Contractors Unleashed: Insights from the Founder of a Massive Facebook Group, Pest Control Expert, and Payment Processing Specialist Live from Houston

We are live at Rowdy's for the Contractors Network, the Homeowner Show. Glad you joined us tonight, and, uh, man, we're gonna have a good show tonight, right?

That is the goal.

Well, we'll see what happens. It's me and Craig. Welcome to our show. We're glad you're here.

The most well-planned live show ever hosted on the internet.

That's right, but we're here, we made it.

That's right. You've even got some, uh, some Homeowner Show swag on there.

I do, yeah, I'm wearing— I can't even see it because the— here we go, is that better? You can see it now?

Yeah, you can see it.

We have not really—

We haven't pushed the swag in a while.

But you can go on our—

You can buy it on Amazon.

Well, yeah, and it's linked on every single one of our episodes. So if you're listening to one of our episodes, just go to the show notes right down there, buy a homeowner's t-shirt. It's like $15 or something. It's like, it's a nice shirt too.

Yeah, absolutely. So Anyway, so speaking of, speaking of paying the bills. Yes, we need to pay the bills. This particular episode is brought to you by Lone Star Appliance Repair. That's right. My good friend Sarah owns that company. She saved my life once.

She did.

Saved my life. Yeah, from a gas dryer.

Well, you're gonna have to tell more than that.

No, no, no, I'm gonna save it for later.

Okay.

I'm gonna titillate.

In case you're wondering, There's the phone number, 936-647-2364, and we are very thankful that they are sponsoring tonight's event.

Yeah, so you spend some money with them because it's cheaper to repair your appliance than it is to go buy a new one, especially these days.

It really is.

So, no doubt about that. Especially this guy knows what I'm talking about because he's moving. You're having to buy some appliances, aren't you? Well, we already moved. You already moved? Yeah, we already moved. Did you buy the appliances already? No, we're renting our new spot. Okay. But I left all the appliances that I did I did buy at my house for the next renters, so good for them. So are you renting or did you own the last one and someone else is going to be renting it out? So originally, I had rented my last house and then I was able to buy it. And we lived there for 5 years and built 2 apartments in the back. And now we're moving— now we have moved out of that house and we're

going to rent that house. Okay, nice. Good move. Yep, it's, uh, it should be pretty good. We're hoping that this can jumpstart some of our next chapters, chapters that we're, we're trying to open. Okay. Do you already have, do you already have it rented? It will be rented on May 1st. That's tough to beat. Yeah, yeah, no, it's good.

2 things first. Number one, we should let everybody know who this is. First of all, so Christian Scott, and Christian is the owner, founder of the Feast, founder of the Contractor Network, which has how many at this point? How many, how many members are in?

So there's 47,000 right now. That is—

y'all, okay, first of all, I only have 46,000 best friends. Well, yeah. Yes. Yes, he does. If you've never started a Facebook page for anything, a group or anything like that, like getting that many people in a group is phenomenal. So congrats, dude. That is huge. The second thing real quick—

And not having it turn into political anarchy. Yeah, well, it's done that a couple times, so we kind of step in and moderate as much as I can/want to.

And, uh, well, you have someone full-time working on this thing too, right? Like, so that's awesome. Um, the other thing I should say is that Bud Light should really be sponsoring tonight's event as well, because in all the backgrounds, right there, it is in every single one of our—

Yeah, it's in the shot.

It's in the shot of every single thing, but they're not paying us a dime.

Guerrilla marketing right there.

This is ridiculous.

So anyway, well, I'd say, so you're moving into a new spot.

Yep.

So I'll tell you, you need to jump on the feed and leave a comment because tonight we're giving away all that Lutron stuff right behind you. All of it. It's a full house setup for smart lighting. Have you played around with that stuff at all? I haven't. I haven't had the opportunity yet. I only get the opportunities that the customers let me. Oh, okay. Well, dude, you need to get in on that action. Yeah, I'm definitely going to. So, and let everybody know, all they gotta do is jump on the feed, leave a comment. I tell you what would work for everybody here is to jump on the feed and like tag their business. Yeah. Okay, that's what I've had the best. Yeah. Yeah, I have that. And so you get, you get the people recognize who you are,

what you do, but also you get the chance to win some Lutron stuff.

Yeah, that's not just some Lutron, like a whole—

yeah, that's the whole setup.

We, we probably added it up and we got— I mean, our friends over at Lutron are really hooking us up with this for sure. They, they are, they are amazing. They have a great product, which is something that we love to promote, but There's probably $250, $300 worth of— maybe more than that.

Maybe more than that, yeah. Of products over there. I mean, like, that outdoor plug alone is like $100.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's nuts.

Yeah, there's a whole, like, wireless bridge setup with multiple— there's all kinds of stuff over there. So we'll—

And they want us to make sure and mention that you can purchase these at Home Depot, Lowe's, pretty much all the big hardware stores.

And one of their new things is they've got new colors coming. Like, all the new colors are out. Well, you mean the colors of the switches? Yeah, so they got like black, brown, gray, they got like a blue, I think a white, and an ivory. Okay, all kinds of—

because it's been nothing but white. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now they've got like all the colors. Yeah, which is amazing. Cool.

So where are you moving to? Uh, we moved to Rosenberg. Okay. Or actually, we moved to Beasley. Beasley, more south than Rosenberg. But, uh, if my wife's listening, she's gonna chime in. That's her maiden name.

It is.

There you go. I like that name. It's a good name. But we lived in Fifth Ward. Okay. And I have 3 little babies under 5. Yeah. And my 5-year-old's in school right now, and I just didn't want him to go to school there. I didn't— I didn't want him to. That sounds fine to say. Yeah. I've been in that situation, you know, in that kind of environment, and It's difficult sometimes, and I just want, you know, I want my kids to just go and learn and play and have fun and—

Absolutely.

Come home and do their homework. Did you guys move— did you guys kind of scout where you wanted them to go to school and then move there, or did you like have a bunch of different places that had good schools and you just kind of picked one? Well, we— my wife works down there. Oh, okay. So we live like 2 minutes away from her job. Okay. And then the school is like 45 seconds away. So it has really kind of played in. It hasn't been the easiest on my company stuff because I have to drive to Houston and that takes an hour each way. So, but I've been making it work. I take care of the kids during the day also while I'm doing construction and while I'm doing my

networking online. That's crazy, man. I know that's enjoyable and valuable, but like, that's— It's difficult.

For sure.

