We are live here at Sawyer Park with The Net. We're gonna have a good time tonight. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Craig Williams and I am hosting the show tonight. We got our first guest up, but before we even get to the guest, we got to thank our sponsors. Guys, thank you so much to Lone Star Appliance Repair. Uh, they have been our longest Outstanding sponsor. Uh, you can always reach out to them at 936-647-2364. You can text them, call them, uh, whether your appliance is old or new, get it repaired. It's always a pain to have to deal with a sales rep at one of these big box stores. Get your appliances repaired.
Also, thank you to True Texas Solar and Roofing. They can provide you with a whole home off-grid system. It's not that you can be off the grid, but they can get you off the grid as much as possible. through solar, whole home batteries, and generator backup systems. You can give them a call at 936-286-8325. And last but not least, thank you to Krazy Klean for sponsoring this show. You can reach out to them at krazyklean.com. That's Krazy with a K and Klean with a K. This is the solution for your toilet. Do not keep it from getting dirty. It's not gonna eliminate— it's gonna eliminate the ring. You're never gonna have to scrub your toilet again. Kevin's son has not had his allowance in months now because Krazy Klean has been
toilet, and the chore that his son has to do is cleaning the toilet. He hadn't had to clean the toilet in months, guys, because Crazy Clean is in the bowl. It lasts for up to 10 years. Don't have to replace it. It may even last longer than that. You don't know. But anyway, we got a fun show for you guys tonight. I have with me sitting down Mr. Peter— am I saying Catalano?
You are. That's the first time somebody said my name correctly.
Ah, just a couple of times. Let me, let me see if I can get us both in the shot here, and then we can get rolling.
People have told me that.
You and I have chatted a couple of times. You actually came up to me after I was giving a talk at a networking group, and you're like, I really like that you were talking about values.
And so I'm intrigued to get into that. Yeah, hand that right here, Bubba. Thank you, sir. I'm going to hand you this empty.
See how this works. He's not even the waitress here. I know, but his legs look good.
But let everybody know who you are. You know, this, this is— I always feel like this is kindergarten cop. It's like, who's your daddy and what does he do? But let everybody know who you are and what you do.
I am Peter Catalano. I have been a financial advisor since 1992. So I don't know if I have enough fingers and toes to count that many years. But yeah, I've been in the financial planning world that long, Craig.
Okay. And so what is— I mean, for people that don't know, what is financial planning?
Good question. So financial planning covers a lot of different areas. From my perspective, I cover the 5 areas of financial planning. They are cash flow, investments, insurances, legal, and tax. And I like to make sure that all 5 areas are covered in perfect order every year for my clients.
Do you find that like most people like have 1 or 2 and are lacking a couple others? Or like, what is, what is, what is the the normal that you find when you're, when you're setting up a new client?
So the normal is most people don't have maybe one or possibly two, as you said, but all 5 areas is hard to get to because most of the other guys— not to disparage anybody, there's a lot of really great people out there— but most of the other guys call financial planning just working on one area, typically investments and/or insurances, because that's where they get paid the most amount of money.
But they don't really collaborate well. And my claim to fame is I like to collaborate with the other subject matter experts who undoubtedly know a lot more than I do.
Okay, and like, I think most people's hesitation— and when you're saying like you need 5 areas to be covered— like, is most people's hesitation in that is that they feel like it's gonna be too expensive, it's gonna cut into too much of their monthly budget? Like, what is their hesitation in not being, you know, fully planned, I guess would be the way to put it?
Really great question. I haven't had that brought to me before, so I love this already. So I find the hesitation is not necessarily about the money. It's more about unawareness. They're just not aware of what is available to them and what these 5 areas are that really need to be. So for example, let me just help break it down a bit. My claim to fame is values-based financial planning, which we can talk about in a minute here. But, you know, legal and tax work together. Cash flow and tax works together. Investments, tax, and legal works together.
So a lot of people just don't know that we've got to check in with the other subject matter experts to best understand what's going on. So if I may, for example, sure, a lot of my clients like using real estate as an asset class.
Which I'm one of the few financial advisors, I think, who are— I'm okay if somebody wants to use real estate as an asset class. I think it's a great asset class.
But understand the volatility that can occur in real estate as well as it can occur in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, whatever asset class they want to use. Well, Real estate, let's go down that road for a minute. How is it titled? Who's holding it? How would we structure it? Did we structure it as an income property? And if so, did we structure it inside an LLC? If that's the case, I want to collaborate with the attorney.
I want to collaborate with the accountant.
To make sure we understand what that entity is going to produce. Now, if I may, Look, I'm the advisor for the individual or the family, right? So I will work with you and your wife and I will sit and say, what do you guys want? But then you have assets. Let's say it's real estate. We'll go down that road for a minute. You have assets that you're using to drive income. That income needs to support the goals that you two have decided you want to have.
So when you say income, you're talking about if the real estate is set up like as a rental or an Airbnb or something like that?
Not one that you're living in?
Correct. And when I say income, I mean income or growth. So let's look at what assets can do, right? Real estate as an example. Real estate can produce income, Airbnb, sure, rental, whatever, traditional rental property, or it can— and/or it can produce gain, right? We bought it at $300,000, we sell it at $500,000. There's a gain.
I don't care what really what the asset is. Is it real estate? Is it stock? Is it a bond? Is it a mutual fund? Whatever. Is it your business?
You got this business of podcasting. It's great. This business can be sold. It's an asset in my mind. Right. And this asset has value. It produces income and has value. I treat it as an asset producing whatever it needs to produce or it can produce so you and your wife can live the life you want to live.
Gotcha. And so what is— I mean, like, you've got this book here, you've got this roadmap sitting here, and we got to wrap it up here pretty quick.
But I want people to know you because you brought this, you brought I tried, but no, we're on podcast, so why bring visual aids?
Yeah, so I mean, and part of the way that we even started having a conversation is I was talking about values from a business perspective, using it as a filter to make decisions for your business, and you seem to resonate with that. How does that filter into financial planning? Like, what is— I mean, because you showed me the roadmap a little bit. Someone's You're famous. People just want to take a picture.
Please send that to everybody that you know.
Thank you so much. So how does that factor into how you sit down with the client and then start making decisions?
Thank you for asking that question. So I start every conversation with my clients in completing what is called a financial roadmap. Okay. And a financial roadmap has 3 key sections to it: your values, your goals, and where you're at today.
The most important part of the conversation I have with clients is to identify their core values. And I believe this, Craig, when your values are clear, your decisions are easy.
Roy Disney made that comment. Roy Disney was Walt's bro. And Roy Disney, I think, was a pretty smart guy because he's the one who financed all the Disney build-out, if you know that.
Well, I mean, like, he's the business mind behind— I mean, Walt was the creative mind, but Roy was the business guy.
Right, right. And that meant he got it done. And so I believe that when your values are clear, Following Roy, your decisions are easy. And when your decisions are easy, it is because you're able to understand your core values and answer which decision that's being presented to me will close— as close as possible align to my core values.
Now, as it relates to finances, well, money touches everything, does it not?
So if I can help clients identify their core values, align their goals to those values, because when you do what you do with your money, which is completion of the goals. If they're aligned to your values, you'll have fulfillment, believe it or not. Okay. Now here's the fun part. When life likes you, we simply realign the goals that have to change to those values. Goals rarely change values. Excuse me. Values rarely change. Goals always do.
Well, I think it'd be fun to have a longer conversation about what happens when values change, because I know that I If you stick with someone long enough, most likely their values are going to change at some point in time.
So I've been doing this since 1992, right? And so I've been doing that on the value train. It's kind of like the newest trend that's out there, in my opinion, right? And so I think I have a little bit of history. I think it's proven, right? Let me say this, values rarely change.
They deepen. Okay. So what I do with people—
People have greater conviction.
Correct. So what I do with people is understand their core values, get them to Get them to articulate them. But then when we get together over the years, and I'm a very high-touch kind of guy, I talk to my clients all the time. I'm looking at how their values are deepening, right? And then helping them align their money to those deepening values.
Yeah, we got to have the next guest, but let everybody know how they get a hold of you if they want to have a deeper conversation.
I love it. I'd love to do a financial roadmap for anybody who wants to do a financial roadmap as I described in here. You can reach me at peter@pcatalano.com or just go to That's P for Peter, C-A-T-A-L-A-N-O dot com. Peter at pcatalano.com. Easily set an appointment directly on my calendar. Happy to have a half-hour conversation just to see if this is even a fit for you.
Yeah, yeah. If you could do me a favor, jump on one of the feeds, either the YouTube or the Facebook, and just drop that email.
And any other contact information you want people to have in the comments section.
That way we can have it and put it in the show notes later on. I'll be happy to do that. But yeah, that'd be the easiest way for me to get a hold of it.
Because I don't have anything to write down.
I know, right? Now, I hope everybody else is writing it all down or at least repeating this video over and over again to get it written down. You'll be able to get a hold of us.
Thank you, Craig, so much for letting me be here. Thank you for sitting down.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
All right, folks, thank you very much for your time.
Guys, thank you so much for listening to what Peter had to say. It's valuable information when you start talking about financial planning.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think we have—
Marianne, do we have another person ready to line up?
Yeah, I think we have Alicia Fisher coming up here in just a second.
Marianne? Marianne? Hello, Marianne. Who's next?
Who's next? Yeah. Who's next? I'll go longer if you want me.
I can talk all day. I saw her walk by here just a second ago.
I'm Italian. I can talk forever and ever and ever. I'm part of the ananana committee. Craig's over here laughing at my jokes. My kids laugh at the same jokes, which is kind of sad.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know where she is, but say what?
I think we're live. I'm alive. Are you alive? Is she right here? Oh, she's ready to go. Well, you know, let me step out. Thank you, Craig, for your time.
I'm just gonna wait for her to get here.
Thanks, man. Uh, guys, thank you so much for joining in the conversation. We are having a good time tonight. I hope you guys can tune in and, uh, leave a comment, leave a like, thumbs up, heart. Come on, girl. Hello, hello. About the only way you're going to be able to hear is if you put the things on. I know The ladies that join the show don't like to put the headset on, but it's—
Let me bring you in here.
They're a little big though.
Just get a little bit closer.
Okay, let me scoot. Scooch. There we go.
All right, so look at this. You guys sponsored one of our events a while back, so I got your, uh, I'm gonna put your stuff up while you're here. Oh yay, thank you!
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, so what's going on?
Uh, you know, we're busy. Uh, let me get it closer. Uh, we have started doing some more gas lines for generators.
Yeah, you know, people get afraid when hurricane season starts coming around. They want to get those generators installed, so we've been helping out Some people doing that.
Are those, are those tough to put in? I mean, like, well, I mean, if they have an existing natural gas line, is it difficult to like tap into that? I mean, how's that work?
It depends on where the generator needs to be located, but because of like windows and doors and there's, you know, safety stuff you have to think about, the location of the generator. So it's really about where the generator has to be and how close the gas meter is.
For where, you know, where we have to run the line. So sometimes it's very quick and easy, and other times it's, you know, going up and through the attic and going around and stuff like that.
What about people that don't have, don't have a gas line? I mean, like, I mean, like, you guys having to work with like utility companies to put those in, or?
Typically people have like the meter already.
Yeah, so I, because I know a lot of people like we Like, we have a building on our property. It was going to cost us like $10,000 to get the natural gas over to it. And so it was just cheaper to get like a propane system put in rather than spending the $10,000. I think it cost us like $500 or $600 for them to like lease us the tank, you know, and then however much it costs to refill it from time to time.
You know, I think that we recently did one of our first help, like helping out with that part of a project when they had a big propane situation. But most of the stuff, people have meters in their homes.
I mean— Yeah, they're gonna want to tap into that. Yeah, I mean, I know, I know at my parents' house, like, they— there was natural gas at the street, but they'd never had it at the house. And so they had to have, like, the natural gas— I mean, like, the utility company actually brought the meter in to where they needed it, and then the plumber came in and attached the generator And it's a lot.
It's crazy, but we have recommended some people to call their utility company and have them put in another meter because they want you to use it. So they're gonna do what they can. So it's gonna be much cheaper for them to do that than for us to run the line super far.
It's a way for people to save money on it.
Yeah, I mean, like, look, I mean, like, generators are super popular right now. People are wanting to get off the grid. They're not gonna like in Hurricane season is just around the corner here in Houston, and I don't know if you've ever been without power for a couple days.
Yep, definitely experienced that.
Have you? Yeah, it's unpleasant.
Oh well, we lost power during Barrel. Oh geez, we also got hit with a stomach bug during it.
A lot of fun with my toddlers, and my grandmother-in-law was also living with us at the time in Buck 6, so Yeah, that was a very interesting experience that I do not wish to repeat.
Do you have a generator now?
We don't have gas in our neighborhood, but we do, we have a portable.
And that's another thing we're doing a lot of is the quick connects for the portable generators.
So, which is not an option for us because there's, and I also rent, so I can't, there's no options for that. So unfortunately we have to go and get gas and deal with those lines and all of that. But a lot of people are after Seeing how it was hard to get gasoline for the steering barrel, people are calling us for those quick connects.
I can tell you what we did is I went and bought a tri-fuel generator and then had John Wagner came out and put a 50-amp plug on my box that I can then plug that generator into my electrical panel and I can power everything.
You know, it's one of those— because for y'all it doesn't make a difference. You don't— you guys probably don't care if somebody's putting in a Generac or whatever. It's just like y'all are putting in the gas, right?
Most people don't know you can get a tri-fuel generator that can power like most standard homes for less than $1,500, you know? And then you've got one that can run on gas, it can run on propane, and it can run on natural gas. And so even if you don't have a natural gas line, you can have gasoline, you can have propane. Now there are different electrical levels, but like you can have that there to plug into your house or, you know. And the other thing I like about it is if I ever had like an RV or something like that, it's portable.
It's not stuck to a concrete pad permanently to just do my house. It can do multiple things, you know, and, and power lots of— it's got a lot of power. And the thing's remote control. It's super high-tech. Um, we did a review on it way back when, but like, it, you know, people, people have a lot more options than they think that they do.
Yeah, and not everyone can afford those, but they are much more affordable than the Generac.
And I mean, like, Generac, you're what, you're looking at like $15,000 probably, if not more?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they really get up there. There's a lot that goes into it too. It's not just getting the Generac.
Yeah, well, I mean, okay, so, but like, that's not the only thing. I mean, you guys are a full-service plumbing company. You guys do commercial, you guys do residential. I mean, that's the toilet.
New builds. Okay, you guys are doing new builds? Yeah, yeah, we are. How many are you guys doing?
Uh, we have— we're about to start a house with the 3rd company that we're working with, a luxury home.
Uh, oh, so like custom builders?
Yes. Yeah, that's what we prefer to do.
Okay, so this is, this is something I think a lot of people need to pay attention to because the way that you guys install plumbing on a custom home is going to be vastly different, I'd imagine, from a traditional builder.
we don't care to work with those, um, because that's not how we, we operate, you know. We come in, we don't just throw it together and say good luck, you know. We come in, we, we handle it with care. We do things the right way. We don't cut corners. And those kind of builders don't love that. They want to cut corners. They want to—
Well, they're looking to save as much money as possible. Yeah, they're flip and turn.
Yeah. And so, yeah, we, we do try and go for those luxury Home builders. So we've got a couple that are about to start that we're really excited about. We have some existing ones that we're in the middle of. So yeah, we're busy with that. And also, um, it's summertime, we're getting a lot of realtors calling us.
A lot of people moving in, stuff they need fixed.
Moving in, selling houses. I mean, there's all— both sides of it are calling to, you know, get ballparks to help with negotiations and stuff. So we're really happy to help realtors do that.
