Entrepreneurial Spirit and Strategic Marketing

[00:00:00] John Morris: There’s a strong chance you’re not that far off from winning in business and at the game of life. It just takes one idea, but you gotta have unwavering belief and burning desire. If you can couple that with a lockdown strategy that’s fueled by heart, hustle, and muscle, you got a shot at winning. There’s one thing that all champions have in common.

[00:00:22] They get shit done. So welcome to the Get Shit Done Experience.

[00:00:29] we are back at it again. You are in studio with the get shit done experience, also known as the GSDX podcast, by the way, go to YouTube and subscribe right now. We are flying. We’ve just crossed the 10, 000 views mark and we’re excited. Seven episodes in 10, 000 views. That’s awesome. So please subscribe.

[00:00:49] And we’re going to continue to bring brilliant content to you. Also on Apple, Spotify. And Amazon. So anywhere you could find your podcast, please tell a friend, share a link. Today, I want you to share a link for Pur360. We’ve got the president, El Presidente, Mr. Zak Khoshbin joining us today. Thanks so much for joining us, coming in studio.

[00:01:14] We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. so I. Did a little bit of research. We’ve studied up a little bit. We’re going to get into what the brand specializes in, because if you’re like in real estate or you’re buying or selling a home, you’re going to want to tune into this one because this is probably somebody you’re going to want to throw in the Rolodex, that can speed up the process, help you to protect your asset, maybe, drive a little more money your way and, make your life a lot easier as well.

[00:01:44] Before we do that, Zak, let’s get into the human. Let’s talk about who Zak is. So you woke up one day. I love to ask this question this way. You woke up one day, you’re 10 years old. You said, dad, I’m going to start a restoration mediation company. I’m going to be my own business owner. True or false? false.

[00:02:05] False. All right. So what do we want to be 

[00:02:07] Zak Khoshbin: when I was younger? 

[00:02:08] John Morris: Yeah, 

[00:02:10] Zak Khoshbin: probably, probably like most kids, a professional athlete. 

[00:02:13] John Morris: Yeah. All right. What was the sport of choice? 

[00:02:18] Zak Khoshbin: soccer, basketball. 

[00:02:19] John Morris: Okay. 

[00:02:20] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. 

[00:02:22] John Morris: those dreams are long gone. Those dreams are longer. What happened? We blow out a knee, just didn’t have the talent.

[00:02:26] What happened? No, just, 

[00:02:30] Zak Khoshbin: became a little more realistic. You realize that’s not going to happen. 

[00:02:33] John Morris: Yeah. Yeah. All right. as it relates to the soccer career, what position were you playing? 

[00:02:39] Zak Khoshbin: I played soccer through college, played, defense, so center back. Okay. 

[00:02:42] John Morris: Yep. So you were back there doing the slide tackles?

[00:02:44] Yeah. 

[00:02:45] Zak Khoshbin: There you go. 

[00:02:45] John Morris: What was the best experience? What college did you go to? 

[00:02:48] Zak Khoshbin: I went to, Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Okay. the whole experience was great. just being on the soccer team, all the guys and everything. Yeah. It was just fun. Just being able to play sports all through college.

[00:03:01] John Morris: As the premise of the show is to get shit done experience, right? So we’re talking about how you get shit done. So obviously going from, childhood to high school, I don’t care what sport it is or what college it is to go from high school to college is a jump. I personally played for about.

[00:03:16] A minute and a half of college baseball and going from, going from high school pitching to college pitching is a big difference. What’s the big difference? What’s the jump in going from high school to college soccer is significant. Speed is a placement of the ball. what’s the big difference there?

[00:03:36] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah, probably the speed, just the size of all the guys playing, instead of playing with 15 to 18 year olds, you’re now 18 to. Could be up to probably 24 with some people staying extra years. so yeah, just the speed, the size, and just, people are a lot better than in college. The school I played, I was small, so it was a lot comparable to, like the skill level in high school.

[00:03:58] Yeah. I didn’t play at a D one school, just a small D three school. But, the transition to it was, not too difficult. but it wasn’t like a, it wasn’t D one or anything like that. Yeah. That’s a, A little bit easier to transition from high school to D3 soccer. 

[00:04:15] John Morris: So you leave, college and, you get a position in the workplace.

[00:04:20] And did you start in this industry or, okay, so what did you go to school to, to get a degree in and how close to, to, how close to that degree are you actually operating? so my degree I got 

[00:04:35] Zak Khoshbin: was in, accounting and finance. 

[00:04:38] John Morris: Okay. 

[00:04:38] Zak Khoshbin: that’s useful. Yeah. And do I use it now? yeah. I running a business I would imagine.

[00:04:45] Yeah, that’s a good one. Especially the accounting, just being able to do all the bookkeeping, keeping track of, all the income expenses and everything for the company. 

[00:04:53] John Morris: Accounting and finance better than a theater major. Let’s say if you were, if you’re going to own your own business, probably a better major.

[00:05:00] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah, probably. Yeah. And the little things I learned or everything I learned at college, finance I says, help me with running the business. what helped me better or more. So it was just, working for my dad growing up and just seeing he was an entrepreneur. So just seeing how he ran his businesses and, just taken after.

[00:05:18] John Morris: Okay. So 

[00:05:20] it’s, 

[00:05:20] in the DNA. Yeah, it’s in the DNA. There you go. Okay. So I 

[00:05:24] Zak Khoshbin: always thought when I was younger, I’d be doing not necessarily mold remediation. Yeah, 

[00:05:29] John Morris: restoration. 

[00:05:29] Zak Khoshbin: The 

[00:05:30] John Morris: cool thing is right. If you learn a skill, you can the business part with the background that you had. it starts to come through common sense and just, things that you learn through previous roles and, you learn how to sell and you learn how to manage and all those different things, but you need to have the skillset.

[00:05:52] So where’d the skillset come from? Like the technical skillset, 

[00:05:56] Zak Khoshbin: probably just from my dad. Just watch watching him growing up and growing up, the jobs I had grown up was working for him. He does, construction, real estate, development. so restoration is. Part of that. that’s probably how I got into it.

[00:06:13] but just, from the age of like Probably 12. Yeah, me and my brother going to work for him on, silly jobs to keep us busy all the way through college. then the first job I got out of college was more related to, accounting and finance. I w I’d had a, financial analyst job, out of college for about four years.

[00:06:35] And then, Transitioned into doing this. 

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[00:07:16] We set the bar high. Your people deserve it. Peace of mind, powerful innovation, TTSG. com. Okay. So from financial analyst to entrepreneur, okay. So obviously you grow up, you’re watching your dad do this. So I would imagine that softened, some of the fear. in that, somebody you probably idolize, was giving you real life training.

[00:07:43] I think the sexy term is you had the pedigree, right? That’s like the sexy business term right now. He’s got the DNA, he’s got the pedigree. So it’s being instilled in you through in your childhood. And you, did you always have the entrepreneurial spirit or did you work for somebody and you were like, I’m not working for other people anymore?

[00:07:59] Zak Khoshbin: No, that’s my dad never worked for anyone else. It was always. His company’s working for himself. I always just had that kind of same outlook. That’s what I wanted to do and working, for the job I got out of school or seeing some of the jobs. My friends got it. I knew I didn’t really want to work in like the corporate environment.

[00:08:17] I had a, I technically had two jobs out of school, one where I worked for four years. and then another one was in a, corporate setting. and that just, it just wasn’t for me. Yeah. Just, yeah, just not my, cup of tea. So when we, when I made the transition to, when we started Pur360 had nothing to do with the financial analyst stuff I did before.

[00:08:39] but I just always had the entrepreneurial mindset growing up. I was always trying to do something to, start a small business or make money. Even when I was like in high school, all through college, I was trying to do something extra. 

[00:08:50] John Morris: What’s the most. exciting part. obviously when you’re starting a business, you’re not just starting the business where you’re making a sale that you’re going out and executing and then getting paid, right?

