AC Lockyer: 0:12

Hey guys, this is AC Lockyer, and boy do I have a treat for you this week. This is going to be a really unique story. Of course, this is building the lifestyle business presented to you by SoftWash Systems, and this is a way for us to profile some of our SoftWash Systems licensed affiliates and just to prove to you guys that it's not always puppy farts and rainbows. Right, I've got Matt Gour

AC Lockyer: 0:37

on this week and Matt Gour is on an interesting, interesting journey right now with this soft washing business.

Matt Gour: 0:50

Matt, go ahead and introduce yourself where you're at and what the name of your company is. Okay, hi everybody. My name is Matt Gour. We're in southwest Florida, in Sarasota County, a little town called Nokomis. And then my Soft Wash Guys is the name of our soft washing business. My Soft Wash Guys is the name of our soft washing business.

AC Lockyer: 1:04

Yeah and so, before you got into soft washing and normally we take a certain path on these shows, but I know exactly where I want to go with you, and so this is going to be kind of an interview and we're going to have fun here at your expense. Okay and so, which will be great, because you got a great story to tell. This is not your first business and not your first service business, so you've had some other things going. So tell us about the other things that you got going on.

Matt Gour: 1:35

Okay, so currently we have a home cleaning business that my manager runs and we have a little small home cleaning business, and then I was in I still am not as much, but I'm in the window cleaning business. So we had a home cleaning, then we had the window cleaning and then I came across. I knew that I needed another profit stream. The windows would come and go. It was tough to get repeat business. So then we I found soft watch systems and, uh, then that's when I moved into that, and so we've been. Uh, I think we picked up our system in april of 22, I believe. So we've been after soft wash now and then that's, that's gone, much bigger than my window business and it's on its way to hopefully becoming parity with our cleaning business. So yeah, so that's that.

AC Lockyer: 2:31

So you started this softwashing business. You've been chugging along and it's called my Softwash Guys. You're in a great county. You're in kind of the southern part of Sarasota County, in the Comas, and the Comas is a sleepy little fishing village that turned into kind of a retirement area down there, so you get a lot of snowbirds down there. But really when you look at your whole county in its entirety, you're at a really really great and very wealthy spot in florida right, yeah, right, yeah.

Matt Gour: 3:01

So so we've, uh, the cleaning business. We've been in that since 2012. And then we used to have a large territory with that it was, and then we shrunk that down because it was too much because of the growth. And then so the area is growing. I see great things for it, because there's just even a few years ago there was just cattle fields and now those are all houses and then they're going to be setting up here for for exterior cleaning and uh, and so I I see a really bright future for Sarasota County, manatee County, charlotte County. Um, so, all those things are within within reasonable distance, but, um, you know, know, it is a big area, so it's a lot to take on.

AC Lockyer: 3:47

Yeah, definitely Charlotte County is good for you, since you're on the south side of Sarasota, manatee County. You have to drive through Sarasota County to get to Manatee. But definitely Charlotte County is good for you, and so it is. It's really growing because it's inside the hurricane area. There, all the roofs they put on the houses are tile roofs where you're at, and so you got a lot of tile roofs, which is there's very, very few ways you can clean a tile roof correctly or effectively without damaging them, and that's certainly by soft washing. You can clean those roofs. But the interesting thing is you got into soft washing and tell us about the ride so far your first year, second year, once you experienced the growth that you've had, the growth maybe that you haven't had, tell us about the first couple years until this culminating event that happened early this year, don't talk about that yet We'll pop that on everybody, but tell us about the first two years until the thing happened.

Matt Gour: 4:51

Okay, so in the first year I went to Discovery, which I knew I was getting into business at that point. So then it was season, so we had to kind of bat it back and forth to get ready to pick up our equipment. And then, you know, we had the, the cleaning business and the window business going. So then in april of 22 started and then I was taking my courses. When we came to orlando to take the courses, so 22 was busy, so it was a little, it was, it was not a full everything all at once and I went through sales, marketing and top gun, uh sort of in that, in that. Uh, no, that's not correct. I went to uh sales, I think, and then marketing, and then no top gun, and then marketing, I believe after right, because we used to have those two camps kind of separated yeah.

