Background check, company phone, drug testing, exams, and a truck that won’t start on the first day.
I’ve been doing GTM consulting for companies selling in traditional industries, and have noticed that they’re less likely to give up their time for ride-alongs and research calls.
They get a lot of requests, and Vibe Coding is drawing their attention towards self-creation.
I grew up helping out in the family plumbing business at home, so getting my hands dirty was nothing new.
I decided to try everything possible and really work.
I was helping a renovation company with GTM. One of his projects was a beautiful home for a man who sold his pest control company a few years ago.
He built the company over 20 years and embraced the SaaS vertical from the beginning, while competitors did not. He knew that software played a big role in success.
The more they told me, the more I liked the sound of it: recurring revenue, expertise, segmented, regulated, $30B TAM in the US.
That night, I applied to every pest control company in the area.
Getting a Job (And Being Ignored)
In three days, barely anyone had replied, so I started attending in person. On the first day I got three ride-along offers. Two were converted into job offers.
I accepted a role in a subsidiary of one of the country’s largest conglomerates, which was contributing $B in revenue through a nationwide portfolio of local brands.
Over the next few months, I received responses from only half of the companies I contacted. Even in a tight labor market, companies drop the ball on recruiting.
It turned out that getting the job was the easy part.
13 days to obtain license (company records)
Getting a license is not a formality. This includes book study, seminars, a proctored exam, and sufficient supervised truck time to handle controlled products independently.
Most companies take two to three months to develop a new technology, and they have to pay for the entire time – it’s a real sunk cost if it doesn’t work out.
I created my own training GPT and passed in 13 days, which was a company record. The training manager knew I built the app, but he never showed interest, which makes sense: it could replace about a quarter of his role.
Now I was ready to get into the truck.
get into the truck (it broke down)
It took three weeks for Fleet Ops to get my truck delivered, whose battery died on the first day.
It took 5+ weeks for my fuel card to work and it didn’t work initially. I was paying from my pocket and claiming back through expense app which took 2-3 weeks to be reimbursed. It’s not great when most techies are working pay check to pay check.
The core system was built on Salesforce, so heavily modified that breaking it seemed unimaginable, even though it was clumsy and tech experts complained. Onboarding requires registering for 10+ apps on the company phone. I probably used two of them.
The company tracked everything – truck idling, GPS, time per visit, phone activity, etc. The technical experts had solutions for all this, but everyone put in their best efforts and the group would not tolerate lazy people.
Techies started calling me “undercover boss” in group chats.
how i earned the nickname
While chatting with a senior technical specialist, I talked to the customer and made a small sale. There was no training for this, but it’s a big opportunity when the boots are on the ground.
Shortly thereafter they offered me a sales role, which I accepted.
That same evening, I created a workflow to address every prospect in my area. I asked for the list from an existing client, which took two weeks to get approved and involved going through each record individually.
I closed a $24k annual contract with a shopping center that I received from my outbound campaign, as well as some small sales to existing customers.
I almost lost a $24,000 deal due to the internal quoting process. This requires multiple signatures and another account by the corporate.
The sales training was a ZoomInfo webinar. Most of the representatives traveled around their area in their company vehicles (free fuel) and visited personally. The top guys had 10+ years of experience and were selling $800k to $1.2m ARR at very low costs – although no one had a specific figure.
Their business is doing great, but it could be even better.
Employees don’t want to rock the boat and have no incentive to pursue improvements. It’s safer to stay in their lane.
That’s why selling SaaS or AI to a company like this isn’t for me – I’d rather focus my energy on building a company from my principles, and hiring people who share them from the start.
Exit Interview: “Why don’t you start your own company?”
When I told my manager I was leaving, he said I should start my own company and to call him when I did.
So that’s what I’m doing.
We have acquired a local operator in a specific region, for which we will build the tooling and develop a platform once we have proven that the model works and can scale.
If you’ve built, invested in, or started a home services business, I’d love to chat.
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