The Home Service Expert Podcast - Boosting Your Bottom Line With Outstanding Customer Service

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

Shawn is the co-owner and CEO of Reynolds Brothers Exteriors, a successful family-owned eavestrough & exteriors company in Toronto, Canada. In the years since they launched, they’ve received numerous recognitions, such as the Consumers Choice Awards, and HomeStars’ “Best of 2017” award. In this episode, we talked about customer service, hiring, leadership...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back, home service experts. I'm sitting here today with a guest that visits us from

Toronto. His name is Sean Reynolds. And Sean, I'm really excited to have you on today. How's your day going? My day's going great. Thanks for asking, Tommy. How's the weather out there? You know what? It is a cold one here in Toronto. I'm actually from a place even more north than Toronto. And you think you get used to this, but you don't. And I had the parka on today and the boots. And I wish I was down in Florida or Miami or somewhere closer where you are. Yeah, I hear you. Been to Toronto. Love Toronto. I actually, being from Michigan, I used to go to Windsor all the time. And it was like you could drink when you were 18.

So it made a lot of sense back then. When it's this cold, you've got to be able to drink a little bit younger, I think. So your bio is super impressive, Sean. You've been involved in a lot of different industries. You run a construction company. You work for technology startups. You've been an actor. You start up as well as recreational facilities.

Tell me a little bit about your upbringing, where you got started, and what you've been through to get here today, to who you are today. It's a real mishmash truth be told i'm the son of a miner from this place called sudbury and a stay-at-home mom so we never had wanting for anything but it wasn't like money was just flowing in quickly it was a lot of used hockey skates and clothes and all that sort of thing so i knew what a dollar was worth and i knew i wanted to make a few of those. And one of my first businesses I ever had, I would go door to door doing hockey pools

with the neighbors in my community. And at the end, I would take half the money and whoever picked the winning hockey team from Stanley Cup would take half the money. And I sort of realized that around eight, nine years old, that that was kind of great to be able to do, not have to do a paper route and have a little bit, I guess, more ownership to how much money I made. And then from there, I mean, a lot of sports, a lot of acting. I studied, you know, went to university, got a degree in human kinetics, which is, you know, sort of science.

And I told my parents I wanted to be an actor. And they said, that's a great idea you go get a real degree first and you can do whatever the heck you want so my parents were supportive but also really pragmatic on the direction I went in and actually at one point I said to my mom I said what a waste of time I took that degree you know and it's sort of a sports science-based thing and she said we own one of the biggest sports academies in the province. So I think it probably made a lot of sense to have taken that. So I've been around the block and I did a lot of different things.

And the truth is, it all came about with the fact that I love working with people. I never want to miss an opportunity. So that sometimes takes you in directions off the path of where you're deciding or planning to go, which can be a great thing. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny how many things you've been involved in. And now you're with Reynolds Brothers Exterior and you're working in that company day to day. Tell me a little bit about that, because I'm sure some of the guests out there are like, okay, we've got an actor. He's done a lot of stuff, technology startup.

Tell us how he relates to us. In fact, you do. So tell us a little bit about that. So the construction field, it wasn't in my sights for something to do. I had the sports academy. I had a technology company. I was doing the apps. And my brothers had this great opportunity for a gutter company. We call it eavesdrops here up in Canada. All exteriors, windows, doors, that whole thing. And so I made an investment. I told them I helped them with the website and some of the business development items. but I didn't expect to actually be talking to customers, going out on site.

And the company grew and grew, and they needed some more hands on deck. So I was doing sometimes double and triple duty with other companies I owned. But when it comes to family, my brothers are as thick as thieves and so, so close that when they needed help, I would drop things. And, you know, obviously making sure my other businesses were working effectively would help me and go out and help out. But that was a real slow burn for that. It really started off just as an investment with some help. And then things grew and they grew. And we got lucky with customers loving what we were doing.

And then I sold my sports academies to Nike sports camps. Then it was just an easy transition to going from doing the day-to-day operations of that over this. And the timing couldn't have been better just because Reynolds Brothers Exteriors was growing, you know, by leaps and bounds. And they needed somebody to help lead the charge from an executive point of view. And it doesn't mean I'm not out there sometimes getting on the phone or going out to site. That's part of being an owner. I've heard you say this before, you know,

just, you know, working on your business and not in your business, but it doesn't mean that you, you don't have to do that. I've seen guys that own big, impressive companies. I'm sure Richard Branson gets out there and does stuff right on the ground level when he needs to because as an owner, you never change that mindset. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean, I've been in both sides of the business where I've been in it, and I feel like if you don't know what it's like to get in it and do the dirty work, it's really hard to work on it because you don't know exactly what the next steps are. And you don't really have that passion. When I train my CSRs, I say, look, if you get avenue instead of street and you do not clarify if it's avenue, street, or road, you can send somebody 45 minutes in the wrong direction. So be sure the little details matter and they matter because I've been

out there in 125 degrees Phoenix sun, you know, in the summer here and gone in the wrong direction because it was simple mistakes. So it really means a lot to be in it. And then you work on it because you could really tell people exactly what it's like and say, I know what I'm doing. I used to do that. So sounds like you've got that same thing going on in Canada right now. Oh, I agree. And I remember at one point with my sports caddies, I had one of my instructors come up to me and he was like, Oh, it must be so great being the owner. You get to just do all. They look at it from the whole Steve jobs aspect.

There's such a sectionist to being an owner and they don't understand that there's so, so much more to it. I remember picking up crap. There was dog crap that was near one of the tennis courts and I was helping with this. And it's just what you do. I don't wait. And the thing is, if the people that work for you don't appreciate that you're willing to do that, then sometimes they're not willing to do it. They have to see you do those things to do that, then sometimes they're not willing to do it. They, they have to see you do those things to realize that, but I'm not above them. You know, I want them to feel that they have an ownership that, that I have a respect for them for everything they do.

And that I'm not above the work that they do, because if you don't do that, you're not going to get people that are loyal to you that treat the company like their own. And that is hard to find. Let me tell you. Oh yeah. There's needle in a haystack. I, I once had three guys come on who are now managers. They started within the same month of each other. And they said the number one thing they respect about me is the fact that I'm here. They see me in the office every day. I get here around between seven and seven 30. And I'm usually here every weekend. I'm here at night and I'll show up at any time and they say the last three owners that all of them had worked

for, different owners, they were hands off. They didn't do anything and they just expected people to work their butts off, but they weren't there. And that meant a lot to them. I will tell you that. I mean, I'm sure you've had circumstances in the past that were a little bit the same. Oh yeah, for sure. The thing to remember too is, you know, we call back our clients after we send out an estimate. Hey, did you receive the estimate? Is there anything we can, you know, break it down for you? That type of thing. And you can get somebody and say, listen, I want you to call them back and see if they received it. And they can do this robotic call back. Or you get somebody who cares about the business, who's passionate, understands it's a family company. Hey, how are you doing today? How was

the estimate? And maybe something will come up in that conversation that will tweak something where you can make a connection or maybe you have to come up with another way to package that estimate to close that sale or make it incentivize your, your, your customer. And you can either get that robot person who calls back and does not care. And it's just about a paycheck or you get the person who's got a little bit of passion behind that. And you find those people, they are indispensable to your business and you need to not let them go. And you need to find ways that it's, you and I both know, it's not always about the money with, with the people that work for you.

And yeah, let's pay people fairly at the same point in time. Let's not treat them like kids. You know, give them autonomy. Let them fly a little bit, you know, because when you put people in a box and treat them like children, that's what you're going to get out of them. I have a hard time with that one because when I hire somebody, they need to know what being excellent as at that job, they need to know what not doing good. I got, I don't want to say in an argument, I will say I've gotten a really heated discussion that was, I'll never argue with

any of my employees, but I got in a discussion with my call center manager and he said, I just don't believe in having these exact handbooks for each role. And I said, that's the foundation of a business. The organizational chart and exactly what this person is expected to do. They should have black and white numbers and we should be evaluating how they're doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly basis. So they have something to improve on.

