¶ Intro with Stephanie
Hey, welcome back to another HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where we have good conversations with good people, and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk. Stephanie Postell.
That was phenomenal. That just, she dropped some absolute fire, raw, real vulnerable. And just the story that she shared about hindsight's 2020, and having a business partner that basically fucked her over. what can you look for? In bringing on a business partner. Great part of the episode.
I love that. And also the idea around, you're gonna go through shit. Shit's gonna happen. Who do you surround yourself with that's gonna help you get through that so that you can get to the other side as quick as possible? And I mean, she had an unreal turnaround. You're gonna love that part of the show. So make sure you tune in, but we wanna hear from you. Leave a note down in the comments as to what your favorite part of the episode was, and enjoy the show.
Welcome back to another HVAC Success Secrets Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan, where we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk. Cheers. Cheers. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you.
Thanks for having me.
We had an interesting conversation last night.
We did.
Got a little spirited. Little fiery. Absolutely. Your story is incredible. So this is Stephanie Postell. She is with Anchor Heating and Cooling in South Carolina, first year in business, doing 1.4 million. She's been in the trades for 10 years now. In a variety of different roles, business development, marketing at the last company before this one, and operations manager for seven years before that. So been all over the business, helped in a ton of different ways.
How did you get into the trades?
I was a personal trainer and I had two clients a husband and wife, and they owned a heating and air company, and I said, I think I'm gonna go back to school and get my mba. And my client said, I'd like to offer you a job in H V A C. And I said, what is that? And I said, no, thank you. I don't think I'm interested in that position. And that was on a Friday. And on Monday he said, no, really I want to talk to you about this position. And it. was great. It really ended up fitting me.
He had bought four companies this was in 2012 and he was putting the companies together and he had joined a best practices group and he needed someone who would implement all of those best practices across the business. And so I started, that was business development is what we called it at the that point. And then it just grew into operations Manager because when you're holding everybody accountable to those processes, then. You become the operations manager that's it.
And we're, we were very successful there, actually started about 4 million and when I left we were about 14. So lots of opportunity to see growth, of course in a smaller company and how that goes from 25 employees to 75. Great experience. Learned a ton there. Definitely.
And that's one of my first questions then around that is what were some of those big obstacles that you had to overcome in going from 4 to 14?
Obviously people, right? Because when you are smaller, and this was like 2012, was pre. The trades being what it is now. It was still like, oh, you're an HVAC guy or it was my first lesson with the technicians was, you're the expert. And helping them put on a hat to say you're the one that is going into this home. And so you have to be able to speak to people and honestly, you have to be able to speak to women. And I'm here to show you how to do that.
And it was a lot of work, obviously, because they just weren't used to that thought process. And the ones that picked up on it, Became the ones that were more successful technicians. And it didn't necessarily mean they were the best technical technicians. But it was the ones who ended up being able to describe to the homeowner what they needed. And then the homeowner felt less sold to and more educated and they were more successful. So again, learned a ton there.
Also I'll say I wasn't the visionary the owner of the company was, and I'm an integrator. So it was great to have somebody that said, here's what it's gonna look like now I just need you to get me there, right? And so I'm task oriented, right? So I could we're gonna get a new building. Okay, what does that look like? What does it look like when you get a new building? And you've got to have your, CSRs and your call center down for four hours while you move, because it's June, right?
And we plan to do it in February, right? But, we moved in June. So those kinds of things, you just. As an operations manner, that's just where I excel. And so having somebody that had that vision and then I could just go carry it out really was a great experience for me. Again, back in that time, it doesn't seem like that long ago, but it was we jumped on with Service Titan or around that time. And regardless it was just software. Whatever it is, it was new. You're going from paper to digital.
So just a lot of things that handing out iPads to people, nobody had that. So those kinds of things where you just then have to learn processes for what if they get broken, what if they get stolen? All of those kinds of things. Again, just when I look back now in this business, I'm like, wow, we learned so much doing that. Definitely a great, experience.
Obviously a lot of positive things have come out of that. Now the title of today's show is the Challenges and Struggles of Business
¶ Challenges & Struggles of Business Partners
Partners. And that's part of your the, next leg of your story is now you've moved into and I don't wanna speak out of tongue on some of the stuff that you shared with us last night. Sure. And so moving in, you had business partners, you had the, you moved up into that other company. And then shit hit the fan. Walk us through some of the challenges and struggles of business partners.
