Justin Deese (00:01)
Welcome to Freedom Blueprint podcast, your podcast to help you move your business. And we're going to do that today by talking with Stephanie Postell from Anchor Heating and Air. I can't say it without saying it with an accent. Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina. And we're going to talk a little bit today about what your journey years in David's journey has looked like in the business. There's some other.
Stephanie Postell (00:16)
Charleston.
Justin Deese (00:27)
things that you're doing outside of the day to day of the running of the business that we're going to talk about. before we jump into all that stuff, welcome and thank you for coming and hanging out.
Stephanie Postell (00:38)
I know, I feel like this has been a long time coming, so I'm so glad to finally be here.
Justin Deese (00:43)
So Stephanie was at the event we had a couple of weeks ago now and we kept saying, all right, we're going to do a live podcast at some point. And every time I set the equipment up, had some kind of technical issues. So such is life. really should just turn on the camera and rock with it, but that's okay. We're here now. We're hanging out. So let's talk a little bit about Anchor and tell us a little bit about what that business looks like right now.
Stephanie Postell (01:02)
right?
Well, we are about three and a half years in. We are on track to do nine million this year in our.
basically fourth year. ⁓ It looks like 27 employees who are amazing high achievers who are ⁓ bought into the vision come to work most days like all of us ready to do work and they're just, they're a blessing. it's been a really fun journey for David and I, not without a lot of hard work, a little bit of heartache and a lot of lessons.
but definitely ⁓ something that we, a place that we enjoy to come every day and hopefully a place that we're creating where all of our employees feel the same.
Justin Deese (02:02)
Well, that's so there's some leadership nuggets in that that you just said that was just as you talk about the business, right? Like you create a culture where you like to be at work and so do other people. And there's a lot of business owners that, and listen, was like in my first business, I can remember being in a point where ⁓ I didn't like going in and nobody else liked being there either. So was like, well, if I don't want to be here, nobody else wants to be here. ⁓
Stephanie Postell (02:24)
Right. Did you wonder why? Right. And why
aren't we doing well? Well, we all hate being here. Right.
Justin Deese (02:29)
Yeah, yeah, we're doing we're crappy. We're not making any money. Everybody hates
their job and nobody hates more than one or the main so ⁓ but no, that's that's great. So how did you guys ⁓ tell us a story about anchor and how you guys even got started or even in the industry?
Stephanie Postell (02:36)
Yeah, right.
Yeah, you know, I I feel like I've, you know, shared my troubles a few times, but David and I were both in the industry. I had had lots of other...
jobs and careers before that just led me to HVAC and I had gotten a job doing ⁓ marketing and business development for a company in Charleston where the owner had bought three companies, put them all together and actually had joined Nextar and was ⁓ needed, decided that he wanted somebody to help implement that in the business to do it properly. And ⁓ it was not something that I was interested
I didn't even know what HVAC was, but I have a long history of...
kindergarten and first grade teacher and I was a personal trainer and I had been an entrepreneur and I love marketing and so really all of those things came together and I learned a lot at that job. I started there doing the sales or the marketing and business development and that became operations manager because when you're going through and implementing those processes and procedures throughout the business you become the person that is you know doing
doing the operations and so we were ⁓ Started that company about it was about four million at that time when they all came together and when I got fired ⁓ It was 14 million. So, ⁓ you know, there's always a story behind the story It was a great seven years. I learned a ton and it was time for me to move on at that point ⁓ and David actually worked there too at the time I always have
to tell that he was married, I was married, we weren't together, we got divorced separately, ⁓ and then we started dating. ⁓ So it was just, ⁓ that was God's providence putting that man in my life. It has been such a blessing to me. And it also helped me get through getting fired from a job that I was in love with, thought I would retire from, ⁓ silly enough as it sounds. And ⁓ when I lost that
Of course about three months later he they fired him too and again, then it just put us on this path ⁓ Eventually to get to anchor ⁓ but from that we got connected with a business investor and ⁓ We he wanted to start a home services business. We knew how to do that. We had all the connections ⁓ He wrote the check we got married went on our honeymoon came back and opened ⁓ that company and then
COVID happened two weeks later.
So, it was quite the challenge. We went home for a minute and then as you know, as we were all deemed essential, we worked our butts off for the next two years. And we were able to do a couple small acquisitions, but we were running a great company. We were profitable as far as I know, because that's the other little bit part of the story that I don't know the answer to. But I know well enough that we were able
Justin Deese (05:48)
Mmm.
