Success Formula Podcast

Why Most Contractors Fail And How She Built a 6M Business

• Success Formula Podcast • Episode 98

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0:00 | 51:26

What does it really take to build a multi-million dollar business from nothing?

In this episode of the Success Formula Podcast, Heather Hitchcock shares her raw, unfiltered journey from financial rock bottom to building a thriving roofing and construction company in Houston. From being a single mom on food stamps to generating millions in revenue, her story is a masterclass in resilience, sales, and smart business systems.

We dive deep into the reality of working in a male-dominated industry, how to command respect, and why direct communication is your biggest advantage. Heather also exposes the truth about the roofing industry, lack of regulation, and the challenges of navigating insurance claims.

If you're an entrepreneur, business owner, or someone looking to level up your mindset, this episode is packed with real-world insights you won’t hear anywhere else.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherhitchcock4/
Website: https://heatherhitchcock.com/

Tune in every Tuesday at 10 AM for another inspiring success story, along with the proven formula to help you achieve your own goals. Don't miss out on the insights that could change your life!

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SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Success Formula podcast. Today we have Heather Hitchcock joining us all the way from the south side down where I'm from. We actually went to high school together about 485 years ago. I have to mention she was a little bit older than me, like like two years or so.

SPEAKER_01

One.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we actually had a sewing class together on a year of all things. We sewed scrunchies together. Oh my gosh. And she's been a client of JKC, my makeup brand, for about six, seven years, maybe. Yep. And we just had our first official lesson the other day. So I gave her the confidence to do her own makeup, and that's why she is looking super hot today. I didn't even give her a touch-up. Nothing all on my own. Um, but I kind of caught back up with you, following you on social media maybe like three or four years ago. Um, she owns a very successful roofing indust roofing company in Houston, Texas. Um, I'm sure your focus is probably down south, but you probably do roofs all over. And I was like, you know what? She'd be a great guest on the podcast to talk about what it's like being a woman in an all-man's world.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Gentry's biggest pet peeve in the construction industry is like, she's like, they don't listen to me because I'm a woman. Yep. She told me that. And you're probably dealing with the same type of people that I am. She thinks that I think I was like, Gentry, they kind of do that to everybody. I'm not saying it's a little bit like it could be slightly worse, but they truly do that to everybody. Sometimes I think she feels singled out.

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, no, it's a Hispanic culture, they don't like listening to a white woman boss them around. They just don't. And I've had some of them come give me quotes for stuff, and these buildings are mine. These are not Sean's. This is not a shared commercial building situation. Um, but Sean will be like, hey, call I won't say his name, I almost did, but I'll say his name. Um and then I will call a woman, I'll be like, hey, I need a quote for this, and they'll call Sean and then hey, just left your wife's building, or I'll just left your building and uh the repairs are gonna be XYZ. Do you approve this? And he's like, Well, did you ask her? Well, yeah, she said she did, but I wanted to run it by you first. I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00

Here's what I think it is. And again, she's not just one person. I know, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But a lot of times when a other another person, whether it's a female, whoever, I send the trade over, they call and say, Hey, Sean, blah, blah, blah. I think that they think maybe I'm doing the job. Not the the the theory. But you also say for my wife's building, though. You're right. I'm very clear. I'm like, hey, she's it's herself, just call her and ask her. But I think whenever I've sent people to other given trades to other people, and then when they show up, they don't give them the price there because maybe they think I'm making money off of it or something. I'm like I'm a contractor and I'm I'm not. That's not what I do. But that's could be part of it where they're used to calling back and saying, hey, do you know does this price okay? Because they don't want to give them the price because they think I have I'm marking it up or something. Right. Is what I think. That's something you run into.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I don't. I mean, this is something that I get asked often. You know, there's not a lot of women in roofing that do what I do. So as I started to kind of grow my business and grow in success, I started going to these conferences and getting asked to speak. It's just very different. Um, I think when no, I really don't. And that's a that's something that people want me to say. But but I'm this is what I do all day long.

SPEAKER_03

But also an aggressive speaker too. And I I am like that too. Um we talk very much the same. Yeah. And I think sometimes when you walk in the room with confidence, that helps.

SPEAKER_01

And I think like this is what I do, you know. I mean, not any disrespect to you because you're a boss and you know what you're doing and you command respect, but this is what I do. And so these contractors actually, you know, especially in Texas, you know, there's zero regulations in roofing. Okay. And so meaning there's oversight, licensing. You can have anybody show up, you know, tell you numbers, put roofs on, and and they really so is there like an inspection that comes from the city from that?

SPEAKER_03

Are you having to do like pull permits to do roofs?

SPEAKER_00

But as far as like usually in other states, there's you have to be a contract, you have to get a license to be a contractor, yeah. Or a builder. Yes, or a builder or something. I don't know, the states that it's Texas is just the wild west. Florida, Texas, maybe a couple of things. That's what we call it the wild, wild west. Yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

So in so in a space like this where it's not regulated, you know, they're looking for who can I trust that's gonna pay me? Who's gonna take care of me? Who is gonna have business for me so that I can keep my men busy, right? So it looks different. So um I think the only negative for me as a female, and and you can probably appreciate this, is you know, I get kind of coined for being a bitch when it's just being direct and not really accepting, you know, anything less than the best to a man. And that's the only area where is if a dude came in and talked just like I did and said, hey man, no, this isn't gonna work. You know, we're doing this and we got to redo this, it's just business as usual. But as a chick, they're like, oh, she's hard, she's difficult. No, like I have standards. We're operating at this level. I'm paying you. This is how it's gonna be. And that would be, you know, on all ends of the spectrum from my team to the people that work for me. Does that make sense? Well, we did talk about that during our lesson.

SPEAKER_03

We did you were, I think, texting somebody or frustrated with somebody wasn't doing what they said they were gonna do or whatever it was. And I was like, I get the same. Where I have people who it's either make or break in the first six months when someone comes to work for me, I try to scare them off in the interview. I'm like, I'm just a very direct speaker and I don't have time to bullshit or to play the whole political game or have you go through 15 layers of manager. I just say, say it like it is, and then we move on and I'm over it in five seconds. I don't need people who are gonna like dispute me or go back and forth with me. This is the way I like things done. This is how I like to communicate. Right. And if I can run four businesses and respond to every email and text message by the end of the evening, I don't want to hear your excuses that you can't. Agreed. Or you can't work here.

SPEAKER_01

I would agree.

SPEAKER_03

And then if they make it past the six-month mark, usually they'll be here for a few years. But sometimes if there's some sort of like, you know, conflict along the way, it's like six months later, they come back with an apology. Right. I'm like, oh, it wasn't so bad after all, was it? Yeah. But that's not because really I just strive, I just strive for the best. And with contractors, it's just you have your A, B's, and C's, and you have your A's that are responsive and show up when they say they're going to, and then you have your B's that are questionable, and then the C's that just come and leave whenever they want and never finish the job on time.

