169 | Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs: The Incredible Story of Caleb Fabry

Mar 13

[00:01:12] Chaz Wolfe: What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolf gathering the King's podcast today. I've got Caleb Fabry on the King stage, my brother Caleb. How you doing?

[00:01:20] Caleb Fabry: I'm doing really good. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:22] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, man. Happy Friday here. We are crushing about the end, the, the month of February, man. Can you believe it? It's almost gone.

[00:01:29] Caleb Fabry: No, the, the months are flying by. I mean, we're almost in summer and we've had a very mild winter here, so I'm looking forward to that.

[00:01:35] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, yeah. Well, I can only imagine, in your industry things, uh, uh, change as the seasons change, but, we'll get into some of that, I'm sure. Caleb, tell us what kind of business that you got, brother.

All

[00:01:45] Caleb Fabry: right. It's a pest controlled business, family run, started by my parents and, I'm second generation and we've seen tremendous growth, since basically 2009. We started back in 86, 87. in 2009 is kind of when we like started to jump up a little bit and yeah. Ever your sense of grown. 20, 25% a year.

Wow. some, we've actually had 50% growth mixed in with that. but we've not gone below 20% and the team has grown. it has been, an amazing ride. And like I said earlier, February's blown by Yeah. February, like months now seem like weeks to me. Oh,

[00:02:20] Chaz Wolfe: yeah. Yeah. I can relate to that. But, you, the, some of the numbers that you're throwing out are, are incredible to, to sustain that type of growth month over month, year over year, even in the, into the fifties.

I mean, geez. you're gonna give us some nuggets here today. I'm gonna pull it outta you, at least , you got some good stuff hidden in there, I'm sure. before we get into some of the, the detail of your story and stuff, I wanna know why you're doing this. You know, being second generation, I think you have a little bit different perspective than I would say a large percentage of, of entrepreneurs.

I've had several. Several of both, you know, first generation like myself or second generation like you, or even I've had a couple third forests, but the reality of it is that you sit in a seat that my son will sit in one day or that my daughter will sit in one day. And that's just so interesting to me.

It perplexes me actually, because I'm building the future of that person now as a kid. But it's you I'm looking at, right? So like, tell me now as the second generation, why are you doing this? You know, I may be more related to your, your parents as far as maybe our why and maybe coming from nothing or something like that.

But why are you doing this? Why are you pressing so hard?

[00:03:28] Caleb Fabry: Man, it is exciting when of course when you see growth like that, it, it motivates you even more. yeah, I, I guess if we really start way back, I remember the days of jumping in the vehicle with my dad, and instead of going to school, I would jump in the back seat and hide until he pulled up to his first job.

Amen. And I'd jump out and my dad would be like, what are you doing here? And this happened multiple times. And I said, I just, I just wanna go to work with you. I want to hang out with you. I want to. And at that time he was like working for someone while kind of getting his own thing going. Yeah. And I, I'd pop out and I'd say, please don't, please don't get ahold of mom.

And back then there wasn't cell phones where you could pick it up quick. My mom had no idea where I was because we would just, this is probably, I can't recall if it was summertime or at that age, you know, five or six. Yeah. We could be out in the woods roaming the railroad tracks or the, the streets or whatever the woods for, for hours before we come back.

Oh, yeah. And he goes, well, I, I gotta at least give her a call at some point while we're at this location. And, so he would, and he'd let me stick around sometimes the whole day, or sometimes he'd have to bring me back home or she'd pick me up. But I had this like burning desire inside to, to not want to go to school, not wanting to hang out with friends.

I wanted to be with my dad. I wanted to be working, I wanted to build something. Yeah. And I just, I liked watching him interact with customers. And, I think that was like the biggest thing that I learned from not only his work ethic, but he was super good with customers. almost to the point where you're not making money on this job.

You have just become friends and you're hanging out. You've got friends all over the place that you've now met and they're not necessarily, financially making you make it right now, but in the long run, they're telling everybody that they know. So I really enjoyed that portion as a kid. and then growing up through the years, you know, I did go to school.

I graduated, but I couldn't wait to get done with school. , I, I knew that I wanted to build something. Yeah. And, my dad's, my mom and dad's story is a whole nother thing. They, you know, they didn't have it easy, like you kind of mentioned. Right. And I remember hearing stories of living in a trailer park and that's just one of their stories.

You know, barely being able to buy soda even, or pop. my dad would find a mattress on the side of the road and. Clean it up as good as you could. It was pretty, pretty crazy to hear these stories. Yeah. Our whole life was, growing up. I have three, I have two other brothers. I never knew that we didn't have money growing up all the way through.

It's just that my, my mom and dad supported everything we did. They showed up to our sports games. I never knew that. We didn't though. We all the way through my entire high school year, we, I mean, we weren't dead broke my dad's business. He had to work a lot and work hard and he tried tons of different things.

eventually though it was my time to get married and I wanted to get married young. I wanted to start a family. I didn't wanna be an older dad. Yeah. And so I actually, my path led me to welding through high school. Okay. And I thought, man, I'm gonna be a welder. I'm gonna become an underwater welder. I'm gonna do my own thing.

And man, I got done getting my certifications and. And all that for welding. And I thought I was doing really good. I worked for a place and I'm thankful for where I worked. Yeah. But one day I remember sitting there going, this is not what I want to do the rest of my life. Like, I don't wanna be around all these fumes.

However, now I'm around all these fumes, in a different sense. But I was in But it's your own fumes. It's my own fumes. I, I was in an enclosed space all the time. I'd leave with, with pretty big headaches after welding stainless steel or, or galvanized metal. And, and I'm like, man, like this is, this is cool and everything.

Like I'm enjoying building and I'm enjoying creating things. So we actually started discussing with the owner about purchasing that building and that business. He had a nice small business growing and, one thing led to another. My grandpa was kind of getting involved in it and, we kind of backed out of it.

I'm like, eh, I don't know that I wanna do this for the rest of my life. Like, yeah, I enjoy knowing this trade. We've got this whole beautiful pest control company and it was a carpet cleaning business that could probably be turned into something even better if I put my focus on there. Like, I got my hard work from my dad, my drive towards good customer service and Right.

And people, so I'm like, why don't I just team up with him and see what we can do, like make this work for two families. Yeah. And so they gave me the opportunity and, I don't know. I'll let you, I'll let you, I can go on and on, so I'm gonna let you pick some questions. Yeah. That's really to the next stage.

[00:07:51] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Really good. I really appreciate just the backdrop there. and so where you are today obviously is obviously different from, you know, five years old and, and then even being a welder. Yeah. What do you find is the heartbeat of your daily action right now? I mean, I know that like you're building something.

You've mentioned that a couple of times. I've mentioned something as far as like my identity as a builder, I get. Really excited about building businesses, my family, kids, you know, whatever. Like a, a lot of things can go into that, but what's the, like, bigger picture for you? What wakes you up? What gets

[00:08:23] Caleb Fabry: you pumping the, the growth of the business.

My family, being able to watch my parents, you know, have a really good, I'm not saying the ending of their life that comes across bad. Yeah. Of being able to see that, all their hard work and suffering at the beginning. Raising family, trying to build a business. My dad was also, was also a youth pastor.

Trying to do that at the same time. Wow. And, seeing all of that pay off for them in the end instead of taking the uncon or the conventional route of working for somebody. Right. Investing into stocks and, you know, retirement plans. Yeah. Which they would never have been able to do back then. watching a real entrepreneurship take off and being able to see them do whatever they want.

