Q&A With Tommy - Scaling Your Growth with Financials, Recruitment, and Online Marketing

Speaker 1 The people that I know with a great business, when everybody else is failing, they know their numbers.

Speaker 1 They know every number I've discussed. They know their turnover rate.
They know if it's voluntary or involuntary. They're doing 360 reviews.
They know every KPI dialed down of the T.

Speaker 1 They know their financial. They know where their workers comp.
They know their payroll, where it should be.

Speaker 1 And then you walk into work and you've got none of this

Speaker 1 and you want a six-pack of your business. You want it to be chiseled.
You want it to be profitable. There's no chance.

Speaker 1 What are are you doing today? What are you working on? That's what I wonder. Like, I know exactly what to be working on.

Speaker 1 The numbers we look at, I mean, listen, two years ago, I wish I could have listened to this podcast because I was making a lot of money. But now,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 we're exceeding every goal we've ever set.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Speaker 3 Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode.

Speaker 1 Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Now let's go back into the interview.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the QA. This is the Home Service Expert Podcast.
Just got done with buys and tries.

Speaker 1 You guys know my goal. I will be at the next Freedom event, the massive Freedom event coming up in August 20, or September 25th in,

Speaker 1 what is it, San Diego, Giuseppe? Oh, it's right here. Yeah, San Diego.
It's September 25th to the 27th. I will be at 10%.

Speaker 1 So look out. If you guys haven't got the book yet, go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 make sure to join our Facebook group. It's amazing.
I go in there every day. I see all the questions.
There's like 25 to 40 answers. If you guys ever need anything, it's home service expert.

Speaker 1 Just go to Facebook and jump on there. Let's jump into some questions here.
I'll just tell you guys what's going on in my life. You know, things are getting so much easier for me.

Speaker 1 Lot of help, lots and lots of great people are getting super organized at home. Me and Bri went to church yesterday, and amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1 The preacher did amazing. It was just, it was very, very good.

Speaker 1 You know, it's one of those things that's like going to the gym where you don't want to go, but when you leave, you feel so good.

Speaker 1 I enjoy going to church, but sometimes it's like, maybe we'll just watch it. And just getting there,

Speaker 1 going to church, like,

Speaker 1 it's so powerful, especially if you enjoy the person giving the sermon. So, church yesterday, obviously, Mother's Day went amazing.

Speaker 1 Got to see mom and Bill. And then

Speaker 1 we went to work. We went to Dick's Sporting Goods.
I got two workout bags with all my gear in it. So, now I'll never not have the gear.
Like, that's important to set yourself up for success.

Speaker 1 I got the shoes, the socks, the wrist wraps. Everything's good to go in two different bags, workout stuff.
Then we went into work for three hours. Then we went back, had dinner.
My dad came over.

Speaker 1 We played golden tea, and then we went to

Speaker 1 went for an hour-long walk, just set ourselves up for success. Got a lot of construction going on.
Things are really, really good.

Speaker 1 And the first question I'm going to jump into is from Ed Reese.

Speaker 1 And he says, I'm huge on performance pay, and there is no other way I would like to structure our business.

Speaker 1 That being said, it has also been my biggest challenge as I'm trying to figure out a simple way to focus on one to three main KPIs to determine if a technician should qualify for any performance pay, along with performance pay percentage, as one of my concerns is providing too much for too little.

Speaker 1 Would you be able to provide any insight on this? Well, I think anybody that's not setting milestones, thresholds, and opportunity to make more money, I go back and say, what's in it for them?

Speaker 1 Like, if you got employees that don't want anything that just want hourly, you're probably not a good leader. I mean, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Speaker 1 Like you want people to show up to want nothing more in life. Now, you can't, there's certain roles that are very, very hard to bonus on.
But technicians, CSRs, that's the easiest thing to do.

Speaker 1 It doesn't make sense to me. So let's just talk about this.
You're struggling because personally, Aris, I think the problem is.

Speaker 1 that you have not built out a table. And I'm not the best at this.
I've got people internally that do this, but you run their pay for the last six months. You better have data on the last six months.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's in your payroll system. And then hopefully the KPIs that you're monitoring, they're in your CRM.
So you could go backwards and say, what if I paid on this, this, and this?

Speaker 1 Well, they probably wouldn't have made more money because I didn't get...

Speaker 1 I didn't instill the value system I wanted that either make more money, less callbacks, more five-star reviews, happier customers, better net promoter score, whatever you're trying, less absencees,

Speaker 1 calling sick days, less showing up late to the first job, whatever that is, whatever you're trying to instill, you got to find out what's the value of this for the company, what's the value for you.

Speaker 1 So what I highly recommend is taking a good look at the previous data. And then you take one all-star, like the person that everybody follows, and you have a conversation like this.

Speaker 1 Hey, Michael, I think you're one of the top performers in this company. Everybody follows your lead.
Here's what I want to do. I want to figure out a way to make you more money first.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make you sign this. It's basically

Speaker 1 an NDA just saying you're not going to bring this up to anybody. We're going to play around for this for three months.
And I'm going to play around. And here's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 1 I'm willing to lose some money because I'm going to test different things.

Speaker 1 And the goal is that you're going to make more money. The first month, you might make less money.
So I'm going to pay you what you're making now. But I want to instill a certain value system in you.

Speaker 1 That'll see because I want you to get more reviews, whatever it is. I want you to get higher tickets, higher conversion rates, more more turnovers, less tardiness.
I want you to keep your truck clean.

Speaker 1 I want you to become a safer driver. There's probably a million things we could think of that you're looking for with performance pay, whatever your three to five are.
No more than five.

Speaker 1 Three is a good number to start with. And you just test these things out.
And then when they do start making more money month after month,

Speaker 1 you start to build the pivot table to say, what if everybody else did this?

Speaker 1 And then you could roll it out. But a lot of people, they just say, I'm going to try this.
And then you make a mistake or somebody beats your system.

Speaker 1 I can tell you a scenario where somebody beat my system in the past. We used to give half if you give a haul off fee.
And it wasn't really my company, but it was a company I was involved in.

Speaker 1 So if you haul off, they changed the price. They said, I'm going to give you free labor, but I want to charge you $400 for a haul-off fee.
And the client was like, I'm saving money.

Speaker 1 So yeah, that's fine. And then they would split the haul-off fee.
So the motivation was to get a haul-off fee from the technician, right? To haul off the old equipment.

Speaker 1 But then the technician, like they game the system. So I want you to be very careful.
Tell your one guy. So first you have your top guy that everybody follows, top gal, whoever it is.

Speaker 1 Then you have the person you know that'll beat the system and you pay them. Say, if you could beat the system, I'll give you a thousand bucks or $500.

Speaker 1 You got to make sure that it's ironclad and there's checks and balances on performance. And here's the problem with performance pay.

Speaker 1 It's very hard to track if it's not something that you've got great, great metrics and data accuracy with. Like you screw up on performance pay, like hourly is pretty simple.
You clock in and out.

Speaker 1 And then you got time and a half if you work over 40 hours. When you do performance pay, you've got to have your shit together.
You've got to have it dialed in. And most people don't.

Speaker 1 They're like, oh, I really want performance pay.

Speaker 1 Well, true performers will perform way, way better in performance pay. They're going to do things you never see been possible.
You don't know the true potential.