Matt Gour: 5:42

Yeah, so anyway. But so then that made 2022. I was really excited about it. We had, we had some success I was able to with the window business. That was a good in for presenting and upselling to a soft wash service. So that was that was that did really well for 22, 23. And we started growing really well for 22, 23,. And we started growing. You know, we've been growing every year, uh, and so, uh, let's see.

Matt Gour: 6:09

So I think that that, uh, our journey has been just fine recently, the summertime with the hurricane, and the first like first hurl that happened was in September of 22, when hurricane Ian came through. That sort of stopped uh business right when it was supposed to pick up and it kind of set us back for a month. A lot of roofs got destroyed from, uh, fort myers all the way. I don't. I don't even know if the people in the country really understand how much damage was done, but people did. They needed their places clean. So, while there wasn't as much roof clean, there was a lot of exterior cleaning, right, right.

Matt Gour: 6:49

And then we go into 23, um, and we had a good year. And then the next surprise was uh, 23, with the springtime, where you normally had that big, that big upsurge in the the, uh, the snowbirds, so. So that's where we went from there, and then everything's been going fine. It's just this year in particular, and in August last year we had a real slow time. So it is a seasonal component and each month was just a little bit more in-depth. But when we study our systems, we know what to expect. When we put our calendar out there, we know that August is going to be bad. So you prepare for it.

AC Lockyer: 7:32

So year one hopefully you'll know your numbers so I don't have to chastise you or know approximately your numbers. Year one what would you say was your gross revenues for year?

Matt Gour: 7:42

one. I think our year one was $150,000. Okay, that's pretty typical. And then year two, year two, we were up in the $185,000 range.

AC Lockyer: 7:54

Okay, so you're seeing some good growth there and at that point year one, year two how much of the business are you doing yourself? You're going out and selling it and are you out physically doing the work?

Matt Gour: 8:10

yeah, so. So I took it because I I just had me another guy for the window business the girls were running the cleaning I decided to bootstrap the softwares business, just like I did with the windows, right? So I took all the training, I took everything and I so I just had this bootstrap mentality. So then I was selling, presenting and marketing and marketing and then doing the work for all of 2022, 2023. And then last year is when I added a third employee in December of 23. And then I lost a guy and then now I have another guy. So, yeah, it's been a small band owner operator pretty much the whole entire time until now.

AC Lockyer: 8:48

Okay, so so if we fast forward a little bit now, you're doing the typical growth that we see in some of these companies and, and especially for you, you're, you're kind of fragmented because you have a interior cleaning company, have a window cleaning company, you're adding soft washing and so it's starting, as always, the soft washing starts to gobble up the window cleaning business and those really become one business. And I always tell people they're like, oh no, I'm a window cleaner, I'm just adding soft washing, I'll always be a window cleaner. And I giggle because I'm like, yeah, no, soft washing is just going to come in and big fish and just consume the window cleaning company and that always, always, always happens. But it's good to continue to advertise window cleaning because there's people that are window cleaning customers don't think about cleaning the rest of their house and it gets you leads and it's a good thing. So they kind of work hand in hand.

AC Lockyer: 9:40

But little by little you're growing this business now. And how much was the window cleaning company revenue before you brought in soft washing? How much did window cleaning do?

Matt Gour: 9:49

We were doing about $100 to $120, depending on the dip in the summertime Right around there.

AC Lockyer: 9:59

So before and I'm teasing everybody here there's a big thing that happened to Matt and we're not going to talk about it just yet. But before the big thing, window cleaning revenues come in and you add the soft washing revenues, what were you doing all total on exterior cleaning before the big thing happened?

Matt Gour: 10:18

Yeah, so we were on pace this year to do about 280. And so well that changed. But I don't know, I don't know. I think we're going to have a very strong final quarter that's going to be above our projections. So we're going to catch up very quickly.

Speaker 3: 10:43

You've heard AC Lockyer talk the talk, but wouldn't you like to see him walk the walk? Now is your chance, and it is absolutely free. Spend the day exploring soft wash systems and disruptor manufacturing. You'll see the business and marketing systems developed by AC at work. But no open house is the point without food, so be sure to stick around for lunch To register for this free event. Please call 855-763-8669 to reserve your spot. We look forward to seeing you at our next open house.

