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TRANSCRIPT
Mike Cappuccio: Welcome to the Dominate Ductless Podcast, where we tell the stories of entrepreneurs who are building the businesses that are focused on ductless heat pumps! I’m Mike Capuccio, the owner of Dominate Ductless, and I’m excited today to have a long-time friend and business owner, Mike Briggs from Briggs Heating Air and Electrical. Mike’s located in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.
And first and foremost, Mike, thanks for joining me on the podcast this morning!
Mike Briggs: Hey, it’s good to be here, Mike! Always good to hang out with you!
Mike Cappuccio: Thank you for joining!
Cappuccio: So, Mike, tell a little bit, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your company and what you do in your day to day roles and what you do in your company. What is it that you do there?
Briggs: Well, for starters, I’m a longtime HVAC guy. I’ve been doing this business for 27 years. Worked for one of the manufacturers New England train for years, getting my teeth cut there. And then we evolved from basically a commercial service company to, I feel, one of the premier residential, ductless and replacement companies in the area.
Cappuccio: I would say it was a big shift.
Briggs: It was a big shift. I think back then, all I knew was chillers and large rooftops and absorption units. And when I started on my own, it was me and a truck just servicing commercial equipment. And then I had some friends building houses, and they said, you should start a residential division. I’m saying, sure. How do you do that?
So I hired some guys that slung sheet metal, and we got into the residential side. You know, I’d go if I went back to it now, I’d thank them, even though I was very frustrated in the beginning, because, you know, I don’t come from that back.
Cappuccio: So what do you do now? What do you do now every day? What are your roles now?
Briggs: Today basically, I am the general manager of the corporation. I’ve got project managers under sales teams below us. I kind of oversee all the moving aspects of the company.
Cappuccio: A lot of moving pieces to an HVAC company every day, isn’t there?
Briggs: There really is. It never stops. I’m fortunate. I do have my wife as the office manager, and she’s a rock star, so she takes a lot of the load off my head so I can focus on profitability and building the right business.
Cappuccio: That’s good! Like, how long have we known each other and where we….
Briggs: Oh, God, I’m trying to remember….
Cappuccio: When we first met, how long we’ve known each other for.
Briggs: I’ve known of your company for years, to see the old NETR trucks everywhere. And then I want to say it was at least 10, if not 15 years ago when you were, you, the poster child for Mitsubishi duck was back then, and I was getting. I wasn’t getting it. I’ve always done Mitsubishi. But to focus on ductless and make it a complete division of the company is where I really. When you and I really started becoming friends and focusing on just that.
Cappuccio: Yeah, it was. You know, it’s funny, because I can remember going to meetings and going to things and people saying to me, your company, you just – All you guys do is hang plastic boxes on walls. You don’t know anything. And I would just sit there, and I would say, okay, that’s fine. I’ll keep doing what I do, and you keep doing what you do, you know? And I just always knew that it was a very profitable business model, and it didn’t require a lot of training to do it.
So it kind of made my life a lot easier when everyone else wasn’t doing it. But that changed quickly. You know what I mean? So, Mike, let me ask you this question. You’ve sat in some of my trainings, probably more than once. And how has the training helped your company become one of these major names? Because now I see Briggs is really Briggs. I’m seeing. Like you said, I’m looking now. Heating, electrical, air conditioning. It looks like you’ve transitioned away from kind of what you used to do and more involved in heat pumps now.
Briggs: Heat pumps are. Yes, all the utilities, they’re pushing them. Right, but it was even before that, before utilities were pushing them, we were selling them. It was the best solution for a lot of people. So we started moving them way back then. But going to your classes, how did the training and the training is understanding where the profitability is.
So when I learned from you early on was we made and I had another business coach. We focused on full departments within the company. Most companies that run this is one of their major problems. All the profits from all divisions go into a pool, and they don’t know where they’re making money. I got money at the end of the day, and I’m good.
Cappuccio: They don’t know.
Briggs: They don’t understand that. They don’t understand that, hey, let’s departmentalize. Find out what makes us successful. Where is our most profitable dollars come from? It took me a very short year to two years of actually focusing on that and separating the ductless division to realize Douglas was, hands down my most profitable division.
And once we learned that, we focused all of our energy, all of our marketing, on our most profitable division. And if people would just understand that the contract is out there, if they just learned their numbers, they would do the same.
Cappuccio: So what we’re really saying is probably what helped it was to understand the profitability.
Briggs: Hands down, is knowing your numbers. Because I’m a big. When it comes to that, I’m a real fanatic about numbers. I want to know how many pennies I’m going to make before I buy the first screw. And you can do that with Duckworth, because it comes down to labor management. When you have low labor jobs, they’re low risk. When you have high labor jobs, you’re high risk, because you and I went both to the same old school of one guy works, two guys talk, three guys party. Right?
Cappuccio: Absolutely.
Briggs: Small labor crews. Focus on labor management, and your profitability will go through the roof.