Stephanie Postell (06:06)
to buy a couple small companies and we grew that company to 5 million in under 20 months. ⁓
So it was another great experience. 23 employees at that point, 500 five star reviews in the first two years. We owned a small percentage of it, but not enough to keep him from firing us and taking the company. So he did that and we had no plan that we were gonna leave that company because again, we were the face of it as far as everybody knew we were the owners of it.
and we got fired on a rainy Wednesday and got $300 on Friday and we were like, what next? It's Christmas. We have vacation plan that we haven't taken in two years. And ⁓ now we are defamed across our city that we have grown up in. And people think that we stole from a company that we know no former fashion had done anything like that. But you know,
was just all part of that plan. ⁓ And again, it was God's hand in saying, you can do this on your own. ⁓ I needed to get you away from what was going on here that you thought was great, but you didn't know wasn't. so we went to church, we went to Christmas church, we cried, we had a lot of people that supported us. ⁓
I looked at David and I was like, what are we going to do? And David said, we're going to go put in air conditioners. And so we did. thank goodness for that. Again, it's always been, ⁓ you know, our partnership has been pivotal in our success together. And ⁓ my sister sent us a quote that said, you know, as long as we were anchored in the Redeemer, then it didn't matter what was going to happen. And I told David, we're going to be anchor heating and air. He held the light.
of the last company so we just moved that license to the new company and we we opened up we had $2,000 that we took and bought the first piece of equipment and we rolled that into the next one I very Thankfully was able to get a job with contractor commerce at the beginning that I could work from home and work with Contractors while David was out, you know putting in air conditioners. I could do marketing morning noon at night and
and get things rolling and their started anchor. And ⁓ from then on, it's been like drinking from a water hose. We've been so blessed that people that knew us, they followed us, they found us. I found a way to put our faces on billboards so people could find where we were and did some great marketing, did some great social media and all of that. And here we are. ⁓
able to do, I think we did one four the first year, we did two eight the second, six five last year and our plans are for nine this year. So it's been a,
Justin Deese (09:21)
Perseverance.
That's a pretty inspiring story. ⁓ know, a lot of times you hear stories about setbacks and people who break through it and win. then you hear stories about people hit setbacks and are like, it just wasn't meant to be. And you guys just ramping through that is pretty awesome. And here's the thing, is I can picture David, you're like, what are we going to do? And David's like, put an AC. It's like, just, you know, we're just going to go put an AC. It's like, what do mean? Of course.
Stephanie Postell (09:25)
Absolutely.
Right?
Yeah,
what do you mean? listen, that is that's taking out the part of this story where all we had was my Tahoe, ⁓ that we were on the way to church and the transmission died. And then we got my ⁓ our ⁓ son's truck and then his truck died. And we were like, what is going on here? Right. You know, so it's all those things. But ⁓ yes, we are very tested to this point that there's not much that scares us.
You
Justin Deese (10:19)
Yeah, the good
good for you guys for for forging ahead it. I know I'm sure that there was many a times that you were like we could just go get another job and just call that good. But then you also have that.
Stephanie Postell (10:29)
Yeah, we, yeah, but I think that's part of the story.
Yeah, that's the obedience part of it though, because I think that's what we thought the first two times, right? Like, let's just go get another job. And I think we weren't obedient and then we finally were. And so then it was like, no matter what, like you've got to do this. And so, you know, here we are.
Justin Deese (10:42)
Right.
I mean, traditionally entrepreneurs make terrible employees.
Stephanie Postell (11:00)
No doubt. That's it. Yeah.
Justin Deese (11:01)
That's just how that works. That's why we're, I mean, we're just built different. And
that's such a good story. And again, I think it's inspiring for you guys to have gone through that and come out the other side and amazing and impressive over the growth of the last, you know, just not even four years at this point. So what are some things that you've really contributed your success to? Like, what are some things that you guys have focused on to grow that quickly?
Stephanie Postell (11:08)
Yeah.
You know, I mean, obviously our marketing has been a huge thing for us. We have really anchored ourself in the community.
because and I also share this a lot of times with some of the other entrepreneurs and contractors that I'm lucky enough to mentor and really say like my story might not be your story, right? Because ⁓ yes, I can give you my playbook, but things that you don't take into account like David and I have lived in Charleston, South Carolina our whole lives. I had multiple businesses prior to getting into HVAC where I was
in the community, giving back to the community. I was a PTA mom for 15 years. Like you make lots of friends that way, right? Like I've always been into branding and you know, I remember a friend of mine walking up to a bar to me one time and he's like, so what company are we supporting now? Like, what are you doing? So we'll know which one we're supporting now, you know? And so I'm just a, I'm a brander. I'm a loyal brander that way. So those are things that we have done the whole way
Justin Deese (12:19)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (12:41)
through and I feel like just knowing the value of that. The other part I would say is that you have to give back to get back. And we have always done that. You know, as soon as we opened, we didn't have much money, but I called up my teacher friends and I was like, what PTA needs a birthday cake for all the teachers next month? Who needs biscuits for the next faculty meeting? Right? Like you have to go back to your roots.
