Building a Team That Builds the Business: How to Recruit Strategically

One of the things that was successful for me was always paying it forward. And that's a common phrase now.
But when I saw someone in need, I would give, whether it was time, energy, knowledge, whatever. You know, like you're talking about Kent and Al and all those people.
So it's one thing to ask. But other thing is don't keep score.
You do subconsciously, but I tell you what, you have tremendous freedom. And opportunities open up exponentially when you do not keep score.
Like I think of when I pay it forward when someone calls and even if the answer is no, find a yes, right? Like, hold it. I can't take care of you, but give me 10 minutes and I'll find three other people that might be a befitting match.
We get those calls all the time as general contractors. We just can't.
We're not the right fit. But I might give it to 10 competitors.
And then whammo, a year and a half from now, I get the call. Hey, do you remember me, JJ? I'm like, nope.
I'm like, well, you paid it forward with Bob and Bob ended up remodeling my house because you don't do residential. Well, guess what? I own a business.
Now I'm adding on to my business. Will you do it for me? Whammo.
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.
Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out.
I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy.
Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert.
Today, I got a special treat. This is going to be really fun.
I got J.J. Levinsky in town.
He is actually based in Chandler. He's the president and co-founder of Blue Wave, the host of Mac and Blue, and a board member of Vistage Worldwide.
President and co-founder of Blue Wave, a company that provides facility-based solutions for his clients with over 30 years of experience in construction and business solutions industry. He is a past board member of Vistage Worldwide Incorporated, a global CEO, peer advisory and executive coaching organization, and the host of Mac and Blue, a podcast covering all things related to building the future.
And you were a guest. I was a guest.
Yeah, that was, it just feels like yesterday. That was a couple months ago.
Yeah. It was an honor.
Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I'm excited, man.
I think what I always like to start with is, tell us about why you got into home service in the industry, where you're at today, and where you want to take it, and a little bit about the podcast that you do. Great question.
So like I said, I'm 52 now. So I've been in the business for over 30 years.
And I did the proverbial and quintessential up through the ranks type thing. Started off, went to college, actually got a construction management degree from a Midwestern college, and then dove right in.
Started doing custom poems, whatever. But I would say that it was my second job that gave me the oomph.
And that was I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico back in in the mid nineties. And I got a call from a buddy and said, hey, there's this global multinational company based, just so happens their North American operation is back in Minneapolis.
Would you ever move back? And I was like, yeah, that sounds exciting. And I was the type of kid where I grew up in a community where when someone challenged you, you took it, right? And I know you can resonate.
It's like, you go, you don't say no. You don't say maybe you say F yes.
And then just figure it out as you go. So having jumped into that, wonderful.
I worked for a British firm. The main reason they hired me, I know, was because I had done a stint in the UK in college.
I'd done a year over there as a foreign exchange student type thing. So they felt like I understood the British mentality and all those kinds of things.
So anyway, I got thrown into the wolves with that and I loved every minute of it. But what I found was I was sitting around the table and I understood construction, but I felt stupid because I was sitting with major CEOs and high profile people in these big industrial and food primarily thinking like General Mills, Pillsbury, ConAgra know those kind of corporate giants i'm sitting there telling these people that are my age now what to do and i'm like this is stupid i'm a 20 some year old i'm advising him and i don't know shit from apple butter about this stuff so i decided to go back at night school and doing my mba and it was there that i found tommy that i finally learned how to learn and i said you can this.
It's like, you go through stages of life and you finally, you like, you fake it to make it. And that is when I could finally figure out how to learn again.
And it got me excited about construction again. So, and this was pre-internet of things.
So it was, I had to go to night school at the Mall of America in these back rooms in Minneapolis and stuff. So it really excited me.
Then I would, to hit fast forward, kind of went through what I call that 10 to 15 years of just checking the box type stuff. Got married, had kids, and just worked my way up like project manager.
And pretty soon, you know, I'm Neil Hefe. I was in a different part of Minnesota and kind of the president or the go-to C-suite guy in these organizations.
Small family office type stuff. We still did pretty good revenue, but basically it was general contracting.
There were some spinoffs where we had a damage restoration company, things like that. So I got exposed to, I think, your world of home services.
Fast forward, my wife and I were kind of bored with the Midwest. Winter kind of kills you up there.
And the other thing was we were at that midlife crisis kind of moment of we saw all of our friends getting divorced and it kind of turned into the battle of the Joneses. Who's got the bigger boat? Who's got the bigger house? We're like, maybe it's time that we look at opportunities.
So that's when we decided to move to Arizona between 2012 and 2013. Came down here, walked away.
Mind you, I walked away from the president of a very successful organization. I didn't have equity, but my partners did at the time.
And that was a hard move because we had built something very special. I always told people during that tenure, Tommy, that we had the ability, we were like the black sheep or the antichrist of the community at

the time because we'd come out of the great recession and we were growing and we were growing because we were doing things nobody else was doing. And I'll never forget because the competition was saying, you guys are ruining it for the rest of us.
Because remember, when you're an outlier, they escort you first, then they try to copy you once they realize successful. And then they try to emulate you at a whole notherher level so it was weird because when you see it you don't really as it's happening in real time you don't realize what's happening but then kind of post facto you look and go we were on to something that taste once you have that taste of entrepreneurship and when you have a successful organization where everyone tries to copy you you can't get it out of your.
So the reason I'm setting this up is that when we decided to move to Arizona, I struggled when I moved down here because I walked away from that. We were growing.
We're doing great things. We're doing transcending things in HR, policy, using technology.
I mean, I remember we were using GoToMeeting and Zoom type stuff long before anyone else was. And we encouraged...
And again, this was taboo. We encouraged hybrid kind of work at home type environment.
Think about that 15 years ago. That was like, what the F are you guys doing? But we hired the right people.
When you hire the right people, that's all just bullshit, right? So moved down here. And the first three years, I was just kind of a gypsy floating, doing roll-up M&A type stuff.
I was just a headhunter, got me into that kind of thing, and I did it. And then rolled into...
I'll never forget, I was doing a roll-up and I was getting bored with it because it was in the home services business, but it basically was just a one-call-close type business. I'm not going to mention names, but it felt dirty, Tommy, because all we were selling was financing.
And that wasn't my passion. My passion is at the core of me, I'm a builder.
And I just saw this and I said, nah, I don't think this is for me long-term. Was it solar? No, it was not.
Okay. Okay.
It was more like window replacement, bathroom replacement. Yeah.
Okay. And it just, it wasn't that it was dirty.
It just, there was no building required. That was just, it was product, product and financing.
And I'm like, eh, this isn't me, but I've never quit anything in my life. And I've never walked away without finding a replacement.
So I'll never forget one night I'm trying to find the replacement for me because these guys were nice to me and good to me, but I didn't want to leave them hanging by just quitting. So as I was doing that, I found my current partners and Jake and Josh Simonton, who were, they owned Starwood Custom Homes at the time.
And we just started talking. Because as I was looking that night, I saw them posting something like, why? I like their marketing.
And it's a testament to what you always talk about. It's like, if marketing can catch you, that's the hook, right? Have something special there, authentic.
And so they caught my attention. I went and met with them.
And next thing I know, we'd consummated a deal where we actually, truth be told, Blue Wave started as school builder. And at that time, Josh and a couple other guys had started this school builder type thing.
And as many people know, Arizona was a leading catalyst in the charter school space.