[00:09:01] There’s a lot that goes into it. You’re building the brand, you’re building out the, brand promise, the messaging, the marketing strategy, the hiring and training of, staff. there’s so much that goes into this. So what has been the part that really lights you up that you weren’t sure if it would, the part that you really love outside of the technical element.

[00:09:21] at 

[00:09:21] Zak Khoshbin: one point it was just me, now we got locations in, I think it’s six different states now and we got a ton of employees. So really just seeing where we were when we first started to now where it was just me doing every part, from answering the calls to doing the sales, to go into the properties, to doing the work, to doing the bookkeeping, to doing the, finding the insurance, the vehicles, the marketing, the advertisement, every single part you can imagine.

[00:09:48] And then we hired a second person and then a third person and then 10th person and a 15th person. So just to see where it was, which I always look back on it with one of our main employees. Mike. That was the 2nd person we hired. We always look back on where we were like 6 years ago. A little, Comical to see, yeah.

[00:10:08] The jump, right? The jump from even how we used to write up or sell some of the work. we were learning as we were going, we knew what to do, but learning how to communicate with the, customers. and, present your service in the best way possible that they understand, so that you could give ’em the most value in what they need.

[00:10:31] the transition we made from where we were. In 2016, 2017 to now, it’s just that’s the coolest thing to see of like how successful we are. Whereas at the beginning, we’re just trying to figure it out. We’re trying to figure out what exactly we should do. Yeah. Yeah. What services we should sell. We knew the type of work we could do, but you still have to be able to present it to people 

[00:10:54] John Morris: and find the pocket.

[00:10:55] Like what is the market going to accept? 

[00:10:57] Zak Khoshbin: And then what you should advertise for and what jobs you should take and shouldn’t take and what you should decide you specialize in. And that is just not the job for you. we used to not want to turn down anything. We were just trying to figure out, how to get the most sales possible.

[00:11:13] Holy 

[00:11:13] John Morris: shit. Somebody said, yes. This is 

[00:11:16] Zak Khoshbin: beautiful. Yes. Dad. Yes. Somebody said, yes. Yeah, exactly. And I remember all those because I used to have to do, because I did every part of everything. I would remember every customer’s name, property, the issue, all of it from the first appointment to the last appointment of the day, someone could call me a month later.

[00:11:34] I would remember everything about it. Now we have so many customers. I’m not the one going into all the properties. 

[00:11:40] John Morris: Does that take away some of the, cause. Every job that you got right was probably one at a time to start. So like it was like living a life right that job was like its own existence.

[00:11:54] Yeah. And then it’s like it was done. And it’s like there’s a case study. Now I got a case. I got a referral. And then you get to the next one. Now you’ve got 10, 15, 20 going on at the same time. Yeah. So things are like just going by your head super fast. But, and I remember. 

[00:12:11] Zak Khoshbin: Still are the first jobs we did.

[00:12:12] Cause I was like, holy crap. Yeah. Wow. I just got a sale. 

[00:12:17] John Morris: I can’t believe it. I would imagine that cycle was probably pretty like when you look back, that’s probably what you’re looking back on those. Those early moments really resonated with you because you were so present in the moment. I would imagine that is that taken away a little bit of the luster of being an entrepreneur.

[00:12:38] Obviously, it’s great that you have more jobs, you’re employing more people, you’re making more profitability. You’re servicing and benefiting far more people, right? So there’s that purpose. this kind of hits the heart, but there’s a takeaway from it a little bit that, it’s like things are moving so fast and that I’m like, not the one doing everything.

[00:12:57] Yeah. You’re not like, hello, this is Pur360. Yeah. Zak and hold on. Let me get him. 

[00:13:02] Zak Khoshbin: That’s hello. This is Zak. I still do make myself available for kind of any customer that calls in or any of my employees. And I still, I don’t do usually the work in the field anymore, but I do go out in the field. more so for the large projects we have, and just helping my guys be as successful, as they can be.

[00:13:23] because I remember, myself just starting out and you’re trying to find your way into what’s the best way possible to help the customer because I’ve been doing it for so long now, guys that are newer on our, staff, I’m able to help, just run them through things that, I had issues with, when I was first started so that they don’t run into the same thing and they can just be successful a lot quicker than me.

[00:13:45] it took me, wasn’t the next month, the first month where I was doing really well. Yeah. First month, I might’ve not even had a, a sale. I might’ve been trying to figure out how to get that next sale. what money to spend that advertising on. And then how to close those deals. I remember getting tons of phone calls and not ending up with, even the appointment to go into the person’s house at that time.

[00:14:12] or getting into the house, got 10 houses, 10 different properties, 10 different estimates. What? I didn’t get any of those sales. How is that possible? And to be able to help my guys. Close more than zero out of 10 when they’re first starting out, helps them build confidence, helps them realize they are good at the job and that they could be really successful doing it too.

[00:14:32] Because again, at one point it was just me. I didn’t even have a truck. 

[00:14:36] John Morris: I would imagine that’s hard too, because when you’re starting out your own company, you are the sales team, right? Yep. you didn’t have professional sales training, right? Okay. so a lot of our listeners are, In the sales field, right?

[00:14:49] And a lot of the content that I’ve created for years has been about, the science of sales, the art of sales. There is a science. There is an art to how you do it, how you ask the proper questions like what’s too much of a statement versus what’s too many questions. You have to have a sweet spot between Giving value while at the same time being curious.

[00:15:10] So you’re learning all of these things as you go, which has got to be challenging because I would imagine you look back and you’re like, Oh my gosh, how many sales did I miss? Cause I just didn’t have that training. So now you develop a methodology. And you’re teaching your people how to do that. 

[00:15:27] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah.

[00:15:28] John Morris: What’s been the, what’s been the secret sauce to that? Like you’re learning as you go, but you’re teaching as you go as well. And I, that’s really, 

[00:15:36] Zak Khoshbin: I, that’s how I teach them as I teach them as we go. Yeah. Cause the work we do, every property they go into is different, but that customer still wants that same end result.

[00:15:44] They want the job done, They want it done at a good price. Like everyone does. but to Teach my guys the issues I ran into early on, has helped them get going a lot quicker than when it was just me by myself with no sales training. Okay. He didn’t like when I said that. I was always.

[00:16:06] Asking people questions. not just the customers asking people for advice of what could I have done different? Like how could I have sold that better? How could I have just sold that in general period? Yeah. Forget about the price. How could I have got them to say yes. and I learned that just building the value for them.

[00:16:22] Of the service they need, and explaining to them why, we are the right choice. what’s the most important thing to do? Show them the value of your service. and then most people are going to get multiple estimates, let them get multiple estimates and let the way we evaluated their property, explained our service to them.

[00:16:41] and then like our website and reviews and everything they could see online that let those things be the difference makers for them. Cause everyone wants the cheapest price possible. 

[00:16:49] John Morris: That’s the last thing you get into the price battle. It’s a race to the bottom. And typically what that means is that person is not necessarily looking for a solution.

[00:16:57] They’re looking for a quick fix, right? And they’re looking totally price focused, not 

[00:17:01] Zak Khoshbin: necessarily your customer. Then some, cause I, the one thing I learned is every customer is just not your customer. You got to find your 

[00:17:07] John Morris: people. And I was talking to the sales team the other day and it’s if, if, you, sell, Pez dispensers, you got to go to the place where people find pet, want to buy Pez dispensers.

[00:17:24] Like you can’t be going around to someplace else and worrying about that, that it’s not succeeding. You have to go to that place, right? You have to go find that place. So you have to find your people is a huge thing. Who are your people? who’s your ideal customer? and they call it an ICP, right?

[00:17:45] your ideal customer profile. Who are those folks? 

[00:17:47] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. So there’d be probably, there’s probably two, two parts of it. What the main services we do is a mold remediation, or mold inspections, mold testing, and then the other service we do is, odor removal. So like the main, customer we have for both of them, is just a homeowner.

