Ep 197 Scott Levene - LevCo.io

Speaker A: Welcome to the Trades Podcast, a podcast about the business of home improvement and promoting the trades to young adults. Yes, yes, everybody, welcome. This is the Trades Podcast. We're excited to have another episode for you. I'm, um, Danny.

Speaker B: And I'm Jeff.

Speaker A: And we're here to get you a lot of the more info insight from new companies to big, uh, companies to small companies, and of course, companies that do cover a lot of, um, you know, important services for the regional, uh, areas. We're excited to have Scott on here today with Levco. Levco here. Scott, welcome in.

Speaker C: Thank you. Uh, excited to be here, excited to talk about LEFCO and, uh, you know, see where this takes us.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It's a big thing where, uh, we're going to, um, you know, one, give everybody a chance to get a little more insight into your industry, um, the company. Uh, so feel free to, uh, um, you know, shine a light on, uh, something that a lot of people may not know, uh, throughout our conversation today. But, um, let's have some fun with it and, uh, introduce yourself. What's your, what's your history through the company and, uh, a little bit about the company. Lefko.

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, so obviously my name is Scott, vice, uh, president of Lefko. Been the vice president for the past, gosh, three or four years now. Um, but my role in the company stems back 31 years, so I'm 31 years old. Uh, and the reason I say it stem back 31 years is because I've been involved at LEFCO since my birth. Uh, my grandfather started this company back in 1980. Uh, he originally was in New York, um, Portchester, and started, uh, it as a coal company and later morphed into a gasoline company, later morphed into a oil company. Uh, and it just kind of, you know, trickled on and we've grown ever since, added new services, expanded our, uh, service areas. And so the short of it is, and I'm sure we'll get into it, uh, my father was heavily involved, and now third generation myself and my brother is also heavily involved. Um, and my dad had me, you know, putting stickers on envelopes since I could talk and walk. And, uh, every spring break, every winter break, every night, I was involved somehow. I know the ins and outs of this business. I know every single job is down to, you know, cleaning the carpets, um, all the way up to the top. My, uh, role has changed a lot over the years.

Speaker B: Been in there and seen all the good and the bad and lots of horror stories and some of the uh, moments of triumphs. So looking forward to it.

Speaker C: M. Um, you know, I got to experience both it in the business and out of the business and just the home life of how this industry affects. When my father was going through it, you know, he went through the 2008 debacle. Um, so when he was coming home, super, you know, just in his head about what are we going to do and where are we going to get the money to do this and how are we going to keep our customers and how we're going to grow to actually now being in the business and thinking those same things. I've seen it from both sides.

Speaker A: Yeah. And even more recently with uh, you know, the essential workers of 2020. You know I'm sure that something of COVID during that time of, you know, another uh, drop down or even uptick for construction trades and even probably more specifically your industry probably found that it was definitely essential to uh, help the community out.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, well 2020 was a very interesting year obviously for the world, but specifically for all essential businesses and specifically for the H vac business because uh, we had to go in people's homes. There was no we don't feel good or there was no we can't do it. It's you don't have heat, you don't have air conditioning. We are called upon. And so we had to find unique ways and safe ways to take care of people. Um, and people had to come into the office, people had to go to people's homes. And so we uh, were constantly pivoting to do so in a safe way that wouldn't impact our business and at the same time grow it. Yeah, that was one of the more challenging years for sure.

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Speaker B: 1 of 1 of the things I've seen out of uh, Covid that affected a lot of businesses. They were forced to make a lot of uh, systems and rule and adopt to rules for the health and safety of not only the workers, but the customers. But I've seen some of those rules carry over even though the regulations have gone away, some to help their Business, be a more efficient and customer service type business. Have you found that anything affect you like that at all, Scott?

Speaker C: Well, I think we're always looking for ways to be more efficient. Um, as we talk, I think you're going to learn that Levco in particular is not a company that likes to stay stagnant. Uh, it could be down to, you know, changing one little name of a, uh, field in our database. Uh, it's gotta be constant improvement. But what Covid did is Covid pushed us in a very rapid way to improve and adapt or ultimately die. Right. Uh, and so to piggyback what you're saying, yes, of course we had to meet customers needs in a safe way. The booties, the masks, uh, wiping down all of our services, you know, when you ring the doorbell, step back 10ft, all that kind of stuff. Um, but a lot of it carried past Covid like you said. Now people just expect that type of treatment of make sure you're always wearing booties, make sure you're respectful when you ring, uh, the doorbell, make sure your communication with me is clear and concise and on time because I need to arrange to be at my house at a certain time now. So I think it kind of pushed most of the industry forward from a technology standpoint, but also in just a, uh, customer care level standpoint. And ultimately the companies that did it best are succeeding the most.