Yeah, well, and I know one of the things a lot of people here are interested in because we've had like several in a row really cold winters. And so we've had a lot of pipe bursts and things like that. And so I know a lot of people are getting their homes repiped with PEX. Yeah, right. And you guys are doing that, right?
Yep, we do the PEX pipes. And we do repipes. I met someone earlier, they said they do plumbing, but just basic stuff. But yeah, we handle it all. We do the repipes and mainline repairs. Which, oh my gosh, so in the past 3 weeks—
When you say like a mainline repair, what's that?
The mainline to the house.
So like from the street to the house?
Yes. Okay. So we've had 3 homeowners in 4 weeks, newly purchased homes, like within the last couple of months, they just put all this money down to purchase a home. 2 of them were actually first-time homebuyers, and they're calling us because they're having issues. One person, when they drained their washing machine, It's bubbling up in the sink. Some of them, it's just simple slow drain issues. And then we get in there, we have to run a camera on their main line, and there's bellies or roots and issues where right now we're telling all the realtors we know, please recommend your clients to get a camera ran to check that out because it's, you know, a few hundred bucks before you buy the house to make sure you're not
spending $10,000 or $15,000 after.
So, I mean, that's— I feel like my worst nightmare, you know?
Well, this is similar to my industry because there's a lot of people that when major catastrophes happen adjacent to what I do, people are like, do I send this to my homeowner's insurance? And it's like, no, like, this is you. Like, this isn't covered. And I imagine it's the same with you. Anything from the house to the street, it's on them.
It's not covered by insurance.
And some people think that it's actually the city's going to take care of it because it's not in their home, right? It's not like that.
No. And then it can get really costly when it's underneath the home because you're having to tunnel. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's not great. So I mean, I, I've talked to a lot of realtors this week. I went to one realtor event and I told them like, please, please, please have them run the camera. And it's not like, oh, we want to come do this. It's We want to protect them because getting these phone calls, like, it sucks, like, having to be like, this is what it's gonna cost.
Right. I mean, real quick, because I'm getting the sign to kick you off, how much does it cost to run a camera like that? You said it's a couple hundred bucks?
To run a camera on your main line and, or really whatever issue we need to find to locate. And ours is really awesome. We can actually save video, send it to you, so you have that proof where you're not just taking our word for it. You see what we're seeing, you see the roots, or you see the break in the line. And yeah, so it's a little cost and it's gonna save you a lot of money in the long run.
Compared to the price of the house, yeah, it's minimal. Yeah, I mean, like, to have peace of mind, okay, I have an unobstructed flow of water to my house from the street, like, I don't— this isn't gonna cost me thousands of dollars later on down the road. And like, but like, if they found something How much would it cost to like mitigate that? I mean, like—
It really depends on the location. Sometimes it's worth repairing a section. Sometimes if that section's messed up, there could be other stuff down the line, right? And it might be better off just replacing the entire thing.
But do you want to— I mean, like, I've got everything on the screen, but you want to let everybody know how to find you? How to contact you if they got something they need to get taken care of?
Yeah, I mean, you can call us on our office line. It's there on the screen. You can also go to our website, which is fisherfamilyplumbing.com, and you can put an inquiry there. We'll see it and give you guys a call. And we're on social media too.
Oh yeah, you guys are easy to find. So thank you so much for sitting down. Oh, of course.
Good to see you, girl. It's been a while. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, all right guys, we're having fun tonight out at Sawyer. Have fun tonight, by the way.
We're having a good time tonight, bringing you lots of information about your home. I hope you guys got a lot out of that one. Guys, if you, if you are a business owner and you like— I'm looking out into the crowd. I got— there's, there's got to be somewhere between 60 to 80 people here tonight just for our event. I mean, there's probably like 200 or 300 people here just at the bar. This is a happening spot. There's lots of fun stuff happening here tonight. If you have not— if you're a business owner and you have not had the opportunity to grow your business in the way that you want, this is the group to join because you're gonna find friends, you're gonna find people who are in the same mindset
that want to grow their business, and they're gonna help you grow yours. So if you haven't checked it out, check out the net. There's There's a group probably local to you here in North Houston where you can join and find a group of friends and fellow entrepreneurs to help you grow your business. And here with me is a returning guest that has been with us many times, and he hates it because I always make him talk about other stuff, is my buddy David McGuffin. How you doing, bud?
We are both, uh, enjoying some delicious Old Fashioneds.
Cheers, man. It seems I'm looking out into the crowd and I see a lot of faces I don't even know. I've been, I've been part of the net now for close to 6 years, and half these faces, I don't even know who they are. There's just a bunch of people here I don't even know.
Well, we do have, you know, 5 teams all in kickoff status, so You know, a lot of these people are from those, those teams as well because we've been advertising it within the teams. We've been advertising it on the, on all the social platforms for sure. So yeah, you know, I expect us to have 120 to 150 people here tonight.
Yeah, I don't think that's— I don't think that's even difficult.
I think we're already at around 50 right now.
I mean, maybe, maybe even more than that. Mr. McDaniel just walked in the door.
What you doing, bud? So you can say hi, we're live.
It's fine, don't be rude. Goodness gracious. So what's going on with you, man? I mean, I know like the, the Homeowner Show is now a client.
And SpaceSteady Payments. So thank you for that.
Well, man, you're just gonna make us get our money quicker, so thank you for that.
Yeah, well, we can do that.
So I'm gonna swap this out real quick. Hang on, this is like a weird— it's a weird angle.
That's much better. All right, so I mean, for people who are in businesses that use credit cards, I imagine is your main client, right?
If you can take— if your business takes credit cards, I probably have a solution for you. And the reason I say probably, because I have run into, you know, some that I just can't help.
What is it about them that you can't help? I mean, I don't know a lot about this world.
It may be their volume is too low, it may be the risk factor of the type of business they're in. Every business is classified. They have an MCC code, and that MCC code leads to basically what risk level you are.
And different processors may, or banks may say that that MCC code for you may be mid-tier, but for somebody, you know, but another bank may say you're high risk.
So, you know, and that's why it's very important when, when you're dealing with— why you shouldn't just go straight to your bank for processing or go straight to Square or straight to Stripe or any of those. You know, do they have their place? Yes, they do. Absolutely.
I mean, some of those POS systems are built more not because of their rates, but because of their ease of use, right?
Correct. Square, perfect example. You know, it's, you know, easy to sign up, easy to get onboarded with them.
Yeah, I mean, they'll send you the little swipe thing in the mail.
I mean, and then, you know, then they'll do a risk assessment. You know, it could be a month later, it could be a year later. You know, it's basically that the situation where, you know, what is it, ask for forgiveness or beg for forgiveness instead of asking forgiveness rather than permission.
So, you know, you run into that. But yeah, you know, what most people don't realize when it comes to processing is that it's one of the top 5 biggest expenses for a business. Yeah, you know, you've got rent, you've got, you know, your overhead costs for your cost of goods sold and stuff like that. But credit card processing fees are—
It's a big part. I mean, like, for every— for everybody in business today, I mean, like, just about everybody's like, You take card, you take American Express, you take MasterCard, you take Discover. I mean, like, everybody's—
87% of all transactions now are done by card.
Yes. Well, and like, what is— what about like the digital transactions? Are those different?
So I mean, like Apple Pay.
Just like taking a regular credit card.
Is it? Because like, I can store all my credit cards in my Apple Pay wallet. You know, and so it doesn't make a difference which one I'm using. I mean, on your end is what I'm asking. On your end, is it?
Yeah. No, because on my end, when you have it in your Apple Wallet or your Google Wallet, it's just like card present.
So you're not, you know, the merchant's not losing anything by taking it from a digital wallet.
Yeah. So like, I've had a couple instances where I'm out and like, You know, I'm an idiot, I've forgotten my wallet, I need to get some gas. I'm literally using the map search feature to find out, like, which gas stations take Apple Pay.
You know? And so, like, do all of the systems that you put in place, I mean, like, are they Apple Pay, Google Wallet?
I would say 90% of any terminal or point-of-sale system that we provide will be able to take Apple Pay or Google Wallet.
So it's like I can point my watch, I can point my phone at it, and I can just pay right there.
So like, are there other ones other than Google and Apple?
Oh man, there's one called SensePass that I have that's, um, that actually incorporates the buy now pay later into the payment ecosystem. So really you can get Affirm, Klarna, Zip, you know, Snap, all those actually incorporated into the, into the payment ecosystem. Yeah, another thing that's coming down the pipe, and I learned this last summer when I was at Southeast Acquirers, was, um, you know, biometrics.
Oh, how are they doing that? Like, like Face ID?
Like Face ID, like, like, you know, Face ID, or—
Or iris scan or thumbprint.
Not a fan. I know you may not be a fan, but it's coming. I know it's coming. I don't like it.
Yeah, I don't, I don't ever place it because nobody really, you know, unless you're doing— it would make sense for like a car dealership or, you know, maybe a furniture store.
That's the thing that causes these different cryptos to spike is, you know, like if, you know, what, what's the, what's the stadium that the Texans play in.
NRG. So NRG releases a press release that says, hey, all of a sudden now we're gonna start accepting Doge as an acceptable currency to purchase beer in the stadium. Well, that's gonna cause Doge to spike in value because now it's an accepted currency at a location that does a lot of business.
You know, and it's, it's, it's weird to me how that even works. It's like it's It's not really based off anything. It's like whether or not it's accessible. The accessibility is the value, not necessarily the value of the currency, but the accessibility.
Well, you know, the payment ecosystem changes literally on a daily basis. There's always stuff coming through, coming down. And, you know, we try to stay on top of everything and keep up to date with what the trends are. Right now we're still, you know, we're still plastic mainly and digital wallets.
Crypto makes up less than, you know, probably 0.5% of all transactions. Sure. You know, the buy now pay later, I mean, it's starting to become more acceptable now, especially like, you know, some food stores are doing it now. I've heard, you know, people paying for their groceries with Klarna or Affirm and, you know, buying a whole bunch and then just paying it off a little at a time because they can't afford their groceries now. I mean, the stories I've heard—
Financing your groceries?
That's crazy. People are doing it. It's crazy that people are in such a financial pinch that they need to finance their groceries.
So, but like, it, like, it does, it does seem as if we're on a better trajectory than we were.
I mean, I'm not trying to be political. No, we're not. I mean, it's just things— it seems like— here's the thing, man, is we're talking like the news right now is talking about how we're potentially going into war with Iran.
While at the same time, prices of things are not going through the roof.
Usually, usually talk of something like this, oil prices go through the roof.
And like, things seem to be— and that's the thing I think people need to pay attention to. It's like, it's not that like, like, that would be horrible to go to war. It'd be absolutely horrible. But like, even at the idea, the very real idea that we could be going to war and prices haven't like skyrocketed. People aren't like storehousing toilet paper right now. It's like, do you realize how like stable everything is right now to, to even be in that situation and not having to be paid?
Most people don't realize that.
It's not— and it's not a political statement. It's just like, how is that happening?
Well, it's fact right now. Until something changes, it's still fact.
So it's, it's nuts, man. Uh, yeah, so we're— oh, we're actually on time, man. We're doing good.
Yeah, we still got a couple minutes, man.
Yeah, like we're ahead of schedule.
Yeah, we gotta go. We got a couple minutes. When is the last time this happened?
I was kind of stressing out. I was like, we got the next guest. It's like, no, we got a couple minutes, dude. So I need you to do me a favor. Yeah, when you get down from here, I need somebody to bring me some calories.
I need some food. I need some food, I need some beverage, and like, it's gonna be a long night, and like, nobody brought me anything to eat.
Um, man, look at this crowd tonight, man.
Dude, it is filling up fast. I love this.
I think, I think 20, 25 people have come in since we've been here.
Mr. Chris Honeycutt is just pointing his finger at me.
Yeah, yeah. His— so his wife Amy, if she's here tonight, She does home organization.
Like, the only reason I'm remembering this right now is because 3 years ago today we interviewed her on the show.
And like for her business. And she owns a couple of different businesses. She's fantastic, dude. You need to meet her if you haven't had the chance yet.
Well, I'd like a warm introduction.
There you go. So anything else happening in finance and transactions that we need to be aware of?
Well, on the finance side, Space City Payments, you know, as you well know, Excalibur Pest Control, your other business, is one of my finance clients. But we have just recently added a new, as in, in the last week, a new direct-to-merchant program strictly for the home services trades.
And then I've got another one coming down the pipe They're telling us it'll be 6 months. We're hoping for a mid-July launch.
For another direct-to-merchant that's going to include, you know, auto repair, jewelry, finance, furniture, you know, med spas, medical, veterinary, all that. Interesting. So that's going to be another direct-to-merchant that we have coming down the pipe. That's going to be huge.
Like, just veterinary. Veterinary costs can be outlandish.
And like, you get— you get— you stand in front of a veterinarian and they're telling you like what it's going to cost to like save your best friend.
And it's like, is it worth it? And you're like, it's my dog, man.
that's my dog. I love— I love veterinarians. Let me, let me just put that out front. But that is cruel.
Yeah, I went to a school known for its vet program.
Yeah, well, you were known for more large animal vets and we were known for more small animal vets.
I like the large animals, man. Like, that's, that's, that's kind of—
Yeah. Dude, have you seen— have you seen my new horse? I have not, dude.
I, I need to come out to your house.
Yeah, so I got a, I got a new paint horse. His name is Jasper.
you've had a rough go the last 2 years.
You lost what, 2, 3 horses?
I lost 2. Yeah, I lost 2. Uh, that was rough. One of them, one of them I'd have had since I was 17.
No, you're not. I mean, you're not my age, but you're pushing, you're pushing it.
It was, it was a tough one. And like, he was Like, he taught every single one of my kids how to ride. Yeah, you know, there's just, there's just something different about a relationship. Like, dog relationships are good relationships, don't get me wrong. Yeah, like, that's a special relationship. But like, a horse that's been with you for, you know, 25, 30 years. Yeah, that's just a different thing, man. It really is. That was like, when he fell, the vet couldn't get out till the next day. I literally slept on the ground next to him that whole night.
I just— because I couldn't leave him. I couldn't leave him. I wasn't gonna let him lay out there alone. Yeah, no, he knew. And he knew, he knew. And he was much calmer because I was there, even though he knew in the, in the morning, like, like there was someone coming to finish what was going on. And I hated every minute of it, man, but there was no place else I wanted to be. Yeah, so All right, now we're ready for the next one. Can, can you go grab Colleen for me?
Sure thing, she's right there.
All right, great talking with you, Craig.
You too, David, as always. Yeah, if you can, if you can hook me up with some calories and some one of these, that'd be fantastic. Guys, thank you so much for jumping on the feed. Uh, we, we really appreciate you joining us for the live show tonight. All right, guys, if you're looking for a way to grow your business, join the net, or at least sit down with a group. Is it, is it both of you?
So I got this one for you, this one for him. All right, let's see what we can do here. Can you— I need you to scoot in just a little bit. In front of that, right in front of that mic.
All right, so you guys, can you guys hear? I know you guys can hear me, but you probably can't hear yourselves. You're gonna have to get right up on these things.
All right, so let, let everybody know, guys, who you are and what you guys do.
Uh, Colleen and Howard Bass. We started, uh, Bassion Creations.
It's a cross between our last name, which is Bass. It's a cross between our last name, which is Bass, and passion.
Okay, I got you. All right. We're making words. I got you, I'm following.
We make wood and resin charcuterie boards as well as cutting boards, acrylic poured coasters, tiles.
Awesome, awesome. How long you guys been doing this?
Year and a half? What were you guys doing before?
Well, we weren't really in business. We both work in different jobs. Okay, you know, but, uh, well, no, I think, I think people like this. This is what people want to know, like, what were you guys Well, this all started when I told Colleen I wanted to retire in a couple years, and she told me to go get a hobby first.
So he decided to— Yeah, because she can't have you sitting around the house.
