Building Trust and Loyalty in Business - Alisa Imperial

think you can have a beautiful truck and a beautiful brand, but you don't breathe life into it until there are people that believe in it and talk about it.

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mellow.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you.

First, I want you to implement what you learned today.

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So I asked the team to take notes for you.

Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299.

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Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy.

Now let's go back into the interview.

All right.

I'm sitting here with Elisa Imperial.

Welcome back to the Home Service Expert, by the way.

She's an expert in strategic planning, performance management, business development.

She's the VP of business development at A1 slash Garage Door Freedom.

Garage Door Freedom is this best practice group where we work with only garage door companies to help them win.

And it comes from everything from simple things like booking weight, booking rate, conversion rate, average ticket,

getting leads, buying better from suppliers, creating a magnet for great talent, strategies on how to buy new trucks, how to get branded correctly.

It goes on and on.

Even training your technicians on how to sell, which in my world is not a bad word.

It's sell people what they want and need.

That's why they call us out there for.

She's the VP of business development for Garage Door Freedom, formerly a project manager at A1 Garage Door Services, where she led a team dedicated to providing leadership and support to industry leaders and home services.

And she taught us a lot about how to build a training.

I don't even want to say training is not something we do.

It's who we are.

And it continues.

The number one thing I talk about is how do we train more?

How do we train more?

How do we train more?

How do we train more?

And that's the one thing, AI, all this things we talk about, like the technology the automations uh training is such a key thing in what we're doing but first let's go back and tell a little bit about yourself alisa i love you you're one of the best things that ever happened to this company you're always happy but you're also hard when you got to be hard yeah i just you came from the casinos i found you uh you know i guess there's some blessings that came out of covet and that was one of them yeah thank you tommy so much for having me on today uh listen i love this stuff i love talking about how we can win bigger.

And, you know,

I got the best luck growing up.

I grew up in family small business.

Both my folks were barbers.

And it really just kind of pivoted me into service.

And I spent two decades before I fell into garage doors in service business and businesses that had thin margins and had to do everything in really an excellent way to be successful.

And so when I got to home services and like you said, through COVID, you know, it's always who you know through networking and good relationships.

Somebody called and said, hey, why don't you come do garage doors?

And I said, garage doors?

I don't know anything about this.

And I started looking at this crazy guy named Tommy Mellow.

And, well, I think I remember calling the recruiter and said, I'll be a janitor there as long as I get to work with this crazy guy.

So, and that was about five years ago at this point.

So it feels like, if I had to look at a timeline, it feels like it's been a lot longer.

But in some ways, it doesn't feel long at all.

It's just crazy how time does that.

It's wonderful that way.

I mean, the companies,

it started taking like massive jumps and now it's i gotta say i'm still having a lot of fun yeah

i had a really good mentor one time that told me if you're not having fun you're doing the wrong business and uh you know we've talked a lot about this i can work anywhere but if i'm not having fun i don't want to do it so it's like challenges it really is i i woke up today and i

We have these marketing calls that we're really holding our vendors accountable.

And I'm really getting the data.

And I'm going,

there's so many opportunities.

I'm like, from now on, we're going to double down where we're in the green because we got green, yellow, red.

And I added purple means we're like really big.

We're leading.

Yeah.

And we're putting more money into the green, some into the yellow, and we're moving and pivoting.

And it's just, I got to tell you, I'm having a lot of fun.

I

wanted to ask you why

I'm either loved.

I mean, there's no opposites.

I'm either loved or hated.

Yep.

And especially in the garage door community.

Like I've been to every HVAC plumbing electrical company, and you know, I've made a lot of friends there, and they decided to help me.

Yeah.

And a lot of people see me on an ad, you know, for a service titan or something.

And they're like, you know, F that guy.

He's so cocky.

And they've never met me.

And they say A1 takes advantage of old people and they hire a rip-off artist.

My face is on the side of the truck.

These are W-2 employees.

Their dreams are coming true.

You know, sometimes I get offended, like personally, I'm like, but when you start talking about the company and the people that work here, it's like 10 times worse for me.

So I'm curious, you've met a lot of garage door companies through this process.

What are your thoughts?

Because we're going to talk about vertical track, and I'm just,

I don't care if you like me.

You owe it to come here.

So what is that whole thing?

And you've got to experience it firsthand.

Listen, it is, you know, and I've been to a lot of shows and I get one of two people that come up to me.

They either love you and understand you, or they absolutely hate you because they don't understand you.

And I think it's rooted in a lack of understanding.

And I think as I've gone on, what I realize is that they don't understand

and they are intimidated by what they don't understand.

And so they sometimes see your conviction,

you believe in everything you do.

And I think this belief sometimes gets translated into what they believe in the simplest terms is ego.

And it's really truly not.

And I always encourage people, I said, if you've ever had a conversation with Tommy, you won't believe the same way.

Like really come talk to him because you're probably one of the most approachable people I've ever, ever, ever, ever worked with on a team in my life.

And I've had people where I tell my story and I tell the story of the people we help and the techs and the companies we help.

Listen, we don't even talk about all the companies we help.

Oftentimes we're doing it kind of in silence back here.

We're just, you know, I can't even tell you how many times you said, hey, you've sent me a text message and say, hey, go help this guy.

He doesn't even have to be part of our group.

Just go help this guy.

He could be in our market.

And you say, go help this guy.

And those are the stories that people don't see.

And you don't toot your own home this way, but

your conviction, sometimes I think gets misunderstood.

And I think they see it as ego or you're just, you think you're a know-it-all.

And I think that comes from you got to believe in yourself or you don't, then who does?

And I think most people don't understand that about you.

So it's a misunderstanding.

Man, I get that.

You know, I work out now and I'm loud.

I'm obnoxious.

And some people takes that, they take that and they're like, you know, this guy thinks he's a know-it-all.

He's on these Facebook ads.

He's got a podcast.

But what I find is,

you know, these people should want more.

Like, I've always studied when I went and studied HVAC, like, who's got the private jets?

Because by the way, the same time they're coming in when they want to come in, they're admired by their team.

They're smiling all the time.

They're not under this,

it's a prison when you're when your business owns you.

And I don't know what it is about people, but they're like, I would never go want to learn about that.

When we open our doors for shop tours, we've got vertical track coming up.

We've got this garage door freedom.

We're going to dive into that in a little bit, but what do you think is the largest blind spot for home service owners, specifically garage door companies today?

I think it's two things.

I think it is they don't know what they don't know because they don't believe.

They don't, their ceiling for what they believe is possible is limited.

They've made up all these excuses as to why it won't work for them.

And I think the other thing is them.

They're afraid to get out of their own way.

And I think when people decide to let go of a little bit of control and let other people help lead the charge for growth, then they really do start to see change, like real change.

Like, you know, I meet owners that have been doing this for maybe 30 years.