Speaker 1 You're unlocking the potential of somebody in a whole new way. Very rarely do you see somebody try their best when there's nothing in it for them.

Speaker 1 Brent Swift said, my company is 27 years in business.

Speaker 1 We have a full service construction division, a full service roofing division, and a full service outdoor living division, pools, ongoing, and so forth.

Speaker 1 I manage all these with a lean team of office folks, one office manager and one marketing manager. How is this organization scalable and then sellable?

Speaker 1 The average sales is three to five million per year. Okay, so you're doing roofing, outdoor living, and pools.
Sales is three to five million a year.

Speaker 1 This might be a typo.

Speaker 1 Like there's roofing companies doing 100 million. There's pool companies doing 40 million.
Like what I would say is, where's the most profit? And I'd build that team up first.

Speaker 1 Sounds like you're a jack of all trades and master of none. Like many companies, they do anything that comes to them.
Oh, you need a retaining wall. We can do it.

Speaker 1 Oh, you you want a graphite pool or a fiber pool, whatever, fiber optic. Like whatever it is, you're saying yes to.

Speaker 1 I don't think you need to scale the team up. I think you need to scale a division up first and foremost.
It's not sellable.

Speaker 1 Who would want to buy this Frankenstein of all these different trades making no money? Look in the mirror and say, why am I running all these divisions?

Speaker 1 No offense.

Speaker 1 And say, how do I make what?

Speaker 1 Where's the most, you know how many people I see that they say, I let a few things go and I skyrocket, i 5x the business you're just saying yes to too many things and it might not be you it might be the owner of the business it might be the founder it might be the coo i don't know but um

Speaker 1 it's not very scalable unless you're very good at scaling that one thing now when you're massive and you're in a ton of houses like i'm at 20 000 houses a month if i add a category which i'm focused on right now I could probably double my EBITDA in a matter of six months.

Speaker 1 So something to be said about this. I don't have all the answers.

Speaker 1 I would need more information, but I would say get focused on the one thing that you're making the most profit, that's the most scalable, that you got the best technicians, that you get the best leads.

Speaker 1 And I'd scale that first. I'd also read the book by Marcus Sheridan.
He's got a company called River Pools. They ask you answer.
I think you'd learn a lot from that.

Speaker 1 Caleb Trunk said, How should I be training employees to perform service to my standard at the pace I expect without having to go out with everyone every day?

Speaker 1 I know you talk about training one guy who trains everybody else, but everyone is new this season. Our guys from last year moved on to bigger and better things.

Speaker 1 How can I go about training up the guys to do better work? Well, I say this, Caleb. SOPs,

Speaker 1 standard operating procedures, checklists, and manuals. You know, I talk about this a lot, the seven power contractor up here.

Speaker 1 But without an exact process and make videos and have checks checks and balances in the CRM, there's 40 pictures taken in every service type job we run.

Speaker 1 There's a scale under every door of how much it weighs. These are checklists.
You don't get paid unless the checklist is filled out. You get docked.

Speaker 1 Unless you create the processes, I say the only time you should be in the field is if it's for training on a process and having a camera recording everything.

Speaker 1 and making sure there's checks and balances to make sure they're following these processes. And yes, you're going to have to invest some time.

Speaker 1 You know, you're practicing on customers' houses instead of practicing in a training center.

Speaker 1 So I would say it kind of sucks that you lost all your guys last year, but that doesn't mean you don't, how am I supposed to train the guys when they need to do the jobs? Well,

Speaker 1 that's a leadership issue and a

Speaker 1 management issue. I mean,

Speaker 1 it sucks that you're in this position. So now you're going to have guys doing substandard work and you can't be everywhere for everyone.

Speaker 1 So you got to create a checklist and make sure they take pictures and sign off on everything. The system will fix these issues.
Just like McDonald's could hire a thousand people tomorrow.

Speaker 1 And there's checklists, you know, just to wash, they got to wash their hands every hour. They got to put in a code and it disperses the soap.

Speaker 1 And they know they wash their hands because they created a system to make sure they were sanitary at McDonald's. I'm spending my days dealing with upset clients and babysitting guys.

Speaker 1 What processes and systems do I need to be putting in place to place responsibility on the guys? I think they just don't really care that I have to clean up their mistakes.

Speaker 1 You know, I just spoke at a guy's event, Jim Cranidi's, and he hated his employees. He thought they didn't care.

Speaker 1 But it's like, if you told your kid to go win at a soccer game and he never saw the game played of soccer and he never saw what good looked like, why should they care?

Speaker 1 You tell me, I would love, if you were on here right now looking at me, tell me why I should care if I work for you.

Speaker 1 What's in it for me? Do I get paid more? Do I have a manual? Do am I, do I get like,

Speaker 1 why should I want you to have the nicest car, the biggest house in the neighborhood? Why should I work for you harder? What do I get? I think that's the first question I would ask.

Speaker 1 And then what does right look like? Have I been trained with right look like? Is there any type of bonus if I don't get a warranty call and everything's perfect? Probably not.

Speaker 1 And I mean, there's processes in place, but no one's going to follow the process.

Speaker 1 There's no checks and balances, no data accuracy team, no one looking at at the CRM to make sure everything was followed.

Speaker 1 How do I build a better culture in the midst of chaos without breaking the bank or wasting more precious time?

Speaker 1 Well, Caleb, I think it's sometimes best to take a step back because right now you're putting out fires and more fires and more fires. You're saying, I got to make more revenue.

Speaker 1 If you scaled back the business, focused on your best leads, your best marketing, your best CSRs, and you scaled back to two people and you were ultra ultra-profitable, your top two guys.

Speaker 1 You'd walk away with way more money. You could build the processes.
I think everybody's like, I need to get to 100 million. I need to get to this.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 Why do you need to get to these numbers? You're losing money right now because you're literally, I could tell you, your hair's on fire. You're trying to make it all work.

Speaker 1 Your relationships are probably struggling. I mean, listen, this is how kids have a bad,

Speaker 1 they're not raised right. It's almost like a single parent because dad's never home.
You think it's best that you have all these new people. They don't know exactly what to do.

Speaker 1 There's no systems in place. And you're probably trying different marketing to keep them all busy.
I would say, listen, this is the year we're going to tighten everything up.

Speaker 1 We're going to take the best, the best. We're going to create the processes.
We're going to take two steps back to take 10 steps forward next year. That's my best advice.

Speaker 1 Matthew Moser said, The average ticket size would you not go below if you were starting a new business?

Speaker 1 Well, what industry?

Speaker 1 I don't care what the average ticket is. I mean, if it's lawn care, if it's pool cleaning, if it's pest control, it's reoccurring.
It's completely different. You could do that at 99 bucks a month.

Speaker 1 If it's home service, I'd look at the industry average,

Speaker 1 you know, and then I'd look at what are you guys specializing in? Is it the higher-end clients? I mean, are you going after every client? Is there an avatar? Without knowing the industry,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of questions here. What advice would you give someone trying to dominate the Google space in a market?

Speaker 1 Well, there's four algorithms: PBC, Organic, LSA, and your Google My Business page, GVP.

Speaker 1 I would highly focus on the low-hanging fruit, which is PBC would be the last one I look at because everybody's up bidding.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's smarter people that have huge teams that are doing PBC and they've got the highest conversion rate, highest average ticket, highest booking rate.

