The Home Service Expert Podcast - Boosting Your Team Efficiency With The Power of Operating Manuals

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Al Levi is the author of The 7-Power Contractor and co-author of The Home Service Millionaire. A former contractor who worked for 25 years in every aspect of his family’s Long Island-based HVAC/plumbing business, Al has been rated as one of the 25 most influential contractors in the United States by Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine. He now helps other contractors learn how to run their businesses with less stress and more success through consultations, workshops, and webinars. In this episode, we talked about business systems, operations, staffing, sales and marketing...

People are always, think about yourself when you go out and visit other shops. I guarantee you, when you go to somebody else's shop, you can see all the things that are broken. Your problem is you can't see it at your own door. And I had to bring in friends in the industry to tell me the truth that I was blind to. And I was lucky I had some great mentors do that for me. So yeah, it starts with planning. And planning is really, what I like to think of is, if you think of your projects, all the million things you have to do, it starts with planning. And planning is really what I like to think of as,

if you think of your projects, all the million things you have to do, it starts with a funnel. There's a master project list. Project list is not just projects, it's also habits. So Tommy has learned how to master one of the most important habits is the step of delegation. And all of you out there hate delegating. How do I know? Because I used to hate to delegate. And the reason I hated to delegate is I gave you a project, I let you go, 30 days later I show up and you have thoroughly disappointed me. Give me that thing back. And you all do it. And so what have you trained your staff to do is, well, I shouldn't do anything because you're not going to like the results anyway. And now we're both upset and frustrated. 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. All right, so we got the famous Al Levy, my mentor, my consultant. Al Levy's got the seven power contractor. He co-authored my book, The Home Service Millionaire. We've worked together now for quite a long time. And I got one of my manuals sitting here that actually we built this one. This is the new modified revised field supervisor. But today we're going to be talking a lot about a lot of cool stuff. First, I'll

introduce you, Al, and I appreciate you coming on today. Thanks. Al is an expert of business systems, operations, operations staffing sales and marketing and he got his roots in the plumbing hvac industry back in uh new york i believe right yes sir new york for those out there he worked for his papa and then i went out and did his own thing so he wrote the seven power. It was OSI and Comfort Services. Specialist. And he found his way out here to Phoenix. He let me work on his garage.

He also let us do the epoxy and the storage, which is super cool. But he knows everybody in the industry. I mean, he's been around a while here. So he came in with us. He worked with me, Adam, and Brian. And we designed all of our manuals. He helped us get our org chart going. He was actually a guest on the podcast originally.

And then we met up for lunch. Then he came and looked at my business and said, you need my help. So that's pretty much how it went, right, Al? That's pretty much how it went. So it's the third time on the show. Let's go through a little bit about what the seven power contractor has in it and how you start, because the hardest part is getting started. Everybody call. I talked to my cousin the other day and he goes, I just can't sit down and write a manual. He goes, I don't even know where to get started. And I said, it's not easy.

We had to be stuck in captivity for days on days on days with Al. And now I think I'm up to 30 manuals. I mean, the manuals are what we live and breathe by. But why don't you go ahead and talk to us about why you wrote the book and a little bit about your journey? Yeah. You know, as most people who out there came into family business, I was third generation. Business was started in 1936 by my grandfather. And, you know, my dad and my uncle took it out and went into the heating business. And from there, my brothers and I showed up, my two older brothers, by the way. And then I realized one day that if we didn't start doing other services,

we were going to lose our customer's basement. So that was really the motivating factor to get to plumbing, heating, cooling, and now they do electric as well. I also was a member of what was before Nextar, C2000. That's where I met the beautiful and talented Ellen Rohr, who has profoundly changed my life, but also great guys like Frank Blau and the industry giants like George Brazil. And so really what it was is when you show up in a business, you know, as a kid, Tommy, as an eight-year-old, you're empty in baskets, cleaning up toilets. You know, you just do everything. Business is really your life.

But I didn't officially start, you know, until I was 21 and put 26 years on my clock. And I will share with you, as I've shared many, many times, it was New York, union shop, crazy stress out of the world. Sleeping with the phone next to my head, you know, and back in the days when they had a beeper and two-way radios, and it was just crazy. It was just like, even when I tried to sleep, I was not asleep, if you know what I mean, because I was waiting for the phone to ring. And this was not a small shop, by the way. We had already got to like 70 people. And so fortunately for me, I've had great people come into my life, which is one of the reasons I give back in the work that I do, is that I feel if you've been given a gift, you're obligated to give it back. Now, Tommy will attest, I get paid for

what I do. But that's not putting my kids through college. I didn't have to work again when I left. And really the change was the systems. The systems is what really made the difference. And so the very first and most important system were these operating manuals. And I had tried for years, Tommy, to put them together. And I typed them up and got it really big. And the first one I always like to talk about is the employer-employ employee manual. And all of you probably have one of those things. And it's really a good CYA and what means cover your anatomy for those who want to keep it clean. And then it was really just,

I went into court, brought in a lawyer, you know, it was like a 300 page book. And the guy looks at it and he goes, do you run this in meetings? No, no. Does, have you gone through you run this in meetings? No, no. Have you gone through it with your people? I go, no.

He goes, you think the average person knows what's in that book? Because they don't. So your case is out of here. And Tommy, I learned one of the best lessons in my life at age 25, that if it's not in plain English and if it's not in the culture and it's not alive, it's worthless. That was when it was printed. Now it's worthless digital. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah. One of the things you've taught us is to really incorporate it into every single week of learning some stuff out of the manual. And it was funny because

I was on an executive call with my five guys. You know them very well. We were talking about a gal in the door department that was failing at the dispatching. And I said, well, show me where her manual's at. I want to look at it and I want to find out what she's supposed to be doing. And Adam says, well, it's only 20 days old, so we haven't wrote the manual. And I said, well, Brian and Adam, you guys are going to have a fun weekend. So they wrote the, they wrote the manual that weekend. And what do you know now she's doing amazing and she knows what she's, I tell people our manuals are the playbook on how to win.

And the KPIs in our, in our service site and other places like QuickBooks, those are the score card. And I love when people win and they can make a lot of money working for me. I mean, I've got CSRs that are making over 30 bucks an hour, but they are really good. People say, how can you afford that? I said, how could I not? That's the brilliance that you have, Tom. How could you not? And there's something that was said is what if you train them? And I got to tell you this, I've got two full-time recruiters, my full-time trainers, I've got manuals, I've got a learning management system and the quality of people that are coming through the door. Scott Cole has worked for me for nine years. He's our new field supervisor. He said,

how are you finding these awesome people? I'm like, well, there's 500 a day applying. And we're building that down to get a couple out of that 500. Well, guess how much money we paid? We get $1,500. $1,500 to employees for referral fees. Guess how much we paid out this month? Oh, no. It was over $60,000.

Wow. It's the best money I've ever spent yeah this month that's these people i mean you should see the smile from ear to ear and these new hire for attitude and train them without you and without the manuals i would have to still be trying to steal competitors and find guys with bad attitudes that are just going on the next best thing that'll leave me. What you helped me discover was what happens if they win the lottery and they leave? And I've had magic people come into our business. Adam, Brian, Luke, Ross, they're all magical.