[00:18:04] That has a mold or odor problem. So if you are, and then there’s different segments of that. So like the homeowner yourself, your roof leaks causes damage on your ceiling and you have mold growing, but you’re not selling the house like you’re calling. You need that fixed living there. You’re not really in a time crunch.

[00:18:22] You’re just living there. You want it fixed. And then the other customer is, you’re buying or selling that property. Okay. And then a mold issue is discovered and now you really need to get it fixed. Yeah. 

[00:18:33] John Morris: Cause it’s slowing down the whole cycle or you might lose, you’re going to lose the sale or the value of the house is diminishing.

[00:18:39] Zak Khoshbin: All those things are factors into now. Time is a huge need of, I need it done. I need it done right now. Excuse me, and that’s where our difference really comes in is we could get in so very quickly and efficiently to get your property turned over where you no longer have that mold issue and on the, other side would be, you’re going to buy a house or you’re selling your house.

[00:19:03] And it was a cigarette home. Yeah. People smoked in there for five years, 10 years, 20 years. We could get rid of that cigarette smell, or dog or cat smell, whatever it might be. And only 24 hours, we guarantee it. So if you’re selling the house that smells like cigarettes, but you still have a smelling like cigarettes, I got a funny story for you, right?

[00:19:21] You’re turning away so many potential people. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I would never consider the house 

[00:19:26] John Morris: buddy of mine. Was a smoker is a smoker went to sell the house Real estate agent came in a couple people came in and they’re like, I’m not like no So the real estate agent says my buddy Hey, look, you need to do something to get rid of this smell like we’re losing.

[00:19:42] We’re losing customers So he goes online he Googles like how do I get rid of the smell? First thing it says is paint the house Yeah, so he paints the house Wouldn’t you know it? Within about two weeks, he’s got to call somebody to come in and actually fix the damn thing because he painted the house and spent all that spent all the money, spent the time, by the way, didn’t do a very good job because he’s a carpenter, not a painter.

[00:20:02] So he screwed that up. Plus, he’s been smoking for 30 years. So his handshakes 

[00:20:05] Zak Khoshbin: and probably still smokes. Painting 

[00:20:07] John Morris: doesn’t have hands like a surgeon, right? So the hands are shaking. So he totally screws that up, goes out, buys all the materials, paints the house, does a terrible job, has to call somebody else to come in and do that.

[00:20:17] How often does that happen where somebody makes the mistake? 

[00:20:20] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah, that’s pretty, it’s pretty common just because our service isn’t cheap by any means. It’s definitely a premium service. on the low end, probably you’re looking at a thousand dollars for a service for a small property.

[00:20:34] So someone hears that number. And although we guarantee the service is going to get rid of the smell immediately, I think that’s too much money. I might do something by myself. I’m going to paint. And painting still costs a lot of money too, but they’re thinking they do it by themselves. They paint, they’re not a professional painter.

[00:20:49] Now they’re not, they think they’re not spending as much money, but maybe they spend 500 instead of the thousand or 2000, but took them a week. And then it looks bad. And they still on the 

[00:20:58] John Morris: carpet. 

[00:21:00] Zak Khoshbin: Now they got replaced the carpet. and then those people sometimes end up. Calling us back after spending all that money.

[00:21:07] The most common things people do is they paint for, the odor issue. They’ll paint, they’ll get carpet cleaners in there to clean the carpet. and then duck cleaners in there to clean their ducks. now you’re hiring three. Sounds like they 

[00:21:20] John Morris: need that accounting and finance 

[00:21:21] Zak Khoshbin: degree. That’s a lot of, that’s a lot of hiring.

[00:21:25] Oh man. To offset a cost that you just now doubled. Yeah. And there’s nothing worse than hiring. Vendors are contractors, and now you got to hire three of them scenario, and then you got to schedule three of them, and they’re coming into your house, and it’s taken not just one day or one hour. It’s taken multiple days.

[00:21:44] It’s just a lot of wasted time where if the most important thing is to sell their house for The highest value possible as quickly as possible. No, there’s nothing better than our service for that. Because if your house smells like cigarettes today, and we go in your house today for a treatment, we’re not removing anything.

[00:21:59] We’re not painting anything. We’re not causing any destruction. We’re just killing the smell. No chemicals. And we guarantee it. So when you go in your house tomorrow morning, No one would know there’s anyone cigarettes there unless you got like you smoke for 40 years. You got the nicotine tar streaks on the wall.

[00:22:14] You’re gonna have to paint for cosmetic purposes. No matter anyways, but you’re gonna walk 

[00:22:17] John Morris: away. You’re gonna paint it over. Yeah, but if you’re having a pain anyways, you got it. If you’re painting over that smell it eventually it comes back out. No, the paint can only. hold the smell in for so 

[00:22:30] Zak Khoshbin: long, right?

[00:22:30] And then when people are painting by themselves or they hire someone, they’re going to use usually the cheaper supplies products. Now you’re not buying the primer and paint. That’s actually good for locking in odors that could help, and then you’re causing more of an issue. If you just go. And paint your house with the wrong paint.

[00:22:48] And you smoked in there for four years. Visually. I have no doubt it’ll look good. It’ll look good, but it might smell good for a couple of days. And then day four or five, six, now it’s a mixture of the cigarette smell with the paint smell, which is probably grosser than just the cigarette bad case of the 

[00:23:05] John Morris: wood.

[00:23:06] It could have showed us you’re like, damn it. I should have just done it the right way the first time. And then, 

[00:23:11] Zak Khoshbin: and, the part where people like, we know it’s the right way. Because we do it. Yeah. But when people are calling There’s not really five other companies doing the same thing as us for the, odor removal or the deodorization service.

[00:23:24] So they’re looking at it as a, Oh, I’ve never heard of that before. I don’t think that’s going to work. That’s a lot of money. I don’t think that’s going to work. So I’m going to try something else. I read online, Oh, I just got to clean my carpet and paint my house and it’ll be fine. Is it like a too good to be true 

[00:23:40] John Morris: kind of a thing for them that they were like, how is that possible?

[00:23:44] Usually, especially with the that’s so tough to overcome sometimes because it’s I see the value in that. I just don’t believe that it could do that for that price. That’s a tough thing to overcome 

[00:23:55] Zak Khoshbin: 100%. And that’s really what I struggled with. at the beginning. Because you have to show the value of the service and the value of the prove it.

[00:24:05] Yeah. And the value of the service is that it works and it works quickly and that we give a guarantee and we stick to that guarantee. So if we have to go back out to your house two times, four times, five times, you’re not paying any more money. We give you that price up front. But because it’s not a widely known service that you see every all your friends and family doing all the time, you just think 1000, man, that seems like that’s going to work.

[00:24:30] John Morris: You just want to be like, get in the truck. We’re trying to do a company that I or house. I just did 

[00:24:36] Zak Khoshbin: this for to get in the truck. We’re going. So, sometimes I will just, it depends on the potential customer, but I will offer her. different scenarios just to show them. Yeah. we’re not going for a money grab.

[00:24:47] We’re going to do the service right. or, we’re going to give your money back if we’re not successful. Now it’s not just on the first time because with odor, it just has to, we have to get rid of that. It has to set sometimes, right? And then you got to 

[00:25:01] John Morris: come back and figure out if it worked and then do it again.

[00:25:03] Zak Khoshbin: And some properties just have, a property that has carpeting all throughout is a lot different than a property that just has hardwood probably that had a six month smoker verse. 10 year smoker is different property that had someone smoke in their garage versus chain smoke in their bedroom.

[00:25:17] All those factors are different. We’ve done all those properties from minor issues to the worst thing you like, the worst possible smell and issue. You can imagine how we’ve done all of them and we’ve been successful with all of them, but getting the person to believe it’s not just a too good to be true was the struggle because not just the two could be true.

