That Time We Talked About DroneQuote

This is episode number 56 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are glad that you could join us on this fine Tuesday. Although it's not Tuesday for us, it's Tuesday for you, 'cause that's when the show comes out.

True.

If you haven't noticed yet, every Tuesday the show comes out.

Every one, so far.

So far, yeah, we hadn't missed a Tuesday yet in over a year.

That's right.

That's right, we can now say in over a year.

Yeah. Finally.

What's been going on, man?

Oh man, life has been busy and hectic, and I haven't been home much to even check on my home, But, um, but I mean, life, life is good.

It's still there.

Yeah, nothing. Yeah, it's still there. All right, nothing huge to complain about. Um, yeah, everything's just kind of, kind of rocking and rolling along and keeping busy during football season and all that kind of stuff. So life is what it is. How you doing, man?

I'm doing really good, man. And like, I have, I have many things to share about the updates going on in my home, but I think I've decided to like keep all of them. Oh, for like an expanded edition of the show one day to like just talk about, because like all of the things that we tell people about and how to do things, I've probably made most of those mistakes, even though we've talked about them on this show. And then like, there's just all the other stuff that's just a complete, you know, like, you know, out of the blue, you know, you never saw it coming.

And you, you probably should have in just on individual occasions gone and found episodes and listened to them again.

Stupid. You talked about this.

Yeah, you just come in the moment, you get all frazzled. It's like, just make a decision.

Yeah, so, but anyway, I had my high school reunion this weekend.

Oh, dude.

And—

What year was this?

None of your business.

Okay.

No, this was my 20th.

Oh man, you're old. I am, although we graduated the same year, so.

And if I do say I look good.

But you would be the one that would say that.

But so we're— I'm sitting down and having dinner with, you know, friends I haven't seen in a long time, catching up. And, uh, one of my friends who I— anyway, shout out to you, Kristen. I loved catching up with you and, and, and hearing, hearing about your family and what all is going on in your life. But she tells me like, hey, I listened to your show.

Okay.

And like, you listen to my show? And she's like, yeah. And I was like, my first question that I wanted to ask was like, how'd you even know that I have a show? Like, I don't, I don't necessarily like push that. I mean, I do, but like, it's, I don't make it a big deal in like my personal circle.

Right.

Um, and she was like, yeah, we, uh, we, and, and here was the really interesting part. She goes, yeah, we just moved back from Israel and my husband has never owned a home. And, and so I started listening to it and I noticed that you had it because I'd never owned a home and I don't know how to maintain a home. And I don't, and it's just never been part of their life. And, uh, apparently when he was growing up, up in Israel, everything was apartments.

Oh.

And that's just kind of how everybody lives is in apartments.

Sure.

And so when they bought their first home, he was apparently, he was really excited about mowing his own lawn.

Oh man.

And she told me, and this is in Austin, Texas, you know.

Oh dude.

And so one, it's hot.

Yes.

And two, there's lots of hills.

Yes.

And she said he made it like 2 stripes and he was out.

Yeah. You gotta have a self-propelled or like a riding.

Yeah.

You can't do that with a regular push mower.

No, no. I wouldn't do it. I'd have made it one stripe.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't know that I would have even started it.

No. So, wow.

Anyway, he got rid of it. So, she said they have a huge learning curve right now.

So, how did they find out? Are y'all friends on Facebook and that's how she found out?

I think she found it on Facebook.

Okay.

Yeah. So, but anyway, it was neat to hear that like people are actually finding this show.

Yeah.

Because, you know, They're new homeowners and they, they're finding what we're putting out there valuable.

Yeah.

And that, and that they're actually learning something from it.

Yeah. And, and I, I, I appreciate that story. Like, I, I, I'm, I'm interested to hear from some of those people. Like, if, if you're listening to this show right now and, and you're just out there going, hey, you know, I found your, your show and, you know, this is something I found useful, let us know. I mean, email us at info@homewatershow.com because, um, those are, Those are things that help us get better. They're things that help us figure out, okay, these are the things that are resonating with people, and we've got a couple of really good shows that we're excited about coming up that hopefully will be either fun or informative or both. But yeah, let us know. That's awesome.

And in that vein, I don't even think I told you, Kev, we heard back from Ronnie, who sent us a message a while back, and he had sent us an email telling us, hey, really enjoy the show, but he was also calling to let us know that he was flying into Houston because of the flooding. That we mentioned on the last episode. And so I sent him a message back and his parents' house completely flooded out.

Wow.

And so he was having to fly in. So thoughts and prayers with your family over there, Ronnie, because we want to, you know, hope everything's okay. Glad everyone else made it out okay.

Yeah.

But, you know, sorry for the loss over there.

Absolutely.

That's a tough thing to go through.

It is. It really is.

So, and it's a little bit different this go-round.

Yeah. Yeah, different people were affected this time than were during Harvey. It was a, it was a shorter storm, but it came really quickly. And, um, so it was, yeah, it was definitely different for sure. Yeah.

But anyway, we have a really cool episode today because we actually have our, our show sponsor on, on the, on the show today. We've, you guys have probably been hearing about DroneQuote for a while now, but we actually have, uh, Sinué Montoya on the line all the way from the beautiful state of California. How you doing, Sinuay?

Hello, everybody. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

So, so right, right out of the gate, I, I kind of got to know, does anyone pull the, uh, Princess Bride joke with you ever?

Oh yeah, you know what? Yeah, I get that a lot. And, and I got that— so I spent some time in the Army, and you know, when you grow up, uh, excuse me, when you go into the Army, the recruiters or the drill sergeants, they go through your files and they found, you know, they saw my name, obviously.

Yes.

And to make matters worse, um, I grew up on a street called Gayland.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And my last name was Montoya. Man, let me tell you, I got made fun of a lot. It was great though. It was good. It was good. Well, it gave me really thick skin.

Yeah. But you know what, like, you wind up You wind up living with that long enough and it's just kind of second nature. It's like, oh, never heard that one before.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean that a jerk like me is not going to bring it up, though.

No, no. You know what, though? It's a good icebreaker for people, so it's definitely a plus. I'm very lucky to have that name, I should say.

What I want to know is, have you ever used it as a joke and someone not got it?

You know what? No, I haven't. I, I, you know, I hear it so often that I don't think, I don't think to use it as a joke. That's probably why.

Ah, okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. Well, though, although when I was stationed in Germany, it, I, you know, nobody in Germany knew Princess Bride that I came across, but there was a race car driver, uh, by the name of Juan Montoya, I believe it is.

Okay.

And, uh, I got that a lot in Germany, but obviously on a different note. from The Princess Bride. I would always tell people, he's my cousin. I'm like, no, I'm just kidding.

