All right, and we're back. Hey, real quick, you guys, I want to mention again Lone Star Appliance Repair. We are so grateful for them sponsoring today's show. Amazing folks, amazing service. You're not going to get better service on your appliances out there anywhere in the Conroe area, probably even a little further than that. But, uh, if you have a problem, if you need help with any appliances— I mean, you don't think about all the appliances in your home. You have your washer and dryer, of course. You have your range, you have your oven, you have have your microwave, you have your dishwasher, all those things. Uh, Lone Star Appliance Repair, you can find them at 936-647-2364. So
anyways, I'm sitting here, uh, with Raymond Taylor. So tell me about yourself, Raymond.
Hey, thank you for having me on. Excuse this obnoxious— it's an interesting thing. I just came here for a networking event and Uh, somebody's like, hey, will you come over here?
Please come over here and talk to me.
Yeah, I, I like it. I like to talk. So, uh, I'm from Canada, moved down here to this wonderful area of Texas, Magnolia, Texas area in 2007-ish.
Okay, so you've been, you've been here since 2007, so we don't have to call you a snowbird anymore. You're native now.
I, I hope so. I keep getting busted on my accent all the time though.
But yeah, we got a funny one too. Don't worry about it.
I was fortunate enough, the Weatherford Project team back in, back in that time, they were buying drilling rigs all over the place. And I got lucky out of Alberta. I rotated down here on like a 28 and 28 rotation and fell in love with a Texan, got married and moved down here. And I'm very fortunate. I think I'm very blessed that I get to live here. It's an amazing place.
Yeah. Anybody that ends up married to a Texan is pretty lucky.
That's right. That's right. Absolutely.
I got my green card the right way.
So I ended up working in the Middle East a lot the last 22, 23 years. I worked in Russia, Pakistan, Oman, a little bit of Asia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia. Spent 6 years in Kuwait running a deep drilling operation, big rigs, 3,000 horsepower rigs, deep drilling operation. Had about 500 guys underneath me, all different nationalities. And in that, It helps you develop your leadership and develop who you are and how you work with people because of the diversity and the differences.
You're not, you're not only managing people. It's, it's not just, hey, I'm not feeling good. I'm not coming to work today. You're also managing those cultural differences, right? Yeah.
And that, that I don't think a lot of people understand the value of that. That helps. I hate to use the word soft skills because Soft skills sounds a little cheesy and I don't think it gives it really value. It's that just dealing with that diversity of people and how to create a positive climate, for lack of a better term.
Well, that's like you. So working in Kuwait, you probably had employees from India, right?
And employees from the US, employees from Canada, I would assume.
And then not only local Kuwaitis as well. And you're making them work as a cohesive team when maybe they haven't had exposure to each other's cultures before.
Yeah, now you're opening up an absolutely fantastic discussion. Very good segueing into what you brought up. One of the biggest challenges we ran into is a lot of the leadership or line leadership guys that we brought in were American, Canadian, Australian, you know, British. The more senior guys that had a lot of experience running operations in different places. But what they lacked was working in that region with that diversity.
I'm not, I'm not gonna hate on us Americans, but we do have a means of, of thinking that everyone should do things just like ourselves, right?
No, but that's all fine. And what I'm— what I'm so happy about you segueing into this is that that was one of the biggest challenges we ran into, is say we had this, uh, driller He was a fantastic driller, very skilled, and we promote him to a night tool push, very skilled. Yeah, we promote him to rig manager, very skilled, because the guy's got all the right stuff. What he doesn't have is that leadership toolbox. Yeah, so next thing you know, you start getting these 1-800 calls about the guy said that.
And he was mean to me. Yeah, and you're like, okay, everybody, we need to stop for What did we give him on how to deal with this diversity of cultures, right?
And that's a lot of stuff that can't be taught in a book. It has to be taught in person. And that leads me to what you do now.
So I'm a leadership trainer. I'm a credentialed resilience-building leadership professional trainer. The RBLP program is a fantastic program. There's 3 levels. There's an RBLP Basic, there's an RBLPC, which is a coach, and there's an RBLPT, which is for the more, more senior leaders. become a trainer and train other people and get the credentials. I'm also a situational awareness specialist, and the company I work for is Fan Tail Services. And we do a lot of these keynote speeches. We go to places, we work with companies that have reached their pain point. They've got issues and people just need that extra leadership skill, which, I mean, it's not like a Tony Robbins kind of— no, a bunch of people sitting in a room and
I gotta tell you to watch over hot rocks.