I'm not gonna just sit here and say it's enjoyable all the time, but being able to have the freedom is irreplaceable. You know, if I go work a 9-to-5 job, I'll be stuck and my kids will be in daycare all the time. And so I'm really— I really enjoy what I do, but I'm not able to take breaks. I have to keep pushing all the time or else, especially with Facebook marketing, if you stop, if you take a break, for example, my father passed away last month. Yeah, I'm sorry about that, man. Yeah, it happens, but I took a break and Facebook engagement drops a lot when you're taking a break and So you have to like work twice

or 3 times as hard to get back to it. You know, even, even sometimes like after these events and after the month of marketing, I like to take a couple days off and even that affects it. Like I can, I can see it affected. And so it's, it's a constant putting out content as much as you can. Yeah, that— I mean, but you do a good job at it, man. I mean, obviously, I mean, thank you. I mean, you know what you're doing when it comes to this kind of stuff. Winged everything. You know, I try something. I try to just be creative, you know, especially with just shooting content on Facebook.

It's—

I just like— I like to shoot a video like 7 to 10 seconds and that's it. Yeah, and then just put a really nice vibing song on there with it and then it does pretty well. Yeah, do you mainly focus on Facebook? Yes, I like— I do have Instagram and stuff, but it's just been a pain in the ass, like having a post on Instagram and it normally I've had it to where it's not transferring over to Facebook.

Right.

So once whenever I first really started hitting this hard, like I knew what we were going to do, I just decided to stop Instagram and focus directly on Facebook. That way I wasn't splitting my energy. It was just all to one because you can imagine like I get tons of notifications on Facebook and then if I have those on Instagram and messages like I have to go between both apps and I'd just rather not. I hear you, man. I'm keeping my Instagram and even like my TikTok and stuff for a separate social presence. Yeah, like, like for example, like let's say for my Instagram I wanted to just focus on my 5-year-old doing motocross or something. That way

my business is just on Facebook. Right. But I do, I do post some stuff on Instagram because I have, I have a few different people that are like only on Instagram.

Right.

That I want to make sure that they're seeing like the progress and stuff. And so it does good, but it's just hard being able— like, I'm almost having to create like 2 separate videos for the same video. Yep. And it's annoying. Yeah. So I wish, I wish they would make it easier since I'm pretty sure that's all owned by the same company. It is. It's Meta. Yeah. So like Get on a— get your game on.

Yeah, figure it out.

Yeah, figure it out. Because I think, you know, for businesses on Facebook, you know, I definitely think Facebook is more like a business hub now that it's growing, and I don't want to see it go away because it's super valuable, but it's been extremely hard to reach people. Like, for example, I'll use the @everyone tag on the page, and I'm not reaching everyone. Like, I'm reaching like 2,000 or 3,000 out of Yeah, which is nuts.

Well, there's a way to get around it.

Well, I want to hear what you have to say, but first I want to say we've been doing like little experiments, and so let's say I'll make an @everyone post right now, and there'll be 5 of us at the table. Nobody got the notification, or 1 person got the notification out of all 5, so it's been difficult to figure out the algorithm. And I think the algorithm does change often. So sometimes it'll be really rolling good, but also it has to do a lot with the people. If they don't engage on it, Facebook is not going to think it's important. Yeah, if you make a post in the group and nobody really responds to it, they're not going to want to continue to come back to that group and do anything in there. I can imagine that's,

you know, I can imagine it would be frustrating in a group sometimes of like that magnitude where like you make a post and like 2 people like it. It is, but it's also part of it. It's part of it. Make a better post. Exactly. No, no, I think that's exactly what you need to do. Like, I get a lot of people reach out and they're like, I'm running out of business, or, you know, I'm not getting jobs. Well, you have to understand, like, this page wasn't made to just gift everybody a job. Like, you still have to work hard.

Yeah, you got to go make the bid, make it fair, follow up. Like, you got to actually do your job.

Yeah, you got to build rapport with your customer, and you got to set yourself apart from people that are bidding lower than you or whatever. You know, you got to build trust. And, and what I always tell people is you have to be creative. So Like for example, with y'all's giveaway, what I would do on a giveaway or even like my roll call posts, I will have my text at the top like where it normally goes and then I will have a picture, but I won't have a picture of like the stuff on the table.

Uh-huh.

I'll have a picture of— okay, so you know how whenever you make a post, if it's in a certain amount of words, you can make it into like a picture.

Sure.

So what I do is I do that and I screenshot it and I edit it out and then it's like 2 ways to display information. Yeah. And those have been working a little bit better than just, you know, a regular text post. But I've just been having to change it up all the time and it doesn't work sometimes and it does work sometimes. It's just I just try to keep it consistent. Yeah, it's not, it's not like too much draining my time or energy because it's just on my phone. Yeah, and I have a, I have a great team that's helping, you know, behind us. And, uh, and I also think that people do see the value that we're trying to offer, but we

are, I think we're new, so we're still trying to get the name out there. We're trying to get repeat people to, you know, sponsor and vendor. Yeah. stuff like that. So I'm actually putting together an idea I saw from— I saw this idea from another big networking group in Houston in the real estate field. Yeah. And so they put together this sponsorship package. One of the things that I've been having a hard time with is getting, you know, my sponsors here and finding value for them. So what I'm going to try to do The biggest value that I think that they can have is this place packed out with people.

Yeah.

So what I'm trying to put together is I found this cool package and it was like, for example, it was like $200. Normally it's $500 a month to like have a package enough to get to the podcast and everything.

Yeah.

So what I'm thinking about doing, and that's just once a month, what I'm thinking about doing is is like $200 a month for 6 months and you have to pay that upfront. Yeah. That way, my sponsors are taken care of and what I can focus on— my sponsors are taken care of, the employee that moderates the page is taken care of, we get our sound system and we get the venue taken care of and everything and I can now direct all the energy that I was putting into marketing for people attend and sponsors, all to people to attend. And I'm hoping that, you know, once, once we get this thing filled out with sponsors consistently, then

other people will see like, oh, you know, I want to be a part of that as well. Yeah. And then, you know, I'll be able to, you know, start, start being able to stack up vendors and stuff like that. And we'll have our normal packages for like once a month type of thing as well. But I've been trying to definitely get creative of trying to put this together because I think that the issue that we may have now is more just a communication issue to the vast public, the general public. So, but like, this is the third one, so I, I, I know I have a lot of work to do and, and a lot of obstacles to

overcome. And yeah, but I, but I think that people enjoy it. So even, even right now, you know, there's not too many people here, we battle with spring break and it's raining outside. Yeah, there's always obstacles. But, you know, everybody's out, out there talking, so talking to new people, and that's what, that's what it's about, I think. Well, I'll tell you this, man, every time I've come, I've met somebody new. Yeah, I've, I've never talked to the same person twice, and, and that alone is just— I mean, you know, again, like, the more people you can meet who are wanting to actually work hard, hone their craft, trying different stuff in order to promote their