A lot of it has to do with the Mormon upbringing here and the strong centric values that's behind the way that religion is based on education and things like that. And the other thing is Arizona

sucked at public education for so long that finally the populace was like, hey, this is the

way we're going to go. So the challenge that they presented me with is, hey, listen, we've got all these connections in the charter school space.
We do the front end real estate work, the entitlement, and we'll do the backend bond financing. But there's these other GCs that are doing this, the middle part where they're building these, these charter schools.
JJ, could you do this? I'm like, yeah, I can do it in my sleep. So we went into a venture together under the school builder moniker where JJ here, I think i started with like ten thousand dollars a laptop and i went and got the license okay and bam we built our first charter school that summer and then it just skyrocketed so that was kind of what put my name on the map here locally because i will without tooting my own horn or our horn is is it was a Midwestern work ethic that we brought to the valley

that was different at the time.

At that summer, there were five charter schools being built.

And it just so happens that myself and my superintendent at the time,

that's all it was.

And we're in the trailer 24-7.

And we took an attitude like we would have in the Midwest,

which is we've only got this amount of time to get stuff on the ground because the snow's coming. Well, there's no snow in Arizona.
Right. But we have something else called the monsoons.
Yeah. So here it was.
I think that was the summer of 2017. We were awarded our first contract.
We built the, it was the American Leadership Academy campus right down by the Basha High School. And if I remember right, we did it turnkey, however many acres that was,

50,000 square feet plus or minus.

And we brought it in in under 120 days turnkey.

And everyone looked at us and went,

what in the hell?

I'll never forget the day that I had the meeting,

Tommy, with the, he's no longer there, but it was the building official

we got assigned from Gilbert.

He showed up, I can't remember his name.

And he's like, oh, this is how you use your online scheduling system. I said, well, is there a way that I can just have you out here every day? And he's like, well, why? And I go, because I'm going to need you every day.
I said, I got to be done in August. He's like, oh, well, it gives you a year and two months.
I said, no, you dipshit. Like 90 days from now.
He's like, no freaking way. So anyway, what happened, I'll try to give the Reader's Digest version is that put us on the map because we outshined everyone else.
Not because we were better general contractors or they were worse general contractors. We took the mentality of seeing the end of the beginning and reverse engineering it and doing that.
So where I'm going with this is we got all of our utilities done ahead of time. I got the sod in ahead of time so that when all the monsoons hit, we were done and we were just building the building.
Well, I got it dried in so that all of our trades could work inside. Weather didn't impact us.
The other five schools that were being built in the valley at the time, none of them opened on time. They had all sorts of problems because they waited.
They waited, they waited, they waited, and the monsoons killed them. And it was a wet summer that summer.
So anyway, that was kind of the catalyst. And so coming out of that, I'll spare the audience the whole...
We pivoted and iterated on some other things. We tried some other things.
But then we soon realized that School Builder was myopic in our name. And we said, we've got to come up with a brand that has more just diversity.
And so we sat around and we did the old brainstorm where you got yellow stickers. You've done it before, whiteboarding.
And we put up all these names. And one of them was Blue Wave, spelled B-L-U-E, Wave.
It was based on, we had all read the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a leadership business book. It's a great book.
It is a great book. And we're like, Hey, that's catchy.
And then we had

some other names and we voted on it. And at that time, I think there were five of us.
And so we said, let's stick with blue wave. Well, then we went to get the domains and the URLs and all that stuff.
And the B L U E spelling was taken by, I think it was like a kitchen remodeler and a sailboat. One was in California and one was up in Spokane, Washington.
And so we looked at each other and And we're like, do we dare take the French spelling of blue?

And we're like, let's do it.

Let's try it. Okay.
No lie. First eight weeks of existence.
Worst effing decision we've ever made

in our lives. No one knew how to find us.
Like Google, we don't come up anything because who's

got the French spelling? Nowadays, it's the best marketing play I could have asked for, right? Because people go, what's the significance of your name? Well, Tommy, if someone asks you about you and you get to tell your story, guess what? It makes it personal, right? Then the business transaction part becomes almost inconsequential. It's like, if they can get to know you and what you're all about, then you're being humanized.
You're not commoditized anymore. And I could have never planned that.
So I tell people the story all the time is that was the best dumb mistake we ever made. Yeah.
So anyway. Fast forward today, what are your goals? Where do you want to take this thing? Are you building the cell? Yeah, all of it.
So let me go to where, what's the ethos of this podcast? And that is, well, JJ, you're a commercial general contractor. What are you doing on home services podcast? So about three years ago, I had to look at myself in the mirror, much like a lot of the things that you talk about when you do your freedom event and a lot of your podcasting is what defines you as a leader, an entrepreneur, and all those kind of things.
And guess what? We're usually the best visionaries, but we're also the worst bottlenecks in our companies. So I had to make that decision.
I looked at myself three years ago and said, I need freaking help. So I went to an executive retreat up in Utah with a Navy SEAL guy that I knew and three other CEOs.
It was the most profound week of my life. It turned me upside down.
And it basically made me realize that, A, I've probably been on the spectrum my entire life, probably a high-performing form of Asperger's, that I can see things, but I do a terrible job of communicating. In other words, I can see the vision of a company.
It's just hard for me to disseminate and authenticate it back down to troops and stuff like that. So I used to get frustrated.
So I came out of that going, okay, I got to go hire some really good people. And the first thing I did was, and you've talked about this before, I went and found the best CFO that I couldn't afford.
Notice I said couldn't afford. And made that decision.
And in that negotiation and in that thing, he and I decided that it was collective. We wanted to diversify our business to grow the enterprise value of Blue Wave because A, the margins in commercial general contracting are not attractive.
They're not. They're low.
They suck. Give me an example.
Two to 3%. Right.
And if you put anyone else on the show, that's where you'll be. So think about it.
You got to do $100 million to make $2 to $3 million to just reinvest in your business, not including the risk of what happens if you have to have to call out on one of your bonds or something. And no one will admit it, but you know, the going rate for bidding is you're somewhere four to 7%.
But by the time you take out your SG&A, you're down to two to 3%. And that's pretty typical, pretty typical.
So now you understand why the big, large contract, general contractors, if you look at them, the only reason they're successful is they've been in business 20, 30 years. And they just keep, you know, once you get big enough, then they self-insure, they self-bond, and you do other things.
They find a point here. Yeah.
And you're reinvesting in assets at that time, you know, as far as on the balance sheet and the P&L. Okay.
So where I was going, Will, is that Mark and I said, he had a passion for it. And I said, and I agreed, let's bring MP&E, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, in-house.
And let's do it not only to increase enterprise value, but let's also do it as a value add to our customers. Because in general contracting, those are typically some of your three biggest contracts.
And they can also be your three biggest pinch points. Well, if we're controlling our own nest, then we have no excuse.
If we perform well, we're a hero. If we screwed up, then we're a zero.
But at least we can control it. We don't have to rely on partnerships anymore.
And so that's what launched it. And we're now a little over two years into that wallet share type business attitude.
And it's just within the last six months that it's finally skyrocketed.