Justin Deese (12:49)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (13:11)
in those areas and those people are like, they gave us a biscuit, I'll call them for my maintenance. You know, it doesn't have to be big billboards or direct mail campaigns or all that kind of stuff. When you're small you can't do that, right? And sometimes it's just about being the place that looks like they're giving back to the community and that doesn't mean monetarily, that means being the vehicle for being part of the community. ⁓ So you know, those kinds of things have really
Justin Deese (13:26)
Right.
Stephanie Postell (13:41)
been the cornerstone and we still do that. We, we, you know, we have a great concert venue here in Charleston on Daniel Island. We sponsor all the pre-parties and that's on the radio, but when you go to the pre-parties, either we're there or our blow-up van is there or now our marketing manager is there with our table in our tent. So you are putting faces with the name that you hear all the time. I think that's just the difference maker, right?
especially in an industry now that is so full of private equity and corporations and all of that, people are dying to do business with local people. They want to know that when they call, if they don't get the service that they think they're supposed to get, they can talk to David or I, which sometimes is good and sometimes is not good because we might tell you about yourself, you know? ⁓ So that's been a huge thing, I think, in all of those trials and tribulations
Justin Deese (14:21)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Postell (14:41)
we went through, it helped us realize who we are and who we're not.
and who our customer is and who our customer isn't. And ⁓ I feel like there's been like, really like, I don't wanna say they're light bulb moments, I think they're like windows that opened and you're like, ⁓ we're this now, you know? ⁓ Because really having that service aspect and that being truly authentic and that is who we are, we've woven that into our company, right? Like our whole mission.
is we provide solutions for comfort, opportunities for growth, and service to our community. That's it. That's all we have to do. And so that then has brought people to us that are like, want to give back. I want to do that. I want to do heating and air. ⁓ But what does it look like to be able to give back to the community as well?
Justin Deese (15:40)
I mean, for sure, people do business and I think it's easy to get stumbled up on this, which is why people just pay an obscene amount of money to Google at every turn, is people do business with people they know, they like, and they trust. And by doing things like what you just talked about of making a cake, mean, when you're starting out, typically what you have more than anything else, besides ambition, is you have time.
Stephanie Postell (15:56)
Absolutely.
Yes.
Justin Deese (16:09)
versus when you're in business now. So now for you guys, you're gonna have more money than you are time. But when you're first getting started, I think that's a great strategy is utilize your time and utilize the, what you have as a resource, which is time and connection. I think it's great for a guy to be like, what are we supporting now? And you're like, anchor.
Stephanie Postell (16:26)
Well, in being.
Anchor.
Right? Anger all the way, right? But also like being really careful about being where your intended customer is, right? So I wanted to be at like, where are the people drinking wine? Where are the people that are going to concerts? I want to be where people have extra money that they are then seeing me and seeing my value in getting to know us.
Justin Deese (16:42)
Mmm.
Stephanie Postell (17:02)
And again, like you said, when you're just starting out, you think, okay, I got to pay a bunch of money on Google. I got to send out a bunch of postcards, all this stuff that is like literally, you know, over our time, I have spent less than $7,000 on Google PPC in four years. And that was the first stupid thing I did like two, three years ago.
Justin Deese (17:23)
Wait,
wait, I want you to repeat that for people that were like running, but they weren't really paying attention. Cause I think that is a really, really, really good gold moment that you just said.
Stephanie Postell (17:31)
Right.
Yeah.
less than $7,000 and that is because one weekend it was going to get hot and I was stupid and I called Eric Thomas and I said, I think I want to do PPC and he said, are you sure about that? And I said, yes, absolutely. And I did it and I got nothing out of it. And I said, I will never spend that money again. And I have not, we have not, we do not do PPC. ⁓ I would rather go spend that money on real lottery tickets because I think I would win more. And, and I, it just is not.
