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In this episode, Jack & John sit down together to discuss the strategies and significance of finding the right partners for growth in the home service sector.
The conversation touches on the pros and cons of minority vs. majority ownership, the challenges of trust, and the potential benefits of co-investment partnerships vs private equity. We also explore real-world examples and share insights on how these strategies can lead to substantial growth and operational improvements within the trades.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:51 Exploring Financial Options and Partnerships
00:07:02 Private Equity vs. Co-Investment
00:11:11 Benefits and Considerations
00:23:05 The Problem with Minority Contracts
00:39:22 Conclusion
A SPECIAL THANKS TO HATCH
Turn communication into conversion with Hatch and its AI Agents, ready to handle follow-ups, reminders, email blasts, and more for your home service business. Save employee hours and book more leads with the power of Hatch.
A SPECIAL THANKS TO MODERNIZE
We’ve been using Modernize them for our water quality leads, and it’s been smooth sailing from day one. Onboarding was quick and now every lead goes straight into our call center. If you’re serious about boosting your leads, definitely check them out.
Episode Hosts:
🎤John Wilson:@WilsonCompanies on X
Jack Carr:@TheHVACJack on X
Owned and Operated Episode #161 Transcript
John Wilson: The most important part is who do you partner with?
Is really hard to trust people when you don't have control. What if we just partnered in a way that made sense?
Jack Carr: I'm just going to throw this out here, John. There's only four cities in between us.
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We started with them about 5 or 6 months ago and we've continued to ramp. Every month we add 3 or 4 more automations. And my personal favorite thing about working with Hatch is Hatch comes out of the box ready to go. With Hatch you get automated, multi touch outreach across text, voicemail drop, email, and a ton more.
So every single lead that you have gets worked. Every invoice that you leave gets retouched and rehashed. And it's freaking awesome. Check out usehatchapp. com.
Jack Carr: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. What's going on?
John Wilson: Welcome back. Dude, it's cold. November finished okay.
Missed budget, but it was also 80 degrees in November.
Jack Carr: Yeah, definitely weird year. We, went from record highs in November, which, November record highs are, yeah, 80s, high 70s, to now record lows in November. December. I'm not mad about it though. We had a real big cold snap and, for plumbing and HVAC, we have been overbooked, which has been really nice.
We just hired a bunch of techs who are, you We really believe in we have a new service manager, that's onboarding. So we're really excited about that in HVAC, but weather's good.
John Wilson: Weather's good. It always helps. I think we sold 62, 000 yesterday.
HVAC. Feeling pretty okay.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Boom. that, that's halfway to your, now you're, your goal's more. But the hundred K a day, I'm, excited for ours. Yeah.
John Wilson: We, aim for about 122 a day.
Jack Carr: We're still trying to, I have my, meeting this Friday with our, accounting team. We're, getting closer to having that number.
you don't know how excited I am to have a number where I'm like, this is actually how I need to make decisions based off this. Because a lot of times it's just, Oh, I'm making decisions because I'm making decisions, not because I have an actual in stone goal for a reason that's coming through.
Yeah. So John, we talked offline. We have a situation which I'm not going to go into too much discussion on this podcast, we are. In need of not a huge amount of cash. It's really just enough that would hurt to pull out a cash flow Like we have it technically in the reserve or in our working capital But it would really put us in a rough spot going into january february and so we were just discussing options.
Hey line of credits with big banks you could probably get that on the line of credit pretty easily. And you brought up a really interesting idea, which we've been kicking around for a long time, this was another angle at it of not necessarily divesting, but, selling off a small portion of the company, but not for a reason of just picking up some extra cash flow, but more so from a, there's enough.
High level players in the space that you could get additional benefits almost like a best practices playbook from these Individuals, can you talk more about that? where the idea came from and How you envision it?
John Wilson: Yeah, it was funny cuz the moment I said it and started rattling off the benefits.