[00:25:37] They’re thinking, how could it work? But the second part is, man, that’s too good to be true. And they want to charge me that amount of money. But the amount of money is really mine. It’s not too good 

[00:25:45] John Morris: to be true. 

[00:25:46] Zak Khoshbin: It’s minor when they realize I’ll be able to sell my house quicker. I’ll be able to sell my house most likely for more money.

[00:25:52] and you’re not deterring away. Over half the potential buyers. If your house smells like cigarettes, 

[00:25:59] John Morris: you got to look at it as a, as an investment, not a cost, right? that’s the thing is that’s probably the hard thing is because they’re looking at a pricing menu and that’s always the hard thing.

[00:26:07] And they look at the pricing menu, but there isn’t like a pricing menu that goes, but within three weeks you will sell your house for 10 grand more than therefore profiting. 8000. that’s not in the menu and I can’t guarantee for someone you can’t 

[00:26:25] Zak Khoshbin: sell their house for more because that’s up to the real estate agent.

[00:26:29] Yes, like coming through. so many more factors besides the smell of it that could change you selling your house for 20, 000 more 20, 000. You have a bad roof. That’s not my problem. no. And I can’t fix that for you. No, But there’s just so what if your roof smells, 

[00:26:45] John Morris: that’s weird. That would be really weird.

[00:26:46] That’s a totally different business. If 

[00:26:48] Zak Khoshbin: it smells, you probably got a leak in the roof. If it’s all wet and that’s why it smells. 

[00:26:52] John Morris: So speaking of, building out the business, obviously we’re talking about the products and services, but let’s talk about As I mentioned, you had to figure out how to sell, but you also had to figure out like what’s the brand promise so you can’t have a brand promise necessarily, maybe you can, I guess if you’ve had a couple businesses, but when you’re starting a business off for the first time, it’s tough to come up with a brand promise until you live enough.

[00:27:19] And do enough stuff to know what you actually can promise and that you actually can fulfill and that, meets your purpose in life and actually is a benefit to customers. So how long did it take for you from, first, first year to where you are now, six, seven years in now to really line up that brand promise on your website, I think you had a list of kind of things like 100 percent eradication and, we’re, we’re, going to do this and so on and so forth.

[00:27:51] So those are some brand promises, but then there’s core values too. So walk us through like in your journey as an entrepreneur. How you establish those and then made those Pillars that you were then going to bleed into your staff and the marketplace. 

[00:28:10] Zak Khoshbin: I’d say the two main points we have, with all of our services is we give 100 percent guarantee on the work.

[00:28:18] So whether we are doing a mold service at your property or the odor service at your property, we’re going to do it right. And we’re going to come back at no charge if, there is a issue that comes up later on. So like for the mold work, you have to pass a mold test in order for, to, the property to be considered clear.

[00:28:35] Somehow we failed that mold test or mold is regrowing without a new water issue. We’re coming back to correct that, whether that’s the next day or a month later. what, whatever it may be. if an issue comes up after we just serviced your home, you just paid us I don’t care if it’s 500, 5, 000, 50, 000.

[00:28:53] You paid us a lot of money to fix your issue. We’re going to stick to that promise that we made because that’s why you hired us. And we’re going to come back and correct the issue if needed. Same with the odor. If I treat your house for cigarettes, five days later, you’re like, Zak, my house smells like cigarettes again.

[00:29:07] What did I pay you for? We’re coming back to get rid of that issue because that’s the guarantee we gave you. And that’s one of the reasons. Our customers hire us, the guarantee sounds great, but when you have no reviews, it doesn’t really matter. And that was the thing I struggled with at the beginning was I would tell people, Oh, it’s guaranteed.

[00:29:22] It’s guaranteed. It’s guaranteed. And then they’d be like, you have seven reviews. have you done this for seven people? 

[00:29:30] John Morris: And now getting reviews. So let’s be honest, getting reviews now is fine. Frickin hard. People like we’ve been reviewed to death. There was a time where it was like the new thing, Ooh, cool.

[00:29:42] Yelp. I can speak my piece. Let’s, and then it was like, Oh, Google. Look, now it’s everyone’s got a fricking review. so it’s I’m reviewed out, man. I can, I’m done giving reviews. Like I’ll click the five stars, the four stars, but. if I love something, I’m going to tell the world about it, but it’s tough to get reviews now, 

[00:30:05] Zak Khoshbin: especially for our kind of service.

[00:30:07] one people don’t want to necessarily put out there. They had mold. I had mold in my house. Hey, 

[00:30:12] John Morris: we had a leak going for six years and, we didn’t bother to pay attention to the damn thing, but they helped us. Or, Hey, I’ve been smoking in my bedroom for 40 years. Let me tell the world about how they fix this.

[00:30:28] That’s probably tough to get a review on that. Even if 

[00:30:31] Zak Khoshbin: you’re leaving a review, you can leave it anonymously, Sure. With at least how Google works. You could click on the person’s profile and see who they are. so it was really difficult at the beginning. but now all these years later, we look at it, we have all the location.

[00:30:45] We probably have over like 2000 reviews on there. Some of my favorite ones is. Weird as it is that the one star reviews if you do it, if you have a service company, I used to be so upset when especially was just myself and someone would leave us a one star review because they’re just leaving it without calling us.

[00:31:00] Yeah, there’s an issue giving us a chance to correct it, but most of our one star reviews are actually just Comical to read, where we didn’t actually do something necessarily wrong or bad or they had an expectation. It was off crazy, literally just the craziest things possible. one person left us a bad review because we went out for free inspection, sent them an estimate.

[00:31:22] The review they gave us back was, these people, we’re supposed to come out for free inspection and they sent me a bill. We didn’t send him a bill. We sent him an estimate for if they wanted to do the surface. So I was like reading it like, what? We accidentally charged this person. I go into checking.

[00:31:36] I’m like, all we did was send them an estimate. We charged them. What kind of accounting and 

[00:31:39] John Morris: finance degree 

[00:31:40] Zak Khoshbin: did you get, Zak? Yeah, I know. and so it’s the reviews. It is exhaust. It always has been exhausting. Now we just, naturally get them. We do so many appointments a day. Every person doesn’t leave a review, but when we get a review, I like getting the one for people leave some, at least some good comments, if someone just leaves a five star doesn’t write anything, anyone and people will sometimes say, oh, your reviews are fake because we 

[00:32:04] John Morris: have so many, I think you’ve got to factor out like you got to get rid of the one stars.

[00:32:08] So if you’re a consumer, this is how I do it anyways, if I’m even going to look at these things, because I’ve half the time I’m like, do I even believe this? But what I do is I take the one stars and I go, no. Because more than likely, if you’re leaving a one star, it’s probably a you issue. You got to scan over just a couple.

[00:32:26] You might have a you issue. Okay. And then the five stars I probably throw out as well, because, that’s the, there are people who are like, Oh, so they just will five 

[00:32:37] Zak Khoshbin: star everything. It’s interesting. You said that because someone left us a four star review one time. And they’d left like a pair.

[00:32:43] That’s the one I want to read left a paragraph that I was like, man, this is like the best review I’ve ever. Oh my God. They give you 

[00:32:48] John Morris: an instruction manual on how you can improve your brand. And I asked him, I was like, 

[00:32:52] Zak Khoshbin: Hey, why’d you leave us a four star review? Like your review sounds great. Thank you so much.

[00:32:55] And their reason was, yeah. People with the five star reviews just look over it. But if they click on four star and they see everything I read, that’s going to stick out more than your five star. And I was like, wow, I think he’s actually right. Absolutely. Cause now they’re going to take the time to read it versus, Oh, you got a hundred five star reviews.

[00:33:11] You just scan by it. Yeah, you do. You do. You’re like four, the three, the two. And when you said that, I was like, man, that, I think that makes, I think that makes sense. Cause then I go back and look, I’m like, the most wording is actually when people leave the four star. 

[00:33:24] John Morris: nobody leaves anything on the five stars.