Sell me this pen. We give, we give you real Real skills.
Yeah, uh, guys on our team are, uh, psychologists that work with Special Forces Aviation and teach human behavior and decision-making. Uh, John Minyard, who's our COO, he's an ex-Top Gun, uh, tactical air controller instructor.
And he was the Command Master Chief of the Pacific Fleet. All right, so these are— these are—
he's, uh, I mean, scoot this obnoxiously close to you. Um, so these are guys that, uh, they didn't just wake up and decide to do this.
They— I like to say we sat in the seat.
Yeah, you know a thing or two because you've done a thing or two.
I like it. And so you guys can come in, and I think one of the things that a lot of people talk about these days, and one of the buzzwords out there right now, if you looked on LinkedIn or any of these type things, is it's the great resignation, right? Companies are facing turnover like they've never seen before. And not only is it, you know, maybe a better job market, but also just, you know, people are starting, you know, through, through the pandemic, people had time to kind of sit and think about what they want to do with their lives. And coming out of that pandemic, I mean, there's a lot of companies right now that are telling people, you know, that had previously told people, hey, you can work
remotely forever. And now all of a sudden, uh, that things are starting to level out or maybe come back down a little bit, they're saying, well, we want you to come back in. you know, 2 days a week, 3 days a week, whatever. And there's so much resistance to that. I think as a country, we're going to see, you know, kind of a morph into more hybrid schedules overall, with or without a pandemic, or more work-from-home programs. But anyway, I'm going on a rant about that. But it's just—
All that, all that is, you know, I really don't see personally, that's just me, it's my— I'll give you the IMO, in my opinion. I don't really see the problem with that as long as the job's getting I agree.
I agree 1,000%. Yeah, I struggle with that personally because sometimes I really miss the office dynamic, and then I go in and I shoot the breeze with everybody for the day and it makes me feel good. But then I get home and I realize I didn't accomplish a dang thing today. You know, it's like I got, I got 75 emails I got to respond to because I was, you know, visiting with my coworkers.
Honestly speaking, I mean, the last Probably 3 years, I work off my phone way more than I work off my computer.
Yeah, there's that too, right? I mean, we actually— I actually have tools for my job available on my cell phone that are not available on the computer.
It's like if you need to know the inventory of a specific item that I've got, I can tell you from my cell phone. I can't tell you from my computer. That's just the way we, we developed that program.
I mean, the whole Zoom call, Teams meeting thing, yeah, that's kind of war on the cell phone a little bit. You got people who just shut off their video and, you know, they're, they're just wandering around pouring a cup of coffee and stuff.
I turn my camera on maybe like once a day now, and I'm on calls all day. I just, I can't take it. Like, I, I, so I'm a fidget master. Like, I cannot sit still. So I like to have my AirPods in. I will wander around my house. I'm picking stuff up. I'll do all kinds of things, but everything besides sitting at a computer watching And so that's the hard part is when you have yourself on mute and then somebody says, hey John, what do you think about that? Then I gotta make a mad dash back there to unmute myself. But anyways, where you guys come in is you teach those valuable management skills. And I think, you know, if you did an overall survey of
people leaving companies, you know, one of the main reasons is they feel like there's a lack of empathy or a lack of connection to management, right?
We actually just did a keynote speech out in Oklahoma City for the Petroleum Alliance Oklahoma City, and that was the basis of the speech, was this quiet quitting. We called it Leadership Now More Than Ever, and the problem with people just not feeling like their leaders are there for them, you know. Yeah. You know, the biggest thing about being a leader is being there for your people.
And being there can mean a lot of different You know, just being available for that call, being available for that text, whatever. But a lot of leaders nowadays that call themselves leaders, they really aren't leaders. They're just like, they have, they have a title. Yeah. And they're not there for the people. Being there is an important thing.