So he decided to take up woodworking.
He took a class at Rockler.
Get as close as you can. It's loud in here.
He took a class at Rockler and made wood and resin charcuterie boards.
Okay, so like Rockler has—
don't they have like a store nearby?
where like you can go in and kind of test drive everything?
And then the one, the one we're at is, uh, up in Spring on Kirkendall Road.
Okay. And they offer various classes from how to do the resin and woodwork, how to do, uh, use a router, how to turn stuff with wood.
On a lathe. And then we took the one class and it's like, okay, I'm bit, you know.
And then for his birthday I bought him a router.
No, um, a planer. A planer.
Well, so let me ask you this, like, so there's the Rockler class. You guys, had you done any kind of woodworking before? I mean, was this something like you'd grown up with, or—
Never did woodworking in the past.
Just, uh, I, I watched a lot of videos on, on, uh, social media of guys making these river tables and all kinds of other stuff, and it's like I bet you I could do that.
Okay, so the river tables right now are huge. I mean, people— I mean, like, are you guys making those?
I just started making a couple live-edge tabletops.
Okay. I got a lot cooking right now with that. I really only have a day and a half a week to work on this because I have a regular job.
You know, so, but just enjoy doing it so much. You know, I could go into my garage in the morning, Come out in the evening and it feels like I was there for 10 minutes.
So, well, and, and, okay, so like charcuterie boards, live edge tables, all that in that vein. I mean, like, why— this is something that I've seen recently that's blown up. I mean, like, a lot of people are asking for this. Why is it that you guys think— and again, and, and I'm asking this because I assume you're talking to the customer and they're giving you feedback and telling you like, we want this because— like, are you guys hearing like a resonating theme throughout the people that are asking for your services? Or like, what is it? Why is it that they're so drawn to this kind of stuff?
Well, it's realistically, it's a combination of something that's functional, but also has an art feel to it as well. Because every piece that we create, whether it's Colleen's tiles or coasters?
I do acrylic for it. Okay.
Okay, everything is unique. Yeah, everything is a one of a kind, you know, so because every tree is different, you know.
So it's just something that people want stuff that's different and unique and we're not gonna—
Specific to them. I mean, like, it's like you can't see this anywhere else. This is my piece. It's in my dining room or like whatever. Yeah, yeah, I got you.
It's like This— we had to form a business, you know, a little over a year ago because somebody saw some of my work, okay? And they're like, well, where did you get the charcuterie board? I said, well, I make them. She says, really? I said, yeah. She says, can you make 60?
Like, okay, it would take me a while, okay?
Because he only has off 2 days a week.
And then the next thing you know, that was on a Saturday, and then I got an email Monday morning from her assistant, okay, can you make 75? And I was like, okay, uh, yeah, sure. It was because it's a state institution, I had to go through 4 different departments, but eventually they selected a style of wood and a color, and I ended up making 75 for them.
I had to become a business so they could pay me.
Okay, so kind of forced to I didn't plan on start— we didn't plan on starting a business till this past January. Right. So it kind of like forced us to move things up a bit.
So a department in the state of Texas ordered 75 what from you?
They gave them away as donor gifts.
It was for a college. Charcuterie boards.
Yeah, charcuterie boards.
It was Sam Houston State University. Sam Houston State. Okay. I'm actually going up to one of their camps next week. Great university. Have you guys ever been to their camp?
We went to the— when we dropped the boards off, it was at one of their administration meetings.
Yes, they have a— so they have a camp. We're at— this is starting next Thursday. It's a camp for kids in foster care. And, and so they— the Sam Houston opens their camp to this group to bring foster care kids in and just have a blast out there on the lake at the campground shooting arrows, running around, sleeping in a cabin. I love that university. They do such a great job. They have an incredible outdoors— like, I'm so happy that they were a client of yours because they're such great people. Um, yeah.
Well, they, they definitely, they definitely kicked our business Up a notch? Up a notch, yeah.
Was it somebody that you knew there or like—
No, just somebody I was doing business with, with the regular job.
Okay, saw my stuff because I was actually selling one to somebody at work.
And then, uh, that's how it all happened. But that gave us the, the incentive to, to move up our timeline. And, you know, listen, a couple more years till I retire, we're, we're hoping to make a nice business out of this.
For a startup. Because I'll never physically retire. That's just not in my DNA.
I hear you. I hear you on that.
Listen, my dad's 88 and still going in 3 days a week.
So what is a typical charcuterie board? What size are we looking at?
You're looking anywhere— I make them square, I make them long, but a more popular size is about 9 inches wide and about 19 inches long. Cutting boards, I did one recently here for somebody that's in the room tonight. You know, he wanted something that was 16 by 21 inches, but I did mixed woods. You know, I used padauk, purpleheart, hard maple, black walnut. You know, just something that looks unique and different.
Yeah, so I— so my wife actually bought me a cutting board recently, which I was super excited about. You guys familiar with Lonesome Dove? Lonesome Dove?
No? The book or the miniseries from the '90s?
Look, if you need, if you need to like suck 8 hours out of your life, just go look it up. It's an 8-hour miniseries that they—
it's a Western about a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. And it's— the main focus is like 2 Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call. And they decide to get in the cattle business and drive a herd of cattle that they stole from Mexico all the way up to Montana.
And it's, uh, Larry McMurtry is the author. He's— he wrote like 4 books about those characters. But anyway, in that book there's a cattle company sign, and so my wife had the cattle company sign carved out of a CNC machine onto the back side of a cutting board. And it is my favorite possession right now. I love it because it fits a full brisket on it, you know, but like my complaint about it, my only complaint about it is the minute I started cutting meat on it, it started putting grooves in the wood because it was softer wood.
Yeah, you got to use hardwood.
You know, I actually researched that because, you know, all the different things that I belong to on social media, watching guys do different things, you know, the wood hardness has to be what they call a Janka hardness scale.
Which is a hardness scale for the different varieties of wood.
As long as you're over 1,000, you're good, you know, so—
Are there particular woods that you can do that with?
So like black walnut has a Janka hardness of around 1,050.
Other ones like padauk are like 1,500. As long as they're over 1,000, you're good for a cutting board. You won't get a lot of scratches in there.
Yeah, like, like, as soon as I started using— sorry, go ahead.
You'll still get some scratches.
Sure, yeah, I mean, it's a knife. I mean, like, it's gonna do its thing, but like, it was like the very first one, I was like, ugh. What kind of wood is your board made of? I have no idea. No idea. It was a present. I wasn't gonna ask questions. Like, I know the guy who made it. I'm not gonna go like badger him, but like, at the same time, I'm like, I know this isn't that hard, because it's like, it would— it— like, my knives I keep them pretty sharp, but like I don't keep them that sharp. And it was like, it went right into it. And I was like—
Well, it's like we're also— I just started experimenting with doing mixed types of wood, but I made a big ashtray for like a cigar with a coaster attached to it. So it's like at the end of the day, you know, whoever's smoking a cigar, they got their ashtray and they got their coaster set for their glass or whatever they're drinking. That's something I want to look into getting into one of those cigar shops.
Something like that. I'll provide a cutter and a cigar case with it. I have a fella that actually does laser engraving for us also.
Oh, very cool. That's where it's at. Yeah.
So I'm getting the signal to move on to the next one, but I want everybody— so If people are looking to get a charcuterie board, a cutting board, what other— like, I know the live-edge tables. Any other— We sell acrylic cord coasters. Right, I can't hear you.
We sell acrylic cord coasters, tiles, crosses, arts.
And if people want to find those, how do they get a hold of you guys?
We're at bashancreations.net or Bashan Creations Oh, you guys are on Etsy?
Okay, so could people just search on Etsy and if they're just looking for Bashan?
Yeah, I think— I know a lot of people shop— I shop on Etsy a lot. I mean, like, for stuff that I need, for like very specific things that I'm looking for. And so like, I know people like just specific shops on Etsy, right?
We also have a shelf unit over at the Painted Tree.
Where's that at? That's up in 1960.
Back in the day, I worked on that. I, I worked for a church on 1960 for a little bit. Not anymore though. But, but the Painted Tree? Yeah, the Painted Tree. Very cool. And is there— did you guys have a— like, did you already say your website?
And is there a phone number for people to get a hold of you?
Awesome. If you, if you guys could do me, do me a big favor, jump on the live feed and just drop a comment with like your website and any other contact information that you guys want. That way we can pull it and put it in the show notes.
It's on Facebook or YouTube.
Yeah, just search for The Homeowner Show. It's, it's right on there. Super easy to find. And then just drop a comment and that way we know we can grab that information super easy.
Awesome. Thank you guys for sitting down.
Thank you for having us. Yeah, y'all have fun tonight.
There's lots of people to meet.
Guys, yeah, we are having a good time tonight. I like— look, if you need a live edge table, you need a charcuterie board, you need a cutting board, or any of the other things that they mentioned, like these, these are the ways that you find people who are going to produce those quality products that you want for your home. Come on in.
May need to adjust that. Yeah, turn, turn that one this way towards me. No, the other way.
And then turn that one this way, like this way. Keep going. Dad, keep going. Now just turn it this way till she's in the middle. Keep going.
Sorry. All right, let me see here. All right, let's see here. Sorry, friend, give me just a second. Give me just a second. Yeah, if you can put those on, you'll hear a lot better. I know, I know ladies don't like to put them on, but can you hear me now?
Give me, give me just a second here. That, I think, is perfect.
Sorry about that. We— look, look, when you come to the bar, you're gonna encounter some drunks that are gonna kick your equipment. It's just the way— oh yeah, it's just the way it is. So you're gonna want to get right up on top of that thing.
If you can't hear you, they can't hear you. It's loud in here.
Where are they listening from?
So we're live on Facebook and YouTube right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and, and like next week, I mean, geez, I hate to like— usually like when I tell people the numbers, it scares the bejesus out of them. But like, so just know, we'll talk about numbers.
It's like one person listening, right?
Yeah, it's like 2 people. It's my grandma and my aunt. That's the only people listening. That's, that's really it. Let me see which one. Talk in that one real quick. Try it again.
There we go. I found you.
Just want to turn the one off that wasn't being used at the moment. All right, so are you Tricia?
All right, I got a list. I want to make sure it's accurate. So if you could let everybody out there, the 2 people that are listening, Let everybody know who you are and what you do.
Um, yes, I am Tricia McIntyre. I am a mortgage lender of 12 years, and I work with Fairway Mortgage.
Okay, and you are everybody's favorite person right now, right?
Nobody's complaining about interest rates or any of that kind of stuff, right? No, no, no, no.
So like, I know, I know people are complaining about it. I know it's a thing, right? And like, I know that you're hearing about it. Yeah, just set it right there, man. You are the man. Thank you. Like, what is— I've dealt with this topic so many times on the show. I'm kind of trying to like gather my thoughts and take you in a very specific— not a specific direction, but like, I want to know what is people's main complaint when they get the feedback from you as to what they actually qualify for?
Okay, so to be honest, I really don't have a lot of people complain.
Because I go a different route. I have the conversations with them and I ask, what is your comfortable mortgage payment? Okay, so they're Therefore, we're basing it off of that versus like where the interest rate is and everything.
So, want to keep them comfortable. I mean, you can be pre-approved for $400K, but you only want a $2,000 mortgage. I'm not going to say, hey, there's a $400K pre-approval, go out there.
Right. But I mean, like, when you're talking about like a starter home, I mean, back in the day it would be like Okay, you only need to be approved for like $100,000 starter home. Now what are you seeing?
Oh gosh, um, well, it's gonna change from area.
But, uh, where are you mainly operating?
Um, currently right now, Brazoria County, because I just moved from Brazoria County.
I mean, I pretty much do everywhere.
But, um, a lot of my business is from there. So there I would say about $250,000. Up here, Probably more like $350-ish.
That's insane. I mean, like, I'm not saying that— I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but like, I mean, like, we're probably not that far off in age. I mean, like, it's not— I'm like, my parents bought the house that they're in right now, which by the way is a 2-acre house near 2920 and 1960— 2920 and Kirkendall. 2-acre estate. They paid $92,000 for that house, right? Yeah. And like today they could sell it for anywhere from like $600,000 to $800,000, right?
It's nuts. Yes. So kind of, kind of what I kind of wanted to touch on too today was like renovation loans. So it kind of goes on with what you're talking about right now because there's a lot of homes sitting on the market that need some TLC.
Right. So are you the one that I heard about that used to flip houses?
I didn't flip houses, but I'm kind of renovation loan queen.
It's kind of my niche. But I mean, there could be a house sitting on the market for $150K, and then you can put like $50K, $60K, you know, right, make it your own. And now you don't have to buy the $350K home, right? So to me, that's That's kind of the route to go right now because there's so many homes sitting on the market that just need some work.
So, but you have to be careful with those homes, right? Especially around here.
Um, I mean, not necessarily. I mean, you have a contractor come out, do a bid.
What I mean, what I mean though is like when you start looking at like, okay, does that area flood?
But they have to disclose that stuff legally.
Correct. On the seller disclosures and all of that.
But it's something to pay attention to.
I mean, I'm working on a home right now that they've told me that the house has flooded 3 times.
You know, and they're not leaving. And they're just like, well, this is just the way it is.
Well, that's a serious question. Wait, we— I just— we just did an episode on, uh, what they're doing in California right now. Have you heard about this?
So, you know, they just had the big fire, and you know that like the insurance companies are pulling out of California in terms of fire insurance.
In Texas, as far as like flooding and roof insurance and all that kind of stuff. So in California, what they've done is, you know, they have the FAIR plan, and but what they're doing is they're saying like, look, if you remediate your home under these conditions, the insurance companies are willing to come back in. And, and what they're saying is create a 5-foot buffer area around the perimeter of your home, which seems reasonable.
It's really expensive, you know. And so like, and like especially when you start talking about like the materials that they're okay with creating that buffer zone. And so like to your point, We've actually talked to some companies that raise homes. And, you know, a lot of these are companies that have pivoted from doing foundation remediation to actually lifting homes, you know, 2, 5, 6, 10 feet up in the air.
That were sitting on traditional foundations.
Yeah. And I mean, a lot of places too, if you're in a flood zone and it's new, now it's required.
I mean, I guess unless you have cash and you just got a contractor that's a rebel.
But not very many people have cash these days.
No, no. So are you doing, are you doing a lot of traditional home loans? Are you doing—
Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, I do them all. Fairway is really good about, I mean, we pretty much have everything. So we're not limited on some things. We can, I mean, self-employed borrowers are another one that Um, seem to get a lot thrown at me because I know how to make them work. But yeah, I mean, FHA, VA— VA, we do no lender fees. We love our veterans.
Um, but yeah, I mean, we can pretty much do it all.
Yeah, I have, I have my own personal beef with VA loans.
They're like the best loans out there-ish. So many people think they are.
Let me push back on you on this. So I'm in pest control. I own a pest control company, and I know that every VA loan requires a WDO report, right? And I also know that if you are a pest control person worth your salt, that no one passes a WDO.
No. And like, if you have a pest control person that's passing you on a WDO, they suck.
I was gonna say, um, like they're not doing their job if they pass.
No, like they tell you when they train you how to do these things, no one passes. Wow, because it's, it's a, it's a CYA thing. Yeah, it really is.
I'll have to look into that because I mean, I've— I'm trying to think how many I've gotten that have failed and it's not that many.
Right, right. And it's because they know it's a VA. And they know they need to push it through. And then in that instance, they're not being honest.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a bizarre situation. It's like, that's my very first question when somebody asks me, hey, can you do a termite inspection on the home? Is it a VA? Yes? No, I won't do it. No, because, because I know— here's what I know is that if I do it to the best of my ability, that home's not gonna pass. Okay, and that's gonna screw that veteran, right? Because it's gonna hold up the loan. Because the bank's not going to release the money until they know. And what's that— what that's going to require any buyer to do is to do a full termite treatment. So you're talking about spending $3,000 on a house that you shouldn't have to spend, right? Which is stupid.