And sometimes it's hard to look at yourself and say, maybe I didn't do it right for 30 years.

And so that's, I think, the biggest obstacle sometimes for them is, you know, they got to step out of their own way and believe that there's more for them and for their teams.

I agree.

You know, my mom specifically and my dad, they don't understand why I still trust people.

They've got this, they've, they remember how many times I got burned, lied to, stolen from, quit with no notice, had to get back in the truck to run a call.

We've got screwed by vendors.

We've got double charged and didn't find it.

We've been overcharged.

There's so many things.

And they go, they don't understand why I trust.

And I think if there's this, you got to learn to delegate and trust again, but have systems.

So I think a lot of people have been burned, man.

If you've been in this industry for 10, 15 years, you're like, I can't find good employees.

I can't trust anybody.

If I hire them, they're going to take my whole crew.

And instead of saying, man, what if I had this person on my team?

What could we do together?

Yeah.

It's incredible.

I think it's a little bit of a leap of faith.

And like you said, you, you, I, someone told me this analogy where, you know, when you're young, you learn how to ride a bike.

And sometimes you fall in the rose bushes and you just got to get back up, even though it hurt.

You still got to get it back up and ride the bike.

And it's such a great analogy because as kids, we're relentless because we've already decided our mind, we're getting to the end of the block.

And I think as adults, sometimes we guard ourselves to have those bumps and bruises and fall in the rosebush.

And I think this is just one of those moments that you got to be brave and be willing to get back on the bike.

Yeah.

I mean, look, I've been burned, but I got to think 99% of the time, it's been great.

And that 1%, I don't dwell on that.

I can't dwell there because I can't move forward.

If I had to think about that every time I close my eyes of I'm going to get screwed, I'm going to get taken advantage of, somebody's going to get me.

It's just a horrible way to go through life.

It's, it's not a way that allows you to be free, right?

Like we talk a lot about freedom.

I think we were basis and grown off the idea of giving companies this level of freedom, right?

To trust and have faith and walk into where they can have moments with their families.

And really freedom comes from having good systems, good process, good people, training, all these wonderful things that we talk a lot about.

And sometimes people don't even know how to take that first step to allow themselves to be free.

And I think letting go of the fear is probably one of the biggest things people do.

They need to let go of that fear and just have that moment of trust.

It's going to be okay.

It's going to be okay.

And that leaves me, in your opinion, this is one of them.

But what holds people back?

I got to tell you, I think we just talked about it.

I really think it's that moment of sharing in the responsibility of leading your company.

You know, most times, you know, you watch, and again, I always bring up my family because I watch my family grind, but they didn't trust, right?

They didn't trust to let somebody else lead.

And the second, and you and I have talked about this and we've seen it in A1.

And the second you let other giants step in and help carry the load, right?

You get your integrators in place and you get people to do, but that takes a lot of trust, right?

That takes a great deal of trust.

And

sometimes people don't even know how to make that first step or how to find that person.

We were in a webinar this last week in Garage Door Freedom.

We were talking about how do you find your integrator and how do you trust them?

How do you trust them to walk in your light?

So

there's this book by, I think it's Stephen Covey.

It's called The Speed of Trust.

And this idea being,

I remember Bill and my mom going,

are you ready for us to retire?

And I just remember saying, not yet,

because I need you guys, the eyes and ears.

And Bree's been the eyes and ears.

You've been the eyes and ears.

And now they're happily retired.

I mean, Bill would like to, I think Bill would love to still.

He wants to keep busy.

But, you know, I was fortunate enough to find trust in 2010 when I got mom and Bill to come out.

And I'll tell you,

they, they cared and they were trustworthy.

They didn't have any crossdrawer skills, but I knew they'd show up.

I knew they would be honest with payroll.

I knew, so, so that, I think that's a big, big subject is how do you learn to trust people?

And we could talk about this.

This could be its own podcast.

True.

But when you meet a company, and there's like, we're working with almost 100 companies in the gross drawer space.

When can you tell that they're ready?

Because I've worked with a lot that just aren't.

I mean, some people are, if you think about it, at 10 being the best, some people are at a two.

They're not ready to go to three.

But when they get to three, they never look back and say, man, I missed two.

Absolutely.

I would tell you some of the biggest green flags for me when I'm working with somebody is when they start asking a lot of questions and they question everything.

And they are hungry to know more than they did yesterday.

This is when the light and the spark starts, where you start to see them turn on.

I love getting on a call with an owner and with someone who's building a team, and they've got more questions for me than we can get through in 45 minutes.

That, to me,

shows a level of hunger and their willingness to open themselves up to the things they don't know and to put them in the uncomfortable space of knowing that it's going to be uncomfortable.

So asking questions and being hungry, I think, are those two big, really green flags because they got to want it better than anybody else.

I can want it for a company to see them and I can see all their success sometimes more than they can.

And once they believe, that's when I see them start to turn on the gas.

I really do.

And it's been a lot of fun.

And I've only been over there for a short period of time since February.

But man, I've seen some guys turn on the gas and it's really been a blessing to watch.

I've seen a lot of companies just kind of like it starts to click.

They understand that they're like conversion rate.

And, you know, some of the people, they're just not on a CRM yet.

They really don't know the data.

And I think when you could get them on a simple system to know their data,

if they want to, if they see that and they go, well, we're doing the best we can.

And that's the kind of people that you don't want to work with that are like, you know,

it's always served me well.

I'm making enough money.

And I'm like, are you dreaming bigger?

Do you want more?

Do you want more freedom?

Hence, graze your freedom.

You know, you started out as a corporate trainer at A1.

What approach did you use to making training stick beyond just the classroom?

It's probably one of the first conversations we had about making it fun, make it gamified.

Listen, we start out this conversation talking about I'm still having fun with it.

And your teams want to have fun with it.

And a big portion of training is creating this lifestyle within your company, this culture of fun.

And fun is really learning.

Like, you know, if you ever look at a small child, and I have small children, and I can tell you they're laughing and giggling and having a good time, that they always remember that memory and that experience.

And, you know, when we worked here in the academy, the experiences came in practice, right?

Everyday practice.

We were talking about it.

We made it fun.

And really making that sticky is having those moments where they're kinetically connecting their muscle and their mental memory in a way that is so meaningful that they don't even remember and they don't even know they're being taught.

It's such a cool thing.

I always make a reference of Mr.

Miyagi.

You know, we wax on, wax off.

And at the end of the day, I know how to door better.

I know how to talk to a customer in a better way.

And I know how to connect with people in a better way.

And I didn't even know it.

I was just having fun.

And so I think that those are things that I take into garage door freedom.

And even in this vertical track, we're going to try to find fun ways to connect with the audience in a way we've never done before.

There's that old saying,

you're not going to remember how much they charged you or if they were late.

