Kick Off to Summer! Live With Cole Duncan!

KC Guy live show. It is Memorial Day weekend. I have a special guest today who's also doing business here in Georgia and we are both gearing up for what is coming. Well what has for me already started and that is the summer rush and we're going to talk about something that's been in the news. The current administration has rolled back some restrictions on refrigerants. See how that's going to affect us or at least talk about it and we're going to talk about our lives doing business. In HVAC in Georgia. So get ready. Here we come. Hey, we are live. Actually, for many of you, this person in front of you, Cole, needs no introduction. I think on the TikToker, you're at G-A-H-V-A-C-T-E-C. That's me. I'm on Instagram as well. Yep. So at G-A-H-V-A-C-T-E-C. Yeah, in fact, we were just talking about, well, before we actually get started, let me tell you that today's show is brought to you by the HVAC guy. If you like this show and you want to support it, check out this little link over here in the corner. My store's up there. Um, there. There's just links in the description. And so, yeah, no sponsors telling us what to say. They might. Help us out a little bit, but nobody's paying for us to say anything. So, Cole, I've been following you on Instagram a little bit, and you're putting out some good stuff, man. We were just talking about our slow season, and all of us are going through it. Here we go. We have some comments coming in. Can you see the comments? I can't see them on my side. Let's see. Oh, comments. Here we go. Let's see. Yep. There you go. Okay. So for one of the things that we were saying is that our, well, especially in South Georgia, what y'all understand, North Georgia and South Georgia are like two different climates. They literally are. It gets much colder in Atlanta than it does down here. And, um... Our slow season, the spring around South Georgia, is normally like maybe three weeks. We go from being cold and have three weeks of mild weather, and then it starts getting hot real fast. Well, this year it's been more like two and a half months. So everybody's been stressing about the slow season. I see some big companies around town, two technicians in one vehicle. Did you lose any of that call? I lost you there for a second. No, I kept the audio. The video went down for just a second, but I think I'm good now. So why don't you tell the people watching what's on the whiteboard behind you and how you're handling what's coming up. So these are jobs that are coming up and some that have just gone through. We use Housecall Pro for everything, but there's nothing like just having a visual board for myself and our employees to see what's on the docket. So what we've got planned, what's coming up, make sure that I get the equipment ordered. And then, you know, each job, make sure if there's something particular that we need just to have that visual as you walk in it, it seems to help. Oh, well, you mentioned Housecall Pro. How do you like it? Oh, okay. We started using it about two years ago. I thought, honestly, it was just for larger companies. But it's been great for myself just because it helps keep things organized. And then what's tough is if you go out on a call, somebody needs a part or something like that, it's hard keeping up with, one, the model and serial numbers, which job it goes to. And then that job, it really makes those steps a lot more simple to stay on top of things so somebody doesn't get, you know, through the cracks. I noticed, well, I used Housecall Pro there for a short while, but I was having trouble with it syncing with QuickBooks. Right. I started with QuickBooks. I've been on QuickBooks for, man, at least 15 years, at least QuickBooks online. And Housecall Pro, when you start it, it's like you download all your information and then Housecall Pro, you're supposed to use it for everything. Right. Well, I couldn't do that. I couldn't receive some of my payments on Housecall Pro for invoices that were done. On QuickBooks, and when I started doing things on two different platforms, it messed everything up. So this year, I just got rid of Housecall Pro and went back to doing things the way I was. Completely understand that. There are some, you know, some things there. So, you know, we're a family-owned business, so my parents are still actively involved in everything. And my mom wants a paper ticket for everything, and I can respect that. So everything we do through Housecall Pro, we have a redundant paper ticket as well that we keep. a record and history of so every one of our customers and everything we've ever done well let me ask you you said you have um several employees now when they do an invoice do they do a paper invoice so they do not they do it through Housecall Pro and what i'll do is at the end of the day i'll go through all the service calls and i'll print each invoice off and then turn it back over so that we have that paper copy along with I have never done that for 15 years. I have never used the paper. I've never seen a need for it. The only