Speaker 1 I think what I would do is I'd make sure I'm getting myself in a location that there's not a lot of other businesses around me because Google's all off proximity.

Speaker 1 And then I'd make sure to focus on reviews.

Speaker 1 I'd ask friends, family to come give them a tune-up, whatever the industry is, do it at a very low cost and give you a review. I would optimize those pages.

Speaker 1 And this is a long conversation, Matt, on how to optimize. I wish I could just do a podcast and a Q ⁇ A and tell you how to dominate Google.

Speaker 1 But getting pictures and reviews will set the algorithm up. LSA is all about answering the phone right away, giving it feedback in the system.
It knows everything you're doing.

Speaker 1 It actually transcribes everything you say on the call. It knows tonality.
There's a lot of things, and the algorithm is only going to get stronger.

Speaker 1 So making sure there's checks and balances in place.

Speaker 1 Rebecca Mayo said, if you could give advice to someone just starting out a business and brand in home services, what'd be the first thing you would do from starting from scratch?

Speaker 1 Rebecca, here's what I would do.

Speaker 1 I'd make sure I got enough money in the bank to grow. Otherwise, I'm going to spend 10 years making mistakes and put sweat equity in.
If I want to hire the consultant, I can hire them.

Speaker 1 I'm not broke doing it. Some people go to Dan Antonella to get their brand done, and then they don't have enough money to get marketing.
They're like, I only had 10 grand to start.

Speaker 1 If you got 10 grand to start a business, you should probably go work somewhere and save your money or take a mortgage out on your house.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to take chances. But I would say, here's the order of operations.
I think brand really does matter.

Speaker 1 I think Dan's book, The Brand Brand Book, I think brand is extremely, extremely important. I wish I would have done it earlier.

Speaker 1 I think El Levy's book, understanding manuals, SOPs, understanding the right CRM setup. And I become obsessed with marketing in an early, early stage.
Like 2010, I was obsessed with it.

Speaker 1 Another thing is just learn how to network better than anybody. Like go to B ⁇ I groups.
Show up to the Chamber of Commerce.

Speaker 1 Go build a sustainable business with relationships before you start doing a ton of marketing. It's called meeting the people, meet and greets, networking, shaking hands, building the business.

Speaker 1 It's hard work. If it was easy, everybody would do it.
Your chances of succeeding in business are very, very low. Your chance of getting over a million dollars in revenue, extremely low.

Speaker 1 Your chance of not losing a decade of your life falling forward, and I'm not trying to like dissuade you from doing this. Just most people don't have any money.
They got to run all the calls.

Speaker 1 They're working 24-7 and they're not really getting ahead. So you got to work on the business, right? The E-myth, work on it, not in it.

Speaker 1 I could go on and on, but the brand, the initial marketing dollars going in, starting with a top performer that could help you, not doing minimum wage tasks, like get an executive assistant.

Speaker 1 You could get even a virtual assistant. Because quite frankly, I think a lot of people,

Speaker 1 they're so busy doing. It's the 80-20 rule.
You're so busy working on 80% that don't make you money. You should be doing the 20% and delegating the other 80%,

Speaker 1 like training people, recruiting top people, working on marketing, putting a delayed draw term loan in place, getting the right branding set up, finding out A-B testing different things.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't think anybody could do a lot. Like you could never be done sales training.
And sales training to me is being a good human being.

Speaker 1 It's showing up, smiling, but there's got to be a system. A lot of people just say, go do the best you can.
And then you wonder why your low guys here, your top guys here. Even I struggle with this.

Speaker 1 And I think

Speaker 1 we're pretty down the road. We're pretty advanced.
We're still getting, we're getting better and better and better.

Speaker 1 What if you have a B player spouse as a partner?

Speaker 1 Any advice?

Speaker 1 Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 You know, what I can tell you here is if you have a B player spouse is how we work on getting them out of the business. If you love them, you cherish them.

Speaker 1 find out what else they can be an A-player at and try to get them to go into that because they're only going to hold you back. I can tell you, I was just at someone's company that

Speaker 1 the lady was running the company and she said, as long as her husband does what he loves and got him out of the business and the business went straight up. So

Speaker 1 I would do whatever I can to get him out of the business, but have him do something he loves that he still makes money because he's probably holding you back or she.

Speaker 1 Hamza said, I feel sometimes that because I see other people beating other people and sometimes me down and these other people have not done per se,

Speaker 1 but maybe attempted to water down base version of what I'm doing with no plan for the future and how to scale, that I'm not going to be able to do it. How do I overcome this?

Speaker 1 Because I have a plan and a strategy while I see other people normally go in with passion and fail because of not knowing how to capitalize and grow and scale and go from a passion to a business.

Speaker 1 Hmm.

Speaker 1 I don't really understand the question, but for me,

Speaker 1 haters only lift me up. So when somebody says I can't do something,

Speaker 1 it's like the best adrenaline rush I'll ever have. I mean, my whole life, a lot of people said that's not possible.

Speaker 1 Some of my best friends said, you'll never have a garage drug company that'll amount to anything. It's the wrong industry.
You can't do it.

Speaker 1 If you use that as fuel, if you use the things that people talk talk down to you about as fuel for your success, and you got a plan and you stick to your guns and you don't get sidetracked and ADD and start doing all kinds of other stuff, you stay focused.

Speaker 1 That's the hardest thing for business owners. You got a plan.
You got an order of operations, LEV, Tommy, the top 100, the top 30, the top five. You don't finish those top five.

Speaker 1 Get your plan, get things to the finish line. And perfect is not always right.

Speaker 1 Get 90% there. You'll never, you know, I know a lot of people I've worked with in the past are like, we're just not ready for that.
It's not perfect yet. And, you know, maybe I did grow too fast.

Speaker 1 I need people around me to slow me down, but I kind of, listen, who I've become now to get to this level is what changed everything. I could go to any company now.
I truly believe this.

Speaker 1 But it takes focus. I could help a lot of companies out, but if I was full-time in a company, like right now, I'm full-time at A1.

Speaker 1 And all I'm focused on is growth. But I was on a phone call earlier about rehash, and it's not systematized yet.
So that's my number one thing: systematize everything.

Speaker 1 Why didn't the person buy? Needed to talk to the HOA, need to talk to the husband. The price wasn't right.
It's not going to get installed fast enough.

Speaker 1 We're putting reasons and we're peeling the onion back. And then we're studying these reasons.
And we're using all these tools to capture this data, whether that's Rilla voice or

Speaker 1 voice analytics on the call center. And then we're building certain prompts and then we're testing and A-B testing.

Speaker 1 And I don't think anybody really thinks, like, I, well, there are a lot of people out there, but I'm just, I'm like, how do we measure the data?

Speaker 1 How can I look at this and see what our success rates are? And we're not there yet. So that's what we're building.
I have a couple of businesses running, but not passively earning.

Speaker 1 New opportunities arise with new partners, but can't afford to earn a living.

Speaker 1 I have a feeling partners don't understand understand this as they are richer in cash and do not have the same problems as me.

Speaker 1 This already stopped me from taking opportunities as I'm already overloaded. Any advice? Yes, less opportunities.
When you make a fortune, a lot of money,

Speaker 1 like you have this massive outcome, then you start hiring top down.

