The Entrepreneurial Spirit | Naomi and Jake, Davis Mechanical #009

Hi everyone, it's Karissa from Sun Control. I am here with Shining Light on Minnesota season 3 episode 2 and I have some outstanding guests here today with me, Naomi and Jake. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, excited to be here. We're so excited to have you and we want to share with everybody a little bit about where you guys have come from and where you plan on going. Jake, why don't you start? Great. Thank you. Thanks again for having us in. You bet. I'm Jake Helguson. I'm with Davis Mechanical Systems and um couple other little companies now. You know, like any good entrepreneur, you start one, it's like a tattoo, you got to get another, another, and another and then it's addicting. Yeah. But I'm originally from the small town of Morristown. Nice. I went to college in Mano, got into IT sales and uh decided to go on the entrepreneurial journey in 2018 and haven't looked back. So, perfect. What about you, Naomi? Perfect. Um, so I started my journey in 2013 with my own personal business for a little over eight years. Um, single mom and just needed the flexibility to be able to put my family first. Started my business. Um, it didn't go as planned through co and as the years went on, I met Jake recently and joined the Davis mechanical team. Why don't you tell people a little bit about Davis's history, where it's going and what how that got started. Yeah, absolutely. So, Davis uh has been around since 1995. It was formerly Whan Davis, full-ervice mechanical contractor in the commercial and industrial space. And uh Paul Davis took over uh the business completely when Mike Whan retired after the 2008 crash. He was done and wanted to hang her up. So um so Paul ran the business as a large refrigeration air conditioning contractor working for large mechanical contractors as a specialty sub and uh as getting into 2018 he was looking to retire and wanted to have a a plan in place and um yeah long story short my brother-in-law was a general foreman for a contractor out of Rochester. I was in software sales and really looking to make a change and wanted to get out and the timing was right uh where we ended up acquiring Davis Mechanical keeping Paul on board for a few years helping with the transition um and really growing from there. So my brother-in-law Phil is the master plumber and license holder. I run the business operations side of the house and y um we've brought in a number of folks that we're close with, family, friends, you know, built it that way. So what area does Davis cover? So we're in the state of Minnesota historically and now western Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Nice. We got projects all over the place. We typically look at um mechanical scope for construction around a million to two million. Uh so large scale, get your sink your teeth in type projects longterm. And we've really focused the last year on building out our design, build, and service programs. So we can get into smaller projects. we can handle uh that sub, you know, even $10,000 scope where we're coming in, we're fixing equipment and that sort of thing. So, uh the business has definitely evolved. We were traditionally construction, commercial, industrial. Yep. Now, it's really broad and and we've grown the team. Um so, there's not much that we can't handle. Uh in the state of Minnesota, we do a lot of public schools, police departments, maintenance facilities, a ton of money going into water treatment plants, that sort of thing. Um but we don't shy away from restaurants, grocery, uh the really the service department does a lot of those kind of things. So tell us a little bit about the service plan and the service that you guys offer on the side and what what people are looking more to do. Yeah. Uh when you look at a mechanical scope in a building, it's water heaters, chillers, boilers, all of the stuff, you know, water side we call it. It's all the stuff that keeps things cold and things hot that need to be. And then on the air side, it's ventilation, right? It's air conditioning. It's it's furnaces. It's kind of the historical what you'd know. Um all those pieces of equipment are costs tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yep. In initial acquisition cost. And so where we looked at that is is you're also going to spend two to three times the initial acquisition amount in lifetime maintenance. Right? These are 20 year for sure type devices. So if you want to get, you know, 10 years out of something, don't treat it well. Don't take care of it. You want to get 20, do the preventative maintenance, right? Do the upkeep. And so that's where we focus. We help building owners understand what does it take to keep these this equipment around for a little bit longer. Y and get those valued years out of the rest of it to lower their total cost of ownership. So our team comes in quarterly, annually, bianually depending on what piece of equipment it is. Uh we clean coils, we change filters, we change belts, we grease things, kind of all of it, right? Um based on the manufacturer specifications and then we also give you uh root cause analysis. If something fails, we'll replace it, fix it, and give you some heads up on what is it that you know made the issue and how can we remedy that kind of stuff going forward? anything proactively to look at kind of all of it. So you going to set your maintenance costs for years so your life cycle is more predictable for sure. So Naomi tell me I know on your side you do a lot of the business development. You get out there and like to reach those businesses. Why don't you tell everybody listening what your role is and what you do? Yeah. So Jake um he brought me onto the team. We were introduced to each other and kind of created this position for me. business development manager with Davis Mechanical Systems. Um just a big networking and relationship partnership um role. Um just out here trying to meet I mean anything from residential home builders to building owners. Um and then just my women's my women in construction group. They've been phenomenal. I mean I've just learned over the time that I've been here that it's just who you are and what you have to offer and your sincerity in that. Y um just building relationships, building partnerships. Yep. Yeah, I can add a little bit to that. So, it was interesting story. Naomi interviewed originally for accounts payable Oh. position, which she would have been so bored with. She would have been so bored. Yes. Yes. But it was interesting in the interview uh we were taken back like she's dynamic and personable and you know, courageous for the stuff she's done in the past and that's not things that we can teach. No. And so, um, I hung up the call after the interview and was like, "Wow, what do we do now?" Right? I need this position somehow. So, I just reached out to her and said, "I don't know what we can do together, but let's just nurture this a little bit to figure out what we can do because, you know, like I said, you can't you can teach things. Obviously, we can teach somebody how to input, you know, accounts payable, invoices, and pay bills, but you can't teach them to be dynamic. You can't teach them to have a spine and and be, you know, goal oriented, entrepreneurial, and all that stuff. And it's I love to see somebody who's had success, had failures, still has ambition, and still want success, right? Because I've had that same thing in the past. So, yeah. Tell me a little bit about your why, Jake, why you do what you do. Um, yeah, that's a good question. So, when I don't really look at the mechanical contracting space like I necessarily wanted to be an owner of a of a contractor. Yeah. Um, but I look back and and my, you know, years of experience have been in market development, bringing new products, pricing, strategy, uh, recruitment. I've loved to recruit top talent and try to figure out. So, the organizations I worked with, I was a independent contributing sales rep. Nice. But I always had all these other ambitions. And so, um, one of my previous sales managers gave me a very eye openening speech and he said, "Your job is to sell." Mhm. And I said, 'I do that, but I don't want to do all this other stuff. He said, that's not what we pay you for. Right. So that gave me the idea of like, okay, why am I here? What is my why? You know, what am I doing here? Y um so really I think if I was to kind of encapsulate what my motivations are is I want everybody to be successful. Whatever that ambition is, however we can do it, uh pushing people to think they can do more than they can and then seeing them do it. Right. Right. Whether that's with us, outside of us, you know, it's just in life. Like I hope people look to me as like I I want to get positive feedback, right? Real feedback and also motivation that I would be the person they talk to to try to get that and you're I'm going to speak on that cuz he's a great person for that. He's a great leader. Um, I'm very thankful for where I'm at, um, in the space with Davis cuz Jake does put family first and that is my number one priority um, as a mom is I will not miss a game and he understood that from the forefront and just pushing like he said us to be the best us that we can possibly be. Um, my eyes are getting watery, but no, I am like really thankful for it because um, I have other things that I want to accomplish outside of Davis, alongside Davis and within Davis, and Jake's always been there to support and push and ideas if I need to bounce ideas off of him or whatever it may be. I mean, he's been a great leader for myself and other people along on the team as well. So, it's been a blessing. I think what people don't understand is when you are a single mom. Yeah. Um, your drive, your motivation, your resiliency. I see a lot of that in you. And you just keep going. It's not always what can I do within the hours. It's how can I create more time in the hours I have and keep going and be there for your kids. Cook those meals. Clean, but always show up no matter what it is. Be on the forefront. Be honest, but you're always there. And that drives everybody. Everybody that's listening, everybody that knows you. It's inspiring story as well. I appreciate that. Yeah, cuz it's tough. We were just talking about Yeah, today was a ride. It just finished right before I walked into that store. But I mean, yeah, it's for the kids, right? It's our future, you know, and whatever I can show them and you got to show in the forefront, lead them. And they're our future. Show them how to do it. And on the other side, who knows if what we're doing is is the right way, but you always kind of throw that out there and just you keep going. You hustle, the grind. Yeah. And I think, you know, like I had mentioned to you before, Jake and I come from single family home, single parent homes, and I think that's a lot of what's gotten us to be where we're at. I mean, learning that resiliency, like you said, and just pushing through. I mean, there's hard times. We might not have realized it in the time growing up, right? Me and my mom go back and forth every once in a while. And well, you did the same thing. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's the past, but I learned from it. And that's why I'm having these conversations now with my children is because as I've grown, I've learned and I am who I am because of what she put herself through and how she pushed through. Right. So, and I I mean, they're not going to realize that right now, but I know my kids will know as they as they grow. Yeah. And they look up to that, too. I mean, I know you touched on Jake, your mom was a single mom as well. How has that grown or molded you into who you are? Yeah, she's been fantastic. So my mom, yeah, we my parents got divorced when I was one. Mhm. Uh my older brother and I were living with my mom and uh yeah, she had three jobs. So she worked at the state of Minnesota in a group home during the day and then she worked at group homes at night and then she also bartended on the weekends. So it was always something. But I never knew how what I didn't have because I always had enough. Right. Right. And she had six sisters. My grandpa was really involved in our lives and our childhood. Um, so it was a lot. We just I felt really like loved and welcomed and I had plenty. Yep. Now the joke in our family is, you know, we didn't know what Hamburger Helper was cuz we always had Pamburger Partner. I don't know where this, you know, rich kids had this fancy name brand stuff. Yum. Mountain Lightning, not Mountain Dew, you know. But in the end, it is really what drove us to. We didn't really care. We always had plenty. We had a good group of cousins that were close to us. We had a big family. Um both of my grandparents uh on both sides were very strong. Uh my dad was in the picture. He was just an alcoholic and was living in Farbo, a town 15 minutes away. But um later in his life, which he only lived to 42, he died when I was a senior in high school. Uh which is weird cuz I'm that exact same age. I'm 42 now. So yeah, but my grandparents were very involved. My aunts and uncles were involved. Like it was a very good, you know, community. M um so again I never felt like I didn't have anything and I learned a lot watching the way my mom sacrificed and I still remember you know Christmas was never enough you know the tears shed because my cousins got things that we couldn't get you know starter jackets all the stuff it was all handme-down stuff anyway we got Yep. and we were super happy about it. So, absolutely. So, I look at it now, I don't want my kids to feel like they've got an immense amount. They do live a different life than I did growing up, but they're still humble and they need to have a sense of scarcity and they need to work and they just need to be good people. That's the biggest thing that I focus on for my kids is like be better than I was and right let's continue to get better together. So, yeah. Well, in today's day and age, too, I just I think being present with our children. There's so many outside influences that especially with the internet, right? So, just being present. I know that was a tough thing for my mom. She wasn't able to make the games cuz she worked the three jobs and I was the athlete in the family and I'll be danged if I mean I'm my son's going I know I'm the first person he looks for at that game. Absolutely. You know, and I whether you know it or not, they're looking out in the crowd and just kind of make that quick eye contact like, "Okay, I'm good. She's here." Yep. Yeah. I never had that either. Yeah. So, my parents could never come to the games, but I remember people like a good friend of mine growing up, his uncle went to every single game and he was very supportive of us. So, it was like you seek those people out. And I didn't hold it against my parents cuz they obviously had stuff going on. That's all I knew. Yeah. That's what you know. That's all I knew. Yeah. My best friend's dad, he was 65. Mhm. Uh like mid60s and retired. So, he was able to bring us to everything. So, I had him. So, you have a village. It takes a village to raise a child. Everybody always says that. And knowing the right people and who you can count on when you are single or when you're not. Just to make sure that everything flows, whether it's a Google calendar or whatever it takes. Yeah. One thing I want to say too about just where we've gone with our entrepreneurial life, um, it's given us the opportunity to do things to give back to our family. So perfect. My sister Amy was uh she owns a fashion boutique, a Lulo distributor as well as a retail. Uh she's extremely hardworking. Uh she has my mom working with her and at Davis Mechanical, my mom has come in in the shop and worked and it just it's allowed us to help her retire early. uh gave us the means to buy her house between the three of us kids and to really allow her to have freedom and flexibility that she says she never would have been able to have and to be honest we wouldn't have been able to afford had we not been successful in our endeavors and had cash flow to do so. Y so I mean that's a big thing for us to be able to give back. What other sectors or what other entrepreneurial things have you both done or are you doing right now? Yeah. So, um, like I said, I had my own business for a little over eight years. Um, it's a cleaning company. I Yeah. Nesting Neatly. We started in the northwest suburbs. Um, we were really successful and then co came and I just, as a single mom, I needed to get back to um, having a job and bringing regular income in. So, that's when I had gotten into the construction industry, um, cell tower construction. and then over at Davis now. But um I have a lot of events over in Plymouth and every time I'd come back to the office I'm like I just miss it Jake. So uh he gave me the go ahead to go ahead and uh relaunch. So I've relaunched my cleaning business. Um it's cleaning, organizing, and laundry. Um I'm down in the Fairbolt area is where I live now. So I'm down there and then I'm also in the northwest suburbs. That's going really well. And then I'm making the transition into uh post construction cleaning. And hopefully in the next couple of months I'll be able to launch that fully and to since I'm in the construction space all the time. So nice. You're really lucky to be with some be with a company that allows you to do that. But what people don't understand is sometimes those side gigs and side hustles actually grow Davis Mechanical and they grow all as one too because if you're doing post construction, hey, they don't know about Davis Mechanical. It's all thinking outside the box. Yeah, definitely 100% agree. And I'm so thankful cuz I'd come back and I didn't expect it. He was like, "Then do it." Like, "But I work for you." He's like, "Well, do it while you work for me." Nice. I told Naomi from the start like I want you to quit on me someday because you're wildly successful and you can't do this anymore. That would be fantastic, you know, cuz that means we succeeded in this too. Yep. Yeah. So, and I do believe 100% like what you just said is her network is our network. If Naomi has a good experience here, she will always refer business to us, whether it's Davis or whatever other cookie jars we have her hands in. Right. If we educate her wherever she may be down the line, that's a win for all of us. Perfect. Davis will be home. Yep. Right. Want you to always remember like, damn, that helped me get to where I am positively. Right. And that's a good thing. I think everybody should have something that they're trying to do, whether it's uh just betterment in general, if it's business, whatever. Have some goals, have some opportunities, push yourself, strive. Um, and we I I hope our culture or shows that we we're open to that. We're open to helping people grow. So, for sure. What new things has Davis been up to lately? Yeah, we got a lot of good things going on. I mean, in the end, our business has grown immensely since 2018. So, we had five employees and we have 85 now. Wow. Um, which has been awesome. We had 125 is going to be our the summer goal this summer. Um, so it's been an immense amount of steering the ship. Obviously, global pandemic, economic crisis killed our business in 2020 21. It was a really rough time to be anywhere. But I I say like I hated working here and I'm sure everybody else did. But when I talked to people in the market, they all hated where they worked and they came out of it, you know. So u our focus and refinement on our current business is to build out service department and to build out the design build capabilities so we can compete more directly with large contractors. Um really outside of that. So, I have stepped back in pretty much most all realms of Davis Mechanical other than cash flow planning and really CFO, right? Just making sure that we're we're in a good spot, we're making the right investments, that sort of thing. Outside of that, um, last year in March, myself and and two of my neighbors and my brother bought a duct and dryer vent cleaning business in St. Paul. Nice. Called Home Place Duct and Dryer Vent. And that has been a fantastic addition. Um, my neighbor was a mortgage underwriting manager, Dr. Horton Homes. They were going through big layoffs and he said, "I want out before the the axe gets me." So, uh, long story short, he's a meticulous type A individual. Put him in anything that has to do with cleaning or operations or manufacturing or whatever. Um, you know, you know it's going to be a good quality product. So, for sure, uh, we moved that direction. We've had a business plan for residential HVAC and plumbing since 2018. After we bought Davis, we wanted to grow residential to get it more diverse. Um, we finally launched that April of this year. So, like good things that take time. So, NextG heating and air will be the residential HVAC model and then hot water Minnesota will be the um residential furnace or excuse me water heater change outs, remodels, um, you know, business. And then we've got uh we've invested in a mechanical insulation company that my sister owns and we ended up selling off our shares. Preferred mechanical insulation. Um really just kind of helping people spin up businesses. You know, the model I think that I've seen that's been really predictable and and acceptable is find the right person, wrap them around some good infrastructure and support. Yep. prop them up, especially if they're the master of their craft, whether it's an estimator in insulation or concrete or whatever it is. If they have business acumen and they have liability and they've got, you know, they're the one you want in front of the customer, we can fill everything else in. Absolutely. Um, so that's really been the model is Yep. You know, the union labor across all of the different models that we do has been easy to ramp up. Nice. Uh, and then I think we got a pretty good solution for payroll, HR, finance, kind of the supporting infrastructure. So, all