One Stop Shop: Franchisee Commits to Home Service Solutions

Name: Brad Peet
Title: President/Owner
Company: One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Mister Sparky
No. of units by brand: 13 One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, 12 Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, 8 Mister Sparky
Age: 60
Family: Wife and 1 child
Years in franchising: 16
Years in current position: 34

Over his 34 years as a business owner in the home service industry, Brad Peet has grown and adapted with the times. He started out of his garage with a single employee doing HVAC work. Today, he oversees 90 employees across three brands offering a variety of home service solutions.

When starting Northern Heating & Air Conditioning company in 1990, Peet installed HVAC systems exclusively in new construction homes. As he built the business, he realized that if the new housing market suffered, he had all his eggs in one basket. He recognized he needed to expand his services. In 2004, he joined Airtime 500, a best business practice group focused on home service businesses, and became a franchisee with One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning four years later. He added Benjamin Franklin Plumbing to his portfolio in 2019 and became a Mister Sparky electrician franchise earlier this year.

"Franchising is about following a proven process to deliver success," Peet says. "The team is trained on a consistent process for how we operate. All our techs do everything the same way when they come to a house. Just like a Big Mac is made the same way in New York or Los Angeles, we don't want people operating differently, and our service process is consistently followed across all locations."

Peet operates more than 30 territories across three separate brands in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Providing a variety of services has been beneficial, especially as the home service industry has faced challenges over the past year following a spike in demand during and immediately following the Covid pandemic.

Peet says he wants to ensure his customers receive a high level of service and value. That creates trust and opens additional opportunities for business as customers provide referrals or need other work performed.

"I really enjoy the home services business, and I think it is a great industry to operate a company," he says. "I tell people there is a great opportunity to grow your business in home services. The sky really is the limit."

Personal

First job: At the M&N Marine in McGregor, Minnesota, when I was 14. I cleaned boats, assembled boat lifts and docks, cut firewood, and did anything else required of the job.

Formative influences/events: Jim Abrams taught me so much about the home service industry. He created many best practices and training recommendations for home services. He played a major role in my becoming a home service franchisee.

Key accomplishments: Building a company from one employee working out of a garage to having a professional home service company with 90 great employees and a fantastic leadership team.

Biggest current challenge: Managing growth and hitting our budgets because service calls are a little more challenging to get this year. Home services experienced a lot of growth in business during and after the pandemic. That has been reduced over the past year, and we've faced more competition. That has driven us to look closely at our business and be more efficient with our operation and every opportunity we have.

Next big goal: To be the leader in the residential home services marketplace. To do that, we must provide a higher level of service than our competitors, be willing to do the things they are not willing to do, and continue to provide training for our team.

Best business decision: Adding Benjamin Franklin Plumbing to our business portfolio in 2019. To that point, we were only doing HVAC work. It was a natural fit to combine our residential services for our customers.

Hardest lesson learned: Many people are very trusting by nature, but business will often teach us the hard way that not everyone can be trusted.

Work week: It can vary a bit. Usually, I will work around 45 hours per week.

Exercise/workout: I try to exercise four days per week but need to get better at doing it consistently.

Best advice you ever got: Plan or be planned for.

What's your passion in business? Helping customers and providing opportunities for our team. In home services, you must have a passion for helping your customers with what they need, especially in times of emergency services. They often come to you in a panic and don't know what to do. You must have empathy to help customers. I also enjoy developing careers for our people. I always tell them that management positions open as we grow. If someone is willing to invest in themselves, there are opportunities for them to advance.

How do you balance life and work? I have a good leadership team that allows me to have more time to spend doing things I enjoy. It helps to take some time away from the office and go to the cabin on the lake in northern Minnesota. I can do this knowing I have a good leadership team that can make the right decisions and take care of the customers when I am away.

Guilty pleasure: Red wine, pasta, and chocolate.

Favorite book: The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni.

Favorite movie: "Top Gun."

What do most people not know about you? I moved to Las Vegas when I was 18, continued school for HVAC, and worked weekends driving limousines, picking people up to get married.

Pet peeve: Dishonest people.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Heavy equipment operator.

Last vacation: Cancun, Mexico, and visiting Isla Holbox in March.

Person you'd most like to have lunch with: My parents.

Management

Business philosophy: You must outhustle your competition. You must be willing to do what others will not do. Home services is hand-to-hand combat. You must know your numbers and measure them each day. If you are not hitting your budget, what are you doing about it? It may be answering phones late at night or working on weekends. Identify where your competitors' weaknesses are and where you can thrive.

Management method or style: Culture eats strategy for lunch. If you don't have a good culture, no matter what you do for strategy, you will struggle. You will end up constantly replacing people and having a revolving door of employees. When you share vision with people and share "the why," they will be there to support the vision.