At this, at this point in their life, how, how do you

[00:09:07] Chaz Wolfe: take that perspective, right? Because I mean, you're, what you're saying is that you got a front row seat to delayed gratification, to, you know, doing the hard things now to reap the benefit later. I mean, I can maybe define what I'm saying a couple different ways, but you get what I'm saying.

You got a front row seat to that and now you're seeing it come to fruition. How do you take that now? Because you get, you're actually living a little bit in that fruit, right? The fruit of what Yeah. Their labor was. But how do you take that mindset of delayed gratification and like really pressing hard unto something bigger, better, you know, faster in the future, even in the midst of kind of like living in their fruit.

That make sense?

[00:09:46] Caleb Fabry: I think, yeah, it does, it makes complete sense and I kind of have an answer for that. Okay. I think it's, I think it's, it's built me to look at things differently. So, yeah, I, I, I need to, I need to try to explain this a little bit better, but like, essentially what it's done for me, It's allowed me to take things a little bit slower and know I do a lot of research on everything that I do.

So by watching their delayed gratification, it's also built that within me to be very cautious. But yet I'm not so cautious that I don't make decisions. Like I like to process everything and then all of a sudden something inside of me says, go like this is go time. Yep. This decision right here is gonna pay off.

and so I do truly believe it's come from that the way that I was raised, watching them have delayed gratification. Yeah. So now I make the, I make decisions that are, like I can see that the pluses and the minuses, and I can see where it's gonna lead before it even happens. Right. So a a lot of people have said, well, like, what kind of negatives have you faced?

Like, I honestly can't say that I've had any,you know, watching my. They didn't really have any, other than, you know, every single month they'd live on a $10,000 reoccurring loan to pay the bills, pay it off, pay it off. like that was really it. Like I, I'm not saying that there was a lot of hard times, but we didn't have any things that like, just devastated us.

We just kept pushing forward. I felt like devastation or something negative was like, the next day you wake up and you do something different. And that's just kind of how I watch them work, right? So that's kind of the drive that has me at this point, based on my growing up experience.

[00:11:16] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I mean, we're talking about some really juicy stuff here.

the, just to make a quick point, I mean, even in, even your co your company name, town and Country Pest Con Control Solutions or Pest Solutions, like that's the way that you just described what that that is for you, which is like, I'm just, it's just solution based. There's no problem. There's just something I need to overcome and solve and then we do something different or we do it a different way, or we just try it again tomorrow.

And that's a, that's a re a really, really, resilient. attitude and spirit that you have, which is funny. So I wanna point this out to the listener, is that sometimes we can obtain this in our own singular journey, but some, some of the decisions that we make are so like long lasting that you are now in second generation reaping the benefit of a hard time then knowing that now you can operate inside of a decision differently.

And here's what I mean. The bigger the business gets, the more success you have, the more money you have, the more resources, the more key relationships, the more leverage, which is a lot of this as we talk about inside of the gathering, the King's Mastermind. But when you have more of this, it comes down to just better and higher quality decisions that you as an individual make, and then of course your team as well.

But you have the ability now to slow the process. And I don't mean slow it down, like, you know, delay and, and overanalyze and over research. You didn't say any of that, but you did say, I have the ability or the covering from the work that my dad did to be able to like look at things. in a slightly slower pace to be able to analyze thoroughly and then make a quality decision and then go.

And so we all have to be able to do that. But, so if you're listener right now listening and you don't have the covering of a big business, cause that's in essence, Caleb, what you have is like, you've got this, this covering, you know, where it's like, okay, I can slow down a little bit. I don't have to make a decision today.

Right? Because the more quality decisions are bigger decisions, and usually they're not like, do it. You know, like it's a little bit more well thought out process, which you've already alluded to. But some, somebody today is listening and going like, well, I don't have time for that. I'm, I'm like, you know, job to job or I'm this or that.

And like, he's more in the experience of maybe what your dad experienced early on. It's like, okay. So you still have to be able to, in that moment, do exactly what Caleb, Caleb is saying right now, which is slow down, be thorough, make a decision. Now that process for you might be three minutes . Yeah. But inside of that three minutes, you still gotta do exactly what Caleb's saying.

Would you agree with that?

[00:13:44] Caleb Fabry: Totally, man. Like, so, like I, your example is great because if I look back at my dad, his cell phone would ring. we, we had pagers, we had cell phones, and then eventually, but the pager or the cell phone would ring with 50 messages, right? At 11 o'clock in the morning. He'd shut that thing off, he'd go upstairs to his room and he'd play all those messages and he'd miss out on probably so many phone calls and so many potential jobs.

But watching him, his decision making was like, how do I answer the phones and how do I do these jobs and do it all Right? So his was, everything was on the fly. It was on the cuff. He'd lose money, he'd lose checks. He'd, I honestly don't even know how we stayed in business because of how crazy his mind was running.

And I got to watch that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so being part of that growth and watching his chaotic mind and still be a dad and still be able to be youth pastoring Yeah. Blows my mind. I, but it, it, it developed me to take something to a next level because of experiencing being around that. So now I do get to do that, and you get to slow things down.

And my decisions now are not these little ones that he had to make just answering a phone call. They're way bigger than that. they're, they're actually shaping the new direction of the company each time we make decisions.

[00:14:50] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is, is a, is a really beautiful, like it's happening for you.

And so we get to see it through the story that you're telling of like, okay, whether it's my son or just someone that I sell this business to eventually, this is the progression of how business works, is that he eventually gets big enough to where the guy who started it, may not be the best manager

Mm-hmm. Because we're so like in over here, like, ah, you know, constantly. Yeah. And, and a guy like you that has this perspective of like, I see you and I appreciate that dad. Yeah. But like , there's another level of, you know, how to do this. And so, yeah. I think there's just a great perspective there.

What about, you, you said you didn't have like this massive failure and I want to get into decisions, right? So really what we're talking about is decisions and, and so there's been decisions that you've made that haven't turned out. Well, give us one of those. Give us one of a, just a decision that's just like, stay away from this and we can learn from you.

[00:15:48] Caleb Fabry: I'm gonna be honest, we've not had a ton of those decisions happen. okay. A ton of those things happen, but I would say that if I was just to point out one thing, finding the people around you is one of the most important things that you could possibly do. Finding the right people. So yeah, if I, if I look back, I, I won't ever truly be able to give my parents perspective on how it was like, I'm sure they could give you failures.

Sure. That they didn't share with me. Although they were very open in everything financially. With, with us as kids, we knew pretty much everything. I guess I felt like we did. but if I was to stick it to my own point, Finding the right people to, to support you and be around you and buy into your ideas.

Yeah. Is probably the most important thing. So when we've had people come in here, I'm thankful for maybe people we've had to let go, but they've helped us do better the next time they've, they've gotten us to a point that brought us to another level because we, we had their experience, we've had them around us.

Right. Great people. It just, as we grow, we change. And so I would say some of our, our failures, but I don't really call them failures, I following them as growth opportunities would be the people around you that want to keep going forward. I think everybody wants that, but like, you have to decide you're the decision maker on that.

Like what's gonna benefit the others with you by having good people and you can see what one negative can do to an entire company.

[00:17:08] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Let's talk about this. This is a really, really important topic and, it's, I have a few non-negotiables. I'm a pretty. Well, I'm not a patient individual at all. I was gonna say I'm patient, but I'm totally not, but I'm patient with people.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I really want to work through people like what you're saying. And so oftentimes we have people in a, in a seat and maybe they shouldn't be or whatever, but one of my nonnegotiables is negativity. So I want you to talk into this. You mentioned something small, negative, or you actually also mentioned the desire to move forward.