And then just before we came on there, I told you we made our first acquisition of a plumbing

company in San Antonio, and we're excited just to grow it.

How commercial?

Yep. Well, no.
Great question, Tommy. In our general contracting, we're only in commercial.

On our mechanical, plumbing, electrical, both new construction and service,

and it varies. We try to diversify.
But no, that is residential and commercial. Huh.
Yeah. That's awesome.
You know, it's much like Al Levy. He's got, you know...
He's my main mentor. Yeah, you know, it's his story, but different.
Oh, I like it. So to explain to me what the future looks like, because you said what I love, you start with the end in mind.
Yep. And you got to know, like your bags are packed.
We're in the car. We've got the whole family.
Where are we going? And why are we going? And where are we stopping? It's like, most people don't know. I'm like, are you going to sell your business in five years? No.
10 years? Don't know. What's the plan? Get to a hundred million.
Then what? What's that going to do? What are you going to buy? I don't know. I just want to get there.
What the hell? Why? What would $5 million mean to you in a year versus a hundred million and who knows? So what's the plan? Well, just like you, you might as well tell it all. And that is when we sit around our private table, where our target is 500 million a year with a blended EBIT of, you're looking at somewhere 20 some percent, which is achievable.
If you look at all of that through service and new construction and our goal, right, wrong, or indifferent is we look at instead of doing big penetration in single markets, having kind of a cross-branded thing in multiple markets to take out the sine wave so that if Phoenix collapses, will Houston still be sustainable? If Jacksonville collapses is, you know, Atlanta, will the sine wave kind of just even itself out? Right. And much like what you did, we'll definitely entertain probably a strategic private equity.
Yeah, a sponsor. Yep.
And only so that, again, just making up numbers, let's say if there was a 50 to $75 million infusion or somewhere in that range, does that now allow us to go from two to 300 million up to seven or 800 million? You and I both know those companies love that kind of growth attitude. And if you can lay it out on paper in the pro forma, which we've built the business plan already, they're like, yep, those numbers.
But just like you, I'm not in any big hurry to sell. I'm in more of a hurry to take that investment and grow it to something even better.
Yeah. Well, I am now in a hurry.
I'll tell you because I know their number of where they get diminishing returns. And so there's this magic number and they got to hold for three years.
And that's not this Christmas, but the following Christmas. And I want to go where people have never gone before.
And I'm like, okay, so we'll flip this again and then we'll have to go public. Yep.
And I'm going to have to roll 50%. You know, I'm good with it.
But then, you know, the next sponsor is going to have to be really good at IPOs. Cause that's the only exit.
There's no funds that could afford it at a certain level. There's about five major companies, KKR, Apollo, Blackstone, and great companies.
And there's strategic alliances. And I don't know if I'm cut out to be the CEO of...
I'm not a black tie New York Manhattan hangout type guy. Neither am I.
I would be either a co-CEO or be the chairman of the board. I feel like what I like to be is the glue.
I'm like the culture. But coming in every day, explaining to someone in New York that never ran a business about anything is not what I do.
I think blue collar is better than white collar for a lot of attributes, but a lot of the guys never had a mom or dad raise them. So they don't even understand that concept.
They were Ivy Leagues and whatever. And I'm like, all right, guys, if you could even do even close to what we do, you wouldn't be here.
I hate to say it, private equity guys are really great. And we've got great partners.
And some of them are operators too, but they just don't understand sometimes. Our team does.
And I confide in them. I tell them I over communicate with them because I don't want to be that guy that gets a phone call one day.
Hey, dude. But as long as you perform, they're happy.
Well, you hit the nail on the head is I have the empathy of the blue collar type thing because that's the way I was raised. Right.
And when I look at what you're doing, what we're doing is we're creating jobs and lifestyles for people. And like your book in Elevate, when you talk about how you've created a plan where if they want to be a millionaire, here's how you get there.
Go. I want to create 20 millionaires.
And so do you. That kind of thing.
That legacy, if I could leave that behind, that would make me happier than looking at my own balance sheet personally. Because it's like, wow.
If you can take that person that came from nothing and allow them an environment where they're fostered into growing that, that has a higher meaning to me going to my grave than looking at what I'm handing off to my kids for an inheritance. Yeah, that's true.
I tell you, you think this day comes and it's like the end of the rainbow with the gold treasure. And it happens.
Sheena Wickman and I talked about this and it's not as glorious as people think. It's almost like you got to be ready.
And that's why I planted a lot of seeds. I'm not a one trick pony.
I know I could do this over and over and over. It's not garage doors.
It's not even necessarily home service. It's passion.
It's consistency. It's discipline.
And it's not necessarily about the money now.

It's what I had to become to get to this level.

Because you can take it all away, I'll get right back.

And it's hard to take away something from somebody that didn't have anything to begin with.

Well, it's funny you say that because I always tell people that I really didn't discover my entrepreneurship until I was in...

I'm 52 now.

It was probably only in the last five to six years.

And it's funny because I was very conservative all up and through my forties. For what? Because then I realized what you finally had realized.
Fortunately, at a younger age, it's like, hold it. I could redo this tomorrow.
Why am I worrying about, why am I concentrating and worrying about protecting that? That isn't shit, right? Come over here, invest in yourself, invest in your people, blow it through the roof. If you fail, get back on the horse and start over again.
Yeah. And it's funny because it takes a good swift kick to kind of realize that.
And if you're wired that way, it's almost empowering. If you live in fear of it, well, then it's disabling or whatever I want to say.
And you know what I'm talking about is you see people either they have it or they don't. Well, the risk that I could tolerate in my pinky is more than 10 people could tolerate.
Like this is not risky. I have control.
Yeah. And everybody lives in this state of worry.
I don't stress. I get no anxiety.
Like if anything, it's like last month, we are not supposed to be sharing a whole lot, but we beat our budget by 500 grand EBITDA, 500,000. And that's like every single month.
And I'm like, we should be beating it by 2 million. And I'm like, our acquisitions are too slow.
We need to double down. And the goal I'm setting is just, and now we're working on what is the finish line.
So I talked to Doug over at Cortec and we're working on where we wanna go. And I won't stop till we get there.
And what does that mean? You know what's cool about a transaction is then everybody's blessed because they all have either profit units or equity incentive program units or whatever it might be, depending on the structure is, they really want to chase that goal because it means their life changes dramatically. And I love that.
Like, I will never get involved in another business that doesn't have a plan to sell less than five years, hopefully three. Because otherwise, it's just a dream.
And there's so much technology and AI and machine learning happening right now. I think it's going to get, I think people are like, no, it's not going to happen.
It's happening. It's happening.
What's the largest company in the world right now? NVIDIA. Well, that's right.
Yeah. Largest company in the world.
It's happening. People don't want to face it.
They got this two decade plan. Good luck.
Because you and your family, if you don't enjoy it, like smell the roses, build your asset up, take a piece out,

learn from Kent Goodrich called me and he's like, dude, when you learn what these guys know,

this is the missing piece, Tommy. Like you're really smart.
You understand home service.