that being said, like I look at this is like we are private equity for our own stuff. Yep. And so someday when we actually have money, we'll be a larger private equity sooner than later. Knock on wood. Yeah. I look at like the True North Equity Partners, no Northwest Equity. I mean, all of these companies that have they buy stake and then they they start to help other companies get bigger and better. That's where I want to be in, you know, 10 years, but I have debt cycles I got to work through and, you know, and get the processes down a little bit. Yeah. So, on that note, I have tried to document everything. I mean, if you wanted to buy a business right now, Yes. I could really honestly darn read the book for how we can do it. Perfect. Um but uh each one's different, you know, but at least things to look for. You know, we've done it like four or five times and now either spin up or um acquire. So, you know, someday I'll be able to say that I'm really good at this. Right now, I just really enjoy it. Yeah. Well, it makes it helps go hand in hand when you enjoy something so much. So, acquisition side of things, do you guys have a goal for how many acquisitions and different things that you want to do every year or is it just kind of whatever gets brought to your plate? It it has been every year. So we were we were focused on one a year and it was strategic either a new market or a new service line um you know whatever happened. So when we started Davis in 2018 we found McCarthy plumbing and heating in Owatana that was very much in the industrial and commercial space. Uh COVID hit hit them hard. Um so they became kind of a distressed asset that we end up acquiring McCarthy and um helping Amy with PMI all took place. She started in June of 2020. So we we really got going with that uh acquisition or or spin up mentality entrepreneurial early on. Uh and then after that it was um we went after some buildings in Oatana as part of the McCarthy acquisition sold those got into some other commercial real estate. So, it hasn't necessarily just been businesses, but it's been assets. You know, like obviously we look at uh what can we do with the cash flow that we generate? Obviously, you know, 2021 took all of our cash flow and all of our profits, right? But as we come back, we've gotten better, smarter, and I understand how to look at things differently. Um, on the merger side, I sign NDAs and look at financials all the time. Yep. probably once a month just to see what's out there. Anything from automotive repair, cleaning, um, residential HVAC, commercial H, whatever. Whatever's for sale, you know, I just want to look. I want to understand it. I want to get better at it. I want to see the market. So, and you have to see the es and flows, too. Like, if my business does again what it did through CO or whatever else it may be, what can I have on the back end that's going to keep keep that income coming in, keep it flowing throughout, right? You don't end up like me. But we learn to adapt and that's what makes us who we are. I mean being out there at all the different events and just being seen, being heard. But I think as a person in general being able to adapt. Yeah. Because if you're not able to adapt and grow or look outside the big picture and see what all is out there, then it really kind of helps tie things in. Right. Well, and I think also probably my parenting experience probably brought me here, but you know, just looking at it, you know, it was sad when I had to shut down nesting neatly in the hindsight. It was sad in the moment, but I mean, when I reflect back on that, it was just another learning experience that opened many more doors for me. I mean, a good door closed, but didn't close permanently. And I learned so much. I mean, I wouldn't be here meeting the people I am and doing the things that I'm doing and enjoying life right now in the moment without that, you know? Yep. Just everything's a lesson learned, right? Take it with a grain of salt, right? You got to bounce back up after those failures faster than you do. Got to think a lot of people don't understand too about the co issues. Like for us as a contractor, it wasn't about finding people, wasn't about jobs staying open. it was above material costs, you know, when they went up 40%. We had compounding 8% increases every month, right? And so when we were looking at every contract that came in, that was hard bid was how much are we going to lose? Y and when is enough enough? And I can say thankfully uh we didn't exit any contracts. Nice. We had no bond um polls. We had nothing, no jobs that weren't completed, right? We took it on the chin like everybody else. I think that um and we grew through co by 2x. So we went well almost went from 12 million to 20 million and and that was tough. Yeah, I bet. And trying to probably navigate through that jump now too makes it tough. It's like okay, how can we manpower-wise make all this work and keep growing things like that? How was supply and demand for you like everybody else through all that? Yeah, it was really tough. There was things like the commodities that we buy, PVC, copper, y uh were hard to get and we were threatened that we couldn't get things that we should. So, we had to bring it in. Whether that was real or not. Yep. The distributors had us over a barrel. We had no way to really fight that back. We had one one call I can specifically tell you we had a job that we had a $200,000 steel budget for and we went to make the buy and they said it's 240 today and so it went up 20% since they quoted us the buy price. Yep. And in the end we couldn't do it. We didn't have cash flow, right? So we had to buy it in increments and I think we paid you know 260 270. So in the end you can't make that up. There's not enough labor hours on a job to make up a 20 25% you know material cost swing. So in the end we got better about being purchasers. We have now purchasing manager Jamie who watches commodity pricing. We do bulk buys. We look at out past the end of our nose on what can we you know what can we see, what can we bundle. Uh but in the end the other things that helped were um HVAC systems got such a long lead time that the architects and engineers and contractors would have to tell us their projects that far in advance. Yep. Because they you want to buy a Libert unit for a data center, it was 52 weeks. So I got a 52- week notice of an opportunity. Yeah. Right. And so we get we would get to bid on these opportunities. So we work with some large carriers in the data center world, right? that uh we started being able to forecast and plan and we'd know, okay, we got five, you know, computer room air conditioner unit project coming up. Um so it started to give us more visibility. They had to start working with us more obviously like long lead time pieces of equipment, whirlpool tubs, specialties, things like that. Uh really the engineers and the and the contractors had to lean a little bit more on the mechanicals to be able to give them insight to those. Absolutely. Y so hopefully we got a little better relationship out of it and understand our value instead of just hey right instead of here's your plan inspect job go it go on to the next best of luck right one thing too that I can tell you is that we've seen the market constrict so much with acquisition and and honestly some a lot of companies went out of business right so when you in 2019 I posted a video on LinkedIn of the Andover public works uh bid opening yes for mechanical contracting scope there was 11 bids within like 3% of each other. And so, you know, now, right, to get three to four bids, you'll you might have a 10% swing because it's just such a different dynamic. So, there's been a number of contractors that have gone out of business. I mean, um many of them have been sold. I think don't think a business owner in their 60s would want to go through a co, you know, time again. And so, that prompted a lot of sales, right? Um so, yeah. Yeah. So, we see the market as a little bit less competitive. Not that it's going to stay that way. Um, but for sure right now, it's definitely weeded out some of the competitors that didn't have the staying power. How do you guys as a company try to reach the bigger companies that are out there, the bigger contractors to let them know everything that you offer? What are some of the ways or realms that you get in there? Well, um, just my networking, right? So, um, just trying to get my foot in as many doors as I can. And then, um, I mean, sitting down with my business development people like yourself has been quite a blessing. Um, as I'm trying to navigate this position, you know, it's new to myself and new to Davis. So, um, but getting out and networking, getting to know people, just having organic conversations with people so they know who I am as a person as I'm out representing Davis, I think, is really important. and then proceeding with um in hopes to get like a meet and greet or a lunch and learn so I can go on site and just present to them what we have to offer them. uh you know each mechanical company has a different scope and array of services that they have to offer each general contractor each project and um I think we have quite the array of opportunities out there that we offer um services that we offer. So just getting out there and letting them know everything that we have um to give them and you know let them know about our team behind it. Um, and then from there, just showing appreciation going forward and massaging those relationships and keeping them fresh and friendly, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. As far as the residential side goes, how do you think you'll attack those? Uh, residential is a different animal. Yep. But I'm here for it. Um, I I come from that scope uh with what I had going on prior and just re recently relaunched. Um, social media is huge. Um, connecting as we're coming through and you're giving the tour. I mean, I think we're gonna have to connect with Sun Control and get some good branding going on the vehicles and stuff. Um, word of mouth again, being present and letting people know social media is huge. Y I mean, social media is so such a big driver in um getting into those residential homes. Yeah, I can say the same thing. I mean in commercial space what we've been doing is really multiaceted. So yes, our project managers have their own contacts, their own relationships. So they've been working with contractors. The Minneapolis builder exchange is fantastic for public bid. So you have to, you know, my mind have many different arrows going at one time. Uh but the direct to owner work you'll never really get if you're just working for a contractor because you're subcontractor number 40, you know. So when we talk about what our goal was in bringing Naomi on was to start to build relationships with direct to owner with networking events and relevance because Davis was always the best kept secret of a sub of a sub of a sub who did a great job and never got a call back cuz we do good