But I know one thing. If they leave, there's a playbook on what they need to do. And I know I don't need to be here anymore either. It's so crazy. I could leave for a month. I could leave for a month at a time and I've done it. And we've set records without me here. And you told me the story and I'll let you tell it,

but tell us the first story that you had a one-on-one. You have two daughters and you've got an amazing wife and you told her one day that you needed two years. Why don't you tell us that story? Yeah, that's a good story. So like I was saying about this crazy business, people had to call me up like for every little thing, every five minutes. And by the way, I hated their guts.

You hear me? I hated their guts. I hated their guts for stealing my life, stealing my day minute by minute. And, you know, just they couldn't do anything. I don't even know how they got dressed, tied their shoes. I was so frustrated, angry with what was going on. And the worst of it, Tommy, is I felt like a hostage at my own business. And really a turning point is I went in and saw my dad, my two brothers, we sat in one office and I looked at him. I said, I woke up today in a cold sweat thinking, what if they all

left? I said, you know what? I feel like a hostage in my own business. And they all said to me, yeah, we do too. What are you going to do about it? In a New York attitude, I just said, I don't know right now, but I will know. And of course, that's where the birth of the manuals was. I finally realized I could not write it myself. I had to go out and get my great friend who would keep me from doing what I knew I was going to do, Tommy. I was going to lock my door. I was going to sit at the thing and write the Ten Commandments, you know, come out with the tablets and try to enforce this on the people that work for me. Again, New York City Union Shop, good luck with that. Not going to happen. So I was really

lucky. And what he brilliantly pointed out to me, Dan, was that it's more than just that person. They interact with each other. So what I always talk about, triangle of communication, which is CSR, dispatcher to tech and back, that fixes companies the fastest because a lot of people grab a manual from out of the internet, this one, they're not written to be together. The momentum of each of the things and those along that path, the call taker, the dispatcher, back to the tech, and back up to the dispatcher is what fixes business. That's really what takes control.

In your company, yours is a great example. Now, Tommy is a rare duck in our businesses. He realizes how much each opportunity when that phone rings, what did he have to do to make that phone ring? And what could he do with that call? Instead of people thinking like, you know, I could buy a new truck. I could get another piece of equipment. Hey, you know what? I was a tech. I love all of that stuff. You don't have to sell you. But if you can't make a tool work, it's worthless. Well, the manuals is a tool.

It's really another tool in your toolbox, a different kind of tool. But it's the only way. So what Tommy was telling about the story is it was still in my life. And two young kids said to Natalie, I said, my wife, I said, I'm going to be gone for two years. I know you're thinking I'm already gone, but I'm going to be gone working on building people that in two years from now, we're going to be able to sit on a beach, go away for vacation and not have the phone ring. I don't know why I said that, Tommy, but it was like somebody set it out into the universe. And two years later, because of

the manuals, which allowed me to build a staffing curriculum, which allowed me to build a training center and put great willing people with no skills out onto the road better than any tech that had ever walked in through the door. And then two years later, we were out on vacation. I turned to Natalie and I go, has my phone rang? And she looked at me and she out on vacation. I turned to Natalie, and I go, has my phone rang? And she looked at me, and she goes, no. I said, there you are, hon. Look, it's real. I mean, you've worked with me for a long time, and I'd say the key word here is operational consistency. It's the fact that I've got a predicted outcome. The first thing you did when you came in after, well, you gave me a bunch of criticism. You said, hey, why are there calendars on the walls?

Why is your garage open? I could have stole your whole warehouse with your own forklift. You said, who's using anything but Google Calendar? You said, what's this cord doing now? Show me your org chart. But one of the things you did was you got four technicians and you interviewed them all on how they do certain processes and you came back to me and said every one of the guys i've interviewed does things differently and what you need to create is is a manual but you said

standard operating procedure on how to do this stuff so we took a lot of time effort and energy and said this is the safest most efficient way and some time. I mean, our tech manual is 56 pages. And then we've got the install heavy and the technical side. And then we've got the manual for the service side. I mean, we've got a lot of manuals now that I think about it, but these guys understand that in the training. And it's really hard now, I think, that they're going to be the catch-up to us because we can make awesome techs there's not a lot of companies that can say that they can't make csrs they can't make techs they always look for experience and do me a favor though because the seven power contractor starts out with the way to start the operational side but go through all seven hours

yeah i would say planning is always you know, the first thing like when I, especially I was doing one-to-one consulting with you and Tommy said that I criticized him. And for those of you who know me, I'm not a critical person. I'm a very nice person. It was nice criticism and I could take it. Yes. Tommy's skin is thick enough to take it. But really that was my job.

It's always been my job is, you know, people are always, think about yourself when you go out and visit other shops. I guarantee you, when you go to somebody else's shop, you can see all the things that are broken. Your problem is you can't see it at your own door. And I had to bring in friends in the industry to tell me the truth that I was blind to. And I was lucky I had some great mentors do that for me. So yeah, it starts with planning. And planning is really what I like to think of as, if you think of your projects, all the million things you have to do, it starts with a funnel. There's a master project list. Project list is not just projects, it's also habits. So Tommy has learned how to master one of the most important habits is the step of delegation. And all of you out there hate delegating.

How do I know? Because I used to hate to delegate. And the reason I hated to delegate is I gave you a project. I let you go. 30 days later, I show up and you have thoroughly disappointed me. Give me that thing back. And you all do it. And so what have you trained your staff to do is, well, I shouldn't do

anything because you're not going to like the results anyway. And now we're both upset and frustrated. So of this master project list, it's projects and habits, steps of corrective action. There's a lot of great things you need to do along with taking control of your warehouse, getting your truck standardly stocked. That's one of the things that Tommy and I did. We got his shop and his trucks to be uniform. Yes, showing off. Tommy is a storytopper. Do you see how he pulled that out? Yes. He walks around with that. Because Tommy was the other side of what we all begin as. We're not delegators. We're dumpers. We go around walking down the hallway, go, hey, take care of that. And then we forget about it. Or if we do remember it, never got done. Tommy has learned the discipline is if you don't

delegate right on the front end, nothing's going to turn out right on the back end. So steps of delegation are very critical. So we work our way down this master project list, typically 100, 125 things, down to your top 30. What's going to fix your biggest problem or challenge or greatest chance to grow and be profitable? And there's your 30. What would you do in a year from now? What's the most impactful things that you can do to fix your company? So there's two giant strainers. It either fixes the biggest problem or challenge or the greatest chance to grow and be profitable. And then you work your way down the list because you cannot work on 30 things to your top five. And you use the same strainers again, fix the biggest problem or challenge, greatest chance to grow and be profitable. And then here's the tricky part.