Justin Deese (17:48)
Ha
Stephanie Postell (18:06)
part of our marketing. Now that to be said, are Google guaranteed, we do LSA, those are a different kind of ad, or not ad, you know, have to do good to get on those ads and we do good and we get great reviews and we respond to them and we do what's right and all that stuff, but I just don't spend the money on PBC. I can't outspend the people in my market that have an unlimited budget. Why would I do that? So I can do what they can't do.
Justin Deese (18:12)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Postell (18:36)
and sponsor the pre-parties, I can give to the baseball team or the soccer team or the teachers and go there and meet those people, because I can tell you there's nobody at those firms that are going over there and doing any of that. Because the other thing is, if I'm sponsoring the soccer team, like I'm actually going to go to a game and bring snacks and pearls and sunglasses and show the parents that we're real people, not just the name on the shirt.
So but again that goes back to time and you have to make time to do that kind of stuff But man has it paid off right like that that girl soccer coach She's a customer of ours still the guy's soccer coach still a customer of ours You know, we we actually sponsored it because it was a neighborhood that we we dominate, right? And so I put a thing in the neighborhood group and I said I'm looking to sponsor soccer teams or baseball teams anybody, you know have one of those
Justin Deese (19:34)
I bet there was no shortage of hands
Stephanie Postell (19:35)
⁓
Justin Deese (19:36)
raised.
Stephanie Postell (19:37)
man, I could have sponsored 10 of them, right? ⁓ But we sponsored five, we sponsored the Lego team, you know, all those things and that makes the difference to be able to, and then, you know, I know we'll talk a little bit more about it, but talk about social media content, you know, like that's the real ⁓
Justin Deese (19:55)
Well, that was going to be my question was, okay, so not spending PPC. ⁓ What is it that we're doing in order to create that traffic?
Stephanie Postell (20:04)
Yeah.
Justin Deese (20:04)
So perfect segue.
Stephanie Postell (20:06)
Yeah, it's, you know, the social media aspect and to be very honest, I haven't spent a whole lot of money on ads on Facebook or anything like that either. We are very consistent that we keep several ads going, but it's not lead generators. It's not that fill out this form. Actually, we just started doing that in the last week or so. I even think I've gotten one. I'd rather have sponsored posts and stuff that just pop up because I know
the value of branding and I have my brand everywhere. you know kind of goes back to the same thing with you know we started direct mail this year but this is our fourth year we have laid this whole branding foundation so that when people got our postcards or now when people you know they see us on Facebook and see those ads they already know our brand so then now they can make the connection. ⁓ The social media side
we take pictures of everything, we post everything, know, whatever give back we're doing. ⁓ And it's not self-promotion in that aspect, especially when we're doing a service event. To me, it's about being the light in the community and challenging other people to step up and do the same thing, right? Because if I don't share what I'm doing, then you don't see that I'm doing that. And I don't need to do it. I already know that I'm doing it for the right reason, right?
But what I want to do is exponentially increase what I'm able to do. And if I can get 10 companies out there that are like, yeah, we give back to the community too. Well, for what reason? I'm not sure. You have to deal with that. But you're giving back to the community. And I know the community needs that. And that's because you're trying to keep up with me. Perfect. I love that. Because we're just extending our reach and giving back to Charleston, which has given so much to us.
Justin Deese (22:02)
So many home service business struggle with not the giving back, but the talking about it. And it's unfortunate because they're like, well, yeah, we give this to this and, they don't ever really promote it or talk about it. it's, and I get it. It's because of our, it's because we're all built a little bit different and we all do this from a care and love in place, but we forget.
Stephanie Postell (22:10)
Yes.
Because...
percent. We do.
We need to be the example.
Justin Deese (22:30)
You're letting the world
know what you're not even what you're doing, but more about what you're sponsoring and what give back. You people may not know about that organization.
Stephanie Postell (22:38)
Well, right. mean, because if I'm supporting
the breast cancer group, we have a couple local ones. My friend, Kelly Carroll, I call her the community CEO because she does so much stuff in our community. so I was like, help me know where the need is. so that's one of those things though that you don't realize is that, I'm doing that because they need my help, but me posting about
that organization then puts that organization in front of all of my people, right? So we're just trying to, it's hope that they don't have the ability to market and to get in front of people. And so there's real value in that too. And in that way, it's not self-promotion, it's using your platform to increase what those organizations could get back.
Justin Deese (23:14)
Yep.