[00:33:26] No, they just, click the five star. It is what it is. 

[00:33:28] Zak Khoshbin: great customers. Sure. Good detailed reviews. But I always, I’ll always remember that four star one because I never thought of it that way. Oh, it’s going to stick out more. And I was like, man, he is so right. 

[00:33:39] John Morris: And by the way, there’s more.

[00:33:40] I think there’s more merit to because I want. I want to work with the company that maybe, has like a 4. 5 or 4. 2 or whatever. But I want to work with the company where I know that those reviews are real. 

[00:33:58] Zak Khoshbin: Yes. And service company. Good luck. Good luck. Just staying at only five stars. we, our team’s fantastic.

[00:34:06] but you’re human, right? And you could be the best person. You’re still going to screw up. so if you’d see a service company of any service, not even in our same market that has just five stars, that’s great, but it’s hard to stick to because It’s just impossible. If you’re going into people’s houses every day, all day long, and you’re dealing with 20, 30, 40 customers a day with a problem that they don’t want to deal with, don’t want to spend money on, you can do the best job ever.

[00:34:32] They’re still upset that they had to spend any money. And then, maybe they’re having a bad day and they got to take it out on someone. You might be the lucky person they’re taking it out on. it’s a five stars, holding that five stars. Just really, tough. I’d say, we have a ton of Google profiles cause we have all the different service locations.

[00:34:48] And, All of them are for sure. 4. 5 and above. I don’t think any of them are still at five stars. It’s too hard to, it’s too hard to hold it. and I think it makes you look like more of a 

[00:35:00] John Morris: legitimate, authentic company. It looks like you have people who actually really are taking the time to review your organization, which is good.

[00:35:06] Yeah. 

[00:35:06] Zak Khoshbin: You do a great job and you accidentally. I don’t know. Spill something in their house. You still did the job great. 

[00:35:12] John Morris: You fixed, but you fixed the thing you spilled. But yeah, that’s what we always do. If we make any 

[00:35:17] Zak Khoshbin: mistake, even if it’s unrelated to the service, we cause some type of damage to the property.

[00:35:21] We spilled paint. We, I don’t know, left mud mark on their carpet somehow, even though we wear booties in the house. we’re always going to correct those issues. That’s the one thing we do stick to, because I don’t want any customer to have a bad experience with us. whether it’s doing the service itself or leaving.

[00:35:36] A bad taste in their mouth when we’re leaving. For whatever the reason is, we always want them to leave it. 

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[00:36:42] Hi. 

[00:36:42] Zak Khoshbin: After I said it, I was thinking the same thing. 

[00:36:44] John Morris: what a great word booties. I knew what you meant, but just the fact it’s rare that I get a booties statement. In a podcast. So thank you for that. This is clip worthy. We appreciate it very much. all right, so let’s get in, let’s get into it, Zak.

[00:37:01] where do we find you if you’re not working? What’s your thing, man? What’s the hobby? Where are we still? Sports. Not 

[00:37:08] Zak Khoshbin: playing them anymore. Why? Yeah. 

[00:37:10] John Morris: Watching. I did see the, I did see you limp in here. That was weird. 

[00:37:14] Zak Khoshbin: Oh man. yeah. I do work a lot, but, no, not actively playing sports anymore. it’s been a while doing that, but, yeah, just watching sports, hanging out with family and friends.

[00:37:25] Okay. it’s 

[00:37:26] John Morris: cubs or socks. Cubs. Oh man. Amen. Are they going to make the playoffs? I hope so. They finally have a winning record again. 

[00:37:33] Zak Khoshbin: Better chance than the Sox. 

[00:37:35] John Morris: Oh my God. I’m talking about this year. 

[00:37:39] Zak Khoshbin: Major league teams. Not the minor league teams. Yeah. Oh gosh. Wow. Cubs fan. Bulls fan.

[00:37:44] Bears fan. Caleb Williams the real deal. I hope so. it’s been a while since we’ve had a solid quarterback. He looks good. While 

[00:37:52] John Morris: meaning like Sid Luckman, 

[00:37:55] Zak Khoshbin: that’s before my time, I’d say the best quarterback I guess I’ve seen would be Cutler has to be color. Yeah. 

[00:38:00] John Morris: And by the way, that team just couldn’t put it together, man.

[00:38:02] Yeah. Like the injuries to first year, I think Cutler’s best year or lacquer broke his wrist. I want to save game one. right? And then the year that they made it in the playoffs, they were cruising along and then he, blows out his knee in the playoff game against the Packers. Everyone thinks he was a wuss and whatever, but he’d blown out his ACL.

[00:38:22] Oh, Cutler Yeah. So they just, it just never lined 

[00:38:25] Zak Khoshbin: up. What a shame, but he, I’m a huge sports fans, a huge sports fan. And, but. Alright, 

[00:38:32] John Morris: so what other things, are driving you as a, human? Obviously, you, mentioned, your relationship with your father.

[00:38:42] I would imagine, That’s your absolute mentor in life. That’s, it’s, 

[00:38:49] Zak Khoshbin: the company is not mine. It’s, I started it with my dad. So that’s awesome. Technically his company, but he doesn’t do anything with the, day to day is just, he helped me get it all started and was just me. And now I’m overseeing everyone else.

[00:39:03] I love 

[00:39:03] John Morris: it. So what are some of the, lessons? That your father has instilled in you. I’ll give you an example for me, right? So you would have thought that the world was ending if I didn’t tie the garbage bag properly. Okay. for him, it was Not necessarily the fact that, if you didn’t tie it it would stink and raccoons would come and knock over your garbage can or whatever.

[00:39:33] For him, it was more of an indication of how you do one thing is how you do any everything. And so he would say things like, if once a shortcut or always a short cutter, like if you shortcut this, you’re going to shortcut other things. So it’s amazing that those things, then in a moment, you’re in a boardroom.

[00:39:55] You’re trying to, you’re trying to wrap up the deal and you want to move it faster. And I hear this little voice on my shoulder and it’s my dad going, don’t shortcut, take your time, make sure they know all the answers. And I hear it and I’m like, Whoa, Hey dad. And it comes through and sure enough, right as rain, man, it ends up helping out.

[00:40:16] The relationship and the partnership. Give us an example of, some of the, brilliant things that your father learned and then has instilled in you that you now apply and it helps you be a better man and more successful business leader.

[00:40:33] he just 

[00:40:33] Zak Khoshbin: instilled hard work, good work ethic since when we were younger, part of it would be, we would have to work, me and my brother’s, 18 months older than me. So I was always with my brother. we would all, we. As long as we had good grades, played sports, we didn’t have to, we didn’t have to have a job, the job is working for him, summers, holidays, whatever, when we weren’t in school, because otherwise we’re in school, then we’re playing sports, but if we were working with him, before we could drive, he’d be dropping us off and it’d be at one of his job sites or construction sites.

[00:41:07] Hey, easy stuff for the garbage jobs, that no one wants to do, go pick up nails, go sweep out the house, go clean up this, go dig a hole outside, go, the things you dig a hole outside. What kind of a job, like for Bill, for building a, like a balcony or say, I got it. They need the whole, this, Hey, go dig these holes.

[00:41:28] You show us where to dig it 30 minutes in, there’s a huge boulder right there. And he’s figure it out, Yeah. You guys are smart. Figure it out. So we’d always be calling him. What do we do? How do we do this? What do we need to do? And, 

[00:41:40] John Morris: so he taught you how to think for yourself. 

[00:41:42] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah, I, I, when I was younger, I was always just trying to make excuses to get out of it.

[00:41:48] Hey, throw all, you guys got to take all this garbage, put it in the dumpster. He knows it should all fit in the dumpster. yeah. He and my brother just throwing the stuff in there. call him like two hours later. Hey, we need another dumpster. The dumpster is full. He’s no, you don’t. He’s like, all that should fit in there.

