
Podcast #38
“Company Aquisition”
Featuring Joe Strittmatter
Intro: Welcome to Profiles In Prosperity. The leading podcast for residential service contractors, sponsored by Service Roundtable, and hosted by David Heimer.
David Heimer: Hi, this is David Heimer. Welcome to Profiles In Prosperity. Today, we get to speak with Joe Strittmatter, President of Strittmatter, which offers heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and roofing services. They have an amazing reputation in the Dallas, Fort Worth area. They are a trustworthy company, I hear from people that have used them all the time, and they unfailingly, have great stories to tell about them. Great stories in a good way I should say. They’re also known in our industry as a company that has grown really well and really fast, and is led by a really smart guy, Joe Strittmatter. So we’re really lucky to get to talk to Joe today. So Joe Strittmatter, welcome to Profiles In Prosperity.
Joe Strittmatter: Thank you very much for having me.
David Heimer: Tell us how you got into the industry. I always like to hear those stories.
Joe Strittmatter: I started, I was 12 years old. My dad had purchased his first HVAC company in 1980, in Lewisville, Texas. And you know, over the summertime, I guess to keep me from getting into trouble, I used to jump in the truck with him and run all over, running service calls with him or doing new construction and pretty much, was born into the industry.
David Heimer: Did you like it? You know, after doing it for a while, Yeah, this is fun. I kind of dig it, I want to run the company myself, what happened?
Joe Strittmatter: I wouldn’t say that when I was 12 that I wanted to get into the industry, just because it was so hot, and I wasn’t used to that. So, you know, just over time, searching, looking for this and that. Want to play football professionally, but of course, you know, that didn’t happen. And so, like most, I think I was just bouncing around, looking at what I should do with my life. And was offered, actually, to take the company over after high school and declined. And three, four, five years later, realizing I probably should have accepted that offer, and went back and told my dad then that if it’s still available, I’d take it.
David Heimer: And I guess he agreed then.
Joe Strittmatter: He didn’t agree at first, matter of fact, he told me that, you know, I had a chance before to take it and I declined it. So I had to prove to him that I really wanted to do this. And so, he and his wisdom had a bunch of friends who own companies, and he said, you need to go talk to these guys and go to work for them. One, to make sure that I was definitely interested, and would see it through. But two, back then, before there was Roundtable or organizations of that nature, contractors didn’t really talk. There was a local RSCS chapter, where a lot of these guys got together, but the guys didn’t talk about business. And so he was thinking, well, if you go to work for these other guys, you can see the way they do things, and figure out why they do them differently than me. Maybe they have a better will, maybe they don’t, or they just don’t know what I know, or maybe they know better than me. And so in his wisdom, he was thinking it would be best if I went to work for other people and see how they run their operation, one. But two, again, prove that this is really what I wanted to do.
David Heimer: Smart guy. So you did that and then came back in, to work for your dad or took over the business? How did that go?
Joe Strittmatter: Pretty much, by the time that I took over, it was just that taking over. He had all, but shut his company down at that point. And so, here I am, handed the keys to basically nothing at that point. And so I reverted back to the only thing that I knew, which was construction. And so I started building the company as a construction company. Got up to five crews coming in each day, going to do new construction. And this was the 2006, 2007 timeframe. And so, yeah, it was really good then, leading up to the, you know, the 2008. But there was a little birdie in the back of my head that says, you know, there’s gotta be something better than this. And so I started doing some research and I actually found a company called Air Surf.
I knew I wanted to get into service, I went through their school, figured out, hey, there’s a lot of money in service. I don’t know of any other avenue to learn this stuff. So while I pay these guys, I look at it as my college, I’m going to pay them to teach me how to run my business. And so, six months into that, the bottom really dropped out of the economy. I kind of saw the writing on the wall that they were taking all the profits. And so, I turned around and I actually sold my franchise to another franchisee that was local. And so I was able to get out from underneath it. I took about a $15,000, Hickey, to get out of it, but I was able to get out of it.
And so here I was, again, reverting back to the only thing that I really knew, because during the franchise, they pretty much did everything for me. And so I reverted back to construction. And I remember the day I was on the phone with my then York Salesman, he called me up and I haven’t spoken to him in a year or two. And he asked me how I was doing, you know, I told him what had happened and where we were again. And the words that came out of his mouth were, “well, you know, they all get that stuff from Ron Smith.” And I sat back and I said, “well, who the heck is Ron Smith? And how can I get a hold of this man?” And So he informed me about Ron’s book. And so, as soon as I got home that evening, being a contractor, I didn’t have much time to sit down and read, a lot of times. That evening, I went home and I ordered his book on CD. And so running from each job or each call, I was listening to his CD the whole time. And the credits is when he spoke about Roundtable. And that’s how I ended up getting a hold of Roundtable, becoming a member of it, and eventually becoming an Alliance member.
