The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Building Success: A Toolbox for Coming Out on Top by Tommy Whitehead

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Building Success: A Toolbox for Coming Out on Top by Tommy Whitehead https://amzn.to/4akDetO Tommywhitehead.com Tomcosolutions.com Know who you are. Embrace what makes you different. And don’t be afraid to be a little disruptive. Success stories rarely follow straight lines, something Tommy Whitehead knows firsthand. His story of climbing out of poverty to run a hugely successful contracting firm has more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose. In this funny and authentic book, Tommy opens up about awkward pool conversations, hard hats with a message, and colossal failures that became huge opportunities. His disruptor approach to the construction industry will show you how M&Ms can predict trends and how a simple hamburger can improve your accounting practices. Tommy is not your average contractor—and this book is not your average toolbox of tips.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.

Come on. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this big show. For 13, or not 13 years, for 16 years years we've been doing the Chris Foss Show. And more applause buttons evidently. And we bring you the smartest people on this show. There's over 2,000 episodes of the Chris Foss Show. And we call ourselves now the Netflix of podcasting.

You can binge watch just about any topic you want on the Chris Foss Show. Because we have everybody on who's the smartest people. We about any topic you want on the Chris Foster show because we have everybody on who's the smartest people. We don't allow dumb people on the show. I'm the only dumb idiot that's allowed on the show, but I own the show so that's how I got on. Otherwise, they don't let me out. Anyway, guys, we always have amazing

authors on the show. We have another one on today sharing his insights, his business and how he built it, etc, etc. Go to goodreads.com for your family and friends to join us at LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com, Fortress Chris Foster, all those crazy places on the internet. We have a gentleman on with his newest book that's coming out, June 1st, 2024. I had to remind myself it's 2024 because I'm really not ready for June. That's halfway through the year.

Stop. Make it stop. Slow down. His newest book is called Building Success, a Toolbox for Coming Out on Top. Tommy Whitehead joins us on the show today. We'll be talking about his amazing new book, his business insights, his experience, and you'll probably learn a whole mess of stuff that can make your life better. Tommy Whitehead is a licensed residential contractor and president and owner of Tomco

Solutions Incorporated, which specializes in full-service residential property makeovers. That includes kitchen and bath renovations, new door and window installations, processing insurance claims as part of disaster restoration services and rehabbing properties for major real estate investment trusts. He's also a passionate volunteer and fundraiser for many worthy causes. When he's not working or volunteering, he enjoys theme parks, museums, and relaxing by a pool with the family. Who doesn't?

There you go. Welcome to the show, Tommy. How are you? I'm doing well, Chris. And let me say, it was ingenious to name the show after yourself so they shouldn't be able to kick you off of it that's that's pretty good we almost named it like something general but i was like i'm not sure if we want to be talking about social media and twitter 10 years turns out we weren't so there i'm very excited about being part of a show that has a

warning about brain bleeds that's pretty cool we'll see if we can get some brain bleeding going. So welcome to the show. Congratulations on the new book. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you, look you up on the interwebs? So one of the easiest ways to do it is tommywhitehead.com. Try to keep it real simple. My company's website is tomcosolutions.com, but all my links are out on either one of those podcast books linkedin plenty easy to find me if you do a google search on my name here you go there you go i'm always found on the fbi's most wanted list that's where my search history goes so give us a 30 000 overview what's in your inside your new book on building success so my book covers growing up poor all the

challenges things and problems I've had. It talks about my success, but it really talks about a lot of the failures and what I've learned from them and going along. So I really made it. It sounds like a construction book. It's not, you're not going to find any renovation tips on it. So don't buy that if you're trying to pick color samples. But what it does talk about is being a contractor and being different, considered a disruptor, doing things like podcasts. There's not many contractors on podcasts except for construction podcasts, using public relations, using social media, doing things to help my community, sitting on multiple nonprofit boards.