It screws them, you know, because it's supposed to be an incentive loan that honors their service, and now we're like tacking on all these additional things.
it's nothing you're doing. It's It's the requirements of the loan. I just know what they are, but I know what's ethical for my business.
Well, and I've never— I haven't really talked to a pest control person before.
Well, so like, let me, let me tell you what— how this can play out. I had an attorney friend of mine that bought a rather large home, and when I say rather large home, it was somewhere between 5,000 and 7,500 square feet. Oh, that's large. Large home, right? He bought the home with the intention of turning it into an office, a multi-space office for his law firm, other law firms, and other businesses. He calls me and says, hey Craig, we bought this piece of real estate. I need you to come out and start taking care of it to keep the pests under control. And by the way, I have some concerns about termites. And I said, okay, did you have it inspected before you bought it? Oh yeah, I had it inspected. Great, could you send me the report?
Sure thing. Sent me the report. Cleanest report—
Hey, that happened to me.
I bought a house and the report was like that. I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, this is kind of scary because I saw the house. It was an older house. It had been added onto a lot. And I start walking around the house and I was like, why do you have concerns? He goes, well, I saw this, this, this, and this. And he had active termites on the house inside. And I was like, did they not report this? Did they mention this in the report? He goes, no, they gave me a clean bill of health. That's why I bought the property. I start going around the house. I found 3 active entrances where termites were actively coming into the house, eating the house. And it was just places that people typically wouldn't look.
And I said, look, man, you're the attorney. I'm just the pest control guy. I'm looking at you wondering if you're like a duck on the water. Like, are you planning to sue this guy? And that's the problem, is like, they— he now has standing to go after that company.
To sue them because they did not find active termites in the house. And that's the problem with the VA, is so many people want to be compassionate, right, and empathetic towards them and get them into the house, but not do a good job actually inspecting the house.
I think that happens with, I mean, any loan though, really.
I mean, because what you were just talking about, when I bought a house and the same thing happened to me. Bought it, inspection, no termites, moved in, I'm like, what is this?
Yeah, well, but like, but VA I think is, and it's bank specific, like banks can require it, but VA is like the only one requires an inspection anymore.
For a loan, as far as I know.
Well, VA only requires the termite, right? You don't have to turn in a regular inspection, right? So yeah, they're the only one that requires it. Um, new builds, but I mean, that makes good luck. I mean, they do like a termite soil thing.
Yeah, but no, VA is the only one that Requires it to be turned in.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I, and I hate that I have to like be honest. That's, that's such a weird sentence to even say, right? I hate that I have to be honest with people who are trying to buy a home.
No, I mean, you have to. I'm the same way. I mean, like, I turn down business all the time. Yeah, I'm not gonna do a loan just to make money off of it. If it's not gonna benefit you long-term or put you in a good situation, Yeah, for sure.
So are you in a net group?
The online one. We just started.
Okay, very cool. So you just— you guys had the Dave Buster's event last night?
That seemed like it went really well.
I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but we're busy. That's not an excuse.
Yeah, you're good. But I think there was another one last night too.
Yeah, yeah, there was. There was like a wine A wine event, and then the Dave Buster's event. Guys, like, The Net has a lot of events.
And this is our biggest one. And like, I'm not gonna be shocked if I hear that there was like 150 people here.
I mean, I had to park way back there.
Did you really? Well, I'm so happy you got to sit down. I haven't had the chance to meet you before. I'm so glad you got to sit down and just visit for a second.
I might need one of these in my bedroom.
I think that's, that's choice. I have it in a different building outside of my home, but like, you put it in your bedroom, it's fine. You probably make a lot of money doing that.
Yeah, that probably— I should have probably said living room.
There you go, there you go. Keep it, keep them separated. Yeah, keep them separate. Well, so, so people that might be interested in needing a loan, they need to get a loan, a good broker Like, how do they get a hold of you?
Yeah, um, my cell is 832-488-4321.
Just sharing it right there for everybody.
Yeah, it's my business line.
You're gonna get a lot of unwanted text messages.
It happens every day anyway.
Oh sure, yeah, of course it does.
But no, and if you Google Tricia McIntyre Fairway Mortgage, I pop up.
Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much for sitting down. If you get the chance, jump on the live feed, drop those links in there, that way we have them.
So we can just grab them, copy them, put them in the show notes. Soup makes it easier for us.
And also gives us a little bit of engagement on the live feed.
Thank you. I try and make it fun.
Thank you for sitting down. Have fun.
All right, guys. We're having a good time tonight. I'm going to take a bite of my wing. Let's take like a 2-minute break here and I'll jump back in with my next guest. A piece of chicken. And that sounds less cool than it actually was. It was delicious chicken. Like, they have good wings here.
I don't know that they have much else good here. It's a bar. I like— like, if it's a bar, I assume they can do chicken wings pretty well.
Yeah, depends on how much you drink.
I'm getting there, I'm getting there. So let everybody— let's see here, scoot over just a little bit to your left. There you go, perfect.
Yes, hang on, let me, let me do some adjustments here.
Do I need a different look?
No, you just, you have a, you have a stronger on-screen presence than everybody else, that's the problem.
What does that mean? Is that good or bad?
It means you capture the attention of the camera, like you draw people in.
Yeah, so let everybody know who you are and what you do.
Sure, so my name is Jackie Parker and I do a ton of things.
My primary, my My primary business and what I try and stick to my lane is marketing, digital marketing specifically. I own a company called Digify Local. So we're a full-service digital marketing agency doing everything from websites, Google Business Profile management, optimization, social media management, email campaigns. It's easier to ask what we don't do predominantly.
And so the other companies that I own, I do the marketing for. So I do try and stick to—
So you do the marketing for your own companies that are outside of Digify?
What are the other businesses?
So the other businesses, my husband and my brother and I own The Axeperience. So it is a bougie axe throwing venue in Fargo.
We're a little bit more upscale, less, uh, dude's garage, and more like date night, family night. I was very intentional with that. And then working on opening up with a partner a dive bar in Old Tomball. It's called Drifter's Dive Bar.
And, uh, I'm also a hair, makeup, and spray tan artist, and I also own a Delphi Studio. I've been doing that for like a decade.
So like, I'm just gonna put this bug in your ear.
Like, do you know that, uh, 203 Main in downtown Conroe just shut down?
I'm not familiar with Conroe, so what is—
So 203 Main is like a really old bar that sits on a corner, and they have a massive outdoor patio as well as like a secret like kind of speakeasy behind it. And the people running it just shut it down.
So all the things inside?
Everything everything's done. And, and so like somebody was telling me the other day like, hey man, you should, you should buy that building and, and reopen it. And I was like, that's tempting.
It's such a cool space. Yeah, it's such— and like they have a great live space. They have, they have 2 stages, you know.
What? Yes, you should do it.
An outdoor stage and an indoor stage. And like it's, it's a much bigger space than people people think when you look at it from the outside. But anyway, I love downtown Conroe. Like, it's, it's such an untapped thing that people, you know, like, people, people have tried to do stuff in there. Every, like, almost every new idea has completely failed.
There's not a lot of parking in downtown Conroe. that's, that's a struggle, I think, for a lot of the businesses down there. But there's also still like just too many like antique shops for it to be like a cool place to hang out.
Okay, but that's how Old Town Ball has been for a while.
Yeah, finally it's like getting up to snuff with things to do.
Yeah, so, but like there's other people that are moving into that space that I think are gonna transform transform downtown.
I feel like it'd have to be like a collaborated effort.
Like everybody gets together and be like, all right, you do this, you do that.
And then we'll have a fun time for everyone.
Yes, I'm with you. So like, okay, I— so you mentioned something that I want to have a conversation on, the Google My Business.
So how has that changed in recent days? Because I know, I know it's an ever-transforming thing, right? I mean, like, because you used to have to get a postcard, you know, right? I mean, like, but like, how, how— because it's, it's such an integral thing for people to be listed. Like, okay, and, and tell me if I'm wrong on this, I actually think Google Maps is a better search engine than Google itself. Uh, and I think Apple Maps is the same thing. I think it's a better search engine.
It depends. That depends on your query, I suppose.
So more like brick and mortar.
But like when, like with, like, so if I'm a tourist and I go to New Orleans.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes, that's what I stick to. Like if I go out, like I'm pulling up my Google Maps.
But in terms of changes, It's— well, now, okay, rather than Google My Business, it's Google Business Profile. So it's going from GMB to GBP.
And people get confused still when I say—
I don't know how frowned upon it is to flick off people from the— from on the camera, but So it's changed in many, many ways. I mean, back in the day, yeah, you would just get a postcard and the response time for emailing them would be, you know, much quicker. And now it's become more imperative to really lay down the groundwork for your business before even doing your Google Business Profile.
I mean, for people that don't know, what even are we talking about? I mean, like, what is that?
For like what to do before?
Well, no, like what is it? I mean, like, I think there's a lot of people who are in business that like don't understand what like GMB even is, Google My Business.
Okay, well, if you're in business and don't know what it is—
It's a big red flag. So educate yourself starting off, like what it is and really how imperative it is to the success of your business.
And a lot of people just don't realize how imperative your online presence is for the success of a business. And having a GBP can make or break it and break your business. And I've seen it. I have absolutely seen that happen. So in order to get that, right? You have to lay down the groundwork, which is like your citations, like your name, address, phone number, Yellow Pages, Yelp. You want to go out and get like hundreds, thousands of those. But to start off, maybe like 150, 200, and you, you build that trust with Google. And then once they have that trust, then you can go in and try and verify your Google Business Profile. So in terms of how it's changed Now you have to do
a video. It's, it's almost impossible to get around doing a video. There's, there are certain circumstances, but—
When you say doing a video, like you have to get like on a video chat with somebody from Google?
I wish. You actually, yeah, honestly, I wish. Um, no, you have to, you just get on, it's, it's through AI, of course.
And you have to do it in under like 2 minutes. And so I have literally just done this for clients and I'm I'm running around, or like they're on a dirt road and I'm driving down real quick. I'm trying to get this under 2 minutes, but you've just got to show everything with your business for them to really trust that that's where you're at. Even if you don't have your address listed because you work from home, you still have to do it.
Really? Yeah. Yeah, so like we've actually looked into— have you seen these Garages of America?
No, no, no, no, it's like, it's a, it's a physical location on 1488.
It's— they are garages. Rather than renting them, you can actually purchase them, but it's like a storage facility. And most of the— most of their clients are people that own classic cars or probably have car collections, right? And, and so we looked into buying one as a business location.
The problem was is you can't have a mailbox.
It's just how they operate.
But you can have an address?
You can have an address, but you can't have a mailbox.
Is that just a USPS thing?
That's weird. It is weird.
But like, it's because most of their clients don't need a mailbox. They just need a place to stow their really expensive cars. But like, it's a great location for our business and a place for us to park our trucks and all this kind of— and like, it's pretty affordable. But like, we were like, we're genuinely concerned that we can't get our business profile listed.
Oh, I wouldn't worry. Like, just because you don't have like a mailbox, I wouldn't worry about that because really, that's— there's not a lot that's actually like physical Paper these days. It's all pretty much online, so you'll just—it's doing the video. Really?
You don't have to do the postcard thing anymore?
Uh uh. I wish. I wish we were back in those days.
Like, man, that would just be so much easier. Yeah, I think maybe.
Yeah. Well, in that case, probably not.
But yeah, yeah, that's that's that's kind of the thing is like, well, and like when you're dealing with like temporary workspaces, I mean, like you might move one location to another from month to month. I mean, like oh my god! That.
That's a whole other thing. Yeah.
Yeah, are you dealing with that?
I've got some clients who are bouncing around just because of just one thing or another, and so we've had to wait to change their address on their Google Business Profile because it would have pinged red flags and would have caused so many issues. So yeah, they have trust issues. They're like an ex.
Is it— so in your opinion, is it more difficult to start a business because of that now? I mean, like, I mean, Because I mean, like, people, people use Google, they've used Apple Maps, they use all those, all these things. Not Yelp.
Um, but they're the Gestapo. I really can't.
Tell me all the truths that you know about Yelp. Go ahead, go ahead, it's fine.
Oh man, do you want it? Like, I'll blast somebody so fast.
Yeah, come on, do it, do it.
Um, well, let's— okay, it's more of like a boomer, like, more of It's more old school to like get on Yelp.
It's more of an old school to get on Yelp and be like, oh, let me check these reviews on Yelp. Like, that just really doesn't happen as much right now.
Right. But their salesmen are aggressive.
They think they're like the best thing on the planet.
I've gotten yelled at by some Yelp guys before. We've gotten into it. I'll say, stop calling. It's like the Gestapo. I swear, I swear.
Oh, it's gangs of— Well, it's probably the same way that like, so we've, we've had a couple of pieces go viral. The one that's like gotten the most traction is when we yell about Angie's leads.
Oh my God. Okay, we don't have enough time. We do not have enough time for me to go off on Angie's Leads.
But listen, we've gone on a— we've probably gone off on it enough on this show. But like, I don't want to be sued, but I swear all I really have to do is mention their name and then in the comments section it's just like every business owner that's been in business longer than 3 years is like, they're the devil. Yep, I hate them. May they burn in the sulfur and the fire for all eternity.
Oh, 1,000%. I mean, and that's, that's what partially gives like digital marketing a bad name. They're like, I tried Angie's Leads, right? I'm like, okay, but we're not Angie's Leads. We're not selling that one lead to 10 other people and making a god-awful amount of money on the one lead, and it might not even be a legitimate lead.
It's not a legitimate lead. 9 times out of 10, it's not a legitimate lead. It's not. It's just such a great—
I know. Why not invest in your own business? Why not pump those leads to your website? And you build out your asset. So if you have an exit strategy and you want to leave your company, that website, that website's worth money because it generates leads. Angie's List isn't going to do that for you.
No, they don't care. They don't care. They literally just want the recurring income from that. They want to ping you every time something comes in that even remotely associates itself with your business. There's no love lost with me and them. Like, I've used them in the past. They're the worst.
Yeah. So, you use it and you're like, oh God, and then you just keep getting calls. It's like an obsessive ex that just won't leave you alone.
That's the best way to describe it. That drunk dials you.
And you answer the phone because you've been drinking and they're like, hey, What are you doing?
At your most vulnerable moment.
Yeah. They're like watching. You like whiskey? I know you're 3D. You answered this phone right now.
That's right. I knew you'd answer. I knew you'd answer. What— I mean, I gotta, I gotta bring Paul and Deborah up here in just a second, but remind everybody like who you are, what you do, and how they get a hold of you.
Absolutely. So my name's Jackie. Mackie Parker, and I own Digify Local. So if you also like to throw axes, come out to the experience in Tomball. That is a blast. But the best way to really get a hold of me, you can go to www.digifylocal.com and either give us a call or message us, and I would be happy to help. I do free consultations if you need help with marketing. If you have GBP questions, Mm-hmm.
I'd be more than, more than happy to help.
Like, even if don't want to be a client. Whatever, whatever I can do, honestly, to help a small business— I know the struggle, so whatever I can do, that's my philosophy.
Awesome. Thank you so much for sitting down with us tonight. Thank you. I hope you have a good time tonight. I hope you— this room is getting crowded. It's like getting more and more crowded by the minute.
So awesome. Good to see you.
