Facing uncertainty can be challenging – being a business owner facing uncertainty is tougher.
Red Direction helps you [fast track and] grow your business – authentically, pragmatically, and resiliently.
Starting the conversation:
What do you do when filled with fear and must move forward?
Taking time to do the work is different than taking time to be busy with the wrong work.
Host: Jess Dewell
Guest: Erik Holmberg
Transcript
ANNOUNCER 00:09
This is Uncharted, a series of candid conversations about facing uncertainty. When we are called upon to be courageous, the strength of our leadership is tested. Red Direction has developed a library of resources to help you stay aligned, and in particular, to develop your True North. Now, here’s Jess.
Jess Dewell 00:31
Welcome to Uncharted, everybody. This is my friend and colleague Erik Holmberg. And he and I have known each other for a few years now. And it was interesting because we were having a conversation and I said, Wait a second, you need to come talk about this on uncharted. So here he is everybody. And I want to tell you that Erik has built a world class electrical service business, not once, but twice, both training and inspiring himself and being dedicated and passionate towards building the right team. He’s also a certified life coach and enneagram practitioner that uses his skills to help his team and those around him step into greatness and leadership. Now, this path is really interesting because some of us get the inspiration we need different ways. His comes from his desire of connection with other people. The fact that he loves to sail, and all of the elements of that, whether it’s just with his family, whether it’s with the team that he knows whether it’s a team he doesn’t know. And so being a husband, and a father, and a business owner, I bring you, Erik.
Erik Holmberg 01:40
Hello, thank you Jess. All right.
Jess Dewell 01:45
I like starting off with a laugh like that. Yeah. And the reason Erik, I want I was thinking about Uncharted in our most recent conversations is because, you know, we always have to bring stuff with us from our past, but we also have to choose what to leave behind. And so, I want to start this in this foundation twice, you have built up a business twice. Let’s do a quick recap for our audience and talk about what that actually means. So in 2008 an economic downturn
Erik Holmberg 02:17
Sure, I started Winward Construction doing house flips, and soon realized that I would be much better off if I specialized in exclusively electrical. Dabbled from there into the solar industry. I found out that was just not really my jam wasn’t really profitable. There’s other stories there but yeah, and carry this tenacity with me that eventually basically led to burnout in 2014 and I stepped away. And yeah, left jumped on a boat with family sailed around for two years. Cross Atlantic twice, homeschooled, had a lot of really interesting, hilarious, crazy, tragic, juicy adventures. And one thing led to another ended up coming back in 2016. And starting all over again from zero because the sale fell through. And I guess …
Jess Dewell 03:19
I want to pause because I know your story, but our listeners don’t. So you had burnout. You exited your business, and you went in recharged for two years. During that time, the sale was happening and it failed. It fell through. And then now you’re like, Okay, I have a choice, and you chose to come back.
Erik Holmberg 03:44
Well, life sort of intervened. So so we hit a reef in the middle of the night and lost the boat, and we found ourselves being rescued in Venezuela and came back to home base and basically fell into what can we do now? What’s next? What’s possible? What’s here? A lot of it was triage. Okay, let’s get started and … I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that the economy was jammin. I mean, when I came back in 2016, I walked into the grocery store, and my jaw hit the floor. I was like, holy cow things are rockin, and so lucky for me reputation was still intact. It just said to reclaim it because it was essentially abandoned. Turn the phone on, and it started ringing and just incredibly blessed for that very, very blessed for that. And it took me about a year to decide, okay, do I really want to do this? like, build it? What am I going to do? I mean, you know. I was I was angry for a year. Right? You know, well. About loss of business. This wasn’t Plan A, this wasn’t even like on the radar for a plan.
Jess Dewell 05:07
You found yourself angry and frustrated and things seemed to be falling apart around you. But it was the path and you embraced it. And even through all of that there was some it wasn’t. It wasn’t obstacle after obstacle, right. The other obstacles, were bigger and had to be dealt with emotionally and mentally. But the actual work you’re doing was easy. It sounded like sounds like like, I’m on my path. This is the way it ought to be. Every time I do this, everything touch it turns into my golden egg, if you will.
Erik Holmberg 05:39
Sure. There was there was a fair amount of I mean, there’s familiarity repetition is a mother of skill, right? So if we have our way of doing things and we step back into it, you know, we have muscle memory. We have systems and processes that are in place. We have lessons that we have learned. That cannot be unlearned, because it’s stored up here and the old coconut. Yeah, it’s there’s a lot that that can’t be taken away even though there’s there’s a loss of a business, you know, lost a nest egg or whatever, there’s knowledge that can’t be taken away, and lessons that are learned.
