Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tabitha Zapata. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Tabitha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

We’ve been a very active player in this industry the last 6 years. Growing, expanding, moving and all those desirable adverbs that business owners often crave. Since our first exposure on Voyage Magazine we have grown 300% plus. At a minimum, we have tripled in almost all areas. It’s been great but hard as hell too!

When I was a kid I had growing pains. At least that is what the doctor called it. My limbs would randomly be sore. They would say, “Oh your bones are growing and the rest of you hasn’t stretched out enough.” It hurt! I would wake up in the middle of the night very uncomfortable.

I find business growing pains feel nearly the same as physical growing pains. It’s good but it can hurt, and boy is it uncomfortable. Scaling up might be as easy as adding replicable building blocks but it can quickly overwhelm management and the team. We struggled with manpower, physical space, inventory management, asset management, workflow management, cash flow and finally adjusting responsibilities. Whew!

One issue led to another. It was like a domino effect. We found good manpower and awesome team members but the led to needing more space, more equipment, more vehicles, etc. Here are a couple examples from this year…

1. We tripled our team in 2022 so now we needed triple the vehicles and triple the equipment. Adding members, vehicles and equipment require three times more management of fuel, repairs, maintenance, insurance, training, payroll, etc. This is on top of managing jobs and schedules.

2. We moved to a much-needed bigger space. It felt great! Well, we have already grown out of that bigger space. We are still scaling up! Here’s the catch ~ it’s damn difficult to find a commercial building in a specific part of the valley right now.

3. We needed, and still need, some heavy equipment but we’ve been mindful of cashflow. Everything is very expensive from household flour to large industrial equipment! We’ve had to be very picky on what to spend money on, what to save money for and what purchases can be delayed.

4. We quickly learned management needed managing. If you know a good manager let me know because I could use one for myself! I’m being cheeky, but nonetheless the point is it was apparent with all this growth that leadership needed to divest responsibilities. When you pile too much on it starts to look like a sloppy Thanksgiving plate! Some roles had to modify, and responsibilities had to adjust. Rebalance the scales if you will.

The ending of the last decade was an economic high! We’ve come out of this economic boom into the decline of… the unknown. Where the bottom is will be anybody’s guess right now. This is where we will find out if we built a solid foundation or if struck dumb luck. The real test is the storm and the impending changes at our nation’s doorstep. Which businesses will survive? Is there perseverance, wisdom, diligence, right character, hope, foresight, skills, wit, patience, community, and hard work in our foundation? I hope we prepared enough. I pray that our foundation is lasting and that we will come out on top as a company, community, state, and country.

Tabitha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We provide wastewater and plumbing service to both residential and commercial clients in Arizona. Our home base is in NE Scottsdale. We started our business in 2016 and we have been in this industry for 20+ years. We’ve expanded services to include more wastewater and mechanical than the average plumbing shop. We service plumbing, septic systems and low pressure pumps. Between the whole team we have a cumulative experience of 65 years!

We boast that we are Arizona natives – well all but one. All of us have kids which makes us very family oriented. We even take the older kids to jobsites. There’s great joy in working with your hands, building and repairing infrastructure. We are proud of our trade and the more people that learn the much needed skills that deal with infrastructure the better!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

HA! I have completely missed a payroll! Not because of lack of funds but because it just didn’t get done. Talk about mismanagement. I figured it out on payday (which is too late) and I was on vacation in another city several hours away. There’s no way our team is walking away from hard work without due compensation! I drove back (more like hauled ass) back down to the Valley and made sure everyone had a check well before closing time.

Any advice for managing a team?

1. As a leader it’s important to be consistent. Life goes up, down and sideways so staying consistent as a leader lets your team know how reliable you are. When it’s 115 degrees or 70 degrees, stuck in a ditch or in a bathroom, cleaning the yard or typing up invoices in a truck you are still exactly the same…. calm, cool, collect, and reliable.

2. Another important piece of advice is to be a servant to your team. Support your team because no one is better than anybody else and that includes leadership. No one is under anyone else’s boot here!

3. Converse with your team on a regular basis about life and personal subjects. Teams turn into family and families talk.

4. Provide supportive items – tools, drinks, lunches, canopies, COMPLIMENTS, REASSURANCE….. etc. It doesn’t always need to be tangible items. Sometimes a pat on the back is worth it all.

5. Spend time with each other outside of work. We plan breakfasts and lunches with the team regularly. We also plan larger events to include everyones family.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.machocontracting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/machocontracting/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/machocontracting/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabitha-zapata
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/macho-contracting-scottsdale-2