Empire State of Mind
Empire State of Mind
Tommy Mello's Five Pillars of Business Success and the Power of Mindset Marketing
Are you ready to transform your business and skyrocket your profits? We promise, you're in for an information-packed journey as we sit down with Tommy Mello, owner of A1 Garage Door, for a captivating conversation on mindset marketing and business growth. Tommy's expertise provides valuable insights on overcoming growth-stage challenges, emphasizing shifting mindsets, and underlining the power of delivering more value than your price tag. As a smaller company, you're in a unique position to hustle harder for leads - a competitive advantage Tommy assures us is invaluable.
Ever wondered about the key performance indicators that could boost your profits? We're diving into that too, alongside a deep discussion on investing in branding, hiring trustworthy employees, and managing them effectively. We're candid about the realities of dealing with one bad apple, and the ripple effect on team dynamics. Listen closely as we share our tried-and-true strategies for time management, task delegation, and how to foster personal growth alongside business development.
But that's not all - we're also exploring the five pillars of business success, the critical role of leadership in shaping company culture, and the importance of taking risks. We're discussing the value of data-driven decision making, the effectiveness of standard operating procedures, manuals, and checklists, and how they can empower your employees and fuel your business growth. Don't miss out on Tommy's insights - catch him on his Instagram, podcast, and through his Facebook group, The Home Service Expert, for more.
Contact IEB -
- web: www.iebcoaching.com
- email: support@iebcoaching
- social: @iebcoaching
Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
- IG: @the.matthew.williams
On today's episode of Empire State of Mind, we have Tommy Mello. We're talking about mindset marketing and scaling your business.
Speaker 2:We believe the purpose of owning a business is funding your perfect life. Welcome to the next generation of growth and opportunity in the inspection industry. This is the Empire State of Mind. Empire State of Mind Building build companies with faster growth, higher profits and more time freedom. Finally, a podcast for the home inspection industry and beyond. This is the Empire State of Mind and this is your host, matt Williams.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. I am so glad that you tuned in for this episode. I gotta be honest over the last month or two and we have this on the calendar I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. A little bit of fan girling right now, unashamed that Mr Tommy Mello from A1 Garage Door has taken time out of his day to come join us. And so, hey, tommy, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I am having the best day, happy to be alive, happy to have all my fingers here, and it's just been a great day, so things are going great.
Speaker 1:That's good. I mean, when you're installing Garage Doors. I imagine you're lucky to have all your fingers right, yeah.
Speaker 3:What is the last time?
Speaker 1:you actually installed a Garage Door yourself.
Speaker 3:It's been several years. It's been a long time since I even set foot in a customer's house other than friends. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I kind of miss it actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I kind of miss it too. I get that, like you know, you get out, you get working up higher up in the organization and then you're not on the front line as much. That front line is a really important piece, and having your finger on the pulse of your business, yeah, that transition has got to be challenging. I think a lot of, especially in home services industries, whether it's home inspection or electrician or Garage Doors a lot of guys have a hard time getting out of the field and letting go of that kind of stuff. Obviously, you've done a really excellent job of that. What were some of the steps you took, or how was that transition for you?
Speaker 3:I think the first thing that people don't think about is no one's going to perform at your level. You're the owner and everybody says, man, I'll just do it myself, because I've got a bunch of idiots working for me and they tend to just want to take ownership of everything and be the smartest guy in the room and the whole time they are the technician. They're not building standard operating procedures, they're not building manuals and checklist. You know, they never heard of an executive assistant. They don't have a good calendar, time management skills and they literally hire people that they could barely afford because they weren't financed enough to be. They never heard of a savings account. So they're trying to make payroll and so they got to go back into the field and it's a tough place to be, where you got to work in the business all day to make ends meet and you can never work on the business. The old Michael Gerber E-Muth.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. So you out in the field all day, what are you going to do, like, at night? Now you're working on the business trying to write manuals, but you're exhausted because you're even working in the field, and then your wife and kids and everybody else they don't get to see you and, man, that's just a miserable way to live. So something I've always enjoyed you talking about is like a mindset shift that have to happen in different like levels of growth, and that's a mindset shift going from I'm in the field to I'm not going to be in the field anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had a guy just walk into the. He said I'm an HVAC guy, I'm right by your facility, can I come by? He came into my shop. He goes first thing. He said I said what are you going to do this year revenue in HVAC? He said 500,000. I said I have technicians and grocers that do 2 million. I said tell me what your average price is. And it was extremely low. And I said you're never going to be able to go grow by being the price leader. How do you deliver more value than the price and raise your price book?
Speaker 1:Come on, that's good.
Speaker 3:I said listen, you're doing all these things. I said you got to focus on your Google, my business and reviews and get that ranking. You got to get LSA ads. You got to understand how PPC works. You got to understand capacity planning, getting the right CRM, building the org chart. But when you're starting out, you need to hustle, and the hustler in me has died. It died years ago.
Speaker 3:I don't have to hustle. In fact, I don't try to negotiate. I pay people more than they're worth. Everybody in my company's performance pay I'm on performance pay Company doesn't make money, so I think it was only fair to make everybody have skin in the game.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you this when you're small, it's the David and Goliath. David has a lot of advantages you can stop for each customer. I need a review on Google with my picture in it. I'd love a review on Yelp and Nextdoor. I love a video testimonial. I'd love for you to share it. I want to get to meet your HOA president. You mind if I leave a yard sign? Can you give me both your neighbor's names?
