Kenneth Price is a Franchisee at Pizza Guys, an established California-based pizza restaurant with more than 70 independently-owned franchises. As Kenneth developed his entrepreneurial skills in the restaurant industry, he knew he wanted to build his own business. In 2020, he founded KAP’s HVAC, a specialized company that provides commercial and residential heating and cooling services and has since expanded from Oregon to California. Kenneth’s entrepreneurial focus is set on moving from Oregon to develop exciting new projects in California.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Kenneth Price shares his challenging yet inspiring entrepreneurial journey
- The importance of having good discipline and the right work mentality
- Kenneth’s process of taking over more restaurant locations
- Maintaining a strong brand culture within delivery services
- How intimidating situations can be a learning opportunity
- Kenneth discusses the systems that helped him expand his business across states
- Adapting to the dichotomy of running businesses in two different industries
In this episode…
In this episode of the SpotOn Series, Chad Franzen welcomes Kenneth Price, Franchisee at Pizza Guys. They discuss the most challenging parts of Kenneth’s entrepreneurial journey, how good discipline and the right mentality are the foundation of success, the key to creating a strong brand culture, and the learning opportunities of starting your first business. Kenneth shares the process of ensuring success when taking over restaurant locations and what systems helped him rapidly expand his business.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Sponsor for this episode
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise25 Media, we featured top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here co-host for the show where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn Series. SpotOn has the best in class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant, where they combine everything from marketing to software and payments all in one. They’ve sorted everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom-and-pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spot on.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners and thought leaders in your space. There’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to Rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com For the past 14 years Kenneth Price has been a franchisee with Pizza Guys. And in 2020 he founded KAP’s HVAC which started in Oregon, and has since expanded into California. Hey, Kenneth, welcome to the show.
Kenneth Price 1:19
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Chad Franzen 1:21
Yeah, great to have you. Hey, let’s talk about how you got into the restaurant industry first, prior to getting involved with Pizza Guys. What did you been doing? And did it involve restaurants?
Kenneth Price 1:31
Um, well actually, I came to the US when I was 18. And my parents sent me out here to actually play some sports and go to school. And then I started with Pizza Guys, I got a job with Pizza Guys. And I was living at that time I was living with my brother in his girlfriend’s house, you know, on the couch. So, you know, I didn’t have a place to stay. That’s where I stayed. And they lived with his girlfriend’s parents. So it was pretty pretty interesting at that time. You know?
Chad Franzen 2:05
So did you get did you get involved with Pizza Guys? While you were in school after you finished school?
Kenneth Price 2:10
No, I didn’t go to school at all. Okay, yeah, so my brother actually worked for Pizza Guys he was a delivery driver and you know so I I hopped on with him work started with Pizza Guys as a flyer boy and I didn’t have a car nothing started as a flyer guy. And then you know, I met the owner is actually my one of my best friends now at the time. You know, so he, I mean, he was driving nice cars living the good life he would always say I’m going to pick up my daughter for ice cream you know, I’m driving my daughter to school got to do this for my kid you know, so he lived an amazing life you know, he traveled all this thing and then he was really humble, really caring guy and I said I want to be like this guy. And I was like I want to be like him I’ve never met somebody like him you know he was pretty well off comfortable and just like he overall enjoyed life treated everybody with respect and care. So I started with flyers the flyers little bit then I moved into the inside after a while I started working inside and you know coming from there with you know, with our background from work, we can work 1617 hours no problem, you know, you know to coming over here people barely want to work six hours, you know, so it was a big way I you know, I felt like I had an upper hand. So you know, people didn’t want to close that close for them I work to work seven days a week started working more and more, saved up bought a car became a delivery driver became inside, about six months after all of that. And actually about a year, somewhere around there about a year I became a manager a year and a half I became a store manager and then he had a store that was failing. He put me in that store said ready to you know, trained me and train me and train me and you know be at growing that fast and seeing everybody around me like that it kind of I was a little bit too cocky. I was cocky that’s pretty much it. You know not a little bit too cocky. I was cocky like okay, I’m I’m I’m the best I know this and that and so he turned me in a store we started training me and everything. I was little hard headed. We lost money. 