4 Acquisitions: 1st was 88% Seller Finance E:50 Top M&A Entrepreneurs Jason Paul Rogers

Second here. Welcome the top M&A entrepreneurs today, and my guest is Jason Rogers. Jason has, uh, runs a company called Brighter Utilities. He's purchased 4 companies, uh, and he's laid it all out on his website. We're just gonna talk about that. Welcome, Jason. Hey, I appreciate you, uh, you have me on here. It's a pleasure. Yeah, good. I, you know, I see you, you've got that Facebook group, I think there's 5 6000 people in that group and You actually teach people also, so that's cool. Yeah, a little less teaching, uh, now, kind of phasing out of that a little bit. I just, uh, I got a lot of things I'm really excited about, uh, as far as buying businesses, growing, uh, bread utilities, and so that's really more and more the focus. But yeah, it's, uh, I love the M&A community as well. And that's one of the reasons I'm excited to be here. It's, it's fun to, to talk with other folks that are in this mindset, cause, you know, there's not a lot of people you can talk. M&A with there's not a lot of people. No, it's not. No, it's not. So it's always fun to talk. So let's go back all the way back to your first acquisition. It looks like Sunset Acres, uh, and brighter Living Properties back in 2019. So what, where were you at at that time, you know, where you said, hey, you know what, I, I, I'm not gonna just go look for a job. I'm gonna go acquire something. Sure. How did that come about? It's funny. So actually 2018 is really where the story starts. I was living down, um, I had a little niche internet business, online business. I was living internationally between uh Scandinavia and uh in Latin America, specifically in Medellin in Colombia, which was a hell of a good time. Uh, I do not regret it for the least, but I remember having this kind of moment, this moment. Where I was, and I was 27, this would have been 2018. I remember just waking up one day and realizing, you know, am I gonna do this little niche online business and is this, is this it for me? And just go around and have fun and party and and and and be a single guy? Is that, is that what I want to do in my, you know, back into my 20s, into my thirties? Is that, is that the point? And of course my answer was no, it's not. And so I remember I was, I was just, I was thinking I need to, I'm an entrepreneur in my blood, by blood, and it's just, it's, I never wanted to work for someone. So I said, what, what the heck am I gonna do that's gonna be more impactful than uh a small online business? And it was around that time I studied, uh, and kind of stumbled into, uh, perhaps many of you know Dan Pena, kind of the godfather of the M&A community, and, uh, found his old 1993 clips, which I just thought were gold. At that time I was 2 years old, but the way he spoke, you could tell he was just out of the game and And long story short, I ended up, uh, ended up making an investment in, in myself, and, and as well as to his school of thought. Uh, flew out there, met the guy, did his, uh, he does a seminar and, yeah, you know, the point here isn't to promote that. But I did go to that. It was 6 or 8 days. It was up in his huge castle up there in Scotland, and uh sat down with him. I remember there was a 30 minute little meeting back then that you, you would sit down with him and uh. And I had a number of industries written on a piece of paper and I was kind of going through them and I said, you know, one of them is the manufactured housing, uh, AKA the mobile home park sector. And he said, do it, do it. And I said, well, what about the dodgy tenants? He said, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. OK, screw it. Let's do it, you know, the old Richard Branson line. So, uh, flew back to Medellin, that's actually where I was quote unquote living at the time, and started recruiting. I was following his model, uh, pretty much to a T back then, or, or mostly to a T, uh, and started recruiting a team, uh, from Medellin using the $10 a day travel pass with Verizon and da da da da built this team. Uh, and we went out and, uh, I remember I got, I got a really good piece of advice. He said, you know, you're not well capitalized. I was broke, uh, for all intents and purposes. He said, you're not well capitalized. There's a lot of really well capitalized players in the market. You need to go to a secondary or a tertiary market. That's the only place you're gonna find a cap rate, which is, you know, like a variant of an earnings multiple in the real estate world. That's the only place you're gonna find a cap rate you're gonna be able to finance, mostly using debt without giving away a lot of equity. And so that led me up and down I-29, Interstate 29, which runs north-south from I think like Wichita all the way up to Winnipeg, Canada, just the middle of nowhere. And uh from Kansas to South Dakota to North Dakota to Nebraska to Iowa, um, I was looking at all these mobile home park deals and was literally at some point sleeping out of my rental car cause I was so tight on cash. I was using the credit card, trying to, I had a little bit of recurring revenue coming in from my online business, but just pennies on the dollar compared to. What was that? What was it? Uh, the online business, uh, it was, uh, basically a dating business. I, uh, I won't bore you, but I was a really awkward guy in, in high school, um, got rejected to my high school prom in front of all my peers, all this. So, I went to college at UCLA and ended up just meeting every single woman on that damn campus, and kind of transformed myself from a really introverted individual to a guy who did well for himself. And there's all these engineering students and pre-med students at UCLA. And they're like, dude, what happened to you? You used to be this, you know, this real square and now you're out, you're doing this stuff with with these different women and so it kind of morphed and kind of took legs from there. So I, I learned a little bit of online stuff, but it's just, what are you gonna be a gigolo for your whole life, and so. Anyways, uh, bought the mobile home park, uh, in August of 2019, negotiated, it was about 88% seller finance. It was a little over a million bucks and it over the phone or face to face to face. Oh, I met the guy. I met the guy, um, met the guy, and uh I have a belief that for every hour you spend with the seller face to face, you're knocking off 5 figures off the purchase price or or I'm a huge believer in that the good old fashioned. Uh, rapport and, and work to deal with them. And initially I was gonna go out and get bank finance, and he, uh, you know, I don't want to share too much, but, you know, his tax returns were not exactly, uh, Who, if you will you find this guy, how many offers did you put out or how many people did you call for? I mean, we reached out. I reached out in particular to thousands, I mean thousands of outbound calls. Yeah, oh yeah, how did you know that this guy took the hook, the bait on the hook? I mean, did he say come and visit me or what I want out, or what? What I did is I launched just a massive outbound uh campaign all throughout that that part of the country, kind of that bread uh bread belt part of the country, and ended up, you know, stacking. I think it was about 8 or 10 different uh potential sellers that were all in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and so I got in the rental car, Kansas. And I just went, I, it was like a 9 or 10 day tour, and uh just went one by one by one by one and shook the hands of every single one of the owners, um, did the whole, the whole song and dance, saw the property, looked at the the financials, with the P&L, all of that, and after that meeting, I looked at the this property in Nebraska and said, that's a diamond in the rough, that that property. is is really interesting and I hit it off really well uh with that with that owner and uh and that's kind of where where it got started. When you say outbound, was that uh outbound direct mail or phone call or both or what? All phone calls. I didn't have money for, I didn't have money for uh for mailer, so it's the only thing I could afford was just to pick up the phone and uh and what how did that script go? What what did you say? You just like Yeah, I mean, well, it depends on if you got the secretary versus the uh versus the property owner himself, but if it sounded like someone who who had some authority, hey, are you, are you the property? Are you the are you the owner of XYZ Mobile Home Park? Yeah, I am. I'm trying to think now cause it's been a few years, but it was basically just the