I know that you are crazy busy. I don't care what size company you are. But you tell me if it fixes your biggest challenge or problem or your greatest chance to grow and profitable, what is more important than that? And the answer is nothing. So I recognize you have to work in the field. And by the way, I never stopped picking up a toolbox periodically. I just moved myself down the depth chart. I was the last guy to run, not the first guy to run. And even the same thing at dispatch desk. I was the last person at the dispatch desk. I worked myself up to work more on the company and less in the business. And that was the great book by Michael Gerber, which Tommy is also a fan of. And really the takeaway is if you're always working in your business and never on the business, nothing's going to change.

And I was doing what Tommy always talks about, the definition of insanity. I lived it. I'm not preaching. I lived it. I would just do the same thing, expect the different results, and dumb on me, okay? But I did fall in enough holes to realize that I had to do this. And these are the things that you need to do. So what I tell people is put a meeting with you, which we can press on Tommy, whatever day you pick. But if you hit that spot and you haven't worked on your top five, what's wrong with you? Because you cannot do that every week. But you have one last chance to catch up in this meeting with me. So really what planning power is, working on the right thing at the right time, the right way. And here's the problem. You're sitting in on this Facebook Live,

or you're hearing it as a podcast, or you're going to be out on the Internet. You went to a great seminar. Another great idea shows up. So are you short of ideas? Are you short of ideas that get implemented? And that's what planning power teaches you to do. When I learned how to delegate, I'd say the number one thing is when you get a signature of what you're delegating and they sign off on it is when they truly accept responsibility and i'm pretty bad at people say i'd speak my own language and adam and brie and different people could decipher it but ultimately they've got to understand the task and i assume they understand but most of the time they really don't and they don't know why a lot of the stuff gets done so So go over your ways of delegating.

What is the list? So really the quick thing is, what is it that you want done in writing? So you have to explain to me, what is it that you want done? Here's the trick. And by the way, I love working with millennials. I love working with millennials. Don't hand me the stuff about your problems with millennials. It's you you not them what one thing you do need to know is that they're not going to do anything

if they're my age you're thinking because i told you so well that doesn't work they want to know why they're doing whatever you're asking them to do so they need to know what you want why you want it and then of course when do you want it by? So typically, I usually talk about like a 30-day thing. You can't disappear for 30 days. Come on back and expect it to be right. So when you break up the when, you also set up individual meetings. Tommy and I always play this role play with people is I delegate something to Tommy. Tommy straightened out the warehouse. We go over the warehouse, take pictures, show you good things of what I want. I want a men's and max and all the other things, a lot of detail explained to

them why, because we need to be able to lock it up. We think we have a thousand springs on the shelf and now we only have one because they're all gone and we don't know where they went to as good example. So Tommy's going to do this in a month from now. I come back in a month and I'm going to either be wildly surprised or thoroughly disappointed. And we both know it's more going to do this in a month from now. I come back in a month and I'm going to either be wildly surprised or thoroughly disappointed. And we both know it's more going to be thoroughly disappointed. So I say, Tommy, big project. You and I are going to meet every week on Tuesday at 9 a.m. We're going to put it on both calendars. And when we meet on Tuesday at 9 a.m., we're going to go over this project list, pictures and delegated, making sure that we've got moving this stuff. So the first week comes, I said, Tommy, how'd you do on the warehouse project?

Tommy goes, yeah, I meant to do that. But you remember Bob was out that week and they really never quite got to it. And here's how I handle it. I hear you, Tommy. Now you got three weeks to get this thing done. Tell me how you're going to catch up. It's because I'm not taking the project back. And that's what we as owners do. They prove that they don't have to do anything because you're going to catch up? It's because I'm not taking the project back. And that's what we as owners do.

They prove that they don't have to do anything because you're going to take it back. And if you keep taking it back because you didn't delegate right, shame on you. So it's when, the meeting schedule, and then the last thing is what do they get? So all of us are kids, including this face. I'm a kid. I want to know what do I get if I do it good and what happens to me if I don't? So sometimes it's a one-time reward or like Tommy was talking about the great referral things that he pays. There's a lot of different things that I do. I like one-time rewards for a project that's scoped out and done like that. And then proportionate.

I mean, sometimes it's as simple as a Starbucks card. And by the way, at our Zoom Drain franchise, that's my other shirt, at Zoom Drain franchise, it was the living concept of the seven powers. If you want to move up the org chart, like Tommy has my org chart, where you move up, one of the ways you demonstrate is that you can take on projects and habits. Otherwise, you're not going to be a field supervisor or a service manager or sales manager or install manager for long. So that's part of your testing things. There's a lot of ways to get to it.

The delegation. So it's so hard because people hate manuals. It's a bad word. And they're like, yeah, we've got manuals, but nobody uses them. So the problem is it is the definition of insanity is when you keep getting the same questions every day. And you wonder why employees don't live up to your expectations because you don't even have your own expectations written down. If these people were going to come make you this much money, they'd start their own business. They need direction. They need the

direction and your best time and the business is going to be writing the manuals of standard operating procedures, getting good at the CRM, making sure the data, my data now tells a story. It tells me what direction to go. I trust the data. And you had me hire Alan Rohr to come in and teach us the Friday quick check. So we get a quick financial checkup. And I got to tell you, without meeting you and without Alan and just some of the stuff we've learned from you guys, top grading a few people at the company as well in the financial department. But I would say that I'd still be running a good business that made money, but I would be just pulling my hair out. And I don't really have to do much these days. I sit here,

I'm on podcasts a lot. I talk to people, I get ideas and I fill out my project board. But now I'm like, this is pretty easy. It is. And this is how business is supposed to be. And I have a sellable asset now because it doesn't require me. And I think a lot of people, I was just out to eat before this amazing guy. But I said, how much do you pay yourself? He said, 85,000. I said, so your company's worth zero. It's going to cost me 85,000 to replace you and the company makes zero. So you can't sell it for anything because that needs you. Isn't that right? No, that is so true. So many businesses are built around the ego of themselves that they're not willing to give up. And this is one of the things that I had to face a very tough decision one day as I was driving around. I recognized who I was. Unfortunately, it was a relatively early age. So why didn't I create

these systems, Tommy? Why didn't I empower my people there? I mean, we're 70 people strong, right? Why? And I couldn't understand it. When I got tired of pointing the finger and angry at them. I realized it was still pointing back at me. And here's why. There's three things that was going on. I liked being the rescuer. I hated them for bothering me, but I liked to ride into the rescue to save the day. You get it? The second thing is I liked being a fireman. You know, as a kid, we played fireman, cop, you know what I'm talking about. I liked coming in, putting the fires out and much again, I hated their guts for doing it. I liked it. And the last one was, I like being the guru. I like being the smartest guy in the room.

My ego was such that I wanted to be the smartest guy in the room, which as you know, Tommy, totally shuts down your ability to bring in great people, right? Brilliant people who should be brighter than you or have more skills than you. Yep. So once I was willing to give up those three identities, magically, I was freed up to write the manuals. Now, here's what I will share with you. Your beginner manuals or what Tommy's talking about, why? Yeah, we got them on the shelf. Here's why they're on the shelf. Because they're not really your manuals. You plucked them off the internet or you took them from some other place. They don't all fit together.