678 months losing money a year. We kept losing money losing money. And finally is like you ready? Learn ready to do this? I said yeah. And he goes so shut the hell up and listen to me and do as I say. And since then, it was game over from there. I you know, I shut up. I learned I called him asked him questions all the time. He took his time came out, mentored me He taught me everything he knew and we grew the store we had, you know, broke every record and in P So guys, you know, within the whole two years, three years where there was number one, and then he had another store that was failing, and, you know, he’s like, now we got a party, he goes to go do this, I move out there to Pleasanton, California, and get the store up. And, you know, we’ll be able to partner up, they go, Okay, perfect. Let’s do it. We partnered up there, that was our first store. That was a mission, because at the time, my rent was 1800 a month, and my wife, my kids, all those things, you know, and I ended up losing my house, and lost my car. Just store wasn’t doing so well. You know, so, I mean, I took the deal. You know, it was 20 501. A year and a half, you know, and it was, it was, that was a tough time for me, and, you know, took took a while for that store to get off. And, you know, you’ve never, you know, never had a thought that a store, would you open up a business and like, man, everything just goes wrong. You know, you’re not making money, you do this, you do this, you’re doing all the right things, all the right things, and it’s just the market, you know, just time it’s just presence. It’s, you know, and, you know, I didn’t learn that till after the fact. But during that time, it was just like, man, what am I doing wrong, you’re thinking in your head, I’m doing everything I can do, I’m doing everything, right, I’m doing much more than everybody else, I guarantee nobody’s customer service is as good as mine here. You know, nobody’s pushing out deliveries as fast as us we’re getting a G in 22 minutes, you know, we’re doing everything we can, you know, from, from customer service, to marketing, to handing out free pizzas all everywhere to go on to schools, dropping off free pizzas, going to business dropping pizza, like, we’re not coming in with a flyer, we’re coming in with a pizza, you know, that. So, you know, it didn’t get no better than that. I mean, you know, in the, in the pizza marketing. But, you know, it was the, you know, the $2500 a month that I had to make my rent was $1800 moved in when my brother-in-law, and then probably, you know, probably close to about two years in the store. It was, it was kind of like, this is it, I’m done, I’m finished. I’m through with this. I can’t take it no more my marriage is in shambles. My, you know, time away from my kids. I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t be with my kids anymore. Living on my brother-in-law, so I’m driving an hour there our back, you know, and then coming home, I didn’t have money. So, you know, we were fortunate enough that my brother-in-law, you know, took care of the rent and everything. And it was very humbling at that time, because I was embarrassed, you know, I come home to my brother-in-law’s house. And, and, you know, I’d say, we agreed that I’ll pay him like 250 bucks a month, and I couldn’t even pay 250 bucks a month at the time. You know, so that was very humbling for me. And then on top of it is like, I didn’t have money to buy the kids mail. I didn’t have money to buy the kids diapers. So it was like, you know, it was it was very, very rough. And like, every day, I was like, I quit, I quit. I’m done. I’m through this, again, taking no more stars not going nowhere. And anywhere. Some reason I just pushed through. I mean, honestly, to this day, I don’t know what it was what clicked anything. It’s just I just kept pushing through. And within a month store just changed. Like literally doubled. And then it just we were then we started to make money. And then we started making crazy money. And it was just like, wow, out of nowhere. And I was like, man, I was so close to giving up. But it was like, you know, and it was just it. I was I was giving up. I was done. I was through with it. And whatever pushed me through. I’m glad it did, because I was just a month away from that, from that success. Wow. And then from there, we ended up buying San Jose. We ended up building Santa Clara. You know, I went on and bought all the Pizza Guys in Oregon. You know? So that was kind of the start of Pizza Guys.
Chad Franzen 9:04
Well, that is, that is an amazing. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting you to tell me that kind of that’s an amazing story. What was it that? Do you think it was just the market conditions at the time that were affecting you? Or did you know now that you think back on it? Did you do something different?
Kenneth Price 9:21
Well, now that I mean, I wouldn’t have done anything different. Anything I did, I wouldn’t have done anything different. It really was just the market. When you’re in an area like Pleasanton, people over there. They’re not wealthy, but they’re super comfortable. Meaning they got you know, that if they want to pull 30,000 out of the bank, they can pull 30,000 out of the bank, like you know today, right? So they’re very comfortable. You know, they’re, they’re well off. They’re very good with their money, things like that. Right? It’s a very great city. So, you know, they choose what they want to eat, right where the kids want to eat, they get you know, so that’s really what it was. So you know, and you have to build that relationship with them, you have to build that time with them, you have to really, you know, build those one on ones with as many customers as you can. And that was really, you know, you really have to, it’s not, I’m, it’s pizza, guys, let’s go have Pizza Guys, let’s go see Ken and that Pizza Guys, you know, and it was really you know, so that was kind of that was in just the timing, you know, you got to add one customer at 700 this month, 710 next month, 71 you got to keep adding and building your one on one relationships with so everybody knows who you are. And that will end once we build that foundation, you know, after two years, you know, then then it stuck. And that was it. Everybody just kept coming and come in and you couldn’t do market anymore.