That's good.

That's awesome.

That's good.

Well, Sinuate, tell us where this company came from, man, because this, this is a very different business venture than I think most people are used to encountering.

Yeah, you know what, I appreciate you asking. Um, I used to, uh, sell solar in the home. I used to be a sales representative. I would come to your house, And, you know, I would sit with you for an hour and a half if you were lucky, or longer if you were a really nice person. And I would sit there and talk to you about the pros and cons of solar. Actually, you know, I'd tell you about, you know, how to acquire it and all the details about it. And, you know, when a homeowner moved forward with my company or the company I represented at the time, they would send out a site surveyor. to get on the roof and do some

measuring of the roof and measuring of the shade. And a lot of times, to save time, I would get on the roof and do all that stuff. And I realized that, you know, I say this as a joke, but sort of serious, I'm 5'6, so I'm scared of heights. I didn't like getting on roofs because, well, it goes back to what I just said. And there was this one particular roof, it was like, I have a 22-foot ladder that, you know, is a foldable ladder, and And the ladder didn't make it all the way to the top of the roof, so I leaned it against the wall. It was a flat roof, so, you know, there was a parapet

wall that I had to climb up onto. And I remember looking down and thinking to myself, holy smokes, it's a really long ways down. There's got to be something better than this. And this was in 2013, if I remember correctly.

Yeah.

And at the time, drones weren't really a, you know, a thing yet. So I sold my motorcycle, believe it or not. I had this really nice street bike. And I bought this like $3,000 drone and I started using it to take measurements of the roof and to get a look at the condition of the roof, which was a lot quicker than obviously getting on the roof and customers really liked it.

Yeah.

And it helped me, it actually became a sales tool. And that planted the seed for what turned into DroneQuote. And the other part of it was, you know, whenever I came into a successful homeowner's house where I could see that, you know, they had a huge, you know, $2, $3 million house, I stopped talking about solar and I started asking them questions about how they became successful. And almost all of them said, I started a business. Yeah. And when I kept hearing that from these successful people, I said to myself, you know, I have this thing with this drone that's working out really well for me and it's helping me, you know, make more sales and it's really making me more efficient. And these, you know, well-to-do successful people say, you know, they became successful by starting a business. So

So I just ran with it and I started the business and that was in 2017.

Oh, wow. So what is that? Is that 2 or 3 years now?

2 and a half years. Although in all honesty, it took us, you know, half that time to figure out what we were doing. Yeah. So it wasn't like I just started a business all of a sudden and we started generating revenue. It was definitely a learning curve. So we've been doing it for a little bit over 2 and a half years. But it has definitely been, you know, a learning experience. I wish I was smarter. I've said that to you guys already. I just wish I was a little bit smarter.

Well, so one of the things that, that we've done our best with is to, to kind of let people know this is who DroneQuote is. And we've given our little spiel based on some information that you've given to us and, and things that we've talked back and forth with, uh, to make sure that we're giving people good information out there. But, uh, we, we'd kind of like to hear from you. If you were pitching what you do and what this company is to someone else, what would you tell them?

You know, that's a really good question, and thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, I would say to somebody who is looking for a new roof or is looking to install solar. DroneQuote is an easy way for you to comparison shop multiple quotes that are accurate and that are delivered to you online in a hassle-free and very quick manner so that you don't have to go through all of the sales presentations from multiple installers coming to your house, sitting with you for an hour and a half, walking your roof. We do it all in one fell swoop online, and you get very competitive pricing on either your roof or solar or both, and you do it with a lot less hassle And because we

broker the service of either of the two, we give you multiple quotes. That means that we have multiple chances to win that customer's business.

Yeah.

And that allows us to come in at a considerably more competitive price than would otherwise be the case. The customer saves money and they save a lot of time and they don't have to go through the song and dance of in-home sales. And that's That's really been what's working for us and what people really like.

So what is the turnaround time for you guys on something like this? I mean, you come in, you measure the roof, you fly the drone up, you talk to the customer. How quickly are you guys able to get these quotes back to these guys?

So what we did, we changed the model a little bit recently. Well, not recently, I would say in the last 6 months. What we do is we guide the homeowner through the process of giving us some information from the site, like for example taking a photograph of the main service panel.

Okay.

Where your breakers are at, uploading a copy of your bill, and, um, you know, going through a brief qualification call. We'll ask you questions about how you use electricity and whatnot. Um, you know, if you plan on, you know, adding an electric vehicle or adding an air conditioning unit to your property. And with that, we're able to Turnaround 3 quotes, you know, next day if they needed it next day. Otherwise, we give a 3-day turnaround on all 3, on the 3 quotes, just to give us enough time to, you know, talk to other clients in the meantime. But we have done next-day turnaround. And from there, the customer selects their quote and the installers go out to do the site survey. So it really

makes the process considerably quicker. Otherwise, you have to schedule an appointment with whoever's gonna come by your home at whatever time they're gonna come by. And you, you're, um, you know, you're subjected to those multiple quotes in a more drawn-out manner.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so like, I think that one of the things that, uh, that I find so interesting about this is what you're telling me is a considerable amount of time savings. I mean, uh, we've talked on this, on this show before, especially with like our DIY calculator, Time equals money. It, whenever you, whenever you put stuff into our calculator, it, one of the things that it measures is how, how much is your time worth to you? Is it something you enjoy doing? Is it something that you're good at doing? Is it something you want to wind up ultimately be the one do the work? And at the end of the day, man, getting quotes from people and knowing who to go out there and ask for quotes

and getting reputable people out to your house, um, man, that's, that is a time-consuming and, and potential You know what, it is.

When I was doing it, when I was a selling solar in the house, you know, it wasn't always that I could see it, but there was times when I could just see it in the customers' faces that they really didn't want me there.

Hmm.

They didn't wanna talk to me. They didn't wanna entertain me. I was coming home when they were getting off of work, you know, when it was convenient for them. And I would try and, and, you know, make the sale on the first call because that was what was expected of me. And that takes time, you know? And when the sale did originate on the first call, I mean, it would not be shocking to hear that I was at a house for 3 hours.

Mm-hmm.

It really wouldn't be. And, you know, that's a long time, right? And that's just for getting the contract moving forward. That's not considering the other quotes that you went through getting. And it's, It's not a pleasant experience, if you ask me. I said to myself, I can do something about this. I have a good model in mind and a good idea. Well, I did.

Yeah, absolutely. It brings up a question in my mind. You're talking about a very quick turnaround. What happens whenever I'm considering solar, but I really don't know much about it? You being in my house, giving me that 3-hour spiel probably answers a lot of questions for me. So, um, how do I get some of those questions answered to me if I'm looking into solar and you're just sending someone out to do the site survey? How, how does that kind of work?

