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This is your destination for feeling empowered in building your business.
These are the real, raw stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have built their businesses through the messy middle of $1-20 Million, hosted by serial entrepreneur Matt Tait.
Matt knows what it’s like to scale past the first million, and on this show he’ll be bringing on other serial entrepreneurs and business owners who have been there, done that (or, are currently in it) to share what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s next.
Chad Peterman [00:00:00]:
The term, you know, go slow to eventually go fast. And I think it becomes even more important as you get bigger. You know, when you're smaller, you can be a little bit scrappier, you try different stuff, you can be a little bit more nimble. But as you get bigger, the procedure that it takes to carry out an idea only gets more complex if it messes up somewhere. You can be in a world of hurt really quickly.
Matt Tait [00:00:22]:
I'm Matt Tait, founder of Decimal and fellow entrepreneur. Yes, I'm one of the crazy ones. I've chosen time and time again to hustle my way through that first million. Now I'm scaling to the next 50. So I know firsthand what the messy middle is really like. And I know that entrepreneurs and leaders like us need a destination for empowerment, community and encouragement. This is our place. This is After the First Million.
Matt Tait [00:00:48]:
I couldn't be more excited to have Chad Peterman join me today. And one of the reasons is Chad is the CEO and founder son of one of the fastest growing home services businesses in the country. And you don't hear that a lot. We hear a lot about growing tech or we hear about growing manufacturing. But to grow a home services business, to do it in a family setting with his brother, to take a company from 21 to 520 employees in four states is pretty significant. And Chad has some really great stories and some great insights about scaling a business. So with that, Chad, welcome.
Chad Peterman [00:01:29]:
Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be on here and share a little bit of our story and hopefully help some listeners out at the same time dealing with the things that running a business comes with.
Matt Tait [00:01:40]:
So, like me, you grew up around entrepreneurship, your dad started the business. But one of the things I like to ask to start is running a company, starting a business, being a CEO, you have to be a little bit crazy to enjoy it. When did you know that you were one of the crazy ones?
Chad Peterman [00:02:00]:
After college, I actually went and worked outside of the industry as an account rep for a company that manufactured adhesive. Went to Charlotte and didn't really know what I want to do, and then in 2011 came back home, called my dad and asked him if I could have a job. And he responded with, well, what are you going to do? And I said I wasn't sure. And luckily he let me start. And so I would say that it wasn't immediately right. It was, you know, being young and not really knowing what you want to do and just kind of getting into it. I think it was maybe a couple of years in when I kind of started to understand what we were doing, understand what the potential was. That's the, the interesting thing about growing up around it is that you take it for granted.
Chad Peterman [00:02:47]:
You never viewed your parents as crazy because they had their own business. You viewed it with a sense of pride, like, yeah, dad owns his own company, and that's awesome. Once you get into it and you realize the risk that you're taking and the different things that it takes to inspire people and kind of lead them into growing, I think that's when we kind of realize, okay, this is a little bit different discipline, even in our industry. It's even exacerbated a little bit because in home services, when people have a problem, they want you there now. And so it doesn't matter if you're on vacation. When someone calls you kind of pride yourself on taking care of them. It's been an interesting kind of understanding, but you learn to embrace it, and you learn that there's a lot of value and a lot of impact that you can have in people's lives. And I think that's what keeps me growing.
Chad Peterman [00:03:36]:
While there is the risk, there is the responsibility that also comes with a lot of return on that investment, for sure.
Matt Tait [00:03:44]:
So I want to go back to the start. Your dad started the business back in the eighties and you joined in 2011?
Chad Peterman [00:03:53]:
Yep.
Matt Tait [00:03:54]:
Talk about the scope of the business when you joined. And what is that scope now? The total growth and of what it was, what it is, etcetera. Tell me about that.
Chad Peterman [00:04:05]:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, my dad started the business in '86. It was never his intention to scale a business. That's not something that you're going to hear from my dad. That's not how he talks. You know, when he first started the business, it was, I knew what my bills were for the week, and I knew how much business I needed to do in order to pay all the bills and have some leftover to continue on to the next week. And so when I came into the business that we were out, I think I was employee number 21. It was a very, a very strong business, and it was one that was growing, but there was no plan for growth.