Chad Franzen 10:42
Wow. So, so you’re so we’ve got a testament to kind of your endurance and you’re willing to stick to it. Things like that. What do you think, you know, since since that time, where maybe you were, you know, let’s say you were? The ground is here, and you’re here? Let’s say yeah, below ground? By the time you kind of got even, what do you think has been kind of a key to now where you’ve taken over more stores and things like that? Is there kind of a process that you have that you know, like this works?
Kenneth Price 11:08
Yeah, absolutely. You know, there’s, you know, you know, when I come into a new store, you know, most of the time I’m already coming in with like, figuring out like, Okay, I’m expecting to fire pretty much like 90% of the staff. Why I’m in that’s why, yeah, it’s because they’re so most of the time, they’re so used to you. You can’t retrain them. You almost can’t, right. It’s not like in my HR company, if I come into a guy, they’re much older, right? In the pizza industry, we’re dealing with a lot of younger kids. Right. And a lot of younger kids, especially today, they have a mindset and they’re right. They know it, you know, versus, you know, in my HR company, I’m dealing with 35 4050, you know, 52-year-olds, you know, so I can come in, they have families, you know, they they’re more understanding, you know, they have responsibilities, they, they know, I have a little bit more experience, right? And so I can come in and retrain them. And they’ll do great, right, though, that’s okay. So you want it we’ll take care of no problem. Versus when I go into the pizza restaurant, I’m like, well, we’ll do it like this, too, like this, or like, it’s harder to do and like just but it’s better. It’s been, you know, it’s better for production, it’s better for service is better for all these things. You know, they want to take the easiest way out, you know, I mean, so it gets kind of you, you literally, I feel like you, you have one bad blood in there. And then it just kind of spreads like a disease, you know, and that that’s a bad, it’s a very bad thing, when you’re trying to build a brand trying to build something, you know, to make it you have to have a great culture, you have to have a great vibe, you have to make sure you know, hey, come into work. And I always tell them when I come in I’m like, Look, work is work we come in we work if it’s slow a little bit, you guys want to hang out talk on the phone, call me I’ll calm I’ll buy you guys ice cream, we’ll chill out and hang out a bit slow, right? No problem with that. Right? But when it’s time to when it’s busy, and it’s time to get down, like I wanted you guys to put it down, you know that that’s how I am. You know, if you’re chill, and everything’s done, and it’s like, nine o’clock, we don’t close to 11. And everything’s done. Like care less if you’re sitting on your phone, chillin watching TikTok or whatever you’re doing, you know, doing your homework right there or whatever. It don’t matter where that phone rings, take it, boom, take care of that customer service exactly how I want, right. And those are things I’m strict on, but I’m not completely strict in the business, right? Because I give a lot of leeway. You know, but man, it it it. building that culture is so important for me. And having the vibe is because i The number one thing I tell them is when you come into store, when you come into work, it’s not like, Ah, I gotta come into work, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I want you guys to think of this as getting away from the outside. Right? I want you guys to come in here and joy. And I want you get to, like, this is where you okay, you focus on work, you’re hanging out with everybody. You’re not focused on all the problems that’s going on in the outside world. So let’s kind of think of it like that. And let’s try to put it together. So we don’t want to be talking, you know, we don’t want any chitchat in, you know, chit-chatting, chit-chatting meaning like in talking about somebody else. So this employer that keeping great keep the vibrate, keep the culture great, and it makes it tremendously big difference.
Chad Franzen 14:18
You know, when do you think that that, you know, when you go into a restaurant where you sit down and order food, you can you can kind of feel the culture or the vibe, you know, if the if all the employees hate it, you can kind of tell, do you think that affects the the customer even in this kind of an industry where it’s more delivery?
