Transcription
Doors. I'm not a salesman. I'm not going to go pound on doors. I'm not selling anybody a flipping vacuum. That's not what I do. You know, I, I'm going to be a school teacher, physical education, health and fitness teacher. That's what I graduated major in, and coaching and Outdoor Rec and adaptive P. That's what I went for. Jim's like, "Dan, you're personable. You'd be good at this. You should try it. You'd be great." I'm like, "Jim, I'm not going to sell vacuums. I'm not into that." Because I didn't know anything about this business.
Finally, Jim got me in. He got me in about, uh, well, pulling, pulling teeth, but he finally got me. And he actually sat down with my wife and I at Copper Kettle in River Falls, Wisconsin, and he made his pitch. And I looked at my wife, and my wife looked at me, and I said, "You know what? I've got a teaching job all lined up at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I was going to be a physical education, health and fitness teacher, head football coach. I had my plans all set." I go to Jim, I'm like, "Fine. You know, whatever. I'll do it for the summer, make some extra cash, right? And then I'll go down and do my coaching thing and my teaching thing."
Unbeknownst to me, uh, a storm hit in Appleton, Wisconsin. Uh, and Jim's like, "Hey, you know, we got to go out to Appleton. That's where we're going to sell." This is back when we were actually storm chasers, right? We chased our. Brian Shane, you know what we're talking about. We're actually storm chasers. And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa. I just work at Pizza Hut, man. I don't have the money to go afford to live out back as a 1099, you know? We didn't get draws and things like that, right? We, I mean, what you had in your pocket is what you're starting off with, all right? It takes. Nobody told us to take. Shane, did anybody tell you it took three, two, three months to get money? No. It's a tough biz."
So we went out. So we went out to, uh, we went out to Appleton. And I, and I told Jim, I mean, I'm so much in, you know, thank you so much. But went out to Appleton. And Jim saw something in me that I didn't see in me. And he paid for my hotel, paid for my things to help me work, taught me, trained me. So thank you. But anyway, so I did this work and I got out there and I struggled right away. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't get the training, or I didn't listen to the training in which I should have. But he kept me in, kept me in, kept me in and trained until finally I realized something for myself that there's a lot of money in this business. And if you guys don't see that there is a lot of money in this business, you just gotta be good at what you do.
So at that point, I came to the realization. There's a couple other guys that trained me in. I came to realization, and I'm still stuck by that today, that to me personally, this business, to me, is a game, all right? And that is, I tell everybody, Bill's doing the same thing. And how you get really good at this business is you got to get really good at the game. And how you get good at the game is you got to invest in yourself before you invest in anything else. And when I say that by investing in yourself, I mean do the little things that'll push you to that next level.
So I decided 23 years ago that, you know, Jim could tell you how competitive he is, but I won't lose. And he knows that. He knows that. And I decided 23 years ago that I want to be the best. And, and I made it a point that I was going to be the best. And in doing that, I knew there were little sacrifices and things I had to do to get to that point. And I started at that point. My wife and I picked up, moved to Appleton because we thought, "Hey, oh, we're working Appleton. This is where I'm living for the rest of my life." Bought a house, got everything over in Appleton. We're ready to go. We're making it. We're doing well. And then, boom, a hail storm hits in River Falls.
Now I'm old. So all of you remember River Falls when I got hit the first time way back when. So I'm like, "Oh, shoot. The hailstorm River Falls." Jim's like, "Hey, we're going back to River Falls to work." As I've got a house now in Appleton with my wife, who's, we're newlyweds, and she's sitting in Appleton. I'm like, "Oh, shoot." So now I move back. So I spend all of what, three months in the house? Maybe. And I moved back here. And so it was kind of a change. So I've learned a lot through the times. So the moral of the story is, there's a lot of sacrifices you have to make. And, uh, with myself, what I started doing, how I got to 18 million, is it's not, oh, you got 18 million dollars in one year. Great. Good job. It's 18 million dollars of 23 years of sacrifice to get to that point. But everybody can do that. And how I did that is by developing habits that will succeed in this business. And in developing habits, it means if you're having a bad day, you know what? We all are going to have that. I mean, that's, we're working six days a week. Sundays, I don't work much, but we're working six days a week. You're gonna get days where you go out and you pound 200 doors, you ain't gonna get one. But then there's days you're gonna go out and the first door you're gonna sign, the pollinator is going to say, "Well, I was just waiting for somebody to knock on my door. I've got my paperwork right here." And you're there for what, 15 minutes? Like, "Holy cow, that one just worked out perfectly right there." There's ups and downs. And that's why I say the moral of my story is this business is a game. And it's how you play the game.