Chad Peterman [00:04:41]:
Right. It was just, well, we'll do more work next year than we did the previous year and thus eat bigger. And so I think when my brother and I joined, once we got our feet under us, then we started to kind of craft our vision where, you know, one day dad's going to retire and we're going to have to lead the company. Well, what, what do we want that to be? And I think that's the cool thing about entrepreneurship, is you get to kind of draft that plan of where do you want to go? And so we did that we around 2015, and the goal was we want to become a residential service company. We did HVAC. We did a little bit of plumbing. We've since added electrical, sewer, and excavation, kind of a full service mechanical company for your residential home. And, you know, today we've got 520 people here.
Chad Peterman [00:05:30]:
We've got ten locations across the midwest, so kind of mostly Indiana, Kentucky, and then we go up into Michigan as well. So we're continuing to look to expand. It's been kind of a wild ride over the last, I guess, nine years of growth. But I think we've been very fortunate to come in contact with a lot of really good people. Any entrepreneur, as you're scaling a business, especially a service business, is you've got to find great people, because as an entrepreneur, you have a certain set of skills, but those skills don't always translate into marketing, into accounting, into operations, whatever it may be. You know, as we've grown, we've built a really good team that continues to better each day and hopefully have a lot of success into the future.
Matt Tait [00:06:14]:
So 2015 hits, and you have this new vision, and it was to grow. It was to be a lot more than it was then. What powered that for you and your brother? Was it both of you? Did one of you kind of say it and lead it? Like I'm fascinated by, hey, we want to see what dad built. We want to use that foundation. We want to make it our own, but we want to do it bigger and differently. What was that real vision? Was it underpinned by values? What was that?
Chad Peterman [00:06:47]:
Yeah, I think around 2015, I'd been in the business for probably four years. At the time, the biggest thing that my dad taught us was, regardless of what your vision is, regardless of where you're going, you're going to have to work hard. It's not going to be easy. I think we took that hard work, gritty mentality and said, okay, if we can imagine it, if we can kind of dream it up, then we just work backwards from there to find out what you need to do today and tomorrow and the next month and the next year and so on and so forth. So it sounds very simple, but I've definitely become a believer in just writing down what it is that you want to do. I also think that's important from the perspective. If you don't know where you're going, it's really difficult to know what you need to do today, what decisions you need to make, who you need to hire a, what investments you need to make in the business, and you don't know what the goal is. And so I think we started a practice, and we did.
Chad Peterman [00:07:44]:
The first one at the end of 2015 is we wrote down what we call our vivid vision. I get the idea from a book I read. It's called Double Double by Cameron Herold. And I just did what the book said. I didn't know any better. I'd never grown a business. I don't know how to do this. But by God, this seems like a logical first step.
Chad Peterman [00:08:02]:
And so we wrote down, I think when it started, it was like a ten page document, and it depicted what the business is going to feel like, how many people we're going to have, what are the departments going to be doing, how are they going to be treating each other, what's the culture look like, what are the values of the organization? And we just wrote it all down. It's meant to depict what the company will look like in three years. And so every year since then, we revise it and draft the vivid vision for the next three years of what that's going to look like. And that includes, you know, some stuff that we may not got to that year, or it was going to take more time to bake out than a year, whatever it may be. But that's been our guiding light. That's kind of the big, high level picture that we distribute to every team member here so that they know where we're going. And I think that was a huge piece for us in the in scaling part, is letting everybody know where we were going. I think so many times as entrepreneurs, we can have so many ideas bouncing around in our heads and these big visions and goals and dreams, and yet we never tell anybody on our team so that they can help us move in that direction.
Chad Peterman [00:09:06]:
And so for us, that's been a huge piece where we have been able to go in a relatively short time. But, yeah, I think that's just extremely important and something that I believe in kind of wholeheartedly.
Matt Tait [00:09:18]:
So you share that document not just with your management team or with the people running the locations. You share with every tech, every person, all 520 people.