business. Those are the kind of people I want to hang out with. Yeah. So, yeah, good on you, man, for putting it together. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, I know you got— I know you got like a, a stable of people you want us to get through today. Yeah, yeah, I want to— I want to see, you know, if you guys can get through a majority of them. Um, I want to put— I want to put it together so that we can, you know, let— I want to be able to put these this content together for them. Yeah. And then I want to be able to talk about that for future vendors and, uh, do something. Cool, man. Make it worth it for them. I really like the event, the podcast here, because this gives people an opportunity to get on a podcast, which isn't always easy to do. Yeah. But also it gives them an opportunity, if they take

it, is to be able to to divide these clips up. And, you know, you see all the influencers out there, that's all they're doing. They're going on a podcast saying something important and then divvying it up and putting it as 6 reels throughout the month. So I will tell you, it is always surprising to me because we, we put out quite a bit of content. Like, you know, after we do these, you know, we put them out as clips and then we do reels and all the other different stuff that we do for the show. It's always surprising to me how many people like One, don't reach out and ask for it. Like, hey, where's the link for that?

Or hey, where's— We're going to give it to them if they want it.

Yeah, because we give it to people whenever they ask for it. It's not a big deal for us to hit the share button or the email button or the text message, whatever it is. But also, there's a lot of times when we have people on and we see that they have an online presence and we'll tag them, they just don't engage with it. It's weird. And it's like, this is This is free content. I'm not complaining because it doesn't make a difference to us. It's like, it's what we're trying to do to help them, and, but it's always surprising when people just like don't even like give it a second thought. Oh, that's cool, and then just move on, you know. It's like— Yeah, I don't have

any words for that one. I just, you know, some people, some people, I would, I don't know if this is the right words to say, but some people want it and some people don't. Yeah. You know, and— I think there's also a part of it that's like when you make it too easy for somebody, You know what I mean? Yeah. Like they don't value it as much. Oh, definitely. That's a very real thing. But I mean, that's just always been our philosophy is like, you know, we're not charging people for this stuff. It's, you know, we're here to help them build their business. Very much like what you're doing. Yeah, definitely. So, well, I've been really thankful for you guys coming out here each time. It's helped

me get comfortable. I actually have a podcast on Monday. Oh yeah? Yeah, it's going on. Which one? It's called Quit Getting Stiffed, I think. Oh yeah, yeah, she's the attorney, right? Caroline Cromier's law firm. Yeah, yeah. Yep, I really liked her. I found her through some referrals, and because I was trying to find a good lawyer, because that's one thing that's asked about a lot on the networking page, and You know, she's wrote books and everything and is doing really well, so I'm excited to talk to her. She's got a great concept for a show. I mean, she really does. Yeah, I'm excited. Well, that'll be a good one for you. I mean, hopefully you don't have like too many

stories to tell. Yeah, well, she gave me a good list of questions that I'm going to go through and put together my answers so that I'm not guessing on what I'm going to talk about. Yeah. And I think that'll help me be more confident, and I'm hoping to maybe be able to do more of that and maybe some public speaking. It's just, you know, I'm not an expert in anything. I just, you know, I'm just working hard, man. Like, that's— I think that's one of the great things about podcasts is like if you want to do more public speaking, it's a great practice. Oh yeah. For, for that.

Yes.

Oh yeah, yeah, this has definitely helped. It helps, uh, whenever I play Call of Duty and you're in like the final 5 or whatever, you know, your heart, heart's beating fast. But whenever you're in that final 5 100 times, your heart's gonna slow down. So for sure, you know, it's the same thing here. You know, my heart was beating fast really at the beginning of, of this, and, uh, I'm more calm now. See, that's, that's what we need to do, okay? We need to put together a clip of the evolution of Christian Scott.

Yeah. Yeah, that would be amazing.

Yeah, well, let's keep doing these events and, you know, in a year it'll probably be—

Yeah, yeah, no, it's awesome. I mean, yeah, it's just— I mean, I, I know this is like the dumbest thing to say, but I tell people all the time, especially business owners, whenever they're trying to like, like grow their business or do something that, that, that's just maybe out of their comfort zone or whatever, And I tell them this, I'm like, look, you've never done something until you do. Yeah. And like, that's the weirdest, like, smallest little thing, and everybody's going, well, duh, Kevin. I mean, like, obviously you've never done it, but it's true.

Yeah.

I mean, it's the truest thing that I could possibly say. You've never done anything until you do, and once you do it, now you can say, I've done that.

Yep. And you can figure out if you would like— life is for you or not. Absolutely. If you don't do that, you're not gonna know.

Exactly.

Yep. Cool, man. Cool. You want to send us somebody? Sure. All right, go find someone. Always good to visit with you, bud. You too, guys. Thank you. Have a fun night. There you go.

Christian Scott in the house, in the house, out of the lights. And he's got his hands in all kinds of stuff. I know, it's amazing. He's, he's a busy dude.

The childcare alone is impressive.

Oh, I know.

He's got 2 kids. He's rolling around doing construction jobs.

Yeah.

That's crazy. I don't know how. I mean, like, not crazy in the sense like that guy's crazy. No, like, it's amazing that he can do that. Yeah, he's accomplishing quite a bit.

Yeah, so yeah, I'm working in an office and I'm like, yeah, I don't want my kids here.

It would be easy. Well, I've got my buddy David's over there and I'm actually hoping he gets to come over tonight because I want to talk to him about the SVB thing because he does payment processing. That was one of the things I was telling you the other night is making, making the world go wonky right now is all these, all these banks going under. Well, the banks going under, but then it's affecting all these payment processing things. Oh yeah, because a lot of these tech companies that do payment processing, that was their bank.

That was it.

And I think it was like, man, don't quote me on this, but I think it was like the number 7 bank in the US, something like that.

It's crazy.

And they had, they had just posted like 4 or 5 days before they went under, how they had just been ranked number 5 in like a certain category. They were like bragging about it on Twitter.

Wow.

And everyone was like just pointing out how tone-deaf they were to like not knowing that they were fixing to go under.

They were losing it.

So, but then there's all this other, you know, there's all the shenanigans that goes on with it where particular certain executives were selling their, their shares. And they're, you know, and giving up their options days before this was going down, right? And you're like, okay, like, we all know that you knew, right? And but nobody's doing anything about it right now, right?

Well, what do they— yeah, it's one of those deals where what exactly are they gonna do? I mean, I know there's some recourse, but—

Well, we didn't, we didn't have a bailout this time.

No.

So one of the things— well, what they did is they, they protected the depositors. Which is huge because last time when they bailed the banks out, they didn't protect the depositors, they protected the banks, right? And people cried foul and nobody, you know, they still did it, but at least they listened and kind of changed, changed their ways, right? So yeah, it works. I got a new victim over here. All right, come on. He wants me to come over here. I'm not a camera person, but—

You are now.

