Tommy Mello
Appearances
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But when I watched the precision and the process, and he's like, you've got to have an interior designer after you pick the architect but before you pick the builder. And the order of operations, I mean, I'm blown away. And I'm like, man, a lot of me feels stupid for not finding this guy sooner. We're already halfway done with my – my process here in Idaho. And the guy's doing great.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
It's my buddy Mitch. But ultimately, I still did not have a price on the final project, which is an issue. And he promised me $800 a square foot. We think we're going to be at $1,000 now. So there's got to be some type of You told me this, so we're redoing the contract. It's complicated, but that's a good example. It's a hard process, but once you've done thousands of them, it becomes easy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And garage doors, we service 20,000 homes a month because we built these processes. We've got manuals, standard operating procedures, checklists. A checklist on everything with a CRM that captures the proof with a data integrity team to make sure everything was right. Some clients say, I don't think you replaced my mom's springs. I think it's the old springs.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
We got pictures of the before and after. We've had that happen a dozen times. We don't think you did the work. We were out at grandma's house. Oh, no, here it is, time stamped and everything. So, like, there's a process for everything, including how do you do PTO? Are you allowed to have tattoos on your face? What happens... if there's an issue with your payroll. So you had all the answers before.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Now someone else has the answers. When you're not there, they could run the playbook.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Yeah. I love that. What other pivotal things did you learn just that third year in business when you were in the hospital for two years or two months, two weeks?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But once you really master it, it's something a lot of people could get into. And you had a lot of successful people at the event. But you're a busy man. You've got your own CRM. You've got Augusta Lawn Care. You've got Anytime Fitness, and you're the host of your own podcast called the Home Service Millionaire Podcast. Very similar to mine. Yeah. But mine's a home service expert.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Well, there's a lot of people that think it's how Jim Collins built to last where – Certain CEOs, founders, owners, whatever you want to call them, they want the business to crumble without them there. They want to show that they're the most important person. I think most business owners want people to be like, without me, you guys can't function. And I think that's a weakness.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Why do you think a lot of people are like that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
How do you maintain that the systems are being followed?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Technology was the next thing, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Well, it's fragmented, and the fact is during COVID we were deemed essential when hotels, nail salons, movie theaters, everything was closing down. And they looked at us. And they said, maybe these guys have a business. And Service Titan just went public last week. I mean, literally looking at this, we're looking at like, wait a minute. They show up. They have key performance indicators.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
They have outcomes and key results. They have training. And if you look at my Service Titan. It goes like this every year. It's never gone down. It's never had a bad year, never had a bad month. I mean, 31 days is better than 28, I figured out. And I look at working days versus weekends, even though we work seven days a week. Yeah, you're right. Technology is going to be a changer.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I was talking to my C-suite today, and I go, I'm kind of worried about AI. Not in a bad, dark way. But I'm like, I think it's going to be like whoever wins. And there's a strong, strong possibility A1 will continue to be the largest because people come to me because of what we've done online and our Facebook groups and the way we've spoken at events. They come to me when they've got something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And I'm the first one to research and implement. And I do think there's not going to be a whole lot of winners. There's going to be a couple winners and a whole hell of a lot of losers. And you better join the winners quickly. That way you can participate.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Or just the way war is fought. Bow and arrow and then cannons.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Well, yeah, that's what's so nice is like when you win at the capital game and you've got access, it's so easy. Like right now our database is probably one of the largest in home service. Not to mention like I'm already looking at electric vehicles. There's so many opportunities, but I'm jumping on all of them right away with A.I.,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Man, there's so much, the call centers and now the way we dispatch and like the marketing, like the Power BI thing we built, it cost millions of dollars, but we've got more data to make decisions. Now we're applying the same things towards recruiting. And it's like we're playing a different game. More people are like worrying like how they're going to buy their parts better.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I'm like, how are we going to do regression testing of all the data? Right. That's why I'm like, listen, I don't really worry about private equity because private equity sucks at blue-collar industries because they don't know how to treat people. And I think they need us more than we need them because there's a lot of PE out there.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
There's a lot of money, but there's not a whole lot of people that know how to treat people that didn't have a mom. Some of my coworkers, some of them didn't have the greatest upbringing. And I don't think white-collar people are going to get into home service anytime soon to go do the work.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And that's why, you know, a lot of my guys make six figures. And I think that's okay because no one else wants the jobs. Before they were a dime a dozen. Now very few people are getting into the industry. So now you've got to pay them more because there's not a lot of them out there. I mean, don't get me wrong. I was a landscaper. I know it's hard to pay some landscapers six figures.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But why put a cap on what they can make if they can outproduce anybody? You know, the pay-per-performance side of it is don't limit it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Hey, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. Quick update. Last week, we put out a surprise bonus for Freedom 2025, the $10 million exit case study. Some of you grabbed it, and now you have the full breakdown of how a home service business can be sold for millions and millions of dollars in cash. Just think about how that can change your family's future.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
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The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
My marketing playbook, the exact strategies that I use to scale my $240 million company and keep my phones ringing off the hook. My e-book plus audio book of Elevate. My book on becoming the greatest leader, hiring A players, and building a business that runs without you. And here's the big one, surprise, time-sensitive bonuses that we'll be rolling out leading up to the event.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
When you sign up now, you lock in every single bonus we release from here on out. By the time you show up to Freedom 2025, you'll already have the tools to keep your phones ringing and dominate your market. Go to freedomevent.com and grab your tickets now. That's freedomevent.com. Now let's get back to today's episode. What did you find out when you started paid for performance?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
What were your takeaways?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
To get started and be as passionate as you were, when did you get into the business? So I was 11 years old when I first started pushing the lawnmower around. 11 when you started pushing it, and then you started Augusta in 2014. Is that right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Well, there's another problem, I will say this, with data. Like when you're doing pay for performance, if you screw up the data at all, then they don't trust you, and they're gonna quit because they're gonna think you're disingenuous. I think people have a hard time tracking.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I think it has a lot to do with incompetence. Like I don't think people have the brain. They don't even know how to use an Excel sheet. I mean no offense. They just weren't schooled to do this stuff. Like literally like if I look at a pivot table, I'm not the guy to go create this complex pivot table. I'm not going to go redevelop and code something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
i would but look at the end of the day i can't say that about everybody i mean i'm the biggest fan of paper performance but i made a lot of mistakes here's the deal yeah I've made really, really big mistakes. So here's what I've learned. When you do pay for performance, start out with one guy, the most important person that will get the rest of the people to follow.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And say, this is not permanent. We're going to test this stuff. I went over the last three months of your work, and I got an idea we're going to try out, and I'm going to pay whichever wants more each week.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And then once he's making more money, but you know you're making more money, and you knew this, it's got tried and true. We tried it for 90 days. Everything's working out great. You have him deliver it to the team. And they're going to figure out a way to break it, and that's okay. I used to call two guys in my company every time I wanted to break the way we pay.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And they'd figure out a way to break it. Like, I'd pay them to figure out how to break it. And now I watch pay-per-performance, and they're like, well, what if a guy makes more than you? I'm like, there's a lot of people that make more than my salary. Like, they make more than me. And in sales, you're allowed to. But I get the enterprise value of the company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And by the way, I don't care what – I've never logged into payroll to see how much I make. In fact, I've never looked at my W-2 or 9 or whatever. I don't know how to look at how much I make. I just trust that it's coming through payroll. I don't make any draws anymore either. I literally am building the enterprise value of this company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
That's what I think a lot of business owners screw up is they live off the business. They take these draws. They join these clubs. They got the cars. They got their wife and their kids on payroll. And then they go to sell and they're like, why isn't my business worth anything? Well, you should have built the sell, like John Rorlo says. So what would you say about that? Instead of...
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Okay. And so you've been in the franchise industry about five or six years?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
divesting out of the business and picking up that nice house and having the nice vacation house and having two Mercedes and having a Harley and going to Sturges and everything else. What if you just said, I'm going to build this business as fast as possible for five years, sell 70% of it, roll the 30, work there for another three or four years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I'm going to walk away with millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. And then I learned so much during the process I could go start buying with these businesses because now I've got money to work with. Everybody that I know says, oh, no, I'm going to do this for at least 10 more years. I'm like, okay, so you're going to miss your kids growing up. Cool.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
There's a lot of people that want to do franchises. Everybody and their brother's like, I think I should franchise. I'm like, why? Yeah. Like you better be the best of the best in like five markets, take market share. What would you tell somebody knowing what you know now?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
No, and the deal is with them is they feel bad about it. But if you were to add up, this is a simple thing that someone taught me, the guy from Australia. He called it the break-even analysis, and he sent me this stuff. This was 2017, and it had pagers and yellow pages. This is from the 90s. And he said, add up every bill you have.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And when you add it all up, back then, he used to have to charge $400 an hour. For what service? This is for HVAC, plumbing, electrical. Got it. Okay. Because literally, you got to think, for us to show up to a job. Sales. Just to ring the doorbell. Yeah. Tom Howard did a great job of this. I've done a pretty good job of this. It cost about $270 to ring the doorbell. Yep.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Because you've got overhead. Yeah. You've got air conditioning. You've got service titan. You've got your trucks. You've got your fuel. You've got – we run about 15 softwares here. Insurance. We run intact. We've got insurance. We've got workers' comp. We've got recruiters. We've got trainers. We've got dispatchers. We've got warehouse guys. We've got – like the overhead, there's a lot of money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Yeah. And people think – here's something that's funny. If you said an HVAC unit costs $2,500 and you guys sell it for five and you said I make $2,500 profit –
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
If you're working out of your house, your wife's working for free, and that you didn't have a truck, like someone gave you the truck and you had a free gas card, and you had no insurance, you didn't have to pay any EIN update, any licenses, it still wouldn't be that. I don't think people understand $45 an hour if you're paying $20. Yeah, that's what it was. You're really burning.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
If you look at your complete, there's costs that you don't even realize.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
How much do your blades cost to sharpen? How much do your equipment breaks down, your gas, your oil, your truck use?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I worked at a couple of my buddies. I helped them start a Christmas late business. After the first year, I said, guys, I'm looking at this. We've got to double prices. They're like, you're kidding. I go, no, they're like, we can't do that. Did I tell you this story? No. We doubled the prices. Guess how many people canceled? Less than 10%. It was 40%. Oh, really? Hey, you doubled prices.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
120% collected. So if you were collecting a million dollars, now you're collecting 1.2 million. Yeah. And you were only doing a little more than half the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, guys, this is amazing. Yeah. I say, you got rid of the worst 40%. Yeah, yeah. And most of the people I tell to raise their price, I don't tell them to double it. I say, just add 20%. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Doubling is pretty sharp. If you're paying $1,500 for lights, now you're paying $3,000. Right. Clients are like, dude, but 60% said you guys did a great job. It's Christmas. Yeah, we'll do that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I thought you guys were giving a smoking deal anyway.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And that's the deal. So what do you do with somebody? How do you fix their... You said they've been doing this 40 years. Yeah. They're charging $40, $45 an hour. They're... How do you... That's a mindset. They're broken.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And... I had a buddy I told this to. He's like, I've already tripled my prices. I like to keep going because guess what? You're booked out three months. Yeah, exactly. There's no limit. Yeah. Like, and guess what he got to? 49% net.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But his service was that good.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Well, the deal is I tell people if you're into growth, don't ever fall below 10% profit. Don't ever fall. If you fall below 10% – and by the way, I've been at 10%. I've been at 20%. I've been at 30%. I think there's a happy medium when you're trying to take market share. It's kind of like I tell the best story is when you're trying to gain muscle, it's very hard to get cut.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Arnold will tell you, listen, during the off season, I used to gain a lot of weight. And right before three months out, I'd cut. And I think cutting means becoming extremely profitable. So planning on selling means I'm cutting 18 months in advance, going into that 12-month spurt because that's what I get valued on is a multiple of EBITDA.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Yeah, you've got to grow EBITDA and you've got to grow growth.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I love that. Software is how sticky is it? What's their change cost? Service site is really hard to change. Yeah. I mean, we've been using that since the last seven, eight years. It's going to be very hard to change.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But I told them straight up, because I talked to their investment committee, I said, if you guys doubled my prices, I'd seriously start looking at another opportunity, because what's stopping you from doing it again? Right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I mean, look, they got 12,000 companies on them. Yeah. I'm going to see what the market does. I did pretty well with the stock already, but— Now that I think about it, it's going to continue to go up. It's going to have a little bubble. It's going to fall. I don't know. Don't ask me about stock. Well, listen, let's go through a couple more here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
What has been the largest challenge you've faced as being a young entrepreneur in business?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I think you should break away. I told – so I just did my orientation the last three and a half hours. I told the whole group. I said, you know what people tell me is that they feel like I'm in a time machine because I'm able to pivot to different circles and I stay humble. I never look at an entrepreneur that's ahead of me and say, I'm going to beat you. Just wait. Just wait until I get started.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I'm like, look, teach me. Yes, I've had some successes in my life. I'm very fortunate. I've got great parents. I love my family. I just respect you so much. I want to learn more. I've read all your books. I'll buy you lunch. I'll buy you dinner. I'll always pay it forward. Any stage I talk on, I'm going to tell them what you taught me. And I take notes, meticulous notes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I have a lot of consultants. Yeah. And I ask them questions. I never speak up. I never tell them what to do. I hired them to teach me something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
So I do go into student mode all the time. I mean, when I'm around my parents, I still like to listen to them and learn from them. But do you got any few books that you'd recommend that people are starting to try to kill at a business other than the E-Myth and some of these books on the wall?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
I like that book a lot.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
That's great. Made in America. And listen, if someone wants to get a hold of you, Mike, what's the best way to reach out to you?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
YouTube's your favorite way.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And if somebody wants to call you and get, like, coached or just reach out to you or ask a question.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Okay. Yeah, you're a busy man. And finally, we talked about a lot of things, Mike. Is there something we missed? I just want you to take the time to close us out with whatever we might have missed or not talked about.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And by the way, you'll see somebody else in hopefully another year. And you keep it up, man. You're doing great. Congratulations on everything. Thank you very much. Appreciate you, brother. Yes, sir. Absolutely. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Leave a review and like this channel. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets to help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
100%. You're no longer in the landscaping business. You're in the turnkey business. And by the way, what I've noticed, and I've spoken to probably 20 different keynotes for franchises, and when I talk to the franchisor, they're like, those four companies, they're our bread and butter. The other 60 or whatever it is, they're barely getting by. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Because they're not bought in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. It would be very hard to get into my franchise. I would not sell you a franchise. You know what McDonald's does? They make sure you're a millionaire.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
You've got to go to their McDonald's school for a long time. Like, you can't just say, hey, I'm worth a billion. I want to buy a bunch of stores. They're like, no. You've got to learn everything from A to Z. What would you say about how – How many franchises do you have?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
How many of those would you consider just murdering it? Like just out of the park? They're emulating what you build.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But marketing requires that. Are they outbounding? What do you do as far as marketing to get them to sell? Because you can't have a sale without marketing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
See, you know what is hard for me is you just said, we're going to handle the payroll. We're going to do the call center. Now we're going to handle the marketing. It's like, we're going to do the purchasing. You're going to buy my stuff. You're going to buy my best soil, my best fertilizer. You're going to buy it from our vendors. At what point are you like, man, if I did this on my own,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Number one, you got all these CC&Rs, like there's covenants and restrictions, and you got all these things where there's like someone does something wrong, runs over a dog or a cat, and like you're in the news. Your whole franchise gets screwed. Your franchise org gets busted. Is that really like going back?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And I know what you mean by changing the client's perspective of what to expect from a really good landscaper. But I think what you're going to realize is, wait a minute. Now I'm doing their hiring. Yep. Now I'm training them on a corporate level from the franchisor. We're flying them out to the franchisor.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And I think every year that goes by, you're going to be saying, well, now we're doing all the purchasing of the vehicles. And now we're actually offering financing through the SBA and handling that for them. And now we're actually doing... After all this is said and done, it's still going to be the 80-20 rule, by the way. It's the way it is. Is it worth it?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And I'm not saying if it is or not, and I don't think you know that yet because I think it's going to take you a decade, and I think you're going to be successful no matter what you do. But I think you're always going to wonder in hindsight, man, was the juice worth the squeeze? But either way, you're going to do very, very well.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And yet, what percentage do you take of their revenue?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
So it's not a percentage of revenue?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
So the way I picture franchising – and by the way, this podcast is not all about franchising. I think it's a good starter point. So I think about franchising and I go, okay, if I charge just 6% of revenue, that's fair. It's less than most.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And then what I would charge them is a bunch of shared services. Like, you're going to pay me for my call center, but it's better than yours. You can have your own, but ours is better. Right. You're going to pay me for the CRM. You're going to pay me for this. You're going to pay me for the vendors. You're going to pay me for this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And, you know, what I'd probably do, too, is you're going to use my real estate. I'm going to buy the real estate. You're going to put it like McDonald's does. Yeah. But that's next level. That's expensive to do. Yeah. But, yeah, I thought a lot about this because people are like, would you do a franchise? I'm like, yes, I would, but I was too far down owning A1 to want to do that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
But if I did a franchise, I would go, I need to own payroll. I need to own recruiting. I need to own merchant service. Every aspect. I just tap into the money because I can scale. The people that do franchising well, like I happen to know very well the new CEO of Neighborly. His name is Mike Davis. And we were on the phone the other day, and he was asking me about a few tools we use.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
He used to be the CEO of LPAC. That's how I knew him. He had me always come speak at his events.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Yeah. He just onboarded like two or three months ago.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Dude is sharp as a tack, and he's like – You realize, Tommy, out of all my franchises, we only control less than 1%. He goes, if we get to 2%, we're worth $24 billion. And he was explaining to me all these things, and I'm like, yeah. You know that the home service is well over a trillion-dollar industry. Just HVAC, plumbing, electrical is $200 billion. That's crazy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
When you include home improvement and home service, it's nutty. And it's the golden years for us. So we talked a little bit about franchising. Landscaping is a tough industry. What do you think was the key? And landscaping is really open. If you're talking about just cutting lawns versus, I know guys that charge $90,000 for landscaping. They deck it out. They're arborists.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
All right, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. I got a special one for you guys today. Mike Andes is here. I've known Mike for a long time now. Spoke at your event, I don't know, six years ago now?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
They set up the trees and they do the bushes and the rocks. And sometimes they even interact with the pool and whatnot. It's the curb and pillow of the home. But what was that stepping point that you were like, this is more than just a career. This is actually going to be a massive, massive company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
Has it been that long? I think it's been three or four. Three or four. Time flies. The funny thing is, is Mike's a badass when it comes to landscaping. And I had a landscaping company in Michigan and Arizona. And I love landscaping because... There's a lot of money to be made in landscaping. It's kind of hard if you're just mowing lawns with a 22-inch Honda.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
100%. That's when I met Al Levy, the seven-part contractor. You know, I'm building a house right now. I'm building two houses, one in Idaho, which is Sandpoint on Ponderay Lake, and then one just on the north side of Paradise Valley Mountain. I'm sorry, Camelback Mountain. And my brother-in-law came into town, and he goes, listen, I think we need help. He goes, there's this company I heard about.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
They're called Advocates. The company's called Advocate. And they're lawyers, but they also – I met this guy several months ago, and he's like, there's a process in how you build a house. He goes, you're going to have every single price in advance. There's going to be a contractual agreement. We're going to get five bids for every sub.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
He goes, I'm going to save you millions and millions and millions of dollars. There's going to be – A lot of money they have to pay if they don't start on time. We're not going to get held up. We're going to use people with an ROC that have been around 20 years with a proven track record to make your house more valuable because they're sought after. And I'm watching this process come together.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Building a Business That Thrives Without You with Mike Andes
And I should have known this, but I thought building a house, man, you know, you just one brick at a time. You start, you get the next. And I'm not a subcontractor by any means or a contractor that subs out. I wasn't going to be the guy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You know, I was listening to my buddy Lance Bachman the other day and he said, believe it or not, we make a lot of money on Angie's List and HomeAdvisor and Yelp and all these other lead aggregators.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And that's one thing about home improvement too, is if you answer the phone right away and you get back to customers when the forms come in and you can be out there the same day, you're going to make more money. I mean, but so many people go, oh, those leads are so bad. The reason they're bad, just like they say, ValPak's not good. And oh, I never made money on TV.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You know, I work with a guy named Joe Polish and he says there's the perfect sales letter could fix anything. But the facts are, you gotta be quick. You gotta have speed to lead. You gotta be able to show up right away. You gotta be able to give, you know, not charge 200 bucks to show up and ring the doorbell. And I think this is where a lot of people lose.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I think it's so easy to say, I just need a call from Google when their door is broken. No, I want tune-ups. I don't care if you're going against three other companies on Angie's list. I think we're the best. And I think this is where a lot of people lose.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
