Q 1. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: My name is Walter, owner of The Appliance Technician. We provide on-site service for a variety of appliances, including washers, dryers, refrigerators, stoves, ranges, ovens, disposals, trash compactors, dishwashers, ice machines, BBQ grills, and freezers, among others. Based in Mandeville, Louisiana, we serve the North Shore and the New Orleans metro area.
Q 2. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: When I was in high school one of my early jobs was to deliver appliances for a local dealer. We would pick up the old ones and fix and sell them as used appliances. It was a small place with about 3-4 of us working there. The owner of the company had the terrible idea that delivering envelopes would pay more overall (mainly through cutting equipment and employees) and started a delivery company in the city. I stayed in my town and finished my degree in CJ, mostly english and law while I worked for an appliance dealer selling appliances until a new manager gave me shit about doing homework late at night in the store. We parted ways and I went to work at a mechanic shop. I would work when I finished school around 3pm until the bar across the street closed at 2am and then go back to school the next day at 8, usually being late for the first class. When I graduated in 2000, I went back to work as a manager for the delivery company. That lasted a few years with many headaches. Over time, it morphed back into a delivery company delivering mostly to hospitals and pharmacies and moved a lot of office supplies. Heavy office supplies like pallets of paper and heavy products like pallets of water. In 2005 hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Being a miserable place to work, the thoughts were already in process to downsize, shut down, move on, do something else, reduce employees and equipment… the thoughts were already there and Katrina put the final nail in the coffin. Continuing on with what I knew I started a transportation company with another guy I worked with involving 18 wheelers. We did about one million in business the first year of business of trucking and brokerage. It went pretty well except for coming in on Mondays to the realization that thousands of dollars had been “borrowed” from the company funds by a partner in the business with no regard to payroll, bills, notes on equipment and sham “warranties” on trucks that that jack ass shopped for. We once had a transmission go out that was “warrantied”. Reading the fine print the housing of the transmission was the only thing that that “warranty” covered. The whole thing was a sham. Many times I asked him not to steal from me, and many times the request fell on deaf ears so eventually would walk away into the world of appliance repair.
My role in the company at this point was 90% financial. I would broker freight on occasion but it wasn’t my main job. I ran the accounts, paid the bills, collected money, filed on bonds, stuff like that. It wasn’t a full days work. One of the guys I worked with at the delivery company was working as a car salesman. Someone we’ll call Harry came in to buy a car and mentioned that his step dad had an appliance repair company and was looking for an employee. Harry always said he “was going to hang his PHD next to his GED” and he did eventually. Harry gave him Jerrys number and he passed that to me. My first thought was a big “NOT INTERESTED” and then started thinking about it. I’ve always liked working with my hands and had the background to fix things as I always did my own work and rebuilt my first engine in early high school on a go cart my uncle gave to me when I was a kid so figured I’d check it out. I met Jerry at Chili’s for happy hour and he drank 2 massive beers in about 3 minutes and said he would pick me up the following day. I rode with him that day and was instantly hooked on the trade.
I started by installing the parts he ordered during the week on the weekends, then progressed to taking calls on the weekends then to scheduling the calls I received on the weekends during the week when I couldnt’ do them on the weekends and turned a 5 call a week position into a 15 call a week position. Over time Jerry moved and left his girlfriend in charge who eventually due to health reasons wanted out and left me with a company and a big pile of debt, mostly to the phone book maphia and the state. I worked it out and finished out all the formalities of the company and it became mine formally. Like she said when she retired “It’s been yours for years anyway, good luck with it”. Although I did technically work for her I never treated it that way. I always took care of everything and at the end of the week I would bring her checks, a spreadsheet and a number and she would write me a check for my part of it.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: Necessity.
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: Read books—preferably older books. There are incredible minds documented in those pages. New thoughts, ideas, and methods are rare; almost everything has been done before. Time can be seen as the manifestation of infinite parallel universes, where every possible approach has already been tried by someone else and recorded in books. Good ideas often originate from those who came before, so whenever possible, go directly to the source.
Get into your numbers early and get used to going through them or you will have to learn to do it later and it will be more complicated
Pick something you have a passion for or get great reward out of accomplishing
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: 1. Math
2. Problem solving
3. Discipline
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: 10
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: That’s a tough question. I don’t really think about success in those terms. I don’t consider myself either successful or unsuccessful. I simply do what I do because I enjoy it. Whether it’s fixing a washer or a refrigerator, I see it as a problem that needs solving, and I find satisfaction in that process.
◦ There’s an old saying, “Work like you don’t need the money,” and another that goes, “Find something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Doing something you love without focusing on the money can work for a while, especially for a one-person operation, but eventually, financial considerations become necessary to sustain the business.
◦ Reflecting on it, my approach is driven by a mix of curiosity and skepticism. I want to understand how things work, why they don’t, or what’s inside them. I used to read material safety data sheets (MSDS) to see what ingredients were in products out of sheer curiosity about what was being sold to me.
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: Word of mouth has always been what I’ve considered a big achievement. If someone sticks their neck out for you, you protect it for them.
Q 9. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: Doesn’t apply
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: Short term goals. Setting obtainable goals in the short term will map your plan for long term success. Depending on others for these is the most difficult part. You can’t do a lot of things in reasonable time frames yourself. Everything takes time, like it or not it’s the way it is. Sure you can learn to do something but the time and focus it takes to learn it will usually cost more in the long run. Effort that can be put into something else more productive is a massive cost. “Cost is the measure of the masses, time is the measure of the chosen few” is a great quote.
Q 11. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: My goal is 5-10 techs and a role of mainly being a service or project manager eventually taking more of a consulting/coach position with my company.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: There are many for different reasons. Apple because of the way their customers love them. Any business that their customers love as much as apple fans love them. Maytag for what they did with their business. They made the absolutely best washer and dryer ever made, then moved on to making craft beer. Why that happened from an inside perspective is shameful but it happens every day in the world of business. Maytag used to address every problem comprehensively as soon as they discovered it. They would fix it correctly the first time, ensuring long-term reliability. This level of service is rare today, where most companies apply temporary fixes just to get past the warranty period. Maytag, however, ensured their machines would last for the next 20 years. Many of these machines were discarded not because they stopped working, but because they were outdated or had colors like brown, yellow, or bisque. I suspect “bisque” resulted from leftover almond and white paint mixed together. It’s impressive and respectable that they could create a desirable product from excess materials. Tesla and Space X for their accomplishments and knowing how to not be so serious, same with bamboo labs. Bamboo labs 3d printers have a “Ludicrous Speed” setting that comes from the movie SpaceBalls and I love that. Being able to not be so serious all the time and interject some personality into your product differentiates you from the herd and it’s a good thing.
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Employees will make your life good, or hell.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: Depends on the idea. There’s nothing I despise more than an idea that is sabotaged from the beginning from someone who doesn’t like it, or doesn’t want to do it, or thinks they have a better way and half asses it then says “It don’t work that way”. If it’s an idea like “You should put that pencil holder over in the back left because where it is now is in the way” then about 30 seconds. If it’s the idea that “You take care of the problem the customer is having” then never give up.
Q 15. What motivates you?
Ans: Getting to the bottom of things and the thought that I can make things better by finding the best way and most efficient way to accomplish a goal.
Q 16. How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: Necessity
Company Detail:
Company : The Appliance Technician
Address : 1379 Shoreline Parkway
City : Mountain View
State : CA
Zip : 94043
Country : USA
Phone : 718-999-3939
Email : theappliancetechnician@gmail.com