You're going to remember the way they made you feel.

100%.

And there's this stigma.

And it's a race to the bottom of Walmart's the only one I've seen work work do it well and they're much bigger and their buying power is much different but I think pricing is a sticky one and we don't give the highest prices by the way we've got an option that's better than anybody's prices we've got six options for we've got three options for springs several options for rollers and we give our customers options not ultimatums let's just talk really quick about pricing because

We're going to take a deep dive into this.

I got a selling price cost calculator that we'll talk about later in the podcast.

But one of the things is people are like, when you tell them, if you don't raise your prices, you're actually spending money on gas.

You're actually spending money on, you pay your rent to the building.

You got to pay for people to find out who you are.

You got to pay for a recruiter and a trainer.

If you want new trucks,

if you want a CRM, that goes into the price that you have to charge.

So,

what happens when you tell somebody

the cheapest, they'd rather you get there on time, have quality quality warranty, not have a bunch of

quality, I'm sorry, a quality

warranty, not have a bunch of callbacks.

The client would have you treat their family, be trustworthy.

If they got two young kids and their wife's at home, that you're safe with them.

I mean, what do you tell somebody?

Does that, how often does that come up?

It comes up often, actually.

You know, I tell people that value comes in the way of experience and the things that are not tangible.

Again, people are brand loyal to brands that they trust, right?

We've We've talked a lot about trust.

We said, you know, clearly we could have a whole podcast on that, but people buy with people they trust.

And in order for you to build trust, you create value.

You create this intrinsic value that can

no longer be like even just monetized.

I mean, when you look at all brands and like iPhones is a good example, when you try to take somebody and you're an Android user, so you couldn't fight me for my iPhone, I couldn't fight you over your Android because you're loyal because you trust it.

And that's a brand that you can rely on.

It's almost when you look at loyalty to brands, it's that value they bring to you that you don't even know that you're monetizing.

And I think it's convenience, it's safety, it's all those human truths of making sure that people feel the way that they expect to be feeling.

And,

you know, we forget that in home services sometimes.

I think value and price go hand in hand with what you get, right?

What do they tell you?

You're not going to get anything goods going to come cheap.

I think that's a good thing.

Yeah, I like those things and they're not cheap things.

And Club A did a study in 2017.

I remember going to this event and they surveyed 500 clients.

And price was number nine out of the 10 things they surveyed.

Yeah.

Because what good is a good price if they don't show up?

What good is a good price if they don't fix it correctly?

What good is a good price if it's not somebody safe in my house?

What good is it of a good price?

There's all these instances, but I think people buy.

if you started buying how you want to be bought from.

Like if somebody offered you a roof right now, you own a couple houses, several.

Of course.

And you got three estimates, one for six grand, one for 15, one for 25.

Which one do you think you'd take?

I mean, you've worked on all your houses.

You've done a lot of improvements.

Listen, I'm going to go with the one that's not going to waste my time.

It's going to be reliable.

There's quality.

I don't want to revisit it again.

And I want to make sure the guy's professional because I'm not going to leave him with one of my tenants or, you know, my family if I don't trust them.

And it's simple.

I actually ask more questions about what they offer than I actually care about the price.

I just don't care because at the end of the day, I want it done right.

I want it to be quality and I don't want to have to worry about it again.

So for me, those are the things I value as a consumer.

And a lot of times people don't even know those are options, right?

Like they don't even understand the value because it's not being educated and explained.

And we talk a lot about that.

That's why this comes up so often is are your techs and are your team members really building the value that actually really exists?

Are you getting credit for the things you really do in the truck?

And I think that's how pricing should be done

is really based on that value.

We had, and you know this story, we had 40 companies upstairs next door years and years and years ago.

I was there for that.

And

I made an example of HVAC plumbing electrical roofing windows, even I did everything possible.

And I said,

you know, they're charging this.

I said, how many?

And I use the same multiple of like a hot water heater to garage drawers.

And I said, who's charging this?

And everybody kind of threw their hands up, kind of upset.

Wow, how could you charge that?

And I said, well, how many of you guys drive new trucks, could pay your guys more than $40,000 a year.

You've got PTO.

You train them for 90 days.

You buy their tools.

Nobody's at 1099.

These guys go through vigorous background checks and drug tests.

And I went through all these things.

And I said, could you afford to market to keep your guys busy?

And almost no hands went up.

And I said, you screw your, your internal employee, you screw your employees over to give your clan a great price.

And by the way, none of these companies had, you know, 80,000 cycle springs.

None of them were thinking about how to differentiate themselves or trademarks and the stuff we do.

And I'm not mad at them, but everybody walked out of that room and said, I'm going to raise my prices because you know what?

I want to be able to do better marketing.

I want to be able to see them live a better life, get them out of the

bad neighborhoods.

They've got families.

They've got, they want to buy a house.

They want to buy a new vehicle.

They want to take their family on a beautiful vacation.

And most of the people are still paying their people a barely livable wage.

I mean, I don't know what's a livable wage, but I mean, if you're paying your people $65,000 and you say it's just a garage row guy, it's a blue collar.

That's not the world we live in today.

It's an honor to be what we are.

Yeah.

I mean, what's your take on that?

You know, I think freedom has to go multiple levels.

You know, you talk about giving people livable wages.

And,

you know, I talk to a lot of recruiters, a lot of companies that talk about how do you get good people.

Well, you get good people by investing in good people.

And you do that in more than one way.

You know, people will leave you for a nickel.

But if they believe in what you're doing and they're being trained and they're being shown that they're cared for in these ways, right?

The mindset of a guy in a brand new truck and a guy that's in a beat up truck that they're not sure is going to get him to the next job.

Can you imagine that?

That's like wearing dirty clothes and wrinkled and go to church.

Like, do you feel good about yourself?

Do you look good?

Do you feel good?

And I think without having that equation, and I think you've got a good math equation over here sitting on the desk, you really don't know how to give your whole team freedom and create a culture that's really loyal.

And when we partnered with Don's Garage Doors out of Denver, the number one question we got from every single one of the technicians and installers, do we get a new truck?

That was crazy to me.

Yeah.

That we didn't know that that was that important.

Do we get something reliable, new, that we could show up to our clients not to mention i mean you show up to a client's house and you've got a new truck i remember somebody saying i've seen your trucks i know you're not the cheapest yeah

and by the way that's a great filter for us driving new trucks having trimmed beards having a uniform is like we expect we know we get what we pay for that's what i've learned i mean literally we go to the steakhouse we'll spend 500 800

We go to McDonald's and spend 60 bucks to feed the same amount of people.

But why is the steakhouses that we know about, why do they have waiting lines?

Why is it hard to even get on?

There's a manager that stops by at every single table.

They call you the next day.

It's an experience.

And I think a lot of people are like, we're just cross-road guys.

