Shop Tour: Inside the Operations Behind Long-Term Growth
See what it looks like when a contracting business has the right people and systems in place to support long-term growth. We’re taking Cracking The Code on the road and going behind the scenes at Barron Heating & Air and how they’ve built a well-oiled machine.
In this episode, Jason Walker joins Brad Barron for a full shop tour, getting an inside look at how the business runs from sales and dispatch to the fabrication shop. Brad shares how they approach inventory control, employee development, accountability and in-house training. You’ll hear the operational decisions that help companies stay organized, reduce waste and keep growing without losing control.
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00:00:00:01 – 00:00:12:02
We actually added 10,000 more feet of warehouse. There’s the original location in Bellingham, Washington. I think there’s a hidden gem that Brad’s keeping from everybody.
00:00:12:04 – 00:00:46:05
Welcome to Cracking the Code. Your host, Jaydev Moneymaker. And we got my co-host, Brad Herring. And I got to tell you guys, this episode was great because I got to fly on an airplane. I got to go to what we call Billington Washington, and I got to experience something great. Brad. First off, I got to say thank you for allowing me to come out, do a shop tour because you allowed me to see and witness the walk, the walk and the talk to talk, talk about it.
00:00:46:05 – 00:01:05:23
Brad, real quick, the shop tour. Yeah. Well, before I dive in, I did not realize my name was Brad Heron and I did not realize I was from Burlington, so I just wanted to share that we crushed it, though. Brad Baron from Bellingham, Washington. There we go. But yeah, I was listening in and I was going to correct you and I’m like, I can’t.
00:01:06:00 – 00:01:28:18
He’s so excited, so passionate about it. So excited. We kicked. But up in Bellingham it was awesome bro. It’s Bellingham. We talked about this. It’s Bellingham Bellingham Bellingham I say when we go live all of a sudden what we talked about just goes, yeah, it was so awesome having you up in our neck of the woods. Thanks for making time up in the Pacific Northwest.
00:01:28:18 – 00:01:44:14
We got to show you around. You got to meet the team. We got to break bread, which, by the way, I think is is half of those shop visits is about getting to know people, understanding who they are, the values that they share. And man, it was just it was a super blessing to meet you and your team.
00:01:44:14 – 00:02:02:23
So thanks for coming up. I hope you enjoyed your time. I mean, we got to see everything from our sales area to sales and marketing over to operations and service, all the way back to our warehouses, our fabrication shop. We even took you up to our Barron Tech School, where we train people in-house with whole home Academy content.
00:02:02:23 – 00:02:25:11
So in your words, what we’re like 2 or 3 key takeaways from you. When we got a chance to spend time together at the Baron Heating, AC, electrical, plumbing shop, the Academy. Okay, we walked in while the students were in live teaching and training. And first off, just the experience of getting to see them, not knowing what the future holds for them, right?
00:02:25:12 – 00:02:48:00
But me understanding that there’s so much opportunity. So I really love to see that. But then also the warehouse, you have everything so dialed in which we talked about how much money is potentially bleeding out when you don’t know what’s in the warehouse, you don’t have things caged off, you don’t have systems implemented. And that’s what I’m excited to showcase.
00:02:48:00 – 00:03:14:09
When we were out there just doing the shop tour. But for everyone that’s watching this podcast, EGR and cracking the code, we are out on a mission, right? And I still think Brad has one of the top shops out there across the nation, but we are on a mission to see if anyone compares to Brad Shop. So if this is something that you guys think you think you have the best shop out there, comment below.
00:03:14:10 – 00:03:35:01
Shop tour. We’ll get you on the show. We’ll get out there and we’ll see if you truly have the best shop. All right, so let’s go ahead and dive into the shop tour now. What’s up Jason with Iggy cracking the code. And we are on a mission. We got Brad Baron right here. And what are we about to do?
00:03:35:03 – 00:04:01:02
We are trying to find out who has the best shop in the country. Is on a mission. And we’re starting with what I think is probably one of the top companies in the nation. Barron’s heating and air right here in what’s it called? Bellingham, Washington. Bellingham, Washington. You heard it from Brad Baron himself. Brad, tell us a little bit about this building right here.
00:04:01:04 – 00:04:27:12
Yeah. Well Baron’s been around for 55 years, but we’ve been in this building for almost 17, 55, 55 years as a company. So I’m third gen, get an opportunity to work with my dad, which is a super one Gen two Jane, three gen. And actually, are we going for four if you bring well, I got kiddos, but if you bring my great grandpa in who came out of retirement to work in the business, actually fourth gen working at Barron.
00:04:27:12 – 00:04:46:22
So pretty cool. And our roots were heating and air conditioning over on the right side, but we expanded to electrical, plumbing, also looking at stoves and fireplaces. We’ve been doing that for 55 years. To right through those doors though is our fireplace showroom. Why don’t we go take a look. Let’s go check it out. Y’all walking in. Who do we got right here?
00:04:46:23 – 00:05:09:02
Actually, this is Jake. Jake, how are you doing, Jake? Good commercial sales. How are you doing, Jake? Doing good. How long have you been at Barron? Since 2018. Woo woo 2018. And what’s your position here again? Commercial sales. Commercial says a very important position. Well, absolute pleasure to meet you. I’ll let you get on your way. I won’t keep you too long.