And I said, I need that in my life. I need accountability. I need to improve on the characteristics and roles that make me who I am. If I don't, the company doesn't work. But at the same time, you need to give them enough autonomy to be able to pick it up and really excel and be able to grow. And certain personalities can. But at the same time, a lot of people like to know, am I doing a good job? Am I not doing a good job? What am I being ranked on? How are you looking at me compared to my counterparts? And what would you say to that?

I mean, you know, these aren't the questions that we lined up, but this is what happens. Oh, yeah. Oh, listen, I hear what you're saying. The first thing I would say, I agree with you wholeheartedly. But this is what happens. and understand where they're coming from. And at that point in time, until they know the rule enough that they know that they're dancing near the edge of that, then you can come back and go, listen, yeah, you got that closed. That's not how I want things done. And then you guys can have a conversation.

But I totally agree. There needs to be accountability. There needs to be those rules in place because if they don't know what they are, then they're going to go in their own direction. You're going to have 20, 30 employees going in different directions and then is the boat moving there where you want it to go are you going to end up where you where you want to be at the end of the year no and that's why you need a leader and that's why you need these processes and and accountabilities in place so i'd say that at the same point in time you get those star players on your team where you want to

allow them to sort of dance a little bit and improv you know come back to an acting term here just improv in the role a bit and sometimes you're going to get with those specific people way more than than you would have gotten otherwise yeah i agree with you wholeheartedly if you got somebody that's an a player that's really building their own path you let them run with it and sometimes they are able to build themselves in a new role, especially if you're a growing company. And that's who most of those A players want to work with. And that's what they're looking for. You know, many of the home service companies that are listening out there today, the owners of the businesses, they work with their families

and they're in the construction business uh here at a1 garage doors i have my dad my my mom my stepdad i mean it's a crazy scenario that we run in here but uh we've had a lot of success but working with families not easy i mean i gotta tell you it worked out for me really really well i needed somebody i could trust around me at a time in 2010. I just really wanted people that I didn't have to babysit and need to know that they're not stealing from me. Tell me a little bit about the challenges that you've had with the family business. So we're obviously Reynolds Brothers Exteriors, but there is a mom, a dad involved, a sister-in-law. There's a lot of family as part of this team and i would agree with what

you said there's great things really great things about it and you it never trusts issue and if an extra hundred dollars ends up in one of my brother's pockets i don't care in the end you know i mean that's a win in my book that being said we are half irish half French-Canadian, and there's a passion behind those. So sometimes it can get heated. It's not often, but sometimes it can get heated. And you know those things growing up, those, I guess, emotional bags you have as brothers where you feel somebody always talks down to you, or the way you deal with each other is maybe not as respectful as can be?

That family dynamic can come into play and you have to make sure that you're really aware of that because that can create little i guess little speed bumps uh with the team so that's why when we're talking to each other sometimes you know you'll say you'll have to preface things by knowing that somebody has a trigger which is great and it leads to great opportunities but sometimes you have to preface things by knowing that somebody has a trigger, which is great. And it leads to great opportunities. But sometimes you have to have little family team meetings where you get everybody back on the same page. And bossing your mom around, telling your brother what to do.

There's a different dynamic than some person that's just hired a gun, something that's paid to be an employee of yours, you know? So we haven't had to hire a family therapist as of yet, but there's been one or two occasions as we were growing in those early days where we didn't totally know each other's roles and we know, head of operations, those type of things, but roles in terms of who leads this aspect of it, who really has the best head for how our financial should be done, you know, even though it might not suit the actual titled role. So there's, there's a lot more to be looked at and making sure that things don't blow up on you. You know, I think every day can be a Thanksgiving dinner if you're not careful, right? Yeah. How do you turn it off, though? That's my biggest problem is we get home, we go to a family outing, whatever it might be, and it's very rare because there's, you know, almost a couple hundred employees now that there's not work discussed. I really don't mind talking about work, and I like to talk about football and other stuff that we're planning on,

but it's kind of an inner twinkle all together. How does that work for you guys? For us, with the brothers, always 90 of the time we love talking about our businesses our baby we're passionate about it i found with some other family members it becomes a little bit much for them so we have a rule you know like if we need to have a meeting we set if it's an event some sort of birthday or or thanksgiving dinner you know we'll go off to the side, the brothers and I do 20 minutes to a talk, but we try not those to bring those to those events. Like that's something we

really go out of our way not to do. And we try to make family time, family time, you know, after hours when we're calling, cause we all have kids. So we do a little FaceTime calling to talk to the kids. If it's after after six we're doing our best not to talk about business weekends we try not to talk about business again you can have these great ideas in place it's not always going to happen but at least it goes back to what we said before what are the parameters of the rule what are the rules we at least know the rules and we know we're breaking them right it's interesting man, because it's hard. Sometimes your work becomes your baby in some regards and it's hard to turn it off.

But I've been working on that myself. And you've been extremely successful in a lot of different industries doing multiple projects at the same time. And in one of your interviews, you mentioned that you get a million ideas and it's a challenge for you to kind of focus in on some different ones and not on the exact same way. Tell me a little bit about some of the challenges

that you have and how do you decide what to do and what not to do? Well, you can do five things half-assed or you can do two things really well or three things. And you have to figure out, do you have kids? How much time do you have in your day? How much does each idea, each business is going to take of your time?

And for me, it's about prioritization. You write a list. What's the most important thing to me? What's going to pay the bills like back when i was starting this all up my sports camp academies were the things that brought the money in they paid my mortgage they paid my dad and if that didn't run these great film ideas i had in technology companies that wouldn't be able to happen so you need to be able to go okay well this machine's got to run for the rest of the the operational run so prioritizing with like that the other thing

to look at as well is where's the benefit going to be is it going to be a financial benefit or creative benefit i'm working on a producing project right now now is it going to be the next stranger things maybe but it may be something that's just, that's what happens with 90% of these things. And so this is a creative, emotional benefit for me. And that's what keeps me going on certain days, you know? So my main function right now is Reynolds Brothers Exteriors. That being said, these other producing projects, I have, you know, invention ideas, new technology ideas that come to fruition that I want to make happen. And

can I add something else to my plate right now? No, no, I have a two and a half year old. I've got a wife. I have health issues as well. I've got Crohn's disease, which, you know, I've had times where I've had to write checks from a hospital bed and run my business from a hospital bed. So I have to really find a balance with that so that I'm, you know, if I put myself in a hospital on my back, then the main machine isn't going to run. So really taking the time to write these things out and figure out what's going to be the best benefit to you and what's going to keep you going from an emotional standpoint. Yeah.

Yeah, that's deep. I agree wholeheartedly. You need to create a vision and whether that's three year, five year, one year. But you've got to separate it for emotional, your family, your well-being, your health, your spirituality. Then you've got to have your business. And the reason I've separated the other four and then I've got business is because we're diehard entrepreneurs. This is our passion. The people listening typically are either looking at being an entrepreneur or they are already. And you've got to make sure that those two paths, they meet. And if they don't, re-evaluate the business side of it and say,

how could I get this trip to go see the Detroit Red Wings every quarter or whatever it might be, or spend time or go to Europe or or be able to spend every night after six and every weekend with my family. Does that what this job looks like to make it grow like I want to? And I mean, it's absolutely what you just said. I mean, it really does depend on what you're capable of doing and making sure that it's going to create that life. And a great exercise that I just did two weekends ago is when I die, which the minute we're born, you're going to die and you're probably going to pay taxes. But the thing that I've realized is what do I want people to say and remember me by? And those are the things that I want to be known for. And I'm not headed in that direction if

at least I haven't been by taking on a ton of different businesses and walking that line and I'm sure there doesn't need to be money and everything I think that I mentioned to you earlier that Steve Jobs wrote this comment when he was passing away and he did say something that's important to me that I want everybody to understand on here. He said, obviously, you can't bring it with you. And he said a lot of stuff that really gives me goosebumps every time I read it. And it's going to be in my book, like I was saying. But he said, once an individual accumulates sufficient wealth, they should go on to do the things they love. But the problem is, I grew up in a family, I got to tell you,

there's not a lot of bad things. I'm not about to spill the beans and say my family, but they argued a lot about bills. There were a lot of bills to pay. And I literally stay in the other room and listen and hear them arguing about bills. And most marriages fail and a lot of relationships fail because of money. And money is important and it's not, you shouldn't be afraid to talk about it. Listen, at the end of the day, they don't teach you the skills. They don't teach you how to not go to the gas station and spend a bunch of money on chips and crap and sodas and stuff. They don't teach you how to have a balanced checkbook. They don't teach you how to invest in stock. They don't teach you how to live on budgets and plan for trips. And I'm here to talk about that stuff. I'm here to say this is what we need to talk

about. This is what people need to learn. And if they learn this at a younger age, it's important. Now, I got to tell you wholeheartedly that, Sean, I love giving. And nothing makes me feel better around Christmas and different things and times to give, give, give. And I believe in that, especially to kids. It's not their fault that they can't be involved in hockey or tennis or soccer. So it's okay to talk about money. It's okay to talk about giving stuff away for free. It's okay to do certain things. Obviously, if you're about giving stuff away for free. It's okay to do certain things.

