Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: SAM.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome to Balancing Acts, the show where we explore strategies, challenges and breakthroughs that business owners use to build profitable, resilient companies. I'm Linda Hamilton, your host, a cpa, a certified exit planning advisor, and a certified systemologist. Running a business isn't just about hard work. It's also about having the strategy for managed growth and profitability and building a business for the long term that supports your life.
Behind every business is a story of grit and vision. And today we're going to HEAR How Andrew McCain turned his career in power systems into building a company that keeps businesses, homes, and even whole communities running when the lights go out. Welcome, Andrew.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Thank you, Linda. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: So, I mean, I know you started your business during the pandemic. What an incredible time to start a business. So what inspired you to start McCain Power Systems?
[00:01:31] Speaker A: I wish I had a better story for, you know, going out in the American dream, but honestly, it was Covid happened and our, I worked at the time at Mustang Cat, the Caterpillar dealer here in Houston, and they had a different vision.
They actually had cut our power systems in April, shortly after the pandemic hit and said, hey, you know, we're gonna lean out and they cut half the people on our floor. And I was one of them.
And so when I look back at that, it was definitely what catapulted me to do this. Before I entered in the power systems world, I was in the gym industry and owned my own gyms and ran that and, and made a change a couple years before that and kind of step by step learned the industry, learned power, had some tools in my tool belts. But when I got let go, I didn't know what I was going to do. So it was just kind of that prompted me to say, okay, am I going to go do this for somebody else or am I going to try to do it on my own? And I made the decision to try to do it on my own and build, build something for me and my family. And yeah, that's how it started.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: You know, I love that story because you'd be surprised how many business owners I interview that let go, get laid off even after 20 year careers and start a business. So it sparks many businesses. And it sounds like you're a serial entrepreneur because you also own gyms. So it's, it has to be there, you know, for you to do it. So congratulations on launching it.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: What would you say was the biggest risk or leap of faith you took in launching the business?
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. To Kind of backtrack a little bit. You know, we had planned for it. I'm very fiscally responsible. Fiscally.
Like I'm not, you know, more of on the risk taking side, I would say, because I am in sales.
But, you know, my wife and I planned for that. And we started to plan a family and we had our first daughter December of 2019. And then my wife, she was a school teacher here in Katy isd and we decided that she was going to stop working. We budgeted, we were like, hey, we're making enough. This is, you know, we're gonna have to squeeze some things just because we are losing that income.
And, and then, then Covid happens, you know, two months after that, and then two months, you know, after it really started hitting, you know, they, they were like, hey, you're, you know, you're done here. And so I think, I think the most, you know, people are like, oh yeah, you're so brave. And I don't feel like that because I was kind of forced into that. I was in the corner and just started throwing haymakers to, to try to make it work. But I would say having a daughter who's four months old, having a wife who just lost, she. She retired from teaching to be a stay at home mom.
And that's what she wanted to do. That's what I wanted to encourage her to do. And, and I wanted to help support her in that. And we felt like that was, that was it at Mustang. I was going to grow in my career there.
And then, you know, Covid happened and the layoffs happened. And so I think the most courageous thing I probably did was just to just fight, fight for our family.
That was kind of my vision and my goal every single day was, hey, I need to put food on the table and this is how I'm going to do it. And so, yeah, I think just making the decision to start the company instead of going back into the marketplace and looking for something else, you know, I would say is for most people, I don't feel like it's very courageous. But I would say a lot of people do get scared of that. And, you know, that was a big step to launch McCain power systems.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And I have to congratulate you because I often say running a business isn't for the faint of heart necessarily. I've been in business more than 30 years, and, you know, there's one thing about business is certain, it's change. Right. And I think you just expressed resilience and being able to adapt what you were facing. Both on your family situation and your business. So I want to really congratulate you for doing that and being successful. You're now in business six years, so that's, that's really wonderful.
Can you talk about some, maybe a couple of the earlier challenge you faced in growing your company? Because there's a lot of people listening, I think, who, who would like to start a business or in their maybe first year. What could you share?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah, so early on it's just getting organized, right?
A lot of people have the.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Have.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: The chance, you know, before you lose the income that you're currently getting, to make a plan, right? Make a business plan. Everybody's like, hey, you know, make a business plan, start it and then plan for that.
So I'd say, you know, you know, plan accordingly. Maybe start some revenue stream to start coming in while you're doing what you're currently doing.