So that's a really good question because in order to make a decision that you feel good about, you have to have the right information, right?

Yeah.

And that's what's going to allow you to feel comfortable with making a buying decision. And I compare that to being sold, right? When you're sold on something and it's not something that you necessarily wanted, there may be a feeling of regret or a feeling of, you know, I just got sold. So what we do in order to provide this information is all of the quotes that we offer you are put together in a standardized, uniform manner from one quote to the next. So whether it's the scope of work, or the components being quoted, or the warranties that go with those components. It's all— all those details are going to differ from one another. However, they're all going to show up on a page that is

uniform in display. So you can easily compare the warranties or the components from one to the next. And during our conversation, when we give the quote to the customer, because we still have a conversation with them, and it happens on a shared screen webinar. We're not actually going out to the house. We hop on a phone call, you can see my screen, and I walk you through not a sales call, but an informative call as to how to read through these quotes.

Right.

And then the supporting documents to go through them, to support the information in the quote. And by teaching you how to read the quotes and how to make use of this information, you can then look at all the other quotes and understand what you're looking at without having to sit through that hour-and-a-half presentation of why this company is the best company for you.

I heard you mention components. I know that's something that you and I have talked about on the phone before. Do you find that, in the quotes that you give, you're having to educate these customers as to the difference between the types of components? Obviously, I'm talking more about solar here. Are you guys talking about the differences between microinverters and panels and all the other things that go into the solar system, because that can really affect the price, right?

You know, we do talk about those differences. However, I will say that the difference in cost between a microinverter from Enphase or a single-point inverter from SolarEdge, it's not a significant difference. So it's not going to be a day and night difference. On a rather large system, then, you know, you would start to see the difference. But I'm talking about like a, you know, a 100+ panel system where you would start to notice a difference between the two.

Oh, gotcha.

But there isn't a significant difference between those two components on a conventional size system. And we do give you the additional information, the supporting documents for these components, and we show you how to download them from your quote page. So we're able to go through this information in more of a teaching you how to read it through it than trying to sell you and get you to say yes approach.

Okay.

And when you educate, I feel that when you educate somebody on something for the purpose of, you know, teaching them about it so that they can make their own decision, it brings up different questions. And it also goes by a little bit quicker than me trying to convince you that you should buy from one particular company when I was in the house for, you know, representing that one company.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, that, that kind of leads me to this. So whenever I was thinking through what, what it is initially that, that your company does with DroneQuote, I kind of likened it to a travel agent in that a travel agent has multiple things that they can, um, support and, and point you towards as far as opportunities for you to go travel. Um, but you don't pay that travel agent to give you that information. The, the other— the, the company that you're going to, uh, travel with, they pay that travel agent. And so, but that being said, my travel agent is kind of my, my point person. If I have questions about my travel experience or something that I need on

my travel, um, I go to the travel agent, I don't go directly to the resort, for example, to get that information. So in your company, who, once I decide, yes, I want this quote from this particular vendor, do I still have you as a representative or am I now going to be using their, the company that I choose to get the quote from, do I start using their representatives for all of my future questions?

So anything related to the purchase or the acquisition of the roof or the solar system, the questions typically tend to come back to us since we put together the quote and we put together the details and the pricing and whatnot. So those questions do tend to come back to us. The actual construction questions will go to your project manager for that particular company. When a homeowner moves forward with DroneQuote, we actually send out agreements from one of the companies that they choose. So you're actually making an agreement with that particular company. DroneQuote is in the agreement as the sales organization, right? And our license information and whatnot is built into the particular agreement. But you are then effectively making an agreement with that installer.

And And your example of a travel agent is a really good example of how to frame it because you're actually buying your vacation package with whatever resort that you choose through that travel agent.

Yeah. And so I'll tell you upfront, that is one of the most appealing things to me because sometimes having an advocate to go and help you understand what you don't understand and you're not necessarily the salesperson for that company, as a consumer, I tend to feel a little more protected. I feel like my best interests are being kept in mind rather than the company just saying, oh, by the way, you need this, and you need this, and you need this, where I'm going, I really don't know if I do or not. Having you there almost as a buffer to have some someone on my side to say, you know what, they're trying to sell this, but honestly, it may not

be in your best interest to have that. This may be better for you. That is really appealing to me.

You know, that's a really good point. Um, when I was selling in the house, I would come across homeowners who had a previous company come through, and, and sometimes I would almost be like shocked at what these other sales representatives were saying because they were saying whatever they felt they needed to say whether it was true or not in order to get this sale.

Yes.

Because they only had that one opportunity from that company. They represented one company.

Right.

And if they, and if they didn't get the sale, they're out, right? With the model that we've put together, I mean, we didn't invent this, right? It's a broker model. The model that we put together, we were, we are able to represent multiple companies. So just by that model, you know, we are going to show you something that's uniform across the board. If you need a service panel upgrade or if you need to reduce the size of a tree because of shading or whatnot, it's all across the board and it applies, you know, from one company to the next because we want to earn your business, but we're not married to one particular company. So we have a lot more flexibility with what we offer, and as a result, we can

be very, very straightforward and transparent with Yeah, and there you're right, it's just a brokerage model.

Insurance companies do this. I mean, travel agents do this. There's a lot of places out there that do this, and there's a reason that people choose that sort of, of business to go with rather than a direct sales company. Um, and, and so, uh, I, I, I appreciate, you know, that you confirming to me that that's— that I had it straight in my mind that that's kind of the model that, that you're working with. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's definitely the— yeah, that pretty much sums it up. You know, I just saw the opportunity to— when I was selling in the house, the frustrating thing for me was, man, you know what? If I don't get this client, I don't have another chance. And that's it. I'm out of the picture.

Yeah.

I want to build a business where I have multiple opportunities with that particular client. And as DroneQuote expands into the future, you know, the beauty of using drones, aside from safety and efficiency and everything, is that they're super accurate with measuring all sorts of things outside, right?

Yeah.

So, in the future, what we'll be able to offer besides roofing and solar, we're thinking about other services that we'd be able to offer that would include things like artificial turf or, you know, sod replacement or sod installment or other, other things that are measured or maybe hard to measure with just, you know, having somebody on the ground using the drone and then offering it as a service through the drone quote model.

Yeah, that's awesome. So anyway, what do you, what do you think is like, is the biggest difference between like a regular salesperson coming to your home? And like, I think we see this a lot where like you, you can click on There's all sorts of ads that you can find on Facebook and Google and say, click here for free solar from the state of Texas or from California or whatever. What's the biggest difference between contacting someone like that and then, say, DroneQuote coming out and talking to you about your solar system or your roof?