David Heimer: Yeah, that’s right. Ron, in his book, he’s very complimentary of us and recommends us. So we’ve had a lot of members join us, as a result of Ron’s book. So, great story. Tell me about your business now.
Joe Strittmatter: Well, going from me in a truck 12 years ago. We now have 28 employees, and we do 95 to 99% service.
David Heimer: Awesome.
Joe Strittmatter: We do ac, plumbing, and roofing. Roofing, we added on close to five years ago. And so, now, we have one roofer and then everybody else is split half and half between AC and plumbing, {inaudible 06:17} something to see building a plumbing company. This thing is growing extremely fast, and extremely well. Both of them are, but plumbing has just come a long way real quick.
David Heimer: So, I wanted to ask you about that, because there’s a number of contractors that I know, that have gone from either heating and air conditioning and added plumbing, or they’ve been in plumbing and added heating and air conditioning. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And there’s a lot of those that just kind of muddle along. So tell me about adding plumbing. What did you do and how did you make it so successful? Because it really is a very big part of your business now, right?
Joe Strittmatter: Yes, sir. I got lucky, a childhood friend of mine was a master plumber, and he was in the union doing big industrial jobs, and he used to having to drive an hour or two to go to work, and then work his eight hours, and then drive an hour or two, or longer, coming home and traffic. And he and I sat down, and he was getting really tired of that, getting burned out. And so, what I offered was to start a separate company. So, all my companies are separate entities from one another. We market them all as one, but they’re all separate entities. And so I offered him 34% of the plumbing company, to come on board and be the master. And he gets a salary, but then he also gets 34% of the profits. And I think that is what has really made it easy for us.
Most guys that I hear go out and try to find a master plumber. You know, they offer them anywhere between 75 to $100,000 a year, just to use their license pretty much. And then, where they started getting crossways, is, they build this plumbing company up and the master plumber sitting back saying, wait, you’re making all the money and I’m not. And so, I think the difference is the way we set ours up from the beginning. I think making him a percentage owner in the company gave him enough reason to stay on.
David Heimer: Yeah. It gives him real skin in the game.
Joe Strittmatter: Right.
David Heimer: You’ve got other plumbers in the business now. Right?
Joe Strittmatter: Correct, we have other licensed plumbers, yes.
David Heimer: So out of the 28 employees, roughly how many of them are in plumbing?
Joe Strittmatter: 13 or 14.
David Heimer: Okay. Wow! Yeah, it really has taken off. That’s amazing. Way to go!
Joe Strittmatter: Thank you.
David Heimer: And then roofing, why did you decide to get into roofing? I think that you are the only heating and air conditioning, plumbing company I know that added roofing. So tell me about that.
Joe Strittmatter: Roofing, again, was kind of the same situation that we had an HVAC technician, working for us, who, in a previous life, had been a roofer. And he had also been an insurance adjuster, and he, out of work, received a traumatic injury to his spinal cord. And so, he’s walking and, you know, has full functions of everything now. But he can’t take the heat, and he’s physically never going to be the way he was. And so, I was looking for something for him to do, more than just somebody being a parts runner. We tried at first, have him just answering phone calls from, you know, younger technicians, trying to help them out. He just felt like he was spinning his wheels, Wasn’t really attributing very much to the company. And so, he came to me with the idea of roofing and so I started thinking about it. A lot of the stuff that we do these days is starting to require roofers. So if we install a 96 or 90% furnace at somebody’s house, going from an 80%, well, we have to change out the flue pipe and bring in fresh air. So a lot of times, just to cover our tails, we were hiring an outside roofer to come in and do it properly.
The same thing on plumbing, either my guys were carrying a sewer machine up on the roof, and tearing up a roof somewhere, and we’d have to get a roofer out to fix it. Or they were changing from a regular tank style water heater to a tankless one. And we were having to do something with the flue pipes. So it seemed to be, you know, once, twice or maybe three times a week, we were having to hire a roofer to come out and do these things for us. And so, we started looking at it, and we’re in Texas also. So we get hail storms and wind storms. So it can be more seasonal than air conditioning, but there is a need for it here in Texas. And once I saw how my customer base transitioned over from AC to plumbing, it seemed to be even easier to transition them over to a roofer. And so now, we get one or two calls a week for people wanting us to come out and take a look at their roofs because they think they need to have it replaced.
