An AV and integration-focused podcast broadcast weekly

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged features Robert Haecker, founder and president of Triphase Technologies out of Zionsville, Indiana, one of the largest and most respected custom integration firms in the country.

Robert started his first business at 14, a skate shop he co-founded with a friend on $500 each, and sold the assets at 17. He went on to Ball State's entrepreneurship program, where his award-winning senior year business plan became the blueprint for Triphase. Nearly three decades later, he employs more than 75 people, is projected to reach $21 million in revenue in 2026, and serves a client list that includes professional athletes, musicians, race car drivers, CEOs, and members of the Forbes 400. Robert was named to the Indianapolis Business Journal's Forty Under 40 in 2008.

In this episode, Robert and I discussed:

• Why selling his company at age 30 turned out to be the best lesson of his career.
• How their showroom and light lab sell what a conversation never could.
• The in-house training program that cut ramp time for a job site lead from ten years to two.
• And why a $20 million company had to go back to a single point of contact to keep feeling small to its clients.

Whether you're early in your growth or running a company that has outgrown how you used to do things, you're going to love this conversation. So settle in and enjoy my conversation with Robert Haecker. Let's get started!

SEE ALSO: #364: Ask AI to Teach You AI — Mike Wilson's Playbook for Getting Started

Transcript 

 

Ron:

Hello, hello there. Ron Callis here with another episode of Automation Unplugged. I'm excited for this one. This is a big one. As you all probably know, we've been doing Automation Unplugged for many years now. In recent years, we put out a show every week. Every Wednesday morning we put out a brand new show, and we've interviewed a different player from around the industry. At least much of our content is of that format. Today's a special one, because we really have one of our industry's leaders. I've looked up to this individual, and I'm proud to say we've done a little bit of business with them in years past. Over the years, I've become aware of who and what they are, not only in their local community, but also for the industry at large. So without further ado, I'm very excited to tell you all that today we have the one and only Robert Haecker. He's president and founder of Triphase Technologies. They're officially out of Zionsville, Indiana. And Triphase really is one of the more successful, larger, award-winning enterprises in our space, particularly in North America. I put them in the class, and I'm saying this before I bring Robert on because then he'll be shy if I say it when he's here, but really amongst the best of the best out there. They do well over $20 million in revenue annually. We could get maybe some updated facts and figures from Robert. They've got around 75 or so people, plus or minus, on their team. Robert and the Triphase team have won many acknowledgments, but all the way back in 2008, Robert received the Indianapolis Business Journal's Forty Under 40. Again, this is back in 2008, so he's been recognized for many decades. He founded his business and runs it with his wife, Shanna, and they've just run a fantastic business. I know I'm going to learn a lot from this. I hope all of you are leaned in. Turn it up, because I know Robert's going to throw down some knowledge on us, and some wisdom and lessons learned. Because at the end of the day, that is the game of entrepreneurship and business. Nobody just wakes up and knows the right answers or how to make the right decisions. In many cases, you purchase lessons along the way. Robert is no different. He's purchased a lot of those lessons, as many of you that are watching or listening have. And as a result, the best of us, the best entrepreneurs out there, are able to take those lessons and build upon them, build a team around us, and ultimately build that enterprise brick by brick over a long, consistent track record of success. And that's what Robert has. So I'm building him up quite a bit. Again, I'm excited to have him on the show. Allison, my executive assistant and producer here of the show, she and I have been aspiring to get Robert on Automation Unplugged for years. And we finally made it happen. Our schedules aligned. Let me go ahead and bring in Robert Haecker.

Ron:

Robert, great to have you here on Automation Unplugged. Thank you for joining us. I know that our schedules have been zigging and zagging and we finally got them connected and we're able to bring you on the show. So first of all, graciously, I just want to say thank you for joining me, and I speak on behalf of our audience. It's an honor to have you here.

Robert:

Thank you for inviting me. It's an honor to be here. I've been following your show for quite some time and I was hopeful that I'd get an invite sometime.

Ron:

Well, we made it happen. Let's get our audience situated here. Tell us a little bit about Triphase. Where are you guys located and what type of work do you guys do?

Robert:

We've been around a while. Next year will be our 30th year in business.

Ron:

Congratulations.

Robert:

Thank you. We're located in Zionsville, Indiana. We have between 75 and 80 employees. We have the full gamut, from AV, security, IT, lighting, lighting design. We have a high-voltage electrical department, and really kind of a turnkey offering. Our business is about 80 percent high-end residential and then 20 percent selective commercial.