Chad Peterman [00:09:28]:
So we not only share it with all 520, I post it on social media to show everybody this is where we're going. It's a huge recruiting tool if you want to find good people and they want to buy into that. So, yeah, we post it there, we give it to all of our vendors, all of our suppliers of like, hey, this is what we're planning to do. So you're a huge piece of this, even if you don't work here in order for us to pull this off. So, yeah, we share it with as many people as we humanly possibly can.
Matt Tait [00:09:54]:
What type of feedback do you get every year?
Chad Peterman [00:09:56]:
You know, I think everybody organization knew that, hey, this is a family business. Here are his two sons. They're probably going to take it over. Dad going to retire at some point in time. But there's always that level of apprehension, right? It's like the people work here because they like working here the way it is currently. And this vision is casting something that is different than what it currently is. And, you know, is many entrepreneurs know people have a tough time with change. Even entrepreneurs have a tough time with change sometimes.
Chad Peterman [00:10:27]:
And so I was really anxious at the beginning, but now that it become kind of a staple in the company, something that I think most people look forward to every year, because the hope is, is it depicts opportunities that are going to be available in the future. And so now I get people coming up to me like, hey, I saw that we were going to be trying to do this. I want to help with that. I'm passionate about that. Orlando, you know, hey, I know I'm just an individual contributor right now, but I'd love to manage a branch one day. It's been met with a lot of positive feedback. I think the other piece that is, is when you write it down, you got a goal to aim at and people can get excited about achieving goals.
Matt Tait [00:11:05]:
I tell you, after we pop off, I'm going to have to have you send me the latest one. I'm fascinated to read it.
Chad Peterman [00:11:10]:
Yeah, I'll shoot that on over.
Matt Tait [00:11:11]:
Sure. We work on goals quite a bit, and we talk about values, we talk about our vision, our mission. I sometimes say as a CEO, your job is chief repeating officer, having goals, even if you write them down, they're not as meaningful if you're not also continuing to talk about it and using it as a common language. And then I'm sure in an organization like yours, making sure that your managers are talking about it and your individual contributors, and it's not just you, how do you scale that communication down through the company?
Chad Peterman [00:11:46]:
As the leader, that vision never leaves your mind. It doesn't matter if you're sitting at a ball game or whatever it may be, you're always thinking about it, whereas I think you bring up a great point. Is the ability to communicate that down. And I think it's one thing that we probably, over the course of scaling, have probably struggled with and continue to try to get better at, especially being spread out. Communication in an organization can very quickly become a giant game of telephone. You know, while you may have the best intentions and if they heard it directly from you, they would say, oh, well, that makes total sense. It travels down maybe three, four layers in the organization, and you fleshed out the plan, you vetted it, you did pros and cons, and everybody agreed in that room, and then it goes out and then you realize that there's a group of individual contributors who are like pissed off, like, this doesn't make any sense. I don't even know why it's going.
Chad Peterman [00:12:38]:
And then come to find out it's because someone didn't communicate the entirety of the message. And so one of the things we've really been working on is how do we do that effectively, the change comes from one person. And, you know, we may do a giant Zoom meeting across the company and you're going to hear the one message from one person, we're going to record it, and that is the source of truth, as opposed to, hey, we're going to communicate it down. And then that's ten branch managers who may all have a different perspective or understanding of what is actually changing. And so thats helped us. And I think its something to keep in mind as you scale.
Matt Tait [00:13:14]:
Right? And it was funny, as you’re talking, I was thinking back, i've got a coach. And one of the things he told me as we were scaling is he said, assume that at every level a piece is taken away. And so if you make it down four levels, four pieces can be a gigantic crack. And so you have to keep the message as simple as possible and as close to you. And it's funny, when we were talking earlier, I mentioned how you guys were a remote company before. It was cool. And my company is fully remote. I cannot tell you how many people I have never met in person.
Matt Tait [00:13:49]:
But one of the things that I find with remote companies versus an office is you have to be so much more intentional about everything when you're remote and intentional about what you say and how it's conveyed, intentional about what is the person you told says. Intentional about interactions, intentional about how you stitch a company together. It's a lot bigger of a burden for those of us that run that remote company, but you just have that intentionality to every step and every failure.
