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Successful Life Podcast
Self-Improvement Podcast for Contractors that want to learn about how to grow their business through management and marketing. Develop business ideas to improve your business experience and be successful. Real stories from real business owners.
Successful Life Podcast
Living with Purpose: Drew Hardin’s Vision for Transformative Leadership and Mental Health in the Trades
What if your job could help you live a more intentional and extraordinary life? In this inspiring episode of the Successful Life Podcast, we have a heartfelt conversation with Drew Hardin, President and CEO of Metro Plumbing, Heating, and Air in Southeast Tennessee. Drew shares his incredible journey and the core mission of his company, which is not just about fixing pipes and HVAC systems but about making a profound difference in people's lives. He recounts the moving story of a young cancer patient whose gratitude towards his team left an indelible mark. This episode paints a vivid picture of how Drew’s leadership and compassion create a transformative environment for both employees and customers.
Mental health is more than just a buzzword; it's a critical component of a thriving workplace. Drew opens up about his company's unique apprentice program, which goes beyond competitive pay to focus on personal growth and self-awareness. Learn how Metro Plumbing, Heating, and Air utilize personality profiles to enhance both recruitment and employee development, fostering an atmosphere where happy employees become the best recruitment tools. The conversation also delves into the concept of intentional living and how the company aims to leave every interviewee better off, regardless of the hiring outcome.
Leadership is often tested in times of adversity and change. Drew shares pivotal moments from his entrepreneurial journey, including the valuable insights gained from using predictive hiring tools like WhoHire.com Discover how these insights led to transformative leadership changes that had a substantial operational impact. Drew's personal stories of ambition, financial struggles, and ultimate resilience offer a treasure trove of lessons for aspiring business leaders. Whether you’re looking for mentorship, community support, or inspiration to overcome your own challenges, this episode provides a wealth of wisdom and practical advice. And if you ever need a direct line to Drew for support or encouragement, he generously shares how you can reach out to him.
https://metropha.com/
https://whohire.com/
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https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
https://bit.ly/4bFz4yc https://www.housecallpro.com/successullife
https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Drew Harden. What's up, brother? How you doing, Corey?
Speaker 2:Man, thank you so much for having me on the show. I was blown away to even get an invite. I can't wait to talk about what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I'm pretty excited. We were chatting a bit before the show and you know, first just tell everybody about who you are and the company, and just a little bit of background.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I currently function as the president and CEO of Metro Plumbing, heating and Air, and we are a I would call it a medium size plumbing, heating and air company here in Southeast Tennessee, in one of my favorite cities in the country, and as someone who's lived all over the country, I feel like I can confidently say Chattanooga's a top 50 awesome places to exist, and I'm not just saying it because I'm partial. I've lived in Los Angeles, san Diego, charleston, and so I lead a team of incredible leaders and employees who their sole focus and mission is to help people live a more extraordinary and intentional life here in the Chattanooga Valley, and we hope that we will be rewarded by our from our efforts to continue to grow and expand into other markets around us.
Speaker 1:Man, that's a breath of fresh air because you know I've been around the industry for I don't know a little over five years now, and you know it's just not every day that you find somebody that you know has the right intentions, that are not trying to, you know, get over on somebody. I don't believe everybody in the industry is that way, but, man, there is quite a few that that you know get over on somebody I don't believe everybody in the industry is that way, but, man, there is quite a few that that you know are out there for the wrong reasons. And so you mentioned earlier kind of your mission. I don't know if it's your mission statement, but you you mentioned I don't remember exactly what it was, but I would like for you to talk about that which kind of dovetails into what you just what you just said talk about that, which kind of dovetails into what you just said.
