Episode 3: Fostering Success Through Caring For Your Employees Well W/ Blake Dozier & Cory Jessee

My guests on today’s podcast are Blake Dozier and Cory Jessee. They are business partners and the owners of OnPoint Building Services, one of the largest janitorial services companies in coastal Virginia. What’s unique about Blake and Cory is their commitment to creating a “white-collar experience, in a blue-collar industry.” In this episode we talk in length about their focus on fostering the growth and development of the people that work for them at all levels of the business from the management team to the actual cleaners themselves. And how they desire to create an experience and pathway for all employees to grow and have an experience with their work that is beyond just getting paid but ultimately benefits their quality of life as a whole through their work. We talk about how this belief in caring for everyone on the inside of the business is the true secret sauce to success and growth on the outside. It is also what ultimately led them to be voted the best place to work in 2021, an award rarely given to blue-collar companies. And be sure to listen in as they talk about their relationship both inside and outside of work, what their partnership has looked like, and the keys to creating a partnership that is successful long term. So with that introduction, I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the self-employment success podcast with Blake Dozier and Cory Jessee.

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TRANSCRIPT

leland_gross (00:01.551)

All right, welcome Blake Dozier and Corey Jesse to the Self-Employment Success Podcast. Excited to have you guys here today. Thanks for having us. I'm excited for today's conversation because you guys bring a lot to the topic of self-employment in a lot of regards. First being that you guys are a partnership and clearly you're so in sync that you're talking the exact same way into the microphone. So I'm excited to hear more about what that's looked like. And your business is one that not many people would.

jump and say that's my first choice of business to run, which is a janitorial business. But you guys clearly have seen a ton of success there and I'm excited to talk more about what that's looked like over time. But to get started, tell me a little bit about yourselves, your families, and then where on point your business is today. Yeah, so I'll go first. Blake Dozier, I grew up here in Virginia Beach, married to Caroline. We have four awesome kids.

Twins that are nine, a little girl that's six, and a little boy that's almost five. I lived here my whole life except for college. I spent four years at Hamden City College, about 60 miles southwest of Richmond, and one year doing a leadership internship in D.C. But I moved back here because I love it, and it's my favorite place. So that's why I live here. My whole family is here as well.

Yeah, I'm Corey, as you said, and I grew up in Warm Springs, Virginia, so Bath County on the other side of the state. And I went to William & Mary to play football. Met my wife there. We got married right after college. We have two girls, six, Ryan who's six, and Carter is three, almost four. Live in Virginia Beach and love it. And I've been here for over 10 years now. That's awesome. So, well, in the midst of having...

four and two young kids, that is almost a small business in and of itself when it comes to time and energy. But tell us a little bit about On Point, what you guys do, and what it looks like today. Yeah, so Cory and I, well, I'll let him talk about it, but he came from a business background. I had owned multiple businesses right out of college and grew them and sold them. And I wanted to get into business as well. And I had friends.

leland_gross (02:24.619)

in the janitorial industry in other states. And so I had a commercial real estate background. I worked for CBRE doing leasing warehouses and office space, things like that. And I wanted to parlay that, get onto the ownership side and some sort of a small business operating company. And I really like blue collar businesses. I call them sweaty startups. That's an awesome name. Yeah, I like them for a number of reasons.

Mostly because a lot of people think they're too good for them or don't want to do them. And I think it's a great place to care for people and care for customers in a really unique way that is in a space where a lot of people just don't have a lot of training or experience with relationships and caring for people and customers. Yeah, to kind of build on that, I mean, as Blake said, I started in business pretty much right out of college.

My dad was an entrepreneur and had a business partner, Blake's dad as well, but he's always worked for himself and had a business partner also. And at one point along the way, I was doing small business or like lower middle market mergers and acquisitions, helping people buy and sell different businesses. And a janitorial company came across the desk and thought it was something that needed another look.

ended up connecting with Blake and another partner at the time. And, and we pulled the trigger and ended up, you know, doing janitorial. And, and it's, it's a totally different business today than it was then. Um, but it was a platform and we started and, and just hustled or, or got sweaty to use Blake's terms and, uh, and went after it. That's right. And so how many buildings do you clean? How many employees do you have?