You'll want to put that headset on right there.

That way you can hear us. Now you can hear us.

There you go. Yeah, there we go.

All right, cool, great.

So your name's Carrie? Yes, sir. So how you doing, man? Pretty good.

Yeah, well, welcome to the show. My name is Kevin. This is Craig. Yeah, we do the Homeowner Show.

What's your last name? Foxworth. Foxworth, sir. So you're married to Brittany Foxworth?

Yeah, right.

You know how we know each other? Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do Mikey. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right, so when I came up and greeted you earlier, I was like, I bet you he doesn't remember me. Oh no, no, I remember you. Okay, how's it going over there? It's going good. I've probably had just about everybody come up and talk to me. Did you have them stick their finger in the rat trap? Oh no, no, too much liability. So you put it on somebody else's booth? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a prank. That's right. Well, tell everybody what you do, man. I do pest control. I've been doing pest control for about 15 years. I just started

my own company last year. So I'm just trying to get my name out there and just trying to gain some traction and get a little further than just paying the bills. Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like you've got an area of specialization or something that you really enjoy doing maybe? I would say as far as the bigger companies, I have customer service. Okay. I've worked for a few bigger companies, but once you get to a certain point, it's kind of hard to keep up with the customer service as far as keeping up with the service and keeping up with the customer service.

That's true.

That's very true.

So, if you could do, to ask his question a little bit different, if you could do one service for the rest of your career in pest control, what would it be?

Probably German roaches. Oh, really?

Okay, why?

Um, I just, I don't know, I feel like a lot of people have issues with it, and, um, I don't have— I don't— I mean, I'm pretty much a, a 2-service, 2-service and they're gone type of thing. Um, you just kind of— I wouldn't say it's a niche, but, um, I was trained, uh, my— the first company I ever worked for I was trained very well with it, so yeah, we did everything from minor to burn the house down. Yeah, wow. So no, I, I'd say it's a niche, man. I mean, like, there's a lot of companies that struggle with that. I mean, like, I've talked to numbers— number of people that have had like 5 or 6 treatments and still not had them gone. It's like, what's

going on over there? So if you can knock it out in 2, that's not bad. I mean, there, there are some out there that are a little tricky, and, you know, I've had to go back, you know, for multiple services, but for the most part, I'm a 2-service guy. I mean, I try to get it knocked out within that second service.

How many of those situations are less your issue and more the homeowner's issue?

Or the business's issue. I mean, they can be a commercial problem as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Or the owner, the owner, because they're not taking care of their stuff. Like, you're putting stuff out there that the German roaches like.

Yeah, yeah. The thing, so the way that I've always had it put to me and the way that I put it to the customer is the bait that I'm sticking out, typically you bait for German roaches, is McDonald's. The grease that you got running down the side of your stove is steak, you know? Yeah. So it's definitely a cleanliness issue for certain customers. They, they're in from the bottom of the bottom, and I've, I've been in, you know, um, uh, Carlton Woods that's had them, you know. So it's, it's kind of just— it, it— when it gets up into a higher level like that, it's, it's, it's more of a who you have coming in your house ordeal, you know, like, like the cleaning person, or, you know, the— you know, it could be

someone from out of town. Yeah. You know, something like that. But I would say that if you can get on with the customer and get them on the same page as you as keeping the kitchen picked up, then you can knock it out pretty quick.

At that point, you become a consultant, right?

You're like, look, here's something to clean to.

This is a rag, and this is a cleaning solution. You should put them together and rub.

Typically, if they if they can't cohere to the cleanliness issues, then it's just like, look, I've done what I can. They're coming back. If I can't warranty past this, you know, yeah, like, I can't keep coming back for free because the thing is, is once I give out the price and once I go and do the service, after that it's all on me, you know. And if the customer's not going to keep up with it, I can't do much with it. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, so what else I mean, like, I know that this is probably like one of your busiest times of the year. And it's hopefully it's gonna start picking up. Yeah, because the winter

is a slow time. It's kind of more for, for rodent issues and things like that, but hopefully it's gonna start picking up. Well, I mean, because like around here, I mean, like mosquitoes are flying. Yep, fire ants are starting to show up. I mean, just, you know, everything's feeling good and kind of moving around. Yeah, so just gotta get my name out there. Yeah, get people to call me.

Yeah.

Feel free to share your, your number. I mean, we're gonna ask— by the time we get done, we're gonna ask how people can get a hold of you. Okay. Um, but do you know it off the top of your head? Oh yeah. What is it? So my phone number is 936-444-8717. Um, ask for Kerry. Um, my website is thepestwrangler.com. Uh, my email is kerry@thepestwrangler.com. Um, it's a great website, by the way.

No doubt.

I'm actually surprised you were able to get that. Um, so what's funny is the name of the company and the website name don't match up because I'm not the Pest Wrangler. Okay. I am Pest Wrangler. Okay. That's it. But the only ones that were available were the Pest Wrangler. Okay. It was— I, I did a lot of searching trying to figure out— Is there another company out there called the Pest Wrangler? Um, I think so, and I think it's actually in Texas. Oh wow. Um, near either Austin or Dallas. I can't remember. It's like one of the outskirts cities. Okay. Round Rock, I think, is what it is. That's okay. Yeah, yeah. None of a crossover. You don't want to be doing work over there anyway. Nah,

that and I don't want to go nationwide either. So I hope to sell before then. Yeah, okay. I want to get out of it before it gets too big. Okay. I don't— I want to keep with my customer service skills. Yeah. So if I can't do it, then it's probably not gonna get done. So, you know what I mean? Yeah. What's the weirdest thing you've come across so far? The weirdest? I mean, 15 years, you gotta have something— I don't know about weirdest. Or maybe like, I mean, you've already mentioned German roaches. Well, for people that don't know, what are German roaches? I mean, they're not— because they're not a regular roach. No, it's a small roach, probably about an inch or so long as an

adult. It's mainly gonna be in the kitchen. Now, if you have them real bad, they'll be all over the house. Mainly in the kitchen. The only— there is another roach that looks just like it, but it's an Asian roach, and that comes from outside. But the main difference between the two is that one flies and the other doesn't.

Right.

German roaches don't fly. They have wings, but they don't fly. The Asian roaches, they will flutter or fly. So as far as the craziest thing I don't know. I've had some really bad shrimp roost shows. I know those could be the grossest ones.

Have you ever been to like a hoarder's house?

Yeah.

So we had a guy on early, early, early on our show, like 4 years ago probably, that was— he did hoarding mitigation, I guess.

Cleaning crew?

