Scaling Your Electrical Business: Leadership, Culture, and Client Referrals with Innovolt Electric

Audio Transcript

Mark Lamberth
Hello, and thank you for showing up to another episode of the Contractor Grow Show. This is Mark Lamberth, and today I have David and Ariel from Innovolt Electric in Las Vegas. David and Ariel, thank you guys so much for being here today. They share growth strategies that helped them – scaling your electrical business is simple if you follow the roadmap of other successful companies.

David Shafshak
Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah, fantastic. I’ve taken a look at the you guys business. You guys have got what looks like just a great business in Las Vegas. Work with residential, commercial as well as industrial customers. Got a nice team, got a great website, great reviews. Looks like you guys are doing great work in the community. Maybe you could just tell our listeners a little bit about the history of the business and how you guys have gotten to where you’re at today.

Arielle Shafshak
Okay. Do you want to talk about it because a lot of the path leaves with this guy.

David Shafshak
Yeah, so I started out digging trenches just like any other electrician. Ended up coming up partnering with, they brought me into the office, learn estimating and project management during the pandemic, during the recession, and I learned the office side of it pretty quick, and then I partnered up towards the end of the recession and created a company with a partner. That partnership didn’t work out too well, and so I broke off from that. We did Volt on its own, so I started out digging trenches and we ended up running it ourselves basically. Yeah,

Arielle Shafshak
You were service tech, so service side was really his passion.

David Shafshak
Yeah, I used to do all the service on the field, and then when they brought me into the office, they taught me how to estimate project manage projects, and so I learned that angle of it, and now I don’t really go in the field as much. It’s just managing the projects. So we’ve molded into a lot of competitive bid work type stuff.

Mark Lamberth
Okay. And you talk on your site about having just a lot of experience. I mean, David, you’ve got a lot of experience in the field. I know Ariel, you’ve got I think maybe some closely related experience in the field doing a lot of audio visual work as well. With the company that you own founded, what represents all the experience on your team? I know it’s David, you guys experience, do you also have people in the leadership positions on the team that have been in the field for quite a long time as well?

Checkout this other great podcast with a 2nd generation pool contractor

David Shafshak
Oh, of course. I rely heavily on them too. My field experience is somewhat limited compared to some of the more experienced vets that we have working for us in the field supervision. The foreman that we work with have more experience than I do, and the superintendents who manage them have a lot more experience than I do. So I do rely on that, the expertise level. There’s so much that I know, and then we rely on others to do the rest. There’s certain parts of the business that I understand a little bit better than they do, and so that’s where I focus my efforts on. But when it comes to field experience, I know where that’s maybe of my weak spot when it comes to the AV side, the low voltage side, it’s very heavily relied on the management that we have out there that are certified and trained in this type of work where I’m not, to answer your question, I rely heavily on the people that have the experience. We are a large group, so we bounce ideas off each other and rely on each other.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah,

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. Okay.

Arielle Shafshak
So when we decided to open up the low voltage first, it started as a department within Volt, and then we realized that a lot of the competitors, the electrical competitors didn’t want to hire someone that would have electric shirts on. So we created the separate division, separate company and named it completely different, my maiden name. And then we grew it from there. And then now we’ve got a lot of the electricals who will actually use us as a sub. And the reason that we created the division is really we saw a need for it and hired a really, now we have an exceptional manager there, and same thing, we rely heavily on him and his knowledge, and I would say we’ve just, we’ve learned as we’ve grown, at least a little AV side.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. I mean, it’s sort of a second division, but it’s really under the same roof of Volt Electric. Is Ventura the greatest systems?

Arielle Shafshak
It’s own entity, it’s own. They just happen to share an office because it’s fun, it’s collaboration. Both teams get along extremely well. And then there’s a lot of projects that we’re working together on, so it works. We’ve talked about moving out and getting our own building, but I don’t know,

David Shafshak
Show hand in hand in projects, but not necessarily contracted together. So Ventura started off as invol, low voltage services or system integration, and just as a need of innovolt itself, they need low voltage services. So we created a small division and in time we started marketing beyond in a vault.