And so it just kind of goes through and learns all the little, talks about all the little quirky things in my life. Ah, there you go. And how you built your life, right? Your business? Absolutely. Yeah. We talk about building it and then failing and then building it back and maybe failing again and then finally building it back again. Hopefully, finally. We'll see, you know, who knows? Knock on wood. I've seen your pictures and your sites and stuff. So it looks like you're definitely on the right track and doing well. You know, this is one of the things that a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize you've got to do. You've got to fail to succeed. And a lot of successful, in fact, every successful person really fails. I don't know. I don't know too many people who

failed or I'm sorry, who succeeded right out of the gate. Maybe if they took over their, you know, deputism father's business, then they didn't have problems. And we can all just hate on those people because they had it easy. Yeah. We see, we see on social media all the time. We see all the pictures of success and the Ferraris and the,

and the pretty young things and all the other stuff we see. We never see what led to that. Yeah. And we're all guilty, including myself. So I thought, you know what? At least let me write it down. Let me prove that prove that hey all the cool stuff on my linkedin is awesome

to look at but there was so much more behind getting to that point yeah they never show the brain bleed so that's why we have people on the show talking about their brain bleed so we can find out what the true story was and how they got there you know you you talk about something called a toolbox for coming in on top. What is this toolbox? So they're little nuggets of wisdom in every chapter that kind of tell a story. You learn something in my story and then it gets a bullet point. It's a tool that can help you succeed. And I boil down an entire chapter into one or two sentences that are quick, often funny or thought provoking.

And it just kind of makes you think, oh, wow, it is that simple. And sometimes we get in our own heads and stop our own selves. And sometimes it is as simple as a two sentence cliche saying that can actually, you know, break the mold and get you past where you're at. Ah, there you go. I like this line from your Amazon page here in the description. His story of climbing out of the poverty to run a hugely successful contracting firm has more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose. I like that analogy.

That's pretty good. It was a little homage to my Southern heritage. It was a little bit of Dolly Parton-esque comedy. And when I wrote that, I'm like, okay, this has her style to it. And I'm like, okay, that's just a little tribute to heritage. Oh, yeah. I grew up with those cheap garden hoses, man. They're the worst.

They are horrible. Half an hour trying to unroll it just so you get water to come out the other end. You know, I was, I don't know about you, but I was a Gen X kid. So we were Latchkey kids. So we lived on hose water. So you had to get that hose to work if you wanted to. Oh, I was a poor kid. So I'm just at the cutoff at X and millennial, right?

But yes, I have had plenty of sips out of the well water in the midday. Because why go inside? Yeah, why go inside? Your mother wouldn't let you inside usually. Exactly. You were too dirty or nasty. Get out of the house. You'd be lucky if she didn't take that hose and give you a bath outside.

Get out of the house. Get out of my hair. In fact, I was just watching the other day a TikTok where they replayed the old thing from the 80s where it was like, it's 7 o'clock at night. Do you know where your kids are? Remember that? They had to tell a generation of parents,

hey, you're about to go to bed. Do you know where your kids are? Where are they? Where are your kids? You might want to check. It could be, I don't know. Anyway, so they could be transferring cocaine from Columbia because it's the 80s. No, I'm just kidding.

So in the book, you open up about different things and examples. There's one conversation you mentioned about awkward pool conversations. What's that about? So kind of strange. So I was at the point where I was divorced from my wife and I was dating men and women and I was at a resort and it was a gay resort and it was just a bunch of people around in a pool. All of a sudden I see somebody, a subcontractor of mine, a vendor, and I'm not out at work in the construction industry. You know, it's, and this was, you know, 10 plus years ago. So in the construction industry, especially 10 years ago was not comfortable being or

having any kind of different lifestyle. And so I saw somebody and even though, okay, so he's at a gay pool party, I'm in a gay pool party. Okay. That's fine. It, but in my mind it was like, oh my God, I'm just been out at work. It's going to be horrible. He's going to tell everybody. And it was like oh my god i'm just been outed at work it's going to be horrible he's going to tell everybody and it was awkward it was very awkward for me now in reality guys don't typically out each other yeah they don't usually tell on each other no he was out

at his work so it was okay because he was a he was a subcontractor in a company that was a lot more accepting than the company i worked at yeah so it was awkward but then again at the end of the day it was no big deal it was nothing it was something you worked up in your company I worked at. So it was awkward, but then again, at the end of the day, it was no big deal. It was nothing. It was something you worked up in your head, I worked up in my head, and it was done with. That would be awkward. Very. At least you were divorced from your wife at the time. It would have been funnier if you hadn't been divorced

from your wife. I thought you were straight, but whatever. Yeah, and I have met people like that before, too. I've never been in that position. I know a couple of religions where people do that. Yeah, locally, actually, in Utah. So give us a talk about, tell us about your upbringing. What shaped you?