Yeah, well, yeah, you like come in and do all that kind of stuff and like to hear him talk about some of the, uh, some of the roach issues.

I still remember him talking about the lady that opened the door and she had the roaches like on her shoulder.

Yeah, like she, she had like 10 or 12 of them and he was like, she just didn't even notice.

Yeah, midnight snacks, man. Oh, that's not cool.

So have you been in any hoarder houses?

Not hoarder houses, but I've been into houses like— so if a house is vacant, um, for a while, they'll get— they'll start going crazy and just be everywhere even though the situation's not that bad. We did walk into a house one time where we opened the door and it was kind of between rentals, so it was like one of those rental trailer homes or whatever. And as soon as we opened the door, like, they were just falling like off the walls, like when we opened the door. And I mean, it was— that was a— it was a full— like, there was nothing in there, so we were able to treat from the ceiling to the floor, every room. You know, it was bad, but— Yeah. I don't

know, I guess, I mean, people have the most issues with roaches, like, as far as like a psychological thing.

Oh, they hate them.

Yeah, yeah, like, you'll make a grown man wet his pants.

Well, that was that one time. That one time. Sorry, we're not gonna talk about that time.

I'll tell you one of the craziest ones I ever saw was, and this wasn't Pest-related, but I had some friends that had rental houses, and they— I was a teenager, and they said, hey, we need you to come with your buddy Josh and mow the yard, because we've got to get this house cleared out so we can get it rented. No problem. So, we get there, and the grass is like up to our belly buttons in the backyard, and so like we just kind of started mowing our way towards the back porch, and then they were working inside the house. And so, and we'd been outside the whole day. By the time we worked our way to the back porch, we realized there's like this mountain of stuff on the back porch. And I was like, Josh,

what is that? And we get there and it's old McDonald's toys that they have just piled up on the back porch. And I was like, what is this?

Like a gold mine.

Like, just a bit like, but no, it was filthy and gross and like it'd been there a long time. And so we go inside to let them know that, you know, we finished mowing, and they said, hey, come take a look at this. And like, it was one of those where like you walk in and there's roaches crawling up the walls and they're on the ceiling, and like, it's just nasty. The walls are greasy. And FYI, the lady that had been living there was a nurse. Yeah. Whoa, that's not very sanitary. Yeah, right? And so they go, hey, come take a look at this. And so they take us back to the bathroom, which was the guest bathroom. And in the bathtub were dishes that were

just piled up in the bathtub. So like, instead of washing the dishes, she was buying McDonald's, having the kids eat the McDonald's, play with the toy, throw the toy on the back porch, and then taking the dirty dishes and just throwing them in the bathtub. And like, when I say they were piled up, they were like all the way up to the showerhead.

What?

And so like, but like, they were like, we haven't gotten to that yet. And I was like, why not? And they said, watch this. And they hit the dishes. When they did, roaches just came out of everywhere. It was like, oh, okay, just bought new dishes. Yeah, every time.

That's like if you like run out of underwear, you just go buy new underwear.

I was like, what? Like at some point, like, didn't you think about paper? Like, why not? Why not paper plates? Save the planet, man. I guess, but I don't know. It was the weirdest thing.

Well, she was above that.

Yeah. We're eating on plates, right? Real plates. Real plates.

The McDonald's goes on, you know, ceramic.

We're classing this joint up.

What are we, animals?

The only thing clean in the house is probably the stove. Yeah, right, because she wasn't cooking, that's for sure. Oh man.

So I actually, I actually knew, uh, still know them.

They're still— no, um, some people, they ceased to be.

Yeah, no, they, they, uh, real nice house. And if you open— this has changed since then. But for the first like 10 years they lived there, you could open their dishwasher and the instruction manual was still in it. Same thing with their oven. They ate out every single meal.

And they didn't eat off plates?

Well, I don't know about that. I don't know what they did. I guess— I mean, they literally ate out.

Oh, at a restaurant?

At a restaurant.

I got you.

They didn't bring anything in. They ate out.

Man, they probably had very few roach issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. Probably a lot of, a lot of few issues.

Yeah, that'd be different issues.

Well, for— I mean, because this is the homeowner show, so before we get somebody else to come up here, do you have a couple of quick tips for homeowners? I mean, maybe some big mistakes that you see people making with their homes in regards to pests? Keeping the soil level down. Okay, that's good for termites. Or mulch beds, make sure that, you know, every once in a while they pull it all out. They don't just keep adding on top, right? Once it gets above the weep holes or the slab line, it becomes an issue for not just termites, but I mean any insects really. They can just crawl up in there undetected. Typically what I tell most of my customers is if you're going

to have the mulch done, have them done— have it done before I come.

Yeah.

Pretty close before I come, because if I spray or if I treat the yard or treat the house and then they put mulch on top of it, they've pretty much done away with what I've done. Yeah, because it's gonna cover it up. And those mulch bags, or even the big commercial mulch trailers or whatever, yeah, there's a lot of bugs and stuff in there. There's roaches, you know, earwigs, all kinds of stuff. And they're happy, happy, happy. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

And now you're putting them around your house.

Yep. Oh yeah. And they love it. Well, sure. Awesome.

But you got to have the mulch.

Oh yeah. Can't live without it. You can have pine needles.

Pine needles are what's up.

And that will kill your grass too if you start— when you start piling up, there's just too much acid in it. Yeah, it doesn't let the grass grow. You know what loves it? Blueberries.

Really?

Blueberries love acidic soil.

Really?

Yeah. Pine needles are great for them.

What about like— Well, we're going to get into a whole other conversation. We probably don't need to go there.

Yeah.

That's awesome, man. Well, dude, like, starting, starting fresh, starting something new. Congrats to you, man. I mean, there's some entrepreneurship there, and, uh, man, we hope you kill it, dude.

Yeah, my wife's been a big help, so literally and figuratively.

We hope you kill it. Yes, we hope you kill all of them. Yeah, and whereabouts are you located in the Houston area?

I mean, I'm off of 242 and 45. Okay, so kind of the Conroe way. Woodlands section. All right, but I'm everywhere. I got, I got houses in Katy, I got stuff out in Cleveland, so I'm just, I'm all over the place. Absolutely. Um, I go where the money is.

Absolutely.

If they got an issue and, and, and I can handle it.

So awesome.

All right, good deal. Thanks for sitting down, Kerry. Sure, I thank y'all for letting me.

Dude, absolutely.

Glad to. All right, y'all have a good day. You too, bud. Well, we need to, we need to, uh, It's time. Reach out and, and say a big thank you again to, uh, Lone Star Appliance Repair.

That's right, let's pull them up over here. We got our, uh, we got our intern over here working for us. That's right, so he's off camera, but yes, Lone Star Appliance Repair. Let's talk about your thing.