punchline of, hey, look, let's be, let's be, let's be simple, you own this property, have you thought about selling it? I, in the team I've assembled, would be interested in in making a competitive offer. Is that something you'd be open to entertaining? I, I, I, I just went right with the direct. I didn't mess around too much. Just straight direct, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm Jason. I'm looking to buy a mobile home park. I saw you have XYZ property, you know, have you, have you entertained? Have you entertained selling? I thought that 1st 15, what's your elevator pitch, right? You're going up an elevator, you're from the 4th to the 8th floor, like, what do you have to say, yeah, so it's it's pretty simple. Here's who I am, here's what I'm doing, and here's what I, here's what I can do for you, you know. And how, how, what were the characteristics of this guy? Was he, uh, trying to get out? Was he retiring, uh, kind of wanted to get off the merry go round, or what was the? He wasn't your traditional seller. Most of the sellers I were dealing with were, you know, 65 plus, um, they had all the traditional attributes of, of a seller, right? They're selling because it's that time, right? They, they want to spend time with the grandkids and. And do that. Yeah. This gentleman was different. I think at the time he was 48, and he had set a goal as a young guy to be able to retire by 50. And, um, and so when I came around, I kind of represented, I think he had held the property for 13 years at that time. He was running out of certain depreciation items, I think that he could work with, and he just kind of felt like it was his time to, uh, to cash out the chips. He had actually, it was a pocket listing that had a listing with a broker for I think 3 to 6 months. The broker had to get it. Um, under contract, but it wasn't listed on any, it, it was basically, and, and I reached out and we got a hold of the seller, not the broker, the broker or the seller said, yeah, I'm actually quietly for sale, talked to my broker and uh so we set up the meeting, set up the meeting and uh. And, and, and then I, you know, I met the guy. And you drove out there face to face and met him. Yeah, well, I flew, I, I, where the hell was I flying? I would fly into Wichita a lot, uh, I think I was flying into Wichita and I just go all I-29 goes literally from like Kansas City up to Canada. So I just did that whole, I mean, I probably put 234 1000 miles on that rental car, you know, I don't know. Yeah. How, how did you get to the point where, you know, this guy thinks he's he's 48, he still wants money, but you're an investor coming in, you don't have the money. But how do you get to the point of, hey, well, look, I'll buy it with seller financing. Why did he Right, yeah, so the initial offer I made was, uh, offered him 7 figures, uh, at closing in in cash. Now it wasn't a cash offer like I, I had a, you know, 7 figures in, in liquid cash, but it was in the form of bank finance. So I think it was gonna offer him. Just over, yeah, it was just over a million bucks in in cash and that, I, I mean, look, I, we landed under contract, uh, with, with there being a little bit over a million dollars that was to move across the table at closing, and then the back end of, uh, I think it was a little over 250 million that was going to get paid out over time and sell their finance. That was the initial deal, and I went to every single bank, uh, in person, the good old fashioned way in in eastern Nebraska, and, and pitched all of them and You know, I thought I did a pretty damn good job. Now admittedly, I wasn't bringing a ton to the table, uh, personally, but I had banks that were were flirting with because it was, it was a it was a solid property, high economic occupancy, um, had, you know, a consistent revenue top line, but, but it was on the tax returns below the top line, where, uh, you know, personal, personal things were written in, and let's just say. And so there was this pivotal moment, I'll never forget where it was the broker, it was the seller, it was I, and it was noon on a Friday. I'll never forget the call. And you know, at this point I'm running out of runway. I really got to close the deal. I've got this thing under contract. I'm close, but the banks aren't budging. Yeah, yeah, LOI under 90 days or something, or? Yeah, it was a contract where you basically had something to the effect of 60 to 90 days to perform, right, to to to to to transact, to consummate the deal and I'll never forget, you know, having to pick up the phone and saying, look, gentlemen, it's not, it's not, it's not going all that well. I, I don't know if this deal is constructed is gonna get through, and I'll never forget the broker said, yeah, that's because you young men don't have the financial, you know, wherewithal to pull this off. And I remember saying to that, I said, you know, that may be somewhat true, but the thing the banks are telling me, and this was true. I said the thing that banks are telling me more than anything is that it's the fact that the tax returns don't honor the P&L and that there isn't that that carbon copy overlap, that they just can't underwrite it with a high level of confidence because the fact that look, you don't have it on the tax return to show the financial performance. They see the revenue, but they don't know how much this thing takes to the bottom. It's really more of a of a seller item than it is a buyer item. Oh, that sounds like a power move. It in actual, in actuality is a power move, like, OK, he's like, it doesn't matter if it's Jason who doesn't have money coming in. It could be anybody because they don't match. I went through and, and they knew I did the work. I had a list and still had that list of every single it's funny cause I'm working on a refinance for that same property now 2.5, 3 years later. So I know all the bankers in eastern Nebraska. I talked to all of them. I sat down, I did the whole suit. I suited up and went in, and so I was able to speak with a high level of confidence that no, look, this banker said this, this banker said that, this bankers talked about this being a concern, and they all basically aligned around, uh, there were one or two that just didn't. Yeah, you weren't bluffing. It wasn't a bluff it wasn't a bluff. And so I held the line and Viola, 30 days, I think we closed on the seller finance only about a month after that call. Within about 10 days of that call, we um did an addendum to the to the purchase agreement and basically swapped the same purchase price, but, you know, as opposed to it being, you know, 85% or 80% bank finance, it went to 88% seller finance and so that was the bulk of the capital stack that was suddenly was suddenly funded and then from there, you know, I just gave, um, I gave what I call an equity arbitrage and I was such a financially uh I was so far from from uh literate, truly in a, in a financial sense, but what I did know, kind of from my dating days is the law of large numbers. If you outbound like a maniac, you'll put yourself in a powerful spot. So from LinkedIn to my network to uh the team I built their network. Uh, to, to the, I still had a small, albeit somewhat meaningful YouTube platform, just it was niche enough where people all cared about making money, and I just broadcasted everywhere I could. I have this deal. I'm willing to make it frothy for you. I need to get this deal over the goal line. Let's partner, and uh that's where your 12% private investor equity came in. Yeah, plus you know post closed, so I ended up raising. It was just over 200,000 when it was all said and done that I raised in cash, um, with the bulk being from, uh, you know, from a, from a private investor who who had, you know, 7 figures in, in liquidity and had actually a a husband that passed and, and had all this capital that was just sitting there that needed to do something, and, and here I am. and but what made it really nice and what I always advise for people is, I didn't just have one investor that was interested. I had a handful, and it was, I got so many damn rejections, but You know, if you cast 1000 lines out, you'll get 10 fish will bite, right? And so, even though I had no reason in the world to be pulling this off, I didn't know the asset class, I didn't know how to put together investments. I, I, I didn't have the financial ability to really save the deal if things went awry, but notwithstanding, I was able to give, um, you know, I think I gave just under 2 to 1 equity arbitrage, so what, you know, raised about 2000 and That would have represented, I think, to the tune of like 