Speaker B: Well said.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's something that constantly, um, growing is something that we've always found and culture plays a big part of it. And like from a third generation family business, um, being able to go through those ups and downs and um, helping out really the community too. That's three generations of, of employees that you guys have had also, um, you know, right behind you. And talk to us a little bit about your team. What's um, uh, how big is the company? Um, and uh, and I know that H Vac is definitely a big industry that you guys cover. Um, but I think you had mentioned that obviously LEFCO does spread into a few other industries as well.

Speaker C: So uh, like I said, company started back in 1980. We started as a coal company, morphed into a gasoline company, morphed into an oil delivery company. Uh, quickly learned that if you're going to provide heating oil to customers, they typically call you when something breaks. And so you need to do the heating oil service in order to remain attractive and get the customers you want. So we moved into heating service and from there we moved into pool service and from there we Moved into cooling service, and then we adopted propane delivery. And so now, you know, we're this kind of one stop shop for all things heating and cooling and fuel delivery. But our primary business is heating oil delivery and propane delivery. It's uh, by far and away the biggest revenue, uh, source for us. Um, but we're actively trying to grow the H VAC side. And it is growing from just standard service to repair, to maintenance, to large installs. We are 99.9% residential. We do a little bit of commercial, but not too much. Um, but in terms of our employees, you're right. Uh, we've had to continuously focus on them because without them we wouldn't exist. Uh, we've had the majority of our staff work with us for over 20 years or more, um, and constantly finding new people, uh, day in, day out. Um, but I'd like to think they stick around because we're doing something right. Uh, just to kind of bring back in what we said before with COVID I think one of the most unique things we do as a company is that we don't expect things out of our field staff that we, uh, don't expect out of our office staff. So during COVID every single one of our employees came into the office every single day. There was no working from home. And we did so in a safe way. We spread out, we wore our masks, and we did all the precautions. But we found that if we start to ask, uh, our field guys, which are our bread and butter, our most prized possession, people that actually go fix things in people's homes and deliver the fuel, if we ask them to go be at a customer's house during the, uh, conditions that Covid brought on. But we don't ask the same of our office. We create this divide. And so every day we came in, we worked, and it was no different than a standard debt. And I think we kind of push those boundaries of all of our people daily to keep raising the bar, but also set the precedent of this is just who we are. We show up when our customers need us, regardless of how difficult it is. Whether it's zero degrees outside, which we experienced this winter, or if it's 100 degrees in the summer, or if it's Covid, or if it's normal, healthy day.

Speaker B: Interesting. Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah. That goes deep into, you know, the piece of, you know, how what the, what the what the culture that you guys have been able to build right behind you guys, company. Um, and there's different approaches to companies that we've had on the show, which come to hiring and retaining those technicians, um, and especially within, you know, your specific labor market. What, what would be something that you can shine light on? You know, those strategies for your hiring and retaining your employees?

Speaker C: Sure. So recruiting quality employees in any industry is one of, if not the most challenging things. Regardless how well you think you might do it, there's always different ways to do it more cost effectively and also just better to bring on the right people into your team. And so it's an everyday thing that we are looking for open positions, but also just to improve upon what we have. Uh, I think one of the most unique things is we do it all in house. We don't have a outside agency trying to convince people to come work for our company that don't understand our company because naturally we do things differently and our culture is different. So we want to have those conversations with you without outside factors. That's first and foremost. Secondly, we provide an incredible amount of training for both our office staff and our field staff, uh, every week, every month. Uh, we really take pride in doing our own training and providing the resources for our team to develop. We're actually the only company, uh, in the area that is a licensed, uh, school for growing technicians and allowing them to come on, get their license, getting, uh, you know, up to speed with, you know, how many hours they need to do certain things in order to take on harder tasks, harder installs, harder service. But, um, we do all the training in house and so we got licensed for that, um, have our own school, uh, put a lot of focus on that. Lastly, uh, we are always looking to kind of bring someone full circle. So a lot of times we actually hire students, fuel drivers with the ambition to turn them into full service technicians. A lot of them have that desire, um, and we can kind of coach them through that development. And so naturally, most of our recruiting happens in the fall time before the busy winter. We bring out a lot of drivers. They go through a season, maybe two of driving, and then as the spring comes along, they'll start to, um, get trained up and become full time technicians, which they're happy about. We can do in house. And it's a good way to kind of bring the right culture in first and then grow the skills.

