It was really sad. I. It was like devastating for me for like the kids to leave. But I was going up every weekend anyways picking up equipment. So I would like see my family on the weekends, then be all uncommitted to the business during the week. Was kind of what.
Acquiring Minds
Buying Then Losing a $2.1m HVAC Business
Excerpts · 550 segments · ~1:53:01 long
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And Dan was, was the, was the marriage threatened?
You know, I think a lot of people would probably have very hard times in their marriage. My wife is super supportive and just had the confidence that I would figure something out. She, she was like, you'll figure it out.
It was a little stressful, but I would say we're actually like, stronger for the experience. And you know, I, I, it previously in our marriage, like, I quit Amazon at the height of COVID when it looked like there was going to be no other jobs and that was going to be the only thing people were going to do was order things from home and I didn't have a job to go to.
And then I found another job I loved and it was awesome within, like, I don't know, a couple weeks. And so she's, she's pretty secure that, like, I'll take care of her. And so I don't think, like, it caused the strain that it would for most people.
Yeah. That being said, it's still really unpleasant doing distance.
Yeah.
And then to make this really fun, that winter also ended up being one of the mildest winters that that region had seen in years. I, I looked back, it was instead of 20 years, it's only 10 years that that business, they had a winter that bad. But, you know, nothing's needing repaired.
And it was just really difficult to go and win work. There's, you know, there are days where my guys were standing in the shop, so I had them take trainings. I, the previous owner had them clean all the time, so they did a lot of cleaning.
Ah, hence why the warehouse was so well organized.
Yeah. Yep. Um, you know, we did inventory counts, trying, trying to keep them busy. I had, I had them do some like, odd, not H vac jobs a couple days just because, like, okay, like if you show up to work, you need meaningful work. And the previous owner had always guaranteed them 40 hours a week, so I was going to do the same.
I, I, I felt it, Although I probably shouldn't have done this, I felt it my responsibility to my employees to provide them with a job that could sustain their lives. And so I, and because I also had already kind of come to the conclusion, like, I was going to be going down. Like, I may as well not make their life suck anyways, like, with me going down and like, have a slow burn, if we're going to…
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