15% of the capital stack, but I gave away about 25% of the equity in the deal and, and promised that, you know, an 8% kicker annually. So it turned out to be a little over 1000 bucks a month in a check. And um Yeah, well, what's, let me go back to this 12 12% and investor, did you already know how to, you know, have the attorneys in place, hey, you need to offer memorandum before you send out and ask people for money, or you just ask for money and then he goes like, let's fill in the blanks after that. No, and, and this is where I do it different now and advise it done differently than the way I learned from from Dan Pena, um, personally, but that's beside the point other than so to say, he rightfully gave me the advice of, don't fly a alone young grasshopper, build a team. So I had actually a time to, uh, two M&A attorneys that were uh that were flying with, uh, that were on the same team, and, and they, um. Yeah, one in particular, uh, came through and and and did the uh the contract work both on the negotiation side with the seller, as well as uh to put together the uh You know, this what would have been a subscription agreement and a permissory note to uh because it was a combination of debt and equity that I used to to the balance. So yeah, the lawyer is that investor happy with the performance so far? It's been. Yeah, because it's been solid. The property, that property the following year, the pandemic happened, right? And uh and we held the line and got a 100% economic occupancy without lowering rents a nickel, um, from April of 2020 all the way through, I believe it was October. So the entire, um, that entire worst period of it all, um, that property just absolutely performed. Well, you can kind of 3 years ahead of what BlackRock started to see in the uh mobile home market. Yeah, they're buying up like crazy. The evaluation then, although it was really hot then, I mean, that asset class, yeah, the big, big, big, big boys know about it and and are well aware of it now, but, um, even then, just 3 years ago, I mean it was still, I thought I was finding a diamond in the rough, but truth be said, the mobile home park asset class um was pretty well understood even at that time in my opinion. So there were plenty of boxes there, yeah. Was there, when you, when you offer seller financing, was there Any concern on his side saying, well, this guy's like, uh, seller financing has to do with you making sure that, you know, you don't screw anything up and like ruin the business. Was, did you have to answer for that or did he just know, like, realize, no man, it's cash flow positive, it's great. He was nervous. He actually tried, and I don't even know legally if you could do this, but he tried to get me to commit to run the thing myself for, for two years, um, which almost is like indebted servitude. So I don't even know, you know, if that actually would work, but he tried to basically make it so that I had to physically, cause I think he knew, and actually I had to, I had my YouTube channel talking about what I wanted to do back then. He knew I wanted to go on and do more deals, and, and he basically tried to, to keep me. There, and I balked. I remember saying, look, as much as I want to do this deal, and it was a bold box because I didn't really have a backup plan at this point, but I just knew I didn't want to give away two years of freedom, uh, for anybody, for anything really, unless if I, you know, decided to do so myself. I didn't want to contractually obligate to not do other things for 2 years, so I balked. And said, I don't even know what the legal grounds on that. I don't think you can. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I remember thinking about that as well at the time, but anyways, he came around. I mean, it was the long and the short of it was the relationship I built with him, um. The commitment I think I'd shown going through the steps, and candidly, my willingness not to agree to terms that weren't reasonable to me. And, um, you know, I, I did pretty damn decent on that as far as the. How, how did that change you from where you were? You were saying you're bringing a little tiny bit from your online business is dating. And I, I'm gonna make a note here. This is a guy in my mastermind who's really good at dating. He's got a dating business, brings in multi-millions, and he found the M&A business, there was like a transference because You know, that you, you're working with the same kind of conventions, like the law of large numbers, how you approach somebody, you know, and, and making sure you have options, all that kind of stuff, really worked out for him real well. I totally compare with that. It was uh it was really the skills socially that I built in the prior decade in that life is is I lived it transferred really nicely, um, a lot of the same things mapped really, really well. So yeah, that was. That was, uh, useful to say the least as far as that skill set. How did your training like Dan Dan Pena taught you and you go, hey man, go buy something. You buy something, how did that change your net worth? Did you just change it 1000% or what, what? What did that look like from? I mean, look, properties, I didn't get it at such a steal to where I was infinitely, uh, by all means, only now am I starting to get to the point where, where I feel like, yeah, I, I, I feel like now 2.5, 3 years later, where if I wanted to retire, I'd have a pretty damn good spigot for I don't want to, but, but now I feel like I could say, yeah, my wealth is really something there, there's something there. At the time, I mean, look what's what's to say, it probably was bought around what a praise value would be. Um, I guess did you offer more than the list of prices the broker had to to sign the deal, or, I offered less. Um, they were asking one for, um, I came at 1.25%, we landed the plane at 1.275. Yeah, and I, in retrospect, probably would have offered less, um. You know, it's neither here nor there. I don't think so. It doesn't matter. You know what I did though is it gave me stability, cash flow, and it was a it was a big first down. It, it, it, it, the other thing it really did is it quickly thereafter helped me transition, cause I actually knew before I bought that property in the weeks prior to closing, I already kind of had a feeling that I was going to pivot from real estate to something else. And that was because the cap rates, which are a variant of earning multiples that you were paying for for properties, were in the realm of 12 to 20 times earnings. I mean, an 8 cap, for example, is roughly speaking, like 13 times earnings, you know, cause the cap rate is and why divide by purchase price. And when you do that math, I mean, you realize you're paying usually 10 times plus earnings for properties. Whereas, you know, I was at the same time really, you know, just being in the M&A community, I was paying attention to what other people were doing, what they were talking. I was just, you know, finger on the polls trying to figure it all out. I was still in learning mode. Um, and, and I was seeing that people were buying businesses for 3 times earnings. I just did the quick math and I said, holy holy guacamole. There there looks like there's a lot more. I mean this is livable free cash flow certainly and the assets appreciating in value and da da da da. It's nice to have some real estate in the portfolio, but You know, I'm ambitious. I You know, I, I want to create a ton of wealth this decade, the 2020 or I should say within the decade, not in two or three decades, and it kind of for me felt like real estate was gonna be a um something I would, I would really be happy with once I was 50 or 16, and I said no, that's it's cash flow, it's mobile homes, right? Oh, cash flows, but you're leverage, right? So you, um, if, if it didn't have any leverage, it would have been really great, but you know, you, you're buying it with debt and, and let's just what debt is. I mean debt is obviously an obligation to, to. Cover that not before you, you, you feather your own. So I was OK, don't get me wrong, it was, it was a nice benefit. It was proof of concept. It was a big win. Um, I was comfortably living indoors after the fact, whereas before, I mean, literally I was sleeping in the rental car. Yeah, wow. Oh, it was, it was a benefit, don't get me wrong, but, but it, um. Yeah, I just made that decision that I thought I wasn't gonna continue with brighter living, right, right, right around that time. But I needed to get down, you know, at that point it's like, get a deal done, you know. Well, yeah, looks better on your report card next time