, uh, like build this for those people that maybe are. Like how I was, where I just didn't have a path. I came outta high school. I barely graduated high school. I like didn't really have a path, I didn't know what to do.
Mm. And granted, I think I'm more resourceful than some, but like the people that are just doing their best to be like, all right, I just, I need a job and I, I want something that has some kind of a future, right? I don't wanna go work at like some fast food joint and be there forever. Like, I wanna do something where there's a future and we can have a good time.
And so the goal is to have to where, and I'm, I'm not quite to the full build out, but the goal is to show somebody how they can go from like an entry level person to being the operator of this business. Mm-hmm. Because ultimately I don't want to be the operator of the business. And so yeah, creating, creating careers and uh, um, that kind of, that turnkey operation and yeah, you're right, it takes a playbook and it takes systems so that no matter who's doing the thing, they know how to do it.
And that definitely relieves you and your responsibilities as the owner. Um, so like you're hiring, 'cause like what I'm hearing is that you're, you, you're trying to create career pathways for people in your community and you sounds like you're focusing, like you're employee kind of avatar is peop like people coming outta high school and, or like maybe in the middle of college and like, uh, what am I doing?
Yeah. Are those, is that kind of who you're trying to attract as tech? Yeah, for sure. Okay. That's, that's definitely who I'm trying to attract. Or just somebody that hasn't. Maybe they're, they've tried a bunch of different things and just their, their career path hasn't landed yet. So how are you enticing them?
Oh, like, uh, so like, our pay structure, we're, we're now doing a percentage based pay and we're, um, for, if you're a trained, um, like an actual, like trained employee, um, well I call 'em team members 'cause I think that's a better way to put it. Yep. Uh, but, uh, we are doing a four level system. Uh, your first, your, uh, when you first hire on, you're an entry level or el um, and you get, you get a hourly pay only.
You have very strict, like, these are the things that you need to do. We give you an evaluation on the first day, um, from the person that is working with you. And then you do, uh, and then you as the. The new hire, you do like your own evaluation and then the next day that the, your manager and you will talk about it and just kind of go over the details and make sure that there's no disconnect on, like somebody thinks they're doing really well and somebody's not doing well or whatever.
So they're on the same page. And so then they have two weeks in that and then they, we do an evaluation at the end of the two weeks and then they, same kind of thing, but they, we need to see progression and a good attitude, consistency, showing up, those kind of things. And then they can move to a level one.
And I thought it was really important to go into like showing a. A win and a progression. Mm-hmm. Within the first like, couple weeks, because that show, like, people will build on momentum and you're like, oh, I went from, you know, this much an hour to this much an hour. Awesome. I'm making, I'm now gonna make more money and I have something to work for.
And then go from level one. You still don't get, uh, it's still only hourly. Yep. You're, you're on still a tight leash of what you are allowed to do, what you're not allowed to do, and how you're and what's expected of you. Yep. And then you start learning how to build, like how to build the skills to what we need.
And we have a list of these different skills and these trainings and you go, you start going through 'em and you start learning. And then from there you can become a level two. Which a level two is somebody that can pass the basic skills test for all our services and then we're able, and then they're able to, um.
Essentially be able to be left on a job, do the work, and somebody will go through our production manager, who is for now my business partner, will go through and double check the work. And typically these are commercial jobs. Uh, and so, or they'll work with somebody that's above them who is a, like, essentially a journeyman, which is a level three.
And then they will go through and just double check the person's work. And that person will get a percentage of pay. A level two, level three will get a, a bigger percentage. And so they'll be able to, um, kind of have this figured out and they can go through the steps. And then the next one obviously is production manager.
And, and so then we'll ultimately have a production manager. But what we're working on is getting the field tech part really dialed in. Mm-hmm. Then. My business partner's, the, uh, production manager for now until we can kind of really cement what that job really means and how it all works. And then, um, I am essentially acting as the office manager, uh, to do that.
I also leverage, um. Virtual assistants. And so we use virtual assistants for certain things like our scheduling, which is pretty wild, that somebody can be really good at scheduling in a country that they've never been Right. And doing services they've never performed, but it's working. Mm-hmm. And so we're like trying to leverage these different things to make it all kind of come together.
And as we build ourselves out of, uh, as we build every position, we can kind of work our way. So like, my goal is in 2027 to have a production manager Okay. And then in, and then see how that goes. And it still might be in 2027, we end up with an office manager. But really we need to stabilize the company and get, uh, and have profit.