Ron:

Got it. So in the residential space, I know this is maybe a hard question, but just do your best. What's an air quote average project? And then what would be a big project?

Robert:

You mean in terms of dollars?

Ron:

Dollars, size, scope, however you would define that.

Robert:

I will say that we were always very careful not to be put in a box where we didn't want to be known just for the giant projects, because not everybody needs a giant project. But I would have to say our average project, if you average it through our total revenue and total jobs, is probably between $70,000 and $80,000. But we do projects from a few thousand to several million. And again, we're diversified, and whatever people need, we can deliver.

Ron:

I love that. I'm going to pull a thread there, because I've talked to some business owners and they will, dare I say, turn their nose up at the person that wants them to hang a TV and put up a soundbar, and they'll relegate themselves to a certain status or size of project. I think that could have its pluses, but maybe also could have its minuses. I'm going to say what I heard, just business owner to business owner. I heard you really talk about diversifying your revenue streams because you're able or willing to do different size projects. How do you think about that? Were you all able to take the small projects, the medium and the large, or did that evolve over time, out of curiosity?

Robert:

It's always been our approach. People may need something small, a TV or basic audio now, but then they keep us in mind for their next home, or they have an equity event, or they grow their career and then they bring us back. I've heard other integrators in the past talk about, hey, we don't touch anything under $100,000, or we don't touch anything under a quarter million. I just always thought that was a little bit egotistical. In a white glove service company, whatever the client needs, we can deliver. So it's worked for us so far.

Ron:

I love that. On the commercial side, what I heard you say was about 20 percent is commercial. Is that like restaurant, bar, hospitality type work? Or what's the typical makeup of the commercial work?

Robert:

I refer to it as selective commercial, because typically our commercial projects come from a residential client who owns a business and needs our services. We don't get involved in the public spec where there's 20 companies bidding on it and it's a race to the bottom. So that's really our approach there. But it's everything from restaurants, sports facilities, schools, corporate boardrooms, warehouses. It really varies. Commercial, even though it's a smaller percentage of our business, is very important, and it's been a growing sector for us for a number of years.

Ron:

I love that. Do you primarily do most of your projects, residential and or commercial, within a radius from your office? Or do you by design also travel state lines and do projects around the country?

Robert:

Obviously it's easier to do projects within 100 miles of our headquarters, but we have been doing projects all over the country, as far as Maui, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. We do a lot of work in Michigan. We did a really neat brownstone in Boston. But most of those remote projects are clients that have been long-term clients here locally, and they trust us. They want their home or their facility to work exactly the same as their current one. It's got to be a significant project to travel like that, but we're doing more and more.

Ron:

I love it. If you're okay with it, I wanted to share a couple of pictures, Robert, share them with the audience. And for those that are listening, we'll try to use good descriptive words to let you know what's on screen.

Robert:

Absolutely.

Ron:

Last summer, 2025, One Firefly held our team event. We do an annual all-staff gathering, and we held it in Carmel, Indiana. We reached out to you and your staff, and you guys were very gracious and willing to host some of our team to get a tour of your facilities, because I'd heard the lore of your facility and the race car on the wall and the beautiful showroom and lighting lab. I was pleasantly surprised that you personally gave our team the tour, and you then took our team through the lighting center. So could I share a few of those pictures?

Robert:

Absolutely.

Ron:

All right. Let me share my screen. I'll move it into slideshow format. So this is actually me taking a drone shot. This is you, right at the entrance to your facility, with a handful of our team. If I had shown a better picture, we'd see up here in the upper left-hand corner, you have a whole F1 car. You know what I'll do? I'm actually going to pull this off screen just for a minute and leave it in this wide view. So for our audience that's looking at the screen, you actually have a race car hanging over your shoulder on the wall. Could you maybe just give a quick background of why there's a formula car on the wall in your office, other than it just really being badass?

Robert:

It is a pretty neat fixture for sure. The story behind the car is the company who built this building originally was called Just Marketing, and the founder and CEO was Zak Brown, who is really well known in the racing community. He's actually CEO of McLaren F1 right now. He owned a sports marketing company that, if any company wanted to put their name on a race car, and that's Formula One, IndyCar, NASCAR, and a number of others, they were the company. So when he sold his company and moved to Europe to run McLaren, we purchased the building, and the cars, there's actually two of them in the building, were already here. So that's really the story behind the race cars. And it being Indy, most people think it's an IndyCar, but real racing enthusiasts know that it's a Formula One car.