Yeah, and most of those organizations, that's really what they want is more awareness. I mean, you're doing them a favor when you're not only are you giving them money and time, but now when you're talking about it, you're creating a whole different awareness. And for most, especially most nonprofit organizations, they don't have a ton of money for marketing budgets. So the more you're posting and talking about it, it really just helps them. you're just think about it, like you're doing them a favor versus, you know, secretly being a, you know, a good human, which we all want to be good humans, but
Stephanie Postell (23:38)
Absolutely.
That's right.
Yeah.
Justin Deese (24:04)
you know, also share that with other people as well.
Stephanie Postell (24:08)
100 % and I think the byproduct of that obviously is showing people who we are as a company, but it comes back to the culture aspect of showing our people who we are, right? It's showing our team who we are. And so then we've been very blessed to be that example and then now have our employees come back and say, hey, I have this thing that I want us to support. Can we support that?
Justin Deese (24:20)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (24:35)
Absolutely. Hey, and I want to lead our team in that. Okay, right? Like, say no more. If you're gonna help everybody raise money to buy Thanksgiving dinner, then let's go for it, right? And so then now you're committed not to Anchor because you want to be a HVAC technician. You want to work here because we're a company that gives back and allows you to
go do that on company time and share what good things come from that. So I think that was the other part, back to probably what you asked at the beginning, that's the culture aspect. That is to me creating a culture of service to our community, but how are we growing our people and growing a mission that they can be proud to be part of?
Justin Deese (25:35)
They can go make a dollar anywhere. And if you can give them an opportunity to, ⁓ obviously they need to make profit, they need to be making money, but they also need to feel like there's a purpose behind it too. I think that's ⁓ a great thing. Now, ⁓ before we shift gears, ⁓ I do want to have you talk a little bit about how you guys are utilizing social media for recruiting.
Stephanie Postell (25:37)
anywhere.
Absolutely. Right.
Yeah.
Justin Deese (26:02)
because I think you guys
are doing an incredible job with that and we could go deep deep deep into that but just from a high level tell us a little bit about that.
Stephanie Postell (26:07)
Right.
Yeah, I think that ⁓ we have really embraced TikTok as my favorite, know, ⁓ knowing what platform to put what on is a skill, first of all. So ⁓ there are things that I might put on TikTok that may be a little edgier or something that I wouldn't necessarily put on Facebook and it's not inappropriate. It's just a different audience. ⁓ But I realized at really not ⁓ I was on TikTok before my kids were and listen, my kids
Justin Deese (26:21)
Yeah.
Right.
Stephanie Postell (26:41)
are 22, 22, 22 and 25 now and they I remember them saying oh my god nobody's on TikTok and I was like okay no no worries we'll see but I realized early on that technicians were on TikTok videoing themselves and what they were doing each day as they were fixing things talking about customers talking about experiences I remember one guy he was just online
all day and and you know people just rode along with him and other technicians were interacting with him and I was like there's something to this right ⁓ and so I think really that's where it started one just to want to give everybody customers or whoever a little behind the scenes of who we were we could be funny we could do all those things we could be educational spread the word about stuff that people don't know but then we realized that we
Justin Deese (27:20)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (27:40)
were engaging with the technician community and they were seeing what we were doing ⁓ and that was a game changer. And the real first thing was when we were about, I think we were in our second year and we had branded with Dan Antonelli ⁓ in October, November of our first year and one of the TikToks I had done was the choices. He gave us four choices and so
⁓ I posted about the four choices ⁓ and so we had a guy that came in and interviewed with us and in part of our interview I always say, listen, we're on social media, you gotta be comfortable with that, you might have to do one, you might have to be in one ⁓ and he said, ⁓ I know, I follow you on TikTok and I said, really? I said, ⁓ what do you know? And he was like, I picked choice number four for your logo and I was like.
Alright, well there's actually a van right outside that I'm gonna need to in and be in and it's here. I already got all the swag for you. But you know, I think that part really showed that people were watching us that we didn't know were watching us.
Justin Deese (28:43)
Let me get your shirt.
Yes.
Stephanie Postell (28:57)
So
Justin Deese (28:57)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (28:58)
that was a huge one and I know that that had something to do with him coming here and interviewing with us. The second one was that the one time David and I have gone live on TikTok, we had a great time, we interacted with people, it was really cool. And then I had somebody that put in their resume, actually posted in some of the industry Facebook groups, which was a smart thing because then people tagged me.
me
as somebody who is in Charleston and gave me that resume. So I reached out to the guy. was like, whatever, know, come in for an interview. Went through the whole interview. He's great. You know, we're talking about everything. And I said, you know, we're on social media. And he said, yeah, he said, you would know me as Charleston HVAC on TikTok.