Speaker 2:Yes, so one thing I would say is, if you're listening to the podcast, I think when I listen to podcasts, at times it's very easy for me to think that there's some level of creative genius in the person that's talking. So I would just like to establish, before I say anything, that I am not a genius. I am just a plumber from Southeast Tennessee, and everything that we have done or created has been a team effort. And I am also a lazy learner in that I just read books and just implement because I don't know any better. So we call it our core focus. It's coming from the book Traction. We have the Vision Traction Organizer. That was kind of the first tool that I used a few years back to try to orient the company around something, because I had no clue what I was doing. I was making mistakes all over the place, and so Traction was the first book to pick it up. So we did that as a small leadership team of four and we decided that you know that we were going to help people live more intentional and extraordinary lives, and what we mean when we say that is really on the nose intentional in every way. We have plumbers who have been sober as a result of being here. We have people who have lost weight and become healthier as a result. So I view my job and our leadership's job as we have to help our staff live more intentional and extraordinary lives with the way we pay, with our benefits, and not just the stuff that you've heard in the industry from places like Nexstar and SG. I'm talking about really getting into the mess. That is human nature, humanity, we're messy, and so we thrive off of difficult conversations and confronting the realities courageously that people are having to overcome, and so we mean that when we say that. So our job is to help our staff live that way, in hopes that when they're in the customer's home servicing the plumbing, heating and airway, the plumbing, heating and air systems, that they get to have an impact on that customer inside of the home. It is my favorite celebration when we've gotten to give a customer a book recommendation or a podcast to listen to. We're just there to service your HVAC, but I believe that words matter and you have an unreasonable, an absolute, stupendous opportunity when you're in someone's home, to make a massive impact in their lives.
Speaker 2:I told this story on a podcast I was on a few months ago. You know we had a cancer patient. He was young, like 41, 42 years old. He was in a hospital bed in the living room when we approached the home and at the end of the job we ended up replacing his HVAC. And at the end of the job he shook the hand of the sales guy and he said I want to say thank you, thank you for helping me die well, to know that that's the impact you have as a tradesman man, that fires me up, that's a why worth chasing after. That's a reason to get up early to eat well, to fuel your body. And listen, I'm a fat bastard, like a lot of plumbers, but, man, we owe it to the, the community, our families and the people who are around. They deserve us to be on this pursuit and so that's what.
Speaker 1:that's what drives us, that's what drives our team, it's what drives our plumbers damn, drew, I don't think think anybody's made me tear up on a podcast before. That was man. I didn't expect that. That is, you know, you're right. I mean that's unbelievable, that's really unbelievable. I can't imagine what that feels like I, I, I can't imagine what that feels like, um, to know that you've, you know, you, you help someone, not just with their, you know, not just to be cooler. I mean that is great, obviously, so it's hot outside, but to allow somebody to have their last days in peace, that's pretty wild.
Speaker 1:We just, um, my mom just passed, and so I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you know it, she was struggling mentally and so, um, I could understand, could understand where she was at. I'm, you know, I I've been sober now since March 26th of of 2023 and hadn't had a drink in almost 15 years, and the mental trap that I felt is kind of what I saw with her. Now, she wasn't an alcoholic and she wasn't a drug addict, but if you know anybody that's ever been in that spot, it's like you're trapped inside of your own world and it's hard to get out. Yeah, and that's kind of what I saw with her, and so we had to make the decision to move to the next step, and so it wasn't really necessarily planned, but it was something that needed to happen. So you've had some guys on your team get sober. What's that been like?
Speaker 2:Man, it's incredible. So a couple of times a year we do an all staff where we ask our. So we do an all staff once a month, and a couple of times a year we like to do kind of a celebratory one, but to keep it from always being about revenue and money and how we're converting. And you know we keep track of those KPIs right. The KPIs are a scorecard, if you will, a reflection of how much impact we're generating. However, it's not the end all be all. You move people to get results. You don't get results by, you know, just focusing on the results, and so we focus a lot on the people. So we celebrate, we bring people up like hey, who has been impacted by their job here at Metro in a positive way and would want to get on stage, and let me ask some questions about that. So the last one was a few months ago and two of the four on stage had a story of sobriety, and then the other two were able to buy their first homes or make major life changes as a result of being employed here, getting on some sort of budget saving, hitting metrics and goals and knocking down tasks. You know that ultimately helped them. You know our mission and vision coincided, what they were wanting for their life, and we got to accelerate that out. And so I mean, I don't know if it feels like a I don't attend church and I wouldn't call myself overly religious but it felt like a church service. You know, man, people are crying, people are excited, we're celebrating, we're clapping, uh, people are high fiving. I mean, you know, we, we can, we are only as good as our weakest team member, and so it's in everyone's best interest to make sure that the person beside you has everything that they need to succeed and that we're actively pursuing obstacles in front of us together as a team, and so just reinforces the capacity of, of our leaders and our frontline plumbers and and call center reps that, like they're doing the real impact. We're just the people who are are blessed with the opportunity to try to help guide that. And so, yeah, it's exhilarating. I mean, I don't know that you could, you could replicate the ones we've had in any other fashion. It's hard to describe because it's so different. It almost feels like a sporting event clashes with a church service, with this huge celebration, because people are remarkably gifted.