work. That doesn't get you in front of anybody other than who you were with. Right. So um I say the market was driving our demand and we need to be driving our demand and we need to be controlling our own destiny. So, in that sense, focusing Naomi on getting us in front of a new set of contractors, direct to owner work, just there's no bad meeting. Go meet everybody, tell the story, cheerlead. Yep. Because in the end, that's what we're here for, right? Is to just get more be present. Yeah. And I think if we could have five of us, we would do really well, which I love it, too. Yeah. I want to be out there like it's the funnest thing to talk about is why are you successful and what are you going to do to help somebody? Right. Right. building the relationships. It's enjoy. That's the the fun part of it. Yeah. My good old caretaker mentality, right? How can I help you? That's what I think of is the servant, right? You if you really truly breathe like you are helper of people, you're a servant to um that's that's the right mental. That's the right approach that'll get you long run. And I think something that we've learned along the way or I know I have as this is new to me, but you know, you say you have a relationship with a contractor, but how good is that relationship, right? So you might work with a PM or two or know an estimator or two, but how well do you know them and then the rest of their team? I mean, there's so many other people out there. How many new people estimators come in and you don't know them? Or you might know someone about their kids and their life and everything like that, but six new people are coming in the door, fresh out of school or fresh in the trades, whatever they may be. Like, do they know everything that you offer? Right. Yeah. If you look at the total adjustable market, and I'm making up the numbers, but I always try to tell our guys this so that on the premium so they understand it. If we see 10% of the market, I would be surprised, right? If we bid, you know, 10% of that, I would be surprised. And if we won 10% of that, I'd be surprised. So, I mean, we're sub 1%. Yep. If I mean it's so if you want to grow 2x 3x you just you've got to get out in front of more people. It's just math. It's not there's no science to it. It's or there's no art to it and it's just get out there and see more people. The relationship gets you there and then the numbers are what come in the end, right? Mhm. Yeah. It's blocking and tackling. It's like anything you want to do. Yep. Repetition, right? It's like your golf story. Yep. You want to get better at golf, you better go play, you know? You have to. But you also better put in the time on the, you know, and people don't see that. I mean, work is the biggest aspect of everything. Like golf is great, yes, but that's also a side of it that's bringing in customers. Like work is done out there. But just like baseball, just like anything, you have to put in the hours. You have to put in the time, but you also have to love what you do and be able to think outside the box. You never know who you're going to come across. Could be a really large commercial lead, but they're also residential cuz they own a house or they know somebody that owns a house and needs something. So the more people see Davis Mechanical, the more they're going to say, "Hey, it's going to be on top of mind when they need it or somebody else does, whether it's now or planting the seeds for later." Right. Absolutely. Which also, yeah, you know, some people don't in the business development world, right? Like we're not in the office. Nope. What's an office, right? I know. Just a place to set our paperwork down for till the next day, but we're not in the office. So people often question, you know, what we're doing and stuff. And it's we're working I mean 257. Absolutely. You know cuz you're out there talking like you said golf and I'm in booster clubs and all of that and it's just it's always getting resurfaced. It's always coming to or even sitting at the games for your kids. It's like see your jacket, see your car in the parking lot, see whatever it is. They're like oh hey you're some Yep. Let me tell you about what we do. Whether we're watching baseball, I can cheer on the side but let's let's have that conversation. Yeah. It's all the time. Yeah. all the time. So, how can people get a hold of you? What locations? Where all are your main branch locations at? Yeah, headquarters is in Lakeville. So, we're just west of uh Belleers off of uh 70th Street. So, people always know like just, you know, there's like Treehouse Foods. There's some pretty big manufacturing um which is a great facility for us. We have a lot of folks that are south and uh our teams don't necessarily come back to the shop, right? We typically distribute to them at the job site. So, uh it's been good for us. And then we have another satellite office in Owatana from the McCarthy plumbing and heating acquisition. We're looking at geographic expansion. We've talked to Mano over the facilities there. Rochester, um Sou Falls. Yep. We're starting to do quite a bit of work out there. So I look at it as, you know, where we are today, we're going to be a lot different in a few years because to be relevant in these markets, yeah, you need to have not just a, you know, PO box, but a relevant footprint. Um, so that's, you know, the really focus is to build out our Lakeville office. We added seven more offices and we're out of space again. So built yet. They're just already called for and his stuff's already there and they just keep going. Yep. We're starting to put two people in offices. We're getting back to that. Um, but it's a far cry from where we started. We were in Bloomington, right by the Mall of America. Yep. In a 1500 foot facility that uh we all wrapped around the bathroom. So, we got to know each other real well. Oh, yeah. And uh and we had actually had a printing supply closet. Nice. That I worked out of for almost a year because just there's no room, right? And you know, now I look at that and I'm like, we're in 13,000 square feet. Yep. In Lakeville. And uh it's just not enough. No. I'm excited to host some networking events. Yeah. It's going to be really nice. The facility is they're doing a good job. The building is owned by Guido Gleori, who was owner of Grazini, one of the Yeah. Yeah. So, it's his facility. TMI Codings is uh his wife's company. So, yeah, they've they've been fantastic. Um, actually Guido's been really good about introducing us to his network and Nice. That helps. Helping spread the word, too. Yeah. So, uh, that's been good. Um, but at some point we will want to own a building and just start build out a footprint cuz I said if we continue to grow, uh, manufacturing, we don't do in-house. Right now, we have a very small prefab area. There's a lot of things that we're going to need to do going forward that's going to require more space. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of it. No, there's not. So, and finding that space in the area that you want is even more difficult. So, yes, we're all kind of scattered, but we're a lot of us are south, but to stay relevant, the metro. So, yeah, I love the address in Lakeville. I mean, it's like it's a nice location. I live in east of New Prague, so it's an easy drive for me. Nice. But, yeah, a lot of folks work or live in Egan, Apple Valley, south, and Farbo, Medford, so it's easy to get to Lakeville. Yep. Um, well, it helps hit the smaller towns, not just the Twin Cities footprint. You can hit the smaller Otana, Farbolt, New Prague areas too. Yeah. Our a lot of our staff though lives north. So we got Forest Lake, Centerville, Stacy, you know, and St. Michael, St. Michael, and we just tell them, don't come to the office. Don't come shop. Like we have a work from home culture. Everybody's laptop based. They all have VPN to get on the network. Everything we can do, we try to do all cloud-based apps. Nice. Everything we do needs to be pushed out. Mh. And our team is really that's in the office is 100% in support of what's going on in the field. So we don't want them to have to come to the office for anything if they don't need to. Perfect. Let's push everything out. How's the adaptability? Let's say Naomi 3 years down the road decides, hey, I want to get into accounting again. That won't be the case. That's fine. We have had several people that have moved around different organizations. I mean the best thing I think about the culture is when you're when you're promoting yourselves as entrepreneurial that might be internal as well. Absolutely. Um so for example, we've got a sales operations uh manager that wants to be an estimator. He thinks he would love the project side and the math and all that and and it's like put together the plan. Being a small business, you have the the room to change for sure. Yep. Let's go. And is every opportunity that people bring to us is an interesting uh dynamic. I don't know if you met Miranda Palant. She's our staff accountant. Yep. Miranda came to us a couple years ago as an intern. She was in college and she just did so well and brought so many good ideas to the table for a very quiet kind of mellow mannered person, right? I'm like, she's got a future. We need to figure out how to hold on to her. Y and turn this into something. And now you just fast forward and she's managing people. She's building a thing. She's got ton of ideas. She helps with all the operating companies. She's got just an immense amount of of opportunity and and internal stuff. So, I mean, I look at Miranda as like she's my financial partner in the business. Yep. As we continue to grow and analyze stuff. Um, and a lot of people don't see those those people. They know who they see. They know the faces, but they don't know what's all put into it and helps build it and grow it behind the scenes. Yeah. Miranda's been phenomenal. Well, she's young, but man, she's got a huge future ahead of her and just a team player all the way around. I mean, I've went to her for a few things cuz I know she's helped like Jake with his acquisitions and all of that and has really helped um on the financial side with all the different businesses and she's been open to me just bouncing questions off of her and kind of helping guide me as well um with what route I want to take to move along with my business. So, yeah, I mean just a real key player Miranda is. I mean, but that's been the nice thing with Davis, too. And we talked about that in one of our initial lunches is, you know, someone might come in and like if I would have if I would have gotten the job as the AP and the AP, um, you kind of find where people excel and what they're better at and what, you know, where their heart is at and you kind of lead them over to that position. So, if I did come in as AP, I probably would have ended up over here eventually. But, um, you know, there's people that come in on positions and it's just not a good fit and they find out other spots for them. And I mean, they're we have great teams. Great