If your company desires leads to come in between nine and five Monday through Friday, and they need to be perfect broken leads, you're never going to be able to beat a company like us. Period. Absolutely.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got a buddy of mine that I actually met at the Home Service Freedom event. His name is Boris V, V-A-L-K-O-V. Vakov. Vakov, based out of San Francisco, co-founder and CEO of Lace.ai. He's been doing that since January of 2022. Engineering Leadership AI at Facebook. He did that for a couple of years. Senior Manager R&D at VMware.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Yeah, prescription, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Hey, I hope you're loving today's episode. Quick question. What's your biggest challenge in business right now? Is it lead gen? Is it hiring A players? Is it breaking through your revenue plateau? Whatever it is, I'll promise you this. You're not the only one facing that challenge.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
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The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Go to freedomevent.com and sign up and grab these bonuses now. That's freedomevent.com. Now back to today's episode. You know, I remember when I first got on a service site in 2017, it wasn't, you know, you look at the cost of job or people still call me all the time. They're like, Housecall Pro is a better price. And look, I don't have anything bad to say about other CRMs. I just don't.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
They're different businesses, different things. But when you look at what The software does now. But what I don't like is when people like to say, you know, serve whatever software you choose. I don't care if you're on intact or QuickBooks, what your payroll software is, whoever you're using for financing, it's not going to do the work for you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
But the fact is, there's a lot of lazy companies out there that just expect, hey, I got the software. Now, what am I going to do? Like Al Levy, his book right there. That was one of my first mentors that made the biggest difference. They buy the manuals from LEV. And they say, I bought the manuals. But they didn't coach on them. They didn't do anything. They just said, well, I spent the money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Well, that doesn't do anything. So, you know, as you're talking to me, I'm writing all these things down about what can I do to make sure we're rehashing these better. You know what I like is I'll call you up and I'll say, This is something I really want to understand.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And you're able to compute these things in hours versus months, which other companies like you hear about all these promises from all these companies. What do you think is keeping you guys? Why do you think you're going to win? Because there's a lot of people talking about AI and call centers in the world. I mean, why are you guys set up to win bigger?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Let's go on and on here. Boris is a highly accomplished technology leader with over 20 years of expertise and experience in software engineering management and leadership. He's an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning with a proven track record of developing and deploying large-scale AI solutions.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And I do believe, like, I've always had this, I learned this about a decade ago, is he who could pay more per lead will always win. Because no matter what, even if you rank better in the algorithm, paying per lead, paying Google, paying Facebook, paying, if you could pay more than the next guy, you could get more leads. So when you could do more with the leads, you could pay more. Yes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
So this is what gives us the edge is like, we're understanding capacity planning. Like if we're, we're not paying for pay per click. when we're already booked out in the market. We're adjusting that in real time. Yes. You know how many people I see, they're spending a fortune on leads and they're already booked out? Just to say we can't come out there today or tomorrow?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And then they say, oh, but Boris, you know, this is the first question is like, how much am I going to spend on this software? And really what I would do is do an analysis and I would have them call you up and say, how much am I losing compared to some of my competition? And maybe it's garage doors, maybe it's HVAC, maybe it's plumbing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
But, you know, I don't know, relatively, I guess the pricing question always comes out, but I think, but I don't know. What does that look like if someone wants to know? How do you even do that? Do you just do a consultation?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Boris' diverse experience and expertise position him as a leader in the tech industry, particularly in leveraging AI to solve real-world business challenges. His commitment to open source and rapid innovation underscores his approach to creating impactful technology solutions. So, Boris, I had met you... I don't know, about four or five months ago.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Yeah. You know, there's, there's a few people that I confide in that we talk about everything. I mean, look, I'm not the first one to just, when I found out about you, I wanted to work with you for a while before I wanted to do a podcast. But once I saw what you guys did, the turnaround time, you did a couple of things for us that were really big.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I called a couple of these guys up and I was like, you got to talk to Boris because, you know, they've been very kind to me and we work together. So this is tried and true. I can tell you guys, if you walk in, if you, if you've done a shop tour, Tommy mellow.com forward slash shop, you'll see, I've got service tight and open. I usually got the S and B 500 open.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And, you know, for the first time ever in the last few months, I've had Lace.ai open. I like to keep an eye on it. I like to see the reasons. I like to see how many calls we took versus opportunities. I like to know that these are the facts. One of the things that I love R&V and service type, but that piece was never clear because the CSRs are making the decisions.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
They're just building their own calls.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Well, that's what I want. You know, you talked about innovations. I want to see what's next. You talked about rehash. You talked about clearing out the call center to where only opportunities are coming in. You know, the quality of leads matter as well.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Like if we're attracting affluent clients, you know, if you are not branded correctly in a market and you're just doing lead aggregators, it's always going to be about price until you get a message out there that says we're... A lot of people say we're the best, but what does that mean? We 24-7, you know, we've got a great brand at your neighbor's house. We're going to treat you like family.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You know, we're going to treat you like mom. And that's what I've noticed in all of our newer markets that aren't quite as sophisticated or large without as many trucks. It's always about price. And Lace.ai has showed that. The smaller markets are about price. As you start to get big and you spend the TV, radio billboards and your trucks are around everywhere. There's this trust factor.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And we see it. It's very vivid. And there's so much opportunity here. I do mean this. If anybody's ever listened to my podcast now, it's eight years. I've always talked about call center. It's one of the most important things. Of course, your cost per lead, which makes the phone ring or makes the form fill come in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And then you got to book that, convert it after you knock on the door, then your opportunity job average. Those four KPIs. And can people get better at sales? Yes. They want to find the most money, the fastest it's in the contact center.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And, you know, I've got a couple guys on my team that just, everybody brings us technology. I mean, there's some months we look at 12 different technology pieces. And Lace AI, I was excited about. And I don't dive in until my team does. And everybody on my team was super pumped about it. And I'll tell you what... I've got a list here of some of the things that we've done. We've increased.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
What innovations do you see coming down the line here? I mean, look, we heard about this Chinese deep seek. And, you know, I know that NVIDIA is really the king of when it comes to chips. They say we're in the first phase of AI and there's six phases on the horizon, I think, something along the lines of that. And it's going to start being perpetually faster. Where do you see as far as LACE?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I'm just curious for selfish reasons of what I need to be thinking about coming out here soon.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I'm curious, is there like a prompting service that if I say what are the top three, you know, I'm not into it on a daily basis like my team, but like certain people, you know, if you were able to clean up these two things, you might take them from 70% to 90%. Is there like, yeah, I know with Chet GBT4, it's all about your ability to give prompts.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We've increased our booking rate by 2%, which is about $5.5 million of additional revenue per year. We've identified cancellation reasons to uncover the lost revenue, which we believe is another 5%, which should be another $13 to $15 million. And
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Let me ask you kind of a tough question. I look at all the software we've deployed and we've got cameras in the vehicles. We've got Monday for project management. There's just software after software after software. I think the winners are going to be who chooses the right software the quickest. Obviously, speed of implementation, innovation.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I think it's like, if I had to look at this, I mean, I've been doing this two decades. I got a lot of people on my team, over 800 smart people. And my leadership is smarter than me. What does someone do that looks at all this stuff and says, what does the future look like? I mean, it just seems like, man, if I had to start over again and I only had a few people
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I mean, of course, there's the David and Goliath that I could be more agile and whatnot. But how do I win if I'm smaller against the company that has we got all this data? We've got Power BI. We've got all these different factors that we're computing data and looking at marketing. And we've got CallRail looking at this and using things. You know, we're not using static numbers anymore.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
We're actually able to look all the way down to the keyword.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Pretend like you're the biggest company you could be. I agree because a lot of people, they literally get, they say, we're not big enough for that yet. And I'm like, but how can you afford not to use this? Like it hurts you more than it hurts us. Like I can make different CRMs work if we had to.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Like I talked to Anmo at ServiceTite and he told me what payroll software to get that's going to have the best technology long-term, which is incorporated. Like there's just certain things that you just know, like eventually you're going to grow out of QuickBooks. I mean, it's just inevitable.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
We're one of the biggest things that your software does is make sure that the conversations dialed in for the CSRs and their scorecard, because, you know, with service 10, you got to grade your own call with your software. You kind of solve that problem for us. And we find a lot of people, they're not intentionally lying. Some of them are.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I'm hungry. I'm still super hungry. I look at it and I'm like, I look at our numbers. It was a really, really, really amazing January. And my team's like, are you happy? And I'm like, it was a great month. What are we going to do in February? And how do we get more momentum? And how do we get more momentum? And there's this interdepartment conflict.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Operations is mad at finance and finance is mad at marketing. And I'm like, this is a good thing. I like it because not finger pointing. We're still one team. But there's a lot of accountability that's coming out of this is like, no, what about you? And you needed to make sure we do this and we need to get this. And I'm loving every bit of it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
It's not like we're calling each other's names and we still know we love each other, but I'm enjoying it because we're setting records And the team is winning. And we're going to Mexico. There's people, 49 people that got equity last year, technicians and installers. I get to watch the team winning big. And this is what's killing it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And I'm happy with, you know, the core tech is part of our team, the private equity guys, and they couldn't have gone better. But listen, I'm a big fan. I don't do this lightly. Like I was like, when I met you, I'm like, there's a lot of people that want my attention. We're a big company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
We probably take, I mean, you work with bigger companies revenue, but as far as phone calls, we take a lot because we've got a much smaller ticket average. Oh, wow.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
If we learned how to sell other stuff, we'd make a lot of money. But I'm very proud of where we're at. I'm really proud of our partnership. And you guys have done a lot for us. And I'm glad that you were able to come out here and be on here today. I'm looking forward. I will say this about Boris. He answers his phone calls. His team follows up.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
When you give them a task, they want to exceed your expectations. As far as our ROI, it's been absolutely phenomenal. And all I'd ask is that you guys jump on a call. What's the best way to reach out and get an appointment with Lace?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
This is here to stay, guys. I can tell you this. AI is real. This is happening. I think a lot of people are really looking for this magic pill of just the calls are going to book themselves. It just doesn't exist. It doesn't. So I think this is the thing that you got to coach. You got to give a lot of tender, loving care to your CSRs and know what prescription they need today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I guarantee there's some companies out there where their CSRs are lying and they're saying it's a parts call where it's not. But your software makes it easy for us. We understand so much more about the call center. Dustin's obsessed with it. Manny's obsessed with it. There's a lot of money we're unlocking. And we were good. We were good before we found you. Now we're getting excellent.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And once you work with them and you work with them and you work with them, you're going to be deadly because you can pay more per lead. And I just know what's happening to our company. I'm really, really excited. I'm going to have you close us out, Boris. Anything you want to leave the listeners with?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Thank you. Appreciate it. Let's go.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
So let's talk about it, man. But just tell me a little bit about why you got into call centers and where the future is going to be in call centers.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
to kind of shortcut this whole process of getting sophisticated is technology because technology very often shocks the world and comes with something so much better so much more advanced welcome to the home service expert where each week tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing sales hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business now your host the home service millionaire tommy mello
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Yeah. And you know, you also work with home improvement. So yes, home improvement is going to be a big face too. And by the way, that's my thing this year is studying home improvement because garage doors, I think fall into both. Yeah. I'm still impressed by home improvement companies because they could go to a home show and generate millions of dollars.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
They could do outbound calls and they go knock on doors. You know, we just sit there and say, Hello? Oh, your garage door is broken. We can come out there. It's a lot easier. But that's why we get a bigger multiple for home service is because I'm not going to replace my windows if we're going through the Great Depression. So your garage door is broke. You're going to replace it to get out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You guys are doing it. I mean, look, I can't go into the businesses that you mentioned, but the who's who are getting into this because I look at the call center service type, put out a study that Tom Howard told me about. And they said it was, this is crazy to me that the average home service company books, 45% of the calls.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I cannot believe that because we're hovering right there at the 90 plus. There is so much money. You know, I always tell the story. My mom used to answer phones for us and she was just so friendly and smiling. And it was almost like she was like their mom or, you know, their girlfriend or their wife or like, oh, my gosh, honey. And the crazy thing was, is the clients got so excited to meet me.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
They're like, who is that lady? Like, this is the most best experience. It's not just about booking the call. It's about letting them know that you care. And so the people might be listening and say, I've got a great call center. When you get the right call center with the right empathy and the AI is learning correctly and you could train them correctly.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
See what I like about your software, Boris, is you're not like taking the phone call. What's like, Hello. You know, they got the weird ass voice. And then they try to like know everything about your business. And then they like pause for eight seconds because there's a lot. Don't get me wrong. I think it's going to be there eventually, but it's not a substitute. I have a choice. I'm not calling.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Look, if I got to call the bank, if I got to call Verizon, if I got to call the alarm company, it's different than calling a home service company that I need to come out to my house right now. Me and you have talked about this extensively. I believe your software is going to make some moves that will help build that. But right now, it's too important to lose 1% of the calls.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
It'll make or break me from my competition. And people are like, oh, well, while Tommy's doing that, we're going to have this AI doing it 24-7. And a lot of people say, I'm just going to do it nights and weekends. You know how much money we make nights and weekends? Well, you're turning on the automation stuff. We actually have a real person. You tell me. I don't know where the future is going.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I think, you know, the one thing that I've learned about a tool like this is you still need great managers. You know, we still have Brigham and Barry over at Power Selling Pros. I don't think you still want good coaches. You need to still talk to your people. I think a lot of people are like, if I got service time, I'd make a lot more money. No, you got to set it up right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You got to look at your KPIs. You still got to coach on sales. Like service time is not going to go out there, knock on the door and make the sale for you. It's easier to present options with service time. So there are some cool things that technology will do, but you can't expect to just, hey, I'm going to call ASAP once I get Boris on the phone and this goes live.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
But you will see holes in your company that are massive. And it shows you where the objections are coming and where the cancellations are coming. And you get to know what to train on.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
So the hard part for me is that I know that a lot of my calls are getting wasted. I've got 70 CSRs now, and I'm getting inundated with calls that are like, where's my door? What's happening with this? Where is this? What's this? And if I know those reasons, I could use technology so that when I'm with you, I could have service tightened.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
You know, there's certain things on the invoice that I could put, hey, Mr. Jones, make sure you call this phone number so you're not hitting our main call center. And then I could start to do a round robin where my top people are getting the majority of the calls. And then I could use these other CSRs that are still great at customer service, but not as great at booking, which means more money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
And I don't think people understand. Like, I remember taking the calls a decade ago. If I'm in the movie theater, if I'm at lunch, I don't care if I'm on a ladder. I need to book that phone call. It's everything. If I was to invest in any company, the number one thing, and I mean this, is I'd have to get laced.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Staying Competitive by Adopting AI to Optimize Efficiency
I mean, look, the reason why is the contact center is the majority of where the money's made. And everybody says I'm at 90%, I'm at 89%. But you just gave me so many reasons why. Number one is the dispositions, right? Number two, cancellations. And number three, all these calls that aren't opportunities, what can we do to create opportunities with them?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, well, that's what they say in a 12-step process is – well, first of all, maybe admitting you might be the problem.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Sales grows it really, really fast. And if I had to argue what's more important, it would be hard, but I think marketing, making the phone ring off the hook, but marketing. I've seen companies like Tom Howard with two good guys sell for $80 million. So what do you think? Sales are very, very important. You're based in Colorado, the CEO of Weldon Log Organization, founder.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You know how many clients call us? Like I said, we run 22,000 jobs a month. That's insane. And I used to be on the phones a lot. I mean, this has been a decade. But they used to say, I've had this company out. the last three years, 2021, 2022, 2023, came out in January 2024. I mean, this is obviously years and years, so it was like 2014. They said, can you just come fix it right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You've got a pretty big resume, peak home performance, author of The Upside of Fear and The Power of Consistency, Consistency Selling. You've got a pretty crazy story. Yeah. And I'm excited you're doing this. I'll let you kick us off and just tell us. A little bit about you've knocked doors. You've inspired people. You just got done with a keynote at a financial institution, LPL Financial. Yep.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
We don't really care what it costs. Yeah. We just want to be able to hit the button and it opened. Yeah. And so many people, they're like, how could you charge for that? It was so funny. I was upstairs with 40 other garage door companies. This was like my Frank Blau, George Brazil, early days moment. And I said, you guys are more than welcome to come into my business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I'm going to show you exactly what I do. And I wrote down HVAC. I said, $2,500. They sell it for $15. That's about a 6X. I said, hot water. He did the same thing. I go through like 10 different industries. I said, how much do we pay? And this is five years ago. I said, how much do we pay for a garage door and an opener? Like a good one. Someone says $1,500 combined.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I said, let's just take the 7X. I said, who here is charging $10,500? Out of, you know, 40 companies I'm looking around. And no hands. And I said, okay, who's here's, you know, let's just say $7,500. And one guy goes, how do you sleep at night?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I said, interesting question. Who here hires guys and does drug test background checks, could be on every billboard, gives their guys $5,000 worth of brand new tools, trains them for 10 weeks, gives dental, insurance, PTO, allows their guys to make six figures, doesn't hold them down on the projects, buys brand new vans every year. Once your van's over three years old, it's getting replaced.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Who here can afford to give insurance and pay six? How many people here pay their guys six figures? Not one. Wait a minute. How do you sleep at night knowing you're screwing your employees over to give your customer a good deal?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
It's insane. It bothers me.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I don't know if they don't mind doing the work because a lot of them were installers. They wanted to try this out. And I think it's just they have a hard time with confrontation. They see they don't have the money to even own a house. Right. And they're selling out of their own pocket.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And they go, well, so I just say the simple phrase of, did you want me to Band-Aid fix this, kick it down the road?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Or did you ever think about replacing it?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You spent some time in prison. Yep. Everything. So why don't you tell us where you've been, where you're at today, and where you're going.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Because based on what I see.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And then I give options. Yeah. Because if you're not giving options, you're giving ultimatums. Right. Anybody that says to me, this is it, you take this quote or leave it, I'm like, don't we have something else?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I don't need you. So someone asked me yesterday, there was about 40 garage door companies, randomly again, and this is garage door freedom, and they said, what do you do when your technicians, this was the exact question. They said, what do you do when your technicians feel like they're ripping people off when they sell them stuff? And this is this whole mindset that you've been talking about.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I said, well, the first thing I do is something a buddy of mine years and years and years, probably 10 years ago, Alan Ferguson, gave me this cost break-even analysis. And this was really old. It had yellow book pagers, everything. But back then it was $400 an hour to break even.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I said, they need to understand, a lot of people pride themselves on never showing their technicians or anybody the books. I'm like open book management. Hey, guys, here you go. Like, here's the deal. I used to, when I was 13 through 16, I used to make pizzas at Rookie's Clubhouse.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I could tell you, man, the cheese, the massive cans of tomato sauce, we couldn't have spent much more than 40 cents on a pizza. But back then, we were still charging around 20 bucks. It was custom pizza. It was a wood-burning oven. And I'm like, wait a minute. Think about that. That's 50X markup. They 50X'd it. This place, this sports club should have been out of business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
50X they marked it up. That's highway robbery. But the pizza was ready. We delivered it. It was ready when you want it. It was still hot when it showed up. And it was delicious, I'm sure. But why is it that in home service and home improvement, people are like, why? Why would I pay for that much?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
That's just the reality, man. And Leland was like, hey, listen, if you want to go start your own business, you go, make sure you take that guy. Yeah. He does all the payroll. But if you want to start your own business, make sure – because your fleet needs to be run perfectly in the gas cars, and that needs to get paid.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And make sure – how do you think the phones – we need to have the marketing department. Make sure – you know what it is to – service design does some of this, but we've got to have the matching principle and have the automated reconciliation. So you've got to make sure you know how to reconcile the books. And make sure – but here's the thing. You've got to have a call center that books 24-7.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And who's going to be doing the recruiting and hiring? Right. And you start thinking about it, and you're like, just because it's the e-myth revisited, born again. You're a great technician, but you think you deserve more. And listen, it's kind of true. If you work out of your house, you drive a used truck, you know how to make a few leads happen.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
usually it's feast for a while and then it turns into famine within a year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Are the ROC or are they booked out? Listen, this has happened to me a few times where the client will go, listen, I've got a garage for a guy. But I called you out because he's slammed. He can't get out of here for a week. Huh. So did you want to, what happens when it breaks? He comes out here, band-aids it. That's what they do is they band-aid these things.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I decided a long time ago, you want us to be trustworthy, premium products on your timeline, same day service, usually within an hour. I don't want to be the most affordable person. But I want to be the highest quality. I want to be the best value. I want to be the best investment for you and the safety of your family. So if you're looking for a deal...