Jess Dewell 06:13
So once from that time and now now here we are, and talk about a journey. I like the way you described, the whole encompassing all of the emotions, all of the opportunity, all of the threads, everything is coming true. And now here, we find ourselves again, kind of like starting a business in 2008 in an economic downturn, kind of like losing everything and having to start over again, kind of like, what do we do now? Because it’s so different than kind of like anything we have ever experienced before.
Erik Holmberg 06:46
Mm hmm. Absolutely. So there’s there’s a couple of commonalities that that come through. We’re in totally different times right now. Nobody’s got a crystal ball. There’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of fear out there. There’s a lot of anxiety out There, there’s a lot of unknowns. There’s also common threads that come through. Lessons have learned from before that are still applicable now and sometimes even more applicable. Like,
Jess Dewell 07:13
Give us one or two of those right. I’ll bet yours are some, because you are filled with wisdom and tips. I want something right now.
Erik Holmberg 07:23
Wow. Thankyou. So I would say first off knowing your margins, Job Costing. That is never more relevant than in a down economy. Because I’ll just give the example for example, doing a house flip. Right? It’s all about buying it right. If you don’t buy it, right, you’re sucking water from day one. Right? So right now is very tempting for service based companies to say, Hey, I’ll expand our service territory. We’ll do anything and everything. Which in 2008 I did. You want me to go on Sunday morning. 6am to go crawl underneath your mobile home trailer in Aurora to go fix your coaxial cable. I’ll be there for 50 bucks
Jess Dewell 08:04
For people listening. That’s how many miles away from where you live?
Erik Holmberg 08:06
Well, it’s a solid hour drive. Yeah, right.
Jess Dewell 08:09
On a Sunday morning. Right.
Erik Holmberg 08:11
Right. Right. So no traffic, but yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Well, it’s also when they when they asked for it, right? So it’s really tempting to leave with that fear based consciousness and say, Okay, I’ll just we’ll take anything, right, do anything. But there’s issues with that. First off, if you’re not making what you need to make, you might as well just stay home, do all those things that you’d really been meaning to get to anyway, and you just never seem to have time to work on your processes. Work on your systems. Right. But that takes fortitude. It takes a lot of fortitude to just say, Okay, let’s work on what we need to work on. Because it’s that whole zigzag thing right when you’re, when you’re busy. You’re not prospecting and when you’re prospecting, you’re not busy. Right?
Jess Dewell 08:59
Yeah.
Erik Holmberg 09:00
Yeah, though this that whole zigzag thing and it kind of popcorn in here, but I mean, it comes down to self care and boundaries, right?
Jess Dewell 09:09
It does well, and it does and holding the right boundaries. So something that you said your first tip, understanding your job costing and in. And then you said a magic word that I know everybody listening will understand. And that’s know your margins. Because our margins may be money, we must have cash to keep going. However, the second thing you said also is a type of non tangible margin, efficiency of process, quality of the way the work is done. Those those are things that if you’re right, it’s a great time to double down on because we’ve got more time and we can spend that time to continue to build what we’re building. So that as the work is coming back when the work is not only we can do that, but maybe we can also find a new opportunity and understand, because I think for many of us, it took us by surprise, if our supply chains are local, I think we were hit harder, or our delivery models are more local. I think we got hit harder as businesses than if we had national and international supply change or delivery models, or have clients that are in those areas. Because, um, the people that I see the most prepared are the ones that have clients that were recognizing there was a problem before the United States recognized there was a problem. And of course, by the time the US recognized there was a problem now we’re starting to think about things and kind of like, well, how much is it gonna affect us? We are the United States. We already have this way of life, and we’re really solid in that. And guess what? We were on a magic carpet that landed?
Erik Holmberg 10:51
Yeah, he was the head in the sand syndrome. Yeah.
Jess Dewell 10:55
Yeah, I think so. And nobody, and that’s actually I think So talk to me about this. A little because even in the best of times, there are things that we put in our our heads and about. Would you agree with that?
Erik Holmberg 11:08
Things that that we put in our head for what I didn’t hear you say.
Jess Dewell 11:11
Even in the best of times, there are things that we choose to avoid or ignore. So we put our head in the sand about,
Erik Holmberg 11:18
Well, you know, tuning into to Job Costing, thinking about our buyers, especially now, like, it’s hard to just put fear on the back burner. And think about your goals and your mission and where you really want to be.