Ron:

Oh, that's so cool. All right. So that's a shot from your lobby here. And then I'm going to go here. What the audience is seeing is a handful of my team, and maybe it's not obvious where we're at or what we're doing, but if you look up at the top, there's a ceiling and it's peppered with cans. So we're actually in your lighting lab. My team and myself learned so much about lighting from you directly in that space. So could you describe what this space in your facility is and how you use it?

Robert:

It is an immersive client experience. We bring clients in and we are able to efficiently go through a script where they learn about the different technologies, incandescent, halogen, what inexpensive builder grade LED fixtures look like versus high quality. We're able to demo what various baffle colors, beam spread, and CRI do, how to light shelves, how to light art, how to wash a wall, and a number of other things, but really how to pull lighting all together. There's really good representation of layered lighting. Most of our clients who come in don't even really know the options, and they don't necessarily even know they're going to be looking at lighting. But after the demo, it is a high percentage of people that immediately are interested in purchasing a lighting design and seeing options on control and better fixtures, and basically a lighting control system.

Ron:

It was my opinion, from having gone through, and I know you didn't give us the full Monty, the full demo, you gave us a fraction of it, that I still couldn't imagine going through that education with you or a member of your sales team and that not significantly impacting the decision-making and the likelihood that a consumer or a member of the design team would be specifying proper lighting and lighting control in a home. What is the data you have maybe around attachment rates, like maybe before you had such a space? I know you've had versions of it for a long time, versus post. Just for those that are listening that don't have a space where they take consumers through to educate them about the power of lighting.

Robert:

First, we built our first light lab more than 15 years ago, and that was kind of in the infancy. So I don't have specific data, but I will say this. I could not imagine selling better lighting fixtures without having our lab. It can be done, but when people can see the room transform and actually see the difference, it makes all the difference. So it's very rare that people take a demo, go through our light lab, and don't buy lighting at some level.

Ron:

I'm curious, how many members of your team, is it your sales team that's trained how to take people through this? And is it almost scripted? Anybody that goes through a Lutron facility and goes through a Ketra demo, it's scripted. It's like, yes, and then you do this, and at the end of the day you get this full impact. Do you guys do something similar?

Robert:

We absolutely do. And again, we've been perfecting it over 15 years. We found that it needs to be informative, but it has to be efficient and it can't be too long. It's a script that we go through, and there are some sections of the script that we will cater to the client where we may not do the full demo or part of it. But if somebody is interested, they're building a new home or remodeling and they want to see everything that's available, I would say that the tour could be as much as 30 minutes, but it varies from about 15 to 30 minutes depending on the version that we run through.

Ron:

All right. I could ask more questions about the space. It really was impressive, but I'm going to keep moving here for the sake of time. So now what we're looking at is a picture of, again, our team, and we're in your show space. There was a whole route that you took us through. You have a large facility. Do you mind sharing? It's a large building and a lot of it is show space.

Robert:

Our main facility is roughly about 30,000 square feet. Our showroom is between 8,000 and 9,000 square feet, and it really has everything from a lifestyle side showroom where it flows, but everything is together. Lighting and technology and AV all blend together. They're not sectioned off. Then we have our commercial space that displays boardrooms, huddle rooms, things like that, and an interior design section that bleeds into our light lab. It was a great team effort in developing the space. I probably don't want to go through that anytime soon, because it was a lot of debates and a big investment, but it's nice now that it's completed, and it was actually better than we imagined. Our showroom and design center dramatically helps sell things that we probably would never be able to sell without showing it.

Ron:

Two things jumped top of mind for me. You can see it a little bit in this picture and it's off in the distance, but you had a pretty sick McIntosh setup, a hi-fi setup with the big amps. I believe my memory is serving. I think it was McIntosh, and if I remember, it was a pretty high dollar, six figure plus system. And you did turn it on and we got to hear it, and it was really impressive. But then you also had a video wall. Here in the summer of 2026, recording this, video walls are on the up and up. It's a growing, fast, profitable category, and your demo was very, very impressive. I know that our team was oohing and aahing over what you guys showed. Are those two of the items that, because you show them, you find that you're able to sell them? Those are higher ticket items.