Well, no, when you send a text message on the way of the technician,

you knock their door and you're smiling.

You respect everything in their house.

So you walk around and you give them options.

And you create an experience.

It's more than that than just fixing it.

How many calls do you think we've gotten a day one?

Because we've got 1.6 million clients.

How many people have called us and said, we don't care what it costs, just come out here and fix it right?

Lots.

Lots.

More than I can count.

Yeah.

More than we can count.

It's crazy to me.

Look,

I get back to this thing of if you don't like me,

you don't have to talk to me.

You can avoid me.

But when you start thinking, maybe there's somebody there, maybe there's a better way, maybe there's something we should go to this and have an open mind instead of trying to debate on why.

Because look, we're winning.

And there's a lot of other companies that are winning alongside of us.

Absolutely.

That actually are building an empire and wealth and paying their people well.

Taking great care of their people.

With great insurance.

Good teams, good-looking trucks, brands they can rely on, really frontrunners in our business.

And you know what, Tommy?

They're changing.

They're changing the garage door business with us.

I remember when we did that first vertical track,

and I know we're going to get to a little bit of that conversation, but I remember you just pretty much just said, I'm opening the door.

Let's go.

Who wants to go?

And there was a large group of guys that came with us in the beginning.

There was, there was a handful that said, hmm, can't be done.

And then there was another probably three dozen guys that said, I can see it now.

I get it now.

And that was pivotal.

I actually talked to one of those members right now and he said, I didn't even know there was a path.

I didn't even know there was more of a path.

I now have an unwritten path that I can go as far as I want to because now I know it's possible.

And, you know, again, it goes back to that moment of belief.

I think sometimes your conviction, you believe more than some people even believe for themselves.

And I, I, it baffles me sometimes because sometimes it takes me to get people to do the same in themselves.

For them to do that.

They got to really themselves.

Value yourself, man.

We're going to talk a lot about it at Vertical Trek.

You got to build yourself, man.

Believe in yourself and this idea.

I'll tell you.

Their dream has to change.

Their dream has to change.

And they got to reverse engineer it, but they need to understand these terms that we're talking about.

Like cancellation rate, does anybody pay attention to that?

It's like, how do I win the game if I don't know the score?

I don't even know how to play.

I don't even know what inning or quarter or half we're in.

And, you know,

people told me, they're like, is this possible?

I said, here's the difference.

These guys have been doing this in the 80s in HVAC.

They've been meeting up, doing shop tours.

They've been talking to each other.

They realize if I help you, that doesn't mean I lose.

It raises the bar for the whole industry.

So many people I've talked to are like, how are they still charging $400 or $500 or $600 or $800 for a door when they charge $10,000 for a front door?

And that just means there's a lot of people that don't believe that we're worth it.

It's a big door.

It's dangerous.

You got torsion springs.

You could get very hurt.

We know that.

And HVAC decided a long time ago, they were the godfathers, I believe.

The market cap is about 200 billion.

Ours is about 15 billion.

And they said, we're going to all win together and we're going to open up our doors.

And when we did that, some people were like, what's the angle here?

And I'm like, well, you can still charge less than me, but you don't have to charge a third.

Just give different options.

But are you allowed to be profitable and have a nice building?

Are you allowed to hire the people you need, like a CFO?

Well, I can't afford that.

I can't afford a general manager.

I can't afford an assistant.

I could go, you know, this is the stuff I think people want to talk about, though.

And some people are going to disagree.

Some people are so stubborn.

I'm still the most curious guy in the world.

I still ask questions everywhere I go.

If I'm at a restaurant, I want to talk to the GM.

Like, I don't think I have it figured out.

And when I do, I want to die.

So many people are going like this, watching this, you know, this, hopefully this gets out there and they're going to go, yeah, but, but, but.

And they're just living this world of negativity, this, this guard up, this, you know what, this can't be that good.

And I don't want to rip off customers and I don't need hustlers going out to houses.

And they'll come up with every reason why.

If they learn one thing, just how to book more phone calls.

If they learn one thing, why branding is important?

If they learn one thing, how to be a better recruiter, or just one thing, it might change everything for them, but they won't even open up their hearts or minds to it.

Yeah,

it's hard to watch.

I got to tell you, I've got a couple of people that we work with and it's like, you know, we've had to have some pretty heart to hearts.

Like, we believe.

I can see it for you.

And we have to talk the picture because maybe they're the technicians still in their brain, you know?

We got a lot of shops.

They start as technicians and they got to be true leaders of their groups.

And that's, that's hard.

That's some scary stuff, Tommy.

We partnered with a company and we went to their meetings and the meetings were all about product updates and all this other stuff.

And I'm like, what's really in that for the technicians?

Like, do they want to know about their warranty call

their,

you know, the recalls?

They want to know, is sales important to them?

Because I'll tell you what, when I sold women's shoes, sales were important at Dillard's.

Yeah.

When I serve tables and you've done a lot of this stuff, we talked about what's the special today.

How do you win?

Do you offer the T-bone or do you offer the macro and cheese?

The T-bone will help you get more tips.

And it's not shoving down.

Look, we give options, let the client decide what's going to be best.

If they're selling the home, it's completely different than if they're staying there forever and they're going to raise their kids there.

I get very excited about these topics and I get very passionate.

What opportunities excite you most about helping garage door companies specifically, the leadership grow?

What really gets me excited is when I get the phone call and said it works.

I was helping, I I went out to a shop in June and helped a guy put some training efforts in the right direction.

And listen, it wasn't magic.

It was just putting some structure around and systems around what they wanted to accomplish.

It wasn't anything more than giving things some purpose and really getting people excited about what was possible.

We did goal setting.

And

he called me.

A couple of days later, he says, oh my God, it works.

And

I love working with that group because the the moments that get me excited is when I say, hey, we did it and it works.

And now I got more questions.

Right.

So I love when people have questions because that means they're still growing.

I love it too.

I mean, literally,

I love just, it's so funny.

I could be getting a haircut and the girl could be, or the guy, whatever could be so sweet.

It's right up your alley.

And I'm like, are you happy?

And I could be learning about what they love and they hate.

And I'm just genuinely curious.

And they're like, you know what?

I'm getting getting a little old for this, my knees.

I'm like, well, look, we got a great opportunity.

You're the sweetest person.

It's like everywhere I go, there's an opportunity to learn, ask questions, recruit, whatever it might be.

And it's so fun when people start to click because they're like, wait a minute, this whole time.

And you see their faces go, you got to be kidding me.

And they're so mad they didn't learn just this simple little thing of like,

give me one example.

of when like the lights bulb, like you're with somebody and the light bulb turns on.

We were talking, uh, we do a tech training here, and we talk about, you know, the humblest way to like approach a customer is to show gratitude and really talk about being grateful you got the job, right?