Speaker 3:When you're a bigger company, it's hard to have time to do that. When you're smaller, you've got the time to be able to do that thing. It's the greatest advantage. You could pivot movement because you're a speedboat versus a massive ship. I don't think enough people they go. I can't get leads.
Speaker 3:Everybody's blaming everything on leads. Right now the leads are slowing down. You could call your marketing agency and beg for more leads, but it's happening within your four walls. When you admit that you're the problem, what's the first step? When you're on drugs, alcoholic or porn, what's the first step? Admitting you're the problem, admitting you've got an issue. Everybody goes like this I'm not the issue, my leads are cut down. No shit, sherlock. We're not in COVID anymore, of course the leads are down. The nature's rates are up. Nobody's selling their houses. You're not getting as many leads you had it made.
Speaker 3:If you didn't make money in the last three to four years of business, you don't deserve to be in business. I'm going to be very harsh on this podcast. You do not deserve to make a lot of money. I take profit over revenue. I'm at 23% bottom line. We're going to do over 200 million this year. I will be at 30% bottom line next year. I'm not embarrassed about it. There's a lot of haters out there. I'll tell you this. A lot of people hate me. They never even met me. They hate me because they hate me. I don't really care Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:Haters are always the people who are you. Don't find someone who's ahead of you that hates you. They're always people that are back behind you somewhere. All the haters are back there somewhere.
Speaker 3:They're mostly because you're jealous. They literally say you charge too much and I say you charge too little. Here's the conversation I have, Matt, here's the deal 40 garage door companies in my office. I said here's what they charge in Achec. Here's what they charge in flooring. Here's what they charge in plumbing. Achec unit cost about 1500 bucks. They're charging a grand. That's a 6x. Who here is charging? And I said 9 grand. They all look around. Well, how do you sleep at night? And I said who here has brand new vehicles, the best CRM? They have the staff just before you when you're out of town for a month. You have full-time trainers, full-time recruiters. You got a 401K. You got PTO. I pay for their Affleck. I pay for their tools $4,000 for the tools. I pay for all their gas. I pay for their insurance. They got medical and dental and vision. Who here is covering all that? And none of them raised their hand. I go, wait a minute. So you tell me you screw your employees over to take care of your clients.
Speaker 3:So you literally spit on your employees, so you could give your customers a good deal. Shame on you. How do you sleep at night?
Speaker 1:Right, that's so true. Yeah, in my business we are not the cheapest in town, we are an upper-priced thing. But guess what? All my guys make really, really good money. They drive brand new vehicles, we have all the insurance, we have all that stuff. That's the way to approach it. Not everybody's my customer, not everybody's your customer. People that are your customers are your customers, and you know what I mean. Like, yeah, right, I love that. Why crap on your employees for your customer's sake? That's kind of crazy. I love that.
Speaker 3:Well, here's another thing, Everybody says raise your prices. Don't raise your prices unless you can get their same day and give exceptional service, unless you care more about that customer than the customer cares about themselves. We care we're going to help grandma get the Christmas tree down. We're going to offer coffee on the way we send her profile. We do background checks, drug tests. We come with a smile. We're there to give you options, because if you're not giving options, you're giving ultimatums. We're going to earn your business. We're going to strive to make you a raving fan. That's why we can charge a premium, but our value far exceeds our cost.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely by far. Yeah, I love that approach, man, that is incredible. I love it. So what do you do for marketing? You're talking about people that are like, oh, I need the leads, I need the leads. What are you doing for marketing right now? Or what are some marketing things you do in the home services industry?
Speaker 3:Well, number one there's four algorithms on Google. There's LSA, Google, my Business, Organic and PPC. You want to master all of them. So many people, they just dabble into radio, they dabble into billboards. Here's how you start. You start with a really great brand and a really good name and a good jingle and your billboards look like your yard sense of, like your stickers, look like everything's got to have unison. I use Dan Ansonelli from Kick Charge. He's the best in the country and he charges a premium. He charges $20,000 to $30,000. And people go I already get enough business. Why would I pay more? Rename your company, get the right brand, and here's why your pay per click will go to a 10th. You'll be top of mind, You'll be remembered. I just look at these companies that don't have $30,000 to spend and they're like well, it's easy for you to say no, it's not. You don't think. You think anybody gave me money. You don't think I worked my balls off. You think I'm lucky. You've never been in my shoes.
Speaker 3:You don't know the relationships, the weekends, the nights, the holidays that I've gone through, and the best investment you could make in marketing is into your brand period. Yes, by far Invest in the brand and make it a great name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what you've got to do. I love that, man, and so you do all that. You get the four things on Google going, but you master those right. You get those down. When did you start doing billboards, or did you just, you know, like to me? I wonder if billboards seem so far down the road versus what you could do on digital.
Speaker 3:Well, digital gets expensive. But here's the deal. There's certain KPIs, and I'm going to go through four KPIs that'll change your life. I could fix a hospital, a dental office, I could fix a grocery store with these four KPIs.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 3:I need to know what your average ticket is.
Speaker 3:I need to know what your conversion rate is. I need to know what your booking rate is and your cost per acquisition. And when those KPIs align correctly, that's when you start branding, because all of a sudden your click-through rate goes higher. People search your name. You're going to have the highest quality score for your own name. When you could build a brand that people think about when their shit breaks or when they need you, you're winning, but you need to have those KPIs to help them.
