18. Why Profitability Is Actually a Systems Problem for Contractors

What would you do if you were sitting in your office and all of a sudden the power went

out?

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And to find out the reason why your power went out, because you did not pay your bill.

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That is exactly what happened to our guest, Brent Garrett.

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In this episode today, Britt shares with us how he rebuilt his business and the lessons he

learned from sales, leadership, systems, and growing a profitable business.

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Let's get started.

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Hey, I'm Shay Toya.

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I've spent more than 10 years in construction, working behind the scenes in marketing,

hiring, and I've seen how overwhelming it can be to grow a business.

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That's how we've learned to build a sustainable business using clear systems, strong

communication, and intentional recruiting.

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If you're ready for better hiring, smarter remarketing, and a business that doesn't fall

apart when you step away, welcome to building better contractor businesses.

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So I'm super, super excited to have the conversation today with Brent.

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Garrett.

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Brent, can you just share with us how you got started and tell us a little bit about

yourself?

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Yeah, great to be with you, Shay Toya.

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I I'm in Dallas, Texas.

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And I've been in the plumbing and air conditioning residential service business, been an

entrepreneur, got real estate businesses and those types of things, but my core business

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is residential service, HVAC and plumbing.

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Been doing it since I was twenty six.

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I'm sixty-one now.

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I started my first company from the truck, licensed in both trades.

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Had five thousand bucks and a fifty page business plan.

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And I like to say that being an entrepreneur is a life sentence.

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And I've been one ever since.

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And just on the other side of that wall is a thriving 30 employee company that I own.

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I don't, you know, I I own it.

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I don't work in it.

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And we've got a great team of people and just have enjoyed the ride.

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for for a lifetime really.

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I mean, I'm I've got another twenty year plan ahead of me, but that's kinda what we do.

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Um I also coach entrepreneurs in our lane in plumbing air fishing, not not in our own

city, but throughout the country.

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It.

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No, that's pretty cool.

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And you said that you got started at the age of twenty six.

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So about thirty years, I'm sure you've seen a lot of changes since then.

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What are some of the changes that you've seen since within

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Yeah, it's interesting to ask that.

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So I I'm a first generation graduate.

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I really started in the business on the end of a shovel for my dad.

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He was a plumber at the age of twelve.

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And my my education background is marketing and accounting.

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And so in the nineties, we were really excited to buy the first uh personal computer to

run the business.

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And I I think for that, that was a little bit of a a step for most companies in that time

and evolved through that, the internet and

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You know, now we're asking big questions about how do we leverage AI in our business

beyond just writing emails for us and those types of things.

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So we're having conversations about agents, bots, streamlining our accounting and back

office software, getting off spreadsheets, creating applications.

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So I've seen a lot of changes both in the office to run the business and out in the field

with technology.

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it and I'm sure that was very challenging to have to learn challenges just of a computer.

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Like I can only imagine.

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And when it comes to AI, what are the tools that you guys are currently using for those AI

agents?

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Yeah we're

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We're we're primarily in three different groups and integrating and working that are

working together.

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So we have a back office soul software called Field Pulse.

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It's referred to out in the market as Service Titan Light.

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And we we thought it was the right software for us.

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We spent 18 months and before we made a shift to a new software and technology and

considered Service Titan heavily, but we found that the cost and the back end design for

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that.

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we were better suited with field pulse.

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And I think it was a good decision.

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The second piece obviously is QuickBooks.

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And you know, we're we're doing a lot of mapping on transactions that are happening

without people actually keying it in or hard coding it.

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And then I I know it sounds kind of remedial, but we we leverage Google Suites.

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So all of our platforms are are the Google Suite environment, obviously leaning in on

Gemini and and then and then behind that we use and leverage cloud.

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Got it.

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I've been hearing a lot lately about Clyde, so yeah.