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You know, I will listen at the end of the day. It's a licensed company and it's apples to apples, which we don't really sell apples. We sell oranges and it's a service. I will. I'll talk to him because I'm not going to leave with a zero if I've already showed up.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
But I know how to build a ticket because once I get you to make a buying decision. Right. All I always tell the guys when I do my orientation, I do an orientation every month with a new guy. My job is just to get you to want to use me. Once you're using me, that's just the beginning of our relationship.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, the finance guys are the best. Right. And my goal is when you make this buying decision is, listen, I need, and I tell this to all my technicians. I just need you to make sure the customer understands that you're going to give them a fair shake. Yeah. That's all they want. Yeah. And first of all, they need to love you. Secondly, they need to know you love the company. Right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Because they're buying from the company. And the third thing is, which is hard for everybody, is they need to feel loved.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
They need to feel listened to, respected. That is so good. And I'm like, very few times do we hit all three of those. Yeah. And we're laughing at their jokes. And if they love Bernie Sanders, I'll say, yeah, tell me about Bernie.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, he's right here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
So give me an example. Who do you use for your landscaping? This is freaking phenomenal. I mean, is that like an example for advice?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
All your passions and pastimes are in your garage.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You know? Yeah, I love this stuff. I could do this. I'm going to rapid-fire a bunch of questions. Five books that you recommend for people searching for a radical mindset transformation.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I think after the first one it's easy. It gets easier. It gets easier. The first one is like it'll never be done because, oh, my gosh, what happened today? I've got to make sure. It's like you feel like you're going to miss out. FOMO.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I already moved to California, but he's amazing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I know Mark Victor Hanson really well.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I read it for fun because all of my haters are undercover fans. Yeah, they are.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
They're watching your stuff. Look, at the end of the day, I'm like, you know, I used to get under my skin. I'm like, you don't even know me. You don't know what I do. You don't know why. You don't know how big of a heart I have. But now I'm like, well, why would I want to prove this to you? And if you don't have haters, it probably means you're not making it. I read this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I just had this guy come shoot this like 40 minute video with me and I was reading. It was such great comments. So many great comments, like 160 amazing, except for one. It said the minute this guy says he puts everything on his schedule and he makes his office hard to get to, because I'm the CEO of the company. My office is the hardest to get to. Sure, it should be. That's what L.A.V. taught me.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Make sure you've got important work to do. You've got people counting on you. And I'm like, this person doesn't even understand at all even what a business is. You know what? I have nothing to prove, but it's interesting because it used to bother me. We've got 10 minutes, and I really want to hear just your methodology. You're known for your sales process. Could you break that down for me? Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I don't know if that's long enough.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, Waste No Day.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I heard that podcast. You talked about some type of authority, the authority of – Yeah, it's kind of the social – Well, it's social proof, but I'm talking about what's the authority. You mentioned like, hey, this was written about –
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Consumer Reports Department of Energy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Right? Yes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And do the same thing for garage doors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, the IDA, International Door Association.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I just bought them out about two years ago.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
What did you say the three most important words were?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Earlier you said, earlier you said was the – okay.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You preferred my company over – And you don't think they come off – so you – Oh, you got to be careful.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, yeah. The murder she wrote at the same time.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And you probably, I think you mentioned this, but you still like an old school write stuff down.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, but then they say if you don't give me $5, will you give me $2? Yeah, you become twice. You could always come down.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I had Chris Voss. Yeah, we had a few minutes here. I had Chris Voss in here, and I said, listen, let's go talk to the guys next door real quick. And he said, okay. And I said, listen, a lot of these guys are single, probably going to go to the bar, shoot some pool tonight. What would you say to a girl to get her to say no, get her to get excited? And he goes, it's very easy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Have you given up on meeting the man of your dreams yet? And, you know, no. You know, is there any reason you want me to look at your garage door and make sure it's safe? Right. So he's like, unlike the old Tom Hopkins, how many times have we been screwed when we say yes? You want to make more money, right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You want to make sure that everything's safe in your life and everything's very fantastic because we've been fooled before.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, you automatically... You know, one of the things I was just with Ciaudini about, I don't know, a month ago, and he goes, try this. Some people are watching this, most people aren't, but put your hand up for me. Put it up higher. Put it up like you mean it. Okay. A little bit... So why is it we have to tell people to try? Like, why is it... Everyone does this in the audience.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
He says, no... So... we got to push people a little bit to go to that next level, to push all the way.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
So I just – I literally had a marketing meetup, and I said, hey, Robert, I'd really – I call him Bob. And I said, Bob, was there any way – and Bobette's his wife. I said, can you make it to this event? He goes, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And Bobette usually works out of speaking fees, and she's like, we're not going to charge you, Tommy, but would you donate some money to Joe Polish's – because Joe Polish introduced us. And I'm like, yeah, I'll give $10,000 to Joe Polish's – you know, he's really into helping addiction. And I said, and he came out and put it on a three-hour clinic.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And I'm telling you, like the shit I'm about to incorporate, and I got his best student that he trained on the Child Eating Institute, Chris Phelps coaching. And I don't even know where to start because there's so many things that we want to implement of each and everything. Some of it's recruiting, a lot of it's sales, a lot of it's marketing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Those are the three things that really, none of it's going to be on the finance side or anything.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
But, no, I definitely am interested in talking to you and working with you on a bunch of stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I do these podcasts, and selfishly, I probably hire one out of 40 people. And the storytelling that you did, I wrote down storytelling because you're such a good storyteller. That's what it's all about. Storytelling is how do you teach people how to storytell? That'll be my last question.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And then I've got to ask people how to get a hold of you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah. That's a comedian. That's one thing I find that they do is every single person in the audience can relate to them. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So, Weldon, if somebody wants to reach out once again, go over your few books that you've written.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
So the sales process and then the third one, consistency selling.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, I've got them all. They're all at my house. I just haven't gotten through them yet. It's like I've got too many books in the backlog.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
You're a well-read guy. Yeah. If someone reaches out to you, Weldon, what's the best way to do that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Cool.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I love it, man. Anytime you're in Phoenix, I'm down to do a round two, round three. Yeah, me too. This is very valuable stuff, and it's an honor to have you here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Well, listen, there's no finish line for me. It's all about... Say this, and I mean it, though. It's about really falling in love with the process. Falling in love with the journey. The destination. Everybody goes, man, what would I do if I had a couple hundred million if I sold for that much in my bank account? I'm like, you'd buy a lot of stuff and you'd have a lot of problems.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
And trust me, you need a house manager, you would need a bunch of shit. And it's a good thing. I love my life. Don't get me wrong, but most people aren't ready for it yet.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Thank you, Tommy. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
39.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I love what you're doing. I've been chatting a lot with Kevin Cumberford, and he sent me his book. I talked to Leland quite a bit. I talked to Ken Haynes quite a bit. Ken Goodrich all the time. I talked to not really an old come up, but did a lot. Keegan Hodges. You know, there's really not a lot of people. I went out recently to go see Morris Jenkins.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I went out recently and spent a lot of time with the whole team up in Utah at the... In the hour.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah. Great guys. And, you know, I've made... HVAC plumbing electrical is about a $190 billion market cap. A garage is about a $14. Wow. So... And it's not going to all of a sudden, like, garage doors just dump up $10 billion. It's not going to happen. So for what I need to do, I need to continue to expand in garage doors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
But Parker & Sons still does, you know, Parker & Sons is part of Rents Group. And if they do $300 million at 20%, they're kind of equivalent to what I'm at in 40 markets. One market. Yeah. So this idea of owning your client and going and doing all these other things for them, or do you want to own an industry across the board?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I just decided I wanted to get Crossroads at the best price of anybody, so I needed to go. I told Ara and Vahe with Service Titan, I'll be more licenses than the whole Crossroads industry combined. Yeah. Which I'm not, but I'm still working on that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Everything is mindset.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Sometimes when I ignore it, in the Bible it says if you ignore your conscience, it goes away. And I believe that's true. You start doing a creative justification. But you take technicians, especially HVAC, what do you find that their mindset is missing?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Because I always talk about Daniel Pink to sell as human. I talk about if you want to meet your wife, you sold during that process, and you continue to sell every day to your children. And the best salesman I know at church is the preacher. He's collecting 10% of you forever if he's really good. So the first thing I do is pan out a tray, tithing tray, and say, everything you guys got.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
I'm like, this is when I figured out sales was okay. So talk to me about how you get that. People are either selling out of their own pocket or they feel bad. Why are we charging these prices? Why are we charging this price to this beautiful mother that's divorced?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I've got someone that's I've been supposed to have been on this podcast for the last – since I started it. Weldon Long, he is – he's a guy I've been following for a long time. He's a sales expert. I'm really into sales. As you guys know, I'm really into marketing. I think marketing builds the business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
From Convict to CEO - A Journey of Transformation with Weldon Long
Yeah, they vilify it. So once you're able to get them to... So you got 70% of them. You're asking them how they feel. What you said was... What's the first word that comes to mind? You're identifying the problem and you're telling them... Basically, where did the beliefs come from? You're explaining this to them. You're helping them understand where those negative beliefs came from.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You got to start thinking bigger. I was talking, we were talking about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg. Here's why they win. They think bigger than us. And I'm not thinking small anymore. And that takes bold changes. It takes people that are willing to take very controversial decision-making, extreme risks. And most of you guys don't even, you would never move. You're in your comfort zone.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Listen, we were at your house recently to give you a garage door estimate, and I wanted to let you know I'm here to do whatever it takes to earn your business. We've got a lot of different options for you. Give me an opportunity. Text me back on this number. I'm going to get my right-hand guy on it. I look forward to
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Look, it's just these messages that goes out when we don't close the door, get them on the phone, text them back. It's all chirp. It's pretty simple stuff. And then you A-B test that, run a different message. And then if they're shopping, you say, look, before you buy a door, I want you to go with the best possible company to satisfy your needs.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Here's 10 things you need to know about before you buy a garage door. Because some people say we got to get three prices. You know, that's just the way we do business. You should have the guy putting in there in the checklist and that fires the campaign on chirp. I mean, this stuff is so easy, but nobody does it. Like I say until I'm blue in the face, get pictures in your reviews.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Make sure there's a way to get every single job with a review. It's just very few, like you get the idea, it gets written down and then it goes somewhere to die. Does that sound familiar? Like, yeah, but there's so many things. What should I, like, what do I do right away?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Well, I would focus on the things that take zero effort from me, except a few videos and a little bit of copywriting, which is true. I mean, when you hire Al Levy, it's a lot of work. I mean, I'm looking at his book. Like, you got to put the manuals together. You got to read them out loud. That stuff takes your time, effort, and energy. And it'll have the most incredible impact on the business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But when I give you guys things very simply to do, and you wonder why things don't change, why things don't get better. It's crazy to me, but I would like our CSRs to call back every missed call. Yeah, see, I just implement chirp on that one, Gabe. Ronnie said, you mentioned developing relationships with HOAs. Can you explain that? Are they marketing your business or referrals?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
All right, we are live. Welcome to January's Q&A. 2025, it's going to be a good one today. I got a lot of energy worked out this morning, feeling good. Started up my diet again, going hard in the paint. I weighed 246.2 this morning, looking to get to below 8% body fat here, going hard in the paint. And I started thinking a lot about this, like,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And what do they get out of it? Well, an HOA, think about it. An HOA is usually the people that are like the president and the controller, you know, everybody within an HOA. They just want to uphold their property value. They want to make sure there's no cars parked in the street. There's no overgrown landscaping. The roofs aren't leaking. The landscaping looks good.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Some of them pay for Christmas lights. There's certain things. They want everything to kind of stay there. looking good. And that means someone can't have a completely different garage door than everybody else. So it's just crazy like the outlier. It means there's color codes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So if they find a vendor like me and I could go talk to them about safety, neighborhood watch, you know, you can take a hanger and actually manually release the garage door and break in. HOAs are very careful about safety, safety in the community. They want to make sure there's nobody breaking in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So we talk a lot about safety, making sure your garage doors work and make sure if there's a fire or any type of natural disaster you could get out or emergency, how the manual release works. So we go in teaching them safety, teaching them Amazon could deliver into the garage and that way there's no people stealing off your porch. We talk about that stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Then we say also, you know, we have, we can install an opener that's super quiet. that you can actually get in through MyQ. And we talk about, we get the color codes for the garage doors. So we find out what's acceptable. What would you guys allow? The HOA votes on all the doors they allow. So then we want a client and then they send out mailers every month.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And they say, this is our vendor of choice. You could call them up and they'll give you every single thing we voted on because otherwise you got to wait for HOA approval. Sometimes that takes 90 days. When I get to say these have already been approved and advertised to the clients that your HOA picked us as the preferred vendor for the entire HOA, there's preferred pricing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
We got the color codes and we got the different examples of what you're allowed to carry. Especially if there's a storm. We had a bad windstorm. There was like every other door at this time. This was 2012. And I just door knocked and said, hey, we can fix this door for you. And it's HOA approved. So there's a lot of advantages of working with HOAs because... You're trusted and true.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I've worked with apartment complexes. Now, listen, we're growing so big that I don't focus as much because they're smaller tickets. HOAs are still decent size. But when I was hustling, man, I was stopping off at every apartment. I give them, I talk about, because most departments don't have a side exit door. They just have the one that goes in the house.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So there's this thing you could drill into the door and it's a key that you can pull the manual release. And I installed those on every door. Like I was just hustling, man. I figured out a way to earn everybody's business. And that's what you got to do early in business. A lot of people are like, what do I got to do to get leads? Get your ass up and go get the business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'm going to a BNI meeting on Thursday in Atlanta. Tommy Mello, you know, is going to a BNI meeting. How many of you guys have said, oh, we outgrew BNI? It's crazy to me. You're too good to go to a B&I meeting or a chamber of commerce. Crazy. Matt said, I own a junk removal business. We do cleanouts, junk removal, and light demolition based in Philadelphia.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Any tips for growth in a competitive landscape on a tight budget? I mean, listen, look, where can you market? It's marketing, right? I mean, look, end of the day, junk removal. I study everything I could by like waste management and how they grew. But tight budgets, you know, you got to go out and meet the people. simply like little things, dude.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like, you know what I noticed is the guys that flip houses have the biggest mouths. They're the best networkers on the planet. You go give them a deal. I say, listen, if you keep getting me clients, they've got a whole network of people. Everyone calls them because they're like, you're the one that specializes in houses. Who do I use for this? Who do I use for this? Like think outside of the box.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Where does my clients, the gift that keeps giving, where do they need me? I go build relationships with these people. There's this thing called construction monitor. It tells you everybody that's pulled a permit for anything in most counties. And if they pull the permit to remodel the house, there's going to be some junk removal.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like think outside of the box, find tools like this, ask more people. If you gave me a day just to work on things, I can give you so much. You wouldn't even know where to start, but you got to test different things and see that was easy. That works well. Let's continue to do that. Let's put more resources over here. You know, I try a lot of things. A lot of them don't work, but some of them do.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You know, some of you guys, I've been getting a lot of messages, lots of social media messages of how do you work so much and still motivate yourself to do these things, work out and go on vacations with your family and do these things. And I know this word gets overused and the word is accountability. It's kind of you versus you. David Goggins talks about this is it's you versus you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If one out of 10 work well, and I can test a thousand things, I just got a hundred things that work well in a year. And that's the difference is a lot of people are like, oh man, I wish we had leads today. Looks like we're not going to work much. I'm like, dude, I got to go out and meet some realtors and some brokers and some insurance agents and some people that deal with escrow accounts.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And like, I never sat at home waiting for leads. Even when the phone was slow, I'd go talk to the Yellow Pages. I'd talk to Valpak. I'd go study other people's Valpak because I could look at last month and say, is my offer the best? You said, what are your thoughts on junk removal, clean out, light demolition industry? Any insights or ideas on performing roll ups?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I mean, listen, I think you could roll up any industry. I think it's yesterday Trump got in. I think it's going to be I text my guy from Goldman Sachs. You know how much money is on the sidelines, according to them? Eight trillion dollars sitting in part of that's because interest rates are up.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If just a part of that gets deployed, plus you got the repaid, you know, this money comes back in from other countries for free. I'm not saying Trump's the, you know, perfect for everything. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying, I think it's going to be good to stimulate the economy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'm saying now is going to be like, you better start growing and get an idea on how to scale your business. A lot of people just want a lifestyle business that never made sense to me. Most people that have a lifestyle business are coaches and they like to brag about their small business that barely makes any money while they're trying to make money in coaching.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Maybe it's an ego thing, but they, they, they brag. I know hundreds of people that they have this lifestyle business, but then they like, I want to be a coach. I want to be on stage. By the way, everybody and their brothers are asking me how to start a podcast. And I'm like, you start a podcast to meet your clients. Now, I started a podcast to learn more about home service.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Completely, probably not the right thing to do. Now, I got an education in home service because I was able to get the right people on. But I started eight years ago. So, you know, everybody thinks, man, I want to do what Tommy does. There's no money in podcasting. There's no money in events. There's really not a lot of money in coaching.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And plus you'll, you know, but you can help a lot of people out. There's future opportunities. I do events because I love them and I'm friends with all the vendors and I win big at A1. Every single thing I negotiate for these events and everything I do, I'm like, just give A1 a better price. Help A1 grow more.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Give us what's going on next month on the, what are you guys developing to make us better? You should see everything I negotiate to just help A1. Everything I do with the back of my mind going, how does A1 win? How does my family at A1 win? Like every stage I get on, I talk about A1. People reach out to me, 10 people a day. Hey, I use A1 because I saw you. You're a great company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You guys lived up to the expectations. When you do this stuff, I'm still focused on the main thing, A1. I run a small pool service and construction business with my father. All of our service technicians are 1099, drive their own trucks, and our accounting is very poor. Wondering In what order should I focus on fixing these issues?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But accountability is when you get an accountability partner. You can be accountable to yourself, but why not find somebody, you know, if you got a really good person in your life, they don't allow you to kind of miss. You know, when they say, hey, dude, let's just miss the gym today. Hopefully the other person's like, no, we said we were going to do this. Let's leave early.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Yeah, well, the first thing is you need someone that understands accounting and finance. You need to understand when you start switching from a 1099 to a W-2, it's going to cost you way more money, but you get so much more control. I would focus on making sure your books are closed out by the 5th, not the 10th.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And make sure you get onto accrual accounting and make sure your shit is accurate as can be. You got to have a known financial position every day and every week. Understand how much is in the account, what's going out. Are you guys making money? Are you priced right? I get the really good, my books dialed in, like next level dialed in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I didn't know what that even meant till four or five years ago. Like I had good books. Now I have excellent audited, great books. They're like down to the decimal. When you have that, you have ultimate control, especially if you're paying attention. Get your books right and then figure out how much this person is going to help you figure out what it's going to cost to transition.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And then what's going to have to happen to increase some KPIs? You're going to have to have either a higher conversion rate, higher opportunity, job average, booking rate, something to give you the money to make that okay. But I've never, look, in roofing, sometimes painting and sometimes other industries, sometimes construction, you get away with having 1099s, but you lose all control.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
People are like, oh yeah, but there's a fine line. Very rarely do people live up, like you could get sued for the last 10 years. You could owe money back all the taxes you haven't been paying, the payroll taxes. I've seen people literally get a $5 million they got to pay on. Now, the government won't shut you down, but they'll say you got to make payments.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
They'll keep you in business just enough to make enough money that you still want to run the business, but not enough money. And guess what? You get sued for payroll taxes, you can't go bankrupt. You can't get rid of that. There's no way to get out of that. Mason said, our ranking's on Google Maps. as well as SEO, has been game-changing for us over the past couple of years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
We live in a small or semi-large metro. We rank incredible on one side and non-existent on the other side. Would you recommend creating a new GBP for the other side? I know sometimes messing with this is risky as anything can get your listing shut down. We currently have over 400 reviews
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Well, listen, I think opening up another showroom on the other side of town and actually have people working out of there. Now, listen, you want it to be more than 30 miles away. You want to make sure you're getting a lot of reviews for it. You want to make sure the BBB, you've got to be BBB accredited for every location. That's a trust signal for Google.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Get the citation sites done, get reviews with. I told you guys about Pinparent with Callan. Have Callan running his little algorithm in the background? Yes. If I'm not existing on the other side of town, it's because I don't have a location there. And there's obviously SEO and LSA ads that you can run PPC. You know, when I was small, I'd run Angie's list ads.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'd run deal of the day ads, you know, living social, like, you know, all these things matter. Like when you're small, you got to do it all. And a lot of people, they don't remember the grassroots. They don't remember putting yard signs. They're like, You got to door knock. You got to go socialize with people. It's hard. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
No, no, we're not going to leave early. Hey, dude, you might be having a bad day. Take some pre-workout. Let's get through this. We go to the gym. We're going to work hard. We're going to work. We're going to work hard. You know, it's such a big deal. Another big thing is I had my buddy Barry over from Power of Selling Pros and his son came with him.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Why can't I just get more business? Because you're lazy. You're not social. You don't know how to ask questions. You don't know how to genuinely look people in the eyes and say, I want to take care of you. I want all your business. And a lot of people sell on price. They don't sell on quality. That's another big mistake. So yeah, absolutely, I would get another location.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'd make it a real location that you're paying rent at. that you've got signs up that you're actually running people out of there to make it completely Google compliant white hat. Hey there, I hope you're really enjoying today's episode. I wanted to share something with you that's been on my mind lately. People always say, Tommy, you're so lucky to have mentors like Al Levy and Ken Goodrich.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But come on, you think it was luck? Not a chance. Before they ever shared their secrets with me and before I knew them on a first name basis, I had zero connections. So how did I go from nobody knowing my name to learning from the best in the business? I put in the work. I found the real players, the guys who built, scaled, and sold their businesses for a massive payday. And I gave before I asked.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
A handwritten note, a thoughtful gift, a quick video thanking them. But guess what? You don't have to grind for years to build a network like I did. You just got to get into the right room. That's exactly what Freedom 2025 is for. You'll be surrounded by people that are $10 million to $500 million home service legends. The real deal.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Sign up now and get the early bird bonus bundle worth more than $5,000. It includes some of my best resources to help you face every single challenge in business. Go to freedom event.com. Again, that's freedom event.com. All right, let's get back to today's episode. Jose said, what are your two biggest pieces of advice for myself and my cousin who started a home service company at the age of 23?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Well, I started when I was 23. Don't be afraid of mistakes. Just don't make big mistakes. Start small. You know, when you're smaller and you don't have a lot of money, the mistakes don't cost as much. Still, they can put you out of business. But just don't keep doing the same things if it's not working. Don't be afraid of change.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I say always put it back into the business, but make sure you're breaking up a little piece. When you're 23 years old and you could save just $7,000 a year, you're going to be a millionaire no matter what. Start a Roth IRA, put the money away. Do not use that money. You might say seven grand is not going to change your business a year, but it'll change your life when you turn 50.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
25 years at 10% is $7,000 a year is $2 million. So do yourself a favor. I guess you'd be 58. But give yourself some money. Another thing is don't be afraid to ask for help. Go in as humbly as possible. Be curious all the time. And just don't get comfortable always doing the work. Get comfortable finding the people to do the work. And it might not be perfect every time.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
It might not have been what you've done. But then ask yourself, did I give clear direction? Did I explain how this needs to be done? Is it detailed that a fifth grader could understand it? Because if you didn't give the right instruction and you didn't get them to show you how to do it in front of you, and then it doesn't get done correctly,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, I didn't give the right instruction. I think people miss this fact all the time. They go, people always make mistakes. That's why I got to do it myself. Well, you didn't provide the instruction.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And his son's 16 and we talked about a lot of things. And he said, what's a few tips? You know, if you were 16, I said, number one, go open a Roth IRA. And I kind of explained to him compound interest. And I said, rich people, very wealthy people, they focus on the principle. They leave that there and they focus, like a lot of people, when they make money, they can't wait to spend it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
It's like if you got a little kid and you're teaching him how to play baseball and he runs to second base instead of first base, is it his fault or did he know to run to first base? They got to be taught the rules of the game and how to win and how to keep score. They got to understand is there two strikes and then the third strike you're out. And is there two outs third out the switch?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like how do you play the game and how do you ensure it's getting played correctly? That's your job. You're the coach. Can't wait for the shop tour next month. Me either. I love the shop tours. It's Tommy mellow.com forward slash shop. If you guys ever want to do a shop tour, love doing them. Want to get really serious about delivering more value. Hi, Tommy. You look good. Proud of you, brother.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Question. We have a networking meeting with different business owners once a month, and we share ideas, mostly plumbing owners. We have some that do HVAC. What is your advice for us? Any ideas? Shout out from Houston, Santana Bros Plumbing. You know, here's the deal, Miguel.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I've got a few buddies that really got together with an HVAC and plumbing and they found big companies that they worked with and they share like they had a rule. If you're not PE backed and you're big enough and you're never going to be competition, we'll share the financials and we'll do a shop tour once a quarter. And they went to other shops and they critique each shop.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And they built this little alliance. And the problem with these groups is there's a lot of people that don't tell the truth. There's a lot of people that just come there to extract knowledge. And you can tell who they are. They're the guys always writing stuff down, listening, never contributing, never talking about what's working for them. You know, I've got a group.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And our group, I know whether it's Aaron Gaynor, Chad Peterman, or whoever, we're always giving each other great advice. We're telling each other what we found. We're trying to like, hey, I got something new to share with you guys. And... You know, I feel like if you get the group of givers, everybody wins.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But when it's just local competition, you're going to find that you're not getting much out of that. I mean, if I were you guys, I'd rather do a Zoom call with competitors from other markets that aren't going to infringe upon your territory. They get a lot more honesty. That's what I would be doing. I'd also have other companies like other industries.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'd probably have roofers and flooring, other big ticket items come in and talk about what's working. From Instagram, Storm Spence, what's your thoughts on college and what's the best degree to study for someone that wants a business? I think professors have tenure. They don't know what it's like to make it in the real world for the most part. I don't think I've ever looked for a degree.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I think if you look at home service and home improvement, that's what everybody's saying going into now. They used to say you get a coding degree in Python or Ruby on Rails or figure out different type of coding. Now they're like, oh, AI is going to replace that. And then you go for graphic design. Oh, AI is going to replace that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I think if I were to go back, I would spend as much time learning sales. And they have sales degrees. Marketing. Sales and marketing is where I'd want to live. And I'd take some finance classes. Learning how to build relationships, I'd be reading all the time. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I don't think I'd go to a formal institution. I got a master's degree in business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