Chad Peterman [00:14:24]:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's the one thing if I beat my head up against a wall. How do you communicate effectively? And I think it was, we grew so fast that you become an entirely different company almost overnight. For us, where we've made mistakes is kind of back to what I was talking about earlier, is handing down large changes or changes that are going to impact people on the front lines more. And it's, how can we be more intentional about delivering that message? How can we help them understand the why behind change? Especially when you're on an island and a change is made that affects you personally, you don't always understand the why behind that because that could be three layers deeper. I know it seems like a silly change on your end. Well, what was wrong with the way I did it before? There's nothing wrong with it. It wasn't like you were wrong.
Chad Peterman [00:15:16]:
It's just like if you do it this way, someone else's life is a hell of a lot easier. And so I think that's where a business at scale there becomes a lot of specialists. They become accountants. They become marketing people. There's your installers, there's your management team. And when everybody is kind of doing their role, it's very easy to get siloed. No one understands why is so and so asking me to do this. And so it's kind of that understanding the business a bigger scale, even if it's not like, I don't need you to know how to balance the checkbook if you're a, you know, frontline technician.
Chad Peterman [00:15:52]:
But I need to know how your actions on a daily basis, how that impacts this, that it's all connected and that, you know, neither one of you can do your job without the other. You know, if we didn't have the accounting department, well, I may not have money on Friday to pay you, but also, if you don't go and do a job for the customer, well, the accounting team doesn't have a job because there's nothing to account for. And so I think those have been the things that we've been challenged with that we're still working on a daily basis to try to make better.
Matt Tait [00:16:21]:
You know, one of the cool things that you've done that has to have an impact on this. I'd love it if you talked about the Peterman Top Tech Academy.
Chad Peterman [00:16:30]:
Absolutely. So in 2020, COVID kind of happened in call March, and what we were realizing was that people were spending more time at home. There was money being pumped in the economy, so people were upgrading things in their I, in their house. And so the demand went to the roof. And we had talked about for years as there weren't enough skilled trades people out there. Well, COVID kind of exacerbated that problem. When demand shoots up three times what it was the year prior, you definitely don't have enough people to take care of the demand and you're kind of balancing this. Well, we want to grow, but like, well, these people just keep calling and need our help and we got to go take care of them.
Chad Peterman [00:17:10]:
And so late 2020, we launched the first class of what is the Peterman Top Tech Academy, where at the time we brought these people in for twelve weeks, taught them how to be technician. And we've had some amazing success stories even from that first class of people that are with us today that are service technicians and doing just tremendous things, which is really cool and really impactful, I would say as our demand is kind of leveled out, as we've come out of COVID interest rates go up, people are out and about doing their thing, so maybe not putting as much money into their home. Right. It's like, okay, well, we probably don't need to pump that many technicians, new technicians into our system. So how do we kind of modify that? And so we've got a lot of really cool things working right now of how can we provide a free kind of online education? Students that are interested in getting into trades, how can we provide that free of charge, but they just do it online and kind of meeting the new generation where they learn, you know, shoot, they spent three years of school learning in an online environment, so they're used to that. So can meet them where we are still fulfill the business need, but also kind of that philanthropic need of educating people so they have a skill that's marketable. And so the future of Top Tech is a bright one because I think that we're thinking about things that not a lot of people are thinking about and it provides an educational alternative if college isn't for you, if I'm really interested in getting in the trade, but like, how do I even do it? Like where do I start? What do I do? What's that look like? How much is it going to cost? All of these things that I think that our team here is looking to solve. It's a project that I actually am personally working on.
Chad Peterman [00:18:55]:
It can provide a lot of value, not only for our company, but just for the communities that we serve in general.
Matt Tait [00:19:01]:
You know, it is becoming more and more prevalent, finding alternative education opportunities for people.
Chad Peterman [00:19:08]:
Yep.