What would you say is like the size and scale of your business right now? Yeah, buildings is probably a hard one to quantify in a conceptual way because they're all different sizes and different make-ups. But we're- 160, 170. Yeah. Okay. The employee count's probably easier. We're probably around the 340 mark right now. Oh man, that's a big deal. That's a lot of people to manage. It's a lot of folks, yeah. Okay, so you've got this successful business now.

leland_gross (04:47.743)

you're serving hundreds of properties with hundreds of people. But back then kind of had a heart for business. Both of you had a heart for sweaty startups, Blake and Corey. This janitorial business comes across your desk. Had you guys talked about the janitorial? Cause Blake, you said you had relationships who also did janitorial in other states. And then Corey sees one come across his desk. Was that the connection or was it totally random? Corey, you see this business.

You bring it to Blake. Blake says, I know someone else who does this. It was actually pretty providential, I'd say. He had no idea that I was looking for a janitorial company to buy. Oh, wow. I literally, the summer before that, I'd been talking with a close friend about doing a small janitorial company together, like starting one for years. And finally, we were like, we've been putting this thing off and you know.

kicking the can down the road, like, let's just do this. So that summer I made an LLC, I got made a brand and a logo and a website, and I just parked it all and didn't launch it and waited to find a company to buy. And over the course of the fall, I kept like dreaming about what this thing could look like and working on figuring out how, looking for a business to buy. And I knew Cory from church and he literally brought it to us and I was like, hey, would you ever consider?

specifically our other friend had another sweaty startup type business. He said, would you ever consider adding this to the business that you have? And he's like, this is crazy. I'm actually looking for that exact type of business. Wow. So yeah, it's pretty wild. So that's how the three of us ended up doing together. Okay, that makes more sense and is also not what I would have expected. I mean, that is.

the word providential. We're already looking for this, and you just come with, hey, here's an opportunity. Would you be interested in that? And so what did those early days look like? So I don't think you start off with having a team of people cleaning. Were you guys doing the cleaning yourselves? Were you, I mean, it's a sweaty startup, so talk about what that looked like.

leland_gross (06:57.727)

Yeah, I mean any business that you're going to start by yourself, you're usually the one that is out there doing the service until you can hire someone to do it. That type of building is pretty natural in businesses. For us, we had most of the accounts staffed, I would say 95% of them, and there's generally some turnover in janitorial, but we had customers and we had a team to execute the work for those customers.

And we were kind of coming in as the management and the sales and all of that stuff. And it just took years to kind of build it over time to the type of customer that we wanted. And we slowly were able to add management to kind of separate, you know, this didn't get cleaned. So, you know, from us being the person to go do it to having someone in between us and the cleaners do that. And then, and now we're just, you know.

slowly built a team and added customers and just kind of seesawed our way up to where we are. And okay, so you were at the point where someone would say, hey, this didn't get done and you're leaving your house at 10 p.m. at night to go. Or it's not going to get done. This person's sick or their babies that are called out or they got a flat tire. You get a lot of flat tires. And they're the only person that cleans that particular location because that first business we bought had a lot of small accounts that...

we wouldn't actually take on now as we've gotten bigger. We've raised the minimum size of an account that we go after because we're actually better at servicing big accounts than little ones. We've learned, you know, some economies of scales and things that make those, we're more well suited to those. And we've, we got rid of the residential division that we had that was part of that first company, sold that off and really have focused more on, more of a niche. It's interesting you say that in my industry, there's a

phrase the riches are in the niches. And this idea of if you are trying to be a generalist, like I'm trying to clean homes, I'm trying to clean construction sites, I'm trying to clean corporate buildings, I'm trying to clean everything, you don't end up

leland_gross (09:12.563)