Speaker 3:I go to companies every day and I coach a lot of businesses and guess what? They don't have a CRM. They say my booking rate's probably 80%. I go probably 80%. Mine's 87.2%. I said it's not a problem. So the first thing you got to do is master your KPIs and make sure they're accurate, and very, very little companies have this. And then I say what's broken? I've got a company right now I'm working with in the single digits conversion rate. Single digits pathetic, but they're making a lot of money and we're fixing that. Do you understand what will happen when we get these KPIs dialed in? They will be printing money.
Speaker 3:It's a whole different industry out of sight, a home service. But here's the thing when you master these, it's where you're going to start. You're going to start pouring money, and then you could invest in TV, radio billboards, and before that, so many people spray and pray. They're like I hope this works. I know for sure every I've got 7,000 call tracking numbers. I know exactly. It's called attribution.
Speaker 3:If you don't know where your leads are coming in and you're just praying and praying. You've got lucky a long time and I used to get lucky. Listen, I hope anybody listening to this doesn't think I'm like this jerk and I'm being negative. I'm just here to tell you guys, business isn't easy. I'm going to be deadly honest on this interview.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love this man, I love your directness. I think it's awesome. People need that, I need that, and you're not cut into the chain, you're not bouncing around. I mean, you're right at it and I love that. So hit those four KPIs, get those things down. I love that man, and so that's what helps you scale your business, then, is those types of knowing where your stuff's coming in. You know where to put your money, where not to put your money Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I said my biggest mistake for a decade was not having a great CFO, and they go. I got a good bookkeeper. I can't afford one. You know what? When you learn your known financial position, you learn all the tax benefits out there. You learn how to take accurate, renegotiate your contracts, get co-op dollars. You can afford a fractional CFO that's making $500,000 a year but you're only paying them 50 because you're only using them a few hours. They're putting the systems in place to run a large company that you can scale. They're telling you when they hit the gas, when they hit the brakes, what's working, what's not.
Speaker 3:When you understand accelerated rate, people always say I don't buy new trucks, I get way better deals on used trucks. I'm like do you know how taxes work? Have you ever heard of accelerated rate? Yeah, you're right off 80% of your truck this year, right 80%. Your job is to maximize your liabilities and taxes. And people say I love the losers out there and they're losers today, but they could change. They say I already get enough business. Really, how much are you making? Don't lie to yourself anymore. The only person you're lying to is yourself. If you're not making millions of dollars, you need to work on your business. You know, this year we'll do 50 million bottom line. That's awesome. 50 million dollars, that's profit, and you know what I love it.
Speaker 1:I don't feel bad. You shouldn't. Why would you? You just worked your butt off for 18 years. Come on, you earned it.
Speaker 3:But there's these people out there that think, listen, I'm the dumbest guy in the room. I still go visit businesses and I learn a lot from smaller companies. I don't pretend to know at all. I had the reason. I was out there in the driveway on a phone with somebody with 2,000 billboards learning about how they purchased it's a personal injury attorney.
Speaker 2:I'm out learning every day.
Speaker 3:I'm not here to criticize and say anything, but what I'll tell you is I'm always learning, and the people that literally say this crap like, oh, yeah, but look at this, I would love to do 360 reviews at all your companies, not you in particular, but just see, what do people think about you? Because you sit on the side of worse and you tell everybody. The worst thing you could do is go on Facebook and get in the groups with whether it's inspectors, realtors.
Speaker 2:That's where the haters live.
Speaker 3:They go there to criticize and these guys are still stuck in a truck. They're still talking shit not making money, barely making a living.
Speaker 1:But the guys who are winning don't have time to sit around on Facebook and dick around in those groups.
Speaker 3:No, we're out there winning.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I've been in there a few times. I'm like every time I'm turned off, yeah, no, I don't have time for that, you don't have time for that. Like no, we're out there winning, kicking butt and taking names.
Speaker 3:They're very it's easy to point a finger and guess what, unless you're willing to come in this room and talk to me. If I've got something bad to say, I'll tell it to your face. I don't have any sense of pride by talking about all right people's back. That's shameful, it's cowardness, it's pathetic. It's pathetic and it criticizes others. You know how much time I have to focus on the other team. I'm too busy focusing on winning. Yup, here's the deal. Losers focus on winners, winners focus on winning.
Speaker 1:It's the truth, man. It is the truth, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:A lot of people leave me in my industry until they get to know me, they go. Man, I thought you were like you just charge more. You're marketing. You steal all of our guys and I go. I don't steal them. They come to my door and they say they hate you. They want to work for us because we care about them.
Speaker 1:We love our people.
Speaker 3:I won't believe for the people. I won't go to war for my people. These are my people. I'm the leader. I leave from the front. People say I can't afford everything you buy your people. I say can you afford Bisquick at Costco and make pancakes? Get to know their wives, get to know their husbands, get to build a relationship. 83% of people say they don't leave a company because they built relationships. They have a best friend at work. They're not going to do that working. You do that outside of work. You get to know their families. You find out their goals and the book elevate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just wrote that book, yeah.
