About a year or so ago I had 2 astounding revelations… the first came one afternoon as I was working tirelessly for one of my awesome customers when the thought hit me that I’m not the only one who could do this task… I know that should’ve been obvious but, please realize when you take a profession like plumbing as serious as I do, it’s easy to start believing that you’re the only one who’s actually providing plumbing excellence… Now it wasn’t that I suddenly depreciated my value, thinking that Half Moon wasn’t any better than the next company but, rather that I could actually teach/train someone else and thereby start the process of duplication then multiplication in essence lengthening my arms so that I could reach more customers with the same service and skill…The second came shortly after when I suddenly realized that after 5 years in business, I actually didn’t know very much about business… I mean beyond the basics of course: honesty, integrity, hard work, and money management all of which had served me well in my first 5 years but, if I was actually going to grow beyond myself, my truck, and my tools then I would need some help! So I immediately started searching the web for some sort of business training specific to my field but, I came up dry… I really just wanted to attend a conference where I could learn from those who had already achieved success and get some ideas, develop a network and take off…Ok so now I can explain the title “all show and no pony” … As only through God’s providence, I received a call from a plumbing franchise company only a few days into my search and it just so happened that their annual national conference was just a few weeks away… The recruiter offered me a free trip to the conference where he said I would be able to sit down with other franchise owners and pick their brains concerning successful business plans with no strings attached… This was exactly what I was looking for, and was for me an easy decision to accept the offer… I should state here that from the beginning I was very clear that I really had no intention of dissolving Half Moon Plumbing into a national franchise but, that I simply wanted some advice on how to grow my business… AS I spoke with multiple franchise owners who all had larger companies than myself, I found several things to be consistent: most all of them were excited about the growth, the profits, the training, and the network that was available to them… They were all about being clean, polite, and professional but, as I would quiz them on actual plumbing methods and materials there was not as much interest or consistency… This in the end was the real problem for me since my journey began with a heart to duplicate both service and skill, I didn’t want to be part of an organization where there wasn’t a standard of plumbing excellence in the area of skill… Hence the term “all show and no pony”My hope is that as Half Moon Plumbing grows we will never sacrifice skill for service so that we might always have a pony in the show!