SPEAKER_00

But that's not construction, that's every business in the world. It's like if you try to hold people accountable, they think you're a bitch or you're mean, or you're what she's saying is it's it's like coming from a woman.

SPEAKER_03

No, I know it's a lot more aggressive than a stern man.

SPEAKER_01

But it's weird because I listen to men, you know, and I'm not cussing at people or being, you know, disrespectful or rude. I'm just being firm, very firm. I'm very respectful, very honorable. So it's bizarre. But I mean, I think in the contracting for you, I mean, you know, you're just a hot chick and you're makeup and you're this, you know. I think maybe they probably just, you know, don't understand what you know. And then they see your stories and they're like, oh, I probably should have listened to her.

SPEAKER_03

So before we started the podcast, you did mention that your uh family was in the contracting business too. What business did they own? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So my parents, yeah, my parents, they started a commercial exterior high-pressure water cleaning, waterproofing, um, concrete spall, uh, big, you know, they did things like the Wortham Center, exterior waterproofing, coating.

SPEAKER_00

So mostly commercial.

SPEAKER_01

All commercial. Yep. High-end residential. They do a lot of work in River Oaks, but they still own that company? They still own that company. They never touched roofing, which blows my mind now that I'm in this space. I need a waterproof for this basement. One of their, you know, their largest competitors segue over to roofing, I don't know, five, 10 years ago. And I mean, roofing is a beautiful space if if you're already there and doing that kind of work. So yeah, but my parents never touched roofing. So did a little, you know, construction-esque background. I kind of worked with them off and on when I was younger, but never anything like what I'm doing. Did you go to school? Did you think you were going to do something different, or you just got out of high school and just went to go for the parents' business? No, I wanted to be a radio DJ. That was my for all. And I did. I did it for five years. Um, I went to school for radio and film. That was my major. Um, and I was, I had an internship and I was actually a seven and midnight spot and the youngest on air in Washington State, KZZU. And I ended up having getting pregnant with my son Carter. So, you know, I had a, I worked there for a little while longer in the Railway US. It wasn't uh realistic for me to maintain. So I ended up moving from Washington back here and and yes, started dabbling in the parents' business. Um, worked at Neiman's for a little bit selling um I think I kind of remember that. Selling jeans up on the third floor. What year was that? Yeah. Oh my gosh. That would be because I lived out here off Buffalo Speedway. Did we work there at the same time? Yes, we totally did. I barely remember you were at um Bobby Brown or Bobby Brown or one of them. Um but I was in the contemporary women's contemporary.

SPEAKER_02

I kind of remember that, but what kind of thing? What specifically did you do for your parents' company?

SPEAKER_01

A little bit of everything. So my dad was really trying to teach me the sales side. Um, and my and you know, I'm thankful for that. But I was just kind of filling in, running materials, just at that point it was a small business, so it was kind of a utility player. Yeah. Um, inventory, uh just customer communication, customer follow-up, things like that.

SPEAKER_00

Communication and sales, the two best skills in the world to make you successful in anything in life. And she has both have them. So well, they're her past, right? Yeah. Radio DJ, communication, and then sales for your parents, and then sales for the supplement company, and sales for the gym. And so all that creates amazing uh skill later in life for almost anything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's served me well. Yep. I'm super grateful.

SPEAKER_03

So you went from your parents' business to when did you start your own gym? Because I know you owned a gym down on the south side.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I started working out. I was rehabbing a knee surgery from running the Houston Marathon, and I had uh, he told me to rehab it with CrossFit. And so I started a CrossFit gym as a member um in 2010. And by the end of 2010, they were an advocare gym and they were like, hey, try this, you know, pro post-workout. And I actually did get on products and I had great results, truly. And then they told me there was an opportunity side. And so I started sharing it very part-time with zero like understanding of what I was doing or vision for a big thing. And within a year, I had um matched my uh current income that I was making for my parents, and I had just always had a desire. I mean, I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit, but health and wellness was my favorite thing. I love helping people be their best self. I just do.

SPEAKER_03

That's what he said to me when I first started my business to be like, just do something you could do all day, every day, and you never get tired. You know, that's your true passion.

SPEAKER_01

Like, you must. I mean, I know I, you know, I feel so much better now after, you know, our lesson. Like you have to, there's so much fulfillment when people, whether it's their best self, you know, physically or you know, with their makeup or whatever.

SPEAKER_03

I think we don't take it seriously because it's a it's a makeup job. Or even when people are canceling, canceling their appointments and we charge them like a late cancellation fee. The book, it's a makeup appointment. You're like, still my job, get paid to do. Um, but I truly do. I'm an artist, and I didn't think I'd ever be able to make any money on my art because it wasn't that good of a painter. But I get to paint on people's faces and make them feel good at the same time. So it is it makes me feel good to come to work every day. And I never have a day where I'm like, fuck, I gotta go to work today. I gotta truly enjoy my job. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she loves the makeup industry so much, and she loves doing weddings and she loves like helping people.

SPEAKER_03

But I hated working at Neeman's. That and then she got to me, I got to the point where I hated it because it was my sister's wedding and they were like, Well, that's inventory, you can't have off. And then it was my best friend's wedding six months later, and they were like, sorry, she should have asked you first. That's free gift before she picked her wedding. This is not our problem, you can't have off. So I finally just quit. I was like, I'm done. And I I liked the makeup part of it, it was less about artistry, more about sales than it. And I've always liked sales, sales wasn't a big deal. Sean's like, dude, just start your own. So he had his web guy build me a little website. So I put in my two weeks, website was done in two weeks, and then I booked$3,000 for the weddings the first day. That's kind of how I got into like owning my own business, like makeup line. But that's where it started when I left the US.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what was it today, except for managing the people she gets burned out?

unknown

I already know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, every once in a while that's where the burnout will come from. Yeah, and that and that's hard. Like when you get when you do get burned out later in life, you end up doing some things that you don't enjoy doing as much in the business because you just don't have the help a lot of people hold on to it and do the stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you lose why you started the business, the part the passionate part of the love part you can do that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you end up doing a lot of other jobs, and so it took me 25 years to learn to hire the right people, and it's amazing after you do that. Uh and when you find the right people, and it's easier said than done. Super, super hard to find the right person. But when you do it, it takes a whole lot of pressure off you, and you focus on the stuff that you like to focus on.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I finally feel like I'm to the point now where I can add more days to the schedule with my teams like getting it now, and I've had good retention.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So once I get them fully trained and I can be more hands-off, then I can do more of what I love. I was only working three to four days a month doing the makeup outside the weddings here in the store. But I want to be out there more and be with my team because you just lose, you know, when you're somebody gets too big, you lose the details that are so important. Like I'm very type A, very what's the word?

SPEAKER_00

Like she's the best operator I know. Like hands on the case.