When you know what they know how to raise capital and you understand how LPs work and you understand deal flow and how to raise the capital and get five times leverage on the business and the whole

PE world, dude, you're going to be like, you're going to be in your mid forties. He goes, I

which is and you understand deal flow and how to raise the capital and get five times leverage on the business and the whole PE world,

dude, you're going to be in your mid-40s. He goes, I would give everything to go back to your age

and learn what you're learning today.

And I'm like a sponge.

I'm like, this is awesome.

Well, it's funny you say that.

And without patronizing you,

when I first met you, we talked.

And just for audience's sake, we actually came through your tour and you did a great job and your team did a great job. And it's funny because I still, in our weekly meetings, your name still comes up.
Well, what would Tommy do? But my point is, I have a point here. The point is, is that when I was your age, I don't know if we had the mentor protege type relationships that we have now through media, through the ability of, you know, whether it's Ken Goodrich, you, you know, if someone came to me and asked the same thing, would I open the doors? Absolutely.
Because just like you allowed us to come into your business, I would allow someone else to come in because that's kind of how the new world works, right? But when I was younger, we really didn't have those opportunities. Everybody was like this, right? Oh, yeah.
I mean, you had to, you know, unless you were part of the mob, you weren't getting in. Yeah, I agree.
And so I think, you know, for the young entrepreneurs that are out there, ask, ask, ask, and be humble. And people will give you more information than you can even tolerate.
But then what you do with it, that's the special sauce. Man, if we could just, if you could rewind that five times, ask, ask, ask, be humble, and then implement.
If you just, just that one thing, if you take that out of this podcast. Yes.
So many people, I just did an orientation with all these technicians and installers. There was 35 something.
And I said, I put up eight or nine phone numbers of our top, top, top techs, the guys that care the most, the guys that'll help. And I said, you know, the last guy that actually called every one of these people the day I did this, that's what he is in the company right now.
Number one, he went through this class two months ago. His average check is seven grand a week.
Do the math. I said, but a lot of you won't do it.
I said, in fact, I'm going to get him on the phone right now. And he said, when Tommy said nobody does it, I felt inclined to lock myself in the room and make every phone call and text every single one of them.
And it changed my life. It changed my, because he was, he did the work.
It's like, Hey, my name's Tommy. I'm brand new.
I'm not sure what to ask. Like the guys that go above and beyond.
And they're like, listen, I just want a few pointers. What would you do if you were me? Who would you hang out with? And just ask the questions.
And I think that's a skill. That's a muscle that people get over time.
But so many people are afraid. What are they going to think of me? I do not care anymore what people think of me.
So, you know, a couple of quick questions, first of all, and I've got a lot here but the british mentality you mentioned that and one of the things i found about england and scotland and ireland and that whole area and a lot of europe is the businesses are not what they are in the united states like they're small they have a different mentality it's great businesses but they're really small there's no one like rolling up there's but i know there's some huge companies like different mentality. It's great businesses, but they're really small.

There's no one like rolling up.

But I know there's some huge companies like Direct Energy.

It's almost the end of both spectrums.

It's super small and super big, but not as many middle, at least through my lens.

So what did you see out there?

I'm just curious.

I've never done business.

Well, what it was, was it was because...

How would I describe it? I was in the large, the extremely large, like multinational. And I'll never forget.
Let me talk about the exit time because I think this kind of puts context to it. My direct mentor and boss came to me and said, JJ, you were doing all the right things.
Okay. But I'm going to give you some advice.
Get the hell out of here. I go, what? And it kind of, like it kicked me in the nuts, right? Because I was like, I loved it.
Like I was traveling all over the world, over the country. I was given responsibility.
You know, I kept taking it, succeeding, failing forward too, you know? And I made mistakes. Don't kid yourself.
But I always kept grinding and working. Basically, I just outworked them.
I outworked my British counterparts. But he said, here's the thing.
You will never grow any further because you're not a Brit. And we're still a British company at the end of the day.
Now, that was 25 years ago. So have things changed probably.
But at that time in the 90s, it was still, I don't know what the word is, secular prejudice, whatever. Sounds like a union.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But through his advice, he was an outlier in his company. Well, then it gets even weirder, is because he was not from that part of England where the company was based.
He was an outlier. So it even gets back to that.
Like, are you from Manchester or Birmingham or London, right? And you talk about, forget black and white and racial type segregation, just where the hell you grow up. Which soccer team is your favorite team? It's like Taiwanese versus Chinese.
It used to be part of, it's true. Yeah.
Globalization is real. But now we were just, we were just back over there this last year ago about now and touring.
And it felt a lot different from when I was over there before. I wouldn't say it's more Americanized, but there's been, you can tell there's been a lot more entrepreneurship over there right, you know, ever since the globalization.
It's happening everywhere. India, China, it's just, it's happening and they've got to embrace it.
They do. Because it's a better way.
It is. And anybody that doesn't believe that, I won't go into politics, but anybody that's not happy that we're here in the United States of America, land of the free, able to make choices, you could sit down and you could sit outside a building and protest and not get in trouble.
We've got total freedom. And so many people are so unhappy about this country.
Well, then leave. Yeah.
And the history made us. We made a lot of mistakes.
Every country has. There's not a country that I know of that didn't have slaves at one point, and I'm not proud of that.
No. But it's still history.
We've got to learn from our history. We can't erase it or it happens again.
I won't even go into that because that's not a rabbit hole I don't want to go into, but I'm definitely for... A few hundred years ago, we talked about 2% tea, Boston Tea Party.

Now they're taxing.

I pay taxes to pay taxes to pay taxes to pay taxes.

It's way, way more.

I pay taxes on my taxes, on the death tax, on the tax for this building, on the car tax,

on everything I do.

And it's okay.

But I'll tell you this.

Obama once said, you didn't build that business.

Obviously, the infrastructure really helped.

It really does. The fact is, we're the hunters.
Anybody could do what we did, but nobody's willing to take the risk because we know you got 1% of 1% to get over a million dollars. And so, you know, anybody that complains that people make money, guess what would happen if you tax the crap out of me? I shut down.
I'm not going to work for nothing and I'm not going to take all the risk. I guess what? There's other countries that would gladly have me with what I know.
And I'm not saying I would leave the United States, but what's the point of pursuing more if you can't... Right now, the jobs we provide, those people are paying into the system.
If I have no reason of making... I'm in business to make a profit.
It's not a 5013C. And there will be a

5013C I built and it won't be for profit. And I understand that, but for right now...
Yeah, but that's at your discretion and in your means. Yeah, but if you tax the crap out of me, any major company says, people invest in us for profit.
You know, so all of a sudden, all these jobs are lost. Now there's people taking from the system.
Mm-hmm.

There's no corporation in the world.

It passes through the CEO, the CFO, the VPs, the directors. They're all paying into the system.
There's no point. The corporate tax doesn't need to be super high.
They just give more jobs or lower unemployment. The GDP goes up.
But nobody wants to understand this stuff and it's okay. And this is zero to do with politics.
It really is. No, that's economics.
It is basic economics. And I love talking about this stuff without getting controversial because there's other people that disagree with me and they think we should tax the rich so much more and take away the motivation for them to grow and give jobs.
Hey, I hope you're loving today's episode. I've got something exciting to share with you.
Freedom 2025, the event for home service owners is happening September 3rd to 5th at Mandalay Bay in Vegas. And because you're my podcast listener, I'm going to give you a special pre-sale discount before we open it up to the public.
I'll share all the details next Friday, January 10th. Stay tuned.
One of the things that was really impactful when you were talking earlier is leadership and hiring right. And I think this is probably the biggest problem with most companies is they just, they don't really hire people that are better than them.
They want to continue to stay the chief, the main person. And I don't necessarily think it's about spending more money because I've spent a lot of money on the wrong people.
We all have. We all have.
And it's like the move, it's not directly correlated

with the more money you spend,

the better you get.