AC Lockyer: 11:25

So I've been teasing you guys quite a bit. Matt and I have had a lot of conversations. As a matter of fact, this morning he was just on Tribe Time. We do a weekly Tribe Time with our organization. That's a two-hour call where I jump in and encourage everybody and do one-on-ones. It's kind of like a coaching call. But I'm not a coach, I suck at coaching and so I'm more like a mentor, I'm more suggestive, and so this is on with us this morning and this is a lot of people don't understand where that phrase comes from go break a leg.

AC Lockyer: 12:19

And it kind of goes back to Bible times. And if you go back to the Old Testament, I'm trying to remember if it's in Ecclesiastes, I'm not getting the book right but in the Old Testament Trying to remember if it's in Ecclesiastes, I'm not getting the book right but in the Old Testament they would. They would talk about when a shepherd would have kind of an unruly lamb that would lead other sheep astray and you know, would, would, would was high maintenance Literally. The shepherds would take that sheep and they would break their leg, and breaking a leg has a lot of connotations to it. And so when you break the leg on a sheep, then that sheep can't walk on its own. So for a period of time until that sheep's leg heals, the shepherd has to carry that sheep and it makes that sheep very dependent on the shepherd and that sheep stays very close to the shepherd and learns to rely on the shepherd. And then when that leg heals and that lamb or that sheep not really lamb, lamb's a baby, but that sheep is able to roam on its own because it has spent so much time with the shepherd that it stays close to the shepherd. It's a more obedient sheep at that point and it doesn't lead other sheep astray.

AC Lockyer: 13:34

And in the theater world they use that phrase go break a leg. And what they're trying to communicate is we will try to do a lot of stuff on our own and try to do stuff based on our own merits, our own ability to make things up as we go along or be extemporaneous, or you know, we're firefighters and everything else, and we try to handle a lot of jobs in our companies and juggle all the balls and we, and what ends up happening is you become caught more in the owner-operator phase until you literally break a leg. And breaking a leg what that does is that teaches you that you can't do it on your own, that you have to slow down, that you have to stop, that you need to use more of your mind than you're on and that you need to get more strategic about things. And it really slows you down to stop you and look completely differently at how you do acting or how you do sports or play as a team or anything else.

AC Lockyer: 14:39

And you had this year your hey, go break a leg moment. So why don't you tell us about that? And literally I want you to go through it, almost like you're telling the story of how your day started and you had a day you needed to go out on the truck and what was going through your mind and why were you out in the field and the setup, the home that you were doing and everything that led up to the event. Go ahead.

Matt Gour: 15:10

Okay. So back in June in Southwest Florida it was three days where we had a series of kind of really freakish tropical storm not hurricane but really strong tropical storm and my marketing brought in a customer real close to our house. She has a new construction home and it was window cleaning and because I'm an expert window cleaner myself, personally I take these jobs on as a filler, particularly since it's in the summertime, and it was a great opportunity. She's a soft wash customer still to this day and we put on final wash. We help a soft wash customer still to this day. We put on final wash, we help her with salt mitigation and then window cleaning. We'll be back there in a couple of weeks. There's so many things I can go into, but we did the job. We had to start on the inside. It was two days because of the storm.

AC Lockyer: 16:07

I've come to the last part.

Matt Gour: 16:08

Please say, starting on the inside, you're now doing the interior window cleaning, yeah interior windows like full detail getting all the specks of paint off, razor scraping all of the windows, detailing the glass, the frames, because of the construction residue that's all over them, using a variety of different things Just my old bag of tricks. So I took it, even though those are, those are tricky, um. So if you can imagine I don't know what we call it, but it's a big foyer, it's a two-story foyer and it has on this about 22 feet in the air. They have a series of transom windows all in a circle and and we so like the foyer.

AC Lockyer: 16:48

The foyer in house is almost like a turret and it's circular and it has all these transom windows across the top up on the second story area.

Matt Gour: 16:57

Correct and and so we were able to to handle the rest of it. So it's, it's definitely. We actually brought the window truck and the soft wash truck. So the day the the second day, I knew we had to do these transoms and I put them off. And so because of so here's here was the thinking I was at the point where we needed to do these windows. They're 24 feet in the air and it was raining. Cats and dogs, where was it? There was a deadline to get it completed.