Robert:

Oh, without a doubt. When we were building the showroom seven or eight years ago, our design team said we need a two-channel room. My immediate thought was, two-channel, that's not our business anymore. And they were like, just trust us. Let's build this and let's see. And it is amazing how much McIntosh we sell in two-channel, and just at that higher level, because people come in and they're able to demo it. So that was a great group decision. And then the video walls, without a doubt. We put our video wall in mid last year, and by the end of the year we had sold seven video walls. That was something that we didn't have to offer before. It's just something that people come in and they look at it and they think, what is that? And even though they're incredibly expensive, they buy them. A lot of our clients have the means to buy whatever they want.

Ron:

That's crazy. That's awesome. I'm curious, the video walls, are you seeing those land in home theater or media rooms? Or is it the new TV and you can just make it as big as you want? What are the typical applications you're seeing today? Or are they commercial in nature? Are you putting them in bars?

Robert:

Actually, we haven't put any in commercial yet. We have a couple spec'd in, but that's not going for a while. So it's really been high-end residential. And it's typically not been a dedicated media area, but multi-purpose basements where people want to be able to enjoy a large screen with the lights on, or they don't have to close the blinds. We've put them in residential personal gyms, basketball gyms, exercise areas, but a lot of just multi-purpose basements and areas like that. We've actually had a couple outdoor video walls as well. Outdoor living has certainly been a growing area of our industry for years.

Ron:

Does the manufacturer have an outdoor product, or is that a different brand that you're able to put outdoors?

Robert:

They do have an outdoor product. I think it's just the clients. One hundred inches isn't big enough, or 115. So we want 200 inches outside. I was pleasantly surprised how many units we sold just by having it on display.

Ron:

That's awesome. Okay, so I'm going to go to one more picture here. We'll see if I can get technology to behave. There we go. So here, this is back in your warehouse. There's an upstairs and it's this training area. The audience will see you here to the left addressing some of our team. You use this for real hands-on work, and it's not just a classroom environment. There are open stud bays and trim rings. It looks like you're doing actual hands-on, open wall, rough-in type training in this environment. How do you use this space?

Robert:

As you know, people just aren't born with the skill in our industry. There are some great feeder systems. There's Ivy Tech and Lincoln Tech, where people can learn the basics prior to joining our industry. But primarily why we built this was to be able to give new people to the industry the basic skills. How to terminate, how to read our wire legends, how the wires need to be laced, everything from a simple distributed TV to attic infrastructure. These are the basic things that we expect. The reason why we did this was, rewind several years ago, we hired somebody. Hey, Tim, this is the team. Team, this is Tim. Almost day one, he would be put with an experienced technician, and the thought was, hey, him sitting right seat with this 10 or 15 year person, they're going to learn a lot. Well, what you find is some of the best technicians make some of the worst trainers. We were losing people. They're six months in and they're putting their notice in, and on these exit interviews, a lot of it was they just didn't feel like they were growing or they were contributing, and they were kind of deflated. So this new in-house training program that we have just gives people those skills so they can contribute faster. They feel like they're growing. They are contributing more, faster. It's really been a huge success in building our bench and getting people up to speed.

Ron:

What I recall from that time with you in your space is, I think maybe I asked you a question, or one of our team asked you a question, and it was about hiring. You had a point of view, and what I'm going to share with you here in this interview is what I remember, which is you saying something to the effect, regarding technicians, that you like to bring people in very junior or green and you like to train them from the ground up, as opposed to hiring people that have worked for your competitors in your marketplace. Is that true? And maybe if you could expound on that. What's your belief system? Because you've got a great team and you guys are clearly doing quite well, at least from the outside.

Robert:

Don't get me wrong. If we get a resume from an experienced person within the industry, of course we're going to interview them. But quite frankly, the really good people typically stick with companies for a long time, and they're not available. So we love to build them from within. Take the right type of person with the right attitude, somebody that can work with a team, and train them from the ground level. With our process internally, within two to three years we can build somebody that can be a go-to quarterback on a job, where in the past it took eight to 10 plus years to do that. When they start here and they learn all of our processes and our standards and what we expect, within a few years they become a far more complete, overall better teammate than if we were just to hire somebody that's worked at another company or companies for years and brings bad habits, things like that.