A lot of people spend a ton of money on leads and then they don't do anything with them, Tommy.

It's crazy to me.

They get to the job, they don't train the guy, and the tech doesn't even say, Thank you for letting me earn your business.

And so we talked about this and we did this training.

And about a month later, we did kind of a huddle with all the guys that went.

And one of the shops in California, they had several guys that came and they said, oh my gosh, does it work?

And we love it.

We feel so good when we start the conversation with our customers on how grateful we are to be there and get the opportunity to serve them.

And when just something so simple, right?

Something so good and human.

And so when you say things like, people don't believe you and you think we're taking advantage of people.

We preach like taking good care of people and educating people and giving them options and letting the customer be in control.

Like, what's wrong with that?

Like, so when I see these aha moments and they actually go back into shops and guys are like really shining, this particular owner gave this guy, let him come up, gave him an opportunity and this guy is killing it.

And

I got to tell you, their team is happier.

Their people are doing more with exactly what they've got.

So it's pretty incredible.

And by the way, you're going to start to make a lot more profit, but if you could share the profit, if you could share the vision, you know, people start making more money.

They stop quitting as much.

It costs so much money to retrain somebody.

If you could keep them from changing career paths or moving to that next company, it saves so much money in the long term.

You know what?

I was just thinking, PPC is starting to get outrageously expensive.

The pay-per-click on Google and LSA and Valpat, all these things are starting to really add up.

And man, it's, you know, Clope, Amar, Ankhmar, and Wayne Dog, they're all raising their CHI.

They partner with private equity.

They're all raising their prices.

They're all going up dramatically.

We used to pay $400, $300 for a door.

Yeah, I remember.

And there's still people out there charging what we charged 15 years ago for springs and stuff, even though they're paying 10 times more than they were 15 years ago.

Why is that?

It's wild.

I think that sometimes business owners are, they get in this groove of this works and they're comfortable.

And they think that it works.

I got to tell you, the world is changing.

The world changes with or without us, Tommy.

And the door game is no different, right?

You talk about HVAC 20 years ago.

They were, they were ahead of this game.

And we really just shook the tree five years ago when we said, listen, we want to talk to everybody.

I remember going to conferences five years ago when I started.

And people wouldn't even talk to me if I had an A1 shirt on because they were afraid of us.

And it's like, do you think I actually.

respectfully don't care what you have going on.

I actually would love to just talk to you about doors, man.

Like, how do you train people?

How do you get people excited?

And, and it's so nuts to me that they're still stuck in that habit right um you know these are the people that when they're 30 year old toaster breaks are going to be like man i got to find a repair guy and really that doesn't work anymore the world's just changed so you got to keep up with uh the way the world's evolving you know and this is probably a controversial topic but i do think that um

what when we talk about garage door openers i'm thinking about what's good for me and the technology involved that amazon delivers and now you got Walmart delivering, and you got security, and you can see the AI they're building into some of these systems.

You could see what time your kids came home from school.

You could see what time your significant other came home.

You could see how the house is going.

You can put a camera in it.

Now they last six months to recharge them.

So you just pop it off.

And look, I'm not trying to pick.

We know Chamberlain owns 60-something percent of the market.

Genie does a great job.

There's a lot of good companies out there, but I'm going with the one that's going to be the winner.

And the thing I look at is I'm looking down the road at the future yeah and i'm going really who's going to win this game who's going to be the most convenient for the homeowner that's what google figured out how to be the most convenient convenient for the people searching and monetize the businesses and so many people are like man i hate their safety eye and they they they they they don't like the parts because they think like a technician they don't think like the customer that our clients that are trying to win they're like nobody would buy a garage door service agreement we've got over 50 000 people that pay us a monthly fee to have us come out each year that get a discount that understand and people like that, you're ripping them off to charge them

just because you wouldn't buy it.

You know, some people wouldn't buy a $300 pair of shoes.

Some people wouldn't buy a $50,000 Rolex.

Some people would not buy an Audi, but there are a lot of clients that do.

Some people wouldn't buy a 5,000 square foot house.

But just because you wouldn't doesn't mean that client, they're wrong for it.

Yeah.

It goes back to creating that value.

Like, honestly, all of these conveniences and all the things that create value for our customers, why wouldn't we educate ourselves on what's possible?

Why wouldn't we offer everything we know is out there that is in the top of the line?

And I think that we really, you know, when people say, oh, you guys offer the biggest and the expensive and all these things, you forget who's to say that I'm not picking what the customer wants.

It's not my, it's not my part.

to pick for them, right?

Like, again, I would be, this is like going to the mechanic and saying, I'm only going to give you these 10,000 cycle tires and not even offer you a better option.

I see that you go off-roading all the time.

It looks like you've got all your park stickers on the back.

I saw the stickers there.

This is a four-wheel vehicle.

I'm going to just give you 10,000 cycle street tires, Tommy.

Does that sound like a lot of sense to you?

Doesn't have a $2,000 miles for street streets.

Yeah, does this make sense?

We have 40,000.

We have 40,000.

Yeah.

And we have them.

So if you're paying $1,000 for four tires and we're going to give you $40,000.

So you got the $10,000.

Yeah.

And you could pay $2,000 to get four times the life.

Yeah.

Clients will say yes to that.

We learn a lot from Joe Crasara.

And what should we do?

He wrote the book.

What's one of the toughest leadership challenges that you faced, and how did you overcome it?

You know, Tommy, there come times in life where teams grow.

And sometimes you got to remember, you got to grow faster than your team and be self-aware.

And so I had a moment in my career where I had lost a little trust and faith.

And, you know, we've talked a lot about trust and faith.

And I wanted to redirect that in the wrong direction.

And I had to stop and remember I'm the only one who can control my destiny.

And so I had to stop and pause and take a moment and reassess

what makes me happy.

You know, I think I've told you more than one time, I can work anywhere and I'll have fun at it.

And I know I can help people.

So I had to stop and say, is this still fun?

Do I still have benefit?

Is there opportunity for me to still make a difference and create value?

And so for me in that moment, I had to stop and look at myself.

And I think a lot of people forget when they have a problem to look at themselves first.

So

it's a hard thing.

It goes with a different level of emotional intelligence when you can look at yourself first before you blame everybody else.

The EQ.

You know what?

I've really realized the more I love myself, the more I treat myself, the more I kind of hold myself with a high regard.

I can't love people if I don't feel good about myself.

And it might be I need a set of braces.

It might be that I just need to start eating a little better.

I don't know.

You know, everybody's got their reasons, but when the mask comes down, put it on yourself first before you help out your loved ones.

And that's a big thing is self-love.

And it doesn't mean you're in love with yourself.

Yeah.

It just means, listen, I want to treat myself well.

And you just said, I do this for me.

And I know you do it for you and your family, but you got to help yourself first.

