Q&A with Tommy - Taking Control of Your Finances Through Smart Debt Management

Well, your focus should be unless you're not only the top salesman, but unless you're like five times better, it should be to get out of the field. What actions are you doing to grow the business? Do you have manuals in place? Is your marketing dialed in? Are your meetings great? Are you inspiring the people every day? Are you good at recruiting? Are you getting enough leads to grow the lead volume? Are you networking out there, drumming up business, recruiting A-Players, and sharpening your current guys? When you're still in the field, it's so hard to

go around this call, no one else is going to run it. You're not training anybody. Now, if you're using that time to train, great. If you're using that time to build manuals, say, hey, I'm going to go do this job while I'm building the manuals, great. But if you're just running jobs to create revenue without training without writing manuals and SOPs and checklists, that's a waste of time.

And then, in leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Nello. 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 Elevate and win.com-forcelashpodcast to get your copy. Now, let's go back into the interview.

All right. Welcome back to the home service expert. Today is 2024 January. It's going to be a good Q&A. I'm excited about this one. So you guys know the book home service millionaire dot com-forcelashpodcast. Great first book, I wrote. And then if you haven't seen the course course dot home service millionaire dot com. And if you're not part of the home service expert group, you need to join that today. Home service expert type that in a Facebook.

Join it. It's free. Good ask questions there. I wanted to tell you guys some of my goals this year going into this new year. I've got a few things gross clothes. Right. That means service to sales. We're trying to increase that dramatically. As the visionary, it's my job to see that that gets done. Top grade and recruit. If somebody's got a will to succeed, I'm going to find a way. Right. Somebody's got a will. I'm going to find a way.

But they've got to have a huge will to succeed or it's my job to get them up or out. I don't believe in performance improvement plans. I believe in moving people up if they want that. If they want to get better, I'll help them. If not, I don't believe in tenure. I believe in merit based moving up the corporate ladder. I want to grow by seven percent technology. We're redoing all the technology getting things dialed in.

Acquisitions. I've taken the lead on that. Got a great team behind me. I'm going to be buying a lot of companies, partner with a lot of companies growing our EBITDA and personal brand. So this is going to be good. First, I want to start out by saying, I try to inspire my team, right? So I found a couple clips that meant a lot to me. And I want to share these clips with you. So hopefully you could hear these in the microphone.

One of them is by Gary Vanderchuck. I'm going to turn up the volume here. And let's listen to this one. How do I know that the person I'm going to hire? They don't take it. Gary. I've got really good hiring advice. Learn to fire fast. You guys have your ego tied up in your hiring. You think you're so good at hiring. And then you hire somebody and their ship, but you make pretend they're not because firing them admits that you were wrong. So it's your own ego.

So what he's saying there is our ego gets tied up in hiring. We bet on somebody and we want to fix them. We know we can get them better. But it's really causing damage to the company. I mean, you think about that and you think about it. Like if you make a mistake in hiring, you've got to just figure it out, right? Holding somebody on scene, they're going to get good in six months of coaching.

And this economy, can you really take the time to fix people or do you hire the best? So get better at hiring. And don't let your ego get in the middle. And number two. And you can never have any team chemistry for this reason. Mediocre people don't like high achievers and high achievers don't like mediocre people. So if mediocre people don't like high achievers and high achievers don't like mediocre people.

So if I went into your company, do you have a little bit of both? Do you got the high achievers and keeping the mediocracy level? The people that just want to get by, they hate to be last, right? But they don't want to be first. Aspired to be number one, one of our core values. Like those are the people I want to surround myself with. You know, I get really excited about this stuff. I had a whole discussion with Grasdor Freedom this morning.

And it was all about inventory. One of the other things I wanted to talk about today is if I walked into your shop, how much inventory do you have? Probably too much. You probably are making a big deal about you're saving five bucks by buying a thousand units. When the inventory gets old, it gets weathered, it gets aged, it disappears.

You should be in just in time going into this economy. You should be focused on getting lean and not have, when I was small in business, I used to say I could sell those old units, even though they're expired or whatever it was, like my mindset's completely shifted. The time that it would take to try to sell old shit. Just get rid of all the old stuff and start ordering just in time. And people are like, what about COVID? What about when we ran out?

Well, if you're planning on World War III or nuclear war or something crazy or COVID happening again and you're building your business around what if, that's a mistake. So you should be building relations with the eventers, making sure if something does happen, you're going to get first right of refusal and have that on paper. I want to read a question here by Art Tatar. It's my third year in business and we are going to do right under 600,000 revenue this year.

I wanted to know if it's a good idea to take on debt to keep growing. I know we can break a million next year, but we need to level up big time. Here's what I would tell you. If I was under 10 million, I would never, ever, ever take out a loan because the mistakes you make are that much bigger when you have a lot of money.

If you told me exactly what you were going to put the money into and let's say you took out 300 grand and you put 20 grand in and took out 50, I say, okay, put it in another 100. But a lot of times you got the money and all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to build a training center. I'm going to order a 10 more trucks. I'm going to over hire for where we're going to be.

And all of a sudden you start losing money. When you're small in business, you can't afford to make big mistakes. So if you don't have a lot of money, they're smaller mistakes that allow you to keep going. Now I can make 100,000 mistakes and nothing twice like we invested 300,000 in the hockey team in Las Vegas, Las Vegas nights.

And you go, great, I hope it kills it. If it doesn't, we learned if it does, we'll do it in 10 other markets. We can't afford to experiment a little bit. But when you're small, you got to stay lean. And when you're borrowing money, it doesn't belong to you. Bare minimum, you need to be making 10%. If you're not making 10% do not invest in growth.

If you drop below 10% do not invest in growth. Invest figure out how to get more profit. 10% that threshold. So remember that. Okay. Nathan Simon said, I'm a sales manager for an H.H.H.H.H. company in Milwaukee. I was wondering how your text present the review request. We currently have a service tie and automatically send it over after every call. Do you have certain verbiage that you use that message text? Hmm, wondering how your text present review request. I don't understand the question.

So what happens if you're asking about reviews from the client service to an automatically sends that out. Service say automatic a lot of people pay their people for reviews and I'm okay, but that's your job to get reviews. So all incentivize if we got a new Google My Business page, which is a GVP. And we need to get like 90 reviews on there. I'll give them 10 bucks review to get those reviews.

But then it's all organic like they do a great job. It's on their score cards. So we're tracking that anyway. Like I'm not going to pay you extra to show up on time. Some people give like I will say with CSRs. We had to pay them to not take off on Mondays.

Like they can take PTO whenever they want. So we needed to incentivize them Mondays is a big day. But I'm not going to pay a technician to get good reviews. That's part of their job. It's like I'm not going to pay you more to have a high conversion rate. We do have prizes and contest and gamification. So I find it hard to pay people extra to do their core job. Matt said, how do you discuss your performance pay structure and trees me.

I'm actually just about to implement my own performance pay system, but I'm still not totally satisfied. I know how to handle the fact that we have employees making a high hourly rate and will achieve up to a 10% performance based bonus on top. I like to find a way to increase the performance pay and reduce the hourly somehow. Well, the way that you do this, Matt, as you run the most simultaneously.

And you start out with a core group. Let's say you start out with three of your technicians or your CSRs or your dispatchers. What you do from there is you show them it takes some math and you got to make sure you're getting to the desired outcome higher performance higher conversion rate higher average tickets.