So you grow and change as the business, the business itself grows and change, the vision changes. You know, you're growing 20, 30, 50% every single year. I mean, there's massive just environmental changes happening every day at the office. And so are you saying that someone inside of the office who's good today may not be good three years from now because of all the growth and, and it's just, it's just different.

[00:18:04] Caleb Fabry: Absolutely. Like you've got, so this is again, no cuts. My dad, you mentioned it earlier, my dad, My dad is a certain type of person, an entrepreneur that can run things a certain way at a certain level and have a certain amount of control, but he, he may have a more difficult time running 50 people. Right.

And his strengths, so he's just an example of, of that situation. Like, and we've also had different people within the technician side or the office side that were good with a small group, but they're not good necessarily with a bigger group or the big changes. Right. And so like you do need to put the right people in the right place.

And if those people can't adjust with the times or the changes, it makes a huge impact on your business. So they could even be moved to a different spot and it would benefit you. So, throughout our business, my dad has had a place, it may not be the grinding and the hard work, but he's like such a good problem solver and, and he likes to do what's best for the customer.

So those experiences go a long way.

[00:19:05] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. you're, you're, you're hitting on so many just valuable principles here. I wanna just hit this home for the listener. couple points you're saying nu not, not only as the business grows, the team grows, but that each level of the business, that there's maybe a different need for the team member to be able to grow themselves to, or maybe just they they need to go to a different seat, potentially.

Yeah. And so there's this mindset that someone, however your business looks today, whether that could be the actual products or the experience or, but it could just be the actual team. But all of that potentially is gonna change as you grow. In fact, I would not say potentially. I would say it's probably is gonna change, right?

And, and it's okay that someone today, on your team, three years from now or eight years from now isn't necessarily the best fit. It's not a good fit for them or for the business, or maybe it's just a different seat. And so I think all that's good. We're clear on that. How do you early, make sure that you're filling the right seat, or now as you're growing and changing so fast.

be able to adjust or recognize when to adjust with that person, move 'em to a different seat, or maybe recognize that they're no longer a good fit.

[00:20:13] Caleb Fabry: It, that's a tough one because you, at least from my experience, I find out when there's a problem. Yeah. So that, that become, it's you, you've built relationships, your friends, you know, even to tap on top of that, my seat changes.

I have to be willing to change my seat. Like I realize like how super smart some of the people are that are around me that are working here, they don't, we don't share the same strengths, but what I was doing is no longer a benefit to the company and passing that on to somebody else's massive and being able to recognize within yourself when it's time to give that up, I think is the most important thing.

I don't have to be doing everything, and it's a failure for me to be doing things that are not my strength. And, and I will say probably like the bookkeeping aspect and I'm more of like the. The culture driver. I like to push ideas, I like to get things out there. I like to make sure everybody's got what they need to succeed.

but we've got people here that man, they're like speaking other languages in Excel spreadsheets. Yeah. And they're like, they're communicating to each other in code. And I'm like, what is even going on? And it's okay. I, I used to be able to bill our webs, our websites, you know, I'd build, I'd sit down and I'd open up my Mac and I'd build a website and it works.

Right? I don't need to do that anymore. And if I do that, we're actually losing business. So for me, yeah, it's just as important to get me in the right seat as it is any other person. And, and, there comes a time where you're, you can feel your team recognizes that I'm not in the right spot and it's time to shut up and back up and move over and readjust.

So the same happens with my team. you can sense when others feel that somebody shouldn't be in the right spot, and you as the leader, the decision maker, need to start making some moves or. You could ultimately lose better teammates. I don't know. Yeah, we've, we've, we've been there, we've done that.

Unfortunately, it often happens too late where, man, I wish I would've just seen that a little bit earlier, but I don't, I don't know that it's bad. We've just made adjustments. I, what I really push here now in our company is like, we aren't, we aren't a Fortune 500 company. We don't have everything established.

So if there's something you want to do or you could see that you make a difference, please speak up and build your job out. Like anything is open for opportunity here. So, yeah, I've had 2, 3, 4, 5 people say, I wanna do this, can I do this? And I'm like, go with it. Let's see what happens. And sh write me out a job description.

Give me an idea of what you'll be doing every day and show me the future. And man, some of these people have already like, turned ideas within our business and the things I could have never thought of or done myself. Yeah. So we have, being a small business, when you're, you're just starting out, the opportunities are endless, but you have to be willing to open those doors up for people to say, Hey, you mean I don't have to be a technician?

I could come into the office and make a big difference. Oh man. My heart beats and I get, I get nervous about like somebody that's out making money and producing to coming into the office and they're not directly producing, but in the long run they really are. That's hard. Yeah. Getting that first one passed and and over you and seeing it succeed, it makes it way easier for the next people.

[00:23:14] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. The underlying principle you're talking about, and Alex Zi talks about this a lot, which is you can have control or you can have freedom. And as entrepreneurs a lot like your dad, we like control. We say we want freedom. That's why we don't wanna go work for anybody . Yeah. But really what we want is control.

But what you're talking about is freedom. Because if you can relinquish control a k a, give it to somebody else and they build out their own job description, you give 'em runway and, and off you go. That ultimately, Provides the ultimate freedom for you a and the company because, and them even because they're now in a seat that, they've built and they, they've made their own, their own bed, you know, good or bad.

And there's a lot of things that can come out of that that can be very, very, even contagious for the rest of the team, you know? Mm-hmm. , there's a lot of culture benefits that can come outta that as well. Which there's obviously the flip side of that coin, which is, you know, you got somebody that's in the wrong seat for too long, you kinda mentioned it earlier.

or maybe they don't want to be there. And that we've all been around when that person's gone and we're like, oh yeah, that should've probably happened a little sooner, you know?

[00:24:19] Caleb Fabry: Yeah. And they don't even know how to get out themselves sometimes. Exactly. You know, they still have a personal connection, especially when you're smaller, you've got more of a personal relationship.

Yeah. So you don't know how to get out of it yourself. Yeah. Sometimes as hard as it can be, it works out better for everybody and, and, you can still keep that relationship, although weird at first, you still can keep it in the long run.

[00:24:38] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, it's so true. I've, I've hired and fired hundreds , especially in sales, you know, they come and go mm-hmm.

but that truth that you just made is like, look, if, if I have done a good job of creating, it doesn't have to be a perfect system. You say we're not a Fortune 500 company. We don't have everything dialed in, but like, if I can have some sort of a system where I'm gonna take you through a process, I'm gonna give you adequate training, I'm gonna really get in there with you and make sure you've got everything to succeed.

You mentioned this a few minutes ago of like, I wanna make sure everything's, everybody's got what they need. Hmm. I actually do that genuinely, and we get to a certain point and the, the, the performance indicators aren't there. It's not good for me and the business, but it's not good for them either. Yeah.

And they're probably just not having a good time. So it's actually my duty for them and for me to help them move on to something better. Yep. Yep. How do you do that?

[00:25:26] Caleb Fabry: I, I think that, oh, I, I think that one thing that leads me. And helps, makes a lot of these kinds of decisions is my faith in God. And I think by, by having that portion in my life, I, I truly do believe that my decisions are made way different than you would probably see in the secular decision world. Yeah.

just with a lot of grace and humility. And I think one thing that's really important is like, did we truly give that person everything that they needed to succeed? And if not, yeah. I have a really hard time, a really hard time letting somebody go unless there's an additional conversation or another chance with, with, us making sure that we do that the next time.

Like, like you said, you've done hundreds. I've not done hundreds. I've probably done 15 max and I'm okay with that. I don't want to be, I don't wanna be patted on the back for a hundred. The bigger you grow it, hundreds happen and it's inevitable. Yeah. but for my size, company 15 still hurts. It's 15 people that potentially their lives were affected.