[00:42:03] Take all of it out. Maneuver and stack it. So yeah, I told you guys to stack it properly after doing that. I now know always stack a dumpster property, otherwise you’re going to have to redo it. Yeah, showing up on show, no matter what, showing up on time, just showing up period, showing up and showing up on time.

[00:42:23] And my dad knew it was all me and my brother were always together, but, he definitely took pleasure in, having us work for him by, Making sure, we had to be at the job. we’re in college in the summers in college, and we gotta be at that job at six in the morning. So he’s just he’s not caring what we’re doing, hanging out with her friends or having a good time.

[00:42:43] But we always showed up on time, more so because my brother, I would just hop in the front seat. My brother would be the one driving, but we’d always show up on time. We’d always do the work that needed to be done. yeah. I learned to stop making excuses once I got older instead of being, 14 years old and 15, just trying to make excuses to go home and play video games.

[00:43:03] I learned to, 

[00:43:03] John Morris: I tried to make that excuse this morning and Tim said, no, you’re doing the podcast dummy. And I said, okay, fine, but can I play video games after? So that’s why this TV is in here. I’m going to probably, I don’t know. I’ll probably play Zelda. 

[00:43:15] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. 

[00:43:16] John Morris: Or Mike Tyson punch out. I don’t know. I’m old, man.

[00:43:18] That’s a 

[00:43:18] Zak Khoshbin: little Zelda. Zelda was on N64. I always played on 64, but I never, I’m 

[00:43:23] John Morris: talking about when I had the gold cartridge look like an eight. Oh yeah. It looked like an eight track, man. I was a little young for that, but we’re in my bros and 

[00:43:33] Zak Khoshbin: 64. Oh yeah. but N64 would have been for my age and 64 and then Xbox.

[00:43:40] but for, as for, learning from my dad, just, you Working hard, getting, doing what you sold to the customer, what you doing your job properly, fixing any issues if they come up. and just don’t make any excuses. if it’s going to take, you thought it’s gonna take you two hours. Now it’s taking 12 hours.

[00:43:59] You have to get it done. in the time that you promised for the customer. and just get it done. Don’t short, no shortcut. Like I said, don’t short kind of thing because You shortcut something, then the whole project could fall apart and cause issues for the next person after you have a different contractors coming in.

[00:44:15] You get that one Google review. Yeah. And no, no joke. When you’re first starting out, it’s big time, man. like I was joking before we had seven or 10 reviews. If all of a sudden you get that one star review. Now your rating drops, which at the beginning, if I was hiring someone, I do Google search, Hey, what kind of reviews they got?

[00:44:34] If they got five or six reviews, I’m like, yeah, the first thought is those could be fake. Which. I was in that point. I was at that at one point, so I understand that. but if you get a bad review at the beginning because you shortcutted some because you want to be lazy. Now you could affect that next person that’s going to call and they look and they see, oh, they’ve only had 10 customers and they’re not a bad one.

[00:44:55] They must not be doing very good. And that’s why I highlight all my employees, which kind of circles back to my dad’s. You got to do the job right. Don’t shortcut it. And don’t make yourself look bad, but you’re making the company look bad too, which then I don’t care if you don’t like that customer, maybe the customer was rude to you, whatever it is, it’s going to affect the next customer.

[00:45:16] Whether or not you have a next 

[00:45:17] John Morris: customer. 

[00:45:18] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. We’ve literally gotten job referrals from the smallest job possible that we did. Like we did a really small job in, our standard job in just like Orlando, Florida. the person from Orlando, Florida was on the board of a property, In, Wisconsin, large hotel, he called me is two years later and calls me, Hey, I think I saw you have locations in Wisconsin.

[00:45:44] You guys did a great job at my house. Do you think you could come take a look and help us out here? that call comes out of nowhere from him. Two years prior, he did leave us a good review, but our customers aren’t like, stay in touch type of people. if I do a good job of your house for the mold issue.

[00:45:59] That’s great, dude. I hope I don’t talk to you again. You probably never have to unless you’re like a realtor. You buy another property. Yeah. Or you’re like, Hey, I’m buying another property. You can come help. That’s the relationship one. So for this was, he’s on the board for, the hotel or the property in Wisconsin got us the opportunity to go in and look at it.

[00:46:14] ’cause he trusted us. ’cause we did a good job. In Florida, and then we got the project in Wisconsin, all from that small project that sometimes you’re not as excited to do, because you’re not making as much money, but it translated into one of the biggest jobs we ever did all from that little small job.

[00:46:29] John Morris: Isn’t that crazy? And you never know in the web of things. So there are oftentimes, and we talked about this earlier, there are jobs that you just shouldn’t take. They don’t fit who you are. It’s not going to be right for the customer. It won’t be right for your brand. It just doesn’t. Doesn’t lock in but there are jobs that are right for you But they’re small and you could take them for granted you could be like, ah, you know We’ll make them wait what you don’t know until you dig in deep enough to your point Is that person is connected?

[00:47:00] with Numerous other people so every job you have to look at as a wick to a network You got to light that wick by doing amazing work. A hundred percent. And then that just will travel and, and potentially be the thing that the magic that you need, that sparks your brand and takes you to the next level.

[00:47:22] Zak Khoshbin: A hundred percent. 

[00:47:22] John Morris: In our conversation, I’m thinking, I’m listening to what you’re saying. I’m thinking at the same time of I’d to know this, or I’d like to know that. So I as I’m hearing you give that message, I’m referring back to, A previous podcast, and obviously the whole point of this podcast is to create a body of work where people could look at this and go, look at the commonalities of entrepreneurs and, C suite and executive level people and people just in general that get shit done.

[00:47:57] There’s some commonalities. Some of the commonalities that I’ve heard so far from folks that have been on the show is like you, go to bed early, you get up early, right? do the right thing, like always do the right thing, even if you lose in order to win, do the right thing. very, structured in routine.

[00:48:22] Like a lot of repetition in order to create muscle memory or you know a level of innate habit, right? So each person I’ve, talked to has their way of, doing things and there’s no right or wrong way to be successful, but there are commonalities. So when you get up in the morning or when you start a work week or however you map out your thing, what are some of the principles or values that you go, I never miss this?

[00:49:01] I work out at 4 30 every morning without fail or, I have to go meditate or I journal or whatever, it might be. What is your like formula for getting shit done that’s been successful for you thus far? 

[00:49:21] Zak Khoshbin: I probably wouldn’t say I wouldn’t say I have the standard routine or wake up at a certain time or, I definitely don’t go to bed early.

[00:49:30] Usually because I’m probably working or doing something related to work. now with technology and everything’s at the palm of your hand, I could always be doing something. so sometimes I’m already thinking of what’s the next day or the next week and maybe just doing it at 11 o’clock at night.

[00:49:43] Cause I’m not sleeping. I’m watching a movie. Getting it done show, watching a sports show, and I could still watch it while doing payroll . Yeah. Or watch it while, do you know, going over the last month’s, jobs that we did, jobs we completed, I, so I definitely don’t have a routine of I gotta wake up at a certain time.

[00:50:01] I’m just up early, naturally. So whether that’s my routine or not, I’m usually up by seven no matter what. It doesn’t mean I’m in the office by seven, but my office is just my phone. My computer got with me 24 7. But part of my routine would just be just scanning over, the work that we’re doing, making sure everything’s in order.

[00:50:22] I have guys that take care of that, but I always like making sure even though I’m not doing the work in the field anymore or overseeing every single project like I used to, that I know what’s going on. I know, the, customers we’re dealing with. The issues that we’re dealing with, any potential fires that are happening when I say fires, problems that, maybe a customer is calling and complaining or, we’re having an issue at a job that’s taken longer, than we were expecting because most of our jobs are pretty quick.

[00:50:53] those are the things I want to make sure I really get on top of to, get the customer the quickest turnaround possible for any issue that maybe did come up. Yeah, and stuff comes up all the time, but if you even if issue comes up, you make sure they ended up having a good experience at the end of it, you’re showing that you’re correcting any issues that’s at the end of the day.