I was like, this actually makes a ton of sense, but it's also like pretty dang close to the benefits of P E. The difference is it's like operations focused, and real partnership. The idea is, and I, shot this over to a couple of friends cause I was just like, Hey, what do you think of this?
It makes sense. So as Wilson, we're getting ready within the next, 12 to 14 months to launch another location. let's say in the first year of that new location, I launch wherever it is, I'm going to invest a million dollars into that location. That could be marketing or, OpEx, whatever.
So a million bucks. Jack needs some cash and I'm like, okay, what if we just partnered in a way that made sense? So what if we co invested? When I think of the advantages that we have that smaller companies don't, it's outrageous, just like a company that's four or five times my size has insane advantages over me too.
So, it all makes sense. It all stacks. But basically the idea is like, look, if I buy my HVAC equipment for half of what you spend. If my service Titan is half of what you spend, if my benefits cost half of what your benefits cost, if my entire cost structure is better, if I have a more developed call center, more developed accounting, more developed HR, a co investment starts to make a ton of sense.
If we said, Hey, you want a million dollars, we're going to invest every penny of that million dollars further into your business. depending on the current value of your business, that's going to get us something. And then we bring our entire cost structure to bear. So that way, even though you own less of the business, you would end up making a ton more money because your HVAC equipment would get cut in half. Suddenly you'd have VMI, which you don't have right now. Suddenly you would get, A full HR department, better accounting.
And again, it's the same value prop that PE comes in with. So if PE was talking to me, it'd be the same thing. We buy better. We have better, better, it's all the same stuff. It's just moving downstream.
Jack Carr: Yeah. The interesting part though, is I don't know if that's true - PE is very good at throwing money around, getting, cheaper purchasing and good deals, and they have people in their office But where they lack and where, you seem to have a lot of issues on the PE side, at least from what I've seen, and operators who I've talked to, is they don't understand the operations side,
There's a huge value in those two differentiating items you still get some of the buying power, as you mentioned, like just in a hypothetical world where you went and did this.
We wouldn't get as great of buying power as we would have if we went PE so you get 70 - 80 percent of that but what we get is a person on our team for best practices who understands operations back office Payroll and everything that's been vetted and tested.
That's where I think it's interesting you actually get this best practices side, which on the PE side gets a tarnished name private equity in general, is known for, strip mining the business whereas a best practices group would actually elevate the business versus trying to leverage everything out of it.
John Wilson: Yeah, it ends up being a win because I started unpacking this and then I texted some other people, I was like, Hey, would you even be open to something like this? if I wanted to put a million dollars into your market, I will go further if I have a platform to build it in.
and if you're doing four or five million bucks, another million dollars, like you'll do 10 million that year or it'll explode the business. if I just put a million dollars in and started from zero, I might only end the year at two or 3 million. it's a huge win for me, but On the other person's side, they would own less of the company, but a lot of the expenses would go away or they would just be reduced.
because we have a better cost structure. this really is pretty similar to a private equity playbook. I don't think I'm inventing anything here. It's just, I haven't actually thought about this co investment partnership before.
And then we started talking to people and it was like, Holy crap, actually, this could be really effective. I understand the wind for me gets me into a new market, and it makes it way easier to get to scale on that market. I could get to scale in two or three years. and then the wind for them is they could still own a decent portion.
Their business becomes worth way more. and then they probably make a lot more money, just general take home because the portion of the, profits that they have, would double or triple.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And interestingly enough, I don't think at any point in time, at least for me, it doesn't necessarily have to be right. You dump a million dollars directly into the market. You could do some kind of subscription model too, where, it's 60 grand or a hundred grand for the next eight quarters. And even that would drive the amount of revenue we were able to produce on the flip side, the person putting in the money would get to see it rather than putting in a million and hoping it works, they actually get to see and have an exit clause if it doesn't.
