Episode 166
Retention Goldmine: Why Aaron’s Techs Never Leave
We’ve all worked places where the culture sucked. Aaron Beay decided to build the one he always wanted and five years later, no one’s left.
We brought Aaron on because of the culture he’s created one that actually retains young talent, and not by accident. After 18 years in the field, burnout pushed him to try teaching. That part-time gig turned into a full-blown strategy for recruiting and training a team that’s never left his side in five years. Yeah, you read that right 100% retention.
Aaron doesn’t preach theory. He leads with simple stuff that’s hard to pull off: prioritizing people over profit, setting aside time for personal development, and showing appreciation in real, human ways. Whether it’s Kringle and a chapter of How to Win Friends on Fridays, or giving anniversary gift cards to keep his guys’ marriages strong, this guy lives what most only talk about.
We dug into how he “cherry-picks” talent right from his own classroom and why character always beats out grades. He even shared one of his go-to interview scenarios to test moral judgment perfect if you’re hiring and sick of getting burned.
We also got into the generational weeds what makes Gen Z tick, why Gen Alpha might surprise us, and how video chats and constant presence are reshaping communication before these kids even hit high school.
Highlights:
- How teaching became Aaron’s recruitment pipeline.
- The “people first” principle that actually works.
- Friday book club, and HVAC yes, it works.
- Hiring for character, not GPA.
- The three-way moral dilemma that reveals true colors.
Do you know someone building a blue collar team who needs to hear this? Send it their way. And if you’ve got your own culture hacks, send us a message on LinkedIn we’re always learning.
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Transcript
Welcome back to the Blue Collar BS Podcast, Brad. How you doing today, my friend?
Brad Herda (:I am fantastic, Mr. Steven Doyle and the hot, humid, muggy Detroit city is treating you well.
Steve Doyle (:yeah, just a little, feels like a swamp going on. Just a little swamp action.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, I'm glad you said action because I don't know about any other swamp stuff. All right
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, you know, it's getting thunderstorms. I think we're getting ready for one. I don't know. Doesn't matter, but. Yeah, yeah, there's areas we can't cut because they're still in water, so it's kind of nice. It's awesome.
Brad Herda (:Makes it hard to cut the grass that way.
Brad Herda (:okay you'll get it'll be fine mosquitoes will take you away soon anyhow
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, chemical warfare on those suckers, but so Brad who do we got on the show today?
Brad Herda (:It's appropriate given the fact that you're talking about heat and humidity. We have Aaron Bay, who's an HVAC tech for 18 years, got burned out doing all that stuff, took part-time jobs teaching at local tech schools, teaching HVAC from what he learned. Before long, he had people calling him on, I need somebody to trust to go out and do my work. So in June of 2020, he started his own business, LB Home Heating.
And literally know that that part-time job teaching would be the cheat code to building a solid team. It's five years into the business. he's no longer a tech in the field. He's a team builder. he's the builder of young men and women in the trades specific in HVAC. And he is a culture company guy through and through, I'm blessed to have him in our network. And, so Aaron, thank you for joining the show today.
Aaron W. Beay (:Thanks for having me guys.
Brad Herda (:That's a lie, but that's okay, we'll accept.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Wow. Man. Pre-show, during the show. Wow. Brad just interviewing everywhere. So before we go down some tangents, Aaron, which generation do you identify with?
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:You
Aaron W. Beay (:I would identify as the millennial. I'm right on the edge of Gen X and millennial, but I tend to be more millennial.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:like Steve.
Aaron W. Beay (:There's nothing wrong with it, Steve. There's nothing wrong.
Steve Doyle (:We're gonna go there? there's a lot of room. I am not, that's the thing. Nope, nope, nope, nope. We are still in the Gen X category. Firmly. Three years. behaviors, yeah, I totally am a Gen X. Anyways.
Brad Herda (:Accept it, Steve, just accept it.
Accept it. it. Yep. Go ahead.
Brad Herda (:by birth year, not by behavior.
Brad Herda (:Not even close. So anyhow, Aaron, so burnt out, started your own gig, teaching. Where have you seen, how have you created that success of building teams and what's your cheat code for that?
Aaron W. Beay (:Yes.
