Getting Unstuck by Buying a Business

Hydration stations and whatever. So you might have five hydration stations and two restroom trailers and they want to have one person just sit there and keep those clean all day long on a Loop. Like, it kind of reminded me almost of, like, the experiences of my friends traveling in mainland China, where you go into a store and there's, like five people behind the counter, like, smiling at you.

Like. Like, this is kind of like the full employment act. So I don't know. I mean. And I told the guy from. And I was like, you guys are.

Yeah, so we'll see. It's been great.

Like.

Like I said, the. The thing that. That I've realized is, like, how many customers we never did business with because of the way that the business was managed previously, which is that the brother who was running it, he. He was like, wanted to be out on the job site in his truck and, like, you know, wearing his boots and talking about hunting and fishing and stuff with these superintendents on…

He wasn't at his desk constantly bidding, constantly trying to refill the pipeline. He sort of saw that as like an afterthought. So I've had this amazing partnership with my field manager, Brandon, who, when I bought the business, I said, I don't know shit about cleaning construction, but you do.

And I know how to. I know about numbers, and I know about selling. I know about, you know, executive stuff, so let's just have a partnership. And I said, I will back you up, I will give you autonomy, but I will have your back all the time.

And he was like, sounds good. Let's grow this thing. He's like, you know, I.

I got it. So when we would have an issue, like, one of our ladies would be dissatisfied with something or other in the old world, Brandon would tell her, you're behind schedule. We're over budget on this job. It's supposed to be 60 hours per floor.

You're doing it in 80. That 20% is our profit margin. Like, you can't do that.

And he would be hard on them. And then they would go to Gavin, who was the brother, and Gavin would say, oh, you're doing a great job. Like, it's okay. Right. So he. It was kind of like two people doing the same job that were undermining each other and no one mining the store.