They're not integrated. As I always talk about, it's like if you built your great race car with a Toyota engine, a Ford body, and Hyundai seats, it's not going anywhere except blowing itself to pieces. The manuals that you try to put together, you're trying to go for 100% or perfection. Because if you're a tech like I was a tech, you're always thinking you're going to make it perfect. And it would, you know, in the old days, it was this big. It doesn't matter that it's digital. It's worthless.

It's not even worth the quote unquote paper that you would write on these days. The other thing is it's not really designed to be friendly. It's not a big brother, big sister coaching me. So the tonality of the manuals is super important. So the manuals that Tommy has for me has that tone. It was created that way. It was set up that way. And it's not one of these article dash 1.53 dash 0.2. It's like a law book, most of the manuals. I've looked at so many other people's manuals. People who brought me in because their manuals went nowhere. So we had to put them in the virtual garbage can and start again using my manuals and editing it. And Tommy, my manuals are like 90 to 95% done

pretty much for every contract. I'm talking about trades that I was not in. I never worked as a kitchen cabinetry guy. I did that with it. I never was a roofer, did the roofing thing. Because the trade manual is really about one-tenth maybe of the things you need to run your manual. So I always talk about the org chart being the bingo board. And your job is to cover the squares with a manual for each. That's why Tommy's talking about so many manuals to really run your business. And you're thinking, well, you know, if I look at your org chart is I can't believe my name is in every box. Yeah, it is. It's going to stay like that until you have a manual for each of those that describes what goes on in the box. Because Tommy and I will share with you is there's always going to be somebody in there who's trying to change your box.

And if the way that that box changes, this is the manual for that positions, whether it's accounts receivable, accounts payable. This is what 80 percent of your job is. This is what you need to handle. And I'm going to train you up to be able to do that. You're not going to tell me what you want to do and not do because I'm not changing the box to fit you. I'm helping you step up. Now, really good organizations that believe in, as I did, I'm offering you a career, not a job, which made me the employer of choice, which is the same thing that's going on at Tommy. You show up as an apprentice. You get out and you become a junior tech, bring you back, make you a senior tech. We can make you a field supervisor. We could send you out and become a branch manager because Tommy's all over the place. And the reason that it's so is because Tommy's foundation, not just the manuals, but all

of what got built on the manuals allows him to go anywhere and compete and dominate every market he's in. You're right, because I used to say, well, I got to mold this. If you write the box down of what you should be doing, it's hard. I wish I would have known this when I got into business. You start with the plan, the dream is the vision, and then work backwards, and you got to act like the company you want to become. It starts with the org chart, the depth chart, the manuals, standard operative procedures. What I hate is people always say, well, I'm not big enough yet for ServiceTitan. And I'm like, and I love ServiceTitan. I think it's one of the best CRMs out there.

But I'm like, when you get that big, first of all, you won't be able to change. Secondly, the reason they get big is because they get on service time, because it's got valuable data that helps you follow certain things. So the manuals, it's done something for me. It's given me freedom and it's given people the playbook on how to win. And I don't think it's fair anymore to not give somebody a manual on what they need to do to survive and win the game. Because everybody in my shop is pretty much performance pay.

And I think the performance pay lets everybody win. And here's what it does. It's going to make it really, really hard for people that aren't going to be exceptional A-plus players to exist at the company because I pay them $12 an hour, which in Arizona is minimum wage, or a bonus structure. It's not and. It's not like you pay them $12 plus a bonus. I make it impossible for people that don't do an amazing job to stay working here. Tommy and I have had this discussion, and you guys need to know this as well. Your A and B players hate you for keeping the C and D players on the team. They're putting out,

they're doing the best they can. They want to move forward. They want you to step up and be the leader they need. And so whether you're two trucks, four trucks, 10 trucks, a thousand trucks, this concept is the same. So for myself in consulting, when I was doing it, I only worked with two size companies, a company that a couple of hardworking guys or women control the business. And what they found out in short order, they can't clone themselves. There are no clones coming. And so they can only work, you know, they ran out of hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a month. They just couldn't do it. And without systems and this foundation that I always talk about, those seven power blocks, they're not going to get to where they need to go.

And that's the breakthrough moment that I've shared with so many companies. The other ones are these fast growing companies, a lot of next door shops that I work with. And it was like chaotic. And the joke of it is when I would arrive, they were pretty much saying the same song is it looks really pretty on the surface like a swan. But underneath my feet are going crazy because they're trying to manage this thing and they can't. And they have to overpay people. They have to entitle people. They have to do all of these makeup things. I am not a believer in top down. Tommy knows that I could build in a pyramid or a house. I start with a great foundation. I'm a bottom-up company.

Everybody at the bottom of your company needs to know how to win, be successful, do their job, to earn the next box on your org chart. They're not coming to me for homework or allowance or bump in pay because they know I had salary levels so that you know when you pay yourself your next bonus, not me. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I just wanted to let you know that we have a special offer from Al Levy for you today. So stick to the end and I'll reveal how you can take advantage of it. But if you're in a rush, just go to 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. That's 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSMS-M. That's sevenpowercontractor.com forward slash H-S-M. The H-S-M stands for Home Service Millionaire. And check out our exclusive offer we put together for our listeners. Okay, now let's get back and continue our chat with Al. It's interesting because a lot of business owners I've seen, and they look so good. You're right,

they look good, but they really, they're not scalable and it's managed chaos. And that sucks. I mean, it took me a couple of years to get it all figured out with, with your help, obviously, but you know, the biggest thing I hate is the people that are listening right now that are going to find an excuse why to not do it. And just like I did, they're going to say, it's not the right time. I'm too busy. COVID, the weather, whatever they've got, they're going to figure out a reason to stop and not start. And all of us do. We go to these great events and we get all these notes and none of them get put into the calendar.

None of them get done. And this is the most important one that needs to be done is you got to see the vision. You got to know what your company is going to look like. I always say hire around your weaknesses. If you hate accounting, you shouldn't be doing accounting, but you should be able to at least learn enough to know what a financial quick check is. Yes, that's the key point here

is Tommy's not letting you off the hook. Ultimately, you are the financial manager. You need to know that the numbers being handed up to you are timely and correct because ultimately you're in charge of the money. Does that mean you have to do the ledgers? No, not at all. That's not the right use of your time. I fervently believe in that. I also think, Tommy, one of the weird things that happened to me when I went off is I figured when I would go share the stuff with people that they

would be excited they're going to get it in, right? There were people that I ran into, Tommy, along the way, fortunately not too many. They hired me in, paid me a bunch of money to prove that even the great Al Levy could not fix their company. Now, on the surface level, that sounds pretty stupid, but one of the best thoughts that was shared with me years ago is we operate on emotion and we defend with logic. We're not logical people. We like to think we are, but it's the emotion that drives it. So they really wanted, you know, I have failed. So now I'm going to bring you in and prove that you can fail. They would undermine our efforts, believe it or not. And my dad, that who was a farmer before he became a heating guy, he had a great slogan, which is, Alan is kind of like the guy who helps you milk the cow and he kicks the bucket

over on the way out. He had a lot of self-destructive habits and you have to be aware of who you are. So understanding yourself is really critical to this process because you're going to fight yourself in putting these systems in. There is no excuse. If you have one page of manuals, you beat the guy with no pages of manuals. And thinking that you have job descriptions, I can tell you what your job description is. Do this, do this, do this, et cetera. Well, we all know what et cetera is. It's whatever you wake up today feeling like it should be. It's got nothing to do with how I can fill that box. And by the way, your people will not tell you this, but I will. We hate when

you change the bullets because when I signed on to this job, that's not what I agreed to. And you had a bullet, I should get more money or I should get a bump in pay, move up the boxes. So it really comes down to that a job description is really not a good way to go in the absence of nothing job description better but Tommy you're being hired today to be a tech here's the tech manual you and I are going to go over it so you know exactly what's in that manual because I'm going to read it aloud and you're going to read it aloud and we're going to discuss it and every week you're going to be in a meeting where we're going to do one to two pages. It's never fallen out of the culture.