Matt Gour: 17:28

Instead of making the decision to bring in the appropriate ladder, set it up in the foyer, go up there, handle the windows, do it correctly. I didn't want to bring in this soaking wet ladder because she was very fastidious and very stressed. So then there was a scaffolding that was sitting in the corner from the wallpaper guy. There was a scaffolding that was sitting in the corner from the wallpaper guy, so my genius idea was to use that and then just put a window cleaning ladder on the top and then have my guy hold it. And so we got all the way around to the last ladder and then she came in. We said there was some problem with the windows. So I sent away my guy holding my lead tech holding the scaffold and I thought, well, everything was centered. I actually even did my measurement of the shoulder from the wall. I made sure I was precise where I wanted it because I well anyway, the scaffolding tipped when I went up the ladder and I went down and I landed on the marble floor and broke both of my calcaneus heel bones in my feet and fractured a vertebrae in my back. So, yeah, that was seven days in the trauma center at the hospital and so that's changed my life. So break, you know, break a leg, break a heel. It's really unique experience to have both of your feet at one time, you know. So it's not an uncommon injury. It's common for people who jump out of windows or like a parrot guys do parachute and then rock climbers. So there are people who just you just have a, you just don't know how far, like when you're falling, when you're not sure the depth of how far you're falling, you tend to land on your heels and break them. So so that's been my journey. That was approximately 14 weeks ago, I believe, and yeah, it's.

Matt Gour: 19:22

The story of the shepherd is really, really. That's a really. I appreciate the way you said that AC shepherd is really, really that's a really. I'm appreciate the way you said that ac, because it really has made me stop and everything.

Matt Gour: 19:32

So I I was the guy that was the owner operator 12 hours a day, go, go, go, go go and you know if, if I don't do it, it ain't gonna be right, or um, just trying to do everything that I can do all at once every day and just really pushing but not having success for sure.

Matt Gour: 19:56

I mean, we'd have some great quarters but then it would regress because I wasn't following the model by supporting and making it balanced.

Matt Gour: 20:05

So I look back upon that now, but my life has changed. So now, in order to stay in business which I am tenacious I am going to succeed because I know what this system does for my customer and what it does for the value of their home, what it does for their number one asset, and then the fact that it's a system where the training manual is there, the fundamentals are there, and so really it's a matter of just going back to the fundamentals and building your team, building your business with a proven track, success record that you've laid out in all the training, and so I believe in that For me, for me before the accident. I can look back now and say, all right, I was really not doing it correctly and so I don't have to get into why the injury happened or not. It's just that. Okay, now this is going to be, this is a direction we have to go, and then with authorized professional. When you touched on it in those series, you know you move from owner operator to owner manager.

AC Lockyer: 21:13

Before you get into that real quick here, because there's, there was definitely a transition there.

AC Lockyer: 21:16

I want to just kind of jump in here. You glanced over something. This happened in June, so we have June, july, august. You just got cleared to kind of get up and move around. I mean, you were locked up in your house in bed for part of the time yes, sitting in, literally. I've had so many meetings with you and talks and tribe times, you sitting in this room, that you're sitting in this was your view for three months. That gives you some extra time to think about where you're at in life, Think about what's going on with your business, analyze the steps that you've made and where you really want to go. So so now let's talk about what you did with that time.

Matt Gour: 22:08

Okay. So what I did with that time is I completed my authorized professional that I was just toying with, and toying with, and putting off, and putting off. And that was a big achievement for me, because just completing that was it was important because it had taken a while. And the ironic thing about that was I came across my. Some of my last videos were about work, comp and having what do you do when you, when you have a situation.

AC Lockyer: 22:40

So I got to live all of the things that were in the video to live out the stuff that was in there, and for those of you that are listening in here because not everybody's a soft wash systems person, but you know we have.

AC Lockyer: 22:52

We have three different major curriculums at soft wash systems. We have the certified applicator, which is how to do soft washing. Authorized professional, which is how to really perfect a one truck business, and then five star company, which is adding that second truck, getting a facility becoming a sticks and bricks. You know, facility oriented business.