But I will say getting people

that aren't on the unemployment line,

actually recruiting them

from another company

that's proven success.

Yeah.

So talk to me a little bit about that.

I'm sure you learned

a lot of this in Vistage.

Well, it's, again,

without patronizing you,

it's funny because

I had the attitude,

I think the same as you, until I read your book that was hard to verbalize it, where it's create a brand and create an ethos around your culture and organization where people are calling you to come work for you. You shouldn't have to use Indeed or Monster or anything, right? Who's the, is it Jody? Jody Underhill.
Yeah, you're marketing. Rapid hire.
Yeah. So when you look at that, if you can, back to what you were saying is if you can execute on your culture to where people want to come to you, you've already beat 90% of your competition, maybe 95.
Agreed? 100% because these people have a passion. They're willing to come and wait in line for you.
10 of the people that were there were there for me. They're the ones we had to recruit and hire.
But my plan is the next year that everybody's going to be waiting in line. They're going to be like, when is there an opening? Which means I got to become a better leader, which means I got to give more.
Essentially, I need a change to be able to get to that level. Okay.
So here's the caveat. And again, maybe this just comes from experience and age.
It's one thing for us as CEO or whatever, C-suite, to want to finally get over that hump of you're not a control freak anymore and you're willing to hire someone smarter than you in the room. Okay, this is where the secret sauce to me though is the greatest companies two to three years from now will be the ones that can take that attitude down two, three levels.
So when your VP can have that same attitude as you, where they're looking at whatever, you know, I think of a project manager or whatever, in your case, maybe a sales manager, and where they can just get excited about, hey, look at Susie. She is so talented.
Susie, get in here. I want to talk to you.
Do you have any aspirations of taking my seat? Because I'm going to help you get there. Now, that person, they don't realize by doing that, you're making the company better.
And you're creating not an empath, but an environment and a culture where that just becomes almost intoxicating in a good way, right? Because you've proven it. All the stuff that you share on all your different media channels, when you get that right, the numbers take care of themselves.
And then everything else we've talked about, it's just attracted. It's attracted, it's attracted.
But until you get that nucleus right... But again, it's really hit me over the last few months, Tommy, that you have to have that attitude just not in the C-suite.
It's got to come down at other levels where they cannot be afraid to promote within or without, or you know, from outside and have people come in that are smarter than them and explain to them, use your own stories and testimonies to say, listen, I'm still working here because I just like AI. Okay.
AI is not going to replace me. It's going to augment me.
It's going to make me better, but I then can clear a path for someone else and they can come in and do an even better job than me. Right.
And you know what? Case closed. I had a podcast that was really interesting is a lot of people, I get a lot of coaching, man.
I've got a lot of coaches. I've got trainers.
I've got a lot of people working with me. And I didn't realize this.
I tried to get my COO an EA. I tried to get the president of the company an EA.

It's a lot of work.

You got to kind of move backwards three steps.

You got to teach somebody.

You got to slow down.

It actually slows you down because you got to work back.

And if you get the wrong one, you're almost burned forever.

You're like, but me, I've had a lot of the wrong people,

but I'm always willing to take a step back for growth.

And, you know, I watched and they're like, well, I can handle everything. Like I can handle emails very quickly and I'm efficient.
I've already got a process. And me and I, you know, this gentleman and I were talking about what if I got them coaching? What if I invested in their to the coach they wanted, not my liking? because if they have the help that I get,

I'm investing so much money,

effort, energy, and time into my leadership. And not just reading, not just podcasting, but coaches.
And so now I've got this idea of, listen, if you're willing, because that's an extra 15 hours a week of outside, you got to keep doing what you're doing. But you know, the worst thing is that you're growing so much faster than everybody, then you're almost forcing the whole team to, you're going to have to replace them.
How do you feel about cognitive versus behavioral type? Well, I think EQ is the most important thing. I'd say this, I don't need the highest IQs for mostly what I do.
I need the highest EQs. I need the ones that get along.
They understand how they make people feel. I think EQ, you look at the most wealthy, happiest people, they understand people.
It's not because they could pass an IQ test the best. I don't care about necessarily your cognitive brain power because you still don't know how to respect people.
You look at doctors, they speak in this crazy language. They try to make people feel stupid.
No bedside manner. Yeah, you always hear that.
And I look at EQ as like, how am I making this person feel? And I can almost, I try to put myself in their shoes as I'm talking. And I look at myself and I know I got these personas.
Like when I'm talking to somebody. It's different when I'm talking to my mom than my sister, than my dad, than my cousins.
As it should be though. And it is.
But I'm trying to create this super persona like Kobe was the black mama when he entered the court. He became this version of himself that he considered to be the best.
And creating this super persona of yourself and then acting like that. And if you could define it as respectful, great communicator, feeling what the other person's going for, but also being passionate.
And then you can start really emulating that. And it's an ultra ego.
But if you can define your ultra ego and become that ultra ego, because we all have ultra egos. Everyone does.
The way you treat your kids, I'm sure there's, you know, my mother treats my sister and I completely different. So I know all about it.
People are like, you didn't have any kids yet. And I'm like, I know, but I am a kid.
I'm Dick Clark. I love this kind of stuff, man.
I love where we're going with this. So explain to me how the company's...
How is it organized right now? Like the C-suite, the org chart, how's it put together? Who's looking into M&A? What's the growth strategy? Is it Greenfield or acquisitions? Great question. We're probably where you were, I don't know, two or three stages ago.
So I'll answer it. Like I said, a couple years ago, I got the CFO.
Then in the last six months, I stepped down as CEO, got a CEO to come in that has been through all this for growth, acquisition, all that kind of stuff.

And watching the demeanor of him back again to the EQ is very high. And that was important to me

because I couldn't replace me with just... It was important that someone has done this before that

was smarter than me in that capacity. But for me, the linchpin was that EQ part you talked about.

So we're building that out. We're looking...
we've done a fractional CHRO right now. And that's been a big, big deal for me because, you know, human capital is the last frontier for all of us.
You can have systems, AI, all the things, you know, we can talk about marketing, all of it's important, Tommy. But right now, when I look at the companies that are going from good to great, to have Jim Collins quote, is those that are focusing on human capital and understanding how to leverage that, they're going to be the winner standing.
And I think when you were on my podcast, we talked about is those that don't have that coupled with AI are going to be left in the dust. And it's going to be a lot of roll-ups and a lot of M&A happening.
Okay. I mean, a lot.
If you thought it was a lot in the past five years, it's going to even be, I think, exponentially more going forward. I just do.
Oh, it's going to be the larger, going to get larger because they've got economies of scale. Right.
I've got the two largest suppliers in the country doing whatever they can to earn my business. So I came up with a list of not five or 10 things.
I came up with a list of 27 things I need from them. We haven't talked yet, but I'm going to ask them for everything.
And I'm going to show them what it means to them and how they win. Everything I'm asking has a direct impact on how they grow and their profitability.
And if I can prove to them that this makes sense to make you a bigger, stronger, faster running, hire even a company. And that's always what I ask.