Kenneth Price 14:35
Yes, absolutely is because your drivers is you know, 60% of our sales are delivered, which means our drivers are the only ones that mostly interact with the customers out there, right. So if our driver is not presentable, he doesn’t look good. He’s not happy. You know, I mean, he doesn’t get taken care of, you know, all these type of things. He’s gonna go out there like pizza, and then just go, you know, I mean, we want them to go out there and say, Hey, how you doing? You know, awesome. I got your order, right here you are, yeah, awesome. Whoa, Rams jersey, oh man, we should next time don’t call us you know, you know, and I want them to, you know, I want them to interact with the customers, I want them to spend a minute talk to the customers, you know, I mean, you know, and I want them to walk up with a smile of happy, you know, enjoying it, you know, because it’s a very big part of, they’re an extension of us. Right? You know, so they’re our image when they go to that customer’s house. So I, I believe it is a big part.
Chad Franzen 15:35
So when you open up a new store beyond kind of establishing that culture that you want, what else are some of the keys to, you know, long term success? Like, you know, I’m sure there’s a lot of competitors in the pizza industry, does Pizza Guys speak for itself? Or, you know, what do you have to do to kind of establish yourself within this new kind of market that you’re in?
Kenneth Price 15:54
So the big thing is I look at is, is, you know, when I come in, and I, and I, you know, take over an existing store, I always, you know, look at five things that I can fix, that will drastically change, you know, the way the operation runs, and, and that equally equates to money, more money, right. So that’s what I look at first, right? Because, of course, we’re going into the business for more money. But to answer your question for the long term of it is we look at, I don’t ever pay attention to what competitors are doing. I don’t ever pay attention to competitor pricing or anything like that. If these guys were running promotion for 10 bucks, seven bucks, 12 bucks, I could care less, right? Because I’m giving you the service that you don’t find anywhere else. And I’m giving you you know, some good pizza. We’re not the best best, but we’re good, right? You know, you know, we’re good enough. You know, you could walk into a beautiful store, my drivers are awesome. You know, service is outstanding. I can charge you $16 A pizza $17 A pizza easily. Right? And you know, for medium fees, I can totally $26 For a large pizza, right? You’re gonna pay it. Right. And and if I’m building that foundation with you tourists like every time you walk in, I’m like, Hey, are you doing Chad? When you pepperoni sausage today? Yeah, yeah, awesome. Definitely go, Hey, I made you a garlic bread too. And I want you to try this out. You know, I mean, that right there that like that? How many pizza places would give you something? Right? Every time I do it, I say, take a pizza card. And I call it internal marketing. So I have free garlic bread cards, free cookie free munchies free sent it to us. And I put it in the box and say next time you order your free garlic bread, your free bacon bread. So I do that all the time. Because how many places give you something for free? You know, and that’s kind of, you know, something I’ve built I, I go above and beyond. And I think that’s the most important thing, especially when you’re in the restaurant industry. And right now, you know, because now we have nowadays, you walk into a lot of Russians, I, you know, I just took my daughters out to a breakfast restaurant. You know, they miss school for a few hours, like, they wanted to go for breakfast. So they Let’s go. And you know, the service was pretty bad. There’s no customer service, there was no grading there was, you know, it was like, we just give our pool and never came back. And we’re like looking for like, my kids wanted some apple juice isn’t something and I’m like, you know, there was so there was nothing but am I gonna go back? Yeah, probably so. Right. But there’s nothing, you know, until I find another breakfast place, you know that that has better food, better service, you know, they have good food. But nowadays, you don’t find great customer service, you know, and you know, and I think that’s going to change as soon as the the employee market changes, I think that’s going to change drastically to where people are going to see so much better services. And, and the next few years you’re going to be competing, you know, are struggling if if you don’t keep up with that, because once that employee market changes and employees are actually coming to work, you know that now customer service is a big factor. Now that you know that the key players, the big players that play that customer service game is going to win. So
Chad Franzen 19:06
your your story with Pizza Guys is incredible. Tell me about KAP’s HVAC and kind of tell me about the service that you provide, you know, just coming up with a general general customer type information and what led you to start it
Kenneth Price 19:19