Aaron W. Beay (:I think the big thing is just understanding that, people come first when people come first success happens. whether that's in my team of my employees that are working with me or it's with our clients. it's just understanding that building those relationships with the people around us is that I know it sounds oversimplified, that it's a cheat code, but it really is. put others before yourselves.
Make sure you take care of them and you'll find yourself unusually successful.
Steve Doyle (:So for our audience, I don't know.
Brad Herda (:It's the simple, hold on Steve, just one moment. It's usually the simple things that are the most complicated to do because they are so simple and then we overthink them. Steve's...
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah, it's not always easy. I said it was simple. I didn't say it was easy, though.
Steve Doyle (:Uh-huh.
Brad Herda (:no one's no one used the word easy and Steve's experienced this in his career path choices as well. So he can be familiar with that. Go on Steve carry on.
Steve Doyle (:Thank
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Well, you didn't even have anything to add. What the heck? There was no substance there. real curious, real curious, When you're talking about putting people first, for our audience, we all have that concept of, yeah, well, duh, that makes sense. Put people first. What example in your business
Brad Herda (:Wow. Wow.
Steve Doyle (:that you can provide. What's an example that you can provide where you actually put like your employees first over your business needs?
Aaron W. Beay (:Okay. So having been an employee for many, many years out in the field, I remember some of the things that were hard and often, you know, when it gets to be this hot, muggy, swampy weather that we have right now, it just seems like all you do is you get up, you get up early, you go to work and you come back home, dripping wet after a 12 hour day and you do it over again. But
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:I try to hit the pause button. So we hit the pause button every Friday morning. I don't care how busy it is. So even this morning we took time and we read a chapter in a book together. I'll go get donuts or I got a Danish Kringle this morning, which was like that was it right there.
Brad Herda (:So, so Kringle from where it's important for those, for those in Wisconsin, they need to know what Kringle it is. We're seeing Kringle company. Okay.
Aaron W. Beay (:All right. It's a racine. Yep. Yep. The only one. So we'll sit down, we'll eat it together. And we were currently reading through the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. So yeah, it's a great book. And it's the first time I've actually read it through.
Steve Doyle (:Okay, that's good.
Brad Herda (:Nice.
Aaron W. Beay (:I can't say I've ever sat down at another HVAC company and discussed the principles that are inside that book, right? It's always been, how do you fix a condenser? How do you fix this furnace? Or how do you sell this? How do you upsell your clients on this? I'm like, well, what if we learn to take care of and how we talk to our clients? We'll find them giving us those five star reviews, coming back again, giving us referrals.
So often another thing that I'll do is birthdays or anniversaries. I'll do something special for them. a lot of my guys are young, but I have a couple that are married. And when their wedding anniversary comes around, I want to encourage them to keep their marriage strong. So I'll often give them a gift card, a nice gift card to a nice restaurant locally here. So I want to encourage them. Remember, work isn't the only thing.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:We do that, we work so that we can live. So go live and have a good time with your wife and take her out to dinner somewhere.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Nice.
Brad Herda (:And I can say from just our interactions here locally that this is, he's not blowing smoke up anybody's ass, right? This is how he runs his company and this is what's going on. It's created huge success for him in our arena, in the area. And like you said, treat the people and the rest will happen. And not that there's anything wrong with company first or customer first, it's just a choice and kudos for making that choice.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yep. Thank you.
Steve Doyle (:So how has attracting the younger talent been for you the last few years?
Brad Herda (:Again, he's cheating because he's teaching them. He's cherry picking. Ultimately, he's cherry picking.
Steve Doyle (:well, mean, there's that. I mean, I want people to know this.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah.
Aaron W. Beay (:Okay, I'm cherry picking. often I'm pulling them out of my class. So I'll have them for a year. I have high school students for a year when I'm teaching part time. They're looking to get into the trades. So I'm getting kids that are hungry to get into the trades. And I never pick them based on their academic performance. I always will shoulder tap the ones where their character looks strong because I can teach them how to do
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:HVAC all day long, but I can't unteach bad habits or unteach, you know, rudeness. And so I look to those things. You know, I had one of my students this year come up to me and thank me after class for challenging him. And I said, I made a mental note. I'm like, well, that doesn't happen very often. Let's keep an eye on that one. And sure enough, he was hired just a month ago. But, you know, it comes with its challenges.
The younger crowd is going to make mistakes because they're fresh and they're green. But I'm okay with that because
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Apparently, maybe it was their education.