Because what people don't talk about is like, when you grow that fast, there's no profit in it. Like, it's all just like, you know, it is not even just the wraps and the like. Equipment. It's, it's the mistakes that I've made that have cost us probably, you know, yeah. 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars or more.
Yeah. I have some questions for you. Um, first I wanna go back to your tech level system, and I'm, uh, I'm working on something very similar in my company. I mean, honestly, it's pretty much identical. My question is, do, do your tech levels, do they involve, uh, do, is there a differentiator on height work?
Meaning if you're a level one, you're on the ground. If you're level two, you can do up to 24. If you're up to, if you're a level three, you can do up to 40 foot ladder work, like, or do you have anything like that built in? No, because. Um, I know it gets tricky 'cause it's not ideal, but it's, I I, I do wanna share a little, a little hint of gold.
Okay. If you, in your payroll system, if you can identify your technicians in a level one, two, or three, and if your level one you are, their job description is to stay on the ground. Okay? Then whenever you get audited for work comp, you can run those reports and you're gonna pay a heck of a lot less for those people that are training and on the ground as a rate per 100 of their payroll.
So I just, this, this comes up a lot. I have a lot of, um, guys that are new in the industry. I just got a message from a competitor the other day saying like, Hey Sheila, can I talk to you about workman's comp? I'm going through like one of my first audits and um, so there's some really creative ways that we can, uh, work around that, but just, I'm just kind of throwing that out there.
I would, I would consider that maybe, maybe I should do that, at least at minimum with, uh, entry level. Because in the first two weeks they, like, they could probably just be on the ground. The hard part though, and that's, that's not gonna save you that much. But if you do, you do a lot of interior window cleaning.
To be honest, we're trying to get away from window cleaning altogether. Oh, you are? Okay. Well, yeah, we do. Our big thing is roof cleaning. Okay. Yes. And that's where it's like, hard to say like a level one. And the issue that we have too is that you could, you could have somebody that's like, oh, I could be up on a roof, no problem.
And then you get 'em up there and they're shaken like a leaf. Right. So we'd rather get them up there, like a little taste of it. Yep. And just see how it is. And then we're not like investing a bunch in somebody and then they're turning around and saying like, oh, I don't. I can't, I can't handle being up on roof.
And you're like, well that's like last year 50% of our, our work was roof cleaning. So like you're absolutely right when you're bringing people on to be able to get them a skills assessment of some sort that is going to get them into similar scenarios of what they're gonna be doing on the job. Because if you can nix that out right off the bat, you're gonna save yourself so much time and money with that person.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So like, I like the idea of saving money with l and i, I just don't think that like, because so much of us is roof cleaning, it's like, yeah. I, I just don't see it being, and we're actually rebranding, this is a thing that I learned too, um, is that like we're best exterior cleaning, even though like.
It actually works really well for the commercial side because people will think of like exterior cleaning as a commercial thing. Like that's a name or like that's something you would say, but like home house cleaning is not like that. Like people don't think of like, oh I need an exterior cleaner.
They're like, I need my roof cleaned, I need my windows, I need gutters. I need that. But I named it 'cause I didn't wanna pigeonhole myself into a certain thing. 'cause if I would've said like best window cleaning and then I was, now I'd be like, I don't want to do window cleaning. Yeah. It's the least profitable thing for us.
And like it only accounted for one sixth of our or less of our business last year. And I'm okay with that. And I we're actually actively like. We're actively pursuing everything else, and we're just like, if people want windows, we'll talk about it, but we're like trying to not do it. Um, you can't buy a bigger, a big enough squeegee to make the windows go that much faster.
Yep. So it's, we're more like roof cleaning, pressure washing, and that's, we're where we are. So, um, yeah, definitely have your tickets. You're smart. I mean, we're doing the same thing. Um, I was talking to an employee yesterday in a one-on-one, a technician and I mean, we were talking about this very same thing.
He is like, you know, we just, we make so much more money doing the roof cleanings and the house washing and you know, all the commercial stuff. And I'm like, yeah, I know. But we are like a plus. Pro services is number one in the market in any SEO search, in any way you look at it. That is the service that brings people in the door to our company.
I'm like, sorry, it's never going away. Unfortunately, we're the best at it, and it's just not going away. But if it gets people in the door and you know, hey, that's okay, because if we can do the other, um, high margin services, then that really helps us be holistically offer, like offering holistically to our clients.