And that way you can hit the ground running when you get there. But you know, having a name, having a professional email, having a professional website, you know, if it's social media, helps you in your space starting to develop that social media and having a plan there. That way your marketing costs stay super low, you know, your business to business relationships and stuff you got going on on LinkedIn or you know, if it's X or whatever, you know, people know who you are and brand recognition.
And so I'd say, you know, the biggest hurdles that we came is no, you know, outside of my customer base, Nobody knew who McCain was. McCain Power Systems. It was very much I had a customer base that I wanted to work with and branch out and try to grow.
But I really had to first start, you know, looking professional, not having a, at Hotmail or at Gmail email, having a actual domain that you own and that you operate, you know, it shows people that, hey, you know, you not just a guy, you're not just a guy that's here just to, you know, take somebody's money and then sell something somewhere else. It's hey, I'm here to serve, I'm here to be professional and treat you with that professionalism that I had before when I was with a bigger company, but now it's just me. And so I'd say some hurdles is brand recognition and then planning that I didn't have the ability to do.
So I'd say plan, plan accordingly. Make a plan, a strategy and then attack it and really, you know, work harder than everybody else. That would be my biggest thing is if you pick up the phone and you take calls, answer calls, Answer emails.
You will be successful.
Just work at it. Work hard.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: I think those are great insights to share with our audience and for anybody who's either thinking about starting a business or is in their early years. So when we were talking earlier, you mentioned you were in sales. So, you know, some business owners are great at sales, some are not.
Would you say in the six years you've been in business, has your role changed in the company?
Did you, you know, were you by yourself in the beginning? Are you still wearing every hat?
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Working on and working in your business, right? I mean, so as you grow, I, again, I didn't have a business plan. I just wanted to provide for my family when we started. But, you know, making, you know, as I progressed, my plate started filling up. Right. So I was wearing every hat. Right. The CEO is chief Everything officer. So you're doing your own accounting, you're doing your own invoicing, you're doing your own sales agreements, you're doing your own marketing. Well, very quickly, I was like, man, this is just so much. I'm doing all my back ended. I'm uploading things on our platform, on our website.
I'm handling logistics, handling all my administrative work.
And it was just me, but that stuff's in my mind. Again, you said it. I'm in sales. So I'm thinking constantly, what's the next sale? How do I fill my pipeline? I can't do that if I'm uploading pictures onto a website.
So my first hire was offloading that piece, you know, and delegating the marketing piece. And it was actually a lady that I worked with in the past, and I called her up and kind of gave her the spiel. She said, I'm in. I'm going to do it. So kind of started that with her and got the marketing. And then within a month, I was like, hey, another, you know, thing that could give you some more hours and stuff would be our logistics. Right. I still have to. When I sell something, I got to move it from here to there or deliver it or pick it up or crane it. And so, you know, I was like, can you handle this as well? So I had kind of teach and have her learn, really just threw her to the wolves and said, hey, here you go.
Figure it out and I'll help you along the way.
So, yeah, I started doing everything. And then slowly I was like, all right, this is my first bottleneck. Let me offload it. Then this is my next bottleneck and offload it. So within the first year, I hired Ann and she does all my marketing, all my logistics, which she still does.
And then within another year is like man, administrative traveling, you know, setting up flights and administrative work on the back end paperwork apar. And so Sarah, Sarah came on just under two years and then it just kind of from there exploded to the, you know, remaining thing. So I don't do everything anymore. My, my role has completely changed and yeah, I still. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Why? Why you've been successful? Because many don't realize they have those bottlenecks and accept it.
How can people learn more about McCain Power Systems?
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Visit our website, McCain Power.com it's spelled McKain or just Google it McCain Power. And yeah, you can learn more about us. There's an About Us tab and we have four different companies that all do everything in power systems and so would love to have you, any end users, any anybody that's in our space or not in our space, look us up, give us a call and we'd be happy to help you out.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: I hope you enjoyed listening to Andrew's story.