What got you into being an entrepreneur? What was motivations or influences for you? See, I always knew as a little kid I wanted to make money. I wanted to be in business. I didn't know what that was, but I grew up in poverty, and we didn't have money for lots of things. All the way through school, like I purposely graduated high school a year early. I was 16 years old when I graduated, and in my senior year,

I actually worked 45 hours a week in addition to going to school to help bring money home for groceries and other things. So I always knew I wanted to be better. Is that because you grew up poor? Is that what motivated you? I think so. Absolutely. You know, I didn't want my kid, and I'm fortunate enough to have a son who's almost 15 now,

I didn't want him to experience the same things that I experience. It's a little scary if there's yelling and arguing going on for money. It's a little scary if you don't know if there's food, money or not. You get told the power's off because the, the, the line's down off the road and then you figure out all your neighbors have power. So why is our power off? You know, and all of a sudden it's, Oh yeah, it's not as the power works fine next door. So why is it off here? Those kinds of things.

And you don't realize until you're an adult what was really happening there. And, you know, your parents try the best that they can. But it's still, you know, I just knew that I wanted to do something better. And I knew I was going to have to push myself very hard to break that cycle. I had the same experience growing up. My parents had ups and downs. And, you know, parents do their best there are two people doing the best they can and whether it's with economies or or everything else or personalities you know your parents are just doing their best but i would do the same thing

i grew up poor i couldn't bring my friends over because we had welfare cans in the food and stuff from the mormon church i was in that Yeah. And so my friends would come over and be like, oh, your parents are on welfare. I can see it in your fridge. And, you know, so it was just that way. But I lived. Yeah. And that motivated me to become successful. So it's interesting how, you know,

sometimes, you know, you see people that grow up rich and they don't really care about it and they throw it all away because they just don't understand how valuable that sort of tool is. And then you see people who have lack and they go and fill that hole you know sometimes i look back and i go maybe it's better that you grow up with lack you know you yeah and i and i wonder that as well even raising your own kid you know you try to give them everything you didn't have and does that only add to their detriment later in life you know you

want them to have that respect. So it's a fine line. And each parent has to answer that for themselves. But I definitely, I don't have a day, I think that I ever wake up and think something could happen today that could cause me to go back to that situation. The likelihood of that is smaller and smaller

as my career develops. But I still think what happened if this happened and all of a sudden we had no payments for mortgage and then we don't have this and then all these little niceties and luxuries that we became used to over the last year or two from working so hard are completely gone. What if we're back to standing in a bread line, literally trying to get food? And so I think that motivates me even stronger that I will not do that. And then now I have a lot of people working for me and I don't want them to go through that.

So it's not just my family. Now it's a lot of families I feed. And so I got to ensure that I'm doing well and being successful to support them as well. So it keeps you motivated. There you go. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right. It says congratulations from LinkedIn,

but yeah, that's, that's one of the interesting things about becoming an employer. When you become an employer and you get lots of employees, you realize that you're beholden to them and their futures and their

jobs, especially if you're a smaller employer. If you're a corporation, you don't give a shit about anything, evidently. I don't know. That's just a joke, people. I'm kidding. It seems that way. But no you you're like I remember having some awakening moments somewhere in my business where we had Nearly 100 employees and I'm seeing there, you know signing the old stacks of checks on every Friday area of the Friday And I'm sitting there going. Holy crap. That's all These people if I fuck up these people these people

suffer yeah that's and i'm just like wow i thought i had pressure before but now i get some pressure so yeah now you don't explain to just your spouse or your kid now you've got to explain to a bunch of people that did nothing wrong that's the even scarier part if you do something wrong and they did everything perfect and they were completely loyal and did all their work and you mess up, they still suffer. That keeps you moving. Yeah. And there's nothing worse than having to lay somebody off because some business failure, economic failure, some sort of mistake, or sometimes just business models change with different things. And there's nothing worse than having to lay somebody off because they did everything right.

And you're just, you know, it's fun to fire people who are bad and deserve it. I like that part. So talk to us about your company, Tomco Solutions. You're doing there. I think there's also an event. You're working on a summit, different things. Tell us about what you have going on there.