The coolest thing about that was I met some really cool people. There was a couple of cool instructors. I learned some basic stuff, but I can't look back at anything I was learning and like, man, I really applied that to my life. Advanced calculus, organic chemistry, economy, economics. accounting, advanced accounting.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like, yeah, there's, I used to take apart annual reports, figure out if we want to invest in it. Like there were classes where they'd give us like these fake, we could invest in companies, fake money. There wasn't anything brain shit that kept my mind busy. I learned how to study and get ready for tests and learn knowledge, but I didn't apply much of it to business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like if I told you I'm going to give you $100 million, you'd be like, oh my gosh, let's make a list of everything we're going to buy. Wealthy people don't do that. They say, what are we going to invest that in? We can spend the compound interest. So $100 million at 10% is $10 million a year. I'd say we could spend five of it. We want that principle to grow. Therefore, the compound interest grows.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So I would go through more like go to seminars and like invest in mentors and figure out ways to like generate leads and create a culture. I just don't think there's a whole lot like... There is some things that college is useful for. I hate to say this because I went to my master's degree and I'm doing pretty good. But hindsight, Tommy Mello, 18, no.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I would take classes, but I wouldn't go for the degree. A lot of people say get a degree because people look at that just to say you can finish something. I don't know how important that is this day and age. Learning from a bunch of people that never made it in the real world with tenure. Losers, actually, that teach equity and diversity and all that shit. They brainwash you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I know a lot of instructors have tried to brainwash me. I just didn't buy into it. Patrick said, hey, Tommy. Man, commercial HVAC did 200K last year. Looking into marketing. Would like to grow, add a truck, and mostly find residential marketing. Patrick, here's the deal with marketing, dude. You know, what are we doing to grow a new market? Well, you got to get a lot of reviews.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You got to offer tune-ups, go in, meet people, get pictures with them. You got to be willing to lose a little bit of money. I mean, if you want to take market share, you got to put 15, 20% of the marketing. In fact, in our new markets, we're willing to put 35%. So if we want to make, you know, $5 million, we got to put 1.75 million into marketing. At 35%, you're not gonna be profitable.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But no one's ever heard of you. So if you wanna go from 200,000 to 225,000 next year to 250,000, yes, I understand you gotta make a living. But there's another way to do it other than money. It's out there getting your ass out there, doing free tune-ups, talking to your neighbors, getting the HOAs, meeting realtors, doing whatever it takes. You got to start out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Unfortunately, you can't start out as the highest price. You got to get good at sales. I always talk about price, right? But when you're nothing and nobody knows who you are and you're sub a million dollars, It doesn't work. You got to go out there and meet the people. And it's constant, dude. I'd work 40 hours in the business and 40 hours on the business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You know, you don't want to change too much. You know, look, I'm going to change everything. Be comfortable with change, get an accountability partner, get comfortable with discipline, set yourself up for success, find somebody to hold you accountable.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'd be working 80 hour weeks because I used to do that. And people were like, dude, I can't do that. I got a family. Well, then why did you start a business? If you got no money and you got no time, good luck. The business will not grow. We are currently number one organically on Google for lawn care. Would you still do Google sponsor GLS so I can appear multiple times?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Yes, I would absolutely do it. In fact, if you do organic, you show up in the maps, you show up on LSA and you show up on PBC, you show up four times. And then you might even show up on the top of Yelp. You're going to get picked. People are going to be like, this must be a sign. There's been studies. You can look them up.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But the more times you're in the top first page, the more likelihood it goes up exponentially every time. What percentage of revenue should go to labor related costs? You know, I think anywhere with 28 to 32%, depending on your company and how you guys track that, but it's different for every business. Like drains don't cost anything in parts. It's much more labor intensive.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So that's going to be a higher labor cost because there's no really cost of materials, cost of goods. Can you share more about how you safeguard A1 being misclassified as a franchise and why you stayed away from that business model? I like the franchise model, but you lose control. You're no longer in the garage door business when you start a franchise. Everybody's looking for a turnkey business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I said, always bring a notebook with you when you're talking to mentors. Take notes, smile a lot, ask great questions and always be curious. I said this idea of delayed gratification. You know, one of the things that I found out, you know, when I was young, when I was his age, is I thought I was making money, but I didn't put an hourly rate on what I was doing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
In fact, I've talked to some of the largest franchises in the country. Neighborly, my buddy Mike is the CEO now. He used to be a CEO at Valpak. We talked the other day on the phone for about an hour. You know, a lot of franchises, you try to get these businesses to a million or two million. You lose control. You start having to deal with, it's the 80-20 rule.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
20% of the companies are going to grow. The other 80%, they never conform. Like you can't fire them because they bought into a franchise. There's all kinds of politics that go into franchising. Could it be great? Absolutely phenomenal. There's so many good franchises out there. But it's a struggle. Everybody thinks, man, I'm going to do a franchise. I got a good business concept.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But they don't think about really what it takes. Not only do you got to sell the franchises, but you got to be able to get them leads. You got to be able to train their people. You got to be able to get them ranked on Google. You got to be able to get the call center dialed in, get them to submit their financials on time.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Got to make sure they're not out of town too much and taking too many vacations. Most people that want to buy a franchise are looking for a turnkey lifestyle business. And there's no such thing. I'm sorry. Every once in a while, you hear about a company and just everything went right. They made a bunch of money. It's just few and far between. They're not common. So I love the franchise model.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
One of the interesting things are there's the same amount of franchises 20 years ago as there are today, meaning that there's a lot that fail. The vast majority of franchises fail because somebody goes, oh, I'm just going to franchise my business. It's not very profitable. My website doesn't rank. I don't have a national call center. I've only approved it in one market.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I barely got market share, but everyone's going to want to buy this business. And nobody wants it. Oh, we're going to come up with our own CRM so we can even make more money. See, the easy way to do this for weak people is to say, I've got a business that's okay, but maybe I can sell it for $50,000 a piece and take 8% and everybody else can do the hard work. That's why people go into consulting.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Hey, I've got a lot of stuff I've learned. Business is hard. I'm not going to run a business anymore. I'm just going to go consult and talk on stage and become an influencer. And I'm going to start a podcast. And that sounds fun. And I'm just going to show people how to do it, even though I'm not very good at it. And I'm going to become a teacher. And I'm going to be a franchisor.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And everyone's going to buy my shit. I'll tell you how I really feel later. But there are some really good franchises. If I was to do a franchise... one out of 500 would actually be picked to be allowed in my franchise. You'd have to have so many credentials, pass so many tests. You'd have to commit. You'd have to like, I'd have certain things to be able to rip you out of the franchise so quickly.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If you screw up our name, like I don't look as a franchise, like, Oh, I want to sell as many as possible. No. Protect the franchise. Make sure there are people that are winning. Every single buyer is a soldier out to make a lot of money, but they're going to work their butts off. McDonald's makes you make sure you got $2 million in the bank before you can start a McDonald's franchise.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You got to be well-funded. See, most franchisors are willing to take people's last $50,000 and wonder why they don't make it. Because they're greedy. Yeah. And these franchise salespeople that like sell franchises, they're very good at what they do. They'll just say, but give me, give me the pooper scooper franchise. I'll sell the hell out of it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I think a lot of us, we go around and we talk about money, money, money, but right now he's rebuilding trailers. He'll buy dirt bikes and rebuild them. The problem with that is, do you measure your time? How much did it take you to find that dirt bike? How long did it take you to clean it up, sell it?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
They'll sell, but they don't care what happens after they got their money. Do you have someone on your team who is in charge of upselling to current customers? I don't really understand that question. Like to our database, our technicians, we don't really upsell. I don't like the word upsell. We offer them different options. Or the client can pick one they like.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You know, like Joe Corsera says, what should we do? It's that simple. It's like, we're not putting things down their throat. Yeah, we've got product specialists that are good at closing the deal, finding out what the customer needs based on how long they're going to live at the home and what's important to them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But I would have called like someone specific in the company that's responsible for upsells. How would you structure performance pay for mobile detailing? Average ticket, 280. Jobs per month, 42. Well, what do I care about? What are the things that really matter to me? In this case, mobile detailing is all about routing, right?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I don't want to drive an hour to this job to clean the car, an hour to this car, an hour to this car. So it's kind of like pull service. You want to be able to get as many clients as possible. So what I would do with mobile detailing is
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'd have my guys put out signs and I'd have them knock on a couple of neighbors' house, especially in affluent neighborhoods, and pay them a lot of freaking money to close. Say, listen, we get this client on, we sell them a 10-pack of mobile cleanings. I'm going to give you half the money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'd make sure that every single person doing the cleaning becomes, they're posting on their social media, they're putting out yard signs, they're talking to their friends about it. You know, their girlfriend is posting about it. They're out there hustling for you, getting more clients because it's all about keeping close. It's all about dispatching.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So you want to be in the vicinity of the next jobs. Next thing I do is just, I'd have a checklist to mark off and have the customer walk through it. And if they didn't want to walk through it, I'd send the whole checklist with pictures to them. I actually have an app that we've created. It's a checklist app if you want to know more about it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But I said every little detail, make sure the client's happy and we exceeded their expectations. I'd also pay them a little bit for reviews. A video testimonial or a review on Google, a review on Nextdoor is a big one. Nextdoor is in the community. The BBB is a big one. The Yelp is a big one. So you might say, well, they can only get one review. How do I keep paying them?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
When you went online, posted it on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, how long did you spend cleaning it? See, if the hourly rate is not 100 bucks or more, why are you doing it? Most people don't, they don't figure out their time into the equation. You know, I've been thinking a lot what life looks like in the future. And one of the goals is to start refining my calendar over and over and over.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Every time, hey, you let me review on Google. Can you do one on Yelp for me? And every three times they clean it, ask for a different review or a video testimonial. Get their wife in it. See if there's another car you could do. Hey, listen, we have the two nice cars and we've got our son's car. Listen, can we do your son's car? Figure out if there's still profit. You're at the same job.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Figure out how to get to that other car. Like I said, the neighbor's like, I would look at a few things that your people can control and pay them on that as long as you could track it well. It's important that you got very good attribution that you can track it. And it's going to help you grow the business. It's going to make you more money. Therefore, they get to make more money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
But I don't have the perfect, like I would have to sit down and whiteboard it for a minute, but those are just some ideas. What are the best frameworks to get to a million starting out? I do landscaping. You know, it's all reverse engineering. Like how much do you make a billable hour? How much time do you put in? How many clients would you need? What's your gross profit?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
What's your bottom line net? Okay, so what you start to figure out is I would need this many leads, this much on repeat business. I lose this much. It's just a math equation. It would take one hour to put together a pivot table with somebody even remotely smart that looks at your financials. You could just go on Upwork, find somebody that builds pivot tables.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I say, look, in a financing that understands P&Ls, I say, I want you to show me how many leads, how many clients I need to close at what dollar amount based on my financials. And what do I need to get to? And then say, okay, how much do I need to spend on marketing? How many can I close? How long does it take to get to a million? It's just, it's an accounting exercise.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And there's mathematical certainty with it if you're priced right. Now, what you got to be careful is in landscaping, you don't want a lot of churn. It means you got to put out, you got to get the right clientele. Churn will kill you. So just make sure you're not losing clients.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Because a lot of times when you get to try to get to a million or 5 million or 10 million, you're so focused on marketing, you're not keeping your current clients. And that'll kill you. If you got a client going out the back door, every time you got a new one coming in the front door, your churn is way too high and that'll destroy a company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So make sure you're focused on keeping your customers excited and happy with the service you're already doing. How would you structure a membership program for a mobile auto repair business focused on brake repair customers? Given that brake repairs have a high margin and AOV below frequency. Additionally, how can I effectively capture the LTV of customers for such low frequency service?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If using a membership model, what resources would you recommend to learn about developing a compelling membership program? So look up this guy. His name's Aaron Stokes. And I could probably think about this and work through it, but this guy's the master of how to get break jobs and how to do automotive repairs. He's already got, he's the largest mastermind in the country of anything.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And he already has got all this stuff figured out. Aaron Stokes is a great guy. I spoke at his event. He's just a genius. I think you'll really dig him. Really love the guy. So look him up and he'll probably have a better answer. Greg Mitchell said, would you view my website and give me your honest feedback? Yeah, leave it in here. Just say if you'll take it, we'll send it out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
We'll look at the website. There's a lot of things that I look for. How fast does it load? Is the phone number easily clickable? Does it have a schedule engine link to be able to schedule online? Is there good information that I want to learn about? Is everything there? Is it organized? Is there testimonials? I'll look at it. Have you done Colby testing before? And if yes, what were your scores?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
My team's done Colby testing. I haven't done them. We're looking into some tests, but that's one that I don't think is one we're going to be focused on. Tommy with $7,000 in my window cleaning business, one employee and an unwrapped truck, 75% of the leads from organic Facebook posts. What's your first move to scale? Would you prioritize ads, branding, et cetera?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like once a week, go through everything I did. And like, I'm going to take a sheet of paper, old school. I'm going to say, listen, I'm going to put a check mark everywhere. I feel like I could be delegate more. The plan is to only get to three hours of really extreme work a day. Look, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk runs, what, four companies as a CEO?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Yeah, so me personally, I focus on Google. I build a really fast website that's mobile friendly. I make sure I'm getting more leads. And then the first thing I do after I get a really good amount coming in each month and I'm getting reviews with pictures in them with great reviews. my Google's ranking my business page and the hours of operation.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Once that's done, you know, I might hire a guy named Lenny gray to do some door to door stuff as well. But I want to be a brand that people are like, man, this brand looks legit. This isn't just a guy that went to home Depot and picked up a bucket. Like these guys are good. They're safe. When you're explaining what you do to build value.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'm just going through all this stuff through the book influence with a, with a coach. It's like, don't just say we're a garage door technician. We're a certified technician. What does a certification mean? It's like, otherwise you're just chucking a truck coming out there to scrub my windows. Like, show me the tools you're using. Show me the, why should I hire you?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And why should I pay you more than just getting a handyman to do it? Those are important questions. So yeah, the brand is important to getting more leads and focusing on Google. What book would you recommend? For the leadership team to read. You know, one of the books I first started out with was Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I think that's a great book to start out with.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Anything from Patrick Licioni. The Ideal Team Player is a great book. Beating Suck by Cameron Herald is a great book. The One Minute Manager is a great book. Those are great books to start out with to read as a team. I mean, look, I can look around here. There's just, I've got so many freaking books. It's hard to pick which is the most important, but those are some good ones.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
My office has a lot more. My house even has more than the office. Guys, do me a favor because I got my team out here saying to finish up. Giuseppe, I'd love to get all the questions where I ended. So I finished with Instagram with Jake. So the next one was Keith Massal. We just got to submit those questions into homeserviceexpert.com forward slash questions, plural.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I want to end with just this idea of this accountability again. Enjoying discipline. You know, a lot of you guys don't have energy. You don't have the burn you used to have. And it might not be anything that's wrong. It might not be you. What it is is your body's not working. You're not metabolizing correctly.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I got to tell you guys, if you don't call Dr. J, find a doctor that specializes in naturopaths. Figure out what's wrong with you. Figure out why you go home and you're just depleted of energy. Why you don't wake up and you're energetic. Why you don't want to go for that long walk. Maybe you're in the wrong surroundings. Maybe because it's 20 degrees below, you need to get up and move your family.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You need to be bold. And this is not your life anymore. I'm just telling you guys, dude, you got to start thinking bigger. I was talking, we were talking about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg. Here's why they win. They think bigger than us. And I'm not thinking small anymore. And that takes bold changes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
It takes people that are willing to take very controversial decision-making, extreme risks. And most of you guys don't even, you would never move. You're in your comfort zone. You know, you don't want to change too much. You know, look, I'm going to change everything. Be comfortable with change. Get an accountability partner. Get comfortable with discipline. Set yourself up for success.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
He's working out on helping the government here in the United States with Doge or Dodge or whatever it is. Like, trust me, he delegates most of his stuff and he hires great. So understanding what money is. And then I had this revelation this morning that I wanted to share of just... I don't pay myself a ton of money at A1 Garage or a service.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Find somebody to hold you accountable. Another thing, listen, we got a huge webinar. Go on Home Service Expert. It's going to be amazing. Last thing is, oh, here it is. It's the free webinar, Double Your Growth in 2025, Three Critical Moves. It's me and Jim Leslie. I'm going to put the link in here. We've already got a thousand people coming to this. This isn't just a sales pitch, guys.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Dude, A1 did north of 63 million of EBITDA. This company is going to be worth two and a half billion dollars. I don't care about your money. In fact, I'm setting this thing up so I can invest in lots and lots of businesses. Like I want to get to know you guys.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Truthfully, it's probably a little bit vain of me or just conceited or like maybe I'm just selfish, but I want to find businesses I like that are easy, lucrative and fun to work with. I want to make a lot of investments. Down the line, I'm gonna be investing in hundreds of businesses and I'm gonna be taking my whole team and I've got 30 people on the team, the family office.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
This is the way I do it. I find out businesses that, look, you get to a million dollars of EBIT at HVAC and still get 10 million if you do it right with my connections. It's not hard. I had a guy in last night that's doing it right now. He's got a million of EBIT at 10 and a half million he's getting. It's crazy. So that's what I wanna do. I mean, look, I want everybody to make out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I want your whole team to make out too. Freedom event is going to blow your freaking minds. I got Mr. Wonderful. I got a couple names I can't even say yet, but they're already signed up. It's going to be September 3rd through the 5th. It's going to be in Las Vegas. It's going to be at Mandalay Bay. I promise you there's not another event that even comes close to this. Not even close.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Not even in the same hemisphere. You better be ripped up too. If I see you, you better be getting ready to get in shape because that's what we're gonna talk about is getting in your best shape, getting close to your family, getting closer to God if you're religious, making sure you're trying to become the best self. You don't need to be magic overnight. It takes time to do these things.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You gotta stay consistent. You gotta say no to certain things, but the results, you're just so happy. You just look at life differently. And if you're not feeling it right now, if you're not excited, if you don't feel great about this year, There's something wrong with you. You need to go to counseling. You need to see a psychologist. You got to get your shit together, dude.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Because if you don't feel amazing and pumped after listening to this, something's going on. And maybe you got to get checked out. But listen, guys, I hope you have a great month. Finish out strong. Hopefully it's a record. We got the Trump pump going on after yesterday. So hopefully the economy starts sparking off. I hope you guys are doing excellent.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I hope you continue to push yourself to the next level. I'm Tommy Mello. This is the Home Service Expert. I'm signing out, guys. Thank you. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
It's enough that the government could sniff test me as a W2 employee, say this CEO makes about right. You know, I actually am one of the only people here that don't have a bonus because I didn't care about the bonus. I have so much equity in the company. It wasn't important for me to negotiate that. What's important to me is I don't care about my W2. I care about the company's growth.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I mean, that's everything. How do you build a company that's worth a ton of money? That's all you guys should be thinking about. Not how do I make more money this year? It should be, how do I make the company worth more money? Learning how to sell a business is the most important thing you should be thinking about.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And when people tell me they want to get $100 million, it still baffles me at times. If you're in the right industry and you're growing fast enough, I just got off the phone with one of my marketing guys. I said, look, we got to double the leads by the end of the year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
The only thing I care about, hire great people and train them, make sure the culture is where I need it to be, and increase the lead flow of quality leads. That's it. That's my job. More leads, more great leads, more great guys and gals running the business, especially technicians and installers.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
that are trained, trained, trained, trained, trained, and people know that I appreciate them and it's a great culture. Those are the three things. That's the only three things I want to deal with. In fact, I'm not going to be involved in anything else. I'm going to make sure I exit myself from this business. I don't want to be the micromanager.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I don't want to be everything's got to run through me. I don't want to be the guy that's got to look at every decision and say yes or no. In fact, I don't know how to log into payroll. I don't know how to get certain things out of Service Titan. I don't know. I never logged into Intact, ever. I don't want to know how to do inventory. I don't want to know how the gas works on the trucks.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I don't even want, like, look, I know the numbers. I get these reports. But some of you guys got to let go, man. And some of you guys have been betrayed. Some of you guys have been used. Some of you guys can't trust anymore. And you got to have checks and balances. But if you are the everything for your business, the first thing you need to do is hire an EA and a good one.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And your life will change forever. But that involves a lot of trust. Other than the business, I got engaged, which I'm very excited about. Me and Bree, she's on cloud nine. I'm on cloud nine. That happened about two weeks ago in Bora Bora. It's a big step. I've never been engaged, never been married, no kids. So it's the next step. But this chapter I'm going in, I'm ready.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I feel like I'm going to be an amazing dad. I feel like I've been put on this earth to be a dad. Yeah, I want to change people's lives. I want to continue to be the best home service expert I can. But the next trial, no one's ever prepared to be a mother or a father, but I'm getting ready for that. That's going to be a big chapter of my life. Also, I want to travel more.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'm coming to this sense that I don't want to stop working, but I don't want to work all the time. So what really makes me happy? I'll tell you what makes me happy is... I've got several cousins that I just love being around. I just love it. I've got a lot of family that I just love to be around. I got a lot of friends that I just can't get enough of.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So how can I travel the world, play a lot of golf, do a lot of fishing, do some hunting, play some golden tee, do some bowling, watch some fun movies, go on the lake, do some snow sports, hot chocolate on a cold day, enjoy my life, but still do a lot of business to keep me sharp, but not a ton, just a few hours a day, take Mondays off. So I've got to refine, refine, refine.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You know, JD, one of my managers wrote this book, Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes. So for me, it's literally like you keep doing the same thing. You're going into 2025 doing what you did in 2024. Oh, it was a great year. Keep going. Well, work on your calendar the most. Delegate a lot if you can. I can't explain that enough. Like the delegation and getting the calendar.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I'm making a note for Ashley, one of my EAs. Headed to Atlanta tomorrow. We just opened that market. Going to be opening up other markets this year. And what we're working on is documenting everything. That's, you know, making sure there's a checklist. And I don't think people have documented. They don't have enough information when they're just going through just to make sure everything's right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Some new technology we're bringing on. You know, I feel like I was talking to a buddy of mine and he was talking to a buddy of his in California. And he said, do you know how many thousands of contractors? are praying that you pull this off and get two to $3 billion valuation.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I was like, no, I don't really know anybody that's really hoping that that happens other than me and the team of people that have equity in the business. And he's like, no, he's like, if you pull that off, it changes the whole industry for everyone. And I'm like, yeah, I never really thought about that. He's like, you got to do this, dude. You got the world on your shoulders.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
You got to pull it off. I'm like, well, You know, if you do a SWOT analysis, there's only a few things that can stop us from doing it. You know, if Google completely shut down or changed their algorithm, I mean, we do everything by the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
We were investing a lot of money in SEO, lots and lots of money, lots in a nonprofit and 5013Cs and getting backlinks from those, like investing, you know, putting money into churches, high schools, colleges, lots of stuff this year. In fact, my goal is to donate at least $5 million over the next two years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And not to mention the time effort, you know, get involved, donate doors, use the company for Wounded Warriors and all those other things. Not just money, but time and the whole company. But let's dive into it. You know, we've got a you guys go to HS Home Service Expert and keep a lookout. We've got a pretty big webinar coming live. Me and Jim are going to do it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'm going to be talking about a lot of cool things we're working on.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If you guys know and you guys really follow what I say and you understand how important marketing and hiring right and training your guys and culture are, and you can live in those seats and really just get rid of all the obstacles and stay focused and go to seminars and have accountability partners and understand how important having discipline is, you're going to be successful this year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I mean, I get hundreds of people reaching out a month saying thank you. And I really appreciate the feedback, but they're the people that actually do the work. It's very rare I get a thank you for somebody that listens to these, but they don't do the work. And then there's other people that they'll just kind of bounce into these and listen to the Q&A here and there.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And then they'll ask stupid questions like, how do you rank on Google? That's like saying, you know, how do you become a billionaire? How do you rank? I go like, everybody wants these simple answers. Like, oh, you just do this. It's not that simple. It takes like focus. How do I hire a good? Well, what kind of question is, how do I hire a good?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like, you gotta be specific and you gotta like watch all my content. Like go on Instagram, go on TikTok, go on LinkedIn, like follow me on X, like watch all the content I put out on YouTube. And then, then ask really good questions. But the questions I get are rinse and repeat sometimes. And it's like, the questions don't have any, like, they're just, how do I run my business?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And I'm like, well, like, I can't even fit. One guy asked me to be the CEO of his company for three months. I'm like, dude, what? Like, I'm the CEO of A1. Anyways, you guys got to join. If you're not in the home service expert group, just join right now. Go on to Facebook and join. Hopefully you are. There's 15,000 people in there. We're going to 10X that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
If you know anybody, invite them to the home service expert group. We're really trying to put a lot of effort into that. So let's go ahead and get some questions going. James said, I know you hired your mom to answer phones. Yes, 2010 I did that. I just put my mom on the phone for me part-time. How did you set up her pay in the very beginning? What was fair to her and you?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
How did you transition over time? So, you know, you got to think that was 2010. So that's 15 years ago. I paid her 15 bucks an hour. I mean, if I were you, I'd pay her Like everybody else, I'd be more of a performance pay. I'd say, look, I'll give you $12 an hour plus $10 per booked call. Or, you know, call it $6 per booked call. So you can book three calls an hour. You know, that's $18.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like I would still pay performance pay. I didn't know about that in 2010. Staking the outcome and like, look, I had my stepdad working for me, too. So my mom was good. My mom just was like, how do I help you, honey? I want to get involved. She wasn't looking. They had enough money that they could live on. They sold their house for a lot of money in Michigan.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
They weren't like trying to make a living working for me. They were just like, let's assist you. And in the end, it worked out for them. You know, they made you know, they got a big chunk of money. And they deserve more than that. I do think they helped me out at a big time of my life. And I'm one of those guys that no debt goes unpaid. So there's more.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I tried to do as much as I could for my mom and Bill. We picked up a trip for them and my uncle to go. this cruise and they went for Bora Bora. Well, you know, they're not going to make taxes for the next 10 years. I'm covering that, but it's still not enough. It's not even close to enough.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So for what they've done, they sacrificed a lot, all their friends, all the family we have, they just picked up and moved to help me run the business. So I don't have the best advice. It worked out well for me, but you hear it. like nightmares about family working for you. Animosities. We helped grow this thing that, you know, my family, they were great.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