Five star reviews less warranty work all the good stuff. So you're going to focus on what's going to move the needle in a way that is allowing you to make more money for the company higher. More job satisfaction higher retention rates and also pay them more the more the performance the more you could pay and you're still winning. So I want you to think about that.

What's nice about Microsoft Excel is you can kind of play around with the numbers and do a lot of hypothetical based on historic data. And you can kind of crunch the numbers in eight different ways to figure out I make way more money and the tech makes way more money or the CSR makes way more money.

So it's one of those things where you got to sit down you got to be good at math. Most successful people that are really good at business understand math, they understand equations, they understand formulas, they understand algorithms. And you just got to play around now I'm no Excel genius, but I understand formulas and how I want them to work. And I work with really smart people to kind of move things around and shift them.

And as I mentioned, I got a team I see, oh, Luke and Brian to have import like the team I have have basically built the performance pan their own the last few years and they'll run it by me. I'll change a couple of things here and there, but for the most part, the teams learn how to do that. A lot of help from L Levy, learn a lot and how the manuals work.

He's got to feel supervisor program. I mean, if you guys haven't heard, Ells, a very smart guy. You just got to pay attention and do what he tells you. Yeah, so the question was, how does your tech ask her reviews? Well, the best way to ask her review is to tell personal story. You show them a picture of your kids. You say, this is the reason I fight. This is the reason I show up on weekends. This is the reason I do what I do.

I want to give these guys a great Thanksgiving. I want to give them a great spring break. This is my everything right here. When you give me a five out of five and hopefully I lived up to those expectations. People actually find me online and they request me. So if you take a picture of me working, it mean the world to me. If you let the world know I did a good job because when they find me on Yelp, Google, Angie, whatever it might be, they request me.

It gives me job security helps me feed my little ones, my everything. It's got to be a personal story. It's got to be the technician asking for the review about his big why. You know, I'm saved up to take my dad on a fishing trip every review I get. I get called for people call up. They see the reviews. You leave a good review. Hopefully I gave you five out of five service. It mean the world to me.

People leave reviews for people not companies. How do you prevail your texts from being more motivated by upselling versus over servicing by upselling over servicing? Well, here's the deal. I think that comes down to education. You're saying just fixing the problem versus fixing the entire system as it takes a lot to get them to believe in the parts.

So we do a lot of like Mojo calls. We talk about worn out parts. We got to get them to believe that it's the best thing for the client replacing the door after 10 years old and it's standard and it's oxidized paint and the trims falling apart. Anybody can fix it. But is it really best for the client to not replace it? Should you kick the can down the road? Or should you restart the clock? We say these things. We practice these terms.

And we see them so often that when you hear something enough, you start regurgitating it. And our meetings are pretty much the same all the time. We bring new speakers in. But they're mainly the same KPIs for you out mindset motivation. What gets you up and trying in the morning? Why do you buy in so much? And I get guys to say there was a time in my career at this company seven years ago when I used to run.

One full day of recalls a week. And then I decided I'm just going to fix it right. I'm going to look at every single part do show and tell and fix and replace everything that has any worn to have any damage parts. And you know breaks do not work without calipers and rotors. It's a system. And most things work off of systems. When you got an older HVAC unit you still got an old capacitor.

You got an old blow or fan you got all kinds of stuff that can go bad. Is it really efficient to fix that when you got 10 year old parts of everything. When you've got a car and it's 90,000 miles old you bring it into the dealer they replace all the belts. They'll replace sometimes the timing chain. They'll put in a new radiator they'll put in a new battery.

Nothing's failed on it, but they want to get in front of it before it fails. So everybody knows that about their car. So if you could use these examples and analogies people understand that. You know when you buy a tire it might be rated for 20,000 cycles, which are miles might be rated 30 might be rated 40. What type of buyer you do want it to last. 40,000 miles with a warranty from discount tire you might pay $1,200 or you could pay 500 and anytime it gets a puncture you're paying another 500.

Two types of buyers you got to deliver value. You're not doing yourself credit if you're not able to convert that customer. That's why we give options like we say if you're not giving options you're giving all to made them. Looking to scale the business from one location to 10 what keep performance indicators. Should I focus on to measure growth effectively.

Additionally what personal and roles to hire. Well listen, if you're going to grow you got to be extremely profitable and 10 locations is not easy. I said a short term goal of the second location with a lot of emphasis. The first location is easy. It's the easiest location. It's where you grew up. It's where you live. It's where you go to church. It's where your kids go to school. It's where your wife knows people your husband knows people is where your family is.

So first city is easy second city's harder. Focus on that second one and then I go. Okay, how do I get a third then how do I go to five. One to 10 is a little ambitious because sometimes you make mistakes. I opened too many stores too fast didn't have the right leadership team didn't really have the systems in place from the mothership.

And had a close four markets. Now I'm going back to all four of those markets but. Timings everything you got to be very, very careful on how aggressive you want to get on growth because if you're not profitable you could lose everything very, very quickly you might have a nest egg of $2 million saved up. And putting it into growth all of a sudden you got a million you're like I'm still going to grow and you all of a sudden the money starts running low it's hard to get a loan in this economy.

And you're like well I grew too fast and I don't have the right people the right processes. I don't have enough money to keep going so that you shrink back up and you lost two years where you thought you were going to grow. I recommend making one market massive before you go to the second one because. Still a lot of opportunity in your current market did you feel like you're at the level.

The highest level of your market did you capture enough market share in your current market because if not it's not easier in another market to be easier to take more market share where you're currently at. Why do people want to go to a new market before like if you're doing two or three million in your current market do not grow focus on that market to your 10 15 20 30 million dollars best advice ever.

Oh here's a good one I invested in the seven power contract or manuals any tips on getting the most out of them I'm excited to set standards in my business and be able to pay my text more. So just like anything I had a leavey right next to me building the manuals paid them a lot more money than you spent so this is kind of a self motivating manuals right so you got to sit down you got to do the hard work. I'll give several hours for free so you call them and you get stuck.

You got to get them the core manuals the CSR dispatch tech heavy technician manual install manual done then you need to read it every day with your guys you got to have the minutes release page read it out loud make it part of your culture and if anything goes wrong. I need pto how does pto work how do I get time off what everyone I broke down hey I just came with a new tattoo on my face all that stuff's in the manuals.

You need to read it out loud and make sure everyone knows what the rules and regulations how they win how they get paid how they take inventory all those things are in the manual. And now there's a good job of laying out what you need to do with inventory what you do with facial hair how you do with breakdown of your truck there's an index in the back but you got to do the work.

Luckily I add him in my office pushing me every day to finish it I had Adam and Brian we worked on them every day till they got done we made them part of the culture we read them every day. And now they're still part of what we do and that set us up for the systems to grow the s op to think through how we want to rollers install to do it the safe way and get the same outcome every time. Because before everybody was doing rollers differently they were doing springs differently.

You know you got to be very careful but what I would say is you got to make time every single day to work on them notice actions turn off your cell phone work with two managers and get down and get through a large section at a time when you get stumped use L. He offers the ability to call him knows most people they buy that and because it's working to own pace nobody gets it done because it's not fun it's boring as hell.

What are the policies and systems in the business you got to think through them and think what's going to last forever what is this company going to look like in 10 years how do I make every markets walk and talk the same way. And I can tell you that it's not fun for a guy like me I like marketing sales like growth like motivating manuals are like operations but man are they important if you want.

Can you imagine and make donals everywhere you went the big Mac taste a different way the fries were always different like they've got systems to make sure might not be the best food but you know what you're getting so manuals create that environment to know at least when this guy goes out in this market it's going to be the same as the not a market or. The guy goes on on Saturday it's going to be the same as the guy that worked on a Friday. So that's what it does.