See, I, I get in my own head too much with my own personal job sometimes. Like, I have a manager who lets me be incredibly autonomous, right? He knows I'm doing my job. He doesn't need to talk to me all day. He trusts me to make decisions that maybe I should talk to him about that I don't. And every once in a while I'll be like, man, I haven't talked to him in like 2 weeks. I don't know what's going on. Maybe he's mad at me or something. And then I talk to him and he tells me how he's been busting butt, you know, fighting for me. And it's like, all right, we're good. I didn't, you know, well, I don't need
That's leadership. That is also leadership.
Well, yeah, he's leading in the fact that he trusts me. He trusts me to be autonomous. He knows that I'm working. He sees it through our results and all those things, and we don't have to have those hand-holding sessions.
I mean, the definition of leadership generally is the art of influencing human behavior to accomplish a mission in the manner desired by the leader.
So if you're nailing it, then I don't need to get in there, right?
and you hear a lot of that from a lot of people, especially like, you know, young in their careers and stuff. I feel like an couch these days, but like young in their career, they may feel like, uh, you know, they're being micromanaged and stuff like that. And there's an element to that with like your first job out of college, sure, but after a while you become more and more autonomous. And some of those managers, like, you know, there's all— you have a bazillion different industries, a billion different skill sets throughout the world, obviously. But, uh, I hear so many people complaining about micromanaging, and I personally just have never I've never felt like I've been micromanaged in my whole career. I guess I've been fortunate
Uh, yeah, I've worked for a few like that, that, uh, you got to take a look at it for face value and what it is sometimes. Maybe exterior to them, they've also got somebody that's like really breathing down their neck, so they're just trying to make sure that they're really well read in on the subject. And, and, and that tends to be a problem. One of the things that I teach when I'm working with people is I think a good leader takes these points: what do I know, who needs to know, and have I told them? And I think these are really important points as a leader for people to be able to filter down, because sometimes people think, I don't have
enough knowledge about what's going on, and they feel a little bit left out, and they start feeling a little bit shuttered, and it starts Creating different groups amongst your team. If you can keep people read in, I mean, all of us understand that sometimes you can't tell everybody everything, right? There's business aspects to that, right?
But as long as you keep them as well read in as possible, your teams just get more resilient.
Yeah, that's a— I mean, that we've been through a lot of that recently. I mean, through COVID and everything, we had massive layoffs at a lot of companies, right? And there's people who needed to be aware of that and know, and then people that couldn't obviously know, and that created a lot of division and things like that. But the fact of the matter is that you can't know everything all the time, and you also can't feed the gossip mill. The gossip mill is absolutely toxic for a workplace.
Like, oh God. Yeah, I was like, I, I try and compare everything similar to like running your family. There's a lot of value to looking at how you operate with your family to how you operate with any team you operate with. And you're sitting around the dinner table, are you going to tell your kids that I can't pay the mortgage this month?
No, you're not. There's only certain things you're going to be telling them, right? I mean, not only are they not going to understand that, it's going to completely freak them out. That's right. They're going to go to school and tell their friends, my dad can't pay the bills. And, you know, then they're going to go home and tell their parents. And it's just—
oh, geez. Full of sharing, sharing information, right?
So, all right, well, hey man, I, I enjoyed the heck out of visiting with you. Tell us how we can find you.
Uh, fantailservices.com. Uh, you can look us up on LinkedIn, or you can just look us up on our website. We've got a couple of side hustles with chemical products, firefighting foam. We've got a very fantastic intelligent nanofiber spill cleanup product.
These are like side hustles that we have.
I haven't met a single person here tonight that didn't have some sort of side hustle.
I have like 17 of them. Oh yeah, you got it.
It's my favorite thing in the world. Um, the biggest thing I like to do is I like to help people. We, we call ourselves a solutions-based consultancy, so if you have an issue, I can probably help you with it. Awesome, Raymond. I appreciate it. Thank you.
All right, and we'll be back with our next guest in just a moment. All right, and we're back. So if you're just tuning in, this is The Homeowner Show. I am— well, I'm not really the host. I'm taking over today for Craig and Kevin. My name is John Haverd. This is The Homeowner Show. We are sponsored today by our friends at Lone Star Appliance Repair. Uh, they are amazing people out here in Montgomery County, and they will take care of all of your, uh, all of your appliance repair needs. They are the The appliance repair pros. You can get them at 936-647-2364. But I am not sitting here with Lone Star Appliance Repair. I am actually sitting with Made Different. That's right. And your name
All right, I'm gonna ask you to put this thing obnoxiously close to your mouth. That's okay. These things are— it's really weird. So your company is Made Different?