And so anyway, I just, it's you're, what you're saying is absolutely correct. So remind me where you're located. I'm in, I'm in southeastern, North Carolina. Okay. Yeah. Nice. So Brad, um. Uh, hiring. We, we, we are only touching on some of the, I could go for hours. I know you're like, 30 minutes and then we're gonna start writing this down.
And I was like, yeah. Okay. We should stay on like one topic because I can talk for hours about this. I love this business. Me too. Me too. I'm the same. Um, so I think what, like, it's, so with your hiring and then now, so where are you at right now? So we're coming into spring season and you grew up real fast and then you had to, you had to kind of slow down a bit, implement some systems.
You've done a lot of implementing, of training, hiring and all, and all of that. So that's all your employee stuff and building your team, your operations. So what does the spring 2026 look like for you? Oh, it is getting off to a slow start. 'cause we were focusing so much on the systems building and those things.
Yep. Um, but we say that our, our year is from um, it's essentially like march to end of Feb or like the end of February. Because what happens is that, 'cause we do multifamily, um, a lot of, uh, roof cleaning and gutter cleaning all the way up until it starts generally starts freezing out in February. Okay. So like, we had weird year this year, but we had snow last week, which was, normally we have like two or three snow days and a bunch of freezing in the middle of February, and then so all the work stops and so we generally try and wrap up all our work.
By then, um, this is, a lot of this is based upon historical stuff from my business partner and what, and then it, it mirrored pretty well, uh, last year, uh, this last year. And so we, uh, we generally take like a month break where it just stops. And then, so now like we say like, oh, we're starting our year. Like this is the beginning of our year.
We have one tech in the field right now. My business partner fills in when we ha where we have to. Mm-hmm. And we're just kind of getting going. Okay. And so our spring is the beginning of our year. We have, I don't know, the, so far this year we've probably done, like,
we've probably done like, uh, half a million dollars in bids so far for commercial. We're getting like crazy big, uh, opportunities. Like, it's, it's pretty wild. 'cause the more you just. This is where like we've also talked about like not wanting to do residential. Mm-hmm. Uh, or just doing it in like such a low capacity that it can cover our bills, our base bills.
'cause it's cash flow constantly. Mm-hmm. And then really just focusing on the commercial side of it, because it's all about filling capacity, right? That's one learn learning lesson is that it's all about, like if you have a person, uh, out there, you need to make sure their full capacity is full fill. And so it's a lot easier to do that with commercial jobs because you have such a large bucket of hours that you can just distribute among people and, but you need this volume and then cash flow is really slow.
So, um, what my spring looks like is, um, just trying to keep that one, one residential person running. Mm-hmm. And we, uh, and then. We're hiring some, um, entry level people and we're getting these commercial stuff starting to get accepted. And we also have some reoccurring, some ones from last year that are gonna need to be done.
And so we're starting to see that ball start to roll, um, by April. Um, we should be, we should have April decently full and we should just be able to keep rolling. Uh, and yeah, that's what, that's what it looks like. You said 2027, you're gonna have a production manager. How many techs are you envisioning for you to validate a production manager or what kind of revenue?
So we're, so our goal for this year is a million dollars. Okay. And. And we, and had gone through and looked at our, uh, we did like a projected p and l and trying to figure out like where, where we, and looking at our last, uh, p and l looking at like where we lost money and where we can kind of pick up, um, like make it better.
Mm-hmm. And so the, the goal in really like having, having
two, so like doing that, we should be able to, we should be able to do it with like three, three techs and one of those, and, and like an entry level, like a, like a beginning person. Mm-hmm. But what's probably gonna happen is we're probably gonna have like multiple, uh, beginning, uh, like new people. Uh, we fired everybody but one person at the end of the year because they started to have like, we, we had a mess.
And we had people that were breaking stuff without saying or not saying anything. We had people that were doing really terrible jobs and just not showing up. And so we just had this big mess. So we have one tech right now, and we're just going to, we're gonna hire on some new people and my business partner is gonna be in the field more training.
And then we're just gonna try and organically grow this up. So really we having three the million dollars with three techs is about like, right. Um, for what we're looking at for, for our commercial work. And so we should, we should be able to do that. Um, we'll see about. How that really pans out. 'cause the question is, there's a lot of unknowns.
Um, we were overstaffed last year at certain times, and we could have, uh, spread out some work a little better and had less. And that's a good learning lesson as it sometimes you like see these like giant jobs come and you're, you're like, oh my God. We had like a $50,000 roof cleaning job in June, and so we had three techs and we got it done really quickly, but then it was really difficult to keep those three, those guys working.