All right we are currently a new construction market and Razi and commercial would you suggest getting into servicing replacing doors or should we just focus on new construction. I mean I never seen a new construction company the problem with new construction for most people is it has inflows with the economy interest rates go up they continue to go up.

Usually houses don't sell as fast so the reason private equity stays away commercial is a completely different animal the new construction different trucks that up different insurance different AR different hourly pay. I mean no offense because I know a lot of people weeks do anything we could get our hands on you want to pay me I'll figure it out.

And I talked about this one of my Instagram Reels but you guys go to official Tommy mellow on Instagram or TikTok I went ahead it took a good gate job and it was a solar key pad we installed it I kind of know how to work on that stuff but not very good. And I had a warranty call the first week then I had to the next week and this happened for a year by the time I got done I lost $20,000 and paid minor to go fix it might have been a minor action.

And the fact is taking everything on that I can make money is not a good solution so many people they say I'm going to charge two X if I pay 500 for a door I'm going to sell for a thousand on new construction. And then when they pay their hourly people they pay for gas they pay for the truck they pay for the insurance to get a workman's comp claim there's no money left over.

And what's nice about the builder is they're just going on to the next smock that's going to charge very little and leave you with very little profit and I'm not saying it's wrong because there are builders this I want it done the right way I want you to put quality parts and I'm going to pay you for that and I'm going to pay you on time.

The big guys typically don't and it ebbs and flows with the economy commercial could be great but you know I was at a big commercial company that has garage doors they bid on big big huge jobs I mean a lot of them were four to 500,000 they only get 30% of the bids they got to be able to read the blueprints do the bids and not make any money or the ones they don't get it's a completely like if you can't go into a biz if you can't get to 10 million of profit and commercial or new construction

what's the point I mean I think you should pick one get a huge go to the next one the reason a check this plumbing does electrical is because they got a shoulder season they were forced into doing multiple trades everybody in the grass industry they're like oh I hostel oh I do home depot and lows oh I do new construction oh I do commercial oh I do service and it's like where do you make your money but we don't even know we're not really sure like if you don't have a good CFO to even know where the money's coming from and I'm not discouring you about stealing the money.

I'm discouraging you about standing those you might be extremely profitable but demand working garage doors and HVAC and roofing they don't go away I don't care how bad the economy gets if your door is not opening if your AC is not working if your hot water heater is broken you're still going to get it fixed that's why these businesses demand driven are so great because we know well the service work will always be there I went through 2008 910 I've been through COVID I've been through like the tough times and service never slows down that's why it's kind of recession proof.

Corey said Tommy answer the review question along with the upsell question training if you train 3 to 4 to 5 X a week and role play will solve issues with reviews and upsells practice how you want to learn to handle these situations great advice. Hey Tommy you had mentioned about a month ago that the market for home service was showing a down turn in a few trades is your network still reporting a downward trend.

Well we're still in the shoulder season for most look winter landscaping pest control HVAC in particular windows everything kind of declines and garage doors it's not quite as bad but in the winter in Milwaukee into trade nobody's replacing doors like they will be in the summer so are we seeing a decline yeah I mean interest rates have come down. I've expect them to come down we've got good news in the economy wall streets doing great ultimately do I believe it's going to be a soft landing yes.

Do I believe that everybody treated last year like it was 2022 yes they went balls to the wall started doing acquisitions decided we're going to invest in growth and the leads did not come as easy as 2021 2022. Therefore we hung out with some people we probably shouldn't have kept on we kept on the people thinking we're going to grow into this so you had all these extra people we're keeping around say we're going to grow into this we're going to grow into this.

And you didn't and you didn't make a good profit you saw month over month drop in revenue so you compare this January with last January. And the right mindset is to get super lean and if you don't crush last year but you make a good profit you're doing great. You know I don't know why everybody wants to continue growth in the best years we've ever had in home service it was like the lottery it was like everybody was calling demand they had enough demand in in two years to equal 10.

And we just assume it's like saying I know the stock market you know the S&P 500 to 24.5% 24.8 it's like I'm going to put all my money in the S&P this year because it went 25% last year. It's cyclical it doesn't always work that way. So you got to get either very creative is how you're going to do it you got to top grade get lean train double down on train to get better recruiting get a better price on parts you got to do a lot of things right.

If you're going to grow in a downturn and one out of a hundred companies are going to do that not very likely when you're buying and building it's easier because you can apply principles to existing revenue and calls coming in. But acquisitions are not easy either they're very very difficult integrations taking a whole different mindset of a bunch of people and turning them into the same culture and vision as you have.

It's not for the favorite heart most of the companies I know have failed at it the biggest ones I know are not doing good at it like they're taking a pause trying to figure out how to get everything walking and talking the same kind of fit to everybody and say yeah we buy great companies to let them operate alone. We let them operate on their own we just assist them with resources bullshit.

No one wants to buy 10 different companies from 10 different vendors with different CFOs in the company with different leadership teams with different missions different visions no one wants to buy that you can have multiple brands that work on all the same systems the same call center get the same insurance on the same workers comp.

You can't have five CFOs and five CMOs in a different structure like it doesn't make sense anybody that believes that maybe there's some use cases out there where that works for you by a group of good companies that all walk and operate different.

But if I'm a buyer I'm like wait a minute if I call a portfolio company and I get a completely different on a different CRM different truck make up different everything like no one wants that if I'm a big investor in the best pe companies they're not going to buy this scrambled crap you need to unify the company. That's I just went out on a rant. Let's see Andrew said I just got my C20 license started in LLC as a small business with not much capital how do I generate leads in the beginning.

Andrew there's nothing better than word of mouth you go out there to be an I groups you go to the chambers of commerce meetings you shake a lot of hands you stop at a realtor's office every morning and every night you go meet with builders you talk to the people that.

There's sure people we all know that you call with something breaks you need to learn to identify those people you got to ask every customer for three or four reviews instead of one say I need one on next door I need one on Google anyone on you but I need a Facebook video you got the time to do that you're going to have to do things for less money when you go to a home show say I'm doing a $29 to not for everybody it's my first year in business I'm a hard worker get them to buy into your story and why they should invest in you the small entrepreneur David versus go I if.

If you got to go out there meet the people every single day become a networker you need to invest in easy things like get your Google my business in a good area get a lot of reviews post on every day get that working. You need to get LSA working and you need to start have a great website have a great brand when you have an ugly ask brand because you can't afford a good logo and a good name.

You're going to work 10 times as hard but if you're starting with very little money you probably can't afford Dan Antonelli but so you get a shitty rap by a cheaper company and then you never it's almost like save more money and go at it the hard way and get your name out there and don't go after the entire metro figure out where the money is at and focus on those areas networking in those specific areas like if I was in Phoenix I split it up into eight grids and I focused on one of the focus on Scottsdale and Paradise Valley.

But here's the deal if you're not good as sales going to those market going into Paradise Valley you might want to start in like 10 B so understand what your strengths are it's great it's discipline is showing up every day I tell a lot of people Andrew don't start a business if you're barely barely making as meat because you're going to have a job for the next 10 years.

You can have a job making 200 grand if you're good at what you do save more money invest that money because it sucks to be just trying to make payroll every week unless you go run jobs you wonder why you get stuck in the truck that's why if you're not in the truck you don't make money if you're not on the phones you don't make money if you're not out there trying to figure out how to drum up business you're not making money well you can't go on vacation you can't ever relations you can't be a good father a good mother you can't it's very very hard it's not for the fainting heart.