you go, yeah, start something, finish it, right, rather you would again is another item, uh, but finish it. And so we did, we finished it, we stabilized it. Um, and then you work on it much? Do you have to answer to anybody a lot, get a lot of phone calls? What? No, because we're, we're covering, we cover our nuts. Um, and, and don't get me wrong, the first, I remember the 1st 34 months, I put some, some blood, sweat, and tears out there as far as having to do some, some a little bit of wrench turning myself, which, uh, wasn't expected but needed to be done on a, on a few instances. Yeah, the right guy then, had to go through a really bad manager first, um, I had a really bad manager, I fired him. Um, brought on a a different manager who since has been fantastic, and that really, it was implanting the right manager that let me then um pull my head up and say, OK, what do I want to do now? Now, it's cash flow and everyone's getting their theirs occupancy was really high, and as I said prior, I kind of mentioned prior, the property performed uh exceptionally well. Throughout this entire pandemic when really there was the uh the rent moratorium, right, where, where folks. Yeah, uh the government uh said no raising the rents, yeah. Well, in, in state of Nebraska, you know, happens to be a a state that leans uh red and and There was a ton of job opportunity there. Everyone was, everyone was making theirs, and so the property just performed really well. Um, it was a great property, and this is something I talked about a lot on, on kind of my own platforms is how important it is to, to buy businesses that have intrinsic moats, whereby, uh, it's not easy uh for competition to come in and and gobble up market share where it it's your your customer base is really entrenched into using your product, your service, and at this point it was. It was affordable housing that happened to be next door to Cargill, the largest private company, um, actually I believe in the world. And so it was, it was like literally the housing next door to a, you know, 3000 person employer where there's a bunch of other, you know, 1000 plus uh person employers within a 10. It's a 100% occupancy now. Uh, right now we're, we're doing a remodel, so now I think we'd be at 97%, but 97 98%. But yeah, it's always been 95% plus and then it's been a matter of do we want to keep people in or are we gonna, you know, when it's vacant, do we want to remodel and then and do that, but it's, yeah, the, the, the, the demand is off the charts there. Yeah. Do you have access to the books? I'm like, or does the manager do them and or somebody local do them and then just send them to you like once I have a I have a bookkeeper that um. That I send all the receipts to and and I I spot check on occasion, but no, I, he doesn't uh. If if the question was, does the manager have access to all the books? the answer no, no, he's really more of a, um, I don't want to call him a maintenance band because he does more than that, but he's maintenance first, cause we own the unit, so a lot of it, which is kind of what led into to brighter utilities, but we're doing a lot of plumbing work, we're doing a lot of HVAC work, a little bit of electrical work, um, replacing shingles when when the wind kicks up a little bit. Um, he does that first so that I have a fixed cost insofar as keeping the units, uh, maintained, he'll do the remodels. Um, and then handles, don't get me wrong, handles, uh, the customer service items and some of the managerial items, but, but when it comes to the financial side, I, uh, I pretty well handle that. Does he ever, uh, the, the, the seller does it react you, making sure, you know, checks are coming in or ask about something or. The first, the 1st 6 months there were certainly more questions. Um, that's the other side of seller finance that isn't often discussed is what does seller finance look like once the deal closes and In your bank, it's a very different relationship than a traditional, uh, a traditional lender, you know. Yeah, you're asking the seller to implicitly trust you. I don't even know you, Jason Rogers, right. Well, which is the reason, uh, that I'm such a deep believer in every hour you spend with the seller. Face to face. Yeah, not over the phone, not Zoom. This was pre-pandemic as well, um though I went face to face during the pandemic when we then subsequently started bright utilities, face to face, the good old fashioned way, um. Moves the needle forward, and it's underappreciated, I think, in this day and age with everything being zoom like we're on right now. But the face to face goes a long way. I shook the guy's hand, you look somebody in the eye, and it's not to say that that there aren't sociopaths that can't shake you in the hand, look you in the eye, or shake your hand, look in the eye and and tell you a bunch of BS. But, you know, I was able to convince, uh, and assert that I, I would, you know. So you learned a lot from that asset class, and then you moved on to acquiring B&B professional plumbing and air. Why did you settle on a how the uh plumbing business in air. I love the plumbing business, and uh I love the plumbing business. Because it's so demand and elastic on the service side. If your pipe breaks, you have to, you pretty much have to handle it. You can't um People don't forego plumbing, and to me it it goes back to why that property performed so well in Nebraska during the pandemic. It was because there was such an inelasticity with regards to demand, and there was such a cornering of the market that that property had within that local, that local uh. Marketplace, such that we're set. I mean that the property, the property is what it is in and of itself, it's fortified and so to me, um, Actually, as a result of working on that property and being involved in the operations, I said, wow, plumbing demand is really high. I remember one day I needed to call a plumber cause we were unable to fix the item there, and the plumber came and 20 minutes later had me had me dialed in and billed me $200 and, um, you know, I'm Nebraska, the pricing is a little different than, you know, where I came from California, for example, or even here in Florida. So I was thinking for 20 minutes, you know, $200. Damn, and this was right around that time where I was thinking more and more about, am I gonna stay in real estate or I'm in a pivot. And uh and shortly thereafter, it was actually January 1st of 2020, uh, the first day of the new decade, where I definitively cited. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm going to go into, into utilities with a with a a focus firstly on plumbing, and then bring on HVAC and, you know, potentially electrical though we don't want to do electrical. But yeah, that was. It it was that same demanded elasticity that really drew me to the sector and um B&B really, which I'm wearing, which is now added the air cause we bolted on the air acquisitions. But I mean, B&B was not the ideal acquisition target. The ideal acquisition target was service-based. Service is in, you know, uh, some Joe has a a water heater that doesn't turn on, you know, Joe has a stoppage, you know, his toilet won't flush. That's the, it was the kind of work that I was involved in overseeing in Nebraska that made a lot of sense. You can't negotiate with that. Um, but those companies, as it turns out, are, are highly valued, valued at 456. Um, the good service companies are valued at 456789, even 10 times earnings. And I was finding uh that there weren't a lot of acquisition targets that fit the the buyer's profile that I was looking for, that we're gonna do it. And being uh somebody that wanted to get a first down and get on base, um, B&B was a company that was doing a lot of it and still does to this day, a lot of commercial work, notably with Publix, which is a huge grocer down in the southeast. And they had a great, great client base, but they were doing bigger jobs, a little bit more complicated jobs, and we initially met with with the sellers, uh, 22 gentlemen by the name of Bob and Barry, B&B. We initially met with them, uh. Uh, and I initially with my business partner met with him in February, right before the pandemic, and I remember telling him, guys, your business is just over my head. You guys got, you know, all these big fancy blueprints and half a million dollar jobs. I'm not prepared for it, so I'm gonna have to pass, but I remember I called him 6 months later, after a couple other deals I ran down, fell through for a number of reasons. Call him back and said, you want. Let's, let's, let's try to do a deal and uh did they want, what, what