Objections wise, I mean, Jim and Chuck set it right off the bat. There's three different pitches that I use with every single homeowner, right? I know those guys that have been with me. I know exactly what I say to homeowners. They can't come back to me and say, "Well, you said this." No, I know what I said, right? But there's three different pitches. And then everybody's got an objection. And that's the biggest thing that I can train newer guys is it's okay to practice your pitch. And you need to practice your pitch because you got to feel comfortable in front of that homeowner. That's so important because that homeowner can see through that, right? But you're not going to say the same exact thing every single time because that homeowner has an objection that you may not have heard of before. And you've got to get past that. That's part of being in the game. That's, you know, knowing you're, knowing your skill, knowing you're what you're talking about.
So, um, what I, what a couple of things I've done that has helped me in that process is marketing myself. When I say invest in yourself, you got to go out and you got to join the, the, uh, BNI groups. You got to join different groups that'll get your name out. Facebook groups, you got to join, uh, booster clubs. I'm 8th grade head football coach in Hudson, Wisconsin. Uh, you know what that means? That means there's about, I don't know, 1300 emails that I have access to. And what does that help? What does that mean, right? Big storm in Hudson, who knew there was a big storm in Hudson last year? Anybody? 1300 emails went out. Guess what? 37 seconds after that hailstorm hit, there was, there was my card in 1300 emails. Were sent out. Uh, insurance agents, please tell me everyone's at least trying to get in with insurance agents. Those are huge. Every year, what I try to do is I set up what is called a Western Wisconsin Insurance Agency Meeting. What that means is at Lake City Realty or Lake City Insurance, they bring in real estate agents. I sit in front of a group of probably 30 to 40 real estate agents and I explain what I can do for them. Back to adding value, like Jim said, the value of the insurance agents want is they want somebody that they can call. They can go out and do a free property inspection on top of their house if there is enough damage on that property, then make a claim, right? Don't just make a claim if there's not enough damage because they want somebody to say, "Is there enough damage?" And if there's enough damage on top of that property, I go up there and I do a free. Now, see, Shane had the 20-point inspection. Every time I knock on the door, I do a free scope assessment. That's what I call it. It's a scope assessment. I don't say, "Hey, can I inspect your house?" Or during the winter months, because we have winter months and we're knocking on during the winter months, guess what? My scope assessment turns into an energy assessment. I'll do a free energy assessment. We'll take a look at your attic. Bubba, by the way, who's doing your roof? What's the question they're going to ask you? "What do you mean?" "Well, this area was hit by a hail storm last year, and I assumed you had your roof inspected." "No, never had it looked at it." "Well, kind of funny is I'm doing an assessment for your energy. You mind me taking a look at your roof? Let you know if you got any damage up on top of there." "You're already there." "Sure." That's an easy way to get on top of a roof. But anyway, you meet these different groups. I'm the eighth grade head football coach, like I said, the boosters. I donated. We donated. Built Strong Exteriors donated, uh, vests because I worked as free security, free security for the booster days, and they paid me $1,500. I took that $1,500 and I purchased life vests for the K-9 unit in the city of Hudson. Brought it back. Get your name. Take pictures. I'm in the front page of the paper. They take pictures of hand me a check. Oh, hand it over to the K-9 unit. Guess what? Guess who got the entire police force in Hudson, Wisconsin, this year from storm damage? Right? Guess who got every person that was in booster youth football? Guess who we donated, uh, concussion-proof helmets to? The entire football youth program in Hudson. My name flew so many different things, guys. You got to get yourself out there. And, and Tim from Hook, I mean, he's broadening me more and more into this. And now I'm networking more on the national stage. I want to get more national. That's, that's