Dustin Van Orman

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125 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2025 last heard May 2025

Dustin Van Orman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Next Level Pros · #148: Can the Trades Take You Farther Than a Degree // Dustin Van Orman, Ismael Valdez // Next Level Pros · 23 May 2025 podcast

So many shops have a hard time scaling past that two, three, four or five million dollar range. Because they don't know how to build a team. And so they're wearing every single hat themselves and they don't know how to take one off and hand it to somebody talented. That's where they're lacking is building the right people.

You know, it's interesting. I think a lot of times technician-ran businesses, they look down upon sales. Yes, sir. Right? They're like, oh, sales is dirty. Yep. You know, I can't just have only sales guys. I got to have guys that understand the ins and the outs of exactly how this is done, to be in management, to be out talking with the customer, to be any of these things, right?

And so, like, it was always interesting to guys when they found out, like, dude, I've never installed a solar panel in my life. Right. Like I know how a solar panel is installed. I've watched it be installed. I've I've never have a drill.

But like like you don't you don't have like if you are a technician running a business, understand you don't need to be a technician in a business.

Like like running a business is a completely different skill than going and servicing a customer.

So I completely agree with what you're saying. You need to attract top talent that can sell in your business. Trouble is at $2 million in revenue, how do you attract the top talent in sales? Because they want to have a career path.

So I'm going to conflict a little bit here. So I am a sales guy. And so I can appreciate a good commission structure. I think that is. I think, frankly, the way that you take a $2 million shop to a $50 million shop to a $100 million shop, yes, you have to attract the right talent. It's all vision driven. Right. Like for me as a sales guy, yes, I got to be able to make a lot of money.

But if I do not see a vision of growth, a vision of opportunity, like in fact, if a guy does come in and the first thing he's talking about pay, I'm kicking him out. Like I want somebody to be bought into the culture, the vision, the direction of the business to see where they're going to fit into going and growing this thing. And then let's have. A compensation structure. But I do agree.

You got to you got to compensate. I think most guys, most guys on on a baseline level just have no idea how to compensate guys.

Because there's no vision. And that's my point is like, for a guy to get out of it, he's got to change his vision. Most of these guys are just in survival vision mode. It's just like, I'm just trying to get to the next payroll, do the next thing. And like, if I could just stay here and make my 200 grand a year or 300 grand a year, Then I'm going to be fine. Versus the guy that's at 2 million.

He's like, yo, in five years, we're getting to 100 million. And this is the plan. This is the roadmap to be able to get it. They're going to be able to attract the top talent. So like one is like shifting the limiting beliefs that you have around your business. Thinking bigger, bigger. being able to attract in the right town. I mean, that's essentially what made Solgen what Solgen was.

Like we're sitting in a garage recruiting guys, right? Like third guy walking in, I'm like, yo, we're building this thing to a hundred million in the next five years. This is the roadmap. This is how we're doing. They're like, well, I'm sitting in your freaking garage. I know you're sitting in the garage. This is how we're doing it. We're investing in the right things.

So Ishmael, you're talking about the compensation side of things. And I agree with both. I'm glad this conversation is happening. But here's the thing. Without saying it, you're demonstrating your vision. You're a charismatic, energetic person that is proud to be able to offer people a great income. Of course.

You're demonstrating your vision along with sharing with them their opportunity for compensation. I meet so many business owners that have been $2 million for the last 10 years. Yep. They can't paint a vision. So they have to change something and able to create an environment where people want to be because high performers, they're not going to go to that shop because they don't see the direction.

So people need to see a path. They need to have a voice and they need to be compensated well.

Amen. Look at us coming together.

So 2025, what's the opportunity right now in the HVAC world, the trades, the plumbing?

You know, it's interesting. Obviously, there's a lot of like best practice groups out there. Right. Like I think one of the biggest shifts in my career was once I started getting in the room with the right people, learning, learning the secrets of things that I wasn't doing and others were doing. Right.

And there's there's been a lot of like best practice groups that have been well established in the trades for a long time. What what should you be looking for in like being able to scale up, educate up, learn these things? Because like obviously there's podcasts that you can go to. There's YouTube. There's different things like where are you turning for the right direction these days?

the first thought that comes to mind and before I answer your question, I want to point out something I've observed. Um, so often business owners will see a spark of talent in somebody in their business, a technician or somebody in the office, whatever. And so they see this spark of talent and they think, Oh, well this, this makes sense. Let's make this person a manager.

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