Jess Dewell 11:33
It’s so true. And in your case, I mean, as long as you have a team. And that that adds weight, in a lot of ways.
Erik Holmberg 11:43
A lot of weight. Yeah. And I’ve got people who are calling me every week, looking for a position, but I take it very seriously. I mean, I feel like it’s their feet under my dinner table if I bring them on board, you know, so I’m unwilling to bring somebody on board until I’m pulled down. To go work down and back in the field myself, or, you know, I’m certainly not willing to take away food from somebody else’s plate, you know, for for another new team member. So some of that is just the fortitude and his gut instinct us to know to when to, to take on the next team member. And we’re in an interesting position right now we’re refining our processes. And the timing actually is perfect with it. Because I came to a realization we had way too much complexity going on. You know, we’ve got three teams out there going maybe three places a day, potentially. And that leads do a crazy amount of jobs and invoices. So it just became so much of a mental burden that that’s that’s just one example here to talk about the processes that just became such a mental burden that I knew that we couldn’t move forward with that model. So we had to change that pivot and we’re implementing it right now. It’s a little rocky but we’re getting there. We’re getting there.
Jess Dewell 13:02
But every you know, okay, so if you’re doubling down on your system, and Okay, so there, you said some really good things in there. First, not only knowing your margins about the work that you’re doing, recognizing the funnel with which that work is coming in and how strong it is. I also heard you talking a little bit about that. But the third thing is the way to grow. That actually fortifies a team and doesn’t accidentally erode the team is what you were talking about with their feet under your table. And where do you do that? So in your case, you’re not expanding people, but you’re, you’re doubling down and process as much as possible. And in that process, that’s, you know, is this a good time or a bad time to be doing something that is so rocky and different because we’re already in uncertainty, and now but the core of your business, billing and invoicing And those are brand new and uncertain.
Erik Holmberg 14:02
Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s been, it’s been an interesting ride. I’ll tell you that. To give context, understand that this was in place. months ago, I was researching this back in fourth quarter and trying to decide on which type of process that we needed to do before this whole madness hit, right. So that was already in the pipeline, so to speak. And it’s actually turned out really great because we are a little lighter on our workflow. So that guys have a chance to noodle around and get this system implemented. It’s not totally done yet, but there’s certain things that need to be in place because what happens is we can become our own bottlenecks. Okay, in our in our growth of our business, you know, what got you here won’t go won’t get you there. We’ve heard this right. So, if you know if you see a bottleneck, you got to work that Do that, otherwise it’s gonna hold you back. So and for us, the bottleneck is for me, it was having a dashboard, where I know exactly the status of every job. So things don’t fall through the cracks, you know, and we can do our time management to on there. So we could attribute our time for payroll exactly to each job and have everything kind of in in consolidated into his few spaces as we can like all the programs. Yeah, so I came to realize when I kept onboarding people, it was hilarious, I’d say, okay, so you’ve got this thing and you got this thing and you got this program and you got that program and before you know it, what ended up happening was people burn out before they’d even on board, and they’d be like, this is too much going on. And, you know, prime example, you know, what got you here won’t get you there, right? Because it might work a little while but not
Jess Dewell 15:57
So what made you decide to keep this right. Yeah, this was something you decided in q4 of last year. And you decided, even though so what? What did you draw on to make that decision and say, now is the right time to stay on path this way? We’re going to change other things, but this we’re keeping on our path right now. What were you drawing from in your past?
Erik Holmberg 16:19
drawing from? Well, I like to simmer things down to the pain and pleasure principle. I mean, honestly, it was so painful for me mentally, mentally to try and track everything. I felt like my brain was just going to explode. So it’s not only that, but let’s rewind a couple more months, actually. Because when I came back, and I decided to rebuild the company, I was also very resentful from working in the field. I was like, Listen, I’m getting older. I shouldn’t be having to do this. I had this story running in my head. And I told the universe, I don’t want this. I don’t want this. I don’t want this. And you know what happened? I’ll tell the listeners. I hit my hand with this. off. And what started out as being like, Okay, this is an injury and I’ll be out for a couple weeks to holy cow, this is significant, and I’ll need multiple surgeries to wait a minute now I have lost a major amount of functionality with my hand for the rest of my life potentially. So as a result of that, I was left with a question. The question is, pivot and abandoned a business or grow the hell out of it? Because I needed to sustain myself and emerge as a leader to push myself into being a leader and that’s what essentially I’ve done.