I'm sure there's more on the legal side that I have zero idea of. So everybody listening, neither John or I are lawyers in this space, although we do talk to private equity and see this. That's super interesting.
John Wilson: It'd be interesting.
the biggest hurdle, and maybe you can think of another way to handle this, but if we think about the biggest benefits to me would be fairly straightforward. we get additional revenue, we'll get to open a new market and it's easier to start from 3 million than it is from zero.
Both: Yeah.
John Wilson: for the partner, the benefits. have to outweigh the cost of not having a hundred percent of the company anymore. that makes sense. you have to step into a minority position at that point because at first I was like, Oh, it starts at 20 or 30 percent but then I was like, ah, but at 20 or 30 percent the partner actually doesn't win.
In, that scenario, because I'm not able to bring my full cost structure to bear, I can't give all my resources. I can't share all my pricing. I can share a little bit of it, but I can't add my call center for 20 percent of the equity and, if there was an exit or if the business actually wouldn't be valued differently.
If we owned a minority share, one of the benefits of PE is the step up in value. So if you sell it, if you sell it a three times, but you carry 30 percent of the business, that 30 percent of the business now becomes worth a 10 or 12 times or whatever the platform is valued at.
So it gets interesting, but it takes majority. To make it all like the whole thing be of the most value to everyone.
Jack Carr: And that's the other, interesting part is I don't know many private equity companies that would come in and let you, you would end up rolling in a percentage into the firm, are you saying that you would be able to keep The current entity or that's part of it it would essentially become Wilson companies, but you own equal value stake.
John Wilson: You would want your shares to go up to the parent company.
Jack Carr: Exactly.
John Wilson: because that's where all the value is. if someone's value just stayed inside their location, they would not be winning in that scenario. some PE companies do try to get you to do that.
You're not winning if you keep the value in yours, like the values in the big thing.
Jack Carr: Okay. that's where I was. That's where my biggest divergence from private equity would have been if you kept it in the small thing and you really ran it as a minority stake, investment, it sounds like it would need to be a majority and then you are pushing for the private equity playbook of, hey, I'm, selling to this bigger entity later down the line when everything sells.
Initial investment, my 30 percent or my worth is now worth three or six of what it would have been, if I would have just sold it straight out at that time. Yeah, that makes sense.
John Wilson: Yeah, it would be fun if there was a way to figure out the minority thing. I just don't know how it works because on one hand, I remember three or four years ago, people were explaining this to me and I was like, no, I only want to sell minority.
And they're like, yeah, but you don't get all the benefits. And I was stubborn or whatever, but now I'm like, Oh no, you actually don't get all the benefits. like someone stubbornly being like, Oh, I need to have 51 percent or I have to have majority. that actually hurts you because your value doesn't step up.
You don't get all the resources. Which again, four years ago, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. But on the other side, I'm like, Oh, I actually can't give you all this without control. it's, a funny to look at it from the other side.
But yeah, it's interesting. I get it. We, started messaging about this and suddenly I'm like, holy shit, I get private equity. And I get it from all sides where I'm like, Oh, that makes sense.
If your business is valued at a three or four times right now, like it's valued at a 10 times the moment you do a deal. that makes sense. Like your net worth jumps. And then as a percentage, like if somebody owned 40 percent of the company remaining and they still got profit share, they would probably take home more money
Their service Titan will get cut in half. Some of their op ecks would literally go away. it's a ridiculous advantage. the bottom line doubles or triples or quadruples I think is the real answer. I remember talking to people and this is just like us doing napkin math, but I remember talking to people a couple of years ago and they were like, yeah, dude, when we sold, it was like 2 million Aviva and they're going to do 12 million Aviva this year.
And I'm like what are you talking about? And then the more I unpack it, I'm like, no, That tracks,
Jack Carr: we talked about it before when you were talking about buying smaller companies as tuck ins Oh, your call center goes away. So even though their net is say 10 percent they don't have a call center anymore because it's your call center.