Steve Doyle (:wow. Wow. He's, you know, he's on point today. He's on point for this. He's... Wow.
Aaron W. Beay (:nice one that was a burn wow that hurts it stings
Aaron W. Beay (:He is. He's on fire. He's taking notes. He's taking notes on this one.
Brad Herda (:I'm just saying, maybe they didn't get the right education.
Steve Doyle (:man,
Aaron W. Beay (:No, I mean, I still make mistakes even to this day, you know, 23 years later, right? And I think it's just, yeah, just knowing that these young guys are going to make mistakes, but I chose them because they're hungry to learn more. And if trained correctly, they won't keep making the same mistakes over and over again. And it's learning to have those hard conversations when they make the mistakes and...
Brad Herda (:We all make mistakes.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:I'd love to have any one of them come in here and talk about, know, without me here. I'd love to know what they said about how does Aaron handle conflict when things aren't going well, because let's be real, we can make that happen. I'm not afraid of what they would say. I think they would love it. They love working here. I was just talking to somebody about this recently. I mean, who can boast a 100 % retention rate?
Brad Herda (:We can make that happen.
Steve Doyle (:We can make it happen. Yeah, we can.
Brad Herda (:I'm sorry.
Aaron W. Beay (:Everybody I hire has stayed here and never left. And it's not like I've been in business for 30 days. It's been five years now. So when I hire them, they stay and they stay and they've even been offered more money. And they've come to me with tears in their eyes and say, I don't know why I'm staying here. It doesn't even make sense. I've been offered way more money. And I say, well, how much you've been offered, I'll make sure to match it. You're staying here.
Steve Doyle (:Aaron W. Beay (10:28.068)
but they had already made the decision to stay before I even offered that to
Steve Doyle (:Hmm. That's fantastic.
Aaron W. Beay (:And I think it's that relationship that we build. It's almost like a quasi father-son relationship in the business world.
Brad Herda (:is spectacular. That is very very powerful to have that type of culture built and the fact that you're taking that intentionally to do so is even more important to understand is that is a decision. You have made a decision to this. It didn't happen by accident.
Aaron W. Beay (:Absolutely. And it has to be intentional and he needs to continue. I can never get lazy in that because as soon as I do, I miss something and they feel and they feel unheard, unseen. And and often that's that's where I think when we're talking generations, you know, because that's often what this podcast is built on. Right. Millennials, Gen Xers and even all the way back, all the way back to the boomers. They
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:miss the mark when it comes to the young people because they don't understand how they think. They don't understand that they want to be appreciated. They need to hear that verbalization. They need to see outward actions of it. It's not just a, yeah, you better be lucky you got a job, kid. That doesn't work anymore.
Brad Herda (:It is not. Yeah, it does not work anymore right now. I don't think it's going to work even as. Gen alpha comes into the marketplace. Now you are. You are blessed with children of the Gen alpha age. So you know that 14 and younger scenario. What are you potentially seeing from as a business owner differences between?
that the Gen Z kid and the Gen Alpha kid from behaviors or characteristics or potential aspirations.
Aaron W. Beay (:That is a heavy question, Brad.
Brad Herda (:It is. is. that's the so one of my beliefs is, yes, I believe Gen Z is very important to the future of the trades, but they're 28 years old, right? They're they're 28 to 15. At some point, whatever you're going to catch, you're going to catch and we got to be able to go back. We've been focused on that, that the industries tend to not focus further on down the road to capture them, because by fifth grade, people know
They know what they don't want to do. They don't know what they want to do, but they know that I don't want to do A, B, C, and D. So I wasn't sure what you're seeing in your own household potentially.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah, that's and I feel like it's such a narrow focus, you know, because I know my kids well, right. And I know and I know that, you know, if anybody asked me, which one of your kids do you think will take over your business? Well, right now, none of my boys look like they even are interested in it. It's actually my oldest daughter who would fall into this category that you're saying. She's 11 years old. She's incredibly gifted when it comes to mechanics.
Brad Herda (:It is. Right.
Aaron W. Beay (:She's just like her oldest brother who can pretty much fix anything or build anything. She's a tough girl and she's come with me on service calls late at night, even the night before Thanksgiving, just this past fall. She came out with me and she loved it. She had a blast. So I think it's learning what their giftings are, but I don't know if that's generation specific. It's just identifying what their giftings are and...
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:know, leaning into that and opening up opportunities for them for that. But I don't know, you know, if I can say that that's a broad sampling of the marketplace.
Brad Herda (:Do they have a different, do you see a difference between her and her friends and things? Do you see a difference, a different way they hang out, a different way they engage in communication, a different way in learning?
Aaron W. Beay (:Okay, yeah, communication. I feel like they're constantly on video chats with each other. they talk to their cousins, their cousins are some of their best friends and they're constantly on video calls with them, which drives me crazy. Cause I'm like, what is all that noise going on in the background? I'm like, can you guys turn that down? like, so then I feel like the old guy, you know, I turn that thing off. But it's just like, they want to be in the presence.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Aaron W. Beay (:of their friends or their cousin or whoever it is via video call constantly. They would love to just sit there. They don't even need to be talking to each other. They could be playing separate video games. They can have the things set up and just be watching each other in silence. I would say that is something that I don't personally understand, but they do.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Okay. I was just curious, right? Cause it's a, it's an insight opportunity that most of our guests, we don't get that chance to talk through. And because you're tied and see so close to the education system sometimes that maybe you saw some trends or patterns. That's why thank you for sharing.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. The question that I have is around the character aspect you had mentioned. And obviously, it's easier to see when you've been working with somebody for a while. But when you haven't been working with somebody for a while, and let's say you had an opening and somebody a little older applied, how do you assess the character of that person in the short time that you have with them to know that they're going to be a good fit?
Aaron W. Beay (:That's a great question, Steve, because I've often wondered this myself because, you know, everybody I've hired, I've known for quite some time prior to that. you know, almost a year or more, I've known them. So if I was hiring somebody off the street, what would I do? I think the big thing for me would be put them in, you know, give them scenarios that are uncomfortable, that put them in
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Aaron W. Beay (:This is a moral dilemma. like, all right, you just realized, you you're you're fixing somebody's furnace. You just told them that, let's say the gas valve was bad. You replace the gas valve. It still doesn't work, but you realize you found the loose wire. You're in a hurry. You got somewhere to be tonight. What do you do? Do you take that gas valve back out? You fix the loose wire and tell him, hey, and like charge them the appropriate amount? Or do you leave the gas valve in there, fix the loose wire?
but charge them for the gasfault that they really didn't need in the end. You know, it's a moral dilemma.
Brad Herda (:That is an awesome scenario.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:That is a fantastic scenario.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Aaron W. Beay (:I've been in it, that's why I wanted to do it. And I personally have struggled with that, because I'm like, just, I often will just put the, I'll take that one out, I'll eat my crow, and I'll go back and tell them, well, here's the plus side of it. Hey, I told you it was gonna be this much money. It's actually not gonna be that much, so you're gonna be less. It took me longer, this sucks. I don't want to have to be here anymore, but it's the right thing to do.
Brad Herda (:So what did you do?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Right. All right.
Brad Herda (:I like that scenario. That is a fantastic scenario because I'm gonna, I'm gonna bet that you'd probably get a 50, 50 response of, I'll actually probably get three responses. One, take the valve out, fix the wire. Two, leave the valve in, fix the wire, charge them for the wire and not worry about the valve and deal with the ramifications when you got back to the office of the valve cost shrink and get yelled at.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:or three, charge the customer the full boat for both fixes.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah, I didn't even think about your middle one. because then, yeah, you may be given the customer value, but now you just basically ate up all the profit or more for your boss.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Right now deal with ramifications because I gotta go. I gotta get to my baseball game where I gotta get to this or I gotta get to that. I don't have the 15 minutes to replace the valve. So we're just gonna leave it, fix the wire, turn it on. Let's go.
Steve Doyle (:So with most of our audience, whether they're in the trades or not, most of them, I would say own HVAC equipment. What's the number one thing that you see that, man, if this homeowner just did this, they would just, they'd be better off.
Aaron W. Beay (:check their air filter and I'm just as guilty as everybody else. I often like, you know how they say the shoemaker's shoes, the kids are the last one to get shoes. My furnace is last one to get an air filter. I'll be like, I turn the AC on and be like, dang, when's the last time I checked the air Now that I'm talking about this, I am going to go home and check my air filter because I can't remember the last time I changed it.
Steve Doyle (:You
Steve Doyle (:Yup.