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Yeah, I mean I I don't know that I'm I don't know that I'm skilled enough to to go an inch

wide and a mile deep, but I I think ChatGPT and Claude, a couple others for AI agents,

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codecs, those types of things that are the higher level items are are the leaders.

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And I I couldn't tell you which one's the best.

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We decided to stay in the Gemini environment and just kind of migrated to Claude.

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So off the recommendation of some other folks.

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Got it.

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I've recently just learned about that, so that's pretty cool.

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And then Bray, you talk about a one million wake-up call.

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What happened?

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Yeah.

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I, you know, that business that I first started, I sold it to a Fortune 300 company,

joined their team, got a lot of executive experience, some good corporate experience, a

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little bit of polish that came along with that.

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But then uh went on to be a CEO of a real estate management company, a multifamily company

in the Southeast.

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But I was always being called back to small business ownership and owning my own PL and

being involved.

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So

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my wife and I, Jenny, started another plumbing narrow kitchen business in two thousand

five.

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And my approach was, hey, I've done this before, no problem.

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It's a piece of cake.

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Just hire some good people, give them the the opportunity and grow the business.

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And all the while I was out doing keynote speaking and workshop training, kitchen table

sales in the lane of

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Skilled trades, plumbing and air machine.

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And I was I was kind of a part-time owner in the plumbing and air caching business and a

full-time coach out in the field, out on the road Tuesday through Thursday.

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We'd come back, check a few things, and back on the road again on Tuesday the next week.

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I came in one day and I'm sitting there doing work on a Friday, thinking life's great,

everything's okay.

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I don't have one business going.

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I have two going at the same time and doing startups.

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And say, Toy, the lights go out in my office.

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And at

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First, you know, I'm in Texas.

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We have brownouts and blackouts.

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I think you're in Vegas, aren't you?

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You have a few of those every once in a while here and there.

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I thought that's what it was.

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And I went next door to check my neighbor and their lights were on.

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I found out that we didn't pay our bill.

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And I had taken my eye off the ball.

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I had trusted the culture and the financials of somebody else.

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And I will tell you, ever since then, those are the two things I tell people that I work

with.

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You cannot, you can delegate the work, but you have to own your financials.

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And the second piece is if you don't set the culture and the rules for your company,

somebody in your company will.

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And it may not line up with what you see and what your vision is with the company.

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And so I took a stack home that night, looked through about six months of bills and tight

things, and I and I had to sit down with Jenny and say, Hey, we're a million dollars in

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debt.

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This company, the the plumbing and air consheem business is inches from bankruptcy.

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And there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life.

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That that I I didn't have my priorities straight at home.

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And what I mean by that, we had a four and a six year old.

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I there was a tug at me for three or four months leading up to that event that was like,

you know what?

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This on the road thing is not the best thing for your family.

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And I was missing the interaction of small business.

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So, you know, I made some real key decisions.

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I put the bags on the floor.

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I stayed home for the next twenty to twenty-five years.

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We got out of that hole by s by

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By using, you know, I really focusing on sales.

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I like to say, I like to say that sales can cover a multitudes of a multitude of sins in

your business.

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And we grew out of that problem, but it the the point I want to make is the problem wasn't

the problem.

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The problem was the way that I was looking at the problem.

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And and and what I mean by that is I needed to get my priorities straight and what was

important to me both at home and at work.

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And it I now look back at that going, gosh.

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I was really embarrassed, had a lot of pride about how could I get to this point after

having a successful business and selling one and and the truth matter is this that event

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and happening really saved my life because it got me back on track.

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And those two lessons that I learned then, I have never deviated from.

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Like just thirty minutes ago, I had a pretty involved conversation about our accounting

QuickBooks, our financials, what's going on, and where I th saw things kind of getting a

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little loose.

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And we tightened up on those.

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So I've never I've never forgotten the pain of that.

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I appreciate the question because it it's right there in my head every day.