Mark Lamberth
I see. Interesting. And for the AV work, I mean, do you have to get involved early in the process, the design process? Because I mean that’s something that starts way upstream of everything getting built out, right? I mean, how the AV is going to get properly designed in a project. Is that correct? I mean, do you need to get involved really early in?

David Shafshak
Yes, we do. There’s multiple parts to AV and teledata and security and all that fun stuff. There’s the design stage in the front. There’s a lot of parts and smarts, just infrastructure install as well. Ventura currently is focusing a lot on infrastructure install because it comes as a part of the need of Volt and other electrical contractors, but as they do more, they’re getting their feet a little bit more into the design aspects. In fact, today we’re meeting with the property to go over their AV in the meeting rooms to help them design and install. So it’s best to get in the beginning so you can get both of the parts and smarts and the infrastructure, but even if you’re designing and implementing AV systems, sometimes you’re not installing the infrastructure itself and that’s where to play and install for those people.

Mark Lamberth
Okay, great. What’s the side, do you guys team right now probably fluctuates up and down a little bit, but is it,

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
How many folks do you guys have on the team?

Arielle Shafshak
Well, for Ventura, we’re looking at about 16 employees. And then for Volt it’s about 54. Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Wow. Okay.

Arielle Shafshak
So combined. Yeah, it’s a nice number. Honestly, we’ve been to the size where we had something employees. For us personally, that gets to be a little too much, too many.

Mark Lamberth
Amazing. So your website is great. We help, we look at a lot of websites for contractors and builders, and I love to see that everything’s just sort of in the right place, that the design of it is all laid out. What percentage of your business do you think comes from referrals or existing relationships versus any type of marketing efforts and folks that have not heard of you guys before that may come in the door as complete strangers?

Arielle Shafshak
A lot. A lot. We actually, ironically do not spend much on marketing. We’ve spent a little bit here and there. I would say probably goal for 2025 would be to uptick the marketing, but it’s been relationship based referral. Scaling your electrical business at this point seems like it will take more then referrals right? Yea, that’s right. We will need to find some other strategies for the New Year.

David Shafshak
90% of our work is competitive bid projects. Those come from GCs and clients that return the same clients, not the type of people that would go check out my website necessarily for a need, but more look at my license and the boards website. So doing that, the website’s not necessarily needed for the return clients, but service department who is a group of eight or so individuals who run about 10% of our revenue and L, and that’s an area where we want to grow in, does rely on the website, does purchase rely on word of mouth? Of course, that’s where we’re getting some of our work now. But we want to grow their revenue numbers and to do so, we’re going to be doing so with the help of website, try and draw people towards it,

Arielle Shafshak
More reviews. I think that’s super important. I mean, just anytime I’m looking for a sub to come to my house, I’m reading the reviews, checking out the website.

Mark Lamberth
And speaking of reviews, I noticed you guys have got really perfect reviews. I mean, you guys have got a lot of reviews and a lot of really happy customers. Curious about your sort of QA process. I mean, you guys are clearly doing amazing job. You’ve got a substantial company there in Las Vegas. I think you have probably a lot of the market share. I mean, what do you guys do to ensure that your team that’s going out and working in the name of the company is doing such high quality work that folks refer you guys to readily and give you guys such good reviews?

Arielle Shafshak
I’d say it’s culture.

David Shafshak
Yeah, it’s culture. It’s the management that we have with them. We have a stellar manager of the service department that works pretty tightly with his crew, so I don’t have to do the hand to hand every day, but he does. He deals with them every day, talks to them every day. There’s training that happens almost every day. There’s incentives for getting good reviews that we do. There’ll be gift card, gift card if they get a good review. Ultimately just keeping at it, you know what I mean? Being attentive, compliance is the biggest

Arielle Shafshak
Part. And if we do receive feedback that’s not as positive, which honestly fortunately it hasn’t happened quite often, but when we do, he and I get involved. I trust. Yeah, we make sure. So I would say we’re pretty dialed in just conversations.

David Shafshak
Client satisfaction is really important

Arielle Shafshak
To us.