And I was like, a month before on that live, he had interacted with us the entire time on that live. And he said, yeah, he said, I'm gonna have to work here because my former company got tired of me saying, you know at Anchor, they do it like this.
And how would he know how anchor did it if he didn't watch our TikTok and know what we were doing? So if you are, have a great culture and you're creating a great culture and you can show who you are behind the scenes, your technicians want to date you before they even ask you out. And that's how you give them the opportunity to do that. And by the time they show up for the interview, like if they're great people and they have been doing that, they're, they're going to be a great fit for you.
⁓ And that's really the biggest thing that recruiting has done a huge thing. Besides, obviously we've gotten great customers. There's a whole other aspect of Facebook and Facebook groups and I still to this day spend a lot of time with moms who have problems with their HVAC and I'm right on there and give them a big write up and offer to help them for free. I would much rather spend my time and effort with that
spending my money on Google and that's really how we have leveraged Facebook and on all social media to really help us.
Justin Deese (31:15)
Yeah, I think the I think the miss that most companies have is they get on there and they just post ads and they post ads and they forget the entire the entire purpose of social media is to be social. It's to be entertained. And that's what you guys do a very good job of is there's this, you know, crowd like you guys had a video the other day of David just randomly calling text like, hey, I hope you had a good day. It was hilarious.
Stephanie Postell (31:22)
Yes.
Yes, that's right.
It was so weird.
Justin Deese (31:41)
There wasn't anything,
wasn't talking about anchor or nothing, but you got your logo there. People are watching the video. It was very entertaining, right? And all of a sudden it's entertainment, but now there's that branding side of it. And I mean, that video took what? 10 minutes to make five minutes to post. So 15 minutes in, and I've seen some of your videos that you guys have posted. There's you get millions, millions of views. and it's, and it's impressive.
Stephanie Postell (31:48)
Right?
One of the
video that went viral was just, it was raining and David and Haley were in the warehouse wrapping duck pork. And I literally videoed it. I sped it up.
and I posted it and it got 1.4 million views the first time. It got 400,000 the second time I posted it and literally every day somebody likes or comments on that video to this day. But back to your point about the one that we just posted of David, which was a trend, because you're supposed to call up your best guy friends and tell them good night, like really cringy. And so that was why we did it during the day. But you know, if you looked at the
comments there were there were techs and guys that commented and said what a great boss or What what a cool thing right? So that's what they see So that's where the value is so would somebody say have we sold a bunch of systems by posting on tik-tok? No, but we got the people to put them in so I'll work on you know everything else In order to have that there's so many things like it's crazy now. I'm
very blessed to have a marketing manager, Lucy, and she does an amazing job. But like what she can get these guys to do, like two of my, my lead installer team, they're like jumping around in the parking lot because they're like, they like each other and they made a TikTok out of it. You know, like it's great. And, and honestly, they love it because it, again, it connects them to what we're doing. No, there, it's not just me and David out there being the face of everything.
⁓
talking, it's them showing what they like to do and all of that. So I love it. I love to watch it. And here's the other cool thing I realized the other day. It's the history of Anchor from day one. We have been able to capture every bit of our growth, our change from our first brand to our rebrand to what we're doing now, our growth of how many people we have here.
Justin Deese (34:02)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Postell (34:17)
⁓ All of that is all captured there. So that's a really cool aspect of that too.
Justin Deese (34:25)
So let's shift gears a little bit. What are some things that you guys enjoy doing outside of TikTok and being working?
Stephanie Postell (34:38)
So me and David like ⁓ bourbon a lot. ⁓ you know, as married business owners, you have to have something that is outside of what we do every day. And if you don't, haven't figured it out or haven't followed us, we actually really like each other and we really like to spend time together. So we don't have many issues. Not that it's not stressful a lot of days, but ⁓ you know, ⁓
Justin Deese (34:40)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Postell (35:08)
We got into bourbon and then we found this really cool collection of bourbon and we're able to ⁓ buy about 300 bottles of really cool bourbon. So we have a whole bourbon den at our house. ⁓ And that's just a fun thing that we share. know, it's a challenge to go to different places and try different stuff. When we were in Pensacola, we had a blast. You sent us to like the only place where we were jealous of their collection more than ours.
Justin Deese (35:37)
the old hickory.