Speaker 1 Richard Branson takes the top COO of companies he wants to get into and pulls them out and gives them ownership of a new business.

Speaker 1 If you've got to be everything to all these businesses, your chance of success is zero. You want to do more when you don't have any cash coming in from one business?

Speaker 1 So you're not making money. You said, listen, I have a couple businesses running, but not passively earning.

Speaker 1 Like that sentence alone. What other new opportunities should you take then? Close the other two down.
Find a business where you're making a lot of money.

Speaker 1 Go to the outcome of when you sell the business, built the sell, John Warrelo. And people are like, how can you take on more?

Speaker 1 Because I've got a whole team on the Tommy Mellow Ventures side that I could do whatever the hell I want.

Speaker 1 I'm not in those businesses. We've got systems.
We go in, we set up the org chart. We find out, we get the reporting right.
We know exactly what's broken.

Speaker 1 Like the first thing I would do if I was going to enter your business is I would say, okay, show me all the numbers. I want to see the marketing, the call center.
I want to see the ROI.

Speaker 1 I want to see the attribution models. I want to understand payroll.
I want to take averages of the industry that I've sold, and I want to look at all these things.

Speaker 1 And a lot of times in businesses, it takes six months to even get this data because they don't have good collection systems. I don't know what to work on until we know what's broke.

Speaker 1 Some people say I need more leads. You look at their call center, you look at their average time to respond to a form, and it's two days.

Speaker 1 So until you're measuring things, you're never going to be able to get the answers you want. Like, I can never work with somebody that's like, I think we're doing good.

Speaker 1 Well, I look at 100 pages of data to see if if you're doing good.

Speaker 1 And then I'll say, okay, here's your problem. You're losing technicians and they're voluntary quitting.
So you've got a big hole. People are leaving.
Why are they leaving? Let's figure this out.

Speaker 1 Let's do 360 reviews. Maybe it's that you're paying too much for the parts.
So we've got to renegotiate with the veterans. Every single company I've seen needs a different prescription.

Speaker 1 But without the data,

Speaker 1 you know what a doctor does? They say, listen, we're going to go. We're going to do a bunch of tests.
We're going to check your blood pressure. I'm going to look in your eyeballs.

Speaker 1 I'm going to look in your nose. I'm going to look in your ears.
Need you to call for me. I'm going to look at your reflexes.
I'm going to ask you a million questions.

Speaker 1 But some people reach out to me and they're like, I think I'm doing good. Can you help me? Okay.
Show me all your data. Well,

Speaker 1 it's going to be a few months. Yeah, we haven't been really tracking that.
Yeah, we really don't know our financials. Yeah, we'll get to that eventually, but right now we need to focus on this.

Speaker 1 You have no clue. You have no clue what's going on in your business.
You have assumptions that maybe they might be right, but most of the time they're not. I'm going to go through some questions here.

Speaker 1 When do you know it's time to let a tech go? When is enough enough? Well, that's a great question. You know, I think it's really attitude.

Speaker 1 I think if they come.

Speaker 1 Like, first of all, it's not going to happen at work. I'm going to take them to dinner.
I'm going to find out what's going on because maybe it's me. Maybe it's management.

Speaker 1 A lot of times you'll lose people because you're not receptive. I've had several guys come to me in the last month, and I feel like it was mom's story, dad's story, and the real story.

Speaker 1 Mom's story is the tech, dad's story is the manager, and then there's the real story. So it just depends on what's going on with this technician.

Speaker 1 I mean, they say you fool me once, shame on you, you fool me twice, shame on me. I mean, if you're getting rode over all the time and this person just continues to defy

Speaker 1 what you need done, then I think it's time. And I think everybody that sees you kind of giving into this individual, if it is what's happening, they see you as a weak leader.
They see you as

Speaker 1 just not standing up. Maybe they're good at sales, but their negative attitude is rubbing off on everybody and you're allowing it.

Speaker 1 My question would be, how bad is it? If they got a great attitude and they're just not performing, they're making mistakes. I don't want to see what mistakes are they making and why.

Speaker 1 Do they got a good leadership team? They got somebody willing to listen to their points of view. Is their truck always breaking down? When they need parts, are their parts not there?

Speaker 1 Does service tighten or house call pro not loading properly? Is the call center making mistakes all the time?

Speaker 1 You know, a lot of times they think it's the text problem and other people just aren't coming forward saying it.

Speaker 1 They're just dealing with it and making do with what they got. And someone that's coming to you with real problems, the one person that's doing that, you're going to get rid of it.

Speaker 1 It really depends on the situation.

Speaker 1 Next question is, when you approach someone in a restaurant or a store to recruit for text or other positions, what do you say? It's a great question.

Speaker 1 So, first of all, I've been watching them and I'll give them a really great compliment. And I'll say, hey, what's your name? And they'll say, hey, my name's John.
My name's Rebecca.

Speaker 1 I'll say, hey, Rebecca. I just wanted to tell you, you're one of the, I cannot believe your work ethic.
You're always smiling. You're super humble.

Speaker 1 I can see you're getting along with everybody around you. You've been multitasking this whole time.
I want to tell you, my name is Tommy Mello.

Speaker 1 I own a garage drawer company, and I know it's a garage drawer company. You're probably wondering what I'm talking about, but it's a big garage drawer company.
It's very successful.

Speaker 1 The average person is making this in this position I'm looking for. What I love, do you mind if? Let me ask you a question.
Do you love this job? Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's great.

Speaker 1 I make good money and I like my boss okay do you like the hours i'm sure if you're like me i worked in a restaurant there's good days there's bad days the scheduling is weird you're on call certain days you know someone like you i believe could excel at this business why don't we do this why don't would you mind if i just took a selfie with you boom

Speaker 1 i'm going to text you right now i want to get you in my office i want to have you do a ride along whatever it might be i'm going to text you tell me a little bit about you you know they'll tell you well i'm married i just had a baby or I'm single, I'm living with a roommate, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's good to know. Congratulations on being a mommy, whatever it is.
And you say, listen, I'm going to text you. I'm going to send you a little bit more information about the opportunity.

Speaker 1 And then I'll schedule you. And listen, I'll even buy you lunch.
I want you to meet some of the people here at A1. I want you to do a ride along with my top guy.

Speaker 1 And then I'll send them, hey, listen, are you ready for that ride along? Are you ready for this yet? And then I'll get a testimonial from the top person in that particular thing I'm looking for.

Speaker 1 And they'll say, hey, Rebecca, Rebecca, it's Mary over here in the call center. I just want to let you know, like, this is an amazing opportunity.
I, too, am a mother, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 I'll kind of tell them what to say, but it's genuine. And eventually they're like, you know what? I'm just going to go check this thing out.
So that's the best way to do it if you're recruiting.

Speaker 4 Hey, guys, I hope you're really enjoying this podcast.

Speaker 4 I wanted to let you know if you're thinking about joining us in September at the Freedom Event, I've got some good news and some bad news news for you. First, I'll start with the bad news.

Speaker 4 The super early bird tickets are gone. This means that the $800 off the elite and VIP tickets are not available anymore and the general admission price has gone up a little bit too.

Speaker 4 The good news is you can still get $400 off the elite or VIP tickets or a 10% discount on your general admission ticket.

Speaker 4 Plus, we're still giving away a few special bonuses, but this is only going to be available till August 5th.