David Shafshak
The word of mouth is really important to us, so we do prioritize it. We’re out not out there marketing, we know that. So our reputation on our reviews are really important.

Mark Lamberth
Okay.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah, we want to make sure that every customer needs happy.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah. Yeah, I can get that. I see that. What percentage of the business that you guys do is residential? I know that you guys do kind of all three different levels. I mean, is it mostly commercial and industrial or do you guys do a fair amount of residential as well?

David Shafshak
Well, I’d say our residential is down to maybe 10%. It was much more close to like 25, 30 back during the pandemic because we were doing some custom homes, done some custom homework. But now that the economy and market’s back to normal, for the most part, we’re back to what we do better, which is commercial. We do still do residential more on the service side. We don’t do new home construction so much. Unless somebody came out and asked us as a favor, we probably wouldn’t engage with new home construction. But our service department still does it. As mentioned, they do 10% of our revenue, and I’d say about half of that is residential.

Mark Lamberth
Okay.

Want to checkout Rokket Science? See how other contractors have benefited from the marketing help we’ve given them.

Arielle Shafshak
And I say, so we are going to add to that though. I’ll say that’s our goal for 2025 is to add more vans, open up leads and start focusing more on the residential and the consumer service. Service. Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Okay. Okay, great. And then, I mean, guys having a team of 70 people or so, a lot of the folks that we talk to in the industry and the trades, I mean they really struggle with kind of building their team. If a team member leaves replacing that team, but sort of recruiting, hiring, and then retaining their team, long-term. Talked about this a little bit with the way that you incentivize. You have a good manager. I mean, do you have any other secrets of how to sort recruit and retain top level team like you guys do?

David Shafshak
To be honest, no. It’s a task. It’s basically the

Arielle Shafshak
Hardest part.

David Shafshak
One of the hardest parts of what we do, especially considering we are only six years old or so. We brought in a crew from my previous partnership and have been refining it ever since. We still have guys leaving, good guys leaving. We still have good guys coming and it’s still an ebb and flow type thing. But when we see the guys that we want to be part of our core team, we try to, it’s a matter of pay and communication. Even just communicating with them and keeping them at a management level, keeping them involved on big decisions, keeps them interested. Sometimes a little bit more beyond money too, but obviously cash is a king.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah, I mean, little things like we had a foreman finish up a job. He did a great job, so we sent him a gift card so he could take his family out to dinner and just wrote him an email saying, thank you so much. So it’s showing appreciation. It’s them feeling supported. I could say we’ve noticed a tremendous difference when we did have someone in our super position and the guys just didn’t feel supported and we had a lot of good for men leaving us and say, the big change we made is switching out. We found an amazing superintendent and he really connects with them on a personal and professional level, and he really supports them. And because of that, he’s been able to really build that team. So it’s hard. It’s difficult in this industry because most of our employees don’t come into the office.

Arielle Shafshak
We’ve got about what, 12 inside the office. So here we’re really able to build that family. And I can tell you, every employee says you guys have, it’s a family here. We’ve got a family. That environment, we let people bring their dogs. It is fun. We’re very laid back. They can wear sweats if they want to. I’d say on the field, that’s where the challenge is because you have to figure out how to make them feel connected to this company when they’re not coming into the office. So that’s really having an exceptional guy on the field who’s connecting with all of ’em. And then we have

David Shafshak
Focus on your core.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah, focus on the core. At

David Shafshak
The end of the day of 60 guys, by the end of the year, 12 of ’em have changed out. We can’t lose sleep without something like that. That’s something that’s part of the business, that’s part of our industry, but there’s a core team and the core team them involved, keeping them in communication. What’s going to make you succeed in Strive? So we’ve been doing that core team ever since we started and we’re not done yet. So just recently we had some supervision changes and we’re bringing more foreman into a salary position so that the be part of our team, they can feel part of our team. These are the core members that we want to keep with us for a long time.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. Okay. What would the size of that, so-called Core be, I mean we’re talking about five guys, 15 guys,

David Shafshak
About 15 guys or so would be the core of about 60.

Mark Lamberth
Okay.