How often do you think you should have meetings also how often should you make your team role play. Well you can have a lot of meetings but the difference is we probably have 25 meetings a day I'm only involved in one or two a week.

Meetings are a form of communication emails a form of communication slack is a form of communication depending on who needs to make decisions I think that meetings could waste a lot of time because there's another person will have a meeting of 12 people it only took three people to be in that meeting and then it's a brainstorming session instead of here's the decision we need to make here's the SWAT analysis we've done here's where we think we should move do you agree those are the type of meetings and they're quick to the point then we'll have brainstorming meetings and we'll have an agenda on those.

But I'm not I'm fine with a lot of meetings as long as there's a point and there's the decision makers that need to be there you know I think it was Elon Musk or jet base also said if you're in a meeting and you don't feel like it's important to you and you got stuff to do you're a lot of walk out of any meeting because man there's this clock I used to have and you can find it online you put what everybody makes per year into the clock so you might have 120,000 50,000 200,000 120,000 and 60,000.

And then it assumes 40 hours a week most of us work more than that and it tells you every minute how much it costs you for that meeting and it's crazy how expensive meetings could be when you put 20 people into a room that are high paid individuals and don't have any type of arrangement of how the meetings going to be do like an agenda.

Here's the meeting we're having today here's what we need to get figured out here's the options that are presented there should be a lot of work that go into meetings not we're going to have a meeting and figure out when we have the meeting those are the good meetings. And then as far as role play goes, I mean listen, it's heavy, heavy, heavy in the beginning and then depending on the KPIs and what you're doing not everybody needs to role play every day like literally if Wayne Gretzky is

graded this shot he doesn't need to practice it as much as he might need to practice something else. So like certain people on my team they don't need to practice as much but I want them to practice with others to pull them up and I'll pay them to do that. And then they'll correct them they'll say no, no, here's what I say here's why number one. So the top guys role play with the other guys.

And some of the guys don't do greater role playing because it's not a real life scenario. So sometimes sometimes sometimes you need the top guy to take the other guy out and then after the job work on hate let's role play what you did there. And hopefully you got it recorded in Arizona only one part of these to know your recording and then you can play back and say here's three of the things you could have done in that scenario.

And usually if I'm out there and I I don't always recommend this but if they're about to lose the sell at the senior tech take over. But it's hard to learn sometimes you got to be okay with this hero as a learning experience and I hate to say that because I try to earn every clients business but sometimes you got to be okay to walk away you can't please everybody. And even though you can save it it might teach the tech a better lesson to walk away and it's a lesson they'll never forget.

I have one tech and I spend about 10 hours a week in the field. A lot of what you say makes sense but some of it doesn't apply to me at this specific time. What should be my focus at the stage of the game. Well your focus should be unless you're not only the top salesman but unless you're like five times better it should be to get out of the field.

What actions are you doing to grow the business do you have manuals in place is your marketing dialed in are your meetings great are you inspiring the people every day. Are you good at recruiting are you getting enough leads to grow the lead volume you networking out there drumming up business recruiting a players and sharpening your current guys.

When you're still in the field it's so hard like hey I got to go run this call no one else going to run it you're not training anybody now if you're using that time to train great if you're not. I'm going to go do this job while I'm building the manuals great but if you're just running jobs to create revenue without training without writing manuals and s op and checklists that's a waste of time.

Like you should get other people to do that and if you need to do that to make money which I had to do that just consider that it's a job it's not some people don't have a business yet they still have a job let me define what a business is to me.

A business will run without me for at least three months of never looking at the sea I remember showing up to any meetings I could go to Tahiti I could go to Chile I could go to Africa I could go anywhere in the world for three months business runs fine we still grew I wasn't here that's even though you have an LLC a real business works without you that's a business that's my definition so your goal should be to run something when you're not there.

There is one thing that you said in the past I made wrong hires and semi back trying to keep them on staff they are great now but I noticed I was instill and the bottleneck they are great now yeah listen I can turn anybody into a great employee to give me long enough I can teach anybody how to read.

But it might take two years take a foreign exchange to the never you know from Asia or another country that's not even close to the English language it's going to take a long time I'm not saying they can't read but how much effort is it going to take for me to get them to read very great and so you can teach anybody anything I q matters and eq definitely matters eq is how well I relate to others and communicate it's more of the street side of stuff it's it's eye contact and I'd rather take somebody without.

I think that's the other takes somebody with a high eq that understands how they make people feel high IQ isn't required in in home service as much high IQ is great if they could figure out stuff but the CFO position needs a high IQ because they're looking at things just solving problems looking at the future looking at the past making critical decisions.

Typically CFOs on at the highest eq but they're great at math and setting up tables and figuring out how to get discounts and rebates so I would say musely it's the owner getting in the way it's pride don't hire people like you figure out your superpower hire people that you suck at doing inventory higher that person you're you're not good at organization higher that person you don't need to become greater and everything that's the falsehood of business is I got to be greater all these things you need to be a great delegate.

A great leader a great visionary need to hire people that are better than you and everything else. Tommy appreciate all that you do I want to register modeling company north of Denver we are an established quick growing company and will do about three million dollars and twenty twenty four question.

I was encouraged to get an SVA loan to help us break through some of the current barriers the loan would go to office and support staff better training for a cruise implementing a great new branding truck and wraps etc looking to borrow about two hundred fifty thousand thoughts. It's like I said with a loan when you look at your finances a great CFO would be able to say this money is going to compound.

You're going to make three to four million dollars you're making ten percent you should be making a hundred to a hundred twenty five thousand a quarter. Why can't you do those things with that money. I would be very very disciplined with that two hundred fifty grand I put fifty in.

And see how much I get back out if it's always a deficit of a time I put money in because you're still going to pay interest now that's the great vehicle to get ahead I did an SBA loan I did an SBA loan on this building the building next door.

But that was an asset that actually went up and dramatically in value and I didn't have to pay rent so instead of paying rent I paid my mortgage use the SBA loan to put it into place and now the buildings worth twice what I paid for it it's all you know these buildings are paid off now.

But you know an SBA loan to buy a building is a great investment great investment to upgrade vehicles that they're not breaking down all the time and they're an asset great investment but to say I'm going to put this into training if you want to do that.

Training if you get the wrong trainer of a sudden when your business is small every dollar you borrow you're paying interest on it really hurts you more because you make bigger mistakes with more money and if you don't have the money and it's not producing money you learn lessons hard you can screw up your credit you could never be able to buy a house take seven years.

You know small implement small money invest a little bit and see how much you take out. I am slowly growing my company looking to hire our first sales rep and project manager my brother and I have been doing jobs since we started. What I need to prepare for in the stage of growth.

My buddy Tom Howard was involved in a company in Vegas and that's a tech and Dan it's an I did the branding and what they figured out was they had two rock stars one rock star Brent Buckley then they got another rock star fill. And these two guys could do a million bucks a month.

First key hires of a business you better get rock stars you want to have explosive growth made the company worth a lot of money pay more recruit harder give them equity of the company whatever you need to do to stack the deck to get those right guys.

For performers usually what we do is we say we can only afford an apprentice is $17 an hour and then we're telling a kid that 20 years old never touch a tool to go out there be a top performer because we just don't have the money when we paid a little bit more I mean how much of a difference is that when a guy selling a 5 to

10 unit for 20 grand versus 6 grand well that's what time Howard had guys doing and people say no one would pay 20 grand well you're wrong we live in a capitalistic society called the United States of America people have a right to pay whatever they want these jeans cost 130 bucks I know jeans that costs 500 and no jeans I can pick up for 20 bucks.