For sure. I left the company that I was telling you about and was really recruited by a mutual partner, a mutual business friend, and he said, I have an investor. He wants to diversify and he wants to get into H V A C, he needs an operator. And so at first of course it was like, wow, that's interesting maybe too good to be true. And so I vetted him for almost a year really, because you're really trying to see is this true? Is what you're saying.
And I was in a interesting position coming off of this other job, and I knew the skills and the knowledge and the connections that I had with people. Looking back hindsight I probably didn't value what I knew as much as I should have. However you think when you meet with someone and you are on the same page that it's gonna go well. So we ended up going into business together. Keep in mind, my husband also is in the industry and has been for 20 years.
Your, husband, by the way. This ladies' rocks. This ladies' rock stars.
He's too. And so I'm very lucky on that side. But it was really a package deal more than anything. I had the connection. Obviously I could run the company, but to be able to have somebody to say, listen, I also have somebody that can do the work and understands the, technical side. And by the way, is also gonna be the license holder, right? So it's this whole package. And so we really were thinking about trying to buy a small company.
And again, this is 2018. 2019, so none of this PE stuff has even, nobody's thought about that yet. Starting it, starting, but it wasn't now. and we really tried to find a small company and we couldn't, and we just decided we're just gonna do it organically and and so we, did David and I actually got married February 15th of 20. And we opened our first company on March 3rd of 20. Wow. Yes. And and then Covid hit and then covid back from our honeymoon. Like, why are these people a mask?
They look stupid. So little did we know. But started the company and just went full, steam ahead went, to an office, then went home and we had hired a C S R that we paid the entire time for she was home. But we were like, we're doing this and we got a truck. We got amazing branding. We're with Dan now, but we didn't have Dan then but we had really great branding and we knew the level of service we were gonna provide because we just knew that. That's what people wanted.
And if they wanted, and we could provide it, we could charge what we were worth and maybe not what we needed then, but what we needed to grow. So, we did, we got started and it went well. And actually about two months in we were in a supply house and we came across a guy and he was fussing about his company ready to get out, and I got in the truck and I said, we're buying that company.
And so we ended up with about a half a million dollar company, and we ended up buying it and it really gave us the, kind of the bump. We ended up doing a million dollars the first year with four of us. We hired a couple technicians and had a great year. Did really well. Had a bunch of service contracts. We had a great reputation. We had first year, like 155 star reviews.
And for a small company that's that's big, and we got the reputation for it being David and I, and taking care of people and all of that stuff. End of that year investors there he's, in the background, but he is not involved in the day-to-day like we are the owners of the company. and we bought another company towards the end of 20 and Rolled into the next year quadrupled overnight, basically. And we're rolling. Had amazing employees.
Everything that you think a little company should be and how they should do, and people and culture and all of that. Firing on all cylinders. We had literally just gone through meetings with every person in the company. They were like, this is the best place I've ever worked. They were all happy. And in the background there was a little I can't get financials can't get financials.
And I was in an group I was in an accountability group and I kept going every month and I had a business coach and I was. Can't get the financials right. There's, something, but but we gotta keep going. We got price increases. We got people that need H V A C we gotta get going. Yeah. and so it got towards the end of 21, it just got.
Got Rocky and it hadn't been it had been good, but some relationships came in, investor brought in someone his own C F O, which was mostly his company, so I, what could I do? But I needed to see the numbers Because I needed to be able to run a profitable company. Luckily I had good crm so I could keep eye on that. And. We got to the point where we were having a meeting and we went in and he fired us. That's it. You're fired. And we were like, what?
And on top of that, we were accused of wrongdoing and Let me just tell you, I never lost a night of sleep over any wrongdoing, right? Because I know there is no wrongdoing. However, it was self-serving. Because, of that, it was written into our contracts that we did not vet properly, that we lost all of our ownership it was for cause, even though there was no cause. Yes. Imagine that at the beginning of December.
Right at Christmas time and all this stuff, and literally we're on this high because we have this amazing group of people who are performing like just amazingly. And it was really more a thing for us where we're like, we're sad for losing that. Not the money, not all of that stuff, but the potential of people and what they were doing and what they were achieving and how they felt taken care of in a company.
