Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Williams.
Hi Brad, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was extremely fortunate to have HVAC and entrepreneurship in my family. My grandfather started a heating and air conditioning school back in 1994. He later taught my parents the technical skills required to install and repair heating and air systems. They opened a company in 2001 in Memphis, TN which I worked in, along with a few of my cousins and my aunt and uncle. In 2012, and the age of 21, I moved to Panama City Beach, FL where I worked as a professional beach bum. This taught me more about the sales side of business as I was paid strictly commission for renting cabanas, jet skis, banana boat rides, parasail and more. I met my beautiful wife, Lynnsey, in 2015. There was an obvious spark and maybe a yearning for the carefreeness offered by beach service and obviously my good looks, which enticed her to make a huge leap of faith and move to Florida with me. Together, we took over more selling opportunities and became great at learning how to work together effectively. At some point after about 6 years of beach service for myself, I realized that there was a cap on my earnings as a beach attendant, so I weighed my options and decided to move into the real estate game. Lynnsey and I took a course on how to wholesale destressed homes, and quickly implemented the strategy taught n=by the course and very soon had a few deals under our belt. We soon after decided that there were more opportunities available as a professional real estate agent, so in 2017 I got my real estate license and worked under a Keller Williams brokerage. There I learned skills like learning and following a script on cold and warm reach-out calls, I also learned some hiring strategies and time management skills from Gary Keller’s and Jay Papasan’s The One Thing and Gary Keller’s The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. The training I received from Keller Williams bolstered my confidence as a sales man. I began to hold open houses, door knocked, and implemented other lead generation strategies. Ultimately, I wanted something with a faster sales cycle and began scouring the internet where we found Meraki, a solar energy sales company out of Pensacola FL. I met a friend named Dennis who offered to let us park our RV on his mom’s property for a small amount of rent. At Meraki I learned more about communicating value and asking better questions to my prospects. It was mostly a door to door sales strategy, which I also learned to manage my leads and record my conversations through Spotio. Not long after starting at Meraki, we found out we were pregnant, and decided to make the move to be closer to family, Lynnsey’s in N GA and mine in E TN. We settled down in Maryville, where I went back to my roots working for a local HVAC company. I was excited sales knowledge that I had acquired, and began utilizing some of the strategies with the owners current customer base and believe he may have gotten some negative feedback so I was ultimately terminated from that position in January of 2019. This reminded me how much I like to be the driver and decision maker. On January 31st, with a baby due in less than 3 months, Lynnsey and I decided to open Everest Air. In the beginning, we worked leads from Facebook pages such as Maryville Speaks Out, which actually generated quite a few jobs that year. We also attended local networking events such as REIA (Real Estate Investors of America), BNI, and other small groups. In March of 2019 our first child was born and by the end of the first year we had pulled in about 85k gross, which was not much, but enough to get by on beans and rice. In 2020 we did just over 300k which was a considerable jump and much better for the bank account as it was still just Lynnsey and I. At this time we were 24/7 and I was taking calls at all hours of the night with a small baby in our 650 sq ft apartment. In 2021 we hired a few helpers who came and went and grossed $600k. In 2022 we hired a couple more guys all while continuing to network, work leads and provide great service which prompted great word of mouth advertising, From here, we kept basically the same strategy, providing great service and networking to build relationships. In March of 2023, we welcomed our second child which caused us to want to push harder. We began hiring technicians and had 4 great techs and a couple of helpers by 2024. That year we grossed $997k. In 2024 we decided to take a leap of faith again and took out a few business growth loans and tried to ramp up everything 10x. We hired a business coach, several management team members, leased a few vehicles and had them wrapped, and increased our marketing budget more than 17x what it had been. This quickly collapsed due to my lack of knowledge and systems, to manage a team of that size. I was spread thin and loosing my mind. By the end of the year we were back down to Lynnsey myself and 1 other tech, all while raising a 1 and 5 year old. We have now regrouped and have an excellent office manager, Karen. Two great technicians, Zack and David and an up and coming superstar apprentice, Daniel. This tight knit team is doing more than the 16 employees we had in 2024 and we are on track to gross 1.8 million by the end of 2025. We have found some outside guidance from a team that has decades of combined experience from running and growing home service companies that we are working with, and we look forward to having a stable, consistent growth in 2026 and beyond.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
High employee turn over. It was hard to attract great employees to a young company with a young owner. The first year money was obviously tight.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a small, family owned heating and air conditioning company in Alcoa, TN and serve residential and light commercial customers in East TN.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Apps: We manage almost everything through Housecall Pro
Books: E-myth- Michael Gerber, The One Thing- Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, Rich Dad Poor Dad- Robert Kiyosaki, The Richest Man In Babylon
Contact Info:
- Website: https://myeverestair.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everestairheatingandcooling