Yeah, so Tomco is a fully licensed construction firm in the state of Florida. We focus primarily on residential, but moving into the commercial space. So anything from just a simple kitchen and bath renovation or repair all the way up to a custom new build, insurance disaster restoration, additions, ADUs, all kinds of cool stuff like that. We've also formed Tomco Capital Partners. I've started my own equity firm so that we aren't just looking for construction work anymore. We're actually starting to go out and look for capital to create our own construction projects from our perspective where we can control not only the capital, but the construction. So

we're not trying to find a contractor. We are. And so it's kind of like, yeah, we try to cut off the middleman. I mean, you know, we're doing a lion's share of the work and the extra 20% is going to somebody that's finding money. And we can find money too. I have a background in finance and accounting. And I'm like, you know, why am I not utilizing that with my construction background? Why not use both and capture both sides? To answer your other question, yeah, I have a big summit coming up. So my book is dropping on June 1st, which is my 40th birthday. A lot of people would just throw a quick small thing for their friends and have a book signing. And I thought, no, no, no.

Let's do something bigger. Let's make something where people want to come and watch and attend and help them build their success. So it's not about me. This is about helping other people be successful. So we're actually calling it the Building Success Summit. We have three days worth of networking. We have vendor fairs. We have food, open bars.

We have 15 panelists from all different industries and some of them representing funds that are 3.5 or $4.5 billion in assets. We have a lot of ex NFL players speaking, we have a lot of really cool people coming. And then we're going to wrap down one day with a live Rocky Horror Picture Show, we'll have a live cast for that. And then we're going to wrap up Sunday with luxury yacht tours and a sunset sail. So we're really trying to create it. So with networking, it's not just about meeting, it's about creating a shared experience. So if you

create that shared experience and you bond, like a sports team, win or lose, you start bonding in the locker room over that success or the failure, that experience that nobody else is sharing but your teammates. It's the same way with networking. If you can create these shared experiences of, wow, I helped a nonprofit and watch Rocky Horror while

I'm drinking open wine. That's something you have a story to tell about. It puts you in the mood to open yourself up to connections with not only the host, but with all the other guests as well. And that's all coming around June 1st. And you can find that TommyWhitehead.com or Buildingsuccessevent.com. There you go. You know, the great thing about being an entrepreneur is what you're doing. You're giving back. You reach a pinnacle of success and you're able to give back. And a lot of entrepreneurs do this.

Why do you feel it's so important for entrepreneurs to have that motivation? It seems to come naturally to us. What do you think why that is? I think if we can help one kid, a hundred kids hopefully a thousand kids break that cycle of poverty that you and i came up in you know they're not all let's face it most people are not going to be as successful as you and i are if we came from if they came from a poverty background they're going to be subject to all those barriers that we just happen to overcome and i don't want to say it's luck because I don't think luck has anything to do with it. It's a skill set and it's the right opportunities.

But if we give back, if we can help get kids shoes, if they can have affordable housing, and that's a big project I'm working on. If we can get an affordable housing where kids can have a good night's sleep, they do better in school the next day. Those kids that do better in school the next day, they go on to college or a trade program. Those kids that do better in the college or trade program, they get higher salaries. They start to break that cycle of poverty. And then their kids have better circumstances than we did. And it's just small changes. And you would be surprised. A lot of people think, oh, I don't have money to give back. Do you know a lot of these organizations want your time or expertise and not your money?

If you're a CPA and you don't have a lot of money because you're starting your firm, do you know doing the books for a small nonprofit that might take you an hour to a month is the equivalent of $12,000 to them? That's huge. So there's lots of little things we can give back. You post somebody on a podcast,

giving the word of their organization out. That is huge. Not everybody can offer that, but it doesn't cost you a dollar. So giving back is, is fundamental to what I do. And I think every entrepreneur, I don't care how busy you are, give an hour a week, give some of your time, do something to put back in your community because your community is the one that's supporting you. Yeah. And you need to support them. Yeah. And I think entrepreneurs understand the cyclical nature of that or the, cyclical is not the right word, basically the support of one to another.