time I have a paper invoice is if my customer doesn't use email. And even more, I can do it all through text. I can text them a bill and they can pay through the PDF text that I send them. I just don't use the paper unless it's like... Forgive me, a boomer that doesn't read email? Yeah, I can side with you on that for sure. So sometimes I feel like it's a little redundant, but at the same time, you know, we have a filing cabinet of everything we've ever done, anywhere we've ever been. Well, at the same time, I will say that every bill that one of my suppliers has ever given me, I still have. Yes. For 15 years, I still have every single one. I keep them in folders and organize them by month because I'm afraid of getting audited or something, and I keep everything organized. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, we try to keep a record of everything, you know, a couple different ways, and it seems to work out pretty good. Well, I do want to mention one thing and try to talk about it. I recently Federal restrictions on refrigerants like R410A specifically, not just that one, but other ones like HFCs, have been rolled back. And I think the attempt was to try to make equipment less expensive. But I think that cat's already out of the bag. Between you and me, I honestly believe the price of equipment is not coming down. That's not going to happen. No, so it's not. And this all started with, you know, the COVID times, and then it was hard to get equipment. And I think what happened is people saw, you know, manufacturers, how much they could drive the price up. And I don't think it'll ever come back down. I don't think we'll ever see it alleviate either. I don't think it's going to be like fuel prices and, you know, fluctuate. The only thing we're getting on my side is price increases from all of our distributors, and we used to get maybe one a year. I'm getting them every quarter now. Yep, every three months you're getting new price increases. Guys, I do not drink alcohol, but I was gifted a nice set of whiskey glasses, So, my diet Pepsi. y'all gonna see me drinking in style tonight. I see somebody asking will they still be selling full R-410 full systems um and I don't I think that these companies have already put so much into the A2L development that they're not going to go back. But I didn't see, I didn't know this was even an option until I saw, I met with one of our distributors at Johnstone. And Hisense makes what's called a service condenser. So it is a 410 condenser that you can buy and install with, if you had, say, a compressor failure or something like that to keep the system going. The only downside is you can't register it. No extended warranty. It's a five-year warranty is all that it has. Well, that's, well, that is similar to, you remember the, um... The dry charge R22 units when they phased out R22? I don't know them, but I do remember those, yes. That, well, I listened. Do you know who Ty Braneman is? I don't. Okay, well, he's a really smart HVAC guy, and he was breaking some of the news about the rollback on these restrictions. And basically, I think he highlighted the only difference that it's going to make is that it's going to be... technically legal for us to install the R410 system. I don't think manufacturers are going back. No, that ain't going to happen. I just don't see it. There's been too much money put into it already. It might decrease the cost of R410 if you're buying the refrigerant and make it more available. That's the only benefit I see of what's happening with that Yeah, same here. And I was reading in some of the articles and it looks like this is going to help on the commercial side a little bit more, maybe, maybe in like commercial refrigeration and things, keeping some of those racks and coolers and things, keeping them going a little bit longer. Well, you mentioned commercial refrigeration. Are you doing any, are you just doing HVAC? Yes, we are. We used to try to do, you know, light commercial, but we've been blessed and we have enough work that the residential side keeps us busier than what we can take care of. So that's something that's just a whole other area we don't cover. Well, let me ask you, are you in the metro Atlanta area? So we are considered part of Metro Atlanta now. We're actually in a town called Dawsonville, so we're about 60 miles north of downtown Atlanta, but it's officially considered part of Metro Atlanta now. Is that the same area bill from Dawsonville? Is that the same Dawsonville? It's the same Dawsonville. It is. It is. So it looks a lot different now, but it is the same. Yep. Okay. If there are any NASCAR fans in the chat, maybe they know what we're talking about. But yeah, we also briefly mentioned the number of employees you had and I have said many times the troubles that I had, not just attracting but maintaining quality employees and trying to get people to do quality work and people that have bad intentions, you know, and my thing that I What I shared with you is that I made more money. When I was working by myself than I did when I had