I mean, we do everything from commercial residential, you know, install everything, everything, you know, heating and cooling we do. We actually just expanded KAP’s HVAC back into KAP’s HVAC and remodeling. Now we remodeled bathrooms, we remodel houses, we’re actually remodeling restaurants right now. You know, so that, you know we do everything in heating, cooling. How we started is another funny story. And I was in Oregon, about six months. Actually, I was in Oregon. I just moved to California in February. But during that time, I called my buddy up and he was my boss at the time from Pizza Guys. And you know I’ve been trying to do a deal with him, you know, because he’s one of the smartest guys I’ve know, I know. You know, he’s so much knowledge and business and everything. And I think, you know, I’ve always wanted to partner with him. He’s always taken care of me always helped me out everything you know. And I know if I partner with him, if I can do 5 million in sales in two years with him, I can do you know, 10 million in sales, right? So I always wanted to do that and build something big. So I called him up and I was like, Hey, let’s let’s do something he’s like, Okay, well, here’s what you do. He goes, you build a business, in one year, do a million in sales and make it profitable? And we’ll do it together. Well, they’re like, Okay, a million in sales make it profitable in one year, like, Okay, what am I going to do? I couldn’t think of anything, I can build that fast to do that fast. And we kept talking for about a month, month and a half trying to figure out what business go on. And I was like, Okay, can we do an auto shop, I can do an auto shop, right? Give me do this, this this, I was thinking, I was like, Okay, I was, I’m going to do an auto shop, you know, I’m going to do an auto shop. And he goes, No, he goes, do HVAC. Like, I mean, I know nothing about HVAC. Usually, I do think it’s pretty good. I see a lot of trucks and one things you see one guys there, they make pretty good money. You know, they charge a lot. I was like, okay, so I started looking into HVAC. I didn’t know nothing about it, but it had to make it profitable. So I couldn’t hire a really good guy in the beginning, right? So started watching YouTube started studying, start reading more and started reading about it in about a month and a half. I felt confident like I can do this. So I called my cousin I was like, Hey, let’s, you know, like, calm, let’s do this. And, you know, he’s because he’s, you know, he doesn’t know anything about HVAC to. But he’s, you know, this guy is he’ll do anything like, let’s go, you know, let’s learn it. Let’s do it. You know? He goes, and we’ll make some money goes, Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s like, okay, so I call him it comes down, and we do it together. And we go into a customer’s house, we don’t know anything, like trying to figure out what’s wrong, we go back out, what were you doing it coming back in, you’re doing it fixing it? Yeah. And we would fix it. And if we couldn’t fix it, we wouldn’t charge the customer. Literally, we’d come back the next day, fix it again. And then whatever it was, then we like we would break even and just to keep learning, like learning learning because you know, we couldn’t charge the customer $400. And we were there for, you know, three and a half hours. And we’re like, we can do that. We tried it for an hour, just you know, like, it should have only taken an hour. But that’s all we’re gonna charge you. But we wouldn’t tell him we’re learning or anything, you know. So, and we would do that go in and out. And he would go outside in the car and YouTube it and tell me what’s going on. I’ll tell him, Okay, this is what’s happening. This is what’s happening, then we would switch out and we would come back out meet together, go through it together, put our ideas together, go back and fix it. Boom was like, Oh, yes. And we got then we started getting better and better and better. Now we walk into, you know, an HVAC problem or customer’s house. And we can just hear it see it and know what’s wrong. Right? But I mean, that’s how it started, then we, you know, I I hired a project manager. You know, he was like, 52 years old, something like that great guy, one of the best knew everything about it knew everything. Then we started landing some big contracts, T Mobile contracts, Oracle, you know, so we started doing big projects, massive build outs, you know, new new build outs, reconstruction, you know, remodeling. And from there, we just grew. I mean, within our first year, we did 1.2 million. Our second year, we did two and a half million. You know, so it grew fast, you know, two and a half million, and it was very profitable. They’re very, very profitable, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Franzen 23:45
Wow! You are crazy. Yeah. So what mode? I mean, you’re already you know, you’ve already kind of you’ve been with Pizza Guys for more than a decade. So you’re kind of, you know, things aren’t going good things were going terrible, but now they’re going okay, what motivated you to? To kind of stick with this? What do you admittedly didn’t know what you were doing?
Kenneth Price 24:06
Because I really wanted that I wanted to be big, like I want to do, you know, I want to end up, you know, having a company, you know, doing 20 million in sales, 30 minute sales, you know, um, you know, I want to be a company to where, you know, it’s kind of I because I think the bigger you get, the easier it gets, you know, and I think expansion is a lot easier. So you can expand all over, especially something like this. It’s so easy for me to expand in California. You know, in next year, I’m going to be expanding into Texas, you know, so it’s so easy to expand, especially when I have one central system, central office. But I don’t know, you know, honestly, I I don’t think about it too much.
