Trades Over Tech: Buying an Appliance Repair Business

So talent is scarcer, right? Yeah.

Especially on the hot side. So a lot of times the refrigeration. So a lot of larger companies that do both cold and hot, they'll bring people in on the refrigeration side and then train them on hot side stuff.

Right. And there is a gas license that you, that you have to acquire, but there is no formal trade school that you can go to to work Specifically on this, in this niche field. No. So most of the people that we get, we either got to grab them from another company that are already working in the field or we got to train them from, from like from nothing to something. And that's what the, that's…

Traditionally he grew it to, to those seven technicians, but he individually trained each one of those guys himself over a course of a year to a year and a half before he then put them in their own van and then sent them off to start making money for them. Wow. And now obviously that isn't necessarily a path that works for, for, for growth quickly. Right. I can't, I can't do that today and scale…

Right. But there is a pathway to, you know, have some of that mixed into how we grow and add technicians to the business.

That's really interesting. I mean, on the one hand, yeah, it sounds unscalable. On the other hand, if you can get somebody up to speed in a year or a year and a half, that's actually quite a bit less time than in straight H vac or plumbing.

Right? Yeah, sure.

But typically those guys, so, and I learned this from, from my, from my trade, my trade school buddies is that the guys that are in like year two of trade school to year four, that's where the companies are making the most money on those individuals because they're doing the same work just with oversight from somebody that's a four or five year person. Right. That's already gone through…

But they're doing the same work, billing the same amount for those, for those, you know, year two guys. Right. And so that's where they're really making a lot of money because they're doing the same work. They're just not paying them as much, but they just have again, the oversight of that senior tech.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So yeah, there's ways to make it work, obviously, and there is a need for it. But again, I think also, and that's the tricky part for us growing wise, is we got to make sure we're bringing in the right people that, that, that, that believe what we believe and that operate the way we operate. Because those technicians, they are the face of PGM.

When they're out there, when they're going to see the customer, when they're walking into that kitchen, when they're going to see the GM of the restaurant or whatever, they are, they PGM shirt on, they are, they are the face of the company. And so if they're not committed to Their job, they're not committed to their career.