Restoring Homes and Lives After Disaster | Pat Riley, Rainbow Restoration

So what's something about building a successful business that you had to learn the hard way?

I think the biggest thing that I had to learn was

to let go, to be able to hire people that were better at things than I were.

And, you know, when you're a one-man show, you have to do everything and you have to be the guy who does everything better than anybody else.

But if you're going to grow, you got to let go of some of that stuff.

And so to hire people and empower them and let them do their thing, train them well, teach them the philosophies of here's how we want decisions made and let them go.

So turning loose was tough.

I guess I'm a little bit of a control freak.

Yeah.

Well, when you build something and you're passionate about it and your life depended on it, it's hard to release that because you're the one that's going to pay the price on that as the small business owner.

Yeah.

A lot of sweat equity into that.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

So people may recognize your vehicles and your logo, but not fully understand everything that you do.

So you've kind of talked about the services that you provide.

Are there any other things that you do that maybe Joe walking down the street may not know that he could call you for? Yeah.

Well, the biggest thing that you need to understand is that we don't just go fix things.

We're not a construction company per se.

We do construction and we do it very well.

But the biggest thing is we restore people's lives after disaster.

And that disaster could be small.

It could be something big.

But, you know, most people don't expect to have this disaster.

I mean, you're not looking for that to come.

So what's something about building a successful business that you had to learn the hard way?

I think the biggest thing that I had to learn was

to let go, to be able to hire people that were better at things than I were.

And, you know, when you're a one-man show, you have to do everything and you have to be the guy who does everything better than anybody else.

But if you're going to grow, you got to let go of some of that stuff.

And so to hire people and empower them and let them do their thing, train them well, teach them the philosophies of here's how we want decisions made and let them go.

So turning loose was tough.

I guess I'm a little bit of a control freak.

Yeah.

Well, when you build something and you're passionate about it and your life depended on it, it's hard to release that because you're the one that's going to pay the price on that as the small business owner.

Yeah.

A lot of sweat equity into that.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

So people may recognize your vehicles and your logo, but not fully understand everything that you do.

So you've kind of talked about the services that you provide.

Are there any other things that you do that maybe Joe walking down the street may not know that he could call you for? Yeah.

Well, the biggest thing that you need to understand is that we don't just go fix things.

We're not a construction company per se.

We do construction and we do it very well.

But the biggest thing is we restore people's lives after disaster.

And that disaster could be small.

It could be something big.

But, you know, most people don't expect to have this disaster.

I mean, you're not looking for that to come.