In my opinion, and coming from the guy that founded this company— although I will say, I should give a shout-out to my partner, my co-founder, Riley Wiggins. Really smart guy. The biggest difference is we're going to just be very straightforward with you. I want you to have the best buying experience, and I want you to have the best information and most accurate information so that you can make a buying decision that's good for you. And sometimes that includes telling people, you know what, I don't think solar is the right fit for you based on whatever the variable may be. Whereas somebody who comes into the home, again, it goes back to I need to make the sale because I only have one shot at it, especially when it comes to

those companies that put up on Facebook free solar from the state of California or whatever.

You guys see that too?

Oh my God, it's so frustrating to see that because there's no such thing as free, right? We know that. And it's— if you're starting off on the wrong foot with, you know, how you're propositioning the system, in this case free, right? You're already, you're already starting off on the wrong foot in my opinion. And not to mention the fact that a lot of these lead generating companies that, you know, put up these ads, what they'll do is they'll take your information and they'll sell it to as many installers as, you know, they can get to buy that information.

Yeah.

So now Kevin or Craig, you know, you would put your information and you're getting blown up with a bunch of phone calls.

Yep.

And a lot of, you know, different people wanting to, uh, to call you for a solar appointment. We don't sell any information to anybody. If somebody gives us their information, it dies with us, right? And we don't, we don't, we don't sell it. And if you don't want to buy from us, that's fine. Nobody else is going to call you.

Yeah, I think that's an important point, man. I don't think a lot of people realize, like, how valuable their personal information is online. And the reason they hound you is because they spent bookoo's of money to get it.

Mm-hmm.

You know?

Yeah, your phone number and your email address, especially if they're legitimate, like $125. Yeah.

And you think about like buying that on large scale from these guys that are generating these lists. I mean, like, that's, that's a ton of money.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So I mean, absolutely. And then—

Yeah, no, I was gonna say these guys are highly incentivized to like dog you.

Oh yeah, yeah. And then, and then the other thing is they'll throw these wild discounts at you and say, you know, like, we'll offer you $2,000 off. I love the, we'll offer you X amount of dollars off if you move forward by a certain time.

Yeah.

And I'm like, look, just offer a competitive price from the get-go.

Yeah.

Let's remove all the gimmicks. Let's remove all the BS and let's remove all the things that people hate to deal with when they're buying something like this, for example. And let's just make it easy. Let's be straightforward with people. Let's show them the best possible price that we can show them and do so in the least threatening and invasive manner that we could possibly do that. And again, that's the drone quote model that we've built.

Hmm. When I heard you mention earlier that part of the question process for like setting up a solar account is like, are you planning on having an electric car? And so are there other things attached to the solar system that you do? And I'm thinking like whole home battery. I'm thinking, you know, car plugs. I'm thinking, you know, because typically those are gonna be for like Teslas and things like that. So do you guys accommodate all those things in your quotes if you need to?

Yeah, absolutely. We'll accommodate a battery. We just did a system for a homeowner here in the area with a battery. The plug for the vehicle, that's a really common occurrence. You know, I personally, you know, want to make sure that we can be as close to a one-stop shop as possible, and thus far we have been. Yeah. So yeah, we'll accommodate just about anything that the homeowner, within reason obviously, that we could offer the homeowner to make the best buying decision.

And do you know that the— or not do you know, I imagine you're more familiar with the different incentives state by state, and you guys are in 9 states now, and I would imagine you're a little bit more familiar with ones in California. What are some of those? I mean, because I mean, those are the kinds of things that they use to say this is free or this is, you know, 50% off, whatever they're doing, because of the the state and federal incentives that they're providing right now. What do those actually look like right now?

Well, you know, in California, the state incentives have been used up. Different states will have different incentives. Different utilities have different incentives.

Yeah.

You know, I will take that question and segue not necessarily into the incentives, but more importantly, into the rates that each utility has, you know, they're all so different. Like, for example, in, in Texas, I believe— well, your specific part of Texas, it's more of a volume-based rate where, you know, you get charged just by the volume of electricity you use.

Yeah.

In places like Arizona, they'll charge you more on the volume, of course, but also the demand. So how much electricity you're using. At a specific time in 30-minute increments.

Okay.

So if you're running your AC and you're running your pool pump and you're running your— you have your charger for your vehicle plugged in, you're gonna get charged more than the neighbor next door who's just, you know, running their TV, for example.

Okay.

Because you're drawing a lot more demand to your property. In places like California, there's what's called time of use, where if you use power from that time of 4 to 9, for example, the cost of electricity almost doubles.

Oh my gosh.

Versus— oh yeah, it's ridiculous— versus like 8 o'clock in the morning. So it's more of a supply and demand thing. Now, those tend to be more static, whereas the incentives, you know, they go— sometimes they're funded by the state and then they go really quick. In other cases, they're refunded at a different— the next year, or a different utility may come up with a different incentive. Like, for example, in California, there's a new incentive Well, it's not new anymore, but it's almost— it's actually exhausted last I saw for batteries. Right.

Okay.

So, yeah, the incentives definitely change by location and they change by utility. And, and, you know, that's always something to be mindful of. But more importantly, because you live with this, are the kinds of rates that you're being subjected to by a particular utility.

Okay.

And all of that plays into how the solar system is designed.

Hmm.

You know, actually, can I give a quick example of that? Because—

Oh yeah, please.

It would make a lot of sense to people. I had a client in Arizona recently who, he had a significant amount of usage and he wanted the biggest system and— well, the biggest system we could put on his roof. And we were able to accommodate that based on available roof space. And after sitting down and talking to him, I was able to talk him out of buying that bigger system, which of course was going to cost him more money.

Yeah.

Because obviously it's greater in size. But I said to him, hey, look, if we can just decrease the size of your system and orientate your panels in a certain direction, west, and also install a demand controller— so this is a unit that pretty much limits how much demand your service panel can pull. At a certain time.

Yeah.

You're going to save money on those demand charges. You're gonna save money on the size of the system, and overall you're gonna have a lower monthly payment. And believe it or not, it actually took me a few days to have him see my perspective, but once he moved forward with the smaller system with the demand controller in place, he actually called me back and he said, hey, I called the utility when my system was turned on and they asked me if I had a demand controller, and they were so happy that the company that sold me the system did install a demand controller because it made a lot of sense for me, and they explained it to me and I get it.

And I was super happy with that because we were able to put together a better fit system for him that saved him— it was like a $10,000 difference.

Oh wow.

So I felt really good about that. And yeah, I felt really good about that because that's doing right by the homeowner.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the way it should be.