Speaker 2:I think we sell ourselves short when we look at humanity and we're like, well, the top 1% is the top 1%. I truly only believe the difference between the 99 and the top 1% is the ability to look inside yourself and make modifications over time and remain disciplined and focused on those changes and those modifications. There's nothing special. There are true geniuses in the world, but there are very few. And so I think to the world, but they're very few. And so I think to the degree where we can attack our excuses. So the thing, the other benefit is you get a whole staff who sees other people succeed at things. And so those excuses of I'll never be sober, I'll never be able to buy a house, you know, we take the power out of those excuses. You can have success or you can have excuses. You can't have both. And so we're going to choose to have a focused and intentional pathway to success for the people who are on board, and I think those meetings become just a physical representation and an excitement of that journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's tremendous. You know there's a big, you know, addiction. Whether it be drugs, alcohol, even food, doesn't really matter, but drugs and alcohol is a big thing in our industry. It's a big deal. I'm just getting ready to come out with my third book and it's my story about sobriety and I'm hoping that it has an impact on our industry. I hope, um. You know, if it helps one person, it'll be worth it. So do you guys focus on um, do you? So you do focus on health as far as much as sobriety and eating right and working out and yeah, I would say.
Speaker 2:I would say we're we're getting more and more into the physical fitness. I'm real mindful as a leader. Uh, if it's something that I'm not actively pursuing, I am not going to force it upon our staff. Uh. However, uh, our operations manager is a is a ex-mil uh former, uh, los Angeles police department league director. I'm a really like well put together person and he's got the discipline equals freedom flag over his desk, and so I would say that where we're, where we probably spend the most time training and pushing our team, is in communication.
Speaker 2:So, like we've read through books and personal discipline we start with inside the work stuff because it's really, really easy. Obviously we're paying people, so we do get to set the standard that you have to live by, at least while you're on the clock and in a metro vehicle uniform, all that sort of thing. So we usually start there. It's usually you know, hey, you know what do you feel like your biggest weakness is? What do you want to work on? You know, those first three or four weeks of a one-on-one for a plumber coming in or an apprentice coming in, it's just going to be like, hey, where do you see your own weakness? What do you want to develop and what resources or obstacles can I remove or give to you so that we can develop that pursuit together? And then we train our managers, our leaders, to be having those conversations that are one-on-one.
Speaker 2:So we require we are the most maniacal, or becoming the most maniacal, about the statistic of how many one-on-ones did you actually do and what was the quality. So you have to score the quality of the one-on-one because at the end of the day, we know that a shitty one-on-one is about as worthless as no one-on-one. So do them well, be ready to engage, be ready to listen. You know, listen two thirds more than you're talking, and so I think that it becomes all encompassing. The longer people are here, but as a staff, I would say we focus on mental health the most. In fact, a part of our benefits to our company is mental health is completely free inside of our insurance program. So, like we, that was major to us. Like you know, you may, you may spend a little bit more money on a broken toe inside of our insurance policy, but you're going to pay nothing to be healthy mentally, and so we're really passionate about that.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's amazing. I mean, that's really amazing. I didn't really anticipate you saying that and it's so important. I think it's so overlooked for a lot of people, because it's scary to tell somebody your boss, a co-worker. It's sometimes scary to tell anybody what you're struggling with, whether it's mental health, whether it's alcohol, whether it's food, whatever it is. So you mentioned your apprentice program and we talked a little bit about this before. You've been able to kind of grow your apprentice pool via your connection with who, with, with who hire. Can you talk about that just a minute?