Speaker 3:Build a business, for anybody wins. What if you sat down and said, nat, I want to know your bucket list, your dreams? You told me your dad was sick during COVID. You said you wanted to take him on a fishing trip to Alaska. You told me how much it was. You told me you want to take your wife on a 10-year anniversary and you told me you want to bring your kids to Disney World. You want to buy a second house in 18 months. Here's your KPIs. I'm going to show you how to get there quicker. I'm team Matt. I'm going to say what's in it for you. I want to see you win more than anybody. I know you don't care what you're saying.
Speaker 1:If you set up your guys that way and you set up your people that way to be able to win like that, you're helping them win. You're putting it there to the framework. You're putting together everything to help them win. People want to run with that. That's a great way to do it. I love how you're doing that.
Speaker 3:That's really cool, man. I got guys making 300 grand plus. Here's the problem. A lot of business owners go you made more money than me. Well, the top sales guys do make more money. But here's the problem. When you start paying performance pay, it changes everything. Everybody's running. People say man, performance pay, they rip people off. If they rip people off, you hired a thief. If they start charging more on the 30th, I have a price book and you can't change it. We do not take advantage of people. There's an opportunity cost of not giving options.
Speaker 3:I learned a lot from Al Levy. If you haven't read the seven power contractor, you have to. It's a game changer. He came into my office six years ago and taught me about manuals and standard operating procedures and checklists. Al Levy is a seven power contractor. I paid him 350 grand. He sells like a package now for like under 10. That'll change your life Successfully. His clues Listen. I made every mistake. I hired the wrong consultants. I know the people that have helped me Dan Antonoli with Kick Charge Al Levy. When I couldn't hire anybody, I went to Jody under Hiller Rapidhire and I had 40 people a month coming in. Because here's what he figured out Don't go to the unemployment line for people. You go to Indeed, you go to Glassdoor, you go to Monster, career Builder and all these other Craigslist. Those people are unemployed. Why not go to social media? The average person spends two and a half hours on Facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube. Why not?
Speaker 3:go there and find somebody that already has a job, that's looking for a better career by the way if you guys get a chance. Look up A1Grozzer service on Indeed and Glassdoor because our people leave great reviews. We got 395 stars.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, man. That's incredible. I have yet to post a job posting on Indeed. Everybody comes to me. It's awesome, I love it. I know I'm much smaller scale than you, but I love what you're talking about, man. That is so good. That is so so good.
Speaker 3:I love it. You want to learn about a company. Where do you go If you wanted to hire a handyman or an HR guy?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, if I'm considering hiring a contractor, I'm looking at reviews online Like Google Yelp.
Speaker 3:I asked my friends.
Speaker 2:I asked my neighbors.
Speaker 1:Where do you get the place?
Speaker 3:Yeah, probably Glassdoor, maybe Indeed Glassdoor, I don't know you don't think people, even if they were referral, at least do a little bit of research with the rest of their life and their career. You don't think they at least look it up.
Speaker 1:They do, they all do.
Speaker 3:So why not? Ask your happy employees to go ahead and take the time to do this and throw a big pizza party, take them bowling and say do me a favor while we're here and if they're going to leave you a four or a three star, at least understand that's an opportunity to be better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, absolutely yeah. I love it, man. I love it Recruiting people too. So you're really good at that on the recruiting side. I know you are. We've talked about that before. So what are some of the things you do on trying to recruit talent and finding talent?
Speaker 3:So it's interesting. I just was in Flagstaff with about 25 managers and I said, listen, I don't profile anybody, but if I don't have any kids, but if I had a two year old daughter and a four year old daughter and my wife was at home alone, I'd want to have a person that respects themselves, that looks people in the eye that I could trust, and a pair that says a matter. I don't care if you're white, black, cuban or Asian, male, female, older, young, but you got to be able to respect yourself and present yourself well and be trusted in the home.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:The important thing I look for is do they make eye contact? You tell a great story? Do you smile? Are you competitive? Yeah, you want more for your life because, listen, I don't have to pay a guy 200 grand than 50. That makes 1.5 million of revenue versus 300,000. And that's the deal. Eight players hate hanging around B players man.
Speaker 3:You'd be surprised at how much we do not accept a bad apple will ruin all the apples, and usually they're top producers and the owner's too afraid because he's like how am I going to make payroll? The minute they fire that person, the whole company changes. When you're small, they all of a sudden everybody performs better and they go. I have owners do this every week and they call me they go why didn't I do that years ago?
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's awesome, man. Yeah, so you're saying like you get that bad apple out and everybody else rises up they get better.
Speaker 2:Always it's almost like.
Speaker 3:Always, ever getting with the regret of getting rid of here's the test Ready when this rings, when you open it up and look at it, if you don't smile and get excited. If you're like, oh great, but now this is, this is going to be a bitch fest. This is always something that is an issue that you created. When you look in the mirror and say I'm the problem, I did this instead of blaming Biden and Ukraine and the economy and the inflation. When you learn to say I can't control those things, I'm only in control of what I've done. What's in these four walls? I hired an asshole. I need to live with it, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, I do a lot of things I'm a home service expert is you create your own reality? If you don't think you're the issue, you know I wasn't working out. I got the 27% body fat and I worked with about five people, and my cousin is a PhD in nutrition. She goes Tommy, you're more successful than anybody in our family. You're the biggest reader, you make the most money. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you. She said why don't?