[00:51:09] That’s all you can really do because you’re never going to be perfect the whole time, but on a daily basis, I’m not, I would say I’m not as structured as maybe a lot of the other people because I’m just going with how the day. Is 

[00:51:21] John Morris: there a mindset? Yeah. is there a mindset or, a positive energy or something that you really lean on?

[00:51:34] Zak Khoshbin: I like the positive energy part. I always try to, I’ve been talking with most of my employees each day, even though I’m not micromanaging them. like my guys in the field, I’m always at least calling to check in on them. Really not. Sometimes it’s not even work related. How are they doing? How are their family or their kids doing?

[00:51:50] Most of the guys working with me are around my age in their thirties. We have people that are older than me as well. and just checking how they’re doing, what I can do for them, like unrelated to that steward leadership, just unrelated to the job of, it’s not, All gotta be about work 24 seven.

[00:52:08] And if they’re the ones, doing the working for me, technically, I want to make sure they’re enjoying the job, enjoying working for the company. while also enjoying stuff outside of the company as well, especially with so many of our guys, just bust, bust their, But buster butts all day long.

[00:52:28] and sometimes just those little check ins, really means a lot, Or if I see you guys, I used to, when it was just me, I’d remember how excited I would get, when I’d finally get that sale. Oh man, a thousand dollars sale. Then, holy cow, I got a 3, 000 sale. So even till, even to this day, I see every sale that comes in, I’ll even call the guy, Hey, awesome sale.

[00:52:48] And those little things. I know make a difference for them to boost them up rewards and recognition or maybe they were maybe they don’t think I see all that stuff. And just those little quick two minute phone call. Hey, how you doing, man? Awesome. Sam, awesome job. Really proud of You Hey, I’ll talk to you later.

[00:53:04] Call me if you need anything. Literally nothing about work. I was telling him good job. I like doing those types of things, to just boost up the positivity. and I do think that makes a huge difference. 

[00:53:16] John Morris: Wins create wins, right? That, momentum, like energy. 

[00:53:21] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah, 

[00:53:22] John Morris: positive energy creates emotion.

[00:53:24] Emotion creates motion. 

[00:53:26] Zak Khoshbin: Then they feel more invested. They care more. if someone’s just calling and yelling at you, why the heck you do this? Why’d you screw that up? I realized people are gonna make mistakes, but if they show me they care to fix it, that’s a lot different than the guy just saying, whatever.

[00:53:41] I don’t care, man. I’m just here for my paycheck. It’s just when I, when they messed up, they know they messed up. And then together we figure out this is how we’re going to fix it. This is how and we might. We might lose money now on that job that we did. And there’s been plenty of jobs like that where we made a mistake, caused damage to the property for whatever the reason was.

[00:54:03] and then now we had, yeah, that’s 

[00:54:04] John Morris: not the time to and even get on the employee, the time is to solve it for the customer. Yes. and then you can have a conversation after the problem solved with the employee about how do we make certain that doesn’t happen before? How can I help you? So that doesn’t happen again, right?

[00:54:20] Zak Khoshbin: That’s the approach I take. Cause I don’t think any of my guys would be doing that on purpose and definitely art, but I don’t think it’s going to help when I call up. So you idiot was just like, Hey, let’s talk about this later. But right now we got to figure out what is the plan of attack to fix this.

[00:54:34] And then we’ll talk about how we make sure this doesn’t happen again. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t, maybe I didn’t walk through that properly with you beforehand. And let’s talk about it. So that next time you’re good, I’m good. And we don’t have to worry about this again. and I, at least I’ve, thought that approach has worked with all the guys we’ve had come through.

[00:54:53] At the company, opposed to, just coming down on them and yelling at them sometimes that’s needed to, but the approach I take is to see if they really care and then just, Hey, this is how we’re going to correct it. And any questions so that it doesn’t happen again, going forward. You’re good. I’m good.

[00:55:08] All right. We’re good. You have a good day, man. 

[00:55:09] John Morris: Love it. In closing, I always like to get this, out. obviously, six years in business, you’ve made it to with COVID. Yeah. But you’ve made it to, to get past five years, it’s pretty fricking hard for a small business.

[00:55:31] Yeah. and now you’re approaching the 10 year mark. you’re still in that spot, but you can probably rest more assured in that you’ve had some significant scaling. my gosh, like you went from Local to now in seven different states, I think is six or seven. I think it was like Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, 

[00:55:56] Zak Khoshbin: Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

[00:56:01] John Morris: Oh my. That’s some pretty damn good scaling in six years. Yeah. Okay. So I think you’ve gotten past the, Oh shit, we might go out of business and you’re probably more into the holy cow. How do I hang on to this thing? This thing is galloping fast and like sometimes it’s trying to buck me off. Like it’s trying to get me off the like.

[00:56:24] Yeah, not 

[00:56:24] Zak Khoshbin: the going out of business part. I don’t think of that 

[00:56:26] John Morris: now. You’re on the more like, how do I hang out of this bad boy? Like I got a tiger by the tail. Yep, 

[00:56:32] Zak Khoshbin: especially when we get large projects. Yeah. so how do I still have that? I don’t have the comfort of, oh, On easy street now.

[00:56:42] John Morris: No, there ain’t no easy street. you created some major discomfort by being successful. It’s amazing how success can create discomfort. 

[00:56:49] Zak Khoshbin: Yep. And I prefer the discomfort. That’s a better discomfort. Then you’re working towards something instead of being, if you’re content, you’re not going to get. You’re not going to 

[00:56:57] John Morris: know.

[00:56:57] It’s a beautiful thing. So with that being said, what’s the big vision? What’s the, like the beehive and a beehive, right? A beehive is your big, hairy, audacious goal. What’s the beehive for, let’s say, 5, 10 years out? Where is Pur360 going to be? And where is that going to be within that 

[00:57:21] Zak Khoshbin: 5, 10 years?

[00:57:21] I say nationwide. if it’s not a location in every state, at least all, major cities, you can’t probably have a location in the middle of nowhere. Montana, there needs to be enough population. Hello, Montana. Do you get mold? You do? Okay, great. We’re on our way. I have no doubt they do. But yeah, nationwide in sense of a lot of the other.

[00:57:41] We’re not a franchise, the franchise is. Yeah. Franchises around that aren’t our direct competitor. but that you see them in, we’re in all these different states and we see them too. But there are franchise with us. We own all of our location. It’s all of our employees. I would like to see that kind of.

[00:58:00] Across just across, all the way out to California. we are on the East coast, to hit the major cities over there too, 

[00:58:07] John Morris: like New York, Boston, there’s other states in the East coast besides New Jersey, even though that is the place of my birth. 

[00:58:13] Zak Khoshbin: okay. 

[00:58:14] John Morris: Yeah. 

[00:58:14] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. It would be really New Jersey.

[00:58:15] We cover, the Southern part of it. but when we start to expand to the Northern part of it, New York’s right there. but nationwide scaling to nationwide would be, five to 10 years. I think it’s Very realistic with the five years, even awesome. 

[00:58:31] John Morris: on this trend, you’re talking, it’s very realistic because you’re, multiple.

[00:58:36] You’re a multiplier right now. 

[00:58:37] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. And the toughest part is really just finding the right people when you find that when you find the good people and you make them want to stay at the company becomes a lot easier because then they’re invested. They want to stay. They want to stay for a long time.

[00:58:49] they’re not thinking. Yeah. I’m going to do this for six months and then leave. And some guys have, there’s nothing wrong with that. Sure. You got to do what’s best for you. 

[00:58:56] John Morris: You’re trying to create careers for people, not jobs. Yeah. And then 

[00:58:58] Zak Khoshbin: that way they’re excited about it, invested in it.