multiple employees and it takes a while to get over that hump before you start making more money again. I have a buddy of mine here in down here in South Georgia and he had to get like 10 to 15 employees before he got back to making as much money as he did when he was flying solo. Absolutely. Absolutely. Honestly, I think one of the hardest thresholds to cross over is from, you know, Having one vehicle to having, you know, four or five employees, that's a hard step from that on up to the next level, whether that's 10 employees or what. That's a really hard threshold to cross over is what I'm seeing. And what we're facing a really hard time is. There's not a lot of people, there's a lot of guys that's retiring out of this industry and there's not a lot of people that's wanting to fill those roles back in. There's not a ton of young guys that's interested in the trade for some reason. So that's been one of our biggest hurdles as a company. Thankfully we've been blessed, we've got some great employees now and they're wonderful and they know what the job we expect. So what we try to do is we don't use any subcontractors, we do all of our installs in house. But with that, you've got multiple employees now that you've got to take care of and try to get 40 hours a week year-round. So that's a lot to take on. It's rough. It's rough. And the hard part is slow days, slow couple of days, and you're paying somebody $20, $25, $30 an hour to sit around the shop, clean up or scrap coals or something, and it hurts. It's hard. It does, and I'll be honest. So we save all of our scrap, and we keep it, and that's what we do. So through those seasons that it's not really time for the preventive maintenance to kick in or what, we have that there literally just to pay our guys to cut it down, just to cover their labor for those weeks. Yeah, I have been there. I've been there. And it's not a wonderful place to be in your... Hunting and wanting the extra business that comes with summer. And like we have talked about, it's been a little bit slow to get here this year. It has. It has. Even up here, you know, I know we're on different parts of the state, but still, it's been unusual, to say the least, I would say. So we'll have a hot week here and there, and then it'll cool back down. You know. Cole, somebody was asking if you have a YouTube channel. I do have a YouTube channel. It's very small. I think I only have like 100 subscribers, but it's at G-A-H-D-A-C-T-E-C. I'd love for you guys to give me a follow. I'm trying to work on it, still learning my content of what works. It's hard sometimes. I'm trying to make content, but at the same time, I'm trying to work as well. It's a lot to do. I'm still trying to learn all those hurdles. Instagram and TikTok I'll put in one category. And then YouTube and another, I started doing YouTube because I wanted to share the little bit that I know with somebody who might want to learn. Yeah. And, um, I just started doing it every day. And, um, so I have grown just a second here. I have grown the YouTube channel for five years over, over five years now. Um, thank you. DC, HVAC. You mentioned, um, me subbing in that comment. Was it yesterday? I was already subbed, buddy. I don't think my sub list is public. Maybe I should make it public. But the TikTok and the Instagram, for me, that is like a whole other animal. I didn't even do anything on TikTok whatsoever because I thought they were going to ban it. I was like, I didn't even have it on my phone. And the Instagram, I have only recently started putting forth a real effort. And the reason I don't put forth a big effort is because they don't pay. Right, right. Now, TikTok does, if you get to a certain number of subscribers, but Instagram, they don't pay anything. No, it's just, you know, if you have a company that wants to, you know, send you product or something like that, but I try to be super careful there, because I don't ever want to even advertise for something I don't personally use and don't feel confident. For me... I get requests to do some kind of product video or some kind of weird sponsorship all the time. Every day, I probably get like six or seven or eight of them in my email. And if it doesn't have something to do with my channel, I'm not going to do it. I mean, you can't even pay me to do it. Now, my channel might include solar power or generators or something like that. That's a little bit off subject. Halfway okay with that, but an electric car washer or something, you know, I want it. Or some kind of, they're sending me offers to do really crazy, and they're willing to pay good money, but I'm not going to do them. I'm just not. No, you're exactly right. I don't want to deviate far from, you know, what my goal was making these channels, and I want to, you know, stay true to myself. All right. What trade did you pick, Ms. Grip? IG requires you bring your own sponsors. Well, guys, at the beginning of this video, I did tell you this video was sponsored by me, HVAC guy. And I mentioned this little, I'm using my mouse, and I know y'all can't see it, but