I, there was a Wednesday morning and it was raining and I remember sitting in the service meeting the morning before and I said, I just want y'all to all know that this doesn't happen in. Companies all the time people don't perform like this, they don't like each other like this. So you need to sit here for a second and go, this is something special. And then the next day that happened. Wow. So it was it was tough. It was really tough. And I think again, why we're here to talk about is that.
We thank goodness it was David and I and we had great people around us, but nobody can understand that loss. At that point.
It's, your baby, right? Your company is your it's something that you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into, to be able to grow and just have it gone like that. Because somebody's decision.
And also because we were disparaged in it as well. Our, reputations were, tarnished for no reason. It didn't need to be, if you didn't want us to work there with our profitable company with 505 star reviews and all this good stuff, which I'm not really sure if you didn't want us to, you could have done it a different way. But you can't tell that story. Until later. and I guess it, it really gives us there's lots of hindsight, right?
There are lots of things that we should have looked at differently, but what you find out once you start talking to people within our industry is that it happens more.
So, with that, and I'm glad you mentioned the word hindsight, because I was gonna say the exact same word. And so looking at. The experience that you went through, being able to shed some light and pull back the curtains to be able to help somebody else who, and especially now, like right now, you see a lot of private equity firms lot of partnership deals that are coming down the line, all over the place.
And I'm not seeing any one particular person, by the way when I'm saying this, whether the deals are good or bad, but looking at that hindsight, knowing what you know now, What are some things that people should look out for? What are some, advice and some tips for you to give them? So this doesn't happen to somebody else.
I think we know our first mistake was that we didn't have representation because in the time, We were like, this has to be a great deal. And were lulled into, you're gonna be owners, you're gonna get ownership. And so we were like, we're gonna retire from this company. So we didn't do our due diligence. So that's completely on us.
There's no question, but, I think also I'm sure that an attorney would've said this to us, but the way you read things when you're in the mindset that you are, so I never read, if you get fired for this, I can do this. Because I was like, I
¶ Looking at your experience, what are some tips, and things to look out for so people can avoid the situation you went through?
will never do anything here to get fired for. So it wouldn't have mattered, I think, to me, in certain parts of it, if I had read it. I just wouldn't have read it that way. I know what I'm bringing. I know what I'm gonna do and what I'm gonna provide you. So why would I think of it that way? and in hindsight, we both we should have. We, that would've protected us, right? I think, I'm sure that there are partnerships and, all of that thi that stuff that can be good, right?
Because there's a lot of money to be made and you can kill, still keep doing what you wanna do, making a salary and you got money in the bank. I'm not saying that isn't a great thing one day. Yes. But for us, It was like we had all the stuff, right? We, had all the knowledge and the relationships and we didn't monetarily quantify that. Yeah. And I know that it's difficult to do that, but we should have done a better job of that because with us leaving. They're struggling.
And so that shows you exactly where the value was. Yep. So I think it more, it's really just to be truly diligent about protecting yourself. And in some part of it is just to believe in yourself. That, that you can do it right. Because you have all of those resources and you've made the mistakes. So you probably can do more than you think you can.
A good contract lawyer. Yes, No doubt. And I'll, get y'all in a second. Just on the lawyer thing, it's like we think differently, right? That toughest part about law school is getting into law school and then they teach you how to think like a lawyer. We don't know how to think like lawyers That's right. But they see it completely different and their job is to protect you.
Definitely, and I wish we would have. But there's also things that when you get fired and you're laying in your bed at night trying to figure out what you're gonna do next, you also become very resourceful. And so I reread over my own contract and Googled a lot of things and realized that a lot of it wasn't enforceable. Like the way that after we left, so there was a non-compete there, but it wasn't written properly. And I found that loophole and so here we are. Here you are.
Not without more blood, sweat and tears. Since then no question. But also it's, David says all the time I, can put in air conditioner so I can go to work, right? And that's what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go to work. And I think having him as that steady and me like, okay, and I'm gonna figure out this side of what we're gonna do. That's definitely been the blessing in it as well.
So do you wanna read David's comment on there?
Yeah. So his comment, we'll put it up on the screen, do your research and join a group of like-minded people that will help you lead you to success on your own.