My thing?

Yeah, so saved your life.

Saved my life. We, we, so we have a, a gas dryer, and I came home one day and my wife said I think I smell gas in the house. To which my, you know, sweet and loving response is always, you're crazy.

Yeah, probably not.

Probably not. Yeah. But as I stayed in the house, I was like, nope, you know what, there's actually a leak in here, and I think it's coming from the laundry room. And so I immediately called Sarah, and I said, Sarah, we got to get somebody over here to see what's going on. And she got one of her guys over there real quick, and it was literally just a loose nut on the back from the gas line. I don't know how it got loose. I don't— you know, not that anybody—

I can tell you her name.

Unqualified put it in, but anyway, he came, and I think it cost us like $120 or something like that for the trip. to have peace of mind that there was nothing wrong with my dryer.

That could be deadly.

Yeah, it can. And that—

And your dryer is in your bedroom, basically. Like, yours is.

It's in the closet of our bedroom.

Which, like, that could be really, really bad.

Yeah. And it's downstairs, and so that gas can rise and go up through the rest of the house. And so it was just that the peace of mind was great. And, like, you know, that they got out there so quickly to make sure that we were okay. That was their biggest concern. concerned to make sure that we were okay. Um, and they got us taken care of. Perfect.

So awesome.

So, but like, they do everything. I've sent them out to my parents' house to repair a dishwasher. Um, they do all appliances.

Okay.

Um, and so like, if you have any trouble with any of your appliances in your house, give Lone Star Appliance Repair a call.

Well, yeah, I think that a lot of people are like, look, I've got a problem with my washer, with my dryer, or whatever, I'll just buy a new one.

Yeah.

And there's 2 problems with that. Number one, You gotta dispose of the thing, right? We just have landfills full of that kind of junk, man. Like, and I'm not trying to— like, look, I'm not like the most green person in the world. I'm really not. But I also understand that every time we just recycle something back into a landfill instead of like actually trying to, you know, fix it—

Mm-hmm.

When a lot of times, you know, I, I'm not actually sure if if they do this. So I'm about to say something that I don't know if it's true or not. A lot of times that service call, if they repair it, they'll roll that service call into the cost of the repair.

Most companies will do that.

I don't know if they do that or not, but it's typically going to be less expensive than buying a new appliance.

Yeah.

And it's normally not that big of a deal. I mean, you, you liked your appliance before that happened. Why would you not like it afterwards? You know, like, just Get it fixed, move on, everybody's good.

Yeah.

So give them a call.

Give them a call.

That's right.

Numbers on the screen. Also, if you haven't yet, leave a comment in the comment section there on YouTube or Facebook. And if you're here at this event, you got a chance to win that Lutron set sitting right there behind the beautiful David McGuffin. What's going on, man? Nothing much, brother. How you doing? Doing really good. Long time no see. Yeah, I know.

A few minutes ago.

I missed you. Oh, I know you did. So, I was telling Kevin, I was hoping you were going to come by tonight. Space City Payments, right? So, you do a lot of payment processing for different businesses and things like that. You're doing some stuff for us now. Yeah, I do consumer financing as well, so, which is what I'm doing for you. Yes. What I wanted to get your thoughts on is I know a lot of these other payment processing companies were using SVB as their bank. So, have you heard like any ripples out there as to what's going on with some of this stuff? Not yet. I mean, not for you, but I was— I've heard that like Toast was one of their big clients. Toast was— any of these startups

like Toast, Airbnb, Uber, you know, SVB was really big in the startup scene. Yeah. They financed a lot of well-known point-of-sale systems. Yeah. You know, just like the rideshares, they all use them, the delivery apps. You know, it's just based in Silicon Valley where, you know, all this, you know, all these places incubated. So.

Yeah.

Well, I know there's been a lot like You know, companies— I don't— I haven't checked those stocks since, since all that happened, but I can imagine there's got to be some trepidation in the market around them because— I'm sure a lot of people are freaking out about it.

Yeah. Well, yeah, they should be.

I mean, it was these— what was the 16th largest bank in the country? Okay, that's what it was. Yeah.

That's still like—

It's huge.

Yeah, it's way up there.

I mean, when you consider, you know, you've got banks like, you know, Chase, you know, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, PNC, all those big boys, you know, you've got 10 of them that are really, really, really, really large. And then, you know, then it starts scaling down a little bit. But yeah, but like, if you're a restaurant and you're using the Toast system and you hear like, oh yeah, Toast, they were running all of their money through SVB, I was like, okay, is my system going to work? Like, where's the money coming from? when I run that card, you know what I mean? Well, with the point of sales, I wouldn't really worry too much about it, 'cause

most of them, you know, unless you really need like support, you know, once you get a point of sale installed, you're paying for, you know, most of them are cloud-based, or what we call a hybrid system, which is part cloud, part legacy. You're paying for the software, on that, and that, for the most part, pretty much maintains itself. You're just paying for each station. And is that because most of the money is coming from like Visa, MasterCard, Discover? Is that the way it's secure? What, in terms of securing— The restaurants receiving the money off the payments being processed. It's coming from— there's like a 5-step process of of how money moves. It starts with the consumer who hands the card to the merchant.

Once the merchant runs that card, it goes through the processor, which is who I represent. Okay. It's the processor. From the processor, it goes to the issuing bank. From the issuing bank, it goes to the acquirers. The acquirers are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, all those guys. And then from there it goes back to the bank. You know, once it gets to Visa, MasterCard, they take out their cut. Then once it comes back through the bank, the bank takes out their cut. Then it goes back through the processor who takes out their cut. Yeah. Then it goes to the merchant. So for that $100 that's spent in a restaurant or, you know, with anybody, you know, the merchant is basically only making $97 or Yeah. You know,

$97.30 or something like that off that $100, because everybody's got their hand in the piece of the pie. That's part of how we all get paid. And to write the code and the software for you to be able to transfer that money, it costs money to write it. So, you know, when you see merchants that are complaining about rates and stuff like that, rates are set— well, first there's interchange. Interchange is actually set by Visa, MasterCard, American Express. They typically raise rates, or adjust rates I should say, twice a year, April and October. Now, the processor, and that could be Paysafe, Worldpay, Heartland, they will put you on, you know, like interchange plus is the interchange rate, and then plus the basis points that

they charge you. So if I have you at 60 basis points and 10 cents a transaction. When I lock in your rate, that 60 basis points will never change with me. A lot of processors will say, oh, well, because of this, you know, we're having to raise your rate, you know, 5 basis points.

Right.

