Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Bernal
Hi Chris, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
After graduating from NYU in 2012, I started working in baseball doing scouting, player development and analytics – similar to the movie Moneyball. It was a dream job and truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Ultimately though, I just wasnt making the money I expected and felt that I had to achieve my goals in life. I made a difficult decision to seek out a new opportunity and this probably led me to my most difficult spot in life I’ve ever been in. I went unemployed for 10 months, applied for over 500 jobs and at the age of 26 lived with my parents thru it all.
Out of options (and time) I ended up taking a job that was far beneath what I felt i was capable of but had some positive attributes. The job fit me, my personality and gave me the flexibility to keep searching for what I wanted. After 3 months in this role, I knew I could crush what I was doing. I ended up working for this company for 4 years and took them from a $2MM company to an $8MM company through hard work, persistence, and a humble approach to learning new skills.
Eventually this position and job ran its course. For various reasons i decided to move on and start my own company. Today we are the industry standard in our field, with 14 employees, invoicing $15MM a year and have had a steady growth trajectory at 25%-$100% YOY. I am immensely proud to lead our team and extremely grateful for the success we’ve had. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like any business we’ve had inherent challenges like any start up but all things considered, we’ve had far more success stories than failures. We’ve been lucky in so many ways but ultimately have the right people in the right places surrounded with proper people development for them. I’ve always worked to have a very straightforward, simple and pragmatic approach in our business. I dont think every business can have this approach but for us and for me it works. I am obsessed with efficiency, resourcefulness, and results. With this approach, most problems and challenges can be solved.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about TurnKey Solutions?
We are a vendor for multi-family housing that offers various services such as painting, cleaning, maintenance, and other types of general contracting projects. Our niche is student housing where we are the largest company in the space working on over 150 properties in over 80 cities across the country and painting, cleaning, and carpet cleaned over 100,000 bedrooms across the US.
We run our company with a very practical approach by being results focused. We have unlimited PTO, profit share compensation, mandatory time off in certain periods of the year and many more perks. We dont utilize these as a recruitment tactic for talent but instead to continue encouraging people to take care of their mental health by having better work/life balance. I am most proud that our people are happy and thankful and that these two things dont have to come at the expense of success.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I work well with go getters. I’m actually a terrible leader in the sense that I will not micro manage people. My approach has always been, if we need to micromanage folks, they probably are not the best fit for who we are and what we do. We want hard workers that are purpose driven and want to be successful. And this success does not necessarily mean money, promotions, or things. These are the types of people we want to collaborate with.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.turnkeysolutionsus.net/