So now all the head count and everything in call center disappears overnight.
John Wilson: I have friends that run backed companies and they're running in the 30 percent nets and that's inclusive of some shared services exposure. So without that, they might be like 35. And it's because they're so lean because there's nothing there anymore.
Jack Carr: It was along the same lines of, Peterman, right?
Peterman was saying when he opens up a new location, it was a warehouse guy. And one other guy, I'm sitting over going, what? Like you're opening up new locations with just two people? that's incredible. But it makes sense because everything else is, home.
John Wilson: What else would you need? And then each additional location. From the other side, I'm like, I totally get P now. like each additional location is just more distribution. So If I brought on another 5 million of revenue, that means I get to negotiate better purchasing for all my stuff.
I get to add better rebates. I get to drop my service titan users even more. I get to spread more cost across more revenue. it just really makes a lot of sense.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And so let's juxtapose this, right? So somebody who needs a little bit of cash.
They go out and they raise a couple hundred thousand dollars or give away 10, 15 percent of their business. what's the benefit versus, the model that you just explained and what's the, con.
So the benefit, is you keep more of your business
John Wilson: I think it's arguable, but yes, you keep control. so that's probably the biggest one. And I think that's the one that gets people caught the most is like they get to retain control.
I know that years ago, that was where my head would have been.
Jack Carr: you don't get to your size and still contain the same amount of ownership, right? the idea is nobody's running a small business and trying to grow it and taking on investors to stay small. They're doing so because they want to say, Hey, I'm 5 million.
This amount of money is going to get me to 10 or 15 or 20 and I still retain 85 percent ownership versus selling the whole thing.
John Wilson: costs is you don't get the benefits or experience. obviously I don't think I know it all like we're only in the mid twenties, but like chris hoffman's a great example Like they're buying companies and chris went from 10 to 150 million they're bringing in the expertise and the team that went from 10 to 150 million.
They will, walk alongside you for that. And that makes a lot of sense to me that becomes the option because yes, there's cost savings. Yes. There's all these different things, but somebody that just knows the path my point here is retaining control is good and bad if you want a hundred percent of a tiny thing, it doesn't really matter.
And if you're the one steering the ship, but you still own 85%, but you have no idea what direction you're taking that ship, you don't win in that scenario.
Jack Carr: I was also going to say the risk profile, right? we had this really weird thing happen to us this year, which, stops my heart when I think about it occasionally.
We went from a point this year where it was like last year or early this year, last year, whatever The amount of risk on the business itself Didn't matter I could cover it if it went belly up and then yeah my nets, you know My personal finances are gone. I have to start at zero, but no bankruptcy.
No complete destruction of you know I don't lose my house. Yeah, and this year we bypassed that for the first time. We're at a point now where it's like, if the business goes under, I go under like I'm PG to a point where, you know, that the half a million dollar line of credit I have with Ford, if that goes under now, I'm in trouble.
It's really interesting. I think about that when somebody gets to your size and owns, That's their entire business. the amount of stress that becomes, maybe it changes just because it was so long ago that you passed that point. But, I know that for me, the moment I passed that, I went, Oh, this actually makes me feel a way that I don't think I like.
And yeah, you're right. So not selling or not by keeping majority ownership and now having other people's money to worry about. I could imagine that. and, the problem
John Wilson: Recently, we've been experimenting with lead aggregators and one of the ones I'm most excited about is a company called Mize.
So what Modernize does is they do direct inbound calls for home improvement. it's a direct phone call booking, which is way easier to book and has a much higher book rate than an Angie's List or something like that, where you have to recontact them and try to find That customer modernize has a direct connection to our call center.
So that's been a huge one. It also has some of the services that we've really struggled to get good leads for water heater replacements, HVAC units, water damage restoration and water quality. modernize has been a really great partner for us.