the little QR code up there and the lessons that I do for starting a business and stuff. I got so tired of sponsors just low bidding me and not wanting to offer me what I'm worth and what my opinion is really worth and I had some of them send me crap and I told them I wouldn't do a video of it. One of them was a particular thermostat and another one was a piece of equipment that I installed on my own house and we basically said no I ain't gonna I can't promote this. So I do promote my own stuff And that way I can, like on my Amazon page, I can talk about whatever tool I'm using and promote it and say, hey, it's on my store. And if somebody uses my store, I get the benefit of that instead of 90% of it going to a sponsor. That's why I do that. I kind of got tired of, there was one particular sponsor that wanted to send me a boatload of product and then pay me just a... ... and constantly use their products in my videos, and some of the stuff I didn't wholeheartedly believe in, and, you know, I kind of dumped them. I raised my price so high that they wouldn't respond to my emails. I see your ACIQ. We've done some of their stuff, and I've been really impressed with it. What have you installed of theirs? Did you hear me call? Are you there, Curtis? Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? I can. I can, yes. Okay, so what have you installed of ACIQs? I have. So we've installed, I think, three of them now. I spoke to them a while back, and we did some stuff for some mobile home applications, and I was really impressed with it. They sent out one of their, I'm trying to think, extremes, I think it was called, heat pumps, and very impressed with it, honestly. Really good equipment, not complicated to install at all. Forgive me, somebody in the comments was wanting to speak to you um specifically this this this one says i need a merch store i do in t-shirts and i agree i keep trying to work with somebody who can integrate with my amazon store and i haven't found anybody who can do that yet all right i think this was the comment um cole i'm 26 years old with autism i've been in trade since i was 16 and i'm 26 now i've been doing it for 10 years My dad did it for 60 years, by the way. So that is absolutely awesome. I started very young, too. I started right outside of high school. And you coming into a trade like this, you're going to have job security for the rest of your life. You're going to, yeah, it's awesome to see, you know, younger guys take on that decision to go into the trades. I think that's the future. I really do. And this is something that AI will be something that we can use as a tool in our tool bag, but it's not taking our jobs. I just saw an interview today of this woman who wrote a book talking about how college graduates right now are having trouble getting a job. And I think part of that is what they're majoring in and what they're doing. And the second is our economy. Some of it is AI. But what she was saying, she was focusing basically on really high-end jobs, like graduating with a skill. To develop drugs, to go after cancer or something like that. That is a skill that fits a need. Well, everything she was saying speaks to the trades as well. Develop a skill that fits a need. That is exactly what electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, even a hairdresser, that is what they're doing. They have a skill that fits a need that's not going to go away. It's a great trade to get into. It really is. That's right. So it's funny you said all this. Our company started in the middle of 2009, right after the recession. My family had been in real estate, and that was my goal right out of high school, is I was going to follow in that field. And then everything happened the way it did. And, you know, as a family, we decided. People are going to try to eat and stay comfortable if they can afford to do so, and so that's where we saw that HVAC was something that no matter what the economy is doing, it might not be that you're putting in new equipment or doing a lot of change-outs, but there's going to be repairs. There's going to be things because people want to be comfortable, so really that's where we came out of was our business was built in the middle of a recession. Well, I started not long after that, um, 2010. Yep. Started in 2010, so, um... I wanted to highlight this question here, but to your point, it's not always enough to just do a good job. It is not always enough to be really good at what you do, do a superior job, make it look good, because 90% of the time, your customers do not see the work that you do. 90% of it. That's correct. Some of the best looking jobs we've done stuffed in the back of an attic that nobody's ever going to see. I know. And the reason I'm saying this is because I had just regained a customer that I had lost. And this is a rental company and they would give maybe two calls a week or something like that. They have a lot more work, but I was one of the people that they would use. And I lost them not because of the quality of my work. But because it was something