Speaker B: All right, so clarification, you have a lot more need for drivers during the winter for the deliveries and the summertime. You have more service needs.

Speaker C: We do. So winter at the moment is our, is our busiest time period. And so we're running almost all of our trucks Besides some spares just to be safe in the middle of winter as well as it's prime season for heating service. Um, so definitely the most need for staffing in the winter. Our shoulder periods, you know, fall and spring are the most difficult, but that's when we're doing the bulk of our preventative maintenance appointments for our customers on the heating side and the cooling side. And then obviously summer is heavily focused on cooling service and installations. But a lot of those guys, if they fit the culture and fit the skill set and can get trained, they'll move into being technicians or they'll go onto the installation team to assist on that.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Do you have um, the school accreditation? Do you find that creating a great culture keeps the employees that you've trained and invested in there as opposed to giving them the tool to move on?

Speaker C: I think so. I think I've always been told that people leave people, not jobs. Right. Um, and so I think if you can create the culture that you want, that you want to be in and you introduce that to someone and you can show them a path to what they can become or what they can be when they reach their full potential, I don't see why they wouldn't stay. If you're taking care of them, if you actually care about their lifestyle outside of work, their family outside of work, um, you understand the ebbs and flows of life they're going to go through. You can provide them the right training while they're on the job. I think that's all of it. Um, it's incredibly difficult to take a really high skilled person and pride them out of a job they're at. They'd have to really be going through something really messy in order to do that. So naturally it's a really not cost efficient thing for a company to target. And so we'd rather get the right people on the boat and then grow their skillset, uh, while introducing them to the culture we want.

Speaker B: Do you find that I don't quite know what level you guys are at as far as size, but do you cross train a lot? I mean somebody that's doing an install, is that the same tech that's doing a maintenance or.

Speaker C: Sure. So our company is just shy of 50 people right now, uh, between the office and field staff. When I say field staff, I mean both technicians and drivers. Um, we're growing, um, both in customer base and work volume and naturally staff, uh, because of our unique industry. And what I mean by that is our market is different than San Diego and a lot of other west coast H Vac companies. Meaning in this market in Connecticut and where we're at, most customers will pick their service company for however they're using for fuel delivery. They don't really go separate ways. They don't really have a fuel delivery guy and a H Vac guy. And so we have to, and want to be the one stop shop. We have to be attractive on both ends, quality, safe, competitive oil and propane pricing and deliveries and then obviously very skilled H Vac service. And so because of that, we need the adaptability between our, our team. And so more than half of our technicians started as drivers when they started here and now are very seasoned technicians. A lot of our more tenured technicians still carry a CDL because every now and then we ask them to take a day out and drive oil or drive propane. Let's say, you know, someone gets sick or the conditions are just that and they're willing to do it because they're like, yeah, I just know that once in a while they're going to ask me. And I know I'm um, contributing to the team. And so to answer your question about do we have to overstaff for that? No. We just need an incredible amount of skill amongst our staff and um, a lot of adaptability between the staff. But on the installation side, most of our install guys are the more tenured service guys. They know, they've been around the block, they know how to fix almost any problem that comes up. And during certain times of the year they will pretty much just focus on installs. Like every day they'll be on an install. Uh, but in some of the slower periods, like the shoulder periods that we were talking about, the fall and the spring, they might slide into just some generic regular uh, maintenance to keep their skills up and refresh them on that kind of stuff.

Speaker B: Keep the customers happy.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean customer service is obviously through these service based industries is absolutely crucial. I mean you're to, through 1980, like you mentioned, when the company was uh, created from your grandfather, that um, that philosophy's kind of been built and has a solid foundation. How does that play into the success that you guys have been, uh, that you've had? But also now that you're planning, you know, with, with the dive, deep dive into the H Vac side, where do you see that success planning into that customer service?