Obviously, if you're barely making payroll, you probably shouldn't be giving to charity. And that's really what leads me into the next step because I have my biggest mistake I want to talk about. But first, I want to hear yours. So I've made every freaking mistake in the book. I'm not even joking. I've screwed up on my taxes. I had to pay $30,000 one year extra to the city. I mean, you name it.

I've hired bad apples and kept them around for years at a time and watched them plague my company. Even though they were top producers, they literally poisoned the business. I've had keeping the wrong marketing around for so long, even though I knew they weren't making me money. Tell me you had to start over again. What's some of the challenges that you've gone through? And what's the biggest mistake that catches most entrepreneurs off guard in your experience, you know, that they don't plan on or that they didn't start correctly? So some of these items I'm going to list off are related directly to me and mistakes I

made. It's easy to look at people who have had success and think they have all their ducks in a row. And it's not true. I'll go back to Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, all these great people out there have, they probably continue to make some of these mistakes and it doesn't mean that they're immune to that.

For me, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. I'm a penny pincher i'm very frugal and sometimes that's not the best decision if you're hiring based on cost it's not the best thing when you start off and obviously when you are just starting off you have to do that and you have you can't hire somebody at 100k a year just doesn't make sense But there are ways to hire in which to maybe give other benefits where it makes it worth somebody's while. Every second Friday, they get off and they can do what they want with it. Maybe they can work remotely. Maybe there's some gift cards in it when you have some success.

And that way you can get those people and not just hire to get the cheapest person because when you get your employees are everything, right? So if you're hiring for the cheapest cost, you're going to get the cheapest people working for you. And that's going to just totally infiltrate your business. And how do you, if that's the base of your business, then it's just going to compound as you keep growing. The other thing, especially for contractors is, you know, trust the quality and the cost of your work because i see a lot of guys out there who will discount and discount and discount and really their margins just can't cut so much and we were guilty of this when we started we give promos and discounts and

we people realize like you know you have three quotes you take the middle of the road in terms of cost but you want to hire the the best contractor for your dollar that you can so have a confidence in the work that you do and that your employees do and stop discounting them because that can really come back to bite you if people look at you as a you know the walmart of carpentry or the costco of plumbing then they're going to expect this thing's going to have to get fixed in two years and is the Walmart of carpentry or the Costco of plumbing, then they're going to expect this thing is going to have to get fixed in two years. And that's where you want to be. I don't want to disparage those companies. They do what they do really well. But when you're working on your home, when you're working on your business with a contractor,

you want somebody to come out and fix something. And that's not to say like we got a call the other day, somebody wanted to flip their house. they cared about the optics of it they didn't want to pay for the extra items to really do top-notch job and i can respect that you know home inspector asked them to do something they had to get it done but most people want to get a job where they're not going to call you in two years after fix it again so those are really important items if you want to grow and realize that the items that you're going to have to put money into, you know, marketing is a great thing to pay into,

but your customers, especially in contracting, are going to be better than any AdWords, better than any Facebook. If you're doing great service, if you're taking care of your clients, if you're calling them back, don't're taking care of your clients, if you're calling them back, don't just call back the clients that are the biggest dollar amounts, call back everybody, you know, really treat the clients like you would want to be treated as a customer, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You, you hit on some really, really good things. I want to go into something here in a minute, but first I want to ask you,

because a lot of the people are listening going, that's good and dandy. Okay. Um, it makes sense. You don't want to hire the cheap people, but the number one question I get by far is how you get good people. And a lot of it has to do with what you pay, but so you've got some other things you give them off the second Fridays and stuff. But what is your take on commission versus hourly versus maybe a hybrid or maybe a piecework type stuff? I mean, do you have any take on that or just kind of it depends on the business? I think it depends on the business. That being said, I think paying by the foot, that sort of piecemeal model, that gets done a lot here for roofing and sort of industries with regards to that. And you get some good people, but you get a lot of guys that if they do two extra houses, it adds an extra $300 to their paycheck.

And these guys are looking to put more money in their pocket, which everybody is. How much quality are're getting behind that. Right. Right. We pay our installers by the hour, not by the foot. If our guys take an extra couple hours to get something right, then that's just what it is.

Right. And that leads to marketing and awards and people calling us and being willing to wait an extra two weeks for us because we're booked out so much because they've heard from five of their neighbors how great we are, you know? So I don't believe personally in that, you know, by the hour piecemeal work. It doesn't mean it doesn't work, but for us, it's just not the right model. With regards to commissions for salespeople, I think it really incentivizes them. You just have to be on top of

them. Sometimes people, when they're getting incentivized in that manner, will do things that are unscrupulous to try to get more sales, to try to upsell things that maybe clients don't need, especially with older customers. So how do you stay on top of that? And that's got to be something internally that we're making sure that people are, you don't want to come off as a scam artist that's just, hey, put on this extra drip edge or you need six inches instead of five inch. You don't do that. We worked with a customer about two years ago.

It was a couple. They were both legally blind and people came over and only did half the job that they said and that kind of stuff is out there i know that's an outlier but money sometimes people will do things for money and you want to make sure that you're not incentivizing that and so that's where commission and by the foot work is can be a challenge so have some processes in place and checks and balances that make sure that that's not going to happen for your company.

Because once you sold your good name, it only takes a handful of people. And you go from this award-winning company everybody talks about to, you know, with your Facebook and social media, you can be in the mud before you know it. You know, that's true. And I'm here to tell everybody

that commission is not bad. It's not evil if you keep an eye on it and you know what you're doing, because I could talk to 100 people today that would say they'll never pay hourly again because the hourly guys, they never bring everything they need. They're driving around bringing tools. Real quick example, I've got a Christmas light installation business that I really helped get the foundation set up, but I'm not as involved in the operations. I just happened to be low hanging fruit. I knew my time wouldn't be affected. So I created some processes, did the LLC, set up the CRM, use my marketing connections. I was able to get the stuff well below what most people buy at wholesale. Our hourly people, they are padding the clock so much. And there's a lot of systems in place. But I'm telling you, hourly people don't have any incentive to do it better other than a job check. Whereas if you create the systems, and I'm saying there's issues with both. I just don't like the people that may be listening that say hourly is the

only way to get an honest job done. And there's other people that say commission is the only real way to make money. And I believe there should be more of a hybrid, but you should have systems in place to make sure both are being done. But let me tell you this, you get an hourly guy that's not incentive to sell, even if the customer needs it, their job is not to sell. Listen, when you meet your wife, when you go out there and you're networking with your pastor, when you're networking with the people of your church, or you're out there just talking to your neighbors, you're networking, you're doing sales, they're buying you. And if you got a guy that doesn't give a shit, he's not presenting himself well, he doesn't believe in himself, he's not tucked in shirt, which commission people do. Guess what? They're not even going to sell the stuff people

need and they have to get because they're going, I don't believe I need that. So I don't have the answer. I love the different takes on this. but you brought me to this point of the biggest mistake that I believe is the guys that get in business with zero money or, you know, this is really isn't my place to say this, but you enter a new relationship, whether that's a marriage or even in a business partnership, and you've got no money and shit hits the fan. You need to have money going into that because that's the number one problem. I mean, you can't advertise. You can't hire people. You've got to be the price leader. And I'm telling you, I did it. It took me 10 years to get out of it. I was the price leader. I had to lower my rates and become this cheap guy. And luckily, I was out there doing a lot

of the work myself and I overcame it. But no money, you end up being the price leader. And the people in a lot of industries that I know of say, yeah, they charge too much. But then I say, you're charging the same prices they charged in the 90s for the same stuff. If you look, it's the exact same price. We're, you know, in 1995, we're 22 years from now, and you're charging the same prices. And one day this guy goes, who's the biggest company in air conditioning in Phoenix? And I named off a couple of companies. He goes, who's the most expensive?