I've seen these 15 people though, or whatever number it might be. Without even knowing it. It changed their life, their life for the good. it put them in a different direction than they ever even needed. And this, that same thing could happen to me or my parents or any entrepreneur. Something bad could happen in your business and what are you gonna do next?

Yeah. Like are you prepared for that? Sometimes? No. And I would say somebody looking back at my dad, he worked for places and he had, he worked at a church doing maintenance and he was a youth pastor and different things. And he had said to the pastor at some point, I might get the story a little bit off cuz I wasn't there.

But I've heard him tell it plenty of times. Yeah. he said, I need more money. I've got a family now. Yeah. Like, what can I do? And, and the pastor said to him, listen Matt, you gotta do what's best for your family. So whatever it is, I support you. We're a church, we can't do more. so go do it. And it was like freedom for my dad.

He immediately felt like, you mean I can go do more ? I don't have to be here, I don't have to do this. He's stick, he's stuck with youth pastoring. Buddy went and did more outside, and nobody is tied to anything. That is the beautiful part about being one in this world, or maybe even more so in America. Like, you can do whatever you want and you don't need permission.

Just go do it ethically, do it morally, do it with the right intentions and you'll see success happen. So, I don't know, I, I, I guess my faith is what leads, leads me to lead and direct this company. It's very important. Yeah.

[00:27:53] Chaz Wolfe: I, I agree with you. I, I, I would say the same, grace that comes from our faith, that we are able to then extend to people because we've will first extended grace, right?

But, I can look at those scenarios and I can think of people that I've had to let go that have, I've kept a relationship with, like you mentioned. Mm-hmm. And had those moments where they've come back and been like, dude, thanks really, I really appreciate you giving me the boot. You know, like, yeah.

Because, because of all the things that we've been talking about, which is. It's not good for either of us. And if I can give them the freedom like you, like that pastor gave to your dad, then it's actually like their ticket to where they actually need to be. And I'm just holding 'em back. And so I don't wanna be responsible for holding anybody back.

Yeah. and, and it's funny too because in those environments it's the other people who aren't involved that, that have a negative connotation. So like when in this, you know, company that I'm referring to, years and years ago when I was a sales manager and hiring just gobs of salespeople, I had a bad rap of of being that guy that would fire quick.

But everybody on my team didn't think about me like that cuz they knew I was in the freaking trenches and I was gonna give them everything like you mentioned. Yep, yep. And I wasn't gonna let anybody go until they had all of me. Yeah. And usually if they had all of me and they were the right fit, they were freaking winning.

And that's why we had the best team. Yep. So it's a, it's a catch 22. And if then, if it's not a good fit, then, then you help 'em move on, like we've already discussed. So let's, let's flip the coin here. I wanna hear about a good choice. You kind of mentioned that, like, hey man, you know, the bad choices are somewhat limited, but like, yeah man, what's, what's that gushy like?

Just one thing right here, man. It just has led to a bunch of success.

[00:29:31] Caleb Fabry: Okay. That's an easy one for me because I, man, it just always pops into my head. So like a good decision to change the direction of the company. So at one point, of course I had a decision to, to do welding or do something, anything I wanted, at that point, I could do anything.

You know, I had the entrepreneur spirit within me to do whatever I wanted. I knew I, even if I did welding, I wasn't gonna stay working for somebody else. Right? So it came to that pivot where I said to my dad, like, and we kind of had this mutual thing, like it was just him working. He had this small business running where he was occasionally using temporary help friends day people.

He'd even pick homeless people up and take 'em to work with them. So, I said to my dad, like, I don't wanna do the welding anymore. I, I have all the equipment. I enjoy it. I, I think we've hit a dead end in buying this company potentially. But why would I, I love doing what you're doing. I love pest control. I like that kind of stuff.

Like it's, it's not necessarily hard work and it wasn't the hard work as afraid of, I'm like, there's so much potential here. Like Right, right. Everyone's got bugs and that's why my dad started doing that. He actually started out doing carpet cleaning cuz everyone's got a carpet. That's right. I feel like his path is what a lot of people did.

Everyone, you know, a lot of carpet cleaners are in existence to this day. but then pest control kind of took off. We sold off that portion of the business and I remember saying to him like, I want to come there and I wanna make it so that it supports my family. I was just about to get married. So we sat down at the kitchen table and he said, this is what you're gonna need for clothing each month.

You're gonna need this for food. And I'm like, Man, what am I doing? What should I even be getting married at this point? . And, he goes, I can promise you that we'll make sure that those things are paid for. And I said, well, in my own mind, I don't wanna be limited to that either, so I am gonna grind and I'm gonna hustle out.

And, so man, I just, I just got my route going and start doing my things. And then eventually I shifted from doing a lot of the field work to office work and kind of bouncing back and forth. And my dad was still trying to figure out his thing. He was really good with the people out in the field. Yeah.

Well, I started hiring some of my own friends. I have this one, one guy that's still with me today. He, he did college every other day and then worked here every other day. Wow. Yeah. And worked at FedEx at night. Like this guy was just like a, a grinder and a hard worker. Yeah. Still the same way. Now he owns his own donut business.

Does this business. And, you know, he's just keeps moving up the chains here. so I brought him in and, it just kind of worked and we, we, we went back and forth pay structure and I don't know, at that point I didn't even care about money. It was like I knew at least I could pay my bills. Right. He was still living at home and not married.

So he didn't really, like, he wasn't dying to money wasn't an object in any way, shape or form. It's not even to this day, I'm just saying. It was like we just had people that wanted to work hard. Yeah. Yeah. And so I said, I don't wanna be limited to the small. And I want to see us all succeed. And man, so a few things happened and one of 'em is bedbugs.

I'm sure you've heard of bedbugs. Everybody has at this point. They came out massive. And, and before that I knew nothing about 'em other than everyone else. They heard the song When you Go to Sleep and, , bedbugs started coming out. I, I won't get into too much details, but it's in our world all of a sudden and not knowing a lot about 'em, I, if you know any, if you know anything about me or do eventually, like I, like all of a sudden like research nonstop and the internet was around back then.

I'm not that old. I researched everywhere. Just everything I could find out about bedbugs. And one thing that came across was this company in the, west that had a dog that snipped out bedbugs. And I was like, that is cool. Like, who doesn't want a dog that sniffs anything out? Drugs. Bombs. Now we've got one that does bugs.

This is incredible. Yeah, . So, you know, not knowing, being young, I just, I went to my parents, I'm like, we had to get this dog. And they're like, Yeah. Well that's not happening. Like, this is almost winter time too. This is going into the winter when we have no money. Yeah. And I said, I, I know I can make this work like I know I can.

And, they said, well, we can't do it. So instead I went back and I contacted three different people that had it and I contacted one person that trained the dogs and I put this whole like, business program together and re-pitched it and said, I think I can make this work. Please, let's do this. Like, this could change everything for us.

Yeah. And I still really didn't even know in the real world how to find a bed bug or even what they looked like, but man, to have a dog that sniffed something out, absolutely incredible. So that could have been a, a really bad decision right there. Yeah. You know, just getting excited about something. And that does happen to a lot of people.

And it fails and it could crush you. Yeah. if, and it didn't. So I contacted, this company in Florida, told my parents all about this. Contacted a couple people that own these dogs, got all this stuff together. And I said, listen, I'll build a website. I'll go out and knock on doors. I'll do whatever it takes to get this dog selling.

I guarantee you it will sell. Like bed bugs are a huge issue. Yeah. Although we hadn't really even killed any here yet. I was just envisioning like, they're coming. We could, we're not far from New York City. We could head down there. I know they're there. Right. And, so anyways, with the re-pitch to them, they agreed to us.