Matt Tait [00:19:09]:
One thing that stands out to me, and we work with lots of construction home services type brands, but a lot of them think about business a lot like your dad did, which isn't bad. So that like my dad did, I'm going to build a really good business. And when you keep it small, culture and vision are entirely what you say it is. Every day you come to the office and every day you get to see people and shake their hand and ask them about their kids and their family. And that's a phenomenal way to run a company. But you and your brother have taken a home services brand to a level that you don't see a lot, particularly without, I would say, outside investment or private equity, where you look at growth and you look at expansion as a core part of what you want to do in your vision documents. Talk about the difference as you guys look to scale and to build the business bigger. What's the flip that happened in you guys in the company that you look and you say, hey, we're going to train people.
Matt Tait [00:20:12]:
I'm going to do a podcast about growth. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to do the things that are generally good for scaling businesses and bring that into the home services world so that we can continue to win the industry.
Chad Peterman [00:20:25]:
We are probably one of the more fragmented industries out there. And so when we looked at how are we going to scale this, it was like, how are we going to be different? You know, the differences between how company a, company b and company c install a furnace are minimal. Yeah, I mean, there's some things you can add in there and quality checks and different stuff like that. But for the most part, you could probably find pages and pages of people who can replace your furnace. And so I think what we looked to do was, okay, how are we going to be a little bit different? The podcast, the book, all of these things were revolving around how do we create a culture that serves our people and a culture that serves our customers? And, you know, we developed this philosophy. It's been a few years now, but a lot of people in the home services industry will place their external customer above their internal customer. And we said, well, if we flip that on its head, because at the end of the day, our external customer is probably going to get better service from a internal customer that really loves where they work, is bought into the culture, bought into the values. And so, you know, the things that we've done have just been, you know, different forms of media that can get that message out there, whether that's a prospective field, professional whether that's for an accountant, a marketing person, like, how do we create something that's a little bit different? How do we create something behind that where it's more than just the technical trade that we've always been associated with? And I think that's where we've seen success, is creating something that's a little bit different.
Chad Peterman [00:22:00]:
I don't know that we could have scaled it on the fact of like, hey, we are going to be technical. Technical and not place an emphasis on the culture and what we're building and where people work and where they call home.
Matt Tait [00:22:12]:
Does it make hiring harder, too?
Chad Peterman [00:22:15]:
Yes, a little bit, because we're looking for a specific type of person. Right. There's been a lot of field professionals that have come and golf more than I would like to admit to. But what I would tell you is that a lot of them leave because it isn't the right fit. Now we're trying to do a better job on the front end of. Okay, let's really vet them. Let's tell them the good, the bad, the ugly about working for, one, a big company. Two, a company that's growing and is going to really expect you to grow up, too.
Chad Peterman [00:22:45]:
But we may not be the right place for you. Our goal is to hopefully communicate well enough so that, one, you know what you're getting into, and then two, we're here to help you. If want you to grow. We've got to provide that scaffolding so that you can continue to improve your skills and get better and make more money. You know, have this place as a career. You know, I always tell people, congratulations, this is your last first day at a job. You never have to go anywhere because we're continuing to grow, continuing to provide opportunities for you so that you can continue to get better.
Matt Tait [00:23:18]:
We do the same thing. I find it's the same kind of with clients. And I'm interested because so much of your business is more direct to consumer. But in business clients, which I assume you have some construction clients that are more, when they build, you're there. Have you found some of that too? Because we fired clients, somebody's a jerk or not nice. And we've got fun stories about that. We'll just say, hey, there are lots of places you can find this. It's not going to be here.
Matt Tait [00:23:44]:
Have you had to go through that? Or is that a concern that you end up dealing with a little bit at all?
Chad Peterman [00:23:49]:
Yeah, I mean, to be perfectly honest, right now we are 100% residential service repair replacement. So we don't do any construction if you're building a house, I will not put the new system in a lot of stuff. Right. So there was a time we did all sorts of work. We did restoration, we did new construction, we did this, we did that. And essentially it wasn't that they were bad people. It was like, what you want and what you want out of me and what I can deliver is not aligned with what we are trying to provide. And so over the years, yeah, we've fired, if you lack of a better term, of those customers.