teams. A lot of flexibility. I can talk about that too, like just as an example, our payroll and HR manager Sarah ran a daycare. She was in home daycare for 20 years. She came in and she wanted to get into a office administration role. Now she runs safety payroll, you know, certified payroll, all the reporting of the benefits. I mean, she's really got her hands on all that. Jamie Tobias, who is our purchasing manager, came from a graphics design at a print shop in Otana. So, she was um looking to get out of the manufacturing field, took some classes in accounting and and wanted to go that route. So, similarly, she came in as AP coordinator in the office administration role, now as purchasing manager. So, I think we've been able to find and hire really good people. Yep. And then let them flourish internally. I'll keep them. Yeah. Just say, "What do you want to do here, right? I don't care. You just tell me. If that's not the right role and something else, then let's go that route." I think people in the construction world don't understand that construction's not just construction with a hammer and a nail. I mean, like, I've had this conversation before. There's so many different realms to it. You could be doing the HR, you could be doing the acquisition side, you could be doing the legal side, you could be doing graphic side. There's just so much more to it than just the hammer and nail what a lot of people think. I don't want to grow up and be in the construction world. I don't want to do that. But they don't know the world is yours. There's so much opportunity in construction. And I didn't know that either. Grew up in smalltown Minnesota. All we had was Bayliner boats and I knew I didn't want to build those. So yeah, there's so much opportunity in construction. That's what I'm going through with my kids right now. you know, my daughter is really good in arts and I'm like she really there's a lady that is an architect and wants to sit down with my daughter. She's young but expos her to it now. I think you know anything in arts it's architecture blueprints and stuff would be phenomenal. Graphic design. I mean there's just so many different realms and I think for people growing up and people our age what you do now might not be what you do in the future. There's so much room to grow and change and blow up the world and be known and dominate that you never know what the right fit is going to be for you. And it's fine to change. Like back in the day, they used to be set in stone and do the same position for what, 50, 60, 70 years and never change. And hey, I could be turning 50 in a few years and be like, let's do something else in in the sun control world. Let's see where we're going. Let's let's throw it out there. Yeah. Yeah. I my older brother Craig is a good example of that. So, uh, he we grew up obviously single mother household. He just was, you know, hardworking and trying to figure out what he could do to to help provide. He went into, uh, went to college for computer science, computer repair, and then decided that that's not the route for him. And so, he went and got a job at an HVAC shop because he was pretty technical. Yeah. And spent 12 years as an HVAC service tech. and then left that went and got a law enforcement degree, became a Steel County and Dodge County deputy. Yep. For many years. And then when we bought Davis Mechanical, he came back into this world and took over working for Paul Davis as he was uh needed somebody to teach the the industry for sure and Craig had the right background. So he had a diverse background, had immense jobs and immense opportunity. But you find the person who's good, who's, you know, you trust, you believe that they can do it, they can be taught. Yep. And in the end, now Craig is the can be the president of the residential brand. And there's nobody else I would rather have run the business. Not because he's my brother, but because I know he will do what it takes. And he was just um nominated and and got the chief of fire department for Medford. And so he's got an immense amount of hats. And it's kind of that civil service like you don't need to be doing this stuff. No. Right. We do it because we we care and we want to invest change. Yeah. So I I see the same thing out of him. And um so again, you know, we can teach you pretty much anything, right? But I can't teach courage and you know, ambition and entrepreneurship and which is big for the upcoming world. The kids these days trying to teach them motivation and drive. Um, yes, the computer world, the social world, the technical world, starting your own business is great, but you also have to be able to be honest, have integrity, be prompt, be on time, which means be early, not just on time, um, but just getting out there and making a difference. So, when you guys are talking about all your different employees, are you growing? Are you hiring? Yeah, right now we're slower now as in today, as for about 40 days. Yeah. Um we know in the field world we'll be hiring plumbers and pipe fitters. We got an immense amount of work more work this year than we did last year. And so we'll be you know contacting the hiring halls but um from internal perspective we have an accounts receivable position open uh to help really obviously now we have all these customers we got all these billables. It's an immense amount of work managing the cash coming in and going after it because nobody wants to pay their bills anymore. That's another part of construction I didn't know. We all play bank for each other. Yep. Um and then we fight a lot and still like each other, which is construction is crazy like that where you're yelling at each other and the next day you're like, "All right, so how about the next job?" Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so we have an accounts receivable uh coordinator position that'll be open. Uh we've talked about project management. Y uh internally we've we've um promoted three superintendents in the last year and a half. Uh so they're learning and and you know uh the team is you know only Greg Batcher on our team who's our VP of construction has done this for more than 5 years. Everybody else is has been promoted into the role. Yeah. So as we mature and we get better I think we'll uh we'll need less uh support but um yeah just the amount of work we have right now is pushing us in that realm. But immediately I getting hammered from Miranda that I didn't have the sort of the description and the the job posting out yet. Yes. Um and then also a project coordinator. We've talked about that we need to get some more support staff for the PMs because they are many of them came from the field not very computer savvy or right have let those skills lapse and since everything runs off of Procore and email and um you know the world that we live in technology can be hard. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, we got that. So, these guys, it's it's quite opposite. Some of our PMs want to pick up the phone and they want to talk to you and they want to meet face to face and they want to do all that stuff, but they don't want to send an email. They don't want to write an RFI. They don't want to do the I'll hand write it with you, hand you the piece of paper, and let you do the work. And I would be remiss if I said this was like 60 year olds. No, these are 30s and 40 year olds that grew up in a computer era that just never really, right? Yeah. So, we're really looking at it from the support perspective. Yep. And then as we grow the residential world, we're going to need more support in office management and trying to help, you know, with all of the work that's going to be generated from multiple tickets, invoices a day. Yeah. Right. You know, multiple jobs. I mean, the cadence of residential versus commercial is completely different. Completely different. Yeah. So, I mean, just as a culture, we know what we're good at. Yep. Davis Mechanical is not good at residential because it is chaotic and there's so much stuff. Yep. That we had to build these other companies so that the culture is adaptable to that cohesive. Yes. Yeah. You don't see many mechanical contractors or construction companies in general that can do both residential and commercial. Well, right. And it's getting the processes probably set down in place in in the commercial world first. So then it can be duplicated into the residential side. Tweaked a lot obviously. You're hitting the residential homes and you're hitting the residential commercial customers and the home shows and everything like that, but you still have to have the same processes, right? Yes. Yeah. And it's for Naomi and I when we talked about this. So when we brought her on, I asked for her help and giving me ideas and and let's help focus on this residential. Yep. And then I realized like our commercial brand needs Naomi. Y residential isn't anything at this point, right? So, um, what I've loved to see is that you've adopted all of the stuff like she's Yeah. obviously met with you a number of times and gone through what you do and the networking groups cuz the the world is huge. We don't know where to start. Yeah. So, parse it down, find out what successful people are doing, you know, imitate. How do you do that into the residential world? Cuz I mean, you have products just like we do that are for everybody. It's not just the oneups huge contractors. It's a homeowner. It's, you know, anybody and everybody that owns or has any ties to anything. So, it's how can you Well, and Davis has really put an investment into our service industry, our service sector. Um, in the last, I don't know, 6 months, we've really invested a lot. And so, I've even had to shift from construction. I mean, I still have my focus on construction, but my hyperfocus is service. So, like making that transition as well is driving in the service, which is different from construction. So, it's just it's been a lot of learning and a lot of communications with people and relationships and just learning along the way. And I think that's part of getting to know the person in general because it's yes, you could go in there thinking, hey, you know, we're going to talk HVAC systems and then it's going to branch off into, oh, you own a home, you know, you have 12 homes that you own. Like, you're in real estate. like how can how can this flow from one thing from HVAC systems to service to now everything residential too and let you know everything that we offer. Yeah. And when you talk like HVAC and plumbing in you know the service the commercial service and in the residential I mean those are more saturated than you were speaking in the construction um sector of it. So you know the relationships I mean it just all of my position is all relationships you know and I love it. I am a networker at heart. I The moms were just talking about it at baseball last night. Someone texted me randomly at 10 p.m. last night. Where can I get this type of farmyard cake for my granddaughter on Sunday? Send her someone and she had it connected within