The Home Service Expert Podcast
Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
DJ Carroll is the CEO of Carroll Media. He is an expert on sales psychology and advertising strategy, focused on helping others achieve their business goals. As an author and speaker, he travels the country motivating and training entrepreneurs in social media strategies and how to make the most of their advertising budget. In this episode, we talked about employee support, AI integration in business, profitability strategies...
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
What I don't see people doing is engaging with their team. A lot of times the blue collar business has PMS. It's pale, male and stale, right? And so you got this old crikey white guy that runs the business and he's like, I don't want to fucking do social media. I ain't got time for that shit. And I'm not camera oriented anyway, right? Cool.
Chapter 2: How can social media transform your business?
Let your techs that are in their 20s and their 30s get added to your business profile and let them make content. Let them make content while they're in the field. You don't need a camera crew. You don't need a media team. Tommy, this thing right here, bro, is everything they need. And every single one of your technicians has got one in their pocket.
They're carrying a studio with them on every job site, but they're not using it. It's crazy. I don't understand it. And literally your technician could, after every job, could pull the phone out.
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 mellow
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. 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.
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.
Let's talk about it, man. Tell everybody who you are. Yeah, I mean, before that, I'm a blue-collar guy, just like most of the people that are listening to the podcast. I started my first business my senior year of high school. I started mowing grass.
And AP Chemistry, Chemistry 1, Chemistry 2, was on the fast track to go to college to be a chemical engineer and turned down eight football scholarships my senior year of high school. Because much like you, my parents didn't have a whole lot. And I knew that with my dad never making more than $20 an hour and my mom raising me and my brother, if I went off to college, I was going to be broke again.
I was making about $4,000 a month mowing grass my senior year of high school. I actually co-opted for myself. I was the first kid to ever do that in school history. So I was signed on the left side of the book as the student and the right side of the book as the employee to go out and mow grass the second half of each day of my senior year of high school. Oh, wow.
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Chapter 3: Why is personal development crucial for business growth?
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.
And now it's in a really good spot. But it took a lot of work. But I just know this because I've known you for a while. Not even the business, you. You took a lot of work, too. You're a completely different fucking person now than when you were at $5 million or $1 million, right? The personal development that you've had to do, I can only imagine, dude.
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.
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
I think a lot of people don't realize in the – like social media did so much to put exposure on guys like you. And I come from the exterior cleaning world. Like Brandon Vaughn's a big guy. He's got a ton of exposure. Josh Latimer. What people don't realize though is like building that business is one thing. But building that person to run that business is different.
And I'm going to hurt some feelings, but not everybody's cut out for that, dude. Like not everybody can handle the load that you guys put yourself under to build a business with that many employees, with the work, the hours it takes. And quite frankly, the EQ that it takes. That's the big one. To be able to handle that.
And I think that gets glazed over because it's so easy to go into like, well, you got to have systems, you have operations, and then you got to train your people. And it's like, yes, true. But you also have to be the guy that shows up and doesn't have bad days or is emotionally stable person. Like nobody talks about that, man. And that's, that's why I try to always give the flowers.
I know it's like. Build a big business is cool and it's sexy and everybody wants, you know, 28 inch arms like Tommy Mello and big bank accounts. But really at the end of the day, I think we become, we gotta, we gotta,
we got to do a better job of giving flowers to the guys that take six figures home that are solo or have a couple of helpers and let those guys know that if they're watching this, it's okay to be that guy too. Like not everybody has to build a $200 million company.
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Chapter 4: What are the benefits of a vision-driven organization?
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.
Yeah.
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.
make more time for like the broadcast out when we're answering tough questions. Literally when people message me now and they're like, Hey DJ, like I'm thinking about starting a business. Like what's the first thing I should do? I'm like, Hey, that's a great question. You want to come on a podcast and talk about it?
Cause it's like, I want to answer it one time and then help thousands of people not like have to answer the same question over and over and over and over again. By the way, shout out Dan Martell. We're in SAS Academy. And dude, I read that book earlier this year when it dropped. I was on my way back from my honeymoon. Thankfully, my wife's very supportive.