AC Lockyer: 23:16

And so while you're laid up you go huh that would be a good time to go ahead and take that authorized professional program and get that certification softwash system certification authorized professional under my belt and get that taken care of. And while you're watching that you're, as you just mentioned, you're realizing, oh yeah, should have probably taken this earlier yeah, so I had started it, but when, like, would it go from owner operator to owner manager?

Matt Gour: 23:49

the whole route, the? It's just the whole paradigm shift. When it's thrust upon you, you can see that it's already there, that the roadmap is there. So that's been my ongoing emphasis is to get back to my academy, get back to my education, so we've been doing a lot of that. And then also I have guys that have just really helped me. They stuck with me and so, and then when I added a new person, a new territory manager, on, you know, he really followed through and got and did all the training from assistant to lead to to territory manager. So that's been very good. I'm very proud of him. And, uh, so we're.

Matt Gour: 24:29

And then building our marketing, building our rock flyers, doing our rock flyers and then, you know, keeping our truck, and so just following, following our system. That's what I've been doing. But then I also was able to add on to a website. I opened a new website and they did get a CRM where I was taking my customers and putting that into a CRM, so that, so that we can use that, so that that's what I've been doing. As well, as you know, remodeling a house from a distance in Michigan and you know we've got just a lot going on. So that's what we've been doing. But spending time in the fundamentals of soft wash systems even though I did that early on and went through classes going back to that is really the point of emphasis, because once you have experience you need to go back to the fundamentals, because then the principles seem to be more clear, right?

AC Lockyer: 25:28

More relevant. Before you didn't understand how those things are going to benefit you, but now you've got the experience to go. Oh, that's what AC was talking about, that that brick fits into this hole in the wall Right.

Matt Gour: 25:42

Yep, that's exactly right. So, so, yeah, so our, our building a lifestyle business. I have a good team and I think that we're going to get very busy here and we're primed. So we've been working on our basics, we're primed and ready for growth and I'm excited about it, despite the fact that I don't have clearance to walk, so okay.

Matt Gour: 26:08

So then, when you and another thing I want to say to people is, um, when you're pushing so hard in one direction and you're not getting the results you know, then maybe, maybe you should step, step back from that. So the injury isn't the end of the world for me. It just. It just shifted my, it made my abilities change. Like I became more observant. Uh, I couldn't, I couldn't be as easily distractible, so I'm more focused, uh, and then when you're, when you're forced to have to make a change, then you really got to get to where, where am I actually the most effective?

Matt Gour: 26:46

Uh, and then, okay, now, if I have people who, and then you think you have to do it all as an owner operator, you don't. There are people who, and then you think you have to do it all as an owner-operator, you don't. There are people who are much happier doing things that you don't like to do, that you think you have to do. They are much happier to take that off of your plate. So it's a tremendous relief to know that there are people who enjoy things we don't, and so it's all there. Sometimes you have to break a leg. Right, you to sort of in the analogies. Right, you have to change, despite yourself, I guess.

AC Lockyer: 27:20

So what this has given you the opportunity to is to work on your business instead of in your business, to, to quote the e-myth book by Michael Gerber. And you've, you've had. You've had time that you would not have. Well, you've always had the time. We always have 168 hours in our week. Dan Holland, the CEO at my holding company, droplet International. He works with the Ziegler Coach Leader Program and he really specializes in time management. He reminds everybody, we all have the same 168 hours management. He reminds everybody, we all have the same 168 hours.

AC Lockyer: 27:55

Where you thought you didn't have time to work on your business, this was now forced upon you and you've been able to dig in and really work on your business and not in your business. Really, anybody can clean windows. Anybody can soft wash. You're the only person that can really truly build your business, build your lifestyle business. So one of the things that you've done now is you said, hey, I need to really start digging into my numbers and my profitability and how I'm handling my money. And you've engaged one of our team members, one of our partner companies, anya Sukharov, and she's with SoftWash Accounting and, specifically, is an accounting company just for SoftWash Systems companies, uses our pro forma and the profit first principles from Mike Malkowitz's profit first book and you started working with her. How has that been going?