that I perceived as customer service. And that was because I'm a one-man show and they would give me a call at like 3.30 in the afternoon. They didn't like the fact that I couldn't get there the same day. And I'm like, I felt like that was a little unreasonable because I'm a one-man guy. I'm booked. I'll get you first thing in the morning, but they didn't like that. But it was perceived as bad customer service, in my opinion. And they dropped me and I just got them back. But the truth is, now that I've been back with them, I see the work that the other people have been doing, and it's terrible. They dropped me for that. But the thing is, they don't see that. They just don't see it. They don't, sadly. I had a cousin tell me something several years ago, and it really stuck out. He said, you know, thank God for the customers that you have, and also thank Him for the jobs that you didn't get, or the customers that, you know, maybe you lost through things. And that really stuck out, and I've learned a lot through that. You don't want every job, and you don't want every customer. And, you know, that kind of changed my perspective on things. A lot of times, especially with what you're saying, people that don't appreciate the work, you know, that's tough because they're just looking for who can get out there the fastest and who can take care of something, even if it's not a quality repair or quality job. Man, I just did a repair for a customer. I did a video of me replacing a piston. I quoted that customer a evaporator coil four years ago. Right. He calls me back this last week because his air conditioner is not keeping up. I go up in the attic and I see he's got a new evaporator coil. So I checked. I mean, it's four years ago. I could have forgot. I checked my QuickBooks. I didn't do it, but I saw where I left him an estimate. And the problem was whoever changed the evaporator coil didn't make sure it had the right piston. It had the wrong piston in it, so I had to change it out. And I told him, this is why you're having trouble. And he said, man, I'm sorry. I'll never use anybody again. You know what I'm saying? It does come back to you. It does. It does. We had a customer that had a really large house, and the same thing happened. Somebody come in and bid a little less than us when it's time to replace the system. He called us a few weeks later and just said, I messed up. I need you guys to come out here. We had to rip out everything that they had installed, reinstall it properly, and he told us, he said, it wasn't worth a few hundred dollars difference. I made a mistake. You guys are our heating and air company, and they've used us ever since. You know, I own... I'm going to go to a question here. Does the sales and service help enhance the income at the end? Of course. I've got to say, for example, if all I'm doing is repairs, you know, just me as an individual, I'm billing out $300, $400, $500 per visit. If I do a big job like a compressor or an evaporator coil, $2,000 or something like that. But if you are selling equipment, Say every tenth call, every eighth call, when you do an install, that is a big chunk of profit in one day. It's a lot of hassle, but yes, it is worth it. Let's put it that way. It is. And something that you mentioned, you said you don't use subcontractors. One of the last hires that I ever did was hiring a really highly qualified installer. Um, he, um, was trying to subcontract and it was not working out for him, but, and I needed somebody to help me with installs cause I didn't have anything. And, um, so I hired him and I said, I can bring you on, but we got to do all our own installs, you and me. And, um, the, the guy was great. He, um, I could help him set the equipment. If it's a split system, package unit, furnace, whatever, as long as we rip out the old and get the new one in place. He can have the rest of the job done in like six hours. He was fantastic. He was a great installer. But the truth is, I was only spending like $35,000 a year on subs for installers. And to bring him on, that cost me over $70,000 a year. So it just, it didn't really pan out. I mean, and he ended up wanting to go back to subbing. So You know, it just didn't work. It's hard to bring somebody on. They have to be, and nobody just coming on is going to be able to help you bill out $70,000, $75,000, the cost it's going to take to have a new van, more insurance, more vehicle insurance, the increasing cost of workers' comp, the supplies, the payroll, the additional social security. It adds up so fast. It does add up a lot, and I guess the way that we try to look at it is it's a long-term investment to bring those people along. We want to keep our quality to a certain level, but there are so many things on the back end. That it takes to bring on those extra people to be doing those installs yourself. You're right. The cost of it is substantially more. And it's not that we're charging more on our installs. You know, that's, I guess we could say it's cutting into the profit some. I'm just trying to keep that quality to a level that I