Because one of the things we haven't gotten to yet is the manuals have to be in your culture. And I have a good story about how culture gets broken quick if I got a second here. Yeah. A great contractor. He's done phenomenal up in Vail Valley. Another one of these chaotic shops,

he knew how to make money, but it was just crazy killing him. Didn't know how he could scale. He put all these great systems, planning, operations, staffing, sales, marketing. He also worked in the financial, did all those seven things. He checks in every month and a while, just tell me how great life is, which is really nice. But he wrote me during this COVID thing, he goes, Al, I don't know what's happened. But he wrote me during this COVID thing. He goes, you know, Al, I don't know what's happened. All of a sudden, the culture is back to this, us versus them. And I can't believe it. I go, well, tell me what's changed. They paused and he goes, we couldn't meet in person anymore. So I didn't stop my meetings, my weekly meetings.

I said, okay, you hit it. It's those weekly meetings where you read one to two page and a bond. They worked as a team again. So meetings are super important. I think they're really exponentially important when you have great systems that you keep in the culture all the time. Yeah. You know, one of the new hiring positions I'm hiring for right now is a daily, every single day, the technician's going to get a text message and a phone call from a big brother role to say, here's what's expected of you today. Here's your goal for today. And here's how you're going to get there. You got to sell two service calls and a door sales. You need to sell max life. You need to sell bottom rubber. We're pushing them. But I

always said, you got to inspect what you expect. And I love the idea of this because these people, I want to know their personal goals. Do you want to pay for your children's tuition? Do you want to go on a big hunting trip? Do you want to drive a Harley across the United States? Then we tell them how to work through us to get their goals. And I got to have someone that loves and wants goals. My team has done such a great job at hiring the amazing people that want more out of their life. And we realized that we could be a conduit for them. And it's just kind of fun for me because as I'm writing these manuals for these new marketing roles and these different things is a pretty big force to be reckoned with.

I would not want to compete against us because you read the manuals and you're like, this makes sense. This is a playbook on how to win the game. This answer is 80%. You always see the 80, 20, 80%. Yeah. It's not the 20 that trips you up. It's the 80. And, you know, it's just refining yourself, repeating the same stuff over and over again.

You know, Tommy and I have done the thing about like shoe covers. Do you want to spend your whole day telling me where to get the shoe covers? Because I don't think you do. There's more things to be fought. And the other thing about, you know, the what Tommy talks about is I'm a firm believer in that you need to give them some financial education and some goal training. And so in the best shops along the wall where they meet, they have their picture and their goals and their achievements at the company and every class they certify, kind of like, you know, stripes down your sleeve for the military. Same idea. I really believe in that. I also want to make sure that because Tommy and I have, you know, a lot of times we'll put sales out there and people

like all of a sudden freak out. Tommy and I are not advocating that you have the right to sell anybody anything that's not in their best interest. So I want you to be really clear about what I said, because we believe that we are the expert when we show up at your door, in his case, the garage door, and we do a great job of explaining. Our job is, now I know you've been on Google for 10 minutes before I showed up, but I still think I'm the expert on garage doors, not you. Now, I don't get to be arrogant. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is because of the manual, because Tommy makes them bring it to life, there's a training center. They have to prove they can do stuff. They have to prove they can make good recommendations. They have to prove they're neat and clean before they actually get to do the repair in our home, being the

training center. So I'm not coming to your house, Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner, to learn how to do garage work. I've already been trained and certified at A1 Garage. That's a world of difference. And then I'm going to go in and make every good recommendation. People get upset about this whole, I think about making recommendations, Tommy. I have never been insulted when I go to McDonald's and they ask, would you like to have fries with that? I'm a big boy. I could say no. And nowadays I'm happy to say, I say no, and I don't even go to McDonald's anymore. But reality is sales is a good thing. Now, good sales, ethical sales is the critical thing. And that's what I talk about when I talk about sales power, Tommy.

That's what I'm speaking to. And the seven powers, if we don't get to it, Tommy, I gave you as a gift to share. I have a document that spells out the seven powers. So there's a couple of PDFs that I gave you. So we're going to share your chart. We're going to share a few pages of the manuals, too. Oh, great. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is when I played football in middle school or high school, one of the things I learned is we practice four times more than we play. And I always go back to being an athlete because I'm very,

very competitive. One of my core values that I always talk about is aspire to be number one. It's the second one on there. And I had this gym teacher, Mr. Dolinar, and every once a week in gym, we'd study a sport. And that was our manual. We'd study, we'd learn how to play. We learned what a field goal was, was a two point shot, a three point shot in the paint. We'd study, we'd learn how to play. We learned what a field goal was, was a two point shot, a three point shot in the paint. We learned all about basketball. Then we learned all about football. I'll never forget about how much we practice. And sometimes we did two a days, but in business, we don't do this. In business, we don't practice. We just put them straight onto the field and say, play your best. I love that. Any homework. I love it. It makes sense to me. You know, Tommy, that's such a great way of putting it because

most of us have played sports and, you know, even like going out to the golf, I'm not just walking out and smacking golf balls around Tommy and if I had played, I'm going to warm up. I'm going to invest in myself. I'm going to train, you know, take some good lessons, get out there, practice and play. And there's times I don't play. I just go practice. And let me just tell you, this is important. You brought up golf, the best players in the world. Here's what they do. They manage everything. How many greens hit and regulation, how many up and downs, how many sand shots, how many putts did they do? And then you go to the greatest thing you could do. You say, I'm not hitting enough fairways or greens in regulation. And that's the number one thing they need to do to fix their game. But you got to take these numbers out and you got to say, man, when I walk into a business,

if I want to help them out, I say, okay, let's start out this. What's your revenue? Okay. What's your profit? How many jobs do we need? What's your ticket average? And then I look at their conversion rate. Then I look at their call booking rate. Then I look at their cost to acquire a customer. And I'll circle two or three of them and go, this ticket average is horrible. This conversion rate is abysmal. And your cost for acquisition is crazy high. And you can literally quadruple the profit of a company because I always say revenue is for vanity, profit is for sanity. But it's so easy when you know the numbers. And you brought up up the golf thing because just people aren't even looking at this stuff. And it's so nice that I could be, you know, Al, you've told me this and it's true is I

became a dad, even though I don't have kids yet is I'm the, I'm the father here. It's kind of crazy because they look to me and they need to hear me. They need to know the dad's got a plan. Yeah. The manuals have helped create that for us. And just the numbers that I can look at and say, wow, always be improving and get started. Just these people, they don't get started. The people that are listening, I just pray for themselves, for their family, for their, their wives and their husbands and their kids, that they get some type of standard operating procedures and policies, because in the book,

the EMS, he says, it should be the lowest common denominator of a worker to run that certain thing. Right. And I don't need, I don't need a bunch of freaking doctors and chemists in here. I just need a person with a good attitude that could go through the manual with me. And they're amazing. I mean, I've got 36 guys flying here on Monday. Wow. Soon I'll have 70 a month coming in, but 36 people are coming Monday and my goal is 70, but I'm pretty proud to say how many people listening could have