an hour. You know, I'm a networker at heart. I love helping people. How can I help you? And that can be any gambit. And you know, and I just to keep growing that is everything to me. That's what fills my cup is relationships. Yeah. And I think the hard thing probably for you, just like it is for me, is you start being the more you're known, the more people are like, "Hey, you're the Davis girl." Or, "Hey, you're you're that one person, you know, to be known as like the the sun control girl or just being out there." It's like, I haven't said your name three times. Like, how am I going to remember this? Like, what's going to what's going to go out there? It's probably a good thing I haven't said your name three times in my kids' world, but but yeah, just knowing those people and getting those more in-depth conversations, being more personable, having that having that relationship, not just about work, but how are you like what's going on in your life? Like, how can I help? You know, driving people want to see people being successful, right? There's nothing more exciting to me than helping anybody out, right? Whether it's a community or just a single person and saying, "Hey, you're new to the industry. you're new to something else. Let's grow. Let's let's help you succeed. Yeah. Partner up. Yep. Yeah. That's what I love to see with you in all of you in the business development world working together. Like I went to launch Jason from RTL and I just listened for a while. I'm like this is fantastic. Y you're willing to share. You're interested in partnership. You want everybody to to rise. And I see that. Yeah. And that was a random meet up and Jason and I have been talking too um looking at putting together quarterly just business development lunchons. Yep. Where we get together intentionally and get just cuz there's networking groups for everybody but us right out here. So that's exactly right. So just us getting together and um I think that would be even more powerful. But more to come on that. Well, meeting with other people that are they might see it as competition, but they're not because there's a lot of products you have that they don't have. So, it's saying, "Okay, let's sit down and have that conversation. Let's meet with other HVAC systems. Let's meet with other people in our industry that are doing the same thing because we can help you, you can help us. If your system goes down or you guys decide to sell out, guess what? We're still here and we're still building that that network, too." That was one of my first lessons quick. Yeah. was, you know, I looked at people like they were competitors and no, I mean, we're together in this. We work with a lot of what other people would think would be competitors. Yeah. We help each other out a lot in the industry. Yeah. It's an eye openener when I tell people that we do work for Pioneer Power and Harris and um you know the large sheet metal shops that even have their own pipe piping arms. Yeah. Master mechanical, you know, refrigeration. Yeah. We we've got great relationships in the internal mechanical space cuz we you can't do everything. You need to work together. Y we'd rather, you know, take a little bit of the scope than none at all. Right. And that's been, you know, really eye opening for me is how much cooperation can take place. And yes, we are better together because we we all aren't full service mechanicals. We aren't all able to do it all. And and the market's too big for that, too. Right. And if there's something they ever need down the road, just like you do, if you don't have that relationship there, then they're going to go somewhere else. Then they're going to say, "Hey, you know that that huge contractor that I just dealt with that I couldn't service because they're too big or they don't cover the Oatana area or I can't reach them." Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I learned in my past, so I'll just share this week's story. Part of what got me out of it was um there was a large contract for the city of Minneapolis and they were all of their IT was managed by Unicus hosted in uh Minneapolis and and Philadelphia and the relationship was like 15 plus years and they put out an RFP for hosting a managed services and there was 60 attendees different companies at the first walk through uh first bid meeting and in the end what I kind of a CERN was like, I if you put the best of breed companies together, y maybe we can be better at a lower cost, more efficient speed, right? Whatever it is. And you know, long story short, we ended up putting together a consortium of Minneapolis, Minnesota based companies that could do the vast majority of as much as possible internally inhouse with Yep. Uh and the data could stay here where you locally keep it all local. Just keep it all in one too. Mhm. And the city of Minneapolis accepted our contract over UNICE, who they have this long-term contract with. So awesome. You know, I kind of look at that as like if you if you are, you know, a member of your community, if you're in tune to the other people in your network. I mean, we don't there was areas of overlap. We we don't always see eye to eye, but right, we all got in a room, we figured it out. We put the best go to market strategy together. We can do that here in construction. You just need open-minded people to do it. You need, you know, people who lead in their piece of the puzzle. Yes. And fully understand they can't do it all. No. So, do you guys give back in the community? How can people or do they see you out out and about? Yeah. We try to as much as possible through sports. Um, lots of our employees have kids in sports. For sure. So, we sponsor teams. Um, we try to sponsor as much of the networking event functions. Yep. Um, anything we can do, um, Gildas Club for Power Design, AWC, MSA, any of the charitable functions or arms of these, we we take a strong look at. Uh, last year we we u sponsored a 15U girls hockey team in Owatana that won state and did great and got us lots of kudos. Absolutely. Um, so I say we sponsor winners, you know. Yep. Right. But it's everything from, you know, like New Prague Baseball Association. So for my kids, uh, anybody that brings something to the table, uh, we'd like to sponsor and and try to get our name out there. So I good qu good, uh, story is sponsored new baseball association and a guy came up to me at one of the practices and said, "You're Jake with Davis Mechanical." And I said, "Yeah, nice to meet you. Who are you?" And he said, "I'm Brian Barlo from B2 Builders, one of the owners, B2, Brian." And so we sat and talked business for a while and he's like, "Who do I send my bid invites to? I got, you know, some upcoming work I'd like to get you guys involved in." It's just like you never know where you're going to meet, right? And there's another small mechanical contractor, TP Mechanical, and New Prague. Yep. That I've coached their son Tate on a number of different teams. And so I bounce ideas off of Paul and Annie. And you know, if we if we need some duct work built for us for the residential model, they absolutely will. Yeah. That's and it's all that cool stuff that comes out of this. Yeah. Yeah. I sit on a booster club uh well I sit on a few of them uh booster club board and I was looking at everybody's email and two of them are in one's with Ryan Construction and one's in Highark Construction and Highark's Custom Homes started talking to them and now they're sending bids over to our new residential companies. You know, you just never know where those leads are going to come from, right? Yeah. And then for Christmas last year, we did we sponsored I can't remember the name of the company or the group, but we adopted a couple fam well a few families. Quite a few families. Yeah. Do you remember? I'm honestly drawing a blank right now. It was Mike Evans group. I think it was adopt adopt one. Uh they're foster kids. Foster kids. Foster one. There you go. Foster one. So it's Foster One is run by Mike Evans who owns Image Mechanical Insulation. So he's a partner of ours that we work with. But yeah, we donated like 500 bucks or 1,000 bucks to buy gifts for a family or families and we find out that they supported like 1,500 families. Wow. Right. And in Mike's, you know, just been this servant leader in his past and Y, you know, extended that. And so then we did that. We've done um we did the steel steel county schools a ton of schools. Yep. um reached out to the social worker and she had a few families and she got us over the letter and all of us ladies as we started reading it, we just all started crying. But yeah, we adopted a few families within the school district out where we all live. Yeah. I mean, we have such a diverse group of people where they live and so you know, we get lots of requests from the different It seems to be sports focused, which is awesome. Um because I do think that sports helps build character, leaders and Yep. that sort of thing. But then, you know what we don't get, which I would like to see, is drama. Yep. My nephew is is in the plays like Oh my god. The work that they put in, set constructions, everything. Everything. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, I think about just in general, um, you know, speech, you know, any kind of a anything you compete or or do or build or develop, right? That's robotics, right? Any clubs that are out there. Yes. Yeah. That's the stuff that we should all be giving back to because we're we're building leaders and and and really enabling folks who are choosing to to do these things. They're not sitting at home playing Fortnite. Nope. You need to be a sponsor on Fortnite. You're building in Fortnite, but Yes. Yep. I mean, just getting out there and having those kind of back to where we were talking about services senior to sales, but just building those relationships and and being seen. Yeah. Yep. And I've learned recently too, a lot of these Habitat for Humanities are partnering up with schools, schools are bringing the trades back, which is phenomenal. Um, and just they're looking for sponsorship and I, you know, that's something that we're going to talk about eventually. But, um, yeah, the schools are all coming and the students are building these houses for these families and it's pretty phenomenal to see. I know there's a lot of high schools around too that have their own construction classes that will get out there and they'll build or help work with local builders or in the trades, too. just to say, "Hey, you know, we'll give you a discount. Do you understand that our kids are just getting out there and trying to, you know, learn framing, learn carpentry, learn electrical, learn plumbing?" Yeah. And even the little things like that make a big difference. Huge. Yep. Mhm. Yeah. My father-in-law was a shop teacher in Wasika for many years and you just you saw the erosion of that whole small engine shop, you know, classes and how everything turned. And so it's good to see that it's coming back around. It's phenomenal. We need a lot more