can stamp off on. Yep. Yep. I completely understand that. I had. I had one of my customers recently call and complain about and actually he thought we already did the install but actually what he approved was the repair but he was looking at my estimate and a four ton system split one of the inverter systems I think I had quoted him something like ten thousand dollars and he was like man that's a lot of money and everybody else is quoting like seven or eight thousand for a four ton and I'm like Man, even if I'm using like a 14.3 seer system, I can't do a four-tonne split for like seven. I can't do that. Right. You know, that's just, we do have some contractors in town who are underbidding everybody. Everybody. It's not everywhere. It is. Yes. And I think they're doing it just to try to hook a customer and keep a customer long term. I don't see any benefit to doing an install and not making any profit off of it. We even have one guy who was bidding them so low. This is a business owner with multiple employees having to go out and do the install himself because he didn't bid enough money in it to pay anybody to do it. And I'm like, what's the point? So we see that happen here too, and I'll tell you one of the first things I do when I go out on a bid is always tell people that we're not going to be the most expensive bid that they get, but we're also not going to be the cheapest bid that they get. And those people that are just trying to shop that lowest price, cheapest install that they can get. They're not looking for quality anyway, so just try to accept that it's okay that you don't get those jobs because you want to meet your quality to a certain level, and it's like you said, that's not cheap always. You have to invest in good people, good equipment, so it does. It costs us more to make that happen. Yes, it does. I just recently had a new construction contractor who's building a whole neighborhood, Asked me to give him a quote on a two-story house, two systems, and I came back with a quote. I was looking at high-quality equipment, and he said, man, the guy bidding underneath you was like $10,000 less. Hold on just a second. Riley has entered the chat. Get in. He's got a squeaky toy, and he will disrupt the video with his squeaky toy. Come around here. Come around here. Can y'all see Riley? There's Riley. Yeah. Go take this and come over there. Okay, he came back. Cole, you still with me? What's going on? Didn't you tell me that I lost you there? I lost sound and video, everything. I think Cole has a Riley in his life. Come back if you can, Cole. Come back if you can. I was hoping Riley would show up. I didn't want him to. Cole might be coming back. I am not going to go offline just yet. I didn't want Riley to start making a bunch of noise, but I did want y'all to see him. My wife's in here saying, give me the monkey. Hey, let me see. HVAC, are you back? You are. Hey, Cole is back. I didn't have to do anything spectacular. Thank you very much. Can you hear me okay? I can. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. I was just mentioning that I think Riley is a significant name in your life, too. So, well, so Riley is my cousin that works with us in our business. My wife is Gracie. Okay, okay. Okay. Well, Riley, who I consider my son, and I don't have any children, is named after my granddad, who was named Riley. That is awesome. That is awesome. It's a pretty dog. He's pretty. He thinks he runs the house, though. Every now and again, we've got to tell him he's not the boss. I can't hear you. No, this is Isaiah. I know Isaiah from, he's from New Orleans, South Louisiana. Do you know who that is? I do not. I think I got introduced to him by following John Israel years and years ago. I just, they call him Zippy. John Israel disappeared from YouTube for a long time. He just posted a video. I was afraid. Um, he might have died or something. I didn't know what had happened to him, but he was one of the first people who I saw doing videos. And I thought, I think I can do that. Um, I'll be honest. Your, your videos is what really got me into, to consider it even, you know what, I'm out here doing this. So why not post some of the things that I'm seeing come across. And, uh, so you were, you were a part of me if even taking that on and starting that. Well, that's pretty cool, man. That's pretty cool. Um, uh. There are advantages to posting your work on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. This book. I am learning that as we speak, I am actually getting a call right now as we speak from somebody who said, Hey, man, I got your number on Facebook. Can you give me a call? Literally, just right now. For sure. So the social media thing... It helps. I mean, if I'm trying to wean myself off the rental companies, social media, I think, is the way to do it. Just push it out to the right people. It is. It is. Absolutely. And, you know, we've seen it and we, of course, I do this page on my own, but our business, we have social media and I do the Facebook for it as well. And it's been great, you know, showing people