Mm-hmm. Because when you're, when you can tackle 40 hours of work in one day, it's, it's hard to feed that machine when you're brand new and you have nothing reoccurring. Right. It's like all new, other than we had like certain communities that would need to get done like a couple times a year, but we had like, no, nothing reoccurring.
So we're just like scrambling every day to try and make sure you're, we're getting 'em, uh. Yeah, you just, does that answer your question? Yeah. You just, you just solved, I think one of your own little puzzle pieces about, about how to maintain it all with the recurring revenue. And I'm just wondering, um, your, your business partner, if he's kind of like the owner operator type, um, would he be your production manager?
Yeah, so he's gonna be the production manager for now. Mm-hmm. Um, the issue that we have, and maybe he might be a production manager for longer term than what we're thinking. Mm-hmm. Um, but the goal is to keep growing. And, um, the issue that, and, and I think this is where we don't fully know yet, is that 'cause he's never run a business with like really good systems.
It's always been like him out with a couple guys or whatever, and he just kind of like runs it Uhhuh. Um, and so this is the question, is he a manager? Yeah, he's a, he's a good manager. Okay. Uh, it's just a matter of like, under, he's, he's great with coaching people and training people. Okay. The problem that we had is just the organization of the training.
Mm. He's like, not having the system, not having the system of like, it's funny 'cause like we were talking about this the other day. It was like, well, how do we train somebody? Like, he's like, well, normally I would go up and I would get them on the roof and we would clean and I would show 'em kind of how we're doing it and I would kind of work 'em into it.
And I'm like, okay, well where's our problems we've been having? And it's like, our problems have actually been having the ground cleanup where, you know, getting, making sure around the house, excuse me, around the house and everything looks good. It's like, well, why wouldn't you start with a person? Like have them be on the ground cleaning and making and understanding that part and you do the technical part and then you work them into, up to doing the technical part.
And it's like kind of changing some of those like mindset around training and working through it. And maybe that isn't the right way to go, but it's like, what we are doing wasn't working. So how do we do it to where it will work? We can, we can walk, we can stair step somebody into it. And that kind of came down to that like, what if we do levels and what if we train in a certain way that makes it so they, they care more?
And that's also a, one of the biggest things to kind of wrap your head around is how do you get somebody to care? Hmm. Yeah. It's really hard to inject your passion into people. Um. That that is, that is very tricky. Um, go, going back to the training part, um, I'm gonna have somebody on this podcast who 'cause training is, training is probably, in my opinion, training is the most difficult part.
About having a company like we do. Um, and I'm sure training is difficult across the board, um, with all different types of businesses and a lot of people don't do it. Right. Um, there's a, a woman that I know, her name's Amanda Powell, and she does mid management training. She comes into companies of all sizes and she trains you how to train.
I can tell you that there's really four components of it, and I'm gonna bring her on because this would be a great show. But you know, there's the what, what are we training the purpose behind it and all of that. Then there's the how. So you gotta teach and show how to do it, right? Then there's the assessment.
So now you're as assessing and you're grading and you're giving them a score. There's, right, and then the final part that she says that everybody gets wrong is that feedback loop. And the feedback loop is coming from the person that is being trained back to the trainer to say, this is how I learned better, or I would've learned this better.
Doing that, or ba ba. And that feedback loop, root loop is really the most crucial part of the whole thing. So you know it like that. That's the framework right there. So, um, then it's like how, right? There's LMS systems and you know, like you can, like, you, you have to be able to have it in a way that anybody, if you have a production manager, shop manager or an operations manager, whatever, that anybody coming into the company, it's like, all right, here we go.
This is how we hire, this is how we onboard, this is orientation. This is the training. Okay, great. Now they're becoming a level one tech and building all that out. Are you doing that on any type of a platform or what are you building it out on? So we got all the written down, um, in Google Sheets, like all the structure.
Um, that's where we're like starting off of, uh, my, one of my next things is like trying to, is find a, a system that we can, they can go through all the modules and stuff. If you have a recommendation, that'd be great. Mm-hmm. Is like to going through the modules and we're gonna be doing video. Um, so like having a lot of it as video.
Yep. Um, and then I, I totally agree with the feedback loop thing and like all of our assessments and everything also have a, the other side of it, it has the, the, the employee side where they fill out details of like, about their perspective on it and how they, how they, like, what they think of it, if they, what they think of their performance, what they think of the company, what, you know.