And I go, those guys. He goes, do you realize that? He goes, do you realize that everybody still uses them and you know that? And I go, yeah, I mean, they've got trucks out there. They show up in a wrapped vehicle. They've got clean cut background people, background check, drug tested people. You're going to pay for that. And a lot of people think, you know what?

The last thing I want to say and I want to get on the next question is you've got all these guys out there that say you're charging too much. Yet if they leave for a week, their whole business falls apart. Their mom and their sister are answering the phones. They're not getting paid sufficiently. They're working out of their home. They're writing their home off. They're not providing insurance. And they're saying you charge too much. And I'm going, wait a minute. You don't even have a business. You just bought yourself a job for your whole family. I mean, I hate to say this stuff, but this is the real truth. I mean, I'm sorry, but, you know, Sean, tell me your take on this whole thing, because it just bothers me.

You know, I agree with you in many regards. I think people, when they're pricing things out, there's really insecurities and you end up getting things like that where you have family members that are, you know, you're giving them jobs, you're paying just to get paid back. And I'll be honest, when I started out my first business, that's what I was doing. And by the end of the year, if you have to go one or two months without getting paid, you're making minimum wage. You might as well just go work at a car dealership, right? Yeah. So for me, it's important that you might not have money.

It doesn't mean that with the Internet nowadays, you could go on the Internet and figure out what are other people charging. That's what I did. I went out there when I was doing my pricing. Go out there. Figure out what are other people charging. That's what I did. I went out there when I was doing my pricing, go out there, figure out what they're doing, get an estimate on your property or on your neighbor's property or your cousin's property. What are they charging? How are they doing things? And make sure you're getting these estimates from the best guys out there, you know, or if your business is not in contracting, but somewhere else, find out what people are doing. How are they marketing? How are they charging? How are they hiring? How are their guys dressed? What is the customer experience like? Nobody out there is doing anything new. People are just taking it,

replicating it, and making it their own. Everything old is new again. So use the internet to your benefit and figure out how people are doing really great things i think about um do you know the guy from 1-800-GOD-JUNK he's a canadian company yeah so they just did an amazing experience they can't come out here they pick up your junk it's a multi multi-million dollar company and you think junk and you think dirty and you think, you know, guys you can't trust. He's parlayed that from just being junk to now they do home moving and they do this thing called one day painting. So when they do moving, they bring a plant for you on the day and coffee for you on the day that they're moving. What does that cost them?

What? Five bucks? Six bucks? You know? But that's part of the customer experience if i was starting a competitor to do that or if i had a company competing with that they're the best out there do that or do your own version of that you know what i mean yeah it's easy with the internet to figure out what people are doing and take what they have and make it your own. Instead of copying it, figure out what is your plant and your coffee for your customers. You bring me back to Blue Ocean versus Red Ocean.

Blue Ocean is creating an uncontested market space. It's make the competition irrelevant. And how do you do that? I mean, there's so many ways to do that. And there's no better way to grow than by your customers. You're absolutely right. that. And there's no better way to grow than by your customers. You're absolutely right. Ask them. There's no better compliment than I can receive as a referral by you. Is there anybody that you could recommend? And you create raving. Raving is the keyword. Raving fans. Make them obsessed with you. Make them say, Mary Lou, you've got to use this company. I mean, these brothers, they come in and they make your home way more efficient. They save you money in the long run and it's done right. Yeah. They

don't consider themselves the cheapest because I'll tell you what, and I've always said this to every customer I meet, you want it done fast. You know, you want to get it done this year, right? Or within the next six months, you want it done right. You want to get it done this year, right? Or within the next six months, you want it done, right? You want to get it correct, have a good warranty, and you want it done cheap. And then I take my middle three fingers and I put down the side two and my middle fingers up and I say, pick two out of the three. Cause you'll never get all three. You get the bird sticking at you, you know, because I like that. You never get all three. It's impossible.

The cheap guys, you know, that do a good job. They're booked out for fricking good luck. okay? You're not going to get them. Okay, so you got the guys that do it right and they give an amazing warranty and they're fast. They're charging an arm and a leg, right? They could get out there today and get it done. So you always pick two out of the three. You can mix the equation however you want it. For the most part, it's true because the guys that do a good job are lined up. The guys that do a crappy job, they put a really inferior product in. Yeah, they can get it done fast and they're cheap, but they're putting in a crappy product. So it works.

The whole thing works, I mean, when you think about it. But I want to jump into another subject. It's a lot of something that I'm always working on and I'm nowhere near the peak of what I need to be, is business leadership. And I want to keep my employees motivated. I really want them to feel like I'm giving them the leadership they need to not only be better, but to make themselves their best selves, and really learn to explore some new opportunities within the company that maybe they didn't know they had. Maybe come up to me and tell me if you got some ideas and maybe a new position and tell

me how would I and the other employees around here benefit from that? And it's something we're starting to do. And I'm curious, you know, I know that you believe in leadership. Tommy, what is something that you believe in that may be different than a lot of the people listening right now? And why is that important to you? Well, I could probably find a better way of saying this, but I'm willing to lose money for customer service. I hate it, but I'm willing to do it. And it, it harkens back to, I remember getting my first Mac book and going to the genius bar at Apple.

And I was working with somebody and I was going to have to buy this cord. It was going to cost me 40, 50 bucks. And I was like, wow. Okay. And he's like, but you can go across the street here. The guy who was working with the genius. And he said to me, go go across the street you can get this for half price i'm like are you sending me across the street to buy from your competition he said well that's our mandate it's the best customer service and the best customer service for you not to pay double and that guy could have sold me a bridge after that because he'd won my trust so there are times where we're not the right company for the job we don't do gutter cleaning that's not part of what we do and i've got a

couple of guys names out there sometimes we're booked out so long i guess the other part of this answer is that your competition is not always your enemy you might not necessarily want to be friends with them but they're not always your enemy there You might not necessarily want to be friends with them, but they're not always your enemy. There's a reason why all car dealerships are right beside each other, right? So sometimes I will send somebody off to another company that might be better for this or they can get it done quicker because we're booked out because we're doing a whole townhouse complex. So it doesn't make me happy to not get the customer, but it doesn't mean that customer won't be mine the next time that they need windows done. Or the fact that I actually said, Hey, let me help you in another direction. It's not going to benefit me financially. And that people respond to that, you know? Oh, big time. I mean, I don't know if you ever saw this Christmas

movie, but a lot of times customers will say, what else do you do? And I'm not afraid of that. But what I am afraid about is the guys out there and the gals that own companies that just automatically they jump on stuff that's not their forte. And they go, well, I know it can't cost that much. I should just get this done. Well, I think you just said it perfectly. We don't do gutter cleaning. Look, we don't do it. We got a great company that does it. We can make money doing said it perfectly we don't do gutter cleaning look we

don't do it we got a great company that does it we can make money doing it but i don't have the time we're so busy what we're doing so you know what do you what do you think about that whole concept the other thing we don't do we get calls about this and we've been talking about this for years we are not roofers we're an exterior company we We do all aluminum work, obviously some copper, vinyl siding, that type of thing. But we don't do roofing. And we have talked about this. Will it be in the cars for us at some point? Maybe.

But our biggest challenge in the last five years has been keeping up with demand for work. And until we can get enough installers, enough employees to live up to that, then we're not going to look to expand what we're doing. And that sort of harkens back to what you said before is we can do five things just sort of okay, or we can do two or three things really well. So will we look at doing roofing at some point? Maybe. It's something we've definitely discussed, but let's do what we do really well. Our biggest challenge is hiring. I don't know how it is down in the US, but when I was growing up, your guidance counselor telling you to go get a trade was something they would never say. It was looked down upon like you're wasting your brain, wasting your future.