Correct.

And a lot of people.

They put themselves last and they're not helping anybody by putting yourself last.

And if you put yourself last in the business,

it's very, very tough to succeed for everybody else.

Yeah, you can burn out really quickly when you give too much and you forget to feed yourself.

What were some of the pivotal moments that shaped your career here at A1?

I can tell you VT was actually one of the in vertical track for those that haven't been with us.

Vertical track was one of my pivotal moments because I knew A1 garage doors, right?

When I first started, I went head deep into

training and doing all the things that I thought was the industry.

And until I stepped outside of our fence and started to talk to other companies, I was like, there's so much opportunity to do so much more.

And I think that's where my spark for helping other companies, because I got to see what could be possible with A1.

And

I've always volunteered to work in the vertical track events.

This is the first year I'll be on the full garage door freedom side of it.

And I think for me, it just opened my eyes that I was very fortunate enough to find the right industry for me where I could help the most people.

It's so much fun too.

It is.

I love turning companies.

And it's not us.

They make the decisions.

They do the work.

Yes, we show them.

We kind of pull back everything.

And people are like, why would you do that?

And somebody asked us that on it because we do these Ask Tommy or whatever.

And I'm like, but I don't lose when you do good.

I'm like, I'm not, we're not going to get all.

There's enough water in the ocean for everybody.

If you don't like one of the things that we're involved with, don't do it.

But, you know, we've tested every single tool we carry.

Like we've ran through, what, 10 different impact guns?

And then we look at the warranty and Milwaukee just shows up and they give us a new one.

They give us, they'll have, we have a whole cage full of like, give these repair part.

We'll repair them for free or we'll give you a new one.

Like we've tested so much.

Now there's like 40 companies with our exact makeup about the way our trucks are.

We give them the prototype.

And if they find something better, tell us we'll remember.

We had a lot to learn too.

I was on the phone with a guy with five technicians.

This is years ago.

And he goes, why did you just spend 90 minutes with me?

And I said, dude, because people took the time for me.

And he goes, well, you're not even on the Chamberlain store locator because AMR had not, because we bought from AMR, whatever.

And so I called them.

They handled it.

And he decided to give me that one nugget.

It turned out to be 40 leads a day because we were in several markets.

And he taught me.

a lot in that last three minutes and just said, hey, dude, check this out.

So you take the time to help people.

Zig Ziglar had you could have anything you want if you helping out people get what they want.

100%.

What separates a brand that people admire from one that they simply recognize?

I think you can have a beautiful truck and a beautiful brand, but you don't build, you don't breathe life into it until there are people that believe in it and talk about it.

I think one of the things we're going to talk about a lot at Vertical Track is like really

bringing your brand to life in a way that people talk about, right?

Like you, before there was social media, people just referred other people to services.

And so bringing a brand to life in a way that makes people want to talk about you and give you reviews and talk about all the positive things and their experience.

You know, we see a lot of our reviews.

They'll be happy to tell you they spent a lot of money and they were so excited.

They know their technician's name.

They know exactly what they did.

They were super excited.

They spent time with them.

And at the end of the day, they're going to go tell everybody at church.

They're going to talk to people people at their,

you know, people in their social circles.

And that's what makes a really good brand.

It has life.

It feels something.

It gives something that's more than just fixing a door.

And we do things that we don't really have to do.

You were a big part of this, but feeding the hungry children, painting the YMCA.

We just were in Dallas with a Make a Wish.

We put a $10,000 wish for a sensory room, man.

It was so awesome.

And

you remember the child that came in the beat cancer?

Yeah.

And thank God.

And by the way, when you charge enough to stay afloat, you could do things like this.

A lot of people that I've talked to in the grocery industry, like, we'd love to do that, but

we don't have the resources to do that kind of stuff.

The one thing I always say is like, we can't bring our people to Mexico.

I say, can you afford Bisquick?

Can you make pancakes for your people?

Can you get them all in a room and tell them how much you appreciate them?

I mean, I got the apron.

I was serving orange juice now because people could cook better than me.

But it's just those little things.

I always talk about, see those grills?

We got like four grills.

And just, have you ever thought about getting the significant others involved?

I mean, we were just at a shower and the significant others are all talking, learning about each other.

And like, that's a place that, like, it's more than a job.

It's a career.

Yeah.

It's a real team, Tommy.

It's a team in a way that you can't buy that with people.

You know, one of the things about doing the outreach that I really loved was we knew who our people were, who people that belonged in our culture.

We have tons of of people that walk through our shop and say, what do you guys feed everybody?

They seem happy.

Well, it's because we're surrounding ourselves with like-minded people, people who enjoy serving other people.

And I think that, you know, even we used to do that, the last thing would be charity that last week before we would graduate them.

And Andrea, who's now the general manager here in Phoenix, she's got, you know, 80 plus technicians and does an amazing job.

She used to say, I love watching the guys light up doing something wonderful for somebody else because I know when they go to the field, they're going to love serving other people.

And I got to tell you, that was like the certified, that was like the cherry on top for us when we were talking to guys.

And we, we knew who good people were.

And you can't really interview for that sometimes because people can say anything in an interview.

You're right.

And it's amazing, misgiving idea.

I'll tell you, because we do a lot of things right, we book the phone calls.

We have a high conversion rate.

We give options.

We want to take care of our clients.

We have enough resources to kind of do the stuff that we've always wanted to do.

That when I was a one-man show running every job, there's no chance I didn't have the money to do that kind of stuff.

And I don't need it to get noticed.

Like I just feel good that our team knows that we'll look out for people because I've been down, you've been down.

Yeah.

You know, whether you're going through a divorce, whether you lost somebody you love, like I don't turn my back on the people here and you don't either.

Yeah, it's it's amazing.

I always tell people, this is the only company I've ever worked for in my life where I could call anybody in the night and say, hey, I need help.

And they'd show up with friends.

And that happened, you know, we have this saying, we say A1 from day one.

And And that's kind of what that means.

Like we show up from the first day we know you, whether you're our customer, our internal customer, or our external customer, we really believe in helping other people.

And

man, this is one of the reasons I stick around.

I love it because no matter what, if someone says A1 from day one, I still get chills because it means you're going to help those around you.

It does.

I mean, I always say probably the worst mistake I've made is picking A1 because it fell first in the phone book, but A1 also means first class.

That's like a Taj Mahal.

That's a high standard.

Who've been some of your most influential mentors in the journey and what did they teach you?

And I've met a lot of them.

You have.

You have met a lot of them, actually.

I'll give you a couple.

I really have been foundational for me.

My dad's my first mentor.

And I know you're very connected to your dad too in the same capacity, right?

That we undermine sometimes that value of what we learn when we're young.

And my dad was a small business person and he always taught us how to help others and hustle harder, right?