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I would say to someone who's from from our stand in our contractor business, I guess I

would ask when it comes to the financials and taking over that that part of your business

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Yeah, well it was actually two thousand seven.

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It took it took me two years to get into that hole.

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Okay.

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And if you remember, there were a lot of things going on in the economy at seven eight.

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And so it it really was a good time for me to really focus on the business.

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But the first thing I did communicate clearly how we were going to go to market and what

our culture was.

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And

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the rules that we would live by.

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And we can dive into that more, but I'll just give you a couple of pieces.

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We're gonna show up every day doing our best, doing the right thing and treating people

fairly.

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So right there, then and there, somebody comes to me and says, Hey, we've got this issue

at the home, the customer's not feeling right about what happened.

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What do you think we should do?

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My question back to them was, Well, do your best, do the right thing, treat people fairly.

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If you can't figure that out, what would you do for your grandmother?

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And now when they come and ask that, I they just drop their head because they know that's

what I'm gonna ask them.

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The four things that we do day in and day out is we show up on time, we do what we say

we're gonna do, we follow through, we say please and thank you.

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And so that covers about eighty percent of the culture.

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And culture is so important.

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In your business, because if you can't set your culture with your new and incoming team

members, you won't be able to properly scale the business in a way, in a manner that runs

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the business like you would when it was smaller and you could control everything.

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And so that was the first thing.

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Get culture in place.

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And then on the financial side, you know, sometimes you just have to squat on the

financials.

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You can certainly delegate it and I dig quickly, but.

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Would you be surprised if that bookkeeper we had wasn't with us anymore?

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No, no.

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So the next step was I I I was recruited by a great college football coach.

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I didn't play for him.

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I was a quarterback in college, but kept up with him all through my life in my business

life.

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And he said, and and this coach in particular was very successful at taking losing teams

and quickly turning them around.

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And he said, they they asked him, How do you motivate a team?

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He said it's really simple.

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The way we turn a team around.

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is we get rid of the unmotivated players.

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So you get a culture in place.

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They have to follow the rules.

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And then if they're not motivated, they're off the team.

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So that's that's the business side.

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Then I got out and just I became the salesperson for the company the first six months.

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I didn't leave any sales chance.

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And then we set up what I call the perfect or the client experience that it became a

process.

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And then after that, you're probably a reader.

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I will tell you the best business book I've ever read in my life.

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I think I first heard it like four or five.

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And the key to the book is slow and steady wins the race.

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And that's the tortoise and the hare.

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And so get the right things in place, own the financials, have a great client experience,

regain the culture, and then have a consistent, repeatable process and stick to it.

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And that's how we got out of the hall.

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Yeah, no, that's great.

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And you said number one was culture.

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So at this time in two thousand and seven, what was I mean, employees wise, like how many

employees did you guys have at that time?

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You know, I think our team was probably ten to fifteen employees, probably.

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And usually our our matrix for that or or allocation for that is usually about three

fields to every one office.

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I think you get a little stretched when you get to four to one.

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That's that's maximum for for your maximization of net profit.

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But I think we were about fifteen employees.

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Got it.

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And that's great.

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And so what are some of the warning signs do you feel that contractors miss and what

should they be paying attention to?

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Well, go back to the financials and KPIs, right?

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And so we have hard numbers, which are financial statements.

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I told you I'm an accountant trapped in a plumber's body.

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So I'm gonna I'm always gonna go from the numbers.

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You have to know your numbers.

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And I think this is where some, not all, but some feel a little intimidated and it and

they shouldn't.

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They just have to take a little bit of time.

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It's what I work with my clients on and what I coach them on.

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Is there's a few numbers on the balance sheet you need to pay attention to.

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One is what is your cash?

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And your current assets to what your current and future or what what are classified as

current liabilities are.

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That's your first test.

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And do I have the cash to meet my current financial obligations that I have to pay bills

to?

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Payroll, all the overhead, direct costs with your suppliers, those types of things.

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That's the first thing we look for.

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Optimum is probably what I call a 1.75 or two to one asset, current assets to current

liabilities.

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Well, you say

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Gosh, you lost me at financial statements.

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Well, then that's that's your first step is to to to get QuickBooks and make sure that

your balance sheet and your cash obligations first, because most small businesses, 50% are

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out of business five years after they start.

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And one of the biggest reasons is they don't manage their cash.

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And if you run out of cash, you're out of business.

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And then there's the scorecard, and that's the other statement, which is the profit and

loss.

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It gives us a scorecard.

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on what our profitability is.

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As far as KPIs, growth profit is exactly where service businesses live because their two

largest expenses are labor and materials.

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I bet that's the case for your business, right?

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We're in different businesses, but we're a service business, right?

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And so would you agree with me if we're not priced right and we don't know what our labor

percentage is and our material percentage, it doesn't really matter about overhead.

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We're gonna be out of business anyway.

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And so

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You have to have a good grasp of your gross profit because your gross profit percentage is

what drives your pricing.

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You say, wait a minute, Brent, I'm a plumber.

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I got in this business because I know how to fix things.

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This is where most small businesses get to this point called the messy middle.

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When they scale their business, they grow a little bit, they add some trucks, they've got

some employees, and they're they're a little further down the road.

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They hit the ceiling of complexity.

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There are a lot of things going on out.

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outside of them.

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And if you have a philosophy, well, I if I've got money in the bank, I'm I'm doing well.

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If I don't, I'll figure it out.

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That is not a plan at all.

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So you know, that's then on the the KPI side for out in the field is how many completed

calls per day?

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What's our average truck revenue per day, per week, per month?

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And then I I think you have to look at on an annual basis, what is my revenue per truck

and what is my revenue per employee?

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And

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You're shaking your head, and I bet you do this every day, don't you?

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We try to.

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Yeah.

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so Brant, when it comes to sales, was one of the things that you did talk about was the

KPIs, the phone calls.

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Why do you personally feel that so many contractors struggle with sales?

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Mindset.

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I think we have an idea of what a salesperson looks like, what they do, how they act, how

they talk, maybe lack of training, but I'm gonna make it boil it down really simple in

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service.

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I believe in a concept called needs based selling.

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Okay.

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And and what that means is that we're gonna introduce ourselves, we're gonna define the

problem through questions based on what you said, and then I'm gonna provide options or

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solutions.

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Through a good, better, best model, which is a Harbor business study decades ago.

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That study says that if I'm presented with options of a good, better, best, we use the

words must, should, could.

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But if we use that option, 20% are gonna buy on price, 20% are only gonna want the best.

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But here's what the study came out.

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If presented with options, 60% plus will choose the better option.

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And so in that client experience, from the time we knock on the door until we leave, the

sales process is just a part of the client experience.

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We let go of being a salesperson and going forward, what we say is, hey, I'm an expert in

my field.

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I'm here to ask good questions.

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I'm here to listen to you.

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I'm here to provide options, explain them to you, answer questions.

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And then I'm gonna guide you to whatever you feel like makes your home safer.

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Cleaner or healthier.

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And wouldn't you agree?

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Most people don't like to be sold, but they love to buy things.

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So the first step in getting service folks to make more sales, or really what I like to

say is to help people buy, is to let go of I'm a salesperson because they don't even like

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that term.

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They don't want to be seen that way.

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They're experts in the field, they're great technicians, and and and gaining the

obligation from the customer, the commitment.

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It's just one aspect of that whole client experience.

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Once they take the focus off that, they quit selling and they start being an expert and

help people have options and help them buy.

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When that happens, man, the company takes off because if you've got three or four or five

techs all doing the same thing.

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And it's not just one training class, it's continuous weekly training with your team, role

playing, talking about things, talking about words that sell.

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You know, can't use the word NT, can't use the word.

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Well, that's our company policy.

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Sorry.

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Whenever we're presented with something, we always want to be neutral to positive.

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So if you ask for something, Shaitoya, that I know I can't give you, I'm not gonna say,

well, there's no way that's gonna happen.

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I'm gonna say, Shaitoya, what I what I would say about this, I wish I could do that, but

what I can do is this.

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In sales, people want to hear yes.

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And it's always yes if.

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But I wish I could do that, but I'm never gonna say I can't.

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What I what I can do is this.

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I hope I answered your question.

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That was great.

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And as you said, you give them options, which makes it a lot easier.

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oh

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Options eliminate competition.

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Options eliminate looking at other companies to get a comparable bit comparable bid.

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If somebody objects that they have an objection, they want to get more bits, what's the

real issue?

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They don't have confidence.

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They want everything you're offering, but they want it at a lower price.

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Well, we can't lower the price unless we take some of the back.

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Well, and that's why mush should could.

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Hey, you know what?

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You don't have any air conditioning.

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This part needs to be replaced.

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You you have to do this or the it's not gonna come back on.

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One of the things you probably should do is have that coil clean.

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It's gonna reduce your utilities.

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It's gonna make your home feel cooler and we're gonna pull more water out of the air.

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That's what it's gonna do for you.

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okay.

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Well, how much is that?

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Yeah, go ahead and do that while you're well normally it's retail this, but I'm already

here.

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I can give you a discount on that because you don't have to pay for me to come out to your

house.

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I can do that right now.

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It's and it's much less expensive to do it than than on a new service.

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Yeah, no, that makes sense.

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And then with having options, what advice would you give contractors who know they are

undercharging but are afraid to raise their prices?

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So now we're back to that gross profit discussion.

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Mm-hmm.

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Okay.

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And I know that eighty percent of the contractors out there are doing work for somewhere

between thirty five and forty five percent gross profit and fifteen to twenty percent,

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adding more value and doing it for fifty, fifty-five.

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There are some companies that gain more more gross profit than that in a percentage.

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That's where you have to decide on what your gross profit is and you price to that.

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And

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And so if you offer a must should could option, your should options are in the 55% gross

margin area.

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Many times we feel so concerned, we just don't take rejection very well, right?

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They're not saying no to your price.

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They're probably saying no for a number of different reasons.

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Either price is too high, which means I don't see the value for that.

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Somewhere in the process, when we ask them what it is their problem was and what they

wanted.

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We need to go back and visit that and make sure that we are answering the right question

for the problem that they want to solve.

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So an objection is to go back if it's a value question is to go back and build the value,

right?

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Price is too high, is different than can't afford.

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Well, we can we can find different options, but we're not going to change our profit

margin or our price.

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We're either going to go find the money.

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We've got financing, credit card, those types of things.

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But the big question is.

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Are you willing to walk away from a customer that doesn't want to pay your price?

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And we could we could spend another hour talking about this, but I'll just sum it up this

way.

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You probably have customers, we all do, that aren't willing to pay our price.

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And in many cases, they seem to be 80% of our problems.

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Where if you raised your price and those customers went to your competition, wouldn't you

be able to better service that other 80% that's fine paying your price?

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Because they like your service, they want you, there's a reason they want you, you would

have probably a better day.

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So I think sometimes people resist that because they feel like they can't do without that

one service caller, that one job.

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That is very, very true.

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And when it comes to from what you've said and people are less stressed and are making

more money.

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So that's great.

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When it comes to, you know, earlier you did talk about employees.

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So how do you personally find and keep good employees?

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So we do a number of things through digital media, through our website, word of mouth, but

we also have a search firm that's specific to trades.

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And they're out of Austin, Texas.

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We use them.

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They do a great job for us.

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But here's the key thing.

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If you're gonna scale your business, we're we've got 30 employees, we have 17 trucks on

the road.

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You get to that coaching the coaches role in your business and you're scaling your

business, you know, at one or two trucks.