Chad Peterman [00:24:25]:
So I think you're going to run into that all the time. I think the biggest thing for me is not compromising on that. Because the minute that you compromise, you know, then to me that sends a mixed message to your people about, well, what are we truly about? Are we truly about delivering the best service or it seems like you don't want me to deliver the best service here. We go through that with our people, too. And I hope that while you're on this team and you're putting in all the work grow and get better, you're worth it. Like, you're. The reason that we charge we do is because we think that you're worth it. Now, if you're not growing and get better and looking to provide the best possible customer service, well, then, yeah, we're out of line.
Chad Peterman [00:25:04]:
We're charging too much. But our hope is, is that we provide a place that you feel supported to grow and chase your dreams. And in my mind, then you are worth it. And that price is a fair price for the level of service that we're going to provide.
Matt Tait [00:25:19]:
You know, I'm going to trade you. I'll give you the chief repeating officer, but I'm going to steal that. As we've grown, our scope of service has narrowed. We do the same thing and we've gotten there, too. And I like the concise way that you communicate that. So I'll trade you on that one.
Chad Peterman [00:25:35]:
Yeah, absolutely. I'm good with trading that. It's been a lesson where I think at scale, people think you do everything. No, no, we're so narrow in that this is what we provide because then you can truly scale that. You can't scale something that you just do. We're like half good at like eight of these things and we offer them because they'll pay us some money for it. It's like, well, what if we took all that energy, which probably takes more energy to do something half good? And what if we just put that over into what we do really really?
Matt Tait [00:26:02]:
Well, I mean, don't you feel like that's the difference? We've all seen good growth and bad growth, and I don't know about you, I've led good growth and bad growth. Good growth is really understanding how to do it well scalably. Bad growth is when you just, you kind of realize, oh, man, we've grown. This is not good. And we need to cut down and figure out what we're good at, how to scale it. And like you said, kind of pull some things away that are detracting away from the quality of being able to row together in one direction.
Chad Peterman [00:26:36]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think, you know, the bad growth in the ideas that aren't fully vetted out, the shiny object syndrome, you know, I've learned that over the years. Being kind of the visionary, there's no idea that's a bad idea, right? It's like, oh, we could do this and look at this. And I think what I have is a really great team around me who understands what their role is and their role is pushback. And to say, hey, is that really aligned with what we want to do? How much time and resources that going to take? What's our ROI there? Because, you know, I always joke with our CFO, it's like, I don't do any ROI calculations. I just like, it's a good idea. And so like, hey, let's go explore. Go try it out.
Chad Peterman [00:27:14]:
Whereas I learned one of the top questions is, how much time is this going to take? What kind of fruit is it actually going to bear? That's key in kind of deciphering what the good and the bad growth is to really, really spend some time. It's kind of the term, you know, go slow to eventually go fast. And I think it becomes even more important as you get bigger because the rois can be a whole heck a lot bigger if you bake it out, but it can also be a lot bigger on the other side of that if you don't and it goes the wrong direction. And so, you know, when you're smaller, you can be a little bit scrappier. You try different stuff. You can be a little bit more nimble. But as you get bigger, the procedure that it takes to carry out an idea only gets more complex if it messes up somewhere. You can be in a world of hurt really quickly.
Matt Tait [00:28:01]:
People can only handle so much change, and managing and staging it out is really important. Just had a conversation today with my team where I was like, we're getting ready to make a major change. I said, actually, I'm going to pump the brakes on this for about 60 days because we need to finish what we're currently doing right now. It hurts me a lot because I just want to run faster. But understanding that change management is so important and staging change out is how you don't break your team too 100%.
Chad Peterman [00:28:32]:
There is an element of just being very, very methodical in how a message gets delivered and thinking about how it's going to be digested and what kind of collateral do we need around this so that people can continue to think that it's a good thing, different things like that. That's a great point as you scale. Just be very conscious of messaging and what it looks like.