00:05:09:03 – 00:05:28:00
Sounds good. Enjoy your time. Absolutely. Take us out something. Go sell some. You being here, it’s not a good thing. Get out of here. So tell me a little bit about. So we just walked in and you have this beautiful showcase room. We do? Yeah. So we’ve got about 7 or 8 brands of stoves and fireplaces and inserts.
00:05:28:03 – 00:05:50:20
My Grandpa Dan, when he started the company was really big about creating memories. And the hearth or sitting around the hearth of the family is one way to do that. So we get a chance still today, sort of honoring his memory to sell HVAC, but also fireplaces makes up about seven 8% of our total HVAC revenue. So it’s not a big part of what we do, but it sure creates a really nice way to enter a shop.
00:05:50:22 – 00:06:11:08
I mean, look at the I mean, look, you don’t really see these that much, these insert fireplaces in California. But I mean, these things are kind of slick. Yeah, yeah. You got all different makes models and brands. We try to make sure that we obviously keep up to date on that. Interesting too with and I know California has got this going on a big electrification shift.
00:06:11:08 – 00:06:30:07
We see a lot more electric fireplaces being a solid as well, obviously not as a primary heat source, but definitely for some ambiance, maybe an outdoor seating area, something like that. So a lot of different offerings. Like I said, we’ve been doing it since we started in 1972, but again, walking in it sure makes a nice entrance, so love it.
00:06:30:08 – 00:06:55:00
Well, let’s continue our tour. Let’s see what he’s not here today, but it’s always fun to show this. So Jeff Duncan is one of our inside sales specialists. Jeff, I was going to say one of those. That means that he’s taken an open estimate and closed the sales. So we celebrate. And why we do that is that everyone in this building, from accounting all the way to inventory and supply, they all get a chance to hear that we close that deal.
00:06:55:00 – 00:07:13:01
So this is taken again. We’ve already paid for the the lead. We’ve already given ourselves an opportunity to build that relationship. But we want to celebrate with the team. It’s fun, it’s quirky, but it works. So I love it. Well, let’s keep going this way.
00:07:13:03 – 00:07:34:08
So one of the really cool and we’ll see when we go upstairs. One of the unique things about Barron is we also have Whole Home Alliance and a whole home media team that’s embedded in the trades. That’s part of this location. So as we walk in, we have a lot of different rooms that are multi-purpose room. So we have a meeting room here, a training colony.
00:07:34:10 – 00:07:59:23
Right. We’ve got the ability to add chairs and do an impromptu training. But on the other side we’ve got all our gear. You can see down. There are different cases we packed up and we have crews. I will nerd out with this. I love this stuff. We have crews for whole home media that will travel all across the United States, and with about 7 or 8 boxes they can pack up, go mobilize, do a multi-day shoot, come back.
00:07:59:23 – 00:08:20:12
And we got all stage in here. So I mean, you talk about an entrepreneur mindset. Yeah. Right. Like building off of growth of what you’re already doing. What made you think of doing this project? We wanted to be able to take sort of the school of hard knocks that we went through and apply our lessons learned to helping other contractors.
00:08:20:12 – 00:08:41:06
It’s as simple as that, right? We learned I mean, I’ve been here for ten years. We learned a ton of different things what to do of what not to do. And again, we’ve talked about this on the podcast, which is great. How can we help contractors avoid those? Whoops. Those I can’t believe I did that. The oh beep moments I call them I’m not going to swear that.
00:08:41:08 – 00:08:58:23
But how can we help them avoid those things. And so it’s been really great. And we coach contractors all across the United States. We got an awesome team. Actually. One of them is right here. Hey, Matt, you want to come here real quick? Matt is our head of marketing and growth. Matt. License key. Introduce yourself. Hi, I’m Matt Luzinski, head of growth and marketing over at Whole Home Alliance.
00:08:59:01 – 00:09:23:17
And what’s know, by the way, I was going to be doing this. He was like, no, no. What what’s the most challenging part of your position of your job beside from working with Brad? Yeah. Okay, exactly. Table stakes here. Yeah. I would say just fundamentally just showcasing just how vital the trades are, because in a lot of ways, people take them for granted.
00:09:23:17 – 00:09:49:00
And until you need it, until your heater goes out, until you’re plumbing goes wrong, you don’t think about it until it’s required. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what I say. Absolutely. So being able to, as we like to say, elevating the trades and advocating for people to get into the field and advocating that putting yourself as a difference maker from company A to company B really comes down to who you invest with and how you work and what value you bring to the company in the community.
00:09:49:00 – 00:10:10:03
So being able to tag in all of that throughout the country is really our mission, and a big one at that. Love it. Where’d you find him? Marketing R us. This is interesting. It’s like a toys R us, but for marketers, so great. Just totally. Also, don’t call him Matthew. He does not like that. Don’t call him Matthew.
00:10:10:04 – 00:10:27:01
Call him Matt. You don’t want to see angry man. I’m good to see you back, I love it. Let’s continue the tour. Yeah, well, we got to get out of this room first. I actually, I think this is important. Slam dunk. I’d like to show you guys one of my favorite rooms in the building. The king of the castle.