They didn't make me feel bad for making money. They didn't get mad at me that I was always at work. They understood what it was like to build a business and they're my biggest fans. So I'm probably not the best because I, Working with mom and dad, working with your sister, your brother, it's hard. And you got to document everything.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I just, Al Levy always taught me, you got to be able to have Thanksgiving dinner and not talk about work together and make sure that it's productive and that it's healthy and that the relationship is still strong. If not, you got to separate very quickly. Gabe said, what's your SOP for abandoned calls and service titans? So very interesting you say this, Gabe.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
I had Ryan and Taylor from Chirp out here last week. We did 700 something thousand dollars from abandoned calls from Chirp. And interestingly enough, there's what's called Bitly. It's a short code. It's a way to kind of like tiny URL. One third of the messages weren't getting through because the Sprint and Verizon AT&T were blocking it because it looked like spam. So we fixed that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
So we're expecting over a million dollars From Chirp. This month. That's one campaign. from abandoned calls. So very easy thing to set up, very easy thing to do for an extra million dollars a month for a company my size, which it might be 20,000, 30,000 for you. I don't know what size company you are, but it's set and forget it. It's literally that easy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
And we've got four or five other campaigns should have been live already. See, like I just get things done very, very quickly. My team, sometimes I feel like they just, they wanted to go. Perfection is the enemy of just getting started. Like everybody wants to do things perfectly. I'm like, let me just make a video. So like, I'll just play something for you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Q&A With Tommy - Stop Trading Time for Money: How to Build a Self-Sustaining Business
Like on an abandoned, because I remember we have different brands. We have, you know, Don's and garage door doctor and different things like that. So here's just a quick video of like, this one might not be perfect, but Hey, there's Tommy Mello, owner and a garage door doctor.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Well, you know, I've got a couple of guys that are going to go on Pinnacle this year that they're in certain markets and they call me up. They're like, these guys don't think Pinnacle's possible. But yet we have more guys going than ever before. There's like 50. So, like, what is it that these guys walk in and say that's not possible?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Like, what do you think this defeat, before they even get started, they've already given up? And by the way, Pinnacle is a trip where they get some access to equity and they get – it's a fun trip to Mexico. It's like it's going to be a game changer for a lot of people. It's like a very prestigious thing for the listeners. But go ahead.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know, preconceived notions.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
There could be great ones and there could be really, really bad ones.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
At what point do you decide, what's the straw that breaks the camel's back that you're like, Because I always say if there's a will, I'll find a way. If they want to meet me 50-50, even 60-40, I'll do the 60. I'd even meet 70-30. But when a relationship becomes they don't care about the relationship, there's no respect, self-respect and mutual respect.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
That's when you start to wonder, even if you are a producer, like – You're not part of the team. You're not pulling your weight. You don't show up to meetings. You're actually bringing everybody else down. Dave, I always say this about a lot of the people. Me and you don't talk a ton.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I never call you up and bitch, but I don't call you up and say, man, when I call you, we smile, we catch up, and we laugh. But what point do you decide, no bueno, I got to make some moves here?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah. I mean, we've learned a lot from some of those guys. You know, they've got some good owners, but that's like any other franchise. So you just wrote a book. I wrote the foreword to it. Nothing changes when nothing changes. And this book came out last month. It's a bigger book. How long did it take you to put this together?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You feel like they self-eliminate? Because I was talking to Dan in Michigan and he goes, most of my guys self-eliminate. He's like, I don't really have to do much there. I know. Because when he's talking to Luke, who's our COO, or even Brian Davenport, they'll be like... when are you going to let this guy go?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
He's like, I don't spend any time with the bottom 20% because they kind of fall off anyway.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And, and that, and do you think that's the right mentality? Do you think just let that, do you think that they should be there long enough to quit? Or do you think you should get in front of it before? And I guess it's circumstance circumstantial.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I will say this when I, when I parted, when I talked to Cortec about this, You know, our legal team was a lot more – I said, I think it's bullshit. And I called Doug with Cortec. I think it's really crappy that we've got to do, like, six performance improvement plans. We'll fire a top guy like this. If they don't show up to a meeting, we're, like, gone.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But we're, like, we're going to hold on to people that are actually losing us money, that don't allow us to pay our bills, that will close our doors if they were – you know, unfortunately, like, we've got obligations and bills we need to meet. Rents and service time and, you know, all kinds of stuff. And he says, no. He goes, we'll deal with the lawsuits. You fire them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You get rid of anybody not pulling their weight. Meaning, in effect, it should not be hard. I'm glad we work in right to will. Like, look, my job is never, I don't enjoy firing people. Unless you lie to each other still, then it's easy. But why, if we know this person's got to go, what advantage, like I'm telling you right now, get rid of them. I mean, just after this meeting.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You cut them... As long as you wholeheartedly in your heart believe they're not right, don't wait.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I don't think anybody should get let go that doesn't see it coming. So, yeah, there should be something. But I don't think you just wake up one day and be like, this person's got to go. I think it's probably been a couple of months. So hopefully you... If you're thinking correctly, I know you just don't wake up and be like, man, this guy's gone.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You knew if you were in the bottom percent. Yeah. And you just said, hey, you pack up your stuff and say, look, this was fair. Like I had a chance to work harder to get above the bottom 20% because new people coming in is a good thing. Fresh blood. Anyways, I know we're going off here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
A lot of them don't even give the numbers.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Well, you know what's interesting is back in the day, and you remember these days back over on University. I used to have people write down, we'd make a smiley face, and in black, you'd go write your numbers and your KPIs. And then in red, I'd write an unhappy face. And I'd give the markers to each person because I knew it was only like, in Phoenix, there was only like 20 guys.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And it was kind of shaming, and I said all the losers come up and write their numbers. But by the way, I didn't mean you're a loser as your character. It just meant you lost this week. You didn't hit the goal. So Steve Siraci, you know really well. He always tells me, when you said that, and I took the red marker, and he was walking really slow.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I remember this day, and he just kind of fills it out real quick, sits back down, and he goes, never again was I going to be on that side. Something to be said about just accountability and pushing people and saying, look, how does it feel to be in the bottom five of this company?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Either they're going to quit or they're going to get better.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And I want to get that out of them quicker.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Listen, if this is not working, let me know. But if you want help, tell me. I'll get you the right ride-alongs. We can send you back to Phoenix. We've got so many opportunities. You stick with me for 30 minutes before Thursday meeting. We'll work through this together. But let's figure this out today. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Because I'll tell you this, I wouldn't be able to go home and look at my wife, look at my kids if I was in your position. Because I know you're better than this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's, you know, I think who does this the best? Eric Parks says, once Leslie started caring... He did over a million dollars in doors this year. I mean, he's the number one guy that we have in door sales. And he said, without my wife talking to me about my day and going through it with me. And I'm telling you, the more successful people I talk to, they bring their wife and kids into it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Like their kids ask them at the dinner table, how did today go? And of course, dad asks, how did your day go? You know, there's like, but they actually care about each other's day. They're pushing each other. Like Leslie's like, we're going to pinnacle. Like when you have somebody like, what's it going to take? Do you got to pick up a six day? Do you got to go do the ride along with this person?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
What is it going to take for you to win? When you have that person supporting you, a lot of people don't have that. But a lot of people do have it, but they just never asked them or brought them into it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I think they live above their means. When they start making six figures, it's like, you know, I've always said this, J.D., if you can't save money at $40,000, you can't save money at $100,000. You can't save money at $200,000. Everybody thinks it's a production problem. I need to make more money. It's not. It's a spending problem. Exactly. It's a spending problem.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I had a technician, I'm not going to say his name, but he was paying $1,200 a month for rent. Between him and his wife, they were bringing in over $250,000. And he had no money. Nothing. Nothing. I said, wait a minute, $1,200 a month. That's a 15 grand a year. So that leaves you with $235,000. I know there's some taxes and you got a kid and you got some stuff. But what's going on?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You don't even own a house. Like, where's the money? You know, here's the problem is they don't want to write it down. They don't want to keep track. It's almost like it's embarrassing to them. But if they just would get started. We have a guy, Jad, you know, that works for us. He went and got his body fat last week. 27% that's considered obese. He's skinny.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And you managed Tucson. You managed to go over kind of the last eight, nine years here at A1, like where you came in, what you started managing, some of the problems with some of the technicians. How many guys have you hired? How many people have you – whether you've terminated them or they've quit? I'm just curious about all the numbers. I mean it's been a while here. Tucson, by the way, was –
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
He's ready to change because he knows the facts. The body fat, Dex, is the best, most accurate thing. When you do this, you've got to look at yourself and deal with the facts. When you go to the doctor, my dad hates going to the doctor because you might have something, but you could fix it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And it's like the truth kills, but then you can make change. But you've got to know exactly where you're at. We call it the known financial position. That's what Alan Rohrer taught me, the known financial position. And when you've got that, it's like you could work miracles. You've got to have a plan, and you've got to be realistic. And it might take a year. It might take two years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But it took a decade to get you in that position.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Hey, hope you're loving today's episode. There's someone you need to know. Someone who played a huge role in how I built my $220 million home service business. His name is Al Levy, and he's the mastermind behind 7Power Contractor. He's helped hundreds of home service owners, including me, scale with more profit and less stress. Now he's retired, no consulting, no events, except for Freedom 2025.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Al's planning to make a rare appearance to hang out and, if time allows, host a meet and greet with attendees. This might be your only chance to meet the legend in person and pick his brain for a few minutes. Grab your ticket now and lock in our early bird bonus package worth over $5,000. Plus, VIP tickets are 20% off. Don't miss this rare opportunity. Go to freedomevent.com now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
That's freedomevent.com. All right, back to the episode. I agree, man. And, you know, it's so crazy that you see guys, you know, randomly Brandon Colby and Mike Price stopped at my house just randomly the other day. Mike Price, his fob, stopped working to start the car. So they had to pick it up and take it to the dealer to get reprogrammed. So they were riding together.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
They had a job by my house. So they stopped by. And, you know, Colby did darn near $2 million. Yeah. Pretty good year for him. And a little shy of $2 million. Wow. I mean, that's a large amount. These guys are performance pay, so the more they sell. And obviously there's a scorecard. There's other things that weigh into that. But, I mean, it's a crazy amount of money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But, you know, he's got, what, four cars? He's got a house. He's got a Can-Am. And these guys act like, man, things are tight. He's paying for his mom's car, his mom's rent. Yeah, when you're doing that, and he parties a little bit, so, you know, he'll pick up the bar tab. So, yeah. I mean, look. That's what's interesting. You know, I lived in the apartment for four years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I don't really need these material possessions to feel like it's nice to go out on a can-am. But, dude, I know how much you could get. You could rent them for how much I go out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I started Phoenix in 2007, added Tucson by 2010. It was our second market. It's one of our bigger markets.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Like, there's nothing important to me about, like, I need to have these material possessions. Like, they're great in the beginning. You love it. You love your new car. You love this. But I've never been like, man, this is what makes my life better. Because you get into this debt, and what's worse is when you just can't sleep because you can't make ends meet.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I wonder if there's anything I could set up where certain people would give me, I'd insure it. I'd put it in an account that I got to sign off and I died, but they'd have to come to me to get it out. And just something to like, because look, look, I could afford to cover everybody's in a way of like an insurance, but put it into some type of trust or some type of tax shelter. Like,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah, 401K, Roth IRA. There's a lot of different things that do it. But it's like, yeah, $30,000 is great. But think about this. And I'm not sitting here saying, look at me. I care less. But when I was 16, my cousin, red Corvette, it was an 87. Nothing special. We got in his car at Gilbert at my uncle's house. He was listening to Don't Speak, No Doubt on the CD player. I was 16, so this was 1999.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And he said, how much money do you make a month? And at that time, I was a lifeguard and I was bussing tables. And I don't remember what I said, but he goes, how much have you put away into your Roth? I said, what's a Roth? He goes, an IRA account. He goes, you don't have one? I go, no, I'm 16. He goes, I don't care how old you are. Let's go start you one right now. So we drove over.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And I haven't been able to put into that since I was 29. So think about that. When I was 29, I was seven years into the business. That was 2014 right before you started. I couldn't put any more money in. So that's compound interest each year. It's crazy that last decade.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So the more you get in there, obviously, you know, the idea is pay off your house. That's probably going to be your number one asset because that thing will keep going up. Like as inflation happens, real estate keeps up with it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You wrote the last check?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Oh, dude. I think you told me that. That's incredible. A lot of people are paying off their houses. Dan Farr. I love that because I like people that are in charge that actually take good financial decisions. They make good financial decisions that people could look up to you to say, listen, that guy had enough discipline and perseverance to pay off his house.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And the next thing is buy another rental. But that's the thing is don't buy something for yourself, a vacation house. Buy a rental.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I got lucky that he told me to do that. Right. And I respected him.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
If anybody that you didn't respect told you that, you probably... And my parents or my sister or anybody else, I respect the shit out of this guy. So I said, all right, I'm going to do it. Yeah. And I look at this annuity. It was a... I took this class when I was 19 called Finite. Finite Math. And in the back, there was all these tables. And they had these annuity compound interest. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So it was like... I go, and I go, 40 years. I'm only going to be 56. At the time, I would have been 59. 59 and a half, you can start pulling. 40 years of compound interest. That last five years is like, bang, bang, boom. Every year you left it in. Now, if I leave it in until I'm 80, because I won't need it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I mean, look, at the end of the day, I don't want to start, like, enjoying my life at 80, but there's good things that have happened since then. But, like, that's tax-free. And that's what I want everybody to understand that's listening. Like, our jobs, if you take one thing by the book, Nothing changes if nothing changes. But your technicians, they need financial literacy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
They need to learn a little bit about discipline. I don't care about leadership. I don't care about motivation. I care about personal discipline. And what I've learned is I cannot discipline you. I cannot tell you to wake up. You've got to actually. Exactly. build that strength, that muscle up yourself. Exactly.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's a story about you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Have you done the Audible yet?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Have you read the Audible?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah, for Audible, yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
AI is, we're training my, that's one other thing I've got to make a note of. We're training my AI skills. literally it's my face. It talks to you. It's loaded up all the podcasts and, um, I've got a way to train it actually to the next level. Um, which I think is important one day, you know, one day I'm going to die. Um, all of us are, I'm pretty sure of that. And, uh,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I think it's cool to have a legacy that if I load it up and I record enough stuff over the next 20 years, it kind of, it's not me, but it's a remnants of me. And it's kind of nice to leave that around for the next, you know, hopefully I have kids and, you know, there's something left for them to kind of, it's not the same at all.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But at least it's like, hey, dad, what would you do in this situation? I don't know. I don't know if it will help them or not. It's a weird thing. But I thought about when my dad passes or my mom passes. It's going to be the worst day of my life, but also to just, I still know they're gone.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
What do you use AI for? Give me a run through.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So when we started Tucson, I went to Goodwill. I remember going to Goodwill and buying, like, $20 desks in the most ridiculous chairs. I mean, back then it was like bootstrap, man. Right. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
That's the only one you use.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
There is so many great tools out there. It's like, look, you know, I've taken a lot of school. University, I've done a lot. I got an MBA. I took 60 credits of prerequisites for dental, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, organic chemistry. It's been a long time, but I wish it was more practical, just no fluff, bullshit. Like, this is an AI course you're going to take.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's for advanced learners to go from zero to hero. And I wish, like, even not, like, all the apps on your phone. Like, I just wish there was, like. Maybe if somebody is listening to this and you listen to this podcast, DM me if you know of a place that offers really well put together courses that are not 20 hours. I don't need an accreditation. I want to do it for myself.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
If I took a course a week and I actually used it, I don't want to take courses to something I don't want to use.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Maybe there's a YouTube channel that does that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Ooh, I'd love to see that. Yeah, no, it's great. So when my buddy Aaron Gaynor loaded up his... It said renegotiate with your vendors because this is, like, it literally said all this stuff. And mine's starting to get to know me. Mine is, like, if you want to talk to Blackstone and KKR and, like, this is some of the things they'd be interested in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's, like, it's personalized, which is incredible. Yeah. What do you, you know, you talk a lot about accountability. You say that's the first thing. And that's been a big buzzword today once for the last couple of years. And I know Luke gets really frustrated when he hears managers say, you got to be more accountable. Because what does that exactly mean to you?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Because it's just been a really big word for us. Accountability, accountability, you've got to stay accountable. But what does that even mean?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I don't know. Yeah, probably. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But, yeah, we said, listen, we're going to have certain color jeans and shorts.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
People were wearing, like, really, really crappy cowboy boots and ripped up pants and, like, stains everywhere. Yeah. We're not doing a normal. We're not doing, like, you've got to wear a long sleeve with patches all over and booties on your feet.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know, that's not hard for me. I mean, I understand how that could be tough, but it's like, dude, like literally, like sometimes either you smell like clone too much, you're covering something up, or look, you just, you don't smell. You're not pleasant.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And I'm going to get into this for myself, zero profanity, as far as the SRF.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know, it's not that hard because when I talk to my niece and nephews, I don't ever – I'm not a big customer.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But when I'm sometimes on the – not the stage, but when I'm talking to – you know, bring the fire meetings. I'll slip in an F word here and there, but there's nothing that, like, there was nothing great about that. It was not like it made the meeting better, but someone might have got offended.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Not usually our guys, but overall, I was doing this to, I was talking to like 40 companies at one point, and there was a couple women, and the guy that was having it, he goes, that was the best meeting I've ever attended except for the two F words. He's like.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So accountability, personal accountability, I believe there's this thing called the law of the lid. I know that there is, John Maxwell. And you'll only grow as your lid grows. So the more you learn, the more you start growing this lid. So now I've told the guys like Luke and Brian and our whole team over here, Adrian, is like, look, you guys are going to need consultants.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You guys are going to need to learn more. You're going to read the books I tell you to read. We're going to have a book club. Because what's important to me is that they continue to grow. Or otherwise, I'm going to outgrow them. Because I'm reading. I'm podcasting. I'm going to visit shops. And I've never been like, I don't want that for you guys. I never said that. I've always invited them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So now I'm starting to get way more into like, let's do more group activities. Let's get more involved. Because that's the evolution. And this is the way to make it's good for the community. It's good for the people. It's good. Everyone needs a helping hand. A lot of people try to do this on their own.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
That's interesting. So... You... You've been through a lot. I mean, you've been through some drug addictions, some alcoholism. You got caught in a country that you almost got in big trouble for something that didn't happen, but it was almost like a rape case that you could have got in prison for a long, long time. Probably a decade you would have been in jail or something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Oh, God, I would still be there, I'm sure. So all that's in the book. So you've been through the rigor.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yes, I have. It doesn't kill you. It makes you stronger, I guess. So, yeah, there's a lot of good information. First half of the book, Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes, is about you, and then the next one's practical things that you could do or your technicians or your people that you work with That makes sense. Can you go through a few of those? So time management.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah. But that's what's going on right now in certain markets. There's no leadership. And we're working on that. You know, it's hard to run. You do it. You run Albuquerque. It's hard when there's no boots on the ground. You can't have real one-on-ones face-to-face.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
What does this book sell for on Amazon?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know, if you got it published, yeah, so you didn't self-publish.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I don't know if you can get a bunch of them. You should – yeah, my assistant did that. So you guys should check out the book, Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes, J.D. Plotz, P-L-O-E-T-Z. Closing thoughts here. I asked the same few questions here. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you, J.D., what's the best way?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And, um, Is there any books that you've ever read that really changed the way you think about life and maybe business?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Patrick Licioni is his name that wrote that book. And he also wrote The Ideal Team Player. He also wrote Meeting Suck.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know how many times I've told you, J.D., And I've told the company that don't get comfortable. Things are going to look different in a month. I've learned to love change. It's not fun to change payroll systems or go from QuickBooks to Intact. But I was looking forward to it. I'm like, dude, it's time to get on the most elite of the elite softwares. It's time to do – Service Titan was tough.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Shit, that was – That was darn near a year when you were working because we were on.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah, we were on a bunch of them, but that one was called Abtora.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah, there was a couple before that. So, yeah, listen, I think you're right, though, man. I think that you've got to be comfortable with the idea of making quick and effective change. And a lot of people just think it's so hard because their habits need to change. That's a great book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, is your habits need to start to change if you want to change.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And you've got to realize you're Achilles' heels. Some people, it's social media. Some people, it's TV. Some people, it's Netflix. Some people, it could be alcohol. But whatever those are, you've got to figure out how to change that portion and solve a different habit.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
How do you get people comfortable? What do you got to do to make that happen?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
How do you make yourself available? What does that even mean?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I mean, do you tell them these are going to be my hours? Do you text them and say, let's have a chat? What's the first thing you're going to do to start that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But getting started is half the battle. I mean, I will say, like, I always say getting to the gym is the hardest part. Once you're there, you've got to do the work. So any final thoughts, brother?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I hate to tell you, but books don't make money. Get your name out there. It'll help in the long run. It's your calling card. You've got to figure out after this year how to buy books for a few bucks. Instead of giving away business cards, you're going to give away your book. You're going to send them out to people. Start doing some podcasts here and there. This is a good start.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah. I appreciate you, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
That's my job, is the vision of this company is, look, we're going to make history. It's going to be, it's still, I always say this, but it's still so small. Compared, you would think at this size, like, man, this is like, things are changing, though. Like, my position is changing. Like, I'm no longer involved in the projects. Like, now I got to really have this trust.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And I wrote down, become the best interviewer on the planet. hire the best people. It's got to happen. For my vision to maintain the way it's going is you've noticed the people that have come in are just the elite of the elite. Luke's been growing dramatically from a few years ago. There's a lot of people that have decided, I'm going to grow alongside of this company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And if now we're going to continue, it doesn't mean they're not on the bus. It means they might have to get on a different seat.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But you're the man, brother. You're doing great. And by the way, Tucson is a massive market. When I say markets, I go Phoenix, Tucson, Vegas, Denver, Houston, Milwaukee, and Detroit. Those are our mammoth markets.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It just doesn't have the population.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
No, no, no. Well, look it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Yeah, no, no, no. Forget about it. I'm switching 2025. 2024 was like, how much profit can we do? So we really, really got the bottom line down. renegotiated with a couple of vendors, massive opportunity. 2025, I just wrote a long email that I'm 100%. Let's get the revenue growth back to where it needs to be because 2026, I'm prepping for 2026.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And then I just think like people are, I'll close with this. People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in five. We are the type of Americans, we tap our feet when we go to the microwave. We make popcorn, we're just very impatient. And whereas you look at other cultures, they're so patient. So we've got to slow down. And enjoy the process.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Enjoy playing the game. Because, dude, otherwise you wake up and it's like... You're always waiting for this destination. And when it comes, it's like not what you thought it was going to be. It's like this isn't... You kind of... It's a few weeks of fun. And then you're like, I'm losing purpose. That's why a lot of people, when they sell their business... They're very depressed.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
They lost their baby. They have no meaning. They go in and they're like, what do I do now? And I never want that to happen. I will never be like, what do I do with my life today? But thank you, my brother. I'm very fortunate to have you on the team. All the guys look up to you. You run a great market, several markets. So keep up the great work.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Everybody buy this book, Nothing Changes When Nothing Changes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's the universal blueprint for meaningful change and long-term success.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Thank you, Tom. All right, thanks, everybody. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And how many guys are in Albuquerque now?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You got to start as you get the right things going.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast is when a growing company hiring 30 to 40 techs a month, some guys get in the truck and they realize, This isn't for me because we don't get a lot of people with garage door experience.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I mean, very rarely. If they came from the right company and they got a good attitude, especially if they moved, those are good guys. But when they jump around from job to job to job, they think it's a problem with every company they work for. They never look in the mirror.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
If you knew that one skill, that one skill, billionaire. If you could identify the people that will get stuff done that will actually enjoy their work. I read this thing, JD, and I want you to finish your story, but it said – You work eight hours to have fun for two hours. You work 10 hours to enjoy one hour. It was this Instagram post that had all this stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And my comment, you know what I wrote? It was a Facebook, actually. I wrote, then enjoy your work. If you don't hate work, if you actually have a good time at work, then it's like you're acting like you're washing dishes the whole time. By the way, I didn't mind washing dishes. It wasn't like this hard, ridiculous job. But what if you enjoyed your work?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Then it wouldn't feel like you're always hating life. So you came in, you became a manager, you took over Albuquerque, you had Tucson, and you had a lot of guys that came to you. Like the guys that come to me still. I had a guy come to me recently going through a nasty divorce here in Phoenix. You got custody battles. You got alimony.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Then you got guys that just can't seem to save a penny that are bringing in $150,000. And they buy new trucks. They buy their Harley. They'll go buy a Can-Am. They have no retirement account. They're in their 30s. And you're wondering – Where's the money? Where did the money go?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
You know, they say happy wife, happy life, but it's really happy home. Right. Happy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So cool. So you, it sounds like, you know, we have a morning mojo call. We have a Thursday meeting every week. You're interviewing a lot of people. What would you say, you know, this is a real question of mine. You got guys like Dave Parks that have been there a long time. Solid producer. I know you've had to tame him a little bit, but he kind of just does his own thing. Yeah, he does.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
But he just, you depend on him. He's been here, what, 10 years?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
So you got those guys that are just, they're going to do their thing. They're going to be pretty good. He's a pretty good producer. I don't know, has he got goals to hit pinnacle?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
I don't know why he just pushes a little harder. He's just not bought into the goal setting, writing things down. And that's another thing. So you got guys. What makes you know? So we train guys in the market for a month. They come to Phoenix for a month. They get back. We do a little bit of...