Arielle Shafshak
And they have individuals that they trust journeymen that either come along with them or they start referring and telling them to come over. So they in essence, build their little team.

Mark Lamberth
Okay, interesting. So almost sort of identifying that they say 25% of your team, whatever that team size is, but really focusing on keeping those people really long-term and really taking care of whatever it is that they need so that you keep that core really stable. And then some folks are going to come and go inevitably, and you can’t at least lose sleep over that happening.

Arielle Shafshak
It’s the nature of the business. Someone’s going to give them advice more, they’ll go, the job just doesn’t pay for it. Yeah. Or whatever reason. But definitely it’s culture. It’s just finding the right people that fit in with it.

Mark Lamberth
Okay, great. And then guys, I just doing some research and things looking around, I always like to learn a little bit more about just folks, what they’re personally up to and doing. Are you guys really focused on the Jewish community there in town? I noticed that you got some different experience with that. And how are you guys involved in the Jewish community?

David Shafshak
Ariel comes from a background of working with the Jewish Federation.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah. When I first moved here, my family was very involved and so because of my development and marketing background, I got a job with Federation. That’s actually how we kind of met. But yeah, we’re still involved. For me, it’s really important. There’s one agency that not only supports Jews, but also here in Las Vegas, just anyone that needs help, just assistance. It’s called Jewish Family Agency. And so we do donate and continue to help Las Vegas in general that way. But I think as far as the Jewish community, we’re Jewish and so we go to the events. It works for our kids. This

David Shafshak
Town is pretty small.

Arielle Shafshak
Yeah, it’s small. There are great networking opportunities

David Shafshak
And we work word of mouth a lot, so being part of certain networking, certain social groups, certain communities benefits us in the business, us being both Jewish, obviously we’re going to generate and gravitate towards the Jewish based stuff.

Mark Lamberth
Sure. Yeah. I love it. And I mean, it’s just always cool to see. And it’s interesting that that kind does help with business as well. I mean, the folks that I talked to that have got the most really stable, successful businesses, they’re always very involved in their community, whether it be a Chamber of Commerce somehow, or their spiritual, religious community, whatever it is that they’re into. It seems like that really has got kind of a synergistic effect with business as well is getting out there in the

Arielle Shafshak
Community. I agree.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah,

Arielle Shafshak
I would agree with that. I see it a lot also. Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. Okay. Well guys, super helpful to learn more about Volt. You guys have got a great company. I don’t know how many companies of your size are in Las Vegas electrical companies, but I mean it’s a substantial company. You guys got a lot of trucks running and a lot of folks there on the team. It sounds like you’ve got a nice footprint of things covered between residential, commercial, and industrial and really working on the culture and building your team. If folks want to learn more about, you guys want to follow your stuff or get in touch with you personally, what’s the best way to do that?

Arielle Shafshak
I mean, we are on Instagram. Well, Ventura is more so than Volt. But yeah, given us a call that

David Shafshak
Facebook,

Arielle Shafshak
That Facebook. But definitely you can reach us through our website and we’re always open to help people If anyone needs advice, even admin support, just tips or what have you. We’re always open to conversations like this man never doesn’t, he is always picking his phone up or texting and email, but always willing to help. So fantastic electrical services we’re around.

Mark Lamberth
Okay, perfect. And the site is innovolt electric.com, so I-N-N-O-V-O-L-T electric.com?

Arielle Shafshak
Correct. In

Mark Lamberth
Las Vegas,

Arielle Shafshak
If they need AAV or just controls control forward, Crestron, anything in their home, that’s Ventura Integrated Systems.

Mark Lamberth
Okay. Ventura Integrated Systems in Las Vegas as well. Okay,

Arielle Shafshak
Perfect. Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Great. Well this has been fun, you guys. Thank you so much for jumping on the show and teach us some cool stuff about your business.

Arielle Shafshak
Thank you. Hopefully we helped somebody.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah, fantastic. Okay, well we’ll be in touch and talk to you soon.

Arielle Shafshak
Alright, thanks so much.

Mark Lamberth
Bye. Alright, bye-Bye.