scaling as quickly because your marketing isn't as specific. If I'm, if I own a corporate building and I'm looking for corporate cleaners and I see that you kind of do that but you also do all these other ones, I'm less likely to go to you than I am to going to the corporate cleaning person who all their marketing, all their sales are towards that. So it sounds like that was your experience. Hey we started off kind of cleaning whatever we could and then over time worked our way into

a service model and a specific type of building that we know we know well, we know we can do well and it provides scaling opportunity. Is that correct? That original business that we bought, we actually don't have any of those accounts from that because they were all not the type of accounts that we want now. But what it did was it gave us the opportunity to start with some revenue and with some staff and with some equipment and some vehicles that came with the purchase and really just gave us a platform to go out there and

start our business with something. And it was so small that in the beginning, it didn't have enough revenue to pay both of us. And I stated my other job and he would call me in the afternoon and be like, all right, we have three bank branches that need to get cleaned tonight that people have called out. One's in Northern Newport News, one's in Moyak and one's in Suffolk. Do you wanna split up or do you wanna go together? I'm like, well, let's go together. It's more fun that way. And we'd end up at the end of the night, midnight at AJ Gators or right before it closed at AJ Gators and Moyak or something, getting a.

burger and a beer after we'd, you know, clean three bank branches all over town. Spending more time driving almost than actually the cleaning. That's that's right. Yeah. And then we were the floor techs too. We were the ones who did all the tiling grout and the, you know, the pressure washing outside on the sidewalks and you know, all the extras that had to get done. You know, that was, that was us that would do that back then. And, um, you know, after I'd worked in my other job all day and then I would go out and my, my lunches and before work and send out emails and, uh, and

and phone calls to my old relationships in commercial real estate, right? Property managers that I knew and like, hey, I've got this company now. Can I can I've been on some buildings, please? Yeah. And I was fortunately was able to, you know, talk some people into letting us bid on some larger properties so that, you know, in the in the winter, the January of 2016, we started several large high rises. And that's when I came on board with the.

leland_gross (11:37.151)

actually getting paid. When I was able to pay myself. Yeah. Which is a momentous occasion for any self-employed person when you're like, OK, I can start paying. Like I can see the reward of this. Just out here running this business and sweating. There are so many questions that came to my mind based on all of that. I'll start with for the purposes of listeners who may be thinking about mergers and acquisitions or I feel like there's different mindsets about

in paths that you can go to start a business. Some people will just bootstrap it and run with it. I feel like you find that more in profession or like lawyers, financial planners, things like that. But for a profession like yours, where you need staff, vehicles, equipment. I don't know that. I mean, you may have been experts in like what cleaning supplies did what, but maybe that was a learning curve for you. What did that look like from a purchasing a

business perspective. Did you get a loan? Did you have angel investors? I guess how'd you go about that? Yeah, I mean we've done several deals since the beginning of starting On Point and I mean it's been some of our best growth is through acquiring other businesses that typically the owners either are tired of it or want to do something different or just want to retire and the

you know, the strategy is different every time that there's usually different circumstances, different customer makeup, the whole deal. But it's kind of a combination of cash upfront, some seller financing, depending on the type of deal. And then some bank financing where, where necessary, where you need to add it in. But I mean, we could talk, we could do a whole separate podcast on it. I know. Well, I had a thought I was like, I mean, I need to get Corey back here because he had a whole background in MNA. It's it's, it was, I mean, it's been great for.

for us and we've leaned on it pretty heavily to spur a lot of growth. But, and we will continue to, but at the same time, you know, it's a lot of work. And I mean, the last one that we did doubled us in size. And the one before that doubled us in size too. That's true. Yeah. Oh man. That was 2017. So it's, you know, before, when you're smaller, you just don't have as many systems. You don't have as many processes. And

leland_gross (14:01.503)

you know, when you double in size, you're essentially merging cultures and who's going to win and what's it going to look like. And, and we spent, you know, a solid six to eight months on this last one, just getting those details ironed out and building trust and building relationships and stuff like that. So yeah, and I'm assuming that's building trust internally and externally, like with customers, thousand percent where you're like, I mean, we've got a