David Heimer: So, how many people do you have in roofing then?
Joe Strittmatter: Just Johnny, right now we have a part-time guy that comes in and actually crawls up on the roofs and does this, and does that. Everything else in Texas has subcontracted out. So we have a guy who leads, who actually has three crews, so we can bring them in. It’s very rare anymore to find anybody that has crews on staff.
David Heimer: Right. It’s always subcontracted out.
Joe Strittmatter: Correct.
David Heimer: Yeah. That makes sense. Any other expansions into any other verticals in the future?
Joe Strittmatter: We will add on electrical at some point. We are in Escrow, our new shop, we’re buying a, just under 20,000 square foot facility. That’s going to build a house, everything that I probably ever want to do in the future. Once I have room, then yes, we’ll add on electrical. I’ve thought about trying to expand now into more home performance. I believe that’s going to be a huge player, moving forward. Especially, with the new energy codes coming out, and then with utilities continuing to rise. I think it was actually Ron Smith, again, that I heard give a speech about how you tell your prices are going to continue to rise and how rapidly they’re going to rise over the next 5 to 10 years. And so I think, going back in and retrofitting houses with proper performance, is going to outpace even air conditioning.
David Heimer: Interesting, so when are you slated to move into the new facility?
Joe Strittmatter: We take possession of it on the 1st of February, I believe. And from there, we’re going to have construction for about three to four months, to build out our offices the way we want. And we will build training facilities, internally, also for technical training.
David Heimer: I’m Looking forward to a tour at some point in the future then.
Joe Strittermatter: Yea, no worries.
David Heimer: I want to turn our attention a little bit to social media. You have an amazing reputation in social media. Tell me about how you use social media.
Joe Strittmatter: I think social media is the way of the future for any type of marketing. Let me first say that. I think we’ve seen a paradigm shift moving away from TV already, you know, Yellow Pages are long since gone. More people are going to Hulu and Netflix and things of that nature to watch shows that don’t necessarily have commercials built-in. Everybody has a phone in their pocket, everybody has a device near them, pretty much at all times these days. And so, it doesn’t matter where you go, there’s some form of social media out there. So I truly believe, moving forward, we need to expand on social media, and do it rapidly as an industry before the big players start coming in. Have you ever heard of Gary Vaynerchuk?
David Heimer: I have not.
Joe Strittmatter: Or Gary V? If you’re on Facebook, you need to look him up and watch his videos. He will explain to you why he thinks people are just throwing away $8 billion a year, right now, in TV commercials. And if you think about what he’s saying, he’s probably right. Just watch out for his language, because he likes to drop a lot of F bombs. But I think social media is a platform that we’re all going to move to. And I think you have to be creative when it comes to social media. I think, you have to think outside of the box, it’s not the direct mail piece, it’s not the Google pay-per-click campaign, you know, for the lowest price, it’s not a billboard as you’re driving down the road. It is more, just getting your name and branding recognition out there. You should, of course, advertise some sort of call to action, you know, mix that in. But I like to come up with contests. It’s amazing how, just a small contest, you could go buy a set of utensils for your grill and put a contest out there, and you may get 2, 3, 400 people to respond to it, just for something free. You know, it doesn’t have to be a big prize, just a small prize. I’ve seen a lot of results from contests, including local events.
You’re down close to Highland Village, where each year they have a balloon fest or balloon fiesta. And so, you know, you just let people know that’s coming into town. Where I’m at we have a local state fair and rodeo that comes in each year. And so just letting people know things like that are coming up or if there’s some donation drive, or food drive, or anything of that nature. So those are on there too. So make it informative to where people start to read your articles versus just passing over them. And if you could make it a video, versus a stagnant picture, that’s even better. I find myself, as I’m scrolling through Facebook, if it’s just a picture, I just go past it. But if it’s a video, I kind of see what they’re doing. So within the first two to three seconds, you need to grab their attention as they’re scrolling past you, to say, wait, what’s happening? And then go into what it is that you’re trying to sell them or explain to them.
David Heimer: So you’re positioning yourself as a true local and you’re being really informative, more so, than trying to sell a product or a service. Is that right?
Joe Strittmatter: Correct! I mean, you’re wanting to brand yourself as a local good guy. So, you don’t want to be the guy that’s always just trying to take their money from them. You want to brand yourself as the local guy that you can trust.