Speaker 2:Yes. So with who hire, I think because we act, we give people the information about themselves that we're testing, and we also have a color code. We're helping educate people, and so your best recruiting tools are the people in your company. If you have happy employees, you will have more happy employees in the future, and so we focus a lot on on that. Now listen, we get a lot of things wrong. So at some point in this podcast, I'd love to give you a list of all the areas where we have to improve in short order and not just celebrate the highlights right, highlight, real and no bad. We fuck up with the best of them, my friend, and so we have in our apprentice program, because we give them that information I think people are gravitating towards. Like man, I get to learn a little bit about myself, like all this kind of cool, and so our apprenticeship director takes an approach in an interview where, if we do this interview right, you should learn more about you than we learn about you, because my goal is to convince you why you're not a good fit, and your job is to convince me why there's no better fit, and so we can only do that if we know a lot about each other. So we kind of set up our interviews that way, and so I think the word's gotten out also about the fact that we pay. Okay. So what college pays you $844 a week to learn something that will pay you six figures within the first year or two of your career? I mean, where where's that deal in the marketplace? So, listen, we don't even market our apprenticeship program. Well, we don't go in high schools. Yet I'm trying to get in front of high school students to be able to speak, to try to motivate, you know, across the state of Tennessee. But, like all of these avenues, we don't even do a good job. We do a very poor job. So everything that we have applicants is all coming from conversations internal. In fact, one of my favorite apprenticeship hires was a customer. They spent $26,000 on a heating and air unit repiping their house and were so blown away with the technicians who came out. They drove down to pay personally in my office, which never happens I very rarely see customers these days and they sat in my office and they were like listen, I'm giving you a large check and I would just like the opportunity for an interview. Whatever you're doing there, I want to be a part of. Wow, you know, like holy shit, batman.
Speaker 2:This is a different level, you know of intentionality from our technicians, of showing people what it's like to live an extraordinary life, and extraordinary doesn't mean easy. In fact, I would say that if you make the bold claims, live an intentional extraordinary, it's probably a great chance of you thinking. A lot of hard things you're going to have to overcome and a lot of dark nights and a lot of times sit processing and challenging and being courageous. Extraordinary is not easy, intentional is not easy, and so I think our program is set up to kind of bring people in that way, and WhoHire just added the layer that we were kind of missing to help have a better profile and to be able to tell people. You know, hey, man, look, you know, based on what AI is kind of telling us, it looks like your self-confidence may be a little short for this role. So here's some books, here's some recommendations of how to build that. So maybe the next time you apply it tests out a little different, or this grows over time.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like by having some of that information, some of that detailed information, you're really going above and beyond to help people to grow we, we have the potential.
Speaker 2:So, so we say this all the time you have the potential to impact every single human being you come with, in contact with on a daily basis. If you, you know I tell this at all staffs, if you're not smiling in a Metro shirt we have a fucking problem, because we can be a beacon for what you can live Like, why you can choose happiness Like. I don't believe it's a destination, I believe it's a choice. When you wake up. I believe you have to choose it. I believe it's. You know your family's worth it, your community's worth it, your, your, your guy in H and R block. He's worth you being a good human being.
Speaker 2:So be it, do it. Don't sit idle like do what you got to do to get yourself into the position and so, yeah, we absolutely our job. We see it when we're interviewing to someone leave better off as a result of interviewing for the position, even if they don't get it. Do we get it right all the time? No, have we pissed people off? Hell yeah. Have we had people who are like I don't care what your test says? Hey man, I get it dude. So prove it. Let's do it. Let's go If you feel like you're invigorated and and you think you can overcome some of these things, then let's fucking go. Let's give you a shot, because at the end of the day, the worst thing I'm going to do is waste a little bit of money and waste some of your time. But at the end of the day, if we have the opportunity to make impact, we're going to take it every time.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. So there's one more question I have for you. So you had a manager. Oh yeah, I want you to just tell the story, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we had a manager who we were man, much like a lot of leaders, someone comes into an organization this was prior to Glyre early last year and he made some monster impact fast. He was a Coast Guard veteran, was a part of boarding teams who confiscated, and I mean just a badass dude who come in, put together well, very articulate, very measured discipline. And so you know, like every business owner, you're like this is our savior, he's going to fix the HVAC department. They're going to be, you know, setting record months. This is going to be insane. And he did.
Speaker 2:And for months and months and about six, seven months it was nothing but one went after the other. And you know, the other thing is history would tell me that it ain't all great. What do you call it? Biscuit wheels on the gravy train, like you're going to hit resistance at some point. And he just so happened that some of his first resistance came right before we took on WhoHire. And so he has him take the WhoHire test. And my ops manager and I are the only ones who can see everybody across the entire staff. Everyone else just sees their team or people they're hiring. And so we wanted to sit with each of the managers and talk with them about what there's kind of stated and you know, for some of us, especially for our sales manager, you can imagine a sales manager. He's like I have to have the most potential in the entire company. I'm the sales manager, I am the king, I'm the sales guy, sales manager and so he was disappointed that he had one of the lower potential scores, you know.