Small business, business, it's hard.

Everybody works, everybody gives in.

And my dad always, you know, he taught me a little bit about business, a little bit about finance.

But more importantly, we'd have these, you know, before there were social media, we'd have the military vets from the world wars that would come and sit in the back of the shop.

And he'd have us go fetch them a cup of coffee.

And I'm like, why are we doing this?

I got 100 other things to do right now.

And my dad would say, stop what you're doing.

Go get them a cup of coffee.

And I would run.

And I don't think I understood it.

until later in my life that I realized the way that we treated the people that entered our shop were the people that talked about how they felt when they came.

And we never had to spend money on marketing.

We never did.

Everybody knew I was Cisco's kid.

And that

still to this day, when I took that into luxury service and into casinos, that taught me how to treat people in a way that they didn't expect and give them more than they expected.

And then my second mentor is a gentleman I met and you met him at my wedding is Mike Ducey.

And

he taught me about finances and really understanding that if you don't know the score to the game, and we talk a lot about this, if you you don't know your numbers and you don't know what actually moves the needle, how are you actually going to make good decisions?

And really, he taught me about strategy and business.

And I always understood business, the black and white P ⁇ L of business, but I never understood the strategy of how to pull the levers and make impactful moments in business.

It was, it was pretty incredible.

And, you know, brought all those things to A1 and they've served me well.

They have.

They've served all of us well.

You know, the first vertical track, I have a lot of people that said that's like Woodstock to us because it was like the eyes were opened.

Yeah.

And, you know, we see, if you drive around town, you'll see all the billboards and you'll see every one of them.

You'll see a lawyer, a plumbing company, an HVAC company.

You don't see very many garage draw companies.

Nope.

And some people just believe, yeah, they're ripping customers off.

But I believe I use those companies.

They show up.

They put booties on their feet.

They run the warranty calls the same day.

They have the best products.

You could go to their showroom.

I mean, literally, like, that's who I want to buy from.

And when someone comes to my house, I say, what else do you offer?

How do you get the water,

the water hotter, quicker?

You know what I mean?

I want to know everything you offer.

Don't judge me, rich, poor.

Show me everything.

I'll decide.

Yeah.

And certain people show up.

It's bad landscaping.

They look like a cheap customer.

You know, blah, blah, blah.

Like, let's let the customer decide what they want.

And the disparity between I could buy a t-shirt for $3.

I could also buy a t-shirt for $300.

Correct.

Maybe 100.

I don't know.

I don't go heavy duty with my t-shirt shopping, but people are going to criticize.

They're going to be like, oh my God, where are you finding 300?

What about those?

By the way, what about those Facebook groups?

Yo, gosh.

What is it about those face groups?

In every industry, they're the same.

Yeah, they

don't know.

I stay away from them, Tommy.

To be honest with you, it's hard because I only want positivity.

I only want light in my life.

And so I can't subscribe to negativity.

So for me, I personally walk away from that stuff.

But the truth of it is, is if you want to have a conversation and I throw myself out there every once in a while and say, if you really want to know something, then give me a holler.

And if you want to teach me something, I'll listen.

So I think,

you know, you got to subscribe to positive.

You got to have light in your life.

What I find out, there's this quote, broke people complain

to fill purpose.

Yeah.

Broke people complain.

Because that's all they know how to do.

Like they're always going to find a reason.

There's nothing ever good enough.

I'd hate to be in that relationship with somebody that finds the worst in things.

Like I don't go around looking at other companies and trying to find out what's wrong with them.

I look at companies and try to find what's going right and then I go out and I ask them questions.

I don't go criticizing other people, other companies, politics, whatever.

That doesn't bring me any satisfaction.

Yeah, I know.

And you know what?

I want people to come to this.

Because I want to show them what's possible.

And it's not up to me.

I'm a small part of vertical track.

In fact, we got Chris Voss, the hostage negotiator.

We got Brian Gottlieb, one of both these guys have consulted me.

Both of them have been in the building.

Both of them have hung out in our training center.

And they're going to be epic.

And the people we're bringing in from A1, like we're, we're opening the doors.

We're doing shop tours.

We're going to show them everything, the tools, the trucks.

We do this all the time, but a lot of people haven't heard of this.

And I just...

It's like, how could you afford not to come?

Because you're too busy.

You're too busy making very little.

You're losing people.

You don't know where to find the leads.

You don't know how to set up a CRM.

Why should people be at vertical track?

Listen, I think you can't afford not to be.

And for those that have either been to vertical track or haven't been to vertical track, I can tell you that it's more than

what you're going to spend on this ticket.

I mean, your ROI on this is incredible.

And I think those that are smart.

will open their mind like we talked about early on in this, take the leap of faith, get out of their comfort zone and get excited about what could be possible in their business.

And if you really want to be in a group of guys and gals for that instance that are on the front end of this, not just day one, dozens of companies that have already signed up that know the value of this have said, I wouldn't miss it for anything because I know who's going to be in the room above and beyond just the speakers.

industry leaders and garage store will be at this event.

So I don't know how you could not come.

It's, again, one of life's mysteries.

What about that old saying, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

I mean, it sounds great, but, you know, what possibly, I don't need to know about charging crazy prices for those red springs and who cares about your new trucks.

Like, I'm happy.

And we've always been told that there's no way that's possible.

Like, there's not, there's, that's not true.

I think there's so much more than springs to our business, Tommy.

I think we're going to talk about leadership.

We're going to talk about scaling.

We're going to talk about knowing your numbers and creating, you know, really elevating your margins to a place where you can be, you know, in the control, right?

Like a lot of guys want to be able to say, I'd like to have the ability to do these things, but I don't know how to get there.

When they leave there, they're going to have real things in their hands to take back with them.

And if not, they slept through all the sessions because honestly, there's going to be a whole playbook of information that gets handed over.

And

my garage door freedom members, they're going to get the first front row access to this stuff.

So

I don't know how you can afford not not to come.

I just pray to God that

some people that are just so anti our business, they're so anti-Tommy, they just, they find it in themselves.

I will avoid you.

I promise you.

You know, I got to fly out for one of the days.

I'm going to be here for the majority of it, but I will try to avoid you.

I do not want to try to sell you anything.

There's, but what about last thing I got to real quick is like, why are we doing this?

You know, we're doing this to elevate the whole business, the whole industry.

We want everybody to go.

We want everybody to have more.

We want people to be successful.

We don't want to hear the stories and I hear a lot of stories about, man, my, my brand's just not doing it.

I put a pretty new sticker on my truck and my people are unhappy and, you know, they're having these like moments where they can't get out.

And

we just want us all to do more.

Like the business is growing.

The industry is growing.

And I talk to other industry leaders and I'm not talking just garage doors, just professionals in general, and home services and home improvement.

And these guys,

they know they can see it.