Brad Herda (:Well,
Steve Doyle (:I remember every time like at another at another business, we would they would turn the they would turn the air on. No air came on. You go up, look, and the air filter was plugged. Pull the air filter out. Put a new one in fire back in. It worked just fine. Be amazed at how much just looking at your air filter would save you a little head.
Brad Herda (:No.
Aaron W. Beay (:The funny thing is too, I can't go stay at an Airbnb without going in checking the air filter. My wife is always so embarrassed whenever she's around me. You can't turn it off. can't like, a plumber can't turn the plumbing off. know, an electrician can't turn it I can't turn the HVAC off. I'm sitting in a restaurant, I'm staring up at the ductwork and I'm like, hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Wow
Steve Doyle (:You're right.
Aaron W. Beay (:Looks good.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:That's awesome. So this is the point in the show where we're to go through the bite your tongue scenario. So Aaron, whether it's at a teaching gig back when you were actually an employee or as the business owner or even as a father or husband.
Steve Doyle (:Ooh.
Brad Herda (:Do you have a story of a point where maybe you shouldn't have said something you did, where you should have bit your tongue and then done something different? And if so, what did you learn from it?
Aaron W. Beay (:I remember kicking somebody's dog, but that was an accident. I hooked the dog. So I didn't mean to. When it comes to biting my tongue, I would have to say it often comes when I sound accusatory towards the customer. Okay, this just happened recently. And...
Steve Doyle (:You
Aaron W. Beay (:We recently put in an air conditioner and you could tell the dog had been pissing on the condenser outside. Clearly there's stains all over. And it's a, it's a, we found, we found a leak in the air conditioner, but it wasn't there. But the way I presented it to the customer, they understood that, your dog pissing on it created this, created this leak.
Brad Herda (:Aaron W. Beay (22:21.178)
And he's like, I can't even effing believe that in one year this can happen. I'm like, probably shouldn't have said it that way. Got to be careful the way I present this. like watching what I say when I accuse people, like sometimes it's true, but it's like learning the way to present stuff to customers in a pleasant way. Chat GPT can help with that sometimes. You know that it's like, help me say X, Y, Z.
Steve Doyle (:You
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, right.
Aaron W. Beay (:But help me to say it nicely.
Brad Herda (:It can it can definitely help. For sure, you just got to give it the right prompt. Right and say hey, without without sounding like a suck up, how do I tell somebody to go do this, but make sure they understand it like a five year old but not like a five year old wrote it.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:And.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:That is one of my favorite prompts is to help write this thing so a five year old can understand it, but not written by a five
Aaron W. Beay (:That's a good one.
Brad Herda (:And you'll be amazed at what those things sound like after you get done, because it takes away all of our own biases and our own technical stuff and our own jargon and makes it very simple.
So, so Aaron, people want to find you. They want to talk to you about how you've gone about getting into the education system or how they could do something in their local community to recruit or put programs together. How do people find you, get a hold of you, contact you?
Aaron W. Beay (:I have very unique name. It's Aaron W. Bay, last name spelled B-E-A-Y, so you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, under both of those handles. I have, you can get ahold of me on my email address, aaron, A-A-R-O-N, at LBhomeheating.com, and we can start a conversation that way as well.
Brad Herda (:That is awesome. That is fantastic. Kudos to you and your team for building what you're building here in southeastern Wisconsin and setting the example for those in the area to behave differently and changing an industry away from doing all the things that you shouldn't be doing sometimes to doing the right things as you explained in your your moral in your moral conversation, right? This is what we expect and that's important.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, often we are presented as shysters that are coming in to steal all your money. And we're walking in with that bias already. often we have to overcome that. So it's learning to train these guys to overcome that and then to build confidence and trust with them. And I can't commend my team enough. They do it all the time. They do such a great job. They know how to build trust with people.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Trust is the number one factor to get people to say yes when they come out and for service work if they don't trust you if you pull up in.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yep, and it works great for
Works great for referrals too, like they'll they'll refer you when they can trust you.
Brad Herda (:correct. So thank you sir for being on the show. Have a have a safe and enjoyable trip on your upcoming vacation and we will talk to you soon.
Aaron W. Beay (:Yeah, all right, I appreciate the invitation, it was great.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, thanks.
Brad Herda (:All right, thanks.