SPEAKER_03

I'm big on operations from point A to point Z. I know everything that happens in between and there's steps and there's communication. Sean is just like, yes, man, and just like hope for the best. He's like, Yeah, this is what I need to do, they'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00

I'm more like vision long term, and she she'll get so stuck in like the details, which is good. Right later on in life, if we ever have a company together, it will do really well. Yeah, because that almost happens. No, this is she's not good. Yeah, I think I told you that almost happened at the end of last year. Because I'm like, I don't care if I lose money, I don't want to figure it out along the way, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And she's like, no, we can't. It's has to be this way. But once I get it going, like I would have to have somebody like her and she crush it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Sean's been working on one of these businesses he has right now for about a year and a half, still hasn't finalized it. I like to have the full plan and then go. But do you he just wants to figure it as you go? Well, that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_00

And redo it like five or ten times. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. And I go back to when you go back to like the stuff that you don't want to do. I'm just less like, I just don't figure it out in my life I don't like the operations as much. I did it all in my 20s. Somebody else, I did it all in my 20s, and I should have just hired a really good operator and I would have just crushed it even better. I just did a lot of things half half-assed.

SPEAKER_01

So are you still operating everything for your company too? I am, you know, I mean, I kind of like grew and now I've kind of pulled back to re I'm I'm I'm redoing all my operations, literally. Um, so I kind of had to slow down to speed up because I, you know, the visionary in me, I had so many people coming on because I built my company very different. It was 100% referral-based. I spent zero on marketing outside of like sponsoring youth, you know, sports teams and such. Um, and so I had a lot of high-level people come on and it got really, really big and corporate real quick. Yeah. Well, not corporate, but just, I mean, it was out of control. And it was me training everyone one to one to one to one because it was do it like Heather. And, you know, some things happened in my life and I thought it was gonna sell, came back, and now I'm like, you know what? Um, I'm dialing it in differently so that I can really duplicate things without duplicating everything myself. Yeah. And so I'm, I mean, I was at the Houstonian last weekend, shut the world off. And, you know, I'm it's me, Loom training. That's great. And my CRM, yeah, you know, all the things I hate, absolutely hate doing. But you can't have any distraction. The phone's got to go off. I have to go away. I have to go literally go away. I cannot build processes and and do things. I mean, it was six months of crap that I've put off that's just like out of sight, out of mind that I got done in like three hours.

SPEAKER_00

So tell us your company story then. How did you get into the roofing? You work for your parents. Yeah. And then did you go to college?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I did go to college. That was that was for radio and TV. And then I started the radio thing. I was down here working for them. I had the gym. Um, Advocare happened. You know, I had it was one of the top 150 distributors out of 600,000. So it was, I was successful in that company. It was residual income for life, willable to your children. That's how I built for 10 years. And when Advocare went away, um, you know, I had about two years that I was just kind of riding the train. And before I knew it, I mean, I was house poor. You know, I had this big, beautiful home in Friendswood. I didn't really steward my, you know, long-term money well. And and I really found myself truthfully on food stamps. Um, I had lost everything. I moved to a rental home in Deer Park. I'm a single mom of three. And I was miserable. Um, I put a shameless Facebook post out, you know, saying, hey, I need a job. I've been self-employed for 12 years. I'm good at anything, right? It's hard to put your ego aside and ask. I mean, I did. I had to. And um at that point, I was renting a carpet cleaner from HEB and steam cleaning old people's carpet from my church for a hundred bucks, truthfully. And I had a buddy who had a small residential roofing company. I mean, he did like 10 roofs a year, like nothing. He was an adjuster. And uh, he said, Hey, come sit on my job site. It was a home in Texas City and it was maybe a$200,000 price point home, small one story. And he said, um, showed me the insurance scope. This was an insurance job. He was like, This is what they're paying, and this is how much it's costing me. And I'm What led him to help you? Did he want you to come work for him at this point or selling it? Honestly, I think he had ulterior motives at this point. But yes, I mean, it's all you know, they want me to sell. They I'm a I can sell. I can, I can totally sell anything. So um, yeah, so I was running back and forth from Home Depot. He was giving me 600 bucks to work this job. And I looked at the scope and I'm like, this is awesome. Like, I'll I'm gonna sell roofs. So I went to work for three contractors that had been in business for 10 to 15 years over the uh 10 and a half months. And back to the whole, there's no regulation. I mean, it was there was it was really bad. There was zero integrity, zero excellence. You had people climbing up on roofs, creating damage, lying to homeowners, you know, deductible, eating deductible, just all the things that I didn't have any frame of reference for roofing, but I knew um I have a moral compass, right? And I just knew it just didn't feel right.

SPEAKER_03

It feels like the air conditioning business, but you have to have a license for that.

SPEAKER_01

I can't understand how you can roof a home with no license.

SPEAKER_03

That really is shocking to me.

SPEAKER_01

A home, like pull someone's covering off their residence wide open, make repairs, and you don't really have to know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03

Do you don't have to get a permit for a roof? Is that just something you can just apply? You do. So how do they apply for a permit if there's no licensing involved? Well, you can just that's the point. The homeowner can be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00

The homeowner, no, I mean we do. Anyone can apply for the permit. Yes, is what I'm saying. It's like it could be the contractor, it could be the homeowner, it could be a subcontractor, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01

You have a contractor registration form, and it's a one-page form where you're basically copying your business card and you pay$150 to the city, and that's it.

SPEAKER_03

Is there an inspection along the way?

SPEAKER_01

There is inspections for for some cities. Um, and then in Houston, you know, we have 14. It's different. Roofing in Houston is different. We have 14 coastal counties, so we have to have a higher win rating and TDI get involved. And there's a certification called a WPI8, which a lot of roofers don't know about until after the fact, and then their homeowner can't get insured and they're screwed. And that requires a different set of installation process and you know, more nails per shingle, all these little things that they don't like flat roofs. We know that they don't? We couldn't get insured by Chubb.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know that Chubb is a great carrier. They're not writing flat chubbs anymore. Really? Yeah, we didn't know that until we bought our house. That was the last thing on my mind. And when we go to get posts, you're kidding. We loved working with Chubb Chubb. Chubb's a great carrier. But they don't write the paper at all anymore. So there is no flat roof of the insure. So it's not like it's it's changing.

SPEAKER_01

The insurance is changing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, especially down here, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01

Everyone is always because contractors, yeah, a lot. I mean, this is not all the reason because the insurance game is they're the biggest gangsters in the planet. It's a racket.

SPEAKER_00

It's so funny. I was my insurance guy was just texting me. I re released a podcast a couple weeks ago, and he goes, Oh, what's all this insurance hate? And I was like, They're gangsters. You I'll show you my text message. It's my insurance guy too, same guy. Yeah, Darren, yeah. He was just like I was sitting out. Biggest gangsters. That's exactly exactly what I said is like legal gangsters. Yes, it's just like taxi cab lobby. Because the the homeowner or the insured, whenever they file a claim, doesn't matter what you own, doesn't matter if it's a car or whatever, the insurance company is always gonna deny first. Yeah, and then make you fight it in. Yes, we have to fight it. We had we had to parstalate. Luckily, we yeah, well, not even that. Like I've I've heard I we I mean, we've owned you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in properties and never filed one claim, not once. And I tried one time during the freeze. No, during the freeze. And I was like, you know what? Like six of my rent houses got it this time. Like, I don't I was like, you know what? Okay, not when the tree fell on our house.

SPEAKER_03

No, no, no. I was like, don't even do it. Don't don't even file when the tree fell on our house because it's like, would you rather pay$25,000 in damages or have your rate go up and then pay that in two years? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

Well, we were gonna I just knew when we got a new house, it would be insane, and the price of the house is high, so I knew that they probably wouldn't get it again or I would have really high insurance. Let's have one of the things. But anyways, on the freeze, yeah, I was like, I'm gonna file, I'm gonna file some claims. And I went and filed another like, well, the pipe busted, so technically it's not flood flood, and we don't have the pipe insurance, and I'm like, you motherfucker.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, I just keep thinking that the government's gonna come in at some point and like say this has got to stop. Like with medical medical insurance is just a big bracket.

SPEAKER_00

It's a big math problem, and it would be okay if they insured the stuff, but they drag it out, even because also lawsuits are a big part of the problem, I think, too. But they'll drag it out forever because the longer they can drag out the lawsuit, the less they'll pay. Yeah. Or they'll just end up settling. It's like you know, uh, if a homeowner like I I've almost had to sue my insurance company just to get paid for you know the cars that got stolen. And it took them like six months, maybe. No, longer than that. It was like eight or nine months. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So luckily, they were watching us on they were watching us on like Google Earth and shit.

SPEAKER_00

Just make sure it wasn't fraud, which I understand. Sure. They pulled our phone records, which I understand. But like eight, nine months later, I'm like, I'd already bought new cars. What if I needed the cars? Like, how did you get it?

SPEAKER_03

During that six month period, they renewed us. That next six-month period or the day. Of course they dropped us. They dropped us.

SPEAKER_00

Never filed a claim in my entire life. It's like the one time I needed it. And then also, if I didn't have the resources, like, how am I supposed to get a car? Like, luckily I did. So I feel it's it sucks for the normal person that really has to go. And like you they drag it out so you don't, so you'll take less money. So you'll give up. So you'll take less money. Yeah, and they're gonna do it. Is it like that with roofing too?

SPEAKER_03

I mean, there's not a lot of workarounds they can give you if your roof's fucked up.

SPEAKER_01

It is, but then it goes back to, I mean, there's two things. I have a really solid retail business, which is in roofing more respected than just an insurance. You know, people who file insurance claims all day, you're an order taker. You're not actually selling a roof. It's simple. The insurance company is paying, so it's two different things. So the insurance game is changing. So it's really advantageous for people in roofing to move to retail base with financing options because people need new roofs regardless. Um, there is a whole component of, you know, just really educating yourself. And this is where it's been really great for me to and easy for me to kind of rise to the top. Um, you know, there's not a lot of business acumen on there, there are a lot of people. Don't hear me out. I'm not saying they're not business savvy people in roofing, but the average roofing company, you know, they don't invest in education. They don't understand the administrative side of something like appraisal or if there is legitimate damage. There's steps that are legal that you have to take and you have to guide the homeowner with ease, because if you guide them too much, then you're actually. Violating something called unlawful practice of public adjusting. So there's all these little nuances that if you just care about being excellent at your job and you're educated, then you can move through the insurance and you can hold them accountable. Um, but they do suck and they are unfair. And it's really weird because you know, people, we buy our insurance policies, right? And we're just like, yeah, people think insurance. Yeah, they're in my best interest. No, I'm gonna call my agent. And I'm like, no, you really don't want to call your agent, has nothing to do with the claims process, first of all. They are selling you a policy, and I believe they're bonus in some capacity if there's no claims filed or something. There's some sort of financial gain, you know, gain.

SPEAKER_00

We'll have an insurance guy on here to talk about this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would have been.

SPEAKER_00

I'd love to like really dive in on that. Let me give you some questions. Me and her will go after them.

SPEAKER_01

No, I'm because I'm curious, you know, because I I'm like a doctor giving giving the jabs, you know what I mean? Like bonus on how many they get. Yeah, we already know the kickbacks were there for that.

SPEAKER_04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, I mean it's it's a hard, it's a hard world. Um, but I mean, we get them, we I uh and appraisals are great. You know, that's when the insurance company denies you, but they have legitimate damage. We also don't waste time. Like if they if a homeowner doesn't have storm damage, which you can tell what's mechanical, what's wear and tear, and what's true storm damage, period. Um, the care the contractors that suck will push push the envelope. Hey, we're gonna get and it's like, dude, we're gonna get you an extra job. Yeah. If it is, we're gonna take it and we'll usually get it approved. If not, hey, but you need a new roof anyway. So let me let me give you a price to actually replace your roof because you're not gonna be able to renew your insurance if you don't get a new uh new roof. So let's back it up.

SPEAKER_03

So you're working for three different contractors, kind of learning the business for about 10 months.

SPEAKER_01

It's actually really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So I want to know how you got it started.

SPEAKER_01

So at the end of that 10 and a half months, I'm like, this is crazy. And I and the last company I worked for was insane. I was getting like five leads at 7 p.m. the night before, running all over Houston. I wasn't allowed to call them. I mean, it was so bootleg. I can't.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know where they were getting the leads from?

SPEAKER_01

What do you mean you weren't allowed to call them? The owners, or so the owner of this company I worked for would give me five addresses and times from the next day. Like it was the night before where I had to be. And I had to be at the each property. There were, they were like Canvas. He was buying them from like a lead gen company. He wasn't making creating them himself. And um, and and it was awful. I mean, it was a joke. I mean, it was probably cold call leads. Nobody had nobody had a desire for me to even get on the roof. It was painful. I wasn't allowed to it was like a Zillow. It was like a Zillow lead for agents when they buy the zip company.

SPEAKER_03

I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01

I wasn't allowed to call the homeowner to confirm if they were even gonna be there. And I'd be driving Cyprus, Lake City. I mean, in on your own gas at this point. Yes. And I'm like, this is crazy. If if my network, like I had a network from, you know, Avocare from just life in general. I had a pretty good sphere of influence. And I'm like, I know this is crazy. Yeah, if I just do one roof a month, one roof a month, I would not have to run all over Houston. I know I could do this. Two would let me take care of my kids and live the dream. And so I'm like, screw this. I filed a claim on my home, the home I live in right now. I took the profit, I invested like two-thirds of it into some education classes that taught me the process of insurance. And I mean, I went hard and I always say this, and I'm like, people might be thinking that's crazy. But I Google and YouTube, I taught myself everything.

SPEAKER_00

And that's before AI.

SPEAKER_01

Before AI.

SPEAKER_00

Now you can like step by step everything.

SPEAKER_01

No, I had an old uh just a spiral notebook, you know, how many feet go into super drip bed, you know. I mean, it was, and um, I just went to town and then I just got super bold on my Facebook. I built everything through social media. My videos were so cringy. Um, this was 2020. So I started it um the height of COVID. Yes. Okay. I thought you'd been doing this for 10, 15 years.

SPEAKER_03

No, six years.

SPEAKER_01

My company's been in business for six years this September. Um, the height of COVID. And man, um, I just it it it God has been good to me. Ums do you guys do a year now? So I'm in kind of a different thing. Last year we did 175. Um, this year we're, you know, we slowed down. So I the year before last year was my best year.

SPEAKER_03

Because you were prepping a cell.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And then the whole year that was supposed to not be mine anymore, it just went yep. And so now I am picking up everything and kind of rebuilding. So um, but yeah, the height of COVID. So went hard. And, you know, I started just as myself and had no vision for a company, no operations. Just like this is how we do it. And I came alongside. And then I slowly had people, you know, it was all husbands coming, like, hey, let me plug into this opportunity, let me plug into this opportunity. And um, over time, you know, I had like 18 people selling for me at my peak. And I mean, killing.

SPEAKER_03

It was, it was what did you do different for sales? It was just everybody tapping into their personal network, or were you sending them off on these cold calls at this point, knocking on doors?

SPEAKER_01

Or I was teaching them how to basically take advantage of their low-hanging fruit and network with their spheres of influence. And I had high-level people, you know, I had school board presidents, captains of fire departments, you know, so great people, not reefer, not yet people.

SPEAKER_00

Were they doing it as a part-time thing? Like, yeah, a lot of them.

SPEAKER_03

So this goes back to the MLM thing. So this is where you get this from it's like building like your yeah, you're building your network of just bring bring me the referrals and I'll give you a cut. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

And that's how I'm actually rebuilding right now with my son. Like my son is gonna be the heavy lift to find me. Yeah, he's been my son's been with me for five years. He started as a trash pick ripper. He just bought his first 23, bought a car cash. I mean, he is killing the game 10 times better than I ever was. Um, but yeah, basically an MLM, essentially. Like, hey, I've got a great company with a great reputation, a great product. I'll teach you everything. I'll plug you into all my resources and I'll show you how I built, you know, a portfolio off my sphere of influence. And and that's what people do. There is, you know, knocking all that stuff. That's just not me. Um, when I started, you know, everyone was telling me you're doing it wrong. I don't like doing sales that way.

SPEAKER_03

I want people who want to come to me and I educate 100%. Big on education and consistency. I don't like, yes, I don't like the knocking on doors and looking for a business tax. I just is it all residential?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I do both, yeah. Probably 15% commercial, primarily residential. Do a couple hotels, um, things like that, where those were insurance claims. Those were amazing. But networking has been my bread and butter. You know, um, I have some Kingwood executive groups, I'm just heavy-hitting build building owners, and you know, those are my people. And we I am different. I'm different than almost every roofing contractor in the city, truly, not just saying that as a sales bias. So once people get around me and they start having conversation with me, if they are looking for a product, both residential and commercial, it's easy for me. It's not a sales pitch. I'm telling them what I do and why I'm different and they trust me and they like me.

SPEAKER_00

What was the dollar amount? Do you mind sharing? For which one? The hotel? No, when you said we did 175 roofs a year.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, we 6.1 million. Okay, awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors. Just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

So I want to know what's made you successful financially and keeping the business running without getting yourself in too high of water, like a lot of contractors do. I feel like a lot of people, if you don't have an accounting degree or accountant like working on your team, how do you keep up with your QuickBooks? How do you assign all the numbers to one job to keep it going without underbidding and like I said, getting yourself in deep water where you can't crawl yourself out of it, probably Peter to people?

SPEAKER_01

I'll kind of answer from more visionary, high-level side, because the QuickBooks and all that, that's where, you know, terrible. So what I had was just, you know, smart. I mean, I had been to Avocare.

SPEAKER_00

Most small businesses that are like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, my gosh, it's so painful. I I finally have people in construction, yeah. But it was so painful because, you know, I mean, I was on a ledger, it was anyway.

SPEAKER_03

So you get somebody full-time doing this for you, so now I do.

SPEAKER_01

I have a fractional CFO that that helps me with everything.

SPEAKER_03

Probably what you paid them in salary, you saved.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, so so because of my past, I I'm a learn everything the hard way, right? So my my adventure with my gym and advocare, and and I, you know, I had I made a lot of money and I did not steward properly. And so that was, I was hell bent this time on managing properly. And so I made a lot of money and you know, I wanted to go buy a Range Rover and I want to do all this stuff. And I had some very high-level business mentors that the best advice I got was do not eat the seed. And instead of going to buy, you know, these beautiful cars and all of this stuff, I bought a dump trailer. I bought some trucks, you know, I got an office and I invested. And I just they told me the cash flow I needed and I like tripled that because I never wanted to be in the situation. In the situation again. Yeah. Yes. And this is we talked about this when you were doing my makeup. Had I not done that, I wouldn't be where I am today, especially now. I mean, roofing is dry for most people in this area.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you got to have a good, you know, six-figure padding in your account because when something fucking bad happens, like let's just say tariffs, I don't know where roofing materials come from, and there's some sort of hiccup in the industry, and you can't get material supplies, pools that happened during COVID when everybody wanted pools and there was no gun eye or whatever. You have to be prepared for that because if you're not, if you don't have the materials to do the job, then you don't make money and there's no padding and you're gone. This happens often with builders. Well many times builders.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of so a lot of the contractors, you know, they've got these huge trucks, you know, these fancy cars, all these things. I just, you know, I wasn't gonna do that yet. And so I just um didn't eat the seed. I've never heard of that, but I like that.

SPEAKER_00

I had a yeah, mine was similar. The you know, the best thing I learned from my or the best thing I learned from my first business partner was he's like, don't be a burden on the business.

SPEAKER_01

That's good.

SPEAKER_00

And so we uh same thing. Right. It's like just run slim. We inv yeah, we invested every single thing and I operated that way most of my life. Like I would, you know, invest everything I had into either that business or another business that I started or into real estate, but it served me well later on. But it it's hard to do when you start making money.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I learned that from you. You were like, just don't don't be like one of those thirty thousand million dollar millionaires where you just pretend like you have a lot, but you gotta in order to fit the part, you gotta have you gotta have a nice truck. You can't be rolling up in a 1983 van with wood printers. Totally. You know what I mean? But I mean, but if I say I didn't pay myself for three and a half years, okay. And I did, and I I watched every single dollar on it for my employees, it still is probably frustrating. They're like, Can we buy a new label printer? I'm like, what's wrong with the label printer we have? Well, it freezes up, but it still works, right? It's a hundred bucks. Right. Do you want to spend your own hundred dollars to buy a label printer? I mean, it's things like that where I'm just constantly like, you got I'm trying to show them like we can't spend everything we make. There's nothing left if you do that too. Right. I think it's a good way to structure your business.

SPEAKER_00

And then a little bit later on in life, now I'm just like, I'll just make more money. Um, a little bit. Right. Times have changed. Yeah, a little bit. But it is it is the best thing you can do, especially when you're young. Like it's really hard with social media now. And you don't need all those material things. Well, you see the end result, and you're like, man, this guy's killing it, but you didn't see all the stuff like you hear the story now. You're like, she lived, you know, moved into a rent house and was on food stamps and this and then like all that stuff that uh you had to go through to get to where you're at. And so a lot of people painful. Yeah, a lot of people will make money right away and then think it's gonna last forever, and it never does in any business, it always changes.

SPEAKER_03

I was really lucky for a really long time. I was growing by a million dollars a year. I'm like, man, this is so easy, and then all of a sudden it's like got so oversaturated in my industry. I'm just like, it's not as easy. I have to start paying for advertising now. She finally had a uh like a down year, and she's like, Oh my god, the world's ending, and I'm like, 13 years we grew, and then towards the end it was a million dollars per year, and then it was a million dollars down, and I'm like, oh god, what am I doing wrong? You know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, down from the previous year, right? So it like this was her first experience with that ever. Right. And I've been through 50 of those cycles in 26 years. It's like some years you make money, some years you don't, some years you invest it all back in the business, some years like the next year pays you, and so it's always gonna happen. And so if you don't invest back in the business, you're gonna get to a point where you're just not producing any money, and then your business is like this and you can't save it.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. So, what do you feel like we we know everybody's challenges in the beginning? It's you know, trying to, you know, keep the business running, not paying yourself, hustle hard, get paid very little. What do you feel like your biggest challenge is today to keep everything running and running smoothly?

SPEAKER_01

Today, and and it's because I've gone back to what makes your hair turn gray nine.

SPEAKER_03

What's what's do you feel like it's like if this was this part was easier, then everything would this would be so much more enjoyable. Is it managing of the people? Is it trying to get, you know, inventory? Is it meeting timelines? Is it the customers?

SPEAKER_01

No, I have great customers. People are hard, and it goes back to, you know, nobody understands what it actually takes to run and lead a business unless they've done it or they're in your shoes. And so there's a lot of judgment when you're making decisions that people may not understand, or if you make it a bit more than they can move better. Yeah, or they or actually go for it. I mean, I've probably I mean, four or five people have spun off and and you know, the last one I just kind of had, you know, let it go, let it go. Um, but it's painful. It's painful when you invest everything.

SPEAKER_03

And so I've had that happen five times where I've had employees, especially in the beginning where I let the business was small. You know, we were doing at this time maybe 2.5 or$3 million a year. So everyone kind of saw everything. They saw where I got my stuff from, you know, they saw how it was made, how the biscuits are made. They had too many open see overseeing eyes. Now it's not like that because we have like a lot of different like departments within the business, so nobody really sees. But I make them sign non-competes. I don't care if you go be a makeup artist elsewhere. And a lot of the makeup artists at freelance for me work for other brands or have their own side wedding business. It's like you just can't take everything that you learn from me and copy and paste and go start a makeup brand because it's happened five times. Yeah. And they're all like, oh no, I assure you, that's not what I'm here for. A lot of people are going to come to work for me because they want to learn how to do it and then become your competition. Ask for how many are successful. Yeah. I'm that's what Sean says. So sometimes don't even look. So I put it on the city. Nobody's heard.

SPEAKER_00

I put it's heard, and I know how many hours she works in. Like nobody can do what you do. And the same thing with her business. I'm sure they probably got a couple roofing jobs, but I'm sure they're not doing what you're doing. Yeah. And it it's more like ego and painful because you're like, ah, I taught everything. And like I that happened to me early on, too. Like people always trying to start and do the same thing and copy exactly what I was doing. And like I took it personal.

SPEAKER_03

I remember when when Facebook first came out, and like, hey, uh, one of my friends from high school wants to talk to you about a sublime business. I'm fucking talking to them. And I'm like, no, they want to talk to you, they want to start their own brand. Sean's, I didn't get it, right? Sean's like, Sean's like, they I was like, they want to talk to you about starting, they want to start their own thing, but why won't you help people? I was like, I'm not gonna help people compete with me. No, absolutely hard, no.

SPEAKER_00

But now I actually think that I'm the opposite. Like I would show everybody how I did something. But he's out there now.

SPEAKER_03

But he also would never tell anybody what he did. Like they only knew because of me, because I would post about it. Yeah, I was somebody asking him about supplements, like, oh, what should I take, bro? And he's like, I don't really know. And I'm like, why don't you try to sell your shit? But he doesn't have that natural knack to sales and communication. Like he's grown a lot in the last year or two, but that's definitely not something that he was born with. I was born with it. I've always been like this.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Even as a kid, man.

SPEAKER_00

I told her about that with all the stuff that I do. God, I would have been a billionaire by the time I was 30.

SPEAKER_01

No, it really is.

SPEAKER_00

That was the skill I was lacking. And that's an excuse. I could have learned it, but I put it off for way too long to like make myself learn more sales and more communication. Because I was like, oh, that's just not me.

SPEAKER_01

It's amazing. And when I came to do, like for real, I know you know that you're baddie, but like when I I mean when I come in here, because I do all my things here, I do my hair, my needles, everything. That sounds bad. Yeah, well, my face, needles, none of that stuff. Um, but uh yeah, it it it blows my mind. Um, your marketing, you know, I was just even when I was looking at the instruction sheet, I was like, Ginger, you're brilliant. Like this is brilliant. I literally used it today. I had it today. There's still some things that I have to, you know, cross-reference, but it's cool. I'm really proud of you. It's really neat to see.

SPEAKER_03

I honestly pride myself in that education portion because that's that's how I can stand apart from what everyone else is doing. I'm sure you have something in your industry when it's creating relationships with your customers or befriending them or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00

It was education, it was essentially.

SPEAKER_01

Our core values are icy integrity, community, education, and excellence. Yeah, education being a key component.

SPEAKER_03

Because so many people go to the well, no one really goes to the mall anymore, but wherever to get their makeup done. That was where I came from 20 years ago. Everyone would go to the mall to get their makeup done. There was not independent makeup artists. Right. But nobody taught. I'm like, this is so easy.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and you need that's like the missing component.

SPEAKER_03

Well, if they teach them, they won't come back and use you. No, they still come back. They feel confident every day that they can do it on their own. Not to be sounding cheesy, but you feel way more confident looking at yourself in the mirror. You're recording yourself on social media, like, damn, look at me. I'm like you. Oh my god, I look way better today because I have all my concealer on. But it's like sister friend was not wearing any concealer. Okay, she had three tubes, seven. She had seven. A lot of tubes or five, but wasn't using it. That's like the one thing that makes like the biggest difference. But I think, you know, people are going to, this is the way I look at it, this is the way I train my team. And it's hard to train the 20-year-olds that have never received good customer service, what that looks like. Probably something your son probably knows from watching you, but the majority of the that age group, they don't know what that looks like. And so I'm trying to teach them like you have it's about relationships. And like, well, it's embarrassing to ask the customer how they're doing. I don't want to bother them. I'm like, I'm not asking you to go knock on someone's door, which is what I don't want, or cold call someone. I'm telling you, you need to. This lady paid$500 to come have her makeup done, bought all the products from you, she spent$500. Check in with her, see how she's doing, invite her back for free if she needs some more help. Whatever. I mean, I I probably invited you back at the end to come with my girls and have a free makeover when you buy four things. It's like the better that you get, the more you use your products, the more you use them, the more you buy them. That's the way I look at it. Right? My time is valuable because I'm trying to run a business, which is why I charge for the service. But we don't charge for the service, they're buying the products. That's easy. What we why not book another appointment to learn more, you know? And then I tell the girls they'll come back if they have a good experience with you. They're gonna come back and ask for you. You make commission. Right. You want your books filled. How are you gonna fill your books? Right. Creating relationships. They can go anywhere and buy their products at Sephora.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

The difference between you and another 20-year-old as Sephora is that I gave you every tool that you need to be successful, what you're giving to your son. I've given you everything you need to be successful, copy paste, you are going to that equals success. Totally. But the systems that you're, you know, lock yourself with a Houstonian and work on those systems, it's gonna keep you from getting the burnout. Because you've been doing that for six years, I've been doing this for 15, almost 16 years. I think I don't even know how many years I've been doing that. I already forgot. But it will lead to burnout if you keep having to go through these cycles of having to reinvent yourself when you get a new team.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because the teams will come and go.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But having the systems in place so you're not having to micromanage that, and you can have someone in between you and them, that's where I made the biggest mistake is I tried to do too many things myself for too long, and he kept trying to tell me quit doing everything yourself. Hire the right people. I've never regretted firing somebody too soon.

SPEAKER_01

No.

SPEAKER_03

And you keep the keep these people that you know aren't right, that you continue to have frustration with for years and years because you feel bad because you have a relationship with them of some sort. Let it go. It's business. Move on. It's tough. Easier said than done. It's tough.

SPEAKER_00

A hundred percent. Yeah. I've been telling her that for 25 years only because I did that. And so I'm like, don't do what I did, don't make the same mistake.

SPEAKER_03

Because he has an oil and gas company where he was really in the weeds about five years ago with them finding the right people, getting phone calls at midnight. They finally got a really good guy, he paying him really well. He really enjoys his job and he takes the brunt of everything. They don't even get a phone call unless someone dies. Like there's no there's no phone calls. Like he he takes care of it.

SPEAKER_00

So he's very hands-off. So he can do this. But a couple other key people too. And then, you know, luckily my business partner runs the majority of that business while I run other stuff. But you and your partner have it a lot easier now than you did five or six years. Having the right people in place is such a game changer. It truly is. And then also, if you ever want to sell your company, you can't sell it if the right people aren't in place. Right. If you're the one that are teaching all the SOPs and doing everything and everybody relies off you, you can't sell your company. I don't care what anybody says, I learned that you cannot sell it. I learned that from watching it. It will not sell. Like you're right. Hands down.

SPEAKER_03

So is your intent to build it back up to sell again? Or do you think you're just gonna hold on to it this time? No.

SPEAKER_01

I that that was never again. No.

SPEAKER_03

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um, and you know, I but I have you know, I have my son who is he's actively been a part of it since I mean he was gonna be a pilot, got his license, and dropped out of college because he he was making more money.

SPEAKER_00

Boy, he made the right decision.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, seriously. And everybody's probably making more now than he was a little better off than most grown men. He's, you know, investing. He's things I didn't even have the knowledge of. Um, he's such a good, he's such a champion. He has such a bright future ahead of him. I'm so proud of him. But um, yeah, now it's you know, it's legacy-based for me. I have a 12-year-old son who he is a total entrepreneur. This kid, I'm like, bro, you need to stop knocking on our neighbors' doors. He has three different businesses. He actually has a pitch, none of which I've even helped him at all. It's 100% on him. I'm gonna start actually having him try to set leads for me.

SPEAKER_03

I think he's one of those kids that's born with it. That's how I was born.

SPEAKER_00

I also think if you're around it all the time, yeah, you pick it up. You don't know any other way. Yeah, he he doesn't even realize probably the things he's doing.

SPEAKER_01

He has no, it's yeah, it's he, I mean, he's knocking on doors to clean people's windows and in the bottom of their cars. And he has before and afters. He has but he's he's 11. I'm like, who taught you this?

SPEAKER_00

But I my whole thing goes back to school. Like, think about it's I so stupid. Don't get respectful. But think about it.

SPEAKER_03

Well, your daughter's in school.

SPEAKER_01

I want to hear what Sean has to say, but I want to ask me if your daughter's one that I her daughter's a baby. She cheers at Baylor. It's I did she get a cheer scholarship though to do that, or do you pay? No, I'm paying. She got a little academic. Listen, I wish that she wouldn't go to college. Okay, so I'm we probably have the same belief system. Oh, big thing. It's painful how much to write those checks. Yes. Oh, I'm sure it's like over$30,000 a year, I'm sure. She's the girly. Well, just wait. Very different than you. Very different than you.

SPEAKER_00

She also is around all the time. I know my daughter's business. It just makes her take a long time to come around one day. But she probably is gonna come back for that. Do you think she has the personality to do that?

SPEAKER_01

No, we do an entrepreneur. She's got a she's got a little spray tank. I will tell you this the positive thing about Baylor, at least, she's around really high quality people. The families are very, you know, top-notch. Her group, and so she's a business major, you know, it's very different. Okay, but she's a she's gonna be an entrepreneur, but it she's around great people. So I'm kind of looking at it like, okay, we're networking, we're building, we're building, you know. But uh yeah, no, I'm totally against.

SPEAKER_00

I would not ever go to college again if I think if well, you know where you were when you're 18. I know where I was when I was 18. I know where you were and you're 18. If you go to school, you everyone starts over from zero at 18. Totally. Like you're starting you like you're like, all right, literally. Uh I don't, I don't know. Uh what what do I Do how do I get an apartment? How do I how do I make money? How do I take care of myself? So crazy. But if you're 11 and think of you, learn all those like sales, communications, like you know, cost of goods, like all that, all this stuff, he will be so successful later in life. But when he's 18, he's not gonna be lost. He's not gonna go, well, I don't really want to know what I do with my life. Like he's not gonna, but he's also gonna he's not gonna say he's not gonna be lost like every other kid. I get a bunch of DMs from parents now because I talk about a lot. My son's lost, he doesn't really know anything. He just that's because they were they didn't learn anything in school. So like it's sad, but you have to start over. Even high school, like you should know, have a pretty good idea what you want to do if the kid's taught all the right things. Like your 11-year-old, I promise you, when he's 18, he will know, probably before he's 18, what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He doesn't do services. Yeah, he's not gonna get he's not gonna be 18 and go, uh, you know, I just might do a little this and will this. It's not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I've seen uh gentry shared stories of Liam talking about, you know, profit and you doing, you know, I'm like, this is amazing. You know, people just don't even think to start exposing them to that.

SPEAKER_00

Like brilliant. He knows more than every 18-year-old that I've done. It's amazing. He knows what profit is, he knows what asset is, liability is, depreciation.

SPEAKER_03

You shouldn't have your kid come to one of Sean's things he's been doing.

SPEAKER_00

I started like this free live kids event thing. I just do it once a month and it's teaching stuff like this, and like you don't learn in traditional.

SPEAKER_03

There's probably no other 11-year-old in there. I know, but he's probably more advanced than those 11-year-olds.

SPEAKER_00

I did it from 14 to 21 last time only because I he didn't want to have it like that. Well, I didn't know, like, yeah, yeah. My son's different, he's great, but his attention span is a lot, the teaching is a lot different than a 14, 15, 16-year-old. And it was really cool. I did it in a non-classroom setting. One of my buddies owns a F1 team, donated his facility. It was amazing. And so I didn't tell any of the kids that because I didn't want him to come just because of like the cars and stuff. But I felt like it was pretty inspiring. Everybody left, and the parents DM me and the kids, you know, contacted me like this is the best thing I ever did. But it's not right, it wasn't rocket science, it was just all the stuff that it took me 25 years to learn.

SPEAKER_03

But the very basic stuff of like what is what is profit?

SPEAKER_00

What is well no no no, and then also now that them having access to Chat GPT, it's like, hey, by the way, you don't like when I was a kid, when you were a kid, like there was no access to information, you just had to figure it out on your own. Now it's good to be around good people because they'll keep you from making mistakes. Right. But literally, I still use it for my business.

SPEAKER_03

Like no, but still, like I'm stuck right now, like with yeah, with one of my manufacturers closing down and I have some products that don't have my logo on it yet. You know what I mean? I can go on chat GPT and like give me the best hot stampers in the US or in Texas or whatever that does low MOQs or whatever. Totally. These kids can be doing stuff like this for it was cool.

SPEAKER_00

It was just very like step-by-step, very eye-opening for them, number one, because of the traditional route that you take, right? And most of the parents are like, hey, my kid's lost, he just doesn't really have direction. Or the other half was like, I know he doesn't like school, or she doesn't like school. This is not gonna be the path for her. I would love her to come to this.

SPEAKER_03

Sounds like some of the kids teamed up and started their own businesses from the class. One of the this is so cool.

SPEAKER_01

I can't believe you're doing this. This is great.

SPEAKER_00

Two of the what one of the guys had a little small business, like a side hustle kind of thing. And then one of the girls in there, they had sent me a video like two weeks later, and she was like helping him not to sales, and he goes, This is the most deals I ever closed. And he's like, she she must be my good luck charm. And she got they landed like nine houses that day or something like that. It was so cool. But it was a really cool event. It was two hours, it was meant to be super short, so they didn't like feel like it was a classroom. And then they got to get on the racing simulators after, and then after that, I brought in a member of this car club that's mostly business owners, and they brought in all their cars. There's like 60 supercars, and the kids got to ask the business owners questions like Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and the kids were like, Well, and then just also I told him I was like, Don't be nervous, like all these guys took a different path. Yeah, some of them went to school, some of them. Most of them own businesses, yeah. Most of them like 90%. 90%. And so I was like, you know, they all had a different path. But they got a little nervous, they got a little nervous talking to other questions. What I didn't expect was like they were just a little bit nervous, like reserved, even to ask me questions. So they waited till the very end and came up to me and talked to me for like 30 minutes. Because they don't want to raise their hand in class. Yeah, I am. I get it, I was kind of like that. So I definitely don't want to like single people out and make them talk in front of the class.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you got you got to call them out like that. Point to them, ask them questions in class. Well, you hate if a teacher did that in school.

SPEAKER_00

But I didn't respond that way when I was a kid. Like, I I think you can do it in like more of an encouraging way. And I think if I continue to do this, they will eventually be able to do it. Yeah, but I'll get more comfortable. I can I can make them do it without like making them freaked out and not want to ever raise their hand. Yeah, yeah. And like being so hard on them like that. But anyways, like that's my That's awesome. That's my like passion, I think.

SPEAKER_01

That well, I love that. I mean, we have you know, she's in business and entrepreneur class and and she's showing me the teachers and telling me, and it's like these people have never even had a business. No, that's that's yeah, it's like crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00

Again, I'm just she got she got the I I get it. Like some people want that college experience, but she's gonna come straight back full like full circle and totally, you know, be around a bunch of good people, especially her brothers, like gonna be killing it. You're gonna be able to teach her anything she wants to know, and then she'll probably have a different business, but she'll be able to like lean on y'all as like, hey, what should I do? What mistakes did you make that I shouldn't make? So I'm guarantee you she'll come back around, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01

So if she's a year two or three, what's that? She year two. Yeah, two. Okay. Oh, she's totally there for she's almost a cheerleader.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's that's different experience. No, yeah, I get it. It's like if some it's like a guy playing sports in college. How do we have such girly girls, you and I?

SPEAKER_01

I am like, this chick is like literally the epitome of bleeds, pink litter. It's way. Like, wait a minute. That's how yellow it is. She needs pink nails, I'm black or white.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's like I kind of think Lila's gonna be like that on the phone. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_03

She just sees bubbles, butterflies, pink. She likes hair bows. The nanny got her a princess outfit or something, fairy, and she's just running around with the fairy wand. And I'm like, I was not like that when I was little. I'm gonna raise her like I'm raising Liam, though.

SPEAKER_00

She'll still have some good comments. Like it'll she'll have her good head on her photos like that.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. I'm sure she'll be an absolute champion coming from you guys for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we really appreciate you coming out today. I know I know you're busy. This takes money out of your pocket to go do it. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01

I appreciate what you guys do.

SPEAKER_03

If anybody needs somebody who is a good communicator, a badass bitch, she's your girl to call. Tell them the name of the company and how they can get hold of you and find you on social media.

SPEAKER_01

Royal Roofing and Construction of Texas. We do service the entire Houston metropolitan area, both residential and commercial. 832-262-5789 is our number, RoyalRoofing of Texas.com. Um, Heather Hitchcock on Facebook, Instagram. But yeah, we'd love an opportunity to serve anybody that's in the market for a roof. Yep.

SPEAKER_03

Follow her on Instagram. She is really good. She takes you on the show. She takes you on the roofs. I do. She takes you on the road, right? Thank you. Education, baby.

SPEAKER_00

And then coming podcast coming soon would be me and Heather interviewing at insurance.

SPEAKER_01

I'm totally down for this. No, because I feel like you would get the right resource in the room and we'd really be able to get some answers.

SPEAKER_00

I want, I just want, I just want all the details. So, Darren, this is your request to be on the show.

SPEAKER_01

Insurance guys, hit them up.

SPEAKER_00

We're here. Just if you want to be open about everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, be prepared. Reach out to me. Yeah, there will be no answers. Well, thanks again. Thank you. Appreciate you guys.