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When you need somebody, you put an ad, you go to maybe Craigslist or something and you

look, right?

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You you you need something, you go get it.

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That can't be the case when you get to those that next wall or two.

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It's just like marketing, but in recruiting, it has to become a daily and weekly

investment of time, constantly looking for talent so that you start building a file.

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I mean, you know who's in your area, and you communicate with them on a on a weekly or a

monthly basis.

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Say, hey, we don't have anything right now.

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You really interviewed struggles.

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Would you still be open to us contacting you if we have an opening?

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So that we're not having a cold conversation with somebody.

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Of course, we're going to talk to candidates and we want to have at least three to seven

interviews for every position, but we st we have to shift at a certain point to look at

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recruiting as an investment, not an expense.

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And as you know, you know, if you're in a service business, when you start thinking about

that truck revenue.

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You're bringing someone on to run a small little business for you and you want the right

person.

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And it's very expensive to replace that person.

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Their team member I should say.

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Yes.

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We've been there.

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It's expensive.

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Yeah, it's very expensive.

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When it comes to, you know, you talked about employees and keeping good employees, but

when it comes to systems, you know, we hear a lot of like working in or working on your

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business.

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What are some of the systems that you believe a contractor should put into place when

they're constantly putting out fires?

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So I work with small business owners and primarily the area that I work is when they're in

what I call the messy middle.

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And that's kind of that third phase of growth or stage.

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And here's what it looks like.

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And and it's not necessarily a number, although in every industry there is a number that

kind of starts to appear, right?

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In my business, and I'll just use it for a marker, is you know, a couple trucks, two or

three trucks in a business owner, they're doing somewhere between

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And this is about 80% of the business, somewhere between maybe $400,000 and 800,000 a year

in revenue.

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And they're making decent money.

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They're probably making just over six figures.

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And that's that's net income plus what the the the work they're getting paid for to do.

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They're still technicians or salespeople.

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And and that's a really good spot to be in, but you own a job there.

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As you move and start adding people, because you're doing a good job and you're growing

customers.

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You wake up one day, you're a million and a half.

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You're working twice as hard as you were when you had three trucks.

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You're making half the money you were making when you had three trucks.

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And you're going, why am I doing this?

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Why am I doing this?

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I call that the messy middle because they hadn't prepared, they hadn't saved capital,

because you want to get through that messy middle as quickly as possible and get to

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coaching the coaches.

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Well, what do we do in the messy middle?

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To answer your question, you probably know this personally that you wear a lot of

different hats when you own a small business.

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Which hat

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Shaitoya, do you least like the most?

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That's where you have one?

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I was thinking.

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The least favorite hat that I've I would probably say the the I don't like the the the

letting the go of the the people, I would say.

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so handling HR issues.

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So and that's just a lot of negative energy for you, right?

399

Yes.

400

Yeah, no, you may have to be a might have to be a part of that decision.

401

But w what I'll do with folks in the messy middle is we'll identify those two or three

hats that you don't like.

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You probably, if you admit it to yourself, you're probably not very good at it.

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And it's such an energy drain, you go, why am I doing this?

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Well, let's work there.

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Let's start getting rid of the hats dump.

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Guess what?

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Shay Toya, there are people who absolutely love to do that.

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They love talking about benefits and they love doing payroll and they they love handling

that part of the business.

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And you're the one that grew it to that level where we can afford somebody like that,

right?

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Well, here's the key.

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I think most people in the messy middle have two or three hats to get off.

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But in that moment, you have to own the sales side of the business.

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Maybe it's not you, maybe that's not your favorite hat.

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But if it is, man, lean in there because you need to start.

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thinking who not do.

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And it's the most liberating thing.

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And once you start getting rid of two or three hats that don't fit very well that you

don't enjoy doing, you're you start to smile a little more and you come into work a little

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happier and and you see a light at the end of the tunnel.