Matt Gour: 28:50

Well, anya is fantastic, by the way, but she doesn't pull any punches. So the first meeting wasn't very pleasant. It wasn't very fun. So right out of the gate we got some work to do. So, in contrast, I had a bookkeeper. Again, it's like an example of the whole thing we're talking about. So I had a bookkeeper. All they do is do the data entry. They're not going to share any numbers with you unless you go in and look it up yourself. I guess the benefit is we had about almost a two-year run of numbers, so she was able to recalibrate it. A long profit first, soft wash accounting. A long profit first softwash accounting. So that's going to be my roadmap for the way you know, the way out of the challenges that I've had from this injury and so. But you got to have the numbers, so I know where I'm going. I got to know. I got to know how well I'm doing. So I'm very excited. Anya and I just started about a month ago.

AC Lockyer: 29:48

So yeah, that's great. And what's so wonderful about that whole program is, literally she changes your GL codes and your QuickBooks to match the pro forma. So it's following the model that SoftWatch Systems has. She only works with SoftWatch Systems licensed affiliates. She does the whole thing based on Profit First book and the SoftWash Systems Proforma, and so she already knows through her previous experience working with other SoftWash Systems license affiliates where the bleeds are, where the mistakes are.

AC Lockyer: 30:19

I mean, you're not making any new mistakes, matt. You're doing the same stuff everybody does. You're doing the same stuff I did. The only reason why I know where all the pitfalls and issues and problems are, the reason why we can put together these great programs and support you guys and everything else, is because I've stepped in the dog doo doo myself and, and so you know, you realize, oh, I'm going to tiptoe through this area where all the doggy minefields are, and and I'm going to look down while I'm walking and I'm going to walk a certain way so I don't end up stepping in the dog piles or in the landmines.

AC Lockyer: 30:56

And that's all we're doing is we're just helping to guide you through areas that we've already been successful ourselves, and we're not telling you guys, hey, if you do all this stuff, you'll be successful, because I never owned a soft washing company or I never owned a successful company. This is what I did to have a successful company. This is what I did in my own soft washing companies. This stuff works. It's not a hypocritical type of exercise. This works. You're following somebody that has become a multimillionaire, has been very, very successful, who has built a lifestyle business, who has a wonderful lifestyle through soft washing, and you're just following that path to have your own wonderful life and wonderful lifestyle and have a lifestyle business through soft washing.

Matt Gour: 31:45

Yeah, I want to say something about this, though. This, though so, from the, from particularly sales and in marketing, and then you know, running our truck and our top gun and then and then performing, from a technical standpoint, everything that we started in soft wash, we I followed, uh, the model on that. I've gotten the results, I've hit the performa numbers, so I I didn't go ahead. I've seen so many guys that I that I know they go in and they immediately change the pricing, they immediately change this, they start to fiddle with that and they just start creating their own thing. So that's not the problem.

Matt Gour: 32:19

I've had Everything we've done, from our pricing to the sales, marketing and the technical, and then the actual experience for the customer, where they see, they come out of their house and they look at what's happened and they just go oh my gosh, I cannot believe how good this looks. So all of those things we have, we've gotten the results. So it's just a matter of I was trying to, I was trying to to do all of it, and that's the problem. Yeah, you can't do it all right, you're not Superman.

AC Lockyer: 32:50

I mean, why would you want to? Why would you want to do it all? Because we're building a lifestyle business. If you had to do it all, you had to put in all those hours and everything else your life would suck. And that's the beautiful thing of if you're going to build a lifestyle business. Howard Partridge I'm not sure if this is original to Howard Partridge, but Howard Partridge says this all the time If you're going to have the dream, you have to build the team Right. If you can't build the team, you have to give up the dream.

Matt Gour: 33:20

Yeah, and I was an individual before we got into the cleaning business. I was in construction and then I got into the cleaning business and we were a team and then it's just, I've sort of evolved and then I went back to my sort of owner-operator mindset and I didn't fully implement, I didn't fully go into the owner-manager mindset. Now I have to, but you can look back and see my mistakes. I just would encourage guys that are an owner-operator model that they get back to the training and get back to the fundamentals and then get a coach or get somebody who can help you give away your weaknesses or mitigate your weaknesses, and then get to the point where you have a team and it's so much better when you have a team. Oh my gosh, it's so much better.