Ron:

Who owns the curriculum? When I think about training, here at One Firefly we have a learning management system, and we have different people and departments involved in creating curriculum and content. We run new hires through that. For you, what I've heard you say is that the space plus the training has enabled you to put quarterbacks in the field within two years of a hire, whereas it used to take 10 years. So you've 5X'd your efficiency in getting people that can run job sites. Who develops that training, or maintains it, or curates it? And is there a best way that you've found to make that happen?

Robert:

I personally really can't take much credit for it. It's one of our project managers, Jordan Polston. He's been on our team many, many years, and he started in the field. He started doing rough-ins, and as he grew and mastered that and trim out and installation, he developed into a project manager. So now he's on our project management team, managing all of these technicians. He's the one that recognized the need and came to me and said, hey, I would like to develop this program. What do you think? I basically said, I think it's a great idea. And he took it from there. He has in-depth experience in the field, he's been managing these teams, and he knows what they need to know first and how to get them up to speed. So it's just a process that really he and other teammates developed in-house. We've just been perfecting it.

Ron:

So I would have to say you own your curriculum. That's awesome. That's really, really neat. Robert, I'm mindful of time and I have so many areas I want to go into. But one I know that so many listening would love to hear. Can you give us a background of where you come from? And I'll just lead the witness here a little bit. You're one of the few that I'm aware of in our whole custom integration space that actually has a college degree in business and entrepreneurship, and that led into the invention of Triphase. You can go back to elementary school, you could start there, but help us understand where you come from.

Robert:

I'll go back to kind of as a kid. I was always interested in business of all kinds, or business owners that were doing special things or developing a business. It was just always intriguing to me, really across the board. At about 14, I and other friends were into skateboarding, and I always loved going to the skate shops and looking at all the boards and apparel and all of that. So a friend of mine, Mike Shepard, I was 14, he was 15, we decided, hey, let's start a skateboard shop. So we started a skateboard store. We both started with $500. I remember when we first started, it was part of a small toy store. We sold all the boards the first weekend. We started to grow. Then we moved to our own space within this kind of mini mall. At that time, before the internet, people would drive four or five hours to go to a good skate shop. Then we started to grow, and we moved into our own building, separate from the mall. My partner was one year older, so as he moved on to college, I bought him out. Then I continued to grow and run the business, and I commuted my first year at college and decided it was too much to try to commute and run the business. So I ended up selling all the assets, a going out of business sale. Then I attended Ball State because they have an entrepreneurship program. I knew that I loved business. I love the marketing side, the business side, the people side, all of that. I knew that's what I wanted to do. So fast forward at Ball State, I got a job at an audio video store. This was the model where it was home and car, and people walked in and you demoed speakers and TVs. It was kind of the model where you stack up 30 CD players into a pyramid in the center and you blow them out. Well, in sales, I would demo these and I would say, this would have been the early nineties, if you want to buy this, I'll deliver it and install it as part of the deal. And it was a strong take rate. So I thought, wow, people might just pay for an installation, because it really wasn't a thing then. It was kind of like you loaded the speakers and TVs into the car, they took it home, they tried to figure out how to install it. So by taking that element out and adding that value, that's what gave me the idea to write a business plan for my senior program and develop that, and then graduate from Ball State and start Triphase.

Ron:

So you designed an integration business as your senior thesis.

Robert:

That's right. Entrepreneurship program. And I have to retract that. It wasn't the late eighties, early nineties. It was early nineties. I graduated in May of 1996, and then we started Triphase in roughly May of 1997. So I did have about a six or eight month period where I ran another audio video store. But I could kind of tell that they really didn't see the direction or the vision of custom installation, and I wanted to do something on my own anyway. So that's really how it started.

Ron:

So in the mid nineties, 1997, CEDIA, the trade organization, would have just been formed six years earlier or so, in the early nineties. Out of curiosity, were you a part of that? Did you know of that trade organization in your research? Did you discover that there was this small gathering of tabletop vendors at Amelia Island that formed this organization?

Robert:

Yeah, I was aware of it. Obviously, getting started in the business at that time, Tom Doherty, one of the pioneers in this industry, had a really established business and had a big name. I know he had a part in founding CEDIA. He's one of the founding members. So I was aware of that, and especially being in our hometown, Indy, and north of Indy.

Ron:

All right. So you founded the business in 1996, 1997. I'm doing the math here. This is close to 30 years ago.

Robert:

Yes.

Ron:

So what's that trajectory been? Has it all been smooth sailing, up and to the right?