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
And where is it that, when do you find out? Because obviously you don't hire them unless you think they'll succeed. I mean, there was a time where we all hired people that we thought we could save. We were going to like fix people and we were going to, like we were doing like a good deed by God by hiring this person that was an ex-drug addict and like homeless or whatever.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
We're like, we're going to save their lives. And every one of us have done it that I'm like, okay, we're stopping playing savior. So when is it that you know someone's going to be an excellent fit?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Path to Meaningful Change with JD Ploetz
Welcome back to the Home Service Sex for today. I got a good buddy of mine, JD Plotz. He's been with me at A1 since 2016. Yep. And started out as a technician. Used to work for the bad guys. Yeah. The green team. I'm not going to even name them, but a great competitor, actually. They weren't great in Phoenix. That's why the guy got kicked out of the franchise. But it's weird in a franchise.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I don't do second place. I don't get excited. My dad taught us that, too. Like, dude, what do you mean?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Like, it's... I hate losing, man. I hate losing at anything. And it doesn't mean I want my competitors to fail because I think we can all drive each other up. We all get to win.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Let me give you a good example. It's been so many years. This was eight years ago. I met with the biggest competitor in town, who, by the way, two, three years ago, I bought him. But six years ago, eight years ago, whatever, we met up. We're at Topgolf. And by the way, there's 500 garage door companies in Phoenix. So this isn't like collusion, but he's like, look, me and you are in the Val pack.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
There's another competitor. Why don't we both raise our prices? And I'm like, where, where do you want to start? And he's like, let's raise our cost of openers. I'll raise it a hundred. You raise it a hundred. I'm like done next month. It comes out. You'll see. I raised it. I trust you. He raised his, I raised mine. I said, let's go back to top call. Let's raise everything another $100,000.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And we did. We didn't skip a beat. We just raised our price. And by the way, yes, there was other companies still charging less. We were really, really known. And yes, there was hundreds of other guys, but we were the ones doing most of the marketing. He was the king of yellow book back in the day. He was against yellow book, of course. And so that's what we did.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And he goes, dude, I'll always make mine more expensive than you, just so you know. He goes, I'm always going to add a trip charge. We'll be almost the same price, but I'm adding a trip charge. Great. It's better for me. And that's how long it's taken to change. Like we just did another price increase. We're sitting in the room next door and we're going over next year's budgets.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
What's the easiest way to exceed budget? What do you think the easiest way would be? The easiest thing is that more leads is a better text, is a better performance, higher conversion rate, higher booking rate. Raise your prices. Raise your prices. Simply raise your prices. But there's always that point of like diminishing returns where it's like you can't raise certain things.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Like Tom Howard and I talk a lot. He was raising his price once 1% every month. And he goes, there's just certain things that Home Depot sells that I couldn't. At some point, my disposal were like three grand for a garbage disposal. You know they cost 200 bucks. So there's certain things that are more skilled that you could charge more for.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So you're an expert in advertising, marketing, entrepreneurship, CEO of Carol Media. He's an expert in sales psychology and advertising strategy, focused on helping others achieve their business goals. As an author, a speaker, and travels the country motivating and training entrepreneurs in social media strategies and how to make the most of their advertising budget.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And I think a lot of people, if you're going to raise your prices, raise your value. Show up the same day. Have nice trucks. I think a lot of people miss that they still pay the least. You pay more. You coach more. You buy flowers for your people more. You cook for them more. When you raise your prices, now you got to give more to your people. That's the thing people miss.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Like everybody's like, oh, I'm going to leave here and raise my price. I'm like, don't raise your price unless you raise the way you treat everybody. Yeah. Especially your clients and your internal clients. It's not just putting more in the owner's pocket. No, a lot of people think, hey, that'll be great.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'm like, no, now you need to have a better recruiting, better training or one-on-ones, like actually build out your depth chart and build out your org chart in a new way. And now you got more money to bring more specialists in and then more money will come in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And you got to put it back into the business. A lot of people, the minute you start making money, they start extracting. You know, they call it a draw. They take a lot of owner draws.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, you went out and bought a second house. And I'm okay with a second house if you make it an Airbnb and use it a couple times a month or a year. I'm okay with one nice thing. If you're going to take the kids out on the boat, great. But you got two Harleys that never get. You got two snowmobiles. You guys are keeping up with the Joneses. Like a little delayed gratification.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
A little bit for five years. Let the business compound a little bit. It's your number one asset. And build the sell. Build a business to sell. We were talking about that before we came on.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
No one ever taught us how to keep money. And a lot of people want to make money to spend it. So luckily, I got a really good tax guy. I got really good lawyers. I got really good financial management. And there's this book called Die With Nothing. Because I'm building a really big house now in Paradiseville. And people are like, why are you building such a big house?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'm like, because that's my special time. That's where I live. That's where I'm going to have my family. That's where people come in and visit. And we can do anything. That's my fun time. That's like buying fun. I'm like, I'm buying experiences. I'm buying time. We don't have to leave. There's a bowling alley. There's a shooting range. There's everything I want.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And I'm like, you work hard for these special moments. And now I'm going to have a lot more special moments. But I had to learn. And plus, the more money I spend, the harder I work. It's crazy how that works.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'm like, let's go spend more money. Let's do some nice things. I'm sending my mom... my stepdad and my uncle to Italy. That was an expensive ass trip, but I'm like, sweet. Let me go make some more money so we can keep doing stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, 25 millionaires came out of the deal. I've got a lot of big plans.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
On my first turn. And, you know, I do a lot of little things. Like one guy wanted to do the water drive. He's like, dude, I've walked up to a homeless guy. A woman. She was missing prosthetic leg. He helped her get on the bus. Bought her water. Bought her Gatorade. One of those small coolers. It's like, it's not a real cooler. It's a... It's like you buy it for a few bucks. It's like a throwaway.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Styrofoam? Styrofoam, yeah. So he like took care of her and he's like, so we decided... We, I don't know how much, tons, like literally like the weight was tons of water. We're adding a garage to their center. We got them so much food, so much water. And today we were gambling for charity and golf. And me and Chase and my marketing team went out and won $7,500.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
We're going to donate to the Justice Center. We do a lot of stuff, man. Like I went to the Masters on like a Tuesday. I didn't get the best tickets, but my lawyers bought them for me. So the masters, I got two shirts and I'm giving them to the top two guys that golf in the company. Like I just always thinking of little things. Yeah, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
But there will be a time where I'm doing like... I started this thing called TommyCares.org. Yeah, I think it's .org. And I was giving 20 people a month just anything under $1,000. Help them pay their rent. Help them buy something for the kids. And then my CFO had a shit fit because they're supposed to pay taxes on that. And by the way, I never use it to get my top guys.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
My top guys make great money. It was always somebody in need. Like a single mom that needs tires. It was always something. I did a lot of the little things. And I was just like, look, I'm going to do 20 grand. I think it was $22,500 a month is what I wanted to spend. And he kind of nixed it. So I'm trying to come up with a way to do it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Like I was like, can they do like a GoFundMe that I like sponsor? I'm just trying to figure out for taxes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, it's like, look, here's the deal. When the rich get really, really wealthy, they become philanthropists. Yeah. And it doesn't have to go through bureaucracy where the governor and the mayor, they're all getting rich.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah, we go right to the source. And by the way, I employ 800 some odd people and I'll be 2,000 here very soon. They're all kicking into the system. The day you start taxing me enough where there's no benefit, I love what I do. But if there's no economic gain, I can move to Singapore. I can move to Brazil. I can move anywhere. I can do something else where they don't.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Who would want to work harder? Right. And pay less if there's another option.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, capital gains is decent, but now they want to do, you know, bump it up to around 30%. And that's okay. I mean, it's better than ordinary income. But you look at it and I'm like, the government wastes a lot. Like it's not true capitalism a lot of the times because they'll have like, the military will have contracts where they can only buy from one.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And what they buy band-aids for like six bucks, they'll pay 50 for.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
They could have their wife just screen it and say, this is a great video. It's not hard. I mean, you go on Upwork or Fiverr.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You're allowed to email them?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It was my biggest mistake, just being A1 Garage Door. What would have you called it? Anything that's different. I could have called it Mellow's Garage Door. Anything but A1. Anything that's common or quality or AAA or whatever. Anything that I could have got an irrevocable trademark and no one would have had it. Like that would have been, and I would have probably rather done
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
hindsight like i just bought a1 home services just because i want to go in other industries down the road yeah but a1 is just a common name yeah i thought i was a genius when i did it yeah that's i my phone number in high school was 3279 which spelled out easy so that's where i came up with easy pro and it's make life easy call a pro i like it so yeah my original number was 898-3667 which is door see that's beautiful man it's beautiful i almost bought garage.com
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
recently what would that cost a little over a mil surprise that wasn't like a done deal for you yeah but i mean i have a1 garage.com and it's got the domain authority so i was like there's not that much of a difference a1 garage.com i don't know i would have had to like 301 redirect i had to do all this stuff so it just wasn't the value yeah but it would have been cool i still might talk to the guy he sold it but i know the guy that bought
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You're lucky. You know the rule of 40?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
The rule of 40 is your growth. of EBITDA. So they look at your growth of EBITDA plus your growth that year. So if you're at 15% EBITDA and you grew your MRR, ARR over 25%. So you had an EBITDA percentage.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So if you had both those up and it's over 40, you're at a higher multiple. The other one is you got to break through the $10 million mark. Yeah. And then I'm going to look at your churn. I'm going to look at how often are you losing clients? It's one of the big things that service time looks at is the churn. And then I'm looking at, are all your clients from one source?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Because if they're only from, like, let's just say you got everything from ServiceTank, you didn't have a lot of clients on Housecall Pro or Sarah or ServiceFusion or Jobber. Yeah. That kind of limits you because ServiceTank could change something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, I don't like that model. I think you got to do one of your contracts eventually.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You hear some people talking about 40. It's kind of like the dot-com era. I think it's going to keep going though. Yeah. I mean, next year they say AI is what's going to cause the market to go over 65, 7,000.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Hey there, I hope you're loving today's episode. I wanna share something with you real quick. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to win and what it means to keep winning in 2025. Then my team sent me this quote from Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. Here's what Kevin said. You need leaders who can pivot because the world changes so quickly.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
No matter what your business plan is, things are never gonna happen exactly how you expect. I love that. because here's what I know, there's gonna be some massive changes in 2025. Just look at all the PE money pouring into some home services and other industries. So my question for you is, are you ready to pivot, adapt, and win this year? If you are, come to this year's Freedom Event.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Kevin's hitting the stage to share some real stories behind his success. You will be in the same room with people like Mr. Wonderful and myself, plus other home service owners and other industry leaders worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They're gonna be talking about exactly what's working right now to dominate your market.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
To learn more about the event and grab an early bird offer, check out freedomevent.com. It's freedomevent.com. Now back to the episode.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You know, when you're building a company, the main reason you want a partner is not for the government. It's for the relationships, the resources. It's who you know, not what you know. So you bring on somebody that's got a proven track record. That's done it. That literally like anything they invest in, they're an incubator. They got the relationships. They understand how to bring in.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Really what it is about is It's about who you bring on. So they'll help you with your leadership team. As the company grows, unfortunately, the leaders don't grow as fast. So you got to pull in talent. So your org chart, they're going to help with, and then who they know and how to forward develop the code if you're doing software. So they got to be, it's strategic.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I would never get a partner on that wasn't able to grow the business exponentially faster. And so, you know, finding the right partner. Remember when you bring out a partner, unless you're doing a big deal, like if you're selling 70%, 80%, probably the highest bidder, but they're going to bid a lot. They probably have a plan.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And I would spend as much time with the people that they've had success with and get the good, bad, and ugly and fly out and actually see those people and spend time with them. And say, are these people like me? Because you've got to understand, is this PE group going to be successful with us? They'll all tell you the right story. They'll tell you the right things. You're going to stay in control.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You're going to do this. But there's nightmare stories, too.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
That's the problem too, is you got to be very careful. The guys that know how to like, get these seed rounds. When it's other people's money, it's just not treated the same way. The burn rates really are.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So yeah, it's great to see you. Yeah. Well, what do you think is going on this next year in marketing? Because there's a pendulum. I need more people. I need more leads. And this year has swung to more leads. Yeah. And Goldman Sachs, pretty darn good. They've been spot on with me for the last couple of years. And they think next year is going to be gangbusters. Gangbusters. In a good way.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Maybe it's not everything does well. I mean, when you look at even Goldman Sachs and some of Morgan Stanley, some of the best investments in the world, you look at these deals flow, especially with software, you only need one out of 20 to go well. Right. You get a hundred X on it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So capital ventures, that kind of money, they know they're not going to hit everyone. My portfolio, the stuff I've invested in, I'm kind of pretty damn good track record. 90% are growing. I made some mistakes. I still think I'll get more than my money back. Some of the things were out of my wheelhouse, like restaurants, but I invested in a really good club bar. That one will probably 4X.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You do anything with Ish? I put a little bit of money in Nuve.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
and then just they pay, too, for the monitoring. He listens to me a lot, and Ishmael's got a very... Strong personality. Not a lot of people. He doesn't take a lot of advice from people. He's a bull. He's a bull. And he'll do well. I mean, he's got the taste of money. Another guy, though, and a lot of my buddies that have made a lot of money, they go out and they just buy a lot of stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Stuff being liabilities, not assets. Well, the three Fs, I wrote it down. Anything that flies or floats.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And it's true, man, that look, you can spend a lot of money on boats and planes. Yeah. I see. I don't see a lot of people, but when you buy real estate, you typically do well.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It does. It goes up. Real estate's great. I mean, I'm having a hell of a streak in the S&P 500. And I think it's going to stay alive next year. Like it's up since I put the, all the money in, in the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, it's up like 45%. Isn't that a beautiful thing? It's crazy.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Cause I keep buying businesses and investing in businesses and I don't really, I'm not active in those businesses. There's a team. I have the TMV team, but you know, I always like a couple million dollars to go out or $3 million or $5 million. And my account comes right back up. Yeah. I'm like, I was just, this is crazy. I love it. Yeah, man. So, well, we're having a lot of fun, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'll tell you, A1, I just believe is going to be, there's just, I have a clear path and a clear vision of what comes next. And I'm still trying to figure out what my life's going to look like. Cause I like to golf. I like to fish, but I still like to work. So there's a happy medium and I haven't figured it all out yet, but next year is going to be super hard work. Very little vacations.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Interest rates are going to come down. It's going to be really, really good in the market. S&P 500. As well as people are buying. I think houses are going to be selling more rapidly. I think the economy is going to be turning leads over. I think people are going to be investing in their homes, their garage doors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Very little stages I'm going to speak. I'm not writing any books. I'm just going to be focused. Seasons, dude. Seasons. It says stay focused and run ruthlessly prioritized. That's what this other one says.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And then I got my goal here of where I want to get A1 to. And then I got a goal. I'm setting up what the next five years look like after the next turn. very few people i'm building the org chart of what it will need to look like for the scale i want and i'm the only one working on this there's nobody else
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah. Well, that's the problem, too. And if I tell other people, they won't get to the next goal. I don't think it's a problem, Tommy. I think it's a gift, bro. Well, there's a lot of work that goes into the fostering of the relationships, like the people I'm flying out and the massive funds I'm hanging out with, the people I'm around. Like I said, home improvement.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'm hanging out with a lot of billion-dollar home improvement companies, over a billion of revenue. And there's some of them at 2 to 3 billion. So what I had to do, and I've been saying this a lot, is I hike to the top of this mountain. I enjoy the hike. I look around. I see the next mountain. I go back down to the base camp. These guys have been to the top of that one.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
They know how to get there quickly. So I'm hanging out with these people, and the next mountain's big. What's the next mountain? 10 billion? 20 billion? And I don't dislike it. It doesn't feel like work. That's why I'm very fortunate, too. It's like, if this is work, I mean, we sit down at a lot of meetings, but they're not hard meetings.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And, you know, there's a lot of people in a pressure cooker because my timelines are pretty aggressive. I think that's the hard part for people. What happens when you don't hit those timelines? How do you handle that? Well, we always have a budget we'll hit. We've never missed a budget. But the Tommy goals are way bigger. Right. The Tommy goals. The Tommy goals.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
There's like your B-Hag, then you got Tommy way above that. So my goals are so crazy. I let myself down. They don't let me down. We hit our budget. We have a realistic budget that the bank and the private equity can say, you guys are consistent. You always hit your budget. You beat your budget. But it's like, now I'm just refining processes. I'm like, let's do this. Let's study this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
How can we scale this? And it's always reverse engineering. how big can we get? And so this next goal is pretty easy. 110 million of EBITDA. The next goal after that is how do we get, you know, between 500 and a billion, which is a pretty big spread, but I got to get a little, I don't want to plan five years from now. I'm just planning the next year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
But the vision, do you even think, I don't even think it's realistic to plan five years from now anymore. It's not, but you still got to know what would the company look like? That's doing a billion dollars of EBITDA. What would we be selling?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, I know it's not going to happen in two years, but there's got to be greater acquisitions, greater greenfield growth, greater organic growth, and going into multi-trades. All those things need to happen, Michael.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
See, I don't think robotics will be, I think the trades have another decade. I think there's other things out there, but that's why.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, we'll see. I mean, look, end of the day, we're the first ones to adopt technology and everyone knows here we're changing rapidly and they don't get comfortable here because they know I'm looking at software on top of software on top of software. The main thing is it's got to all come off. So we built our DNA project, data and analysis, all on Power BI.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
A lot of AI is sophisticated, but these data fields don't make a difference in the company unless you can make decisions based on data.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah. You got to be able to look at data and what is the, this is what we're actually going through this big thing Q4. What does this data mean and what key initiatives are we going to take from the data? Strategic planning. Strategic planning and like budget. And I enjoy this, man. It's a different level of business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I'm just like, I've kind of, you think after the first turn, I would have already had everything I want, but I want one more big turn.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah, grab the nuts. I had to grab these nuts. One more big turn. And there will be plenty of other ones. But for me, I'm trying to design the life. That I want that I can help the most amount of people. So I've got a whole list of people like I need to help him. I need to help her. I need to do this with this person. A lot of them are people that work here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
But it's like you start going really, really fast. And you wake up and you're like, you're still hungry. I mean, a lot of people are like, man, if I had that, I'd be good. And it's like, yeah, the goalpost seems to always move. Post moves. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
No, it's cool, man. I'm glad you made it. We were going to go to dinner tonight.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Talking a lot about AI call center. There's a fella in town that I'm talking to and it's just legit, man. We get about 10 different Software is a week that we look at. We've got a whole technology team. And this one, I think, will make a big, big difference in the outcome of where we go.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It's very hard. I'm going to tell you guys that are listening, the ability of me to handle stress and anxiety and pressure. I wouldn't want this for anybody, but I'm very good at it. And I've got a calling to do this stuff. Yeah, it's a gift. And you think you hired all these great people. They only take you so far. Then you got to start rebuilding the whole team. There's peaks and valleys.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And every time, After you hit a peak, you're going down into a valley again and repositioning the whole company. And you got to do that over and over and over. And it kind of consumes you. How many times do you think you've had to do that? Oh, a dozen times. I mean, literally. And it's hard. It's hard because you got to make really hard decisions. And you got to fire people. You got to top grade.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You didn't earn for a string.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And that's tough, man. And sometimes you got to kick them off the team and you got to do what's right for the company. Unfortunately, because there's 800 other people that are feeding three people. That's 3,200 people. They're taken care of. So you've got to make those hard decisions. I've had to refocus my lens into a different lens to be able to make those hard decisions.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And it's very hard to do. And there's people making even bigger, harder decisions. But I'm not money-oriented. Most of Blackstone and Apollo and KKR, they're just saying, how do I get my shareholders the richest? They're not asking the questions of how do I help out the most. And there's a happy medium because you got to stay profitable.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
You got to write a contract and everything. You know everything going in. We spent three weeks just on my contract, my personal contract. No kidding. You got to get the right people when you do. I'm going to call you, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah. They've never, you know, the e-myth, they've never gone from an employee to, to an owner.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I wouldn't do a PE deal until I get past $5 million. of ARR. I wouldn't even consider it. And I would probably do a more than 10%, not more than 30. I'd probably do 30%. It's a meaningful amount of money that they'll be behind you. but they're still going to have rights to sell you unless you're raising a different type of money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
If it's private equity, they're not going to say, sure, I'll give you this money. You can sell whenever you want. When do we get our investment back? Our LPs are waiting. Typically after the fifth year, they start selling their companies in each fund. They'll raise a fund. They'll buy 10 to 12 deals. And then they need that money back pouring back to the LPs, limited partners. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So you can't just say, sure. Now there's other investment strategies you could use that raise capital. But I still, if I'm putting 10% and let's just say I threw a million dollars in, when do I get the money back? And what's the profit sharing look like? There's all these questions. Nobody wants to blindly invest in something they can't get an ROI on. There's a million investments out there.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It's real estate. Throw a million dollars into real estate. You don't need to kill it. Get your money back in eight years. It's all paid off. And the value went way up. And people pay the debt down.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It's beautiful. People want to rent. A lot of people like to rent. What's a new book you've read that you love?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And this owner mentality, this, this futuristic thinking is working on the business and they want to do the work still because they say, if I don't do it, it won't get done. Right. I'm well beyond that, but I still have a lot of issues. Like I look at a one and I'm like, this is so many opportunities, so many holes in the business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
CoachCarroll.com. Is there one final thought to close us out with that the listeners can take? It's my mantra, baby.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I did say this and it's not it's kind of controversial for your saying, but the hustler had to die for the leader to be bored for me. Yeah, because I was doing too much of everything. Yeah. Write a book to a pocket and I still do the stuff. I love it. Talk on stage. And that's feeding me knowledge, energy, relationships. But I had to really get focused.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I know everybody's like, man, it doesn't get easier, but the problems are more fun. It's not like, are you going to come to work sober today? We know I had to lose a thumb today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And you got to pay.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So I work with Dan Antonelli. He built our brand. I work with Dan Martell. I'm one of his five. He works one-on-one with Joe Polish. I'm in his 100K group. Joe Cristiano came out here and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Howard Partridge worked with him. He comes out here. I'll leave you my best mentor I've ever had. Yeah. I mean, sales boss, Jonathan Wissman hired him.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
He worked with me for years. So, and I didn't know, this is crazy. I didn't even look at these books, but I paid them all a lot of money. Every single, it just happens to be the books on the wall that I didn't even think about. But they've all been paid. People say, what happens if you can't pay? And I'm like, I came up with the money because I needed it that bad.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