Speaker 3:you respect yourself. And I said what she said look at you, you drink a lot, you don't work out. You could be the most amazing and shape, feel great, clear mind. She goes why don't you? And I mean, that hit me hard, that hit me really hard. And then I was with Eddie Elliott, and then I was with my cousins and then I was with Travis. One of them was like a six pack and yoked and he was just telling me how he does it and I got motivated and I said, okay, I'm gonna cut alcohol out, I'm gonna start getting supplements. I'm on four peptides. I said I'm gonna work out five days a week. I'm gonna do cardio every day. And, man, I can't tell you the clarity, I can't tell you the way I feel. And here's the problem, man, yeah, no one's gonna respect you if you look in the mirror every day and see I'm gonna wake up at five. I'm gonna quit smoking. I'm gonna slow down the drinking, I'm gonna be a better father, I'm gonna Reporting. Man, I'm gonna start focusing on how.
Speaker 3:I can help my mom and the parents. I'm gonna respect my wife more. When you lie to yourself, uh huh. When you lie to yourself every day and you expect people to be serious with you and really believe in you.
Speaker 3:You can't even trust yourself. You, you know, in the Bible it says If you ignore your conscience, that goes away. And the fact is that if you look in the mirror and you're not happy, then do something. Netflix. Every night I see you scrolling through Facebook. What do you mean? You don't have the time. You never prioritize the time.
Speaker 1:Everybody has 24 hours, man. We all have the same time.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and I have the same time.
Speaker 3:And Elon Musk has the same amount of time as us.
Speaker 1:Yep absolutely.
Speaker 3:We're more efficient with our time.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's fascinating because, yeah, everybody has the same 24 hours. What are you doing with yours? Yeah, what are you doing with your 24 hours?
Speaker 3:You know there's a lot of gurus out there that say they outwork people. They say I work nights, weekends, I wake up at 4. I work till 1. And then I work 1 to 8. And then I'm up 8 to midnight working on different things and I laugh at those people. I don't do that.
Speaker 3:It's so funny to watch the people that say they'll outwork you. I've got 800 employees right. If they just work 70% as hard as I did, it's 56,000% of what I could do. Now, like I said, I'm really small compared to where I'll be and I'm not bragging about 800, because I'm in the fetal stages. But a lot of people don't know how to trust. They don't know how to delegate, like take, for example, if you had an assistant and you wanted to book a flight and she screwed up, she got a connection flight and your TSA number wasn't in there you go, isn't this common sense? And then I'd simply say where is the standard operating procedure that you told her? You wanted a direct flight, where the TSA number is how you wanted it done? Why?
Speaker 3:don't you just record yourself booking a flight and talking out loud, say, when I fly to Atlanta. Here's what I prefer. I like to fly at this time. I like to make sure there's no connections. If not, I'll switch to this different flight.
Speaker 1:Like these airlines better than those right yeah.
Speaker 3:So I watch all these people and they go well, it's just easier for me to do it Because you don't know how to delegate and listen. I'm the same way, everything I'm saying. By the way, I made the mistakes I got to tell you. If you want to look at the epitome of failure, you're looking at them right now. You're looking at the guy that's failed over and over. If it could go wrong, it could go wrong. People stealing from me, police showing up trucks that are totaled and flipped, literally not making payroll. If it could happen, it did happen to me.
Speaker 3:So listen take all this with a grain of salt. I'm not above you. I'm just telling you guys, I've experienced this firsthand and I'm talking to you because I've lived it.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. I love it. Yeah, I want to learn from your mistakes, not mine. Yeah, I do. I want to learn from other people's mistakes. That's awesome, man. I know you've lived it. You've been in the trenches. You went from the very front to the very front line One guy out and selling garage doors, all the way up to this massive juggernaut of a business. You're saying his infant stage is about to get even bigger and I love that, but it is pretty big. It's a pretty big company. Now are you the biggest garage door company in the country right now?
Speaker 3:There's a couple franchises, but we will pass them up next year. We're the biggest we've ever been, but the smallest we'll ever be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yes, that's awesome. That's a lot of fun, all right. So you wrote this book. It's brand new, called Elevate. It came out this year and it says you're building a business where everyone wins. That's what the I think the subtext of the title is, and what is the premise of that book?
Speaker 3:Well, it really starts with figuring out the why of each employee. The premise of the book is this I like to win. I love it when my coworkers win, I love it when my clients win, I love it when our vendors win and I love it when our partnerships win. In business usually there's this mindset that if I win, you lose. First thing I do when I sit down with a client, when I sit down with a vendor, is I want to understand where you're coming from, what your goals are. Tell me about you and actively listen. How to win friends and influence people. Dale Carnegie you literally listen and ask questions and write things down and you give them the best option.
Speaker 3:When I'm working with a vendor, I don't try to beat them up on price. I try to say listen. You said you're struggling in these two markets. You said you've got a really bad product mix in this other market. I want to help you. I want to make sure you guys are very healthy because I want you to be around and be my vendor for a long time. I want you to recruit and develop the best technology, recruit the best leadership, because the better you are, the better I'll be as we work together. I'm not always trying to crunch you on price. I'm trying to make sure we've got to win-win For the client. I'm not always trying to sell a massive ticket and extract money. I'm trying to make sure I'm solving their problems so that those other friends or neighbors, their family, leave us reviews and use us to get in the future and become a raving fan With an employee it's learning about what they want, what their needs are, and making sure when I'm trying to motivate them, I remind them why they're here and how to win the game.