40 guys walk through their door and say, we're ready to train you guys to go out and be amazing employees of ours. And I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, you know, with Elle's help, manuals, with a playbook, with a really good CRM and amazing staff, we've been able to build this. Yeah, I think, you know, the measurement, Ellen always tells a good story. Would you want to play a basketball game where you don't keep score? Because I wouldn't. You know, I hate it. I hate the people out there say, oh, we'll just play.

I just did my best. I say this. Do you want to win? There's two type of people, Alan. I used to hire a lot of people that they hated to be last, but they didn't care about. I hate being second place. I love the guys upstairs here that they walk out and I go, dude, what's wrong? They go, dude, I'm number three this week.

And I'm like, yeah, but there's 140 guys. You're doing great. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to do another ride along or I want to do some role play with you. I got to figure out how to be number one. Those are the best people in the world, the people that need to win. And that's who we hire now. I really love competitors.

Find something that they're passionate about. I know you love golf. And they say, tell me about the last time that you went golfing. Who'd you go golfing with? And what is something that you did really, really well? What are you passionate about, about golf? And if I go through these interviews and I'm like, man, this person is not competitive at all. They don't care about winning. And those employees, I don't want them to work for me. I got to tell you, Alan, and I'm not saying you got to be an athlete to work for me. What I'm saying is you got to have a drive to want more and win. And as I started to hire better, it's funny because the manuals came first. But now I look at, I do predictive index.

I do a cognitive test to see how fast they can learn the manuals. It's crazy. Oh, you know, even for me, Tommy, years ago is I just assumed that everybody could read, speak English. It's not true. No, no, no. A lot of people can't read. I was playing a card game. I was shocked. So we had to actually set up reading classes for them because if they're coming on the team, they've got to be able, it's non-negotiable. And, you know, stuff was getting more electronic even when I was still there 20 years ago. Now it's just even more. As an HVAC guy, you're really more a computer expert because so much stuff is computerized. And even like, you know, with your

garage door and my phone that has the IQ thing, so I know when my garage door is open and I can close it from my car, you know, it's just, it's not negotiable. You have to have these skills. And I don't see that as a burden. I see it as something that, yeah, come to me because I'm going to help make you better no matter what you do. My brother Richie had a good thing about, you know, which was he thought you could have a bad day. You can even have a bad week, but you cannot have a bad month when you're on our team. I got to do whatever I got to do to help you. And if you have to leave and you got to go, we're going to love you, but we're not going to keep you here. You're waking up. I think the worst thing, Tommy, is that, you know, wake up dreading going to work. You know what I'm saying?

For people, it should be, I'm ready to go. And the people that you're describing is, yeah, put me in coach. I want to go. Yeah. Well, that's funny. Yeah. You know, winners and they love to hang around and they love to help each other. Someone on a podcast, so they asked me, they said, well, don't you feel like when you teach people, they have to be number one, that they don't work well together. And I'm like, you would think that, and that makes a lot of sense. But I said, ultimately I'd explain this. I'm going to spend a percentage of revenue on advertising. That's how I do it. So when you work hard to book that phone call or offer a customer a bottom rubber on a garage door, you're helping out your coworkers because they get more opportunities and better customers, the more marketing we do. So I explained how to wrap it

all up and bring it together. But these guys, they work so well together and they're trying so hard for all of them to elevate. I had to fire some of my top, top, top performers. But somebody asked me the other day, they said, how do you build a culture? I said, get rid of all the people that roll their eyes when you talk, first of all, because that's horrible. And I've had those guys get rid of everybody that rolls their eyes. And number two is you taught me what with them is what's in it for me, but I think about what's in it for them. And if you really, truly come to the bargaining table or your desk, well, how can you improve their lives? Everything changes. And it's kind of cool because I don't care how much money

anybody makes because they've earned it. And I've set up the system. I think, Tommy, that's really the big turning point for most owners. First of all, the customer has to be served. So you're not getting rich at the customer's expense. The company has to make money because otherwise you don't get money for long for you to win. But yeah, if you hit the goals and you hit the metrics and you play right, and now I'm a firm believer of trust and verify, I have mystery shoppers out there making sure that you're on the right path. I will go right along with you to make sure because people always write that off. You're going to show me what you do and how you do it. BirdTech, and just one quick wrap up is it's sales, good communication,

operationally neat and clean, and an expert technical repair. It's not one of those three. It's all of those three. And taking young, willing people, and you can build those skills in because I've done it everywhere and every trade. You helped me be able to be able to build them. We teach sales, operational, technical. One of the things I'm finding now, even when they come train for a month, they train for six weeks, is the technical side of being able

to do it efficient and fast takes time. That's the hard one. But our sales and our operational, they're unstoppable. The technical side, certain guys take longer to learn. And we're really getting good though. But I got to tell you, you know, I can do five jobs in a day. I recommend nobody give their guys more than three calls a day, unless you have to.

And maybe go up to four because- I would say three to four is a pretty good rule of thumb. Now, there are some shops where they only need two or three calls a day and they're really good at what they do and they they get great reviews, and they've got a great sales process, and they're the best trained people in their market. But three to four is a good rule. If you have to do six day calls- People brag. They go on these stupid little Facebook pages

with all the workers, no good owners on there. And they all say, oh, my guys could do seven jobs a day. I said, my guys could do 10. Who gives a shit? I don't give a shit. I got to tell the customer. They got to tell me they love me. I got to get to know them. I got to diagnose the person before I diagnose the problem. I want to show up there. I'm going to spend 30 minutes talking about if I were coming to your house, I mean, I'd see your golf clubs. I'd start saying, where do you golf? I'd get to know you a little bit. I'd get to know Natalie. I'd say, listen, I'd educate. We build rapport, we educate. Then I make sure to have the tenacity and the follow-up to make sure we're going to close. Ultimately, these companies that are doing seven to 10 jobs a day are just going,

they're fixing the bare minimum. They're doing a Band-Aid fix. They're not doing the real stuff. It's not in the customer's best interest. It's not. And they brag. I know. They brag. It's not in the customer's best interest. And it's been a battle for me for 20 plus years to try and get to this, Tommy, because you're not serving. Now, the manuals have some best practices like we put in it. We both fervently believe it's something that we recommend because it is a best practice or a code requires. You know, the garage door, a lot of people

just write it off, but that door comes down. There's kids. There's your pets. There's a lot of things to do. And as Tommy taught me, the door is either all the way up, it won't come down, or it's down and it won't come up, or it's stuck in the middle. All three are really bad because you got to go somewhere. And so, yeah, it's not really hard. I hate to say this as a think tank. All I have to do is make people good. I'd love to say I have to make you great. You don't even have to be great to make a lot of money and succeed and serve your customers well. Now, if you are committed to being great, no one is going to catch you. And when I was in business, I fervently believed no one was going to catch me.