When I didn't have the money is when it meant the most is when I received it the best. Yeah. I received the lessons the best when it was like my last time. It hurts way more if you're like, yeah, I got a hundred grand here. Here's a hundred grand.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
literally broke my heart today today lost a thumb business ain't easy i don't like he was off in the ambulance they're probably going to reattach it but i'm literally walking with with ashley and i'm like i don't know if i'm gonna be able to sleep tonight like i don't care about workers comp and that i'm more worried about this guy like thumbs a big deal so yeah it's just messed up
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, that's what Dan Martell said. He said that when I started to buy, like I want to be bought from, everything changed. Everything changed. No more negotiations. Here's the money. You're worth it. I'm worth it. You pay. Now all of a sudden people come to you with whatever it might be you sell. Sure. When you're always negotiating with everybody, you're surprised when they negotiate back to you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
That's what you're putting on. That's your aura. That's your demeanor. No, man. DJ, I really appreciate you showing up today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Hey, I love these. Just have a normal conversation. Hopefully the listeners listen. Couple of big takeaways. Private equity is not for everybody. Business is not for everybody. Build something you can sell. Get your guys out there posting on social media regularly. If they got an iPhone or a Droid, just find the most spontaneous, fun person and just give them some training.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It doesn't take a whole lot, but
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah, monetize it. Gamify it. Yeah. Awesome. No, you did great. A lot of great takeaways, brother. Thank you. Dude, I'm like, I'm on a E. I went golfing today for the first time in a long time. And it's still that sun just bakes.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I had a late night, early morning.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
But there's things that go wrong. The point of what I'm saying is a lot of people listen to this podcast and they're like, man, I wish I... Nobody wants my life. It's a great life. And I enjoy my life. And I worked hard to get to this point. It doesn't just go from here to here. It was little notches.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
The law of the lid. You can only go as far as your lid goes. So I've had to really pour into me. My goal for my company is that I work harder on me than I do at the company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
because i'm growing very very fast and i'm the best i've ever been but the worst i'll ever be yeah jim rohn used to say that you got to work on yourself more than jim rohn i play that video almost in every speech i do that's cool man it's like let me love me to love you you know you got to put your own oxygen mask on first yeah
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, that's what I asked. I'm like, I was talking to a young guy the other day. He's like 27. And he goes, I'm going to do what you did. I'm just, my goal is a hundred million. And then I'll make a big exit. I'm like, why, why, why? He's like, well, you proved it's possible. I'm like, sure. As long as you're not married and don't have kids, you can make it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So I told him, he goes, I have three young kids under five. I go, why would you ever want to do that to your family? So they could get to know you in 15 years when they're moving out. Ooh. And he goes, you're right. No, he, I've talked, I talked to him for about an hour. He goes, you're absolutely right. Like, dude, it makes a lot of sense. I'm like, let's just see what you want.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Start with the end in mind. You want this vacation house on the lake. You want a beautiful house. You want to help out your parents. You want to be able to go to Europe twice a year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And plus when you learn how to sell a business, it's like, it's the greatest thing on earth because now you're learning like this financial IQ that very few people know. and understand. That's what Kent Goodrich did. He called me, he's like, what you're gonna learn? You're a badass, dude. He's like, you know so much about home service. And now I'm getting into home improvement.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
See, home improvement is way different than home service. They go out and they get the leads. Home service, they come to me. I'm spoiled. Our phone rings off the hook. We run 20,000 jobs a month. When we get good at home improvement by creating demand where it didn't exist, like Anderson Renewal and roofing companies and windows, doors, front doors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I love the idea of a non-demand, although demand gets the bigger multiples. So if I got a demand-driven business that can make it through a recession, I'm still going to fix my garage if I'm trapped. I'm still going to get my AC fixed no matter what. If my roof is leaking, if a pipe bursts. But when you learn home improvement, it's not as sexy. Bath remodelers and stuff.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
There's so much fricking money and it's fun.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And they're bigger tickets.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Yeah. So that's what we're doing. That's how we're going to morph into doing a lot more on the home.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So that was smart. Yeah. I was going to tell you, my plan is, and I was just telling Blake this, when I walk into a room with my C-suite, I hope they punk me. I hope they're way smarter than me. I hope I just can't even keep up. And I'm the dumbest guy because if that's the case, then I can truly take a vacation and know that I'm in better hands.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
There's like, I say the majority of the people in this company are far better than me in their that's CFO or operations or warehouse or the fleet, but they don't know how to dream like I do. And that's my one asset is my vision. Yeah, absolutely. That's it. And I got to live the vision and I got to make sure they're following the vision, but there's a vision for them within my vision.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And just like I always say in the book, elevate, my dreams have to be big enough. So all their dreams fit in inside.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
So what do you see going on with marketing? Where do you see most people putting their budgets? What do you think? By the way, let me just make one caveat. I think marketing should include recruiting and you should have a big budget for great people. I think that it should be 50% of your brain should be, how am I going to top grade? And what consultants am I going to get?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
How am I going to train better? Yeah. It's not just, how do I get this A plus talent? Because then you don't need as many leads. Then you get more five-star reviews. Then your customers turn into raving fans and you grow organically.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
And that's what the TV radio bill.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Well, I'll tell you, there's this gal named Mary Tracy. She follows me pretty religiously. Okay. And it's impossible not to know her because she leaves a comment on everything that I do. And I really like her a lot. Shout out, Mary. I was trying to help me and introduce me to people. So this idea of commenting is a really good approach. I mean, we're in the midst right now of getting VAs.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
BAs just to do outreach. Yeah. I mean, listen to people building, you just moved. I mean, there's a million ways to do this. Yeah. And go on to where they're, they check their social media. It's better. I like mail still, especially handwritten mail. I like social media because you're hitting them. Like I'm usually on Facebook. I've never checked an Instagram. I haven't been on LinkedIn in years.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
I've got a team that does Instagram. Yeah. I'm going to get rid of my Facebook because unfortunately I say yes too much. Somebody said, can I just borrow 20 minutes? Well, that 20 minutes is borrowing from my mom's time. It's borrowing from these time. It's borrowing from something I could be doing a day once. So, you know, I bought back a lot of my time and I fill it in to help people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
But I should be helping that same 20 minutes I spent. I could have probably answered thousand people have the same question. So I need to do it on this forum. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah. I think, you know, someone asked me this morning, like how many consultants it took me to be successful. And I'm like, I met the right one pretty early on, but yeah, you know, my good gut feeling wasn't always the right feeling because when I was younger, a business, I was like, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. I was more worried about revenue than profit and profit really.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
What's the machine that allows you to reinvest into the company? No question.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So in your book, the duct tape marketing, you emphasize the importance of making small business simple, effective, and affordable. I'm just curious, you kind of went through the milestones a little bit, but when you're starting and you've got attribution, you've got the right setup,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
the first 90 days, I guess is if you're first if you're really small, just going through this checklist, you claim this page, your advanced verified for Google, your your load speed, your your website, but what's some simple strategies to make the phone to start to ring? Or is it just a combination of everything kind of an omni approach?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
He's built, he's been a trusted advisor to small and medium-sized businesses for more than 30 years, specialized in marketing strategy, consulting, and advertising. He's also the author of seven books, including Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, and the host of Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. His blog is recognized by Forbes as one of the top five for small business marketing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I love that. I love that. I've tried doing some stuff, but never to leave behind. The question always is, are you guys really going to leave it behind?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And there's got to be checks and balances for that. We can see what they're calling afterwards, checking to see if they got the brochure.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, no, that's the hardest part is attribution. I've got 7,000 call tracking numbers now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
But, you know, technology has changed a lot over the last 10 years. It makes it easier to track where people are calling from.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And squeezing out smaller businesses. Good news, some home service owners are about to make more money than ever if they know how to compete. That's why I'm bringing together the most successful home service owners at Freedom 2025, people who've built $10 million to 500 million-plus companies to break down exactly what's working right now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You'll be in the same room as me, my billion-dollar network, and Kevin O'Leary. Grab your early bird ticket now and get over $5,246 in exclusive bonuses, plus 20% off VIP. Go to freedomevent.com now. That's freedomevent.com. All right, back to the episode. So let's see here. The concept of getting to know, like, and trust you is central to your system.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, here he is. John, how are you, brother?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
What are some actionable steps small business owners can do to get this trust with their audience?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, there's in business. One of my mentors, Al Levy, taught me there's two things that the owner should never stop doing and paying attention to. And that's know the financials like the back of their hand and marketing and marketing by far, by far more than sales, more than anything for me. Marketing is everything. I love marketing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, 100%. And I'll tell you. I used to be very price sensitive as a consumer.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And now I'm definitely looking for someone that can get out there the same day. And what are the reasons why they compete? And I started to realize it more from a consumer. And I'll tell you, without owning a house with stuff going wrong all the time, it's a bigger house. Now I'm starting to learn how to make ourselves like, man, I saw the plumber just in the last six weeks, seven times.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And I'm like, dude, some of this stuff, I'm like, come on. Like everything, I feel so nickel and dime that I'm like, I wish you just charged me for everything. Give me all the options up front, check everything. Tell me everything you think is gonna go wrong. Because now I feel like, you know, it's 1200 bucks here, five grand there, two grand there. It's like, what the heck? I don't know.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I like to buy the best now. I will say that. And I'm like, give me an option for everything instead of just telling me what's wrong today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Tell me everything I can possibly get.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah. So let's dive into that a little bit. Marketing a little bit versus sales, because I would argue people need to know who you are and you need to book the phone call first. But then as a technician gets out there, I mean, you work with so many companies in the past. How much do you talk to them about sales training and the art of the sale and all that stuff?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
When you're asking for a referral, what's the best way that you've found to do that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Love it. You know, there's this everywhere you look. I mean, I just had my guys out in town, the private equity guys. Private equity, basically deep pockets are getting in and they don't play it around, man. The one thing I think they have that most people don't is they got the bucks and they got the analytics. They've got a proven, tried, tested methodology.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
They got the best relationships with Google. They're willing to put buku bucks in this stuff. They're willing to pay for team endorsements and the best wraps and the newest trucks and the latest technology. What's the best way to compete if you're smaller and you're worried about that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, you're giving me all kinds of good ideas here. I love this stuff. Yeah. So that's that's the funny thing is we leave reviews for people that are not companies necessarily. And I think it's important for the technician to ask.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And and ask for that review.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, no, it's interesting because I was talking about greenfield growth versus everybody and their brother right now is talking about greenfield growth. And I'm kind of skeptical for most companies talking about it because I asked them, how big are you in your own market? How much market penetration do you have?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Taking more notes. You know, there's a couple of ways to do it. I had Jeremy Miner in here and he's like, you know, he kind of laughs and he goes, you know, I want to be back and going to the office and I'm going to be talking to my boss. And if I don't have a review, I might be fired. If I don't have a review with my name in it from your call, would you mind helping me so I don't get fired?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And it's kind of like a playful little joke, but it works. What are all the mistakes? When you talk to somebody and you're like, oh, my gosh.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
What do you think? Social media, have you found, does it compete? Like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, do those compete with traditional TV, radio billboards, do you feel?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And if they're not above like 20, 30, 40 million, depending on the industry, what's the point of expansion? But let's just start out a little bit, John, by you started this company in 1986, right? Tell us a little bit about your history, why you got into business, what you're excited about in the future.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You know, a lot of people, I feel like there's a pendulum swing and it goes. I've got great leads coming in. I'm not booking the phone calls. I don't have the right technicians. I got a top grade. And then sometimes it's like I got all the great technicians. I need more leads.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
When I do need more great people, I feel like the biggest mistake is people just, they go, let me run an ad, one ad on Craigslist or Indeed or Glassdoor or ZipRecruiter or Monster or CareerBuilder. You know, is there a way to figure out a way to market for consumers as well as market for great people to come in? Like, I don't know if it's radio or social media or what, but do you know what I mean?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
It's like, we're trying to hit both.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Do you like endorsements? Is that something that you've seen any of the people you've worked with successful? It's almost like you're borrowing their credibility.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, my buddy, I was just at his house last week. He's got this snow whitening, and he had Rob Gronkowski as his first kind of – he got him to invest in his company. Then he had the Kardashians, and now he said he's got 26,000 TikTok influencers that post every day about his product. And they're doing – I think he's doing like $150 million a year with the teeth whitening stuff. But you're right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Is it authentic or are they just getting paid to be an influencer? And look, I'll listen to influencers if I can see the products real. I mean, it's not necessarily buying it because this guy's got it. But if I'm going to buy like fitness, like products, hopefully the people are in shape. You know what I mean? Like it's got to fit the brand. Yep, yep, yep. No question.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
How do you usually like to, because the question, I get this question probably 10 times a week is how do I pick an agency? You know, there's a lot of different agencies out there. What's the best way they bill me the more I spend? So they're kind of incentivized to bill me on pay-per-click. They're going to take 15% of whatever I spend.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So like, when you think about it, how do you, how do you qualify an agency? And then what's the right way to be, to expect them to bill me?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So there needs to be a little bit of transparency as well on the company side.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
It feels like everywhere I look, there's like white hat labeled SEO companies that the white head out to India or the Philippines or Ukraine or somewhere. How do you spot those guys?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You know, I talked to some of the largest companies in North America, and we talk about return on ad spend in ROAS. Some of them, it's so high, but SEO pulls their numbers down dramatically. And SEO is one of those things where it's earned media. It takes time, effort, and energy. It's like my domain authority right now is a 64 on Ahrefs. That's A-H-R-E-F-S. It's website ranker.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You type that in, it's free. You can see what your website is. And You know what? My major goal is that I hit the number one spot for the search words that matter. And it's hard to believe that I can get pulled down to below 10% with how much money we spend. And some of it's going after general search terms.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And some of it, what we found was, is our trucks and our billboards and our yard signs and our TV and our radio. And those things start to multiply. People start searching us by name, which isn't much of a search. But when they are searching a generic search term, I mean, for example, the private equity company I work with works with this company called Little Sleepies.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And they're just kids sleeping in pajamas. And they generate an ungodly amount of money. But they're so good at ranking number one. And some people say SEO is dying. What is your take on that?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, that's another question. I'm just drilling you here with tons of questions. One is, I get this a lot from on the stage is, will ChatGBT and some of these AI, will they become a major platform for search engines? Like I use ChatGBT all the time to make tables and do all kinds of like, what I mean by tables, like I'll say, I want to see $200 million at,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
20% IRR over the course of 10 years and we'll spit it all out real quick. Right. But I never used it to find a local brand or a local restaurant or say maybe a local recipe, maybe like a recipe. But, you know, people are always what is AI going to do and is it going to destroy SEO? Is it going to destroy pay-per-click? Is it going to destroy what Google is today?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Where do you see AI going right now?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
That's what I believe. What are your thoughts on Quora? You've ever heard of Quora?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
What do you think about Upwork and Fiverr and just finding a pro at a source?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You know, there's just, I've done some stuff on Upwork and you get everybody from $3 an hour from Bangladesh up to like $280 per hour. I guess it depends on the project. Is it a one-time project? What are you trying to do? And I don't know if there's a right answer here. But is there any specific guidelines you have to kind of figure it out?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Because I say, look, sometimes depending on the result, they tell you, people will rate them. And they'll tell you how much they spent with them. And I think it's verified. I don't know if there's a way to get around that. It seems like they do a good job of keeping it into a closed loop. But, you know, if I need a project that's going to take 20 hours and it's $200 an hour,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I might just spend the four grand and just get it done right away instead of having a nightmare. I don't know.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I love it. Well, we're coming here near the end here. Is there a couple books that really changed your life in home in the home service or the marketing or, you know, a lot of us talk about Michael Gerber, or, you know, even Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or even books like Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, or, you know, the
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
There's a lot of great books out there, but is there any of them that really stood out to you over time?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I love that. Peter Drucker. Yeah. And then what, if someone wants to reach out to you, John, obviously you'll buy your book, Duct Tape Marketing, but what's the best way to get ahold of you?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Awesome. And last but not least, we talked about a lot of stuff here. Lots and lots of stuff. We were all over the place. And that's a good thing because this was really I think marketing is the lifeblood of any company. Go ahead and just anything we didn't talk about, anything that just you feel compelled to close us out with and let the audience know about. I'll give you the closing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I got one follow-up question. Do you think the people that leaned in the best and dominated AI, do you think there's going to be very few winners and a lot of losers? I mean, is that where we're looking?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Awesome, John. Well, I've got pages and pages and pages of notes here. So I know this was a great podcast. I really appreciate your time today and look forward to connecting in the future. Awesome. Appreciate it, Tommy. Thanks. All right, my brother. Thank you. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I love that. You know, a lot of people can't afford a CMO or even a VP of marketing and they come to me all the time. They're like, what would you do if you were going to start over again? I'm like, man, that's a loaded question. I got your book. I don't know. I think four years ago and it's full of like gold. Let's start here. You've been recognized as
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
the world's most practical small business expert. So what do you believe sets your approach apart from others? I mean, what's the secret sauce in the formation of the plan for these small companies?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So when you sit down with a client, you know, let's say it's a plumber or HVAC or electrical or garage doors, we're all pretty similar. Well, there's demand versus non-demand, you know, like windows and gutters and stuff like that usually is non-demand. But let's say you've got a demand type industry. Do they fill out a questionnaire? Like, you know, SEO is important. Do they have a good website?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Does it load at the right speed? Do they claim it on my business page, TV, radio, billboards, mailers? It's just, it goes on and on.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Is there a software that you guys, obviously there's a CRM. Sure. But is there any type of software that you guys throw into the mix or just whatever CRM they're on?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
What are some uncommon milestones? Obviously, claiming your Google My Business page is an easy GVP. Is there any other ones that are kind of odd that you guys recommend? I always tell people, make sure you invest in the BBB, even though the BBB might not make a lot of sense, but it makes your profile, makes Google know that you're a real person, like a real company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Love it. You got brand versus marketing. Yeah. And I see a lot of people on the side of their trucks. It's got everything they do. There's no real message that pops.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
You know, it's like... They're the worst raps you've ever seen. They're lettering, if you're lucky. And then, of course, your manufacturer will pay for them if you put their brand on the side of them. You're literally marketing their brand. They're driving around their billboards, basically. How important is the brand being correct?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Yeah, I agree. I see this all the time. Yeah. Many small business owners are looking for the ways they can scale without overextending themselves, and I see this all the time, and they ask me if radio works. I say, yeah, Yellow Book still works. I go, but you got to be consistent. You know, I've worked with the Wizard of Ads before.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got John Jantz with me. He's an expert in small business marketing, business consulting, and search engine optimization. He is the founder and president of Duct Tape Marketing. He's done a lot of stuff, Spark Lab Consulting, Tradeful, Podcast Bookers, a lot of great stuff on here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
I went and visited him and Roy Williams, and his whole notion is you got to – do you know who that is, Roy Williams?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
So you got to spend a – It's a small fortune to hit. His belief system is if you hit the radio with 50% of the population, men and women, boys and girls, doesn't matter your race or gender or age, they got to hear you four times a week. And if they do, over the course of six to nine months, your brand will be the number one in your category. What is your thought on TV, radio, billboards?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Those are more of a branding play. Yeah.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Art of Building Trust in Marketing with John Jantsch
Love it. You mentioned that being a self-reliant entrepreneur isn't about isolating yourself, but about trusting your own judgment. So the question is, how can entrepreneurs balance self-reliance with seeking advice or inspiration from others without losing their own sense of direction?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
That's true. It's true. You're still stuck where you were, not growing. You know, that's the problem is misery loves misery. Like, why do you got to work out every day? Come on, just go out tonight. Why aren't you drinking? Come on, just one. Why do you want me just to have one? Like, they don't know they're even trying to do it. They don't. It's like, why are you passing on dessert?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Come on, just have a little bit. Why? Why do you want me to have dessert so bad? Like, what's the point? Because you feel like me.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
He's the co-founder of The Wealthy Contractor and the host of The Wealthy Contractor podcast. the co-founder of 4Marketing Group. He's also an entrepreneur speaker, best-selling author of The 7th Secrets in Becoming a Wealthy Contractor. For years, he's been helping home service improvement companies achieve more success, wealth, and freedom. Brian, it's so good to see you, my man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Because you ate three desserts and you look like shit and you're wondering why I'm not having it. Because there's no self-control, no discipline, and no consistency. Yeah. I'm really about this idea of the four Fs. I've been really on this kick. I love this conversation, by the way. What's so good about you, you are such a professional. Your podcast is one of the top podcasts out there.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And home service, I think this podcast has been for founders, owners, CEOs, and leadership of home service. My next big goal is to break in and not, like, you know, be your – your opponent, but I want to break into home improvement because I think garage doors, I focused on home service with garage doors, but I think it's good swing right over to home improvement.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And if I could master garage doors for home improvement and what they've learned, and you know, you know, Sean McGraw, I've heard the name for energy, smart dude. He's coming to work with me. And he's like, dude, you got to learn home improvement for nothing else that they've learned to sell when there's no demand. Yeah. Like bath refitter and windows.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
So, like, dude, there's a whole new – I feel like I'm okay. I like where I'm in at home service. And, you know, here's what I've learned how to do. I let the demand come to me. I've never made an outbound phone call. I don't need to. I don't need to knock on doors. Like, that's what's crazy. If I learn what they know and what you know – And I got both?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
It's like the crazy, because here's what I've learned is the financial engineering that the PE companies, Ken Goodrich with Kettle called me up and he said, dude, when you learn what they know, they understand the corporate structure. They understand how to raise debt. They understand arbitrage. And I started learning that piece and I'm like, oh my gosh, dude.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I used to think I was pretty cool understanding KPIs within a home service CRM. Now I understand the bigger picture and I'm like, Oh, man, the world's on my feet, dude. 10,000 baby boomers a day retiring, 12% of them own a business. It's the next five years are going to be generational wealth transfer. They're transferring it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And it's going to all these, the baby boomers are sending it to all these, the kids that are not interested in the business. And they're sending it to Gen Z, Gen X, and a little bit of millennials. And I'm like, this is great because I'm just going to take it all because they don't know what they're doing. And they have no idea how to run a company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