Speaker 3:Very few people could do that, but when you figure out their true reason for being there and it's not just to make money you've got to peel back the onion you'll find out that there's a lot more to it. They want to become a better dad and a better husband or a better mother.
Speaker 2:They want to become a better son and a better daughter.
Speaker 3:They want more for their lives. But we've got to extract that and find out what motivates them and use that and actually celebrate the wins. So many people have meetings and they just criticize and say we need to do better. Never criticize in public. You need to focus on the big wins. You need to celebrate. You need to have open financials and tell everybody where you're at. So many people are afraid of that. I had 26 employees here yesterday. This house is 16,000 square feet and I'm not bragging. People say you can't have people at a house like that. They bought it for me and guess what? I hope they have a house just like this. I'm not timid about what. They know the work I put in. They know I'm here. They could call me Saturday, sunday, they could call me Thanksgiving. I show up, I lead from up front and my people. I'll believe for them, they'll believe for me. We make shit work.
Speaker 1:I love that In the book you actually talk about the five different pillars and I'll butcher them, so can you explain that to our audience, the five pillars that you talked about in there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, one of them is a bad word, it's okay, we've had enough of those today.
Speaker 1:We're good we can have more.
Speaker 3:Culture People don't like to talk about culture.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate that word. I'm just kidding. Actually, that's a really important word. It's not a bad word, that's a good word.
Speaker 3:You know, culture will make itself if you don't make it. So. Culture is a big thing and it used to be a four letter word for me until I realized celebrate the winds. Listen to people, let them know where they're at, have a lot of one on ones. You know, when you recruit somebody, you got to recruit them. Then you've got to orient them. Orientation is so important. I lead every orientation and you got to train, then you got to retain, and training is never going process. Yeah, if you don't love Mondays, then you need to create a better culture. Yeah, it starts with leadership, and leadership is another pillar.
Speaker 3:Marketing is my favorite thing in the world. I was put on this earth to be a marketer. And then there's recruiting and systems, and the better you recruit and the more system oriented you become, the better it all becomes. The KPIs that I drive. I don't have to make any decisions. The data tells me where to go. I don't have to have a good feeling about something. Right, I know all these things and they're all kind of spelled out in the book and I've got several.
Speaker 3:Performance pay is based off of a price book and price book has a lot to do with your score cards and all that's explained in this book. I love it. I just had a guy call me he's doing 120 million and he said I gave elevate to every person I know and we're studying at our shop. Can we come do a shop tour? And I give two shop tours a month. There's no cost. I pay it forward. I never criticize people. I talk a lot on podcast, but when you come see me we're going to talk about the good stuff. I'm going to try to give solutions on my podcast. I don't try to be this negative, nancy. I just want people to wake up and understand that you're not owed anything in business. You take all the risks, you get all the rewards. No one's going to care as much as you. It's true, and I think I laid it out pretty good in the book and I've got some really, really smart co -authors. That made me look good.
Speaker 1:That's good. It's good to have smarter people in the room, people smarter than you and helping you out and doing that. The idea of culture is something that I'm super passionate about as well, and I think every, every your business has a culture. Right, it doesn't? It has one. Your business has one. It's just whether or not you're shaping it or somebody's shaping it. You know that talk to a employee might be shaping it, or or maybe it's a healthy employee, but but if you have a bad culture, like every, every business has one. You know you got to be ever. You know every wall has a color. You know, and what color is the wall of this building? Like? You have to pick it. You have to pick that culture and and push for it and go for it.
Speaker 1:You, you said you're put on this earth for, for marketing and, and I think I think culture is probably one of the things that I'm really strong at. I love that. That, that four letter word of culture. It's a. It's a good word, man, it's a good one. I think culture, I think culture will beat strategy every day. If you have the right culture, you will have a good team, like pushing hard and all fighting for you Now, if you have culture and strategy, I think you're going to really crush it, but I don't know. That's my, that's my opinion.
Speaker 3:Well, I always say I'll take EQ over IQ. Yeah, I mean, EQ means how do you make people feel what, how do you communicate? And EQ is super important. You know, in the book I talk a lot about an equity incentive program and performance pay.
Speaker 3:And then I made 25 millionaires. In December we did a deal with a company. I still own half the company, but I figured at the time I did it that we could 10x a lot quicker because they got unlimited funds to grow. So we bought eight businesses this year. We're going to buy 20 next year. We got three more to buy this year.
Speaker 3:And when you could learn, there's three ways to pay people. You pay them with some type of performance or salary or hourly, you pay them with profit sharing or you pay them with equity. I'm leaving all three of those and when you do it correctly and you get everybody running in the same direction, it's amazing what can happen. And the biggest two questions I get are how do I set up my scorecard, performance pay and how do I incentivize the people with equity? And I hate to do this, but I'm going to is I've got an event coming up in November.
Speaker 3:It's freedomeventcom and I've got like amazing people going to be there. It's in Orlando and so many people are like how do I build a business that I could sell one day for lots and lots of money Tens, not hundreds of millions. And so that's all this is about is learning how to build a business that you could sell for lots and lots of money and understanding what a buyer looks at, and I'll show people how to buy businesses, how to integrate businesses and I've got a lot of trusted advisors that will be there and the goal is to change the game of business. That's my goal. I really enjoy business, I enjoy marketing and we set up about a thousand people there. That's what I'm shooting for and if anybody wants to learn, you know inspectors who do you want to be around? You want to be around home service people?