00:10:27:06 – 00:10:45:06
The throne room here. Wow, this is great. And also, the reason I show the bathroom is if you want to step back here quick. We have really nice art on the walls with these classic wine dragons. So.
00:10:45:08 – 00:11:06:06
All right, actually, let’s go back over to this. Over. We’re going to go up to the upstairs real quick. So we’re going upstairs now. And I’m really excited to show you guys what’s up here. Because I think there’s a hidden gem that Brad’s keeping from everybody. So if you guys keep following along you’re going to see what the hidden gem is.
00:11:06:08 – 00:11:12:04
They don’t know the hidden gem. They don’t, they don’t.
00:11:12:05 – 00:11:29:02
Oh they’re not here. We have inside sales folks here. They’re awesome. They do a great job for us. So folks that take essentially the inbound sales calls and I don’t know, they must be on break or something. But it’s also the end of the day. It is right. We didn’t come at the best time to do this. But you know what?
00:11:29:03 – 00:11:45:01
We’re making it happen. Well, also, I was sharing with you two. We’ve got folks that help with sales, help with service, help with the different trades that we have HVAC, electrical, plumbing. But also post-Covid, this day and age, we have the opportunity to be able to essentially employ people that have to work or want to work remotely to.
00:11:45:02 – 00:12:09:21
So the ability to use a less technology to be able to lean into that. Also, we use AI at Marion as well. So whether that’s call answering or outbound calling, we can essentially blend and marry those two together to create a really effective response and deployment for leads. So just kind of going off of that real quick. What do you say to the people watching the videos, the owners that are saying, working remote, what are you talking about?
00:12:09:21 – 00:12:30:19
Why would you do that? Yeah, well, it gives them flexibility to be able to get what they need done. Done. It also can be more beneficial when it comes to budgets, right? Like they may be able to flex how often they need a nanny or the different hours, because a lot of families right now in households, and this is a real thing that we as owners need to understand, they got two people working in their family.
00:12:30:22 – 00:12:47:10
They got to be able to make that work. And if you can create systems that hold accountability but also that provide flexibility, you can find some pretty cool people, especially if they don’t have to be right in your backyard. Now we do our best to hire local. We believe in investing in the community, but when needed we’ll look out there.
00:12:47:10 – 00:13:15:19
So let’s continue. Let’s keep going. Nolan. We’re back. Nolan. Nolan, this is Jason. Jason, one of our home performance experts. Do you want to say anything to Nolan? Nolan. So how long have you been working here at Barron? I’ve been here since 2018. 2018. And what do you find is the most challenging thing about your job? But also rewarding the problem solving.
00:13:15:20 – 00:13:36:09
Problem solving? Yeah, sometimes we get into some tricky situations. You have to figure out what’s going on in the house and figure out what the best solution is for tiny crawl space. Tiny crawl space is one is very good at fitting into very tiny space. He’s a big guy too. I tend to be sort of. Yeah, tend to be the guy they send for the small spaces.
00:13:36:11 – 00:13:57:13
Well, obviously love it. Continue to do what you do, man. Rock star right there. All right. We can pop in, take a look at our studio. Will actually be filming our podcast here. We’ll be filming here in a little bit. We got our podcast section looking that way. So it’s always good to look at this because by the time it zooms in, it cuts out.
00:13:57:13 – 00:14:16:20
You don’t see all the different cameras and lights out. It’s one of those really funny things when you look at a studio like, oh, it’s so clean because it’s like, no, you don’t know what’s behind the camera. Yeah. Oh yeah. But then on the other side too. We can do really nice color backdrops too, for like more. It could be a single person, like speaking head, talking head.
00:14:16:22 – 00:14:34:15
We can do interviews between two people standing like, really quick and prompt to five minute videos. But at the end of the day, it’s nice to have an in-house studio and be able to just crank out content. We also work with contractors across the US, and we’ll bring in talent to be able to do quick narrated videos as well for our whole home media customers too.
00:14:34:16 – 00:14:59:23
So it works for Barron and it works for other tradespeople. It’s nice to just have that ability to quickly produce content and a streamlined way. Absolutely cool. All right, we’ll keep walking this way. We’ll finish up quickly with a tour of the upstairs. We have more sales team members every time you want to come with. When the room is dark and the door is open and there’s no one inside, and it’s a sales office, you know that things are going well.
00:14:59:23 – 00:15:17:12
I want no one at their seats. I want them out in the vehicle outrunning calls. It’s a good thing this is a good thing right now. Yes, there’s five people that work in there, but they’re not there right now. Yes. That’s good to hear. We have editing studio in here. Logan, do you want to come say hi? Yeah, this is Mr. Logan.
00:15:17:12 – 00:15:40:11
How are you? I’m in the code team. This is Logan, one of our producers here, actually. What? What project are you working on right now? This is not staged. Yeah, this is awesome. This is our mid-year Barron cares. Check in. So this is a little update we do to show how much money Barron has donated to the community at about our half year mark.
00:15:40:13 – 00:16:00:15
Nice. So where are we at halfway through now? Courtney told me the number. I think it’s. I know the number. It’s a seven. Yeah, it’s just over 50, 50, 57. Yeah. How do you feel about that $57,000 number? I think it’s really incredible what we do in the community. And I see the number go up and up almost every single time we go out.