He said, you know, chief everything officer, I think so many of us business owners feel that way. And his story shows us how resilience and vision are just as important as technical expertise in building a company. So coming up, we're going to look at new demands like AI, electric vehicles, renewables, and how they're shaping the future of power. Stay with us. And Andrew will has a lot more to share with us. Thank foreign welcome back to balancing acts. We're talking with Andrew McCain today about power. But I hope if you love what you're watching, you can catch Balancing Acts and every NOW Media show, live or on demand, anytime on NOW Media tv. You can download the NOW Media TV app on Roku or Apple for instant access to our bilingual content in English and Spanish. And from business and news to lifestyle and culture, it's all streaming 24 7. So search Now Media TV on Roku or your favorite podcast and never miss a moment.
Andrew, I really enjoyed learning your entrepreneurial story and now I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about AI in particular, which is I use it a lot, but, you know, it's changing everything we do. All I hear is that technology is how much power we're going to need. I'm my headquarters is based in New York City. They're talking about turning office buildings into data centers because AI is going to need so much power. I don't think I really understand why and I think many don't. So I Hope you'll help us sort through some of the hype and what's real and what's ahead for us.
So why don't we start with why is it that AI needs so much power?
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah, so I mean, you're creating and storing data for people.
And so data centers, whether it's Amazon or there's a ton of data center customer companies that are storing Facebook. I mean, Facebook has their own data centers and you know, you're storing people's information from credit card information to banking information to everything. And so with the AI trend that has happened the last couple years, they're using up space that's normally for, for storing data to create. And these, these, basically these, these engines to, to create just like a human would, but faster, more efficient. I mean, we've all done it. We've all used chat, GPT or whatever AI app that you have to create quicker than we could possibly do, you know, standard operating procedures or hey, create a list of X companies of, you know, whatever. We use it all the time.
But that all requires power. And so when you think about utility power, we were very blessed to be in the United States where we have power, and when we don't, we're like, why don't we have power?
But, you know, in New York or Houston or wherever, you have a power grid that takes 10, 15, 20 years to, and there's excess built. But what's happened is there's so much on the AI side that has come on so fast that the utility side cannot catch up. And so there's only a certain amount of power. You can't store power outside of, you know, a small amount for, in batteries is what you can do. But for solar, right, you're, you're creating this, but you're storing them in batteries so then you can deliver the power when people need it. And so it's very hard to store power. So you're constantly creating power, you're creating electricity.
And these data centers that are going in gigawatt, I mean, they're, they're massive and they're going in all over the place.
They need power. And you're going to see if they keep going in at the rate that they're going in, you're going to see a, a pool of that power that is typically going for, for houses or for these built, you know, all right, we need to create that power and give it to a data center.
You're going to have a lot of stress on the infrastructure, on utility. And those things take years, 4 or 5, 10, 20 years to catch up. So the hype is everything needs power, and it's going in so fast that we don't have enough excess power.
So that, that's, that's the issue that we have. And then, you know, the next thing is, how do you solve that problem? You know, and that's with, with quick bridge to utility. You know, there's power generation in terms of generators, turbines, different things that you, that you're going to see. And you're seeing more from, like, for X group, from, you know, guys going in and having these massive 500 megawatt data centers. They're all powered by turbines, right? Or natural gas or steam turbines, or natural gas reciprocating engines, stuff like that. So you're going to see a lot of bridges that say, hey, we're getting air permits for two years until we can get enough power.
100 megawatts, 200 megawatts, a gigawatt of power at a time. So that's what you're seeing. You're seeing supply, demand.
You know, demand is really, really high. Supply is kind of.
And it's just, we're at an imbalance.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: You know, it's funny that, listening to your explanation. So I own an accounting firm, a CPA firm. So I have a ton of data. I always thought, you know, I'm pretty technology savvy. Everything is in the cloud. You know, there's a lot there. But I always thought it was somewhat static, right. That, oh, these are just documents stored there, kind of like a file cabinet. Not how much energy is needed to actually create that document or tax return or something. So that, that's really interesting that you talk about that in New York.
So my apartment building is maybe 60 years old. I will tell you that I can't run my tea kettle and my microwave at the same time without blowing a fuse or as the printer kicks up. You know, I have a great printer because I print hundreds of pages and you go, the printer goes to kick in and somebody was vacuuming and that blows the power. So is, is that the same, is that the same issue with, with electricity not being that we're putting too much strain on business processes that we have to do as well as our homes?
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you see, a lot of older technology requires more. But so, like, just to dumb it down, like, I'm, I'm not.