Absolutely. I, I, I love stories of, of companies out there that are going, we are not gouging you, you know, because there's so many out there that will. Um, and, and it's easy to do cuz you got people that just think, oh, bigger's better. And it may not be.

No, you, you're right about that. It is easy to do. And you know what? Um, as a, um, how do I say this? Uh, maybe a disclosure or, or a heads up to homeowners that are installing solar. whether you, you know, you call whoever it is, Drone Court or ABC Solar, what have you, the one thing that you definitely want to be mindful of is the lower interest rate options. There's solar loans that offer you a 2.99% interest rate. Yeah, that sounds really good, right?

Sure.

2.99%. Yeah, I want that. Give me that, please. What most— what a lot of companies won't tell you is And they'll show you the cash price and they'll show you the finance price and it's the same number. Well, really it's not. There's a significant amount of front-loaded interest built into those lower interest rates. So you're pretty much buying down the interest.

Right.

And, you know, I— man, anybody in the solar industry that is against what I'm saying, they're gonna have it out for me. But this is really good information for the homeowner. You know, the solar loans are great, but it's so easy to build in a higher system cost because the monthly payment is lower. It's spread out over 20 years.

Sure.

And, you know, the sales guy just made $5,000 on that deal when really, you know, you could have saved $4,000 and the homeowner could have saved $4,000 and either finance a system through their own means, like a home equity line of credit or, you know, cash-out refi. Or, you know, if they're going cash to begin with, the solar loans are great. Don't get me wrong. I use a solar loan for my system. Yeah, but it's— you have to be super cognizant of what all that price includes because a lot of times it includes a lot of fees. And if you're talking to the wrong sales guy, it includes a lot of high commission that you're paying for.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So, so let's, let's transition for just a minute because you don't just do solar. You also do roofs, correct?

We do.

Yes. So, um, roofs are a little bit different because you're not out there, you know, paying for the full roof because most people are required to have homeowner's insurance. And if you have homeowner's insurance, then, uh, if it's time for a new roof, whether it's, you know, it's aged out or you've had damage from wind or hail or a storm or, or something, a tree fell on it, whatever it is, um, they're, they're gonna pay for The majority of the cost of that roof, um, minus your deductible. So, um, what is, what are some of the differences that you see? Uh, because it's, it's in my mind, it would be easier to go find a roofing company because I know that at the end of the day,

I'm paying my deductible, um, versus you calling DroneQuote and saying, hey, I wanna, I want, you know, you to come out and, and, and do this for roofing. Um, what, Tell me a little bit about the differences as far as that goes.

So, you know, when we go about it with Drone Corporate Roof, um, it's— I will say that there's no substitute for having somebody walk on your roof. Like, that's the way you're going to, in, in one sense, get the closest to the most accurate quote that you could possibly get. So, when we quote through DroneQuote for a roof repair or roof replacement, we quote by square footage for the cost of replacing that section of roof.

Okay.

And there's language into our quote that says something along the lines of, this is a quote for replacing that section of roof or the entire roof or whatever the case may be. But upon pulling off material, there may be additional costs that are incurred when damage that is underneath the underlayment is— if it's found, right?

Right.

So we do tell the homeowner in detail why that price may change.

Yeah.

So I am mindful of that, and I do talk to homeowners about that. Now, having said that, I replaced my roof in 2015, I think it was, 2016, one of the two. And I had multiple roofers come out to my house. They climbed on my roof and they walked it, and then I got my quote. And all of those quotes said the same exact thing that I'm telling you right now. They said, hey, look, this is your quote to replace the entire roof. However, once we pull off the overlayment, in my case, it's a flat roof and it had a Tar and gravel. Once we remove all the tar and gravel, if we find wood rot or if we find other damage or wear and tear on the roof

that was not visible at the time of the quote, your quote is subject to change based on that.

Yeah, sure.

That's always part of the roof quote in all the quotes that I've seen, whether somebody was on your roof with their 2 feet or whether the imagery was captured with the drone. Um, so that is shared by both quote, um, methods, quoting methods. Um, you know, so I do definitely, uh, make, make it clear to a homeowner from that perspective.

Yeah, I just feel like on some level that with roofs, my risk is different. My risk is different in that at the end of the day, I should, if my homeowner's insurance is, is worth its salt, I should only have to pay my deductible. Um, That being said, I, I still don't know necessarily what reputable companies are out there. And so I, I guess one of the questions that I've got for you, and, and, and this is specifically to roofs, but I think it kind of bridges both gaps. How do you determine who you're gonna do business with? Uh, because again, I'm trusting, uh, DroneQuote that they're using reputable, reputable companies versus me just trying to go out and find my own company. Uh, to

do this. I don't know who's reputable. I'm trusting that you do.

Mm-hmm. So I love this question because we address it in how we present— not the quotes, but the installer's information. What we do when you get a quote from DroneQuote, you see there's a section on our page as you log in as the user where you could see it says our partners page, right? And you click on that page and it loads The companies that have submitted quotes for you, and it loads all their insurance information, all their bond information, all their license information, all the details relative to that company. We aggregate quotes for— excuse me, reviews from Yelp, from Google, from the Better Business Bureau, and I think that— yeah, Yelp, Better Business, and Google. So all of that is in one centrally located place on our website

for that company that submitted a quote with a third-party link that takes you back to that specific state's license board for contractors.

Okay.

So, you can click on that company's— in California, it's the CSLB. You can click on the Contractor State License Board button and it opens up in another window California's CSLB website with that link populated for that installer. So you could see all of the information that we put into our website was drawn from the state of California.

Hmm.

And then furthermore, what we do when we bring on new installers is we look them up in, in county records of their— wherever they're located, for county court records, to make sure that there's no standing litigation against them or what the previous litigation was, if there was any.

Yeah, I think, I think that's one of the things that our, our listeners and anybody who's considering using DroneQuote should really consider, is that you're doing a lot of that legwork for them. And, and again, you, you can get on and do your research, and you can spend time going through the Yelp reviews, the Google reviews, going on the Better Business Bureau, making sure that there's no litigation against these You can ask friends who have used companies and try to, try to make the best decision, and, and that's well and good. But again, we're talking about time, we're talking about energy, we're talking about just the ability to know how to do those things. And it

sounds to me like you're just really making that process super simple.

Yeah, we, we started out that way because I came across, you know, when I was selling the home, homeowners who shared with me stories of how they had poor experiences or bad experiences with contractors doing other things around the house. And, you know, once you learn how to do this kind of research, you know, it's easy to show other people, you know, the results of that research. But most people, they don't know to look up the license information. They don't know to look up the records of the court. for any past litigation. It's just, you don't, I mean, how often do you install a roof?

Yeah.

How often are you installing solar?