Speaker C: So I come from a background of people. Right. I uh, just think that the way you interact with people is so important and that again, people leave people, people make relationships with people when someone signs up with Lefko, it is not usually they just saw us on the website. They liked how our website looked. Let me pick that company. You might get that. But typically it's going to be based on that phone call they have with us when they sign up. They don't like the other person on the other end of the phone. They're probably not going to use us. And so right away, that first contact, besides the marketing efforts before that, is all about impressing them and setting the standard for what every interaction will be like going forward. When they call in for a service call in the middle of the night, when they have to pay a bill, when they need an oil delivery, and you name it all the way down to the technician. Right, Our technician's procedure. When they go to the house, does he just go and shake his hand with his head down, or does he look the person in the eye, shake their hand, say, hi, uh, Mrs. Jones, I'm here to do this. Do you want to tell me anything else? And there's a whole written script for him on how to act professionally and make sure the customer feels safe and taken care of. Now, on the flip side of that, I'm a numbers guy, so I analyze a lot. I can see that a lot of the times we have breakdowns is because of poor communications. Communication, whether it be from a customer's misunderstanding or our lack of ability to actually make them understand what we're trying to communicate. And so that's the long winded question, too. Customer service is our business. We are in the customer relationship world and game. Um, and a lot of times customers come through, come to us because of other relationships that we have. Right. The customers that love us and tell everyone about it, uh, online, just in the neighborhood, real estate agents, contractors, builders, people that just like to say that, yes, I enjoy doing business with Lefko. That is our business.

Speaker B: Scott, do you still have any other family members working in the business?

Speaker C: Do. So, my brother is the president. Uh, Jeff, uh, went through a change, ah, about a year and a half ago, where he took over. Myself, my brother's wife works a little bit, um, here and there. Uh, my sister does some.

Speaker A: She's.

Speaker C: My sister's a lawyer. She does some, uh, legal work for us. So she's got her own business, but she's still involved in the business. Uh, my mother works for my sister, and so she's still involved there. Um, see, my work pro bono, of course, you know. Yeah. My uncle, uh, who was the former president, is still here kind um, of overseeing the long, the change of things. My aunt gets, uh, involved in some projects, uh, and we've kind of extended it outside of our immediate family as well. We have some very close family friends that have come to work for us as well. Well, and so it's extended family now, which is a really cool feeling. But, yes, we don't intend on it ever being anything else besides, uh, Levine run company. We want it to last for generations, on and on and on. We have no intention of selling. We want this to last for another a hundred years.

Speaker B: Fantastic.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's beautiful to hear. It's, um, I think it's been a while since we've had a multi generational company on the show. And, um, just to hear that, um, what you guys have been building and you know, how involved the family and like you said, just that community that you've been able to build behind it, it's, it's huge. It's, uh. You said it's just under 50 employees.

Speaker C: You had mentioned just under 50 employees right now. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker A: From the technicians outside. And of course, always looking for more. Of course. You're always looking for hiring opportunities, I'm sure.

Speaker C: Yep, yep.

Speaker B: So one of the things Danny probably don't know this one of the things I found really interesting. We've been talking for 20 plus minutes got, and I've never heard the, the phrase, well, we've set really great goals or, you know, we got to get to the end of the field to solve that problem. How does your previous career, which you I'd, uh, like you to tell us about a little bit, affect, uh, your management style?

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, well, my previous career is nothing like the H vac industry. Ah, Nice little secret. Never thought I would be in this industry. Uh, so my previous career was. I was a professional soccer player for three years. Um, after I played at the University of Connecticut for four and a half years, went on to play for a team, New York Red Bulls. Um, after that, then I played for a team in Memphis and I did a little stint in Hartford as well. And I decided to hang up the boots because I loved business, um, and I wanted to pursue business at a young age. It actually was perfect timing. Covid had just hit and so there was a lot of instability in the professional sports world. So it just made the transition a little bit easier for me. But that transition was incredibly difficult, uh, because soccer was my life and still is my life outside of work. I am, you can ask my wife. I am just watching soccer all the time. Uh, she Complains I don't put football on ever. Uh, she complains I don't put any other sports on. It's only soccer. But how that's impacted me is kind of something I hinted at before, and I was talking to you guys off air. I have been everywhere except for San Diego. Uh, and so I've met people of all different ethnicities, of all different cultures, of all. All different religions, and I've had to interact with them in different ways inside the locker room and on the field. I mean, you name it. I'm from Africa, from Europe, from Australia. I mean, I can go on and on about the people that have impacted my life through soccer, as well as been coached by people of all different skill sets and all different types of coaching. Right. And coaching and leadership and management's kind of all the same realm. And so I saw how I wanted to be managed, and I also saw how I didn't want to be managed. And so I carried that through to business and so quickly. I always knew I was a. Not necessarily a manager. I knew, I knew I was a leader. I didn't want anything else besides to lead a team. And that's what kind of gets me out of bed every morning. It's not to, you know, crunch numbers and do all this. It's just this constant obsession with being better, main, making my team better. Because naturally, the more people I can impact under me, the quicker and the better we'll all be. Right. That's like the ultimate skill set you can have. How many people can you impact and grow under you? And so my management style is a very personal one. It's not, you go do your work and I'm going to hang out over here in my office. It's. I'm interacting with you daily and I'm making you feel as if we are working together on this. I am not just watching you. I'm not, uh, micromanaging you. It is a collaboration of effort to get the job done and improve.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So the more I can make people feel like that, I feel better. And I've found that it makes us better.