So make sure you check out modernize. com. The problem with minority contracts, and I got into this a few years ago, cause I looked at doing this. this was like four or five years ago. I was like, okay, I want to sell 20 percent and I want to bring on some money and use it to scale. I stubbornly believed that I could figure it out, which we did, but I, Messed up a ton I would have probably preferred a guiding hand there, but the problem with minority contracts is they are not written in the favor.
So if you sold 10 percent to me tomorrow or 20 percent to me tomorrow, I have to protect my 20%. I have to protect my capital infusion and it is some dirty clauses like there's some, we actually had a, we had one happen around here cause somebody used it as a reference for me.
So I Googled it and I think it was Jenny's ice cream, which started in Columbus and became really popular She went to go raise money to grow and she sold off minority share. And a lot of these minority share contracts, it's a different type of PE group, or it's a different type of partner that's going to be willing to take on minority.
Cause, it honestly exposes them to significantly more risk because they don't have control and they can't bring all their resources to bear. So they have a bunch of clauses where they can essentially just take the company away from you. Which is what ended up happening with Jenny's. she thought she was winning by retaining majority, but she ended up losing majority for free.
John Wilson: They took the company because of some decisions that she made. And she missed her cash flow covenants. she sold minority and she lost majority. Which like, that was probably the most expensive mistake of her life.
Yeah. And she should have just sold majority.
Jack Carr: Yeah. And that's super interesting. Once you start getting into these contracts and legal agreements because they can go in the opposite direction. Jenny didn't envision losing her company.
She envisioned it would go smoothly that this cash, injection would help her out and make her sky to the moon, but what happens if it doesn't? And that's another interesting thing.
John Wilson: With majorities, you just walk away with the cash and it doesn't matter, they fire you.
Jack Carr: Exactly.
John Wilson: But with minority, you lose control, you lose the company. Yeah. And so she lost the company. it's a crazy story.
Jack Carr: think the other part too is it puts you on a timeline, right? So nobody's investing in your company just for fun, because they just want to own a small portion of a small HVAC company.
They're investing in your company because they want to return in a few years. And so it starts with this. Ticking clicker you have to return to them through some kind of liquidity event. And so that's also my other question, though, with the other way. in private equity, they have those timers, right?
It's a five to seven year horizon. And they need to get their money back to the investment bankers. But in terms of, an operator, that's where it gets interesting is it's going to really depend who the large operator is that's doing this.
John Wilson: The partner?
Jack Carr: This partner, because either A, there needs to be a long term vision where, hey, we are going to chug along to this.
Or, there needs to be some sort of exit availability because if you own 20 percent and you sit around for five years building their business, at what point do you say, Hey, I'm done?
John Wilson: Yeah. Chris has a mechanism in place and he, they're determined to not sell basically.
And He essentially, hey, we're going to grow the business together and then I'll buy you out at a certain point. So there's a buyout clause
Jack Carr: with a pre agreed multiple. Pre determined multiple. Yeah. Yeah. that makes sense.
it still incentivizes you to grow it. It still incentivizes them to help you. Interesting. It's, a super interesting space. I like it just cause it, I'm learning this, area that I've never, Ben, and it's extremely creative. The amount of deals that people are doing, how they're structuring and this is interesting.
John Wilson: Yeah. And from our perspective, cause we're still in growth mode here. If we're going to launch a new location, it is just easier to partner with somebody. the hardest part is like, who are you partnering with? cause the limiting factor is always going to be the guy running the business.
Yes. it's always going to be the problem.
Jack Carr: That was going to be my next question is, do you look at that? Because I get this question from people who are searching for business do you think I should buy this? What's the value of it? one of the first questions I asked is how long has that operator been running?
more often than not, we get answers. 30 years, 25 years. And I said, they're only doing 2 million and they ran through, essentially the biggest run up of HVAC in forever. more than 10 million businesses have been made in the last 10 years than any other time in the trade's history.
why did they miss it? the answer is it's probably operator. There's an issue with the operator.
John Wilson: it's always the operator. it's literally always the operator. it's always the guy in charge, just like I'm going to be the holdup one day. I was talking with somebody about this exact idea.
his name's Anthony. And he said he did it in a different space. And it was always the operator, every time. that makes sense you have to have somebody behind this is hey, I want to invest a million dollars and you're going to make my life easier, not I'm going to invest a million dollars and you're going to make my life significantly harder because you suck at your job.
And most business owners suck at their jobs, they're not effective.
Jack Carr: No, that's definitely seen it. A lot of the large groups know that current PE it's why Apex, is known to let go of the operator pretty early on in their process after they buy somebody out.
it's just because the operator generally is the problem. I laughed because I imagined that like old John, walking around with a cane like finally they're gonna be able to get rid of this guy He's been sticking around the business for way too long running it.
John Wilson: Yeah. I don't know when I'll get fired, but it'll be a good day. It'll be a nice day, It was, really funny being on the other side of this and I get it from all sides.
as I talk about us buying out other people, I'm like, do I go partner with Chris? I would probably make more money. it's the same math. I was describing it to these other people and I'm like, Oh my God, this actually just makes sense.
I would make more money. the business would be more profitable. Some of our cost structure would go away. We would buy stuff cheaper. it makes sense. I think the most important part, which I consistently hear from people prepping to do something like this is who do you partner with?
John Wilson: Yeah, because if someone's partnering with me, they have a good sense, like I'm easy to understand but that's where most of these companies get into trouble is they don't know who they're partnering with and they don't understand, the expectation after.
Jack Carr: when you initially brought this up, because I didn't think you're going straight PE route, I guess the other, option, is what, what is preventing. three or four business owners in the South, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Florida, from just all sub 5 million getting together and doing the same thing other than there's no clear leadership team.
And they don't have all the services locked in right out the gate. what do you think about that idea?
Jack Carr: About high risk.
John Wilson: I think someone has to be in charge.
John Wilson: Every, ship needs a captain. And what, would be interesting, I don't know, I don't know the way to pull this off, but like, how do you get better pricing?
How do you get more rebates? How do you get all that stuff? And how do you buy as a group, but like really buy as a group? Cause there's a lot of buying groups out there, but you're just like a member of it. You get a little bit of a discount, but like, how do we leverage enough to buy a billion dollar shop?
And that if there's a way to trade 5 percent equity and everybody gets into something like that, and then you all truly like, okay, all of your service type and pricing is now X, all of your HVAC equipment pricing is now X. That's where the value gets unlocked. The problem and this is just something.
I don't really know how to handle, and maybe somebody out there listening does, but if you take over a minority, you really have to trust the person, like if I bought minority into someone's business, we looked at doing this project a couple of years ago.
it is really hard to trust people. When you don't have control
Jack Carr: was, that the one where you put it out there that you guys were going to buy somebody a septic truck and then let them start the business essentially.
John Wilson: basically.
Jack Carr: I think we talked about that.
John Wilson: it was an interesting idea.
It's an interesting idea because it gives you scale without the work. But then the danger is you really have to trust people. And without control over the cash, I don't know how to trust somebody I don't know how to do that.
I feel like it's just a big potential problem.
Jack Carr: It definitely is, right? A lot of people use their businesses, just as piggy banks. if you look at enough people's financials and go through this whole search process I can't tell you how many times i've seen.
Oh, there's a forty thousand fifty thousand dollars slush fund Of yep. This is actually I
John Wilson: remodeled my whole house. It was three hundred thousand dollars imagine being a minority shareholder in something like that I'd be pissed and trusting it'd be crazy.
It'd be insane. That's a part of why the minority thing, is intimidating to me, you're really putting an insane amount of faith in somebody to, be honest, small business owners in the trades do weird shit in their financials.
Jack Carr: It is really bad.
John Wilson: Everybody. And that doesn't make you a criminal. Like my dad used the business as a slush fund everyone's company used to do it. But at some point you have to professionalize and most just haven't. So imagine making a minority investment in that, expecting a return, good financials, but they don't even have a bookkeeper, like expecting any level of clarity.
I don't think it's possible without control. you need control because you don't have to trust anybody you have to trust them to run a good business, but. With the money out of the equation, it gets easier to trust.
Jack Carr: Yeah, definitely. I've always said if they're going to lie to the government, they'll lie to you.
I mean that's a big one because You risk jail time to lie to the government. then you are, Small fraud.
John Wilson: Yeah. I've talked to so many people that are franchise owners and they'll openly share with you how they defraud the franchise of royalties.
They're like, Oh yeah, I started this other business over here. It does this one service line cause I don't want to give them this. And I'm like, this is wild, man.
Jack Carr: there's always ways around it. And as a minority, you have a huge risk.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Jack Carr: You're getting, defrauded.
John Wilson: Yeah. Without control of the cash. I think that's, in the thing where four business owners get together and share 5%, to me, that's all that happens do we get the true benefits of scale? Who's actually in charge of this thing and who's defrauding who, or are you all defrauding each other?
Jack Carr: Yeah.
John Wilson: Which is probably everybody defrauding everybody.
Jack Carr: only way you'd be able to do that is everybody have to go in with their pants down Open with full access and then you can see even
John Wilson: one accountant, maybe even just one. Cause you do have to centralize in order to get clarity.
Jack Carr: Even with that, it still makes me nervous.
John Wilson: I know. now that I'm on this other side, I find myself funny because two or three years ago, I was just like, oh yeah, it only can ever be minority. But I'm like, minority is crazy. I don't, know how they could get comfortable with it.
the only way that they can get comfortable with it is putting like the most insane clauses where they can take your business for free inside that contract. that's the only way they can de risk from all the stuff we just said. Because As, a category, they're likely to get taken.
Yeah. When I first heard that Jenny's thing, I was like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. And now I'm like, no, I totally get it. I would rip that.
Jack Carr: Yeah. Like the material damage is if bad decisions are made, right. You don't want to lose your money.
Nobody wants to lose their money. No one wants to go into it thinking it's a bad play. For me, the strange part is, looking as kids, I remember always seeing the Wolf of Wall Street and all these kind of, oh, hostile takeover and all this kind of stuff. I'm not saying I'm anywhere close to Wall Street banker status, but as I start slowly getting closer.
And dealing with more legalities of M& A and stuff like that. It is wild how much stuff people try to throw into contracts and like all this stuff. There was one on Twitter yesterday about, a guy went to a seller of a piece of land and put a clause in there that said, if you sell to anyone within five years.
I get 5 percent and I'm going to bring you this buyer, but like he blanketed that and not to just this buyer, but to any buyer you sell to, I get 5%. I'm going, wow, that is wild. people just, they don't read the contracts. They don't read the legal agreements
So it's wild out there.
John Wilson: if you're in Ohio and you want to partner, hit me up.
Jack Carr: John,
John Wilson: Yeah, it's interesting. We're thinking about it. It's starting to become real because it's January of 26 for us that we want to launch a new location.
we're starting to look and I'm like, dude, it would be so much easier if I took every dollar that I was about to greenfield a location and just pumped it into somebody else's business, their business would explode, my life would be easier. Yeah, I'm just like, make sense.
Jack Carr: There is a long 71 highway, 71 and 65. There's only four cities in between us. Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Bowling Green and then Nashville. So five cities.
John Wilson: Man,
Jack Carr: just saying, man,
John Wilson: I'm telling you 20, 30, bring it on. thanks for tuning in. If you like what you heard, check out ownedandoperated.com. The website's continuing to develop, we just added a partner's page. I think we're adding more to the blog on how to grow your home service company. So check it out on an operated. com.
Jack Carr: Thank you. To our 350 super listeners. Thank you everybody.
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