I say, listen, here's how my ask makes you win.

It's kind of like the art of the deal.

Both people need to walk away, but I'm asking for a lot.

I'm asking them to invest a lot of money into our growth and how they win.

And it's a weird conversation because there's so many different attributes.

There's things in operations.

There's things in marketing.

There's things I'm asking them to do. But there's one thing they've told me.
Everything you said you were going to do, you do. So we take you very seriously.
So we're going to bring everything you want and more. And that means they're big, big companies.
And that means they got to go to their board and ask a bunch of stuff. I'm not trying to beat them up on price like everybody else.
I'm asking for a lot of other things that no one is even talking about. It's more of an investment than a shakedown.
Yeah, because I don't do any better if they're not making profit and innovating, getting better machines and doing more studies on installation and all the stuff they do. But let me finish your question about the org chart.
The thing it's even been in the last few months since we talked is that as I've done the deep dive in AI is looking at how AI can augment every role in the organization so that the org chart starts to look different. I'm not trying to eliminate fluff, but I'm trying to eliminate fluff.
And it's like, hold it. I would much rather have someone that can succeed going this way or even horizontally.
I don't care. It can be a mishmash, but use AI for what it's worth to eliminate jobs that aren't going to exist anymore.
And I think that is where are we on the forefront of that? Hell no. But I know that we're not at the tail end of it.
Like a lot of my competitors are where they're just going, yeah, we're, you know, I got this and this, I'm not going to demean any roles or jobs on the podcast, but there's going to be jobs that are eliminated. Okay.
But that's fine. Guess what? Because of it, there's going to be new jobs over here that are created that are doing those.
So to answer your question, I think it's a dynamic org chart that we're looking at right now and how we build that out so that we understand the dynamic and the influence of change so we can embrace it instead of being fearful of it. Hopefully that answers your question on the org chart.
Yeah, I think it's AI and machine learning is super important and it will replace jobs. But I think a lot of people are like, they use AI too much.
And AI has been proven to be wrong a lot. It takes a lot of data and it makes the wrong assumptions.
And there's been a lot of controversy about it. So I think we're in the fetal stages of what we'll be able to do.
I mean, just like the call center, most likely long term over the next few years, I mean, AI is going to do a better job. The bots, yeah.
Well, the fact is that you can have a full conversation with them in any language. And if it's machine learning enough to know what to do, and what it does is it finds these outliers that inflection points, and it's getting smarter.
And it's not scary for me. I just, I hope it never gets used for evil.
You said the CEO, I know so many people that brought on a new CEO. And me and the PE guys talk about this all the time is a CEO really tries to make a name for themselves.
They try to put their imprint on it, that's okay. It's very worrisome for me that we lose a piece of culture and this is going to be something eventually, I'm not going to be the CEO of this company forever, is coming to terms with what is your vision? You don't work under me, but I still need to have control because I've got the relationships, but I cannot also, like I've seen this happen even at Send Out Cars with Cody Bateman.
You say you want to be the chief visionary officer, but then that means releasing this. It's hard because you didn't do anything...
At least for me, I don't feel like I've done a whole lot of things wrong where it's strategic quantum leap growth. For me, I saw my glass ceiling though and I said, I'm not the CEO at 500 million million.
I just don't have it in me because there's too many things that I have to have connection to. Primarily, I love the teammates, right? I'm still a builder at heart.
So I want to be in the trenches with our people, knowing that I can help effectuate change to the marketplace. So by looking in the mirror and saying that, yeah, I need that.
I'm not arguing with you, Tommy. I'm just saying for me, it was very easy to give that up because now in the last six to eight weeks, I've had a lot more fun.
Like I'm engaged again. Whereas I was getting disengaged as CEO because when you're going through hyper growth, you're pulled in directions that were not befitting of my talents.
And so I looked at it going, oh, now I can get back. And I'm seeing a better interaction with the employees where like even today before coming here, it was watching them going, JJ, can you help with this? And it was something that I could do in my sleep, but it made a huge impact on them where, you know, eight weeks ago I was disconnected where they couldn't reach me because I'm so busy doing CEO stuff.
So it's not like I've, I don't know, you know, like I took a, I just took a title relegation to president and co-founder. Big deal.
I don't give a crap about the title. Yeah.
No, you're right. You know, my job as a CEO is literally to deem myself useless.
I don't even think people comprehend what I'm talking about is I've really defined the vision of this company in very, very bite-sized details to understand where we're going, how we're going there. And it takes a lot for me to even explain this to the PE guys because they've got different plans, but they don't know what I'm trying to do.
It's very hard to articulate. But a lot of people do understand and I don't want to be the guy.
I was the guy for too long. I'm like, let's find somebody that's way better at this.
I'm going to talk about it. I don't know which book.
I want to be Mr. Irrelevant.
Yeah. Oh, that's what I'm going for.
And I know it's weird. I'm sure the PE guys in any company are like, dude, how much are you working? Dude, I'm connecting with technicians every day.
I just did an orientation for three and a half hours. I just checked in with my CEO or COO.
We talked about the acquisition pipeline. There's 22 companies.
The work doesn't stop. The hours don't stop.
It's just, it's different focus though. I'm hoping that I could leave for a month.
And I can right now. But I'm hoping the hard question is, yes, the company could exist and grow without me for six months, never touching any communication, no CRM, no look at financials.
The other question behind that is, will the company grow as fast? Will the vision maintain? And it's not quite there yet. But when I decide to turn over the CEO role, I'm going to go, dude, all you got to do is stay on this path.
It's already set up. You have everything documented.
You've got a whole, you don't need to change it much. We've got the right leadership in place.
It's on a trajectory. Every performance pay is dialed in.
Every equity stake is dialed in. And the plan is to get to 500 million of EBITDA on the next turn.
And people are like, dude,

I love it when people say that's not possible.

They don't understand market caps.

They don't even understand the strategy to get there.

But it's so big.

It's like a big goal.

500 million of profit.

That's huge.

But it seems so small to me.

It just seems like the plan is not this

like crazy 100 page thing.

It's just, here's how we do it.