Jess Dewell 17:41
The next level of leader I’d say,
Erik Holmberg 17:43
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of that is, you know, empowering employees and team members. I don’t even like to call them employees. You know, empowering your team and, you know, a leader doesn’t lead from the front. They lead From being inside the pack, in my mind, at least that’s my experience, sometimes even lead from behind, right to support the team and you know, encourage them to keep going and to say, Hey, listen, maybe I don’t have all the answers. I’ve had team meetings like that with my guys. Let’s listen. Here’s what’s going on, we have a check in. I’m getting migraines now. I’m like, super anxious. I don’t know what the future is gonna bring. But I do know that I’m here with you. And we’re going to get through it together. Right? So just having them here that I think was very, very powerful.
Jess Dewell 18:34
Well, and the way that you are building your business, also, that empowerment matters, because each of your people is admin, salesperson, and craftsperson. And so I think that i think that that’s really important because not only do they have to have that set of skills, they also get to emerge to the next level of leader.
ANNOUNCER 19:00
We here at Red Direction can only fund programming with the financial help of our supporter listeners. To learn more about the additional benefits and value support our listeners receive, go to Red Direction dot com. Now, back to Jess,
Jess Dewell 19:17
It’s so funny, whether it be burnout whether it be the boat and the reef, whether it be the sun, your hand, I feel like those are those are like the ends of Super Mario Brothers when you had to face the big boss to get to the next level, and your way is always right front and center straight through.
Erik Holmberg 19:41
You make it sound easy.
Jess Dewell 19:43
Those most people start with the bosses and at the end of each level, and you’re not.You you’ve now had three big ones and they’ll in less than a decade. That’s pretty amazing.
Erik Holmberg 19:54
Yeah, thanks for that. I appreciate that. And it’s it’s been an interesting interesting. Right I’m basically back up now to the same level that took me seven years to build it. So that was what? Three and a half years, three and a half years, right so basically half the time we’re back up man and I think this next year we’re gonna surpass where we’ve ever been before which speaking of Uncharted, I’m now going into uncharted waters. I’m actually growing bigger than I have before. So and that’s, that’s facing that.
Jess Dewell 20:32
You know, one of the things you were talking about fear and the way you show up to here and in my notes, I wrote embrace fear. And you were talking about working on systems regardless of fear and you were talking about motivated, motivating yourself and others and creating a cohesive group. What else do you need to do to to do you think you’re going to take forward into what’s next to face that fear? Maybe link arms with it.
Erik Holmberg 20:59
Well, Good question, I would say make friends with being uncomfortable is one big thing. You know, and this is one of the things that I really took away one of the big takeaways, there’s many takeaways, but from my, my life coaching training was, we can be uncomfortable and have a sense of dread without killing us. We can, we can choose to live in being uncomfortable and just sit with it, you know, just just just sit with it for a little bit, right? Because life isn’t all puppy dogs and rainbows and everything all the time for anybody. And we never know the storms that are going on inside someone. We have no idea. That’s true. We all see the world differently. If we are able to just hold that space and just breathe. And you know, for me, it’s getting out spreadsheets it’s looking at, you have to consider worst case scenarios. But don’t let that be the ball and chain on your foot and stop you from reaching for the sky. Okay, we need to have practicality we need to have balance in order to properly move forward. And I mean, he was a jump man this last fall, I decided to go full tilt and pay for premium health care coverage for my employees. I have never done that. It’s frickin expensive, man. Yeah, you know, Do you mean good talent? You treat others as good or better than you would treat yourself. Right? Because what what are team members really looking for? Right? What are their needs? They want to feel heard. They want to feel listened to. They want to have safety and security so that they know if they get sick. They’re not going to be left out in the cold. Right. You know, they need that it’s kind of like a family. You know? You gotta gotta look out for each other. So yeah, it’s so I would say facing facing uncertainty It takes fortitude and being willing to be uncomfortable because if you’re not willing to be uncomfortable, this is not your path.
Jess Dewell 22:47
Right. Well, and then there’s also this, where uncomfortable is for some of us, it’s always the same. And right. So maybe the unknown of the future is always uncomfortable for us. But maybe for some of us, it’s getting real and understanding better the sales process. And I know, in times like this, the better we understand the sales process, the better we are at not only recognizing what might be coming, but we can also plan and decide when and how we ought to be looking and if we ought to be looking for so funny, I just used the word twice in a row. I made it three. And thinking about that, and so for you, I know you were telling me about the three types of buyers and how they interface with your business. So how are you using those three types of buyers and how they interface your business to not necessarily find the clear path forward, but to help understand where the path is to be able to move forward?