firsthand, taking them along with an install and things so they can actually see the work that we're doing. Because like you said, a lot of times the work that we do, even though it's high quality, we feel like people never see it. You're right. So show them. Yes, absolutely. You know, sometimes I will, I have, I've done some, I've done so many videos, I've gotten practiced at it. I will do like a Facebook advertisement video, and I'll tell people, you know, I'm not one of these private equity companies. I do good work, and in fact, I put it on YouTube. If you want to see somebody do good work who cares about what they're doing, just check out my YouTube. It works. It works. It really does. People will check it out and say, hey, I found you on Facebook. Oh, I saw what you put on Instagram. And they call. So the social media thing really does help. I recommend anybody do it. At least the first step is develop a good Google business page. Where you're posting pictures and your hours and just try to keep it up to date. And if you have a website on that page, try to keep it up to date. It makes a difference. It does make a difference. We used to, you know, do our web page and everything ourselves, but it is such a vital part to be relevant, especially in the area that we're in, that we let a company take care of that. And it's been huge for us. That's been substantial. And especially with the amount of competition in the metro area that we're in, you've got to have something that stays relevant and it's updated constantly. All right, Ms. Grip, I'm going to highlight that comment again. Facebook is instafake. I discredited Facebook for years, years. I would say like 13 years. And I have learned from people who know a lot about marketing how to use Facebook marketing. And Ms. Grip, people my age, I'm 55, and my generation are all over Facebook. And you can target them Very specifically, almost down to the street address, their job title, how much income they make, new homeowners. I use Facebook to go after the customers that I want. For that, it is very useful. I dropped off the map when it comes to like, you know, Facebook for catching up with friends and family and stuff like that. I did because there was a lot of negativity and stuff like that. But when it comes to like a business and going after customers and sending them the marketing to the people that you want to receive it, Facebook is very good for that. I'll give it that. Yeah, it is for sure. Like you said, hitting a target market so that you're not spending that money, and it's just mass going to everybody, people who don't even own a home or have any interest or in the need for HVAC at the time. One, I'm going to speak to this right here. Low price does not necessarily mean bad quality. I can agree with that, but at the same time, you need to know your value. Okay. Because when I first started my business, I was working for $45 an hour. I was the lowest price in town. I did that on purpose to try to get as much business as I could. I was trying to grow the business. And what happened was people didn't respect me. I was getting the business that I didn't want. And even though I was giving them some of the lowest prices, they wanted to haggle me down even lower. As I started developing my clientele, my reputation, that I did good work, I started raising my price, and I would say within like a five-year period, I went from $45 an hour to like $95 an hour, and right now I'm at $100 an hour, and I didn't lose those customers, the good ones. I only lost the bad ones that were just wanting the cheapest job. So, yeah, you can do good work at a low price, but know your value. You don't want to be the lowest price. You don't want to be the highest price. Just give them an honest quote for what you're worth and what you're selling. I'll leave it at that. I couldn't agree more with you on that. It's so true. Don't undervalue yourself. No, you do not want to. In my opinion, when I was offering $45 an hour, Um... the property managers who were just wanting the lowest price were taking advantage of me. They were just using me just because they could. I was letting them just use me. And even then, I remember one of the very first jobs I gave to this one property manager, I quoted him a compressor replacement, and it was like $1,500 on like a three-ton compressor, probably an R22 something, and he complained about that. That's when I knew, I'm like, you know, this isn't the kind of customer that I want. That's right. That's exactly right. And you're just in that race of chasing these customers and trying to appease them. And those are going to be the hardest customers to make happy. And they're going to nickel and dime you on everything that you do. Did y'all hear that? It is thundering like crazy out there. And it just set off my van alarm. It did. I thought for a second there I was going to have to get up and go hit the button or something. See, people are talking about the social media. Yeah, and um... What they use it for. Other business activities. I'm dying to know who this