That's why very rarely, Brian, does the money go to the third generation. Almost every time they lose it right there in the second generation, that's where I come in and take it from them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I have more than enough energy. I just, what I'm trying to do is I got two, I basically got two and a half EAs. And one thing I've learned is I've allowed too many meetings to happen. And everybody's in meetings all day, but you can't work on the business in a meeting. So we're starting to get super efficient with meetings. And we got to be reborn every three months at this company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
They know, everybody that works by my side, my coworkers, they know this company is getting reborn all the time. And they're like, dude, you change all the time. And I'm like, yeah, it doesn't feel like the same company that it was in the summer, does it? And they're like, the evolution of AI and machine learning and the CRMs and the way we gather data,
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And it's like, look, guys, I'm never going to get comfortable. I'm just not. And they're like, when is good enough for you? And I'm like, my dad was very tough on me. He didn't like me to lose. Like, this core value says aspire to be number one. And we wear these. And I'm a guy that needs to be first. And I won't, I'm relentless.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Like the reason I wrestled and played golf, I played a lot of sports and I got sick of blaming other people for losing. So I said, in wrestling and golf, I can only blame myself. And man, that even hurts more. And I'm tough on my, if I'm tough on someone, they don't know how tough I am on myself.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
It's tough at times, but nothing ever came easy that was worthwhile. That's right. Of course not.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You know, I'm dying to spend time in Miami. I'd love to come visit next year.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You're 100%. The people that are listening right now that are feeling stress and anxiety, that is 100% formed from indecision.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I will. I'd love to hang out.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I was with Ken Goodrich in a board meeting, and he was with my entire staff, and he goes, Tommy's growing exponentially. This dude's listening to 10 podcasts, reading two books a week. He's going on stages. He's talking to people on stages. He's going out to visit shops. He's literally self-reflecting, identifying things, and correcting it faster than I've seen anybody.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And he goes, Tommy, if these people aren't willing to put 15 hours into themselves beyond working, I need you to fire them. He goes, because they're going to be your anchor. And everybody in that room all of a sudden came in and started asking me for books. They started listening to podcasts. They started working on themselves.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I said, one thing as I left this meeting, I said, promise me you'll work harder on yourself than A1. Because if you do not understand time management and you don't get more efficient and you don't learn how to get the right habits, you're not doing us any favors. Whatever you need, you want consulting, I'll get you consulting. You want to go do a training, I'll get you the training.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You let me know what you guys need. That simple.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
So talk to me a little bit. What's been going on this year? Where's the future headed? What's been going on in your life?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I meet people, Brian, and they go, I'm happy if there's a roof over my head. I'm happy if I'm able to put food on my family's plate. When I meet somebody, one of the characteristics I look for is they say, we're out to dinner. They look at the menu and they go, yep, filet mignon. Give me the big one. I want all the sides. They want more, but they're willing to work for it too.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
There's a happy medium of people that pray and hope and dream. But then I ask people, dream bigger, but understand, how do we reverse engineer that dream? What are you going to buy and why are you going to buy it? What trips are you going to go on?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
If you tell me your dad is at an age where he could go anytime, and you say, I want to take my dad on this camping trip, it's two weeks long, I know that's a really big why. That's going to push you every day.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I know when you really want, and sometimes you've got to peel back the onion, but like you said, is why, if we can build a strong enough why, we'll show you what you've got to do to get there. And instead of giving you a performance improvement plan, I'm just going to remind you. Remember, you wanted this. I don't want you to get better for me. I'm doing great.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And by the way, the better you do, the better I'm doing. So the more you accomplish, I mean, we've spent years structuring the performance pay in a way that I could celebrate. There are certain people in my company, specifically management, that goes, how does this guy make it 300 grand? And I don't make that much.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I'm like, well, the top sales guys in any company should make more than the CEO. You know, there's equity in other things. But I'm like, you're more than welcome to take that job. They got to go earn their freaking future every day. They don't get salary. And it's not all commission. There's a couple of things we look at. It's customer satisfaction. There's recall rates and other things.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But you're kind of screwed if you do. You're screwed if you don't. Everybody's like, I want to get out of the field. I'm like, well, there's an opportunity for equity. And there's still an opportunity for equity. Like, I've got a... 48 guys right now with equity that are still in the field. And that next year it'll be 100. And, you know, it's life-changing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And, you know, now it's easier to recruit these guys. They see the vivid vision of where we're running and they're running at it with me. They can tell clients that they've earned their way to an ownership. Clients love that. And it's not an ESOP because I don't believe that everybody should just get a piece. I don't like that mentality. The winners should. And I think it's great.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
They're not going anywhere.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Yeah. So we ended up taking 10%. And the first, before I did the first deal, it was called an equity incentive program. The next one that we do, and every private equity company does this, they do 10% or 15%. We do 10%, but I broke them into smaller units. And right now there's about 60%. And we kind of looked at who do we need in the org chart? Who could we need?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Because these guys that have done a lot of this PE stuff, they understand who we're missing possibly in the future. They kind of know you're going to need a couple FP&A people. You're going to need another guy on your acquisition team and your integrations team. So there's still quite a bit there. And they go, Tommy, why would we do this for technicians?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And we kind of got into a little bit of an argument. And I said, well, you guys know I have a good portion of these profit units. So if you're worried about it, just take mine. And they're like, well, what about you? And I'm like, I own half the company. I'll do fine. They're like, well, we don't want to do that. We want to keep you. And I go. There's one or two things going to happen.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Either you're going to figure this out or just take mine. And they looked at each other. And they never seen anybody say that, I don't think they were like kind of like what the F like he really is ready to give away his and I'm like. I need these guys rowing as hard as they can in my direction.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Well, this isn't real. It gets vested. Phantom Equity, equity incentive program, profit units, there's a lot of conditions. They don't have voting rights. Unless there's a change of control, there's vesting periods that could be based on time or certain KPIs. And it's very complicated. And my problem with unsophisticated smaller companies is not that they're dumb.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
If you've got a really high-level CFO, but the problem is you could give too much or too little to the wrong people. And I luckily got the right person involved with the company. I already had built the program in like 2019. He started in 2021, but I didn't. And there's people I probably paid out too much that I probably shouldn't have because on this next turn, they won't get as much.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But how many millionaires could I make? And what's super cool about it is. Like, dude, it sucks when you're winning big and you got to celebrate on your own. It's so good to be there with a team. Like, you got a magnum bottle of champagne and you're just toasting yourself? That's no fun.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Never Enough. No, I haven't.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Read it out. Never Enough from Barista Billionaire. From Barista to Billionaire.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I was going to tell you that There's a lot of people, Morgan Friedman, the KFC guy. There's a lot of people that were very late in their careers that just decided they wanted to go be an entrepreneur. So I want people to understand that you don't need to be in your 20s. I was fortunate enough to start out in my really early 20s. I had a landscaping company. Then I switched to garage doors.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
The cool thing about being young is it didn't take a lot for me to live on. I didn't mind eating Campbell's soup. I always joke around when I was a kid, I had a chef. His name was Chef Boyardee. But I can make these mistakes at an age where there wasn't a whole lot of repercussions. So it's hard to gamble.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But as you grow older and you got family and people needing you, but I'd say there's no really too late of age to start. And another thing is your business, you made a great point. You build a company to sell the company. It's your best asset, and you should treat it like an asset. You should treat it like it's for sale every three months, and you should cut the people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
A lot of people are like, yeah, if I was going to sell, I'd completely change things. I'd get rid of this guy and this guy, and my uncle still works here. And they're afraid to make decisions and have those fierce conversations. And they know, like literally everybody listening should pretend you have to sell in three months. Write down everything that you would do right now, and then do it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Well, I'd probably change CRMs because I know this one's going to get me less valuation. I'd probably do this. If I was really going to sell, I'd probably maximize this the next year and focus on profit more. What the hell are you focusing on? Well, I'm reinvesting everything back in the company. No, you're not. That's what losers say. I'm reinvesting everything back in the company.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
If I look at your financials, you're just losing your ass.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
The scary thing about being my competition is I'm willing to go into a market and lose money for the first year because I'm taking brand awareness. And I can point to exactly on the balance sheet income statement in P&L that it went into marketing. It went to live in people's brains. And I could show that our marketing spend went from 10% to 30%. That's 20% I'm doing.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I'm willing to lose the first year, especially on a greenfield, because the opportunity cost is I go buy a company and I pay six or seven X. And if it's at a million, I'm putting seven million. If I put three into marketing, I can build the same thing and now I get to call my own shots and don't have to reintegrate this whole different culture.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And being able to call your own shots in Greenfield, everybody now, because of private equity, is like, I want to go buy companies. I'm like, well, how much market share do you own? If anything, do an add-on to the, like, get good in your own market at doing it. Buy phone numbers, buy people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But I think what happens with this podcast sometimes, Brian, is people listen and they're not ready for the information because of where I'm at. And what the best thing people do is they tell me I started at one, which I was really bad at the first one. I've listened to the first one, but it was when I was 15 million. And by the way, I wasn't making much money.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And they kind of seen, and they're like the one through 40, I learned how to get to 25 million, 40 through 80, I learned how to get to 40 million. And they're like, dude, when we start now, It's very tough because you've got equity incentive programs and the scorecards and the way you buy vehicles.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I realize how I could confuse people, but just know I'm not trying to confuse you and I'm never trying to discourage you. And I think some of you, unfortunately, should be an entrepreneur and go work for other companies. And just I'm very to the point on this podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And if I, I mean, if I ask you, you know, what was it? You did ask me, you asked me before we got on the podcast, did you hear me talk about revenue at all?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Yeah, you know, I feel really good about 2025. Goldman Sachs, I'm really, really tied up with them right now. And interest rates are coming down. You know, whoever's president is not going to determine the outcome of my business or the people I work with. There's nothing external. That's going to determine my luck. I determined within our four walls, what this company is going to be.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I can't blame a lot of people. They point their two fingers outward. I use my two thumbs to point inward.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thank you.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You know, I came up with an analogy that I'm quick to fail. You heard ready, aim, fire. I'm fire, ready, aim.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I literally, by the time you are trying to load the gun, I've taken 10 shots, missed the target twice, hit the target six times, and then hit the bullseye. And I just feel like everybody's just on the fence. What should I do? Not really sure. Should I hire? I'm wondering if I should put more money into marketing and try to take market share. It's time for me.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
for access. And what I started doing this year is paying for access. Someone says a ridiculous number. I just pay it. I don't try to negotiate. And I'm like, I just pay for access. And the best people don't give access unless you pay. You know why? Let me explain something.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I think it's very good to be a philanthropist and give, and I do that in speeches and podcasts and everything else, but I've got to have a team. And why would I rob from a one and what I've done to pay Have all these people that I've got to hire to support this. Like, the more money I get for HSF, Home Service Freedom, the more times I can bring on fractional CFOs.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I'm not going to just, I funded it a long way and didn't ask for a paycheck. I don't make any money from this. But I need to hire great people. People are like, why is this guy, if he made so much money, still doing Instagram and Facebook ads? Because if this thing grows, I get to help you more because all the money goes back in and I still got to pay people. We still got to do nice things.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
We still got to get you more help and continue to build this. And I'm not going to just self-fund and rob Peter to pay Paul. I will get this thing to a master. We're changing millions of lives, but it still takes people coming in and paying. And what I've noticed, Brian, is the people that don't want to pay never make changes. Like, they want the free advice, and I don't mind giving free advice.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I really don't. But they're not willing to spend the money because they don't think they're worth it. And if they don't think they're worth it, they'll never grow. Does that make sense?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I'm like, dude, what do you think you should do? Why are you sitting on the fence your whole life? Take a decision, own it, and run. And if you fall down, get back up and keep running. I can't stand that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And if people pay a lot, Brian, when people spend six figures, If they gave you a $100,000 check today, Brian, someone, wouldn't you feel a little bit of commitment to, like, now you're like, I have to make them successful or give them everything I got or whatever the number is. The more it is, in a way, you feel more committed because you're like, I got to make a difference.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
If they're like, here's $500, you're like, I'll give you a piece of advice. I got five minutes. You know what I mean? Right. So in a way – and listen – $500 is still a lot of money. I don't forget where I came from. I don't forget that people are still trying to make rent. I don't forget these things. And I know somebody needs a helping hand.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I've helped people in a way that helped them become a good soccer coach and show up for their family in different ways and save divorces. I didn't do the work. I'll never say I did, but I had an open mind. And that's what this podcast is for. It's free of charge.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But I've realized, you know, I don't know if you've ever figured out how much you make an hour, but I know exactly going into this next transaction, it's over 500,000 an hour on a 50-hour work week. So everything, I got to be very careful because you know who needs me the most is the people here at this company. My mom called me recently and said, how do I get on your calendar? I'm embarrassed.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And that's effed up. And I'm going to be a better son. Because that was the whole goal of working this whole time these last two decades is to be a better son. And so this morning I called mom and I do this walk every morning. I'm going to check in with mom every day. And that's embarrassing. And I want everybody to just hear Tommy out here. I'm doing like the Donald Trump.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I really want to be close to my mom. And I don't want, as much as I want to help you, my mom is one of the most important women, people in my life. And my people need me a lot. And I just want to make sure that I'm not robbing from them to help you because I want to be the best leader I could be.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
They got short memories. They really hold us in the highest regard. My mom's the type of lady that if I said I'm in trouble, she'd go get a shovel and say, let's take care of it. She would give her life for mine. If I went to prison and did something wrong, she would be there every day. She would move to wherever I got sent and be there every day. There's no doubt in my mind.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
She's unconditional, and it's really rare that I have a mother that cares like that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I have a six-year-older sister that lives in Wisconsin. But I felt like an only child because my mom and dad did a great job. They really made us feel, at least I could say that. I don't know if my sister would say that because I was the youngest and I was the boy, so they were pretty loose with me compared to her. Profit Masters. So tell me a little bit about Profit Masters.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
How does the process work? Why did you start the business?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Oh, you're absolutely a hundred percent.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
How many clients do you guys have?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Wow, it's beautiful. One piece of advice that I always give on this podcast is don't extract money out of the business your first five years. And there is a real idea of reinvesting in the right way because... The first thing people say when couples get together that have been married, they do the hard work. They finally start making money. And they go, we deserve a Harley.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
We deserve that second vacation house. Let's move to this nice house. And if you can't save money at $70,000, you're never going to save money at $150,000. And you start buying depreciating assets. If you're going to extract money, put it into a money multiplier. And don't start, because people say, man, my buddy's flipping house. My buddy bought a bar. My buddy's doing this.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Yeah, and the other thing about it is I used to do – we're in 43 markets. I used to do these global decisions. And I'm like, let's just take this little market, this little piggy, and let's try something. And once we nail it, we can scale it. I don't need to do global decisions. We've got opportunities that I could try big metros, small metros. I could do a lot of different things now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And you start extracting out of the one thing, giving you the money back. So if you, the next, not only take this money, but make sure it goes to the right places for a rainy day. No, I want to talk to you about that offline. We, you know, in 2017, I got coached from Ellen Rohrer on your known financial position. And we started open book management.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And people are so afraid to say, what if everybody knows I make a lot of money? Well, I don't really care anymore. I've never cared since we started this. By the way, you work for a great company that's going to be growing with new opportunities. We're going to be bringing in better things for you guys, like 401Ks and dental and all these things. So, no, Brian, I love this, man.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I'm going to buy that book. I'm going to start talking to you a lot more because I definitely want to come out to Florida anyway. And I'll reach out to you later this week, but – You know, is there any other books that you'd recommend, top of mind?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I love it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
What is it called? Killing?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
No, I have.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's a great book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Well, the thing is, I was literally... I was at a restaurant with a pretty wealthy guy. And I'm building another house on top of the house in Idaho. And it's pretty extravagant. And he says, you know, Tommy, I have a son. And he's not getting any of the money. He goes, if he wants me to invest in something to get him started. He goes, I meet a lot of very wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And they never live. They never live. They just don't live. And they're so in this conservation mode. And I'm like, dude, I find the more I spend, the more I work. But I enjoy the shit out of it. And I'm literally like, I'm enjoying every aspect of everything I have to the fullest extent. It's so much fun. And that's that concept. Brian, how do people get a hold of you, brother?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Need to get a copy of that book. Need to get a copy of Brian's book for sure. Yeah. Finally, I'll just close out with this, Brian, you we've talked, dude, like I've got a million questions I could have asked, but this conversation was so good. Like I loved it.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I'd love that. Let's do that. We'll set that up. We talked about a lot, and maybe there's something we didn't get to talk about, and maybe there's something hot on your mind, but you could close us out, whatever thought, whatever you want the audience to hear right now.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I like to try things, and I'm at a point where we can. Do you ever heard of Robert Chudini, the book Influence?
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
$300,000.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And pre-suasion and getting the yes. What's very interesting is 20 years ago, he just celebrated 40 years of influence of his book when it came out. And I learned about it in my master's program at U of A from 2010 to 2012. At University of Arizona, they taught an ASU professor's curriculum. And, you know, it's world-renowned.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I think that's the best advice I've ever heard. It's so perfect. Brian, when you understand without being crazy selfish, what you just need to consider yourself successful and have some pride in what you do. And it's not shoot for the fricking next galaxy. It's like, look, you got a nice house. You got a nice vacation house. You got a couple of cars.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You got some money put away and you're helping the people that helped you. Like, it's not that big of a number. People forget how much – if you make 8% on $10 million, that's $800,000 a year. And people forget about what this money is doing for you on the sidelines. And when everybody takes chips off the table, they forget about the money on the sidelines. But – You're so right.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Listen, when I talk to you, I feel like I'm talking in the mirror because just this whole accrual accounting, I'm like, guys, this has been absolutely phenomenal. We'll set one up on yours. I'm going to get a hold of you. I got some ideas, and I'm going to read these. I'm definitely going to read Never Enough from the barista to billionaire.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Hey, fantastic, brother. I appreciate your time today and all the listeners out there. Thank you. This is something you guys know I ask, and I haven't asked this for months and months on the podcast. It means the world to me. It's the best compliment I could ever receive.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
If you share this podcast, if you leave a review, if you star it, whatever you guys do, if you subscribe, all I'm trying to do is get this out to the masses. And if it helps you, it'll help other people. So if you get a chance, you'd be giving me a compliment and telling me I'm doing okay. Like, share, and do that stuff. And I appreciate it. And Brian, once again, you're the man, brother.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Appreciate you. You too, Tommy. Appreciate you. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And 20 years ago, Charlie Munger, who was a partner with Warren Buffett, he passed away recently. But he got a letter from Charlie Munger, and it was a certificate for one stock at Bursar Hathaway. And it was worth $75,000. This is 20 years ago. Right now it's worth $692,000. And Ciarini said every year he reads the shareholder's letter from them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And right on the front, you know, there's a welcoming kind of how the company's doing and the money they're making. But the next page is every single year where they failed. And it's like a statement, we tried this, but we learned from it. And this idea, and when I'm talking to these marketing companies, I'm like, and everybody that works around me, is embrace your failure.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But I want to know what you learned about it. Listen, I fail all the time. And the reason I wanted to say this is because, listen, I do fall. And it's okay if the people around me are falling. Get back up. Let's keep going. We're allowed to fail. God knows. I've made a lot of really big mistakes. You're allowed to make mistakes. This is a mistake. This is not a mistake-free zone here.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Feel free to make mistakes, but let's not bet the farm on every mistake and make sure I'm involved in really critical decisions because I might have already had a mistake that applied to that.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
It is. You know, it's a compilation of mistakes that really kind of – I say metaphorically I got a lot of bruises and scars all over because, oops, I remember when I tried that. I remember when I hired that guy. I remember when I hired when I needed to instead of when I should have. And you start lowering the standard when you need people. There's all these things that I've been through.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got a good friend of mine.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I can reflect back at the last – people always ask me, man, I wish I had your life. I wish I built a business like you. I go, well, listen – I lived at, we owned the apartment complex, but I lived there for four years. Thousand square foot place. I drove the oldest truck in the fleet, 280,000 miles salvage title before everybody had a new truck. Countless relationships were destroyed.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
Girls did not want to date me. I walked out of a movie theater to go work. You know, bowling, everything. I'm like, I'm an overnight success of two decades. And if you're willing to give it two decades, the first thing I say is, are you married and do you have kids? And they say yes. And I'm like, you couldn't do this then. Because you wouldn't be able to see your kids grow up.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
This takes full commitment. And unfortunately, my mom and dad got a divorce when I was a kid. And I vowed at seven years old, I'm never going to let this happen to my family. Not until money's out of the way.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
I haven't talked to you in a while, Brian, but Brian K. It's Cascafa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. He's going to pronounce his last name, but he's an expert in marketing strategy, lead generation advertising. He's based out of Miami, Florida, co-founder of the Profit Masters. And he just started that in 2024 in the beginning.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
What I could tell people out there listening is, listen, I started at a bunny hill. That was about 5 million. I went to the next small mountain. Every time I get to the top of the mountain and make the hike, there's always another mountain, like you said. And unfortunately, just like Tiger Woods hit a grand slam four majors in a row, he didn't stop golfing. My golf is business.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
But the money is just a scorecard. I mean, I'm living the best life. But ultimately, I think if you could, you should. And I enjoy what I do. I really love what I do. But the difference that I have between every single person I know, and this is true. is when I get down to base camp of the next mountain, I find the people that have already been at the top of that mountain.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
And I immediately make friends, and I get them in a circle. And I don't get rid of my old circles, but I'm able to kind of pop into a new one. And for some reason, if you're humble, if you're honest, if you really treat them with respect and say, what's in it for them to help me get to the top of this mountain? You pay them the credit. You talk about them on podcasts. You write books about them.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
You introduce them to who they want to be introduced to. They'll give you the shortcut. It takes five days to get to the top. They'll teach you how to get there in six hours. And I look over, and the views are great. Man, there's another mountain right there. And I don't think I'll ever find Mount Everest, but I'm starting to realize that there's a mountain for family.
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan
There's a mountain for fitness, and there's a mountain for faith. So I got baptized. I'm going to church all the time. I'm trying to be a better Christian. I'm trying to be a better son and a better brother. and a better boyfriend, hopefully soon husband. There's more than just money.