was their motivation for wanting out? They were your traditional seller, um, retirement age. Yeah, how old were they? I think one of them is in the early 60s, the other is in the late 50s. Um, they founded the business in '92, sold in 2020, so had a 28 year run. Yeah, that's right. So you did that deal specs on that 82% SBA, but by that time you already owned the uh uh business in Nebraska, so you had a much better credit rating. Yeah. I did, and that helped, uh, it did help, but they put up 18% seller financing. Yeah, and I remember I did, that was kind of a complicated one, not complicated, but just there were multiple seller finance tranches, two silos, one was on hold, one's getting paid out as we as we speak, or each month rather. Um, so there were, yeah, those two combined that were, were just under 20%. The other thing, yeah, so, so that was basically then brought you negotiating with both of them, Bob and Barry, or was it they, did they want the same thing or they want two different things? They did a good job of holding a unified front. Yeah, I happen to know now that of course their wants were slightly different, but during the negotiation, I didn't have any damn idea. There was one of them whose name is Bob, who I, uh, I dealt with more directly. And uh he was a good negotiator. I remember I made him an offer over the phone, and uh he said, you're close, you're close. You're close, close, man. I wanna do a deal with you, you're close. Yeah. And uh We played the Price Terms game and we uh. We gave them the slight increase on price which you wanted. And in exchange for that, we've locked in the uh the 5% on hold, which for some $5 million dollar deals, um, I think is a standard if you use the SBA in the states whereby you put 5% that basically doesn't get paid out until the SBA note gets paid out in full, lock in that 5% on hold and it creates an equity position for you, so you only have to go out and raise if you want 5% of the purchase price in cash as opposed to uh. As opposed to 10. So by the way, the price in terms, if they get the price, you get the terms. If they get the terms, you get the price. That's uh we'd love that, uh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And you had 8% in private investor equity. Did you go, did you have that capital from yourself or did you go back out to your dating network? You raised it. Uh, this came from a different, uh, at this point my dating network had, uh, Well, I won't say it disappeared, but, but I certainly wasn't nurturing that that world. This was uh this was my lawyer's wife's. Uh, friend, um, or, or. Somebody should colleague if you will, actually not quite colleague but um somebody she knew, who happened to be a, uh, I won't give too much information, but a very well off doctor who um who had capital that wanted to be placed and uh we had built a relationship with this individual for months, um, prior to, to uh asking for capital. We just checked it about once every month, knew that this was an individual that had a high net worth. Knew that uh we were going to be looking for for 6 figures in in equity at some point. And we just told them, you know, told him, I should say, as well as a few others, but this was an individual we really kind of bird dogged early on, and just told him, hey, this is what we're looking for, this is how we're going about it. These are the steps we're taking during diligence. And what helped, I must say, and this is something I really believe in is. We walked away, I kind of sped through it, but we walked away from a couple of deals that were deep under contract because things came out during diligence, um, one was essentially just a misrepresentation of the financials, pulled out of that deal. One was, uh, actually the seller kind of started changing his story halfway through the. Halfway during diligence, first half of diligence, it was the best business ever. The second half of diligence, the the business had fleas, and there are a lot of things we need to be wary of and under the hood, man. Yeah, you find stuff. You find a lot of stuff. I think before we bought B&B we looked under the hood of, and when I say look under the hood, I mean, went under contract and formally engaged in diligence process, not just, you know, sniffed around. I mean, we went under the hood, uh, at least 3 times. It may have been 4. B&B was like the 4th or 5th time we went under contract. Um, but, but it, it passed the sniff test, um, and then some, it was a great company, and, uh, why did they take, uh, well, they took most of it in uh the money from the, the loan, uh, 82% from SBA. Um, did they just leave the office or do they stay around and consult or what, what, where did they go? We struck a deal with one of the two sellers to stay around for, uh, I think it was a total of 1000 hours that we didn't use all of them, that we had uh a contractual obligation to, uh. To use if we if we so chose within the first year. He was great and um He, he, he's a guy, he's a, I, I have a good relationship with the first seller I did business with, um, in Nebraska. I have a good relationship with these two gentlemen, one in particular who I'm speaking to, or speaking about. He was great. I mean, he really helped with the transition. Um, there was a period after about 3 to 4 months where you could tell. Um, it was time for us to, to kind of go in our, to continue going in our direction and for him to, to go in his. And it, it was amicable. It was, it was positive. It was a win-win and, you know, it was, it was a lovely transitionary period, and I recommend it if especially for a first time operator, if you're buying a good business, if it's a distress business, or, you know, if you have a lot of operational experience. It's different perhaps, it depends on what you're trying to do, but in this event. How did you, did you know somebody to replace them? I mean, who stepped into the role of running the company? Now, it was funny. So this was, I'll never forget having a um, a lot of these sellers, one thing maybe you've seen in different sectors have different kind of protocols as far as how the sellers interact with buyers and, you know, kind of the the subculture of the industry. But, you know, in the trades, it was, it was in same with the mobile home park space. It was real common to meet sellers over um over a beer, for example, and, and I ended up doing that more than I ever anticipated. So I remember meeting this over a beer, and he kind of looked at me and um. He's like, sir, you You're gonna run this thing alone, or you got, you got a team you're gonna bring on to to run it with you? And I said, well, it'll be me. He said to you, you're gonna be running it alone, basically said, well, yeah, I've got advisors, but yeah, he said, you ever done this before? I said, well, well, no. And uh he kind of gave me this look like I don't well, it's like why would I turn this over and you kill the business I took me 28 years to build, like. Yeah, he, he just gave me that look and you could tell it, and he's even confessed after the fact, like, yeah, I thought you'd be BK by now. I didn't think you'd make it, you know, uh, but you. gave me enough upfront so I figured the last 20% was icing if it, if it came through. Uh, so no, I mean, really the punch line is we needed an estimator because they're, they're going after bigger work and, and we're still going after bigger work. Needed an estimator and needed a project manager. Those are the two, those are the two kind of big roles that you have in a larger kind of commercial outfit. When I say larger, they're doing the larger work. And uh the project manager we we pretty well figured out we could bring from uh internally and promote internally. And uh that that gentleman still here uh to this day and is a key part of what we do. The estimating side was the side we knew would be uh a little bit colorful, and it was, we had a really. You get that wrong and you lose money, quick, and we had a guy that said the right things, walked the walk, talked the talk. sat in the seat, got the job, uh, relocated from Chicago actually, and uh we thought we, we picked the perfect guy. And about 45 days in, I started to have real questions. By 60 days, I had a lot of questions, and after 90 he was terminated or so and um had some real personal problems, actually got arrested a couple of times, just several weeks after being terminated, um, had a night where he sent me some crazy messages right before he was getting terminated. I texted me at about midnight on a Sunday night right before Monday morning. The guy really, it was just a terrible