We understand that a rising tide lifts all boats. How about that? And we understand that if we lift others, they lift us. We all rise together. You know, entrepreneurs, I think part of this too is our mindset. Most entrepreneurs, you know, they come across something that they don't like or that doesn't work well for them. And they go, I know how to build a better widget of this. And if I make these changes and they kind of fire up a passion towards it and then you know they end up making the world better I mean I think it was Earl Nightingale used to say you know you're you're basically entrepreneurs make the world better and improve the world and you're

paid and you're paid directly in in in value to what that is to the community and and people who buy your product and so whatever the cost is, you know, certainly medical, if you do something medical, the value of that's much higher because we value human life probably higher than we would, say, paperclips. So we don't pay as much for paperclips. I don't know. Some of you might be buying, you know, hospital price level paperclips. I don't know.

What are you doing, a state? $42.99 for one paperclip? I think I've seen some expensive stuff like that but you know that's kind of the beauty of what we do and i think that's the kind of the what you call it the the dna chromosome of who we are that and the fact that like you say we we lifted ourselves up not all not i wouldn't say 100 by our own bootstraps because we had people that helped us along the way but we we kind of were the catalyst for starting that and doing that because if we didn't start nothing

happens and we just kind of see how our effects and impacts on the world and and different things so i think it's just kind of our dna and how we're built and it's part of the thing but it's the greatest dna ever because giving back and supporting your community is, you know, is doing things. And you're right. You can,

you can contribute, you know, you just, you can go down and serve food at the, at the food bank. You know, you don't, you don't have to write a check to people.

You got a car meals on wheels delivering and speaking to a senior for 15 minutes. They don't see anybody all week. You can do all kinds of things. And I think you're absolutely right. Maybe we did pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but not without help. And just because you can't see the help doesn't mean it's not out there. There's free help, sometimes in the form of government counseling, sometimes in the form

of your local library. There are all kinds of consultants out there that are professionals like you and I that choose to give our skill sets to be mentors to small businesses. I didn't get where I was at today by doing everything by myself. And I talk about that in my book. When you start to let go

and give it over to allow other people to help you get past your ego, there's no sense of failure. There's no sense of shame. Everybody else around us, all the mega millionaires and billionaires, they all had help getting there. So why wouldn't us growing up as the poor kids need help too? Everybody does. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. And one day you're going to be in a spot to help somebody else. And I'm actually in that spot

where I help other people through mentorship and connections and networking that I was helped with when I started. Yeah. There's, there's stories in my book, Beacon's Leadership, where I talk about two or three seminal moments in my life where someone took pity on me basically and offered me charity to help me out and, and also save my job and save my life. I didn't know it at the time to help me learn sales. And without those moments, like I can go look back on those moments. And to this day, I'll still shudder and think, what if that person had been less generous? What if that person had just fired me instead of trying to help me get lifted up? I just shudder to think what my life would have become because I can literally trace most of the success of my life back to those moments those those were the moments that were the fork in the

road moments that my journey went different and like I say looking back on them I go geez what if I'd never had that opportunity that fork in the road I might still be I don't know I'd be somewhere probably not very happy maybe i don't know it's it's you can't always look at life like that would you know if it would have been it would have been a it would have been you know completely like you never would have become an entrepreneur if that moment hadn't happened but geez i sit and look at him and be like thank god thank god that was a marker in my life. So it made all the difference. Now with your company, Tomco Solutions,

are you primarily licensed in Tampa and in Florida or can you do business outside of it? What's, if people are out there listening and thinking about working with you on stuff, what's the prospects for them? So for your average size home project, we stay in the Tampa Bay area. We are fully licensed in the Tampa Bay area. We

are fully licensed in the entire state, but we are looking at and have been consulted on projects throughout the state that are larger. And I have done some consulting outside of the state. So from an investment perspective, if we're looking at a deal, I can be anywhere. From a self-performing construction perspective, I stay with inside the state of Florida. But, you know, we are the third most populous state growing by thousands every day. I haven't had to step outside of the state to look for business. It's sitting right here and literally in my backyard.

Yeah. And with the disasters like hurricanes and stuff like that going on, you guys have plenty of remodeling that has to be done, unfortunately. It also, it happens. I mean, so we have just the new builds and we have the regular

renovations and then everything, our world stops when a hurricane hits. I'm still working on a house from Hurricane Ian, which was almost two years ago because of the delays in insurance, delays in permitting, the delays in the mortgage, releasing funds after insurance was done. And I still haven't gotten paid in full for another house I've completed. Thanks for that same hurricane and it's it gets insane so yeah there's always going to be some level of work here in Florida yeah definitely I mean there's there's there's just you know between disasters and of course any man who's ever been married knows your wife wants to remodel the house every three years there's that so this is this is why I've been single all my life I I never had anybody say to me we need to spend $30,000 or redo the kitchen and I'm like

yeah no that's why I'm single so yeah I don't I see my friends do that where they're like we're gonna remodel the house I'm like I would just burn the house down and start over no you should never construct a house either. I'd never be for that. That puts pressure on a marriage too. We have some clients that I've told them, I said, hey, what you want to do, we really should raise your house and start over.