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And man are are we off with growing that business to that next level because you just have

a lot more energy at the end of the day than you used to.

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And in many ways, what we're trying to do is get to where you own a business and you're

doing only the thing that you love doing.

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And there I bet there's one thing, Shay Toya, in your business and everybody else's

business, that if I did it from eight in the morning to five o'clock at night, I'd be just

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as energized and refreshed because it's not hard of you.

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It just comes natural.

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Everybody has that.

425

There's a a unique ability that everybody has that people look at you and and they go,

Man, you're really good at that.

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Well, I can't imagine anybody else doing that.

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And you probably could tell you were able to tell me the HR.

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What's the one thing in your business that you really love to do?

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For me, I would say just the relationship building, connecting with others.

430

Yeah, and you have internal customers.

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That's the team that's that's delivering it out there to the to the cu to the customers

every day.

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And then you have your external customers.

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Relationships are all sales is, in my opinion.

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You know, there are three things that have to be in place for people to buy from you.

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And and let's talk about internal customers.

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People have to buy into what the owner believes in the business.

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Here are the three things, whether I'm selling outside or inside, meaning to team members

or to customers.

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Value has to exceed price.

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My working here has to be of a higher value than the cost of what I'm exchanging with my

time.

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For the customer, it doesn't have to be a lot, but value's got to see price.

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Second thing, and this is the one that we overlook, are you likable?

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Do they want you for their problems, whether internally or externally?

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That customer needs to like who they're spending money with or spending time with.

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And then the last thing, you just got to make it affordable.

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So that's that's how we peep how people move through out of that messy middle.

446

It's certainly how they have to organize.

447

And this so what's happening is they're moving from thinking who not do.

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That's really hard for a lot of business owners because they derive a lot of self worth.

449

They're they're self reliant.

450

They work hard.

451

What got them to that point was the fact they were really good technicians.

452

What got them to that point may be the very thing that keeps them from moving to the next

step, and that's letting go and letting others do.

453

And that was that was perfect.

454

That was perfect for it.

455

When it comes to let's talk about your book that I'm actually very, very excited for.

456

I'm in the process of starting it now, but I want to hear more about it to share with our

audience.

457

Sure.

458

The book is structured.

459

I really wrote the book for somebody who may not have read a book since high school.

460

Okay.

461

It is written at very small little chapters, twelve hundred words.

462

You can read it probably in twelve to fifteen minutes, even if you're not a real

proficient reader.

463

And and graphically it's designed to share a thought, challenge you with some questions,

and ask a so what?

464

Based on this, what am I going to do in my business that I can do tomorrow?

465

And so it's broken down.

466

I start off by talking about my lights going out and the million dollars in debt because I

want to be relatable.

467

I don't want to be seen even today that it's just, you know, ice cream and cupcakes.

468

It's not.

469

It's a four-letter call work and it's it's business is simple, but it's not easy.

470

And I have been inches from bankruptcy and I've had a lot of success in small business.

471

So we break the book down into thirty days to a better business.

472

It's

473

five weeks and it's six days of reading, one day of rest and reflection.

474

The first week is sales.

475

Second week is leadership.

476

Third week is business planning and scaling.

477

Fourth week is accounting and KPIs.

478

And then the fifth week is what all great companies have in common.

479

And so in thirty days, it's not thirty days to a perfect business.

480

It's thirty days to a better business.

481

If you take this journey and maybe you commit ten to

482

12 minutes a day, you're gonna walk away each day with some thoughts and hopefully about

30 ideas and things to to implement in your business.

483

The first three weeks are written in a narrative style.

484

So it's a story, it's a storyline between an accomplished older business owner mentoring a

younger one.

485

Carl is the older guy, Evan is the younger guy, and they have this dialogue.

486

And I've been asked by folks who've read the book, they said, Hey, are you Carl or are you

Evan?