All right, thank you. All right guys, we got, uh, Returning guests that have been on the show before. You know them, you love them. Paul the Plumber and his wife, Deborah. Wife of Paul the Plumber. Yeah, you guys come on up. Um, uh, we're having a good time out here at Sawyer Park Ice House. Such a cool atmosphere. We— guys, there's so many people here tonight. If you have not had the chance, head this way. We're having a good time tonight. It's, it's gonna be a fun time. We have lots of people in the room, lots of business owners and entrepreneurs. Yeah, scoot on in. We got headsets and microphones for each of you guys. The net is growing like
crazy. Jonah, if you need to, if you need to adjust the camera, just move it however you need to, bud. You can set it down if you need to move it.
I'm saying if you need to get them both both in the shot. Just move that camera right there.
All right, how are you guys doing? No, wait, hang on, try that again.
There you go, pretty good. You gotta, you gotta be way closer to that thing. Bring it into you.
Okay, all right, is this better?
I can kind of hear you. You gotta speak up, it's loud in here.
I mean, all right, let me see if I can figure out who you are. Go ahead and talk again.
Okay, it's loud and I'm Deborah. Okay, I'm usually pretty loud anyway.
That's what Paul tells me.
Yeah, I've been told this. I'm okay with that though.
So have you guys been here for a while now?
Uh, what do we get here, 5:30, 5:45?
About an hour and a half. Hour and a half? Like, how many, how many people do you think are here right now?
120? I think that's fair. Yeah, I mean, like, it's, it's grown substantially since we started doing the broadcast.
It really has. And I guess, I guess what blows my mind is how many— from where we started to where we are now and all the teams we have.
Yeah, I think we're up to 8 teams.
And it's so much more room to grow.
Where each team has not all the seats filled.
No, so not even close. So I mean, and that's not to say that we're doing bad, it just means that we have a lot of opportunity for new businesses to move in and seize opportunity.
To be part of a great network.
Yeah, you know, and it's not like— and, and you know this, I mean, it's not just like you're not just in that one group because here everybody Yeah, you know, and most of everyone. Yeah. And so like, we, we have the access and the opportunity to have those conversations, to hear about how people might be doing things differently. Yes. You know, because we, we already had another plumbing company on tonight, but like, they're telling me like a lot of what they're doing is generator hookups. Are you guys doing a lot of that? Are you guys doing something?
Um, it's hard to say But if it wasn't for this group, we wouldn't be here. I mean, this is where we launched basically in the original group. Yeah, we launched out of that and that's like 6 years ago, right? How long have you guys been in business? It'll be 7 years in November. 7 years is incredible because most people fail after 5.
That's what we've been told and I'm gonna tell you right now. So anyone—
Come on, people need to hear this.
Okay, whoever's in business now, understand that year 5 It's one of the hardest years there is because everything, everything's going to be thrown at you. And if you can make it through that, you've got it. You've got it. Just know that you can't give up.
Now, we as a team just can't give up the same day. That's right. Now, I don't know how many times I'm like, oh, here's my resume, I'm done. And he's like, you're not going I'm going nowhere.
No. Yep, I'll double your pay.
I mean, somebody's getting paid less.
I've played that game. I played that game. Brandy's gotten a raise a time or two, right? It's, it's a hard dynamic when you're husband and wife trying to own and run a business. Yes. And I've got the experience in the trade and I've got really in-person people skills.
And so that, that's my strength, and everything that's my weakness is her strength.
And, uh, I'll tell you, you don't want me in person. You don't want me in person. Can you not hear me? Am I still— am I still off?
Yeah, I mean, like, that's fine, but I don't want to get so close. I can hear you, but like, it's, it's fine.
But I want people to hear me.
Can everyone else hear me? I'm gonna turn you up as much as I can.
Lord have mercy. Okay, so I, I, my, my strength is over the phone. I will say this, I, I'm funny, I'm compassionate, and I, I can get business done, but everything's over the phone because I'd have to look people in the eye. I'm like, because I feel— I know, maybe it's an insecurity, I don't know, but I usually like to talk people off the ledge. So when somebody calls in and And they don't, they don't know, they don't know plumbing. That's why they're calling. Yeah. Like you, they don't know pest control. They're like, this, this ginormous spider, and I've had wolf spiders in my office before. Oh my Lord. But I don't know those things. That's
your job. We don't know electrical. We don't know how to fix a car. We just don't. We're a family of plumbers. But I want to help you talk off that ledge, and I want you to know your water heater's not gonna explode. I promise you'll be fine. Now, will it leak enough to fall into your bed underneath? Maybe.
Maybe. That's a possibility.
But once you see the leak, please call us.
We'll be out there. We'll help you. We'll get it taken care of. If you need a new one, we're gonna be honest with you. If we can repair it, we're gonna be honest with you. We want what's best for the homeowner.
And it's not, it's not a sales game, but everyone has to make money. Don't, don't joke. Don't tell yourself otherwise.
No, everybody needs to make something.
We have to pay our bills. Yes. But—
You gotta pay your bills, you gotta pay your employees, you gotta pay your taxes, you gotta pay your insurance. I mean, like, there's a list of things. There's a lot of people waiting to get their money at the end of that job.
And so we— but we want to be as fair to the homeowner. So when I'm on the phone, I'll tell them, look, I'm gonna be transparent with you. This could end up this way, this could end up this way, or you may need this.
Now, does that happen all the time? No. But I want you in your mind prepared, because if you are like me, I don't like those kind of surprises.
Yeah, well, I mean, like, we were dealing with that today. It was, we had a customer, they had termites in 2 columns on their back porch. And the termites had gone up and across and met each other in the middle and had just basically eaten these 2 columns. And one of them, we could tell because there was stone at the base, we could see above the stone and see where there was structural damage. It was just on one of them.
And we told them, we're gonna open this one up.
we're gonna replace, we're gonna, you know, mediate that structural damage in this column. But if when we open this column and we look in the bottom and there's a lot of structural damage, the chances of there being structural damage in the other one is very high. And sure enough, we opened it up and it was just paper. And we're like, look, like, I'm not gonna tell you that we need to open that other one. That's your decision. This is your property. But like, I need to tell you my concern. And ultimately, at the end of the day, they said, said, open it up, we need to fix this and make sure that our house doesn't fall in on itself, you know. And, and, but like, that's the kind of— that's how you garner that kind of trust with the client, is telling
them everything that could potentially go wrong down the line when you're dealing with a situation, you know. And just having that conversation, people, you know, most people are more afraid— they, they can concoct way worse situations in their head than you could ever tell them. Yes. You know, because most people, like, in my, in my business, I walk into situations where, like, oh my gosh, this is going to be $10,000, $20,000. And it's like, all right, we can fix this in $2,000 or $3,000. And they're like, whoo! But, like, you tell them, like, if their normal is it's going to be $2,000 or $3,000, they're like, you crook!
Yeah. And that's, that's, I guess that's a hard place to be.
People don't understand what it costs. Now let's just start, start with it's not just your labor, because you're wanting your employees to live, be able to live and pay their bills and feed their families.
So I'm— I don't pay my employees $10 an hour. I need y'all to know that.
Yeah, you know, because you want good employees.
But we come in, my guys are licensed, we are insured. I have a master plumber on site wherever you need him. I've got But we've got insurance out the wazoo. I'm saying we got— we are overinsured and we're paying for it, right?
And it's hard to compete with the guy that does it on the side.
And they don't understand why our price is twice as much, and they go, well, I just can't understand why it's that much because this guy here, he's gonna do it for half the price, right? And I'm like, I can't do it for that, right?
And that's the plumbers, the true plumbers that are doing it in the level playing field, the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, the way it's been designed by the State Board of Plumbing Examiners and to be a legitimate business. I've told many customers I could just let my license go, drop my insurance, keep one vehicle, pick and choose what I want, and make way more money. Yeah, but nobody's protected. No, I'm not protected. You're not protected. Once you get a lawyer involved and insurance companies involved, They don't remember that price that, right, that other guy gave them. Yes. So we look for a certain type of customer.
About the top 15% of customers are—
they value a legitimate company with license, insurance, and good reviews. And they understand the difference. And they do. Yes. That's who we cater to. I would say we're like a boutique plumbing company that we could charge more. I'm not—
I don't mean it that way.
No, no, no, it makes nothing— we're the same way. I mean, like, I had the same conversation with a customer last night. It was, it was was a termite job and it was going to be $2,300, which honestly is not a lot of money, you know. But she came back at me and she's like, I have a buddy that says that he got it done for $800. And I'm like, well, knock yourself out, but like, who knows where that guy's going to be living next month? That's right. You know, I don't know that guy. I can't, I can't, I can't. She's like, tell me the difference. I don't know him. I can't tell you the difference.
I can tell you what I can do. He's going to collect your money for sure. Yeah, he's gonna, he's gonna cash that, that check's gonna get cashed. Yeah, but is your problem gonna get solved? Is it gonna have a warranty behind it? Is it gonna happen? Like, it's gonna have all these things. I mean, like, you know, and you told me the initial reason that you called me is because you recognized that I was a standing member in the community, that I've been here for a long time, that people recognize me, they know my name, and that I'm gonna get the job done. What's that worth to you? And she was like, come do the job.
You know, and like, that's the kind of client you want to be working for, you know. Anybody, anybody else, like, it's fine if they want to choose that cheap method. Knock yourself Yeah, we don't want— we really don't want that type of customer. It's really not worth your time or my time. It's a waste of everyone's time. Their time, our time, everybody's involved. Yeah, and, and, and that's something I think a lot of homeowners need to pay attention to, is the kind of people that are willing to walk away from the table. And like, why are they willing to walk away from the table? Because they understand the value of what it is that they're doing for you. It's not just about them, it's about what they can do for you.
It's funny, social media has been It's kind of bad.
It's good and bad both ways because it's like, oh, my husband's a plumber. Well, if I get a name, I look it up on the State Board of Plumbing Examiners. This is open information for any homeowner, any business owner. Sure. You know, all of the correspondence we give a customer has to have my name, full name, my master license number, and I have to have insurance registered with the state in case something goes wrong and they call and complain, a complaint against me.
the state goes, oh, by the way, here's his insurance policy. Right. Go start the process.
So I mean, the legitimate contractor, plumbing contractor, they got all the responsibility and all that goes with it. It's hard. If we were all in the level playing field doing it the right way, there's plenty of work for everybody. That's why we're friends with all the plumbers that are around us. We don't think— I will say that is one of the things I love about you guys is I talked to so many other plumbing companies, it's like, we love, we love Paul the Plumber because like you guys, I mean, like you're not trying to like suck up all the work for yourselves. Like you're trying to hand it out and help up, like give a hand up, you know. If you help enough people get what they want, you get what you want. Exactly, in the process. Is that Zig
Ziglar? Yep, yep. I love that guy.
So, well, I gotta, I gotta bring the next one up, but like I always love visiting with you guys.
guys. We do too. We enjoy being on your show. We really do. It's been a minute.
It's been a minute, but so— but I'm glad you guys are doing well. Yeah, yeah, we love watching you guys.
We are still blessed. Absolutely blessed.
Awesome, awesome. Paul, at some point you got to come check out my new left-hander. Okay, I got 8 now. So you got 8? I got 8 now. Are you in trouble? Is that— no, but I wanna, I wanna, I wanna Les Paul. So I got, uh, so when you, when you jump off here, you can Google it. I got an SJ-200 Gibson.
My It's like, it's like, it's, it's— what's the word for it? I can't think of it. It's the, um, like, it's, it's the guitar I thought I would never have, put it that way. Yeah. And it, it— I, I went to order one and the guy told me it's going to be 5 to 6 months before it even gets in. And then he called me last Tuesday.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he called me last Tuesday and he said, one just came in, do you want it? And it was at my house by Thursday. And it is gorgeous. But like, so if you— if you— when you get off, I will just— SJ200 Rosewood. And then just— just—
I might walk by and just say, this one?
Just nod at me, wink at me. That's right, that's the one. All right, let me— let me get Cassie up here. Thank you guys so much.
Thank you, it was always a pleasure being on your show.
Oh yeah, y'all have Thanks. All right, everybody, I'm gonna take a bite of chicken wing because they're sitting here getting cold and I think that's kind of rude. And of course y'all want to watch me eat a chicken wing, but, uh, I need some calories. I'm just eating, it's not rude.
I said I'm just eating, it's not rude. I'm hungry.
I left my food supervised.
Absolutely. Gotta trust the people.
I'm doing a 3-hour show here, they need to bring me some sustenance. And like, a chicken wing is just like not the most like camera-friendly thing. But I'm gonna eat it. I mean, you put it in front of me. Yes, yes. Scoot up to that thing so everybody can hear you.
All right, so let everybody know who you are and what you do.
Hey guys, I'm Cassie Taylor, owner-operator of Taylor 2 Solutions, offering professional organizing, cleaning, and in-home laundry for all your business and residential needs.
Awesome. And we actually did some work together earlier this year.
Yeah, you want to tell everybody about that? We can't name any names. Not really. Can't name any names, but we did some work together. Yes. Do you mind telling everybody what it was?
I was freaked out a little bit. That's fair. I came across some dead animals in my travels for cleaning, but you know, I was not deterred. Um, actually, a few weeks after I did that job, I found a dead one at another one of my commercial clients, and I sent a picture to them.
Absolutely. It's like, hey, I don't know how long this has been here, but it's definitely dead.
I know the difference. I've seen this before. Exactly. So, I mean, like, I mean, here, let me, let me tell everybody. There is a, um, large restaurant chain that you and I went in and worked on together that was having an infestation issue. And I told them, I was like, I can't work and I can't do proper service on this, on this place until it's clean. And specifically the kitchen. Like, the kitchen's got to be clean. And, and so I just remember I was getting like text messages from you, I think in like the middle of the night. It's like, this stuff's not coming off.
It wasn't. It was really caked on, and I'm like, they need to do better about training their people to clean. I mean, where the dishes were were amazing. It was immaculate. But where the food was being cooked was another story. I like—
look, I'm, I'm still working with them. I know you're, you're kind of done with that job, but like, I'm still working with them, and I'm like, guys, like, this is in my report every week. Like, it's still gross. Yeah, just like clean it. Like, just take the time.
Like overnight. Like, you can, you can get somebody to come in and do this. Like, it's—
I offered. I sent in a bid.
It's crazy. Like, but it's, it's an important thing to pay attention to because like, who wants to eat in a filthy restaurant?
But like most people don't know because they keep all that shut off in the back where you can't even see.
We hope. There are some restaurants out there that don't, and we're just like, why? Why are y'all even serving this?
Oh, you're not hiding? Great, good, we're leaving.
But okay, so like, and, and, and you are— you've helped started one of the new groups for the net that we're here working with. So night. So how's that going?
Amazing. Yeah, I love all the service. I love all the services that have come out and applied. We are up to 11 members of our group, right? We're only— we're May, June, 3 months in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, like, uh, a lot of them I knew ahead of time. I've been working and talking about this since JoJo gave me the green light to talk about it back in October, right? So, and everybody's like, yeah, when? And so I kept getting messages every couple of months, hey, when is this happening? And I'm like, I promise you it is.
Well, and like, this is the thing, is like, we started out as kind of like a Conroe group, like initially with like the, the pillars that are the net. Yeah. And like, now we're up to 8 groups. And, you know, we've expanded beyond Conroe, and you're in the Willis.
Which is one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in North Houston area. And that's the thing is like Houston just sort of like has this weird tendency to just expand.
Yes, they just want to, you know, keep growing.
Yeah, I saw, I saw a TikTok today where this lady was— it was like normal, normal things that you say as a Houstonian. And it was this lady in the car and she was on the phone and she goes, yeah, I'm on my way. I'll— I should be there in no time, 45 minutes tops.
And like, that's not even weird.
Because like, it should— like, it took me 45 minutes to get here, which is only, I think, less than 20 miles from my house.
Yes. And so I, I was coming from Cypress and it took me right, right under an hour. Oh geez. And I was taking the 99 and I was still like about 20, 25 miles away.