[00:59:01] And I tell guys all the time, man, this job we got, this is going to suck. Yeah. Yeah. We got to get through this and then, get it. And then the next one 

[00:59:10] John Morris: will suck less, but probably still suck because we are dealing 

[00:59:14] Zak Khoshbin: with problems. And, but when you’re, going into a sucky job, As the guys in the field doing it, I know that feeling enough.

[00:59:23] I got to go to that house. I got to go deal with that customer. I was like, Hey, let’s get through this. Cause at the end of it, it’s going to feel amazing. Yeah. And at the end of it, because we’re going to do a good job, you’re never going to have to go back there again. 

[00:59:33] John Morris: Yeah. 

[00:59:35] Zak Khoshbin: if they’re just the person that doesn’t care.

[00:59:37] They’re not as invested as the person that really cares and wants to keep moving forward. All right, let’s knock that job out. And then we’re going to have an early day on Friday, have a nice weekend. and then we’ve got a full schedule next week and they’re excited about those jobs. And they come in opposed to the guys that don’t have as much care.

[00:59:52] They’re like, Oh man, I have a job on Friday. I have a job on Saturday. Cause we do jobs on the weekends for some people, especially the commercial properties. if we’re doing an office building, they need their employees out of the building. We don’t want to interrupt. They’re the value we can give is by working around their schedule.

[01:00:06] Not, we’re not interrupting their day, their daily work for, or their day workflow, daily business by doing it on the weekend. Then now that now the employee I have is excited to do it because he just got another sale, the sale they should be excited about. And by now on the weekend, they’re not like, Oh man, I got to go work Saturday morning.

[01:00:25] They’re like, Oh, it’s awesome. I got that job scheduled on Friday and Sunday. This is awesome. I can’t believe we got that huge job. and, when the guys are invested like that, it makes it a lot easier for expanding because you hired a Oh, I want to open New York. I just find someone random. And then after a couple of months that are gone now, it’s just not the, that’s not the best way.

[01:00:45] We, when we hire 

[01:00:46] John Morris: people like that too, that means that they’re focused on the total experience. They’re looking for a career. They’re looking to build, some level of wealth through, through the growth pattern. and they probably are working off of incentive, being. making more money, but there’s another really cool incentive is giving people their time back.

[01:01:09] And I think you made mention that when people get a job wrapped up, they’re able to cut out early on a Friday, but then they got another cool job starting. I think people take for granted. How, money isn’t always the motivator. Sometimes it’s giving people back their time and giving people freedom to go do the things that they love.

[01:01:29] Zak Khoshbin: Oh yeah. 

[01:01:30] John Morris: and. 

[01:01:30] Zak Khoshbin: I got a bunch of guys that have young kids. I don’t know myself. I got a couple of nephews, but I got guys that are around my age with two kids, one kid, four kids. And I know the value that they get when they can call me or say, Hey, yeah. My kids got a ball game. My kids first day of school is next week.

[01:01:48] Do you mind if I start late? And my answer is no problem, man. That sounds good. I’m excited for him because now I can see that they care so much about their family. if the minimal thing I do is say, yeah, you could start late and now they’re happy. Now they’re excited. they’re going to work harder.

[01:02:03] They’re going to work harder. More passionately, and they’re going to care now. Now they’ll do anything for you. Yeah, when you’re because they’re going to 

[01:02:12] John Morris: have the same understanding for you because this is your baby. 

[01:02:15] Zak Khoshbin: Yep, exactly. Exactly. And I take that approach with all my guys. Yeah, they don’t all have kids, but Maybe something else is a little more important.

[01:02:23] John Morris: yeah, it could be their beer league softball team that they travel the country and they’re the number four hitter and they, all they do is hit ding dongs and man, they got a four, they got a game started, doubleheader started five and it’s a 25 minute drive. And hey, can I cut out like that kind of stuff matters to somebody?

[01:02:41] So everyone’s situation is different. And if you can create an environment, Where you can, you you want to standard standardize some things, but other things you really do want to customize to the individual and be flexible. Yeah. 

[01:02:54] Zak Khoshbin: I try to see what’s important to them, like when I’m hiring them, and then just use that to help make their experience at the company.

[01:03:02] Something that they like, because again, there’s going to be days that anyone could have a bad day. You look on that schedule and you’re like, Oh, this day is good. Suck it. Yeah. Person’s house. but if I could do those other little things that make it a little more enjoyable for them, I think that really separates us from the other company that’s just Nope, get here.

[01:03:17] Our data clock, leave five, no excuses. Shuffling them off. Nothing. I try to be flexible with that because at one point I always like it was just me and doing all that can be exhausting. and I want them to, not overwork themselves. My guys work really hard, but I want them to be ready to go for the next day.

[01:03:37] And I even tell me, Hey, if you guys are, I see they’re working, so many days in a row or long hours for certain days when the guys are really busy, I’m always asking them, Hey, do you need. A little, you need to cut out early. you want that Monday off? You want Friday off? I got one guy that’s working through the weekend, this holiday weekend.

[01:03:54] Yeah. he’s, I know he’s got kids and everything. I’ll ask him before he asked me, Hey, you want me to offset it? You want me to get you Tuesday off or Wednesday off or something? Some guys will say no because they want the money because they want. They see how busy they are and he’s I’ll rest, I’ll get a break later.

[01:04:11] he knows that it could be up and down with the sales. He’s no. We got jobs coming. I’ll take the break later. And then sometimes I just tell him, you don’t have a choice. I’m giving you 

[01:04:17] John Morris: a 

[01:04:17] Zak Khoshbin: day off because I know how hard they’re working. the guy that’s not trying to bust his, work super hard is a little bit different than the guy that I’ve had for a couple of years.

[01:04:28] And I know the importance I again, I don’t have kids, but I know the importance family. Super important to me. I viewed them as part of my family. And if those little things I can do for them to make them happier, that’s easy for me to do because I can make sure it doesn’t affect the business. Then you got your grace.

[01:04:43] You got to get off at three o’clock and I know it’s not affecting business. You’re happy. Boom, I’m happy. Perfect. Talk to you man. 

[01:04:50] John Morris: So pur360solutions. com that’s no e in pure that’s P-U- R-3-6-0-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-S. com. If you are looking for a role or somebody who perhaps needs work, Zak and the team are expanding.

[01:05:05] They’re, hiring right now. They’re growing. They got projects going on. They’re looking for you. Now, the type of people they’re looking for. They’re looking for people that are driven, and, align with the, idea that let’s go get it done. And then we’ll, we’ll work hard, play awesome.

[01:05:23] Zak Khoshbin: Yeah. even with no experience. We will train you and show you, and if you’re just a hard worker, you got the mindset that you want to teach you the rest you want to get shit done, we’ll, show you, we’ll, train you, show you the way so they can be successful. Over half my guys didn’t have experience.

[01:05:39] This isn’t really a field you have experience in. If you just, Oh, I 

[01:05:44] John Morris: grew up fixing mold. no, this is something you definitely have to be trained, but look, bring me heart. I can teach you the rest, right? 

[01:05:52] Zak Khoshbin: Exactly. Most of our, all of our guys are great, but a lot of them did not come from the background and they just said, show me what to do.

[01:05:59] Show me how to do that and I’ll get better at it. I will get better. And if guys are showing, they’re going to get better. I don’t care about your, everyone always thinks the resume is so important and it’s definitely important. But for this type of job, I take the guy that will work hard and just show up and say, teach me.

[01:06:14] Yeah. And actually focus on your, be coachable instead of being like, oh, can you show me that again? Yeah, If I, show you that again, it’s fine. But if you ask me 40 times, there’s no more 41. Show me again. We’re missing something here. Alright, that’s a, 

[01:06:26] John Morris: no go. Alright, Zak, final thought. What are you grateful for?

[01:06:31] I 

[01:06:32] Zak Khoshbin: am grateful for my family and all my employees that bust their ass everyday for me and my company. 

[01:06:41] John Morris: I love it. Zak, I want to remind you, you sir, got shit done. Congrats. Great job. Cheers.

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