So the idea is to get alignment throughout it. Yeah. So you understand like from the get go, like your very first day, I want that person to fill out, like, hey, yeah, this is what I thought. And also it. It's going to be expected that they fill it out properly. Mm-hmm. And this is where you start to weed out some of these people.
I was telling, I was actually talking to my bookkeeper the other day about it, and I'm like, I'm essentially building a filter. There you go. Like this stuff that this, this hiring and this onboarding, this training as a filter. I was an iron worker, I was a Union iron worker. I went through a four year apprenticeship and I, and every, and you look back at it, you're like, God, every part of it was a filter.
It was like, show up no matter what, do the, you know, like fill, do the test, do the training, do these things, do this to the level they want. If you don't do it, you can just leave. We don't need you. It was like that was a heavy handed filter. Like it was like, and there was people that like, I couldn't believe it.
I'm like, there's people that are broke that are just struggling and they drop out and I'm like, I am not good at school. I'm not good at, but I show up and I give it my best. Mm-hmm. And that's really all they cared about. And that's really all we care about too. Like, I don't care if you can, if you can't even read the stuff, I mean like, that will be a little rough, but like, if you have a hard time with it, like we can help you.
Like, I want people that show up that have a good attitude that I can trust, I can rely on. Like, I don't need, I don't need you to be a college graduate. Like it does, that stuff doesn't even matter to me. And so it's uh, definitely that alignment and that feedback loop of, and understanding from their perspective.
I think that I. Business. One of the thing that can make you successful, and especially selling, is being able to step out of your own perspective and into somebody else's perspective. Sure. And that's, that's what's gonna get you the sales. It's not gonna be like you having like tons of people clean stuff or can put a roof on a house or whatever.
Mm-hmm. But when you can really step back and think about what their perspective is mm-hmm. And how you can, how you can think from, from their side of the table. Mm-hmm. Then it's like, okay, well what do we, uh, like this is how we can make it work. Right. So, yeah. I lo I love that. Um, also, just back to the question about how do you make employees care?
I think really a lot of what you and I talked about with the feedback and whatnot, I think that's part of it. Right When you engage our, when we engage our people in the process and we want to know their thoughts and you know, like asking them if, if you or me doing this training, what would you do different?
And, you know, getting them engaged. I think that really does that, that's one of the pieces to be able to get that care from them. So yeah. Really good conversation, Brad. Um, we could, we could talk for a long time. Oh, I could keep going. Definitely. I, yeah, I have like a whole theory on how to, how to, like, we, so like me, and last thing really quick, I know we're getting an hour, but like, me and my business partner sat down one day and we're like, if best six year cleaning was a game, a video game, whatever it was, what would need to, what would it need to make it successful?
What would you need to win? And it's like, and this is from the employee's per perspective. Yeah. And if you think about it that way of like most jobs, if it was a video game, it would be the most confusing, boring video game you've ever played in your life. You'd have no clue how to win. You have no clue how to do any of this.
You would just, you would just get in there and you would just start walking around and trying to figure it out. Yeah. Um, but if you, um, but if you have clear rules and expectations that you can do, you can get there and you can get, like, you can win and you feel good about it at every level. And, and if you don't, you, it's game over.
And so that's the way we try and focus on it is like, where do you, where can you gamify this but also make it extremely simple? And that's been the biggest thing mm-hmm. Is making it simple. 'cause it's so easy to over complicate this to be like, I don't know, like, I want to put all these little, you put all these little trap doors and all these different things.
Then before you know it, you're like, I, I don't know how an employee's gonna know this because I don't even know what's going on. Right. So anyways, um, I, I love, I love how simplicity on this podcast, I swear simplicity comes up almost every time. And ironically, and I ironically it is the first of the five leadership abilities.
If you can create simplicity that is a high quality, uh, as a leader and for the reason that you just said. Right. And I love your idea about gamifying and thinking about, ha that is a very good perspective on. Really putting yourself in because you were talking about sales and putting yourself in the buyer's mind and in their perspective.
But we also, you were saying putting yourself in your employee's perspective, and that's gold, because if we can do that, we can create that experience as business owners, we can create whatever we want. Right? Every day you're selling your employees every day. Every day you're selling them on showing up and working hard for you.
And they want, and there's certain things that they want, especially this like younger generation where they want to feel heard and they wanna feel like they're contributing and they wanna feel like they have control. Yep. Having, um, having that built into your business, it is what's going to get, keep them sold every day and keep them showing up and keep them making it happen for you because you'll never.