So you know people pay $500 for Jordans people pay $1500 for an iPhone but they complain that somebody's too much money I go buy a phone for 60 bucks or I can pay 1500 people buy what they want they get behind a company they want to know that there weren't he's going to be legit that it's a safe person in their house anybody that thinks you can't charge a high amount of money.

All my buddies have Rolexes all my buddies go to expensive state dinners there's so many weak minds that keep line of themselves I can never charge that I couldn't sleep a night well how do you sleep and I not paying you guys shit how do you sleep and I know everybody's driving you trucks how do you sleep and I know and you're using the third best CRM because you couldn't afford the best how do you sleep and I know and you can't afford the marketing to make the phones for the people busy.

This weak mindset on these Facebook groups tries me nuts it tries me for it can nuts. Oh yeah, I can literally the excuses I see made as they can never charge that well you live in your house you work out of your house your wife works for you for free your daughter's taking inventory you pay her $10 an hour and you brag about how you hold your prices down to take care of the customer when you can't even afford workers comp you can't even afford to pay people as W2's because you can't afford the taxes you can't afford the taxes.

You can't afford to put your business in the right LLC or S corporate C corp to get it figured out correctly because you can't afford the lawyers so many people brag about charging very little. I know there's people that gouge and they're literally overcharged because they don't deliver the quality that's not okay either and there's always bad actors in the space.

But when you got a good legitimate company paying W2 is letting people retire early putting their kids in private school by homes putting in performance pay models to let them earn more in their life. You get economies of scale you don't need as many people to drive the numbers you want and I just anybody that says, oh yeah, I hate the big guys because they charge more well they've got systems they got recruiters they've got trainers they've got an HR team that do you have an HR team.

Most of us don't want an HR team but my point is you got to have nice things in your company if you want to track the right talent and it saying you charge too much pizza hot charges too much but you still order it. You know everything you get home depot makes that really hell of a profit look ever looked at their annual report.

I just don't understand just because somebody charged a lot doesn't mean they're bad people you're the bad person by not charging enough and taking care of the people around you period. If you are a licensed plumber electrician and you do not have any capital to start a new business. But you do have systems and experience and running a business you understand everything involved from marketing to SOP's to culture division of mission of values. How would you go into business 24 25 well.

That's the thing I always say if you're under fun or when you get started you're actually doing yourself a disservice if you got those kind of skills you go make 225 grand anywhere you go and probably get a piece of the actual whether that's profit sharing or equity if you're that great I go work for five years and I tell that business order I'm going to start a business in five years or you give me equity in this business and I'll grow your business.

Why start with zero I know it's that this is the American dream start a business but it you've got to work Saturdays you've got to work Sundays you got to get your ass out of bed on Thanksgiving is still run those calls if you got no money.

You're so well you've got to perform and you want that stress on your family most businesses fail and I'm the probably the only person giving you the hard truth because you will see people that start a business with nothing and it took me 17 years it took a lot of blood sweat tears it took a long time to get to this point you guys don't know the struggle it's real.

So if I'm that good in business and I understand all this stuff right now there's companies begging for you begging they'll pay you top top top dollar they give you a 401k if you don't have 500 grand in the bank go earn it for three years right I don't know it like hopefully if you if you learn all these things along the way hopefully you bought a couple houses you can take an equity line and you got money but if you still don't have anything why does it make sense to take a loan out or work on a shoestring budget.

I don't think it's the right decision because I had to stay in the truck till 2013 2014 for the first five six seven years and that's what it's going to take to be successful you're going to be working in a job for your own company either way but you're not going to sleep you're not going to take vacations and you're going to affect relationships just my two sets now can you make it yes do I have every belief in the world that I'm pushing you to do it yes.

But you got to be very strategic very careful very limited growth focused on profit stack dough stack money work in the field but save all the money promise when you're on your own you got this great feast your family you get a great month you're like dude let's go to out the eat we're going to go to Hawaii on a trip we're going to buy that second we're going to buy that R.B.

Whatever it is and then you have that bad month leads just don't come in and you're like shit I just spent too much money last month I hired two guys and it just doesn't hit you got to have a good amount of money in the bank they say six months to pay all your bills including pay roll and all your inventory that's if nothing came in.

I know you're in the acquisitions what is your buy box for acquiring existing companies love your stuff man thanks Jim I mean listen I try to buy companies that are growing I try to buy company. I get it a lot of leads I love the companies that have the running seven or eight leads a day because I only run three or four a day so I can automatically double the technicians they can take their time on the job.

I like companies that are starving for people rather than starving for leads some companies that have been out there 30 years I buy all residential service indoor sales retrofit all dabble in a little bit of commercial and new construction as long as it's less than 20%

and there's not a lot of companies out there I mean unfortunately you think there's thousands that I can partner with but there's just not buying the right company staying disciplined waiting for the opportunities that's half the battle.

I think when the people are in my shoes are like I need to buy I need to buy I need to buy shit if we can't buy we're just going to grow organically we're going to greenfield in a new markets we've got the model I don't need to buy if I'm putting two million or three million dollars into a company in a market let's just pretend I was buying somewhere in Delaware what if I put three million dollars into marketing I could probably build that same thing.

So there's choices here so I do have a buy box I love to buy especially if I could take their KPIs and increase them average ticket conversion rate booking rate cost for acquisition if I can affect the outcome in those KPIs I'll buy them all day because I might get back my return in a year to 18 months if I'll do that I'll do that all day when you master greenfielding it good at it that's what P that's what any investor would love they got a formula to go into a market within two years there at 2 million of EBITDA that's nuts and that's a great investment I'm going to do that.

And that's a great investment I'll get behind a company like that all day long. Hey Tommy happy new year at what point does it make sense to introduce new employees managers for each department I service installs.

It's a good question so what I like to do is I look at capacity if one of my guys are running more than four jobs a day like let's say it's 4.1 I need to hire two technicians get it back to three is the starts coming back up now it takes two months for me to hire a tech it takes one month to find them one month training in their market one month through train them in Phoenix.

So it actually takes three months so if I'm seeing we're getting like 3.7 jobs on average that day for a week I need to hire two guys in that market knowing it's going up because I know what my marketing's doing we know on our budget how many calls we're going to get per month in each market.

And it's our VP of marketing's job to make sure we hit that budget if we're hitting over that which is a great problem to have we get more leads we still got things we can lower our paper click will lower our paper click as expensive. But we know we can get more leads so then we'll go into a hiring a capacity planning throttles everything and it's a tough thing to get correct I got jobs I've got technicians sometimes any more tech sometimes any more jobs.

I much rather need more text and more jobs so it's called capacity planning and you got to have some ratios that you look at to say this is the threshold of when we need to hire. What do you do with your personal profits real estate stocks etc so I invest in other businesses and I've got a pretty big stock portfolio we mostly invest in S&P 500 things real estate stuff because you think real estate is said and forget it and sometimes it is for the most part it's a lot to manage.

I'm not at the point of my life where I want to buy a bunch of real estate in fact I'm selling a lot of real estate I'm holding on to this building the building next door to apartments one of the leases I have my dad's house and my two houses kind of a lot of real estate but in the scheme of things I'm selling a dozen houses. It's too much to manage a deal okay on the real estate get it back in you know if I can make 7% of my money I'm doing great.