00:16:00:15 – 00:16:23:04
And I don’t know, feel proud to be a part of something like that. And I’m telling you, you guys want to continue to watch the video because we have something at the end that you guys don’t want to miss. Yes. Right. Yeah. It’s called the Kindness camp. The kindness camper. Oh, I like it. See you. Logan. We won’t bother people, but we got a couple conference rooms.
00:16:23:04 – 00:16:38:02
This is one of them. It also converts to a training room. One really neat thing is all of the conference rooms and trainings we do. We try to name after one of our founders. So in this case, Vivian Barron was my grandma and she gets a conference room named after her. And then Dan Barron down below gets one named after him.
00:16:38:02 – 00:16:42:21
But yeah, we’ll keep moving.
00:16:42:22 – 00:17:07:12
Now, looking at your facility when you guys, you know, prior to this facility, how much bigger is this one? Oh man. We went from about a eight 9000 square foot facility to this is 20,000. So more than doubling. And we actually added 10,000 Murphy to warehouse square feet of warehouse space too. So so technically it’s like three times that size.
00:17:07:12 – 00:17:36:11
So good to see you love it. Yeah. So we have different things posted to around the building. We have a whole home membership. So that’s our maintenance program. And then at the end of the day two we have our membership benefits listed. We like the ability to remind not only our teammates what’s going on, but we also get a chance to bring customers over here and say, hey, this is maybe why you choose to become a member at Barron, but little snapshots of art like that, I love this, keeping it right there in front of your technicians.
00:17:36:13 – 00:18:04:18
We’re coming back. Coming back? High five. Whoa. So this is Nick stoner, plumbing manager. Nick, say hi, Nick. You’re on. So. So you being the plumbing manager, how many different plumbers do you have to foresee? And kind of, like, tame the tame the beast, right? Plumbers are overall overall overall about 16 people say that’s a lot of personalities to do.
00:18:04:19 – 00:18:32:01
How are you so good to deal with all those personalities? I mean, I’ve just been in this industry pretty much my entire life since I graduated high school. So just some of these guys I’ve known from previous jobs and just get along well, have a great crew. So that’s helpful. Love it. Now, what do you feel like is the most rewarding part of your position?
00:18:32:03 – 00:18:55:09
Just helping people. That’s both customers and my team, you know, being able to help them when they need it. Answer questions and end goal is take care of the customer and continue to improve. Let’s go. Well keep going. You look like a young cat. And, you know, representing the plumbing trades. That is a hard trade right there I’m telling you.
00:18:55:10 – 00:19:14:20
They’ve got to do sales. They got to do service and they have to install as well. And at the end of the day, when you got to do all three of them, you got to be. Nick makes the man and Nick’s the man. Thank you, mister Nick. So walking back this way, we won’t pop into every different building, but we try to have different art up to be able to sort of showcase what’s going on at.
00:19:15:02 – 00:19:34:23
And we’ve got our install coordination group. We got Carrie with this awesome bear and triple play shirt back. That way we have our call center. We’re not going to whenever the door shut. That means there’s probably usually end of the day we get high call volume as people are getting off work, so does the end of day. Right now I’m the big fan of like not bothering people when they’re they’re sort of getting in and going in.
00:19:35:04 – 00:19:54:13
But that’s in that way. You were talking about Baron Cares. Logan wasn’t there. We’ll go out a little bit. Look at the kindness camper, but this is some snapshots of some of the stuff that that we’ve had a chance to do, the donations we’ve been able to give all across the county as we serve. It’s one of my favorite things that I get to do every single month is take sort of the first fruits of what we do and give back.
00:19:54:13 – 00:20:17:19
So if you’re counting up, we’ve benefited. This is not even all of them. 31 organizations, $300,000 donated in two and a half years. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now that’s what I’m talking about, making an impact in your community. And really what it is, is our it’s our coworkers, our team members and our customers that make it happen. So pretty neat.
00:20:17:21 – 00:20:42:22
We have residential dispatch. We won’t pop all the way in, but we’re just popping by saying, hi, how are you doing? Harry? Meghan, you got a treadmill in here? Yeah. Oh, wow. They all have one. Yeah. So was this like a group like, hey, let’s all first and then everyone else kind of followed along and went for you started the train matches your chair, I love it.
00:20:42:22 – 00:21:04:06
And how long have you been working here? I’ve been here for about four years. Four years. Love it. And what do you enjoy most about your job? I love working with the people and around here and helping out our community and everything, getting people warm and cold and whatever they need. I love it. So not only is she a hard worker, but she’s taking care of herself, right?
00:21:04:07 – 00:21:28:17
I mean, look at these. All three of them. I love that. That’s that’s what you do by leading by example, right? Love it. Yeah. I’m a pop and go. We’ll keep walking around this way. One really neat thing. Alex, can I introduce you real quick? This is Alex. Hello, Mr. Alex, how are you doing, sir? Training administrator and also does all things safety.