487

And I say,

488

I'm both because at twenty-six, Carl is sharing with Evan everything that I would say to

my younger self that you were starting a business today, or if you're in the middle of it,

489

or contemplate it.

490

So that's why I wrote the book.

491

It's it's thirty years of lessons in small business.

492

It's it's a skilled trades version that's in this lane.

493

And I I think it connects with people who maybe they don't read a lot, but hopefully

they'll

494

It'll it'll spark an interest to read every day and hey, let's see what happens to Evan

the next day.

495

And I love that.

496

Especially for someone whose mind can wonder sometimes.

497

So an easy read is always amazing.

498

Um, Brent, this conversation was absolutely amazing today.

499

Is there anything yes, it was lots of fun.

500

Is there anything that you would like to add before we go?

501

You know what, we talked about the book.

502

I believe in something called natural law.

503

And natural law says that there is an order to the world.

504

And you can go back to four thousand BC, Aristotle, Plato, Plato.

505

This idea is nothing new.

506

Okay.

507

Thousands of years ago we were contemplating.

508

So let me see if I can boil it down a little bit.

509

I believe there's an order to the world, and there's physical evidence of that.

510

Okay.

511

Let's just take gravity, for instance.

512

You and I probably believe in the law of gravity.

513

And for those who want to talk to me and say, you know, I don't really believe in that

natural law thing.

514

You and I want to stand out in the parking lot, watch them get on a two two-story

building, and we'll we'll see if we can prove their theory.

515

You know, and so we all know what's going to happen with gravity.

516

There are also those things in natural law that are unseen.

517

They are the things of physics.

518

They are the things of light and movement.

519

And we're learning a uh

520

About that and things that we don't know.

521

But in all of that, through this understanding natural law, you know, it was said around

thousand AD that people who tend to do the right thing choose a win-win agreement or

522

choose what's what's right and should be right in the world.

523

Good things tend to happen to those folks.

524

And it's not transactional.

525

I don't do it here and get that, right?

526

But over time, I make choices every day.

527

And and better things happen to me.

528

They'll

529

The flip side of that is some folks try to get there quick.

530

They try to do it the easy way.

531

They try to think win lose.

532

I'll trick somebody.

533

I'll j those folks just seem to over time think they're getting ahead and they might get

ahead a little bit, but the world just doesn't it it seems to smack down.

534

I believe in that natural law.

535

That book is written about that.

536

It's the way I run my business.

537

I can certainly talk to somebody about that.

538

There are lots of different reasons I believe that's here in the world.

539

But

540

The book's theme does point toward doing the right thing, doing your best and treating

people fairly.

541

I work with a community of business owners in skilled trades that are wanting to grow and

scale their business without compromising their values.

542

And that's that's probably what I'd want to leave with.

543

it and I love that.

544

I love that a lot.

545

and Brent, for people who are looking to connect with you, how do they do that?

546

It's real simple.

547

Go to BrentGarrett.com.

548

There there are buttons everywhere that says connect with Brent.

549

I'll have a free conversation with you.

550

If you've heard anything you want to talk about, you know, it won't cost you a thing.

551

And we'll talk about your business for 30, 40 minutes.

552

At a certain point, I will share the things I heard you say.

553

I'll give you some options about what you can do with your business.

554

And I'll give you a free e version of 30 days to a better business.

555

And that's that's how you can get in touch with me.

556

Well Britt, today was amazing and thank you.

557

Thanks so much for having me on.

558

I appreciate it.

559

And good luck with your business.

560

Let's keep in touch.

561

If you believe that this episode brought you real clarity, be sure to share it with

another contractor who also needs it.

562

And if you want to keep this conversation going, be sure to join our community of

contractors inside Building Better Contractor Businesses.

563

Facebook group.

564

This is a community where we talk through the real problems.

565

That you are having in your business.

566

The link will be found in our show notes.

567

And remember, we are not just completing projects.

568

We are building better contractor businesses.

569

I will see you next time.