Growth the Right Way
Jake and Amber Wheeler Have Grown WireOne in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, from $300,000 to $1.6 Million, while Remaining Profitable, in Less than Four Years by Committing to Personal Development, Leveraging the Power of the SGI Network, and Remaining Progressive in Fine-Turning Every Aspect of the Company.
by Bob Houchin
Jake Wheeler approximates the commute from his farm in Monroe, Iowa, to his office in Pleasant Hill, a tick east of Des Moines, to be about 40 minutes. Much of it involves cruising along a serene stretch of Highway 163. Cornfields and countryside for miles on the left and right. It’s the type of drive some would appreciate before or after a hectic day. But Jake doesn’t embrace the peace.
The electrical contractor uses the almost 90 minutes of windshield time each day engrossing his mind, as he listens to the latest audio book he found or was referred to him. “I listened again to Thou Shall Prosper by Daniel Lapin,” Jake shared. “I’ve passed that book around quite a bit. I just gave it to [fellow ESI member and Des Moines electrical contractor] Ben [Carpenter].”
“And I’m reading Scaling Up again. It’s a pretty good book. Brian Leech [an AirTime member and Des Moines HVAC contractor] turned me on to it and the scaling up process. We’ve taken some quite a bit from it.”
When asked why the devotion to personal development, Jake was forthright: “I don’t think I read a book in high school. I started reading when I got into business. By reading I quickly realized I didn’t know how much I didn’t know. I figured if we’re going to do this—run this company—we should be as good at it as we can.”
Jake’s company is WireOne; he owns and operates it with his wife of 14 years, Amber. While it does some new construction, its primarily focus is residential service. Since 2010, business has been very, very good, having grown from roughly $300,000 in sales to $1.6 million in 2017.
The reasons for WireOne’s successes are many, but they can be boiled down to this: Jake and Amber maintain a progressive approach, constantly evaluating every facet of the company. They monitor, tweak, and reassess its direction. They never settle; they’re never complacent. Yet Jake will insist growth, while important, doesn’t drive the couple’s decision making. He and Amber march in lockstep with a truism found within the pages of Scaling Up: Revenue is vanity, profits are sanity, and cash flow is king.
“I’ve never believed in borrowing money. The business has never, ever had any debt. We’ve always been cash forward. It’s easy to go into debt, and it’s hard to get out,” Jake said. “We’ve maintained our growth curve, and we’ve done so without sacrificing profit. I know everybody seems to get wrapped up into grow, grow, grow your topline. We’ve remained committed to being profitable.”
The path Jake, Amber, and WireOne venture down today looks much different than the one traveled not long ago. WireOne happened out of necessity, not because of Jake’s love for the trade or long-term plan to be an electrical contractor. He and Amber had other aspirations and ideas for their future.
A Business Born Out of Necessity
“We were trying to actually get away [from the industry]. We didn’t want to run an electrical business,” Jake recounted. “We had just purchased our farm. We were excited about the opportunity to raise our family while working together.” Little did they know, Wheeler Electric, the predecessor to WireOne, would eventually be born.
Jake was a union electrician, starting as an apprentice out of high school and only leaving for a short, 18-month stint. By fall of 2009, Jake found himself effectively laid off. “I kept waiting [for work]. Winters get pretty hard; there’s lots of snow in Iowa. We sold our house on contract to buy the farm. Those people left, we got the house back and suddenly had two payments. It was a bad deal,” Jake expressed with a hint of distress at the memory. “I mean, we didn’t have enough feed for our cows. Then Amber tells me we’re going to have baby number four.
“We were out in a cornfield freezing, not sure of what to do. It was scary times,” Jake continued after pausing for a moment. “I believe there was a plan in place—a bigger picture we didn’t realize. I thank God that He blessed us and got us through that time.”