So we took out that $10,000 loan I told you, which is used for payroll, for bills, and it's just reoccurring. We pay it off each month and we spent it towards that. And I'm sure inside my parents were like, oh man. But I, I do think they bought in some of the excitement that I had. Yeah. So anyways, we went for two weeks.

We trained with the dog, we brought it back. I had a website already kind of loosely built. back then Max. Max made it really easy to build your own, put everything together. I spent hours and hours and nights and whatever, built business cards. And then I contacted all the news stations. And so we've got this dog, that sniffs.

Bedbugs. Yeah. Everybody bit. Oh, everybody. Oh yeah. So I, they all wanted to be the first one to pitch it locally. Long story short, it hit national, it went all over the place. We had MSNBC and huge companies come to interviews. We were one of the first that had the dogs and in New York City, they're a huge problem with bedbugs.

So like it took off, we ended up doing some of the big chain stores right downtown in New York City. wow. To have our dog come sniff it out all the way from Rochester It's like a five, six hour drive, like they were willing to pay whatever. But Yep. Man. The first call came in after one of the news stories from one of our huge universities here and said, we can't get rid of bedbugs.

Could you come and show your dog? Yeah. And that was a point in my life where I'm like, okay, now we're in trouble. We've got a dog, but how do we kill? them Yeah. . I never, never even thought about that. I thought that would be the easy part. Killing 'em. That's what we do. We kill every day of our lives. Right. I didn't realize how resistant they were to pesticides.

Yeah. So this is where my dad comes in. My dad says, listen, I'll figure out how to kill these things all. You just keep getting us to work. Solution Master . So we, we, man, we, we, we met this college with all these big executives and they also had a property management company that had tons of properties around us that managed some of their properties, their dorms and things.

And yeah, man, we had this little wheel that had all these different scents in it, and one of 'em had a bedbug and we had vials of bedbugs. And this dog found it every single time we'd spin it and then I had one of them take it, hide it. The dog went around the room and found the bed bugs. I'm like, this is unreal.

Like, I am not qualified to be standing here in front of these people. Yeah. I feel like one of those, I feel like I was one of those like, Old time car salesman, or not car salesman, but like they had the little medicine that they drive around town to town and sell something that was fake. I almost felt that way, and part of it was because I don't, we didn't have a solution necessarily to kill them.

Sure, sure. so anyways, long story short, we, we did find the solution to kill them. Yeah. And we did get a lot of accounts and everything has worked out beautifully. Like our, our first year, it got to the point where me and my dad were, were butting heads constantly because here I'm bringing in all this work.

Yeah. And we're not really set up to handle it. Yeah. Like, we're sending out a lot of promises, but one thing if you know about us, we do what we say we're gonna do. So we did get these accounts, we had battles, we had head budding. My dad would hire people I would never hire. And Right. Looking back, it was really because I didn't have anyone else to hire, so.

Right. Again, thankful for the people that, that he brought on board. Yeah. and a lot of 'em did work out. But anyways, man, we, we killed a lot of bad bugs in our days, and it got to the point where we no longer could use this dog, one single Jack brussel terrier. That was the most annoying dog on earth.

But I owe this dog a lot. And, oh yeah. This, this dog changed our life in that direction, past control world. Yeah. but I would, I would say that like the teaming up of me and my dad, crushing bedbugs and then, and then building off of that, like, oh, we don't have to just be bedbug experts, right?

We've now got the opportunity to do everything for these companies. Right. So let's start pitching that. And we ended up hiring our very first salesman. We're not a sales driven company. We never have been, right. But we had a guy that unfortunately went through a weird situation, it, a place that he owned and joined our team.

And then this guy just started knocking on doors and it was almost easy for him to sell with his experience, but having a dog that could walk in. Yeah. We, we were, man, the story is so huge on this dog and how it changed our life and where it got us into that. I could go on and on about it, but let's just say that it got us into a lot of commercial property and, and essentially we're all residential.

We've now flipped 65% commercial. Yeah. So it, it's commercial. Commercial for us is like, it's game changing for our business and growth. Right. You know, the, the residential is something you're always thankful for, but it's not very consistent work necessarily. Residential is consistent, or commercial is consistent.

they want you monthly, they want you quarterly, they, you know, it's just always coming in. They're generally pretty good for the, the money. but now we're able to grow. Now we're back focused on a residential growth and building that out because our commercials just keep growing. And I, and I'll, I will say starting out and watching it change, it was the people that we hired that changed our whole life as well.

All of them were in on it. Like, it's hard. I, I look back now and I'm like, why did they do this? Why did they work so hard for us? What was in it for them? I know they got a paycheck and they, a lot of 'em were like, I'm not gonna do this for the rest of my life. But some of them are still here. Yeah. And you know, I've got this one guy who, it's the mission.

It was the mission. Like they bought into it. Like they saw the passion between me and my dad. And, and a lot of 'em were my friends or my brother's friends. And several of them still work here to this day. And they, they, they feel part of the family of the team. Yeah. they drive the culture with us and yeah.

The culture is what now pushes us forward. we work really hard at trying to make sure that you, you never wanna just be somebody that everybody just likes. Yeah. But we, we want them to love this place. I, I realize we're not a church sometimes. That's hard for me. We, we have a, a great opportunity out there to have a mission.

Yep. But that's good. You know, you start, you, every time we start seeing some of the outside circles come in, there's certain ones that can destroy that culture so quickly. Yeah. That you've got it. The, if you're stronger on the other half, it pushes it back out and it changes people. I've watched people come in here that I'm like, this is never gonna work out.

It's amazing how instant they turn off their, their language, the way that they speak, the way that they communicate to customers. Instant, just watching others. They want to be around people that they're good. That, they, they would, they they thrive. We all thrive to be around people like that. Yeah. And so if we have a strong culture, we're watching that happen.

So anyways, that's our, that's like our turning point. That's our good side of the story. Now we do it all. Yeah. Our company used to be called Town and Country Carpet Cleaning. Then it turned to Town and Country Solutions. Cause my dad's like, I wanna do everything. Yeah. I don't even know what that means, but I wanna do everything.

And so we were literally doing everything like Yeah. Pest related carpet. It didn't even matter. We, we would knock down fences. Yeah. Anything to make a dollar we would be part of. And eventually we focused, we're like pest controls that we are the best at this. We're gonna make sure that we're the best at this.

We're gonna, you know, we've got. It's the ultimate provider behind us pushing why we do this. Yeah. And we've kept that mission ever since. So yeah, here we are. I'm,

[00:41:43] Chaz Wolfe: dude, you just gave us, an entire college lecture better than any college professor could give, because you just gave a real story. and so there are a couple things I wanna point out.

number one, the last thing that you just mentioned, the focusing, every entrepreneur, especially the first generation. Cuz I know what you just said about your dad. I am like, oh yeah, that's me. Where I'm like, I can do everything and, and we can, but not really. You can't do everything well. And, and so there that, that mindset in itself keeps you from hiring.

It keeps you. A lot of things because it's control, because you're the guy. Mm. And you try to do everything and it just doesn't work. Everything in one person, it just doesn't work. So I, I appreciate that. And, and you're right. Dialing into something and focusing, like doubling down is, is really, really good.

Some of the things from the story though, I just wanna point out, the dog, the, all of that represents you, whether you realize it or not. It represents you dialing into who you really wanted to work with, which is your co your commercial clients. you, you may not have known that at that time that that was gonna give you access to that, but that's really what it was, is like, this is the ultimate client and this was the doorway.

