I came to Canada in 1999 looking for the best-paid job I could find. The internet was not what it is today. We used paper maps to get from point A to point B, and we asked people. The job I found was in a local shop that made kitchen cabinets, and the position was broom operator. That means cleaner. I swept the floor and carried the offcuts to the disposal, and I watched.
Within three weeks I could run every machine in that shop. I learned to read the blueprints, and by week six I knew how every machine worked and how to stand in for every person on the floor. I didn't need a computer. I carried the whole set of blueprints in my head, so I could be wherever I was needed. When somebody got sick, I covered for him. Seven days a week, from seven in the morning until nine at night. That is how the broom operator became the manufacturing manager.
It was not enough for me, because the shop also installed what it built, and I did not know that side. So I asked to start again from the bottom, at the lowest wage, just to learn installations. The owner was generous. He paid me to learn. Three weeks later I could install a kitchen, and with it I had learned the plumbing and the electrical that come with a kitchen. Now I was everywhere again. In time I was running the whole business.
Then a man who owned a handyman franchise noticed me and told me what a journeyman could earn. He was right. I worked as a journeyman, and the money came, more than I knew what to do with. One day he asked me to step up for him completely, and I said yes. What came next was becoming a franchise owner myself, in 2017. What I did not know was that as an owner I would never again earn the way I had with my own hands.
Those were the deep waters. They taught me three things: trust carefully, know your business, and know your craftsmen. Everything I had done before was a plus, because the craftsmen could not do whatever they wanted. They saw a person who knew exactly what was happening on the job site. The first year looked like a spike, the most money I had ever seen pass through my hands. Then I looked at what was left after the advertising, after the lead fees, after running a crew of twenty-five, and I understood that I had undersold myself for something that did not work.
From 2018, and then through COVID, I understood where we stood. Homeowners needed prompt service at a price they would not keep shopping against, and we had not given them that. I stopped taking a paycheque from the company so I could keep paying the crew. I have not taken one since. Nobody asked me how I felt or how I was surviving. Nobody. But I am a person who draws a circle around himself and treats that circle as family. I had brought those families bread on the table, and I could not leave them alone. I kept going. I kept building. I kept struggling. I knew the life from before was never coming back, so now we are rebuilding.
I had seen how the marketplace treats a craftsman. One homeowner's request is sold to five, six, often ten contractors at once. They all run around like chickens without heads, they all price the job, and they all lose the job. Whoever is cheapest wins. A thirty-person operation with licensed trades is compared with a single man and a single truck and no overhead, and told to match his price. You have to match the job to the proper company, wherever it sits on the scale. They don't do that, and they don't care. One day the reviews my clients had written over years, for every company I had built, were taken down, and I was so upset that I started building my own platform. I called it Rhodex.
Rhodex is about the craftsman, the family, the relationship and the customer. That is all it is about. I did not build it to get rich. I built it for leverage in a marketplace ruled by companies that sell leads, and so that the people involved with Rhodex can bring bread to their tables and see their families flourish.
The way a Rhodex job runs is the way I always ran a job. I visit the client and explain every detail. If they commit, I put it on paper, a written estimate with exactly the same steps I explained, so nothing surprises them. If I lowballed them they would be surprised, but I never use that strategy. If the client has a question during the job, they ask the craftsman, and he tells them the same thing that is on the paper, because he has the paper and he follows the rule we built together: you do the job, and you don't skip tasks. That's it. For a craftsman to commit to every written step you have to pay him well, and then his problem is solved. He is not running around the city chasing leads. He goes there, finishes the work, and gets paid right away. He is safe.
The office stands in the middle, and it does not take sides. Never blame the craftsman, never blame the client. My first reaction will always be to defend my craftsman, and I will. But if I see my craftsman fail, I will say so and stand behind my words, and if I see the client fail, I will say so too. Our decision is never to cover our mistake. Our decision is to find the problem, and saying, yes, the problem is in us, is the biggest deal. Our mistake before was one thing: we did not pay attention to the details. Now I pay attention to what a craftsman says and how he acts. If he says, I am sick, I believe him. If he says, I am not happy with this job, I believe him, and we find a solution. Treat your people well and your client will be happy. Simple solution, simple treatment.
The craftsmen who carry the Rhodex name today came with me from the franchise years. I hand-picked every one of them, and I have worked beside each of them for hundreds of hours. They will never abuse anybody. They don't change their face when they see a different kind of person. They take the job as it is, and they take the client as it is. They act the same with everyone, and they should stay the same. That was the rule, and they followed it. I have more years in the trade than most people ever will, and I am still the least experienced craftsman in my own company. I like it that way.
Rhodex could have started from the client list of all those years. I chose not to. I chose zero. Starting from the beginning and proving that it works. Am I not grateful? Am I not fair? I chose the zero path so that one day I can look back and say: I did this from scratch, relying on nothing. It costs money, and I am okay with it. Greatness doesn't cost anything. It costs dignity and responsibility, and the guts to do it. We have built it. The product is here. Now we have to make it work, and we will figure out how, because I know this product will work, and it will work well.
We learn the skills, we adopt the skills. The only way for us to know is when the client rates us. That's it.
To the craftsman reading this on his first day with Rhodex, in ten years or in a hundred: be you. Don't ever lie. Be honest. Be grateful. Never be greedy. Know your price, ask for it, and don't start low to go high. If you are reliable and capable, you will get it. Be yourself. Be honest. That's my advice.
This book has a good ending. We are writing toward it.