And so you guys are a cleaning service?
And you're made different.
We are made different. We try to make the experience a little different for our clients and make it more of a personable situation. We always consider our clients like family and try to give them that experience all the time. We're not throwing different people into their house all the time that they don't know.
That's something we were talking before we came on air, and we were talking about that, and you guys, you told me that you, you know, you're not hiring Outside help or anything? It's all—
Yeah, it's just you and her. It's just us two right now. Um, I've had other people before and they were with us for a while, but you know, life changes.
Um, Mandy's been with me for about 2 years now, and so we're close with all of our clients and we always try to keep it that way. And I'm very strict about anybody I hire because if I wouldn't have them in my house, they're not going to be in yours.
That's— I mean, that's a part— that's a problem that I've they've personally had in the past.
Yeah, I've run into that a lot with like when I do walkthroughs. I, I do a complete profile for my client, so I want to know problems they've had in the past with other clients so I can write it down on their profile. And anybody that would come to their house knows like, hey, this is what they're picky about, this is the problem they've had with previous services. Yeah, and we really just want them to be comfortable and feel like You know, we, we take the time, we get in there, we talk to our clients for a good half hour or so and kind of, you know.
That's, that's what, like, we, we've done some silly things before, like, like booked a service that we've never actually met the person. They gave us a quote over the phone.
And then they show up and—
See, I won't do that either.
They themselves look like they haven't bathed.
And then, and then you get subpar service and there's no accountability in it, you know?
And, uh, But I also have a very unique home. Like, if I were to call you, I bet you'd probably turn me down.
I think you would. I have 6 dogs.
It's okay. We have— believe me.
I have 6 dogs and a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old.
We have seen it all. We've seen it all. And we're both moms and we're animal people.
Like, we do vacuum twice a day and it's—
It's still an issue. Yeah, it's still an issue.
We have, we have plenty of clients with like huge houses that have all kinds of animals and they're always like, we're so sorry. We're so sorry, but it's fine. We're used to it. We know how to handle it.
Yeah, my wife just informed me that she wants a goat, so I think we'll be getting a goat soon as well. Oh, that's cool. But that'll be an outside animal, so even that's the only thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My daughter wants a goat, and I'm like, meh, maybe.
They're actually really cool. I just— I, uh, I make an educational show for kids, and we recently filmed goat milk, uh, soap making.
So we went out, we milked some goats, which was— I had never milked a goat before. Uh, my show is called Cowboy Jack, so you would think cowboy jacket, milked. He's a goat milking pro, but I'd never milked a goat. We made soap. But, but, uh, have you guys ever had to terminate a client?
Um, I don't, I don't know. Have we? One?
I don't remember. Who was it? I don't know. I feel like maid service is such a, such an individual and unique thing that you really have to have a relationship.
You do. It is really important. And I will tell you that I don't, I don't I prefer to have a client that, that we do bond with, you know, because it's hard for us to clean for somebody that is like, doesn't want to have that relationship with us, you know, because we, we take pride in our work and we have the happiness guarantee. And some people you just can't make happy, but we will spend all day at your house until it is done right.
So when people are not appreciative of it, it's like it hurts our feelings. a little bit because we know that we're, we're working really hard.
You have to be able to talk to these people, right?
And we want people to trust us. We want it to be an equal thing, you know, it goes both ways.
And so you don't want it to be like—
you don't want people to feel like they're trapped at home because you're there, right? They need to be able to go run their errands.
Yeah, go do what you got to do, come back. And that's how most of our clients are like that. Like I said, I'm— I've been in business for about 4 years, and Mandy's been with me for about 2. And a lot of my clients I've had for 4 years, you know, some come and go because their lifestyle changes and whatever. But, um, I, I don't— I think— I don't know, I don't really have issues with people. I'm, I'm really good with, you know, talking, and I'm an out-of-towner, so I can like bond with a lot of people on different things.
So you're an out-of-towner, but you've been here a minute?
I have been. I've been here for about 9 years. So I have been here a minute.