Erik Holmberg 24:14
Sure, absolutely. Good question. So, in my world, I see three types of buyers, you have the people process and a value buyer. Okay, so let’s start with the value buyer, because that’s pretty quick and easy to identify. Value buyer. The questions from the value buyer is, how much is this? Am I getting my money’s worth? What do you charge per hour? How much is that? If you want to I have kind of a little spin. If you equate this to food or like staying at home, it could be well how much will that bag of pretzels behind the couch save me on dinner if I eat it? Right? Okay. So there’s the process buyer. That’s more on the how, who, where, when, what how do you do What to do? Do you service this area? Do you install this type of product? Can you come at a specific time? Because that’s the only time that works for me. And if you can’t, or call somebody else, right? They’re not so worried about the price like a value buyer is they say, Hey, this is the time I need it serviced, right? And it could be two, three weeks from now or whatever they say, they’re buying a house, you’re gonna move in, they need this stuff, right? And from a food perspective, you could say, well, how many types of hamburger helper are there versus ramen? And how is this meat processed? And how you know what kind of sausage kind of add to my mac and cheese and things like that? Right? I just throwing this out.
Jess Dewell 25:43
I can. totally and completely, I’m enthralled. I haven’t had breakfast yet. I’m making you hungry, right? We’re recording at 8am so I got a cup of tea, but I’ve not had breakfast yet. So I understand why food is on your brain. I
Erik Holmberg 26:00
So, we talked to the process buyer by saying, Hey, here’s the spec sheet on the product. Here’s how long it takes to install. Here’s what the finished product will look like, here’s how loud it is, here’s how much power it uses, etc, etc, right? Then we get the people buyer, people buyer is all about trust. And this is why networking groups work so well with service providers. They ask the questions like How long have you been in business? Do you live near me? What reviews do you have? And are they consistent? When you have a bad review? Not if but when? How is it responded to? Is there a conflict there? Like what type of person are you? And from a food perspective, you say, Well, how healthy is this meal for me? Right? Was this meat processed in a sustainable way? Right. So you think about okay people who go to Whole Foods or as I call it whole paycheck, right? or most of their purchases, they are concerned about, you know, the process and the people aspect, not the value. Because if they’re value buyers, they’d be going to Sam’s Club. Right? with me so far.
Jess Dewell 27:05
So far. So I’m with Yeah,
Erik Holmberg 27:07
Yeah. So people buyers in my world are the best ones to talk to. Because I’m all about transparency. Somebody want to ask for the license and the insurance. You know what I work to get here? I show it off. In fact, I’ve got my price book, it’s on page one. There’s the license, there’s the insurance, boom, trust is sorted out, right. And it’s important to work with people buyers, because they can help build your business. Right? They talk to their friends, they talk to their neighbors, right? They they trust you. Right. So these are the people that we show up on their doorstep, but we have about, I don’t know six seconds, bam. Can they allow us in their house because you know what the attic access is in the closet and their underwear still on the floor? Okay, so they need to be comfortable with us. Right? So they’re always the ones typically. But here’s the cool thing. They’re usually the ones doing their homework before they even call you. Or before they call me, they’ve already looked on the online profiles and figured out what are the reviews? What are the previous projects, right? That that they’ve worked on? Right. So to me, that’s the buyer. So sometimes you can get some crossover, right? You can get some some combo, some combo plates there.
Jess Dewell 28:31
For example, I’ve got these buckets, right. And in these buckets, you’re at you have come up with how that works in your business and what the things are, so that you can meet them where they are, and help move them through the process. And what I if I were in it, I actually am in my brain could be a Venn diagram where they all overlap because you’re right, sometimes the more than one the first thing that came to my mind was like a quadrant thing or just maybe maybe just a gram. And value buyers are the ones that are the longest to convert, if I were to say, and then the people buyers, they’re the shortest to convert, because they’ve already done all the work in one scenario, right? But in another, it might be how, how much trust do they have? And they may, they may be very, they may be very trusting, but they also may be very value based. And we don’t know the reason for that could be their mentality. It could be their, the state of their household right now. And the fact that this just needs to be done whatever the case may be. And so what I’m hearing you say is what this is unser everyday uncertainty that you’re able to because you know, when you’ve thought about that everyday uncertainty, it can be applied, it’s now a skill that can be applied to other things as well.