Speaker 2:But one of the upsides is it's actually driven him since he's taken the test, and so this one manager had no resistance and he meets it and we see him falter and it started to question some things and we start to see kind of an about face, if you will. Well, we get the WhoHire test results back and I just so happened to be going to a Jocko Willink conference with him about extreme ownership, and so we're looking on the plane we got a five hour flight from Atlanta to San Diego and he's very serious Like you would never know what he's really thinking my life is perfect at. And he's a very serious like you would never know what he's really thinking my life is perfect at home, perfect here. I'm a tough bastard. Nothing affects me is kind of how he presented himself, and so he had asked on the plane he said, hey, I haven't got my who higher results. Would this be an appropriate time to go through them? I'm like shit. Yeah, man, we have a lot of time to talk and I had not reviewed his scores and so I send his scores over and while I'm looking at them, to send him over. I realized that it says he has a 99 out of 100 intention to quit.
Speaker 2:And Brett, when we first got on WhoHire, was like dude, if you got anybody like this, you got to like do something now. You know, like address it, get out in front of it or you will lose this person. And so he reads it. He starts blushing, sitting there in his plane seat, and I just lean over to him. I'm like that's kind of crazy, huh. And he was like man, I don't, you know, he sits back, he crosses it. Man like dude like this is why computers are dangerous and you know this stuff. And I'm like well, hey, man, you were. Just one of our values is real talk. You know, we dare to be transparent and honest with each other, one conversation at a time. I said can we have some real talk? Don't both smoke up my ass, right? You can't. You can't be what your answers say. That's, that's your answers. That would make me think you're crazy, right? So let's start with the premise that you answered these questions away and this is what the results came out to. What do you think could be leading to this? And it opens up a whale of stuff.
Speaker 2:And so we start addressing some of it, but some of it is, you know, he comes out and he's like I don't see value in what we do, I don't think we can actually change people's lives, and I'm just sitting there, you know, fat flabbergasted. I'm also pissed off because I uh have spent four grand to get this guy out to training, you know, in in San Diego, and he's like I don't think we help people with their lives and I'm like, but, um, you're, you're sitting in first class on the way to a training. What do you mean? We don't what? Anyways, so I was taken aback, man, I was like blown away and I shit you not.
Speaker 2:31 days later, he put in a four-week resignation and he was gone and haven't heard from him since. In fact, he was a workout partner of one of our other managers. Hasn't called him back Gone, don't know what, back gone. Don't know what happened, don't know, you know what all was done. Now I will say, to his credit, he left well, like, as well as you can, you know, he was very disciplined and handed things off well.
Speaker 2:But, and so I called brett and I was like holy shit, brett. Uh, this is freaky, this is weird, man, I don't know how the hell did your little voodoo magic you know sink into the thing. So then we immediately pull all the managers and we're like, hey, if you have an intention to quit the tie or this and this, uh, no shit guys, this shit like this is. This is working, bro, this is like this is the law, you know. And so we we have used it to to to change all sort of things and to be much more mindful in our coaching, who we're coaching and kind of how we go about everything.
Speaker 1:I know it would be probably money. Just having that information is either saved you or is going to save you, cause that's really powerful shit. I can.
Speaker 2:I can tell you what it validated. So you're right, that question would be difficult. However, I will attempt to answer a small portion of it, which is in the history of our company. We were plumbing first. I'm a plumber by trade. I know absolutely nothing about HVAC until I hired the first HVAC technician and go get the license and you're like I don't know if we should do this, but we're going to give it hell, you know.
Speaker 2:And so we hire him as a manager, thinking like he's going to turn the profitability of the department around. He's led a Chick-fil-A store that was doing 10 million 10 million in chicken fucking nuggets. That's insane. That's a lot of chicken man, 3,500 orders a day and he's doing it with all teenagers. So when you're recruiting somebody like that, you're like this guy, he knows his shit, he's going to come in, help fix profitability. He's going to come in, help fix profitability. He's a commensurate leader. You know all these sort of things and it didn't materialize in the numbers. And so once we got the who hire results, we start kind of, you know, like okay, you know, maybe this is what we're hitting up against Within 30 days of him being gone, the leader we promoted someone out of you know, promoted someone up into the role. We promoted someone up into the role Within 30 days.