Speaker 4 So listen, if Freedom 23 was amazing, this year we're going to be taking this event, and I mean taking it to the next level.

Speaker 4 Jocko Willick, the Navy SEAL who wrote the book, Extreme Ownership, is already confirmed as one of our keynote speakers, and there's still a lot more to come.

Speaker 4 So go to freedomevent.com and get your tickets today. We will not disappoint.
This is going to be an event of the lifetime. That's freedomevent.com.

Speaker 4 Take a pen or put it in your phone, freedomevent.com. Just make sure you do it before prices go up on August 5th.
Now let's get back to today's episode.

Speaker 1 I am currently looking for a fractional CFO to help me understand my numbers. What should I ask when interviewing a CFO for a Hurricane Windows business? Could you recommend one?

Speaker 1 Well, it doesn't really matter what the industry is. I want to understand.

Speaker 1 A good CFO will help you get set up on the right systems. BillPay.com.

Speaker 1 They're going to handle reconciliation automatically. There's tools to do that.
They're going to be looking at what credit cards to be using. Are you getting rebates from your vendors?

Speaker 1 The main thing their goal is to do is look at the financials and tell you what needs to happen in the future. Financials are a lagging indicator.
Your payroll is really high.

Speaker 1 It's higher than it should be. Maybe there's too much overtime.
Maybe our performance as a percentage is not where it needs to be. They should be digging in.

Speaker 1 So I would ask them first and foremost, who have you worked with? What are the main things you're interested in doing?

Speaker 1 And they're going to tell you, I want to get you accurate financials closed by the 7th or closed by the 10th.

Speaker 1 Their main job is to make sure the controller or whatever is closing out financials on time. Because if you're looking at financials from a month ago, it's not very helpful.

Speaker 1 Some of you guys are looking at financials. You're like, I haven't closed out last year yet.

Speaker 1 They're going to be asking questions like, who are we using to make sure gas?

Speaker 1 is like we're not filling up the wife's gas tank. Well, that's why we use WEX.
They're going to put in a system system like WEX.

Speaker 1 How are we making sure it seems like our workers' comp is going through the roof from incidents? We need a safety manager in here because this is our E-mod score is going to go through the roof.

Speaker 1 They're looking at a lot of things. The first thing they're going to look at is they use the financials as a basis.
And then they're going to go look at the HR stuff.

Speaker 1 Like the CFO is pretty close to HR. I mean, there's a guy I could recommend if you reach out to me.
There's a few different guys I know. A lot of times people confuse what a controller does and a CFO.

Speaker 1 A controller controls the money. They make sure that AR is not out of control.
They make sure AP is getting paid, accounts payable. They make sure that payroll is lined up right.

Speaker 1 They make sure it's just that all the bills you're collecting from clients, you're paying your bills.

Speaker 1 They're making sure they help put the financials together, but they don't really have any forward insight on the systems.

Speaker 1 And they're not looking at like, I don't want to belittle what a controller does because it's super important, but like they're going to make sure that you submitted all the receipts.

Speaker 1 Like you went out to dinner, who'd you go with? That's what a controller does. Like, do you got the receipt?

Speaker 1 They're controlling everything going in and out. I've had controllers find that a

Speaker 1 distribution center is double billing us. Like, that's what a CFO is really trying to figure out the future.
Like, how do we fix the business? How do we grow EBITDA? What's the strategy?

Speaker 1 They're way more forward-thinking. They're looking around corners.
They're saying, is there a better rebate program? Should we renegotiate with vendors?

Speaker 1 Like, a great CFO, I mean, potentially, depending on where you're at, should be the more they're involved in the business, but a fractional CFO will at least get you the right systems.

Speaker 1 Like, they'll get you the best credit card rebate. They'll make sure, like, they'll look at it and say, why is your AR out of control? Your AP is aging too fast.
Like, they just look at those things.

Speaker 1 So, just, if you reach out to me personally, I got a couple of names for you. What is your thought on marketing avenue channels? Resi painting, interior, and exterior.

Speaker 1 I think we can get one to 2 million with just Facebook, and I am in DFW. I have a thought about setting up a D to D, et cetera.

Speaker 1 What I would tell you is own one form of marketing. If you're going to do Facebook, you better be the best at Facebook.
You better be number one. And I would never start with Facebook.

Speaker 1 Consumer goods, depending on certain things, you could use Facebook. I like painting because you could look at it, but I would start with Google and I'd own it.

Speaker 1 I'd own every single sector, PPC, LSA, GMB, and organic.

Speaker 1 I'd start there.

Speaker 1 I think too many people, they try, hey, I tried radio, it didn't work. I tried Valpag, it didn't work.
Yeah, I tried that Google thing. It didn't work.

Speaker 1 Believe it or not, Angie's works.

Speaker 1 There's nothing, yellow pages still works if you do it right. It's just as it's just worth the squeeze.
There's no channel that I know that doesn't work. You could do porch.
You could do thumbtack.

Speaker 1 You could do. Next door.

Speaker 1 The biggest ones are Google, because that's where people go when they need something. If you're going to build a want where it didn't exist, use social media.

Speaker 1 Maybe you could get interest, but it's a different sales funnel. People go that need it done today.
I want to get my house painted. House painting around me.
That's a good client that wants it done.

Speaker 1 There's a high need there. So that's where I think you own a channel, then move on to the next one.
And now I've got lots and lots of channels, but I own one at a time. I didn't just spray and pray.

Speaker 1 I own one thing at a time.

Speaker 1 When will Tommy launch a Tommy approved list for home improvement, construction, et cetera? We trust you. When will Tommy

Speaker 1 launch a Tommy approved list for home improvement?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I think what you're talking about is like an Angie's list.

Speaker 1 I never thought about that, but,

Speaker 1 you know, Angie list became this really big business. It's different than when Angie started out.
She wanted to do good work with good people that honored their work.

Speaker 1 They stood by their work. Didn't mean it was the best price, but it meant that they showed up, they got it done, and they got it done right.
They honored their word.

Speaker 1 They didn't just go bankrupt when they couldn't, like they, they were a business a long time. They had great reviews.
They showed up and they cared for their clients.

Speaker 1 And that's more than most people can say. And I don't have that list.
It's definitely something I'll think about, but it's not happening this year.

Speaker 1 Are you ever thinking of getting back into the Houston market? We are in the Houston market. We're just Garage Door Doctor.

Speaker 1 Cody Johnson, Vince Johnson, and Ryan Johnson, we partner with them. They're some of the three finest gentlemen I've ever worked with.
Their work ethic is above anybody's I've ever met.

Speaker 1 They're amazing and they are murdering it. And they're traveling around the country doing hiring events for us.
They are team players and they garage door doctor is massive.

Speaker 1 They are our second biggest market. So those are my uh, they're my family now.
They were before, but now they're like, now we're partners.

Speaker 1 We have been building processes and procedures. What needs to be in place in order to consider scaling?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 like manuals and SOPs, how do you track that they're getting read and done? Like Tranual is a great resource to make sure your manuals are getting done because it gives a quiz afterwards.

Speaker 1 Can someone perform something in front of you? So L Levy talks about a field supervisor that goes and grades everything. Rilla Voice is a great tool.

Speaker 1 Service Titan or House Call Pro or any of the CRMs out there are their pictures and processes and things getting done.