You told me you were leaving.
But I, I, uh, I am. But Mandy's gonna take over stuff and I'm just gonna— I'm gonna blossom up north, that's all.
That's awesome, that's awesome. But yeah, one of the things that, that I, you know, like, this is, uh, this is a weird segue, a weird— maybe a weird thing to talk about, but I'm just gonna throw it out there— is that I never realized how much it takes to keep up a home. And I, you know, I'm the father of 2 and the dog dad of 6. And, uh, you know, when we— after we had my second child, my wife, uh, became— I mean, she still works part-time, but more like a stay-at-home mom taking care of the house and everything. And it's a— it's more than her full-time job would be. Like, it's intense.
And she needs this help. So I'm at— I finally got around to building her a new house. We're building her a new house out here. And once we get in that new house, my commitment to her is we're going to have a maid service because it's just too much to keep up.
It is so much. I was a stay-at-home mom for like 7 years, and then my ex-husband and I separated, and I was a medical assistant, but it wasn't enough for me to take care of my own household. So I was like, what do I, what do I do best? I was a stay-at-home mom forever. So that's kind of how the company started.
It is so hard, but it's worth it when you have the right clients, you know? Like, that's our satisfaction, is that they're happy and we're making their life easier. And that's why we have the Happiness Guarantee. And so what's involved in that is, you know, we come out, we start out with a deep clean, and then we maintain the deep clean every— if you do residual services, we'll maintain the deep clean. And if there's something we miss, because we're human, you know, things happen, if you notice something, we come back, we take care of it for free. It's no problem at all. We're not insulted. It's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.
Well, that's also the thing is that You need to have a relationship with your— with the people that are cleaning your house because you have to be able to not feel awkward to—
And it means so much. If you don't tell— like, say you came to my house and you missed a toilet or something.
And I didn't tell you that, like, hey, by the way, last time—
It causes animosity if you can't have that communication.
We've got this secret battle going on in here.
Yeah, and it's a problem.
I'm mad at you and you're like, why is he being weird? And we're just gonna be awkward forever.
I do the walkthrough with people and I'm like, look, do not ever feel bad for like— because we know we make mistakes, you know, we're not perfect. But that's exactly why I have the happiness guarantee, because if we're having an off day, just let us know. Please just let us know because we're going to come out there and we're going to make sure that we make it right. We're going to give you that option. And that is—
that has got to be literally the hardest part of y'all's job is the fact that there are no such thing as an identical house.
Even if you have 2 identical houses is built the same. People have their junk in a different place.
And everybody has a thing that, that bothers them more, right? So that's why I do the client profile, because everybody— every home is different, every need is different. So, you know, some people I'm like, what is the biggest stress area of your house? Like, some people it's their kitchen, some people it's laundry, some people it's their baseboards, you know.
I would say like the whole thing.
Yeah. And some people it's like that, but Anywhere my kids go. I, I like to— I want to make sure that our services are geared specifically for that household. So everybody is different. That's why, like, pricing is different depending on your needs. And, you know, but we really want to make sure that we're catering to what you need specifically for your house.
What areas do y'all cater to? Like, what, what's your coverage?
No, no, like, like, geographically.
Uh, we do, uh, mainly Montgomery County, Your mechanic's big, right? Yeah, big.
Are you going all the way to like New Caney?
Um, yeah, we would. I'm, I'm in Conroe and she is in New Waverly, so we usually meet up and most of the time we're in Montgomery. But so we do Montgomery, Conroe, Willis. We could go as far as Huntsville. Like, yeah, we're willing, we're willing to take that extra, you know.
Wherever we gotta go, it's fine, you know.
Made Different. I love that name. That's just really cool.
I think you have a really cool cart. I mean, that's—
That's impressive. I love it. I love it.
Well, thank you guys for joining us here. I appreciate you taking time to tell us about your business.
So how do we find you guys? That's the important part, right?
Um, you can find us on Facebook.
On Facebook. Okay. Yeah, I see a phone number here.
You can look us up, Made Different, M-A-I-D Different. And, um, and then my phone number is 215-410-2991.
She's not lying. I just read it on the card.
All right, well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.
I hope you get some new clients out of this. If you want absolute impeccable clean service that you don't have to be afraid to tell the lady, hey, you missed something, this is your gal.