hire. Uh, luckily, luckily, luckily, luckily. Uh, he didn't do, we didn't sign the contracts that he went out and bid. Um, and so we, you know, we had a dry period or we didn't bring in work, but we had enough work, because commercials different, you know, these contracts can go 369, 12 months. So we had work but our backlog was getting shorter and shorter. It's like you gotta get the plane off the runway at some point, you gotta have that pipeline full, yeah. And so, you know, one of the uh individuals that works real closely with me, and I was looking everywhere for for an estimator and Uh, one of the gentlemen that works here to this day, running our service side, he's a key part of what we do. He said, I know somebody, and uh interviewed the guy. Brought him in, and within about a month, he landed a million dollars in work, and I landed $250 million dollar contracts in the same day on a Friday. I'll never forget, I was actually on a flight going to Nebraska to check on the farm, metaphorically speaking, and uh had the $5 you pay for the Wi Fi and so I'm working on my phone. He said, we got the $50 million you know, we landed the the Gany job, and then 2 hours later we got the loots job, so they're each $500 million dollar jobs and that. That really was uh a superstar. So what did it teach you about hiring, like trying to understand people. And, you know, being able to see, you know, how Warren Buffett could do it and take a look at you and he can analyze you. I don't know what he sees, but he's got some kind of ability to say, oh no that guy's unethical, I'm not gonna hire him. Right. Look, I, I can't say I have the magic sauce. I'll say one thing is for certain though, if you can work within referral networks, in other words, with people whom um somebody you know and trust. Will vouch, uh, and say, yeah, that this individual can get the job done. I've seen him or her do it at XYZ location, he did A, B, C, or D, and I know firsthand this person can get the job done. That goes a long way, and that was the hire we made uh to follow up, whereas the first one was the guy said the right things, um, you know, everything checked out in quotes, but You know, and I, coming from the dating background, I thought I was pretty good at looking somebody in the eye and and making an assessment, but yeah, uh, you know, didn't bat 1000 there, bat at 0 you hit. It hurts, you're honest, man, and go like, I don't know. I I don't know. The network I believe is, is the best thing I've got right now, insofar as if if somebody that you trust will put their reputation on somebody, that's a powerful testament, the ultimate testimonial if you will. Yeah, well, it's kind of like the, if I, you're in the mob and I go, look, if I invite you to the social club. And you're not what you say you're gonna get me killed, so you need to be who you are, uh, you know, yeah. Don't screw this one up. Our lives are on. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, you moved to Florida? Right. Uh, you enjoy doing this uh in this brighter utilities and this, this kind of work? I love it. Yeah, I grew up, my father was a roofing contractor, and so I grew up from about the age of, uh, really started at 10, but from 10 to 20, until I got serious in university. I worked in the family business, um. Oh, OK, so this is right down your line. It's great. Is your father still alive? Yeah, oh yeah, so. Yeah he enjoys watching you see the success of this. Yeah. You know, it's funny, he was the biggest critic of anybody. Um, funny enough, the entrepreneur that inspired me to get an entrepreneurship, um, hard as bones, never given me a nickel's worth of, of money and, and will rarely give me a tough love, man. They love you, but it's kind of a different way, right? And told me I was absolutely insane when I was going out trying to buy the property. So, get a broker's license. What the hell do you think you're gonna go buy a business how do you think you're gonna buy property? You don't even know what the hell you're. What are you talking about? So yeah, he was real skeptical, but now he's, of course. Hindsight is 2020's like, man, I'm glad you did it. I love you. Like, hey, this is my son. See this is exactly now it's the prideful introduction. So, but, yeah, uh, so you did a couple of tins, it looks like uh Patterson International Service Corp and KB Mechanical. So what were you looking at right there going, if I add these guys to the, if I had these companies and revenue cash flow, I could. Shore up some business, they got, you know, they're self running, they're not gonna take a lot of work on them, or how that look? Sure, so the plumbing side, you know, it's back up its head. We had a commercial division that was really strong, that's what we bought. Did a lot of big commercial work with Publix and other really strong clients. These are like large corporations you do plumbing work with and the contracts are long, right? OK. Yeah, big long contracts, we've got that good. Um, let's build up the service side. Happen to partner with the guy who's my business partner, um, just in the other room right now, I think, interviewing somebody as we speak. Um, the guy's a beast, just happened to have the service guy that came in because the service side is where you fix the, the, the toilet and get paid today. Really quickly quadrupled the service department here, um, on the plumbing side, which was fantastic. And he and I are talking, and I'm talking, you know, amongst the team saying, let's do it again in HVAC. Let's let's bring that in now for the, let's add the air, you know, add the the HVAC side. And right around that time, Uh, got a call from actually the same broker that had listed, uh, the sellers of B&B. He said, hey Jason, you know, I know you're aggressive. I know you're thinking about maybe doing HVAC. Are you ready? I said, yeah, you know, I'm, I could be, show me what you got. Got me the meeting um with the gentleman, uh, I'm trying to think which came first because Patterson and KB, they both, we dual tracked them all the way through. I mean, we were. And then it got to the point where, so I got the same date, August 17th on both of them. We closed Patterson around 3 in the afternoon and then closed uh KB at 11 at night, um, same day, and that was intentional because we wanted, we didn't really want one without the other. We wanted to, uh, to be able to trade resources. The the deals in and of themselves, I think we would have done. But we knew that 1 + 1 equaled 3 or 5 because you could trade labor, one had a lot of assets, yeah, the other was the aqui hire had more manpower and uh. And so it turned out to be good. I mean, admittedly they were, they were businesses that in their prime were great, even though they were smaller, um, they were kind of revenue we talk 7 figures or? Yeah, they each did 7 annually. Um, one was doing 2.5, the other was doing 1.5, um, combined 4, but they had been somewhat neglected in the, in the last year prior. And so what we did is we, we beat the hell out of the price. I mean, we, uh, We cut the price from the initial negotiation to the end, we cut it in half, um, for both, actually. And that was fantastic. So we, we got both. Um, for, for much less than than what we did. Yeah, and this, this Patterson one, you said you deal finance 103% by private lender. How did you come across a private lender would want to put up that much? Yeah, so I mean, the punch line was is we bought Patterson at such a damn good deal that when you took the AR and you took the trucks, and mind you, this is when trucks now are suddenly super valuable because nobody can get chips and vans and all of that, you know, use market markets down to the roof. So when you took the AR and you took the uh the inventory and the material, and you took the, uh, you took the vans themselves, um, the deal was damn near collateralized just by, you know, the physical assets and the financial assets of, of the business because we negotiated the hell. Uh, the key really is we did it, we negotiated for months on those two deals and um. Yeah, but, but to us on this side, it's like, oh man, look how many companies he's purchasing. But for you on that side, it took a while to put together. Oh yeah, we, we, we slow played the hell out of him and did not rush, and that's been a huge thing I really believe in is, uh, let deals come to you. Uh yeah, be aggressive, get the fish on the line, but then don't get so aggressive to reel it in that you snap the line, you know, Warren Buffett, and I keep saying Warren Buffett, he goes, uh, how do you do acquisitions? Like just like I pick up the, I, I, I answer the