And then on top of that, it was really, really attention getting. And so I just wanna encourage the listener to think about that. Go, okay, well who do I, who do I really wanna do work with? Like, if I could just. Who, who would be the best ideal client for me? And then what is something that I can do to grab their attention, be on tv, social media, viral, what, what?

Like, whatever that equates to, it doesn't really matter to me, but you need attention. And the dog, I mean, you didn't even know that you were doing it, but I mean, everybody's like, yeah, that's awesome. It was the same feeling that you got because you were like, dude, it's a dog that sniffs out. I mean, yeah.

That's awesome. Yep. So sometimes you kind of have to just kind of go on those gut instincts. And I loved how you said earlier that it could have gone completely like a bust and it could have been a completely different story. Yeah. But it wasn't, it wasn't. You went with the gut and and you got some attention.

Yep. That's why it wasn't a bust, is because you used it. That was the one of those keen decisions that I heard you say in there is I called the news stations, like, how can we do things like that, you know, as entrepreneurs? So I'm gonna just encourage a listener to, to do those two things, find the avatar, and then find a way to really get attention.

[00:43:54] Caleb Fabry: What were you gonna say? I was, I was just gonna say like another, so it's always funny you, you don't know why you're making decisions sometimes. And then you can look back at it like you do today and you can say, man, you had no idea why you were doing that, but you would do it again because of this. And a really good one would be the news stories.

I never really understood how they worked. Once I understood how they worked, they aren't just out there like running across stories. Like they're not just out there like, they're not like, oh, we got like 20 people walking around hoping something happens in front of us. They literally need something to talk about every single day or sometimes twice a day.

And I'm like, it finally hit me like we started using the news to our advantage all the time. Pest is a huge issue with residential, but residential owns properties and they own commercial buildings and they work at commercial buildings, right? And I'm like, they need stories. Why? Why not be the one to tell 'em?

So that's good. You know, originally when I first went in, I, I found and copied every person's email address that I could find in a news station. And within seconds, people were already emailing back, oh, that's really awesome. When can we meet you? When can we do this? And so we've, we've done that over the years with everything.

So it wasn't just bedbugs, it was whatever's out right now, whatever bug is out right now, we're making the story for them because they need stuff to talk about. That's interesting. And in our world, everything's relatable and everything's interesting to people. So if I would, if I would offer up anything, use the news to your advantage whenever you're creating some new product or some new business, somebody wants to tell the story.

We were fortunate to have these like one stations local on cable that would just play the same news all day long. I'm not kidding. I'd go in from like my I'd leave in the morning, I'd see our story. I go into, I remember walking in and getting my brakes changed. They had that same channel and it's like, oh, there I am again.

There's the company or whatever we are. And it was playing 24 7 and then three months later they play the same thing over and over again. Yeah. Like these news stations are free, like they're free avenue to getting your stuff. You just have to have something interesting or you at least have to fit in an interesting way.

So I never understood the news like that. Now it makes sense to me. Yeah.

[00:46:03] Chaz Wolfe: It's so good. it's actually the way awards work also is that you don't just get, someone doesn't find you for a business award. You go apply no and usually pay a fee, but Yep. That, but that same mindset is like these outlets, awards, news, whatever.

They're there, but it takes us going and saying, Hey, I got a cool story. Same thing. Yep. Love it. Okay, let's go to our speed round here. I mean, we've just, we've just been in some really, really thick stuff. I love it. first question in the speed round is, if you could only pick one metric to track inside the business forever and ever and ever, what would that one

[00:46:39] Caleb Fabry: thing be?

So, without knowing what I don't know, which is often what I'm finding myself, I would say that it's, I would, I would track the culture of the company. Okay. How do

[00:46:50] Chaz Wolfe: you do that? Or how do you do it currently?

[00:46:52] Caleb Fabry: So I, I like, I know there's a million different things that you could track. You could track financial stuff, you could track so many different things, but for me, I feel like the culture is the most important portion. , unfortunately, I don't know that there's like a, unless you take random quizzes and, and pull people within the company, I think a big portion of it is, is being within your company, knowing you can feel it, communicating, making sure that you're talking to people, making sure that you're, you're, you're hearing from your team and you can feel it.

Man, I have felt days where I'm like, something is not right. And yeah, it's funny that people can have a different perspective on you that you don't know about. Like, yeah, I may have a certain routine that I do every day, and if I break that people notice and they're probably like, man, what's wrong with that guy today?

That, that stuff can happen. I do that to others. I'm like, something's just not right about that person. Yeah. So, At this point in my life, I, I try to be very in tuned with my team and I try to pass down that to the others and to make sure that your team is, being fed and they're being listened to and they're being heard.

When we've not done that and we have felt it, man, you can see it happen. You can hear the team talk, you can hear rumors. I think it's really important to keep team culture going because the team is what's building this business. Yeah,

[00:48:07] Chaz Wolfe: a hundred percent. Love it. What book or resource would you recommend for a business owner trying to grow

[00:48:13] Caleb Fabry: starting out?

one of the books that I, I mean, besides my belief in, in God and our Faith, the Bible is my number one direction, hearing my pastor, hearing, you know, listening to messages throughout the day. Yes, I would say the book though, that really had a big impact and still doesn't, I recommend everybody in here.

I've even incentivized reading it, is, how to Win Friends and Influence Others. Yeah. And it all comes down to communication and. Man, how you treat others, whether it's your customer, your, your, employee, somebody that you work with, a close friend, or even my own spouse. Like I, I tried that book on my wife and I was like, I can't change her.

Like, she'll never be who I desire her to be in the way that she might act in and, and stupid things and I'll never do exactly what she wants. Yeah, exactly. But what I found, what I found really interesting by, by using this book is that I can change me and by me changing me, it changes somebody else and how they respond.

So it's just like how I mentioned the culture, how I walk into this building and interact with people, directs how others are gonna act throughout the day or even potentially act to our customers. So that book is huge for me. the other book that I'm in the middle of, and I wanna make sure I say it right because I think it's a great book and.

It is called Extreme Ownership. Yeah. By Jocko Wilin. Yeah. And, man, I'm on like his second or third. He's got three book or, he's got plenty that I don't know about, but I'm on his second one that is in a series. And man, just so many good nuggets within that book on, on just always doing what you say you're gonna do.

people are watching in, in this position. People are always looking to see if you're gonna mess up or even if you're gonna lie or twist something. Yeah. Man, at the end of the day, if you want success, make sure you always say what you're gonna do and do what you say. And man, don't, don't mess up at it.

You are, you are on a pedestal. You are in a position that you need make right choices because others are watching you. And it is hard, but man, it's not hard if you just say, I don't care what the outcome's gonna be, we're just gonna do it. Right. Yeah.

[00:50:17] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. The value of excellence, gonna do it right. Also too.

just to add another layer there for the, for the listener. Authenticity. If you're authentic, then you don't have anything to hide. And so you don't have to worry about later covering up something . You know? Oh, it's so freeing. Yeah. Yeah. Because we build a history. Yep. Build a history. And, people know.

In fact, I I, I just did a, a little sales training seminar earlier this week, and, the guy, he, he has a great business now, and, but we, we sold things together years ago and he was like, you know, the one thing I remember about Chaz is that, you know, we would give ratios, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna get this type of result.

And, but he would always lowball it like, like over honest. And it's like, well, because if I can make sense out of the lowball Then they're gonna, then they're gonna be really, really happy with me. yeah. And it's just real, it's just real. Whether it's advertising cuz we were selling leads or whether it's, you know, good expectations for a new person, coming through, you know, hire a salesperson, Hey, you're gonna make 300 phone calls a day and two weeks in, you're gonna get a little tired of that.