Speaker 2:We set a record gross profit margin in the department and have not dipped below that record since, and it came during the off season. It did not come once summer hit, it came prior to summer For the first time in the history of us being in HVAC, eight years later it took us eight years to get to a 48% margin in HVAC service and the new manager did it in less than 30 days In shoulder season. In shoulder season, and let me tell you, to beat the man, he's got one of the highest who hires on our staff, one of the highest potentials of anyone, and we use who hires as an educational tool to help us make that decision. That's crazy, dude. Yeah. And also I'm saying so like you're saying revenue.
Speaker 2:I don't know I can put you know the difference between 20% and 48% of 350,000,. You know, whatever that math comes out to. I'm missing my calculator off my desk, uh, looking like a fool here. But uh, yeah, 28% of whatever. I think that month's budget was probably like 240 or something like that in shoulder season. So 28% of I mean that's some impact, man, somebody's getting some new uniforms, we're getting some new vans. You know we're making sure this, this team's equipped. We've got money to to put into the apprenticeship program. We don't get. We can. We can look the part now in our apprenticeship program and not look like a toothpick.
Speaker 2:I had an owner one time in regards to our apprenticeship. He said you can't do a apprenticeship for anything less than $1 million and I was like bullshit. We did it with like five grand and some toothpicks, brother, and it was a horse shit. And then what we did is we just painted the horse shit to look a little less like horse shit. And then we just keep improving, keep improving, keep improvement. You know action will solve all thinking. Stop fucking thinking and just get to doing. You learn more by doing than you do thinking anyways. And I'm not saying you should never self-reflect, but man, go do it, go act. And so that's what we did. And that manager turned things around in short order and has excelled since. And I would have not I probably wouldn't have taken the chance on that manager if I would have not had some of the data that who I approach, you know the numbers.
Speaker 1:That's wild dude, so let's take a quick turn here. So I want you to tell me about we've all had tough times in business. Yeah, really tough times. So or maybe in life, but if you want to keep it to business, you can. Or maybe in life, but but if you want to keep it to business, you can what you know. Tell me about one of the times where you know you just weren't really sure you were even going to make it.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I'm trying to think of a way to shorten it, because it's a it's. You know the the, the full version may may end up in a book someday. I also selfishly want to be able to send this out to my staff the podcast, so so that there's a verbal record. I've not had the chance to tell everyone this story, so I'll do my best. If I start running long, just wink at me, tell me shut the fuck up. But I'm a second generation pl. Him. A lot of pressure, a lot of learn this, learn that.
Speaker 2:You know I worked a full-time job as a service tech while going through college, parked my van on campus, like you know, we're just getting after it. I've always been a hundred percent fast, 60%, right. I was probably used to be a hundred percent fast, like 10% right, and we're trying to get that percentage up. But I, like a typical arrogant asshole 24, 25 year old, I thought I knew everything about plumbing. I felt like I had taught. I was teaching my dad at that point. You know what the hell does? He know he's old, you know he didn't want service tight, and he didn't want upfront pricing. He didn't want all these things. And so my first bold move in arrogance was he goes on vacation for two weeks with my mom. They had a trailer that they took around the country and they go off for two weeks and when they come back, I had completely gotten us off of a paper schedule and like Excel sheets and into service Titan. So that was the first big 2014. That was the big move, and he was pissed. He told me he wouldn't pay for it if it didn't work. I put it on my personal credit card to try to keep it from upsetting, and I was just going after it. Man and obviously can look back and be like man. There's like a thousand ways that that could have been handled wildly better. So what that started was a rift between my father and I that continued to develop, continued to develop and it finally cost my mental health and his, and so I sold my house.
Speaker 2:I was married at the time, or still married, to the same person, but we had been married for a few years and my wife and I had been diligent in savings, and so we had about a hundred thousand dollars, and so we were like all right, denver or San Diego have no one in either one of these cities. We're going to go start a plumbing company. I'm going to do my own thing. You know a hundred grand is not enough, but who gives a shit? I'm me and we're going to go do this.
Speaker 2:And so that hubris led us across to San Diego, california, one of the most difficult states in the 50 here that we have to operate a business in. All my California folks will agree. There's rules for everything. There's rules they make up in the middle of the year that you have to abide by or receive a fine. They try to tax you after you move out of the state. It's a crazy place, but San Diego is America's best city hands down. If you've not been there and you're listening to this podcast, get your ass out there now, because it is beautiful, the people are beautiful, it is like this mix of the military and the beach and like just this incredible place.