And I think both of, that answer, and then you saying the eternity the, part that makes a lot of sense to me is it removes the emotional aspect of it. Because that's, it's very easy to get enticed. Totally into something that sounds really, great. Yep. And even when it sounds too good to be true and you're trying to look for that, maybe this doesn't make sense. It feels too good to be true kind of feeling. But you're still so enticed. By what it could be.
Yep. I, know this is it's a probably a bad analogy, but when I look back over the time where I was vetting him, I also feel like I was being groomed at the same time. Which is, it's bad. He was, Saying the same things over and over. He was telling me how old this is gonna be. And so then I was like, okay, that makes sense, right? And then once you get in there, and then it's not like that, but you've been so lulled into thinking that we have this mutual relationship, right?
Then you start feeling I don't know. that's where I look back now. I'm like, wow, I should have seen that red flag. And there were so many as the time went by, But to David's point we were in a best practices group as well. Yep. We had some great people around us that when this happened, we immediately called and were like, what are we gonna do? And they could back us up and go, yeah. We probably saw the red flags too, right? Because when you have somebody like Lou Hobica.
Or TJ Hartnett, people that are looking at your financials that you don't have. But they see your operations, they see your your CRM but they know you don't have the backup, and they're like, something's not right. But it gave us really people that held us up for that time to say You're, gonna be fine, right?
Yeah.
¶ It Was Too Good to be True
On that DJ Harnett rockstar, Stephanie and David rocking, our Treasures of the space. Love these folks. Ella Webb, go, mom. Oh and also Stacy Fore. Hey, lady heart heart heart. In that, in, and the one theme that I've noticed from the guests that we've had on sorry, my wife is calling me for FaceTime with the kid. I should put 'em on the podcast, but. The thing I've noticed about this the women in HVACR event is just the community that is being built here for specifically women in the company.
Yeah. And I didn't say office women in the company. Yeah. Because it really is this, camaraderie and it takes a village in hearing sta Sarah Girardo and Lauren Vahey. Come on from Lady Titans. Yep. And when you're talking TJ, who, by the way, anybody, Flywheel Coaching Group, Is like phenomenal reach out to him. But you have these people that are in your court and when you can do that and you have this village, now you can have a better business sense because successfully is clues.
And if they're gonna be able to look at something impartially and give that, advice, but also, A hard, real truth on that. That's the other part. It goes into it.
It gave us, again you're talking about Sarah, like when you turn around in that space and you're like, okay David, you can go put in air conditioners. What, am I gonna do tomorrow? Because we can start a company, but I know what I was making. I know what you're making and that, that doesn't work here. It's gonna take us a minute to get there.
And I'll be honest, I. I had three really great job offers in the industry because of the relationships that we had made during our time owning this company. So when this happened it, happened right here in our little piece of the world. But we were so connected to other people in the industry that I had really great opportunities. And I had a really great job until about six or eight weeks ago. When I was like I can't do both, and I can't.
And we've grown the company enough that now I can focus completely on our company.
¶ Building a Village
that, was such a gift, because then we could start company and do what we needed to do, meant that I was working two full-time jobs and up till all hours of the night. Yeah. And all of that. But, again, here we are. We're we have Dan Antonelli branding. We have the best c r m that we could have great employees that are working for us already. We are, have a great reputation in town still. Those people from that other company are everyday finding us.
I like marketing and I do a pretty good job of marketing our company and all of that. And I say all the time God heard conversations that I wasn't privy to, and he made the changes that I never would've made. And that was just huge, thing for us. We would've wanted to have our own company before. And there were many nights that we rode home in the former company and David said, we could be doing this on our own. We could be doing this on our own. And, he was really, he's really the risk taker.
But I, always go back and say, we could have done it then. But now we got to make all those mistakes over there, right? And now here we are. We, are making fewer mistakes now. Yep. Because we, of the people that we know and the knowledge that we have, I can tell you, and I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm gonna say it. I called Service Titan because of my relationship with them, with Sarah, with Tom Howard, with a bunch of people. And I said, I need service Titan.
I don't need to be onboarded. I just need you to turn everything on and I need to be able to go to work. And they said, done? And You don't get that without showing that you know how to use the software, but without making relationships with those people to say, this is our industry and we know you're gonna be successful at it. So I had one truck, then now I got four. I'm getting ready to have six. So, again, I have a list in my phone and I call it my people.