Chad Franzen 24:49
You just You just kind of like, grind through it and get through it. And then afterwards, you’re like, oh!
Kenneth Price 24:55
Yeah, yeah, I’m just like, Okay, I think it’s more I love the rush a lot. The I love the rush. I love it when like, everything’s piling on me, I’m working, you know, 18-hour days, you know, we’re starting early in the morning, you know, sometimes we, we, you know, we would take an install, which would take probably now we would take three and a half hours, four hours, we were taking, like 1011 hours that we will be working all through the night. We’re asking customers, Hey, are you okay to have us here late? No problem, we’d be staying to like 1am Putting everything together and we get there and everything is in and we’re like, what did we miss? What did we miss, we miss just a simple wiring. And we’re like, man, and it took us like three hours to figure out that one wiring. And it was tough. It was really tough. I mean, it you know, a lot of a lot of times you sit back and like, what am I doing? for you this hour has been 11 hours just on this thing? And, you know, there’s no way you know, we’re we’re missing some things that take another three, four hours to figure it out. I mean, there was so much problems that we ran into, but you know, we always took care of the customer made a right and we we ended up having like, in the first year, we ended up having like over 125 star reviews, you know, we built them, right? Yeah, so it was where our online presence crazy good.
Chad Franzen 26:08
I thought your Pizza Guys story, it was incredible. But this one is this one is almost just as incredible, if not more. So, what how did did COVID affect you guys with Pizza Guys, or with the with KAP’s HVAC?
Kenneth Price 26:22
Um, you know, COVID affected us by the employees, you know, the, the the employees were really, you know, they they wanted time off all these things, everybody, you know, they didn’t they didn’t want to work. That was a lot of it. But as for sales wise, you know, we grew, you know, almost 20% across the board. For the HVAC side, we accelerated tremendously, you know, because everybody was at home they had projects to do they want to do this, you know, using their AC their theater more. So, we’ve you know, we were busy, busy, I’m in for sales wise, it was great. Employee side, it was it was it was hard, because a lot of our guys were working overtime, double time, you know, that was kind of it, you know? And, you know, so that was it. But yeah, it was it was it was it was good. making more money, but having a lot more problems on the employee side is everybody, you know, they needed time off? Or, you know, take care of their families, things like that.
Chad Franzen 27:19
Did you? What would you say, are some of the things that it made you successful enough to, to expand from Oregon, then to California?
Kenneth Price 27:29
Um, so some of the things that were is because I, I build to everything I do, I have a system, I build a system, right. So because everything is once you have a system, just follow step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And, and you’re good, right, I have a system for everything. And, you know, creating a system and writing it down and putting it all together, I think that was the key points to it, you know, versus just keeping it in my head and trying to play it out as it goes, you know, having something to go by. That was I think that was a big part of it. And then the next part of it was, you know, being able to understand that hiring, paying more for better guys that know their stuff, and can do it. It might, you know, some people will say, Oh, this guy’s, you know, $35 an hour, you know, that’s, that’s high already, that’s expensive. And this other guy’s $45 an hour? Why would we pay this guy when we can save $10 an hour? And actually that $45 An hour guy does it in half the time, no mistakes, no calls back. Customer service is great, you know, he ease who you want to represent you, you know, so it actually makes you more money in the long term. You know, so, by me understanding that part, I think that was a big factor in it, you know, especially I can come in right now, you know, by, you know, opened my HVAC here, you know, put one guy that’s really good, even though he makes like $45-$48 an hour. And I know I have no problems, no worries, I don’t have to show up. I don’t have to call him you know, he wakes up in the morning does what he needs to do office will call him if they need anything, send him to this customer, this customer. It’s 5:30 and he’s like, you know, he’s, he’s supposed to be home. But we got an emergency call that he needs to go back to or go take care of another technicians job that they couldn’t finish, you know, so that was a you know, and he’s like, he’ll go do it. You know, he won’t say, Ah, it’s 530 I gotta go home, you know, things like that. He knows you’ll be taken care of, you know, he’ll know if he needs Friday off and he says, Hey, I need Friday off. He’s gonna get Friday off. You know, I mean, he knows you know, they need a week off with pay. He knows he’s got a week off with pay, right? Well, when we need something the company needs something. He goes, no questions asked. You know, I mean, even if he has to stay from 6am to 3am He’s going to do it. You know, and I think being able to find people like that and and taking care of people like that is is a big part of my growth. they’re a big part of my growth.