Robert:

It hasn't always been smooth sailing. As you know, this industry is tough. You're delivering white glove to clients who expect the highest level. They eat at the finest restaurants. They stay at the finest places. And they expect perfection. But trust me, we've made every mistake you can and you learn from it. I think the important thing is that when we do make a mistake, we learn from it, and then we retool and cater to it. I can't think of any major, backbreaking mistakes that we've made, because we've always worked as a team and worked through those things. But I will say that making it through the great recession of 2008 was a tough time. Our industry was down 40 to 50 percent. Fortunately, we were only down nine or 10 percent year after year. But still, those are the only two years that we've ever declined in revenue, and you feel that. It's the only time we've had to lay off, I think, four or five or six employees. And that's tough. They didn't deserve to be let go, but we had to make some cuts, and that's what it is. Things quickly regained, and those few years we learned to be very resourceful. We learned to turn over every stone. We learned to keep strong reserves for the future, because you never know what's going to happen. But overall, we've been really, knock on wood, really fortunate to have a pretty smooth path to where we are today.

Ron:

Take us through, and I know this just because I know you, that very early on in the early 2000s, you actually sold the business. Take us through that. When did that happen, why did you do that, and how did that turn out?

Robert:

We were about seven years into it, and we were making waves from the integration side. There was a pretty large regional specialty retailer called Ovation. They had 11 stores at the time and they were the absolute kings of the market. Any manufacturer, when you went to pick up a new line as a small company, they had to really consider Ovation and how that would affect them. They would have to ask Ovation, because they were the kings. The market started changing at that time, because prior to that you could only buy these specialty brands at specialty retailers. Then companies like Best Buy and hhgregg and Circuit City started popping up, and guess what, they could then carry Mitsubishi and Denon and Klipsch and these specialty lines. So they were being pressed from that aspect, and integrators like us were pushing them from the other. They were really getting squeezed. The owners of Ovation, Gary McCormick, knew that they had to get into the integration side, and quick. So that's how we became on the radar. As a young person in business, you think that is the ultimate goal. Start a business, build a business, sell a business, and life is just great after that. I was probably 30 years old. My wife was about 27. And so our company was acquired. It was a strong multiple. They really needed us, and I thought, this is great. The deal was 90 percent cash up front, 10 percent paid out over time.

Ron:

Which is anybody's ideal deal, for you to get cash. A lot of people today, that's a hard deal to get.

Robert:

It is. So you think, okay, man, life is good. And it really was, for about 90 days. Then after about 90 days, yes, I had more liquidity, we had more cash. But all of a sudden things started to change and you don't have that fulfillment. You wake up every day and you realize, I really regretted selling it. I'll give you an example. When we were acquired, we moved our business to their headquarters. They did have a custom integration side, but it needed help. Not that they didn't do some good things, but I think the leadership was struggling and they just really needed help. So we pushed all the files and everything together, and we had more files than we had filing cabinets. So we have all these files stacked up on cabinets, and I go to the person at Ovation corporate and said, hey, I need three new filing cabinets to organize these files. And a week went by, two weeks went by, and I said, hey, we really need these filing cabinets. And I'll never forget this. She says, well, you know what, I decided you didn't need them. You can just stack them up back in the warehouse. That was the day that I realized I couldn't even buy three filing cabinets. If I can't buy three filing cabinets, there's no way I can lead this division into success. At that time I owned five percent of that company. But that was the turning point that the sleepless nights began. When you have these employees that have been working with you and helped you get to where you were, they're coming to you saying, well, you said things were going to be the same, but they're a little bit different. My health care is changing this, that. So that was probably the hardest 18 months in my business career, when I wasn't in control. We weren't in control and couldn't make things happen.

Ron:

I've heard so many versions of that story. Three out of four, maybe nine out of 10 versions of business owners that have sold their business, I've heard versions of this story, where they build up all this anticipation toward this ultimate goal of selling, only to realize often they haven't actually done the work to figure out what life is going to be like on the other side of having sold. And that sounds like what you went through.