And,

you know, it'd be nice to take a lot of people with us.

I knew about this group about 15 years ago that got together.

There were eight of them.

And they literally just tore down the walls and they said, we're going to help each other.

And every one of those companies like not only thrived, they changed the game.

I'm talking about just happy employees, happy communities, so much giving back,

generational wealth.

And there's these closed minds that say, I'm not going to share.

I'm not going to show anything.

And so let us share.

And if you hate it, you know, at the end of the day, I don't,

I, I don't know how you would leave saying

they just didn't give us anything.

But if you hate it, listen, I'll give you your money back.

If you walk out of this thing and say it's a bunch of bunk crap, I don't, look, I'm not there.

Chris Voss, these guys, they're not cheap.

like to put on an event like this costs six figures yeah and i just you know we're not making money in fact i think we're losing money we are losing money yeah if everybody shows up we're still losing money but you know what at the end of the day we're helping the industry and we're bringing this is the only event where garage store people that are on the head and the front end of this track show up.

And that's why we always call it a vertical track.

We're at the top of the track.

We're going forward.

These are where the front runners in our business.

These are the people, mark mark my words, the people that come to vertical track, the companies that come to vertical track are the ones that will set trends in our business.

They will run aside.

They'll run with the rest of the wolves and really be able to do things as a back.

Cody Johnson's probably, if you guys know Cody, he's a really humble guy.

The Johnsons, Ryan,

they'll be there.

These guys went from 500,000 profit to 3.5 in one year.

Yeah.

And by the way, they did all the work.

They're workaholics and they enjoy working.

I just wanted to show people this just real quick.

It's a price selling price cost calculator.

You're an owner operator and you're the only employee.

You rent a small workshop.

You work 42 hours per week.

You have four weeks' annual leave

or nine public holidays.

You don't work overtime.

And you either get the flu or something once a year and have five days off sick.

So you got 40 hours times 52 is 2,080 hours.

You got

40 40 times 48.

So you got 1920 because you got that PTO and you take time off.

You got nine holidays, nine public holidays, so 72 hours.

And we all know as owners, we work all these days, but five, sick days, hours available to work come out to 1808.

So that comes out to about 46 weeks you could work.

Now you arrive at the workshop and schedule day return calls.

You pick up material and co-op.

You call the first customer and travel to your job, and it goes through this whole spreadsheet.

And basically, owner salary, this is really old, $66,000 a year, advertising, $25,000, advertising other

$25,000, bad debt,

bank charges, CPA to do your taxes.

And it goes through mobile phone, computer expense, credit card, customer Chrysler fund,

dues, subscriptions, the petroleum, gas charge, insurance for the truck, legal expense, office supplies, postage, tool repair and and tools, travel and entertain, truck uniforms.

It just goes through all these things.

And it says, after the effort and stress of setting up your own business, let's say you felt entitled to 15% profit after tax.

As you already are paying yourself $66,000, this will attract a tax rate of $0.40 on the dollar.

You're getting taxed about 35% to 40%.

Yep.

So it goes into the calculations after all this.

You need to charge,

not including supplies based on your travel time, everything else, just working for yourself.

You need to charge, is that a 66?

This is really old.

It has yellow booked here.

You need to charge $256 per hour

per hour because you're not making money travel time and meetings and answering calls.

You're only making money when you're in that garage.

Correct.

So that means, now look, pay-per-click, you might be paying $150

just for the phone call.

So if you get two or three of those clicks, now you're talking, talking, these numbers start to get to $400 or $500

and that's with 15% net.

And then you hire an employee, they get sick, they get PTO,

they go on workers' comp.

So I don't think the numbers just, when you write it all down and you see the math, it starts to just, this light bulb turns on of like, man,

I don't make all the profit.

My wife works for free.

My son's working for $15 an hour.

My truck just broke down.

You know, gas prices are going up.

Now to buy a set of tires have gone up.

Like

you got in business for freedom.

and you find yourself strapped to a phone 24-7.

When you're on vacation, you're not really on vacation.

Like you do work nights, weekends, holidays.

You answer phones.

Guys are upset.

You've got a customer recall.

Like a Chamberlain unit or Genie went out or you got the wrong panel delivered with the Clope Are Aima or whoever you go to.

Business is tough.

And we just made all these mistakes to kind of share them.

I want to give you the last word, but I just want to tell you, I love you.

I appreciate you.

You've been a miracle in this business.

I'm fortunate.

We are all fortunate here to have you.

I mean, I think the best is yet to come.

I think our dream is just getting started.

I always say that this is the best we've ever been, but the worst we'll ever be.

Tomorrow we're going to be better.

And I feel like this is a new business.

Like I walked into work today going, this is brand new.

Like this feels new to me.

I'm not sick of it.

I don't feel like I'm stuck in the grind.

There's great people here.

And as we continue to expand, other people put a little bit more on their shoulders.

Yeah.

You know, if we got eight people lifting this heavy rock, we're sharing the weight.

You know, somebody might lift a little bit more, but that's what's nice about what we're going to be talking about at Vertical Track.

So, for those out there, they want to learn more about it.

They want to figure out if they can make it.

They want to know who should they bring?

Should they bring a manager?

Should they bring their CF stars?

Talk to us about next steps.

You know, I think get on verticaltrack.com.

You can register.

We'll have the full agenda set up there.

You know, you can get on garage doorfreedom.com also.

And you can ask all the questions you want.

You can get directly connected to me, and we'll definitely make it worth your while.

And I just, I encourage everybody to dream more.

Like challenge what you're doing today.

And is this really

everything you've ever dreamed of?

And if it's not, come get it at a Virgil Track.

And the location, the dates.

Oh, yeah.

So we're going to be in Scottsdale at Talking Stick Resort, October 8th through the 10th for Vertical Track.

We're also doing a bonus

event right beforehand, the 6th and the 7th.

We're going to do budget.

So we're going to talk about all these numbers and how to math and make sense for the 2026 year.

So Tom Howard will be there for us for that for a couple of days.

And vertical track is going to be amazing.

The 8th through the 10th here in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Don't miss it.

We'll be happy to see you guys.

Talking stick by the way is the most fun out of any place.

If you've got a husband or wife or somebody that just wants to hang out, like it's just a beautiful.

The weather is going to be nice in October.

It's going to be beautiful.

I would just, we're going to be doing a shop tour.

You don't even have to come to that if you don't want to.

If there's a speaker you don't want to see, don't let one person stop you from coming to this event but uh alisa i thank you very much thank you world class please come like literally get a hold of alisa if there's just you can't make things work we'll help you figure it out yeah absolutely just come just check it out there's always a way so uh give us a holler find me on social elisa lindsay you can always find me and uh tommy thank you so much for having me i love talking to you i love it thank you thank you Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today.

Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy.

I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.

The 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.

Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.