00:21:28:18 – 00:21:52:20
Alex is also not only a licensed electrician, you can do residential and commercial work. He is an administrator and Barron’s administrator. Which means all of our HVAC, electrical and plumbing technicians that require electrical licenses. He oversees them, helps them pass the test. And actually, just recently, part of a huge push to create an in-house apprenticeship program for electrical, which was approved through the state.
00:21:52:20 – 00:22:10:18
So let’s put it this way. Alex is much, much smarter than me. His why? He sits in this office and takes care of people. But yeah, we we are able to bring people in and help them get them licensed to the highest level now as a result of his work. So one thing you mentioned is sometimes we’re not the best at everything, right?
00:22:10:19 – 00:22:32:19
But bringing people in that are much smarter, that could do the job much better than what we can do. He’s one of those guys. So yeah, well, he’s Alex, I say hi, I don’t know if my team’s over here or not. Maybe I may not be, but this is our HR slash people operation. Oh, is Rob, we should pop in or Rob right here, Rob takamura.
00:22:32:21 – 00:22:58:17
Oh. So people operations. Rob right here. That’s a very important job. And I just found out something really cool. From my understanding. You have three other children that work here. Two children, two children, sisters, two children and his sister. So I think there might be another family taking over. That’s right. Could be Takemura Heating and AC. Absolutely. Now let me ask you a question.
00:22:58:18 – 00:23:36:20
You being the operations, that’s a massive position here. People. Operations people. Yeah, we have about 100 and 5060 employees. And yeah, it’s it’s a, you know, something new every day. Well, Rob, what’s the most rewarding thing about what you do? I think when people are in their work day lives and they’re in personal stress, being able to help out and find ways and solutions, the family is very good at being flexible and really accommodating for people, and I’ve experienced that myself, so it’s easy to pass that along.
00:23:36:21 – 00:23:58:17
Well, I could definitely see as we walk through and y’all are witnessing the video, the culture, the love. I mean, you could definitely just feel that all through the office. Let’s continue to check out Rob. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Awesome. Well we’ll pop into my office real quick. Oh this is where the magic happens here. So we can go back to.
00:23:58:23 – 00:24:19:13
This is like the second generation iteration of the Baron logo. So they even got the hat there the night with the bee and the shield. But if you want, is it a night or a Spartan? I have no, I think it’s a night. Okay. Yeah, but if you want to go way back to 1972, that is the board that was on the side of our very first.
00:24:19:17 – 00:24:43:03
The Holy Grail is. Yeah. So that is OG, baby. That’s the OG sign right here. Flatbeds. Wow. Baron heating and air conditioning. And by the way, that phone number 6761131. Still our phone number. Still your phone number. I don’t know what the word is. Actually I’ve never tried that one. So one thing. Well, you’re a whiskey guy. I am, yeah okay.
00:24:43:04 – 00:25:03:21
Okay. So a little fun happens in here a little bit after. After 5:00. Well, it’s 4:00 somewhere. That’s true, that’s true. So with you being in here, how often would you say that you’re actually in here working? Are you more out there? I’m in. I’m probably in meetings or working with people most of the time. Every once in a while.
00:25:03:22 – 00:25:20:19
I like. This is my quiet space. My chief of staff. Put this. Quiet, please. Virtual meeting in progress whenever the door shut. It doesn’t always mean there’s a virtual meeting in progress, but it’s nice so that people don’t come in and bother. But I’m a big believer in open door policy. I think that people should be able to come in, should be able to have conversations.
00:25:20:21 – 00:25:36:07
I mean, we have a candy bowl right out there where people come in, and if I hear them talking with Courtney, who’s my chief of staff, I’ll pop over, say hi, try to make sure that. Yeah. And I pride myself, I, I believe that I could list and name every single one of our employees, which you’ve been doing as we’ve been walking by.
00:25:36:08 – 00:25:57:05
I think that’s not lip service you’ve been watching and also how long they’ve been here, which I think I’m pretty good at that too. You’ve been you’ve been hitting that pretty well. I mean, you’ve been talking about their past jobs to like. Yeah, well, either John Barry, my dad or I are involved, whether it’s prescreening, reference checking or being actually evolved in every interview, we want to be a part of that process.
00:25:57:07 – 00:26:16:22
And then, yeah, we do, you know, Christmas parties, we do barbecues in the summertime. We do team building events that aren’t just our team but their spouses, their kids. Like in a week next weekend, we’re going to be going out and having a great time at a winery. But in the back of the winery, we’re going to put up, you know, bouncy houses for kids, volleyball net, all that kind of stuff.
00:26:17:00 – 00:26:38:03
But I get to meet the spouses, I get to meet the kids, and I get to understand what makes our team members great. And that is super awesome, I love that. All right, well, we’re going to keep walking back this way and we’ll head back to the warehouse and the fabrication shop and our Barron Techs tool.
00:26:38:05 – 00:27:03:09
Yes, yes. Ready to be on camera? No. Jordan. Jordan, this is Jason. How you doing, Jason? Mr. Jordan, sales operations manager. And right here is Adam Richardson, electrical manager. Those operations. Yeah. Integration between sales and ops. Yeah. So so let me ask you, you got a big headache on you like, you know, just to wrap your head around everything going on.
