Q&A With Tommy - Doubling Down on Core Markets and Rethinking Expansion Strategies

if I put a dollar in to get a buck 25 out, I'm winning. And as I can start to scale that up and I make the few right hires, I'd be very careful on who I recruit to start my business.
I'd make sure they're 10 out of 10. They're people I'd die for, that I'd go to war for.
I'd make sure I'm in love with these people. I can communicate well with these people.
I can lead from upfront. And I know that they're willing to put in as much sacrifice as I'm willing to put in to grow something together, and I'll make sure they win at the end.
I would need to make sure to hire perfectly. Your first few hires are going to make or break the company.
Well, that's kind of how I'd start. Then I'd go knocking on every neighbor's door.
I'd find out the HOA president, and I'd say, let me just look at your system. I'm not even going to charge you.
I'm already here. 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.
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.

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All right. Welcome back to December's Q&A podcast.
One of my favorite podcasts of the month. Had a very good conversation yesterday.
I just have, I have a full-time person. This girl's absolutely phenomenal.
She's going to be working on the podcast. And we're going to be coming out with a second podcast called The Mellow Millionaire.
I think that's what it's going to be called. So we're going to be bringing home service expert, all home service, 100% home service.
I've got a lineup that takes me all the way through May. So it's going to be great.
And then the Mellow Millionaire is going to be all about how people have made lots and lots of money in life and more business strategies, not just home service and home improvement. Home service, home improvement.
We'll continue to be home service expert. Man, what a hell of a last month and just the hell of a year.
It's already December. We've been with Cortec Partner now for two years.
And as you guys probably know with private equity, they have to hold you for three years minimum for tax purposes. Sometimes a PE group will sell under three years, but it doesn't make a ton of tax sense to do that.

So I've got a lot of questions here.

If I don't get to all of them, you guys go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash questions.

I know that wasn't working before.

It's fixed now.

I'm going to read the questions out loud and go through them slowly.

I want to talk about a few things.

Actually, quite a bit of things in advance. I'm just going to talk about some of the epiphanies I had, what I'm going to be working on in 2025.
So 2025, I got four major things. Call center.
I want you guys to write down your booking rate. If you're listening right now, think about your booking rate.
Now, let's just say you're doing $10 million a year. for every percentage point you get an extra booking rate.
Now, let's just say you're doing $10 million a year. For every percentage point, you get an extra booking rate.
That's $100,000 if you're a $10 million business. So call center, I want to be able to call my call center and feel like the person treated me like gold, like literally like a family member.
I want to be blown away. I just don't want a call center that books the calls.
I'm beyond it. That's what I wanted for 2024.
Let's get up to 90% booking rate. Now I want it to feel like these people are like the best thing I've ever met in my life.
It's like talking to mom. So that's number one.
Number two is marketing. There's always, that's where I live is marketing.
People say, how did A1 grow so quick? I have an obsession with marketing. Obsessed.
I'm obsessed with it. And you should be too.
At Levi, Tommy, be obsessed with your financials, obsessed with marketing. So marketing is super important.
And as I chat GPT, the best garage door company in a bunch of my markets, I wasn't at the top. It's using user generated content, which are reviews.
So I just got off the phone. We're going after every one, two and three star review that we've ever had in the company.
And that's important. It's a big, big task, but also what else is important to stop the negative reviews from coming in.
Now they're few and far between, but at some point the client either thought they paid too much for the service because they looked at the parts online and they don't understand how business works. They think it's all profit because they never been in business.
There might be a school teacher. It's your job to educate people or just maybe you didn't show up on time, whatever it is, you got to make it right.
So marketing, lots of time, effort, and energy. This is where I'm going to win.
The other thing is rehash. You guys know I work with Chirp.
I've been really confiding in Chirp a lot to find out what is the easiest, best way. Is it sending the client a video? Is it sending them a text message? Is it sending them a Calendly link? What's the best way to get ahold of the client in real time? And what they told me was the people that respond to the clients within one minute, 24 seven are the ones that are winning.
So rehash campaigns, I've got millions and millions of dollars sitting there. The goal is to recoup that money.
And the final thing is recruiting. And I can't explain how important recruiting is, but recruiting, then onboarding correctly, and then orientation, and then training, and then retaining.
I mean, once again, I sold from Al Levy, but these things are easier said than done. So how do you make sure? But think about this.
There's a lot of financial coaching that needs to take place. They've never made this kind of money before.
So getting into their mental psyche. I was with a guy named Mark Devine.
And this guy was all about just his breathing techniques and meditation and nose breathing and taking less breaths per minute to stay focused and to handle your tough moments. And it's something I'm starting.
Like I was talking to my EA Ashley and I'm like, look, first thing I'm doing this month, major, is I'm making sure my sleep is right. We're going to test a bunch of different sheets, a bunch of different pillows.
We're going to test a bunch of different temperatures in the room. I'm going to get the lip tape and I'm going to try to breathe through my nose when I sleep.
And I'm going to make sure not to look at the phone over an hour. And I've got a little light coming in to read before bed.
And I take this thing called dream water and I'm just going to make sure I'm in bed by the right time. I think that alone.
And then I got a couple other problems. Fox News.
I'm only going to watch Fox News on the treadmill. That's the new deal for myself.
If I want to watch TV, you're going to do it on the treadmill. And number three, I used to say I'm on social media because of business and I communicate with people.
But I find myself screwing off. So I'm not going to be honest.
I'm going to have certain minutes in the day for social media and that's it. Because everything comes back to discipline.
This is what I don't think people understand. If it's not physically disciplined and working out, walking and getting your sleep, it's financial discipline and living below your means for a certain amount of time.
And it's agreeing with your significant other that you're going to do this for your future selves. And you'd be surprised if you get with somebody and you make a deal with them and they understand what's in it for them long-term, what will happen? So this is all very, very important things, guys, that I hope you're paying attention to.
Because at the end of the day, if you don't have discipline in your life, it's going to be a very, very tough life. So I asked Jocko yesterday, I said, how do you build this muscle of discipline? And he goes, you think I want to get up every morning at 4.30 a.m.? And it's one of those things where once you do it, it gets stronger.