AC Lockyer: 34:06

So you mentioned mistakes. So we all make decisions and we all find ourselves in positions in life when we make our decisions, and so you made some decisions that day that led to an event that led to what has become now for you, even though you're the owner, the good decision you made is, even though I'm the owner, I'm going to cover myself with workers' comp and I'm not going to exempt myself from my policy. The bad news on that is the bad news on that is you now have a workers' comp claim that has turned into a rather large workers' comp claim because they don't just take what you've spent so far. B and the insurance company which is our insurance company that we help all of our licensed affiliates get insurance with this company literally set aside a half million dollars for your claim, and that has put you in a situation now where that company has what yeah, so they've let me go, and so now I got fired.

Matt Gour: 35:27

Yeah, I'm getting fired, yeah, I'm fired. Well, so in a way, I can't blame them. I understand that, but let me touch on that for a second. So, whatever Frankrum does, that's their decision, and then I got to suffer the consequences of this thing happening my own decision. I will tell you, though, that, because of my respect for Frank Crum, who's been my company before, I was even with SoftWatch Systems I wasn't in comp. It was just liability and commercial. I filled out my OSHA reports. We answered all the questions honestly and gave them photos.

AC Lockyer: 36:08

Yeah, because it was a worksite injury. Osha investigates those. And so you went through that process like everyone should do, so that was very admirable of you, yep, and that's all part of the training, so it just makes you much more.

Matt Gour: 36:22

It's just going to raise my standard. We weren't taking any risks or anything like that. This is really an aberration. I'm a very experienced technician. I just made a dumb mistake. But when you think about now, it's immediately safety protocols, safety manager going forward is going to be like that's my next hire is going to be making sure my guys are following safety protocols, because it's just too important. That it's just too important. Your body, your health is really paramount. I'm going to make a full recovery, but Frank Crum doesn't know that. Or I'm going to make a full recovery. My next vendor doesn't know that and things will change. But yeah, there's a consequence to it because of it happening, and that's just the way business is. You got setbacks.

AC Lockyer: 37:13

Yeah, you end up having setbacks and what's crazy is one bad decision. I mean, like you said, you're a professional, a professional, you're an expert. You don't make these kind of bad calls. Now one bad call, boom, that quick you have an accident. Boom, that luckily you're covered. You know for it, your medical bills and everything else are covered.

AC Lockyer: 37:37

Now you're not going to be like some workers complaints where you're going to be like, oh, I can't ever work again and oh, you know, I'm suing and everything. You're not going to sue Frank from or any of that kind of stuff. You know your medical bills will be covered and you're probably not going to because you own the company. You're not going to need retraining or them have to send you to college. So the claim, well, will not be five hundred thousand, will go down. But because of this situation to protect themselves Because really when you look at the size of your company and how much they collect from you in workers' comp fees during the year versus the potential liability of a claim like $500,000, it's not a good risk for them They've dropped you. So now you have to go out and find another workers' comp company and you're finding out now that when you do get somebody to write you. It's going to be very, very, very expensive.

Matt Gour: 38:29

Yeah, so their writing is for roofer's coats and that's okay. It's going to be very expensive, but again, when you have a commitment to this business, like I do, the fact that we are committed to safety, committed to comp, committed to a system, I'm just interested in staying and promoting myself that way, if you want to look at it. On the other hand, in the last two and a half years, how many guys have I seen running up on the roof? No safety, no safety ropes, no anything. I don't know if they have insurance. So I believe now, even more than ever, discerning customers are going to be looking for companies that are invested in the proper way to do business. I think that's going to be a big deal, and so we're already committed to that. But we're just going to stay the course and we'll take our lumps In another business. This happened one other time. I don't like it, but I'm just going to. I'm not going to worry about that outcome. I know it eventually will change in my favor.

AC Lockyer: 39:34

Yeah, and it usually takes about two years for it to drop off. So it'll be hard. You have to put your head down, pull the plow. You have to pay a little more expensive rates for your workers. You have to classify your company, your team members, appropriately. So salespeople will be under a sales code, field workers will be under a different code. It's going to affect your field workers code more than it will your salespeople or admin code, but you're going to have to make sure people who are admins or salespeople, like you're more sales admin.