Yeah.

So you don't know what to look for. You don't know what questions to ask. And I will even go as far as to say that, you know, whether it's drone court or not, don't take my word for it. That's why we put those third-party links into our website so that it's not us telling you this. It's the state of Texas. It's the state of Florida. It's the state of Colorado or California or wherever it is that the homeowner we're helping to acquire solar roofing. So that it's not coming from us, but it's coming from an authority beyond us and greater than us in this case.

Yeah, yeah, and I think most people are listening to that going, like, that sounds like a really good idea. I'm not gonna do it. You know what I mean? Like, everything that you're saying is like, man, that'd be a really good idea for people to do, but they're just not gonna take the time to go to the county records.

It's too much trouble.

Yeah. And not only is it too much trouble, they don't know how to do it. Like, I just had a— I went to dinner at my neighbor's house and they said, hey, you know, the solar company, This was last night, actually. The other solar company, uh, this solar company came and knocked on my door, um, you know, and so on or whatever. So I took the card and I did research on them, and I found through the, the Secretary of California or whatever the website was, it's, uh, .ca.gov or I don't know, um, and I found their, their LLC had been canceled. So they, they're not a real business. They're knocking on doors, you know,

Offering to sell you something. So if that's their LLC or their company is not, you know, up and running the way it should be, I mean, they're probably cutting other corners as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I would even go as far as to say, look, if you're a listener out there and you're doing anything to your house, right, where you, where you're planning on spending a significant amount of money to renovate or to put on a new roof or whatever the case might be, Take the time, please take the time to look up the license information.

Yes.

Take the time to go through the court records in your county to look up any litigation on the company. Take the time to, you know, follow up on the reviews that you have a gut feeling about, because— and ask hard questions to the company directly, because by doing so, you could literally save yourself, you save yourself thousands tens of thousands of dollars in, in making the wrong choice and hopefully not litigation, right? Not taking it that far.

Yeah.

But doing the right research can save you a lot of money.

Yeah.

And hassle.

And, and you, you said something there that's so important is if you don't get this done right the first time, then you're going to have to do it again. And doing it again is going to cause you to spend a lot more money. It's going to cause you to spend a lot more time, more frustration. And, you know, at the end of the day, doing it right the first time is what you wanted to do to begin with, right? You really want to get this done right the first time.

Yeah.

So rather than, you know, go, go through the rigmarole of, um, just trying to find the cheapest or the quickest or the, the, you know, the, the one that's next door or whatever, um, having someone out there like DroneQuote to do the work for you, to do the legwork of this for you, it's not necessarily saying take it out of your hands, not, you know, just trust DroneQuote, uh, you know, wholeheartedly, uh, and, and that sort of thing. You're putting it out there. I can go look for it. It's just all in one place. And so now I know where it's at. It's easy for me to look through if I want to do that. And I know I, I have that information at the click of a button.

Absolutely. I, I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I always tell people, you know, Well, not always, but when the conversation goes in this direction with a homeowner, you know, I'll tell them, look, do research on the companies that we put together for you. Do research on DroneQuote, right? Look for us in court records. Do research on me. Do research on me because, you know, I value my name and my reputation so much that I'm not going to give it up for anybody. Not for anybody.

Yeah.

And I'm sure as hell not going to give it up for one sale.

Right.

So don't take my word for it. Research me if you feel that that's what you need to do. But you know what? I guarantee you're not going to find anything because I haven't crossed anybody. Because that's how you burn bridges. That's how you make a mess of your name. And that's how you go out of business.

Right. Absolutely.

So anyway, like, since we've been kind of talking about roofs a little bit, but is there a good reason if you're going to be doing solar to go ahead and get the roof replaced?

Yeah, that's a really, really good question actually. And it's something that I did myself when I put on solar. I probably had about 5 years left on the roof, but it just didn't make sense that I would put on panels and then pay to take those panels off and then redo my roof. I just did it all at the same time.

Sure.

So it definitely makes sense to replace your roof if it's near end of life. If you're thinking about installing solar. And, you know, in some cases, you know, you can get away with just replacing the section where the solar panels are landing. If you're talking to some of the companies we work with that do roofing and solar, so, you know, we'll throw— if the homeowner wants it, we'll throw in a quote for the entire roof.

Yeah.

To include the solar as well. But yeah, I definitely think that if you're installing solar and your roof is near end of life, do yourself a favor and replace the roof at the same time if it's within your budget.

Yeah, because it's going to cost you more money later on down the road because you're going to have to take everything off in order to get to it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, the thing is, if you put on a new roof with solar, you can put the footings on the wood, directly onto the wood, and then cover up those footings with your tar paper and then, you know, with— or with your comp shingles. It's a lot more, um, it's a lot— it's, it's a better install method.

Okay, more eye-appealing.

Yeah, absolutely. It just makes for an all-around better installation, and it's worth the money in my opinion.

I'm actually a little curious about your roof because around here, flat roofs are not common. Is there a benefit to that? Do you like that? What's that like?

I personally don't like having a flat roof. I was a first-time homeowner when I bought this home. I was younger. I didn't know my left from my right when it came to buying a house.

Yeah.

And it— I would probably— I'm not probably— I would not buy another home with a flat roof. It's more expensive to replace a flat roof. Their lifespan is considerably shorter.

Oh wow.

Water pools on my roof on a certain section. It's not— it's not a good setup, but it is what it is.

That's right.

Why do they use— what we just— I mean, again, ignorant Why would they install a flat roof on a home?

So my home was built in '59, and older homes here in this part of the country, you know, have flat roofs. Not always, but a lot of times. And it's— there isn't any snow where I live, right? So there's no weight. Sure, there's no weight on the roof. So it's just It was a common way of installing roofs with tar and gravel, actually. So, you had little pebbles or tar— or excuse me, gravel on the roof, little rocks with a bunch of tar, and then they put the gravel on. It's not my favorite.

I mean, was it kind of like an aesthetic architectural thing that they were doing back in the— whenever?

I mean, the color of the house was original to the house. It was a blue color and they had a white tar and gravel roof. So, from that perspective, it looked all right.

Yeah.

But then, when you climb the roof, actually, when I climbed the roof shortly after I bought it, there was like a moss buildup or some sort of moss-like growing on my roof. And all the pine needles from the pine tree would build up and it would just It would keep water and it would stay moist. It was, oh my goodness, it was not a good setup. I keep saying that, but I always tell my wife, I'm like, man, I wish we'd have bought a different house, but it's my house now. So, you know, I take care of it. I get on the roof and I inspect on the— well, actually I don't get on the roof. I take that back. I get on the roof when I clean my panels, but otherwise I use my

drone. It's great.