And those people really they supported us all the way and they still are. And that's really our part and my part of being in this group specifically is that there's gotta be people out there that are having the same problems or might, or maybe they can learn from something that we've done or. Went through that, they don't have to go through it as well.
And that's the part that I really I, just wanna touch on because we jumped the gap there where we went from being fired and accused of awful things that weren't true. To now running a company. Yeah. That gap there where it's really easy to feel sorry for yourself, to feel helpless, to feel hopeless hurt, pain, anger, anguish, like you name it, right? Every negative emotion possible probably went through you at some point during all of that, no doubt.
At what point did you flip that switch and no longer? Feel those things as much and started to take action on what you were gonna do next. And how did you get there?
Yeah. So that was December 8th and so I would probably say December 9th is what he's gonna do, right?
I figured that was gonna be your answer.
Yes. Don't get me wrong, there are still days where I'm like, man we, started over again, right? No, we had to start. Over again, much further. We would've been 6 million this year. We would've been this or that. But again, I think you just go back and have to say, this is the way that it was supposed to be. And that those people around us just kept having those people that were like, it's okay, I'm in the industry. I get it. You don't have to feel sad like this is the right thing.
Things happen for a reason. Yep. And this is why, that is. But I don't think that I could have, I. Gotten over that without that support. And so, that was a big thing. But again, it's also part of having a great partner again just go to work. That's what we did. I went to work. I wrote a business plan. We doubled that business plan already this year. I wrote a I got us a S B A loan. It's still sitting in the bank. We haven't needed it like, That's, good stuff, right?
To be able to just say if we hadn't had all these things that we've been through. We wouldn't have been able to do any of that.
Everything happens for a reason. We just get choose what that reason is.
That's right. And you get to choose your response to it. Because there's no doubt that there could have been days where it was like we just might as well tap out, right? And you just don't have that. You don't have that luxury. You shouldn't, because somebody's looking at us to see what's gonna happen, right? Yeah. And, to me, I think had we tapped out, it would've been. Us saying you were right, We did do something bad. We did okay. But that was never true, right?
That was, there was never that the, next part was just, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna make this story? Like, we just heard Tim Tebow a couple weeks ago, and the, setback or the comebacks always better than setback, It has to be bigger and better, and that's just the plan that we have.
I love that. I think we could keep going on this conversation, but we are at the 30 minute mark. Try
¶ At what point did your mindset shift from loss to running a company?
to keep these to 20 minutes. I will wrap up with one final question. Yes. And that is what is one question that you wished people would ask you more, but don't?
Oh, geez. I don't know. That's a hard one. I don't know what, would they ask me that they don't
that you wish people would ask you more, but the don't.
How do you do it? I wish people would, feel comfortable enough to say, I wanna do that, or just be comfortable enough to say, I don't know and, maybe I see something that you're doing ask for help. That's the biggest thing for me is that if I don't know, I'm gonna find somebody who does. And, somebody smarter, somebody who's done it better. I wanna be sitting in the room with the $10 million companies, not with the $1 million companies.
Yep. I wanna be with whoever's bigger and better because they've figured it out. And so somehow I can do that. So, I think ask me how. Ask me about my marketing. Ask me what my TikTok is so you can follow me.
Oh, what's your TikTok?
It is Anchor Heating and Air llc. Cool. It's so fun.
If you wanna see Stephanie dance, that's where you go.
You're not gonna see that on there. You're definitely not gonna see that.
We'll make sure, we'll make sure that we get a recording tonight. Dancing. That's Oh. About that.
We're not posting that but yeah. Thanks for letting me maybe tell a little bit of our story because hopefully there's somebody out there that gets a little, get a little hope out of it.
I love that. I love it. One definitely biggest nugget for me out of this episode is find your tribe. Yes. Surround yourself with the best people.
Yeah. There is no doubt about that. And this industry is the best for that. There is no doubt that everybody is always willing to, help out and step in and, that's really what it is. Stepping in the gap when you don't, when you don't know what to do.
I think David. He's laughing. I think he wants to see videos of you dancing later. Enjoy. Awesome. Stephanie, it's been an absolute treat. Thank you for being raw. Thank you for being vulnerable. Yeah. It truly means a lot to us that you can you can unpack that and, help out.
That's secret's revealed,
right? There we go. And until next time, cheers. That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before You Go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/h v AAC revealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information outta this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person, so they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business.
Until next time, cheers.