I didn't study a trade but if i had a kid 18 years old about to go into college i'd be telling to go into trade because there is no competition in trades and that's the reason why so many not great tradesmen are still doing amazing the average age i think i read here in ontario in our province for a uh i think it's an electrician is 58 years old that's the average age that means there's guys in their 70s doing it and guys in their 30s doing it but not a lot of guys that are 20 so what should people will be guidance counselors be telling kids in our province to do well you know what go become an electrician so our biggest challenge is hiring we're always trying to hire it we're uh looking to even hiring

veterans guys from the armed forces who are coming back that want to work outdoors that want to you know have an autonomy what they do and until we can get that hiring underway where we have so many guys we have a lineup out the door and the thing is we don't just take anybody working for us. You know, you need a certain work ethic, certain disposition, you know, and maybe that's why we don't hire as quickly as other companies. But the awards we've won, the amount of work that we get speaks to that. And I guess this sort of comes full circle to your question is that, you know, we could hire 20 roofers and bang them out, but our name would be mud in a month, right? Yep. Yep. And you just hit the number one question that I get is how do I hire? And, you know, one of the things I wanted to go back to is if you're looking to go into roofing,

my best recommendation would do is to find a company you know of. And maybe the owner is hitting a certain age that they're thinking about getting out and really try to work with them on. It's a lot of work to reinvent the wheel in a niche you don't know, but it's easy to buy it out and get a couple of key men in place and have. The one thing I love and I work with a company called Direct Energy. They're the biggest home service company in the world. They do plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and they do home warranties. And they could pay way more to acquire a customer because guess what? They could sell them all four of those things. And they're probably going to be picking up more as they go.

And it's the ultimate advantage to be able to sell one customer a ton of different things for their home. But going back into what you said is, you know, hiring people is how I've been able to grow my business. And I'm going to tell you, having an organizational chart, having a structure, having a dedicated person. I just brought on recently a full time, 100% recruiter. That's all that this gal does. Her name is Darlene. Now she's got a checklist. We're not just posting an ad in Craigslist once a month. For each market we go into, we're posting nine ads on Craigslist, three different headlines for each market. We're also an Indeed. We're also on Monster Career Builder. We're also doing LinkedIn. We're also doing Facebook ads. We're also doing geofencing. We're also doing

one job fair per week per market. So a lot of times guys go, well, I can't find guys that go, well, what are you doing? And I say, first of all, open the gates. Okay. Your gate is like, I can barely crawl through it. I'm going to make it so that it's bigger than the Atlantic ocean. There's people going to hear about us on everything, even radio, because radio, you could do, you could do a direct response that also says we're looking for great people with that are going to be drug test background checked. But what does that tell the customer? Holy cow, this is a good company. They drug test, they background their people and they've got good opportunities.

I want to tell my friends and family that they're looking for a job, but I'm also going to use them knowing that. So I say open this stuff up. And then I just started using a personality test to actually have a scorecard on each person to make sure they're going to learn right. And they're going to have the competencies that I need in them for different things whether they're CSR dispatch or technician so you know is there something that a philosophy that you use to really identify top top performers I mean is there is there something that you've noticed that really stands out I think a a certain pride, you know, somebody comes to you the way they're dressed. I try to meet people at the car or at least see what their car looks like. If they're coming by vehicle, I think that speaks to them as a person. I've had such a

hard time with hiring in all the companies I've had. And if I'm batting 50%, I'd be surprised. I was up until two years ago, I'd say I was still batting probably about 40%. And I had somebody give me this book called Who, and it's a whole process on how to hire. Yeah. Yeah, I have that book. You know the book. Okay. And the problem, at least up here in Canada, is that you as a reference aren't allowed to speak badly about the person you're giving a reference to. So if they work for you, you just can't say something bad about them. The only thing I think you're allowed to say is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know about Canada, but you could ask the past employer, are they eligible for rehire? And all you could say is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know about Canada, but you could ask the past employer, are they eligible for rehire? And all you could say is yes or no,

you can't go and do it. Yeah. Which is kind of terrible. Like if someone was a terrible employee and stole from you, then that's something you want to sort of pass on. So this person doesn't continue to do that. Right? So there are questions within the book where you can go into and you can ask questions that are going to make sure they're not going to break the rules, but it's going to force them to answer the questions in a way that's going to get you the answers that you need on whether this is the right person. So that, to me, has been the best assistant I've had. And we utilize that for, I'd say, about 90% of our hires. We also incentivize our employees in the roles that we're looking for.

We give them a finder's fee. So if that person gets hired and they stay on for six months, they're going to get money for that. So that our guys are always looking for the next employee. And the guys who are working for us, they're working for us because we we love them we think they're great workers and a great part of our team and they obviously want the people that they bring on to add to that and if they can't last six months then nobody you're not going to hit the money anyway right it's just going to make your job harder yeah and i'll just add on to that that if you don't realize what an A player, what this person,

these people can do for you, these people that are always looking to stay busy, they're OCD, they get stuff done. I mean, not all of them need to be OCD, but they're just, they need to do their job really well. If you're only willing to spend, let's say you're doing 10 grand a month in revenue, real small numbers. You're willing to do 15% in marketing. So there's 1,500, but you're only willing to spend $35 to get an employee. There's a problem there because I could tell you that if you start to accumulate A players, and I'm talking about these personalities, we just had a meeting this morning. We have a meeting every morning company-wide at 8 a.m. for all the major managers. And I went back to the old school basics is if you see a guy at a gas station or at Denny's or at Applebee's or at Costco or anywhere, and you see somebody just

smiling, busting their butt, they're dressed like they respect themselves. You give them a card and you write your name on it and you freaking tell them that you'd love to give them the opportunity to come if they're ever looking for a job. And every time you see them, you just remind them of that. And you'd be surprised if we go out there and we do this always meeting people and just handing out cards.

And I don't see them. Sometimes I go weeks without seeing them. Sometimes I'm so busy, I'm running from place to place. And sometimes I go, wow, you just impressed the crap out of me. And you're funny. You care. You're charismatic. You're the exact thing I want my company to be about.

What do I got to do to get you on? You need to come see me on Monday. So it's just the outside of the box way. And it's good to have management know that, you know? So, well, let me add this to it. If there's somebody listening out there, who needs a business idea, starting headhunting company, a headhunting company specific for contractors, you know, obviously you've got the high level positions, but it's the low level positions.

Those are the things that we have the hardest time filling, and there aren't companies out there that are fulfilling that. So that's your business. Find those great people, and I think you're going to have a winner or success. It's about the people, but I will say this, and this is where I get in trouble sometimes. There's a show. What is it called? Marcus Limon, The Prophet. He goes, people, process, product. And I believe the process dictates the people you get. Like you said, you read The Who, the book on hiring, and that helps you create a process to get good people.

So don't just expect to get good people. What's your process in order? Like I've got a whole posting checklist each week in each market. Each of my market managers got to go do this. Then they got to go through the first interview. Here's the questions we ask. Then they got to go through this. Then they got to go through a personality profile. It's not easy to get through to here, but you're going to make amazing money. And the process should dictate who you hire. So get the good people. Absolutely. The people of this company that I have have made this business. It's not I will never, ever take credit whenever I'm talking to somebody. I'm going to tell them straight up.

Somebody says, how do you do it? I say, I don't. I have amazing people. But then I put around there some perimeters called processes. So you talk about having great mentors and advisors to help you make business decisions. And I'm the same way. I talk to 100 people before I make a decision, everybody that I trust. And you've got a board of advisors. And then you also have people around you

that you've really learned a lot from, you told me, is like Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec. And I always screw up his name, but I watch Shark Tank almost every night. I could even watch reruns because I dig that show. I have basic cable, too, so that limits me to what I could watch. But I love that stuff. Tell me a little bit about how you've been able to surround yourselves with those type of people

and what kind of stuff you're able to pull out of them to really enhance that in yourself. Well, I've been lucky. I'm a real people person. If I see somebody, I was at an event and both Robert and Kevin O'Leary were there. So they started on a Canadian version of Shark Tank called Dragon's Den. And that started off based of an England show called Dragon's Den. So that's where they started here and went up to them at this event. I was really focused on my technology company at the time. And Robert took a few minutes in the corner and we talked about my business and he gave me some insight. And because he's got a background in technology, I was really able to give me some wise words. And Kevin's a little bit more broad strokes from more of a marketing standpoint. He comes from an education background with children's books and things like that.