Speaker 3:You give me so much money. You know pest control is really big for inspectors. Yep, listen. Hvac garage first when you move into a home I'm working on deals with Mark right now when you move into a home, what you probably want, the floor is done in the garage. You probably want your home link in your car done. You probably want some garage storage, you probably want to get rid of some of the bugs. There's so many opportunities with affiliate marketing, influencer marketing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And when they're moving into the house, that's what's top of mind for them too. They're like oh, this garage door is annoying, like I wish. Or my old house had their app on my phone that could control it. And this new one is like this 1980s you know, big old button you got to click. I want that newer technology or whatever in my house, my Q yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want that stuff in my house and and I miss it or whatever you know. But when people are first moving to houses, that's when they really are. That's one of the places where they're really in tune with some of the things they want to change. I don't like these floors. I'm buying the house and I'm not in the cellars, not fixing it, but I'm going to have to fix it when I move in or before.
Speaker 3:I'm in the house, but 80% of people get stories in their garage within the first year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like like to understand the buyers for Sona and these I love inspectors. I've had a lot of inspectors and there's different quality, but I'll tell you this like they're on the buyer's side and that's important.
Speaker 1:You build trust, man, we have. We have trust with the buyers Right Like my company does. Can you leverage that trust?
Speaker 3:And the deal is one of the things that I say to every person I partner with is your. Your reputation is on the line when you refer me, and that's a sacred relationship and a lot of people are afraid that if they give somebody a name, so I just say I'll give 100% of the money back. We don't always there's trucks that have broken down or get a flat tire. There's things that have gone wrong with the manufacturer. Not every one of our guys are perfect and don't make mistakes, so I just give the money back to protect that relationship.
Speaker 3:And it's so important when you do a partnership or affiliate agreement or anything, and there's all kinds of fiduciary responsibilities with inspectors about receiving keep backs and whatnot, and there's ways to work through that. But ultimately I want to protect that relationship and I think it's very, very important that when you get with a good company and it's not about charging the most I have the best prices for the quality. We've got different options for everybody. I can beat anybody's price, but I can also do a lot more than most companies.
Speaker 1:So Right, well, yeah, and you have the value right, and that's what really matters is having the value there. Yeah, so someone's buying a more expensive garage door. You want to sell the cheap stuff. You could sell it and compete with the cheap stuff.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. But apples to apples, I sell oranges. What can an inspector do to separate themselves from everybody? And what that means is how do you package things? What else do you do that no one else is doing? Yeah, and it's impossible for me to even compare that quote, because what we do is we do this this this and this, and no one else is doing this.
Speaker 3:We have the latest technology. We also have a different scanner. We go through the drains with the scope. I don't even know exactly everything an inspector does, but one of the things that I would say is we fight for you to make sure everything's perfect and we're going to save you money on this house, we're going to save you investment and we're going to tell you where to get the home warranty from and what equipment to get it on. Okay, don't be apples to apples, because then you're just competing on price.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's not a great place to be competing on. That's not where you want to compete. Well, it's a losing game.
Speaker 3:Usually most people, most inspectors. They go into a market, they offer a little more for a little bit less and they don't know they're copying idiots that are making a profit. Most business owners are barely making a living. They went in to start a business and have freedom, but they're not working nine to five, they're working seven days a week, they're working on holidays and they're not getting ahead. Your biggest asset is your business, but it's not worth much if it takes you to be there to be successful. I would never give a good multiple to a company that existed around the owner.
Speaker 3:In fact if I leave A1 Garage for a service for a month, it runs perfectly without me.
Speaker 2:In fact it probably runs better without me.
Speaker 3:I'm just the gas, pushing it forward. I'm always pushing this, I'm motivating, I'm keeping an eye on stuff. I always say I live on Mars and I look at Earth for a volcano. The business is Earth and I'm looking for that hurricane or that volcano or that tornado or that forest fire and I go in and I look at it and I've delegated. Really well, I don't ever make. I make a lot of critical decisions, but I entrust the leadership and I've invested a lot of them and they invest a lot of me. There's a strong, strong trust within the company. They make mistakes and I encourage mistakes as long as they learn from them. I don't think that when someone falls down, they're going to learn to get back up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm looking back up.
Speaker 3:How much do you see all those business owners? How do we expect our people not to make mistakes?
Speaker 1:Do I screw up stuff every day? Yeah, absolutely. The only way you learn is like you said earlier you failed and failed and failed. You failed so many times in a row that eventually you start figuring stuff out and you start doing it the right way. Yeah, you got to let your people make those mistakes too, and we're delegating something to somebody, and then if you don't allow them to actually make the decision, it's like why did you hire them? I hired you to do this job and make these decisions. I don't know. You got to trust them at some point, right?
Speaker 3:Well, Matt, let me tell you a quick standard operating procedure on delegation.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:You got to write this down on a notebook when you give somebody something. Here's what needs to get done. Here's why it needs to get done. Here's when it needs to get done by. Here's the resources you have available to get it done. Here's the date we're going to check on progress, because we're all procrastinating. Here's an opportunity for feedback and here is the benefits I'm going to give you, the bonus or the ramifications. So if you include that and have them sign off on it, and then they can repeat it back to you and they understand exactly and they've repeated back exactly what you want, then you both agree that it'll get done by a certain date and it's all clear. But too many of us we dump and we say can you handle this? There's no procedure around it. And there's three reasons it fails. Either it's the wrong system, there's no system, and the third one's the big one the system's not being followed, because no one really understands how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:They don't understand if they get a tattoo that says FU on the side of their face so they could get fired.
