Episode 248: The $115M Texas Plumbing & HVAC OG Speaks | Alan O'Neill

From plumber to CEO and hailing from Ireland, we welcome back founder and CEO of Abacus, Alan O’Neill! Alan is also a consultant and former Regional CEO of The Wrench Group, headed by previous guest Ken Haines. Now in a consultant role for The Wrench Group, Alan reflects on his journey and talks about where the industry is today and what contractors should be focusing on for the future.

Reflecting and Looking Forward

Alan O’Neill founded Abacus in 2003 and grew the company to about $12 million before partnering with private equity in 2012. As they continued to scale, private equity changed hands and turned into The Wrench Group in 2015. Alan served as regional CEO in Texas for The Wrench Group for a decade, and in 2022, he moved into a consulting role for the organization. Today, Abacus is positioned to finish at around $112M between two locations and three trades.

Now sitting in a less intense seat, Alan can reflect and really sit back and watch what’s happening in the trades. Host Chris Yano and co-host Chad Peterman speak with Alan about his history of hiring leadership from outside the industry, growing businesses, and so much more!

• Background Abacus and The Wrench Group
• The advantages of hiring outside leadership
• Marketing promotions that work in the trades
• Why a focus on maintenance agreements is golden
• Private equity’s run through through trades
• The future of technology and potential home services impact
• Testing out SmartAC
• Training the next generation
• And more!

Want to hear more about our guest’s journey? Check out Alan’s previous episode!

The Future of Home Services

Alan O’Neill has laid a blueprint for many contractors as they grow, scale, and sell their businesses. Now, he enjoys watching the industry continue to evolve and is happy to see the generational wealth created in the trades.

As Alan looks to the future, he’s seeing some major shifts and headwinds to focus on in the home services and improvement industry. For starters, he sees AI as a major disrupter as more and more AI-based technologies infuse with processes in businesses. Alan also wonders how many major private equity players will be in the space in the next five to 10 years and how that competition will look. Lastly, he sees the need for the industry to focus on the next generation of tradespeople, providing proper training in the technical and soft skills needed to succeed.

Until next episode … NO. ZERO. DAYS.