And then I invest in companies I think I can really affect the outcome and and a lot of the investments that I'll make in home service I double triple quadruple in three years some of them 10x so. You know I've only got so much time of the day so it's a great leader and I can do you know I've got my own Tommy mellow ventures TMV and I've got people that work for me there that I'll set them in to go make the changes that need to happen they're very sophisticated smart people.

And my job is not to go and I'm the CEO of a one that's where my core lies I don't have time to go work all day and someone's business but. You know I do have a lot of knowledge and typically I get see where things need to go I've got pretty good at reading reports but most business I invest in they don't have the right reporting in place once it is you know what to work on their great owners they get solve problems for themselves.

How much revenue should a company be making before you hire a CFO. That's a tough question I think profitability should be in the millions otherwise get a fractional CFO but when you get the right person. I'll do a PNA they'll help you understand that the ratios where you should be focused on the help you get better payment terms which gives you more cash flow.

They'll help you get larger rebates they'll help you renegotiate deals they'll tell you when to grow and when to pause the earlier the better I went through five CFOs before I got the right guys to make sure you get the right person. Who's in your top five circle you know that's a tough one because I hang out with like on my cell phone string there's is smell Chad Peterman Cristiano the gainer I mean this whole group Chris Hoffman there's.

Who my chat Peterman I mean the guys in this group very very smart guys and we rely on each other a lot and then I've got Al Livi I talked to him quite a bit I got Jodi under Hill I've got Jim Leslie I've got a lot of core people that I want. Then I've got my personal team which is a personal CFO I talk to several times a day I mean I want to call it a top five because now I've got so much going on the bucket so full it's running over that I could have a bigger.

I've got to communicate with more people but the conversations are not long the two I hang out with I mean gainer comes to my house quite a bit I'm with yano at a game every other week I mean great people I was talking to HTML several times yesterday we're just working through things but yeah like what the way I feel is I just had on the podcast the podcast is kind of my inner circle I had Adam coffee it's coming out soon killer podcast I learned a lot bodice latest book I mean I use the podcast.

I use the podcast to hang on with successful people and then I keep in touch with them so and typically I'll get someone on the podcast that I want to learn from and that specific niche Adam coffee PE guy great CEO trains people on how to do buying builds so I learned a lot from that one I think you guys are really dig that one.

Are there any sales conferences you have found helpful and would recommend to go to were in the home service base I mean I like Andy Elliott a lot I think he's motivating I think he's got things that work I think most of people that have gone to his conferences work.

You know we did a thing for the freedom for the trades and I think there's a lot of great people that have come to that that really care that it's not just a big sales pitch you got to be careful because most of these guys they're always selling something so everyone selling something that's why they go on stage typically so just be careful you don't get in bed with the wrong person.

What are the pros and cons of having employees drive their own trucks what are the pros and cons of having them take the trucks home with them.

Well driving your own trucks means you're 1099 means you can't force them to get them wrapped which means there's no symmetry between your your trucks right you got a fleet of mismatched trucks doesn't really make an impact the community or how people perceive you or demand that higher average ticket I don't like that idea and I did that before and then not having take the trucks home everybody's got to drive into work certain things this works for but for me.

We're in 22 states now you look at the location if they had to all drive them back without driving home I can dispatch and Phoenix we got guys all over the map so I could start them right here they're going to go get inventory once a week they got to come to day one meeting once a week.

So it's better on gas it's more flexibility it's way better to hire it's easier to hire technicians to say you don't need to drive to work the drive home every day after a hard day work I'm a big fan of letting them take them home.

How do I make sure to give every activity the time required for finishing it how do I delegate do you delegate for example if I plan on reading a book and didn't finish it to move on to the next day of course what were you doing in your early chapter starting from making your

bed. How do you structure a lot of activities in your calendar I don't I don't start a new book typically unless you're too completely different books I can read two books at once right sometimes I'll be like I've had enough of this book I want to switch to something different right and some stuff is mindset mindset's easy to read versus a tactical book that you had I actually take notes and figure out okay this is what to do next.

But I think you finish one thing before you start the next entrepreneurs we got twenty things going on at once but we never finish anything to learn to finish things before you start the next thing.

You know the company size now we've got twenty five things going on at once projects and I'm not leading any of them I'm involved in a lot of them I'm I'm know what's going on but it's not my job as the visionary to be running everything in delegation you know the eight steps of delegation are shared a lot of the podcast.

Ali V Tommy is what do you need to do who's involved why it is the need to get them what's the why behind it what is it trying to solve does everybody know what why we're doing it what resources do you have what do you get what kind of reward if it gets done on time when is the

check and status to make sure it's on plan to finish on the timeline and getting assigned their John Hancock on it knowing that they they took responsibility to get that done and then you got a check along the way to make sure it's getting done.

Man he's good questions here I'm in the exterior cleaning business and my market has literally a hundred new companies we are holding our own and still turning a profit but I want to grow and get off the truck what advice do you have for me I have one time full guy and he's a rock star how can I build around him well everybody says listen there's seven hundred

hundred draw store companies and Phoenix I mean you're going to have competition is how do you stand out one of the things I learned a focus on is I can't keep my blinders on I don't look at other companies I don't care what they charge you know maybe to a fault I focus on what's going on in my four walls I'm focusing on what I can control what I not what I can't control a lot of people

spend all the time day dreaming about Israel and you know what's going on in Ukraine and in the traffic jam there and they don't focus on when I go to work here's what I'm going to get out of the car and I'm not this is a KPI that's been dropping if I get my booking rate to 90% what is that going to do for the company these the biggest best thing I need to get fixed and once that's fixed and once I got a plan to have checks and balances then I can

move on to the next thing and I think focusing on things out of your control is the wrong thing to do I've got competition you know many people listen to the podcast that are like I'm going to start a good hopefully one day I partner with you I don't care I literally the more the mayor you're not going to affect my business I don't care if a billionaire comes into the space good luck grand card

owns teaching people how to do home service he's a real estate guy good luck he makes all the money from the conferences a lot of you guys pay that guy hundreds of thousand dollars a year for what I like him I went to his conference but it put me in a room of home service with any of those guys I'll bury this I've been through it I worked in a truck I've done payroll done inventory of state up late a night fixing garage doors I know my

shit they never live through it and anybody going to come into my industry I know this shit I've been doing it I've made every mistake in the book I know integrations I know leadership I understand culture if everybody could just you know how many mistakes these P

guys make you know how shitty they are operations you got to be very careful who you get into business with the P company got behind me in a big way they're actually really good at operations but they got behind me because they know there's a lot of life

blood of the company and me advice versus so they got behind the founder the leader the guy growing and they got behind my team in a big way but most P companies like if we go buy a bunch of shitty companies and combine them will be worth a lot of money it doesn't

work that way P E guys I have a lot of people that listen to this are like I got five million dollars I'm going to go buy a truck or whatever roofing or gutter companies good luck you know me boards you take it offered would you jump on the board

no you guys suck and I can't go on any boards because I got a contract that work for a one I'm an employee here even though I'm the largest investor in the company at the end of the day this arbitrage move that's financial engineering and using debt only works if you understand operations

and culture and a lot of people miss that Tommy Berry here from 505 junk thank you for giving us your time we are implementing rocket fuel mainly visionary for myself CEO my business partner will be the integrator lastly we have some of our partners moving into the director of sales role and after 10 years of running our operations do you have any advice on this type of leadership changes at the top of the or chart well what I would say is be very defined stand your own lane