Robert:

It was. Even though I went through the entrepreneurship program and I wrote the business plan. My wife was three years younger, but she was involved from the very beginning. I can remember getting started, she was driving back and forth from Ball State to help set up the office and get things organized. So she was always there from the beginning. But when we sold, we were expecting our son Eli, so my wife had kind of temporarily stepped away from the business. And I can just remember going home and bending her ear every night, like how miserable this is and all of that. So again, I had more money, but I was miserable. The unique turning of events was, I was there one day and the owner of Ovation, Gary McCormick, comes in and says, Robert, we're filing bankruptcy today, but don't worry, all of your team is secure, because our division was growing and we were doing well. So I had about 30 minutes notice that they were filing bankruptcy. I can remember Gary McCormick coming in and talking to our team, and it was like, everybody's job is secure, but we're going to limit everybody to 40 hours. And it did not go over well. So what's unique was, it went into bankruptcy, all the stores went to auction, and we had the great opportunity to buy our company back, 18 months from selling it, in an asset purchase, which, as you know, all non-competes go out the door. It was so much better buying it back than when I sold it. When we sold it, we were paid for our goodwill and all of that, and then buying it back.

Ron:

So net net, despite the emotional pain, that was probably financially very much in your favor.

Robert:

It was. When we sold it, we never would have thought we were going to buy it back. We didn't even think about it. But it was the best thing that ever happened to us, because not only did we learn a lot, we sold it at, I feel like, the top value, and we were able to buy it back at pennies on the dollar. But more so, all of those employees that stayed through that 18 month period, they were so motivated and so excited to be on our own again. That's when things started taking off like a rocket ship, and we haven't looked back since.

Ron:

That's amazing. When you look back at your 30 year adventure in entrepreneurship, what's something that really resonates with you as key to being a driver of your ongoing ability to grow?

Robert:

Obviously it's getting the right team in place. Shanna and I were just responsible for kind of igniting the fire, but to get the right people on board that are all in, that care like an owner, that go the extra mile every single day, people that are smart. It's really about the right team around you. This business takes an army. We have so many wonderful people on our team that carry the load on a day-to-day basis. That's really the key, is just hiring right.

Ron:

How does one do that? Because it's easy to say, and I'm going to challenge, hard to do. So maybe take us through your framing. How do you hire right? And how do you hire the type of people that truly go all in and help you grow the business?

Robert:

It really starts with all of our people. All of our management people started at ground level in the field, and then these people work their way up. They showed their commitment, they grew, they went up through the ranks. I think when people know that you have their back, and I know that they have my back, they can trust you, they can lean on you, they know that you'll never take advantage of them, that you would do anything to help them, that makes a difference. So they have the security from that aspect, but we also have the security from the other side. It just makes a great partnership. I bet you we have at least 15 people that have been here for more than 20 years. We have countless people that have been here 10, 15, 18 years. So it's just about keeping the team together. When you have a team together for this long, you don't have to show them the way. They already know the way.

Ron:

I love that. What's your role today in the hiring process at Triphase?

Robert:

We hire as a committee. Myself, our head of operations, our head of HR. We interview as a committee because everybody in that group I mentioned has their own perspective. Head of operations, they're thinking and analyzing, is this person a team player? Have they used tools before? What are their experiences? How are they going to fit in with the team? Our HR person, Kennedy Walter-Gomez, she has her questions. And then as a business owner, I'm asking questions and hearing how they respond, and most important, how they would interact in front of our clients, our builders, work with the team, how they represent our company. And then if they really make the cut in that interview, I will personally walk them through the showroom and have a lot more dialogue to get a better feel. That's really the process. A normal interview typically takes about two hours, but from our experience, that two hours is well spent, because you spend more time up front and hopefully save time on the back end.

Ron:

That's amazing. I'm curious how many business owners that are listening are actively involved in the recruiting or hiring process for their teams. For you, how would you summarize why you stay involved? You have a large team. Clearly they could manage the hiring, air quotes, without you. So why do you choose to stay involved in that process?

Robert:

It's just important. Let's just say that before, we wouldn't have a committee like that and we would hire people. If there's just one person interviewing, they don't think of all the questions to ask, or they think, hey, this person's going to be good. But when you have three different people with different perspectives in the company asking different questions and collaborating, what we find is there might be one person that says, hey, not a fit, and then the other two say, hey, wait a minute, I think they are a fit, and this is why. Three minds collectively are better than one. And just from a business owner standpoint, I think it's a bigger impact to that prospective employee that a business owner takes time to meet with them, to walk them around. They're going to be spending a big portion of their lives at work with us. That's the least I can do. And it's worked so far.