I'm like, let's do that. I said, you're going to be much happier with the situation after that. You're not wrong. We've had a few times where it's like, yep, wipe it and start it clean. Yeah, just nuke that thing. Make sure you're not wrong we've had we've had a few times where it's like yep wipe it start clean yeah just just nuke that thing make sure you're firing no don't do fire insurance fraud people I'm just joking around yeah I've seen some people who are like we're new remodel project and I'm like don't you know bulldozer I just raised that thing to the ground and just start over like

you'll see you'll see them i think there was a guy who bought a castle recently somewhere probably in the uk but he did a whole channel on the renovation of it and it turns out they just i mean it's just a money pit really it's like that movie tom hanks it's funny i referenced that movie in my book so yes so you got to make sure you buy your copy and read that and you're gonna laugh how you reference it on your show and it was in my book if i was ever married there's two things i would never do i wouldn't ever do a renovation and i wouldn't do new construction it's just it's just a nightmare i would i would just say honey whatever you want just just go we'll just go buy it okay that's how i roll on everything let's just go buy it like hey chris

you want to mow the lawn no let's just go buy someone to do that hey chris you want to clean the house no let's just go buy a maid we'll do that i don't i don't i don't do there's there's certain things i've watched my friends go through and i'm like that like some of my friends they've almost lost their marriages over remodeling and construction yeah but with the if you do the right plans and right expectations before you go in, then it's easier. It's still stressful. And I tell a lot of my clients, I tell them point blank, I said, you love me right now. They're like, yeah, yeah, this is a great relationship. I said, you're going to hate me at some point. No, no, no,

we would never hate you. I said, no, no, don't worry. Don't get it wrong. You're going to love me again at the end of the process, but you're going to hate me right now. And just make sure that's happening. Oh, that'll never happen, Tommy. All of a sudden this way through the project, we're going to, we're mad, but this is not happening. This is not happening. I'm like, okay, your insurance company hasn't paid. The inspector's not coming out from the bank or the County. This isn't happening. This isn't happening. I said, I told you, these are all problems we could have that we hope we don't, but here's the expectations for it. Oh, you did say that, didn't you? Yeah, and I also told you you're going to hate me.

You don't like me really very much right now, do you? And they're like, we wouldn't say that. Yeah, you would. That's okay. Sounds like all the dating relationships I have. I have to give them the same warning. You may like me now, but later, you're not. Oh, it's a very short-term relationship with our clients, yes.

It's a quick college fling is what it is. But it sounds like the important thing is to hire the right licensed contractor, someone like yourself who understands these things, gives people a pre-warning of what's going on. I know one problem your state has and a lot of states has is people who hire unlicensed contractors. Tell us why it's important to hire a licensed one to remind everybody not to be stupid. I'll tell you one of my most recent ones. You know,

we get these fly-by-night roofing companies coming in after a storm and they'll get your roof done in a day. And you can, a licensed professional can get your roof done in a day. They're not pulling permits. Guess what? If you don't pull a permit on a roof and it's brand new and your insurance company comes out to do an inspection, they look at the last permit pulled. So if the last permit was pulled 32 years ago with a life expectancy of a roof being 25, they say you have to replace your roof, even if the shingles are brand new. Wow. That's how aggressive they're getting. They want proof that a licensed contractor installed it properly. That's the same if you're selling your house now. You have agents being a lot more strict.

They say, we see a new kitchen. We see a new water heater. We want to see those permits. We don't want a handyman doing it. I've gone in and repaired plenty of houses that look beautiful. And then you open something up and all of a sudden you can tell a handyman was doing the plumbing. Nothing's up to code. Nothing was done correctly. Things are spliced where they shouldn't be. Breakers are popping. It's all because some guy armed with his YouTube knowledge and HGTV knowledge tried to do a renovation because he can do it for cheaper. So we're going to get to the point where they're going to do permit histories when they're doing insurance applications. And they're going to look and see it. I see that coming. The insurance companies are looking for any way not to pay. The insurance companies are looking for any way

not to pay a claim. They're looking for any way to protect themselves and their investors. So they're going to do this kind of stuff. If they're doing it on roofs now, they're going to do it even further. But you're using a licensed contractor is important for so many reasons.