You know, before I started working in the power space, like, I didn't even know what a generator was, how it worked, how it was produced electricity. But everybody knows a light bulb that's easy, right? Old light bulbs require so much more amperage, more, more lights. Once you put an LED light in your house and you replace them all, your power bill goes substantially down. It's because the demand, it's newer technology. Those LEDs can give out the same or more light with less power and less energy.
So our demand is way higher for power. But our, our technology is getting better. So we can compress like the oldest computer that came out. I don't know when the first computer came out, but it was massive, right? And it was huge. It was bigger than this room that I'm sitting in, but it was, you know, our iPhones today are way smarter than the first computer. So, you know, and the amount of power that that needed is getting smaller and smaller, the footprints getting smaller. So you can actually compact data centers in a smaller space.
But they're going to, with that becomes, all right, we can, we can get this smaller, but now we can do more and we can get more power to come in. So you see it with your, you know, where you live in New York City and your high rise, that's just old technology. So, you know, your, your, all your electrical runs, at some point they're going to have to redo all of that stuff so that the demand is less on the building and the upgraded switch gear. So you're seeing old data centers and old buildings get revamped with the new electrical side and you're going to see more and more of that because, yeah, the demand is super high and supply is, there's a limited amount.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: So do you think that problem exists only like in large cities or is that across the country? Because, you know, they're really pushing in New York City to move us from gas, away from gas, like for our stoves, etc.
And we already struggle with the overloaded circuits. Right. At the same time, I don't think the city is ready for that upgraded power grid as well. So I'm curious how you see this transition playing out in terms. And there's a lot of AI users in, you know, in a metropolitan area, so that's going to require energy too. So what do you see as some of the practical terms, how, how they're going to solve some of the short term needs?
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody wants to go electric, everything, right? Electric cars, electric stove, electric whatever. But like, okay, that all requires power.
So, you know, there's, you know, you're going to be, you know, just sucking the utility dry.
You know, you need to add to that infrastructure. So it's going to be, you know, ask, you ask first about is this more prevalent in the cities? Yes, because people tend to. There's more job opportunities. You can, you know, your family, you can grow and create better lifestyle for them.
You can get paid more moving into it for most, most jobs moving closer to a city. So the cities that are here, you know, are going to continue to get better. I'm going use Houston. I live in Katy, Texas, and it used to be rice fields 15 years ago, and now Katy is like just part of Houston and everybody's growing further and further out. That just means that utility power, there's more and more and more demand on there. So, yeah, people keep replacing natural gas stove tops and heaters. Right. Because it's not just for that. You're going to have the electric heaters. That's all electricity.
Right. It's just a different form of energy. And then you got to go backwards. Then how are you producing that energy? Is it from a natural gas turbine that is down the line at the utility plant? Is it nuclear? Is nuclear power coming? Is it steam turbine? That's that used to be or still powered by coal?
Or is it a steam turbine that's. That's natural gas for the.
Creating the steam. Right. Because you have to burn something to create that steam. So you're still using natural gas there.
How are you producing electricity? So a lot of people want to say, hey, this is green energy. It's like, well, you have to kind of go backwards and find out like, well, how true is that and really think away and start peeling away the layers of the onion to say, okay, well, maybe it's not as green as this. You know, everybody's saying, but really it's not that bad anyway. So it's. It's kind of a lifestyle. What do we want to live? Do we want to live, you know, go back 100 years or do we want to keep. Keep progressing, keep getting, getting better? And we just, we have to as a society come up with a plan that's the best plan for everybody, that that's sustainable over the. Over the long run, right?
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And you know, consumers and business owners, we like continuous power. Right. We don't want to hear that we don't have power. And so the future of power touches every part of our lives. And I think we're so fortunate to have people like you, Andrew, who are working on solving these problems for us because I think it takes a lot and hopefully it is a solvable. How quickly can people find you online if they want to learn more about your business.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah, just if you go to mccainpower.com or type in Google McCain Power, MCK A I N you can look all of us, what we have in inventory, what all we do. As you see, we have four companies there. We do logistics, rental, sales, packaging, a little bit of everything.
On the, on the power system side, be happy to get in touch with you.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Thank you. Stay with us where Andrew and I will talk about how McCain Power Systems helps you all stay running.
Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton and we're talking with Andrew McKean of MC Power Systems.
And we've been talking about how power drives so many things for us in our businesses and our personal lives. And now we want to talk about how McCain power system helps us keep everything running. And Andrew, what would you say are some of the most urgent day to day power challenge you've solved for business owners and homeowners today?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, whether or not it's, it's residential, we work with several different electrical contractors who go and do that for people's homes that, I mean, we live in Hurricane Alley being, you know, in Houston. And so a lot of people, when they lose power, you know, for health reasons, if they have older, sick, you know, you know, sickly people that live with them, or even young kids that, you know, like myself, I have little, little children, I want to make sure that peak of summer or peak of winter that they're protected from that. And so we help on that side, on the homeowner side will help with turnkey power. But also, you know, we do a lot of stuff with health care.
We do a lot of stuff in the oil and gas industry, keeping those guys up and powered, which really kind of drives into a ton of other things.
And then I'll use an example. I was up in New York. We, during the middle of COVID there was a big project that I was blessed and fortunate enough to be a part of. And there was so much stress on the utility grid there.
You know, everybody was used to working in the high rises and now everybody's working from home and gets sent home. And so you don't think about where the power and all the distribution and all the transformers where that power is designed to go. So when you have so many people down the line now requiring power, you're going to have brownouts and blackouts. And so I was fortunate enough to be a part of a company where I just, I knew where equipment was and I was able to get in touch with some of the other dealers that actually worked with the utility up in New York City. And we got several. We got like six big generators at certain substations to produce power to drive right there on site. So during the middle of, kind of one of the biggest crisis that we've ever seen, and we saw how that affected health care, had affected people staying at home and making sure that they had Internet and they could continue doing their jobs to provide for their families.
Those are a couple examples of just, you know, some. Some stuff from 911 call centers, you know, that they need power and backup. You know, if they lose power in the middle of a storm and people are calling 911, they got to have power, Right?
So, you know, from the rental generators to hurricane response to utility companies, we kind of. We've been there, seen it, done it, and, you know, happy to help. Happy to. You know, we're in a.
We're in a spot that we, we can provide those services to people.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting. I do remember when we were all working from home, you know, you were just thinking the kids were trying to go to school, the adults were either in a corporate job or they had their own business, and just using Zoom. We were all like, like, Zoom. My Internet wouldn't support Zoom at the time. I can remember just using a hotspot or a phone and just again, this conversation of making me realize how much my life, my business, my, you know, my clients rely on power to live.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Our lives and how fragile.
How fragile it is, right?
I mean, a thing just that. Just no one would think everybody working from home, the demand of energy that that takes is. Is wild. You know, it's. It's. I never really thought about it until I got into. I got into power around 2017. And now every time I drive down the highway or down the street, I'm like, oh, there's a generator. Oh, there's a generator. So, you know, you don't really notice it until you're without it. And then, you know, then it. Then it's. It becomes. I mean, you can't keep food cold, right? So your grocery stores, you're going to be going hungry in a matter of days, right?
If you can't, if, you know, if you don't have electricity, I mean, there's so many things that it dives into that normal people, like. I consider myself a normal person, but normal people that don't live in the power space don't think about your water, right? If your water that you drink or that you're using for your house isn't getting treated. Right. It's just wastewater. Right. So you're, you don't have power. You don't. And they don't have backup power though. You know, very quickly it can get, it can get ugly real quick. Living in a, you know, first world country and like the United States without power, it's, it's a pretty fragile system, honestly. And you know, we all have to be aware of that and try to put in plans for our families and our businesses that can help that.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: It's fascinating. I honestly have never thought about all the things you're talking about.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: I know, don't think too hard.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Tax returns filed with the IRS without.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Don'T, don't think too hard. It'll stress you out. So just. Yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: So now, you know, we've been talking a little bit about cities and, you know, these big businesses, but what about remote areas who also struggled a lot during the pandemic, you know, for education for their children and medical care. So hard to reach locations. How do they get power and does McCain power systems help with that?
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you look at farmers, you know, they have irrigation wells that need power, right? A lot of those pumps are electric pumps, so we've provided generators out there for those guys. But you know, typically, you know, more rural, remote areas, you know, they're going to be without power, you know, but typically they're, they're, they haven't lost it for as long as big cities just because the demand is so much higher.
But the same thing, you can have backup, you know, you can have, you know, solar at your house or a backup generator for natural gas or propane.
You know, little small things that you can do to make sure that, that you don't, you don't lose power. And you know, some of those things are just as simple as, you know, those little 5,000 watt pull start, you know, that you just set outside of your garage, you ground it and you just run some extension cords to your necessities of your freezers and your fridges and your, you know, some box fans and stuff like that. So, you know, there's, there's little things that you don't have to have a lot of money to be able to say, okay, when something goes wrong, here's my plan, right? And just having that plan and making sure that whatever you have that you're running it and it's operable.
And then if you do have questions, you can call companies like myself to try to help.
What is the plan. What's the best plan for me and my family? What's the best plan for me and my business?
And then you have to do an operational, you know, hey, here is a, you know, cost benefit analysis of an opportunity cost per se of saying if I'm without power for my business, I'm gonna lose X dollars in one day. Does that justify me getting, you know, putting in a plan and spending some time and energy there? And it's as simple as that. You gotta have a, an analysis for your, for your house. And it's an opportunity cost of, you know, we can have Internet, we can have, you know, basic necessities like food and, you know, stuff for our fridges. If we just have a small little generator that we can run this stuff on and the rest of the stuff you can figure out.
So.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Such great advice. I'm learning so much from talking to you and I think that I'm definitely going to look at my plan for when you're an emergency, even though I'm in a large apartment building, so I don't usually have to do that myself, but still.
And so I hope people will reach out to you to help them create a plan because I think, you know, as you said with the AI is creating a bit of a drain on power. And we're all always on our phones or on our computers anyway, always.
Beyond electricity, McCain Power also manages logistics, loading, hauling and moving equipment. So how does that fit into the bigger picture for your company and its growth strategies?
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah, so Ann Smith is a part owner with me and she has, she was my first hire. So she was hired originally to do all my marketing stuff. She still handles that.
But then in 2024, January 2024, we started managed Power Logistics. And so bigger piece, we were already moving stuff from A to B to B to C.
Our own generators or engines or compressors for customers. And then when we would get there, some of them are like, man, we really like how you. And this is Ann, she does everything.
And we really like how you communicate. We really like how you have project managed this freight for us. And so she then started doing that for other customers as well. So from training to rigging, we do a lot of decommissioning of, of old data centers and old generators. She'll line up everything.
Basically. I call it easy button. Those little, you know, that was easy. I press the easy button. I get in touch with Ann and Ann and Mindy, you know, her admin, they do everything. And so it's really for companies for, for Us, It's a way for me to say, hey, I need this move from here to there. And then she handles it. From insurance to making sure she's communicating, making sure the trucks are lined up once it gets there, making sure that there was no damage. You know, pictures before and after, stuff like that. A lot of things people don't think about when you handle freight. We've ran into those issues personally. We had a unit flip on the way to us and the, the broker that we hired didn't have proper insurance for it. And we documentation that they should have and luckily their, their ENI exemptions and omissions, you know, insurance kicked in and luckily we got it covered. But man, we, we see ya. Now everything is, is double, triple insurance. And so having somebody that you can trust to say, hey, no matter what it is. And we specialize in power systems, engines, compressors, big, big rig stuff that needs to be craned onto a truck and then lowboys and heavy hauls and stuff. That takes a lot of attention to detail.
That's what we pride ourselves on. That's what Ann handles. And yeah, so it fits into our, into what we do from, you know, a power systems is when people need stuff too, they need it now, right. So on the rental side, making sure that we get that unit there, you know, they have it down. Or if one of our units, you know, it's a mechanical piece of equipment, it goes down, we need to replace that.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: And they have to be able to trust you. And I can tell from you talking about insurance of knowing all the things that could go wrong. So to protect your customers, how can people find your company and learn more? If they are looking to learn more.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: About your services, easiest way is just to Google. Google mccainpower.com it'll take you to our website, mck, ain power or mccainpower.com that's our URL. And yeah, there's an about us contact us. You can learn, you know, who we are, what we do. We have four companies and we do pretty much everything that you can possibly think of when it comes to power systems. So I'd love to have you contact us. Thank you, Linda.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: And you know, I think again, we've learned so much from construction sites to home offices, power is no longer just a utility. It's a lifeline. And our final segment, we'll talk with Andrew as a business owner navigating growth and change. Stay with us.
Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton, and we're Talking with Andrew McCain of McCain Power. Systems and I hope you love what you're watching and you can catch balancing acts and every Now Media TV show live or on demand anytime. 24. 7 on NowMedia TV you can download the free Now Media app on Roku or Apple for instant access to bilingual content in English and Spanish. And we're going to share business, news, lifestyle and culture and it's all streaming 24. 7. So search Now Media TV on Roku or your favorite podcast and never miss a moment.
Andrew, we've had a great conversation about your founder's journey, how you built your company and talking about AI and just all the power needs and what a lifeline it is for our, for our, for all of us in our homes and our businesses. And I want to turn back to you as a business owner because I think your technical expertise and what you do is critically important but so is running the business and for every business owner. That is true, right? That working on the business or in the business is a very true lesson that Michael Gerber taught us in the email. So what would you say has been your biggest leadership challenge as your company has grown over the past six years?
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say I'm a very self motivated person and very much like no one has to tell me to do a job, I just kind of do it and I've create my own system. I've just always been like that. I've been able to hey, I need you to go sell and okay, I'll go sell and you don't really need to give me training for that. I'm just going to go figure it out and do it and do it to the best of my ability.
And I think that one of the biggest struggles I had and I made that mistake multiple times, was just expecting that same thing from everybody that I hired. Right. I just hey, you know, Ann, just do my marketing, you know, here's, here's kind of a plan. I want to keep my costs low but you know, use social media, you know, do stuff direct marketing, blah blah blah and oh and do my logistics as well and just throw to the wolves just because that's how I've always learned. And luckily she was one of those high level performers who took that on and rose it rose to that challenge.
And I would say a lot of people that have hired, I failed them in not being able to say hey, here's my clear vision, here's my expectations of you but also here's a standing operating procedure to make sure that if I'm not here, we train on this Train on this and you forget something you can fall back on and you can, you can then take that and those lessons learned and say, okay, man, I missed that step because I didn't go back and verify myself. I don't need Andrew here, right. I don't need someone else here to make sure that I'm doing this right or okay. And so I think that the biggest thing that I take away, that I've gotten much better at is there needs to be systems and processes for, for each individual person and their job description and then making sure that they understand that and that what my expectations are of them. And you know, I hold myself to a very high standard and I, I want to perform not just for me now, but you know, we have close to 60 employees. I need to perform and I need to do my job and care about these people. And if I do not, everybody goes hungry, right? And so, and, and creating the systems that if I'm not there for a week, it's not just going to fall apart, right. The other people are now holding that, that together. You know, I'd say at the end of the day, you know, I'm the owner and we're a pretty young company, five and a half years in, you know, so I'm the glue that has held that. But you know, there's no key man risk anymore like our logistics company and runs it. I don't, I do nothing other than I kind of do a little selling, a little bit of business development. McCain Engine Services, our newest, newest company. Jake and Alan, my business partners, they run it. You know, I help in some sales and strategy and hiring but you know, I'm working on the bigger picture. They're not in it.
McCain Power Rentals, our rental division. Jason and Laura run the show, right? We have a whole rental team that they, they do it, I sell for them and do some higher level planning for our fleet.
But again, we've created those systems for all those companies to just run flawlessly. On our sales side, you know, my sales manager, Trent Gopel, he's amazing. He came, he worked with me at, I worked with him actually. He was way there there way before me, way better at everything than me. But he runs the sales team, right. So I technically put myself back and work for him, right. I report to him on the sales side, hey, this is what we're, you know, what I'm working on. You know, these are the help that I need. And so I think the expectations at first I was like, hey, here's your job. Go do it and then I'd have a bunch of people like, you know, making mistakes and then I would get frustrated because it wasn't done to a certain standard. Well, they didn't know, right?
And that's not fair of me. And I got to look introspective. I think that most business owners, and I think most people in general, they tend to point the finger when, point, when finger pointing, you know, starts happening. I think that, that some implosion starts happening and, and communication stops, stops happening. And so when you can take a step back from a situation where something bad happened and you can always say, well, what could I have done better? What could I have. You could have done nothing. But I think that the first way of taking responsibility for me first and then saying, hey, where can I learn from this? Where can I grow to then develop that next person so that we can learn from this and use this as an example. Even if it was 100% somebody else's fault, I think there's always that 1% or 2% of saying, man, I can get better on this. I can get 1% better. And so I think as a business owner, I've learned the hard way, give people direction, give people a sense of ownership.
And somebody sent me a quote the other day and I can't remember it exactly, but it says, when owners start acting like imperial employees, start acting like owners, you're going to create a team that's unstoppable.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Well, you've clearly built a team managed company and that really is the only way to scale one. As an accountant, I've worked with many businesses who are growing, who want to sell their businesses. I've helped them sell, I help companies document systems, but many don't get there. And so you've clearly done the hard work of also empowering and trusting your employees to help you build a team managed company.
On getting to 60 employees from building and scratch from scratch 66 years ago.
So, you know, if you think back to, you know, the first few years, I don't know how long it took you to get to 60. Yes, the systems are very important, but often there's so many bottlenecks they don't know where to start. So what, what tip would you give to younger business owners who, who are maybe planning for growth? Because if you grow too fast, right. It kind of, it can really explode. Customer service erodes and a lot of things go wrong. I don't know if you experienced any of that yourself, but what would your advice be to those listening?
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Don't force it.
Let it be organic. If you're forcing things, I think you can get in trouble real quick. If you increase your overhead too fast and your cash flow is catching up, you can get upside down real quick. It takes one project, one canceled order, one thing to really set you on a backtrack. And business owners, I mean, you've been doing it now, you said, for 40 years.
I can't even imagine doing it that long. It's hard, and you have to be resilient.
Um, I would say the best thing is to, early on think about, if you want to grow, think about those systems in place that, that you do without thinking about it, right? It could be as simple as creating an invoice, right? It could be as simple as shipping and receiving, like a bill of lading. How do you receive that? And so for me, I'm like, all right, let's dumb it down, right? And you, you basically go back to. I always use the analogy, think that I'm an alien and I've never made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And you're explaining that to me. Go to the pantry, right? Go grab the peanut butter off the shelf every step. And you don't think about that when you're doing that. Like, how many steps are in creating an invoice? It's pretty simple when you think about it. But no, I mean, you have to go step by step through and how you want it done so that then it's done to that high standard. And I think creating those earlier so that as you bring people on for the growth side, hey, this is a bottleneck. Let me offload this now. They have a training. They have a training. They have something they can go back to to say, hey, here's your role, here's your expectation, or here's my expectation, and this is how you do it. And we're going to train you a couple times. And if you're not getting at least 70% from that person, then you need to find somebody new. If you're getting at least 70%, you can mold and grow that person and develop them.
But my expectations were always like, hey, I'm just going to offload this and give it away and we'll all move on. That is not the right way to look at it. You have to have people want to do a good job and they want to find.
They want to find value in what they're doing. And if you give them that chance to perform, most people are going to rise to that standard. But if you hire someone and you're like, hey, do this job.
Most people without that level of hey, this is where I think you can get to. This is like, I don't want you to stay in this position. Right? You should, your goal should be here. And these are my expectations. And this is how you get here, man. That person's going to dive in, right? Because there's light at the end of that tunnel. And then once that happens, then they can move on to the next one. So we where I'm huge on hiring, developing and growing within and we've got guys that move from project managers to sales. Now from our service, he was shop foreman, service manager. His next step is to go into service salesforce and then we're going to. We're going to line up people underneath them. I had a guy from just a service guy. He's now the director of all of service for us and has a piece of the pie at the end of the day. So, you know, you have to as a business owner, right? You have to be resilient because you're going to have setbacks. It's not been all I. We would have to go into 12 more. We had some major, major hiccups.
And it's hard. It is hard. And if anybody tells you different, then they're not really in business. Right?
It's smoke and mirror sometimes with some of these. Oh, yeah. It's so it's not easy. Everybody that's done it on their own has worked extremely hard to get there.
If you can take those pieces of those people and just implement it to yourself. Make your bed right. You know, brush your teeth, call people back. It's the little things that honestly separate, I think, successful people. Whether or not you're a business owner, you're just, you're a piece of the puzzle. Not everybody's cut out to be a business owner, but man, just the little things. Do the little things right and leave.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: Our audience with that. That is excellent advice. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your insights. I think your journey reminds us that success, you know, whether it's in energy or finance or field comes from building systems, planning ahead and staying resilient. Tell us again how people can find your company online.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Linda. I appreciate it. Just McCain Power.com easiest way. Google it. McCain Power McK A I N We'd be happy to anybody on our team to answer, answer whatever questions you have. And yeah, thank you so much.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: I learned so much from talking with you. Join us again next week for another episode of Balancing Acts.