Chad Franzen 30:01
What is the biggest difference in running a, maybe you already talked about like maybe the maybe it’s just the type of employees of the age of the employees you have, what’s the biggest difference between running a Pizza Guys or a bunch of Pizza Guys.
Kenneth Price 30:13
Companies difference between running Pizza Guys and cab seats in an HR company. It used said it is the the age and the responsibility level and the discipline level of the employees. You know, when your day trackside, you’re considered pearls because these guys are girls, right. And a lot of my guys, they didn’t go to school for we train in house, right? But you have to be able to want this you have to be able to want to get dirty, you have to be able to want to learn, right, and versus in the pizza guy side, they just come in to look to get paid, right? I just need a job, I just need this, you know, I mean, versus really understanding that with pizza, guys, you can grow, right? You can grow. I mean, most of the Pizza Guys owners, they started from nothing. We started from nothing. We were dryers we were flying guys, you know, I mean, they don’t understand that in the Pizza Guys, in small business like that you can grow from being a driver and insider to actually owning your own Pizza Guys, you know, on Pizza Guys helps make that possible. Like the corporation is really amazing about that, you know, and they don’t, you know, they won’t even if we tell them or things like that some reason it doesn’t click in them, you know, and I you know, that’s the I think that’s the biggest difference of it, you know, I mean, I have to a lot of pizza stores, I have to have a really good manager, really strong General Manager, versus my age backside. I don’t even have a manager. I know, unless I want to have big projects, then I have my project manager there, you know, of course controlling the entire project, just making sure everything’s in place, you know, t’s and i’s are dotted and crossed. But other than that, we I don’t call my guys my office don’t really call my guys don’t ask them, Hey, where are you at? For this customer, they take care of everything they do go on lunch breaks their schedule, you know, things like that, you know, and you don’t have to call them and check on them. You don’t have to call them and say why you didn’t you do this, this this this versus, you know, the pizza restaurant? It’s and you’re, you’re pretty much you’re babysitting a lot.
Chad Franzen 32:10
Yeah. Do you ever have any employees that kind of recognize the growth opportunities? Or is everybody just kind of like I’m here until I can figure out what to do next?
Kenneth Price 32:18
No, you you get a few you do you get a few. This, you know, the sad part about it is you get a few, but then they come with some things, a few things that just hold them down. And they hold on to that, you know, I mean, and they have so much potential. And you can tell them, they have so much potential and be like, hey, I want to help you get to this level and do this and give this for you and do this for you. Right, but you need to do this. And they just don’t want to do it. They’re like, Oh, I can’t work on Sundays, I can’t work on Saturday, because of this. I’m like, Man, you do that for a few years, you get your growth, you make your money, and then you can take your weekends off, you know, what they’re like I want the weekends off, my friends are doing this, this this and I’m like, you don’t realize just five years, put five years into it do great, become a great manager, run your own store, you know, and then eventually you’ll be good at it, you save the money, you go to your own, and then you can take all the weekends off you want, you know, and they don’t you know, they don’t understand that, you know, they want it now i want i only want to work four days, or six days, you know, work more, and, you know, working weekends, that’s where the stores are the busiest where we need you, you know, you know, so that he has some things that hold them back. But the few that do they end up? You know, it’s it’s less than a ham. You know, I mean, I’ve been in industry for a long time, it’s less than a handful. It’s really, it’s really hard until like later on, we get a lot of employees that come back, you know, they leave and go try another job. And like all these, you know, they everything’s so sad. Well, you can make your own schedule at Starbucks, right versus with us. You can say, Oh, I don’t want to work Thursday and Friday. I don’t want to work at nights, you know, we’re very flexible on those things. And they don’t really, you know, realize that’s a big thing. Right? So, but we’ve, we’ve had a few that gone on to I mean, we just had, you know, San Diego stores pop up and they were a buddy of ours, another franchisee his his employees that were there. His managers actually went on to San Diego and actually opened their own stores. You know, and then now they’re actually within two years, they’re multi store Oh, and they’re just, you know, doing probably over $2 million in sales. So, you know, it. It’s, it’s, it’s very rare, but it’s very, you know, it feels so good when when they do really understand that because it’s like you, they’re doing great. And you want to see people do great around you, you know.