people like we talk about. Yeah. I mean, college is for some people. I absolutely attest to that. It was great for me. I had to grow up fast. Yep. You do. You're 18. You're out on your own. Good luck. I worked in a sheet metal shop during the summers and and breaks and and I was not built for for working in the sheet metal shop just because I would get bored. So, I talked to the owner and he's like, you know, do you want to come into the showroom and start selling? I'm like, yeah, that would be fantastic. He was, then get get to understand what we do first. Absolutely. You got to learn the back end before you can do the front end. Yes. And so, I said, okay, well, I'll I'll see you in four years cuz I got to go back to college. Yeah. You know, well, even like the farming industry, you see a lot of people that grew up working on the farms and now that's a thing of the past. You have, you know, the the milking of cows, everything like that that's gone away. So, how do you teach the hard work, the mentality, the toughness to the kids these days, right? Yes, the computer world technology is awesome for some, but you also have to know, you have to be able to work with your hands. You have to be able to understand and have those relationships with people because if you don't have that in the future, yeah, your work could just be done by a computer. You don't know. Growing up in rural Minnesota, it's a conversation we have often is I mean our friends that lived on the farms I assume out there too. I grew up in Pipstone, Minnesota, but our friends my friends woke up at 3 4:00 in the morning and they had a whole list of chores. They had to milk all the cows. The cows get out there. Yeah. Doing everything before they showered to get on the bus, you know, and all these kids just they get drove down to the bus stop, you know. You can't ride your bike across the street without knowing if you're going to be safe or not. And I was riding my bike all around Austin or all around Rochester just hitting the gas stations doing whatever. Yeah. And so just learning that shift and you know we have to teach these things to our kids but how you know like hard work that that's how hard work is instilled in my peers. Yep. And now you got to teach them chores and know. Yeah. It's very true. What was your first job? Do you know what I mean? I worked at a golf course. Yep. Um well I started playing golf when I was really young. I started in fifth or sixth grade. So that was just always there. But I was on a golf course. I worked before school. I worked after school, during school. Um was always playing golf. That was kind of my niche. Um but from there I got into the newspaper industry, started doing ad design, did circulation sales, went to school at Winona State for business management and kind of rolled into all of that. So you you get the aspect of, hey, I have older brothers. I was out there playing baseball all the time. I was Yes. chasing the balls. We'd play football. I was always the one they were tackling. I was always the runner. But it you learn mental toughness. No matter what you do, as long as you're out there doing what you do, getting out there and you have to go, right? So, going forward with Davis Mechanical and everything that you're doing, what other areas are you guys looking to get into? Anything that you can think of off hand? Yeah, currently we do not do any sheet metal. So, that's a big piece of the mechanical pie that uh we we right now we work with, you know, larger shemail shops and that's been a good partnership, but I do feel as if at some point we're going to get constricted to having to do that piece of it as well. Absolutely. Um but right now it's been pretty good because there's a lot of bigger shops than us that just do one or the other, the wet side or air side they call it. Y um so I think we'll get pulled into ventilation. you know that side of it. Um, personally with my background in software, I would love controls. Yes. I love the idea of just like the connected building and some of the things you can do and that would pull us into electrical and Yep. Uh, again, I just, you know, there's so many companies that do that now and mechanical. Yep. That they take the whole MEP scope together. Yep. Uh, we're not that far off, you know. Uh, I think we have the right culture for it. Um, again, I don't know if that would be internal uh buildout or acquisition. Yep. Uh, but that's an interesting model for us. Concrete demo is a big piece of the puzzle for us. So, we have large mechanical scopes have demolition. Yes. It's not something even our competitors like to do. We could do this for other mechanical shops. Yep. Um, right now we pour all of our own concrete for pads for um the equipment and do their own cutting and patching. So, we could do a lot more in that realm. Um, there's just I I think the kind of Pandora's box is open, right? Yes. The problem is I say yes to everything. So, it's sure, let's do it. Let's bring it in. We'll try it and if it works, great. But that's that's part of growing. That's part of being eyes wide open is what else can we do and how can we do it and let's go. Yep. So we've started to do things too just weird stuff like um getting labels for identification of pipe and y it's you know that's a very high margin thing for a lot of distributors and my partner Phil was like you know I'm just going to reach out and buy a printer and y we're going to start doing some of this stuff ourselves control it. Yeah. So, we have now three industrial printers for labeling just to do our own stuff cuz it's it's just not a market that's very right saturated, you know. It's um and they're controlled by just a few large obviously they can print at the scale that we could never see. But, right. Yeah. Um yeah, just I think the entrepreneur spirit everything's an option. Yes. And what we have to get better at though is saying no is it's so easy to say yes. We'll just put some time and effort into it and then all a sudden I'm like I I I don't want to do this anymore. It doesn't has embedded itself out. We've got to do demo now on how many buildings. Come on. Well, I think that's in our personal lives as well, right? Like just Yeah. know is a hard it is personal boundaries, business boundaries. So like look at API group for example or or even a smaller scale Metcon. Yes. you know, they own multiple entities. They've got their hands kind of in the building sector all across the board. Obviously, API is the largest and I don't think there's anything they don't do, right? You know, at this point, um, but that model is well defined if you can be efficient in all of the different pieces of it, right? That's the biggest problem I think is what we have. And so internally again, if we can get to kind of a holding company or equity structure where yes, I can like manage the P&Ls of all these different arms and drive efficiencies and people working together and and using our own network. I mean, right, every meeting that Naomi takes, we could talk electrical. You could talk everything else. Yeah. Right. Yep. It's not it's not segmented. Um, you're really just a representing a widget, a tool, whatever the thing is. Here's my elevator speech on everything that we do. There's a lot to learn. Yes, there's just so much stuff. Yeah. So, I just think of it that realm when you get really good at support and you have good infrastructure. Yes. You know, you can you can replicate it into other areas. And I think that's the big thing is just having those processes in place, having having the system as a whole work at one complete location, then you can move it to the electrical side, you can move it everywhere else because everybody knows the ins and outs already. It's just tweaking it for that sector. Yeah. There's yeah there's so many sectors in the mechanical world and we we're in an aging market you know construction is the ownership of most of the large contractors or to you know there's lineage you know there's there's changes at every turn. Yes. Um and in mechanical sector specifically it seems like there's uh new company being bought or right going out of business all the time. Lots of independent owner owner operator businesses in the residential world. Yep. You know, kids aren't children aren't aren't taking over the business. They're just right. If you can make a good income, you saw your mom or dad slave away for 60 hours a week and put on a video game and be number one and do it all on their own. So, but they gave you that lifestyle. They gave you the opportunity. So we we see that a lot like um just anecdotally we talk about the highway 60 corridor from Fairboat to Mano. Yes. Lost five four or five different plumbing or mechanical shops. Yep. That were just single owner operator retired hoping to give it to their kids or grandkid somebody. Yeah. One day there, one day they're not. You know, it's the the business is just shut down. So, uh, I think again on the residential side, we have a huge opportunity to take market share pretty quick and 100% marketing. It's you just have to be relevant. Yep. You have to hit those people, whether it's it's the single family, the town homes, the condos, the associations, everything like that, too. Yep. How can people find you if they're looking to find you, whether they're a home builder or they're a contractor or what they are? Well, me, you can find me on pretty much any platform. Facebook, Naomi Sano. Uh, LinkedIn, Naomi Sano. Um, otherwise, you can look us up on the web, Davis Mechanical Systems. Yep. So, the website for us is Davismn.com. We are going to relaunch a new website because we built it in 2018 and we're so much different than what we were then. Yeah. The pictures need to be updated. I'm 20 lbs heavier and six years older. maybe lighter. We talked about this ballooned up a little bit in co come off a little bit coming back down to reality cuz we got to leave the house, right? Um but the residential side nextg heating and air um will go live the website here by the end of the month and hot water Minnesota is also going to be live here at the end of the month. So both of those are on Facebook live. So yep, Facebook, Instagram. Um, as soon as the websites are completed, we're going through iterations right now. A huge deal with getting the logos done. We're very excited about exciting. Yeah. And uh and we can start launching. But uh Ryan Kesh is the uh president of Hot Water Minnesota. He's a Davis employee. Perfect. Who's phenomenal and he ran uh him and his dad ran Kesh Plumbing and Heating and so he's got a business background. He's got the wherewithal to do this. And we had him in the commercial space for a few years and now he's ready to get back out. His kids are Oh, fun. are getting uh Yep. doesn't have so many little babies at home. The father of four and now they're now they're bigger babies and more needy. Money flow goes up. Yep. And Craig Helguson will run NextGen Heating and Air. Nice. Most of the market knows Craig as Davis's HVAC project manager. Yep. Running the refrigeration market. So, uh, Craig's going to knock that down and, um, we're going to back him. I'm going to try to help as much as I can just from a marketing and and branding perspective, but in the end, they got to be like Google geniuses. Yes, you got to be relevant on Google. Y, we figured that out through Home Place, residential, duct, and dryer and cleaning is every single Google review the phone start to ring. like just the, you know, we went from page, I'm not lying, I think it was page 20. Yep. If you looked up Twin Cities Dryer Vent Cleaning to first page Mhm. because of 200 Google reviews, right? 