Yeah. So why don't we just talk about that now before I hire you. Like, are you gonna make it through? What, what's gonna push you at the moment? You know, like if you're just over honest, you know, rather than trying to like, get 'em to get, get in. Like, I'm just gonna, like, here's what it is. and that'll help.

what do you think about intentionally networking or masterminding with other

[00:51:42] Caleb Fabry: entrepreneurs? Okay, so this is a, this is a really good one. Again, you don't know me very well. But I'm, I'm a very huge introvert, so once I talk about something that I love, you would, you would never know that. So like there was a day that I never feared being on tv.

I never feared giving presentations. When I talked about bedbugs, it would just shoot outta my mouth. Like it was like my language never feared standing in front of anybody. But I think this goes for anything when you're talking about something you're not super confident about your men. For me, man, I just don't wanna stand up in front of anyone.

I would rather die, literally rather just fall over and die. So probably about two and a half, I don't know, it's been two or three years. This, this one guy that does some of our marketing, he's in this pest control group. Yeah. That's just pest control owners or, or maybe they could be higher ups in the company.

Executives. Sure. And they're non-competing companies all around the United States. I was, man, I remember him inviting me. I'm like, I'm never going to that. Never. And this is only two or three years ago. We're already in our own, we're already successful. But now are we even successful? Like I feel like I'm chaos sometimes.

Yeah. He said, just come. He's like, I know you don't know me too well. You know me pretty good. And I was like, this, I, again, I'd rather die. I'd rather die than show up in front of people that up appear to have successful businesses. Right. Well, I went and I brought my wife and I felt more comfortable having someone.

At least I knew that I knew. And it was interesting cuz she was the only female that would show up into these meetings, so it was kind of awkward for her as well. Yeah. And, But she came and, and, people even changed there a little bit, just slightly because she's a female in the group. It kind of messed up the flow.

And here I am, the new person, . Well, they, they get to, they interview you. They get to know you. There's probably 15 to 20 guys in their dominating personalities, I would say. Yeah. And at the end, they vote whether they want you part of the group, like will you bring value to them? Yeah. And I, you know, they said, all right, you gotta go outta the room.

We're gonna talk about you for a little bit and discuss if we wanna move forward. And they've take an official vote. I'm like, dang, this is, this is weird. Like, yeah, you already invited me here. Why are we doing this ? So anyways, I, you know, I jumped in and that it took me a little while. They did vote me in.

And the reason that they voted me in from what I can, the piece that I could bring and that can always change, was the culture portion. Yeah. we're huge into videoing photoing, like pho photographs and documenting our team and our story, and it's all over YouTube. And a lot of them, they weren't into that.

They didn't understand that, but my dad actually was super into like videoing everything. He's got years worth of stuff that'll never be shown because he didn't know what to do with it. Yeah. But we, we do get it out there and, we have two, two media people right on site that work and they build our story and they're sharing weekly episodes of our story.

And it's, yeah. And we've got old videos that have just taken off. We thrive on that. I think feel like that's part of our, our culture. Yeah. So my piece to help on that is to help others where I can in the culture side. so far so good. But what it did for me is it changed my confidence. Yeah. Like it ma it made me able to, to compare myself to other companies to see, yeah, we're actually not doing so bad.

Actually. There's a lot of good stuff we're doing and man, thank you for telling me about that. I never knew about that. That's gonna change our business. I had one guy sell his business last year. He was, savan in the, we call it pest pack. That's what handles our software. Yeah. Knew us so well. Well, he came here, freshly retired, probably made a really good, decent amount of money on his business.

Yeah. And so it was like, I'm willing to come to any of your offices and help you out. I don't even want anything. He was like, yeah, I'm like, This is like an opportunity of a lifetime. So he came in . Yep. Sign me up. I was the first one. Sign me up, please come. You can come whenever we use the same program. He came here and got us set up on one reoccurring revenue standpoint that his blown out of the water.

And Wow. Without him coming here, we would've never had that opportunity. Without that networking group, it would've never happened. Yeah. And he got to firsthand come and see our culture too. So each, each, we meet twice a year. We go and visit in a city where that company belongs and we visit their office, which is also like mind blowing to somebody.

Like, you only know your own little world. You usually don't go into your competitor's office here. Right. So to be able to see how they run things, how their team functions, how they interact with their teammates is like some of the biggest takeaways that I've ever seen. So being an introvert, I found my place in that small group and I see the benefit tenfold by joining it.

Yeah.

[00:56:23] Chaz Wolfe: Wow. I don't know if I've ever heard a more. Valuable or well thought out, answer to that question. I mean, I've interviewed, you know, close to 300 people on the show, and obviously everybody is, you, you network and you mastermind. Like just, you just do it. It is part of business. And, it's funny that you throw in the introvert thing because believe it or not, I am as well.

And and I would say of the, you know, 30, 37 and eight figure business owners in our mastermind, I would say that 29 of them are introverts as well. .

[00:56:55] Caleb Fabry: Ah, man, that's crazy.

[00:56:57] Chaz Wolfe: You know, it's funny and, and I don't know if that's real or not, but it, it, it's a large percentage and here's what happens is that you have this very, very sharp individual, a big personality, if you will, but not necessarily a, an extroverted personality.

A dominating personality doesn't always have to be an extroverted personality. Yeah. And so you have these very, very high achievers who come together who are pretty straightforward and yeah, we can get conceptual and we can talk about big ideas, but then it's also like what you said, Which is a little bit of the untangible piece.

Like you can't, you can't know that you were gonna meet that guy and he was gonna come to your office for free or whatever. And it's like, well, I met that one guy and he gave me that one little piece of nugget. Or in, in our circumstance, it's a lot of times I meet a guy and he introduced me to one of someone in his connections.

It has nothing to do with my, like pest control, like Xs and O's of the business. But what he does affects my overall portfolio, whether it's of my investments, my family, like it changed everything. And it wasn't even a guy in the group, but it was a guy from the group. so anyway, you, you gave an on-ramp there of just some incredible stuff.

I'd love to talk with you more, but I got one last question here for you before we wrap up. Caleb. I wanna know, actually, I, I lied. I got two. I got two. I gotta ask you one more before the last one. I wanna know about your family. Okay. And you don't tell me like the details of, of the family dynamic, but here's what I've found in the entrepreneurial world is that, We're like all in.

Right? And it's tough to be all in over here and all in over here. And a lot of people talk about balance and like this tipping and it's like, I just think that that's just BS and you just don't like, that doesn't exist. Mm-hmm. , what I do think exists is being all in, in both areas at the same time.

Although that sounds counterintuitive. How have you done that though, is what I want to know. With your marriage, with your family and kids and the business, how have you been obsessed with like all at the same time? .

[00:58:47] Caleb Fabry: I, I would never claim to be an expert at this, trust me. So I, I probably have a lot of work to do.

I, anything that I enjoy. So like, I didn't love reading growing up, but once I found things that I liked to read, I, I love to read or I like to at least listen to them. One of the two. Yeah. So the thing, the same thing carries over to business and family. I love my business, I love my family, I love God. Like all of these things are intertwined and so those are important to me.

Yeah. she probably get a completely different answer out of my wife. But cuz she'll, she'll, some, she'll sometimes say to me, I'm being real. You wouldn't, you wouldn't handle the situation like you are right here with your employees. Yeah, that's good. And I'm like, man, I got so many things I could say back to that, but it's probably not worth it.

But one thing is true, I'm not close to my employees like I am her or my kids. So it is completely different. Although she's crying out for help in a sense. Yep. It's not relatable completely. And yeah, trying to separate that is hard. But what I am very intentional of is making sure I do spend time with my kids just like my dad did I show up to all their school events?