AC Lockyer: 40:04

You should have never been out there cleaning, right? Except you're the owner. You're like well, I'm the owner, I got to do everything. I get that Okay, but you know, salespeople don't go out and clean. Admins don't go out and clean Technicians go out and clean Technicians. It's going to be the higher rate. The other rates won't be as affected by this, but you'll clean up that mess that happened from all this and it'll be fine.

AC Lockyer: 40:27

It's just we call this education and we had another. One of our licensed affiliates had a team member that they had to fire and then the team member came back and sued them and there were some issues and everything with that and the team member made the claim that they were never trained, never trained, and we went what you know, you're a SoftWatch Systems affiliate, you got the best training in the world. And they were able to somewhat defend themselves by saying well, this is all the training that SoftWatch Systems provides. But they had deleted out the certificates and the records of that team member being trained, and so they couldn't prove. They couldn't show the lead tech certificate, they couldn't show the assistant tech certificate, they couldn't show where they had actually logged the hours in the system, and so it bit them and it cost them. They had to settle out of court for $20,000.

AC Lockyer: 41:28

But $20,000 is not the end of the world. We just looked at them and said, hey, listen, it sucks, but now you know not to delete those things out of the system. We thought we were cleaning up our system. No, no, no, you, you leave all your team members in there. Um, but the bottom, you know, even if they're not with you anymore, you leave all those records in there but the bottom line is is, you had a twenty thousand dollar educational fee and really in the whole scheme of things it's not a lot of money.

AC Lockyer: 41:57

Um, you know, there's some of these trucks will do twenty thousand dollars in a week. So it's a week or two's worth of revenues that you paid in what dave ramsey calls stupid tax. But there you go.

Matt Gour: 42:08

We all gotta pay a little stupid tax every now and then yeah right, well, when you're, when you're, when you're still getting on model it, I think, even for guys like me, when we look at the numbers, okay, the this truck is going to be, you know, 350 to 450, 000 with it, fully at the proper number, the proper. So some of us have to challenge our own, our own, uh, self-limiting beliefs. Right and so. But what I found is to challenge the self-limiting beliefs. You sell the way you've been taught to sell. You price the way, even price the price. You do complete the job the way you're supposed to complete the job, and you're going to get there. We're going to get there because we have the best system and the best result for that customer. So all those things happen. But yeah, one of my points is, once you start thinking along the lines of what this business can do, what a truck can do, a model, then the stuff that was oh, that's a huge amount of money, that becomes less significant, very less significant.

AC Lockyer: 43:07

Well, matt, this is a great story. It's a lesson to everybody that tenacity the word you used was tenacity no matter what happens, whatever storm comes around us, no matter what the results are just have tenacity because you can work your way through it. We live in a great country here in the United States of America, and we've got great opportunities. These systems that we have here soft wash systems are great and I'm proud of you, man. You're making some big changes. It was good to spend when you came up here this past week and I got to meet your team members. It was good to go out, break bread, have some cheesesteak sandwiches and and uh, have some, it was fun good, yeah, it was great.

Matt Gour: 43:48

The best cheesesteak I've had in a long time? Yeah, for sure all right guys.

AC Lockyer: 43:52

Well, there you go. Matt Gour, you are my soft wash guys. They're not my soft wash guys or your soft wash guys, but they're in sarasota, great story guys. And and it's just just a lesson to all of us Don't have to wait to break both your ankles to get out of the field and start working on your business. Don't work in your business every day. Work on your business, to quote the great Michael Gerber, and make sure you build those systems up. Make sure you team with a good company like Softwash Systems Help you with all of those systems in your business to make implementing all this stuff so much easier so that you can be successful. And you know, Matt, hopefully you'll have a great finish to this year, maybe even break last year's record with this last quarter, and things will go well for you Blessings.

Matt Gour: 44:40

Thank you very much, JC All right, guys.

AC Lockyer: 44:42

This is AC Locker. This is building a lifestyle business, as always, guys. Hey, listen, if you like this, hit like, go ahead and share it, subscribe here to the channel and I will see you guys at the next podcast. Go forth and prosper.