So obviously I had a company having to do with kids' sports camps and getting a chance to chat with him. And I would continue to bump into those guys. But there was another guy off the Dragon's End, this guy David Chilton. I kept wanting to connect with him. And every time I called him, he'd always get back to me within five minutes. I don't know how he could do it. He's one of the busiest men around. And one day I said, listen, I just want to grab a coffee.

I just want to have a lunch. I want you to be one of my mentors. And he said, listen, Sean, I get 50 requests a day. I just can't do it. With all due respect, I think you're great. And I said, what are you doing this weekend? It was the fall. I said, are you raking leaves? Are you cleaning out your garage? Whatever that is, let me come and help you. Like, you've got to do it. Let me just go there. And I just want to, you know, osmosis, be around you and try to glean some

information from you. And that was the turning point, you know. Figure out how you can be a benefit to this person. Because what you're doing is you're asking them to be a benefit to you. It's got to be a two-way street here. And I originally, when I was talking to David, I was trying to get him. I knew he was a big tennis guy. I said, listen, let me give you a tennis lesson. And that was not the way to go. But as soon as I said raking leaves, he was all over that.

So when you're reaching out to somebody that you're trying to get something from them, come to the table with something. If you're sending them a cold call email or a phone call, find out what moves them. Are they about volunteering at Sick Kids Hospital? Are they about their kids are really into soccer? Bring something to the table that piques their interest that will move them and maybe differentiate you from from the rest of the because these guys are getting 40 50 requests a day to do something and for them to be successful

they cannot say yes to every one of them so don't take it personally and don't take no as a first answer if i'd taken no as a first answer to dating my wife when i asked her out we wouldn't be together if i said no the first time i was trying to raise money for a company i wouldn't have it or the first time like the first no is just okay how do i change my question to get a yes next time or how do i ask differently And it's not about annoying people. It's about being persistently positive with people. You know what I mean? Don't annoy them. Find a way to get to them in a really positive manner.

Yeah, some of the best advice I've heard is really when you're reaching out to somebody, a lot of people use a shotgun approach. And I've interviewed a guy recently that wrote a letter to the CEO of Thumbtack and he got through to him and he's the number one, you know, he was there. You've got your fishing equipment, your camping equipment, your bicycles, your motorcycle, your hot rod. Find something that you connect with, truly connect with. Don't BS people. And if somebody does race car driving on the side, like I've seen on Jay Leno, I've seen Robert Kerchevec, and I know he's into cars. And I cars to some, some aspects, but I'd be

faking if I went up to him and said, Hey, Hey, and people read right through that bullshit. So I'd say find something. And if you truly don't have a passion that meets theirs, then they're probably not the right person to learn from anyways. Right. I mean, Oh yeah. That's my take on it. At least if I'm going to be there talking to somebody, I want something that we connect on at a deeper level. And I'll probably learn a lot more from that type of person. So that person going back to David Shelton, who worked with Robert Herjavich and Kevin O'Leary, is that I had read his book. He had the most successful financial book in Canada called The Wealthy Barber Back In. Oh, I read that book.

That's an old book. Yeah, my stepdad bought that for me. I was a teenager. My aunt bought that for me when I was 16. I bought my first fourplex at I think 19 or 20 with a buddy of mine. I worked at the mine one year. And he just came up with a follow-up of that book I think called The Wealthy Barber Returns about two years ago because obviously the financial climate has changed. But when I was reaching out to this guy, two things were happening.

I was sitting on the board for Tennis Canada with my sports camps, and we were trying to get him to come out to a big event with the rest of the Dragon Shark Tank guys, O'Leary and Herjavich. And I reached out to him with that. But I also told him that his book literally changed my financial life and my life. And so there was some real passion behind that, edging on the fact, edging on being a real fanatic about it. But I wanted to really come at it from, when you're coming to these people, don't come at it too much from a fan point of view or fanatic it just puts you on a different level with them you want to just come at it as one business person one entrepreneur to another it doesn't mean you don't have something to learn

but you don't want them to feel like there's a big hierarchy difference with them it just it just changes the dynamic so when i reached out to them. It was complimentary. It's told him how, how he changed my life. And he had such gratification with his book, you know, having such a specific effect on somebody. And then on top of that, I was reaching out to him from a, you know, fundraising point of views. Well, let's go down to the next question is, it's a huge one for me. And I think it's a huge one for you. It's customer service. And I track a lot of things, but I really like to track customer service. I like to know how we're doing. And I like to know from the beginning of the phone call to the survey we give after the

service is done. And there's so many different factors that go into delivering outstanding customer service. Tell me a little bit about how customer service impacts the bottom line of your company. Customer service is everything. And I'm saying that in all caps. It is everything. Here's the thing. You can hire anybody to put up your gutters. You really can.

You know, if you're a roofer, all you need is a ladder and you can be a roofer. Customer service is going to make or break your business. Just like banking, you can get a mortgage anywhere. You have a relationship with these people, how you get treated,

that type of thing. And what does customer service cost you? Like, it costs you nothing to have your guys dressed well, to be polite on the phone, to take the time to listen to people. That's really important. When I've been a customer, and obviously I own a house and people have to come and do work here, it's interesting to see things. And sometimes I find contractors can be a little bit like doctors.

They kind of know everything. They talk over the customer. They don't actually listen to what the problem is. And everybody wants to be heard. So listening to your client, and sometimes they're going to tell you something that you already know, and it's going to waste your time, but that's part of customer service is listening to your client. They need to be heard. And if they have a complaint, they need to be heard. You know what I mean? So being able to track customer service is important. I don't care who the person is on my team. That affects our business.

And we have incentivizing prizes and awards and things in place for when we get great feedback. You want your team celebrating your successes specifically to customer service. And if you're incentivizing that, your team knows that's important to you. I know the amount of time my technician spends at a house, whether it's a repair or a door estimate. And I called the technician last Thursday and I said, look, I see the last several jobs, the majority of them, he was there longer, but I seen three of them that were, he was there for 10 minutes. And, uh, I told him it takes me that long to pet the dog and ask the customer a question. I mean, literally. And he did, he said, is my job at stake? I said,

man, I'm the owner of the business. If I can't call you up and at least talk to you about this stuff and figure out what's going on within my company, then first of all, I shouldn't be the owner. And second of all, why are you so worried about your job? You're not getting written up. I'm just curious because I believe you should be asking more questions to get to know the person and understand what they're going through and why they call this out there. And it takes longer than that. You've stalled out your car and you restarted it within 10 minutes of being there and you left. So unfortunately, I'm a capitalist. I mean, I understand that there's if everybody thinks every human being is always going to do the best thing. And, you know, don't get me wrong.

There's a lot of people that do the right thing all the time. But I believe in checking because you keep people on their toes and people keep me on my toes. Guess what? The bank stopped by on Friday. You know, they asked me a lot of questions. They wanted to do a tour of the facility. I was ready to roll. It went great. But the point is, they keep me on my toes just like I keep my employees on their toes with secret shoppers and surveys after we do the work. And we even have a guy that go checks the work. We check back hangs. We make sure everything was said. We make sure that the customer understands a warranty policy. And if

you're not doing those things, you're not ensuring that the customers are getting the best possible service ever. Now, what are some of the things you do to make sure that your customers are receiving the best possible service possible? Well, for us, it goes right from that first phone call, the way you answer that phone call. We are either answering the phone call right when they call in or getting back to them in a very, very timely manner. And that's not always the case in our industry here. From there, we try to make the entire process as seamless as possible. I mean,

we get a lot of people here called snowbirds where they'll, they will be here in Canada, but in the winter they go down South, which is my daddy's down in Florida. Now they literally can make a phone call, have the entire job done, have somebody look at the job, get the pictures back,

pay for it online. And we can do it as seamlessly as possible. And they're getting that customer service all along the way. We can do everything remotely. And that remoteness allows us to actually track the customer service along the way so we can see what kind of time each person is putting into them, what people are asking. But the other thing, too, is following up with a client as an owner,

you know, making a call here or there, like how was the job? How were the installers? How was the person? Like what about the person who called and they don't even want an estimate? Well, that's important to find out why those people didn't even want to move forward. And was your admin having a bad day? Was a person rude on the phone? Because if you get enough of those, you know, you have to reevaluate your front line person. So you can use a great CRM, and that's really important.