David Heimer: So when you offer up a contest, give me an example of something that worked really well for you.
Joe Strittmatter: Lately, we’ve been running, every four to six weeks, a $1,500 donation. And so, that has done better than anything else. We’ll get 3, 4, 500 comments, that’s not including the shares. So the reason why I did this, versus, you know, just saying I’m going to donate money to breast cancer, or heart association, or things of that nature, is, there’s lots of people out there that have different causes or beliefs that they’re dealing with today. And they may have somebody battling cancer, they may have somebody battling autism. Different things that I may not think of in my day-to-day living. And so, I said, you know what? Let’s come up with just a contest for donations. In that way, like I found a local organization that I’d never even heard of. And the reason why is because they deal with small children with autism, and the parents don’t want their faces out there, pictures of the kids, or even their faces, to say, hey, my child has autism. They’re trying to protect them.
David Heimer: Sure.
Joe Strittmatter: I would have never found this organization If I hadn’t done this contest and they’re doing wonderful things for these kids. After going to meet the doctor that was helping the children, and meeting some of the children and some of the parents, and getting feedback from some of the parents. Actually, I have an old high school friend who I’m still in contact with today, whose son she takes to the doctor because she has a child that’s autistic and I had never had a clue. And so she responded to me on Facebook, thanking me. So there’s things out there that we don’t know about ,that also, you know, people need help with, they’re battling it silently by themselves. And so I just figured this would be a good thing to want to give back to my community, but to drive home with the public, and we’ve seen a huge response.
David Heimer: So, I’ve heard about a contest where they’ll have three charities. We’re going to give $1,500 to one of these three charities. It is the German Shepherd Rescue Group, American Cancer Society, and the Alzheimer’s Association. Vote for your favorite, and share it with everybody and get them to vote as well. Most votes are going to win. Is that how yours works?
Joe Strittmatter: Ours is, nominate your organization. Whoever gets the most nominations, or likes for their organization, wins the contest. And we’re going to do this for four to six weeks. But here’s the beauty of it, I’m going to do it again in four to six weeks from now, and whoever just won, cannot win for six months.
David Heimer: That’s awesome!
Joe Strittmatter: So now I have people from different organizations. Okay, we didn’t win it this month. You know what? We’re going to get the word out this month and we’re gonna win next coming month.
David Heimer: Right. We came in second place last time, we can do it this month. Yeah. That’s fantastic!
Joe Strittmatter: And so yeah, our audience is building because of that. We didn’t win it this month, but we still have a chance.
David Heimer: That’s fantastic! That is brilliant! So autism is one. Tell me another group that you guys gave money to.
Joe Strittmatter: We’ve given money to, it’s called Friends of the Family, of Denton County. It’s for battered women, who are in a bad situation that literally just had to pick up one day and leave. We’ve given money to the Heart Association, we’ve given money to Susan G Komen. This month, right now there’s actually an {inaudible 19:22} rehab facility that’s in the lead for this month.
David Heimer: Wow! I wanted to ask you about being a contributor to your community. And we sort of slid into that from social media. So I think we’ve covered that, unless there’s something else you want to mention along those lines.
Joe Strittmatter: We’re always, so yes, the $1,500 donation is one thing that we do. I like to do things sometimes even without getting recognition, just because our community has stood behind us and allowed us to get to where we are. And so I think it’s huge for me to help my community back out, knowing or not knowing. And so, like this past Christmas, Denton has a homeless population that has just skyrocketed, don’t know why, but it has. And so, there is an organization, Bridging of Hope is the name of it. And they actually, each Sunday go to a local park, and meet all the homeless, and they’ll have doctors, or people show up to, you know, minor things, to look them over and make sure that they’re in good health. They also bring clothes, or tents, or sleeping bags, or any necessities they may need that they can’t receive. Or they wanted to throw a Christmas party for them. And the Christmas party was, they found a venue that would donate the time for this Christmas party, but it was about 30 miles away. And so they actually reached out to me, because of seeing social media, and asked me if I’d be willing to sponsor their transportation. So I think it cost us $600 to transport 54 people to a Christmas party, and back to Denton, so they could have some sort of Christmas. So we did that.
David Heimer: That’s awesome!