Matt Tait [00:28:57]:
Well, I think it's just also playing the people management game. When you hear about that in traditional businesses, people like, oh, HR. I've got HR. No, it's people and emotional and human being management of. Just assume people need more than just a one word or a one sentence tagline. I'm mister what if? A lot of times around the company, I love socializing decisions before they get made. I'll talk to our individual contributors, I'll talk to our managers. I'm like, hey, what if we did this? Like, what would you think about that? Like, would this help or tell me why it wouldn't work or.
Matt Tait [00:29:33]:
I like to play that a lot. It's helped me to really get at any individual stage of the business and any individual layer of the company. But also, I can't tell you how many ideas it's killed because they're like, yeah, that wouldn't work because of this. And we play it into multiple, multiple conversations with everybody that, hey, just so you know, Matt plays what if? And it doesn't mean anything. So you guys have grown a ton last nine years. One of your stated goals is keep growing. When do you and your brother feel like we've arrived?
Chad Peterman [00:30:05]:
We're here. Yeah, you know, I think that's a great question. There's so much opportunity for growth, it's hard to say that, hey, we've arrived, we're good. But I do think that the business changes. Right? Like, the way in which you're growing, the things you're thinking about, you know, is it growth for growth sake or is it growth because we want to get more efficient and be more profitable? I would say that for the longest time it was just growth. That's what we wanted. Like, it was just go, go, go. Whereas now we're talking about margin control and how do we buy material better and how do we streamline process, you know, get more efficient? You're solving different problems at different levels, and I think that goes to kind of who you are as a leader.
Chad Peterman [00:30:54]:
Like, I'm a different leader today than I was nine years ago because I have to be. I think it's just ever evolving. The things I was thinking about back then, there's some similar for sure, but are you as a leader, continuing to develop yourself? Are you continuing to grow? What I know is when I'm growing, our company's growing. When I stop and think that, oh, I'm good, like nothing else to learn, then the company becomes stagnant. And I think that, you know, pumping that message into the company about where I'm growing, how I'm getting better, is been a key piece to our culture. Simon Sinek says that, you know, leadership is parenting. Parenting never ends when your kids are in their thirties, forties, fifties, you know, my parents are still parenting me to a lesser degree, but there's times when I ask for advice or, you know, different things like that that I think is important to keep kind of front and center.
Matt Tait [00:31:48]:
You know, I talked a lot in my own life how three things have helped me to continually grow. One is focusing on my physical and mental health. Two is having a peer group of people to talk to, to share with, and three is having a paid coach, somebody that gives me their unvarnished opinion, to talk to them today. It's fun sometimes about what's going on. What are the things that you do to help you grow.
Chad Peterman [00:32:14]:
For me, reading and listening to podcasts and stuff like that keeps my mind sharp. That's where I kind of thrive. I think peer groups are huge. I think I said earlier, our industry, one of the fortunate things is so many people are willing to share, share what's going good, share what's going bad, and all of that stuff. And so I've got a couple of groups that I'm a part of that, you know, it's a text thread, it's a, you know, we meet once a month, different things like that that I think provides a little bit of that accountability piece of, hey, this guy's crushing it over here and we're not. What do we need to look at? For me, that continual kind of learning and development. I think that the physical and mental part, I think becomes a bigger piece of the puzzle as you get bigger, especially because of the problems that you're solving and the things that you're going through. So for me, that's been something I've kind of leaned into here lately.
Chad Peterman [00:33:06]:
I think that's a big piece too. Is kind of saying no to things. We're both talking before kids and activities and all of this stuff, you know, I think that's something to consider as well. And so having that kind of mental space where you can think and breathe and figure out things, I think is, is critical. And something that, you know, I think I've be learned on the fly of how important that stuff is. Especially when you're balancing a marriage, kids, a business, all of the competing demands for your time. It's critical to evaluate this for sure.
Matt Tait [00:33:38]:
So one last question, Chad, and I'll let you go. You've been doing this nine years. If you could give yourself one piece of advice nine years ago about what you've learned, scaling, growing the business, what would you tell yourself?