He, like, you can't do it without him. Right. I can't, I can't, like I randomly go and do jobs and I can barely get out of bed the next day. So like I and I, I do go to the gym. I've been getting better at it. Yeah. I've been getting in better shape, but like, I can't physically do this work. I can sell it and I can build this business, but I can't do the work physically.
Mm-hmm. I know, I know. Just enough. And so, and that's the way I want to keep it. Yeah. And so, uh, so yeah, so definitely trying to make it so people feel like they have, you know, they feel like they have a purpose in selling them essentially every day, but, you know Yeah. In a way that you're, the people feel like that they're get selling themselves.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that. Well, I, I can't wait to see you at the next Mastermind and kind of keep checking in. I'm gonna. I am gonna hold you to this goal of, uh, first of all, a million dollars this year and also your 2027, um, having a production manager next. Yeah, I, the, the idea about that is having a built out production manager, like the job, and then deciding, um, kind of where we want to go from there with like, um, you're right, like my business partner could just, he is more of a, like a hands-on want to be in it.
And so like, if he wants to be the production manager, but there, there are bigger things that he could do. And we have like, we need to build out a bit, a better bidding process for, um, for commercial stuff where we can train other people to do it and not just have him do it. Yeah. Uh, and so there's certain things that like, I think it would be really helpful to have a production manager, but, um, other than him.
But yeah, I mean it's, it's all learning experience and it's all like, we'll see where when we, yeah. If I were to, when we get there, if I were to build out the most simple job description, job description for a production manager, it'd be like three responsibilities. It would be, theyd have to be a rule follower.
They now have to, they have to be able to follow a system and actually be able to create a system. So they have to have that, they have to be able to hold people accountable 100%. And they have to be problem solvers. Yeah. Those three things. And you're gonna have a kick ass production manager. Yeah. Yeah.
And, and having, and from there, it's like, what, what we're talking about, like building it out is like just giving them the right tools and having things written out that they can help, help facilitate some of those things. Yeah. And, and having him live it. Of like, this is what needs to happen. Yep. Um, so yeah.
I agree. Cool. Well, um, all right, well we'll see you at the next mastermind. Oh yeah, go ahead. You wanted one more thing? I know you told me this and we'll try and wrap it up at the end of the hour, is that, um, the huge mastermind's been done really great for me. Okay. With, um, understanding, um, some of these processes and, and networking with some people that really like getting me in the room with people that are doing, are, are actively working at a level I want to be at.
Yeah. Whether they're one step ahead of me, whether they're, you know, whether they're a hundred thousand dollars ahead of me or millions ahead of me. Or tens of millions ahead of me. Like it's really put me in a room with these people that, that get it. And they are, everybody's working towards a common goal and I think it's really important to just really invest in yourself and also invest in getting in the room with people that are where you want to be.
Yes. Um, uh, likewise, the, the huge for me is like we are a community of entrepreneurs and it, there's really a Go-Giver mentality in it where we are here to help each other out. And the really, that's, that's what I love and that's why we're here on the podcast so that we can share experiences. Um, I love that we have a lot of new kind of budding entrepreneurs in the industry that are on the podcast because.
There's a lot of 'em out there and they need help. And anything that you shared today, Brad, I promise, is gonna help somebody, um, avoid a pitfall and mistake. Um, you know, that could save 'em thousands of dollars and a lot of time. Um, and also I think there's a common thread of listening to your story and saying, yeah, I made that mistake too.
Like, okay, it's not just me. Right? Yeah, for sure. So yeah, we we're definitely all here to help each other out and um, that's really what the huge community is all about. And um, and like business is business. No matter if you're at a billion or if you're at a hundred thousand, really the principals are the same.
And, um, a lot of us didn't go to school for this. We don't have MBAs. We, you know, we are learning as we go. And so to be able to learn from other people's mistakes is huge. Yeah. My wife actually went to Duke for her MBA. Nice. And she works at Amazon and she could not stomach. The life that I live, the entrepreneur life.
Yeah. So, um, I would say that most people that go to MBA don't, they, they can't, they don't do it. Right. They, they do it for somebody else. They do it for somebody else. So heard. Yep. Cool. Well, thank you so much for chatting with us. Thank you, Brad. Yeah. I look forward to seeing you again. We'll continue our conversation and, um, yeah, best of luck to you in 2026.
Thanks. All right. Have a great day. Hello my friend. This is Sid. Thank you again so much for taking your time to listen to today's episode. I hope you got some value from it. And listen, anything that was covered, uh, any of the resources, any of the books, any of the tools, anything like that is in the show notes, so it's easy for you to find and check it out.
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