Speaker 1 The more I know about what's getting done, the better. And I'm not really using it.
It's not like I'm trying to catch them doing something wrong.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to catch them doing something right and praise them for it. That's the difference between my management style.
Everybody's like when you get Rilla Voice or you add in a checklist.

Speaker 1 Like, listen, recalls don't make anybody money, including the technicians dispatchers and csrs like there's zero there so they got to understand my point of view we're very very critical on how we do things but it's hard when you got a group of older technicians that already have a skill set to teach them but every new guy that comes in here learns our way and it's the only way they know that's why some of the new technicians starting this month will beat all the guys that have been here for 10 years

Speaker 1 And by the way, the training's way better. The systems are way better.
And the tools are way better. We use AI, BI, and automation tools that no one else,

Speaker 1 I don't think anybody's using them in the way we're using them. Let's just put it that way.
So, I think you got to inspect what you expect.

Speaker 1 I think when you're building things, you need to make sure that

Speaker 1 they're getting done properly with data integrity. Next question: Tommy, can you please repeat what you said about San Diego? What's going on in San Diego September?

Speaker 1 So, homeservicefreedom.com. It's at the Marriott Marquis San Diego, Marina, San Diego, California, September 25th through the 27th.

Speaker 1 Last year, the Freedom event went absolutely phenomenal, but I promise you guys, this year it'll change your life. I bring a lot of your management team.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk about a lot of important things on how to scale your business. It's going to be some of the best,

Speaker 1 the best knowledge dropped ever in a conference. I will not let you guys down.
And it has a lot more to do with just business success.

Speaker 1 It has to do with like taking care of yourself, feeling good about when you look in the mirror. I'm not going to give you guys a bunch of lectures.
I've got amazing people. Jocko is going to be there.

Speaker 1 Darius Livers is going to be there. We got Ellen Rohr going to be on stage.
Sebastian is going to be talking about AI. I mean, there's going to be so many amazing things and so many takeaways.

Speaker 1 Sean Michael Crane is going to be there. Keith Mercurio is going to be there.
Steve Sims is going to be there. He's the freaking man.
If you haven't read Blue Fishing, we're packing this thing in.

Speaker 1 And it's not just like motivation. It's like things you need to do to fix your business.
Things you need to know. I know how to exit a business.
I know how to borrow. I know how to negotiate.

Speaker 1 I know how to buy businesses and build. And I'm just going to be discussing all these things.
And

Speaker 1 there's going to be some panels. You're going to learn about branding.

Speaker 1 This is not just every year we do the same thing. This one is going to be.

Speaker 1 an event for the ages. It's going to be the best one of the decade.
And I promise you, it will be amazing.

Speaker 1 We are in the HVAC industry and preach the same message to our technicians as we do to our leadership team. Do a system diagnosis, not a system diagnosis.
Do

Speaker 1 system diagnosis, not symptom diagnosis. Don't be afraid to challenge why you

Speaker 1 do the things you do. There is always an area that can be improved.
And if you want to. If we change the inputs, we change the outcome.
I'm looking at a small screen, so I'm just trying to read it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, you're right.

Speaker 1 It's systematic.

Speaker 1 When I went to service champions and I watched what Leland was training these guys back in the day, like they, they were methodical about how they took the unit apart, how they put it back together, the pictures they took and how they, like everything was a system and a process.

Speaker 1 Everything.

Speaker 1 When you find the most successful, like think about

Speaker 1 an assembly line.

Speaker 1 Like you got to put one part together before the other part. You can't, if you got a car, you got to have a body to attach the wheels to.
You can't start with the wheels and then build from there.

Speaker 1 Like a lot of people are just like, yeah, we do it how we've always done it. And each guy's got their own way of doing it.
That system's chance of success is zilch.

Speaker 1 You know, you don't get the same output. Everything's different.
Like, you know, when people call A1, they're like, we loved it. We loved.

Speaker 1 I know what we're supposed to do. Now, it doesn't get followed perfectly every time, but most of it does.
I can listen to the whole call on Rillo Voice. I can see everything they did on Service Titan.

Speaker 1 I know what the time they arrived if it was in the window. I can see the reviews they got because they got attribution.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know more than probably 99% of people because of the tools we use to follow up, of the tools we use to look at what's going on. We know how long they took at a job.

Speaker 1 We know when they started the work. If you started the work right away, you didn't build rapport.
I can see when you arrived at the job, when you started the work. That's one of the KPIs we look at.

Speaker 1 I mean, the data I'm looking at, and sometimes the data can get confusing to most people, but when you master certain data, you go and say, why are they getting zeros?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 they've never built in your report. Now I got Rilla Voice.
I can listen to the call. There's so many things I could do.
Next question.

Speaker 1 What are your top three marketing channels based on ROI? Google LSA. So, yeah, organic, GMB,

Speaker 1 and then LSA,

Speaker 1 and then PBC.

Speaker 1 And that's everybody's.

Speaker 1 It should be your organic listing, your site.

Speaker 1 Then it should be GMB or GVP. And then it should be LSA.

Speaker 1 And the reason why is you could beat people because no one knows how to do organic anymore. No one's focused on it.
No one knows how to optimize the GMB page.

Speaker 1 That's why I told you guys, you know, a month ago about my buddy Kellen.

Speaker 1 My buddy Kellen calls me up and he goes, Hey, Tommy, I think I've kind of figured out a way to really

Speaker 1 get Google expanding the pins and your location. So if you look at a location, you've got all these areas of this where the location is.
So if your location's here, X marks the spot.

Speaker 1 It's hard to see that. But how well are you ranking in the areas around there? And most of the people are not ranking good.
So he shows me this and he's like, listen, can I try with five areas?

Speaker 1 And I go, yeah, you could, yeah, I'll pay you to try. I was giving him a few grand a month.
And he threw in Scottsdale for me. He said, I want to see what I could do with your Scottsdale location.

Speaker 1 So we tried all that all these years. He was working with Robert, my VP of marketing.
And after two weeks, Robert goes,

Speaker 1 how do we hire Callan full time? And I'm like, well, he's got this business. He's kind of built.
And he goes, the results have been phenomenal.

Speaker 1 Like he's expanding the, like you see these green dots, yellow and red. And all of a sudden, after two weeks, they started turning yellow.
It was green.

Speaker 1 There was a lot of red, and then they started turning yellow. Then a month was like green, green, green.
When you show up in the three-pack on your GMB, it means you're getting more phone calls.

Speaker 1 The more you're number one in the GMB in the areas not really close, it's all proximity-based, the better it is. That has a lot to do with reviews, citation sites.

Speaker 1 It has to do with how often you post. He's figured out a way to extract service tightener, CRM data, and post unique pictures and tag them a certain way.

Speaker 1 So me and Robert called Kellen and we said we want to do all 70 locations.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah. And I said, I want for 70 locations, you better give me a good price.
And he did because I'm his buddy. But his company is P-I-N-P-A-R-R-O-T.com.
Pin parrot. P-I-N-P-A-R-R-O-T.com.

Speaker 1 And he's doing it for like 100 companies now. Like he scaled this thing super quick.
Most people don't care. They're like, most people don't even know attribution.

Speaker 1 They don't know they're getting more phone calls. So I told, I got a phone call from a buddy and he goes, dude, I'm spending 23% in marketing.