if you're willing to give up control you've got to allow people to fail you need to know it needs to be all written out with your responsibilities are you need to hold each other accountable without pointing the finger I never want to see marketing

point the finger in operations or vice versa we work as a team when you get bigger it gets siloed people start the company is not getting the C.S. R. Department and the dispatchers and the technicians and words recruiting and marketing is not getting us the leads that's everybody's problem we need to work on this together instead of putting fingers because it looks like shit when you're like you didn't do your job but you still need to hold each other accountable they agreed to do this

what are we going to do if it doesn't work out are you going to step down as the integrator is operations because we're going to need a good person in the spot what happens if you're a bad visionary and the vision is taking you guys you need to be I mean the company needs to grow needs to be profitable it needs to have revenue growth it needs to grow in size and if that's not happening someone's going to need to move out and this is why partners this is why father and son don't talk

this is why husband and wife get divorced is it's it's money and when you're losing it it causes drama causes pain causes relationships causes lots of bad stuff so well defined boxes who's going to be doing what what the responsibilities are what the KPIs are of that department and hold each other accountable and have a plan if it doesn't go right who's going to be doing what how do you get out of that because it's not written down there's going to be

problems so the better you communicate right now and have plans this is what you know a marriage when you get a prenup it says we're planning for the best but if we get a divorce here's how it's going to work and it's a document that explains everything how the money's going to travel that should be done in business when you get a partnership how do we resolve this how do I buy you out how can you buy me out what happens if this happens

what happens if something happens to our health your kids take the company how do we do have key man insurance all these things and they never come up until it's a bad time just like every business relationship when we buy a company we've got a bunch of insurance policies we've never had to use them it's what happens when something bad happens that's usually 99% of the time you don't have to touch up with the 1% you do it needs to be communicated

how do you do taxes on retailer wholesale so Arizona makes you pay on wholesale in other states we pay retails it's all about to the state you've got to pay taxes to the tax code in your market in your county in your state federal taxes work differently but typically federal tax are one thing state tax or another sometimes you got county taxes I don't get to dictate how I pay taxes we just follow the tax code

it's called gap accounting general except accounting principles and that's what we practice we get audited every year we do an internal audit from a big four bank completely audited not just reviewed financials completely audited because when you're growing like we are we're taking money we're getting loans we're getting growth capital we're using growth capital to buy good companies so let's just say we got five times leverage if we buy a company

with a million dollars of ebit other going to give us five million dollar loan on it if we pay six we got to come up with the extra million out of pocket we're able to borrow the five put one in and we're maximizing our leverage and that scares people but when you're accompanying my size

it kind of makes sense to grow this way and you go into the next deal and then eventually do an IPO and then you're using you're raising capital from the stock but I don't I don't recommend it for the fainted heart

we pay lots of money every quarter lots and lots of millions and we've never had a down quarter though so you know they invested in the mindset the leadership the culture but now there's all these bridge loans and these literally the PE companies that are out that were on like a three-year arm they're all about to lose everything they're literally saying take the business for free just take on the debt that's shit's going on left right in between there's so many deals right now I mean it's crazy

because people didn't predict interest rates to go up they thought they were just going to grow and now they're stuck between a rock and a heart spot about to lose everything it's happening going to be a lot of disruption in the next two years a lot of opportunities well

given that adverse financial landscape and the unique challenges that individuals face could you raise into more comprehensive and actionable strategies for guy at attaining financial wealth there's some typos in there I understand home service I know that if I could make the phone ring

and I know how much that called costs and I understand the price model and I understand the performance pay and I have great training I don't think there's any way I'll make more wealth than investing in home service companies I like a diversified portfolio some real estate some stock I've got some in PE I've got a well diversified if you know a one still my biggest investment and what Adam told me the other day is there's this 130 rule

if you've got your age plus the percentage of capital of your net worth in your company so let's pretend you're 40 and you got 90% of your net worth wrapped into a company that's 140 you should take chips off the table if you are at 70% in your 60 years old that's 130

you should take chips off the table his other rule is if you have four million of e-bid it takes some chips off the table because there was a company that was going to sell for a couple hundred million they were in the movie theater industry

COVID happened all of it's gone he had a deal going to be 100 hundreds of millions of dollars boom to zero because you never know world war three happens and atomic bomb goes off communications go down anything can happen you don't want everything in one investment forever you want to be diversified

diversification is key great news on implementing else systems and implementing that just reading here Tommy I'm currently working with my dad Alcro is Carpe cleaning company for 20 years what percent of net profit should I delegate to marketing each month

what percentage of net profit I don't say profit I say revenue I think 10% is the magic number there are markets that I spend 20% there are markets that I spend 6 I'm trying to make market share I'm trying to state I think 10% keeps you at a continuous small growth rate if I'm going to go to 25% I'm just going to say I'm not going to make profit in this I'm taking market share I'm trying to create repeat business if I'm in the carpet cleaning business I'm trying to create

memberships I'm trying to get more people to use this on a regular basis to build the book of business it's enough to where I'm bringing in 20% bottom line now I continue to grow more and that number should be getting bigger and bigger and bigger and the biggest thing I'll tell you guys is you don't need a hundred million dollar company to retire figure out what you want and build a company you could sell within five years and maybe roll equity

like what would 10 million dollars mean a lot of you a lot of you like no I need more than 10 million but you're bringing in a hundred grand a year build a business you get it to two million five X is ten million dollars people are selfish they don't have an exit plan they don't want to take care of the people to help them get here you get a two million dollars dude get five six seven 10 12 million dollars roll 30% the check for the 30% will be bigger than you got for the 70% like why would you

what do you want to put your family through for the next 20 years you think the economy and the market and the United States of America with the AI the robotics the stuff that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and all these monsters are working on like you don't have a five year plan or less you need to recalibrate your idea you need to figure out how much you need and the quicker you get that money into your bank account the better off you're going to be a lot of people like no I'll never sell

okay well your kids are going to miss you hopefully your wife stays with your husband stays with you the people that work for your husband stays with you the people that work for your never going to get equity that will never evolve because you're never going to divest and pull some chips off the table so you're selfish seriously built the cell build a business to sell it period well I want to keep it in the family bullshit your kids

know why your business trust me you might say my son loves this business okay well very very seldomly is an exception and this business is not going to last forever we live in an ever changing time I'm telling you

this in the next 18 months AI is going to be handling my phone calls like if you don't think evolution is happening at a faster pace and it's ever happened you got another thing coming I mean literally at the end of the day if you guys think we're going to be going to Google in 20 years for

home service and five years even like guys I'm starting to diagonal stuff over the phone with pictures but we're working on so many advanced things and like you just see like people are like oh no I got a 10-year plan 10 years you don't even know what's going to happen next year you don't even know the economy you don't know interest rates it's an election year like we don't know if the border is going to still be open we don't know what

the hell is going to happen in one year now we got 12 million new people that are working in this country and I'm not against it literally at the end of the day I want people to come into this country and go out on a rant but I'm saying there's a lot of unknowns that you don't know about

three years should be the top of your plan five year max figure out what you need to do and do it quit screwing around go out there figure out how to generate leads and hire better people and train more top grade today right size your business what are you thinking this is the time oh yeah well if we just wait another if you're not making 15 20% figure out how to do that shit now no more excuses no more all know we're going to get through this is not a good economy if you can't

grow in this economy good luck your business will have to be worth anything if you're waiting for your special day of your magic day it's not going to happen the magic's already gone we went through four years of dramatic growth where you could poop in a corner and make money you put a hat on this has I do a track you were ball it you could have an unwrapped truck in a doom buggy and still make money now