Ms. Grip is. She is... Are you in Georgia, Ms. Grip? Because you said it's storming here, too. And here's this. Now, understand that $1,500 for a compressor, that was like back in 2010, okay? Much different market right now. Much different market. Tennessee. What part of Tennessee? Are you anywhere near... One of my first loves and that's Dolly Parton. Are you near Nashville? Oh, uh... Poor Dolly. I used to love Dolly Parton back in the 80s. I thought she was the greatest thing ever and she's still kicking. She's still just as sweet as she can be. By the way, are you doing anything for Memorial Day? You do anything special? Myself? Yeah, yeah. So I have two kids. So my daughter's five. My son is three. So we're just going to try to spend some time with them and maybe work around the house a little bit. Nothing crazy. Just be off and be present with them. You know, the phone's already been ringing. And, you know, we try to take care of customers, but there comes a time that you have to take care of yourself and focus on your family a little bit, too. And it's okay to take those holidays and those times off because, you know, especially at the age they are, that's a time I can never get back. You're right. There comes a time, and I have realized this a few times in my life, when all this stuff that we are stressing about. The business, making money, taking care of employees, social media, advertising, the money problems that may come with everything. There comes a time when we realize none of that matters, none of it. And I'm telling you this from my heart, what really matters is spending time with the people that you love. And letting them know that you love them and taking care of them, that's what really matters. And it took me a long time to figure that out. But for me, for me, I've realized this a few times in my life Yeah, to try to appreciate that time, because there's always going to be a customer that needs you right that minute. Always. There's going to be something that's an emergency always. And then you realize that your whole life is consumed by that. And there has to be a break over point that you just have. You have to have family time. You're right. All right, don't be dissing on Dolly now. They weren't always fake. They weren't always fake, okay? Just saying. Ms. Dolly Sweet, I wish I'd have a chance to meet her one day. So for me, Memorial Day, maybe I can share. I've got family members that have served in every war this country has ever fought. Ever. And I know I've got a lot of them that have lost their lives. None of them that I personally knew, let's put it that way. My granddaddy Riley that Riley is named after, he was a career Navy. See, we lost him in 2016, I think. I was really proud of my granddad. The Navy called him Mustang. He entered as like an enlisted sailor and rose to become... an officer and most people if they either enter as an officer or they're not an officer but he rose through, I was really proud of him I was that is that is awesome um but i've got I've got my my dad's generation came up during Vietnam so almost all my uncles and my dad and everybody of the generation served in some capacity almost all of them but my dad served in a um Missile silo. He was a launch control officer in Cheyenne, Wyoming. That's where I was born. Okay. So if anybody in this knows what the few is, the few is a nickname for an Air Force base. So F.E. Warren Air Force Base. Yeah, I was born in the infirmary there. Long time ago. That's back before they had color TV. It wasn't that long ago. Okay. But it was a long time ago. Can you hear me? I can, can you hear me? My connection's kind of hit or miss right now. Yeah. How old are you, Cole? You said that y'all started a business in 2009? Yeah, so it was, you know, I was still in high school when the family started. I'm 35 now. So you've been straight out of high school. Even before high school, you were probably working in here. Part of it, yes. So, you know, funny thing. About 2014, I went and got my EMT and all my certifications for the fire department. And I did that because I wanted to do my own thing. And then I realized to make a living coming back into HVAC was really the best way that I had. So I ended up back. I tried my own thing. And realized it wasn't that bad working there. Yeah. I started trying to go into engineering because that's what my dad was doing. Uh-oh, you're back. Did you make it back? Yeah. I did try to start out going into engineering. That didn't work. And after a long process of figuring out what I wanted to do, I got into HVAC. Well, Cole, it's almost been an hour. Looks like we're losing connection. So let's go ahead and sign off. I'm going to tell everybody thank you for coming out. And thank you, Cole, for showing up today. I enjoyed talking to you. I hope I can get you back sometime. Yes, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And y'all check out his Instagram and his TikTok. I'm going to, I'm going to try to highlight the, here we go. I'm going to highlight it right here. He's at GHVAC Tech. So y'all check him out.