It gets better.

It's amazing what happens when you continue to flex this muscle called discipline.

And you flex it as much as possible, man.

You want to have a better life?

You got to flex this muscle.

Better things will happen in your life.

But think about this.

You know what was easy for me to do?

A cold plunge in front of four people.

When I go by myself, it's so easy to get out after one minute or make an excuse or not do the sauna.

So what's a cheat code?

Start inviting a couple of people over to do the cold plunge every morning.

You know, there's a, I say this as humbly as possible when my driver gets up super early. I got to have him bring me a cup of coffee at 5 a.m.
I mean, what's a cheat code to make things easier for you to perform the discipline you're trying to do? Now, when you start enjoying the cold plunge, it's no longer discipline. When I had this gal I had around the podcast.
If you guys want to hear a pretty cool podcast, it was the lady that wrote Dopamine Nation. And she explained that when there's true discipline being done, like you run long distances, you work out hard, you get up early.
What ends up happening? Dopamine is what happens. So Dopamine Nation, trying to think here.
Anna Lemke, L-E-M-B-K-E, she's an MD, and it's absolutely phenomenal. But dopamine is made to be created through doing very difficult things.
As human beings throughout the last millennial, we did hard things. We'd have to go hunt.
Before we figured out how to farm, we'd have to hunt to get a meal. Our bodies were used to not eating for very long periods of time.
And our digestive systems were forward developed to handle that. So I just want you guys to understand that start doing hard things, start accepting change, start going a different way to work.
Start making change part of your everyday process. Get into really good morning routines and habits, but also make enough changes.
Tweak things here and there. I'm telling you guys, I can't explain how easy it is to get out of rhythm, to drink one night, to get a bad night's sleep, to do something, to start lying to yourself.
And it's the biggest mistakes you could ever make. A life of discipline is the best life.
Now, listen, just like you could have a cheat meal, you could have a cheat day where you're going to sleep in. You could have certain things that you might not work out that day.
That's okay. But don't lie to yourself.
Do not lie to yourself anymore. Start fulfilling the promises you make.
Write them down. Think about them.
Reflect on them. Journal about them and understand why.
What does my life look like if I maintain this discipline? What's in it for my future self? And really write down the real reality of what will happen to you. You'll get stronger.
You'll walk in a room and you'll have more self-respect for yourself. You'll think clearer.
You'll have more money in the bank. Your relationships will deepen.
Your kids will admire you more. It just doesn't stop.
Keep writing all those things down. So when you're confronted with falling out of this cycle, you've got enough ammunition to convince yourself not to screw off.
I'm going to read this. I could just keep talking.
I'm going to read this question by Ari. When you open a new location, how long does it typically take to reach a point of where you're doing solid numbers like $5 million plus per year? So here's the question, Ari.
How much money do you have to put into marketing? So if I'm spending 35% and my goal is 10 million, that means I'm going to spend 3.5 million in marketing, which I will hit the goal of getting into the black on my financials quicker, the more money I spend. Now, if I only want to spend 15% in marketing, it might take me two years.
See,

I'm willing to pay to play. I'll pay more into the marketing to get into the black quicker, to take more market share.
So a lot of people don't have $3.5 million to put into a market straight into marketing and get no ROI that first year. You're still in the red.
You're still losing money. So what I would say is a good number is nothing less than 25% of your target goal.
So at 5 million, if you want to hit 5 million, it's 250,000 per million. It's 1.25 million.
Or no, I'm sorry. 5 million would be a million dollars at 20%.

25% is 1.25 million.

That's right, 25%.

Does your system and process allow you to get there

within the first year?

Does it usually take a bit more time?

So like I said, we will get there the first year,

but that comes through really great recruiting.

There's a few other things you'd want to do,

like get great reviews very, very quickly, meaning that you might do tune-ups for $9 for the first three months and not even try to sell on those jobs. You're trying to get as many reviews as possible.
People need to know who you are, and that happens through reviews. That's one of the ways.
And then conventional SEO is really, really important as well. We had a salesperson who previously worked for one of our suppliers and was fired due to attitude issues, particularly when things went wrong.
They would argue, shift blame, and be difficult to manage. We believed in their potential, so we recommended them to another supplier.
But they were let go for the same reasons. Then decided to hire them ourselves, hoping they could turn things around.
While we don't want to see them go through another job loss, we're facing the same challenges now. We believe change is possible, but when we don't want to be unrealistic, what would you suggest? He is an excellent salesperson and easy to deal with for the majority of the time.
I think this is where you got to take them out to dinner and you need to invite their significant other. And this is where you need to have fierce conversations, extreme honesty, because right now what's happening is a lack of communication.
So I think what needs to happen is you need to sit him down and you just say, here's where we're at. This is why you lost your job on the first one.
We got you a job here. What would you like me to do when you're acting this way? And if you guys have these honest conversations and you might even say, listen, when you're acting this way, I'm going to give you a code word.
I'm going to say the lions, you know, the lions are playing in Detroit or figure out a code word and say, this is what you're doing. You're making it very hard for us.
And when you're good, you're great. But when it's bad, it's really bad.
How would you like me to respond? What's the best way to do this? Talk to his wife, figure out a way to break through this. Cause if he's great performer and he's great at sales and he's great to get along with most of the time, how do you just handle that a little bit and have him help come up with a solution or he'll self-eliminate? Clyde said, how much operating capital should you have in your account before moving into a new city? Roughly, bare minimum, four months.
Four months of payroll and everything else that could go wrong. I'm just not a big fan of fast expansion.
Not like I used to be. Because I got a lot of popsicle stands.
I got a lot of places where we haven't taken market share. I looked at my Power BI.
I looked deep at them this weekend. And man, my top five markets, my second five market, like out of the 43 markets we're in, we're slowly creeping up.
But if I had less markets and I could focus more on the ones we're in, it was just, I would suggest being very careful. You better have a lot of market share before you expand.
What is the best way to pay salespeople? And how did he divide the sales team's territory? So I don't have outbound and mine's all inbound, so they get dispatched. And I think what you're doing is you're more B2B.
So there's conflicting on, you're doing it in territories and that's okay. I mean, outbound sales is completely different than inbound and how it's dispatched.
I don't really understand exactly what you're trying to do. But yes, I think dividing them into certain areas is the best way to do it.
I'd have to look at the scenario to figure this out, Clyde. Brian said, how do you compensate structure pay base plus commission for CSRs who answer inbound and follow up on leads so that it fits within your budget.

Well, what I do is I look at the previous history of the booking rate. And if it's 80% and I get them, it's just, all it is is simple math.
I just told you if I could increase my booking rate and I'm a $10 million company by 1%, that's $100,000 for the company, right? So ask myself, if I give these people more money based on history, is it costing me more than giving them this bonus? Now, typically, you're going to split the profit. So if you're making an extra 100,000, you might want a bonus 10,000.
What does that do to your call center? Now that's 1%. What if you could find 20% there? What if you could find 30% there? Not to mention every time you get a cancellation percent, it's another hundred thousand if you're a $10 million company.
So fixing those things is important. Damien said, do you have a good software system to manage devices like iPads, iPhones? Yeah.
So there's a company, if you want to email me, it's called E Squared. They do a fantastic job.
E Squared, I've been using them for the last decade. I don't sign a contract for Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, none of it.
My devices, they get found by the nearest cell tower and they give me all refurbished equipment, almost new, but refurbished. They saved me a fortune because they get these buy rates of like ridiculously better rates than I could ever get.
So it's called E Squared. I think they're located in Phoenix.
Great company. You know, they come to the Freedom Events and other things.
They do a fantastic job. They're a big part of our network, but I haven't found anybody that even comes close to their service.
And they'll manage all that stuff for you. Also, what do you find the best, Apple or Samsung? I'm looking for a better device management system.
I appreciate it. So Damien, I personally, I like Samsung way better because the devices are way cheaper and you're upgrading them all the time.

Technicians break them.

So anybody that knows how to use an Apple could use a Samsung.

And you're opening up just a couple of things on there.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with iPads, but they're way more expensive.

And they come out with new ones way faster.

So it's like, you know, Apple got in big trouble for making their batteries die quicker. When they come out with a new unit, there's something in their old software that makes the battery.
I've never met an Apple user that said, I'm so happy about the battery life with technicians that matters a lot. So just some stuff to think about.
I mean, listen, I know the Apple users out there. I get it.
They're simpler. There's some good things about them.
There might be something better about them. But as far as when they break, it's more expensive.
The screens cost more money. I've never really seen a technician say, oh, it's an Apple.
I'll take care of it extra special. It's not how that works.
They are breaking quite a bit. The screens break.
I pay a lot less to get the screens replaced. Robert, what top three books do you recommend for someone scaling and growing their business from a million to 10 million? Other than yours, which I have read multiple times.
I really like the five dysfunctions of a team for that size. I think businesses tend to, you care more about your own department than you care about the whole company.

Obviously, Al Levy, the seven-power contractor.

I like for sales.

I like Joe Cressara's What Should We Do?

I think it's one of the better sales books ever written for home service.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a great book.

Any book by Gina Wickman about EOS, getting your management style dialed in is important. Napoleon Hill wrote a book, Think and Grow Rich.
It's not necessarily about business, but it's about yourself. Here's the deal.
I'm going to tell all of you guys, you don't deserve to make as much money as you want to. Until you get educated, until you think you're worth it, until you're ready, it's not going to happen to you.
The world's not going to give it to you. Jesus is not going to give it to you.
You're not ready yet. You need to educate yourself.
You need to walk into work and know what to do every day. You need to come in there with a plan.
You need to be ready to manifest what's coming next in your life. Some of you just, you don't spend any time.
You don't think about yourself. You don't know what you want.
You're not really sure you're living someone else's dream. Maybe it's mom or dad's.
Maybe it's your big brothers. A lot of you say, I want to do what you did.
I want to do a hundred million. Why? You give me 20 reasons why.
Oh, so I can help out the church and I can help out my mom. Help them out now.
You have enough money to help them all out now. You don't need to live my dream.
You don't need to live my dream. Maybe some of you might want the same things that I've wanted, but don't.
You shouldn't do this because of me. No, you showed us it's possible.
You wouldn't know what to do with the money game. You would not know when that money hits your account that it's going to change everything.
And here's the facts. You might not change, but everybody around you is going to change.
Just be prepared. The kind of money you're talking about, if you really want that, be prepared.
Be prepared. You're not going to like it.
I don't think a lot of you are ready for it. You're not going to like what it makes you.
You're not going to like the way that people treat you. It's good and dandy when it first happens, and then you'll see.
So make sure you're living your own dream. Blue said, are the days of starting a garage door business or any home service business with $20,000 over? Yeah, Blue, I'll tell you, $20,000 is a fart in the wind.
You can start with $5,000, but the first five to 10 years is going to be sweat equity. So first thing is have perfect credit.
Fix your credit starting now. Any of you guys

thinking about starting a business, make sure you've got perfect credit. The SBA loan is a

great vehicle. I personally would work two jobs.
I start my business and I'd have a full-time job

where I'm doing my business. I would just work more hours.
I would need a steady income. I've

Thank you. vehicle.
I personally would work two jobs. I'd start my business and I'd have a full-time job where I'm doing my business.
I would just work more hours. I would need a steady income.
I've had three jobs. When I started the garage door business, you don't think I was still painting garage doors, bartending.
I was still selling, flipping cars. For the first four or five years, I had to do both.
I didn't have enough money. I still had my landscaping business that I was getting 30 grand a month from.
I needed seed capital to grow. If you don't have money saved, you're going to have to work two jobs.
Or you're going to grow really slow and you're going to go, man, I had a great month last month and the next month is going to be, it's feast or famine. And it's going to be famine.
You're going to go, there's no leads. I don't have enough money to buy more leads.
It's a shady position to be in, Blue. Drew said, best marketing book recommendations for HVAC or home service.
Best marketing. Marketing, marketing.
All of Roy Williams' books are great about TV radio. Dan Antonelli's book, Branded Not Blanded, Getting the Right.
Your wraps look like your trucks. I mean, your trucks look like your billboards, look like your yard signs, look like your valve pack, look like your business cards, look like your catalogs, look like your building.
That needs to fit. The Story Brand is a great book by Donald Miller.
And here's the deal. I've not read a book that was very comprehensive, that had how to build copy, how to do PR, how to build a website, how to build master LSA, GMB, PPC, SEO, social media, how to build in a competitive place like Valpac and Clipper, how to do well.
Lead aggregators like Angie or HomeAdvisor, which are the same thing, and the hundreds of other lead aggregators, how to dominate those. Everything's different.
Word of mouth, affiliate deals, influencer marketing. I've never read a book that had it all.
And if I did read a book that had it all, I think they're a jack of all trades, a master of none. And there was everything in this book.
And what it would be, unfortunately, is a lot of definitions of what the differences are. See, I know how, like I study how to dominate each and every one of these.
And if there's a new marketing source that comes on, I'll figure it out. You know, if there's a way to dominate on Pinterest and Houzz, I'm in the process of dominating there too.
So, you know, where does the majority of your leads come in? And then how do you 10x that, right? I think there's a lot of people that want to get leads. They're like, I'm going to try everything.
And you should only go after one marketing source at a time and master it. Make sure you got it working right and then go on to the next one.
And what happens though, listen to this, when you get good at one marketing and then you add another one, one plus one equals three. Then you get good at another two.
So three plus two equals 10. Then you get good at another five, five plus 10 equals 30 because the people see you more.
There's more impressions. It's crazy how that works.

Okay. Now I've got these questions.
It looks like we might've had a few comments here.

Do you like commercial or residential asphalt? Colin, I think there's a lot of money in asphalt. I really do.
I think there's money in residential and commercial. I love that business.
I love it because it's big tickets. I think the problem is you submit two or three bids.
A lot of people are getting bids and sometimes it's hard to differentiate yourself. There's not a whole lot of craftsmanship.
Now I know there's things that go wrong with the cheap people that come in and they're not bidding properly. You got to be able to differentiate yourself.
So as long as you're differentiating yourself and it's not all about price, I like the industry. I guess to have a 90% call booking rate, you need the right leads coming to the call center.
Yeah. I mean, you do need the right leads.
Not everybody with a garage door is my client. I like affluent neighborhoods.
I want people that want their shit fixed right. I don't want people looking for a bargain deal.
4% of the population buys off price. 96 just wants something to be done right that's going to last.
Because I don't care if you paid the best price. If every week you're calling it, it's breaking.
It wasn't the best price, was it? If it breaks in a year and you got to spend another $300, wouldn't you rather pay $600 the first time in the last 10 years? So there's a lot of confusion out there. Who's going to show up when I actually need you to show up? Is it on my timeline or is it on the company's? Because if it's on mine, I know I'm going to pay a little bit more.
I bought the original Adam West Batmobile, right? It's a replica. And they said, if you want it done in one year, it's $54,000 or whatever.
It might've been $65,000 or let's just say $65,000. If you want it done in a year and a half, it gets cheaper.
Well, lucky for me, I don't really have a place to put it right now. I got a lot of stuff in the works we're building.
I don't really have a spot for it. I would have went into storage.
So I'm like, take a year and a half. I save money.
So I sacrifice time for money. And that's how business works.
If I'm calling and my pipe's broken, I want somebody to get out here now and I'm willing to pay more for it because there's an opportunity cost. So do you coach? Home service freedom is our coaching program.
And yes, we coach in this program.

I personally am involved, but it's not only me.

So George said, give us a call.

We'll book the call no matter what.

I just want to know how big the guns are now.

Yeah, I don't know.

These guns got to be, I don't know.

I got to measure. I'm definitely saving your number for late night fun.
Perfect. Hey there.
I hope you're enjoying today's episode. If you've been tuning in, you've probably heard me mention the Freedom 2025 pre-sale.
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That's freedomevent.com. Hope to see you in Vegas.
Now let's get back to the episode. Hey, Tommy, huge fan.
During the growth of your business, did you ever get home from work and relax or did you jump straight into working on the business until you fall asleep? So look, I want you guys to do me a favor real quick. How much money are you going to make next year? Write that number down.
Write down the number of what you're going to make next year. And then I want you to say, what would need to be true for me to 10x that number? 10x.
It's going to start changing the way you think. Well, the first thing is you probably have to delegate more.
You'd have to work less because if there's 20 of me or right now there's 800 of me, right? There's 800 people that work at A1. I don't care who you are.
How are you going to outwork 800? Now you can say, easy, I got a thousand. You could outwork us with a thousand.
So the question is, how do I get the top performance out of the 800? How do I get them working and enjoying what they do and seeing what's in it for them? You see, what would need to be true for me to 10x? Well, number one, I would have to read and continue to read every freaking book and every single podcast on recruiting I possibly can. I'd have to become the number one

recruiter in the world. What would be true? I would need to be the best interviewer in the world,

right? I would need to interview the best. I'd have to continue to hone those skills.

I would have to trust 10 times more, which most of you here, unfortunately, that's your problem.

You don't trust anybody to do it as good as you because you've only hired people dumber than you.

Those are the facts. You either can't afford to pay people better or you're afraid to because they're smarter than you, which is a problem within itself.
The next thing I would have to be 10 times more appreciative. I need to give way more compliments.
So I went through this task the other day. I came up with 12 things that would need to happen.
And what I'm working on is I've got accountability between my executive assistants and Bree. And I'm really focused now on how do I make these things into reality? I know what I need to do.
What would need to happen for you to have a six pack? Write it down. You know what you need to do.
Most of you won't do it. In fact, everybody on here right now, I don't know.
There's 70 or 80 people, maybe 100. Giuseppe said, look, you guys know what you need to do.
Write down what you need to do and figure out a way to want it so bad that you're actually going to do it. But here's the problem.
You know, one of my things I put down is trust. but once I have billions of dollars, which I will, you really can't trust anybody anymore.
And it's sad because I didn't change. I made more money.
They changed. And now you become, and by the way, if a girl starts working out, it gets prettier.
It gets sexy and gets hot. Nobody gets mad at her and says, you took care of yourself.
You're pretty now. People start liking her more.
The guys are more attracted to her. And as a guy makes more money and a woman, people are more attracted to them.
They're more successful. This is not something that's bad, but they change.
This ugly girl that became really beautiful to start taking care of herself and started getting in shape, it's a lot more smiles now. She's got to be a little more protective because now she's getting hit on more.
So just understand that that's going to happen. So I need to be able to, you know, I've got a family office.
We formed a committee that I just can't say yes to everything. People want me to get involved with way more things now.
And that's actually a thief of my time. So I no longer am taking those calls for the most part.
And I just can't say yes as much as I used to. Let me get back into this.
Moral of the story there, stir fry. I work a lot, but I whiteboard a lot.
And I more try to get my mindset, my brain, my thoughts. And I look at them and I say, can I delegate this? Who have I not hired yet? What would these person's KPIs be? How do I get them involved? Is there a way for them to earn equity? What would need to happen? But I used to say, how could I do this work? What is the project? I still outline the project, but no longer am I the guy that I feel like I've got to do everything.
And it's hard for me because I still think I'm competent. I still think my brain works well, but this is the next level of leadership that most people will fail at because they feel like they're inept.
They feel insecure. They feel like they're not good enough anymore to run the project, but that's not true.
They one running every project ultimately it all falls on them but they're better at getting other people to do the work like some of the best people i know they don't wash their own cars they have their kids do it it's smart they got their kids to insurers they pay them some type of allowance but like how do you get other people motivated to do the things that help you make more money? But they've got to make money too. That's the secret.
Thanks, Brandon. I'm looking to make a change in my marketing, specifically Google marketing.
Any suggestions where to look? It's a service business in Scottsdale, Arizona. Listen, there's a lot of great companies out there.
Cristiano, great. Listen, here's my best advice, Mike.
Find the biggest home service company you could find. And it's not A1, by the way.
It's probably an HVAC company. And find out, type in HVAC repair where you live and in Scottsdale where your business is.
And find out who's number one organically. And find out who they use.
Find out who's number one on the LSAs and who's number one on the GMBs and find out what they're doing for that. Start asking a lot of questions.
One thing I don't like to do is really recommend any marketing companies because here's a little dirty secret. It's just like you have your best employees.
Every marketing company has their best. You might be with the best marketing company, but the shittiest person on their team.
So the ability to get the top people on people's teams is an ability in itself to find out who's their Tom Brady on their team. Almost every company has a Tom Brady.
You just got to figure out who they are. And it's very important when you're working with marketing companies.
3.5 million on acquisition and enter on a cash flowing business that can maintain 15 to 20% cash flow. Okay.
Brandon said that. You know, here's the deal, by the way, let's go acquisitions versus Greenfield.
Let's say you want to build a $1 million EBITDA company. you might pay $6 million for it, right? Now you've

got to integrate it. It takes about a year to do a complete integration.
Now, we talked about, we just spent $6 million. Now, if I wanted to do a million dollars of EBITDA and I was running at 20%, that means I got to get to $5 million of revenue.
Now, I gave you guys a rule. Let's just use 30%.
That's 1.5 million versus 6 million for the acquisition. Greenfielding is far more valuable than waiting to get lucky and find a company to buy and have to integrate it and have everybody going, well, you got the old owner there that's kind of an asshole.
He thinks it's his way or the highway. That's why you bought him.
You got their general manager who doesn't like sales.

He doesn't believe it.

You got a few of their people, their call center that they've never had to answer this

many calls in their life.

Now they're asked on day one to answer way more calls.

Integrations are tough.

They are.

So you want to hear if I'm a buyer?

Yes.

I will say you could acquire a lot of companies. If you do it well, there's a time and a spot.
It is faster. But if you become a master of Greenfield and your bottom line is high enough and you've got tens of millions of dollars to play with, there's nothing better than Greenfield.
Don't ever let anybody try to convince you otherwise. I don't care what private equity.
If they say I've got a company growing just as fast, everything else being equal, one's green fielding, one's buying companies, the one green field is worth way more money, in my opinion. What kind of a mindset, skills, and habits do I need to develop to grow my business from a million to five million in revenue? At a million dollars, you need to be able to walk away.
First thing you got to master is time management. You need to get an executive assistant.
You need to master not doing the tasks yourself. You need to find smart people and you need to learn to delegate and trust.
If you just get that, 5 million is easy. 5 million is not a hard number to hit.
The main thing is that you start to do a time analysis of where you're spending all your time. And I bet you you're wasting a lot of it.
And I'd read as much as I could on marketing. Read marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and sales.
Because between those two things, I don't care how good you are at payroll. If you got the best CFO in the world, CFOs are all a lagging indicator.
Yes, they'll make great insurance. They'll help you buy right.
They'll help you get co-op. But you still need to sell and you still need to make the phone ring.
So don't let anybody fool you. I think the CFO for me was the most important role.
It really was. But that's after I made the phone ring off the hook and we were answering form fills and we had scheduling and going crazy.
And we knew how to convert service into sales. And we knew how to knock on the door and close deals.
You know, by the way, I don't really care what any of my competition's doing. Unfortunately, that's what makes people do worse in life is comparison is the thief of all joy.
If I continue to push and hire consultants and continue to hire great people and continue to maintain a vision that's been growing faster than anybody ever in my industry, and apparently, according to some people, I'm the big bad wolf, but when you get to know me, I open up my heart and my building and my home for you. But I don't really care what other people are doing.

I care more about what HVAC plumbing electrical is doing because it's a $200 billion market cap.

So I pay attention to the number one industry, which Rogers will never be.

It just won't.

As long as I'm keeping an eye on that and I'm buddies with the buddies I'm buddies with,

it's not going to matter because losers focus on winners and

winners focus on winning.

Remember that.

I'm too busy trying to win.

I don't care.

I don't need to look at every one of my competitors every day.

It's important to know what's going on in the marketplace.

And yes, there are people on my team that look at the competition.

You know, if we're in the same money mailer as

someone else, we want to make sure we've got a competitive price compared to theirs.

You know, so there's some competitive analysis, but just remember that.

Tommy, you are looking good.

What have you been doing?

You are slimmer and healthier.

We need systems.

What do you recommend?

Miguel, number one, just walk. Just just walk more just get up every morning walk one mile and before you go to bed walk one mile but stay consistent watch what you eat because that one minute of joy is you eat that candy bar or that ice cream but I know myself so I had to had to get the Ninja Creamy and now all my ice cream is all protein.
It's a way for me to kind of stack the deck in my own favor, but I stayed consistent. That's probably the most important thing is I just, I stayed relentlessly committed to what I was going to do and the results are still coming.
But one of the things I did is I got a blood test. I checked out my hormone levels.
I've been paying attention to my sleep and water intake and saliva test, blood test, urine test, making sure everything's working. First, you got to make sure your body's working.
So make sure everything's working. Naturopath is what I'd recommend, some peptides, possibly testosterone therapy.
I'm not saying you take a ton of it. You just get your normal levels to where they should be as if you were 25 years old.
Once you've got all that working, you're eating right, you're sleeping right, you're going to want to work out. You're going to feel more energy.
You're going to enjoy going out in the sun and doing stuff. So that's the best advice.
As far as systems go, you guys have heard me say this, but not a lot of you guys have actually done it. This is Al's book, The Seven Power Contractor.
He also wrote a section in the Home Service Millionaire. I have ADHD.
I needed Al Levy to sit me down and say, this is what we're going to finish today. This is the agenda.
People are going to know if they can grow a beard. They're going to know if they can have tattoos.
They're going to understand how to do PTO. They're going to understand what happens if they need to buy a tool.
They're going to understand what needs to happen if their truck breaks down. They're going to need to know exactly what happens of how to move up in the company.
They're going to be able to explain to their significant other how they get paid. And it's all going to come from the manual.
They're going to understand the morning mojo calls. What does tardy mean? What does late mean? What are the ramifications if you're late? All these things we went and did.
We did that in 2017 and we still continue to perfect those systems. Those are standard operating procedures.
There's checklists. We built out a very badass CRM, which is service tight that have checks and balances built in.
We know how long it takes. We know that if you walk in a job and you gave a door quote and you left within 30 minutes, you didn't do your job.
Those are KPIs we're tracking. So I just thought of another KPI I want to track.
Hey, Tommy, I own a roofing business and I'm trying to implement more of an HVAC model. How would you go about doing that if you were to be in roofing and having a hard time making the logistics work? I've never been a roofer or an HVAC guy.
I think my business is very similar to HVAC that was intended to be. I think roofing is a big ticket.
Usually the problem is with roofing is you use a bunch of subcontractors. And if you don't have amazing subcontractors, it's very difficult.
The whole roofing business was kind of built off of cheap labor. It's cheaper labor than HVAC than specialized labor, that's for sure.
So the majority of it is the presentation, what makes you different. How do you build? I want you to think about what we learned how to sell from the automotive world is packages.
So you got to have the best package and you got to give options. I would read the book, What Should We Do by Joe Crisara, because he talks about packages.
If you're not giving different options, you're giving ultimatums. And the fulfillment takes longer than HVAC.
I mean, a big roof takes a long time to install. Then even if you got three HVAC units, most teams I know across the country could do that in a day.
And they've got automated systems. See, what the difference is with HVAC is they started really pushing each other in their early 90s.
So now they got these people that'll fulfill the stuff. They're in their shop.
They'll actually build a store within your own shop. They'll handle all the logistical things.
I don't have that in a garage door. My garage door manufacturers just came back to me and can't guarantee any one of the things that I've asked them to guarantee.
Like you're going to have it on time or this, and you're going to be able to get my guys in and out of there with this time or this HVAC plumbing, they guarantee all these things or they give money off or whatever it is. My vendors aren't willing to do any of that.
So it's not really apples to apples. I don't think it's, it's fair, but I would continue to push for that.
I keep asking. I keep proving that what we're capable of doing, and they keep offering me more.
I really admire how you've transformed your growth, both in business and personally. You've elevated the standards in the way you think, communicate, and approach everything.
Thank you. Al Levy said, what are you willing to sacrifice like Tommy did to go to 10X you speak to? So, you know, I was on a meeting earlier and JD reminded me and a bunch of people in Garage Door Freedom.
He reminded me that I stayed in the apartment far after I could have moved out. He reminded me that we stayed in our office building when we could have afforded something more.
He reminded me that we stayed purposely. We didn't try to pretend to be somebody we weren't.
I tried to prove to people we're in a big facility and warehouse or a big business.

Yeah.

And we'd walk into rooms and talk about revenue and we're growing.

No, me and my buddies, we get on the phone.

We talk about profit only.

Profit is the name of the game.

That's all we talk about is profit.

No longer do we care.