Speaker B: Very, uh, great perspective on that. I have found that people that are very goal, uh, driven in sports, you know, a desire to win, a desire to work with as a team, you know, desire to fulfill their, their goals as a, as a group of people carries over into management a lot. Or into other fields, too. In business, sales.

Speaker C: Oh. Yep. My father, for lack of a better term, kind of just drilled it into me. I didn't have an option And I'm very thankful for my father in this way. While he was super busy running this business, he was also super busy making sure that I accomplished all my dreams as a soccer player. So there was no sleeping in on vacations. There was no, you're not working out today. It just didn't exist in my life. And so the idea of taking a day off or the idea of not accomplishing a goal just didn't exist in his brain. And when I was young, I saw that as a, you know, dictatorship of you're gonna do what I want and right now you're gonna go run three miles like, oh, uh, dad, come on, just let me, let me sleep today. And over time, you learn that that's him just seeing the potential in you and Karen. Um, and that's the same thing here. It's, you don't get to just wake up today and say, uh, I'm just going to kind of coast at work. No, it doesn't work. And so I've brought a lot of that same, uh, mentality into really anything I do, but specifically to Lefkov. And I think most of our team shares that.

Speaker B: Everybody there is aware of, um, your soccer career before you came in.

Speaker C: You know, I don't talk about it a lot, but it's kind of hard to not be. Um, if you see my office right now, I got my, my m. Jerseys hanging on the wall.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: But yeah, most people try to come talk to me about it. They want to know what it's like. I would say, yes, most people are probably aware.

Speaker B: Yeah. Do, do you use soccer jargon in some of your, uh, uh, coaching opportunities with staff?

Speaker C: It depends. So I've gotten pretty good at understanding people. Uh, and I recognize that a lot of people soccer talk goes right over their head. Uh, so I don't, to be honest, uh, if I know you have somewhat of idea, I probably will because any opportunity for me to talk about soccer, I'll take it.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker C: but outside of, outside of here, I do, you know, play pickup soccer sometimes. And so, um, I get, I kind of get my, my soccer talk out that way. Mhm. Cool.

Speaker A: Yeah. One thing to the uh, Trades podcast, we've been able to find just like the camaraderie behind trades, uh, companies, trades, industries of, you know, the team aspect on how it's, get, how it gets built and how it gets the foundational piece. So I, I think I love the uh, um, one, you know, the commitment that you had to your career as a soccer player. Professional, um, soccer player. Because that, that. That alone is a huge accomplishment that I think a lot of people do see and know how much time it takes into, um. But like you mentioned, it's a generational thing through friends and family, to uplift the ones that are in those positions to, to keep it going. And now you're kind of bringing it back to Levco. You're bringing that piece into. Back into the company. And, um, now growing, you know, a growing company, specifically, uh, on the H vac side, um, what now can you transpire from your excitement through soccer of what excites you about the company now? What's. What brings, like, what's. What's new for you that you're like, all right, this is, this is my intense, uh, um, you know, obsession. Now what gets you excited?