Greatest challenge: Staying focused on the most important tasks and avoiding bright, shiny objects that distract you. It is easy to be distracted with the next best thing coming up. Everybody is trying to sell you on something, and those are the times you don't get critical things done.

How do others describe you? Hardworking, motivating, fun, caring, trustworthy, and respectful.

Have you ever been in a mentor-mentee relationship? What did you learn? Yes, I have looked for people I could learn from and who were willing to share their knowledge to help me become successful. I've learned so much from others. I've always been a student, and I still am to this day. I'm always learning, looking for ideas, and trying to learn and improve the company.

One thing you're looking to do better: Dial in on getting accurate data to make informed decisions. We recently changed our CRM and are working on getting everything set up accurately.

How you give your team room to innovate and experiment: We have implemented an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). We have an internal team meeting every week, and employees can share ideas in those meetings. We come up with a set of tasks to accomplish over the next week. It has provided great leadership and moved the needle forward in the company. If a team member comes to me with a presentation or an idea, I will usually let them run with it.

How close are you to operations? I stay close to them because we have meetings once per week with a scorecard and daily management report to see what we are doing daily.

What are the two most important things you rely on from your franchisor? Protecting and building the brands. The franchisor must vet new franchisees and make sure they have the right people coming into the system who will not damage the brand. They also need to build the brand through national marketing and sales and provide proper training.

What you need from vendors: Trust and a partner looking to grow a healthy relationship that can remain competitive.

Have you changed your marketing strategy in response to the economy? How? Yes, we are investing more dollars into mass media, digital, and some AI. We have done a lot of radio advertising, which has been successful. We've put more money into digital marketing and done some things with AI, such as call centers and automated text messaging. It has helped our speed and efficiency. The sooner you get back to a customer, the better success you have.

How is social media affecting your business? It helps with building brand and reputation loyalty. Consumers can stay informed about new products or services, the community, and employee events.

How do you hire and fire? We hire people that we feel fit our core values. If they align with them, and they have the right attitude, we will then share our company vision with them. If we feel they are a good fit, we will bring them on board. We hope we don't have to fire them, but it can happen. We have a three-strikes rule, and then they're out. However, we will certainly coach them first, making sure they know our expectations and see that we have given them the tools they need to be successful.

How do you train and retain? We have weekly trainings that could be about process, communication, or technical aspects. I think retaining employees starts at the beginning of the interview process and having a good culture. We're also constantly communicating our company's vision to our employees, hosting employee events, and celebrating with them our wins and milestones.

How do you deal with problem employees? Sometimes, you must let them go. Your team will appreciate knowing that you, as a business owner, aren't endorsing bad behavior. Otherwise, it will create more problems for you to deal with.

Fastest way into your doghouse: Disorganization and not having operational excellence or data.

Bottom Line

Annual revenue: $22 million.

2024/2025 goals: $25 million in 2024. We want to continue to increase revenue across the board, especially in the electric division where we are relatively new. For 2026, we have a goal of $38 million in revenue, to continue to build strong brand awareness, and have the next leaders in place.

Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? We measure the number of calls run daily and yearly as well as sales percentage growth over the previous year.

Vision meter: Where do you want to be in five years? 10 years? At this point, I would say retirement but still being involved in home services and helping others.

Do you have brands in different segments? Why/why not? We have three brands that are focused on residential services: HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. We want to be the trusted service provider to our customers in each of these verticals.

How is the economy in your region(s) affecting you, your employees, your customers? Calls this year have been more challenging to get and customer acquisition costs are increasing.

Are you experiencing economic growth in your market? Yes, we are. Even though calls are more challenging, we are growing our sales. We've done that by becoming more efficient.

How do changes in the economy affect the way you do business? We need to focus on efficiency and make the most of every opportunity that presents itself.

How do you forecast your business? We do a complete budget each year and are constantly monitoring it against actuals and making adjustments where needed.

What are the best sources for capital expansion? I found having a good relationship with our bank has worked well. They have been good partners for us. Trucks are our biggest investment, and it helps that they understand how the businesses work. Keeping updated, clean financials for them is important.

Experience with private equity, local banks, national banks, other institutions? Why/why not? We have been working with local banks for many years, and it has been a good partnership. We have no experience in private equity.

What are you doing to take care of your employees? We provide a great culture and training. As we grow, more opportunities will be available for people who want to invest and grow in their careers.

How do you reward/recognize top-performing employees? We recognize top performers monthly and in our quarterly company meetings. We also have a national scoreboard, and they can be awarded Crown Champions at the national convention once per year.

What kind of exit strategy do you have in place? It is currently being developed. I'm working on the valuation of the company now. I like what I do, but I may be ready to make a decision on my future in a couple of years.