Chad Peterman [00:33:52]:
So I would tell myself, if I'm sitting there nine years ago and I've got the vision for where we are today, it would be to find specialists sooner. You know, it's only natural to realize, like, oh crap, we really need someone to look over accounting. Oh crap, we really need someone that's really good at marketing, that goes hand in hand with knowing where we want to do. I think I had a big vision, but didn't realize how critical having those specialists would be in our growth. And it's always like, hey, one, focus on the basics. Two, where you want to go. And then let's work that plan backwards to know what kind of specialists you're going to need. If your goal is not to scale to 500 people, you may not need a CFO, you may just need a really damn good controller.
Chad Peterman [00:34:42]:
But knowing that up front can help you pinpoint who that person is. I think so many people get so caught up in the titles and the this, that and the other. And it's like, where do you want to take this thing? But that's the thing I try to do in helping people is, you know, where is it that you want to go? I think I had that part down, which is good, but then who are all the people I'm going to need to surround myself with? And what are all the things I'm going to need to be thinking about in order to pull that off?
Matt Tait [00:35:09]:
Can't do it alone. And none of us are great at.
Chad Peterman [00:35:11]:
Everything, that is for sure.
Matt Tait [00:35:13]:
Well, Chad, I really appreciate the time. This has been awesome and time flew. Thank you.
Chad Peterman [00:35:18]:
Absolutely. I hope as talk there at the end, this can help people who are scaling companies or looking to grow them. And this can kind of give some insight into, you know, things they should be thinking about or different things like that.
Matt Tait [00:35:30]:
Oh, I think there's a lot of takeaways. So thanks again.
Chad Peterman [00:35:32]:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Matt Tait [00:35:34]:
All right, guys. Chad has a truly amazing story and there were a ton of really good takeaways. But I think for me, there were four main things that I took away from the episode, and I'm going to list those out, and then I want to go into a little bit more detail. So number one is truly understand and clearly set the foundation of your company and your culture first to write it down and be accountable and talk about it.
Matt Tait [00:36:05]:
Repeat it. Three. They're just generally good business principles that are applicable to any type of company. And there are also things that are good for specific industries and specific best practices. Understand what both of those are. And finally, number four, there's a difference between good growth and bad growth.
Matt Tait [00:36:26]:
So going into more detail. Number one, understand and clearly set your foundation first. You need to really understand who you are as a business and your culture. And you need to remember the types of people that you hire as you scale, the types of things that you need to do because you have so many opportunities to branch out of that and be tempted to do that. You need to remember what your core competencies are and who you are as a business as you scale. Number two, write it down, repeat it and be accountable from vision to culture to goals. Make sure that you become as the CEO and leader, the chief repeating officer. And talk about how you're going to continue to build your culture, to maintain your vision and values, and then what your goals are.
Matt Tait [00:37:13]:
Number three, there are just generally good business principles that apply to every industry. And it's really important to understand those and apply them. So many people and so many companies get caught in their industry and thinking about how do I build a home services business, or how do I build an orthodontist shop, or a consulting company, or a tech company, and they don't think about that kind of horizontal of general business principles.
Matt Tait [00:37:38]:
Now, you certainly need to apply the industry-specific best practices too, but remember both. And then finally, number four, there's a difference between good growth and bad growth. As you grow as a company, it can become very easy to get caught in a trap of top line revenue, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And at some point you'll look and see, Oh my gosh, my costs are out of control.
Matt Tait [00:38:01]:
Ultimately, you want to make money as a business and you need to be able to focus on that. And so truly understand the unit economics of your company and how to grow it well. And understand there's a difference between good growth and bad growth. I hope this was helpful. I certainly know it was for me.
Matt Tait [00:38:17]:
I think one of my big takeaways from Chad is, at Decimal, we have a core value of being transparent. But when Chad talked about being publicly accountable for his goals, that's just not something I'd considered, and it's definitely something that I want to think about and see how can we apply that at Decimal, because I think it's a great idea. I hope it helps. See you next time.
Matt Tait [00:38:39]:
Thanks so much for listening. After the First Million is presented by Decimal. To listen to more episodes and find tips to help make running a business easier, visit decimal.com/AFM. Want to join the conversation? Reach out to me on LinkedIn and let's explore the messy middle.