The Successful Contractor

Leech never imagined his concern of growing too fast would be a problem when he first started out in the industry. His entry into HVAC started as a job that would help him save up some money to go to college and study landscape architecture. Leech worked for a small, three-man shop that was run out of a house. He worked there for eight months and found the work interesting and challenging.

But the company was on the verge of going out of business, so Leech decided to go off on his own. “I had $750 saved up. I spend $350 on a used service van from the junkyard that didn’t have a motor. I spent another $350 on a motor. I had bought some tools throughout the year, but I had $50 left over. Realizing I didn’t have any customers, I went to the local print shop and printed off a bunch of fliers. Then I went door-to-door handing out fliers and that is how it started. This was in 1997 and I didn’t even have a cell phone yet. Customers had to call my beeper, then I would call them back,” he said.

His entry into AirTime 500 was not nearly as challenging as starting a business on a shoe-string budget. In fact, for two years Leech tried his best to ignore the phone calls and postcards he received from the group. Like many misguided contractors, Leech was so busy out in the field that he felt he did not have time to listen to the pitch. That all changed when AirTime 500 had an event in Des Moines and Leech signed up right on the spot. He said that the event changed the course of his business. “I was seeking a higher level of education but I did not have the patience to do it through college. I was asking vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘How do I do that?’ I wasn’t finding the answers I was looking for, so AirTime was the perfect match. They came at just the right time,” he said.

Ask Leech to tell you one way in which AirTime 500 has helped him as a business owner and he can’t do it — he needs to name 40 items. But one important way that the organization has helped him manage his business is the hiring and retention information AirTime 500 has provided.

“In 2007, I took a step back and started looking at recruiting and started looking at financial aspects of the business and using key performance indicators to measure the quality of the service we were providing,” he said. “I was getting deep into the processes of our business and leaning heavily on AirTime for that knowledge. A Hire and Retain class that Lance Sinclair put on was very helpful. Then I used some of my other ideas and combined them to come up with a very powerful recruiting, hiring, and retaining process. AirTime teaches you that 33 percent of your time should be spent on recruiting.”

Leech is also quick to point out that he takes advantage of all the training programs that AirTime 500 offers. “They give you the tools to succeed, and you need to use them,” Leech said. “Training is such a large part of my budget. It is absolutely fundamental to having a successful business. It was painful at the beginning. Entrepreneurs think their way is the right way. Even when you are learning new stuff you put your own twist to it. There were a lot of things I could have learned from AirTime that would have prevented a lot of pain if I had just listened sooner.”

But all the pain was worth it. This past year Leech was able to put more money into his retirement account than he was earning for both profitability and income combined before joining AirTime 500.

He is now able to take three to four vacations a year with his family and know that the company will be fine without him in the office. “I did not want to be a technician in a service van, and AirTime showed me how to get out of that service van so I can be a business owner running my business, starting a family, and taking multiple vacations a year. We just got back from Maui for two weeks,” said Leech. “We were gone for two weeks and I received two phone calls from the staff. To get the business to the point where it can run that well when I am away is a great feeling.”