I do not give two shits about your revenue. I talk about profit.
Now, listen, I can talk about market share. That's another important thing.
And revenue is kind of, it would sit under market share is revenue. But I really care about profit.
And I was willing to have a lot of discipline and delayed gratification. If there was two words, that's three words, delayed gratification

and discipline. You nail those couple of things, you live below your means for a few years,

you start stacking the deck, you're going to make so much freaking money. Here's something else that

wealthy people think about. I think about compound interest.
I've got a lot of money.

Let's just be very, I say this as humbly as possible. I try not to sound like a douche

Thank you. compound interest.
I've got a lot of money. Okay.
Let's just be very, I say this as humbly as possible. I try to like, try not to sound like a douchebag, but there's compound interest coming in.
And I think, okay, if I was able to put this money over here, how much more compound interest? See, I don't mind spending, as long as there's more compound interest going towards the principal, I don't mind spending compound interest. And it's a good way of being disciplined.
If you start stacking the deck, and so I don't think about money in the bank, I think about compound interest. And I think about what that means to me daily, weekly, and monthly.
Of how much money am I going to make next year? I don't think about A1. I don't think about draws out from the company.
I don't think about anything else, but the money I have, which obviously I've had one exit. I think about what, and I've made a lot of other investments into other things that are going to be exiting.
I think about, okay, when that money goes into this account, how much compound interest does it mean? And is it well diversified? And I've got some money that's not very liquid. Someone's going to take five or seven years to pull out.
And I think about the IRR, internal rate of return. Write that down.
Internal rate of return. How much money am I getting on my internal rate of return? What's the cash flow? When you start asking yourself that, see, poor people say, when I win the lottery, here's what I want to spend it all on.
Wealthy people say, if I won the lottery, here's what I'd be investing it and diversifying it and making sure here's the cashflow. And that cashflow is something I could probably spend.
So different way of thinking. What can we do to set up systems? We need to run our company on systems.
Miguel, if I were you, I would just look at some sample manuals. What are the checks and balances for a system that you have? Because systems only work when you have checks and balances.
You could say, greet your clients like this, but how do you check that? Well, you might need Realavoice or Cero or your own software that records calls in the field. If you wanted to make sure that every part that needed to be replaced was replaced, you'd build a checklist and make sure there's someone probably in data integrity is what you'd call it.
And you'd have them checking all these things to make sure there's pictures of everything and make sure it's very easy. I remember when in 2017, I started looking at all my technicians' jobs and I kept seeing the same sticker pop up, same drywall, same little mark on the drywall.
And I realized that they were just uploading the same pictures because they're lazy. So I called Service Day and I got a hold of one of their developers and I said, can you make sure you can't upload pictures? It's got to come right from your camera.
There's no way to upload old ones. Well, that put an end to them faking so lazy.
You wouldn't put a new sticker up. Like, why? But they will.
They'll find a way unless you create a system and have checks and balances to make sure that system's being followed. Okay.
2024 was our first really good year in the exterior cleaning mobile fleet wash industry. Once you have your first year of massive improvements, how do you determine what areas to focus on and prioritize to have the best impact in 2025? So, Kristen, there's one of two things I'm always trying to do.
Grow revenue fast or grow profit fast. Very rarely am I trying to do both.
That's like saying, hey, I want you to gain as much muscle as possible in 2025 and get as ripped as possible in 2025. I want you to be shredded at 5% body fat, but you need to gain 40 pounds of muscle.
You'd be like, wait, I can't do both. Do you want me to gain a ton of muscle this year? Or do you want to get shredded? And I say you get shredded when you're going to sell a year in advance.
So don't get shredded yet. Focus on growth, but always to stay healthy, make sure your profit's above 10%.
So when I say I put money back into my business for growth, where do you think I'd put that money? You think I'd put it into fleet and trainers and different management and recruiters? Yeah, probably some of that. But I'll tell you the number one thing I'd be putting it in is marketing.
Because certain things take time. Look, SEO takes time.
The best things take time. Word of mouth takes time.
Going to B&I meetings every single week or maybe three different B&I meetings take time to actually get the referrals coming in. These things all take time.
So I tend to say if I'm going to reinvest in the company, I'm going to raise the amount I'm putting into marketing. I think people spend way too little on marketing, but I don't think they have good attribution either.
Some people are spraying and praying they're wasting a lot of time, energy, and money on marketing that's not delivering a return on investment. So when I say I'm putting money in, my creative's got to be perfect for TV, radio, billboards.
If my creative's great and I'm putting a lot of money into it, I know I'm borrowing a little bit of space in your brain for when your garage door breaks. That's the secret.
Running great creative. Read all of Roy Williams' books, The Wizard of Ads, before you come up with a TV, radio, or billboard, any type of commercial whatsoever.
You got to make sure it's converting. And then read, there's a book called No BS About Direct Marketing by Dan Kennedy.
I highly recommend that book as well. But yeah, these things, what I can tell you is if you want, I would highly recommend you focus on growth next year if you're happy with your profit.
Now, there's a caveat to that. I don't want you to run out of money.
So there's a lot of questions I'd have. If I was in business with you, I'd say, how much money do we have in the bank? Do we have any lines of credit available if a good company comes along that we could buy? What are some low-hanging fruit that costs us the least amount that we could grow the fastest to make the phones ring off the hook? And I'd look for opportunities to be, you know, I think with the window or car washing type business, you waste money in the drive time.
So I'd want to be more route-based. So I'd talk to pest control companies.
I would be talking to pool cleaning companies. I'd be talking to landscape companies.
Understand how you optimize routes. Routing is everything when you're cleaning cars.
And try to get on the same schedule. I'd probably talk to a guy like me and say, hey, listen, is there a way to leave their cars at home in their garage and them give you a one-time access code to get in the garage? And maybe they'll pull it out of the garage.
I don't know. But I'd want to be as efficient as possible.
Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. Another thing that I do in your industry in particular is I would start selling agreements.
I'd start selling them in 20 packs. And even if you're allowed to make me four payments, but I'd want some type of contract that they can't just end one day.
Because if too many people end because something happens in the economy, something stupid, you're kind of left holding the bag. So I'd want to have certain agreements to put me into a situation where you can't cancel on this day.
You owe me 50 bucks for canceling because you drove out there. You were ready to go.
They canceled when you were three minutes away. That's not fair to you.
So you got to make sure to put these contracts in place. That's where a good lawyer comes in place.
We're about to launch an HEC company in January. Completely agree with your discount tune up for reviews.
But what are the one or two other campaigns, specials you would run right away when starting to establish a reputation or build a customer base right out of the gate? Daniel, first thing I would do is build the best website on the planet. And I'd invest a lot in a new blog post once a day.
I'd put pictures, I get testimonials. I would focus a lot of time, energy and money on getting the right backlinks, the right campaigns.
Here's the deal. I want you to do this, Daniel.
Open up your mail every single day. Open up the newspaper, the largest newspaper.
I want you to have neighbors in other areas, your friends, family. I want you to start asking them to give you all the mail.
I want you to record on the main channels, NBC. I want you to talk to someone that does media buys and find out where the biggest guys are buying.
What if I told you success leaves clues? Find out what everybody else is offering. What's working in that market? I can't give you one thing that's just, boom, it blankets.
If you run an HVAC company in North America, these are the three ads you're going to put. It depends on how long is the summer, how long is the winter, what are the variations of degrees? Are you working on, here's what I would do.
I would focus all my time, energy, and focus into 3,500 square foot or more. I would make sure those are the neighborhoods