Jake leaned on the skills and talents he knew could make him money. As an electrician with a Master’s license, he exercised every contact he’d made in his career and scrounged up work. “I did anything I could get,” Jake said. “I was just trying to make sure we could eat. Then it sort of just snowballed. Three or four years go by. It felt like an uphill battle, but work kept funneling to us.”
One evening in 2014, Jake and Amber sat down to have dinner with a friend, Kraig Kading from Bakeris Roofing. “While speaking with him, we explained business was great; though it was like holding onto a tiger by its tail—things were going fast and we were struggling to keep up. That’s when he told us about SGI. We went to a Profit Day in Kansas City and ended up signing up. It happened that fast.”
It wasn’t a small amount of money, Amber contended, “but we determined that we needed to come up with a different plan. At the time, all our business was from relationships we had with contractors. Everyone knew Jake and knew how reliable and dependable he was. SGI sounded like a way out, a way to actually turn this into a business.”
Amber Implements a Service Fee
“I don’t remember having any feelings, per se,” Amber said while bursting into laughter. “I was overloaded trying to keep up. It blew my mind how much we needed to do—I couldn’t wrap my head around it.” That’s how she felt after attending Executive Perspective not long after Profit Day and then Expo only a few short months later.
“It took us a little bit to get the ball rolling. We were trying to take little steps,” Amber added. One of the first changes impacting her directly was the implementation of a service fee. “The first three phone calls I tried to sell it, I didn’t book a single one. It was horrible! I actually cried,” she revealed and then laughed once more. “I told them about the service fee before I even said hello. I didn’t build any value.”
Thankfully, those first three calls weren’t representative of the future. Amber practiced and perfected her pitch. In time, WireOne regularly booked appointments with a service fee, which stands at $69 today. A service fee was only one modification pertaining to its call center.
“I’ve always been pretty big on answering the phone. It makes me mad to get a voicemail. Even when I was working all the time in the field, I answered the phone. That was really one of my hardest transitions—giving that to someone else,” Jake said.
It took Jake and Amber almost a year into the SGI program before hiring a call taker and entrusting her with answering the phone. “As we realized, it’s something that had to be done so we could focus on intentional growth,” Jake added.
Increased Value Before Increased Prices
A massive, company-altering shift that Jake and Amber knew couldn’t wait a year entailed a boost to pricing. “I think we were charging something like $60 an hour. We really didn’t have a system of how we charged. People would call, ask us to do some work, and we do it,” Jake said with a chuckle.
“Most of our jobs were wrapped up in time and material. We sort of guessed what the job should be,” Amber quickly interjected with a laugh, too. “Looking back, there’s no wonder why people kept calling us.”
Jake stipulated if WireOne increased its pricing, he wanted to be certain customers believed they received more value. “We were in a relatively safe position [financially]. So, we could spend money to improve, and that’s what we did,” he explained. “We wrapped our trucks. We ordered white, button-up uniforms embroidered with patches. And we trained our guys on how to deliver strong customer service, along with the importance of wearing shoe covers.”
Only with those enhancements in place did WireOne adopt the Electricians’ Success International StraightForward Pricing book and the price hike accompanying it. “The next step was teaching the guys how to use it,” Jake said while wincing.
Jake heard what was said at Profit Day, Executive Perspective, and Expo. He knew he needed to charge more. But when it came time to hit the field with the new pricing tool, Jake’s nerves rattled a bit. “Absolutely, I was hesitant. Everybody was. I remember feeling scared to use it. I’m certain I used it on a new, random customer at first—we would’ve never tried it with an existing,” Jake said and laughed a bit.
Everything ended up working. Customers kept calling and booking appointments—except now Jake and Amber had money to finally grow the business. “Once we gave the system a try, and the team saw it worked, they were more willing to go along with the changes. Looking back, the biggest change needed was in our thinking.”
A Little Help from Their Friends
Delivering informative safety inspections and providing options for each repair, knowing how to rightfully gain homeowners’ trust over the course of a call, and eventually turning an apprehensive customer into a company advocate—in other words, mastering service calls—it wasn’t something that came immediately to Jake and WireOne.