You know, with a business that does $100, that's 5 cents, but, you know, you're doing $1,000, all of a sudden you're at $5 or 50 cents, and $10,000, you're at $5, you know, and as you progress in terms of either growth or if you're a large business that does a lot of transactions and does, you know, high volume, that adds up. Yeah. And it adds up quickly. That was kind of my follow-up. Does volume affect those basis points? Yes. Yeah, okay. I would imagine it would. Yeah, it does. When we look at, you know, potential client, the reason we ask for statements is because we want to see what the card mix is. If you're doing 80% American

Express, that's going to affect your rate a whole lot more than if you're doing 80% of just regular Visas.

Right.

You know, if you're doing most of your cards are, you know, say it's a Capital One Rewards card. Rewards cards are charged differently than, you know, a standard Visa. You know, um, you have that rewards card as a consumer because you want those points. You want, you know, that cash back. You want those SkyMiles. Yeah. So somebody's got to pay for somebody. Yeah, some money's coming from somewhere. You know, you're not paying for them because you're the consumer, because that's why you have that card. You know, the processor's not paying for it. You know, the bank's not paying for it. Yeah. Visa, MasterCard damn sure aren't paying for it, right? You know, so whose, whose pocket does that come out Right. Comes out of the merchants, which leads me into another program that we

offer, which is cash discount and dual pricing. And that's where you can pass those fees on to the consumer. Yeah. You know, and you're seeing that a lot more these days.

Oh yeah.

Drive down the interstate, you see a cash price and a credit price at 90%.

Every gas station. Every one.

Go to Specs, go buy, go buy your booze at Specs. You see a cash price and a credit price. Yep. So what's, what's so different about a restaurant that offers a cash price and a credit price? You know, especially with the way costs have risen over the last couple of years, and especially in this economy, they're trying to cut where they can.

For sure.

You know, it's either I pass this fee on to you, or I go out of business, right? Yeah. You know, for a lot of these people. So, you know, you want your favorite restaurant to stick around? Well, and like, I think there's something to that because, you know, a lot of people who get into business, like the guy we just talked to, I mean, he's a new business owner, and I can imagine, like, when you're starting out, you're setting your prices and what your services are going to be, you're not thinking, well, I'm going to be losing, you know, 3 to 4% every time I make a transaction with a credit card. You're thinking, this job costs this so that I can be competitive. competitive with so-and-so down the road, and

by the time you grow, like, you're in the hole because, like, you don't realize how much 3% and 4%, you know, taps the account over time. Yeah, you know, I mean, I've talked to business owners that, you know, the fees that they've paid in credit card processing over the course of a year, you know, $30,000, $40,000. Yeah, and they take a look at it and they're like, whoa, You know, yeah, a lot of it you can't get around, but some of it you can. Yeah. And that's where, you know, having somebody do a, you know, an analysis on your statement to see where these fees are. A lot of, a lot of, uh, processors will do what we call pad the interchange. In other words, they hide

fees in different spots so that they can make more money.

Hmm.

You know, you see regulatory fee on your on your statement. That's a bullshit fee. Statement fees, batch fees, those should all be rolled into one monthly fee. And most of the processors that I work for, it's rolled into one monthly fee. So if I say it's going to be $25 a month, that's going to cover your batch fee, your statement fee, and any other charges that we do other than your processing. So, like, if you— If you have those on your account and you ask them, what are those for? What will they tell you? Oh, I mean, they'll lie to you. Some of them, if you call them out on it, will remove it.

Oh, really?

But then you'll see it creep back in. Okay. Or it may come back on your statement as a different— under a different name. Okay. So, just read your statement. Read your statement. Yeah. You know, by law, you know, these companies have to— if they're raising your rates, in the fine print that's usually at the end of the statement, sometimes it's on the front page, but a lot of times it's the last page of the statement. Yeah. That's where they'll tell you if any change is coming up. And if there's a change, even if you're in a contract, if they raise your rates, yeah, you're allowed 30 days to get out of that contract. Okay. With no penalty. Oh. With no penalty. That's good to know. Yes, a lot of people don't know that. Yeah, so

I mean, because I mean, it's, you know, what I've heard from guys like you is some of these other companies, like, the contracts are difficult to get out of. Like, when you get into a situation where, like, man, I'm stuck with this thing for, like, the next— I don't actually know the terms of most of these payment processing. How long are the terms on the companies I represent for the processing? No contract. No contract, okay. But the other ones I know have contracts. A lot of them do have contracts. A lot of them will lock you into leases on just a basic countertop model, right, or make you pay for them outright. And, you know, most of the

companies I write for, you get free equipment. Oh, okay. You know, the type of equipment you don't get for free is obviously like a full-scale point-of-sale system. Sure. And usually it's the point-of-sale companies that will will lock you into a contract because, you know, like there's one I do for restaurants called Hot Sauce. You know, installed, menu upload, everything for $495.

Right.

You know, that's the equipment, everything. They're going to put you in a 3-year contract. Okay. But because they have to cover the cost of that hardware as well. Yeah. So, you know, 3 years. I mean, you've been in the restaurant business, so you kind of know the value of some of that. Oh man, I wish I knew back then what I know now. I've owned 3 restaurants and, you know, I think I— my first one was back in 2000. I think I was paying like 3.4% or something like that. It was— yeah, it was high. Were all the restaurants that you owned, were they the same kind of restaurant or did you— Yeah, all fine dining. All fine dining? Yeah. Like, did they have like a particular— Um, the last one I owned was in Atlanta,

Georgia. It was called Vine. Okay. Um, we had a 550-label wine list. Wow. Whoa. Um, I, I had verticals of Paul Hobbs, the Beckstoffer, uh, Tocalans, their Cabernets. I had, you know, like a 6-year vertical of Beaufrères Pinot Noir out of Oregon. you know, at a, you know, $230 a bottle. So I had a Château Petrus on the menu, which is about $3,000. So, um, but yeah, they were all fine dining. Um, the last restaurant my brother was the executive chef at. I was just the pastry chef. Okay. The general manager and the assistant sommelier.

So yeah, of course, just a few roles.

Yeah, so When we first opened, we— my brother and I pulled probably 3 or 4 weeks of about between 110 and 120 hours a week.

Yeah, yeah, I believe it.

You know, but that's what it took to, you know, get a restaurant up and running and successful, especially when you're a fine dining restaurant. Yeah. You know, so— Yeah, well, so what ended up bringing you to Texas? I originally moved to Austin back in 2012, and I was taking a job as the beverage director for a restaurant group that had 2 restaurants, getting ready to open the 3rd, and I was gonna do the beverage program for all 3 of them. Day after I moved, they declared bankruptcy. Oh gosh.

Wow.

So I'm sitting here with a suitcase, no car, sleeping on a friend of mine's futon.

Oh my goodness.