But there's also just getting on the horn with the client and say, hey, my name is Sean Reynolds. I own this company. Saw you call the other day. You ended up not getting asked. Was there anything we could have done? One of the best things you can say to a client is how can I make this right for you? Oh, yeah. It's a ball on the court. Yeah. Yeah. I got a guy named Bruce on my front lines that this morning I signed 12 checks. OK. Their customer, I do 4,000 jobs a month. So four checks for the week. I'm like, cool.

But that's, you know, or what is it going to take me to earn your business today? Because I want you to tell your friends, neighbors and family exactly about the job we do for you. And apples to apples, I think we could compete on

not only the value, but we offer a superior product. And our guys are drug testing background check. And I know you're going to be super excited about the work we perform. And that alone is like, whoa. And then calling people back and following up with them. How many times have I got, you're the only person to follow up with me. You just earned my business.

I mean, it's all the time. And I'll never say that about any business because I've learned just on this podcast that people could do things a way different way and get the same results. I mean, my general manager always says, he says, there's 10 different ways to the top of the mountain. Okay. So you can have your own strategy, but the people that are knocking stuff down saying my business is not going to change. No, I'm not going to do a website. No, I don't believe in that shit. This is the way it works.

I'm not going to pay more than this. They're going to get ran over. I'm sorry. They just will. If that's their mentality, you might as well just give up. I'm sorry. I mean, and the people that I don't believe that there are a lot of people listening to this that are that way because you wouldn't be making yourself better listening to a podcast that's all about improving and listening to the top people in the industry if you were like that so i hope i'm not insulting anybody out there but it's just one of my uh

observations i mean what are your thoughts about that sean i can guarantee you that you got a guy like mark cuban richard branson those guys are out there. And I'm sure they listen to podcasts, they listen to this, they listen to all kinds of things out there. I'm sure they have they go, Oh, wow, we should try that. If you're being a dinosaur out there thinking that you got it all figured out, then you're not evolving. And you're gonna end up getting your business will get killed. I have had success. That doesn't mean every single day I read five newspapers a day, not the whole newspaper, but I'm going through the New York Times. I'm going through the Globe, Washington Post, the Guardian out of England. I want to read what's going on in the

world. And I'm getting ideas. I'm writing these ideas down in my Evernote to try to figure things out and figure out what is somebody doing across the world that can make my business better i start every day it's that buddhist thing is i know nothing and if you go with that mentality of the beginner mind i know i'm getting a little bit uh a little bit buddhist here on everybody but if you go like that that you don't know everything then you're gonna be open to learning everything yeah i think it's important you know you make it such a good point that there's so you don't know everything, then you're going to be open to learning everything. Yeah, I think it's important. You know, you make it such a good point that there's so many people out there.

And if you open up your mind each day and say, I'm going to learn something great today. And I think self-reflection is a big part of that is to say, what was it? How can I use that trait tomorrow? Use it seven times to build a new habit. But I want to go on to something that's super fun, super cool about you. It's not an entrepreneurial, but I'm super intrigued by it. You've been an actor. You do some production. I mean, I don't know a lot about that lifestyle. I live in Arizona. I'm not far away from L.A., which is the mecca of that whole industry. Tell me what that's all about. I mean, you said you're working on a project.

Sounds like maybe a show that you're working on. It seems like a passion. Explain it all to me. I'm really excited to hear about it. You know, I've done a ton of theater and TV shows and some movies. I've shot movies for Universal Pictures in Germany. My agent out in London, England was Phil Collins' sister back in the day. So I've done a lot of stuff. And, you know, I've had some success. I mean, not so much success that I'm doing the next movie with Brad Pitt. So my entrepreneurial spirit sort of had greater success and I kept moving in that direction. But it doesn't mean that I'm not you know I get asked to do a show here and there producing projects I like that a lot more it's um as opposed to being the chess piece on the board I like moving the chess pieces

and I've got about five ideas that I'm really excited about again I can't do five ideas I'm really excited about. Again, I can't do five ideas. I'm working on one right now specifically. And this is one of those things like I have to look to prioritization. How much time can I devote to this? How much time is it going to take away from the main business? And I think this, it doesn't hurt me as an entrepreneur. You know, being a great actor is all about listening. i was an improv guy with second city for a number of years it's all about listening and really reading your audience and i think that's important to being an entrepreneur so i'm actually going to a big talent agency party tonight that i got invited to and i'm hoping to bring this project to fruition

and the thing with these producing projects there it's like starting a whole new company. You got this idea. You got to get a writer to help you bring it to fruition. You got to get financing. You got to get this thing shot. You got to use every tool in your arsenal to make this happen. Running a company is difficult. But a lot of times you're doing the same thing over and over with producing

movies and TV and theater. There's always a million new problems coming at you that, that you may not have seen before. And you have to, you have to come up with new tools and strategies, which I think has made me better at what I do as a business owner, you know? Yeah, I get what you mean. I mean, you've got to find all those missing pieces, and you've got to make the talent work together.

That's the hardest part is you've got a videographer, you've got editors, you've got the dressing people, you've got the music coordinator, you've got the stage, all these things that complicate the whole thing, and you're like, work with this guy, and you've got to work with this guy, and you're like, work with this guy and you got to work with this guy and you got to work with this guy and make it all sync together and come up with a good finished product. I mean, and then you got to get it out there. So then you got to have the advertising.

It's like, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine. But where do you get to start? How do you start a story? How do you even get that? You know, I just want to know like as a trait to learn from well it goes back to the whole thing of you know you tell stories from your own history you nothing is new you you go okay this happened to me i went to a doctor's office i went to this and then you can take that story and you can just amplify it and make it almost absurd

or you've got the jerry seinfeld thing where he just he just kind of tells stories about you know i went over to the airport and then you know and again he has got a little bit of he kind of amplifies the stories a little bit but nine times out of ten you tell one of those stories about something that happened at the doctor's office and half the people in the audience can relate to that or can see themselves in you or know somebody that's happened to you or you know they just get it you know people want to commiserate and be part of uh i guess a shared experience so you're telling stories that everybody else has gone through you know what i mean i think back to when i talked to my mentors right and you know they tell me about times about being afraid about

making payroll and about this and that and they're still telling about the fears that they have and i'm like oh my god you're so successful how could that be like you know these nothing changes the things that you worry about you still worry about and still drive you. And the stories you want to tell as an actor, the people out there, you're not going to say anything that nobody has thought or heard before. You know what I mean? And if you're coming at it from an honest point of view. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a skill. That's a skill. And I believe that some people get it. They just get it when they're kids. And I believe that everything could be taught. It just takes a lot of practice, even public speaking, which is supposedly scarier than death for most people. Yeah. Which is crazy. I mean, and I agree. I used to shake and sweat. And then what I learned about public speaking or even being with a customer is to know the stuff like the back of your hand. It's to know your story.

It's to know exactly the repair and have efficiencies and know that you're good at it. And if you're there, you're comfortable with it. I mean, wouldn't you say the same? Oh, yeah. Well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about having processes in place and you want your guys to follow those. Well, if they know the script script they can dance around that script that's what they say about great jazz you know they can play the song just regularly or they can dance around those notes and have fun with it and do that and if you know what you need to say then you can have fun with it i've i've done plays i did the mousetrap here in toronto it's the longest running play in the world it ran for almost 30 years here it's been running for

almost 60 years in england it's an old agatha christie play and there's a guy here in toronto that's been doing this play the exact same play every night for 12 years and unless you're you with actors are up there having a little bit of fun. We were doing things where we'd have games of tag where you'd just touch somebody in a very specific way on stage while doing your lines. Because you can't change the lines. It's very specific, right? But you'd use a script, you'd do something

and it would keep your actor, your fellow actors on their toes, right? So you're able to reinvent it and make it fun. Go see Hamiltonilton twice or i can guarantee you you watch one actor they're going to find ways to reinvent that if they've been doing that play for a little while if they're a newbie if they just started out they're going to be by the book but anybody who's been there for a while if they don't reinvent that in a certain way make

it their own a little bit then they're going to go crazy. Because this guy who had been doing the mouth trap for 12 years in Toronto, he went a little crazy, a little stir crazy. He started mouthing everybody else's lines when he was up there, actually. So if you're in the audience, you would see him saying my line under his breath, even though that was not his line.