phone. We got lucky in that respect and that we just had to answer the phone for those deals and yeah. Because the kind of broker at that point was working for you because you, if you find a buyer, it's like a big fish or a whale in Las Vegas. Well, I mean, we made the guy I don't know if we made him a quarter million, but pretty close in broker's fees. Oh yeah, in about a 12 month span or actually less, about a 9 month span. So, you know, I know investment bankers, that that's a nice peaceful Wednesday for for some investment bankers, but, you know, in the deal size range that we're, we're dealing with and we were talking about here, this was, we were a big fish for him, and, and so we made him a lot of money and he obviously uh You know, he wanted to come back for more once we did the B&B deal and he brought those. So how do you think now you've bought KB Mechanical right around the same time. Now you have uh a lot more credibility behind you with a couple of businesses cause you got seller, 100% seller financing. He goes, What did you, did you have to show them your books or what did you, what did you do so they, yeah, great. I'll I'll. Sure. First of all, I'm on the record. You one can go look me up and I said back in 2020 or maybe 2021, uh before that deal closed naturally, that I didn't think 100% seller finance was, I'm not, I said anything's possible, but I don't think it's, it's likely to happen a lot. Yeah, and I that was my youth because everyone, you know, all these clickbait titles on the in the M&A world of how to get a 100% seller finance and the secret trick to, to guarantee all of this, and I was kind of coming to the camera saying. I'm skeptical. I'm not, I'm skeptical you're gonna do a 100% seller finance. Um, KB, the, the reason we got 100% seller finance on KB, and we actually picked, we, we negotiated to try to get operating capital in the business after 100% seller finance that it would have been 120% seller finance. Um, and, and the reason I, I had the goal to kind of push for all that is because candidly. Um, it was a business that we only wanted on a very, very in very in a very small window. Did it make sense for us to do that deal. Patterson, we, we, we wanted to do more cause it was service, that's where we're really scaling our business. Um, Katie Mechanic was doing the larger work. Um, I just got burned in in months prior due to that loose cannon estimator that I commented about, um, and I just just had hired a new estimator. That I thought was gonna work out. So I still had question marks with regards to the long-term viability on the commercial side. I knew we were, we were tripling our service department within 6 or so months. I knew we could do that on the HVAC side the way we did in the plumbing. So, so the reason I got the 100% solar finance was one, the guy had neglected this business. He was out of state, out of state owner, neglected the business. 2, he was of high net worth, so did not need the cash, um, and in some ways would have just created a tax problem for himself. Did he have other cash flow or this business was just providing cash? Uh, this was just another he has real estate up there, he has his main mechanical outfit, and when I say up there it's in the Midwest, uh, kind of near Lake Erie up there. So he, um, He had a whole bunch of other interests, and this was kind of the neglected, um, this was kind of the neglected asset that didn't make sense, uh, within his portfolio. He had all these businesses up there, and then there's the one down here that's literally and metaphorically just getting neglected. Yeah. And so we were able to come in and and work a hell of a deal. And did you meet him face to face, or it was all over the did. He was down here, um, at this point I was getting him to come to our office as opposed to vice versa. So kind of set the tone from the very beginning that, uh. It really had him in a position where he was selling me on buying the business from up front. And I knew, you know, in my comment on those kinds of deals, I mean, look, that that company had problems, and we knew it had problems. That was part of the reason that we took it on terms that were uh were that way, you know, I mean. What's 100% of a problem? It's a, it's 100% problem, right? Now, I'm not saying it was, it was all bad, but what I'm saying, and this is what I told him, is essentially, look, the reason I'm only willing to do this deal on a cut price for these terms is because I know there's headaches and I'm gonna have to work through and uh. And this is what it's worth to me, you know, and you have the right. I actually revert talk about reverse clothes. I remember sitting down, um, over breakfast, having a cup of coffee, call him up and said, hey, good news, the appraisal came back. Bad news, there's no way in hell I'm paying that amount for the business. So here's what I'll do for you. I'll never forget this conversation. I here I'll do it for you. I'll send you the appraisal. Um, that I paid, you know, 300 or $4000 for, no problem, out of pocket, here you go, give it to you for free. I'll give you the entire, uh, diligence pack that we put together, all your financials, all your tax returns, all your balance sheet, everything bundled up right here. I'll send it all over to you, and then you can have that perfect package to, to meet other respective buyers and hopefully you can get a buyer that will uh give you the price in terms that you're you're looking for because I I I'm not that guy. Yeah. No, I thought he was gonna. Perfect takeaway. And he said, no, no, let's not, you know, he got real quiet. I never heard he was a talker. He got real quiet for like 20 seconds, and then next day or two, he said, no, let's keep talking, and then, you know, from there we, what do you think his motivation was? Was it just to get rid of it, or was there, if I do sell 100% seller financing it's better look, I'm not gonna take a big tax. Yeah. Yeah, I think he wanted it to. I think he wanted to cut it out of his life because he knew it was not performing to a degree. It was providing a marginal cash flow for, I think, a uh a more significant headache. And because he was off site and was 1000 miles away from it, uh, it, it just wasn't performing in a way that I think was, yeah, making sense for him and the time, the time money continuum of low amounts of money, high amounts of time, I think it was giving him that. And, and the company was 5 minutes from where our headquarters were, so it's 1000 miles from his headquarters, it's 5 miles from ours. Said, OK, yeah, it was literally like down the street, you know, so that, that part was really nice. So let me ask you about your, your partner. How did you, why did you partner up? Is this somebody you've known for a while, and how are you guys working together? How did you realize, hey, these are my weakedness is, this is his strengths kind of thing. So I have really two core partners now, um. Who are, you know, minority equity holders in in what I do. And uh 11 is an M&A lawyer by trade, and the other is basically just a a sales assassin by trade, real smart guy. They're both real bright guys and You know, It, it, they, they were gentleman that I, I kind of, uh, teamed up with back when I teamed up with a whole host of folks, um, and I've talked about this document this online. I had a whole big old team back in the early days when I followed the exact definition of what Dan Pena espoused for, and I had all these folks. And through, you know, a long process, um, stopped doing business with most of those individuals. Uh, but these were the two individuals that more than anything, just showed a, uh, showed very high character. Relentless hunger and um just a bound, you know, boundless work ethic, and we're very bright, you know, very bright, and so, you know that Warren Buffett in one more time, cause if you switch those two, the ambition with character, you're just gonna get problems, you know, character has to be first, yeah. They're great guy. I mean they're they're great guys first, um, individuals I trust, and we've done deals, uh. You know, and when I say deals, I mean, sure, there's the acquisitions themselves, but then there's a number of other races we've done, or there's been for working capital or equity, or debt or vehicle financings and, you know, lease deals we've done, or we've done a number of things and um throughout that process, whether it's, you know, establishing vendor lines of credit, all kinds of different stuff you do in business and You know, there are guys that uh only recently I insisted that we have like a, like an internal legal