Cappuccio: Yeah, I always used to look, too, and show people, when you look at the numbers and you look at the material and the labor cost, that’s one of the big things we really focus on in the training, which you’ve seen is like, okay, we’ve got $3,000 in equipment costs, and we’ve got $500 in labor costs.
Well, the ratio to that is almost six to one. When you have a six to one ratio with that, you know, that’s going to be a profitable job versus $3,000 in material and $5,000 in labor. It’s going to be very hard to make money on a job like that in there, on that type of a job.
But if there were a couple of high-level topics that really, really helped you, what were they? I mean, what did you really see? Like what? I mean, I know he’s just sat in a training a few months back, and I’m saying to myself, what’s Mike Briggs doing here? Back here to just kind of see what he might be able to pick up. What did you pick up out of that last class that we did? Because you’ve been to several, you saw that. You said, I can go do this on a high, you know, a high-level topic that you said, you know what? This looks good. I got to make some changes here.
Briggs: Yeah. And it was not to go back to what we were talking about, but it did come down to knowing your costs, but that ultimately, once you know your costs, I think one of the highest level things I take away is once you get your costs down and understand, okay, this is how much fuel it’s going to take to be profitable.
Now focus on your standards. Bring the highest level of standards to the game to separate yourself from everybody else. And I really push my guys when you go through your books in how to install the product and everything else, I want to train those guys. Yes, installing ductless is simple, but doing it right is not simple.
So I focus on the details of making sure every aspect of the install is perfect. I treat our customers like they’re walking into a Bentley dealership every time. That’s the kind of service I want to give them. High-level service with high-level product. And then you can separate yourself from everyone.
Cappuccio: Absolutely. You know, and I was just talking to a guy about that prior to this podcast, you know, and just saying, what makes your company different than everyone else’s company? Why would I want to buy this from you now? We look at the heat pump market today, and I want you to think back ten years ago, not a lot of guys would do it. Now we got every Tom, Dick, and Harry doing heat pumps.
Briggs: Now everybody’s in it. I almost want to go to a different market and set up camp because I think, to be honest with you, massive and rise in Rhode Island have spoiled this. Cause they’re forcing everybody to go this way. I almost wanna be the new guy somewhere else and promote it again.
Cappuccio: I’m working with a new guy right now in Chicago who has nobody in his area. And it’s actually, it’s a project. And I’m watching him evolve where there’s no one doing ductless in his area. And I’m saying to myself, you were exactly where I was 25 years ago, when I was the only guy I can remember taking heat pumps to a home show 25 years ago. And people looking at that going, what is that? You know?
Briggs: Remember all the home shows we did? And we had all those displays that were running just so we could show people….
Cappuccio: Now it’s everyone kind of knows what it is. And you’ve got a really, really. I love how you’re separating yourself from others now with being, you know, with attention to detail, because, look, anybody can do anything. You know, it’s a matter. It’s how you do it, though, and the quality and how you actually put it together.
So it’s good to hear that installation part of it in the quality side of it really, really stuck out with you. Because I like to hear that, you know, when we kind of put that together and how that works, I was really thinking about that, of not even the installation part of it. It’s how you go into a home today.
Briggs: Yep. 100%.
Cappuccio: People walk into a home today. I mean, I had an experience with it the other day with someone coming into my house, and it just, I’m still amazed at how people come in and just don’t care.
Briggs: Well, they’re not. It’s almost like they’re not conscious of that aspect of it. Where, I mean, I tell my guys where to park, how to walk in, how to introduce. I have in my training rooms. Yeah, I can teach you how to install. Okay. But I want to teach you how to act and present yourself. I want to teach you how to sense everything.
Cappuccio: It’s not even common. It’s just how you came in. I mean, I experienced it the other day with someone coming into my home to fix some blinds, and I was like, just came in, he had no booties, dirty shoes. He was walking up to my master bedroom to fix some blinds on a white rug, and my wife was like, whoa!
Briggs: Oh, my God! I can imagine Jean was going to frickin kill him.
Cappuccio: She’s just like, you know, you preach this. She’s like, but now you need to, you know, this needs to be done in our own home as well.
Briggs: Yeah.
Cappuccio: Just can’t understand how people just don’t get that, you know? So I’m really glad to hear that, because walking into homes today is such an important thing. When we go out and we sell our companies to people and we say that, you know, we’re going to, we’re going to treat you the way we, you know, that you want to be treated with respect and dignity, and we’re going to be, you know, we’re that company can’t just say it.
Briggs: You need to do it. I said, quick story. One of the key things I do today is drop cloths, right? Everybody uses drop cloths. So I went out and bought the best drop cloth you can get with all the little rubber knobs on the bottom. Right?
Cappuccio: Wow!
Briggs: But not only that, when the guys walk in, I make the apprentice, or the second guy in command, when he comes into a house, they’re in a laundry bag, sealed laundry bag. And he basically walks in the front door, right in front of the customer, opens up that laundry bag, and they’re all folded, perfectly laundered.
And the customer’s like, are those new? He goes, no, but they are laundered. She goes, you’re kidding me. And he’s like, no, we launder after every job because we don’t want to bring Mrs. Smith’s dirt into your house. So we wash our drug cloths every time. That little tactic now, it might be a stage performance, but customers love it. It just – I’ve given so much praise over something like that.