00:27:03:14 – 00:27:26:03
What’s the most rewarding thing about your position? How long have you been here? I’ve been at barren for about nine years now. You helped launch the plumbing? Yeah, I started the plumbing department here, but I’ve been in my current position as sales operations manager for about a week. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Boy, it’s already record breaking sales. Amazing.
00:27:26:03 – 00:27:52:23
Crushing it. So, what is the future hold for you in this position? Well, that puts you on the spot. Yeah, you really did. Honestly, I just want us to get to a cohesive, solid championship team that integrates with operations. Well, that’s my goal. That’s my job. That’s make sure that the departments aren’t divided. Yeah, it’s a smooth transition.
00:27:52:23 – 00:28:10:17
We’re passing the baton for the customer experience. Yeah. We’re one team here. Even though we’re we’re segmented because sales and operations is a split. But we’re still one team. That’s what I go for. Awesome. Thank you for letting me interview. Yeah it good to see you guys. Good to see you.
00:28:10:19 – 00:28:30:11
Purchasing team right back through there. They keep the window shut one. So this is the end of the day. This is their like go time of making sure any last minute parts pieces equipment are here and ready to go for tomorrow. So you can see whenever that back door shut. That’s their sign. And Matt’s been here long enough to know that it is open quite a bit, but when it is shut, it is go time and purchase time.
00:28:30:13 – 00:28:51:16
Go time and purchase time. So we’re going to move. We have our front building we just went through. That’s about a 20,000 square foot building. We’re going to head into our back building. This is about a 6000 square foot building. It includes our warehouse, our fabrication shop, and our Barron Technician School. Baron’s fleet is 130 to 140 vehicles at any given time.
00:28:51:16 – 00:29:18:03
We have about 100 vehicles on the road. That includes service, installation and sales. So I’ll end management. And so right now we’ll probably see here, you know, at any given point 20 to 30 different vehicles that are either apprentice vehicles. So Barron has a unique model. We were talking about it where a lot of times we’ll actually send a leading apprentice in two different vehicles so we can double up and start second projects same day to try to maximize our installation capacity.
00:29:18:03 – 00:29:36:17
It’s sunny right now, it’s peak season. We’re trying to get as many air conditioners and heat pumps as we possibly can, take care of as many customers as we can, but we one of those unique companies where our apprentices are assigned vehicles so they can, during different facets of the job, go out and do work by themselves. It helps them grow quickly and helps them learn.
00:29:36:17 – 00:29:56:14
So how’s this summer been for you so far? Yeah, June and July were pretty solid. July was interesting. Usually we see a pretty big spike in July. Our weather here in July has been a little bit milder, so it was just slight modest growth year over year, interestingly enough. And I’m sure a lot of people are experiencing this.
00:29:56:15 – 00:30:22:13
We’ve got our service every one of our service departments at Barron, everyone HVAC, electrical, plumbing, fireplace, all of them are up year over year. All of our install departments are either flat or just within maybe 7 to 10 points growth. So it’s very well it’s good, but it’s very interesting because the service, right, is essentially taking the brunt of a lot of customers that are not able to afford those new systems.
00:30:22:14 – 00:30:39:17
Right. And they look at it and they go their cash strapped, their credit strapped. And so they’re going I’m going to repair versus replace. It’s been an interesting last couple years talking to contractors across the US. There’s a need for installations and we’re still seeing modest growth. But our service departments are cranking it right now because a lot of people are repairing.
00:30:39:18 – 00:30:44:14
So let’s check out this warehouse.
00:30:44:16 – 00:31:06:13
So you said you just purchased this one. No, we so both red buildings, that red building and that red building, they were bought back in 2007. We built the facility and we occupied it in 2009. One interesting fact. Two, we didn’t talk about this earlier. In the top of this roof, there are 375 solar panels. Barron is net positive.
00:31:06:14 – 00:31:24:08
We produce more electrical than we use in a month or annually. Scuse me, certain months are different, but if you look at our annual usage, we overproduce and actually push essentially electricity back into the group, which is pretty good. So anyway, if you did an aerial, if you had your drone here, 300, you got my drone, 375 solar panels.
00:31:24:13 – 00:31:46:18
Nice. I’m going to challenge you on that. I’m gonna count them. You should. You can do it. So we’ll pop back. We’ll look in the fab fab shop real quick, and then we’ll head up to our Barron Technician school, and then we’ll circle back around to the Kindness Camper. So what we’re about to witness right now is I’ve gone to a lot of different operations in the last seven years.
00:31:46:19 – 00:32:09:02
Okay. This is by far one of the biggest fab shops that I’ve seen. And if you look behind me, I mean, look at this. Brad’s going to talk about it. I mean, you got I got a welding station over there. So we do some minor welding for projects or one offs. Obviously we have all our different presses, sound, lighting in the back corner there.
00:32:09:04 – 00:32:28:17
We have an engineering office here. So we program all of our our fabrication and actually plasma Vernons. So it’s a plasma burner here. We take care of all of our, our own sheet metal fabrication in-house. There’s a few exceptions, but I would say 98% of our sheet metal is done in-house. And it is like we’re here live. Like those guys working right now.