Wow, that is funny. Yeah. How does the audience find more about you? We're going to go ahead and call this one the homeserviceexpert.com forward slash Reynolds Brothers. And that's R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S Brothers or B-R-O-S. We'll just do bros. Okay. B-R-O-S. So we'll make sure to have that available to find out more about how to get more of Sean. But what else could they do? If someone's listening right now and they got a pen,

is there something that you'd want them to reach out or a way to get more of you? Yeah, reach out to me on Twitter. You know, Sean, S-H-A-W-N underscore Reynolds, R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S. And, you know, I'm going to do my best. I try to reach back to everybody because I know I was that guy reaching out to people and have something interesting to say to me when you reach out, you know, like you heard this. So, you know, I'm into sports, I'm into acting, you know, have something interesting to say

so we can start a conversation because that to me is, if you catch me, you're going to see me talking to the checkout lady. I'm talking, I'm talking. I love getting to know people. And I get hit up pretty regularly. And I've struck up conversations with people from Australia, from Finland, from, you know, somebody recently reached out to me from Texas. And it's kind of amazing the stuff that I've actually learned and it's being a perpetual student you know and always trying to learn from people around you so I'm

excited to engage with your audience because just based on this conversation I'm sure they're going to be really interesting yeah I'm excited too I wanted to ask you are there maybe two or three books that you are just like super passionate about that you just recommend i don't care if it's all about business or not but just something that you're like dude you gotta read this like somebody gave me the holographic universe and i haven't read that yet it's by michael talbot but that's off the topic of business so don't feel like it has to be but just some stuff that have changed your life. Well, I remember I have a really great mentor, this guy, Al Gantry, who's probably, I shouldn't say his age, but he's probably pushing 80 now.

And he gave me this book many years ago called The Pig and the Python. And it's about how the baby boomers are like a pig being eaten by a python. So first they hit up baby foods, then hit levi's genes and their first home and now they're in retirement so it really gives you a sense of this huge population that's still having reverberating effects on on the economy so i think that's a really important book before i sold my company to nike sports camps somebody gave me a great book called built to sell and i've not sold a company before and this yeah by jim collins yes yeah great book and it you know it's great to know the path you're going to go down you know how how these things worked and uh really have a little bit of foresight

so that to me was great a little bit less business business-y. I love The Alchemist. It's about the four truths. And, you know, I'm a little bit of yin and yang in how I run business. I want to be really successful. I want to run a great business and, you know, maybe be a great person of the environment and of the earth and of my fellow human being. I think it can be really great to a few people during your

day and not be a jerk like that person that calls you on the phone from the phone company that that guy that's doing the telemarketing does that person want to be doing that but do you have to be a jerk to them because they're probably a bunch of my fellow actors who have to make you know a living doing that that's not their dream and they don't want to get trapped on by every single person they talk to and does it hurt for you to be like hey man thanks a lot but i'm having dinner or i'm not for this but you're having a good day you're having a good day okay thanks a lot you know it doesn't hurt to put a ripple of goodness out there right you're right that's 100 true and uh sometimes we forget sometimes we just what i'd recommend is i got this aromatherapy thing that I'm breathing in essential oils and I've got some breathing exercises.

And I've really started to do more exercise and chill a lot on the caffeine because of the highs and lows. And it's just reminding yourself that you don't have to be a certain way. And my biggest problem has always been if I go on a diet and I'm not fat, I'm not what I would consider skinny. I try to work out. But if I wanted to get down from 220 to 210, I want to do it in a week. If I make a change, I want to do it as much as possible. If I'm not going to drink or if I'm going to cut it down, I just quit.

It doesn't have to be that way. Just make these little changes that you could make and slowly just say if i'm gonna start changing my life and the things i eat i'm just gonna cut this out this week and next week i'm gonna cut this out and next week i'm just gonna eat a little bit less and i'm gonna start reading doesn't mean i need to read a book this week or a book today it means you know what i'm gonna try to get this book done by the end of the month because i'm gonna start slowly so that's one piece of advice I'd like to leave on. And I wanted to give you an opportunity, Sean, because you've got a lot

of good insights on a lot of great things. And I know we've talked about a lot of stuff, but is there anything that maybe we left out or something that you wanted to close on that really means something to you? You know, you don't have to be a jerk to be successful. You don't have to treat your employees like crap. You don't have to be, you know,

there's a real mythology about Steve jobs being this jerk. I don't know the man. I read what I read, but it does. You know, Tim cook is continuing to have success with Apple. And it doesn't mean you have to be a jerk. And I've seen really, really great people just be really good. Are you going to have to be tough with people? Yeah, you do have to do that sometimes,

but you don't want to be a jerk. And that's not to say that I haven't been a jerk in the past. And that sometimes I'm a jerk to people that work around me, you know, and that's not my goal. I'm really trying to, can we not, we can do things in a positive manner will we still achieve things and so i guess to build upon what you're saying as well is you don't have to invent the wheel all in one shot you can make incremental changes you don't have to go from being a guy who's 100 headstrong to going the opposite way because people are going to think you're having a breakdown. But, you know, making changes with the people you work with and that you live with. I've been doing this thing for about three years. I've been doing mindfulness meditation.

It's just about, you know, breathing. And I find it really difficult. And to sit there for half an hour a day, there's no way I'm going to do it. But I can do it for 10 minutes. And they say, listen, sit there for one minute. Try just falling your breath for one minute. And that's the same thing when I go to the gym, you know, the hardest thing is for me to get there. But once I get there, the hardest thing for me to do is get out of there, you know? So I've been doing this thing called, it's this app called

10% Happier by Harris. He's a correspondent on ABC news. and he had a a little bit of a i guess panic attack on air and he started doing mindfulness meditation he talks to some of the best people in the world and you know he says you can do it for one minute there's these one minute mindfulness things and it helps me feel a little calmer a little bit more grounded and helps me deal with people around me in a more positive manner. That's huge. I love that. We get a lot of ideas when we read books and I've gone in and I've tried to make changes. And what I've learned, my one last piece of advice is I really try to do it for a few weeks. Like if you can't do it yourself, don't expect your employees to do it and don't think it's going to be lived. And the last thing you want your employees doing is,

oh, great. Who did he listen to or what did he read or who did he talk to today? You know, so finish things. And that's what I said earlier is get things to where they're running smooth. When you introduce a new habit or a new change, make sure you get the one thing. And that's why I go back to key performance indicators. If you use this calculator I'm coming up with, it'll be free on my website. It'll identify the weakest part of your business. And that's what you need to change immediately. And you're going to see the most growth. And I've really simplified things. And like I said, I'm not making money on it or anything. I'm just out there to show you guys how simplistic this could be. But Sean, I got to tell you, this is the longest podcast yet. And it's because I truly enjoyed every minute of this with you. And I

definitely look forward to having you on in the future if you'd come on. I would definitely come back, Tony. This has been a really gratifying experience and great chatting with you because like I said, I took a few nuggets chatting with you. I wrote a few things down as we were speaking. So that obviously speaks to what you had to say and what you brought to the table.

So thanks so much for asking me to be part of this today. Yeah, absolutely. And listen, I'll get you back on. I'll follow up with you and you have a great day and make it a great week, okay? You as well. All right. Thanks, absolutely. And listen, I'll get you back on. I'll follow up with you and you have a great day and make it a great week. OK. You as well. All right. Thanks, Sean. Cheers. This was the Home Service Expert podcast. Now, listen up. Do you want to dominate your market? Triple the profit you make without working those long 12 hour days, seven days a week? If the answer is yes, my team and I are opening up some new time slots

to help you solve your biggest business challenge. Just go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash discovery and book a free 30-minute call with our team today. I will repeat that, homeserviceexpert.com forward slash discovery and book your free call today.