Speaker 3:There's no manual for that. What happens if you break down in your car? Who are you supposed to call? What happens if my manuals are 60, 70 pages each but they tell you how to play the game. The scorecard is the KPI, you know people start and they go.
Speaker 3:How do I get ahead of this company? What's the policy on attendance? What do I do if this breaks down? What, and you know what the damage to the insanity is. And when somebody calls and you answer the same question 10 times a day. Instead of creating a place where all that information is and exactly how it should run, you want your business to run like clockwork, create standard operating procedures and manuals and checklists. I've got a 151 point checklist for our tune-up. We do 151 things in your garage on our tune-ups. It takes an hour.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. I think people want to win too, and if they don't know what to do and they're failing and floundering, well that's on the leader. Right, the leader didn't give them the steps to. Here's what I need you to do. But people want to win. They don't want to show up to work and suck, they want to show up to work and be good. They want to be good. So, yeah, that checklist, the manuals, that empowers them to be able to, for them to be their best self as well.
Speaker 3:You know, business owners, a lot of people want to own a business. They don't realize what they're getting into and we want to be the best. We want to be the best versions of ourselves. You know, there's so many people out there that they keep saying tomorrow, tomorrow, one day, one day. Why can't today be day one? Why? Can't you get started now. Why don't you decide what you're going to do to make it?
Speaker 3:People say how did you dominate Angie, angie's list? And I said I found the number one dude in another industry. We didn't flew out to him and learned. Success seems to lose all around us. Everybody's got a reason, everybody's got an alibi of why they suck, yes, why they're not getting started. The world is coming at you and I know it hasn't been easy. You know what's so funny Is the people. I'll tell you one thing you wonder why I'm a killer is I didn't have it a lot. I lived in a small house, my parents got divorced, my mom worked three jobs. I didn't have anything. I'm not a victim. That was the ultimate advantage, and I still have a craving of just. I like being poor. I love what it makes me, do I?
Speaker 3:love wanting more, and I love bringing people with me. It's not about material things. It's not about money. Money is a tool In the. Bible it does not say money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is the root of all evil.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. I'm here to tell you guys, if you don't want a profit, then get the hell out of business. Start a 501.3C, a nonprofit. If you don't want profit and you're going to complain about the guys that are making profit, you know what. You don't deserve to be in business. You're so busy and envious of other people that you can't even focus on yourself and look in the mirror. When are you going to say I have a problem, that I need work Because I'm a work in progress man?
Speaker 3:Matt I've got so much to work on. But guess what? At least I can look in the mirror and say this guy's waking up, he's trying, he's making his bet, he's going after it. Very little people could do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it, man, I love it. Tommy, it's been great having you on the show. I love your new book. It's fantastic. And then even your other book, a Home Service Millionaire, with the first one you wrote. I think Both those books are outstanding. I love what you're doing. Your Instagram, by the way, is on fire If you don't follow him on Instagram. Follow him on Instagram. It is. The little sound bites are just outstanding. Every time I see one come across I'm like oh yes, I love this guy every single time. So, tommy, thanks for being here. If someone wants to get in touch with you, if someone wants to follow you, what's the best way for people to get ahold of you or to just learn more from you?
Speaker 3:I respond a lot to the Group the Home Service expert on Facebook. If you leave a comment there, you need help. There's about 7,000 people. I'm very interactive there.
Speaker 3:The podcast is a great spot. Not every podcast is perfect, but I use the podcast for my help. If you listen to 1 through 40, it'll show you how to get to 10 million. 40 through 80, it'll show you how to get to 15 million. It's a journey of what I'm going through and I'm asking the questions and people relate to it because they're really what's going through their mind. So if I want to learn about a CFO or human resource or payroll or taxes or just a book that I've read, that's where you find it. And if you want to reach out to me, I do a couple of shout tours a month. I promise I'm not going to talk down to you. I'm not going to slap you on the wrist. I really genuinely and I could say this, very few people say this and meet it. I want to help people. The best gift that could receive is your text, a message from you saying I'm spending time with my kids. I'm home on Sundays, I make it home for dinner.
Speaker 2:My marriage is better.
Speaker 3:I didn't do it. I just like to give some input. If you've got questions, I'll be brutally honest, but I'm never here to destroy your dreams. All you got to do is ask my favorite letters in the world ASK. Just ask and I'll help.
Speaker 1:I'd love to.
Speaker 3:But if you sit there and you bitch and you just complain that you're a victim and you never reach out, never join the group, that's on you.
Speaker 1:Right, I love it, man, I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, and this was an outstanding episode, and I can't wait to see you around, maybe in one of the next IEBE events.
Speaker 3:Thanks for your time. Tell Mark I said hi. I really appreciate being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of fun today.
Speaker 1:Awesome Thanks, buddy Thank you.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to Empire State of Mind. For the home inspection industry and beyond. Our passion is to elevate the home inspection industry with mindset, strategy and tools. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review. For more, follow on Instagram at IEBEcoaching, and don't forget to hit the website at wwwiebcoachingcom. Learn about IEBE at no cost and have all your questions answered on our open call once a month on the third week of the month. We hope to see you there and we'll see you next time on the Empire State of Mind.