My signing bonus obviously didn't happen. Yeah. So I was scrambling, took a job waiting tables for a little bit and then ran a food truck yard for a guy and ran like 5 food trucks. Well, I ran one food truck, but I managed the whole yard. So did that for about 6 7 months, and then I got a job with H-E-B of all places. Okay. And I was gonna be a wine buyer for H-E-B, but I was, you know, to get me in, my foot in the door, I was a butcher for them. Okay. So taking that culinary background and putting it to use, and then herniated a disc in my back, could no longer do the job, and so I kind of fell into working in for some of the startups over there in Austin and And then, you know,

as luck has it, my girlfriend took a job with Texas Children's at the time, and I needed something a little bit more flexible, so I fell into the credit card processing. Moved here, sold cars for about 18, 20 months. Absolutely hated that. Man, you talk about— You either love it or you hate it. I mean, like, it's— I hated it.

And then that's coming from a server. Yeah, like serving is pretty bad for me. I did it for a while and I hated it.

Um, then I got— so I got back into the credit card processing business, and then come May it'll be 3 years. Uh, I kind of opened my own place and became a broker and started writing for more than one company and seeing different things and, you know, different products that were out there, and some companies have products that fit one niche better than another. And yeah, you know, that's how Space City Pavements was born, and, uh, I haven't looked back. And I absolutely love what I do. I love helping people. You know, that was one of the things I loved about being in the restaurant industry is being— well, seeing the smile on somebody's face when they had a great meal or great service, you know, just a great time.

I get that same satisfaction knowing that I've saved you know, a business owner money, or I've given them, you know, other avenues to make more money. Yeah, so they can feed their family and stuff like that. And I'm pretty particular about, you know, the people I work with. You know, if I tell you— I'll tell you, you know, look, you know, I'd love to help you, but I'm not gonna sign you up just to sign you up. You've got a good deal where you're at. Stay with who you're with. Yeah, because sometimes it's more of a pain to move. By all means. Yeah. And that was actually, you know, I had that discussion with your wife, actually.

Yeah.

You know, we truly was like, you know, look, you're happy with what you have, stay with that, you know. But you needed financing for stuff, so I was— I'm able to offer that. And I've been doing that since June. Started off with one. I've got 2 companies that I represent. Both of them have 35+ direct lenders, so I can find the right program that's going to work best for you. Yeah, um, you know, home services works better with one company, you know, attorneys and more professional type I put with a, with a different company, and, and it kind of works out better that way. So yeah, it's a cool deal for us, man, because it's difficult like to do high-ticket items for people that really need them.

It's difficult to hand them the price tag sometime and go like, look, deal with it, and they, they either have to like hand us a credit card Or, you know, try and scrounge enough cash together to put it. But like, if you can look at them and go like, look, we, we have, we have lending that you guys can do at 0%, this becomes a much more manageable thing that you need to do for your home. And I anticipate it being a big game changer for us. So I'm appreciative of it. Well, it eliminates the, you know, a lot of the I can't afford it.

Right.

So, you know, so that lady that wants the $20,000 kitchen remodel, you know, that's got $8,000 saved up, so instead of having to try to scrape together another $12,000, she could pay the $8,000 that she's got, finance the other $12,000 through, you know, XYZ contractor, get her kitchen remodeled. XYZ contractor gets his money, she gets her kitchen. It's a win-win for everybody.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So, cool, man. Well, if people want to talk to you about, you know, getting payment systems or point-of-sale systems or, you know, funding for their business, how do they get a hold of you, bud? Well, you can either email me at spacecitypayments@gmail.com, you can give me a call or text message at 737-932-2160, or you can go to spacecitypayments.com and fill out the little contact form form on there, or you can find me all over social media. Awesome. So is 737, is that in Atlanta? No, that's actually one of Austin's, uh— Oh, it's one of their prefixes? Was that the new one that they had to add? That's the new one they had to add. So now anytime that I get a

robocall that comes up 737, I know it's a spam call. Yeah, there you go. That's the one thing I love about it. Yeah, there you go. Cool, man. Well, thanks for sitting down. Hey, man. Always good to visit with you. Thanks for having me. Of course. Absolutely. All right. I mean, if they've got somebody else, send them on over. Will do. So, all right, have a great one. Thanks, bud. What do you think, man?

It's awesome, dude. Yeah, I, I, I think that, um, what I think is a barrier to entry for a lot of people whenever they want to get things done that have a high ticket price. Yeah, they just, they want to get it done because here's what happens, especially in the world that we live in today. With all these contractors that we talked to, things cost more than people think they do. Yep, they just do. I mean, unfortunately, he mentioned a kitchen remodel and he's talking a $20,000 kitchen remodel, and some people are going, well, I'm not going to be able to remodel my house for, you know, my kitchen for $20,000. And I'm going to tell you, that's a cheap kitchen remodel, right?

Yeah, that's crazy cheap.

That's really inexpensive. People will regularly spend $40,000 or more on their kitchen because because it just cost more than people think it did. Because the last time they paid for a kitchen or whatever, right, it was maybe $20,000, or maybe it was $10,000. But the price of lumber, the, you know, the gas prices for me to actually get back and forth from my house to your house.

Yeah.

Um, the, uh, the labor has gone up. Everything, you know, everything is more expensive than it was. And so whenever you look at it and you think, okay, well, I've, I've budgeted $20,000 for this kitchen remodel. They show you a price that's $40,000, and, and you get maybe 4 or 5 other bids and they're all similar.

Yeah.

What are you going to do? Are you just going to say, well, forget this, I'm just going to leave the, you know, the cabinets hanging on the wall barely, you know, all this tile that's coming up and the, you know, the counters that are old Formica that are peeling up, right? All this kind of stuff. What are you supposed to do? Well, And now this guy's coming in, Space City Payments, they're coming in and they're going, look, we're going to give you some opportunity to actually, you know, do the job.

Right.

And finance it at 0%?

Yeah.

Like, that is ridiculous. I, I, now I'm paying nothing more than I would be paying, and I have the opportunity to do it over and over and over every month and make it, make it worth it. Right.

It's a good deal. Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's been, like I said, it's been, it's been a game changer for our business.

Sure.

Just because it's, it's another way to get a yes from somebody on something that they, like, even in our business, it's usually something that they need to have done. And like, when the ticket price is too high, it can be like, do I really need that? And it's like, no, you do. You need this in order to have that so that your, you know, your house stays safe or whatever it is. And when the price is too high, they will hesitate because it's like, I just don't want to spend the money.

And I completely understand that.

But when you can say, like, look, we can break this up into 12 easy payments over that many months, you can get this taken care of now. And it's like, it just makes it such an easier decision for people because they're not out of all that cash, right, right out of their pocket, right?

Exactly.

So anyway.