Speaker C: Sure. So, like I hinted at before, my family has just never been one to rest at. It's good enough. That sounds kind of. Kind of cliche, but it's just the truth of, um, it could be the simplest thing of, you know, all you gotta do to do this task is press this button. Well, how do we press that button a little bit better tomorrow than we did today? And it's down to simple stuff like that. And so most of my role is on the business development side of things, both in finding new adventures for the company, um, as well as optimizing the current ones we're in. And so through that, I started mainly in sales, Took on sales and marketing, took on sales, marketing and customer service, then went into the billing realm to understand, okay, well, how customers feel when they get hit with bills and invoices and receipts and stuff like that. And then from there, tying it all together, took on the service side of things and the dispatch side of things, um, did a little bit of thing, uh, stuff out in the field to learn that. Got my B2 right, got. Got my license and all that. But then I migrated towards more just the enhancement of our operations. I took a lot of software development, made a very early determination that we wouldn't rely on outside, uh, vendors to produce software for us because it's usually not unique enough to our industry and to what we want. So we've been developing our own software for the past 20 years and we've made a big improvements in that, um, and to the point where I've almost finished passing on my responsibilities of software development, kind of like, uh, Jeff there. But, um, now a lot of my focus is how can we leverage something I don't think a lot of the industry is, which is AI, um, to make customer interactions better, to make speed of interactions better. That's just a small piece of what I'm doing, but it's really just about improving the company, um, in every way. Uh, and so when you relate that back to soccer, it's just, okay, how can I lift one more pound of weight in this training session today? How can I run that a little bit faster? How can my 40 yard dash get a little bit quicker? And as I moved up in the soccer world, I recognized that every opponent I faced was just better than the last one. Right. As you move up from club soccer to high school to college to pro, and now you're playing with people you used to watch on tv, you're like, wow, if I don't adapt, I'm just gonna lose every time. And losing is a bad feeling. And so I've carried that over. Of I just don't like to lose. And to me, losing is staying the same as yesterday.

Speaker A: Yeah. Excuse me. That's a, that's a key thing.

Speaker C: The.

Speaker A: If you're not learning, you're, you know, stagnant, you're dead. You're still however you want to put it. Where if you don't just always have that constant thing like you mentioned, it sounds ridiculous, but of, of, uh, how, how can I press that button better than I did yesterday? You know, there's always something that can be enhanced and something that can be improved. And if not, then like you mentioned, absolutely disrupt it and bring something brand new like AI So I think that's something that we get excited about, that we talk about. Uh, if you could dive into a little bit about what's, what's your guys AI approach to implementing into the company. I know you said the customer service,

Speaker C: it's a careful one. It has to be careful because, uh, in no shape or way are uh, we trying to replace our staff or replace the people that ultimately fix things in people's homes. You know, I think the trades are just. Will forever be a thing. The ability to fix something and talk to the customer in a way that makes them feel safe and taken care of is just a tremendous skill that our guys are so good at. And then the office staff to support them. It's just, it's a really hard thing to get the right balance up. And so for us it's about how do we make our team better equipped when they go to someone's house through AI Right. Or how do they get the answers to unique questions they've never been faced on the job. You know, new equipment Might come out, uh, unique problems they haven't experienced. And then also from the office standpoint of well, how can we get more efficient in the operation side of things and routing and billing so that we have more time to put more effort towards the interactions with our customers. And then from there it's well, how do we take those interactions with our customers and judge them every single time so that the next one goes better in a quick way so that I get immediate feedback. Um, and so that we're growing people. Uh, that's really the, it's all about growth. It's not to criticize or to judge. It's how can we give them better tools to do their job better.

Speaker B: Yeah. Imagine when your grandfather started the business delivering coal, I think you said, you know, after a few years he had an intuition on how much he needed to stockpile to service the business. Now AI is doing that uh, based on data that you're giving it to help you um, uh, stockpile uh, fuel and equipment and parts and all that efficiently now.

Speaker C: Mhm. Oh yeah, uh, it's a battle to get that stuff. Right. Um, but yeah, we are leveraging it more and more our data and we're putting such a big effort towards it. I'm certainly a big proponent of it. Our uh, notifications that we get that we might have some bad data in our system is constantly being rooted out, constantly being refined. Uh, and we're also gathering more and more all the time. Right. The more new equipment that gets released, the more data about that equipment we should have. You know what kind of equipment customers have at their home. Something's down to okay, this piece of equipment, they might have a 1 inch filter with it, but this system actually calls for a 5 inch filter box or something. Minute as that. Um, or what. You know what neutralizer pellets are we're going to use for this boiler. I can keep going on and on. We're trying to find ways like that so that as we start to store more data, how do we not get overwhelmed with how much is actually being stored and displayed to people?

Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want to get lost in the weeds because you can't see the field.

Speaker C: Yes, exactly.

Speaker B: Um, do you have any advice for somebody, ah, who's thinking about getting into the HVA business?