Erik Holmberg 29:55
Absolutely. So so here’s here’s how it plays out for me is we listen for these things in the conversations when I listen for these things when somebody calls me, okay? So if if I get a value buyer, usually right out of the gate, they’re saying, how much is that? They don’t even want to tell me any specifics about the projects. I’ll try and get the bare minimum throw a number, if it sticks, great. If not, don’t waste your time. Right? Just move on. Right? And we all have some of that in us, right? Like, we’re not gonna pay double for something just because we trust somebody. Okay, we still have a little bit of that, right in a certain industry is that gravitate towards, towards the value of buyers like used cars? Right, it’s full value buyers is somebody who’s trying to sell a used car, with the process or with people, it’s gonna have a really hard time being successful, right as opposed to like new cars, new cars is a lot more like the process and the people buyers like for example, Tesla, who’s now reimagined the automobile is now really into the process, right? People are not buying that car because it’s the cheapest, right? Obviously not value buyers, they’re out there because they feel cool driving it, right? Because that’s how it makes them feel. So, which is why I got my eye on one, but I haven’t gotten the money yet. Can you imagine?
Jess Dewell 31:17
Do you already have an electric car? So you’re already on the path? I mean, let’s be real, you. So you’re already on that path. You’re just about this whole electric car thing, and then continue to go. Well, so I know, one of the things knowing that there’s so much unknown knowing that you’ve got your set of fears that you’re facing your team has their sort of fears and the way that you are integrating and working around that, you know, how do you think you’re going to continue to go forward without with so much unknown right now?
Erik Holmberg 31:52
That’s a good question. I do you have self doubt. You know, I I think I was even thinking about it earlier this morning. You know, We all have our baggage and our little voices in the back of our head that are chattering to us. You know, I think a lot of us including myself will just be transparent, you know, battle with self worth, battle with, you know, viability and focus and you know how things are going to work. All I can say is by least knowing the numbers and having Job Costing nailed down, I can figure out where where the stop loss is, but at the same point, don’t live there. So fear can fear can ride in your car, just don’t let it drive. Okay. So it’s not easy. I don’t have all the answers. I mean, that the question that you asked me is a really great one just because I don’t necessarily have the answers, but I know that I’ve been successful in the past. I haven’t asked the freaking team. Right? And they’ve carried the I don’t have it if What?
Jess Dewell 33:06
I said yes, you do have an awesome team.
Erik Holmberg 33:08
Yes, thank you. They’ve honestly they’ve carried energy when I’ve had doubt they have helped carry me through. So, you know, what’s going on right now is really heavy. It’s really hard. You know, people are dying. And my wife works at a with an at risk population. So I think about my choices on a daily basis. My folks are in that age bracket where there’s risk. It’s, you know, it’s hard but look at look at where we are. People still need the services, as I say, electricians never go out of style, man. They just service providers don’t go out of style. Things will always need to be fixed. Now what are the margins on that who’s going to survive, you know, in terms of a business that is yet to be seen? That is yet to be seen.
Jess Dewell 34:00
Do you see? Do you feel like you have a light though, that you’re going toward when your truenorth? Right, holding you through?
Erik Holmberg 34:07
I do. And one of the things that I’ve chosen to do is been to diversify a lot of the leads, and the three customer groups. So we talked about nine squares before. You familiar with this?
Jess Dewell 34:21
Probably, but we don’t have time to bring our listeners up to it. Sorry, listen, that’s all good. That’s all Yeah. Find him someplace else talking about that. Maybe and come back and talk about that. Who knows? .
Erik Holmberg 34:33
No, that’s fine. So as before, we had the major focus on the percentage of customers being, I don’t know 60, 70% residential. Now I’m working in some more general contractors and designers networking with project managers to bring that into the mix as well. And the other third is commercial. So commercial work is great, not restaurants. Because we know that’s not our jam, but food production manufacturing things of that sorts marijuana grows, they all need power, lots of power. So yeah, that’s one of the ways we’re really
Jess Dewell 35:12
You know what’s going to be what you check in with as you move forward through this time. Thank you everybody for listening. I have to tell you, I always enjoy talking to Erik and some of the cider beforehand someone that I hadn’t So not only did I get to learn I got some things to chew on for Red Direction and our podcasts but also for just myself in general. So I want to say thank you Erik, for being here today. Everybody, this is Uncharted make sure you go to Red Direction dot com, check out the podcast, check out everything else that is over there. All of the amazing at your whenever you need them, just in time free information. Thanks so much. See you next time.
ANNOUNCER 35:53
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