We're it. All right, thanks a lot.
We'll be back in just a a minute. All right, and we're back. I got my next victim with me here. If you're just tuning in, this is The Homeowner Show. We are live from—
I forgot. Moonshine Deck in Montgomery, Texas.
That's right. Or Magnolia.
I think technically they say this is Magnolia, but I feel like it's a weird line they got through here between Magnolia and Montgomery. I feel like this is Magnolia. I mean, I feel like this is This is Montgomery, not Magnolia. Magnolia's that one of these ways, right?
Yeah, they kind of smashed it. It's almost like you got Conroe, Montgomery, and Magnolia all hitting the same location.
Tomball tries to sneak its way in. So anyways, I'm, I'm here with Robert. Uh, tell us about yourself.
Yes, uh, my name is Robert Beely. I'm with RWB Electrical. We do, uh, residential and commercial service work, basically any kind of repairs you need For literally anything— lighting, um, adding plugs, uh, troubleshooting something that doesn't work. Uh, we also do, uh, like generators, standby generators, like, uh, portable generators, or even whole home generators. We deal with Generac. We can— we provide the whole system turnkey. Uh, we also deal with permitting if needed, uh, if you're in the city limits. And obviously the county doesn't require permits, so we can handle almost anything you need electrical-wise.
That standby generator business is probably just about to start picking up, huh?
Yes, usually hurricane season it gets real popular.
I know. I've lived in the same house for 14 years and every year I'm like, all right, we're getting a generator. We never do it.
But one of these years we will.
Well, the thing is, you don't realize you need one until you need one. You know, it's like in the back of your mind.
Yeah, man. I mean, we, we've actually been fortunate through hurricanes. When we needed it was the deep freeze. Uh, that was a bad one for us.
Yeah, I had like a, a 7-month-old daughter at the time, and, uh, uh, my son was probably 3 at the time, and, uh, we lost power for 6 days, I think.
Oh yeah, it got pretty cold. Got pretty cold. It wasn't a lot of fun with an infant being that cold.
Right. Well, being the power out, like if you got a gas home, it's not so bad. It's easy to get your heater to work and just a little bit of power to start your igniter for your furnace. Yeah, but they were doing rolling blackouts on gas.
That was the problem, man. Every, every time we would get going, it would cut off.
So that was horrible. Even if you had a standby generator, you was out of commission until they turned the gas back on.
So, so what's the, what's the most interesting job you've had recently?
Well, let's see, we do so much, do so much work. A lot of stuff we do is small projects because we got out of the big project game and focused more on smaller projects. But, um, I don't know what we've done. A remodel on some bathrooms. Um, we do a lot of boat docks, especially like around Lake—
Yeah, I didn't think about that.
The boat docks at Lake Conroe. A lot of people have lighting outages or, or their boat and dock lifts Their boat lifts don't work, the motor stops.
Those boat lifts are— I mean, we're a little bit lucky that Lake Conroe is freshwater. It's not quite as hard as down on the coast, but man, those things are just exposed to the elements all the time, and you're always having issues with those.
And you'd be surprised— bugs, ants, uh, hornets, they build their little homes around stuff and they wind up tearing your electrical up as well.
Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah, but, and of course you always have moisture and humidity.
That's correct. Yeah, we're in the South.
Summertime on the lake, it's like an Yes, sir. So that's cool. And you guys do, you know, like you said, residential and commercial. Do you ever get into any light industrial at all?
No, we don't do industrial a whole lot. Um, we do heavy commercial. Uh, usually if you start getting— well, it all depends. We deal with some industrial companies if it's not actually in a plant. Yeah, plant requires some heavy-duty insurance.
Yeah, you have to have crazy umbrella insurance. Yeah, safety classes to get in there.
And so it's pretty pricey. to get in there, and it's only worth it if you get a lot of work. Yeah, in order to cover that expense.
Yeah, sure. That's a, you know, historically we haven't had a ton of plants around here, but actually I just read the other day they announced a huge expansion, uh, up in Conroe.
Uh, not, not the Huntsman facility, it's another different facility up there, but it's a pretty significant project up there.
I don't think I've heard of it. That's something to take a look at for sure.
We have some hidden, hidden gems up there for sure.