00:32:28:18 – 00:32:47:20
They’re closing down. Try to get it out. And they are they are closing downtime. They’re like, I’m getting out of your home. Got our breaking machine. We also do some training down here to install guys. So getting our hands on sheet metal prior to getting out in the field is really important. We want to make sure everyone so important with all ten digits on their hands.
00:32:47:21 – 00:33:13:11
Absolutely. I mean to be in training and get hands on before going out into the community, right. Mastering here before you fell out there. Yeah, exactly. Very good. All right. Let’s head up to our tech school. Tech school. So as I get to train and travel, what I notice is a lot of companies, they don’t have trade schools.
00:33:13:11 – 00:33:41:19
But what I’ve noticed is companies that are achieving greatness. Right? What do they do? They don’t hire the bad habits out there. They train within and they train for what? They train for technical, they train for technical. But we also do customer service training. We do training on how to talk about memberships. We do training on how to triage when something goes wrong, when it’s outside of their control, sales training or what.
00:33:41:20 – 00:33:59:20
I sort of consultative training, if you will. I believe in a consultative sales approach, but all all of the above, that’s where we’re going right now. That’s where we’re going right now. Oh yeah. The neat part about it too, is that we’ve been running our Barron Technician school. Now this is our eighth cohort. We run anywhere from 6 to 8 techs at a time.
00:33:59:20 – 00:34:25:07
We’ve found our sweet spot is is is probably that six sometimes four depends. Right now we have a cohort of four because we’re anticipating growth but we don’t want to over hire. I’m not a fan of over hiring and firing and over hiring and firing, so we’re usually pretty conservative in our growth. All of Barron’s growth over the last years, as we’ve scaled from 13 million to 45 plus million, all of that has been as a result of organic growth.
00:34:25:07 – 00:34:46:10
We’ve we’ve had no acquisitions, no private equity infusions. We’ve done that. We’re talking about impressive. And but we do that by being smart with our cash, making sure that we can actually invest in people, invest in things like our own in-house training academy. And I’m excited to show you it’s it’s got about 20 pieces of working equipment up there.
00:34:46:10 – 00:35:05:18
And our instructor was a ten year service tech that did ten years of service management and essentially said, I’m of retirement age, but I don’t want to retire. And he plans on teaching for five more years, and he’s already been doing it for five. So he loves it. Love it. So come check it out y’all. Like I said, these guys up here just got introduced to the trades.
00:35:05:20 – 00:35:24:20
And this is an industry that is going to change their life. And they have no idea. By the way, this was down in one of our local newspapers back way back when I get October 1st, 2018 help wanted. They went and then heard that we had started our own school and they were like, why are you doing that?
00:35:24:20 – 00:35:42:13
And they’re like, our goal is we need people to fill this trades gap. Five baby boomers retiring for every two millennial or Gen Zers. Any of the trades five out two in. How do you solve it? HVAC companies like us like you people. As you grow and scale and you get to the right size. Got to build your own program.
00:35:42:14 – 00:36:10:10
Love it. All right, well, looks like they all left for the day. They were already in here earlier. Working real hard, but absolutely great training room right here. I mean, like you said, 20 systems functioning, all of our different products that we service and install, zoning systems, controls, all of that. Even like a lot of people don’t realize, we have a fully functioning boiler system over here as well.
00:36:10:12 – 00:36:30:06
We have an oil furnace system. Wow. We have an economist for some light commercial work. Yeah. And the other thing too is we put these things in positions where they would actually have to work like it would be in, in the field. So this isn’t just beautifully laid out on the ground. Nope. They got to take a ladder, crawl up and be like, they’re in a light commercial application.
00:36:30:06 – 00:36:48:08
So it’s not beautiful, pretty pristine, but it’s worked in and function on. And we’ve graduated almost 40 technicians through the program. Like I said, I’m about function. I don’t really care what it looks like. I think it looks pretty good. But at the end of the day, I want to build it like they have to experience it in the field.
00:36:48:09 – 00:37:10:16
So I think she sets all that stuff. Yeah, I mean, look, they got the ducting up here all exposed. They got the Katy piping. I mean this is a beautiful, beautiful training facility right here. Hands on like you said. All right, let’s head. We’ll do one. We’re just going to do one quick loop through there and we’re going to head out to the front.
00:37:10:18 – 00:37:32:04
All right. So we’re going to head through the warehouse over here. We’re going to talk about the importance of being organized. And something Mr. Brad and I were just talking about is they just implemented something new, which is not just allowing the technicians to come in and grab, but more of accountability. Yeah. If you could just stay over here.
00:37:32:05 – 00:37:54:16
We really don’t want you guys following us. You guys can’t. Come on, come on. No, no, seriously. Stay out. Yeah. So, yeah, we have a locked down warehouse, so to speak. Meaning that in the morning or in the evening when technicians are coming in there loading up, I don’t want them coming in and just grabbing stuff off the shelves.
00:37:54:17 – 00:38:21:13
Inventory essentially leakage, right. Or seepage out of the company can account for a company our size. It could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. When we first started managing inventory and actually identifying what our essentially leakage was out of our warehouses, guess what? So this was back in 2019. Guess what the number was at that time? For the year 19, we were doing about $22 million in 2019 maybe.
00:38:21:14 – 00:38:32:10
How much leakage do you think it was in dollars every single year that we didn’t account for until we did our inventory turn, I’d say.