That's so crazy. So crazy. Yeah, it's, it's just enough. Okay, so like, what, what, like, I know you're doing cleanings, I know you're doing organization, like, what, which one are you focusing on more right now?
Um, actually it's the in-home laundry. I really—
Okay, I, I can resonate with that. I don't want to do my laundry.
Exactly. There's— but there's so many companies out there, cleaning companies, organizing companies.
Are you doing it like in their homes, or are you picking it up and taking it and doing it somewhere else?
Do it right there in their home.
Yes, some of my clients already have loads going, so when I get there, I'm starting to fold everything, put it away. There's rotations for their kids' clothes.
Things are hanging up, steaming, ironing if need be.
Um, I charge $45 an hour.
Okay. So, and how many loads of laundry can you get through in an hour?
If I'm just folding, I can get through between 2 and 3 depending on how big they are.
Oh yeah. One of my clients calls me, um, the folding mafia. Like, you can fold like nobody else.
So is like, is that, is that an add-on service or is that just a standalone?
You know, both. So like you can have a crew there cleaning the house while other people are there folding the laundry?
Really? That's fantastic. So if I'm like, so you're saying like $45, did you say how much?
Per hour, $45 an hour to do the laundry?
On top of a house cleaning? So how much for the house cleaning and the laundry?
No one's going to hold you to this. Let's put the caveat right now. I mean, like, every house is different.
And that's what I was about to say. Yeah, yeah.
No, I'm like, like, I, I understand, but like, in, in general, what, what should people be expecting? Like, $45 for the laundry, house cleaning going on at the same time— what should I be expecting?
Well, because I've got 2 people there, so we're doubling the work, um, at least. And, or at minimum, there's 2 2 people there.
Let's just say this, to have 2 people for 3 hours at my house, I think that's reasonable, right?
Are we talking weekly or biweekly or monthly?
It's your business, you do what you want.
I know, but I service it all. There's people who tell me come in every week.
Every week. Every week. Let's just say every week.
Fold my laundry, clean my house. Okay, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. No, I mean, like, and like, what all does that entail when you say cleaning the house?
That is— it can be customizable, but the— our regular maintenance cleaning. And so we're in your bathrooms, we're in your kitchen, just our normal everyday Inside your microwave, outside your microwave, all exterior appliances.
If you're like me, just throw the microwave in the trash.
We take the trash out as well, so all the trash bags are—
With the microwave in it?
Listen, I hate— Please remove— If you don't know yet, I hate microwaves.
I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of them personally, but I love it for my kids because I'm Please, please just go away. Go find something, put it in the microwave.
See, that's when I tell them to go outside. Just go hunt whatever it is that you want.
Yeah, they do that too, and they take the dogs with them.
Oh my gosh. All right, so she's telling me 5. What— I mean, is there anything else big that's happening with your business right now?
I just hired my first part-time employee. Hey, there you go. So we're expanding. So right now everything has been done just by me. Okay. And no complaints as of yet.
No indentured servants with the kids? Come on, you can, you can be honest.
So with permission from my clients, I do let my kids come learn what it is I do, how I do it.
Well, my youngest is now— she'll be 12 next month.
Exactly. So she's, she's as tall— she's taller than me, so I'm like, of course you can come with me. That seems legitimate.
If you're taller than your mom, you can go to work.
You can go to work. That'll incentivize all the short kids out there. It's like, yes, absolutely, I don't have to work.
By the way, I'm only 5 foot tall, so let me just explain that.
Well, so if people, if people are looking to get their laundry folded, they want to get their home clean, they want to get their home organized, I know you do all those different kinds of things.
How do people get a hold of you?
My website is tailoredtousolutions.com. I'm on Facebook. You can either find me at Cassie Taylor or Tailored 2 Solutions. And my number is 936-444-5116.
Awesome. How long you been doing this now, by the way?
By myself, I just celebrated 2 years.
But you've been in the business for a lot longer than that.
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm 5, 6 years in.
In the business. And you know, I've got a 19-year-old, so I've been doing it as long as she's been alive.
As long as she's been making messes, I've been cleaning them up.
I hear you on that. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us. It's always fun to visit with you. Have you been having fun tonight?
Oh yeah, I love networking. I've got my people. Yeah, so I'm excited. Willis is here to represent.
There you go. You got a good crowd tonight.
Absolutely. Yeah, we're still going on for a little bit, so—
Oh yeah, we got a ways to go. We got a ways to go. I got, I got at least 3 more guests. Yep. So, all right, well, thank you so much. Thank you. Have fun. You too. I'm gonna like see if I can get a bite of another chicken wing here in a minute.
Try to grab another bite, guys.
I real quick, I want to, I want to say thank you to our sponsors who make this show possible. Thank you to Lone Star Appliance Repair. You can always send them a text message or a call, get your appliances replaced. Also, thank you to 2. You got the— you got the— okay, yeah. Uh, thank you to the Lone Star Blind Spare. Also, thank you to True Texas Solar, energy independence that you can trust. They're out there debunking every scam in solar energy right now, but they can also provide you energy independence via a solar system, a whole home battery, or a whole home generator. They can actually create a system that combines all 3 of those and make your home energy independent, uh, in this modern age. Also, thank you to
Krazy Klean, who is eliminating that gross stain around the bottom of your toilet. People think it's a poop stain, it's just minerals, but also it's ionized magnets that are eliminating the ability of those things to stain the bottom of your toilet and make your toilet clean from now into eternity. Uh, they have a 10-year warranty on that product. Reach out to them. Krazy Klean with a Klean with a K, crazyklean.com. Who do I have sitting down with me right now?
Tasha, scoot up a little bit so everybody can hear you.
I know you can hear— you can hear me okay, right?
Yeah, okay. All right, so let everybody know who you are. I said, look, you're famous. People— don't, don't let her do that to you. I know, they're tormenting me.
So like, she's making you nervous, but like, you should be nervous with these cameras more than that, right? That's nothing.
Well, that's why she's doing this, because I told her I was nervous because I've never done something like this.
Oh yes, thank you. Please. Yes. Um, so you've never talked on a microphone before?
I love that I get to do this first. So let everybody know who you are and what you do.
So my name is Tasha Lowe, and I'm a business development specialist for Better Bookkeepers.
Better Bookkeepers. So is that like a— like you're— so you're an accountant?
Well, we're a bookkeeping firm.
Yep. Strictly bookkeeping. No CPAs, no taxes. Just the ledger. Yep. All the fun stuff.
And so they all love you, right?
You're not calling anybody out on anything, right?
So like, have you ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad?
Do you know who Robert Kiyosaki is?
No? Alright, so I'm gonna encourage you to read the book.
Because in the book, and it may be that book or it may be his other book, Cashflow Quadrant, quadrant. I can't remember which one, but he talks about his bookkeeper being his favorite person and also his most vile enemy, because his bookkeeper would always tell him, you don't have the money, you can't do this, you can't do that. And he's— it's always a fight because he has the bookkeeper that's telling him like, no, you can't do this. He's like, no, I'm going to do this.
Well, and it's, you know, it's, um, people see money in their bank account but that's not necessarily what you have in reality. Yes. Yeah. And then they look at their profit and loss, then they're like, where is all this? And I'm like, well, if you look lower than that, that's where it all has been spent.
How long have you been doing this now?
Um, well, actually, I just— I haven't been in Texas very long. Okay. We moved down here in the fall of '21. Okay. And I started at Better Bookkeepers in the fall of of November of '22, and I started as a part-time bookkeeper.
Is this Melanie's company?
I know you do, because I was like, hey Melanie, I'm gonna be on a podcast today, and she's like, whose? And I told her, and she's like, okay, I, I've known them forever.
Yep. But anyways, I started part-time, went to full-time, um, got moved up to a team lead, and then got interested in the business development side of things. And so now I do— I'm a business development specialist. I don't do client work. I'm out in the community. I'm networking. I'm involved in the chamber.
Which chamber are you involved in?
I'm actually— I recently became a diplomat in The Woodlands Chamber.
Okay. You ever done anything with the Lake Conroe one?
I've been to a lot of stuff there. Melanie is actually on the board.
Yeah, so we've— I've been to a lot of things up there.
Okay, so like, what is like in your role? I mean, like, you obviously know about bookkeeping, but like, so like, what are you supposed to be doing for the business?
So I'm supposed to be out in the community and making relationships.
Supposed to be here? Yeah.
All right. Networking is, is a huge part of my job. Yeah. And something that is part of our culture at Better Bookkeepers is it's not We are here to help businesses, whether that's with us, right, or by making a relationship and a connection with someone else.
And so my job isn't just to be out here looking for sales. That's not what I do. I'm out here to build those relationships because not only like our clients, they need things other than bookkeeping services. So the more people that we know, if I can refer them to trusted people, that's what we want to do. 100%, you know, we want to help however we can, even if it's not with us.
So I'm— you dropped a thread a minute ago, and I'm gonna pull on it, but not yet. I want everybody— I want to ask the question, like, what is actually the role of a bookkeeper for a business? For all of these people here, everybody here is like an entrepreneur, business owner, a business operator. Like, what is your role as the bookkeeper in a business? Because I think a lot of people don't know.
Right. I would say in the simplest form, we track the money coming in and the money going out, and we categorize your— if you have various different ways of it or types of income, we're categorizing that, your expenses, your cost of goods sold. We're putting— we're showing you where your money's coming from and where it's going.
And, you know, the balance sheet is something that most people don't think about, know about, but that stands— that's telling you how much is in your bank account, that's telling you what you owe on loans, that's telling you how much equity you have in the business. And if you want to go anywhere and get a line of credit, right, the first thing a bank is going to do is ask to see your balance sheet.
What's your ledger look like?
Yeah, they want to see your balance sheet.
Yeah. So, and like, do you guys typically try and represent the client in like an accrual or a cash basis? I mean, like, is it dependent on the business?
GAAP standards are accrual. So, you know, people can pull their reports however, but accrual basis is the standard.
Oh, really? Okay, interesting. All right. And so, like, why shouldn't I be doing that for myself? Why should I use you instead of just like— because I know how to add and subtract.
Right? Like, I should, but like, if I know, if I have basic math skills, why should I let you do that and not me?
Because bookkeeping isn't math. It's a puzzle.
It's finding where things need to fit and making sure they're in the right places, and it's evaluating.
Okay. You know, what are some of the pieces of the puzzle that I'm not like addressing if I'm just adding and subtracting.
Let's look at your business, right? You invoice a lot of people.
You know, let's just hypothetically, you have a CRM or you invoice through QuickBooks or whatever it is, right? When you can have all these invoices that outstanding, and you want to know what is coming in, right? You want to know what people owe you. And when you send out an invoice, the process— it's not just you send an invoice and you get money. It's, it's a— there's so many steps to it. You send the invoice, people pay you, you have to receive that payment, you have to show that it's been paid, right? And then it gets dumped into something called undeposited funds, right? Think of it like the cash drawer. When you pay somewhere, like someone gives you money, you have it it, but it's not in your bank account yet. Where
are you accounting for that? It's in undeposited funds. And then when you actually go to the bank and deposit it, that's when you have to match that money to it. It's so much more than just—
Yeah, like I said, it's not math.
Sure. Yeah. And it's— and you guys can give a picture of that.
The thing that I love the most about where I work We call it a boutique-style bookkeeping firm, à la carte, if you will. We do as little or as much as a client needs. We're not here to— we don't have option A, B, and C, like take it or leave it.
We actually, we have an interest call with the client. We try to find out what are your pain points, what do you need, what do you need assistance with, because we're not going to try to sell you something. that you don't need.
And we are gonna look at your file, if you have a QuickBooks file, for example, and we're gonna analyze it, and we're gonna create a custom monthly fixed-price addendum for you and be like, this is what we can do to help.
And then we adjust from there. Sometimes people say, okay, we want you to just take the reins, take over everything. Sometimes people just want us to manage their accounts receivable and reconcile their accounts, you know.
All right, so now I want to pull on the thread. So you said you moved here. Where did you move from?
North Dakota? Is, is that the, uh, pretzel state?
Yeah, yeah, Dots pretzels.
Oh, look, look at you, represent! Come on.
Okay, first of all, I'm thinking like, you know, a big pretzel. But yes, Dot's Pretzels are from a small town in North Dakota. Literally, the lady was like making them in her backyard.
Looking at me like I don't know what I'm talking about.
And she would take them to the football games. Like, I grew up in a town of 1,000 people.
You were born in North Dakota?
Yeah, well, I was born in Minneapolis, but grew up in North Dakota.
You can say it, it's fine.
She was on vacation when she had me, and I'm adopted, so.
Is that like the King of the Hill episode where he realizes he was born in New York? No, no, no. Do you know what I'm talking about?
I haven't seen that one, no.
Are you familiar with the show?
Yeah, there's an episode where he realizes he was born in New York, and it's devastating to him. Like, it's like the worst— like, you might as well have killed him.
Okay, so grew up in North Dakota.
Where, where in North Dakota?
Beach, North Dakota. Is that like B-E-E?
Is there a beach there? No.
Very misleading. It was— I believe it was named after the colonel or whoever.
There was a person who had the last name way back when.
Okay. Um, it's literally on I-94. It's at mile from the Montana border. Okay.
Why here? It's very, it's very hot.
Compared to where you were.
Um, there was an opportunity to move south that worked for my family.
And we just took it and ran with it.
I mean, like, had you been to Texas before?
Yes, we had actually. Ironically, My oldest brother, he used to live in Houston.
Okay, so you had a little knowledge.
Yeah, I'd come down here when I was, uh, I think I came and visited when I was 12 and I was 16, and I was actually gonna go to Texas A&M.
That's my alma mater. Look at me, come on.
But then my brother moved back to North Dakota and I was too scared to come down here by myself.
Ironically, I ended up down here, what, however many years later.
Okay. So how long have you been here now?
It'll be 3 years in October.
Okay, so biggest difference?
Sure, yeah, I think that's fair. Humidity is a monster here.
It is. It's the worst. And allergies.
Is there something that you like better about Toronto?
Yeah. I mean, Houston has anything and everything.
So sort of like the mixing pot.
Yeah. And I mean, North Dakota, it's small town, it's country, it's German and Norwegians. And I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't know. Yeah, you know, I would not trade where I grew up for nothing.
Yeah, I love it. So have you— I was, I was at a conference recently, and they were talking about North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, more remote areas.
And they were talking about how all of these companies are starting to invest in building data centers in places like where you grew up, specifically because the land is cheap, it's remote, but they can— this is the craziest thing— they're talking about building these data centers on top of micronuclear reactors that they're going to be putting 50 meters underground and then building communities around those data centers because they can offer small communities free electricity.
I haven't heard anything about that.
Yeah, it's coming. Like, that's always the thing is like, so like when you start, like we got a guest coming up right at like 2 guests after you that's going to be talking about AI and like that's what these data centers are for is to help support the computing power that AI is requiring. And it requires massive amounts of power, and they can't build new nuclear power plants, but they can build these micro nuclear power plants, bury them in the ground, and then put them in remote places like North Dakota.
And then build communities around them by incentivizing people to move there with free electricity. And it's like, this is, this is a weird time that we live in.
It is. And I, you know, when I go back I will say, like, there's— my dad still lives there. My dad's 83 years old.
He's a big old cow. He does whatever he wants. He, um, he decided to run for county commissioner.
8 years ago, probably. I don't know, he's in like his third term.
But this— okay, he's a county commissioner of a town of like 1,000 people.
So? I mean, like, that's awesome.
And he like literally He's— he was very involved in like Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited. He's a hunter, trapper.
I love him already. He sounds like my kind of guy.
He's the best man in the world. I love him. He's seriously the coolest guy I know.
Oh yeah, yeah. You will not see my dad without a pearl button shirt, Wranglers cowboy boots, and he either has a cowboy hat on or baseball hat on, and he is clean-shaven every day.