Speaker 1 And I go, dude, you're getting killed. I go, give me your locations.
And I called up Callan. He looked at locations.
He goes, one's not even getting found. It's not even getting scraped.

Speaker 1 Two weeks later, Taylor called me. and said, dude, I've got more calls than I've ever got,

Speaker 1 ever.

Speaker 1 Callan, I don't know why Google wasn't scraping it. I don't know exactly what he fixed, some type of location data thing.
And then he started optimizing it.

Speaker 1 And I guarantee you, Taylor's under 10% now.

Speaker 1 And if you're not getting your marketing right, like I say marketing is not the big thing, but if you're doing, if you're, if your Google is not getting maximum exposure, if you're not getting backlinks, if your load speed on your organic site's not loading quick enough, if your meta metadata is not set up, your H1 tags, you need metadata, schema data.

Speaker 1 Like if you want stars under your site you got to get the schema data right like there's load speed there's link building there's content that's very distinct content there's the way you build the pages there's all these things that go into this and it's complex that's why i became obsessed with it you know over a decade ago and everybody you know you're trusting a lot of people that don't do most of these agencies There's some really good ones out there, but most of these agencies are just taking your money.

Speaker 1 It's said it, forget it. they got somebody in india spending five hours a month and they're like yeah we did this this and this and you're not holding them accountable

Speaker 1 i talk to kellen twice a week roberts on his ass as well as the other 10 agencies we use as well as the 15 people we have internally like

Speaker 1 we're not just oh yeah well i went to the marketing company and i well who do you use tommy

Speaker 1 who do you use for marketing because who do i use i use the best of the best at everything i do and i hold their feet to the fire And I ask for the, just like your company, you probably have a shitty guy and a really good guy.

Speaker 1 I ask for their best at every agency. In fact, I work with most of the owners of the agencies.
I've been texting one all morning on LSA. Like, marketing is not really working for me.

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, your average ticket sucks. Your conversion rate sucks.
You're not booking the phone calls. You're closed on weekends.
You treat your people like shit.

Speaker 1 Secondly, there's no accountability at the agency. And they're in the set it and forget it mode.
So,

Speaker 1 sorry.

Speaker 1 Next question.

Speaker 1 I started my pest control business in Florida five years ago. I'm at 1.4 million today, and I want to get to 2 million by the end of 2024.

Speaker 1 What would Tommy be doing today if he was in my shoes to get to 2 million? Am I focused on the right goal, or should I be setting a higher goal at this stage of my business?

Speaker 1 Well, 1.4 million today is okay.

Speaker 1 So, I would want to know where you're pacing. So, you've got seven months, right? You've got June through

Speaker 1 December, and you need to grow 600,000.

Speaker 1 There's only three ways to make money. Remember this.
You get more customers, which is marketing. You charge your customers more money.
You're keeping them coming back more frequently.

Speaker 1 I would focus on number two, charge your customers more. So I'd be looking for a lot of different services.
Do they have pigeons?

Speaker 1 I'd be looking for one of those things in the wood that the things come out. You know what I'm talking about? There's like 18 services you could be doing, roof rats.

Speaker 1 I mean, mosquito service. And in Florida, there's a lot of things.
There's those huge snakes. I mean, what I would do is I would figure out how to charge more by adding services.

Speaker 1 And then what I would do is you're probably losing money on drive times. So I set up a door-to-door team for the street that I got the business.

Speaker 1 And I say, because we're already in your area, we're at Margaret's house down the street.

Speaker 1 Door-to-door, I don't like door-to-door to build a business, but I like it to lower drive times for pest control, for pools, for landscaping.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I talked to a pool company, or I'm sorry, a pest control company in Florida. He's like, since I started listening to your podcast, I was at 2 million.
Now I'm at 14 million.

Speaker 1 He mastered LSA. He dominates on Google.

Speaker 1 So if you put the money in the right things and you get a high conversion rate and you're smiling and you watch your attrition, because if you're losing clients, don't get new clients, plug a hole in it.

Speaker 1 So those are some of the things I'd be thinking about.

Speaker 1 Andrew said, I own an electric company. We do 2.6 million this year in residential service with an 18% net.
We have all the proper SOPs in place. We own our market.

Speaker 1 When would you bring HVAC?

Speaker 1 I have a really good grip on all of our financials and service time KPIs are dialed in.

Speaker 1 Well, okay, so you're electric.

Speaker 1 If it were me,

Speaker 1 I would probably go into plumbing next. Plumbing's all year round.
I would do electric. I'd go go to plumbing because that's all year round.
And then I'd go into HVAC.

Speaker 1 HVAC is a really, really, it's super profitable, but it's highly, obviously, weather patterns.

Speaker 1 What I'd be doing is making sure my electric company and my plumbing company has a bunch of service agreements. You get up to 10,000 service agreements.
Now your HVAC guy's got all year round.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, you're going into HVAC. And they have a great summer if you do it well.
And then you don't have any service agreements.

Speaker 1 So if you've got a ton of service agreements and plumbing helps this, then you say, Hey, part of your plumbing contract, we're going to send out our electrician.

Speaker 1 And then, part of your plumbing contract or your electrician or electric contract, we're going to send out our HAC guy to give you a tune-up and change your filters.

Speaker 1 It really helps to have contracts when you're in HAC, and plumbing and electrical help build that up. That's what I would say.

Speaker 1 I'm going to plumbing next, and you don't need to be a killer at plumbing, but I can tell you, drains and what, you know, pipe repiping and

Speaker 1 switching from like a 70-gallon tank to tankless. I can tell you there's some easy, low-hanging fruit.
And I build a checklist. I go look at their garbage disposal, every toilet.

Speaker 1 I'd make sure all the pressure's right in every shower. I look at their hot water heater.
I'd probably switch it over to tankless. I mean, it's not super complicated.

Speaker 1 It's harder than A-track, but those service agreements are key. Going off the fractional CFO question earlier, what are your thoughts of a fractional COO?

Speaker 1 We are a small family business company of four employees bringing in $650K a year for Hurricane Windows, Miami, for a reference. Jonathan,

Speaker 1 personally, it's like a fractional general manager, the operations leader. I mean, maybe it's a consultant that helps you with operations.

Speaker 1 I think it's really hard to sub out. Financials,

Speaker 1 I think you get a fractional probably CMO. You get a fractional CFO, and very rarely do I recommend that for a long time.

Speaker 1 I think a fractional COO,

Speaker 1 I wouldn't do that. I'd bring in somebody full-time because they need to understand your business from soup to nuts.
They need to be engulfed in it. I mean, my COO is so slammed.

Speaker 1 I mean, we're obviously a big business, but without having somebody focused on price book and operations and understanding the call center and understanding the product mix and understanding the different pricing, like

Speaker 1 a consultant could come in and help to get you to the level of hiring a COO. And there's a great book I'd read, Who, Not How, by Dan Sullivan and Dr.
Benjamin Hardy.

Speaker 1 And just to understand, everybody's like, they're too afraid. I'll tell you guys a story.
I didn't have a lot of money. I mean, I didn't have enough to bring on the top talent.

Speaker 1 And I kind of dug into my savings personally to bring on a couple key guys years and years ago.