document that espouses like, hey, if shit hits the fan and then this and that and put me in the, you know, the shooting fire, which I, I wanna be, that's that's my position as the CEO. But I mean they're the kind of guys that would sign on things, uh. And it took us a while to get to this point, but I mean they, they've done things for me that have been profound and vice versa because they're, they're good individuals first, and, and that, that, that's really, really, really, really important. I don't have to worry about them, um, trying to to cut back. It's like the number one thing that uh you gotta look if you're in the seal team, you look to the right, left, you gotta be able to trust them. Not they may not be the fast shoot, you know, fastest runner, best shooter anything, but you gotta trust them. And we all made mistakes. I mean, let me be blunt about something. I, when we got B&B, I made a pretty substantial mistake with regards to, uh, understanding the AR in that 1st 60 day cash flow cycle. Yeah. Um, messed that up pretty good. Had to, uh, raise a little more capital shortly after closing, which is why the numbers. How did you mess it up? Did you underestimate that when the AR was actually gonna be basically, I basically screwed up about 30 days' worth of cash flow projections. I had, I, I thought the I thought net 45 was, it was really net 45 to net 65, and I looked at it more from net 45 to net 15. And uh and I was wrong, you know, I, I missed certainly the 1st 3 weeks of the given month cause you bill on the 20th of every month on the commercial side, and for whatever reason, I thought like the money hit on the 1st and not the earliest it hits on the 20th, if not even later. And so, You know, at the time, you know, our payroll was, I don't know, at that time we were running about 200 to $25,000 a week payroll, so 3 or 4, you know, cycles of payroll, you're close to $100,000 not to mention other operating expenses. I mean, it was a, I made a six figure and we collectively, though I took the lead on it. I took the lead on making that six-figure mistake. Uh, with, with the acquisition of B&B and, you know, that, that, that was not pretty, that was not fun. Um, I knew, I knew I didn't know everything I needed to know. I knew that, uh, the acquisition of B&B was ballsy and that, uh, it was commercial work and I wasn't, um, particularly acute at understanding the nuance of that business. But I guess the point is, is they never doubted me during that process, and, and there's been a few things that in retrospect they've done that, you know, they say, ah shit, should have done that different. Um, yeah, yeah, but, but we've, we're all gonna make, yeah, but, but we've iterated and that's been, and that's really kind of what we're getting to now is our mistakes are going from being this size to being this size to being this. So what do you, I mean, what's your goal to plan long term goal here is acquiring more of these, or are you working on something else? Really need to get to 1000. I mean, we're running 26 bands right now. Uh, when we got here we had 10, so we've, we've more than doubled in the last, I don't know, 1516 months, but, but I'm really, really, really uncomfortable with uh with where we're at. I mean, I, I, I, I've set the intent and I do have the intent to build a billion dollar business and enterprise value. And we're, we're a fraction of the way there right now, just micro fraction of the way there. And obviously the the simplest, you know, uh, KPI if you will. With regards to uh to enterprise values really, uh, in our business, the number of vans you're profitably running every day and every business day. And for us, we, we've reverse engineered, we pretty well need to get to 1000, 1000 running vans, um, on, on the 20 + 20+ working days a month to, to, to really start being competitive to that billion dollar, that valuation. So that's the goal. I mean, that's you're gonna have to purchase larger HVAC. Well, really, yes, one, we have to do larger acquisitions, uh, degree that we do acquisitions. And then two, my marketing background I'm finding we, we've done. We've done really well organically as far as the organic growth side, and, and the cost per capital to grow organically relative to M&A with valuations is is really interesting. So we'll still, we'll still be using um candidly finance, borrowed finance to to grow, but, but we're running the cost benefit analysis of the M&A side. And how quickly we can grow there and, and what we can take on that side versus the organic side. And it really is going to be a combination of two large vehicle purchases, um, on one end, you know, 2030, 50 tranches of vehicles at some point. Um, and then having a bunch of different markets as well, where we had 10 vehicles here, 10 vehicles here, 10 vehicles here, 10 vehicles here, and doing that, um, on an annualized or bi-annualized basis where you have to create the demand to get that truck to run, you have to get the phone to ring to, to obviously give that, that band something to go run to. Um, and then you need the van itself obviously to be able to, to, to move that, that, uh, technician forward to go provide service. Those are the three elements, the van, the manpower, and the demand, the phone ringing. Um, and we've gotten pretty good at at optimizing those three things, um, and so now it's a matter of doing, you know, expanding that through M&A, but also expanding that through organic financing of vehicles, then going out to the marketplace, recruiting talent and getting that phone to ring, yeah, getting that thing operational and keeping it in a cash flow cycle. And that's what we we need to do, you know, when we know it. Yeah, you know, do you know who Adam Coffee is? No, no, he's a guy that, uh, he's backed by a PE firm. They, he's purchased about 100 businesses, bought and sold in his lifetime, but he just purchased AHVHC companies, about 25 million size in the big markets and he's marching towards a billion on that. I love it. Good for him. That's a fantastic accomplishment. Yeah, you should, uh, sell some consulting time. You should go talk to go how do you do it? You're, you're in competition, but, uh, I think there's so much business out there. Yeah. So what's that? Are you still are you training people, you know, we talked about this before went online, are you actually showing people how you did it or you moving away from that? Officially, I do it. Um, I, I only do it with individuals that really at this point, I used to candidly let folks, if, if you had the money, come on, let's work together, um, and do a monthly Zoom call and have some stuff I put together and all the legal documents and whatnot. At this point, I'm only doing it on an application uh basis, and bluntly it's because I had individuals that I would, I would see on these monthly Zoom calls I would do. And uh some of them might just Uh, I would, and I tell him, look, I, I just, the way you're talking about this, the way you're conducting yourself through this, the way you're, you're carrying yourself, I don't see it. You're not showing the commitment. You're not showing, um, the savvy. There, there's a number of things here that so what what happened to me is I got frustrated with regards to um Transacting with folks that I felt had a a a really small chance of being successful in part due to commitment and part due to just uh. Not having even the basic 101s figured out with business. And so now it's really, uh, I still do the monthly Zoom calls for the folks who have transacted with me in the past and I've done those for 2.5 years. Um, but, but I'm not promoting, um, consulting and such, and that it's just, it's a very small part of what I'm, I'm doing now, but I do, I do have that, um, my website is available for, for that. That's cool. Look, uh, we're 5 minutes past that, uh, our time, and I wanna thank you so much, Jason, for being on this call. It's, uh, we appreciate your knowledge, your wisdom, and sharing that with us. Hey, look, I'm learning every day, uh, sharing what I, what I've learned. And I really appreciate, uh, I've seen you posting the Facebook group and, uh, you've had some big interviews and, uh, you've gotten a really warm reception to what you're doing. So I, uh, when you reached out, I, I was really honored candidly, and, uh, there are a lot bigger fish you've had on here than than myself, but hopefully, uh, I've been able to help somebody in some regard and appreciate you, you having me on. So, uh, thank you. Thank you, Jason. Good luck in the business too, and if we can help in any way, let me know. Yeah. All right. Thank you.