We can hang out, minus the clean-shaven part, because I was lazy today.
Well, look him up on Facebook. His name is Robert Schmalen, but everybody calls him Bob.
So, I mean, like, did he cowboy somewhere?
Well, his family had a ranch. He's the oldest of 8.
And they had a big family ranch south of—
Did you grow up doing No.
No? Okay. No. So we— I grew up in town. My dad owned the gas station.
In town. Um, but he would— he, he did some work on the family ranch, and he would take me out there, and I would just ride around on the four-wheelers and try not to run into a barbed wire fence or something.
I've done enough cow work to get myself into trouble. That's what I tell people. Like, it's— I've done branding. Yeah, yeah. Brandy Day's fun. Castration Day. Oh God! I've been I've been leg man on Castration Day.
Yeah, you just need your boot over the. That's right. Hold that tail.
You know. All right, we can be friends. That's fine. So well, this is this is awesome. I I love that you one you're working for an awesome company. Yes. I I love you know I I love the Bush family. Like you guys are doing great work. So any, like, if people are looking for your services, how do they get a hold of you?
Um, we are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we are on LinkedIn. You can just Google Better Bookkeepers. You can go to any of the chambers.
Yeah, betterbookkeeperstx.com, I believe.
Yeah, if you get, if you get the chance, jump on the live feed and drop that link in the comments. That way we have it, we can put it in the show notes for the, the podcast that goes out later on, um, so we can backlink you guys. Perfect. Super helpful to us. If not, we'll— I mean, we'll look it up. But, um, thank you for sitting down with us.
Absolutely. Yeah, I've enjoyed it. Thanks for being my first interview.
How was your first time behind a microphone?
For that good old North Dakota girl.
Bet you weren't expecting that, right?
I was not expecting that, but I'm happy it So somehow it always comes out in conversation. Good, it should, because that's who you are. Yeah. So, and tell your dad I said hello.
Yeah, because he sounds like a good man.
All right, have a good night. All right guys, we are, we are down to our last 2 guests. We got Rudy coming up here in just a second. How we looking, Jonah? That's fine. We should last. If it gets to 5, just let me know. So, all right guys, I'm gonna take a bite of chicken wing while I'm waiting for Rudy to get up here, even though he's standing right there.
Hey, just poke, poke him.
Yeah, holding up the show, man.
I'm waiting on a beverage.
I don't know where it's at.
Tell the rizzler to look out for it, man. He'll bring it to you. Okay. What are you waiting for?
We're taking by the chicken wing.
Let's go for it. Go for it.
Dude, we are doing way better on time than I thought we would.
You having a good time tonight?
Scoot up a little bit to that.
Yeah, I'm always having a great time.
Of course, always meet people fun. The NET, uh, that's how I started coming here with these NET events.
Yeah, yeah. Um, but JoJo invited me to a couple, uh, before I even started pressure washing.
What were you doing before?
I used to do the woodturning. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how I got introduced to networking, to small business, to JoJo.
Are you not doing any wood stuff anymore?
As a hobby. I always did it as a hobby.
Yeah. So pressure washing and that, I kind of— I started pressure washing after I got laid off in the oil field. And, uh, woodturning I had done just as a hobby. hobby, right? So I started posting stuff online and JoJo got a hold of me, and after about a year I got more into pressure washing. So that's how I started full-time, right?
Dude, so like, and but like pressure washing is like just full-time now?
Yeah, yeah, full-time, you know.
Are you doing soft washes and everything else?
I mean like Yeah, so May I didn't really do any residential at all.
Straight commercial. Uh, I did 2 hotels. You got a fan base here. Um, I did 2 hotels back to back in the spring, The Woodlands area. Okay, soft wash, uh, the man's hand lift and a lot of safety protocols involved in that. And then Tulsa Welding School was a huge project because—
Yeah, here in, uh, North Houston, the Greens Point area.
Where's, where's that at?
Right off of Greens Road across from Greens Point Mall, where it used to be anyway. Um, but they, when they bought the building about 10 years ago, they haven't had soft wash sink, right?
So you have a bunch of organic, a lot of mildew and stuff.
But 5 years ago, they installed these exhaust systems for their welding machines. Sure. So what comes out is metal, and it had rust over the entire building where those exhaust systems were.
Um, you got screwed up, man. They can't hear you.
So what I had to do is first I had to do the soft wash because the chemicals they use for, for the soft washing for organic, right, can't mix with the rust removal chemicals. They can create a poisonous gas.
Oh dang. So you put like mustard gas out?
Literally, yeah, it's a, a poisonous gas. So I had to— we, we had to wash, soft wash the entire thing first for Right. And then wait a day after we rinsed everything off to make sure that we're not mixing the chemicals and creating gas. Right. So it was a pretty, uh, long project, but it was fun. It was something different that most kids with a pressure washer ain't gonna tackle, you know.
But like, but you're still offering like residential, like—
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, of course. I offer residential— what I'm offering more now is residential maintenance packages.
So we'll do a complete house wash and then we'll come back 3 times a year to either touch up their pool deck. Okay. Every time we'll do their windows. It just depends. It's all catered to the customer and what their needs are.
Right. So what's happening on a pool deck that people need to get Cleaned off? I mean, like—
Well, pool decks is more humidity, more mold, more— you also have that pool deck that allows dirt to collect, right? So that mixes with the grime, and then you have to actually spray a really heavy mixture of SH, right, to help kill it and break it up.
Sodium hypochlorite. Oh yeah, big old word for bleach.
Is that really— is that really what it is? Literally, yeah.
Yeah, uh, so your household bleach is about 3% SH at the most. You can get some outdoor bleach that might be 6%, but probably not. Gotcha. So when we get SH, we get an M. We get it in bulk, but you can also buy it by the gallon at Home Depot, Lowe's, or any pool supply store. But for the most part, when you're a professional pressure washer, you go to specific stores or manufacturer suppliers that have it in bulk. 1,000-gallon tanks.
That have— or more. Yeah, but they even have to have a separate tank around it for in case of any spill.
Yeah, because I'm like, most people don't realize bleach is like a serious chemical. Like, you don't— like, don't mess with it. People go to the store and they buy like these jugs of Clorox and like just like pour them on stuff, and I'm like, that's not safe. These are, these are serious chemicals that have serious ramifications on your health. on your structure. I mean, if you're not using them properly, like, you could cause some serious problems, right? You know, and so like when, when a professional like you comes on the scene, I think that's part of what adds value to what you're doing is like you're using them responsibly rather than just like dumping chemical all over
Right. So not only are we, you know, we know what to do, we know how to protect the grass around it. And if you have some rose bushes and, you know, expensive flowers that you've landscaped, right, we're gonna protect that by either pre-soaking or post-soaking or covering the plants, you know. But you also, when you're— when you get into the environmental safety part of it, right, we cover the drains, right? Right. So the majority of the contaminants and pollution doesn't get into the storm drains, right? Right. So especially when you get into the center of Houston, right within the 610 Loop, it's required to actually collect that water.
So you have to have a specific Licensed, certified by the city to be able to have a reclamation system.
Yes, you can buy a reclamation— I can go buy a reclamation system and start reclaiming water.
Well, I mean, really, really quick so everybody knows, what is a reclamation system?
So reclamation system is when we're pressure washing and instead of the water going into the storm drains, we're recollecting that water and filtering it. So, the heavy contaminants, oil, and stains that we're getting up, they go back into a system.
Right? So, a closed system.
So, what do you guys do with the stuff that you actually— like, so, like, there's the water that comes off, and then as you're reclaiming it, you're filtering it. What do you do with the stuff that you filter out?
You have to take it to a facility that actually actually takes it and recycles it.
And the reason I want to even bring that up is because, like, I think people need to understand part of what they're paying for, right? You know, it's like you're reclaiming that. You're, you're not dumping that on their property. You're actually having to take it to a facility that needs to be recycled. That's not free.
No, it's not. It's definitely not.
You know, so it's it's a service you're having to pay for in order to not dump contaminants on their property. It's like you're providing them with an additional service by reclaiming that water. How are you guys even able to do that? I mean, like, like, I mean, like, because water is like, look, water's drunk. Yeah. So it just goes where it wants to.
Water goes everywhere, but there's certain There's certain pieces that we can buy, equipment that we can buy to move the water to where we want it to go. And then it— with specific equipment, it filters the water. After that, we have a pump that will set into the area where the water's been collecting.
And run it back to another filter. That filter removes all the contaminants, everything from it. But it's really containing that water Requires a whole nother person to just sit there and move the water and collect the water. Right.
So you'll have 2 people maybe pressure washing and another person just collecting that water.
I got you. Interesting. And so like how much additional— I mean, obviously it takes an additional person, like how much additional attention is required to make sure that that's happening properly?
It really just depends on the, the how big the job is. Sure, right. I mean, sometimes we can have all 3 people working pressure washing and moving hoses, and the 3rd person will just go back every once in a while to start collecting water. Yeah, right.
But I imagine for like a lot of businesses that like have a public persona in the community, that's an important facet to what you do when you're there cleaning their property. Like, they don't want— they don't want to have the image associated with their business that they're actually leaching contaminants and particulates into, like, the storm drains and all these kinds— they want to know that, like, you're reclaiming that water and filtering it, you know what I mean? Like, that's a value add.
It doesn't happen on every job.
Because I imagine it's not the cheapest thing that you do.
It's not. So even the cheapest thing that we can do is there's a snake, is what it's called, and it has foam in it, and that foam helps filter the water. So you put it in front of a storm drain and water goes through and you collect it, you can use it a couple times.
And throw it away. But when you get into the Houston city limits and actually requiring it on contracts, then you have to get the reclamation system. Yeah, that system, you can't just buy it and use it. You have to go to Houston and get the certification. I think it's yearly, I'm not sure.
So, um, I'm not in the business, but that, that sounds like the way they want to—
they want to make sure your rig is, is working correctly. Yeah, yeah, that it works the way it's supposed to and you know what you're supposed to do.
For sure. So, yeah. So what— I, I'm— they've got me bringing up my, my, my last guest tonight. So, but like, let everybody know, I mean, like, we've talked about a lot And I, man, the way in which you're able to articulate the processes that people need to be understanding when they're paying for certain things is crazy valuable. You know what I mean? I mean, it's important to understand what it is that you're getting at the end of a service. And so I think you've articulated that very well, and I think there's a lot of people that just think if I have a high-pressure hose and I can spray a house, I can clean it. And it's not
that simple. And I think people need to understand that better. Like, there are more responsible ways to clean their properties, clean their commercial businesses, to clean their homes. And I think that's all valuable information. Am I wrong?
No, definitely not wrong.
And so there's, there's, there's a way to do it and there's a better way to do it. All right. You know, you get a house clean But there's probably a better way to get your house clean.
No, definitely. I mean, it's the way I tell people, I can get to the southern tip of Chile on a bicycle, you know, but, uh, I'd rather fly.
Same with you. You know, you, you can sit here and clean your home with a little electric pressure washer and spend days on end getting up on a ladder and hitting with pressure and getting paint off your home. But yeah, hiring a professional, we know the correct chemicals to use, so we're not going to sit here and damage your home or your business, and it'll still be your pride and joy.
Yep. So what if people want to get a hold of you for their business or for their home? How do they get a hold of you?
Yeah, I have to put the TX because it's Texas.
Well, it's a branding thing, you know. It's not that it's RC Pressure Washing, it's— that's my name, you know. I once worked for an oilfield company in sales and marketing, and I, within a month, my boss called me in and he's like, Rudy, who do you work for? And I said, I work for blah blah blah. And he said, no, you work for— and it was Comma LTD. And it was like, what? And it was because he's like, that is our name, that is our brand, and that is— these are our colors. Like, we're not going to sit here and, and represent This company without saying these two words.
Yeah, that's fair. So go ahead, finish up. Thanks. Good to see you, bud.
Okay, cool. Oh, oh, okay, now you're saying okay.
Wow, come on in, y'all. Y'all pardon me while I, uh, take a bite of chicken.
Go ahead, take a break, take a break.
This one too? Yeah, that's you. How's the hair look? Fantabulous. Oh, I can hear you now. Okay. All right, can y'all hear me? Yes. So if you can't hear you, they can't hear you. You got to get right up on it. It's louder. Yeah. All right, so I am so excited that you guys are here because you are the most controversial topic of the night. Everyone is freaking out about AI out in the, the YouTube-verse, the Facebook-verse, the Instagram-verse. Everybody's freaking out about it.
Every universe is freaking out about you guys. And you guys are helping businesses implement AI, correct?
Right. You got— you, you gotta— you gotta speak to it.
Yeah. All right, so let's, let's just, let's just get the, the elephant out of the room.
Why should I not be afraid of AI?
Well, it depends how you use it. Are you using it as a tool? It's gonna help you.
I mean, this beautiful setup you have here, if people can just see how this is set up, they will be very surprised how it works, and I love it.
Yeah. I think that you cannot act on fear and not do something something because you're scared of it, it's not gonna stop it, right?
Right. Your fear is not gonna stop it.
It's not gonna stop it. AI is here. And yeah, it's not—
Go ahead, Edwin. I'm sorry, I didn't have you turned up. Go ahead.
I said it's not a fad. That's for sure. It's not like the internet.
That is 100%. It is not a fad.
It's not a fad. And now there are so many people, um, creating such great things and great tools to help everyday people, especially as business owners.
It's making— it's helping you with this podcast, is helping us put AI voice to businesses that can't— they need some sort of assistant.
Their AI can do that. And there are so many great advances and great things in the medical world and all sorts of— like, I love watching those. Like, I'm like, oh my God.
I know that they're using it for diagnostic tools. Yes, for sure.
They're doing so many good things. So my belief is the more people use it for good, we're gonna be better off. But by not using it, it doesn't stop the bad things from happening.
Yeah, yeah. So what— and help me with the facts on this. on this. The most recent version of Google AI that they just dropped, what was that?
V03. So I was in a meeting the other day, and have you guys seen the We're Not Prompts video?
So the V03 made a video of AI essentially like struggling through the idea of we're not— it's like a stand-up comedian, right? And then it's a guy out in the woods. How can you not believe that this is like that whole thing, that's freaking people out.
It is, because it, it reminds people, uh, like our generation, is of The Matrix. Yes, yes, it's where it takes you back, dude.
I, I saw an interview recently with Neil deGrasse Tyson and, um, who's Morpheus?
Oh, uh, Laurence Fishburne.
Laurence Fishburne, yes, talking about that. Yes. And they were talking about like how, uh, uh, groundbreaking that story was and everything. And he's like, yeah, now everyone, it's like like, it's like that movie is getting play now because everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is real.
But like, and so like, that's, that's why I'm interested in talking to you guys, because you guys are in this every single day, and like, you guys are obviously not freaked out by this.
No, no. Well, believe it or not, there is some, some stuff that you're like, uh, you know, um, fear-based. And unfortunately, yeah, there's a lot of people, like, if this awesome thing can happen, there's always like the opposite of it, right? Yes. Yeah. And that's unfortunate, but I feel like it kind of comes with it. And there's a lot of things that are coming up that there's gonna be— I'm sure there's gonna be regulations and all sorts of things that happen. I am in the belief that if if we use AI, and for example with our clients, it's a business, I am totally okay saying this is their virtual assistant, their AI assistant.
I feel like honesty and being transparent is what's going to do it for us right now.
Not faking it, not pretending and things like that. So it's going to be interesting navigating the fakes, you and all that because they're becoming really realistic. But at the end of the day, it's the relationships.
So what's going to be the most valuable thing if there's AI everywhere? For example, as we do AI, but at the root of it, it's who you actually want to talk to, which is I want to sit here and talk to you.