Speaker C: That's a pretty open ended question. Um, I think it's not even about H Vac, uh, for me it's about what do you enjoy doing. It's a, it's, I'm actually going to relate it to A different sport that I played, I wrestled, uh, when I was younger for 15 years. My parents were big proponent, uh, big advertisers of you should play a team sport and you should play an individual sport so that you saw the effects of both of that. And so H Vac is very much like wrestling. You are on a team, whatever company you work for, but you're doing it yourself most of the time, right? If you're on an install team, you're on an install team, but most of the time you're by yourself, solving the problems by yourself without with little help from the company. Sometimes you can call the dispatch team largely by yourself. And so you have to, one, be okay with being by yourself most days. But the flip side of that, you have to be motivated to actually want to still uphold the values of your company by yourself. Wake up the same time every day, show up on time, be at the customer's house on time, look professional every day, put your notes in in the correct way, take care of the customers every single day, report back to the company in a good way so that the company looks good. But also you are, you look good to your company and to your customers. And if you don't want that, then it's probably not the right industry for you. There's a lot of pitfalls you can fall into, right? Traps you can fall into if you just kind of start to slip on a one or two of those things, right? Um, I'm not going to wake up early today because you know what, it doesn't matter if I'm two minutes late, right? I'll just make it up on the highway. That kind of stuff doesn't go well in this industry because the customer is going to find out when you're a little bit too sleepy. Customer's gonna find out when you're two minutes late to the job. And so my advice to someone that's going into the H Vac world or deciding whether they want to is one, are you self motivated to not only do the right things every day, but two, are, uh, you self motivated to grow your skills? M. That's all it's all about. Can I become a better technician than I was yesterday? And if you enjoy that, this industry is gonna reward you in such great ways because even though you're by yourself, you get to talk to customers all day long. You're going to meet new people every day, different people. You're going to go in people's homes that are really, really nice and, or, you know, they're working on it and you're going to go into some really complex buildings that you're going to go, oh my God, I've never seen this before. But it's an opportunity for you to learn. So I promise you that every day is unique in this industry.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that and I, there's a reason why we have sometimes that, that question where we want it to be open ended and every time we've ended up getting almost an, a different answer. And Scott, you just really explained it and broke it down to really an aspect of, of uh, you know, that it's, it's a fact. Like you mentioned, this industry will pay you tenfold. It'll provide you almost anything and everything you would need to sustain yourself or even a whole family. And uh, sometimes that's maybe sometimes some people's goals ultimately, you know, they need a career that's going to help them build their life and create that foundation for themselves. And if they're not dedicated to that piece itself, to, you know, put something behind them and say that, you know, uh, I'm doing this more for something else above me, myself, you know, like you said, part of a team. But they're out there individually contributing. That is a key thing, I think. Um, you know why I love your response so much? Because it's a, like you said, one or two things is a slippery slope and you know, you'll be um, either paying for it later if not already paying for it in that instance.

Speaker C: So like I said before, this industry is not going away. So you're not entering a field that's potentially not going to exist in five years. Um, people are always going to need other people to fix their sinks, to fix their boilers, to wire up a house, you name it. It's not going away.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, so from a sports background, Scott, um, I don't know if you do the interviewing at your company, but do you find that say a young adult coming in that doesn't have too much work experience but has a sports background experience that you can have to like, ask questions differently to pull the, the what you think the responses are. Self discipline, routines, things like that, that being in the sports world. But the uh, young person really hasn't equated those skills to a business or a job yet?

Speaker C: Yeah, and I think we're not ones to necessarily shy away from uh, recruiting uh, people without a ton of work experience. It depends what role you're interviewing for. But most of my interviews I do a good majority of them. Um, and even the people I've trained to do the recruiting. Uh, most of my interviews go the same way. Uh, it's not necessarily about us trying to figure out if you have the same skill, because I can read a piece of paper with what your skills had, uh, what your skills were, where you worked, the answers to your questions. It's mainly about how can you speak, uh, can you look me in the eyes and can you answer questions that I don't think you've ever been asked. So I try to ask questions that I hope they've never been asked. And so I put them on the spot a little bit so that I can understand. Can you think on the spot? And so if I'm um, in a crawl space with a leaking oil burner, am I going to shy away from that or am I going to think on the spot and try to figure out how I can get this customer heat for tonight so that we can come back tomorrow and maybe fix it the right way? Um, so to answer your question, it doesn't matter too much about whether you've played sports or not, but yes, I've found that most people that have played sports to somewhat of a successful level have another level of dedication and drive and you know, self awareness in comparison to some others.