There you go.

Yep.

That's why you have it.

And by the way, Go ahead.

Well, no, I was gonna ask what kind of drone are you rocking these days?

So I, you know, for how we use our drone, we don't need the latest and greatest. We use a Phantom 4 Pro.

Okay.

We use 2 of those. The pilots that we send out, because, you know, if they're like, if it's not here in the San Diego area, obviously I'm not gonna go out to the house.

Yeah.

You know, they typically use either Mavics, so the Mavic series, or a Phantom 4 is very common. And the reason being is that the Phantom 4 Well, the DJI series of drones, they pair very well with this software called DroneDeploy.

Okay.

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that, but it's a flight automation software. So you plug in your route, if you will, and then the drone does all the flying all by itself.

Nice.

And DroneDeploy works really well with DJI drones. But I was actually going to make a mention of one of the benefits of DroneQuote that came to mind when I was talking about my roof.

Hmm.

When a homeowner moves forward with DroneQuote, this is a change that we made to the model. When DroneQuote moves forward, when a homeowner moves forward with the DroneQuote, at that point in time, then we send out a drone to the home to do the measurements and do the survey of the roof. So, what that allows us to have is a before photograph, of the roof and measurements.

Yeah.

And then we do an after. So we could say to the homeowner, hey, look, there's broken tiles here, here, or whatever, or there's this issue on the roof here, and we could actually show it to the homeowner, right? And then after the installation takes place, we go out and we do that survey again, and then we could show the homeowner, look, you're not gonna get on your roof, obviously, if it's a 2-story house. This is what your roof now looks like with solar panels.

Yeah.

And this is the close-up of the tiles or the roof material in the section of roof where the panels were installed. For you to see that the integrity of the roof is what it should be.

Yeah, yeah. And there's no way— and this is something that I think people need to understand— there is no way that a person standing on a roof with a camera can get the kind of shots that a drone can get.

It's just not possible. No, there isn't. No, you're 100% right about that. We went out into, uh, I have a home that I did— this was a few months ago— um, where they had just purchased the home And we went out and we flew the drone after they moved forward and we found this little nook. It was like this little nook on the section of roof that the inspector must have missed. And the tiles, the concrete tiles in one row of tiles had, um, one column of tiles had completely been dislocated and they'd started sliding down and you could see the underlayment, the, the tar paper.

Oh.

And it was the Yeah, it was completely missed at the time of inspection. Nobody had a clue about it until we went out there and looked at it. It was such a— it was so hidden in like this nook, and I was able to show the homeowner. And I mean, I think the homeowner ended up reaching out to the inspector. I don't know how that ended up.

Not pleasant, I would imagine.

No, probably not, because they probably paid like $400 or $500 for that inspection. But, you know, we were able to spot it immediately and, you know, show it to the homeowner.

That's awesome.

And yeah, it wasn't anywhere where we were installing solar, but it was a benefit of our service, right? They were able to understand that that was taking place and have it rectified. Yeah.

And let me, let me ask you this, and I asked this a little knowingly, but like, should you have anyone that's unlicensed come fly a drone around your house?

If you are a risk-taker and you don't mind, you know, any litigation that may come your way from any accidents, Yeah, by all means. But otherwise, otherwise don't do it because, you know, if you're flying drones professionally, you should have an FAA certificate. We carry a—

Which, by the way, I mean, just for everybody listening, it's not difficult to get.

No, it's not. It isn't. It's not. You're right about that. It does take effort though, and that's where most people stop.

Yeah.

And if they're not taking the effort that it takes to, you know, go through this license process, then, then what makes you think that they're gonna carry the level of insurance that they should be carrying?

Right.

Yeah.

Which, which, if they have insurance and they don't have a license, then you might as well not have insurance because it's not gonna be covered, right? And you know what, in full honesty, you know, I'm not perfect. I've had my mishaps at a property before. And I was able to tell the homeowner, hey, my drone busted up on the ground and messed up and crashed into a bunch of little pieces, right? But that was covered by insurance, and had anything happened, we would have been able to cover any damages to the property or what have you, because accidents happen, right?

Yeah.

And you want to make sure that whoever you're working with is, one, taking measures to avoid accidents, 2, has the right insurance. And 3, of course, has a license to be doing what they should be doing.

Yeah, yeah.

But not only that, I mean, like, they get— I mean, like, these drones can actually cause big problems up in the sky if you're flying them improperly and, you know, doing things with them that you're not supposed to be doing, and flying them in areas that they're not supposed to be flown. Um, you can, you can cause all kinds of problems.

I mean, like, yeah, so you can. And actually, um, What happened in the case where I had a mishap with the drone is I was— there was a bird, a large bird, I think it was a raven or crow that was— that came. I must have gotten close to a tree where it had a nest and it started like dive-bombing the drone and I tried to get away in a hurry and in doing so I clipped a palm tree and that's what caused me to fall out of the sky. But there's so many things out of your control that if you don't plan for the repercussions of an accident happening, however it may happen, then you're really setting up your client for a bad time.

Yeah, no doubt. Well, so we're coming up on an hour here, so just want to ask you, is there anything that we have not discussed that you would like to let our listeners know?

Yeah, you know what, I will share one thing that I take a lot of pride in. When people come to DroneQuote, they're going to be well taken care of. They're not going to be pressured or pushed into anything that they don't want to do, whether it's a roof or solar or what have you. We're here to educate you. We're here to help you make a strong buying decision. And when you do business with DroneQuote, you are doing business with a veteran-owned company, and I am that veteran.

Okay.

And that means a lot to me.

Yeah, it means a lot to us, man. We appreciate your service.

Absolutely.

Well, you know what, I will say this, having joined the military was the best decision I've ever made, and it was all my pleasure. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Okay.

When did you join?

I joined right out of high school. I was, I joined at the age of 18, 2003. And 3, it was. So I joined actually because September 11th happened and I felt compelled to join as a result of that. And I got to experience a little bit of the Middle East on 2 all-expenses-paid trips to Iraq.

Nice. Congratulations.

It was great.

Yeah.

They covered my room and board. I got to travel around the country and they paid me to do it. It was great.

There you go. There you go.

I really would do it again. And actually, you know what, I should say that that's really where the original seed for drones and my affinity for drones happened or was planted, because we benefited from a lot of the imagery that these drones were capturing out there. And I would always see them or hear them flying in the sky. It was super cool and it really intrigued me.

Yeah, interesting. And they're using—

I mean, like, they're using huge drones. For a lot of—

I mean, they're using real drones. Yeah, they're using real drones. I'm using like—

these are toys.

Yeah, it's a remote control toy. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they happen to be really sophisticated, but yeah.