00:38:32:12 – 00:38:35:22
18,000.
00:38:36:00 – 00:38:56:11
Way more. Hundreds of thousands. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And these are things that people don’t usually try. Yeah. If you’re not keeping track of your inventory, you have no idea. So see, that’s the important part of tracking, right? See, someone that doesn’t know, like me would just say, oh, you know, maybe 18,000, 20,000 is going out. But when you go through the numbers, you track it.
00:38:56:12 – 00:39:20:11
It was almost a quarter million dollars. And so by you tracking. Right. What do you plan on doing. That’s 1% of our revenue was just leaking out. Just leaking. Yeah. Just gone. Gone. Yeah yeah that’s a point. Right now we’re well we’re closer to probably 50,000 yet our revenue it’s double that right. So we’ve made some improvement I still don’t like that number.
00:39:20:11 – 00:39:37:07
I still don’t like that number though I want you know but these are the things that help right. Make sure you can lock down your warehouse. We don’t even say lock down if you’re listening on here. Right. And you’re going, I need to talk to my technicians, electricians and plumbers about the importance of this. Don’t use the term lock down.
00:39:37:07 – 00:39:57:01
I know I’ve said it a few times. Secure is a better word because secure relates to what they think of in their own home. They want to secure their house, right? Secure their family, keep them safe. Right. Safe. Secure. You think you’re locking them out? Out. Boom. Animals like you versus us. Secure as we’re all together, if that makes sense.
00:39:57:03 – 00:40:21:06
No matter. It’s the way you present everything, right? That’s what I always think is important to is, you know, we actually at royalty just had price increase. Yeah. So instead of just saying, hey, we’re lifting the prices 8%, right. Hey, everyone’s getting a extra pay today. You know, everyone’s getting raises, baby. Woo! Celebrate little friend. Yeah. All right, well, let’s head on to the front.
00:40:21:06 – 00:40:41:01
I want to show you where. Kindness camper. Oh, yeah. So this is what I was talking about. And the reason why this is so important. And I want you guys to stay till the end of the video, is when you create something special, like a heating and air conditioning company. Okay? It’s not about just taking care of your family.
00:40:41:01 – 00:41:02:07
It’s not just taking care of your people, but it’s taking care of the community. And what Brad’s done here in the community we’re about to show you when I pulled up, first off, I can’t get too far into it because I just got to show you guys. So come on, come on. We can head right out this door where it says exit.
00:41:02:09 – 00:41:10:04
You’re going to get trapped in. Funny, dude. It’s a maze.
00:41:10:05 – 00:41:30:16
Oh, by the way, before you go on, this would be fun to. You guys want some throwback here? Yeah. So there’s my grandma Vivian there. There’s the original location in Bellingham, Washington, the south side of Bellingham, Washington. You can sort of see, right. The green, the old knight, my Grandpa Dan Baron over there, our old fireplace showroom down here, you can see it.
00:41:30:16 – 00:41:51:07
So you’ve been in our new. And it’s a little different right. Oh yeah. Little different show. And then look at these. But we’re going to go get a hoax wagon. But check these ones out. Yeah. Oh, man. You talk about history a fireplace, little shop too. Yeah. You talk about history. I mean, this is ran right from the beginning.
00:41:51:08 – 00:42:25:01
Yeah. This has been passed the torch from generation to generation the right way. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Yeah. Cool. Let’s go take a look. All right, so here it is, y’all. As I was walking up, I see this beautiful old school Volkswagen van right here behind me. So it’s my my baby. Her name is to Cota, but with Barron it’s called the Kindness Camper.
00:42:25:01 – 00:42:43:18
And so Kindness Camper is part of our Baron Cares initiative. So it goes from kindness appreciation response, empathy service that makes up that acronym. And our idea was, is that we wanted to take we used that bear and do a whole bunch of giving and we still do. But it was some money here, some money there, some money there.
00:42:43:18 – 00:43:00:11
And it really didn’t have a unified why. And when people brought up like, hey, we want, you know, to do more here, more here, more here, there wasn’t really a systematic way to figure out how to do that and how to look at what we wanted to budget for it. And by the way, at the end of every year, we gave less than we really wanted to.
00:43:00:13 – 00:43:21:09
So this actually in a really good way. We set out a number and we say that’s how much we want to give every year. That’s part of our first fruits and we do it through our CARES program. And so once a month we get nominations from all over the communities we serve. It’s a really cool program. And these are charities, nonprofits doing amazing things like fighting for people that can’t fight for themselves.
00:43:21:10 – 00:43:43:20
Right. The vulnerable people, the people that need help. And we get a chance to ultimately take $110 from every electrical plumbing system sold and donate it to that local charity nonprofit. And so, like I mentioned earlier, year to date, we’re at just over $50,000. Over the course of the last two and a half years, almost $300,000 donated and 31 organizations blessed.
00:43:43:20 – 00:44:09:03
So absolutely love that we get to do it in this beautiful, beautiful camper camper truck, right? It is bus camper camper bus that’s offensive to Volkswagen. It’s a bus. If you think your shop can top what you just saw, make sure you comment below. Because again, we’re on a mission to see who has the best shop in the nation late.