Cappuccio: Respect! I’d like to see you put a video together that Briggs coming into a home.
Briggs: Oh, it’s crazy!
Cappuccio: This is how we do it when we come into a home and then have it in the sales process of what my expectation is as an owner for you, what you’re going to see when we come into a home. So that’s – I’m telling you that not many contractors do that in today’s world. It’s a matter of, you know, but that’s how you become profitable.
Briggs: Well, how many guys are out in the front yard shaking out the dirt from the last job, and they’re dragging that drop cloth into the customer’s home? I’m like, you can’t beat me.
Cappuccio: Oh God! It’s crazy! You know what I mean? I just want to ask you this last question, Mike, and then we’ll kind of cut. But, I mean, in closing, I don’t want to. I don’t want. I don’t rush or anything, but it’s – If you could recommend other contractors around the country that are getting on this heat pump bandwagon, what would it be? What would you recommend to them?
Briggs: Study it, study it, study it. Learn and understand all the aspects of ductless, because you can be super profitable. You don’t have to be a $50 million company. You can be a $1 million company and have an incredible life. Ductless has, and like yourself, has done, opened so many doors and afforded us a luxury life that you really can only dream of sometimes. I mean, do we have, you know, celebrity money? No, that’s different.
But I’m telling you, focus on the little aspects, the details, and manage your labor, and you will be super profitable. I’d say run away from those high ducted. High labor jobs as fast as you can, because that’s what I did back in 2010. I walked away from commercial construction and residential construction because I learned that they were killing me. And when I focused on ductless and profitable business, within two years, we became debt free, and we’ve never looked back. You can’t pay me to do construction today.
Briggs: No.
Cappuccio: It’s just not worth it. So if you’re looking at this ductless industry and you’re trying to figure it out, I would say figure it out quick, because if you don’t, the company down the street from you is gonna. And they’re gonna take over. So you might as well be the first.
Cappuccio: It definitely has led us to the lives. I mean, I’m blessed. I’m truly blessed myself for what I’ve done. And I thank my coaches and my people that have helped me along the way. And listen, a lot of it, too, is, Mike, listen, surround yourself with people that are smarter than you listen to Them, you know.
Briggs: 100%, because I think when we first met, you were probably like, who the frick is this kid always in my back trying to talk to me because I always wanted, I knew I had to be around successful people. How was you successful? Get around successful people.
Cappuccio: You gotta get around successful people that are doing it. And, you know, like I said, I look back and I say to those people today that said you were the company that was hanging plastic boxes on the wall. I just look and I say, you know what? Thank God for plastic boxes on the walls because it’s made me, you know, who I’ve been today.
And, you know, and I really want to continue that and I want to help people be as successful as I was. And, you know, like you said, not live celebrity lives, but be able to go and enjoy life and look at the things that are in life that, you know, you can really have fun with it. You know, separate yourself from your business every now and then. Go have fun, you know, enjoy life. Because today, what’s going to be there tomorrow, you really don’t, you know?
So, Mike, thank you for joining the Dominate Ductless Podcast, again, where we tell the stories of these entrepreneurs who are not building their businesses, who have built their businesses, that are focused on heat pumps. So keep the strive, keep the focus, keep going, and have a great day!
Briggs: Always a pleasure, Michael!
Cappuccio: Thank you so much for joining, Mike!
Briggs: You take care!
Cappuccio: Thank you! That was great stuff.
Briggs: That was Michael, I don’t know if you agree with me or not.
Cappuccio: No, everyone’s different. Every podcast is different when we talk to different guys, you know, and I love the labor part of it because that’s what it is. It’s about making money, you know?
Briggs: That was great! That was great, Mike! Thank you!
Cappuccio: You know what, it’s not celebrity money, but that was a good point. You know, it’s not celebrity money, but it’s allowed us to enjoy life and have things and go, you know, go sit at the beach this weekend, Mike, enjoy, you know. You know what? You know, we have to be able to work to have those things. And I, it’s, you know, when I look at, when people say to me, oh, you got this, you got that. You know what I say I work for every f******….
Briggs: I work for everything I do. Absolutely.
Cappuccio: I work for every f****** dime of it. No one gave it to me. No one gave it to you, Mike. We worked for it. You know what? That’s what I say. Go, Pam. You know, my mother and father didn’t give it to me. You know, I worked for it. You know, you do this, you build this, you go here, you do that.
Briggs: My parents gave me a work ethic. That was it. I’ll take that all day.
Cappuccio: To go do what you did today. To go enjoy life and provide a good fit could provide a nice life for your family. Don’t, you know, when people say, you know this, that I don’t even look at that anymore. I just say, you know what? I earned it. I worked for it. No one gave it to me. No one gave it to you. No one gave it to me. So enjoy every moment of it. I’ll leave it at that.
Briggs: Got that right.
Cappuccio: All right, guys, I’m going to Maine.
Briggs: Enjoy.