Yeah, sometimes when we're not too busy, like me, I'm usually in the office all the time along with Christy, who usually is the one answering the phone. I'll wander around, I'll start driving around and checking like industrial type or commercial type facilities because those are the kind of things we like because usually there's a lot of warehouse or manufacturing, they use a lot of product and stuff gets damaged. Lighting switches, plugs, are you going to use them, you know, nonstop all day long every day?
The repeat business on those are great. Don't get me wrong, residential is good as well too.
And we get a lot of word of mouth, so that's great.
Well, and you do service calls, so you're not doing new installs?
No, we used to. It's just, uh, it became something that we didn't, we didn't want to do anymore. We've been doing it for 15 years, especially commercial. It was heavy commercial new construction, like fast food restaurants, banks, brand new ground-ups. And, um, And we was doing service, but maybe 10% of it, like little piddly stuff on the side. And then, uh, we just got to the point where we was done and we wanted to bring it back down to something, you know, keep it simple. So we kind of downsized and attacked at that. And honestly, uh, we like it a lot better. And because we get a lot of positive feedback from our customers. Commercial, they don't care about you, do your job.
You know, residential people, oh, I love you.
And my guys like it a lot better to get out of more Well, and then, and then they're, they're telling their 10 friends and raving fans about you. That's one thing about the, the capital side of things, like when you're doing those new builds, new constructions, like you said, fast food restaurants and everything like that. Those companies, those big companies like that, literally have a capital expenditures team watching every penny of that.
You got a deadline and it has to be met regardless, right?
And there's punitive damages if you don't.
And that's exactly right.
And then also your whole You know, maybe you have 90-day payment terms or something like that, and you're having to pay the— pay your guys out of pocket every Friday.
And that's correct. So that's why, like, those jobs like that, you need multiple of them. So we used to have 3 or 4 restaurants going at a time and possibly a bank. So you're kind of robbing Peter to pay— the money from this job is paying for this job.
Yeah, exactly. But then you got a problem over here, but you've already paid these folks, and now you're cash poor for the next 2 months, 3 months.
And then that's where the service— like, that's where, uh, service work comes in handy. Yeah, because you get paid now. So we'd have that over here and that would help. So it's juggling money.
I see what you're saying too, though. The clientele is just so much more appreciative on the service side just because you're fixing a defined problem.
Sure, you know, it's something that they need, that they use on a regular basis, that no longer works. I can save the day for you. Yeah.
Well, you find somebody who can't get their car out of the garage because the garage door opener isn't working, or, you know, half of their house is dark, or half of their business is dark, something like that.
And there's a lot of instances that customers don't know what the problem is, and they're thinking it's like— I would get a lot of calls, hey, uh, half my house isn't working, or, you know, or, uh, I was like, well, usually if half your house isn't working, maybe you lost the leg coming to your house too. Try something that works on 240. Does your AC work?
Does your electric stove come on or your dryer? If it doesn't, you probably lost the leg. Yeah, I'm gonna save you some money. Instead of me coming out there and charging you for a service charge, call the power company. They'll come out for free, like at CenterPoint or Entergy or, or, uh, MidSouth, whoever you're going to use. They'll come out for free, check your stuff. Boom, didn't cost you anything. That power company has a transformer issue, the fuse needs to be replaced. They hit it, boom, you're back in business and it didn't cost you a dime. Yeah, some electrical companies don't do that. Oh yeah, we'll send somebody over there knowing probably— yeah, you know.
Not to mention they have 30-year-old underground service or something like that.
And that happens also. Sometimes your underground feeders are bad.
Oh man, I, I live, I live down in Spring and I— we have like a hybrid system. It's, it's maybe half underground, half above.
And, uh, we've had more problem with the underground portion than we have the overhead. That it really was, it was an early, early adoption. You know, sure, of course it's aluminum conductors. You find a lot of aluminum conductor in utility. That's just the way it is. I don't think it has anything to do with that. I think it's just the quality of the materials used and the labor that was done when the developer originally did my neighborhood. Is that— man, it's not even— we don't have wind issues, we have rain issues.
Moisture and all those— oh, the concrete pads they put in 20 years ago to set the transformer Transformers are, you know, leaning this way and half of them are underwater, right? Stuff like that.