Stephanie Postell (35:38)
⁓ I agree. man, we had a blast
Justin Deese (35:38)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (35:40)
there. We went there twice. So that's really fun. And then the other thing ⁓ is that we like to ride through the mud and side by sides. And I know we have that in common. So it's the place where we can get away and it's all still there. Like anchor still there. My buggy was purple. Now it's wrapped in flowers. David's buggy is purple. Our truck is purple. ⁓
Justin Deese (35:56)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (36:08)
So our brand is always there, but it's our chance to work really hard during the week and be able to play really hard on the weekend and have fun. And so that keeps us excited about coming back to work on Monday.
Justin Deese (36:23)
Yeah, it's definitely a good place to unplug. that's something all of us share in common is we like getting out in the woods. We like getting muddy. ⁓ And we have a big trip coming up in a couple of weeks that we're all taking to Alabama to go side by side. And I'm guessing we'll probably have some pretty good footage that we'll share with people after that trip. I'm excited.
Stephanie Postell (36:30)
Yep.
⁓ I'm positive. Well, listen,
you know, I'm all about the branding too. So we've branded ourselves. We have our own brand called High Proof Offroad. So ⁓ we started that TikTok and now we have 3000 followers on that TikTok. ⁓ yeah, absolutely.
Justin Deese (37:02)
nice. Actually, I did not know that I'm going to have to follow that. I mean, I'm still new to tick
tock, right? So even on the podcast, I just started posting things on tick tock like a week or two, like very recent. And my daughter, we're going somewhere and she's sitting in the back of the car and she says, dad, you're on my, what did she say? My, ⁓ you're on my for you page. I'm like, I don't know what that means. And, ⁓ so she
Stephanie Postell (37:22)
for you, Paige.
That's good.
Justin Deese (37:29)
That's what she said. She said
Stephanie Postell (37:30)
Yeah.
Justin Deese (37:30)
that's good. I'm like, well, I feel like you might not be my target audience, but who knows? ⁓
Stephanie Postell (37:36)
Hey, it's all right,
yeah.
It's fun again, like I said, I mean, you we, like branding. We, we, like being social. And so it was a great opportunity for us to marry, ⁓ our bourbon and our side-by-sides. And, it's funny how many people follow us. And we, when we were at deep Creek, ⁓ you know, people saw us and they knew our buggies and they knew our story and they knew we, we have this really cool camper trailer that we call the Tramper. And so we did David.
Justin Deese (37:43)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (38:08)
did a whole tour of it, which let me just tell you who's the best on TikTok is David. You already said like he can just like turn it on in a second and he's so unassuming and like all his videos get way more views than mine, which is fine. I'm the producer, I guess. But but he did this three minute tour of our Tramper. It got thirty seven thousand views, you know, so so it's fun again. Like we can we work, you know, 10, 12 hours a day and when we get
Justin Deese (38:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (38:37)
home at night we can work on that stuff and have a different focus and it keeps it fresh.
Justin Deese (38:47)
So I'm going to hit you with a couple of questions. You ready? So this is a new, this is new to the podcast. So you're the first one. ⁓ It's called the Freedom Fast Five. So I'm ask you five questions and just spitball and answer. Hopefully I won't stump you up too bad. But here's first question. What's one thing that people would be surprised to know about you?
Stephanie Postell (39:06)
Thank you.
I like riding through the mud.
Justin Deese (39:15)
It's a good one. I like it.
What does freedom look like for you as a business owner?
Stephanie Postell (39:22)
⁓ Freedom for me looks like a well-run company.
that I can be a part of, but I don't have to be in the business every single day running it, but I can be guiding it. ⁓ And also the freedom to watch the people that we have brought in to work with us, ⁓ the freedom to watch them be successful.
Justin Deese (39:54)
Great answer. What's one decision that created more freedom for you guys?
Stephanie Postell (40:00)
When we worked our butts off and we were able to hire our service manager extraordinaire Stephanie, that was a game changer. David and I, I could focus on operations, he can focus on sales and technical, and she has the service department. And this is how you know that you have set the bar high when you look at each other and go, our departments aren't doing as well as Steph's is, what's wrong?
Justin Deese (40:31)
I mean, that's good leadership, though, like trying to be better than you. What's one leadership lesson you wish you would have learned earlier?
Stephanie Postell (40:32)
That's great, no doubt.
a leadership lesson that I wish I had learned earlier. know when to go. Know when it's time.
⁓ You know, ⁓ sometimes you hold on to things too long or maybe don't make decisions fast enough and now I see the value in that. We get analysis paralysis sometimes and so I think just sometimes you just have to make the decision even if it's scary or you don't have all the information. ⁓ If you have 51 % of the information and your gut tells you like go, do, do it right then.
Justin Deese (41:06)
Mmm.