Speaker B: Yeah, I've definitely, I've talked to some people in the position of hiring and they equate the ability to, of wanting to win on a team to the ability to, uh, want to win as a salesperson.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, sales is one aspect of it, but it's another one of those wrestling like positions. For me, you are an individual playing a team sport and there's two sides to that. Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, we're excited. I mean the, the um, from, you know, three generations for Levco, um, and Scott, you're, you're coming in as a vice president. Your brother's the president. Yeah, the family that's helping out behind you. Um, it just seems like there's always something, you know, you know, always growing and um, you know, new goals getting put in place. So what, what's next for Lefko? What would you guys be looking into? Even this year or even just later on into the future? What's, what's, what are you guys most excited about?

Speaker C: Uh, so right now a lot of our efforts are maintaining and growing our oil volume. Um, but a lot of people are moving away from oil, whether that be conversions or new houses. Um, people aren't building with oil houses anymore. It's all natural gas. And if you don't have natural gas, it's propane. And so most of our focus besides that is growing our propane volume, uh, to build that up to, to get more year round stability in our workload but also to meet the demands of the area. On top of that we're heavily focused on growing our H vac, um,

Speaker B: workload,

Speaker C: revenue, um, field staff, uh, because the demand for that is ever present and will likely not go away. And we recognize a good opportunity in the market for a really quality service company to come in. There's a number of companies our size in the industry but none are quite as local and got that friendly neighborhood, uh, you know, for lack of a better term vibe to them. And uh, what I mean by that is a lot of companies in our industry are, and in our area are PE backed, are taken over and bought a couple times and gone through mergers and acquisitions. And we are, we're the only ones that haven't and we don't plan to. And so we don't want to be this conglomerate. We don't want to be this company that takes orders from headquarters. We are actually your local fuel delivery and H vac company. And so it's focusing on that niche while trying to grow in an organic way. Right? Not, not mergers, not acquisitions, organic. But outside of our three main staples, oil delivery, propane delivery and H vac, we're exploring other avenues. We're hopeful to be in the plumbing and electrical world in the next few years, um, to be more of that one stop shop for people. We're also pursuing property, uh, management potential uh, for our clients. Um, we recognize there's a need for that and property management of all kinds, right down to your landscaping, to whatever needs you might have for your house. And then we're also dipping our feet into some real estate as well. Um, we own the building that we work in and do a little bit of ah, renting out of some offices to local tenants and local businesses. We have uh, a residential home that we own that we are hopeful to do a couple more of, to try to diversify a bit because we recognize that our industry is heavily seasonal. And so if we want to even out those uh, those that work, we gotta grow and we have to expand and we have to diversify.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a great goal.

Speaker B: Fantastic.

Speaker A: Yeah, we love it. And um, that's something that we want everybody to be able to reach out to you. And like you mentioned that you guys are always looking to hire great staff, um, any potential technicians or like you said, little to no, uh, industry knowledge where you can coach them up and get them trained internally and to be able to work in many different areas within the company. So what's the best way? Someone to reach out to you on the service side and, or career.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, career side.

Speaker C: We have open positions almost all the time, um, some more pressing than others. But I'll tell you, we are always looking for technicians, we're always looking for fuel drivers, almost always looking for office staff. But those first two are ever present. Um, but if they check out our. Indeed, um, that's one way to see what positions are open. But if they're interested in working for us, we never shy away from that. On our website, there's a link to our, um, open positions, but also just all the positions we have available that they can submit their resume, they can contact us and then we're very good. You'll hear back from us. Same day. Um, our recruiting team is great. Like I said, it's all in house. So it's not. Please wait 48 hours for the next available agent. It's no, we're gonna focus on you and see if you can bring something to our team.

Speaker B: Fantastic.

Speaker A: Awesome. And they'll, we'll put all the information out to uh, reach out to you. And uh, Scott, thank you so much for just shining a light on Levco. Congratulations to you and your family on um, the long term and three generational business of what you guys been able to build. And like you said, another, here's to another 100 years that it's going to be around and business growing and just keep, you know, keep doing what you guys are doing. Obviously, like you said, there's um, there's a reason why you guys are still around and, and uh, we hope to see you and hear some more updates.

Speaker C: I appreciate it and I appreciate being on the podcast and uh, like I said, like you said, here's to another 100 years.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Cheers to that. Thank you everybody. Share it with everybody because uh, this is new insight into this industry and if you got more questions with uh, Scott, feel free to reach out and thank you again. This is the trades podcast.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: Thanks, Scott.

Speaker C: Thank you.