I'm marketing the most

because you know they have more than one unit.

So if I could get in front of people with two units

that were installed at the same time,

you know, there's these different tools you could use

called Domo or Power BI or grow.com.

And you can start,

one of the things Lance did a long time ago

with his HR company is took into consideration the temperatures for the week and the humidity of the week. And he'd learn what days the phone was going to ring off the hook and he'd make sure they were set up for it.
And these tools, they take together all this data, these data streams, and they have a way of systematizing it to look at it a certain way to understand capacity planning. Those are some things I'd be thinking about and you'll find some revelations there.
Business, it's not easy until it is. Like for me right now, if I had to start over again and I had five grand in the bank and I'm 41 right now, it'd be hard, man.
First thing I'd do is go get a job.

First thing I would do

is go get a great job somewhere,

bring it in a couple hundred grand a year,

maybe even a hundred grand a year.

And I try to be somebody's mentor.

I mean, literally,

like if it's me, Tommy Mello today,

and I know what I know,

I would still go get a job.

I need more money.

I would need to figure out a way

to make way, way, way, way, way more money.

I'd literally tell Bree, I'm really sorry, but I'm going to be working double shifts six days a week and I'm working a single shift on Sunday. I would need to get my hands on as much money as possible.
And I'd be making sure my credit is dialed in perfect. And I make sure if I put a dollar in, I get a buck 25 out.
If I put a dollar in to get a buck 25 out, I'm winning. And as I can start to scale that up and I make the few right hires, I'd be very careful on who I recruit to start my business.
I'd make sure they're 10 out of 10. They're people I'd die for that I'd go to war for.
I'd make sure I'm in love with these people. I can communicate well with these people.
I can lead from upfront. And I know that they're willing to put in as much sacrifice as I'm willing to put in to grow something together.
And I'll make sure they win at the end. I would need to make sure to hire perfectly.
Your first few hires are going to make or break the company. Well, that's kind of how I'd start.
And then I go knocking on every neighbor's door. I'd find out the HOA president.
I said, let me just look at your system. I'm not even going to charge you.
I'm already here. And there's something I see.
Great. Let me put a sticker up.
If you need to get ahold of me, I'm honest. I've got integrity.
I will come in. I won't charge you a service call when you need me.
I want to put a sticker up there. And hey, listen, I got this Deco hardware kit.
If you want me to put this on here, I'll do two of them for a hundred bucks. I'm probably making 80 bucks on that.
At least I didn't waste my time. I figured out a way to figure out how to make door-to-door work because I don't have enough money to spend in marketing.
So listen, guys, I know there was a lot more questions and they're fantastic questions. Al said, Alan Aurora said to give them a great game to play or they'll play their own game and you won't like it.
If the game is to put stickers up, they need accountability and what's in it for them. Heading into a call, great live show, Tommy.
All right. So that was Al.
You guys get ahold of Al, go to the sevenpowercontractor.com. He still works a little bit of time.
Most of his stuff is all automated. He won't do what he did for me, you know, seven or eight years ago and come work with you personally.
But then again, you probably don't have the few hundred grand to pay him. So I'd highly recommend.
A lot of you guys have already done it. You just haven't done the work yet.
So do the work every day. Adam was such a genius.
He'd say, turn to page 40 in your manual. Your answer is right there.
He started coaching people on what page in the manual when they'd ask a question. And if it wasn't in the manual, he'd create it right then and there.
And then he'd update everybody. We always left it in our payroll system.
So the manual was constantly being updated. And if there was a question he got asked more than once, he'd put it in the manual.
If you guys want to order Elevate, the website's elevateandwin.com. Million dollar tax is the performance pay.
Homeserviceexpert.com. And then it's P4P.
P, the number four. And then P.
I'm going to have Giuseppe put this in the notes because a lot of you guys are still trying to figure out how to pay for performance, PFP, pay for performance. And if you guys want to come to the Freedom event next year, I highly recommend you guys do that.
We lined it up for Vegas. We were supposed to have it in Nashville.
Vegas ended up working out way better. Some people wanted it in Florida, but it's hurricane season, and it's just not a good thing.
So Vegas, it's not going to be a big drunken fest or party. I promise you, we just got one guy signed up today that's going to be there.
I think you guys are going to love it. I'm going to stack the deck at this one.
It's going to be the best of the best. But anyways, if you guys got any questions and I didn't get to it, I'm sorry.
Go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash questions and make today a fantastic day. I appreciate you guys.
Go work out, get some good sleep, drink some water, and just go for a long walk tonight. Just start today.
Start small. See you guys soon.
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. 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.