Joe Strittmatter: Again, because of local sponsorships or donations, I had a local middle school nurse reach out to me and she was telling me that she has a food pantry, because she had about 40 students that would take food home on the weekends. Because that was going to be their only source of food for the weekend. And she had run down to like two boxes of cereal and a couple packets of popcorn. Well, I went to Sam’s and loaded up $2,000 worth of food and took it over there. And to see the staff’s face, you would have thought I was handing over a check for a million dollars. And they said, “you know what? This is going to feed these kids for probably the rest of the year.”
David Heimer: That’s awesome!
Joe Strittmatter: So, things like that. And now every single teacher, because they all have their own Facebook pages. Now, every single teacher and the Denton ISD is calling us. Or even simple things like the church I go to, they each week have altar flowers, they put them up on the altar, and once Sunday is done with, they send them over to people who are home-bound. Just to, you know, brighten up their day a little bit. Well, I was at church and they were saying, the last two months of the year, we don’t have anybody that has donated $50 a week. And I said, you know. We haven’t had anybody donate these, we’re not going to be able to do this. And so I just told them, you know what, I’ll pay for the rest of the year. And so I didn’t ask for them to, but you know, next week in the bulletin they put in there that we donated the money, and you know, made sure that it was funded for the rest of the year. Or even local baseball teams, you know, things of that nature. It’s amazing if your name is on the back of somebody’s shirt and their kid plays for them, there’s a loyalty that’s built with that.
David Heimer: Absolutely!
Joe Strittmatter: So just finding different things, and not always the same. Because I think that one thing that happens is, the major corporations always get all the funding. But there’s all these little ones along the way that get overlooked and we may not even know about them. And so that’s one benefit to the contest I’ve been running, I’m starting to find out about all these other organizations that I didn’t even know existed.
David Heimer: Yeah. And they’re hyperlocal, right?
Joe Strittmatter: Correct.
David Heimer: So more advantaged that way as well.
Joe Strittmatter: Sure.
David Heimer: That’s great stuff. So give me three business rules or tell me about your favorite business books.
Joe Strittmatter: Well, my favorite, all time, is going to be Ron Smith’s contracting book.
David Heimer: It is a classic.
Joe Strittmatter: I do like this guy named Matt Michel, The Power of Positive Pricing. I mean, that seems to be okay.
David Heimer: Well just go ahead. As long as we’re at this point mentioned, shameless plug that you can get those at shop.serviceroundtable.com.
Joe Strittmatter: Traction, I started reading it, I put it down a few months ago. I need to pick it back up, but I think that’s going to have a lot of good information. But as far as the three rules of business, I go back again to Ron Smith, and say, I believe it was Ron that said, we have to have three forms of marketing in our campaign to make it work, three layers, if you will. And so I market constantly, one reason is because I have a plumbing division, two is, I still believe in marketing, even in the off time of air conditioning, because then that becomes branding. So when next spring comes along, I want to be the person on their brain. So constant marketing, minimum of three layers. I try four or five, and do those constantly. Knowing your numbers, that should actually be the number one thing, is knowing your numbers because if you don’t have the money to market, then you can’t market. And I don’t mean you have to be hypersensitive to it either. You don’t have to look at it daily or even weekly, but monthly. As long as you know where you are, and know how to price yourself accordingly, then you’ll hit the numbers you need in order to grow your business.
A lot of people ask me how I grew an ac service company so fast in my local area. And now granted, I’m starting from nothing and I have three competitors that have been here for 40 years when we started service. And Denton was still a local community at that point. And I think, me charging what I needed to charge, in order to make sure I was marketing, is what got me the leg up on these guys. Because we’re now bigger than those guys.
David Heimer: You’re not the cheapest guy in the market at all, right?
Joe Strittmatter: No sir, not at all. And so I think knowing where I needed to be, to be profitable, was probably the biggest thing and the first step that I actually took. Because as soon as I joined the Alliance, I met a man named Ben Stark. And I knew, and Ben loves me telling the story. He was one of the real reasons why I joined the Alliance, because three weeks before it was the Alliance meeting in Fort Worth. So you’d have to look back to telling me how long ago that was. But it was a long time ago.
David Heimer: Yeah. I want to say 2012, 2013, maybe.
Joe Strittmatter: Right.
David Heimer: I’m not sure.
Joe Strittmatter: That sounds about right. Well, three weeks before that, we had gone out to a man’s house to give him a quote on a new AC system. Granted, Ben started miles away from me. Well, this man wanted Lennox, because his next door neighbor is an engineer and he had to a T, exactly what line set, I mean, everything that you could imagine, written down. And he wanted us to quote it this way, Ben’s price was $3,000 higher than me and Ben got the job.
David Heimer: That doesn’t surprise me at all.