Absolutely. Well, uh, anyway, it's, it's, uh, been our pleasure to talk to you, but we can't let you off the hook. I mean, we— just because you're our sponsor doesn't I mean, you don't get subject to the Final Four.

The Final Four.

So you've listened to our show before. You know what we're about. You know these questions. You probably had these—

So if you didn't study, it's your own fault. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But we're gonna— here they go. We're just gonna break out in them. The first question is, what's the must-have tool you won't leave your house without?

You know what? This is such a lame question because we already— nobody leaves home without it, but I use my mobile device for more than just calling and surfing the web. Whenever we go out to a property and take all these images, I load everything onto the cloud on the spot through my phone.

Yeah.

And I confirm all my images from the drone with the phone, and I fly the drone with With my phone as well. Well, the controller as well.

I was fixing to ask you that.

Yeah, the phone is way more than just, you know, an internet device for me, just by how I use it for uploading data and moving data across the cloud. I found out the hard way that sometimes the drone will overwrite images. And so I started uploading everything directly from my phone. So I plug in this little memory card adapter to the phone and I just start uploading immediately after taking the images. I know that's such a lame answer, but I really don't leave anywhere without it.

It's the No. 1 response to this question.

It is! I expect it will just continue to be so. These devices are so much more than something that you talk on. In fact, most people don't talk on their phones.

You're right about that.

Absolutely. It's a computer, and computers are really, really important in the day and age that we live So yep, absolutely.

It's kind of like when you ask entrepreneurs, what's the best business book out there? Almost every single one of them is like Rich Dad Poor Dad. Yeah.

Yep.

That's right.

You know what? I really, that's not a, that's not an answer I would give.

Oh really?

I would, no, I would say How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Okay. Yeah. That's a good one.

That's a really good book. And a lot of the things that you learn in that book can easily be applied to business.

I actually think that was something that, uh, Jordan brought up when he was in here talking about home automation. Didn't he talk about it?

I think he did.

Yeah. That was, that was like his book.

Yeah. So anybody out there listening, I got to tell you, like when I was, when I first read that book, my income went from like whatever it was at the time and it increased by like $15,000 the next year.

There you go, Kev.

Wow. I don't think it works in my business. However, however, um, I don't own my own business either, so there's that, right? There's that.

Well, I still recommend you read it, man. I'm telling you, I go places and I use those— I don't want to use the word tactics, but I use the things I learned from that book in different places, and you can't believe the free things I've gotten and the tickets I've gotten out of just using that approach. Oh wow.

I do like things and tickets.

Kev knows that if you—

No, no, not getting tickets. Not getting tickets.

Okay. I don't like those types of tickets. All right. Well, let's go to the second question. What's a job you walked away from?

Oh, you know what? That actually happened today. Oh, today, this morning I had a sales call with somebody and the homeowner said, you know, I'm getting, I'm on quote number 8 right now and your 3 quotes are going to round out 11 quotes.

Oh my goodness.

And yeah, and the other quotes, the other 8 quotes that he got were in-home sales quotes.

Yeah.

So, you know, anytime that somebody has, you know, an obscene amount of quotes, the likelihood that I'm going to deliver something that, you know, they're looking for is super low because those people are typically, you know, just shopping. And then there's nothing wrong with that. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. But if somebody tells me they've got a boatload of quotes, I usually we'll tell them that we probably can't help them. And we do typically do walk away from those. Okay.

That's, that's good to know. All right. Third question. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

So I have 2 small kids. And my son, he reads a lot. For a 6-year-old, it's super weird. I wasn't reading until like I was in the 12th grade. So I like to read to him. I like to spend time with him and my daughter too. I spend time with my children.

Okay.

You know, a lot of that has to do with, I think, my father wasn't present when I was a kid. So I definitely, you know, want to have my kids grow up with wonderful, hopefully, memories of growing up with their dad always at their side. So I spend a lot, as much time with him as I can because And I work a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Craig and I will be on that same— that same ship with you sailing as far as we can as far as dads being present, man.

Yeah.

That's a huge, huge thing. And if you're a dad out there listening to our podcast right now, man, when you— when you get done with this, go hug your kids and spend some time with them because dads are so hugely important in kids' lives. So we'll put that plug out there.

Absolutely.

All right, uh, 4th question, last question. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

You know what, um, I will reference that book again, uh, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It just changed how I interact with people. Um, but besides that, there's 2 pieces of advice that, that came up when I was selling solar, um, and that was, you know, these well-to-do people would tell me that the way to their financial freedom was through business ownership. And, and I really took that to heart. Obviously, I started a business. And the other piece of advice that was given to me by a rather successful individual was, you know, who you partner with in life or who you marry is a key to success.

Hmm.

And I do wholeheartedly believe that. Because I'm very fortunate to be married to the woman that I am. So marrying the right person and starting a business were definitely 2 really good pieces of advice that I received.

Awesome.

Yeah, you get those 2 things right and the sky's the limit.

That's right.

Seriously, man, you're not kidding about that. It's 100%.

Yeah, I mean, it's very, very true. You are a product of the people that you surround yourself with, for sure. And so, yeah, it's good, good stuff. Well, uh, listen, man, it's, it's been fantastic, uh, getting to round out a little bit of, of the thing that we've been pushing and, and trying to get our, our, our folks out there that are listening to, to know more about DroneQuote. Um, thank you for, for taking the time to, uh, to help us understand a little bit more about who you are and what your business is, listen to your heart a little bit and what you wanna do with the business. And, uh, man, it's just been a pleasure for us.

Well, thank you for having me, guys. I've, uh, definitely had— I've been definitely looking forward to this and had a really good time speaking with you guys. Thank you for the opportunity to, uh, to be on the show and to, uh, talk about DroneQuilt.

Absolutely. And if, and if people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way to do that?

Excellent, excellent question. I appreciate that. So if you want to get a hold of, a hold of me personally, I invite anybody to reach out to me because I believe in building bridges and making connections in life because you never know when you want to cross that bridge for whatever reason. So, you know, reach out to me. I'm available at smontoya@dronequote.net. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find DroneQuote at @thedronequote, both on Facebook and on Instagram. Simply DroneQuote on LinkedIn. Okay.

Alright, great. Well, that's awesome, man. Uh, and for all you out there listening, man, uh, go, go, go check out the website, check out the, the links that are in the show notes here. And if you have any questions, man, shoot him an email, shoot us an email. We will point you in the right direction. Uh, thank you for downloading, uh, this episode today. Tell your friends about it, subscribe to it, uh, all those sorts of fun things. We're, we're glad to have you on board with us. I hope you continue. And, uh, man, we're here every Tuesday. So until then, we'll see you later.

See ya.