And if it's not right, adjust. All right, last, is the fifth one. You ready? If you could give one piece of advice to a business owner trying to grow, what would it be?
Stephanie Postell (41:24)
Do it again. Do it again.
All righty.
You have to, I mean, I think it would be back to your marketing. know, like I think you have to get back to your roots and really dig deep into your community ⁓ and become a good community member. You know, when you're trying to grow, it's not, when you're trying to grow, it's not outside of you, it's inside of you.
Right? So you keep looking. We as contractors all the time are looking for the silver bullet. We're looking for the marketing company that's going to be the answer. We're looking for the marketing piece that's going to be the answer. We're looking for why somebody else is doing better when what they're doing right now. Really, it's you, right? Have you created a great culture? Are you a great leader? Are you a great operator? Have you created great processes and procedures? And if the answer is no,
to any of those, then go back to number one and start over. Right? I mean, that's what it is. Like, you have to look, you have to be a reflective leader. So, you can try to grow all you want, but if any of those things are not getting the right answer, like, you're just not gonna grow. You might grow, but you're not gonna grow profitably, right? Like, you might grow revenue-wise, but like, are you making all the right decisions on the
Justin Deese (42:38)
Yeah.
Stephanie Postell (43:02)
Operation side, you know, do you have great marketing? you wasting money? Like when you're looking for the silver bullet like you're looking in the wrong place. It's usually in the mirror.
Justin Deese (43:14)
Yeah, I was going to say I, in my experience, the silver bullet is what people don't want is hard work. It's ⁓ putting things in place and doing the things like doing the work. ⁓ Stephanie, I appreciate you coming on. There's still a ton of stuff I wanted to cover. I would love to be able to have you come back because there's some other stuff that we really want to talk about. And I know we're going to do some some stuff when we're in the woods that we'll share with people too, but.
Stephanie Postell (43:20)
Hard knock.
That's it. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Justin Deese (43:43)
As we wrap up, any kind of final thoughts you'd like to share with the audience?
Stephanie Postell (43:49)
Yeah, I don't want it to get lost on ⁓ the social media aspect and the marketing aspect and all of that kind of stuff. The culture part ⁓ where we do fun stuff and we look like a really cool place to be. The other part that I think people forget on the culture side is that really culture is about ⁓ creating a place for your employees to show up every day where they can expect ⁓ or they know what's gonna happen. Like when they show up at work,
they they're gonna get this call, they know they're gonna have these tools, they know that these are the rules, they know this is how we talk to customers. And to be honest, that's really culture. When you have all of those things in place, then it makes the TikToks and the parties and the GIFs and the community stuff and all of that, it just accentuates those things. But if you don't have proper operations and proper procedures and stuff in place that create
that foundation of culture, you can't have all the rest because it's really hollow. So I don't want you to listen and go, man, if we just have a TikTok and we look really cute and fun, we're going to be a great company. That's not the case, right? There's a lot of hard decisions that have to get made about how we go to the door, how we talk to customers, how we treat them, our level of expectation. You know, we do what we say we're going to do. We show up when we say we're going to show up and we exceed expectations.
expectations every time that's the pearl promise and so when we do those things it gives us the foundation to do all the other fun things ⁓ so I don't ever I think sometimes we lose that when we talk about culture
Justin Deese (45:34)
Stephanie dropping value bombs everywhere. That's so good. That's great information. ⁓ If somebody wants to check you guys out on the social media channels, what's some that they can check out?
Stephanie Postell (45:45)
Yeah, our Facebook anchor heating and air.com or our website anchor heating and air LLC on Facebook and anchor heating and air LLC on TikTok. And then of course I'm Stephanie Web pastel ⁓ is ⁓ my Facebook. David is David Postell Jr. So ⁓ definitely friend us. We always like if you'll let us know why you're friending us. Sometimes people just want to be friends ⁓ for ⁓ some weird reasons. So reach out.
You know, I love when people message me or my email address is spostel at anchorheatingandair.com. I love an email and I'd love to connect. get on, I have a calendar and I'm happy to get on with people and do a Zoom and just talk about, you know, what you need to work on or what I can help you with. ⁓ Only thing I ask is that you implement something I tell you to do because my time is valuable and so is yours.
Justin Deese (46:43)
That's fantastic. Stephanie, thank you so much. This is going to be part one of part several. We're going to do several of these because there is so much good information that I would love for you to share with the audience. but until we catch up again, thank you for coming on.
Stephanie Postell (46:55)
I it.
Thanks for the opportunity. I'll see you soon.