Joe Strittmatter: And So I said, you know what? I’ve got to meet this Ben guy, and figure out what on earth he’s doing? You know, if he’s sprinkling magic dust when he walks in the door, you know, what exactly is it? And so back then, the lady that was talking to me from Service Nation, mentioned that Stark Air was a member. And I said, “if I join, can I meet this guy?” She said, “oh yeah, come to Fort Worth I’ll introduce you to him.” I showed up at Fort Worth. I go straight to her and I say, “where’s this Ben Starks guy?” And she said, he’s over here. She pulls him out in the hallway and we start talking, the very next week, Ben Starks at my office. I said, you know what? You’ve got to come and start coaching me. And that was the, one of the first things he said out of his mouth is, “what’s your numbers?” And I looked at him like, what do you mean by my numbers? And he sat me down and said, this is what you have to do. And I think knowing my members from the time I started, was what has grown me to where I’m at today. So knowing your numbers, I think should be the number one thing. And then systems and operations.
I want to be McDonald’s. I want my plumbers to act as ac guys, my ac guys to act as my plumbers when they go to somebody’s house. They all carry tech packs because I want to make sure they’re presenting the same thing over and over again. I want our customers to know exactly what level of service they’re going to get, as soon as they call us. And I think that’s the biggest thing, that I have control on, is making sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to do when we’re supposed to do it. So those three things, marketing, knowing your numbers and systems and processes, I think are the three major things in my business.
David Heimer: So I think as I listened to your story, I’d add one other thing. And that is to look for mentors, because Ron’s book was virtually a mentor for you, right?
Joe Strittmatter: Correct.
David Heimer: And Ben was a mentor for you. And my guess is, at this point in time, you’re actually a mentor for other people.
Joe Strittmatter: Yes. And it’s amazing to me, how many people will not take on a mentor. In my local community, like you said earlier, I am probably the highest-priced guy around. And so, I’ll go to the supply house, and friends that I’ve known for 20 years, they’ll be there. And they’re asking me, how am I doing? What am I doing? And how the company is doing so well. And I’ll tell them, you know what, I’ll take you out to lunch and I’ll pay for it. And I’ll just start giving you a little snippet of what it is that we do. And not one single person has taken me up on it. I think there’s, I think when it comes to contractors, there’s a pride level that we have to get over. Because if you talk to Ben, you talk to Cunningham, you talk to Greer, all of these guys who have helped me along the way. They’re going to sit there and listen to you, and actually, listen. They’re not going to think, oh I know better than this, and I know better than that. And so, actually, listening to these people is what again is, has helped me tremendously along the way.
David Heimer: Yup. And the other interesting thing about it is that all those people that you named have been helped by other people. You know, you’re always standing on the shoulders of those people that came before you, if you do it right. And then you’re helping other people who are standing on your shoulders.
Joe Strittmatter: Well, what’s the old quote? If you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
David Heimer: Yeah. I need to change rooms. Exactly right.
Joe Strittmatter: Yeah, and so, like this last year in Vegas, I found myself in a Cigar Bar, with Steve Miles, Ben Stark, Keith Nav, and a couple others. And I just sat back like a fly on the wall and listened to these guys talk. And so you can pick up tremendous things just by being around these guys.
David Heimer: Yeah. It’s gold. I mean, I’ve been around all those guys and they’re all very smart and I’d add you into that list as well. And it is amazing, because there are so many people. If you think about it, you’re talking about the Service World Expo, it’s a great event. And yet there are so many contractors who won’t invest in their own careers by attending something like that. But for those that do it, the opportunity is not only just the seminars that are there, and the vendor partners, and the opportunity to learn that way. But just as you said, the opportunity to network with the smartest people in the industry, you just can’t pay enough for that, that’s priceless. It is an important thing to do.
Well, Joe, thank you so much for doing this. This has been a fabulous conversation. I loved hearing it all. You’ve got a fascinating story, and such great success, and I know you’re going to have even more success in the future. So I’d like to check in with you again at some point in the future. I’d love to have an interview with you and talk about the new building. Just kind of step us through what happened, and how it went, lessons learned, etcetera. Because it’s one of the things that people don’t talk a whole lot about, but it is one of those things that can make a huge difference in your company. And then the other thing is I’d like to hear about, adding electrical and how that went for you as well.
Joe Strittmatter: Yeah, no worries. Just let me know.
David Heimer: Thank you so much. It’s been great.
Joe Strittmatter: Yes sir. Thank you.
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