So, you know, yeah. And aluminum is still the standard for underground. A lot of people— aluminum got a bad rap back in the day.
That was because of trailer homes. That wasn't even accurate. Of course you don't want aluminum necessarily in your walls, and we still don't do that today, but, but there are ways to address it if you do. Like, you guys probably come in and put pigtails and all that.
It all depends how bad There's a lot of factors involved in that one. You have to really take a look at it. It's kind of hit and miss because it can be too, too bad, or you might have to rewire your whole house. You know, that's a possibility. Um, there's dealing with aluminum, there's so many factors involved, and you got to see what kind of situation you're having to see where you fit in at.
Yeah, well, being in real estate in Conroe, man, I've encountered a lot of unique situations with electrical. I even— there was a, there was a home I was selling in, in, uh, Oh, what's the— uh, it's not River Plantation, but it's north and it's to the west side of 45. There's a golf course over there and I cannot think of the name of it. Anyways, it doesn't matter. Sure. There was an industrial fuse box on the house.
So instead of having like a main, main breaker disconnect or anything, it had an industrial open fuse. Like you needed to have like an insulated glove to throw this fuse. And it was just like the—
I can't say I've seen that one before. I've seen a lot of stuff.
I don't know if I've seen that We had city inspectors, we had home inspectors, we had everybody come out and they were like, yeah, we're not touching this. And we ended up having to walk away. Somebody ended up buying the house, but it was just crazy. And I'm sure you find stuff like that all the time.
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, there's certain things that we have to— like some people, and this is generally if you're within city limits is where a lot of this takes effect, is you go and like say the breaker box needs to be replaced if it's not an outside disconnect that's required by code. If I got to change the panel, if it's outside or inside, it has to Well, if the panel's outside, it's not a big deal. He's got an outside main breaker. But inside panel, then you gotta have a disconnect outside. That's my current code. It has to be done or, or something I have to— because if this requires inspections, I can't pass the inspection to get your power turned back on,
right? And then here we are stuck with a problem.
And the customer's like, well, all it needs is my panel replaced. Yes, I understand that. That is true.
But we can't do that without doing this.
Yeah, by current code, I have to add this or the city's not going to pass the inspection.
I can't get your power Yeah, and what a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, those codes can be annoying and they are irritating at times and they end up costing you a lot of money sometimes, but they also pay for the peace of mind.
That is true. And also, if you're going to sell, that's one box you can check off.
Yeah, you have to be up to code. Yeah, because no matter what the inspector says, and even if they say, you know, we're not going to ask for any repairs or anything, when a safety issue comes up, that ask changes.
That's exactly right. And I think those inspectors love doing what they do because their list is long when they go through a house.
Like, I love, I love the inspectors that come back and say the breaker box isn't labeled. I'm like, look, man, it's a 40-year-old house. Nobody ever cared to label it. I'll come over with a magic marker. But you know, it makes everybody's— I understand it makes life easier.
Anyways, well, Robert, thanks for jumping on, man. Tell us how we can find your business.
Well, shoot, you can find us online, uh, easily. Google, we're on Google. Uh, you also, our website is RWB at rwbelectricalservices.com. Our office line is 832-307-7967. Christy usually answers the phone. She's a, she's a bundle of joy to talk to. She's very helpful, you know. So, uh, call us anytime and we're glad to help.
Awesome. Well, you heard it here, folks. Uh, if you need a service call for your electrical needs, Residential or commercial. And we're on Facebook, you know, on Facebook, RWB Electric.
All right, we're gonna find you. They're gonna find you too. I appreciate you.
Definitely, man. Awesome. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
All right, we'll be back shortly. All right, guys. Hey, I appreciate you tuning in tonight to The Homeowner Show, uh, with your surprise guest host, John Havard, uh, AKA Cowboy Jack. I had a great time taking over Kevin and, and, uh, Craig's show tonight, so I'm glad you stuck around and listened with us. We've had a great time here with Annette. They just did the Lutron giveaway. I called the name. We had a great time visiting with you folks. So tune in to the next episode. I'll see you guys later. Thanks.
All right, here comes the golf. I got any golfers in the house? Anybody?
Anybody play golf? All right, so this is going to go to a garage sale.