So she's like, sure, we can listen to a business audio book on the way back from our honeymoon. And I was like, holy shit. So full-time EA, I haven't looked at email. I took it off my phone. Like, don't touch my calendar. Like when I asked, hey, Tommy, I'll be in town. Can we do the podcast thing? You're like, yeah, reach out to my assistant. I took that screenshot, sent it to my assistant. Boom.
And it's like, you do a lot of screenshots. Yeah, dude. People don't realize the power of being able to hire people to do things. And like Dan says, people are better at it and they can find purpose in that work. Tell me about domination over mediocrity. Yeah, man. So I think that you don't really hear the word dominate anymore. I think it's almost too offensive for the world that we live in.
And no matter which side you're on, whether you're the blue team or the red team, I think I think we've lost our way a little bit in this country from personal responsibility and achievement. And I think that I've got water bottles that say dominate. Nothing else matters because I'm just like an all out guy, man.
I feel like if you're going to do something, my dad taught us that like you shouldn't do it half ass. Aspire to be number one. Yeah. What's the point?
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Chapter 5: How does AI impact content creation in 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.
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.
You also have to be careful. I had a guy, I'm a local member of the Pintanus Club in Louisville, and he owns a big dry cleaning outfit, like In the region, Cintas is the only one that's bigger than him. And he had two King Air airplanes. He had a boat in Michigan, a boat in the Keys. And he told me, he said, DJ, what you own, owns you. And I was like, whoa.
And he said, eventually it gets to a point where you literally are just like paying to keep up with all this shit and you're using it a couple times a year and it does nothing but own you. And so I think you have to be careful. More money, more problems. Especially when you don't come from much, dude.
If you've never had the Harley and the boat and the airplane and stuff like, yeah, you're going to want that. But there's something to be said about delayed gratification. Well, the problem is.
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?
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.
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.
It's like motivating, right? It is.
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Chapter 6: What common mistakes do small businesses make with pricing?
Yeah, because they had the internet bubble of 2000, but everybody forgets they didn't turn the internet off in 2001. There was a bubble, but then the internet kept going. Sure, there may be an AI bubble eventually. I don't think so because I think it came along after the market already cooled down from COVID.
I don't know if we can say that word now or not, but I think it cooled down enough to that it's just going to rally into that. But yeah, man, that's cool. I didn't know that 40% rule, so thank you for sharing that with me. Yeah, the rule of 40 in software. Rule of 40.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Taking a partner on, like at what point and for what reason?
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.
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.
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Chapter 7: How do personal experiences influence business decisions?
Chapter 8: What innovative marketing strategies can elevate your brand?
I almost feel like I've got too much integrity. Some of these founders that I've talked to... Like one of the dudes that was in our accelerator, that business crashed and burned. He's out. He raised another seed round, crashed and burned. He's on his third fucking venture, dude, since 21. And I'm like, one, how the hell does this guy keep raising money from people, right?
It's like having an STD and still getting partners. And then the other one is like, how in the hell does he like have the balls to still think like, oh, yeah, but my next business idea will be the billion dollar unicorn. That's what I just I don't understand it, man. I don't know.
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.
Yeah.
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.
You do anything with Ish? I put a little bit of money in Nuve.
Okay. I really like Ish a lot. Yeah. He's a sharp guy. I met him in Dallas. Jamie Waits, AC Hero. He had like a house party years ago. And it was him and several other guys. But I remember him talking about... Back then, dude, he was talking about the Google...
the google lsas and like it was brand new on the scene and his big thing was like they're recording us so they got all this data to like know what people are asking for and stuff so they can train their algorithms better it's pretty crazy he's a sharp guy man look i think he's gonna make newbie into something he texts me pretty much every day yeah and he's just giving me updates and i always give him ideas like you got to figure out how to get the equipment free in the house
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.
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