And I believe with people like Tommy that I've worked with, no one's going to catch them. They only have one competitor. It's the guy they saw in the mirror when they were shaven today. It's BYB, better your best. That's what I tell people is I don't have any competition. I don't care what anybody's doing. We're reinventing the game. And this game is like, no one's ever heard of door knocking for

garage doors or affiliate marketers. We're doing things that people wish was even possible. And that's something important too, is I've always respected HVAC because they're smart owners. They're not techs. There's a lot of people that do 20, 30, 40 million in the HVAC industry, 100 million plus. And you go into an industry like garage stores and you see the owners and they're all technicians that became owners, but they never stopped being technicians. And the day I learned to work on the business and actually have a foundation and train and care is the day that I basically found freedom and I stopped. I thought I owned a business since 2006. The truth is I owned a business since 2015 because I had to work every day. And if I didn't show up, nothing got done.

I watched it, Tommy. I watched how you had to interact with every person there. Me and Adam called it the TNA show because it was Tommy or Adam had to do everything. And now I was bragging about Brian and Luke and Ross and Jed and everybody has all these things that are working on. And there's not just a couple of projects going on. There's several dozen. In fact, we just hired a project manager. She's working on 51 projects for me. One of them is as simple as to have a really nice coffee machine here at work that anybody could get any type of coffee. You hit a button, it's self-cleaning. And what's really cool, Al, is I haven't told you this, but these last six months have been very, very, very, very successful for A1. And I love buying stuff for people. I love the new team. I think it's great. I love catering in. I love it when you see their face. Yesterday,

I went bowling with the whole staff, all the new guys. They all came over. We had pizza. And I was like thinking to myself, man, this is a couple grand. It was a fart in the wind. Whereas before it was a lot of money. And you've talked to me about putting money away and making sure I've got it enough. And now it's like, one day I woke up and I was like, oh my gosh, there's an extra million in the account. Then I'm like, wait, there's another million there. And I'm like, man, there's millions, millions and millions building up. And it's mind boggling to me, but I feel like everybody should have a chance to get it. And I really feel like now, I mean, you're right.

How can they catch up? Because I'm a marketer. I love marketing more than anything. And then I love sales. And there's two things you told me I could never give up as an owner. And that's marketing and accounting is the finances. And I love marketing.

And a lot of people aren't very good at it. So that's where I feel like we can win too. But my staff, they show up. We've got checklists. And I love showing and a lot of people aren't very good at it. So that's where I feel like we can win too. But my staff, they show up, we've got checklists and I love showing the customer the checklist. And I say, Hey, here's everything we're going to look at for you. That's a process. And I'm getting better and better at it. But you know, they asked me, they're like, you really think you can get to a billion? I said, no, no, no. I don't think so. I said, unless I die,

I'll be a billion dollardollar operation within five years. And how do I get there? I know Tommy's no longer a customer, quote-unquote, but I don't doubt any of it. And the good news is the systems he has with tweaks and adjustments. Look, we just went through COVID. Now, those manuals, Tommy had to edit it just like a couple of my other ones, but we already had stuff on PPE. We had general safety basics. We Tommy had to edit it just like a couple of my other ones, but we already had stuff on PPE. We had general safety basics. We just had to tweak it. Most of you had to start from nothing. And something else is going to come up. everybody who works with you and your own family to stop trying to micromanage your own business,

stop talking your way through running your company, stop issuing one-way memos that don't work, and commit to systems. And of the most important one is operating manuals. And that's what Tommy is a fervent believer in, as are many other people like him as podcasters, they recommend the same thing. They understand that this will change your life. So Al, I don't want to go into specifics, but I think I paid you in the six figures range to do what you did for me. And you didn't have the program you have out now, which kind of gives everybody at least get some started on the core manuals i think we're going to give away some pages of the beginning so they understand yeah there's a there's a sampler we gave so they get a taste of it yep so what does that look like

there's a couple different programs and obviously i didn't i had to pay for the real deal well it's different you know tommy was able to do something that you guys are not able to do, which is get my butt off this chair and onto a plane and off to you. And, you know, I'm grateful. And I worked with a couple of other good big guys as well. And, but I recognize, you know, that I'm, the clock is running, sands are coming out of the hourglass. So a couple of years back, I put the manuals online, but I took the video lessons as if when I'm sitting next to Tommy, I broke it down to 23 videos. And there are nothing longer than five minutes. But the key things you need to know, because it's not words on a digital device, is so much more than that. It's the tone.

It's the words. It's what you put in. It's what you leave out. It's how you roll it out, how what you leave out. It's how you roll it out, how you get buy-in. And so I'm your virtual coach. And I start with the three key manuals, what I talked about before, the CSR, the dispatcher, the tech, because that's what fixes company most. Then I have all of these other 30 plus manuals, if that's what you want to go. My advocation is if your company, and you look at the org chart, which Tommy is going to share with you, if you want to cover those boxes, are probably more a candidate like

Tommy is, which was all access, which allows you to have all of the manuals. And then you get six support phone calls from me during that six-month period. So when you run into problems or challenges, it's just a phone call away. And I also have some email support built into that. So it's either one of these two ways. The worst mistake you can make is not getting started. And that is what's available today that was not available a couple of years ago. And Tommy has a link, specific link to use because Tommy has negotiated a 10% discount if he uses link to one of those two programs yeah so what else we're doing is i'm going to give you guys a lot of l's resources that he loves me get give out like the few pages to get a sample try it before you buy it type thing but also l is awesome and said i'll

come back on next week to answer questions for an hour. So what I want you guys to do when you watch this video is think of some really good questions because he's very good at it. And it's not one or two people he trained. The CEO warrior, what's Mike Aguilero? Yeah, Mike. I was on a podcast the other day and most of the people had been trained by you. And it's interesting. So come up with really, really good questions

for next week. And Al's going to answer them all. And we're also, do me a favor. This is another thing. We're going to give away 15 of each of these. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to say, hey, Al, my name's this and I own this company. And we're going to send you the first 15 people to share this podcast and write that on the link. Are going to get a free copy. We're going to mail them out to you. Literally free. There's no other shipping or anything. They're free. And Al did a really, really good job on his book. It's short. It's concise. He's got it on Audible. We went to the same recording studio, I to do them but l has got a lot

of knowledge he's worked on everything from hvac plumbing electrical garage doors you work with cabinet manufacturers what other industries have you been involved i worked with a roofer a condo builder i actually worked with a photographer in san francisco so i've uh i've done a lot of different trades yeah roofing yeah a whole bunch of different things. Again, the trades are really pretty similar. Not that much that's difficult. So I am looking forward to handling your questions next week when I will be live at the A1 Garage Master Super Hub Shop. It's the hub.