It's the quality of the work. It's ensuring things are inspected properly. For insurance purposes, if you used an unlicensed contractor to do repairs that then result in a fire in your house, your insurance company may not cover that because you use an unlicensed contractor to perform services and expose them to a needless risk. It's possible. It has happened before, but it affects the saleability of your house. Like I said,

that new roof is not new unless it has a permit. Don't care if it was done 100% correct. It is not new if it didn't have a permit. Wow. How is the insurance situation looking in Florida? I know a lot of people, a lot of insurance people pulled out. I think California is going through the same thing. California is going through the same thing. What they're dealing with with fires, we're dealing with the increased weather activity for hurricanes. And so it's rough. Even the policies that are federally

mandated don't cover everything. And if your house floods, it only covers some of the damages. It's rough in just regular markets where you're not in a heavy wind borne area and you're not in a flood zone. Our insurance rates are still drastically going up, but that's just homeowner's insurance. I just renewed my contractor's insurance. And the first thing they did was try to triple it. And I had to go back through and revise and revise and revise. And I got it down to just a 50% increase. And I've never had a claim or never had a loss. And now we're talking my liability insurance is for my company. And so it's affecting us at all markets. But the bottom line is our land is appreciating quickly. Our property taxes here are still low. And so it's affecting us in all markets. But the bottom line is our land is

appreciating quickly. Our property taxes here are still low and we do kind of live in paradise. You know, we have a lack of snow shovel sales down here. So if that's your profession, you don't want to move to Florida. But it's absolutely incredible. I don't see any snow and I love that. Don't you don't you don't you use snow shovels low for the scar faces down there removing cocaine you know you got to you got to shovel it Chris we don't talk about that yeah that's a that's an 80s they don't do that down there anymore they don't move shit from wherever anyway I had to do my scar face out patina. It's a law that we have to do there.

We show anything we haven't touched on about your book, your summit and what you're doing there at Tomco. I would think that just going back to the construction side is make sure you're using licensed and insured vendors, not the cheapest. It's expensive owning a home. Don't get into a home if you don't, or you aren't ready to spend it. Don't be a do it yourself warrior for big things. If you want to go to town and redo your't be a do-it-yourself warrior for big things. If you want to go to town and redo your landscaping bed, by all means, go and do that and spend your time. Do something. If you think you can pull that wall down very easy yourself and you have no construction experience, don't do it.

Don't do it. You're risking the integrity of your house and your marriage at the exact same time. And you might be able to deal with losing one, but you can't lose both at the same time. That's true. I've dealt with people. They're like, we're going to tear that wall. And I'm like, to deal with losing one, but you can't lose both at the same time. That's true. I've dealt with people. They're like, we're going to tear that wall. And I'm like, that's a load-bearing wall, I think. I'm no pro, but... It'll be fine.

I don't need a contractor for that. They're like, what's a load-bearing wall? And I'm like, you should probably investigate this more. Talk to a licensed contractor. There you go. Tommy, thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Give us your dot coms.

Where can people find you on the interwebs? Easiest to find me is TommyWhitehead.com. You can find me at TomcoSolutions.com. And if you want to come to a kick-ass networking event and book launch, you want to go to BuildingsuccessEvent.com. There you go. There you go. Tommy, it's been fun to have you on.

We've learned a lot how to build our business and inspire some people. So hopefully we motivated a new generation of entrepreneurs. I hope so. Thank you so much for having me. There you go. Thank you. Order the book, folks. Forever Fine Books are sold to Building Success, a toolbox for coming out on top.

It's June 1st, 2022. You can order it available now. You know, being an entrepreneur is one of the greatest things ever. It really is. Sometimes it has its bad moments, but you learn to overcome them. Being self-accountable as an entrepreneur is like the one trait you have to learn, and it's the greatest trait that will self-actualize you like few things ever will in this world. Anyway, to my audience, go to goodreads.com, fortuneschrisfoss, linkedin.com, fortuneschrisfoss, chrisfoss1 on the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.