We have a whole new team of managers that are coming in and cleaners and they don't know us. And for an employee that can be intimidating having your business sold or merged and having new bosses come in, but then also for your customers. And customers might, I mean, you guys can speak to this. I would assume that it might be a little bit easier because you can send out messaging that says we're really excited about this. This is kind of how this is gonna benefit us and you. And we're providing the same level of service. Your account's not gonna...

change or whatever. But yeah, would you say that was for both internally and externally, like keeping accounts and keeping employees? I would say definitely. Yeah, I mean we're a relationship business. We are selling to a customer and have to have a relationship with that person and generally have to work with them, you know, weekly, monthly, at a minimum. Most of them are daily that we're working with or seeing.

And then internally, you know, we've got a lot of employees. It's a relation. It's a business built on relationships. And if we, if we're not good stewards of those, we're not going to be successful. And that's been, that's probably been the center of, of what, uh, what we've tried to do is just foster good relationships and pour into those folks. Speaking of relationships, one thing, going back to the mergers and acquisition acquisitions thing, um, you know, when you buy another company,

A lot of people think, well, I got equipment, I got vehicles, I got contracts, new relationships with customers, which all those things are true in all reasons to purchase another company. One of the biggest things for us, especially with both of the last two acquisitions we did, was the people that we got. I would say most business owners would probably say the hardest thing about business is finding good employees. And

leland_gross (16:26.859)

When you buy a business from somebody who's been grinding in that business for years, like they've spent years trying to find and keep good people. And so we were the beneficiaries in both of those cases of some unbelievable people. And if you came into our office and looked at our staff, both in our office and then, you know, beyond people that are managers are clean all over town for us, we have so many...

great people that came from somebody else at another company, one of those two companies, doing a great job at finding good people and caring for them well. And we're just basically trying to continue that tradition of caring for them well and trying to create a great culture in an industry that's really hard to create great culture. Yeah, that's a great transition point because I don't...

You guys are humble. I don't know that you guys would like bring this up, but you were voted one of the best places to work and Hampton Roads or maybe even beyond Hampton Roads a year or so ago, which is interesting because you're going up against, you know, Startups where they have, you know, ping pong tables or law offices or white collar business. And so to have a janitorial business very blue collar voted as one of the best places to work.

is a huge statement. And I and so speak to that a little bit, because I know we're talking about the power of relationships, power of caring for not only your customers, but your employees and attracting and retaining people of value and quality requires caring for them. Yeah. Have you ever heard of the service profit chain? I have not. Okay. It's a little bit of the secret sauce, but it's hard enough to do that. I'm not sharing it with you. This one's for free. This is for free. The

The service profit chain is essentially you, most people think about, you know, you get a customer, you serve that customer, they pay you, and that's as big, kind of as big as the circle gets. And for us, and that methodology is way more focused on the employee. So if you care for that employee, and you pour into them, and they feel cared for, they will stay with you. And one of those components is certainly compensation, but you know, most studies will show that it's the least significant.

leland_gross (18:48.835)

component of why people leave. And when they stay, you're then providing a more consistent service because that person understands the nuances of serving your customer, which then provides a more consistent service which the customer is happy with. The customer is less likely to leave you. And that, in turn, produces long-term profits and long-term relationships. So it's kind of inverse. Most people are just like just.

serve the customer, make sure the customer's happy, but you don't have happy customers without happy employees. And we emphasize that in our leadership training from top to bottom. And if you come to work at OnPoint and you're hired, you're gonna receive retention calls that ask how your job's going, how was your training? Is there anything that you need? Do you understand everything that we're asking you to do? You're gonna receive a thank you note. Corey Handwrites thank you notes for every new employee.

Oh my gosh. Thanks for joining our team. You're going to receive your birthday card. You're going to receive a certificate on your annual anniversary. And that's just kind of where we've started. We've got a goal this year to really ramp up employee care and drive retention because we don't really have a problem hiring folks. There's always folks looking for work, part-time work. The name of the game is, can you keep the good ones? And I kind of call it panning for gold. There's a lot of.

When you got that pan, there's a lot of rocks that are in there and there's folks that are just looking to pay off a bill and they're only looking for a couple of months worth of work. But there's gold in there and there's people that, you know, I can't tell you how many people we flipped from a full time day job that, you know, salary benefits the whole deal to come work for us full time because they've experienced that, you know, we're genuine and who we say we are. It's feel a little arrogant saying that, but we really try to pour out for them. And that's, that's the heart of who we are.

and what we believe, you know, we're believers, we're believers in Jesus and that, hopefully our folks feel that. Yeah. We really want them to see that without us outwardly saying it. Right. Yeah. We have people like yesterday, so we have multiple employees who have started as part-time cleaners and they've grown into unbelievable managers.

leland_gross (21:16.559)

And Corey has created this entire leadership training program that he takes them in. Our managers come to the office two to three times a week for training sessions with Corey. And he takes them through all these podcasts, YouTube videos of these leadership experts from across Patrick Lincione, Craig Grichel, John Maxwell, all these leaders. And anyways, we have this.

One in particular, as an example, started as a part-time day porter here in town center, probably back in 2017. And she's grown to be one of our best managers. And what's really cool is when we're younger in the business and our businesses are smaller, Cory and I owned every customer relationship at every phone call and everything came to us. And what's really neat as we grow is we have this vision of being a place where...

blue collar people and cleaners can grow from maybe a part time job that was just to make a little bit extra money into this is my full time career and I've got salary and benefits and I have upward mobility and a place to grow and you know something that they can give them vision beyond just that like part time job to pay off that bill and that employee in particular I was in a customer meeting with her here in town center yesterday and I didn't need to say anything because she sat there and just crushed it with the customer.

Like, you know, she's relationally awesome. And I attribute that a lot to her. She's just awesome. But also, like, we've worked really hard to teach our people how to serve customers in the way that we did early on.

Gosh, every time you guys talk, there's just so many nuggets built in there that I want to go back to. But I'm going back to that service chain and the idea of to care for your employees creates a better work environment. So they stay, which creates continuity of service, which creates a better client relationship. It's so interesting because you're right. So many people would think would look externally if I create a good relationship and I just serve my customer.

leland_gross (23:28.215)

which we do personally too. Like if I can just work and change my, the external circumstances, then my life will be great. Which so many times that's out of our control. Like you could do everything great for a customer and they could still leave, but to work internal and work your way like inside out, first, both in your business, caring for your employees and creating a great work environment will then create better customer relationships so customers are less likely to leave. And that's something that's in your control.

I just feel like I was just thinking that's the same thing for anybody personally, like working on yourself on the inside, working on the things you can control, working on growing yourself, and then the outside external will naturally improve as opposed to starting on the outside and working your way in. Yeah, I mean, no question. I think it's way harder, right, to figure out what it is, that thing that you need to work on internally. It's a way longer road, but it's a more sustainable road.

And the alternative, like you said, just trying to deal with the external factors is just whack-a-mole. I mean, you're constantly chasing your tail and trying to put out fires and it's, you just become, you just become so reactive. Yeah. Gosh, I love the focus on even just the vision of, if we can really care for these people, it could change their lives. They could come in saying, I just need to.

pay my rent, I just need to pay this bill, I'm gonna get this part-time job. And sometimes people in that circumstances, they've never even thought beyond that. You know, there's a psychological law of survival where you, I can't look long-term. That's right. And so to be able to give them a place where they feel cared for, that provides stability for their life, and then to give them vision and a road to get to that vision is just incredible. It's work that is beyond.

just the dollars and cents and the profit and the customers. Like that is life-changing work that is going on in your business, which makes sense now that we've talked about it, why you guys were voted best place to work. So tell me a little bit about y'all's relationship. So business partners met at church. Would you say the business or the partnership is mostly business, mostly friendship, both? Kind of tell us a little bit about that dynamic. Yeah, I'd say that we have a pretty good mix of both. We have...

leland_gross (25:56.163)

a lot of similar interests, similar sense of humor. So we just have a lot of fun together at work. And then, you know, we hang out a good bit outside of work too, we're both hunters. We do some hunting together, fishing together, our families and our kids hang out. But I think what makes our partnership really successful is, you know, is the fact that we have.

really complimentary skill sets. And we have a deep respect for each other's skill set and ability to add value to the business and really to each other's lives. Personally, this business would just sometimes just not be that fun if Corey wasn't there with me. At the size we are now, a lot of people like to have their own big office and everything.

we choose to still share an office and we sit back to back and we've kind of siloed more where I focus more on the business development side now and he focuses more on the operation side but we still run a lot of decisions on the other person's, with the other person and kind of grind these decisions to dust together to sort of really have good discernment on the decisions that we make.

You know, it just gives me a lot of peace of mind knowing that I've got him at my back, you know, so yeah.

Yeah, I would I would echo all of that. I mean, it's I think that, you know, earlier on, you don't know so many things. You don't know what you don't know kind of thing. I'm sure every startup business or small business kind of feels that way. And and we as we've grown, you know, you see the same problems from time to time and you recognize like, OK, here's that pattern. Here's how I need to solve this problem. And and we've just gotten better over time of being able to silo because we've

leland_gross (28:03.307)

We've worked so well and so long together. So it allows us to kind of specialize a little bit, but at the same time, you know, when there's a big hairy one, you know, we're putting our heads together with our team and trying to figure it out because, you know, generally there's always something that we haven't faced. A big hairy one at the sweaty startup. That's right, yeah, that's right. You're really getting it. Getting it here.

I would say, you know, I've had multiple people over the years, and before I got into the business, say, don't have business partners. It's really relationally difficult. They don't work out. But yet, I watched my dad have a successful business partnership for 30 years with a business partner who he's still friends with, and is my godfather. And Cory had a similar situation over 30 years. And so...

We saw that it could happen and we kind of come from a heritage of that. Um, at the same time, the third business partner that we had, that was one of our best friends, uh, we bought him out a couple of years ago and that was relationally painful in certain ways. And, um, you know, uh, so we've seen how like things, you know, in business can, you can really have a hard time relationally. And so we worked really diligently to, um, you know,

stay reconciled and kind of put the other one first. So there's no room for selfishness. Yeah. I was actually having a conversation with another financial planner who does a lot of business, working with businesses. Yesterday, we were talking about this idea of business partnerships and how it can be just really messy. And he was saying of his clientele,

the ones that work. He was saying after one meeting, he can tell they're going to be fine or this is going to go in a really poor direction at some point. And he was saying the biggest thing is what you said, like identifying the other person's strengths and having a deep respect for that. He was like, the business partnerships who they know, they're humble enough to say you're better at this than I am. And so I want you to take that.

leland_gross (30:25.423)

and we can work to each other's strengths, that is the relationship that will survive. But if you're both trying to do the same thing, if you're both playing in the same arenas in the business, he was saying it just oftentimes becomes too difficult over time, or it's great for 20 years and then you hit the one big issue that you guys just fall apart on. And so I definitely think it can happen, but I think that's one of the reasons why people say don't get a business

Like you don't want to test the relationship. You don't want the business to fall apart because of it. And that does happen for people. But I think what you guys have is that secret sauce of knowing each other's strengths and having the humility to say that. Yeah, I would 100% agree. And I think the other component to it is, most entrepreneurs are pretty good at winning. And I mean, there's plenty of businesses that fail.

But by the time you've made it to some level of success, it's really easy for that pride to seep in and like take over your heart. And yeah, I just feel like humility is a big thing for both of us and for our culture in general. It's not gonna be a good fit to work for us if you're not humble. I mean, it's just, you're just not gonna enjoy it. And because it's so much of, we kind of exuded a little bit in our office and...

Most of our folks are just excellent at what they do. They are experts. They're crushing it. They don't do anything without excellence. But they're still humble. And I think that we've just kind of almost jokingly make fun of ourselves. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We're genders kind of thing. Knuckle-draggers type folks are just, we've grinded before and we're not afraid to do it again. It's not fun, but if we had to, we would.

And that type of humility is just really easy to lose once you've tasted a little bit of success. I mean, that would be my encouragement for any entrepreneur out there is just stay humble because success is not owned, it's rented, and the rent is due every day, every freaking day. I need to get that written in. Yeah, I was gonna say tattooed on my butt, but I should just put it on the wall somewhere.

leland_gross (32:48.691)

Yeah, the other thing I was going to say is success in business looks different at different stages. So when you are, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollar a year in revenue business versus a $10 million a year in revenue business, it takes really different skill sets and your day is going to look completely different. And so when you grow, you're having success. But sometimes the biggest enemy to say success can be your growth and that you can't reinvent yourself.

grow as a person to be able to become the leader that you need to be to run that bigger, that business now that it's bigger and you have more layers of leadership. So that's something that we've tried to do is like spend a lot of time, like listening to content, reading books, really audio books, cause we're not good readers, but, uh, you know, like, you know, in this stage of our business, we're thinking about things like going into other markets and starting new branches. And like, that wasn't even on the radar. It, you know,

eight years ago when we were painting bank branches at night and not getting paid. You might have been thinking, what else can we do? But it wasn't in the way that you're saying. Right. You know, I had vision for growing it, but like it's a it's a way more as you grow, it you get closer to it and it becomes way more specific. And so now we're having to learn how to reinvent ourselves and continue to drive the vision higher and further.

and then cast that vision for our team of leaders that we've built. So on the journey to success for you guys, what has surprised you the most about your journey so far?

I would say the people. I mean, I feel like we're just so, if we're proud of anything, it's our people. Definitely. Yeah. I don't think, I don't know that there would be anything else. I mean, the stories that you get from people, the nighttime janitorial world, there's always a few stories that'll surprise you. But I think you've heard it all, you're wrong. You're wrong. But we've just got just dozens of key leaders that.

leland_gross (34:59.907)

that would just make life a lot harder to not have. And they're awesome. That's awesome. And what was the low point in the journey?

Mm. It's been several. I mean, it's hard. Yeah. What would you say, Blake? I think definitely our partner buyout with one of our best friends was super painful. Still painful to this day. And, you know, that gives us all the more warning incentive to make sure that we are.

good caretakers of our relationship now. Because neither of us wanna go through that again. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think there's been a couple contracts over the years that we, one in particular I can think of, that we had a lot of emotional connection to because we put our heart and soul into it for years and served the customer, what we felt like was really excellently. And...

you know, to the point where Corey and I are out there until 1130 at night, doing the work ourselves or managing people and cleaning carpet and doing inspections at four in the morning and you know, every going above and beyond. And, um, you know, the owner says, put it out the bid, you know, cause it's time it's been so many years and take the lowest bid on every, uh, everything. And don't, we didn't raise our price at all. And somebody low bid at us and that was it after, after four years. And so, um,

You know, I was I was pretty devastated by that because I felt like I put so much hard work into that relationship, you know. And that one in particular was one of the ones that was when you came on full time. Yeah. I mean, that allowed me to come on full time. It was with a company and quit my other job. And yeah, I mean, we've we're human. We failed plenty. But I feel like we've learned from our failure.

leland_gross (37:09.259)

And we really use it as a tool to get better. And we try to push that with our folks as well. Like, hey, don't be scared to fail. You're going to make a mistake. If you're not making mistakes, you're not taking risks. And you've got to get out there and play in the street a little bit. And let's see what works. Find your style. And sharing some of that ownership, I mean, ownership mentality is one of our core values at On Point.

allowing people to make a mistake without you know consequences and repercussions when they feel that freedom to be able to do that and they find a little bit of success like they're going to fail some but when they find what works they're going to crush it for you. We um losing that contract in particular that uh I think was actually good for us in the long run uh because we really at that point hadn't lost very many contracts at all and so

There's a little bit of like a pride and a hubris that comes along with like, you feel like you're crushing it because you just don't lose contracts, you know? And, uh, and this business, it doesn't matter how good you are. It just takes time to see it. Like you can be crushing it on so many levels for a customer. And there's multiple reasons that you can lose a contract, whether you're doing a great job or not, you know, customers move. Uh, you know, the owners just take the lowest bid or, you know, property manager changes and has a relationship with somebody else. I mean, there's

There's so many reasons that, you know, you can lose a contract in this industry and you really just have to go out there and crush it for all your customers every day. You know, and keep doing a good job because some customers are going to leave you for it. It's your fault. Some are going to leave you. It's not your fault, but you just got to go out there and keep doing your thing. And this is a podcast about success. But that word success means different things to different people.

So for you guys, it can be together or individually. How would you define success for yourself? And how will you know when you've achieved it? Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna kind of beat the same dead horse here with our people. I feel like we've realized a decent amount of success just in, Blake brought up the particular individual that was a part time day porter, riding the bus to town center to work a shift to.

leland_gross (39:33.783)

you know, being an account manager over, you know, I don't know, 80 people, something like that. And we've got several of those stories. And I think that, you know, as we've kind of merged these two companies and, you know, we've got over 300 and some employees now, and we look to the future because we've kind of stabilized things and we've merged these two businesses, it's gonna be, you know, what's that?

How do we define, you're asking me how do I define it, but how do we define what success looks like in the next level? When we take our team to the next level, when we take our business to the next level, what are the seats that are going to be open? What seats are going to need to be filled for us to get there? And who's going to fill them? And how do we need to train and develop and care for our folks so that they're ready to take that seat? And to me, that next level will be...

it'll be huge, you know, it'll be super gratifying for them because they've worked hard and whoever they are and whatever seats they end up looking like, but we're kind of flushing that out now and what does it look like to go into another market? What does it look like to open another branch and have somebody that was just an account manager and area manager go start that and give them the tools they need to be successful. Yeah, so the people.

Yeah, I'd say when somebody shows up for you, for your thing, every day, for years, it's a humbling thing. I mean, to me, the money comes and goes, but money is just a number. It is what it is. It's a measure of success, I guess. But what I will remember is the relationships when I look back, when I'm one day, if I ever retire.

when I look back, it's going to be the relationships and like the time spent doing fun things with our people, you know, and the conversations had over meals at the office and the times that we, you know, went dumpster diving for keys in the dumpster, you know, in the early days of when somebody threw a key and, you know, with those people that we did that with, you know, that are still with us. And, you know,

leland_gross (41:57.943)

Those are the things, I think those are the, really the spice of life of business, is like, is the time spent doing things with people and those relationships and how grateful I'll be that those people chose to ride this ride with us. Continually. Yeah, I think the phrase that comes to mind is, you know, people, nobody's ever on their deathbed and it's like, man, I just wish I'd spent more days in the office. And I totally, take vacation.

Spend time with your family. Please don't ignore your family for your business. But there's a certain component to that where they just don't have fulfilling work or they're not fulfilled by their work. And they're kind of looking down on it in those later years of life. And I just think that life's a little bit too short to not be fulfilled by the work that you're doing. And we're passionate about people and relationships. And that's what we spend our time on. And yeah, I don't think I'll regret those days. Yeah, hopefully we will.

we'll do a good job or have done a good job and we'll continue to do a better job at helping our people see the purpose behind what we do. Man, that's incredible. And it's an incredible place to leave you guys. Thank you so much. I mean, this has been an incredible conversation and I feel like you guys are walking like inspirational leaders. I feel like I need to pay you to like come speak at a conference on leadership and business and relationships, but.

We're excited to see what you're doing with your business. You're crushing it. And it's a sweaty startup. Yeah. It's really exciting to see how you're helping so many people around town and giving peace. I mean, I like the name. Peacelink is perfect for what you do, because you're really giving peace to families, financial peace, and beyond. So it's really cool to see how you started it and how you've grown it and how you're helping so many people around town. So.

I appreciate you saying that. And beyond here. I appreciate you saying that. It's been so fun. I love every second of it. Well, thank you guys for being on the podcast today. Thanks for having us.