Chad Franzen 34:43
So, so you’ve got all these things going on when you came here to play sports and go to school. Would you have ever imagined that you’d skipped going to school and now you’re kind of you got you got to kind of companies that you’re working with them that you’re basically in charge of?
Kenneth Price 34:59
Yeah, so I never thought that you know, I never thought I would make it to this level you know, I mean, I lost you know because I mean when I lost everything the first time I lost everything again in 2013 You know, I mean you don’t give a 23-year-old $150,000 A year and a bunch of money to blow you know, so I started buying cars taking trips doing all these things so I lost everything again in 2013 and then I rebuilt everything back from there, but I never thought I would make it to this level I never dreamed of being you know, you know, really, I would say like you know, the beginning I told him I want a Ferrari eventually I want to buy a jet I want to do all these crazy things, you know, like one day and you know so when I first made a ton of money and everything I did that I lost everything you know, I went under and then you know I was grateful that my brother-in-law had my back again and moved in with him did the same thing again rebuilt it again. But you know now I’m doing okay I’m comfortable on few properties, few companies all these things I’m you know, relaxed, be able to pick up the kids when I want. Take the kids to school do what I want. You know, I don’t I don’t want the fancy cars. I don’t want anything. I just want to be comfortable. I just want to relax. I want to fish you know, take care of my stuff. Take the kids out. That’s it just comfortable. It’s going to be comfortable and enjoy life. But yeah, it was never you know, it was never I never thought it would be a reality.
Chad Franzen 36:28
I have one more question for you. But how can people find out more about both Pizza Guys and KAP’s HVAC.
Kenneth Price 36:35
So KAP’s HVAC so KAP’s HVAC California, you know, we have our website KAPsHVAC.com. With a k KAP’s HVAC in Oregon. I actually just sold in August. So I sold that in August. I think they just converted the name to like Valley View or something like that. I sold that and then Pizza Guys PizzaGuys.com Actually just another thing I just I’m actually in escrow right now I’m closing escrow in the next two weeks, I just sold my to Portland locations to so so last two Yeah. So I’m actually at this point, I’m out of Pizza Guys in like two weeks. And then I sold my gap stage back. I’m building a massive one in California up and down California. So this is gonna be all my focus my one big and this is my retirement.
Chad Franzen 37:27
Okay, so that’s kind of your goal. That’s kind of what you’re that’s what you’re moving toward on the future then this? This big one in California?
Kenneth Price 37:33
Yes, absolutely. This big one in California and we can expand we can use this to expand anywhere you know, we can put a location in Florida, Arizona, Texas, you know, we can just go to a place where we think is gonna be good. We have our office staff already, which is you know, all where we’re at. And then all we have to do is put in a technician on ground put everything together online while and presidents put some marketing together and we’re all good mobile.
Chad Franzen 37:59
I was gonna ask you my final question was going to be what what are your goals for the future but but there you go that instead of asking you when you when you order a pizza from Pizza, guys, what do you get? When you order a pizza? When you personally order a pizza from Pizza Guys, what do you get?
Kenneth Price 38:15
When I order a pizza from Pizza Guys, you know, I’m a cheese guy. I just love cheese. That’s it. Just give me a red sauce with cheese. That’s it. I think if you want to compare pizzas and see which pizzas are good, you got to you know, it’s got to be you got to taste the dough on the cheese and those are the most important things you know, because toppings they all but similar same you know, they’re a little bit of a difference you know, depending on the brand and the quality of the pepperonis and things like that but you want to taste the pizza taste the dough and taste the cheese and you know with Pizza Guys, we make our dough fresh, you know, and our cheese is you know 100% Whole milk so it’s good cheese, you know, expensive cheese, you know, but I’m just a cheese guy like just just plain cheese and nothing else on it. No ranch, no parmesan on it, no peppers. Just cheese.
Chad Franzen 39:00
Very nice, very nice. Hey, Kenneth, it’s been great to talk to you. I really enjoyed hearing your story is incredible. Thank you so much.
Kenneth Price 39:08
Yeah, I appreciate you for having me, man.
Chad Franzen 39:11
All right. Have a good one. Thank you.
Kenneth Price 39:12
You too. I’ll see you.
Chad Franzen 39:13
So long, everybody.
Outro 39:14
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