Speaker 1 And I got a lot of the wrong guys, though. But when I got the right people on the bus and they've been where I wanted to go, And I put the right

Speaker 1 pay structure together to give them what's in it for them. And I really worked long and hard at this.
I wish you guys I could just say, here's how you pay everybody, but it's not how it works.

Speaker 1 Everything changed. The company started sprinting at a point that I could never run on on my own.
I mean, now I know my place.

Speaker 1 And when I brought these few individuals in, man, I mean, we were good. Me and Adam were golden.
But I don't think me and Adam could have got much more past 10 million of EBITDA,

Speaker 1 even though we do very well together. I'm sure I'll work with Adam again.
He's

Speaker 1 one of my best friends. But the company needed to grow.
And that means the people needed to grow. And that means the divisions needed to grow.

Speaker 1 And to not have somebody full-time, it's like, hey, I'm doing this to 10 different businesses.

Speaker 1 Show me your org chart again. What were you focused on? I got to catch up.
No, I want somebody living and breathing what I got to deal with. So that's my best advice.

Speaker 1 Tommy, can you talk more about when you started out and if your mindset going into being a business owner? Yeah. So my methodology was I was already buying and selling a lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 I was already kind of built to be a business owner. My mom was a realtor.
My dad owned a transmission shop.

Speaker 1 I never really liked my managers when I worked at a restaurant. They would always give me answers because I said so and the stuff.

Speaker 1 You know, and plus my mom and dad got a divorce because of money.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I figured out

Speaker 1 I'm going to have to work my butt off. I'm going to just make mistakes and figure it out.
And, you know, I'm 18 years into this thing.

Speaker 1 So it's not like, man, I want Tommy's success. I want to be like Tommy.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 unless you got a few million dollars to work with and a lot of knowledge and great consultants, it's going to take you a minimum of a decade. And I'm not trying to scare you out of it.

Speaker 1 But what I can tell you is it's not easy. I love you too, Cody.
When Cody met me, he was doing 500 grand. His dad ran a great business.
They just, Cody's one of those guys

Speaker 1 where him and his dad found Tommy Mellow at the same time. They read Home Service Millionaire.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they're like, have you heard of Tommy Mellow? They're both like, yeah.

Speaker 1 And they're like, he says to get rebranded by Dan Antonelli.

Speaker 1 So they did. And then he said, well, we got to get L Levy.
The same month they got El Levy, the same month they got on Service Titan, the same month they fixed their QuickBooks.

Speaker 1 They all did it all at once. But these guys work seven days a week, 12 hours a day.
Most of us need to take bite sizes. We go from one to one to one.
They hired Rabbit Hired.

Speaker 1 They did all these things. And they did them pretty darn good.
And within a year, they were at 3.5 million of EBITDA. 500,000 to 3.5 million.
And all they did was put their heads down and they worked.

Speaker 1 They didn't just do the manuals. They lived the manuals.
They didn't just call Jody to say, hire people. They called them every day and worked with them.
They didn't just get on service tighten.

Speaker 1 They lived it. A lot of people are like, yeah, we tried that service tight thing out.
It didn't work.

Speaker 1 Look in the mirror and say, I didn't work. I'm the problem.
Not everything's given to you. It takes hard work.
Call Cody and ask him. He lives, die, and breathes this stuff.

Speaker 1 So I would just, I just get frustrated because people are like, well, tell me what to do. Well, you're not going to do it anyway.

Speaker 1 You want a six-pack, eat healthy, drink water, like be at a calorie deficit

Speaker 1 and like work out

Speaker 1 and just do a little bit of cardio. You'll have a six-pack in six months.
Nobody has a six-pack. Very few people I know.
And they're like, you're asking me for the six-pack of your business.

Speaker 1 When you know what you got to do, you got to get your call center dialed in. You need to dispatch the calls to the best guys.
If it's a new equipment sale, who's got the best conversion?

Speaker 1 You know, you need to know your numbers. I mean, I'm just talking broadly here, but everybody's like, show me.
Basically, they're asking the same when they see a guy at the gym.

Speaker 1 What do you do to get in shape? They're waiting for this magic diet. You know what he's going to say? I work hard.
I'm consistent. I'm disciplined.
I watch my calories. I make sure I'm sleeping right.

Speaker 1 I drink a gallon of water a day. I'm getting my macros in and I'm getting enough protein.
And I'm staying consistent and I'm disciplined. And it'll happen to you too if you do that.

Speaker 1 But you know, they actually keep track of this stuff. They know how much they're doing.
We got to start cutting it. Listen, guys, you take all these questions.

Speaker 1 I just want to go back to this one to close out because I'm sorry I didn't get to all the questions. Then I got another appointment.
Working out's the best example.

Speaker 1 Like a lot of people are like, yeah, I want to get in good shape. I want to make $10 million.

Speaker 1 But they don't do the work. Like, you know, the people that have an app and they're tracking their calories, macros, and protein, they're in great shape.

Speaker 1 Like, all I see them and they're like, they're the people you see that you admire. They got great energy.
They show up more. They look you in the eye.
They're like very good shape.

Speaker 1 The people that I know with a great business, when everybody else is failing, they know their numbers. They know every number I've discussed.
They know their turnover rate.

Speaker 1 They know if it's voluntary or involuntary. They're doing 360 reviews.
They know every KPI dial down of the T. They know their financials.
They know where their workers comp.

Speaker 1 They know their payroll, where it should be and then you walk into work and you've got none of this and you want a six pack of your business you want it to be chiseled you want it to be profitable there's no chance what are you doing today what are you working on that's what i wonder like i know exactly what to be working on the numbers we look at i mean listen two years ago I wish I could have listened to this podcast because I was making a lot of money.

Speaker 1 But now,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 we're exceeding every goal we've ever set. We set a monthly goal, a weekly goal, and a yearly goal, and a quarterly goal.
We surpassed last month's goal by 800,000 of EBITDA.

Speaker 1 That's one month, almost an extra million. And very soon, I'm going to be looking into this camera saying, we're exceeding our goal by $5 million of EBITDA.

Speaker 1 And next year, we're going to have a new goal. It's going to be a Tommy goal.
But

Speaker 1 you guys put all your questions, go to homeservicexpert.com forward slash questions. Copy these questions.
I really wanted to get to them, but unfortunately, I just don't have enough time today.

Speaker 1 Homeserviceexpert.com. Giuseppe is going to put it in right here on the bottom.
Homeservice expert.com forward slash questions plural. Questions.
You go to that link, copy and paste your question.

Speaker 1 They'll be right at the top of my list for next month. I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 1 If you want a six-pack in business, you got to do the work. And it's not that complicated.
It's not rocket science. You You guys are making it way too hard.

Speaker 1 If it's hard to find great people, don't go to the unemployment line to recruit people. Go to church.

Speaker 1 Go to

Speaker 1 a BNI group and ask them for somebody. Go to social media where people have other jobs.
Go recruit somebody. Recruiting and hiring.

Speaker 1 There's one of two things that most people are saying: I can't find great people or I don't have enough leads. What if you're not booking the calls? You're not converting the leads.

Speaker 1 You're losing people out the back door that could be great.

Speaker 1 Anyways, I hope you guys win big this month i really do i want to answer your questions i absolutely love the q a days but i got to get going guys you make it a safe day make it a great day make this week unbelievable i appreciate you guys being here we'll see you guys later

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.