But you're eating the elephant one bite at a time. Because I remember it was either your book or one of the things it's like, remember when you hit the milestone of a hundred million? Well then, okay, what's next? Like you don't sit there and check out and go, all right, let's cash all the chips and I'm done.
No, it's okay. What's the next goal? Then what's the next goal? What's the next goal? And you know, September 25th, below 10% body fat.
And then guess what? I'm going to Bora Bora in January. So on September 28th, I'm setting a new goal through January to where am I going to go? And I got a whole plan for that.
And then I got my birthday's March 4th. I'm setting a new goal for that day because I set small strategic goals, even for myself, KPIs.
I'm wearing this. This tells me everything I need to know except for my macros.
And I got a whole app for that and a chef that's helping me out. So it's like, here's what's changed in the last few months since we talked on your podcast.
Is that I got no brain fault. I'm healthier than I've ever been.
I'm walking for two hours a day. I feel really good about myself.
My face, I look at the old pictures like I had a double chin. Not a big deal.
Like literally like under here, you, I would have never imagined. It was just, it's like, and I look at myself and I'm like, I had every reason why I didn't have time.
Every reason. And man, I love getting out and walking.
I was up this morning at five o'clock. I walked for over an hour last night at 1015.
And just these little things like you got to take care of you. Yeah.
You can't help your kids. You can't help your wife.
You can't help your parents. You can't help any coworkers.
If you're not taking care of yourself, we always try to change everybody around us, except for ourselves. And now that hit me like a ton of bricks.
I'm like, I need to become the best version of myself. And that includes drinking the right water.
You notice it's not bottled water. Not to say I don't drink.
I do drink bottled water if it's the only thing available, but this is like triple filtered. And I've started to learn about these things and dude, I feel like I could run a marathon.
I feel like I could fight a lion. And two guys came out crying over my orientation.
And one guy's like, dude, I need you to be here for me and mentor me. I said, I will.
I said, but you got to do me a favor and forget the past and focus on today. And we'll revisit the past because we got to let that go at some point, but now's not the time.
And that's the difference is within a year from now, I'm just going to be able to post one thing and have a line of people ready to go, knowing their lives will completely change. And when that day, that's my new goal of like, not, I got people lined up to work here.
I got people lined up for me to be an impact to change their life. And that's the deal is impact.
What advice to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make their mark in blue collar? Well, I think it's the same as what, I don't think there's a difference between blue collar, white collar it comes to that it was ask ask ask jump in jump in fail forward I love to see day in and day out you have technicians we have technicians and the ones that make my heart murmur are the ones that come in said hey I did this and I failed but this is what I did to correct. And you pull them aside and you have a teaching moment and go, thank God you took the risk.
Okay. Thank you for doing that on behalf of Blue Wave.
Because if you would have done nothing, you did nothing. Guess what? You didn't move the needle.
You didn't go down or up. You just stayed stagnant.
Well, guess what? If you do that over 30 years, that's exactly where you're going to end up. You're almost better off trying and failing than not trying at all.
And so when I look at the attitude of anyone in the organization, it's do that. I'm talking to my oldest son right now.
He's about ready to get out of the Marine Corps. And I think through the Marine Corps and through watching hopefully me being somewhat of somewhat of a positive influence on him, he realizes, take the risk and shit will happen.
More good than bad. But if you don't take the risk at all, you're just going to be a box checker the rest of your life.
And if that's what you desire, great. But back to what you were saying is the American principle and the freedoms that we were provided, we were given all those opportunities.
Go seize them. Don't sit there and be, and I'm not being political either, but don't just be a socialist trying to collect something.
Okay. Go contribute.
Whether it's contribute to someone's life, back to what you said, contribute to yourself, your growth, whether it's physical, mental, spiritual, I don't care what it is, do something. And so yeah, for the entrepreneurial thing, take what I said earlier is don't wait.
Don't be so conservative like I was in my 30s and 40s or the most part of it where if you feel like entrepreneurial stuff drives you, then you are an entrepreneur. Go take a risk.
What are you going to do? Like Tommy and I said, if you fail, go back, mortgage your house for the fifth time and start over again. Who gives a shit? Yeah.
Well, you'd rather be on your desk that said I gave it my all and I lived a little. And shoulda, coulda, woulda.
Than having regret. Yeah.
And there's too many people, you know, I was thinking a lot about this of the freedom event coming up. And I don't know if I have the courage to do this, but I was thinking about going

to the hospital and visiting people that are dying. Oh, I kind of get emotional thinking about

it. I don't know these people.
I'm not, I'm not talking about family, but it's just asking them,

you know, interviewing them. And I don't know if I got it in me because dude, I'm a pretty

emotional guy and I feel for people, but just, you know, Steve jobs on his deathbed said, you're going to be taking your medicine as food or your food is going to be your medicine. And I know there's going to be a lot of regret.
A lot of people saying, I wish I would have made up with my daughter. I wish I would have actually showed up for that wedding.
I wish I would have called my best friend. I wish when I had the chance, I would have seized the moment.
And I just got to build the, I'm not afraid to ask, but that's a different type of ask. But I really want to make an impact.
And I wanted people to wake up and I'm thinking, what could be the most way? When I talk to these young men, there's a young woman in there too. She's amazing.
I know I can't get through to everybody, but there's a way to do it. And I'm just trying to figure out every possible way to wake up, to wake up.
Just now's the time. I'm like, guys, how much do you want to make? They're like 80,000, like 80,000.
That's like poverty. I'm like, not really.
There's a lot of people that would kill for 80,000, but not at this company. I'm like, I have a guy that was hurt for five months and he flew out here.
I was out of town. Unfortunately, he wrote with one of my amazing guys, Justin, and they sat down at a restaurant and they figured out exactly what he needs to do to make Pinnacle.
Now, mind you, Pinnacle is like really hard to make. It's like the pinnacle of success.
It's the pinnacle trip. You get equity in the company and he has to do crazy numbers and he has to pick up Saturdays and he needs to sell doors only in stock.
And he needs to go bring pizza to the manufacturer to make sure they got a stock in. And they went through this huge list with me.
And he calls me up after three weeks ago, this happened and he's way above where he's supposed to be. And I said, how are you doing it? He goes, well, I've been talking, see, we've got a scorecard.
You get to see who's the best at every single thing. And he goes, all I do is call those guys.
And now he's number one in door sales. He's number one in service.
He's number one in memberships, number one in selling financing. And I'm like, dude, number one at reviews.
I'm like, how are you doing this? He's like, dude, I want to win so bad. He's like, I need Pinnacle.
I need it for me. I need it for my family.
I need the money, but I need to be there. Those are my brothers.
He's got major FOMO. And that was the intention.
So I think entrepreneurial, I will go the opposite of you too, is not everybody's cut out to be an entrepreneur. Oh, I agree.
No, I totally agree with you. I think a lot of people, they think it's cool.
They see the success, but they don't understand the pain and suffering and the sleepless nights and the cancellations and the not making payroll and the risking it all to take to mortgage. To clarify a time, I was speaking to the audience that I felt could be like me.
I didn't want them to live in the shadows for 10 to 15 years. If they knew they were not sure and they were like me, where there was just trepidation and fear, go take that risk.
Yes, there are people that it's not destined for. I totally agree.
But those that are lying in the shadows and say, well, I feel it, but I'm just too afraid. No, I'm talking to those people.
Go try it. You should try it.
You should read a lot. You should be asking questions.
I had a young man call me up. He's 29.
He works at a beer, like a, what do they call those? Where they make beer. They're like a tap house.
Like a tap house type deal. And he's ready to start his own thing.
And he wants to go into like high-end home management where he'll take care of the plumbers, the roofing, make sure the water's running. It's more on a vacation area.
And I said, find the biggest town next to you. Find the company that's successful at what you're doing.
And go keep your job and see if you could intern there for three months. And we've got a deal.
Maybe the guy will even invest with you or the gal, whoever owns it. But I said, you're about to risk everything.
So educate yourself. I mean, if I didn't go visit with Ken Haynes, Ken Goodrich, Leland Smith, and a dozen other owners, I wouldn't be here today.
If I didn't meet Al Levi, I wouldn't be here today. If I didn't meet, I thought about all the things that had to happen for me to be successful.
And there's a lot of big things, but man, it was like this magic potion. And behind all these doors, I see so many people like me on a podcast.

