This week I sat down with Brent Garrett, and the conversation went further than either of us expected, from his childhood on a job site to a Friday afternoon that nearly took his business down.
Brent Garrett grew up on the end of a shovel, working for his father’s plumbing business at 12 years old. His dad had come back from Korea, built a life in the trades, and made one thing clear to his son: find another path.
“You get into the trades one of three ways. You either are born into it, you marry into it, or you had a buddy who needed a strong back and a weak mind, and you never got out of it. I started on the end of a shovel at 12.”
So Brent studied accounting and marketing and figured he was headed somewhere far from a wrench and a work truck. Then his father gave him an assignment.
“If you’re gonna do this, do me a favor, make me this promise, that you’ll work for two years at one of these three companies, and if you can’t survive in those two years, never start a business.”
Straight commission, no safety net. Brent took the job, loved it more than he expected, and walked away with lessons about selling that still run through everything he does today.
He built a plumbing and air conditioning company out of a beat up van and a fifty page business plan, sold it, and went through a rollup that grew into a half billion dollar operation, picking up the finance and acquisition side of the industry along the way. Somewhere in there he also picked up a piece of advice from a golf partner about where a growing business should put its money.
“You know what the two most important things in business are? OPB and OPM. Other people’s brains and other people’s money. If you have a good business concept, you can find the money that will invest.”
Then he started over and built a second business, convinced he had it all figured out.
He hadn’t.
In September of 2006, Brent came home on a Friday afternoon to catch up on the books, and the power went out in his office.
“I go over to the neighbor, all their lights are on. My accountant didn’t pay the bill, and I looked at that and we were a million dollars in debt.”
We get into what actually happened that weekend, and the two things he says he will never again let slip in a business no matter how good things look on paper.
“You can delegate, but you have to own your financial health of your company. That was the first mistake. The second one was I allowed a group of people to set the culture in my company that I didn’t even believe in.”
He also shares what he told his wife the next day, and how they’ve navigated running a business together for over 20 years.
Brent has a theory about why some builders and contractors get stuck at the same revenue ceiling for years while a smaller group keeps growing past it.
“I was making less at 1,500,000 than I was at 800,000. It doesn’t matter what business it is, when that owner’s hitting a ceiling of complexity and earnings start to drop, there are a couple things that are really easy to identify if you’re in that messy middle or not.”
He walks through the difference between running a job you built for yourself and running a business that can function, and eventually sell, without you standing in the middle of it. There’s a good stretch on culture, on the four rules his company still runs on today, and on how financial blind spots creep in even when you have an accounting background yourself.
There’s also a fun detour into raising kids who understand money. Brent made his own children work for their first cars, research depreciation and insurance costs on their own, and land on what they could actually afford.
“They came back and said, Dad, did you know buying a car is a rip-off? Do you know how much that thing depreciates after the second, third year? I said, no, tell me all about it. He goes, yeah, and the insurance goes down too.”
Small story, but it says a lot about how he runs everything else.
Toward the end, Brent talks about faith, natural law, and what he considers the biggest mistake he sees successful owners make once they’re ready to sell or step back from a business.
“If you’re getting close to thinking about retiring or you are thinking about selling your business, make sure that you know what you want to do in the future because you might be selling something that keeps you young and that you love to do.”
He lays out the five things he tells owners to fix before they ever sit down with a buyer, and why so many owners walk away from the table with less than their business was actually worth.
Brent is the author of “30 Days to a Better Business” and now spends his time working with owners who want to grow without losing sight of what matters to them. He’s also candid about the two men he’s split himself into on the page, and which one he actually was back when he needed the advice most.
If any part of his story sounds familiar, whether it’s the debt, the ceiling, or just the feeling of running a job instead of a business, this is a conversation worth sitting with.
Brent Garrett is an owner of a thriving skilled trades business who has experienced the real highs and lows of building and running companies in the trades industry. He lives in Plano, Texas.
He is a second-generation plumber who chose to enter the trade against his father’s advice. That decision led him into a career of building, scaling, and leading service-based businesses from the ground up.
Brent is the founder of The Skilled Trades Coach, Inc. and owner of Sirius Plumbing & Air Conditioning, Inc., a recognized leader in the industry. He also operates multiple businesses across real estate, leasing, coaching, and consulting.
After building and selling a successful company, Brent faced a significant business setback in his next venture, including overwhelming debt, unpaid bills, and the risk of missing payroll. That experience reshaped his approach to leadership, systems, sales, and accountability.
His book, 30 Days to a Better Business, reflects the same systems, values, and leadership principles he uses daily to operate and grow his companies.
Today, Brent helps skilled trade business owners build profitable companies without sacrificing their values, families, or health. He works with entrepreneurs at all stages of the business cycle, helping them improve leadership, strengthen operations, and build more stable and profitable companies.
Connect with Brent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-garrett-b455aa11
30 Days to a Better Business book: https://book.brentgarrett.com/
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