Ron:

I agree that it's clearly working. So why change it? I'm mindful of time. I want to try to sneak in one more quick topic here. You and your team have grown this business to an extraordinary, to a tremendous size and stature, I'll say, in comparison to other firms around the country. What's one of the hardest aspects of managing that growth? What do you keep your focus on in order to maintain quality, if you will, or the customer experience? Because it's easier to maintain or curate a customer experience when you're a 10 or 15 person shop, but you're a 75 person shop. How do you continue to scale and maintain that quality?

Robert:

That's a great question, and that's actually something that I'm glad you asked me, because we've been working through that recently. When we were first getting started and we were smaller, 10 to 15 people, we built our brand on having that responsive communication, basically concierge level. That's what we built our brand on. Our builders had one point of contact. They call, we're jumping on it like a grenade. That confidence, our business starts to grow. Well, as you know, that works up to three or four million in revenue. And then as you hit five, and you hit 10, you have 15. And then at a $20 million level, there's a lot going on. So a few years ago, we had a situation where, look, we're going to add more support people, more project managers, so we can cover and move, we can be on site more, make more presence, and we think this is going to be great. And it was great for our internal team. We were getting all this work done, we were on site more and all of that. But what we found was our builders, even though they loved all of our people on site, it got confusing for them. They didn't know quite who to call, because I've talked to Brian, I've talked to Jeremy, I've talked to Josh. So we added to our team, but we found that there were actually too many points of contact. We started to get this builder feedback. It's like, man, I think you guys are getting a little too big for me, I don't know who to call now. And even though we provided the information, and it was not that hard, these builders wanted one point of contact from start to finish. So you learn things like that. We retooled and went back. Even though we still have all the management team in place, instead of making our builders and clients figure out who to call, we went back to a one point of contact and we're managing all the different departments behind the scenes and masking the client from that. That's just one example of, as we grow, it's extremely important to remain feeling small to our clients and builders. Because quite frankly, they don't care what your revenue is. They don't care that you're one of the largest integrators in the country. They care about their projects, their homes, and how you respond to them.

Ron:

Awesome. We're going to cap it there. I think it's a tremendous lesson for everyone listening, including myself, about your takeaway there and that lesson that you guys learned along the way. I'm curious, have you implemented this, and what's the impact on the business?

Robert:

Oh, yeah, we've already implemented that. And it was exactly what builders wanted. Everybody's like, oh, this is great, one point of contact. My point there was, if you're a business owner and you're not staying close to those things or taking temperature checks, then your business can get away from you. And before you know it, and it can happen quick, builders are saying, you know what, Triphase isn't what they used to be, or a number of years ago they've gotten too big, or this or that. And in all reality, we just had to make a few tweaks, and from their perception it goes back to what we built our business on. As you know, Ron, as a business owner, you're always trying new things. You're learning from mistakes. And as long as you stay nimble and are able to make those changes, that's what it's all about.

Ron:

Amen. Robert, I know there's going to be many that are listening or watching and they go, man, I'd love to follow Robert and follow Triphase or learn more about them. Where can we send people?

Robert:

You can send them to me directly. You can share our website if you would. Our website has a lot of great content, videos, showroom. And if anybody is in the area and wants to stop by and tour our showroom, feel free to reach out. We'd be happy to, whether it's me personally or somebody from our team.

Ron:

Awesome. And for our listeners, it's Triphase, T-R-I-P-H-A-S-E, dash tech, T-E-C-H, dot com. I also have, it looks like you guys are pretty active on Facebook. You're at forward slash Triphase Technologies. Instagram, same thing. Well, almost. It's forward slash Triphase Technologies Tech, T-E-C-H. And there's an office number, Robert, I think your staff had shared with me. Is this a good number?

Robert:

Yeah, that's our general number.

Ron:

All right. So that's 317-845-0236. Robert, it has been awesome having you. I think I've said the word awesome more times than normal. I try to be better than that. But it was awesome having you on the show, and thank you so much for sharing your story and some of your lessons with our audience.

Robert:

Ron, thank you for having me. Like I said, I commend you on the success of your business. I know you've grown your team, and you're a trailblazer out there. So thank you for all you do for our industry. And again, it was a pleasure.

Ron:

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much.

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

Show Notes:

Links:

Website: https://www.triphase-tech.com/

https://www.instagram.com/triphasetech

https://www.facebook.com/TRIPhaseTechnologies/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/triphase-technologies/