200 fivestar Google reviews changed the world. Yep. For that business, right? And we're also seeing that there's a very small market of folks when you get a Google review, it's like that 10 mile radius. So you need Google reviews all over the metro, right? So you have to be relevant everywhere you want to be. Yep. So yeah, as we're starting to learn how this all works, um that's been huge for us as well. And perfect. I never thought we'd be talking about WordPress versus Wix versus search engine optimization now. Wait, what? Google Analytics. That's what it is. How many doors you have to your building, right? No, it's interesting. I mean, I we talked about the hot water Minnesota and I'm like, I want to be on a billboard hugging a water heater cuz I love hot water. Yep. You know, it's got to be something catchy, fun, different. Yeah. Cuz people remember it. It's like, hey, your wife's hot. Okay. Well, that has nothing to do with Yeah. It's all because you have a thermostat. Yes. Yeah. Somebody's got an ad out that says helping husbands and wives fight over the thermostat since 1967 or something. And I just laugh at that. They're fun. They're catchy and people remember them. Yes. Y and that's exactly what we need to be. We need to be marketers. Yes. That's part of why when we look at commercial construction, it's really been interesting to see business development and seeing how you guys are now marketers. Y I don't believe that existed in 2018 when I started. It was very much project managers finding their own business, right? Getting to know a contractor because they're the front end. They're also the back end. They're the one that's going to be doing the job. So they close the site, they're done with it, but then it ends there because they're on the next job job site too. So yes, well and busy and the followup isn't there, right? The massaging of the relationship. You're always selling no matter what you do, whether you are in an installer or you are business development, you are an owner, whatever you are, it's always promoting your book and growing. When coming from cell tower construction, I mean our customers were Verizon, T-Mobile, USL and stuff. So they we all got an opportunity to bid those projects cuz we are their only construction um a few uh cell tower constructions. But I recently ran into an old boss, one of my hireerups and he's like I see you all over LinkedIn. That's is that even working for you? That doesn't even work for people. You never know like a to You're seeing me though. So whether you love me or hate me, you're still seeing me. So it's working. Guess what? Yeah. Yes, it is. Thanks for noticing. It absolutely is. Yeah. So, when you and I talked the first time, I was like, I felt like we knew each other. Yep. Because of the LinkedIn connection and just the stuff like just that that touch that you get that personal touch like you had videos, you had um you had struggles you had talked about and triumphs and stuff like that. It's like you feel like you're a person. You're part of it. But that's part of the social media world. A lot of people hide. They're just like all behind a filter and everything is all great and wonderful and having this wonderful life, but you're not hiding. You're hiding the fake the real stuff and that's what where the connections start. Like I could share a story with you and you could connect with me or someone listening could. You just don't know who or what you're going to share. They say people relate to a struggle before they do your success, right? We all can remember our struggles a lot more vividly usually than our small successes. And you never know who has those struggles, whe the only person out there dealing with it. So, and they don't know how they might ask, you know, you might have a little bit of a lead for them or a little bit of a breakthrough for them. And it's important and every failure isn't a failure. It's just an obstacle onto the next and to help you grow. So, here we are. Yes. Yeah, we are. One of the things that came out of when I left IT sales was one of the post I made was like, you know, I've always been challenged with mental health struggles, right? Just in general, like I put too much onus on myself. I'm one of those anxious people that in sales it was always hero to zero to her to zero. And I could it was never enough. You know, it's the consumption mentality, right? Always trying to outdo and you know, you always you just just, you know, go a mouse on a wheel, right? M so I posted about that on LinkedIn and said, you know, I'm I'm not off the wheel, but I'm more in control. It's my priorities. It's I have the ability to say, I'm not going to do this today. Right. And in the end, I get I started getting feedback and being reached out to by former peers and people saying, "We have the same thing. I needed that." Like we never talked about it. Yeah. There's there's there's a guy Jeff that was just this, you know, big guy, strong, powerful leader, engineering background, very type A. Yeah. Yeah. Reached out to me and said, "I hate this. I hate this job, you know, and I want to I like real estate. I like other stuff, but I can't get off the wheel cuz I've kind of put myself in it." Right. You get into a little bit of a deind. Yeah. And you'd rather deal with the devil, you know, than the one you don't. Y um so I get a lot of how did you do this? like what was the, you know, what was the motivation? What was the scariest thing you dealt with? And Yep. And in the end, my feedback to everybody is is if you don't take a chance, you have to. You never will. You know, you'll never know. Yeah. Believe in yourself cuz you can always go back. I could easily go work at Dell or HP and sell stuff. Yep. You know, it's not that big a deal, you know, to be part of that world again. But I would never I would never want to go back and have a no to be told your priorities and you know to have to sit through reviews and and restricted on growth. Right. Right. We're free thinkers. What do you want to do today? Let's go. Right. I don't know if I'm going to be out flying. I don't know if I'm going to be sitting behind the desk. I don't know if I'm going to be at your house or at your business. But let's be doing all of it in one day. It's fine. Everything's fine. What time was the game, though? Yeah, we're we're we're there. We're online. No, I think what people don't see as entrepreneurs as well is looking outside the box but not being afraid to take that next step. It's like yes, you get in the grind of doing what you do every single day and it gets monotonous, but how can we reach more people? How can we get out there and see more people? So, as a person, it's not just the podcast and it's it's everywhere you go. just being there and being present, putting that phone down sometimes and sharing sharing about you, right? Yeah. This has been fantastic. Yes. You know, it's like a relief. I know. It feels kind of good. I'm like, thank you for sitting with me for like an hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half. I Well, we appreciate having you guys on. It's been fun. It's not as scary as a lot of people think. And it's just letting people know about who you are, where you came from, your trials, your triumphs, everything like that. But to let you know that you are people behind the business as well. Yeah. I appreciate it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Great. If anybody has any questions, again, like we reach out on LinkedIn. Yep. Um emails, the website again, davismechm.com. Yep. And so you can get right on there and my contact information is on the website. But I'd love to hear from people who are interested in business entrepreneurial journeys just let's bounce ideas off each other. I mean I get a lot of questions from people that are in different networks like financial advisors too trying to sell me stuff but try to help growing and they're still trying to reach more people. No absolutely help with those. You know I've got a lot of people that are now it it seems like in you know early 40s to mid-40s people are they're buying businesses. they're moving into uh they might have bought in at the company that they're working at or they've got ambitions to and they don't know how to approach the subject. Right. Right. Um you know, a good friend of mine bought in at a at got a multif family construction company he's been working at for 15 years. Yep. And called me just to talk about how how did it work with valuation? What did you see? What's the legal process? You know, a friend of mine's buying automotive care, right? Um those are the kind of things I love to see. Absolutely. people being successful and growing, but also the younger generation in the trades or in that are just starting out. How do they get established? Like, how can we help you grow? Let's let's do this. Let's have that conversation. Yeah. Yeah. It's people think of buying a business as this Super Bowl life-changing event and it's too much and they get, you know, analysis paralysis. It's really not that big a deal. It doesn't take as much money as you think. You know, there's lots of people who help Yeah. And it's like a let's go bigger and better. How can we do this on a wider, larger scale? There's so many ways. If you're working at a company and you really enjoy it and the owner is going to retire, there's ways to do that. If you want to get out of the industry and do something else, if you got your eyes on something, so many programs out there. Yeah. So, we can help. Obviously, it's just doing getting there and doing it. Taking that. Yeah. Just feel free to reach out. I mean, Jake and I would love to sit down and absolutely just discuss life. opportunities and I mean just navigate the world. Yep. I live by the motto, drink beer with everybody. So, yeah. Well, you've got your dunk in there. I've got my bubbler. We're good. Close enough for today. Yeah. I said there's no bad meetings. There's absolutely no bad meetings. No, right. Because you never know anybody's story and you never know where they're at in their journey and what or where they'll be next. Yeah. I mean, you might inspire. Yep. You know, and always be successful, keep going. Yeah. Yep. Perfect. Well, we appreciate having you guys out and if you want to get a hold of them, please reach out. Let's hear what you guys think of the podcast and we'll see you next time. Yeah. Thanks everybody. Thank you.