Speaker 2:So we landed on San Diego and I take my a hundred thousand out there and I was trying to be smart. So I decided I'm going to do a franchise because I want to be able to sell this thing and you always hear franchise itself for these multiples and all this. So I partnered with a newer franchise at the time that was made up of a couple of the ex Mr Reuter CEOs and presidents. It was called Blue Frog. They'd been in business for a couple of years and so I used some of my hard earned hundred thousand to put down on franchise fees. And so I get out there and within three months uh, I was franchise store of the month. I had put my third plumber on the road.
Speaker 2:The third month I was in business I hit broke. Even the fourth month and I mean you can imagine the uh, arrogance did not get any better. The arrogance did not get any better. I mean I was ready to put a golden statue of Drew Harden on the front door of our office doing like this, just letting everybody know who the man was. And so I carry that into November.
Speaker 2:We're moving into holiday season and Google gotta love them, man. They send me an email and they say hey, yeah, good news for you. Your city is becoming a beta test market for Google local service advertising. Unfortunately, you don't qualify. You've been in business too short of amount of time, so we'll get you on the flippity flop. This could cause some interruption in pay-per-click advertising. It may get harder to make leads, but no sweat, we got your back. We got you. Within two weeks it went from $43 to acquire the phone to ring one time to $170.
Speaker 2:And you can imagine once I started so I bought three vans, rented an office, did everything the franchise asked of me and by the end of it, you can imagine I'm day one opening a business in San Diego, california. I have 10 grand in the bank Not enough money. I have no line of credit. I have no access to additional funding. I have $10,000 and I have now grand in the bank not enough money. I have no line of credit, I have no access to additional funding. I have $10,000 and I have now two employees, day one, a dispatcher, and this clearly didn't know what I was doing with my money. I should have done a home office. I can think of all three of the things now, but I was just. You know, I was like uh, uh, one of the phrases I like to use all that onelegged cat trying to cover up a turd on the icy lake. Buddy, we're just getting out.
Speaker 2:And so they changed and within about 30 days I owed American Express $53,000. I had $22,000. That was my business card. I had about $22,000 on a personal card and I had about two grand in the bank, asked family members, different people, for loans, trying to just scratch and will and deal, and basically got to a position by the end of February. I had to make a choice. It was borrow money and try to keep it open somehow from a bank, or borrow the money and try to keep out of bankruptcy, but didn't really see a way through, and so we decided I was going to borrow. It was a miracle. I got a signature loan from a new company that now owns a massive stadium in LA. It was called Sophie Financing. They were doing signature loans up to 100 grand, no questions asked. Basically, it was just like one of those things you happen across the line. So they approved me for $85,000. I had no fucking clue how, but they did, and so I had $85,000 dumped into my bank account and had a choice, and I made the choice to ultimately get out of the franchise, sell all of my assets, pay off all of my vendors and try to do the honorable thing. Well, it turns out the honorable thing is not the easiest thing, and so it cost my wife and I. You know we paid back about $150,000 over the course of seven years of credit cards vendors.
Speaker 2:And there was one point and I'll share this in the story and I would say this is what I don't want to call this my darker moment, because my darkest moment, because I'll share this in the story and I would say this is what I don't want to call this my darker moment, because my darkest moment, because I feel like a bit this was the first dark moment I'll say I had, and that was I'm a musician, grew up a drummer, playing drums all over the place, and my dad bought me a very special drum kit when I turned 13. He's like you're 13. I want you to have a professional kit. We'll pick it out, go down. It's a very vivid memory.
Speaker 2:And so I'm sitting there and I'm having to decide between selling that drum kit and paying rent or being homeless, just getting evicted and living out of my service van, you know, with my wife, and you can, of course, know what her decision was. But I mean, I seriously considered just living in a van to keep this precious, you know, this precious item. Um, and so I ended up selling it, paid rent. At the time I had three jobs. My wife was a nurse, working all the overtime she could to try to make ends meet, and we did that grind for seven years. Um, now, inside of, things changed. We moved, ended up moving up to LA, then across the city to Charleston, and then the next big event happened, and I would say this event shaped the vision for my future more than anything that's ever happened to me in my life, and I would say this would be one of my darkest moments.
Speaker 2:And I dropped my father and mother off at the airport. They fly from Charleston back to Chattanooga, and I get a phone call from my sister the next morning. She says Mom's no longer with us. She's 54 years old. No underlying health conditions. The actual cause of death was accidental, it was a toxic combination of benzodiazepine and a couple of those things, and so she went into cardiac arrest and never woke up.
Speaker 2:And so you know, losing, losing your mother to something she struggled with her entire life, is tough, and you know I watched my dad handle it as best as he could.
Speaker 2:And you fast forward a few weeks.
Speaker 2:My sister calls me and she's like I need you to come home. Her husband at the time were abusing her and my niece, and so I did what I felt like I needed to do, which was get my ass back home and be a part of the family in a meaningful way. And so they brought me back, graciously, and put me in charge, and now my investment back into our family is to make sure that the future is bright and solid and to make sure that we don't have to weather those types of storms. And so I would say, those two moments you know losing everything, all the way to losing my mom it, you know it's, affected me in a way that you know people go through this and you decide whether it affects you in a positive or negative way, and I've been so, so lucky to have mentors in my life who have made sure that I had the support and the strength to push through moments like that and to let them be a defining moment in a positive way and not be a detractor from or a setback.
Speaker 1:Damn, that's wild. I didn't anticipate that either, um, but that I think that I. I think my takeaway from that is that, you know it, that moment didn't define you as a person, um, but you used it for good and kind of. Back to our beginning of the show and we talked about, you know, it's a choice to be happy or it's a choice to be unhappy, and really it's just a choice, and the only person that really can make that choice is you or me, and that's it. You know, and you had a choice to make there. You could have wallowed in all of that and just duck, you know, put your head under the covers and and avoided things and drowned them out with God knows what, but you decided not to do that, which is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was not on my own volition. So it's important to to say, you know, I had my sister, me and her business partners. We make a great team. You know I've had mentors, great friends, incredible coaches at Nexstar who helped me. You know, through that that, all the way down to being encouraged by notes and things that are our employees I mean I was new at Metro. No one knew me. You know I'm just the son of the owner. I mean, like the worst of the worst. You know we're about to live Tommy boy, all over this, this assholes coming back to ruin our lives and take all the money. And so, you know, I felt like you know I would, at least to all the people who accepted me and who made my job, what they made it, to invest back and to make sure.
Speaker 2:You know, my sister and I often say you know you don't get to choose who your parents are, and we were fortunate enough to have a dad who was a hard worker. You know like he worked hard. He drove a service van into the night, night after night after night after night. He ran on call for the first five years of the business so his techs didn't have to. He's a badass when it comes to the trades. That's just a fortunate thing for me, man. I didn't decide that. I didn't have a choice in the matter. I could have just very well not to be graphic. I could have ended up in a tube sock somewhere, right, and I didn't. And so my life, my sister's life, is dedicated towards extending that opportunity to other people, because there's less fortunate people who didn't have that dad. They didn't have the parents who pushed them to pursue excellence and to work hard, and so it's our fiduciary duty to the, to the world, to make that happen for other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is the right thing to do too, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That Sam drew this, has that, um, sam Drew, this has been such a such a good conversation. Um, I really appreciate you sharing those things Not easy to share those things. I really really grateful that you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I appreciate you asking me and, uh, giving me the opportunity to talk about it. It's, it's always interesting. Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll. I'm sure when I listen back we'll be interested in how it comes out, because obviously every moment is a little different. I don't spend a ton of time telling that story because at the end of the day, I'm more curious about where everyone else is at and what their story holds. So, yeah, it feels good to get to share. It's been a while since I've kind of told the whole thing. So, yeah, it makes me feel very proud of what we've been able to put together as a team and, selfishly, I'm thankful that I had the grit to get through it and just hope and pray that I continue to choose that passion and grit every day when I wake up, so that we can continue to take on the scary and challenging obstacles that always face us.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, hats off to you, dude. This is yeah, dude. That was really really powerful. Drew, if somebody wanted maybe somebody that's listening to this could be going through something similar Would you be willing to share how they could reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can find me on. Well, I would just give my email out. It would be Drew D-R-E-W at Metro M-E-T-R-O-P-H-A, which stands for plumbingheatingandaircom, is the best way. I am on social media, but I'm the worst about messaging. I hate people feeling like dang man, he's not going to respond. I do care, I do want to respond and so I would say my email, that inbox is a great way to get a hold of me. I will say if salespeople listen to this and you solicit me off my email, good luck. However, if you're out there listening and I can be of a benefit or an impact or even just an encourager of how awesome you and what you're trying to do is, man, I would be forever grateful for that opportunity, drew. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you Absolutely, man. I appreciate you as well.