it's actually hard you're going to watch people falling left and right I mean this is the hard truth I'm not here to sugar code it I'm telling you guys it's not easy you got to think harder work harder work stronger delegate more give more to the people that you create a funnel of happy people to

want to work for you you can't accept second best this is not for the fainted heart I can't tell you guys that enough everybody sees this dream it's it's happening it takes hard work a lot of people at the right place at the right time and right now it's not the right time right now interest

rates through the roof right now what's going on in the economy right now seeing banks fail it's not going to be easy I'm prepared for it I'm excited for it there's an opportunity for me and I'm not saying you can't do it I'm just saying that you could just fart in the wind a few years

ago and make money now it's actually difficult so I'll be honest with you guys you're just going to start a money to depress the economy you're going to work your ass off you ready to work nice weekends holidays be ready to give up relationships be ready to just strap down and freaking work

your butt off when you're done working and you better listen to two podcasts or read two books a week because if you're not growing fast if you're not learning you don't get great consultants around you you're not investing back into the business you're going to be working 80 to a hundred

hours a week and you're going to be doing that for the next five years and then you'll succeed but if you think you're just going to say oh listen I hired a general manager and I got a good fractional CFO what now it's supposed to happen right no it's hard freaking work there's

shit's going to hit you hard in the face you're going to fail you're going to fail again you're going to fall down you're going to tell people are going to tell you're worth nothing you're no good you're going to lose your house is a good chance you're going to have to get your blood drawn to

get an insurance policy an SPL on it's not going to go good you're going to have interest you're going to have somebody complain you're going to have a guy still from you're going to get a police report the next week this shit's not easy if it was everybody and everybody wants to do it everybody

says I want to do a business because I want freedom I want what they have 20 years later I'm just being real some of you guys don't want to hear this some of you guys are thankful for it either way I'm fine with it because I don't lie I'm not going to pretend this is easy I'm not

going to tell you guys in sugar code it that it it doesn't work nine out of 10 businesses fail and they lose 10 years of their life then they go back to work and they lost 10 years they got a divorce they don't they haven't had a close relationship with their kids it's not easy

you need to get educated you need a work hard you need to show up you need to know what your plan is it doesn't need to be this year needs to be this month in this court needs to be this quarter this month of the week today what are you doing today in your business what are you doing today

I know what I did all day I'm literally growing garage drawer freedom I was on a different podcast learning about something else guess what I do it I'm going to talk to 80 CFOs tonight I've talked to two people about acquisitions today I literally have a plan every day of what I'm

doing I talk to Luke my CO over 30 minutes we talked about how we're modifying the price book we're talking about things to move the needle dramatically I said listen I'm not going to let any guy sell stuff until they get good at their core KPIs then they get the right to sell these

new things me and Luke talked about it today we're moving the needle I know what I have to do this year I know what I need to do today to get where I want to go I can't answer a whole lot more questions but I just want to let you guys know I love you I'm not complaining I'm not

telling you guys you aren't worth anything what I'm telling you is get your shit together get focused where blinders nothing is going to stop you nothing outside you're going to get an idea oh I should go into windows oh my god they've been asking me to do their chimney cleaning because I got a

gutter cleaning cup F that focus on your core get huge in your current market before you want to franchise or license it out everybody's got a great idea oh I figured out something I'm going to license it no you suck you're not very good you haven't grown into any other markets no one wants

to buy your bullshit okay get really good at what you do own your market go on the second one go on the third one have a whole system a whole suite of opportunity that I could have a turnkey business then you can franchise everybody's like well you don't understand I got this great idea

I know you do we all have great ideas I give you a great idea I got a million of them but I got to focus I got to keep my head down I got to grind I got to keep on doing what's working and not have distractions that's what you guys need to hear right now trust me this is the year

you right size your company you don't focus so much on getting a deal from your vendors you've double down on training you market you double down on marketing of the stuff that's working because you got attribution you invest in the best employees and pay them appropriately you'll find one great

employee could run circles around three bad ones so you could pay them more because you're doing three times the work three times the work this is what you need to hear today going into this new year I hope it's a great year I hope we kill it I hope everything happens great but that's not

what they're predicting it's not going to be an easy year everybody's fighting for leads everybody's trying to be a self-employed go out there on their own and then you know that what do they do they do it for cheaper and people hire them because they're cheap and that's fine

those are my customers anyway but you guys needed to hear this and I don't I'm not sorry about it I don't really care some of you guys might never listen again that's fine but I'm never going to lie to anybody say I say plan for the worst hope for the best so hopefully you guys are ready to

make some tough decisions you're not just like I'm gonna double down this year and I'm gonna grow grow grow if you're making 20% put 5% in a growth and continue to grow but if you're barely making ends meet you do not have profit coming in every month stacking in the account why would you want

to grow because it's not working we're gonna duplicate the stuff that's not making you money today hey that's it every nation of insanity I don't get it I'm okay it worked out earlier it's a good day head my protein shake but it's a cold hard truth guys that's what you needed to hear hopefully

if not I apologize you could go home and cry because you're probably still living at your mom's house now I'm kidding but I love you guys if you need anything the questions are amazing all you're gonna do if you got questions is go to homeserviceexpert.com for slash questions write them in

my book elevate right there is elevate and win.com and if you want to take away from this podcast go to homeserviceexpert.com for slash bonus and you'll get the cliff notes I appreciate you guys I think everybody listening you're here for a reason if you listen and you implement some of

this stuff you'll be successful it happens all the time I talked to a pest control company doing 17 million started listening two years ago is like dude I did a few things you said and it wasn't me he just implemented a few things and boom he's killing it it's not hard but this economy's tough

man the same and I go out and hire a bunch of great people and get the branding done and then go out there and pay Google and then I got to go to these events and then I got to get the right CFO and then I got to come up with performance pay and then I got to do my manuals and then I got

to figure out a way to get new trucks and this and that and this and that and then it adds up and then powerful meetings and then what happens if someone quits and I got to work with his comp claim and now someone stealing gas I mean listen this is not easy I could handle a million things at once

I'm high stress high anxiety I do better with it you put me under pressure I'm better a lot of people they don't want this you don't want this but you will do better you keep listening you keep applying some of these little principles I promise you this is the real stuff this is no

sugar code and this is what works in this industry in home service throw me in pest control kill it throw me landscaping kill it throw me in gutters I'll kill it but it takes time you got to make the mistakes you got to fall for it get back up and be determined to keep your head down and focused

focus focus focus focus have a plan written down and execute execution get rid of your ADHD for a week and just get your freaking manuals done go hire somebody nobody's applying that's good I'm on indeed I'm on glass door they go out to Denny's go out to Chili's go

out to Applebee's show up and recruit go to a B and I'm eating I never will let excuse well no one's applying so I can't find good people bullshit I will go out to your market and find an ace in the hole today I'm proven it over and over again you send me a new market I will have an

ace by the end of the day because I don't I don't accept excuses anyways I love you guys I gotta head out and I love this I love getting some of this stuff off my chest and I appreciate you guys listening I hope you guys have a wonderful wonderful day and a killer January thanks guys

hey there thanks for tuning into the podcast today before I let you go I want to let everybody know that elevate is out and ready to buy I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states the insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any

business or organization it's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here day one garage door service so if you want to learn the secrets tell me transform my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees growing in the same direction head over to elevate and win dot com force last podcast and grab a copy of the book thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast