From HandyMan to 100 Employees 4K

all right good morning you guys today we're going to be heading into Montgomery Brinkman and this is a guy his name is John he um his name is John hey is John around yes all right John how are you how's it going St good I was just telling these guys you were a handyman and now you went from from 1999 to in 20 years 24 years to over 100 employees on staff 100 employees on staff and you're going to give us a tour and tell us how you did this yeah for sure all right yeah so we have uh multiple companies in here so we have armor mechanical it's MB companies armor mechanical Montgomery Brinkman rapid restoration ma Building Services and strap lizard so this is kind of a central office that handles everything for all that so okay so you sound like a Serial entrepreneur if I've ever heard of one yep okay yep so we did this build out we do construction so so this is kind of like an example of some of the stuff you do like you built this kitchen as a example on site all the cabinets were built here just built a little cabinet wood shop and and did it all on site so okay but you offer so many different Services where this is getting kind of crazy right y all right um because you do build outs of businesses you also do Property Maintenance y you have excavators here you have over 100 trucks yeah a couple hundred pieces of equipment and uh from many we do everything everything we got licenses and just about every trade we don't do fire sprinkler and we don't do Roofing but everything else that we can we can do right here so and you started as a handyman a solar preneur 1999 my first was to wash a deck and I had to go to the library back then toig get a book to figure out uh how to wash how to wash a deck so I bought a pressure washer with my first pay from there I was still working a fulltime J job bought a pressure washer and it just kept on buying equipment buying equipment so and never giving up no where are we going next we're going to go show you just a little wood shop so the Carpenters and guys just need some area to go to just to cut something sometimes or make a wedge for a Tripper in a parking lot we just cut a triangle and paint it yellow and screw it down this is little shop we got best system and all the tools to do it here so consult design manage I'm looking at this that was old that's that's from yeah that's from 2002 okay y so really you're still a handyman but you're kind of like a handyman on steroids yeah I customize a lot of stuff I'm going to shop here so okay so I kind of like building stuff so we're building a table from my office right now all lot of iron all the steel and plasma cut in the table so this is your maintenance shop yep so we got three full-time mechanics working on like 100 trucks and a couple hundred pieces of equipment so yeah stay busy so we got a pin that's worn out on this on the jack hammer we got to replace the pin this whole Carriage is coming off just to replace the ring gear on it cuz we had a couple bolt Shear on it so we had to build a jig like this a lifting apparatus be to lift it safely so yeah we got brakes and shears and plasma cutter over here and can pretty much make anything we want to make okay but you took your handyman service and you started to compete against me and snow plowing think about snow plowing in La care you can go anywhere in the city on a route snow plowing we stay right within a mile and a half of our place here so we can drive all of our equipment right out of here we don't leave any any equipment on site everything comes back and gets washed and we want to just keep our guys busy we want to keep our lawn ha care guys busy we want to keep our concrete guys busy so we picked up snow removal to do that so let me put in this vsi system for making BR so this is the big dog bride maker I was going to get this it's way overkill for what I need uh there's your tank one tank two you have outside tanks but you built this entire system as well not the actual bride maker but all of the plumbing it's right to the point where you hit a button and everything just does it for you so we put a big sprinkler valve in we bought a 2in line in because we the biggest thing is the speed so I can push the button our water automatically fills to a certain level on us so a guy can go get another bucket and dump a bucket of salt in here and we wanted to just keep on rotating it around until our solidity gets up in up I don't want to put words in your mouth John but let's walk let's I want to show the because you got a big shop here I've been to plenty of pretty successful business ventures and one of the things I've always noticed is it starts with a guy like you with a vision but then he creates a team and without his team his business wouldn't fun no I can't do anything without the team they're they're who it is they're MB companies so we got my daughter right here hi okay and Ashley's working on strap lizard so we got just a group of you know good people so as a serial entrepreneur strap blizzard is another new one you just started yeah yeah y so strap blizzard formed I'm watching my guys tie up straps and they either had to untangle them like I did or they have to spend the time to wrap them up so I'm like there got to be a better way plus the damage was just like you're wrecking straps so show me so show me strap wizard so this is brand new for you yeah this is brand new so this is a strap lizard okay so what you do is you can and you have a booth set up cuz you're going to trade show we're going to trade shows yep so this goes he's got lighting he's shooting videos and I'm just taking you so step by step show me strap so strap lizard is here okay and so what it does is it takes your existing strap up this model goes up to an inch and 38 y 16 ft long 20 ft if you get a smaller capacity strap but you can take 3 ft out if you want to or 6 ft or whatever you want so your existing straps in here here so it doesn't you can save your straps I'm saving so much money on straps now and time so if I want to strap a load down I can just strap it in here strap it up now I got to tie up this tail of 16 ft now all I got to do is just wind it up it's that fast it goes through I can wind it up and I can clip it on now I run down the road I get to where I'm going go back into storage it doesn't get thrown in the back of my truck like it used to and gets wet and damaged and put it in the St [Music] storage wrap this up now these go behind the seat in my truck where these are going so so as a serial entrepreneur I'm guessing you can never shut your mind I know no it's always going okay yeah it's always going on something so yeah I needed a new we got all the businesses running and I needed this new passion and I'm like this is a passion for me now as strap lizard and everything else we do but so you we're saying you have almost 40 Grand just in fuel expense every month fuel a month yeah just in fuel a month y we're running a lot of equipment we got a lot of bobcats a lot of loaders all the all the service calls we do we do about 15,000 service calls a year not including all the jobs and all the other work so make our own shirts not our own shirts but we do all the sublimation and transfer on all of our stuff everything in house well I wanted to keep the labor here main thing is keeping our guys busy okay so I wanted protect the families and keep them busy and give them the best P I can what are we looking at over here we're going into dispatch okay so this is dispatching all the work orders be8 a.m all right do you have a so this is what number would I call you dispatch or workers are on here you can scroll up and down and see the workers and these are work orders from each day Red's been suspended White's not done yet Grays are all done we'll see you then let we go any further byebye no you're good okay I don't even know where to begin I mean how do you how do you manage all this good people right here how's it going I'm nice to meet you I've known John for 40 years plus how many 40 40 years and I've U Been I'm only 36 also so I mean I don't know how you I'm 39 that's that's that's the key all right all right all right I got you we're we're good we we've been go we go way back yeah family family so he runs the dispatch and all the guys and so yep and then reporting on everything we report everything to the customer so go ahead if we got a customer calls and says they got a stop sign down on the parking lot we'll take a picture of the stop sign beforehand we'll fix the stop sign a service call will be made up we'll fix the stop sign we'll send them a picture of before and after with a description of what we did that was one of their biggest complaints they knew we could get the work done it just didn't know that it got done so we have Implement is how do you organize all cuz you do so many different jobs I mean it's easy to streamline if you do one thing and one thing well but what I'm looking at John is you do something that I've never seen any other business do and that's take everything in under your umbrella cuz let's keep going here y cuz we've got yeah built a wash P because we we have to have somewhere to wash our equipment but how do you organize it how do you keep good people it's all about people it's all about good people I mean so without that pay paying them right and get them all got all insurance is good retirement and and uh we just got to do that you got to give it up somewhere and what are we looking at in here now this is rapid restoration so this is fire water storm damage so working for insurance companies we're not stormchasers we work for insurance companies and this is drying equipment Fire Equipment all types of cleaning over here commercial washer dryer so guys guys what you're looking at I believe now I haven't even talked to John about this but I think this is an example of what a top down management system would be you you're not a Hubb and spoke a Hubb and spoke means you're in the center and you're managing everybody around you instead I'm guessing you're up here and you probably manage eight people that's the number and those are the that's eight yeah okay and then those people all have the people that they manage below them and then they have the different divisions inside of your organization my management style wasn't really a management style I'm I mean it is but I'm telling them I ask my people what do you want me to do I'm not telling them what to do we do that the biggest thing is what do I need to do to help you so if I got to go meet somebody or I got to do something they'll tell me hey John you got to go over and see this it's a very very important part of our growth is to be able to have that not be the boss and be over people it's be with them that's my biggest thing be with the people they tell me what to do I tell them what to do it's a good relationship and we just excel at it yeah so if you were going to go back in time to you what would you change what would you tell yourself to streamline the process what would you do differently John I don't think there's any answer for fast growth or would you even worry about fast growth no okay no slow growth is way better fast growth is like this fast fall is the same way it's like this steps that go up my growth I can lose a step and it's not going to affect me and I can you know what I mean so I I can grow how and just grow so strap wizard was the way I don't want to overell or or over commit to something that we can't produce so I mean I'd rather produce the amount that we can sell and not get into a a issue where uh we can't keep up because a lost sale is worse than no sale lost sale gives people opportunity to talk about what you did to them a no sale is no sale never no sale they didn't see it so okay so yeah it's been it's been uh well there's so many guys struggling in their business right they don't know how to grow they don't know how to manage they don't even know what the next step is is there a resource or any kind of information or advice you could give these guys to help them yeah my my biggest thing was you know you got the Nike was to just do it I'm more just do you just got to go to work every day and you got to do it and you got to be consistent and you got to not hog the money you hog the money there won't be any money there to buy equipment cuz the equipment is my biggest resource people of course are but I mean equipment's right there where it's the biggest resource where I need to be able to have the equipment to do the job but if I don't have the money to buy the equipment so you you think people make the mistake of worrying about paying themselves before they pay the business or reinvest into the business yeah we're buying $100,000 bullet when I should buy a $100,000 piece of equipment agreed I I cannot agree with you more on that John I mean that's how I built my business was sacrificing my personal income to make to go buy that that skid loader to go buy that loader to buy going produce dollar boat's not going to produce dollars it's going to consume dollars right my boat was a 1986 Smoker Craft that I got from my dad all right so not nothing wrong with fishing nothing wrong with nice boats no so if you guys have questions put them in the comments down below and I'm John I'm going to ask you when the video comes out maybe you could help some of these guys understand what they can do or how they're doing it or you know any question you guys seen but that's John's shop so John I just want to say thank you thank you for showing me all of everything and you're and taking me through the process of how you grew from a handyman to over a 100 employees and still going strong in just two decades yep so all good and there's the one that got brought me in right there he is right there he seen you at Menards or something didn't he yeah yeah yeah we R into each other at Manards and that's where this journey came from and he he's been texting me about strap lizard so how are you you guys related are you related or no just co-workers friends yep yeah okay been together I've been here for 11 years now so all right y all right that that kind of goes a long way so if you have an employee that's looking out for you because obviously he was cuz that's how we got connected was Donald started to text me hey I we got scrap lizard we got this we got that and so we we were talking and you know if you were just doing a 9 to-5 job that's a completely different thing yeah we're a little more transparent so he he knows how much the company makes on a monthly basis he knows I mean a lot of a lot of my guys do so that way they know and I just I share when they they know they're getting bonuses when when they know we're doing good so I mean that's kind of the way it goes so just a partnership in the business but not on paper huh yeah so I like that that's a smart way to do it a partnership on business but not on paper yeah yeah so just treat them like a partner give them as as much as you can give y I like that that's smart well all right that's going to do it for this video again John thank you Donald thank you for bringing me out thanks for coming out and and you are I'm Doug Doug all right and that's this the tour of the MB companies the MB companies God bless you guys go get them