Yeah. At whatever costs. It's the most important thing to me. So I, I, I could do a lot better job spending time with my wife and making sure that we go on dates and sometimes. You just, you're caught up and it's like you don't have enough time. But honestly, that's just an excuse. We have time for anything that we choose to have time for.

Okay. So I'm having a hard time answering it because I've not done a very good cha very, we have a great relationship. we've been married, we'll be in 17 years this year. Yeah. I could do way better interacting with my spouse. I, I do feel as though that I do a pretty good job trying to balance everything we could always do better, is what I'm trying to say at the end of the day.

Yeah. anyways, it's honest. I dunno if that answers it, but

[01:00:35] Chaz Wolfe: No, no. It's, it's honest is what it is. And, and I think 98% of the people listening are in the exact same boat. They're like, Hmm, that hits home. It, it, it hits home for me. And I'm the one that asked the question, bro. Like, there's a reason I'm asking the question personally.

But then also there's a reason because every single guy and or gal that I've talked to in this scenario right here, and then in any other event that I've either hosted or been a part of, , it's a thing. And so, cur curating an environment where we can actually go do it is what I'm excited about. And so, you know, gathering the kings is doing some of those things, but having that honest, honest answer is a part of the like, Hey, hey, you're not alone.

There's a bunch of you out there listening to Caleb right now. Just be honest with yourself like he is. Cuz that's the start of changing it, right? Mm-hmm. . All right. Last question. You ready? Yep. If you could whisper in the younger Caleb's ear,

[01:01:29] Caleb Fabry: what would you say?

Listen, more. I, I, I would probably say my parents would agree that I was probably a pretty good kid growing up. I avoided everything that others could go through. I never really like wandered off, but I, I'm, man, me and my, my dad especially butted heads a lot. And essentially what it comes down to, especially after reading that book I told you about, I should have did a, a better job just listening because maybe he doesn't do a good job coming across because he's got a whole different perspective on things.

But as I've gotten older, and even recently, this one guy mentioned something in that group and I texted him two or three weeks later. I'm like, man, thank you for saying that because I never saw your perspective, which is the perspective of my parents potentially. Yeah. And it gives me a whole different outlook on this.

And he wasn't even talking to me in, within that group, it was to somebody else. That's right. But I, I, I would, I would do a lot better, calming down and listening more and trying to see the other person's side on things. Yeah. really, that's, that's a huge one for, I can apply that to any part of my life.

So I, I do, I do think that, I, I always tell my wife this, like, we gotta listen, we gotta listen more. People don't care about our story. They don't care about what we have to say, so listen to theirs. That's what people care about in any setting. And so it has been a focus in ours. I, I don't know if it, I mean, a woman's a woman sometimes they, they got a lot to say.

So , I can't really stop that, but I, I do say that like, and she'll agree with me. She's like, I could do a better job just listening because she says I'll catch myself. Not intentionally trying to top a story, but it's just like trying to have a conversation. Yeah. People don't care. They don't, yeah. Like they care about their story, so ask them, ask questions.

You learn a lot from people doing that. the other, the other thing, I know it's a little unrelated to that question. I would say that what I've been telling people a lot lately is this, this business here, I want it to be a tool for everyone within it to do what they want to do. Yeah. It may not make all their dreams come true.

It may not be the wealth that they're seeking, but allow this to be a tool to do the next thing. Don't let this be your end all. If this is a, a way to go on a trip or a way to, to, to get a mortgage on a house, that's like a huge win. That's what keeps me driving is, is watching families grow out of this business.

Yeah. Nothing better to see, oh, we just bought a house and I'm like, you're the only one working in your family. That's incredible. Like, that's awesome. Like, that's a great feeling. Yeah. So that part of the business is huge. And the other part is, man, you want to go on a, a big trip. Let this be the tool to do it.

Yeah. We're working together. Allow me to hear your story, hear what you want, let's see how we can make these things happen, or you do so well here. Move on to the next place. Start your own thing, like whatever it might be. Like, I'll, I, I always wanna be there for support for you. You've helped me, now I wanna help you anywhere I can, whether it's here or, or onto something else.

So I think that's huge. That's what keeps me really driving sometimes, is just knowing that we're actually helping those within and, and ultimately helping everybody around us. Yeah.

[01:04:37] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. We talk about and gathering the kings, this transition from warrior to king and in the transition to King, it's mindset and in, and like if you think about a literal king, there's just so much more responsibility, so many sections of the kingdom, right?

That now fall onto this one person. And that's exactly what you're talking about, is that when you realize that it's no longer about you, it's no longer about the singular battle and you surviving, but it's about a bigger picture. Your team, of course, the families of your team, your family, the community, your church.

Like the, the clients, the client's family. I mean, there's just so much impact when you really take a step back and you're like, wow, what I do? And then what the people around me who are influenced by me and then who they influence. It's a big deal. And to a lot of people, some, some heavy weight. But guys like you and I put it right here, I'll take it.

Yeah, I'll, I'll carry the weight. And, and that's what you're talking about. It's like, man, that, that's why it gets your juices flown is because you're, you're a king. And, that's the mindset that you have. So, you've been incredible here today. How can the listener find you, number one, if, if they're, you know, needing pest services in the Northeast somehow some way and they're connected to you or they have family, how can they find you that way?

But then also if they're an entrepreneur, they wanna pick your brain, where can they find you?

[01:05:53] Caleb Fabry: It's, it's pretty easy to find us cuz we're pretty social. I myself don't post a lot, but the company does. you can find me personally on probably Instagram and Facebook, but for our business, all I gotta do is Google Town Country Pest Solutions or Town Country Solutions.

Same on YouTube. You can find us there. we're pretty much everywhere, so it'll pull up somewhere on Google or any of the search engines. Yeah, perfect. Website, whatever it might be.

[01:06:17] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, we'll put all that in the show notes, make it easy for people to, to be able to reach out. But dude, this is a little bit longer episode, but I mean, full of freaking nuggets, dude.

And I think that the listener, would be, would, be misplaced if they didn't listen all the way through, and probably even go back and listen again. So you just, you just poured out from your heart. I appreciate that. Blessings upon your family, your team. Thank you. The whole deal. Thank you for being here, brother.

[01:06:38] Caleb Fabry: Yeah, thanks a lot man.

Host Chaz Wolfe welcomes Caleb Fabry, President of Town & Country Pest Control Inc. Join us as we dive into the story behind this thriving family business and learn how they went from carpet cleaning to becoming industry experts in pest control. Caleb grew up in a family of six boys, where his father ran a carpet cleaning business. While working for his dad, Caleb noticed that customers often had questions about pest control, sparking his interest in the industry. After operating the pest control side of the business as a sole owner, Caleb eventually sold the carpet cleaning aspect to focus solely on pest control. Determined to turn the business into something that could support not only his own family but also the families of his employees, Caleb took a leap of faith and invested in hiring his friends over the summer to help with the workload. Soon after, bed bugs became a hot topic in the United States, and Caleb looked into investing in a bed bug-sniffing dog. Despite initial pushback from his parents, he took out a $10,000 loan, flew to Florida for training, and even put together a website to promote this new service. After successfully solving a bed bug problem for a local university, [Name]'s company began to grow rapidly. Today, they employ over 50 people and have become industry leaders in both residential and commercial pest control, growing over 20% annually. Join us as we chat with Caleb about the challenges and successes he's experienced in building his family's pest control business so you can use these principles to start growing your business today.

Caleb Fabry:

Website: https://townandcountrysolutions.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/townandcountrypest/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Mtpepsi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownandCountryPestSolutions/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_townandcountry

Chaz's favorite morning drink to fuel him for his day

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