And they leave the podcast and their life is miserable.

They act happy.

You see the prettiest, beautiful pictures on Pinterest or on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok.

But their lives really aren't fulfilled.

And I just, I thank God.

I got baptized recently, even though I've been a man of God for a long time.

My mom and dad didn't remember if I got baptized.

I'm like, I'm not taking a chance.

Tommy, did we drag you through the river as a child?

Yeah, we probably did.

Back in Michigan, did we, you know, whatever.

I love this, man.

Tommy, I got one more. Yeah, no, I still wanted to ask you something.

I just thought of something that,

and we talked about asking,

but I want to talk about giving. I'll tell you one of the things that was successful for me was always paying it forward.
And that's a common phrase now. But when I saw someone in need, I would give, whether it was time, energy, knowledge, whatever.
You know, like you're talking about Kent and Al and all those people. So it's one thing to ask, but other thing is don't keep score.
You do subconsciously, but I tell you what, you have tremendous freedom and opportunities open up exponentially when you do not keep score. Like I think of when I pay it forward, when someone calls, and even if the answer is no, find a yes, right? Like, hold it.
I can't take care of you, but give me 10 minutes and I'll find three other people that might be a befitting match.

We get those calls all the time as general contractors.

We just can't. We're not the right fit.

But I might give it to 10

competitors and then whammo,

a year and a half from now, I get the call. Hey, do you

remember me, JJ? I'm like, nope.

Well, you paid it forward with Bob and Bob

ended up remodeling my house because you don't do

residential. Well, guess what? I own a business.
Now I'm adding on to my business. Will you do it for me? Whammo.
I wasn't expecting that. Didn't think anything of it.
But here's the reality. They found a good residential contractor.
That residential contractor found a new, a good owner. They had a transaction.
They both made money. And guess what? It cost me nothing.
It cost me time, but I did something good. It made me feel good.
And then whammo, I still got work. So it's not just about asking,

but it's also about giving. I feel like all we have in this world,

Warren Buffett wrote a quote, it takes 20 years to build a personal matter. It takes five minutes.

Five minutes. And if you give unconditionally, it's just, it's weird.
I was really nervous. It's liberating.
I was really nervous the first time I decided to give out all my secrets. My COO at the time walked in and a bunch of other guys, what the hell are you doing? Oh, you mean like when you do the podcast? Yeah, I know.
The walkthroughs, yeah. The competitors coming in and I'm like, I don't usually do this guys, but I'm going to have to trump you on this one.
Either I'm the dumbest guy in the world. This is going to be good.
Yeah. Cause I'm sick of people attacking us on Facebook.
I'm sick of people saying we're the devil. And so it turned around and I had no idea that giving, you know, you remember the original miracle on 34th street.
Yep. They went to the store and they were like, we don't have that here, but go to, you know, whatever the other store was.
It's a, this idea actually works. And if people just gave more unconditionally, it would be a better world, but go to whatever the other store was.
This idea actually works. And if people just

gave more unconditionally, it would be a better world. But it comes back tenfold.
Zig Ziglar,

you can have anything you want in life if you help it enough people get what they want.

I had an opportunity yesterday that I could have monetized very easily and made

half a million dollars. And I'm like, no.
I'm like, it's just a relationship that I could have

made an investment and very small and reaped the benefits. But not everything for me is money.
And I hate those guys. You meet those guys.
That everything is a finder's fee. Every single thing is this transactional.
I invest in businesses I believe in. And yes, do I make a profit? Probably because I love them so much that I think it's worth investing in.
And I do it a lot. I invest in everything I believe in.
And I ask the person, hey, could I buy 10%? Because I believe in you so much. I get behind people, not businesses.
But what's some of the books you've read that really stand out that made you who you are today? Well, I gotta give a shout out to you. Yours are good.
Thank you. Jim Collins has wonderful books.
Patrick Lencioni. The Ideal Team Player.
There's a number of ones. In the last year, I read...
Do you remember Bold? Have you ever heard of Bold? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bold, I got it.
Yeah. It's a peer.
That was a great book. Great book.
I don't know. There's probably...
I just was on a call yesterday talking about a business getting into that Peter's a part of. Yeah.
I don't know. Much like you.
So I audible this morning. I was up, couldn't sleep.
I was not because I was stressed. I'm like, I'm like a sun guy.
This time of the year, I just don't sleep as much because it's light out all the time. So I'm about like four or something.
I'm like, well, screw it. I'm going to go for my walk.
But on my Bose noise canceling because I got to stay focused. And I was listening to, you know, I don't even know which one I'm listening to right now, but that is my, much like you, that's my Zen moment is that's what I'm absorbing.
I'm investing in me. It's called my spirituality part of like, I listened to it, absorb it.
And then you think of, okay, what can I implement or what can I make better? So I encourage everyone. I can't physically read anymore.
I cannot read a book anymore at my age. I fall asleep in five seconds.
But I can listen for hours on end. I don't know, again, how my brain works, but that's why I love Audible.
I just go through books like crazy. That's awesome.
So I'm sure I could give you a... I could look at my playlist somewhere.
No, no, no, you did great. I agree with all those authors.
Do you, what's the best way to get ahold of you, JJ? Much like you, LinkedIn, I'm all over social media. And the cool part is on my contacts, my cell phone's on there, my personal email, everyone can get ahold of me.
And I haven't gotten to my popularity stage like you, where I can't answer all my emails, but I take great pride in answering everyone's emails. I still get back to trade partners when they want to know bid results for stuff.
And I like personalizing it. I'll be like, hey, you know what? You were high.
Well, how high? And I'll tell them. I don't blow smoke up their ass.
I'll respond to everyone. That's fantastic.
So if you need to reach out to JJ, LinkedIn, that is contact information there. And we talked about a lot of stuff here, JJ.
Why don't you give us something we didn't talk about? Maybe something that the audience needs to hear right now. Close us out.
Hmm. I wish I could go to your freedom event in September.
Yeah, just, I think it's about humility. I lost my dad a couple of years ago from a long-boughted cancer.
And it was funny about that same time I was turning 50. And I've never been an age guy.
Like age has never bothered me because I've been about the same weight as I was in high school. Never really had health problems.
But when that coupled with when I said I saw my glass ceiling and I went through like my spiritual awakening, that was the part where it's like, hey, what are you doing all this for? Right? And so if that's the takeaway, it's find out what that is for you and then just go live your life based on that kind of centric type attitude. And I think you said it best is you have to devote some time for yourself.
when I get off that, which I did recently, a couple months ago, I got off of it where I was just too into everything else and I wasn't on me. I saw the company suffer when I went back to invest it in me.
And then I saw the results. The company then did better again.
So I'm glad you brought that up earlier because if you're not right with yourself, you're not going to be a good leader. 100% invest in yourself.
JJ, this was wonderful. Thanks for having me on, boss.
Fantastic, appreciate you. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today.
Before I let you go, I wanna 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 that 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.