It's the hub, folks. It's the center of the earth. It's going down. So next week, so ultimately, we're going to talk about manuals. I love the idea. If I had to tell somebody what to do and I, Al, I say this every day, I'm on more podcasts now. I was on three yesterday.

I'm on a lot of other people's podcasts too. And I said, I say, man, here's what you need to do. You need to sit and think about your business. And you need to get an org chart and a depth chart. You need to have standard operating procedures. You need to pick a good CRM. And you need the manuals. And here's something crazy awesome and big, is go to a shot that you want to become.

Get out of your comfort zone. Fly out and find. I've been from everywhere, from Florida to Michigan. I've want to become. Get out of your comfort zone. Fly out and find. I've been from everywhere from Florida to Michigan. I've been to every AFAC company. I go into Gettle once a week. I'm there all the time studying people that are bigger than me. One day it's going to be very hard because there's not a lot of billion-dollar home service companies out there. But I'm learning there's something in the air.

There's something that you breathe when you walk in. You see everybody working. And there's no one there with a stick telling people where to go. It's fun. And if you could get a chance, you could come visit me or you could come visit a big shop. If you get a hold of Al, he'll give you a dozen places to go. But it's so much fun when you're living and breathing in these places and you see their manuals and you go to one of their meetings, you watch how effective it is. Al's got a really good article too. One of the things I'd like to share, Al, is how to have really good meetings. You wrote a really good article. I've got that in my meeting room, but the more stuff we can get you to share, I just pray these people go there and not, it's not a cost. It's an investment.

Yeah. You know, I think Tommy knows it best right from the start, which is when we talked about the, you know, the manuals and stuff, because I paid that off in one, a couple of days, that wouldn't even be a cost because if my CSR is answer the phone, right. And book a little more, which is what's being proved that cost of the manuals was nothing to Tommy because the blown calls were much worse. I'm obsessed. I am obsessed with the manuals. And that's the real deal. When I asked Adam where the manual was, I thought you were like, it invaded my body or something. I'm like, that's what Al would have said. But I'm like, everything I do now is show me the

standard operating procedure for that. I was thinking to myself, if you can't have predictive analysis of what's going to happen, it's because you don't have a good manual and a training system. So I'm like, we got to build a manual for this. I built a manual for the trucks. I built a checklist that my A1 or MeloMotive, they got to initial each and everything and sign off and a signature and they i'm like who does this stuff i do now every truck can't come out a little bit different i need a checklist with pictures and everything and the more i do this stuff it's getting easier

and easier my life's getting more i don't say predictable but i know i'm gonna make a lot of money now because it's better for a tech the techs used to hate to jump out of one truck to the other time which is why i standardized their trucks yeah that's the reason why i've got the same exact trucks i mean look yeah everything that you've done you've taken things from other companies and brought them to me and i gotta say well thank you number one i mean obviously you're right me and adam were talking the other day, and we said, without Al, I wonder where we would be. Because, man, it would be tough to learn this stuff without you coming in and dumping it all on us. And it wasn't dumping, but it was like, holy cow. I mean, you told us how to organize the warehouse.

You taught us how to get the standardized trucks. I mean, we took what you gave us and just freaking murdered it. I mean, I remember sitting in that room and you were just like, you'd just be sitting there. And I knew we were going to be sitting there for eight and a half, nine hours a day to build these manuals. And we had to make some tough decisions. I remember when it came to beards, because Brian's got a big beard and we said, are we going to allow that? And we tend to allow beards now. But we had to change a lot of stuff. We had to make a lot of decisions.

But I could never have come up with the manual for everything you've done with so many companies and questions like piercings and tattoos and all the different things in there, PTO and how to handle this. What do you do if you get a flat tire? Everything's in there. And we read it all the time. And we always are making policy changes. Like I just said to Brian

an hour ago, we've got to change the trainer's manual, the last thing in there. But, you know, Al, I guess what I'm trying to say is it'd be crazy for people not to take advantage of what you're giving. And I've already done it. I'm a living, breathing client of yours. And I wish you had this out before, but I would have never changed the time we've spent together. For you, it would be a different story. We had to do the thing. But for the average person out there, all I can share with you is the last thought is it's so much easier to be an editor than a creator. And whatever Tommy spent, I spent $150,000 on the manuals alone. Not all the other things I brought to Tommy. Myself, in today's money, I spent $150,000.

So you buy the manuals online. And I didn't even have a tour guide. So you're getting that in the videos and the workbook and stuff that I didn't have. So, yep. It's cheap. It's cheap. In my opinion, it's almost free. It's cheap. It's cheap. It's, in my opinion, it's almost a free, it's an investment that we're so much more, but. Investment is what I would say,

you know, it's time to invest in yourself. The next tool or toy you buy is not going to make as big a difference as this. The last thing I say is I learned this at McDonald's. I wrote about it in my book is they have a four digit code. they got to press to wash their hands. And they knew that each employee was washing their hands every hour because of the system designed about it. And so if you systematize the business, it doesn't need you. And that's ultimately what's going to give you freedom. And people say, what do you want? What is your goal? I say, I want to do what I want, when I want, with whoever I want. And that means I can fly to Alaska today and not care. I don't have to look at the bill anymore.

That's the biggest thing for me. The check presenter gets delivered. I put my card in there and it feels good to have freedom and know I can do what I want when I want who I want. And that was a big piece of that. So appreciate you very much. Any last thoughts, Al, to close us out? Yeah, for me, Tom, I would just say is for me,

the motivator was less stress and more success. I was making a bunch of money, but I was going to be dead. And I knew that at a young age, I had to change my ways. And you have to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, are you on the right path? Because you don't have to continue down that path. You can change it. Tommy and I are firm believers. You wake up tomorrow and start thinking you can instead of you can't. And things already have changed for the better. So thanks for jumping on, Al. And I'm looking really forward to seeing you next week.

Look forward to it. All right. We'll see you later. Hey, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast with Al Levy. You probably don't know this, but I hired Al Levy years ago to work on all of our manuals here at A1 Garage Doors. We used him to help create the dispatcher manual that took us about three weeks. We used him to create the operating manual that took us about four weeks. He did the technician manual, the installer manual, you name it.

And because he's so awesome at what he does, I asked him to come on the podcast several times. And we put together a special offer for you guys today. You can get all of L.E.V.'s 7 Power Contractors signature operating manuals today with a 10% discount. The only way to get this discount is through our special link, 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. That's 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. If you want to start building systems in your business today and completely remove yourself

from the field, just go to 7powercontractor.com hsm and get these sops today with a thousand dollar discount