where I'm getting to. This is again, I want to be the best. And at 18.3, and he didn't mention this, but 90% of that 18.3 was residential. And I can tell you right now, the part I'm most proud of isn't the 18.3. The part I'm proud of is 595 separate homeowners. If you think about that, and you don't think about the 18.3, that's 595 people. There was, there was situations where my wife, God, she's the best ever. She would handle phone calls on the phone and set up block signing parties. Meaning I would show up to a cul-de-sac. And I've got a picture on my Facebook. If anybody follows me, I'll get you that information. I've got a picture on Facebook where I pulled into a cul-de-sac at three o'clock and there was nine separate homeowners standing there with the nine houses. I handed a clipboard to each one of the homeowners, and they all sat there with their clipboards as I did one spiel to all nine, and they all signed up. And right there, I signed nine people in less than 30 minutes. Guys, it can be done. And the moral of the story is, is nothing in this business. I can tell you right now, nothing in this business is impossible. It can be done. A lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifices. Tony, and we're all feeling that with Bill Strong right now. I'm, I'm doing a lot of cleanup work from last year, which that'll work. And I've got Sarah that's helping me out, and Brandon, a bunch of people are helping me out. But nothing's impossible. And you know, I've got, I follow. There's five C's in this business that I follow. And if you guys follow these five C's, and I'll get more in-depth in the future on speaking and things like that, but if you follow these five C's, you cannot fail in this business.
The number one thing that I always is creating opportunities, guys. You can't wait back and you can't sit back and let people create the opportunities for you. You have to create these opportunities because in this business, nobody's gonna make you make money. You have to make yourself make money. Create your own opportunities. And that's involving agents, that involves booster clubs, traveling teams, adjusters. That's another big one, guys. You know, if you don't know these adjusters that come out, get to know them. Be personable with them. Talk to them. I mean, I, I can tell you right now, I love hearing the stories in the Bill Strong office when we're in there and Tony and Andy is going, "God damn it, how do you know Bill Stevens so well? He doesn't pay for anything and he buys every one of yours." I've known him for 15 years. You know these guys. You meet these guys. You build that relationship over time. I mean, a lot of the adjusters I know don't even climb roofs anymore. They see my name on the claim, they come out there, they ask me for my scope assessment. I hand my scope assessment. I say, "Hey, this is what me and the homeowner knows that are damaged on our property. This is what we expect to be taken care of." They take that, they hand me the camera, say, "Get her taken care of. I'll write it up. Let's go." It makes it so much easier.
Another thing is controlling your own schedule. That's so important. We all have, you know, and we can laugh about this because I'm a dinosaur and everything I like to do is handwritten, right? Everything I do is handwritten. Oh, we got virtual e-signs and all this other stuff. On the man, I, I do everything handwritten. Turning over a new leaf on the scheduling thing. So I've got this Google Calendar. So I'm trying to do everything on that. Working on that. Still work in progress, but I'm getting there. But what I mean by controlling your own schedule is I mean, those that know me, except last year, I can't count last year because last year I really worked from 4:15 in the morning to 1:00 in the morning. So six. But anyway, anybody that knows me knows that I coach football starting at three o'clock in the afternoon. So I coach traveling baseball. I coach a lot of things. And Tony, you can test for this. I know you might not like this, but how much do I work after 3:30 in the afternoon? Not much at all. Not much at all. What is prime knocking doors time? Afternoon. So understand, in 23 years of my life, I've been over three and a half million every single year. And that's not working past 3:30 in the afternoon. I control my schedule. I control when I'm meeting that homeowner. I control when I'm meeting that adjuster. I'm adding value to them. They're going to work off my schedule. That's so important.
The other, the third C is this is general, like this one. It's competition. And I don't mean just with others. I mean competing yourself. Set your goals. I rarely, might you're going to laugh. Ever since I was trained in 20 some years ago, my yearly goal, Tony, what's my yearly goal? Million dollars. 100 jobs. Million dollars. 100 jobs. That's my goal. But it's a fictitious goal. I know I'm going to go above and beyond that. I set my goals for daily and weekly goals and monthly goals. And I still do that to this day. Those that know me know that in the back of my black book, my black binder, I've got, I've got every weekly, every week I get paid at the bottom of that week of what I want to get paid at the year end. And I chart every single week my paychecks every single week until I get to that end. All right? And I see, I can see what I'm getting paid weekly. And my wife hates this when I ask her every two or three weeks. I'm like, "Hey, what are we at? What are we at? What are we at?" Because that motivates me. You know, it gets me, um, in competing with yourself. That means what do I want to get this week? All right? I want to get 10. Right? How do I get to 10? Well, I need to get two a week. Oh, I got stuff going on Friday and Saturday. That means I need to get three a week, four week, Monday through Wednesday. But you compete with yourself. Give yourself an extrinsic reward. I know we've got a couple guys in our office that, you know, Andy killed it one year and went out and bought himself a Rolex. That's what his extrinsic reward was. Find something that challenges you. You know, I don't know what everyone. Raise your hand if everyone here has. You should have a. Why does everyone here have a why? If you don't have a why, you need to get one. Because the why is what motivates me. Money? Money no longer motivates me. What my why is? My family. My wife. That's what motivates me. I want to put them in a situation that I never had when I was a kid. And in doing that, that means I have to sacrifice. And with me being sacrificed, that means they sacrifice. And I'm going to get in that in a second about last year, how they had to sacrifice.
The fourth one is consistency. Those that know me know that that's my, that's my number one. That's my every single year at Bill Strong and any company I worked with. We ask, "Hey, what is the one? What's the one word that's going to drive you?" You know, everybody throws out, "Hey, you know, I, I don't even know. Money. This. That." Minds consistency. Meaning that for 20 plus years, I've been at a mark that I need to be at. I have a 100 job checklist that I got 23 years ago. That was the first piece of paper that I was handed when I started this business. Brian Johnson knows that. Shane knows this. You have a 100 job checklist. You fill out that checklist for 100 jobs. You cannot not make a quarter million dollars. I'm telling you that right now. You fill out that checklist and it keeps you challenged to be, "Hey, I need to get 100 jobs." Now, if you get 100 jobs now at $25,000 per job, I'm not a numbers guy. Ty, Chuck, you can help me out. That's $2.5 million. $2.5 million. You could, your cap off from that check. Guess what? You're making a quarter of a million dollars. You have that checklist and you roll that. If that's what your goal is, you do the 100-point checklist. And what I mean by checklist, you get your name, your homeowner, your trades. Oh, it's colored. Oh, it's inspected. It's approved. Capped. We all like that last one, right? Capped. That's the most important one.
The fifth one is challenge. Uh, and what I mean by challenge is make it obtainable. You know, make a challenge you obtain. Don't come out here and blow smoke up my ass and say, "Hey, I'm going to do, you know, 700 jobs this year" because that's something you're not going to do. Like they, they touched on it earlier in the presentation today. Have you set a yearly goal? You're not going to look at that yearly goal until November. And that's 100% correct. For a couple of years, that's what I did. I said, "I want, this is what I want for my yearly goal." Come November, I'm like, "Shoot, I'm, I'm short." Well, you have two weeks to catch up. You ain't gonna do it. Set your weekly goals. That's important. Have habits. Get up in the morning. Even if you're not working, you should be working, right? I mean, that's true. I mean, how many, a lot of new sales reps won't get up till 10:30, 11 o'clock in the morning, say, "Oh, the prime knocking door time is two to two to eight." So I'm not gonna do until 2:30. And they ain't doing nothing until the morning. And then at 1:30, they go out and they knock doors. They get told no six times. Then like, "Oh, this sucks." You know, but it's just not my day today. I'm not feeling it, right? They go back to their house or wherever they go at four o'clock. They're done. So technically, they worked what, 1:30 to 4? That's a lot of mindset has that. I personally tell myself, "Hey, if you're not treating this job as a 40-hour a week job, if not a 60-hour week job, because we don't work too hard in winters, if you're not treating this as a 40 to 60-hour a week job, might not be for you." You know, it might, it might be for the person that's willing to sacrifice and put it in. So that's basically the five C's that I live by. And now I want to get into the, "How did I get to 18 million?" And I'm going to tell you, 37. I can tell you right now, I've got 37 seconds after that hailstorm hit. I'm standing on my front porch and I get a phone call. The first phone call I received was from, and I'll throw his name out there, if it's Brian Healy, he's a traveling head coach, one of the head coaches in traveling baseball. He calls me up and he says, "Hey, Dan, he goes, you do roofing, right?" I'm like, "Yeah, I do roofing." He goes, "I remember four years ago, you purchase bags for our, Bill, Build Strong purchased bags for our traveling baseball team, and it said right on there." He's staring at the bag that's hanging in the locker in his mudroom. Said, "Hey, man, you were the first person I thought of." He calls me up 37 seconds later. This is no joke. Two months later, my phone did not stop ringing to the point where I had 37 voicemails on my phone. And they weren't taking voicemails. I had to graciously ask my wife if she would assist me in scheduling jobs. And I told her, "This is going to be very lucrative, but very challenging." She was nice enough to be my why of why she took that over. And she scheduled. And if anybody's seen my schedule from last year, I was doing, I was doing color meetings at 4:15 in the morning. Guys going out to houses. And I would tell that homeowner, "Listen, I know it's early. I apologize. But if you want me to help you out, you have to help me. You have to control your own schedule." I was meeting homeowners at 4:15 with a cup of coffee in my hand, picking out colors when it's still dark outside. Guys, it's tough. It was hard. It was over. It was crazy. And I thank my family and my kids had to sacrifice. My wife had to sacrifice. Tony had to sacrifice. Tony had to, hey, Tony had to hire a person just for me. And he's like, "Hey, here's your assistant. I know you can't call these people back. I know there was, it wasn't a matter of, of customer relations. It was a matter of there was not enough time. There wasn't, I mean, I'd have 37 voicemails on as I'm meeting eight adjusters, eight people signing up, eight color meetings in a day. I needed assistance. But what that, what that showed me, and what that showed Bill Strong, what that should show you guys is there is no impossible. I mean, you guys hear the numbers on how much that capital could be, 18 million. There is no impossible. But you got to have to do it. And the moral of that is, this is a game. Play the game the right way. And guys, you're gonna make a lot of money. And what I mean, a lot of money, I mean, a lot of money.
So what I did now is I wanted to touch on that. And every time I speak, it's crazy because, you know, what I've noticed a lot in these different conferences and things like that is they never give enough time at the end for people to ask questions. You know, the guy talks up until two minutes prior to, and then they say, "Oh, all right, thanks. Anybody got a question?" One person asked one question, it's over. So what I want to do is I want to ask if any of you guys have questions about how I got to 18 million. I'm sure there's a billion. I get on, uh, our Instagram and all that other things. But does anybody have questions on how you get there? I mean, I'm, go ahead. The dead, the most for me. Well, it's kind of different last year. The most challenging part was me, is was trying to find time in the day. That was the most challenging part for me last year. Normally, I would say the most challenging part for me is getting up in the morning, knowing that let's say my first appointment until 10 o'clock, knowing that there's something I could be doing from seven to ten. If that's flowering doors, putting out watch us works, knocking, hanging, doing something. You've got to be doing something. Go to the office. If you ain't, if you're not at the office learning from other guys there. Guys, I've been doing this 23 years and I consider myself pretty high up there on the totem pole, but I'm still learning from brand new guys. And if you ain't learning, you're struggling because there's always something you can incorporate. I mean, I got a couple guys in our group. I am excited as a piece to bring down a top rep on in August because I think they're, they're machines at the door. And I can't wait to hear them. You know, what was the other? And consistency is that what you said? Okay. So as far as setting your schedule, my Thursday, Friday, Saturday of the week prior, I'm setting my schedule for that following week. And hopefully you guys are doing that too. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So you're setting that. That happens. Even it comes down to personal things. You know, in my schedule, I've got my kids' baseball game. I've got a dentist appointment. You set your schedule. You control that schedule. And you set that up the following week. And you leave your spot open for, "Okay, I've got a two-hour chunk here. Hey, I'm putting a roof on here. Knock around that job. Put out your watches works. Put out your flyers. Go talk to homeowners. Be personal as homeowners." One thing that I, I've noticed that helps out immensely with homeowners is you don't treat a homeowner as a homeowner. They're a friend. Like Jim said, you build that relationship up because you know what? Maybe they don't have damage on their property, but who's that first person going to call you in two years from now when they do have damage on that property if you built that relationship up? That's important. Everybody. I leave everybody with a card. And everybody, I say the same thing to them, like, "Listen, you know, hopefully, especially after I complete a job, hopefully, here's what I tell them. I said, 'Here's the game plan. Hopefully, we never see each other again.'" And they look at me and laugh and they go, "What does that mean?" I said, "That means if we see each other's two reasons. Number one is we screwed up something on the roof, we got to get it taken care of, right? Or number two is you've got another hail storm and you're calling me out." So now they're in the back of their mind and they're going, "Oh, well, yep, that's the only time I'm gonna see them." Whatever. So another hail storm arises. That's what happened in Hudson. You know, we had a small hail storm in '17. Big one here. I redid all those houses because those homeowners left me with that same thing. "Hey, here you go." Another thing that, and take care of your homeowners too. I know when we did jobs in Hudson, Christmas time, send them out Christmas cards, send them out thank yous. We sent out popcorn, you know, those tin popcorn bins. My wife had a great idea. I had one road in Hudson that each house was 65 squares plus on Martin Drive. Those in Anthem, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You saw my name in there again, didn't you? Yeah, there's 60 square houses. Uh, what it was, there were 52 houses on the road that, and ran that I completed in this past term. I did 51 of the 52. Each one of those jobs were $40,000 roofs. Why? I can tell you why, because we sent popcorn buckets after the last storm to every one of those homeowners. The top lid had my information, everything right on the top lid. Majority of people keep those popcorn buckets, don't they? And when keeping those popcorn buckets, here nation's written all over that. Baseball bags, information is written all over that. Build Strong. We've sponsored the concussion versus helmets. You know what I made sure of? Back of all the jerseys on the youth football had Bill Strong Exteriors. You can't not, not look at that, right? It makes a point. Makes a point. Uh, any other questions? I'm sure. Yeah, go ahead. Wondering how and if you found out that River Falls just got hit a few months ago. Okay. Well, first and foremost, when I hand off, I do the inspections. I personally do the adjuster appointments. I do the color meetings. I do the orders. I'm helping getting help with Brandon and Sarah a little bit on the order part and that stuff. And, and, you know, you can't do it. It's hard to do without an assistant. And I was for 22 years, I did everything myself. Then last year, I was fortunate enough to have an assistant that her main focus, to be honest with you, was relationships back with these homeowners because that's my goal. You want to build those relationships because it's not so much now, it's in the future, right? Three years, five years, seven years from now, you want those homeowners to contact you back. And the best way to do that is you got to do your, your touch points. You got to be able to talk to these homeowners back. And that's what my assistant does a lot for me now. But really, pretty much every part of the job I do. And that's what made it so difficult. If I just went out and signed them and then passed them over, right, a little bit easier on my part because all I'm doing is signing. But trying to schedule, assigning the colors, the adjusters, all that, that's why after we're done here, I'll show you my schedule from last year. It was ludicrous. It was crazy. It was that thought. Uh, did that answer? Oh, and River Falls, what would I do differently? Yeah, honestly, I would do nothing differently. I, I mean, they're working for me. I, Hudson, River Falls, the same situation happened. I can tell you right now, I can guarantee you a thousand percent if Hudson, River Falls got hit with a hail storm right now, my phone's on vibrate now, but I guarantee I'd have at least 37 messages on there within half hour, right? Because those people know that, hey, I'm the roofing guy. I'm the guy that's taking care of the roofing. Tim, Tim called this out earlier on Facebook, everything like that. Everybody that knows me, that follows me on Instagram, that follows me on Facebook, knows the pose, right? I mean, we all know it. I mean, I've been doing it for ever, ever, for 23 years. I've been doing the same thing on every big job I get, every church, every condo, every apartment. I do the polls, right? And that's just, that's me. I mean, I was out just the other day getting John Randall from the Vikings, right? You'll see it on Instagram here. Got him doing the pose. Got, uh, some other guys, some popular people doing it. You know, it's, I didn't, no, but hey, hey, I told Adam, Adam Thielen that, but not John Randall. He's a big dude, man. But I mean, that's just my, my stick, you know, that's what Tim, you hit it off, you got it. You got to find that thing that gets for you. I know we've got a guy in our office, we call the roof goof, right? That's what he does. I mean, everyone's got. Andy, you just got developed on what is yours now from Savage. Andy, the roof guy. Yeah, I mean, you got to make your stick. Find something that works, that resonates with people, that they know what you do, so they can correlate that for when an area like, where do you live at? So you, that Holman storm, Winona. If you drove up to Winona, I did 200 plus jobs just in Winona. So from that storm, three years ago, was it now? Yep. Three years ago. Did a boatload on Winona. So if you would have saw me up there, the same situation. I know the head football coaching Winona, one of my core 50, brought me the entire education system in Winona. I drove two hours south every single, what, three days a week, and I went in there to help one guy out. I ended up with 200 jobs. So because he's like, "Hey, man, there's these storm chasers going up and down the street. You mind coming down, take care of me?" I'm like, "Ah, fine. I'll go take care of you, right? Help you out." Go down there. Not more than a second out in the front of his door, neighbors, right? They just started coming. And the next thing I know, I did the Valley Manor, the East Manor, a couple million dollar jobs in Winona. Took care of Winona. So go ahead. The first comment is 37 voicemails before your inbox. That was nuts. Pretty amazing. And then how did you decide to go from owning your own business to be in the sales? So those of you that own your own business, you understand the money is great. That's great on your own company and making money. But what comes with that is a lot of responsibility. And a lot, that's the next one. And that, and the next thing is stress. We owned our own company for 10 years. We traveled a lot. I traveled from Streeter, Illinois to Appleton to Chicago to all over the place. We traveled everywhere. I had a business partner that did some unscrupulous things at the time. That's hard to trust a lot of people in this business. And you guys will figure that out real quick. But there's still special people. You can, there's special people. You can't. So I had a business person that did that. And my wife and I sat down, we made a decision that we've made enough money in this business and a lot of years that, you know what? I want to coach my kids. I want to do. I want to stay home. I'm going to coach my kids. I want to be part of their lives growing up because family's so important. And you wanted to be a part of that. And we made the decision instead of opening up another company. We made the decision that I was going to find a company that was family-oriented. And I did a couple interviews with a couple companies. And I had a third interview with Tony and, uh, their company. And they were geared toward the family and things like that. And that stuck with me. Is I wanted, I wanted that relationship with who I work with too. You know, I don't want to just be a number and be like, "Hey, great. We're working with this company, but I don't know their owners." Oh, freaking partying every single day. He's not part of the company. Doesn't care. And that's what I wanted. I wanted the owner to carry because that's what I did. And I see a lot of similarities between Tony and I. Even though I'm his, you know, he's my boss and I'm the sales rep, I know we see eye to eye on a lot of things because we've been there through a lot of thick and thin. And I've pretty much stuck with him through all his stuff, and he's stuck with me through my stuff. So there's a loyalty there that we have. I may not do everything right, Ty, and I may need to do a lot of wrong with the computer. But as far as loyalty, honesty, and he knows I'm not going to go behind his back. And he knows that I'm here for him on that. And as a sales rep, I'm making great money. And the responsibility is really on his shoulders, not so much as much online. So it's pretty cool. But anyway, I think that's about it. I think we're good here. And I've got, uh, my wife got me a beautiful Dot card. So if anyone wants to follow me on Instagram or anything like that, they're welcome to hook me up during break time here and get that and punch it on there. We put a lot of stuff on there. If anyone has questions, concerns, hit me up. I'm happy to have help anybody out and talk to you and go like that route. So I appreciate everybody. [Applause]