Jake quickly and repeatedly credited fellow SGI member Kent Boll for his direction and mentorship in those early days. SGI gave Kent’s number to Jake after joining. “They said I could call him if I had any questions,” Jake explained. “I called him a few times before I eventually invited myself up there [to the Twin Cities, where Boll runs Boy’s Electric]. I’ve since visited Kent multiple times. I’ve taken a lot of guys up there, rode on his trucks, sat in the office, and talked with [his general manager] Miki [Stone]. I can’t thank Kent enough for his help over the years.
“Trent Urban, from the WireNut [in Denver], has become another really good friend. I’ve been to his shop three or four times. The first time, I just showed up. We were in [Colorado] skiing, and I called him and said, ‘Where are you at? I’m heading your way!’ ” Jake said and laughed. “He’s been so gracious. We’re looking to hire a dispatcher, and he said to send the new person out there to observe for a couple of days after they’re hired.”
Kent and Trent aren’t the only SGI members with whom Jake and Amber stay in contact. “We’ve visited Brian Leech’s office here in Des Moines a few times. Ben and Jaime Carpenter are good friends. I’ve visited Milestone [in Dallas],” Jake listed. “I just got an email this morning from Kerry Adkins [in Birmingham] with some of the stuff they’re doing with payroll and point structure. And I connected with Wes Carver [from Lansdale, Pennsylvania] at Expo. He’s doing great things.
“We’ve done the best we could to see how people who are winning are doing it,” Jake added. “In my opinion, that is the biggest advantage of the SGI membership—the network of people. There are so many other people I could probably mention.”
After that first year as SGI members, Jake and Amber attribute the early direction provided by fellow members for a massive upswing in business. They more than doubled their revenue—again, while staying very profitable. “We jumped from around $300,000 to $700,000 without doing any marketing. We didn’t even have a website at that point.”
Training Makes the Difference
Steady, deliberate, profitable growth has continued since 2014. Jake estimated WireOne has added a technician or more a year. Training has been the difference. Consistent, weekly training has allowed Jake to replicate himself in the field and, a little more than a year ago, remove himself from running calls. “Again, a lot of what we train, I gleaned from Kent,” Jake admitted. “We learned his process and tried to do the same.”
WireOne has hourlong training meetings twice a week. One focuses on communication training; the second alters between technical training and communication training depending upon the need. In communication training, “The techs mostly talk about their calls. We’ve been talking a lot about getting customer reviews lately and why they’re important. What can we do extra to go above and beyond to motivate customers to give us a review? Dusting ceiling fans and carrying out garbage—those little things matter,” Jake said.
“We just added a question to our debrief form that asks the guys to answer the question, ‘What did you do to go above and beyond?’ It’s part of closing every call we run.”
Not too long ago, Jake instituted a daily huddle on days WireOne doesn’t train. “We actually do it over the phone as a conference call. It’s just 15 minutes. It’s another idea I got from [the book] Scaling Up,” he explained. “We ask, what’s going on? What are your key numbers from yesterday? Do you see any hurdles? We run through it quickly. I like keeping in touch with everyone every day.”
Changing Your Marketing Strategy Daily
It took Jake and Amber a little time to feel comfortable with the new business model before they decided to make a marketing push. “I’d say it took us well over a year before we marketed,” Jake shared. “It got through to me that relationships will only get you so far.”
WireOne initially worked with a host of vendors to fulfill its advertising needs with some mixed results. Then, a chance meeting with Charlie Wittmack roughly 18 months ago changed everything. “Charlie came aboard and started helping,” Jake said. “He’s done so much for us.”
An attorney, Wittmack is based in Des Moines whose businesses include consulting.
“I’m not as much a marketer, so much as a strategist,” Charlie explained. He owns a law firm, the Wittmack Group, as well as a creative services agency, Applied Art & Technology. “You could say I serve [WireOne] in CFO kind of function. We had three strategies for the business: those that increase net profit, increase revenue, and increase scalability.”