And make that connection. Connection between people is going to be more valuable than ever. People are gonna make it a point. You know what, let's make it a point. Let's sit down for dinner together as a family. Let's make it a point to make sure we have that. And it's in the power of each person making sure that those connections are still there.
So if I'm hearing you right, what I'm hearing you say is in business, AI is actually going to increase the value of a person-to-person connection rather than than decrease the value of a person-to-person connection. So when you get that person-to-person contact, that's actually going to be a stronger connection than it was. And I think that's everyone's fear, is it's going to decrease the value of the person-to-person.
You know what I'm saying?
What you're asserting is it's going to— like, the person-to-person has become less valuable because we can mimic it so well. But you're saying because we all understand that it's so real and it's so, you know, it's such— they can create such a great impersonation of a real person, the actual connection with a real person is going to become that much more valuable. Yeah?
I agree with you. I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying.
Yeah, it's exactly what I was saying. Yeah, yeah, because it's, uh, your— for example, your voice AI can, you know, it can talk and qualify and can answer questions when it comes to your business. And someone calls you, it's like your actual AI receptionist, right? And you're not always available to pick up the phone all the time, or let's say your assistant or your receptionist in your office can't do it all the time, was not always available. But whenever that is, they call and it's— you're booked for a callback or for an estimate, whatever it is, you still have to go out there, or your team has to go out there and talk to them.
It has to be there. So it eliminates having you to field all those calls and put through those calls yourself, right? And then when you get notified on your phone or your email, say, hey, you got a new appointment, new booking, you know, it's okay, great. It's— you have all the information. You got, you, you got, you know where to go and you're already there, know the name, everything, and you know exactly what they need without having to, you know, talk to them.
And trying to figure out what they, what, what do they need, what they want. It's, it's because your AI had all that information before. You're ready to go. Gotcha. That conversation becomes more valuable to you now because they're qualified and now they really want to talk to you.
Right. So what, like, real, real quick before we have to jump on our next guest, like, what are some things that AI can do that people aren't aware of right now? You know, because I think a lot of people use AI prompts to like write emails, do coding, um, and do like some certain like search engine things to like— like you can, you can use your phone to use AI to do like a Google search and it's going to give you like a summation of the Of the thing that you're looking for. But like, what are some things that you guys have observed that AI does that people may not necessarily be aware of but can really be transformative in their business and their personal life?
It can do a lot actually. But one of the things that it can do is, for example, let's say you have to write a proposal or an estimate for somebody. Usually you do that yourself, right? You have your numbers, your criteria, Maybe the math, the square footage of the house or whatever, of the area, depending on how big it is, that's how much you charge. Well, you can train an AI agent to know all that information. It can be uploaded with all the knowledge. It will know the math, it will know the numbers, and you just give it the information. Hey, I have this house, here's how big it is, square footage, there's a backyard or whatever it is that you're trying to calculate. And it can not only can it calculate Calculate the estimate for you. It can go ahead and write up the email for you at the same time
Based off the square footage that it measured?
Whatever information you give it, and it will actually write the proposal, put all the information where it needs to go, draft the email so it can let you know, hey, the email's ready. Or if you trust it, it'll just go ahead and send it off, right, at that point. And then once it gets a response, then it'll follow up. And if it doesn't follow up— I mean, if they don't respond, then they'll follow up for you. So it'll keep following up on the email, text, voice, however you want. And this whole time you're not doing anything. It's your AI proposal or your AI estimator.
It can be your estimator, your on-staff estimator.
And so like you guys can set that up?
So like what am I looking at spending to set something like that up rather than hiring a staff person to do that?
Well, the way I wanted to say it is when it comes to value is it's a one-time setup. It's not going to be like, you know, we have a staff member, you got to pay them weekly, monthly, whatever it is. You know, you got to pay them their— I mean, for an assistant, that was what I mean, average salary, I don't know, $2,000, $1,500 a month.
Plus everything else you got to take care of them. Remember, they take days off, they have the weekend, they get sick, all that stuff. Your AI estimator agent works 24/7. driven, will never, never complain, will just do the work every single time, and it'll always follow up.
It'll never forget, right, you know, to do, to do his job.
And it's a one-time payment, that's it.
So to set it up, to set it up, and that's it.
After, after it's done, it's done. There is no— for that, that type of project, there would be no monthly. It's not needed, right? Okay, until you figure out how much it'll cost, one-time payment, done. So you don't have to pay the one monthly. So it'll be way more affordable.
I got you. Yeah, I mean, like, like, look, it's, it's, it's one of those, it's one of those things that, like, I think business owners can look at and go, like, that makes total sense. But, like, for individuals, I mean, like, they're just freaked out by it because they think they're going to lose their job.
You know, and I, I'm with you.
I don't, I don't think that's the case either.
I mean, like, I think there's plenty of opportunity for people to be working, people to get like new opportunities because of AI.
Yes. I think right now the biggest thing that, that I'll— anyone listening is if they want to, okay, what should I focus on when it comes to AI? It's prompting. Yeah. You gotta know how to prompt the AI. You're— when it comes to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, whatever it is that you use, it doesn't matter. Meta AI, all of the new ones coming out. Learn how to prompt. Learn how to talk to the AI.
Universities, this is now the acceptable, like, project that you turn in. They're not interested in the end product. They're interested in the prompts. What kind of prompts did you write? Yes. To get the result that you got. Yeah. I want to see your prompts. I want to see that you were thinking about this. I've seen this, man. Like, I come, I come from the academic world and I know that what these guys are asking and like, they're, they're not looking at AI as an evil. They're looking at it as an inevitability.
That like, look, this is the way research is going to be done now. So rather than looking at the end product, I don't want to read your paper, I want to read your prompts.
How did you come up with everything?
Exactly. It's crazy. But like, it's, it's, it's the reality that we have to— and that's the thing I think other, other people need to realize. It's because you can, you can look at it from a Morpheus perspective. It's like, you can take the red pill or you can take the blue pill. It's like, it's an inevitability. You can either be left behind or you can be just left looking at the dust left in front of you as people move forward.
Yeah, exactly. I think that phrase, adapt or die. Yes, it's literally true when it comes to AI. I don't mean literally die, but what I'm saying is you'll be left behind.
Yeah, you're advocating for people's death. Yeah, I understand.
You got either adopt it or be left behind.
Awesome. Your competition's gonna use it. 100%.
Yes, if you don't, if you don't start using it now, your competition will. They will take over.
And then you, you realize, wait, they've only been in business 1 year and you've been in business, let's say, 20 years. AI, they use agents, they're faster and they're quicker than you are.
I, I will, I will, I will add to that statement. New businesses that destroy old businesses are leveraging AI correct better than old businesses are because it's, it's hard to change and it changes Hard. Like, look, their, their, their bottom line is cheaper. Yeah, it just is. Yep. Because they're not having to pay people, and people are expensive.
Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Pay them monthly. You gotta pay them to train them. You gotta give them, uh, what is it, benefits, everything else, right? Yeah. You got, you got churn. If they, if they quit, they leave, you gotta train someone else. Agent, an AI agent, one time, always with you no matter what.
100%. Yep. So let me get my last guest up here. Like, if people want to get a hold of you, they want to learn more about AI, how do they get a hold of you guys?
Bravefears.com. Sorry, bravefears.com. Bravefears.com.
Is there, is there a phone number? Is there anything else? Web, like social media? Yeah, social media. You can message us.
It goes straight to our AI. Okay. And it will message us, or you can call our business number. Everything's there. Yeah, our business, uh, 281-801-9888. 838, and that will actually be picked up by our voice AI.
So anything you need, any kind of questions—
But you won't know the difference.
You won't know the difference. You will realize, like, is this really a real person? And yeah.
I love it. Thank you guys so much for jumping on.
Yep, good to see you guys.
All right, guys, we are down to our last guest of the night. Thank you so much for joining us. Sorry, hang on one second.
All right guys, we got one more guest coming up tonight. We got John Wagner, he's gonna jump on the show. John Wagner has actually done some work on my house. He's an electrician. Here he comes. He just got back from Bonnaroo. I'm gonna take a bite of chicken wing. What's up, my man?
Good. Yeah, just put that on. There you go.
Hell yeah. All right, I am hungry. Oh, take your time, brother.
I'm hungry too, but I can't eat.
Have you had anything to eat yet? Earlier.
We need to, uh, break some bread after this.
How about you some bread? Can I hit my vape?
I'm just gonna feel comfortable here with you. How are you doing today, dude?
We got, we got like maybe 2 minutes before this thing dies. Yeah, I'm cool with that. All right, tell everybody who you are and what you do.
What's up, y'all? My name is John Wagner.
Get right up on the thing.
What's up, y'all? My name is John Wagner. I own WYE Electric and Texas Boil Team.
There you go. All right, dude, let me tell you guys, John makes the best crawfish, just hands down.
Hands down. He's cooked at our property several times, but he also put the, uh, the 50-amp plug on our house.
To make sure that we can survive hurricane season this year.
And so like, how much of that are you guys doing right now?
Uh, probably like 5 to 10 a week.
Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good, honestly.
Yeah. Oh, she brought you something.
What is it? What is a white tea?
It's basically a green tea made with vodka instead of Jameson.
Dude. All right. Pretty good? I don't know yet.
you had to have it before?
Shout out to Sawyer Park for hosting us tonight. There you go.
Do you do some events out here?
Yeah. What do you do out here?
So, uh, let's not talk about what I've done out here. Let's talk about what we're gonna do out here. Okay.
What are we gonna do out here?
We're gonna throw a 3-stage, okay, 8-hour festival out here. Holy crap.
Y'all are the first person to hear about it. There's only, there's only 2, 3 other people that know about this right now. Okay. Yep. Shout out. Let's go.
I want to know if I get to bring my guitar up on stage. That's what I want to know.
I'll give you the time if you want it.
Dude, I'll take it. Hell yeah. I can sing. I got—
We can. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. So dude, I'm, I'm actually booked out this summer.
It's not this year. Next year?
All right, what kind of festival are we talking about?
Probably like a March, April. It's going to be a multi-genre. Okay, multi-stage, short festival. Okay, daytime festival. We're looking at like an 8 to 10 hour fest. Okay, it's gonna be a good time.
All right, are you looking to like— I know you just got back from Bonnaroo.
Are you looking to like replicate some Bonnaroo?
Texas Roo Crew in the house, baby. What's that, a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I've been going since 2010, man.
I mean, like, why not have it here?
There's a lot of inspiration, sure, from Bonnaroo for what we're gonna be doing here. here, not just here, but all over Montgomery and Harris County. We're gonna be throwing events and hitting Texas in general not long after this.
Are there, are there any artists in particular you're like, I gotta have them?
Which ones? Call them out, man.
I don't know that I can yet.
No, no. Okay, no, nothing's for sure. That's why I can't. I don't want to like go talk talking mess about something that's not solidified.
So like, but like, if you had one—
I'm not one to count my eggs before they hatch.
I understand, I understand.
But if you had to pick one that's like, if I had this one, I'd feel really good about my event, like which one? Like who would you, who would you want?
Dude, this is such a random one, but Pigeons Playing Ping Pong.
Pigeon— is that a band? That's a band. I, I don't mean to insult them, I just really don't know. I'm terrible at knowing this. Pigeons Playing Ping Yeah. What kind of music are they?
They got music out. Okay. They're really good. But when they come up on stage, they like do this whole other experience with music you've never heard before. Every time that the show is different. Every damn time.
Okay. Is it kind of like a Phish kind of a thing, or is it like a—
Yeah. I'm not trying to like compare them to somebody, but it is.
Yeah, it is a little bit.
Yeah, a little more modern than fish. A little more modern, a little more, a little more— it's different. Now fish, fish would be a really good pool.
Fish would be a good pool.
Fish wants $100,000. Well, look, and they can get it.
And I'll have them one day.
And you'll have— that's right, that's right. So, and so pigeons playing ping pong?
Yeah, they're pretty good.
Where are they out of? Do you know? No.
Not Texas. It's not Texas. Nope. Okay. Kruger Band is from Texas. That's one that I'd like to see. Okay. Okay. I'd like to have a— I mean, just hypothetically here. Okay. There's some artists that I'd like to see on the lineup, right? You want to name them? Coetzee. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, probably some, uh, I like Edie EDM.
You like EDM? I, I like some EDM.
Tape B is pretty fun, right?
It's a good one. I mean, like, but EDM is like, it's more like a DJ kind of a setup, right? Yeah, yeah, they produce all their—
fine, I mean, use all their music and then mix it on the scene.
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty fun. I, I, I actually like it. I mean, like, it's like, it can be really fun and experiential.
Gets those knees hurting, I'll tell you that. After a while, you get to dancing, get you moving, get you It gets you moving, gets you dancing.
So, okay, so let's, let's, let's talk a little bit electrical before we have to shut this thing down. Oh yeah, I mean, so like, what kind of stuff are you guys doing right now?
We're doing a lot of stuff, man. Uh, we're doing battery installs, battery backup systems, we're doing generators. Okay. Uh, we're, we're doing—
What kind of batteries you guys putting on people's houses? Are you, are you guys doing Teslas?
No, we almost— we're, we're in, we're in talks right now. Okay, it's looking pretty good. Yep.
And they got a good battery, but there's other good ones.
Like, look, they're not giving us any money. I don't care, you can shout out whoever you want.
That's right. Yeah, I mean, I got, I got my shoutouts.
And LG does some home batteries.
WYE Electric. Okay, all right, reach out to them.
But like, what kind of batteries are you guys installing? Like right now?
But I mean, like, is there like a brand or—
There's so many different battery brands in general.
The backup, the backup systems. I mean, the technology out there is so far and wide. We're, we're kind of picking through it all right now.
So it's, it's a new— Is it a price race?
Uh, I wouldn't say it's so much a price race. I think it's more, more or less of how much can you store and give back to the grid.
Well, that's what I'm asking. Is it like, is a battery a battery or are Different.
It goes both ways. So you got, you got a battery backup system, but at the same time you want that battery backup system to work for you when it's not providing you a backup. 100%. You can take that power and send it back to the grid, and that's what we're in the middle of working on right now.
So is— but most of the time, like, a battery backup system, like, that's associated with like a solar install, right? Uh, it could be. I know. Yeah, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't. Yeah, you could have a generator generator power in those things, right? Yeah, I mean, you could absolutely. You don't necessarily have to.
So when it comes to the battery backups, it's not all about when you're out of power. It's, it's also— there are things we are considering right now is when you have power, charging those batteries, and whenever there's a This is a big thing that we're working on right now. Come on, not quite there yet, working on it. When these batteries aren't working hard to— when they're not storing, when they're not in the middle of storing power, they're providing power back to the grid.
So these homeowners are getting kickbacks for that. Yes, that's a whole— sometimes, sometimes. Well, the ones we're working on, all the time. They are constantly in and out of supplying the grid, supplying the house. Yeah, it's a crazy thing. It's, it's too much to talk about right now. You know, I got some people on my team that know way more about this than I do. Sure. You know, we'll bring them in one day.
It's a complicated issue for sure.
It's a very complicated situation.
Yeah, well, I, I think it's, I think it's one worth exploring. I mean, a lot of people are moving, are moving to those systems where they're like, we want energy independence, we want to make sure that we're covered in case of They're a lot more stable than engines, that's for sure. Yeah, so, but even then, I mean, like, you can, you can charge a battery with a generator. You could, you know, and that can be your, that can be your double redundancy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it goes back and forth.
Yeah, so, all right, man, well, we gotta, we gotta kind of shut down.
If— hey, let's go. I appreciate the headline spot, man.
Yeah, no, here at the end of the night, we loved having you on. If everybody, if anybody has electrical questions, or they want to do a music festival.
How do they get a hold of you? Give them everything.
My phone number is 281-706-0966.
Give us a shout. All your needs are in our hands.
All of it. I know all the business.