Charlie assisted Jake and Amber in creating a cohesive brand for WireOne, where all marketing elements shared the same messaging. “We had all these different parts of our strategy that weren’t talking to each other before,” Charlie said. “We figured out how to bring everything back inhouse—our email newsletter, website, radio ads; so, everything was telling the same story.”
Today, WireOne positions itself as your neighborhood electrician. “We want people to see us as approachable, yet professional. You’re hiring the guy next door to do the job,” Jake said.
“Ideally, customers will get the family-owned business feel. Jake and Amber really do view their customers as their friends. They care deeply about people’s customer experience,” Charlie said. “Your neighborhood electrician has been the key phrase. With our SEM platform, we have 170 different campaigns with many more ad groups. We’ve built a highly customized approach that’s neighborhood specific. We have PPC that’s coming online that’s targeting a neighborhood that may be four to six blocks. And we have that spread around an area that covers probably 80 miles in diameter.”
Charlie has been spearheading a new piece of proprietary technology for WireOne that, along with their software, will track impressions all the way through to revenue generated. Being able to identify so closely the best lead sources will allow WireOne to be a better steward of its marketing dollars. “The budget is something Jake and I are looking at daily,” Charlie added. “With marketing, where to best spend digitally changes every day based upon the performance of the platform. Your decision making on where to move dollars is constant.”
The Quest to Find Technicians
Charlie shared that he works with companies of all sizes with WireOne being the smallest—for now. “Still, Jake is probably one of the most ambitious people you’ll get to know. And probably one of the most well-read. I’ve never had a client who reads more, researches more, and has more interest in being cutting-edge in his industry. It’s why WireOne has grown so quickly,” Charlie shared. “They’re fun to work with. I’m inspired by their passion. With them, it’s not what are we going to do. It’s what are we going to do first.”
The issue Jake, Amber, and Charlie are aggressively pursuing today is their struggle to find quality people. WireOne regularly turns away work. “We have to find the workforce to satisfy the demand we’ve created,” Charlie insisted. “WireOne has a separate recruiting website where people can apply. It makes it easier for Jake to sift through applicants. We’re advertising it with SEM and PPC campaigns and the social media outlets.”
Jake and Amber explored growing their own technicians. “It’s been a slow process, but about eight to 10 months ago we went through all the hoops and got a Department of Labor approved apprenticeship program that we can hopefully funnel guys through,” Jake shared.
“Hiring is difficult,” Jake continued and then exhaled. “Not everyone fits. We’ve had more turnover than I’d prefer. But you have to have the right people. Or it doesn’t work.
“The nice thing is while we don’t have all the answers for how to find more technicians, I’m so happy with the amazing team we have right now,” Jake beamed with effusive praise. “Everybody’s pushing in the same direction. Everybody gets what we’re doing. They do a great job serving our customers.”
With their team and the recruiting strategies in place, Jake and Amber believe they can maintain a 30 percent annual growth. “I think that’s just fast enough for us,” Jake affirmed steadfastly. “Again, for us, we’ve always been focused on maintaining profitability.
When asked about the time they invest in WireOne, they both commented: “Currently, the business definitely dominates our lives. With the help and advice from SGI and its members, we plan to change that. We’ve been blessed with seven children and another on the way. They’re all young now, but in the future, we hope some of them want to step in and help WireOne continue the growth we have been blessed with,” Jake said earnestly. “That’s the end goal. It would be nice to have an enterprise that would allow our kids to step in and have somewhere to contribute if they wanted.”
In the meantime, Jake and Amber are focused on the present. “We worry about trying to treat our customers and our employees like we want to be treated,” Jake shared. “That’s the first and most important thing. If we maintain the right focus, everything else will sort itself out.”
Jake and Amber will continue to listen to their audio books during their daily commutes, network with their fellow SGI members, and strategize with Charlie—all with one simple, long-term goal in mind: Growth the right way. The profitable way.